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NUCLEAR
Missing keys prompt nuclear lab probe
Military to test Kabul's air quality
Afghanistan: The Nuclear Nightmare Starts
Even with Iraq, Iran, Libya defanged, Israel's leaders still prepare
Israelis torn on WMD
Israel in no hurry to clear the nuclear fog
Analysis: Japan nuclear debate may heat up
Private Group Prepares Visit to North Korea
U.S. Disavows Trip to North Korea
White House Cool to N. Korea Nuke Visits
Japan, US, S Korea to insist on denuclearised N Korea: Report
N. Korea to Be Asked to Be Nuclear Free - Report
U.S., U.N. Divided Over Libya Nuke Issues
U.S. Wants Libya Discussed in Private
New Faces Herald Hopes for New Libya
After Lapses, Security Checks Are Planned at Nuclear Sites
Critical year for Yucca
Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant discloses missing keys
Coalition files case against VY uprate
AP: Dean Was Warned on Lax Vt. Security
Dean's Statement on Security Record
Rebranding Bush as man of peace
MILITARY
Analysis: China's going global
Some Bulgarian Soldiers Refuse to Go to Iraq
U.S. Soldier Is Killed as Helicopter Is Shot Down in Iraq
Helicopter Downed In Iraq, Killing GI
Palestinian Resistance Must Spare Civilians
U.S. Aids Security of Musharraf Efforts Build After Attacks in Pakistan
No escape for gulag's former prisoners
Women find it's a new Army
Hazardous Assignments Killed 36 Journalists in '03
Who forged the Niger uranium papers?
A Top Khmer Rouge Leader, Going Public, Pleads Ignorance
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Investigators Into C.I.A. Leak Ask Officials
Bush Aides Face Request To Free Media To Give Names
3 Air Routes Focus of Scrutiny Flight From London to Dulles Canceled Again
Flight Groundings Lead Allies to Query Washington
Nations Comply Guardedly on Cancellations
OTHER
E.P.A. to Study Use of Waste From Sewage as Fertilizer
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Missing keys prompt nuclear lab probe
January 03, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040102-112740-9185r.htm
Worries about missing keys and other security lapses at some of the nation's top-secret nuclear weapons labs have prompted the federal agency that maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to review locks, keys and procedures at facilities nationwide.
The Energy Department's semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons programs within the department, is sending a team of inspectors to start the security review in February. The action follows NNSA initiatives last summer, after some in Congress complained about specific security breaches at several facilities.
"We're doing a complexwide inventory of lock and keys ... @ anything that's under NNSA," Bryan Wilkes, an agency spokesman, said yesterday.
"The idea is not to go over every lock and key, but to sit down and review with folks the controls that were put in place last summer," he said. "We want to make sure stupid little things, whether they're large or small, don't happen again."
In July, the NNSA announced plans to reinforce safeguards with added security specialists, more frequent surveillance, a review of past studies and investigations and creation of a commission and separate panel for more long-range planning.
The NNSA is responsible for maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, for promoting international nuclear nonproliferation and for providing nuclear propulsion systems for the Navy's submarines and aircraft carriers.
Mr. Wilkes said the most recent case of missing keys involves NNSA's plant for processing weapons-grade uranium in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Last summer, he said, the facility reported missing "a little under 250" keys, but that "none of them were for any sensitive areas."
"Most of that were to janitorial areas or to file cabinets; simple things that people lose keys to every day. A small portion of that - under 40 - went to people's offices or to a conference room where you can have classified information for up to an hour," Mr. Wilkes said.
A set of master keys went missing for several days at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., and an electronic key card was gone for six weeks before top managers were informed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. A set of keys to perimeter gates and office doors also was lost at Livermore and went unreported for three weeks.
Sandia is expecting a review. Chris Miller, a spokesman for Sandia, said yesterday that the lab was advised several weeks ago "that DOE probably was going to be visiting early in the new year just to look at security again. There are always ongoing looks at security."
The inventory also is being conducted at other NNSA offices, plants and nuclear research labs in Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.
-------- depleted uranium
Military to test Kabul's air quality
Soldiers concerned about fecal contamination in the air they breathe
Mike Blanchfield
Saturday, January 03, 2004
Vancouver Sun
http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/story.asp?id=BC69E448-D81C-4790-85EB-A1162B0CDDA9
OTTAWA -- The Canadian Forces plan to send a team of environmental and medical experts to Kabul to reassure soldiers about fecal-contaminated air they may be breathing in the Afghan capital, CanWest News Service has learned.
A senior defence department official said the gesture is an attempt to dispel fears raised by reports of the air-quality concerns of the 2,000 Canadian soldiers serving on the NATO protection force for Afghanistan.
Military Ombudsman Andre Marin first publicized concerns of the soldiers in an interview last month with CanWest News Service.
At the time, Marin said the troops in Afghanistan were concerned that they were breathing bad air consisting of up to 30 per cent noxious sustances from feces and the military medical brass were ignoring their concerns.
In response, the Forces director of health policy, Colonel Ken Scott, wrote a scathing e-mail, widely circulated within the defence department, that criticized Marin for making the comments.
Scott said there was no scientific evidence behind the soldiers' concerns, and that it was irresponsible to raise the issue.
Now the Forces have decided to send a team of experts to Kabul to investigate the matter further and address the troops' concerns head-on.
"It's to reassure the troops they've taken the steps into the health risks," said a senior defence department official who refused to be named.
"They want to do a big town hall [meeting] in Kabul," he added.
The official said there has been "a complete about-face" in the thinking of defence department brass over how to handle health complaints of soldiers.
"It shows the power of the press," the military official said.
The Forces plan to have information sessions with soldiers explaining what has been done to test the air quality around Kabul, and how they plan to address the issue in the future.
Kabul has no modern sanitation or water-purification system. Feces flow in open sewers. In winter months, Kabulis burn garbage -- much of it fecal contaminated -- which helps distribute noxious substances in the air.
German military health experts have estimated the fecal content of the air in and around the Kabul area could be as high as 30 per cent.
The Canadian Forces, as well as the armed forces of many other western countries, came under fire in the last decade after soldiers began complaining of mysterious battlefield ailments, such as Gulf War Syndrome or exposure to depleted uranium in the Balkans.
Just last week, a report out of the former Yugoslavia linked bombs containing depleted uranium used in the past by NATO fighter jets with an increase in the risk of cancer among civilians.
In Afghanistan, Canadian troops told Marin in overwhelming numbers that the quality of the air in Kabul was their main concern.
Marin visited the Canadian contingent in Camp Julien late last year.
Many soldiers expressed concerns that they would become vulnerable to respiratory illnesses in later years and that their service records would not document the origin of their illnesses -- something that could have serious consequences on any future health benefits.
----
Afghanistan: The Nuclear Nightmare Starts
By Davey Garland,
January, 2004
Coastal Post
http://www.coastalpost.com/04/01/03.htm
When questions were asked in the British parliament a year ago about whether depleted uranium (DU) weapons had been used in the military strikes on Afghanistan, "It is not being used at present" was defense minister Geoff Hoon's reply.
A few days earlier, Hoon had been similarly vague on the issue, assuring us that: "No British forces currently engaged in operations around Afghanistan are armed with depleted uranium ammunition. However, we do not rule out the use of depleted uranium ammunition in Afghanistan, should its penetrative capability be judged necessary in the future."
The defense minister played his cards close to his chest, no doubt having been informed that DU or other uranium weapons were being used by the United States (and no doubt British) forces to penetrate the caverns of Tora Bora and other targets (including civilian ones), especially in the vicinity of Kabul.
The refusal of the Ministry of Defense to fully admit that dangerous uranium weapons may have been used in Afghanistan and the conflicts in the Balkans (Bosnia and Kosova), when evidence shows the contrary, illustrates just how sensitive the government is to the possibility that its use, or its collusion in the use, of weapons of mass destruction may be discovered.
This is not just because thousands of innocent civilians will suffer due to radiological (and heavy metal) poisoning, but also because the government is prepared to send British troops and aid workers, possibly for a long occupation of the war zones, ill-equipped and vulnerable to contamination.
When the Afghan crisis began, many of us believed that a great amount of DU/dirty uranium would be used to achieve the US-British campaign objectives, both to penetrate the opposition's hideouts in rocky terrain and to test new weapons systems (dirty uranium or dirty DU contains radioactive contaminants, such as plutonium isotopes, derived from spent fuel from power reactors). The amount used in Afghanistan might have exceeded the several hundred ton's of DU/dirty uranium used in the 1990-91 Gulf War and the Balkans conflicts.
Startling report
A startling new report based on research in Afghanistan indicates that our worst fears have been realized. The study, produced by the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC), points to the likelihood of large numbers of the population being exposed to uranium dust and debris.
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of nuclear medicine and radiology and a former science adviser to the US military, who set-up the independent UMRC, has been testing US, British, and Canadian troops and civilians for DU and uranium poisoning over the past few years. His findings confirm significant amounts in the subjects' urine as much as nine years after exposure.
Two scientific study teams were sent to Afghanistan in the aftermath of the conflict in 2001-02. The first arrived in June 2002, concentrating on the Jalalabad region. The second arrived four months later, broadening the study to include the capital Kabul, which has a population of nearly 3.5 million people. The city itself contains the highest recorded number of fixed targets during Operation Enduring Freedom. For the study's purposes, the vicinity of three major bomb sites were examined.
It was predicted that signatures of depleted or enriched uranium would be found in the urine and soil samples taken during the research. The team was unprepared for the shock of its findings, which indicated in both Jalalabad and Kabul, DU was possibly causing the high levels of illness but also high concentrations of non-depleted uranium. Tests taken from a number of Jalalabad subjects showed concentrations 400% to 2000% above that for normal populations, amounts which have not been recorded in civilian studies before.
Those in Kabul who were directly exposed to US-British precision bombing showed extreme signs of contamination, consistent with uranium exposure and with some types of chemical or biological weaponry. These included pains in joints, back/kidney pain, muscle weakness, memory problems and confusion and disorientation. Many of these symptoms are found in Gulf War and Balkans veterans and civilians. Those exposed to the bombing report symptoms of flu-type illnesses, bleeding, runny noses and blood-stained mucous.
The study team itself complained of similar symptoms during their stay. Most of these symptoms last for days or months. The team also conducted a preliminary sample examination of new-born infants, discovering that at least 25% may be suffering from congenital and post-natal health problems that could be associated with uranium contamination. These include undeveloped muscles, large head in comparison to body size, skin rashes and infant lethargy. Considering that the children had access to sufficient levels of nutrition, the symptoms could not be due to malnourishment.
Durakovic and his team have searched for possible alternative causes, such as geological or industrial sources, or the likelihood of Al Qaeda having uranium reserves. But the uranium found is not consistent with the "dirty bomb" scenario proposed by the US (in which stores of radioactive materials might explain the findings), nor is it connected to DU, or an enriched uranium-type dust that has been found in Iraq and Kosova.
The only conclusion is that the allied forces are now possibly using milled uranium ore in their warheads to maximize the effectiveness and strength of their weapons, as well as to mask the uranium, hoping that it may be discounted as part of any local natural deposits.
However, marked differences between natural uranium and the uranium used in the metal fragments found in Afghanistan was uncovered with the use of an electron microscope, which revealed the presence of small ceramic particles produced by the high temperatures created on impact. This method of disguising uranium would benefit governments that are under pressure! from the growing anti-DU lobby.
Repeated warnings of this possible contamination was sent to both the British and Afghan governments in April by scientific researcher Dai Williams in her report, "Mystery Metal in Afghanistan". Warning were also sent to the UN Environment Program, the World Health Organization and Oxfam. All have ignored them and failed to conduct their own investigations.
Iraq
Present information and studies stressing the growing mortality rates amongst young children, especially the new born, indicate that malnutrition and other social causes cannot be the only attributable source of this phenomenon. This is confirmed by health specialists, international observers and a few brave officials from local hospitals who are convinced that this rise in illnesses and malformation are due to uranium/DU weapons.
In October, Durakovic spoke on al Jazeera television, claiming that the amount of DU/uranium used in Afghanistan far exceeded that of past conflicts. He also warned that if the scale of the attacks in Afghanistan was matched or exceeded in a forthcoming war in Iraq, then the consequences would be of appalling proportions for both civilians and military forces alike.
This scenario has substance, if the $393 billion defense authorization bill that Congress approved recently is taken into account. More than $15 million was assigned to modifying bunker busters bombs to nuclear capable, quite apart from uranium being added to conventional and bunker buster systems. Money was also invested in other weapons of mass destruction, including thermobaric and electromagnetic weapons.
The anti-war movement must oppose radiological and other weapons, as well as research and access to the source materials. Many of us have seen the heart-wrenching pictures of deformity and death in Iraq, and know of the growing cancer wards in Bosnia and Kosova, not to mention the 80,000 American, 15,000 Canadian and thousands of British, Australian, French and other troops! who are suffering a painful existence from Gulf War Syndrome - plus the growing number suffering from a Balkans equivalent.
Davey Garland is a coordinator of the British-based Pandora DU Research Project. Source; Green Left Weekly, Issue of December 2002.
-------- israel
Even with Iraq, Iran, Libya defanged, Israel's leaders still prepare for war
Pakistan Daily Star
03/01/04
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/03_01_04_e1.asp
BEIRUT: Libya's agreement last month to dismantle its clandestine nuclear arms program, along with other plans to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD), was a landmark breakthrough in US-led efforts to halt proliferation in the volatile Middle East. It raised hopes that with Saddam Hussein's WMD programs apparently abandoned even before the US invasion of Iraq and Iran's secret uranium enrichment efforts over two decades finally exposed that Israel would be inclined to consider surrendering the nuclear weapons monopoly it has held in the region since the 1960s. Not so.
Even though the military threat to Israel has been unquestionably and significantly reduced, Israel is showing no sign of compromising on its nuclear arsenal. And Washington, despite qualms about the nuclear power held by an ally that considers itself under existential threat, will not lean on Israel to do so as long as its existence is in question.
Indeed, Israel is busy negotiating with Germany for two more Dolphin-class submarines to add to the three it already has in service. These have reportedly been armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles to give the Jewish state an immensely greater pre-emptive nuclear reach and a guaranteed second-strike capability in the event of a regional nuclear exchange. In fact, Israel has threatened to attack Iran if it continues its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, long denied by Tehran but now increasingly apparent as firm evidence of Iranian skullduggery comes to light.
And to temper the optimism engendered by Moammar Gadhafi's decision to turn his back on WMDs no doubt heavily influenced by US moves against Iraq, Iran and North Korea aimed at eliminating their nuclear ambitions Pakistan's grudging admission that some of its nuclear scientists had helped Iran's clandestine program, and probably North Korea's as well, underlined the complexities the Americans and their friends are having to grapple with in combating the efforts of so-called rogue states to acquire such weapons.
Israel, like the US, remains acutely concerned about Pakistan's nuclear weapons. This has heightened considerably in recent days following two attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf in as many weeks, both bomb ambushes in which he escaped by the skin of his teeth. If Musharraf, who has antagonized Pakistan's Islamic activists by backing the US war against terror, is eliminated, the fear is that Islamic zealots could seize power and get their hands on Islamabad's nuclear weapons.
The attempts to kill Musharraf showed clearly that his inner security circle had been breached, and thus, it was reasoned, the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal could also be penetrated. Two years ago, soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when there were deep suspicions Pakistani scientists were helping Al-Qaeda, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that elite US and Israeli commandos were preparing plans to sweep into Pakistan in just such an eventuality to seize and disarm the country's nuclear weapons. In the early 1980s, the Mossad allegedly assassinated several European middlemen supplying Pakistan with nuclear know-how and equipment.
The Americans have always been uneasy about Israel's nuclear capabilities, even while they tolerated it. The Bush administration, like its predecessors, is to some extent held hostage by Israel's nuclear arsenal. At least since the 1973 war, when the Israelis reportedly assembled 13 20-kiloton weapons,and readied Jericho missiles in their underground chambers at Hirbat Zacharaiah in the Judaean Hills and F-4 Phantoms of the "Black Squadrons" at the old British air base at Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, the Israelis have brandished their nuclear arms to ensure that the US keeps its pledge to maintain the Jewish state's conventional weapons supremacy over its adversaries, and though it has never been openly stated, to ensure that the Americans do not desert Israel because of Arab pressure, such as an oil embargo. This policy will continue.
Recent events have resulted in renewed efforts by Arab states and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to mobilize diplomatic pressure on Israel to sign onto the 1972 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and dismantle its nuclear arsenal. But the Americans are unlikely to change their position unless a cataclysmic rift develops between them and Israel, and even Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, impulsive and reckless as he is, is not stupid enough to do that.
The success of the US-led coalition in curbing nuclear proliferation in traditionally radical Middle Eastern states Iraq, Iran and Libya, long deemed an "over the horizon threat" by the Israelis has profoundly altered the strategic balance of power in the Middle East in Israel's favor. Indeed, there remains only one front-line Arab state, Syria, that has the means, though probably not the political will, to strike at Israel.
Syria's offensive capabilities are limited. Its conventional military forces are in abysmal shape after years of neglect because of economic constraints and the absence of Soviet support for over a decade. But Damascus has Scud missiles with chemical warheads. While these do not pose an existential threat, they are dangerous enough to cause some concern.
But Syria, impoverished, politically isolated and under mounting pressure from Washington to abandon its support for radical Palestinian groups, and its weapons of mass destruction and domination of Lebanon, realizes that taking on Israel would be nothing short of national suicide.
The Israelis and the Americans remain skeptical Tehran will abandon its nuclear ambitions, particularly if the reformists led by President Mohammad Khatami fare badly against the hard-liners in forthcoming parliamentary elections in Iran.
If recent statements by Israel's political and military leaders are anything to go by, they are not prepared to concede that the strategic threat to Israel has been diminished. "Most of Israel's economic and intellectual assets are located in a narrow coastal strip between Haifa Bay and Ashkelon," says former Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, who is now chairman of the Knesset's Subcommittee on Defense Planning and Policy. "Two nuclear bombs could render Israel a burned-out Third World state."
After 55 years of constant conflict with the Arab world, the perceptions of Israel's leadership remain locked in the past. Sharon declared in an interview with Maariv recently that Israel can't afford to cut back development of "special measures," an Israeli euphemism for independent deterrence capabilities.
Sharon's hawkish defense minister, former Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz, has warned that Israel was prepared to take unilateral military action against Iran's nuclear facilities if Tehran persists in trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani retorted that his country would retaliate with its Shehab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles if Israel attacked.
Mossad director Meir Dagan, a close associate of Sharon, said in a rare public appearance before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in November that nuclear weapons in Iran were "an existential threat" to Israel, the gravest since the state was founded in 1948.
"These and other recent remarks testify to the stultified thinking at the official decision-making level and among those who shape Israel's security perceptions," intelligence specialist Yossi Melman wrote in Haaretz. The statements of Israeli leaders cited above, he said, "are a typical reflection of the doggedly security-minded worldview of decision-makers in Israel, the constant search for enemies and their increasing capabilities."
Israel is going ahead with plans to acquire three multi-mission corvettes, funded by US military aid, and by 2009 to bolster its shield against missile attacks. The corvettes would be armed with vertical-launch systems capable of firing Arrow-2 anti-missile missiles, providing a flexible seaborne dimension to Israel's missile defenses, particularly on its western flank in the Mediterranean.
The corvette program is part of Israel's new doctrine of transforming its naval forces into a strategic arm, and was designed to counter potential threats from Libya and Egypt's expanding navy. Israeli military leaders see Egypt, midway through a modernization program in which it is phasing out Soviet-era systems for US weaponry and doctrine, as a possible adversary despite their 1979 peace treaty. That's an unlikely prospect since Cairo is now totally dependent on US military aid.
Melman quoted a senior official "a former head of one of Israel's security branches" as saying following Libya's decision to abandon WMD programs "it's still too early to celebrate. The era of threats against Israel has not yet ended." He noted that Algeria had "achieved nuclear progress in recent years" and that "it is not exactly clear what Saudi Arabia has, and with respect to Syria there are quite a few question marks" regarding its nonconventional capabilities.
"It is necessary to assume the worst and not the best. Not to mention Iran and Syria, which are allies of Hizbullah and allow it to maintain a balance of threat against Israel in the north of the country," he said, the general consensus in the region being that the Israelis significantly exaggerate the Hizbullah threat.
Melman concluded: "Libya's dramatic announcement should impel Israel to recognize the fact that the strategic threats 'beyond the horizon' have decreased immeasurably and have perhaps even disappeared, whereas the real threats are at its gates here and now."
The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University declared in September that the conventional military gap between Israel and the Arab armies has never been so great, particularly since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's military forces. This, it argued, will probably mean that some Arab states will gradually lower their military procurement programs.
But the bottom line is that while the Bush administration systematically eliminates the WMD capabilities of Israel's adversaries and topples hostile regimes, it will continue to turn a blind eye to Israel's nuclear arsenal, weakening international efforts to dismantle it. This will tilt the regional military balance even heavier in Israel's favor, fueling Arab and Muslim hostility toward the US and the Jewish state and heightening the prospect of potentially horrendous terrorist attacks.
Ed Blanche, a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, has covered Middle Eastern affairs for more than 30 years and is a regular contributor to The Daily Star
----
Israelis torn on WMD
Jerusalem January 3, 2004
Reuters
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908908295.html
One in four Israelis believes the country should give up its presumed nuclear arsenal as part of a comprehensive move to rid the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction, a poll has found.
Widely believed to be the only regional nuclear power, Israel has come under extra scrutiny since Libya said last month it was abandoning its WMD program. Under a policy it calls "strategic ambiguity", Israel does not discuss capabilities.
A survey of 504 Israelis commissioned by the state broadcaster found 77.4 per cent believe Israel has nuclear weapons and 25.2 per cent think they should be eliminated as part of any regional disarmament campaign. Opposed to the suggestion were 56.1 per cent, while 18.7 per cent did not express an opinion.
More than 22 per cent said either that they did not believe Israel had the bomb or did not know whether it had. Asked to grade their sense of national security, 81.7 per cent said "terrible" or "not so good".
----
Israel in no hurry to clear the nuclear fog
And the US is unlikely to apply much pressure, argues Craig Nelson in Jerusalem.
January 3, 2004
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908911555.html
When the "brother leader and guide of the revolution" emerged from his burrow of international isolation last month and declared in essence, "My name is Muammar Gaddafi. I'm the president of Libya. I want to negotiate," Washington struck another name from the list of wannabe members of the doomsday weapons club.
But Gaddafi's announcement that Libya was ready to dismantle its nuclear weapons caused few, if any ripples in Israel, possessor of arguably the most secretive weapons of mass destruction program in the world.
Washington was silent, too, despite increasingly compelling reasons for raising the issue publicly. For the Bush Administration to pressure Israel to declare its weapons of mass destruction and explain the circumstances under which they might be used would, at least, remove a glaring double standard in its often sanctimonious proclamations. And it would reassure moderate Arab neighbours. But such pressure is unlikely.
The Federation of American Scientists and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute say Israel has at least 200 nuclear warheads. If true, that would make it the world's fifth-largest nuclear power.
Its arsenal features other advanced weaponry. A 1993 report by the Office of Technology Assessment for the US Congress says Israel has "undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities" and is "generally reported as having an undeclared offensive biological warfare program".
Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and thus is not subject to inspections and the threat of sanctions by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.
During the 1960s, it deceived US scientists inspecting its Dimona nuclear plant, constructing a fake control room and bricking over doors leading to an underground uranium processing facility, Seymour Hersh reports in The Samson Option, his account of the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
Israel's policy of neither confirming nor denying the existence of its nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal has served it well - or, as the former prime minister Shimon Peres has put it, "The suspicion and fog surrounding this issue are constructive."
The perception that it is a member of the nuclear club has given Israel a high level of deterrence. And the official opaqueness has let it avoid a direct collision with US policy and law on weapons proliferation. Such a collision might jeopardise aid from Washington, which exceeds $US3 billion ($4 billion) a year. The official posture "has enabled Israel for decades to enjoy the best of both worlds", says Shai Feldman, director of the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv.
Never mind that nuclear weapons are useless against jihadis. Never mind also that Gaddafi's about-face and Saddam Hussein's fall mean the almost total destruction of the Arab world's radical camp. Add the decision by Iran's mullahs to allow nuclear inspections and the strategic picture of the Middle East has been transformed.
But to Israeli officials, Feldman says, Libya's and Iran's turnabouts reveal the weakness of international inspections and safeguards. Although both Tehran and Tripoli are signatories of the non-proliferation treaty, both made significant advances towards development of weapons of mass destruction that went undetected for years.
Under these circumstances, the question of whether the continued existence of Israel's arsenal encourages what it says it wants - a Middle East free of doomsday weapons - may be moot. But while expecting Israel to relinquish its germs, gases and nukes may be far-fetched, it is arguably not premature for Israel to talk about them publicly and acknowledge what the world knows.
A sign of how far Israel stands from doing that came this week, when its domestic intelligence agency was reported to be considering how to silence a nuclear whistleblower who is due to be released from prison in April.
Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, was sentenced to 18 years in jail for espionage after giving pictures and a description of alleged weapons from Dimona to London's Sunday Times in 1986.
Local media reports this week said the options being considered for muzzling Vanunu included barring him from travelling overseas or speaking in public after his release. Israeli officials later confirmed the reports.
-------- japan
Analysis: Japan nuclear debate may heat up
January 03, 2004
By Shihoko Goto
United Press International
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031222-122617-5344r.htm
As Iraq remains of foremost concern to U.S. foreign policy-makers, countries in East Asia are increasingly concerned about North Korea and the possibility of Kim Jong-il's regime developing nuclear weapons. Fears of the hermit nation becoming a nuclear power, coupled with growing worries about a more militant China, in turn is leading neighboring Japan to consider developing its own weapons.
From top policy-makers to the average voter, the possibility of Japan going nuclear has become a hot topic, a fact that would have been unconceivable less than five years ago. As the only country in the world that has been a victim of a nuclear attack -- on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 -- the Japanese have prided themselves on being vehemently against nuclear weapons. This has meant that even discussing the possibility of developing nuclear missiles has been largely taboo.
Indeed, when then-Vice Defense Minister Shingo Nishimura talked about Japan's nuclear potential in 1999, he was forced to resign. But since, there has been growing fear not only of the prospect of Kim's regime developing nuclear weapons, there is also greater fear the United States may not be as reliable an ally as once thought. Moreover, while most countries across the globe are quietly optimistic about China's recent rise in the diplomatic scene, particularly with regards to handling relations with North Korea, many Japanese policy-makers are uneasy about China's increased political role. In light of the fact China is a nuclear power with a large standing army and is close to Japan's borders, lawmakers are beginning to see Beijing as a potential military threat. As a result, fear of China as much as North Korea has increased calls from within Japan for the country to become more self-reliant on defense matters.
Earlier this year, Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Japan's commitment to remaining a non-nuclear power was a policy choice that could be revisited at any time. Meanwhile the opposition Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa said Japan not only had enough plutonium within its nuclear generators to build thousands of nuclear warheads, he also emphasized it would be prepared to retaliate if either China or North Korea were to become a threat. Another politician that has gained not just notoriety but also support is Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara who continues to advocate for Japan to build up its military power and also to hold nuclear weapons of its own.
There is no doubt Japan has the technological knowledge to develop nuclear arms. It is already one of most nuclear-energy-dependent nations in the world, with more than 30 percent of its electricity coming from nuclear power. As such, it already has enough radioactive material to convert into weapons.
At the same time, fears about the reliability of the United States as a military ally is increasing the call for Japan to become a military power in its own right. Since the end of World War II, the United States became Japan's biggest ally, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance remains at the crux of the country's national security. Yet, particularly after the September 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many Japanese fear the United States will not be as reliable an ally when Japan needs its help the most. Such concerns are stepping up calls for the country to beef up its own defense capabilities significantly.
Japan had already begun weaning itself off from relying as extensively on the United States and has called for a significant reduction in the number of U.S. troops stationed in Japan since the end of the Cold War.
Granted, Japan already ranks in the top five of military powers in the world. Nevertheless, the country's constitution prevents Japanese troops from being deployed overseas except for self-defense purposes or international peacekeeping operations. It does not, however, prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Of course, a major deterrent for Japan to develop nuclear weapons is that is has been a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty since 1976. Yet as the United States in particular has been reluctant to commit to many international treaties, some policy-makers have argued Japan could similarly withdraw from the NPT.
The bigger deterrent to Japan developing its own nuclear weapons would actually be the country's relations with its neighbors. Its history of aggression across Asia, and continued terse diplomatic relations particularly with South Korea and China, would likely prove problematic for its relations with the rest of East Asia.
As such, the likelihood of Japan developing nuclear arms within the next 12 months is slim, but it is clear the debate on whether it should or not will continue to intensify in 2004.
-------- korea
Private Group Prepares Visit to North Korea
January 3, 2004
New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/international/asia/03KORE.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 - A private delegation of American experts on North Korea, including a former White House official and a former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, will travel to North Korea and possibly visit a nuclear weapons plant, people close to the delegation said Friday.
Bush administration officials said the delegation did not have any official government blessing and would not carry any message to North Korea. Indeed, the White House officials expressed concern that the trip might complicate the administration's own delicate diplomacy with North Korea.
Since last summer, the United States has held two separate multiparty negotiations involving North Korea and concerning its nuclear weapons program. Those talks, sponsored by China, are expected to resume early this year.
The delegation of Americans going to North Korea, first reported in USA Today on Friday, will be led by John W. Lewis, a professor emeritus of international relations at Stanford University and a former director of the university's Center for International Security and Cooperation, a group that encourages dialogue on security matters.
Accompanying Professor Lewis will be Dr. Sigfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos laboratory and an expert on nuclear weapons. Also traveling with the group will be Jack Pritchard, a former staff member of President Bush's National Security Council who has favored a more flexible approach to North Korea than the one adopted by the administration.
The trip grew out of discussions Professor Lewis held over the last year in visits to North Korea. Members of the group are leaving as early as this weekend for Beijing and will travel from China to North Korea.
"This is not a U.S. government-sponsored trip," someone involved in the planning said. "The U.S. government has no say. Nor were they asked to say yes or no to the trip itself."
Bush administration officials and people involved in the trip said that because Dr. Hecker is on a consulting contract with the Department of Energy and has a high security clearance, the administration was asked if it objected to his traveling to North Korea and the administration said it did not.
Some officials said that North Korea might seek to use the visit to emphasize the progress it had made on developing nuclear weapons and challenge the United States to do something about that.
"There's a limit to what I can say, simply because it's not our deal," said J. Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman. "Any efforts that complicate prospects or undertakings to reconvene the six-party talks and to achieve forward movement in dismantling North Korea's nuclear program aren't helpful."
A person knowledgeable about the trip who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the expectation was that the group would visit a nuclear weapons plant, possibly at Yongbyon, but that their schedule in North Korea would not be known until the group arrived.
If Dr. Hecker is allowed to see Yongbyon, that visit could presumably shed light on the progress North Korea has made in developing nuclear weapons since international inspectors previously stationed there were ejected a year ago.
The main question that American intelligence experts have is how much of the spent nuclear fuel at Yongbyon may have been reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. Intelligence satellites have detected activity at the site suggesting the possibility that reprocessing of nuclear rods was taking place there.
Even if the experts are allowed to visit Yongbyon, and could tell how much fuel had been produced, they would need to visit other facilities to answer questions about the full range of North Korea's nuclear activities.
Professor Lewis's group does not have a political agenda, but its members are all known to favor talks with North Korea on its nuclear program as a general principle.
Separately, two senior staff aides of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, both of whom have traveled to North Korea in the past, are to be there at the same time as the private group. Officials for the committee said the two aides might join the group led by Professor Lewis, but that their itinerary was also unclear.
The two Senate committee staff members are Keith Luse, an aide to Senator Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the foreign relations panel, and Frank Jannuzi, an aide to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the committee's ranking Democrat.
The committee officials said Mr. Luse and Mr. Jannuzi had planned their trip separately to study issues like food distribution and the political situation in North Korea.
"The North Koreans may include them if there is a visit to a nuclear site," one Senate official said.
The visit by private Americans comes at a pivotal moment in the discussions over how to proceed in talks with North Korea. Not only are there hard-liners and more conciliatory people in the Bush administration, but the White House is also having trouble forging a consensus with its other partners in the talks.
China has taken the lead in trying to organize negotiations with North Korea. The other participants in the multilateral talks are South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The main difficulty has been over the Bush administration's opposition to any economic concessions or security pledges before North Korea commits to dismantling its nuclear weapons program in a complete, irreversible and verifiable way.
----
U.S. Disavows Trip to North Korea
Experts' Possible Visit to Nuclear Facility Is Termed Unofficial
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50132-2004Jan2.html
U.S. officials played down a report yesterday that an unofficial group of U.S. citizens would visit a North Korean nuclear facility later this month, saying the visit was not coordinated with the Bush administration and appeared little different from other unofficial visits.
"It's not our deal," State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli told reporters. "We have nothing to do with this group or groups' reported plans to visit North Korea."
A member of the group said that the North Korean government had only hinted about a possible visit to the Yongbyon nuclear complex, and that the timing of the trip -- ahead of a possible second round of six-nation talks intended to restrain North Korea's nuclear ambitions -- is coincidental.
"This is strictly unofficial," said the delegation member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There was no coordination or blessing by the U.S. government." He expressed doubt that the North Koreans would permit the visit to Yongbyon once the delegation reached Pyongyang. "No agenda is set until you get there," he said. USA Today reported yesterday that North Korea had agreed to allow the delegation to visit the facility.
U.S. citizens do not need permission to travel to North Korea, but a nuclear expert planning to travel with the group, Siegfried S. Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, contacted the Energy Department about his travel plans.
The trip was arranged by John W. Lewis, a China expert affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University who has been a frequent visitor to North Korea. Charles L. Pritchard, a former State Department special envoy for North Korean negotiations, who resigned in August, will travel with Lewis and Hecker.
Separately, Frank Jannuzi and Keith Luse, East Asia specialists on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are planning their own trip to North Korea. Jannuzi and Luse traveled to North Korea for three days of meetings in August, meeting with the vice foreign minister as well as with other diplomatic and military officials. In a report to Congress on the trip, they urged the administration to "greatly expand dialogue with North Korea" through both official and unofficial channels.
The two groups may meet at some point and conduct joint interviews there if the North Koreans allow them, a congressional official said.
In December 2002, North Korea evicted international inspectors from Yongbyon -- which had been shuttered under a 1994 accord -- and said it would reprocess 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons-grade material. U.S. intelligence has not been able to confirm whether North Korea achieved that goal, which would provide plutonium for about a half-dozen weapons.
Ereli said the United States is not opposed to such visits if they do not interfere with the six-nation negotiating track favored by the administration. "That's where our focus is; that's where we're going to be putting our effort," he said.
----
White House Cool to N. Korea Nuke Visits
January 3, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration, pressing for the irreversible and verifiable elimination of North Korea's nuclear program, distanced itself Friday from planned visits there by congressional aides and private scientists.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said that a six-nation effort to address the issue -- which began last August -- is the appropriate forum for such an undertaking.
The American experts have been dealing with the North Koreans as separate groups but apparently will be traveling to the communist state in the same time frame and may join together for the proposed tour of the nuclear facility at Yongbyon.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is sending Republican staff member Keith Luse and a Democratic colleague, Frank Jannuzi. Both are East Asia experts and work respectively for committee chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel's ranking Democrat.
A second group planning a trip consists of John Lewis of Stanford University; Sig Hecker of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a nuclear weapons research center; and Jack Pritchard, a former State Department official who left the government last summer.
The six-nation effort to halt the nuclear program began with a meeting in Beijing. Efforts to reconvene the discussions last month fell through. Participants, aside from the United States and North Korea, are South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
The United States is hoping that North Korea can be persuaded to disarm through security guarantees as well as economic benefits.
Asked about the plans of the two groups to visit Pyongyang, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said they are not acting on behalf of the administration.
``Any efforts that complicate prospects or undertakings to reconvene six- party talks and to achieve forward movement in dismantling North Korea's nuclear program aren't helpful,'' Ereli said.
Asked whether the administration opposes the visit, he said, ``We neither facilitate nor oppose.''
There has been no outside access to the nuclear facility at Yongbyon since U.N. inspectors were expelled at the end of 2002.
The North says it has completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods at Yongbyon. If true, that would yield enough plutonium for half a dozen atomic bombs. North Korea is believed to already have one or two nuclear bombs.
In addition to the plutonium bomb project at Yongbyon, North Korea also has acknowledged a separate effort to produce a uranium bomb.
During a visit to East Asia in late summer, Luse and Jannuzi spent three days in North Korea.
In a report, they said they told North Korean officials that the United States views Pyongyang's nuclear programs as a ``grave threat to international peace and stability.''
They urged the officials to seek a peaceful, negotiated solution to the impasse through multilateral dialogue.
----
Japan, US, S Korea to insist on denuclearised N Korea: Report
Associated Press Tokyo,
January 3
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_517569,00050004.htm
Japan, the United States and South Korea will demand that North Korea scrap all its nuclear facilities when diplomats meet next to try to resolve the year-old crisis over its moves to develop nuclear weapons, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
The report by the Yomiuri newspaper suggested the three allies had no plans to restart a recently suspended project to build a pair of nuclear reactors to generate badly needed electricity for the impoverished communist state.
Citing unnamed Japanese government sources, the newspaper said senior officials from the three nations had agreed North Korea should not be allowed to "operate nuclear facilities even for power generation or other civilian purposes" as long as Kim Jong Il remains the country's leader because of the possibility they could be used to develop weapons covertly.
The allies will demand that North Korea agree to "dispose of" all its nuclear facilities at the next round of six-nation talks to end the standoff, the report said.
Any future energy assistance will be limited to providing help with the construction of non-nuclear thermal power plants, the newspaper said, adding that the policy had been decided at a series of meetings through December.
The report came a day after news that North Korea had invited a delegation of US nuclear experts to visit its main nuclear complex next week. The visit would be the first by outsiders to the site since United Nations monitors were expelled at the end of 2002.
----
N. Korea to Be Asked to Be Nuclear Free - Report
January 3, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-talks.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States, Japan and South Korea are to demand North Korea scrap its nuclear programs, including those used for power generation, at the next round of six-way nuclear talks, a Japanese newspaper said Saturday.
In the most explicit statement of allied goals for making North Korea nuclear-free, the three governments have agreed the North should not be allowed to use nuclear energy even for peaceful purposes as long as Kim Jong-il remained in power, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
``As long as there is fear that North Korean facilities might be used for military purposes, we can't tolerate any nuclear facilities, not even those operated for peaceful purposes,'' Yomiuri quoted a senior Foreign Ministry official as saying.
North Korea, believed by the United States to already have one or two nuclear bombs, has sparked global alarm over its nuclear ambitions.
The Yomiuri Shimbun, quoting Japanese government sources, said the United States, Japan and South Korea would only consider giving aid to the North to build thermal power plants.
An agreement to rid North Korea of all nuclear programs was reached after talks among officials from the three countries, it said.
Japanese Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to confirm the report.
``It would be inappropriate for us to comment on any details as we're still in negotiations. We would like to keep our cards hidden.''
The report comes ahead of an expected visit next week to North Korea by two U.S. groups, who might tour the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, which Washington believes is at the heart of North Korea's suspected nuclear arms program.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month that North Korea had agreed to take part in a second round of six-party talks on its nuclear program early in 2004, but added that exact dates had yet to be decided.
Japanese officials have said they were optimistic the talks could be held in January.
A first round of talks was held in Beijing in August involving China, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the United States. The discussions ended inconclusively.
North Korea wants security guarantees from Washington, which, for its part, insists on an ``irreversible verification regime'' to end Pyongyang's nuclear programs, including the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.
The North Korean nuclear crisis began in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea had admitted to having a nuclear weapons program, which U.S. officials say violated a 1994 agreement by Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two light-water nuclear reactors.
-------- mideast
U.S., U.N. Divided Over Libya Nuke Issues
January 3, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Libya-US.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The United States believes it would be well within its rights to lead the effort to scrap Libya's atomic weapons program, but it wants the debate taken out of the public arena, diplomats said.
The diplomats said Secretary of State Colin Powell has spoken with chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei about resolving differences with Washington.
At issue is whether the International Atomic Energy Agency or Washington should police the destruction of Libya's nuclear arms program, which Tripoli disclosed publicly last month.
Senior U.S. officials have said that will be carried out by a team of American and British experts and suggested the IAEA was poorly informed about the extent of Libya's nuclear activities. One diplomat said ElBaradei was infuriated by ``potshots'' directed at him and attributed in the U.S. media to unnamed senior administration officials.
Diplomats who follow IAEA activities told AP on condition of anonymity that Powell suggested to ElBaradei that it would be best if public discussion over responsibility ended.
``It was agreed to return to more diplomatic channels of communication,'' one diplomat said.
However, another said the Americans remained firm in their view that it was their right to take the lead in scrapping Libya's suspect nuclear programs if asked to do so by Tripoli.
``If Libya wants the United States to go in, then the Americans feel they are free to go in,'' he said.
The diplomats told The Associated Press that Powell's recent telephone conversation with ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, focused on tensions over Libya between the IAEA and U.S. administration officials already unhappy with the agency's stance on Iraq and Iran.
Over the past year, the Egyptian law professor also has been the target of U.S. accusations that he minimized the nuclear weapons threats from Iraq under Saddam Hussein and from Iran. The United States maintained that both nations were trying to build atomic bombs, which the IAEA disputed.
ElBaradei told AP on Tuesday that the IAEA intends to ``do it alone'' in destroying Libya's atomic programs. ElBaradei spokesman Mark Gwozdecky reinforced that message Friday, saying policing Libya's nuclear program and stripping it of arms applications was ``our exclusive responsibility.''
In Washington, a State Department official denied friction with the IAEA, saying the agency has a role to play, along with the United States and the British. But, the official added, ``Who does what needs to be worked out.''
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's recent acknowledgment that Libya sought weapons of mass destruction and his decision to renounce them -- made after months of secret negotiations with the United States and Britain -- surprised the IAEA, the U.N. body charged with keeping watch on nuclear programs.
ElBaradei and an IAEA team visited four once-secret nuclear sites in Libya's capital, Tripoli, last weekend. While U.S. officials have suggested that the Libyan program was advanced, ElBaradei said that, from what his team saw, Libya still was years away from developing atomic bombs.
During the trip, ElBaradei met with Gadhafi, who assured the IAEA chief that Libya would cooperate fully with inspections and eliminate its long-secret program, saying he wanted to turn Libya into a ``mainstream'' nation.
Libya has promised to cooperate with the Vienna-based U.N. agency and said it would sign a protocol allowing intrusive inspections at short notice, similar to the one signed earlier this month by Iran.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.iaea.org
----
U.S. Wants Libya Discussed in Private
Sat Jan 3, 2003
By GEORGE JAHN,
Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=9&u=/ap/20040103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/nuclear_agency_libya_us
VIENNA, Austria - The United States believes it would be well within its rights to lead the effort to scrap Libya's atomic weapons program, but it wants the debate taken out of the public arena, diplomats said.
The diplomats said Secretary of State Colin Powell has spoken with chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei about resolving differences with Washington.
At issue is whether the International Atomic Energy Agency or Washington should police the destruction of Libya's nuclear arms program, which Tripoli disclosed publicly last month.
Senior U.S. officials have said that will be carried out by a team of American and British experts and suggested the IAEA was poorly informed about the extent of Libya's nuclear activities. One diplomat said ElBaradei was infuriated by "potshots" directed at him and attributed in the U.S. media to unnamed senior administration officials.
Diplomats who follow IAEA activities told AP on condition of anonymity that Powell suggested to ElBaradei that it would be best if public discussion over responsibility ended.
"It was agreed to return to more diplomatic channels of communication," one diplomat said.
However, another said the Americans remained firm in their view that it was their right to take the lead in scrapping Libya's suspect nuclear programs if asked to do so by Tripoli.
"If Libya wants the United States to go in, then the Americans feel they are free to go in," he said.
The diplomats told The Associated Press that Powell's recent telephone conversation with ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, focused on tensions over Libya between the IAEA and U.S. administration officials already unhappy with the agency's stance on Iraq and Iran.
Over the past year, the Egyptian law professor also has been the target of U.S. accusations that he minimized the nuclear weapons threats from Iraq under Saddam Hussein and from Iran. The United States maintained that both nations were trying to build atomic bombs, which the IAEA disputed.
ElBaradei told AP on Tuesday that the IAEA intends to "do it alone" in destroying Libya's atomic programs. ElBaradei spokesman Mark Gwozdecky reinforced that message Friday, saying policing Libya's nuclear program and stripping it of arms applications was "our exclusive responsibility."
In Washington, a State Department official denied friction with the IAEA, saying the agency has a role to play, along with the United States and the British. But, the official added, "Who does what needs to be worked out."
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's recent acknowledgment that Libya sought weapons of mass destruction and his decision to renounce them - made after months of secret negotiations with the United States and Britain - surprised the IAEA, the U.N. body charged with keeping watch on nuclear programs.
ElBaradei and an IAEA team visited four once-secret nuclear sites in Libya's capital, Tripoli, last weekend. While U.S. officials have suggested that the Libyan program was advanced, ElBaradei said that, from what his team saw, Libya still was years away from developing atomic bombs.
During the trip, ElBaradei met with Gadhafi, who assured the IAEA chief that Libya would cooperate fully with inspections and eliminate its long-secret program, saying he wanted to turn Libya into a "mainstream" nation.
Libya has promised to cooperate with the Vienna-based U.N. agency and said it would sign a protocol allowing intrusive inspections at short notice, similar to the one signed earlier this month by Iran.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.iaea.org
----
New Faces Herald Hopes for New Libya
Ministers Under Gaddafi Signal Reforms Meant To End Isolation
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50482-2004Jan2?language=printer
TRIPOLI, Libya - "To the shores of Tripo-leee," sang Libya's prime minister, Shokri Ghanem, slightly off key.
With irony, he was reminding a visiting reporter of the long and tumultuous history between the United States and Libya and the eagerness with which his country awaits the beginning of a new era.
Ghanem fully expects the United States to storm the shore soon -- but not with Marines, who assaulted a fort near Tripoli while the Navy chased pirates along what the West then called the Barbary Coast, giving rise to the line in the Marine Corps hymn. Rather, he foresaw oil companies wading in to reclaim old petroleum concessions and negotiate new ones.
"We have done our part to end old quarrels," he said. "Now it is up to the Americans. We think it is time for the countries to think about permanent interests. The Yankees are coming back."
Ghanem represents the new public face of Libya. For decades, the North African country's image was dominated by the words and deeds of Moammar Gaddafi, the volatile leader who rose to power in a 1969 coup, took Libya into 30 years of conflict and controversy and reshaped its economy into an idealized blend of socialist and Islamic fundamentals.
Gaddafi, self-styled Leader of the Revolution, still rules. Nonetheless, change is in the air in this rundown, sleepy capital. Its leading voices include Ghanem; the oil minister, Abdulhafid Zlitni; and one of Gaddafi's sons, Saif Islam Gaddafi. They have trumpeted a sharp change in Libya's foreign policy and far-reaching economic reform.
In an effort to eliminate crippling economic sanctions imposed by the United States in the 1980s, Libya has agreed to compensate the families of victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Two Libyan officials were extradited in the case, and one was convicted of murder. Gaddafi has also acknowledged Libya's efforts to develop nuclear weapons and invited U.N. inspectors to examine equipment and interrogate scientists involved in the program.
Libya has not completed its climb out of years of pariah status. The United Nations lifted its own sanctions after Libya pledged compensation for Lockerbie, but skepticism remains about Gaddafi's intentions. The United States in particular is expecting a treasure chest of information about Libya's nuclear program -- not only its extent but also the source of its components. The Bush administration has indicated it will not lift U.S. sanctions until it is convinced that Libya has come clean.
Ghanem asserted that Libya's nuclear program grew out of a "kind of Middle East arms race" that included Israel, the only country in the region known to possess nuclear arms. Libyan officials have concluded that even if they had developed the bombs, they would not have been used. "Even the United States couldn't use them in Vietnam," he said.
Ghanem, a former OPEC official, returned to Libya last year to manage the economy and was named to the prime minister's post in June. His official title is secretary of the General People's Committee.
Ghanem employs dramatically different rhetoric from Gaddafi's: the language of realpolitik rather than revolutionary bombast. "If stronger powers want us to end our atomic program, we have to do it," Ghanem said. "We have other priorities."
Revamping the Libyan economy is high among those priorities. Under Gaddafi, private enterprise was essentially banned and employment was guaranteed. Ghanem said, however, that the policies of "full socialism" led to "imprudent" management and corruption.
Reform began two years ago with the liberalization of foreign exchange. Ghanem is now pressing for privatization of industry and permission for Libyans to own more than one house, in order to stimulate the housing market. He also wants to promote joint ventures with foreign investors in such key industries as cement and chemicals.
The proposals conflict with Gaddafi's official ideology as laid out in the "Green Book," his guide to government and society. According to the Green Book, "wage workers are a type of slave," and the "final solution" to economic ills is "the abolition of profit." Reconciling the Green Book with a strategy of integrating Libya into the world economy "has been discussed a lot" within the Libyan government, Ghanem said.
"I have no guarantee all the reforms will be accepted," Ghanem said. "But the leader listens. He feels the economy needs improvement."
Ghanem gave no indications that political moves toward democracy were on the way. "We try to concentrate on improving the economy and relations with different countries," he said.
The lubricant for the changes is clearly oil. Libya expects to increase production dramatically over the next few years, said Zlitni, chairman of the National Oil Corp. and effectively Libya's oil minister. The country plans to invest $30 billion in oil production over the next decade, he said, and much of that will come from foreign companies.
Zlitni said several U.S. oil companies still hold concessions to oil fields in Libya. The concessions, which date to the 1950s, are in force despite the U.S. sanctions. Zlitni said Libya was willing to extend the deals, which are scheduled to end within a few years. He said Libya values U.S. expertise in maintaining production in depleted fields as well as the willingness to take on new investments. "We hope that everything will be settled as soon as possible. We have projects waiting and can't do it alone," he said.
The United States has accused Libya of supporting terrorism not only in the case of the Lockerbie bombing, but also in the 1986 bombing of a German disco that was popular with U.S. servicemen. Days after that attack, which killed two U.S. soldiers and a civilian, the United States bombed a government complex near Tripoli.
Zlitni said, however, that bitter recent history would not impede business relations between the two countries. "Oil is a business concern," he said. "It's really about mutual benefit."
In recent years, Libya has been on a charm offensive with the West, and much of the effort has been spearheaded by Saif Islam, 34, Gaddafi's son from his second marriage. Saif Islam Gaddafi did postgraduate studies in Vienna and at the London School of Economics, and he speaks French, German and English. He sports a shaved head, in contrast to Gaddafi's curly, unruly locks; he wears British suits, not the flowing Arab robes favored by his father.
His only official role is head of the Gaddafi Foundation Charity, reportedly a philanthropic organization. But the organization has served as a vehicle for him to carry out sensitive diplomatic work, including negotiations for the release of European and South African hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim rebel group in the Philippines, and help workers held by Afghanistan's deposed Taliban government. When the Libyan government announced the decision to give up its nuclear program, Saif Islam Gaddafi offered a forthright rationale: "It will pave the way for the normalization of political relations with the United States and the West in general."
His prominence has prompted speculation that he would succeed his father.
Ghanem, who knew him during his student days in Vienna, described Saif Islam Gaddafi only as "a citizen" and a "good listener." He suggested, however, that he was more than just a freelance do-gooder and wields significant influence in Libya. He noted that the younger Gaddafi is fond of wild animals and has a menagerie at his home. "You know, you don't argue with a man who has a tiger as a pet," Ghanem said.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
After Lapses, Security Checks Are Planned at Nuclear Sites
January 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03SECU.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 - Worries about missing keys and other security lapses at some nuclear weapons laboratories have prompted the federal agency that maintains the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile to review locks, keys and procedures at facilities nationwide.
The Energy Department's semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons programs within the department, is sending a team of inspectors to start the security review in February. The action follows the agency's initiatives last summer, after some members of Congress complained about security breaches.
"We're doing a complexwide inventory of lock and keys," an agency spokesman, Bryan Wilkes, said on Friday.
"The idea is not to go over every lock and key, but to sit down and review with folks the controls that were put in place last summer," Mr. Wilkes said. "We want to make sure stupid little things, whether they're large or small, don't happen again."
In July, the agency announced new plans to reinforce safeguards with added security experts, more frequent surveillance, a review of past studies and investigations and creation of a commission and separate panel for long-range planning.
The agency is responsible for maintaining the country's nuclear weapons stockpile, for promoting international nuclear nonproliferation and for providing nuclear propulsion systems for the Navy's submarines and aircraft carriers.
Mr. Wilkes said the most recent case of missing keys involved the agency's plant for processing weapons-grade uranium in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Last summer, he said, the facility reported missing "a little under 250" keys, but "none of them were for any sensitive areas."
Mr. Wilkes described the situation this way: "Most of that were to janitorial areas or to file cabinets; simple things that people lose keys to every day. A small portion of that - under 40 - went to people's offices or to a conference room where you can have classified information for up to an hour."
A set of master keys was missing for several days at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, and an electronic key card was gone for six weeks before top managers were informed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. A set of keys to perimeter gates and office doors was also lost at Livermore, and the loss was not reported for three weeks.
Chris Miller, a spokesman for Sandia, said on Friday that the laboratory was advised a couple of weeks ago "that D.O.E. probably was going to be visiting early in the new year just to look at security again. There are always ongoing looks at security."
-------- nevada
Critical year for Yucca
Court challenges considered pivotal in long battle over nuclear dumpsite
By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN WEEKEND EDITION
January 3 - 4, 2004
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2004/jan/02/516112487.html
WASHINGTON -- After a 21-year struggle, Nevada may finally know by the end of 2004 whether it can stop the nation's nuclear waste from being stored at Yucca Mountain.
Since the state lost its battle to block the project in Congress in 2002, Gov. Kenny Guinn and other state officials have put their faith in the ability of the state's army of lawyers and technical experts to defeat the plan to put 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste into the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
This year will bring a confluence of court challenges and regulatory filings that could either scuttle the project or push it forward.
"It's going to be a real pivotal year for the project," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "I think we're really going to find out if it is going to go forward or not."
Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste program office director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, a pro-Yucca group, calls 2004 a year of "big milestones."
The two biggest:
# A series of lawsuits filed by Nevada to stop the project go in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Jan. 14, and the court, which has had no problem challenging the Energy Department in the past, is expected to rule as soon as June.
# The Energy Department plans to file its application to build the repository with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year.
In both instances, the arguments for and against the repository will get their first head-to-head hearings before the court and the NRC, which both have the power to modify or stop the project.
So far Nevada's arguments have failed to sway Congress, the Energy Department and President Bush, and it's unclear how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will respond. Nevada officials have been critical of some of the NRC's work so far on Yucca Mountain, and the NRC would be more likely to modify a plan or send it back to the Energy Department than kill it outright.
"The court actions are in a whole separate category," O'Connell said. "If there is a defeat in the court we go back to square one," he said. "There is no Plan B, so DOE has to go back to Congress and it's 'What now coach?' "
In court Nevada will have a chance to argue that the logic and scientific studies used to garner the congressional and presidential approval of the site are faulty.
The Energy Department has studied the site since 1982, when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which regulates the Yucca Mountain Project, passed.
The state has taken issue with the way the studies have been conducted, despite assurances from the Energy Department that Yucca Mountain is safe.
Nevada officials say the department reached this conclusion through a process riddled with violations of federal law and rule-bending in favor of a department "hell-bent" on getting the site approved for an increasingly impatient nuclear industry.
"So far DOE has ignored the feelings of Nevadans," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. "They have had this see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil attitude on the project. ... There's a zillion things out there we don't know.' "
Legal fight
On Jan. 14 the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., will take up a series of legal challenges filed by Nevada against the project. This will be the first time a federal court will look at the legal aspects of the project, said Joe Egan, the Washington attorney who will represent the state in court.
"2004 will be the year that will test if politics alone is enough to make the Yucca Mountain project go forward," Egan said. "Up until now it has only been about politics, but now it has to answer questions on law and science."
Surprisingly Nevada and the nuclear industry want the same thing -- for the government to follow the law. Nevada and the nuclear industry, however, see the law in entirely different ways.
The nuclear industry wants the department to fulfill the promise of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to remove spent fuel and store it in one place.
The law says that a geological repository should hold in the radiation from the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years.
The Energy Department is pressing forward with its belief that Yucca Mountain is a good, safe site. "For 50 years the scientific consensus is that deep geologic burial is the best solution for spent nuclear fuel and 20 years of exhaustive scientific study and analysis has concluded that Yucca Mountain is the most appropriate site for a permanent repository," said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group that has supported the project.
"The construction and opening of Yucca Mountain will fulfill the U.S. government's contractual obligation to take possession of the spent fuel and defense waste scattered throughout the country."
Nevada has argued that the problem with Yucca Mountain is that it won't be a geological burial ground, as determined by the law, because the mountain itself can't hold back the radiation from 77,000 tons of nuclear waste as required by law.
The Energy Department has devised a number of "man-made" barriers, such as metal shields, to stop or slow radiation. That violates the law, Nevada officials say.
The state is also challenging the project on several other grounds, from scientific to procedural.
The lawsuits include a constitutional challenge claiming the Nuclear Waste Policy Act illegally pits the 49 states against Nevada.
The state's attorneys are also targeting a law that requires more scientific study of Yucca Mountain than has been done. State officials say that proper study of Yucca Mountain, following the original criteria outlined in the law, would prove it is incapable of safely storing the waste and should disqualify the project.
They also say that because the scientific study has not been finished up to the requirement in the law, the government should not have approved the project to go forward.
The state is also targeting the environmental analysis completed by the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing rules and the radiation standard set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which will be used by the Energy Department to show the safety of Yucca Mountain.
Energy Department officials believe the work they have done is sufficient to show the project's safety.
"We are confident in our case because we followed the law passed by Congress and our science proves that Yucca Mountain is safe," Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said.
But Egan, who will argue three of Nevada's cases in the three-hour proceeding before the federal appeals court, said he was confident Nevada will succeed. Regardless of the outcome, he expects the cases to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
In spite of the possible long-term legal challenges, "right now the best thing is that it is in the court," Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said.
Egan said it would be uncharacteristic of the court to wait until next year to issue a decision. He said it should come well before the department plans to file its construction license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December.
Legal tangles
Meanwhile, a separate but related court case coming up this year could also hold up the project.
The Energy Department agreed to a $16.5 million contract with the law firm of Winston & Strawn to review the project, but the firm quit in 2001 after conflict-of-interest allegations surfaced.
A Las Vegas Sun investigation uncovered that the firm had also done lobbying for the Nuclear Energy Institute. Federal law requires an unbiased review.
The law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and MacRae filed a lawsuit in 2002 that could result in a federal court saying all of Winston & Strawn's work must be reviewed, which would delay the application and put a kink in the overall schedule.
The LeBoeuf law firm had bid for the Energy Department contract originally but lost. The firm filed suit after it did not get the contract after Winston & Strawn withdrew. The Energy Department has yet to replace Winston & Strawn in the two years since the law firm stepped down.
"The department will continue to rely upon in-house attorneys during the development of the license application, until an outside firm is selected," Davis, the Energy Department spokesman, said.
The federal district court in Washington is expected to take up LeBoeuf's case this year.
"It is inconceivable to me that DOE would file it without having a law firm on board," Loux said. "DOE's not pursuing the smart thing in my judgment. It could be a major problem for them."
Licensing
The question of licensing could also be a problem.
The Energy Department has pledged to file its application to start building Yucca Mountain with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year.
The department is expected to start filing backup material to the commission, to be put on a computer system that will be available to the public, by June.
The documents will outline plans for the construction of the site along with safety studies and other scientific material.
"(In the application) they need to describe their understanding of the scientific properties and aspects of that repository, how once-spent fuel is permanently stored there, (and how) they can meet the protection standards," said Janet Schlueter, head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's high-level waste branch.
Once the commission accepts the application, it has up to four years to decide to allow the Energy Department to start construction of the Yucca project.
The NRC regulates nuclear facilities to protect human health and safety, so any technical problems showing anything that could endanger people are supposed to disqualify the project.
Schlueter said the Energy Department's prediction that it would finish building the site, receive approval to open the repository and start accepting waste by 2010 was "pretty optimistic" because there is so much involved.
The Energy Department insists it will submit the license application on time and will answer all questions regarding the project this year.
"The license application will address all issues with sufficient information and detail to enable the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to grant construction authorization," Davis said.
All along the Energy Department has insisted the site is safe and suitable, but critics, both the state and environmentalists, point to problems in the plan found by the department's own paid consultants, independent reviewers and advisory boards.
"The more we learn about Yucca Mountain, the more (the application) will appear to be like a piece of Swiss cheese," Gibbons said, adding that there are holes in the scientific analysis, holes in the national security aspects and holes in the overall plans for the project.
Gibbons said issues brought up by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board in October and again in November are prime examples of the problems the project faces. The board is an independent government body that was created in 1987 to review the Energy Department's work on Yucca Mountain. The board was created at the same time Congress decided to narrow its search for a repository to Yucca Mountain.
The board sent a letter to the Energy Department saying nuclear waste storage containers inside the mountain could corrode and break, leaking more radiation than anticipated. The board followed up with a detailed analysis drawing the same conclusion.
"These discoveries have been made this late in the game," Gibbons said. "What else could be discovered in the next year, the next 10 years, the next 10,000 years?
"There are so many issues and so many questions, I don't believe DOE can reasonably and responsibly make an application. I don't think they can reasonably and responsibly tell the public it is safe."
The advisory board's concerns about corrosion are tied to the Energy Department's lack of a final repository design. The way the repository is designed is expected to affect the rate of corrosion of the casks. The department will finalize the design before it submits the application.
Key Questions
The Energy Department has to resolve several so-called "key technical issues" the NRC has raised before it will receive a license. Those questions revolve around the site's ability to keep radiation from contaminating the surrounding environment and must be answered satisfactorily for the site to be licensed.
The department plans to resolve most of those questions in the spring and summer, just before the application documentation is due in June. So far the commission has deemed only 83 answers to be complete.
When the Energy Department submitted its recommendation to President Bush, 293 scientific questions remained unresolved.
As of Dec. 18 "DOE has submitted responses that fully or partially address 214 of the 293 key technical issue agreements," Davis said. "We intend to address all of the remaining agreements prior to the submission of the license application."
The remaining technical questions have been a point of contention for Nevada officials and other critics of the site, since the president and Congress approved the project despite the long list of unresolved issues. But even a completed list may not change some minds.
"There is nothing the DOE can do or say that can impress me because of their lack of credibility," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "I don't believe or trust them."
During the above-ground atomic testing during the 1950s at the Nevada Test Site, the government assured workers they were safe and told them just to go home and take a shower to rinse off nuclear fallout from explosions, she said.
"All of those Nevada Test Site workers are dying or very sick with cancers that can only be caused by radiation," Berkley said. "This is the same department that tells us Yucca Mountain will be safe. They could put together whatever sham application they want, but it will impress me none."
Berkley said if the site gets approved and radiation leaked out of the site or an accident were to occur in the state, Nevada could never recover.
"We're not going to get many tourists here," Berkley said. "It will happen and then what will we do?"
Berkley said billions of dollars would be lost in revenue and jobs for the state, not to mention the lives of people affected by the radiation.
"How much can the federal government give Nevada to compensate for that?" Berkley said.
As time runs out on the Energy Department's schedule, critics have voiced concerns on what may fall through the cracks.
"I'm very skeptical they are doing careful science, especially in such a hurry," said Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste specialist for the Nuclear Information Resource Service in Washington, which opposes the project.
"A lot of mistakes will be made and it's people's health and safety that are on the line," Kamps said. "It is too much work for them to do it well. ... They are going to do a lot of half-baked work."
-------- tennessee
Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant discloses missing keys
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press
1/3/004
http://reviewappeal.midsouthnews.com/news.ez?viewStory=16840
KNOXVILLE (AP) - The Energy Department's Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge discovered about 200 keys to protected areas were missing, an agency spokesman confirmed Friday.
The missing keys follow similar lapses at nuclear weapons labs in California and New Mexico.
''We are confident that sensitive information and materials have been properly protected, but we do want to improve the program,'' said DOE-Oak Ridge spokesman Steven Wyatt.
Energy Department headquarters will send an investigative team to Oak Ridge in February to make sure. The team is visiting all nuclear weapons sites.
Y-12, a 4,700-employee complex created in World War II as part of the secret Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bomb, today refurbishes old warheads and is a major storehouse of bomb-grade uranium.
Most of Y-12's missing keys were to ''administrative, non-sensitive functions,'' such as file cabinets, construction yard fences and electrical cabinets, Wyatt said.
Wyatt said a ''relatively small number of keys'' to more protected areas, though still considered minimum security, were lost.
''These were limited to two buildings. Neither contained nuclear materials or nuclear operations. Both have been completely rekeyed since then,'' Wyatt said.
Y-12 managers took a key inventory last summer following disclosures of lost keys at other nuclear weapons sites.
An inspector general report in November criticized Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for losing and belatedly reporting the loss of a set of master keys and security cards in April.
That followed an admission in March by the director of the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico that a set of master keys went missing there for several days.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, the semiautonomous agency within the Energy Department that oversees the nuclear weapons complex, is conducting the review. But DOE's inspector general also may get involved.
''We take the loss of keys very seriously. We view any loss as an undermining of the security efforts,'' Assistant Inspector General Denise Smith said in a telephone interview from Washington.
Asked about the Oak Ridge case, Smith said DOE's inspector general ''has taken the position that we are going to do something, but we are not sure whether we are going to launch a specific investigation or if we are going to do a program review similar to what we did at Lawrence Livermore.''
Smith said that ''from some of the reviews that we have done it appears that it may be a problem at a number of sites. But unless you go in and do a specific review, it is just hard to tell.''
On the Net:
Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/
-------- vermont
Coalition files case against VY uprate
By TOBY HENRY
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
Saturday, January 03, 2004
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~1868170,00.html
BRATTLEBORO -- Members of the New England Coalition, an intervenor in the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's "uprate" bid, reported a flurry of activity on Friday in order to meet the deadline for filing Public Service Board testimony.
Peter Alexander, the coalition's executive director, summarized the final filing as a statement that Vermont Yankee's "uprate" -- a proposal first put forward last year to boost the plant's output by some 20 percent -- will be a serious financial and safety risk for the Green Mountain State and its residents.
Increased radiation and nuclear waste, warmer water discharged to the Connecticut River and the lack of a proven benefit to ratepayers weighed heavily in the coalition's statements on Friday, Alexander said.
"We have testimony from a number of expert witnesses that we believe will prove there is more than ample evidence that the uprate would be a huge mistake for the state of Vermont and that it should not take place," he said.
But Vermont Yankee officials stuck by their guns on Friday, insisting that a $20 million memorandum of understanding reached in late 2003 with the Department of Public Service proves that the power boost will bring about a significant benefit for the state. In the agreement, plant owner Entergy promises to distribute the $20 million to a variety of sources, including ratepayer subsidies and a Lake Champlain cleanup program.
The department indicated its approved of the uprate after the offer was made, and final word on a certificate of public good for the uprate from the Public Service Board is expected in mid-March. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has received a copy of the plant's request, is expected to rule on the power boost next fall.
Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams said that Entergy did not file any testimony on Friday and does not plan to file rebuttal on the coalition's final statements, but added that Entergy will address the matter in a week of board hearings slated to begin on Jan. 12.
Williams defended the plant's position, stressing that the increased river water temperatures have been approved by a Vermont Agency of Natural Resources discharge permit and will not have a negative effect on the river. If the uprate is approved, he said, the added benefit would be worth the additional nuclear waste.
Expert witnesses whose testimony was included in the coalition's Friday filing include David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Cambridge, Mass.-based Union of Concerned Scientists; John Halstead, a professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire; and former nuclear executive Arnie Gundersen. Describing his own testimony, Gundersen attacked the $20 million agreement between Entergy and the department as one that does not truly provide a benefit to state ratepayers.
Part of the agreement, he said, calls for the plant owner to pay $1 million per year for three years to help keep costs down if ratepayers are forced to import more expensive electricity in the event of an uprate-related outage. This portion of the agreement becomes effective this year, he added.
"That's not really a lot of money," he said. "Entergy isn't really sticking their neck out. Plus, the plant is more likely to fail around 2008 or 2009, when it becomes older, but (the agreement) doesn't indemnify anyone after 2007."
Gundersen said the uprate will also boost off-site radiation doses which, at 18.7 millirem at the Vernon Elementary School, are already close to the state limit of 20 millirem.
"Entergy's number doesn't even take into account on-site fuel storage which (with the uprate) would push the dosage to over 25 millirem, which exceeds the federal limit," he said. "(The plant) does not have (on-site fuel storage) now, but documentation shows that the plant will eventually have to consider this prospect."
Gundersen said that the uprate would also cause a $15 million increase in the plant's decommissioning costs because of on-site radiation, meaning that state ratepayers could possibly lose out on most or all of the excess decommissioning funds that would otherwise be returned. According to existing guidelines, once the plant is closed, Entergy and state ratepayers will evenly split any leftover decomissioning money.
Paul Blanch, a 35-year veteran nuclear engineer and a longtime consultant to various nuclear power companies, including Entergy, also provided testimony on Friday. Blanch said that filed documents he reviewed indicate that Entergy is seeking a variance to avoid having an NRC-mandated pressure level present in its emergency core cooling system in the event of an accident.
Instead, he added, the plant proposes to keep its radiation containment at an elevated level during an accident, a situation which could result in increased radiation released to the environment.
"There are specific regulations requiring that a certain pressure be available so that the reactor can be cooled in the event of an accident," he said. "(Entergy is) looking for an amendment, but what they've proposed to do is against NRC regulations. Violation of these regulations is what resulted in the shutdown of the Connecticut Yankee and Maine Yankee (nuclear plants)."
Ray Shadis, who submitted the last piece of coalition testimony late Friday afternoon, described the evidence-gathering process over the past year as a burdensome one made more difficult by the board's inability to understand the true risks of the proposal.
"The board, I think, from day one, approached (the uprate) as if it were inconsequential, a small matter," said Shadis, a coalition staff advisor. "I really fault the board for not bringing in experts to tell them what the full impacts would be. It's not until the end of a case when it is realized how complicated a proposal will be and what the ramifications are."
----
AP: Dean Was Warned on Lax Vt. Security
January 3, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Dean-Terror.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Presidential hopeful Howard Dean, who accuses President Bush of being weak on homeland security, was warned repeatedly as Vermont governor about security lapses at his state's nuclear power plant and was told the state was ill-prepared for a disaster at its most attractive terrorist target.
The warnings, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, began in 1991 when a group of students were brought into a secure area of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant without proper screening. On at least two occasions, a gun or mock terrorists passed undetected into the plant during security tests.
During Dean's final year in office in 2002, an audit concluded that despite a decade of repeated warnings of poor safety at Vermont Yankee, Dean's administration was poorly prepared for a nuclear disaster.
``The lack of funding and overarching coordination at the state level directly impacts the ability of the state, local and power plant planners to be adequately prepared for a real emergency at Vermont Yankee,'' state Auditor Elizabeth M. Ready wrote in a study issued five months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Security was so lax at Vermont Yankee that in August 2001, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staged a drill in which three mock terrorists gained access to the plant. The agency gave Vermont Yankee the worst security rating among the nation's 103 reactors.
The NRC has primary responsibility for safety at Vermont Yankee. But Vermont laws required an active state role by creating a panel to review security and performance and requiring plant operators to set aside money for the state to use in the event of a nuclear disaster.
Dean's campaign said Saturday it ultimately was the NRC's responsibility to ensure security at the plant, but that he badgered Vermont Yankee's operators and the NRC to make improvements during the 1990s. It noted the NRC's safety budget was cut in the 1990s.
``After September 11, Governor Dean decided the buck stops here in terms of security and personally ran this effort, creating a Cabinet-level agency,'' spokesman Jay Carson said.
Carson acknowledged there were weaknesses before 2002 in Vermont's nuclear preparedness, and Dean moved quickly afterward to place state troopers and National Guardsman at the plant, distribute radiation pills to civilians, demand a federal no-fly zone over the plant to prevent an aerial attack, and increase emergency preparedness funding.
``As many have said before, hindsight is 20-20 and no one could have predicted what could have happened on a terrible day in September 2001,'' Carson said.
``In retrospect, every state in the entire country could have been safer. The important thing is after Governor Dean recognized these vulnerabilities, he took swift, bold steps to make things better,'' Carson said.
State Auditor Ready, a Democrat and Dean backer, agreed things improved after her critical 2002 report and that security tests this year showed Vermont Yankee was safer. ``Once Governor Dean got that report there was swift and thorough action,'' she said.
But even after Ready's report recommended the state's nuclear preparedness spending triple from $400,000 to $1.2 million, Dean budgeted only half the increase.
That led Dean's state emergency management director, Ed von Turkovich, to tell the Legislature in 2002 that the increase to $800,000 ``does not cover the expenses related to the program'' and that Vermont's nuclear preparedness was ``in trouble, grossly underfunded, under-resourced and has been for years.'' Dean's campaign said the governor spent significant other money on security through other departments.
The lack of preparedness was blamed in the 2002 audit on inadequate funds. ``Vermont receives the least amount of funding for its Radiological Emergency Response Plan, in total dollars, of any New England state that hosts a nuclear power plant,'' the audit disclosed.
The audit was not the first warning to Dean, documents show.
On Feb. 14, 2000, von Turkovich wrote Dean's top deputy, Administration Secretary Kathleen Hoyt, expressing concern the state was not forcing Vermont Yankee, which was up for sale, to set aside more money for preparedness.
``We are sympathetic to the utility's concern for controlling costs with respect to the pending sale of the plant and have committed to expend additional state and federal resources to subsidize this program in the coming year,'' von Turkovich wrote.
``However, I believe in the near future, the present or new owners will need to broaden their level of support for preparedness activities that need to be accomplished on behalf of the communities that reside in the Emergency Planning Zone,'' he wrote.
The documents contrast with Dean's position as a presidential candidate who has portrayed himself as more concerned about nuclear security than Bush.
``Our most important challenge will be to address the most dangerous threat of all: catastrophic terrorism using weapons of mass destruction,'' Dean said in his speech in Los Angeles last month. ``Here, where the stakes are highest, the current administration has, remarkably, done the least.''
Dean also has suggested Bush was unprepared before and after Sept. 11 to fight terrorism. ``We are in danger of losing the war on terror, because we are fighting it with the strategies of the past,'' the Democratic candidate said.
The Vermont documents show Dean and his top aides received numerous warnings about Vermont Yankee.
In August 1991, an aide sent a handwritten memo to Dean saying there was a ``security error'' at Vermont Yankee that was ``not public.''
A group of students ``on a tour were taken into a secure area without checking through security first,'' the aide wrote, saying the matter was minor but would be disclosed to federal regulators. Dean initialed the memo, indicating he read it.
In 1992, the NRC provided information to Dean about ``declining performances at Vermont Yankee in three important areas: plant security, engineering/technical support and safety assessment/quality verification,'' documents show.
Dean responded by writing the head of the plant that the problems could ``have an impact on the health and safety of the people of Vermont'' and ``it is my expectation that you will do all in your power to correct this declining trend.'' It was one of several such letters he wrote.
Just months later, the Vermont Nuclear Advisory Panel, a state panel, reported that two nuclear fuel mishandling incidents at the plant were the ``result of complacent operator and management actions.''
Richard Sedano, Dean's top utility regulator, said Saturday that while ``everybody has a different appreciation of terrorism after the World Trade Center'' the state closely monitored Vermont Yankee's safety and in May 1993 staged a public hearing to embarrass the plant's operators into improving their management. He called it a ``therapeutic and beneficial experience.''
Environmental groups sent Dean repeated letters about the plant's security and safety. During a 1998 federal security test, mock terrorists sneaked a fake gun past security and six times scaled, undetected, the plant's security perimeter fence.
The 1998 test was alarming because seven years earlier, protesters had managed to breach the same security by scaling the fence or rafting down an adjacent river. The 2001 security test again penetrated Vermont Yankee's security.
Ready's audit in 2002 questioned why, with so many warnings about safety, Dean's administration had significantly fewer people committed to nuclear emergency planning than neighboring states.
``Unlike its nearest counterparts, Vermont's Division of Emergency Management has only one full-time and two part-time staff to support'' its emergency response program, she wrote. ``New Hampshire has nearly 20 full- and part-time staff as well as consultants, while Massachusetts has more than 20 full-time staff to carry out'' its program.
--------
Dean's Statement on Security Record
January 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Dean-Statement.html
Statement released Saturday by Howard Dean's campaign concerning his record on terrorism and nuclear security.
``As many have said before, the hindsight from the terrorist attacks of September 11th is 20-20 and no one was prepared for the events of that terrible day. In retrospect, every state in the country could have been safer and Governor Dean took swift and bold action to respond to make Vermonters safer. Governor Dean showed leadership and took responsibility by saying the buck stops here in terms of security by creating a Cabinet-level agency to respond to security threats. Dean actions included: placing state troopers and National Guardsmen at the plant, demanding a federal no-fly zone over the plant, increasing funding to prepare for an attack, and devising anthrax preparedness.''
-------- us politics
Rebranding Bush as man of peace
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington, Simon Tisdall and Nicholas Watt
Saturday January 3, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1115330,00.html
The White House has retreated from its doctrine of regime change and pre-emptive military action and is returning to traditional diplomacy in an effort to repackage George Bush as a president for peace.
Signs of the new strategy that have emerged in the past few weeks include:
· North Korea, where authorities yesterday agreed to allow US inspectors to visit its nuclear complex next week.
· Iran, where the US proposed, through UN channels, sending a high-level humanitarian mission after last week's earthquake - although Tehran last night asked for any visit to be delayed.
· Libya, where the US welcomed Muammar Gadafy's surprise decision to give up weapons of mass destruction.
· Iraq, where the Bush administration is pressing for greater involvement from the international community.
· Palestine, where US peace envoy John Wolf may be sent to try to restart talks.
The signs of a thaw in US relations with these and other countries point to a different approach emerging in Washington. It emphasises cooperation, dialogue and diplomacy in place of the policies that have characterised the Bush administration's thinking to date. While Mr Bush publicly asserts Washington's right to defend its interests by any means, in practice he is increasingly pursuing a collaborative approach.
"There is a definite shift in US policy in everything but words," said Joseph Cirincione, an arms control expert. "The official doctrine has not changed but all our actions have, and the result is a shift away from military action towards diplomatic engagement. First with Iran, then with Libya and now with North Korea, we see a much greater effort to affect changes in regime behaviour rather than changes of regime."
Analysts in Washington say the Bush administration has little choice if it is to fulfil a highly ambitious election year agenda that seeks to disarm "rogue states" such as North Korea while advancing towards a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, encouraging conflict resolution in Sudan, and achieving credible transformations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
All these objectives are complicated and to some degree hindered by the "war on terror" against a resurgent al-Qaida, and by America's failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.
Despite notable successes in overthrowing and capturing Saddam Hussein and toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan, White House hopes of bringing democratic governance in Iraq and Afghanistan hang in the balance amid continuing violence and discord.
Iraq is crucial to the administration's policy shift - either because, as conservatives argue, leaders of other rogue regimes learnt a lesson from Saddam's fate, or, as others say, because the conflict has so extended the military, Washington cannot contemplate the opening of a new front.
"It's just the force of reality, the consequences of Iraq which has made them change," said Anatol Lieven, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Even by their standards it is not rational to think that America can run another war."
With elections 11 months away, Mr Bush does not want to be vulnerable to claims that he has presided over a warmongering strategy that has left Americans little safer than September 11 2001. His shift follows an established pattern in Washington of politicians moving to the centre during an election year.
But Mr Bush has an additional consideration with Iraq. He is keenly aware that the electorate's judgment of his performance depends heavily on events there. Despite a rally in his popularity after Saddam's capture two weeks ago, opinion polls suggest overall attitudes towards the war have not fundamentally changed. Public concern at American casualties in Iraq has continued to rise and, ominously for Mr Bush, the violence in Iraq has not lessened.
White House policy is also being influenced by Washington's allies, notably Britain. After the chasms over Iraq, the US and the Europeans seem to have reached an understanding about the right mix of diplomacy and force - particularly during negotiations with Iran and Libya.
Britain's influence is particularly strong. British government sources were reluctant to talk about the US change of tack last night for fear of giving any impression of gloating. But any signs that Mr Bush is moving back to a multilateral foreign policy will be welcomed in London - if only in private - as a vindication of Tony Blair's strategy of dealing with the president. Friends describe this as "complete solidarity in public, and complete candour in private".
Sources say Mr Blair's relationship with Mr Bush is so strong that an informal weekly video conference has now become a regular fixture in their diaries.
The conferences are primarily designed to discuss Iraq, though the two leaders have also discussed other issues such as Iran. Sensitive issue, such as Libya, are discussed on more secure lines.
Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the prime minister's chief foreign policy adviser, talks on an almost daily basis with Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser. Sir David Manning, the British ambassador in Washington, meets Dr Rice regularly.
The change in direction is also a result of the constant struggle for influence between pragmatists and hawks that has been a defining feature of the Bush administration. The neo-conservatives appear to be losing ground, with speculation about upcoming bureaucratic reshuffling.
"The state department pinstripes have replaced the department of defence bluster," Mr Cirincione said.
The move to negotiated, diplomatic solutions is unlikely to be welcomed by the vice president, Dick Cheney, the most influential of Washington's hawks, who have often dominated policy making.
But in an interview published this week, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, seemed to suggest the policy battle was finally going his way. Mr Powell acknowledged that the administration's top priority in the coming months would be cooperative peace making, rather than war making.
"I'm going to work very hard in making clear to our friends in Europe and elsewhere in the world that America is a partner - spend more time with them, spend more time listening to them and finding ways what we can cooperate together," Mr Powell told the Washington Post.
On Iraq, Mr Powell indicated that a switch in US policy was required. He said the UN and Nato had essential roles to play and the US needed to persuade other countries to forgive or reschedule Iraq's $120bn (£67bn) foreign debts.
-------- MILITARY
-------- china
Analysis: China's going global
January 03, 2004
By Ed Lanfranco
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031223-114101-7750r.htm
BEIJING, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- China's new leadership showed a new level of sophistication in putting forward the country's diplomatic agenda on bilateral, regional and multilateral fronts during 2003.
Long thought of as an inward looking, isolationist and sometimes xenophobic country, some analysts see China's robust position as a trading nation and domestic market engendering a new confidence in engaging the outside world.
In 2003, a Beijing-based American executive working for a major telecommunications company, who asked not to be identified, told United Press International: "Direct foreign investment and presence in China over the last quarter century has turned it into a much more cosmopolitan place, a new Tang dynasty."
During Tang (618-907 AD) times, China permitted thousands of foreign traders to live in the country. The cultures and religions they brought with them from commercial activity on the Silk Road were incorporated into the empire.
The telecom executive told UPI, "Like the Silk Road days when Chinese goods were avidly sought and outside items came in, today's consumer market is also bringing new ideas."
In his final government work report delivered at the first session of the Tenth National People's Congress in March 2003, Zhu Rongji, the outgoing premier of the State Council, suggested the new administration "open up further by integrating China's 'bringing in' and 'going global' strategies."
As part of "going global," China showed signs of a slowly growing willingness to participate in multilateral organizations beyond its immediate boundaries.
In February UPI visited a contingent of Chinese troops being sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of U.N. peacekeeping mission. Since 1990, China has sent more than 1,450 military and police personnel to 10 troubled areas including East Timor, Cambodia and Bosnia following U.N. Security Council authorization.
A significant event in China's multilateral diplomacy was the participation of its new president, Hu Jintao, in the Group of Eight gathering in Evian, France, in June. The G-8 brings together leaders from the world's most advanced industrialized economies.
Chinese officials were quick to point out Hu's attendance was at the personal invitation of the host, French President Jacques Chirac, and that he only took part in the leaders' informal dialogue on North-South development issues.
Prior to Hu's departure, Vice Foreign Minister Liu Guchang told reporters in Beijing the G-8 meeting did not mean China was changing its position as a leading advocate of developing countries and their cause nor was the country seeking membership in the body.
"China attaches importance to the role of the G-8 in international affairs, and would like to maintain contact and dialogue it. Our policy towards the G-8 remains unchanged," Liu said.
One of the areas where China's diplomacy was most active during 2003 was development and participation in regional institutions on its borders.
The September meeting of prime ministers from countries belonging to the Shanghai Cooperation Council (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) in Beijing was critical milestone for Chinese efforts to create a regional trade and security organization in Central Asia.
Access to oil resources and countering possible Muslim or separatist threats to its far western Xinjiang province underlies China's leading role in the SCO. The country's new premier, Wen Jiabao, said, "A modern Silk Road will come out of the common development and prosperity for all SCO members."
China was also active in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Wen putting forward a proposal for establishing a free-trade zone with the 10 member countries in October.
Traditionally ASEAN countries have been wary of China because of its claims to most of the South China Sea as part of its territorial waters and competition from its export oriented economy.
China officially joined ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia and declared the establishment of what Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing called a "strategic partnership for peace and prosperity" with ASEAN.
Li made the comment during an interview with the state-run People's Daily newspaper in mid-December, which summarized China's diplomatic accomplishments in 2003.
China most-notable achievement during 2003 involved regional diplomacy on its border with attempts to diffuse the North Korean nuclear crisis. Beijing got the United States and North Korea to meet face to face at the end of April, then in late August hosted the first round of the Six Party Talks (the United States, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and China).
Li was quoted as saying "our mediation efforts led to the three party and six party talks in Beijing which started the process of peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue through dialogue and easing of tensions."
The Six Party Talks in late August failed to resolve the main point of contention: timing of concessions. The United States wants a verifiable end to the DPRK's nuclear program before signing a security treaty; the North Koreans demand the opposite happens first.
China's new leaders were active in pursing bilateral relations in 2003.
Hu's first visit as head of state was to Russia in May. Both countries term their relations as a 'strategic partnership' with the tacit aim counterbalancing the United States. This partnership was strained by the Yukos oil company controversy in Russia putting on hold a proposed pipeline deal between the two countries.
In June, India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China. Sino-Indian relations remain bogged down in resolving boundary disputes in Tibet and the status of Sikkim. The two sides agreed not let long-standing border problems get in the way of enhancing trade ties.
During Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to China in October, Hu stated the two countries "should take history as a mirror" and "things that would harm the feelings of people of war-victim countries should never be done again." Japanese businessmen created a diplomatic row with an orgy in Zhuhai falling on a historically sensitive date. Japan is China's largest trading partner.
The last major Chinese diplomatic foray in 2003 was Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to the U.S. focusing on two issues sure to dominate headlines going into next year: Taiwan and trade.
-------- europe
Some Bulgarian Soldiers Refuse to Go to Iraq
January 3, 2004
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/international/europe/03BULG.html?pagewanted=all
SOFIA, Bulgaria, Jan. 2 - More than two dozen Bulgarian soldiers have refused to join a 500-member contingent heading for Iraq after attacks there in which five Bulgarian soldiers died, the chief of staff of the Bulgarian Army said Friday.
"Between 25 and 30 soldiers have declined duty, probably as a result of pressure from their families," Gen. Nikola Kolev told Bulgarian radio.
The new arrivals are scheduled to replace 480 Bulgarian troops who have served since September as part of a 9,000-strong Polish-led multinational contingent in Iraq.
The five Bulgarian soldiers who died were among 19 people killed in multiple car-bomb attacks in Karbala, about 70 miles southwest of Baghdad, on Dec. 27. They were the first casualties suffered by Bulgaria in Iraq, and the country observed a national day of mourning in their honor on Tuesday.
Members of the replacement battalion demanded on Friday that a clause be written into their contracts stipulating that they could pull out of the mission at any time and return home, the radio reported.
General Kolev said that the soldiers preparing for duty in Iraq had committed themselves "on a voluntary basis" but added that those who wished to withdraw would have to "reimburse expenses for their training for the mission and for their medical exams."
-------- iraq
U.S. Soldier Is Killed as Helicopter Is Shot Down in Iraq
January 3, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/international/middleeast/03IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 2 - Insurgents shot down an American military helicopter near Falluja on Friday, killing one crewman, and angry protesters gathered outside one of Baghdad's principal Sunni Muslim mosques to protest a raid in which American troops arrested a prominent Sunni cleric and 31 others, as well as seizing what they described as a large cache of weapons and bomb-making equipment.
The attack on the helicopter near Falluja, the city 35 miles west of Baghdad that has been the scene of relentless violence against the Americans, was the first time insurgents had succeeded in destroying a helicopter since a rash of downings in November. Those attacks destroyed four helicopters and killed more than 40 soldiers, contributing to a death toll that month of 81.
The downed helicopter was an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, a small, highly maneuverable machine prized by its crews as a sort of aerial motorcycle. It is the first time enemy fire has brought down what the Army has come to regard as its helicopter of choice in Iraq.
The United States command in Iraq has pressed the Kiowas hard to cover convoys, armed raids and surveillance missions, posing a hard test for machines that have had a history of mechanical problems. But Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for the American command in Baghdad, said preliminary investigations of the helicopter's burned-out wreckage indicated that it had been brought down by unspecified "enemy fire."
Iraqi villagers said American ground troops in search of hidden weapons arrived about 8 a.m. in an area south of Falluja they have nicknamed Death Square for the many attacks on troops there.
Several Kiowas were flying cover for the American troops, Iraqi witnesses said, when something struck one of the craft at about noon, causing it to explode. One man, Mundher Muhammad, said the rotors continued to turn as the craft broke in two and plunged into the fields, hitting a tree and a power line. One crewman died instantly; the other was seriously wounded, the American command said.
A controversy erupted later when American troops opened fire on what General Kimmitt described as insurgents "wearing black jackets with `Press' clearly written in English." The general said the men had arrived in two Mercedes cars, one black, the other dark blue.
"The enemy personnel fired upon U.S. forces with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades," he said. "One of the Mercedes was tracked to a nearby house," he said, adding that four people had been captured.
It was not clear how the general's description fit with an account by the Reuters news agency that said four Iraqi members of its staff traveling in a black Mercedes had been fired on by the Americans and arrested when they arrived at the scene to cover the downing.
Some other reporters who were present said American troops guarding the wreckage had opened fire without warning on the Reuters staff members, possibly after the troops had taken fire from insurgents using the reporters for cover.
In the raid in Baghdad on Thursday that led to the arrests of the Iraqis, many of them Muslim clerics, American troops operating behind an advance party of Iraqi civil defense and police units stormed into the Ibn Taimiya mosque at midmorning, when the clerics were meeting in what they described as a religious council. The mosque is a stronghold of the Salafist school of Islam, a hard-line, back-to-basics sect that includes Osama bin Laden among its proselytizers.
The United States military command has said often that its policy is to avoid entering mosques whenever possible, so as not to inflame religious feelings. But the raid set off a firestorm among the Sunni Muslims who have been Saddam Hussein's strongest supporters and the fount of the insurgency. After the 1 p.m. prayers on Friday, clerics led a large crowd of worshipers into the mosque's courtyard for choruses of contempt for America and denunciations of American troops they accused of tearing up Korans, smashing wooden doors in the sanctuary and otherwise "desecrating" Islam The American command denied the allegations.
The raid fit the recent pattern of intensive pre-emptive strikes against the insurgents. Since the capture of Mr. Hussein on Dec. 13, there has been a lower level of attacks on American forces, down to an average of about 20 a day from about 50 a day in November, American commanders say. But they have warned that the insurgents have the ability to intensify the attacks again.
In the protest at the Baghdad mosque on Friday, the air filled with shouts of "Down, down America!" and "Jihad, jihad, our way is jihad!" meaning holy war, as well as incantations in praise of martyrdom. The prayer leader, Imam Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, used a bullhorn to protest against the Americans for the raid on Thursday, especially for the arrest of the mosque's senior cleric, Imam Mahdi al-Sumaydai. General Kimmitt said the arrested men included four foreigners, but he gave no details.
"America is the enemy of God!" Imam Abdul-Sattar said. "We ask the occupation forces to leave this country."
But General Kimmitt, the spokesman for the American command, said at a news briefing that the command had "numerous reports from local Iraqis that pointed to the mosque as being used for criminal and terrorist activities." He added that "the mosque is believed to have been a hub of anticoalition and anti-Iraqi activities, with various cells using the mosque as a meeting location and weapons cache," under the direction of Imam Mahdi.
General Kimmitt listed the bomb-making equipment, weapons and ammunition he said had been seized at the mosque. The list included explosives of a kind used in suicide attacks and roadside bombings. It also included weapons, parts of weapons, and ammunition that have formed the insurgents' basic armory for ambushes: packages of high explosive, a detonator cord and batteries, detonators and propellants for bombs; a handbook for a Soviet-made SA-7 ground-to-air missile; Kalashnikov rifles, boxes of ammunition for the rifles; mortars, artillery shells, rocket-propelled grenade launchers; and batteries and propellants for bomb-making.
"Because of the sensitivity of the religious monuments inside this country, we are very, very careful that we don't go in indiscriminately, or without a significant amount of intelligence," the general said. "But I think the results of what we found inside definitely demonstrated that this mosque was being used for purposes other than free religious expression."
The attacks on American troops on Friday included an ambush of a fuel tanker convoy. The vehicles were headed toward Baghdad from Jordan when they were hit by a roadside bomb, a rocket-propelled grenade and automatic rifle fire just east of Ramadi, the city that marks the western flank of the Sunni Triangle. A 5,000-gallon fuel tanker exploded in flames, and three American soldiers were wounded, one only lightly.
In another attack on Friday, the American command said a Humvee driven by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division's Second Brigade was hit by a roadside bomb, and possibly small-arms fire, on the outskirts of Baghdad. The command said the Humvee, the most attacked of American military vehicles in Iraq, usually with little or no armor to protect crews of up to six men, rolled on top of "at least one of the soldiers." A command spokesman added, "We have some casualties associated with that," but gave no details.
Edward Wong, in Baghdad, Neela Banerjee, in Falluja, and Eric Schmitt, in Kuwait, contributed reporting for this article.
--------
Helicopter Downed In Iraq, Killing GI
Policeman Reports Seeing a Missile
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50568-2004Jan2.html
BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 -- Guerrillas shot down a U.S. Army helicopter over central Iraq on Friday, killing one American soldier and injuring one, military spokesmen said.
According to the U.S. Central Command, the OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopter was brought down by enemy fire near Fallujah, a city about 30 miles west of Baghdad that has been the scene of frequent attacks on occupation forces.
Mohammed Abdul Aziz, a policeman who saw the crash, told the Reuters news agency that the Kiowa was hit by a missile. "We were in a joint patrol with U.S. troops to remove land mines and I saw a helicopter hovering in the sky which was hit by a missile," he said. "It was split into two and went down in flames."
At least 39 U.S. troops have been killed in the downing of several helicopters over Iraq in the past two months. The most recent incident in the Fallujah area occurred Dec. 9, when insurgents shot down a Kiowa but its two-man crew survived a crash landing without injury.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said at a briefing in Baghdad that shortly after the helicopter went down, gunmen pretending to be journalists opened fire on U.S. soldiers who were securing the perimeter around the crash site.
A black Mercedes and a dark blue Mercedes pulled up, and people wearing clothing marked "press" in English got out and started firing with small arms and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Kimmitt said. The soldiers chased the cars, he said, and tracked one to a house where they arrested four of the attackers.
Later, Reuters reported that U.S. soldiers detained three Iraqis working for the news agency as they covered the aftermath of the crash.
A Reuters driver who was working with the three said U.S. troops fired on them as they filmed a checkpoint close to the crash site. The driver, Alaa Noury, said cameraman Salem Uraiby was filming the checkpoint using a camera on a tripod and was wearing a flak jacket clearly marked "press."
"We were fired on, and we drove away at high speed," Noury said. He said a second car driven by another Iraqi journalist was fired upon in the same incident.
Here in the capital, several hundred worshipers rallied outside the Um Tabul Mosque Friday to protest a raid on the mosque by U.S. soldiers on Thursday. The protesters chanted anti-American slogans and vowed a holy war against occupation forces.
U.S. military officials said soldiers, acting on intelligence that the mosque was a center of anti-U.S. activity, broke up a meeting there and arrested 32 people, including a leading cleric. Kimmitt said the soldiers found explosives, weapons and ammunition, including two rocket-propelled grenade launchers, an SA-7 missile and a mortar tube.
"Over recent months, the U.S. 1st Armored Division has received numerous reports from Iraqis" that the mosque "was being used for criminal and terrorist activities," Kimmitt said.
But the imam of the mosque, Abdulsatar Janabi, said the mosque was peaceful and described the raid as part of a U.S. persecution of Sunni Muslims, Reuters reported. He said the weapons seized were only some light rifles kept for self-defense.
Meanwhile, ethnic violence continued in the northern city of Kirkuk. An Arab gunman killed one Kurd and wounded another, and a shootout between Arabs and police ended with two of the Arabs dead, the Associated Press reported.
Ethnic tension in Kirkuk -- which is about one-third Arab, one-third Kurd and one-third Turkmen -- have flared over a proposal by Iraq's Governing Council to include the city in a Kurdish zone that would be granted a measure of autonomy.
Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led occupation authority, said officials are monitoring the situation in Kirkuk but that the ethnic clashes are "just an exception, not part of a larger trend."
In Mosul, another key northern city, the body of the dean of political science at Mosul University was found with two gunshots to the head. Adel Jabar Abid Mustafa, a minor official in the Baath Party, had been kidnapped from his home Wednesday night.
-------- israel / palestine
Palestinian Resistance Must Spare Civilians
by Ramzy Baroud
January 3, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/baroud5.html
Palestinian resistance factions must stop targeting Israeli civilians, with or without an officially bargained cease-fire and regardless of what Israel and its reckless government do in response. This is imperative if the Palestinian struggle is to safeguard its historic values and maintain its morality.
For some, such reasoning may seem inconsistent, one-sided even; after all, the Israeli Army continues to target civilians unhindered, so why deny Palestinians the right to retaliate?
Palestinians have the right of self-defense, and the unequivocal right of ridding themselves of the occupation. These rights are protected in international law and require little debate or intellectual tussling. But it is wrong for the occupied - who surely have the moral edge - to use the same illegitimate means as the occupier. International law makes a clear distinction, as should the Palestinian resistance, between occupying military forces and civilians. If Palestinians waver from this crucial line of reasoning, their historically virtuous struggle risks being tainted with moral corruption.
The Palestinian revolution was born in the orchards of Jenin as early as the 1920s. It was and remains a freedom struggle, a cry for justice. Typically, the overall methods used by the ongoing uprising in the occupied territories contrasts with the ghastly practices of the Israeli government and army. In fact, since their early days of combating the occupation forces, Palestinians aspired to be inclusive because they longed for equality and insisted on the universal applicability of human rights.
These values must remain intact.
But every nation - and Palestinians are no exception - has a breaking point. That is only human that, following decades of suffering, violence and dispossession, the determination to gain freedom can give way to desperation and a raw desire for vengeance. To those living in the occupied territories, suicide bombings are part of the reality into which Palestinians are born. Yet if Palestinians allow Israeli tactics to influence their resistance strategy, then the authenticity of the entire struggle is compromised. But what if Palestinian factions overcome their sense of despair and unilaterally halt attacks on Israeli civilians, permanently and unreservedly?
Alas, even then, the perception held of Palestinians and their struggle is unlikely to change, at least not in the United States, where political propaganda, not actuality, governs public opinion.
The Palestinian struggle was equally and abrasively condemned in much of the Western Hemisphere before the first suicide bombing against Israeli civilians ever happened, less than ten years ago. This flawed perspective continues, in defiance of logic.
After all, the conquest of historic Palestine, with all the massacres it entailed, preceded any truly collective Palestinian struggle, violent or otherwise.
The mainstream media, most notability in the United States, is silent about this fact. As far as Israel (and thus pro-Israeli media and governments) is concerned, the version of history that counts is the one that highlights Palestinian violence. Violence in the Middle East is largely defined by Palestinian attacks; "calm" and "lull" are words that describe intervals between Palestinian, not Israeli, violence. The occupied territories may be drowning in Israeli violence; but so long as no Israeli casualties are reported, much of the world media report quiet.
The suicide bombing of Oct. 4 and Dec. 25 are a case in point.
Between these two incidents, Palestinian losses mounted. Reportedly, 117 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians, including 23 children; several thousand Palestinians were made homeless as nearly 500 homes and apartments were destroyed by Israeli explosives or bulldozers, primarily in the already overcrowded and poverty-stricken Gaza Strip. But according to Palestinian-American media critic Ali Abunimah, the corporate media in the US (and in Britain, to a lesser extent) brimmed with regret over the squandered opportunity for peace that the December bombing yielded (keeping in mind that the latter targeted Israeli soldiers, not civilians).
The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and CNN dealt a blow to any journalistic integrity when they chose such statements to mark the day of the Palestinian attack: "12-Week lull in Mideast ends", "Mideast quiet shattered", "Attacks broke a lull that had lasted more than two months and raised fears of a slide into violence", "There has been a relative calm since the Haifa bombing (last October) " and so on.
Pro-Israeli pundits in the American media and government, and influential lobby groups and think tanks find Israel's justifications for its senseless violence and occupation of Palestinian land compelling. But even with that in mind, injustice must not be an invitation to respond with equally morally degrading acts. Sharon and his henchmen, of all people, should not, in any way, determine the nature and magnitude of Palestinian resistance.
To maintain its moral edge, the Palestinian revolution must not be tainted by the crimes of the occupier; it must not fall into the trap of fury, racial and religious exclusivity and vengefulness against civilians.
True, the US media will hardly give the Palestinians credit. But should we remain confined by media partiality and desperate for the validating words of some government spokesman? Were these the values that inspired and sparked the current uprising and the uprisings of the past?
Suicide bombings against civilians estrange us from the principles of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. These values must remain untainted so that the will of the people may some day prevail over tyranny and oppression.
-------- pakistan / india
U.S. Aids Security of Musharraf Efforts Build After Attacks in Pakistan
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50544-2004Jan2?language=printer
After two recent assassination attempts that bear the markings of al Qaeda, the U.S. government is stepping up efforts aimed at protecting Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and urging him to crack down further on Islamic terrorism groups, U.S. officials said.
The United States had sent electronic jamming devices that helped foil the first attempt on Musharraf by interfering with the detonation of explosives, officials said. Since the attacks, U.S. officials have increased intelligence sharing and other efforts to help Musharraf's security forces, although the United States is not providing bodyguards, a step taken to safeguard Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. FBI officials in Pakistan are helping to investigate the attacks on Musharraf.
Musharraf's longevity and the stability and cooperation of Pakistan, the world's most politically fragile nuclear power, are critical to the U.S. campaign to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda operatives. U.S. military and intelligence officials believe bin Laden and other al Qaeda members are hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Musharraf has positioned himself as an ally of the United States in its war on terrorists.
If Musharraf were to die in an attack, U.S. military and intelligence officials said they believe the Pakistani army would quickly move to appoint a successor -- with the most likely candidate being the army vice chief of staff, Gen. Muhammad Yousaf Khan, viewed by U.S. officials as pro-American and likely to continue Musharraf's prosecution of al Qaeda.
"My assumption is the army will assert itself and shove the civilians into the background" if something happened to Musharraf, said Teresita C. Schaffer, a former ambassador to Sri Lanka who heads the Center for Strategic and International Studies' South Asia program.
Musharraf survived assassination attempts on Dec. 14 and Dec. 26 that occurred barely 500 yards apart in the heavily guarded city of Rawalpindi, the army's headquarters.
In the first, detonation of a remote-controlled bomb was delayed by electronic jamming equipment on the president's vehicle. The bomb exploded less than a minute after his motorcade passed. In the second attempt, two pickup trucks rammed Musharraf's motorcade, which was traveling at 80 mph. Musharraf was unharmed, but 15 people, including four military policemen, were killed.
"There is a very strong suspicion that it was al Qaeda," one U.S. intelligence official said.
One of the assailants is believed to be Muhammed Jamil, who fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to the Pakistan newspaper Dawn. He reportedly is a member of Laskhar-e-Muhammed. That group is believed to have been set up by Pakistani intelligence to fight in Kashmir -- disputed territory Pakistan and India have fought over twice -- and is thought now to provide training to al Qaeda.
Jamil was captured in Afghanistan during the war there and was turned over to Pakistan authorities who later released him after interrogation, the paper said.
The CIA dramatically increased its funding to and intelligence-sharing with many countries after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but nowhere was this joint cooperation more extensive than in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. After the assaults on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Musharraf reversed Pakistan's traditional support for Afghanistan's Taliban government and began to move against al Qaeda and its affiliates, some of which had been sustained by Pakistan's intelligence services over the years.
The CIA has urged Musharraf to take a harder approach toward extremist groups and has been routinely sharing intelligence with Pakistan's security services about terrorist movements into the country, Pakistan experts said.
The most immediate threat to Pakistan's stability should Musharraf be killed would not be the security of his nuclear arsenal, which is under strict army control, said Pakistan experts in and out of government. More pressing for the United States would be the potential for domestic upheaval. Musharraf's hold on power seems secure for now -- he won a vote of confidence Thursday in parliament -- but it has required constant work on his part to maintain some measure of support from Islamic groups in Pakistan, some of which chafe at his pro-American positions.
"The biggest challenges will be the future of Pakistan's domestic politics," said Ashley J. Tellis, a former National Security Council official at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "He's trying to negotiate a new government, where Pakistan can eventually move to civilian rule. Those issues will be up for renegotiation" should he leave power.
The assassination attempts highlight the fragility of Musharraf's position, experts said.
"Musharraf has really carried out this extraordinary juggling act for years," said Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center and a longtime Pakistan expert. "He's declared Pakistan on the right side of terrorism, but Pakistan continues to provide support for groups we consider terrorist. His juggling act has gotten really hard. Balls are likely to drop."
Krepon and others said Musharraf's choice is to proceed with the contradictory approach or "come down very hard on groups that are his sworn enemy."
Should he choose the latter, officials said Musharraf would be able to turn immediately to the United States for help. "We've offered a lot," one senior administration official said.
Musharraf's cooperation after Sept. 11 and the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan gave the CIA and U.S. military the opening -- and political cover from Congress, which had restricted military relations with Pakistan for the last 10 years -- to dramatically increase ties.
FBI and CIA officials have worked closely with their Pakistani counterparts to capture more than 500 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. U.S. Special Operations forces maintain at least two bases in the country for operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban along the mountainous, off-limits tribal border with Afghanistan, where Musharraf has begun to increase security patrols.
The administration is seeking $3 billion in economic and military aid to Pakistan over five years, half of it for security and military equipment and training.
Pakistan experts believe the country's nuclear weapons and equipment would remain secure, even with an abrupt change of leadership. "The security of the nuclear weapons is as good or bad as the security of the Pakistan army," Schaffer said. "Yeah, you have to worry about it" but not because of Musharraf.
The United States has been working to induce Pakistan to improve its safeguards, including the transportation and accounting of nuclear and nuclear-related material since the Sept. 11 attacks. Pakistan is believed to have manufactured at least enough highly enriched uranium for 40 nuclear weapons. Components for such weapons are stored in separate locations, reportedly in the Punjab province, where loyalty to the army is high.
The day before the second attempt on his life, Musharraf reached an agreement with the opposition Islamic parties, some allied with militant groups, to step down as chief of the army within a year. In return, he won agreement for some constitutional changes he had unilaterally enacted last year.
Asked about Pakistan's stability in the aftermath of the assassination attempts, President Bush said Thursday he had spoken with Musharraf. "Obviously, terrorists are after him. And he sounded very confident that the security forces would be able to deal with the threat. President Musharraf . . . has been a stand-up guy when it comes to dealing with the terrorists. We are making progress against al Qaeda because of his cooperation."
Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.
-------- russia / chechnya
No escape for gulag's former prisoners
03/01/2004
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/03/wgulag03.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/03/ixworld.html
More than 50 years after they were deported by Stalin, hundreds of freed inmates remain trapped in the frozen north, writes Julius Strauss in Vorkuta
When Lidya Wittman was 20 years old she was loaded into a railway goods wagon in central Russia and shipped to a gulag in the Arctic.
It was 1943, the Soviet Union was locked in a fight to the death with Hitler's army, and her crime was to be an ethnic German.
Vorkuta was the last of Stalin's infamous gulags and its name still resonates with menace for older Russians.
Women such as Mrs Wittman were treated like slaves, laying railway lines and toiling without wages in mines and factories. The camp closed in 1962, but decades later thousands of former inmates are still marooned in the decrepit northern settlement.
To get to where she lives from the nearest shop or bus stop in Vorkuta, Mrs Wittman, now 80, must hobble for more than half an hour down a frozen, rutted road. The temperature is minus 10C and a biting wind whips up the snow. "I've been here for 60 years," she said. "I'd leave tomorrow if I could."
After their release, most of the women tried to return to their homes in Ukraine, the Baltic States and central Russia. But the harsh Soviet registration system meant that as former "enemies of the state" they were barred from migrating.
Their only option was to stay and find work, sometimes in the very mines and factories they had been slaving in before their release.
When communism fell, the restrictions were gradually lifted. But by then hyperinflation had wiped out the former inmates' life savings, making an expensive move south all but impossible.
Today there are 40,000 pensioners in Vorkuta. Memorial, a Russian charity that compiles statistics on the Stalinist era, estimates that as many as four out of five are trapped former gulag inmates, or their descendants.
Even in the context of the times, the suffering at the Vorkuta camps was extreme. In the winter, temperatures on the tundra can drop to minus 50C.
Inmates were provided with ill-fitting, poor quality clothes and forced to work 12 or 14 hours a day on a starvation ration. During the 1940s and 1950s a million prisoners passed through the Vorkuta gulags, according to Memorial.
At least 100,000, perhaps many more, died. They were buried in the rock-hard permafrost or simply left by the roadside to be covered by snow.
"For 15 years I shovelled coal into the furnaces," said Mrs Wittman, who still speaks faultless German, but poor Russian.
"At night we used to sleep on hard wooden shelves. So many people died of hunger and cold."
When she was released, like thousands of others she was barred from leaving Vorkuta. Eventually she got a job as a cleaner in a mine.
Later she married another former gulag inmate, also an ethnic German, and they lived together until he died 17 years ago. Today she lives with her son. "This is what Stalin did to me," she said. "I know I can't undo the past, but I'd move to the south if only I had the money."
Yaroslav Volagodsky, 73, a Ukrainian, is another former gulag inmate trapped in Vorkuta. He was charged with "anti-Soviet activities" as a young man and given a 10-year sentence.
"You can't imagine what it was like," he said, tears running down his face. "We had no proper winter clothes, our boots were full of holes and to eat we had crushed, salted fish and a small, frozen potato a day. All my teeth fell out because of lack of vitamins.
"They made us work 14 hours a day in the mines and many men simply died. At night we slept with our clothes on, on a mattress stuffed with wood chips."
Mine 29, where Mr Volagodsky was interned, was notorious for its brutality. When in the summer of 1953 a wave of strikes swept the Soviet gulags, the inmates of Mine 29 joined in.
Four days later, on Aug 1, hundreds of troops surrounded the camp and opened fire, killing at least 53, and injuring hundreds.
Mr Volagodsky was hit in the leg and the ear, but survived. Afterwards he was forced to build coffins and dig graves for his dead colleagues.
Today there is little left of Mine 29. Only some broken brickwork around the shaft entrance marks where it once stood.
A memorial has been put up nearby by relatives of Lithuanians who died there. But the camp itself is unmarked, a mass of broken wooden beams not far from an old railway line.
When, in 1957, Mr Volagodsky was finally released he was refused permission to return home. Later he was told that he could return, but his wife, also a Ukrainian former gulag inmate, could not, so he remained.
"For 50 years this place has been like a coffin for me," he said. "I have no money to go and the local authorities tell me I don't qualify for help."
Yevgenia Khaidarova of Memorial said: "These people would all leave tomorrow if they could. But they haven't the means.
"For years Vorkuta was a political gulag. Today it has become an economic gulag."
-------- us
Women find it's a new Army
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 04, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040103-115001-3055r.htm
Female American troops in Iraq have killed Iraqis with bombs and bullets. They've won medals for valor and Purple Hearts for combat wounds. They've been captured as prisoners of war, killed by enemy fire and buried as heroes in Arlington National Cemetery.
American women have participated more extensively in combat in Iraq than in any previous war. They've taken on roles nearly inconceivable just a decade or two ago - flying fighter jets and attack helicopters, patrolling streets armed with automatic weapons and commanding units of mostly male soldiers. Seven have been killed in combat.
Yet all this has gone largely without much comment in Washington, despite the attention given to rescued POW Jessica Lynch.
Congress debated the issue of women in the military after the 1991 Gulf war, voting months later to loosen the 1948 ban on women in combat. The issue hasn't come up on Capitol Hill during this war, however.
"It doesn't seem to be a big deal," said retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning, who tracks military issues for the Women's Research and Education Institute.
"We could not do what needs to be done over there without women. If there needs to be a body search of an Iraqi woman, there's no way an American male could do that."
Military women in Iraq say they are doing their jobs just like their male colleagues. Sgt. Erin Edwards, 23, often travels in armed convoys as part of her work as an aide to a commander of the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit.
Sgt. Edwards left her 3-year-old son and infant daughter with her in-laws to serve in Iraq because her husband serves in the Army in South Korea.
"I would love to be at home with my kids, but I'm doing this for them. I wouldn't want to do anything else," Sgt. Edwards said recently.
Opponents of women in combat haven't resigned themselves to this turn of events. They're trying to pressure President Bush to reinstate restrictions on women serving in support units that travel close to the front lines, such as Miss Lynch's 507th Maintenance Company, which was ambushed in Nasiriyah. That unit included the first American woman soldier killed in the Iraq war, Pfc. Lori Piestewa.
Six other female soldiers have died in Iraq since October: Pfc. Analaura Esperaza Gutierrez, Pfc. Rachel Bosveld, Pfc. Karina Lau, Spec. Frances Vega, Chief Warrant Officer Sharon T. Swartworth and Staff Sgt. Kimberly Voelz.
Elaine Donnelly, an opponent of women in combat who is spearheading a petition drive on the issue, said she believes it's important that women not be put in danger of being captured and raped. Medical records indicate Miss Lynch was sodomized while in Iraqi captivity, but she has said she does not remember it.
"If we are opposed to violence against women at the Air Force and other service academies, why all of a sudden if violence happens at the hands of the enemy, we say it doesn't matter?" said Miss Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, which claims more than 20,000 signatures on the petition. "That's a step backward for civilization, not a step forward."
Pentagon officials said they do not keep track of the number of women serving in Iraq. Overall, 15 percent of active-duty troops and 17 percent of National Guard and reserve forces are women.
Acting on the 1991 law allowing greater roles for women, the Pentagon loosened restrictions on women's military service in 1994. The new rules allow women to become combat pilots and take other jobs that previously were off-limits.
The military retained some restrictions: Army women still can't serve in front-line infantry, tank or artillery units, and Navy women can't serve on submarines or in the SEAL special forces units, for example.
But the conflict in Iraq, like other modern wars, has blurred the line between combat and non-combat units.
Women can serve as military police, which patrol Iraqi cities and often have been involved in fighting with Iraqi insurgents. Supply convoys and troop transports often include female soldiers and have been the targets of repeated attacks by anti-American forces.
"Women MPs in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much on the front line as they can be," said Miss Manning, the retired Navy officer. "I'd say if they have the mental and physical toughness to do that, they have the physical strength to be in the infantry."
Female soldiers, particularly MPs on patrol, have drawn curious crowds of Iraqis who marvel at the idea of women in uniform. Sgt. Edwards said Iraqi women are particularly interested.
"When women look at you, they just smile," Sgt. Edwards said, her M-16 rifle slung over one shoulder. Others, however, "won't even look at you. It's like they're not allowed."
-------- propaganda wars / press
Hazardous Assignments Killed 36 Journalists in '03
January 3, 2004
New York Times
By NEELA BANERJEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/international/middleeast/03JOUR.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 2 - The number of journalists who died on assignment rose sharply last year, to 36 from 19 in 2002, largely because of their work in Iraq, according to a report released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a research and advocacy group based in New York.
Thirteen journalists were killed by hostile actions in Iraq last year, the report said, and six more died as a result of traffic accidents or illness. Outside Iraq, nearly all other journalists killed were targets because of their reporting.
"The war that began in March posed many hazards for journalists," Ann Cooper, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "But seasoned war correspondents tell us that even in the postwar period, Iraq remains the most dangerous assignment they have ever had."
The deaths of 19 journalists in Iraq is the highest toll in a single country since 24 journalists were killed in Algeria in 1995 at the height of the conflict between the government and Islamist insurgents, according to the report. Because of the new process of assigning reporters to travel with the American-led military forces during the Iraq war, journalists fell prey to the same deadly hazards that soldiers faced. But during the last nine months of the occupation in Iraq, the risks have not abated.
Reporters face threats from both sides of the guerrilla war in Iraq. Like Iraqis themselves and occupation soldiers, journalists risk being at the wrong place at the wrong time in this period of frequent car bombings and roadside explosions. Three American reporters for The Los Angeles Times and five of their Iraqi colleagues were wounded and eight people were killed on New Year's Eve when a car bomb exploded next to a Baghdad restaurant popular with foreigners and affluent Iraqis.
When reporters travel to the restive areas of the so-called Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, a swath that formed the power base of the ousted government, their cars are routinely chased by gunmen and frequently fired upon. Reporters have also been attacked by angry crowds when covering suicide bombings.
But at least four journalists have been killed to date by the American military, including a Palestinian cameraman for Reuters, who was shot as he filmed outside a prison in August. The committee "continues to demand a full public accounting from the Pentagon" for the incidents, Ms. Cooper said.
----
Who forged the Niger uranium papers?
DON SELLAR
Jan. 3, 2004
Toonto Star
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1072784049315&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." - U.S. President George W. Bush, State of the Union address, Jan. 28, 2003.
Of all the news stories the Star published in 2003, the disputed tale of an Iraqi quest for nuclear weapons ranks as the most perplexing.
True, the provocative allegation Bush levelled against Saddam last January on the brink of war lies in tatters. But the whole story hasn't been told. There are big gaps for good journalists to fill.
Let's start at the beginning.
On Dec. 20, 2002, the Star ran an Associated Press item in which the U.S. State Department declared Iraq had failed to say in a weapons declaration that it tried to buy uranium in Niger.
Earlier, British intelligence had accused Saddam of trying to buy "significant'' amounts of uranium in Africa, but the U.S. State Department was first to name Niger, a largely Muslim nation whose leading export is uranium.
Soon, other news reports said authorities in Niger had confirmed they'd rebuffed an attempt 20 years earlier.
Then, on Jan. 28, Bush repeated the allegation in his State of the Union speech. It would come back to bite him when evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction failed to materialize.
On March 8, Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council his inspectors had found no evidence to back U.S. and British claims.
ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based U.N. body, said its inspectors had concluded that suspicious items in Iraq (including the high-strength aluminum tubes Bush cited) were unsuitable for enriching uranium and making weapons-grade nuclear material.
Not only did ElBaradei dismiss charges that Iraq was shopping for uranium in Africa, he said his agency had examined documents that turned out to be "in fact not authentic."
In other words, forgeries.
On June 12, nearly two months after Saddam's regime collapsed, Star readers were treated to an intriguing dispatch by the Washington Post's Walter Pincus. He reported a CIA-run mission to Niger in early 2002 had debunked the shopping-for-uranium story.
Inexplicably, the CIA hadn't told the White House. So the fabricated story lived on, bolstering the U.S. case for war even after major combat ended.
In July, former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson revealed he was the "unnamed former envoy" who had travelled to Niger. While there, he'd concluded it was "highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."
Much controversy ensued. Suffice it to say, White House credibility took hits all summer. As late as September, Vice-President Dick Cheney stoutly contended on TV that the uranium allegation had been "revalidated."
Regardless, two big questions remain unanswered: Who forged the papers, and why? Theories abound. The most intriguing came from veteran journalist Seymour M. Hersh, in the Oct. 27 New Yorker. But he didn't name an informant who told him a few disgruntled ex-CIA spooks had drafted the fake papers to get back at Cheney.
Was Hersh right? Journalism is supposed to be a search for truth. Yet there are few signs the story is being pursued with vigour. An ombud's wish for 2004.
-------- war crimes
A Top Khmer Rouge Leader, Going Public, Pleads Ignorance
January 3, 2004
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/international/asia/03CAMB.html?pagewanted=all
As Cambodia moves closer to convening a trial for the deaths of 1.7 million people under the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's, one of the movement's top leaders has begun to plead his case publicly, claiming ignorance, innocence, shock and contrition.
"I have found it so difficult to believe what people told me of what happened under the Khmer Rouge regime, but today I am very clear that there was genocide," said the leader, Khieu Samphan, 72, in one of a series of interviews he has given reporters in recent days.
United Nations experts have been working in Cambodia to prepare the groundwork for an international tribunal after an agreement in principle with the Cambodian government in June. Many political, technical and financial hurdles remain, however, and many analysts doubt the experts' prediction that a trial could begin as early as this year.
The Cambodian side has been raising conditions and creating delays since 1996. Serious questions remain over both the political will of the government and the ability of its corrupt and ill-trained court system to play its part in a process that will mix both foreign and local judges and court officers.
Nevertheless, the analysts say, the public pleading of Mr. Khieu Samphan, who was the nominal head of the Khmer Rouge government, is a sign that he is feeling the heat.
Sok Sam Ouen, executive director of a local legal aid group, the Cambodian Defenders Project, said Mr. Khieu Samphan approached him for advice about three months ago.
"He asked me whether or not he has the right to have a lawyer," Mr. Sok Sam Ouen told Agence France-Presse. "He wanted to know whether the organization can help him."
Another prominent leader, Nuon Chea, 76, told the English-language Cambodia Daily on Monday that he did not plan to hire a lawyer because his case was too complicated and because he was too poor.
"If people have no money, you do not help defend," he said, referring to lawyers. "So where is the justice and ideals to assist the poor people?"
Both Mr. Khieu Samphan and Mr. Nuon Chea were interviewed by telephone from Pailin, the former Khmer Rouge stronghold where they have been living quietly, tending to their gardens and grandchildren, since the Khmer Rouge abandoned its jungle insurgency in 1998.
The top leader, Pol Pot, died that year, and only a handful of his most culpable henchmen remain alive.
None of the Khmer Rouge leaders have been brought to trial for the deaths between 1975 and 1979 of as many as one-fourth of the country's people. Under the radical Communist government, Cambodia became a mass labor camp where people were executed or died from torture, starvation, disease and overwork.
"I have been wondering, and I am still wondering, why the leaders killed the people like that," Mr. Khieu Samphan said in his Agence France-Presse interview. "I never conspired with any senior Khmer Rouge leaders to kill the people of Cambodia. No! I never. Within the regime, I was only a leader in name."
He added: "It was so unjust for those people. My mind is still confused."
Cambodians and foreign experts scoffed at his pleas and denials, contained in both the interviews and in a long, closely argued open letter in French that he released on Tuesday.
"I summarize it as his very long-winded way of saying, `I knew nothing, everything was the responsibility of the maximum leader, and anyway, we did it to save the country,' " said Craig Etcheson, an expert on the Khmer Rouge who is completing books on their crimes and on the legal process.
"Which of course was exactly the argument many Nazis used in an attempt to save themselves at Nuremberg," he added, "and it didn't do them any good."
In his interviews and letter, Mr. Khieu Samphan said he was shocked to learn of Khmer Rouge crimes from a documentary by a French-Cambodian filmmaker, Rithy Panh, which he said he saw in April.
"My mind totally changed after I watched the latest film documentary of Mr. Rithy Panh," he said. "I never believed previously that people were killed when they stole one potato to stay alive."
When he surrendered in December 1998, Mr. Khieu Samphan urged Cambodians to "let bygones be bygones." But under pressure from reporters at a news conference, he said he was "sorry, very sorry" for whatever had happened.
In 2001 he issued a statement saying he had been shocked to learn from his wife that people had suffered while he headed the Khmer Rouge government. Until now, however, he had not gone so far as to agree with historians who call the killings genocide.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Investigators Into C.I.A. Leak Ask Officials to Waive Private Talks With Reporters
January 3, 2004
By DAVID JOHNSTON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/politics/03LEAK.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 - Investigators who are trying to determine whether anyone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer have asked some White House staff members to sign forms waiving their right to have private conversations with reporters, government officials said on Friday. The waiver forms were presented to the White House employees starting about a month ago, one official said, confirming a report broadcast on Friday evening by NBC News. However, it was not clear whether any of the staff members had actually signed the forms or disclosed the names of reporters with whom they had confidential conversations.
A White House spokeswoman, Claire Buchan, said Friday night that the White House was fully cooperating, but that it had not made any requests of its own to employees to sign any waivers.
The officials said that privacy waivers were routinely sought from government employees in the course of investigations to find the sources of sensitive or classified information, even though the procedure was not widely known.
The investigators used the forms in an effort to find out who among White House employees had spoken to the columnist Robert Novak, presumably to narrow the list of who might have told him about the undercover officer. Investigators in leak cases focus on government employees because they almost never succeed in obtaining information from reporters about their sources. It is unclear whether the waiver process would place any additional pressure on a reporter to reveal a source.
The waiver procedure seemed to suggest the intensity of the Justice Department's inquiry to uncover who disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. employee, to Mr. Novak, who named Ms. Plame in his syndicated column last July. She is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, who has criticized the Bush administration's policy toward Iraq.
Whether anyone at the White House was compelled by their superiors to sign the waiver form is unclear. The legal validity of such forms is uncertain, and government officials said they could not require anyone to sign them or take any action against anyone who refused.
This week, the leak inquiry gained fresh impetus when Attorney General John Ashcroft relinquished control over the three-month-old inquiry. In his place, Justice Department officials named Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, as a special prosecutor in the case.
Mr. Fitzgerald, who is known as an aggressive prosecutor, will divide his time between Chicago and Washington and was at the Justice Department on Friday reviewing the case.
Mr. Ashcroft's decision to step aside came after months of criticism from Democrats in the Senate who complained that the attorney general could not impartially lead an investigation that focused in part on his political patrons and friends at the White House.
--------
Bush Aides Face Request To Free Media To Give Names
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 3, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50649-2004Jan2.html
CRAWFORD, Tex., Jan. 2 -- Federal investigators plan to ask White House officials to release journalists from any pledge of confidentiality given during discussions about CIA operative Valerie Plame, a senior administration official said Friday.
The official said that several aides to President Bush whose names have come up in interviews with FBI agents will be asked to sign a one-page form giving permission for journalists to describe any such conversations to investigators, even if the journalists promised not to reveal the source.
Bush has said he wants his aides to cooperate fully, and the official said that will result in tremendous pressure on them to sign a form. But the official said that even some of the investigators on the case do not expect the document to prompt journalists to break their pledges of confidentiality. News organizations routinely resist subpoenas asking for information about confidential sources, and reporters have gone to jail rather than testify.
The form states that it is the wish of the White House official that "no member of the media assert any privilege or refuse to answer any questions" about the leak, according to a copy of the form obtained by NBC News.
Time magazine reported on its Web site that Karl Rove, Bush's senior adviser, had been sent a copy of the form and that other such requests had been made over the past week.
The Justice Department launched an investigation Sept. 30, after a July 14 column by Robert D. Novak quoted two senior administration officials as saying Plame was a CIA operative. Her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, was given a sensitive CIA mission to Africa in 2002 and later became a vocal critic of Bush's case for invading Iraq. Administration officials have said that they believed he got the assignment through nepotism, and some officials apparently hoped to undermine his credibility by disclosing his wife's occupation. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has recused himself from the inquiry.
-------- homeland security
3 Air Routes Focus of Scrutiny Flight From London to Dulles Canceled Again
By Dana Priest and Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50669-2004Jan2?language=printer
Three international flight routes -- London Heathrow to Dulles International Airport, and Paris and Mexico City to Los Angeles -- are the focus of an intense manhunt for al Qaeda terrorists being carried out by intelligence and law enforcement authorities on three continents, U.S. officials said yesterday.
British Airways announced yesterday the cancellation of four more flights, including Flight 223 today from Heathrow to Dulles -- the same flight that was canceled Thursday and yesterday -- and its return. The other two flights were scheduled for Heathrow and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, today along with a return flight Sunday.
[However, despite the airline's earlier announcement that today's flight would be canceled, Flight 223 took off for Dulles at about 1 p.m. ET after a delay of more than three hours for security checks, the Associated Press reported.]
In the past two weeks, the more than 15 flights that have been canceled, delayed, turned around or escorted by U.S. fighter aircraft were identified by an inexact combination of dates, flight numbers and routes obtained through intercepted communications and through interrogations with al Qaeda detainees and other credible informants in U.S. and foreign custody, intelligence officials said.
In some cases, such as the six Air France flights canceled before Christmas, names on the passenger manifest raised suspicions enough to warrant cancellations on routes that already were of concern, officials said.
Some information used to make a decision to cancel or delay a flight was verified or judged credible only shortly before takeoff or after the plane had departed, said intelligence officials. They described the nature of the hunt as extremely fast-paced and based on fragmentary information.
In one example of a quick decision based on fresh intelligence, passengers on a Dulles-to-Heathrow flight were ordered off the plane Thursday by U.S. authorities moments before it was set to leave the gate, officials disclosed yesterday. After all luggage and cargo were removed and screened again, only the luggage was reloaded before the plane was cleared for takeoff nearly four hours later.
In most cases, U.S. authorities insisted the flights be altered or passengers interviewed but gave foreign officials only minimal evidence for actions. U.S. and foreign officials said yesterday that despite the lack of specifics, cooperation between intelligence agencies and aviation officials remains strong.
But some policymakers and airline industry representatives had complained publicly about the cancellations and the significant financial pain they are causing for airlines, as well as the headaches for travelers.
"They provided just generalities and no details of names, groups or circumstances whatsoever," said Agustin Gutierrez Canet, a spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox. "The Mexican government had no other option but to cancel the flights. It is the moral responsibility of the United States government to provide more information."
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, however, called U.S. requests "legitimate."
"It's a time of tension, a time of risk. I prefer the principle of precaution," said Sarkozy, during a tour of Charles de Gaulle International Airport outside Paris, where he assessed security measures in place. "When a large, friendly country asks you to reinforce security measures, and are themselves taking security measures, nobody should reproach them."
One French official said almost daily the Americans raise objections to flights because some passengers have names of people similar or identical to people on the U.S. government's various watch lists.
French officials confirmed a report in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that none of six individuals whose names appeared suspicious to U.S. authorities on the manifests of flights canceled before Christmas turned out to be of interest. One turned out to be a 5-year-old boy with the same name as a suspected Tunisian terrorist, another was an elderly Chinese woman and a third was a Welsh insurance agent.
One passenger who did not show up for the flight has fled and cannot be found, a U.S. intelligence official said. He was described as a male of Middle Eastern descent who is a pilot, according to another U.S. intelligence official. No known terrorist has been on a flight or has been arrested.
U.S. and foreign officials pointed to the frustrating nature of their intelligence in explaining why they could not provide more specifics to foreign airlines or travelers.
"Unfortunately, oftentimes the intelligence is vague and al Qaeda does not tell us specifically how, when, where and at what time they're going to hit," Department of Homeland Security spokesman Brian J. Roehrkasse said. "We remain very concerned about al Qaeda's desire to use aircraft as weapons, and we have received credible information about flights originating outside of the United States."
Complete passenger manifest lists are usually not available to U.S. authorities until an hour or less before takeoff. Some airlines do not turn over the complete passenger manifest until the door is "wheels up," or the aircraft is closed, with all passengers on board, and it is headed for the runway for takeoff, said one FBI official. "To the extent we can scrub [names] in advance, we do," the official said.
Intelligence officials, however, said they believed potential hijackers would likely travel under clean aliases. U.S. officials must check manifests using a dozen watch lists because the planned consolidation of such data has yet to be completed.
"Every time you cancel flights, every one indicates a win for the other side," said Doug Laird, an aviation security expert and former director of security for Northwest Airlines. "I don't think canceling flights and rescreening of passengers builds confidence. It does the opposite."
British Airways continues to operate two other daily flights between Heathrow and Dulles, and said it was flying in a larger plane to Dulles yesterday evening to accommodate passengers whose flights were canceled.
Virgin Atlantic, which also flies from Heathrow to Dulles and several other U.S. airports, warned of extensive delays from John F. Kennedy and Newark international airports. United Airlines said its passengers have not undergone additional security screening procedures, nor have any of its domestic or international flights been detained or delayed for security reasons.
Staff writer Robin Wright and correspondents Keith Richburg in Paris and Kevin Sullivan in Mexico City contributed to this report.
--------
Flight Groundings Lead Allies to Query Washington
January 3, 2004
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03TERR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 - British Airways canceled another flight to the United States on Friday as the Bush administration faced questions from American allies about the reliability of the intelligence information that has led to the recent rash of flight cancellations.
The British airline grounded a flight from London to Washington - the third cancellation over all in 24 hours - and canceled a flight scheduled for Saturday from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or "high" alert on Dec. 21. Administration officials said no arrests had been made in connection with any of the more than a dozen international flights subjected to rigorous scrutiny. And officials have acknowledged that even now, they are uncertain whether they have succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot.
"I don't think we know yet, and we may never know," a senior administration official said.
The latest concern over the tighter security - perhaps unparalleled in commercial aviation history - was raised by Mexico on Friday. A spokesman for President Vicente Fox questioned decisions by the United States on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to cancel Aeromexico's Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The spokesman, Agustin Gutiérrez Canet, said that armed Mexican agents had been scheduled to fly aboard the flights and that the authorities made special efforts to interrogate passengers closely and inspect luggage.
"Those revisions have found nothing suspicious," Mr. Gutiérrez said. "Where was the risk?"
In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board.
In addition to the flight cancellations, foreign airliners have been escorted into American airspace by F-16 military fighters, and a Mexican flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was turned around in mid-air.
The events have left both domestic security officials and international travelers on edge over the prospect of another attack by Al Qaeda. American officials said they were determined to avoid the kind of missed warning signs that preceded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even if it meant inconveniencing travelers. Government officials refuse to talk about key details of their decisions to ground the flights because they are classified, but they say that the anxieties are driven by a confluence of factors indicating that another attack on the scale of the Sept. 11 hijackings might be in the works. And the White House's approach, the result of both cold analytical intelligence and gut-level emotion, helped set in motion the extraordinary security measures seen over the last 10 days.
Two days before an Air France flight to Los Angeles was to depart from Paris on Christmas Eve, President Bush's top national security advisers briefed him at the White House on their growing worries about the route, administration officials said.
American officials were picking up intelligence indicating terrorists might be on board that flight or others from Paris to Los Angeles. They had persuaded the French, despite initial resistance, to post armed marshals on board. But the Americans remained nervous and were considering urging the French to cancel the flight.
President Bush had one threshold question for Tom Ridge, his secretary for homeland security, as they met at the White House situation room on Dec. 22. "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" he asked Mr. Ridge, according to a senior administration official privy to the conversation.
"Absolutely not," the secretary responded. "Well," Mr. Bush said, "neither would I."
The two men and Mr. Bush's other advisers then agreed that if the threat remained, the French should be urged to cancel the Paris-to-Los Angeles flights over the Christmas holiday. Two days later, the French did just that.
But with that aggressive approach have come questions about the quality of the intelligence information. In the case of the Air France cancellations, for instance, the discovery of a name on the passenger manifest similar to that of a Tunisian pilot with possible extremist links ratcheted up concern. But officials said it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity; the name of the passenger was that of a child, a senior official said in an interview. Other apparent "hits" from American terror watch lists turned out to be an elderly Chinese woman who owned a restaurant and a Welsh insurance agent, an F.B.I. official said.
The level of intelligence "chatter" picked up by the American intelligence community, and used as a gauge of terrorist activity, had risen to alarming levels by the time Mr. Ridge raised the threat level, officials said. Electronic eavesdropping, monitoring of e-mail messages, and information from informers picked up snippets of suspicious references to flight numbers and cities, and it pointed up concern about specific flights as well, including London to Washington, Paris to Los Angeles, and Mexico City to Los Angeles, officials said. The holiday period was also a time of particular concern, in part because Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber," had tried to detonate an explosive on a flight from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001.
In the hours and days leading up to the Dec. 21 orange alert, the suspicious intelligence became louder, more credible and more specific, officials said. And it appeared to take a sudden upturn just before Dec. 21, surprising even some national security officials who said they had no reason to expect the alert level to increase in the day or two beforehand. By the time the alert was declared, officials said, they were deeply concerned that an international flight would be Al Qaeda's next means of attack on the United States.
Daniel Benjamin, a former counterterrorism specialist with the National Security Council, said he spoke with officials who "thought the orange alert was easily justified based on the available intelligence, and one person could even have imagined it going higher" to a red alert, which has never happened under the current threat system.
The French routes were among their biggest concerns, and intelligence pointed to the possibility of attacks on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, officials said.
Americans became even more concerned about the Paris-Los Angeles route as they began reviewing preliminary flight manifests from the Air France flights on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25.
"There were names on those manifests that caused concern because of hits on our databases. That's what caused the anxiety level," the senior government official said.
The passenger name that appeared to match the Tunisian pilot provoked particular concern, officials said, but investigators would not learn of the mistake until after the flights were grounded.
In the days leading up to the Christmastime flights to Los Angeles, French and American security officials exchanged information often hourly on the passengers scheduled to be on board, and the Americans persuaded the French, after vigorous lobbying, to post armed marshals on the flights, officials said. One French diplomat told the Americans that he was concerned that the Paris-Los Angeles flights could be disrupted for an extended period and that the public would see the issue as a result of more diplomatic friction between the two nations, according to an American official who spoke with the emissary.
While American officials have asserted tight control over how and when foreign flights can enter their airspace, their authority has come into question in recent days, as they have sought to balance national security and diplomatic concerns.
In Mexico, legislators expressed frustration about the Mexico City-Los Angeles cancellations on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, saying that they wanted Mexico's transportation minister to answer questions about the security agreements with the United States and about who would compensate Mexican airlines for any financial losses.
Victor Hugo Islas, a federal legislator from the central Mexican state of Puebla, told the newspaper Cronica: "We do not know for sure the reach of these agreements, but surely someone should compensate the Mexican airlines as well as the passengers who have lost reservations, hotels, business or even jobs over these decisions."
The American authorities have negotiated tougher security controls with the French, and they have also begun sending inspectors into Benito Juarez Airport in Mexico City to help put stricter measures into effect.
But there appear to be limits to how far other nations will go to accommodate American concerns.
In France, for instance, Dominique Bussereau, the state secretary in the transport ministry, said in a French radio interview on Friday that officials there would have to evaluate future requests from the United States for flight cancellations, and he said the French had turned down one such request this week.
"There was a flight that took place a few days ago that the United States didn't particularly want," Mr. Bussereau said. But French officials determined "that all the security measures had been taken, that all the checks made into the passengers were of such nature that the flight had all reason to travel, to fly," he said. French officials apologized to the passengers and allowed the flight to take off - "even if the American authorities didn't entirely agree," he said.
Ginger Thompson reported from Mexico City for this article, and John Tagliabue reported from Paris.
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Nations Comply Guardedly on Cancellations
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50548-2004Jan2.html
LONDON, Jan. 2 -- Britain, France and Mexico are responding with swift compliance along with puzzlement and skepticism to U.S. demands for flight cancellations based on terrorism concerns.
The public response by the governments of all three countries has been guarded and uncertain. There has been little information about the content or reliability of the intelligence that has led to the cancellations. In one exception, the French disclosed that passenger lists included names similar to or the same as those of suspects.
In London, an official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Britain's Joint Terrorism Analysis Center, part of the MI5 domestic intelligence service, conducted an independent assessment of intelligence provided by the U.S. government and concluded that the threat justified cancellation on Friday of Flight 223 from Heathrow Airport to Dulles.
Another official, also speaking anonymously, said the flights to Dulles were canceled this week because authorities could not scrutinize and cross-check the passenger manifest against suspected watch lists in time. Normally, he said, British Airways cannot provide a complete list of passengers and data such as addresses, credit card numbers and other details until the plane is in the air. Workers for the airline have sought to put together such data earlier so that each passenger could be scrutinized ahead of time. "The problem is we don't get a full picture until people actually get to the airport," the official said.
A British Airways spokesman said Friday's flight was canceled due to a direct order from British security officials. "In terms of security direction, we follow British government guidance," said the spokesman, Iain Burns. "When the government tells us to shut down, we shut down."
Another source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described airline security officials as "perplexed" by the fact that the authorities were demanding that only Flight 223 be canceled. Other flights to the United States have been delayed in recent days, but none has undergone the scrutiny focused on 223.
Passengers expressed mixed feelings about the cancellation. William Mallett, 38, his wife, Cathy Lewis, and their 1-year-old son, Jack, were on their way through passport control as the announcement was made. "The staff said they wouldn't be checking us in unless there was a very good chance the flight was going to go," Mallet told the Press Association news agency.
Mallett, a transportation consultant who lives in Arlington, said: "I have been telling myself that if they are paying attention to this flight in particular, that is a good thing. It means there is more likely to be a problem when they are not paying attention to the flight, but I am still nervous."
Some of the passengers were redirected onto British Airways Flight 225 Friday evening, which took off for Dulles after a 40-minute delay.
British Airways bills itself as the world's largest transatlantic carrier, with 33 flights daily to 18 destinations in North America. Burns said the company had not begun to assess the potential economic impact of the cancellations.
In France, six Air France flights were canceled last week at the request of U.S. officials. But French officials were careful not to fault the Americans. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who called the U.S. requests "legitimate," visited baggage handling and immigration facilities at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday, before descending to the tarmac to watch an Air France Boeing 747 take off for Los Angeles. A light armored vehicle escorted the plane to its takeoff position.
In Mexico City, Agustin Gutierrez Canet, spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said officials from the Department of Homeland Security contacted CISEN, Mexico's national security agency, requesting that Aeromexico Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles be canceled on Wednesday and Thursday. He said the U.S. officials said the planes would be denied landing rights in Los Angeles.
Fernando Cevallos, Aeromexico's vice president for airports, said inspectors from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration have been stationed in the Mexico City airport to observe the boarding of passengers on all flights bound for the United States. He said they do not question passengers or conduct inspections.
Gutierrez said officials searched the aircraft and all luggage "extremely carefully" and found nothing unusual. Mexican authorities at CISEN asked U.S. officials for more details of the security concerns about the Aeromexico flights, he said, but U.S. officials simply said the concerns were based on "intelligence." Cevallos said the civil aviation agency officials were told there was "specific information about a potential risk" on the Aeromexico flights.
Gutierrez, who was critical of U.S. procedures, said Mexico would continue to comply with similar requests from U.S. officials. Mexico has placed armed police officers on some flights to the United States at the request of U.S. officials. But Gutierrez said the cancellation of flights has not been an effective strategy.
"This alarm situation has been a failure," Gutierrez said. "We have found nothing suspicious. Nobody has been detained and nobody has found a bomb or anything like that."
Correspondents Keith B. Richburg in Paris and Kevin Sullivan in Acapulco, Mexico, and special correspondent Gabriela Martinez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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-------- environment
E.P.A. to Study Use of Waste From Sewage as Fertilizer
January 3, 2004
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03SLUD.html
The Environmental Protection Agency will sponsor a series of scientific and public health studies on the safety of using sewage sludge as fertilizer, including nationwide chemical tests and building a human health complaint database.
The studies, in combination with the agency's announcement on Wednesday that it will more closely regulate 15 chemicals found in sewage sludge fertilizer, are part of the agency's efforts to address public concerns about an agricultural practice that has grown rapidly around the country over the last decade.
The announcements also reflect the agency's shifting public stance toward the practice. Currently, 54 percent of the six million tons of sewage sludge generated every year is processed, rechristened as biosolids and used as fertilizer - more sludge than is disposed of through incineration and landfill combined.
The popularity of the practice is in part due to the environmental agency's enthusiastic promotion, which started after Congress prohibited the ocean dumping of sewage sludge in 1992. The agency spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a public relations campaign for recycling sludge as fertilizer, which at that time accounted for less than a third of the sewage waste disposal. The agency even created a brochure in 1994 that said that processed sewage sludge may "protect child health." The brochure cited a study showing animals that ingested "biosolid-treated soil and dust may have a decreased absorption of lead into the bloodstream, thus lessening the potential for lead-induced nerve and brain damage."
In May, the agency fired a 32-year veteran agency scientist, David Lewis, who had raised questions about the safety of practice in a 1999 article published in Nature.
But hundreds of complaints have been documented over the last decade, including accusations that the toxic chemicals and pathogens have caused sickness and death in animals and humans. Appomattox County, Va., banned the use of biosolids, which a federal judge overturned in November for conflicting with state law allowing the practice.
Industry officials say the complaints have to be taken in context. "Given the large volume and multi-decade history of land application of biosolids, the complaints of the large-scale health impacts are few and far between," said James Slaughter, a lawyer who represents the biosolids industry.
Environmental agency officials are publicly more ambivalent.
"I can't answer it's safe. I can't answer it's not safe," Paul Gilman, the assistant administrator of agency's office of research and development, said in an interview with CBS in October about the practice.
"We are not promoting one approach over another," Ben Grumbles, the acting assistant administrator of the agency's office of water, said of the various choices. "We are promoting local choice. We believe the current sewage sludge regulations are adequately protective of human health in the environment."
The scientific concerns have been enough such that the Honolulu City Council voted last month to delay a contract with Synagro, a leading sewage sludge disposal company, pending further study on the safety of the practice.
The agency's scientific studies were prompted by a National Research Council report, released in July 2002, criticizing the science around sewage sludge as outdated.
In addition to regulating inorganic chemicals, the E.P.A. will also identify pathogens and viruses that are present in the sewage sludge - including staphylococcus aureus, a pathogen that tends to invade burned or chemically damaged tissue. While industry-sponsored research at the University of Arizona recently concluded that the pathogen is not present in biosolids, Dr. Lewis said it was the chemicals in the sewage sludge that leave residents more at risk from infection.
While critics of the sewage sludge policy are heartened by the research plans, they also caution that the agency should try to ensure balanced viewpoints.
"Historically, the activities sponsored by E.P.A. have tended to be one-sided in terms of having scientists who have been involved in developing the rule," said Ellen Harrison, director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, who has been critical of some E.P.A policies. "There is a real need to change that and involve people who have been critical of some of the work to date."
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