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NUCLEAR
China Issues New Export Limits on Weapons
India Tests Short Range Surface - To - Air Missile
Nuclear Fusion Plant Sponsors Weigh Site
Decision on Site of Fusion Project Postponed
N.Korea Slams U.S. Over Nuclear Research Spending
N. Korea Vows to Strengthen Nuclear Force
Libya to Give Up Arms Programs, Bush Announces
Libya: No Coercion in Weapons Agreement
Secret U.S. Trips to Libya Led to Weapons Pledge
Libya Vows to Give Up Banned Weapons
Libya scores diplomatic coup by renouncing weapons of mass destruction
Libyan officials meet with IAEA chief
Libyan uranium enrichment plans more advanced than thought
George W. Bush's speech on Libya's renunciation
Despite "rogue" state label, Libya had little apparent succes
Libya's nuclear program more advanced than thought
Ease a Little Guilt, Provide Some Jobs; It's Pork on the Hill
MILITARY
Halliburton Says It Saved U.S. Oil Money
Warning on Colombia
'Sick' Saddam drugged: visitor
2 Kurdish Parties Close to Forming Unity Government
Iraqis Exact Revenge on Baathists
Sharon Threat Seen as Major Problem
Sharon's New Offer: A Compromise, a Threat or Both?
Palestinians Vow to Resist 'Security Line' as a Border
Barak Defends Plan to Assassinate Saddam
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Bioterrorism Drill's Lessons
Ashcroft Not Queried On Campaign Funds
Audio of Attorney-Detainee Interviews Called Illegal
Court Orders Trial on Ban of Voting by Felons
Americans Being Chased Even in U.S., Qaeda Says
City Warned of Holiday Terrorism Threat
OTHER
EPA Issues New Rule for Mercury
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- china
China Issues New Export Limits on Weapons
December 20, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Weapons.html
BEIJING (AP) -- Under U.S. pressure to help curb the spread of long-range missiles, China says it has issued rules restricting exports of missile, nuclear and biological technologies that can be used to make or deliver weapons of mass destruction.
A brief dispatch by the government's Xinhua News Agency didn't give any details of the rules issued Friday by the Ministry of Commerce. It wasn't clear whether they would satisfy Washington's demand for China to publicize rules that it has repeatedly said it was preparing on exports of missile-related technologies.
The rules take effect Jan. 1 and are meant to ``stem the spread of weapons of mass destruction,'' Xinhua said. It said they require Chinese companies to get special permission to export some 600 types of goods and technologies.
An exporter that believes its goods could be used to make or deliver weapons of mass destruction should notify the government and cancel its export contract, Xinhua said.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said Saturday it had no immediate comment on the Chinese announcement. China hasn't signed the global missile-control treaty but has promised to follow its restrictions.
Nevertheless, Chinese companies have been sanctioned by Washington after U.S. officials concluded they transferred missile technology to Iran, Pakistan and other countries.
Companies that have responded publicly to the accusations insist they follow international rules.
Washington stepped up pressure on Beijing last May when it announced a sanction against Northern Industries Corp., a major Chinese weapons contractor also known as Norinco.
A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said Washington would take against Beijing's proliferation activities -- the first such warning to accompany penalties against a Chinese company. It isn't clear whether Washington has taken any steps to fulfill that threat.
The new export rules apply to 308 nuclear products and technologies, some 120 biological items, more than 30 chemical items and about 180 missile-related goods and technologies, Xinhua said.
It didn't say what the products were or how China would decide whether they could be exported.
-------- india / pakistan
India Tests Short Range Surface - To - Air Missile
December 20, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-india-missile.html
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is carrying out a series of tests off its eastern coast to perfect the Trishul short-range surface-to-air missile, a government official said on Saturday.
The Trishul, named after a trident carried by a Hindu god of destruction, is part of India's 15-year-old indigenous missile development program.
``Tests on the Trishul are being carried out. They will continue for a few days. They are routine tests and the missile is being perfected,'' a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense told Reuters.
The Trishul can carry a 15-kg (33-lb) warhead up to a range of 50 km (31 miles) and can be used by the army and navy.
India is developing a range of missiles as a deterrent against nuclear-armed neighbors Pakistan and China. India's armed forces were in a state of alert over most of 2002 following growing tensions with Pakistan.
India and Pakistan came to the brink of their fourth war last year but relations between the two countries have improved this year. Last month, they began a truce along a military control line in the disputed Kashmir region.
-------- japan
Nuclear Fusion Plant Sponsors Weigh Site
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 20, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Fusion-Energy.html
RESTON, Va. (AP) -- International sponsors of a project to generate energy by reproducing the sun's power source failed Saturday to agree on whether to build the world's first large-scale nuclear fusion reactor in France or Japan.
Representatives from the European Union, the United States, Russia, South Korea, China and Japan said in a statement after meeting for more than three hours that they need additional time to pick a site.
``We have two excellent sites ... so excellent in fact, that we need further evaluation before making our decisions based on consensus,'' according to the statement.
The sponsors also announced ``a rapid exploration of the advantages of a broader project approach to fusion power.''
When asked to elaborate, the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who moderated the talks, explained that the development of fusion power means more than building the reactor and involves scientific and technical activities.
Taking those factors into consideration, Werner Burkart said, might be ``helpful in finding consensus'' on siting the reactor.
Further questions about the sites will go to France and Japan by the end of the month; responses are expected by February. The next meeting probably will come in February. The location was not announced.
France and Japan 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 stakes are high because the project means jobs, government subsidies and prestige.
France's proposed site is in the southeastern town of Cadarache. Japan is promoting Rokkasho village on the main island's northern tip.
The project ``remains an absolute priority for Europe. We are utterly convinced that our human, financial and technological advantages should allow us to see through this project,'' France's minister of research and new technologies, Claudie Haignere, said in a statement issued by her ministry.
The 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.
Fusion reactors do not consume uranium or plutonium -- the fuel of conventional, fission reactors -- and do not use an atomic chain reaction. As a result, there is little risk of a radioactive meltdown.
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Decision on Site of Fusion Project Postponed
December 20, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-energy-fusion-france.html
PARIS (Reuters) - An international committee has postponed a vote on the site of the world's biggest experimental nuclear fusion reactor after failing to reach consensus at a meeting in the United States, France said on Saturday.
Members of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project met in Washington on Friday and Saturday to pick between a site in France and one in Japan to host the project, worth 10 billion euros ($12 billion).
``At the end of the meeting...it was agreed by all parties present that no definitive choice could be made at this stage,'' France's Research Ministry said in a statement.
European sources close to the talks said voting was postponed until February after the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the EU failed to agree on a location of the project, billed as the future of renewable energy.
The ITER aims to create the world's first sustained nuclear fusion reaction, lasting several minutes, in a bid to harness the source of the sun's power and tame it, in a cleaner process than today's nuclear fission.
Fabio Fabbi, spokesman for European Union Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin, said the bloc would continue to campaign for its site in Cadarache, near the Mediterranean port city of Marseille.
``We regret the fact that the international partners were unable to reach agreement in a first shot, because although the Japanese site is of high quality, we think Cadarache is better and deserves to be the location,'' Fabbi said.
The failure to reach an agreement comes as a further blow to France, after the United States barred it and other opponents of the U.S.-led war in Iraq from bidding on lucrative contracts to rebuild the country.
PARTICIPANTS SPLIT
The European sources said participants in the talks split into two blocs, with the United States and South Korea in favor of Rokkasho, a remote fishing village in northern Japan, and Russia and China backing Cadarache.
Regional French official Stephane Salord said he was confident the EU location would win out in the end, suggesting that voting rules could be changed to prevent another stalemate.
``I am confident. The positions of the European Union, China and Russia are very firm whereas those of South Korea and the United States are more fluctuating,'' he said.
The stakes are huge. Construction of the reactor alone will take 10 years and employ 2,000 workers, at an estimated cost of 4.7 billion euros.
Fusion involves sticking atoms together, unlike the splitting of an atom that is at the heart of nuclear fission, the process used in today's atomic power plants and weapons.
It frees energy when two hydrogen atoms are smashed together to form a heavier atom of helium, and does not create much nuclear waste or risk reactor meltdown as fission does.
Fusion power has been touted as a solution to the world's energy problem, as it is low in pollution and has a virtually limitless supply of fuel in the form of sea water.
It has been achieved before, but not in a commercially viable way -- as it used up more energy than was generated.
-------- korea
N.Korea Slams U.S. Over Nuclear Research Spending
December 20, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-research.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea condemned a U.S. decision to step up nuclear weapons research as a grave challenge to world peace and said such moves only compelled the communist state to strengthen deterrent forces to cope with any attack.
The North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Saturday that President Bush's administration had decided to spend $401.3 billion on national defense in 2004, of which $15 million was allocated for developing smaller nuclear weapons.
``The Bush administration adopted it as its policy to mount preemptive nuclear attacks on certain countries after coming to power,'' the ruling party newspaper said in a commentary, which was carried by the North's official KCNA news agency.
``It is no secret that it designated the DPRK and six other countries as targets of its preemptive nuclear attacks,'' it added, using the initials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, communist North Korea's official name.
``The U.S. imperialists' moves to develop smaller nukes only compel the DPRK to beef up its deterrent force to cope with the nuclear attacks of the U.S,'' it said, denouncing the move as ``a grave challenge to the human cause of peace.''
KCNA did not say which other six countries had been selected as targets, but it quoted Rodong Sinmun as adding:
``No one is entitled to fault the DPRK as it is a legitimate right for it to maintain and strengthen a nuclear deterrent force as a means for self-defense to cope with the U.S. policy to stifle the DPRK with nukes.''
Chinese and U.S. officials met in Beijing on Friday to discuss a second round of six-way talks to curtail North Korea's nuclear arms program. The timing of the talks, which will follow an inconclusive first round in August, remains uncertain.
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N. Korea Vows to Strengthen Nuclear Force
December 20, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea said Saturday it had to strengthen its nuclear ``deterrent force'' to counter U.S. development of new, smaller nuclear weapons.
Last month, President Bush lifted a decade-old ban on research into low-yield nuclear arms and authorized $15 million for research into a nuclear weapon capable of destroying deep underground bunkers.
``The U.S. imperialists' moves to develop smaller nukes only compel the DPRK to beef up its deterrent force to cope with the nuclear attacks of the U.S.,'' North Korea's official KCNA news agency said. DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The United States has been pressuring North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program. U.S. officials believe North Korea already has one or two nuclear bombs, and can build several more within months.
North Korea, however, said Thursday it would never give up it nuclear program unless the United States provides economic aid and security assurances. The communist state accuses Washington of planning an attack after Bush labeled it part of ``an axis of evil'' along with Iran and Iraq.
-------- libya.
Libya to Give Up Arms Programs, Bush Announces
December 20, 2003
By DAVID E. SANGER and JUDITH MILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/international/middleeast/20LIBY.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Libya's leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, has admitted that his country had been trying to develop a broad arsenal of unconventional weapons, and he promised to dismantle them up and submit to international inspections, President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said Friday.
Mr. Bush said that if Col. Qaddafi followed through, Libya could "regain a secure and respected place" among nations.
Libya's actions came after nine months of secret diplomacy, beginning with an overture from Colonel Qaddafi to London and Washington just as the invasion of Iraq was beginning.
Mr. Bush's aides, clearly seeking to build on the capture of Saddam Hussein last Saturday, described the Libyan action as directly linked to the Iraq war, suggesting that Colonel Qaddafi had decided to give up his weapons aspirations rather than face off against the United States and its allies.
Speaking to reporters in a hastily called session in the White House press room, Mr. Bush praised Colonel Qaddafi's agreement to open his country to full inspections.
This is the first time Colonel Qaddafi has admitted to having such unconventional weapons or programs to produce them, government and independent experts say.
But the details given by the White House indicated that for more than two decades, Libya had deceived international nuclear inspectors who have visited the country.
Like Iran, it hid facilities to produce nuclear fuel, though it did not appear that the Libyans actually succeeded in making the kind of fissile material needed to produce a bomb.
"Because Libya has a troubled history with America and Britain, we will be vigilant in ensuring its government lives up to all its responsibilities," Mr. Bush said.
His announcement came just two days before the 15th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am 103, an act of terrorism for which a Libyan agent was convicted two years ago.
In a clear reference to North Korea and Iran, two other countries that are suspected of pursuing programs to develop unconventional weapons, Mr. Bush added that "I hope other leaders will find an example" in Libya's action.
In two trips to Libya, including one earlier this month, American and British intelligence and weapons experts were given a tour of the country's arsenal, reportedly including mustard gas, a World War I-vintage chemical weapon, and materials for making nerve gas and missiles, the latter from North Korea.
None of these discoveries surprised the experts.
But one senior Administration official told reporters on Friday evening that the Libyans had gotten "much further" in their nuclear program than the United States had suspected, showing the Western visitors centrifuges that could be used to produce highly enriched uranium.
The officials declined to say what kind of centrifuges had been found, or what nations appeared to have helped Libya. Both North Korea and Iran have similar programs under way, though the administration official said that in Libya's case, Colonel Qaddafi's government had not declared that it had actually produced any weapons-grade uranium.
"That is something we will be pursuing," the official said. He added that the United States had learned a considerable amount about North Korea's missile trading business in the course of the talks with Libya.
A British official said the Libyans had shown visitors 10 nuclear-related sites, adding that while the country had not manufactured a nuclear weapon, "it was close to producing one."
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will be sent to assess how close, and to monitor the dismantling of the facilities, British and American officials said.
Not surprisingly, the White House described the surprise announcement as a victory for Mr. Bush in facing down rogue states developing such weapons. They also touted the Libyan move as vindication for the decision to go to war against Iraq - where no unconventional weapons have been found - because of the message it sent.
"In word and action, we have clarified the choices left to potential adversaries," Mr. Bush told reporters. "And when leaders make the wise and responsible choice, when they renounce terror and weapons of mass destruction, as Colonel Qaddafi has now done, they serve the interest of their own people and they add to the security of all nations."
The Libyan government, in a statement, said it had made the decision of its own "free will."
The White House said that despite Libya's apparent renunciation of unconventional weapons, Mr. Bush was not yet ready to lift American sanctions; United Nations sanctions were removed on Sept. 12 after a settlement involving the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 269 people.
In London, Mr. Blair said the Libyan overture on disarmament was a direct outgrowth of the talks that led to the settlements over the bombing. Under that agreement, Libya agreed to pay at least $5 million to the relatives of each victim.
In January 2001, a Libyan military intelligence official was convicted in the bombing, while an executive with the country's airline was acquitted. Mr. Blair said Libya wanted "to see if it could resolve its weapons of mass destruction issue in a similarly cooperative manner."
Libya's latest actions complicate the debate over the Iraq war for the Democrats, particularly for Howard Dean, the apparent front-runner in the primaries, who has opposed the war and said recently that the capture of Mr. Hussein had not made Americans any safer.
On Friday evening, though, many Democrats were calling Libya's renunciation of its weapons systems significant.
Ashton B. Carter, an assistant secretary of defense under President Clinton who is now co-director of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project, agreed that Iraq was a turning point in convincing Colonel Qaddafi to give up his weapons.
"One certainly hopes that what we did in Iraq put countries like Libya on notice that we're really serious about countering proliferation," said Mr. Carter, who has been advising Dr. Dean.
Some families of those killed on the Pan Am flight, now preparing to mark the grim anniversary, were clearly taken by surprise by Mr. Bush's suggestion that relations with Libya could markedly improve.
"I am in a state of horror and sickened shock," said Susan Cohen, whose only child, Theodora, 20, was on the plane. "Everyone was surprised by this."
"This was strictly a political, commercial decision," she said in a telephone interview. "I'm not a fool. I know it's oil and money interests. At the end of World War II, if Adolf Hitler could have been brought back in the fold, would we have done it? And this isn't even the end of the war."
Although Libya signed the international treaty banning nuclear weapons in 1975 and a similar international ban on biological weapons in 1982, independent weapons experts said Colonel Qaddafi had been trying to obtain unconventional weapons for decades.
Writing in The Nonproliferation Review in 1997, Joshua Sinai, then a senior analyst at the Library of Congress, concluded that Libya had in fact developed a "rudimentary capability to produce such weapons," particularly chemical weapons, by the late 1980's.
Libya is one of the few nations that have refused to sign the treaty banning chemical weapons. In a 1987 conflict with Chad, it became one of a handful of states to use such weapons in war, when it fired off Iranian-supplied mustard-gas bombs.
Washington has long accused Libya of producing blister and nerve agents at secret plants in Tarhuna, 50 miles southwest of Tripoli, and at the Pharma complex in Rabta, 75 miles southwest of Tripoli. Most of the chemical weapons seen by the visiting inspectors were at Rabta, one senior official said Friday.
Though Libya signed the treaty banning germ weapons in 1982, questions have remained as to whether it was complying with the agreement.
Intelligence agencies have alleged, for instance, that Colonel Qaddafi attempted to recruit South African scientists to help him develop biological weapons. And American intelligence agents concluded earlier this year that Nizar Hindawi, a senior scientist who once led Iraq's germ weapons program, had tried to emigrate to Libya in the mid-1990's, officials said.
But many analysts continued to say that if Libya had a weapons program at all, the effort was very primitive, and years from producing biological weapons.
Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting for this article.
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Libya: No Coercion in Weapons Agreement
December 20, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Libya-Weapons-Declaration.html
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi decided to abandon weapons of mass destruction after receiving assurances that the United States was not plotting his ouster, his son said Saturday.
Seif el-Islam Gadhafi said the move, announced late Friday by Libya and promptly confirmed by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was a ``win-win deal'' for both sides.
Seif said in a CNN interview that for Libya, the deal held out the prospect of the lifting of sanctions which would allow the North African nation to acquire defensive weapons and technology.
``It would pave the way for the normalization'' of relations with the United States, Seif said. It would also lead to the elimination of ``threats against Libya from (the) West and the (United) States in particular.''
Libya's Foreign Ministry said that after nine-months of secret talks with U.S. and British envoys, it agreed to rid itself of internationally banned weapons and adhere to treaties on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. It also agreed to tell the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, about its current nuclear programs.
While Bush and Blair said Moammar Gadhafi had bowed to pressure to halt his nation's drive to develop chemical and nuclear weapons, Libya claimed it had acted of ``its own free will'' to serve as an inspiration for the rest of the world.
As a first step, a Libyan delegation met Saturday with the head of the U.N. nuclear agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, at agency headquarters in Vienna to discuss the dismantling of the nuclear program, the agency's spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
The delegation then headed to Libya.
The decision came after Libyan weapons experts met with U.S. and British weapons experts to discuss Libya's weapons programs, stockpiles of materials and equipment, and development plans -- including to develop chemical weapons.
Libya admitted to nuclear fuel projects, including the possession of centrifuges and centrifuge parts used in uranium enrichment, a nuclear effort more advanced than previously thought.
Gadhafi said his country had taken ``a wise decision and a courageous step'' and that it wanted to lead by example ``in building a new world free of weapons of mass destruction and all kinds of terrorism, with the aim of preserving international peace and security and progress for humanity,'' reported Libya's official news agency JANA.
Gadhafi, who seized power in a 1969 military coup, said that ridding the world of such weapons would help promote ``popular democracy'' and ``meet ecological challenges so that the color green will prevail all over the globe.''
Seif Gadhafi said the process started almost a year ago when U.S. representatives approached him saying his father could be assured ``there was no agenda against him.''
When the Libyan leader was convinced the Americans were not plotting against him, ``he decided to discuss all the American concerns and to be more transparent, and he told them 'now we can trust each other and we can open all the files, including the WMD file','' his son said.
``I think we are more in need for this deal than the Americans or the British as we contribute to the prosperity and development and the security of Libya,'' Seif added.
Seif said it was no secret that Libya had ``an active nuclear program'' intended for civilian purposes but whose product could be ``transferred into a missile.''
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Secret U.S. Trips to Libya Led to Weapons Pledge
December 20, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-libya-usa-intelligence.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secret trips by American intelligence officers, late night meetings with Muammar Gaddafi and disclosures that the United States knew about Libya's arms programs led to Tripoli's pledge to give up its unconventional weapons, senior intelligence officials said on Saturday.
A team of American and British intelligence officers flew to Libya clandestinely in October and December for stretches of about two weeks, visiting sites where they were shown parts of the country's chemical, nuclear and missile programs.
Gaddafi appears to have been the driving force behind the process, and his motivation may have ranged from concerns about the U.S.-led war against Iraq and a desire to join the international community to concerns about extremism inside Libya, the officials said. ``The Libyans are very focused on extremism and have made some contributions to the war on terrorism,'' one of the intelligence officials said.
U.S. officials are optimistic about working with Libya on fighting terrorism, he said. ``We're hopeful that we can indeed do some collaborative work against some of the extremist groups who are threatening all sorts of people,'' he said.
The intelligence officers were accompanied at all times by Libyan intelligence, drivers changed cars along the way and the Westerners were ushered into office buildings for meetings with Gaddafi that started after 11 p.m.
``Operationally, we did conduct this entire business as secretly as we possibly could so it indeed was the result of a series of secret meetings in Europe and then of course trips clandestinely to Libya,'' a U.S. intelligence official who was on the visits told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Gaddafi's representatives initiated the process in mid-March by asking Britain to broker talks with the United States on its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
``During the meetings with Colonel Gaddafi, he was consistent throughout in his intentions to proceed with admission and elimination of their WMD programs,'' said one of the American intelligence officers who attended the meetings.
In each meeting Gaddafi sent a message back to London and Washington. ``It usually was late at night, but on each case he had done his homework and was ready for us and was quite generous with his time,'' he said.
When Libya learned how much the United States already knew about its weapons programs, that appeared to give Tripoli the final push to give up its banned weapons.
The American and British team was taken to dozens of sites, where they saw centrifuges and parts for centrifuges that appeared to be in working order. They also saw tons of sulfur mustard produced about a decade ago.
While the intelligence officials believe Libya had an active nuclear program, they declined to comment on how close the country was having a nuclear weapon.
``Suffice it to say the Libyans were substantially farther along on uranium enrichment programs than had been publicly disclosed before,'' said an official involved in analysis of weapons proliferation. ``And by far the most significant revelation they made to us was their disclosure of centrifuges. That was quite a milestone in their admission.''
The Libyans also showed the team advanced missiles delivered by North Korea in the late 1990s. ``They did allow us to do some sampling. They allowed us to take photos. They allowed us access that we continue to regard as extraordinary,'' the official said.
The team was given access to scientists and facilities used for medical or pharmacological purposes, but found no direct evidence of any biological weapons programs.
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Libya Vows to Give Up Banned Weapons
Bush and Blair Hail Results of Nine Months of Secret Talks
By Peter Slevin and Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16589-2003Dec19?language=printer
Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi has promised to surrender his country's weapons of mass destruction and halt its nuclear development program in a bid to end nearly two decades of international isolation, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced last night.
Libya will "immediately and unconditionally" allow international inspectors to enter the country to track unconventional weapons and oversee their destruction, said Bush, describing nine months of secret negotiations among U.S., British and Libyan officials.
A team of U.S. and British intelligence agents and weapons specialists made two trips to Libya, officials said, where they were allowed to visit 10 secret weapons sites, were shown chemical-warfare agents and discussed details with Libyan scientists. The Libyans said they had been working to develop a nuclear fuel cycle intended to provide fissile material for atomic weapons.
The announcement, made without warning in a choreographed sequence in Tripoli, London and Washington, continues a dramatic turnaround begun earlier this year when Libya took responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and agreed to pay as much as $10 million to the family of each of the 270 dead.
By describing the agreement himself, and praising Gaddafi for the decision, Bush staked a measure of his own credibility on Gaddafi's willingness to follow through. He pointedly contrasted the recent efforts of Gaddafi -- called an "evil man" by President Ronald Reagan, who ordered an airstrike on Gaddafi's desert headquarters -- with the actions of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
"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," Bush said. "Libya has begun the process of rejoining the community of nations."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who spoke with Gaddafi for a half-hour Thursday, said the Libyan leader had made a "courageous decision." He declared that "Libya's actions entitle it to rejoin the international community."
The Libyan foreign ministry issued a statement admitting that the country had sought to develop unconventional weapons, but had now agreed "of its own free will" to eliminate them and restrict itself to possessing missiles with a range no greater than 300 kilometers -- about 180 miles.
"Libya's belief," the statement said, "is that these arms do not serve its security nor the security of the region."
Bush and Blair, who have faced popular criticism for invading Iraq in the name of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, said the negotiations with Libya demonstrated their willingness to use diplomacy as well as "decisive action."
They noted the multilateral effort aimed at freezing Iran's nuclear program and preventing North Korea from advancing its atomic arsenal. Iran signed an agreement this week with the International Atomic Energy Agency that permits surprise inspections of its nuclear sites.
"For anyone who is a hawk on weapons of mass destruction, this is a welcome event," said Ashton Carter, assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration and an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. "We should hope that our resolve over Iraq's WMD had something to do with convincing the Libyan leadership to take this course."
White House officials said they felt certain that the brewing military confrontation with Iraq influenced Gaddafi's decision to reach out. Their British counterparts acknowledged the value of strong action, but also maintained that Britain's decision to reestablish diplomatic relations with Libya in 1999 was a factor.
Another significant factor, U.S. officials said, was that Libya had become aware that U.S. and British intelligence had developed direct, verifiable knowledge of weapons materials possessed by Gaddafi.
The U.S. hand in the negotiations was bolstered, officials said, by a previously undisclosed interdiction under the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led agreement with allies allowing searches of planes and ships suspected of carrying banned weapons or missile technologies. Officials provided no further details.
The United States, Britain and Libya held a series of meetings at a secure location in England. Final details were arranged at a meeting this week in Britain that included officials from the CIA and the National Security Council.
U.S. officials did not publicly discuss the lifting of sanctions against Libya, which have prevented U.S. oil companies from reclaiming their interest in the country's lucrative but antiquated oil industry. The U.S. companies have long been eager to return to the North African nation, but have been stopped by the Pan Am Flight 103 case and the ongoing punishment of Libya for its weapons program and terrorist past.
"Libya can regain a secure and respected place among the nations, and over time, achieve far better relations with the United States," Bush said.
Bush made no mention the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 or the families of those who died.
Susan Cohen, whose daughter was killed when a bomb exploded as the jetliner flew above Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, said she was disturbed by Bush's omission and by the agreement announced yesterday.
"It was a total betrayal," Cohen said. Gaddafi "blew up a plane. God knows, if this can happen, Osama bin Laden can come back."
Bob Monetti, who lost his 20-year-old son aboard the flight, said he remains suspicious of Libya's motives but is willing to give Gaddafi a chance.
"Most of us are in a 'Let's-see-what-goes-on attitude.' If, in fact, they have changed their stripes, maybe we should just get on with it," said Monetti, president of Families of Pan Am 103. "I still don't believe it, but it could actually be happening. It's in our financial interest that some of this happen, and we're still really skeptical about it."
Officials in Washington said the startling developments with Libya began in mid-March -- shortly before the U.S.-led assault on Iraq began March 19. Libya approached Britain seeking talks about its weapons of mass destruction. Through envoys, Gaddafi said he was willing to make a "decisive change," Bush said.
Delicate talks had been underway for two years over the Pan Am case. In the following months, the U.S. and British governments mobilized diplomats, intelligence officers and proliferation specialists to assess Libya's weapons programs and, eventually, to talk directly with Gaddafi's own experts.
As proof of their seriousness, the Libyans invited their counterparts to travel to Libya and inspect sites -- and even the weapons. Experts from the United States, Britain and the United Nations spent a total of three weeks in the country during trips in October and December.
As described by the administration, intelligence officials were given what amounted to a tour of Libya's covert weapons sites and laboratories. Experts met with scientists at research centers that could support biological weapons research and also examined missile research facilities.
"The Libyans were quite open. They provided access to facilities. They provided substantial documentation about their programs, and we were able to take samples and to take photographs and other evidence," a senior U.S. official said.
The official said the Libyans showed the visitors equipment in storage that could outfit a backup chemical weapons production line to reinforce or replace the facility near Rabta, where mustard gas was produced more than a decade ago.
They also revealed "dual-use" chemicals that can be used for peaceful purposes or for weapons, both mustard gas and nerve agent. All the while, the Libyans pledged to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and "committed to destroy all chemical warfare stocks and munitions," the official said.
British officials said that experts were given access to research projects, including uranium enrichment that could be used for nuclear weapons. They asserted Libya intended to develop a nuclear fuel cycle and had made progress in developing the ability to produce nuclear weapons.
A senior U.S. government expert said Libya worked with North Korea to develop extended-range SCUD missiles.
"This is an intelligence victory, it's a diplomatic victory and it's a victory for allied cooperation," said the official, who briefed reporters after Bush spoke.
Much of the information about the chemical, biological and missile programs was well-known before the exchange of information, but the nuclear disclosure was startling and "a little odd," said Joseph Cirincione at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He said it made little sense for Libya to embark on a slow and costly nuclear weapons program and wondered how much of the nuclear research was new or simply left over from earlier, now discarded programs.
"Today's announcement is a further step in making the world a safer place," added Blair, who said Britain would continue to pursue talks with Iran and North Korea to end their weapons programs. "Today's decisions show that recent events and political determination are opening up possibilities which just a few years ago would have been unthinkable," he said.
"Today's announcement shows that we can fight this menace through more than purely military means; that we can defeat it peacefully, if countries are prepared, in good faith, to work with the international community to dismantle such weapons. Those countries who pursue such a path will find ready partners in the U.S. and in the U.K., as Libya will see."
"It's a big accomplishment," said Gary Samore, a weapons expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "The Libyan nuclear program was never considered a serious threat. But it's widely believed that for many years -- going back to the Reagan years -- Libya was working on chemical weapons. For them to commit to joining the chemical weapons convention is an important step. It's in keeping with Gaddafi's efforts to patch up relations with the West."
Frankel reported from London. Staff writers Mike Allen, Glenn Kessler, Vernon Loeb and Robin Wright contributed to this report.
-------- mideast
Libya scores diplomatic coup by renouncing weapons of mass destruction
TRIPOLI (AFP)
Dec 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031220210647.mf4dfkq3.html
Libya has taken the international community by surprise, admitting after years of adamant denial that it has weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and vowing to renounce them.
"Libya will henceforth lead countries working towards ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction," said the north African country's long-time leader Moamer Kadhafi after Tripoli issued a low-key statement Friday renouncing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The statement, issued to reporters by Foreign Minister Abdelrahman Shalgam, came after nine months of secret negotiations with Washington and London, and was an about-face on Tripoli's previous insistence that Libya did not have any WMDs.
The news broke two days before the 15th anniversary of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, which was carried out by Libyan agents and turned the state into a virtual pariah in the West.
Kadhafi said the move heralded "a key role (for Libya) in building a world free of terrorism, of all these weapons, a world at peace and in development."
Deputy Foreign Minister Hassuna Shaush told AFP on Saturday that Tripoli was keen to turn over a new leaf in its relations with the West and the United States in particular.
"After Lockerbie, Libya wants to settle matters of contention with the United States and Great Britain, including weapons of mass destruction," he said.
"Our aim is to begin again with the United States on a new footing."
In the official statement, Libya admitted that "it tried to develop its defensive capabilities when its calls to make the Middle East and Africa zones exempt from all weapons of mass destruction went unheeded.
"Libya reaffirms its commitment to all conventions, including the addendum protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and declares itself ready to welcome any international inspection mission," it said.
In the discreet talks with Washington and London, Libyan delegates had submitted information on "substances, equipment and programmes which are used to produce WMDs."
These included "centrifuges and equipment for transporting chemical products," the statement said. Libya will also scale back the range of its missiles, it added.
On Saturday, Libyan officials met the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, in Vienna to discuss the country's programmes on WMDs, an IAEA spokesman said.
"A high-level Libyan delegation has just met here with Dr ElBaradei and experts from the IAEA," spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
During secret visits to Libya, US intelligence officials said Saturday they found a more advanced uranium enrichment program than publicly disclosed and were given extraordinary access during visits in October and December.
"What seems very surprising is the extent we were given access to this stuff over the course of the visits," said one senior US official.
They visited nine nuclear-related sites, including a Soviet built research reactor, and dozens of other locations across the country related to chemical, biological, and missile programs.
US President George W. Bush said "Libya has begun the process of rejoining the community of nations.
"And Colonel Kadhafi knows the way forward," the US leader added. "Libya should carry out the commitments announced today. Libya should also fully engage in the war against terror."
Washington and Tripoli have not had diplomatic relations since 1981, and Libya remains under US sanctions over the 1988 Pan Am bombing in which 270 people died.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the renunciation "courageous" and "historic."
"I applaud it. It demonstrates that countries can abandon programmes voluntarily and peacefully," he said.
Bush put Libya's renunciation in the context of Washington's war on terror. He said it bolstered the US policy of using whatever works -- diplomacy or force -- to fight extremist groups and rogue states seeking to obtain or already possessing WMDs.
"Opposing proliferation (of WMDs) is one of the highest priorities of the war on terrorism," he said, sending a message to other states -- North Korea in particular -- to follow Tripoli's lead.
Canada, France, Israel, Japan and China all welcomed the Tripoli bombshell, with the Chinese foreign ministry calling "strengthened international dialogue and cooperation... an efficient way of solving non-proliferation issues."
Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign and security policy chief said the agreement "clearly proves that diplomacy can win over proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons".
Arab analysts said Kadhafi's decision showed Tripoli had learnt a lesson from the US-led war to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who failed to satisfy American and British suspicions about his own alleged WMDs.
In Tripoli, the Al-Shams newspaper confined itself to saying: "Now more than ever, Libyans need weapons of economic and social reconstruction, not mass destruction."
----
Libyan officials meet with IAEA chief
VIENNA (AFP)
Dec 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031220185728.9vhbke6n.html
Libyan officials met here Saturday with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, to discuss the country's programmes on weapons of mass destruction, an IAEA spokesman said.
"A high-level Libyan delegation has just met here with Dr ElBaradei and experts from the IAEA," spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
"The discussion was about Libya's weapons of mass destruction programmes."
The meeting at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna follows the widely-hailed announcement Friday that Libya was renouncing all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Gwozdecky said the Libyan delegation consisted of members of the country's national board of science research, but he could give no further details of its talks with the UN nuclear watchdog.
US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair late Friday said Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi had agreed, after nine months of secret diplomacy, to dismantle weapons of mass destruction and "immediately" welcome international inspectors.
The Libyan delegation was due to leave Vienna on Saturday evening or on Sunday, Gwozdecky said.
----
Libyan uranium enrichment plans more advanced than thought: US intelligence
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031220190921.i59u4kxt.html
During secret visits to Libya, US intelligence officials found a more advanced uranium enrichment program than publicly disclosed but no evidence of actual production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, officials said Saturday.
They were given extraordinary access during two week-long visits in October and December with the help and encouragement of Libyan leader Colonel Moamer Kadhafi who met personally with them, senior intelligence officials said.
The secret dealings culminated Friday with the stunning annoucement in London and Washington and Tripoli that Libya has agreed to fully disclose and dismantle its programs to build unconventional weapons under international supervision.
"It wasn't individual things that we were shown that we were blown away by," said one senior intelligence oficial. "What seems very surprising is the extent we were given access to this stuff over the course of the visits."
They visited nine nuclear-related sites, including a Soviet built research reactor, and dozens of other locations across the country related to chemical, biological, and missile programs.
They were allowed to take samples and photographs and interview scientists, said two senior intelligence officials who who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
They would not disclose the specific sites visited or what they found in them, saying they would leave that to the Libyans.
"The analysts that I talked that were on the team were quite excited about the level of access that they eventually got," the official said.
They said that what they found vindicted what the US intelligence community already knew about Libya's unconventional weapons program.
"The Libyans were substantially farther along uranium enrichment program than had been publicly disclosed before," the official said.
"By far the most significant revelation they made was their disclosure of centrifuges. That was quite a milestone in their admissions," he said
On other weapons program, they were shown "tens of tonnes" of sulphur mustard agent produced at Libya's Rabta chemical plant about a decade ago, as hundreds of 250 kilogram aerial bombs equipped to deliver mustard agent.
They said they were shown dual-use precursor chemicals that could be used to produce nerve agent, but would not say whether any active chemical warfare production lines were found.
"Those are details that will come that from the Libyans or further inspections," one of the officials said.
They were given access to medical and pharmaceutical facilities that could also be used for production of biological warfare agents, as well to scientists.
"But (what) we did not find in the limited time we had to sample and interview was direct evidence of biological weapons programs," one of the officials said. "The Libyans did not acknowledge having biological weapons."
----
George W. Bush's speech on Libya's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031219234737.2m8tk11p.html
In a surprise announcement, US President George W. Bush announced that Libya had renounced all of its programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Herewith Bush's complete eight minute speech, which began at 5:32 pm Friday.
Good evening. I have called you here today to announce a development of great importance in our continuing effort to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Today in Tripoli, the leader of Libya, Colonel Moamer al-Kadhafi, 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.
These inspectors will render an accounting of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and will help oversee their elimination. Colonel Kadhafi's commitment, once it is fulfilled, will make our country more safe and the world more peaceful.
Talks leading to this announcement began about nine months, ago when Prime Minister Tony Blair and I were contacted through personal envoys by Colonel Kadhafi. He communicated to us his willingness to make a decisive change in the policy of his government.
At the direction of Colonel Kadhafi himself, Libyan officials have provided American and British 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.
Opposing proliferation is one of the highest priorities of the war against terror. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001 brought tragedy to the United States and revealed a future threat of even greater magnitude.
Terrorists who killed thousands of innocent people would, if they ever gained weapons of mass destruction, kill hundreds of thousands -- without hesitation and without mercy. And this danger is dramatically increased when regimes build or acquire weapons of mass destruction and maintain ties to terrorist groups.
The United States and our allies are applying a broad and active strategy to address the challenges of proliferation, through diplomacy and through the decisive actions that are sometimes needed.
We've enhance our intelligence capabilities in order to trace dangerous weapons activities. We've organized a proliferation security initiative to interdict dangerous materials and technologies in transit. We've insisted on multilateral approaches like that in North Korea to confront threats. We are supporting the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency to hold the Iranian regime to its treaty obligations.
We obtained an additional United Nations Security Council Resolution requiring Saddam Hussein to prove that he had disarmed, and when that resolution was defied, we led a coalition to enforce it.
All of these actions by the United States and our allies have sent an unmistakable message to regimes that seek or possess weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons do not bring influence or prestige. They bring isolation and otherwise unwelcome consequences.
And another message should be equally clear: 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.
With today's announcement by its leader, Libya has begun the process of rejoining the community of nations. And Colonel Kadhafi knows the way forward. Libya should carry out the commitments announced today. Libya should also fully engage in the war against terror.
Its government, in response to the United Nations Security Council Lockerbie demands, has already renounced all acts of terrorism and pledged cooperation in the international fight against terrorism. We expect Libya to meet these commitments, as well.
As the Libyan government takes these essential steps and demonstrates its seriousness, its good faith will be returned.
Libya can regain a secure and respected place among the nations, and over time, achieve far better relations with the United States. The Libyan people are heirs to an ancient and respected culture, and their country lies at the center of a vital region. As Libya becomes a more peaceful nation, it can be a source of stability in Africa and the Middle East.
Should Libya pursue internal reform, America will be ready to help its people to build a more free and prosperous country.
Great Britain shares this commitment, and Prime Minister Blair and I welcome today's declaration by Colonel Kadhafi. Because Libya has a troubled history with America and Britain, we will be vigilant in ensuring its government lives up to all its responsibilities.
Yet, as we have found with other nations, old hostilities do not need to go on forever. And I hope that other leaders will find an example in Libya's announcement today.
Our understanding with Libya came about through quiet diplomacy. It is a result, however, of policies and principles declared to all.
Over the last two years, a great coalition of nations has come together to oppose terror and to oppose the spread of weapons of mass destruction. We've been clear in our purposes. We have shown resolve.
In word and in action, we have clarified the choices left to potential adversaries. And when leaders make the wise and responsible choice, when they renounce terror and weapons of mass destruction, as Colonel Kadhafi has now done, they serve the interest of their own people and they add to the security of all nations.
----
Despite "rogue" state label, Libya had little apparent succes with weapons of mass destruction
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031220001735.q9d8pnv8.html
Despite its label as a "rogue state," past US intelligence assessments indicate Libya has had little success over the years with programs to develop chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
A CIA report to Congress that was released in November noted Libya's reliance on foreign expertise and technology, but said that the suspension of sanctions against Libya in 1999 made it easier for it to acquire dual use technologies.
Libya has made its greatest strides with chemical weapons, producing about 100 ton of mustard gas and nerve agents in the 1980s at a plant in Rabta and using chemical agents against Chadian troops in 1987, according to US estimates.
But it closed the Rabta plant in 1990 and it halted construction of a huge underground complex at Tarhuna discovered in 1996 following US threats to take decisive action to keep it from becoming operational.
A Pentagon report entitled "Proliferation: Threat and Response" concluded in January 2001 that both plants were believed to be inactive, although the chemical program had not been completely abandoned. The more recent CIA report said "Tripoli still appeared to be working toward an offensive CW (chemical warfare) capability and eventual indigenous production."
"Evidence suggested that Libya also sought dual-use capabilities that could be used to develop and produce BW (biological warfare) agents," it said.
The Pentagon report in 2001 said Libya's biological weapons program "remains in research and development stage."
"Without foreign assistance and technical expertise to help Libya use available dual use materials, the Libyan biological warfare program is not likely to make significant progress beyond its current stage," the report said.
That report also said Libya had made little progress on its longstanding goal of acquiring or developing a nuclear weapon although it might be trying to recruit foreign experts to help.
Libya, which signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has a Soviet supplied research reactor at Tajura that is under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
The CIA report said Moscow and Tripoli continued to hold talks on the Tajura nuclear research center.
"In addition, Libya participated in various technical exchanges through which it could have tried to obtain dual-use equipment and technology that could have enhanced its overall technical capabilities in the nuclear area," it said.
Libya's 20-year effort to produce its own missile likewise has met with only limited success, according to the Pentagon report in 2001, which said its aging Scud missile force was of only limited use.
Two years later the CIA said Libya's missile program depended on foreign assistance from Serbian, Indian, Iranian and Chinese entities.
"With continued foreign assistance, Libya will likely achieve an MRBM (medium range ballistic missile) capability -- a long-desired goal -- probably through direct purchase from North Korea or Iran," the CIA said.
----
Libya's nuclear program more advanced than thought: US intelligence
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031220180924.97ty97er.html
During secret visits to Libya, US intelligence officials found a more advanced uranium enrichment program than publicly disclosed but no evidence of actual production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, officials said Saturday.
They were given extraordinary access during two-week-long visits in October and December with the help and encouragement of Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Khadafy who met personally with them, senior intelligence officials said.
The secret dealings culminated Friday with the stunning annoucement in London and Washington and Tripoli that Libya has agreed to fully disclose and dismantle its programs to build unconventional weapons under international supervision.
"It wasn't individual things that we were shown that we were blown away by," said one senior intelligence oficial. "What seems very surprising is the extent we were given access to this stuff over the course of the visits."
They visited nine nuclear-related sites, including a Soviet-built research reactor at Tajura, and dozens of other locations across the country related to chemical, biological, and missile programs.
They were allowed to take samples and photographs and interview scientists, said two senior intelligence officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
"The analysts that I talked to that were on the team were quite excited about the level of access that they eventually got," the official said.
The officials would not disclose the specific sites visited, what they found in them, or what they learned about Libya's suppliers.
But they said they hoped intelligence gathered would help disrupt or interdict networks supplying weapons programs of other countries or of terrorist organizations.
"I would say we'll benefit significantly from being able to unravel this particular program and use it as a template for collections against other programs, as well as stop other programs before they get well started," said a the second senior intelligence official.
They said that what they found vindicted what the US intelligence community already knew about Libya's unconventional weapons program.
"The Libyans were substantially farther along in the uranium enrichment program than had been publicly disclosed before," the first official said.
"By far the most significant revelation they made was their disclosure of centrifuges. That was quite a milestone in their admissions," he said
However, they saw no functioning cascade of centrifuges required to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons, and the Libyans denied having actually enriched uranium, the official said.
On other weapons program, they were shown "tens of tonnes" of sulphur mustard agent produced at Libya's Rabta chemical plant about a decade ago, as well as hundreds of 250 kilogram aerial bombs equipped to deliver mustard agent.
They said the teams were also shown dual-use precursor chemicals that could be used to produce nerve agent, but would not say whether any active chemical warfare production lines were found.
"Those are details that will come that from the Libyans or further inspections," the first intelligence official said.
They were given access to medical and pharmaceutical facilities that could also be used for production of biological warfare agents, as well to scientists.
"But (what) we did not find in the limited time we had to sample and interview was direct evidence of biological weapons programs," one of the officials said. "The Libyans did not acknowledge having biological weapons."
They also were shown North Korean-supplied Scud C missiles with a range of about 800 kilometers, they said.
The series of secret meeting began in mid-March. But the biggest "breakthrough" came between the two visits by technical experts in October and December after the Libyans learned how detailed US knowlege of their programs was, the officials said.
"It pretty quickly convinced them that they needed to be even more forthcoming than they might have been otherwise," one of the officials said.
The second official, who led the US teams that went to Libya, described Khadafy as the "driver" of the process and said he appeared to have a variety of motives, including concerns about his legacy, as well as challenges from "extremism" within Libya.
The official raised the possibility of working more closely with the Libyans in the future against extremists.
"During the meetings with Colonel Khadafy, he was consistent throughout in his intentions to stay with the admission and elimination of their WMD programs," the official said.
-------- us politics
Ease a Little Guilt, Provide Some Jobs; It's Pork on the Hill
December 20, 2003
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/politics/20PORK.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Like most other members of Congress, Representative Jim Gibbons, Republican of Nevada, tries to do what he can for the folks back home.
So when the House passed a catchall spending bill this month, Mr. Gibbons wasted no time in announcing that he had secured millions of dollars for Nevada, including $6 million for a bus terminal, $2 million for a truck climbing lane and $1.6 million for drinking water improvements.
But it was a lesser appropriation - $225,000 to repair a swimming pool in Sparks, Nev., his hometown - that got Mr. Gibbons in hot water. The 59-year-old congressman confessed that he sought the money because he had always felt guilty about clogging the pool's drain with tadpoles when he was 10 years old.
"Congressman Gibbons is using taxpayer dollars to repay his debt to society," Brian M. Reidl, a federal budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a research organization, said in describing the pool money as his "favorite pork story."
Mr. Gibbons, who defends the project as "very meritorious," is far from the only lawmaker riding the pork gravy train this year.
The spending bill, called an omnibus, is stuffed with an estimated 7,000 special interest provisions, from $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa to $150,000 for a stop light and traffic improvements in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. If the Senate approves it, total spending on pet projects - which has more than doubled in the last five years - will reach roughly $23 billion this year, the most ever, according to watchdog groups that track federal spending.
Pork barrel projects are a time-honored tradition in Washington. But observers of the Congressional efforts are surprised, and in some cases dismayed, by the size of the special-interest projects this year, at a time when the federal deficit is rising and Republicans, who fashion themselves as fiscally conservative, run both houses of Congress.
The spending bill, which the Senate will take up in January, treats the home states of powerful appropriators especially well. Alaska, home to Senator Ted Stevens, the Republican chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, would reap millions under the measure, including $1 million for the Anchorage Museum and $1 million for the Tongass Coast Aquarium. Florida, the home state of Representative C. W. Bill Young, a Republican who is Mr. Stevens's counterpart in the House, also stands to gain millions.
Every state - indeed nearly every Congressional district, no matter Democratic or Republican - is the recipient of one pork project or another. The measure includes $200,000 for the University of Hawaii to produce a documentary on the Kalahari Bushmen, $220,000 to renovate a blueberry research center at the University of Maine and, in a provision Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, called "most ironic," $500,000 for the "Exercise in Hard Choices" program at the University of Akron, which examines how Congress makes budget decisions.
"It's worse than ever, and it's even more egregious because the Republicans are in charge, and everyone thought that they would be fiscally responsible," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, an advocacy group that named Mr. Gibbons "Porker of the Month" for the pool provision. "That's the big disappointment."
Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, has defended the $820 billion measure, which includes $328.1 billion in discretionary spending, as fiscally responsible, saying it represents an increase of just 3 percent over last year. In remarks on the House floor the day the bill was approved, Mr. DeLay, a Texan, said it was filled with "sound, disciplined policies, funded at reasonable, responsible levels."
As to pork, Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers prefer a different term: earmarks. Such projects are typically neither subject to Congressional hearings nor competitively awarded through the federal bureaucracy's grant-making process. Usually, they are requested by a single member of Congress and serve only a single local or special interest. Whatever the name, lawmakers defend the practice vigorously.
"Look, this is the standard practice the United States Congress has had for decades," Mr. Gibbons said. "They allocate a percentage of the budget to go to special projects in various members' districts. There are thousands in there. I have one of those thousands. I do not regard this as pork."
The amount of money set aside for earmarks has been increasing for a number of reasons. Mr. DeLay told his House colleagues that the practice began escalating when President Bill Clinton was in the White House. Republicans in Congress, disdainful of the Democratic president's spending priorities, decided they had "the right to direct spending to our districts, rather than wait on some bureaucrat to decide whether it was a useful project or not."
But Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, a group that is critical of pork barrel spending, notes that when Mr. Clinton was president, the federal government had a surplus.
"There simply wasn't the same amount of pressure on Congress to keep a lid on this activity," Mr. Sepp said. "Unfortunately, we've been in a deficit situation for two years, the better part of three, now, and we have not seen an appropriate change in Congressional behavior."
If anything, pork projects are getting more parochial. To read through the 1,182-page omnibus is to discover that no detail is too small to escape Congress' attention. The bill, for example, allocates $10,000 for the Endless Mountain Transportation Authority in Bradford County, Pa; $12,000 for a group called 100 Black Men of Louisville, Ky; and $15,000 for the Fisher's Peak Y.M.C.A. in Trinidad, Colo.
Of course, one man's pork is another man's economic development, as David Oman, the administrator of the Iowa Environmental/Education Project can attest.
The project, to be built on a former industrial site in Coralville, is intended as a national tourist destination; it will feature copies of ecosystems, including a 4.5-acre indoor rain forest. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, secured $50 million for it. Mr. Oman estimates it will infuse $120 million each year into the flagging Iowa economy.
As to the pork label, Mr. Oman said: "The irony of Iowa being the No. 1 pork state in the country, for pork production, is not lost on us. It's disappointing, because it entirely misses the mark."
One reason such earmarks flourish is that they help create support for passing sometimes controversial appropriations bills; no lawmaker is going to vote against a measure that helps his or her own district. This year, earmarks were withheld from certain lawmakers who voted against appropriations bills.
Among them was Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York, who is on the House appropriations committee and voted against the spending bill covering the Departments of Education, Labor and Health and Human Services. After the vote, she said, the subcommittee chairman responsible for the measure, Representative Ralph Regula, Republican of Ohio, informed her and others who voted no that their earmarks would be denied.
"It's a shame," Mrs. Lowey said, adding that she lost several million dollars worth of projects as a result. But she did get some other earmarks, including the $150,000 for the stop light and traffic improvements in Briarcliff Manor, which she said are necessary to improve safety at a local school.
Mrs. Lowey said she based her earmark requests on the needs outlined by officials in her district. Mr. Gibbons, likewise, said the mayor of Sparks asked him for money to improve the pool. It was only then, nearly half a century after what people in his district have called "the Polliwog Caper," that the congressman's long-held secret came out.
-------- MILITARY
-------- business
PENTAGON INQUIRY
Halliburton Says It Saved U.S. Oil Money
December 20, 2003
By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/politics/20OIL.html
The Halliburton Company, which has come under scrutiny from Pentagon auditors for the high price of the fuel it imported from Kuwait to Iraq, said this week that it had saved the government money by using multiple suppliers of fuel for Iraq. Pentagon auditors issued a draft report last week saying Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary overcharged the United States government by as much as $61 million for fuel supplies in Iraq. The Houston-based oil services company has a contract with the Army Corps of Engineers to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure. Part of that contract involves importing gasoline and other fuels to Iraq.
Halliburton officials noted that the government required it to import some relatively expensive Kuwaiti fuel into Iraq, but that it saved taxpayers $164 million by importing most of the fuel from Turkey.
Halliburton posted a response to the Pentagon audit on its corporate Web site, saying the Army Corps of Engineers required KBR to use a Kuwaiti supplier and approved the deal KBR struck with that supplier, the Altanmia Commercial Marketing Company. Halliburton said three other potential Kuwaiti suppliers it had considered failed to meet government specifications. In addition, the company said it originally suggested that the government use Turkish suppliers.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said Friday that the agency had received and was evaluating Halliburton's response to its auditors' queries. She declined to comment further.
Halliburton said about one-third of the fuel KBR imports to Iraq comes from Kuwait while the remainder comes from Turkey. The company said the average cost for fuel from Turkey and Kuwait was $1.60 per gallon, which it said was inside Pentagon auditors' guidelines. But Pentagon documents say the government pays KBR an average of $2.64 per gallon for Kuwaiti fuel, twice as much as other importers pay.
A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Wendy Hall, said Turkish fuel costs about $1.18 a gallon, and since it represents the majority of the fuel KBR imports, it brings the average fuel cost down to $1.60 per gallon.
"We believe our response proves KBR delivered fuel to Iraq at the best value, the best price and the best terms," Randy Harl, Kellogg Brown & Root's chief executive, said in a press release on Thursday. Halliburton said that because of the danger the work presents to its employees it has repeatedly but unsuccessfully tried to transfer the fuel supply contract to a local company in Iraq.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that his staff was told by a Pentagon official that an internal Halliburton audit had warned of possible overcharges by a Kuwaiti supplier before the issue was raised by Pentagon auditors.
Ms. Hall, the Halliburton spokeswoman, disputed that account in a statement. "The confidential issues identified in the company's internal evaluation did not warn or say that there were excessive fuel prices and did not identify any violation of government contracting regulations," she said.
-------- colombia
Warning on Colombia
December 20, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/international/americas/20COLO.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - The State Department issued a new warning on Friday against travel to Colombia, saying Americans and other foreigners faced an increased threat of being killed or kidnapped in major urban areas.
Twenty-seven Americans have been abducted in various parts of Colombia since 2000, most of them by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, two Marxist rebel groups, the State Department said.
-------- iraq
'Sick' Saddam drugged: visitor
By Peter Wilson in Baghdad
December 20, 2003
The Australian
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8216785%5E401,00.html
A STARTLING new photograph of a sick-looking Saddam Hussein suggests he is being drugged or given strong medication by his US captors.
Saddam Hussein in his cell a day after his capture. The man who took the photo told The Weekend Australian last night Hussein appeared very sick when he was visited by Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi two days after being captured near Tikrit.
In the photo Hussein appears in much worse shape than when arrested, with pronounced bags under bloodshot eyes and a sticking plaster on the back of his right hand where he has reportedly been receiving intravenous injections.
Hussein's daughter has claimed her father must be being drugged by his CIA interrogators for him to submit meekly to questioning.
The photo shows the former president, who once lived in a string of palaces, is now being kept in a converted bathroom lit by spotlights, with his bed right next to a toilet on a tiled shower recess.
Hussein's location is a tightly guarded secret, but the only wall-hanging in the room was a US military map of Baghdad - suggesting he was being kept at a US base in the capital, probably at Baghdad airport.
The photo of a sick-looking and unkempt Hussein showed him being visited by Dr Chalabi, who fled Iraq in 1958 after Hussein ordered him killed, and is now the Pentagon's favourite to become the next Iraqi president.
That photo and another in which he is talking to Dr Chalabi in an animated way, caused a stir in Baghdad when they were published on the front page of Al-Mutamar, the newspaper of Dr Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, which said the meeting took place on Monday.
Dr Chalabi has refused to discuss his meeting with Hussein or to release copies of the photo, leaving the world's media to copy the image from his newspaper.
But the man who took the photograph said Hussein was being kept in a converted bathroom measuring 4m by 2 1/2m, with three fluorescent tubes and several spotlights glaring on the room's dank tiles. The only people in the room were Hussein, Dr Chalabi, some US military guards, and the photographer, a senior executive on Dr Chalabi's newspaper.
The photographer, who had stood just two metres from Hussein, said the former dictator was obviously sick, and pointed out his baggy eyes in the photo.
While Dr Chalabi sat on a chair in a raised part of the bathroom, Hussein sat on his bed in a converted shower space next to a toilet in the recessed tiled part of the room.
The room had no windows, and the only other furniture was a wash-basin and a hat rack.
After Hussein's capture on Saturday in a hole on a farm outside a village near Tikrit, US officials released photos and video footage showing him with a long beard but generally looking healthy.
On Sunday, he was visited by Dr Chalabi and three other members of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, who said Hussein appeared defiant and surly but did not describe him as being unwell.
If the photo was taken the following day, as the newspaper reported, then Hussein's health appeared to have deteriorated.
During the visit by Dr Chalabi, Hussein was wearing a plastic jacket over a white traditional-style robe, even though Monday was a warm day in Baghdad.
----
IRAQ'S NORTH
2 Kurdish Parties Close to Forming Unity Government
December 20, 2003
New York Times
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/international/middleeast/20KURD.html
ULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Dec. 19 - The two governing political parties in this country's long-divided Kurdish region are close to establishing a unified government, senior Kurdish officials said here on Friday.
Once they have created a single government in the Kurdish areas of the north, the officials said, they will push for a federalist system in Iraq that will give them broad autonomy in their mountainous region. That vision conflicts with the division of powers being promoted by many Iraqi politicians, who want regional powers divided among smaller provinces throughout the country.
Kurdish leaders say they intend to form their unified government well before the Coalition Provisional Authority establishes an Iraqi transitional government at the end of June. That way, the leaders say, the Kurds will speak with one voice in trying to shape the format and the powers of the transitional government. Though the Kurds make up only a fifth of the population, they are now more organized than any other ethnic or religious group in the country, including the Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population.
"It is important that we push for the reunification," said Barham Salih, prime minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, based here in Sulaimaniya. "It will lay the foundation for federal democracy in Iraq. We have a very specific vision for Iraq, and if we put our own house in order, we can put forward our vision of Iraq."
No representatives of the Coalition Provisional Authority could be reached for comment on Friday.
The new government would unite the two parallel administrations of the Kurdish region for the first time since war broke out in 1994 between the two dominant political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Each controls half of northern Iraq.
The senior Kurdish officials interviewed here said the parties had identified leading candidates for the top positions in the new government. Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the K.D.P., will probably be named prime minister, said the officials, who were briefed on the talks. Kosrat Rasool, the former prime minister of the P.U.K., will probably become the head of parliament, they said.
There is a proposal to set up 10 ministries, they said, with 6 run by the K.D.P. and 4 by the P.U.K. That split follows the results of the parliamentary elections in May 1992, in which the K.D.P. won 51 percent of the general vote and the P.U.K. 49 percent. A Kurdish regional government was formed after those elections but fell apart after the two parties went to war in 1994.
Separately, the senior Kurdish officials said, Mr. Salih, the prime minister of the P.U.K., has a good chance of being appointed soon by Iraqi officials to be the country's ambassador to the United Nations. If he assumes that role, it will give the Kurds a stronger voice in shaping the foreign policy of Iraq, since the country's recently appointed foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, is also a Kurd.
Mr. Salih, who served as the P.U.K.'s representative in Washington, declined to confirm or deny that he was a leading candidate for the ambassadorship. "If this turned out to be true," he said, "it would be unrelated to the creation of the new Kurdish government. It is a decision by the Governing Council."
Massoud Barzani, the K.D.P.'s representative to the council and the uncle of Nechirvan Barzani, and Jalal Talabani, the P.U.K.'s representative on the council, met at the end of November to speed up talks. Since then, said Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the K.D.P., high-ranking party officials have met twice more.
Mr. Salih said the formation of the unified Kurdish government "will have to move at a much faster pace" than that at which American and Iraqi officials are creating the country's transitional government.
"Like any other federal state, this will be an autonomous region," Mr. Salih said. Under the Kurdish vision, he said, the national Iraqi government would have control over national defense, monetary policy and foreign policy. The governments of the Kurdish regions and other areas would have control over all other matters, including economic policy.
The Kurds took over the region after 1991, when the the United States established a no-flight zone there to prevent Saddam Hussein's military from attacking. They built up the region with money from fees levied on trucks smuggling oil, food and other goods across the Turkey-Iraq border during the era of United Nations sanctions. As a result, their territory is now the most modernized and democratic region of Iraq, and they want to keep it that way.
"We have demonstrated over the last 12 years that this works better than what any central government could do," Mr. Salih said. "Our new government will help to put Iraq's house in order."
That government, he added, "will have to be a coalition government because of the realities of politics in this region."
--------
Iraqis Exact Revenge on Baathists
Police Shrug Off Killings of 50 Hussein Loyalists by Unknown Gunmen
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16407-2003Dec19?language=printer
BAGHDAD -- Basil Abbas Taee never saw the slip of paper entitled Final Warning.
The note, which his sons said was tossed over the gate of his house in southeast Baghdad, cautioned that he was being watched. "If you go out of your home or have connections with other Baathists, you and all your family will be killed as a lesson to all criminal Baathists," the message threatened. It was signed the Committee for Retribution.
Taee, 59, a former local official in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, had received an earlier written warning in September and menacing phone calls, his brothers recalled. But after two months of staying home, he began to brave the streets again. When his wife found the final warning note in late November, she hid it from him, afraid it would aggravate his ailing kidneys and high blood pressure.
Two weeks ago, as Taee sat alone in his small real estate office, a lone gunman shot him in the chest, according to his brothers, citing witness accounts. He died before reaching the hospital.
His death was one of the latest in a series of murders of former Baath Party officials in this city. Iraqi sources with contacts among former and current security officials estimate that about 50 senior figures in Hussein's intelligence, military intelligence and internal security organizations have been gunned down in recent months. There has been an even larger toll among neighborhood party officials, such as Taee, who are blamed for having informed on the local community during Hussein's rule, these sources said.
Neither the morgue nor officers in Iraq's new police force -- who concede they have little interest in probing these deaths -- have tallied the figures. But the phenomenon is citywide, according to a survey of police stations, with numbers varying widely from one district to another.
In the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday, officials said an angry crowd attacked and killed Ali Zalimi, a former Baath Party official. Zalimi was believed to have played a role in crushing the Shiite uprising in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War.
The massive settling of scores that some U.S. and Iraqi officials had predicted did not initially materialize after Hussein's government fell in April. Sporadic killings occurred during the following months, notably in the southern city of Basra. But only in recent weeks did the tempo of attacks accelerate as Iraqis, frustrated with the slow progress of the court system and fearing that Baathists may be seeking to reorganize, have increasingly taken justice into their own hands, according to Iraqi security and political sources.
"We are an Eastern, tribal society with the principle of vengeance. Revenge will be exacted," said Maj. Abbas Abed Ali of the Baya police station in southwest Baghdad. He said at least six Baathists have been murdered in his district since late November.
In Sadr City, a sprawling, hardscrabble neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, police reported that the assassinations began about three weeks ago and now number at least one or two a day, perhaps more. They said some families do not disclose that the victims were Baathists.
"This is absolutely organized, but we don't know precisely who's behind it," said Capt. Awad Nima, who heads police administration in Sadr City. "These killings are a vendetta for the killings by the Baath Party. . . . Would you expect those people who lost their sons not to take any action?"
Nima said the assassinations have centered on Hussein followers implicated in violence, not all former party members. The murders seem meticulously planned, and the perpetrators leave behind no clues, he said. With few leads, detectives have made little progress in figuring out who is killing the Baathists, but Nima said this does not trouble him.
"There's only a limited number of them. Once they're all dead, this will have to end," he said.
Another of those killed was Ismail Hassan Saadi, 50, who ran the personnel and management department in one of Sadr City's Baath offices. His sons described him as a devout Muslim, respected in the community for using his party position to intervene with the government on behalf of those who had been wrongly arrested or were wanted for deserting the army. Neighbors, however, said Saadi was deeply involved in repressing local Shiite groups and was known for coercing local men into joining the army.
One morning this month, Saadi left his home along a side street deep with standing water and headed on foot for a local office to see about a passport, according to an account by his grown sons, Ashraf and Zain Abidin.
Moments later, they heard a shot. They scrambled to their father, discovering him crumpled by the wall of a large warehouse, fatally wounded with a gunshot to the back. At the same time, they spotted a blue Opel with three men inside and no license plates racing from the scene.
"There are some who want to cleanse this area of ex-Baathists," said Ashraf, 26. The brothers softly recounted their father's tale, seated cross-legged on the carpeted floor of their dimly lit home, their checkered headdresses pulled down over their ears in mourning.
"If we find out who did it, all of us, our family and our tribe, will take our revenge," Ashraf said.
They might not be alone. The traditional death notices of Baghdad society -- black banners inscribed with the names of the deceased and their relatives -- are proliferating along the walls of Sadr City.
Victims' families and some Iraqi security officials have alleged that Shiite political parties, relentlessly repressed by Hussein's government, are behind the killing spree. They point in particular to the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which are both represented on the Iraqi Governing Council.
Senior officials from both groups denied any involvement. "It's not our policy to take revenge and execute people," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi of the Supreme Council.
Many of those killed were former intelligence and internal security officials who had been assigned over their careers to countering the activities of Shiite political groups and their sponsors in neighboring Iran, according to sources close to current and former security officials.
One such victim was Maj. Gen. Khalaf Alousi, the former head of internal security for Baghdad.
"He spent his whole career dealing with the Dawa Party and other Islamic parties, so he amassed many enemies," said Capt. Ahmed Suleiman of the Yarmouk police district in central Baghdad, where Alousi was killed. "This guy was involved with the executions of members of other parties. Now the other parties are in power and there's a settling of accounts."
Alousi, 50, was gunned down shortly before midday on Dec. 6 after he took his wife to visit a house he was having built in the Yarmouk neighborhood, according to his brother, Raid Alousi. When they entered the house, a stranger was waiting, and pulled out a gun. Alousi's wife leapt between the attacker and her husband, but the gunmen reached above her and fired, Raid said. Another man appeared, shooting from behind. The two continued firing bullets into Alousi's body even after he collapsed.
The killings of Baath security officials have revealed fissures in Iraqi society, not only between supporters and opponents of the Hussein government but also between some Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Most of the security chiefs were Sunnis like Hussein; the suspected killers are Shiites.
Sunnis increasingly view the bloodletting in sectarian terms. At the memorial reception for Alousi, dozens of mourners gathered in two facing rows of chairs arrayed under a tent. Young men moved among them with cups of sweet tea, trays of cigarettes and a bottle of rose water perfume. The guests whispered among themselves, sharing details of Alousi's death, passing news about other murders and musing about revenge.
"For each one they kill," said a mourner, "we'll kill four."
-------- israel / palestine
Analysis
Sharon Threat Seen as Major Problem
Unilateral Steps by Israel Could Disrupt U.S.-Backed Peace Plan, Analysts Say
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16526-2003Dec19.html
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threat this week to unilaterally separate Israelis and Palestinians, if negotiations falter, poses a new and significant challenge to U.S. diplomacy in the region, administration officials and analysts said yesterday.
While Sharon professed that he is committed to the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map -- which he has disdained for months -- the long-stalled peace initiative could well be buried by the steps he outlined in the speech, analysts said. In fact, Sharon significantly shortened the timetable for action -- "a few months" -- on a plan that is supposed to take effect over three years.
Sharon carefully hinged his support for the road map to actions by the Palestinians on security. But the Palestinian Authority for months has appeared incapable of taking those steps. The Bush administration, moreover, has limited contacts with and leverage over the Palestinians, particularly since travel by U.S. officials into Palestinian territories was restricted by a deadly attack in Gaza in October.
Officially, the administration pronounced itself "very pleased" by Sharon's speech Thursday, because he announced that he would take a number of actions to ease Palestinian living conditions and would dismantle settlement outposts. Sharon also signaled that he would evacuate some settlements and had come up with a formula for freezing the growth of the settlements -- important goals for the United States. One senior official suggested Sharon's gambit could well be the spark that reignites action on the road map.
But, in a sign of the difficult balancing act ahead, the administration was uncharacteristically off-message about the speech shortly it was delivered. White House spokesman Scott McClellan first appeared to criticize it, and then a senior administration official offered a much more upbeat assessment in a briefing to reporters. McClellan then echoed the positive view yesterday.
In a sign of the divisions within the administration, a number of officials said privately that they were troubled by Sharon's speech. They are skeptical Sharon will really take the positive steps he has outlined, and they worry that any potentially damaging unilateral actions might happen in the middle of next year, when President Bush will be in an election campaign and unable to forcefully respond for fear of offending the Jewish vote he has worked hard to cultivate.
Sharon also disturbed some members of the administration with his statement that any unilateral actions will be "fully coordinated" with Washington in order not to harm "our strategic coordinations with the United States." U.S. officials have frequently argued to Arabs that they do not have much leverage over specific moves by Sharon -- that the administration does not control some sort of traffic light. Now, Sharon has implied that Israel checks repeatedly with the administration on its actions.
One senior U.S. official closely involved in Middle East issues said he found little in Sharon's speech that could be described as positive or noteworthy. "Am I excited by it? No," he said. Sharon's backing of the road map "was not new," the official added. "It's less important that he says that than for Israel to start doing the things they need to do."
Another official said the risk is that Sharon will take these potentially dramatic steps when the administration is paralyzed by the looming election. "He may say, 'Here's my number, and if you are still in the White House give me a call,' " the official said.
Many parts of Sharon's speech were vague and open to interpretation. Sharon's proposal on a settlement freeze -- no construction beyond the existing construction line, no appropriation of land, no economic incentives and no building of new settlements -- was considered new and significant by some U.S. officials and a potential trap by others.
The road map calls for a freeze on settlements, as well as on what is called "natural growth," which generally means births and family moves. But the Israelis have repeatedly pressed for a definition of a freeze that would allow construction within existing boundaries, essentially saying settlements could expand upward but not outward.
The senior administration official briefing reporters Thursday night said the purpose of a settlement freeze is to make sure additional settlers would not impede Palestinian life or prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state. It makes no difference, he said, if the Israelis add another house within a block of existing homes.
"We have not taken the position there has to be an end to natural growth in settlements," he said.
That statement was controversial to other administration officials, who say the United States in the past clearly opposed natural growth in the settlements. One official scoffed at Sharon's proposal, saying it is filled with loopholes. He said it was unclear whether the ending of economic incentives for settlements would apply to the building of roads and infrastructure, for instance, or whether the "construction line" would incorporate individual settlements or be expanded to include groups of settlements.
"This is not the way a settlement freeze is defined by the road map or the president," said Shibley Telhami, a Middle East specialist at the University of Maryland. "This is new language that is inconsistent with what's on the table."
Dennis Ross, a peace negotiator in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, took a more positive view. "There is a lot in there that Sharon has not said before," he said, noting that "he spells out for the first time Israel's definition for control of settlement activity."
Ross said a problem with the road map is that it creates "an illusion of specificity" where none exists. Ross said that even if Israel withdraws from much of the territories in a unilateral action, "it is not a solution but maybe creates an environment in which a solution is possible over time."
"The reality is that none of us knows what is in Sharon's head," Telhami said. "You have to look at the pattern of his behavior. Given that, we would have to think he has had in the back of his mind the idea of implementing a unilateral plan all along."
--------
NEWS ANALYSIS
Sharon's New Offer: A Compromise, a Threat or Both?
December 20, 2003
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/international/middleeast/20ASSE.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 19 - The cottage industry that is Ariel Sharon-watching in Israel and elsewhere was very busy on Friday parsing Mr. Sharon's instantly famous speech of Thursday night and trying to answer the basic question: was Mr. Sharon's declaration an offer, a sort of olive branch, or was it a threat?
The speech had two essential elements. One was a pledge to work hard to carry out the American-supported peace plan known as the road map, which if successful would lead to a Palestinian state by 2005.
That much was not new for Mr. Sharon, who has pledged himself to the peace plan, with reservations, in the past, but it was a reassuring affirmation at a time when peace negotiations had been stalled for several months.
What was new, and subject to different interpretations, was his second point. If there is no progress toward a negotiated peace in the next few months, Mr. Sharon said, Israel will move unilaterally to separate the Jewish and Arab populations in the West Bank and, as he put it, reduce "friction" between them.
The speech, which aroused intense interest in Israel, certainly seems to portend something new in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It came at a time of an almost palpable desire among Israelis for some new direction, and widespread criticism that the old formulas were not working.
So from that point of view, Mr. Sharon's speech did seem to promise that things would go one of two ways, both of them different from the recent past. One is that negotiations with the Palestinian Authority would resume and both sides would really try to get some business done. The other is that the path of negotiations would die and Israel would, in essence, impose the conditions of a peace on the Palestinians.
"This is significant as words," a European diplomat said of the speech. "The question is what deeds will follow."
In the official Israeli view, what Mr. Sharon said signified a sincere and constructive offer to the Palestinians, and it was backed up by some important, immediate gestures that the Israeli side would make, also without negotiations.
Israel, Mr. Sharon said, would reduce the curfews and roadblocks that make even everyday movements for Palestinians fraught with obstacles and inconvenience.
More significant, certainly from the Israeli perspective, he vowed to dismantle the illegal settlements that have sprung up on various hillsides and outcroppings on the West Bank in the last couple of years.
In a way, as some analysts of the scene were noting, the immediate steps amounted to an acceptance by Mr. Sharon of Phase One of the peace plan, which calls for both sides to take confidence-building measures that would create an atmosphere conducive to peace.
"He basically called on the Palestinians for negotiations and then offered an alternative," Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, said in an interview on Friday. "If they do not negotiate, he has his own ideas about what to do. It was not a threat. That was not the intention."
The proof of that, in the view of some people here, lies in Mr. Sharon's willingness to dismantle settlements, either as part of an overall peace agreement or - and this is what he announced Thursday - even without an agreement.
Indeed, for Mr. Sharon, who spent much of his career in government as the chief engineer of settlement building, that represents an important departure in his thinking.
"Last night, at the Herzliya Conference, he bade farewell to what was his real legacy, the settlements," Nahum Barnea, a commentator in the daily Yediot Ahronot, said. Others do not buy the view of a changed Mr. Sharon. They see a master strategist who has changed his tactics but not his main idea, which is to forestall as long as he can any genuine moves toward Palestinian independence.
Mr. Sharon is widely said in Israel to have already given up on the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, who is viewed as weak and under the thumb of the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, whom Mr. Sharon will not countenance as a negotiating partner.
The belief, according to some people close to Mr. Sharon, is that Mr. Qurei's government will fall in six months or so, that there will be no peace agreement and that Israel therefore needs a plan for unilateral action once that happens.
Hence Mr. Sharon's announcement of the basic outlines of those unilateral steps: withdrawing the army to a new security zone and dismantling some of the settlements. What is interesting in the offer is that it gives the Palestinians some important things that they want, namely a pullback of the Israeli presence from Palestinian territory.
A good offer, in other words? Not everybody feels that way. In this view, Mr. Sharon is threatening to impose a settlement consisting of a truncated Palestine existing behind the concrete and chain-link barrier that is now under construction.
In other words, Mr. Sharon, if he does go ahead with unilateral steps, will essentially draw the border between Israel and Palestinian territory in a way that favors Israel and does not lead to a Palestinian state.
An alternative interpretation of Mr. Sharon's speech is that it was a way for him to buy time, to lay out options but not commit himself to any of them.
"Sharon is not about to change the settlement map," Yossi Beilin, co-author of the Geneva Accords, the private peace plan announced in Switzerland a few weeks ago, wrote in the daily Maariv on Friday. "The conditions he poses for realizing his new vision are so many that there is no great risk in saying that they will not be met."
--------
Palestinians Vow to Resist 'Security Line' as a Border
December 20, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec. 19 - From Yasir Arafat's fog-enshrouded compound here to the soggy streets of Gaza City, Palestinians said Friday that they would oppose any attempt by Israel to establish a unilateral border between the Middle East antagonists.
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, said in a major speech on Thursday that if the stalled Middle East peace process did not yield progress in the coming months, he would pursue go-it-alone measures like setting up a "security line" with the Palestinians. "We are not going to approve anything that does not come from negotiations between us and them," said Nabil Aburdeineh, a spokesman for Mr. Arafat.
Palestinians argue that the only way to resolve the decades-old conflict is through a mutual agreement that leads to a Palestinian state that includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, along with a capital in East Jerusalem. The moves suggested by Mr. Sharon, however, would leave them with much less than that for any future state.
In the pouring rain in Gaza City on Friday, thousands of supporters of the Islamic faction Hamas marched to mark the 16th anniversary of the founding of the group, which has carried out the largest number of suicide bombings against Israel.
Hamas has always opposed peace negotiations with Israel, and young marchers carried black coffins representing previous Middle East peace plans that have failed.
Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the group's most outspoken figure, said Mr. Sharon's speech "represented new aggression against the Palestinian people."
In his address to a conference on Israel's security, Mr. Sharon said that in the short term he intended to ease Palestinian travel restrictions and tear down small, informal outposts erected by Jewish settlers.
If he abandons the current peace effort and decides to take unilateral action in the coming months, it would include a military pullback and the dismantling of some formal Israeli settlements, Mr. Sharon said.
He also said he was willing to meet the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, in an effort to restart a top-level dialogue that has effectively been frozen since a surge of violence in August.
But Israeli officials have expressed doubts about Mr. Qurei's ability and willingness to act against armed Palestinian factions and question whether the talks will make any significant headway on the peace plan, known as the road map.
The Palestinians say they are ready for a resumption of talks, but they also say they are concerned that such talks may be little more than photo opportunities.
The previous Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, met Mr. Sharon on several occasions but achieved nothing, Mr. Aburdeineh said.
Referring to Mr. Sharon's speech, Mr. Aburdeineh said: "This is not a plan. It's an attempt to escape from the road map."
The Israeli prime minister did not say where he might potentially draw a makeshift border with the Palestinians, but there are several clues.
Israel is building what it calls a security fence in the West Bank, and under the current route approved by the government, about 15 percent of the West Bank land would be on the western, or Israeli, side of the barrier, according to calculations by the United Nations. In any unilateral move, Israel would be virtually certain to keep this land, which incorporates most of the large Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
In addition, the Israeli government is considering whether to extend the barrier to the thinly populated Jordan Valley near the border with Jordan. If this happens, the barrier would then give Israel a total of 43 percent to 50 percent of the land in the West Bank, said Diana Buttu, a legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
"As long as Sharon continues building the wall, this means he does not intend to do anything serious," Mr. Aburdeineh said.
--------
Barak Defends Plan to Assassinate Saddam
December 20, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Saddam-Hussein.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak defended an Israeli plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein in 1992, breaking his silence on an operation that was canceled after five Israeli commandos were killed during a dress rehearsal.
The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot said Tuesday that commandos from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit planned to kill Saddam as he attended a relative's funeral in his hometown of Tikrit, Iraq.
Saddam was captured by American forces near Tikrit on Dec. 14.
Barak was Israel's military chief of staff at the time of the planned operation, and was at the army base where the soldiers were killed in a missile accident. Ever since he has been hounded by allegations -- later proven false -- that he fled the scene, leaving behind wounded soldiers.
The operation against Saddam was canceled following the accident.
Barak told Israel Television on Friday night he normally opposed assassinating national leaders, but Saddam, who had fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War, was an exception.
``Imagine how we would have reacted a year ago, several months before the war in Iraq, if an American commando unit had taken out Saddam Hussein with a long-range missile and returned home safely,'' he said. ``In my opinion, we would have applauded loudly, together with the rest of the world.''
In interviews with the Yediot and Maariv newspapers published Friday, Barak said the 1991 Scud attacks demanded a response so Israel could maintain a credible military deterrent. Bowing to U.S. pressure, Israel did not retaliate in the immediate wake of the Iraqi strikes.
``It is incumbent on a country that inhabits dangerous territory, with threats like Saddam Hussein, to possess operational tools that give it a wide range of possible responses,'' Barak told Maariv. ``How is it possible to cast doubt on the (anti-Saddam) operation?''
Barak, who was elected Israeli prime minister in 1999, was defeated in a re-election bid in 2001. He has recently hinted at a political comeback.
Critics of the planned 1992 operation against Saddam Hussein included Shimon Peres, then Israel's foreign minister and now the head of the opposition Labor Party. ``If the operation had not ended in an accident, it would have caused a world war,'' Maariv quoted Peres as saying.
The Sayeret Matkal commandos were to have flown into Iraq and split into two groups. The advance unit was to head to the Saddam family cemetery outside Tikrit, while the second group deployed eight miles away.
The first unit would watch the funeral of Saddam's relative from 150 yards away, and signal to the soldiers further back to fire a barrage of missiles on the Iraqi dictator, Yediot reporter Ronen Bergman said. The custom-made missiles were named ``Obelisk,'' the Maariv daily said.
After the assassination, the commandos were to have flown out of Iraq from a temporary airfield.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security
Bioterrorism Drill's Lessons
Communications Problems Among Responders Revealed
By Matthew Daly
Associated Press
Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16292-2003Dec19.html
The government's largest bioterrorism drill since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks revealed widespread communications problems and confusion among emergency personnel, according to a federal summary released yesterday.
The drill this May was overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, which wanted to assess the readiness to deal with multiple terrorist attacks. It began in Seattle with the simulated detonation of a radioactive "dirty bomb" and ended four days later in Chicago with a raid on the fictional terrorist group responsible for the chaos.
A detailed report on the drill is classified, but Homeland Security officials released a 15-page summary. In it, they noted that emergency crews in Seattle had trouble determining where the radiological contamination had spread, which would be key to evacuating and treating people in a real emergency.
Chicago's drill centered on responding to a release of deadly plague bacteria. The exercise exposed a serious shortage of medical supplies and hospital rooms.
Still, the report called the drill a success, saying it "provided a tremendous learning experience" for the Homeland Security Department and hundreds of state and local agencies that work with it.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge hailed the results. The exercise posed a huge logistical challenge for an agency that was then only a few months old, he said.
The report said uncertainty reigned during much of the drill, as officials weighed whether to raise the threat level of a specific area, declare an emergency or reopen public transportation systems. "To the extent there were problems in those areas, communications issues were the likely cause," the report said.
Seattle Deputy Police Chief Clark Kimerer acknowledged the confusion, but said it was "not crippling, by any stretch."
The goal of the "dirty bomb" exercise was to get a precise reading on the fictional plume, Kimerer said, but that proved difficult as officials waited for computer models to develop. "On the other side of that, it didn't hamper decision-making in the field," he said.
Incident commanders made quick decisions -- in most cases assuming the plume area was larger than it ultimately was, Kimerer said. "We'd rather do that than guess wrong and expose people to some risk," he said.
Chicago officials had a similar view. A total of 64 hospitals in Illinois participated in the drill, making it one of the largest mass casualty exercises ever undertaken.
The report said it was apparent there was a "lack of a robust and efficient emergency communications infrastructure," with the biggest problem centered on the unexpectedly large volume of calls. Still, Cortez Trotter, director of Chicago's Office of Emergency Operations, called the exercise a success.
The exercise, a follow-up to a drill three years ago in Denver and New Hampshire, cost about $16 million and involved more than 8,500 people from 100 federal, state and local agencies, the American Red Cross and the Canadian government.
-------- justice
Ashcroft Not Queried On Campaign Funds
Critics See Weakness in Election Panel
By Walter Pincus and Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16412-2003Dec19.html
During more than two years of investigating two campaign committees that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft maintained when he was in the Senate, the Federal Election Commission never directly questioned Ashcroft or obtained a sworn statement from him even though the issue of his personal ownership of a mailing list and the income it produced were central to the inquiry.
Ellen L. Weintraub, chairwoman of the FEC, said she and the other two Democrats on the panel did not have the required four votes to carry a motion to interview Ashcroft. In addition, she said, all the commissioners did not want to be seen as "harassing the attorney general of the United States" and so never sought to question him.
Critics of the commission say the handling of the case illustrates the FEC's reluctance to aggressively investigate people in power -- a tendency exacerbated by the partisan split among the six commissioners. By law, three are from each party.
"The FEC is known to be 'squeamish' about bothering people in the administration," said Lawrence M. Noble, a former FEC general counsel and now executive director of the Committee for Responsive Politics. Noble said the first choice when dealing with someone central to an investigation would be a deposition; second would be written questions; third would be an affidavit; and the last choice would be a statement from his lawyer.
"They bypassed all these," Noble said, "and the result is a weak ending to an important case."
"Normally [the commission] requires a statement," said Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman who is now a Washington attorney and chairman of the Campaign Legal Center. Potter called the Ashcroft case "another instance of a partisan 3-3 tie where the commission cannot act without a majority."
David M. Mason, a Republican member of the commission, said no one "inside the commission ever asked for Ashcroft to be deposed" and noted that "it's unusual when our investigators require depositions of candidates." The fact that the commission fined two Ashcroft political committees, Mason argued, is "proof that the commission can and does work, despite our critics."
The case has its roots in 1998, when then-Sen. Ashcroft (R-Mo.) created a leadership political action committee (PAC), Spirit of America, to raise money and develop a donor list for a possible presidential race. A year later, when the list totaled 80,000 names, Ashcroft dropped the presidential plan and created Ashcroft 2000 to raise money for his Senate reelection campaign.
A key element of the FEC case was an unusual document called a "work product agreement" spelling out that by allowing Spirit of America to use his name, signature and image to raise money, the donor list was to be the "exclusive property of John Ashcroft." Ashcroft signed the document, as did Jack Oliver, acting as executive director of the PAC. Drawn up "as of the 17th day of July, 1998," the document produced for the FEC was signed on Aug. 4, 1999, because, as the FEC was told, all the original 1998 copies were lost.
The date was important because, "as of the 1st day of January, 1999," Ashcroft signed a "list license agreement" with Ashcroft 2000, which gave the Senate campaign committee use of the PAC list, which cost $1.7 million to develop. That transfer saved Ashcroft 2000 the cost of creating a fundraising list. But because the PAC had contributed $10,000 in cash, the amount permissible under law, to the Senate campaign committee, three public interest groups called for an FEC investigation after the 2000 election, arguing that the mailing list was an additional donation that violated the law.
On Tuesday, the FEC announced a "conciliation agreement" under which the complaint was settled when the Spirit of America PAC and Ashcroft 2000 agreed to pay a $37,000 fine for what the FEC said was $112,000 in illegal contributions to the Senate campaign committee.
In papers filed with the FEC, lawyers for the Ashcroft committees argued that Ashcroft owned the PAC mailing list as well as more than $110,000 earned from selling the list to other campaigns. Therefore, they argued, he was entitled to give both the earnings and the list to the campaign committee because there are no restrictions on a candidate's giving to his own campaign.
However, the claim opens the attorney general to charges that he failed to report the list and the income in his 1998 and 1999 Senate financial disclosure statements.
FEC general counsel Lawrence H. Norton and the commission's three Democrats -- Weintraub, Scott E. Thomas and Danny L. McDonald -- rejected the lawyers' claims and pointedly noted in a statement released Tuesday that Ashcroft did not mention the list in his Senate disclosure statements.
They added that "Ashcroft cannot have it both ways; he cannot on the one hand for FEC purposes sign a Work Product Agreement by which terms he receives ownership of the mailing list but then, on the other hand, for Senate financial purposes, claim not to own the mailing lists."
In the statement, the three Democrats also noted that "the FEC did not subpoena Mr. Ashcroft's personal income tax records, neither did respondents [the Ashcroft committees] produce those tax records as evidence that Mr. Ashcroft treated the rental income as personal income."
Justice Department spokesman John Novaski said Ashcroft was not available to comment. Oliver, now finance director of the Bush-Cheney '04 reelection committee, declined to talk about the case. Oliver, one of the major participants in the case whose signature appears with Ashcroft's on many key documents released on Tuesday, was deposed by FEC investigators in February.
Mason and another Republican commission member, Michael E. Toner, played down the significance of the case, describing it as a "garden variety complaint" that had been "blown out of proportion" because it involved a sitting attorney general.
Officials of the National Voting Rights Institute, one of the original groups that brought the case, said it will request a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and ask the federal courts to order tougher penalties than the $37,000 fine accepted by the FEC.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Audio of Attorney-Detainee Interviews Called Illegal
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16477-2003Dec19.html
Employees at a federal detention center clearly violated prison rules and federal law by recording the private conversations of attorneys and their clients, who had been arrested as part of an immigration dragnet in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to legal experts and a government investigation.
Many defense attorneys and civil