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NUCLEAR
Moment of truth for nuclear fusion scheme
Nuclear waste puzzle
Nuclear generator British Energy warns over profits
Iran Expected to Sign Nuclear Agreement
Iran to Sign Protocol on Snap UN Nuclear Checks
Blix Unveils Independent Panel on WMD
Japanese leery of nuclear power as nation bids for ITER reactor
Officials Work to Block Weapons Transfers
U.S. Seeking New UN Anti - Proliferation Measure
Targeting Spread of Deadliest Arms
Russia to Extend Nuclear Missile Lifetime
Chemical, Nuclear Arms Still 'Major Threat,' Cheney Says
Kerry Would Expand Military As President
MILITARY
Link Between Afghanistan's North and South Is Restored
'A Road to Afghanistan's Future'
South Korea Decides to Send 3,000 More Troops to Iraq
Halliburton units file for bankruptcy
China Again Warns Taiwan on Move Toward Independence
China Turns Up the Heat on Taiwan President
Taiwan Passes 2 Resolutions Asking China to Remove Missiles
Taiwan's Chen Warns China Against Missile Tests
Blair: US has found secret Iraq labs
CIA will be in charge of questioning Saddam
Truck and Bus Collide, Causing Deadly Blast in Baghdad
Iraqis Ambush a U.S. Convoy; G.I.'s Raid Cell
As Iraqis Become the Targets of Terrorists
Sharon Deputy Urges Major Unilateral Concession if Talks Fail
'92 Israeli Plan to Kill Hussein Is Reported
Hussein Enters Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons
Plans for Space Are Realistic, Official Says
CIA Poised to Quiz Hussein Rumsfeld Says Agency To Control Interrogations
Iraqi Official Criticizes Security Council
Iraqi Minister Wants U.N. to Return
Bush: No difference between having weapons and planning for them
Coming Soon to Arab TV's: U.S.
U.S. Plans to Offer Official Coverage of Iraq Directly to Viewers
Prosecution of Hussein: Decade's Digging Is Already Done
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
U.S. and Europeans Agree on Sharing of Airline Passenger Data
Crime Database Misused for Civil Issues, Suit Says
U.S. Considers Expanding FBI Database
EU Agrees to Share Airline Passenger Data
Ashcroft Is Rebuked for Terror Remarks
Judge Rebukes Ashcroft for Gag Violation
Feds Outline Plan on Enemy Combatants
U.S. Might Compromise In Moussaoui Dispute
OTHER
Hot Spot in 2003? The Earth, U.N. Says
U.S. Won't Narrow Wetlands Protection
EPA Scraps Changes To Clean Water Act
ACTIVISTS
The Enola Gay In a Truly Terrifying Light
Watch DC Channel 13 Live Online Police Misconduct Hearings
Enola Gay Protesters Disrupt Museum Event
Jackson and Marchers Decry Raid At School
Ugly History Hides in Plain Sight
-------- NUCLEAR
Moment of truth for nuclear fusion scheme
PARIS (AFP)
Dec 17, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031217045259.xfuw4to2.html
Leaders from the boldest nuclear initiative since the Manhattan Project gather this weekend to decide on a beauty contest with a 10-billion-dollar prize: which country will host the world's first large-scale nuclear fusion reactor.
France and Japan will be vying in the Washington meeting on Saturday to be named the venue for ITER -- Latin for "the way" -- which aims to be a test bed for what is being billed as the clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future.
"We have the structure, scientific and technical environment to ensure that this scheme can start up with competence, expertise and solid safety guarantees," French Research Minister Claudie Haignere says, pushing the town of Cadarache, southern France.
"If our site is chosen, Japan will cover the costs that are needed," says Hidekazu Tanaka, a senior official at the Japanese Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, promoting the northern Japanese village of Rokkasho-mura.
In the past, nuclear energy has derived from splitting atoms of radioactive material to unleash a controlled chain reaction whose by-product is heat.
But more than half a century of experience in fission has thrown up some serious problems, ranging from the nightmare of Chernobyl to the perils of transporting nuclear material and where and how to store dangerous long-term waste.
Nuclear fusion takes the opposite approach, seeking to emulate the Sun.
The solar crucible takes the nuclei of two atoms of deuterium, which is the heavy form of hydrogen, and fuses them together to form tritium (the other isotope of hydrogen) and in so doing releases huge amounts of energy.
There is a virtually limitless source of deuterium in the world, because it can be derived from water; as for tritium, it is not a natural element, but can be easily made by irradiating it with lithium at high pressure.
That is the theory, and getting from there to a workable prototype plant of commercial size is what ITER is all about.
"ITER will be the first fusion device to produce thermal energy at the level of an electricity-producing power station," according to the ITER website.
"It will provide the next major step for the advancement of fusion science and technology, and is the key element in the strategy to reach the following demonstration electricity-generating power plant (DEMO) in a single experimental step."
For all the allure of nuclear fusion as a boundless energy source, and the promise that, unlike nuclear fission, it offers no environmental headache, the technical hurdles remain immense.
Among the many problems are how to efficiently confine the plasma cloud in the magnetic field so that charged particles do not slip out, and the energy cost in pumping up the plasma to such high temperatures in comparison with the energy yield.
So far, no one has achieved a long self-sustaining fusion event. The record, achieved by European scientists at a small experimental tokamak at Cadarache on December 4, is six and a half minutes, releasing a thousand megajoules of energy.
ITER is backed by the European Union (EU), which is backing France's bid for Cadarache, Japan, Canada, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States, which quit the project in 1998 but returned in January under US President George W. Bush's energy policy.
The cost of building and running ITER and constructing all the necessary infrastructure, such as roads and housing, is put at 10 billion dollars over 30 years, of which three billion will trickle down into the local economy, according to the Cadarache campaign team.
-------- britain
Nuclear waste puzzle
Wednesday December 17, 2003
The UK Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/comment/0,9236,1108442,00.html
By releasing the strategy review of BNFL on the same day as its new defence strategy paper, the government has pulled a "Jo Moore" in ensuring low-profile coverage of an important industrial decision (BNFL "dilution" is doubly damned, December 12). An astonishing revelation is buried in an explanatory note on the DTI website on the creation of a nuclear decommissioning authority in 2005.
This reads: "The Thorp [thermal oxide nuclear fuel reprocessing plant] and SMP [Sellafield Mox plutonium fuel production facility] plants at Sellafield will also be designated to the NDA. They will be operated by British Nuclear Fuels as the Sellafield site licensee company and were outside the terms of the review."
To exclude these two plants from the review is akin to conducting a review of Transport for London, but excluding consideration of buses and underground trains.
Thorp was started up 10 years ago. The SMP is still being commissioned, the aim being to recycle some of BNFL's near-100,000kg stockpile of plutonium, separated out from nuclear waste in Thorp. The DTI plans to allocate both plants to the NDA, on the dubious logic that any profits they make can offset some of the near- £50bn costs of cleaning up our nuclear waste legacy.
The two plants, but especially Thorp, are the main contributors to the growing nuclear waste stockpile. So to pay for some of the radioactive clean up, BNFL and the NDA will add to that very stockpile. Dr David Lowry Stoneleigh, Surrey
The chancellor is doing far worse than "creating confusion for motorists", if he is proposing to equalise petroleum revenue tax on liquified petroleum gas with that on petrol and diesel (Drivers confused as LPG duty rises, December 11). He is forsaking the environmental benefits of reductions in CO2 of around 8% and of nearly 12% in nitrous oxides through the use of LPG instead of petrol. LPG is a by-product of the oil refining process, and so even allowing for LPG's lower energy coefficient compared with petrol, the use of LPG also stretches our finite reserves of oil.
For the individual motorist, the withdrawal of the tax break on LPG will remove any incentive to invest in a bi-fuel vehicle or a conversion, even though there are long-term mechanical benefits and maintenance savings to be gained from burning LPG. For the industry, it will signal the end for 175 businesses dedicated to installing and maintaining LPG conversions, not to mention the 1,400 outlets selling LPG as an automotive fuel.
Bruce Purvis Winchester, Hants
----
Nuclear generator British Energy warns over profits
LONDON (AFP)
Dec 17, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031217085732.n9g9wywt.html
Troubled nuclear power generator British Energy announced Wednesday a sharp reduction in six-month losses but warned that its full year results were likely to prove disappointing.
The company, which in October restructured its debt after hovering on the brink of administration, made a pre-tax loss of 71 million pounds (101 million euros, 122 million euros) in the half-year to the end of September.
This was a substantial improvement on the 337 million pound loss seen in the same period last year, with British Energy crediting the better figures to an increase in power output and a 40 million pound cut in operating costs.
However, full-year results were "likely to come in below the boards previous expectations", the company warned in a statement, blaming the closure of its Heysham 1 and Sizewell B power stations for repair work.
The loss of power from the two stations had cost British energy a total of 95 million pounds, it said.
The 1.3-billion-pound debt deal will see creditors write off debts in exchange for bonds and shares in the company, and British Energy said Wednesday it was pressing ahead with a restructuring programme.
"The challenge for us is to deliver enhanced and reliable output from our stations thereby enabling us to build up our cash reserves and restore our profitability," chief executive Mike Alexander said in a statement.
"In this respect, I am pleased to report an improvement in our overall operational performance as well as a good start for our programmes to tackle the root causes of under-performance.
"However, the current unplanned outage at Heysham 1 and the extended statutory outage at Sizewell B represent a clear indication of the scale of the challenges facing us."
-------- iran
Iran Expected to Sign Nuclear Agreement
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran will sign a key agreement Thursday opening its nuclear facilities to outside scrutiny, the U.N. atomic agency said, ending weeks of speculation that Tehran was stalling despite mounting Western pressure and an implicit threat of sanctions.
Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and an unidentified Iranian government official will sign the pact Thursday afternoon at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, the agency said.
The Tehran regime, which announced the signing earlier Wednesday, made clear it was laying to rest suspicions that it was reluctant to comply with Western demands for full openness.
Since October, Iran repeatedly has said it would sign the accord, but its failure to follow through had led some foreign diplomats in Vienna to question its sincerity.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration labeled Iran part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Iraq and North Korea, which Washington also suspects of developing weapons of mass destruction.
``We have agreed to sign ... to give a strong response to accusations against us and demonstrate that our nuclear activities are peaceful,'' Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh told reporters in Tehran.
The agreement, tacked on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, requires Iran to submit to intrusive and unannounced U.N. inspections of its nuclear complexes and research facilities.
Iran agreed last month to open suspect sites that up to now have been off-limits, and to let IAEA inspectors conduct surprise checks to ensure the country is not trying to develop atomic weaponry as the United States alleges.
The IAEA's 35-nation board censured Iran in November for 18 years of secrecy in a resolution that warned Tehran to stay in line with international efforts to make sure the country has no nuclear weapons ambitions.
Although the resolution did not confront Iran with a direct threat of U.N. sanctions -- a tougher approach that Washington had sought -- it warned Tehran that the IAEA would consider further action if ``further serious Iranian failures'' arise.
The wording implicitly warned Iran that the agency could report it to the Security Council, which has the power to impose economic or diplomatic sanctions. It called on Tehran to ``promptly and unconditionally sign, ratify and fully implement'' the accord but did not set a deadline.
Iran insists its atomic energy program is peaceful and geared only to producing electricity. Under international pressure, it agreed to sign the inspection agreement and to suspend its enrichment of uranium, which it says had been confined to non-weapons levels anyway.
The IAEA has been working to determine the source of traces of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium on centrifuges and other equipment purchased abroad by Iran. The Iranian government contends the equipment already was contaminated when it acquired it.
Aghazadeh, the Iranian vice president, called on Britain, France and Germany to help secure the release of nuclear equipment that Iran has bought.
``Many countries, especially European states, are holding considerable equipment we've purchased and have taken no action so far to unblock them,'' he said. Aghazadeh said the equipment included materials designed to ensure the safety of uranium conversion systems.
Iran has made significant progress in building a 40-megawatt nuclear reactor in the central city of Arak, but it will take four to five years before the country will be able to produce and store the heavy water required to operate the reactor, Aghazadeh said.
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
----
Iran to Sign Protocol on Snap UN Nuclear Checks
December 17, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - Tehran said it would sign a protocol on Thursday giving the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog the right to conduct snap nuclear inspections across Iran, a gesture one Western diplomat described as ``long overdue.''
Iran's promise to sign the Additional Protocol to the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) comes nearly 18 months after an exiled Iranian opposition group sparked a crisis by saying Tehran was hiding several massive nuclear facilities from the U.N. The allegations were later confirmed as true.
``We have agreed to sign the protocol to prove our activities are peaceful,'' Iranian Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who heads Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told reporters in Tehran on Wednesday.
The signing ceremony is due to take place at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna at 9 a.m. EST. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and Tehran's outgoing representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, are expected to sign the document, diplomats told Reuters.
The United States accuses Iran of using its atomic energy program as a smokescreen for the development of nuclear arms, but Iran has repeatedly denied this.
The protocol sparked heated debate in Iran earlier this year, with hard-liners saying the short-notice inspections it permits were tantamount to allowing spies into the country.
But, under mounting international pressure, Iran said in October it would sign up for the tougher inspection regime, suspend uranium enrichment and provide full details of nuclear activities dating back to the 1980s.
``This is a long overdue but positive step forward,'' a Western diplomat told Reuters about the signing ceremony.
The IAEA criticized Tehran last month for an 18-year cover-up of potentially arms-related nuclear research, warning the Iranians any further breaches could see their case taken to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher welcomed Iran's decision to sign but also voiced caution.
``The signature is only one step toward resolving the remaining open questions about Iran's nuclear program and toward increasing international confidence that (it) will be limited to peaceful activities,'' he told reporters.
The protocol will give the IAEA much broader inspection powers than it has under Iran's NPT Safeguards Agreement. But one analyst warned the protocol would not prevent Iran from developing the capacity to manufacture nuclear arms in case it ever wanted to ``break out'' of the NPT and build an atomic bomb.
``Even with the Additional Protocol, the IAEA is going to need member states to provide intelligence,'' Gary Samore, senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, told Reuters. ``If governments have information that Iran has not really come clean, then now is the time to give it to the IAEA.''
-------- iraq / inspections
Blix Unveils Independent Panel on WMD
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Sweden-Weapons-Commission.html
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Tuesday it's becoming ``increasingly clear'' that Saddam Hussein's regime did not have any weapons of mass destruction.
Blix, who announced the members of a new Stockholm-based independent commission on weapons of mass destruction, said he didn't think Saddam's capture would result in the discovery of any such weapons in Iraq.
``My guess is that there are no weapons of mass destruction left,'' said Blix, who headed the team of U.N. inspectors that searched Iraq for more than three months before the war without making any significant finds. ``I think many of the things that were said (about Iraq having them) were not sufficiently well-based.''
Blix said he thought most of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were destroyed in 1991.
When his inspection teams found a crate of warheads in January, he said they asked themselves ``whether this was the tip of an iceberg, or was it just an ice floe floating around'' as a remnant.
``I think it's getting safer and safer to say that it was just an ice floe,'' Blix said.
The international commission was established this year in Stockholm and aims to provide a new impetus for international efforts to curtail -- or stop -- the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Blix is head of the body. The former Swedish foreign minister led the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981-97 and retired from the United Nations in June.
The body, which was proposed by U.N. Undersecretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala in 2002, is the first international commission focused on weapons of mass destruction since the Tokyo Forum in 1999.
``My ambition for this commission is that we will be able to provide realistic and constructive ideas and proposals aimed at the greatest possible reduction of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction,'' Blix said.
Blix added that the group plans to analyze the amount of nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological weapons, as well as the means to deliver them, but won't do any actual inspections. It will meet two to three times a year to discuss its findings.
Areas of concern included the Korean peninsula, Iran, tensions between India and Pakistan, as well as terrorism, he said.
The commission will present a final report on its findings, along with concrete ideas and proposals for how to battle the spreading of weapons of mass destruction, around the end of 2005. The first report, which is expected at the end of next year, will be delivered to the United Nations, he said.
The commission's headquarters will be in Stockholm. Sweden contributed nearly $1.8 million to the body, but will have no say in its course of work.
The commission includes William J. Perry, who was defense secretary in the Clinton administration.
-------- japan
Japanese leery of nuclear power as nation bids for ITER reactor
TOKYO (AFP)
Dec 17, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031217035800.0s9633p9.html
Japan's bid to host the world's first hydrogen fusion experimental nuclear reactor comes despite a patchy record that has shaken the confidence of locals over its ability to manage nuclear power safely.
Japan is expected to go head-to-head with France in the contest to host the prestigious International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, with a decision to be made in Washington on Saturday.
The two sites being considered are the Japanese site of Rokkasho-mura, in the northern Japanese prefecture of Aomori and Cadarache, in the south-east of France.
While nuclear energy accounts for nearly a third of Japan's electricity, a slew of accidents and cover-ups have shaken the public's faith in nuclear power.
Two plant workers were killed in Tokaimura in September 1999, some 120 kilometers to the north-east of Tokyo, and more than 600 people exposed to radiation after the workers set off a critical reaction by using steel buckets to pour uranium solution into a precipitation tank.
About 320,000 people were evacuated in the incident, regarded as the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
Public mistrust deepened further during the summer 2002 with a scandal surrounding Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the world's largest private electricity company and provider of a third of Japan's electricity.
TEPCO falsified safety reports since the late 1980s that would have shown cracks in its reactors.
A survey carried out in October 2002, soon after the scandal broke out, showed that 87 percent of the Japanese feared a possible nuclear accident.
Some 86 percent of those questioned said they were not convinced by the government's assertion that the cracks "did not have major safety implications".
Between September and April this year, TEPCO was forced to close all its power stations for inspection and since then, only five have been reopened.
Japan, which is the third largest nuclear power producer in the world after the United States and France, is home to 52 nuclear reactors run by 10 private companies. Four more are being built and another seven on the drawing board.
Despite the ITER project's high profile in Europe, many residents of Aomori know nothing about it, said Hiroshi Shikanai, a member of parliament from the prefecture who is openly opposed to the project.
"If a survey were carried out, I am sure that it would show that people had heard its name but do not know much about it, particularly about its negative aspects," Shikanai told AFP in a telephone interview.
"After the end of ITER, where will the waste go? It will remain here," he said.
Aomori prefectural authorities, who back the project, estimate 1.2 billion yen (9.11 billion euros) in economic activity would be generated by ITER over the three next decades for the prefecture's 1.5 million inhabitants.
"The world's top scientists would live in our village," said Kiyohiro Nozaka, spokesman for Rokkasho-mura, a village with 12,000 inhabitants. "The cultural benefit of having newcomers to our village will also be great."
Nozaka said he had not heard of any opposition from locals but environmentalist group Greenpeace has come out against the project.
"The ITER is sure to spread radioactive materials to the surrounding area," Kazue Suzuki of Greenpeace. "The risk of radiation exposure is very high."
-------- non-proliferation
Officials Work to Block Weapons Transfers
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Transfers.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Military and intelligence officials from 16 countries concluded talks Wednesday that were designed to develop skills for blocking the transfer of missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Six exercises in early 2004 are planned, led by the United States, France, Germany, Poland, and two by Italy. The joint effort involves interdiction at sea, in the air and on land.
The main goal is to prevent North Korea and others rogue states from spreading and acquiring weapons and technology. Russia and China, which are not among the 16 nations, have agreed to support the program, a senior U.S. official said.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice, who is President Bush's national security adviser, were among the U.S. officials who participated.
Four exercises have been held since Bush proposed the program in May in Krakow, Poland. This week's meeting was the fifth held by experts since then.
John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said the latest round of talks ``reflects our continued efforts to enhance collective capabilities for interdiction.''
White House officials said last year that the exercises were designed with North Korea in mind. White House press secretary Scott McClellan called North Korea ``probably the most serious proliferator of missile technologies.''
U.S. officials have accused North Korea of selling missiles to Syria and Iran and engaging in a determined marketing campaign in other countries.
The Bush administration is hoping to curb these exports as well as North Korean imports of materials needed for nuclear weapons programs.
Joining with the United States in the exercises are Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom -- and five new members of the Proliferation Security Initiative: Canada, Denmark, Norway, Singapore and Turkey.
--------
U.S. Seeking New UN Anti - Proliferation Measure
December 17, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-un-usa.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has circulated a draft Security Council resolution seeking to keep deadly nuclear, biological and chemical weapons out of the hands of terrorist groups, U.N. diplomats said on Wednesday.
The draft, obtained by Reuters, follows up on President Bush's Sept. 23 plea to the U.N. General Assembly to keep the world's most destructive weapons ``out of the hands of our common enemies.''
The text surfaced for the first time in a meeting of disarmament experts from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States at the United Nations on Tuesday.
The draft resolution ``decides that all states'' should take steps to stem the spread of weapons of mass destruction to individuals and groups.
It says all 191 U.N. members must adopt and enforce laws to prohibit any group or individual from making, acquiring, possessing, developing, transporting or using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, ``in particular for terrorist purposes.''
It also says states must set up domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of mass destruction weapons, including by securing existing weapons and establishing appropriate border and export restrictions.
Diplomats said Washington would need extensive negotiations with other governments before achieving the broad support required to bring the measure to a vote, although this could come as early as January.
There are also deep divisions on the issue within the Bush administration, envoys said, signaling that negotiations could drag on, particularly if other governments demand extensive revisions before embracing the text.
To try to bridge the differences among major powers, the draft text focuses primarily on the threat posed by groups and individuals seeking banned weapons rather than on governments seeking these arms.
Reacting to recent nuclear proliferation challenges in Iraq, Iran and North Korea, U.S. officials had earlier signaled they wanted to target countries and groups equally.
The U.S. text also seeks to gloss over differences on whether the measure should come under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, making it mandatory for all world governments.
Some governments have expressed concern a new anti-proliferation measure could authorize the interdiction of suspected weapons shipments on the high seas or even invasions of countries suspected of starting up programs to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
A council diplomat said that while the resolution did not specifically authorize such steps, ``that is implied.''
The United States invaded Iraq in March, primarily to rid the country of suspected weapons of mass destruction but so far none has been found.
--------
Targeting Spread of Deadliest Arms
U.S. Proposes U.N. Resolution Curbing Transfer of Weapons
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A37
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6417-2003Dec16.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 -- The Bush administration launched its campaign to halt the spread of the world's deadliest weapons to terrorists, providing key U.N. Security Council members with a draft resolution Tuesday that would outlaw the transfer of biological, chemical and nuclear arms to individuals and groups instead of to countries.
The move comes nearly three months after President Bush vowed, in a Sept. 23 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, to lead international efforts at the United Nations to curb the trafficking of such weapons. The draft resolution is designed to close gaps in a series of international treaties aimed at limiting the spread of weapons.
Citing concerns that "these weapons could be used by terrorists to bring sudden disaster and suffering on a scale we can scarcely imagine," Bush urged the Security Council to adopt a resolution that could criminalize the proliferation of such weapons and compel governments to strengthen their export controls.
The U.S. initiative has been stalled for months by interagency quarrels in Washington over the extent of the Security Council's role in managing the anti-proliferation campaign. U.N. diplomats said it is unlikely that the resolution would be put to a vote before the end of the year.
The four-page draft resolution, which was presented Tuesday afternoon to the representatives of China, Russia, France and Britain, calls on U.N. members to criminalize the proliferation of weapons and to "refrain" from providing support to non-state entities attempting to "acquire, manufacture, possess, transport" chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. It would also require all governments to establish "domestic controls" for tightening their borders and curbing the export and financing of such weapons.
Although the U.S. text urges states to "combat by all means" the spread of such weapons, it contains no enforcement mechanism that would empower the council to impose sanctions against countries that fail to comply.
Britain and Russia had favored the inclusion of an enforcement provision, called Chapter Seven, to give the resolution more teeth, according to U.N. diplomats. But some administration officials were concerned that it would provide the Security Council too powerful a role in monitoring the illicit trade, the diplomats said. Instead, the United States intends to cite the resolution to bolster its bilateral and regional efforts to curb the spread of the world's deadliest weapons.
-------- russia
Russia to Extend Nuclear Missile Lifetime
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Missiles.html http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NucNews/pending?view=1&msg=8129
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia will keep its most powerful, Soviet-made long-range nuclear missiles on duty for at least a decade, a top general said Wednesday.
Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, chief of the country's Strategic Missile Forces, said the heavy R-36 missiles -- known in the West as the SS-18 Satan -- ``will serve Russia for another 10 to 15 years,'' according to the Interfax-Military News Agency.
Solovtsov has said previously that Russia would keep its arsenal of some 150 SS-18s on duty until 2016-2020, even though the missiles were past their designated lifetime and scheduled to be scrapped this decade under earlier plans.
The heavy missile, capable of slamming 10 individually guided nuclear warheads at targets more than 6,800 miles away, is the heaviest weapon in Russia's inventory. The SS-18 and another multi-warhead missile, the SS-19, have formed the core of the Russian strategic forces since Soviet times.
Russia would have had to scrap both types of missiles under the 1993 START II arms reduction treaty. The treaty never took force, and a new U.S.-Russian arms reduction agreement has given each country a free choice of what weapons to keep while slashing the number of their nuclear warheads by about two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200, by 2012.
The new treaty, signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Bush in 2002 and ratified this year, would help Russia maintain nuclear parity with the United States relying on Soviet-era missiles, postponing a costly race to build a replacement.
-------- terrorism
Chemical, Nuclear Arms Still 'Major Threat,' Cheney Says
Vice President Decries 'Cheap Shot' Journalism
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6345-2003Dec16.html
Vice President Cheney warned this week that "the major threat" facing the nation is the possibility that terrorists could detonate a biological or nuclear weapon in a U.S. city.
Cheney told commentator Armstrong Williams that the war on terrorism is "going to go on for a long time" and that U.S. soil remains vulnerable to al Qaeda, the network behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The vice president said one of his biggest worries is "the possibility of that group of terrorists acquiring deadlier weapons to use against us -- a biological weapon of some kind, or even a nuclear weapon."
"To contemplate the possibility of them unleashing that kind of capability -- of that kind of weapon, if you will, in the midst of one of our cities -- that's a scary proposition," he said. "It's one of the most important problems we face today, because I think that is the major threat."
Cheney also criticized what he considers a proliferation of "cheap shot journalism" about the administration. "People don't check the facts," he said.
Cheney's language about threats was similar to previous admonitions. He made the remarks in response to a question about what scares him as vice president. He said part of his job is "contemplating sort of worst-case scenarios for attacks on the United States."
Cheney said in the 35-minute interview, taped Monday and made available to The Washington Post yesterday, that he believes "we're winning now" in the war on terrorism.
"We've seen, just recently, of course, the wrap-up of Saddam Hussein, one of the worst offenders in the 20th century," Cheney said. "We've wrapped up a large part of the al Qaeda organization, but there are still a lot of folks out there." He cited an estimate that training camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s produced at least 20,000 terrorists.
Cheney has often been the subject of critical news coverage, including his prewar allegations about the arsenal of unconventional weapons that Hussein might possess, his refusal to release records of his energy policy task force, and his connection to the Halliburton Co., which has been paid $5 billion on government contracts for rebuilding Iraq and has been accused by a Pentagon audit of overbilling the Army by $61 million for gasoline.
Cheney called the free press "a vital part of society," but added: "On occasion, it drives me nuts." When Williams asked what drives him nuts, Cheney said, "When I see stories that are fundamentally inaccurate."
"It's the hypocrisy that sometimes arises when some in the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective," he said. "Cheap shot journalism. Not everybody is guilty of it, but it happens."
He said coverage has changed over the years, asserting that there is "such an emphasis now on getting there fast with a story that oftentimes accuracy goes out the window."
Cheney did not give examples. But he said many journalists have not tried to find out "the real facts" when writing about Halliburton, a Houston-based energy conglomerate of which he was chairman before becoming Bush's running mate.
"There are an awful lot of people in the press who don't understand the business community," Cheney said. "I think our political opponents have spent a lot of time hammering away on trying to find some allegation that Halliburton got favoritism on contracts, or trying to make some kind of connection they've never been able to make. There's no evidence to support anything like that, but if you repeat it often enough, it becomes sort of an article of faith."
Portions of the interview will air this week on television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. Locally, that includes WBFF, Channel 45, in Baltimore. The conversation will be shown later on Williams's cable show, "The Right Side," which is on Comcast Channel 6 in the District.
-------- us politics
Kerry Would Expand Military As President
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Democrats-Foreign.html
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Tuesday he would expand the U.S. military within his first 100 days as president, contending 40,000 more troops are needed to meet America's responsibilities around the world.
Kerry told supporters at Drake University that the occupation of Iraq as well as the global war against terrorism require more troops.
``In the face of grave challenges, our armed forces are spread too thin,'' said Kerry, a Massachusetts senator and one of nine Democratic candidates.
Kerry said the capture of Saddam Hussein opens the door to building a coalition for peace in Iraq. He criticized President Bush for what he says has been a ``go-it-alone attitude (that) has endangered our interests and enraged those who should be our friends.''
``Nowhere is that clearer than in Iraq,'' Kerry said.
The United States needs a president who will seek help from allies, not only in building peace in Iraq but in the ongoing fight against terrorism, he said.
Kerry criticized former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean for repeatedly shifting his position on Iraq.
``When American needed leadership on Iraq, Howard Dean was all over the lot,'' he said. ``One moment he supported authorizing the use force. The next, he criticized those who did.''
Kerry noted that Dean, bunched atop the field of Democratic contenders in most polls, supported the war in Iraq only with UN Security Council authorization.
Dean embraces a ``'Simon Says' foreign policy where America only moves if others move first,'' Kerry said. ``That is just as wrong as George Bush's policy of school yard taunts and cowboy swagger.''
Dean, whose anti-war stance helped push him to the front of the field, contradicted Bush by asserting on Monday that ``the capture of Saddam has not made America safer.''
Several of the Democratic candidates sought in speeches to burnish their foreign policy credentials in the wake of Saddam's capture.
Dean, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said Monday more attention must be paid to al-Qaida, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. All three suggested that the illicit spread of nuclear weaponry is a greater threat to the United States than Saddam ever was.
Dean and Edwards pledged to triple funds for securing Russia's nuclear arsenal, amid fears about its security since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Edwards and Clark threatened sanctions against nations that seek weapons of mass destruction in defiance of international accords.
Lieberman assailed Dean on Tuesday, saying the former Vermont governor's comments on Iraq raise the specter of a Democratic Party weak on national security.
``It goes beyond Iraq,'' Lieberman said during a speech in Manchester, N.H. ``The fact is that Governor Dean has made a series of dubious judgments and irresponsible statements in this campaign that together signal that he would take us back to the days when we Democrats were not trusted to defend our security.''
Rep. Dick Gephardt, another presidential hopeful, used a conference call Tuesday to criticize Dean for a lack of international experience and contradictory statements on Iraq. He predicted voters will remain more attuned to domestic issues in 2004, but that foreign policy will likely have greater importance because of security concerns.
``We're in an unusual period where people actually worry about their own personal safety so I think they're going to take a careful look at who they're giving this responsibility to,'' Gephardt said from Philadelphia.
In his speech Tuesday at Drake University, Kerry said it was right to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for violating UN agreements. Authorizing force was the only way to get weapons inspectors into Iraq to check on the former Iraqi dictator's compliance with UN resolutions, he said.
``I also believe that those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe who are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be president, or the credibility to be elected president,'' he said.
Hussein should face a tribunal comprised of international judges, prosecutors, investigators and Iraqis, Kerry said. The trial should be held in Iraq so that Iraqis can see once and for all that Saddam Hussein is gone, he said.
Kerry's plan for bringing peace to Iraq includes:
--Increasing military participation by other countries in Iraq.
--Establishing a specific timetable for transferring political power to the Iraqi people.
--Providing adequate training and pay to rebuild the Iraqi police force.
--Returning to the international community to develop partnerships in rebuilding Iraq.
Kerry said the United States can't expect other countries to join the effort to rebuild Iraq if the Bush administration prohibits them from sharing in the reconstruction because they opposed the war.
``It's childish retribution which puts our troops at greater risk,'' Kerry said. ``It's time we leave no doubt what we believe: Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people, not Halliburton and Bechtel.''
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Link Between Afghanistan's North and South Is Restored
December 17, 2003
By AMY WALDMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/asia/17AFGH.html
DURANI, Afghanistan, Dec. 16 - The American ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, did not begin his remarks here on Tuesday by saying, "We did it," but he might as well have.
Two days after American officials announced their triumphant capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq with the phrase "We got him," the Bush administration met a crucial goal in its parallel effort to secure and rebuild Afghanistan.
The once torturous but now silkily reconstructed road between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar was formally completed on Tuesday, just as President Bush had promised President Hamid Karzai more than a year ago.
"We are standing - literally - on the road to Afghanistan's future," Mr. Khalilzad said, speaking to a group of dignitaries gathered for a ceremony at Kilometer 43 on the smooth strip of gray. "It is a future of national unity. It is a future of prosperity. It is a future of peace."
The resurfacing of the road, which has reduced the travel time for its approximately 300-mile distance from as much as 30 hours to 6 or less, has become the most visible sign of Afghanistan's reconstruction, which many Afghans say has otherwise been frustratingly slow. It has given the Afghans who live nearby easier access to health care and markets, and it has linked the Pashtun-dominated south with the north.
It is also the most visible evidence of the American commitment to reconstruction, with the United States providing $190 million to complete the highway, the first phase of an effort to rebuild the entire road that circumnavigates Afghanistan. The highway was originally built with American financing in the 1960's. Its reconstruction began in January.
"President Bush personally committed himself to the success of this project, and he is a man who keeps his promises," Mr. Khalilzad said in reference to Mr. Bush's determination that the highway be finished before the end of this year.
In truth, the road, whose reconstruction was overseen by the Louis Berger Group, is not totally done. It has only a single layer of asphalt, with additional layers to be laid next spring, when shoulders will be built and signs placed. But even as is, the road will allow for easier travel in winter, and it allowed the two presidents to fulfill their pledges.
For Mr. Karzai, who has been defending the achievements of his presidency this week at an assembly in Kabul to ratify a new constitution, the event on Tuesday was a way to show that his government could deliver development and security.
"This is bringing back to us the life that we all desired," Mr. Karzai said, adding that the reconstruction of Afghanistan's shattered roads and highways "was something asked of me every day, every hour, by the people of Afghanistan."
The pressure to complete the road had not come only from Mr. Bush, Mr. Karzai made clear, as he apologized to his minister of public works by saying, "Every day, without asking after your health, I asked, `How is your road?' "
The United States has budgeted $2 billion in the 2004 fiscal year for Afghanistan. Part of the money will go to further road-building, including the road from Kandahar to Herat, and more than 620 miles of small feeder roads.
But the dedication of the Kabul-Kandahar road was marred by the fact that not everyone feels secure enough to use it. As construction proceeded, so did attacks by a resurgent Taliban, which killed four Afghans guarding the road and seriously wounded 15 people.
Some delegates to the constitutional assembly who attended the opening said they had been flown to Kabul for the meeting, avoiding the road out of concern for their safety.
The continuing threats were underscored by the huge security presence. Mr. Karzai's American-guarded convoy drove down a road cleared of traffic, lined with armored personnel carriers and troops, and watched over by Apache helicopter gunships. Mr. Karzai was flown back to Kabul.
--------
'A Road to Afghanistan's Future'
Upbeat Ceremony for Kabul-Kandahar Highway Reopening
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A34
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6168-2003Dec16.html
WARDAK PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 16 -- Attack helicopters circled overhead, snipers peeked from rooftops, a trench had been dug alongside the reception tent and all traffic was halted for several miles in each direction.
But despite the intensive counterterrorist precautions, the mood and message of Tuesday's ceremony to mark the rebuilding of 310 miles of highway between the cities of Kabul and Kandahar followed a determinedly upbeat script.
"We are standing on the road to Afghanistan's future -- a road to national unity, prosperity and peace," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told several hundred Afghan officials and guests gathered at a windy roadside spot about 30 miles south of Kabul, the capital, where construction began on the mostly U.S.-funded project in late 2002.
Two miles north, one sign of progress was unmistakable. Hundreds of crammed cargo trucks and passenger vans -- their drivers waiting impatiently at gunpoint for the ceremony to end -- lined a road once nearly impassable because of its choking dust and axle-cracking craters.
Khalilzad noted that President Bush had made the reconstruction of Afghanistan's major highway system one of his top priorities for assisting the country, which is emerging from two decades of war and civil conflict. He said the completion of this first segment, which cost about $190 million, was a sign of the administration's commitment to "helping Afghanistan for as long as it takes to succeed." Japan also funded part of the road work.
But he and other speakers pointed out that the Kabul-Kandahar road had been rebuilt at considerable human cost. Since early this year, a number of people connected to the project -- including engineers, land mine clearers and highway police -- have been killed, injured or kidnapped by suspected Islamic terrorists.
A new stone monument at the site is inscribed with the first names of four Afghan victims -- Yar Mohammed, Jawed, Rohullah and Humayun. In English and the two major Afghan languages, the plaque reads, "In memory of whose who gave their lives in the reconstruction of this road, unifying all the people of Afghanistan."
"We built this road right through a war zone," Andrew Natsios, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said before the ceremony.
The Kabul-to-Kandahar road curves through southeastern Afghanistan, which was the power center of the Taliban, the radical Islamic movement that ruled most of the country between 1996 and 2001. Following a course roughly parallel with the Pakistani border, the road passes through or near half a dozen provinces that recently have experienced serious attacks by the Taliban and other armed groups that use the rugged border area as a base. In some cases, attacks were aimed specifically at the highway project.
Khalilzad said the dead were "victims of those Taliban extremists who want the new Afghanistan to fail" and who had targeted the highway as a high-profile, foreign-funded project. "They did not succeed in preventing this," he said, "and they will fail in their attempts to stop Afghanistan's progress."
President Hamid Karzai, who arrived in an armored car and left in a helicopter, said that since the repair project began, the time required to travel from Kabul to Kandahar had shrunk from 30 hours to well under 10.
In the future, he said, he hoped Afghanistan could become a land bridge through the region, bringing prosperity to Afghans along the way.
To attend the ceremony, Karzai broke away from the constitutional assembly taking place in Kabul, as did two delegates from each of Afghanistan's 32 provinces. But because of security concerns, initial plans to have all 500 delegates participate in a ceremony much farther down the road were scaled back.
After his speech, Karzai strolled along a short section of the highway with U.S. officials and other visitors, surrounded by a thick cordon of security troops. A work truck slowly followed, laying down a few white stripes in the middle. Then a tiny girl in a bright Afghan nomad costume held up a pair of scissors and cut a ribbon stretching across the road.
In addition to terrorist threats, the highway project was plagued by logistical problems and delays. De-mining teams had to clear the entire route, using metal detectors and dogs, before any work could begin.
Contractors from four countries worked on different segments of the road, some more efficiently than others.
Even as late as November, project officials were far from certain whether the highway would be completed by year's end, as Bush had insisted. Finally, to meet the deadline, they settled for a single layer of asphalt on some sections.
Officials said a second layer will be added when warm weather returns next spring. The second phase of the highway project, the repaving of another 340 miles from Kandahar northwest to Herat, near the Iranian border, will also begin next year.
Despite the problems, the project has already benefited the region. There are dozens of new gas stations and restaurants along the road, and signs of construction work in every town through which it passes.
Raz Mohammed Dalili, the turbaned governor of Wardak province, told the gathered officials that the residents of Wardak were so grateful for the new highway that they would have "covered the road with the blood of sacrificed sheep if we had let them."
Ali Ragheb, a tribal elder who was sunning himself in front of a soda shop about 10 miles north of the ceremony site, said the newly improved road would be "useful for the whole society. People will carry their goods faster, they will get to hospitals sooner, and all our provinces will be connected once more," he said.
Like many elderly Afghans, Ragheb recalled the 1970s, when the newly built highway was a modern marvel, and the 1980s and 1990s, when it was destroyed by "rockets, bombs and tanks with chains on them." Now, he said with a satisfied smile, "all you can see and hear is the traffic rushing by."
-------- asia
South Korea Decides to Send 3,000 More Troops to Iraq
December 17, 2003
By SAMUEL LEN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/asia/17CND-KORE.html
SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 17 - After months of consideration, South Korea said today that it had decided to send 3,000 more troops to Iraq.
But the government stressed that combat-capable soldiers, who are expected to form part of the detachment, would be limited to ensuring the safety of other members of the contingent, and are not expected to take part in combat operations.
South Korea has already sent more than 400 medical and engineering troops to support American-led military operations in Iraq. Washington, however, has indicated that it would prefer combat soldiers rather than troops who would focus on rebuilding efforts.
Public opinion in South Korea has been sharply divided, prompting the government to limit the number of troops it will send. Officials in Seoul have been weighing when and what types of soldiers to deploy.
The national security advisor, Ra Jong Yil, said the South Korean detachment would independently handle a fixed area of Iraq, while a portion of the troops will handle perimeter security to "guarantee the safety of our troops."
Defense Minister Cho Young Kil said the government was considering the inclusion of special operations soldiers, marines and regular infantry troops to handle security duties.
He added that it would take at least four months for the sending of troops to begin.
Next week the government plans to submit the plan to the conservative-controlled Parliament, which is expected to approve it.
Today a group of South Korean military officials flew to Washington to hold talks on further details of the plan, including a specific location and timing.
Antiwar protests, most of them peaceful, have been regular occurrences since President Roh Moo Hyun said in October that he was considering sending more troops in response to Washington's request.
Mindful of public sentiment, Mr. Roh sent a second fact-finding team to assess the level of security in Iraq after a report by an earlier mission failed to convince a skeptical public.
-------- business
Halliburton units file for bankruptcy
By Sheila McNulty in Houston
December 17 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1071251598976&p=1012571727088
Halliburton said in Tuesday several of its subsidiaries, including Kellogg Brown & Root, which holds the controversial US government contract in Iraq, had filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors to provide for a permanent resolution to the company's asbestos liabilities.
The filings, in Pennsylvania bankruptcy court, followed Friday's announcement that a majority of the more than 386,000 asbestos claimants had voted to accept Halliburton's reorganisation plan as part of a $4bn settlement. They agreed to limit to $2.8bn the cash required to settle the claims, so the subsidiaries were required today to pay $326m of that amount prior to the bankruptcy filing.
The affected subsidiaries are to continue to be wholly owned by Halliburton, one of the world's biggest providers of products and services for the petroleum and energy industries, and continue normal operations. KBR's government services business is excluded from the filing.
Analysts say Halliburton's asbestos liabilities, not the charges of US favouritism for Iraqi contracts and overcharging for services there, have been a drag on the company's share performance. Yet an expectation that it was due to be resolved by the year-end has already pushed up Halliburton's share price, so analysts were neutral on the news.
Halliburton's shares were up only 1.95 per cent to $25.14 on the announcement. Standard & Poor's affirmed its BBB corporate credit rating on Halliburton and revised its CreditWatch implications, to "developing" from "negative". Grant Borbridge, senior analyst at Prudential Financial, said it would be at least another four to six months before the filing could be beyond appeal, which could then allow for the funding of the settlement trust, implementation of the remaining settlement terms and the discharge from bankruptcy of the subsidiaries by the second or third quarter of next year. Nonetheless, he considered the settlement "the last significant hurdle before the company can finally rid itself of its asbestos liability".
Halliburton inherited the asbestos liability in 1998, when it acquired Dresser Industries, which had used asbestos in bricks and the coating for pipes.
"We have reached a major milestone in our effort to settle our asbestos issues," said Wendy Hall, Halliburton spokeswoman. "It is important to note that none of KBR and the Halliburton companies are going out of business, and that this re-organisation will have no impact on any of our present or future projects."
-------- china
China Again Warns Taiwan on Move Toward Independence
December 17, 2003
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/asia/17CND-CHIN.html
HONG KONG, Dec. 17 - China strongly warned Taiwan today not to continue the island's recent, election-season drift toward more independent and confrontational policies toward the mainland.
The warning came a day after Taiwan's national legislature approved two resolutions calling on China to remove nearly 500 missiles pointed at the island. Taiwan's vice president, Annette Lu, described the missiles as "state-sponsored terrorism."
Li Weiyi, the spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, described President Chen Shui-bian today as "immoral" and accused him of risking his country's future for the sake of winning a second four-year term when Taiwanese voters go to the polls on March 20.
"Chen Shui-bian's selfishness in seeking re-election spares no effort and gambles with the immediate interests of Taiwan compatriots," Mr. Li said.
Issuing what the official New China News Agency categorized as the strongest warning to the island in weeks, Mr. Li said that "in the face of outrageous Taiwan independence-splittist activities, we must make necessary preparations to resolutely crush Taiwan independence-splittist plots."
In an interview on Dec. 5, Mr. Chen revealed plans to hold a national referendum, also on election day, demanding that China withdraw the missiles and renounce the use of force against the island. He insisted then that he was not motivated by election politics, but that a referendum was "a universal value and a basic human right" and that "a referendum represents a concept and belief that I have pursued throughout my more-than-20-year political career."
In an interview published by the Financial Times today, Mr. Chen also warned that if China conducts missile tests close to Taiwan, as it did in 1996, then he would no longer consider himself bound by a pledge in his inaugural speech in 2000 not to seek changes on issues of Taiwanese sovereignty.
The legislative resolutions and the comments this week by Mr. Chen and Ms. Lu were the latest signs that with closely fought presidential elections scheduled in March, many Taiwanese politicians are unwilling to back away from confronting China.
When Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China visited Washington last week, President Bush publicly called for President Chen to stop raising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. But President Chen has been defiant, insisting at campaign rallies and in interviews that he will go ahead with his plans for the referendum on election day.
President Chen's Democratic Progressive Party has long leaned toward more formal independence for Taiwan from the mainland, and has tended to do better at the polls when tensions with the mainland are highest. The opposition Nationalist Party favors eventual political reunification with the mainland and usually fares badly when people in Taiwan are especially upset with Beijing.
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Ms. Lu, Taiwan's vice president, said that China's "deployment of missiles is a kind of state-sponsored terrorism."
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry responded during a routine briefing this morning, saying that Ms. Lu's comments were "totally unreasonable" and that "China using armed force to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity is totally different."
The opposition Nationalist Party introduced the first of the two legislative resolutions passed on Tuesday. It called for China not to deploy any more missiles and gradually remove the current missiles.
Lien Chan, the party's chairman and presidential candidate, said in an interview on Dec. 5 that the resolution represented an alternative to President Chen's plans to hold a national referendum seeking removal of the missiles. Mr. Lien said that since China had been building up its missile batteries across the Taiwan Strait for years, those missiles did not pose a "clear and present danger" that would justify the holding of a referendum.
The Democratic Progressive Party responded in the legislature with its own, differently worded resolution calling on China to remove the missiles immediately. With the two parties unable to compromise on the wording, both resolutions passed on Tuesday.
James Huang, the chief spokesman for President Chen, said today that passage of the resolutions was not enough unless the votes prompted China to comply, something that analysts agree is very unlikely.
President Chen said when he first announced plans for the referendum on Dec. 5 that he would proceed with the national vote unless China removes the missiles and renounces the use of force before March 20, and that remains his position, Mr. Huang said.
Referring to the mainland by its legal name, the People's Republic of China, Mr. Huang said that "the key point is the reaction of the P.R.C in terms of the missile deployment and the arms buildup against Taiwan."
--------
China Turns Up the Heat on Taiwan President
December 17, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-china-taiwan.html
BEIJING (Reuters) - China turned up the heat on Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian Wednesday, labeling him immoral for gambling with the island's future with moves toward independence and threatening to crush such attempts.
The statement, made as Chen campaigns for re-election in a March vote, was among the strongest in weeks against the island Beijing regards as a breakaway province to be brought back into the fold, by force if necessary.
``Chen Shui-bian's selfishness in seeking re-election spares no effort and gambles with the immediate interests of Taiwan compatriots,'' Li Weiyi, spokesman for the Chinese cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office, told a news conference.
``This is very immoral.''
``In the face of outrageous Taiwan independence-splittist activities we must make necessary preparations to resolutely crush Taiwan independence-splittist plots,'' Li said.
But analysts said China was much less likely to back up its verbal barrage with a show of force as it did before a presidential election in Taiwan in 1996, when China menaced the island with missile tests and military exercises.
Chen, in an interview with the Financial Times released by Taiwan's presidential office Wednesday, said any missile tests off Taiwan would be tantamount to an attack and could drive the island further toward independence.
Chen has pinned his re-election hopes in part on a controversial referendum calling on Beijing to withdraw the hundreds of missiles aimed at the island.
Tuesday, Vice President Annette Lu, Chen's anointed running mate, said the missiles were a form of ``state terrorism.''
Despite a blunt warning from President Bush last week against either side upsetting the status quo, Lu told Reuters the proposed referendum, to coincide with the presidential election, was necessary to defend the island.Party, Lien Chan, said Tuesday a referendum was not needed.
China sees the referendum as step toward independence.
SERIOUS PROVOCATIONS
Cross-Strait tension has been mounting since November, when Taiwan's parliament passed a bill to permit referendums.
Spotlighting China's possible readiness to follow through on its threat of force, its state media this week reported a successful missile drill by warships in the South China Sea and another exercise by paratroops along China's southeast coast.
But analysts do not expect missile tests in the Taiwan Strait this time. They say the move backfired in 1996 by alienating Taiwan voters and helped drive Lee Teng-hui, reviled by Beijing, to a landslide victory.
Despite the invective against Chen, China has been careful to avoid antagonizing the Taiwan electorate again.
Wednesday, in a carefully orchestrated briefing focused on the secondary issue of trade and transport links, Li and other Chinese officials resisted commenting on Taiwan's pre-election politicking.
``There's been a much more subtle approach this time around,'' a Beijing-based Western diplomat said of China's strategy.
``So there will be an awareness any intervention in favor of anybody or against anyone is potentially going to have negative consequences.''
Also Wednesday, the Taiwan Affairs Office unveiled a document on its policy on the so-called ``three links'' -- trade, air and shipping and postal -- most of which is routed through Hong Kong. Officials blasted Taiwan's leader for obstructing the opening of direct air and shipping links.
``He has broken his promise, gone back on his words and done everything in his power to postpone the opening of the three links,'' the Chinese office said.
``What's more, he has tried every possible means to politicise and complicate the 'three links' issue.''
But China was still considering allowing Lunar New Year charter flights in January between Taiwan and four Chinese cities, Li said. The cities are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Xiamen.
Taiwan has banned direct air and shipping links with China since their split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Trade and tourism have boomed since detente began in the 1980s.
--------
Taiwan Passes 2 Resolutions Asking China to Remove Missiles
December 17, 2003
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/asia/17TAIW.html
HONG KONG, Wednesday, Dec. 17 - Taiwan's national legislature approved two separate resolutions on Tuesday that call on China to remove nearly 500 missiles pointed at the island, as Taiwan's vice president described the missiles as "state-sponsored terrorism."
The resolutions and the comments by Vice President Annette Lu were the latest signs that with closely fought presidential elections scheduled for March 20, many Taiwanese politicians are unwilling to back away from confronting China.
When Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China visited Washington last week, President Bush publicly called for President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan to stop raising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. But President Chen has been defiant, insisting at campaign rallies and in interviews that he will go ahead with plans to hold a national referendum on Election Day that will demand China's removal of the missiles and a Chinese renunciation of the use of force against the island.
President Chen's Democratic Progressive Party has long leaned toward more formal independence for Taiwan from the mainland, and it has tended to do better at the polls when tensions with the mainland are highest. The opposition Nationalist Party favors eventual political reunification with the mainland and usually fares badly when people in Taiwan are especially upset with Beijing.
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Ms. Lu said that China's "deployment of missiles is a kind of state-sponsored terrorism."
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of China responded at a routine briefing, saying Ms. Lu's comments were "totally unreasonable" and that, "China's using armed force to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity is totally different."
The Nationalist Party introduced the first of the two resolutions on Tuesday. It called for China not to deploy any more missiles and to gradually remove the current missiles.
The party's chairman and presidential candidate, Lien Chan, said on Dec. 5 in an interview that the resolution represented an alternative to President Chen's plans to hold a national referendum to seek the removal of the missiles. Mr. Lien said that since China had been building up its missile batteries across the Taiwan Strait for years, those missiles did not pose a "clear and present danger" that would justify holding the referendum.
The Democratic Progressive Party responded in the legislature with its own resolution, one that calls on China to remove the missiles immediately.
With the parties unable to compromise on the wording, the two resolutions passed.
The chief spokesman for President Chen, James Huang, said Wednesday that the passage of the resolutions was not enough, unless the votes prompted China to comply, an action that experts agree is very unlikely.
On Dec. 5, when President Chen first announced plans for the referendum, he said that he would proceed with the voting unless China removed the missiles and renounced the use of force before March 20, and that remains his position, Mr. Huang said.
Referring to the mainland by its legal name, the People's Republic of China, Mr. Huang said, "The key point is the reaction of the P.R.C. in terms of the missile deployment and the arms buildup against Taiwan."
--------
Taiwan's Chen Warns China Against Missile Tests
December 17, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-taiwan-china-missile.html
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has warned diplomatic and military rival China that any missile tests would be considered an attack which could drive the island further toward independence, Chen's office said on Wednesday.
China threatened Taiwan with missile tests and war games prior to the island's 1996 presidential election, prompting the United States to send two naval battle groups to the region.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Chen repeated an earlier threat to abandon a promise not to declare independence if China, which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, resorted to force.
He said that any future Chinese testing of missiles off Taiwan would count as force.
``It is an attack,'' he said of any such test, according to a copy of a transcript of the interview issued by his office.
``If China continues to deploy more missiles against Taiwan, and continues to threaten Taiwan with the use of force, it would only drive Taiwan further away. It would invite a backlash from the people of Taiwan, and would also cause even more people to see China as a hostile country rather than the motherland.''
Facing a tough re-election battle, Chen has made a campaign cornerstone of an aggressive claim that China and Taiwan are separate countries, aiming to consolidate support from pro-independence voters.
China turned up the heat on Chen Wednesday, labeling him ``very immoral'' for gambling with the island's future.
Beijing said it must prepare to crush independence efforts by Taiwan, one of its strongest statements in weeks against the island that it says must be brought back into the fold, by force if necessary.
Analysts say China's show of force in 1996 backfired by alienating Taiwan voters and helped drive Lee Teng-hui, reviled by Beijing, to a landslide victory.
-------- iraq
Blair: US has found secret Iraq labs
AFP
Wednesday 17 December 2003
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7B11D5F7-5E20-423D-9D57-89FAC4A14A24.htm
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said US-led teams has found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories and plans to develop long-range ballistic missiles in Iraq.
Blair did not go into detail, but a spokesman for the prime minister on Tuesday said the findings were part of an interim report produced several months ago by the Iraq Survey Group, which is hunting for weapons of mass destruction.
"The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles", Blair said in an interview with the British Forces Broadcasting Service.
He was responding to an interviewer who asked if captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might reveal details of his alleged banned weapons programme following his weekend arrest.
Possibility
Blair replied: "There's obviously that possibility there but I think in any event we have got to carry on doing the work we are doing" in hunting for banned weapons.
"Frankly these things were not being developed unless they were developed for a purpose," the prime minister added.
"When a country with a leader like Saddam tries to hide what it's doing, in a large country like Iraq it's relatively easy to hide it."
"Frankly these things were not being developed unless they were developed for a purpose"
Tony Blair, Prime Minister, UK
Saddam's refusal to give up his alleged weapons of mass destruction was cited as one of the main reasons for Britain and the United States invading Iraq in March.
Blair has been US President George Bush's staunchest ally throughout the campaign, and Britain maintains 10,000 troops in Iraq occupying the oil-rich south of the country.
David Kay, the former UN weapons inspector who leads the Iraq Survey Group, said in October that evidence gathered by US teams suggested that Iraq had little or no capacity to produce chemical warfare agents because of damage inflicted by US air strikes and years of sanctions.
But Kay said the group had "begun to unravel a clandestine network of laboratories and facilities within the (Iraqi) security service apparatus" that was previously unknown and had never been declared to the United Nations.
----
CIA will be in charge of questioning Saddam
Brian Knowlton and David Stout
IHT
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
http://www.iht.com/articles/121781.html
WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the Central Intelligence Agency would be in charge of interrogating Saddam Hussein, and he strongly defended the treatment of the former Iraqi leader since his capture Saturday as legal, proper and humane.
The decision to entrust the C.I.A. with Hussein's interrogation was an easy one, Rumsfeld said. "It was a three-minute decision," he said, "and the first two were for coffee."
Rumsfeld did not rule out a Pentagon role for keeping the deposed dictator in custody, or for questioning him. But he said he and George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, had agreed that the CIA should be the agency to decide just who questions Saddam, and where and when.
"They have the competence in that area, they have professionals in that area, they know the means that we have in terms of counterterrorism, they know the threads that have to come up through the needlehead," he said.
The intelligence agency will serve as "the regulator" of information flowing from the questioning, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news briefing. The secretary strongly defended the treatment of the captive, declaring that it has been humane and that showing pictures of the bedraggled ex-dictator to the world in no way violated international standards on handling prisoners.
Noting the fear that Saddam and his cronies inspired in their decades of rule, Rumsfeld said, "It's terribly important that he be seen by the public for what he is: a captive" and thus a man unable to claw his way back to power.
After the dramatic capture on Saturday, some critics had suggested that the disturbing images of a wild-looking Saddam being examined by an army medic - televised around the world - or the fact that his captors had permitted four Iraqi officials to question him, might constitute banned acts of "parading" or humiliating prisoners of war. No aspect of Saddam's handling came even "up on the edge" of violating the Geneva conventions, said Rumsfeld, adding that he was being treated "professionally" and "humanely."
Rumsfeld said that while Saddam was being afforded full protection matching Geneva convention standards, he had not been classified as a prisoner of war.
That could change, he suggested, if it is learned that Saddam had helped guide the Iraqi insurgency since the end of major combat in Iraq. So far, Saddam said, he could not say whether documents found with Saddam showed that he had held such a role in guiding the insurgency.
In any case, the defense secretary said, if there was any prospect whatsoever that the televising of images of Saddam in captivity would help deflate or discourage those fighting against the coalition led by the United States, "then we opt for saving lives." "He has been handled in a professional way," Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon news briefing. "He has not been held up as a public curiosity in any demeaning way."
Regardless, he said, "It's terribly important that he be seen by the public for what he is." General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that American forces had temporarily slowed the pace of patrols immediately after Saddam's capture, in hopes that it might inspire other high-ranking Iraqis to surrender. He would not say whether he was referring to specific Iraqis. Now, he said, the pace of patrols had returned to its previous average of about 1,000 a day.
Rumsfeld said American soldiers had been given no special instructions on what to do if and when they came across Saddam "No one was told, 'Don't kill him.' No one was told, 'Kill him,'" Rumsfeld said. But unlike his sons, Uday and Qusay, who went down shooting, Saddam chose to surrender. The secretary offered a bit of new information on Saddam's days as a fugitive, disclosing that for at least one stretch Saddam spent several hours in what appeared to be a taxi. "He didn't have the meter running," Rumsfeld said.
----
Truck and Bus Collide, Causing Deadly Blast in Baghdad
December 17, 2003
By IAN FISHER and CHRISTINE HAUSER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17CND-IRAQ.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Dec. 17 - A truck exploded in the middle of a busy intersection in Baghdad today when it collided with a bus, killing at least 10 people and injuring more than 20. Iraqi police initially said the vehicle was packed with explosives, but United States military officials were later quoted as saying the blast involved a fuel tanker and was accidental.
The explosion took place about half a mile from the Amil police station in the Bayaa area of southwest Baghdad. Among the dead were three children - two girls and a boy who was ripped apart from the blast.
"It was horrible," said Second Lt. Ahmed Suheil. The police at first said the vehicle was a tractor trailer cab that was apparently going to try to breach the concrete barriers and barbed wire around the station. But it hit a bus and exploded, the police said.
But later in the day a United States military spokesman, Capt. Jason Beck, was quoted by Reuters as saying that investigators had found "no evidence of explosives. It was a fuel truck that simply had a traffic accident."
Early reports said that from 13 to 17 people had died, but Captain Beck was quoted as saying that the death toll was 10. The police had assumed the truck was targeting the Bayaa police station, which had been hit before in attacks attributed to insurgents who are opposed to the American occupation and the Iraqi police who work with the American military.
Meanwhile, the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council said Mr. Hussein was being held in the Baghdad area, according to Reuters. Asked about reports that United States forces had moved him to the Gulf state of Qatar, a council member, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said: "Saddam Hussein is present in an area of greater Baghdad. . . . God willing . . . he will be tried in Iraq in public by an Iraqi court."
The force of the explosion today blasted the cab of the truck at least 300 feet from the impact, and apartment block windows were shattered. Bits of human flesh were scattered through the blood-stained street.
Brig. Sabah Fehad al-Obeidy said the police pulled the bodies of two men with long beards out from inside the truck's cab. At least three cars were destroyed in the blast. A bus was smashed and smeared with blood.
Ali Khalaf Jassim, 34, a bodyguard, said he was laying in bed awake in his home about 150 yards from where the truck exploded. The force blew the wooden door from the frame and hot metal sheared down into his yard.
On Tuesday, the American military reported that its troops killed at least 17 Iraqis when the troops were ambushed or tried to quell violent rallies that day and on Monday, as repercussions of the capture of Mr. Hussein continued to be felt from Washington to the seething Sunni Muslim heartland of Iraq.
New details emerged on Tuesday about documents found when Mr. Hussein was captured, contributing to a clearer picture of those organizing guerrilla attacks. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Washington that the Central Intelligence Agency would oversee Mr. Hussein's interrogation.
Eleven of the dead in Iraq were reported killed on Monday when Iraqis attacked an American convoy in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. Samarra has been the site of fierce resistance to American troops. The other six Iraqis died in scattered incidents.
Then on Tuesday, the military said, troops broke up what appeared to be an insurgent cell in Abu Safa, near Samarra, in a raid in which at least 73 people were arrested as they attended a meeting. Among those detained was a man identified as Qais Hattam, believed to be a mid-level financier and organizer of attacks on American troops.
Along with the arrests, the military said, soldiers seized a significant amount of matriel used in attacks against Americans, including TNT, blasting caps, detonation cord, car batteries, mortars and artillery shells. "We believe it was not just your local neighborhood meeting," said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the Fourth Infantry Division.
The documents found in a briefcase at the scene of Mr. Hussein's capture on Saturday in Ad Dwar were said to reveal a broad association of guerrilla cells. "What the capture of Saddam Hussein revealed is the structure that existed above the local cellular structure call it a network," Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, said as quoted by the American Forces Press Service, a Defense Department outlet. "We now know how the cells are financed and how they are given broad general guidance."
General Dempsey, commander of the First Armored Division, which is in charge of security in Baghdad, said it appeared that Mr. Hussein did not exert direct control over the insurgents, but had received information on their actions through reports delivered by courier. Among the documents recovered was a list with names of those who attended a meeting of an insurgents' network.
General Dempsey said that 10 to 14 cells had been operating in Baghdad, and that his troops had been successful against six, although he gave no dates for those actions. He said the next target was a leadership network senior to those cells.
Despite the recent successes, senior American military officials damped hopes that the arrest of Mr. Hussein would deflate the resistance overnight.
"We expect it will be some time before we see any possible effects of what we've accomplished," the top commander of allied forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, told reporters in a joint appearance in Baghdad on Tuesday with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers. "As I've stated over and over, we expect the violence to continue at some level for some time. We're prepared for that."
In Washington, the Bush administration grappled with questions of how to handle Mr. Hussein, whom Secretary Rumsfeld characterized as resigned to his fate.
President Bush stated more explicitly than he did in his news conference on Monday that he believed Mr. Hussein deserved the death penalty. "He is a torturer, a murderer, and they had rape rooms, and this is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice," Mr. Bush said on Tuesday in an interview with ABC News.
Mr. Bush added, though, as he had on Monday, that the decision about Mr. Hussein's punishment would be made "not by the president of the United States, but by the citizens of Iraq, in one form or another."
The citizens of Iraq, at least in the rebellious Sunni stongholds north and west of Baghdad, protested vociferously on Monday and Tuesday over the detention of Mr. Hussein, and in some cases even denied he had been caught.
Many held his pictures as they overran the main municipal office building in Falluja on Monday night, ejecting the police force as they fired off guns, ransacked the building and burned files. American soldiers took back control of the building early on Tuesday, killing at least one person in the process.
The capture of Mr. Hussein has churned up strong emotions, from delight and calls for an immediate public trial, to disgust, even among those who hated him, both at television images showing him undergoing a medical exam and the fact that he surrendered without firing a shot.
Thom Shanker and Richard W. Stevenson contributed reporting from Washington for this article and Eric Schmitt from Baghdad.
Thom Shanker and Richard W. Stevenson contributed reporting from Washington for this article and Eric Schmitt from Baghdad.
--------
VIOLENCE
Iraqis Ambush a U.S. Convoy; G.I.'s Raid Cell
December 17, 2003
By IAN FISHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
FALLUJA, Iraq, Dec. 16 - American troops killed at least 17 Iraqis in ambushes and violent rallies on Monday and Tuesday, the military reported, as repercussions of the capture of Saddam Hussein continued to be felt from Washington to the seething Sunni Muslim heartland of Iraq.
New details emerged Tuesday about documents found when Mr. Hussein was captured, contributing to a clearer picture of those organizing guerrilla attacks. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Washington that the Central Intelligence Agency would oversee Mr. Hussein's interrogation.
Eleven of the dead in Iraq were reported killed Monday when Iraqis attacked an American convoy in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. Samarra has been the site of fierce resistance to American troops. The other six Iraqis died in scattered incidents.
Then on Tuesday, the military said, troops broke up what appeared to be an insurgent cell in Abu Safa, near Samarra, in a raid in which at least 73 people were arrested as they attended a meeting. Among those detained was a man identified as Qais Hattam, believed to be a midlevel financier and organizer of attacks on American troops.
Along with the arrests, the military said, soldiers seized a significant amount of matériel used in attacks against Americans, including TNT, blasting caps, detonation cord, car batteries, mortars and artillery shells. "We believe it was not just your local neighborhood meeting," said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the Fourth Infantry Division.
The documents found in a briefcase at the scene of Mr. Hussein's capture on Saturday in Ad Dwar were said to reveal a broad association of guerrilla cells. "What the capture of Saddam Hussein revealed is the structure that existed above the local cellular structure - call it a network," Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, said as quoted by the American Forces Press Service, a Defense Department outlet. "We now know how the cells are financed and how they are given broad general guidance."
General Dempsey, commander of the First Armored Division, which is in charge of security in Baghdad, said it appeared that Mr. Hussein did not exert direct control over the insurgents, but had received information on their actions through reports delivered by courier. Among the documents recovered was a list with names of those who attended a meeting of an insurgents' network.
General Dempsey said that 10 to 14 cells had been operating in Baghdad, and that his troops had been successful against six, although he gave no dates for those actions. He said the next target was a leadership network senior to those cells.
Despite the recent successes, senior American military officials damped hopes that the arrest of Mr. Hussein would deflate the resistance overnight.
"We expect it will be some time before we see any possible effects of what we've accomplished," the top commander of allied forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, told reporters in a joint appearance in Baghdad with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers. "As I've stated over and over, we expect the violence to continue at some level for some time. We're prepared for that."
In Washington, the Bush administration grappled with questions of how to handle Mr. Hussein, whom Secretary Rumsfeld characterized as resigned to his fate.
President Bush stated more explicitly than he did in his news conference on Monday that he believed Mr. Hussein deserved the death penalty. "He is a torturer, a murderer, and they had rape rooms, and this is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice," Mr. Bush said Tuesday in an interview with ABC News.
Mr. Bush added, though, as he had on Monday, that the decision about Mr. Hussein's punishment would be made "not by the president of the United States, but by the citizens of Iraq, in one form or another."
The citizens of Iraq, at least in the rebellious Sunni stongholds north and west of Baghdad, protested vociferously on Monday and Tuesday over the detention of Mr. Hussein, and in some cases even denied he had been caught.
Many held his pictures as they overran the main municipal office building here in Falluja on Monday night, ejecting the police force as they fired off guns, ransacked the building and burned files. American soldiers took back control of the building early Tuesday, killing at least one person in the process.
The rally was fueled partly by rumors that Mr. Hussein was still free, and had not surrendered in humiliation from inside a small pit.
"Last night Saddam Hussein was in Falluja," said a worker, 30, who would give only a nickname, Abu Ahmed. "I didn't see him. But some people swore on the Koran at the mosques they saw him. What was on television was not true."
Secretary Rumsfeld defended the military's decision to show those video images of a subdued Mr. Hussein undergoing a medical exam, which some critics said could violate the Geneva Convention prohibition of "parading" prisoners of war.
No aspect of Mr. Hussein's handling came even "up on the edge" of violating the convention, Mr. Rumsfeld said, adding that the Iraqi was being treated professionally and humanely.
Mr. Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon briefing that he had asked the Central Intelligence Agency to oversee the interrogation of Mr. Hussein.
"They have the competence in that area," he said, "they have professionals in that area, they know the means that we have in terms of counterterrorism, they know the threads that have to come up through the needlehead."
The firefight on Monday afternoon in Samarra began as a "complex ambush" against a convoy there, the military reported. The attack was signaled by a flock of pigeons released as the vehicles neared the ambush point. Then two men opened fire from a motorcycle that was passing a group of children leaving school, which the military said was a deliberate plan to discourage return fire.
Beyond the school, the convoy was attacked from several sides: with gunfire from a field, with a roadside bomb, then with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. A nearby military patrol was alerted and the two units "fought through the ambush and eliminated the threat," according to a military statement. No soldiers were killed or injured.
Violence was reported at several rallies in support of Mr. Hussein. In Mosul, in the north, where attacks on American soldiers have worsened in recent weeks, an Iraqi policeman was reported killed in a rally on Tuesday.
In Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said, troops killed two Iraqis and wounded two others on Monday in a crowd of as many of 750 people demonstrating in front of the main municipal building. One soldier was wounded by gunfire, the military said.
The capture of Mr. Hussein has churned up strong emotions, from delight and calls for an immediate public trial, to disgust, even among those who hated him, both at television images showing him undergoing a medical exam and the fact that he surrendered without firing a shot.
And while some Iraqis praised the Americans for finally catching him, there seemed no palpable increase in support for the occupation.
"We hope that the Americans will put Saddam on trial, form a free and democratic Iraqi government, then end the occupation and leave us alone," said Muhammad al-Majedy, 32, who attended a rally on Tuesday in Baghdad to celebrate Mr. Hussein's capture. The rally was organized by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a body of Shiite Muslims, a majority in Iraq, who have been broadly tolerant of the American presence.
In Falluja, the anti-American protests began on Monday afternoon, as crowds gathered on the main street, many carrying weapons and chanting slogans in support of Mr. Hussein. About 4:30 p.m., the police said, the protesters stormed the municipal building and began looting it as the police retreated.
"There were more of them than police," said one officer, First Lt. Aiman Muhammad, 26.
Capt. Farouk Challoub, 34, added: "What could the police do? We had one choice: to attack them with tear gas. But we didn't have any tear gas."
In a swirl of reports that some police officers joined the protest, Captain Challoub made it clear where his sympathies lay. "Why did they show Mr. President Saddam Hussein on television and humiliate him?" he asked. "He is our president. There must be some kind of immunity."
American soldiers, he said, took back the building around 8 p.m. with no resistance. But troops setting up a barrier around the building were attacked with six rocket-propelled grenades, the military said. The soldiers fired back, killing one man.
On Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported, rockets hit a freight train near the Falluja station. There were no injuries, but one wagon was damaged and youths began looting what appeared to be packages of food before railway workers arrived and chased them away.
In Tikrit, Mr. Hussein's hometown, which has also rallied to his support, a roadside bomb exploded, wounding three soldiers, two seriously, the military reported.
Thom Shanker and Richard W. Stevenson contributed reporting from Washington for this article and Eric Schmitt from Baghdad.
--------
THE OCCUPATION
As Iraqis Become the Targets of Terrorists, Some Now Blame the American Mission
December 17, 2003
By IAN FISHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17HURT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 16 - The bomb was meant to kill American soldiers, but, once again, it hit Iraqis. Aimed at two passing Humvees, the explosion last month on a traffic median ripped into a passing bus in eastern Baghdad, killing three riders. Haider Kassim, 11, crawled from the carnage, his leg shredded by shrapnel. But he refused care until his mother and aunt, each with more serious wounds, were treated.
Iraqis are increasingly the victims in this new stage of the war here, which continues even with the capture of Saddam Hussein. The emotions it is unearthing are not simple. Haider's father, Aziz, 43, proud of his son's bravery, praised, too, the Americans for liberating Iraq from Mr. Hussein. But, he said, his family would never have been hurt if the Americans had stayed home - and even if he knew who set that bomb, he would not tell the Americans.
"I don't want to cooperate with the Americans," he said at Al Kindi Hospital, where his son, wife and sister were recuperating from the blast. "They are occupiers."
Iraqis do not seem to blame America directly for an insurgency that has killed and maimed fellow Iraqis, either intentionally or by exploding bombs where innocents get hurt. But interviews with these new victims, their families and those who care for them seem to confirm worries by some United States officials that the tactics of the insurgents are helping erode confidence in the American mission here, even though the people carrying out the attacks are largely loyalists to Mr. Hussein and loathed by most Iraqis.
"My people are killing my people," said Dr. Rend Abdullah, a clinical pharmacist who has assisted in operations of scores of Iraqis hurt in recent attacks. "It makes me very angry. Peace in this country is the duty of the Americans now. America should make it safe. They have a responsibility for us now."
This dynamic - anger at the United States for the actions of others - is no surprise to the American military, which says the insurgents have turned to the easier target of Iraqis because security around United States soldiers has been increased. The insurgents have assassinated politicians and police officers as "collaborators," sniped at Iraqis driving trucks for the military and set off bombs on crowded streets.
"Their aim is to intimidate the population, to create fear and uncertainty, and to create a fear among the people that drives them away from the coalition," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief spokesman for the American-led forces here, said at a recent news conference describing the rise in attacks on Iraqi targets.
General Kimmitt said the insurgents "will not succeed." There are signs of greater cooperation among Iraqis in passing along information, born of anger at attacks that hurt and kill Iraqis, a senior military official said.
Still, there seem to be clear limits to such cooperation, whether the reasons are fear of being seen in contact with Americans, anger like Mr. Aziz's at the occupation and the chaos it has brought or, in some cases, outright sympathy with the insurgents.
"It's not been a huge groundswell" of cooperation, the official said.
There are no official statistics on the number of Iraqis killed and wounded by other Iraqis but, in the weeks before a recent lull, such attacks doubled. During the holy month of Ramadan, which fell mostly in November, there were 74 attacks on civilians and 82 attacks on Iraqi security forces, General Kimmitt said. The military did not respond to requests for more recent data.
Because the insurgents often use car bombs - powerful and indiscriminate - the toll of casualties is huge. In August, almost 100 Iraqis were killed and another 150 wounded when a car bomb exploded outside the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf. On Oct. 27, at least 34 people, nearly all Iraqis, were killed and 200 others wounded when bombs were detonated at the International Committee of the Red Cross and at four police stations in Baghdad. In the last big attack, on Nov. 22, at least 15 Iraqis were killed and more than 50 wounded in two suicide bombings at police stations in Khan Bani Saad and Baquba, north of Baghdad.
Numbers and headlines are one thing. The reality - the lives that go on no matter how badly scarred - is something else.
In the Shaab neighborhood of Baghdad, it has fallen on a 5-year-old boy named Mehdi to guide his father, Saleh Ibrahim Muhammad, by the hand around their small house, fetching his slippers and pointing the way to the toilet. Mr. Muhammad, a 30-year-old police officer, was blinded in the Oct. 27 attacks, which destroyed the local police station as he prepared to stay on for a double shift.
"There was an explosion, an extraordinary explosion," he remembered. "I thought someone lifted me - and the chair and the table - into the air and slammed me back down. There were some civilians working with me and I knew they were dead."
Wedged into a picture frame in his house are seven photographs of the officer before the bombing, posing with big smiles with the American military police officers who served at his station. An eighth photo shows Mehdi, also smiling and little-boy naked except for an American flag wrapped around him.
Mr. Muhammad said he was bitter that his old friends had not helped him more after his injury. He said he had one examination at the United States military hospital but was turned away for a second visit. American officials say they treat all threats to life, limb and sight. But Mr. Muhammad's family sees his lack of care as a broken promise, one of too many, they say, the Americans made to Iraqis.
"I will be the first fedayeen to fight the Americans," said his brother Ahmed, referring to the guerrillas believed to be a major force behind the resistance. "They are a lying people. They do not keep their word."
Mr. Muhammad himself is more conflicted. "That they are liberators, there is no question," he said. "But about the promises - they are false promises."
"I worked with the Americans," he said. "I was close to them. We were good friends. I never thought they would let me down. I thought Americans were somehow better."
In the town of Khan Bani Saad, the sorrow is the same, though the anger is directed elsewhere.
"If I knew who these people were - even one of them - I would drink their blood so they couldn't hurt anyone else," said Nasir Abdul Rahman, 36, a former army sergeant who recently opened a shop across from the police station.
He was referring to the people who, three weeks ago, dispatched a white Chevrolet Caprice to the police station, as he was opening his shop, dragging the cigarettes and drinks out to the sidewalk. His oldest child, Ibtihal, 10, stayed home from her fourth grade classes because she was sick. He said he caught a glimpse inside the car, of a man with a long beard who did not look like an Iraqi.
He turned his back, and the car exploded. He was blasted in the back and thigh with shrapnel. Ibtihal began screaming, "Daddy, come to me!" He scooped her up and ran to the hospital, but she died in his arms.
"I saw my daughter die in front of me," he said. "It was very hard for me. She was very beautiful. She had beautiful hair. It was very long."
Unlike some others, he said he was not angry with the Americans and said, in fact, he felt the soldiers should not leave Iraq until they defeat the insurgency.
"America is a great power - they cannot let these people win," he said. "Iraqis want peace. They do not want these terrorists."
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon Deputy Urges Major Unilateral Concession if Talks Fail
December 17, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 16 - Israel's deputy prime minister said Tuesday that Israel should prepare to make concessions with a "grand, one-sided move" if peace talks with the Palestinians should fail.
The minister, Ehud Olmert, has stirred fierce debate among Israelis and Palestinians with his recent pronouncements about the possibility of sweeping unilateral Israeli actions that would seek to impose a Mideast accord if no peace pact is reached.
Mr. Olmert is considered a hawk. Yet most right-wing Israelis reject his calls for political and territorial concessions amid the Mideast violence.
Palestinians say they oppose Israeli moves that are not a product of negotiations between the sides.
Still, Mr. Olmert is regarded as a close ally of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and his comments are generally seen as preparing the ground for moves that Mr. Sharon is contemplating. "My preferred option is a political settlement, but we cannot wait for it indefinitely," Mr. Olmert said at a national security conference in Herzliya, outside Tel Aviv.
"One must hope that the Palestinian government will succeed in gaining control of the state," he said on the first day of the conference. "But failing that, Israel must undertake an immediate, grand, one-sided move."
Mr. Sharon is to deliver an eagerly awaited speech on Thursday to end the conference. Reuters reported that Mr. Sharon had told his ministers that Israel has to begin to plan for the prospect of removing Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, where 7,000 settlers live. That report could not be independently confirmed.
The Israeli moves that Mr. Olmert spoke about could involve giving up more isolated Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while keeping the larger ones and drawing Israel's borders without the consent of the Palestinians, according to Mr. Olmert and other Israeli officials.
With Middle East peace efforts stalled, Israeli troops remain in and around Palestinian cities in the West Bank. But Israel has been taking small, limited steps to ease some restrictions on Palestinians, like allowing more workers into Israel.
Israeli officials say they are prepared to continue with such steps while opening a dialogue with the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei. But if Mr. Qurei's government proves ineffective and peace negotiations stall in coming months, the officials say, Israel will consider calling off the discussions and taking the unilateral steps that Mr. Olmert has suggested.
The United States, the main Mideast peace broker, opposes unilateral moves and is trying to help restart the peace plan, known as the road map. The Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, said the government would not act without consulting closely with the United States. "If the road map cannot be implemented, all will be done in coordination with the United States," Mr. Shalom told Israel radio.
In another development on Tuesday, the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, said he hoped to attend Christmas services in Bethlehem in the West Bank for the first time in three years. An Israeli official said there were no plans to lift the confinement of Mr. Arafat, who has rarely left his West Bank compound in Ramallah since December 2001.
"I believe Yasir Arafat will spend Christmas in the same place he spent last Christmas," the official said.
Mr. Arafat, a Muslim, was a regular at the Christmas ceremonies in Bethlehem from 1995 through 2000.
--------
THE IRAQI LEADER
'92 Israeli Plan to Kill Hussein Is Reported
December 17, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17PLOT.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 16 - Israel developed a risky plan in 1992 to assassinate Saddam Hussein at a funeral but dropped it after five Israeli soldiers were killed while training for the mission, according to Israeli news reports on Tuesday.
Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the Persian Gulf war of 1991, but Israel, under strong pressure from the United States, refrained from striking back.
After the war, however, Israel began investigating the possibility of killing Mr. Hussein, and the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, approved a detailed study in 1992, according to reports in the nation's leading newspapers, including Maariv and Yediot Ahronot.
Also in 1992, one of Mr. Hussein's closest relatives, his uncle - and father-in-law - Khairallah Tilfah, became terminally ill. Mr. Tilfah had raised Mr. Hussein, whose father died before Mr. Hussein was born. Mr. Hussein also married Mr. Tilfah's daughter Sajida.
The Israeli newspapers reported that the Israeli military believed Mr. Hussein could be killed at Mr. Tilfah's funeral because he would probably not send one of his doubles to such an important personal event.
The plan, named Operation Bramble Bush, called for helicopters to drop members of an elite military unit, Sayeret Matkal, outside Mr. Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, where the funeral was most likely to take place. They were to dig in and camouflage themselves a few hundred yards from a spot where Mr. Hussein was considered likely to travel.
At a meeting about the plan held on Oct. 2, 1992, Mr. Rabin "went into the tiniest details," Nadav Zeevi, a major in the Israeli reserves, was quoted as saying by Yediot Ahronot.
"He checked and questioned and investigated and was very interested," the newspaper reported Major Zeevi as saying. "At the end of the meeting, he demanded certainty of at least 98 percent before he would approve the operation."
The Israelis staged a simulation in the southern desert on Nov. 5, 1992, but the unit that was to carry out the attack mistakenly fired a real missile at Israeli soldiers serving as stand-ins for Mr. Hussein and his bodyguards, the reports said. The plan was dropped without ever being presented to the government for approval, the reports added.
The deaths of the five soldiers were reported at the time as a training accident. The Israeli military censor did not lift a ban on publication of the full account until after Mr. Hussein's capture by American soldiers on Saturday.
-------- prisoners of war
Hussein Enters Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons
By JAMES RISEN and THOM SHANKER
December 18, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/international/middleeast/18SADD.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to government officials.
It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities scattered throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government arrested by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the war in Iraq.
Many of the prisoners are still being held in a network of detention centers ranging from Afghanistan to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Officials described it as a prison system with its own unique hierarchy, one in which the most important captives are kept at the greatest distance from the prying eyes of the public and the media. It is a system in which the jailers have refined the arts of interrogation in order to drain the detainees of crucial information.
Mr. Hussein's new address is still a closely guarded secret, although he is still inside Iraq, American officials said Wednesday. No one will say precisely where, but it seems likely that he is at a highly secure detention facility established at Baghdad International Airport, where the United States is holding the other top Iraqi leaders it has captured. When asked if Mr. Hussein was at airport, American officials declined to comment.
The C.I.A. has quietly established its own detention system to handle especially important prisoners. The most important Qaeda leaders are held in small groups in undisclosed locations in friendly countries in the developing world, where they face long interrogations with no promise of ever gaining release. For example, at least two of the top Qaeda figures captured since the Sept. 11 attacks - Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh - were held for a time in a secure location in Thailand. They were later moved to another country, officials said.
C.I.A. officials refuse to say precisely how many Qaeda operatives the agency has in detention, but they say about 75 percent of the top two dozen Qaeda leaders in place at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks have been killed or captured. That suggests the agency's detention capacity is far smaller than the large system established by the Pentagon.
In dealing with its captives, the C.I.A. has the advantage of almost complete isolation. Officials say that allows the agency's interrogators to alter the physical surroundings of the Qaeda detainees to try to disorient them and also convince them that they are being held by Arab security services feared for their use of torture. Guards are sometimes dressed in the uniforms of the native countries of the detainees, a technique that may be particularly effective on captives who have experienced jail time back home. Officials said the C.I.A. might not be able to use the full range of interrogation techniques on Mr. Hussein that have been employed with Qaeda leaders. Unlike Qaeda operatives, Mr. Hussein seems destined to face some sort of public judicial review, either through an international war crimes tribunal or other trial, and so the agency's handling of him may eventually come under scrutiny.
Pentagon and C.I.A. officials have denied that they use torture against detainees captured in either Iraq or the wider campaign against terror. The agency's officials have declined to comment on the techniques they use with detainees, but a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday that interrogations conducted by the Pentagon followed "well-established techniques" that do not violate the human rights of the detainees.
Certain techniques that interrogators may wish to apply to elicit information from important detainees require "a higher level of scrutiny" by officials before they can be used, the Pentagon official said.
One military officer said the use of sleep deprivation, for example, must be approved by senior Pentagon officials.
American military officials said Wednesday that 38 of the 55 most wanted Iraqi leaders had either been killed or captured, and several hundred lower-level government officials and Baath Party operatives are also being held. While the most senior officials captured are being held at the Baghdad Airport, many of the lower-level Iraqis are now in Abu Gharib prison west of Baghdad, which was infamous as a torture den under Mr. Hussein's rule but has since been refurbished by American forces. Smaller, regional facilities have also been set up around Iraq temporarily to handle Iraqis caught up in street-level military operations intended to stem the insurgency.
In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the United States military is running a large detention center at Bagram Air Base, where Taliban, Qaeda and other foreign fighters caught in the country are held and questioned. Smaller, short-term detention centers have also been run in both Kandahar and Kabul.
Many of those caught in Afghanistan were eventually flown to Guantánamo, which has become the best-known prison in the global campaign against terror. Guantánamo now holds about 660 prisoners, although that number is expected to decline as some of them are turned over to their home countries. Still, Guantánamo's inmates are among the least significant of any detainees captured since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to several American counterterrorism experts. The C.I.A. has not sent any of the highest-ranking Qaeda leaders it has captured to the base, officials said.
A final category of detainees are those Qaeda operatives who really are being held by Arab countries, like Egypt, which then provide debriefing reports to the United States.
-------- space
Plans for Space Are Realistic, Official Says
December 17, 2003
By WARREN E. LEARY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/science/17NASA.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - When President Bush decides on a new policy of space exploration for the nation, the goals will be realistic and achievable, the NASA administrator, Sean O'Keefe, said on Tuesday.
Mr. O'Keefe said in an interview that the interagency task force gathering options for the president in space policy was working to avoid "pie in the sky" goals that may be grandiose and exciting but impractical for financial and technical reasons. Advertisement
The task force, which includes Mr. O'Keefe, Vice President Dick Cheney, and representatives of the Defense Department and other agencies, is getting close to a consensus on what practical possibilities the president might consider, he said.
The review of the nation's space program and its goals was initiated after the Columbia shuttle disaster. The interagency group intensified its work last summer, but set no timetable for presenting the president with policy options. Although there has been no indication from the White House on when Mr. Bush might make a decision, speculation in Washington has recently focused on a possible announcement during January's State of the Union address.
"We are getting close to converging on a unified view on where to go," Mr. O'Keefe said. The emphasis is on being pragmatic and realistic, he said.
"We want to make sure any approach he considers be responsible, that it be achievable, that it be plausible," Mr. O'Keefe said, "and that there really would be the wherewithall to support it if he so chooses, rather than making a preposterous commitment that no one signs onto."
During the process, Mr. O'Keefe said he had been mindful of a conversation he had with the president's father, former President George Bush, early this year. Two weeks before the Feb. 1 loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew, the space agency administrator, who had worked in the Pentagon during the former Bush administration, was in Texas and had lunch with his old boss.
One of the main items discussed was Mr. Bush's Space Exploration Initiative, a proposal he advanced to send humans to Mars during the 20th anniversary observance of the first Apollo moon landing. "He remembered this like it was yesterday," Mr. O'Keefe said, "he went on about how the decision was made and he remembered more detail than I ever would."
"In the end, we had this audacious policy but no one really went off to find out what it was going to take to achieve it and it fell flat," Mr. O'Keefe said, "He was just absolutely despondent over the fact and said `I got set up.' "
Mr. O'Keefe said the incident had stayed on his mind as the interagency group considered space policy options, and sharpened his resolve to make sure any new proposals are plausible and can draw sufficient support to be carried out if chosen.
-------- spies
CIA Poised to Quiz Hussein Rumsfeld Says Agency To Control Interrogations
By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6341-2003Dec16.html
The CIA, whose interrogation of al Qaeda leaders has produced a flow of useful information, will take the lead in questioning Saddam Hussein, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.
U.S. officials said that, as expected, the former Iraqi leader has been uncooperative during early questioning and has not provided truthful information about the Iraqi insurgency or weapons of mass destruction.
Rumsfeld, who described Hussein as "resigned," said he asked CIA Director George J. Tenet to take responsibility for the interrogation because the agency has "the people who have competence in that area; they have professionals in that area." The CIA, he said, "will be the regulator over the interrogations -- who will do it, the questions that'll get posed, the management of the information that flows from those interrogations."
The CIA team of operations officers, polygraphers and psychiatrists has put together a loose interrogation plan -- a playbook of sorts -- approved by headquarters that will help guide them in the months ahead, government sources said. It contains "what buttons to push," one U.S. official said, as well as a detailed, extensive list of questions, backed up with what is known to be true about each subject area. CIA interrogators will be joined by debriefers from the Defense Intelligence Agency and FBI agents who recently arrived in Iraq mainly to aid in bombing and other crime scene investigations.
The interrogation of Hussein offers the United States a tremendous opportunity and challenge. U.S. officials hope to extract information to help them defeat insurgents in Iraq. A document found when Hussein was captured has already proven useful, officials said.
The questioners will also focus on broader concerns. Some defense officials, in particular, believe Hussein has information on international terrorist organizations.
Complicating the interrogation is the prospect of a trial for Hussein. U.S. officials and others said pressure to begin legal proceedings could force interrogators to move more quickly than they think is prudent.
Experts on intelligence interrogations said giving the CIA the lead reflects the wide range of information the United States hopes to get from Hussein, and that it extends beyond information useful to the military in Iraq.
CIA experts, Rumsfeld said, "know the needs we have in terms of counterterrorism, they know the threads that have to come up through the needle head." He said turning the questioning over to the agency was "a three-minute decision, and the first two were for coffee."
John Rothrock, a former combat interrogator for the Air Force who later quizzed Soviet defectors for the CIA, said that the interrogation likely would follow a prescribed course that has been discussed and even practiced for months.
It would likely begin with a set of "control questions" for which -- unbeknownst to Hussein -- U.S. officials already have determined correct answers, he said. This would enable the interrogation team to begin to assess whether any apparent attempts at cooperation are genuine.
At the same time, a government psychiatrist would be brought in to update and refine the CIA's profile of Hussein. This would be based not only on observing his interactions with his captors but also on covert observations and even physiological data, such as sleep patterns, Rothrock said.
Over the course of the interrogation, two or three different questioners would likely employ different strategies, Rothrock said, including "good cop-bad cop" double teaming. Another approach would be to have someone appear to come from an entirely different background, probably acting as if he had higher rank and almost certainly an Arabic speaker, who would address Hussein directly and express disagreement with the U.S. position.
"It is essential to shake his confidence and make him dependent on at least one person," a former senior CIA official said.
It will be essential in the early sessions to establish for Hussein that his interrogators do not see him as the imprisoned president of Iraq, Rothrock added. "You're going to be playing his game if you treat him as a head of state," he said.
Part of the CIA's repertoire for disorienting a prisoner is known as a "false flag" operation that uses fake decor and disguises designed to deceive the captive into thinking he is in another country, or is reading a newspaper in which his top lieutenants are reported to have already betrayed him.
When CIA spy Aldrich H. Ames, who provided secrets to the Soviets for years, was captured, he was whisked to an FBI room filled with photographs of his house, his contacts, his code names, to make him believe authorities already knew the answers to his questions, so that lies would only hurt his chances to avoid the death penalty.
Jerrold M. Post, a former Hussein profiler for the CIA and now a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, said his advice is that "interrogators now should play to his swollen ego, and get him to boast about how he fooled the [United Nations] inspectors," Post said. Or, he said, they might try to get Hussein to talk about "how recently he fooled the whole world into thinking he had weapons while now they are wondering where they are."
The prospect of a trial, Post said, could provide Hussein with "a potential for graymail," or trying to gain leniency or some other edge by threatening to make public secret or embarrassing information.
With the United States having supported Hussein in the 1980s with seed strains for biological weapons and intelligence to help fight Iran, "he has plenty of dirty linen to wash in public, including beyond the U.S. -- the countries that were busy courting him such as France and Russia," Post said.
Staff writers Walter Pincus and Robin Wright contributed to this report.
-------- un
UNITED NATIONS
Iraqi Official Criticizes Security Council for Quibbling and Failing to Help Depose Hussein
December 17, 2003
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 - Iraq's interim foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, took the United Nations Security Council to task Tuesday for having failed to help free his country from Saddam Hussein, and he chided its members for bickering over his country's future instead of coming to its immediate assistance.
"Settling scores with the United States-led coalition should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people," Mr. Zebari said in language unusually scolding for an occupant of the guest seat at the end of the curving Security Council panel.
"Squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the daily struggle for security, jobs, basic freedoms and all the rights the U.N. is chartered to uphold," said Mr. Zebari, a blunt-spoken Kurd with a history of fighting as a mountain guerrilla against Mr. Hussein.
Taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the Security Council to endorse the military action in Iraq, Mr. Zebari, one of the 25 cabinet ministers appointed by the Iraqi Governing Council in September, said, "One year ago the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable.
"The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure."
He declared, "The U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again."
The accusatory tone of Mr. Zebari's speech irritated some diplomats but did not adversely affect the ensuing closed-door Security Council discussion over the United Nations' role in Iraq, according to a European participant.
Secretary General Kofi Annan, the first to emerge from the hall, appeared taken aback, however.
"Now is not the time to pin blame and point fingers," he told reporters. Conceding that Mr. Zebari was "obviously entitled to his opinion," Mr. Annan said the United Nations had done as much for Iraq as it could under the circumstances and was prepared to do more. "Quite honestly," he reiterated, "now is not the time to hurl accusations and counteraccusations."
Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry of Britain, which was the United States' principal ally in Iraq, said that there had been tough questioning by colleagues but that he detected "strong support" from them for the timetable that Mr. Zebari had laid out: moving to an Iraqi transitional authority by July, subsequently drawing up a constitution and holding elections in 2005.
The session of the 15-member Council had been called to discuss the new plan.
Mr. Annan led off with a speech drawing from his report last week that ruled out a swift return of the United Nations to Iraq because of the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in August and continuing attacks on diplomats and relief workers.
He also said the United Nations needed "much greater clarity" over what it would be asked to do in Iraq before he could fully recommit the world organization.
Such statements have angered the Bush administration, which argues that recent resolutions on Iraq give the United Nations ample room to broaden its participation immediately.
An estimated 2,000 Iraqi workers for the United Nations are inside the country, and Mr. Annan last week assigned 40 workers to staff Iraq aid offices in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Amman, Jordan.
Mr. Zebari took issue with the assignments, saying that Iraq could guarantee the United Nations whatever security it needed to return sooner and noting the importance of having the organization back in Baghdad.
"Your help and expertise cannot be effectively delivered from Cyprus or Amman," he said.
He also criticized countries like France that have expressed doubts about the American-appointed Governing Council.
"As Iraqis," he said, "we strongly disagree with those of you that question the legitimacy of the present Iraqi authorities."
Mr. Zebari proclaimed the Governing Council "the most representative and democratic governing body in the region."
He said, "The members of the Security Council should be reaching out and encouraging this nascent democracy in a region well known for its authoritarian rule."
Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière of France, a critic of the war, turned aside Mr. Zebari's criticism, saying, "I don't want to comment on the past."
--------
Iraqi Minister Wants U.N. to Return
Zubari Tells Security Council Members to Set Aside Disputes with U.S.
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A36
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6162-2003Dec16.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 -- Iraq's provisional foreign minister criticized the United Nations for failing to confront Saddam Hussein during his 35-year reign, and called on the United Nations to return to Iraq to help restore stability despite its misgivings about the U.S. military occupation.
In a forceful address to the U.N. Security Council, the Iraqi Governing Council's top diplomat, Hoshyar Zubari, said that the council's resistance to American aims in Iraq was harming ordinary Iraqis.
He also faulted U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's decision to establish its Iraq operations headquarters in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Amman, Jordan, saying that the United Nations should return and face the same risks confronting Iraqis. The United Nations pulled out in August after its top representative and 16 other employees died in a bombing of the organization's Baghdad headquarters.
"Your help and expertise cannot be effectively delivered from Cyprus or Amman," said Zubari as Annan listened at the council's horseshoe-shaped table. "We understand the devastating losses the U.N. suffered on August 19, but as the U.N. has offered reassurance by its presence in so many dangerous and difficult situations, we are ready and willing to provide whatever security is required."
Annan said that it is still too dangerous for the United Nations to return in full force to Iraq, citing an increase in targeted attacks against U.N. personnel.
At the same time, he offered political backing to a U.S. and Iraqi proposal for transferring political power to Iraqis by July 1, a plan that would rely on a series of regional caucuses to elect a provisional Iraqi government.
Annan suggested that a competing proposal from Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is impractical. Sistani is pressing to organize general elections to create the transitional government. Iraq's Shiite Muslims, who account for more than 60 percent of Iraq's population, believe such elections will increase their political power in Iraq.
"While there may not be time to organize free, fair and credible elections for this purpose it is essential that the process leading to the formation of a provisional government is fully inclusive and transparent," Annan said.
Tuesday's debate in the council underscored the continuing division at the United Nations over the wisdom of the U.S. decision to invade Iraq without Security Council approval. Annan and key opponents of the war, including France, Russia and Germany, remain reluctant to participate fully in Iraq's recovery as long as the country is under U.S. occupation.
Zubari challenged those who question the legitimacy of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. He called it "the most representative and democratic governing body in the Middle East." And he charged opponents of the U.S. war with appeasing Hussein.
"The U.N. as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years," he said. "The U.N. must not fail Iraqi people again."
Zubari appealed to countries that opposed the war not to make Iraqis pay a price for their political dispute with the Americans. "Settling scores with the United States should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people," he said. "This squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to their daily struggle for security, jobs, basic freedoms and all the rights the U.N. is chartered to uphold." The United States and the Iraqis would like the United Nations to expand its humanitarian aid operations in Iraq and to lend legitimacy to their plans to transfer power to a new Iraqi government.
Zubari's remarks before the council prompted a testy reaction from the U.N. secretary general and other U.N. diplomats.
"The past is the past," said France's ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere. "We should not look at the past but look forward." Annan said that it was not time to "pin blame and point fingers, when everyone is trying to figure out how creatively we can organize ourselves to help the Iraqis."
Zubari's calls for greater U.N. engagement in Iraq added to the mounting pressure on Annan to expand the organization's role in that country. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior administration officials have repeatedly urged Annan to restore the U.N. presence there. And Britain's top envoy to Iraq, Jeremy Greenstock, pressed Annan in a private meeting Monday to set up a U.N. headquarters in Iraq once a provisional government is in place.
Annan said that while the United Nations is "ready to play its full part in helping Iraqis resume control of their destiny," the United States and the Iraqis must provide "much greater clarity" on the role they envision for the United Nations.
"This is not, as some have concluded, a formula for the United Nations to stand aloof from the process," he said. "I need to weigh the degree of risk that the United Nations is being asked against the substance of the role we are being asked to fulfill," he said.
-------- propaganda wars
Bush: No difference between having weapons and planning for them
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 17, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031217015400.r7zsokwv.html
US President George W. Bush on Tuesday dismissed any distinction between whether former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein actually had weapons of mass destruction or planned to acquire them.
"So what's the difference?" he asked in an interview with ABC television in response to a question whether Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction or was just trying to acquire them.
"If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger," the president said. "A gathering threat, after 9-11, is a threat that needed to be dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger."
The Bush administration used claims that Iraq had hidden banned chemical and biological weapons as one of the main justification for launching an invasion of Iraq last March.
A CIA-led search team sent to Iraq after the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime has so far been unable to find any of these weapons.
But in the interview Bush referred to "the possibility that he could acquire weapons."
Bush insisted that the intelligence the White House used before the invasion "was good sound intelligence" and was no different than that available to his predecessor.
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a threat," he said. "Otherwise, the United Nations wouldn't have passed, you know, resolution after resolution after resolution, demanding that he disarm."
----
HEARTS AND MINDS
Coming Soon to Arab TV's: U.S.
December 17, 2003
New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17NETW.html?pagewanted=all&position=
SPRINGFIELD, Va. - The United States' next great hope for winning Arab hearts and minds hides in a squat two-story building in a generic industrial park here, just off I-95. The only hint of what may lie within is the black-tape lettering on the front door that reads "News."
Inside, construction crews are working seven days a week to complete studios for the most ambitious United States government-sponsored international media project since the Voice of America began broadcasting in 1942.
It is to be called Al Hurra, a slickly produced Arab-language news and entertainment network that will be beamed by satellite from this Washington suburb to the Middle East. The name translates to English as "The Free One."
Al Hurra is meant to be America's "fair and balanced" pan-Arab answer to outlets like Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite network that White House officials accuse of fanning anti-Americanism in the Persian Gulf region.
The network may start broadcasting as early as next month. But it already faces skepticism, even from an outside Middle East expert appointed by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to review American public relations efforts in the Arab world.
Many Middle East scholars have questioned whether its target audience, suspicious of all things American, would ever accept it, especially when its main hub is in Virginia.
Even if it does gain acceptance, some scholars said they doubted that a single television network could have enough impact to justify $62 million in first-year costs.
The team behind Al Hurra, an odd mix of American media executives and longtime Arab journalists, said it would be editorially independent, in keeping with other outfits of its kind: Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
Acknowledging the challenges, they say it will exemplify the best values of American journalism and present the best chance so far to deepen understanding of America in the region.
"We're contending with a media environment that includes hate speak in radio and TV," said Norman J. Pattiz, who heads the Middle East committee of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the United States agency that is financing and overseeing the project, as it does Voice of America and several other ventures.
"It's in that environment that the Arab street gets its impression of our policies, our culture, our society," Mr. Pattiz said. "We simply cannot ignore the indigenous media."
Al Hurra will be available everywhere in the Middle East that Al Jazeera is, said Mr. Pattiz, chairman of Westwood One, the largest radio network in the nation.
By midwinter, he said, the network will have a separate outlet and studios in Iraq, paid for by a $40 million appropriation included in the president's $87 billion financial aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan. It will have other bureaus throughout the Middle East.
The network, along with an Arabic-language radio venture that began nearly two years ago, Radio Sawa, was put on the fast track after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when American officials recognized a need to address anti-United States sentiment in the Arab media.
Other projects born of the time have failed or faltered, a source of considerable frustration and disappointment in American diplomatic circles.
In one of the more embarrassing examples, an Arabic video produced last year by the State Department highlighting Muslims living prosperously in the United States was met with skepticism by Arab viewers.
Officials behind Al Hurra said this project was better thought out, built with American marketing and production skills. Yet they hope it will have an Arab sensibility, delivered by its Lebanese-born news director, Mouafac Harb, a former Washington bureau chief for the London-based Arabic daily Al Hayat. Mr. Harb is in the process of hiring a largely Arab staff of more than 200 people.
Bert Kleinman, the network president, said people in Egypt and Bahrain who had taken part in focus groups had reacted positively to a description of Al Hurra - "fair and balanced," "empowering," "tolerant." But he acknowledged, "When we asked if a fair and balanced channel like this could be American, some said absolutely not."
With that sort of data in mind, Edward P. Djerejian, director of the James A. Baker III Public Policy Institute of Rice University, said, "We're skeptical that it will be able to jump over this barrier, this obstacle of credibility, in terms of being a state-run media outlet."
Mr. Djerejian, appointed by Mr. Powell to study American public relations efforts in Muslim countries, reported back those concerns. But M. C. Andrews, acting director of the White House Office of Global Communications, said the administration fully supported the network. Two senior State Department officials said they disagreed with Mr. Djerejian's assessment of the venture.
Executives of the broadcasting board said they were heartened that Radio Sawa, a youth-oriented radio station that mixes Western and Eastern pop and was also supposedly doomed, had built an audience of at least 15 million throughout the Middle East.
And, they said, some members of focus groups criticized Al Jazeera for being overheated and said they would give Al Hurra a chance if it was credible.
Establishing credibility falls to Mr. Harb, 36, a Muslim whose parents live in Beirut. Mr. Harb said he had come up with the idea to name the network Al Hurra instead of the more Western sounding "Middle East Television Network."
"This is a very Arabic name, `The Free One,' " he said. "Not `The Freedom Network.' That would sound militant. This says, `I am free, and if you want to be free, come and watch me.' "
Al Hurra's identifying symbol is an Arabian horse, which will trot onto the screen during programming breaks.
Getting people to watch, Al Hurra officials acknowledge, will be a major challenge. They say the channel should stand out in the 150-channel environment in part because it will have the highest production values in the region.
But the most important distinguishing feature, Mr. Harb said, will be its journalistic approach.
"In all Arabic newspapers, the op-ed section is on Page 1," he said. "It's created a culture where you can't tell the difference between news and opinion."
He added: "We have to disseminate objective, balanced news. In the West this might sound like Journalism 101, but in that market it'll be a departure." For instance, Mr. Harb said, in a report about an Israeli raid into one of the Palestinian territories, Al Jazeera tends to point out that the Israelis were flying "American-made" aircraft. Al Hurra will not do that.
"Why say that?" he asked. "You can feel which way they are leading you."
He and other officials say the channel will not pull its punches when it comes to the United States. For instance, Mr. Pattiz said the channel might feature a translated version of the BBC documentary "Blair's War," which extensively broadcast the views of critics of the Iraq war.
Al Jazeera officials took issue with Mr. Harb's criticism and said Arab viewers would see the network for what it was, a tool of the American government.
"His mandate is clear - that's to promote American points of view," said Jihad Ali Ballout, a Jazeera spokesman. "We are two different beasts altogether: Al Jazeera's job is not to promote anybody's point of view."
Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland who served on an advisory group convened by Mr. Djerejian, predicts that the network will come under pressure in Washington if it proceeds the way it says it will.
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board, said he would shield the network from external pressure, though he said he did not expect any.
"The people aren't stupid," he said. "If we're slanting the news, they'll figure it out. If we establish long-term credibility, people will begin to ask questions. What went wrong? What retarded a civilization that was once far ahead of the West? And we'll be there to answer them."
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THE MEDIA
U.S. Plans to Offer Official Coverage of Iraq Directly to Viewers
December 17, 2003
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17FILT.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - For months administration officials have complained that they are not penetrating the news media "filter" to inform the American public about their progress in Iraq. The arrest of Saddam Hussein was a sorely needed spike in generally dismal dispatches, they said.
But now, live from a television station near you: the good news.
Or so hopes the Pentagon, which is making briefings from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq directly available - sometimes free, sometimes for a fee - to network affiliates, cable stations and government agencies, bypassing the likes of Tom and Dan and Peter.
"It's to provide the full news story," said Maj. Joe Yoswa, a Pentagon spokesman. "It's an unfiltered resource."
Some critics see it as a not so subtle campaign to counter skepticism among Americans about the Iraqi operation in the months before a presidential election. They note that the taxpayer-financed Voice of America, which broadcasts news about American policies around the world, is explicitly barred from broadcasting to the United States.
Even some administration officials said they worried about the apparent propaganda value.
The operation is not a new network with programming, but rather a satellite capability that makes live transmissions available from the coalition press center in Iraq. Television stations may gain access the material directly; it is also shown at the Pentagon.
C-Span has expressed interest, and may get the service free, but so far no stations have agreed to pay for access, officials said, and financial details are still being worked out.
Eventually the operation will be able to handle two-way communications, where a reporter in, say, Fort Bragg, N.C., may be able to interview a division commander in Iraq, or even some hometown soldiers on a mission. The program will also be able to send images and reports from military crews documenting the Iraq campaign.
The program has the full backing of the White House, where the president and other officials have expressed frustration with what they see as an undue focus among national media on casualty rates and other bad news.
The man chosen to make an end run around the networks built his career in them: Dorrance Smith, a former ABC News producer of "This Week with David Brinkley" and "Nightline," was selected this summer for the job. Mr. Smith was a media adviser to the first President Bush and is a longtime family friend.
In an interview, Mr. Smith declined to say whether he thought his old employers in the media were distorting the news. But he said, "You would be getting a better picture if more of the anchors and more of the front-liners would actually come to Iraq to see things for themselves."
Administration officials, stung by the turn in tenor of news media coverage from depictions of the successful military operation to the tumultuous occupation, insist they are not trying to squelch bad news, but to show their progress.
"The American people need to hear good news from Iraq to supplement the bad news they get" from the established media outlets, said one senior administration official. Good-news stories like the opening of a clinic or school "are not very sexy," he said, but they balance reports of death and destruction, which leave "a very unbalanced picture in the end."
The official nevertheless expressed misgivings about the potential for abuse when the government gets into the news business. "This is unprecedented in a conflict overseas," he said.
Mr. Smith countered that the coalition will make its airtime available to dignitaries who do not necessarily reflect the Pentagon's view, like visiting members of Congress. But the primary aim will be to broadcast the message of the top commanders.
"It's a way of communicating from the C.P.A. and the military side on a daily basis our assessment of what the security and political situation is," he said.
Even then, the military brass cannot go entirely "over the heads" of the established news media. At briefings, officials face a phalanx of reporters from national outlets and, yes, the networks with their hands in the air.
-------- war crimes
TOWARD A TRIAL
Prosecution of Hussein: Decade's Digging Is Already Done
December 17, 2003
By SUSAN SACHS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17CASE.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 16 - Any court to try Saddam Hussein will have a head start on building a case against him, thanks to efforts by Iraqi exiles, Kurdish groups and international human rights organizations over the past decade to prove that the former Iraqi leader was responsible for genocide and other international crimes.
A case against Mr. Hussein, one that would meet the standards of evidence required for conviction before an international war crimes tribunal, is not yet completed, lawyers with those groups said.
But the work done over the past 12 years, they said, could fairly quickly become the basis for a prosecution, especially of charges by Iraqi Kurds that Mr. Hussein ordered the use of chemical weapons against civilians, destroyed Kurdish villages and killed Kurds on a large scale.
So far, there has been much less progress toward creating a tribunal in Iraq than on assembling and analyzing mounds of potential evidence against Mr. Hussein and his government. The Iraqi Governing Council, under the supervision of the American occupation administration, voted only last week to create a special Iraqi war crimes court.
Iraqis on the council said they could not predict when the court would be operational since they did not yet have a building, staff, money, judges or security for the tribunal. Several of the Iraqi political leaders also have said they do not want to conduct trials while the county is under occupation.
But the insistence that Mr. Hussein and his aides be tried in Iraq, by Iraqis, appeared almost universal.
President Bush has declined to say whether Mr. Hussein should go before the special tribunal established in Iraq. He said he would "work with Iraqis to develop a way to try him that will withstand international scrutiny."
Many Iraqis have not forgotten that the first President Bush allowed Mr. Hussein to remain in power after Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf war in 1991, leaving him a free hand to suppress a Shiite Muslim rebellion with great brutality.
Having seen Mr. Hussein supported over the past 35 years by a succession of Arab, European and American leaders, many Iraqis remain intensely wary of foreign interference in a war crimes tribunal.
"We have just people here in Iraq who can judge him with the assistance of international experts, jurists with experience in other tribunals and academics," said Mufid Muhammad Juwad al-Jazairi, a former exile who is now the culture minister in the transitional government.
"A tribunal set up outside Iraq could be subject to political pressure from this or that side and manipulated more than it would be if the trial is held in Iraq," Mr. Jazairi added.
One of the few contrary views, so far, has come from one of Mr. Hussein's daughters, Raghad, who was given asylum in Jordan with her mother and a sister after the war. In an interview on Monday with the Arabic satellite television station Al Arabiya, she said her father should be judged by an international court.
She also claimed that Mr. Hussein, shown disheveled and complacent in an American military video on Sunday, had been sedated by his captors.
"Where's the democracy?" demanded Ms. Hussein, whose own husband was executed by her father. "Where's the immunity that every president has?"
Against the backdrop of the political questions about a tribunal, however, human rights experts and lawyers have been working since the fall of Baghdad to assemble cases against members of the former government on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Tons of documents were seized by the Kurds in 1991, when they again rebelled against Mr. Hussein. Under American and British protection, they were able to ship the police and intelligence files to the United States for analysis and safekeeping.
Sandra L. Hodgkinson, head of a transitional justice group at the occupation authority, has said that the Iraqis have been concentrating on eight different events during Mr. Hussein's tenure, from the Kurdish killings to reported executions of Shiite Muslims from 1979 onward, that could be the basis for prosecution under international laws.
Until the fall of Baghdad in April, the Kurdish cases received the most attention. Human rights groups tried to bring a case against the Iraqi government based on the crimes against the Kurds in the early 1990's, but failed to find a nation to lend support.
Later, the State Department and an American-financed group called Indict turned to assembling evidence to link specific members of Mr. Hussein's government to the alleged crimes. What is needed now, according to lawyers involved in both efforts, is a means to link Mr. Hussein to the mass graves that have been found since his fall, whether through specific orders, testimony of witnesses, or other means.
"There are still key documents we don't have," said Joost Hiltermann, a former Human Rights Watch researcher and author of a forthcoming book on Iraq's use of chemical weapons.
The charges concerning the Kurds are widely known outside the Arab world through video tapes and survivors' testimony, especially the Iraqi government's use of deadly gas against the town of Halabja in 1988.
Human rights groups said they had also documented thoroughly the Anfal campaign against the Kurds that same year, when the Hussein government is accused of destroying hundreds of villages in northern Iraq and killing some 70,000 people in suppression of an Iranian-backed Kurdish insurgency.
Should Mr. Hussein be brought to trial on those charges, he is likely to defend his actions rather than deny them, according to a Baghdad lawyer with close ties to the old government.
"Let's say the Russians occupied some American land," said Badie Arief Izzat, a Baghdad lawyer who was a prominent Baath Party member and who still speaks admiringly of Mr. Hussein. "Wouldn't you defend it and use all kinds of weapons?"
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security
U.S. and Europeans Agree on Sharing of Airline Passenger Data
December 17, 2003
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/europe/17AIRL.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - The European Union said Tuesday that it had agreed to allow the United States to continue to collect passenger records on all airline travelers flying to the United States from Europe, heading off a trans-Atlantic showdown over a policy that the Bush administration says is vital to combating terrorism.
The agreement with the Bush administration ended a threat that the European Union would cite European privacy laws in blocking airlines from continuing to turn over the passenger records, which are scanned by the Homeland Security Department and matched against terrorist watch lists before travelers arrive in the United States.
A law enacted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks requires all airlines to provide the United States with computerized passenger records for all travelers headed to the United States.
Bush administration officials have said the screening procedure has allowed law-enforcement agencies to head off potential terrorists and other criminals trying to enter the United States through international airports, most notably Jose Padilla, an American arrested last year at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and accused of plotting to explode a radiological device in the United States.
But several European governments and European privacy advocates have balked at the transfer of airline passenger information, saying it violates European privacy laws. Their complaints were overruled by the 15-member European Union, which agreed in February on an interim deal to allow airlines to turn over the data. But in recent months, privacy advocates had stepped up pressure on the European Union to end the agreement.
Under the pact announced Tuesday, the Homeland Security Department will be allowed to continue to collect the passenger records from trans-Atlantic airlines. But American and European negotiators said stricter limits would be imposed on what information could be gathered from the records, how it could be shared with the United States government, and how long it could be stored.
"Both sides have given much ground," said Stewart Verdery, assistant secretary for border and transportation security policy at the Homeland Security Department, who helped negotiate the deal. "Many had thought that our security needs could not coexist with the privacy needs of the European Union. But we have managed to thread the needle on this arrangement."
Frits Bolkestein, the European Union commissioner who worked out final details of the agreement, said that "the E.U. cannot refuse its ally in the fight against terrorism" but that "a balance had to be found."
Under the agreement, negotiators said, the United States will be allowed to collect 34 types of data from the records, including a passenger's name, address, telephone number, credit-card numbers, travel companions and the amount of luggage checked onto the flight.
But other details from the records, including information about passengers' health or dietary requirements, which might signal their religion or ethnicity, cannot be turned over to the United States. Mr. Verdery said that filters would be built into government computer systems to block access to that information "before it gets to our door."
Under the agreement, the United States will be allowed to store the information for three and a half years, far less than the Bush administration had originally sought. And the agreement requires the Homeland Security Department to make use of the information only in investigations of terrorism and other international crimes.
Under procedures put in place by the Bush administration since the Sept. 11 attacks, airline passenger records are forwarded within minutes of a flight's departure to a Homeland Security Department offices in northern Virginia, where they are matched against terrorist watch lists and scanned for other information that might suggest a terrorist or criminal is on board. The information is then relayed to border officers at international airports who meet passengers as they arrive on the flights.
Homeland Security officials said that virtually all international airlines were now meeting the requirements of the law requiring them to turn over the passenger records.
They said that a few foreign airlines, which they would not identify, were continuing to have some difficulty in meeting the requirements for what appeared to be technical, data-processing reasons. "We have the authority to sanction airlines, but no airline is under threat of sanctions," said Mr. Verdery. "All airlines have complied when we have asked."
The agreement announced Tuesday is to last for three and a half years, a period in which many European governments are expected to set their own rules requiring airlines to report passenger data on travelers headed to Europe.
In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said that the agreement was reached "after a year of frank and earnest negotiations" and that it "enhances the Homeland Security mission of fighting terrorism and crime while still ensuring that the privacy of travelers will be protected."
-------- immigration / refugees
Crime Database Misused for Civil Issues, Suit Says
December 17, 2003
By NINA BERNSTEIN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/politics/17IMMI.html?pagewanted=all&position=
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are unlawfully using a national crime database to get local police departments to enforce civil immigration laws, lawyers who have assembled a federal class-action lawsuit against the practice said yesterday.
The lawsuit, which they plan to file today in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, is the first to challenge the addition of civil information about thousands of noncitizens to the National Criminal Information Center database, which the F.B.I. uses to notify law enforcement agencies about people wanted for crimes.
Immigration violations, like staying in the country after a visa has expired, can lead to deportation but are not criminal matters and have traditionally been the responsibility of federal agents.
Congress has neither authorized nor required local police agencies to routinely arrest people for such violations, and a bill that would do so has drawn unexpectedly strong opposition from many police departments, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Denver, Boston and Chicago. Advocates for immigrants argue that it would undermine local crime-fighting by making immigrants even more fearful of reporting crimes or helping with police investigations.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit - the National Council of La Raza, the New York Immigration Coalition, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Latin American Workers Project and Unite - contend that Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security and the F.B.I. are misusing the database.
"Ashcroft is not waiting on Congress, not waiting for the courts, but seizing power for himself under the guise of the war on terror," said Michael Wishnie, a lawyer for the plaintiffs and a professor at the New York University School of Law. "It will work a sea change in the relations between police and immigration communities across the nation, to the detriment of us all."
Mr. Wishnie said he knew of at least one citizen who was mistakenly arrested in New York and held for weeks because of inaccurate information in the database. He said many people at risk of arrest by the local police because of immigration violations were workers with no criminal records.
Government officials declined to answer questions about the lawsuit's claims, but Jorge Martinez, a Justice Department spokesman, said the department always cooperated with Homeland Security to make the crime database "the most effective tool it can be in our effort to protect the American people."
The national crime database had its beginnings as a federal clearinghouse during Prohibition, but because of concerns about overzealous agents it has been restricted mainly to criminal justice records like rap sheets, criminal warrants and stolen property records, the plaintiffs said. It does not include civil records for matters like tax evasion or failure to pay child support, they noted.
The only civil matters included in the database were specifically added by Congress, like orders of protection against domestic violence and stalking, added in 1994 as part of the Violence Against Women Act. Congress has resisted involving local police officials in immigration law, although a 1996 law allowed them to enter special agreements to do so with training and supervision. Only Florida and Alabama signed up for the program.
Thousands of local, state, federal and tribal law enforcement agencies consult the powerful database, at a rate of 3.7 million times a day, with an average response time of 0.12 seconds. It is often consulted during routine traffic stops or patrols.
Officials say a unit of the Department of Homeland Security in Burlington, Vt., adds the immigration violator records and checks them for accuracy. But the plaintiffs say the poor quality of immigration records and the complexity of immigration law make mistakes inevitable.
Last year, Mr. Ashcroft announced that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel had concluded that state and local police officials have "inherent authority" to arrest and detain people who are in violation of immigration laws. He has refused to make public the legal documents used in the decision.
When lawyers at the Migration Policy Institute, an advocacy and research organization, questioned the legal basis for the change, Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to President Bush, replied in a June 2002 letter that "only high-risk aliens who fit a terrorist profile" would be placed in the crime database. "The administration is taking these measures in its effort to strengthen homeland security and combat terrorism," Mr. Gonzales added.
In practice, a senior immigration official said, more than 300,000 names of noncitizens subject to deportation orders have been added since June 2002. Some are felons, but many are noncitizens who had been ordered deported, usually because they failed to leave the country when their visas expired.
Government officials have also announced their intention to add a category of civil immigration records to the database: foreign students who have not maintained enough credits, earned minimum grades or otherwise violated a condition of a student visa, according to university records.
Since the change, local police departments have been making immigration arrests when a routine check of the database confirms that someone is named as a violator. As of late this year, 5,092 noncitizens with immigration violations had been arrested by local police departments through routine computer checks. The city with the most such arrests was Boston, with 631 since June, followed by Los Angeles with 456, San Diego with 403, San Francisco with 347 and New York with 317.
Some of the sharpest criticism of the practice has come from police officials. Craig Ferrell Jr., deputy director of the Houston Police Department, said his department was "completely opposed" to including noncriminal information in the database. "You're going to cut down the ability to solve a lot of crimes," Mr. Ferrell said. "We need to be dealing with criminal law - that's what we do best."
If someone is deemed a national security risk, he added, immigration law violations can be charged as crimes. He added: "With 10 million illegals in this country, hopefully we don't have 10 million who are going to be security risks or we are in a lot of trouble."
--------
U.S. Considers Expanding FBI Database
Names of Noncrimimal Deportees and Student Visa Violators Would Be Added
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6149-2003Dec16.html
Homeland security officials want to add tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and foreign students to an FBI database designed primarily to help police apprehend wanted criminals, allowing them to instantly identify foreign nationals who have been deported or have violated student visas.
The proposal -- part of a broad push by the Bush administration to more closely monitor foreign nationals since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- is raising concerns among some civil liberties advocates and law enforcement groups that fear it will bring police heavily into the business of apprehending immigration violators who have committed no serious crimes. In some cases, they said, that could violate state rules that prohibit police from enforcing federal immigration laws.
Spokesman Jorge Martinez stressed that the Justice Department has not yet made a decision on the plan.
Under the proposal, the FBI's main fugitive database would be expanded to include the names of 140,000 immigrants who are deported each year for noncriminal reasons, officials said. An unknown number return to the country and are here illegally. Authorities also would add the names of thousands of foreign students who do not show up for class or otherwise violate their visas.
The FBI's database, known as the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), includes the names of more than 40 million felons, fugitives, missing persons and others being sought by law enforcement agencies. It is used by more than 80,000 law enforcement agencies.
The database had been expanded to include immigrants who were deported for felony crimes, failed to show up for deportation hearings, or registered during a special program aimed at visa holders from Muslim nations that was implemented after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
But adding the names of noncriminals who were deported and student visa violators would significantly expand the number of foreign nationals on the list, officials said.
"It's adding more information out there," one Department of Homeland Security official said. "The last thing we want is for an encounter to occur, they can't do something and then this person commits a crime or something else that is detrimental to the community."
Three of the Sept. 11, 2001, attackers entered the United States on student visas, including one, Hani Hanjour, who never showed up for classes. Hanjour was ticketed for speeding in Arlington six weeks before he piloted the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon.
The proposal comes at the same time that President Bush is beginning to revive an immigration proposal that would allow some people illegally in the United States to work toward legal status.
Even before the latest proposal, several major law enforcement groups have raised serious concerns about the inclusion of immigration violators in the FBI's criminal database. And the American Civil Liberties Union is expected to file a lawsuit as early as today challenging the practice.
"This is another step in what appears to be the Justice Department's calculated plan to try to obliterate the separation between criminal law enforcement and immigration status violations," said Lucas Guttentag of the ACLU's Immigrants Rights Project.
Many states and localities prohibit police from enforcing civil immigration laws or even inquiring about an individual's immigration status, often because of state constitutional concerns. Many police officers say they are wary of detaining immigration violators without a warrant for fear a court could hold them accountable for an unlawful arrest.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police has urged the federal government to limit the database to individuals who have warrants for their arrest and to issue clear guidelines for local law enforcement. A committee of police chiefs that advises the FBI's database division recently raised similar concerns about the proposed expansion.
"We want to help if it's somebody DHS believes is a threat to the country," said Bill Casey, deputy superintendent of the Boston Police Department, who chairs the advisory committee. "But our position is that you have to have a warrant on the individual."
The issue is also part of a broader debate over the proper role of local police, many of whom fear that illegal immigrants will stop reporting crime if they cannot trust law enforcement and that relations with Hispanics will be strained if police are seen as an arm of federal immigration authorities.
"There's this issue, which is dealing with NCIC, and the broader issue of law enforcement getting into the business of enforcing immigration, which is a philosophical problem," said Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the police chiefs' association. "It's an area state and local law enforcement hasn't been involved in before, and it's an area that is yet to be resolved."
The Justice Department issued an internal legal opinion last year arguing that states and localities have the "inherent authority" to enforce civil and criminal violations of immigration law, sources have said. Alabama and Florida have begun pilot projects that allow troopers in those states to enforce immigration laws, and bills to widen the practice are pending in Congress.
--------
EU Agrees to Share Airline Passenger Data
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6526-2003Dec16.html
The European Union has agreed to share information about its airline passengers with the United States, in a deal announced yesterday that ends year-long negotiations over a new U.S. law intended to fight terrorism.
International airlines will turn over data about their U.S.-bound passengers, such as a traveler's name, e-mail address, telephone number and credit card number to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection unit. The U.S. agency will then screen the traveler data and use it for terrorist investigations and other international probes into crimes such as drug trafficking and money laundering.
Major airlines expressed relief yesterday that the two sides had reached a deal because they had found themselves caught in the middle of the transatlantic dispute. A U.S. aviation security law passed after the terrorist attacks in 2001 required international airlines to turn over data about their passengers or face penalties or even lose landing rights in U.S. airports. In Europe, officials prepared legal action against carriers that shared passenger information with the United States because it would violate Europe's own strict data privacy laws.
"It's never pleasant to be in the middle of a tug of war," said Wanda Warner, spokeswoman for the International Air Transport Association, a trade organization representing 100 carriers serving the United States. "The airline industry was always hopeful they would reach an agreement because we were faced with conflicting instructions." Under the terms announced yesterday, the United States agreed to keep the passenger data, formally known as the "passenger name record," for 31/2years instead of the seven years it initially sought. The airlines will turn over 34 fields of information collected by the airline reservation system about each passenger, instead of the 60 fields that the United States wanted. U.S. officials said they will block out fields that reveal information about a passenger's medical condition or request for a special meal.
The airline group said the data collection could cost tens of millions of dollars and said the government should pay for filtering systems to block certain information. "We will continue to work with the EU to establish the optimum way to filter data," said John Lampl, a British Airways spokesman.
In order to ease privacy concerns, U.S. officials ensured that European citizens would have a means to contest or question use of their data. U.S. officials said data could not be transferred to other agencies unless the agency can show its relevance to an criminal or intelligence investigation.
"It's not a data dump," said Stewart Verdery, assistant secretary for border and transportation security. "It's an individualized request for particular information."
The European Union also agreed to allow the United States to use passenger data to test a computer screening program under development, known as CAPPS 2, that is designed to flag certain airline passengers as potential threats.
European officials are also planning passenger-screening systems, U.S. officials said, and the two sides agreed to revisit privacy and data sharing issues after 31/2years.
The agreement must be approved by the European Parliament.
-------- justice
Ashcroft Is Rebuked for Terror Remarks
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/politics/17DETR.html
DETROIT, Dec. 16 (AP) - A federal judge has admonished Attorney General John Ashcroft for violating a court order by making remarks about defendants in the nation's first major terror trial after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The judge, Gerald E. Rosen of Federal District Court, said in an opinion released Tuesday that Mr. Ashcroft's statements could have compromised the defendants' rights to a fair trial, but that the violations did not warrant contempt charges or require Mr. Ashcroft to appear in court to explain himself.
Lawyers for Karim Koubriti, Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi and Ahmed Hannan argued that Mr. Ashcroft had violated Judge Rosen's order limiting publicity in October 2001 when he said the three men were suspected of having knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Justice Department retracted the statement two days later.
--------
Judge Rebukes Ashcroft for Gag Violation
Attorney General Says His Remarks About Terrorism Trial Were 'Inadvertent'
By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6347-2003Dec16.html
A federal judge in Detroit sharply criticized Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday for violating a gag order in the nation's first terrorism trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen said Ashcroft "exhibited a distressing lack of care" by issuing public statements during the nine-week trial that ended in June, despite a court order prohibiting them. Twice, Ashcroft publicly praised the government's lead witness in the case.
Rosen said Ashcroft will not face criminal contempt charges but that a public rebuke was necessary.
"Despite his unquestioned duty to represent the nation on matters of public concern . . . the Attorney General has an equally vital and unyielding obligation, as the nation's chief prosecutor, to ensure that defendants are accorded the fair trial guaranteed them under the constitution," Rosen wrote in a ruling issued Tuesday. "In this case, this essential balance was jeopardized, even after the court had issued specific warnings."
In a letter to Rosen late last month, Ashcroft said the remarks were inadvertent. He repeated that comment in a statement yesterday.
"While the two statements in question were inadvertent and in no way intended to either disregard the court's order, or disrupt the ongoing trial, I can see how these two statements, however brief and passing, could be considered by the court to be a breach of the court's order," Ashcroft said in a statement. "I take this matter very seriously and will make every effort to ensure that the difficulties occasioned in this instance will be avoided in the future."
The case involved four men accused of making up a sleeper cell of terrorists plotting attacks in the United States and abroad. Two of them -- Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi and Karim Koubriti -- were convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. A third, Ahmed Hannan, was acquitted of terrorism charges but convicted of engaging in document fraud, and the fourth, Farouk Ali-Haimoud, was acquitted of all charges.
But last week, in a rare post-trial hearing, Rosen criticized prosecutors for belatedly turning over evidence that defense attorneys contend would have helped exonerate their clients. The two lead prosecutors in the case have been removed without public explanation.
Rosen is expected to issue a decision in January on the defendants' request for a new trial.
Lawyers for the defendants asked for a mistrial after Ashcroft's statements in April, but Rosen denied the request after polling jurors. None said they were aware of the comments. Rosen had said he would decide later whether to hold Ashcroft in contempt, ultimately opting against it in yesterday's 83-page opinion.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Feds Outline Plan on Enemy Combatants
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Enemy-Combatants.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. citizens classified as enemy combatants have to wait to get an attorney until they've provided intelligence to the government under a Bush administration policy that critics say treads on constitutional rights.
``It appears to be a very one-sided administration policy that places a U.S. citizen at the government's mercy,'' said Michael Greenberger, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton administration who is now a law professor at the University of Maryland.
Three senior Justice Department officials on Tuesday gave details of the policy for the first time. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said it is the proper way to balance national security and constitutional protections for people in government custody as part of the war on terror.
One of the officials said the goal never has been to deny counsel, only to delay it until interrogations are finished.
Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla are two U.S. citizens being held as enemy combatants.
Critics argue the policy encroaches on a defendant's constitutional right to be granted quick access to an attorney and the courts. They note the government argues in federal courts that it has an absolute right to deny access to lawyers for enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, and that such a decision is not subject to review by judges.
``What we're saying is that someone who's arrested in the United States is not to be treated that way, and instead should be treated in the criminal justice system,'' said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Captives can be detained as enemy combatants if they were members of al-Qaida, engaged in or aided terrorism or harbored terrorists, or if it is ``the interest of the United States'' to hold an individual during hostilities, according to an order issued in 2001 by President Bush.
Hamdi, a Louisiana native, was captured in Afghanistan and was transferred to the United States after officials discovered his citizenship by birth at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Padilla, a former gang member who was born in Chicago, was arrested in May 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on a flight from Pakistan. He is suspected of plotting with al-Qaida to detonate a radioactive ``dirty bomb.'' Padilla was designated an enemy combatant a month later.
The Defense Department this month announced Hamdi would have access to an attorney because he no longer could provide intelligence. Padilla, on the other hand, continues to sit in a Navy brig without a lawyer.
Padilla's value as an intelligence source, one official said, ``would potentially be hampered and jeopardized by access to counsel.'' The official did not elaborate on what kind of information Padilla is providing.
However, law enforcement officials say the intelligence provided by terrorism detainees goes far beyond simple interrogation. They can verify intelligence from other sources, identify suspected terrorists and help U.S. officials determine if other detainees are trying to spread false information.
But legal experts say the Bush administration has not clearly defined when a suspected terrorist should be tried as a criminal in civilian courts and when that person should be designated an enemy combatant.
``What's needed is a new system of safeguards,'' said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, dean of the University of the Pacific law school and former general counsel at the CIA and National Security Agency. ``It's not a situation our criminal laws were designed to respond to.''
The Justice Department officials said it is possible Padilla and Hamdi will be released when the president decides the war against terrorism has ended, which isn't expected to come anytime soon.
Padilla's challenge to the government's denial of a lawyer is currently before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The Supreme Court is mulling whether to accept an appeal brought by Hamdi's father over the initial denial of an attorney for him.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear another case about the government's policies in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. It asks whether some 650 detainees at the government's terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay may challenge their treatment in U.S. courts.
The Pentagon recently decided that an Australian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks, can have access to outside counsel. On the Net:
Justice Department: www.usdoj.gov
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U.S. Might Compromise In Moussaoui Dispute
Middle Ground Possible on Witness Access
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6257-2003Dec16.html
Federal officials yesterday expressed support for a possible middle ground that could resolve the dispute over key al Qaeda witnesses that has stalled the prosecution of alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
A compromise allowing Moussaoui access to statements made by the detainees, without letting him or his attorneys interview the witnesses in person, "would be a very reasonable accommodation of the issues swirling around this case," said a senior Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The witness access issue has dramatically slowed the only U.S. criminal prosecution directly related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Prosecutors refused to turn over the three detainees being sought by Moussaoui. As a result, a federal judge in Alexandria in October eliminated the possibility of the death penalty for Moussaoui and the introduction of any evidence that he took part in the hijackings.
The government appealed that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond. A three-judge panel has not issued a ruling, but members indicated during oral arguments this month that they might order that alternative versions of the witness statements, known as "substitutions," be fashioned.
An earlier effort by prosecutors to craft substitutions was rejected by a federal judge, who said that giving the jury statements from the witnesses would not equate to letting jurors see them testify. The comments yesterday by senior officials, at a briefing for reporters, were the clearest public indication that the government would support another effort at finding a middle ground.
Also at yesterday's briefing, officials said the government is likely to allow Jose Padilla, whom the government has designated an "enemy combatant," to have access to a lawyer when his value as an intelligence source has been exhausted. The interrogation of Padilla, who allegedly plotted to detonate a dirty bomb, has not yet reached that point, officials said.
The government this month reversed its position in a similar enemy combatant case, saying that a U.S. citizen jailed after being captured with Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan, Yaser Esam Hamdi, would be allowed to consult a lawyer. Government officials had argued for more than a year that he was not entitled to counsel.
A compromise in the Moussaoui case could settle the main issue that has prevented it from reaching trial, because it would enable the government to avoid having to give Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda sympathizer, direct access to the three witnesses. Prosecutors have said that would interrupt key interrogations.
But defense attorneys have said Moussaoui must have direct access to the witnesses, because they have evidence that could clear him of any involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. Defense attorneys told the appeals court that allowing the government to execute Moussaoui without granting him the access would be unprecedented.
"It's hard for us to consider substitutions for witnesses that we can't see or talk to," Edward B. MacMahon Jr., an attorney for Moussaoui, said yesterday. "They've already tried this with the district judge, and she has rejected those efforts already."
Moussaoui was charged in December 2001 with conspiring with al Qaeda in the Sept. 11 attacks. The sanctions imposed on the Justice Department evolved from a series of rulings by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, who granted defense motions to depose the captured al Qaeda operatives.
Government attorneys strongly objected, arguing that Brinkema had overstepped her authority because the judiciary could not second-guess military decisions.
Government officials have said they probably will move the Moussaoui case to a military tribunal if they lose. But the senior Justice Department officials reaffirmed yesterday that they are making every effort to keep the case in the criminal justice system.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Hot Spot in 2003? The Earth, U.N. Says
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/europe/17CLIM.html
GENEVA, Dec. 16 (AP) - The year 2003, marked by a sweltering summer and drought across large swaths of the planet, was the third hottest in nearly 150 years, the United Nations weather agency said Tuesday.
The World Meteorological Organization estimated the average surface temperature for the year to be 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the normal 25.2 degrees - a number skewed toward the low side because it includes polar regions.
The agency said warmer weather could not be attributed to any single cause but was part of a trend that global warming was likely to prolong.
The agency, which collects data worldwide, said the three hottest years since accurate records began to be kept in 1861 had all been in the last six years.
The hottest was 1998, when the average temperature was up 0.99 degrees.
"The rhythm of temperature increases is accelerating," said the agency's deputy secretary general, Michel Jarraud.
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U.S. Won't Narrow Wetlands Protection
December 17, 2003
By FELICITY BARRINGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/politics/17WATE.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - Making an abrupt change in its approach to the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that it would jettison plans to remove federal protection from millions of acres of wetlands.
The agency's administrator, Michael O. Leavitt, made the announcement late in the afternoon in a hastily called news conference. The change effectively repudiated an internal draft regulation that proposed withdrawing federal protections from many isolated wetlands and intermittent streams, including many small waterways in the arid West.
"It's our belief that the best approach is to continue reviewing and learning from the data," Mr. Leavitt said, rather than enter into a potentially lengthy legal process by issuing a rule opposed by most state governments.
The legal underpinnings of a regulation narrowing the scope of the Clean Water Act would also have been shaky, he indicated, since recent federal court decisions, including two from the often-conservative United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, rejected arguments that in many respects paralleled the lines of argument that the agency had discussed.
Mr. Leavitt emphasized that the impetus for the decision was President Bush's determination to preserve streams and wetlands. "At the root of this is a commitment from the Bush administration to achieve the goal of no net loss of wetlands," he said, adding that these waters "function as nature's kidneys" and "add immense value to economic and aesthetic bounties of this country."
Environmental groups reacted with qualified praise but clear relief, since most had feared that the Bush administration would gain leverage from a 2001 Supreme Court decision that set some new limits on wetlands protection, using it to restrict the Army Corps of Engineers' right to require permits for construction, landfills and other activities that disturb wetlands.
Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation said of the announcement: "It's a win for water resources and wildlife. It's definitely a positive step. How much celebration we can have over them not doing something bad as opposed to doing something good is a question."
Jon Kusler, the associate director of State Wetland Managers, said most state governments strongly opposed the suggested regulatory changes. He said of the states' reaction, "The comments were overwhelmingly against a broad interpretation" of the Supreme Court's 2001 decision that the Clean Water Act did not allow the Corps to require permits for putting a landfill in an abandoned strip mine.
Representatives of the National Association of Home Builders were keenly disappointed at the day's developments. Chandler Morse, a policy analyst for the group, said that without a new rule, confusing and contradictory interpretations of the wetlands regulations would be likely to continue. "I don't think we're going to see any fundamental solutions to the problems we're facing," Mr. Morse said. "And the problems that we're facing, the issues that we'd like to see addressed, are the inconsistency and the unpredictability in the permitting process."
As a regulatory tool, the Clean Water Act along with three decades of legislative, regulatory and legal decisions that have resulted from it form a complex web of sometimes confusing restrictions.
The Clean Water Act is also an important symbol, since it was one of the signal early pieces of environmental legislation. Any major change, particularly one that state governments find threatening to the environment, could carry large political consequences.
A spokeswoman for the E.P.A. said there were 100 million acres of wetlands in the continental United States and 160 million in Alaska.
In conjunction with the original E.P.A. notice that the extent of protected wetlands might be curbed, the agency's Washington headquarters sent a notice to staff members and Army Corps of Engineers offices around the country to check with the central office before asserting jurisdiction over a wetland.
Asked if that guidance to the national staff remained in effect, G. Tracy Mehan III, the assistant administrator, said, "The guidance is still in effect, although we have been engaged with the Army Corps of Engineers to make sure that we track not just caes where we assert jurisdiction but questions of how we decline jurisdiction."
One issue in deciding to revise the regulatory strategy, Mr. Mehan said, was the possibility of unintended consequences of a rule change.
Because various parts of the law and the definitions in them are linked, Mr. Mehan said, "playing around with" the definitions under the wetlands permitting provisions "could affect the whole program," and eventually "extend to the fundamental architecture of the Clean Water Act."
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EPA Scraps Changes To Clean Water Act
Plans Would Have Reduced Protection
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6155-2003Dec16.html
The Bush administration yesterday abandoned plans for regulatory changes that would have sharply reduced the number of federally protected streams and wetlands, in response to strong opposition from environmentalists, sportsmen, lawmakers and state officials.
President Bush made the decision after the government received more than 133,000 comments opposing efforts to narrow the Clean Water Act's scope to effectively strip millions of acres of wetlands and waterways from federal protection and leave them vulnerable to being filled in by developers.
EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt, who announced the decision in a conference call from Atlanta, said it reaffirms the administration's commitment to "no net loss" of wetlands in the United States. The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers jointly declared that they would not issue a new rule on federal regulatory jurisdiction over isolated wetlands. That reverses a September 2002 decision to consider new rules based on an interpretation of a 2001 Supreme Court ruling.
"Today we are reaffirming and bolstering protections for wetlands, which are vital for water quality, the health of our streams and wildlife habitat," Leavitt said. Assistant Secretary of the Army John Paul Woodley Jr. said, "We will continue our efforts to ensure that the Corps' regulatory program is as effective, efficient and responsive as it can be."
The decision caught many of Bush's critics by surprise. It came on the heels of recent reports that the administration was circulating a draft document proposing to remove federal pollution protection from "ephemeral washes or streams" that do not have groundwater as a source.
"I have to admit this was a real positive development and a win for wetlands and wildlife," said Julie Sibbing of the National Wildlife Federation. Daniel Rosenberg of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the administration "saw the writing on the wall and decided that weakening the Clean Water Act could not withstand public scrutiny."
While praising the administration for scrapping its rulemaking, some environmentalists said they remain concerned that the EPA and Army Corps have not withdrawn a directive issued to their staffs in January, which if fully implemented could result in withdrawing federal protection from as many as 20 million acres of wetlands.
"In order to fully enforce the Clean Water Act and protect all waters, the Bush administration must not only stop the proposed rulemaking, but must rescind the guidance policy," said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice.
There are about 100 million acres of wetlands in the lower 48 states and 160 million acres in Alaska, according to government estimates.
The administration began considering significant changes to federal protection of wetlands after a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that limited federal jurisdiction over isolated, non-navigable, intrastate waters and wetlands. The 5 to 4 court ruling involved a challenge to federal clean-water jurisdiction over isolated ponds in Illinois. Although the ponds served as a migratory bird habitat, they were non-navigable and isolated from the tributary systems regulated by the act.
The court held that the Army Corps had exceeded its authority in asserting jurisdiction over the ponds based on their status as a migratory bird habitat.
Some lawmakers, developers and homebuilding industry officials pressed the administration to redefine protected and unprotected waterways and wetlands. But the public and congressional response to those efforts was overwhelmingly negative.
G. Tracy Mehan III, assistant EPA administrator for the office of water, noted that many recent lower court rulings have favored maintaining federal protections for wetlands.
"We are reading the [Supreme Court ruling] narrowly," he said, "and right now we see no compelling reason to go forward with a rule."
-------- ACTIVISTS
The Enola Gay In a Truly Terrifying Light
By Courtland Milloy E-mail: milloyc@washpost.com
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Washington Post; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6222-2003Dec16?language=printer
After attending opening day at the National Air and Space Museum annex in Northern Virginia on Monday, four visitors from Japan returned to the home of their hosts on Capitol Hill for rest and reflection.
"It was so big, huge," Tamiko Tomonaga, 74, said through a translator. "In the sky, the B-29s looked so small."
The Japanese visitors, three men and a woman, were survivors of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. And they had just seen the airplane that had dropped one of those bombs -- the B-29 Superfortress known as Enola Gay.
"Can you please explain why the pilot would put his mother's name on such a plane?" Minoru Nishino, 71, asked softly. "In Japan, mothers and sweethearts represent life and love, not war and death."
Two of the guests were from Hiroshima, which was destroyed by a bomb dropped by the Enola Gay on Aug. 6, 1945, and two were from Nagasaki, which was destroyed three days later by a bomb dropped by a B-29 called Bockscar.
At the museum annex, the group took part in a peaceful protest of the Smithsonian Institution's decision to display the Enola Gay without mentioning the devastation caused by the first explosion of an atomic bomb over a civilian population.
However, when another group of protesters became disruptive and a bottle of red paint was tossed at the airplane, the survivors, called Hibakusha in Japan, moved away. They didn't come to refight World War II; they just don't want what happened to them to be forgotten.
"I was 13 when I saw this airplane crossing the sky, just before I was blown to the ground with my skin peeling off," Nishino recalled.
"I was angry and in pain. I saw my classmates on fire around me, and I wanted to cry out. But I couldn't cry out. I just thought, 'What is going on?' "
Asked how he felt, looking at the Enola Gay 58 years later, he said: "I wanted to cry out, just like before. But I couldn't. I just looked at it and thought, 'What is going on?' "
The group represented a confederation of atomic bomb survivors known as Nihon Hidankyo. A statement by Nihon read, in part: "Nuclear weapons cannot exist with humans. Nuclear weapons are not only weapons of mass destruction. They are weapons of mass extinction."
At least eight countries possess nuclear weapons, and as many as 40 are believed to have the ability to produce them, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Hibakusha cause is much bigger than the protest against the Enola Gay. But as the visitors looked over the restored and polished warplane, nothing loomed larger than remembrances of its horrible payload.
Terumi Tanaka was 13 when the atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. More than 70,000 people were killed -- 60 percent of them women, children and seniors.
"It was so sad. I felt the tears about to come down," Tanaka, 71, said of his visit to the museum. "Seeing all the fighter planes on display, I realized this was a war museum. What we need are more peace museums."
Hirotami Yamada, 72, was at school in Nagasaki when he heard the air raid sirens. He was 14. He recalled a flash, followed by a blast of heat and radiation -- the latter of which eventually killed everyone else in his family.
"I did not see or hear the plane, so I had no idea why everything was on fire," Yamada recalled. "Now, I've finally seen the plane, not the same plane, but still a B-29. I thought: 'Oh, so this is it. This is what dropped the bomb that destroyed my family.' "
Tomonaga was 16, living in Hiroshima and studying to become a nurse when the bomb fell. Her fear of B-29s persists, she said, but seeing the Enola Gay also strengthened her resolve to work for peace.
"There is a divide -- survivors and the dead," she said. "I believe I was allowed to live to let the voices of the others be heard, to give their testimony and help bring about a world without such weapons."
Nishino nodded. "So many died in a flash, never knowing what happened," he said. "When I die, I will cross the divide and tell them what happened. I will tell them that I saw the Enola Gay."
--------
Watch DC Channel 13 Live Online Police Misconduct Hearings
by Officer Jimmy Cliff
17 Dec 2003
http://www.dc.gov/index_vid.asp
http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/86961/index.php
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17
10 AM, CHAMBER, PUBLIC OVERSIGHT HEARING,
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
Kathy Patterson, Chairperson
Agenda item:
1. Current Policies and Practices of the Metropolitan Police Department Related to Demonstrations within the District. To investigate MPD's policy and practice in handling protests based on allegations of preemptive actions in April 2000, wrongful arrests in September 2002, and recent alleged instances of excessive force against antiwar demonstrators. http://www.dc.gov/index_vid.asp
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Enola Gay Protesters Disrupt Museum Event
December 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Air-and-Space-Museum.html
CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) -- A small group of protesters briefly disrupted the official opening of the National Air and Space Museum's new annex at Dulles International Airport Monday, spilling a red liquid supposed to resemble blood near the Enola Gay exhibit and throwing an object that dented the airplane.
Two men were arrested after security broke up the demonstration. Thomas K. Siemer, 73, of Columbus, Ohio, was charged with felony destruction of property and loitering, while Gregory Wright of Hagerstown, Md., faced a misdemeanor loitering charge.
Several elderly atomic bomb survivors from Japan also expressed dismay that information on the effects of the bomb dropped by the Enola Gay on Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945, was not included in the exhibit.
``If they want to show these planes, that's fine but we can't help but also demand that they show the damage and the stories that take place behind these weapons,'' said Terumi Tanaka, 71, a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb attack which occurred three days after Hiroshima.
A total of 230,000 people were killed in the two attacks. Japan surrendered unconditionally six days after the Nagasaki bombing.
Some visitors at the opening of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center said, however, they considered the Enola Gay an important part of aviation history.
``The Hiroshima bomb started the whole nuclear age, that's why I wanted to see it,'' said Philip Wheaton, 78, of Takoma Park, Md.
The Enola Gay is one of 82 racers, gliders, helicopters, warplanes and airliners currently on display in the Smithsonian Institution's nearly 294,000-square-foot aviation exhibit hanger. Other notable exhibits include the S-R 71 Blackbird, an American spy plane that still holds the record as the fastest plane ever built; and the space shuttle Enterprise, which was used by NASA to test various concepts during the development of reusable spacecraft.
The Smithsonian's aerospace collection also will eventually be displayed in the 53,000 square foot James S. McDonnell Space hanger.
``This is the largest air and space exhibition complex in the world,'' said retired Gen. John R. Dailey, director of the museum. ``We have about 40 percent of the aircraft in here today, and over the next three years we'll be moving more in.''
Visitors, for the most part, said they were impressed with the new annex.
``Seeing all of these aircraft fully assembled is getting to see history,'' said Ray Kimball, 30, of Menloe Park, Calif. The Army helicopter pilot toured the facility with his three year-old son. ``I'll have to bring him back when he's older.''
On the Net:
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: http://www.nasm.si.edu/
---------
Jackson and Marchers Decry Raid At School
Associated Press
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6342-2003Dec16.html
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C., Dec. 16 -- Jesse L. Jackson led hundreds of marchers carrying signs and chanting slogans Tuesday to protest a school drug raid in which police with guns drawn ordered students to the floor.
"This long struggle must continue," Jackson told the marchers who rallied in front of City Hall. "We're going to march again and again and again. They will get bigger and bigger until there is fairness in the land."
"What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!" chanted the marchers. "Just Say No to the Police State," read one sign. "Jail Time for Terrorists," read another.
The Nov. 5 raid at Stratford High in nearby Goose Creek drew national attention after video from surveillance cameras showed students ordered to the floor while officers with guns and a drug-sniffing dog searched them. About 100 students were searched, but no illegal drugs were found and no one was arrested.
Critics of the raid have objected to the use of force and said it appeared to have targeted black students. Two civil lawsuits have been filed in federal court. State and federal officials are also investigating whether any criminal laws were broken by police.
"The cops burst into the school or the main hallway very aggressively and started pointing their guns at everyone as if we were criminals," Stratford freshman Carl Alexander told the crowd. "This isn't right. We need to do something about this."
Senior Tory Richardson fought back tears as she said: "It hurts. My sister still has to go through that school. I don't want her to go through the same that happened -- nor do I want anyone else's children to go through the same thing."
Charleston County Sheriff's officials said there were 400 protesters, but a reporter counted about 700.
Jackson told reporters incidents such as the raid tarnish the image the New South is trying to build. "The South deserves better than this," he said. "These images and these events keep us in a gutter."
----
Ugly History Hides in Plain Sight
The Smithsonian's display of the Enola Gay bomber sidesteps any controversy over the atomic attacks on Japan. By Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin co-authors of a forthcoming biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf.
December 17, 2003
Los Angeles Times
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/latimes51.html
This week, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum unveiled a fully restored, finely polished artifact of World War II - a Boeing B-29 "Superfortress." This particular airplane - the Enola Gay - is the centerpiece of the museum's sleek new $311-million annex.
Visitors to the museum will read a brief label identifying the Enola Gay as "the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II, and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments."
Schoolchildren will learn that the plane's wingspan is 141 feet and 3 inches, and that it had a top speed of 339 mph.
But does such a history lesson justify a field trip to a museum? Isn't there something more important about the Enola Gay that our children should know?
Of course there is, and the museum's brief label provides a hint. Its final sentence notes, almost as an afterthought, that "On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan."
Some curious children might want to ask questions about that last sentence. What does an atomic bomb do when it is dropped? Why was one dropped on a city? What happened to the people in Hiroshima? Was it necessary to drop it?
The answers to these questions should be part of any American child's (and adult's) education, but retired Gen. John Dailey, the Air & Space Museum's director, insists that that aspect of their education is not the museum's responsibility: "We are displaying it [the Enola Gay] in all its glory as a magnificent technological achievement.... Our primary focus is that it was the most advanced aircraft in the world at the time."
In other words, the consequences of its historic mission are beside the point.
This is as ridiculous as it is disingenuous.
The Smithsonian doesn't limit its observations to technological advances when it displays weapons invented and used by other nations. The exhibit of Germany's V-2 is accompanied with photographs of the slave workers who built the rockets and the bodies of civilians killed by them.
Displaying the Enola Gay as just another B-29 is a charade - undertaken because our national museum is afraid to deal honestly with the consequences of the plane's historic mission.
The first and most immediate of those consequences was the death of 140,000 people - 95% of whom were civilians. After that, the consequences become contentious.
According to President Harry Truman, one direct consequence was the decision of the Japanese to surrender - after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on Aug. 8 and the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on Aug. 9. But others have insisted that the atomic bombings were not necessary to end the war.
It is an interesting and relevant fact that this controversy was initiated in 1945 by conservatives such as Time magazine publisher Henry Luce, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, New York Times military correspondent Hanson Baldwin and David Lawrence, editor of U.S. News, who wrote in October 1945: "Competent testimony exists to prove that Japan was seeking to surrender many weeks before the atomic bomb came."
This is a view that historical research has confirmed. The discovery of President Truman's handwritten private diary, for example, revealed that on July 18, 1945, he had read a "telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.... Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when Manhattan [atomic bomb] appears over their homeland." And again, on Aug. 3, 1945, Walter Brown, an aide to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, noted in his diary that Truman and his aides "agreed Japs looking for peace.... "
How nations deal with their histories can be an exacting litmus test of national character.
Throughout Asia, the Japanese are reviled for their dishonest refusal to acknowledge their barbarous behavior during their occupations of China, Korea and the countries of Southeast Asia. Our nation's uneasy relationship to the historical debate over the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is such a test and, despite history's patient annual re- administration of it, the U.S. has yet to achieve a passing grade.
As a result, we find ourselves - ironically it must be said - in the same remedial national history class as the Japanese. And we are certain to remain there, mocked by world opinion, as long as our misguided sense of American exceptionalism continues to dictate that public displays of American history be morally pure and patriotically correct.
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