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NUCLEAR
Are Gulf war veterans getting better?
Intention Deficit Disorder
Sweden to Fund New Blix - Led Weapons Body
Pakistan Nuke Scientists Being Questioned
Pakistan Quizzes Nuclear Scientists, No Iran Link
Iran's leader rules out nuclear weapons
'Fresh activity' at N Korea nuclear plant
North Korea's nukes
Talks on N. Korea's Nuke Program Planned
N.Korea Nuclear Talks Seen Delayed to Mid - January
Nuclear breakout in the Middle East?
Aegis cruiser will attempt to shoot down missile in test off Hawaii
Aegis Missile Test Successful
GAO Calls for Review of Missile Defense Satellite Program
U.S. Hits Target in Sea - Based Missile Test
Missile Defense Hits Target During Test
DOE affirms nuclear labs can be run by different contractors
Facility could start processing waste in early '04
Hanford completes work on F Reactor
McCain-Feingold Ruling Angers Activists on Both Left and Right
MILITARY
U.S. Says Other Afghan Children Died in Earlier Raid
8 Afghan Civilians Killed in U.S. Raid
Militias Transfer Heavy Arms, Bolstering Kabul's Authority
Britain Restructuring Its Armed Forces
U.S. Decision on Iraq Contracts Irritates Excluded War Critics
Army Corps to Have Big Role in Awarding Iraq Contracts
US, China find a new middle way
Taiwan's President Unfazed by U.S. Warning
Long Basque Rebellion Losing Strength
U.S. Officers Predict Rise in Assassinations
Bush Seeks Help of Allies Barred From Iraq Deals
2 Troops Killed in Attacks In Mosul
Israel freezes barrier extension project
Bomb Kills 2 in Tel Aviv, but Police Call It 'Criminal Attack'
NATO set to accept European defence plans, announcement expected
Two Pakistani nuclear scientists detained: reports
Appeals Court Says Bush Can't Hold U.S. Citizen
Iraq Spy Service Planned by U.S. To Stem Attacks
Rumsfeld Seeks Better Intelligence On Iraqi Insurgents
Srebrenica Sentencing
Serb Policeman Describes Massacre in Kosovo
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Judge Questions Sentence in Al Qaeda Case
Judge in Terror Trial Orders Hearing on Prosecutors
Did the Pennsylvania Legislature Cross the Line?
High Court Halts Texas Execution in Appeal of Drug Lawsuit
Nanotechnology's Homeland Security Potential To Be Explored
Secret Service Takes Blame for Waiter's Exit
Ridge Favors a Status Short of Citizenship for Illegal Immigrants
Ridge Revives Debate on Immigrant Status
German Judge Frees 9/11 Suspect, Citing New Evidence
OTHER
White House Attacked for Letting States Lead on Climate
Times change when mercury is in question
'Sea Giant' sent to Pakistan for dismantling
ACTIVISTS
In Speech, Nobel Winner Rebukes the U.S.
Nobel Honoree Sounds Alarm
Thousands of Iraqis call for end to violence
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Are Gulf war veterans getting better?
Gulf war illness - better, worse, or just the same?
EurekAlert!
11-Dec-2003
BMJ Volume 327, pp 1370-2.
Incidence of cancer among UK Gulf war veterans
BMJ Volume 327, pp 1373-5.
Editorial: The health consequences of the first Gulf war BMJ Volume 327, pp 1357-8
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-12/bmj-agw121103.php http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/502389/
Gulf war veterans still have considerably poorer health than other military personnel, but the health gap has narrowed slightly, finds a study in this week's BMJ. A second study shows no increased risk of cancer among Gulf war veterans.
The first study compared the health of members of the UK armed forces who served in the 1991 Gulf war with non-deployed military personnel over a four-year period. Gulf war veterans experienced a modest reduction in fatigue and psychological distress, but a slight worsening of physical functioning.
Gulf war veterans continue to experience symptoms that are considerably worse than other military personnel, say the authors. However, Gulf war veterans are not deteriorating and do not have a higher incidence of new illness, they conclude.
The second study compared cancer rates in 51,721 UK Gulf war veterans and 50,775 non-deployed service personnel in the 11 years since the end of the war.
Incidence of and deaths from cancer in Gulf war veterans was almost identical to that seen in veterans who were not deployed, even after smoking and alcohol consumption, which are known to influence cancer risk, were taken into account.
Furthermore, the risk of cancer was no higher in Gulf war veterans who reported multiple vaccinations or exposure to pesticides or depleted uranium during deployment.
Although this study should provide some reassurance of a lack of association between deployment to the Gulf and increased risk of cancer, the long latent period for cancer means that these groups should continue to be monitored, conclude the authors.
paper 1:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/december/ppr1370.pdf
After the embargo date, please use the following link:
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7428/1370
paper 2:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/december/ppr1373.pdf
After the embargo date, please use the following link:
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7428/1373
Click here to view editorial:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/december/edit1357.pdf
After the embargo date, please use the following link:
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7428/1357
----
Intention Deficit Disorder
Why the Bush Administration's good ideas in the Middle East get such sorry results
WEB EXCLUSIVE
Newsweek
Dec. 11 - T.B. (Mac) McClelland had what sounded like a great idea last spring. The former U.S. Marine officer, now head of a consulting business in the free-wheeling Persian Gulf port of Dubai, knew the war in Iraq was going to leave thousands of Saddam Hussein's main battle tanks dead in the desert. He also happened to know Charlie Wilson of Houston, Texas, who's made millions out of the salvage business. Together, they figured they could retrieve the derelict weaponry, sell it off as scrap, and contribute the profits to educational programs in the New Iraq. They called the project "Tanks for Schools."
advertisement "We see it as a full circle sort of thing," says Wilson (and no, he is not the former U.S. congressman who made the Afghan mujahedin his pet project in the 1980s). "We recycle weapons of war, put the money into education, and hopefully help to avert future wars." The public relations would be great for the United States, of course, and for Wilson and McClelland, too. "What we'd like," says McClelland, only half joking, "is a [White House] Rose Garden ceremony were we hand President Bush the speedometer from a Russian-made T-72 tank mounted on a plaque..." Like so many other good ideas for what "could be," or "should be" or "must be" done in Iraq and the Middle East, however, this one was ignored by Washington when it was still relatively easy to implement. Now, as the Mesopotamian battlegrounds erupt again with fighting, the work of retrieving dead tanks for salvage gets more dangerous by the day. And as casualties mount, charity is going by the boards. "It's very difficult to get something like this on the radar screen," says Wilson. By the time somebody in the United States government finally focuses on the necessary permissions, the answer may well be "sorry Charlie, too late."
How many times have we seen good ideas-and good will--in the Middle East squandered by folks who were far too quick to make war, and far too slow figuring out how to make peace? I've lost count. But it keeps happening every day.
This week, for instance, President Bush had the good sense to appoint former Secretary of State James Baker as a special envoy to renegotiate Iraq's international debt, which may be more than $100 billion. Then the Pentagon announced that three of the key creditors with whom Baker has to negotiate--Russia, France and Germany--are barred from participating in contracts to rebuild Iraq. The measure is more symbolic than substantive, since it doesn't affect subcontractors. But the public slap has brought a furious response. Russia's defense minister said flatly there's now no intention to re-negotiate the $8 billion that's owed to Moscow. Sorry, Jim.
There was a time, last summer, when a credible way for the United States to extricate itself from Iraq might have been to invite greater international participation, including the United Nations and NATO. But the administration moved only grudgingly on that front. The UN went in out of duty, but with next to no authority. Its headquarters in Baghdad got blown up. It pulled out. NATO never went in as such, remains badly divided, and the civilian geniuses at the Pentagon never miss a chance to dis what could be some of the best nation-building troops--the French, the Germans and even the Canadians. So that kind of multilateral solution is now a panacea whose sell-by date has expired, a hope of the past, even though many Democratic presidential candidates still talk about it in the present. Sorry, Howard, Wes, et al.
The same pattern applies in Middle East peacemaking. As both the Israelis and the Palestinians know, an initiative that's stalled is an initiative that's died. That's why the so-called "road map" included a calendar with set dates and a verification process that called on the United States, the European Union, the Russians and the United Nations to judge whether both sides were complying at each step along the way.
The document was finished a year ago, approved by the Palestinians in January, and published in April. The first phase was supposed to be completed by May, but Israel didn't even accept it until then, and only with reservations. The second, transitional phase to statehood, was supposed to be completed by now. Forget that. The final phase, the establishment of a permanent status agreement and an end to the Palestinians-Israeli conflict, is due on the roadmap's calendar by the end of 2005. In your dreams.
The verification process of this "performance-based and goal-driven roadmap," which was supposed to be key to its success, isn't even mentioned anymore by American officials. To the peace-loving majorities in Israel and Palestine, what can you say? Sorry.
The good news, bad as things may be, is that good ideas do keep coming. The Bush administration is right to be looking for ways to speed up the handover of titular sovereignty to an Iraqi government. It's right to be re-enlisting, and vetting, the old Iraqi military. (Somebody's got to help the United States restore order, and it's the Iraqis' country, after all.) It's also right to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. But all these initiatives should be moving ahead much more quickly to close the gap between good ideas and effective implementation.
President Bush must know that it's not only the obvious enemies--the "bitter-enders" mounting a guerrilla war in Iraq, or the suicidal fanatics of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Holy Land (or, for that matter, the French or the Germans) - who stand in the way of his good intentions. It's bureaucracy and greed, corruption, ideology and hidden agendas on our own side that have to be watched. Are there some people we call friends and allies who don't really want a peaceful, democratic, united Iraq? Are there some who don't want an equitable peace between a viable Palestinian state and a secure Israel?
I don't doubt President Bush's good intentions, but the results he's gotten have been so sorry, you'd think he'd be asking himself if all the members on his team really do share his goals. There's no shortage of interests in the Middle East that see chaos as a cash cow for military industries; or who believe so strongly in their ideological missions that they work to undermine every effort at intelligent compromise and international cooperation. And then there's the endemic problems of lame ignorance and plain bad judgment. Eventually, folks out here get pretty cynical about good intentions.
That's why it's so good to hear about an imaginative project like "Tanks for Schools." It may never get off the drawing board. It may never overcome the bureaucratic, technical and security problems it is up against. (About half the estimated 8,000 destroyed tanks sitting around Iraq and Kuwait are so peppered with depleted uranium ammunition it's hard to know what to do with them.) But at the very least this project reminds us that some people in this world still really are looking for ways to "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks-or turn T-72s into No. 2 pencils-so that "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
-------- europe
Sweden to Fund New Blix - Led Weapons Body
December 11, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-sweden-blix.html
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The Swedish government said on Thursday it had decided to finance an independent international commission on weapons of mass destruction to be led by former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix.
Sweden's contribution of 13 million crownswill fund the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission until it reports its findings in 2005.
The body aims to bring a new impetus to international efforts to promote disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that carry them.
``I am convinced that the commission, under the capable leadership of Hans Blix, can help inject new energy into the global efforts aimed against weapons of mass destruction,'' Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds said in a statement.
``The existence of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons represent a serious threat to international peace and security and new initiatives are needed in the efforts for disarmament and non-proliferation,'' she added.
No further details on the commission's terms of reference were released. Blix was not available for comment. The Swedish government said he would name the commission's 14 members and present its work plans at a news conference on December 16.
Blix walked a diplomatic tight-rope earlier this year when his searches for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were the key evidence in a U.N. debate on the case for going to war.
Sweden, which had been neutral during the Cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States, criticized the U.S.-led war on Iraq because it did not have United Nations' approval.
Blix, 75, who retired from his U.N. post earlier this year, is now in the process of writing a book, entitled ``Weapons of Mass Destruction,'' but he has continued to be maintain his close contacts with the field.
On Sunday he had dinner in Stockholm with Freivalds and the visiting head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, who has proposed toughening up the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Last month Blix told Reuters that the new commission would comment on major events of the day concerning weapons of mass destruction, including worries about Iraq's neighbor Iran.
He also said he had doubts that Iran engaged in a civilian energy program aimed at making a nuclear bomb. The United States has long accused Iran of using a civilian nuclear energy program as a front to build a bomb.
The IAEA said in a report it found no evidence of a secret arms bid, but that Tehran had dabbled in activity often associated with bomb-making, such as plutonium production.
Looking at Iraq, Blix repeated his conviction that no evidence of weapons of mass destruction would ever be found.
Blix told Reuters that his new commission would tap the resources of major international research institutes and be headed by leaders in the field, including a prominent American.
-------- india / pakistan
Pakistan Nuke Scientists Being Questioned
December 11, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Nuclear-Scientists.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Two scientists at Pakistan's top nuclear laboratory have been taken into custody for questioning, Pakistani sources said Thursday.
The nuclear scientists at the Khan Research Laboratories were being interrogated after complaints were made against them, a government official and two Pakistanis affiliated with the country's nuclear programs said. All three spoke on condition of anonymity.
Confirming reports in three Pakistani newspapers Thursday, the sources identified the two detained men as Yasin Chohan and Mohammad Farooq, the former director general at the laboratories. Farooq also is a former aid to the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had the research laboratories named after him.
The sources declined to describe the complaints that were made against Chohan and Farooq, or where they originated. They also denied a story in the Lahore-based Nation newspaper Thursday saying that the two men were being interrogated about their alleged links with Iran's nuclear program.
Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation, has been accused of sharing its technological know-how with other nations, a charge it fiercely denies. The KRL is the country's main nuclear weapons laboratory where uranium is enriched, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Iranian government recently agreed to sign an additional protocol of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, another step toward fulfilling its commitment to allowing unrestricted inspection of its nuclear facilities.
The United States suspects Iran of conducting a secret program to build nuclear bombs, and the IAEA has identified Russia, China and Pakistan as probable sources for equipment used by Iran for possible nuclear weapons development, according to diplomats.
Masood Khan, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the two scientists were being ``debriefed,'' not questioned as suspects. But he refused to discuss their cases.
On Thursday, three officials reached in separate telephone calls at the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta, a town 20 miles southeast of Islamabad, declined to discuss the reported detention of the two nuclear scientists.
In its report, The Dawn newspaper in Karachi said that Farooq and Chohan have been missing from the Khan Research Laboratories for a week.
The Nation said the security forces who took Farooq into custody at his home included foreigners. The Dawn said they may have been FBI agents.
--------
Pakistan Quizzes Nuclear Scientists, No Iran Link
December 11, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-pakistan-scientists.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani officials said two scientists at the country's top nuclear laboratory were being questioned by the intelligence service Thursday, but denied any link to Iran's nuclear program.
Some newspapers suggested the pair were being questioned over allegations that Pakistan transferred nuclear technology to Iran. Opposition politicians, saying the men had been detained because of U.S., called a ``national insult.''
It was a charge robustly denied by the foreign office, which said it was merely a ``routine debriefing,'' denying any Pakistani links with Iran's nuclear program.
An intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the scientists, Mohammad Farooq and Yasin Chohan, were picked up earlier this month from the city of Rawalpindi, and were being questioned by intelligence agencies.
Both men worked for Khan Research Laboratories, headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said the men were undergoing ``debriefing sessions.''
``It is part of routine personal dependability and debriefing sessions carried out in such sensitive departments,'' he told Reuters. ``It has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear program.''
Diplomats in Vienna told Reuters last month the International Atomic Energy Agency was investigating a possible link between Pakistan and Iran after Tehran acknowledged using centrifuge designs that appear identical to ones used in Islamabad's quest for an atomic bomb.
``That is a matter between Iran and IAEA,'' Masood Khan said. ``It is Pakistan's consistent policy that it does not export sensitive technology or information to any country in the world.''
Mohammad Ali, son of scientist Farooq, said reports his father had been arrested or detained were incorrect.
``He is working with a defense-related department and such interrogations do take place with them,'' he said. ``We are not worried for his safety. He phoned us the day before yesterday and we have spoken to him before as well.''
But the development drew strong criticism from opposition groups who accused the government of President Pervez Musharraf of bowing to American pressure.
``General Musharraf is doing it just to appease the United States,'' said Ahsan Iqbal, a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
``This is a national insult. We are going to launch a campaign for their release because they are our national heroes.''
-------- iran
Iran's leader rules out nuclear weapons, embraces western democracy
GENEVA (AFP)
Dec 11, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031211183600.2sapwdwu.html
Iran's President Mohammad Khatami insisted Thursday that his country would not make nuclear weapons, as he told Muslims they should embrace western democracy.
Launching an urgent appeal for dialogue between Islam and Christianity, Khatami told an audience at the World Council of Churches (WCC) that Iran's dominant Islamic faith ruled out the use of nuclear weapons.
"We cannot seek nuclear weapons because of our religious faith, I told our religious leaders," he said, speaking through an interpreter.
"The Islam that I know does not allow the use of nuclear weapons, then we cannot go ahead and manufacture them," the Iranian president added in response to questions.
Khatami's comments came a day after Iran said it had given the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the formal go-ahead to carry out more intrusive inspections of its suspect nuclear programme.
The United States has voiced concern that the Islamic republic is using a civil atomic energy programme as a cover for secret nuclear weapons development.
During his address to a seminar on religious tolerance organised by the WCC, which groups the world's Christian and Orthodox faiths with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, Khatami also gave an unusually frank endorsement of western democracy.
"I think democracy is the only alternative, we can take it as Muslims," he said.
"We must accept this has been materialised in the West, we must accept this as Muslims," Khatami, an Islamic scholar added, warning that the alternative was authoritarian and despotic rule.
Iran had problems, the president admitted, "we have violations of human rights, we know these are going on", although he claimed the country had the most democratic system in the region.
Khatami's principal speech focused on a plea for religious tolerance, warning that the shared values of faith and religion had been eroded worldwide by bigotry as well as by anti-religious sentiment.
"The dialogue between civilisations, but also the dialogue between religions, in particular between Islam and Christianity are a vital, imperative and unavoidable necessity."
"I have to add in this respect that unfortunately those with power in this world, instead of reducing and removing the misunderstandings, are contributing to their revival," he added.
Iran's president also responded to a question about the impact of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, pointing out that the 20th century had been marked by unprecedented wars and violence, including the "ugly face of terrorism".
"It showed its ugliest face in the cities of New York and Washington in September 2001," he added.
The Iranian leader, seen as a reformist figure in the Islamic state, was in Geneva primarily to attend a UN conference on the impact and development of information technology.
The digital boom had increased the ability to communicate, but was not able to overcome a gulf in understanding, he cautioned.
"We must note that in our global village, we are unable to understand each other," Khatami observed.
-------- korea
'Fresh activity' at N Korea nuclear plant
Thursday, 11 December, 2003,
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3309305.stm
N Korea claimed to have restarted work at Yongbyon in February South Korea is investigating reports of fresh activity at the Yongbyon nuclear facility in North Korea.
South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper quoted US and South Korean officials as saying that a US satellite detected fumes rising from a boiler at the lab.
Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said Seoul was trying to confirm this.
Pyongyang said in July that it had reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods to extract plutonium, and has since vowed to boost its nuclear deterrent.
JoongAng Ilbo said a US intelligence satellite had detected "signs of vapour and fumes" from a coal-fired boiler linked to a nuclear laboratory at the plant on four days this month.
It said a truck was also spotted in the area where the nuclear reactor is located.
"We are trying to confirm the activities, but at this stage I have no definitive information to disclose," Mr Jeong told reporters in Seoul.
Officials will want to establish whether the vapour and fumes relate to gasses that are released when nuclear material is reprocessed or extracted from a nuclear facility.
North Korea claims that it restarted Yongbyon, which was mothballed under a 1994 agreement with the US, in February, and has since produced plutonium for nuclear weapons.
The CIA believes North Korea already has one or two in its nuclear arsenal.
But monitoring North Korea's nuclear activities is notoriously difficult, especially since Pyongyang kicked out UN monitors last year.
The latest report of activity at Yongbyon comes as the US and its allies try to get North Korea to resume talks on the nuclear crisis.
The US and its allies last week offered a plan of "co-ordinated steps" to resolving the stand-off, whereby Washington and Pyongyang would stagger their concessions.
But North Korea, fearful of a possible attack by the US, has insisted on simultaneous moves.
Earlier this week, its foreign ministry spokesman said it would not even sit down at the table with Washington and its allies unless it was promised energy aid and the removal of North Korea from the US' list of state sponsors of terrorism - in return for which it would "freeze" its nuclear programme.
US President George W Bush dismissed this proposal, insisting that North Korea end its programme entirely.
NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
Yongbyon: 5-MWt experimental nuclear power reactor and partially completed plutonium extraction facility. Activities at site frozen under 1994 deal. North Korea says restarted in Feb
Taechon: 200-MWt nuclear power reactor - construction halted under 1994 deal
Pyongyang: Laboratory-scale "hot cells" that may have been used to extract small quantities of plutonium
Kumho: Two 1,000-MWt light water reactors being built under 1994 deal - work has been suspended
----
North Korea's nukes
By Joel Mowbray,
December 11, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20031210-083127-6352r.htm
Contrary to various media reports, the joint statement that almost resulted from the six-country talks concerning North Korea's nukes is actually a victory of sorts for the "hawks" in the administration who favor taking a hard line against Pyongyang.
Notes one administration official familiar with the contents of the joint statement, "We got 80 percent of what we wanted." The other 20 percent, the official explains, mostly consists of one point that institutionalizes the engagement, by calling for talks every other month.
What has attracted the most attention is the willingness of the United States to offer North Korea a written security guarantee in exchange for a scuttling of its nuclear program. Though this was seen - and intentionally spun by many senior administration officials - as a departure from past policy, it wasn't.
The United States. has long been willing to offer a security guarantee for a complete destruction of North Korea's nuclear program - which is why Pyongyang immediately called the "offer" what it was: a restatement of current U.S. policy.
The language in the statement of principles - only opposed by China - is vague on the specifics of a security guarantee, in part, a reflection of infighting within the administration on that very issue.
The careerists at the State Department's East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP) bureau, who participated in the first round of talks in August, initially wanted to offer a security guarantee as soon as Pyongyang would "commit" to scrapping its nuclear program. Given North Korea's history - violating the 1994 pledge to halt all production of nukes - EAP's proposal was rejected out-of-hand in the interagency process.
The new soft-line position from the EAP and its allies within the National Security Council is that the security guarantee should be offered once North Korea "credibly commits." That language, in fact, has made it into the list of three recommendations now under consideration by the White House.
The hard-line option included in the list of possible recommendations is that the security guarantee only follows "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling" of the nuclear program. But as long as North Korea has even one civilian nuclear reactor - or refuses to grant complete, unfettered access to inspectors - such an exacting standard could probably not be achieved.
The "compromise" position is offering the security guarantee after inspectors "achieve verifiable benchmarks." As one might expect with such vague wording, "verifiable benchmarks" could conceivably run the gamut from being little more than the first option - or little less than "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling."
If anything, the White House's public posturing would indicate that the final offer made to North Korea will not be to Pyongyang's liking. President Bush publicly has called for a "complete, irreversible verifiable" elimination of North Korea's nuclear program - echoing the words chosen by the hawks.
According to one official familiar with the deliberations on the security guarantee, "Ultimately, the middle option will be chosen."
Regardless of the timing of the security guarantee, the United States will continue to put the screws to Pyongyang. The Proliferation Security Initiative, which is designed to identify and seize materials related to non-conventional weapons, is targeted directly at North Korea's exports and is in full force, according to several administration officials.
Because North Korea gets 20 percent to 40 percent of its hard currency from weapons sales, the United States has also waged a campaign to dissuade possible purchasers of North Korean exports.
One example cited repeatedly by U.S. officials to foreign governments is that the much-publicized SCUD missiles sent to Yemen from North Korea last December actually don't work. So even though Yemen saved money buying from North Korea, it got nothing for its millions.
The pitch appears to be working. Several Middle Eastern countries have already agreed not to buy weapons from North Korea.
The outside measures seem to be all that's likely to happen on the North Korean front in the near future. Within hours of receiving the joint statement - which had already been agreed to by Japan and South Korea - China rejected the document. China wanted economic benefits and more specificity in guarantees made to North Korea, concerns which Pyongyang echoed almost immediately in denouncing the statement.
The real victory is that South Korea agreed to the tough language found throughout the document. South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has been pushing for appeasement of the North, but with rock-bottom poll numbers at home, Mr. Roh did not have the political will to battle the United States. With Russia unlikely to be a roadblock for any eventual agreement, the lone holdout the United States needs to work on is China.
Given the quickness with which China rejected the statement, though, it might be a while before a second round of talks gets underway. But in the minds of many administration hawks, no deal with North Korea is better than an appeasing one.
Joel Mowbray occasionally writes for The Washington Times.
--------
Talks on N. Korea's Nuke Program Planned
December 11, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Six-nation talks on easing tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program will likely be held in mid-January, South Korean media reported Friday.
For weeks, the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas have tried to convene a new round of talks before the year's end. But differences between the United States and the communist North make that unlikely.
``We have not completely ruled out a possibility of holding the talks this month but it gets increasingly likely that it would be sometime in mid-January,'' the national Yonhap news agency quoted a government source as saying. YTN, an all-news cable channel, carried a similar report.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Shin Bong-kil could not confirm the reports but said Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck was delaying a visit to China.
Meanwhile, a group of European diplomats traveled Friday across the heavily fortified no man's land that separates the two Koreas, stepping into South Korea after a three-day visit to the North.
The delegation was expected to bring word about the isolated communist country's thoughts on a possible new round of six-nation talks to dismantle its atomic weapons program.
Lee, South Korea's chief delegate during the first round of six-nation talks in August, had planned to fly to Beijing on Friday in a last-minute effort to bring about a new round later this month.
At the border truce village of Panmunjom in the middle of the Demilitarized Zone separating the North and South, the EU team stepped over a concrete curb signifying the border and was greeted by officials from the U.S.-led United Nations Command and the European Union.
Guido Martini of Italy, who led the nine-member EU delegation, didn't provide details of the talks in North Korea, simply saying that trip ``was very good for all of us.''
Asked whether there was any word from the North on whether it would join six-nation nuclear talks, he said, ``this is our wish.''
The North Korean nuclear crisis flared in October last year, when U.S. officials said the communist state admitted running a new nuclear weapons program using enriched uranium in violation of international agreements.
North Korea says its has restarted its nuclear facilities after it kicked out U.N. nuclear inspectors and quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in January. It also says it has completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods in a process that could yield enough plutonium for several bombs.
North Korea rarely allows Western diplomats to cross the border. The last Western government official to cross the border was Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who visited both Koreas in May.
--------
N.Korea Nuclear Talks Seen Delayed to Mid - January
December 11, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-talks.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - Six-country talks to try to halt communist North Korea's nuclear weapons program -- which had been expected this month -- are likely to be put off until mid-January, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Friday.
Yonhap quoted a senior Seoul official as saying that a December meeting could still not be ruled out, but it looked more likely that the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia would convene a second round of nuclear talks with North Korea next month.
``The trend is moving toward opening talks in mid-January,'' the unnamed official was quoted as saying. The remarks could not immediately be confirmed.
U.S., Asian and Russian officials have conducted intensive shuttle diplomacy in the months since Beijing hosted an inconclusive first round of six way talks in August to try and convince North Korea to attend a second round.
Yonhap said one sign that prospects for opening talks before the end of the year had dimmed was that South Korea's point-man in the negotiations, Assistant Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, had postponed plans to fly to Beijing on Friday.
Lee's Russian counterpart in the six-way talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, had likewise put off plans to visit the Chinese capital this month, Yonhap said.
Earlier this week, South Korea, the United States and Japan conveyed their proposed wording for a resolution to the 14-month-old crisis to China. Beijing then passed it on to North Korea.
Reclusive North Korea, responding apparently to media reports of elements of the U.S. plan, pronounced it ``greatly disappointing'' and published a counterproposal which repeated demands for energy aid and diplomatic concession in exchange for freezing its nuclear program.
President Bush rejected the idea of a freeze, saying Washington wanted North Korea's nuclear arms program dismantled ``in a verifiable and irreversible way.''
The CIA believes the North has produced one or two nuclear weapons. The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when Washington said Pyongyang had said it had a covert nuclear program.
--------- mideast
Nuclear breakout in the Middle East?
by Gary Milhollin
Thursday 11 December 2003
Media Monitors Network
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/2902/
"It is time for the whole world--not just the United States--to start imagining what a nuclearized Middle East will look like. Could western diplomacy keep such a region from going over the edge?"
Since the 1960s, when Israel produced its first A-bomb's worth of plutonium, it has enjoyed a surprisingly long-lived monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Now, with the nuclear resurgence of Iran, that monopoly could end, with consequences to the region that are difficult to foresee.
Israel is thought to possess as many as 200 nuclear warheads, fueled primarily by its French- and Norwegian-supplied reactor in the Negev desert. Those warheads could be delivered by Israel's squadrons of American-made F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers, or by its powerful Jericho-II missile, also made with components from the United States. Neither Israel's bombs nor the means to deliver them are homegrown. The question facing the Middle East now is whether Israel's rivals will be equally successful in importing what they need.
Iran is making great progress. By year's end, it plans to be operating a thousand gas centrifuges--machines able to boost natural uranium up to nuclear weapon grade. Depending on how efficiently the centrifuges operate, they could produce a bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium within a year or so after coming on line. Iran hasn't said where its centrifuge designs and components came from, but whoever supplied them is producing a large strategic impact. For the moment, the finger of suspicion points to Pakistan.
Help to Iran has also come from Chinese companies, which have supplied the blueprints for a plant to produce the gaseous form of uranium needed to feed the centrifuges, and from Russia, which has provided sensitive technology for heavy water reactors. The latter produce plutonium, a second type of nuclear weapon fuel. None of the imports has any reasonable use in Iran's civilian nuclear power program, itself suspect in light of Iran's copious oil reserves.
There is every reason to think that Iran will achieve nuclear weapons status if it stays its present course. The centrifuges appear to be functional, and Iran has managed to buy equipment needed to assemble or make centrifuges on its own. Should Iran enter the nuclear club, the Middle East will face a nuclear-armed state with longstanding ties to terrorism and a growing missile fleet. Iran's missiles are capable of carrying a nuclear-sized payload not only to Israel, but to Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and possibly Egypt.
It is naive to think that none of these states will react. Uzi Rubin, former director of defense policy at Israel's National Security Council, predicted in an October 2003 speech to an international conference on missile defense that an Iranian bomb would spur nuclear weapon moves by both Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Egypt does not possess such weapons now, but in the past has considered building them. It has already begun to produce Scud-type missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Israel. Saudi Arabia does not possess the bomb either, but it bought a fleet of Chinese missiles in the 1980s that could deliver nuclear warheads to many points in the Middle East, and it is rumored to have discussed nuclear cooperation recently with Pakistan. Given the fact that Pakistan has sold uranium centrifuge technology to North Korea, and is rumored to have supplied the same to Iran, any nuclear talks between it and the Saudis should cause real alarm. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Egypt would like to see Iran dominate the region.
In addition to all this, Libya has shown signs of renewed nuclear activity. Colonel Qaddafi has been talking to the Russians about refurbishing his Tajura nuclear site, and about building a power reactor. Libya has for years imported Scud-type missiles from North Korea.
Thus the nuclear question in the Middle East is not just between Israelis and Muslims. A nuclear breakout by Iran would affect inter-Islamic rivalries as well. That is why the nuclear future in Iran is so important.
Iran's progress is not likely to be stopped by its pledges under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Unfortunately, a country is perfectly free to use its adherence to the treaty as a reason why other countries should provide it with nuclear technology. Then, after importing what it needs, it can drop out of the treaty on three month's notice and turn its nuclear wherewithal to bomb-making. Nor do the inspections carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency provide much comfort. As long as the inspectors are allowed to observe what Iran is doing, Iran can come right up to the edge of nuclear weapon capability without breaking the rules.
It is time for the whole world--not just the United States--to start imagining what a nuclearized Middle East will look like. Could western diplomacy keep such a region from going over the edge? Would some species of local deterrence work? And what about US President George W. Bush's plan to extend democracy in the region? Unless the world is ready to answer such questions, it had better curb Iran's nuclear program before it is too late.
-------- missile defense
Aegis cruiser will attempt to shoot down missile in test off Hawaii
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 11, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031211005920.y8g198or.html
A US Aegis cruiser will attempt to shoot down a medium range ballistic missile Thursday in a test over the Pacific near Hawaii, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
The test is designed to evaluate the sea-based Aegis weapons system's capacity for long range surveillance and tracking of a medium range missile.
The cruiser USS Lake Eerie will use a Standard-3 missile to try to shoot down the target missile at Barkings Sands Missile Range near Hawaii.
The test is the third in a series of six to develop a sea-based missile defense system effective against medium range missiles.
----
Aegis Missile Test Successful
United States Department of Defense
December 11, 2003
http://www.dod.mil/releases/2003/nr20031211-0757.html
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the U.S. Navy announced today the completion of a successful flight test in the continuing development of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program, the sea-based element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). Flight Mission-6 (FM-6) involved the detection and tracking of an Aries short-range target missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), Kauai, Hawaii at 8:10 a.m. HST (1:10 p.m. EST). Approximately two minutes after target launch, a developmental Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) was launched from the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense cruiser the USS Lake Erie. Approximately two minutes later the SM-3 successfully intercepted the target missile with "hit to kill" technology, using only the force of the direct collision to destroy the target. This was the fourth successful intercept for Aegis BMD and SM-3.
After the target was launched, the Aegis destroyer the USS Russell, located near the island of Kauai, detected the target and reported the target track to the USS Lake Erie, located further out to sea. Outfitted with Aegis BMD equipment and computer program configuration, the USS Lake Erie acquired and tracked the target with its AN/SPY-1 radar and developed a fire control solution. The crew of the USS Lake Erie then launched the SM-3 missile. The Aegis Weapon System guided the first, second, and third stages of the SM-3 to a position to perform an intercept of the target. After ejection from the SM-3 third stage, the kinetic warhead acquired, tracked, and diverted directly into the target at an altitude of 137 kilometers, and at a closing speed of approximately 3.7 kilometers per second.
This test was another step forward in the development and test program leading to the integration of Aegis BMD into the "layered" missile defense system designed to intercept and destroy all types of ballistic missiles during any phase of flight-boost, midcourse and terminal. A primary objective for this test was to evaluate the performance of long-range surveillance and track support from an Aegis cruiser and destroyer team that has the potential for use with a number of different missile defense elements, including the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) designed to protect the United States against long-range ballistic missiles. Extensive post-test analysis will be conducted to evaluate the performance of the entire system as tested. It will provide the data necessary to prepare for future flight tests and to aid in the continuing development program to ensure the United States will be able to defend our homeland, deployed forces, and our friends and allies, against ballistic missiles of all ranges.
Conducted by Navy personnel, FM-6 is the fourth of a six-flight test series within the 2004-2005 time period (called Block 2004) to develop a sea-based ballistic missile defense against short-to-medium range ballistic missiles. FM-6 is the third developmental flight test against more complex, stressing, and operationally realistic ballistic missile engagement scenarios. Future tests will continue to increase operational realism.
MDA, in cooperation with the Navy, manages the Aegis BMD Program. Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors, Moorestown, N.J., is the prime contractor for the Aegis Weapon System and Vertical Launch System installed in Aegis cruisers and destroyers. Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Ariz., is the prime contractor for the SM-3 missile.
News media points of contact are Chris Taylor, Missile Defense Agency, at (703) 697-8001 or, in Hawaii, Maj. Cathy Reardon at (703) 963-3179.
Photos will be available at Navy Region Hawaii, OSD (PA) and MDA Websites. Video is available from 4-5pm EST, on Digital Uplink: AM-3 TR-9 Slot G, Downlink Frequency 11895 H Down Data Rate 5.5 / 3/4 FEC/ Symbol Tate 3.9787, Analog Uplink AM-3 TR-9C, Downlink Frequency 11880.00 H Down, CNN Newsbeam Atlanta (404) 827-1094, Trouble Line (678) 313-6001.
----
GAO Calls for Review of Missile Defense Satellite Program
Wade Boese,
11 December 2003
Arms Control Today
The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently recommended that the Pentagon review a missile defense satellite system because of lingering problems that could result in major program cost and schedule overruns. The Air Force just restructured the program last year following a critical review of the system.
Initiated in 1996, the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS)-high program has been "burdened by immature technologies, unclear requirements, unstable funding, underestimated software complexity, and other problems," GAO stated in an Oct. 31 report on the program.
SBIRS-high is intended to replace the Pentagon's current constellation of Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites. The DSP satellites have been operating for more than 30 years and provide information on worldwide missile launches, among other tasks. The new system is also intended to gather intelligence and provide timely battlefield information to U.S. troops.
Yet, SBIRS-high is far from proving it can handle these missions. GAO noted that testing earlier this year revealed that the first infrared sensor to be deployed as part of the system demonstrated "several deficiencies" in the sensor's ability to "maintain earth coverage" and to track missiles.
As such problems have emerged, the SBIRS-high price tag has more than doubled. Originally projected to cost $1.8 billion to research and develop, the system is currently budgeted at $4.4 billion.
The system's development troubles have led to significant delays. The Pentagon initially planned to begin fielding SBIRS-high components between 1999 and 2004, but the first delivery of sensors for two of the system's satellites has slipped from February 2002 to at least December 2003, while the launch of the first of four other satellites making up the system has been pushed back from 2004 to 2006.
Frustrated by the system's lack of progress, the Pentagon ordered a review that led to the Air Force restructuring the program in August 2002. Although there have been improvements in oversight of the program, GAO concluded that there are continuing schedule and cost risks that merit the program being reviewed again-an assessment the Pentagon shares.
In May, GAO reported that a complementary satellite system to SBIRS-high, the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (formerly SBIRS-low), was also beset with problems. (See ACT, June 2003.) As originally conceived, SBIRS-high was to provide the early warning of a hostile missile launch, while SBIRS-low was to provide more detailed tracking information on the target cluster to help a missile interceptor distinguish between an enemy warhead and any potential decoys that might be accompanying it. The overhauled and renamed SBIRS-low program is still supposed to help track a missile during its entire flight, but the requirement that it must discriminate between warheads and decoys has been postponed for now, according to the May GAO report.
--------
U.S. Hits Target in Sea - Based Missile Test
December 11, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-missile-test.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile from a U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser shattered a dummy warhead over the Pacific on Thursday, the fourth intercept in five tests of the sea-based leg of a planned multi-layered missile shield, the Pentagon said.
The Standard Missile-3 fired from the Lake Erie off Kauai in the Hawaiian islands ``successfully engaged the target'' about four minutes after the target was launched, said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
The Pentagon described the test as part of increasingly ``complex, stressing and operationally realistic ballistic missile engagement scenarios.''
But it did not specify in what way the scenario had been made more realistic.
``Future tests will continue to increase operational realism,'' said a statement. Among other things, decoys could be added to the mix. The intercept relied on ``hit-to-kill'' technology, using only the force of the collision to destroy the target, the Pentagon said.
The last such test, on June 18, failed when the interceptor missile missed its target.
President Bush has ordered a Pacific missile defense ``testbed'' be fielded by Sept. 30, 2004, partly to thwart a perceived threat from North Korea. The initial deployment will include six ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Up to 20 sea-based interceptors, spread among three Aegis cruisers, are to be folded into the system starting in 2005.
Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Maryland, is the prime contractor for the Aegis weapon system and vertical launch system. It is described as capable of simultaneous operation defending against advanced air, surface, subsurface and ballistic missile threats.
Raytheon Co., based in Waltham, Massachusetts, builds the Standard Missile-3.
Lockheed said the intercept took place outside the Earth's atmosphere during the target missile's descent. The Pentagon is seeking to build defenses that would also go after warheads in their boost and mid-course flight paths.
The Aegis system is deployed on 67 U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers, and at least 22 more ships are planned, Lockheed said in a statement.
Aegis is the primary weapon system on Japanese Kongo-class destroyers, which could also join in a missile shield to protect joint forces, seaports, inland airfields, political and military assets and population centers.
The test on Thursday was designed to evaluate the system's long-range surveillance and track functions, the Missile Defense Agency said. The system could be used with other missile defense components, including a ground-based mid-course defense designed to guard the United States against long-range ballistic missile attacks.
The Pentagon plans to spend $50 billion over the next five years to develop the planned shield, including components based on land, at sea, in the air -- in laser-firing Boeing Co. 747 aircraft -- and in space.
-------
Missile Defense Hits Target During Test
December 11, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense-Test.html
HONOLULU (AP) -- An interceptor missile fired from a Navy ship knocked a target rocket out of the sky over the Pacific on Thursday in the first successful test of a U.S. missile defense system in more than a year, military officials said.
In June, an interceptor missile missed the target rocket in a similar test.
An Aegis cruiser launched a Standard Missile-3 interceptor -- designed to destroy its target by colliding with it rather than using a large explosion -- from an undisclosed location in the Pacific. The defense has been compared to hitting a bullet with a bullet.
The target missile launched from Kauai was intercepted at 8:14 a.m. Hawaii time at an altitude of about 85 miles, said Chris Taylor, Washington-based spokesman for the federal Missile Defense Agency. The interceptor was traveling more than 8,000 mph, Taylor said.
Last December, President Bush ordered the Pentagon to have ready for use within two years a bare-bones system for defending American territory, troops and allies against attack by ballistic missiles.
Under Bush's plan, 20 Standard Missile-3 interceptors would be placed aboard three Navy ships with improved versions of the Aegis system.
This sea-based system was outlawed under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but the United States withdrew from the treaty last year. The plan also calls for the development of ground-based interceptors.
On the Net:
Missile Defense Agency:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/bmdolink.html
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
DOE affirms nuclear labs can be run by different contractors
BY ALAINA SUE POTRIKUS AND ANDREA WIDENER
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Thu, Dec. 11, 2003
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/7471263.htm
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - A controversial commission has recommended the Department of Energy look separately for new operators at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos labs and affirmed the nuclear labs could be effectively run by different contractors.
At a meeting here Wednesday, members of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board said they see no compelling reasons that the two labs currently run by the University of California must be overseen by one contractor when bid next year for the first time in half a century.
``The collaboration necessary can be achieved by different contractors,'' said board member Hank Habicht, CEO of the Global Environment & Technology Foundation.
The controversial finding was contradicted by speakers and letter writers who support the joint management of the two nuclear labs.
Kimberly Budil, a Lawrence Livermore physicist, said she supported the commission's emphasis on performance and science. But she disagreed with separating the labs, which have been run by UC since their inception. They support each other in achieving common goals, and their mutual work would be stifled by ``fundamentally competing objectives'' inherent in different management.
``Our long history of success is predicated by cooperative competition,'' she said.
The findings of the board's Blue Ribbon Commission are not binding but they will go to the Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham for review and will likely be influential on future lab competitions.
The report was spurred by a DOE decision this spring to make UC compete to continue running Los Alamos after 60 years as its sole manager - a move spurred by business and management problems at the New Mexico lab. A recent Congressional decision forced competition for all contracts older than 50 years, including UC's other labs, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley.
At the meeting, some members speculated that opening the labs to competition would enhance performance, reduce overhead and make more resources available. Others argued in favor of long- term, stable relationships between the DOE labs and universities.
``Competition for the sake of competition will result in a loss to the research atmosphere,'' said Frederick Bernthal, president of a consortium of research universities.
The board acknowledged there are few possible bidders for management of the nation's leading research labs and that the competition process could be costly in many ways.
``We also realize that competition can be expensive and disruptive to the research environment,'' Habicht said. ``The decision to compete has a significant adverse impact on the morale and productivity of a laboratory.''
Yet, board members said they felt the need to examine other options to achieve and maintain ``higher quality, state-of-the-art science and technology and efficient and effective operations.''
``If the performance of a laboratory is fine, then we don't go forward with it,'' said board member Bill Brinkman. ``But, you have to see what kind of response you get - if there's a better opportunity out there.''
Board member Burton Richter said employing different contractors would diffuse potentially ``incestuous situations'' that arise from the coordination of the classified programs.
``People say that if Stanford ran one and MIT ran the other - or Boeing ran one and Martin Marietta ran the other - that there would be fighting all the time,'' said Richter, director emeritus of Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center. ``I haven't seen that.''
``I think they'd be a lot better off with different contractors. Then, there'd be argument over whose programs deserved funding.''
In a letter to the Energy Secretary, 10 former directors of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore said separating the contracts is at odds with ``our experience and our judgment about the conduct of nuclear weapons activities.''
They said more cooperation will be needed in coming years, as the end of nuclear testing and a shrinking stockpile will require more intense peer review among the two labs. ``All of these are difficult under a single contractor and would be greatly exacerbated with separate contractors.''
Joe Martz, manager of Los Alamos' weapons materials program, said he exchanges staff and plutonium with Livermore in experiments examining the aging of plutonium. He said the process would be much more difficult if there were two managers. It would also limit career advancement for weapons scientists with few options besides moving between the two labs.
``I worry about the practical things, like my accelerated aging experiment,'' he said. ``My concern is that we produce the best quality science for the country. People are relying on our judgment.''
UC managers also said the commission is making a mistake separating the lab contracts.
``They have a common mission down,'' S. Robert Foley, UC's vice president for lab management, said in an interview. ``They work together to ensure that mission is properly carried out.''
-------- tennessee
Facility could start processing waste in early '04
Transuranic waste is produced during nuclear fuel assembly and during nuclear weapons-related work.
By: Paul Parson
Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com
December 11, 2003
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/121103/new_20031211022.shtml
Officials are ready to get the ball rolling on the treatment of some of the nastiest waste stored in Oak Ridge.
That should be just around the corner, especially since a so-called "operational readiness review" of the Transuranic Waste Processing Facility is scheduled to be done in January.
"It's the pathway for getting all the transuranic waste out of town," Steve McCracken, the Department of Energy's environmental chief, said of the facility. McCracken was one of several local officials who spoke during a public meeting Wednesday night on Oak Ridge cleanup efforts.
Transuranic waste is produced during nuclear fuel assembly and during nuclear weapons-related work. This waste generally consists of protective clothing, tools, glassware, equipment, soils and sludge that have been heavily contaminated with high concentrations of manmade radioactive elements, including plutonium, neptunium, americium, curium, and californium.
If all goes according to plan, the transuranic facility will begin processing some of the waste in early 2004, according to Bob Sleeman, who is overseeing the cleanup of Melton Valley for DOE. He also spoke at Wednesday night's meeting, which was sponsored jointly by DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office and the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board.
In 1998, DOE contracted Foster Wheeler Environmental Corp. to construct and operate the waste processing facility. Much of the waste to be treated is currently stored in Melton Valley.
The treated transuranic waste will be disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., while the low-level waste will be disposed of at the Nevada Test Site, located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev.
-------- washington
Hanford completes work on F Reactor
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, December 11, 2003
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Hanford%20Reactor
RICHLAND, Wash. -- The company charged with "cocooning" defunct nuclear reactors at the Hanford nuclear reservation has completed work on the F Reactor almost 10 months ahead of schedule, leaving five reactors still to be completed.
Cocooning is a term for cleaning out and demolishing all the outlying buildings at the reactor sites, and sealing the reactors themselves inside the main chamber. What remains is a nearly 100-tall concrete box with a slanted roof to keep rainwater out.
The sealed reactor chamber is then entered every five years to check for problems.
Hanford, the home of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, has nine defunct Cold War reactors. Eight are scheduled to be cocooned.
Bechtel Hanford completed work on the C Reactor in 1998 and the DR Reactor in 2002.
F Reactor was the third Hanford reactor to produce plutonium, starting up in February 1945 and shutting down in June 1965. The initial engineering work on cocooning F Reactor began in 1997.
It cost about $21 million to seal F Reactor, slightly more than for work on other reactors because it also had a fuel storage basin with buried pieces of spent nuclear fuel, said Mike Mihalic, the company's project leader.
The next reactor to be cocooned is D Reactor, which is scheduled to be completed in September 2004.
-------- us politics
McCain-Feingold Ruling Angers Activists on Both Left and Right
By David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54524-2003Dec10?language=printer
It's not every day the National Rifle Association and the American Civil Liberties Union are outraged by the same Supreme Court decision.
The two organizations are often used to represent opposite poles of American politics, the gun-toting right and the liberal left. But both groups hated yesterday's unexpectedly broad ruling by the court to uphold the major provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
Reformers have been trying to squeeze the influence of money out of politics for at least 100 years, but yesterday's ruling was either one of the boldest steps yet or a terrible overreach, depending on which side was analyzing the case. Surprise at the scope of the ruling was just about universal, however. Even many proponents of the campaign finance law had expected the court to use the First Amendment to strike down new limits on political advertising on television.
But the prevailing justices -- with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the decisive role, as she is so often -- cast a deeply disgusted eye on the entire political process, finding "corruption, and in particular the appearance of corruption" almost everywhere they looked. Even efforts by political parties to register voters, identify supporters and urge them to the polls -- activities once extolled in civics classes -- were seen as opportunities for corruption if large donors were allowed to pay for such projects as a way of currying favor with elected officials.
The problem with critics of the law, the majority declared, is that they "conceive of political corruption too narrowly."
This attitude took the 5 to 4 majority well beyond earlier limitations on political advertising, in the judgment of several First Amendment experts. And so a broad range of advocacy organizations denounced the decision as a historic attack on the right to free speech. Under the ruling, groups wishing to use television ads to criticize -- or even mention -- federal candidates in the decisive months of an election year must comply with an array of regulations before they can say their piece.
"The notion that the government can tell an organization like the ACLU when and how it should address important civil liberties issues is a form of censorship masquerading as campaign finance reform," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement reacting to the ruling.
Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, called the ruling "the most significant change in the First Amendment since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which tried to make it a crime to criticize a member of Congress."
"This whole thing from the start has been an inside deal among politicians to stop criticism, whether it comes from us or from the Sierra Club," LaPierre said.
"Well, we're going to be heard," he added, "and they're going to be surprised how loud we're going to be heard."
The court explained itself by saying that Congress is the best institution for sorting out election rules and for balancing the importance of free speech against the need for reform. But that theory was also hotly debated yesterday.
To critics of the ruling, including dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia, giving congressional incumbents a virtually free hand to set the rules of elections is like letting the reigning Scrabble champion rewrite the dictionary.
The legislation "prohibits the criticism of Members of Congress by those entities most capable of giving such criticism loud voice," Scalia wrote, namely, "national political parties and corporations, both of the commercial and the not-for-profit sort." In his typically tart way, Scalia noted that the Supreme Court has recently protected the free speech rights of tobacco advertisers and Internet pornographers -- but has now limited the rights of corporations and labor unions to criticize elected officials in television ads.
"I could not be more shocked," said James Bopp, general counsel at the James Madison Center for Free Speech, who denounced the campaign finance law as "an orgy of incumbent protection." Like many critics of the ruling, he noted the irony that a law designed to limit the influence of money in politics leaves one class of citizens almost entirely unregulated -- the super-rich. People willing and able to spend their own fortunes on political ads can say what they want when they want.
Critics also noted that the major television outlets are owned not by disinterested charities but by major corporations: Disney owns ABC, General Electric owns NBC, Viacom owns CBS, Time Warner owns CNN. And so on.
"These conglomerates spend millions in political contributions to influence legislation, but whatever they decide is news will be all over the airwaves until Election Day," LaPierre said. "Somehow they are pure, while AARP or the NRA is not."
This analysis seemed overheated to those who saw yesterday's ruling as a big step forward for honest and open politics -- and a lot of people felt that way.
"The law does nothing to prohibit any ads," said Colby College professor Anthony Corrado, an authority on campaign finance laws. "What the law says is you can air ads solely devoted to discussion of an issue -- without mentioning a federal candidate. But if you are broadcasting an ad within 60 days of the election" -- the window is 30 days in the case of primaries -- "and the ad features or names a federal candidate, then it has to be paid for with money subject to federal election laws. You can't use corporate or labor union money."
In trying to clean up the problem of "sham issue ads," the court fell back on a solution that might intrigue people who have spent a few decades watching the endless effort to clean up campaign finance. Political action committees -- PACs, those darlings of reformers in the 1970s turned demons of the 1980s -- are once again in good odor, according to the court.
Corporations and advocacy groups -- from big drug companies to environmentalists -- must, under the ruling, use PACs to raise money to air their regulated advertisements. A defiant LaPierre said yesterday that the NRA will immediately ask its 4 million members and 28 million affiliated members to donate $20 each, a potentially enormous ante to push back onto the table.
ACLU leaders, on the other hand, resisted the idea that they should have to form a political committee to promote issues that they see as nonpartisan.
The whole thing was "incomprehensible" to storied First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, who felt the nearly 300-page ruling missed the fundamental importance of political speech. "It almost reads like a tax case rather than a First Amendment case," he said. "In style, tone and nature, it reads like an opinion about regulation by government of some sort of improper activity."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Says Other Afghan Children Died in Earlier Raid
December 11, 2003
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/11/international/asia/11AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 10 - For the second time in a week, the American military has acknowledged that children were victims of airstrikes aimed at Taliban fighters.
A military spokesman said Wednesday that six children and two adults were found under a collapsed wall after an attack on Friday night by American Special Forces on the compound of a known militant. The airstrike was called in after the soldiers came under heavy machine-gun fire.
The United States previously acknowledged having killed nine children in an airstrike on Saturday against a suspected Taliban fighter in southern Afghanistan.
The killings are an embarrassment to the military, which is seeking to provide a secure environment for an Afghan constitutional council that is to convene here next weekend. Although military officials were aware on Saturday of the Friday incident that led to the deaths of the six children, they did not acknowledge it until Wednesday, and then only in response to a question at a news conference in Kabul.
The United Nations and the office of President Hamid Karzai expressed renewed concerns about the political damage inflicted by such incidents. The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have both expressed regrets for the deaths of the nine children killed on Saturday and promised relief assistance for the village.
The attack on Friday was aimed at the well-defended compound of a known militant, Mullah Jilani, just outside the town of Gardez, 60 miles south of Kabul. Mullah Jilani is suspected of connections with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, as well as with a renegade mujahedeen commander, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is also on the United States list of wanted terrorists.
According to the military, Special Forces troops mounting the assault called in airstrikes after gunfire erupted from the compound.
"We were conducting a night assault on the compound," Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said at a news conference in Kabul. "We observed a heavy machine gun firing from a compound that we had no indication there were noncombatants in. We fired on the compound from the air and the machine gun stopped."
It was only the next morning that troops searched the compound and found the bodies of six children and two adults under a collapsed wall.
"We don't know what caused the collapse of the wall because although we fired on the compound there were secondary and tertiary explosions inside the compound," Colonel Hilferty said. He did not identify the two adults who died but said Mullah Jilani was not found.
Asadullah Wafa, the governor of Paktia Province, where the raid happened, confirmed the deaths in a telephone interview from Gardez. He said the victims, who lived in the compound, belonged to the family of an associate of Mullah Jilani.
Nine suspected militants were captured in the raid, during which troops also found dozens of weapons, including artillery pieces, machine guns and rockets.
Colonel Hilferty said the rules of engagement were stringent, noting that the soldiers had not fired on 10 people seen leaving the compound because they could not be identified as combatants.
"We try very hard not to kill anyone," he said. "We would prefer to capture the terrorists rather than kill them. But in this incident, if noncombatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and howitzers and mortars in a compound known to be used by a terrorist, we are not completely responsible for the consequences."
A presidential spokesman, Hamid Elmi, said he did not yet have independent confirmation of the incident, but expressed deep concern at the news. "It is a very serious issue for the government," he said. Mr. Karzai had ordered a government delegation headed by two ministers to investigate the scene of the airstrike Saturday, a sign of his profound concern about the consequences of such civilian casualties, he said.
Hundreds of delegates have been arriving this week in Kabul for the constitutional grand council to approve a new constitution for the country. American and Afghan officials say they have received specific intelligence that the Taliban and Mr. Hekmatyar intend to disrupt the proceedings.
In an effort to pre-empt any serious attacks, United States forces began an operation that put about 2,000 troops into action across the south, southeast and east of the country to put the Taliban and other groups on the defensive. The airstrikes that resulted in the children's death were part of that operation.
A spokesman for the United Nations, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, expressed "regret and concern" over the latest incident.
"In addition to contributing to a sense of fear and insecurity these kinds of incidents make it easier for those who wish to spoil the peace process to rally support," he said.
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8 Afghan Civilians Killed in U.S. Raid
Deaths of Six More Children Deepen Doubts About Strategy
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54489-2003Dec10.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 10 -- An air and ground assault by U.S. forces on a farm compound in eastern Afghanistan late last week killed six children and two adults, U.S. military officials said Wednesday. It was the second report in less than a week of a U.S. military operation claiming the lives of young Afghans.
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, the U.S. military spokesman at Bagram air base, said the victims were crushed when a wall fell on them during the raid in Paktia province, which he said was aimed at destroying a large weapons cache.
Hilferty said U.S. military officials acted on reliable information that an Islamic guerrilla identified as Mullah Jalani had stored weapons in a village about 12 miles east of Gardez, the provincial capital. On Friday night, the compound was assaulted by aircraft and ground troops, and nine people were arrested. The next day, a large arsenal of weapons and ammunition was found, along with the bodies of the civilians.
"We had no indication there were noncombatants in the compound," Hilferty said.
The incident came to light four days after a U.S. airstrike, also targeting Islamic guerrillas, killed nine children in neighboring Ghazni province. On Saturday, U.S. A-10 attack planes fired on a village compound in southern Ghazni, where U.S. officials believed a local Taliban commander, Mullah Wazir, was hiding. But villagers later said Wazir had left the area days or weeks earlier.
News of a second incident resulting in civilian deaths appeared certain to deepen concerns already expressed by Afghan and foreign authorities about the accuracy, purpose and value of high-intensity military assaults in populated areas, where civilian goodwill and support are crucial for U.S.-led efforts to stop attacks by resurgent Taliban fighters and other armed anti-government groups.
"The first news this week was bad enough; the second is obviously tragic," Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad told the Reuters news agency. "It shows the need for better coordination and that we need to look at our intelligence-gathering process."
The U.N. special envoy here sharply criticized the Ghazni attack, warning it would add to Afghans' fear and insecurity and called for an investigation. U.S. military and civilian officials here have apologized for the incident and said they were carrying out an urgent probe at the site.
Hilferty told reporters that "we try very hard not to kill anyone. We would prefer to capture the terrorists rather than kill them." But he added that "if noncombatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and howitzers and mortars in a compound known to be used by a terrorist, we are not completely responsible for the consequences."
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said that it is "always a tragedy when children die" and that "we do everything we can to avoid civilian deaths." But, he said, both Afghan and foreign forces "face a severe threat" from guerrillas who are trying to "derail" Afghanistan's progress.
Khalilzad, speaking Wednesday on National Public Radio, said he was convinced that despite such incidents, "the Afghan people are overwhelmingly in favor of what we are doing here" and that he had "not seen an indication of a change in public attitude" toward the U.S. presence.
In the past several weeks, U.S.-led coalition forces have launched a number of raids in eastern Afghanistan. On Dec. 2, U.S. military officials announced they had begun their largest combat operation in 18 months, sending about 2,000 troops into areas near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan.
The Taliban, a radical Islamic movement that ruled most of Afghanistan for five years, has been regrouping along the Pakistani border since U.S. and Afghan forces drove it from power in late 2001.
Taliban leaders have repeatedly denounced the continuing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and have regained some popular support in the impoverished southeast, where conditions have improved little under the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Since October, militants suspected of being allied with the Taliban and other radical Islamic forces have carried out violent attacks in several southeastern provinces, including the fatal shooting of a French U.N. worker in Ghazni province, a bombing that wounded 20 people in Kandahar and the kidnapping of foreigners working on a major highway project. A kidnapped Turkish engineer was released after a month in captivity, but two Indian workers are still being held.
Spokesmen for the Taliban have also threatened to violently disrupt a national assembly to adopt a new constitution, which is scheduled to begin Saturday at a heavily guarded university campus here.
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Militias Transfer Heavy Arms, Bolstering Kabul's Authority
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A46
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54404-2003Dec10.html
PANJSHIR GATE, Afghanistan, Dec. 10 -- The huge green military truck rumbled and belched as its driver waited for the signal. The snub nose of a Soviet Scud missile poked above the cab. A soldier slowly lifted the striped pole blocking the road, and a small arsenal began a historic journey from the militia lairs of the Panjshir Valley to the safekeeping of the Afghan government.
The convoy of loaded missile launchers, tanks and artillery pieces left Panjshir Wednesday morning en route to an Afghan army compound in Kabul, 70 miles to the south. There, they would be turned over to central authorities, 15 years after ethnic Tajik insurgents seized them from the Afghan government during the insurgents' long fight against Soviet occupation.
Although some weapons remained behind in the valley and some militia commanders reportedly resisted the move, officials said the political significance of the transfer was enormous, given the deep rivalries and mistrust between the Tajiks of the Panjshir and the two-year-old government headed by President Hamid Karzai, who is from the Pashtun ethnic group, Afghanistan's largest.
"We kept these weapons as the pride of our holy war, but we have peace and security now. Today they are the property of the Afghan people, not of any one faction," Gen. Bismullah Khan, the army chief of staff and a former Panjshiri commander, told reporters gathered beside a river that rushed through the rocky Panjshir gorge. "This shows our sincere and honest support for the government."
Yet Khan and other officials suggested that only direct personal intervention by another Panjshiri -- Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim -- had persuaded the valley's commanders to give up a hard-won arsenal that has provided them powerful leverage during the uncertain political transition since the collapse of Taliban rule in late 2001.
The weapons surrender occurred only after months of negotiation and was reportedly unpopular with many prominent Panjshiris, but Defense Ministry officials said it would set a crucial example for other areas of the country. In Kabul, for example, officials hope hundreds of heavy weapons held by Tajik militias can soon be collected and turned over to the new national army.
"There is no doubt that Panjshiris raised a number of questions and concerns. There were rumors among the people," Khan said. But he said Fahim visited the area, spoke with the commanders and elders, and won their support for the transfer. Fahim, who initially resisted efforts to reform the Afghan military and demobilize private militias, has emerged as a strong public advocate of such policies.
Some militiamen watching the convoy expressed regret and suspicion over giving up so many heavy weapons, including two Scuds and 13 other Soviet-built missiles, 11 tanks and 38 artillery pieces. They noted that attacks by the Taliban and other anti-government forces are escalating just as the government is trying to disarm and demobilize the militias that fought against Soviet occupation and Taliban rule.
Since October, about 4,000 soldiers and officers have been disarmed in Kunduz, Paktia and Kabul provinces, most of them handing over Kalashnikov rifles or other personal weapons in exchange for $200 in cash and a promise of job training. Wednesday's heavy-weapons transfer was not part of that U.N.-supervised program, and there was no immediate reward offered.
"This is a sad day for me. The Taliban and al Qaeda are alive with their guns, but the government is coming to the Panjshir for our weapons," said Ismael, 22, a militiaman who said he had once fought Taliban forces that surrounded his village. "If they collected all the weapons from the Taliban, that would be different."
Several soldiers said they supported the transfer and were proud to turn the weapons over to central authorities after keeping them safely for so long. But they also expressed worry about their own futures in a competitive civilian society after spending years as fighting men.
"I am an expert on Scuds. We captured them in 1987 and I studied them for 10 years. Is there anyone in the new army who knows anything about Russian weapons?" demanded Lt. Mahmad Ehsan, 30. "We all want these weapons to go to Kabul, to support our country, but what about us? What will happen to us now?"
As the convoy crawled down the rugged Panjshir gorge, it passed hundreds of rusting Soviet tanks, the detritus of years of combat that consumed this impoverished but hardy corner of Afghanistan. It also passed hundreds of posters showing Ahmed Shah Massoud, the senior Panjshiri commander who dominated this valley for two decades and was assassinated by suicide bombers in September 2001.
In interviews along the way, militiamen referred to Massoud as "emir sahib" -- respected Islamic leader. In their speeches, Afghan military officials invoked Massoud's name in hopes of planting his posthumous imprimatur on their controversial move to disarm the country's most politically powerful militia.
"The credit for safeguarding these weapons goes to the martyr Massoud and the freedom fighters of the Panjshir," Deputy Defense Minister Rahim Wardak said as he sat on a stone ledge beside the rushing river. "The gratitude of the nation will be written in history."
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Britain Restructuring Its Armed Forces
December 11, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Defense.html
LONDON (AP) -- Britain announced a major restructuring of its armed forces Thursday, with plans to make them lighter, quicker and more technologically advanced.
The announcement coincided with a separate government report that criticized the preparedness of British troops for the war in Iraq, saying many soldiers did not even have the correct boots when they embarked on desert warfare.
Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Britain must modernize its forces so they can continue to fight side by side with the United States in the war on terror.
Presenting the government's plans, Hoon said that over time the military would cut its number of heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery, downgrade one of its three armored brigades and keep under review the number of combat aircraft it deploys.
But he said the armed forces would become more hi-tech and capable of deploying quickly around the world for combat, peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.
The government gave no indication whether the restructuring would affect overall troop numbers.
The changes are similar to those proposed by Washington. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith said a week ago that the Pentagon wants to have smaller, more agile military units on bases where they are available to travel to crisis areas on short notice.
Hoon told the House of Commons on Thursday that Britain's armed forces needed to be ``rebalanced'' for the post-Cold War era.
``This is a changing world and we must adapt if our armed forces are to stay ahead of potential adversaries,'' he said. ``The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the threat posed by international terrorism, coupled with the consequences of failed or failing states, present us with very real and immediate challenges.''
He said Britain expected to conduct military operations alongside or integrated with U.S., NATO, U.N. and European forces.
The idea is Britain should be able to mount limited operations on its own, or take the lead in small to medium-scale operations at the head of an international coalition. Large-scale operations, such as the war in Iraq, could only plausibly be mounted if the United States were involved.
Hoon said a major area of investment would be technology to ensure tanks, ships and aircraft in the battle zone are linked by computer. So-called ``network-enabled capabilities'' would allow information gatherers, commanders and troops to work together with ``unparalleled speed and accuracy.''
The main opposition Conservative Party accepted the need to counter the threat of terrorism, but feared the plans were a veiled attempt to cut Britain's defense capability.
``Given that there are so few hard facts ... we are concerned that a whole raft of decisions on cuts will start to leach out later,'' Conservative defense spokesman Nicholas Soames said.
The government insists, however, that defense spending will increase 1.2 percent per year in real terms between 2002-2003 and 2005-2006.
In a separate report, the National Audit Office, which scrutinizes public spending on behalf of Parliament, reported on lessons that could be learned from the war in Iraq.
It said that body armor, nuclear, biological and chemical suits and desert uniforms all failed to reach some troops on the front line. The speedy deployment was cited as a key problem. It said the forces had to be ready much more quickly than the Defense Ministry's planning assumptions had envisaged.
Some Challenger 2 tanks were only ready for desert warfare 48 hours before they went into action, while tanks and other armored vehicles never received filters to protect against nuclear, chemical and biological contamination.
Commanders struggled to locate equipment, the report said, and in one instance, 200,000 body armor sets issued since the 1999 Kosovo campaign seemed simply to have ``disappeared.''
The report noted, however, that the Iraq war was a ``significant military success.''
``We must learn from the difficulties as well as the successes,'' Hoon said.
In a third report published Thursday, the Ministry of Defense acknowledged it had experienced problems in distributing essential equipment, including body armor, to its troops in Iraq.
In that report, titled ``Lessons for the Future,'' the ministry said it would assess the level of stocks held in readiness for such large-scale operations.
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U.S. Decision on Iraq Contracts Irritates Excluded War Critics
By Peter Finn and Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A42
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54443-2003Dec10.html
BERLIN, Dec. 10 -- Germany, Canada and Russia expressed irritation and disbelief Wednesday after a Pentagon announcement barring firms from those countries from bidding on $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Analysts said the move would set back U.S. efforts to repair relations with friendly countries that opposed the war.
France, which led the antiwar coalition but has recently tried to mend relations with the United States, was more circumspect. President Jacques Chirac, leaving a cabinet meeting, would not comment, but a Foreign Ministry spokesman later said, "We are studying these decisions' compatibility with international competition law."
The response in Berlin was much blunter. A spokesman for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said the decision was "unacceptable" and that it ran counter to what the Germans had perceived as a new "spirit" in relations, one of "looking toward the future and not the past."
Last month, in a clear nod to Washington, Schroeder said he favored restructuring Iraq's massive foreign debt to help the country recover and was open to forgiving some of the $100 billion or so that Iraq owes its creditors.
News services reported that President Bush called Chirac, Schroeder and President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Wednesday to ask them to reduce Iraq's debt. A National Security Council spokesman, Sean McCormack, said Bush discussed "the need to restructure and reduce Iraq's crushing debt burden" and asked the three leaders to meet with former secretary of state James A. Baker III, whom he appointed last week to handle the debt issue.
The Canadian government was also upset by the Pentagon decision. "If these comments are accurate . . . it would be difficult for us to give further money for the reconstruction of Iraq," said John Manley, the deputy prime minister. "To exclude Canadians just because they are Canadians would be unacceptable if they accept funds from Canadian taxpayers for the reconstruction of Iraq." A government spokesman noted that Canada had already donated about $190 million toward reconstruction.
Paul Martin, who is set to become Canada's next prime minister on Friday, told reporters he found it difficult "to fathom" the decision. "I understand the importance of these kinds of contracts, but this shouldn't be just about who gets contracts, who gets business," Martin said. "It ought to be about what is the best thing for the people of Iraq."
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said it would investigate whether the U.S. action violates World Trade Organization rules, the Associated Press reported.
In response to questions from European governments, U.S. officials cited an exception to WTO contracting rules in cases of "essential security." The office of the U.S. Trade Representative, however, issued a statement saying that the Coalition Provisional Authority is not subject to international procurement obligations, which means there is no need to cite that exception.
The Bush administration said it was well within its rights to direct U.S. taxpayer money to companies of its choosing. Another $13 billion pledged to Iraq in October by other countries and international institutions will be overseen by the World Bank and the United Nations.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said primary contractors would be limited to partners in the military alliance now contributing to Iraqi reconstruction. "If additional countries want to participate with our efforts . . . then circumstances can change," he said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher pointed out that all such partners would be eligible and said, "As a general proposition, I would tell you it was not done to exclude, it was done to include." The administration was criticized last spring for reserving all contracts for U.S. contractors.
Once the primary contracts are awarded, Boucher said, the winning bidders will be entitled to hire subcontractors from any country they choose, including France, Germany, Russia and Canada.
"This is a negative decision for German industry and commerce," said Ludolf von Wartenberg, director general of the Federation of German Industries, whose group held a previously scheduled meeting today on opportunities in Iraq. "We regret this decision."
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who was meeting in Berlin Wednesday with his Russian counterpart, said, "We noted with astonishment today the reports, and we will be speaking about it with the American side."
Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, said he would contact Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on the issue and suggested it should not be up to the United States to decide who rebuilds Iraq. "As for future contracts in Iraq, I believe that is a matter for the sovereign government of Iraq," he said at a news conference in Moscow.
The Pentagon decision particularly irritated Moscow because Putin has tried to be accommodating to Washington on postwar issues. While pushing for the occupation to be put under the auspices of the United Nations, Putin has supported the United States remaining in command of military forces in Iraq.
Russia had a strong business relationship with Iraq before the war and wants to get its oil companies back into the country. Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil producer, has been particularly eager to salvage a multibillion-dollar contract to develop the West Qurnah oil fields.
Russia also holds substantial Iraqi debts, assessed at between $8 billion and $11 billion, and seems prepared to use that as leverage with the United States. Ivanov said: "We are not planning to write off any debts. Iraq is not a poor country."
"It's the kindergarten approach to transatlantic relations," Eberhard Sandschneider of the German Council on Foreign Relations said of the Pentagon action. "If you destroy my sand castle, I will destroy yours. If improvement in transatlantic relations was any part of America's focus, it's a mistake. Emotions are coming back into the equation after months of trying to get them out."
Baker reported from Moscow. Correspondent DeNeen L. Brown in Toronto and staff writer Peter Slevin in Washington contributed to this report.
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Army Corps to Have Big Role in Awarding Iraq Contracts
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page E02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54567-2003Dec10.html
The Army Corps of Engineers will take the lead in awarding the $18.6 billion in new Iraq reconstruction contracts, government officials said yesterday.
The decision, which will give the Pentagon tighter control over the second round of Iraq spending, was attributed to the Army Corps' expertise in construction matters. It will award at least half of the 26 prime contracts, covering electrical infrastructure, transportation, communications and justice facilities. The U.S. Navy Civil Engineer Corps will be responsible for awarding five public works and water contracts.
"We have determined the agencies in our government that are the subject-matter experts," said Maj. Joseph M. Yoswa, a Pentagon spokesman.
The U.S. Agency for International Development was the leader in awarding more than $2 billion in initial reconstruction contracts. Half of the funding went to projects such as refurbishing school programs and assessing health needs . USAID is currently reviewing bids for a $1.7 billion infrastructure contract. "That's not an insignificant amount of work that we will continue to do in Iraq," said Portia Palmer, a USAID spokeswoman.
The Army Corps has been under pressure from some Democrats in Congress to explain the prices it is paying a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton Co. to import fuel to Iraq under the existing fuel contract. Richard B. Cheney headed Halliburton before he became vice president.
In a letter yesterday, Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) said Halliburton is paying $2.64 per gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait. They said that price is more than double what others, including American military force in Iraq, are paying.
The Army Corps has said government audits have turned up nothing inappropriate and note that the Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, has to negotiate short-term fuel contracts, which are more costly. The Army Corps is in the process of bidding out two oil contracts to replace the one with KBR.
In the meantime, the Army Corps has been negotiating with the Defense Energy Support Center, which supplies fuel to the military, to take over the work. An Army Corps official said that is unlikely because the energy center would have to bid out the work again, rather than use the same contract that is supplying military forces in Iraq.
The new contracts will be structured differently than the contracts that USAID and the Army Corps awarded with limited or no competition. They will be competitively bid but also open-ended, meaning that the government can add work to them without going through the bid process again.
"These are huge contracts with very open-ended, vague statements of work," said Jessica C. Abrahams, a government contract lawyer at Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy LLP in Washington. "They've manifested themselves into a way of avoiding competition."
The winning bidders will be given tasks to carry out as projects are identified. U.S. officials said that gives them greater flexibility for getting the contracts awarded under an unusually fast schedule: 10 weeks instead of the six months it typically takes.
"This is a very, very fast train we are on," Michael Mele, the Army Corps Iraq program manager, said yesterday at a conference in Washington.
-------- china
US, China find a new middle way
Chinese premier's visit reflects a relationship characterized less by rivalry than moderation.
By Peter Grier and Amelia Newcomb
December 11, 2003
Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1211/p01s02-woap.html
WASHINGTON - The welcome accorded Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in Washington this week highlights how much US-Chinese relations have improved since the first months of the Bush administration.
This doesn't mean these two giants of the world economy have become strategic partners, as Clinton officials had hoped. From trade to Taiwan, there are too many differences between them for that. But neither have they become strategic competitors, as the Bush team once predicted they might.
For the most part, China and the US instead appear to have compromised on a middle ground that entails working together when they can while playing down conflicts, if possible.
"It's a selective partnership. On issues where they have similar interests, they'll cooperate," says Minxin Pei, an Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
It's easy to forget now, but before Sept. 11 and the war on terrorism intervened it seemed that China might be one of the Bush administration's biggest foreign policy problems.
One of the first real overseas crises the Bush White House dealt with was the forced landing of a US Navy eavesdropping aircraft on Chinese soil. (The crew was peacefully returned after delicate negotiations.) Charges of Chinese espionage further roiled the relationship. Bush himself adamantly defended Taiwan, going so far as to say in April 2001 that he would do whatever it took to defend an island the Chinese government considers a wayward province.
But the Bush White House appeared to learn what every US administration since Nixon has: China is too big and too important to handle without care. It sits on the UN Security Council. The China-Taiwan relationship is potentially one of the most dangerous flash points anywhere. China's voracious economy is becoming the engine of Asia, if not yet the world.
"It has always been a relationship where if it goes very wrong the costs are very high for everyone," says Ken Lieberthal, a China expert at the University of Michigan.
Over the past two years, US rhetoric about China has been noticeably more restrained. Washington and Beijing have worked closely together to try to defuse the North Korean nuclear issue.
Gone is the tension of Bush's early months. "It has been one of the biggest foreign policy shifts of this administration," says Elizabeth Economy, an Asia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The visit of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao reflected this shift. From the 19-gun salute on the South Lawn of the White House to President Bush's discussion of Abraham Lincoln with his visitor, Mr. Wen was feted in a way seldom associated with a nation's No. 2 official. Most striking was Bush's stern warning to Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province, not to proceed with an election gambit seen as a referendum on possible independence.
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-Bian has proposed that his nation vote on China's missile build-up in the area, and asked for US support for this vote. Instead, Bush said that Mr. Chen's actions indicate that he may "be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose."
The US has long indicated that it would come to Taiwan's aid if China tried to use force to bring the island to heel, says Mr. Pei of the Carnegie Endowment. With his statement, Bush has simply explicated what the US position is with regards to possible provocations on the other side of the Taiwan Straits. "The policy to this point was really tilted to Taiwan. This brings it back into balance," says Pei.
Other experts disagree as to whether the statement is on its face a shift in policy. But some saw the atmospherics as striking, noting that President Bush used the phrase "leader" to refer to Taiwan's head of state, as do the Chinese, instead of the more loaded word "president."
Purposely or not, the White House has sent a message that may well reverberate throughout East Asia.
"The signal it sends ... is that the US has backed off, and the growing influence of China has forced the US to back off," says Warren Cohen, a history professor and Asia expert at the University of Maryland.
White House officials insisted that Bush's statement did not conflict with his recent speeches calling for a renewed push to spread democracy in the Middle East, and indeed the world.
Taiwan is already largely democratic, they noted, and enjoys the fruits of a capitalist economy. But this democracy could be threatened if Taiwan's leaders go too far and provoke a Chinese overreaction.
In the end, the Bush administration may simply have recognized the reality that China is on the rise as a regional power and that if the US wants to maintain influence in the area it will have to accommodate itself to this change in some manner. The Chinese themselves have become smoother and less hostile in their diplomacy with the US and many neighbors, note some US experts.
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Taiwan's President Unfazed by U.S. Warning
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A47
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53717-2003Dec10.html
TAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 10 -- President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan brushed off the strongest U.S. rebuke in years and announced a bid for reelection Wednesday, as his government minimized Washington's concerns about a planned referendum that angers China. Even Chen's opponents declined to make the U.S. warning a campaign issue.
One day after President Bush stood next to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and bluntly warned Chen against moving Taiwan toward independence, the island of 23 million appeared to be less in shock than in denial. There was little sense of crisis and no sign the warning had hurt Chen's popularity or altered his plans to hold a referendum in March demanding that China remove hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan.
Asked on Tuesday if he wanted Chen to cancel the March 20 referendum, Bush declined to answer directly. He said the United States opposed "any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo, and the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo."
Chen responded Wednesday by assuring the United States that he had no plans to provoke China by seeking independence. But he refused to withdraw his referendum proposal, insisting that it did nothing to change relations with China.
He also criticized China for trying to block Taiwan's efforts to strengthen its democracy, and he urged the world not to let Beijing determine how Taiwan should handle its affairs. "What's threatening? What's provocative? It is absolutely not something that Chinese leaders can unilaterally define," he said.
Chen's supporters in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party said Bush issued his warning only to please the visiting Chinese premier, and that U.S. policy had not changed. Bush may oppose a referendum that changes the status quo, such as a vote on independence, but he is not against a referendum on China's missile deployment, they said.
U.S. officials who briefed reporters in Washington on condition of anonymity said the United States opposed the proposed vote, which China has described as a provocation that could lead to war. But Chen's political allies and the Taiwanese news media largely ignored those remarks focusing instead on Bush's less specific statement.
"Bush's remarks after his meeting with Wen signal no fundamental changes to the basic U.S. policy," Foreign Minister Eugene Chien said. "President Chen himself has on many occasions declared that the referendum plan has nothing to do with the subject of independence."
Taiwanese political analysts said that if Bush wanted Taiwan to cancel its referendum, he would have to be more forceful and direct. They cite his administration's previous record of strong support for Taiwan, including unprecedented levels of arms sales and military cooperation, and the warm treatment Chen received when he traveled to the United States this fall.
"That's why popular sentiment is that President Bush would never really let Taiwan down," said Emile Sheng, a political scientist at Soochow University. "The Taiwanese people have heard so many warnings and seen so much, including Chinese missile tests, that Bush will have to be 100 percent clear if he wants to shock Taiwan into realizing there is a problem."
Chen also may be receiving mixed signals from the United States or counting on allies in the U.S. Congress to ensure the Bush administration doesn't abandon the island. Chen met Wednesday with Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), a longtime friend of Taiwan.
"There's no question in my mind that the people of Taiwan have a right to request those Chinese missiles be moved," Burton said in a telephone interview. He emphasized that Chen "stated clearly that while he is going ahead with the referendum, he is not going to move toward independence. I take him at his word. He just wants to focus attention on those missiles."
Tim Ting, a pollster, said it was unclear whether Bush's rebuke would hurt Chen's chances of reelection, but so far he has not slipped significantly in polls, which show the race is close. Ting said he expected Chen to continue pressing for the referendum. "If he retreats, he will look weak and lose," he said.
Ting and other analysts said they expected Chen to portray himself as a hero who is standing up to China and even the United States, and to cast his rival for the presidency, Nationalist leader Lien Chan, as a lackey of the Communists and the Americans.
Chen's opponents have warned that he is jeopardizing Taiwan's security by angering China and straining relations with the United States, the island's most important military ally. But they have been restrained so far. Lien declined to comment about Bush's rebuke of Chen, telling reporters he wanted to "observe" the situation.
Correspondent John Pomfret in Beijing and special correspondent Tim Culpan in Taipei contributed to this report.
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Long Basque Rebellion Losing Strength
International Effort Squeezes Underground Separatist Group
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54614-2003Dec10?language=printer
SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain -- After more than three decades of sporadic bombings and assassinations by the separatist group known as ETA, many people here in Spain's prosperous Basque region are daring to speak of a possibility that long seemed remote: an end to one of Europe's oldest conflicts.
ETA victims, academics, local leaders, journalists, Spanish government officials and others say that the underground group, which demands a separate country for Spain's 800,000 Basque people, has been severely weakened in recent months by the arrests of scores of members and many top leaders in Spain and in France. The Basques have lived in the swath of border territory on both sides of the Pyrenees mountains for thousands of years.
Another major arrest was reported Tuesday: Police in southwestern France seized Gorka Palacio Alday, who Spanish authorities say is the group's military commander.
In addition, ETA's financial assets abroad have been squeezed by increased international cooperation. And whatever public sympathy ETA enjoyed has declined in a wave of revulsion against its killings of popular politicians and journalists.
"There's a big change developing in the Basque Country in Spain," said the Rev. Txema Auzmendi, a Basque Jesuit priest who runs a local radio station, Herri Irratia, or Radio Popular. "It looks like ETA will call it quits."
The most concrete evidence is a fall in the number of attacks and killings by ETA, the Basque-language initials for Basque Homeland and Liberty. In 2000, when ETA announced the "reactivation of armed struggle" following a 14-month cease-fire, its operatives launched 44 bombings and assassinations, in which 23 people were killed, government figures show. In 2001, it carried out 43 attacks, killing 15. But in 2002, the number of attacks dropped to 20, with five deaths, and so far this year there have been 17 strikes attributed to ETA, in which three people were killed.
ETA's rebellion, which has claimed more than 800 lives, began in the early 1960s during the repressive 40-year Spanish dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. It has continued to bedevil the democratic governments that followed Franco's death in 1976. Spain has granted the country's Basques broad autonomy but has drawn the line at independence.
Some of the decline in attacks has been attributed to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's hard-line policy toward ETA: no negotiations, no concessions and unrelenting police pressure. Aznar, who escaped unhurt from an ETA bombing of his car in 1995, has been faulted by many in the Basque region for failing to have political dialogue with moderate Basque nationalists who run the regional government and reject violence.
Yet many critics concede that his tough approach has succeeded in keeping the group on the defensive. "Little by little, it's the end of ETA," said Gorka Landaburu, an editor at the magazine Cambio 16 and a frequent radio commentator. "ETA is arriving at the end of the road."
Landaburu is something of an expert, having become a victim of the ETA. In May 2001, he opened a letter bomb that exploded. He lost his left eye, his right thumb and some of his fingertips. He was likely saved only because he opened the package while standing up at his desk; a high-backed office chair between him and the bomb absorbed much of the blast.
While no fan of the separatists, Landaburu is also critical of Aznar's approach. "Mr. Aznar is not doing anything to try to find a way for dialogue," Landaburu said. "He thinks he can end ETA with the force of justice, the police and the French crackdown. It's the end of ETA, thanks to the pressure, thanks to the international cooperation. But there is still a need for negotiations."
The weakening of ETA has also been traced to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, which triggered the U.S.-led global war on terrorism. The State Department agreed with Aznar's request to label ETA a terrorist organization. The European Union followed suit, which led to a freezing of the group's assets and closer coordination between governments in tracking a list of ETA suspects. A series of key arrests followed in Spain and, notably, in France, which ETA has long used as its base for operations.
Spanish officials had long contended that French police had been slow to act, because almost no attacks occurred on French soil. But the French anti-terrorism police have put severe pressure on ETA members in France in the past year and a half -- prompted, many said, by the EU's labeling of ETA as a terrorist group and the shift in France, in May 2002, to a center-right government that campaigned against rising insecurity. In November 2002, Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly appointed French interior minister, visited Madrid and met in the Spanish Senate with the families of ETA victims. Sarkozy was stunned to find hundreds of people -- including children who had lost parents, and wives of slain Spanish policemen -- crammed into the chamber, an aide said. Since his return, the French crackdown has intensified.
Last August, a Spanish judge ordered a ban on the radical Basque party Batasuna, accused by the Spanish government of being the legal, political arm of ETA. Batasuna's party offices and "people's taverns," which Spanish officials consider to be recruiting grounds for ETA, were closed. At the time, many feared that banning Batasuna would cause a political backlash in the region, but it never materialized.
Before the Sept. 11 attacks, such steps would likely have drawn widespread international criticism. But in the context of the war on terrorism, Spain's actions evoked barely a note of international concern.
"No one is saying anything," said Martxelo Otamendi, chief editor of Egunkaria, a Basque-language newspaper that was closed by the government in February. Meanwhile, he said, Aznar "is closing newspapers and torturing suspects." Otamendi was detained for five days by Spain's elite Civil Guard after being accused of being an ETA member; he said he was not, but has interviewed ETA leaders. He said that during his detention, he was tortured and was forced to stand and squat naked with his hands raised for long periods. Otamendi was freed after paying a $30,000 bond, but his bank accounts were frozen and his passport was seized. He has filed a complaint in court alleging he was tortured by the anti-terrorism police.
Analysts said that ETA has been further knocked off balance as the Irish Republican Army, long considered the Basque group's soul mate, has observed a cease-fire that has enabled a peace process to proceed in Northern Ireland. Last year, the IRA apologized for killing civilians; it has also disposed of part of its arsenal.
"The IRA has been their big brother in terms of ideology," said Auzmendi, the Jesuit priest. Now ETA members "are really isolated."
Public fatigue with the conflict has also helped weaken the group, many analysts here said. "You can't kill people just because they disagree with you," said Andolin Eguzkitza, a professor of Basque culture in the Basque city of Bilbao. "People of goodwill are getting fed up." He added, "Today, many people who have been defending the work of ETA would say they have to stop."
Spanish government and security officials in Madrid and Paris agreed that ETA has been severely weakened, although they did not predict the group's imminent demise.
"ETA is in a weak situation," said Ignacio Astarloa, Spain's deputy interior minister for security. "ETA is dismantled, its ability to act is significantly reduced and the level of information the French and Spanish police forces has received is as never before."
But "as long as ETA exists, it can kill at any time," Astarloa said. "The end of ETA will come about from police action, without a doubt. I'm very clear now that ETA has an end."
Astarloa said the Sept. 11 attacks "inarguably changed things, because it lays before a lot of people the horror that terrorism really is."
In Paris, a senior French security official confirmed that French actions have been stepped up in the past two years, saying, "We've caught a lot of big fish." He added: "The Spanish believe this could be the end of ETA. We hope this is not wishful thinking."
With ETA seemingly weakened, many here say they believe now is the time for a new political deal between the Spanish government and the autonomous Basque region.
The president of the regional government, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, whose Basque Nationalist Party controls the regional legislature, is proposing a new power-sharing deal that would further increase this region's autonomy in such areas as education and health and give the Basques a seat at European Union meetings on matters that concern the Basque region.
Aznar and his supporters in Madrid condemn the plan as an unconstitutional and surreptitious attempt to achieve independence. "It's a back door to sovereignty," said Gustavo de Aristegui, a member of the Spanish parliament and the majority leader on foreign policy. "They can't get it by voting, so they try to snatch it."
But in the sleepy Basque capital of Vitoria -- a town of broad avenues and high-rise buildings -- Ibarretxe defended his plan as a way out of the impasse and the violence. "My plan is not an independence plan," Ibarretxe said in an interview. "My plan is not a plan to break up Spain, but a plan to coexist with Spain."
Ibarretxe said he condemns "totally and absolutely" the violence. "I know there are people who try to connect Basque nationalism to ETA violence, but that's very unfair," he said. "We have never defended our ideas with guns and we will never defend our ideas with guns."
Despite his protests, many people in Spain accuse Ibarretxe of implicitly siding with ETA gunmen to advance an independence agenda -- for example, by allowing members of the banned Batasuna party to continue to operate openly in the Basque Country, in defiance of Spain's Supreme Court.
Ibarretxe's autonomy plan calls for the Basque government to take full control of natural resources, infrastructure and administration of the state pension and welfare programs in the Basque territory. "We think if we manage it from here, we will do a better job than if it is managed from Madrid," he said.
What Spanish officials most oppose is an element of Ibarretxe's plan in which the Basques would send their own representatives to international bodies to protect Basque interests on such issues as fishing rights or the environment. Spanish representatives say that would amount to allowing the Basques to have a separate foreign policy, a step toward in