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NUCLEAR
CANADA - Nuclear fusion bid to be abandoned
Hungarian nuclear plant, Framatome settle out of court over gas leak
Tennessee - Construction of uranium-related facilities may start in July
Experts in Netherlands to Check Box That Held Nuclear Material
IAEA Says Iraq Likely Source of Material
U.N. Says Dutch Uranium May Have Came from Iraq
With U.S. Help, Israel May Boost Missile Production
Russia Says 'No' to Nuclear Fusion Plant in Japan
Russia, China Try to Broker Nuclear Talks
Missile defence program 'will lead to arms race'
Arrest Ties Pakistan to Nuke Black Market
Parts of Rocky Mountain Arsenal Deleted from Superfund Site
Yucca Mtn. Workers Sought for Screening
As Strike Looms, Entergy Says It Will Keep Indian Pt. Running
Panel says Energy Dept. can't justify relaxed testing
Clark testimony to Congress contradicts antiwar position
America, Iraq, and Presidential Leadership
Do Americans want a king?
Democrat Challenges Bush on Iraqi Intelligence Lapse
Dems Criticize Bush on Homeland Security
MILITARY
Iraq missions stir dissent in East Asia
Judge to Issue Findings on Blair's Case for War
Halliburton defends fuel contract in Iraq
Question Raised on Halliburton's Kuwait Contract
Pentagon Asks For Probe of KBR Oil Deal
Myers Stresses U.S. Stance on Taiwan
White House Meeting on Plan to Restore Self-Rule in Iraq
U.S. Scrambles to Salvage Transition
Israel Seals Off Gaza Strip in Response to Suicide Bombing
Israeli Official Labels Hamas Leader 'Marked for Death'
Glance of Israel's Targeted Killings
Sanchez Orders Iraq Prisoner Abuse Probe
U.S. still holds children at Guantanamo
Lawmaker Says Intelligence Wrong on Iraq WMD
U.N. sides with U.S. on voting in Iraq
U.S. Joins Iraqis to Seek U.N. Role in Interim Rule
Pentagon Withholds Cold War Medical Data
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
White House to Appeal Terror Suspect Case
Mexico Awaits Hague Ruling on Citizens on U.S. Death Row
Bush's Power to Plan Trial of Detainees Is Challenged
Rikers Houses Low-Level Inmates at High Expense
OTHER
EPA Sued Over Secret Meetings with Chemical Companies
Bioethics Panel Calls for Ban on Radical Reproductive Procedures
U.S. feels crunch to comply with WTO
ACTIVISTS
Group fights plan to test MOX fuel
Activists Criticize U.S. Economic Policies
Hundreds protest Bush's visit to King's grave site
Protesters Chant and Boo as Bush Honors Dr. King
Shiites Protest U.S. Plan For Iraq
Israeli refuseniks stage protest opposite settlers
-------- NUCLEAR
CANADA - Nuclear fusion bid to be abandoned
January 16, 2004
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
MONTREAL - Canada announced yesterday that it is withdrawing from the international multibillion-dollar experimental nuclear fusion project ITER.
Canada had proposed a site near Toronto for the reactor. France and Japan now are competing for the valuable project.
-------- accidents and safety
Hungarian nuclear plant, Framatome settle out of court over gas leak
BUDAPEST (AFP)
Jan 16, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040116174000.42q6bcou.html
French-German company Framatome ANP settled out of court with the Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary after the company was found responsible for a radioactive gas leak there last year, Paks officials said Friday.
"The Paks nuclear power plant has settled out of court with Framatome over compensation for last year's incident," the plant's director, Istvan Kocsis, was cited as saying by MTI state-run news agency.
Kocsis would not reveal the amount of the settlement.
The gas leak occured on April 10 after fuel rods heated up in one of the plant's reactors, which remains out of order nine months after the accident.
A fault in the cooling system of Framatome, a subsidiary of France's Areva and Germany's Siemens, was found responsible for causing the leak.
The plant at Paks, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, generates 40 percent of Hungary's total energy output.
-------- depleted uranium
Tennessee - Construction of uranium-related facilities may start in July
OFFICIAL: 'Safe and timely shipment of the cylinders is a high priority in this community.'
By: Paul Parson paul.parson@oakridger.com
Oak Ridger Staff
January 16, 2004
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/011604/new_20040116053.shtml
"Ship them out of here."
That's what needs to be done with the stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, according to Norman Mulvenon. He's a member of two local environmental watchdog groups - the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee and the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board.
And, shipping the material out of town is just what the Department of Energy plans to do. But, before that happens, the federal agency has to wrap up all the legal loose ends for a proposed plan to construct depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion facilities in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.
The federal agency held a public hearing Thursday evening in Oak Ridge on two draft environmental impact statements pertaining to the facilities. A final version of the document is expected to be released in June, with a record of decision to follow. Construction is set to begin by the end of July
Cylinder haulers are used to transfer depleted uranium hexafluouride cylinders between storage yards at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, according to officials. Depleted uranium hexafluoride is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, where uranium was ultimately processed into nuclear reactor fuel and weapons-grade material. The growing amount of this material has been a national concern for decades.
There are 4,800 cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride currently stored at K-25. Current plans are for the cylinders to be shipped to Ohio.
Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup contractor, will be responsible for all off-site shipments of K-25's cylinders, according to Chuck Jenkins, a Bechtel Jacobs spokesman.
"Safe and timely shipment of the cylinders is a high priority in this community," said Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Local Oversight Committee.
Gawarecki said the shipments are a multi-state issue, adding that emergency management officials should be notified and consulted about the material coming through their states.
The new facilities will convert the depleted uranium hexafluoride to a more stable chemical form for use or disposal.
-------- europe
Experts in Netherlands to Check Box That Held Nuclear Material
January 16, 2004
By GREGORY CROUCH
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/international/europe/16YELL.html?pagewanted=all
NIJMEGEN, the Netherlands, Jan. 15 - Nuclear inspectors arrived in the Netherlands this week to examine a shipping container from the Middle East that was found to contain a small amount of uranium oxide, a low-level radioactive material that can be processed for use in a nuclear weapon.
Dutch officials confirmed Thursday that representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency investigated the discovery of about two pounds of uranium oxide, or yellowcake, found last month inside a container at a scrap steel company in Rotterdam.
Their findings have not been released.
A newspaper, the NRC Handelsblad, quoted an official of Jewometaal Stainless Processing, where the uranium oxide was discovered, as saying that he was "99.9 percent certain that this stuff is actually from Iraq" but officials of the Dutch government were more guarded.
"The only thing I know for sure is that this shipment was sent from Jordan," said Wim van der Weegen, a spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. "Anything beyond that is speculation."
Paul de Bruin, a spokesman for Jewometaal, told the Associated Press that the shipment was handled by a Jordanian exporter he has known for 15 years, who insists the material was from Iraq.
Dutch officials said Jewometaal s employees and nearby residents were never in any danger because the uranium oxide was not highly radioactive.
Mr. van der Weegen said experts told him uranium oxide has to be refined using sophisticated and elaborate measures before it can be turned into enriched uranium for possible use in nuclear weapons.
Also, according to experts, Mr. van der Weegen said, the amount of material discovered in Rotterdam was too small to be of any use.
--------
IAEA Says Iraq Likely Source of Material
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Netherlands-Uranium.html
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- The U.S. nuclear watchdog confirmed Friday that Iraq was the likely source of radioactive material known as yellowcake that was found in a shipment of scrap metal at Rotterdam harbor.
Yellowcake, or uranium oxide, could be used to build a nuclear weapon, although it would take tons of the substance refined with sophisticated technology to harvest enough uranium for a single bomb.
A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the Rotterdam specimen was scarcely refined at all from natural uranium ore and may have come from a known mine in Iraq that was active before the 1991 Gulf War.
``I wouldn't hype it too much,'' said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. ``It was a small amount and it wasn't being peddled as a sample.''
The yellowcake was uncovered Dec. 16 by Rotterdam-based scrap metal company Jewometaal, which had received it in a shipment of scrap metal from a dealer in Jordan.
Company spokesman Paul de Bruin said the Jordanian dealer didn't know that the scrap metal contained any radioactive material. He said the dealer was confident the yellowcake, which was contained in a small steel industrial container, came from Iraq.
Jewometaal detected the radioactive material during a routine scan and called in the Dutch government, which in turn asked the IAEA to examine it.
Fleming said the agency will compare the chemical composition of the sample to other samples of ore taken from Iraq's al-Qaim mine, which was bombed in 1991 and dismantled in 1996-97.
She estimated that the Rotterdam sample contained around 5 1/2 pounds of uranium oxide.
President Bush came under heavy criticism last year when he asserted in his State of the Union address that Iraq was shopping in Africa for uranium yellowcake -- intelligence that turned out to be based on forged documents.
--------
U.N. Says Dutch Uranium May Have Came from Iraq
January 16, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-dutch-iraq-uranium.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday that a small amount of natural uranium found in a scrap metal shipment in the Netherlands this week may have come from Iraq.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the material posed no health risks but there was ``a good possibility it came from Iraq.'' Diplomats said the IAEA would be investigating its precise origins. Earlier this week, a metal container from Jordan holding 5.5 lb of slightly processed raw uranium was found in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.
The radioactivity level of the uranium is extremely low and could neither be used in ``dirty bombs'' nor in nuclear weapons. But the uranium sludge could be used in weapons-related laboratory experiments.
Diplomats who follow the IAEA closely told Reuters it was possible the brown uranium sludge could have arrived in Jordan before the U.S.-led war to disarm Iraq.
``The IAEA Iraq team will want to rule out that this was a sign of a renewal of Iraq's nuclear weapons program,'' a Western diplomat said, referring to Saddam Hussein's covert atomic arms program the IAEA dismantled in the 1990s.
The diplomat also said the uranium could have found its way into the scrap shipment by mistake.
IAEA inspectors left Iraq shortly before the war began in March 2003. After major fighting ended, the U.S. military refused to let the agency return to Iraq to investigate reports of looting at about half a dozen nuclear sites.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has repeatedly called for a return of U.N. inspectors to Baghdad to fulfil their mandate to verify that Saddam never revived his atomic weapons program.
-------- israel
With U.S. Help, Israel May Boost Missile Production
Fri January 16, 2004
(Reuters)
By Adam Entous
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2ODZE21QWUZ0KCRBAE0CFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=4150872
WASHINGTON - With an expected boost in U.S. funding, Israel plans to step up production of Arrow missile interceptors to expand its missile defense system, diplomats and defense analysts said on Friday.
Components for the Arrow missiles would be produced in the United States under a deal between state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries and U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co.
The Arrow system is one of the centerpieces of the U.S.-Israeli strategic relationship. It was designed to intercept and destroy Scud-type missiles, similar to the ones Iraq fired at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
While the U.S. invasion of Iraq has eliminated that threat, Israeli officials say Syrian Scuds and Iran's faster and longer-range missiles still pose a serious threat.
"We will be increasing production in a substantial way," one Israeli source said after talks in Washington between U.S. and Israeli missile defense officials.
The Defense Department is expected to include funding for U.S.-based production in President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget, people close to the Israeli government said.
But administration officials said no final decisions have been made and that the program may not make it into the final budget, which will be sent to Congress on Feb. 2.
If approved, the U.S. money would help Israel double the rate of Arrow production, according defense analysts. The missiles would then be deployed in Israel.
But the Arrow system also yields a wide range of technical and operational data that benefit other U.S. weapons programs.
Chicago-based Boeing is responsible for building about half of Arrow missile components under the agreement signed with Israeli Aircraft Industries in February. IAI, the primary contractor, is responsible for integration and the missile's final assembly in Israel. Boeing declined comment. A spokesman for Israeli Aircraft Industries in Washington said the United States had funded about 70 percent of development costs of the Arrow missile.
Israel carried out a successful test of the Arrow last month. Sometime next summer, Israel and the United States are expected to carry out another test -- this time in the United States using a real Scud missile as the target, analysts said.
In fiscal 2004, which began Oct. 1, 2003, Congress appropriated $154.8 million for the Arrow, up from $145.7 million the year before, according to Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
The slender, 23-foot (7-meter)-long Arrow is tailored to detect, track and destroy a missile in under three minutes at altitudes of more than 30 miles, its designers say.
Military sources said Israel had more than 200 Arrows -- costing $3 million apiece.
The Arrow began as an Israeli demonstration model submitted to then-President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as "Star Wars," during the late 1980s.
(Additional reporting by Jim Wolf)
-------- japan
Russia Says 'No' to Nuclear Fusion Plant in Japan
REUTERS RUSSIA:
January 16, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/23472/story.htm
MOSCOW - Russia on Thursday declined Japanese pleas to back Tokyo's bid to host a disputed nuclear fusion reactor as the global contest for the multi-billion project threatened to hurt relations among the participants.
Japan and France are vying for the right to build the world's first such reactor, but the six members of the joint venture have so far failed to agree on the site. The plant would generate energy the same way the sun does.
Russia and China favor the French site of Cadarache. South Korea and the United States -- in a move seen in Paris as a bid to punish it for opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq -- back Japan's fishing village of Rokkasho.
Japanese Science Minister Takeo Kawamura was in Moscow on Thursday for closed-door talks with Russia's nuclear top brass, but was given a firm 'no' mixed with diplomatic politeness from the Russian side, a source in Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry said.
"Our position is clear. They haven't been able to convince us, although we were really nice to them today," the source told Reuters after talks between Kawamura and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev.
"The French site is cheaper and thus more acceptable."
The decision on the $12 billion project, due to be taken by consensus among the participants of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), has been postponed until February.
Russia's staunch refusal could undermine the recently warming relations between Moscow and Tokyo. The two countries remain technically at war, with Russia refusing Japan's demand to return four small islands in the Far East seized in the final days of World War II.
Nuclear fusion has been touted as a solution to the world's energy problems, as it would be low in pollution and could theoretically use seawater as fuel.
Fusion involves sticking atomic particles together as opposed to existing nuclear reactors and weapons which produce energy by splitting atoms apart. Fifty years of research have so far failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor.
-------- korea
Russia, China Try to Broker Nuclear Talks
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Russia and China tried to broker new talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis Friday amid warnings from Pyongyang that every delay gives the communist nation more time to build a bigger and better atomic arsenal.
South Korea, meanwhile, chose a new foreign minister, restoring stability to its diplomatic corps after an upheaval over how to balance relations with North Korea and the United States, Seoul's biggest ally.
Ban Ki-moon, a 60-year-old former vice foreign minister, was named new top diplomat after Yoon Young-kwan rattled the nation Thursday by resigning.
Yoon's departure was seen as bolstering the influence of presidential aides who preach greater independence from the United States.
Vowing not to ``kowtow'' to Washington, President Roh Moo-hyun took office last year promising greater openness to the North.
Ban, a 60-year-old career diplomat, served as vice foreign minister in the government of Roh's predecessor, former President Kim Dae-jung, who initiated the ``sunshine'' policy of seeking reconciliation with North Korea.
National Security Adviser Ra Jong-Yil said Thursday that Ban's appointment was ``not going to affect our alliance'' with the United States, adding that ``there is not going to be much difference'' in the administration's foreign policy.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov returned from a two-day visit to Beijing on Friday and said China and Moscow were trying to encourage dialogue between North Korea and the United States.
But, Ivanov added, Russia and China were not planning any joint action on North Korea's nuclear program other than coordinating efforts on the six-nation talks, the Interfax news agency reported.
The United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas have been trying for months to restart another round of six-nation talks on persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. A first round ended in Beijing in August without much progress.
Ivanov said China and Russia want to work toward a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
The developments come a day after an American who recently visited North Korea said he was told that the communist government sees every delay in negotiations as a chance to strengthen its ``nuclear deterrent.''
Charles Pritchard, a former State Department official, met the North Koreans last week as part of a private visit that included a trip with American colleagues to the country's main nuclear site at Yongbyon.
Speaking Thursday in Washington, Pritchard said he was told by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan: ``Lapses of time will result in quantitative and qualitative increases in our nuclear deterrent.
``Time is not on the U.S. side,'' Kim reportedly said.
North Korea has insisted it needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent against a possible U.S. attack. But it says it will freeze its nuclear programs as a first step in talks if Washington lifts sanctions against the North, resumes oil shipments, and removes North Korea from the U.S. State Department's list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
The United States has responded that North Korea must first verifiably begin dismantling its nuclear programs before receiving any concessions.
The nuclear dispute flared in October 2002 when U.S. officials accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 deal requiring the North to freeze its nuclear facilities. Washington and its allies have since cut off free oil shipments, also part of the 1994 accord.
------- missile defense
Missile defence program 'will lead to arms race'
Friday, January 16, 2004
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1026315.htm
A group of Australian doctors opposed to war is warning national security will be compromised by any proposed involvement in the United States' missile defence program.
The Medical Association for the Prevention of War says it is appalled that Prime Minister John Howard is holding talks in Sydney today with the chairman of the United States' Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers.
They are expected to discuss Australia's involvement in the missile defence program, known as "Son of Star Wars".
The association's vice president, Dr Gillian Deakin, says Mr Howard is ignoring warnings from its neighbours that Australia's support will destabilise security in the region.
"I think the Indonesian Foreign Minister is quite right in saying it will compel an arms race in the region," she said.
"The logical response from someone imagining there is a defence system aimed to destroy their missiles is to build many more intercontinental or ballistic missiles to overwhelm any system.
"This is very likely to lead to a massive arms race."
General Myers will also meet the head of Australia's defence force, General Peter Cosgrove, in Canberra, and take part in a wreath laying ceremony at the war memorial.
-------- pakistan
Arrest Ties Pakistan to Nuke Black Market
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Smuggling-Pakistan.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON (AP) -- This month's arrest of a South Africa-based businessman accused of smuggling nuclear bomb triggers to Pakistan offers a rare window into the worldwide black market for nuclear weapons parts.
Authorities accuse Asher Karni, 50, of being the middleman for a complex series of transactions involving dozens of the triggers. Agents arrested Karni Jan. 2 at Denver International Airport.
Court documents say Karni used a series of front companies and misleading shipping documents to buy the devices from a Massachusetts company, have them sent through New Jersey to South Africa, then on to the United Arab Emirates and eventually to Pakistan. What Karni didn't know, a federal officer said in an affadavit, was that authorities had intervened and had the manufacturer sabotage the devices so they couldn't be used.
The case is the latest indication that Pakistan -- a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism -- is deeply involved in the nuclear weapons black market. The United States for years has restricted exports of sensitive goods to Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons program.
If the devices were indeed headed for Pakistan's nuclear program, the most likely explanation would be that Pakistan was planning to build more nuclear bombs. That could complicate Pakistan's relations with its neighbor and nuclear rival India.
Officials from the United States and other governments say Pakistan also was the likely source for some of the know-how and equipment for nuclear weapons programs in Libya, North Korea and Iran. Secretary of State Colin Powell said this month that American officials have presented evidence to Pakistan's leaders of Pakistani involvement in the spread of nuclear weapons technology.
Pakistani officials say the government is not involved in any black-market nuclear deals. But Pakistan has questioned three top nuclear scientists recently based on information from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
``We have investigated. We haven't come across any evidence'' of proliferation, Ashraf Qazi, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, said Wednesday.
The possible spread of nuclear technology from Pakistan is a greater worry than any attempts by Pakistan to clandestinely supply its own nuclear program, said Robert Einhorn, a former State Department arms control official under President Clinton.
``If we can do it, we should stop both, but clearly Pakistan's export of nuclear materials and technology is a lot worse,'' said Einhorn, now with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Court documents say Karni went to great lengths to conceal what he was shipping and where it was going.
Karni heads Top-Cape Technology in Cape Town, South Africa, which trades in military and aviation electronic gear. Karni used an elaborate scheme to try to circumvent U.S. export restrictions to Pakistan and ship the triggered spark gaps, Commerce Department Special Agent James Brigham charged in a federal court affidavit.
The devices can be used for breaking up kidney stones or triggering nuclear detonations. Anyone exporting such triggers from the United States to Pakistan must have a license from the U.S. government.
Brigham wrote that an anonymous source in South Africa tipped off U.S. authorities and provided information, including shipping details to allow tracking of the devices, plus copies of correspondence to and from Karni.
Karni's contact in Pakistan asked Karni to try to buy 100 to 400 of the triggers, Brigham alleged in his affidavit. Karni sought the devices from an American manufacturer, PerkinElmer Optoelectronics of Salem, Mass.
A PerkinElmer representative in France wrote to Karni last summer that exporting spark gaps to Pakistan would require a U.S. license, Brigham wrote. Karni then contacted a company in New Jersey, which ordered 200 of the devices from PerkinElmer, the agent wrote.
At federal agents' request, PerkinElmer disabled the 66 spark gaps in an initial shipment to the New Jersey company, Giza Technologies Inc. of Secaucus.
Giza, which has not been charged in the case, shipped the devices to South Africa, listing them on shipping documents as electrical equipment for a hospital in Soweto. Karni repackaged the triggers and sent them to Pakistan via Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Brigham alleged.
A U.S. official in Dubai asked to inspect the package while it was in a warehouse there, but United Arab Emirates officials refused, Brigham wrote.
Spark gaps can be used in machines called lithotripters to break up kidney stones, but even the largest hospital would need only a half-dozen or so, experts say. Large orders raise red flags with nuclear experts. And exporting spark gaps to Pakistan without a license is illegal even if the devices are for health care.
A PerkinElmer brochure notes they are useful ``for in-flight functions such as rocket motor ignition, warhead detonation and missile stage separation.'' PerkinElmer's corporate predecessor, EG&G, similarly disabled a shipment of 40 similar devices called krytrons in the 1980s during a sting operation against Iraq's nuclear program.
Karni's case is not the first involving Pakistani attempts to buy potential nuclear triggers. Pakistani citizen Nazir Vaid was convicted in the United States in 1985 for trying to buy 50 krytrons.
South African police searched Top-Cape's offices last month, and Karni acknowledged he had shipped the spark gaps to Pakistan, Brigham alleged in the affidavit.
Under U.S. law, prosecutors would have to prove only that Karni exported the devices without a license. They would not have to prove that he knew they would be used in a weapons program.
Federal prosecutors are appealing a ruling by a Denver federal magistrate that would set Karni free on $75,000 bond raised by supporters. Prosecutors argue that Karni, an Israeli citizen, should be jailed because he could flee to South Africa or Israel and avoid extradition to the United States.
Karni's Denver lawyer, Harvey Steinberg, did not return telephone messages. Giza's president and chief executive officer, Zeki Bilmen, declined comment.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- colorado
Parts of Rocky Mountain Arsenal Deleted from Superfund Site
DENVER, Colorado, (ENS)
January 16, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2004/2004-01-16-09.asp#anchor4
Two contaminated areas of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal have been cleaned up enough so that they can be removed from the Superfund site and become a wildlife area, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Thursday.
A total of 4,927 acres of approximately 17,000 acres at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal will now be available for the U.S. Army to transfer to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service according to the 1992 RMA National Wildlife Refuge Act.
"Establishment of the RMA National Wildlife Refuge will create a major asset for the Montbello and Commerce City communities as well as the greater Denver metropolitan area," said EPA Assistant Regional Administrator Max Dodson.
The areas being deleted from the Superfund site include 100 foot wide strips immediately inside the Rocky Mountain Arsenal boundary along 96th and 56th Avenues, and Highway 2. These areas will be conveyed to state or local government to improve traffic flow and access to the Denver International Airport.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal located 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver is one of the largest Superfund cleanup sites in the country.
In 1942, the arsenal was established by the U.S. Army to manufacture chemical warfare agents and incendiary munitions for use in World War II. Beginning in 1946, the facility was leased to private companies to manufacture industrial and agricultural chemicals.
The deletion of the perimeter area and the selected surface area from the Superfund site is the result of years of work cleaning up contaminated water as well as the on-site disposal of soil and structures, the EPA said.
Structures with no future use and a contamination history were demolished and the debris placed in a double-lined landfill on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal site.
The arsenal was placed on the Superfund List in 1987. The cleanup is expected to be completed by 2011, the EPA said.
But even when the cleanup is considered complete, surface and groundwater will not be allowed as a source of drinking water and consumption of fish and game from the site will be prohibited. Agricultural, industrial and residential use will not be permitted.
-------- nevada
Yucca Mtn. Workers Sought for Screening
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 16, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Silicosis.html?pagewanted=print&position=
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A lung disease screening program has begun for current and former workers who may have inhaled airborne silica at a federal nuclear waste depository in the Nevada desert.
Two hundred letters have been mailed, and more will be sent soon to an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 current and former Yucca Mountain site workers who are eligible to take part in the free silicosis screening program, said program manager Gene Runkle.
Two current workers are being treated for silicosis, Runkle said, although he said it was not clear if they contracted the disease working at Yucca Mountain.
Project managers did not know where most former workers were. Most were involved in tunneling and underground operations or in setting up exploratory experiments underground beginning in 1992.
Any worker who spends or spent 20 days a year working in the tunnels is eligible, Runkle said.
The Energy Department was providing names of former workers to the University of Cincinnati, which was handling silicosis screening and research. The university was also working with The Center to Protect Workers' Rights to contact trade unions and find former Yucca Mountain workers.
Most worked from 1992 to 1998, when tunnels were bored at the site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Workers were issued dust masks as protective equipment, but Runkle said that from 1992 to 1996 the masks were not used consistently.
Silica exists naturally in desert soils and in the rocks at Yucca Mountain. It can become airborne during tunneling, and inhaled silica can collect in the respiratory system. With long-term exposure, it can cause silicosis, a chronic and progressive lung disease with symptoms including coughing and shortness of breath, the Energy Department said.
-------- new york
As Strike Looms, Entergy Says It Will Keep Indian Pt. Running
By DEBRA WEST
January 16, 2004
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/nyregion/16nuke.html
BUCHANAN, N.Y. - Mike Cerasaro has worked at the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant here for 18 years. As a senior technician, he handles the shipping of radioactive waste, a job that requires skill and no shortage of courage.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Cerasaro held something he considers even more dangerous: a placard warning that the workers at Indian Point 3 were prepared to strike if their union and the plant owner could not reach an agreement on their contract.
The contract that governs 276 workers at the Indian Point 3 reactor is set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, and members of Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America say they will go on strike against Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the owners of the power plant, if an agreement is not reached.
"Nobody wants to go on strike," said Mr. Cerasaro, 50, of Hyde Park. "We're just asking to be compensated fairly."
The contract for 282 workers at the adjacent Indian Point 2 reactor is set to expire in June. Those workers would not participate in a walkout this weekend, union officials said.
A strike would have no impact on security at the plant, said Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, because the security force is not covered by the contract.
Entergy plans to keep Indian Point 3 running if a strike is held, with the plant's management staff substituting for maintenance and operations workers. The company could also send workers to the plant from Indian Point 2 and eight other plants that Entergy owns, Mr. Steets said.
"We will have workers who have come up through the ranks as inspectors and are now part of management," he said.
Steve Mangione, a spokesman for Local 1-2, said union members hold positions like reactor operators, who generally work in the control room with management supervisors, and technicians, who inspect the equipment for leaks and measure the air and water for radiation and chemicals. He called Entergy's assertions that the plant would be operated safely by management and replacement crews "propaganda."
"The public should not believe that for a minute," Mr. Mangione said.
The Westchester County executive, Andrew J. Spano, has said that if there is a strike, Indian Point 3 should shut down.
Scott Vanderhoff, the Rockland County executive, also called for the plant to shut down. And union leaders asked Gov. George E. Pataki and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recommend a shutdown if a strike is held. Mr. Steets dismissed the call for a shutdown as ill informed.
A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Neil A. Sheehan, has said that the agency has reviewed Entergy's contingency plans and found them acceptable.
The issues being negotiated include salary and health benefits.
-------- us nuc waste
Panel says Energy Dept. can't justify relaxed testing of radioactive waste shipments
Friday, January 16, 2004
By Robert Gehrke,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-01-16/s_12152.asp
WASHINGTON - The Energy Department has not done the necessary tests to justify relaxing the testing of radioactive waste shipments bound for a New Mexico storage site, a panel of scientists said Thursday.
The department has argued that safety checks required on shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., cost $3.1 billion and create delays. Changing the requirements would save time and money, the department said in petitioning for changes last week.
A report by a panel of scientists appointed by the National Research Council - a division of the National Academies of Science - said Energy has not done adequate studies to support its argument for easing regulations and those analyses should be done before it seeks to modify the state waste disposal permit.
However, a provision backed by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and signed into law last month by President Bush orders the Energy Department to request that New Mexico relax its testing requirements and restricts the state's ability to refuse the request.
"This is another example of the management failures coming from the highest levels of DOE," said New Mexico Environment Secretary Ron Curry. "It is another example of DOE putting the cart before the horse and making unfounded assumptions to the detriment of New Mexicans."
The Carlsbad facility buries transuranic waste - such as gloves, rags, tools, dried sludge, and other debris contaminated during nuclear weapons making - in ancient salt beds 2,150 feet below ground.
Under the Energy Department's proposed changes, instead of testing each shipment of waste, records kept on each drum of radioactive material would be used to determine whether the waste inside is eligible to be buried at the site.
There is no deadline for the state to act on the Energy Department application.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who objected to the Domenici provision, said the scientists' report shows that Congress should only pre-empt state regulatory authority "after a transparent process has taken place - a process that yields thoughtful and careful analysis."
The law cannot be undone, Bingaman said, but it should serve as a reminder "that there is a well-established process for modifying existing state regulations and that the federal government should respect it."
Domenici defended the provision. "Experience has shown us that intrusive sampling techniques have shown to have little environmental, public safety or health benefits," he said.
The National Research Council panel said that when the Carlsbad plant became the first operational waste facility of its kind four years ago, it made sense for regulators to be cautious and impose rigorous measures for screening waste.
Today, the site's track record could help identify changes that could be warranted. However, a systematic analysis is needed before the Energy Department can make its case that changes are justified, the panel said.
-------- us politics
Clark testimony to Congress contradicts antiwar position
January 16, 2004
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040115-112529-9766r.htm
Congressional testimony by Wesley Clark in fall 2002 contradicts the early antiwar stance the candidate has promoted since entering the race last summer.
At a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in September 2002, Mr. Clark expressed no misgivings about the imminent war with Iraq and called deposed dictator Saddam Hussein a credible threat to the United States. Since then, Mr. Clark has proclaimed his strong opposition to the war "from the beginning," and has continued to state that position at debates and events nationwide.
"He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks, as would we," Mr. Clark said. A transcript of the testimony was posted early yesterday on the widely read Drudge Report on the Internet.
The retired NATO commander from Arkansas has been surging in public-opinion polls in New Hampshire. A poll released yesterday by the American Research Group showed Mr. Clark trailing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean by five percentage points, 29 percent to 24 percent.
Mr. Dean has been hammered lately for "flip-flopping" on a number of issues, which has contributed to his slipping in polls in New Hampshire and Iowa. Mr. Clark's contradictory statements may hurt him as well, Democratic strategists say.
In his House testimony, Mr. Clark told the committee he agreed with Richard Perle, the former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan who has strongly endorsed the war in Iraq, that it was more than conceivable the Iraqi government had a relationship with al Qaeda, despite any direct proof.
"I think there's no question that ... there have been such contacts [between Iraq and al Qaeda]," Mr. Clark said.
"It's normal. It's natural. They are going to exchange information. They're going to feel each other out and see whether there are opportunities to cooperate. That's inevitable in this region, and I think it's clear that regardless of whether or not such evidence is produced of these connections that Saddam Hussein is a threat."
The Clark campaign issued a statement yesterday asserting that the testimony was not contradictory to Mr. Clark's stance on the war. "The testimony that General Clark gave in September 2002 is entirely consistent with what he wrote in the book he published in August 2003," campaign spokesman Matt Bennett said in the statement.
Mr. Bennett said his candidate was explaining the flawed rationale behind President Bush's position that the war in Iraq was "preemptive."
"Preemptive war means 'taking action against others before they can harm'; since there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein, the war America fought was preventive, not preemptive," the statement read, quoting an excerpt from a chapter in Mr. Clark's book "Winning Modern Wars."
Mr. Clark's campaign blamed Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie and the "right-wing attack machine" for publicizing the testimony his rivals for the Democratic nomination quickly accused him of what they called hypocrisy on the war.
"It is no longer credible for Wesley Clark to assert that he has always had only one position on the war - being against it. His own testimony before Congress shows otherwise," Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said. He noted that Mr. Clark scolded him for saying the retired general was two-faced on the war Tuesday on "Good Morning America."
"He may think it is 'old-style politics' to point this out, but the only thing old here is a candidate not leveling with the American people," Mr. Lieberman said.
Democratic strategists disagreed on whether they think Mr. Clark's campaign will be damaged by the testimony. One strategist, who asked that his name not be used, said Mr. Clark's comments early in his campaign were contradictory about the war.
"The reality is that the flip-flop Wes Clark did on the war would have destroyed any other candidate, but I think he got an extra pass because he was a general."
Asked whether the testimony would hurt Mr. Clark so close to the primaries, "The answer is 'yes' and it goes to the universal issue of flip-flopping."
Consultant Morris Reid said he did not think the dual position on the Iraq war would hurt Mr. Clark, at least not during the primary process. He said it would be a different story if he were the nominee.
But he was critical of Mr. Clark's "spin" explanation of his testimony. "What the general should do is come out and be flat-out honest and say I thought this way at the time based on what I knew and what I saw, but after looking at it further I changed my mind. This is a problem with politicians trying to turn things and spin things, it turns people off of politics."
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America, Iraq, and Presidential Leadership
January 16, 2004
by Sen. Edward Kennedy
http://antiwar.com/orig/kennedy.php?articleid=1704
The enduring accomplishments of our nation's leaders are those that are grounded in the fundamental values that gave birth to this great country. As our Founders so eloquently stated in the preamble to our Constitution, this nation was founded by "We the People... in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Over the course of two centuries, these ideals inspired and enabled thirteen tiny quarreling colonies to transform themselves-not just into the most powerful nation on earth, but also into the "last, best hope of earth." These ideals have been uniquely honored by history and advanced by each new generation of Americans, often through great sacrifice.
In these uncertain times, it is imperative that our leaders hold true to those founding ideals and protect the fundamental trust between the government and the people. Nowhere is this trust more important than between the people and the President of the United States. As the leader of our country and the voice of America to the world, our President has the obligation to lead and speak with truth and integrity if this nation is to continue to reap the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
The citizens of our democracy have a fundamental right to debate and even doubt the wisdom of a president's policies. And the citizens of our democracy have a sacred obligation to sound the alarm and shed light on the policies of an Administration that is leading this country to a perilous place.
I believe that this Administration is indeed leading this country to a perilous place. It has broken faith with the American people, aided and abetted by a Congressional majority willing to pursue ideology at any price, even the price of distorting the truth. On issue after issue, they have moved brazenly to impose their agenda on America and on the world. They have pursued their goals at the expense of urgent national and human needs and at the expense of the truth. America deserves better.
The Administration and the majority in Congress have put the state of our union at risk, and they do not deserve another term in the White House or in control of Congress.
I do not make these statements lightly. I make them as an American deeply concerned about the future of the Republic if the extremist policies of this Administration continue.
By far the most extreme and most dire example of this Administration's reckless pursuit of its single-minded ideology is in foreign policy. In its arrogant disrespect for the United Nations and for other peoples in other lands, this Administration and this Congress have squandered the immense goodwill that other nations extended to our country after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. And in the process, they made America a lesser and a less respected land.
Nowhere is the danger to our country and to our founding ideals more evident than in the decision to go to war in Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has now revealed what many of us have long suspected. Despite protestations to the contrary, the President and his senior aides began the march to war in Iraq in the earliest days of the Administration, long before the terrorists struck this nation on 9/11.
The examination of the public record and of the statements of President Bush and his aides reveals that the debate about overthrowing Saddam began long before the beginning of this Administration. Its roots began thirteen years ago, during the first Gulf War, when the first President Bush decided not to push on to Baghdad and oust Saddam.
President Bush and his National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft explained the reason for that decision in their 1997 book, A World Transformed. They wrote the following: "Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream. . .and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. . .We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable exit strategy we could see, violating another of our principles. . . Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." Those words are eerily descriptive of our current situation in Iraq.
During the first Gulf War, Paul Wolfowitz was a top advisor to then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, and he disagreed strongly with the decision by the first President Bush to stop the war after driving Saddam out of Kuwait.
After that war ended, Wolfowitz convened a Pentagon working group to make the case that regime change in Iraq could easily be achieved by military force. The Wolfowitz group concluded that "U.S. forces could win unilaterally or with the aid of a small group of a coalition of forces within 54 days of mid to very high intensity combat."
Saddam's attempted assassination of President Bush during a visit to Kuwait in 1993 added fuel to the debate.
After his tenure at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz became Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and continued to criticize the decision not to end the reign of Saddam. In 1994 he wrote: "With hindsight, it does seem like a mistake to have announced, even before the war was over, that we would not go to Baghdad. . ."
Wolfowitz's resolve to oust Saddam was unwavering. In 1997, he wrote, "We will have to confront him sooner or later-and sooner would be better. . . Unfortunately, at this point, only the substantial use of military force could prove that the U.S. is serious and reverse the slow collapse of the international coalition."
The following year, Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and 16 others-10 of whom are now serving in or officially advising the current Bush Administration-wrote President Clinton, urging him to use military force to remove Saddam. They said, "The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action, as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy."
That was 1998. President Clinton was in office, and regime change in Iraq did become the policy of the Clinton Administration-but not by war.
As soon as the current President Bush took office in 2001, he brought a group of conservatives with him, including Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and others, who had been outspoken advocates for most of the previous decade for the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein.
At first, President Bush was publicly silent on the issue. But as Paul O'Neill has told us, the debate was alive and well.
I happen to know Paul O'Neill, and I have great respect for him. I worked with him on key issues of job safety and health care when he was at ALCOA in the 1990's. He's a person of great integrity, intelligence, and vision, and he had impressive ideas for improving the quality of health care in the Pittsburgh area. It is easy to understand why he was so concerned by what he heard about Iraq in the Bush Administration.
In his "60 Minutes" interview last Sunday, O'Neill said that overthrowing Saddam was on the agenda from Day 1 of the new Administration. O'Neill said, "From the very beginning there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go...It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President was saying, "Go find me a way to do this."
The agenda was clear: find a rationale to end Saddam's regime.
But there was resistance to military intervention by those who felt that the existing sanctions on Iraq should be strengthened. Saddam had been contained and his military capabilities had been degraded by the Gulf War and years of U.N. sanctions and inspections. At a press conference a month after the inauguration, Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "We have kept him contained, kept him in his box." The next day, Secretary Powell very clearly stated that Saddam "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction..."
Then, on September 11th, 2001, terrorists attacked us and everything changed. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld immediately began to link Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda and the attacks. According to notes taken by an aide to Rumsfeld on September 11th, the very day of the attacks, the Secretary ordered the military to prepare a response to the attacks. The notes quote Rumsfeld as saying that he wanted the best information fast, to judge whether the information was good enough to hit Saddam and not just Osama bin Laden. "Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
The advocates of war in Iraq desperately sought to make the case that Saddam was linked to 9/11 and Al Qaeda, and that he was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability. They created an Office of Special Projects in the Pentagon to analyze the intelligence for war. They bypassed the traditional screening process and put pressure on intelligence officers to produce the desired intelligence and analysis.
As the world now knows, Saddam's connection to 9/11 was false. Saddam was an evil dictator. But he was never close to having a nuclear capability. The Administration has found no arsenals of chemical or biological weapons. It has found no persuasive connection to Al Qaeda. All this should have been clear. The Administration should not have looked at the facts with ideological blinders and with a mindless dedication to the results they wanted.
A recent report by the Carnegie Endowment concluded that Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. They also concluded that the intelligence community was unduly influenced by the policymakers' views and intimidating actions, such as Vice President Cheney's repeated visits to CIA headquarters and demands by officials for access to the raw intelligence from which the analysts were working. The report also noted the unusual speed with which the National Intelligence Estimate was written and the high number of dissents in what is designed to be a consensus document.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, President Bush himself made clear that his highest priority was finding Osama bin Laden. At a press conference on September 17th, 2001, he said that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." Three days later, in an address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Bush demanded of the Taliban: "Deliver to the United States authorities all the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land." And Congress cheered. On November 8th, the President told the country, "I have called our military into action to hunt down the members of the Al Qaeda organization who murdered innocent Americans." In doing that, he had the full support of Congress and the nation-and rightly so.
Soon after the war began in Afghanistan, however, the President started laying the groundwork in public to shift attention to Iraq. In the Rose Garden on November 26th, he said: "Afghanistan is still just the beginning."
Three days later, even before Hamid Karzai had been approved as interim Afghan President, Vice President Cheney publicly began to send signals about attacking Iraq. On November 29th, he said "I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that this guy [Saddam Hussein] is clearly ... a significant potential problem for the region, for the United States, for everybody with interests in the area."
On December 12th, the Vice President elaborated further: "If I were Saddam Hussein, I'd be thinking very carefully about the future, and I'd be looking very closely to see what happened to the Taliban in Afghanistan."
Prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, President Bush's approval rating was only 50%. But with his necessary and swift action in Afghanistan against the Taliban for harboring bin Laden and Al Qaeda, his approval soared to 86%.
Soon, Karl Rove joined the public debate, and war with Iraq became all but certain. At a meeting of the Republican National Committee in Los Angeles on January 19th, 2002, Rove made clear that the war on terrorism could be used politically, and that Republicans, as he put it, could "go to the country on this issue."
Ten days later, the deal was all but sealed. In his State of the Union Address, President Bush broadened his policy on Afghanistan to other terrorist regimes. He unveiled the "Axis of Evil"-Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Those three words forged the lock-step linkage between the Bush Administration's top political advisers and the Big Three of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz. We lost our previous clear focus on the most imminent threat to our national security-Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
What did President Bush say about bin Laden in the State of the Union Address that day? Nothing.
What did the President say about Al Qaeda? One fleeting mention.
What did he say about the Taliban? Nothing.
Nothing about bin Laden. One fleeting mention of Al Qaeda. Nothing about the Taliban in that State of the Union Address.
Barely four months had passed since the worst terrorist atrocity in American history. Five bin Laden videotapes had been broadcast since September 11th, including one that was aired after bin Laden escaped at the battle of Tora Bora. President Bush devoted 12 paragraphs in his State of the Union Address to Afghanistan, and 29 paragraphs to the global war on terrorism. But he had nothing to say about Bin Laden and only one single fleeting mention of Al Qaeda.
Why not more? Because of an extraordinary policy coup. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz-the Axis of War-had prevailed. The President was changing the subject to Iraq.
In the months that followed, Administration officials began to draw up the war plan and develop a plausible rationale for the war. Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning at the Department State during this period, said recently that "the agenda was not whether Iraq, but how." Haass said the actual decision to go to war had been made in July 2002. He had questioned the wisdom of war with Iraq at that time, but National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice told him, "Essentially...that decision's been made. Don't waste your breath."
It was Vice President Cheney who outlined to the country the case against Iraq that he had undoubtedly been making to President Bush all along. On August 26, 2002, in an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Vice President argued against UN inspections in Iraq and announced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, meaning chemical and biological weapons. He also said: "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we've gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors, including Saddam's own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction. Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon." Those were Cheney's words.
It is now plain what was happening: The drumbeat for war was sounding, and it drowned out those who believed that Iraq posed no imminent threat. On August 29th, just two days after Cheney's speech, President Bush signed off on the war plan.
On September 12th, the President addressed the United Nations and said: "Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other chemical agents and has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon." He told the United Nations that Iraq would be able to build a nuclear weapon "within a year," if Saddam acquired nuclear material.
President Bush was focusing on Iraq and Saddam, even though one year after the attack on our country, bin Laden was still nowhere to be found. A sixth bin Laden tape had been aired, and news reports of the time revealed new military threats in Afghanistan. U.S. and Afghan military and intelligence officials were quoted as saying that Al Qaeda had established two main bases inside Pakistan. An Afghan military intelligence chief said: "Al Qaeda has regrouped, together with the Taliban, Kashmiri militants, and other radical Islamic parties, and they are just waiting for the command to start operations."
Despite the obvious Al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan, the White House had now made Iraq our highest national security priority. The steamroller of war was moving into high gear. The politics of the timing is obvious. September 2002. The hotly contested 2002 election campaigns were entering the home stretch. Control of Congress was clearly at stake. Republicans were still furious over the conversion of Senator Jim Jeffords that had cost them control of the Senate in 2001. Election politics prevailed, but they should not have prevailed over foreign policy and national security.
The decision on Iraq could have been announced earlier. Why time it for September? As White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card explained on September 7th, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
That was the bottom line. War in Iraq was a war of choice, not a war of necessity. It was a product they were methodically rolling out. There was no imminent threat, no immediate national security imperative, and no compelling reason for war.
In public, the Administration continued to deny that the President had made the decision to actually go to war. But the election timetable was clearly driving the marketing of the product. The Administration insisted that Congress vote to authorize the war before it adjourned for the November elections. Why? Because the debate in Congress would distract attention from the troubled economy and the troubled effort to capture bin Laden. The strategy was to focus on Iraq, and do so in a way that would divide the Congress. And it worked.
To keep the pressure on, President Bush spoke in Cincinnati on Iraq's nuclear weapons program, just three days before the Congressional vote. He emphasized the ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He emphasized Saddam's access to weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. He said, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed...Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists."
The scare tactics worked. Congress voted to authorize the use of force in October 2002. Republicans voted almost unanimously for war, and kept control of the House in the election in November. Democrats were deeply divided and lost their majority in the Senate. The Iraq card had been played successfully. The White House now had control of both houses of Congress as well.
As 2003 began, many in the military and foreign policy communities urged against a rush to war. United Nations weapons inspectors were in Iraq, searching for weapons of mass destruction. Saddam appeared to be contained. There was no evidence that Iraq had been involved in the attacks on September 11th. Many insisted that bin Laden and Al Qaeda and North Korea were greater threats, but their concerns were dismissed out of hand.
Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz insisted that Iraq was the issue and that war against Iraq was the only option, with or without international support. They convinced the President that the war would be brief, that American forces would be welcomed as liberators, not occupiers, and that ample intelligence was available to justify going to war.
The gross abuse of intelligence was on full display in the President's State of Union address last January, when he spoke the now infamous 16 words-"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The President did not say that U.S. intelligence agencies agreed with this assessment. He simply and deviously said, "the British government has learned."
As we all now know, that allegation was false. It had already been debunked a year earlier by the U.S. intelligence community. Yet it was included in the President's State of the Union Address. Has any other State of the Union Address ever been so disgraced by such blatant falsehood?
In March 2003, on the basis, of a grossly exaggerated threat and grossly inadequate post-war planning, and with little international support, the United States invaded Iraq when we clearly should not have done so.
Major combat operations ended five weeks later. Dressed in a flight suit, the President flew out to an aircraft carrier and proclaimed "Mission Accomplished." It was a nice image for the 2004 campaign, until the facts intruded. The mission was far from accomplished. As the war dragged on and casualties mounted, the image on the aircraft carrier was ridiculed. The Administration replaced it with a new image-the President in Baghdad with cheering troops on Thanksgiving Day. Again, the image-makers stumbled. This time, the image was of the President holding his policy on Iraq-a turkey.
On a recent visit to Iraq, the writer, Lucian Truscott, a 1969 graduate of West Point, spoke with an Army colonel in Baghdad. In an op-ed article in the New York Times last month, he wrote that Army officers spoke of feeling that "every order they receive is delivered with next November's election in mind, so there is little doubt at and near the top about who is really being used for what over here."
There is little doubt as well that the Administration's plan to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people by this summer-and the pressure to hold elections in Afghanistan at that time-are intended to build momentum for the November elections in this country as well.
Our troubles in foreign policy today are as clear as they are self-made. America cannot force its vision of democracy on the Iraqi people on our terms and on our election timetable.
We cannot simply walk away from the wreckage of a war we never should have fought, so that President Bush can wage a political campaign based on dubious boasts of success. Our overarching interest now is in the creation of a new Iraqi government that has legitimacy in the eyes of its own citizens, so that in the years ahead, the process of constructing democratic institutions and creating a stable peace can be completed. The date of Iraq's transition must not be determined by the date of U.S. elections.
We all agree that the Iraqi people are safer with Saddam behind bars. They no longer fear that he will ever return to power. But the war in Iraq itself has not made America safer.
Saddam's evil regime was not an adequate justification for war, and the Administration did not seriously try to make it one until long after the war began and all the other plausible justifications had proven false. The threat he posed was not imminent. The war has made America more hated in the world, especially in the Islamic world. And it has made our people more vulnerable to attacks both here and overseas.
By far the most serious consequence of the unjustified and unnecessary war in Iraq is that it made the war on terrorism harder to win. We knocked Al Qaeda down in the war in Afghanistan, but we let it regroup by going to war in Iraq.
For nearly three weeks, our nation was recently on higher terrorist alert again. And certain places will continue to be on high alert for the foreseeable future. As Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said so ominously in announcing the recent alert: "Al Qaeda's continued desire to carry out attacks against our homeland are perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11th."
Eleven times in the two years since 9/11, Al Qaeda attacked Americans in other parts of the world and other innocent civilians. War with Iraq has given Al Qaeda a new recruiting program for terrorists. For each new group of terrorist recruits, the pool is growing of others ready to support them and encourage them.
As another dangerous consequence of the war, our Army is over-stretched, over-stressed, and over-extended. Nearly 3,500 of our servicemen and women have been killed or wounded. By the end of 2004, eight of our ten active Army divisions will have been deployed for at least a year in the Middle East in support of Afghanistan or Iraq. The Army is offering re-enlistment bonuses of $10,000 to soldiers in Iraq, but many are turning the money down and turning a new tour of duty down. Members of the National Guard and Reserve are being kept on active duty and away from their families, jobs, and communities for over a year.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban fighters who support them are stepping up their terrorist campaign in Afghanistan, launching more and more attacks against military personnel and civilians alike. The warlords are jeopardizing the stability of the country. They make their money from the drug trade, which is now booming again. International humanitarian assistance workers, once considered immune from violence, are now targets of a new Afghan insurgency.
In all these ways, we are reaping the poison fruit of our misguided and arrogant foreign policy. The Administration capitalized on the fear created by 9/11 and put a spin on the intelligence and a spin on the truth to justify a war that could well become one of the worst blunders in more than two centuries of American foreign policy. We did not have to go to war. Alternatives were working. War must be a last resort. And this war never should have happened.
We all care deeply about national security. We all care deeply about national defense. We take immense pride in the ability and dedication of the men and women in our armed forces and in the Reserves and the National Guard. The President should never have sent them in harm's way in Iraq for ideological reasons and on a timetable based on the marketing of a political product.
We know the high price we have also had to pay-in our credibility with the international community-in the loss of life-in the individual tragedies of loved ones left behind in communities here at home-in the billions of dollars that should have been spent on jobs and housing and health care and education and civil rights and the environment and a dozen other clear priorities, and should not have been spent on a misguided war in Iraq.
The Administration is breathtakingly arrogant. Its leaders are convinced they know what is in America's interest, but they refuse to debate it honestly. After repeatedly linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in his justification for war, the President now admits there was no such link. Paul Wolfowitz admitted in an interview that the Administration settled for "bureaucratic reasons" on weapons of mass destruction because it was "the one reason everyone could agree on."
The Administration is vindictive and mean-spirited. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly challenged the Administration for wrongly claiming that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger for its nuclear weapons program, the Administration retaliated against his wife, potentially endangering her life and her career.
President Bush and his advisers should have presented their case honestly, so that Congress and the American people could have engaged in the debate our democracy is owed, above all, on the issue of war and peace.
That is what democracy means, and it is the great strength of the checks and balances under the Constitution that has served us so well for so long.
President Bush said it all when a television reporter asked him whether Saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction, or whether there was only the possibility that he might acquire them. President Bush answered, "So what's the difference?" The difference, Mr. President, is whether you go to war or not.
No President of the United States should employ misguided ideology and distortion of the truth to take the nation to war. In doing so, the President broke the basic bond of trust between government and the people. If Congress and the American people knew the whole truth, America would never have gone to war.
To remain silent when we feel so strongly would be irresponsible. It would betray the fundamental ideals for which our troops are sacrificing their lives on battlefields half a world away. No President who does that to this land we love deserves to be re-elected.
At our best, America is a great and generous country, ever looking forward, ever seeking a better nation for our people and a better world for peoples everywhere. I'm optimistic that these high ideals will be respected and reaffirmed by the American people in November. The election cannot come too soon.
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Do Americans want a king?
From: "carol wolman" <cwolman@mcn.org>
Date: Fri Jan 16, 2004
When the Israelites asked YHVH for a king, He was displeased. Through His prophet Samuel, he warned them that a king would take their property, and make their children serve him, in the military or as servants. Still, the people insisted that they needed a king "to rule us and to lead us in warfare and fight our battles." (See passage below).
America, under the Constitution, has been based on godly principles- the rule of law, freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and the structure of a representative democracy. Church and state are separated, which fits with Biblical principles. "My Kingdom is not of this world", said Jesus, meaning that the realm of conscience is often at odds with the practical political world. The Founding Fathers believed that voters with a conscience would make good decisions.
Bush is systematically shredding the Constitution, and replacing it with his "divine" right (according to Pat Robertson), to rule as King George II. The polls say that a majority of Americans are very satisfied with King George II, despite his lying, robbing the poor to feed the rich, despoiling the land, empire-building. "they are rejecting Me as their king."
Let us examine our consciences. How can we abandon the rule of law and common sense? How can we allow America to turn into Mordor? How can we hand this devastation down to our grandchildren?
In the name of the true King, Carol Wolman
1 Sm 8:4-7, 10-22a
All the elders of Israel came in a body to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, "Now that you are old, and your sons do not follow your example, appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us."
Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them. He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer: "Grant the people's every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king."
Samuel delivered the message of the LORD in full to those who were asking him for a king.
He told them: "The rights of the king who will rule you will be as follows:
He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and horses, and they will run before his chariot.
He will also appoint from among them his commanders of groups of a thousand and of a hundred soldiers.
He will set them to do his plowing and his harvesting, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
He will use your daughters as ointment makers, as cooks, and as bakers.
He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his officials.
He will tithe your crops and your vineyards, and give the revenue to his eunuchs and his slaves.
He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best oxen and your asses, and use them to do his work.
He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves.
When this takes place, you will complain against the king whom you have chosen, but on that day the LORD will not answer you."
The people, however, refused to listen to Samuel's warning and said, "Not so! There must be a king over us.
We too must be like other nations, with a king to rule us and to lead us in warfare and fight our battles."
When Samuel had listened to all the people had to say, he repeated it to the LORD, who then said to him, "Grant their request and appoint a king to rule them."
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/011604.htm
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Democrat Challenges Bush on Iraqi Intelligence Lapse
January 16, 2004
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/politics/16WEAP.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee is calling on President Bush to provide a public accounting next week of why prewar American intelligence assessments that Iraq possessed illicit weapons now appear to have been mistaken.
Mr. Bush should use his State of the Union address on Tuesday "to acknowledge the problems and outline specific steps to fix them," Representative Jane Harman of California will say in a speech in Los Angeles, according to an advance text provided by her office.
Despite months of intensive searches, American inspectors in Iraq have not yet found evidence of the chemical and biological weapons and the nuclear weapons program in Iraq that the intelligence agencies said existed.
The Bush administration, which pointed to those assessments as a main reason for invading Iraq last March, has said almost nothing publicly since October about the status of the search for illegal weapons, except to insist that it still too soon to say whether the intelligence agencies were wrong.
But Ms. Harman, whose position on the intelligence committee gives her access to highly classified intelligence briefings, says in the advance text of her speech that the intelligence agencies "connected the dots to the wrong conclusions."
The planned criticism by Ms. Harman, in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, is expected to be the sharpest yet from a leader of the panel that oversees the Central Intelligence Agency. It comes a year after Mr. Bush devoted much of his State of the Union address in 2003 to portray what he called "a serious and mounting threat to our country" posed by Iraq's possession of illicit weapons.
"If our intelligence products had been better, I believe many policy makers, including me, would have had a far clearer picture of the sketchiness of our sources on Iraq's W.M.D. programs, and our lack of certainty about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities," the speech reads, using an abbreviation for the phrase "weapons of mass destruction."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is among the senior administration officials who have recently defended the intelligence agencies' prewar assessments, noting that the search effort begun last June by David Kay, a senior adviser to George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, is still under way.
"I don't know that there was anything wrong with the intelligence," Mr. Powell said in an interview this week with NPR. "We are still looking. We are still searching. The one thing that was absolutely clear is that he had the intention to have such weapons and he had programs to develop such weapons."
The Harman speech does say that "there were good reasons to support regime change in Iraq" and notes that Iraq had repeatedly violated United Nations resolutions by failing to prove after the Persian Gulf war of 1991 that it had dismantled the illicit weapons and weapons programs that were discovered to be part of its arsenal at that time.
The last public report by Dr. Kay, in October, acknowledged that inspectors had not yet found illicit weapons or a continuing weapons program in Iraq, but said there was evidence of plans to reconstitute its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. Dr. Kay is officially on leave in Washington, but he has told associates since last month that he is considering stepping down from his post, and some people close to him have said they believe the C.I.A. is searching for his successor.
In recent interviews, senior intelligence officials, including Stuart Cohen, the vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have defended the prewar assessments on Iraq as the best possible based on the information available at the time. They have said it is too soon to judge in retrospect whether those prewar intelligence assessments were in fact mistaken, and they have said that for that reason neither the C.I.A. nor any other agency has changed its assessment procedures.
Both the House and Senate intelligence committees have begun drafting what Congressional officials have described as reports critical of the intelligence agencies' performance on prewar Iraq, but they have not yet said when they intend to make those findings public.
Ms. Harman, who was among the Democrats who voted to authorize the administration to go to war against Iraq, says in the text of her speech that "we are finding out that Powell and other policy makers were wrong, British intelligence was wrong and those of us who believed the intelligence were wrong.
"Quite frankly, this willingness to learn lessons should start at the top," Ms. Harman's speech says. "The president should lead the effort to improve his intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism."
The speech is particularly scathing of the National Intelligence Estimate that was produced in October 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, which reports to Mr. Tenet, calling it a "seriously flawed document." The estimate declared flatly that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and an active nuclear weapons program.
The speech is also critical of the address that Mr. Powell presented last February to the United Nations Security Council, which he prepared with the help of Mr. Tenet and in which he described allegations about Iraq's illicit weapons program as "not assertions" but "facts corroborated by many sources."
Referring to Mr. Powell's speech, Ms. Harman's text says, "I believe that unanswered questions regarding U.S. intelligence have left the nation in a precarious position and endanger our ability to understand and deal with threats posed over three administrations since the end of the cold war."
Ms. Harman's speech also refers to the quotation over the entrance to the C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va.: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,." and then adds:
"Freedom depends on accurate, timely and actionable intelligence. It is the point of the spear in the war on terrorism. We must do better."
--------
Dems Criticize Bush on Homeland Security
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Homeland-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite creating a Homeland Security Department and spending $10 billion to screen airline passengers and secure the nation's airports, the Bush administration hasn't done enough to protect the nation against the threat of terrorism, Democrats maintain.
Minority Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee make the charges in a scathing report, which was released Friday.
The report lists a dozen areas where Democrats say the administration has failed to adequately address weaknesses that terrorists could exploit more than two years after the suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001.
Texas Rep. Jim Turner, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, told reporters Friday it was unclear how much the government must spend to resolve the problems identified in the report.
``The real question we must ask when we talk about funding a stronger homeland defense is, what is the cost of failure?'' Turner said. ``The threat to lives, the threat of a catastrophic attack would be unthinkable. Whatever the cost is certainly worth it in terms of the lives and safety of the American people.''
The Homeland Security Department said the report ``woefully ignores'' what has been accomplished thus far.
``It is unfortunate that there are those in Congress who merely point out criticism, rather than propose concrete solutions on how they can work with the administration to make America safer,'' department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan cited a number of steps taken: waging the global war on terrorism, creating the Homeland Security Department, giving new resources to first responders and port security, tightening borders, improving aviation security through professional screeners, air marshals and reinforced cockpit doors, raising alert levels, and inaugurating a program to photograph and scan the fingerprints of foreigners from many countries arriving at U.S. airports.
``Our country is much safer today than it was on September the 11th,'' he said. ``We are doing everything we can to protect the American people and prevent an attack from happening in the first place, but there is much that remains to be done.''
The 16-page document -- ``America at Risk: The State of Homeland Security'' -- culls information from the Pentagon, congressional investigators and other sources, summarizing dangers to U.S. cities, borders, ports and airways. Taken together, the information shows the administration hasn't provided the leadership necessary to handle the country's domestic security needs, Democrats say.
``In conducting oversight for almost a year now, our committee members are deeply concerned that our government is not taking strong and swift enough action to protect the homeland,'' Turner said.
The report comes four days before President Bush's annual State of the Union, even more important this year given the November election. Democratic staff said the document is intended to prepare party members to rebut what the president might say.
According to the report:
-- The Transportation Security Administration has spent more than $10 billion to screen baggage and passengers since November 2001, yet there are numerous reports of dangerous items clearing security. Roehrkasse said that figure includes a host of expenses, including hiring and training a federal screening work force, purchasing explosive detection technology and deploying air marshals.
-- Al-Qaida and other groups are believed to possess thousands of shoulder-fired missiles, but U.S. commercial airplanes have no defense against the weapons. Roehrkasse says the administration is working on ways to counter missile threats.
-- The Pentagon's Defense Science Board says that at least 56 new countermeasures are needed to protect against the 19 bioterrorism agents. Democrats say little progress has been made and the government is failing to sufficiently address the threat.
On the Net:
Homeland Security Committee Democrats: http://www.house.gov/hsc/democrats/
Department of Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/
-------- MILITARY
-------- asia
Iraq missions stir dissent in East Asia
January 16, 2004
By Takehiko Kambayashi
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040115-100109-3538r.htm
TOKYO - Japan and South Korea, the United States' closest allies in East Asia, face the same dilemma.
Despite strong public opposition, both decided to send troops to help U.S.-led reconstruction operations in Iraq. This is seen as emphasizing the importance of their alliances with Washington, especially as they try to deal with North Korea's nuclear program.
"Japan cannot ensure its own peace and stability by itself. That's why the Japan-U.S. alliance is so important," said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in explaining his decision to dispatch Japanese troops.
His statement highlighted the peculiar security situation in which Japan and South Korea find themselves. The two countries depend on U.S. protection from North Korean nuclear threats. Tokyo also needs Washington's support to resolve the abductions of Japanese citizens to North Korea, analysts said.
But about 80 percent of people in each of the two countries opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and most of them are against the deployment of South Korean and Japanese troops there.
Hundreds of South Korean medics and army engineers have been deployed to Iraq since May. The South Korean government, in response to Washington's request, announced last month that it would send about 3,000 more troops, including combat forces, to support operations in Iraq. The government emphasized, however, that South Korean soldiers are not expected to engage in combat operations.
The December announcement prompted vehement opposition and public protests in South Korea. Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan resigned yesterday amid disagreements with President Roh Moo-hyun.
Mr. Roh, a former civil rights lawyer, took office a year ago with the promise that he would not "kowtow" to the Bush administration, which has taken a hard line toward North Korea and its nuclear program while considering U.S. troop pullbacks from the volatile Korean demilitarized zone.
In Seoul, the Associated Press quoted Jeong Chan-young, a senior aide of the president, as saying yesterday: "Some Foreign Ministry officials have failed to shake off the old foreign policy that tended to depend on foreign countries, failed to fully understand the spirit and course of the government's new foreign policy of independence, and repeatedly made remarks that went against national interests ..."
However, Lee Jung-Hoon, an associate professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul, told The Washington Times that sending South Korean troops to Iraq is the "right decision, and it is significant, because it reaffirms the country's close alliance with the United States."
He added that because South Korea is an emerging economic power, the deployment serves not only its close relationship with the United States, but also its contribution to the international community in fighting terrorism.
The decision to send troops needs the endorsement of South Korea's parliament. The backing appears assured, because the conservative Grand National Party that controls the legislature supported the deployment.
But the endorsement probably will be delayed because of public opposition and political turmoil, so the troops might not be sent by April as intended, South Korean media report.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Mr. Koizumi's Cabinet adopted a basic plan last month to send Self- Defense Forces to Iraq. The deployment is probably Japan's biggest and most-dangerous overseas military mission since World War II. The Diet passed in the summer a law allowing the SDF to send troops to Iraq.
About 600 Ground SDF troops will be deployed to southern Iraq soon.
The English-language Japan Times reported in Tokyo this week that a 30-man GSDF advance team might fly today from Japan to Kuwait on a commercial jetliner. Citing government sources in Tokyo, the article on Tuesday said the advance party probably will travel first through Kuwait City by armored convoy to Camp Virginia, a U.S. base in the Kuwaiti desert, and later head overland to the southern Iraqi city of Samawah.
The Sankei Shimbun, a major conservative daily, expressed approval of Japanese participation. "Japan should send off the SDF personnel with applause. We expect them to carry through their mission for the sake of Japan's national interests and credibility," the paper said in an editorial last month.
On the streets of Japan, though, there were protests as opponents of military force said the decision violates Japan's pacifist constitution. The American-imposed charter renounces the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.
The prime minister, however, insisted that the SDF will not be sent into battle but will participate in humanitarian assistance in Samawah, where they are to provide water and medical assistance to the residents and help repair schools and other public facilities.
Still, security is one of the greatest concerns for SDF troops. This is the first time since 1945 that Japanese troops have been sent to a country where fighting is ongoing. U.S. troops are being attacked in Iraq almost daily, and more have died since the war ended than during it.
Masato Ushio, an assistant professor of community policy at Seigakuin University near Tokyo, said the Iraq mission pushes the limit of what SDF troops can do within the framework of the constitution.
But Mr. Ushio, a retired major in Japan's Air Self-Defense Force, pointed to contradictions in the pacifist constitution.
First, Japanese soldiers are allowed to use their weapons only for self-protection and are not allowed to shoot unless fired upon. This makes them "more likely to become an easy target," he said. Second, when fighting takes place or is anticipated, SDF troops must stop their activities or evacuate.
Japan did not commit personnel in the 1991 Persian Gulf war but contributed $13 billion. There still are many Japanese such as Haruko Moritaki, a member of the Hiroshima Project for Banning DU Weapons, a reference to depleted uranium, who oppose sending troops to Iraq.
Mrs. Moritaki, who traveled to Iraq after the 1991 war to study the effects of DU weapons used there by American forces, said that by sending troops, "Japan is helping the United States, not Iraqi citizens who are in desperate need."
She said many Iraqis are dying in hospitals because of shortages of medicine and electricity. Despite the presence of many Americans and British in Iraq since President Bush declared combat over in May, "Why are so many dying Iraqi citizens still not getting needed medicine and treatment?" she asked.
-------- britain
Judge to Issue Findings on Blair's Case for War
January 16, 2004
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/international/europe/16BRIT.html?pagewanted=all
LONDON, Jan. 15 - The senior judge looking into allegations that the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair exaggerated available intelligence on Iraq to garner public support for war will publish his findings on Jan. 28, his office said Thursday.
Mr. Blair was prompted to establish the independent inquiry by the suicide of a leading government weapons scientist, David Kelly, 59, last July. Dr. Kelly killed himself after it became known that he was the source for a prominent news article asserting that Mr. Blair and his top aides had "sexed up" intelligence findings about Iraq's ability to deploy and launch chemical weapons.
Through poisonous recriminations last summer between Mr. Blair's aides and the British Broadcasting Corporation, whose correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, leveled the charges about intelligence manipulation in late May, the case has become a referendum on Mr. Blair's credibility and leadership.
But the conclusions of the judge, Lord Hutton, could also significantly affect the reputation of the BBC, which saw its reporting practices dissected before his court.
In addition senior government ministers, including Defense Minister Geoff Hoon, could be affected.
"Lord Hutton's report into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. David Kelly will be sent to the printers on Jan. 19 and laid and published in Parliament on Wednesday, Jan. 28," Lord Hutton's office said in a statement.
Though his report, said to run more than 1,000 pages, is being handled under tight security, Lord Hutton said all affected parties would be given copies 24 hours in advance, provided they signed an oath not to reveal its contents before it was formally issued. The full report will also be available online at www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk.
-------- business
Halliburton defends fuel contract in Iraq
Friday, January 16, 2004
By Sue Pleming,
Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-01-16/s_12150.asp
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton, which has tallied nearly $6 billion in U.S. military business in Iraq, defended its record Thursday after Pentagon auditors asked for an investigation into suspected price gouging for fuel.
Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall welcomed a "thorough review of any and all of our government contracts" and said its unit Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) had closely followed procurement rules in Iraq, where one of its main jobs has been to deliver fuel to the Iraqi civilian population.
"As the fuel overcharging allegations have surfaced in recent months, the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the KBR contract, has said ongoing audits have shown no signs of overcharging or any other impropriety," she said.
Military auditors have asked the Pentagon's inspector general (IG) to look into an "irregularity" over fuel brought into Iraq by KBR, suggesting the auditors suspected wrongdoing.
"They have noted the suspected irregularity to the inspector general and the IG will now take and do with it what they see fit," said a defense official.
The official could not say whether the referral was linked to a draft audit reported earlier that found KBR may have been overcharged by $61 million to bring fuel into Iraq via Kuwaiti subcontractor Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co.
The fuel pricing issue has dogged Halliburton for months after Democrats raised questions over why the company was charging nearly double the going rate to bring in fuel via Kuwait rather than the cheaper route, Turkey.
Questions over Kuwaiti Subcontractor
Yet Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman wrote to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice Thursday asking her to get to the bottom of why Altanmia was given a sole source contract by KBR to bring fuel into Iraq when there were cheaper options.
"There are many unanswered questions about why Altanmia - an obscure company with no prior experience in fuel importation or distribution - was awarded an exclusive multimillion dollar contract from Halliburton," wrote the California congressman.
He also said that political pressures had been placed on the Army Corps and Halliburton officials to continue to import fuel via Altanmia even though their prices were twice as high as those from Turkey.
On Dec. 19, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted a waiver to Halliburton, excusing it from providing certified cost and pricing data to the Corps over its sole source contract with Altanmia.
Waxman said the waiver served as a "whitewash" and undermined the job of auditors who were then forced to shift the case to the military's inspector general.
In a bid to reduce costs, the Army said last month it would take over Halliburton's job of bringing fuel into Iraq and gave it to the military's own fuel agency, the Defense Energy Support Center, which is expected to have its contractors in place by April.
News of the inspector general's referral came at an important time for Halliburton, which has bid on two new contracts that replace its no-bid deal handed out last March by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild Iraq's oil industry. So far, that deal has amounted to about $2.3 billion in business.
The new contracts, worth a total of $2 billion, are due to be announced by Saturday following several delays.
KBR has another contract with the U.S. military that involves providing logistical support to U.S. troops, from doing laundry and delivering mail to building barracks. That contract is worth $3.7 billion so far, with nearly all of those funds dedicated to Iraq.
Earlier this week, the U.S. military gave another contract to KBR: a $1.5 billion construction and engineering deal for work covering 25 countries from Iraq to Afghanistan.
--------
Question Raised on Halliburton's Kuwait Contract
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/national/16HALL.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - The Halliburton Company chose a high-priced Kuwaiti supplier for gasoline in Iraq in just one day after considering bids from only three companies, an Army document says.
The Army Corps of Engineers document, obtained on Thursday by The Associated Press, raises new questions about Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, two days after Pentagon auditors requested an investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing.
Halliburton has denied any wrongdoing.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency on Tuesday asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate a "suspected irregularity" involving the Halliburton contract to provide gasoline to civilians in Iraq. Auditors said last month that Halliburton and its Kuwaiti fuel supplier, the Altanmia Marketing Company, may have overcharged the Army by $61 million from May to September.
The referral to the inspector general indicates that the auditors suspect illegal activity. The investigation will focus on actions by government workers, not the company, a senior military official said on Thursday.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the contract, has backed Halliburton. Corps officials ruled last month that the Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, did not have to justify the price it was paying Altanmia for fuel.
Halliburton has said Altanmia was the only company approved by the Kuwaiti government to sell fuel in Iraq.
A Corps of Engineers document does not confirm that. It says Altanmia had to get Kuwaiti government approval for its sales to Halliburton because it had never sold fuel before.
The Army memorandum says Corps of Engineers officials were not required to determine that Altanmia was the lowest-cost subcontractor. It says the urgent need for fuel in Iraq meant the contract had to be completed quickly, and the danger to fuel convoys could be one reason the Kuwaiti price was so high.
A Halliburton spokeswoman, Wendy Hall, said on Thursday that the company followed proper procedures in the contract.
"We received the assignment, and were instructed to begin imports immediately," Ms. Hall said in a statement. "Regular fuel delivery did begin very shortly thereafter, and we believe it prevented or alleviated a national crisis."
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Pentagon Asks For Probe of KBR Oil Deal
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 16, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21106-2004Jan15.html
Pentagon auditors have asked the Defense Department inspector general to investigate a deal between a Halliburton Co. subsidiary and a Kuwaiti company to import fuel into Iraq after finding "evidence of potential unlawful activity," a Defense official said yesterday.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency had been reviewing how much the subsidiary, KBR, charged for the fuel under a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A draft audit report by the agency last month concluded that KBR may have overcharged $61 million by importing fuel from Kuwait instead of from Turkey.
But at the time details of the draft audit were made public, Pentagon Comptroller Dov S. Zakheim said KBR had not done anything improper and blamed the potential overcharge on an antiquated accounting system the company used.
The referral on Monday to the inspector general, which the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Wednesday night, signals that the auditors now believe they have evidence of wrongdoing by either KBR or the Army Corps, which directed KBR to buy the fuel from Kuwait.
"This was an audit," said Lt. Col. Roseanne Lynch, a Defense spokeswoman. "They saw something, and they referred it" to the inspector general.
The inspector general could pass on the request for an investigation to another agency, conduct its own audit or launch a preliminary inquiry.
Scott Saunders, a spokesman for the Army Corps, said yesterday that the referral to the inspector general "was a complete surprise." He declined to comment further.
Halliburton said it also had not been notified of the auditors' request for an investigation.
"KBR delivered fuel to Iraq at the best value, the best price and the best terms," Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said in a statement. "It is important to understand that the referral is a method of further studying the issue and not a condemnation of KBR processes. It is also important to understand the difference between fact and allegations. It is not fact that KBR has overcharged."
Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers, the commander of the Army Corps, has defended KBR and the fuel contract, saying that the agency needed to import fuel into Iraq immediately to avert a security crisis resulting from gasoline shortages.
In a written response to the auditors on Jan. 6, the Army Corps said it explored importing fuel from countries other than Kuwait. Fuel from Turkey was cheaper, but the country did not have enough supply, and because the fuel had to be brought in by truck, it took twice as long to get it to Baghdad, where shortages were most acute, according to the document. The Corps also said it could buy fuel from Saudia Arabia but it would have had to have it trucked in through Kuwait. Neighboring Iran was not an option for diplomatic reasons, and the State Department ruled out Syria, the Corps said.
KBR awarded the supply agreement to Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co., the Kuwaiti supplier, just one day after asking three firms to bid for the work, according to the Corps response.
Flowers said KBR has provided information that it obtained a "fair and reasonable" price for the fuel from the Kuwaiti supplier.
Last month, Flowers waived a requirement that KBR provide "certified" cost and price data from Altanmia because Altanmia did not as a matter of practice give out such data.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who called for an investigation into the fuel contract last fall, said yesterday that Altanmia got the contract with KBR under "unusual circumstances." In a letter to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Waxman said Halliburton, which Vice President Dick Cheney headed from 1995 to 2000, has received special treatment that "has foreclosed an effective investigation . . . and prevented Congress and the public from learning the true facts about Halliburton's gasoline imports."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who also has been pushing for an investigation, said questions have lingered too long about "both the propriety and the potential financial liabilities of huge, no-bid contracts in Iraq."
"It's time to root out the waste those contracts have bred, or put the questions to rest once and for all," he said yesterday.
-------- china
Myers Stresses U.S. Stance on Taiwan
Joint Chiefs Chairman Meets With Chinese, Defends Arms Sales to Island
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21196-2004Jan15.html
BEIJING, Jan. 15 -- Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concluded two days of talks with senior Chinese military leaders Thursday and said they understood "very clearly" that the United States would "resist any attempt to use coercion" to resolve the status of Taiwan.
Speaking at a news conference, Myers also defended U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and said the Bush administration was committed to maintaining the self-governing island's ability to defend itself. He made no mention of Taiwan's decision to ignore objections by President Bush and go ahead with a controversial referendum in March.
Tensions are running high over Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's plan to ask voters in March whether they want to demand that China withdraw missiles aimed at the island. China has condemned the referendum as a move toward independence and a "serious threat to peace," and the Bush administration has urged Chen to cancel it. Chen has refused.
Myers declined to say whether the Chinese leaders he met, including Jiang Zemin, the former president who serves as the nation's top military commander, indicated how they would respond if Taiwan held the referendum.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has threatened to seize the island by force if it formally declares independence. China also opposes U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, arguing that they embolden independence activists there. But Myers noted China's large buildup of missiles aimed at the island and argued that U.S. military aid to Taiwan helped ensure that "there will not be a temptation to use force."
Despite the differences over arms sales to Taiwan, the Chinese leadership appears pleased with the Bush administration's Taiwan policies. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Washington last month, Bush issued an unusual rebuke of Taiwan's president, and senior U.S. officials described his referendum plan as a potential threat to cross-strait stability.
Though China often complains that the United States is an obstacle to unification with Taiwan, the official New China News Agency quoted Jiang as telling Myers that he hoped the United States would "continue its constructive role in the peaceful settlement of the Taiwan issue." Jiang also said China "will make all efforts to achieve reunification with Taiwan by peaceful means but will not allow Taiwan's independence."
Myers's visit to China was the first by a chairman of the Joint Chiefs since the start of the Bush administration, and it signaled strengthened U.S. relations with China, which has cooperated in the U.S.-led war on terrorism and put pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. On Wednesday, China allowed Myers to visit the headquarters of its secretive space program, the first time a foreign delegation has toured the center.
Military ties between China and the United States were strained after the collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane near southern China in 2001. Some conservatives in Washington have also questioned the need for military exchanges with China, arguing that the People's Liberation Army collects valuable intelligence about the U.S. military but rarely shares useful information with U.S. officers.
But Myers said the Pentagon was committed to further exchanges with the Chinese military at all levels. Next month, he said, a Pentagon official will travel to Beijing for strategic defense talks, a U.S. ship will make a Navy port call in China and a group of young U.S. flag officers will visit Beijing.
-------- iraq
White House Meeting on Plan to Restore Self-Rule in Iraq
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House said Friday it would consider proposals ``to refine or improve'' its troubled plan for turning over power in Iraq but insisted that the United States is sticking with the framework of an agreement that calls for an unelected, temporary government by July 1.
The administration is trying to find ways to cope with Shiite demands that the U.S. plan for self-rule in Iraq be submitted directly to Iraqi voters. U.S. officials also were to discuss a possible new role for the United Nations in guiding elections.
The chief U.S. administrator in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III, was called home to confer with President Bush, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other officials. He was to meet with the president before Bush flew to his weekend retreat at Camp David.
On Monday, Bremer is due to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the U.S.-appointed Iraq governing council on the self-rule plan, which was hammered out Nov. 15.
``Obviously there are discussions about ways to refine or improve that agreement, but we're working within the framework of the Nov. 15 agreement,'' said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. ``It spelled out a clear framework for moving forward to transfer sovereignty quickly to the Iraqi people.''
Administration officials insist they will hold to the July 1 deadline but they are exploring ways to strike a compromise with a leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, and his supporters.
Al-Sistani is pressing for direct, popular elections, rather than the caucuses envisioned in the U.S. plan, as the way to create Iraq's new government. But McClellan said, ``There are a lot of things you'd want to have in place for those elections that are not in place at this point.''
The cleric also is insisting Iraqis should be permitted to vote on whether American peacekeeping troops remain in the country after transition.
Threatening the U.S. blueprint, an aide to the cleric said in Kuwait that if al-Sistani's advice was rejected, a Muslim edict would be issued to deny legitimacy to any council elected under the American plan. Even some Sunnis respect the Shiite al-Sistani, the aide, Mohammed Baqir al-Mehri, said.
Adnan Pachachi, the current Iraqi Governing Council president, said Thursday that he believes al-Sistani can be convinced that elections cannot be held right away. Still, Pachachi said, ``We agreed that there is room for improvement, there are many, many ideas to make it more transparent and inclusive ... whereby the Iraqi people, in a very obvious way, can manifest their desires.''
In light of al-Sistani's demands, U.S. officials said the Bush administration was reviewing its plan in ways to provide more direct voter participation by Iraqis. Al-Sistani has a reputation for being a moderate, but his stiff stance has cast doubt on whether the administration's plan can be retained.
``Obviously we are concerned about working with Iraqis,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. ``We are concerned about public opinion. We want to satisfy the needs and demands of the Iraqi people.''
In Basra, meanwhile, a crowd estimated by British soldiers at up to 30,000 people turned out in the streets of Iraq's second-largest city Thursday. Protesters chanted, ``No, no to America, yes, yes to al-Sistani.''
The United States wants regional caucuses -- whose members would be at least partially appointed -- to choose a new Iraqi parliament, which would then select an Iraqi administration. The Bush administration says security is too poor and voter records too incomplete for direct elections right now.
The clerics want direct elections, fearing the caucuses may be rigged to keep Shiites out of power. Al-Sistani and other clerics wield great influence among Iraq's Shiites, believed to make up about 60 percent of the country's 25 million people.
Bremer, in interviews this week with American television networks, said it was not clear whether Shiites were in the majority inside Iraq because Iraq had not had a census in nearly two decades. But he said majority rule must prevail in a democracy.
Boucher noted that Iraqis were able to protest in Iraq in a way they could not under Saddam Hussein. ``The fact that there are demonstrations in Iraq is fundamentally a good thing,'' he said.
Rumsfeld said Tuesday it was too early to tell whether the deadline for transition would have to be changed.
--------
U.S. Scrambles to Salvage Transition
Bremer to Confer Today With White House's Foreign Policy Team
By Robin Wright and Daniel Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21187-2004Jan15?language=printer
The U.S. governor in Iraq headed back to Washington for talks today with President Bush's foreign policy team amid deep uncertainty within the administration over how to save its plan for handing over political power to Iraqis by July 1.
L. Paul Bremer will meet with administration officials on the eve of talks Monday at the United Nations over Iraq's future. After a year of tension with the world body, Washington is now trying to build a partnership with the United Nations to help solve a growing dispute over how to select a new Iraqi government to replace the U.S. occupation, U.S officials said yesterday.
As they reached out to the United Nations, administration officials sought to placate key allies yesterday by saying that they are leaning toward switching course to allow France, Germany and Russia to bid on contracts for rebuilding the war-torn country.
But U.S. officials still have not settled on a strategy for overcoming the latest obstacle to their plan in Iraq -- the growing insistence by Iraq's most popular religious leader that an interim government must be chosen through elections, rather than through a system of caucuses as envisioned by the United States. Officials in Washington fear that a failure to settle the dispute could imperil prospects for a peaceful political transition in Iraq.
After weeks of quiet overtures and secret letters to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, administration officials say they are baffled over exactly what he wants -- and even more confused about what it will take to get him to back off his demand for direct elections.
On substance, the United States is not even sure how well Sistani understands the complicated U.S. plan to hold 18 regional caucuses to select a national assembly, which would pick a government to assume power when the occupation ends. Complicating the problem is the fact that there is no precise equivalent in Arabic for "caucus" nor any history of caucuses in the Arab world, U.S. officials say.
Through intermediaries and in letters from Bremer over the past two months, the U.S.-led coalition authority has tried to explain its plan, which it calls "election by conference" in Arabic. But Sistani's responses have been limited and often vague, U.S. officials say.
Sistani has refused to see any U.S. official, and Washington is not sure how many of the indirect communications have reached the aging and reclusive cleric, U.S. officials add. The United States is still looking for people who know Sistani well enough to act as go-betweens for the negotiations or to explain Sistani's thinking.
Senior U.S. officials note that the current uncertainty is just a part of the political process in a country with no experience in democracy. "The fact that there are demonstrations in Iraq is fundamentally a good thing. The fact that they are about us and things that we haven't delivered on yet is something we acknowledge and understand," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
But with deadlines looming, other U.S. officials now express concern that the plan to hand over power could unravel if a solution is not found soon.
In a strong indication that Sistani's objections may be gaining momentum, between 20,000 and 30,000 Iraqis in Basra marched through the streets of the country's second largest city shouting "No to America!" to support the ayatollah's call for early elections. Other smaller demonstrations took place in Baghdad, Ramadi and Mosul over various aspects of the U.S. plan for Iraqi self-rule.
At a news conference yesterday in Baghdad, Iraqi Governing Council President Adnan Pachachi acknowledged that the two-month-old plan faces considerable opposition. "I am not denying that there are a few differences in points of view in regards to the selection of the national assembly," he said, adding that time is running out for a resolution.
Either Iraq regains its sovereignty in five months as scheduled, he warned, or "we scrap the whole thing and postpone the whole process, until we can agree on some acceptable method, which means we may end up keeping the occupation another two years."
Whether half-measures will work is an open question, given the vehemence of Shiite rhetoric. Sistani met with leading clerics Tuesday in Najaf, and one participant said that jihad, or holy war, was "in the air." Sistani, however, made no move toward urging a violent expulsion of the Americans. He did, however, endorse the large demonstration in Basra and the smaller ones in several other cities.
In Baghdad, clerics are circulating CDs of a sermon given by a local cleric and Sistani follower, Mohammed Yahya, in which he asked: "Does the occupation authority have the right to express the mission and high interests of the Iraqi people? This will mean that American policy will control and manage everything in the country. This will be very dangerous." In the sermon, Yahya insisted that a future constitution must specify Islam as the basis of Iraq's identity.
Pachachi, a foreign minister under Saddam Hussein who later went into exile, met with Sistani Sunday in Najaf, a Shiite holy city. He said they both "agreed there is room for improvement" in the U.S. plan, and that "there are many, many ideas to make it more transparent and inclusive, whereby the Iraqi people, in a very obvious way, can manifest their desires."
According to sources, Pachachi informed Sistani that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan had written him a letter saying that elections could not be properly held soon, as Sistani has insisted. The country, he noted, lacks an up-to-date census, voting rules and an election law. He said he will travel to New York to persuade the United Nations to help in preparing for a future vote.
Sistani reportedly replied that he wants to know not about long-range election plans but about the next few months. Pachachi warned that trying to prepare for snap elections would delay the return of sovereignty to Iraqis. Sistani agreed, but still he insisted that improvements must be made in the way the new assembly will be created.
"Ahsan maysur," Sistani said -- choose the best possible way -- according to sources in Iraq. He offered no formula, other than to restate his demand for elections.
For some, Sistani's power heralds Iraq's move toward a system similar to neighboring Iran's, in which a council of clerics wields an effective veto.
One Governing Council member said that if Sistani pushes too far, members would revolt and the council might collapse. That would leave the United States without an Iraqi face on its authority here and with dim prospects for transferring the management of Iraq to Iraqis.
"The Iraqi people would be very disappointed and frustrated . . . and suddenly we're back to 'No, sorry,' " Pachachi cautioned.
In both Baghdad and Washington, U.S. officials are struggling to come up with "refinements" to the U.S. proposal that would accommodate Sistani, without abandoning the plan signed on Nov. 15 by Bremer and the Iraqi council. U.S. and Iraqi officials said one option is to expand the number of caucus members who would choose the legislators, and then to open the process to monitoring.
Bremer will meet today with President Bush and top advisers, with further meetings possible through the weekend in preparation for Monday's meeting at the United Nations between Bremer, Pachachi and Annan, U.S. officials said.
The Bush administration has asked the United Nations to return to Iraq and play an advisory role in support of the U.S.-backed plan, U.N. officials said. Washington has also pressed the world body to reach out to Shia and Sunni Muslim groups inside Iraq and urge them to back the American plan.
But U.N. officials sought yesterday to dampen expectations that the United Nations might intervene and play a meaningful role in Iraq's political transition in the coming weeks. "You shouldn't expect decisions or dramatic outcomes from the January 19th [meeting]. It's a stage along a road," a senior U.N. official said.
The United Nations is reluctant to get enmeshed in a political transition over which it has no authority.
Another major U.N. concern is security. After two suicide bombings against the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last year, the United Nations is not eager to deploy officials in the 18 Iraqi governates where the caucuses are to be organized, sources said. Although the tenor of the talks has been positive, U.N. officials indicated this week that they do not envision a major U.N. role until after a provisional government is formed and the U.S. occupation ends by July 1.
Williams reported from Baghdad. Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Seals Off Gaza Strip in Response to Suicide Bombing
January 16, 2004
New York Times
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/international/middleeast/16MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, Jan. 15 - Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip on Thursday, keeping out thousands of Palestinians with Israeli permits a day after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed four Israelis near the Erez crossing point.
Israel also closed the Erez industrial area, where the attack occurred and where at least 4,000 Palestinians work. Military officials said it was not certain how long the areas would remain closed.
The Israeli Army said that for now it would allow out of Gaza only those Palestinians who needed to leave for "humanitarian reasons."
As Israel buried its dead - two soldiers, a member of the border police, and a security guard - Gazans marched in a funeral procession for the bomber, a 22-year-old mother of two.
It was the first suicide attack by the Islamist group Hamas in four months, and its first employing a woman. Other Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad, had used women as suicide bombers, but Hamas leaders had previously argued that Islam did not permit doing so, as long as men were available.
Hamas leaders praised the bomber, Reem al-Reyashi, and thousands joined in the funeral march.
But in a break with customary practice, Ms. Reyashi's family did not set up a condolence tent to receive visitors on Thursday. Hamas erected a tent outside a mosque in her Gaza City neighborhood, but few members of her family or other visitors were seen there.
"I don't support what she did," said Yousef Awad, 31, Ms. Reyashi's brother-in-law. "It's not accepted for a woman to do that. This doesn't exist in our traditions."
Ms. Reyashi's brother, Ayman, 35, said: "She was very religious. She prayed all the time." He said he was shocked by the bombing.
Family members of Palestinian assailants sometimes fear Israeli reprisals after their attacks.
Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a violent offshoot of Yasir Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed joint responsibility for the bombing.
While some Gazans privately criticized the attack, the mainstream Palestinian leadership did not. Though they generally condemn attacks on Israeli civilians inside Israel, Mr. Arafat and other Palestinian leaders seldom criticize violence against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
On Wednesday, the army said it was revising the charges against an Israeli soldier accused of shooting a British activist and photography student, Tom Hurndall, after Mr. Hurndall died Tuesday of his wounds.
Witnesses said Mr. Hurndall was shot in the head on April 11 as he tried to protect Palestinian children near an Israeli roadblock in the Gaza Strip. He died in a London hospital after lingering in a coma.
Mr. Hurndall, 22, was a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that uses nonviolent tactics to impede Israeli Army actions in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli soldier suspected in the shooting was indicted Monday on six counts, including aggravated bodily assault, but with Mr. Hurndall's death the charges will be revised.
--------
Israeli Official Labels Hamas Leader 'Marked for Death'
January 16, 2004
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/international/middleeast/16CND-MIDE.html?hp
JERUSALEM, Jan. 16 - Israel's deputy defense minister has proclaimed the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas to be "marked for death," signaling that Israel will step up its campaign to kill the leadership of the militant group.
The threat followed a Hamas suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday that killed four Israelis - two soldiers, a border policeman, and a security guard.
The Hamas founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who attended prayers today at a mosque near his Gaza City home, said that he would embrace "martyrdom" if it came his way.
Israel tried to kill Sheik Yassin on Sept. 6, dropping a 550-pound bomb on a Gaza City apartment building where he was meeting with other Hamas leaders. Sheik Yassin, a paraplegic, escaped with a light wound to his right hand.
Israel said that it had used too small a bomb, in an effort to avoid civilian casualties.
That strike was part of a series of Israeli attacks on Hamas leaders after a devastating Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem over the summer.
"We do not fear death threats," Sheik Yassin said today. "We are seekers of martyrdom."
He was reacting to comments by Israel's deputy defense minister, Ze'ev Boim, who said that Sheik Yassin had made himself a target.
"Sheik Yassin is marked for death, and he should hide himself deep underground, where he won't know the difference between day and night," Mr. Boim told Israeli Army Radio on Thursday night. "And we will find him in the tunnels, and we will eliminate him."
Before Wednesday, Hamas had not conducted a suicide bombing in four months, in what seemed an undeclared cease-fire. Israel also appeared to stop hunting its leadership, though Israeli officials also denied any change in strategy.
Israeli security officials credited its attacks on the Hamas leaders with intimidating the group into subsiding, though most of the strikes failed to kill their targets.
Previously, Israel had in practice accepted a distinction made by Hamas between its "political" and "military" leaders. Israel did not try to kill political leaders like Sheik Yassin, who insists he does not direct suicide bombers. Israel now accuses him of direct involvement in attacks.
Sheik Yassin said today that he had "nothing to do with military activity" by Hamas.
Though its suicide attacks had subsided before Wednesday, Hamas repeatedly rebuffed attempts by the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, and Egyptian mediators to arrive at a formal cease-fire among the Palestinian faction.
Hamas is officially committed to Israel's destruction. In recent interviews, Sheik Yassin suggested the group would consider accepting some sort of temporary peace in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the territories Israel has occupied since 1967.
--------
Glance of Israel's Targeted Killings
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Targeted-Killings-Glance.html
Israel has a decades-long record of operations aimed at killing leaders of violent groups responsible for the deaths of Israelis.
Since fighting broke out in September 2000, more than 140 Palestinian militants have been killed in targeted raids, according to Palestinian medical officials, though that total also includes militants killed resisting arrest. They say more than 110 bystanders have also died in the raids.
Here are some of the most prominent and recent strikes:
-- February 1973: Israeli commandos enter Beirut by sea and kill three senior PLO leaders. One of the commanders was Ehud Barak, later Israel's prime minister.
-- January 1979: Israeli agents kill Ali Hassan Salameh in bomb explosion in Beirut. Salameh planned 1972 attack in Munich that killed 11 members of Israeli Olympic team.
-- April 1988: Israeli agents assassinate Khalid al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), Yasser Arafat's deputy in PLO and commander of operations in West Bank.
-- February 1992: Lebanese Hezbollah leader Sheik Abbas Musawi killed in southern Lebanon in Israeli helicopter strike.
-- October 1995: Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shakaki killed by gunmen in Malta. Israel assumed to be responsible but does not comment officially.
-- January 1996: Hamas master bombmaker Yehiyeh Ayyash killed in explosion of booby-trapped cell phone in Gaza. Israel assumed responsible.
-- September 1997: Two Israeli Mossad agents arrested in Jordan after botched effort to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.
-- January 2002: Raed Karmi, leader of Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in the West Bank, killed in Israeli attack.
-- July 2002: Hamas commander Salah Shehadeh killed with 14 others when Israeli plane drops one-ton bomb on his Gaza house.
-- September 2002: Hamas commander Mohammed Deif wounded in Israeli airstrike.
-- March 2003: Ibrahim Makadmeh, senior Hamas strategist, killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
-- June 2003: Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi wounded in Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
-- Aug. 21, 2003: Three Hamas members, including prominent leader Ismail Abu Shanab and two bodyguards, killed by helicopter missile strike. One bystander killed, at least 15 others wounded.
-- Aug. 24, 2003: Four Palestinians, all Hamas activists, killed in helicopter strike in Gaza City. More than a dozen bystanders injured.
-- Aug. 26, 2003: Two Palestinian bystanders killed in helicopter strike in Gaza City. Another bystander dies the following week.
-- Aug. 28, 2003: One Hamas activist killed by missile strike in southern Gaza. Three others injured.
-- Aug. 30, 2003: Two Palestinians, both members of Hamas, killed by Israeli strike. Two bystanders injured.
-- Sept. 1, 2003: One Hamas member killed by missile strike, one bystander dies later of injuries. At least 25 others wounded.
-- Oct. 20, 2003: Fourteen Palestinians killed in Israeli missile strike in Nusseirat refugee camp in Gaza, according to Palestinian count. Number of militants killed remains under dispute. Palestinians say two dead belonged to armed groups; Israeli military puts figure higher.
-------- prisoners of war
Sanchez Orders Iraq Prisoner Abuse Probe
By ROBERT H. REID
Associated Press Writer
Jan 16, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_PRISONERS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Sanchez says anti-American fighters coming from outside of Iraq aren't' too much of a problem now, but that could change. (Audio)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq has ordered a criminal investigation into reports of abuse of prisoners at an unspecified coalition detention center, U.S. officials said Friday.
A military statement gave no indication about the scope of the reported abuse, saying simply that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez ordered a probe "into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a coalition forces detention facility."
"The release of specific information concerning the incidents could hinder the investigation, which is in its early stages," the statement said. "The investigation will be conducted in a thorough and professional manner."
It added that the coalition "is committed to treating all persons under its control with dignity, respect and humanity."
In Washington, Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said it is a criminal investigation and that the reports of abuse were deemed "very serious and credible." Di Rita declined to provide any details other than to say the alleged abuse happened at detention centers in Baghdad.
The announcement followed allegations by Amnesty International and former prisoners of harsh treatment of detainees arrested by U.S. and coalition forces since the Iraq war began last March.
Earlier this month, three U.S. Army reservists were discharged for abuse of prisoners at the Camp Bucca, a detention center in southern Iraq where former Baath party members and other "high value" prisoners are held.
In late December, Brig. Gen. Ennis Whitehead III determined that the three had kicked prisoners or encouraged others to do so on May 12.
Lt. Col. Allen B. West, a battalion commander in the 4th Infantry Division, was allowed to resign from the Army after he admitted firing a weapon near a detainee suspected of plotting attacks against American soldiers.
In October, the U.S. military shut down Camp Cropper, a notorious, makeshift prison where hundreds of Iraqis were crowded into tents through Baghdad's scorching summer.
Released detainees told of overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at Camp Cropper, and they alleged physical abuse by guards. The human rights group Amnesty International protested it "may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, banned by international law."
Other former detainees have spoken of systematic abuse, although U.S. authorities insist that conditions are in line with international law.
The coalition is believed to be holding about 12,800 detainees for various offenses, including attacks on U.S. and allied troops. U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer announced this month that occupation forces would free about 500 of them as part of an amnesty, but it remains unclear how many of them have been freed.
----
U.S. still holds children at Guantanamo
"They have been in detention since the early part of last year without any direct contact with their families or knowledge about what is going to happen to them" Jo Becker, Human Rights Watch
By Sue Pleming
Fri 16 January, 2004
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=440269§ion=news
WASHINGTON - The United States has held three child detainees at its military base in Guantanamo Bay for more than a year and the Pentagon says it has no plans to move or free them, despite international pressure.
A defence official said doctors estimated the boys were 13-15 years old and were deemed "enemy combatants" along with about 660 prisoners being held at the base in Cuba after the U.S. invasion in Afghanistan in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on America.
"There has been lots of media speculation they were going to be moved out but that's all it has been, just speculation," the official told Reuters on Thursday when asked if there were plans to move or release the teenage detainees any time soon.
A spokeswoman for the military task force holding the prisoners told Reuters last August that prison camp commander, Brigadier-General Geoffrey Miller, would recommend the three boys be sent home, and this was confirmed by Miller a month later.
The detentions without trial at Guantanamo Bay have drawn worldwide criticism from governments and human rights groups who have urged the United States to file charges against the prisoners and to send the children home to their families.
The military official said the three were being kept separately from older prisoners in a refurbished house. They shared a large bedroom and there was also a dayroom, a kitchen and a facility where the teens received daily lessons.
"They are being tutored in their own language and are learning other skills. They are being taught to read and mathematics."
The official said there was a large yard around the house where the teens played soccer, volleyball and other games.
NO FAMILY CONTACT
He did not know whether family members had been informed of the teen-agers whereabouts but said they had been given access to Red Cross officials who visited the base.
"None of the detainees has had direct contact with their families except for one," he said, referring to an Australian man David Hicks who was allowed to speak to his father on the telephone.
In the past, senior Pentagon officials described the children as "enemy combatants" who despite their age were "very, very dangerous people" who "have stated they have killed and will kill again."
Asked whether there had been any incidents involving the children, the official said he did not believe so.
"The conditions they are being held in are humane. There have been very many media down there who have seen the conditions they live in," he said, adding that the media had not seen the children themselves.
"We are not going to hold them up for public scrutiny or ridicule," he said.
Jo Becker, advocacy director for children's rights at Human Rights Watch, voiced deep concern the children were still being held and called for their release.
"They have been in detention since the early part of last year without any direct contact with their families or knowledge about what is going to happen to them," said Becker.
She appealed to the military to free the detainees so they could be re-integrated with their communities and said there was particular worry about them being separated and detained during the vulnerable teen years.
She said other teen-agers, aged between 16-18, were also being held at the U.S. base along with the older prisoners. The military official declined to provide any details on detainees aged between 16-18.
-------- spies
Lawmaker Says Intelligence Wrong on Iraq WMD
January 16, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-usa-weapons.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pre-war U.S. intelligence assessments were wrong about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and President Bush should offer fixes in his State of the Union speech, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said on Friday.
Rep. Jane Harman of California said there were good reasons to support regime change in Baghdad, but better intelligence on Iraq could have allowed more time for diplomacy and to build international support for military action.
``But if 9/11 was a failure to connect the dots, it appears that the intelligence community, in the case of Iraq's WMD, connected the dots to the wrong conclusions,'' Harman said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, a copy of which was released here.
Democrats have started the election year by criticizing the Republican White House for justifying the war against Iraq on threats from chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, when no solid evidence of such arms has been found.
``The president should lead the effort to improve his intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. I urge him in his State of the Union address next Tuesday to acknowledge the problems and outline specific steps to fix them,'' Harman said.
If David Kay, chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, does not return to his post it will be seen by critics as a sign that the search for banned weapons was not expected to find anything significant. Kay has told CIA Director George Tenet that he does not want to return to Iraq, a U.S. government source told Reuters.
``I doubt there would be discussions of David Kay's possible departure if the Iraq Survey Group were on the verge of uncovering large stockpiles of weapons,'' Harman said.
She criticized a pre-war report, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, as a ``significantly flawed document'' for its assessment that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, and was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
``These were centerpieces of the NIE and of the case for war and it appears likely that both were wrong,'' Harman said.
Stuart Cohen, vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council which produced that report, has defended the estimate as ``well-grounded'' and based on 15 years of information. He has argued that the hunt for banned weapons should continue.
-------- un
U.N. sides with U.S. on voting in Iraq
January 16, 2004
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040115-112502-3479r.htm
NEW YORK - U.N. officials said yesterday that direct elections could not be organized in Iraq before the July deadline, placing the international body on the side of the United States in a looming confrontation with Iraq's Shi'ite community led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.
An estimated 20,000 Shi'ites marched through Basra yesterday, chanting "No, no to America" and demanding direct elections instead of the caucus system for choosing a transitional government determined by the Iraqi Governing Council and approved by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
That agreement made no mention of a U.N. role in the transitional process, although several Security Council resolutions have requested U.N. participation where possible.
Ayatollah al-Sistani, a highly influential cleric, has demanded direct elections before sovereignty is turned over to Iraqis at the end of June, which would likely favor Iraq's Shi'ite majority. He has also suggested that U.N. oversight could encourage transparency and accountability.
He is not alone.
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish Governing Council member, told Reuters in Iraq yesterday that if the handover of power is carried out solely under the Americans, "it will be deficient because it will have been carried out under occupation."
"But if it is implemented under the supervision of the United Nations, the Europeans and the Arab League, then it will be much more acceptable," he said.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan feels "the time that would be needed to properly organize those elections, and the prevailing security conditions in the country" make nationwide elections "impractical," his spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York yesterday.
Other U.N. officials have said that direct elections would not be feasible yet because Iraq has neither political parties, nor an election law nor the kind of stable climate in which campaigning would be possible.
U.S. officials expressed similar concerns this week, arguing that the caucus-style process, while imperfect, is the best possible under the existing constraints.
Washington confirmed yesterday that L. Paul Bremer, the chief civilian administrator in Iraq, will travel to the United States this weekend for consultation with Bush administration officials before attending a meeting with U.N. officials on Monday.
On Monday, Mr. Bremer, Mr. Annan and senior members of the Iraqi Governing Council will try to determine whether it is possible for the world organization to return to Iraq to take up political, humanitarian and other responsibilities while the CPA is still in control.
The Iraqis will be represented by this month's president of the Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi; Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari; Ahmad Chalabi, an exile during the Saddam regime; Abdel Aziz Hakim, the senior Shi'ite political figure; and Iyad Allawi.
The Governing Council, selected by Mr. Bremer to represent Iraq's mosaic of ethnic and religious groups, has not spoken with a unified voice on difficult issues.
U.N. officials, as well as U.S. and other diplomats, have tried to play down the importance of the Monday meeting, saying the three parties will merely "seek clarity" on a U.N. role.
Several diplomats have said they don't see much of a role for the United Nations before the midsummer handover of power, and have suggested that the time should be spent planning for political, humanitarian and human rights activities after that.
Mr. Annan has said repeatedly that the organization will not return until the coalition and the Iraqis outline a clear and independent role of the United Nations and provide security guarantees for staff members and facilities.
A senior U.S. official told reporters yesterday there had been discussions on security matters but that he saw no need for further clarification of the U.N. role.
U.N. foreign staffers were withdrawn after the devastating bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in August and other attacks on foreign aid workers.
Many governments, particularly the United States and Britain, would like to see the United Nations return to Iraq to help with humanitarian issues and to lend political legitimacy to the occupation.
Meanwhile, Iraqi dinars bearing Saddam Hussein's picture ceased to be legal tender yesterday, completing a gradual transition to new paper currency.
The change has gone remarkably smoothly, according to observers, marred by little violence and only mild inflation. More than 100 tons of the old notes have been destroyed by the central bank over the last three months, according to a statement.
The Iraqi dinar was trading yesterday at about 1,000 to the U.S. dollar, down from a prewar high of nearly 3,500.
Also yesterday, an antitank mine planted along a road in Tikrit destroyed a bus, killing two university students and the driver, the Associated Press reported.
--------
U.S. Joins Iraqis to Seek U.N. Role in Interim Rule
January 16, 2004
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN and JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/politics/16IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - The Bush administration, trying to rescue its troubled plan to restore sovereignty to Iraq, is joining Iraqi leaders to press the United Nations to play a role in choosing an interim government in Baghdad, administration officials said Thursday.
L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Baghdad, and an Iraqi delegation led by Adnan Pachachi, the current chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council, will make an urgent appeal on Monday for greater United Nations involvement, the officials said.
In Iraq on Thursday, tens of thousands of demonstrators put pressure on the United States to change its plans, marching in Basra to support calls by Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for direct elections.
The new move involved yet another change in strategy for an administration under pressure from shifting events in Iraq. From the start of planning the war to oust Saddam Hussein, the administration has had an ambivalent attitude toward the United Nations.
As it begins to reach out for help, and as European nations indicate that they may provide some, the administration is also considering reversing itself and allowing businesses in countries that opposed the war, including France, Germany and Russia, to bid on contracts to rebuild Iraq, officials said.
In recent months, the administration has said it wanted the United Nations to take part in building Iraqi democracy after the transition to self-rule. But the administration's intention was disrupted when Ayatollah Sistani criticized as undemocratic the American plan for caucuses to select an interim government.
There were few details of what the United Nations was being asked to do to help the caucus plan, but administration officials said it could involve helping organize and perhaps certifying the legitimacy of the meetings.
The caucuses, to be held in each of Iraq's 18 states, are to choose delegations to a national assembly that will sit while a permanent constitution is written and elections are planned for 2005. The plan is so complex that some of its supporters confess to bewilderment about carrying it out.
"It's clear we want the United Nations to be involved," an administration official said. "It's clear the Iraqis want them. It's clear the security situation has improved, and we're willing to help with their security. But there are many stages we have to go through to get an agreement."
At the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan is said to be highly reluctant to give his blessing to what is widely seen as a jerry-built process in effect concocted to let the United States hand over sovereignty to Iraq by June 30, as the American elections get under way.
"This meeting, for us, is a step along the way," an aide to Mr. Annan said. "It's not a meeting where there will be a decision on our part. We're going to listen to what they have to say, reflect on what they expect of us and get more detail on exactly how these caucuses are going to run."
Mr. Bremer left for Washington on Thursday to meet with President Bush on Friday. The circumstances of his sudden departure put pressure on Mr. Annan, whose reluctance to send a team back to Iraq is shared by colleagues still grieving over the bomb attack last summer on United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.
People close to Mr. Annan say he has rarely been in a more uncomfortable position. For months, he has wanted the United Nations to oversee Iraq's transition to self-government. But he did not want it to be seen as merely giving in to an American plan worked out with Iraqis chosen by Mr. Bremer.
In Baghdad, Mr. Pachachi said that as the Iraqi Governing Council tries to refine the mechanics of the caucuses, the United Nations would be of great help. "If the United Nations is unable or unwilling to play a big role, that would be a matter of great regret for us," he said.
What may persuade Mr. Annan to involve the United Nations, American officials said, is the urgent situation in Iraq, and the fact that Mr. Bremer and Mr. Pachachi are coming with a request for help endorsed implicitly by Ayatollah Sistani.
Administration officials took pains to say the effort to get Mr. Annan and the United Nations involved began with the Iraqis. This was in keeping with the American insistence that it is the Iraqis who are working out their governing problems.
One administration official said Mr. Pachachi, a former foreign minister, and a handful of other Iraqis on the Governing Council have borne the brunt of the work by leading the effort to write an interim Iraqi law that would determine the nation's federal structure, the role of Islam and many other issues.
"This is an Iraqi process," an American official insisted. "It's an Iraqi generated initiative. These guys in the Governing Council are trying to deal with their constituencies, including one very vocal constituent group that had 10,000 people in the streets of Basra this morning."
He was referring to the demonstration in the heart of Shiite territory backing the ayatollah's demands for a democratically elected interim government.
Since the beginning of the American occupation of Iraq, the United States has had difficulties dealing with the country's three biggest groups: Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Now those problems are reaching full boil, according to some administration officials, with Kurds demanding their own semiautonomous state, Sunnis feeling frozen out because of a campaign to rid Iraq's leadership of anyone associated with Mr. Hussein and now Shiites demanding a more democratic transition.
American officials say the Nov. 15 plan, with its caucus process, is "holy writ" in the administration.
The tough question is likely to be whether the United Nations takes part in the caucuses, perhaps even conducting ballots at the caucus meetings. But aides to Mr. Annan say they fear signing on to something that only looks democratic.
"Are we supposed to have an advisory role or to have people in each of Iraq's 18 provinces?" a United Nations official asked. "What would they do if they are out in the provinces? Who handles their security? Are we being asked to do something where we have no real authority? These are very difficult questions that need to be answered."
More than one official noted the coincidence that the session to discuss the legitimacy of caucuses would occur on the very day of the Iowa caucuses, which are also notorious for their complexity.
Reporting was contributed by Steven R. Weisman in Washington, John H. Cushman Jr. in Baghdad, Warren Hoge at the United Nations and David E. Sanger in Washington.
-------- us
Pentagon Withholds Cold War Medical Data
Jan 16, 2004
Associated Press
By ROBERT GEHRKE
http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040116/D803UEN80.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is continuing to withhold documents on Cold War chemical and biological weapons tests that used unsuspecting sailors as "human samplers" after telling Congress it had released all medically relevant information.
In response to questions from The Associated Press about a deposition last month by a former military scientist, J. Clifton Spendlove, who planned and supervised the testing program, the Defense Department acknowledged this week it still has documents laying out the scope and methods of the tests.
Detailed planning documents and reports for each of the tests are classified because they identify vulnerabilities of military vessels to chemical and biological warfare agents and capabilities for delivering the agents, the Pentagon said in a response to questions from the AP.
In some cases, samples were taken from sailors to measure their exposure to tracers used to simulate chemical and biological agents, the Pentagon's written statement said. Reports on them were not released because they "did not include any plans or data that measured human effects," according to the statement.
Project 112 and the Shipboard Hazard and Defense Project consisted of 50 tests conducted between 1962 and 1973. The tests were conducted in Alaska, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Utah, Panama, Canada, Britain and aboard ships in the North Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The secretive tests involved 5,842 soldiers and sailors - many of whom were unwitting guinea pigs. The experiments were designed to determine the effectiveness of biological and chemical agents in combat and methods to protect troops from attacks. An untold number of civilians also may have been exposed during some of the tests on the troops.
In most cases, supposedly harmless simulants were used to mimic anthrax, E. coli or other agents, although in a number of cases potentially deadly nerve agents were used, including sarin and VX.
Numerous veterans say they are now suffering from illnesses because of exposure, but the Veterans Affairs Administration has denied requests for health care coverage.
After a three-year investigation that Pentagon officials characterized as "exhaustive," the Defense Department released an overview of the tests and a series of fact sheets last June and then disbanded the probe.
But the overview and fact sheets didn't acknowledge the documents and films that were obtained by the plaintiffs and authenticated by Spendlove, including results of tests to determine how much of the chemical simulants the "human samplers" were exposed to.
The Pentagon had already issued its first set of findings before it contacted Spendlove, who planned the Project 112 tests from the Deseret Test Center in Dugway, Utah.
Spendlove, in sworn testimony in a federal court lawsuit in Washington on behalf of the veterans, said sailors were used in the tests as "human samplers" and cited several documents and films laying out the scope and methods of the tests.
During his deposition, Spendlove was shown reports and films from a few of the tests that were obtained by the plaintiffs. He identified ships and individuals and vouched for their authenticity and indicated many more documents are likely stored at the library at the Deseret center where the testing program was headquartered.
In one of the plaintiffs' films, a soldier is loading the orange-tinted simulant used to mimic anthrax or other biological agents into a plane that would spray it on a boat. He is not wearing any protective equipment and is caked with the substance.
Spendlove's account was corroborated by Norman LaChapelle, a top Navy officer on the project, in an interview this week with the AP.
But LaChapelle, a retired Navy commander who is now in charge of chemical and biological weapons response for the city of Memphis, said he was never contacted by the Pentagon in its investigation.
"(Darn) right I was surprised" at not being contacted, said LaChapelle, who was in charge of the execution of the SHAD tests from 1964-1970. "We were involved in it. We weren't sitting in Salt Lake City. We were sitting at the test site."
The Vietnam Veterans of America is suing Pentagon officials on behalf of the sailors, demanding the release of all of the test documents so the National Academies of Science can fully analyze the potential health effects.
Douglas Rosinski, an attorney working with the veterans group on behalf of the soldiers, said the effects of the chemicals on the sailors has not been studied. The levels of exposure that the documents might detail is a crucial piece of the puzzle, he said.
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., was frustrated by the revelation that the Pentagon is still unwilling to share information about the tests with the exposed sailors.
"It doesn't sit with me at all," said Thompson, one of several lawmakers who pressured the Pentagon into admitting the existence of Project 112 after 30 years of denials. "I was under the impression that these guys had unearthed everything that was out there that was available and they'd done the work they were charged with doing. If what (Spendlove) says is true, they haven't done the work."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
White House to Appeal Terror Suspect Case
January 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Enemy-Combatant.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration asked a federal court Friday not to force the release of a U.S.-born suspected terrorist and said it will immediately appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
The administration wants the high court to take on the case of Jose Padilla, a former gang member and convert to Islam who was arrested in Chicago in May 2002 in connection with an alleged plot to detonate a radioactive ``dirty bomb.''
The Justice Department filed a late request with a federal appeals court in New York, asking that a ruling ordering Padilla's release be put on hold. An appeal was expected later Friday at the Supreme Court, Deputy Solicitor General Paul D. Clement told the appeals court judges.
``The government will suffer irreparable harm if the mandate'' to release Padilla or transfer him to civilian court is carried out, Clement wrote.
``The president, in the exercise of his commander-in-chief power during wartime, has determined that Padilla's detention as an enemy combatant is necessary to prevent him from aiding al-Qaida in its efforts to attack the United States,'' Clement wrote.
President Bush also determined that Padilla holds valuable intelligence information that could help prevent future terror attacks, Clement wrote in a filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 2nd Circuit's Dec. 18 decision gave the government 30 days from the date of its final order to release Padilla. The order is not final, so that clock has not yet begun to run.
If granted, Friday's request would suspend the release at least until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the appeal.
The 2nd Circuit's ruling ``not only overturns the president's determination that Padilla's custody by the military is necessary to protect the nation's security and prosecute the war, but also eliminates a critical aspect of the president's commander-in-chief authority,'' Clement wrote.
That aspect, he said is ``the power to order the military to capture and detain enemy combatants, including United States' citizen enemy combatants, that enter the United States determined to conduct hostile and warlike acts.''
Padilla is accused of plotting to detonate a ``dirty bomb,'' a makeshift device that would use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials. The government said he had proposed the bomb plot to Abu Zubaydah, then al-Qaida's top terrorism coordinator. Zubaydah was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002.
Those accusations, however, are not part of the Supreme Court case. The high court would look only at Padilla's detention.
The administration wants the Supreme Court to add the Padilla case to its docket for this term, allowing the court to decide by summer whether national security justifies detention of American citizens indefinitely and without charges.
The Supreme Court has already agreed to hear a similar case testing the legal rights of American citizens caught overseas in the war on terrorism, and the Bush administration planned to ask the high court to combine the two cases.
Yaser Esam Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, while Padilla was arrested on U.S. soil. Lawyers for both men claim their treatment is unconstitutional. Hearing the cases together would simultaneously address the rights of U.S. citizens captured abroad and at home.
The cases raise basic legal and constitutional questions about the breadth of executive power and the rights of terror suspects to defend themselves in court and represent the most significant civil liberties issue to reach the high court since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The 2-1 appeals court ruling in the Padilla case held that his detention was not authorized by Congress and that Bush could not designate Padilla as an enemy combatant without that authorization.
The Pentagon could release Padilla or transfer him to civilian authorities who can bring criminal charges, the appeals court said. Or Padilla might be held as a material witness in connection with grand jury proceedings, the court said. A material witness is someone thought to have information about a crime.
``Presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum, and this case involves not whether those responsibilities should be aggressively pursued, but whether the president is obligated, in the circumstances presented here, to share them with Congress,'' it added.
Unlike the Padilla case, the government has won its argument in lower courts that Hamdi may be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer or the U.S. court system.
Hamdi, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, was picked up while fighting with Taliban troops in November 2001 and held with other battlefield detainees at the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Authorities later transferred him to a U.S. naval brig in South Carolina after discovering he was born in Louisiana. Padilla is locked up at the same prison.
Both men are classified as enemy combatants, a term the Bush administration contends means they are ineligible for ordinary legal protections. Both men have lawyers who are acting on their behalf, but one has never met his client and the other has not been allowed to see him for a year and a half.
The administration says it is reluctant to allow enemy combatants access to lawyers because that could greatly inhibit efforts to obtain information from them about potential terrorist operations.
The Supreme Court separately has agreed to consider the legal rights of other battlefield prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
-------- death penalty
Mexico Awaits Hague Ruling on Citizens on U.S. Death Row
January 16, 2004
By ADAM LIPTAK
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/national/16DEAT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Osbaldo Torres, a convicted murderer on death row in Oklahoma, should have been dead by now, his appeals exhausted, his time up.
But because 15 judges in The Hague, acting at the request of the government of Mexico, have forbidden his execution for now, he is alive in a cell in McAlester, awaiting the next move from the Netherlands.
Mr. Torres belongs to a subset of death-row inmates at the center of a struggle that has crossed national borders and raised combustible questions about the death penalty, due process, the reach of international law and the United States' standing in the court of world opinion.
He is one of 52 Mexican citizens in eight states whose convictions and death sentences are being challenged by Mexico in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Mexico says the United States violated a treaty guaranteeing that foreigners arrested in this country have access to representatives of their government.
The court ordered the United States last February not to kill Mr. Torres and two compatriots, at least until it issues its final ruling, which is expected to come in the spring.
None of the 52 Mexicans have been put to death. In Mr. Torres's case, the Oklahoma attorney general asked a state appeals court in November to stay the execution "out of courtesy" to the international court. It was an unprecedented act of deference by an American official, legal experts said.
Mexico is seeking to void all 52 convictions and death sentences, contending that its citizens were denied the right to meet promptly with Mexican diplomats. The defendants should be retried, Mexico says, with statements obtained before such meetings excluded.
Mexico also asked the court to require that the United States honor these so-called consular rights in the future, perhaps by rewriting the standard Miranda warning given suspects before they are questioned by the police.
In its filings in The Hague, the United States, represented by lawyers from the State and Justice Departments, called Mexico's demands "an unjustified, unwise and ultimately unacceptable intrusion into the United States criminal justice system."
The acquiescence of the Oklahoma attorney general, Drew Edmondson, given after consultations with the State Department, is thus remarkable. It may reflect tactical prudence, as the international court is not likely to welcome being defied while the larger case is pending. Or it may indicate a desire by the United States to maintain a level of international comity, even as the war in Iraq and the widespread use of the death penalty in the United States have been criticized by some of its allies.
The United States' arguments before The Hague are not quite those of a global scofflaw. This country has, in fact, been a party to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations since 1969, as well as to a separate protocol in which it submitted to the jurisdiction of the international court to interpret the convention and to resolve disputes about it. Treaties are, under the Constitution, "the supreme law of the land."
Although the United States does not view the rulings of many international bodies as binding, it does acknowledge the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice to decide cases brought under the consular relations convention and, in some circumstances, to order nations to comply with the court's interpretation of it. In the Mexican case, however, the United States contends that the court lacks jurisdiction to determine by "highly specific means" what nations must do to comply.
One hundred sixty-four other nations are also parties to the convention, and the United States invokes it often when its citizens are detained abroad.
"If you were arrested in Damascus and they gave you a dime," said Donald F. Donovan, a lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton, which represents Mexico in the case, "would you want to call your court-appointed lawyer or the American embassy?"
The convention requires that arrested foreigners be told of their right to speak with consular officials. If they do, local officials must contact the appropriate consulate. Both actions, the convention says, must be taken "without delay."
Mexico contends that these obligations are often ignored in the United States, and that Mexican officials frequently learn of arrests of Mexican citizens only years later, and only by happenstance. The two nations differ about how well Mexico, which does not have the death penalty, complies with the convention.
The Mexican government says it did not learn of the 1993 arrest of Mr. Torres, then 18, until 1996. Mr. Torres had lived in the United States since he was 5, prosecutors said.
By the time Mexico learned of the charges against Mr. Torres, from relatives, he had already been twice tried for the murder of a couple in front of their children. The first trial ended in a mistrial because the jury could not agree about whether he was guilty. The second ended with a death sentence.
When Mr. Torres's lawyers then tried to raise the Vienna Convention in his defense, courts said that the defendant was too late, and that he would not have benefited from Mexican assistance in any event.
Mexico disputes that.
"When consular protection is permitted to function," Victor Manuel Uribe Avina of the Mexican foreign affairs ministry told the Hague court last month, "life sentences are the likely outcome."
Mexico says it provides an important "cultural bridge" when its citizens become entangled in the American criminal justice system. Such defendants are often confused, distrustful, unable to speak English and baffled by American procedures, Mexican officials say. If notified, the Mexican government provides lawyers, translators and investigators. It also helps round up evidence in Mexico, which can be very valuable in the sentencing phase in capital cases.
There are 122 foreign citizens from 31 countries on death row in the United States, in 14 states and in the federal system, according to Human Rights Research, a consulting firm that assists lawyers and consulates in capital cases involving foreigners. Almost half are from Mexico.
The issue has been an ongoing source of tension between Mexico and the United States, and in January 2003 Mexico took its case to the international court. Three Mexicans have been executed since 2000. In all three cases, the Vienna Convention was violated, Mexico argues. In 2002, Vicente Fox, the Mexican president, canceled a trip to President Bush's ranch in Texas to protest the execution of one of the men, Javier Suarez Medina.
There is little dispute that the United States violated the treaty in most or all of the 52 cases before the court in The Hague. The core issue during several days of arguments before the court last month was what should follow from that.
Until not long ago, the government's official position was that an apology should suffice. After a decision of the international court in 2001 that violations require "review and reconsideration," the United States has taken the position that it has complied with that ruling, in cases including Mr. Torres's, by encouraging governors to consider Vienna Convention claims as part of clemency proceedings.
"The United States says the only remedy a defendant is entitled to is an opportunity to beg for mercy," said Sandra L. Babcock, a Minneapolis lawyer and the director of the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program. "But we're talking about a legal right. It requires a legal remedy."
At The Hague last month and in legal filings, State Department lawyers described "the very substantial efforts undertaken by the United States to comply with its obligations," including the circulation of 100,000 copies of a compliance manual and 600,000 pocket cards to local law enforcement officials. Still, they noted, there are 700,000 law enforcement officials in the United States in 18,000 separate state and local jurisdictions.
Catherine W. Brown, a State Department lawyer, told the international court last month that asking more of the United States was unreasonable. "As a practical matter, a country the size of the United States would never have accepted an obligation that would have put the ordinary conduct of criminal investigations and public safety at jeopardy," Ms. Brown said.
A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Torres's pending execution in Oklahoma and those of two defendants in Texas that would presumably have taken place by now, but for the case in The Hague.
In March, the department's top lawyer acknowledged in a speech to state attorneys general that the pending executions were a matter of concern. "We have had a number of conversations with government lawyers in both states about these cases," the lawyer, William Howard Taft IV, said. In November, Mr. Torres asked the United States Supreme Court to honor the international court's interim order staying his execution. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer indicated that they would be inclined to consider it once the international court rendered its final judgment.
"The answer to Lord Ellenborough's famous rhetorical question, `Can the Island of Tobago pass a law to bind the whole world?,' may well be yes," Justice Breyer mused, "where the world has conferred such binding authority through treaty."
Mr. Edmondson, the Oklahoma attorney general, effectively stopped the execution the same day the Supreme Court failed to act, and Mr. Torres remains in a sort of limbo, caught between two legal systems. Charlie Price, a spokesman for Mr. Edmondson, said that would continue until the 15 judges in the Netherlands ruled.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Bush's Power to Plan Trial of Detainees Is Challenged
January 16, 2004
By NEIL A. LEWIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/national/16GITM.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - Five uniformed military lawyers assigned to defend detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have filed a brief with the Supreme Court, challenging the basis of President Bush's plan to use military tribunals without civilian court review to try some of the detainees there.
In their 30-page brief, filed late Wednesday, the lawyers assert that President Bush worked to "create a legal black hole" and overstepped his constitutional authority as commander in chief in the way he set up the program for military tribunals.
The administration has argued that the 660 detainees at Guantánamo are not only illegal enemy combatants who are not entitled to protections of international law, but that they are also not entitled to United States constitutional protections because the naval base, on the southeastern tip of Cuba, is not on United States territory.
As such, the government says, the prisoners may not petition the civilian courts for any relief like filing habeas corpus petitions in which people under arrest challenge their detentions before federal judges.
The government has tried to create a military tribunal system thoroughly insulated from the civilian court system. But in their brief, which civilian and military legal experts consider extraordinary because the defense lawyers are military officers challenging their commander in chief's authority, the lawyers are, in effect, trying to jump over the fence into the civilian system.
"Under this monarchical regime, those who fall into the black hole may not contest the jurisdiction, competency or even the constitutionality of the military tribunals," the defense lawyers wrote. They said they were not taking a position on whether the president may deny habeas corpus to people simply detained at Guantánamo, but once he puts them before a tribunal as the government is contemplating, "he has moved outside his role as commander in chief."
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who represents one of two detainees who have been assigned lawyers, said in an interview that though the brief was extraordinary, "It was unavoidable as part of our duty to represent the interests of our clients."
The brief was filed after the justices agreed to review the constitutionality of the Guantánamo detentions, which have been upheld by lower courts.
Other briefs objecting to the detentions include one on behalf of 175 members of the British Parliament who said "the exercise of executive power without possibility of judicial review jeopardizes the keystone of our existence as nations, namely the rule of law."
The Guantánamo situation has been a major irritant in United States-British relations. Anthony Lester, a barrister who filed the brief, said it was unusual for so many members of both houses of Parliament to have rushed to sign the brief, including five former law lords, the rough equivalent of United States Supreme Court justices, two of them former chief law lords.
"This is a remarkable thing and it goes right across any party lines," Lord Lester of Herne Hill said, noting that the signers included many prominent Tories, Labor members and Liberal Democrats.
"One could have gotten a couple of hundred more if one had a few more days," he said.
--------
Rikers Houses Low-Level Inmates at High Expense
January 16, 2004
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/nyregion/16jail.html?pagewanted=all&position=
New York City's Correction Department spent an average of nearly $59,000 per inmate in the 2003 fiscal year. But when all city expenses are factored in - insurance and pension benefits for correction staff, for instance, as well as more than $150 million for jail medical care - the yearly per-inmate cost is closer to $100,000, according to the city's Independent Budget Office.
Either way, the expense of jailing people in the city is especially great, Bloomberg administration officials acknowledge - far more, for instance, than it is in other big cities.
In an effort to limit costs, the city has become much better over the last decade at weeding out people who are accused of crimes but who do not necessarily need to be incarcerated, at a cost of $250 or more a day.
"Some people don't need to be in jail; they can perform community service to pay for their crime," said John Feinblatt, the mayor's criminal justice coordinator. "We've been focusing on those people who belong in jail."
Even so, some criminal justice experts and advocates for alternatives to incarceration say New York City is still wasting money and opportunities to most effectively and humanely handle the roughly 13,500 inmates now at Rikers Island - huge numbers of whom are mentally ill, addicted to drugs or H.I.V.-positive.
"It really doesn't makes sense to spend almost $100,000 a year to keep drug users, petty criminals, people with mental illness jailed," said Nicholas Freudenberg, the director of the Program in Urban Public Health at Hunter College, who spent 15 years doing research in Rikers Island jails. "It's not a good use of public money."
Most Rikers Island inmates have been in jail at least once before, according to Correction Department statistics, and many return to jail several times a year, creating a revolving-door effect in which low-level crimes lead to relatively small punishments, like probation or short jail sentences, that do little to alter criminal behavior.
To help eliminate that cycle, Professor Freudenberg and other experts say, the city should take its turnstile jumpers, open-container violators and other relatively innocuous lawbreakers - many of whom may be homeless, jobless and addicted to drugs - out of jail, where they receive little help. They argue that they should be placed in community-based programs and shelters that help them gain practical skills.
"For $90,000 or $100,000," Professor Freudenberg added, "we could put people in housing, in treatment, in college, a whole range of things that would lead to better outcomes."
Jeremy Travis, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington and former director of the National Institute of Justice under President Bill Clinton, said the goal of groups like his, which advocate offering more alternatives to incarceration, is the same as the city's.
"At the most fundamental level," Mr. Travis said in an interview on Monday, "what we're talking about is how to reduce crime."
New York's jails are significantly more expensive than any other municipal jail system, but even some jail critics say the extra money has helped shape it into a much safer system, with some of the best medical care available to any jail inmate in the nation.
The Los Angeles County jail system, the largest in the nation, spends less than $24,000 per inmate a year, less than half of what the New York Correction Department alone spends. In Chicago, where hundreds of inmates must sleep on floors because of overcrowding, the average cost per inmate is $21,900.
New York City officials said they have already made significant progress in recent years in directing more people who have been accused of crimes, and who would have been sent directly to jail in the past, toward treatment and other alternatives.
In the early 1990's, 24 percent of people arrested in New York were sentenced to jail or prison, Mr. Feinblatt, the mayor's criminal justice expert, said. In 2001, he added, only 15 percent were.
"The trend is clearly saying not everyone needs to go to jail," Mr. Feinblatt said. "You don't treat all detainees as an undifferentiated mass. But you got to be smart. You got to decide who needs careful supervision but can be released, and who needs to remain in jail because they are threat to public safety."
The recent creation of drug courts, which allow nonviolent drug offenders to complete a judge-supervised treatment program instead of prison time, is evidence of the city's "smart on crime" philosophy, Mr. Feinblatt said. In September, the city announced a coordinated effort among several agencies to provide inmates released from jail access to drug treatment, jobs or job training and, where possible, shelter.
But critics like Professor Freudenberg and Mr. Travis, while crediting the city for innovative measures, say more can be done to reduce a jail population that increasingly comprises people accused of low-level crimes.
As the city's crime rate has dropped in recent years, the proportion of city jail inmates accused of misdemeanor crimes has jumped - to 42 percent last year from 29 percent in 1994, according to Correction Department statistics. The criminal justice system should provide alternatives to incarceration to those inmates in jail only because they lack the cash to post a modest bail, Professor Freudenberg said.
"For want of an individual or family having $500, the city spends $250 a day to keep them in a cell," he said.
For all the good intentions on both sides, only measures that create large reductions in the inmate population will lead to significant savings, said Martin F. Horn, the correction commissioner.
Much of that $92,000 the city pays to keep one inmate in jail for a year is tied up in fixed costs - bus fleets, building maintenance, heating fuel and food service operations - immune to a small drop in the jail's population, he said.
"If there were one fewer inmate, I wouldn't save much," Mr. Horn said. "If it were reduced by a thousand, I'd save millions."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
EPA Sued Over Secret Meetings with Chemical Companies
SEATTLE, Washington, (ENS)
January 16, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2004/2004-01-16-09.asp#anchor4
Five conservation and pesticide watchdog groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from giving illegal special access to a group of chemical corporations. The suit alleges that a task force made up of these companies is advocating that the agency circumvent the Endangered Species Act for pesticide uses that harm federally protected species.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and other sources reveal that the task force, made up solely of 14 agro-chemical companies with no public interest representatives, has met regularly with EPA officials in secret and has urged the agency to write new pesticide regulations that would eliminate expert oversight over species protections.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act prohibits the federal government from obtaining advice from committees comprised of only the regulated industry. That act also requires that the meetings of advisory groups be open to the public.
The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Seattle Thursday by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Washington Toxics Coalition, and Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, represented by the environmental law firm Earthjustice.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the EPA to commit to bring its actions into compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
"EPA is letting the pesticide industry have inside influence over the fate of endangered species poisoned by toxic pesticides," said Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman. The lawsuit claims that the chemical companies are pushing the EPA to weaken pesticide safeguards by cutting expert biologists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries out of consultations determining the effects of pesticides on wildlife. At the companies' urging, EPA has starting a rulemaking to reserve authority over such evaluations to itself, the suit alleges.
In 2000, EPA established the chemical industry group, known as the FIFRA Endangered Species Task Force, to develop data disclosing the locations of endangered species.
Over the past year, the task force has shifted its efforts away from generating data toward supporting new pesticide regulations that would eliminate expert oversight. In early 2003, EPA announced its plan to issue such regulations, and it plans to propose the new rules soon, the lawsuit says.
"EPA has an open door policy to the biggest chemical companies in America while excluding the rest of us," said Mike Senatore of Defenders of Wildlife. "That's not right. In America all voices are supposed to be heard, not just wealthy interests that make campaign contributions."
As of March 2003, the companies on the FIFRA Endangered Species Task Force were: Albaugh, Inc., Aventis, BASF Corp, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, LLC, DuPont Ag Products, FMC Corp., ISK Biosciences Corporation, Monsanto Co., Nissan Chemical Industries Ltd, Nufarm Inc., Syngenta, Uniroyal Chemical Co., and Valent USA Corp.
The lawsuit complains that the EPA has not chartered the Task Force under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, has not ensured that Task Force meetings are open to the public, has not made Task Force records available for public inspection, or kept public minutes of Task Force proceedings, or ensured that the Task Force is "fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented," as the act requires.
"For years, EPA has flouted its obligation to protect endangered species from pesticides," said Aaron Colangelo of Natural Resources Defense Council. "Now that the courts are directing EPA to comply with its duties, the pesticide industry and the Bush administration have come up with a new trick for delaying species protections."
-------- genetics
Bioethics Panel Calls for Ban on Radical Reproductive Procedures
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21071-2004Jan15.html
A presidentially appointed bioethics commission yesterday approved near-final wording for its highly anticipated report on human reproductive technologies, calling for enhanced professional guidelines for fertility doctors and a federal ban on certain radical procedures, such as creating animal-human hybrids.
But the report stops short of recommending broad new regulations relating to baby making, which the fertility industry had feared and fought against.
The report, "Biotechnologies Touching the Beginnings of Human Life," will be issued by the President's Council on Bioethics, a panel of scholars and scientists commissioned by President Bush in 2001 and chaired by University of Chicago scientist-philosopher Leon Kass.
The council has previously addressed such intensely controversial issues as human embryonic stem cell research and cloning. But its nine-month foray into human reproductive technologies -- a field that encompasses not only basic research but also a medical specialty that performs 100,000 fertility procedures a year at a cost of about $1 billion -- took the group through especially treacherous political, ethical and economic terrain.
Initial discussions by the council last summer left many fertility specialists convinced the council was, as some said then, "out to get us." Those fears were stoked by recent writings by Kass and other council members expressing grave reservations about the fate of the human race should it continue to tinker with its embryonic roots.
In fact, the council did discuss at length the fertility industry's relatively unregulated status. Concerns were raised about the "slippery slope" that could lead fertility doctors -- or at least a few rogues among them -- to try increasingly far-reaching techniques to achieve pregnancies, at the risk of producing grotesque mistakes.
Several council members were critical of the profession for not proving the safety of its techniques before trying them in women. Early versions of the report called for far more public disclosure of the fates of all embryos made in fertility clinics as well as detailed tracking of the health of all babies born by in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other techniques.
In the latest draft, however, those provisions have been dropped, in part because of concerns that systematic tracking of IVF children would constitute an invasion of their privacy and could stigmatize them. Instead, the council calls for greater attention to professional ethics -- including better informed consent for women about the risks and costs of fertility treatments -- and a federally funded and voluntary study of the health of IVF children.
Initial versions of the report also contained politically divisive language, now removed. Instead of using the word "embryo," for example, early drafts used phrases such as "child to be" or "future child."
All told, Kass said, the draft approved yesterday -- which now faces only minor edits before being released -- is a "modest" document but one that the nation and Congress should be able to get behind.
"It's a community expression of boundaries," Kass said, "and shifts the burden of persuasion to the innovators who want to cross those boundaries."
Beyond its call for professional reforms, the council recommends that Congress at least temporarily prohibit the gestation of human embryos in animal wombs and the fertilization of human eggs with animal sperm, and vice versa.
It also asks Congress to outlaw any transfer of an IVF embryo to a woman's womb for any purpose other than to produce a live-born child -- a measure aimed at preventing the "farming" of fetuses for body parts.
And the draft calls for a ban on the creation of human embryos from cells obtained from a human fetus -- a technique now technically feasible that could lead to the birth of a child whose parent was never born.
"There is a lot to like in this report, and we certainly are pleased to have Dr. Kass and his colleagues join our longtime call for additional federally funded research in this area," said Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which represents fertility doctors and lobbied the council hard.
Congress has long blocked federal spending on human embryo research, leaving it to fertility clinics to finance their own studies. And federal funding for follow-ups of U.S.-born IVF children has been minimal.
The American Infertility Association, representing fertility patients and families, applauded the revised draft, saying in a statement that it was "relieved" the council had decided not to recommend new restrictions on egg and sperm donation or surrogacy arrangements.
-------- imf / world bank / wto
U.S. feels crunch to comply with WTO
January 16, 2004
By Jeffrey Sparshott
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20040115-100126-4179r.htm
The United States this year faces economic pressure to repeal tax laws that help exporters, customs rules that support manufacturers and farmers, and other regulations that trade partners say violate international trade rules.
Like steel tariffs imposed by the Bush administration in March 2002, the World Trade Organization has ruled against U.S. policies that foreign competitors say run afoul of international trade rules. As in the steel case - in which the president rolled back the tariffs days before at least $2.2 billion in sanctions were go into effect - retaliation is fast approaching.
Congress, which is back in session Tuesday, this time has to take the initiative on changing U.S. laws affecting trade or watch U.S. companies lose overseas sales.
"We made some progress last year, but obviously we need to make more this year," said a U.S. trade official who asked not to be named.
The first and biggest item on the agenda deals with tax breaks on exports. The WTO in 2000 ruled that the tax breaks are an illegal subsidy, opening the door to $4 billion in sanctions by the European Union.
The 15-nation bloc plans to impose new trade barriers starting March 1 unless the United States repeals the tax rules, a move that would affect U.S. companies that manufacture jewelry, paper and wood products, leather, machinery, toys and other goods by making them more expensive in Europe.
The barriers are much lower than allowed, starting at 5 percent and increasing by another percentage point each month, but still troublesome for some firms.
"That will cause us a major, incredible problem," said Roz Schott, president of Schott Bros., which exports leather jackets to Europe from its factory in Perth-Amboy, N.J.
Congress last year considered legislation to repeal the subsidy, worth about $50 billion over 10 years to U.S. companies, and also to revamp the corporate tax code.
Separate measures, with marked differences, passed the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance committees. Corporate heavyweights like Caterpillar and Boeing are fighting firms like Exxon Mobil and FedEx over different versions.
"We still hope to bring up the ... bill as early as possible," said a Senate source. The picture is less certain in the House.
While companies and lawmakers hope to dispose of the tax dispute early this year, the second major item on the agenda is less likely to be resolved. The European Union, Japan, Canada, Mexico and seven other nations won a case at the WTO against the so-called Byrd amendment; the United States had until Dec. 27 to comply.
Named for Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who ushered it into law, the measure allows U.S. companies to pocket money from foreign rivals. Duties are imposed on goods from overseas when domestic companies complain they face unfair foreign competition and the U.S. government agrees.
Companies received $329 million in 2002, and preliminary figures show as much as $240 million for 2003.
Before the Byrd amendment went into effect, the funds would go to the U.S. Treasury. Foreign competitors want the law reversed, but 70 senators wrote President Bush last year demanding that it remain on the books.
The European Union, Japan and others applied yesterday for the right to impose sanctions, with the figure yet to be determined.
Countries that threaten to retaliate say they do not want to disrupt trade, and are simply focusing U.S. efforts on fixing laws that violate international trade rules. The strategy can be effective.
"While I would take issue with the suggestion that the U.S. only moves with the threat of retaliation, I would not take issue with the general point ... that retaliation can be a motivating factor for Congress," said John Veroneau, general counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Critics see a disturbing pattern.
Carlo Trojan, EU ambassador to the WTO, in Geneva on Wednesday said the United States has a "quite depressing record" when it comes to obeying WTO rulings, the Associated Press reported.
"The dispute over the Byrd amendment is not an isolated event. ... This mounting record of noncompliance, or at least foot-dragging, calls into question the commitment of the United States to the rules-based trading system," Daniel J. Ikenson, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank that advocates free trade, said in a report released Tuesday.
The Bush administration disputes the overall assessment, but acknowledges that ignoring WTO decisions can create an awkward situation when the United States insists that other members comply with international trade rules.
The lowest profile dispute on this year's agenda involves legislation approved by Congress 88 years ago. The 1916 Anti-Dumping Act allows U.S. companies to sue foreign competitors for damages if they can prove that foreign products sold in the United States are priced below the cost of production with the intent to injure competitors.
A WTO arbitrator this year is expected to decide whether U.S. trade partners could retaliate against the law.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Group fights plan to test MOX fuel
Critics say it's uncertain how substance would react in plant accident
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
JANUARY 16, 2004
BRUCE HENDERSON, Staff Writer
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/7723333.htm
Arguments over Duke Energy's plan to test nuclear power plant fuel containing plutonium continued Thursday before a federal licensing board.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which wants to stop the tests, claims the characteristics of mixed-oxide or MOX fuel aren't known well enough to predict how it would behave during a severe plant accident. Opponents believe the new fuel is more dangerous than normal reactor fuel.
The group also argued for more study of the risks of shipping the surplus weapons plutonium to France, where test fuel assemblies will be made.
Blue Ridge made its arguments before a three-judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, appointed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will decide whether to hold full hearings.
The licensing board also heard arguments against the MOX tests from Blue Ridge and a second opposition group, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, in December. It has not ruled on whether to hold hearings.
Duke and NRC staff argued against the most recent claims, many of which were based on a proposal by a French nuclear institute in October to "close gaps" in some aspects of MOX. France has produced and used mixed-oxide fuel -- a type that does not use weapons-grade plutonium -- in power plants for decades.
A call for further research doesn't constitute the "genuine dispute" of fact needed for the licensing board to recommend a full hearing, Duke argued in a written response to Blue Ridge. The French nuclear institute's research proposal isn't new, Duke said, having been raised in previous years.
The license amendment Duke is seeking would allow it to insert four MOX fuel assemblies among 193 regular assemblies at its Catawba nuclear plant on Lake Wylie, beginning in early 2005. Duke contends MOX and regular fuels will perform essentially the same.
Shipping plutonium to France will be the responsibility of the Department of Energy, not the NRC, Duke said.
Duke will need another license amendment to begin full use of MOX in 2009. If granted, mixed oxide would comprise 40 percent of the fuel at its Catawba and McGuire plant on Lake Norman.
----
Activists Criticize U.S. Economic Policies
By RAJESH MAHAPATRA
Associated Press Writer
Jan 16, 5:26 PM EST
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WORLD_SOCIAL_FORUM?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BOMBAY, India (AP) -- Delegates to an activists' forum charged Friday that the United States uses the specter of terrorism as a pretext for violating human rights and forcing questionable economic policies on other countries.
Organizers of the World Social Forum said about 100,000 anti-globalization and peace activists are gathering here this week as a counterpoint to a meeting of business executives and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.
"Under the pretext of terrorism, the United States has violated all international conventions on human rights," Iran's Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi said at the opening ceremony of the forum.
"We are here to say that humans who are suffering from war have no dignity," added Ebadi, who won the Nobel Prize in 1993.
All through Friday, activists clanged cymbals, banged drums and chanted slogans as they geared up for the forum, where many delegates oppose the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
"The terror of war has brought about a change: the privatization of an entire country," said Jeremy Corbyn, a British lawmaker. He said from Iraq the United States wants to send a message to the world: "The Americans can do it if they want to do it."
The Iraq war, however, also has motivated people from around the world to forge stronger alliances against forces of globalization, Corbyn said.
"It has mobilized young people in a way I had not thought before," he said, recalling last year's historic rally of one million war protesters in London.
On Friday, people carried placards with anti-war messages such as "Stop USA" and "Speak up against George Bush."
The six-day event features 1,000 conferences, workshops and cultural programs. Participants took the anti-globalization theme to heart with food stalls barring multinational brands such as Coke and Pepsi and running computers on Linux - the free software that is an alternative to Microsoft Windows.
Organizers also chose not to accept money for the $1.8 million event from the U.S.-based Ford Foundation, but took donations from Britain's Oxfam and Canada's state-run humanitarian agency.
"This forum will blow up the myth that there is no alternative," said W.R. Varada Rajan, a trade union leader at the gathering. "It will also explode the myth that this model of globalization has universal acceptance."
India was chosen for this year's meeting to ensure greater participation from Africa and Asia, said Chiko Whitaker, an organizer of the previous forums, which were held in Brazil.
"There's no one single viewpoint here," Swedish activist Ossian Theselius said.
Perched on a metal and wooden scaffolding along with an Indian and Swedish artist, Theselius added black and green strokes to a large canvas depicting a gun, tanks and bullets that overshadowed crowded shanties and closed factories.
"This is about globalization, about war, about violence, about the right to live," said Theselius.
A forum statement said Bombay bore the brunt of India's economic liberalization polices, with millions losing their jobs as a result.
----
Hundreds protest Bush's visit to King's grave site
January 16, 2004
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040115-112508-7194r.htm
ATLANTA - Hundreds of protesters chanting "Bush Go Home" pushed past Secret Service barricades yesterday to protest the president's visit to the tomb of Martin Luther King on what would have been the slain civil rights leader's 75th birthday.
Two persons were arrested as the protesters shoved their way into the street in front of King's tomb, abandoning an area several hundred yards away that had been designated as the official protest site.
Police estimated the crowd at 700, but none of the protesters got close to Mr. Bush. Law enforcement officials, both local and federal, placed five city buses between the protesters and the president, who could not see them but surely could hear them.
The protesters, many of whom were white, chanted "Peace, Not War," and some carried signs that said: "Bush Zionist Puppet," "Bush You Stink," "Impeach The Liar," and "Money For Jobs And Housing, Not War."
As Mr. Bush arrived, some in the crowd pounded on the sides of the buses, but no one was injured and the crowd dispersed soon after the president's 15-minute stop. Mr. Bush was accompanied by King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and sister, Christine King Farris. The president placed the wreath, bowed his head for a few moments, and departed without speaking or facing the protesters as the boos from the crowd increased.
His visit to the tomb upset some civil rights activists, who said the president's policies on Iraq, affirmative action and funding for social services conflict with King's legacy.
"We question the integrity of the timing of the move because last year at this time he stood a stand against affirmative action," said Sheriee Bowman, a spokeswoman for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
"Doctor King had a philosophy and left a message. We urge the president to take a look at Doctor King's message and to create policies that mirror that message," she said.
Officials at the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the organization founded by King's widow, said they extended no formal invitation to Mr. Bush but accepted his offer to come.
"Out of respect for that office and out of respect for Doctor King, he's coming," Lynn Cothren, an assistant to Mrs. King, told the Associated Press.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president's brief stop - a visit every recent president has made at least once in his term - was intended as a tribute to "Doctor King's legacy, his vision and his lifetime of service."
"This is a way to honor a lifetime dedicated to fighting for equal opportunity and equal justice for all people," he said.
Earlier in the day, when Mr. Bush visited a black church in New Orleans, he noted that King had once spoken there.
"I'm really not worthy to stand here," he said. "This is the very place where Martin Luther King stood, as well, some 42 years ago. It's from this pulpit that he preached. Today would have been his 75th birthday. It's important for our country to honor his life and what he stood for.
"Doctor King understood that faith is power greater than all others. That's what he knew. It's an important lesson for us to remember here in America, that God's word can humble the mighty, can lift up the meek, and can bring comfort and strength to all who yearn for justice and freedom," he said.
Mr. Bush later attended a fund-raiser in downtown Atlanta, where Sen. Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat, endorsed his run for president. The fund-raiser brought in $1.3 million; the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign also collected $1 million in an earlier fund-raiser in New Orleans.
--------
Protesters Chant and Boo as Bush Honors Dr. King
January 16, 2004
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/national/16BUSH.html
ATLANTA, Jan. 15 - President Bush made a swing through the South on Thursday with an appeal to black voters, but encountered emotional protests when he stopped here to lay a wreath at the grave of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mr. Bush was met by hundreds of demonstrators when he arrived at The King Center to mark the 75th anniversary of Dr. King's birth. He was shielded from their view by a row of transit-authority buses with police officers in riot gear atop them, according to the pool reporter who accompanied the president into the center.
But the chants and boos of the protesters were audible as Mr. Bush, accompanied by Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and his sister, Christine King Farris, approached the crypt, laid the wreath and paused briefly in prayer before leaving without making any public remarks.
Outside, the protesters chanted "Bush go home" and "Peace, not war."
Before Mr. Bush's arrival for the 15-minute stop, some of the protesters broke through barriers around the center. Two arrests were made, the Atlanta police said, and the incident prompted the authorities to place the buses between the demonstrators and the president.
The White House had arranged for Mr. Bush to stop at Dr. King's grave on a day when the president was scheduled to be in Atlanta for a fund-raiser. Sheriee Bowman, a spokeswoman for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said the group respected the president's right to pay tribute to Dr. King. But she suggested that the civil rights organization saw Mr. Bush's presence as politically motivated.
"We question the integrity of the timing of the move because last year at this time he took a stand against affirmative action, the Michigan case, which is part of Dr. King's legacy," Ms. Bowman said, referring to the Supreme Court case that considered the use of race in college admissions.
Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's spokesman, said before Mr. Bush's arrival here that the visit was intended as a tribute to Dr. King.
"Dr. King had a tremendously positive influence in shaping the world we live in today for the better, and this is a way to honor a lifetime dedicated to fighting for opportunity and equal justice for all people," Mr. McClellan said.
The protests came during a one-day trip by Mr. Bush to Louisiana and Georgia. He also made an appearance at a predominantly black church in New Orleans and held two fund-raisers, one in New Orleans and one in Atlanta, which brought in $2.3 million for his re-election campaign.
Mr. Bush's effort to reach out to black voters reflected a belief among his political advisers that his electoral standing in the South was so strong among his conservative base that he had an opportunity to broaden his support.
To highlight the inroads he has already made, he arranged to be introduced at his fund-raiser here on Thursday evening by Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, a Democrat who called Mr. Bush a president with "a good heart and a spine of steel." Also on hand to throw their support to the Bush-Cheney ticket were other prominent Georgia Democrats, including Griffin Bell, who was attorney general under President Jimmy Carter.
Black voters are among the Democratic Party's most loyal, and only about 8 percent of them voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. But Mr. Bush has made repeated efforts to build his support among African-Americans. Often, as he did at the Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans on Thursday, he seeks to do so by appearing with black religious leaders and at black churches to promote his efforts to direct more federal money to religion-based social welfare programs.
"Dr. King understood that faith is power greater than all others," Mr. Bush said, noting that Dr. King had preached from the same pulpit in 1961.
Mr. Bush spoke about the power of faith to change lives in personal terms at the church. At a discussion with members of the church and community leaders, Mr. Bush recounted his decision to stop drinking. "I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't ask for Christ's help in my heart," he said.
Later, during his speech in the church, there were repeated murmurs and shouts of assent and approval from the largely black audience as Mr. Bush discussed harnessing the power of religion and the resources of churches, synagogues and mosques to help people in need.
"This country must not fear the influence of faith in the future of this country," Mr. Bush said. "We must welcome faith in order to make America a better place. "
But Mr. Bush clearly has an uphill battle to win broad support among minority voters, especially with the economy still slow to create jobs and unemployment rates among black workers remaining much higher than among whites.
"Bush was not invited," said Lance Grimes, 55, a black social worker who lives in Decatur, Ga., and was part of the demonstration at The King Center. "It is a desecration for him to lay a wreath at the tomb of Dr. King. He is diametrically opposed to everything Dr. King stood for. With all due respect, Coretta Scott King is making a tactical mistake."
--------
Shiites Protest U.S. Plan For Iraq
Thousands in Basra Demand Direct Vote
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21237-2004Jan15.html
BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- Tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims demonstrated Thursday in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, against a U.S. plan to put an unelected, temporary Iraqi government in power by July 1.
The large crowd, estimated by British soldiers to number as many as 30,000, marched through Basra chanting "No, no USA. Yes, yes for elections" and "Yes, yes Islam. No, no occupation," according to news service reports. They also held up pictures of Shiite leaders, particularly Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's highest-ranking Shiite cleric, who spoke out on Sunday against the U.S. outline for political transition.
Under the Bush administration's plan, which was approved by Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council on Nov. 15, caucuses would be held in Iraq's 18 provinces to choose representatives to a transitional assembly. The assembly would then choose the provisional government to which the U.S.-led occupation authority is to transfer sovereignty by July 1.
Sistani, however, has said repeatedly that direct elections are the only acceptable means for selecting members of the transitional assembly.
In Najaf, the Shiite holy city where Sistani has his base of operations, posters plastered on walls warned, "Forming the provisional national assembly through an unjust method will subject the Iraqi people to a new round of oppression."
Shiites, who account for an estimated 60 percent of the Iraqi population and are concentrated largely in the southern part of the country, were harshly repressed during deposed president Saddam Hussein's long rule. Mass graves containing the remains of thousands of Shiite victims of the Hussein government have been uncovered since U.S. troops occupied the country. The overthrow of Hussein presents them with their first chance in centuries to rule Iraq.
Sistani met with leading clerics Tuesday in Najaf, and one participant said afterward that jihad, or holy war, was "in the air." While Sistani made no move toward urging violence against occupation forces, the participant said, he did approve Thursday's large demonstration in Basra and smaller ones in several other cities.
The Basra demonstration was peaceful, in contrast with recent protests over unemployment there and in other Shiite towns. But a speaker at a Basra mosque threatened violence if Sistani's demand was not met.
"We do not want to resort to violence, but if it reaches a stalemate, then the coalition will face the wrath of the Iraqi people," Ali Hakim Safi, a senior Basra cleric, told the crowd.
Safi hinted that Sistani is looking for a compromise of some sort, and he suggested that one might emerge from the United Nations. A delegation from the Governing Council and L. Paul Bremer, Iraq's civilian administrator, are to meet Monday with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York.
"Of course the U.N. is international and we have to go to it to resolve political problems," Safi said. "The U.N. has to have some solution for this."
The BBC reported, meanwhile, that Safi sent a letter to President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair questioning the sincerity of the plans to transfer power to Iraqis. Safi warned the two leaders that they would drag their countries into a losing battle if they did not let Iraqis choose their own institutions, the BBC said.
Another leading Shiite cleric told Abu Dhabi television that "if Bremer rejects the opinion of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, then he will issue a fatwa to deprive the elected council of its legitimacy."
"Then the Iraqi people will not obey this council, which we call a council made of paper and a U.S.-elected council," said Mohammed Baqir Mehri, Sistani's representative in Kuwait.
----
Israeli refuseniks stage protest opposite settlers
16 Jan 2004
By Yann Tessier
(Reuters)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16207715.htm
KISSUFIM CHECKPOINT, Israel, Jan 16 - Israeli reservists who refuse to serve in occupied territory protested for peace at Israel's border with the Gaza Strip on Friday just metres away from settlers holding a counter-demonstration. It was the first ever joint demonstration by reservist pilots, elite commandos and infantry troops who signed separate letters stating their refusal to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"Peace, Yes. Occupation, No," the reservists chanted. One of the 70 protesters raised a poster saying: "We won't kill for you."
Over one hundred settlers, many of them women and children, chanted slogans in front of Israeli police officers separating them from the reservist protesters.
"This is our land and we won't give it to anyone," several young girls screamed.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon raised the possibility this week that the army would one day leave the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel since 1967.
Israeli forces are particularly exposed in the coastal territory where some 8,000 Jewish settlers live under heavy military protection near more than one million Palestinians.
The Jewish state has seen a rise in the number of reservists refusing to serve in occupied land. Twenty-seven pilots and 13 commandos from elite military units have shocked the country in recent months with their refusal letters.
Nearly 600 other reservists have refused to serve as part of the "courage to refuse" movement, and many have been sentenced to short prison terms.
"It is a positive show and a positive indicator. We hope that tendency will extend to include more and more of the Israelis," Palestinian cabinet minister Ghassan al-Khatib said.
Most Israeli men are obliged to serve one month of reserve duty each year after completing three years of army service.
(additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi)
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