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NUCLEAR
How much DU was shot into Iraq?
Sale of Nuclear Plant to China Puts German Aide on the Spot
US claims on North Korea doubted
Bush: N. Korea's Nuke Offer Falls Short
North Korea Urges Initial Nuclear Deal, Wants Aid
Replica of nuclear missile removed from Pakistan capital
Dozens of dirty bombs missing in breakaway region of Moldova
The cockroaches are celebrating
MILITARY
U.S. Forces Begin Offensive in Eastern Afghanistan
U.S. Raid in Afghanistan May Have Missed Target
Japan's Cabinet Approves Dispatch of Troops to Iraq
Japan Approves Deployment of Troops to Aid U.S. in Iraq
Indonesian Criticizes U.S. Over the War in Iraq
Indonesian Foreign Minister Calls U.S. Policy in Iraq 'Utter Failure'
Britain counts cost of Iraq war
Bush Tells China Leader He Opposes Taiwan's Referendum
Taiwan Warned By U.S. Island Asked Not To Provoke China
Taiwan Rejects U.S. Request to Avoid a Vote
EU may fight Iraq contracts ban
Car Blast Near Base in Northern Iraq Wounds 31 G.I.'s
Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq: press report
Suicide Bomb Kills at Least 5 in Heart of Russian Capital
Japan abandons Martian probe mission
Ex-Government Officials Recommend Intelligence Overhaul
U.N. Sending Israel Issue to World Court
Military to explore future of air defense
'Losers' in 2004 base funding could be vulnerable to closure
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Internal Police Investigation Widens, to 5 Suspects From 2
Antiterrorism Training Camp Opens
ENERGY AND OTHER
Wisconsin Engineer Develops Microgrids for Reliable Energy
Coloradans Honored as Champions of Renewables
ACTIVISTS
Day 1: As Hunters Kill, Protesters Howl
Hegemony or Survival
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
How much DU was shot into Iraq?
Uranium Weapons Poisoning Iraq
From: Nukewatch
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
How many of the toxic, radioactive uranium munitions known as "depleted uranium" were shot into Iraq during the recent takeover? While the question has not been definitively answered, Nukewatch has compiled some noteworthy estimates:
- Scott Peterson reported in The Christian Science Monitor on May 15, 2003, that a U.S. Central Command spokesman told him the A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft - the same planes that shot at the Iraqi Planning Ministry buildings - fired 300,000 bullets. The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to one, a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq. This estimate does not include DU fired from helicopters, Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.
- Larry Johnson, in the Aug. 4, 2003 Seattle Post Intelligencer, says that Pentagon and UN estimates show that U.S. and British forces used between 1,100 and 2,200 tons of uranium shells during attacks on Iraq in March and April, far more than the official government estimate of 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War.
- Gulf War vet and DU researcher Dan Fahey says in an Oct. 2, 2003, Rolling Stone article by Hillary Johnson that 167 tons of DU was used in the U.S. takeover of Iraq. Johnson also reported that the DU was exploded, "not only in uninhabited deserts but in urban centers such as Baghdad - a city the size of Detroit. The weapons contained traces of plutonium and americium, which are far more radioactive than depleted uranium."
- Jay Shaft of the Coalition For Free Thought In Media reported in May 2003 that 500 tons of DU were shot into Iraq. Shaft published an interview with a U.S. Special Operations Command Colonel who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Colonel said, "I am aware of at least 500 tons of DU munitions that were used by combined coalition forces. I also know that many cities were heavily bombarded with DU munitions."
- John LaForge, in the Nukewatch Pathfinder, Winter 2003-2004
Nukewatch P.O. Box 649 Luck, Wisc. 54853 Phone: 715-472-4185 Fax: 715-472-4184 www.nukewatch.com
-------- europe
Sale of Nuclear Plant to China Puts German Aide on the Spot
December 9, 2003
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/europe/09GERM.html
BERLIN, Dec. 8 - A little over 10 years ago, when Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, was the minister for the environment in the state of Hesse, he was one of the most visible leaders in a successful fight against a nuclear enrichment plant built by the industrial giant Siemens and almost ready for operation.
Now Mr. Fischer finds himself in an embarrassing position over his nonopposition to the sale to China of the same plant, which never went into operation - a deal that was announced last week by Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, during an official visit to Beijing.
Mr. Schröder, in China with a group of German business leaders, told reporters that the government would have no legal reason to prevent the sale of the plant, and Mr. Fischer has resisted pressure from within his own Green Party to oppose the chancellor's decision publicly.
Mr. Fischer, who met with Mr. Schröder at lunch on Sunday to discuss the nuclear sale, said last week that sometimes "bitter decisions'` had to be made.
But to many in the news media and among the public, Germany's willingness to sell nuclear technology abroad clashes too conspicuously with the German government's official anti-nuclear-power position. Indeed, the present policy is for all 19 of the nuclear power plants now operating in this country to be shut down eventually.
A month ago, the environment minister, Jürgen Trittin, one of three members of the Green Party who hold cabinet posts in Mr. Schröder's coalition government, attended the closing of the first of the plants, in Stade, near Hamburg.
In Beijing last week, Mr. Schröder, asked at a news conference about the pending nuclear deal, said, "I've always said that the company that wants to sell this plant has a right to claim a license for the deal, provided the plant is not used for military purposes." He cited Chinese assurances that Beijing had no intention of putting the plant to military use and that, in any case, it would not be possible to do so. Consequently, he continued, "In my opinion in this case, we do not have any possibilities for a political decision; the law has to be implemented."
The Siemens plant, costing about $220 million, has sat unused since construction ceased 12 years ago. According to experts in Germany, it is a fuel-rod-enrichment plant that could be used to make weapons-grade materials only if it were combined with another rare enrichment technology, which China, already a nuclear power, does not have.
China has offered roughly $55 million for the plant, a sum that has already provoked sardonic commentary in the German press. "Everything Must Go!" was the headline in Die Tageszeitung over the weekend, likening Germany to a discount department store.
-------- korea
US claims on North Korea doubted
By Douglas Frantz,
Los Angeles Times,
12/9/2003
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/12/09/us_claims_on_north_korea_doubted/
SEOUL -- The Bush administration has asserted in recent months that North Korea possesses one or two nuclear bombs and is rapidly developing the means to make more. The statements have raised anxiety about a nuclear arms race in Asia and the possibility that terrorists could obtain weapons from the regime.
But the administration's assessment rests on meager fresh evidence and limited, sometimes dated, intelligence, according to current and former US and foreign officials.
Outside the administration, and in some quiet corners within it, there is nothing close to a consensus that North Korean scientists have succeeded in producing atomic bombs from plutonium, as the CIA concluded in a document made public last month.
Independent specialists and some US officials also are skeptical of administration claims that North Korea is within months of manufacturing material for more weapons at a secret uranium-enrichment plant.
Interviews with more than 30 current and former intelligence officials and diplomats in Asia, Europe, and the United States provide an in-depth look at the development of North Korea's nuclear program, the regime's elaborate efforts to conceal it, and the behind-the-scenes debate over how much danger it poses.
According to these officials:
The United States has failed to find the North Korean plant that the Bush administration says will soon start producing highly-enriched uranium.
North Korea's attempts to reprocess plutonium recently hit a roadblock, raising new questions about its technical capabilities.
China rushed 40,000 troops to its border with North Korea last summer after the United States warned that the regime of Kim Jong Il might try to smuggle "a grapefruit-size" quantity of plutonium out of the country. There have been no signs of smuggling.
The doubts about US intelligence are emerging as the administration engages in a high-wire diplomatic battle over its demand that North Korea dismantle its nuclear program and open the country to inspectors.
In what some see as a bid for backing from the other parties -- China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea -- the United States has portrayed North Korea as a global threat. Its language is reminiscent of administration rhetoric before the Iraq war, as is the worry in some quarters that the United States is exaggerating the danger to galvanize world opinion against another regime in what President Bush termed an "axis of evil."
Even officials and specialists who question the administration's latest conclusions acknowledge that there is ample evidence that North Korea is trying to develop atomic weapons. But they say that walking into another confrontation based on dubious evidence could make the danger seem more rhetorical than real and could further damage trust in US intelligence.
----
Bush: N. Korea's Nuke Offer Falls Short
December 9, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Koreas-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea's willingness to freeze its nuclear weapons program in exchange for U.S. concessions falls short of what is necessary to end its standoff with the United States, President Bush said Tuesday in rejecting the offer.
The president's statement, and similar remarks by White House and State Department spokesmen, appeared part of jockeying for position in advance of another round of talks with North Korea.
``The goal of the United States is not for a freeze of the nuclear program,'' Bush said. ``The goal is to dismantle a nuclear weapons program in a verifiable and irreversible way.''
``That,'' he said, ``is the clear message we are sending to the North Koreans.''
The president spoke at a brief news conference with Premier Wen Jiabao of China, who visited Bush at the White House.
The Chinese are working to revive stalled talks between North Korea and the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China after a five-month pause.
According to a senior U.S. official, China has a sense of progress toward setting up new talks but does not believe the point has been reached yet.
Bush and Wen did not take up North Korea's latest overture, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
``We spent a lot of time talking about North Korea here,'' Bush said after his meeting with Wen. ``We share a mutual goal, and that is for the Korean peninsula to be nuclear weapons-free.''
The president said the United States would keep working with China and the other countries in the six-party talks ``to resolve this issue peacefully.''
The talks had been expected to resume Dec. 17, but a starting date remains elusive as Chinese officials shuttle between Washington and Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, to try to work out terms.
In Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il's government announced Tuesday that it would be willing to freeze its nuclear weapons projects in return for energy aid and removal of North Korea from the State Department's list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, ``We, along with the rest of the members of the six-party talks, are ready for a new round of talks at an early date and without any preconditions whatsoever.'' He said Pyongyang ``has yet to commit to doing what is necessary to achieving a de-nuclearized peninsula.''
In a move to reopen negotiations, the Bush administration, with support from Japan and South Korea, has proposed coordinated steps that would include ending the nuclear weapons program and written assurances from the United States on North Korea's security.
A spokesman at the North Korean Foreign Ministry called the U.S. proposal greatly disappointing because it aimed to ``completely eliminate our nuclear deterrent force by giving just a piece of paper called `written security assurances.'''
Instead, North Korea proposed freezing its nuclear activities in exchange for ``measures such as the U.S. de-listing the DPRK (North Korea) as a `terrorism sponsor'; lift of the political, economic and military sanctions and blockade; and energy aid, including the supply of heavy fuel oil and electricity by the U.S. and neighboring countries,'' the spokesman was quoted as saying by North Korea's official news agency, KCNA.
``This would lay a foundation for furthering the six-way talks,'' the spokesman said. ``What is clear is that in no case would the DPRK freeze its nuclear activities unless it is rewarded.''
An agreement between the Clinton administration and the North Koreans promised fuel oil supplies to generate electricity and replace power lost by North Korea's closure of nuclear energy plants that produced material that could be used for nuclear weapons. The Bush administration stopped shipments in January 2002 after North Korea acknowledged it had cheated on the deal.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday: ``We are not going to reward North Korea for its violation of its international commitments, nor are we going to provide rewards to achieve their compliance with obligations they have already taken on and subsequently violated.''
On the Net:
State Department's North Korea page: http://www.state.gov/p/eap/ci/kn/
--------
North Korea Urges Initial Nuclear Deal, Wants Aid
December 9, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-agreement.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - The North Korean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday Pyongyang sought an initial agreement with the United States and its allies in which it would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid and other concessions.
A Korean-language statement issued by the North's state-run KCNA news agency spelled out what it called ``initial steps'' that could be agreed verbally to ease a crisis over the communist state's nuclear ambitions.
``Such steps would see us freeze our nuclear activities in exchange for our removal from the U.S. state terror sponsor list, the lifting of political, economic military sanctions and a blockade, and the provision of heavy fuel oil, electricity and other aid by our neighbors and the United States,'' it said.
The statement, published by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, carried no other details. It comes as South Korea, the United States and Japan along with China and Russia are trying to organize a second round of nuclear talks with North Korea.
A North Korean official said earlier Tuesday Pyongyang would return to six-party talks only if the U.S. and its allies agreed to simultaneous concessions, a demand they have already rejected.
The nuclear crisis that erupted in October 2002 when Washington said Pyongyang had said it had a covert nuclear program. Washington halted shipments of heavy oil to North Korea in November 2002 in response to the North's program.
Washington placed North Korea on a list of states it accuses of sponsoring terrorism in 1988, a year after Pyongyang agents were implicated in the mid-air bombing of a South Korean passenger jet over the sea near Myanmar.
-------- missile defense
Replica of nuclear missile removed from Pakistan capital
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Dec 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031209142748.qhrkxz1c.html
The removal of a nuclear missile replica from its prominent roadside display in Pakistan's pristine capital has nothing to do with the impending visit of nuclear rival India's premier, officials insisted Tuesday.
"The model of Ghauri missile was removed as part of a beautification plan and not because of the SAARC summit," a spokesman for the Capital Development Authority told AFP.
"It is wrong to say that the missile replica had been removed because some foreign dignitary may not be pleased to see it when he comes to Islamabad for the SAARC summit."
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will travel to Islamabad next month for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation's delayed annual summit.
It will be his first visit to Pakistan since 1999, and the first visit of an Indian leader to Pakistan since the arch-rivals' 10-month military standoff last year.
The four meter high model of the Ghauri, part of Pakistan's prized arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles, had stood on a busy intersection in Islamabad since 1998, when the two rival countries both declared their nuclear prowess with tit-for-tat nuclear tests.
Three other missile models sprouted around the capital, including on the road leading from the international airport in neighbouring city Rawalpindi, reflecting the intense popular pride in Pakistan's entry to the elite nuclear club.
A model of the Chaghi hills in southwest Pakistan, where its nuclear tests were conducted, also greets travellers from the airport.
Shopkeepers at the city's bazaars have also erected their own models of missiles.
However there were "so far no plans" to remove the other replica missiles.
"This is the only missile that has been removed," the spokesman said.
It will be placed in a war museum under construction on the city's outskirts, he added.
The old Ghauri model site will be replaced with a fountain and flower beds.
-------- terrorism
Dozens of dirty bombs missing in breakaway region of Moldova
VASILE BOTNARU
CHISINAU, MOLDOVA
Tue 9 Dec 2003
The Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1349042003
DOZENS of missiles fitted with warheads that can scatter radioactivity on impact appear to have gone missing after years of storage in a breakaway region of Moldova, an expert said yesterday.
Oazu Nantoi, a political analyst who works at the non-governmental Institute for Policy Studies in Chisinau, said he had seen photocopies of documents produced by Russian military officials stating that the warheads - modified into "dirty bombs" - were stored in a deposit at Tiraspol military airport in Trans-Dniester.
He said that 24 of the warheads were ready for use, while 14 of them had been dismantled. The documents came from a disgruntled Russian military official who claimed he had not received compensation for being exposed to radioactive material, Mr Nantoi said, adding they were "a real danger to those handling the weapons and those in the deposit".
The possibility of terrorists acquiring such a "dirty bomb" has become a main concern of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. IAEA director-general Mohamed El Baradei said last week that his agency is now "spending a great deal of time working on this threat".
Mr Nantoi is a respected expert on the breakaway region of Trans-Dniester, which is populated by ethnic Slavs and has been policed by Russian troops since the region's fight for independence 12 years ago.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation and other agencies have expressed repeated concern about reports that the region is the centre for weapon-smuggling rings.
Moldova is a former Soviet republic and weapons and ammunition remain stored in Trans-Dniester in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. The region also has a big arms industry.
Mr Nantoi said reports that Alazan rockets, used in the former USSR for weather experiments, had been fitted with warheads modified to carry radioactive material first reached him in 1998. Since then, the rockets and warheads seem to have disappeared.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
The cockroaches are celebrating
By SEAN GONSALVES
December 9, 2003
http://www.capecodonline.com/archives/7days/tues/seang.htm
The Energy and Water Appropriations Bill signed by President Bush last week is being celebrated by cockroaches the world over.
The bill, among other things, provides funding for research in developing nuclear weapons with first-strike capability.
We are now one step closer to nuclear war and if the path we are following is pursued to its logical conclusion, the Information Age will be followed by a radioactive Cockroach Era.
The tragic irony here is that while the president speaks forcefully about the need to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration is pursuing policies that is likely to enflame the global threat.
"The Energy and Water Appropriations Bill...is a milestone in the further nuclearization of U.S. foreign policy," cautions Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group.
"The weapons to be developed are explicitly for potential use against targets in many countries, not just one or two," he says.
The fact that these weapons are of little use to the military, to say nothing of the predictable health, political, legal, and moral consequences of such policy directives, suggests that this is being driven more by an ideological "push" than any military "pull," Mello says.
John Burroughs, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and co-editor of the book "Rule of Power or Rule of Law?," reminds us that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - the very same agreement the United States insists North Korea and Iran respect by submitting to international inspections - requires its signatories to eliminate existing nuclear arsenals through good-faith negotiation.
But, at the U.N. General Assembly this past fall, the United States voted against resolutions calling for compliance with the program - compliance that is supposed to be transparent, irreversible and verifiable, which is what U.S. diplomats agreed to in 2000, Burroughs points out.
How can we claim to be the leaders of the free world when we don't abide by the same standards we demand other nations follow, even to the point of threatening pre-emptive strikes?
It's a bit like beating your child while trying to drive home the point that violence is wrong.
I like how Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, poses the question.
"If the world's only remaining superpower feels that it must threaten the first use of nuclear weapons to ensure its 'national security,' why shouldn't we expect other countries to follow suit? As responsible global citizens, we must insist on a more sustainable concept of universal 'human security.' Nuclear weapons have no place in this new security paradigm," Cabasso says.
To buttress their "free-market" theories, neocons love to talk about the harmful effects of "unintended consequences." But I think it's much more fruitful to focus on predictable consequences.
And what are the predictable consequences of pursuing first-strike nuclear capabilities?
Lloyd Dumas, professor of political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas and author of "Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies," offers this assessment.
"By signing a bill that allocates nearly $40 million for research on new nuclear weapons and readying the Nevada nuclear test site for quicker reactivation, the administration has found yet another way to weaken American security, while claiming to strengthen it.
"Building these weapons can only undercut diplomatic efforts to prevent other nations from building their own. And the idea that we can protect ourselves against proliferation with nuclear 'bunker-busters' by going around the world blowing up underground storage sites that our intelligence reports claim contain weapons of mass destruction is too ludicrous for words. Have we learned nothing from Iraq?"
Strong words that only a fool would ignore. Long live the cockroaches!
Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and a syndicated columnist. His column runs on Tuesdays. Call him at 508-775-1200, ext. 719, or e-mail him at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Forces Begin Offensive in Eastern Afghanistan
December 9, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-US-Operation.html
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) -- Hundreds of American soldiers launched an air assault in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, part of a new operation the U.S. military is calling its biggest since the fall of the hardline Taliban regime two years ago.
Soldiers from the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment stormed into an area east of Khost, a restive town along the border with Pakistan that has seen several recent attacks on coalition personnel, said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a U.S. military spokesman.
``We came in with helicopters,'' he said of the maneuver, part of the newly launched Operation Avalanche. ``We're trying to interdict along the border.''
U.S. and Afghan officials have long charged that Taliban rebels and their al-Qaida allies flee back across the mountainous border into Pakistan after launching attacks.
Hilferty gave no further details, including whether there were any U.S. casualties.
Operation Avalanche, which Hilferty said began Dec. 2, involves some 2,000 soldiers in four battalions, and is being billed as the largest undertaken since the Afghan war that ousted the Taliban ended in late 2001.
Hilferty said the operation was designed to root out insurgents before the brutally cold winter months.
``We're trying to get them before the winter sets in,'' he said.
The 501st, based in Fort Richardson, Alaska, was on its first major deployment since arriving about two months ago.
``They are well-suited to working with the 10th Mountain Division here in the high mountains of Afghanistan,'' Hilferty said.
Hilferty also issued the military's bluntest-yet acknowledgment that it was responsible for a blundered air assault on Saturday that killed nine children as they were playing in a field in Hutala village, 100 miles southwest of the capital.
``We admit that we were responsible,'' he said.
Asked about a report that civilians also had been killed in a U.S. operation in Paktia province, Hilferty he said the military was investigating ``unspecified casualties'' in that area.
The military could still not confirm whether it had killed the intended target in Saturday's raid: a Taliban official named Mullah Wazir.
In Kabul, the capital, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Afghan and Americans were still investigating the incident. ``They have a clear sense of urgency in their work,'' he said.
``While coalition forces are confident their aircraft struck their aim point, we cannot yet 100 percent confirm that Wazir was killed at the site.''
Khalilzad had announced Sunday that Wazir was dead, but said that certainty was based on faulty intelligence.
Villagers said the dead man was Abdul Hamid, a laborer in his 20s who had returned from Iran just days before his death, and that Mullah Wazir cleared out days before. DNA tests are ongoing, Hilferty said.
The spokesman said the military has received ``specific'' intelligence that insurgents might try to target Afghanistan's loya jirga, or grand council. It begins in the capital on Saturday to ratify a new Afghan constitution. He gave no specifics, but cited a recent bicycle bomb attack in Kandahar, and repeated rocket attacks.
A wave of Taliban attacks against aid workers, U.S. soldiers and Afghan government officials has belied American claims that the military is winning the war to stabilize the country. Two years after the fall of the Taliban, some 11,700 soldiers -- mainly Americans -- remain in Afghanistan on combat missions against the Taliban and their allies, remnants of al-Qaida and followers of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
On Monday, one Pakistani engineer was shot dead and his Afghan driver was wounded when gunmen attacked their vehicle on the main Kabul-Kandahar highway in Ghazni province. Last month, a French U.N. worker was shot dead in the province by suspected Taliban militants.
--------
U.S. Raid in Afghanistan May Have Missed Target
December 9, 2003
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/asia/09AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 8 - The United States military admitted Monday that it might not have succeeded in killing a Taliban suspect in an air assault on a village on Saturday that left nine children and one man dead.
Soldiers entering the village in southern Ghazni Province after the attack found the body of the man along with the dead children. Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman at the American military headquarters at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, told reporters, "We're still working to identify him."
He conceded that villagers had said the dead man was not Mullah Wazir, who is accused by United States officials of being behind several kidnappings and attacks on construction workers on a big American-financed road project. Villagers told journalists on Sunday that the dead man was Abdul Muhammad, 25, who had returned from working in Iran 10 days before.
The commander of the American-led coalition force, Brig. Gen. Lloyd Austin, has appointed a team of military policemen, doctors, a lawyer and a nurse to investigate the deaths, Colonel Hilferty said. The military will also provide aid to the village, he said.
The deaths of so many children in the attack has shocked Afghans and foreign officials. The United Nations has called for a swift investigation and for the findings to be made public. The United Nations spokesman in Kabul, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, said the deaths would have a "negative impact" on the population, who are already unhappy with the presence of foreign military forces.
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, expressed his "profound sadness" at the deaths, and warned that the fight against terrorism "cannot be won at the expense of innocent lives."
His special envoy in Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said the "incident, which follows similar incidents, adds to a sense of insecurity and fear in the country."
The American military is pressing ahead with its objectives, however, announcing Monday that it had 2,000 soldiers out on its biggest operation ever against elements of the Taliban and Al Qaeda across a wide swath of the country. Colonel Hilferty called it a "new tactical combat operation" to "deny sanctuary to and disrupt the activities of terrorist forces simultaneously throughout the eastern, southeastern and southern regions of Afghanistan."
The American-led coalition, which numbers some 11,500 in Afghanistan, had only just finished a three-week operation in the northeast involving 1,000 men across some of the toughest mountainous terrain.
The latest operation is clearly timed to keep the Taliban and other anticoalition militants on the defense as delegates from all over the country gather in Kabul for the grand council, or loya jirga, to approve a new constitution. The council of 500 representatives is set to convene Saturday.
Security officials say members of the Taliban could strike in any way, threatening or attacking delegates traveling to the loya jirga, or turning to urban terrorism, with bombs like the one in Kandahar on Saturday that wounded 18 people.
Colonel Hilferty suggested that the Taliban, under military pressure from the coalition, were shifting tactics from confronting soldiers to attacking peaceful citizens like aid workers and construction workers.
-------- asia
Japan's Cabinet Approves Dispatch of Troops to Iraq
December 9, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-japan-plan.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's cabinet approved a plan on Tuesday for the dispatch of non-combat troops to Iraq, a landmark decision that clears the way for what could be the biggest and most dangerous overseas mission by its military since World War II.
Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told reporters the decision had been made at a specially convened cabinet meeting.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will give a news conference shortly, explaining the contents and justification for the controversial step, which some critics say violates the pacifist constitution.
Koizumi has had to balance Japan's tight security ties with the United States, which is keen for the dispatch, with domestic concerns which increased after the killing of two Japanese diplomats in Iraq late last month.
--------
Japan Approves Deployment of Troops to Aid U.S. in Iraq
December 9, 2003
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/asia/09CND-JAPA.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
TOKYO, Dec. 9 - Japan decided today to deploy ground troops to join the American-led war in Iraq, in what will be its most ambitious military operation since its surrender to the United States at the end of World War II.
After months of agonizing, punctuated by the weekend state funeral of two diplomats gunned down in northern Iraq, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet approved a plan to send up to 600 ground forces to southeastern Iraq, in a mission to last from six months to one year.
The troops, though considered non-combat, will be the most heavily armed since Japan began tentatively dispatching its Self Defense Forces overseas a decade ago. They will engage in humanitarian efforts, including establishing water and medical services, and rebuilding schools and infrastructure.
The Defense Agency is expected to set a timetable for the dispatch next week, though the mission is likely to get under way early next year.
In a news conference after the cabinet decision, Mr. Koizumi explained the basis of the decision to a population that, according to polls, remains overwhelmingly opposed to it. Mr. Koizumi said that the situation in Iraq was "severe" but that Japan's Self-Defense Forces must "fulfill this mission."
"The ideals and the will of Japan as a nation are being questioned," Mr. Koizumi said. "Japan's spirit is being tested. We are no longer in a situation where we can only pay money. We must perform our utmost."
Mr. Koizumi underscored the importance of Japan's alliance with the United States, which kept Japan under its umbrella during the Cold War but has urged it to play a more active role internationally.
"The U.S. is Japan's only ally, and it is striving very hard to build a stable and democratic government in Iraq," he said. "Japan must also be a trustworthy ally to the U.S."
The deployment is regarded as a turning point for postwar Japan, whose pacifist reputation has been hard-won and whose soldiers have never stepped foot in a war zone. It comes as Japan gropes for security in a changing region, with the rise of China and the threat from North Korea, and as the United States does the same worldwide.
For the United States, the addition of a small Japanese military force amounts to a big diplomatic victory. The war in Iraq, opposed by many of America's traditional allies, now has the imprimatur of war-renouncing Japan.
Under the plan, Japan's ground, air and maritime units will all go to Iraq. Eight aircraft, including C-130 cargo planes, will transport troops and supplies, and six naval ships, including two destroyers, will transport equipment.
On the ground, soldiers will be equipped with weapons that Self-Defense Forces have never carried overseas, such as anti-tank weapons. They will also use 200 armored and other vehicles. They are expected to be posted to Samawa, about 155 miles southeast of Baghdad, in a zone considered safer than the rest of the country.
"It is epoch-making in that it will combat against hostile parties," Toshiyuki Shikata, a former Ground Self Defense General and now a professor at Teikyo University, said of Japan's Self-Defense Forces, in a telephone interview. "This has never happened. It was too cowardly until now. The Self-Defense Force has become an ordinary military."
Mr. Koizumi twice delayed the deployment of troops, following the attack against the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and the recent killing of Italian troops in southeastern Iraq. Mr. Koizumi, who faced elections this fall, was also wary of a public opinion deeply opposed to sending troops.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan has criticized the plan, saying that Japan should go to Iraq only as part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation. It argues that non-combat zones do not exist in Iraq, and the Self-Defense Forces will be drawn into combat, in violation of Japan's Constitution.
"We will stop the dispatch so that this will not become the first big misstep in the diplomatic and national security policies for the future of Japan," said Democratic party leader Naoto Kan on television.
On Sunday, about 700 protesters held a demonstration outside the prime minister's office, in a country where demonstrations are rare. Today, a group of about 70 held another rally, and some criticized Mr. Koizumi for what they described as yielding to American pressure.
"Koizumi says that we have to participate as part of our commitment to the international community, but that actually means only America," said Ken Takada, 58, leader of Citizens' Net, which has organized the rallies.
Hiroko Shibayama, 51, a part-time public worker, said, "I wonder if Japan is completely independent."
Under Japan's pacifist, United States-imposed Constitution, Japan is not permitted to possess a military, only forces for self-defense. But in the last decade, the Constitution has been interpreted to allow Self-Defense Forces to participate in several small United Nations peacekeeping missions from East Timor to Mozambique, in places where hostilities had ceased.
A special law was passed last summer allowing Japan to participate in the reconstruction of Iraq. But the troops are supposed to be posted only to non-combat areas. Unlike other soldiers, they are permitted only to defend themselves, firing only when fired upon.
Having such troops in Iraq gives moral weight to the United States-led war, as was suggested by the American Ambassador to Japan, Howard H. Baker Jr., when he said in a news conference last week that the size of Japan's contribution mattered less than its symbolism.
"It doesn't matter so much whether it's 300 people, 1,000 people or 30,000 people," Mr. Baker said.
Still, the United States was careful not to appear as if it were pressuring Japan to send troops to Iraq, so much so that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld avoided even mentioning the topic during a visit here last month.
Part of the reason the Koizumi administration has pushed ahead with the issue, despite popular opposition, has been to dispel the humiliation Japan suffered in 1991 when it failed to send any troops to the Gulf War and was accused of checkbook diplomacy.
Many here believe that proving Japan's loyalty to the United States is more important than ever, given the nuclear arms that North Korea is said to possess and China's increasingly muscular role in Asia.
--------
ALLIES
Indonesian Criticizes U.S. Over the War in Iraq
December 9, 2003
By RAYMOND BONNER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/asia/09INDO.html
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Dec. 8 - The foreign minister of Indonesia, a critical ally of the United States in the campaign against terrorism, said Monday that the American policy in Iraq might have made the world more dangerous, rather than making it safer as the Bush administration contends.
"The situation in Iraq today bears momentous implications on the global war against terrorism," Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said in a speech, attended by the American ambassador and a deputy assistant secretary of state. "The situation in Iraq today shows that smart bombs and air cover cannot turn the tide against terrorism. Terrorists have no fixed addresses that can be obliterated once and for all with surgical strikes."
Mr. Wirajuda, an American-educated lawyer, argued that by acting unilaterally, waging what he called "an arbitrary pre-emptive war," the United States has set a precedent that other countries might follow.
His remarks underscored the difficulties that the war in Iraq has caused for the Bush administration's efforts to gain support for its campaign against terrorism. More broadly, they reflected the strained relations between the United States and Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, which are said to be at the lowest point in more than 40 years.
Mr. Wirajuda spoke at a conference organized by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, a private group made up primarily of strategic studies organizations throughout the region that also has government members, including the United States, Australia, Canada and Japan. It provided financial support for the three-day conference here, which ends Tuesday.
Mr. Wirajuda spoke at a session called "The World After the Iraq War." Matthew P. Daley, deputy assistant secretary for East Asia and the Pacific, was on the same panel.
Many of those taking part in the conference, which included the ambassadors from Britain, France and India and the foreign minister of Australia, were surprised by Mr. Wirajuda's remarks.
"Pretty strong," an American businessman said at the conclusion of the speech.
American officials said Mr. Wirajuda's criticism of the United States for acting unilaterally neglected history and the fact that several administrations had worked in the United Nations for resolutions to get Iraq to allow weapons inspections and give up any illegal weapons.
If the United States had waited for the multilateral approach that Indonesia, and many other countries, wanted, Ralph L. Boyce, the American ambassador here, told the conference, Saddam Hussein would still be in power and they would not be discussing how to achieve a stable, democratic Iraq.
Mr. Boyce took strong exception to Mr. Wirajuda's statement that "an entire country has been leveled to the ground." In no war in history, the ambassador said, has an army gone to greater lengths to avoid civilian casualties and destruction.
Mr. Wirajuda's criticisms of Washington's policy in Iraq are not entirely new. In Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic country, the war in Iraq is widely seen as a war on Islam, and recent opinion polls indicate that only 17 percent of the population holds a positive view of the United States. Just a few years ago, that number was 60 percent.
Several diplomats said Mr. Wirajuda's speech was a reminder of the work that the Bush administration needed to do to get across its view of the world and the war.
Mr. Wirajuda's delivery was moderate in tone, but his points were firmly made. Aides said he had written the speech himself.
"An arbitrary pre-emptive war has been waged against a sovereign state - arbitrary because it is without sufficient justification in international law," Mr. Wirajuda argued. "Does that mean that any state may now individually and arbitrarily decide to use force pre-emptively against any other state perceived as a threat?"
He did not elaborate, but for an Asian audience the fears are that China may use the Iraq war and pre-emption doctrine to strike Taiwan, and that India may invoke it against Pakistan, or vice versa.
Nor did Mr. Wirajuda mention Indonesia's own war against secessionist rebels in Aceh Province. It is a war that is being fought out of the international eye, because the Indonesian military has largely banned journalists and Western observers.
--------
Indonesian Foreign Minister Calls U.S. Policy in Iraq 'Utter Failure'
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 9, 2003
Ellen Nakashima
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47340-2003Dec8.html
BANGKOK, Dec. 8 -- Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, strongly criticized U.S. policy toward Iraq on Monday, charging that Washington's "unilateralist" approach was "an utter failure" that threatens the cause of global peace.
Speaking at a regional security conference in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, Foreign Minister Noer Hassan Wirajuda issued his sharpest criticism so far of U.S. policy on Iraq. He warned of a Balkanization of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines and the prospect of "a new and terrible round of internecine violence."
Such developments would threaten the entire Middle East at a time when Muslims are already feeling "a keen sense of grievance," he said.
Indonesia opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which was highly unpopular among the country's vast moderate Muslim majority. But with Southeast Asia widely regarded as the second front in the Bush administration's war on terrorism, Indonesian support for that effort is pivotal.
Wirajuda said that by invading Iraq without allowing U.N. weapons inspectors to complete their work, the United States may have damaged international nonproliferation efforts. "That would make the war in Iraq a debacle to the cause of global security and peace," he said, according to a copy of his speech.
The U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Ralph L. Boyce, who attended the conference, called Wirajuda's remarks "thoughtful and provocative." But he added: "It is a little too early to declare the Iraq situation a failure. We are only a few months into this historic effort."
-------- britain
Britain counts cost of Iraq war
December 9, 2003
AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1006275.htm
More than 90 million pounds ($211 million) of missiles, bombs and ammunition were fired by British forces in the first 11 days of the war in Iraq, government figures showed Monday.
Details of the value of munitions used by Britain in the US-led campaign, which was launched on March 20, were available only for the last financial year, which ended on March 31.
From the start of hostilities until that date, 61 million pounds worth of missiles and bombs were launched and dropped, and 32 million pounds worth of ammunition fired.
Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said the figures were part of the 847 million pounds overall cost of operations in Iraq in the last financial year.
The Defence Ministry was seeking an extra 1.2 billion pounds of government funds to cover the cost of peacekeeping duties and other associated "urgent operational requirements", he said.
Last week, Britain's finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, put the cost of the "war on terror" so far, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, at 5.5 billion pounds.
-------- china
Bush Tells China Leader He Opposes Taiwan's Referendum
December 9, 2003
By DAVID STOUT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/asia/09CND-BUSH.html?hp
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - As he sat in the Oval Office today with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China, President Bush repeated his warning to Taiwan not to provoke the Beijing government. The Chinese leader expressed his appreciation for Mr. Bush's stance.
"We oppose any unilateral decision, by either China or Taiwan, to change the status quo," said Mr. Bush, who had earlier nudged Mr. Wen to do more to promote human rights in his country. "The comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally that change the status quo, which we oppose."
Mr. Wen said that separatist activities on the island "are what the Chinese side can absolutely not accept and tolerate." He said he was committed to a "peaceful unification" of Taiwan and China "so long as there is a glimmer of hope."
A moment later, he expressed gratitude toward President Bush for his handling of the issue. "We very much appreciate the position adopted by President Bush towards the latest news and developments in Taiwan - that is, the attempt to resort to referendum of various kinds as excuse to pursue Taiwan independence," he said. "We appreciate the position of the U.S. government."
The government on Taiwan made no public comment on Mr. Bush's appearance today with the Chinese premier. The Foreign Ministry said it would issue a statement at 10 a.m. Wednesday, which is 9 p.m. today Eastern time.
President Bush was reiterating his statement of Monday, when he warned Taiwanese leaders not to hold a referendum calling for China to withdraw all missiles aimed at the island and renounce the use of force against it. President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan said the referendum, widely seen as stoking sentiment for independence, would nonetheless be held as scheduled on March 20.
As he sat with Mr. Bush before a glowing White House fireplace with Christmas decorations in the background, Mr. Wen mixed smiles with finger-pointing.
"Our fundamental policy on the settlement of the question of Taiwan is peaceful reunification and one country, two systems," the prime minister said through a translator. "We would do our utmost, with utmost sincerity, to bring about national unity and peaceful reunification through peaceful means."
The prime minister said Beijing "respects the desire of people in Taiwan for democracy." But he added, "We must point out that the attempts of Taiwan authorities, headed by Chen Shui-bian, are only using democracy as an excuse and attempt to resort to defensive referendum to break Taiwan away from China."
Prime Minister Wen's visit was one of high importance to both Beijing and Washington, as they made clear, both in their Oval Office appearance and a half-hour earlier, when Mr. Bush welcomed the prime minister on the South Lawn of the White House.
"President Bush and I had an in-depth exchange of views on the China-U.S. relationship, and on national and regional issues of mutual interest," Mr. Wen said in the Oval Office. "The discussion took place under a very friendly, candid, cooperative and constructive atmosphere, and we reached consensus on many issues."
Mr. Bush agreed that the private talks had been "very friendly and candid."
"Our relationship is good and strong, and we are determined to keep it that way for the good of our respective peoples and for the sake of peace and prosperity in the world," Mr. Bush said.
Earlier, on the South Lawn, Mr. Bush described the United States and China as "partners in diplomacy," committed to stamping out terrorism and fostering stability on the Korean Peninsula. China's help in prodding North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions is crucial to Washington.
Mr. Bush said the rise of China's economy was "one of the great achievements of our time."
A moment later, he delivered a pointed message: "The growth of economic freedom in China provides reason to hope that social, political and religious freedoms will grow there as well. In the long run, these freedoms are indivisible and essential to national greatness and national dignity."
The leaders of the two countries, so vastly different in tradition, history, geography and language, went out of their way to praise each other's peoples.
"China is a great civilization, a great power and a great nation," Mr. Bush said on the South Lawn.
Mr. Wen said he had brought with him "the sincere greetings and good wishes of the great Chinese people to the great American people."
--------
Taiwan Warned By U.S. Island Asked Not To Provoke China
By Glenn Kessler and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 9, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46623-2003Dec8.html
On the eve of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit, the Bush administration signaled a tougher stance on Taiwan's moves toward independence yesterday, warning the island not to take any unilateral steps that might provoke the government on the Chinese mainland.
A senior administration official, briefing reporters in advance of Wen's meeting with President Bush today, said the administration had decided to drop a policy known as "strategic ambiguity" -- declining to say how it would respond to efforts by either nation to change Taiwan's status. Instead, the official said, actions by both countries had forced the administration to spell out more clearly what it thinks each nation should do to maintain stability in the Taiwan straits.
As part of the new diplomatic code, the official said, "coercion or the use of force" by China is unacceptable. But the bulk of the official's remarks concerned Taiwan, including a sharp rejection of a referendum scheduled this spring that U.S. officials believe is designed to inspire Taiwan's independence movement.
"I will tell you that we are giving the Taiwanese the message very clearly and very authoritatively that we don't want to see steps toward independence and we don't want to see moves taken, proposals made, that a logical outsider would conclude are really geared primarily toward moving the island in that direction," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
White House officials said the administration had not shifted its policy toward Taiwan and that the official's remarks reflect statements that have been issued in recent weeks. But conservatives within the administration and outside experts interpreted the remarks as a significant change, designed to reward China for its assistance in the North Korean nuclear crisis and amounting to a recognition of its growing status on the world political stage. A huge Chinese flag, one story high, adorned the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in anticipation of Wen's visit today.
When Bush took office, he pronounced China to be a strategic competitor and, in a televised interview in April 2001, he caused a diplomatic furor when he said Beijing needs to understand that the United States would "do whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan. The administration then quickly retreated to the long-standing approach of ambiguity about how it would react to either Taiwanese independence efforts or Chinese military movements. Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province.
Taiwan has freedoms and a thriving democracy of the sort celebrated by the president, while China is ruled by autocrats and allows little political or religious freedom. But now Bush needs Chinese assistance on economic and diplomatic issues, even as it has continued a military buildup opposite Taiwan. Meanwhile, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has alarmed U.S. officials with a series of provocative actions and statements, including scheduling a referendum that would call on China to withdraw ballistic missiles aimed at the island.
With administration officials and the U.S. military preoccupied with the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, the White House is eager to head off a potential crisis in another part of the globe.
James Moriarty, a senior official who oversees Asian affairs for the National Security Council, secretly traveled to Taiwan last week, carrying a letter from Bush to Chen expressing strong opposition to the referendum. The letter urged Chen not to take actions that increase tension across the straits and that would cause instability in the region, said a source who has read the letter.
"We don't want such a referendum," said the official who briefed reporters yesterday. "We're not clear what logical purpose it would serve. I can tell you right now that 99.6 percent of the Taiwan people would love to see the mainland withdraw its missiles. Confirming that fact through a referendum, to an extent sort of confirms the obvious" and seems designed mainly to aid Chen's reelection next year. "If anything, it probably diminishes" Taiwan's security, the official said.
"The salami is being sliced from both ends here. At one end, you have the Chinese continuing to build up their military capabilities," the official added. "On the other hand, you have a Taiwan that seems to be pushing the envelope pretty vigorously on questions that seem to be related to Taiwan's status, and that makes us uncomfortable."
The history of U.S.-Chinese diplomatic relations often turns on nuances and small phrases, designed to give both sides comfort and obscure deep differences. China frequently seeks to change the formula regarding Taiwan, while Taiwan's government tends to see how far it can stake out a claim of independence, creating diplomatic tension that the United States feels it must carefully manage.
The Bush administration has said it "does not support" Taiwan's independence. But Chinese officials have said that Bush has gone further in two private meetings with Chinese leaders, saying his administration "opposes" independence. White House officials deny that, but the subtle difference in wording is highly significant to China. In recent months, Chinese officials have pressed for sharper language from the Bush administration on Taiwan's independence movement.
"What we're trying to be is very explicit, which is, we don't want to see Taiwan moving towards independence," the official acknowledged yesterday. "We don't want to see any unilateral moves in that direction, whether that amounts to 'oppose' [or] 'do not support.' "
--------
Taiwan Rejects U.S. Request to Avoid a Vote
December 9, 2003
By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/asia/09PREX.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration issued an unusually strong warning to Taiwan on Monday not to hold a referendum that could fuel the island's independence movement. But Taiwan rejected the move hours later.
The pressure on the democratically elected government of the island appeared to be an effort to quell a growing political storm in Asia before it requires American intervention.
The warning came just a day before President Bush is to meet China's new prime minister, Wen Jiabao, at the White House. All three parties - China, Taiwan and the United States - are engaged in a delicate dance that involves a potent mix of international diplomacy and domestic politics. Taiwan's president is up for re-election next year, the Bush administration is relying heavily on Chinese help to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis and stem the growing trade deficit, and China is trying to leverage its growing economic and military power for advantage against Taiwan.
Administration officials insisted that there was no change in the fundamental one-China policy, and the State Department in recent weeks had said it opposed steps that could lead to independence for Taiwan.
But the warning on Monday was unusually blunt, and officials went further by saying they were abandoning three decades of deliberate ambiguity about how far either China or Taiwan could go in the maneuvering for the upper hand on the issue of reunification or independence.
"What you're seeing here is the dropping of the ambiguity for both sides because we cannot sort of imply to the Taiwan side that we're sort of agnostic towards moves toward Taiwan independence," a senior administration official told reporters on Monday. "But at the same time, we've got to make it clear to the Chinese that this is not a green light for you to contemplate the use of force or coercion against Taiwan."
The statements on Monday will be broadly interpreted as a warning to Taiwan that Washington opposes not only any declaration of independence, but even political discussion or a referendum on the subject. That is bound to anger pro-Taiwan members of Congress and neo-conservatives who had been celebrating Mr. Bush's recent declaration that spreading democracy is the core mission of his foreign policy.
Late last month, according to Taiwanese and American officials, the White House sent the director of Asian affairs on the National Security Council, James Moriarty, to deliver a face-to-face caution to Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, about his plans to hold a referendum in March calling for China to withdraw ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan. Mr. Moriarty carried a letter from President Bush, according to one administration official, after the White House concluded that the Taiwanese president was "pushing the envelope."
Mr. Chen, who is facing re-election, has insisted that the referendum will not center on independence. But clearly the missile question is a rough substitute for mention of that word, and Beijing has expressed alarm about the precedent of holding a vote on any delicate political topic.
Taiwanese officials said they had not been notified of any change in the American handling of the tensions between Taiwan and China.
Mr. Bush is expected to deliver to Mr. Wen a warning against any Chinese contemplation of coercion of Taiwan.
The prime minister is expected to discuss the range of Chinese-American relations, from North Korea to weapons proliferation to Washington's demand that China let its currency float to reduce its huge trade surplus with the United States.
Since arriving in the United States on Sunday, Mr. Wen has reflected a predictably hard line on Taiwan. Yet he has been more muted than the Chinese military officers who warned last week that Taiwan was facing an "abyss of war" and that China would accept any economic penalty to prevent Taiwan from using the referendum to advance the independence movement.
Such declarations leave Mr. Bush in a delicate position on an issue that he, like his predecessors, has tried to finesse. His recent calls for support of democracies around the world, especially the Middle East, leave him in a poor position to condemn freely held voting on Taiwan, a place where authoritarianism has given way to a burgeoning democracy.
But relations with China have never been more crucial. Beijing's intervention on the North Korea crisis could well mean the difference between the diplomatic settlement and a military confrontation. China's cooperation on economic issues may prove important in the presidential election, where surging Chinese imports are a major issue in manufacturing states.
When he first came to office, Mr. Bush appeared far more in Taiwan's camp. In April 2001, before he learned the nuances of the diplomatic language surrounding the Taiwan issue, he said in a television interview that the United States had an obligation to provide "whatever it took" to help Taiwan defend itself.
He caught himself in an interview later the same day, reminding Taiwan that he also supported the one-China policy, implying that Washington would not feel obligated to defend Taiwan from the military consequences of a declaration of the island's independence.
But Mr. Bush also authorized record arms sales to Taiwan to counter the threat from China, though Taiwan has purchased relatively little, American officials say.
Mr. Bush's aides say they are trying to avoid a repeat of 1996, when China fired missiles into Taiwan's shipping lanes in an effort to intimidate voters from choosing a president viewed as moving toward independence. President Clinton ordered American warships to the edge of the straits - but not inside them - to make clear that America could intercede if there was an overt attack on Taiwan. China backed away.
But Washington has maintained a policy of "strategic ambiguity" about how far it would go to defend Taiwan, especially if Taiwan itself provoked the mainland. In the view of many in the administration, that is the risk in Mr. Chen's election-season move. Mr. Bush, of course, is facing an election of his own, and in the words of one aide, "isn't shopping around for another international crisis" next year.
So while the administration insists that its policy is not changing, experts see its attitude undergoing a major shift. "The Bush administration has moved away from the traditional U.S. insistence on `peaceful means' toward a new preference for a specific end, which is securing the status quo," said Kurt Campbell, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Conservatives who have long supported Taiwan expressed some sympathy with Mr. Bush today.
"This has been handled very badly on both sides," said Larry M. Wortzel, the vice president for foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation. "The message to Taiwan had to be that if you are conscious of the commitments of U.S. troops in Iraq, you don't rattle your sabers right now."
At the same time, Mr. Wortzel said, he is confident that if push comes to shove, "the U.S. is not going to allow a democracy it nurtured for 50 years to fall to a Communist state."
Taiwan Says It Will Hold Vote
HONG KONG, Tuesday, Dec. 9 - Taiwanese officials said Tuesday that they planned to proceed with a referendum in March despite White House criticism, and called for the United States to respect and support the island's democracy.
President Chen Shui-bian announced Friday that he would hold a referendum on March 20 calling for China to withdraw all missiles aimed at Taiwan and to renounce the use of force against the island. A senior administration official in Washington said Monday that the United States did not want the referendum held and suggested that it might reduce Taiwan's security by antagonizing China, instead of enhancing it.
But Joseph Wu, President Chen's deputy chief of staff for foreign policy, said Taiwan was determined to proceed with the vote.
The referendum "shouldn't be considered as anything provocative," he said in a telephone interview. "The missile threat has been there and is increasing."
Taiwan estimates that China has 496 ballistic missiles within range of Taiwan, a number that grows by 50 to 75 a year, Mr. Wu said.
He insisted that Taiwan was not trying to alter the status quo with China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province. Taiwanese officials are in regular contact with American officials, he said, adding, "We hope the democracy here in Taiwan is honored."
President Chen is up for re-election on March 20, and the referendum has been interpreted as a way to increase the turnout of his political base, which favors greater political separation from the mainland.
-------- europe
EU may fight Iraq contracts ban
Oil is vital to help repair the Iraqi economy
Wednesday, 10 December, 2003
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3308261.stm
The European Union is to examine the legality of a US decision to bar many countries from multi-billion-dollar reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
The ban includes leading EU members France and Germany, which, alongside Russia, stand to lose lucrative deals because they opposed the US-led war.
The EU's executive arm said it would examine if the ban was in line with US obligations under world trade rules.
The US has defended its decision, describing it as "appropriate".
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that other nations that wanted to be eligible for a slice of the reconstruction money could do so by participating militarily.
Security v free trade
Companies from the countries which opposed the US-led war stand to lose out on bidding for 26 prime contracts worth $18.6bn.
They cover areas such as oil, power, communications, water and housing.
In a statement, the European Commission said it would examine the 26 contracts to determine whether they were in line with the commitments undertaken by the US in the context of the World Trade Organisation.
"As a first measure the European Commission will be requesting all necessary information from the US authorities concerned on the grounds for these limitations," it added.
US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has said the policy is necessary to protect America's "essential security interests".
Countries' uproar
But there has been a chorus of criticism of the US decision.
The French foreign ministry has announced that it, too, is studying the ban to see if it was in line with international competition law.
A spokesman for the German Government said that, if reports of the US ban were confirmed, it would be "unacceptable".
In its reaction, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said Moscow did not intend to write off Iraq's $8bn debt - despite earlier statements by Russian officials that they might consider restructuring it.
And in Canada, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley suggested that such a ban would make it difficult for his country to give any more money for rebuilding Iraq.
Canada has to date contributed more than $190m to the reconstruction effort.
British officials said London believed in open bidding for contracts, with as much attention given to Iraqi contractors as possible.
Officials declined to criticise the US position - but our world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says that there has been a difference of opinion between the US and UK for some time.
Our correspondent says the US and Britain plan to go back to the UN Security Council in a few months' time for a new resolution to get the UN involved in supporting the transitional Iraqi Government due to take office by the end of June.
The biggest contractor in Iraq is Bechtel, the American construction firm that has an estimated $1bn contract to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.
The other major US contractor is Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of the oilfield services company Halliburton, whose former boss is US Vice President Dick Cheney.
-------- iraq
Car Blast Near Base in Northern Iraq Wounds 31 G.I.'s
December 9, 2003
By IAN FISHER and CHRISTINE HAUSER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/middleeast/09CND-IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 9 - A car bomb exploded near the entrance to an American military base in northern Iraq today, wounding 31 American soldiers, some of whom had opened fire on the vehicle after it failed to stop as it approached them, the United States military said.
A spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the soldiers' injuries were not life-threatening.
Just west of Baghdad today, an American observation helicopter came under fire south of the town of Falluja and made a "hard landing,", a military spokesman said, adding that the two pilots walked away with minimal injuries. The Reuters news agency quoted civilian witnesses as saying the helicopter had been hit by rocket-propelled grenade fire.
In Baghdad, three Iraqis were reported killed in an attack on a Sunni mosque in a Shiite neighborhood that also left two people wounded. Witnesses said the attackers had used a rocket, but Iraqi police officers interviewed by a Reuters correspondent said that explosives had placed under a car parked on the mosque grounds and were detonated shortly after morning prayers.
The car explosion in northern Iraq took place at a base just outside of the city of Mosul, where an American soldier was killed on Monday while standing guard at one of the long lines of cars backed up at filling stations because of a gasoline shortage in Iraq.
After several weeks of declining attacks on Americans in Iraq, Monday's killing was the 193rd of a United States soldier since President Bush declared the end to major hostilities on May 1, and the 308th since the start of hostilities on March 20.
The soldier, who has not been identified, was killed when four men in a car opened fire about 50 yards from the gas station, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad. In the last few days, American troops have been called on to guard unruly lines of drivers, who often wait for hours to fill their tanks. The Iraqi Oil Ministry said sabotage to pipelines was mainly responsible for the gas shortage. American officials, however, blamed a recently resolved strike of truck drivers in Turkey, which provides some of Iraq's gasoline.
On Monday, the Governing Council, the 25-seat body appointed by United States officials as the main executive power in Iraq, chose a replacement for Akila al-Hashimi, who was assassinated in September. Her successor is Salama al-Khufaji, a dentist and professor at Baghdad University who, like Ms. Hashimi and a majority of Iraqis, is from the Shiite sect of Islam. Ms. al-Khufaji is from Karbala, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.
There were conflicting reports on Monday about whether a group of South Koreans working on an electrical transmission line had quit the country after two of their colleagues were killed and two others were wounded in an ambush on Nov. 30. The attack was one of several recently against civilian contractors repairing Iraq's infrastructure.
A worker at the Tulaitulah Hotel in Baghdad, where workers for the Omu Electrical Company of South Korea were staying, said about 50 left the hotel on Monday morning.
Jack Herrmann, a spokesman for the Washington Group, an Idaho-based contracting company that had subcontracted the work to the Korean company, said: "We're trying to get to the bottom of this. We're not sure if all of them have left or they have gone and will come back."
Dan Senor, a spokesman for the United States civilian authorities, said he did not believe that the workers had left Iraq. Rather, he said, a "security review" was being performed to determine the safety of the area, on the road from Baghdad north to Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.
After deadly attacks, workers for the United Nations, along with many diplomats and foreign aid workers, have left Iraq in recent months. Mr. Senor said the attackers should not be rewarded with any hint that they could disrupt reconstruction in Iraq.
"Over all, the broader question is clear," he said. "As they withdraw because of intimidation by foreign terrorists and former regime elements, the terrorists win. The foreign regime elements win."
In Samarra, a city hostile to American soldiers about 70 miles north of Baghdad, troops seized $2 million after a raid in which they searched for a man believed to be financing attacks on Americans, General Kimmitt said. The man sought was not there, he said, but the soldiers arrested a second man, who led them to the cash.
A group of 210 Shiite refugees returned Monday to the southern city of Basra from Iran, the second wave of repatriations to date. About 200,000 Shiites fled to Iran in 1991 to escape the wrath of Mr. Hussein, after a failed revolt in the wake of the Persian Gulf war.
Ian Fisher and Edward Wong reported from Baghdad for this article, and Christine Hauser reported from New York.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq: press report
LONDON (AFP)
Dec 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031209024423.lph7gu0y.html
Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, Britain's Guardian daily reported Tuesday.
US special forces teams were already behind the lines inside Syria attempting to kill foreign Islamic extremists before they cross the border with Iraq, the newspaper said.
Citing unnamed sources familiar with the operations, it reported that a group focused on the "neutralisation" of Iraqi guerrilla leaders was being set up.
"This is basically an assassination programme. That is what is being conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team," a former senior US intelligence official told the paper.
He added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced cooperation with Israel would inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East.
The Guardian said that according to US intelligence and military sources, the Israeli Defence Force had sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of US special forces.
According to two sources, Israeli military "consultants" had also visited Iraq, the paper reported.
-------- russia / chechnya
Suicide Bomb Kills at Least 5 in Heart of Russian Capital
December 9, 2003
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/europe/09CND-RUSS.html?hp
MOSCOW, Dec. 9 - A bomb exploded outside a hotel in the heart of Moscow today, killing at least five people and wounding 13 in what officials described as a terrorist attack only a few hundred feet from the Kremlin and the lower house of parliament.
The explosion, which officials said appeared to be the work of one or two suicide bombers, came only two days Russia's parliamentary elections and only four days after a suicide bombing wrecked a commuter train in southern Russia, killing at least 44.
The bomb exploded just before 11:00 a.m. on a cold, snowy morning, leaving chaos and carnage in its wake. The blast wrecked parked cars and shattered thick glass windows of the National Hotel, one of the city's most famous landmarks.
Moments after the explosion, four wrenched corpses and body parts could be seen on the sidewalk of Mokhovaya Street, which parallels the Kremlin's wall, less than 800 feet away.
President Vladimir V. Putin, who was meeting with legislators inside the Kremlin when the bomb exploded, denounced the bombing as an attempt to destabilize Russia's democracy and economic development and called for a redoubled fight against ``the actions of criminals, terrorists.''
Mr. Putin did not mention Chechnya, but the attack bore the characteristics of previous suicide bombings attributed to the bloody separatist war there.
Moscow's mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, said that the attack involved two women who asked a passerby for the way to the parliament, or Duma, which stands just across Tverskaya Street.
``Evidently the bomb went off on its own,'' the mayor told the Interfax news agency, suggesting that the parliament was the target of the attack. ``The National Hotel was not the place chosen by terrorists.''
The attack, coming after the one on Friday, raised fears of a new wave of suicide bombings. In the spring and summer, a series of attacks rocked Russia, including a dual suicide bombing at a rock concert in Moscow in July that killed 16 and a failed attempt five days later on Tverskaya Street, less than two miles north of the National Hotel. A security officer died trying to defuse explosives in a black sports bag in that attack.
After today's attack, the authorities evacuated the Kiev train station after the discovery of a package beneath a train car, but the package turned out to be harmless. Officials said they had ordered heightened security across a city that already has tight security, including the sealing off of much of Red Square since July.
Outside the National, police using dogs scoured the area for more bombs and pushed back crowds of journalists and passersby. Officials said that additional explosives were found on the headless body of a woman believed to have been the suicide bomber.
Just before 1:00 p.m. and again 40 minutes later, the police blew up the explosives and a briefcase that sat in the charred wreckage on the sidewalk. The explosions retorted with sharp cracks through the historic heart of Moscow that, like the original blast, could be heard for blocks around.
``We had just sat down when there was a wave of pressure and smoke and the smell of - I don't know - dynamite,'' said Manfred Fischer, a German businessman from Frankfurt who arrived in Moscow on Monday for an exhibition.
He had met his business partners in the hotel's lobby only moments before the bomb exploded outside. They decided to have coffee in the cafe inside - a decision, he said, that might have saved him from injury or worse.
Mr. Fischer said the lobby and entrance were strewn with shattered glass and three or four stunned victims, their heads smeared with blood. He helped a doorman bring one injured man inside from the cold and asked workers to gather blankets for the wounded. The experience left him stunned and frightened and relieved.
-------- space
Japan abandons Martian probe mission
TOKYO (AFP)
Dec 09, 2003
http://www.marsdaily.com/2003/031209134158.i1quixrr.html
Japan's trouble-plagued first mission to Mars was abandoned on Tuesday in the latest of a series of costly failures to hit the country's space development programme.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency made a final attempt Tuesday to remotely repair electronic circuitry on the Nozomi probe damaged by a solar flare last year, which caused the main engine to shut down, officials said.
"But we failed to fix the short-circuit in the electric system and, as the result, we gave up the plan to place Nozomi into orbit around Mars," said Yasunori Matogawa, an agency researcher in charge of the mission.
"From now on, we will continue trying to fix the circuit so that we may be able to use the probe for other space observatorial purposes," Matogawa said.
Nozomi, Japan's first Martian probe, was launched in 1998 with an initial plan to go into orbit around the Red Planet by the summer of 1999 at a cost of 20 billion yen (186 million dollars).
But the probe experienced a problem with fuel consumption in its first year and its attempt to swing by the Earth's orbit to gain momentum before travelling to Mars failed.
Nozomi was then damaged by an extensive solar flare in April last year, which crippled some communications equipment and devices that manoeuvre the probe.
The abandonment is the latest failure for the nation's space development programme.
Japan aborted the launch of spy satellites to monitor North Korea shortly after a Japanese H-2A rocket blasted off on November 29.
The agency destroyed both the rocket and satellites as one of the two rocket boosters failed to separate from the fuselage in the second phase.
It was Japan's first launch failure since 1999, when it also destroyed a rocket carrying a satellite in flight.
The latest failure was in sharp contrast to China's success in October in sending a Chinese astronaut into orbit to circle the Earth 14 times in a 21-hour flight.
Last month's satellite launch failure means Japan will be forced to delay the planned launch of another H-2A rocket in February with a satellite to be used for weather observation to conduct further tests on the rocket, observers have said.
The series of failures may intensify concerns that Japan's space development programme is fundamentally flawed, they said.
-------- spies
Ex-Government Officials Recommend Intelligence Overhaul
December 9, 2003
By JAMES RISEN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/politics/09TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - In the two years since the Sept. 11 attacks, a group of veterans of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Pentagon has been quietly trying to figure out how to help shape the debate over intelligence reform in the wake of the attacks. They say the place to start is a drastic realignment of the way the United States conducts intelligence and counterterrorism operations within its borders.
And, in the best spirit of media-drenched modern-day Washington, they are taking their case public.
On Monday, two members of this private group testified before the independent commission on the 9/11 attacks to urge an overhaul of domestic intelligence.
John MacGaffin, a former senior C.I.A. official, and John Hamre, a deputy defense secretary in the Clinton administration, recommended that a new domestic intelligence service be created within the F.B.I., but that it be managed by the director of central intelligence.
Their proposal falls short of calling for a new domestic spy agency like Britain's MI-5. That is a result of sharp divisions within the group over whether the F.B.I. should be given another chance to prove that it can handle domestic intelligence.
"Our group was divided on the question of whether or not we felt the F.B.I. could make this transition," Mr. Hamre told the commission.
The group is made up of former officials from intelligence and law enforcement, and consists of Robert Bryant, former deputy director of the F.B.I.; Mr. MacGaffin, former associate deputy director for operations at the C.I.A.; Paul Redmond, former chief of counterintelligence at the C.I.A.; Jeffrey Smith, former general counsel of the C.I.A.; Howard Shapiro, former general counsel of the F.B.I.; Jack Lawn, a former senior F.B.I. official; and Mr. Hamre.
They have decided to focus on domestic intelligence in part because it is an issue that is still up for grabs in Washington. The Bush administration has so far rejected proposals to create a new domestic intelligence agency, and instead has taken a series of measures short of that, including the creation of a terrorist threat analysis organization jointly run by the C.I.A. and F.B.I. But there is strong interest in Congress in more comprehensive reforms, and the Sept. 11 commission seems likely to recommend creating an independent domestic intelligence agency.
"The domestic collection piece is the one where there is the most room for improvement, because so little is being done," Mr. MacGaffin said.
Under the group's proposal, the agents of the new F.B.I. domestic intelligence service would spend their careers in intelligence and counterterrorism and would not periodically rotate into criminal case work.
That would be an important cultural shift for the F.B.I., where all agents consider themselves law enforcement officers first.
"You need bureau officers who are not law enforcement officers, but are intelligence officers," Mr. Redmond said. "They would come to work every day to penetrate organizations, not to arrest somebody."
After serving as the F.B.I.'s second-highest official in the 1990's, Mr. Bryant remains loyal to the institution and is confident that it can change if given the proper structure and direction.
"We are in the middle of the Super Bowl right now," Mr. Bryant said in an interview. "We are in the midst of a crisis, and if you are going to change teams, that is a 10-year process, and now is not the time to do it."
In an interview, Mr. Hamre said that the real question was whether the F.B.I. could rise above a culture thick with risk-aversion. Restrictions first placed on the bureau in the 1970's still affect the organization, and make its agents less willing to take aggressive action.
Mr. Shapiro said in an interview that in his time at the bureau in the 1990's, F.B.I. agents were wary of taking on politically charged investigations because of their memories of being criticized for infiltrating civil rights and antiwar groups in the 1960's and 1970's.
"When we tried to get the F.B.I. to infiltrate right-wing groups involved in a nationwide conspiracy to bomb abortion clinics, they said to us, 20 years ago, as some of us still remember, we did that and when the political winds changed nobody backed us up and we went to jail for it," he said.
-------- un
U.N. Sending Israel Issue to World Court
December 9, 2003
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/international/middleeast/09NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 8 - The General Assembly approved a resolution on Monday asking the International Court of Justice to rule on the legality of the barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank.
The vote was 90 in favor and 8 opposed, with 74 abstaining.
The resolution followed a General Assembly vote in October demanding that Israel tear down the barrier and a report from Secretary General Kofi Annan on Nov. 28 calling its construction "a deeply counterproductive act" that was causing the Palestinian population "serious socioeconomic harm."
The World Court, based in The Hague and created to settle legal disputes between nations, is not obligated to issue an opinion. But Arab nations worked for the resolution in the hope of increasing pressure on Israel over what they consider an illegal land grab.
Resolutions from the 191-member General Assembly are nonbinding and largely symbolic, unlike those passed by the Security Council. The United States, which voted against the resolution, vetoed a similar Security Council resolution in October.
President Bush has expressed concern about the barrier, but the United States has refused to endorse motions against it on the grounds that they do not contain strong enough balancing language condemning terrorism against Israel.
James B. Cunningham, the deputy United States representative here, denounced the resolution as "one-sided and completely unbalanced," adding, "It doesn't even mention the word terrorism."
The barrier includes electronic fencing, concrete walls, trenches and guard towers, and Israel argues it is needed to ward off Palestinian attackers and suicide bombers.
"This is the Arafat fence," declared Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador, referring to Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. "This is the fence that Arafat built. His terrorism initiated it and made its construction inevitable."
He said that the barrier had saved many Israeli lives and that it was being built with as much consideration for local residents as possible.
"We stress that while the rights of local residents are legitimate and important," he said, "we should not forget that the right not to be murdered by terrorists is a right which is certainly no less important and, if violated, is impossible to redress."
In response, Nasser al-Kidwa, head of the Palestinian observer mission, assailed the barrier as the "Sharon wall," after the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and called it the "wall of shame in the 21st century."
Saying he objected to Israeli characterizations of the barrier as a security measure, Mr. Kidwa added, "In our world, there should be no place for walls, particularly if built on occupied territories with the aim of conquest and annexation."
Among those abstaining were the nations of the European Union. Ambassador Marcello Spatafora of Italy, which now holds the union's rotating presidency, explained that the Europeans were alarmed about the wall and negative effects it might have on forging a so-called two-state solution, but that they believed that seeking a legal judgment would not help restart political dialogue.
Representatives of Arab and Muslim nations argued that the barrier wall would block the road map, the multistep Middle East peace plan backed by the Bush administration.
-------- us
Military to explore future of air defense
Laura Cruz
El Paso Times
Tuesday, December 9, 2003
http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20031209-54356.shtml
Threats facing air and missile defense, lessons learned in Operation Iraqi Freedom and defending the homeland are among the topics expected to be discussed by defense industry and government leaders during an annual symposium this week.
The ninth annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium runs today through Thursday at the Judson F. Williams Convention Center in Downtown.
The symposium has three objectives, said John Cummings, spokesman for U.S. Space and Missile Defense Command.
"First, to inform and educate participants of the latest threats, doctrine and programs related to space, missile defense and homeland defense," Cummings said. "Second, to showcase space and missile-defense systems that support integrated air and missile defense."
The symposium's third objective is to provide a forum for the expected 400 attendees to discuss topics related to this year's subject, "Air, Space and Missile Defense -- Enabling the Current Fight and the Future Force."
"These discussions will be a little broader in scope than they had been," said David Casmus, president of the El Paso chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army. "It's also going to be touching on not only the immediate needs of the Army, but the future."
This symposium also will include guest speaker Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who will give a 30-minute speech by video teleconference Wednesday.
At the end of December, Rumsfeld is expected to publish in the Federal Registry the criteria proposed to be used in making recommendations for closing or realigning about 25 percent of military installations, known as Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC.
Although the realignment could potentially affect the future of air and missile defense, Casmus said BRAC and the symposium "are two entirely different issues" and should not be connected.
Retired Maj. Gen. James Maloney, a member of the Texas Military Preparedness Commission, agreed and added that military leaders are restricted when it comes to discussing BRAC.
But Maloney said the possible repositioning of missile defense forces in South Korea, as well as Germany, to the United States could become more of a reality if the Army becomes a lighter and more mobile force that can deploy within a moment's notice as discussed in previous symposiums.
"As the trend to a small, lighter and more projectable force proceeds, we could see a reduction in forces overseas," Maloney said.
Although BRAC will not be addressed, other topics such as defending the homeland, developments in joint service and lessons learned will be highlighted.
Operation Iraqi Freedom will offer good examples for the discussions, particularly regarding what the military has learned from the war in the Persian Gulf.
"We were nine for nine when it came to intercepting and destroying Iraqi missiles," Casmus said. "But there were some lessons learned that can't be ignored."
Casmus said one example is the Patriot missile system's involvement in two "friendly fire" incidents. On April 2, a Patriot allegedly shot down a U.S. Navy warplane and killed the pilot. On March 24, a Patriot allegedly shot down a Royal Air Force Tornado GR4, killing two British pilots. Both incidents are still under investigation.
For the defense industry, the symposium offers an opportunity to discuss future technology and learn about the military's needs, said Russell Moore, a Raytheon senior manager for El Paso corporate business development.
"The symposium also affords an opportunity for the community to view some of the technology already available and also to see -- to some degree -- where their tax money is going," Moore said.
Laura Cruz may be reached at lcruz@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.
----
'Losers' in 2004 base funding could be vulnerable to closure
By Amy Svitak and Richard H.P. Sia,
Congress Daily
December 9, 2003
http://www.govexec.com/news/index.cfm?mode=report2&articleid=27237&printerfriendlyVers=1&
The Washington, D.C., area has its share of excess military infrastructure, some of which could prove ripe for trimming during the Defense Department's upcoming round of base closures. One vulnerable facility is Bolling Air Force Base, an analysis of the final fiscal 2004 military construction appropriations bill shows.
So far, the Pentagon is not saying which facilities are most likely to get the ax -- although Raymond DuBois, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment, has lamented the Washington area's excess capacity in the past and suggested how it might be put to better use in the future.
"We have now -- very large military installations here in the Washington area. We also have an enormous amount of leased space in the Washington metropolitan area," DuBois said at a news briefing late last year. "Can we better utilize the military installations, the military real property assets owned by the services, and reduce the expense of leased space?"
Bolling was one of many casualties of the fiscal 2004 appropriations process, failing to garner any new construction funds that might deflect scrutiny next fiscal year, when the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission decides which facilities to shut down. President Bush sought $9.3 million this year for an adjudication facility at Bolling in his budget request, but the House nixed the funds in the conference for the military construction spending bill, which now awaits his signature.
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and several Army National Guard centers -- three alone in Alabama -- also failed to get funding from conferees, despite presidential requests for multimillion-dollar upgrades. (For a complete database ranking allocations of fiscal 2004 construction funds by facility, click here.) As for Bolling -- a relatively small Air Force installation situated in a densely populated urban area -- several analysts see it as an obvious choice for closure. While it houses the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Air Force headquarters building, a ceremonial air wing, band and honor guard, these analysts say other area facilities, such as the Washington Navy Yard or Maryland's much larger Andrews Air Force Base, could take on these missions in a realignment.
The 2004 spending bill also left Moody Air Force Base in Georgia vulnerable to a closure decision. In 2001, Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., added $6.9 million to the House version of the military construction bill to build a C-130 maintenance hangar there. The effort failed in conference with the Senate but has been revised since then. Two attempts were made this year in the Senate to add $7.6 million for the base to the 2004 Defense appropriations bill and the military construction bill.
Both add-ons failed in conference, leaving Moody without any construction funds -- not even family housing money. But community groups remain hopeful, saying the base, home to the 347th Rescue Wing -- the only such wing in the Air Force -- is well-positioned to avoid closure. This is partly because the Air Force Special Operations Command, whose vice commander is a former member of that unit, controls it.
Another facility absent from the 2004 spending bill was Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. It has survived earlier closure rounds but was omitted from the president's budget and both House and Senate versions of the spending measure. That may have helped spur state officials to launch a campaign last month to save the base and hire a retired Air Force general as a consultant.
A state development agency called MassDevelopment is lobbying to acquire adjacent land in hopes of attracting a high-tech tenant that might make the base too valuable to close. The agency also hopes to influence the Pentagon as it develops criteria, due at the end of this month, for BRAC decision making. Its aim is to give science and technology facilities like Hanscom a higher profile in the Pentagon's evolving BRAC process.
Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California also was denied 2004 military construction funds. President Bush sought $16.5 million to build a consolidated fitness center there, but the Senate eliminated the requested funds in conference.
The base houses the Air Force Space Command and the 30th Space Wing. It could take on the service's Space and Missile Systems Center now at Los Angeles Air Force Base if that base were to close. The Los Angeles base is located in an expensive section of Los Angeles County, and analysts consider it an obvious choice for closure, since it boasts no actual space or missile facilities.
But a Senate add-on, giving the Los Angeles base $5 million for a "main gate complex," survived the conference, possibly helping safeguard the installation from the BRAC process.
Another major southern California facility -- Edwards Air Force Base, known for its test pilot school -- won an infusion of nearly $26.4 million for new construction in the final spending bill.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- police
Internal Police Investigation Widens, to 5 Suspects From 2
December 9, 2003
By SHAILA K. DEWAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/nyregion/09COP.html
Federal prosecutors and police Internal Affairs Bureau investigators who are looking into the activities of a retired police detective and an 18-year veteran arrested two weeks ago have expanded their inquiry to include a retired lieutenant and two current detectives, according to several law enforcement officials.
The three men have been implicated by the retired detective, Thomas Rachko, who faces charges of joining with an on-duty detective, Julio C. Vasquez, to rob a drug dealer of $169,000, law enforcement officials said. Mr. Rachko, who was arrested on Nov. 26, has been cooperating with investigators.
The investigation is in its early stages, and one detective has been placed on modified duty in connection with the investigation, a law enforcement official said.
Mr. Rachko and Mr. Vasquez were recorded on videotape robbing a drug courier two weeks ago, according to criminal complaints. Investigators are looking into the possibility that the two, who were partners in the Police Department Narcotics Division, have been engaged in misconduct for as long as six or seven years.
Mr. Rachko retired last year, and Mr. Vasquez resigned last week after being charged in Federal District Court in Brooklyn with lying to a federal agent and in Queens Criminal Court with grand larceny, money laundering and coercion. Mr. Vasquez has also been charged with official misconduct.
The drug courier, who officials have said tipped off the two men in exchange for a share of the cash, was under surveillance by a task force investigating money laundering. When Detective Vasquez and Mr. Rachko arrived, wearing police raid jackets and driving a department car, they told members of the task force that they were with a narcotics unit working on a wiretap investigation, the criminal complaints say.
They handcuffed the courier, the complaints say, and drove away with him and his satchel full of money.
The task force, made up of federal and local law enforcement agents, soon discovered that there was no wiretap investigation and that Mr. Rachko was retired.
Later that day, one complaint says, Mr. Rachko called a task force member to explain that he had merely been helping a friend with an arrest. Nevertheless, the task force contacted the Internal Affairs Bureau.
William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting for this article.
-------- terrorism
Antiterrorism Training Camp Opens
JILL KING GREENWOOD jgreenwood@tampatrib.com
Dec 9, 2003
Tampa Bay Online
http://www.tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/MGAXA2EFZND.html
LITHIA - In a field in rural Hillsborough County on Monday, two sheriff's helicopters and an armored tank descended on a Boeing 727 airliner, and a loud explosion rocked the air.
A dozen SWAT team members jumped from the tank and helicopters and stormed the plane with rifles and handguns drawn. They entered the aircraft in a flurry of activity and ran down the center aisle, pointing guns at about 50 ``passengers'' and ordering them to put their hands on their heads.
Though the scenario was a training exercise, it demonstrated how prepared local law enforcement could be in the event of a terrorist attack or airline hostage crisis in the Bay area.
The Anti-Terrorism Training Facility was unveiled Monday, complete with a converted American Airlines Boeing 727 commercial jet that will be used by law enforcement agencies from across the country to practice antiterrorism tactics and homeland security measures.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office - along with other local, state and federal law enforcement officers, and politicians and dignitaries - dedicated the new facility at the sheriff's Practical Training Site in Lithia.
``This is a huge honor for us, and the training that this facility will provide is invaluable in this post-9/11 world,'' Sheriff Cal Henderson said.
The dedication featured tactical demonstrations by the sheriff's office SWAT team and presentations of awards and certificates to more than 100 people and 24 businesses and agencies that contributed time and money to the effort.
Donations and in-kind services covered the entire $500,000 tab for moving, reassembling, refurbishing and painting the aircraft.
The keynote speaker was John Walsh, host of Fox's ``America's Most Wanted,'' who praised the sheriff's office for taking proactive homeland security measures. Walsh said he plans to feature the facility on his TV show Saturday.
``We're gonna tell the world about one little place in Central Florida and one sheriff who has the courage to bring the private and public sectors together to say: `We're not gonna take this laying down. If you're dumb enough to try to come over here and terrorize us and kill our people again, you'll pay a terrible price. We're gonna be ready, we're not gonna be terrorized, and we're not gonna buckle.' ''
Much of the facility was established several years ago, including classrooms, ranges for shooting and driver training, a bomb disposal depot, a rappelling tower, and structures used for mock disasters. Adding the plane to that arsenal established the sheriff's office's dedication to homeland security, Henderson said.
Hillsborough deputies are expected to begin training on the aircraft next week, said sheriff's Cpl. Terry Martin, leader of the Emergency Response Team.
Henderson said Hillsborough's new facility is the only one if its kind in the nation. A training center at the FBI training headquarters in Quantico, Va., has an airplane fuselage, but the plane has no wings, Martin said.
That training facility is open to federal law enforcement officers only, and Hillsborough's will be open to any law enforcement agency in the United States, Henderson said.
A freight company, Capital Cargo International in Orlando, bought the 135-foot-long plane and three others in 2002 from American Airlines to use for parts for maintenance, said Ed Hill, director of maintenance for Capital Cargo.
Hill said the company decided to donate the plane to a law enforcement agency instead and then learned that Henderson was interested in beefing up Hillsborough's antiterrorism efforts.
In May, the wings, nose cone and tail were removed and the plane was moved by truck from Orlando International Airport to the center.
It was then refurbished and painted with stripes along its sides in yellow and green, sheriff's office colors, and the ``America's Most Wanted'' logo on the tail.
Reporter Jill King Greenwood can be reached at (813) 657-4534.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Wisconsin Engineer Develops Microgrids for Reliable Energy
MADISON, Wisconsin, (ENS)
December 9, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2003/2003-12-09-09.asp#anchor6
A microgrid system that might help utility companies avoid blackouts like the one that shut down the northeastern United States and the Canadian province of Ontario last summer, has been developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Researchers from the College of Engineering have designed a system where a small network of local generators can reliably disconnect from the rest of the power supply, enabling locations where electricity is critical to stay in operation during a blackout. Most buildings receive their electrical power from transmission lines branching off a main power grid. With energy coming from a large network - the one responsible for the August blackout stretched 157,000 miles - any disruption could cause a cascade of powerlessness in cities as occurred August 14.
Because the new technology developed at UW-Madison receives its power locally, it can leap frog transmission lines, avoiding any failures within those lines, says lead inventor Robert Lasseter, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering.
The technology consists of a microgrid, a small network of several power generators located at a single site. These generators, integrated into the main energy distribution system, encompass a wide range of power sources, including micro-turbines, gas internal combustion engines, fuel cells and photovoltaic solar cells.
When problems occur within the transmission lines, the generators and the devices each one powers can separate from the main distribution system to isolate particular areas such as hospital rooms or a factory floor from the disturbance.
Lasseter said, "The critical loads in a microgrid can ride through any event. That means they can stay alive when the grid fails."
Providing reliability requires more than separating the microgrid from the main power system, says Lasseter. Drops in voltage, even from generators in a small network, can lead to fluctuations in power that shut down equipment or recalibrate machinery. These are the types of costly problems that businesses want to avoid during a blackout.
To dodge these fluctuations, Lasseter and his graduate student, Paolo Piagi, have fit the generators in the migrogrid with voltage source inverters that allow each generator to regulate voltage, thereby regulating electric current and the energy it produces.
All generators - whether part of a utility plant or small building - produce more waste heat than electricity. Smaller generators, such as those in Lasseter's microgrid network, can be placed in areas that need to be heated, he says.
This placement of the generators and the waste heat they produce can increase their usable energy to nearly 90 percent, and can do so without the use of complex heat distribution systems, such as steam and chilled water pipes.
Lasseter and his UW-Madison colleagues are planning to build a working microgrid with the California Department of Energy and the Sandia, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. The project would simulate the possible use of a microgrid at a small factory.
The microgrid design is patented by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization that patents and licenses intellectual property for the university.
----
Coloradans Honored as Champions of Renewables
GOLDEN, Colorado, (ENS)
December 9, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2003/2003-12-09-09.asp#anchor8
The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is honoring three distinguished Coloradoans today for their leadership in promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.
NREL is recognizing Lola Spradley, speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives who has promoted the use of renewable energy in the state. In February, Spradley introduced a bill establishing a renewable energy standard for Colorado. Although killed in the state Senate, the measure would have required investor owned utilities to increase the amount of electricity they produce from wind, biomass, hydroelectricity, geothermal and solar energy to 900 megawatts (MW) by the year 2010 and to 1,800 MW by 2020.
Currently, Xcel Energy produces about 62 MW from wind power in Colorado and there is a planned wind farm at Lamar that will generate another 162 MW.
Cal Marsella, general manager of the Regional Transportation District (RTD) who has championed the use of clean alternative fuels for RTD's huge fleet of heavy vehicles.
Roger Ogden, president and general manager of KUSA-TV, the Denver NBC network affiliate, and former president and managing director of NBC Europe has undertaken several highly visible initiatives to educate Colorado consumers about the advantages of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Each of these achievements was recognized at the annual NREL Stakeholders Reception this evening at the Pinnacle Club in Denver. The title of this year's event is, "Celebration of Invention and Innovation: 50th Anniversary of the Solar Cell & Leadership in Renewable Energy."
Also honored was Dr. Morton Price of the Bell Labs, a pioneer in the development of early solar cells.
Based in Golden, NREL is a U.S. Department of Energy's laboratory for renewable energy research and development. NREL is operated for the government by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle.
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Day 1: As Hunters Kill, Protesters Howl
December 9, 2003
By ROBERT HANLEY and JASON GEORGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/nyregion/09BEAR.html
VERNON, N.J., Dec. 8 - Thirty-three years after New Jersey's last bear hunt, hundreds of hunters armed with shotguns and muzzle-loading rifles tromped through a foot of snow on Monday in search of some of what could be as many as 3,300 black bears thought to be living in northwest New Jersey.
The six-day hunt had been alternately hailed as an attempt to cull a bear population that had grown to dangerous proportions and lambasted as a cruel exercise in human vanity.
Protesters, some in bear masks, and hunters were out in force after a fierce weekend snowstorm threw an unexpected wrench into the hunt. Bears live in 41 states, 27 of which, including New York, allow bear hunts. Connecticut does not have a bear hunt.
But the issue in New Jersey, the nation's most densely populated state, has been the subject of a handful of lawsuits and a welter of controversy. There was speculation early in the day that the snow would keep the bears in their dens, where hunters were forbidden by the rules of the hunt. But by 5 p.m., hunters had killed 61 bears, the largest weighing 498 pounds, the state Department of Environmental Protection said.
Martin McHugh, director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, refused to characterize the first day's kill as high or low. "It's about what we expected for the time of year it is," he said outside a bear weigh-in station in Wawayanda State Park in Vernon. "We've got cold weather, and this is a conservative hunt."
Hunters who spent a futile day in the snowy woods said more bears would have been killed if the weather were warmer and the ridges and swamps of northwestern New Jersey were free of snow. After all, they noted, bears have not been hunted in the state since 1970 and have no wariness of hunters.
Bill Bender, 38, a hunter from nearby West Milford, said he had had no luck, even though he said he knew many of the trails bears roam near his home.
"It's just too cold," Mr. Bender said after stopping at the Wawayanda station to ask about the fortunes of other hunters. "They're denned up. They're just curled up in a ball somewhere. When it gets warmer, you'll start seeing them."
Harry McDole, 63, of Franklin, N.J., took the first bear, a 160-pound female, to the Wawayanda weighing station in midmorning.
"This is my fourth one, but it's my best because I got it in New Jersey," Mr. McDole said. He said had he killed the other three in New Brunswick, Canada.
"I've waited 33 years to shoot one in New Jersey," he said. "It's a great thing. It cost me only a $2 shotgun shell instead of spending $1,000 going to Canada."
Mr. McHugh, of the Fish and Wildlife Division, said about 5,300 hunters had received final state clearance to participate in the six-day hunt. Each hunter is allowed to kill one bear.
State wildlife biologists believe that 3 percent to 8 percent of them will succeed, meaning that anywhere from 160 to 425 bears may be killed this week.
The state's environmental commissioner, Bradley M. Campbell, has said he will stop the hunt at any point he believes that too many bears have been killed. He has declined to specify that number.
Mr. McHugh has denied charges by anti-hunt groups that the state wants to decimate the bear population. He said that officials are seeking only to slow the population's rate of growth. State wildlife biologists estimate that 600 to 700 cubs will be born by next spring.
The precise number of bears in the state is in dispute. Last spring, state officials estimated the population at 3,300. But experts hired by the state put the figure closer to 1,350. Mr. Campbell said last week that the number ranged between 2,000 and 3,000.
"It's laughable the state bear biologists would come up with that huge a range and use it as an excuse to have this hunt," one protester, Steve Heuer, of Hackettstown, N.J., said at Wawayanda on Monday.
Protesters said the event was appalling.
"I'm here because I've been calling, faxing, writing, and it doesn't seem to work, so I came out here," said Marylee Morinelli, 38, of Pleasantville, N.J., who showed up at the Flatbrook-Roy Wildlife Management Area with a video camera hoping to record the depositing of bear carcasses. "Our whole goal for documenting this is so the general public will have an outcry."
For most of the hunters, it was a long day.
The last time bear hunting was legal in New Jersey, Pete Hefferan was celebrating being part of the Roxbury High School graduating class of 1970. He was a hunter then, but for years it nagged him that he missed what he felt what was his last opportunity until Monday.
So Mr. Hefferan, 50, who said he had hunted on three continents and led African safaris for seven years, returned to the woods of his childhood in hope of finding the American black bear.
Rising at 4:30 a.m., Mr. Hefferan, dressed in a camouflage jumpsuit and blaze orange cap, loaded his truck with a thermos of his wife's creamy tea and his transitional Yeager rifle, a re-creation of a 1750 muzzle-loader.
Shotguns and muzzle-loaders are the only firearms allowed in the hunt, and hunters cannot shoot them within 450 feet of a home.
Even with the temperatures in the teens and ice crystals on his face, Mr. Hefferan seemed thrilled to sit in the cold for more than eight hours waiting for a bear.
"Any day is a good day out in the woods hunting bear," he said, despite seeing nothing more menacing than a very chilled squirrel.
Mr. Hefferan finally gave up just before 2 p.m., ending his hunt by first walking half a mile to a bear den that he had scouted weeks before. It is illegal to hunt a bear in or near a den in New Jersey, a restriction Mr. Hefferan agrees with. But he said he wanted to see if the bear had left its home, something that would have been evident by tracks in the snow.
"It hasn't even come out," he said. "They call it hunting, not a sure thing," he added with a hearty laugh as he crested the ridge of the den.
Opponents of the hunt had other views. "This is an extermination, not a hunt," said Steve Ember, a member of the executive committee of the Sierra Club.
Robert Hanley reported from Vernon, N.J., and Jason George from Cranberry Lake.
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Hegemony or Survival
Noam Chomsky interviewed
by Evan Solomon
Hot Type,
December 9, 2003
http://www.cbc.ca/hottype/season03-04/03-12-09_chomsky.html
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20031209.htm
Nobody we ever talked to on HotType provoked such controversy - both lavish praise and harsh criticism as Noam Chomsky. Since the Vietnam War the controversial public intellectual, professor and activist has been at the centre of the debate about the US use and misuse of its power. As the violence continues in Iraq, Noam Chomsky has a new book out called "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance." We thought it was a good time to come here to Boston to this non-descript building where Noam Chomsky teaches, and we sat down to have a conversation about everything from his new book to his treatment in the American press-especially the New York Times to what may happen in the future...
PART ONE
EVAN SOLOMON: You argue in the book that the fundamental principal that this administration and past administrations have functioned under is that hegemony is more important than survival. can these two things function together?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Those who sought domination, hegemony, often did so at their own severe risk. Look at the history of warfare. You'll find that those who started wars often were defeated and sometimes devastatingly defeated. The differences now are scale. Survival of the species was not an issue before. It is now. It has been ever since nuclear weapons were around and it's getting worse.
ES: The Bush administration has been criticized for refusing to sign the Kyoto protocols or to take any steps toward reducing, significant steps, toward reducing what could be environmental catastrophe.
NC: I mean we're taught...what we have drilled into our heads...your driving force in life is to maximize your own wealth. Therefore it's perfectly rational to maximize your own wealth and destroy a world in which your grandchildren can live. Of course, it's also pathological.
The same is true of a lot of other things. Take the militarization of space.
Right after the national security strategy was announced in September of 2002, the space command, which is in control of futuristic military programs....say we have to move from control of space, which we now have, to ownership of space. Ownership of space means no challenge will be tolerated. It's ours, you get out.
Others are going to react to this - in fact they already are...and they're all moving to automated response systems, launch-on-warning-type systems. This is a recipe for disaster.
We have come very close, as I discuss in the book, what was just discovered last October at the Havana retrospective on the Cuban missile crisis, turns out that we were literally one word away from a nuclear war. If one Russian submarine captain had not cancelled an order -
ES: He was actually ordered to fire nuclear weapons.
NC: It was his decision whether to fire nuclear weapons. The others said yeah. He said no. They needed agreement in order to do it. These were torpedoes, nuclear-tipped torpedoes. It's almost certain there would have been nuclear response and then you're off and running.
ES: President Bush said that democracy is - this is a quote - democracy is the only path to national success and dignity in the middle east.
NC: If we were reasonable our reaction to this would be to completely discount it because any leader you pick, anyone you like is going to produce this rhetoric. That comes with the job. What you do is look at the practices that lie behind it.
ES: You cite the case of Turkey, for example, and Turkey's reaction to the war against Iraq. And you explain how this war illustrated what the Bush administration means when it says democracy.
NC: Yeah, and Turkey is a striking case.
But what went on with regard to democracy this year? It was pretty interesting.
In the case of Turkey, to everyone's surprise including mine, the government took the position of 95% of the population and they were bitterly attacked by the Bush administration -
ES: 95% of the population said you should not allow Turkey to be used as a staging ground for U.S. Troops...
NC: - to everyone's surprise.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, he went so far as to condemn the Turkish military bitterly for failing to prevent the government from carrying out this terrible act of accepting the position of 95% of the population.
In fact, he called on them, basically ordered them, to apologize to t