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NUCLEAR
International conference on radioactive waste in Stockholm
Fly Vietnam
Argentina says Britain admits nuclear weapons were in Falklands war zone
British Falklands War Ships Had Nuclear Weapons
Canada power chiefs sacked over nuclear plant upgrade costs
Bush's alleged Afghan war crimes face 'tribunal'
Germany's Schroeder under pressure over atomic energy exports
India Develops Advanced Rocket Engine
France: Iran nuclear freeze should be permanent
Powell Says Still No Date for North Korea Talks
Koizumi ponders missile defense
Ballistic Missile Launched in Kazakhstan
Bush Names Baker Envoy on Iraqi Debt
Perle lobbied for Boeing's tanker bid
MILITARY
Rumsfeld Confers With Afghan Leader and Warlords
Rumsfeld Meets Warlords
Taylor Put on Interpol List Of World's Most Wanted
French or American?
Indonesia negotiating purchase of four warships with the Netherlands
Japan Nears Iraq Troop Move
Bush rescinds steel tariffs
Military equipment suffers in Iraqi heat
Taiwan Referendum to Focus on Missiles, Not Independence
Taiwan to Vote on China Missile Threat
Poland ready to consider US bases on its territory: defense minister
Powell Calls for Increased NATO and U.N. Roles in Iraq
A Tale of War: Iraqi Describes Battling G.I.'s
U.S. Presses Counteroffensive, But Guerrillas Strike Again
Bush and Jordanian King Confer on Palestinian Plan
Israelis Conclude Hamas Has Suspended Its Suicide Attacks
Bush Says Peace Plan May Be 'Productive'
Powell Reopens NATO Debate on Iraq
Rumsfeld points Georgia towards Nato
Powell Appeals to Allies for an Expanded NATO Role in Iraq
36 Killed in Train Blast Near Chechnya
Dozens Killed in Suicide Bombing Aboard Russian Train
U.S. intelligence officials take look at 2020
CIA on Flight 800
Israel Shares Blame on Iraq Intelligence, Report Says
Army suspends training after death
A warning from deep inside the Pentagon.
Pentagon and Bogus News: All Is Denied
Another Course Change in the Air Force One Story
Iraq to create war crimes tribunal in coming days
A Look at War Crimes Tribunals Worldwide
Eight Are Indicted for War Crimes in Serbia
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Bill seen as threat to civil liberties
South Africa disrupts body part ring
OTHER
EPA Aims to Change Pollution Rules
ACTIVISTS
Bush's alleged Afghan war crimes face 'tribunal'
Vietnam vet takes aim at war
-------- NUCLEAR
International conference on radioactive waste in Stockholm
STOCKHOLM (AFP)
Dec 05, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031205181646.vqdzixwa.html
Sweden will next week host a three-day international conference on global progress in disposing of radioactive waste material in geological repositories, organizers said.
Decision-makers from international, national, regional and local governments will together with various agencies discuss the political and technical progress made on the issue.
"There has been a positive development with regards to radioactive waste management in many countries," said Claes Thegerstroem, the head of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company.
"Sweden, Finland, France and the United States have all made important decisions in order to pursue long-term and safe solutions," she said.
The conference, which is being hosted by the company, opens on Monday until Wednesday.
Among those scheduled to attend are Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, as well as the head of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Luis Echavarri.
The meeting, which is a follow-up to a November 1999 conference held in Denver in the United States, will also discuss various sociological aspects, such as issues involved in deciding to where to place radioactive materials.
-------- asia
Fly Vietnam
December 04, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
Embassy Row
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031203-093027-1152r.htm
The United States and Vietnam today sign a landmark agreement to resume direct flights between the two countries for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War.
Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Vietnamese Transport Minister Dao Dinh Binh will sign the agreement that will allow passenger and cargo flights to begin as early as the spring. Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan will witness the ceremony.
Washington will select two U.S. passenger airlines and Hanoi will pick two Vietnamese airlines to provide service for the first two years of the pact, with a third carrier from each side added in the third year of the agreement.
-------- britain
Argentina says Britain admits nuclear weapons were in Falklands war zone
BUENOS AIRES (AFP)
Dec 05, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031205142731.6l03pq74.html
The Argentine government on Friday said Britain has admitted that nuclear weapons were on some navy vessels used during the 1982 Falklands war.
Defence Minister Jose Pampuro said that President Nestor Kirchner held meetings with concerned ministers "into the early hours" of Friday to examine the reports.
Pampuro said the information had been received with "a lot of concern," the government's Telam news agency reported.
According to the minister, British authorities had confirmed for the first time what Argentina had long suspected.
The Clarin newspaper said the British government had informed the Argentine embassy in London that nuclear arms were on some vessels but had highlighted that Britain had never had any intention to use the arms.
Britain dispatched a naval task force to the South Atlantic in 1982 after Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands, which Argentines call the Malvinas.
Clarin, which said it had seen the British foreign ministry's message, reported that Britain had informed the Argentine authorities that the weapons had stayed on the vessels because the fleet had been sent so quickly.
Argentina still claims the islands, which have been in British hands since
The 1982 war cost the lives of 648 Argentine soldiers and 255 British.
--------
British Falklands War Ships Had Nuclear Weapons
December 5, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-britain-falklands-nuclear.html
LONDON (Reuters) - British warships during the Falklands War in 1982 carried nuclear depth charges, but the weapons never entered the territorial waters of any Latin American nation, the ministry of Defense said on Friday.
``The weapons were type WE177 nuclear depth charges. They were on the task force when it sailed south but never entered the territorial waters of the Falkland Islands or any South American country,'' a spokesman told Reuters.
``The decision was taken to transfer them to other ships heading back home,'' he added, stressing that there had never been any intention of using the weapons.
He said it was the first time the British government had admitted that the task force assembled to retake the Falkland Islands after Argentina invaded and reclaimed the islands it knows as the Malvinas was equipped with nuclear weapons.
He stressed that it was routine for British naval surface ships to carry nuclear weapons during the 1980s. The practice was finally ended in 1993.
The Argentine government issued an angry statement in response, seeking assurances from Britain that no nuclear weapons had been left in the Southern Atlantic, in sunken vessels or on the seabed.
``This incident could have had huge consequences for the inhabitants, natural resources and environment of the region,'' the statement read. ``It is unacceptable to try and justify it ... during an operation aimed at preserving a colony in the Southern Atlantic.''
The information came to light after a reporter asked for information about nuclear incidents.
Included in that information were details of several incidents involving damage to containers carrying the depth charges as they were transferred from the task force to the returning ships.
None of the damage to the containers was serious and none of the weapons was damaged, the spokesman stressed.
-------- canada
Canada power chiefs sacked over nuclear plant upgrade costs
TORONTO (AFP)
Dec 05, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031205013953.8h1ukg14.html
Three executives who ran Ontario Power Generation Inc. were fired on Thursday after the bill for upgrading a nuclear power plant more than doubled.
The executives were sacked by the province of Ontario, owner of Ontario Power Generation (OPG), after a commission investigating upgrading work at OPG's Pickering nuclear power plant, east of Toronto, discovered the mounting multi-million-dollar bills.
"It's a horrible mess. This is an affront to the people of Ontario," said Dwight Duncan, the province's energy chief.
Duncan spoke after upgrading costs on one of Pickering's four nuclear reactors, idled since 1997 amid security concerns, more than doubled estimates.
The first reactor returned to service in September at a cost of 1.25 billion Canadian dollars (962 million US dollars) rather than the 457 million Canadian (347 million US) that was estimated.
The plant is one of the world's largest nuclear generating facilities. It has a potential output of over 4,000 megawatts, or enough power for a population of two million.
The inquiry said it would now cost around four billion dollars (three billion US) to put all four reactors back on line. It said this is unlikely before August 2008, compared with an original deadline of December last year.
-------- depleted uranium
Bush's alleged Afghan war crimes face 'tribunal'
The Japan Times:
Dec. 5, 2003
The final hearings of a citizens' tribunal trying the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush over its military operations in Afghanistan will be held in Tokyo over two days ending Dec. 14.
The indictment charges Bush with aggression, attacks against civilians and nonmilitary facilities, and torturing and executing prisoners. The hearings have been organized by criminal jurist Akira Maeda and others.
Testimony will be heard from the mother of an Afghan who was killed in an air raid, and a Pakistani who was held in the Guantanamo base in Cuba. Scientists will present reports on the effects of depleted uranium bullets on humans.
A ruling will be handed down by five legal experts from Japan, the U.S., Britain and India.
The hearings will be held between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on both days at Kudan Kaikan, which is a one-minute walk from the Kudanshita subway station. English translations will be available.
Admission is 2,000 yen per day or 3,000 yen for both days.
For tickets and information, contact the secretariat at (03) 3261-5521.
-------- europe
Germany's Schroeder under pressure over atomic energy exports
BERLIN (AFP)
Dec 05, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031205164610.y5dee9jm.html
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder came under heavy fire Friday as his government appeared to back the sale of nuclear know-how to Finland and China despite phasing out atomic energy at home.
Much of the criticism came from members of his ruling coalition angered at apparent plans to approve the export of a plutonium facility to China.
Some, evidently including Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, worry that the facility could be used to help produce weapons-grade plutonium.
More fundamentally, many question why Germany appears willing to support an energy source abroad that is deemed too risky for its own backyard.
The row has drawn in a bid to secure government support for a Franco-German consortium, including the German technology giant Siemens, to build an atomic power station in Finland.
A decision on that bid is due to be made in the next two weeks, government spokesman Thomas Steg said Friday.
He pointed out that Finland, unlike Germany, had opted to use atomic power for its energy needs and that contracts to build power plants "bring jobs with them."
Schroeder has talks here Tuesday with Finnish counterpart Matti Vanhanen.
Heiko Maas, lead of Schroeder's Social Democrats in Saarland state, called it a "credibility issue."
"You cannot phase out nuclear energy at home and at the same time encourage it abroad," he told a local newspaper. "It's not logical."
But it is the China link that more worries some of Schroeder's SPD and, in particular, the Greens, junior partner in the centre-left government.
Last month, Trittin, one of three cabinet ministers from the Green party, celebrated the closure of Germany's oldest atomic power station, the first to cease operations since the government decided to phase out nuclear energy by
"The coalition partners have to discuss this issue," said Krista Sager, the parliamentary group leader of the Greens.
She said news of the proposed sale, which came during Schroeder's visit to China earlier this week, had surprised her party.
Greens co-leader Angelika Beer said any sale would be "politically unwise," while the party's environmental expert Winfried Hermann said the proposal was "explosive" for the coalition.
"No one understands the chancellor," said Hermann, who will raise the issue in parliament.
The tensions were evident at Friday's regular government press briefing.
"This facility cannot be used to make weapons-grade plutonium," Steg said.
"This is a facility with dual-use problems," retorted Trittin's environment ministry. "It could be used as part of a production chain for the manufacture of weapons-grade plutonium."
Steg then referred to it dismissively to "a virtual chain."
The plant at Hanau, western Germany, was built by Siemens in 1991 but never went into production, although the technical equipment remains on site.
A previous bid to sell it to Russia collapsed two years ago under pressure from, among others, the Greens.
But while officials insist no decision has been made, Schroeder, who views China as a strategic and booming market, has said he sees no objections.
Defence Minister Peter Struck said China must promise it would not be used for military purposes, but otherwise there was no reason to refuse.
Chinese officials have said that it is for purely civilian use.
Even Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, the Greens most recognisable figure, said sometimes "bitter decisions" have to be made.
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a lobby group, accused Berlin of "undercover tactics" and said its much-trumpeted commitment to phase atomic energy was "not credible."
Meanwhile, Greenpeace environmental activists projected the Chinese letters for "danger" onto the building at Hanau.
-------- india / pakistan
India Develops Advanced Rocket Engine
December 5, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Rocket-Engines.html
BANGALORE, India (AP) -- India said Friday it has developed a rocket engine that uses supercooled liquid fuel, a technology that would allow it to launch high-altitude satellites, send a man to the moon -- or build intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The engine proved its endurance by firing for nearly 17 minutes on the ground, the Indian Space Research Organization said in a statement.
In a typical flight, the engine would need to burn only for about 12 minutes.
Such engines, known as ``cryogenic'' engines, are fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Rockets using these materials are primarily used to launch 2.5-ton communications satellites to orbits 22,000 miles above the earth. At that altitude, they match the speed of the rotating Earth and therefore stay fixed at one point above the ground.
Only a few countries -- including the United States, Russia and France -- can build cryogenic engines.
``It is a great milestone. I was never in doubt it would happen and I am happy it has happened now,'' said Rakesh Sharma, who traveled on a Russian spacecraft in 1984, becoming India's first man in space. Sharma said the technology was ``crucial to the ultimate moon shot,'' alluding to India's plan to send a manned mission to the moon before 2015.
The advance could also give India the ability to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. India has nuclear weapons and tested them in 1974 and 1998.
A cryogenic missile cannot be fired at a moment's notice. The fuel cannot be stored in a rocket indefinitely because it is highly explosive, so a missile would have to be fueled before launching.
India's bid to develop its own cryogenic engines suffered several setbacks. In 1992, Russia agreed to give India the technology but reversed the decision after Moscow signed the Missile Technology Control Regime with the United States. Washington objected to giving India the technology because of its potential use for nuclear missiles.
Russia later agreed to sell fully built engines, without passing on the technology, to India.
India developed a rudimentary form of its cryogenic technology in 2001 and several tests were held after that to fine-tune it.
On the Net:
http://www.isro.org
-------- iran
France: Iran nuclear freeze should be permanent
By Reuters
Dec 5, 2003
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_877.shtml
Iran news - France is determined to ensure that Iran permanently freezes experiments to make enriched uranium and plutonium, which could be used in nuclear weapons, its foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
The spokesman, Herve Ladsous, said he believes a permanent freeze is still possible, despite a senior Iranian official's recent assertion that "there has been and will be no question of a permanent suspension or halt at all."
Ladsous, in Washington to meet U.S. officials, discussed the situation in Iran and Iraq and other issues of concern to both nations at a breakfast with a small group of reporters.
The U.N.'s watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week condemned Iran's 18-year cover-up of sensitive nuclear research, including uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, and said any further serious breaches of non-proliferation obligations would not be tolerated.
-------- korea
Powell Says Still No Date for North Korea Talks
December 5, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-usa-talks.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed North Korea with his Chinese counterpart on Friday but there is still no firm date for a second round of six-party nuclear talks.
In a telephone call to Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, ``we had a discussion about the progress we were making toward the next six-party meeting, which we hope will be in the not-too-distant future,'' Powell told reporters after escorting Jordan's King Abdullah from the State Department.
But asked about a firm date for the talks, he replied: ``Not yet, no.''
President Bush and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao are expected to discuss the issue when they meet at the White House next Tuesday.
The United States, South Korea and Japan held working level discussions in Washington this week on North Korea but those did not produce a breakthrough either.
State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said that despite the lack of a date, the U.S.-hosted meetings were useful. The United States, South Korea and Japan are ``ready to convene a second round before the end of the year and believe that is possible,'' he said.
``I think it was understood that the timing of the talks is a decision on which all parties must agree and that North Korea has not yet agreed to specific dates for the talks,'' he said.
But other U.S. and Asian officials, while not ruling out a second round this month, have said it looks likely the next round will be delayed until January or February.
U.S. officials said the United States and other countries involved in the planning -- China, Russia, South Korea and Japan -- are trying to agree in advance on a statement that would be issued at the conclusion of a second round of talks.
This means the results would be ``pre-cooked'' even before the parties convene.
A first round of six-way talks was held in Beijing in August but ended inconclusively.
The current nuclear crisis began in October 2002 when U.S. officials said Pyongyang had privately admitted pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program that violated its international agreements.
-------- missile defense
Koizumi ponders missile defense
December 05, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/briefly.htm
TOKYO - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said yesterday that his government would consider introducing a missile-defense system, boosted by U.S. technology, for protection from North Korea's ballistic missiles.
"I understand there will be a move in that direction in the course of budget planning," Mr. Koizumi told reporters at his official residence. "We will make a full study." He made the comment after the newspaper Mainichi reported that he would convene a meeting shortly to make a formal decision.
His government is to compile a draft budget by the end of the year for the next budget year to March 2005. Japan has been conducting joint research with the United States on developing a missile defense since 1999, a year after North Korea rattled Tokyo by launching a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.
-------- russia
Ballistic Missile Launched in Kazakhstan
December 5, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Missile-Test.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- 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.
-------- us politics
Bush Names Baker Envoy on Iraqi Debt
December 5, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Baker.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Friday called on a longtime family troubleshooter, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, to oversee the job of getting Iraq out from under its crushing $125 billion debt.
``Secretary Baker will report directly to me and will lead an effort to work with the world's governments at the highest levels, with international organizations and with the Iraqis in seeking the restructuring and reduction of Iraq's official debt,'' Bush said in a statement read by White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
As the president's personal envoy on the issue, Baker will tackle a major problem in the rebuilding of Iraq. Iraq's debt carries annual servicing charges of $7 billion to $8 billion.
``The regime of Saddam Hussein saddled the Iraqi people with the debt because they were more interested in building palaces and torture chambers and mass graves than helping the Iraqi people,'' McClellan said.
Bush said he made the appointment in response to a request by the Iraqi Governing Council.
``The future of the Iraqi people should not be mortgaged to the enormous burden of debt incurred to enrich Saddam Hussein's regime,'' Bush said.
With experience in diplomacy and world finance, Baker ``will help to forge an international consensus for an equitable and effective resolution of this issue,'' Bush said.
Baker will serve as a volunteer, working out of an office at the White House and traveling to other countries.
``This debt endangers Iraq's long-term prospects for political health and economic prosperity,'' Bush said. ``The issue of Iraq's debt must be resolved in a manner that is fair and does not unjustly burden a struggling nation at its moment of hope and promise.''
Baker, a Houston attorney, is a longtime Bush family friend who has held several high government posts.
In the closely fought 2000 election, Baker headed up Bush's strategy team during the recount battle in Florida, which eventually ended up in the Supreme Court and delivered the presidency to Bush.
He oversaw the presidential campaigns of Bush's father in 1980, 1988 and 1992.
He served as President Reagan's first chief of staff, and as treasury secretary in Reagan's second term.
He left his post of secretary of state to serve as campaign manager in the first President Bush's unsuccessful 1992 re-election bid.
Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said in Baghdad that estimates of Iraq's foreign debt range as high as $125 billion.
Reducing Iraq's foreign debt is a high priority both of the coalition and of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, Senor said.
Of the total Iraqi foreign debt, some $40 billion is owed to the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and other countries who are among 19 nations belonging to the Paris Club, an umbrella organization that conducts debt negotiations.
At least $80 billion more is owed to other Arab countries and nations outside the Paris Club.
----
Perle lobbied for Boeing's tanker bid
By Joshua Chaffin in Washington and Stephanie Kirchgaessner in New York
December 5 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069493745090
Richard Perle, a prominent Pentagon adviser, lobbied on behalf of Boeing's bid for a controversial $18bn government contract a year after the aerospace company made a $20m investment in the venture capital fund he runs.
Mr Perle, a former Reagan-era assistant defence secretary, is considered one of the most influential civilian members of Washington's defence establishment.
He was appointed in 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, to chair the Defence Policy Board, a group of former military and policy experts who meet regularly with Mr Rumsfeld and top Pentagon officials.
In August, Mr Perle co-authored an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing in favour of a deal in which the Air Force would lease 100 767 aircraft refuelling tankers from Boeing. The piece was published at a time when the deal was under intense attack by critics who claimed the tankers were unnecessary and the deal too expensive.
Mr Perle and Thomas Donnelly, both members of the American Enterprise Institute think- tank, wrote that a "special government green-eyeshade mentality" was holding up a crucial deal.
Mr Perle did not disclose that Boeing had committed to invest $20m in his venture capital fund, Trireme Partners, in mid-2002. The investment marked one of the largest early stakes taken in the fund by a corporate partner.
Mr Perle on Thursday denied he had received any compensation from Boeing or any benefit related to the article. "The people involved in Trireme have nothing to do with the tanker deal," Mr Perle said. "I never discussed the tanker issue or my views on the tanker issue with anyone at Boeing that had anything to do with Trireme." He added that Trireme's relationship with Boeing was "fundamentally" handled by Gerald Hillman, a partner in the fund, who is also a Defence Policy Board member.
Boeing said it briefed Mr Perle on the tanker deal on July 14, giving him the same presentation it had made to several journalists, policy analysts and watch-dog groups.
But the company said it had "no hand" in writing or placing Mr Perle's Op-Ed piece. In addition to Trireme, Boeing said it had invested $250m in 29 similar funds.
Internal Boeing e-mails portray a lobbying campaign the company undertook to have "friends on the Hill" and "think tanks" drum up support for the deal. One Boeing e-mail refers to an Op-Ed article in support of the company by retired Admiral Archie Clemins as being "ghost-written".
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Rumsfeld Confers With Afghan Leader and Warlords
December 5, 2003
By THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/international/asia/05RUMS.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 4 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld returned on Thursday to Afghanistan, the opening front in America's campaign against terrorism, and urged Afghan warlords to surrender heavy weapons, discussed plans for quelling a lingering insurgency and pressed for economic development.
The unspoken theme of his mission, however, was to prove to the people of Afghanistan, and to its sometime quarreling leaders, that the United States has not forgotten its unfinished business here even as the military focuses on its far larger effort in Iraq.
The mission to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan faces significant hurdles. Guerrilla attacks are directed against allied forces, international aid workers and Afghan government officials, especially in the eastern and southern parts of the country, and some of the rebel activity is reportedly financed by an increased trade in opium and heroin.
In addition, roadwork intended to ease cargo transports and improve the economy has moved slowly. Above all, the central government's influence is weak outside Kabul, the capital, a result of an ineffective civil administration, the historic feudal structure of the provinces and an economy that still defies central regulation.
Mr. Rumsfeld's daylong visit to Kabul and to Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, where his convoy jousted for space along the dusty roadway with donkey carts and bicycles, was in effect a tour of the reconstruction effort's successes and its challenges.
The Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, acknowledged the challenges at a news conference here with Mr. Rumsfeld. "We have now reached 40 to 50 percent of the administrative capability that a normal government of a country like ours should have," Mr. Karzai said.
The threats posed by "armed groups, the question of fighting and warlordism hurting the Afghan people" remain, he said, but are "being tackled more aggressively."
Those threats were underscored when a rocket exploded in a field near the United States Embassy two hours after Mr. Rumsfeld met with Mr. Karzai at the presidential palace, in another part of the city, The Associated Press reported. No one was injured.
Mr. Rumsfeld was the first member of the Bush cabinet to visit Afghanistan, two years ago, as the war to oust the Taliban government raged.
On Thursday, his third visit to the country this year, Mr. Rumsfeld was asked whether the increase in sporadic attacks against the government meant that the Taliban was regrouping, as some military experts have suggested.
"They'll not have that opportunity," he replied.
While in Mazar-i-Sharif, Mr. Rumsfeld met with two warlords - Pentagon officials call them "regional leaders" - Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and Gen. Atta Mohammad.
During the war, the two joined forces to take Mazar-i-Sharif, the first capture of a strategic Taliban stronghold. But since then, they have skirmished politically and their militias have occasionally clashed as well.
Both have agreed to place their heavy weapons under international supervision and to demobilize their forces, though they have been slow to actually do so.
At the meeting with Mr. Rumsfeld, according to a senior Pentagon official who was present, General Mohammad expressed pride at how quickly he was complying, while General Dostum smiled and said: "Our side is a little slower. But we'll cooperate without any doubt."
In comments to the two menbefore taking them into private session, Mr. Rumsfeld described how he had followed their military progress from the Pentagon during the early days of the Afghan war, when their forces linked up with American Green Berets, summoned Air Force and Navy bombers and sent their troops to capture Mazar-i-Sharif.
During his visit on Thursday, Mr. Rumsfeld also sought to highlight the work of the six so-called provisional reconstruction teams that are now operating across Afghanistan, each averaging 60 to 100 people drawn from the military, diplomatic services, government aid agencies and intelligence agencies.
The task of the reconstruction teams is to carry out security operations, as well as train local police, guide municipal governments, assist in reconstruction and gather information on the Taliban or other terrorist activity.
The small teams are designed to carry out this broad range of security and stabilization tasks with small numbers, which Pentagon officials say is important in a nation with a historic animosity to foreign troops.
The United States operates four teams. One of those, in Kunduz, is to be handed over to German command. In addition, New Zealand and Britain operate one each, the latter in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Mr. Rumsfeld said he supported NATO's discussion to set up and operate additional teams.
The commander of the team in Mazar-i-Sharif, Col. Richard R. Davis of the British Army, said that "criminality and thuggery" remained serious obstacles to securing and rebuilding northern Afghanistan.
Recent studies by the White House and the United Nations found that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased from 2002 to 2003. The opium trade provided both the money and the incentive for rivals to challenge the central government.
"It's always a factor," said one senior Pentagon official.
Military officers said the United States provides just under 10,000 of the 11,500 troops in the coalition force in Afghanistan. The NATO-led international security force in Kabul numbers another 5,700.
--------
Rumsfeld Meets Warlords
Feuding Afghans Urged to Disarm, Yield to Rule From Kabul
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34723-2003Dec4.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 4 -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sat down with two powerful and long-feuding Afghan warlords Thursday and encouraged them to surrender their arsenals of tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons, a step that would help consolidate the authority of the country's struggling national government.
The scene of the tailored Pentagon leader huddled with two toughened Afghan militia leaders in a dusty compound in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif reflected an intensified effort by the Bush administration to move the fractured country toward central rule.
It was the first time that Rumsfeld had met Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek leader, and Gen. Attah Mohammad, an ethnic Tajik. The two men and their militias, working closely with U.S. Special Operations troops, proved instrumental in routing Taliban forces from northern Afghanistan in the early weeks of the war two years ago.
But tensions between the two have threatened to undermine stability in the north and stall a program, launched in October by President Hamid Karzai with U.N. assistance, to disarm tens of thousands of militiamen and retrain them for civilian life.
"I spent many weeks in the Pentagon following closely your activities, I should say your successful activities," Rumsfeld told Dostum and Mohammad at the outset, recalling their war exploits.
After a 45-minute closed-door meeting in a onetime hostel now occupied by British forces, Rumsfeld emerged saying he was pleased by renewed commitments from the militia chiefs to disarm. But mindful of the depth of hostility between them and their inability at times to control subordinates, he added a cautionary note: "At what pace it will proceed, I guess, remains to be seen."
Dostum and Mohammad have vied for control in the north for more than a decade. After clashes between their forces escalated in October, they agreed, under strong pressure from the central government and Western military officials, to begin surrendering their weapons. While Mohammad's militiamen started to comply, Dostum's forces resisted.
Afghanistan has a long history of strong regional warlords, reflecting deep ethnic rivalries, weak central governments and an unregulated economy in which militia leaders can levy their own taxes and build large treasuries. Their continued existence and power is regarded by the Karzai government and its international backers as a threat to the creation of a new Afghan national army and overall stability in the country.
"There have been logistical problems and delays" in the disarmament program, "but the government will not go one step back in its plan," Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jamali said Thursday.
Rumsfeld raised the demobilization issue again in a meeting in Kabul with Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, who has long balked at drawing down thousands of ethnic Tajik militia fighters who remain in the capital area despite a U.N. ban. Fahim promised Rumsfeld he would remove the forces, and he extended the pledge to heavy weapons in the Panjshir Valley, a Tajik stronghold, although he gave no timetable, according to a U.S. official who attended the meeting.
The official also noted that the test of wills between Karzai and the warlords in the north has extended beyond disarmament. In recent weeks the Afghan president has moved to curb their power by replacing the governors and police chiefs of four northern provinces.
"It's a very difficult political problem for him," the official said. "But slowly and surely and deliberately, he's beginning to extend the influence of the government into the regions."
Karzai, speaking at a news conference with Rumsfeld in Kabul, acknowledged the difficulty of asserting his administration's authority outside the capital. He cited a lack of administrative personnel as a major impediment.
"That has improved a lot," Karzai said. "We have reached 40 to 50 percent of the administrative ability that a government in a country like ours should have."
The Rumsfeld visit took place against the backdrop of resurgent Taliban rebels, who have stepped up attacks in the south and east. But Rumsfeld and Karzai dismissed suggestions that Taliban attacks could disrupt presidential elections scheduled for next summer. After the defense secretary left Afghanistan, a rocket exploded at about 7 p.m. in a field near the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul. It caused no injuries or damage, and its source was not immediately known.
Correspondent Pamela Constable in Kabul contributed to this report.
-------- africa
Taylor Put on Interpol List Of World's Most Wanted
By Douglas Farah
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36806-2003Dec4.html
Interpol, the international police organization, issued an arrest notice Thursday for the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, who is charged with crimes against humanity, and placed his mug shot among the world's most wanted criminals. But Nigeria, where Taylor is living in exile, indicated that it would not arrest him.
"The president has said before that he will not be harassed about Taylor. The action that Nigeria will take will not lean toward handing over Taylor to Interpol," said a spokeswoman for the Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, according to the Reuters news agency. Obasanjo told reporters last week that he would surrender Taylor if Liberia requested it.
Taylor sought asylum in Nigeria in August after resigning as president of his impoverished and war-torn West African nation. He currently maintains an opulent lifestyle in Nigeria as a guest of the state.
The Interpol notice obligates Nigeria, as a member, to take action against Taylor. The notice is not an arrest warrant but can be used by national police to make a provisional arrest of the wanted person. Some countries, however, simply treat the notice as a request for information about the individual.
The announcement of Interpol's move could prove embarrassing to Obasanjo. It came as Nigeria was preparing to host a Commonwealth summit of Britain and its former colonies.
The 17-count indictment against Taylor was issued in March by the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which borders Liberia and fought a long, brutal civil war. The indictment includes charges of murder, mutilation, abduction of children and mass rape and alleges that the crimes took place under Taylor's orders as part of a "joint criminal enterprise" to loot Sierra Leone's diamond mines. The special court is charged with prosecuting those most responsible for the violence in Sierra Leone.
The arrest request, called a Red Notice, was issued at the behest of the special court, Interpol said in a statement announcing the move.
"What Interpol has effectively said is that there is a proper, valid warrant for Taylor's arrest, and any country that has him must arrest and detain him," David Crane, the chief prosecutor for the special court, said in a telephone interview.
Last month, Congress authorized a $2 million reward for the capture of anyone indicted by the special court, a move aimed at Taylor. It drew sharp condemnation from Nigeria, which accused the United States of an act bordering on state-sponsored terrorism.
"What the world must understand is that war criminals must be tried, fairly and justly, for their crimes," Crane said. "We cannot have an African exception to international law. We cannot say, 'If you are African, you get a pass.' That is not what the vast majority of Africans want."
But there are also signs that Taylor, who diplomats and investigators say retains access to hundreds of millions of dollars he plundered from Liberia and Sierra Leone, is wearing out his welcome in Nigeria. In September, Obasanjo rebuked Taylor for interfering in Liberian politics despite pledges not to do so as a condition for asylum.
Jacques Klein, the U.N. representative in Liberia, told the BBC that he believed that Taylor would eventually be forced to leave Nigeria. At that point, Klein said, "both the arrest warrant is valid and the reward is valid."
-------- arms
French or American?
December 05, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
The Army will soon have to make a multibillion-dollar decision on whether to buy a made-in-America surveillance jet or one produced by a Brazilian company, partly owned by the French.
The Army needs a new surveillance plane to aid ground troops during battle. The small jet, called the Aerial Common Sensor (ACS), would fly on the edge of the fighting, collecting intercepted communications and photo images to pass on to ground commanders. The program is worth an estimated $6 billion for 38 planes. Most of the cost is dedicated to the ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) electronics package supplied by Lockheed or Northrop Grumman, the competing prime contractors.
There are two contesting teams: Lockheed Corp. and team member Embraer of Brazil versus Northrop Grumman Corp. Northrop Grumman's entry is the Gulfstream G450 jet produced by General Dynamics Corp. in several states, with assembly in Georgia.
Some on Capitol Hill are whispering that if Lockheed wins it will be a victory for two foreign adversaries at the expense of American companies. Brazil opposed the United States on the war in Iraq and on trade issues. A stake in Embraer is owned by the French company Dassault. French opposition to the war in Iraq angered many members of Congress.
Lockheed points out that Embraer is opening a plant in Jacksonville, Fla., to qualify as a U.S. contractor. "It will be built by Americans with American parts," said Judy Gan, spokeswoman for Lockheed's Integrated Systems and Solutions division in Gaithersburg. Miss Gan said there are safeguards to protect the American know-how in the sensor suite that would be installed in the Embraer ERJ145 jet.
----
Indonesia negotiating purchase of four warships with the Netherlands
JAKARTA (AFP)
Dec 05, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031205085314.no4swp66.html
Indonesia is negotiating the possible purchase of four warships from the Netherlands, its navy chief said on Friday.
"If in the negotiations we fail to agree (on the price), we will look for other suppliers," Admiral Bernard Kent Sondakh was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency.
Detikcom online news service said the navy wanted to buy corvettes, a small and fast type of warship, from the Netherlands.
China, South Korea and Italy have also offered warships to Indonesia, Sondakh said.
Sondakh earlier this year said the navy would acquire two submarines equipped with dozens of torpedoes from South Korea, with the first delivery expected in 2008. Each submarine is worth about 270 million dollars.
-------- asia
Japan Nears Iraq Troop Move
Premier Prepared to Overlook Opposition and Back Bush
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34992-2003Dec4.html
TOKYO, Dec. 4 -- Japan is set to give final approval next week to a plan dispatching nearly 1,000 troops to Iraq, government sources and local media said Thursday.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reportedly signed off on most details of the plan -- Japan's first military deployment since World War II -- after receiving a briefing on security in Iraq from Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba late Wednesday. The reported decision to mobilize the Self-Defense Forces comes on the heels of the killings of two Japanese diplomats in Iraq on Saturday.
Government sources said Thursday that Koizumi, the Bush administration's leading ally in Asia, is determined to join the reconstruction effort, and that Japan "is now in the final stretch" toward sending troops.
Koizumi is expected to announce the deployment after a cabinet meeting Monday or Tuesday.
"The prime minister's desire is to start the deployment as early as possible," said a high-ranking government official. "We have seen the polls that indicate 70 to 80 percent of the public is opposed to the dispatch, but the prime minister will be explaining his decision to the people and he believes they will understand."
The Japanese troops will carry out support roles such as distributing water and transporting supplies, officials have said. They will also have strict rules of engagement prohibiting them from taking offensive action.
Howard H. Baker Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Japan, said Thursday that sending the troops to Iraq "has enormous symbolic significance as well as practical" significance. Japan's participation would mean the "coalition against terrorism has gained the full participation of the second-largest economy in the world. . . . I don't think it matters so much whether it's 300 people or 1,000 or 30,000."
Koizumi is reportedly considering sending an advance team of airmen in two or three weeks. A total of 150 airmen, along with C-130 transport planes, would arrive by the end of January. Their primary mission would be transport operations between Kuwait, Baghdad and the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
By February, Japan would send as many as 700 ground troops to the Samawah area in southern Iraq, which a Japanese scouting mission last month determined to be relatively safe.
Japan has pledged $5 billion in reconstruction aid to Iraq, but many here argue that it must do more than write checks. Especially with the threat of a nuclear North Korea just across the Sea of Japan, proponents of sending troops say that action is more important than ever to cement Japan's security alliance with Washington. But opinion polls have shown that most Japanese oppose sending troops to Iraq. Opponents of the dispatch, especially in the opposition Democratic Party, which made significant gains in last month's elections for the lower house of parliament, say Koizumi is gambling with his political future. Although Japan revised its laws in July to allow it to send troops abroad, that resolution stated they must be sent only to non-combat zones, which opponents say do not exist in Iraq.
"This dispatch will not only be wrong, but illegal," said Yoko Komiyama, a Democrat in the lower house. "I think we need more time to decide first whether Japan is really prepared to have an army again. The current rules of engagement are too strict for our Self-Defense Forces to properly defend themselves in Iraq. The Japanese public will react strongly against Koizumi if even one soldier is killed."
-------- business
Bush rescinds steel tariffs
December 05, 2003
By Joseph Curl and Jeffrey Sparshott
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031204-111447-5080r.htm
President Bush yesterday lifted steep tariffs on imported steel, citing new evidence that the 21-month program had enabled sagging U.S. steel companies to restructure and become more competitive with foreign producers.
"These safeguard measures have now achieved their purpose and as a result of changed economic circumstances, it is time to lift them," the president said in a statement.
While Mr. Bush rescinded tariffs that the White House had planned to keep in place until 2005, he announced a stepped-up monitoring program to guard against a surge of foreign steel entering the country.
The removal of the tariffs ended the threat of a trade war with Europe and Japan and threw into flux the president's re-election campaign strategy in steel-producing states, which supported the tariffs, and steel-consuming states, which opposed them.
Minutes after the president lifted the tariffs, effective at 12:01 this morning, the 15-nation European Union announced it would lift its threat of sanctions on $2.2 billion of U.S. products that would have taken effect Dec. 15.
The move has wide political impacts for next year's presidential campaign, especially in states in the Rust and Steel belts - all targets of the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election team. The tariffs had pleased the $50 billion steel industry in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, but angered small manufacturers and their workers in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Thomas J. Usher, head of the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp., said: "The tariffs were working as planned, and have been instrumental in bringing about the improvements in the industry that we've seen over the last two years. This decision will complicate the historic restructuring that is ongoing in the industry."
Said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America: "His unwillingness to defend U.S. trade laws is an affront to all American workers."
But William Gaskin, president of the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition steel task force, called the end of the tariffs the "right decision for the 13 million workers in steel consuming industries, for the manufacturing sector that is just beginning to recover from tough economic times, and the overall U.S. economy."
The watchdog group Council for Citizens Against Government Waste said the tariffs shored up the U.S. steel industry on the backs of average Americans.
"They were imposed at a high cost to consumers and taxpayers," group President Tom Schatz said. "The only benefit to the U.S. economy ... was the approximately $650 million collected in tariff 'revenues' from U.S. consumers."
In March 2002, after the International Trade Commission had reported to the White House that a surge of imports was costing the industry as much as $2 billion a year, the president imposed tariffs ranging from 8 percent to 30 percent on 10 categories of steel products. At the time, Mr. Bush said he was doing so to "help give America's steel industry and its workers the chance to adapt to the large influx of foreign steel."
The proclamation establishing the tariffs said the restraints "shall not terminate until the earlier of March 21, 2005, or such time as the secretary of commerce establishes a replacement program."
But in the official declaration yesterday rescinding the tariffs, the White House said the president is authorized "to reduce, modify, or terminate a safeguard action if ... he determines that changed circumstances warrant such reduction, modification or termination."
The president removed the tariffs after the European Union threatened to impose billions of dollars in sanctions on products from states ranging from Florida to California. But he did so not out of political expediency, he said, but because the tariffs had had their desired effect in a short time.
"The U.S. steel industry wisely used the 21 months of breathing space we provided to consolidate and restructure," Mr. Bush said is his statement. "The industry made progress increasing productivity, lowering production costs and making America more competitive with foreign steel producers."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick agreed, saying sales of domestic steel and company profits are up dramatically.
"Not only is the industry much stronger today than it was 21 months ago, but the economic circumstances that justified the safeguard have changed," Mr. Zoellick said.
He noted that production has risen across the board on more than a dozen major steel products and said "prices today are about 15 to 30 percent higher than in February 2002, the month before the safeguard."
From 1998, 42 steel companies went into bankruptcy, more than 50,000 steelworkers lost their jobs, and the government was forced to take over pension plans for 17 steel companies with 240,000 participants and nearly $7 billion in benefits, according to the steelworkers union.
But the tariffs helped stabilize steel companies.
"After losing nearly $5 billion in the 24 months before the safeguard was initiated, the flat-rolled [steel] industry posted profits of $400 million during the first 12 months of relief," Mr. Zoellick said, adding imports "are at their lowest levels in a decade."
Continuing the tariffs, he said, would place an undue burden on taxpayers.
"In the first 21 months of the safeguard, the benefits to the industry outweighed the marginal cost to consumers. Going forward, however, this is not the case."
Mr. Zoellick also said the decision to rescind the tariffs was "independent" of politics, despite the fact that the EU had carefully chosen its target list to cover a range of products from oranges to pajamas that would inflict maximum political pain in key swing states that Mr. Bush is hoping to win in next year's presidential race.
"The industry's much better off. We're not facing retaliation. That strikes me as a good combination," he said.
While the tariffs are over, Mr. Bush announced he was continuing early reporting requirements that had been imposed when the tariffs were levied in 2002 to detect any big influx of steel into the United States.
The reporting program requires steel importers to apply for import licenses, giving the government a quicker way to detect import surges than waiting for Customs Service data when the steel arrives at U.S. ports.
"We're very grateful to him for the help he did give, and we accept that he will step in again if necessary," said Wilbur Ross, financial backer for International Steel Group, a Cleveland company that has bought the assets of former giants LTV Steel, Acme Steel and Bethlehem Steel.
----
Military equipment suffers in Iraqi heat
December 05, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031205-113550-4563r.htm
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- U.S. military officials are battling to keep equipment functioning in Iraq and Afghanistan as heat and fine sand wears it down prematurely.
Gen. Richard Cody, the army's deputy chief of staff for operations, said his service requires additional armored Humvees as well as ceramic-enhanced body armor. He added the army needs repair or replacement of some 250,000 pieces of equipment, including aviation systems, communications and electronics systems, tracked and wheeled vehicles and missile systems.
One example was the operation of the CH-53E, or the Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopter, World Tribune.com said. Officials said the helicopter, deployed by the Marine Corps, was found to have contained an average of 150 pounds of fine sand throughout the aircraft.
The Defense Department has been awarding contracts to a range of companies for the supply of spare parts. Parker Aerospace, based in Irvine, Calif., was awarded an $11.1 million contract for delivery of parts for the AH-64A Apache attack helicopter, the UH-60 Black Hawk, the CH-47 Chinook and the OH-58 Kiowa helicopters.
-------- china
Taiwan Referendum to Focus on Missiles, Not Independence
December 5, 2003
By KEITH BRADSHER and JOSEPH KAHN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/international/asia/05CND-TAIW.html?pagewanted=all&position=
TAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 5 - President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan said in an interview here today that he planned a referendum next March calling on China to withdraw ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan and demanding that China renounce the use of force against the island.
President Chen's insistence on holding a referendum is likely to heighten tensions across the Taiwan Strait - already at their highest point in several years - and comes at an awkward time for President Bush, who will receive China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, at the White House next week.
China has urged Washington to oppose more firmly what Beijing sees as Mr. Chen's desperate election season effort to excite antimainland sentiment in Taiwan. The Bush administration has made clear that it does not want a fresh crisis when it is deeply engaged in other hot spots, and depends on China's assistance to shut down North Korea's nuclear program.
In the interview, President Chen said that the planned referendum would not involve independence, the touchiest issue from the perspective of mainland China. But Beijing has expressed alarm about the precedent of holding any plebiscites on sensitive political topics.
On Wednesday, senior Chinese military officers publicly warned that Taiwan was facing an "abyss of war" and said that China was willing to accept boycotts of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, reduced foreign investment and military casualties to prevent Taiwan from using a referendum to advance the cause of independence.
President Chen contended that a referendum would help make people here and countries around the world more aware of what he described as an imminent and growing military threat from China, and that this would reduce the risk of a conflict. "Some argue that holding such a defensive referendum might send our children to the front line," he said. "In fact, the opposite is true."
Many people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait say that the political confrontation between the two sides has reached the highest level since 1996, when China lobbed missiles into Taiwan's shipping lanes in an unsuccessful effort to dissuade voters from choosing Lee Teng-hui, a presidential candidate seen by Beijing as seeking greater independence.
President Chen said that he planned to hold the referendum on election day, March 20. He is seeking re-election and his race with the Nationalist Party candidate, Lien Chan, who favors a less confrontational approach to mainland China, is too close to call.
President Chen said that he had informed the United States of his plans for the referendum, and he appealed for support on the grounds that Taiwan's democratic development needed strong American backing. That argument seems likely to elicit sympathy from Taiwan's supporters in Congress and among some neoconservative supporters of the Bush administration.
The State Department has bluntly discouraged Mr. Chen from holding a referendum on independence issues. But the administration has yet to respond to his new initiative to focus the referendum on China's military posture, especially as the precise wording has not yet been set.
In an interview late this morning in the reception hall of presidential offices used since Chiang Kai-shek's day, Mr. Chen devoted more than an hour to explaining his plans for the referendum. He said that the question posed on ballots "could be for the 23 million people of Taiwan to demand that China immediately withdraw the missiles targeting Taiwan and openly renounce the use of force against Taiwan."
Investing some of the extra money available from a booming economy, China has rapidly increased its arsenal of ballistic missiles and positioned many of them in easy striking range of Taiwan.
Although American and Taiwanese experts believe the missiles to be conventionally armed, Mr. Chen compared the danger they posed to Taiwan with the threat faced by the United States during the Cuban missile crisis, when the Soviet Union built missile storage and launching facilities in Cuba that could have been used for a nuclear-tipped arsenal.
"In 1962, the U.S. faced the 13 alarming days of the Cuban missile crisis," he said. "With 496 ballistic missiles aimed at the 23 million people of Taiwan, every day for us is an alarming day."
Mr. Chen repeatedly spoke of Taiwan's struggle to build a full democracy and called the referendum a historic first for Taiwan. He pointed out that efforts to bring democratic institutions to the island, suppressed for decades under martial law, were always met with opposition from mainland China and the ruling Nationalist Party.
"The holding of a referendum is a milestone in our democratic consolidation and the deepening of Taiwan's democracy," he said.
But Mr. Chen's critics at home and abroad accuse him of taking dangerous risks with Taiwan's security to bolster his own re-election prospects. Mr. Chen's Democratic Progressive Party has not gone as far in pursuing formal independence for the island as some of the party's core supporters would like, and the referendum could increase turnout among such voters.
China is unlikely to back down in the face of Mr. Chen's referendum, a Chinese expert said.
"If he wants China to remove the missiles, it's very easy," the expert, Xu Shiquan, a former head of the Taiwan Research Institute in Beijing and a prominent adviser to China's leaders on Taiwan issues, said in a telephone interview when told of President Chen's plans for the referendum. "He needs to forswear independence."
Mr. Xu added that "the impact of a referendum may be the opposite - we may need to increase our military strength because of growing fears that Taiwan is moving toward independence."
China had no official comment tonight.
Mr. Lien, the Nationalist Party's chairman and presidential candidate, criticized Mr. Chen in a separate interview today, saying that "this is no time for our government to provoke the Chinese communists on the mainland and create a situation of tension that will endanger the 23 million people on this island."
Advocates of independence have for years pressed for referendums as a way to bypass constitutional barriers to legal independence. After months of discussion this autumn, the legislature passed a bill mostly written by the Nationalist Party that severely limited the ability of the president to call a referendum except when the country is "facing an external threat which may jeopardize national sovereignty."
President Chen said that the missiles, which were also protested in rallies across Taiwan last year, posed just such a threat. Mr. Lien said that the Nationalist Party disagreed and had been surprised that President Chen was moving so swiftly to make use of the clause, which the Nationalists had only supported in the legislature as a last resort in a genuine crisis.
"We have a sense of betrayal," he said.
Mr. Chen asserted that personal ambition was not a factor in his decision.
"I'm already a president and it doesn't make a big difference to me whether I serve for one term or two terms," he said. "A referendum represents a concept and belief that I have pursued throughout my more-than-20-year political career. It is a universal value and a basic human right."
--------
Taiwan to Vote on China Missile Threat
December 5, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Taiwan-China.html
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Taiwan's president has decided to hold a referendum on March 20 to ask voters to demand that China remove hundreds of missiles aimed at the island, a presidential spokesman said Saturday.
Until now, the president had not said what issue would be on the referendum authorized under a new law that angered China.
``The missile issue will be on the referendum. That's for sure,'' the spokesman, James Huang, told The Associated Press.
President Chen Shui-bian announced last week that he planned to use a new law that gives him the power to hold a ``defensive referendum'' when the island's sovereignty faces an imminent threat.
China and Taiwan split during a civil war in 1949, and Beijing has threatened to use force to make the island unify. To back up its threats, China has deployed hundreds of missiles across from Taiwan, just 100 miles off China's coast.
-------- europe
Poland ready to consider US bases on its territory: defense minister
WARSAW (AFP)
Dec 05, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031205161234.oiacs21y.html
Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said Friday that Poland, a former Soviet satellite, was ready to consider allowing US bases on its territory if such a request was made.
"US Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith arrives in Poland Monday to discuss the issue of US bases overseas," defense ministry spokesman Colonel Adam Stasinski told AFP without elaborating.
Szmajdzinski said the government and President Aleksander Kwasniewski must also discuss the base issue with Poland's political parties and listen to public opinion.
Consultations should also be held with Poland's allies and neighbors, PAP news agency quoted him as saying.
"(US Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld's deputy will visit us Monday. There will be talks, we'll see whether a proposal is made because so far there has not been one," Szmajdzinski added.
US President George W. Bush announced last month that the United States was stepping up discussions with key European and Asian allies about the overhaul of US global military deployments.
A senior US administration official said the president was not accelerating the process of revamping deployments, just moving ahead with planned consultations with key allies on where best to position US forces.
Bush came to office in January 2001 with plans to overhaul US forces to make them more mobile as well as revamp where they are stationed abroad.
"We will invite the full participation of our friends and allies" in the process, said the president, who has drawn fire for launching the US-led invasion of Iraq in March without explicit UN approval.
"A fully transformed and strengthened overseas force posture will underscore the commitment of the United States to effective collective action in the common cause of peace and liberty," he said.
-------- iraq
DIPLOMACY
Powell Calls for Increased NATO and U.N. Roles in Iraq
December 5, 2003
New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/international/europe/05POWE.html
BRUSSELS, Dec. 4 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Thursday urged NATO to consider expanding its activities in Iraq, in the Bush administration's most pointed appeal for international help since it went to war in the spring. He also called for more involvement from the United Nations.
"The United States welcomes a greater NATO role in Iraq's stabilization," Mr. Powell said in a speech to fellow NATO ministers. "We welcome a more robust United Nations role as well."
The secretary stopped short of making any specific requests. NATO currently provides logistical support to the Polish-led multinational division operating in south-central Iraq. In recent days Mr. Powell and other administration officials have suggested that NATO consider taking that division over.
Ministers in the 19-nation security alliance - some of whom strongly opposed the war that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein - reacted coolly, with some suggesting that NATO already had its hands full in Afghanistan.
Some countries, like France and Germany, have long made it clear that they will contribute troops only under United Nations command. But none of the ministers opposed Mr. Powell's suggestion outright on Thursday, the ministers said.
Mr. Powell's remarks, at a regularly scheduled meeting of NATO diplomats, were an indication of the strength of Bush administration's intent to find help in handling the costs and sacrifices of rebuilding Iraq with international partners.
Faced with a self-imposed deadline of this summer to transfer authority to an interim government, American officials also appear eager to increase the international legitimacy of their efforts in Iraq.
Washington is testing the waters after a series of attacks on its allies in Iraq that brought recent casualties to Italy, Britain, Turkey, Spain and Japan. The governments of those countries have said that despite rising public opposition, their support will not waver.
In Brussels, Mr. Powell, citing a United Nations resolution encouraging multilateral and regional groups to help rebuild Iraq, pressed NATO ministers to prepare for decisions by June, when NATO heads of state meet in Turkey to welcome seven new members.
Some diplomats expressed concerns that discussing more NATO involvement could revive the international rifts that opened in the prelude to the invasion of Iraq.
But some American officials seem certain of NATO's eventual willingness. Also in Brussels on Thursday, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a larger role for NATO in Iraq was all but inevitable. "Within the next year you will see NATO getting involved in taking over the operations in Iraq, at least the start of such an involvement," Mr. Biden told a group of policy analysts.
Mr. Powell suggested that the United Nations, which drastically scaled back its operations in Iraq after its Baghdad headquarters were bombed in August, could claim a more prominent role without a new Security Council resolution. In a meeting in his home last month, Mr. Powell said, he prodded the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, to find a way back into the country.
The Polish foreign minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, said the United Nations role should be expanded before NATO increased its efforts. "It's still too early," he said, according to The Associated Press. "However, we should keep in mind the fact that most of the NATO member states are present in Iraq." He added that "we believe that it would be wise if NATO engages itself deeper."
Some foreign policy experts said the administration, facing elections next fall, was moving to extricate itself from the reconstruction of Iraq.
Lord Robertson, NATO's secretary general, confirmed that no NATO member had ruled out playing a bigger role in Iraq. But he said several ministers had expressed concern that NATO might be stretched too thin as it expanded its activities in Afghanistan, which an American-led force invaded in October 2001 as part of the campaign against terrorism prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
A NATO-led international force of 5,700 is to be expanded to operate beyond Kabul, the Afghan capital. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a visit to Afghanistan on Thursday, said he supported NATO's discussions on setting up provisional reconstruction teams, which carry out security operations, train local police officers and help in rebuilding.
In another sensitive matter on both sides of the Atlantic, European ministers continued to struggle with efforts to adopt a common defense policy. The nations struck a deal to guarantee mutual assistance in case of an attack and to create a special unit, but not a headquarters, to handle planning and operations.
Thomas Fuller of The International Herald Tribune contributed reporting for this article.
--------
THE FOE
A Tale of War: Iraqi Describes Battling G.I.'s
December 5, 2003
By IAN FISHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/international/middleeast/05IRAQ.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
HAWIJA, Iraq, Dec. 4 - The man was in the car for less than two minutes Thursday when he pulled out a hand grenade. He had been carrying it, like an apple, in a little red shopping bag. He smiled. The other passengers winced.
"If you don't pull the pin," he explained calmly, "it won't explode."
The grenade was not, apparently, a threat but the man's way of trying to establish that he was, as he claimed, a member of the "resistance." Little is known about these forces except that they keep killing anyone associated with the American-led occupation and are making the American mission in Iraq very dangerous and difficult.
It was unclear why this man, who said he was a former soldier, and appeared sturdy and fit, perhaps 35 years old, was willing to talk to a Western reporter. His account could not be verified. He readily agreed to an interview after being introduced by a man who identified himself to The New York Times as a local reporter. The local reporter offered to make contact with what he termed the local resistance in this city in the Sunni Muslim heartland, the center for violence against Americans in Iraq.
American commanders say the people fighting them appear more brazen recently, and in recent weeks they have even circulated leaflets in Hawija asking all Iraqis to join them. Grenade still in hand and with a nerve-racking politeness, this fighter steered the car's driver to a cemetery here where he said several of his comrades, killed by American soldiers, were buried.
There, in almost an hour of conversation behind a wall, keeping an unending vigil for American soldiers on patrol, the man described what he said were operations of his cell, which he said consisted of some 15 men, mostly former soldiers, who take no direct orders from anyone, but are in contact with other similar groups.
"People with more military experience than me set the targets and make the plans," he said.
"It is like, `I have a friend, who has another friend,' " he said. "We have contacts between the cells but there is no real organization."
Some of the details given by the man - whose full story could not be independently corroborated - dovetailed with comments from the American military. The man said, for instance, that six insurgents were killed in an Aug. 30 firefight with the Americans, the same number given by Maj. Douglas Vincent, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which has responsibility for Hawija.
Major Vincent dismissed as "very creative" the man's assertion that his cell had killed a total of 500 Americans. Six Americans have been killed in the area since late March, the major said.
The man's description squared largely with that of American military officials, who say they believe the attacks are carried out by loosely organized groups, composed of soldiers and others loyal to Mr. Hussein, as well as by Muslims from other countries who have come to Iraq to fight Americans. This fighter said he had seen no foreigners in the ranks of the resistance.
He said his group had mounted about 35 attacks locally, of which he participated in "more than five." His comments suggested a good knowledge of weapons, and he said his cell used Katyusha rockets, rocket-propelled grenades, large machine guns, AK-47's, mines and homemade bombs detonated by remote control (though he would not say exactly what kind of remote was used). He said they bought some weapons with their own money and looted others from unguarded ammunition dumps left over from before the war.
"We want the world to know that Bush, the biggest criminal of all, and Blair, that monkey of the desert, will not be able to control the Iraqis," he said. "We will not allow them to kill Iraqis. I am speaking before God, on my behalf and that of the other mujahedeen."
His choice of the word "mujahedeen" was perhaps one of the most telling details about what this insurgency would like to be.
The word means "holy warrior," and for many Muslims it connotes brave struggles against occupiers over centuries, against the crusaders a millennium ago or against the Russians in Afghanistan a mere two decades ago. These resisters would like that honorable title bestowed on them. The recruiting leaflets the American military says were found here called for Iraqis to join them on a "jihad," or holy war, against the Americans - prompting a large United States military raid on the town this week.
But the Americans increasingly use a different word: "fedayeen."
In Iraq, the fedayeen were Sadddam Hussein's dark-uniformed storm-troopers, who, unbroken after the American-led alliance invaded Iraq last spring, appear to be among the most potent force behind the attacks on Americans and their allies here, American officials say.
Many Iraqis also consider the resisters fedayeen, even those Iraqis who strongly oppose the American occupation here, and worry that Mr. Hussein would return if the resisters win.
"If it were not for Saddam, I think more people would have joined already," said Kashid Ahmad Saleh, 48, a farmer here who is deeply angry at the American presence.
It was hard to pin down any single motive for the fighter here, who said he served in the Iraqi Army for six years, ending in 1998, and who gave the nickname "Fighter for the Sake of God." In compact and articulate answers, the man seemed a fanatic neither for God nor for Mr. Hussein.
"We are not fighting for Saddam," he said. "We are fighting for freedom and because the Americans are Jews. The Governing Council," he said, referring to the body of Iraqis appointed by the Americans, "is a bunch of looters and criminals and mercenaries. We cannot expect that stability in this country will ever come from them."
"The principle is based on religion and tribal loyalties," he added. "The religious principle is that we cannot accept to live with infidels. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be on him, said, `Hit the infidels wherever you find them.' We are also a tribal people. We cannot allow strangers to rule over us."
But much as he protested that Mr. Hussein was not the reason for fighting, he nonetheless said that "Saddam never did any bad things."
Then he defended two of the actions Mr. Hussein is often blamed for here in Iraq and abroad: "The Kurds deserved all that happened to them because they are traitors and criminals. Kuwait deserved what it got because it stole our oil."
In 1990, Mr. Hussein invaded Kuwait, prompting an American-led invasion the next year that pulled back, at the last moment, from toppling him from power.
In the 1980's, Mr. Hussein, an Arab, waged war against the Kurds of the north, removing many from their land in favor of his fellow Arabs. A fear of reprisals from the Kurds now empowered by the American victory - a fear echoed in this Sunni Arab town - seemed yet another reason this fighter, a Sunni Arab, has chosen to fight.
So far, he said, 10 of his comrades have been killed, and at the cemetery he knelt down to pay his respects at the flag-covered graves of two of those killed Aug. 30.
Major Vincent cited the Aug. 30 attack, in which he said two American soldiers were wounded, as the "perfect" example of the resistance's weakness.
"If they were truly winning the struggle, they wouldn't be scared to operate in the day, they wouldn't attack innocent aid organizations and Iraqi citizens, but would have the courage to face the U.S. Army directly, which they don't, because when they do, they die," Major Vincent said in an e-mail message on Thursday.
The man said the insurgents' overall strategy was just what American commanders say it is: To kill so many soldiers that America has no political choice but to leave Iraq. The recent American decision to speed up civilian control to Iraqis, he said, was one indication their strategy is working - an assertion Major Vincent and other Americans strongly reject.
"They are beginning to be defeated," the man said. "I want my message to reach the world. We will stop killing Americans if they withdraw. As we are precious to our families, American soldiers are precious to their families."
Attack on Police Station
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 4 (Reuters) - Rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a police station in the town of Ramadi, 68 miles west of Baghdad on Thursday. Six people were wounded as officers gathered to receive their monthly salaries.
Last month, 17 policemen were killed in twin bomb blasts north of Baghdad as insurgents stepped up actions against security forces seen to be cooperating with the Americans.
Also on Thursday, an American armored personnel carrier erupted in flames after hitting a roadside mine in Baghdad. American forces said no one was hurt.
--------
U.S. Presses Counteroffensive, But Guerrillas Strike Again
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35822-2003Dec4.html
BAGHDAD, Dec. 4 -- Two Iraqi policemen and four civilians were wounded Thursday when insurgents fired two rockets at the police station in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of the capital, as officers were gathering to collect their monthly pay, officials said.
Though the attack caused no fatalities, it demonstrated the guerrillas' continuing ability to strike Iraqi security forces working with the U.S. occupation after bombings last month outside two police stations north of Baghdad killed 17 people.
In a separate incident, an ammunition transport truck burst into flames Thursday afternoon when it hit a land mine in Baghdad, U.S. military officials said. No U.S. troops were hurt in the incident.
Minutes after the explosion, flames billowed from the armored vehicle as dozens of U.S. forces closed down the road, a major highway connecting the city with the international airport to the southwest. Two helicopters circled overhead while Iraqi motorists on a nearby bridge slowed down to look, snarling rush-hour traffic.
The attacks came as U.S. officials said they have sharply reduced the number of strikes against allied forces by pressing an offensive against suspected loyalists of the ousted president, Saddam Hussein.
U.S. paratroops from the 82nd Airborne Division on Wednesday captured a former brigadier general in Hussein's Republican Guard during an early morning raid in Fallujah, a city near Ramadi in the heartland of anti-U.S. resistance, military officials said.
According to the officials, Brig. Gen. Daham Mahemdi was suspected of maintaining indirect contact with Hussein and directing guerrilla activities in Fallujah. He was seized at his home with two Kalashnikov assault rifles, a pistol, a shotgun and ammunition.
U.S. forces also detained a Shiite Muslim activist, Amar Yassiri, for alleged involvement in an Oct. 9 ambush that killed two U.S. soldiers in Sadr City, a vast, mainly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. A spokesman for a prominent Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr, a harsh critic of the U.S. occupation and the most influential figure in Sadr City, denied Yassiri was connected to Sadr.
At the same time, Abdel Hadi Daraji, a close Sadr associate, sharply criticized the U.S. troops for arresting Shiite activists, accusing the occupation forces of copying Hussein's tactics of detaining and intimidating critics.
While many Iraqi Shiites welcomed Hussein's ouster and the end of years of official repression of their religion, those around Sadr said they were concerned that U.S. forces may now be planning to remain in Iraq for a long time.
-------- israel / palestine
Bush and Jordanian King Confer on Palestinian Plan
December 5, 2003
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/politics/05DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 - President Bush and King Abdullah of Jordan discussed a Palestinian proposal on Thursday in which Israel would refrain from killing terrorist suspects and stop construction of its barrier in the West Bank in return for a cease-fire by militants, Arab diplomats said.
In a second phase, the Arab diplomats said, the Palestinian Authority would take more concrete steps to disarm Hamas and other militant groups, once Israeli restraint was established. In addition, the Palestinian leadership would pledge that, this time, the cease-fire would last.
Administration officials said they could not comment on the specifics of the meeting between Mr. Bush and the Jordanian king.
These officials added, however, that they viewed the recent talk from the Palestinian side - aimed at re-establishing a cease-fire similar to the one that collapsed in August - with considerable skepticism.
"A cease-fire is not a renunciation of violence," said an administration official. "By definition, it's just a pause, leaving terrorist capabilities in place, and letting them continue their planning for more attacks when the cease-fire ends."
Seeking to re-energize the stalled talks, King Abdullah took time out from a private visit to the United States to bring details of the latest proposal from the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, the Arab diplomats said.
The proposal is also being discussed among Arab leaders and leaders of various Palestinian factions in Cairo.
Siding with Israel, administration officials said that any peace plan must be accompanied by concrete actions by Palestinian authorities to disarm militants, dismantle weapons and rocket launchers and move against the infrastructure of the militant groups.
As the discussions proceeded, President Bush confirmed something that had been in the air for days - that despite Israeli objections, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell would meet on Friday with self-appointed Palestinian and Israeli negotiators who have worked out an unofficial peace agreement announced in Geneva this week.
The agreement - put together over the last two and a half years by teams led by Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister, and Yasir Abed Rabbo, a former information minister for the Palestinian Authority - calls for a nonmilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza in return for peace with Israel.
Palestinians would be granted sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and over the Temple Mount, with access by Jews. Israelis would keep most of their settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and his cabinet have made no secret of their antipathy to the document and the process that led to it. That created an awkward situation for the Bush administration, which was unenthusiastic about the Geneva discussions but did not want to seem to be kowtowing reflexively to the Israeli line.
Mr. Beilin, a critic of the Bush administration as well as of Mr. Sharon, has few fans among those around Mr. Bush. Mr. Rabbo is viewed equally skeptically as being overly close to Yasir Arafat, who praised the Geneva process while not endorsing the concessions the Palestinian side would have to make.
Secretary Powell, asked several times about the Geneva discussions, generally has sounded a cautious note, saying that anyone trying to bridge the Palestinian-Israeli divide should be commended. He had been careful not to say that he would meet with the negotiators.
That situation changed, however, when top Israeli leaders denounced Mr. Beilin as a traitor and demanded that Mr. Powell not meet with him or other negotiators. The secretary made clear that his schedule was up to him to determine, not the Israelis, and a meeting was put on it.
Mr. Bush, at his meeting with King Abdullah, reiterated that none of the peace proposals floating around would deter the United States from its basic position favoring a three-year step-by-step process known as the road map.
He repeated that the Palestinians would have to stop attacks on Israelis before Israel could be expected to make significant concessions.
Asked about whether he approved of a meeting between Mr. Powell and the Geneva negotiators, he said it could be "productive," as long as it adhered to these principles.
"We appreciate people discussing peace," he added. "We just want to make sure people understand that the principles to peace are clear."
--------
Israelis Conclude Hamas Has Suspended Its Suicide Attacks
December 5, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/international/middleeast/05MIDE.html
TEL AVIV, Dec. 4 - Israeli officials have concluded that the Islamic movement Hamas has suspended its suicide bombing campaign in recent months, a senior Israeli military officer said Thursday, citing that as one reason Israel has not suffered any deadly bombings in the past two months.
Hamas has not announced a suspension of bombings, though a Hamas official on Thursday restated what other group leaders have been saying in recent weeks - that Hamas will stop attacking civilians when Israel does.
Israel's security forces have foiled 20 attempted suicide bombings by other Palestinian factions over the past two months, including an attack that was already in motion when two suspects were arrested Wednesday in the West Bank, said the Israeli official, who briefed journalists.
The last suicide bombing that killed Israelis was on Oct. 4, an Islamic Jihad attack in Haifa that left 21 dead. Since then, no Israeli civilian has been killed in violence, the longest stretch since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
The Israeli security forces have killed dozens of Palestinians, both militants and civilians, during frequent raids into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the period, while Palestinians have killed 10 Israeli soldiers and security guards.
Palestinian factions have carried out more than 100 suicide bombings in the last three years, and Hamas has been responsible for more attacks, and more Israeli deaths, than any other group.
The Israeli officer said Hamas suspended suicide bombings after Israel carried out a series of helicopter strikes on four of the group's top leaders from June to September, killing one and wounding three. Hamas still makes rocket and mortar strikes from Gaza.
"Hamas has stopped for the time being," the officer said, "but that might change overnight."
The last suicide bombings by Hamas were a pair of attacks several hours apart on Sept. 9, that killed a total of 15 people.
"Hamas has suspended attacks before when the organization faced threats," said Ariel Merari, a counterterrorism expert at Tel Aviv University. "Individuals are willing to die for the cause, but organizations are not suicidal," he said.
The Israeli official cited the European Union's move to put Hamas on its list of terrorist groups and the freezing of its assets as factors in the organization's cutting off suicide bombings.
Despite the lull, Israeli forces continue to pursue Hamas. Three wanted Hamas militants, along with a 9-year-old boy, were killed during an Israeli raid on Monday in Ramallah, in the West Bank.
Hamas leaders, who previously spoke at rallies and gave frequent interviews, have been in hiding.
Meanwhile, two other Palestinian factions, Islamic Jihad and the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, have continued to attempt suicide bombings, the Israeli officer said.
In Wednesday's operation, two would-be bombers from Islamic Jihad wanted to hit a school in northern Israel, the officer said. According to the officer, the attempted attack was ordered by the Islamic Jihad leadership in Damascus, Syria, where the group has offices.
--------
Bush Says Peace Plan May Be 'Productive'
Geneva Accord Already Denounced by Israel
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36807-2003Dec4.html
President Bush said yesterday that an unofficial peace plan denounced by the Israeli government is a "productive" contribution to ending the long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Choosing his words carefully, the president said he is still committed to the principles for resolving the conflict he first outlined a year and half ago. But, answering questions from reporters as he met with Jordan's King Abdullah, Bush said the new initiative known as the Geneva Accord is "productive so long as they adhere to the principles I've just outlined, and that is we must fight off terror, that there must be security, and there must be the emergence of a Palestinian state that is democratic and free."
The administration has forged an extraordinarily close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, often coordinating policies and positions. Yet in recent weeks, U.S. officials have become frustrated that Sharon has failed to ease Palestinian suffering and continued to allow settlement growth in Palestinian territories.
But it was not clear yesterday whether Bush's comments were intended as a slap at Sharon. He avoided mentioning the Geneva Accord by name, and his remark that it is productive appeared to be off the cuff and open to interpretation.
The Geneva Accord, negotiated by Israelis and Palestinians who have been involved in years of failed negotiations, attempts to leapfrog the current stalemate by dealing with tough issues long deferred by the official efforts, including the U.S.-backed "road map." The Geneva plan would require the removal of most Jewish settlements from the Palestinian territories, divide Jerusalem into the capitals of both Israel and a Palestinian state, and require that most -- but not all -- Palestinians give up their claim to return to land in Israel they left during and after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
Sharon has denounced the initiative as subversive. While the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, did not endorse the proposal, he has called it "a brave and courageous initiative . . . that opens the door to peace."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell angered Israel this week when he said he would meet with the plan's authors Friday, planning to "drop in" a meeting with two lower-level officials. But in a sign the administration is treading carefully in its relations with Sharon as Bush enters a reelection campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz yesterday abruptly canceled his own planned meeting and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice refused to meet with the authors.
An administration official last night sought to play down expectations that the administration will embrace the initiative. "In the meeting we will explain clearly our policy [and] the president's vision based on the June 24 [2002] speech, and that that is our focus and that of the parties in the region," he said.
The administration intends to issue a statement after the meeting that will reiterate its determination to stick to its current course, sources said.
The Geneva Accord was initially ignored by the administration. While Powell's meeting heightens the accord's visibility and could put pressure on Sharon, U.S. officials are also wary of it because they fear it could overshadow the quiet efforts to restart the peace process outlined in the road map. Palestinian militants and officials met in Cairo yesterday to discuss a possible cease-fire; the administration has pressed Israel to respond with a series of initiatives if the cease-fire is achieved. U.S. officials have also held detailed negotiations with Israeli officials over the parameters of the settlement freeze required by the road map.
One U.S. official said the agreement on the settlement freeze, if achieved, is likely to be extremely detailed, "almost settlement by settlement, subsidy by subsidy," to leave the Israelis as little wiggle room as possible to interpret it differently.
U.S. officials, focusing on the postwar struggle in Iraq, have also pressed Israel not to take steps that would create a new crisis in the region, such as action against Arafat or building a security fence so deep in Palestinian territory that it appears to negate the possibility of a Palestinian state.
In an interview Wednesday, the chief negotiators of the Geneva Accord -- Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister and longtime peace negotiator, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, former Palestinian information minister -- said their efforts were intended to complement and in fact enhance the road map.
In the Geneva document, "we refer very seriously to road map," Beilin said. "We understand the importance of the road map. The road map is the only game in town. The only problem with this game is that nobody plays it."
Rabbo said that because the road map is fuzzy on some of the contours of a final deal, "no one [in the region] is convinced" by it. The Geneva Accord, he said, is intended to fill this gap.
Rabbo said that in their meeting with Powell today, he and Beilin will not be looking for "an official yes" but also didn't want their efforts regarded as a "a mere civil society initiative." He said their goal for the meeting is to make three things clear to Powell -- that the Geneva Accord is complementary to the road map, that it could be used as "pressure to start implementing the road map" and that it could educate Palestinians and Israelis about the trade-offs needed to achieve a peace agreement.
The Geneva Accord builds on the failed negotiations led by President Bill Clinton. Some experts say those talks collapsed because neither side had done enough to educate their constituents about the parameters of a deal.
-------- nato
Powell Reopens NATO Debate on Iraq
By PAUL AMES
Associated Press Writer
Dec 5, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/POWELL_NATO?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell has reignited a debate on NATO assuming a direct military role in Iraq, but it's unlikely to bring an immediate increase in the alliance's involvement.
Powell himself acknowledged Thursday that NATO's immediate focus for the coming months will be on Afghanistan, where the alliance has agreed to expand its peacekeeping force of 5,700 from the capital, Kabul, to several provincial cities.
Powell said, however, he sees hope of greater NATO willingness to take on an expanded role in Iraq at some point.
Although Powell said none of the allies had objected to his call for a wider NATO role, diplomats suggested the silence of France and Germany did not necessarily signal acquiescence from the two allies most critical of U.S. intervention in Iraq.
Berlin and Paris are likely to demand the United States cede more control of the military operation to the United Nations before they agree to sending NATO troops. However, Powell did win immediate backing from Spain, Italy and Poland, who supported the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein and have sent troops to help stabilize the country.
"The time has come to consider a more direct role of the alliance in providing a framework of security for ... Iraq," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
Poland and Spain are particularly keen to secure a NATO commitment to take over the peacekeeping operation in a sector of south-central Iraq currently run by a Polish-led multinational division.
Spain is due to replace Poland as the lead nation in that operation next year and both countries would like to have NATO ready to assume command after that, allowing them to send troops home.
NATO's involvement in Iraq is currently limited to providing logistics backup to the Polish-led division, which has 9,500 troops from 17 countries.
Diplomats said the alliance would move cautiously to avoid a repeat of the bruising internal divisions before the start of the Iraq war, when France, Germany and Belgium for weeks blocked the deployment of alliance defensive units to Turkey.
U.S. supporters see a gradual deepening of involvement in Iraq following the path NATO has taken in Afghanistan. There, alliance military planners first gave support to a Dutch-German operation in Kabul, then NATO took full charge of peacekeeping in the capital and is now preparing to fan out into other cities.
Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested this week that NATO could go still further, taking over all military operations in the country - including the combat missions against holdouts from the Taliban regime and their al-Qaida allies which are now run by a U.S.-led force of 10,000.
During their separate visits to NATO headquarters this week, Rumsfeld and Powell avoided criticism of new plans from the European Union to run its own military operations independent of NATO.
Washington had denounced previous proposals - suggested by France and Germany - as wasteful and a potential threat to NATO unity.
The new plan, which has the backing of Britain, tones down the original Franco-German call for a separate EU headquarters.
Diplomats said Washington was holding off from passing judgment on the latest proposal pending telephone talks between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush.
----
Rumsfeld points Georgia towards Nato
By Tom Warner in Tbilisi
December 5 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069493769481&p=1012571727166
Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, said on Friday during a visit to Georgia that the US was interested in expanding military co-operation and helping the new leadership start reforms aimed at joining the Nato military alliance.
Mr Rumsfeld also called on Russia to withdraw military forces from the former Soviet republic, but he reminded Georgia's new leaders that a credible election was critical to maintaining stability and that a range of reforms were needed.
"Nato of course is an alliance of democracies. We look at political, economic and military reforms," Mr Rumsfeld said. The visit by the defence secretary, just 12 days after Georgia's "rose revolution", underlined American concerns about security in the small but strategically important country.
Wedged between Russia and the Middle East, Georgia also lies on the route of a oil pipeline being built from the Caspian Sea to Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Georgia's interim president, Nino Burdzhanadze, part of a group of pro-western politicians who took over after protests forced former president Eduard Shevardnadze to resign, said relations with the US were of "principal importance" to her and her allies.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the Tbilisi city council chairman who led the protests, also took part in the meetings and stood with Mr Rumsfeld and Ms Burdzhanadze at the press conference. US diplomats said Mr Saakashvili's participation was important because he was the most likely candidate to win a presidential election scheduled for January 4.
The interim administration is struggling to maintain order in a country that has long been regarded as lawless. In the last week explosions have struck a television building and a political party office, a top banker has been kidnapped and a Russian diplomat fell victim to a violent car- jacking.
With a two-year, $64m (?53m, £38m) programme to train and equip an elite brigade of the Georgian army coming to an end next spring, the US hopes to spread reforms to the whole of Georgia's armed forces.
----
Powell Appeals to Allies for an Expanded NATO Role in Iraq
From News Services
Friday, December 5, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36696-2003Dec4.html
BRUSSELS, Dec. 4 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called on NATO allies Thursday to consider a more prominent role in Iraq for the alliance, which currently provides only low-level and indirect support to a Polish-led force.
In a speech to fellow NATO foreign ministers, Powell urged the alliance "to examine how it might do more to support peace and stability in Iraq, which every leader has acknowledged is critical to all of us."
The statement by Powell was among Washington's strongest appeals for NATO help in the Iraq conflict, which sparked one of the deepest crises in the alliance's 54-year history when some allies opposed the war.
NATO now provides logistical support for the Polish-led contingent that patrols one of three military sectors in Iraq. Powell suggested Thursday that NATO could take over for the Poles.
Some ministers voiced support for the proposal, but the alliance as a whole took no action on it.
Powell said that NATO officials appeared to be interested in first forming a plan to expand the alliance's role in Afghanistan, from the capital, Kabul, to one or more provinces. Powell said NATO should consider eventually taking over all military operations there.
Currently, NATO's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, with more than 10,000 troops, is separate from the U.S.-led combat operation against remnants of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Speaking to reporters after meetings Thursday at NATO headquarters, Powell said he was surprised "not a single member spoke against" his proposal on Iraq.
Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, whose government has sent 3,000 police officers to southern Iraq, endorsed a higher profile for NATO in Iraq. "I think that the time has come to consider a more direct role of the alliance in providing a framework of security for the midterm term stabilization of Iraq," Frattini said. Spain and Poland also support a more robust NATO role.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer both attended the NATO session. Neither was reported to have commented publicly on Powell's proposal.
The United States suggested an expanded NATO role in Iraq as far back as a year ago, months before the war, but encountered stiff resistance, particularly from France and Germany.
Powell has pushed the issue in telephone conversations and at international conferences since then, but has received little positive feedback.
Although the alliance has had only a small role in Iraq, many of its members have sent forces there on their own. Powell pointed out Thursday that more than half of the current or pending NATO members have troops in Iraq.
-------- russia / chechnya
36 Killed in Train Blast Near Chechnya
By SERGEI VENYAVSKY
Associated Press Writer
Dec 5, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_EXPLOSION?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) -- A suicide attacker set off an explosion that tore through a commuter train Friday near the separatist region of Chechnya, killing 36 people and wounding scores of others in a bombing that President Vladimir Putin said was intended to disrupt this weekend's parliamentary elections.
Authorities said a man triggered the bomb and three other attackers - all women - also were involved. At least two of the women may have jumped from the train before the blast.
The rebel Chechen government denied it was responsible for the blast, the second fatal attack on the rail line near the breakaway republic since September.
The 8 a.m. explosion ripped open the side of train as it approached a station near Yessentuki, about 750 miles south of Moscow, hurling passengers to the ground. Others were trapped under a mound of twisted, burning wreckage for hours.
At least 148 wounded were hospitalized, and another 29 suffered only slight injuries, said Maj. Gen. Nikolai Lityuk of the Emergency Situations Ministry.
Authorities found undetonated grenades still strapped to the legs of a male suicide attacker, the Interfax news agency quoted Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Federal Security Service, as saying. Experts gingerly entered the wreckage to remove the explosives and later detonated them, Russian television reported.
Patrushev said two women jumped from the train just before the explosion, Interfax reported. The male suicide bomber has not been identified. Patrushev did not say what happened to the third alleged female attacker.
They also found the remnants of a bag believed to have carried the bomb, the security agency said. The device was estimated to have the force of 22 pounds of TNT, said Vladimir Rudyak, a spokesman for the local prosecutor's office, and blew one of the train cars onto its side.
It was not known if the death toll of 36 included the male attacker.
Putin called the attack "an attempt to destabilize the situation in the country on the eve of parliamentary elections" on Sunday.
"The international terrorism that has challenged many countries continues to represent a serious threat for our country," Putin said. "It is a ruthless, serious, treacherous enemy. Innocent people suffer from their activity."
Although Putin didn't identify who he believed was responsible, he was "sure they won't succeed." He also promised to help all those affected by the attack.
The rebel Chechen government led by President Aslan Maskhadov issued a statement denying its involvement.
"We repeat that the Chechen government is guided by the principles of international humanitarian law," the statement said. "We therefore condemn any acts of violence that directly or indirectly target the civilian population anywhere in the world."
The rush-hour attack seemed calculated to kill and injure a large number of people, and local health officials said the train was carrying a large number of students from schools and universities.
Hours after the blast, firefighters continued to pull dead from beneath the carriage.
"We will find those who did it, " Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said, according to the Interfax news agency. "The earth will be burning under their feet."
Six people were killed in two blasts on the same train line in September. No group claimed responsibility for those attacks.
A series of suicide bombings and other attacks have rocked the region in and around Chechnya and Moscow this year.
In June, a female suicide attacker detonated a bomb near a bus carrying soldiers and civilians to work at a military airfield near Mozdok, the headquarters for Russian troops in the Caucasus region, killing at least 16 people. A month earlier, a suicide truck-bombing in Chechnya killed 72 people and a woman blew herself up at a religious ceremony, killing at least 18 people.
A double suicide bombing at a rock concert in Moscow on July 5 killed the female attackers and 15 other people. Soon after that, bomb experts said a woman from Chechnya left an explosive on a Moscow street that killed a bomb disposal expert.
In October 2002, Chechen rebels seized a Moscow theater for nearly three days before Russian authorities ended the siege by spraying a powerful gas in the building. More than 120 of the 800 hostages were killed.
Russian forces have been bogged down in Chechnya since 1999, when they returned following rebel raids on a neighboring Russian region. Earlier, they fought an unsuccessful 1994-96 war against separatists that ended in de facto independence for the region.
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Dozens Killed in Suicide Bombing Aboard Russian Train
December 5, 2003
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/international/europe/06RUSSIA.html?hp
MOSCOW, Dec. 5 - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a crowded commuter train in southern Russia today, killing at least 40 people in what President Vladimir V. Putin denounced as a terrorist act intended to disrupt parliamentary elections here this weekend.
The explosion, which occurred at 7:42 a.m., wrenched apart the second carriage of the train only moments after it left the station in Yessentuki, near the foothills of the Caucasus, not far from Chechnya.
The force of the bomb, which one official estimated to contain more than 20 pounds of plastic explosives, hurled bodies and body parts dozens of yards from the carriage. More than 150 other passengers, many of them students on their way to school in the resort city of Mineralniye Vodi, were wounded, some of them gravely. Officials warned that the death toll could rise higher.
It seemed unlikely that today's suicide attack would drastically affect the outcome of Sunday's elections, in which the party loyal to Mr. Putin, United Russia, is expected to win a comfortable majority.
"The crime committed today is of course an attempt to destabilize the situation in the country on the eve of the parliamentary elections," Mr. Putin said in remarks broadcast on national television. "I am sure the criminals will not succeed in this."
The bombing nevertheless underscored the bloody price that the smoldering conflict in Chechnya continues to exact on Russia, despite the Kremlin's efforts to write a new constitution and elect a new president in the battered republic.
There were cryptic and unconfirmed reports last week that one of Chechnya's most notorious rebel commanders, Shamil Basayev, had threatened to initiate a new wave of terrorist attacks leading up to Sunday's elections and the New Year holidays. In addition to the bombing, officials said they discovered a car loaded with explosives in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya, foiling another potential attack.
While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, Sergei N. Ignatchenko, chief spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said in an interview that it bore all the characteristics of terrorist acts by Chechnya's separatist fighters.
In the train's twisted wreckage, investigators found the body of a man believed to have been the suicide bomber, as well as grenades strapped to his legs and a bag believed to have carried the explosives, he said.
Nikolai P. Patrushev, the director of the security service, who appeared on television with Mr. Putin, said the bomber appeared to have worked with three accomplices, all women. Two of them, he said, are believed to have leapt from the train shortly before the explosion. A third, who he said might have detonated the explosive by remote control, was gravely wounded and not likely to survive.
Boris V. Gryzlov, Russia's interior minister and leader of United Russia, vowed to punish those responsible for the bombing.
"The earth will burn under their feet," he said, according to the Interfax news agency. "These animals will not feel safe anywhere."
Over the spring and summer Russia suffered a wave of terrorist attacks, many of them carried out by suicide bombers. The attacks - at a rock concert in Moscow, a bus stop and military hospital in Mozdok and government buildings in Chechnya - killed more than 250 people.
In recent months, however, the attacks appeared to wane. The last occurred in early September when a bomb exploded on a train on the same commuter line as today's attack, killing six people.
Officials have attributed the attacks - as well as the siege of a theater in Moscow last October that ended with the deaths of 129 hostages and 41 guerrillas - to Chechens aided by international Islamic extremists.
"The crime committed this morning also says that the international terrorism that has launched a challenge to many countries of the world continues to remain a serious threat today for our country as well," Mr. Putin said in his remarks today. "It is a cruel, cunning, dangerous enemy. First of all, it is the innocent people who suffer from its crimes."
In an interview at the Federal Security Service's headquarters on Lubyanka Square, Mr. Ignatchenko said that intelligence reports suggested that separatist fighters in Chechnya continued to receive financial support from abroad, including Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia. He cited evidence of a $3 million payment in March that may have bankrolled the wave of attacks over the summer.
He acknowledged the difficulty of tracing the organization of the bombings, saying many are planned and carried out locally. "It is hard to determine if a person who works as a cook or sells something in a market is a terrorist," he said. "At some point he gets a command."
While Mr. Ignatchenko said Russia had had recent success in fighting terrorism stemming from the wars in Chechnya, he warned of a new threat. After nearly a decade of conflict, including two wars and the destruction of the republic's economy, industry and schools, he said, "a new generation has grown in Chechnya that has not seen anything but war."
"Many cannot read," he added. "Many cannot speak Russian, but they know very well how to disassemble a Kalashnikov and how to set up a mine."
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U.S. intelligence officials take look at 2020
December 05, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031204-111446-4937r.htm
It's 2020 and the United States, Europe and Japan struggle to maintain a decent quality of life for masses of elderly people.
China faces a choice between belligerence and joining Western nations as an economic superpower. India, Brazil and Indonesia are emerging powers.
That's one future being contemplated by U.S. intelligence officials as part of a long-range forecasting endeavor just getting under way. The effort, called the National Intelligence Council 2020 Project, aims to come up with a range of scenarios the world could face.
The product will be unclassified, which is unusual for the U.S. intelligence services. Council Chairman Robert L. Hutchings, in a recent interview at CIA headquarters, said he expects to publish the paper in December 2004, timed between the presidential election and the beginning of either President Bush's second term or a new administration.
"It's a time when people inside government are more ready to think very broadly," Mr. Hutchings said.
With so much of the nation's intelligence community focused on the next car bomb, Mr. Hutchings said looking years ahead would help policy-makers navigate what he described as a "period of profound flux in world affairs."
The council is made up of senior analysts who advise Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet. It is not part of the CIA but is located at the agency's headquarters.
The project held its first conference in November. Over the next year, it will bring together specialists on demographics, technology and regional affairs. Foreign scholars will be consulted for their views on their home regions as well as the United States.
At the start, Mr. Hutchings and his colleagues have mostly questions:
•Will mass retirements in North America, Europe and Japan strain national economies to the point there's a global slowdown?
"That's not inevitable," Mr. Hutchings said. "It's possible that these creative societies will be able to take policy measures to accommodate an aging work force and move toward a new era of economic growth."
• What countries are most likely to fall apart and become potential terrorist havens?
•Will poorer nations create a backlash that undermines the global trading system?
•Will economic forces lead to major change in China, the world's most populous nation?
"What would it take for the Chinese Communist Party to evolve so much that it could accommodate all these new political, economic and social forces that have been unleashed by economic growth?" Mr. Hutchings asked. "What other forms of political expression might pop up? Greater regional identity? New social movements? Even new political parties?"
Whatever happens, Mr. Hutchings said the nation is unlikely to be just like the China of today.
"I'm personally attracted by the theory that China can either become aggressive or powerful, but not both," Mr. Hutchings said. "A China that was reverting to threatening behavior would be a closed China that wouldn't be open enough for economic growth."
The aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq will still be felt in the Persian Gulf region in 2020, he predicted.
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CIA on Flight 800
December 05, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
The CIA recently declassified a once-secret report on eyewitnesses to the crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, N.Y., on July 17, 1996. CIA analyst Randolph M. Tauss, who won an intelligence medal for his work on the crash, concluded that numerous eyewitnesses who saw a streak of light heading toward the Boeing 747 jetliner were wrong if they believed it was surface-to-air missile going toward the jet.
Based on sound-travel analysis and a spy satellite sensor, Mr. Tauss stated: "Any eyewitness who thinks he may have seen a missile shoot down Flight 800 needs to have seen something that occurred more than 42 seconds before the aircraft broke into 'two distinct fireballs' and more than 49 seconds before the plane hit the water," he wrote. "CIA analysts are not aware of any eyewitness who did."
Evidence that the streak was burning fuel from the aircraft, which is believed to have exploded shortly after takeoff from a spark inside a center-wing fuel tank, is "extensive and compelling," Mr. Tauss stated.
"Nevertheless, a few people, driven by what they perceive to be an overwhelming number of eyewitnesses who 'saw' a missile attack the plane, persist in thinking otherwise," he said. "Confident that so many eyewitnesses cannot be 'wrong,' they have concluded that the government, for whatever reason, is covering up the true cause of the crash."
Some U.S. officials blame former FBI New York Director James Kallstrom for propagating the terrorist theory. Mr. Kallstrom took control of the crash investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board for months by insisting the crash was a terrorist attack. He gave up the theory after the agency's deputy director for intelligence wrote him a note in March 1997 stating that "the total absence of physical evidence of a missile attack leads CIA analysts to conclude that no such attack occurred."
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Israel Shares Blame on Iraq Intelligence, Report Says
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36694-2003Dec4.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 4 -- Israel was a "full partner"