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NUCLEAR
Gulf Veterans Hail Uranium Poisoning Ruling
USEC - uranium / depleted uranium $$$$
Experts describe tight-knit nuclear black market
Pakistan's disgraced nuclear king points finger at army chiefs
Pakistani's appeal
Pakistanis Question Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers
Pakistan Said to Know of Nuclear Transfer
Army: Pakistan Nuke Scientist Dealt Independently
Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe
Iranians Don't Want To Go Nuclear
Nuclear Talks to Resume, North Korea Says
North Korea Agrees to New Talks on Nuclear Program
Two Energy Plans for North Korea
RUSSIA - Nuke fuel exports skyrocketed in 2003
White House seeks more nuke funds
BUSH BUDGET CUTS FUNDING FOR PLANT CLEANUP
Nuclear cleanup at West Valley, NY, faces funding cut
MOX plant delayed
DOE delays SRS fuel fabrication facility
Seattle lawmakers hail security, criticize deficit, cleanup cuts
Hazardous safety plans
Disapproval of Bush's Iraq policy rises sharply: poll
Bush's pre-emptive policy under fire
WMD-gate: Bush Wants to Scapegoat CIA
INTRODUCTION to "Rogue State"
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
Bush, in Budget, Seeks Increases Tied to Security
Bush Sends Congress $2.4 Trillion Budget
Plan Omits Costs in Iraq and Afghanistan
Powell Says New Data May Have Affected War Decision
MILITARY
Sudan accused of 'vicious, invisible war' against its citizens
Blair Sets Up Inquiry on Prewar Iraq Intelligence
Blair Agrees to Probe of Claims About Iraqi Weapons
Pentagon to aid Boeing, Lockheed Martin
MILITARY CONTRACTS
Halliburton Reviews Food Service Bill
Taiwan's Chen Proposes DMZ with Rival China
Iran's Leading Reform Party to Boycott Election
Panel Starts to Draw Up Constitution for Short Run
Buoyed by Polls, Sharon Stands by Gaza Pullout
Angering Settlers, Sharon Says Most May Have to Leave Gaza
Sharon Says He Wants Plan to Remove Gaza Settlements
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners common, Marine says
Time to vet CIA spies
Analysts: Tenet Likely to Remain CIA Head
U.N. Team to Assist in Iraq Transition
Annan, U.S. Officials to Meet on Iraq
Major overhaul eyed for Army
Army Study of Iraq War Details a 'Morass' of Supply Shortages
President Again Rejects Military-Civilian 'Pay Parity'
For the Record Bush's Guard Service In Question
Major Iraq troop rotation gets under way
Was Death of Ex-Embed Linked to Iraq
What Blair said about Iraq's banned weapons
Blair follows Bush's lead with inquiry into WMD
Colin Powell Defends Decision on Iraq War
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Commission to Decide Itself on Depth of Its Investigation
Intelligence Panel Will Cast Net Beyond Iraq
Bill Would Give 9/11 Panel Time
Tests Indicate Poison In Senate Mail Room Of Majority Leader
Tainted prison food sparks controversy
Poison Ricin Found in Sen. Frist's Office
OTHER
Bush Budget Slashes Environment, Agriculture Spending
Navajo, Hopi Agree on Tuba City Tank Cleanup
Vitamins vital?
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Gulf Veterans Hail Uranium Poisoning Ruling
By Rod Minchin,
Scottish Press Association
Tue 3 Feb 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2486531
A former soldier has become the first veteran to win a war pension appeal after suffering depleted uranium poisoning during the Gulf War, it emerged today.
Kenny Duncan took the Ministry of Defence to the Pension Appeal Tribunal Service over his claim that he suffered depleted uranium poisoning during active service in Iraq.
The National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA) said the tribunal's verdict added to its call for a full public inquiry into Gulf War illnesses.
The father of three, from Clackmannanshire, served with the Royal Corps of Transport as a specialist tank transporter during the first Gulf War in 1991.
Part of his job was to move Iraqi tanks destroyed by depleted uranium shells.
The campaign group said the Edinburgh-based tribunal, which ruled in Mr Duncan's favour yesterday, accepted his claims that he was poisoned from inhaling depleted uranium dust from the burnt-out tanks.
The tribunal found that Mr Duncan's exposure to the uranium was attributable to his service in the Gulf.
Shaun Rusling, chairman of the NGVFA, said the verdict was "justice".
He said: "The finding by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal was absolutely tremendous and extremely significant for Kenny Duncan.
"It proves that his ill health was due to depleted uranium poisoning and it is great news for Kenny and his wife to at long last have his condition recognised.
"The National Gulf Veterans and Families Association is extremely pleased that justice has been done."
Mr Rusling, a former Parachute Regiment medical officer, said that prior to the Gulf War the use of depleted uranium was "extremely experimental".
He said: "Prior to the war the Ministry of Defence advised the Army, who were based in Saudi Arabia, of the dangers of depleted uranium but the information never made it down to the troops.
"Troops should not be exposed to anything experimental - the Ministry of Defence knew this."
But he went on to again demand that the Government hold a public inquiry into Gulf War illnesses.
"It is now 13 years since the Gulf War and no depleted uranium tests have been made available to former servicemen - this is despicable and unacceptable," he said.
"There should be a public inquiry into the ill health suffered by Gulf War veterans.
"Mr Blair talks about social justice but he still refuses to give servicemen a public inquiry and depleted uranium tests."
According to the association, 606 Gulf servicemen have died from ill health and a further 5,933 have applied for a war pension due to disablement.
In November a coroner ruled that the death of Major Ian Hill was linked to his service in the Gulf War.
Lawyers for his family described the verdict as a "landmark decision", saying it would give hope to around 2,000 other veterans.
The 54-year-old from Knutsford, Cheshire, died in March 2001 from a heart attack.
He blamed a decade of failing health on Gulf War Syndrome caused by vaccinations and tablets he was given upon enlisting.
In June the High Court refused to overturn a landmark ruling recognising the existence of the syndrome for the first time.
But the Government still does not recognise the syndrome although it does accept some veterans did become ill.
----
USEC - uranium / depleted uranium $$$$
USEC Inc. Earns $10.7 Million in 2003 on Improved Gross Margin;
Company Expects Net Income of $6 to $8 Million in 2004 Reflecting Increased Commitment to The American Centrifuge
February 03, 2004
(BUSINESS WIRE)
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040203005931&newsLang=en
BETHESDA, Md.--Feb. 3, 2004--USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU) today reported net income of $10.7 million or $.13 per share for the year ended December 31, 2003, compared to a loss of $3.3 million or $.04 per share in 2002. For the quarter ended December 31, 2003, USEC reported net income of $0.9 million or $.01 per share, compared to a loss of $15.9 million or $.19 per share during the same period in 2002. To provide investors with a clearer understanding of financial results from the Company's government contract services, USEC now reports billings for government contract services in revenue and the cost of these services as expenses. This change has no impact on net income.
For the year, lower purchase and production costs improved gross profit to $165.1 million, 79 percent higher than a year earlier. The gross margin was 11.3 percent compared to 6.6 percent in the previous year. Expenses for advanced technology development, reported below the gross profit line, were $21.9 million higher than in 2002 as USEC accelerated its timetable for demonstrating the American Centrifuge technology. This accelerated investment had the effect of reducing net income by $26.5 million in 2003 and by $11.4 million in 2002. USEC expects to continue its substantial investment of profits in the American Centrifuge, which should position the Company to build and operate the world's most efficient uranium enrichment technology.
"Our financial performance continues to improve and we've made substantial strides in our strategic initiatives," said William H. Timbers, USEC president and chief executive officer. "We made progress in signing new contracts at today's improved prices and signed $2.1 billion in future sales during 2003, which has increased our backlog. We continue our clear focus on the future efficiency of USEC's enrichment operations through our substantial investment in the American Centrifuge. We are confident that we're on the right track."
Revenue and Cost of Sales
Revenue for the year was $1,460 million, up from $1,397 million in 2002. Higher sales volume and prices for natural uranium offset a previously projected decline in Separative Work Unit (SWU) revenue. Revenue from sales of natural uranium more than doubled to $169.1 million; of this amount $71 million of the uranium sold was provided by uranium generated from underfeeding in the production process or from third-party suppliers. For the fourth quarter, revenue was $430 million, compared to $383 million in the same period a year earlier.
USEC's customers generally place orders under their long-term contracts tied to reactor refuelings that occur on a 12- to 24-month cycle. Therefore, quarterly comparisons of USEC's financials are not necessarily indicative of the Company's longer-term results.
Revenue from sales of the SWU component of low-enriched uranium was down in 2003 due to the lingering effect of lower-priced contracts signed in the late 1990s when foreign competitors sold unfairly priced SWU in the United States. Sales volume in 2003 was 4 percent lower compared to a year earlier and average SWU prices billed to customers were 1.6 percent lower. Market prices for SWU improved beginning in 2001 and USEC has been signing new long-term contracts at these higher prices.
Unit production costs in 2003 declined 4 percent due in part to steps taken by USEC to lower labor costs through workforce reductions and to use its electric power more efficiently. Lower purchase costs in the first year of a market-based pricing agreement with Russia under the Megatons to Megawatts program helped to reduce overall SWU unit cost of sales by 6 percent in 2003. The effect of lower purchase costs will continue to benefit cost of sales in future periods due to the Company's average inventory cost methodology and its significant SWU inventories.
Selling, general and administrative expenses were $15.3 million higher than 2002 due to costs related to the early retirement of two senior executives, an increase in insurance premiums, higher consultant fees, and an increase in franchise taxes.
American Centrifuge Plant Site Selected
USEC announced in January that it selected Piketon, Ohio as the location for its state-of-the-art gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant. The American Centrifuge is expected to be the world's most efficient enrichment technology and help improve USEC's competitive position by lowering its cost structure. This advanced technology will use only 5 percent of the electricity required by a comparably sized gaseous diffusion plant. USEC selected Piketon for its mix of economic benefits, existing buildings designed specifically for centrifuge machines, seismic stability and schedule advantage.
USEC has completed refurbishment of the Centrifuge Technology Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee where key components of centrifuge machines have been fabricated and are undergoing testing in preparation for the demonstration that begins in Piketon in 2005.
Spending on advanced technology, primarily the American Centrifuge, totaled $44.8 million in 2003, an increase of 96 percent over the $22.9 million spent in 2002. These development costs are charged to expense. Costs associated with the commercial facility will begin to be capitalized in 2004. USEC expects the commercial centrifuge plant will cost up to $1.5 billion and the plant will reach its 3.5 million SWU capacity by 2010.
Outlook
USEC expects revenue to be approximately $1.4 billion in 2004, with about half coming in the fourth quarter due to timing of customer orders. SWU revenue will be impacted by the temporary shutdown of 10 power reactors of a major Japanese customer (See Other Business Matters, below). Revenue includes expected natural uranium sales of about $170 million, of which $70 million will be from uranium underfeeding in the production process or provided by third-party uranium suppliers. Revenue from government contract services is not expected to change significantly from 2003.
In 2004, USEC expects to invest approximately $70 million in the American Centrifuge. Of this amount, $50 million related to development work will be expensed, which has the effect of reducing USEC's net income by about $30 million. Approximately $20 million related to the commercial centrifuge plant is expected to be capitalized in 2004.
Given the substantial investment in the American Centrifuge referenced above, USEC expects net income in 2004 to be in a range of $6 to $8 million. The gross profit margin should remain at 11 percent, about the same as 2003.
Cash flow from operating activities in 2003 was $144.9 million, reflecting sales from inventory, and the cash balance at December 31, 2003, was $249.1 million. This was higher than previous guidance due to the timing of customer collections and the change in payment date for power contract termination costs. USEC anticipates that operating cash flow in 2004 will be in a range of $(110) to $(130) million and that capital expenditures unrelated to the American Centrifuge will be in a range of $10 to $15 million. The Company anticipates ending the year with a cash balance in a range of $40 to $60 million and that net cash flow from operating activities will again return to positive levels in 2005. USEC has no short-term debt, and the debt to total capitalization ratio is 36 percent.
Other Business Matters
-- USEC, Ohio Valley Electric Corp. (OVEC) and the Department of Energy (DOE) reached agreements in principle on a majority of the terms resolving termination of a power contract in 2003. The agreement is expected to cover a portion of postretirement benefits for OVEC employees and retirees, and shutdown costs when the plants are ultimately retired. The cash payment is expected to be made in the first quarter of 2004.
-- A Japanese customer continues to seek regulatory permission to restart 10 nuclear reactors that were shut down for special inspections in early 2003. USEC supplies about half of the low-enriched uranium for these reactors, and the continued delay in restarting the reactors postpones the utility's requirement for reloading fuel. These temporary shutdowns will impact 2004 revenue, and USEC expects that 2005 revenue will also be adversely affected.
-- USEC continues to process and clean a portion of its uranium inventory that contains elevated levels of technetium (Tc99). The Company received this uranium from DOE prior to privatization and has been implementing a unique process since July 2002 for reducing the contaminants to meet industry standards so that it may be sold or used in uranium enrichment production. Through December 31, 2003, USEC had cleaned 3,544 metric tons of the 9,550 metric tons of affected uranium. Under the DOE-USEC Agreement, DOE is obligated to replace or remediate the contaminated uranium.
This news release contains forward-looking information (within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) that involves risks and uncertainty, including certain assumptions regarding the future performance of USEC. Actual results and trends may differ materially depending upon a variety of factors, including, without limitation, market demand for USEC's products, pricing trends in the uranium and enrichment markets, deliveries under the Russian Contract, the availability and cost of electric power, implementing agreements with DOE regarding uranium inventory remediation and the use of advanced technology and facilities, satisfactory performance of the centrifuge technology at various stages of demonstration, USEC's ability to successfully execute its internal performance plans, the refueling cycles of USEC's customers, final determinations of environmental and other costs, the outcome of litigation and trade actions, and the impact of any government regulation. Revenue and operating results can fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter, and in some cases, year to year.
Please refer to our SEC filings, which can be accessed through the Company's website www.usec.com, for a more complete discussion of these factors.
USEC Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.
USEC Inc. CONSOLIDATED CONDENSED STATEMENTS OF INCOME (LOSS)(Unaudited) (millions, except per share data)
(See article for statement sheet http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040203005931&newsLang=en)
(a) USEC performs contract services for DOE and DOE contractors at the Portsmouth and Paducah plants. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2003, billings for government contract services are reported as part of revenue, and costs to perform government contract services are reported as part of costs and expenses. In earlier periods, the net amount of income or expense for government contract services had been reported as part of other income (expense, net).
The statements of income (loss) for prior periods have been restated to conform to the current presentation. There is no effect on net income (loss) or net income (loss) per share as a result of the change in presentation or the restatement of prior periods.
(b) The special credit of $6.7 million ($4.2 million or $.05 per share after tax) in 2002 represents a change in estimate of costs for consolidating plant operations.
USEC Inc.
CONSOLIDATED CONDENSED BALANCE SHEETS (Unaudited)
(See article for statement sheet http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040203005931&newsLang=en)
Contacts USEC Inc.
Steven Wingfield, 301-564-3354 or Mari Angeles Major-Sosias, 301-564-3353
-------- india / pakistan
Experts describe tight-knit nuclear black market
February 03, 2004
By George Jahn
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040202-102559-1153r.htm
VIENNA, Austria - The nuclear black market that supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea is small, tight-knit and appears to have been severely hurt by the exposure of its reputed head, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, diplomats and weapons experts said.
They describe the network that circumvented international controls to sell blueprints, hardware and know-how to countries running covert nuclear programs as involving people closely dependent on one another.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, who founded Pakistan's nuclear program, is emerging as the head of the ring believed to have been the main supplier through middlemen over three continents. A Pakistani government official revealed yesterday that Mr. Khan has acknowledged in a written statement transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The revelations came as Pakistan completed its investigation that began in late November, officials said. President Pervez Musharraf is expected to announce the results of the probe in an address to the nation after a period of national holidays ends Thursday.
Mr. Khan was fired Saturday as a scientific adviser to the prime minister.
The sales, during the late 1980s and in the early and mid-1990s, were motivated by "personal greed and ambition," the official said, and the black market dealings were not authorized by the Pakistani government.
European diplomats also said it appeared unlikely that Gen. Musharraf sanctioned the deals. But with Mr. Khan close to previous governments, senior civilian and military officials before Gen. Musharraf's takeover in 1999 likely knew of some of the dealings, they said in interviews yesterday and this past week.
Pakistani officials said for the first time yesterday that two former army chiefs have been questioned in the scandal but not implicated.
Gen. Jehangir Karamat and Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, a nationalist and strong advocate of a strategic alliance with Iran during his tenure, denied they had authorized nuclear transfers, the official said.
The diplomats described Mr. Khan as the head of an operation likely involved in supplying both North Korea and Iran with uranium enrichment technology and hardware in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Libya was also a customer, receiving an array of nuclear-related equipment and know-how that included blueprints of a nuclear bomb handed over to U.S. and British intelligence officials late last month, they said.
Middlemen responsible for meshing supply and demand were located in European capitals, Asia and the Middle East, they said, typically working with Iranian, Libyan and North Korean diplomats stationed abroad.
Hundreds of millions of dollars changed hands over the past 15 years, in deals as easy to hide as a floppy disc storing sensitive drawings or as bulky as thousands of centrifuge parts for nuclear enrichment, a key part in building weapons, the diplomats said.
A key beneficiary appears to be Mr. Khan, whose salary as a civil servant cannot account for what Pakistani newspapers say are far-flung real estate holdings and other assets worth millions of dollars.
Mr. Khan, who hasn't spoken publicly about the charges but has been prevented from leaving Pakistan, has denied during interrogations with investigators that he made the transfers for personal gain.
----
Pakistan's disgraced nuclear king points finger at army chiefs
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Feb 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040203062435.2y7lss4s.html
Two former army chiefs were questioned in Pakistan's probe into nuclear leaks to Iran, Libya and North Korea, but no evidence was found against them, a military official told AFP Tuesday.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, named ex-army chiefs Aslam Beg and Jehangir Karamat in an 11-page statement confessing to selling nuclear secrets to the three states between 1988 and 1997, the official said.
"He named two gentlemen, generals Beg and Karamat, who were then questioned," the military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"(Khan) said they were in the know. In one case he said he did it on their instructions, but not directly. They asked someone else and that fellow instructed A.Q. Khan and that man is now dead."
The middleman was the late brigadier Imtiaz Ali, defence adviser to Benazir Bhutto during her first tenure as prime minister from 1988 to 1990.
Both Beg, who was army chief from 1988 to 1991, and Karamat, army chief from 1997 to 1998, were "thoroughly" questioned during a two month probe by Pakistani investigators.
"There was no evidence found of what A.Q. Khan was saying, so it could not be sustained," the official said.
"If there is any more evidence of involvement of anyone else they will be questioned, no one is above the law."
Beg denied in interviews last week approving or being aware of the sale of nuclear secrets.
Khan himself, who is under virtual house arrest in his heavily-secured Islamabad home, has not been able to speak publicly.
President Pervez Musharraf, who has been army chief since 1998, has categorically denied any military knowledge or approval of the nuclear leaks, and has blamed civilian scientists and international black marketeers.
More than a dozen nuclear scientists, engineers and administrators have been questioned during the probe, which was prompted by information from Iran via the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in November.
Around half have been cleared and the probe narrowed last week to three ex-military officers and three nuclear scientists.
Apart from Khan, four others have confessed to transferring nuclear expertise but they have yet to be named, an official close to the investigation told AFP.
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Pakistani's appeal
February 03, 2004
Washington Times
Embassy Row
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy.htm
A retired career Pakistani diplomat is urging his country to face the reality of the United States' developing closer relations with India, its historic rival.
"The time has come when Pakistan must face the ground realities as they exist and not as it would like them to be," wrote Afzaal Mahmood, now a columnist with the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.
"Compared to India, we are a small country and cannot hope to be an effective rival of our big neighbor in international politics.
"It is therefore futile on our part to oppose India's efforts to achieve its potential and act as a big power in world politics. We simply cannot prevent it."
Mr. Mahmood, who retired after serving as ambassador to Vietnam, said Pakistan should focus on creating a "progressive, democratic, peaceful, stable and prosperous country."
----
Pakistanis Question Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers
February 3, 2004
By DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/international/asia/03STAN.html?pagewanted=all&position=
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 2 - Opposition parties, political and military experts and relatives of detained officials on Monday questioned Pakistan's assertion that the founder of the country's nuclear program had shared technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea for more than a decade without the knowledge of his superiors.
"This is a cock-and-bull story," said Dr. Muhammad Shafiq, 39, the son of Brig. Sajawal Khan, a retired Pakistani army officer accused of taking part in the scheme. "If you want to believe it, believe it. The truth is nowhere near this story."
In a background briefing to 20 Pakistani journalists on Sunday night, a senior Pakistani official said that the scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, had confessed to covertly sharing nuclear secrets with Iran, Libya and North Korea from 1989 to 2000. American officials said parts of the government's account matched events tracked by American intelligence and that nuclear aid from Pakistan had flowed to North Korea in 2002 and to Libya last fall.
The senior Pakistani official said Sunday that former army and intelligence chiefs had been questioned. Senior army officials were guilty of "omissions," he said, but did not take part in Dr. Khan's scheme.
Dr. Khan and his close relatives could not be reached for comment on Monday. A man who answered the telephone at Dr. Khan's home, now surrounded by security officials, said the scientist was not present. Dr. Shafiq, son of the detained brigadier said to have aided Dr. Khan, said he did not expect Dr. Khan's family to comment until the government announced whether it would prosecute.
Political and military experts predicted that Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, would not risk prosecuting Dr. Khan, until recently a national hero. A trial could set off a public outcry, and Dr. Khan could identify army officials who approved of his activities, the experts said. General Musharraf seized power in 1999, and the country's army is his core base of support.
A senior government official who spoke on condition of anonymity on Monday confirmed that Dr. Khan had signed a detailed confession several days ago, but he said no decision had been made on whether to charge the scientist. He said General Musharraf would make a "policy statement" to the nation early next week after the end of a series of Pakistani national holidays .
The senior official declined to give further details about what the government had said was a sprawling smuggling network that involved German and Dutch middlemen, chartered planes and covert meetings between Dr. Khan and Iranian and Libyan scientists. If the government account is true, Dr. Khan and the middlemen carried out one of the most complex schemes ever to evade international efforts to control nuclear weapons.
In a telephone interview on Monday, Zahid Malik, Dr. Khan's official biographer, said he had not spoken to the scientist for 10 days. Government officials ordered him on Sunday night to stop publicly commenting on the case, he said. "I cannot say anything categorical," he said when asked about the confession. "I have not met the gentleman I still have so much regard for."
Those who questioned the government's account said Monday that they were skeptical that Dr. Khan had acted without the approval of the country's powerful military leadership. Some suggested that Dr. Khan had agreed to confess to a version of events that put the army in a good light in exchange for a promise that the military-dominated government would not prosecute him.
On Sunday, the government also altered its descriptions of what motivated those who they said might have exported nuclear technology. Ten days ago, General Musharraf said "some individuals" had sold nuclear technology for personal gain. On Sunday, the senior official did not mention greed as a factor. Instead, he said Dr. Khan had transferred the technology to divert attention from Pakistan's nuclear program and to aid other Islamic countries.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a leading military analyst, said it would have been possible for Dr. Khan and his aides to covertly divulge nuclear designs and the names of nuclear component suppliers with other countries without the military knowing.
But he said it would have been impossible to move equipment or parts out of the country's tightly guarded top nuclear facility, the Khan Research Laboratories, without the army's tacit support. Dr. Khan served as director of the laboratory, which is named for him, until 2001. "If hardware is moved out of the country, then the army is directly involved," Mr. Rizvi said.
The senior Pakistani official who briefed Pakistani journalists on Sunday said that centrifuge machines were shipped from Pakistan to North Korea and that centrifuge parts from Pakistan were shipped to Iran.
He said the head of security at the Khan Research Laboratories, Brig. Muhammad Iqbal Tajwar, took part in the scheme, allowing the nuclear hardware to be shipped. Relatives of the brigadier could not be reached for comment.
The account of events given by the senior government official on Sunday also raised questions about Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, the chief of the Pakistani Army from 1988 to 1991. The senior official said Dr. Khan had told investigators that General Beg urged him to share nuclear technology with Iran.
General Beg has acknowledged that in 1991 he proposed that Pakistan form a military alliance with Iran and Afghanistan to thwart what he thought was an impending American invasion of all three countries. But he said he never approved the transfer of nuclear technology.
"I would not be stupid enough to do such a thing," General Beg said in a telephone interview on Monday. "I know what my responsibility is."
General Beg said the security of the nuclear program had not been his responsibility. The nuclear laboratories were under the control of the president and the prime minister at the time, he said.
Some political and military experts accused General Beg of making false statements. They said the country's army has maintained tight control over the nuclear program since its inception in 1974. The army has ruled the country for most of its modern history.
"He is lying," said Ayesha Siddiqa, a defense analyst, referring to General Beg. "They are trying to protect a lot of names."
The senior government official also told journalists that Dr. Khan told investigators that a military adviser and close friend of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto also urged him to share nuclear technology with Iran. Both men are dead.
A spokesman for Mrs. Bhutto said that the allegations were false and that she had opposed the spread of nuclear weapons during her two terms in office.
The holiday week here made it difficult to determine the nature of political repercussions, although there was some initial response.
Spokesmen for the country's two main secular opposition political parties, Mrs. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, called for a parliamentary inquiry.
In a telephone interview, a spokesman for a coalition of hard-line Islamist political parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Front, called for Dr. Khan to be allowed to speak publicly. He also reiterated the coalition's call for a nationwide strike on Friday to protest the government's treatment of nuclear scientists.
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Pakistan Said to Know of Nuclear Transfer
February 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Nuclear-Detentions.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The father of Pakistan's nuclear program told investigators he gave atomic weapons technology to other countries with the full knowledge of top army officials, including now-President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a friend of the scientist said Tuesday.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, also told the leader of the country's top Islamic party that he did not sign a confession about transfers of nuclear technology, as the government claims, the party said.
Khan spoke with Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of Jamaat-e-Islami, and told him he eventually will disclose his side of the story but, for now, his case ``is in the court of God Almighty,'' party spokesman Ameer ul-Azeem said.
The party has called for a nationwide protest Friday to support Khan and other detained scientists.
Khan told a friend he had not violated Pakistan's laws by giving out-of-use machines for enriching uranium to Iran, North Korea and other countries, the friend told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
``Whatever I did, it was in the knowledge of the bosses,'' Khan's friend quoted him as saying.
The scientist also said that two former military chiefs -- Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg and Gen. Jehangir Karamat -- and Musharraf were ``aware of everything'' he was doing, the friend said.
``I am also convinced that (Khan) couldn't act unilaterally,'' the friend added.
Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan denied Musharraf was privy to any transfer of nuclear technology or authorized Khan to do it.
``It is absolutely wrong,'' Sultan said, adding that Musharraf ``was not involved in any such matter. No such thing has happened since he seized power in 1999.''
Musharraf has headed the army since 1998, and before that held a number of top positions in the military.
Khan, who gave Pakistan the Islamic world's first nuclear bomb, was removed Sunday from his post as scientific adviser to the prime minister after confessing to investigators he leaked nuclear secrets to other countries.
The admission shocked many in Pakistan, and raised questions about how the scientist could have spread nuclear technology without consent of the military -- which has often ruled Pakistan since the country gained independence from Britain in 1947.
The two retired army chiefs, Karamat and Beg, told investigators they did not authorize nuclear transfers. Musharraf and other government officials have repeatedly ruled out official involvement in proliferation.
Officials said Tuesday that Khan smuggled high-tech centrifuges -- used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons -- and other equipment to Iran, Libya, North Korea and Malaysia through an international black market network.
In some cases, he used chartered planes to smuggle the equipment, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity.
The official said two individuals, from Sri Lanka and Germany, operated on behalf of Khan in smuggling that began in the 1980s and continued at least until 1997.
Pakistan began probing allegations of nuclear proliferation in November after Iran and Libya gave information to the U.N. nuclear watchdog -- the International Atomic Energy Agency.
So far, investigators have questioned two former heads of the army, scientists, engineers and security officials to determine whether they knew about the leak of nuclear technology to other countries.
Authorities are focusing on seven suspects -- three scientists, including Khan, and four former security officials at Khan Research Laboratories, or KRL, a nuclear weapons facility named after Khan.
Investigators told Pakistani journalists Sunday that Khan did not sell nuclear technology for personal gain.
But two intelligence officials said Tuesday that money was a motivation.
``Definitely money was involved in this game,'' a senior intelligence official involved in the probe said on condition of anonymity.
Another official said on condition of anonymity, ``For us, it was shocking that KRL's equipment was moved out of Pakistan, and we knew nothing. It was a misuse of authority, a breach of confidence and nothing else.''
He said Khan ``gave access to scientists and engineers from Iran and North Korea to our nuclear facilities'' and met them outside the lab.
A close aide to Khan -- Mohammed Farooq, who has been detained in the probe -- was sent to Iran to help their scientists and was a key figure in the international nuclear black market, the official said.
--------
Army: Pakistan Nuke Scientist Dealt Independently
February 3, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-pakistan.html
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The father of Pakistan's atomic bomb acted independently in selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, the military said Tuesday, denying the trade continued under the current government.
Officials said Monday that Abdul Qadeer Khan, a national hero since helping Pakistan test the Islamic world's first nuclear bomb in 1998, had confessed to selling nuclear secrets to the three countries, lifting the lid on one of the biggest proliferation scandals in history.
The probe is potentially embarrassing for President Pervez Musharraf, the army chief who took power in a 1999 coup and became a key ally of Washington in its ``war on terror.''
Monday's New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying nuclear aid flowed to North Korea until 2002 and to Libya last year. Tuesday, the Washington Post quoted a friend of Khan as saying the scientist told investigators he gave North Korea nuclear know-how with the knowledge of senior military commanders, including Musharraf. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan dismissed both charges, saying it was Musharraf who put in place safeguards against proliferation.
``No such activity has taken place since the Nuclear Command Authority came into being in February 2000,'' he said, adding: ``Before the establishment of the command authority, A.Q. Khan was fully autonomous.''
Diplomats and analysts believe Khan could not have acted without the knowledge of the military, which kept close tabs on the nuclear program and guarded the scientist himself.
A senior military official told local journalists Sunday Khan had made a detailed statement confessing to supplying designs, hardware and materials used to make enriched uranium for atomic bombs to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Khan is reported to have said he was acting on the indirect instructions of two former army chiefs, Generals Aslam Beg and Jehangir Karamat, a claim Sultan said had been ``assessed and found wrong.''
``He was fully autonomous in decision-making. He had the full authority to use the budget and was given that freedom to ensure the program went on unhindered. Probably he has breached that trust, that is what one can say.''
Sultan said that until 2000, Khan was answerable only to the president, but the president was unaware of all his activities.
He declined to say if Beg and Karamat had been questioned as part of the investigation launched after the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency found evidence pointing to Pakistani involvement in Iran's nuclear program.
DESIGNS AND EQUIPMENT
An official who briefed journalists Sunday said Khan had said three Germans, a Dutchman, a Sri Lankan and a South African acted as middlemen in the dealings.
News reports have quoted a statement from Khan as saying Pakistan Air Force planes were used to ferry some centrifuge equipment used to enrich uranium to Dubai-based middlemen.
Sultan rejected this. ``No military planes were used. Some charter planes and some shipment on normal cargo flights, maybe.''
According to the Asian Wall Street Journal, Khan said in his statement that complete centrifugal plants were exported to Iran via a Pakistani businessman, but Sultan said this was untrue.
``It was not the whole plant, maybe some pieces of some machines that were disused and old machines were sent out by him, but it's incorrect to say there was a whole centrifuge plant.''
Pakistan says it has completed a two-month probe into allegations of nuclear proliferation, but has yet to decide whether to prosecute Khan and six other suspects.
Private television channel Geo quoted the interior ministry as saying that four suspects, including two scientists but not Khan, had been formally detained for three months. However, an interior ministry spokesman said he was unable to confirm this.
Sultan said a government statement would be made by Musharraf in an address to the nation next week.
Analysts say prosecuting Khan could be risky for Musharraf given that the scientist has been feted as a hero for helping Pakistan develop a nuclear bomb after arch enemy India exploded an atomic device in 1974.
Khan also retains the support of hard-line Islamists. On Tuesday, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the main Islamic alliance in parliament, said he had spoken to Khan, who had denied making any statement in the investigation.
He vowed to lead protests against Khan's treatment, saying the government and Musharraf were bowing to U.S. pressure.
``It is a conspiracy not just against Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan but to stop the nation progressing in science and technology.''
News reports quoting unnamed officials have helped strip away the aura around Khan in recent weeks, pointing to his vast wealth, including a string of plush mansions.
Nevertheless, many Pakistanis argue that Khan is being made a scapegoat for the military, which has seldom been held accountable in Pakistan's post-independence history.
Analysts say Washington is unlikely to push too hard for a full probe into the military's role given Musharraf's importance to the war on terror. It will also view the revelations so far as a boost to its efforts to deal with nuclear proliferation.
--------
Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe
Senior Pakistani Army Officers Were Aware of Technology Transfers, Scientist Says
By John Lancaster and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6884-2004Feb2?language=printer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 2 -- Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has told investigators that he helped North Korea design and equip facilities for making weapons-grade uranium with the knowledge of senior military commanders, including Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, according to a friend of Khan's and a senior Pakistani investigator.
Khan also has told investigators that Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, the Pakistani army chief of staff from 1988 to 1991, was aware of assistance Khan was providing to Iran's nuclear program and that two other army chiefs, in addition to Musharraf, knew and approved of his efforts on behalf of North Korea, the same individuals said Monday.
Khan's assertions of high-level army involvement came in the course of a two-month probe into allegations that he and other Pakistani nuclear scientists made millions of dollars from the sale of equipment and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
They contradict repeated contentions by Musharraf and other senior officials that Khan and at least one other scientist, Mohammed Farooq, acted out of greed and in violation of long-standing government policy that bars the export of nuclear weapons technology to any foreign country.
In conversations with investigators, Khan urged them to question the former army commanders and Musharraf, asserting that "no debriefing is complete unless you bring every one of them here and debrief us together," according to the friend, who has met with the accused scientist twice during the past two months.
On the basis of Khan's claims, Beg and another former army chief of staff, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, who occupied the post from 1996 to 1998, have been questioned by investigators in recent days, but both have denied any knowledge of the transactions, according to a senior Pakistani military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief military spokesman, declined to comment on the specifics of the allegations but asserted that "General Pervez Musharraf neither authorized such transfers nor was involved in any way with such deeds, even before he was president." Beg and Karamat could not be reached for comment Monday night.
Khan and other senior scientists and officials at the Khan Research Laboratories, the uranium-enrichment facility Khan founded in 1976, have been under investigation since November, when the International Atomic Energy Agency presented Pakistan with evidence that its centrifuge designs had turned up in Iran. The flamboyant European-trained metallurgist, who is 67, became a national hero in Pakistan after the country detonated its first nuclear device in 1998.
In a briefing for Pakistani journalists late Sunday night, a senior Pakistani military officer said that Khan had signed a 12-page confession on Friday in which he admitted to providing Iran, Libya and North Korea with technical assistance and components for making high-speed centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium, a key ingredient for a nuclear bomb.
Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, commander of Pakistan's Strategic Planning and Development Cell, described Khan as the mastermind of an elaborate and wholly unauthorized smuggling network involving chartered cargo flights, clandestine overseas meetings and a Malaysian factory that reconditioned centrifuge parts discarded from Pakistan's nuclear program for sale to foreign clients, according to a journalist who attended Kidwai's 21/2-hour briefing.
The technology transfers began in 1989 and were brokered by a network of middlemen, including three German businessmen and a Sri Lankan, identified only as Tahir, who is in custody in Malaysia, Kidwai told the journalists.
According to Kidwai's account, Khan told investigators that he supplied materials and assistance to Iran, Libya and North Korea not to make money but to deflect attention from Pakistan's nuclear program and -- in the case of Iran and Libya -- as a gesture of support to other Muslim countries.
The senior Pakistani investigator and a senior intelligence official said Monday that Khan also said he supplied Iran and Libya with surplus, outmoded equipment from the laboratory that he knew would not provide either country with any near-term capability to enrich uranium.
"Dr. Khan is basically contesting the merit of the nuclear proliferation charges," the investigator said. "Throughout his debriefing, Dr. Khan kept challenging the perception that material found from the Libyan or Iranian programs would allow them to enrich uranium."
Investigators contend that Khan accumulated millions of dollars in the course of a 30-year career as a government scientist, investing some of it in real estate in Pakistan and abroad. Kidwai told Pakistani journalists that investigators had reached no conclusions about the source of Khan's wealth, but he acknowledged that Khan's lavish lifestyle was "the worst-kept secret in town" and should have triggered suspicions among those responsible for protecting Pakistan's nuclear secrets, according to a journalist who attended the briefing.
Kidwai "admitted to oversight and intelligence failure," the journalist said.
Kidwai avoided any suggestion of complicity on the part of senior military commanders, including Musharraf, who has maintained throughout the investigation that any transfer of nuclear technology abroad was the work of individuals driven by greed.
By all accounts, Khan ran the laboratory at Kahuta, about 20 miles from Islamabad, with scant oversight from either civilian or military-led governments eager to achieve nuclear parity with arch rival India.
The military was ultimately responsible for the facility, where security was overseen by two army brigadiers and a special detachment from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. And Khan is said to have insisted during his sessions with investigators that senior military commanders were well aware of his efforts to help other countries with their nuclear programs.
The senior Pakistani investigator said that Beg was "in the picture" regarding Khan's assistance to Iran, but said the former army chief of staff was "probably . . . under the impression that material and knowledge being transferred to Iran would not enable them to produced enriched uranium" because of Khan's claim that he was withholding top-of-the-line equipment. Investigators have found evidence that Khan informed Beg of the transfer of outdated hardware from his laboratory to Iran in early 1991, the official said.
Khan told two generals who jointly questioned him last month that three army chiefs of staff, including Musharraf, had known of his dealings with North Korea, according to the friend of the scientist. "Throughout his debriefing, Dr. Khan kept asking the generals why he was not being asked specific questions about the material he passed on to the North Koreans," the friend said.
U.S. officials have long suspected that Pakistan supplied uranium enrichment technology to North Korea in exchange for help with its ballistic missile program, and that Khan acted as the principal agent of the arrangement. After stating in 2002 that it had a program for enriching uranium for use in weapons, North Korea more recently has denied it.
A retired Pakistani army corps commander said Monday that the barter arrangement dates to December 1994, when then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto traveled to North Korea at the request of Gen. Abdul Waheed, the army chief of staff at the time. A few months later, Khan led a delegation of scientists and military officers to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to the retired general and a senior active duty officer, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. Musharraf was serving at the time as Waheed's director general for military operations.
In January 1996, Waheed was replaced as chief of staff by Karamat, who secretly visited North Korea in December 1997, according to the retired corps commander. Four months after the trip, in April 1998, Karamat presided over the successful test-firing of a medium-range missile the Pakistanis called a Ghauri. According to U.S. intelligence officials and a former Pakistani nuclear scientist, the Ghauri was simply a renamed North Korean-supplied Nodong missile. Pakistani officials maintain publicly that the Ghauri missile is indigenous to Pakistan.
The senior investigator said Khan claimed that Karamat was privy to the details of the barter arrangement through which Pakistan received the missile, and that Khan had insisted that Karamat's role also be examined.
Khan also has asserted that Musharraf had to have been aware of the agreement with North Korea because Musharraf took over responsibility for the Ghauri missile program when he became army chief of staff in October 1998, according to the scientist's friend and the senior investigator.
According to Kidwai's account to journalists, senior military commanders did not get wind of Khan's nuclear dealings with North Korea until 2000, when the ISI conducted a raid on an aircraft that the laboratory had chartered for a planned flight to North Korea. Although a search of the aircraft turned up no evidence, authorities were sufficiently concerned that they warned Khan against pursuing any clandestine trade with North Korea, Kidwai told the journalists.
That concern deepened, according to Kidwai's account, after U.S. officials in 2002 and early 2003 presented evidence that Pakistani nuclear technology may indeed have found its way to North Korea.
-------- iran
Iranians Don't Want To Go Nuclear
By Karim Sadjadpour
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Washington Post; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7222-2004Feb2?language=printer
Do the people of Iran want the bomb? Iran's recent decision to allow for tighter inspection of its nuclear facilities -- which Iran says are for civilian purposes -- was hailed by Iranian and European officials as a diplomatic victory, while analysts and officials in Washington and Tel Aviv continue to be wary of Tehran's intentions. But despite the attention given to Iran's nuclear aspirations in recent months, one important question has scarcely been touched on: How do the Iranian people feel about having nuclear weapons?
Iranian officials have suggested that the country's nuclear program is an issue that resonates on the Iranian street and is a great source of national pride. But months of interviews I have done in Iran reveal a somewhat different picture. Whereas few Iranians are opposed to the development of a nuclear energy facility, most do not see it as a solution to their primary concerns: economic malaise and political and social repression. What's more, most of the Iranians surveyed said they oppose the pursuit of a nuclear weapons program because it runs counter to their desire for "peace and tranquility." Three reasons were commonly cited.
First, having experienced a devastating eight-year war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of their compatriots, Iranians are opposed to reliving war or violence. Many Iranians said the pursuit of nuclear weapons would lead the country down a path no one wanted to travel.
Two decades ago revolutionary euphoria was strong, and millions of young men volunteered to defend their country against an Iraqi onslaught. Today few Iranians have illusions about the realities of conflict. The argument that a nuclear weapon could help serve as a deterrent to ensure peace in Iran seemed incongruous to most. "If we want peace, why would we want a bomb?" asked a middle-aged Iranian woman, seemingly concurring with an influential Iranian diplomat who contends that a nuclear weapon "would not augment Iran's security but rather heighten its vulnerabilities."
Second, while a central premise of Iran's Islamic government from the time of its inception has been its steadfast opposition to the United States and Israel, for most Iranians no such nemeses exist. Iran's young populace -- more than two-thirds of the country is younger than 30 -- is among the most pro-American in the Middle East, and tend not to share the impassioned anti-Israel sentiment of their Arab neighbors. While the excitement generated on the Indian and Pakistani streets as a result of their nuclear detonations is commonly cited to show the correlation between nuclear weapons and national pride, such a reaction is best understood in the context of the rivalry between the two countries. The majority of Iranians surveyed claimed to have little desire to show off their military or nuclear prowess to anyone. "Whom would we attack?" asked a 31-year-old laborer, echoing a commonly heard sentiment in Tehran. "We don't want war with anyone."
Finally, many Iranians, youth in particular, are opposed to the Islamic republic's becoming a nuclear power because they believe it would further entrench the hard-liners in the government. "I fear that if these guys get the bomb they will be able to hold on to power for another 25 years," said a 30-year-old Iranian professional. "Nobody wants that." In particular some expressed a concern that a nuclear Iran would be immune to U.S. and European diplomatic pressure and could continue to repress popular demands for reform without fear of repercussion.
At the same time, most Iranians -- including harsh critics of the Islamic regime -- remain unconvinced by the allegations that their government is secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Many dismiss it as another bogeyman manufactured by the United States and Israel to further antagonize and isolate the Islamic regime. "I don't believe we're after a bomb," said a 25-year-old Tehran University student. "The U.S. is always looking for an excuse to harass these mullahs." A recently retired Iranian diplomat who said he is "strongly critical" of the Islamic government agreed with this assessment, saying Iran's nuclear program "is neither for defensive nor offensive purposes . . . It's only for energy purposes."
I draw two lessons from this. First, the European-brokered compromise on Iran's nuclear program, which appealed to reformists and pragmatists within the Iranian government, was also a victory of sorts for the Iranian people, who are eager to emerge from the political and economic isolation of the past two decades and are strongly in favor of increasing ties with the West. A blatant lack of cooperation with the international community would not have been well-received domestically.
Second, a more aggressive reaction by the international community -- a U.S. or Israeli attempt to strike Iran's nuclear facilities -- could well have the unintended consequence of antagonizing a highly nationalistic and largely pro-Western populace and convincing Iranians that a nuclear weapon is indeed in their national interests. Such a reaction would be disastrous for U.S. interests in the region, especially given Iran's key location between Iraq and Afghanistan.
Western and Israeli diplomats and analysts should know that the ability to solve the Iranian nuclear predicament diplomatically has broad implications for the future of democracy and nonproliferation in Iran and the rest of the Middle East. The goal is to bring the Iranian regime on the same page with the Iranian people. A non-diplomatic attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities could do precisely the opposite.
The writer, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, is a visiting fellow at the American University of Beirut.
-------- korea
Nuclear Talks to Resume, North Korea Says
February 3, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/international/asia/03KORE.html?pagewanted=all
TOKYO, Tuesday, Feb. 3 - North Korea said Tuesday that the next round of talks on its nuclear program would resume Feb. 25.
The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said the United States, North Korea and other major parties concerned had agreed to the date after a series of discussions. A round of talks involving North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia was held in Beijing in August, but ended inconclusively.
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who has been active in previous talks, met Monday with South Korea's unification minister, Jeong Se Hyun, and its foreign minister, Ban Ki Moon.
The dispute over North Korea's nuclear program erupted in October 2002 when American officials said North Korea had admitted to pursuing a clandestine weapons program.
The United States wants the North, at least by the end of the next round of talks, to commit to dismantling any weapons programs. Washington has offered to give details then on security guarantees for the North.
--------
North Korea Agrees to New Talks on Nuclear Program
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7560-2004Feb3.html
TOKYO, Feb. 3 -- North Korea agreed early Tuesday to a new round of six-nation talks later this month aimed at resolving a standoff over its nuclear program, according to the Pyongyang government's official news services.
North Korea, the United States and China recently "held several rounds of consultations and agreed to hold six-nation talks beginning February 25," according to the KCNA news agency and Radio Pyongyang.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry confirmed the report.
The agreement comes six months after the first round of negotiations in Beijing among the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. Those talks broke up without any significant progress being made.
Tuesday's announcement also follows a recent flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at starting new talks with the North. James Kelly, the U.S. assistant secretary of state, met with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon in Seoul on Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Tokyo on Tuesday to discuss the North Korea issue.
South Korea's official news service said the meeting later this month, like the first round of negotiations, would be held in China. It was not clear how long the talks would last, but the August round lasted three days.
Analysts say expectations for a new round of talks are higher than in the past. Pyongyang has appeared ready to offer a freeze of its professed nuclear program in exchange for key demands, including economic assistance and a resumption of oil shipments. Washington has previously insisted that the North first agree to completely dismantle its nuclear program in a irreversible and verifiable manner.
Before the North Korean announcement of new talks, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell expressed optimism about the possibility for advancing negotiations with Pyongyang. In an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors on Monday, he said he did not want any future meeting "to be another exchange of talking points."
Powell added that the process had been slowed because North Korea appeared to have certain expectations about the visit last month by an unofficial delegation to its nuclear facility at Yongbyon. The North Koreans displayed what they described as reprocessed plutonium.
"The message they should have gotten back was that 'Fine, you showed these two groups what you showed them. You didn't add -- it seemed to us anyway -- to the body of information known about your activities. Now let's get on with it and let's find a diplomatic solution.' "
The current nuclear standoff between North Korea and the United States began in 2002 when the United States accused the communist government of secretly trying to enrich uranium, and the government surprised U.S. officials by admitting it in private talks. Since then, however, the Pyongyang government has insistently denied it ever acknowledged to U.S. representatives that it tried to enrich uranium for weapons use.
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
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Two Energy Plans for North Korea
February 3, 2004
By JAMES BROOKE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/business/worldbusiness/03korea.html
NIIGATA, Japan, Feb. 1 - On North Korea's desolate eastern coast, 600 miles directly across the Sea of Japan from here, soldiers guard an abandoned construction site where two light-water nuclear reactors were to be built.
North Korea is desperately short of energy, and agreed in 1994 to halt its nuclear weapons program in exchange for help from its capitalist neighbors and the United States in building nuclear power plants. But work at the site was halted on Dec. 1 because the United States said North Korea had violated the 1994 agreement by pursuing nuclear weapons anyway. On Friday, the State Department said the civilian nuclear power program had "no future." In retaliation, North Korea is holding hostage the construction equipment at the site belonging to contractors from South Korea, which has sunk almost $1 billion into the project.
With the civilian nuclear power program off the table, North Korea needs another plan for expanding its energy supply, and its neighbors need a way to break the diplomatic stalemate. On Monday, at a regional energy forum here, energy executives from Russia and the United States outlined two proposals. Both ideas - a 235-mile electric power line from Vladivostok and a 1,500-mile natural gas pipeline from Sakhalin - highlight Russia's future as an energy exporter to Northeast Asia. Just as Canadian power fuels much of the United States, so the hydroelectric resources of the Russian Far East seem destined to flow south to China, Japan and the Koreas.
"Everyone wants a nonnuclear solution" to North Korea's energy proablem, said John B. Fetter, an American consultant who traveled here from Philadelphia to present the $3 billion natural gas pipeline project proposed by the KoRus Gas Company, a consortium of American, Russian and South Korean owners.
The project calls for a pipe to be laid from the vast gas deposits off Sakhalin Island, southwest through Russian territory to North Korea and, probably, on to Seoul, South Korea's capital, as well. Mr. Fetter said gas could flow through it as soon as 2008.
By then, it is hoped, at least one reliable customer for the gas will have emerged in North Korea, a nation notorious for rewriting rules after the fact and for failing to pay its bills. If the pipeline is built all the way through to South Korea, it would reach a nation of 47 million whose appetite for energy is growing rapidly. Oil consumption has quadrupled since 1980, and South Korea is now the world's fourth- largest oil importer, after the United States, Japan and China. Analysts expect demand for gas to increase by 50 percent in the next 10 years.
For North Korea, though, an electric transmission line promises faster, cheaper relief.
For just $180 million or so, a 500-kilovolt line could be built in four years, according to Victor N. Minakov, general director of Vostokenergo, a subsidiary of Russia's state electric utility, United Energy Systems.
The timetables for both projects are ambitious, and financing them could pose problems, industry experts said. But both projects reflect the future importance of the Russian Far East as an energy supplier to Asia, according to Alexei M. Mastepanov, deputy director of Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly.
North Korea's energy needs are critical. It depended for decades on tankers full of oil delivered at subsidized "friendship prices" by China and Russia, but both its patrons began charging market prices in the early 1990's, and North Korea has yet to recover from the blow.
Shortages of energy crippled North Korea's industry, and much of the country regressed to a 19th-century existence of candlelight and wood stoves. In rural areas, many trucks are run with gas generators fueled by wood or charcoal, as in Europe during World War II when gasoline was scarce.
North Korean officials support both the gas-pipeline proposal and the power line proposal, but have no money to pay for them, according to people attending the conference who had recently been to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
If either project is built, then, it would probably come as foreign aid, probably in exchange for once again putting North Korea's nuclear weapons program back under international inspection and control. After a six-month break in talks over the weapons program, American diplomats were touring Northeast Asia over the weekend trying to restart the negotiations.
Yevgeny Afanasiev, a senior Russian diplomat, said at the forum that his country "will do our utmost" to promote the two projects. "They do not have to be part of a package, they could be separate,'' Mr. Afanasiev said. "But think of private investors, think of the high political risk - would you invest?"
Financing could come as part of a wider package that would gain North Korea entry into the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Or the money might be put up by South Korea, which would stand to benefit both directly and indirectly.
"The Russians basically believe that South Koreans will pay for it," said Yonghun Jung, a Korean executive at the Asia Pacific Energy Research Center in Tokyo.
But many South Korean businesspeople see North Korea as an unreliable money pit.
Korea Gas, favors bringing Russian gas to South Korea through China and an underwater pipeline, bypassing North Korea and denying it any control over the supply.
-------- russia
RUSSIA - Nuke fuel exports skyrocketed in 2003
February 03, 2004
Washington Times
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
MOSCOW - Russia's exports of nuclear fuel for use in reactors skyrocketed to $3 billion in the past year after years of stagnation, mainly owing to higher demand from the growing economies of former communist states, officials said yesterday.
An atomic energy official said increased exports of enriched uranium, as well as uranium and isotope-enrichment technology, also were behind the rise. He declined to disclose export destinations.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
White House seeks more nuke funds
By Ian Hoffman
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
OAKLAND TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,82%257E1865%257E1932316,00.html
The Bush administration wants more money for nuclear weapons in 2005, including studies of new or modified hydrogen bombs and, if called upon, the means to conduct nuclear tests faster.
In a year of cutbacks or meager growth for most domestic agencies, the White House is seeking a 5.4 percent increase for the weap-ons arm of the U.S. Energy Department, to $6.6 billion.
Despite bipartisan criticism among House lawmakers last year, the National Nuclear Security Administration signaled Monday that it is asking for more money across-the-board in the modestly expensive, but controversial programs aimed at new and modified H-bomb designs.
An unusual coalition of GOP budget hawks and Democrats gutted several of those programs last year, cutting in half requests for speeding nuclear testing, if ordered by the president, and for a massive nuclear "bunker buster" known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
In the case of the bunker buster, the administration was forced to shut down work on one of two competing nuclear-weapons designs and devote all of its bunker-buster research to a single bomb, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's B-83.
Now the Bush administration is reviving both ideas, seeking a 25 percent increase in test readiness, to $30 million, and a more than 200 percent increase for the penetrator, to $27 million.
"They're coming back in and trying to recover their losses," said David Culp, legislative liaison for the Friends' Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group that monitors nuclear arms issues. "I think that's going to get pretty tough scrutiny from Congress."
The administration also has slated $9 million, up a third from this year, for "advanced concepts" teams to explore bomb ideas, both new and old.
"It shows where the Bush administration's priorities are. This is pure discretionary spending, and they're choosing to spend it on nuclear weapons," said Christopher Paine, a senior nuclear weapons analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
At least one powerful Republican already has warned the administration will have a fight on its hands.
After Linton Brooks, the nation's top nuclear-weapons executive, congratulated directors of the nation's three weapons labs on repeal of a 1994 ban on low-yield nuclear weapons, the chairman of a key weapons funding committee noted his dismay that "the only message conveyed to the weapons laboratories is one of unbridled enthusiasm for new weapons designs and seeking new military missions for nuclear weapons."
"Although we find your actions unhelpful," wrote Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, "they are at least instructive in gauging the actual intent of the Advanced Concepts work proposed by the administration; we will view future proposals from the department with this memo in mind."
Brooks anticipates a flare-up of last year's debate in Congress. He said Monday that the administration does not plan on inventing "mini-nukes" in 2005.
"There is nothing in this budget that is aimed at producing low-yield weapons," said Brooks, the NNSA administrator, in a budget briefing. "We have no requirement for developing new weapons. What we are trying to do is look at technology that might be used to improve existing weapons."
Budget documents and interviews with lab and government officials suggest the scope of the advanced concepts work is broader, however. Weapons scientists routinely look at new security measures and new kinds of components and materials whenever they do standard refurbishment of nuclear weapons to stave off aging.
But the advanced concepts program is, by definition, geared toward new weapons design or new uses of older design ideas. One likely project is the agent-defeat weapon, a bomb designed for special radiation or heat effects to kill biological or chemical weapons in storage, much like neutron bombs of the 1980s.
The biggest share of increases in the nation's nuclear weapons budget is for day-to-day weapons research and maintenance -- for example, a total of $182 million on studies of plutonium under explosive pressure and $6.1 million to maintain the W84 warhead, a weapon that lacks a working delivery system -- and for repaired or new facilities. It's also for security.
More than three years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the National Nuclear Security Administration is starting to staff up for the higher number of potential terrorist attackers that intelligence analysts say reasonably could be expected to attempt the theft of ingredients for a nuclear weapon.
Heightened defenses for the nation's three nuclear weapons labs, four factories, nuclear test site in Nevada and a trucking service between them will cost an extra $107 million in 2005.
It includes no money for consolidating most nuclear-weapons materials in fewer, hardened underground bunkers that would be safer from attacks by land and air, an idea that the government has studied for more than a decade.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- kentucky
BUSH BUDGET CUTS FUNDING FOR PLANT CLEANUP
Paducah Sun
February 3, 2004
by Joe Walker
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200402/03+0hOc_news.html+20040203
The Bush administration is seeking a steady $100 million next fiscal year for area locks and dam work, but more than $27 million less for Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant cleanup and nothing for a program that helps create jobs for displaced nuclear workers.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham rolled out the cleanup numbers Monday as part of President Bush's overall budget request to Congress for fiscal 2005, starting Oct. 1. Congress will scrutinize the budget before passing its version in late summer or early fall. According to the staff of U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, the Bush request contains:
$92.8 million for plant cleanup, down from $120.2 million this year. The decline comes only four months after the Energy Department and Kentucky regulators signed a new agreement to speed up plant cleanup. DOE is seeking bids from small businesses, trying to make plant infrastructure and cleanup work more cost-efficient.
Kentucky Cabinet for Environmental and Public Protection officials said they were unaware of the request and declined comment.
Nothing for the Worker and Community Transition program, which funds community reuse organizations that create jobs for laid-off nuclear workers. That would cut off funding for the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization (PACRO), which has been a conduit for about $2.5 million in Energy Department money toward the new Purchase Area Industrial Park. PACRO's role has added emphasis now that USEC Inc. plans to close the 1,270-job Paducah plant starting in 2010 and replace it with a gas centrifuge plant in Piketon, Ohio.
"What I've suggested to everybody is we look at ways to fund the Paducah organization other than through the DOE program," said PACRO Director John Anderson. "There is a great deal of momentum to sunset it."
$75 million for Olmsted Locks and Dam work, enough to start building a $564 million dam this fall. The request, in a separate budget for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is $12 million more than allocated this year. Dam work is expected to last until 2012 and generate 250 peak construction jobs.
$25 million for Kentucky Lock, compared with $29.9 million this year. The expanded lock and new locks at Olmsted are designed to improve river shipping by cutting locking time in half.
$55.9 million for a new factory to convert nearly 40,000 cylinders of uranium-enrichment waste into safer material that might have commercial use. The request is $5.4 million lower than the $61.3 million budgeted this year. Uranium Disposition Services, the contractor, expects to break ground by this summer for the 150-job plant.
$7.8 million for nuclear plant safeguards and security, up from $7 million this year.
$8.12 million for a new Lexington-based office overseeing cleanup at Paducah and a closed enrichment plant at Piketon. The office received $7.81 million this year.
$43 million nationwide for a controversial program designed to compensate nuclear workers sickened from plant toxins. The added money is designed to cut down on a huge claims backlog in the program, which received $27 million this year.
PACRO's budget has rapidly shrunk from $8 million since its first year of operation in 1999 to $150,000 this year. Anderson said the demise of community reuse organizations became apparent last month at a meeting of directors.
"This gives us about two years to generate an income stream from other sources," he said. "That can be done. It's just that everybody is going to have to work together."
Among other things, Anderson is pursuing contracts with plant cleanup and recycling firms, including cylinder-converter UDS and Los Angeles-based ToxCo, which wants to find markets for abandoned fluorine cells at the Paducah plant.
-------- new york
Nuclear cleanup at West Valley, NY, faces funding cut
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
February 3, 2004, 3:20 PM EST
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--nuclearcleanup0203feb03,0,4640634.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
WEST VALLEY, N.Y. -- President Bush's proposed 2005 budget would reduce funding to the West Valley Demonstration Project by more than $26 million, and could lead to a loss of 150 to 200 jobs at the former nuclear site, according to a source close to the project.
The budget includes $73 million for cleanup of the 3,300-acre site, which housed the country's first commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. That's down from just under $100 million allocated this year.
"There would be employment cuts as a result of the budget," said the source, who spoke on the condition on anonymity. "It's pretty significant."
West Valley has seen budget-related staff reductions in the past. The site's contractor for 22 years, West Valley Nuclear Services Co., currently employs about 500 people, down from 716 in 2001.
The private Nuclear Fuel Services recovered used fuel rods containing uranium to make new fuel from 1966 to 1972.
NFS believed there was money to be made in recovering used uranium to make new fuel. But when the project halted for expansion in 1972, after processing 640 tons of fuel, it never resumed because of high costs and increasingly stringent government controls.
Among the waste left behind at the 200-acre site were: an underground tank of liquid waste measuring 70 feet in diameter and 30 feet deep, a processing facility littered with pieces of nuclear fuel rods, and spent fuel assemblies stored in water.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the West Valley Demonstration Project Act, making the state and federal governments partners in the cleanup. The two have been at odds in recent years over several issues, including who will be responsible for the long-term monitoring of the site if some waste remains.
Tom Attridge of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority said the state views the proposed spending cuts as an indication the federal government intends to back off of the project. The Energy Department wants most of the site in a low-maintenance, monitoring mode by 2008.
"This is the kind of sign we've been seeing from DOE over the past couple of years, this kind of ramping down of their work here, and we're a bit concerned," said Attridge, the senior project manager at West Valley.
He and others said the cuts would hinder the progress of a highly skilled work force.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., termed the proposed cuts "unacceptable" and said she would work to restore funding.
"The administration is again putting the safe, timely completion of the West Valley Demonstration Project in jeopardy," Clinton told The Buffalo News. "The community and employees at West Valley have labored to make this project a national model, and they deserve the continued commitment of the Department of Energy."
-------- south carolina
MOX plant delayed
Bush plan may delay light rail Other programs, from housing to energy, may be postponed
DIANNE WHITACRE
Charlotte Observer,
February 3, 2003
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/7860956.htm
... (excerpt on MOX:)
Surplus plutonium
The budget also would delay by nearly a year the construction of a Savannah River plant to make mixed-oxide fuel, which includes surplus weapons plutonium.
The construction delay would in turn postpone by a year, to 2010, Duke Power's full-scale use of MOX fuel in its two Charlotte-area nuclear power plants.
Duke's plan to test MOX at its Catawba plant in early 2005 won't change, said spokesman Tim Pettit.
The proposed budget shaves $31 million from design and construction funding for the fuel plant in fiscal 2005, compared with this year, and moves the start of construction to May 2005. Construction at the federal Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., had been expected to begin this summer.
The MOX program is a joint effort of the United States and Russia, with each pledging to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium.
Differences over liability coverage for U.S. contractors in Russia has caused a delay, said spokesman Bryan Wilkes of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Energy Department.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has still not approved construction of the Savannah River MOX plant. The NRC has asked for revisions by Duke Cogema Stone & Webster, the business group under contract to design and build the facility, delaying the authorization that had been expected in December.
In addition, an NRC licensing board has not resolved three contentions filed by Georgians Against Nuclear Energy.
----
DOE delays SRS fuel fabrication facility
By Josh Gelinas
South Carolina Bureau
Augusta Chronicle
February 3, 2003
http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/020304/met_229281.shtml
AIKEN - Construction on a fuel fabrication facility at the Savannah River Site that would create hundreds of jobs has been delayed at least 10 months, Department of Energy officials announced Monday.
Ground was supposed to be broken this summer on the project, which would convert plutonium into fuel for commercial reactors, but that won't likely happen until May 2005, Linton Brooks, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said Monday. The facility, which would employ about 500 people, is part of a U.S. nuclear nonproliferation agreement with Russia that will put plutonium to good use, rather than leave the radioactive substance and potential bomb material lying around the country.
The countries are supposed to build identical facilities simultaneously, but officials are still working out details about how much responsibility the United States will shoulder for the Russian factory, Mr. Brooks said.
"I don't expect the dispute to drag on, but obviously with the Russian federation, things are not resolved until they're resolved," he said.
The delay is just the latest round of what has become a season of bad news for economic boosters at SRS, and it wasn't the only foreboding message of the day.
During a separate news conference announcing the Department of Energy's 2005 budget requests, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham asked for more than $225 million for hydrogen research. But little, if any, of the money would go to SRS, officials said.
The Economic Development Partnership for Aiken and Edgefield Counties has been marketing the area as a hydrogen hub and contends that highly skilled scientists at SRS will make it happen.
The partnership's executive director, Fred Humes, said DOE officials are overlooking the extensive research in hydrogen storage that SRS has been refining for 50 years.
"I just wonder if they're paying attention," he said.
He voiced additional concern about the conversion facility's delay and imminent layoffs at SRS.
The plant will release about 300 people in the next four months, with additional layoffs expected beyond that.
Meanwhile, Mr. Brooks announced last week that a decision on a modern pit facility, which would make triggers for nuclear weapons, also has been delayed indefinitely.
SRS is competing with four other sites for the plant that will produce plutonium pits used to detonate nuclear weapons and would mean about 1,000 jobs.
Reach Josh Gelinas at (803) 279-6895
or josh.gelinas@augustachronicle.com.
-------- washington
Seattle lawmakers hail security, criticize deficit, cleanup cuts
By JENNA WOLF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/159119_state03.html
WASHINGTON -- Washington state lawmakers offered a mixed response yesterday to President Bush's budget, praising higher funding for homeland security and national defense while expressing concern about cuts to cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and combating pollution in Puget Sound.
Lawmakers conceded that their assessments were not completely formed because they had not had time to comb through the entire 3,000-page, $2.4 trillion document that outlines President Bush's spending priorities for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Democrats, however, criticized Bush for offering a budget that carries a record $521 billion deficit.
"My eyes practically popped out of their sockets when I saw the deficit," Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said.
Education will be one of the few programs getting a significant increase, but Congressional members from Washington state said even that good news is tempered by the fact that the Bush administration plans to eliminate 38 education programs.
Among the specific items in the proposed budget for Washington state:
# $16.5 million in homeland security funding to equip local police, fire, paramedics and other "first responders" in the Puget Sound area. Local governments nationwide have complained that they have been asked to do more to protect homeland security without any financial aid.
# As in previous years, the budget triggered concerns that there may not be sufficient money to meet cleanup standards for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Hanford would receive about $2 billion next year but some of that money would be held back, raising concerns that it might produce a shortfall. The Energy Department is required under a legal settlement with the state to meet -- and pay for -- yearly milestones for cleaning up the plant....
-------- us nuc waste
[This editorial is a study in the Washington Times editors' skewed thinking. For example: "ONLY .5 percent of the 1.7 million carloads of hazardous materials shipped annually around the country actually pass through the District." [CAPS added.] That means that 8,500 train cars full of lethal, including radioactive, poisons are transported through the District of Columbia each year. And the adjectives they use! "If passed, the legislation would set a TERRIBLE precedent, allowing other communities to effectively bar passage of whatever materials they deem unsafe. For instance, high-level radioactive waste headed to the planned repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would have a difficult time making it across any given county, much less the country." The District is forcing the feds to consider its policies more carefully, and that is . et]
Hazardous safety plans
February 03, 2004
Washington Times
Editorial
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040202-085407-9849r.htm
That trains continue to be a tempting target for terrorists was emphasized last week in the form of a bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to law enforcement agencies warning of a "continued terrorist interest in conducting attacks on U.S. subways and railways." The danger is compounded in the District, which has both an easily accessible Metrorail system and rail lines (owned by CSX Transportation).
Only .5 percent of the 1.7 million carloads of hazardous materials shipped annually around the country actually pass through the District. In response to that threat, the D.C. Council is considering the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, which would ban the transport of hazardous materials through the District when other practical routes exist. While well intentioned, the bill faces significant constitutional questions and adds little to safety.
If passed, the legislation would set a terrible precedent, allowing other communities to effectively bar passage of whatever materials they deem unsafe. For instance, high-level radioactive waste headed to the planned repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would have a difficult time making it across any given county, much less the country.
As a bar to such cross-state transportation, the act is likely to run afoul of several federal statues, not the least of which is the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause. It may also violate the Federal Railroad Safety Act and the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act.
Even if the legislation were to survive the inevitable legal battle, it would have nearly a negligible effect on the safety of the District.
All parties in this debate agree that shipments can be delayed or rerouted at the request of local officials, as was the case during the president's State of the Union address. But rerouting shipments will not solve the problem; it merely moves the problem into someone else's backyard.
A major supporter of the bill - Greenpeace (Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club are also supporting it) - also is backing the misguided chemical security bill sponsored by Sen. Jon Corzine. Before then, the group campaigned for a complete ban on the use of chlorine.
Greenpeace says that if passed, the legislation "will serve as a model for the rest of the country." In a sense it will - as an unconstitutional approach to a serious threat. The cooperative strategy currently being pursued by public- and private-sector officials toward better rail security seems best in this case.
-------- us politics
Disapproval of Bush's Iraq policy rises sharply: poll
03 February 2004
AFP
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/69232/1/.html
WASHINGTON : US President George W. Bush's popularity has tumbled below 50 percent, with dissatisfaction mounting sharply over his handling of the Iraq war, foreign affairs and the economy, a new poll showed.
The poll published by USA Today, CNN and the Gallup organisation showed Senator John Kerry, the leading Democratic candidate for president, opening up a seven-point lead over the Republican Bush in a head-to-head matchup.
The poll was conducted from Thursday to Sunday, after the chief US arms inspector resigned and said he found no trace of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that Bush used to justify last year's invasion.
Forty-nine percent of the 1,001 people interviewed said they approved of the overall way Bush was doing his job, while 48 percent disapproved and three percent had no opinion.
A similar poll conducted January 2-5 found 60 percent approved of Bush and 35 percent disapproved. The president's popularity was also down from the 70 percent approval registered just after the fall of Baghdad last April.
The new survey showed that 46 percent approved of the president's performance on Iraq, down from 61 percent four weeks earlier. The disapproval rate rose from 36 to 53 percent.
For the first time in the USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, less than half of those interviewed thought it was worth going to war in Iraq to oust the dictator Saddam Hussein.
Approval of Bush's foreign policies dropped from 58 to 46 percent, while disapproval jumped from 39 to 51 percent. Support for his handling of the economy fell from 54 to 43 percent.
The new poll came with Bush increasingly on the defensive over the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which he said had made military action urgent.
It was published the same day the president bowed to growing pressure from both Republicans and Democrats and announced an independent inquiry into pre-war intelligence on Saddam's weapons capabilities.
Bush also drew heat after unveiling Monday a revised budget for 2004 with a record 521 billion dollar deficit, leaving himself open to new charges from the Democrats that he was mismanaging the economy.
The poll, taken right after the New Hampshire primary, showed Kerry leading the field in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination with a 49-14 percent edge over former Vermont governor Howard Dean. North Carolina Senator John Edwards was third with 13 percent.
Kerry has opened up a 53-46 percent lead over Bush in a one-on-one contest for the White House, according to the poll. Edwards was also on top 49-48 percent in a face-off with the president.
But the poll showed Bush leading both Dean and former NATO commander Wesley Clark.
----
Bush's pre-emptive policy under fire
By Jackie Frank
February 3, 2004
The Age
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/02/1075570358699.html
Washington - Former top weapons hunter David Kay has said that flaws in US intelligence in prewar Iraq brought into question President George Bush's policy of pre-emptive strike against countries deemed a threat.
Mr Bush based his decision to invade Iraq on what he called a "grave and gathering danger" posed by Iraq's biological and chemical weapons.
After the September 11 attacks, Mr Bush outlined a doctrine of pre-emptive military action to guard US security in the face of new terror threats.
"If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad, you certainly can't have a policy of pre-emption," Dr Kay said on Fox News Sunday. "Pristine intelligence - good, accurate intelligence - is a fundamental benchstone of any sort of policy of pre-emption to even be thought about."
Dr Kay, who resigned last week, concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons. He blamed intelligence failures for the mistaken belief Iraq had such arms in violation of United Nations sanctions, and called for an independent investigation.
Yesterday, the White House confirmed that Mr Bush would announce an independent, bipartisan commission into prewar intelligence on Iraq.
A senior Administration official said Mr Bush would name a nine-member panel this week to "focus on Iraq, WMD intelligence, and proliferation of WMD".
But the commission is expected to be told to report next year - avoiding having the probe's results emerge as a campaign issue.
As recently as Friday, Mr Bush and his top aides, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, were insisting that any inquiry into prewar intelligence must await the results of the ongoing search in Iraq for banned weapons.
But the Administration came under strong pressure from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as well as Dr Kay to hold an inquiry.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair faced renewed pressure to open a similar investigation into intelligence.
The Guardian in London reported yesterday that Mr Blair would this week prepare the ground for a major climb down on the weapons issue.
In Iraq, twin suicide bombers killed at least 56 people and injured 200 others on Sunday. The attacks on the offices of the two main Kurdish parties in the northern city of Erbil turned the town into a scene of horrific bloodshed.
The bombings on a Muslim holiday shattered the calm in a part of the country that had been relatively stable under the US occupation.
The bombings were the deadliest in Iraq since an August 29 attack in the holy city of Najaf killed 83 people.
Party officials in Erbil had been worried about a possible terrorist attack during the Eid al-Adha festivities, and had taken precautions such as prohibiting cars from stopping outside the facility. But because of the crowds and a reluctance to offend holiday guests, security checks were sporadic.
Officials believe the suicide bombers walked in among the throngs of visitors. Among the dead in the attacks on the offices of the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party was the autonomous region's Deputy Premier, Sami Abdul Rahman.
- Los Angeles Times, Reuters
----
WMD-gate: Bush Wants to Scapegoat CIA
by Jim Lobe
February 3, 2004
(Inter Press Service)
http://antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=1839
Badly wounded by the total collapse of its prewar contentions that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the administration of President George W. Bush has embarked on a strategy of diversion and delay.
It hopes to divert attention from the role played by senior administration officials in influencing and exaggerating the intelligence assessments of the Iraqi threat in the run-up to the war by focusing debate instead on flaws in the intelligence and how it can be improved in the future.
It hopes to delay until well after the November presidential elections the reporting deadline for a proposed commission that will study the fiasco.
"This is damage control," said one Congressional aide, who added the president's reelection chances might well hinge on whether he is able to pull off the strategy. "Bush wants to get this out of the headlines and into a commission that won't say anything until he's reelected."
Bush, who is helped by the fact that Republicans control key committees in Congress, appears able to count as well on David Kay, whose statements after he resigned as the man in charge of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), in Iraq last week set off the White House's latest maneuvers.
Kay's admission that "we were almost all wrong" about Iraq's WMD stockpiles and alleged reconstitution of a nuclear-weapons program, and his endorsement of the proposal to create a commission to examine the causes of the intelligence failures initially forced the administration on the defensive.
But, in absolving the administration of the charge of pressuring the intelligence community's analysts to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq's alleged WMD programs, Kay threw Bush a life preserver.
But to veteran intelligence analysts, Kay's life preserver could more accurately be called a lie preserver.
In their view, the professional intelligence community did indeed make serious mistakes. But they charge as well that the administration effectively encouraged it to make those mistakes and, to make matters worse, deliberately exaggerated the assessments to make the Iraqi threat sound more ominous than even the intelligence community's flawed reports said it was.
"Did the intelligence shape policy, or did the policy shape intelligence"? asked Melvin Goodman, a top Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Soviet expert during the Cold War who currently teaches at the National War College.
Like other intelligence veterans who have remained in touch with their former colleagues, Goodman says Kay's assertions the administration did not pressure analysts are simply "wrong."
"I've talked with analysts at CIA and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), and they all claim there was tremendous pressure put on them," Goodman told IPS.
The fact, according to Goodman, that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created an Office of Special Plans (OSP) outside the formal intelligence channels with the specific mandate to reassess raw intelligence in order to find alleged links between Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist group suggests the administration was applying that pressure in unconventional ways.
"When Rumsfeld couldn't get what he wanted, he created his OSP," Goodman said. "That really gives away the whole game right there."
Other retired analysts, such as the CIA's former top counter-terrorist specialist, Vincent Cannistraro, have cited Vice President Dick Cheney's repeated trips to CIA headquarters to personally question analysts as another example of how pressure was exerted on analysts.
Greg Thielmann, a WMD specialist at the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research who worked on Iraq until his retirement in late 2002, also disputes Kay's assertion the administration had nothing to do with the intelligence failure.
"Everyone knew that the White House was deaf to any information that would not substantiate its charges; that is a very unproductive environment for any intellectual inquiry," he said in a telephone interview.
"The White House was never searching for the truth; it was searching for arguments to make the case for war," he continued. "They were searching for evidence to support the conclusions they had already reached."
"The perfect example is what the White House did not do in February, 2003, after U.N. inspectors had been on the ground in Iraq for three months looking under roofs, examining facilities, interviewing weapons scientists, and giving us a lot better and fresher information base than we had had for the previous four years," according to Thielmann.
"As far as I know, the White House never asked the intelligence community to update their October (2002) assessment to see whether any of its key judgments about Iraq should be modified in light of what the inspectors were seeing on the ground."
"And the reason is that the administration did not care what was going on on the ground. It was interested in going to war and convincing the American people and the international community that war was necessary," he said.
The analysts' views about the way in which the administration's drive to war affected the intelligence assessments are largely shared by Democrats on the two congressional intelligence committees that have been investigating the performance of the intelligence community for months behind closed doors.
The committees, however, have split along partisan lines over the same question. Republicans have insisted that what faults have been uncovered lie exclusively with the intelligence professionals, while Democrats say they have accumulated evidence of constant pressure and interference by senior administration figures, particularly senior Pentagon officials, Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.
But Republican control of the two intelligence committees means the administration has been able to effectively limit the scope of their investigations, making it far more difficult for Democrats to obtain additional evidence by forcing key officials to testify or to publicize their findings.
Democrats are clearly worried that a Bush-appointed presidential commission will be similarly limited in what it can or cannot investigate.
They are also concerned that the commission's work schedule might be designed to bury the issue of whether the administration deliberately misled the country into going to war until after the elections.
"You don't take national security and say, 'oh, let's just put it on hold for a year, until an election is over'," the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Jay Rockefeller, told Fox News on Sunday.
The administration is already pressuring the commission established to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon to either publish its final report by its May 29 deadline - six months before the elections - or to wait until early next year if it needs more time, presumably so as not to influence the elections.
Members of that body, which is headed by former Republican New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean but evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, have complained administration delays have pushed back its work schedule, but that they could finish its report by July or August.
----
INTRODUCTION to "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower"
by William Blum
http://members.aol.com/superogue/intro.htm
http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
This book could be entitled: Serial chain-saw baby killers and the women who love them.
The women don't really believe that their beloved would do such a thing, even if they're shown a severed limb or a headless torso. Or if they believe it, they know down to their bone marrow that lover-boy really had the best of intentions; it must have been some kind of very unfortunate accident, a well-meaning blunder; in fact, even more likely, it was a humanitarian act.
For 70 years, the United States convinced much of the world that there was an international conspiracy out there. An International Communist Conspiracy; seeking no less than control over the entire planet, for purposes which had no socially redeeming values. And the world was made to believe that it somehow needed the United States to save it from communist darkness. "Just buy our weapons," said Washington, "let our military and our corporations roam freely across your land, and give us veto power over who your leaders will be, and we'll protect you."
It was the cleverest protection racket since men convinced women that they needed men to protect them -- If all the men vanished overnight, how many women would be afraid to walk the streets?
And if the people of any foreign land were benighted enough to not realize that they needed to be saved, if they failed to appreciate the underlying nobility of American motives, they were warned that they would burn in Communist Hell. Or a CIA facsimile thereof. And they would be saved nonetheless.
A decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, America is still saving countries and peoples from one danger or another. The scorecard reads as follows: From 1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.
As I write this in Washington, D.C., in April 1999, the United States is busy saving Yugoslavia. Bombing a modern, sophisticated society back to a pre-industrial age. And The Great American Public, in its infinite wisdom, is convinced that its government is motivated by "humanitarian" impulses.
Washington is awash with foreign dignitaries here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; three days of unprecedented pomp and circumstance. The prime-ministers, presidents and foreign ministers, despite their rank, are delighted to be included amongst the schoolyard bully's close friends. Private corporations are funding the opulent weekend; a dozen of them paying $250,000 apiece to have one of their executives serve as a director on the NATO Summit's host committee. Many of the same firms lobbied hard to expand NATO by adding the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, each of which will be purchasing plentiful quantities of military hardware from these companies.
This marriage of NATO and the transnationals is the foundation of the New World Order, the name George Bush gave to the American Empire. The credibility of the New World Order depends upon the world believing that the new world will be a better one for the multitude of humanity, not just for those for whom too much is not enough; and believing that the leader of the New World Order, the United States, means well.
Let's have a short look at some modern American history, which may be instructive. A congressional report of 1994 informed us that:
Approximately 60,000 military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and lewisite [blister gas]. Most of these subjects were not informed of the nature of the experiments and never received medical followup after their participation in the research. Additionally, some of these human subjects were threatened with imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth if they discussed these experiments with anyone, including their wives, parents, and family doctors. For decades, the Pentagon denied that the research had taken place, resulting in decades of suffering for many veterans who became ill after the secret testing.{1}
Now let's skip ahead to the 1990s. Many thousands of American soldiers came home from the Gulf War with unusual, debilitating ailments. Exposure to harmful chemical or biological agents was suspected, but the Pentagon denied that this had occurred. Years went by while the GIs suffered terribly: neurological problems, chronic fatigue, skin problems, scarred lungs, memory loss, muscle and joint pain, severe headaches, personality changes, passing out, and much more. Eventually, the Pentagon, inch by inch, was forced to move away from its denials and admit that, yes, chemical weapon depots had been bombed; then, yes, there probably were releases of the deadly poisons; then, yes, American soldiers were indeed in the vicinity of these poisonous releases, 400 soldiers; then, it might have been 5,000; then, "a very large number", probably more than 15,000; then, finally, a precise number -- 20,867; then, "The Pentagon announced that a long-awaited computer model estimates that nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers could have been exposed to trace amounts of sarin gas." ...{2}
Soldiers were also forced to take vaccines against anthrax and nerve gas not approved by the FDA as safe and effective, and punished, sometimes treated like criminals, if they refused. (During World War II, US soldiers were forced to take a yellow fever vaccine, with the result that some 330,000 of them were infected with the hepatitis B virus.){3} Finally, in late 1999, almost nine years after the Gulf War's end, the Defense Department announced that a drug given to soldiers to protect them against a particular nerve gas, "cannot be ruled out" as a cause of lingering illnesses in some veterans.{4}
The Pentagon brass, moreover, did not warn American soldiers of the grave danger of being in close proximity to expended depleted uranium weapons on the battlefield.
If the Pentagon had been much more forthcoming from the outset about what it knew all along about these various substances and weapons, the soldiers might have had a proper diagnosis early on and received appropriate care sooner. The cost in terms of human suffering was incalculable. One gauge of that cost may lie in the estimate that one-third of the homeless in America are military veterans.
And in the decades between the 1940s and 1990s, what do we find? A remarkable variety of government programs, either formally, or in effect, using soldiers as guinea pigs -- marched to nuclear explosion sites, with pilots then sent through the mushroom clouds; subjected to chemical and biological weapons experiments; radiation experiments; behavior modification experiments that washed their brains with LSD; exposure to the dioxin of Agent Orange in Korea and Vietnam ... the list goes on ... literally millions of experimental subjects, seldom given a choice or adequate information, often with disastrous effects to their physical and/or mental health, rarely with proper medical care or even monitoring.{5}
The moral of this little slice of history is simple: If the United States government does not care about the health and welfare of its own soldiers, if our leaders are not moved by the prolonged pain and suffering of the wretched warriors enlisted to fight the empire's wars, how can it be argued, how can it be believed, that they care about foreign peoples? At all.
When the Dalai Lama was asked by a CIA officer in 1995: "Did we do a good or bad thing in providing this support [to the Tibetans]?", the Tibetan spiritual leader replied that though it helped the morale of those resisting the Chinese, "thousands of lives were lost in the resistance" and that "the U.S. Government had involved itself in his country's affairs not to help Tibet but only as a Cold War tactic to challenge the Chinese."{6}
"Let me tell you about the very rich," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. "They are different from you and me."
So are our leaders.
Consider Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to Jimmy Carter. In a 1998 interview he admitted that the official story that the US gave military aid to the Afghanistan opposition only after the Soviet invasion in 1979 was a lie. The truth was, he said, that the US began aiding the Islamic fundamentalist Moujahedeen six months before the Russians made their move, even though he believed -- and told this to Carter -- that "this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention".
Brzezinski was asked whether he regretted this decision.
Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.{7}
Besides the fact that there is no demonstrable connection between the Afghanistan war and the breakup of the Soviet empire, we are faced with the consequences of that war: the defeat of a government committed to bringing the extraordinarily backward nation into the 20th century; the breathtaking carnage; Moujahedeen torture that even US government officials called "indescribable horror"{8}; half the population either dead, disabled or refugees; the spawning of thousands of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who have unleashed atrocities in numerous countries; and the unbelievable repression of women in Afghanistan, instituted by America's wartime allies.
And for playing a key role in causing all this, Zbigniew Brzezinski has no regrets. Regrets? The man is downright proud of it! The kindest thing one can say about such a person -- as about a sociopath -- is that he's amoral. At least in his public incarnation, which is all we're concerned with here. In medieval times he would have been called Zbigniew the Terrible.
And what does this tell us about Jimmy Carter, whom many people think of as perhaps the only halfway decent person to occupy the White House since Roosevelt? Or is it Lincoln?
In 1977, when pressed by journalists about whether the US had a moral obligation to help rebuild Vietnam, President Carter responded: "Well, the destruction was mutual."{9} (Perhaps when he observed the devastation of the South Bronx later that year, he was under the impression that it had been caused by Vietnamese bombing.)
In the now-famous exchange on TV between Madeleine Albright and reporter Lesley Stahl, the latter was speaking of US sanctions against Iraq, and asked the then-US ambassador to the UN: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and you know, is the price worth it?"
Replied Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it."{10}
One can give Albright the absolute full benefit of any doubt and say that she had no choice but to defend administration policy. But what kind of person is it that takes a job appointment knowing full well that she will be an integral part of such ongoing policies and will be expected to defend them without apology? Not long afterwards, Albright was appointed Secretary of State.
Lawrence Summers is another case in point. In December 1991, while chief economist for the World Bank, he wrote an internal memo saying that the Bank should encourage migration of "the dirty industries" to the less-developed countries because, amongst other reasons, health-impairing and death-causing pollution costs would be lower. Inasmuch as these costs are based on the lost earnings of the affected workers, in a country of very low wages the computed costs would be much lower. "I think," he wrote, "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."{11} Despite this memo receiving wide distribution and condemnation, Summers, in 1999, was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Clinton. This was a promotion from being Undersecretary of the Treasury -- for international affairs.
We also have Clinton himself, who on day 33 of the aerial devastation of Yugoslavia -- 33 days and nights of destroying villages, schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, the ecology, separating people from their limbs, from their eyesight, spilling their intestines, traumatizing children for the rest of their days ... destroying a life the Serbians will never know again -- on day 33 William Jefferson Clinton, cautioning against judging the bombing policy prematurely, saw fit to declare: "This may seem like a long time. [But] I don't think that this air campaign has been going on a particularly long time."{12} And then the man continued it another 45 days.
Clinton's vice president, Albert Gore, appears eminently suitable to succeed him to the throne. In 1998, he put great pressure on South Africa, threatening trade sanctions if the government didn't cancel plans to use much cheaper generic AIDS drugs, which would cut into US companies' sales.{13} South Africa, it should be noted, has about three million HIV-positive persons among its largely impoverished population. When Gore, who at the time had significant ties to the drug industry{14}, was heckled for what he had done during a speech in New York, he declined to respond in substance, but instead called out: "I love this country. I love the First Amendment."{15}
It's interesting to note that when Madeleine Albright was heckled in Columbus, Ohio in February 1998, while defending the administration's Iraq policy, she yelled: "We are the greatest country in the world!"
Patriotism is indeed the last refuge of a scoundrel, though Gore's and Albright's words don't quite have the ring of "Deutschland über alles" or "Rule Britannia".
In 1985, Ronald Reagan, demonstrating the preeminent intellect for which he was esteemed, tried to show how totalitarian the Soviet Union was by declaring: "I'm no linguist, but I've been told that in the Russian language there isn't even a word for freedom."{16} In light of the above cast of characters and their declarations, can we ask if there's a word in American English for "embarrassment"?
No, it is not simply that power corrupts and dehumanizes.
Neither is it that US foreign policy is cruel because American leaders are cruel.
It's that our leaders are cruel because only those willing and able to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment; it might as well be written into the job description. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers -- let alone American soldiers -- do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security advisor, or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to.
There's a sort of Peter Principle at work here.
Laurence Peter wrote that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Perhaps we can postulate that in a foreign policy establishment committed to imperialist domination by any means necessary, employees tend to rise to the level of cruelty they can live with.
A few days after the bombing of Yugoslavia had ended, the New York Times published as its lead article in the Sunday Week in Review, a piece by Michael Wines, which declared that "Human rights had been elevated to a military priority and a pre-eminent Western value. ... The war only underscored the deep ideological divide between an idealistic New World bent on ending inhumanity and an Old World equally fatalistic about unending conflict. ... there is also a yawning gap between the West and much of the world on the value of a single life."
And so on. A paean to the innate goodness of the West, an ethos unfortunately not shared by much of the rest of the world, who, Wines lamented, "just don't buy into Western notions of rights and responsibilities."{17} The Times fed us this morality tale after "the West" had just completed the most ferocious sustained bombing of a nation in the history of the planet, a small portion of whose dreadful consequences are referred to above.
During the American bombing of Iraq in 1991, the previous record for sustained ferociousness, a civilian air raid shelter was destroyed by a depleted-uranium projectile, incinerating to charred blackness many hundreds of people, a great number of them women and children. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, reiterating US military statements that the shelter had been a command-and-control center, said: "We don't know why civilians were at that location, but we do know that Saddam Hussein does not share our value for the sanctity of human life."{18}
Similarly, during the Vietnam War, President Johnson and other government officials assured us that Asians don't have the same high regard for human life as Americans do. We were told this, of course, as American bombs, napalm, Agent Orange, and helicopter gunships were disintegrating the Vietnamese and their highly regarded lives.
And at the same time, on a day in February 1966, David Lawrence, the editor of US News & World Report, was moved to put the following words to paper: "What the United States is doing in Vietnam is the most significant example of philanthropy extended by one people to another that we have witnessed in our times."
I sent Mr. Lawrence a copy of a well-done pamphlet entitled American Atrocities in Vietnam,