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NUCLEAR
France and Japan step up competition for 10 billion dollar reactor
UN Wants Access to Brazil Atomic Enrichment Plant
India Test - Fires Surface - To - Air Missile
Iran to Sign Snap Nuclear Check Protocol Thursday
Head of Iraqi Arms Search May Be Ready to Step Down
Annan Seeks January Talks on Return of U.N. to Iraq
Nuclear plant in Japan shuts down after lightning hits network
Japan Fishing Village Hopes for Nuclear Project
Japan Hopes to Build Nuclear Fusion Plant
N. Korea Talks Delayed But Still Alive, U.S. Says
U.S. Won't Offer Incentives at N. Korea Talks
Glance at Libya's WMD Programs, Stockpile
Libya's Leader Admits Trying to Develop Banned Weapons
U.N. Saw Signs of Libya Nuke Program - Diplomats
Bush Says Libya Will Allow Arms Inspections
Japan to Buy U.S. Missile Defense System
Japan to Build Missile Defense System
US praises Japan on missile defense system
US nuclear industry eyes new reactor projects
Nevada prepares case against nuclear waste dump
U.S. Court to Review Nev. Fight Over Dump
Dean Assails 'Washington Democrats' on Iraq
MILITARY
U.S. to Practice Weapons Interdiction
Centex Fined for Election Violations
Senator Says Halliburton's Auditors Saw Problems
U.S. Negotiating Over Role of G.I.'s in a Sovereign Iraq
U.S. to Steer Ex-Arms Experts to Peaceful Jobs
U.S. Warns Israel Against Steps That Harm Peace Plan
Sharon Threatens to Impose Split on Palestinians
Sharon Threatens To Redraw Borders
With eye on India, Pakistan launches home-made sub
Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 to Reassure Iraqis
Annan Sets Meeting on U.N. Role in Iraq
Medical evacuations from Iraq near 11,000
Bosnian Serb Gets 23 Years for War Crimes
Clark Calls Milosevic 'Force' Behind Wars
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Chief of Sept. 11 Panel Assesses Blame but Holds Off on Higher-Ups
Kean Says 9/11 Attacks Could Have Been Prevented
Detainee to Get Hearing
In Debate on Antiterrorism, the Courts Assert Themselves
U.S. Courts Reject Detention Policy in 2 Terror Cases
Detainees' Abuse Is Detailed
Tapes Show Abuse of 9/11 Detainees
Welfare Drug Tests to End
Terrorism Drills Showed Lack of Preparedness
Bioterrorism Drill Reveals Many Flaws
Seized Citizen Is Ordered Released Bush Overreached Powers, Court Says
ENERGY AND OTHER
Big boost for offshore wind power
British Plan Major 'Wind Farm' to Generate Power Along Coasts
US Energy Demand to Grow 1.5 Pct Annually
Are We Going Nuclear?
Survey Indicates More Go Hungry, Homeless
U.S. Chides France on Effort to Bar Religious Garb in Schools
ACTIVISTS
School recruiters meet resistance
-------- NUCLEAR
France and Japan step up competition for 10 billion dollar reactor
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031220005536.bdbxkd3l.html
France and Japan stepped up lobbying ahead of Saturday's decision by the major nuclear powers on where to put an experimental nuclear fusion reactor as part of the multi-billion dollar ITER project.
The choice between the French town of Cadarache and Rokkasho-mura in northern Japan is to be made at a ministerial meeting at Reston, Virginia, in the Washington suburbs.
The reactor is expected to cost about 10 billion dollars but French officials estimate the project could bring 30 billion dollars to the economy of the chosen venue over 30 years.
The ITER consortium -- which hopes to find a limitless energy source from nuclear fusion -- is made up of the European Union, Japan, Canada, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States, which quit the project in 1998 but returned in January as President George W. Bush changed his energy policy.
The European Union is backing France, after the Spanish town of Vandellos withdrew in November, but the United States could play a decisive role in the decision.
A French government envoy, Pierre Lellouche, said "very intense" talks were being held at a high level Friday before the meeting on the reactor venue.
France's Research Minister Claudie Haignere and the European Union Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin were expected in Washington on Friday night to join the lobbying. French officials said that if no concensus is reached Saturday, it may be put off until January.
A Japanese diplomatic source, meanwhile, said bilateral meetings were being held Friday with the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Russia ahead of Saturday's decision.
"We are still very hopeful," the source said.
ITER -- Latin for "the way" -- aims to be a test bed for what is being billed as the clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future. The project is not expected to generate electricity however before 2050.
The Japanese site has many assets: proximity to a port, a ground of solid bedrock and a nearby American military base which means that Rokkasho-mura already has the services available to accommodate foreign researchers in a comfortable environment.
The French bid offers an existing research facility and a more moderate climate.
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 serious problems, ranging from the nightmare of Chernobyl to the perils of transporting nuclear material and storing dangerous long-term radioactive 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.
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.
So far, no one has achieved a long self-sustaining fusion event. The record, achieved by European scientists at Cadarache on December 4, is six and a half minutes, releasing a thousand megajoules of energy.
-------- brazil
UN Wants Access to Brazil Atomic Enrichment Plant
December 19, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-brazil.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog is negotiating with the Brazilian government to ensure that a new uranium enrichment facility due to begin operating next year is properly safeguarded, the agency said Friday.
Several Western diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Brazil was not considered a problem state and there were no concerns that it was developing nuclear weapons.
However, after the discovery of Iran's 18-year cover-up of potentially arms-related atomic research, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is pressing all countries to open up nuclear programs as much as possible -- especially enrichment facilities, which can be used to produce bomb-grade material.
``We have been working with the Brazilian authorities to ensure that this facility is properly safeguarded,'' IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
Brazil has no safeguards agreement with the IAEA covering the facility, which is still under construction. This means the IAEA has no official right to inspect it when it goes live.
-------- india / pakistan
India Test - Fires Surface - To - Air Missile
December 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Missile-Test.html
NEW DELHI (AP) -- India test-fired a short-range, surface-to-air missile on Friday, the second such launch in two days, a defense ministry official said.
The homemade Trishul was fired from a mobile launcher in the eastern state of Orissa at 11:30 a.m., Amitabha Chakrabarti, the defense ministry spokesman, said.
``It was a routine test. We will be carrying out further tests over the next few days,'' he said.
The supersonic Trishul is capable of targeting aircraft and sea-skimming missiles. The solid-fuel missile can carry a warhead of up to 33 pounds. It has a range of about five miles and a radar guidance system.
The Trishul is used by India's army, navy and air force.
``The repeated test firings are to check the different parameters of the missile. Before it is inducted into the armed forces, we have to carry out many trials,'' Chakrabarti said.
The Chandipur missile testing range lies 750 miles southeast of New Delhi.
A Pakistan foreign ministry official, who did not want to be named, said Islamabad does not comment on tests of such short-range missiles by India.
India's test was unlikely to affect the confidence-building measures under way by the nuclear-armed rivals.
India says it needs the missiles to defend itself against Pakistan to the west and China to the north. India has fought three wars against Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947 and one war against China in 1962 over territorial disputes.
India's missile arsenal also includes the intermediate-range Agni, which can reach 1,500 miles; the short-range ballistic missile Prithvi with a range of 95 miles; and the Nag anti-tank missile.
-------- iran
Iran to Sign Snap Nuclear Check Protocol Thursday
by Parinoosh Arami
REUTERS IRAN:
December 18, 2003
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/23158/newsDate/18-Dec-2003/story.htm
TEHRAN - Iran will almost certainly sign a binding international protocol that allows intrusive snap inspections of its nuclear facilities Thursday, cabinet ministers said Wednesday.
Asked when Iran would sign the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh replied "Iran will most probably sign tomorrow."
The United States says Iran's atomic program is a smokescreen for the development of nuclear arms, but Iran has repeatedly denied this.
"We have agreed to sign the protocol to prove our activities are peaceful," said Aghazadeh, who heads Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
The question of whether it should sign the protocol sparked heated debate in Iran earlier this year, 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.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criticized Iran last month for an 18-year cover-up of sensitive nuclear research and warned it that any further breaches could see Iran's case taken to the U.N. Security Council.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his ministry was taking responsibility for putting pen to paper in Vienna, home of the IAEA.
READY TO SIGN
Iran's former representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi recently left his post and a successor has not been announced.
Kharrazi and reformist President Mohammad Khatami both reiterated a signature was likely Thursday."Any time the agency expresses its readiness for a signature, we will sign," Khatami told reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting.
Iran, OPEC's second biggest oil producer, insists its nuclear program is peaceful and that it is needed to meet booming domestic electricity demand and free up its hydrocarbon resources for export. But it admitted to the IAEA in October that it had hidden a secret centrifuge uranium enrichment program from U.N. inspectors for nearly two decades.
Government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh said last week that once Iran had signed the document, the government would send it to parliament as a bill.
If lawmakers, most of them allies of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, approved the bill, it would still need to be approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-member body dominated by conservative clerics who decide whether proposed legislation is in line with the constitution and Islamic Sharia law.
Iran has pledged to allow U.N. inspectors to operate in Iran as if the protocol had been ratified even before it has received final approval by parliament and the Guardian Council.
-------- iraq / inspections
THE WEAPONS
Head of Iraqi Arms Search May Be Ready to Step Down
December 19, 2003
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/politics/19KAY.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - David Kay, the head of the effort by the United States to find the banned weapons cited by President Bush as a primary reason for going to war with Iraq, is considering stepping down in the next few months before the group he leads completes its search and issues a final report, government officials said Thursday.
Dr. Kay, 63, is widely respected as thorough and straightforward even among critics of the war who have raised doubts about whether the threat from Iraq was as dire as the administration made it out to be. Should he leave, Democrats and some weapons experts said, it could fuel a perception that the United States is winding up the hunt without having found any caches of biological or chemical weapons.
"Kay's departure is very convenient in the effort to change the subject," said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a senior Democrat on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, referring to what he said were attempts by Mr. Bush to deflect attention from the administration's assertions that Iraq possessed stores of banned weapons. He added, "Kay set a very high standard of proof. He wants real evidence of the presence of weapons. That apparently is not a standard that is going to be met."
The organization Dr. Kay leads, the Iraq Survey Group, issued an interim report in October citing extensive evidence that Saddam Hussein had pursued banned weapons programs, including attempts to acquire missile technology from North Korea. But the report said the group had found no actual weapons, and Dr. Kay said at the time that it would take another six to nine months to complete his work, suggesting that his final report would land in the middle of the presidential election campaign.
Asked Thursday about Dr. Kay's plans, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said he did not want to speak for Dr. Kay but that the administration was intent on finishing the evaluation of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs and the search for actual weapons.
"The search is an important priority, and the work of the Iraq Survey Group continues," Mr. McClellan said. The group, he said, will "complete its work."
The White House continues to maintain that banned weapons will be found in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters on Tuesday that a hole the size of the one Mr. Hussein was found in could hold enough biological weapons to kill tens of thousands of people, and that it could be some time before the United States gets the help it needs from Iraqis to find the hiding places.
But Mr. Bush said in an interview on Tuesday with ABC News that what was known about Mr. Hussein's weapons programs was enough to justify the war, and he seemed to play down the distinction between actual weapons and weapons programs. "So what's the difference?" he responded when pressed on the topic during the interview.
Dr. Kay's preliminary findings in October were hailed by the administration as vindication of its argument that Iraq was a threat that had to be dealt with. They were also used by critics of the war to press their argument that Mr. Bush had exaggerated the threat.
In discussions this week at the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters, Dr. Kay, who took the job in June and has been living in Baghdad, said he was considering leaving in part because the search was taking much longer than he had initially expected, putting a strain on his family, government officials said. The Washington Post reported Thursday that Dr. Kay might leave before February. He could make his decision final next week when he returns to the C.I.A. for another round of discussions, they said.
Dr. Kay's group has seen some of its personnel and budget diverted to fighting the insurgency in Iraq, and its work has been hindered by the danger of moving around the country, officials said.
"Whether he's going to see the mission through to the end is unclear, but there's no doubt that he and others in the U.S. government agree there's plenty to be done in Iraq on the weapons of mass destruction issue," said an official. "He's giving some consideration to leaving early, but there definitely isn't any final resolution."
When asked whether Dr. Kay was frustrated that the search had not proceeded at a faster pace, the official said, "Most people had hoped things would be resolved a bit more quickly" than the current timetable calling for the survey group to finish its work sometime in the middle of next year.
The official said Dr. Kay was on vacation and not doing interviews.
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former arms inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq, said the administration would have to be careful if Dr. Kay left to fight any perception that it was downgrading its effort to come up with a full accounting of Iraq's weapons.
"David has been a strong advocate of the administration's position that there is a lot of W.M.D. in Iraq, and one interpretation could be that he couldn't find them so he wants to get out," Mr. Albright said. "Certainly if Kay leaves they should have someone to replace him who has a direct connection to Tenet and who is credible." He was referring to George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence.
--------
Annan Seeks January Talks on Return of U.N. to Iraq
December 19, 2003
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/international/middleeast/19NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 18 - Secretary General Kofi Annan said Thursday he was seeking a meeting next month with members of the Iraqi Governing Council and representatives of the United States-led occupation authority to determine whether the United Nations' return to Baghdad can be accelerated.
He told a year-end news conference he had been assured that the Iraqis would attend the Jan. 15 session and that he had begun "preliminary consultations" with the occupation authority.
"I hope we'll be able to sit and clarify what assistance and what role the U.N. can play and what they expect of us and for us to make a judgment on what can be done and not," Mr. Annan said.
"Of course," he added, "that discussion cannot only be with the Iraqi Governing Council. The coalition, which is the occupying power, must also indicate what they expect so it has to be a three-way discussion and clarification."
John D. Negroponte, the United States ambassador, said he knew of no invitation yet, but he reiterated American support for a "vital role" for the United Nations in Iraq and called for the world body's return "as soon as absolutely possible."
The expectation has been that the earliest the United Nations could return foreign staff to Iraq was in July when the American-led occupation is scheduled to end and the transfer to Iraqi sovereignty to begin.
Mr. Annan has been under pressure from the United States, other members of the Security Council and the Iraqi Governing Council to move sooner than that. The secretary general has argued, however, that he must have security guarantees before he sends foreign workers back into the country.
He withdrew all non-Iraqi employees from the country in October after a series of attacks on aid workers and diplomats and the Aug. 19 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, in which the mission chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 other people were killed. Some 2,000 Iraqi employees are still in the country.
Last week Mr. Annan named Ross Mountain, a New Zealander who heads the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as his acting envoy to Iraq until the appointment of a successor to Mr. Vieira de Mello. He also set up offices in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Amman, Jordan, to coordinate Iraq relief.
Hoshyar Zebari, the interim foreign minister of Iraq, told the Security Council on Tuesday that the United Nations could not render effective aid from outside the country.
Turning to Afghanistan, Mr. Annan said the future of that country was at risk if the security situation continued to deteriorate. "If we do not deal with that, we may lose Afghanistan," he said.
-------- japan
Nuclear plant in Japan shuts down after lightning hits network
TOKYO (AFP)
Dec 19, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031219085552.lpfxdrez.html
A 357,000-kilowatt nuclear reactor in Japan's central Fukui prefecture shut down automatically Friday after lightning struck what was likely the electricity network, the plant's operator said.
The No. 1 reactor in Tsuruga, some 350 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Tokyo, shut down at 3:28 pm (0628 GMT) after it was unable to send electricity through the grid, a spokesman for the Japan Atomic Power Co. said.
There was no danger of radiation leakage and the plant's emergency cooling system did not kick in, he said.
"There was no problem with the nuclear reactor itself," said spokesman Masao Tabayashi.
It was unknown when the reactor would resume operation, he said.
The No. 2 reactor with 1.16-million kilowatt capacity on the Tsuruga site continued to function normally. The plants feed the Osaka area, the commercial hub of western Japan, as well as central and northern Japan, but not Tokyo, the spokesman said.
There was no danger of blackouts as power companies would likely buy the required electricity from other plants, Tabayashi said.
----
Japan Fishing Village Hopes for Nuclear Project
REUTERS JAPAN:
December 19, 2003
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/23170/story.htm
TOKYO - Rokkasho, a remote fishing village in northern Japan, was quietly confident Thursday as it waited to hear whether it would become host to a $12 billion experimental nuclear fusion reactor.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, a joint venture involving the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, the European Union and Japan, is expected to announce its choice of site after a meeting in Washington on Saturday.
ITER aims to create the world's first sustained nuclear fusion reaction, which it is hoped will provide a clean, efficient source of power in an imitation of reactions that form the source of the sun's power.
The two front runners to host the 30-year project are an EU-backed site at Cadarache in southern France and the village of Rokkasho, home to 12,000 people, mostly fishermen and farmers.
"We have good solid ground, we are very near a port and we have plentiful supplies of both fresh and sea water," said Kiyoshiro Nozawa, a local official overseeing the Rokkasho bid.
"The French site is not so convenient for ports, so I think we are ahead in that respect," he added.
Rokkasho, near the northernmost tip of the main island of Honshu, some 600 km (373 miles) north of Tokyo, is already the site of a uranium enrichment plant and a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant is scheduled to be completed by 2006.
Nuclear fusion involves sticking atoms together, as opposed to the splitting of an atom that is at the heart of nuclear fission, the process used in today's atomic power plants and weapons.
Fusion power has been touted as a solution to the world's energy problems, with proponents saying it would be safe, cause little pollution and require only sea water for fuel.
In half a century of research, however, it has never been achieved in a commercially viable way.
--------
Japan Hopes to Build Nuclear Fusion Plant
December 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Japan-Fusion-Energy.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan is confident it can win approval from an international consortium to build the world's first large-scale nuclear fusion plant, an experimental project that would generate energy by reproducing the sun's power source, an official said Friday.
Japan and France are the finalists in a bidding war for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, which is expected to cost $12 billion over 35 years. The project's sponsors -- the European Union, the United States, Russia, South Korea, China, Japan and Canada -- are set to reach a final decision on Saturday at a meeting in Washington.
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry official Hidekazu Tanaka said he believes Japan's site, Rokkasho village on the main island's northern tip, has the edge going into the weekend vote.
``We are fairly certain we won't lose,'' Tanaka told The Associated Press. ``For a resource-poor country like Japan, the benefits of such a project would be huge.''
The ITER project, first proposed more than a decade ago, is designed to study the potential of fusion power as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, such as coal and oil. Fossil fuels are expected to run short in about 50 years.
Fusion, which powers the sun and stars, involves colliding tiny atoms at extremely high temperatures and pressure inside a reactor. When the atoms fuse into a plasma they release energy that can be harnessed to generate electricity.
Fusion power produces no greenhouse gas emissions and only low levels of radioactive waste. The reactor would run on an isotope of hydrogen, an abundant source of fuel that can be extracted from water.
And because fusion reactors don't consume uranium or plutonium -- the fuel of conventional, fission reactors -- and don't use an atomic chain reaction, there is little risk of a radioactive meltdown.
Scientists say it's also nearly impossible to package the reactor's contents into a weapon.
``You can't build a bomb from this kind of reactor,'' said Masaaki Inutake, a professor of fusion research at Tohoku University in Sendai, north of Tokyo.
The stakes are high because the project means jobs, government subsidies and prestige.
Tokyo faces stiff competition from France's bid to promote its proposed site -- the southeastern town of Cadarache, which has considerable EU backing.
There are also some concerns about earthquakes in Japan that could affect the reactor.
With an international research team expected to live near the reactor, Rokkasho's frigid, snowy winters also make it less appealing than Cacarache, which has a temperate climate and is in France's southern Provence region.
But Japan is hoping Rokkasho's location near the sea will sway the debate.
Tanaka, the ministry official, said Rokkasho is 3 miles from a major port, meaning that sea water can be pumped for fuel and that heavy-duty reactor parts, such as a massive superconducting magnetic coil, can be transported by ship in one piece. France's site, about 43 miles inland, would need the coil to be shipped in pieces and assembled later.
Rokkasho already has an industrial complex, including a nuclear fuel disposal and reprocessing plant scheduled to be finished in 2006.
Even if Tokyo manages to secure the deal, it may have to persuade a wary public, following a recent spate of accidents and cover-ups of lax safety practices at nuclear power plants.
Japan relies on nuclear power for 30 percent of its energy. But many communities have resisted plans to build more plants since Japan's worst nuclear accident in 1999. That accident, at a fuel-reprocessing plant north of Tokyo, was caused by an uncontrolled reaction that killed two workers and exposed at least 600 people to radiation.
``We will have to do lots of PR to reassure the public,'' said Tanaka.
The project won't be cheap, either.
With Japan's economy struggling through a long-running slowdown and public debt at historic highs, the government will have to dig deep to fund the $5.3 billion cost of construction over 10 years and another $6.4 billion for the reactor's equipment and day-to-day operations for 25 years after building is completed.
It will also have to pay for the electricity to power the reactor. Once the reactor is running, it should generate some 20 times the energy required to get it started.
But Inutake, the fusion researcher, said the technology hasn't yet been refined to the point where it will run at a self-sustaining burn.
``Attaining that would be a milestone,'' he said. ``Before building an economical reactor, we need to confirm that we can do it in an experiment. That's why this is so important.''
-------- korea
N. Korea Talks Delayed But Still Alive, U.S. Says
December 19, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-north-usa.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite delays that have pushed any possibility of six-party talks with North Korea to curtail its nuclear arms program into 2004, a senior U.S. official said on Friday it was too early to say diplomatic efforts had failed.
After months of intensive efforts, the United States and its partners in negotiations over North Korea's nuclear program acknowledged this week that they were unable to arrange a second round of talks for this month, pushing the next target date into the new year.
The senior official, speaking with Reuters on condition of anonymity, was optimistic that a second round of talks would eventually be scheduled.
But he did not explain how the parties would overcome their disagreements over objectives for the talks, which are being arranged by China.
Some U.S. officials put the onus on China to bring Pyongyang to the table but the senior official interviewed on Friday said that was not the case. ``The onus is on North Korea,'' he said.
Delays and harsh rhetoric have been a feature of the reclusive state's international dealings.
The United States is insisting on a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of the North's nuclear weapons programs while Pyongyang has spoken of a ``freeze.''
``I believe that it's still possible (that North Korea could be persuaded to abandon its programs) but I could not assess the probability of achieving it,'' the senior official said.
``We're determined to try and we've got a lot more steps to go before we could conclude that the multilateral process won't work,'' he said.
He and other officials say the administration stands ready to outline its ``principles'' for multilateral security assurances for North Korea if the six-party talks reconvene next year.
But the administration will not propose possible economic or energy incentives in advance of Pyongyang moving to dismantle its nuclear program, these officials say.
Pyongyang, apparently responding to media reports of elements of that U.S.-led plan, pronounced it ``greatly disappointing'' and published a counter-proposal that repeated demands for energy aid and diplomatic concessions in exchange for freezing its nuclear program.
President Bush has rejected the idea of a freeze, saying Washington wanted North Korea's nuclear arms program dismantled ``in a verifiable and irreversible way.''
--------
U.S. Won't Offer Incentives at N. Korea Talks
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A45
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13370-2003Dec18.html
The Bush administration is prepared to outline its "principles" for multilateral security assurances for North Korea if six-nation talks on the nuclear crisis convene next year, but the administration will not float possible economic or energy incentives at the session, a senior administration official said yesterday.
U.S. officials had hoped the meeting would take place this week in Beijing. But the parties did not reach agreement on the objectives for the talks, forcing a delay until January or later. The official, speaking in an interview arranged by the administration, said the "six-party process is alive and well," although it is "inherently difficult to get on the same page."
A key objective for the administration at the talks is to learn how the North Koreans propose to dismantle their nuclear programs, the official said. But he said it is unlikely the talks would dwell on the details of eliminating that nation's arsenal, particularly the scope of the inspection regime needed to verify that North Korea has given up its weapons.
North Korea said yesterday that it will never give up its nuclear weapons program unless the United States provides economic aid and security assurances. Pyongyang's official newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Pyongyang wants to trade its nuclear weapons for what it calls a "simultaneous package solution" to the nuclear dispute. North Korea's determination "to beef up its nuclear deterrent force will remain unchanged no matter what others may say, as long as the United States keeps pursuing a policy to threaten and stifle" it, Rodong said in a commentary.
The Bush administration has called for "coordinated steps" to resolve the crisis, which the official said can mean both sequential and in tandem.
North Korea's rejection of the talks, along with the Bush administration official's remarks, suggests that any progress in resolving the North Korean crisis will be incremental and difficult in the coming year. Another administration official said that "the factors and conditions for why we did not have talks in December have not changed."
Until this week, U.S. officials had gamely insisted that talks were still possible this month. But the effort ended last Friday when senior foreign policy officials, including Vice President Cheney, met and rejected the third proposed draft of a statement guiding the talks, submitted by China. The Chinese, the talks' host, had submitted the text saying quick acceptance would ensure the talks could still take place this week.
But the proposed text did not call for "irreversible" dismantling of North Korea's programs or mention "verification," two key issues for the Bush administration. At the meeting, Cheney in particular said those phrases were necessary, and so the effort to hold talks this month died, said an official familiar with the meeting.
China has frequently enticed North Korea to attend the talks by providing economic incentives. A meeting with North Korea, China and the United States was held in April, and the next session was expanded to include Japan, South Korea and Russia in August.
But the long delay between meetings had frustrated officials eager for a diplomatic solution. They hope to win agreement for a regular meeting schedule to avoid such protracted negotiations in the future.
Some Democratic presidential candidates, in particular Howard Dean, have criticized the administration for not being willing to sit down with North Korea and negotiate a direct agreement. The former governor of Vermont said he would offer the North Koreans economic aid, energy assistance and a "nonaggression pact" in exchange for dismantling its programs.
The senior official said the Bush administration was "certainly open" to direct talks during multilateral sessions. "But it cannot be an excuse for turning multilateral discussions into bilateral discussions," the official said.
-------- libya
Glance at Libya's WMD Programs, Stockpile
December 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Libya-Weapons-Glance.html
A glance at Libya's banned-weapons stockpiles and programs, according to the Bush administration, and what Libya has promised to do on each:
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Libya admitted to nuclear fuel projects, including possessing centrifuges and centrifuge parts used in uranium enrichment. Libya agreed to abandon all elements of its nuclear weapons program; to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency of all current nuclear programs; and to adhere to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Libya showed American and British inspectors a significant quantity of mustard and bombs designed to be filled with the World War I-era chemical weapon, as well as ``chemical precursors'' that could be used to produce mustard and nerve agents. The country agreed to accept the restrictions of the chemical weapons treaty.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Libya acknowledged it intended to acquire equipment and develop capabilities to create biological weapons. Libya committed to renounce these programs and to accept outside inspections and the restrictions of the biological weapons treaty.
MISSILES
Libya admitted ``elements of the history of its cooperation with North Korea'' to develop extended-range Scud missiles. It agreed to destroy all ballistic missiles with ranges greater than 186 miles, and payloads greater than 1,100 pounds.
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Libya's Leader Admits Trying to Develop Banned Weapons
December 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Libya-Weapons.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, after secret negotiations with the United States and Britain, agreed to halt his nation's drive to develop nuclear and chemical weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them, President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday. Bush said pointedly, ``I hope other leaders will find an example'' in the action.
Libya's most significant acknowledgment was that it had a program intended to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons, a senior Bush administration official said.
Libya's nuclear effort was more advanced than previously thought, the official said. U.S. and British experts inspected components of a centrifuge program to enrich the uranium, though the system was not operational, the official said, briefing reporters at the White House on condition of anonymity.
The White House suggested that Libya's dramatic decision was influenced by the war in Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein, as well as U.S. efforts to rein in weapons of mass destruction capabilities in North Korean and Iran.
Blair, speaking from Durham, Britain, and Bush, addressing reporters in the White House briefing room, described a process of nine months of secret talks and onsite inspections, initiated by the long reviled Libyan leader shortly after he agreed to a settlement in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.
In the decision announced Friday by all sides, Libya agreed to disclose all its weapons of mass destruction and related programs and to open the country to international weapons inspectors to oversee their elimination
``Colonel Gadhafi's commitment, once it is fulfilled, will make our country more safe and the world more peaceful,'' said Bush.
Recalling the war in Iraq, Bush said other nations should recognize that weapons of mass destruction ``do not bring influence or prestige. They bring isolation and otherwise unwelcome consequences.''
Bush said the United States and Britain, wary of Libyan promises, would watch closely to make sure Gadhafi keeps his word. And he said Libya's promises on weapons aren't enough; it must ``fully engage in the war against terror'' as well.
If Libya ``takes these essential steps and demonstrates its seriousness,'' Bush held out the promise of helping Libya build ``a more free and prosperous country.''
The U.N. Security Council ended sanctions against Libya on Sept. 12 after Gadhafi's government took responsibility for the Pan Am bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the victims' families.
But the United States has kept its own 17-year embargo in place and has kept Libya on the list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
``As we have found with other nations, old hostilities do not need to go on forever,'' Bush said. ``Libya can regain a secure and respected place among the nations and, over time, achieve far better relations with the United States.''
The move represents a shift for a nation long regarded as an outlaw.
While Libya is credited with moderating its behavior in recent years, Gadhafi has been depicted as an erratic, untrustworthy ruler. In 1986, President Reagan sent American warplanes to bomb the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benzghazi in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin disco where a U.S. serviceman was killed.
The bombs struck Gadhafi's barracks and killed his young, adopted daughter and wounded two of his sons but Gadhafi, sleeping in a tent outside the compound, escaped injury.
Susan Cohen, a Cape May Courthouse, N.J., woman whose daughter was among the 270 people killed on Pan Am 103, said Friday night that Gadhafi cannot be counted on to keep his promise.
``How can we trust somebody who has blown up a plane?'' she asked.
The Libyan news agency Jana Tripoli quoted Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam as saying Libyan experts had shown their U.S. and British counterparts ``the substances, equipment and programs that could lead to production of internationally banned weapons.''
Libya's decision is a ``wise decision and a brave step that merit support from the Libyan people,'' Gadhafi said in a statement carried by the official news agency.
Teams of American and British experts went to Libya in October and December, the Bush administration official said.
They visited 10 sites related to Libya's nuclear program, the official said.
Libyan officials also showed the American and British team a significant amount of mustard agent, a World War I-era chemical weapon. Libya made the material more than a decade ago, and also had bombs that could be filled with the substance for use in combat, the official said.
Libya also acknowledged having chemicals that could be used to make nerve agent, the official said.
The U.S. official described little evidence of a Libyan biological program.
Libyan officials further acknowledged contacts with North Korea, a supplier of long-range ballistic missiles, and provided the U.S.-British team access to missile research and development facilities.
According to a recent, unclassified report to Congress, Libya's longest-range missiles were thought to be Scud-B ballistic missiles. These have a range of 186 miles. Libya agreed to destroy missiles with longer ranges, but it was unclear if the country had any.
Bush also used the announcement to try to nudge unnamed ``regimes that seek or possess weapons of mass destruction'' into similar cooperation.
``Those weapons do not bring influence or prestige; they bring isolation and otherwise unwelcome consequences,'' he said. ``Leaders who abandon the pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, will find an open path to better relations with the United States and other free nations.'' Associated Press writers Beth Gardiner in London and John J. Lumpkin in Washington contributed to this report.
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U.N. Saw Signs of Libya Nuke Program - Diplomats
December 19, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-libya-nuclear-iaea.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - Prior to Libya's announcement it would renounce weapons of mass destruction, the U.N. nuclear watchdog had been concerned about signs Tripoli wanted to develop atomic arms, diplomats said on Friday.
A British official said Libya had not acquired a nuclear bomb, ``though it was close to developing one.''
Several Western diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity there were indications Libya had been trying to gather a team of nuclear experts from ex-communist states in central and eastern Europe in what looked like the beginnings of a future nuclear weapons program.
This had not escaped the attention of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations body charged with policing compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), one diplomat said.
``Segments of the IAEA have become very concerned about Libya,'' one Western diplomat told Reuters, adding that the IAEA's safeguards department had been ``especially concerned.''
The IAEA's safeguards department is charged with monitoring NPT signatories' civilian nuclear programs to ensure resources are not diverted to clandestine military programs.
Another diplomat said there had been signs Tripoli had embarked on a ``procurement program'' linked to developing nuclear weapons, though he gave no details of the procurement effort.
The British official said a British team working with the Libyans had seen nuclear projects under way at more than 10 sites, including the enrichment of uranium. It also saw dual-use sites with the potential to support work on biological weapons.
Libya's announcement that it would let the IAEA and other international organizations come to Libya and oversee the dismantlement of its weapons programs comes one day after Iran signed the NPT Additional Protocol permitting more intrusive, short-notice IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites.
Washington accuses Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a front to develop the atomic bomb, a charge Tehran denies.
Libya has also agreed to ``immediately'' sign the NPT protocol, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a news conference.
Tripoli has long been on the radar screens of non-proliferation experts.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a U.S.-based disarmament think-tank, said in a comment posted on its Web site (www.nti.org) before Libya's announcement: ``There remain... continuing allegations that Libya is indeed pursuing a nuclear weapon capability.''
After the recent discovery of Iran's 18-year cover-up of potentially arms-related atomic research, the IAEA has begun pressing all countries to open up their nuclear programs as much as possible -- especially uranium enrichment facilities, which can be used to produce bomb-grade material.
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Bush Says Libya Will Allow Arms Inspections
December 19, 2003
By DAVID STOUT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/international/middleeast/19CND-LIBYA.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - President Bush announced today that Libya, which for decades has been estranged from the United States, had agreed to forsake weapons of mass destruction and to allow weapons inspectors from international organizations into the country.
Mr. Bush, in a stunning late-afternoon appearance, said Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had notified diplomats from both the United States and Britain of its decision. Libya has been talking with the United States and Britain quietly for some nine months, the president said.
Washington has asserted in recent years that Libya was developing biological and chemical weapons and trying to upgrade its nuclear capabilities.
Mr. Bush said Colonel Qaddafi's promise, if kept, would mean the Libya ``has begun the process of rejoining the community of nations,'' a journey that would improve the lives of the country's people and lead ``over time'' to better relations with the United States. Libya is a relatively poor country of 5.5 million people.
He said Colonel Qaddafi ``publicly confirmed his commitment to disclose and dismantle all weapons of mass destruction programs in his country.''
``He has agreed immediately and unconditionally to allow inspectors from international organizations to enter Libya,'' Mr. Bush said. ``These inspectors will render an accounting of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and will help oversee their elimination.''
The president praised the decision by Libya, which was announced in London by Prime Minister Tony Blair minutes before Mr. Bush's appearance in Washington. Mr. Bush said Libya's new approach to the world - if it continues - could only lessen the threat of terrorism in the Middle East and around the world.
He said Libyan officials ``have provided American and British intelligence officers with documentation on that country's chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programs and activities.''
``Our experts in these fields have met directly with Libyan officials to learn additional details,'' Mr. Bush said.
In London, Mr. Blair said, ``Libya came to us in March following successful negotiations on Lockerbie to see if it could resolve its weapons of mass destruction issue in a similarly cooperative manner,'' according to The Associated Press. He said Libya agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and to limit the range of Libyan missiles to a maximum of 186 miles.
Over the last year, Libya has made overtures to improve its relation with the West. Earlier this year, it agreed to pay some $2.7 billion in damages to families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of a jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. For years, Libyan agents were suspected of engineering the bombing with Colonel Qaddafi's tacit approval. Libya formally accepted responsibility for the bombing in a statement to the United Nations in August.
Colonel Qaddafi has ruled the North African country since taking over from the royal family in a 1969 coup. His critics have long accused him of being sympathetic to terrorists.
In 1986, Libyan-sponsored terrorists bombed a nightclub in West Berlin, killing two American soldiers. Shortly thereafter, American bombers struck at Libya, in an apparent effort to kill the dictator.
-------- missile defense
Japan to Buy U.S. Missile Defense System
December 19, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-defense-japan.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said Friday it would buy a U.S.-made missile defense system and conduct a review of its defense capabilities in a move that could unnerve other Asian countries.
Domestic support for the introduction of a missile defense system, mooted since North Korea sent a ballistic missile over Japan in 1998, has grown over the past year because of Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda announced the decision to endorse a Defense Agency proposal on missile defense after a meeting of Japan's Security Council.
``There is no intent to harm other countries. This is a completely defensive system,'' Fukuda told a news conference.
The government planned to complete the defense review and a medium-term defense equipment plan by the end of 2004, he said, giving no details on the review, other than to say it would take into account the current security environment.
One topic may be Japan's self-imposed ban on arms exports, which must be modified if Tokyo wants to push ahead with its joint development of a next-generation missile defense system with the United States.
Fukuda told reporters Thursday that the ban was a subject for future discussion.
TWO-STAGE DEFENSE
The first stage of the two-part missile defense system Japan intends to buy consists of Standard Missile-3systems that could be fired at missiles in mid-course from Japan's four existing high-tech Aegis destroyers.
The second line of defense would be provided by ground-to-air Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles, upgrading the PAC-2 system Japan's armed forces already possess.
The Defense Agency estimates the missile defense system will cost 700 billion yen ($6.5 billion) over five years, Kyodo news agency said, adding that the government would earmark around 100 billion yen for the project in the 2004 budget.
The system will be partially deployed in 2007 and fully operational by 2011, the daily Mainichi Shimbun said Friday. The Defense Agency said it could not confirm the dates.
Moves toward a more independent defense posture tend to spark nervous reactions from Japan's Asian neighbors, some of which suffered under Tokyo's colonial rule before and during World War II.
Japan's launch of two spy satellites in March this year to keep an eye on neighboring North Korea, drew complaints from Pyongyang that it would set off a regional arms race. Japan's close cooperation with the United States over missile defense may also put pressure on its sometimes tense relations with China.
``The Chinese have a number of concerns over the U.S. efforts to develop a missile defense system,'' said Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor of Jane's Defense Weekly.
``One is that it threatens to negate the Chinese nuclear deterrent force. Another is that it has potential application over the conflict in Taiwan,'' he added.
Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba visited China earlier this year in an attempt to reassure Beijing that the missile program would be purely defensive.
He denied Friday that the system risked infringing Japan's ban on ``collective self-defense,'' part of the constitution that prohibits it even from helping allies if they come under attack.
``This system is not designed to shoot down missiles heading toward other countries,'' Ishiba told reporters.
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Japan to Build Missile Defense System
December 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Missile-Defense.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan announced Friday that it will begin building a missile defense system -- the first step of long-discussed plans to protect the country amid concerns over the threat from neighboring North Korea.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet and his top security advisers approved the project, citing ``a spread of missiles and a rise in weapons of mass destruction,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said in a statement.
``Ballistic missile defense is a purely defensive -- and the sole -- means of protecting the lives of our country's people and their property against a ballistic missile attack,'' the statement said.
Japan has studied the technology for missile defense with the United States, but until now it has only mulled plans to build such a system.
Fukuda did not explain details of the program. Media reports said the plan calls for refitting four Aegis-equipped destroyers with sea-based anti-missile rockets and purchasing advanced Patriot anti-missile rocket batteries starting next year. The new system will be deployed from 2007 through 2011, Kyodo News reported.
The government will allocate $935 million for the program in the next fiscal year beginning April. The entire program was estimated at $4.67 billion, the agency said.
The project will not fully shield Japan from incoming missiles, however. Analysts say the sea-based and Patriot missiles have less-than-perfect success rates for shooting down projectiles. Their limited number also means they cannot provide cover for the entire country.
Japan has become increasingly concerned with being able to protect itself against incoming missiles after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile over its main island in 1998.
Trying to allay concerns among China and other neighbors that the system could signal a move by Japan toward building greater military power, Fukuda stressed missile defense was not offensive in nature and wouldn't be a menace to others.
``It will not threaten neighboring countries, and will not have a detrimental effect on the region's stability,'' Fukuda said. He added it would not violate Japanese laws against defending other nations, since the system would be used exclusively by Japan for its own protection.
To further counter what it called ``new threats'' of missiles, weapons of mass destruction, and international terrorism, Koizumi's Cabinet separately called for reorganizing the military into a more flexible and mobile force.
And in recognition of the rising importance of international peacekeeping and humanitarian missions to the Self-Defense Forces, the Cabinet instructed the Defense Agency to develop a special unit to carry out such duties.
Starting with a peacekeeping mission to Cambodia, and following with undertakings in East Timor and elsewhere, Japan's military has played a growing role in international campaigns.
On Friday, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba ordered air, naval, and ground troops to prepare for deployment to restore water services and rebuild infrastructure in southern Iraq. He is expected to send around 1,000 soldiers to Iraq next year.
----
US praises Japan on missile defense system
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 19, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031219203520.ulw6mame.html
The United States Friday praised Japan's decision to adopt a ballistic missile defense system, but sidestepped suggestions the move pointed to pessimism over North Korea crisis talks.
Tokyo said it would adopt a US-developed system to protect itself from emerging threats from terrorists, weapons of mass destruction and North Korean missiles.
"Without going into the motivations of the Japanese decision, let me say that we welcome the Japanese government's decision to move forward on plans for missile defense," said State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli.
"I would note that the United States and Japan have cooperated on missile defense research for several years.
"Its decision to acquire US missile defense systems is further evidence of the close and cooperative relations between our two countries."
Ereli declined to respond to suggestions that Japan's move signified it was holding out little hope that efforts to defuse North Korea's nuclear program would succeed.
A new round of six-party talks on the program was due to have taken place in Beijing this week, but was delayed until next year, after Pyongyang and Washington failed to agree on the agenda for the talks.
Japan said it would introduce a US-developed missile defense system for now and continue to conduct joint research with the United States to improve on it, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said in a statement.
Tokyo has been alarmed by repeated launches of missiles by North Korea into the Sea of Japan.
North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific in 1998, prompting Tokyo to launch joint research with the United States to develop missile defense systems the following year.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
US nuclear industry eyes new reactor projects
by Leonard Anderson
REUTERS USA:
December 18, 2003
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/23161/newsDate/18-Dec-2003/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - A $1.1 billion project tucked into the stalled U.S. energy bill to develop a new kind of nuclear reactor has been touted as reviving nuclear energy and boosting the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles.
But scientists working on early stages of the project say the test reactor also could have industrial applications far beyond transportation, including improving the quality of heavy crude oils.
The House of Representatives passed the $31 billion energy bill in November but it fell just two votes short of passing the Senate. Republican leaders have vowed to try again early next year to move the legislation through Congress.
The bill's proposed nuclear project would end a long dry spell for the nation's nuclear industry, which hasn't approved a new plant since the near-meltdown of the reactor core at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979.
In addition to the new reactor, the bill includes $750 million a year in tax breaks for building 6,000 megawatts of new nuclear capacity, or about eight reactors.
Nils Diaz, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licenses and oversees the nation's 103 nuclear generators, has said the incentives in the bill "could be a turning point" for new construction.
Critics, however, label the project "pork barrel" work that will throw more dangerous spent radioactive fuel onto a growing pile.
Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and harsh critic of the NRC, called the VHTR "the most expensive way that could be imagined to produce hydrogen and nothing more, nothing less than one of the many pork barrel projects in the Republican bill."
IDAHO LAB PROJECT
The new reactor, to be developed at a federal Department of Energy research laboratory in Idaho, is called a "very high temperature rector," or VHTR, designed to produce both electricity and hydrogen while being safer to operate and less vulnerable to sabotage, said James Lake, associate laboratory director for nuclear research.
The VHTR would package uranium fuel in small pellets or "pebbles" covered in graphite and cooled by inert helium gas, Lake told Reuters.
This would allow heat to radiate away from the core of the reactor, eliminate the need for an elaborate cooling system, and prevent the possibility of a Three Mile Island-type accident. The reactor would be housed underground. In addition to transportation, Lake said hydrogen stored in fuel holds promise for other industrial uses:
- Hydrogen can be inserted into heavy crude oil, adding more barrels of higher-quality oil to domestic stocks.
- Hydrogen fuel cells can provide a reliable supply of electricity in critical applications like semiconductor manufacturing and hospitals.
- Hydrogen is a key ingredient in ammonia, a building block for the chemical fertilizer business.
- The VHTR could make hydrogen without producing greenhouse gases formed by burning natural gas or coal.
The U.S. and nine other nations are working on new reactor designs. The VHTR reactor, however, will not be ready for demonstration until 2015, while the $1.1 billion in the energy bill would pay for work only until 2010.
Nuclear utilities like Exelon Corp. (EXC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , Dominion Resources Inc. (D.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Entergy Corp. (ETR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and equipment makers like General Electric Co. (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , the Westinghouse unit of British Nuclear Fuels, and the Framatome unit of France's Areva (CEPFi.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) are interested in the project, Lake said.
In the shorter term, Exelon, Dominion and Entergy have asked the NRC for permission possibly to add new reactors at existing plant sites in Illinois, Virginia and Mississippi.
As a "bridge" between its existing fleet and the VHTR, Exelon supports a Westinghouse advanced light water reactor called the AP 1000 now in development, a spokesman said.
-------- nevada
Nevada prepares case against nuclear waste dump
Friday, December 19, 2003
By Erica Werner,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-12-19/s_11491.asp
WASHINGTON - Nevada's legal team will tell a federal appeals court that the government is trying to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain even though it does not meet the original legal requirements for a dump, lawyers said Thursday.
The hearing Jan. 14 before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will cover six lawsuits that the state filed against the federal government between 2000 and 2002, and that have been consolidated.
For Nevada, which has failed in the political arena for over two decades to stop the dump, the courts might represent the state's best chance of keeping out 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste, lawyers said at a media briefing. The waste would be buried for 10,000 years at a desert site 90 miles from Las Vegas.
"I think that this is the first time that any court in this country is really going to look at the fundamental legal merits of this project," said Joe Egan, Nevada's lead lawyer in the Yucca case.
Egan and other lawyers outlined a series of arguments that accuse the government of learning, after it began studying Yucca Mountain, that the site could not satisfy Congress's original mandate of "geological isolation." Instead studies demonstrated that the site would be at risk of dangerous seepage, they said.
Rather than abandon the site, the Energy Department changed the rules and declared it suitable, the lawyers said.
They accused the department of improperly evaluating the environmental effects of the project and said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham unlawfully recommended its approval to President Bush. They contend the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to comply with the law in developing licensing rules and standards for the project.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the department has followed the law and that a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain would be safe. He said Nevada's lawsuits "are simply misguided."
"In the end, if the science doesn't meet the standards, it's not going to be built. In the end, we believe the science will meet the standards," Davis said.
Congress and Bush approved sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain last year, but the department does not expect to open the site until at least 2010.
The department still must apply for a license from the NRC, which it plans to do a year from now.
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U.S. Court to Review Nev. Fight Over Dump
Associated Press
Friday, December 19, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13301-2003Dec18.html
Nevada's legal team will tell a federal appeals court that the government is trying to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain even though the site does not meet the original legal requirements for a dump, lawyers said yesterday.
The hearing Jan. 14 before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will cover six lawsuits, now consolidated, that the state filed against the federal government between 2000 and 2002.
For Nevada, which has failed in the political arena for more than two decades to stop the dump, the courts might represent its best chance of keeping out 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste, lawyers said at a media briefing. The waste would be buried for 10,000 years at a desert site 90 miles from Las Vegas.
"I think that this is the first time that any court in this country is really going to look at the fundamental legal merits of this project," Joe Egan, Nevada's lead lawyer in the case, said.
Egan and other lawyers outlined arguments that say the government learned, after it began studying Yucca Mountain, that the site could not satisfy Congress's original mandate of "geological isolation." Instead, studies demonstrated that the site would be at risk of dangerous seepage, they said.
Rather than abandon the site, the Energy Department changed the rules and declared it suitable, the lawyers said.
They accused the department of improperly evaluating the environmental effects of the project and said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham unlawfully recommended its approval to President Bush. They contend the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to comply with the law in developing licensing rules and standards for the project.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the department has followed the law and that a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain would be safe. He said Nevada's lawsuits "are simply misguided."
"In the end, if the science doesn't meet the standards, it's not going to be built. In the end, we believe the science will meet the standards," Davis said.
Congress and Bush approved sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain last year, but the department does not expect to open the site until at least 2010.
The department needs a license from the NRC and plans to apply for one in a year.
-------- us politics
Dean Assails 'Washington Democrats' on Iraq
By Paul Farhi and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13369-2003Dec18.html
MANCHESTER, N.H., Dec. 18 -- In a pointed blast at his presidential rivals Thursday, Howard Dean criticized "Washington Democrats" who "want to declare victory in the war on terror" after Saturday's capture of Saddam Hussein.
The former Vermont governor expanded on his earlier assertion that the arrest did not make the nation safer, saying Americans are no safer now than they were before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"For the past four days, the Washington Politics as Usual Club has taken every opportunity for attacks on me and my campaign that go far beyond questioning my position on the war," Dean said in a campaign stop. "The capture of one very bad man does not mean this president and the Washington Democrats can declare victory in the war on terror."
Saying "the soul of the Democratic Party is at stake," he added: "The Washington Democrats fell meekly into line" with President Bush and "failed to ask the tough questions" last fall during the run-up to the war.
Dean's rivals in the Jan. 27 New Hampshire Democratic primary have seized on his comments about Hussein's capture. Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) have called Dean inconsistent and wrongheaded. They cite his remarks about Hussein as evidence of his lack of experience in foreign affairs, a key campaign issue.
Lieberman has dubbed Dean "Dr. No," for his war opposition and some of his domestic stands. Kerry accuses Dean of seeking to give the United Nations veto power over the use of U.S. military force. And Gephardt emphatically disputes Dean's assertion that the nation is no safer with Hussein in custody. They are hoping to slow Dean's momentum in New Hampshire, where new polls suggest his lead is widening.
Dean returned fire Thursday, accusing his rivals of basing their positions on the Iraq war on opinion polls -- supporting it at first, then speaking against it when casualties mounted and its "true costs" became known. Now that public support for the war is rising, and Hussein is no longer at large, Dean said, "the Washington Democrats began to redraft their talking points."
Speaking Thursday on domestic policies, Dean repeated proposals he has advanced before on the need for affordable health care, child care, college education and a secure retirement. He denounced what he termed "the Bush tax": higher federal budget deficits and increased state and local property taxes in many states. He called them the unintended consequences of Bush's federal tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.
After the speech, Lieberman accused Dean of adding to the burden of middle-class families. Alluding also to Dean's foreign policy speech Monday, Lieberman said, "Howard Dean is soft on defense and hard on the middle class."
Gephardt's campaign attacked Dean over earlier tax incentives offered to corporations, including Enron Corp., to establish what are known as captive insurance firms in Vermont. Dean said Thursday the tax break was not tailored for Enron. Gephardt campaign manager Steve Murphy said Dean, as governor, signed legislation that reduced the disclosure requirements of those companies, and he called on Dean to open his records.
Dean said he had no comment on the legislation and would let a court decide about the possible release of his gubernatorial records.
At a news conference after his speech, Dean was asked repeatedly about a Washington Post report that detailed instances in which his comments on a variety of subjects proved to be untrue or misleading. Dean did not address the article's specifics, but said voters can believe him "or they can believe The Washington Post."
Staff writer Dan Balz contributed to this report from Washington.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms
U.S. to Practice Weapons Interdiction
December 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Seizing-Weapons.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States and allies next month plan to practice seizing a ship carrying weapons of mass destruction near where a North Korean missile shipment was captured last year.
The naval exercise scheduled Jan. 11-12 is part of a Bush administration effort to block shipments of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, the material and equipment needed to make them and missiles that could be used to carry them.
It will be the third such exercise undertaken by the ``Proliferation Security Initiative,'' a 16-nation group formed this year. Experts from the countries met in Washington this week to discuss lessons learned from those exercises -- one each in the Mediterranean and Coral seas -- and start planning for five more in the next four months. A ``tabletop'' exercise on intercepting airplanes also has been held.
The January exercise in the Arabian Sea will include forces from several other members of the initiative, though precisely which countries has not been decided, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday. They will track, board and search a U.S. merchant vessel outfitted to mimic one carrying weapons of mass destruction.
The scenario is nearly identical to the seizure a year ago of a shipment of North Korean Scud missiles, which later was released, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity. On U.S. intelligence, Spanish forces seized the ship and found 15 missiles and other military gear. They turned the ship over to American forces, which released it after several days when Yemen said it had bought the weapons and promised not to sell them to anyone else.
The incident was an embarrassment for the Bush administration and showed the need for better cooperation on seizures. It also underscored the legal difficulties in seizing such shipments, which often do not violate international law.
Legal experts from the participating countries discussed such problems during the Washington meetings but made no decisions, the Pentagon official said. He said the United States is working to forge agreements with countries where many ships are registered to smooth the way toward boarding, inspecting and seizing weapons shipments.
Other nations in the initiative are: Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and five new members -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Singapore and Turkey.
Bush has made the project a high priority; his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz met with the group this week. Officials say the initiative is aimed at stemming the flow of weapon and missile technologies across the globe with particular emphasis on North Korea and Iran.
Pyongyang exports missiles and other military gear, and the United States and its allies accuse it of selling weapons of mass destruction technology as well. The United States accuses Iran of having a clandestine nuclear weapons program, while Tehran says the program is only to make electricity.
North Korea responded angrily both to the missile seizure and the proliferation initiative. Before the first exercise, an official North Korean newspaper called it a ``military provocation.''
Upcoming exercises include a ``tabletop'' air interdiction exercise hosted by Italy Feb. 18-19; a customs seizure simulation in Germany in late March; a maritime exercise hosted by Italy in the Mediterranean April 13-22; and a simulated ground interdiction in Poland in late April
-------- business
Centex Fined for Election Violations
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14072-2003Dec19.html
The Federal Election Commission has fined two subsidiaries of the Centex Corp. $168,000 for making illegal, corporate-subsidized contributions to federal candidates, including $3,100 to President Bush's 2000 campaign.
In a conciliation agreement released yesterday, the FEC outlined a plan developed in 1998 by the officers of the Centex Construction Group Inc. and Centex Rooney Construction Co. Inc. to "compensate or reward Rooney employees" for political contributions. The corporate payments to the employees were "grossed up . . . to offset tax liability."
All told, 15 current and former officers of the subsidiaries were named by the FEC as participants in the illegal contributions that resulted in $56,000 being given to political parties and candidates.
The settlement agreement states that officials of the Dallas-based parent Centex Corp. and the recipients, including the Bush campaign, were not aware that the contributions were illegal.
The major beneficiaries of the plan were the Republican National Committee, which received $20,000, and the Florida Republican Party, which got $10,000. The Rooney firm is based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The Bush 2000 presidential campaign received five contributions ranging from $100 to $1,000, the legal maximum an individual was allowed to give that year, under the plan.
Most, but not all, of the corporate officers named in the agreement have since left the companies.
The corporate repayments for individual contributions were "listed in a bonus spreadsheet under a new and separate column designed 'discretionary management bonuses' and were added to the bonus amount the employee otherwise would have received from any incentive plan," according to the agreement.
Most of the contributions went to Republican Party organizations or Republican candidates; $4,000 went to Democratic candidates.
The conciliation agreement specifically absolves the parent company and the recipients of the contributions from participation in the illegal scheme to subsidize contributions: "There is no evidence that any Centex Corporation executive, or any political committee receiving contributions, knew or understood" that the subsidiaries were reimbursing employees.
With annual revenue approaching $10 billion, Centex Corp. describes itself as "the nation's premier company in building and related services: Home Building, Home Services, Financial Services, Construction Services, Construction Products and Investment Real Estate."
--------
Senator Says Halliburton's Auditors Saw Problems
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13397-2003Dec18.html
Internal auditors at the Halliburton Co. subsidiary importing fuel into Iraq warned the company that it was overcharging the government even before a Defense Department draft audit raised similar concerns, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) charged yesterday.
Lieberman, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said members of his staff learned about the internal audit during a briefing Wednesday with the head of the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), which announced last week that Halliburton may have overcharged the government $61 million by importing fuel from Kuwait instead of Turkey.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Lieberman, the ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said auditors working for the subsidiary, KBR, "warned that the prices the company was charging to import fuel from Kuwait into Iraq were excessive and that the company's prices and contracting procedures were in violation of" federal procurement rules.
"This extraordinary internal audit suggests that Halliburton had been previously warned by its own auditors that it was overcharging for the fuel but apparently ignored these important warnings and continued to charge the federal government inflated prices," he wrote.
According to government documents, KBR paid $2.27 per gallon to import fuel from Kuwait and $1.17 per gallon to import it from Turkey.
Wendy Hall, spokeswoman for Halliburton, said the internal audit "did not warn or say that there were excessive fuel prices and did not identify any violation of government contracting regulations."
Officials with the audit agency could not be reached for comment.
In the letter to Rumsfeld, Lieberman said a Defense Contract Audit Agency auditor discovered the internal report, took notes and then presented it to KBR officials for a response. Since then, Lieberman wrote, KBR has refused to provide a copy of the internal audit.
Hall said the audit is a confidential, internal document.
"The DCAA employee ignored identification on the internal document -- on each and every page -- that clearly states the document was proprietary and confidential for KBR internal use only," she said. The auditor's action "could be a violation of the law," she added.
Hall also said the company has provided the DCAA auditors with all the supporting material related to the internal audit.
"There have been multiple meetings since the draft audit, some even face-to-face," she said. "We are working with the DCAA, and we have updated and provided materials to them following these numerous meetings."
-------- iraq
FUTURE SECURITY
U.S. Negotiating Over Role of G.I.'s in a Sovereign Iraq
December 19, 2003
By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/international/middleeast/19DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - The Bush administration has begun delicate negotiations with Iraq's transitional leaders on the freedom American-led military forces will have to carry out operations against insurgents after the transfer of sovereignty to a new government in Baghdad on June 30, officials say.
While the Coalition Provisional Authority is scheduled to go out of business by the middle of next year, military officials have said recently that their forces may have to remain in Iraq for at least "a couple more years," in the words of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq.
Administration, Pentagon and military officials acknowledge that security operations must be conducted within inevitable new political constraints when Iraqis take charge of their own affairs, whether by next summer's deadline or later.
That concern is a prime motivation for the American push to rebuild Iraq's civil defense corps, army and police force, putting an Iraqi face on the security mission. "Our tactics are going to have to change to some degree," a Bush administration official said. "We are going to have to take the concerns of Iraqis into account."
As discussions with Iraq's transitional authorities are being pushed ahead on security affairs, the American authorities are proceeding on a separate, more political track, to insure that the Iraqi constitution, which is to be written by the government that takes power next year, embodies democratic and secular values.
The negotiations on the future military relationship between Washington and Baghdad, and on the principle of its future constitution, are widely seen as tests of whether Iraq can stand on its own next year and eventually serve as a model of democracy in the Middle East.
The Iraqi Governing Council, the group of Iraqi leaders chosen by the Coalition Provisional Authority to oversee Iraq, has set up a subcommittee to write a "transitional administrative law" to take effect next year before the June 30 transfer, according to administration officials.
The transitional law is intended to flesh out the principles that the Iraqi Governing Council agreed to in its discussions with L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, on Nov. 15. Translating the principles into a sweeping set of laws is proving difficult, however, some officials said. The sticking point, they said, is how far to incorporate Islamic law into the constitution.
Whatever the council decides would, in turn, be rewritten by the government that is to take office next year. But American officials hope that the "transitional administrative law" is written so strongly that it will be adopted by the sovereign government. How much leverage the United States can bring to bear is a matter of conjecture.
Still, the military negotiations are considered the most urgent priority by many administration officials.
On his visit to Baghdad on Dec. 6, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took the lead in pushing the process forward at a meeting with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of the Governing Council's rotating presidents.
A senior Pentagon official who attended the session said the two men had discussed creation of a new government-to-government relationship and coordination of economic development, as well as the form of a new security agreement.
"We will work out, over the next six months, arrangements whereby military operations can continue and the continued training of Iraq's own security forces can take place," one official said.
A new mutual security pact - or even a formal invitation from the Iraqi authorities to the American-led military forces to remain - may quiet Washington's critics in the Arab world and around the globe, officials said.
"The transfer of sovereignty clearly will have an impact on security, because you rid yourself of the `occupation' label," an official said. "That is one of the claims that these so-called insurgents make, that they are under American occupation. So you remove that political claim from the ideological battle."
American officials say that even though the new Iraqi government may be pleased to have foreign forces help secure its territory, internal and international political considerations may prompt Iraq to limit the kinds of missions that allied forces carry out.
The precise rules of the security agreement between allied forces and the emerging Iraqi government have not been negotiated, but officials pointed to numerous precedents: the status-of-forces agreements that define rights and responsibilities of large American military forces in Japan or Germany, and the military-technical agreements or access deals that govern the smaller American presence in smaller nations, including many in the Middle East.
"They could be military-technical agreements; they could be status of forces agreements; they could be a whole range of things that could be broad, or that could be detailed," one official said.
In the meantime, the allied military is "marching straight ahead on building up five Iraqi security sectors," a Pentagon official said, referring to the new Iraqi Army, civil defense corps, border patrol, facilities protection service and police.
--------
IRAQI SCIENTISTS
U.S. to Steer Ex-Arms Experts to Peaceful Jobs
December 19, 2003
By JUDITH MILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/politics/19SCIE.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - The State Department said Thursday that it was starting a two-year program that could spend some $22 million to help provide several hundred former Iraqi weapons scientists and technicians with nonmilitary jobs in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq to prevent them from working for countries of concern or for terrorist groups.
Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said American officials would begin by opening the Iraqi International Center for Science and Industry in Baghdad, at a cost of $2 million. He said the program could ultimately provide some $20 million in projects for such scientists.
The effort is similar to a decade-old, Pentagon-led program that has had bipartisan support in Congress. Called Cooperative Threat Reduction, it has supported former Soviet weapons scientists and their research projects to redirect them from arms-related to peaceful work.
Separately, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday that her agency might spend some of a new pool of $50 million of the Pentagon-led program on scientific exchanges and projects in Afghanistan and possibly in Iraq to reduce the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Speaking at a meeting of experts on unconventional weapons, the official, Lisa Bronson, a deputy under secretary at the Pentagon, said her agency was exploring using some of that money for programs to improve border security and expand disease surveillance.
Mr. Boucher said the Iraqi center in Baghdad would hold workshops next year on energy research, environmental protection, information technology and other nonmilitary projects for up to 600 Iraqi scientists, technicians and engineers who are known to have worked in Iraq's unconventional weapons programs.
A State Department fact sheet said the center would also provide "quick start" projects to employ idle military scientists and technicians. Finally, it will sponsor meetings between American experts and Iraqi scientists involved in Iraq's unconventional weapons programs to help identify other Iraqis who were involved in such work and redirect them toward other projects.
He said Iraqi scientists and technicians would be paid a stipend to attend the workshops and for their involvement in projects aimed at reconstructing the Iraqi infrastructure. He said all weapons scientists would be eligible to take part provided they had not actually used the weapons they had helped produce.
Many American soldiers and experts hunting for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq have long complained that the lack of financial and other incentives for former weapons scientists to cooperate with the United States has hampered the search. Officials said they hoped that the program would both encourage their cooperation and help identify Iraqis not known to Americans to have been involved in research or production of unconventional arms.
But in his remarks, Mr. Boucher stressed that the new effort was "not an information-collection program."
"This is a program to put people to work to give them more productive uses of their expertise, their intelligence and their energy than work on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs," he said.
He said the United States had only "anecdotal" information that Iraqi scientists were being tempted by offers to work abroad for countries of concern or for terrorist groups. "We know of the potential, and we wanted to do something fairly early and fairly quickly as this program is unveiled to try to give these people an opportunity to contribute to the future of Iraq," he said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Bronson complained in her remarks that the Pentagon was not spending enough money to protect American soldiers against chemical and biological attack. She said that while the Pentagon was now spending $10.2 billion a year on missile defense programs, it had committed $1.2 billion a year on research, development and procurement aimed at protecting soldiers from such weapons - or one third of one percent of the Pentagon budget. "Get serious," she said, arguing that the budget for chemical and biological defense should be doubled.
-------- israel / palestine
U.S. Warns Israel Against Steps That Harm Peace Plan
December 19, 2003
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/politics/19MIDE.html?hp
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - The Bush administration, responding coolly to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's announcement of a possible "disengagement plan" in the West Bank, warned Israel on Thursday against taking unilateral steps that effectively abandoned the American-sponsored peace plan, called the road map, which would establish a Palestinian state.
"We would oppose any unilateral steps that block the road toward negotiations under the road map that lead to the two-state vision," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman.
A senior administration official involved in Middle East policy tried on Thursday night to emphasize that parts of Mr. Sharon's speech were positive, especially his call for immediate steps to ease conditions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and for the dismantling of "unauthorized" settlement outposts built in the last few years.
The official said that based on a reading of Mr. Sharon's text and also on briefings given to American officials before the speech, it was clear that such actions by Israel were offered "unconditionally" - that is, not dependent on the Palestinians acting first to crack down on Palestinian militant groups.
The administration official acknowledged that some of the steps promised by Mr. Sharon had been promised before and not carried out. "We expect far more rapid action after the emphatic remarks of the Israeli prime minister," he added.
Left unclear by Mr. Sharon's speech, the administration official said, was how he planned to carry out his promises to limit the growth of existing settlements in the West Bank, but the official said it seemed clear that Israel was prepared to confine any increase in the population of settlers to the areas where settlements already exist, and not to expand their territory any further into neighborhoods and areas regarded by the Palestinians as their land. But many details about what Mr. Sharon intends remain to be worked out with Palestinian negotiators and representatives of the United States in coming days and weeks.
Behind the speech, some administration officials said, was a tacit agreement between Mr. Sharon's aides - particularly Dov Weisglass, his chief of staff - and top aides to Mr. Bush that the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, is proving to be a disappointment.
Like Israeli leaders, administration officials say privately that they have been frustrated over the failure of Mr. Qurei to even be able to negotiate a cease-fire with the Palestinian groups as a possible prelude to their eventual disarmament.
The senior administration official said Thursday night, however, that Mr. Sharon had made enough conciliatory gestures in his speech to warrant a renewed attempt to get Mr. Qurei back to the negotiating table.
The Egyptian national security chief, Omar Suleiman, has been in Washington in the last week to brief administration officials on the progress of faltering negotiations for a cease-fire by Palestinian militant groups, but with little progress to report, many officials say.
What concerned the administration, officials said, was Mr. Sharon's stated intention to carry out the disengagement plan in a few months if the Palestinians failed to carry out the steps called for in the peace plan. The primary step, Mr. Sharon made it clear, was to shut down militant groups.
"We don't think it's best, at this point, to be discussing now what to do if progress is not made," Mr. McClellan said at the White House. Other officials said they were concerned that talk of what must happen if there is a breakdown might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
According to Mr. Sharon's speech, the disengagement plan would involve new "security lines" separating Israel from Palestinian-dominated territory in the West Bank and Gaza and a "change in the deployment of settlements."
Administration officials say they are concerned that such a plan could lead to a de facto Palestinian state in a shrunken form on perhaps 50 percent of the West Bank, with as much as 90 percent of the Palestinians living in the area squeezed into it.
Far-flung Jewish settlements in this area would, if this state were set up, presumably be dismantled or re-established in Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank.
This concern was only partly assuaged by Mr. Sharon's declaration that whatever boundary lines were established for Palestinian areas under his disengagement plan would not be final, and could be changed once an accord was reached between Israel and the Palestinians. The senior administration official said that Mr. Sharon understood the Bush administration's strongly held view that nothing Israel does now must make it look like it was "trying to impose a final settlement" on the Palestinians.
Mr. Sharon said he would not specify how many settlements would be shut down and "redeployed" elsewhere, but an administration official said that the numbers circulating between Jerusalem and Washington were from 17 to 22 of perhaps 100 settlements in the West Bank.
Some administration officials say they have heard that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and Mr. Qurei, his handpicked prime minister, may be tempted to accept such an interim state, however shrunken it is from what they want, as a possibly valuable base from which to conduct future talks with Israel.
Administration officials cite various reasons for being concerned that Mr. Sharon may walk away from the negotiating process with the Palestinians, pull back from populated areas and even abandon some settlements in the West Bank.
The main concern, administration officials say, is that Mr. Sharon may accompany these steps by further construction of a barrier, not just along the so-called Green Line - the de facto frontier between Israel and the West Bank - but also in areas thrust into the middle of the West Bank or jutting out from Jerusalem.
Second, administration officials say they are concerned that if Israel withdraws forces unilaterally - in the absence of a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians - it might be seen as a retreat rather than a concession, along the lines of its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
--------
Sharon Threatens to Impose Split on Palestinians
December 19, 2003
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/international/middleeast/19SHAR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
HERZLIYA, Israel, Dec. 18 - Israel will impose a security plan that will separate Israelis and Palestinians if the Palestinians fail to move quickly toward a negotiated peace, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said here in a speech on Thursday.
"If, in a few months, the Palestinians still continue to disregard their part in implementing the road map," he said, referring to the peace plan promoted by the Bush administration, "then Israel will initiate the unilateral security step of disengagement from the Palestinians."
Mr. Sharon reaffirmed his belief that the peace plan, which would lead to a Palestinian state by 2005, remained the best available option. And he said Israel would move to ease conditions for Palestinians and to dismantle illegal settlements, without linking it to immediate Palestinian moves.
But, he said, if the Palestinians did not at some point move "to uproot the terrorist groups and create a law-abiding society," he would pursue a disengagement plan, which would give Palestinians less land and preserve more Israeli settlements.
The Bush administration reacted coolly to Mr. Sharon's statement.
"The United States believes that a settlement must be negotiated, and we would oppose any effort - any Israeli effort - to impose a settlement," said the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan. "Unilateral steps can help the road map move forward if they are part of the road map, or can block the road map. It depends on what they are."
Specifically, Mr. Sharon said, the plan would involve a pullback of the Israeli Army to what he called "a new security line" and the withdrawal of some settlements from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in order to "reduce as much as possible the number of Israelis located in the heart of the Palestinian population."
While Mr. Sharon has hinted over the past few weeks that he was considering taking unilateral steps, his speech represented the first time he had expressed a willingness to dismantle settlements without a comprehensive peace agreement.
While Palestinian leaders have long sought withdrawal of Israeli settlements, they were harshly critical of Mr. Sharon, accusing him of trying to impose his own peace plan at terms highly detrimental to them.
"With this unilateral position, they may make peace between Israelis and Israelis," Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said in an interview with CNN after Mr. Sharon's speech. "They will not make peace with the Palestinians."
Nabil Aburdeineh, a spokesman for Yasir Arafat, said in an interview from Ramallah, Mr. Arafat's headquarters: "The security severance is not acceptable. The result of Sharon's speech is the refusal to implement the road map."
Mr. Sharon provided no timetable for the moves he spoke about, but in the past weeks, the Israeli news media have reported that he is prepared to give the Palestinian Authority about six months to make significant progress in stopping terrorism.
His plans seemed aimed in part at deflecting mounting criticism in Israel that the government's security policies have caused suffering among the Palestinians, which has intensified hatred of Israel.
But another aim clearly was to place the onus on the Palestinians for the failure to move ahead on the peace plan, and to warn the Palestinian Authority that it would face serious losses if it were unable to curb terrorism.
"Obviously, through the disengagement plan, the Palestinians will receive much less than they would have received through direct negotiations, as set out in the road map," Mr. Sharon said.
On the Israeli side, rightist figures like Shaul Yahalom, of the National Religious Party, were angry both over Mr. Sharon's willingness to remove some settlements and over the concept of a unilateral retreat from some territory. His party, he said, "will concentrate all its efforts to carry out a targeted annihilation against any concept of a unilateral withdrawal."
Shimon Peres, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said on Israel Radio that he was "very disappointed" by the speech. "Instead of a decision, we were given a postponement, one that is not necessarily in our favor," he said.
Mr. Sharon also listed steps "to significantly improve the living conditions of the Palestinian population." Among them, he said, Israel will remove "closures and curfews, and reduce the number of roadblocks," all aimed at improving "freedom of movement for the Palestinian population, including the passage of people and goods."
In a step that is of particular concern to the religious right in Israel, Mr. Sharon also vowed to dismantle illegal settlements, the so-called outposts, which have been established in recent months in violation of the peace plan's ban on new settlements. There are believed to be several dozen such places, ranging from a few people with a couple of trailers to larger settlements with permanent housing.
"I have committed to the president of the United States that Israel will dismantle unauthorized outposts," he said. "It is my intention to implement this commitment." Mr. Sharon gave no timetable, but Israeli news media have reported that some might be dismantled as early as next week.
In announcing his readiness to take unilateral steps, Mr. Sharon seemed to split the difference between two points of view expressed by other senior members of the ruling Likud Party during the past two days at the Herzliya Conference, sponsored by the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, a collection of research and study institutes.
Earlier at the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, contending that current occupation policies were not working, called for "immediate, grand, one-sided moves" aimed at separating the Israelis and the Palestinians.
But other Likud leaders, including Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, opposed unilateral steps.
"I oppose unilateral steps because they provide a prize for terrorism," Mr. Shalom said Wednesday. "They weaken our ability to conduct negotiations about a future agreement, they don't take us anywhere, and they don't lead to any feeling of commitment on the part of the Palestinians."
But in his speech, Mr. Sharon argued that the disengagement plan he had in mind was aimed at improving Israeli security and not at undermining the possibility of a permanent negotiated settlement.
"The steps which will be taken will not change the political reality between Israel and the Palestinians, and will not prevent the possibility of returning to the implementation of the road map and reaching an agreed settlement," he said.
-------
Sharon Threatens To Redraw Borders
Palestinians Assail Plan to End Talks
By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13478-2003Dec18.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 18 -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday night that Israel would end negotiations with the Palestinians "in a few months" and unilaterally declare new borders if the Palestinian government did not immediately act to halt terrorism.
Sharon proposed what he described as a "disengagement plan" in which Israel would evacuate some Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and draw a new "security line," largely along the route of the massive fence and wall currently being built by Israel around much of the West Bank.
In a nationally televised speech before a security conference in the coastal town of Herzliya, Sharon also threatened to unilaterally annex Palestinian land in several locations, saying, "Israel will strengthen its control" over areas that it wants to include as "an inseparable part of the state of Israel in any future agreement."
Sharon's 19-minute speech was short on specifics, but if he follows through, it would mark a significant turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His warning that Israel was prepared to take unilateral actions was immediately criticized by Palestinian officials. The plan could effectively end years of talks aimed at achieving a negotiated peace settlement leading to the side-by-side existence of two states -- Israel and Palestine. It would contradict demands by the Bush administration that the Israeli and Palestinian governments continue trying to resolve their differences at the bargaining table.
"We are pleased to hear Prime Minister Sharon's strong reiteration of his support for the 'road map' as the way forward," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in Washington, referring to the U.S.-backed peace process that has been sidelined because of continuing violence.
"We would oppose any unilateral steps that block the road toward negotiations under the road map that lead to the two-state vision," McClellan added, calling on the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers to meet face to face "very soon and without any preconditions."
Later, a senior Bush administration official briefing reporters in Washington hailed Sharon's speech as a "very positive" development that could help break the stalemate in the peace process and reaffirmed the road map. Any suggestion that the United States was displeased by Sharon's remarks, he said, was "a misreading of what Scott McClellan said."
The White House, he said, is "not opposed to unilateral steps by Israelis and Palestinians as long as they move the ball forward. There is nothing wrong with unilateral steps that reinforce the road map."
He also disputed suggestions that Sharon had threatened the Palestinians or planned to impose a final settlement on his own terms. "We do not read the prime minister as saying that," he said. "I don't think I would accept the word 'threat.' " He dismissed some of Sharon's comments as "hypotheticals" that were in the speech primarily for "Israeli domestic political reasons."
Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, said Sharon's speech "was totally in contradiction to the road map." He added: "A unilateral path will not provide Israel with security."
Sharon's speech seemed designed to set a new agenda after criticism of his leadership and widely publicized efforts by political opponents to launch their own peace proposals.
Many analysts blame Palestinians and Israelis equally for the failure of the road map, saying that while Palestinians did little to combat terrorism, the Israelis failed to ease hardships on Palestinians, freeze settlement growth and dismantle illegal settlement outposts.
In his speech, Sharon insisted that Israel would dismantle unauthorized outposts and ease living conditions for Palestinians, promises he has made before but which some analysts say he has largely not fulfilled.
"Palestinians must fulfill their obligations" under the road map to combat terrorism, Sharon said. He said it was "imperative to implement" the road map, but added, "I do not intend to wait for them indefinitely."
Sharon said, "If, in a few months, the Palestinians still continue to disregard their part in implementing the road map," then Israel will initiate the unilateral security step of disengagement from the Palestinians." He said such action "will be fully coordinated with the United States."
"This shifts the terms of the debate dramatically and dangerously," said Naomi Chazan, a political scientist and former member of Israel's parliament from the dovish Meretz Party. "It ends the debate over whether there will be a Palestinian state and asks how it is going to happen. The answer seems to be: unilaterally, wherever I want and whenever I feel like doing it."
Yaron Ezrahi, a political analyst who teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said: "We should all take this speech with a degree of skepticism. Two key things were not very specific -- time and space. [Sharon] spoke in a language of action, but nobody who heard it would know what to do next."
Although Sharon did not mention any settlements by name, analysts and political leaders said that any settlement evacuation likely would be limited to perhaps a half-dozen of the smallest and most isolated ones in the Gaza Strip and in remote areas of the West Bank. If there were an annexation, settlement officials and political analysts said, it probably would be of large settlement blocks that have been constructed in the past two decades on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Though some Jewish settlement officials immediately denounced Sharon's threats to "relocate" settlements, Nissan Slomiansky, a member of the Israeli parliament from the National Religious Party and a longtime leader in the settler movement, said he was not alarmed: "It sounds like he's talking about some isolated locations. We are not talking about tens of thousands of settlers." He also questioned whether Sharon ultimately would take any action against settlements. "Until now there has been only talk," he said.
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington and researcher Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.
-------- pakistan / india
With eye on India, Pakistan launches home-made sub
REUTERS INDIA:
December 15, 2003
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/23105/newsDate/15-Dec-2003/story.htm
KARACHI - With one eye on nuclear rival India, Pakistan launched its first home-made submarine last week in what the navy called a "quantum leap" towards military self-reliance.
At a ceremony at Karachi's naval dockyard, President Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the Agosta 90B submarine five years after construction began with the help of French state-controlled naval shipbuilder Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN).
"It has given a considerable boost to our defence capabilities," the military leader said. "Pakistan has joined the elite group of countries which can construct submarines. It is a step toward self-reliance."
The launch of the vessel was delayed by the U.S.-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan and the killing in May 2002 of 11 French naval technicians working on the project by a suicide bomber. The attack has been linked to Islamic militant groups in Pakistan.
"I express my heartfelt condolences to the families of the French engineers who lost their lives in this gruesome attack," Musharraf said.
The diesel-electric submarine is the second of three to be constructed under a deal with France, and the navy said in a statement it would go on building conventional submarines once they were finished. The first of the three was built in France and has been in service with the Pakistan navy since 1999.
The Agostas have been fitted with modern command and control systems and are capable of launching anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. It is designed as an anti-submarine, anti-surface and intelligence gathering resource.
MAIN THREAT INTERNAL
Musharraf said the main threat to Pakistan was not "external", but came from religious extremism and sectarianism.
"This menace of extremism is eating us like termites. All Muslims are facing a threat because of it," he said.
But the navy made a pointed reference to India:
"The induction of this new submarine...will help maintain peace and stability in this volatile region by deterring our main adversary from any kind of adventurism," the statement said.
Pakistan has become increasingly alarmed at aggressive defence acquisitions by India in recent years, saying that they could further upset the military balance in South Asia in conventional and nuclear forces.
Musharraf recently banned six radical Islamic groups, some of which had already been outlawed but reappeared under new names.
The groups have been blamed for a wave of violence aimed at Western and Christian targets as well as Pakistanis from rival Muslim sects.
Some outfits have been linked to the al Qaeda network and others are involved in a separatist insurgency in the disputed Kashmir region, the trigger for two of three wars between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain.
The neighbours are taking tentative steps towards peace after coming to the brink of war last year, although there is little prospect of a swift resolution to the core Kashmir issue.
Musharraf criticised India for building a fence along the heavily militarised de facto border dividing the two countries in the Himalayan region.
"There should be no change on the Line of Control, especially when there are talks of rapprochement."
Both countries are holding to a ceasefire along the frontier ahead of a regional summit in Islamabad in January which may provide a platform for further peace initiatives.
(Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White in Karachi)
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Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 to Reassure Iraqis, Documents Show
Trip Followed Criticism Of Chemical Arms' Use
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A42
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13558-2003Dec18.html
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I14769-2003Dec19L
Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in March 1984 with instructions to deliver a private message about weapons of mass destruction: that the United States' public criticism of Iraq for using chemical weapons would not derail Washington's attempts to forge a better relationship, according to newly declassified documents.
Rumsfeld, then President Ronald Reagan's special Middle East envoy, was urged to tell Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz that the U.S. statement on chemical weapons, or CW, "was made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs," according to a cable to Rumsfeld from then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
The statement, the cable said, was not intended to imply a shift in policy, and the U.S. desire "to improve bilateral relations, at a pace of Iraq's choosing," remained "undiminished." "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."
The documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the nonprofit National Security Archive, provide new, behind-the-scenes details of U.S. efforts to court Iraq as an ally even as it used chemical weapons in its war with Iran.
An earlier trip by Rumsfeld to Baghdad, in December 1983, has been widely reported as having helped persuade Iraq to resume diplomatic ties with the United States. An explicit purpose of Rumsfeld's return trip in March 1984, the once-secret documents reveal for the first time, was to ease the strain created by a U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons.
The documents do not show what Rumsfeld said in his meetings with Aziz, only what he was instructed to say. It would be highly unusual for a presidential envoy to have ignored direct instructions from Shultz.
When details of Rumsfeld's December trip came to light last year, the defense secretary told CNN that he had "cautioned" Saddam Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, an account that was at odds with the declassified State Department notes of his 90-minute meeting, which did not mention such a caution. Later, a Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld raised the issue not with Hussein, but with Aziz.
Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said yesterday that "the secretary said what he said, and I would go with that. He has a recollection of how that meeting went, and I can't imagine that some additional cable is going to change how he recalls the meeting."
"I don't think it has to be inconsistent," Di Rita said. "You could make a strong condemnation of the use of chemical weapons, or any kind of lethal agents, and then say, with that in mind, 'Here's another set of issues' " to be discussed.
Last year, the Bush administration cited its belief that Iraq had and would use weapons of mass destruction -- including chemical, biological and nuclear devices -- as the principal reason for going to war.
But throughout 1980s, while Iraq was fighting a prolonged war with Iran, the United States saw Hussein's government as an important ally and bulwark against the militant Shiite extremism seen in the 1979 revolution in Iran. Washington worried that the Iranian example threatened to destabilize friendly monarchies in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Publicly, the United States maintained neutrality during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, which began in 1980.
Privately, however, the administrations of Reagan and George H.W. Bush sold military goods to Iraq, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological agents, worked to stop the flow of weapons to Iran, and undertook discreet diplomatic initiatives, such as the two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, to improve relations with Hussein.
Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archives, a Washington-based research center, said the secret support for Hussein offers a lesson for U.S. foreign relations in the post-Sept. 11 world.
"The dark corners of diplomacy deserve some scrutiny, and people working in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Uzbekistan deserve this kind of scrutiny, too, because the relations we're having with dictators today will produce Saddams tomorrow."
Shultz, in his instructions to Rumsfeld, underscored the confusion that the conflicting U.S. signals were creating for Iraq.
"Iraqi officials have professed to be at a loss to explain our actions as measured against our stated objectives," he wrote. "As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up rational analysis and retreat to the line that U.S. policies are basically anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel."
The declassified documents also show the hope of another senior diplomat, the British ambassador to Iraq, in working constructively with Hussein.
Shortly after Hussein became deputy to the president in 1969, then-British Ambassador H.G. Balfour Paul cabled back his impressions after a first meeting: "I should judge him, young as he is, to be a formidable, single-minded and hard-headed member of the Ba'athist hierarchy, but one with whom, if only one could see more of him, it would be possible to do business."
"A presentable young man" with "an engaging smile," Paul wrote. "Initially regarded as a [Baath] Party extremist, but responsibility may mellow him."
Staff writer Vernon Loeb contributed to this article.
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Annan Sets Meeting on U.N. Role in Iraq
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A34
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13544-2003Dec18.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 18 -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday invited the United States, its military allies and Iraq's political leaders to New York next month to discuss and define the U.N.'s future role in Iraq.
Annan's request for talks comes as the United Nations is facing increasing pressure from Washington and Baghdad to return to Iraq to help oversee the transfer of power. It reflected the U.N. chief's growing doubts about U.S. and Iraqi commitments to assign the United Nations a meaningful and independent role in Iraq's political transition.
Annan complained at his annual year-end news conference that the United Nations was not mentioned in a November agreement between the United States and the Iraqis on a schedule for a handover of power next summer. "There have been some questions as to whether this was an omission or a message," Annan said. "This is something we will have to clarify when we sit down." The meeting is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 15.
Annan said that a delegation from the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council would attend the meeting but that he had only begun "preliminary consultations" with representatives of the U.S.-led coalition. "I would want the coalition also to clarify what they want us to do," he said.
U.S. officials here were caught off-guard by Annan's initiative and said that the United States has not decided whether to the accept the invitation. "I was not aware at this stage of any invitation to the coalition," John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters after Annan's announcement.
Negroponte and other U.S. officials said that the U.N. role in Iraq is spelled out in postwar resolutions adopted by the Security Council. They said they believe that further discussions should take place in Baghdad.
"Under existing resolutions, there's ample scope for activity by the United Nations," Negroponte said. "I would emphasize that we would welcome the return of the United Nations and its personnel to Iraq as soon as absolutely possible."
The United Nations evacuated most of its staff from Iraq in November after terrorists attacks on U.N. personnel. At least 24 employees and associates, including the U.N.'s top envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, were killed.
Although Annan assembled a new team this month to oversee U.N. Iraq operations from offices in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Amman, Jordon, he has resisted calls to establish a permanent headquarters in Baghdad.
Iraq's interim foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, appealed to Annan this week to send a U.N. mission back to Iraq. He also invited Annan to visit Iraq and pledged to send him a letter outlining the role the Iraqis want the United Nations to play.
"I did not give him an answer," Annan said.
Annan insisted that his demands for greater clarification of the U.N.'s role in Iraq were not a stalling tactic