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NUCLEAR
DEMOCRACY NOW! Confronts Wesley Clark
Musharraf vows harsh punishment for nuke proliferators
Pakistan Said to Investigate Nuclear Scientist's Real Estate Holdings
Pakistan: Nuke Scientists Leaked Secrets
Father of Pakistani Bomb Is Key Nuclear Suspect
Pakistan's Nuclear Plotters
Ex-Inspector Says C.I.A. Missed Disarray in Iraqi Arms Program
Kay: Lack of Iraqi WMD Requires Review
Arab League calls for IAEA inspections of Israel's nuclear sites
Japan's Chubu Electric delays nuke reactor restart
Non-Proliferation Not Enough
Japan Lawmakers Agree on North Korea Bill
Syria Scoffs at U.S. Claim It Has Iraqi Weapons
U.S. Lawmakers Make Landmark Libya Visit
Americans Meet Gadhafi, Tour Nuclear Site
Watchdog: Nuke Guards Cheated in Drill
Safety of Adding to Nuclear Plants' Capacity Is Questioned
Preview spoils nuclear plant security test
Wackenhut counters report; says Y-12 security never better
Homer Simpson let loose on US nuclear weapons facility
Congressional Budget Office Projects $477 Billion Deficit
Cheney Is a Silent Partner No Longer
White House Retreats From Weapons Claims
White House to Review Prewar Intelligence on Iraqi Arms
MILITARY
Afghan War Curbs al-Qaida Arms Program
Afghan constitution signed into law
EU's Solana signals support for lifting China arms embargo
E.U. may drop China arm sales ban
France urges end to 'outdated' EU ban on arms sales to China
Euro-MP slams French push to lift China arms ban
France wants "outdated" EU China arms ban lifted by March
After Decades, Saigon Figure Visits Vietnam With U.S. Nod
Britain snubs BAE and Boeing in multi-billion dollar aircraft order
Hitler's chemical weapons a seeping menace
OAS to Monitor Disarmament Of Colombian Paramilitary Units
Iran Council Rejects Electoral Reform
Iran Council Vetoes Challenge
Guardian Council sticks to hard line
Delays and Split on Iraqi Council Imperil U.S. Plan
Iraqi Melting Pot Nears Boiling Point
Top cleric spurns U.S. plans
U.S. Searches for Missing G.I. and Two Pilots in Iraq
Rocket Lands in U.S. Iraq Compound
Kurds Await Iraq's Embrace, and Hope It's Not Too Tight
U.S. Helicopter Crashes During Search in Iraq
Hezbollah Hails Trading of Prisoners
Israeli Court Suspends Expulsion of Soldier's Palestinian Father
Israel Soldiers Unearth Bodies Before Swap
Former Dutch PM quizzed on NATO bombing of Serbia
Albright happy at Latvia's joining NATO
New NATO chief in favor of alliance role in Iraq
Powell, in Russia, Raises U.S. Concerns With Putin
Military brains ignoring defence minister
Push for Democracy Has Authoritarians Unnerved
CIA told to explain lapses in Iraq data
Rights Groups Decry Russian Spy Case
Whistle-Blower Advocate Starts Work at Pentagon
The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
Bush Weapons Glance
Cluster Bombs: War Crimes of the Bush Administration
One man and his monsters
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
White House May Be Probed on CIA Leak
Part of Patriot Act ruled unconstitutional
Supreme Court Reaffirms Miranda Ruling
L.A. judge cites vagueness in Patriot Act
Supreme Court to Consider Banning Execution of Teens
California's New Standard of Law and Order
Rights Group: Iraq War Was 'Not Humanitarian'
Illegal criminal aliens abound in U.S.
Whistleblower Coming In Cold From the F.B.I.
OTHER
Judge Guards Northwest Salmon Against 38 Pesticides
Wal-Mart to Stop Selling Ozone Depleting Refrigerants
Bird Flu Spreads in Asia and Claims a 7th Victim
Governments Across Southeast Asia Work to Contain Bird Flu
ACTIVISTS
The New American Century
Kathy Kelly sentenced to three months in federal prison
Top Ten Responses To -- "I Love Kucinich But He Can't Win"
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
DEMOCRACY NOW!
Confronts Wesley Clark Over His Bombing Of Civilians, Use Of Cluster Bombs And Depleted Uranium And The Bombing Of Serb Television
EXCLUSIVE: Democracy Now!
Monday, January 26th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/26/1632224#transcript
In a Democracy Now! exclusive, General Wesley Clark responds for the first time to in-depth questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander. Click here to read transcript of Jeremy Scahill questioning General Wesley Clark
Since the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark has not answered any in-depth questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander.
With the New Hampshire primary just 24 hours away, the remaining Democratic candidates are in their final push to win votes in the key poll in the Granite state. Whether or not Howard Dean wins or loses, he set the tone very early for what has become a definitive issue in the race early on: opposition to the war in Iraq. Among the Democrats, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun held the most clear antiwar stances. But Braun has pulled out of the race, Al Sharpton is not in New Hampshire and Dennis Kucinich - well the media hardly gives him any airtime.
With the exception of Senator Joseph Lieberman, all of the candidates have sought to portray themselves as opponents of the war. But only Kucinich has announced a concrete plan for withdrawing US forces from Iraq. The theme of Iraq is the main issue on which General Wesley Clark is running his campaign.
- Gen. Wesley Clark, speaking at a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on January 24, 2004.
TRANSCRIPT
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We went to war with Iraq without an imminent threat from Iraq. Without any connection between Iraq and the events of 9-11. We went to war with Iraq before all diplomatic options were exhausted. We went to war with Iraq without our allies all on board. We went to war with Iraq without a clear understanding and a plan for what was going to happen when we did get to Baghdad, and we didn't have the forces on hand to handle the situation. In short, I don't consider the war with Iraq patriotic. It was simply bad leadership and deceptive practices. It was wrong, and I'm going to hold the president of the United States accountable. He didn't do the right thing for America. It's that simple. He didn't do it!
Clark portrays himself as the antiwar warrior and his rhetoric against the war has escalated significantly over the past week of campaigning in New Hampshire. At his campaign stops, he has been saying regularly, "The war is wrong."
This is not always what he said as one voter pointed out to him onstage.
- Gen. Wesley Clark, responding to a voter asking about his previous comments on Iraq as a CNN commentator.
TRANSCRIPT
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I was a military analyst and so I looked at everything in great detail. I wasn't allowed on television to talk politics at all. I testified in front of the senate, but the "Boston Globe" did a long piece on my military stuff about three or four days ago. You can find it there. Joanna Weiss wrote it, and she said what's changed is my rhetoric. My rhetoric has changed, because when I wasn't a politician, I couldn't speak out this forcefully, because I didn't have any basis for doing it. I had a military commentary that I gave. I said from the beginning of the war with Iraq, that Iraq wasn't an imminent threat. I said in the beginning that we shouldn't rush into war. I said that it was an elective war. I always believed that he had weapons of mass destruction because that's what the intelligence told us. And I wasn't -- I didn't know how much to rely on the intelligence. In fact, at one point, I had lunch with a bunch of other retired generals, with Donald Rumsfeld just a few months in front of the war and Rumsfeld told me that he knew where 30% of the weapons were. Well, if the secretary of defense tells you personally, I still didn't think it was an imminent threat, but I wasn't privy to the intelligence. He was. They misled the American people, so I didn't think we had to go to war, but I will admit my rhetoric has gotten harsher and tougher since then because I think they misled us. I think it was deliberate. I found out that Rumsfeld on 9-11 that he said he was going to try to use it to take us to war with Saddam Hussein. I have never been inconsistent.
This is in sharp contrast to statements Clark made as a commentator on CNN before the bombing last year. In January, Clark told CNN, "He [Hussein] does have weapons of mass destruction." When asked, "And you could say that categorically?" Clark responded: "Absolutely."
In February, Clark told CNN, "The credibility of the United States is on the line, and Saddam Hussein has these weapons and so, you know, we're going to go ahead and do this and the rest of the world's got to get with us...The U.N. has got to come in and belly up to the bar on this. But the president of the United States has put his credibility on the line, too. And so this is the time that these nations around the world, and the United Nations, are going to have to look at this evidence and decide who they line up with."
Immediately following the fall of Baghdad to US forces, Clark responded to a question about finding the alleged weapons of mass destruction, saying: "I think they will be found. There's so much intelligence on this."
But as Clark speaks out about the war in Iraq, his own record in a different war is almost never examined. That is his role as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 78 day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Sure, the Clark campaign promotes this in its TV ads - but they say that he liberated a nation and ended a genocide. Clark mentions it often in his stump speeches and the debates. But as a qualification to be commander-in-chief.
What is not discussed is what Clark actually did when he was running a war.
Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill covered the 78 day bombing of Yugoslavia from the ground in 1999, the war Clark was leading as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Jeremy is now in New Hampshire and joins us on the line from Concord, New Hampshire.
- Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent speaking from Concord, New Hampshire.
Since the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark has not answered any in-depth questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander.
This weekend, we had a chance to ask Clark some questions he has never faced before. After a rally where Clark was filming a TV commercial for his campaign, Jeremy and I made our way to the stage. As we attempted to question General Clark, we were told by his press people that he would not be taking questions from reporters. As he was heading backstage, Jeremy approached Clark.
- Gen. Wesley Clark, being questioned by Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill.
TRANSCRIPT:
JEREMY SCAHILL: In Yugoslavia, you used cluster bombs and depleted uranium...
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Sure did.
JEREMY SCAHILL: I want to know if you are president, will you vow not to use them.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I will use whatever it takes that's legal to protect the men and women against force.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Even against civilians in the Nis marketplace? Why bomb Radio Television Serbia? Why did you bomb Radio Television Serbia? You killed 16 media workers, sir.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They were-[in audible - Interview interrupted by another questioner.]
That was Clark making an exit off the stage. We followed him as he left the theater and walked down the streets of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shaking hands, signing autographs, talking to potential voters. As he was entering a business establishment, Jeremy Scahill again approached the General.
- Gen. Wesley Clark, being questioned by Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill.
TRANSCRIPT:
JEREMY SCAHILL: General Clark, on that issue of the bombing of Radio Television Serbia, Amnesty International called it a war crime.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Excuse me -- I'm not --
JEREMY SCAHILL: Amnesty called it a war crime and it's condemned by all journalist organizations in the world. It killed makeup artists.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I want to answer this fellow. Because the truth was that that -- first of all, we gave warnings to Milosevic that that was going to be struck. I personally called the CNN reporter and had it set up so that it would be leaked, and Milosevic knew. He had the warning because after he got the warning, he actually ordered the western journalists to report there as a way of showing us his power, and we had done it deliberately to sort of get him accustomed to the fact that he better start evacuating it. There were actually six people who were killed, as I recall.
JEREMY SCAHILL: There were 16.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I recall six.
JEREMY SCAHILL: I was there at the time and I knew the families. They do hold Milosevic accountable and they also hold you accountable, sir.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They were ordered to stay there.
JEREMY SCAHILL: And they were makeup artists, and they were engineers, and they were technicians
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I remember reading the story, but I want to tell you about it.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Amnesty International said you committed a war crime by bombing that.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was all looked at by the International Criminal Tribunal crime by Yugoslavia. All of my actions were examined and they were all upheld by the highest law in the United States.
JEREMY SCAHILL: And you think a media outlet is a legitimate target?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, but when it is used as command and control, it is. But then
JEREMY SCAHILL: Even if it kills...
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Now wait a minute, you have to let me finish and then I will let you finish.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Go ahead.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What I said is, we would give them the warnings. It was part of the command and control systems. It was approved as a legitimate target under the laws of land warfare and went through the U.S. Government. That was the basis on which we struck. We actually called the bombers back one time, because there was still -- it was still unclear to us that we weren't absolutely certain. What we know is that Milosevic ordered them to stay there, and it was wrong, but I was doing my duty, and I have been looked at by the law, so -- I mean, I respect Amnesty International. I think they're a good organization, but --
JEREMY SCAHILL: But do you feel any remorse for the killing of civilians that you essentially were overseeing?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, I do.
JEREMY SCAHILL: And what about the bombing of the Nis marketplace with cluster bombs, shredding human beings.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was terrible, but you know in that instance, if we had got the same incident, there was a cluster bomb that opened prematurely. It was an accident. And every one of these incidents was fully investigated. All of the material from the Yugoslavian government was given to the International Criminal Tribunal, plus as the NATO commander, I made a full report to the International Criminal Tribunal. It was all investigated. The pilots who did it, nobody could have felt worse than the pilots who did it. And I got a letter from a man in Serbia who said you killed my granddaughter on a schoolyard at Nis. I know how he must have felt. And I felt so helpless about it. Every night before I let those bombs go, I prayed we wouldn't kill innocent people. But unfortunately, when you are at war, terrible things happen, even when you don't want them to. You can't imagine what those pilots felt like in those convoys when they struck the convoys. You remember the convoys?
JEREMY SCAHILL: In Gurdulica were the 72 Albanians were killed.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: In that place, too. And they had flown over it a couple of times. You know, we just -- we were trying to establish some kind of communications on the ground with the Albanians. The Serbs were on the nets, and they were jamming all of the communications, and they were doing imitative communications deception. And nobody could get the truth about it. We saw the Serb vehicles around the place. And I didn't make the decision, but they were following orders on my command. And it was looked at, and so forth. The decision was made as a legitimate target. It turned out that they had been ordered to stay in there by the Serbs. The Serbs were surrounding the place to keep them penned in. It was horrible. You never forget stuff like that. That's why when this government has used force as it has, it makes me so angry. Because these people in the White House don't understand -- you don't use force except as a last, last, last resort.
JEREMY SCAHILL: On April 12th you targeted a passenger train, and then you showed a video that was sped up at three time the speed. Why?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think -- first of all, the passenger train was not targeted. The pilot's instructions were to go after a bridge, and not the train. He felt, as he launched that missile, that all of a sudden at the very last minute, the train suddenly came into his field of view. I showed the tape. I did not know that the tape was accelerated. I don't think it was three times. I think it was one-and-a-half times. Whatever it was, it was going faster than the actual speed. It made it look like it was --
JEREMY SCAHILL: But the Supreme Allied Commander, you are ultimately responsible for all of the information that came out.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's true. I was.
JEREMY SCAHILL: What the actual in real-time speed showed is that the pilot actually moved the target so that it would hit the train.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't have that information.
JEREMY SCAHILL: 12 people were killed, including an orthodox priest.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's terrible. But, I don't have the information. When I looked at it, we didn't see that. All of the material was sent to The Hague and they did not see that either.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Do you think you owe the people of Serbia who died in that war an apology?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I don't because I did my duty as the commander for NATO and for the United States. I think Slobodan Milosevic owes the people of Serbia an apology, because we acted to prevent regional destabilization, and to be honest, when you take the kinds of actions that he has done, he was the proximate cause. All we tried to do was head off the ethnic cleansing through diplomacy, and basically, he had a plan to go to war, no matter what.
JEREMY SCAHILL: But now the U.S. is supporting a regime of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo where all minorities have been forced out, including almost every single Serb.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well you know, we are trying very hard not to allow that to happen. And we have worked very hard with the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs, but to be honest with you that regime that's north of the Ibar River is a regime that wants to prevent Serbs from living peacefully with Kosovo Albanians. So, both sides have to share the blame. They have been under the control of Seselj and also some under Milosevic and their tactic in 1999 was to provoke the retaliation by the Albanians to be able to blame the Albanians for reverse ethnic cleansing. There were -- there were crimes on both sides and they needed to be investigated. To the best of my ability as NATO commander at the time, we did.
JEREMY SCAHILL: But then why -- you have a man like Agim Ceku in power, a man who was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs at Kraina, a man trained by MPRI in Virginia. Why put a man like that in charge? What kind of message does that send to ethnic minorities in Kosovo, when a man who is a basically a war criminal is in charge of what is going to be the future army in Kosovo.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, we looked at his record and it's not clear that he's going to be in charge of the future army of Kosovo. He did receive instruction from a contracted U.S. firm at MPRI. He received basic information after he became there in charge of the Kosovo protective corps. We thought that was the best way to maintain order and security in the country.
JEREMY SCAHILL: He has been accused of hate speech by the United Nations.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Lots of people in that part of the world have been accused of hate speech, and they shouldn't do it. I met with Agim Ceku a few times when I was over there, and I told him who I thought about it. I don't accept that language.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Do you think that he should be in a position of power in Kosovo?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you know, I'm so far removed from the issues right now --
JEREMY SCAHILL: But you know him.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But I can't - yeah - I know him, but what I have seen of him, he is the one of the more reasonable people in that region.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Because in your ads you say you liberated a nation. And that's why I am asking you this question.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The thing is I have got to talk to some other voters. Is that okay? Can you excuse me?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Absolutely. Thank you very much.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I am trying to answer all your questions.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Thank you I appreciate it. Thank you for being patient with me.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.
To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359.
-------- india / pakistan
Musharraf vows harsh punishment for nuke proliferators
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126144346.3tjh5cyb.html
President Pervez Musharraf, blaming individual Pakistani scientists and the world black market for nuclear proliferation, pledged "harsh" punishment Monday for Pakistanis who sold secrets to Iran and other countries.
Musharraf reiterated to a meeting of top officials that any scientist found guilty would be "severely" punished.
"A high-level meeting chaired by President Musharraf reviewed the whole case in the light of information received from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Iran and Libya," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told a press conference.
"The meeting reiterated that those found guilty will be dealt with severely and those found innocent will be allowed to go home."
Earlier Musharraf told the BBC "we will punish them."
"And we will be very harsh with them because they are enemies of state and they have done something for personal and financial gain," he said in an interview.
About a dozen nuclear scientists and administrators, including the "father" of Pakistan's bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan, are under investigation for allegedly selling nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and possibly other countries in the 1980s and 1990s.
Interrogations of the scientists have sent shockwaves through Pakistan, where nuclear experts are revered as national heroes for their contributions to making Pakistan a nuclear power. All except Khan have been detained.
The minister said seven people were still under investigation, four of them were associated with the security matters.
Four others were cleared by the investigators. "One or two more are expected to be released shortly while the whole process of investigation is likely to be over by the end of this month, Rashid said.
The purpose of the probe is "not to disgrace the scientists. We accord our scientists full respect," Rashid said, adding that those undergoing debriefing have not been arrested. "There are no restrictions on doctor Qadeer Khan."
The independent Human Rights Commission urged transparency in the secretive probe and said the detainees should be produced in court.
"It must be noted that transparency can help remove many doubts about the nature of the action taken," it said in a statement.
The government probe, under way since December, was prompted by information from the IAEA and subsequent trips by Pakistani investigators to Iran, Libya and IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
Musharraf told the BBC "some unscrupulous individuals" may have taken advantage of the autonomy given to A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Pakistan's key uranium enrichment facility, in the late 1980s and 1990s as it helped develop Pakistan's nuclear program.
"Within that ambit of that autonomy and security some unscrupulous individuals may have gotten involved," he told the BBC.
He said they could have acted "unilaterally, without the knowledge" of then governments or military chiefs, rejecting reports that have named a former military chief, General Aslam Beg, as approving the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran under the former governments of Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Musharraf and other officials have repeatedly said that no government or military institutions were involved in sharing nuclear techonology and know-how.
But observers are sceptical that such strategic security information could have been passed overseas without higher approval.
"The transfer of such materials is impossible without explicit permission from the security apparatus that constantly surrounds the nuclear establishment, installations and personnel," Pervez Hoodbhoy, professor of physics at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, told AFP.
"It would've been impossible without explicit permission from the highest levels of those in charge of security."
Musharraf in several weekend remarks pointed to an international black market of nuclear technology traders, fuming that only Pakistan has been under the media's spotlight.
"What about the individuals in Europe? And I know that there has been found in Europe (people) involved in the fabrication of the equipment, and that needs very high technology," he told the BBC.
----
Pakistan Said to Investigate Nuclear Scientist's Real Estate Holdings
January 26, 2004
New York Times
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/asia/26STAN.html?pagewanted=all
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 25 - Pakistani investigators are looking into the vast real estate holdings of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, and into Mr. Khan's and other nuclear scientists' bank accounts, Pakistani officials said Sunday.
"Investigators are looking into all dimensions, including financial dimensions," said a senior Pakistani official. He said offshore accounts "are part of the investigation."
The comments came as a leading Pakistani newspaper, The News, reported that investigators had discovered that millions of dollars were deposited in the bank accounts in Dubai of two senior Pakistani nuclear scientists as nuclear hardware arrived in Iran. The report in The News, citing unidentified government sources, did not identify the scientists.
The newspaper also said a senior scientist had been found to have tens of millions of dollars' worth of financial and real estate holdings in Pakistan and overseas, primarily in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The senior scientist also paid a Pakistani newspaper editor in Islamabad to run a publicity campaign, publish books and organize seminars praising the scientist, The News reported.
The senior government official said he could not comment on the details of the investigation. But a former senior intelligence official with knowledge of the probe said Dr. Khan and a close aide, Dr. Mohammed Farooq, are its focus.
"They are not naming them but we know that the two main suspects are A. Q. Khan and Dr. Farooq," said the former intelligence official. "A. Q. Khan's interests in the real estate have been known to us for quite some time. So this has not come as a big surprise."
Pakistani officials are expected to announce soon the results of an inquiry into whether the country's nuclear technology was shared with Iran and Libya. The inquiry was begun after Iran gave the International Atomic Energy Agency a list of scientists and middlemen who it said had aided its nuclear weapons program. The agency, the United Nation's nuclear regulatory body, conveyed the list to Pakistan in November.
It included the names of several Pakistanis and Europeans, Pakistani officials have said. Teams of Pakistani investigators have gone to Iran, Pakistan and Vienna to investigate.
The United States has also presented Pakistan with evidence of proliferation, American officials say. American intelligence officials contend that Pakistan has provided nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, which would make it one of the world's most active proliferators.
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, a general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, said Friday that the government had never approved such transfers or sales, but that "some individuals" may have sold technology for their own personal gain.
In Pakistan on Sunday, accusations persisted that the nuclear scientists are being made scapegoats by the country's powerful army. A wide range of Pakistani analysts question how nuclear scientists who were kept under tight surveillance could have transferred technology without the knowledge of the powerful military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.
In Rawalpindi on Sunday, several hundred supporters of an alliance of hard-line Islamist parties protested the investigation, The Associated Press reported. A relative of Dr. Farooq, the aide to Dr. Khan under investigation, said in a telephone interview that government officials had the scientist's family under surveillance and are intimidating them.
The relative insisted that Dr. Farooq, who was in charge of overseas procurement at the country's premier nuclear facility and has been in detention since Nov. 22, is being made a scapegoat because he has no connections with the country's powerful military.
"They are following us," said the relative. "They are threatening us."
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan, for this article.
--------
Pakistan: Nuke Scientists Leaked Secrets
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Nuclear-Detentions.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's government on Monday made its clearest public statement yet that scientists of its secretive nuclear weapons program leaked technology and would face legal action.
The government said its two-month probe into allegations of nuclear technology proliferation to Iran and Libya was near completion.
``One or two people acted in an irresponsible manner for personal profit. Money is involved in the matter. I am not naming any scientist,'' Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a news conference in the capital, Islamabad.
Ahmed, the top government spokesman, made the comments amid fevered speculation that leading scientists will face prosecution.
Pakistan began its probe into its nuclear program and possible proliferation to Iran in late November after admissions made by Tehran to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. Allegations also have surfaced that Pakistani technology spread to Libya and North Korea as well.
Pakistan's government denies it authorized any transfers of weapons technology to other countries, but says individuals may have done so for their own profit.
Ahmed said three scientists and four security officials of the Khan Research Laboratories were still detained and that questioning would wind up within days.
Media reports have identified the key suspects as the lab's former director-general Dr. Mohammed Farooq, held for nearly two months, and the lab's founder, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, long regarded as a national hero.
Khan has not been detained, but an acquaintance has said he is confined to Islamabad and has been questioned many times. Ahmed said Monday that Khan wasn't under any restrictions.
Investigators are tracking the bank accounts of some scientists, and a Pakistani newspaper report Sunday said they had found accounts of two scientists with millions of U.S. dollars in transactions tied to the sale of nuclear technology to Iran. The report did not name the scientists.
Speaking to reporters in the southern city of Karachi on Monday, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat promised legal action against anyone involved in proliferation, saying, ``no one will be spared at any level.''
``We will take legal action against them ... so that it becomes an example for others and no patriotic Pakistani should even think of selling out Pakistan,'' Hayyat said.
He refused to release the names of scientists whose bank accounts are being examined.
The prospect of nuclear scientists being prosecuted has sparked isolated protests by Islamic hard-liners in Pakistan, who accuse President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of caving in to the United States by leveling accusations against scientists who helped produce the Muslim world's first nuclear bomb as a deterrent against nuclear-armed rival India.
On Monday, dozens of supporters of the opposition coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal and relatives of detained scientists rallied outside Parliament in Islamabad, chanting, ``Go Musharraf Go!''
Ahmed said the probe would not compromise Pakistan's right to a nuclear deterrent against India.
``For national security, we are committed to defend our national assets at every cost,'' he said. ``In this, there is no flexibility in our policy.''
--------
Father of Pakistani Bomb Is Key Nuclear Suspect
January 26, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-pakistan.html
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The father of Pakistan's atomic bomb and another nuclear scientist have become the key suspects as a government probe into the illegal sale of nuclear technology to Iran draws to a close, intelligence officials said Monday.
The officials said Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man who developed the bomb Pakistan tested in 1998 and became a national hero as a result, was under house arrest while a second scientist, Mohammad Farooq, was being detained elsewhere for questioning.
Investigations were launched in late November after the U.N. nuclear agency began investigating links between Pakistani and Iranian nuclear programs, and officials said they had been narrowed down to two main suspects.
``They are Qadeer and Farooq,'' said one intelligence official, who did not want to be identified, adding that Khan's movements were restricted. ``No one is allowed to meet him.''
The government said in last month that Khan, who is revered as a national hero in Pakistan, was among those being questioned, but stressed that he was not under arrest or facing restrictions.
Information Minister Ahmed Sheikh Rashid declined to comment on whether the investigation had reached a conclusion, but said the government was meeting on the nuclear issue and expected to issue a statement in the evening.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told reporters in Karachi that questioning of several scientists had been completed and that of others was still going on.
He said those responsible for proliferation could not be called patriotic Pakistanis.
``There was a time when they used to call themselves heroes of Pakistan. But now the real face of some these heroes is being exposed,'' he said.
``The nation has the right to see their real faces because they have used Pakistan's assets for individual gains.''
Asked if Khan could face punishment, he replied: ``Anyone involved will be held responsible.''
``ENEMIES OF THE STATE''
Farooq is the director of procurement at Khan Research Laboratories, Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory named after A.Q. Khan. The plant produces enriched uranium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.
Pakistan launched the probe into Khan and other scientists after the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agencyprovided information suggesting Pakistanis helped Iran develop centrifuges to make enriched uranium.
President Pervez Musharraf said last week it appeared some Pakistani scientists had been involved in nuclear proliferation for personal financial gain, but insisted there had been no government involvement.
He said violators faced stern action as ``enemies of the state.'' The intelligence officials said those found guilty of exporting nuclear technology could face charges of treason.
The IAEA said Saturday it was working with Pakistan to trace and cripple a sophisticated underworld thought to be helping countries with clandestine nuclear weapons programs.
The United States suspects Iran of seeking to build a nuclear bomb under cover of an atomic energy program that Tehran insists is purely peaceful.
Western diplomats have said Pakistani scientists may also have sold nuclear technology to both Libya and North Korea.
The countries' nuclear programs have intensified Western worries that one or more could join the ``nuclear club,'' although Libya announced late last year it would cooperate with the United States and Britain in dismantling its weapons program.
Last week two Dutch ministers said there were ``indications'' North Korea and Libya may have acquired potentially arms-related nuclear technology developed by British-Dutch-German consortium Urenco that both Pakistan and Iran are known to possess.
A.Q. Khan worked for Urenco in the 1970s. After his return to Pakistan in the 1980s, he was sentenced in absentia by an Amsterdam court to four years' jail for attempted espionage, a verdict later overturned on appeal.
--------
Pakistan's Nuclear Plotters
Jan. 26
WASHINGTON,(UPI)
By Arnaud de Borchgrave UPI Editor at Large
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040126-105916-2205r.htm
-- Over the past two years, Pakistan's culture of denial had produced a surreal nuclear theater of the absurd. Any suggestion that Pakistan's nuclear establishment was less than a paragon of non-proliferation probity was deemed beyond contempt. The father of the country's nuclear arsenal, Abdul Qadeer Khan (AQK), had been elevated to the Islamic equivalent of sainthood.
After the Prophet and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of the Pakistani state 55 years ago, AQK was a nonpareil. AQK and his team of nuclear scientists are devout Muslim fundamentalists. But this, in turn, led AQK to pursue a hidden agenda. Even though a Sunni, AQK was nonetheless awed by the politico-religious revolution in Iran in 1979, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, a Shiite.
The late President Zia ul-Haq who ruled Pakistan as a military dictator for 11 years (1977-88), also wanted his country to live under strict Islamic law, or Sharia, and gave orders AQK and his team of scientists and engineers at the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) were to be given top priority for anything they required.
In early 2001, U.S. intelligence began suspecting AQK and President Pervez Musharraf were not on the same page. In March that same year, Musharraf relieved AQK and his top scientist of direct control of the nuclear facilities. They were made nuclear advisers to the office of the president. But the nuclear horse had long bolted the Pakistani barn, surreptitiously crossing the Iranian border in 1988 to help the Ayatollah's theocracy develop another Islamic bomb.
For the past two years, Musharraf suspected AQK was free-lancing his nuclear assets, but the Inter-Services Intelligence agency kept assuring him that nothing was amiss. Which was hardly surprising. ISI and AQK have worked hand in glove since the very beginning of Pakistan's secret nuclear weapons program.
The Libyan dictator's decision to take the secret wraps off his own nuclear weapons program and dismantle it under international inspection was a boon to the International Atomic Energy Agency's nuclear inspectors. Suddenly, Col. Gadhafi, suitably impressed by U.S. military capabilities in Iraq, had no compunction about leaking secrets that led to a Pakistani and Iranian connection. Libya over the years had given Pakistan about $100 million for know-how -- and international nuclear black market connections -- on centrifuges to enrich uranium to weapons grade quality. The technology, according to IAEA, was the same in Libya and Iran, which in turn had obtained it as AQK and his team. AQK had stolen the entire plan for a centrifuge facility where he had worked in The Netherlands.
Pakistan's transfer of nuclear secrets to North Korea did not come under the rubric of an Islamist bomb. It was a straight exchange for the Korean missiles Pakistan needed as delivery vehicles for its nuclear weapons.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Musharraf conceded what he had long denied. Pakistan's top nuclear scientists had provided nuclear assistance to Iran's nuclear ambitions. The reaction in Pakistan was predictable. "Busharraf," as his legions of Pakistani detractors and enemies mock him, had buckled yet again under U.S. pressure.
Pakistan's secrets were unraveling like a knitting ball of wool that falls to the floor. A former army chief of staff, Gen. Aslam Beg, and a former ISI chief, Gen. Hamid Gul, are fundamentalist who have backed AQK's nuclear grand design. Musharraf's inclination is to pick up the ball and rewind the wool. Trials for treason of AQK or any of his top nuclear scientists would not only trigger a nationwide upheaval by MMA, a coalition of six politico-military parties that now govern two of Pakistan's four provinces, but dangerous splits in ISI and the all-powerful military establishment.
Musharraf had trouble making himself heard in parliament last month when MMA and other parties jeered him throughout his 40-minute plea to moderates "to wage jihad against extremism." He warned lawmakers against an "intolerant society" that is giving Pakistan "a negative image." His blunt language was music only to American and Indian ears.
The army engineered the ouster of Benazir Bhutto as prime minister in 1990 because she tried to get a handle on Pakistan's nuclear program. Since Musharraf took over in October 1999, much clandestine nuclear activity by the country's Islamist scientists and engineers has been carried out by giving the president plausible deniability. He did not know, for instance, prior to the ouster of the Taliban by U.S. forces in October 2001, that two nuclear experts had traveled to Kandahar to confer with Mullah Omar, the Taliban chief, and Osama Bin Laden. When the story leaked, the government quickly explained they were in Afghanistan to offer expertise for an agricultural project. And when journalists tried to interview them, they were suddenly on TDY in Burma -- and therefore beyond anyone's reach. The scuttlebutt in Islamabad is that they went to Kandahar to teach al-QaIda how to engineer "a dirty radiation bomb," conventional explosives wrapped around fissionable material.
Even though Pakistani authorities detained a dozen nuclear experts for extensive "debriefings," the temptation for time-tested, but not time-proven, denials resurfaced at week's end. The blame was now assigned to an international black market in nuclear bomb-making technology -- and one or two Pakistani experts let filthy lucre get the better of them. Dr. Muhammad Farooq, one of AQK's top assistants in charge of foreign procurement, seemed headed for the fall guy role.
Doubtless, too, Pakistan will continue to deny any nuclear understanding with Saudi Arabia when Crown Prince Abdullah paid a state visit to Islamabad last fall -- heavily discounted Saudi oil for a Pakistani nuclear umbrella should the House of Saud come under attack.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nukes, is beyond reproach and worshipped by most Pakistanis. Musharraf has survived six assassination plots and two recent attempts on his life within 11 days. And his days would certainly be numbered if he went public with AQK's role in Iran and Libya.
-------- iraq / inspections
Ex-Inspector Says C.I.A. Missed Disarray in Iraqi Arms Program
January 26, 2004
By JAMES RISEN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26KAY.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 - American intelligence agencies failed to detect that Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were in a state of disarray in recent years under the increasingly erratic leadership of Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A.`s former chief weapons inspector said in an interview late Saturday.
The inspector, David A. Kay, who led the government's efforts to find evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs until he resigned on Friday, said the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies did not realize that Iraqi scientists had presented ambitious but fanciful weapons programs to Mr. Hussein and had then used the money for other purposes.
Dr. Kay also reported that Iraq attempted to revive its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2000 and 2001, but never got as far toward making a bomb as Iran and Libya did.
He said Baghdad was actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin until the American invasion last March. But in general, Dr. Kay said, the C.I.A. and other agencies failed to recognize that Iraq had all but abandoned its efforts to produce large quantities of chemical or biological weapons after the first Persian Gulf war, in 1991.
From interviews with Iraqi scientists and other sources, he said, his team learned that sometime around 1997 and 1998, Iraq plunged into what he called a "vortex of corruption," when government activities began to spin out of control because an increasingly isolated and fantasy-riven Saddam Hussein had insisted on personally authorizing major projects without input from others.
After the onset of this "dark ages," Dr. Kay said, Iraqi scientists realized they could go directly to Mr. Hussein and present fanciful plans for weapons programs, and receive approval and large amounts of money. Whatever was left of an effective weapons capability, he said, was largely subsumed into corrupt money-raising schemes by scientists skilled in the arts of lying and surviving in a fevered police state.
"The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process," Dr. Kay said. "The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs."
In interviews after he was captured, Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister, told Dr. Kay that Mr. Hussein had become increasingly divorced from reality during the last two years of his rule. Mr. Hussein would send Mr. Aziz manuscripts of novels he was writing, even as the American-led coalition was gearing up for war, Dr. Kay said.
Dr. Kay said the fundamental errors in prewar intelligence assessments were so grave that he would recommend that the Central Intelligence Agency and other organizations overhaul their intelligence collection and analytical efforts.
Dr. Kay said analysts had come to him, "almost in tears, saying they felt so badly that we weren't finding what they had thought we were going to find - I have had analysts apologizing for reaching the conclusions that they did."
In response to Dr. Kay's comments, an intelligence official said Sunday that while some prewar assessments may have been wrong, "it is premature to say that the intelligence community's judgments were completely wrong or largely wrong - there are still a lot of answers we need." The official added, however, that the C.I.A. had already begun an internal review to determine whether its analytical processes were sound.
Dr. Kay said that based on his team's interviews with Iraqi scientists, reviews of Iraqi documents and examinations of facilities and other materials, the administration was also almost certainly wrong in its prewar belief that Iraq had any significant stockpiles of illicit weapons.
"I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction," Dr. Kay said. "We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on.
"I think they gradually reduced stockpiles throughout the 1990's. Somewhere in the mid-1990's, the large chemical overhang of existing stockpiles was eliminated."
While it is possible Iraq kept developing "test amounts" of chemical weapons and was working on improved methods of production, he said, the evidence is strong that "they did not produce large amounts of chemical weapons throughout the 1990's."
Regarding biological weapons, he said there was evidence that the Iraqis continued research and development "right up until the end" to improve their ability to produce ricin. "They were mostly researching better methods for weaponization," Dr. Kay said. "They were maintaining an infrastructure, but they didn't have large-scale production under way."
He added that Iraq did make an effort to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2000 and 2001, but that the evidence suggested that the program was rudimentary at best and would have taken years to rebuild, after being largely abandoned in the 1990's. "There was a restart of the nuclear program," he said. "But the surprising thing is that if you compare it to what we now know about Iran and Libya, the Iraqi program was never as advanced," Dr. Kay said.
Dr. Kay said Iraq had also maintained an active ballistic missile program that was receiving significant foreign assistance until the start of the American invasion. He said it appeared that money was put back into the nuclear weapons program to restart the effort in part because the Iraqis realized they needed some kind of payload for their new rockets.
While he urged that the hunt should continue in Iraq, he said he believed "85 percent of the significant things" have already been uncovered, and cautioned that severe looting in Iraq after Mr. Hussein was toppled in April had led to the loss of many crucial documents and other materials. That means it will be virtually impossible to ever get a complete picture of what Iraq was up to before the war, he added.
"There is going to be an irreducible level of ambiguity because of all the looting," Dr. Kay said.
Dr. Kay said he believed that Iraq was a danger to the world, but not the same threat that the Bush administration publicly detailed.
"We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq," he said. "And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country - and no central control."
C.I.A. Missed Signs of Chaos
But Dr. Kay said the C.I.A. missed the significance of the chaos in the leadership and had no idea how badly that chaos had corrupted Iraq's weapons capabilities or the threat it raised of loose scientific knowledge being handed over to terrorists. "The system became so corrupt, and we missed that," he said.
He said it now appeared that Iraq had abandoned the production of illicit weapons and largely eliminated its stockpiles in the 1990's in large part because of Baghdad's concerns about the United Nations weapons inspection process. He said Iraqi scientists and documents show that Baghdad was far more concerned about United Nations inspections than Washington had ever realized.
"The Iraqis say that they believed that Unscom was more effective, and they didn't want to get caught," Dr. Kay said, using an acronym for the inspection program, the United Nations Special Commission.
The Iraqis also feared the disclosures that would come from the 1995 defection of Hussein Kamel, Mr. Hussein's son-in-law, who had helped run the weapons programs. Dr. Kay said one Iraqi document that had been found showed the extent to which the Iraqis believed that Mr. Kamel's defection would hamper any efforts to continue weapons programs.
In addition, Dr. Kay said, it is now clear that an American bombing campaign against Iraq in 1998 destroyed much of the remaining infrastructure in chemical weapons programs.
Dr. Kay said his team had uncovered no evidence that Niger had tried to sell uranium to Iraq for its nuclear weapons program. In his State of the Union address in 2003, President Bush reported that British intelligence had determined that Iraq was trying to import uranium from an African nation, and Niger's name was later put forward.
"We found nothing on Niger," Dr. Kay said. He added that there was evidence that someone did approach the Iraqis claiming to be able to sell uranium and diamonds from another African country, but apparently nothing came of the approach. The original reports on Niger have been found to be based on forged documents, and the Bush administration has since backed away from its initial assertions.
Dr. Kay added that there was now a consensus within the United States intelligence community that mobile trailers found in Iraq and initially thought to be laboratories for biological weapons were actually designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons, or perhaps to produce rocket fuel. While using the trailers for such purposes seems bizarre, Dr. Kay said, "Iraq was doing a lot of nonsensical things" under Mr. Hussein.
The intelligence reports that Iraq was poised to use chemical weapons against invading troops were false, apparently based on faulty reports and Iraqi disinformation, Dr. Kay said.
When American troops found that Iraqi troops had stored defensive chemical-weapons suits and antidotes, Washington assumed the Iraqi military was poised to use chemicals against American forces. But interviews with Iraqi military officers and others have shown that the Iraqis kept the gear because they feared Israel would join an American-led invasion and use chemical weapons against them.
Role of Republican Guards
Dr. Kay said interviews with senior officers of the Special Republican Guards, Mr. Hussein's most elite units, had suggested that prewar intelligence reports were wrong in warning that these units had chemical weapons and would use them against American forces as they closed in on Baghdad.
The former Iraqi officers reported that no Special Republican Guard units had chemical or biological weapons, he said. But all of the officers believed that some other Special Republican Guard unit had chemical weapons.
"They all said they didn't have it, but they thought other units had it," Dr. Kay said. He said it appeared they were the victims of a disinformation campaign orchestrated by Mr. Hussein.
Dr. Kay said there was also no conclusive evidence that Iraq had moved any unconventional weapons to Syria, as some Bush administration officials have suggested. He said there had been persistent reports from Iraqis saying they or someone they knew had see cargo being moved across the border, but there is no proof that such movements involved weapons materials.
Dr. Kay said the basic problem with the way the C.I.A. tried to gauge Iraq's weapons programs is now painfully clear: for five years, the agency lacked its own spies in Iraq who could provide credible information.
During the 1990's, Dr. Kay said, the agency became spoiled by on-the-ground intelligence that it obtained from United Nations weapons inspectors. But the quality of the information plunged after the teams were withdrawn in 1998.
"Unscom was like crack cocaine for the C.I.A.," Dr. Kay said. "They could see something from a satellite or other technical intelligence, and then direct the inspectors to go look at it."
The agency became far too dependent on spy satellites, intercepted communications and intelligence developed by foreign spies and by defectors and exiles, Dr. Kay said. While he said the agency analysts who were monitoring Iraq's weapons programs did the best they could with what they had, he argued that the agency failed to make it clear to American policy makers that their assessments were increasingly based on very limited information.
"I think that the system should have a way for an analyst to say, `I don't have enough information to make a judgment,' " Dr. Kay said. "There is really not a way to do that under the current system."
He added that while the analysts included caveats on their reports, those passages "tended to drop off as the reports would go up the food chain" inside the government.
As a result, virtually everyone in the United States intelligence community during both the Clinton and the current Bush administrations thought Iraq still had the illicit weapons, he said. And the government became a victim of its own certainty.
"Alarm bells should have gone off when everyone believes the same thing," Dr. Kay said. "No one stood up and said, `Let's examine the footings for these conclusions.' I think you ought to have a place for contrarian views in the system."
Finds No Pressure From Bush
Dr. Kay said he was convinced that the analysts were not pressed by the Bush administration to make certain their prewar intelligence reports conformed to a White House agenda on Iraq.
Last year, some C.I.A. analysts said they had felt pressed to find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda to suit the administration. While Dr. Kay said he has no knowledge about that issue, he did not believe that pressure was placed on analysts regarding the weapons programs.
"All the analysts I have talked to said they never felt pressured on W.M.D.," he said. "Everyone believed that they had W.M.D."
Dr. Kay also said he never felt pressed by the Bush administration to shape his own reports on the status of Iraq's weapons. He said that in a White House meeting with Mr. Bush last August, the president urged him to uncover what really happened.
"The only comment I ever had from the president was to find the truth," Dr. Kay said. "I never got any pressure to find a certain outcome."
Dr. Kay, a former United Nations inspector who was brought in last summer to run the Iraq Survey Group by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, said he resigned his post largely because he disagreed with the decision in November by the administration and the Pentagon to shift intelligence resources from the hunt for banned weapons to counterinsurgency efforts inside Iraq. Dr. Kay is being succeeded by Charles A. Duelfer, another former United Nations inspector, who has also expressed skepticism about whether the United States will find any chemical or biological weapons.
Dr. Kay said the decision to shift resources away from the weapons hunt came at a time of "near panic" among American officials in Baghdad because of rising casualties caused by bombings and ambushes of American troops.
He added that the decision ran counter to written assurances he had been given when he took the job, and that the shift in resources had severely hampered the weapons hunt.
He said that there is only a limited amount of time left to conduct a thorough search before a new Iraqi government takes over in the summer, and that there are already signs of resistance to the work by Iraqi government officials.
--------
Kay: Lack of Iraqi WMD Requires Review
Mon, Jan 26, 2004
By SCOTT LINDLAW,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20040125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_weapons
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
"I don't think they exist," David Kay said Sunday. "The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist - we've got to deal with that difference and understand why."
Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction was "not a political issue."
"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information," Kay said. Asked whether President Bush owed the nation an explanation for the gap between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people."
The CIA would not comment Sunday on Kay's remarks, although one intelligence official pointed out that Kay himself had predicted last year that his search would turn up banned weapons.
Kay said his predictions were not "coming back to haunt me in the sense that I am embarrassed. They are coming back to haunt me in the sense of `Why could we all be so wrong?'"
The White House stuck by its assertions that illicit weapons will be found in Iraq but had no additional response on Sunday to Kay's remarks.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Kay's comments reinforced his belief that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat Iraq posed.
"It confirms what I have said for a long period of time, that we were misled - misled not only in the intelligence, but misled in the way that the president took us to war," Kerry, a White House contender, said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception."
Hans Blix, the former chief U.N. inspector whose work was heavily criticized by Kay and ended when the United States went to war with Iraq, said Sunday the United States should have known the intelligence was flawed last year when leads followed up by U.N. inspectors didn't produce any results.
"I was beginning to wonder what was going on," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Weren't they wondering too? If you find yourself on a train that's going in the wrong direction, its best to get off at the next stop."
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was surprised Kay "did not find some semblance of WMD" in Iraq. Roberts said a report on Iraq intelligence, to be delivered to his panel Wednesday, should help clarify the CIA's prewar performance.
"It appears now that that intelligence - there's a lot of questions about it," Roberts said on CNN's "Late Edition."
In October 2002, Bush said Iraq had "a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions." In his television address two days before launching the invasion, Bush said U.S. troops would enter Iraq "to eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
Kay returned permanently from Iraq last month, having found no biological, nuclear or chemical weapons nor missiles with longer range than Iraq's troublesome president, Saddam Hussein, was allowed under international restrictions.
But on Sunday, Kay reiterated his conclusion that Saddam had "a large number of WMD program-related activities." And, he said, Iraq's leaders had intended to continue those activities.
"There were scientists and engineers working on developing weapons or weapons concepts that they had not moved into actual production," Kay said. "But in some areas, for example producing mustard gas, they knew all the answers, they had done it in the past, and it was a relatively simple thing to go from where they were to starting to produce it."
The Iraqis had not decided to begin producing such weapons at the time of the invasion, he concluded.
Kay also said chaos in postwar Iraq made it impossible to know with certainty whether Iraq had had banned weapons.
And, he said, there is ample evidence that Iraq was moving a steady stream of goods shipments to Syria, but it is difficult to determine whether the cargoes included weapons, in part because Syria has refused to cooperate in this part of the weapons investigation.
Administration officials have sent mixed signals in recent days about the hunt in Iraq for illicit weapons.
While Bush's spokesmen have insisted weapons will yet be found, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Powell held open the possibility that they will not.
Cheney warned in March 2003, three days before the invasion: "We believe he (Saddam) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
But in an interview Wednesday with NPR, he said of the weapons search: "The jury is still out."
Kay's comments echoed those of dozens of Iraqi scientists who, in recent interviews with The Associated Press, claimed they had not seen or worked on weapons of mass destruction in years.
Only a handful of Iraqi scientists who worked in former bioweapons and missile programs remained in custody by the time Kay left Iraq in December. Some of the detained scientists have been held since April and Kay's conclusions were likely to raise their hopes for release.
Kay said he resigned Friday because the Pentagon began peeling away his staff of weapons-searchers as the military struggled to put down the Iraqi insurgency last fall.
Kay hopes to draw on his experiences to write a book on weapons intelligence.
Associated Press writers Katherine Pfleger in Washington and Dafna Linzer in Bern, Switzerland, contributed to this report.
-------- israel
Arab League calls for IAEA inspections of Israel's nuclear sites
CAIRO (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126180543.hpvq8y1z.html
The Arab League called Monday for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect Israel's nuclear sites.
The Cairo-based organisation called for Israel to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and for its sites to undergo IAEA inspections.
Israel has never confirmed or denied charges it possesses nuclear weapons, but the United States has considered it to be a nuclear power since 1969 and experts estimate it has 200 nuclear warheads.
-------- japan
Japan's Chubu Electric delays nuke reactor restart
REUTERS JAPAN:
January 26, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/23572/newsDate/26-Jan-2004/story.htm
TOKYO - Japanese power utility Chubu Electric Power Co (9502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said last week it would delay the restart of a nuclear reactor that has been shut for over two years because it needs more time to complete safety checks.
Chubu, Japan's third biggest electric power company, shut the 540,000-kilowatt (KW) capacity No. 1 nuclear reactor at its Hamaoka plant in central Japan on November 27, 2001 after it found a crack in the reactor.
The utility had planned to restart the reactor by the end of March 2004, but has decided to wait until December 2004 to bring the reactor back online.
Chubu said it needed time to ensure the safety of the reactor and that there were no additional problems.
A Chubu spokesman said the company has no plan to increase the power generation output from its thermal power plants because of the delay.
Chubu operates four nuclear reactors at the Hamaoka plant, which is the company's only nuclear power plant. The plant has a combined capacity of 3.62 million KW.
The company is also test-running another 138,000-KW capacity reactor at the Hamaoka plant. The No.5 reactor is not yet used for commercial purposes.
Chubu relies on nuclear energy for 19 percent of its power generation, the spokesman said.
--------
Non-Proliferation Not Enough, Nuclear Abolition Needed:
SGI President Issues Annual Peace Proposal
Monday January 26, 2004
PRNewswire
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040126/lnm006_1.html
TOKYO, Jan. 26 -- In his annual peace proposal issued today, SGI (Soka Gakkai International) President Daisaku Ikeda renews his call for nuclear abolition. Noting the growing threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, Ikeda calls for a paradigm shift: rather than simply seeking to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, we must work for their complete elimination.
Welcoming the progress made in holding multi-party talks on the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Ikeda urges that the dialogue process be strengthened and developed into a regional forum for peace and confidence building. As an eventual goal for such efforts, Ikeda proposes the establishment of a Northeast Asian nuclear-free zone.
Ikeda cites the words of Josei Toda (1900-1958), second president of the Soka Gakkai, who termed nuclear weapons an unacceptable threat to humanity's collective right to exist. From a spiritual perspective, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are a manifestation of the fundamental destructive tendency in all human life: the urge to control others and bend them to our will. In this sense, nuclear disarmament requires a fundamental realignment in the values and outlook of individuals.
As a concrete step, Ikeda calls for the prompt ratification and implementation of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). He also urges the nuclear weapons states to promise countries without such weapons that they will never use nuclear weapons against them--so-called negative security assurance. Similarly, he reminds the nuclear weapons states of the obligation, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to pursue nuclear disarmament "in good faith."
The fundamental challenge facing international society is that of realizing human security and as one concrete measure to enhance this, Ikeda calls for the creation of a global fund for primary education and for special efforts to expand educational opportunities for women, who account for two thirds of the world's non-literate population.
Ikeda also stresses that as the world's most universally representative organization and a focus of global civil society, the United Nations must be supported and allowed to play a central role in meeting the challenges of the current era.
Since 1983, Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) lay Buddhist association, has written an annual proposal on issues of peace and human security. These are released on January 26, commemorating the founding of the SGI in 1975.
-------- korea
Japan Lawmakers Agree on North Korea Bill
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-NKorea.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's ruling coalition and top opposition party agreed Monday on legislation that allows Japan to unilaterally impose economic sanctions.
The measure is aimed at pressuring North Korea into resolving a diplomatic standoff over its past abductions of Japanese citizens.
The legislation authorizes the government to independently halt remittances, stop trade, and impose other restrictions on the flow of money and goods to and from another country. Japanese law currently only allows such steps if they are made in response to a U.N. resolution or another multinational agreement.
The bill -- which amends the foreign exchange law -- doesn't specifically target North Korea, but was drawn up with the isolated communist state in mind.
``We want to pass the bill promptly,'' said Jin Murai, a lawmaker from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party after meeting opposition party officials on the amendment. ``We need to do so to most powerfully express the will of Japan.''
The LDP aims to have both chambers of Parliament approve the bill within the next few weeks. Since the bill's backers -- the LDP, its coalition partner the New Komeito, and the opposition Democratic Party -- together control about 95 percent of the seats in the more powerful lower chamber of Parliament, its passage is virtually assured.
To win Democratic support for the bill, the LDP agreed to incorporate a provision stipulating that Parliament must approve any sanctions that are unilaterally imposed by Tokyo on another country.
It is unclear whether Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi would impose sanctions once this bill is passed, but his deputy, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, said last week that the law would give Japan the option of taking punitive measures if needed.
The cooperation between Koizumi's LDP and the Democrats on the amendment underscores the broad support in Japan for moves to pressure North Korea into addressing the matter of Japanese abducted by the communist state.
North Korea acknowledged in 2002 it had kidnapped over a dozen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to teach Japanese language and culture to its spies, confirming for the first time the suspicions of investigators and family members. But the North said most of those it abducted had since died and only provided sparse details of how, angering Tokyo.
And while five of the surviving abductees have since returned to Japan, their families are still in North Korea while the two countries remain locked in a diplomatic standoff.
Tokyo wants Pyongyang to send to Japan the families left behind in North Korea before it will resume talks to establish diplomatic relations and discuss providing economic aid to the impoverished country. Japan is also pushing the North to disclose more about those who allegedly died and dozens more possible kidnap victims Japan believes may be living in the North.
A support group for abduction victims' families has pushed for economic sanctions since last year. The lawmakers involved with drawing up the bill have been some of the most aggressive backers of the families and their support group.
North Korea, meanwhile, has repeatedly stated it would consider economic sanctions ``an act of war.''
North Korean exports to Japan -- an important source of income for the country -- totaled $234 million in 2002, according to the Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency in South Korea.
Japanese authorities say Koreans living in Japan who back Pyongyang send millions of dollars to the North every year.
Many Japanese also advocate sanctions to urge its neighbor to abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development programs, especially after Pyongyang test-fired a long-range missile over Japan's main island in 1998.
-------- mideast
Syria Scoffs at U.S. Claim It Has Iraqi Weapons
Sun January 25, 2004
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=14SJGJLBDY00SCRBAEZSFFA?type=worldNews&storyID=4201925
DAMASCUS - Syria brushed aside Sunday U.S. accusations that it has Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a cover story for what it called U.S. failure in Iraq
"This (allegation) is meant to mislead (the public opinion). So long as there were no weapons of mass destruction (found) in Iraq itself how can they be in Syria?" Information Minister Ahmad al-Hassan told reporters.
U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts said Wednesday there was some concern Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had gone to Syria.
Syria, which vehemently opposed the U.S.-led war in neighboring Iraq, has repeatedly denied U.S. charges it has its own weapons of mass destruction programs.
"They are seeking to cover their failure," Hassan said after a meeting with a delegation of Iraqi journalists and artists in Damascus.
Bush, seeking re-election in November with Iraq high on the campaign agenda, ordered U.S.-led forces to oust former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after accusing him of possessing chemical and biological arms and trying to build a nuclear weapon.
However, the leader of the U.S. team in charge of the search for banned weapons in Iraq, David Kay, resigned Friday and said he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.
Hassan urged a swift end for the occupation of Iraq and a role for the United Nations to allow fellow Arab Iraqis to elect a national government.
He urged Iraqis to safeguard their country's unity and said all Arab nations oppose the division of the occupied Arab state.
--------
U.S. Lawmakers Make Landmark Libya Visit
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Libya-US.html
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- The sight of the white jet taxiing down the tarmac Sunday -- the first U.S. military plane to touch down in Tripoli since 1969 -- left no doubt that a pariah state was coming in from the cold after renouncing its nuclear weapons program.
In a landmark visit, seven U.S. Congress members emerged from the U.S. Navy jet and heaped praise on the recent reforms of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who former President Ronald Reagan once called a barbarian.
``We're very excited about opening this new chapter in our relations,'' said Rep. Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania, who stepped off the plane wearing a pin with the American and Libyan flags.
``I'd say the Libyan leader has taken the first step,'' Weldon said, adding: ``Once our governments have completed the process of formal relations, there is no limit to what we can accomplish together.''
Rep. Solomon Ortiz, a Texas Democrat, put it more simply: ``We want to be friends.''
The U.S. military aircraft was the first to touch down in Tripoli since 1969, when Gadhafi seized power.
In the interim, American warplanes have flown only overhead, notably in 1986 when they launched attacks that killed 37 people, including Gadhafi's adopted daughter, in retaliation for the bombing of a German disco that killed a U.S. soldier and a Turkish woman.
The United States imposed sanctions that year, accusing Libya of supporting terrorist groups. Ten years later, America said it would penalize the U.S. partners of European companies that did significant business in Libya and Iran.
``I don't think we can change history, but we also understand we can move together toward a new beginning,'' Weldon said.
Over the last year Gadhafi has made a startling turnaround. He admitted his country's involvement in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the victims' families.
He also admitted he had tried to develop weapons of mass destruction -- including a nuclear bomb -- and invited U.N., American and British teams to inspect his weapons programs and dismantle them.
``I think clearly that Gadhafi is for real in that he has made this switch,'' Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, told The Associated Press. ``He has been a person of abrupt changes throughout his career.''
Some have suggested that Libya didn't want to face the kind of war that drove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq last year. But diplomats say Libya appears to have made a firm decision to remake itself in 2002, before the United States launched its war on Iraq.
Gadhafi's decisions followed months of secret negotiations with the United States and Britain.
After Libya admitted in September its involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, the U.N. Security Council voted to lift its sanctions. The United States is waiting for Gadhafi to follow through on the rest of his pledges before doing the same.
The lawmakers indicated that barring any changes of heart, diplomatic ties soon could be restored.
``We are here to let the leaders of Libya know that if they continue the steps they are taking, that's a very real likelihood,'' Weldon said.
Libya is also counting on a restoration of economic ties. The sanctions have cost Libya more than $30 billion in lost business. Investment is especially needed for an oil industry that once made the North African country of about 5 million people a regional power.
The Congressional delegation met Sunday with Libya's prime minister, foreign minister and a delegation from the People's Congress -- the equivalent of a parliament.
The Congress members also walked through a section of Tripoli and visited a farm owned by Gadhafi's son, Seif el-Islam, who is seen as a possible successor to his father. The lawmakers said the farm had tigers, a cougar and falcons.
Before their scheduled departure late Monday, the members hope to meet Gadhafi and visit sites related to Libya's weapons of mass destruction, which U.S. and British experts are preparing to dismantle with Gadhafi's blessing.
At the airport, the delegation was received by a senior local official, Abdul-Latif al-Dali, secretary of the Tripoli People's Congress, who chatted with Weldon about the overcast weather as they made their way to the airport lounge.
Al-Dali sat stiffly as the Americans spoke, but told the delegation: ``We are very happy that the representatives of the American people have come.''
In Tripoli's central market, many shoppers and shopkeepers echoed his words.
``They're very welcome here,'' said Abdul Hakim Bizanti, 45. ``Libya's opening up. It's good for us, for everybody.''
The delegation's arrival came on the heels of that of another American lawmaker. Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, landed Saturday in the first visit by an elected U.S. official in 38 years.
Asked if he felt upstaged by the separate Lantos visit, Weldon said: ``I don't know why he did it. I would question why you spend $30,000 to fly across, when you could have flown in on a military plane that had 100 empty seats.
``He's got to answer to the taxpayers on why he spent that money,'' he said.
In addition to Weldon, Ortiz and Issa, the delegation includes Democratic Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, as well as Republicans Candice Miller of Michigan, Mark Souder of Indiana and Elton Gallegly of California. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., planned to join the delegation at a later stop in Kuwait.
Niko Price is correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press
--------
Americans Meet Gadhafi, Tour Nuclear Site
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Libya-US.html
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- A Republican congressman led a delegation of Americans into uncharted territory Monday: a meeting with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and a tour of a Libyan nuclear reactor.
The extraordinary meeting -- in a tent beside the ruins of Gadhafi's house, bombed by U.S. warplanes -- is a hallmark of improving relations between the United States and Libya after decades of animosity.
``It was an extremely positive two hours,'' said the delegation's leader, Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania. ``We discussed the hope that we will achieve normal relations soon.''
While lawmakers said there was little discussion of remaining points of contention between the countries -- Libya's policy toward Israel, for example -- they were impressed with Gadhafi, who wore a purple robe and cap.
``He came across as a very sincere man,'' said Rep. Solomon Ortiz, a Texas Democrat. ``My throat gave up and he went and got me some medicine,'' Ortiz added, holding up a box of British-made Strepsil throat lozenges.
The meeting took place in a white tent emblazoned with green palm trees and circular designs, erected beside the wreckage of Gadhafi's house, destroyed by U.S. bombs in 1986. A child said to be Gadhafi's adopted daughter was killed in the attack.
The two nations have come a long way since then. In recent months, Gadhafi has renounced his support for terrorist organizations and invited U.S., British and U.N. experts to dismantle his previously secret programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The lawmakers said they were convinced Gadhafi was serious about his new place in the world, and wanted desperately to come back in from the cold after decades of U.S. and U.N. sanctions imposed for his support of terrorists took a toll on his country's oil wealth and regional power.
Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said Gadhafi ``expressed his regret that a quarter century has passed of isolation between our countries.''
The meeting, Issa said, ``is just the first step.''
Coming out of the meeting, the lawmakers celebrated with lunch at the Libyan-American Friendship Association, established in 2000. The lawmakers were 3 1/2 hours late, and most of the 180 guests -- mainly Libyans who studied in the United States and Americans who live in Libya -- had already eaten.
A traditional Libyan band played a bagpipe-like instrument and drums as the lawmakers arrived, and a group of girls, ages 3 to 10 in makeup and wedding dresses, received them.
Before their meeting, the lawmakers toured Gadhafi's bombed-out house, damaged in attacks launched by then-President Ronald Reagan in retaliation for the bombing of a German disco that killed a U.S. soldier and a Turkish woman. Thirty-seven people were killed in Libya in the U.S. attacks.
The lawmakers shook their heads at a photograph said to be of Gadhafi's adopted daughter, killed in the bombing. Issa said Gadhafi complained the United States didn't give him the proper warnings before the attacks.
Gadhafi admitted last month that he tried to develop weapons of mass destruction -- including a nuclear bomb -- and U.N., American and British inspectors have been inspecting the facilities to determine how to dismantle them.
Donning white smocks and shoe coverings, the lawmakers reviewed the Tajura reactor just east of Tripoli, a 10-megawatt facility for scientific research built in 1980 with equipment imported from Russia.
Although the facility wasn't used for weapons development, scientists working on the nuclear weapons program presumably gained knowledge working at facilities like Tajura.
In moving closer to the United States, Libya is hoping to end the U.S. sanctions, in place since 1986, that have cost it more than $30 billion in lost business. Investment is especially needed for the oil industry.
The delegation -- which flew in Sunday aboard the first U.S. military plane to land in Libya since Gadhafi came to power in 1969 -- indicated the sanctions could be removed as soon as Gadhafi made good on his pledges.
``The leader is doing the right thing,'' said Weldon, who met with Gadhafi for 30 minutes after the two-hour meeting with the entire delegation.
Another American lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos of California, is in Libya on a separate visit. He landed in Libya on Saturday in the first visit by an elected U.S. official in 38 years.
Lantos, the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, met for 90 minutes with Gadhafi before the other U.S. delegation arrived, and emerged saying the Bush administration should show ``good faith'' toward the North African leader.
In a telephone interview from the Netherlands on his way home, Lantos said he would recommend the committee chairman, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., urge the White House to lift a ban on travel to Libya as a first step to a new relationship.
``The conversation was extremely cordial,'' Lantos said. ``He repeatedly emphasized this turning to peace and his hopes it will lead to a new relationship'' with the United States.
In addition to Weldon, Ortiz and Issa, the delegation includes Louisiana Democrat Rodney Alexander and Republicans Candice Miller of Michigan, Mark Souder of Indiana and Elton Gallegly of California.
Democrat Steve Israel of New York planned to join the delegation in Kuwait, for which the Americans left later Monday en route to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Niko Price is correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press.
-------- terrorism
Watchdog: Nuke Guards Cheated in Drill
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Plant-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Security guards who repelled four simulated terrorist attacks at a Tennessee nuclear weapons plant had been tipped in advance, undermining the encouraging results, the Energy Department's watchdog office said Monday.
The surprising successes by guards at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant last summer in Oak Ridge, Tenn., spurred an internal investigation. It determined that at least two guards defending the mock attacks had been allowed to look at computer simulations one day before the attacks. The plant processes parts for nuclear weapons and maintains vast supplies of bomb-grade uranium.
The Energy Department's inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman, declared the exercises ``tainted and unreliable.'' He said each mock attack cost as much as $85,000 to stage, and he urged the department to consider his conclusions when awarding contracting fees for Wackenhut Corp., which employs guards at Oak Ridge.
The plant paid Wackenhut award fees of $2.2 million and rated its work ``outstanding'' for the period through July 2003. The cheating reported by the inspector general had taken place just weeks earlier.
A senior vice president for Wackenhut Services Inc., Jean Burleson, described details in the inspector general's report as ``old news,'' which he said ``may or may not have occurred.'' Burleson added: ``There is no impropriety right now going on. Security is better today than it has ever been.''
A broader investigation uncovered more evidence of cheating during mock attacks against U.S. nuclear plants over the past two decades. Results from such simulations are commonly classified for national security reasons.
The inspector general said guards in another mock attack in late 2000 or early 2001 were improperly told which building would be attacked, the exact number of attackers and where a diversion was being staged. Investigators also said managers substituted their best security guards for others scheduled to work the day of attacks; standby guards would sometimes be armed and used to bolster existing security guards on duty.
In other cases, security guards disabled laser sensors they wore to determine whether they received a simulated gunshot. Guards removed batteries, deliberately installed batteries backward and covered sensors with tape, mud or Vaseline so they wouldn't operate properly.
Such cheating is ``not uncommon at all,'' said Ronald Timm, president of RETA Security Inc. of Lemont, Ill., a consulting company that has worked with the Energy Department to analyze vulnerabilities at its plants. ``Most security forces don't like to lose; they go through great lengths to cheat to win. A loss is considered a negative mark against them.''
Investigators said the claims they heard were based on interviews with current and former guards, which they described as ``credible and compelling.'' But they acknowledged they could find no documentary evidence to support the claims of previous cheating.
``There's no point in doing them if you have people who are going to cheat,'' said Richard Clarke, a former senior White House counterterrorism official. ``That's ridiculous. It kind of defeats the whole point of having these tests.''
The National Nuclear Security Administration, which protects nuclear plants, said in a letter disclosed Monday that it already has taken unspecified action.
That agency within the Energy Department was sharply criticized in May 2003 by congressional investigators, who accused it of failing to make sure contractors were adequately protecting nuclear facilities. Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who requested the earlier audit, said it showed the Energy Department couldn't provide assurances that weapons-grade material was protected against a ``determined, well trained adversary force willing to die in a nuclear detonation.''
An associate administrator, Michael C. Kane, wrote to the inspector general that if the attack simulations ``were in any way compromised so as to skew the quality of information we have about our ability to protect, the results could have extremely significant effects in a way that is entirely unacceptable.''
``We will take all appropriate steps to ensure that is not the case,'' Kane wrote.
The inspector general said two guards at Oak Ridge acknowledged looking one day in advance at the computer simulations of the pending mock attacks. The guards denied they did anything differently to prepare, but Friedman said the information would have revealed important details that would tip off the guards about which simulated attack was being launched.
``It's blatant cheating,'' said Peter Stockton of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based watchdog group that has been critical of security at Oak Ridge, about 20 miles west of Knoxville. ``It doesn't say much for the integrity of the guard forces and some managers who knew this kind of thing was going on.''
Computer models had predicted guards at the plant would decisively lose at least two of the four simulated attacks, all on June 23. Two other guards identified as improperly looking at the plans in advance denied doing so, the report said.
The report came just one week after the Oak Ridge plant operators replaced the security manager, Judy Johns. A spokeswoman for BWXT Y-12 L.L.C., which operates the plant, said she could not immediately say whether the transfer was related to the inspector general's findings. Johns was given a new homeland security assignment and replaced by Willis ``Butch'' Clements, who previously held the job from 1994 until 1998.
Citing the federal Privacy Act, the inspector general's report did not identify any of the Oak Ridge guards. Security at the plant is handled by Wackenhut, the largest supplier of guards for U.S. nuclear facilities, including the Nevada Test Site, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Colorado's Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site and the Nonproliferation and Nuclear Security Institute in Albuquerque, N.M.
On the Net:
Energy Department Inspector General: http://www.ig.doe.gov/pdf/ig-0636.pdf
Y-12 National Security Complex: http://www.y12.doe.gov
Wackenhut Corp.: http://www.wackenhut.com
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Safety of Adding to Nuclear Plants' Capacity Is Questioned
January 26, 2004
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/politics/26NUKE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 - Safety experts are questioning an effort by the nation's nuclear industry that has expanded its output by the equivalent of three large reactors without adding a single new plant.
In the last two decades, nuclear plants have won permits to uprate, meaning add capacity to reactors, with almost no opposition. With these upgrades, plus expanded working hours and 20-year extensions on operating licenses, the nuclear industry has expanded its electrical output to a point that safety experts say could be dangerous.
For their part, plant owners say they are modernizing in way that can improve safety.
But a battle line has been drawn over an application by Entergy Nuclear to raise a reactor's power output by 20 percent.
Some nuclear engineers outside the company hope they can mount a serious technical challenge to this application so it will not sail through as the previous 99 applications have.
Entergy Nuclear applied in September to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permission to raise the power output of a 32-year-old reactor it owns, the Vermont Yankee, by 20 percent. In considering additions of capacity the commission has changed the way it measures the risk that emergency cooling water, which is needed to dissipate heat at the higher power level, will boil into steam during an accident.
If the water turned into steam, it would make cooling impossible, the fuel could melt, and radioactive material would be released.
The Vermont plant is exempt from some government safety regulations because it was licensed before they were written, and it is now trying to reduce its safety margin "far beyond anything that could be licensed today," said Paul M. Blanch, an engineer with decades of experience in the nuclear field.
While no one has ordered a new nuclear plant in this country since 1973, except for those that were canceled before completion, the 103 reactors now licensed have not only added capacity but will add the equivalent of another two or three plants in the next few years, industry and government experts say.
These uprates, involving mostly minor changes that allow more power production, helped allow the nuclear industry's share of American power production to stay around 20 percent even with no new plants.
Plant managers say that the Vermont Yankee, in Vernon, Vt., just north of the Massachusetts border, was built with enormous unused capacity. And nuclear experts, even some who say that Vermont Yankee's application should receive extra close scrutiny, say that increasing power output can make a plant safer because modernization may include installing more precise, reliable components.
According to Entergy's plans, when Vermont Yankee is next refueled with fresh uranium, technicians will put in more of the type that is easily split to produce energy, and workers will install water pumps that will deliver more water so the reactor can produce more steam. The company will also install a new turbine, which takes the energy of the steam and uses it to turn a shaft, and a new generator, which uses the shaft's energy to make electricity.
The reactor's current capacity of 524 megawatts of electricity would rise to 634; one megawatt would keep 1,000 window air-conditioners running. Experts say this upgrade will probably cost about $60 million - far less expensive than creating the equivalent by building a new plant. Fuel expenses would rise somewhat, but not the long-term labor and maintenance costs.
That economic logic has appealed to the nuclear industry, especially as the electric industry restructured over the last few years and some reactors were sold.
"As people began to look at competitive markets and renewing the operating licenses, they said, `If I make a little more investment in this plant, I can uprate it even further,' " said Marvin Fertel, the chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's most recent tally, last March, showed that 79 plants had won permission to increase output and that seven applications besides that of the Vermont Yankee were pending.
At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mohammed A. Shuaibi, a senior project manager, said, "A lot of rigorous analysis, and changes to plant hardware, are done to make sure the plants continue to be safe at the higher power level."
Entergy bought Vermont Yankee from a group of New England utilities in July 2002. One selling point was that it was like a used car driven only on Sundays - it had never had an uprate and would probably qualify for a big one.
But at Vermont Yankee, there are questions about the risk that the emergency cooling water will boil into steam.
At the current maximum allowable power level, the emergency water could be heated to 183 degrees, well short of the boiling point at normal atmospheric pressure, 212 degrees. After a 20 percent uprate, that could rise to 194 degrees.
During an accident the emergency pumps suck in huge volumes of water, lowering the pressure inside the pump. That could allow bubbles of steam to develop.
Reactor owners argue that an accident would probably involve a leak, and that would create steam in the reactor building, keep the water pressurized in the pump and prevent it from boiling.
Jay K. Thayer, the site vice president for Entergy Nuclear at Vermont Yankee, said the company's plan was conservative because in an accident, pressures would be far higher than the company projected in its application.
"We don't use everything that's available," he said. "We subtract to assure that there's margin there."
Until the last few years, the commission would not allow such assumptions to guide its rulings. In the 1990's, two reactors in New England were identified by the commission as having a risk of boiling at atmospheric pressure. The owners shut the reactors rather than fix this and other problems.
But Vermont Yankee has applied under the current rules and has asserted that pressure would be sufficient during an accident, at least 6.1 pounds at the beginning, and would stay higher than atmospheric pressure for 50 hours, Mr. Thayer said, leaving a substantial safety margin.
Others argue, though, that there are far too many accident scenarios in which the atmospheric pressure might not build up - for example, if there were small leaks or a breach of the containment building during a terrorist attack or failure of part of the containment system.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group that is often critical of nuclear safety, said the commission had previously rejected owners arguments about pressure preventing boiling water because "it is hard to guarantee the pressure will always be there when needed."
In general, all reactor safety equipment has to have backups. But Vermont Yankee was licensed before the backup requirement went into place. Mr. Blanch and others argue that this loophole could make the plant vulnerable to a severe accident if a single component failed after the emergency cooling system was required.
William K. Sherman, the Vermont state nuclear engineer, sent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a letter in December expressing doubts about the reactor's application and its reliance on high pressure in an emergency.
"What is the safety implication," he wrote, of counting on extra pressure in an emergency?
-------- tennessee
Preview spoils nuclear plant security test
From Mike Ahlers
CNN Washington Bureau
Monday, January 26, 2004
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/26/nuclear.plant.test/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An exercise to test preparedness against a terrorist attack at a nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was compromised last summer when guards got a peek at the plans, according to a report by the Department of Energy's inspector general.
The report, issued Monday, further said there was "compelling" evidence that security tests have been manipulated since the mid-1980s.
The Y-12 National Security Complex -- approximately 600 buildings over 811 acres -- was established along with the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb.
Both are situated on the 33,750-acre Oak Ridge Reservation that is home to a number of Department of Energy science and technology programs.
Several sensitive activities take place at the Y-12 plant, including the warehousing of enriched uranium and the dismantlement and storage of weapons. The site was being tested to see if it could defend against potential security incidents.
But the exercise was compromised when personnel were shown computer simulations of the attack in advance, according to the DOE inspector general's office.
"As a consequence, the test results were, in our judgment, tainted and unreliable," the report said.
The test manager became suspicious after guards at the Y-12 complex fended off all four simulated attacks, each involving a different scenario, Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman wrote.
Computer models had predicted the attackers would prevail in two of the scenarios.
The manager investigated and found that shortly before the June 26 test, two security workers employed by Wackenhut Services Inc. were inappropriately allowed to view the computer simulations of the four scenarios, the report said.
Wackenhut, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, has provided security at the facility since January 2000. It is owned by Group 4 Falck A/S, a Danish company that claims to be a world leader in security services. (Wackenhut)
The report said the inspector general's office interviewed more than 30 current and former security personnel.
Some of those interviewed "provided us with compelling testimony that there has been a pattern of actions by site security personnel going back to the mid-1980s that may have negatively affected the reliability" of security tests, the report said.
Among the reported abuses:
• Security personnel would be assigned to "tail" those acting as aggressors while they were touring Y-12 buildings in preparation for an exercise.
• Managers would increase the number of available responders and put well-prepared security personnel in place of lesser-prepared personnel before an exercise.
• In an exercise in late 2000 or early 2001, security managers told security officers "the building and target to be attacked, the exact number of adversaries, and the location where a diversion would occur."
• In simulated attacks where security personnel wore gear to determine whether they had received a simulated fatal gunshot, participants at times removed the batteries from the gear, put the batteries in backward, or placed tape, mud or Vaseline over the sensors so they would not operate properly.
The inspector general's office said that while no one had documentation to support the allegations, "the extent and the nature of the testimonial evidence" was compelling.
The Department of Energy did not immediately respond to calls from CNN. But in the report, the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration "concurred" with the findings and said it was implementing a series of corrective actions.
----
Wackenhut counters report; says Y-12 security never better
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
January 26, 2004
Knoxville News-Sentinel
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_2605207,00.html
OAK RIDGE -- The government's security contractor in Oak Ridge today strongly defended the police force at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and said an Inspector General's report was mostly "old news" about problems that have been fixed.
Jean Burleson, senior vice president and general manager of Wackenhut Services Inc., said he disagreed with the IG's conclusion that advance information "compromised" the security test last summer. He said the June 2003 exercise was not a typical "force-on-force" and that some advance information was necessary to do the special exercise.
Burleson also blasted a watchdog group -- Project On Government Oversight -- that recently suggested Y-12 was vulnerable to terrorist attack.
"POGO's mission in life is to make things look as bad as possible," Burleson said. "All they want to do is unilaterally shut down these (weapons-production) sites. Their allegations are baseless."
The Wackenhut executive insisted that the Y-12 protective force did not fail a 2 A 1/2-month security review last fall, as POGO claimed.
POGO, citing unnamed government sources, said the Oak Ridge guards did not properly defend Y-12's nuclear assets. The group said the poor results indicated terrorists might be able to infiltrate the plant and use enriched uranium stocks to build -- and possibly detonate -- a crude nuclear weapon.
"I can tell you, point-blank, that the exercises were not a failure," Burleson said today. "That's blatantly untrue. We did not fail the exercise."
Wackenhut took over as security manager at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge facilities in 2000.
The reason Wackenhut was hired, Burleson said, was to fix past problems and provide "professional" security services. According to the Wackenhut chief, the company has done just that.
"The state of security at Y-12 is better than it's ever been, and it's getting better," Burleson said emphatically.
In a performance evaluation released last September, Y-12's federal overseer praised the company for "outstanding security services" for the first half of fiscal 2003. The security contractor scored an overall performance score of 99 from the National Nuclear Security Administration and a 98 from DOE and received more than $3 million in fees.
Another review for the last half of 2003 is expected to be released soon.
Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.
-------- texas
Homer Simpson let loose on US nuclear weapons facility
By Lester Haines
26/01/2004
The UK Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/35122.html
Homer Simpson has apparently relinquished his post at Springfield nuclear plant to take up a new position with US Energy Department's Pantex plant in Texas.
Our suspicions are aroused because the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported that workers at the Amarillo complex nearly totalled the Lone Star State twice while dismantling old nuclear warheads.
In the first incident, highly-skilled operatives inadvertently drilled into the warhead's core, provoking a full-scale evacuation of Pantex. They later made a second Chernobylesque blunder by bodging a highly-explosive warhead part back together with tape.
Had they subsequently dropped the component, the likely outcome would have been a "violent reaction", with "potentially unacceptable consequences", as safety board chairman John T. Conway rather conservatively put it.
Pantex is operated by BWX Technologies Inc. The facility's website assures visitors that BWXT Pantex is "Maintaining the safety, security and reliability of America's nuclear weapons stockpile" through "Teamwork that delivers... Results!".
Presumably the ... represents the slight delay between the team dropping the warhead and then delivery of the Results! in the form of Texas reduced to an irradiated wilderness for 10,000 years.
There is, mercifully, some hope that that Texans will not in future be obliged to check their steak and fries with a Geiger Counter since the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has an inspector permanently stationed at Pantex. We're certain he's ensuring they buck up their ideas; but if he should turn out to be Sideshow Bob, here is BWXT's cut-out-and-keep guide to what you should do once the sirens sound, entitled "WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE ADVISED TO TAKE SHELTER" and culled from Pantex's entertaining Managing Emergency Events:
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE ADVISED TO TAKE SHELTER
To protect yourself, you need to avoid physical contact with radioactive materials and avoid inhaling them:
Stay indoors in your home, work place, or a nearby building. Once inside, do not leave unless you are told it is safe to go out or you are advised by your emergency management officials or law enforcement personnel to evacuate.
Close all windows, doors, and fireplace dampers. This keeps outside air from entering your home or work place.
Turn off any heating or cooling system that draws in air from the outside. If it becomes stuffy, use portable or ceiling fans to circulate the air inside.
If you have been outside during the period just before you were warned to take shelter, take a shower or at least wash your face and hands with a washcloth using soap and tepid water. Change into clean clothes; put the clothing you were wearing and the washcloth into a plastic bag.
Keep your radio on and tuned to one of the local EBS stations- KGNC-AM (710) or KGNC-FM (97.9). Listen for information and instructions
Begin to assemble items you may need in case you are advised to evacuate.
If you must go outdoors, cover your nose and mouth with a damp cloth to avoid inhaling any radioactive materials that might be present.
Top advice. On the other hand, you could just join Homer down at Moe's, rack up a few beers, and wait for your skin to fall off.
~~ links ~~
http://www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/pantex/index.html
http://www.dnfsb.gov/
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&e=18&u=/ap/nuclear_weapon_tape
http://www.pantex.com/
http://www.pantex.com/ds/pxgenc3.htm
-------- us politics
Congressional Budget Office Projects $477 Billion Deficit
January 26, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Budget-Deficits.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal deficits will total nearly $2.4 trillion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office projected Monday, a worsening of nearly $1 trillion since its last forecast in August.
In its annual wintertime economic update, Congress' nonpartisan fiscal analyst also projected that the red ink would hit a record $477 billion this year.
Though the report envisions next year's shortfall dipping to $362 billion, the estimates are sure to become ammunition in the election-year fight over red ink. Already, Democrats are hitting President Bush for the stark reversal from huge surpluses of just three years ago, while conservative Republicans are criticizing him for excessive spending as well.
``The president wants to go to Mars, and he's got deficits going to the moon,'' said Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.
Treasury Secretary John Snow, in a speech delivered via satellite to a conference in London, repeated the administration's commitment to cut the deficit in half -- toward a size that is below 2 percent of gross domestic product -- over the next five years.
``Make no mistake; President Bush is serious about the deficit,'' Snow said.
While House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, cited the report's improved expectations for the economy, he said Republicans must control spending and added, ``Deficits do matter.''
All the congressional projections assume the president and Congress will not cut taxes or increase spending -- an unlikely scenario, particularly with control of the White House and Congress up for grabs this November.
The report's short-term projections were in the neighborhood of where they were in the budget office's last report five months ago.
The most marked deterioration was for the decade ending 2013, for which the office projected cumulative deficits of $2.38 trillion. That was $986 billion worse than it estimated last August, and $3.7 trillion deeper than it projected a year ago.
The forecast worsened in part because the budget office assumed -- as it is required to by law -- that the $87.5 billion approved last year for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be renewed annually for the decade. Many lawmakers and analysts consider that unlikely.
The office also factored in new costs like the prescription drug benefit created last fall. In addition, the report projects lower federal revenue than was anticipated earlier, partly as result of lower inflation that the budget office now expects.
But the budget office did not include the costs of programs or initiatives lawmakers are considered likely to approve in coming years. These include making at least some tax cuts permanent, changing the alternative minimum tax so it doesn't affect growing number of middle-income earners, and spending increases for popular programs or unforeseen needs like war or disasters.
The cumulative national debt is already over $7 trillion.
Bush plans to send Congress a $2.3 trillion budget for that year next Monday in the face of growing criticism by Democrats and conservatives over increased spending and surging federal shortfalls.
Underscoring the political pressure he feels, Bush and administration officials have said their budget will propose cutting the deficit to half of this year's level by 2009.
Bush has so far revealed no details of how he would achieve that. Democrats say his goal would be a minimal accomplishment because deficits are so high to start with. They also say it is meant as a distraction from the even deeper deficits expected when baby boomers retire in force just beyond a decade from now.
The deficit hit $375 billion in 2003, the highest in dollar terms ever. The previous record was $290 billion in 1992. Administration officials say the more important measure is how the shortfall compares to the size of the U.S. economy, a measure by which today's red ink is smaller than it was in the 1980s.
All the estimates assume lawmakers will not rewrite any tax laws and let spending grow only at the rate of inflation.
Because tax and spending changes are inevitable, the forecasts are not meant as a prediction. Rather, they provide lawmakers with a baseline from which to measure the effect their policies would have on the budget.
The two parties are already fighting over the red ink that has materialized during the Bush years.
The budget's health has taken an abrupt nosedive after four straight years of annual surpluses that ran through 2001.
Only last January, the budget office estimated 10-year surpluses -- not deficits -- of $1.3 trillion. And in January 2001, when Bush took office, the projection was for a decade of black ink totaling $5.6 trillion.
Republicans say Bush is not to blame for the turnabout. Analysts say the surpluses have dissolved due to the recession, the tax cuts Bush pushed through Congress, and growing spending for defense, Medicare and other programs.
Even so, many Republicans have grown increasingly uneasy with the shortfalls. The public has mostly ignored the budget gaps, focusing instead on the economy, war and terrorism, but recent polls indicate people are paying more attention.
--------
Cheney Is a Silent Partner No Longer
Increased Visibility Intended to Bolster Bush's Image
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47467-2004Jan25?language=printer
ROME, Jan. 25 -- Vice President Cheney, administration man of mystery, is suddenly everywhere.
After two years of barely speaking to reporters aside from rare appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney has given eight interviews in the past month.
After taking just one foreign trip during his first three years in office, he is in the middle of a five-day swing through Switzerland and Rome.
Sunday morning, the reclusive vice president even allowed journalists to photograph him sightseeing. Instead of Cheney's usual silence, he remarked on his "beautiful walk through Rome" as he breezed past the press pack at the Villa Borghese, a 17th-century estate that is now an art museum.
Republican officials said Cheney's new visibility, which is likely to increase as his reelection race heats up, is partly the result of strategists' determination that his long silences had helped make him a punching bag for Democrats and a lightning rod for criticism of President Bush over secrecy, corporate connections and reliance on unproven intelligence.
"The theory is that the criticism is gratuitous and that we shouldn't just accept the story line provided by the enemy," said a GOP official familiar with the strategy. "They're going to write about you anyway, so why not be part of the process?"
Cheney has long been a popular administration ambassador to heartland conservatives and already spends many Mondays and Fridays raising campaign money. Officials say that after the Democratic nominee is chosen, Cheney will make frequent appearances in targeted television markets that Bush cannot hit.
Mary Matalin, Cheney's former counselor, said he is not raising his profile because of the campaign but is "just doing what he does best, which is presenting the long view and the rationale of any given policy."
Cheney came under fire Sunday from Democratic presidential candidates, including Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), who said on "Fox News Sunday" that the vice president "exaggerated, clearly" about Iraq's weapons programs. Kerry said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that Cheney and others in the administration "misled the American people" about the programs.
Many independent voters found Cheney to be a reassuring presence on Bush's ticket in 2000. Officials said he would be just as important this November because they think Cheney will help Bush make foreign policy experience a selling point.
So a subtle makeover has begun, according to administration officials. Cheney, who many in Europe see as the representative of what they consider the unilateral thrust of White House foreign policy, was the administration's top presence in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of government and academic elites that is dedicated to such soft ideals as "building trust, peace and reconciliation."
Cheney's speech in Davos on Saturday, in which he called for global cooperation against the common dangers of terrorism and incubating extremism, received a guarded reaction but was described by some in the audience as the message they had been waiting to hear from the administration ever since Bush decided to go to war with Iraq over the objections of some of the United States' most important allies.
The tone of his address -- which included soaring, Reaganesque flourishes that are uncharacteristic of Cheney -- was driven partly by the realization of administration officials that they need more international help in Iraq and other hot spots, and partly by a White House effort to polish Bush's image before the campaign, officials said. One Republican consultant said Bush did not want to face swing voters "as the gun-slinging cowboy from Texas who can handle it all by himself."
Administration sources say Cheney has argued for limiting the role of the United Nations in Iraq at every turn, but said he was willing to be the messenger for multilateralism for the same reason he agreed to the spate of interviews: It was what was most helpful to Bush at the moment.
Cheney, who turns 63 on Friday, was chief of staff to President Gerald R. Ford, Wyoming's sole member of the House of Representatives and defense secretary for Bush's father when they assembled the international coalition for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The vice president has said he is in his "last job." In a joint interview with USA Today and the Los Angeles Times this month, he said he is "not seeking publicity for my sake, or for its own sake."
People close to Bush say that Cheney's most important job has nothing to do with the public eye, but instead constitutes discretely dispensing what Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans called "wise, stable and steady counsel" to the president.
Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas, recalled once telling Bush, "It makes me sleep good at night, knowing Dick Cheney is there.
"And the president said, 'Makes you sleep good? What about me sleeping good?' " Gramm recounted.
Administration insiders say that is a major reason that Bush's inner circle did not fret when Cheney followed his natural inclination after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and largely disappeared from the public eye, because he was so busy and because of safety concerns that drove him to the "secure, undisclosed location" that became a target of late-night comics.
What did not disappear was a string of stories about Cheney that raised questions about the administration's ethics. Critics of the administration have seized on his willingness to go to the Supreme Court to try to prevent release of the records of the energy task force he ran in the early days of the administration. Halliburton, the Texas-based energy company of which he was chief executive before joining Bush's ticket, has become the most prominent contractor in postwar Iraq and acknowledged that it may have overcharged the government $6.3 million for work in Iraq.
David Sirota, director of strategic communications for the liberal Center for American Progress, writes a daily newsletter of what he considers to be administration lies, distortions and inconsistencies, and Cheney is his favorite administration target.
"He provides the most brazen and obvious examples of how this administration has distorted intelligence and shilled for corporate interests," Sirota said.
A Cheney aide said that with Bush's core supporters, "taking a few unearned hits in the press over time can intensify their loyalty, and that is not a political negative."
For now, though, Cheney is trying a hint of glasnost. Usually reporters are not allowed to travel with him, but he took eight journalists to Europe on Air Force Two, and his staff has been providing nightly briefings on his activities.
Cheney can rarely be seen in the United States except walking in and out of Republican fundraisers, so this trip has been a rare chance to watch him work. He has an all-business, rugged mien, dispensing with the usual politician's waves as he trudges across a tarmac and carries his gloves in freezing weather instead of wearing them. He is traveling with his wife, Lynne V. Cheney, an author and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and their daughter, Liz Cheney, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs who now works for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
After arriving in Davos on Friday night, Cheney mingled at a reception for world leaders set up for him by the U.S. Embassy. On Tuesday, he will host a round-table discussion for European journalists.
Cheney seems unperturbed about the criticism he receives. In the interview with USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, he was asked whether he felt compelled to deal with "the caricature of you that has evolved over the last three years, the whole undisclosed location thing, the sinister force behind the president's policies."
"Why do I want to deal with it?" Cheney replied. "What's wrong with my image?"
"Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" he added. "It's a nice way to operate, actually."
--------
White House Retreats From Weapons Claims
January 26, 2004
By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRAQ_WEAPONS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq-Weapons.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House retreated Monday from its once-confident claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and Democrats swiftly sought to turn the about-face into an election-year issue against President Bush.
The administration's switch came after retired chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said he had concluded, after nine months of searching, that Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of forbidden weapons. Asked about Kay's remarks, White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to repeat oft-stated assertions that prohibited weapons eventually would be found.
McClellan said the inspectors should continue their work "so that they can draw as complete a picture as possible. And then we can learn - it will help us learn the truth."
Kay, meanwhile, was called to appear at a public hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and agreed to attend, a Senate aide said.
Sen. John Kerry, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said Bush had misled the nation. "When the president of the United States looks at you and tells you something, there should be some trust," Kerry said from the campaign trail in Keene, N.H. "He's broken every one of those promises." Howard Dean, another Democratic candidate, said, "The White House has not been candid with the American people about virtually anything with the Iraq war."
The U.S. war against terrorism is Bush's strongest suit against Democrats, and his handling of Iraq has the approval of more than half of Americans questioned in polls. Analysts said it was doubtful the weapons issue would hurt Bush much.
"It depends on how the Democrats play it," said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. "Basically they're dominating the news as much as the president is these days, and if they continue to criticize the president on this, then it begins to hurt a little bit.
"But basically he is doing so well in the polls at this point, on the economy but also even on the war, that I don't see it as a major hit," Thurber said.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle called for an investigation - either by the Senate Intelligence Committee or an independent commission - into the "administration's role in the intelligence failures leading up to the war with Iraq."
Sen. Joe Lieberman, another Democratic candidate, campaigning in New Hampshire, also urged an investigation or congressional hearings "on the intelligence that some of us saw directly, and the statements that the administration was making and the emphasis the administration was putting on weapons of mass destruction."
Vice President Dick Cheney, meeting in Rome with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, did not answer when a reporter asked if he felt prewar intelligence was faulty. Cheney was one of the administration's most forceful advocates of war and was outspoken in describing Iraq's alleged threat.
Kerry has questioned whether Cheney tried to pressure CIA analysts who wrote reports on Iraq's weapon programs.
A senior administration official on the Cheney trip said the "jury is still out" on whether the intelligence accurately reflected what kind of weapons were in Iraq.
"Obviously we want to compare the intelligence from before the war with what the Iraq Survey Group learns on the ground," McClellan said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, traveling in Vienna, Austria, said the Iraq war was justified, even if banned weapons are never found, because it eliminated the threat that Saddam might again resort to "evil chemistry and evil biology."
Saddam's willingness to use such weapons was sufficient cause to overthrow his regime, Ashcroft said, referring to the use of chemical and biological arms against Iraqi Kurds in 1988 and during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
McClellan made the same point. "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power was the right decision," he said. "Saddam Hussein was a dangerous and gathering threat, and the president made the right decision to remove him from power."
Even before Kay announced his conclusion, Bush had changed his public rationale about the war as the search for weapons proved fruitless. Bush cast it as a broader war against terrorism, calling Iraq the central front, and said democracy would spread in the Middle East if it took hold in Iraq.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was disappointing that inspectors have not found evidence "of what the whole of the international community believes, and genuinely believed, about weapons programs and weapons stockpiles which Saddam had."
Kay, in a weekend interview with National Public Radio, tried to deflect heat from Bush.
Asked whether Bush owed the nation an explanation for the discrepancies between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said, "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people."
-------
White House to Review Prewar Intelligence on Iraqi Arms
January 26, 2004
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26CND-REACT.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 - Bush administration officials insisted today that the Iraq war was justified, but they promised further review of prewar intelligence after the outgoing chief American weapons inspector said that he was almost certain that Iraq had no significant banned weaponry before the war.
In interviews over the weekend, the lead inspector, David A. Kay, said that he did not believe that Iraq had significant biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in the days before the American-led invasion in March, and he did not believe that any such weapons had been shipped to Syria.
The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said today that the C.I.A. had already begun reviewing its prewar analyses. But final conclusions, he said, could not be made until the team seeking weapons evidence in Iraq, the Iraq Survey Group, completed its work.
"We want to compare the intelligence before the war with what the Iraq Survey Group learns," he said. "Their mission is ongoing."
Mr. McClellan repeatedly asserted that in view of what he said was a "dangerous and gathering threat" from Iraq, the war had been justified.
Meanwhile, two senior American officials traveling separately abroad, as well as officials of two important allies of the United States in the war, Britain and Australia, continued to defend the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
One of the officials, Attorney General John Ashcroft, used strong language in Vienna, where he met with Austrian officials, but was careful not to explicitly assert that Saddam had possessed banned weapons before the war.
"Weapons of mass destruction, including evil chemistry and evil biology, are all matters of great concern, not only to the United States but also to the world community," Mr. Ashcroft said. "They were the subject of U.N. resolutions."
He added, "I believe there is a very clear understanding that Saddam Hussein continued to pose a threat."
Vice President Dick Cheney has continued to assert not only that Iraq probably had banned weapons but that it also had links to Al Qaeda terrorists - even after Bush said there was no evidence of this.
But today, speaking to business and government leaders in Rome, was more cautious. "The world's democracies must send an unmistakable message that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction only invites isolation and carries with it great costs," he said.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Saturday held out the prospect that banned weapons might never be found in Iraq.
As the months have passed and American weapons inspectors have failed to report significant discoveries, the Bush administration has gradually shifted from dire-sounding warnings about purported Iraqi weapons toward a greater emphasis on other justifications for the war, including the desire to topple a dictator and to bring democracy to Iraq.
One international rights group, Human Rights Watch, said today that even though armed intervention could have been justified following Mr. Hussein's 1988 massacre of Kurds, the dictator's actions in recent years were not grievous enough to justify war.
"Brutal as Saddam Hussein's reign had been, the scope of the Iraq government's killing in March 2003 was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention," the group's head, Kenneth Roth, wrote.
He added: "The Bush administration cannot justify the war in Iraq as a humanitarian intervention, and neither can Tony Blair."
Dr. Kay's conclusions have rekindled a debate about the war in the United States, where several Democratic candidates for president have questioned the case for war, and in Britain, where critics have charged that the Blair government exaggerated the Iraqi threat.
But Foreign Secretary Jack Straw insisted today that the war had been justified. "The decision we made on March 18 to take military action was justified then in terms of enforcing international law and is still more justified now," he told reporters in London, Reuters said. Mr. Straw also asserted a humanitarian argument. "We have removed a terrible tyrant, we have found scores of thousands of graves of people who were murdered by the Saddam regime," he said.
In Canberra, Australia, Prime Minister John Howard was adamant that the war had been fought for good cause. "I do not regret it, I do not retreat from it, and I never will," the Australian leader said.
Dr. Kay, in an interview with The New York Times that was published today, said that the Bush administration was almost surely wrong in its prewar belief that Iraq had amassed stockpiles of banned weapons.
Instead, he said, Iraqi scientists had taken advantage of an increasingly isolated and deluded Mr. Hussein to gain funding for fanciful weapons programs before then using the money for other purposes.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Afghan War Curbs al-Qaida Arms Program
Jan 26, 2004
By ROHAN SULLIVAN
Associated Press Writer
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AL_QAIDA_WEAPONS_PROGRAM?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- An al-Qaida program to develop chemical and biological weapons was in the early "conceptual stages" when it was cut short by the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. and Malaysian security officials told the Associated Press.
The information on the state of Osama bin Laden's weapons plan came from interrogations of terrorist suspects captured in Southeast Asia and from clues gathered in the Afghan battlefield, the authorities said.
The project was being developed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officials believe the program was being run by Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain and U.S.-trained biochemist, under the direction of Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, an Indonesian accused of heading al-Qaida's operations in Southeast Asia.
Both men are suspected members of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremist group.
Yazid was arrested in December 2001 as he returned to Malaysia from Afghanistan. Hambali was arrested last August in Thailand and is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location.
While clues that al-Qaida was trying to develop chemical and biological weapons were found in Afghanistan after the U.S. military victory in 2001, Hambali's arrest opened a new vein of intelligence.
Interrogators have been trying to match up details of the project gleaned separately from Yazid and Hambali, Malaysian officials told AP.
As the investigation continues, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is considering whether to renew an order keeping Yazid in prison. The order expires Friday.
Yazid graduated from the University of California, Sacramento, in 1987. But after returning to Malaysia, he began attending religious classes run by Hambali, a charismatic preacher, and became one of scores of Malaysians and Indonesians recruited to his radical form of Islam in the mid-1990s.
Yazid, now 40, spent time in an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and became a key Jemaah Islamiyah member in Malaysia. He is accused of allowing top al-Qaida operatives - including two eventual Sept. 11 hijackers - to use an apartment he owned for meetings in Malaysia in January 2000, and gave Sept. 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui a letter of employment that helped him enter the United States.
In October 2000, Yazid allegedly bought four tons of ammonium nitrate to be used to make bombs. At the time, Jemaah Islamiyah was plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other Western targets in neighboring Singapore, officials say.
By mid-2001, Yazid was in Kandahar, the southern Afghan city that was the base of al-Qaida's Taliban hosts, and working on a program "to equip al-Qaida with the capability to launch a chemical attack," a Malaysian official said.
Yazid - who police say is trained in counterinterrogation techniques and is "cooperative only in areas that he chooses to" - has been evasive about chemical or biological weapons he was working on, an official said.
The Pentagon said in early 2002 that U.S. forces had found traces of anthrax at a suspected al-Qaida biological weapons site in Kandahar, along with some equipment needed to convert the bacteria into a weapon. Other samples found at the site tested positive for the poison ricin.
Yazid has told Malaysian authorities the program was in its "conceptual stages" when it was abandoned when the U.S.-led attack on the Taliban started in October 2001, an official said.
Hambali has given U.S. interrogators some information on the weapons program but not much detail, and Yazid is believed to know more specifics, the official said.
This has led to new U.S. interest in Yazid.
In the past, Malaysia has refused to consider extraditing Yazid to the United States. But FBI agents were allowed to question Yazid in November 2002, nearly a year before Hambali's arrest.
Granting foreign officials access to Yazid is a sensitive issue for Malaysia, which is holding at least 70 Islamic militant suspects under a law allowing indefinite detention without trial.
While Malaysia has been cooperating with U.S. counterterrorism authorities, at home the government plays down the role Malaysians may have played in international terrorism. Islam is a political issue in Malaysia, where a moderate form of the religion is practiced by about two-thirds of the population.
Malaysia strongly opposed the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So far, U.S. officials have made only informal approaches about questioning Yazid again, a Malaysian official said. He said the Americans believe Yazid has more information about al-Qaida, particularly about the group's attempts to obtain chemical weapons.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said he was not aware of any request for U.S. officials to question Yazid again.
"But if there is, we are willing to consider it," Syed Hamid told AP. "We are always ready to cooperate with any quarter in helping to combat international terrorism."
The order that has kept Yazid detained expires Friday. Under the security law, Abdullah can renew the order for two more years without any judicial review or public explanation.
Detention orders for more than a dozen other Jemaah Islamiyah suspects are due to expire by late February.
U.S. Embassy officials in Malaysia have said Washington is watching what happens to the jailed Jemaah Islamiyah suspects.
Associated Press reporter Jasbant Singh contributed to this report.
--------
Afghan constitution signed into law
Jan. 26, 2004
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040126-053353-8887r.htm
KABUL, Afghanistan, -- Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai signed the new constitution into law Mondayin Kabul, Afghanistan, allowing the country to hold free elections.
The Voice of America reported the document provides for a moderate Islamic republic led by a president who will be elected later this year.
The new government outlined in the constitution will replace Karzai's transitional administration, installed after the fall of the Taliban regime.
The transitional government drafted the new constitution last year. A grand council of Afghan leaders elected from across the country, along with a small contingent of members appointed by Karzai, then amended and approved the document earlier this month, the VOA said.
The Afghan government and United Nations are registering an estimated 10 million prospective voters for elections tentatively scheduled for June.
Karzai, who plans to run for re-election, praised the constitution as a means to reunite the country after years of civil war.
-------- arms
EU's Solana signals support for lifting China arms embargo
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126190300.66a6mnkr.html
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana signalled Monday support for those seeking to lift a ban on arms sales to China imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
"If you take the list of countries with whom we have embargos of arms or weapons .. probably China is not in the company it should be," he said, after EU foreign ministers launched talks on a French-led initiative to end the ban.
He noted that China's leadership has changed dramatically since the bloody events of 15 years ago.
"It's a leadership that wants to look forward, (that) doesn't want to be linked to the ideas, to the events that took place a long time ago in relation to Tiananmen," he said.
The embargo was imposed after China in June 1989 sent in tanks to break weeks-long pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, killing hundreds.
France, which is currently hosting a state visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao, has initiated the push for the arms embargo to be lifted. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin on Monday called it "outdated."
But countries including the Netherlands and Sweden remain reluctant to lift the ban, citing notably China's human-rights record, diplomats say.
EU ministers agreed Monday to refer the issue to technical-level officials, who will carry out a review in coming weeks and months of China's progress in meeting EU concerns.
EU external relations commissioner Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong before it was handed back to China, echoed some of Solana's comments but also underlined continuing concerns about human rights.
"Clearly the situation in China has changed pretty dramatically since 1989, and there is a leadership which represents a new generation in China," he told reporters.
But he asked: "Are we satisfied with the human rights situation in China? The Chinese know that we are not," noting in particular the issue of the death penalty.
"We do recognize progress but there are still matters that concern us," he said, adding that these matters would be examined in more detail by EU experts who will report back to EU ministers in due course.
----
E.U. may drop China arm sales ban
(UPI) BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jan. 26, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040126-043220-1151r.htm
European foreign ministers in Brussels said Monday the European Union will likely lift the arms embargo on China later in the year.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said the European Union will likely reach a decision on the ban at the March summit of E.U. leaders.
France and Germany are considered to be in favor of lifting the ban, while many Scandinavian nations and human rights groups would like to see it maintained.
The European arms embargo has been in place since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, but exploding Chinese military spending has prompted some European nations to reconsider.
Even if the ban were lifted, the E.U. Code of Conduct for arms sales would still force member states to ensure the arms they sell will not be used for internal repression or international aggression or be used where serious human rights abuses have taken place.
The embargo is expected to be one subject discussed during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to France this week.
----
France urges end to 'outdated' EU ban on arms sales to China
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126152312.rdvi4t48.html
France on Monday urged its European Union partners to lift an "outdated" arms embargo on China, imposed by the bloc after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
But any decision on ending the embargo would be some time off, diplomats said. The sensitivity of the issue was underlined by one leading EU lawmaker, who called talk of ending the ban "outrageous".
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin used talks with his EU colleagues to press for an end to the ban by March, as France pulled out all the stops for a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao that began on Monday.
"Our feeling is that this embargo stems from a (view) of European Union-China relations which is outdated," he told reporters.
"China is today a privileged partner of the EU and has a major and responsible position in the international system," de Villepin said.
"We hope to reach a solution by the next European Council (EU summit, in March) which is in line with the nature of relations which the EU has with a major partner."
A British official said: "We do accept the need for a review of the arms embargo. We think there probably is an issue about modernising it."
The EU, however, needs to work out how to resume arms sales to the communist nation to make sure weapons are not used for internal repression or to threaten Taiwan, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said.
"We have to discuss this all very carefully," he said.
The German position was clear "that we need further discussion of questions concerning human rights but also Taiwan".
Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel added: "We need to take a little more time. There has been progress by the Chinese (but) I am not convinced that we have to decide on that today. We have to wait."
European officials say they are aware that the United States is against lifting the ban, while some EU countries -- notably Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden -- remain concerned about China's human rights record.
The embargo was imposed after China sent in tanks in June 1989 to break weeks-long pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, killing hundreds.
Graham Watson, leader of the European Parliament's Liberal group, responded angrily to the French initiative.
"It is outrageous that France is suggesting lifting the European arms embargo against a communist dictatorship that continues to abuse human rights," he said, accusing Paris of "currying favour" with the Chinese president.
"Do European governments want to risk having blood on their hands by allowing European weapons to be used against civilians in any future crackdown?" he added.
But backers of ending the arms ban said an EU "code of conduct" on arms sales would act as a safety net.
"China is growing all the time in importance for Europe and there are safeguards in place to ensure arms sold by the EU do not end up being used for internal repression or to undermine regional stability," an EU official said.
"There has been no review of the arms embargo for 15 years and France, supported by many others, thinks it's high time that the EU reappraises the issue," he said.
China has been pressing hard for the EU to lift the ban, which Beijing said last month "does not conform with the good momentum in the development of relations between China and Europe".
The EU official said no EU country was firmly against lifting the embargo. "The question is timing and how arms sales would fit in to the code of conduct," he said.
The EU foreign ministers held initial talks on the issue on Monday. EU diplomats are expected to discuss the practicalities of lifting the ban before the ministers return to the matter themselves.
----
Euro-MP slams French push to lift China arms ban
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126141821.qr3f8vmc.html
A leading member of the European Parliament slammed as "outrageous" Monday a French push to lift an European Union ban on arms sales to China imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Graham Watson, head of the European Liberal Democrats, said the French diplomatic initiative was clearly timed to please Beijing during a state visit to France by Chinese President Hu Jintao.
"It is outrageous that France is suggesting lifting the European arms embargo against a Communist dictatorship that continues to abuse human rights," he said.
"A desire to curry favour with the Chinese president during his state visit to France is no excuse for rethinking a long-standing European policy rooted in principle."
He was speaking as EU foreign ministers met to discuss lifting the ban, at almost exactly the same time as the Chinese head of state arrived in Paris for a four-day visit marking the 40th anniversary of Chinese-French relations.
The EU embargo was imposed after China in June 1989 sent in tanks to break weeks-long pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, killing hundreds.
European officials say they are aware that the United States is against lifting the ban, while some EU countries -- notably Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden -- remain concerned about China's human-rights record.
France called for the discussion at an EU summit last month. No immediate decision is expected, but diplomats have said they hope for agreement within months, perhaps as early as March.
----
France wants "outdated" EU China arms ban lifted by March
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126142431.79f2txkw.html
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Monday that a EU ban on selling arms to China, imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, was "outdated" and called for a decision to lift it by March.
"Our feeling is that this embargo stems from a (view) of European Union-China relations which is outdated. China is today a privileged partner of the EU and has a major and responsible position in the international system.
"We hope to reach a solution by the next European Council (EU summit, in March) which is in line with the nature of relations which the EU has with a major partner," he said.
De Villepin was speaking as EU foreign ministers discussed lifting the ban, a move opposed by some EU countries including Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, who remain concerned about China's human rights record.
-------- asia
After Decades, Saigon Figure Visits Vietnam With U.S. Nod
January 26, 2004
By JANE PERLEZ
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/asia/26VIET.html?pagewanted=all
HANOI, Vietnam, Jan. 25 - From his business-class seat on a flight up the spine of Vietnam on Friday, Nguyen Cao Ky, a former South Vietnamese prime minister, peered down on the cloud-covered northern countryside that he had last seen as a pilot on bombing runs during the Vietnam War.
Now 73 and a visitor to a place whose government outlasted the United States and its South Vietnamese ally, Mr. Ky was returning to his home city after 50 years. Mr. Ky, a former staunch anti-Communist, had already spent a busy week socializing, playing golf and sightseeing in Ho Chi Minh City. He said he had been assured of a warm welcome in Hanoi.
The flamboyant clothes that once earned Mr. Ky a reputation as South Vietnam's playboy prime minister were gone, replaced by a sedate cashmere sports jacket and tie. His 1960's full brush mustache was trimmed back, and golf clubs for playing on a newly built course near Hanoi were stashed in the hold.
When his countrymen ask about dealing with Americans, he said, "I tell them to be open and frank with the good Americans." For "the bad Americans," he recommended a forceful kick in the seat of the pants. Asked who the "bad Americans" were, the former prime minister declined to be specific.
His visit has the approval of the Hanoi government, which wants to improve relations with the United States, particularly as a balance against China, Vietnam's neighbor and onetime occupier.
But the trip has aroused opposition among a faction of the South Vietnamese exile community in the United States, particularly in California, where anti-Communist sentiment runs strong and where Mr. Ky has spent most of his time as a businessman since fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Religious groups in the United States have also protested what they call the government's persecution of members of ethnic minorities who have become Protestants.
But Mr. Ky said he believed it was time for reconciliation, and a new chapter. Those Mr. Ky called "the stupid rulers" of South Vietnam - President Nguyen Van Thieu, under whom Mr. Ky served, and President Ngo Dinh Diem, whom Mr. Ky helped overthrow - are both dead, he observed.
"Younger men, in their 50's and 60's, are in charge in Hanoi," he said. "They know they have to get on with America."
As well, he said, the Vietnamese want to balance their complicated relationship with China with better dealings with the United States. As China has become stronger in Asia, Vietnam has become more wary, even though the two countries share Communist political beliefs.
"Economically, China can destroy Vietnam, and the government knows it," Mr. Ky said. "Vietnam could become a district of China again."
Mr. Ky's visit, though informal, comes with some behind-the-scenes encouragement from the Bush administration. Last year, an American official suggested to the government here that it try to mend fences with Mr. Ky as a way to help Vietnam improve its image in the United States. Picking up on the idea, a deputy foreign minister, Nguyen Phu Bin, went to San Francisco last spring and met with Mr. Ky. Mr. Bin, now the Vietnamese ambassador in Paris, suggested the trip to Vietnam.
In the months leading up to Mr. Ky's arrival, Vietnam took several conventional steps to foster better relations with Washington.
A United States Navy vessel docked in Ho Chi Minh City in November, the third such visit in nearly three decades. The head of the Vietnamese military, Pham Van Tra, visited the Pentagon last fall and met with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan told Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in December that Vietnam would try to meet the requirements needed for membership in the World Trade Organization by 2005.
While the government has begun to open up the economy and completed a far-reaching trade agreement with Washington two years ago, Vietnam remains one of the poorest and most corrupt nations in Asia.
Mr. Ky said the Vietnamese government needed to move faster or risk having the country left far behind. So far he has given two main pieces of advice to government officials: cut down on corruption and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.
This week he has given this message, he said, to Thanh Vo Viet, until recently a mayor of Ho Chi Minh City and now Mr. Ky's new golf partner there.
In his autobiography, "Buddha's Child," written with Marvin J. Wolf, Mr. Ky gives an unvarnished account of how he fled the country.
As the North Vietnamese were pushing ever closer to Saigon in 1975, he proposed defending the city house to house, person to person.
But when he failed to persuade anyone, Mr. Ky said, he loaded up a helicopter with some colleagues and flew out to sea. As he approached the American aircraft carrier Midway, Mr. Ky said, he ditched the ivory-handled revolver that John Wayne had given him. The Americans would disarm them, and Mr. Ky said he preferred to disarm himself. After Mr. Ky landed, the American sailors unceremoniously pushed his helicopter over the side.
On Friday afternoon such indignities were forgotten.
Mr. Ky embraced two high school friends he had not seen in more than 50 years - Nguyen To, a professor of Vietnamese literature, and Nguyen Boi Tai, a professor of mathematics. Mr. Ky chose to go south in 1954 when Vietnam was divided into a Communist north and a non-Communist south by the Geneva conference that ended the French war in Indochina. Those two men stayed in the north. On Friday, the three sat laughing about their exploits as lads about town. They then went for ice cream and reminisced about a fat lady who had sold ices from a cart on the street.
-------- business
Britain snubs BAE and Boeing in multi-billion dollar aircraft order
LONDON (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126145333.gvaiscjm.html
The British government has snubbed the country's leading defence contractor BAE Systems over a huge contract to provide the Royal Air Force with refuelling aircraft, preferring the pan-European EADS group instead, it was announced Monday.
The 27-year-long deal is worth 13 billion pounds (18.8 billion euros, 23.7 billion dollars).
The defence ministry said it had rejected BAE's bid, made in conjunction with US aviation giant Boeing, and that a consortium led by EADS was considered "most likely" to offer the best value.
The ministry would now enter into "detailed negotiations" with the EADS-led AirTanker consortium, which also comprises Rolls Royce, Cobham and Thales, over the contract, it said in a statement.
"A final decision on whether or not to proceed with a... contract will not be taken until these discussions have been successfully concluded -- a process that is likely to take a number of months," it added.
There was some consolation for BAE in that it holds a 20-percent stake in Airbus, which represents the lion's share of activities by EADS, and will build wings for the adapted Airbus A330-200 airliners EADS plans to supply for the RAF.
However BAE spokesman Richard Coultart said the company was "disappointed" at Monday's announcement.
"There is some benefit, but it's not the same as a 27-year contract," he told AFP.
Any eventual contract will be made on the basis of the so-called private finance initiative (PFI), a method the British government uses in an attempt to cut costs by bringing commercial business practices into government.
Under a PFI deal, AirTanker would own and maintain the aircraft and provide training, infrastructure and some personnel, whilst the RAF would use the planes for military operations.
This would allow AirTanker to use any aircraft not needed by the RAF during peacetime to generate revenue through commercial use, keeping down costs.
The RAF is seeking to replace its decades-old fleet of VC10 and Tristar refuelling aircraft. BAE and Boeing had planned to supply Boeing 767 planes.
According to a defence analyst, the EADS deal was very likely to go ahead, despite the Ministry of Defence's caution.
"I think it's a full victory. I think all they are saying is we haven't signed the contract, we still have things we have to iron out," said David Mulholland, chief editor of the Jane's Defence Weekly periodical.
"With this, EADS have just become the big competitor to Boeing in air tanking, as before Boeing had a near-monopoly. It's a big story," he added.
-------- chemical weapons
Hitler's chemical weapons a seeping menace
Story by Alister Doyle
REUTERS NORWAY:
January 26, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/23556/newsDate/26-Jan-2004/story.htm
HORTEN, Norway - Six decades after the defeat of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler's chemical weapons are coming back to haunt Europe as they ooze from rusting and poorly mapped graves on the seabed.
Far from the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, corrosion, deeper fishing by trawlers and seabed cables or oil pipelines are disturbing stockpiles in what once seemed inaccessible dumps from the Baltic to the Atlantic.
"It was terrifying. The pain was unbearable and my hands blistered all over," said Danish fisherman Walther Holm Thorsen, who was 15 when he threw a cracked grey canister back into the Baltic Sea after it was snared in the net of his trawler.
One of the first postwar victims of the Nazis in the 1969 accident, he said the pain came in the middle of the night, hours after he and another crew member had rinsed the oily substance off the fish. They had no idea it was mustard gas.
Thorsen spent three months in hospital, and his hands are badly scarred despite skin grafts. "Working as a fisherman now is hard - my hands often feel like they're freezing," he said.
He said that trawler crew are now more aware of the dangers from chemical arms and have decontamination gear aboard. "But increasing rust will be a problem in future," he added.
In some parts of Europe, no one even knows where tens of thousands of tonnes of munitions are.
Ole-Kristian Bjerkemo of the Norwegian coastguard said he hoped a new seismic survey would be carried out this year to locate ships loaded with Nazi stocks of mustard gas and the nerve agent tabun which were scuttled off Norway in 1945.
DUMP SITES A MYSTERY
Norway knows the exact locations of just 15 of a probable 36 ships in waters about 600 metres (1,970 feet) deep off the southern town of Arendal, one of the main postwar chemical dumps with 168,000 tonnes of Nazi ammunition.
"We want to know where they are," Bjerkemo said. A robot camera sent down in 2002 found a trawler net caught on one wreck. Sulphur mustard and traces of arsenic compounds were found in the seabed but no chemicals in the sea water.
European governments reckon the stocks are safest where they are, slowly seeping poisons that may break down in contact with sea water or become diluted over decades.
The environmental group Greenpeace says they should be recovered. Apart from the threat to people working at sea, a sudden release of nerve gas could kill fish stocks. Other poisons might sink into the sediment and damage the food chain.
"Recovery of dumped munition is a costly and high-risk operation which could result in the release of large amounts of toxic compounds," the OSPAR commission of 15 nations protecting the north-east Atlantic said in a study.
"This problem is not going to go away," countered Paul Johnston, principal scientist at Greenpeace research laboratories. "As corrosion sets in the likelihood of releases increases.
And he said that, unlike Iraq, "we know the weapons are there." U.S.-led forces have failed to find alleged weapons of mass destruction that were a main justification by President George W. Bush for the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Most dumps around Europe are from Nazi Germany but other countries from Britain to the United States have disposed of munitions at sea since World War One.
Led by Ireland, OSPAR governments are working on a common set of guidelines for fishermen on the frontlines, likely to be ready in June.
DON'T RUB STINGING EYES
The so-called Helsinki Commission, grouping states around the Baltic Sea, already gives tips to fishermen including:
- cut the nets if you suspect mustard gas, which smells like cress, horseradish or mustard.
- don't rub your eyes if they sting and you suspect mustard gas because you can go blind if you unwittingly already have it on your fingers. Instead, wash eyes with water from a hose for 15 minutes.
- fishing boats should have one "gas box" per three crew members that should include decontamination liquids and sprays and syringes with injections to counter nerve agents.
In other areas, a Belgian study of the Paardenmarkt site where 35,000 tonnes of chemical and conventional munitions from World War One are dumped in shallow waters concluded that it could take up to 1,000 years for all to corrode.
And since the 1920s, more than one million tonnes of mostly conventional arms have been dumped in the Beaufort's Dyke, a 200-300 metre (656-984 feet) deep trench between Scotland and Northern Ireland. A 1996 study showed no contamination of fish.
-------- colombia
OAS to Monitor Disarmament Of Colombian Paramilitary Units
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47295-2004Jan25.html
BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 25 -- The Organization of American States has agreed to monitor the disarmament of Colombia's paramilitary forces, lending significant international support to a peace process that has proved highly divisive.
OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria, a former Colombian president, agreed in weekend talks with President Alvaro Uribe to send representatives here to verify a paramilitary cease-fire and help disarm the fighters following a negotiated agreement between the government and the militia. Gaviria likened the endeavor to the OAS mission in Nicaragua that oversaw the disarmament of 22,000 U.S.-backed insurgents in the 1990s.
But Gaviria's decision, made without consulting the 35 nations that make up the OAS, has angered some diplomats and human rights officials here who said it bestows international legitimacy on a process that remains a work in progress. Essential questions such as how paramilitary leaders would be punished, including those accused of massacring civilians, have yet to be resolved.
"There are many things up in the air, but we are not going to be involved in that part of it," Gaviria said in a telephone interview. "Many countries have doubts, and I have my own. But it's easy to criticize as an observer, and we want Colombia to go forward."
Uribe plans to disarm between 11,000 and 20,000 members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the paramilitary federation known as the AUC, by the end of 2005. He has argued that demobilizing the group, which makes much of its money from the drug trade, would remove a major illegal participant in the war and open the door for talks with two enduring Marxist insurgencies.
The AUC agreed to a cease-fire in late 2002, but several hundred civilian murders have been attributed to the group since then. Despite its harsh military tactics, the AUC enjoys strong political support in much of the country for its success against the leftist guerrillas, whom it has fought alongside the Colombian army.
The leaders of the AUC, Carlos Castańo and Salvatore Mancuso, are wanted in the United States for drug trafficking. The State Department, which has not taken a formal position on the peace process but has provided money for its earliest stages, has labeled the AUC a terrorist organization.
Last year, Uribe proposed legislation that would have allowed paramilitary leaders to avoid prison time, even those charged with grave human rights abuses. Colombia's Congress, which includes a number of AUC supporters, is debating the bill and considering revisions that would require fuller confessions and broader financial restitution for victims. But Castańo has suggested that demobilization talks would collapse if he and other AUC leaders, many of whom have benefited financially from the war, were imprisoned.
A Western diplomat familiar with the talks said Gaviria, whose term expires in September, had endorsed a process being dictated by AUC leaders. He said diplomats from OAS member countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Canada have expressed deep misgivings over Gaviria's commitment, which does not yet have financing.
-------- iran
Iran Council Rejects Electoral Reform
January 26, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26TEHR.html?pagewanted=all
TEHRAN, Jan. 25 (Reuters) - The hard-line Guardian Council has rejected a proposed electoral reform aimed at reversing the bans on hundreds of liberal candidates from parliamentary elections next month, a reformist deputy said Sunday.
Members of Parliament voted Sunday to change the electoral law, in a clear act of defiance of the Guardian Council, the conservative watchdog that has barred nearly half of the 8,200 aspiring candidates from elections scheduled for Feb. 20. Many of those are allies of the reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, and include 80 of the current 290 members of Parliament.
"This indicates that the level of confrontation between the M.P.'s and the Guardian Council continues," said the reformist deputy, Reza Yousefian, adding that the council did not want to accept any solution.
--------
Iran Council Vetoes Challenge
Parliament's Bill Sought to Limit Control of Elections
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47294-2004Jan25.html
ISTANBUL, Jan. 25 -- Iran's embattled parliament passed an emergency measure on Sunday that presented a direct challenge to the conservative oversight body that has barred more than 3,500 reformist candidates from upcoming elections.
The bill, passed on a rarely used "triple urgent" basis, was immediately vetoed by the hard-line Guardian Council, whose authority it was intended to circumscribe.
The swift unfolding of passage and veto telescoped into a single day the confrontation that has unfolded over more than two weeks in Iran, where the council's dismissal of almost half the candidates for Feb. 20 parliamentary elections has produced a political crisis.
Outraged reformers, who took control of Iran's 290-seat parliament four years ago, have threatened mass resignations over what they describe as an attempt to ensure a conservative victory by clearing the field of real competition.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate authority under the country's theocratic system, publicly instructed the council early in the crisis to review the disqualifications. But the council has moved at a glacial pace, so far restoring less than 10 percent of 3,600 candidacies.
The measure passed Sunday was intended to take matters out of the council's hands by amending election law along lines that reformers said codified Khamenei's instructions.
One provision would have required incumbents to be allowed to run on the assumption that their good standing from the last election cycle remained intact, a step proposed by Khamenei. The barred candidates include more than 80 incumbent reformers.
A second section would have allowed new candidates to campaign after approval by 10 local officials, including Friday prayer leaders. That would essentially have removed the council's power to screen candidates.
"We've been informed that the Guardian Council has vetoed the legislation on the grounds that it contradicted the constitution and sharia law," said a reformist lawmaker, Mohsen Mirdamadi, referring to the Islamic legal code, in comments reported by the Associated Press.
Speaking by telephone from Tehran, Saeed Laylaz, a reformist analyst, said the outcome would push events along a course conservatives determined from the outset.
Laylaz said Iran's conservative contingent is united and confident, and the council's reluctance to review the reformist candidacies indicated it would not approve candidates in numbers that might threaten a conservative victory at the polls. Iran's public, though widely opposed to conservative rule, has grown disaffected by the lack of progress by the reformers.
"They are sure they have no problem," Laylaz said of the conservatives. "They want only 20 to 40 percent of reformists in the parliament, and from there they go to the presidential election already holding the legislature."
Iranians will elect a new president in 2005 to replace the twice-elected incumbent, Mohammad Khatami. Khatami, whose 1997 landslide victory was accompanied by wide but largely unrealized hopes of reducing the conservatives' hold on power, has called for a negotiated solution to the current impasse. On Saturday, however, Khatami issued a statement accusing the Guardian Council of stalling.
Other reformers, who regard Khatami as timid, have called for mass resignations that would throw the government into crisis. On Sunday, the state news agency IRNA cited press reports that 76 deputy ministers had offered their resignations. Interior Ministry officials, who are in charge of voting, have threatened to publish ballots that include disqualified candidates. Several parties have threatened to boycott the election.
"We want to reveal to the people that the conservatives have attempted to strip the Islamic republic of its republican aspect," said a reformist lawmaker, Davood Soleymani, in challenging council members to a televised debate on the controversy.
Reformers say Iran's state television, which is controlled by hard-line conservatives, has refused to cover their protests, such as their daily sit-in inside the parliament building.
Meanwhile, the international attention being paid to the continuing crisis brought a warning from a senior conservative. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who heads another unelected oversight body, the Expediency Council, urged politicians not to play into "conspiracies against the Islamic republic" by encouraging news coverage that "raised tensions in Iranian society," according to IRNA.
"We have not been good soldiers for Islam," Rafsanjani said.
--------
Guardian Council sticks to hard line
January 26, 2004
By Ali Akbar Dareini
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040125-103751-9758r.htm
TEHRAN - Iran's hard-line Guardian Council has vetoed a bill that sought to reverse the disqualification of thousands of reformist electoral candidates, a leading legislator said late yesterday.
The move is part of an escalating battle between reform-minded lawmakers and religious hard-liners who dominate the most powerful branches of the government.
"We've been informed that the Guardian Council has vetoed the legislation on the grounds that it contradicted the constitution and Shariah [Islamic] law," said Mohsen Mirdamadi, who heads the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the parliament and is one of the lawmakers disqualified.
The bill sought to overturn the disqualification of more than a third of the 8,200 candidates who registered for the Feb. 20 elections.
Members of the Guardian Council could not immediately be reached for comment.
The veto is considered likely to provoke a boycott of the elections by reformist parties and politicians, who dominate the current 290-seat parliament. Reformists had condemned the disqualifications as an attempt by the hard-liners to skew the elections in their favor.
The legislators had passed the bill earlier yesterday in a session broadcast live on state radio. They categorized it as "triple-urgent," meaning highest priority. It was the first time since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution that parliament had approved a triple-urgency bill.
The bill would have amended the national elections law to force the Guardian Council, which oversees elections, to reinstate all candidates unless there is legal documentation to prove them unfit for parliament.
The council's members are chosen by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has asked the body to reconsider its disqualifications. The council has reinstated only a few hundred candidates. Its slow response has angered reformists, who say it does not act without the supreme leader's approval.
After the bill was passed, and before it was vetoed, lawmaker Rajabali Mazrouei said the crisis would determine in which direction Iran moves - toward dictatorship or democracy.
He said rejection of the bill would mean the council was "publicly revealing its true objective of imposing brazen dictatorship."
"The rejection will mean that all options to avert an exacerbation of the crisis are finished," Mr. Mazrouei added.
Reformist political parties have threatened to boycott the elections if the disqualifications are not overturned.
-------- iraq
Delays and Split on Iraqi Council Imperil U.S. Plan
January 26, 2004
New York Times
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 25 - A powerful cleric's demand for quick elections has delayed the drafting of an interim constitution and created a serious new split in the Iraqi Governing Council, officials said Sunday, further undermining the Bush administration's troubled plan for a political transition in Iraq.
Without an interim constitution, which is supposed to be completed in less than five weeks, the entire timetable for an American transfer of power to an Iraqi government by June 30 could be disrupted. And the divide in the Governing Council has presented the American authorities with a new complication in pushing their plan for a caucus-style process for selecting a transitional national assembly, which now seems increasingly endangered. Many Shiite Arab council members are supporting direct elections, while Sunni Arab and Kurdish members say it is impossible to hold them.
The underlying obstacle to the Bush administration's plans is the unrelenting demand of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, for direct elections for the assembly.
American officials and the reclusive cleric, through his representatives, say they are counting on the United Nations to send a team to Iraq to determine whether direct elections are possible, given the continuing insurgent war and lack of voter rolls. Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, is expected to announce as early as Monday whether he will send such a team.
The deadline for an interim constitution is Feb. 28, but a drafting committee of about 10 people has slowed its work because the outcome of the wrangling over elections will affect how the constitution is written, said Feisal al-Istrabadi, the senior legal adviser to Adnan Pachachi, head of the Governing Council.
The drafting committee has also not formally met in the last few weeks because several members, including Mr. Pachachi, have been traveling abroad. He led a delegation of council members to the United Nations and Washington to discuss the impasse over direct elections. If a United Nations assessment team is sent and reaches a conclusion quickly enough, then the writers of the interim constitution, called the fundamental law, may be able to finish it by the Feb. 28 deadline, said Mr. Istrabadi, a law professor at DePauw University.
He said Mr. Pachachi had hoped that the committee, which usually meets once a week, would finish the document several weeks before the deadline so it would not appear that the authorities were "dropping it on the heads of the Iraqi people."
But there is little chance now for completing it so soon, Mr. Istrabadi said.
"We need the U.N. here very quickly," he said. "Most of us would like to adhere to the Feb. 28 deadline."
The deadline for an interim constitution was set in an agreement outlining the transfer of sovereignty that was reached on Nov. 15 between the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Governing Council.
Dan Senor, a spokesman for the authority, said American officials still intended that the document be finished by Feb. 28.
The Nov. 15 agreement states that the interim constitution needs to be approved by the occupation authority. But Ayatollah Sistani said on Jan. 11 that the interim constitution and any agreement to keep American soldiers in Iraq must be approved by a directly elected assembly.
The interim constitution is supposed to include a bill of rights, details of a federalist governing structure for Iraq, a mechanism for judicial review and a timetable for the drafting of a permanent constitution and elections under that constitution.
Governing Council members have struggled to keep the document on track. Earlier this month, several members met with Kurdish leaders in the mountain town of Salahuddin to listen to demands for a federalist structure that would allow the Kurds to retain broad autonomy in northern Iraq.
Kurdish leaders want such rights enshrined in the interim constitution, and Governing Council members reportedly agreed in principle at the meeting to honor many of the Kurdish demands.
On the Governing Council, whose 25 members were picked by the occupation authority, the clear division that has emerged is over the election issue, with many Shiite Arabs pitted against the Sunni Arabs and Kurds, said an occupation official. Most Shiite members are supporting Ayatollah Sistani's call for direct elections, he said, while representatives of the other groups are against the idea. The council has 13 Shiite Arab members, 5 Sunni Arabs, 5 Kurds, a Turkmen and a Christian.
"The caucuses were getting a lot of support immediately after the council signed the agreement with the C.P.A.," said the official, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. "But when Sistani spoke about elections, some people out of respect, and maybe not even too enthusiastic about elections, began to say they respect what he's saying."
Prominent Shiite members of the council often visit Ayatollah Sistani in the holy city of Najaf. Any sign of support by the ayatollah instantly bestows legitimacy on a politician, and American and Iraqi officials are questioning the motives of some council members who now say they support the call for direct elections.
Direct elections for the transitional assembly would favor the Shiites, who make up more than 60 percent of the population. Sunni Arab and Kurdish officials have privately said that they fear that an overwhelmingly Shiite assembly will not honor the rights and requests of minority groups in Iraq.
The occupation official's assessment of the council split is supported by statements made by council members in interviews and news conferences. Prominent Shiite members say they want direct elections, while Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders - including Mr. Pachachi - argue they do not believe such elections are possible given the June 30 deadline.
Military and United Nations officials say the continuing war may be the biggest obstacle to holding elections, though the Bush administration has yet to publicly acknowledge that. On Sunday, an American soldier died of injuries suffered during a rocket-propelled grenade attack on Saturday night while on patrol in the town of Bayji, the American command said.
Also on Sunday, a Kiowa helicopter crashed in the Tigris River in Mosul while searching for a missing soldier from a capsized boat, and both crew members were reported missing, The Associated Press said. A military spokeswoman said the cause was under investigation.
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Iraqi Melting Pot Nears Boiling Point
In oil-rich Kirkuk, Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens compete for a place in the new order.
By Jeffrey Fleishman,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 26, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kirkuk26jan26,1,7309277.story?coll=la-headlines-world
KIRKUK, Iraq - This fabled city of muddy streets and hidden guns, where one person's folklore is another's atrocity, has U.S. officials concerned that ethnic tensions could ignite a civil war and spoil plans for a unified Iraq.
Rising between the mountains and the desert, Kirkuk and the surrounding region are home to 40% of Iraq's oil reserves. The city is a strategic foothold in the north for competing Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens. History and myth here are twisted and revised daily over sugared tea. One day Kirkuk appears to be a multiethnic success story; the next it seems to be tumbling into chaos.
"Dry kindling is all over the place," said Col. William Mayville, commander of the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade overseeing Kirkuk. "So you don't want someone coming in here with matches and making a fire."
More than 100,000 Kurds forced from the city and replaced with Arabs during Saddam Hussein's rule want to reclaim what was taken from them. Hundreds of Kurds are living in tents at the city's ragged rim, resembling an army of the dispossessed. The scene conveys the passion Kurds have for Kirkuk - they call it their Jerusalem - and reinforces their insistence that many Arabs leave the region in what would amount to another round of ethnic relocation.
That is a troubling prospect for the Bush administration's vision of preventing Iraq from cracking along ethnic lines. Such a failure could set off an international crisis if Turkey dispatches troops across the mountains to stop its Kurdish enemies from gaining control here. Turkey, which claims historical rights to the city, has long had designs on the region's oil wealth.
"Kirkuk is a benchmark for how most Kurds would define their legitimacy in Iraq," said Barham Salih, prime minister for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two main political parties controlling the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq. "We have a claim to Kirkuk rooted in history, geography and demographics.... This is a recipe for civil war if you don't do it right."
Violence so far has been sporadic. But many Arabs fear retribution and street battles - like a firefight in December that left four dead and dozens wounded - and have fled.
Said Akar, an Arab member of the Kirkuk City Council, said: "The people are worried and they're leaving because Kurdish militias are coming to their houses and threatening them."
Kurds were a majority in Kirkuk until the late 1970s, when Hussein's Baath Party began expelling 100,000 to 300,000 of them from the city and outlying villages. Arabs from southern Iraq were resettled in the region to work the oil fields that account for 6.4% of the world's known reserves. Kurdish fighters failed to capture Kirkuk in an uprising following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but they kept an elaborate intelligence network in the city throughout the 1990s.
The Kurds' ambition is to expand their northern autonomous region - for years protected from Hussein by U.S. and British warplanes - south to include Kirkuk. This could upset the U.S.-proposed federalist structure for Iraq and lead to disputes between the Kurds and the country's majority Arabs. It also threatens the city's third major ethnic group of Turkmens, whose cultural links with Turkey hold the possibility that Ankara could become involved.
The Iraqi Governing Council is expected to delay plans on the fate of Kirkuk - and how its oil revenue will be divided - until after the U.S. returns sovereignty to the country June 30. Some Kurdish leaders want the matter decided through a referendum, a move that would favor the Kurds because they are the largest ethnic group.
"I cannot see how things will be stable" if Kirkuk is given to the Kurds, said one Western official in the region. "We ought to draw a circle around Kirkuk and keep it separate."
The Kurdish desire for Kirkuk is one of the major unresolved questions since the U.S. invaded Iraq in March. In the months leading to the war, Kurdish leaders, America's sole allies in Iraq, often reminded U.S. officials of the resonance the city has had throughout Kurdish history. The Kurds agreed to suspend efforts for independence - which probably would have triggered a war with Turkey - but insisted that they would not willingly relinquish the right to Kirkuk. Ankara fears any gains by Kurds in Iraq would inspire unrest among Turkey's 12 million Kurds.
Iraqi Kurds believe that Kirkuk, sitting near the Hasa River on the ruins of a 3,000-year-old settlement, should be their reward for supporting the U.S. The Kurds lent American forces their militias during the war. They waved American flags and played John Philip Sousa marches on TV as Baghdad fell. Kurdish political leaders - Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani - are former mountain guerrillas who operate on a tribal code of loyalty, expecting one favor in exchange for another.
But the Bush administration is concerned with the broader map of Middle East politics and the reaction of its NATO ally Turkey. Washington has spent much of its time in recent months dealing with problems between Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Muslims, with street protests supporting demands by Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for direct elections. The fate of Kirkuk has simmered beneath these dilemmas and is emerging as a potentially serious setback to U.S. plans for the region.
"People feel sympathy with the Kurds and share a partnership with them," said Emma Sky, the Kirkuk coordinator for the Coalition Provisional Authority. "But there are other partnerships in the Middle East and that's what the Kurds have to understand.... We don't want one ethnic cleansing replaced by another ethnic cleansing."
Kirkuk's complexities are in its neighborhoods. Kurds are about 40% of the population, including thousands who have returned since March. Arabs account for about 35% and Turkmens roughly 20%. Rival Sunni and Shiite Arabs have joined the Turkmens - who have received weapons and assistance from Turkish special forces operatives - in opposing what they view as an attempted Kurdish conquest of the city.
Mohammed Kareem doesn't see it that way.
A Kurd, he was born 50 years ago in Kirkuk. He is a short, muscular man. He has lived in a tent since the Hussein regime expelled him from the city in 1995. He has a dent in his skull from an Iraqi army rifle butt, and his pockets are full of expired identity cards, as if to remind him that he was once from Kirkuk. The World Food Program lists him as displaced person No. 754.
"Why don't the Arabs go back to the south and we can replace them?" said Kareem, standing outside his tent waiting for a truck that will bring him kerosene and a donkey cart that will deliver bread and flour. "This land belongs to our grandfathers. We swear by God, Kirkuk is a Kurdish city." He walks past his small vegetable garden and past his wife, who keeps wondering when they can leave these dirty outskirts and move back to their home, if it's still there.
His tent-city neighbors arrive and listen. Many of them refused to join Hussein's army and were forced into exile. They roamed here and there, living in the shells of destroyed villages and pitching tents beside cemeteries and junkyards.
"Why are we in tents in the winter?" asked Mohammed Ahmed, as boys gathered at his elbow.
"Our land is rich in oil," said Sherzad Talib. "How can we be living like this? I think about it all the time."
"We don't want to fight the Arabs," Kareem said. "We just want our rights. They can go voluntarily."
Jasim Ismail Jbra doesn't want to leave.
An Arab, he lives in a house about 500 yards from Kareem's tent. He is a former deputy lieutenant in Iraq's Interior Ministry. He was living in a rented apartment in Baghdad five years ago when his superiors informed him that he could have a house of his own if he moved to Kirkuk. He arrived and found the land had been taken from a Kurdish family. He paid nothing and renovated the house, which sits across an alley from a mosque and a soccer field.
"We don't have any problems with the Kurds. We want to live in peace," said Jbra, fidgeting his amber prayer beads. "If the Kurds take Kirkuk, what can we do? It will be out of our hands."
"If I am expelled, what will happen?" asked his friend, Hammad Karim, who listened from beneath a black and white kaffiyeh and stood near the rubble of a Kurdish house torn down by the former Baathist regime. "Will the new government compensate me? What will become of me? We will become victims of politics. Should this government make the same mistakes as Hussein's government?"
Jbra and Karim were frightened in April when Kirkuk fell to U.S. forces and the Iraqi army, many of its soldiers peeling off their uniforms, disappeared amid date palms and shepherds' fields. Kurdish militias stormed the city on a two-day looting spree as several Baath Party members were executed. Mayville's 173d Airborne secured Kirkuk, formed a multicultural city council and kept ethnic tensions from spinning out of control.
Local leaders say the city's peoples get along with each other, and blame outside forces for instigating trouble. The Kurds claim they are not out to expel the Turkmens, or Arabs who have lived in Kirkuk for generations. The Kurdish proposal is to force the Arabs brought in by Hussein over the last 20-plus years off the property and out of the villages seized from Kurds. But many of those Arabs have no money and nowhere to go.
"We should accept a democratic and peaceful way of settling this dispute," Salih said. "We want to treat the [Arab] settlers as victims of Arabization.... These people were tools of Hussein's vile policy."
M. Kemal Yaycili doesn't trust the Kurds.
A Turkmen, Yaycili is a member of the Turkmen Front political party and a city councilman. He has a book - translated into English - detailing the history of his people in the region. The Turkmen desire not to be marginalized is intense. In April, as Kurdish gunmen fired celebratory shots into the air, a group of Turkmens carried the body of a boy down a street.
They yelled that Kurds had murdered the boy. It turned out the child had died in a car accident and the Turkmens were using the body to evoke sympathy for their goal of preventing Kurds from controlling Kirkuk.
Yaycili complained that U.S. forces have favored the Kurds over the Turkmens and the Arabs. He added that the Turkmens would share Kirkuk with the Kurds providing the city didn't become part of the Kurdish autonomous region known as Kurdistan.
"Kurdistan means a Kurd homeland," said Yaycili, sipping tea in a municipal building surrounded by razor wire and American soldiers.
"The Kurds would be the first class and we would be the second class. They'll be the leaders and chiefs. So far, the Kurds have failed to instill democracy in Kirkuk.... If the coalition forces leave Kirkuk, we'll have a civil war."
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Top cleric spurns U.S. plans
Ayatollah al Sistani brands U.S.-backed caucuses as illegitimate.
Many Iraqis think he's right and say Americans fear direct elections in Iraq.
Mon, Jan. 26, 2004
BY TOM LASSETER
Knight Ridder News Service
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/7796757.htm
BAGHDAD - Iraq's top Shiite Muslim leader now says that American plans for a caucus-based political system are illegitimate because the idea for them came from another illegitimate body: the U.S.-appointed Governing Council.
The harder line reflects the widespread Iraqi view that the council has been an abject failure, without legitimacy beyond the American compound where its members work. Many in Iraq see the Governing Council as a lesson in what will happen without direct elections: rule over Iraq by outsiders who do not have the country's best interest at heart. To complicate matters, many on the council are angling to have the body continue as a nonelected senate, a scenario almost certain to trigger widespread unrest.
In a statement read to thousands of worshipers Friday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani said of the American governance plan: ``It is illegitimate because that decision took place between the coalition forces and the Governing Council, and they are an unelected body. . . . The coalition forces are afraid to have direct elections because maybe someone will be in power that they don't agree with.''
Many Iraqis share that view -- that Washington would rather continue working with the Governing Council's pro-American former exiles than roll the dice with open elections.
''If the Americans refuse to give us elections and begin making appointments, they will bring us another Saddam,'' warned Noor Aldin Alwa'adh, a spokesman for Sistani's Baghdad office.
Many in the Hawza, a religious body of scholars that issues fatwas, or edicts to be followed as law, share this pessimism.
''The people of Iraq suffered for 30 years under a terrible regime. It is natural for them to be afraid of the future,'' said Ali Sibziwary, a senior member of the Hawza.
''I am afraid that the Americans, absent direct elections, will give the power to such a regime,'' he said. ``It would be just like the Governing Council -- selected by the Americans.''
CONTRASTING LEADERS
Governing council members rarely make public appearances. They drive around Baghdad in armored SUVs, guarded by swarms of men carrying machine guns.
It is a striking contrast to Sistani, whose main office in Najaf is in an alleyway that turns off a crowded market street with cheap perfume stands and butcher shops. His security consists of a few men who spend their time chatting with passersby and teasing local children who play marbles in the dirt.
The United States is currently planning to usher in a new Iraqi government by July 1 after a complex series of nationwide caucuses that would culminate in a national assembly. As that process is finalized, under the plan, the Governing Council and the American coalition authority would be dissolved.
But several members would rather keep their council intact after the July 1 date.
One of them, Samir Mahmood Sumaidy, said he and others have argued that the body should continue ``as an upper house, like a Senate, that would guarantee continuity.''
FUTURE CONCERNS
Sadoun al Dulame, the director of an independent think tank in Baghdad and a frequent consultant with many of the council members, said that he has heard also of a push to expand the Governing Council and have it take the place of the planned national assembly altogether.
Part of Washington's overriding concern is that an open election might put in office a Shiite Muslim cleric, or a politician beholden to one, who would steer Iraq toward a theocratic state like its neighbor to the east, Iran. Shiite Muslims are thought to make up some 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. They are expected to vote more or less as a bloc, unlike Sunni Muslims, whose concerns could be split by ethnic considerations such as a possible Kurdish state to the north.
Despite such concerns, Dulame is not a supporter of extending the Governing Council's tenure beyond July.
''If the Americans impose it on the Iraqis, they are going to destroy our dreams of a new Iraq,'' Dulame said.
The council member bearing the heaviest scorn is Ahmad Chalabi, a mathematics professor and businessman with close ties to Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. U.S. forces flew Chalabi to Iraq during the war, and the administration's postwar plans presumed Iraqis would embrace Chalabi as a leader.
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U.S. Searches for Missing G.I. and Two Pilots in Iraq
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. forces aided by Iraqis searched the muddy waters of the Tigris River on Monday in northern Iraq for a soldier and two pilots missing after a helicopter crashed while searching for a patrol boat that had capsized.
Separately, a man was killed when he stepped on a roadside bomb as he got off a bus in a Baghdad suburb on Monday, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps 2nd Lt. Mustafa Tariq said. The explosion left the bus badly mangled and wounded three other passengers, one critically, he said.
Two Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi translator accompanying the American soldiers in the patrol boat were killed in the incident, said a military spokeswoman. But one soldier was still missing while three others survived, she said.
The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter, attached to the 101st Airborne Division, crashed in the Tigris in the northern town of Mosul on Sunday evening during a search-and-rescue mission a little more than an hours later, and both crew members were missing. The U.S. military said in a statement that both crashes ``were not the result of enemy action'' according to initial indications.
``Search efforts are still under way for the three soldiers utilizing all available assets'' with the help of Iraqi police and fire department, said the statement received Monday.
In other violence, four Iraqi policemen manning a checkpoint outside Ramadi west of Baghdad were killed Sunday in a drive-by shooting, police Lt. Col. Saad Someir said. He said gunmen also killed three policemen at another checkpoint in Ramadi on Sunday.
Elsewhere, security guards killed an Iraqi in a shootout Sunday after his gang tried to break through a wall of a bank in the northern city of Kirkuk, the U.S. Army said Monday. Two other gang members were wounded. The fourth man carrying an AK-47 rifle fled on foot before U.S. forces secured the area.
The Kiowa Warrior was the fifth U.S. helicopter to crash in Iraq this month. Three others were brought down by enemy fire and a fourth, also a Kiowa Warrior, crashed Friday south of Mosul soon after takeoff, killing both pilots. The reason was not clear.
The three missing service members were with the 101st Airborne Division, according to the statement.
The News Tribune of Tacoma newspaper, which has a reporter embedded with the division, said the helicopter went down on the east bank of the Tigris just across from the populous old part of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. When rescuers reached the helicopter, they found no one aboard, the Washington-based newspaper said, quoting unidentified officials.
Witnesses said a U.S. patrol came under rocket propelled grenade fire in Mosul on Monday but there were no casualties.
The crashes add to the mounting losses for American forces as the U.S.-led civil administration prepares to hand over power to a sovereign Iraqi government on July 1.
That plan -- which envisages a non-elected government to take over after regional caucuses -- has run into stiff opposition from a powerful Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who wants direct elections.
U.S. officials say the continuing violence and the absence of an electoral roll or a census make it impossible to hold early elections. However, the United States cannot afford to offend the Shiite leadership, because Shiites are estimated to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.
``The clerics' opinion is the opinion of the Iraqi people in general,'' Muwafaq al-Rubaei, a Shiite member of the U.S.-installed Governing Council, said Sunday after meeting with al-Sistani.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to announce this week, possibly Monday, whether to send a team to Iraq to assess if early polls are possible as requested by the United States.
Washington hopes that the involvement of the United Nations will help break the deadlock and satisfy the Shiites.
The Bush administration also must deal with claims by David Kay, the outgoing chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction.
``I don't think they exist,'' Kay said Sunday on National Public Radio. ``The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist -- we've got to deal with that difference and understand why.''
Kay's remarks reignited criticism from Democrats in the United States.
``You truly should go to war as a matter of last resort,'' Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry told CBS' ``60 Minutes'' in an interview to air Sunday night. ``I'm afraid the president rushed to war without a plan to win the peace.''
Also Sunday, U.S. troops arrested nearly 50 people in raids in the Sunni Triangle in central Iraq after attacks in the volatile region killed six American soldiers.
The deaths raised to 513 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the United States and its allies launched the Iraq war March 20. Most of the deaths have occurred in the insurgency by Saddam loyalists since President Bush declared an end to major hostilities May 1.
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Rocket Lands in U.S. Iraq Compound
Jan 26, 2004
By VIJAY JOSHI
Associated Press Writer
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_BLASTS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A rocket landed Monday night near coalition headquarters in the U.S.-controlled area of Baghdad known as the "green zone" but caused no injuries or damage, the U.S. military said.
The rocket fell in an open parking lot near the Republican Palace used by top U.S. officials in Iraq, a coalition official said on condition of anonymity. The U.S. command said there were no casualties or damage to equipment.
That explosion was preceded by the sounds of two smaller blasts, but their origin was unclear.
After the blasts, sirens went off in the green zone and a recorded message broadcast over loud speakers urged people to "take cover."
The rocket exploded near the helicopter landing zone for the palace used by America's top civilian official in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and senior coalition staff, the official said. The attack occurred three days after a U.N. security assessment team arrived in Baghdad to determine whether it is safe for the United Nations to return its international staff to Iraq.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan withdrew international staff from Baghdad last year following two vehicle bombings against agency headquarters, including the Aug. 19 attack that killed 22 people, including top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
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Kurds Await Iraq's Embrace, and Hope It's Not Too Tight
January 26, 2004
By NEELA BANERJEE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26KURD.html?pagewanted=all
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq - For the last 12 years, Chope Hamed has lived in Iraq without living in Iraq.
Ms. Hamed's home is the capital of the Kurdish northeast of Iraq, a region that gained de facto independence from the rest of the country in 1991, after the Americans established a no-flight zone to keep Saddam Hussein's forces at bay.
So while young people farther south grew up within the cloistered repression of the Baathist rule, Ms. Hamed, a 24-year-old college student, enjoyed new freedoms and saw the bigger world through satellite television and the Internet. While Muslim women elsewhere in Iraq veil themselves in ever-increasing numbers, Ms. Hamed and most other women in Sulaimaniya walk with their thick, dark hair tumbling over their shoulders.
"Here I'm equal with guys," Ms. Hamed said, as she sat with friends at the Sulaimaniya University student center. "I say, `I'm just like you, I study, I work, I go out.' "
Her friend Paiman Ahmed, 23, said, "That's the difference between us and them," referring to Iraqi Arab women. "We have freedom. Our families gave us the chance to say what we want, to dress how we want, to be what we want." A world of possibility and freedom is what this younger generation of Kurds is desperate to preserve, as their elders meet with other Iraqi politicians in Baghdad to mesh the Kurdish north once more with the Arab south. Already, Kurdish politicians recognize their youth as an independent-minded force to be reckoned with, a politically sophisticated group that regards the rest of Iraq as a foreign - and backward - country.
"The Arabs from other parts of Iraq are starting from zero, but we've been through all that already," said Brwa Abdulrahman, a 26-year-old who works in the city's youth center. Joining with Iraq, he said, "is like putting a sixth grader in a class with first graders."
The most startling thing about Sulaimaniya now is its vibrant normalcy. While foreigners work in Sulaimaniya, American soldiers are nowhere in sight. Thunderstorms, rather than gunfire and bombings, interrupt the city's sleep. In the evenings, young people go to restaurants, tea shops and Internet salons. The women, unlike those in Baghdad, have no fear of abduction. Young Kurds often study and work several jobs, their main demands being serious economic development and greater political representation.
"Before, people like my dad, they all talked about independence, even just for one day," said Mr. Abdulrahman, nattily turned out in an ivory parka, leather pants and well-applied hair gel. "It was a dream for them. But now the reality is, we have independence. The question is, what kind of independence? We want to talk now about the details."
The word independence makes other Iraqis very nervous. As the American-led civil administration and the Iraqi Governing Council negotiate the path to Iraqi self-rule by July 1, Kurdish parties have united to demand a federalist system under which the north would function as one large, semiautonomous province. Many Iraqi Arabs see this as the first step to a breakup of their country along ethnic and sectarian fault lines. Kurds see this as the bare minimum needed to preserve the life they have built in the north and to protect themselves from possible future repression by the majority Arabs.
The inability of the two sides to understand one another, despite the suffering of both Arabs and Kurds, some say, is a troubling legacy of the old Baghdad government. "There's no trust between people," said Darya Ibrahim, a 22-year-old student, who is also a photographer and a colleague of Mr. Abdulrahman. "Saddam Hussein broke it, on the levels of individuals and families, and of peoples, too."
The role of Islam in a new Iraq threatens to be a flash point between the increasingly devout south, including Baghdad, and more secular places like Sulaimaniya. Most young people here see faith as a private matter, not the basis of an overarching political system.
"In the south, you see demonstrations for gasoline, for jobs, and they always hold up signs that say, `There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,' " said Ms. Hamed. "What's the connection between that and jobs or gasoline? We're all Muslims, but their thinking is old."
The challenge for Kurds and Arabs alike will be to integrate into a new Iraq people who have no affinity for Arab Iraq. If young Kurds have grown up in the modern world of cellphones and the Internet, so too have they been shaped by the memories of brutal repression by successive Iraqi governments.
Most young Kurds remember the uprisings in 1991, when rebellions by the Shiites and the Kurds were brutally suppressed by Mr. Hussein. Most are also old enough to have lived through events like the killing of civilians with chemical weapons in the village of Halabja in March 1988, or the mass deportation and killings of villagers in the Anfal campaign from February to September 1988.
"I'm very angry at Saddam Hussein, but who was his regime?" argued Steven Fouad, a 23-year-old Kurdish Christian, at an Internet shop in the town center. "Who was his party? They weren't from a foreign country."
Mr. Fouad, who lost his father and brother in clashes with the Baathist government, added about Iraqi Arabs: "They wanted us to ask for mercy because they consider us guests on their soil. They wanted to rule us with the sword and the Koran."
The different sets of memory that Iraqi Arabs and Kurds have and that often govern their attitudes toward one another reside within Soleen Muhsen, a university student with an Arab father and a Kurdish mother. She lived in Baghdad until three years ago but continued to visit the north for a few weeks every summer after 1991.
In Baghdad, she said, people did not know of the suffering of Kurds, and the knowledge she had crushed her. Still, she sympathizes with the Arab Iraqis, who lived in an ignorance enforced by Mr. Hussein's police state.
"There is a huge difference in memory with those in Baghdad," Ms. Muhsen said. "But we were outside the ring" of state terror for the last decade, she explained. "They were inside the ring, and it was terrible for them."
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U.S. Helicopter Crashes During Search in Iraq
By Paul Garwood
Associated Press
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47291-2004Jan25.html
TIKRIT, Iraq, Jan. 25 -- A U.S. helicopter crashed in the Tigris River on Sunday while searching for a missing soldier, and the aircraft's two crew members were missing, the military said.
The crash followed a series of bombings and attacks Saturday that resulted in the deaths of six U.S. soldiers. One of them, from the 4th Infantry Division, died Sunday of wounds suffered when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at his Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Beiji.
The military did not say what caused the crash in the northern city of Mosul. The aircraft was an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior attached to the 101st Airborne Division.
At the time of the crash, the helicopter was searching for a soldier who had been missing since the boat he was in capsized earlier Sunday while on patrol. The three other soldiers in the boat were safe, but two Iraqi police officers and an Iraqi interpreter were confirmed killed in the incident, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division.
She said a search for the two pilots was underway. U.S. troops and Iraqi police sealed off the area and established checkpoints to secure the search-and-rescue operation.
U.S. troops arriving at the scene came under "limited and ineffective small-arms fire," the spokeswoman said. An Iraqi policeman manning one of the checkpoints was killed in a drive-by shooting, witnesses said.
It was the fifth helicopter crash in Iraq this month, three of which were caused by hostile fire.
Meanwhile, U.S. troops arrested nearly 50 people Sunday in raids in the Sunni Triangle after the fatal attacks Saturday in the volatile region north and west of Baghdad.
In addition to the soldier who died Sunday, five U.S. soldiers were killed in two bombings Saturday in Khaldiya and Fallujah, both located in the Euphrates River valley west of the capital. A blast Saturday in Samarra to the north of Baghdad narrowly missed a U.S. convoy but killed four Iraqis and wounded about 40 others, including seven Americans.
The latest deaths raised to 513 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the U.S.-led war in Iraq was launched March 20. Most of the deaths have occurred in the insurgency since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations May 1.
-------- israel / palestine
Hezbollah Hails Trading of Prisoners
January 26, 2004
By IAN FISHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26HEZB.html?pagewanted=all
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 25 - The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, made a rare public appearance here on Sunday to trumpet as a victory a prisoner-exchange deal with Israel, in which some 430 Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arab prisoners will be swapped this week for a kidnapped Israeli businessman and three Israeli soldiers, presumed dead.
"This is a gift to all the Arabs, at the forefront of whom are the Palestinian people," Sheik Nasrallah said at a heavily guarded news conference in a mosque in a southern suburb of Beirut.
Sheik Nasrallah - general secretary of the Shiite Muslim militant group that the United States considers one of the most potent terrorist organizations - also held out the possibility that not all of the three Israeli soldiers kidnapped along the Lebanese border in October 2000 were dead, as the Israelis assume.
"On the day of the exchange, you will see who is alive and who is dead," he said in response to a question about the men's fates, which Hezbollah has refused to discuss in the past. "Leave it until then."
The complicated deal, sealed after months of painstaking negotiations with a German mediator, was announced Saturday, amid some criticism in Israel that it was lopsided and could encourage more kidnappings. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, defended the deal as an unavoidable way to bring its soldiers home. But he said it was "not an easy decision."
"Rare are the times when the government deals with a torturous back and forth on a issue of principles and morals," he said. "In my opinion, the cabinet took the correct, moral and responsible decision."
He emphasized the importance of a second phase of the deal: in the coming months, Hezbollah is required to give what Mr. Sharon said was "significant, proven and clear information" about the fate of Capt. Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator shot down in Lebanon in 1986 and captured by Lebanese guerrillas.
In exchange for that information, Israel will be required to hand over a Lebanese prisoner not included in the release this week: Samir Qantar, a Lebanese sentenced to life in prison for an attack in 1979 that killed an Israeli man and his 4-year-old daughter in their home.
Hezbollah had been strongly demanding Mr. Qantar's release, an issue that reportedly helped scuttle an earlier and exhaustive round of negotiations on the deal last fall. Israeli officials have said that Captain Arad, who has not been heard from for more than a decade, was taken to Iran. Israeli commentators have speculated that this next phase in the deal may involve Iran, which along with Syria is the main financial backer of Hezbollah.
Sheik Nasrallah, whose group has claimed no knowledge about Captain Arad's fate, said he hoped "to come to some results" in providing new information.
The deal is one of the few signs of movement in the deadlocked struggle between Israel and the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors, Lebanon and Syria. The American-sponsored plan to revive peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians has halted, and recent hopes of renewing the dialogue between Israel and Syria seemed also to end after Hezbollah fired a missile at an Israeli bulldozer clearing a bomb last week on the Lebanese border, killing one Israeli soldier. Israel blamed Syria, as one of Hezbollah's sponsors, for the attack.
The exchange of prisoners, or their remains, is scheduled to begin Thursday, Sheik Nasrallah and Israeli officials said. Then, the Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tannenbaum, kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates in 2000, and the three soldiers, Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Sawayed, will be handed over to German mediators in Beirut, to be flown to Israel via Germany.
Sheik Nasrallah said 23 Lebanese and some of the roughly dozen Arab prisoners would be flown to Beirut. The Palestinians are to be released in the West Bank and in Gaza, he said.
Most prominent among the Lebanese are two guerrilla leaders, Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, who was seized in 1989, and Mustafa Dirani, who was captured in 1994 and was involved in Captain Arad's capture in Lebanon. Also to be released is a German, Stefan Smyrek, who had been accused in 1997 of spying for Hezbollah.
On Friday, the Israelis will bring to the Lebanese border the remains of 59 Lebanese and Palestinians killed during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000, Sheik Nasrallah said.
At the news conference here, Sajed Obeid, 21, Sheik Obeid's son, said his family was busy preparing for his return. "We've been waiting 14 years for this moment," he said.
Like Sheik Nasrallah, Mr. Obeid cast the deal as a triumph for Hezbollah, whose visibility in Lebanon as the main resistance force to Israel has declined since Israel withdrew in 2000.
"This is an achievement, a victory, for Lebanon and the resistance," he said. "This not less of a victory as the one in 2000."
Some Israeli commentators and right-wing politicians worried that the deal rewards terrorism and could lead to other kidnappings.
"The price is heavy," wrote Ben Caspit in the newspaper Maariv. "The achievement is dubious."
Asked if Hezbollah would seek other hostages if these deals fell through, Sheik Nasrallah said at the news conference: "Yes. Of course."
--------
Israeli Court Suspends Expulsion of Soldier's Palestinian Father
January 26, 2004
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, Jan. 25 - Israel's high court on Sunday suspended for 30 days the state's efforts to expel the Palestinian father of an Israeli soldier, pending a hearing on granting him the right to remain in Israel.
The Palestinian, Adel Hussein, 52, has been living illegally in Israel for years, passing as an Israeli Arab while seeking permission to remain legally, as a citizen or resident. Advertisement
His ex-wife and son, Israeli Jews, have been lobbying on his behalf. The family's circumstances were first reported in The New York Times on Nov. 9, and are now being widely covered in Israel.
Mr. Hussein said he fled his home in a refugee camp beside the West Bank city of Tulkarm a few years ago after militants shot at his door, accusing him of being a Jew. He says he will be killed if he returns.
On Friday, border policemen making random checks stopped Mr. Hussein near the seaside Israeli town of Netanya as he rode in a taxi to an engagement party. Unable to produce valid identification, he was driven through an Israeli checkpoint and expelled to the West Bank within four hours, dropped by the side of the road near the town of Qalqilya.
Later that night, his son, Sgt. Muhammad Hussein, 21, smuggled his father back through the checkpoint in the car of an Israeli photographer.
Didi Rothschild, the family's lawyer, said a lawyer from Israel's Interior Ministry called him on Sunday morning to ask to postpone a hearing on Adel Hussein's status planned for Sunday before the high court. After an agreement between the lawyers, the court suspended any action against Mr. Hussein until the hearing. No date has been set.
Mr. Rothschild said public pressure was helping. "It seems to me that if there will be strong opposition to the Interior office in Israel and outside Israel - and it seems now that's what going on - then probably the Interior office will give him citizenship," he said.
On Sunday, Israeli newspapers featured Mr. Hussein, and radio and television showed him describing his situation in fluent Hebrew.
As Mr. Hussein went for an espresso with his son in Tel Aviv on Sunday - a walk that would have been highly risky for both before the court's action - strangers called from passing cars or stopped him to shake his hand. "You're staying with us, right?" one man asked.
On his lapel, Mr. Hussein wore a silver pin of a flying bird to represent his new sense of liberty. "I haven't felt such freedom since 1999," he said. "I can walk with my son anywhere."
As for Sergeant Hussein, before Sunday, he was breaking the law by merely meeting with his father, let alone smuggling him in from the West Bank. But military officials say they are aware of his special situation and are trying to help him.
Last year, Israel tightened its restriction on "family reunification," saying Palestinians were using fake marriages to move into Israel and threaten its security.
--------
Israel Soldiers Unearth Bodies Before Swap
Jan 26, 2004
By RAVI NESSMAN
Associated Press Writer
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ISRAEL_PRISONER_SWAP?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Covered in mud and rain, Israeli soldiers unearthed the bodies of Lebanese militants Monday from graves marked only with numbers, bringing Israel and the Hezbollah guerrilla group closer to a long-awaited swap of prisoners and slain fighters.
In the exchange Thursday, Israel will turn over 59 bodies of Lebanese militants and release 436 prisoners. Hezbollah, in turn, will give up a captive Israeli businessman and three soldiers who were captured along the border with Lebanon in 2000 and are believed dead.
Israel is split over the lopsided exchange. Many feel the deal will boost Hezbollah's status in the region and reward the Iranian-backed group's tactic of kidnapping Israelis to secure its fighters' release.
The swap sends the message that "it pays to strike at Israel, whether through kidnappings, terror attacks or war," the daily Haaretz newspaper said in an editorial Monday.
"There is no doubt that this is a difficult decision, but it was a necessary and correct decision," Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said. In preparation for the swap, a team of Orthodox Jewish soldiers wearing skullcaps and green winter coats descended on a cemetery in Israel's north, overlooking the hills of the Galilee region, where Lebanese killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers are interred.
Standing beneath a canvas cover against the rain, the soldiers dug into the muddy graves marked with numbered metal posts. Bodies in white sacks were placed in gray blankets and placed in simple wood boxes.
Under the deal, Israel will release 400 Palestinians, none involved in killings, along with 35 prisoners from Arab countries and a German citizen convicted of spying for Hezbollah.
Late Monday, Israel published a list of 31 prisoners slated for release, including Lebanese guerrilla leaders Mustafa Dirani and Abdel Karim Obeid. The rest of the names were to be announced early Tuesday.
The names were published so anyone objecting could appeal to Israel's Supreme Court.
Israel will get businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, reportedly kidnapped while engaged in shady business deals. Tannenbaum's family said they expected the Israeli security service to question him after his return.
Israel will also receive three of its soldiers abducted by Hezbollah guerrillas near the Lebanese-Israeli border in October 2000. Military rabbis have declared the men dead, though some of their relatives still hold out hope.
The swap, announced late Saturday, came after lengthy German-mediated negotiations.
Following Thursday's exchange, the sides are to open a second round of talks about missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, who was captured after being shot down over Lebanon in 1986.
Shalom said he asked Germany to use its influence with Iran to obtain more information on Arad. "We will never tire of trying to find Ron Arad," he said.
Arad has not been heard from in more than a decade. Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Arad is in Lebanon.
Israel has said that if it learns Arad's fate, it will release Lebanese militant Samir Kantar, who has been held in an Israeli jail since 1979 for killing three Israelis.
Chen Arad, the navigator's brother, told the Yediot Ahronot daily that if Arad is dead, the family does not want the body returned in exchange for more prisoners.
-------- nato
Former Dutch PM quizzed on NATO bombing of Serbia
THE HAGUE, (AfP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126164755.6pwtgi2o.html
Former Dutch prime minister Wim Kok was questioned Monday in court here on NATO's 1999 bombing of Serbia as part of a hearing by victims and relatives.
Dutch law allows a preliminary hearing of a certain number of witnesses before a case has to be filed.
Over a dozen Serbian bombing victims wanted to question Kok about human rights violations in the bombing of Serbia's radio-television tower on April 23 and the May 7 bombing of the southern city of Nis as part of NATO's campaign to force Belgrade to end its anti-Albanian crackdown in Kosovo.
In Nis NATO cluster bombs landed near a marketplace and hospital, killing 15 people, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, with NATO saying the bombs had been targeted to hit an airfield a mile (less than two kilometers) away.
Kok said the deaths and injuries from the Nis bombing, due to a technical problem, were regrettable, but that use of the bombs which spread small explosives over a wide area was not banned.
The former prime minister said the Dutch government was not informed in advance of the attack on the radio-television tower, but had given NATO its agreement on attacks on Serbian communications facilities.
Kok and former foreign minister Jozias van Aartsen, who was also questioned Monday, said the tower was also part of the military communications network under the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
The bombing vicitims and their lawyers were to decide later whether to file a case.
----
Albright happy at Latvia's joining NATO
RIGA (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126172309.cukjgey4.html
Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright signed copies of her memoirs in the Latvian capital on Monday and said she was happy to see the former Soviet republic on course to join NATO.
"You do not have to be in the heart of Europe, you have Europe in your heart," she said of Latvia, which is set to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.
Albright, born in the former Czechoslovakia, said she was "very proud of the enlargement of NATO. I am very glad to see Latvia entering in NATO," she said as some 50 Latvians queued for her to sign her book "Madam Secretary" in a Riga bookstore.
Albright who was secretary of state from 1996-2000, played a key role in NATO's first enlargement into the former communist bloc to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
She was due to meet with Latvia's President Vaira Vike-Freiberga on Tuesday.
----
New NATO chief in favor of alliance role in Iraq
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Jan 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040126185154.shj88vdw.html
NATO's new chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday he favors the alliance playing a role in Iraq, and called for a new UN resolution on a stabilization force for the country.
"If the question comes, it goes without saying that I'm very much in favor of a NATO role," he told journalists, before adding "it's too early to say what exactly that role will be."
He said "a UN resolution would be very helpful indeed" in persuading countries, including Arab countries, to contribute troops to a stabilization force after the United States hands over authority to a provisional Iraqi government in July.
NATO, whose members were deeply divided by war, only provides logistical support to a Polish contingent in Iraq.
"Let's see what the political developments will be between now and July ... what a legitimate government of Iraq will ask," said Scheffer.
Following recent "good signals" from Berlin, which along with Paris led opposition to the war, Scheffer said he hoped he could "call on all NATO nations to participate" in an Iraq operation.
Scheffer, who replaced George Robertson as NATO chief on January 5, begins his first official visit to the United States on Thursday, and will meet US President George W. Bush on Friday.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell predicted last week that all NATO members, including those who opposed the war, would participate in Iraqi stabilization efforts by the end of the year, noting that 18 of 26 are already present in the country in some capacity.
Scenarios under discussion by diplomats but that have not been formally considered by NATO include the alliance taking command of the Polish contingent or stationing a force in the north of the country.
But Scheffer, a former Dutch defense minister, warned against the alliance becoming distracted from Afghanistan, where it leads the international stabilization force of some 6,000 troops.
"Let's take things step by step and not let Afghanistan be pushed to the second plan because of Iraq," he said.
-------- russia / chechnya
Powell, in Russia, Raises U.S. Concerns With Putin
January 26, 2004
New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/europe/26CND-POWE.html?hp
MOSCOW, Jan. 26 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that he had raised concerns with President Vladimir V. Putin about the Russian military campaign against rebels in Chechnya and recent actions against the news media, political parties and neighboring countries.
The secretary also raised the issues before the Russian public in an essay in the newspaper Izvestia that ran this morning, before seven hours of meetings with Mr. Putin and other officials at the Kremlin. Mr. Powell said he had brought the American concerns up in those sessions.
Mr. Powell told reporters that he was not trying "to interfere in internal dynamics of Russian political life" and that "it was one friend speaking to another."
But his comments were the toughest public expression by a senior American on recent developments, including the arrest of a prominent businessman and the seizure of his assets and parliamentary elections in which several parties complained about a lack of access to the news media.
In the Izvestia essay, Mr. Powell asserted that Russia had yet to achieve an "essential balance" between executive power and other parts of government.
"Political power is not yet fully tethered to law," Mr. Powell said in the essay. "Key aspects of civil society - free media and political party development, for example - have not yet sustained an independent presence."
The secretary also criticized "certain aspects" of the war against Chechen rebels and asserted that neighboring countries were entitled to "their rights to peaceful and respectful relations across their borders."
He mentioned no countries by name, but his comments echoed complaints that Mr. Powell heard in Georgia on Sunday about the Russian refusal to withdraw troops stationed since the days of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Powell pointedly declined to repeat his points from the Izvestia essay in the only moment when he appeared before reporters, at a news Kremlin conference with the Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov.
Before the meeting today, administration officials said that President Bush had raised concerns with Mr. Putin in a telephone interview late last year, but it had never been clear how urgent his comments were.
Asked whether he regarded Mr. Powell's criticisms as interference, Mr. Ivanov was circumspect, saying merely that the secretary got "a good opportunity to get a full and clear understanding of Russia's position on many issues" and that "many doubts that might have risen with respect to some of these issues will be dispersed as a result."
On the issue of Georgia, however, the foreign minister was a bit more forthcoming, asserting that as soon as that nation's new president, Mikhail Saakashvili, had completed forming his new government, Russia would work with him to find "solutions" on the problem of Russian troop presence.
Mr. Powell then thanked Mr. Ivanov for showing flexibility, though what the minister said lacked details and echoed Russian comments surrounding its refusal to withdraw troops over many years.
The secretary's criticism of Russian conduct came after a rising chorus of criticism of Russian conduct in Congress and among human rights groups. American officials have been saying that they had to tread lightly because criticism of Russian internal practices often backfires.
In addition, American officials say that Russian cooperation on Iraqi debt relief and reconstruction, and on defusing the nuclear threat with Iran and North Korea, might be jeopardized by an overly vocal criticism of Russian moves against its dissenters.
On the flight to Georgia on Saturday night, Mr. Powell took a reticent approach, declining to criticize Mr. Putin's government, saying only that it was important to have a dialogue about certain Russian actions.
He noted, for example, that Mr. Putin enjoyed 80 percent approval ratings, that his party had just swept parliamentary elections and that the Russian economy was growing at a fast clip - all factors, he suggested, that might make Russian leaders impatient with American carping.
Russian sensitivities over criticism have been well known since the days of American criticism of its human rights during the Soviet Union era. The debate over how tough to be with the Russians on such matters has echoed for decades through Russian-American relations.
Aides to Mr. Bush criticized the Clinton administration in the 2000 campaign for being too soft on the Mr. Putin's predecessor as president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, and now many experts on Russia make the same criticism of Mr. Bush.
What little criticism has been made has not been welcomed in Moscow. The United States ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow, who has spoken of growing concerns about Russian political values, has himself been singled out for attack in the Russian news media.
American concerns about recent Russian actions came to a head in the summer and fall, especially after the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman and critic of the government, and seizure of his energy company's assets. Mr. Khodorkovsky had begun saying that he would challenge Mr. Putin in the presidential election in 2004.
Mr. Khodorkovsky's jailing, in turn, galvanized the international business community, and American officials said they had transmitted business concerns to the Russians over several months.
In addition, American officials said that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans had spoken to their Russian counterparts to express concerns about Mr. Khodorkovsky's fate.
Mr. Powell described his long day of meetings as covering a spectrum of issues, from the future of Iraq's government to the drive to confront Iran and North Korea over their nuclear weapons programs, the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and efforts to combat terrorism. Trade relations and joint cooperation in space were also discussed.
----
Military brains ignoring defence minister
Sergei Sedelnikov,
January 26, 2004
Gazeta (Russia)
http://www.gazeta.ru/2004/01/26/oa_110255.shtml
At the weekend the Russian defence minister instructed the General Staff on its new functions. Now, all the generals will have to worry about is general planning of wars having been relieved of their conscription and logistical tasks. However, the chief of the General Staff didn't seem to understand the minister. The annual session of the Academy of Military Sciences, which gathers the top commanders of all Russia's military forces, was held over the weekend. The gathering had quite a lengthy title - 'The Problems of Modern Military Command and its Improvement Regarding Changes in the Character of Future Wars'. It was attended by Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov and all his deputies, including the first deputy, and the chief of the General Staff, Anatoly Kvashnin.
The minister used the meeting with the country's top brass as an opportunity to reiterate the major points of his programme on the military's development, which he presented at his meeting with the president in autumn. He said that the Russian military had paid little attention to the experience of recent military conflicts around the World, and that it was necessary to reach an operative flexibility of forces and to create new high-tech weapons systems.
There were also some new ideas presented at the meeting - the minister said that the functions of the General Staff would be reconsidered and reminded the chief of the General Staff of his role. The minister also drew on a lot of historical expressions from the times of Ancient China, the Soviet Union and the Russian empire.
First of all, Ivanov promised to free the General Staff of their ''non-residual'' functions. ''In order to successfully implement the enlarged range of tasks in the sphere of military planning, the General Staff must be relieved of the functions not directly related with its activities, with which it has been overloaded over the past few years. The function of strategic planning is by itself exceptionally large-scale and multi-faceted,'' the minister said.
Ivanov noted that the General Staff must forecast possible threats to Russia's security, study the experience of the use of military forces in combat, develop suggestions on the tactical and technical characteristics of new hardware, conduct military exercises and prepare suggestions on changes in the country's military doctrine. For these functions to be duly performed, the minister urged to reinforce the main structural units of the General Staff - the Main Operations Directorate, the Main Organization and Mobilization Directorate and the Main Intelligence Directorate.
However, the minister did not go into the details of the non-residual functions of the General Staff, giving the generals some metaphors instead. First, he quoted Sun-Tzu who had said that wars must be planned well; later he quoted Soviet Marshall Vasilevsky, who, during the Second World War, said that relieving the General Staff from the tasks of recruitment and logistics allowed it to concentrate on commanding the military forces and aiding the commander-in-chief to solve operative and strategic questions. Another quotation followed, this time from Marshall Shaposhnikov, who said that the General Staff must be ''the brains of the military''.
It now appears that the brains ought to understand that its functions do not include recruitment and logistics. The minister then told the generals that they were not going to put up with any competitiveness from the side of the General Staff commanders. Here, Ivanov again turned to historical parallels.
''I would like to draw your attention to one moment of crucial importance. No matter what discussions we hold, what concepts we propose, we must remember that any military organization has an unquestionable constant: the principle of single command and singularity of military management,'' he said. He then recalled that there had been a period in Russian military history when from June 1905 till December 1908 the chief of the General Staff was subject directly to the supreme power and personally reported to the emperor. In the end, it disrupted the work of the Defence Ministry and discredited the logical division of responsibilities in military command structures.
Chief of General Staff Kvashnin, who, as the Russian press claims, is in constant conflict with the defence minister just like his predecessor, seemed to be listening attentively.
However, when it was time for Kvashnin to speak, he acted as if he had not really been listening to everything, but rather building the strategic plans as demanded by the minister. It turned out that the General Staff still has plans regarding recruitment and logistics - they intend to bring the number of contract soldiers of the private and warrant officer rank to 50 per cent of the whole enlisted personnel.
Kvashnin also had to disappoint Minister Ivanov in his expectations regarding the creation of high-tech ''smart weapons'' - the chief of General Staff said he saw no concentration of finances, materials, technology, scientific resources in the space sphere, methods of intelligence, communications, recognition, navigation, automation of management, creation of long-range high-precision weapons and ammunition.
----
Push for Democracy Has Authoritarians Unnerved
Events in Georgia Embolden Long-Frustrated Opposition Groups in Many Ex-Soviet Republics
By Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47290-2004Jan25.html
MOSCOW -- When heads of state from around the former Soviet Union gathered for the funeral of Azerbaijan's longtime president, Heydar Aliyev, last month, the buzz behind the scenes was about the change in power not in the Azeri capital of Baku but in Georgia next door.
A revolution had just toppled the president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, and his peers in the Commonwealth of Independent States were nervously looking over their shoulders, worried about repeat performances in their countries. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, approached Georgia's acting president, Nino Burdzhanadze, and captured the mood with characteristic crudeness.
According to two Georgian sources, Putin said to Burdzhanadze, "All the leaders of the CIS are [expletive] in their pants."
Georgia's bloodless "rose revolution" has set on edge much of the former Soviet empire, where authoritarian governments still dominate and genuine democratic systems have yet to take hold outside the three Baltic states, and now Georgia. As the revolution's leader, Mikheil Saakashvili, was inaugurated as Georgia's new president in the capital of Tbilisi on Sunday, many politicians, activists and analysts were wondering which former Soviet republic might be next.
Already Saakashvili's unexpected victory in overturning the old order in his homeland has emboldened long-frustrated opposition movements in places such as Ukraine and Belarus, where opponents of the current governments hope to emulate his success. At the same time, autocrats around the region, particularly in Central Asia and the Caucasus region, have moved to crack down on political dissent further in recent weeks, determined to smother any spread of the Georgian brush fire.
"There's no doubt the revolution in Georgia has had a great impact," said Pyotr Poroshenko, an opposition leader in Ukraine and friend of Saakashvili's from their days as students in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. "We have a trend in republics of the former Soviet Union, such as Azerbaijan, Belarus and Ukraine, where the current authorities are acting in a very undemocratic manner to keep power. Saakashvili's example shows that they can lose."
The enthusiasm even reached Central Asia, home of the region's most entrenched governments. "When it comes to the opposition, there was, no question, a lot of euphoria after the Georgian events with the idea that, hey, it could happen here," said David Lewis, a Kyrgyzstan-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, a private research organization. "I'm not sure that's realistic, but there was a lot of interest in how it happened, how it was organized, logistics and all that."
Saakashvili, a 36-year-old U.S.-trained lawyer who lived in Washington and New York before returning home, traveled recently to Ukraine to meet with its leading opposition figure, Viktor Yushchenko, and to sign a mutual cooperation pact. Saakashvili's allies in the Georgian youth group Kmara have worked with their counterparts in the Belarusan youth group Zubr; both were trained by activists from Serbia who helped topple Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
In the days after the Georgian upheaval, the Belarusan students celebrated by hanging a banner over one of Minsk's busiest intersections. "Gotov Je!" it read, using the Serbian slogan adopted by the Georgian youths and now aimed at Belarusan President Alexander Lukashenko. "He is finished!"
"There's a second European democratic revolution underway in countries like Belarus and Ukraine where we are facing the problem of getting rid of corrupt, bureaucratic dictatorships," said Vladimir Kobets, one of the Zubr coordinators, speaking by telephone from a protest in Minsk on Friday as several fellow activists were being arrested nearby. "What happened in Georgia is exactly the same."
The Georgians played down suggestions that they will generate a wave of resistance around the region. "We're not pretending to export the Georgian revolution to other countries," newly installed State Minister Zurab Zhvania, the third member of the revolutionary troika along with Saakashvili and Burdzhanadze, said in an interview. "But if somebody wants to learn a lesson, that would be fine. I've been teasing Misha [Saakashvili] that we're going to export him as our Che Guevara."
The lesson learned by other governments, though, may be not to permit the sort of open dissent that fostered the Georgian revolt, analysts said. In Tbilisi, an independent television station effectively sided with the opposition and Shevardnadze did little to crack down on critics. Other countries around the former Soviet Union zealously control television and often do not tolerate rival political organizations.
"There are authoritarian regimes that clearly pay attention to what goes on in the neighborhood and they're clearly reacting to it," said an official from a Western nongovernmental organization that helps foster democratic institutions in the region, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
In Azerbaijan, where Aliyev's ruling circle installed his son, Ilham Aliyev, in the presidency shortly before the older man's death, the new government has unleashed a wave of repression, locking up at least 1,000 opposition activists and engaging in widespread torture, according to a report last week by Human Rights Watch.
In Uzbekistan, where thousands of people are in prison for what human rights groups call political or religious reasons, the government of President Islam Karimov recently decided to require foreign nongovernmental organizations to register with the Justice Ministry. The groups, calling it a direct reaction to events in Georgia, said they fear that they will be refused registration and ordered to close. Some groups report pressure in Kyrgyzstan as well.
"The perception of governments here is that a good part of the Georgian revolution was spread by Western governments or organizations and that's potential" for trouble elsewhere as well, Lewis said.
Much of the attention has focused on billionaire George Soros's Open Society Institute, which has offices in all but one of the 15 former Soviet republics and promotes civil society and democratic institutions by funding human rights organizations and independent newspapers. In Georgia, Open Society helped with voter education, and Shevardnadze singled it out as a major force behind his downfall on Nov. 23.
One lesson learned from Georgia is that change forced by mass protests must be focused around elections. Saakashvili brought tens of thousands of people into the streets to protest widespread fraud in Nov. 2 parliamentary elections. Now activists are focusing on the election calendar elsewhere in the region: parliamentary elections in Belarus and a presidential election in Ukraine in October; parliamentary elections late in the year in Uzbekistan; parliamentary and presidential elections in early 2005 in Kyrgyzstan.
Many analysts are looking particularly at Ukraine's election after years of political turmoil. President Leonid Kuchma had vowed to step down after two terms. But with the opposition leader Yushchenko viewed as a favorite, Kuchma and his allies are pushing a constitutional change to allow him to serve another term or cancel elections in favor of a president picked by the Kuchma-controlled parliament.
Opposition leaders such as Yulia Tymoshenko tout what they call the "Georgian scenario" as their best response and Yushchenko, a cautious former prime minister, recently warned Kuchma that unless he backed off, "people will solve this problem in the street," as his ally Poroshenko put it.
Just days after his unlikely victory in Georgia, Saakashvili came to advise Yushchenko in Kiev. The leader of the "rose revolution" spent five hours over two days closeted with Ukraine's often feuding opposition leaders. "It was not how to do the revolution," said Poroshenko. "He simply gave us hope that it's possible to do."
-------- spies
CIA told to explain lapses in Iraq data
January 26, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040125-114704-8011r.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated that Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now thinks Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
"I don't think they exist," David Kay said yesterday. "The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist, we've got to deal with that difference and understand why."
Mr. Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was "not a political issue."
"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information," Mr. Kay said.
Asked whether President Bush owed the nation an explanation for the gap between his warnings on banned weapons in Iraq and Mr. Kay's findings, the inspector said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people."
The CIA would not comment yesterday on the remarks, although one intelligence official pointed out that Mr. Kay himself had predicted last year that his search would turn up banned weapons.
Mr. Kay said his predictions were not "coming back to haunt me in the sense that I am embarrassed. They are coming back to haunt me in the sense of 'Why could we all be so wrong?' "
The White House stuck by its assertions that illicit weapons will be found in Iraq but had no additional response yesterday to Mr. Kay's remarks.
Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said his belief that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq had been reinforced by Mr. Kay's comments.
"It confirms what I have said for a long period of time, that we were misled - misled not only in the intelligence, but misled in the way that the president took us to war," Mr. Kerry, a White House contender, said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception."
Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he was surprised that Mr. Kay "did not find some semblance" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr. Roberts said a report on Iraq intelligence, to be delivered to his panel Wednesday, should help clarify the CIA's prewar performance.
"It appears now that that intelligence, there's a lot of questions about it," Mr. Roberts said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Mr. Kay returned permanently from Iraq last month, having found no biological, nuclear or chemical weapons nor missiles with longer range than the country was allowed under international restrictions.
But yesterday, Mr. Kay reiterated his conclusion that Saddam had "a large number of [weapons of mass destruction] program-related activities." Iraq's leaders had intended to continue those activities, Mr. Kay added.
"There were scientists and engineers working on developing weapons or weapons concepts that they had not moved into actual production," Mr. Kay said. "But in some areas, for example, producing mustard gas, they knew all the answers, they had done it in the past, and it was a relatively simple thing to go from where they were to starting to produce it."
The Iraqis had not decided to begin producing such weapons at the time of the invasion, he concluded.
And, he said, there is ample evidence that Iraq had been sending a steady stream of goods to Syria, but it is difficult to determine whether the cargoes included weapons, in part because Syria has refused to cooperate in this part of the investigation.
--------
Rights Groups Decry Russian Spy Case
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Spy-Trial.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Leading human rights organizations on Monday appealed to the Council of Europe on behalf of a Russian scientist described as the target of a politically driven spy case.
Igor Sutyagin, a scholar at Moscow's respected USA and Canada Institute, has been jailed since his October 1999 arrest on charges he sold information on nuclear submarines and missile warning systems to a British company that investigators claim was a cover for the CIA.
Sutyagin, who faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, has pleaded innocent, maintaining the analyses he wrote were based on open sources and that he had no reason to believe the British company was an intelligence cover.
In a joint statement, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, and the Moscow Helsinki group described Sutyagin as the ``target of politically motivated treason charges'' and urged the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights body, to call for his immediate release on bail and a fair trial.
``Sutyagin is sitting behind bars into his fifth year, and new court hearings of his cases are constantly being postponed,'' Alexander Petrov of Human Rights Watch's Moscow office said in a telephone interview.
Sutyagin's case is among a series of high-profile spy cases against Russian researchers that have alarmed the scientific community and prompted fears of a resurgence of Soviet-era KGB tactics.
-------- us
Whistle-Blower Advocate Starts Work at Pentagon
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47127-2004Jan25.html
Defense Department employees who want to expose waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government's largest agency have a new ally at the Pentagon.
Daniel Meyer, 38, the former general counsel for a nonprofit employee advocacy group, starts today as director of whistle-blower affairs in the DOD inspector general's office. He is the first person to hold the newly created job, a rare position in the federal government. Only the IG office at the Interior Department has a similar post.
According to documents provided by the Defense IG's office, Meyer will serve as an "advocate to protect civilian employees who are vulnerable to reprisal because of their disclosure of concealed evidence of misconduct related to gross waste of funds, abuse of authority or substantial and specific danger to public health and safety."
Among other duties, Meyer will help develop measures to ensure whistle-blowers are protected from retaliation and will conduct investigations into allegations of reprisals. He will help enforce federal laws regarding whistle-blowers and serve as a liaison with the Office of Special Counsel, which is responsible for protecting federal employees government-wide from reprisal for whistle-blowing. Meyer said the job pays about $90,000 a year.
Meyer, a former Navy lieutenant and a graduate of Indiana University School of Law at Bloomington, had been the general counsel at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) since 2000. The nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group supports government employees who seek to improve the management of government agencies, especially concerning ethics, the environment and science.
"I'm going to be doing the same thing as far as helping employees," Meyer said in an interview Friday. "Most of the work you do in helping employees in this field is not in litigating, is not in the kind of thing that catches headlines. It's helping them understand in the beginning of their interest in blowing the whistle exactly what it entails."
Meyer said he could have a bigger impact in his new job because "the conservative nature of many of the employees in the Defense Department" means they "are more comfortable working with somebody in-shop," rather than in Congress or at the Office of Special Counsel.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a prominent advocate for whistle-blowers, praised the Pentagon IG's decision to create the position.
"Government-wide, we've seen some horror stories about agency treatment of whistle-blowers," Grassley said in a statement. "These individuals are heroes. They risk their livelihoods to expose wrongdoing, and they deserve strong protection. A whistle-blower at the Defense Department could expose the next $7,600 coffee maker or wave of employees using their government credit cards on Christmas gifts and strip-club visits. That person has to feel comfortable coming forward, and this position should help."
At the Interior IG's office, Richard Trinidad has filled a similar post for about 18 months, said Roy Kime, a spokesman for the office. Kime said the job was about creating a climate for whistle-blowers to come forward before reprisals became a problem.
"It's almost a case of being able to protect the whistle-blower before they really even have to get to the Office of Special Counsel," Kime said. Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, said his former colleague's new job won't be easy.
"It remains to be seen," Ruch said, "whether this Pentagon inspector general and his successors give this position the resources and organizational backing needed to do this Herculean job."
----
The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues.
FORTUNE
Monday, January 26, 2004
By David Stipp
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,582584,00.html
Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.
The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade-like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies-thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.
Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall's California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia-it's easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in abrupt climate change.
Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it a decade ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in ancient layers of Arctic ice. The data show that a number of dramatic shifts in average temperature took place in the past with shocking speed-in some cases, just a few years. The case for angst was buttressed by a theory regarded as the most likely explanation for the abrupt changes. The eastern U.S. and northern Europe, it seems, are warmed by a huge Atlantic Ocean current that flows north from the tropics-that's why Britain, at Labrador's latitude, is relatively temperate. Pumping out warm, moist air, this "great conveyor" current gets cooler and denser as it moves north. That causes the current to sink in the North Atlantic, where it heads south again in the ocean depths. The sinking process draws more water from the south, keeping the roughly circular current on the go.
But when the climate warms, according to the theory, fresh water from melting Arctic glaciers flows into the North Atlantic, lowering the current's salinity-and its density and tendency to sink. A warmer climate also increases rainfall and runoff into the current, further lowering its saltiness. As a result, the conveyor loses its main motive force and can rapidly collapse, turning off the huge heat pump and altering the climate over much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Scientists aren't sure what caused the warming that triggered such collapses in the remote past. (Clearly it wasn't humans and their factories.) But the data from Arctic ice and other sources suggest the atmospheric changes that preceded earlier collapses were dismayingly similar to today's global warming. As the Ice Age began drawing to a close about 13,000 years ago, for example, temperatures in Greenland rose to levels near those of recent decades. Then they abruptly plunged as the conveyor apparently shut down, ushering in the "Younger Dryas" period, a 1,300-year reversion to ice-age conditions. (A dryas is an Arctic flower that flourished in Europe at the time.)
Though Mother Nature caused past abrupt climate changes, the one that may be shaping up today probably has more to do with us. In 2001 an international panel of climate experts concluded that there is increasingly strong evidence that most of the global warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities-mainly the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, which release heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Indicators of the warming include shrinking Arctic ice, melting alpine glaciers, and markedly earlier springs at northerly latitudes. A few years ago such changes seemed signs of possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today they seem portents of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait until we're history.
Accordingly, the spotlight in climate research is shifting from gradual to rapid change. In 2002 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report concluding that human activities could trigger abrupt change. Last year the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, included a session at which Robert Gagosian, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, urged policymakers to consider the implications of possible abrupt climate change within two decades.
Such jeremiads are beginning to reverberate more widely. Billionaire Gary Comer, founder of Lands' End, has adopted abrupt climate change as a philanthropic cause. Hollywood has also discovered the issue-next summer 20th Century Fox is expected to release The Day After Tomorrow, a big-budget disaster movie starring Dennis Quaid as a scientist trying to save the world from an ice age precipitated by global warming.
Fox's flick will doubtless be apocalyptically edifying. But what would abrupt climate change really be like?
Scientists generally refuse to say much about that, citing a data deficit. But recently, renowned Department of Defense planner Andrew Marshall sponsored a groundbreaking effort to come to grips with the question. A Pentagon legend, Marshall, 82, is known as the Defense Department's "Yoda"-a balding, bespectacled sage whose pronouncements on looming risks have long had an outsized influence on defense policy. Since 1973 he has headed a secretive think tank whose role is to envision future threats to national security. The Department of Defense's push on ballistic-missile defense is known as his brainchild. Three years ago Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld picked him to lead a sweeping review on military "transformation," the shift toward nimble forces and smart weapons.
When scientists' work on abrupt climate change popped onto his radar screen, Marshall tapped another eminent visionary, Peter Schwartz, to write a report on the national-security implications of the threat. Schwartz formerly headed planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group and has since consulted with organizations ranging from the CIA to DreamWorks-he helped create futuristic scenarios for Steven Spielberg's film Minority Report. Schwartz and co-author Doug Randall at the Monitor Group's Global Business Network, a scenario-planning think tank in Emeryville, Calif., contacted top climate experts and pushed them to talk about what-ifs that they usually shy away from-at least in public.
The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE. It doesn't pretend to be a forecast. Rather, it sketches a dramatic but plausible scenario to help planners think about coping strategies. Here is an abridged version:
A total shutdown of the ocean conveyor might lead to a big chill like the Younger Dryas, when icebergs appeared as far south as the coast of Portugal. Or the conveyor might only temporarily slow down, potentially causing an era like the "Little Ice Age," a time of hard winters, violent storms, and droughts between 1300 and 1850. That period's weather extremes caused horrific famines, but it was mild compared with the Younger Dryas.
For planning purposes, it makes sense to focus on a midrange case of abrupt change. A century of cold, dry, windy weather across the Northern Hemisphere that suddenly came on 8,200 years ago fits the bill-its severity fell between that of the Younger Dryas and the Little Ice Age. The event is thought to have been triggered by a conveyor collapse after a time of rising temperatures not unlike today's global warming. Suppose it recurred, beginning in 2010. Here are some of the things that might happen by 2020:
At first the changes are easily mistaken for normal weather variation-allowing skeptics to dismiss them as a "blip" of little importance and leaving policymakers and the public paralyzed with uncertainty. But by 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is happening. The average temperature has fallen by up to five degrees Fahrenheit in some regions of North America and Asia and up to six degrees in parts of Europe. (By comparison, the average temperature over the North Atlantic during the last ice age was ten to 15 degrees lower than it is today.) Massive droughts have begun in key agricultural regions. The average annual rainfall has dropped by nearly 30% in northern Europe, and its climate has become more like Siberia's.
Violent storms are increasingly common as the conveyor becomes wobbly on its way to collapse. A particularly severe storm causes the ocean to break through levees in the Netherlands, making coastal cities such as the Hague unlivable. In California the delta island levees in the Sacramento River area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from north to south.
Megadroughts afflict the U.S., especially in the southern states, along with winds that are 15% stronger on average than they are now, causing widespread dust storms and soil loss. The U.S. is better positioned to cope than most nations, however, thanks to its diverse growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant resources. That has a downside, though: It magnifies the haves-vs.-have-nots gap and fosters bellicose finger-pointing at America.
Turning inward, the U.S. effectively seeks to build a fortress around itself to preserve resources. Borders are strengthened to hold back starving immigrants from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean islands-waves of boat people pose especially grim problems. Tension between the U.S. and Mexico rises as the U.S. reneges on a 1944 treaty that guarantees water flow from the Colorado River into Mexico. America is forced to meet its rising energy demand with options that are costly both economically and politically, including nuclear power and onerous Middle Eastern contracts. Yet it survives without catastrophic losses.
Europe, hardest hit by its temperature drop, struggles to deal with immigrants from Scandinavia seeking warmer climes to the south. Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa and elsewhere. But Western Europe's wealth helps buffer it from catastrophe.
Australia's size and resources help it cope, as does its location-the conveyor shutdown mainly affects the Northern Hemisphere. Japan has fewer resources but is able to draw on its social cohesion to cope-its government is able to induce population-wide behavior changes to conserve resources.
China's huge population and food demand make it particularly vulnerable. It is hit by increasingly unpredictable monsoon rains, which cause devastating floods in drought-denuded areas. Other parts of Asia and East Africa are similarly stressed. Much of Bangladesh becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which contaminates inland water supplies. Countries whose diversity already produces conflict, such as India and Indonesia, are hard-pressed to maintain internal order while coping with the unfolding changes.
As the decade progresses, pressures to act become irresistible-history shows that whenever humans have faced a choice between starving or raiding, they raid. Imagine Eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations, invading Russia-which is weakened by a population that is already in decline-for access to its minerals and energy supplies. Or picture Japan eyeing nearby Russian oil and gas reserves to power desalination plants and energy-intensive farming. Envision nuclear-armed Pakistan, India, and China skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land. Or Spain and Portugal fighting over fishing rights-fisheries are disrupted around the world as water temperatures change, causing fish to migrate to new habitats.
Growing tensions engender novel alliances. Canada joins fortress America in a North American bloc. (Alternatively, Canada may seek to keep its abundant hydropower for itself, straining its ties with the energy-hungry U.S.) North and South Korea align to create a technically savvy, nuclear-armed entity. Europe forms a truly unified bloc to curb its immigration problems and protect against aggressors. Russia, threatened by impoverished neighbors in dire straits, may join the European bloc.
Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Oil supplies are stretched thin as climate cooling drives up demand. Many countries seek to shore up their energy supplies with nuclear energy, accelerating nuclear proliferation. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt, and North Korea. Israel, China, India, and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.
The changes relentlessly hammer the world's "carrying capacity"-the natural resources, social organizations, and economic networks that support the population. Technological progress and market forces, which have long helped boost Earth's carrying capacity, can do little to offset the crisis-it is too widespread and unfolds too fast.
As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies. As Harvard archeologist Steven LeBlanc has noted, wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25% of a population's adult males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human life.
Over the past decade, data have accumulated suggesting that the plausibility of abrupt climate change is higher than most of the scientific community, and perhaps all of the political community, are prepared to accept. In light of such findings, we should be asking when abrupt change will happen, what the impacts will be, and how we can prepare-not whether it will really happen. In fact, the climate record suggests that abrupt change is inevitable at some point, regardless of human activity. Among other things, we should:
• Speed research on the forces that can trigger abrupt climate change, how it unfolds, and how we'll know it's occurring.
• Sponsor studies on the scenarios that might play out, including ecological, social, economic, and political fallout on key food-producing regions.
• Identify "no regrets" strategies to ensure reliable access to food and water and to ensure our national security.
• Form teams to prepare responses to possible massive migration, and food and water shortages.
• Explore ways to offset abrupt cooling-today it appears easier to warm than to cool the climate via human activities, so there may be "geo-engineering" options available to prevent a catastrophic temperature drop.
In sum, the risk of abrupt climate change remains uncertain, and it is quite possibly small. But given its dire consequences, it should be elevated beyond a scientific debate. Action now matters, because we may be able to reduce its likelihood of happening, and we can certainly be better prepared if it does. It is time to recognize it as a national security concern.
The Pentagon's reaction to this sobering report isn't known-in keeping with his reputation for reticence, Andy Marshall declined to be interviewed. But the fact that he's concerned may signal a sea change in the debate about global warming. At least some federal thought leaders may be starting to perceive climate change less as a political annoyance and more as an issue demanding action.
If so, the case for acting now to address climate change, long a hard sell in Washington, may be gaining influential support, if only behind the scenes. Policymakers may even be emboldened to take steps such as tightening fuel-economy standards for new passenger vehicles, a measure that would simultaneously lower emissions of greenhouse gases, reduce America's perilous reliance on OPEC oil, cut its trade deficit, and put money in consumers' pockets. Oh, yes-and give the Pentagon's fretful Yoda a little less to worry about.
Feedback: dstipp@fortunemail.com
-------- propaganda wars
Bush Weapons Glance
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Weapons-Glance.html
Comments by President Bush about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction:
We are interviewing Iraqi citizens and analyzing records of the old regime to reveal the full extent of its weapons programs and its long campaign of deception. -- Sept. 23, 2003, speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
- Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program. The credibility of this country is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful, and the world is now more peaceful after our decision. -- June 9, 2003, remarks to reporters after Cabinet meeting.
- Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly. Yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. -- March 19, 2003, address to the nation.
- Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. -- March 17, 2003, address to the nation.
- The dictator of Iraq has got weapons of mass destruction. He has used weapons of mass destruction. He can't stand America and what we stand for. He can't stand our friends and allies. -- Jan. 22, 2003, speech in St. Louis.
- It's important for our fellow Americans to understand that, when we're talking about Saddam Hussein, we're talking about a man who said he has had no weapons of mass destruction, yet we believe has weapons of mass destruction -- a man who has not only had weapons of mass destruction, but he's used weapons of mass destruction. ... He's a threat and he's a danger. -- Dec. 3, 2002, speech in New Orleans.
- Today this regime likely maintains stockpiles of chemical and biological agents, and is improving and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical and biological weapons. Today Saddam Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear weapons program, and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should his regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. -- Sept. 14, 2002, radio address.
-------- war crimes
Cluster Bombs: War Crimes of the Bush Administration
by Paul Rockwell
Monday, January 26, 2004
by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0126-04.htm
The formal war in Iraq has ended, and most of the big guns have fallen silent. Yet the death toll continues to rise, not merely because of the brutality of occupation and the resistance, but because of one of the most heinous, unpredictable weapons of modern war-the cluster bomb.
All over Iraq, unexploded cluster bombs, originally dropped by U.S. troops in populated areas, are still killing and maiming civilians, farm animals, wildlife-any living thing that touches them by accident.
Under Article 85 of the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to launch "an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population in the knowledge that such an attack will cause an excessive loss of life or injury to civilians." Under the Hague Conventions, Article 22 and 23, "The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited," and "It is especially forbidden to kill treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army."
A cluster bomb is a 14-foot weapon that weighs about 1,000 pounds. When it explodes it sprays hundreds of smaller bomblets over an area the size of two or three football fields. The bomblets are bright yellow and look like beer cans. And because they look like playthings, thousands of children have been killed by dormant bomblets in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq. Each bomblet sprays flying shards of metal that can tear through a quarter inch of steel.
The failure rate, the unexploded rate, is very high, often around 15 to 20 percent. When bomblets fail to detonate on the first round, they become land mines that explode on simple touch at any time.
Human Rights Watch reports that 1600 Kuwaiti and Iraqi civilians have been killed, many more injured, by explosive duds following the Persian Gulf war.
Under the Geneva Conventions, cluster bombs are criminal weapons because it is impossible to use them in significant numbers without indiscriminate effects.
In the war in Bosnia in 1995, Major General Michael Ryan recognized the inherent danger to civilians and, out of respect for the laws of war, prohibited the use of cluster bombs in the European theatre. According to Air Force reports, "The problem was that the fragmentation pattern was too large to sufficiently limit collateral damage and there was also the further problem of potential unexploded ordinance." A U.N. clearance expert said that "our experience in Kosovo showed us that children and youths are highly susceptible to the submunitions."
There is a humanitarian crisis in every country where the U.S. dropped cluster bombs-in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Under Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions on Civilians, the Occupying Power has a responsibility to return evacuated personnel to their homes at the end of hostilities-a responsibility which live cluster bombs make impossible to fulfill. Thousands of displaced persons in Afghanistan cannot return to their homes because their farms, houses and villages are replete with unexploded bomblets.
Before the invasion of Iraq, Human Rights Watch called for a moratorium on the use of cluster bombs. Human Rights director Steve Close predicted that "Iraqi civilians will be paying the price with their lives and limbs for many years." A U.N. weapons commission described cluster bombs as "weapons of indiscriminate effects."
In defiance of U.N. reports, Air Force studies, and repeated warnings from Human Rights Watch, Rumsfeld reauthorized the expanded use of cluster bombs with full knowledge of their indiscriminate and treacherous results.
The consequences of his war crime, as reported by international journalists and photographers, are appalling.
On April 10th Asia Times described the carnage of U.S. cluster bombs. "All over Baghdad, the city's five main hospitals simply cannot cope with an avalanche of civilian casualties. Doctors can't get to the hospitals because of the bombing. Dr. Osama Saleh-al-Deleimi at the al-Kindi hospital confirms the absolute majority of patients are women and children, victims of...shrapnel and most of all, fragments of cluster bombs. 'They are all civilians, ' he said. 'The International Committee of the Red Cross is in a state of almost desperation...casualties arriving at hospitals at a rate of as many as 100 per hour and at least 100 per day.'"
Anton Antonowicz reported in The Mirror (U.K.) from a hospital in Hillah: "Among the 168 patients I counted, not one was being treated for bullet wounds. All of them, men, women, children, bore the wounds of bomb shrapnel. It peppered their bodies. Blackened the skin. Smashed heads. Tore limbs. A doctor reported that 'All the injuries you see were caused by cluster bombs...The majority of the victims were children who died because they were outside.'"
Reporting from Baghdad March 27th, Doug Johnson wrote: "I'm overwhelmed and tired. For three days now I've concentrated on visiting injured civilians in hospitals and seeing bombed sites. This morning we interviewed an extended family of 25 that had been living in six houses together on one farm just outside of Baghdad. At 6:00 p.m. yesterday, B-52s dropped cluster bombs on their farm destroying all six houses, killing four and severely injuring many others. Even the farm animals were killed. We were told that the yellow cylinders landed in their yard, and when they and the animals crept closer to investigate, the bombs detonated." During the invasion of Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld lauded the accuracy of stealth bombers and missiles-a boast met with mockery in the streets of Baghdad. But whatever we think about Rumsfeld's humanitarian missiles, he cannot plead ignorance about the traits and effects of cluster bombs. Ever since the Vietnam catastrophe, from the hospitals of Saigon to the clinics of Afghanistan, into the wailing hospitals of Iraq, doctors have been digging shrapnel out of the maimed bodies of once-playful children all around the world. Cluster bombs were always known for their inaccuracy, their indiscriminate and unpredictable nature.
Regarding the use of cluster bombs, among other war crimes--the use of depleted uranium, "the wanton destruction of cities and towns," collective reprisals against civilians in Operation Hammer--the U.S. media is still silent. Years ago in the midst of France's brutal war in Algeria, the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre admonished the French intelligentsia:
"It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name. It's not at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment of yourself. I am willing to believe that at the beginning you did not realize what was happening; later, you doubted whether such things could be true; but now you know, and still you hold your tongues."
Paul Rockwell (rockyspad@hotmail.com) is a columnist for In Motion Magazine.
----
One man and his monsters
January 26, 2004
The Telegraph, London
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/25/1074965437042.html
Ready to act for Saddam ... Jacques Verges. Photo: AFP
He has defended Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal - and is now "ready to act for Saddam Hussein". Does Jacques Verges, a respected member of the Paris bar, have no principles? He talks to Patrick Marnham.
Jacques Verges is the international villain's lawyer of last resort. Now he plans to defend Saddam Hussein in court. When the cause is hopeless, when the United States President says that you deserve "the ultimate penalty", Verges is your man.
Verges first became famous when he represented the ex-SS officer Klaus Barbie, convicted of "crimes against humanity" in Lyons in 1987. Since then Verges has acted for the notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal, who is serving a life sentence in Paris, and he advises Slobodan Milosevic, whose trial for war crimes is entering its third year in the Hague. He is acting for Tariq Aziz, who was deputy prime minister of Iraq and gave himself up last April.
Now he says he is "ready to act for Saddam", and that the ex-dictator's family knows where to reach him.
If Verges defends Saddam, he tells me, he will present him as "a vanquished hero". He has not yet been briefed but has started to prepare the case. I meet Verges, now 78, but looking about 65, in his office in a rather sordid district of northern Paris.
To reach Verges's domain, one passes through a crumbling archway and across a courtyard to an unmarked double door. After a short delay I am ushered into the sumptuous anteroom where 30 antique chess sets are on display. The light dims as I enter the inner sanctum because the steel shutters outside the windows are closed. At the far end of the room, beyond a tall African carving, there is a large desk, and behind it is a small oriental figure offering a courteous greeting and puffing a large cigar.
Verges expects Aziz to be tried in Baghdad in June. He says that the former deputy PM is a gentleman, that they have met on several occasions but not since his client's arrest. And then, the smile is gone. Verges is angry. This is a scandal. "Tariq Aziz is very ill," he says. "He has diabetes and a serious heart condition. He has the right to a doctor of his choice, the right to see his legal advisers, in private. He has the right to see his family. Where is he?"
In court Verges will make the point that Aziz was a moderating influence on the Baath regime, an experienced diplomat who belongs to Iraq's Christian minority. He was "never implicated" in any of the alleged atrocities, and yet even now he is being interrogated by the men who will shortly be appointing his judges.
"This is a judicial farce. Can you imagine General de Gaulle bullying Marshall Petain in his prison cell before the old man's treason trial in 1945? Even in this semi-law-abiding country, it would have been ... unthinkable." Verges produces an alarming silver lighter the size of a small hand grenade and re-ignites the cigar.
In 1987 in Lyons, at the Barbie trial, Verges put on the performance of his life against the public prosecutor and 43 other barristers representing the victims, mainly Jewish, who had been deported from the city during the German occupation.
Having advised his elderly client to remain in his cell, Verges hogged the limelight, alone in front of the empty dock, clowning around and at least once reducing the judge and the public prosecutor to tears of silent laughter. He would grant evening audiences to the international press, reassuring them that "Don Klaus" was in good health and ready for another chorus of Parlez-moi d'Amour, which they would sing together in memory of the good old wartime days.
If all this made some of his opponents feel sick, Verges was greatly encouraged. The main point of his defence was nothing to do with the war, the SS or the Jews. Instead, he argued that no French court had the right to try a man for racist war crimes, since the French state was itself racist and had committed torture, abduction and murder during the Algerian war of independence. At the end of the trial Barbie got 21 life sentences and died in prison. Verges, however, had become an international celebrity.
Verges and his twin brother, Paul, were born in Siam, now Thailand, in 1925. Their father was a French consul who had been dismissed from the service because he had married a Siamese woman. Their mother died from fever when the boys were three.
Verges grew up on the island of La Reunion, where his father, embittered by his treatment, founded a local communist party.
In 1942, aged 17, Jacques Verges made his way to Liverpool to join the Free French. After the war he studied law in Paris. When France began to fight the colonial wars in Indo-China he joined the French Communist Party. He was sent to Prague to work for the party's International Union of Students and there he met a generation of future heads of state, including Pol Pot and Nelson Mandela.
When Verges returned to Paris in 1954 he was recognised as the most brilliant law student of his day and elected by the Paris bar to the position of "first secretary of the conference".
In 1957 Verges went to Algeria with a group of left-wing lawyers to defend the "terrorists" of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), the underground movement fighting for independence. At that time the minister in charge of justice in Algeria was the young Francois Mitterrand, who said that he "would make war" on the FLN, and who used the guillotine freely against convicted terrorists. Verges's contempt for the democratic French left dates from this period. He successfully had the death sentence of a young woman, Djamila Bouhired, commuted to life imprisonment. They married in 1958 when she was released.
In 1970 Verges said goodbye to his wife and children, saying he was going on a short trip to Spain, and disappeared for nine years. He is very proud of the fact that nobody has been able to discover what he was doing.
In 1982, by now divorced and living in Paris, Verges was suspected by Mitterrand's Socialist government of being an associate of Carlos the Jackal. (He believes that "for a political terrorist, a bomb is just a leaflet that goes bang".) Despite this, he remains a popular, respected member of the bar. He is noted for his use of la defense de rupture, the stage-managed diversion.
To assist in the defence of Aziz and Saddam, Verges has assembled an international team, including colleagues from Algeria, Switzerland and France. And the main line will again be the defence de rupture, the mob-handed attack on the court. When the Iraqi court has eventually been cobbled together, Verges will attack it.
"This court will have been set up by 'a provisional authority'," he tells me. "There will have been no elections in Iraq. How can such a court be legitimate? There will be no new constitution. How can such a court act with a guarantee of independence? For those who will be tried by this court, where is the presumption of innocence? Both Saddam and Tariq Aziz have been vilified by the Americans ever since their arrest. They have long since been condemned!"
Verges says the Nuremberg trials might have been criticised as victors' justice but the difference is that the Allies were not implicated in the Nazi war crimes.
"Most of the atrocities alleged against Saddam took place before the 1991 Gulf War. At that time the West encouraged him to attack Iran. How did he get the necessary arms?"
Verges says that the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, visited Baghdad twice selling war materials. "If there were crimes committed, then Mr Rumsfeld is implicated. He should be in the dock beside Saddam Hussein and certainly long before Tariq Aziz!"
Another puff on the cigar, then Verges continues. "According to Rumsfeld, Saddam is a prisoner of war. That means he has the right to silence. In response to questions, all he has to give is his name and number. That shouldn't take too long."
He believes the Americans blundered with Milosevic who, after being tried for war crimes for two years, was so popular in Serbia he was elected to the parliament and the Nationalists won 40 per cent of the vote. "Now Bush is trying to humiliate Saddam. But when he humiliates Saddam, he humiliates the whole of Iraq," he says.
Humiliation is something that Verges learnt about at his father's knee. Those who complain that he has no principles miss the point. He was never an ideological Socialist; he was and remains primarily an anti-colonialist. Verges sees the US as the greatest of all colonial powers. "This superpower makes up all the rules and imposes its will everywhere," he says.
"It accuses other people of war crimes but wages war barbarously. Chemical warfare in Vietnam, where children are still affected by it. Depleted uranium in Kosovo and Iraq. Collateral damage everywhere.
"And Madame Albright said it was 'The price of democracy'!"
His meaning couldn't be clearer: if Verges does defend Saddam, he intends to make it the mother of all trials, the trial of the US.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
White House May Be Probed on CIA Leak
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six Democratic lawmakers on Monday called for a congressional investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's name.
The Justice Department already is investigating who leaked the name of Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July. Her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, has said his wife's identity may have been disclosed to discredit his assertions that the Bush administration exaggerated Iraq's nuclear capabilities to build a case for war.
The Democrats, who also are senior members in Congress, asked Monday that the General Accounting Office determine whether the White House followed proper security procedures for protecting Plame's identify.
They also asked the GAO, Congress's investigative arm, to look into whether the White House complied with requirements after her name was leaked to ensure that the security breach was investigated and that remedial action was taken.
The Democratic members seeking another investigation are: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, presidential candidate Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan.
-------- courts
Part of Patriot Act ruled unconstitutional
1/26/2004
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-01-26-patriot-act_x.htm
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.
The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.
In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.
John Tyler, the Justice Department attorney who argued the case, had no comment and referred calls to the department press office in Washington. A message left there was not immediately returned.
The case before the court involved five groups and two U.S. citizens seeking to provide support for lawful, nonviolent activities on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Turkey.
The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.
The judge's ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.
"The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," the judge said.
Cole declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought consistent with constitutional principles."
--------
Supreme Court Reaffirms Miranda Ruling
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Police-Questioning.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday that police must tell indicted people of their rights before starting interrogations.
Justices ruled 9-0 in favor of a Nebraska man who claimed he was tricked into talking to officers who came to his house to arrest him on drug charges.
The decision relieved civil liberties groups, which worried that the court was poised to roll back some of the protections in its landmark 1966 Miranda ruling which led to the familiar refrain beginning ``You have the right to remain silent.''
The American Bar Association was among groups that urged the court to clarify that people facing charges must be told they have a right to see an attorney.
The ruling will discourage officers from trying to elicit confessions from off-guard suspects facing charges.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority, said that the officers violated John J. Fellers' constitutional rights by deliberately eliciting information during a 15-minute interview in his home, without telling him he could see an attorney.
Monday's decision was the first of four Miranda rulings expected from the Supreme Court this year.
Justices dodged a broader ruling sought by Fellers, who argued that a second jailhouse interview was tainted by the improper initial questioning. The Supreme Court said a lower court should reconsider that issue, in light of the ruling that the first questioning was unconstitutional.
The Bush administration had argued that it was ``routine police practice'' for officers to tell an indicted suspect that they wanted to talk about pending charges, like was done in the Fellers case.
The ABA lawyers group, with more than 400,000 members, said that Fellers should have had an attorney.
``The justices recognized that people who have been indicted have special rights, but put off deciding just how far those rights go,'' said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who worked on the ABA filing. ``It's just too early to tell whether the justices are going to be particularly forgiving of police errors.''
Fellers was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison after being convicted of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine.
The case is Fellers v. United States, 02-6320.
On the Net:
The opinion in Fellers v. United States is viewable at:
http://datacenter.ap.org/wdc/scotus/040126fellers.pdf
--------
L.A. judge cites vagueness in Patriot Act
Jan. 26
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040126-060721-6405r.htm
LOS ANGELES, -- A judge in California struck down part of the Patriot Act in a ruling that said the ban on providing advice to designated terrorist groups was too vague.
U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins' ruling, which was released Monday in Los Angeles, stated that human rights activists were correct in their argument that some forms of advise and assistance provided to such organizations could qualify as exercises in free speech and shouldn't be considered a criminal act.
Collins referred to an earlier appeals court ruling that upheld the allegations that the Patriot Act's references to "training" as being overly vague, and ruled that the phrases "expert advice or assistance" in her case were no different.
The Humanitarian Law Project challenged the "expert advice" prohibition on the grounds the Patriot Act could be used to crack down on lawful and peaceful activities carried out on behalf of Tamil and Kurdish groups.
-------- death penalty
Supreme Court to Consider Banning Execution of Teens
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Death-Penalty.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court, which two years ago abolished executions for the mentally retarded, said Monday it will now consider ending the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes.
The court said it will reopen the question of whether executing very young killers violates the Constitution's ban on ``cruel and unusual punishment.'' Currently, states that allow the death penalty may impose it on killers who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crimes.
The case, which will probably be decided in the court's next term, continues the high court's reexamination of who belongs on death row and how the death penalty is carried out. The court's calendar for the current term is apparently full, with oral arguments scheduled through April.
The court agreed to hear the case of a Missouri man who was 17 when he robbed a woman, wrapped her head in duct tape and threw her off a railroad bridge in 1993. The state Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to send people to their deaths for killings committed when they were younger than 18.
The 4-3 decision by the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of Christopher Simmons, and sentenced him to life in prison instead.
``Children represent one of the most vulnerable groups of society and must be better protected by both governments and the community,'' the human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement Monday. The group strongly opposes juvenile executions, noting that most 16- and 17-year-olds cannot vote, buy beer, join the military, buy cigarettes or serve on a jury.
Four Supreme Court justices are on record opposing the execution of very young killers, but the court has nonetheless stayed on the sidelines of a national and international debate about the practice.
The court has turned aside several recent appeals brought by death row inmates challenging their executions for juvenile crimes. The justices meet behind closed doors to pick which cases to hear, and the court did not comment in agreeing to hear the issue now, in an appeal brought by state officials.
In 2003, the four-member liberal wing of the court issued an unusual statement calling it ``shameful'' to execute juvenile killers.
``The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society,'' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote then. He was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
The rhetoric echoed the court's 2002 ruling that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. In both instances, the constitutional question turns on the defendants' ability to understand their situation, and their level of culpability.
Also like the retardation question, this one will involve an examination of whether the country has changed its mind about what kind of punishment is appropriate.
The court relied heavily on the actions of state legislatures in deciding to ban executions of the retarded. On that issue, the court said the large number of states that had acted on their own to ban such executions showed that the nation no longer supported the practice.
The court majority said, in effect, that times change and that the constitutionality of such executions changes with them. The 6-3 ruling drew fierce dissents from the court's three most conservative members, who view the Constitution as a more rigid document.
Shortly after that ruling, Stevens predicted that juvenile killers would be the next major death penalty question before the court.
The issue has been there before. The high court upheld juvenile executions in 1989, and will now consider reversing that ruling.
Only the United States and a handful of other countries allow execution of juvenile killers, and death penalty opponents argue that such executions violate not only the Constitution but an international treaty signed by the United States.
Currently, 17 states that allow the death penalty for other people prohibit it for those who were under 18 when they committed their crimes. The federal government also prohibits the practice for juveniles prosecuted in federal court.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are now 82 inmates on death row nationwide for crimes committed when they were under 18. States have put to death 22 such inmates in recent years.
The case is Roper v. Simmons, 03-633.
--------
California's New Standard of Law and Order
Willing to Support Parole, Schwarzenegger Is on Track to Review His First Death-Penalty Case
By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47275-2004Jan25?language=printer
LOS ANGELES -- The drug deal led to gunfire and left a man dead at Jeri Becker's feet. Convicted of murder, she has spent 23 years inside a California prison, serving a life sentence with only faint hope of ever getting out.
Prison officials had recommended Becker for parole in recent years, citing her model conduct as an inmate. But the governor at the time, Gray Davis (D), stepped in and overturned that decision -- just as he did for almost all of the nearly 300 parole cases involving murderers that came across his desk.
Then Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) took office.
Now, Becker, 52, can count the days to her release. In just two months as governor, Schwarzenegger has supported decisions by the state's Board of Prison Terms to set free eight apparently rehabilitated murderers who already have served lengthy sentences.
That tally matches the number that Davis allowed to be paroled in the five years he spent as governor before being recalled from office last fall. It is also one among several emerging signs that for all the tough Terminator talk the former movie star is bringing to the politics of the Golden State, Schwarzenegger may not be a hard-liner on crime and punishment -- even if that politically risky stance angers his conservative supporters.
"Davis felt the need to always prove that no one was to the right of him on criminal justice, but Schwarzenegger is a Republican with a tough-guy image. He doesn't have to worry about that nearly as much," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of Southern California. "It's still early in his administration, but even the fact that he is willing to approve parole for these people is in itself a huge change."
All eyes are on Schwarzenegger's plans to solve California's massive fiscal crisis, but the choices he makes on law-and-order issues could also prove to be significant and politically defining. Schwarzenegger said little during the campaign about criminal justice and since his election has not publicly emphasized it either. His parole decisions have been made with little fanfare.
"He treats each of these cases on an individual basis," said Vincent Sollitto, a spokesman for the governor. "First and foremost in his mind will always be public safety."
Next month, he is likely to face his first decision on the death penalty, a practice that he has said he generally supports. The next convict in line to be put to death is seeking clemency and has the support of groups that oppose capital punishment. They are planning statewide demonstrations to urge Schwarzenegger to spare his life.
And that is only the beginning of the pressures the new governor has begun to face on the issue of crime and punishment.
California runs the nation's largest penal system, housing more than 160,000 convicts. It also has some of the country's toughest and most controversial sentencing laws, including a "three strikes" measure that can put a third-time felony offender in jail for life even for a nonviolent crime such as theft. And by many accounts, the state agency that oversees prisons is mired with problems.
A federal report issued this month called it beset with management corruption and rogue prison guards. Last fall, state investigators also denounced California's parole policies as a "billion-dollar failure" because most released inmates end up back behind bars. At a hearing convened last week to examine the troubles plaguing prisons, state senators called California's penal system a "tarnished institution" in dire need of reform.
Schwarzenegger is just beginning to address those issues and is contemplating dramatic shifts in policy, although he has shown no sign of retreating from the three-strikes law. His administration, facing a $14 billion budget shortfall and desperate to find savings, may restructure parole policies in ways that would return fewer parolees to prison for minor violations of the terms of their release. It also is considering easing sentencing laws for some nonviolent offenders. Both of those moves could save California several hundred million dollars a year.
"It's clear that the state's parole system is not serving either the state or parolees well," Sollitto said.
The most provocative step Schwarzenegger has taken on that subject has been to grant murderers parole. California is one of only a few states that give its governor the power to review and change decisions parole officials make on inmates serving time for murder.
So far, Schwarzenegger has reviewed 23 such cases. He has supported the release of eight murderers and overturned recommendations to free 15 others.
By contrast, Davis reviewed 294 cases in which parole officials recommended releasing a murderer and let only eight of them go free. "If you take someone's life," Davis said at one point while in office, "forget it."
Aides to Schwarzenegger say that he wants to show more flexibility on the issue without jeopardizing public safety. But some conservative lawmakers and groups that represent victims of crime say they fear he is acting recklessly.
"We're very concerned about what he's doing," said Harriet Salarno, the president of an organization called Crime Victims United of California. "We're watching it very closely and hope it doesn't continue."
The parole recommendations that Schwarzenegger has supported are diverse. He has agreed to set free a 63-year-old man who shot and killed his estranged wife's boyfriend in Sacramento in 1985, and a 51-year-old Los Angeles woman convicted of killing her abusive husband's mistress in 1987. Davis twice denied her parole.
Schwarzenegger also has backed the release of a 43-year-old Mexican woman convicted in the 1981 murder of a man who had held her in servitude as a housekeeper and raped her. She hid the weapon that a neighbor of the man used to kill him.
Then there is the case of Becker. She was convicted in the 1980 slaying of a man taking part in a drug deal with her and a companion. During an argument, the companion fatally shot the man as Becker watched. Both of them were convicted.
But parole officials say that she has turned her life around in prison, counseling inmates, leading a choir and never posing discipline problems.
"She did quite a bit of work helping other inmates improve their lives," said Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the Board of Prison Terms. "We were confident that she does not pose any threat to society."
The parole recommendations that Schwarzenegger has overturned include one involving a man who is serving a life sentence for killing a motorist two decades ago while driving drunk, and another case involving a woman who was convicted 20 years ago for killing her husband during an argument. Aides to the governor say he was not convinced in either case that the inmates are fully rehabilitated.
Schwarzenegger also is soon to confront his first death-penalty case. An execution date for Kevin Cooper, convicted of killing four people with a hatchet in San Bernardino County in 1983, has been set for next month. He would be the 11th inmate in California put to death since the state resumed executions in 1978.
But Cooper has petitioned for clemency from the governor, and groups that oppose capital punishment are pleading with Schwarzenegger, who has not commented on the case, to approve the request.
Cameron Sturdevant, an organizer for a group called the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said he wants Schwarzenegger to follow the example of former Illinois governor George Ryan, a Republican who last year emptied that state's death row and granted clemency to 167 convicts who had been awaiting execution.
"We have a glimmer of hope," Sturdevant said, "because Schwarzenegger is certainly taking a different approach to the difficult issue of parole."
-------- human rights
Rights Group: Iraq War Was 'Not Humanitarian'
by Sanjay Suri
(Inter Press Service)
http://antiwar.com/orig/suri.php?articleid=1788
The invasion of Iraq was no humanitarian intervention, Human Rights Watch says in its annual report released in London Monday.
The human rights organization's argument on Iraq marks the keynote essay in its annual report. The 407-page "World Report 2004: Human Rights and Armed Conflict" includes 15 reports on varying subjects related to war and human rights.
The 15 analytical reports cover rights in the context of war in Africa, Afghanistan and Chechnya. The reports also take up issues such as executive power in the United States post 9/11, war and law enforcement rules in the fight against terrorism, children as weapons of war, cluster munitions, arms suppliers and issues around sexual violence and women's status.
In its 25th year the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has changed its usual format of presenting country reports by way of an annual report. Country reports have been posted on its website, but the annual report is focussed on rights in conflict situations.
The highlight of that is clearly Iraq. HRW chose to present the annual report in London for the first time just two days before scheduled publication of an inquiry report into the circumstances surrounding the suicide of British weapons expert Dr. David Kelly last year.
Given the evidence presented in the inquiry conducted by Judge Lord Hutton, the report will look beyond the suicide into the circumstances that led to Britain's decision to join the invasion of Iraq.
The justification offered for the invasion of Iraq last year was the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth said launching the report at The Royal Institute of International Affairs. "The humanitarian rationale was not foremost, it was barely mentioned," he said. That rationale is being offered only now that weapons of mass destruction have not been found, he said.
Roth said HRW does not have a pacifist position against war. "Our role in such a situation would be to monitor the positions of both sides."
Roth said HRW had at times even supported military intervention, as in Rwanda and in Bosnia. "Humanitarian intervention, by which we mean military intervention, is coming to the fore," he said. "This would mean an armed force crossing borders to save lives." But the intervention in Iraq did not meet minimum criteria for such intervention, Roth said.
"Military intervention in a humanitarian cause would be justified only if there was imminent fear of mass slaughter, if military intervention was the last reasonable option, if the humanitarian cause was the dominant focus of the intervention, if efforts had been made to maximize compliance with international law, if it was reasonable to believe that intervention would make things better, and if such intervention had been sanctioned by the United Nations or at least a large body of nations," Roth said.
"But there were nothing like the kind of killings taking place that happened in 1988 with the genocide against Kurds," Roth said. "Such interventions should not be used belatedly to address atrocities that were ignored in the past." Nor had other requirements been met, he said.
While Iraq remains the "hottest" issue involving intervention and rights, the HRW report points to several other conflict situations that have received far less media attention. The report includes analyses of situations along the following lines:
- One report says the war in Chechnya "which Russian authorities now justify as their contribution to the global war on terror is being thoroughly ignored by European and other governments."
- An entry on Africa's "forgotten wars" analyses efforts by regional leaders, especially in the recently formed African Union, to take a more active role in curbing armed conflict and human rights abuses.
- Three essays examine human rights in the wake of war. One says that allied forces are "losing the peace" in Afghanistan because they are ceding control outside capital Kabul to brutal warlords.
- In former Yugoslavia "continuing insecurity, failures of justice and employment discrimination serve as barriers to return of refugees and the displaced." As a result ethnic cleansing remains substantially in place.
- In the United States "the Bush administration is trying to shield a broad range of executive actions on national security from the kind of judicial review that is essential to protecting human rights." The United States is applying "war rules" to counter-terrorism to give itself more leeway in denying suspected terrorists their rights.
- Some reports look at the way war is conducted, "in particular the growing international effort to restrict the use of cluster munitions and the use of child soldiers, as well as to punish states that sell weapons to known human rights abusers."
- A report on "resource wars" argues that the role of corrupt governments is often overlooked in analyses of how precious commodities such as oil and diamonds provoke rebel groups into launching civil wars.
The report notes that the human rights movement has come a long way, but that many of its gains are threatened "under the cover of an endless and boundary-less war on terror."
The report argues that the human rights movement must demonstrate that "support for terrorism feeds off repression, injustice, inequality and lack of opportunity" and that the "global security is thus enhanced by the success of open societies that foster respect for the rule of law, promote tolerance, and guarantee people's rights of free expression and peaceful dissent."
-------- immigration / refugees
Illegal criminal aliens abound in U.S.
January 26, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040126-120103-7792r.htm
About 80,000 illegal criminal aliens, including convicted murderers, rapists, drug dealers and child molesters who served prison time and were released, are loose on the streets of America, hiding from federal immigration authorities.
Despite the creation of a new agency to hunt down criminal aliens and the infusion of millions of dollars to get the job done, many state and local police agencies who make contact with the aliens either never learn of their immigration status or never advise the federal government of their release.
According to figures for 2002 from the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), more than 375,000 known illegal aliens have been ordered deported, but have disappeared pending immigration hearings. Washington-area sniper Lee Boyd Malvo was one such alien.
About 80,000 of those people, called "absconders," already had been convicted and served prison time for felonies, ICE and INS say.
"Keeping our law-enforcement officers in the dark doesn't make America's streets safer for anyone," said Rep. Charlie Norwood, Georgia Republican. "At a time when our officers are faced with arresting and re-arresting the same 80,000 criminal aliens over and over again, we should be giving them greater access to data and more resources."
Making matters more difficult for federal authorities are several municipalities that have passed ordinances prohibiting their employees, including police officers, from enforcing federal immigration laws.
Known as "sanctuary laws," the ordinances are in place in varying degree in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston.
Immigration opponents argue that the laws encourage illegal immigration. Some, including the District-based Federation of American Immigration Reform, have charged that sanctuary laws offer shelter for would-be terrorists by allowing illegal immigrants to establish themselves as residents.
The Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement (FILE), also based in the District, has begun to bring lawsuits against those municipalities with sanctuary ordinances and has promised additional legal challenges.
FILE has argued that state and county governments are prohibited from adopting policies that prevent its employees from contacting federal immigration authorities about the legal status of any noncitizen or to report violations of U.S. immigration law by any noncitizen.
"These policies, called 'sanctuary policies,' promise foreign nationals who have broken our laws that the municipality in which they live will help them in their lawbreaking by resisting efforts to report them to the proper authorities," FILE said in a statement.
"Such policies are illegal, naturally, and have been rejected by the courts. Nevertheless, some cities, remarkably, persist in maintaining their illegal sanctuary policies," FILE said. "Unfortunately, the executive branch of the federal government has been for many years utterly derelict in forcing, as is its duty, municipalities to abide by the law."
The National Council of La Raza has defended sanctuary laws, saying that collaboration between federal authorities and state and local municipalities is contrary to U.S. case law and that it results in racial profiling, police misconduct and civil rights violations.
La Raza also charges that it undermines community policing efforts and that it undercuts effective law-enforcement and antiterrorism efforts by diverting resources and leading to additional litigation.
Mr. Norwood has introduced the Clear Law Enforcement for Alien Removal Act that would, among other things, give state and local police agencies authority to enforce immigration laws.
The pending bill, with 112 co-sponsors of both parties, also would grant state and local police agencies access to the National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) database for immigration status information.
Last month, several pro-immigration and civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit to stop the government from entering immigration information into NCIC, saying the data was being misused in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
Filed in U.S. District Court in New York, the suit said the Justice Department unlawfully entered immigration information into NCIC subjecting immigrants to the risk of unlawful arrest by state and local police.
The suit also questioned the authority of Attorney General John Ashcroft to enlist state and local police in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The suit was filed by La Raza, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Latin American Workers Project, New York Immigration Coalition, and Union of Needletrades and Industrial and Textile Employees.
The NCIC database - which includes more than 40 million felons, fugitives and others being sought by federal law enforcement - was expanded after the September 11 attacks to include immigrant criminals who failed to show up for their deportation hearings.
It also includes thousands of immigrants who registered with the government under the "special registration" program, which requires that foreign visitors from designated countries register when they enter the United States. NCIC is used by 80,000 law-enforcement agencies across the country.
Assistant Secretary Michael J. Garcia, who heads ICE, the investigative arm of Homeland Security, has promised a vigorous enforcement effort for criminal aliens now in the country, including a $10 million effort to fund eight new teams of agents to apprehend and deport aliens convicted of crimes in the United States.
The new teams, which join eight already in operation, will be based in Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Texas and Washington state.
-------- police
Whistleblower Coming In Cold From the F.B.I.
1/26/2004
by Gail Sheehy
NEW YORK OBSERVER
http://www.observer.com/pages/observatory.asp
Sibel Edmonds says she was shocked at the lack of security in the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence squad when she went to work there shortly after Sept. 11. But when she spoke up, she was canned. Gail Sheehy tells her story.
Last Friday, the four women from New Jersey who have faced down the F.B.I. on its failures in preventing the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that claimed their husbands' lives were personally invited to the bureau's Hoover Building offices in Washington, D.C., for a second visit. Their host was none other than F.B.I. director Robert Mueller.
Cordial and fully engaged, Mr. Mueller introduced the newly appointed head of the Bureau's Penttbom investigation (Pent for Pentagon, Pen for Pennsylvania, tt for the Twin Towers and bom for the four planes that the government was forewarned could be used as weapons-even bombs-but ignored).
The new Penttbom team leader, Joan-Marie Turchiano, politely suggested the widows present their questions.
"O.K." said Kristin Breitweiser, the group's hammerhead, "have you solved the crime yet?"
The Penttbom leader said they had been investigating the 19 hijackers and had run down every connection. Ms. Breitweiser recalls her next words indelibly: "As far as our investigations are concerned, we can say the hijackers had no contacts in the United States."
But the scathing 800-page report on intelligence failures produced by a joint congressional investigation had already revealed that the F.B.I. had open investigations on four of the 14 individuals who allegedly had some kind of contact with the hijackers while they were in the U.S.
The Four Moms from New Jersey, or "the girls" as they refer to themselves, waste little time on niceties these days. They were the firecrackers behind the creation of the 9/11 commission, which after a year of meager progress, is finally ready to call key administration officials to testify in public hearings on some of the most important questions we have before us as a nation.
But White House delays and circumventions have hampered the effort, and the four moms see the commission flagging in its use of subpoena power to call in key Clinton and Bush administration officials for their testimony. Personal connections between commission members-like executive director Philip Zelikow and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice-undermine the commission's purported independence. As the commission's work draws close to its May dissolution, it appears the main question they were tasked to answer will remain unanswered: Did our guardians of national security have enough information to prevent 9/11? Why did all of our officials who swore an oath of office to lead, protect, and serve, fail to do so on the morning of 9/11?
Last Monday Ms. Breitweiser, along with three other members of the Family Steering Committee, met with commissioner John Lehman about the need for an extension of the Commission's May deadline-after House Speaker Dennis Hastert had already declared such an extension dead in the water. Exiting the meeting, the family members were hopeful that he would join the majority of commissioners-all five Democrats, chairman Thomas Kean and one other Republican, Slade Gorton-in supporting a postponement. More recently, as Democratic presidential candidates burnish their credentials in intelligence and national security issues against Bush's 2004 campaign, the extension of that deadline is becoming a heated issue.
While fighting a mostly losing battle for a transparent investigation, the Moms are winning on another score: Whistleblowers from agencies culpable in the failures of 9/11-long silent-are being attracted to their mission.
Sibel Edmonds read an article published in these pages last August about the 9/11 widows' bold confrontation with Director Mr. Mueller in a private meeting last summer, and recognized kindred spirits.
"This was the first time I'd heard anybody ask such direct questions to Mr. Mueller," said Ms. Edmonds, a Turkish-American woman who answered the desperate call of the F.B.I. in September, 2001 for translators of Middle Eastern languages. Hired as contract employee a week after 9/11, without a personal interview, Ms. Edmonds was given top-secret security clearance to translate wiretaps ordered by field offices in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities by agents who were working around the clock to pick up the trail of Al Qaeda terrorists and their supporters in the U.S. and abroad. Working in the F.B.I.'s Washington field office, she listened to hundreds of hours of intercepts and translated reams of e-mails and documents that flooded into the bureau. In a series of intimate interviews, she told her story to this writer.
When she arrived, her enormous respect for the F.B.I. was initially confirmed.
"The field agents are wonderful, but they were terribly exasperated with the D.C. office," she said.
While the news was full of reports of heaps of untranslated material languishing inside the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism unit, Ms. Edmonds has claimed that translators were told to let them pile up. She said she remembers a supervisor's instructions "to just say no to those field agents calling us to beg for speedy translations" so that the department could use the pileup as evidence to demand more money from the Senate. Another colleague she recalls saying bitterly, "This is our time to show those assholes we are in charge."
F.B.I. translators are the front line for information gathered by foreign-language wiretaps, tips, documents, e-mails, and other intercepted threats to security. Based on what they translate and the dots they connect, F.B.I. field agents act against targets of investigation-or fail to act-in a timely manner. As an agent later told the Judiciary Committee which oversees the F.B.I., "When you hear a suspect say 'The flower will bloom next week,' you can't wait two weeks to get it translated."
During her six months of work for the Bureau, Ms. Edmonds said she grew increasingly horrified by the lack of internal security she saw inside the very agency tasked with protecting our national security.
In papers filed with the F.B.I.'s internal investigative office, the Department of Justice, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and most recently with the 9/11 Commission, she has reported serious ongoing failures in the language division of the F.B.I. Washington Field Office. They include security lapses in hiring and monitoring of translators, investigations that have been compromised by incorrect or misleading translations sent to field agents; and thousands of pages of translations falsely labeled "not pertinent" by Middle Eastern linguists who were either not qualified in the target language or English, or, worse, protecting targets of investigation.
Nothing happened. Undaunted, Ms. Edmonds took her concerns to upper management. Soon afterward she was fired. The only cause given was "for the convenience of the government." The F.B.I. has not refuted any of Ms. Edmonds' allegations, yet they have accounted for none of them.
On the morning Ms. Edmonds was terminated, she said, she was escorted from the building by an agent she remembered saying: "We will be watching you and listening to you. If you dare to consult an attorney who is not approved by the F.B.I., or if you take this issue outside the F.B.I. to the Senate, the next time I see you, it will be in jail." Two other agents were present.
"I know about my constitutional rights, but do you know how many translators would be intimidated?"
Shortly after her dismissal, F.B.I. agents turned up at the door of the Ms. Edmonds' townhouse to seize her home computer. She was then called in to be polygraphed-a test which, she found out later, she passed. A few months after her dismissal, accompanied by her lawyer on a sunny morning in May 2002, Ms. Edmonds took her story to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As her high heels glanced off the marble steps of Congress she sensed two men ascending right behind her. Turning, she recognized the agent walk, the Ray-Bans, the outline of a weapon, and the deadest giveaway of all-a cell phone pointed straight at her, transmitting. "They weren't secretive about it, they wanted me to know they're there," she said. After being shadowed in plain sight many more times, she said with dark humor, "I call them my escorts."
After her meeting, Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican vice-chair of the Judiciary Committee to whom Ms. Edmonds appealed, had his investigators check her out. Then they, along with staffers for Senator Patrick Leahy, called for a joint briefing in the summer of 2002. The F.B.I. sent a unit chief from the language division and an internal security official.
In a lengthy, unclassified session that one participant describes as bizarre, the windows fogged up as the session finished; it was that tense, "None of the F.B.I. officials' answers washed, and they could tell we didn't believe them." He chuckles remembering one of the Congressional investigators saying, "You basically admitted almost all that Sibel alleged, yet you say there's no problem here. What's wrong with this picture?"
The Bureau briefers shrugged, put on their coats, and left. There was no way the F.B.I. was going to admit to another spy scandal only months after being scorched by the Webster Report on one of the most dangerous double agents in F.B.I. history, Robert Hanssen.
"I think the F.B.I. is ignoring a very major internal security breach," said Grassley, "and a potential espionage breach."
Unlike those whistleblowers whose cause is redress of personal grievances, Ms. Edmonds impressed Grassley as passionately patriotic.
"The basic problem is, heads don't roll," Sen. Grassley said. "The culture of the F.B.I. is to worry about their own public relations. If you're going to change that culture, somebody's got to get fired." He is not optimistic, however, that Congress will act aggressively. "Nobody wants to take on the F.B.I."
The translator had filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Department of Justice on March 7, 2002. She was told then that an investigation would be undertaken and she could expect a report by the fall of 2002. Twenty-one months later, she is still waiting. She also filed a First Amendment case against the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. And a Freedom of Information case against the F.B.I. for release of documents pertaining to her work for the Bureau, to confirm her allegations. The F.B.I. refused her FOIA request. Their stated reason was the pending investigation by Justice, which, her sources in the Senate tell her, will probably be held up until after the November election.
When Ms. Edmonds wouldn't go away or keep still, F.B.I. Director Mueller asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to assert the State Secrets Privilege in the case of Ms. Edmonds versus Department of Justice. Mr. Ashcroft obliged.
The State Secrets Privilege is the neutron bomb of legal tactics. In the rare cases where the government invokes it to withhold evidence or to block discovery in the name of national security, it can effectively terminate the case. According to a 1982 Appeals Court ruling. "Once the court is satisfied that the information poses a reasonable danger to secrets of state, even the most compelling necessity cannot overcome the claim of privilege ._"
In interviews conducted over recent weeks with a senior F.B.I. agent who worked closely with Ms. Edmonds, former F.B.I. counterterrorism agents, and with current and former members of Congress involved in national security issues, a picture emerged of the dark undercurrents that run beneath our best counterterrorism efforts, and the punishments meted out to those who dare to expose it.
Does Ms. Edmonds pose a danger to secrets of state? Or do the secrets buried in the nerve center of the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism squad pose a danger to Americans living under the politics of dread?
Edmonds was seen as a jewel when the F.B.I. found her only a week after September 11, 2001. With reports of stacks of untranslated "chatter" from Middle Eastern suspects and their supporters, the embarrassed Bureau couldn't wait to hire this Turkish-American graduate student who speaks four languages, not only Turkish, Farsi (the Iranian language) and Azerbaijani, but perfect American-English. The graduate student was carrying five courses in preparation for her Master's degree and was in mourning for her father's recent death. "But I felt like I was being called to duty."
Inside the F.B.I.'s Washington field office roughly 200 translators sit hip to hip in one large room that is a linguistic cacophony of chatter from 185 different countries. The few Arabic translators may be flanked by a Farsi speaker on one side, an Urdu speaker on the other, and a translator of Chinese chatter behind them.
In a security briefing she was told that any documents marked "Top Secret" had to be locked up when employees went to lunch. Laptops had to be kept in a safe. Any contacts with foreign people, even social, had to be reported. She also signed a document promising to report any suspicious activities of other translators. She was impressed with the stringency of F.B.I. rules.
The Translation Department is treated by the F.B.I. as highly sensitive. Yet her badge allowed her and other translators to enter and exit the building without passing through security, and within the sanctum itself they could pass freely from floor to floor and to any agent's office. Ms. Edmonds saw several different individuals leave the building with documents or audio tapes in their gym bags. When she called security to report it, nothing was done.
She was one of three Turkish translators working on real time wiretaps, e-mails, and documents related to 9/11 investigations. One of her colleagues was an unassuming immigrant whose first employment on entering the U.S. was as a busboy. Ms. Edmonds was dismayed to learn that he had been hired despite failing to pass the English equivalency exam. When he was chosen to go to Guantánamo Bay, to translate interrogations with the half-dozen Turkish detainees in America's war on terror, she remembers with both compassion and disgust hearing her colleague wail, "I can't do this!"
But it was her other colleague who gave her the greatest cause for concern-and her reports to her superiors as well as an alphabet soup of government commissions and agencies remain unanswered.
Melek Can Dickerson was a very friendly Turkish woman, married to a major in the U.S. Air Force. She liked to be called informally "Jan."
The account that follows, which comes from extended interviews with Ms. Edmonds, was related in testimony to the Senate Judiciary committee.
"I began to be suspicious as early as November, 2001" said Ms. Edmonds. "In conversation Jan mentioned these suspects and said 'I can't believe they're monitoring these people.'"
"How would you know?" Ms. Edmonds remembers saying. She said Dickerson told her she had worked for them in a Turkish organization; she talked about how she shopped for them at a Middle Eastern grocery store in Alexandria.
Ms. Edmonds has told the Judiciary Committee that soon after, Ms. Dickerson tried to establish social ties with her, suggesting they meet in Alexandria and introduce their husbands to each other.
When Sibel invited the visitors in for tea, she said, Major Dickerson began asking Matthew Edmonds if the couple had many friends from Turkey here in the U.S. Mr. Edmonds said he didn't speak Turkish, so they didn't associate with many Turkish people. The Air Force officer then began talking up a Turkish organization in Washington that he described, according to the Edmondses, as "a great place to make connections and it could be very profitable."
Sibel was sickened. This organization was the very one she and Jan Dickerson were monitoring in a 9/11 investigation. Since Sibel had adhered to the rule that an F.B.I. employee does not discuss bureau matters with one's mate, her husband innocently continued the conversation. Ms. Dickerson and her husband offered to introduce the Edmondses to people connected to the Turkish embassy in Washington who belonged to this organization.
"These two people were the top targets of our investigation!" Ms. Edmonds said of the people the Dickersons proposed to introduce them to.
"My husband keeps thinking he's talking about promoting business deals," Ms. Edmonds later said of the encounter. "He has no idea the man is talking about criminal activities with some semi-legitimate front."
These are classic "pitch activities" to get somebody to spy for you, according to a Judiciary Committee staffer who investigated Ms. Edmonds' claims.
"You'd think the F.B.I. would be jumping out of their seats about all these red flags," the staffer said.
The targets of that F.B.I. investigation left the country abruptly in 2002. Later, Ms. Edmonds discovered that Ms. Dickerson had managed to get hold of translations meant for Ms. Edmonds, forge her signature, and render the communications useless.
"These were documents directly related to a 9/11 investigation and suspects, and they had been sent to field agents in at least two cities." By accident, Ms. Edmonds discovered the breach-up to 400 pages of translations marked "not pertinent"-and insisted that those classified translations be sent back so she could retranslate them
"We discovered some amazing stuff," she remembered.
The first half-dozen translations were transcripts from an F.B.I. wiretap targeting a Turkish intelligence officer working out of the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C. A staff-member of the Judiciary committee later confirmed to this writer that the intelligence officer was the target of the wiretap Ms. Dickerson had mistranslated, signing Ms. Edmonds' name to the printouts. Ms. Edmonds said she found them to reveal that the officer had spies working for him inside the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon-but that information would not have reached field agents unless Ms. Edmonds had retranslated them. She only got through about 100 more pages before she was fired. "I didn't go out and blow the whistle," Ms. Edmonds said. She said she first reported these breaches both verbally and in writing to a supervisor, who assured her that the F.B.I. had done a background check on Ms. Dickerson, and the matter was put to an end.
Her further inquiries to counterintelligence agents raised a small alarm. Ms. Edmonds was told that Ms. Dickerson hadn't disclosed any links to the Turkish organization in her employment application. But nothing happened. Ms. Edmonds, despairing to another superior in the counterintelligence squad, remembers the agent saying: "I'll bet you've never worked in government before. We do things differently. We don't name names, and we usually sweep the dirt under the carpet."
She said another special agent warned: "If you insist on this investigation, I'll make sure in no time it will turn around and become an investigation about you."
The F.B.I., contacted with these allegations, would not comment; Ms. Dickerson could not be reached for comment, but has previously dismissed Ms. Edmonds' story as "preposterous." The F.B.I. has also previously said that it did not believe that Ms. Dickerson acted maliciously, though members of the Judiciary committee have expressed dissatisfaction with the F.B.I.'s investigation.
Going by the book was not without personal sacrifice for Ms. Edmonds. She remembered her erstwhile tea companion, Ms. Dickerson, threatening: "Why would you make such a fuss over translations? You're not even planning to stay here. Why would you put your life and your family's lives in danger?"
Ms. Edmonds said that after she reported this threat to Dale Watson, then executive assistant director of the F.B.I., she learned from friends in Turkey that plainclothes agents went to her sister's apartment in Istanbul with an interrogation warrant.
Ms. Edmonds had already brought her sister and mother to Washington in anticipation of such reprisals by Turkish intelligence. But her younger sister, a totally apolitical airline employee, hasn't spoken to her since.
After two years of futile efforts as an F.B.I. whistleblower, Ms. Edmonds figured the widows were her last resort. The former translator had information relevant to the commission that nobody else seemed to want to hear. Shortly after the Christmas holidays, in the leer of a nationwide orange alert based on a "sustained level of intelligence chatter," she contacted Mindy Kleinberg, the only mom whose telephone number is listed. Kleinberg rallied her cohorts, Kristen Breitweiser and Patty Casazza (their fourth member, Lori Van Aucken, was taking a brief "sabbatical"). The three moms jumped in an S.U.V. and gunned it down the Garden State to meet up with Ms. Edmonds halfway to D.C. at an anonymous roadside hotel. She gave them the outlines of her story, and asked "the girls" if they could get her an audience with the 9/11 commission. Her letter and follow-up calls to Tom Kean, the chairman, had gone unanswered for a year. The moms were so disturbed by all the security lapses she described, they slipped back into the sleepless agitation that was so familiar from the months after watching on TV while their husbands were turned to ash by terrorists in the World Trade Center attack. But they eagerly agreed to help.
Last week, Ms. Edmonds met with a New York attorney, Eric Seiff, a veteran of both the New York District Attorney's office and the State Department. He finds her case extraordinary.
"We're familiar with people in big bureaucracies putting job security over doing the right thing, but not at this dramatic level-putting job security above national security," said Seiff. He is appalled at the invocation of State Secrets Privilege "It's the Attorney General saying to the judiciary, 'Not only don't we answer to Ms. Edmonds, we don't answer to you."
The last resort, Ms. Edmonds concluded, was the federal 9/11 commission. Maybe they would live up to their mandate to do a truly independent investigation of the security lapses that allowed our country to be invaded by terrorists supported by foreign powers, who have yet to be exposed or held accountable.
She sent a full report to one of the Democratic commission members. When this writer asked him about the commission's interest in the issues raised by Ms. Edmonds' report, he said: "It sounds like it's too deep in the weeds for us to consider, we're looking at broader issues."
It has not deterred her. And neither snow nor sleet nor mini child disasters could deter the moms from keeping their dates in Washington last Friday to do battle for Ms. Edmonds. When the 9/11 commission seemed close-minded, they met with Judiciary Committee staffers, echoing Sibel's pleadings that Senator Grassley hold his own hearings. Senator Grassley had told this writer that his hands were tied, because, "Senator Hatch is now chairman of the Oversight Committee." The staffers said they had written to both Mueller and Ashcroft several times, asking them to come in and talk about Ms. Edmonds' allegations. No reply. Sibel was surprised to hear them admit, 'Senator Hatch has been an obstacle on everything we've tried to do.'
Then a brainstorm. What if the Senate Intelligence Committee held a joint hearing with the Judiciary Committee? Breitweiser enthused, "Great, we've already talked to Senators Roberts and Rockefeller [co-chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee]. We were told by Senator Roberts that the translation issue remains 'a serious problem.' They said they would like to hold hearings in February of this year."
The moms' final meeting was their hour-and-a-half private session at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Ms. Edmonds was not welcome there. But Director Mueller, said Breitweiser, seemed genuinely interested in what the moms had to say. Asked about the Ms. Edmonds case, Mueller said he had handed it over to the Inspector General's office. Pressed, he said, "I can't investigate myself." Yes, but, the Moms nudged, had he looked into problems in the translation department? Mueller appeared to brush off the matter as anything but important.
"Then, I don't understand why you asked that State Secrets Privilege be asserted here?" Kleinberg piped up. "If her case was that important, why isn't it important enough to deserve a report?"
For the first time, the director did not look cordial. So Breitweiser switched back to an earlier subject - his cooperation with a Senate hearing on the translation issue. "So, Director Mueller, I just want to get you on the record," said Breitweiser. "If the Senate asks you to testify, we have your word you'll go?"
The square-jawed chief spook smiled at the girls' grasp of strategy. "You have my word," they all remember his saying, "if Senator Hatch invites me to testify, absolutely I will be there."
Now all they have to do is move the immovables. But they've done it before. And there is one motto shared by the Four Moms from New Jersey and the translator from Turkey: We're not going away.
You may reach Gail Sheehy via email at: gsheehy@observer.com.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Judge Guards Northwest Salmon Against 38 Pesticides
SEATTLE, Washington, (ENS)
January 26, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2004/2004-01-26-09.asp#anchor2
A federal judge has restricted the use of 38 pesticides near salmon streams and has required point-of-sale warnings on products containing pesticides that may harm salmon.
The ruling was issued Thursday in a case brought by fishing and conservation groups against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to protect salmon from harmful pesticides.
In 2002, U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour agreed with the salmon advocates that the EPA was out of compliance with the Endangered Species Act and ordered the federal agency to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) and establish permanent restrictions needed to protect salmon from 54 pesticides, over a 30 month timeline.
After the 2002 ruling, environmental and fishing groups filed for an injunction to reduce contamination of salmon streams while EPA and NOAA Fisheries develop permanent restrictions.
Coughenour's latest ruling puts in place no-spray buffers of 100 yards for aerial applications and 20 yards for ground applications, with exceptions for certain uses that are unlikely to pollute water.
The buffer zones will become effective in early 2004 and will apply to salmon streams that support threatened and endangered salmon throughout Washington, Oregon, and California.
"This is a landmark decision that finally gives salmon relief from pesticides after a decade of agency inaction," said Patti Goldman, the Earthjustice attorney who represented the groups. "The court has blocked the use of the most harmful pesticides along salmon streams until the government has ensured that salmon will be protected."
The court order also requires a warning for products containing seven pesticides that have polluted urban salmon streams.
These warnings must be provided to purchasers in urban home and garden stores throughout Washington, Oregon, and California.
"Now consumers buying lawn and garden products can easily make informed choices that are better for salmon," said Aimee Code of the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.
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Wal-Mart to Stop Selling Ozone Depleting Refrigerants
KANSAS CITY, Missouri, (ENS)
January 26, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2004/2004-01-26-03.asp
Wal-Mart Stores has agreed to stop selling ozone depleting refrigerants as part of the terms of a court ordered settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over sales of the substances to customers not authorized to possess them.
Under the terms of a consent decree that was filed in federal court in Kansas City Thursday, Wal-Mart agreed to pay a $400,000 civil penalty for the illegal sales.
The settlement resolves 20 alleged violations of the Clean Air Act since 1998 by Wal-Mart's Sam's Club stores in 11 states.
In addition, Sam's Club stores nationwide will stop selling refrigerants that contain federally controlled ozone depleting substances except for installation in automobile air conditioners, refrigerators and freezers on store premises by certified technicians.
"This settlement will aid in protecting the ozone layer worldwide by eliminating from the Earth's atmosphere harmful refrigerants, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that leak from industrial appliances and have contributed to the depletion of the Earth's ozone layer in recent years," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Tom Sansonetti.
The stratospheric ozone layer situated 10 to 30 miles above the Earth's surface protects humans and animals from the Sun's ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer and eye cataracts and suppress the body's immune system. CFCs have also been identified as greenhouse gases, contributors to global warming.
The lodging of the consent decree settles Clean Air Act violations at Sam's Club stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Only certified technicians are permitted to install and reclaim ozone depleting substances. (Photo courtesy Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy) Sections of the Clean Air Act and federal regulations restrict sales of certain ozone depleting refrigerants to technicians who are certified in the use of such substances.
The complaint alleges that some Sam's Club stores sold ozone depleting refrigerants used for automobile air conditioners or other kinds of refrigeration systems to customers who were not certified and did not conduct checks to determine whether or not they were certified.
Three of the violations allegedly occurred in Missouri. In each of those sales, said Todd Graves, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Wal-Mart allegedly failed to require evidence that the purchaser was a certified technician.
One of the Missouri violations involved the sale of a 30 pound container of refrigerant CFC-12, while the other two involved the sale of similar sized containers of the refrigerant HCFC-22.
It is illegal to vent CFCs or HCFCs to the atmosphere under the Clean Air Act. Penalties of up to $25,000 per day per violation can levied and prison terms can be given to anyone who knowingly vents CFC-12 or HCFCs into the atmosphere. The regulations require that CFC-12 and HCFCs be recycled, and sales of refrigerant are restricted to certified technicians.
"These chemicals are regulated by the federal government because they contribute to ozone depleting pollution," said Graves. "Retailers have an obligation to responsibly monitor the sale of these products. Today's settlement fairly resolves this case, and signals that we will pursue those who violate the law and contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer."
The fine amounts to a light slap on the wrist for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. which reported net sales for the five week period ending January 2, 2004, of $33.6 billion, an increase of 11.3 percent over the $30.25 billion in the similar period in the prior year.
Sales for the 48 week period ending January 2 were $237.62 billion, an increase of 11.3 percent over $213.53 billion in the similar period in the prior year.
This case follows other settlements with violators of the stratospheric ozone protection provisions of the Clean Air Act. In the fall of 2000, Meyer's Bakeries, Inc. settled its corporate violations and converted all its appliances to non-ozone-depleting refrigerants.
In the summer of 2001, Air Liquide, a producer of industrial gases, settled its corporate violations in addition to converting its refrigerant systems to non-ozone-depleting systems.
Most recently, in July 2003, Sara Lee bakeries settled violations and agreed to convert all their industrial process refrigeration appliances to refrigerant systems that do not deplete the ozone layer.
-------- health
Bird Flu Spreads in Asia and Claims a 7th Victim
January 26, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Asia-Bird-Flu.html?hp
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A 6-year-old Thai boy became Asia's seventh confirmed bird flu fatality -- making this the deadliest outbreak since 1997 -- and the government said Monday it was awaiting lab results on four other people who died in a northern province.
The World Health Organization said the search for a vaccine had been set back because the virus had mutated. A previous strain detected in Hong Kong in 1997 can no longer be used as the key to producing a vaccine, so an international effort has become necessary, WHO said.
The outbreak seven years ago marked the first time scientists documented that bird flu could be caught by humans.
Scientists believe people get the disease through contact with sick birds. Although there has been no evidence yet of human-to-human transmission, health officials are concerned the disease might mutate further and link with regular influenza to create a form that could trigger the next human flu pandemic.
``This is now spreading too quickly for anybody to ignore it,'' said WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley in Manila, Philippines.
Officials in Bangkok said they were investigating whether the virus might be carried by migratory birds.
The Thai boy, Captan Boonmanut, became infected after he played with chickens in his village in the central Kanchanaburi province. He died Sunday night in a Bangkok hospital, becoming Thailand's first confirmed death from the virus.
Four other people suspected of having bird flu died in the northern Sukhothai province, Thailand's Public Health Ministry said Monday. Officials also are trying to determine whether bird flu last week killed a 56-year-old man who bred fighting cocks.
Six people have died in neighboring Vietnam. If all the deaths in Thailand are confirmed as caused by bird flu, the toll would stand at 12.
Pakistan on Monday joined the list of countries affected by the disease that has sparked mass chicken culls across the region.
Pakistan said it detected a form of bird flu in its chicken population that an industry official said had killed up to 3.5 million birds. The commissioner for livestock husbandry said it was not a strain of bird flu that can spread to humans -- something that has happened in other parts of Asia.
``We have confirmed this. The strand that jumps to humans is not in them,'' commissioner Rafaqat Hussain Raja said.
The reported Pakistani strains differ from the H5N1 strain blamed for the human fatalities in the current outbreak, but similar strains have been known to infect humans, WHO's Web site said.
Laos, meanwhile, fears it might also be hit by the bird flu and is awaiting test results on the nature of an illness killing its fowl, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said.
Other Asian governments frantically slaughtered chicken flocks in a desperate bid to contain the disease, as well as the growing political fallout from accusations that officials in two countries -- Thailand and Indonesia -- initially covered up outbreaks.
Dr. Prasert Phongcharoen, a WHO adviser and viral disease expert, urged caution in the disposal of the chicken carcasses. If infected chickens are thrown in rivers, ``the virus could spread to open pig farms and this could result in transmission from pigs to humans,'' he said.
The virus would pass more easily from pigs to humans because they are genetically closer, as shown by the transplanting of pig organs into humans, he said.
So far, eight countries have reported some strain of bird flu -- Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Indonesian officials earlier denied the disease's presence, but the country's veterinarian association said independent investigations revealed that bird flu killed millions of chickens over recent months.
The Jakarta Post reported Monday that Indonesian officials may have covered up the outbreak there at the behest of politically connected businessmen who feared it would harm their interests.
A team of agricultural experts said in December they provided the government with test results positively identifying the disease. A team virologist, Dr. Marthen Malelo, said a powerful ``businessmen's lobby'' prevented officials from making the disease public.
Indonesian officials denied the allegations.
``It's not true. We have zero tolerance for pressure from businessmen. We are talking about the lives of people,'' Agriculture Department spokesman Hari Priyono said.
Officials said the nation would start culling up to 3.8 million chickens in East Java. Bali already has slaughtered and burned thousands.
The Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, faced similar allegations that he covered up his country's outbreak, which has been confirmed in 13 of 76 provinces.
Thaksin said his government suspected ``a couple of weeks'' ago that bird flu had struck his nation but he did not tell the public because he feared mass panic.
Thailand has killed some 10 million chickens so far.
The outbreak has devastated Thailand's chicken export industry -- the world's fourth-largest. Its two biggest markets -- Japan and the European Union -- have banned Thai imports. Thailand shipped about 500,000 tons of chicken worth $1.3 billion in 2003.
Vietnam has slaughtered more than 3 million chickens.
--------
Governments Across Southeast Asia Work to Contain Bird Flu
January 26, 2004
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/health/26BIRD.html?pagewanted=all
BANGKOK, Monday, Jan. 26 - Provincial governments in west central Thailand dispatched hundreds of soldiers and prisoners on Sunday to slaughter chickens in flocks infected with avian influenza, as hospitals across Southeast Asia remained on high alert for further human cases of the disease.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand visited farmers and promised government compensation for the millions of chickens being killed in an effort to stamp out bird flu before it spreads further, and a one-year suspension of farmers' debts. But he stopped short of saying how much compensation would be paid.
The government of Vietnam has been paying as little as 10 percent of the market price as workers there slaughter chickens in or near infected flocks. Farmers there are estimated to have quickly sold at markets close to a million chickens that were supposed to be destroyed.
Viroj Na Bangchang, the president and founder of the Consumer Force Association of Thailand, an advocacy group, said anything short of full market compensation for farmers would cause serious financial harm in rural areas. "They don't have anything left if you kill all the chickens," he said.
Workers in protective gear are netting chickens, putting them in plastic bags and burying them alive in 15-foot-deep pits. A senior Thai agriculture official said that 9.1 million chickens had been culled since November, but that laboratory tests had provided definitive proof only late last week of the presence of bird flu in a small area of one province, Suphan Buri. On Sunday, the tests showed that the disease was in an adjacent area of the next province, Kanchanaburi, the official said.
Indonesia reported Sunday that millions of chickens in that country had also died of avian influenza, a further sign that it was spreading. South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Hong Kong had previously confirmed the disease in birds, while Taiwan had reported a less dangerous strain of bird flu in some chickens there.
A Health Ministry spokeswoman said Monday morning that a boy had just died of the disease and another boy with a confirmed case was improving. The are two probable and two suspected cases of illnesses that appear to be avian influenza.
Vietnam reported Saturday that a boy and a girl had fallen ill with the disease, bringing its total number of confirmed cases to seven, and reported no new cases on Sunday. Genetic sequencing by a Hong Kong laboratory of the virus from several of the Vietnamese cases has shown that it is of strictly avian origin.
That is important because it suggests that the virus has not yet recombined with the human influenza virus. Doctors describe this as a necessary step before the disease can spread quickly and easily from person to person.
Sudarat Keyuraphan, Thailand's health minister, said in a telephone interview on Sunday that it would be a couple of days before a genetic sequencing would be available for the two Thai boys' viruses. World Health Organization officials have said all the cases so far appear to have occurred among people, mainly children, who have been in close contact with chickens or their waste.
The W.H.O. is sending Dr. Theresa Tam, a Canadian pediatrician specializing in influenza, to Thailand; she is expected to arrive in Bangkok on Monday night.
Dr. Bjorn Melgaard, the W.H.O.'s chief representative in Thailand, said a side effect of an outbreak of SARS last spring was that Thailand's public health system was very well prepared to detect and report abnormal flu cases. Thai hospitals treated eight cases of SARS last year, all involving people who acquired the disease elsewhere, most notably Dr. Carlo Urbani, the W.H.O. doctor from Italy who first spotted the disease and raised the alarm in Hanoi last March, but was fatally infected while treating the sick.
Thailand stepped up its flu surveillance nationwide, including in rural areas, in response to the first of three SARS cases in southern China last month. "Everything is mobilized, and the system is quite strong," Dr. Melgaard said.
Hong Kong, which took the brunt of the SARS outbreak last spring, has also told hospitals to be on the alert for bird flu, and has required frequent cleanings of poultry markets.
-------- ACTIVISTS
The New American Century
by ARUNDHATI ROY,
1/26/04
The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040209&s=roy
[from the February 9, 2004 issue]
In January 2003 thousands of us from across the world gathered in Porto Alegre in Brazil and declared--reiterated--that "Another World Is Possible." A few thousand miles north, in Washington, George W. Bush and his aides were thinking the same thing.
Our project was the World Social Forum. Theirs--to further what many call the Project for the New American Century.
In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of imperialism and the need for a strong empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice. Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to "debate" the issue on "neutral" platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?
In any case, New Imperialism is already upon us. It's a remodeled, streamlined version of what we once knew. For the first time in history, a single empire with an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the world in an afternoon has complete, unipolar, economic and military hegemony. It uses different weapons to break open different markets. There isn't a country on God's earth that is not caught in the cross-hairs of the American cruise missile and the IMF checkbook. Argentina's the model if you want to be the poster boy of neoliberal capitalism, Iraq if you're the black sheep. Poor countries that are geopolitically of strategic value to Empire, or have a "market" of any size, or infrastructure that can be privatized, or, God forbid, natural resources of value--oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, coal--must do as they're told or become military targets. Those with the greatest reserves of natural wealth are most at risk. Unless they surrender their resources willingly to the corporate machine, civil unrest will be fomented or war will be waged.
In this new age of empire, when nothing is as it appears to be, executives of concerned companies are allowed to influence foreign policy decisions. The Center for Public Integrity in Washington found that at least nine out of the thirty members of the Bush Administration's Defense Policy Board were connected to companies that were awarded military contracts for $76 billion between 2001 and 2002. George Shultz, former Secretary of State, was chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. He is also on the board of directors of the Bechtel Group. When asked about a conflict of interest in the case of war in Iraq he said, "I don't know that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it. But if there's work to be done, Bechtel is the type of company that could do it. But nobody looks at it as something you benefit from." In April 2003, Bechtel signed a $680 million contract for reconstruction.
This brutal blueprint has been used over and over again across Latin America, in Africa and in Central and Southeast Asia. It has cost millions of lives. It goes without saying that every war Empire wages becomes a Just War. This, in large part, is due to the role of the corporate media. It's important to understand that the corporate media don't just support the neoliberal project. They are the neoliberal project. This is not a moral position they have chosen to take; it's structural. It's intrinsic to the economics of how the mass media work.
Most nations have adequately hideous family secrets. So it isn't often necessary for the media to lie. It's all in the editing--what's emphasized and what's ignored. Say, for example, India was chosen as the target for a righteous war. The fact that about 80,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since 1989, most of them Muslim, most of them by Indian security forces (making the average death toll about 6,000 a year); the fact that in February and March of 2002 more than 2,000 Muslims were murdered on the streets of Gujarat, that women were gang-raped and children were burned alive and 150,000 driven from their homes while the police and administration watched and sometimes actively participated; the fact that no one has been punished for these crimes and the government that oversaw them was re-elected...all of this would make perfect headlines in international newspapers in the run-up to war.
Next thing we know, our cities will be leveled by cruise missiles, our villages fenced in with razor wire, US soldiers will patrol our streets, and Narendra Modi, Pravin Togadia or any of our popular bigots will, like Saddam Hussein, be in US custody having their hair checked for lice and the fillings in their teeth examined on prime-time TV.
But as long as our "markets" are open, as long as corporations like Enron, Bechtel, Halliburton and Arthur Andersen are given a free hand to take over our infrastructure and take away our jobs, our "democratically elected" leaders can fearlessly blur the lines between democracy, majoritarianism and fascism.
Our government's craven willingness to abandon India's proud tradition of being non-aligned, its rush to fight its way to the head of the queue of the Completely Aligned (the fashionable phrase is "natural ally"--India, Israel and the United States are "natural allies"), has given it the leg room to turn into a repressive regime without compromising its legitimacy.
A government's victims are not only those it kills and imprisons. Those who are displaced and dispossessed and sentenced to a lifetime of starvation and deprivation must count among them too. Millions of people have been dispossessed by "development" projects. In the past fifty-five years, big dams alone have displaced between 33 million and 55 million in India. They have no recourse to justice. In the past two years there have been a series of incidents in which police have opened fire on peaceful protesters, most of them Adivasi and Dalit. When it comes to the poor, and in particular Dalit and Adivasi communities, they get killed for encroaching on forest land, and killed when they're trying to protect forest land from encroachments--by dams, mines, steel plants and other "development" projects. In almost every instance in which the police opened fire, the government's strategy has been to say the firing was provoked by an act of violence. Those who have been fired upon are immediately called militants.
Across the country, thousands of innocent people, including minors, have been arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and are being held in jail indefinitely and without trial. In the era of the War against Terror, poverty is being slyly conflated with terrorism. In the era of corporate globalization, poverty is a crime. Protesting against further impoverishment is terrorism. And now our Supreme Court says that going on strike is a crime. Criticizing the court is a crime too, of course. They're sealing the exits.
Like Old Imperialism, New Imperialism relies for its success on a network of agents--corrupt local elites who service Empire. We all know the sordid story of Enron in India. The then-Maharashtra government signed a power purchase agreement that gave Enron profits that amounted to 60 percent of India's entire rural development budget. A single American company was guaranteed a profit equivalent to funds for infrastructural development for about 500 million people!
Unlike in the old days, the New Imperialist doesn't need to trudge around the tropics risking malaria or diarrhea or early death. New Imperialism can be conducted on e-mail. The vulgar, hands-on racism of Old Imperialism is outdated. The cornerstone of New Imperialism is New Racism.
The best allegory for New Racism is the tradition of "turkey pardoning" in the United States. Every year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented the US President with a turkey for Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the President spares that particular bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with dignitaries, school children and the press. (Soon they'll even speak English!)
That's how New Racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys--the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself)--are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park. The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically they're for the pot. But the Fortunate Fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the WTO--so who can accuse those organizations of being antiturkey? Some serve as board members on the Turkey Choosing Committee--so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalization? There's a stampede to get into Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?
As part of the project of New Racism we also have New Genocide. New Genocide in this new era of economic interdependence can be facilitated by economic sanctions. New Genocide means creating conditions that lead to mass death without actually going out and killing people. Denis Halliday, who was the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq between 1997 and 1998 (after which he resigned in disgust), used the term genocide to describe the sanctions in Iraq. In Iraq the sanctions outdid Saddam Hussein's best efforts by claiming more than half a million children's lives.
In the new era, apartheid as formal policy is antiquated and unnecessary. International instruments of trade and finance oversee a complex system of multilateral trade laws and financial agreements that keep the poor in their bantustans anyway. Its whole purpose is to institutionalize inequity. Why else would it be that the US taxes a garment made by a Bangladeshi manufacturer twenty times more than a garment made in Britain? Why else would it be that countries that grow cocoa beans, like the Ivory Coast and Ghana, are taxed out of the market if they try to turn it into chocolate? Why else would it be that countries that grow 90 percent of the world's cocoa beans produce only 5 percent of the world's chocolate? Why else would it be that rich countries that spend over a billion dollars a day on subsidies to farmers demand that poor countries like India withdraw all agricultural subsidies, including subsidized electricity? Why else would it be that after having been plundered by colonizing regimes for more than half a century, former colonies are steeped in debt to those same regimes and repay them some $382 billion a year? For all these reasons, the derailing of trade agreements at Cancún was crucial for us. Though our governments try to take the credit, we know that it was the result of years of struggle by many millions of people in many, many countries. What Cancún taught us is that in order to inflict real damage and force radical change, it is vital for local resistance movements to make international alliances. From Cancún we learned the importance of globalizing resistance.
No individual nation can stand up to the project of corporate globalization on its own. Time and again we have seen that when it comes to the neoliberal project, the heroes of our times are suddenly diminished. Extraordinary, charismatic men, giants in the opposition, when they seize power and become heads of state, are rendered powerless on the global stage. I'm thinking here of President Lula of Brazil. Lula was the hero of the World Social Forum last year. This year he's busy implementing IMF guidelines, reducing pension benefits and purging radicals from the Workers' Party. I'm thinking also of the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Within two years of taking office in 1994, his government genuflected with hardly a caveat to the Market God. It instituted a massive program of privatization and structural adjustment that has left millions of people homeless, jobless and without water and electricity.
Why does this happen? There's little point in beating our breasts and feeling betrayed. Lula and Mandela are, by any reckoning, magnificent men. But the moment they cross the floor from the opposition into government they become hostage to a spectrum of threats--most malevolent among them the threat of capital flight, which can destroy any government overnight. To imagine that a leader's personal charisma and a c.v. of struggle will dent the corporate cartel is to have no understanding of how capitalism works or, for that matter, how power works. Radical change cannot be negotiated by governments; it can only be enforced by people.
At the World Social Forum some of the best minds in the world come together to exchange ideas about what is happening around us. These conversations refine our vision of the kind of world we're fighting for. It is a vital process that must not be undermined. However, if all our energies are diverted into this process at the cost of real political action, then the WSF, which has played such a crucial role in the movement for global justice, runs the risk of becoming an asset to our enemies. What we need to discuss urgently is strategies of resistance. We need to aim at real targets, wage real battles and inflict real damage. Gandhi's salt march was not just political theater. When, in a simple act of defiance, thousands of Indians marched to the sea and made their own salt, they broke the salt tax laws. It was a direct strike at the economic underpinning of the British Empire. It was real. While our movement has won some important victories, we must not allow nonviolent resistance to atrophy into ineffectual, feel-good, political theater. It is a very precious weapon that must be constantly honed and reimagined. It cannot be allowed to become a mere spectacle, a photo opportunity for the media.
It was wonderful that on February 15 last year, in a spectacular display of public morality, 10 million people on five continents marched against the war on Iraq. It was wonderful, but it was not enough. February 15 was a weekend. Nobody had to so much as miss a day of work. Holiday protests don't stop wars. George Bush knows that. The confidence with which he disregarded overwhelming public opinion should be a lesson to us all. Bush believes that Iraq can be occupied and colonized as Afghanistan has been, as Tibet has been, as Chechnya is being, as East Timor once was and Palestine still is. He thinks that all he has to do is hunker down and wait until a crisis-driven media, having picked this crisis to the bone, drops it and moves on. Soon the carcass will slip off the bestseller charts, and all of us outraged folks will lose interest. Or so he hopes.
This movement of ours needs a major, global victory. It's not good enough to be right. Sometimes, if only in order to test our resolve, it's important to win something. In order to win something, we need to agree on something. That something does not need to be an overarching preordained ideology into which we force-fit our delightfully factious, argumentative selves. It does not need to be an unquestioning allegiance to one or another form of resistance to the exclusion of everything else. It could be a minimum agenda.
If all of us are indeed against imperialism and against the project of neoliberalism, then let's turn our gaze on Iraq. Iraq is the inevitable culmination of both. Plenty of antiwar activists have retreated in confusion since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Isn't the world better off without Saddam Hussein? they ask timidly.
Let's look this thing in the eye once and for all. To applaud the US Army's capture of Saddam Hussein, and therefore in retrospect justify its invasion and occupation of Iraq, is like deifying Jack the Ripper for disemboweling the Boston Strangler. And that after a quarter-century partnership in which the Ripping and Strangling was a joint enterprise. It's an in-house quarrel. They're business partners who fell out over a dirty deal. Jack's the CEO.
So if we are against imperialism, shall we agree that we are against the US occupation and that we believe the United States must withdraw from Iraq and pay reparations to the Iraqi people for the damage that the war has inflicted?
How do we begin to mount our resistance? Let's start with something really small. The issue is not about supporting the resistance in Iraq against the occupation or discussing who exactly constitutes the resistance. (Are they old killer Baathists, are they Islamic fundamentalists?)
We have to become the global resistance to the occupation.
Our resistance has to begin with a refusal to accept the legitimacy of the US occupation of Iraq. It means acting to make it materially impossible for Empire to achieve its aims. It means soldiers should refuse to fight, reservists should refuse to serve, workers should refuse to load ships and aircraft with weapons. It certainly means that in countries like India and Pakistan we must block the US government's plans to have Indian and Pakistani soldiers sent to Iraq to clean up after them.
I suggest we choose by some means two of the major corporations that are profiting from the destruction of Iraq. We could then list every project they are involved in. We could locate their offices in every city and every country across the world. We could go after them. We could shut them down. It's a question of bringing our collective wisdom and experience of past struggles to bear on a single target. It's a question of the desire to win.
The Project for the New American Century seeks to perpetuate inequity and establish American hegemony at any price, even if it's apocalyptic. The World Social Forum demands justice and survival.
For these reasons, we must consider ourselves at war.
--------
Kathy Kelly sentenced to three months in federal prison
Voices in the Wilderness,
January 26, 2004
http://www.vitw.org
Yesterday in Columbus, Georgia, Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness and three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was sentenced to three months in federal prison for enacting her habit of bearing witness against US military violence, this time by crossing onto the property of Ft. Benning military base in November of 2003, as a form of protest against the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHISC). You can read "Hogtied and Abused at Fort Benning" (http://vitw.us/archives/000456.html) her account of the inhumane treatment that she received by her arresting officers.
By visiting the SOA Watch website (http://www.soaw.org/new/), you can find more information about the SOA/WHISC, which has trained many of the military dictators and soldiers who have massacred hundreds of thousands of people of Central and South America, especially indigenous people. You can also learn about other ways to support the project of closing the SOA/WHISC. Just as the US occupation in Iraq fails to provide for the security of ordinary Iraqis, the SOA/WHISC has, at the very least, failed in its stated task of 'security' for Latin America and, in actuality, created more insecurity and fear for millions of people in the Global South. Kathy's act of crossing the line with 27 other witnesses for peace, including VitW friend Rev. Jerry Zawada, O.F.M., is a sign of the commitment to nonviolent direct action which Voices in the Wilderness clings to as a hopeful road to peace and social justice in our world.
Alongside Kathy, Fr. Jerry Zawada, an Iraq Peace Team member and recent VitW delegate to Iraq, was sentenced to six months in federal prison (he was convicted of trespassing at the SOA/WHISC last year as well), Faith Fippinger, a former Human Shield in Iraq, was sentenced to three months in prison, and Scott Diehl, a CPT member who was in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, was also sentenced to three months in prison. May we all begin to draw the connections between the destruction caused by surging US militarism in Iraq and its effects elsewhere, wherever that may be. Here in the United States, military recruiters continue to steal the lives of students in our poorest schools and US police officers (such as those in Miami during the recent FTAA protests) are being ordered to beat down and trample their fellow US citizens who nonviolently protest the architects of social injustice.
Below, please read Kathy Kelly's statement before Judge Faircloth.
If you'd like to find new ways to resist the militarism of our time, go to the "What We Can Do" section on the VitW website (http://vitw.us/what_we_can_do/)
Voices in the Wilderness is still facing a lawsuit of its own from the federal government; we'll keep you updated on the proceedings of that case (http://vitw.us/summons). If you haven't already, please sign our petition to John Ashcroft and the Justice Department (http://www.petitiononline.com/usvvitw/petition.html).
In the meantime, Kathy and Jerry wish to extend their gratitude for the support of the VitW community at this time. They are going into this prison witness with a confidence that such witness brings us all closer to those who suffer injustice and, in essence, closer to true peace.
In peace and with hope for social justice, Voices in the Wilderness Chicago
Please find us at http://www.vitw.org, where you can also read Kathy's statement (http://vitw.us/archives/000501.html) and other new entries from friends of VitW in Iraq (http://vitw.us/weblog/). Thank you!
~~~
Statement before Judge G. Mallon Faircloth, who sentenced me to 3 months in federal prison after I pled not guilty but stipulated to the facts of a charge for a November 22, 2003 entry onto Fort Benning, an open US military base in Columbus, GA.
by Kathy Kelly Columbus, GA January 26, 2004
I'm fortunate to have been influenced by the life and witness of some extraordinary individuals, many of whom have appeared before you in court, several of whom are now co-defendants.
Their witness in this court has been valuable, constituting a rich and sad drama.
It's important to continue bringing before this court testimony from or about those who can't appear, people whom we've met when visiting places directly affected by US expenditures on military training and military solutions. Quite often these solutions are based on threat and force, rather than considerations of mercy and compassion.
A report in the London Observer yesterday quotes US Armed forces medical personnel warning that 20 percent of the veterans returning from Iraq will suffer post traumatic stress disorders -already 22 soldiers have committed suicide.
Families of these soldiers, whose arms will ache emptily for loved ones that will never return, can, I believe, find understanding in the families of others far away from the US who similarly feel bereaved.
In 1985, very aware of Joe Mulligan's and Bernie Survil's work, I traveled to San Juan de Limay, in the north of Nicaragua. Children there were radiant and friendly, many of them too young to understand that during the previous week US funded contras had kidnapped and murdered 25 people in their village. Later that summer, I fasted with Nicaraguan's Foreign Minister, himself a Maryknoll priest, and listened to stories pour forth as many hundreds of Nicaraguan peasant pilgrims vigiled and fasted in the Mon senor Lezcano church to show solidarity with the priest-minister's desire to nonviolently resist contra terrorism. Rev. Miguel D'Escoto urged us to find nonviolent actions commensurate to the crimes being committed. This experience gave me reason to believe that the US could have used negotiation and diplomacy to resolve disputes with Nicaragua.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams maintained a steady presence in Jeremie, in the southern finger of Haiti, throughout the time when the US had determined it was too dangerous for US soldiers to be there. In 1995, I was there for the three months just before the US troops returned. Throughout this stretch of history, the US spent more money on troop movements, equipping troops, training troops, --than it spent on meeting human needs. The Commandant of the region, Colonel Rigobert Jean, commented publicly that he was "ashamed and embarrassed that it was left to the 'blans' (Creole for foreigners) on the hill to preserve peace and security in the region." He was referring to our five person team. Again, I had reason to believe that unarmed peacemakers could be relied on to create greater security in areas of conflict.
Indelibly marked in my memory from that summer are the Creole words that children could no longer suppress as evenings drew to a close and they longed for adequate meals. "M'gen grangou," I'm hungry.
More recently, in Iraq, during the US bombing in March and April of 2003, I saw how children suffer when nations decide to put their resources into weapons and warfare rather than meeting human needs. All of us learned to adopt a poker face, hoping not to frighten the children, whenever there were ear-splitting blasts and gut wrenching thuds. During every day and night of the bombing, I would hold little Miladhah and Zainab in my arms. That's how I learned of their fear: they were grinding their teeth, morning, noon and night. But they were far more fortunate than the children who were survivors of direct hits, children whose brothers and sisters and parents were maimed and killed.
Judge Faircloth, we have experienced and seen the deadly effect of US military policy on mothers and children, on families. We have held the children and tried to comfort them under bombs.
It is because of these experiences that we feel so strongly. And this is why I'm willing to go into the US prison system and experience again, as we have before, the suffering of all of these women who are being separated from their families in the American prisons. It's important to hear the voices of women trying to comfort their own children over the telephone, children they won't see be able to hug and cuddle, --I remember my friend Gloria, in the prison telephone room: "Momma's gonna tickle your feets, oh baby, momma's gonna tickle your feet, you momma's baby." Gloria and many thousands of other mothers locked up in a world of imprisoned beauty would never tickle their baby's feet, because they'd been sentenced to mandatory five year minimums.
Sometimes I think we face a wilderness of compassion in this country. But when I think of the many voices that have tried, in this court, to clamor for the works of mercy rather than the works of war, I feel at home, I feel grateful, and I feel a deep urge to be silent and listen to the cries of those most afflicted, -their cries are often hard to hear-but when we hear them, we're called, all of us, to be like voices in the wilderness, raising their laments and finding ourselves motivated to build a better world.
For more information about Voices in the Wilderness, please visit the website at http://www.vitw.org. Thanks!
--------
Top Ten Responses To -- "I Love Kucinich But He Can't Win"
by Tad Daley
Monday, January 26, 2004
by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0126-06.htm
How many times have you heard someone say: "I love Kucinich ... but I just don't think he's electable"? I often encounter staffers for other candidates out here in Los Angeles where I'm based, and even they often say these words to me. Saul Landau recently said on National Public Radio that Dennis's name has apparently been changed to the hyphenated 'Kucinich-ButHeCan'tWin.' The Congressman himself has been asked about the phenomenon repeatedly in the presidential debates.
Our campaign's overarching theme is 'Fear Ends / Hope Begins.' Over and over again, people say to us: "Dennis stands for so many of my hopes and dreams. But I so intensely fear George Bush's re-election ... that I will not vote for Dennis, or donate to Dennis, or volunteer for Dennis. I will support instead some other, lesser candidate who does not really reflect my aspirations for the human community, but who has a better chance of winning on November 2nd."
At the Kucinich campaign, we believe our single most effective strategy now to gain new votes is to move these individuals to change their minds.
Now that the cold primary season has commenced, there is little doubt that this as our most fertile garden to till. This is about mobilizing support from those who are already with us! These are votes that are already rightfully ours! This is about persuading people to defy their fears, and to vote their hopes and dreams.
NUMBER TEN: The Democratic Primaries Are Far From Over. The Nomination Could Still Be Seized By Anyone.
The results in Iowa left the presidential race more muddled and uncertain that at any time in recent memory. Most normal Americans (i.e., those who don't obsess about politics as much as the people probably reading this essay) have just since the New Year started paying any attention to the Democratic presidential contest at all. All winter long, the polls forecast a Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt battle for victory ... only to have John Kerry and John Edwards emerge suddenly ascendant. All the remaining seven candidates have significant strengths that are bound to translate into significant vote totals. All have weaknesses ' a shortage of money and organization here, a shortage of experience or a shortage of charisma there. Many of the multiple February 3rd states, at least as they are polling today, are simply too close to call. It is difficult to imagine any alternative to numerous candidates garnering numerous delegates in the primaries over the next six weeks. We are not even close to a 'presumptive nominee' ' not even John Kerry if he wins New Hampshire as well as Iowa.
We at the Kucinich campaign would not wish ourselves to be so far behind today in money, endorsements, and poll numbers. But because that is where we find ourselves at the dawn of 2004, the 'expectations' for our candidacy among the pundits and the party establishment are extremely low. If we simply do 'better than expected' in Iowa and New Hampshire, it could unleash a tidal wave of new endorsements, new donations, and new voter support ' precisely from the 'I love Dennis but he can't win' crowd. The enormous amount of dormant support out there for Dennis is our secret weapon! If the first 7 or 8 primaries both see Dennis do 'better than expected' and leave the race quite muddled and uncertain, Dennis could emerge as no less than the new media darling of the presidential contest.
NUMBER NINE: Dennis Is The Most Electable Candidate In A Face-Off Against George Bush.
We believe that Dennis may well be the candidate best equipped to ensure that George Bush emulates his father - and rides off into the sunset as another failed one-term president. What was the consensus verdict after the 2002 Congressional election debacle for the Democrats - That if Democrats run like Republicans, Republicans will surely win. That the Democrats need to present voters with a clear distinction, a clear choice, and a clear alternative vision. "It's Democrats above all who need big ideas," says former Clinton and Gore pollster Stanley Greenberg, "who need to create an election that is about something." The lesson of 2002 is that the candidate with the best chance to beat George Bush will be the candidate who offers the starkest contrast to George Bush. And no one can dispute that that candidate is Dennis Kucinich.
Is there any Democrat who would better motivate our liberal and progressive base in November 2004 - generating not just votes, but midnight oil and shoe leather? One of the central theses of both John Judis and Ruy Teixeira's 2003 book 'The Emerging Democratic Majority' and E.J. Dionne's 1997 book 'They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era' is that broad demographic, geographic, economic, and political changes are making us more and more a Democratic country. But historically among voters of color -- who become a greater proportion of the electorate with every election cycle -- the more progressive the candidate the greater the turnout on Election Day. Dennis, indeed, is the candidate who can best mobilize this "emerging Democratic majority."
In addition, no one could secure the allegiance of more Ralph Nader voters than Dennis Kucinich. Al Gore and Nader together received 3.5 million more votes than George Bush in November 2000. But not ALL those Nader voters will likely vote for ANY Democratic nominee in November 2004. Surely, more of them would turn out to support Dennis than they would any other Democratic candidate. And given how many states would have swung the other way but for the Nader candidacy (he received 99,000 votes in Florida), these voters could make absolutely the decisive difference in the 2004 election.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Dennis has a great many weapons to wield in the national security debate. Dennis can make a comprehensive case that George Bush's foreign policies have generated new foreign enemies. That George Bush's defense policies have weakened our defenses. That George Bush's responses to 9/11 have made future 9/11s far more likely to occur. (So much for Republicans being "strong on defense.") And our man has a comprehensive alternative to offer. Dennis Kucinich will accommodate rather than alienate, employ carrots far more than sticks, and dry up the swamps of hopelessness and humiliation that cause insecure youth to head down the terrorist road. Dennis Kucinich will be both tough on terror and tough on the causes of terror. In Dennis Kucinich's America our nation will abide by Lincoln's precept: "The only lasting way to eliminate an enemy is to make him your friend." And that is a winning message for the post 9/11 world.
Also contrary to the conventional wisdom that sees Dennis as 'too far left' to attract swing voters, Dennis has a history of winning votes from blue collar 'Reagan Democrats' - because no one better illuminates how Bush's policies favor the rich and leave them out in the cold. Dennis has a track record in building broad ethnic coalitions. And Dennis is an experienced and seasoned politician, having fought and won grueling political battles as a city council member, a mayor, a state senator, and a member of the U.S. Congress.
Finally, Dennis is from Ohio, a key Midwestern battleground swing state with 20 electoral votes. Dennis has defeated Republican incumbents three times in Ohio. No Republican in the history of this nation has ever been elected President without carrying Ohio. Dennis can win Ohio for the Democrats. And as Ohio goes, so goes the nation.
NUMBER EIGHT: If Voters Believe Dennis Truly Has 'No Chance Of Winning the Nomination' Then For Them There's No Danger In Voting For Him In The Primary!
When people say, 'Dennis cannot win,' they themselves are often unclear about what they mean. Do they mean Dennis cannot win the nomination? Or do they mean that if Dennis does in fact win the nomination, he cannot win the general election? These two very different propositions lead to very different conclusions.
If Voter Vanessa likes Dennis but believes Dennis would lose to George Bush on November 2nd, then a decision to vote for someone else in the primaries might make sense if Dennis was a frontrunner, if Vanessa believes that Dennis has a real shot at the nomination, if the pundits thought Dennis had any chance at all of becoming the Democratic candidate for president.
But they don't.
Most voters and most of the punditocracy have written off any possibility that Dennis can win the nomination. Here in my town the mighty Los Angeles Times never refers to our man as anything other than 'long shot candidate Dennis Kucinich.' Ted Koppel famously dismissed him as a 'vanity candidate.' If Vanessa believes that Dennis has no chance of emerging as the nominee, then a primary vote for Dennis carries no danger of anointing the wrong candidate to face-off against George Bush. For Vanessa, there is no risk that she will help choose a candidate who is going to get blown out in the general. There is no peril.
There is no worst-case scenario.
NUMBER SEVEN: Dennis Will Support The Nominee.
Dennis is unalterably committed to supporting whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee for president, and to working tirelessly this fall to defeat George Bush. Dennis toiled arduously in 2000 to win Ohio for Al Gore. There is no 'Nader scenario' regarding Dennis Kucinich, because Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat, not a Green. A vote for Dennis in January or February or March will not take a single vote away from the Democratic nominee in November. How does a dollar or a day or a vote devoted to Dennis in early 2004 adversely affect the prospects of the eventual nominee in November 2004?
NUMBER SIX: The Nominee May Adopt Some Of Dennis's Ideas if Dennis Gets Enough Votes.
The more support Dennis generates this winter and spring, the more likely it will be that the eventual nominee - if it is not Dennis - will choose to incorporate some of Dennis's important ideas. If Dennis does better than expected in money, in volunteers, and in votes, the Democratic candidate who emerges may conclude that there is indeed support for things like the abolition of nuclear weapons, a great crusade for economic justice, and the conviction that an expanded ethic of human unity will be no less than the Great Story of the 21st Century. The nominee, consequently, may embrace some of these ideas and explicitly campaign upon them.
This phenomenon has already played out in the campaign. For example, after Dennis strongly rejected Bush's request for $87 billion for Iraq, both John Kerry and John Edwards followed his lead. Dennis's unapologetic opposition to NAFTA and the WTO has caused all the candidates to talk more about fair trade.
And consider the other, bleaker scenario. If all the 'I love Kucinich -- but he can't win' crowd support someone else, the 2004 Democratic nominee AND the Democratic Party establishment AND the chattering classes will conclude that there is not much support for the things our candidacy is about. "Gee," they will say, "there's not much interest in withdrawing from NAFTA and the WTO, for putting the brakes on the PATRIOT Act, for creating a Department of Peace to stand alongside the Department of Defense, is there - After all, Dennis Kucinich ran for president on that stuff - and he never did better than 3%."
"Win or lose the nomination," says Kucinich endorser Ben Cohen, "his grassroots presidential campaign is the vehicle for expanding the party, moving it in a progressive direction, bringing in new voters, and reaching out in a serious way to bring back disaffected voters." The more votes Dennis receives this winter and spring, the more power progressives will exercise to shape the character of the Democratic platform in the summer of 2004, and of the Democratic Administration which we fervently hope will take office on January 20, 2005.
NUMBER FIVE: At A Brokered Convention, Dennis Could Play A Crucial Role.
Several pundits have raised the possibility that 2004 might see the first brokered Democratic convention since 1960. That means that the Democratic primaries may not decisively settle on a candidate, and that the decision will have to be hammered out at the convention itself - with delegates as the currency of negotiation. And that means that Dennis's influence could be quite tangible and quite decisive.
Many factors point to a real possibility of the first brokered convention in a generation. The rise of proportional voting over the previous winner-take-all systems in state primaries. The importance of the nearly 800 party honcho 'super-delegates' (which means that a candidate cannot guarantee the nomination unless he wins more than 60% of the elected delegates). The accelerated front-loading of the process (which means that by the morning of March 3rd nearly half of the delegates will already have been chosen, making it simply mathematically more difficult for any presumptive frontrunner to achieve victory after that time).
If the brokered convention scenario does come to pass, every single vote cast for Dennis in January, February, and March will translate into delegates that Dennis will wield in Boston in July. Those delegates will enable Dennis to tangibly influence the platform and positions that the Democratic candidate adopts. Those delegates could enable Dennis to decisively influence who the Democratic candidate will be. And who knows' At a brokered convention, the Democratic Party just may conclude that the candidate with the best chance to defeat George Bush is the one who poses the most striking alternative to George Bush - Dennis Kucinich.
NUMBER FOUR: Electoral Outcomes In 10 Months -- Or A Better World In 10 Years?
Mother Jones writer George Packer recently quoted D.H. Lawrence: "The ideas of one generation," wrote Lawrence in 'Making Love to Music', 'become the instincts of the next."'There is something worse than losing," continues Packer, "and that is losing pointlessly. ... The way for the party not to lose pointlessly is to proceed incautiously. The most attractive candidate will be the one who airs ideas that risk alienating ... because the ideas might be good ones, and might catch the public pulse ... and might make future victories possible."
Has there been any political candidate since Bobby Kennedy and Gene McCarthy more capable of mobilizing the fires in the bellies of committed activists than Dennis Kucinich? If voters support Dennis with their money and their sweat and their votes, it will stoke the engines of social change - far beyond the fate of Kucinich for President.
"Victory," says the inestimable Jonathan Schell, "does not come through the ballot box alone. It sometimes comes by circuitous paths. ... Changing hearts and minds can at times be as important as changing the President. ... When in doubt, it's best to err on the side of speaking the truth."
Must we resign ourselves only to vote for a candidate who can rescue us from a dismal present? Or can we free ourselves to vote for a candidate who can lead us toward a brighter future? Are we concerned solely and exclusively about what is going to happen in America in 10 months? Or can we interest ourselves in the human condition and the fate of the earth in 10 years and beyond? There is much more at stake here than simply choosing a candidate for president. A vote for Dennis Kucinich is a vote for the American dream, for the promise of what America can become. As the poet Langston Hughes so eloquently put it: "America, you've never been America to me; and I swear this oath: you will be!"
NUMBER THREE: The Left, The Right, And The Center ... Can Change.
We reject the notion that the American electorate is set in stone - e.g., 45% hard left, 45% hard right, and an all-coveted 10% "in the center." We know that the center has moved over time. A great many ideas and initiatives that were once considered hard left - women's rights, civil rights, human rights, gay rights, labor protections, environmental protections - are now much more in the mainstream, much more "moderate,'" much more "centrist." The anti-war, anti-corporate, and anti-globalization movements of recent years - manifesting in some of the largest demonstrations in history - are surely not far behind.
We believe that many Kucinich proposals now considered hard left will one distant day be similarly considered as mainstream, centrist, and broadly accepted by most of the right-thinking people of the time. One of the best vehicles for accomplishing that shift in the center of American politics is a liberal and progressive presidential campaign. And Dennis Kucinich is the most liberal and progressive candidate American voters have had the opportunity to embrace in quite a long time. A vote for Dennis Kucinich is a vote to shift the center of gravity of the American political debate. For 2004 and beyond.
NUMBER TWO: Living Up To Your Own Ideals.
"If it feels good -- do it" said one of the mottos of the 1960s. While one might debate whether that guidance is optimal for all of life's scenarios, it certainly is for the great democratic act of voting. We believe that it simply feels better to walk out of the voting booth knowing that you were true to yourself, that you stood up for what you believe. Demonstrating support for the things you support is the essence of what voting is all about. We believe that the whole point of democracy is to vote for the world you aspire to create. Election Day is a day to let go of doubts and fears. Election Day is a day to reach for our hopes, to cleave to our dreams, and to stand up for the America we can become. That is the only way to be fully a citizen of any political community.
A vote for Dennis today is a vote for what the Democratic Party OUGHT to stand for at the dawn of the 21st Century. And it's a vote for what the Democratic Party CAN stand for - if only the people who believe in Dennis actually have the courage and integrity to vote for Dennis.
Especially now. There will be plenty of time to choose between the lesser of two evils in the general election. As the Texas sage Molly Ivins exhorts us: Vote with your head on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But in the caucuses and primaries, vote with your heart.
NUMBER ONE: Moving History Forward - Like Other Noble Presidential Candidacies Of The Past.
Presidential campaigns in American history have often been about much more than winning and losing. Presidential campaigns can be about driving the engines of history. Consider Bruce Babbitt and Jesse Jackson and Paul Simon in 1988, Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson and Alan Cranston in 1984, John Anderson in 1980, Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy in 1968, Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 (laying the groundwork for both John Kennedy and the 1960s), Norman Thomas and Eugene Debs in the first decades of the 20th century (without whom Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal would have been inconceivable), Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive campaign of 1912. None of these efforts resulted in triumph at the ballot box. Yet all of them broadened the public conversation. They pressured the structures of power. They inspired new generations of progressive activists. They were beacons in the political night. They served to generate debate, to inject new ideas into the public arena, and to accelerate our progress toward a brighter morning.
And so too will be the presidential candidacy of Dennis Kucinich. BUT NOT VERY MUCH ... unless those who believe in him actually vote for him.
Victor Hugo famously said: "No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come." Many of Dennis's ideas, we might admit, are ideas whose time has perhaps not quite yet come. Our job is to bring their time ever closer, to hasten their arrival in the train station of history. How will the time for such ideas ever come, if we do not choose to vote for those with the vision and integrity to articulate them? A vote for Dennis Kucinich is the quintessential exercise of what Thomas Jefferson liked to call "practical idealism." If politics, as every undergraduate knows, is the art of the possible, then a vote for Dennis Kucinich is a mechanism for expanding the parameters of political possibility.
Tad Daley (tad@kucinich.us) is National Issues Director and Senior Policy Advisor to the presidential campaign of Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio.
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