Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
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 interrogato