Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
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.
----
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.
--------
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.
-------
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, which gave graphic detail of its subject. To this I attached a note which first repeated Lawrence's quotation with his name below it, then added: "One of us is crazy.", followed by my name.
Lawrence responded with a full page letter, at the heart of which was: "I think a careful reading of it [the pamphlet] will prove the point I was trying to make -- namely that primitive peoples with savagery in their hearts have to be helped to understand the true basis of a civilized existence."
The American mind -- as exemplified by that of Michael Wines and David Lawrence -- is, politically, so deeply formed that to liberate it would involve uncommon, and as yet perhaps undiscovered, philosophical and surgical skill. The great majority of Americans, even the most cynical -- who need no convincing that the words that come out of a politician's mouth are a blend of mis-, dis- and non-information, and should always carry a veracity health warning -- appear to lose their critical faculties when confronted by "our boys who are risking their lives". If love is blind, patriotism has lost all five senses.
To the extent that the cynicism of these Americans is directed toward their government's habitual foreign adventures, it's to question whether the administration's stated interpretation of a situation is valid, whether the stated goals are worthwhile, and whether the stated goals can be achieved -- but not to question the government's motivation. It is assumed a priori that our leaders mean well by the foreign people involved -- no matter how much death, destruction and suffering their policies objectively result in.
Congressman Otis Pike (R.-NY) headed a committee in 1975 which uncovered a number of dark covert actions of US foreign policy, many of which were leaked to the public, while others remained secret. In an interview he stated that any member of Congress could see the entire report if he agreed not to reveal anything that was in it. "But not many want to read it," he added.
"Why?" asked his interviewer.
"Oh, they think it is better not to know," Pike replied. "There are too many things that embarrass Americans in that report. You see, this country went through an awful trauma with Watergate. But even then, all they were asked to believe was that their president had been a bad person. In this new situation they are asked much more; they are asked to believe that their country has been evil. And nobody wants to believe that."{19}
This has been compared to going to a counselor because your child is behaving strangely, and being told, "You have a problem of incest in your family." People can't hear that. They go to a different counselor. They grab at any other explanation. It's too painful.{20}
In The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, speaking of the practice of plundering villages, the main source of a warrior's livelihood, tells us that "no disgrace was yet attached to such an achievement, but rather credit".
Almost all of us grew up in an environment in which we learned that thou shalt not murder, rape, rob, probably not pay off a public official or cheat on your taxes -- but not that there was anything wrong with toppling foreign governments, quashing revolutions, or dropping powerful bombs on foreign people, if it somehow served America's "national security".
Let us look at our teachers. During the bombing of Yugoslavia, CBS Evening News Anchor, Dan Rather, declared: "I'm an American, and I'm an American reporter. And yes, when there's combat involving Americans, you can criticize me if you must, damn me if you must, but I'm always pulling for us to win."{21} (In the past, US journalists were quick to criticize their Soviet counterparts for speaking in behalf of the State.)
What does this mean? That he's going to support any war effort by the United States no matter the legal or moral justification? No matter the effect on democracy, freedom or self-determination? No matter the degree of horror produced? No matter anything? Many other American journalists have similarly paraded themselves as cheerleaders in modern times in the midst of one of the Pentagon's frequent marches down the warpath, serving a function "more akin to stenography than journalism".{22} During the Gulf War, much of the media, led by CNN, appeared to have a serious missile fetish, enough so to suggest a need for counseling.
The CEO of National Public Radio, Kevin Klose, is the former head of all the major, worldwide US government broadcast propaganda outlets, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and the anti-Castro Radio Marti, which broadcasts into Cuba from Florida. NPR, which can be thought of as the home service of the Voice of America, has never met an American war it didn't like. It was inspired to describe the war against Yugoslavia as Clinton's "most significant foreign policy success."{23}
And the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Robert Coonrod, has a résumé remarkably similar to that of Klose, from Voice of America to Radio Marti.
Is it any wonder that countless Americans -- bearing psyches no less malleable than those of other members of the species -- are only dimly conscious of the fact that they even have the right to be unequivocally opposed to a war effort and to question the government's real intentions for carrying it out, without thinking of themselves as (horror of horrors) "unpatriotic"? Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the Bush administration conducted three briefings a day with such telegenic figures as generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf. Marlin Fitzwater later recalled that when ABC-TV interviewed a group of Kansans around a kitchen table, "every answer at that table reflected one of the reasons we had given for going in."{24}
In Spain, in the 16th century, the best minds were busy at work devising rationalizations for the cruelty its conquistadors were inflicting on the Indians of the New World. It was decided, and commonly accepted, that the Indians were "natural slaves", created by God to serve the conquistadors.
Twentieth-century America took this a step further. The best and the brightest have assured us that United States interventions -- albeit rather violent at times -- are not only in the natural order of things, but they're actually for the good of the natives.
The media and the public do in fact relish catching politicians' lies, but these are the small lies -- lies about money, sex, drug use, and other peccadillos, and the ritual doubletalk of campaignspeak. A certain Mr. A. Hitler, originally of Austria, though often castigated, actually arrived at a number of very perceptive insights into how the world worked. One of them was this:
The great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil ... therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big.{25}
How many Americans, after all, doubt the official rationale for dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- to obviate the need for a land invasion of Japan, thus saving thousands of American lives? However, it's been known for years that the Japanese had been trying for many months to surrender and that the US had consistently ignored these overtures. The bombs were dropped, not to intimidate the Japanese, but to put the fear of the American god into the Russians. The dropping of the A-bomb, it has been said, was not the last shot of World War II, but the first shot of the Cold War.{26}
In 1964, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, when asked about US involvement in the overthrow of the government of Brazil, declared: "Well, there is just not one iota of truth in this. It's just not so in any way, shape, or form." Yet, the United States had been intimately involved in the coup, its role being literally indispensable.{27}
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration declared that the Russians were spraying toxic chemicals over Asia -- the so-called "yellow rain" -- and had caused thousands of deaths. So precise was Washington's information they could state at one point that in Afghanistan 3,042 had died in 47 separate incidents. President Reagan denounced the Soviet Union for these atrocities more than 15 times in documents and speeches. The "yellow rain", it turned out, was pollen-laden feces dropped by huge swarms of honeybees flying far overhead.{28}
These are three examples, chosen virtually at random. Numerous others could be given. But at the beginning of the 21st century do the American people really need to be reminded that governments lie, that great powers lie greater, that the world's only superpower has the most to lie about; i.e., cover up? Do I have to descend to the banality of telling this to my readers?
Apparently so, if we are to judge by all those who swallowed the "humanitarian" excuse for the bombing of Yugoslavia without gagging, including many on the left.
The idea of "altruism" has been a recurrent feature of America's love affair with itself. From 1918 to 1920, the United States was a major part of a Western invasion of the infant Soviet Union, an invasion that endeavored to "strangle at its birth", as Winston Churchill put it, the Russian Revolution, which had effectively removed one-sixth of the world's land surface from private capitalist investment. A nation still recovering from a horrendous world war, in extreme chaos from a fundamental social revolution, and in the throes of a famine that was to leave many millions dead, was mercilessly devastated yet further by the invaders, without any provocation.
When the smoke had cleared, the US Army Chief of Staff put out a report on the undertaking, which said: "This expedition affords one of the finest examples in history of honorable, unselfish dealings ... to be helpful to a people struggling to achieve a new liberty."{29}
Seventy years later, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, was moved to tell an audience in California that the United States has "so many friends" in the Pacific because of "our values, our economic system, and our altruism".{30} He made these remarks shortly after directing the slaughter by bombing of a multitude of Panamanian innocents.
Author Garry Wills has commented on this American benevolence toward foreigners: "We believe we can literally kill them with kindness, moving our guns forward in a seizure of demented charity. It is when America is in her most altruistic mood that other nations better get behind their bunkers."
What is it, then, that I mean to say here -- that the US government does not care a whit about human life, human rights, humanity, and all those other wonderful human things?
No, I mean to say that doing the right thing is not a principle of American foreign policy, not an ideal or a goal of policy in and of itself. If it happens that doing the right thing coincides with, or is irrelevant to, Washington's overriding international ambitions, American officials have no problem walking the high moral ground. But this is rarely the case. A study of the many US interventions -- summarized numerically above, and detailed in the "Interventions" chapter -- shows clearly that the engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, nor even simple decency, but rather by the necessity to serve other masters, which can be broken down to four imperatives:
1)making the world open and hospitable for -- in current terminology -- globalization, particularly American-based transnational corporations;
2)enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of Congress and residents of the White House;
3)preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
4)extending political, economic and military hegemony over as much of the globe as possible, to prevent the rise of any regional power that might challenge American supremacy, and to create a world order in America's image, as befits the world's only superpower.
To American policymakers, these ends have justified the means, and all means have been available.{31}
In the wake of the 1973 military coup in Chile, which overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende, the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Jack Kubisch, was hard pressed to counter charges that the United States had been involved. "It was not in our interest to have the military take over in Chile," he insisted. "It would have been better had Allende served his entire term, taking the nation and the Chilean people into complete and total ruin. Only then would the full discrediting of socialism have taken place. The military takeover and bloodshed has confused the issue."{32}
Though based on a falsehood made up for the occasion -- that Allende's polices were leading Chile to ruin -- Kubisch's remark inadvertently expressed his government's strong fealty to the third imperative stated above.
During the Cold War, US foreign policy was carried out under the waving banner of fighting a moral crusade against what cold warriors persuaded the American people, most of the world, and usually themselves, was the existence of a malevolent International Communist Conspiracy. But it was always a fraud; there was never any such animal as the International Communist Conspiracy. There were, as there still are, people living in misery, rising up in protest against their condition, against an oppressive government, a government likely supported by the United States. To Washington, this was proof that the Soviet Union (or Cuba or Nicaragua, etc., functioning as Moscow's surrogate) was again acting as the proverbial "outside agitator".
In the final analysis, this must be wondered: What kind of omnipresent, omnipotent, monolithic, evil international conspiracy bent on world domination would allow its empire to completely fall apart, like the proverbial house of cards, without bringing any military force to bear upon its satellites to prevent their escaping? And without an invasion from abroad holding a knife to the empire's throat?
Enemies without number, threats without end Now, of course, Washington spinmeisters can't cry "The Russians are coming, and they're ten feet tall!" as a pretext for intervention, so they have to regularly come up with new enemies. America cherishes her enemies. Without enemies, she is a nation without purpose and direction. The various components of the National Security State need enemies to justify their swollen budgets, to aggrandize their work, to protect their jobs, to give themselves a mission in the aftermath of the Soviet Union; ultimately, to reinvent themselves. And they understand this only too well, even painfully. Presented here is Col. Dennis Long, speaking in 1992, two years after the end of the Cold War, when he was director of "total armor force readiness" at Fort Knox:
For 50 years, we equipped our football team, practiced five days a week and never played a game. We had a clear enemy with demonstrable qualities, and we had scouted them out. [Now] we will have to practice day in and day out without knowing anything about the other team. We won't have his playbook, we won't know where the stadium is, or how many guys he will have on the field. That is very distressing to the military establishment, especially when you are trying to justify the existence of your organization and your systems.{33}
The United States had postponed such a distressing situation for as long as it could. A series of Soviet requests during the Cold War to establish a direct dialogue with senior NATO officials were rejected as "inappropriate and potentially divisive". Longstanding and repeated Soviet offers to dissolve the Warsaw Pact if NATO would do the same were ignored. After one such offer was spurned, the Los Angeles Times commented that the offer "increases the difficulty faced by U.S. policy-makers in persuading Western public opinion to continue expensive and often unpopular military programs."{34}
In 1991, Colin Powell touched upon the irony of the profound world changes in cautioning his fellow military professionals: "We must not ... hope that it [the changes] will disappear and let us return to comforting thoughts about a resolute and evil enemy."{35}
But the thoughts are indeed comforting to the military professionals and their civilian counterparts. So one month the new resolute and evil enemy is North Korea, the next month the big threat is Libya, then China, or Iraq, or Iran, or Sudan, or Afghanistan, or Serbia, or that old reliable demon, Cuba -- countries each led by a Hitler-of-the-month, or at least a madman or mad dog; a degree of demonizing fit more for a theocratic society than a democratic one.
And in place of the International Communist Conspiracy, Washington now tells us, on one day or another, it's fighting a War Against Drugs, or military or industrial spying, or the proliferation of "weapons of mass destruction", or organized crime, or on behalf of human rights, or, most particularly, against terrorism. And they dearly want the American public to believe this. Here, for your terrorist-threat collection, are some of the headlines appearing in the Washington Post and New York Times in one 7-week period in early 1999:
Jan. 22: "Clinton Describes Terrorism Threat for 21st Century"
Jan. 23: "President Steps Up War on New Terrorism"
Jan. 23: "Thwarting Tomorrow's Terrors"
Jan. 29: "Anti-Terrorism Powers Grow"
Feb. 1: "Pentagon Plans Domestic Terrorism Team"
Feb. 1: "The Man Who Protects America From Terrorism"
Feb. 2: "U.S. Targeting Terrorism With More Funds"
Feb. 16: "Anti-Terrorism Military Drills Take Parts of Texas by Surprise"
Feb. 17: "Has the U.S. Blunted Bin Laden?"
Feb. 19: "Spending to Avert Embassy Attacks Assailed as Timid: Terrorist Threat Looms"
Feb. 19: "Bangladesh: Bin Laden's Next Target?"
Feb. 23: "Preparing for Invisible Killers"
Mar. 7: "Muslim Militants Threaten American Lives"
Mar. 8: "Reagan Building Vulnerable to Attack"
Mar. 14: "2 Groups Appeal U.S. Designation as Terror Organizations"
Mar. 16: "Clinton Plans Training for Firefighters on Terrorism"
And on January 20, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen -- a man who has written an ode to the F-15 fighter jet, literally{36} -- announced that $6.6 billion was to be spent on a national missile defense system, a revival of President Reagan's Star Wars system. In explaining this expenditure, Mr. Cohen cited only one threat -- from North Korea. North Korea! A country that can't feed its own people is going to wage a missile attack upon the United States? What possible reason -- other than an overpowering, irresistible yearning for mass national suicide -- could North Korea have for launching such an attack? Yet the average American, reading Cohen's announcement, must have found it very difficult to believe that one of their "leaders" could just step forward and publicly proclaim a crazy tale. They assume there must be something to what the man is saying.
That's how the man gets away with it.
Does the man believe it himself? No more likely than that President Clinton believes it. In 1993, while in South Korea, Clinton declared: "It is pointless for them [North Korea] to develop nuclear weapons. Because if they ever use them it would be the end of their country." This burst of honesty and common sense, which visits politicians occasionally, was prompted in this instance by a journalist's question about how likely it was that North Korea would comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.{37} Oddly enough, less than a year later, a survey showed that six times as many young South Koreans feared the United States as feared North Korea.{38}
Returning to 1999 and its new "threats" -- in August a new National Security Council global strategy paper for the next century declared that "the nation is facing its biggest espionage threat in history."{39}
A remarkable statement. What ever happened to the KGB? Any Americans now past 30 had it drilled into their heads from the cradle on that there was a perpetual Soviet dagger aimed at our collective heart in the hand of the spy next door. Thousands lost their jobs and careers because of their alleged association to this threat, hundreds were imprisoned or deported, two were executed. Surely Senator Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover are turning over in their graves.
Meanwhile the drumbeat warnings of a possible chemical or biological attack upon the United States grow louder with each passing week. Police, fire and health agencies go through regular exercises with all manner of sophisticated equipment. Active-duty Army and Marine Corps personnel are engaged in the same. The FBI has an extensive hazardous materials unit ready to rush to the scene of an attack. And now the National Guard has joined the frenzy, outfitted in full-body protective suits with air tanks. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has argued that the National Guard units are redundant and their mission poorly defined. The Washington Post reported that "In fact, some critics regard the [Guard] teams largely as an effort to find a new mission for the Guard and help it avoid deeper budget cuts in the post Cold War era."{40} As noted, the same can be said about other elements of the National Security State.
In October 1999, ABC's "Nightline" program ran a five-part series in which it simulated a biological weapons attack on a large American city, featuring a squad of terrorists releasing anthrax spores into the subway system, complete with panic, death, and rampant chaos. Ted Koppel made the explicit pronouncement that such an attack was bound to take place in the US at some future time. As one would expect, the programs were long on sensationalism and short on science. This was spelled out later by the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies.{41} Ironically, the fact that such a center exists is another sign of the ("threatening") times.
Shortly after this the FBI announced that the Washington area had become "the number one target in the world" for possible terrorist attacks. How did they know? Well, "downtown Washington receives three to six suspicious packages a day". Anything actually terroristic in any of these packages? Apparently not.{42}
All this in response to actual chemical, biological or radiological weapon attacks of -- at last count -- zero. But there have been many false anthrax reports, no doubt largely inspired by all the scare talk; talk which never gives the public a clue to how extremely difficult and unpredictable it actually would be to create and deliver a serious anthrax attack, particularly over a wide area; scare talk that also makes more credible and acceptable the US 1998 bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant on the (false) grounds that it was making chemical and biological weapons.
Air travel is another area where the "threat" mentality looms larger than life, and common sense. A flight from Atlanta to Turkey, August 4, 1999, that was about to take off was halted by the FBI; all 241 passengers were forced to leave the plane, some of them were questioned, one man was detained; all the luggage was unloaded and each piece painstakingly matched to a passenger; bomb-sniffing dogs and explosive experts were rushed in, and the flight was held up for more than four hours. The reason? The FBI had received word that one of the passengers might be "a potential threat to national security". And the reason for that? The man had paid for his ticket in cash.{43}
Three weeks later, at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, a man was seen running the wrong way into a passageway normally used by those exiting the terminal. He disappeared into the crowded concourse. Neither he nor anything suspicious was found. For all anyone knew, the man had simply forgotten something somewhere or had a very urgent need to get to what he thought was the closest bathroom. Whatever, as a result of this "threatening" situation, 6,000 passengers were evacuated, at least 120 flights were canceled, and air traffic was disrupted across the country for several hours.{44}
With all the scare talk, with all the "threats", what exactly has taken place in the real world? According to the State Department, in the period of 1993-1998 the number of actual terrorist attacks by region was as follows:
Western Europe 766, Latin America 569, Middle East 374, Asia 158, Eurasia 101, Africa 84, North America 14.{45}
It is now well known how during the Cold War the actual level of Soviet military and economic strength was magnified by the CIA and Defense Department, how data and events were falsified to exaggerate the Russian threat, how worst-case scenarios were put forth as if they were probable and imminent, even when they failed to meet the demands of plausibility.{46} One of the most enduring Soviet-threat stories -- the alleged justification for the birth of NATO -- was the coming Red invasion of Western Europe. If, by 1999, anyone still swore by this fairy tale, they could have read a report in The Guardian of London on newly declassified British government documents from 1968. Among the documents was one based on an analysis by the Foreign Office joint intelligence committee, which the newspaper summarized as follows:
The Soviet Union had no intention of launching a military attack on the West at the height of the cold war, British military and intelligence chiefs privately believed, in stark contrast to what Western politicians and military leaders were saying in public about the "Soviet threat".
"The Soviet Union will not deliberately start general war or even limited war in Europe," a briefing for the British chiefs of staff -- marked Top Secret, UK Eyes Only, and headed The Threat: Soviet Aims and Intentions -- declared in June 1968.
"Soviet foreign policy had been cautious and realistic", the department argued, and despite the Vietnam war, the Russians and their allies had "continued to make contacts in all fields with the West and to maintain a limited but increasing political dialogue with Nato powers".{47}
Subtlety is not the order of the day. In 1998, the Pentagon created a new bureaucracy: the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a budget already in the billions, personnel numbered in the thousands, and "made up primarily of agencies founded to reduce the threat posed by the Soviet Union".{48} It's called recycling.
The Soviet threat, the terrorist threat, the new enemies, the same old same old, feverishly fostered at home and abroad, the mentality that the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, et al. have had critical, life-saving, catastrophe-preventing missions thrust upon them, here, there, and everywhere, and we rein these saviors in on pain of national and world disaster ... working the old protection racket again.
"I think we are already at war," CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate in 1997. "We have been on a war footing for a number of years now."{49}
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken, 1920
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil ... to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.
General Douglas MacArthur, speaking of large Pentagon budgets, 1957{50}
The political spectrum and conspiracies
It's ironic, but the far right in the United States is more open to believing the worst about American foreign policy than are most liberals. This may be because those on the far right, being extremists themselves, do not instinctively shy away from believing that the government is capable of extreme behavior, at home or abroad. The radical left and right share a profound cynicism about their government's very intentions. But those in between the two poles do not naturally come by such views.
To many of the latter, the statements here about the United States not meaning well may sound like an example of that frequent object of ridicule, the "conspiracy theory". They hear me saying (snicker) that our leaders have gotten together, covertly, in some secluded safe-house, to maliciously plan their next assault on everything holy, while throwing out signals intended to confuse and to obscure their real intentions.
But if our leaders strive for unambiguous righteousness, is it not a conspiracy? Don't they meet to plan how they're going to do nice things? Or perhaps they don't have to do this so formally because since they all mean nice to begin with, it thus happens quite automatically, naturally, built into the system -- the government system, the corporate system, the military system, the intelligence system, the government-corporate-military- intelligence nexus.
But why, then, wouldn't it be the same with meaning bad?
It's not that Americans can't believe in any conspiracy theory. Witness the remarkably long shelf life of the International Communist Conspiracy. It's still a highly saleable commodity.
"Conspiracy" researcher and author Jonathan Vankin has observed:
Journalists like to think of themselves as a skeptical lot. This is a flawed self-image. The thickest pack of American journalists are all too credulous when dealing with government officials, technical experts, and other official sources. They save their vaunted "skepticism" for ideas that feel unfamiliar to them. Conspiracy theories are treated with the most rigorous skepticism.
Conspiracy theories should be approached skeptically. But there's no fairness. Skepticism should apply equally to official and unofficial information. To explain American conspiracy theories ... I've had to rectify this imbalance. I've opened myself to conspiracy theories, and applied total skepticism to official stories.{51}
Like the coverup in Waco. In August 1999 we finally received official confirmation that the FBI had fired incendiary devices into the Branch Davidian sect compound in 1993, where 76 people died in a fire the same day. This, after six years of categorical official denials, while "conspiracy theorists" and "conspiracy nuts", who insisted otherwise, were ridiculed, or -- the more usual case -- met by the media's most effective weapon: silence.
Can the truth about the "October Surprise", TWA800, Jonestown, and Mena, Arkansas under Governor Clinton be far behind? Yes, far behind. We'll likely never hear an official admission about those events until well into the new century.
The First Watergate Law of American Politics states: "No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine."
The Second Watergate Law of American Politics states: "Don't believe anything until it's been officially denied."
Both laws are still on the books.
Cold War continuum
Though the putative "communist threat" has disappeared, the taxpayers still fill tractor-trailers to the bursting with cash and send them off to what had once been known as the War Department, then humorously renamed the Defense Department. ... That department's research into yet more futuristic weapons of the chemical dust and better ways to kill people en masse proceeds unabated, with nary a glance back at the body fragments littering the triumphant fields. ... Belief in an afterlife has been rekindled by the Clinton administration's new missile defense system, after universal certainty that Star Wars was dead and buried. ... NATO has also risen from the should-be-dead, more almighty than ever. ... Many hundreds of US military installations, serving a vast panoply of specialized warfaring needs, still dot the global map, including Guantanamo base in Cuba, and for the first time in Albania, Macedonia, Hungary, Bosnia and Croatia. ... Even as you read this, American armed forces and special operations forces, such as the Green Berets, are being deployed in well over 100 countries in every part of the world. ... Washington is supplying many of these nations with sizeable amounts of highly lethal military equipment, and training their armed forces and police in the brutal arts, regardless of how brutal they already are. ... American nuclear bombs are still stored in seven European countries, if not elsewhere ... And American officials retain their unshakable belief that they have a god-given right to do whatever they want, for as long as they want, to whomever they want, wherever they want.
In other words, whatever the diplomats and policymakers at the time thought they were doing, the Cold War skeptics have been vindicated -- it was not about containing an evil, expansionist communism after all; it was about American imperialism, with "communist" merely the name given to those who stood in its way.
In sum total, all these post-Cold War non-changes engender a scenario out of the 1950s and 1960s. And the 1970s and 1980s. John Foster Dulles lives! Has Ronald Reagan been faking illness as he lurks behind the curtain of OZ? Why has all this continued into the 21st century?
American foreign-policy makers are exquisitely attuned to the rise of a government, or a movement that might take power, that will not lie down and happily become an American client state, that will not look upon the free market or the privatization of the world known as "globalization" as the summum bonum, that will not change its laws to favor foreign investment, that will not be unconcerned about the effects of foreign investment upon the welfare of its own people, that will not produce primarily for export, that will not allow asbestos, banned pesticides, and other products restricted in the developed world to be dumped onto their people, that will not easily tolerate the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization inflicting a scorched-earth policy upon the country's social services or standard of living, that will not allow an American or NATO military installation upon its soil ... To the highly-sensitive nostrils of Washington foreign-policy veterans, Yugoslavia smelled a bit too much like one of these governments.
Given the proper pretext, such bad examples have to be reduced to basket cases; or, where feasible, simply overthrown, like Albania and Bulgaria in the early 1990s; failing that, life has to be made impossible for these renegades, as with Cuba, still. As Michael Parenti has observed: "It has been noted that the cost of apprehending a bank robber may occasionally exceed the sum that is stolen. But if robbers were allowed to go their way, this would encourage others to follow suit and would put the entire banking system in jeopardy."{52}
And this was the foundation -- the sine qua non -- of American foreign policy for the entire twentieth century, both before and after the existence of the Soviet Union, from the Philippines, Panama and the Dominican Republic in the first decade of the century, to Peru, El Salvador, and Colombia in the last decade.
Can we in fact say that the Cold War has actually ended? If the Cold War is defined as a worldwide contention between the United States and the Soviet Union for the hearts and minds of the Third World (for whatever motives), then certainly it is over. But if the Cold War is seen not as an East-West struggle, but rather a "North-South" struggle, as an American effort -- as mentioned above -- to prevent the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model, and to prevent the rise of any regional power that might challenge American supremacy, then that particular map with the pins stuck in it still hangs on the wall in the Pentagon's War Room. (Said a Defense Department planning paper in 1992: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival ... we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."{53} [emphasis added])
The current manifestation of this continuum, by whatever name, can be viewed as yet another chapter in the never-ending saga of the war of the rich upon the poor. And with the Soviet presence and influence gone, American interventions are more trouble-free than ever. (Consider that US friendliness toward Iraq and Yugoslavia lasted exactly as long as the Soviet Union and its bloc existed.)
There's a word for such a continuum of policy. Empire. The American Empire. An appellation that does not roll easily off an American tongue. No American has any difficulty believing in the existence and driving passion for expansion, power, glory, and wealth of the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro- Hungarian Empire, or the British Empire. It's right there in their schoolbooks. But to the American mind, to American schoolbooks, and to the American media, the history of empires has come to a grinding halt.
The American Empire? An oxymoron.
A compelling lust for political, economic and military hegemony over the rest of the world, divorced from moral considerations? Suggesting that to Americans is akin to telling them of one's UFO abduction, except that they're more likely to believe the abduction story.
Earth is not enough
Previous empires could not even imagine it. The American Empire is making detailed plans for it. Control of outer space. Not only control, but planning for wars there. Let us mark the words of the gentlemen of the Pentagon:
US Space Command -- dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict. ... During the early portion of the 21st century, space power will also evolve into a separate and equal medium of warfare. ... The emerging synergy of space superiority with land, sea, and air superiority will lead to Full Spectrum Dominance. ... Development of ballistic missile defenses using space systems and planning for precision strikes from space offers a counter to the worldwide proliferation of WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. ... Space is a region with increasing commercial, civil, international, and military interests and investments. The threat to these vital systems is also increasing. ... Control of Space is the ability to assure access to space, freedom of operations within the space medium, and an ability to deny others the use of space, if required. ... Control of Space is a complex mission that casts USCINCSPACE [US Commander-in-Chief of space] in a classic warfighter role and mandates an established AOR [area of responsibility].{54} ... With regard to space dominance, we have it, we like it, and we're going to keep it.{55} ... We will engage terrestrial targets someday -- ships, airplanes, land targets -- from space. ... We're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space.{56}
In 1963, the UN General Assembly adopted by unanimous acclamation a resolution calling upon all States: "To refrain from placing in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, installing such weapons on celestial bodies, or stationing such weapons in outer space in any other manner."{57}
This expressed hope is still very much alive today. On January 26, 1999, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva: "One concept which is now widely shared is that of maintaining outer space as a weapons-free environment."
The Madman philosophy
In March 1998, an internal 1995 study, "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence", by the U.S. Strategic Command, the headquarters responsible for the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal, was brought to light. The study stated:
Because of the value that comes from the ambiguity of what the US may do to an adversary if the acts we seek to deter are carried out, it hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed. The fact that some elements may appear to be potentially out of control can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary's decision makers. This essential sense of fear is the working force of deterrence. That the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries.{58}
The author of these words would have the world believe that the United States has only been pretending to be "out of control" or "irrational and vindictive". However, it can be argued -- based on the objective facts of what Washington has inflicted upon the world, as described in this book -- that for more than half a century American foreign policy has, in actuality, been clinically mad.
On the other hand, the desire for world hegemony, per se, is not necessarily irrational, whatever else one may think of it. Michael Parenti has pointed out that US foreign policy "may seem stupid because the rationales offered in its support often sound unconvincing, leaving us with the impression that policymakers are confused or out of touch. But just because the public does not understand what they are doing does not mean that national security leaders are themselves befuddled. That they are fabricators does not mean they are fools."{59}
A Truth Commission
In recent years, the people of South Africa, Guatemala and El Salvador have held official Truth Commissions to look squarely in the eyes of the crimes committed by their governments. There will never be any such official body to investigate and document the wide body of Washington's crimes, although several unofficial citizens' commissions have done so over the years for specific interventions, such as in Vietnam, Panama, and Iraq; their findings were of course ignored by the establishment media (whose ideology is a belief that it doesn't have any ideology).
In the absence of an official Truth Commission in the United States, this book is offered up as testimony. Do not spend too much time looking for a review of it in the New York Times, Washington Post, or Los Angeles Times.
Washington, DC, January 2000
NOTES
1. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans' Health? Lessons Spanning Half a Century, December 8, 1994, p.5
2. Washington Post, October 2 and 23, 1996 and July 31, 1997 for the estimated numbers of affected soldiers.
3. Journal of the American Medical Association, September 1, 1999, p.822.
4. Washington Post, October 19, 1999, p.3
5. Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans' Health? op. cit., passim
6. John Kenneth Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War (New York, 1999), p.312. Knaus was the CIA officer who spoke to the Dalai Lama.
7. Le Nouvel Observateur (France), January 15-21, 1998, p.76. There are at least two editions of this magazine; with the perhaps sole exception of the Library of Congress, the version sent to the United States is shorter than the French version, and the Brzezinski interview was not included in the shorter version.
8. Washington Post, January 13, 1985, p.30
9. New York Times, March 25, 1977, p.10
10. "60 Minutes", May 12, 1996
11. For the full text of the relevant part of his memo, see The Economist (London), February 8, 1992, p.66 (US edition)
12. Washington Post, April 25, 1999, p.28
13. John Judis, "K Street Gore", The American Prospect, July-August 1999, p.18-21
14. Ibid.
15. Washington Post, June 18, 1999. After protesters repeatedly disrupted Gore's campaign appearances, the US removed South Africa from the sanction watch list. (Ibid., December 4, 1999, p.18)
16. Interview with Reagan at the White House, October 29, 1985, broadcast October 30 on "The World at One", Radio 4, Great Britain.
17. New York Times, June 13, 1999
18. Ibid., February 14, 1991, p.16
19. "An Oriana Fallaci Interview: Otis Pike and the CIA", New Republic (Washington, DC), April 3, 1976, p.10
20. Borrowed from former CIA analyst David MacMichael
21. Speaking at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, June 25, 1999.
22. Phrase borrowed from media critic Norman Solomon
23. NPR Morning edition, Mara Liasson, June 11, 1999
24. Washington Post, March 27, 1999
25. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1971; original version 1925) Vol. 1, chapter 10, p.231
26. William Blum, "Hiroshima: Needless Slaughter, Useful Terror", Covert Action Quarterly (Washington, D.C.), #53, Summer 1995, p.22-25
27. William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Common Courage Press, Maine, 1995), chapter 27
28. New York Times, March 9, 1982, p.1; March 23, 1982, p.1 and 14; The Guardian (London) November 3, 1983, March 29, 1984; Washington Post, May 30, 1986.
29. Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1991, p.1
30. Vital Speeches of the Day, May 1, 1990, p.421, speech delivered March 23, 1990.
31. For excellent and concise summaries of how and why the United States planned and achieved world domination, see Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants (Odonian Press, Berkeley, 1992) and Michael Parenti, Against Empire (City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1995)
32. Thomas Hauser, The Execution of Charles Horman (New York, 1978), p.191. (Horman was an American killed by the Chilean junta in the wake of the coup.)
33. New York Times, February 3, 1992, p.8
34. New York Times, January 7, 1983, p.4; The Guardian (London), December 6, 1986 (first quote); Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1989, p.7 (second quote), and October 26.
35. AIR FORCE Magazine (Arlington, VA), March 1991, p.81
36. New York Times, March 21, 1999, p.34
37. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (GPO), 1993, Vol. I, p.1060-1, July 11
38. The Economist (London), June 4-10, 1994, p.40
39. Washington Times, August 24, 1999, p.1; the words are those of the newspaper and may be a paraphrase of the original.
40. Washington Post, August 28, 1999, p.3
41. Donald Henderson, "Dangerous Fictions about Bioterrorism", Washington Post, November 8, 1999, p.21; see also Roni Kruzman, "Koppel's 'Biowar of the Worlds'", Extra! (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, NY), January/February 2000, p.21
42. Washington Post, October 29, 1999, p.14
43. Atlanta Journal, August 4, 1999, p.1
44. Washington Post, August 27, 1999
45. State Department, "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1998", released April 1999, can be read on their website
46. See, e.g., Tim Weiner, "Military Accused of Lies Over Arms", New York Times, June 28, 1993, p.10; Tim Weiner, Blank Check (New York, 1990), p.42-43, for CIA's inflated figures re Soviets; Anne H. Cahn, "How We Got Oversold on Overkill", Los Angeles Times, July 23, 1993, about a GAO study; Douglas Jehl & Michael Ross, "CIA Nominee Faces Charges He Slanted Data", Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1991, p.1; Arthur Macy Cox, "Why the U.S., Since 1977, Has Been Misperceiving Soviet Military Strength", New York Times, October 20, 1980, p. 19 (Cox was formerly an official with the State Department and the CIA)
47. The Guardian (London), January 1, 1999
48. Washington Post, October 2, 1998
49. Ibid., September 9, 1998, p.17
50. Mencken: In Defense of Women (1920); MacArthur: William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964 (Dell, New York, 1978), p.827
51. Jonathan Vankin, Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes: Political Manipulation and Mind Control in America (New York, 1991), p.120
52. Parenti, op. cit., p.49
53. "Pentagon's Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999", New York Times, March 8, 1992, p.14
54. United States Space Command: Vision for 2020, excerpts are in same sequence as found in the publication; put out by U.S. Space Command, Director of Plans, Peterson AFB, Colorado, August 1997
55. Keith R. Hall, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, speaking to the National Space Club, September 15, 1997.
56. General Joseph Ashy, at the time Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Space Command, cited in Aviation Week and Space Technology (New York), August 5, 1996, p.51
57. October 17, 1963, UN Resolution number 1884
58. From the study's Introduction, p.8. The Boston Globe, March 2, 1998, p.5 contains almost the entire passage.
59. Parenti, op. cit., p.80
This is taken from the book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, by William Blum http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
To write to the author: bblum6@aol.com
----
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
by William Blum
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm
Invasions ... bombings ... overthrowing governments ... suppressing movements for social change ... assassinating political leaders ... perverting elections ... manipulating labor unions ... manufacturing "news" ... death squads ... torture ... biological warfare ... depleted uranium ... drug trafficking ... mercenaries ... working with Nazis and their collaborators ...
"Far and away the best book on the topic." Noam Chomsky
"I enjoyed it immensely." Gore Vidal
"I bought several more copies to circulate to friends with the hope of shedding new light and understanding on their political outlooks." Oliver Stone
"A very valuable book. The research and organization are extremely impressive." A. J. Langguth, author, former NY Times Bureau Chief
"A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope, important." Thomas Powers, author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
"Each chapter I read made me more and more angry." Dr. Helen Caldicott, international leader of the environmental movement
...
William Blum's Speaking Engagements
Wilmington, Delaware March 30, 2004 More details will appear here soon
Plymouth, NH Plymouth State College April 15, 2004
----
Bush, in Budget, Seeks Increases Tied to Security
February 3, 2004
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/politics/03BUDG.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 - President Bush submitted a $2.4 trillion budget on Monday that would substantially increase spending next year for national security and give the administration a claim to reducing the deficit but would also cut or strictly limit money for most domestic programs.
The release of Mr. Bush's budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 amounted to a statement of his election-year priorities, and it underscored the degree to which the administration's policy and political focus are on fighting terrorism and building up the military.
The budget immediately drew fire from Democrats, who said that its deficit reduction claims were illusory and that it would shortchange a broad range of national priorities to pay for the tax cuts Mr. Bush has pushed through Congress over the past three years.
The plan called for an increase in military spending of 7 percent, or $26.5 billion, to $401.7 billion. But that figure did not include money, which the administration said could be as much as $50 billion, for continued military operations next year in Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration said it would specify and seek financing for the expense only after the presidential election. [Page A15.]
For domestic security programs, the White House said it wanted a budget increase of 9.7 percent, or $2.7 billion, to $30.5 billion.
By contrast, the budget proposed that the overall growth in spending on other government operations outside of Social Security and Medicare - a category that encompasses everything from the national parks to the National Institutes of Health - be held to one-half of 1 percent, or $2 billion, to $386 billion. Seven of the 16 cabinet-level departments would see their budgets reduced.
Mr. Bush's stringent spending plan would make exceptions for some politically important issues like education, but it would generally require his own party, as the majority in Congress, to cut, freeze or kill many programs in the months leading up to Election Day. It asked Congress to hold spending on new and improved highways to $256 billion over the next six years, $119 billion less than authorized by legislation proposed by Republicans in the House. It called for the elimination of 65 government programs, including grants to companies pursuing new technologies and an initiative to tear down dilapidated public housing, and outright cuts in 63 more.
The budget showed Mr. Bush making good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half within five years from its projected level this year of $521 billion to $364 billion next year and $237 billion in 2009.
But the White House did not provide figures on what would happen to the deficit in the years beyond the next half-decade, when the president's call to make permanent the 10-year tax cuts he pushed through Congress in 2001 and 2003 would show up in the budget. And to show he could meet the deficit reduction target in the next five years, the president left out of his calculations any money for some needs both parties say will have to be met.
Democrats pointed in particular to Mr. Bush's decision to delay requesting additional money to pay for the occupation of Iraq and continued military operations in Afghanistan, saying that was one example of fiscal gimmickry in the budget.
The current well of money being used for military needs in Iraq and Afghanistan - $62 billion out of the $87 billion supplemental spending bill passed by Congress last fall - is likely to run dry at some point in the 2005 fiscal year.
Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, said the United States was currently spending at a rate of less than $50 billion a year on its military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He suggested that $50 billion was the upper limit of what the administration would ultimately seek from Congress and said the White House would not make the request until next year, when it would have a clearer idea of the military's needs.
For an election-year budget, Mr. Bush's plan was a bit of an oddity. It included almost no new programs beyond his call for manned exploration of Mars. Other than calling for making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent, it offered his conservative base no substantial new tax reductions beyond a previously proposed set of tax breaks for a new form of savings and investment accounts. And while his call for additional restraint in some spending categories was welcomed by fiscal conservatives, it was largely offset by new administration figures showing that the Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost far more than Congress had projected.
Speaking to reporters at the White House after meeting with his cabinet Monday morning, Mr. Bush said the budget reflected the progress the country was making in dealing with terrorism, war and recession.
The budget "sets clear priorities: winning the war on terror, protecting our homeland, making sure our children get educated, making sure the seniors get a modern Medicare system," Mr. Bush said. "And at the same time we're calling upon Congress to be wise with the taxpayers' money."
Congressional Democrats sharply criticized the plan as a continuation of fiscally irresponsible policies that have led to a swing from huge projected surpluses to big and persistent deficits during Mr. Bush's presidency. They said blame for the deficits rested far more with the tax cuts than on the spending programs he now wants to rein in or cut. And, they said, the Bush tax cuts have failed to live up to their billing of creating millions of new jobs.
The Democratic presidential candidates also attacked the budget, emphasizing a theme that Mr. Bush had rewarded the affluent while shortchanging the programs most needed by the middle class.
"The new Bush budget is more of the same: record deficits, tax cuts for the wealthy and special interests, and cuts in areas that matter to families - such as health care and education," Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said in a statement. "This is the same failed Republican prescription that has caused Bush to lose 2.5 million jobs in the last three years."
Republicans on Capitol Hill said they supported the president's goals, but many of them made it clear that the proposals would be changed, probably substantially, as Congress goes through the process of developing a budget resolution and passing the annual spending bills.
Representative Jim Nussle, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the House Budget Committee, called the president's budget "a great starting point from which to begin our work."
The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative C. W. Bill Young, Republican of Florida, suggested that it would be possible to meet Mr. Bush's overall spending targets, but not without allocating the money differently from the way the White House would want it allocated, and not without trimming back some of the administration's few spending increases.
"We will be carefully scrutinizing the administration's new initiatives and proposed funding increases to see if we can afford them in a lean budget year," Mr. Young said in a statement. "They will have to be reconciled with proven programs and traditional Congressional priorities."
Mr. Bolten was asked about the political pressures on the budget this year and the lack of provision in the proposal for other bipartisan goals like dealing with the aspect in the tax code that will subject many more middle-income people to a tax increase because of the alternative minimum tax. "The numbers are highly realistic," he replied.
When Mr. Bush took office, the Congressional Budget Office was forecasting $5.6 trillion in budget surpluses over the next decade.
The $521 billion deficit Mr. Bush is forecasting for the current fiscal year would be a record in dollar terms, though not in comparison to the size of the economy. Mr. Bush regularly blames the terrorist attacks, war and recession for the swing in the nation's fiscal fortunes. Democrats have made a case that the tax cuts are the main culprit.
Mr. Bush's budget projects deficits only up through 2009, with most of the improvement coming between this year and 2006, when the deficit would drop to $268 billion. But if Mr. Bush's tax cuts were made permanent, the budget would come under new stresses early in the next decade.
The Democratic staff of the House Budget Committee said making the Bush tax cuts permanent would reduce federal revenues by more than $200 billion in 2011 and by more than $300 billion in 2012, with the price tag rising each year thereafter.
--------
Bush Sends Congress $2.4 Trillion Budget
Blueprint Cuts Many Non-Defense Outlays
By Amy Goldstein and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6916-2004Feb2?language=printer
President Bush sent Congress a $2.4 trillion spending plan yesterday that would reduce next year's funding for nearly half the federal government's agencies while funneling large sums toward the anti-terrorism and military programs that have dominated the administration's agenda since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The fiscal 2005 budget, resting on record budget deficits, calls for a $31 billion spending increase in discretionary areas that Congress controls. Of that, $29 billion would go to domestic security and defense. The plan would restrict discretionary spending in the rest of the government to less than half the inflation rate and would eliminate or curtail 128 federal programs.
The budget plan, which reinforces many themes of the president's reelection campaign, targets its deepest cuts at environmental and agricultural programs, with sizeable but smaller reductions at the Treasury department and other agencies. Beyond the specific funding levels it recommends for the year that starts Oct. 1, the blueprint seeks to put a conservative stamp on spending policies far into the future. It would place legal caps on federal expenditures and make permanent many of the tax cuts the White House has pushed through Congress during the past three years.
The reductions reach even into realms of government the White House has cited as domestic priorities, such as education and health care. For example, Bush highlighted a $250 million expansion of Labor Department job-training funds in his State of the Union address last month, but his budget would trim existing vocational education programs within the Education Department by $300 million. The budget would give Health and Human Services an extra $135 million for "biosurveillance" but would cut $400 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The White House yesterday portrayed its budget as a stringent plan that would tailor spending to the nation's greatest needs while reducing the budget deficit -- $521 billion this year -- by 50 percent within five years. "Our budget reflects the continuing importance of providing for the defense and security of the American people," Bush said in his budget message to Congress. "Our nation remains at war."
Congressional Democrats and the Democratic presidential candidates derided the budget plan, saying it glosses over costs that will push deficits higher than Bush predicts. Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, called it "the most fiscally irresponsible budget in our nation's history."
The plan also drew a lukewarm reaction from some GOP lawmakers. They said Bush had not cut spending deeply enough to control deficits and had understated the red ink by omitting from his plan as much as $50 billion annually that the administration acknowledged yesterday will be needed for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
White House officials said they expect to request those funds after this calendar year. White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten said the necessary amount cannot be determined now because of "the uncertainty of the security situation," but he said officials think $50 billion is the "upper limit" of what might be needed. Democrats complained that the omission was yet another way the administration was trying to low-ball both the deficit and the cost of postwar Iraq.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) said Congress must go "further and faster" to reduce deficits. Several House conservatives said they could not rule out opposing a budget based on Bush's proposal. "I hope we can do better," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.).
The budget blueprint emphasizes the three priorities that have guided Bush's spending plans since the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon: defense, security within the United States, and fostering a stronger economy.
In places, the four volumes read like political documents. The opening pages borrow language from Bush fundraising speeches and outline "a record of accomplishment." The glossy pages are scattered with images of the president, many of them in photographs with black or elderly Americans.
One chart uses red ink to show spiking "Costs of the U.S. Tort System" in arguing for Bush's plan to limit awards in medical malpractice lawsuits. And the budget draws greater attention to several old proposals popular with social conservatives, including grants to promote marriages, which the White House has advocated for two years.
The 400-page main budget document barely mentions the spending reductions the White House is proposing. Budget briefings conducted for journalists yesterday by many federal agencies also de-emphasized such cuts. In some instances, agency officials cited statistics other than those included in the budget documents, arguing that their 2005 funding would increase, rather than decline as the documents indicate.
Bolten said the spending plan would eliminate 65 "major programs" and curtail 63 others. The budget office did not respond to requests for a list of those programs.
But a budget document distributed on Capitol Hill showed that the majority -- 38 of the 65 -- were in the Education Department. Proposed cuts involve funding for dropout prevention programs, literacy programs for prisoners and an arts-in-education program. The department's overall budget, however, would grow by 3 percent. The document shows that the budget would eliminate a Labor Department training program for migrant and seasonal farm workers, a Small Business Administration micro-loan program, and a Justice Department program to help state and local governments pay for "community policing" programs.
The release of the president's budget is an annual ritual that begins a process of spending negotiations with Congress, which has the final say. The new blueprint arrived 12 days after lawmakers ended months of struggle by approving a budget for fiscal 2004, which began four months ago. Although Republicans control both chambers of Congress, legislative leaders yesterday predicted that Bush's recommendations would undergo major changes before becoming law.
As it has the past two years, the administration uses five-year projections of expenditures, rather than the 10-year window that was the custom in the 1990s. Administration officials said the longer predictions were unreliable, but critics said the shorter time frame masked the magnitude of looming budget pressures, such as those from Medicare and Social Security once the baby boomers begin to retire in 2011.
In an exception to that time frame, the budget forecasts that a new Medicare prescription drug benefit measure will cost $534 billion in the next decade. That sum is one-third greater than the $400 billion price tag Congress relied on when it enacted the legislation in November.
The largest increase in discretionary spending is proposed for the Defense Department, where spending would rise from $375 billion this year to $402 billion, a 7.1 percent increase. Funding of programs to promote homeland security would rise 9.7 percent, from $28 billion to $30 billion.
The rest of discretionary spending across all areas of government would increase by 0.5 percent, well below the 1.3 percent inflation rate the administration assumes for next year.
In percentage terms, the largest reduction would take place at the Department of Agriculture, where discretionary spending would fall by 8 percent. USDA officials say much of the reduction involves a transfer of funds for firefighting expenses and limits on some conservation, environmental and wildlife habitat programs.
The Environmental Protection Agency would see a 7.2 percent spending cut. The largest reduction would occur in the agency's science and research budget, with other cuts recommended in water quality programs that Congress has favored.
Such reductions, however, were not mentioned yesterday by EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt and other agency officials, who sought to put a positive light on its fiscal outlook. Leavitt said the agency would actually receive an increase by comparing the new figures to Bush's recommendation last year, not to the budget Congress just approved. And he emphasized that there were recommended increases in funds to reduce emissions from diesel-engine school buses and to clean up polluted sediments in the Great Lakes, a program that would help eight states, most of which are considered battlegrounds in the November election.
The administration's emphasis on the military extended to the budget's pay proposals for federal employees, which would give 3.5 percent raises to military personnel and a 1.5 percent increase to civilian employees. The two tiers deviate from the tradition of pay parity usually observed by Congress and mark the second consecutive year Bush has recommended higher raises for the military.
Justice Department spending also reflects Bush's focus on fighting terrorism. The budget would increase FBI funding by 11 percent, to more than $5.1 billion, in order to devote 2,600 agents to counterterrorism efforts. The department's overall discretionary spending would drop by 3 percent, largely because of cuts to programs designed to assist local law enforcement agencies.
In keeping with a technique the administration has favored in its past budgets -- charging more outside fees for government services -- the FBI would seek to raise $35 million by charging local police departments for use of its forensics laboratory, while the Drug Enforcement Administration would charge the D.C. police department $3 million to help analyze evidence.
Staff writer Helen Dewar contributed to this report.
--------
Plan Omits Costs in Iraq and Afghanistan
February 3, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT and ROBERT PEAR
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/politics/03MILI.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 - Bush administration officials said on Monday that the cost of United States military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had been omitted from President Bush's budget request for 2005. But they said the White House would make a separate supplemental request, after this year's elections, seeking up to $50 billion.
The officials said the omission was justified because they had no way to know exactly how much money would be needed. But Democrats criticized the omission, saying it led to a significant understatement of the likely deficit and masked the financial and political costs of the missions.
"This budget attempts to hide the true cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan by delaying funding on all known and necessary costs of the war until a supplemental appropriation can be approved next year," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who is on the Armed Services Committee.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the administration should "level with the American people about the true costs" of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The president's proposal is in keeping with recent practice. In November, Congress approved $87.5 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, including $65.8 billion for military operations there in the 2004 fiscal year. That followed a supplemental spending package of $78.5 billion, which was approved last April and included $62.4 billion for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and related military needs in the 2003 fiscal year.
The president's 2005 budget includes no such amounts. "It's not appropriate to put a number in there because we don't know what it's going to be," said Joshua B. Bolten, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. "It's going to be requested in supplemental funding."
Mr. Bolten said that $50 billion was "the upper limit for what might be needed" for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2005 fiscal year, which begins in eight months.
The budget director said Mr. Bush would request the additional money for Iraq next year, "when there's a clearer picture of what the security needs will be." The administration does not expect Congress to offset the additional spending.
"When you're fighting a war, it's hard to come up with cuts that can match that," Mr. Bolten said.
For more than a decade, Republican and Democratic administrations have financed wars and peacekeeping operations largely by asking Congress to reimburse the Pentagon for costs incurred after the fact.
This practice of requesting a supplemental appropriation came after Congress generally refused to create a separate military contingency fund, fearing that establishing such a discretionary pot of money would erode Congress's power of the purse.
In the late 1990's, however, Congress established the Defense Emergency Response Fund, which allowed the Pentagon to budget every year for missions that had become predictable, such as peacekeeping in the Balkans and flying patrols over northern and southern Iraq.
Administration officials argue that the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are too unpredictable to consider financing in the regular budget. Pentagon officials are planning to field about 110,000 troops in Iraq and about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan this year. But in Iraq especially, they are hoping to reduce that number as more Iraqis take over security functions around the country.
Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said the administration should have included some money for military operations in Iraq because it was certain the cost would be more than zero. "We can do a rough calculation of the likely costs," Mr. Spratt said in an interview. "Administration officials should do that themselves and send us an approximation of the cost."
Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said the omission was one of many examples of "funny money accounting" in the president's budget request. "He's not telling the American people the real state of our fiscal condition," Mr. Conrad said.
Senator Robert C. Byrd, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the repeated use of supplemental spending bills was a deceitful tactic that hid the true costs of American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The administration views Congress like an automatic teller machine," Mr. Byrd said. "Just put the request in the A.T.M., and the money slides out in seconds, no questions asked."
Over all, the president's budget shows the deficit rising to $521 billion in 2004, from $375 billion last year, and he predicts it will decline to $364 billion next year.
But Mr. Bolten said the number for 2005 "does not include spending for our ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." Accordingly, he said, "we will need supplemental funding to continue that."
The military budget the Bush administration proposed on Monday seeks a major increase in missile defenses, holds steady on money to buy new weapons systems, and increases spending on personnel.
The $401.7 billion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, represents a 7 percent increase over current spending, but proposes no big changes in major weapons systems or sharp departures from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's goal to revamp the military into a more agile, yet still lethal, fighting force.
"I don't expect it to be a very controversial budget this year," said Steven M. Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, a research group. "It doesn't require making any hard choices, which may be required by the end of the decade."
One contentious area could be the administration's request for missile defenses. The request for the Missile Defense Agency is $9.2 billion, about 20 percent higher than this year's $7.6 billion.
The Pentagon's goal is to have the first 10 long-range interceptors operating by the end of this year six at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A larger system of 20 ground-based missile interceptors and 10 sea-based interceptors would be in place by the end of 2005.
The proposed budget would finance immediate needs, like more armored Humvees, remotely piloted reconnaissance aircraft and advanced ships, as well as longer-range equipment, like a laser-based communications network and a new Army combat system.
The administration is also seeking up to $500 million to train and equip military and security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and neighboring friendly nations. This would expand on existing programs, that Pentagon officials said had been particularly useful in Afghanistan.
"We were able to take raw recruits, who couldn't even crawl on the ground and keep their helmets on at the same time, into a sophisticated force that operates alongside us and that creates a very positive image for the central government of Afghanistan," Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller said at a news conference on Monday.
--------
Powell Says New Data May Have Affected War Decision
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6995-2004Feb2?language=printer
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that he does not know whether he would have recommended an invasion of Iraq if he had been told it had no stockpiles of banned weapons, even as he offered a broad defense of the Bush administration's decision to go to war.
Even without possessing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein intended to acquire them and tried to maintain the capability of producing them in case international sanctions were lifted, Powell said in an interview. But he conceded that the administration's conviction that Hussein already had such weapons had made the case for war more urgent.
Asked if he would have recommended an invasion knowing Iraq had no prohibited weapons, Powell replied: "I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world." He said the "absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus; it changes the answer you get."
Powell spoke on the Iraq weapons issue for more than half of the hour-long interview. Throughout the discussion, Powell tried to balance the administration's rationale for going to war with the reality that no weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered in Iraq. Former chief U.S. weapons inspectors David Kay told Congress last week that Hussein did not have such weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion.
Nonetheless, Powell said, history will ultimately judge that the war "was the right thing to do."
Powell is widely perceived to have placed his credibility on the line last Feb. 5 when he appeared before the United Nations Security Council and offered a forceful and detailed description of the U.S. case that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. In that appearance, Powell told the council: "What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
In the interview yesterday, Powell said he had "spent much of the weekend" reading Kay's testimony last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Powell came to the interview, held at The Washington Post, with an annotated and highlighted transcript, and suggested that Kay's testimony was more supportive of the administration than many news accounts have portrayed.
Kay "did say, with respect to stockpiles, we were wrong, terribly wrong," Powell said, flipping through the pages of Kay's transcript and quoting from selected sections. "But he also came to other conclusions that deal, I think, with intent and capability which resulted in a threat the president felt he had to respond to."
Powell said, "Saddam Hussein and his regime clearly had the intent -- they never lost it -- an intent that manifested itself many years ago when they actually used such horrible weapons against their enemies in Iran and against their own people."
That intent, Powell said, was also demonstrated by Hussein keeping in place the capability to produce weapons. He said Hussein continued to train and employ people who knew how to develop weapons, "and there's no question about that and there's nobody debating that part of the intelligence."
Moreover, Powell said, Iraq continued to have the "technical infrastructure, labs and facilities, that will lend themselves to the production of weapons of mass destruction." Such facilities "could produce such weapons at a moment in time, now or some future moment in time," Powell said. "I think there's evidence that suggests that he was keeping a warm base, that there was an intent on his part to have that capability."
Powell asserted that Hussein was intent on creating delivery systems, such as longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.
"If you look at my presentation from last year, I talk about intent," Powell said. "I talk about the capability I think is there, the stockpiles, but a large part of the presentation is also what happened" and the unanswered questions about Iraq's weapons holdings. "He got a chance to answer the questions and he didn't answer the questions."
Powell noted that when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, U.S. troops expected to be hit with chemical weapons. "We weren't hit with chemical weapons but we found chemical weapons," he said. "So it wasn't as if this was a figment of someone's imagination."
Thus, with U.N. inspectors absent from Iraq for four years, "I think the assumption to make and the assumption we came to, based on what the intelligence community gave to us, was that there were stockpiles present."
Although Kay found the years of sanctions had constrained Hussein, eventually international resolve would have weakened, Powell said.
"I think that the international community wouldn't have kept them constrained," he said. "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if Iraq had gotten free of the constraints and if we had gone through another year of desultory action on the part of the United Nations and when they were freed without threat . . . they would have gone to the next level and reproduced these weapons."
Powell said his Feb. 5 presentation, which contained detailed assertions about Iraq's possible weapons stockpiles, "reflected the best judgments of all of the intelligence agencies. . . . There wasn't a word that was in the presentation that was put in that was not totally cleared by the intelligence community."
Powell noted that not only the CIA but other intelligence agencies and the United Kingdom "suggested that the stockpiles were there."
Asked whether the American public should be reassured that so many intelligence agencies were so wrong, Powell replied: "I think it should be reassuring to the voters of the United States that we found a regime that's clearly demonstrated intent and clearly had the capability, and that the president had the information from the intelligence community."
Powell added that the American people will understand "with that body of evidence, that was the information and intelligence that was available to the president at that time, the president made a prudent decision."
Powell added he had faith in the intelligence analysts, who he said gave "their best advice."
"I have confidence in the intelligence community," Powell said. "I've seen them do many things that were absolutely brilliant in their concept and their execution, many things we'll never be able to discuss and will never get a headline." With a twinkle in his eye, he added: "Very recently, as a matter of fact. Go research that if you wish."
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Sudan accused of 'vicious, invisible war' against its citizens
By Declan Walsh in Nairobi
03 February 2004
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=487287
The Sudan government is using brutal counter-insurgency tactics against civilians to quell the escalating rebellion in western Darfur province, according to Amnesty International.
Indiscriminate bombing raids on remote villages, and widespread murder, rape and torture, are part of a "vicious, invisible war" detailed by the human rights group in a report published yesterday.
Over 600,000 people have fled their homes and at least 100,000 have scurried across the border into neighbouring Chad. Even there, however, sanctuary is not guaranteed - last week Sudanese bombers attacked a border village killing three people including a two-year-old child.
"There are too many people killed for no reason," one refugee told researchers.
The rapid escalation in fighting comes as the Sudan government talks its way out of conflict elsewhere in the vast country. Negotiations between President Omar al Bashir's regime and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) rebels are inching towards resolution, promising an end to 21 years of conflict.
But the same terror tactics that characterised the southern war are now being repeated in Darfur, hundreds of miles to the north.
According to Amnesty, government planes lob bombs over remote villages suspected of harbouring sympathisers with the two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
Those who survive are targeted during follow-up raids by a government-sponsored Arab milita known as the "Janjawid", or "armed men on horses".
The feared fighters sweep through villages, murdering, torturing and raping villagers, torching their houses and stealing cattle and crops. Kaltuma Abdallah Issa, a 15-year-old girl, was shot in the leg during one such raid.
"My father was shot dead in our home, my maternal uncle too. Those Arabs were riding horses and camels and were accompanied by government forces in vehicles," she told researchers.
The SLA started the war in February 2003, citing Khartoum's perceived failure to protect villages from attack by armed nomads, and years of chronic underdevelopment and marginalisation.
Since then, however, a strong ethnic polarisation has underscored the fighting. As in southern Sudan, the rebels are mostly of African origin while their enemies are Arab. Unlike the south, however, both groups are Muslims.
"It's shifting from a protest against the government about marginalisation to a war along ethnic lines. And that is something that can be exported throughout the country," said David Mozersky of the International Crisis Group think-tank.
The government imposed a state of emergency on Darfur in 2001, setting up special courts with draconian powers. Since then security forces have used sweeping powers of arrest, detaining government critics without charge for months on end. Media access has been restricted. The collapse of peace talks in December sparked a further escalation in fighting. Last month another 18,000 people fled into Chad, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
A major humanitarian disaster is quietly growing due to lack of access. An advance team from the Irish charity Goal recently found up to 20 families per house in Kutgum town, and thousands more sheltering on a dried-up riverbed. Medecins Sans Frontieres operates at desert camps just inside Chad. "The crisis on both sides of the border is now escalating," said field co-ordinator Sonia Peyrasso.
So far the Darfur conflict has had little impact on the talks in neighbouring Kenya. Analysts expect the government and SPLA to sign an historic power-sharing agreement within months.
But without talks, Sudan risks being dragged into a fresh spiral of conflict just as it pulls out of the old one. "The longer it goes on the greater a threat it poses," said Mr Mozersky of ICG. "It's a really dangerous development."
-------- britain
Blair Sets Up Inquiry on Prewar Iraq Intelligence
February 3, 2004
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/international/europe/03CND-BRIT.html
LONDON, Feb. 3 - Prime Minister Tony Blair announced today that he had set up an inquiry into the prewar intelligence on Iraq's illicit weapons, but he added that the committee will not have a broad mandate to examine the political decisions to go to war.
The inquiry, to be headed by Lord Butler, who served as private secretary to former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, will work largely behind closed doors and report its findings to Mr. Blair before Parliament adjourns this summer.
As such, it will be of much shorter duration than the inquiry that President Bush said Monday that he will establish to examine intelligence on Iraq and report in 2005.
"I think it is right," Mr. Blair said in a morning meeting with a parliamentary committee, "that we have a look at the intelligence that we received and whether it is accurate or not."
But the prime minister said he was opposed to any inquiry that reviewed the political judgments to go to war and how intelligence findings were used in support of those judgments.
Mr. Blair made the announcement during a question-and-answer session with parliamentary committee chairmen.
In shirt sleeves, the prime minister was affable and in good humor, admitting recent mistakes in how he had handled major legislation and asserting that the period for questioning his integrity over the preparations for war had come to an end with Lord Hutton's verdict last week. Lord Hutton found that the government had not exaggerated or deliberately distorted the intelligence on Iraq to persuade a reluctant public to go to war.
Mr. Blair said that Lord Hutton's was the third full inquiry into circumstances related to the war and that the only thing left to examine was the intelligence process itself.
"I honestly think that the political judgment has got to be in the end the government and Parliament and you can't subcontract that to a committee and I don't believe frankly that the committee would want to look into that," Mr. Blair said.
"What we should have is a proper inquiry into the intelligence," he added, but "we do not in my view need an inquiry into the political decision to go to war."
Hours later, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, appeared before the full house and spelled out the mandate of the new inquiry.
The announcement touched off a lengthy debate in Parliament over whether the inquiry will settle the most contentious questions of how political leaders used intelligence findings. In the view of some experts the findings should have been subjected to more rigorous questioning before they were used to support the assertion that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the region and to "the stability of the world," as Mr. Blair warned in September 2002.
Robin Cook, a former foreign secretary under Mr. Blair, asked from the floor of the House of Commons, "Does he really believe he can separate the intelligence judgment on the threat from the political judgment to go to war?" But other members, like Ann Clwyd, pointed out that even the Kurdish leaders of northern Iraq believed that Mr. Hussein had chemical and biological weapons that he was ready to use on them in March 2003. She called it a "disgrace" that the international community had not acted sooner to end the "genocide" that she said Mr. Hussein was practicing against ethnic Kurds and Shiite Muslims.
Michael Howard, the Tory opposition leader, said his party supported the inquiry because Mr. Blair had promised that all questions on how intelligence was used in the political decision-making "came fairly and squarely within the remit of this inquiry." That assertion by Mr. Howard is likely to be tested early as the panel gets down to work.
Also appointed to the inquiry were Sir John Chilcot and Field Marshal Lord Inge and two members of the House of Commons, Ann Taylor from the Labor Party and Michael Mates from the Conservative Party.
The Liberal Democratic Party refused to endorse the inquiry after lengthy negotiations with Mr. Blair and his aides on Monday night.
Menzies Campbell, speaking for Liberal Democrats during today's debate, said that he had concluded that Mr. Blair had walled off an examination of political decision-making. The party therefore withdrew because "any inquiry" that failed to address the foundation of Mr. Blair's judgments over going to war "would be unlikely to command public confidence."
For his part, Mr. Blair said an inquiry had become necessary after a chief weapons analyst, David A. Kay, said in Washington that stocks of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons may not have existed and that intelligence assumptions about the immediate threat from Mr. Hussein may have been broadly wrong.
--------
Blair Agrees to Probe of Claims About Iraqi Weapons
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5964-2004Feb2.html
LONDON, Feb. 2 -- Prime Minister Tony Blair responded to growing pressure Monday by announcing that he would launch an independent inquiry into why British intelligence overestimated the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war last year.
A spokesman said the details would be presented Tuesday in Parliament. The opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties both introduced motions in the House of Commons on Monday demanding an investigation.
The announcement marks a reversal of Blair's previous insistence that he would wait to see whether the Iraq Survey Group, a U.S.-led team, turned up evidence of unconventional weapons before launching a probe.
Blair's move also came on a day when the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee issued a report concluding that the continued failure of inspectors to find weapons of mass destruction had damaged U.S. and British credibility in the conduct of the war against terrorism. The report also concluded that the war in Iraq had "possibly made terrorist attacks on British nationals and British interests more likely in the short term."
Andrew MacKinlay, a committee member from Blair's ruling Labor Party, said at a news conference, "I think clearly there is a crisis of confidence now, both in Parliament and outside, about both the competence of our security and intelligence services and the analysis that was given of the raw intelligence."
A report by a retired judge, Lord Brian Hutton, last week cleared the government of exaggerating intelligence in the run-up to the war. The Hutton findings accused the British Broadcasting Corp. of faulty journalism in reporting that Blair and his aides had "sexed up" a September 2002 intelligence dossier on the Iraqi threat. Blair's spokesman cited the Hutton report in explaining why the prime minister was now prepared for a new inquiry.
"What's different between last week and this is that the Hutton report has cleared the government of allegations of having politically interfered with, falsified or hyped the intelligence on WMD," a spokesman said, adding that Hutton's report "allows us to address -- hopefully in a more rational way, a more rational context -- the perfectly valid question that people have asked about WMD."
The spokesman said that in altering their stance, Blair and his aides had coordinated closely with the White House, which announced its own independent inquiry Monday. But critics said the White House had blindsided the prime minister by shifting its stance during the past week while Blair and his supporters were still insisting that the intelligence verdict on weapons of mass destruction was not complete.
"The British people are entitled to know why we went to war on a false prospectus," said former foreign secretary Robin Cook, who resigned to protest the war. In an interview with BBC Radio, Cook suggested that President Bush's turnabout had forced Blair's hand.
"Although Tony Blair has been a very reliable ally to the Bush administration, it's very hard to see what he's got in return," Cook said. "When the chips are down, Washington doesn't appear to really give much concern to whether they're turning up the heat on Tony Blair."
Britain has more than 10,000 troops in southern Iraq, and Blair remains the Bush administration's closest international ally in the Iraq campaign. But while Bush cited several factors in going to war, Blair insisted before the war that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction was the sole legal justification under international law.
The prime minister and his aides have conceded they were stunned that no such weapons were uncovered in the weeks after the war, and until recently they remained hopeful that some would be found.
Two elements in the intelligence dossier have proved particularly troubling for the Blair government: an erroneous claim from a single Iraqi source that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order, and an allegation that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase nuclear materials from an unnamed African country.
On the former, British officials first said that the 45-minute claim referred only to battlefield munitions rather than long-range missiles; then they said there were no such weapons. On the latter, the CIA has disputed the British claim and the White House has retracted Bush's reference to it in last year's State of the Union address.
"No doubt there will be lots of blame-shifting," said Garth Whitty, a former British weapons inspector. "The politicians will try to shift it to the intelligence chiefs, and the intelligence chiefs to their political masters. The reality is everyone probably acted in good faith, but perhaps they were too quick to accept what they wanted to hear."
-------- business
Pentagon to aid Boeing, Lockheed Martin
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040203-121520-7344r.htm
The White House's new budget includes big help for the money losing rocket programs of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Under an initiative revealed by the Defense Department, the Pentagon will expand retroactively the size of contracts awarded years ago by rolling in extra engineering services, "mission assurance" responsibilities and other tasks.
Pentagon officials said they are considering switching to a cost-plus contracting arrangement instead of the fixed-price contracts used by the government during the initial round of awards.
Under some scenarios, the cost of the Pentagon package under consideration for previously awarded contracts could reach $1 billion.
That would be on top of about $4 billion the Pentagon already projects spending for launches by Boeing's Delta IV and Lockheed Martin's Atlas V rockets through the end of the decade.
--------
MILITARY CONTRACTS
Halliburton Will Repay U.S. Excess Charges for Troops' Meals
February 3, 2004
By JOEL BRINKLEY and ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/politics/03MEAL.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 - The Pentagon said Monday that the Halliburton Company would repay the government for overcharges estimated at $27.4 million for meals served to American troops at five military bases in Iraq and Kuwait last year, but the company did not admit to any wrongdoing.
The potential overbillings were identified during a routine evaluation of contract costs submitted for payment by Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary that has several major military contracts in Iraq and Kuwait, the Pentagon said in a statement on Monday. The charges took place over nine months.
The auditors' allegation of a $16 million overcharge at one base in Kuwait was first reported Monday by The Wall Street Journal. Pentagon officials said Monday that the company had also agreed to repay the government $11.4 million for meals served at four other bases.
Pentagon auditors have started a review of the 53 remaining dining facilities in Kuwait and Iraq operated by Kellogg Brown & Root, according to the Pentagon statement.
The latest disclosures follow two other disagreements between the Pentagon and Halliburton.
Last month, the company disclosed that two employees had taken kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor who was providing services to American troops in Kuwait. The company reimbursed the government $6.3 million.
Kellogg Brown & Root has also been involved in a debate over whether it overcharged for gasoline shipments to Iraq under a military contract. While military officials cleared the company of any wrongdoing, the Pentagon inspector general is still investigating the matter.
Halliburton insisted Monday that the allegations of overcharges for meals were simply routine questions from the Defense Contracting Auditing Agency, and that no conclusions had been reached.
The company noted that it had served more than 50 million meals to soldiers in the last year, and the questions from the auditors deal with the way Kellogg Brown & Root estimates the number of meals it serves.
"This is not about charges," Randy Harl, president and chief executive of Kellogg Brown & Root, said in a statement on Monday. "This is about finding a good way to estimate the number of meals so soldiers can be fed."
He added that Kellogg Brown & Root planned and prepared meals based on estimates because "at times soldiers are on leave or are shifted to other locations."
The auditors appear to be alleging that Halliburton substantially overestimated the number of meals it would serve and then charged the government for all the meals prepared instead of those served.
Kellogg Brown & Root said it had agreed to reduce its future bills to the government to make up for any overcharges, "while the company works with the government to improve the counting method." The statement added. "This is not any sort of `admission.' It is an agreement to temporarily delay billing" while the matter is investigated.
The food services are part of a contract awarded in 2001 by the Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill. The contract called for the Halliburton subsidiary to provide a range of logistical services for troops in Iraq and Kuwait, including transportation, housing, food, laundry and recreation. Kellogg Brown & Root typically contracts with local companies for much of the work.
Pentagon officials expressed surprise on Monday at the latest overcharging incident, and said they expected lawmakers to question Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on the matter when he testifies to House and Senate committees this week about the military's proposed fiscal 2005 budget.
--------
Halliburton Reviews Food Service Bill
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6958-2004Feb2.html
Halliburton Co. said yesterday it will temporarily delay billing the federal government for food services to troops in Iraq and Kuwait until it can improve counting methods that may have led to overcharging by a subcontractor.
Defense auditors are reviewing whether a Halliburton unit billed the government based on higher estimates instead of actual meals served.
"This is not about charges," Randy Harl, president and chief executive of KBR, the Halliburton unit, said in a statement. "This is about finding a good way to estimate the number of meals so soldiers can get fed."
KBR said the issue was raised during a routine review by the Defense Contract Audit Agency. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Halliburton subsidiary may have overcharged $16 million for meals it never served.
The same Pentagon auditors found in December that the company may have overcharged the government at least $61 million to import fuel from Kuwait into Iraq under a separate contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
KBR has denied wrongdoing in both cases.
"We plan, purchase and prepare meals based on estimates," Harl said in the statement. "It is difficult to determine how many people will be at the dinner table in the middle of a war zone and must be based on estimates. This is not a neighborhood restaurant where you can quickly total up all the dinner tabs."
KBR runs dining facilities for soldiers and civilians under a broad Defense Department contract it won in 2001 to provide food, shelter and other logistical support to the U.S. military throughout the world. The company has been awarded $3.8 billion in work under the contract.
Last week, Halliburton said it would repay the government $6.2 million to cover potential overcharges by another subcontractor under the same contract. The amount covered the possible overbilling by a Kuwaiti firm as well as potential kickbacks to one or two KBR employees.
Government contract experts said it is not uncommon for companies to bill the government based on negotiated estimates. They also said companies typically submit monthly or quarterly reports to help determine whether the estimates need to be adjusted.
KBR did not respond to questions about whether it submitted such reports.
-------- china
Taiwan's Chen Proposes DMZ with Rival China
February 3, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-taiwan-china.html
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian called on China Tuesday to set up a demilitarized zone between the bitter rivals and swap envoys, proposals unlikely to win over a communist mainland leadership bent on recovering the island.
Under fire at home and abroad for stirring up tensions with Beijing, Chen made the proposal while defending plans to hold a referendum alongside the March 20 presidential election -- a move China sees as a step toward independence and says could lead to war.
``Taiwan faces the world's most severe missile threat. It is anticipated that by 2005, communist China will have deployed 600 ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan, with their accuracy greatly enhanced so that they can strike major military bases with little or no warning,'' Chen told a news conference.
``The establishment of a demilitarized zone (DMZ), such as the removal of combat personnel, equipment and deployed missiles, creates a buffer zone in terms of time and space,'' he said.
Chen did not specify where the zone would be. Taiwan holds several small islands in the strait dividing it from China and China's missiles are deployed mainly in the provinces facing the island.
China regards self-governing Taiwan as part of its territory and has been angered by Chen's referendum plan. Some countries including Taipei's main supporter, the United States, have criticized Chen's move.
China's Foreign Ministry and Taiwan Affairs Office declined comment, but a Communist Party magazine said any military action against Taiwan would ``receive the support and sympathy of the international community'' because the island had provoked China.
``Striking only after the enemy has struck is a just cause to dispatch troops,'' Outlook magazine said.
Last month, Chen said the referendum would ask voters whether Taiwan should buy more anti-missile weapons if China refused to withdraw 496 missiles pointed at the island, and if Taipei should open talks with Beijing to set up a framework for peaceful ties.
Chen said this framework would include a DMZ and the exchange of envoys, who would set up representative offices in Taipei and Beijing to facilitate communication.
ANALYSTS SKEPTICAL
Beijing, deeply suspicious of Chen's motives, has rejected peace overtures in the past and insisted that Taiwan recognize the ``one China'' principle as a precondition to talks.
Analysts said they did not expect any warming of ties across the Taiwan Strait following Chen's new proposals, which come just weeks after he called for a ``holy war'' against China.
``It is not easy for China to change its attitude,'' said Bau Tzong-ho, political scientist at the National Taiwan University. ``If China still refuses to talk to Taiwan, all Chen's goodwill gestures will amount to nothing.''
Opposition politicians and critics have accused Chen of using the referendum as an election ploy to provoke Beijing and secure the support of pro-independence voters.
A survey by the United Daily News found 52 percent of the public considered the ballot unnecessary.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said last week the wording of the referendum raised questions about Taiwan's motives. French President Jacques Chirac described Chen's referendum move as a ``grave error.''
State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said of Chen's latest overture: ``We want to reiterate that the United States opposes any unilateral action that might change the status quo in the cross-Strait area.''
The United States recognizes Beijing's ``one China'' policy but remains Taiwan's biggest trade partner and arms supplier.
Amid the controversy, Taiwan's top envoy to Washington, Chen Chien-jen, offered to resign Tuesday, citing personal reasons and denying his move had anything to do with the referendum. The foreign ministry said it would try to persuade Chen to stay.
The president denied that the referendum was an election ploy, saying it was necessary because China was adding one missile every six days to its arsenal facing Taiwan.
Opposition Nationalist Party chairman Lien Chan, who leads Chen in opinion polls, has also said he would demilitarize Taiwan's offshore Quemoy islands and travel to China to ask Beijing to remove its missiles if he takes office.
According to recent polls, Lien would win by up to 10 percentage points were the election held today. Chen's own party gives his opponent a one percentage point edge.
Talks between Taiwan and China, foes since the end of the Chinese civil war 55 years ago, have been frozen since 1999, but trade is booming and Taiwan companies are estimated to have invested $100 billion in the mainland.
-------- iran
Iran's Leading Reform Party to Boycott Election
February 3, 2004
By NAZILA FATHI
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/international/middleeast/03IRAN.html?pagewanted=all
TEHRAN, Feb. 2 - Iran's leading reform party announced Monday that it would boycott the parliamentary elections this month. The boycott was announced one day after more than a third of the Parliament's members resigned to protest a ban on hundreds of reformist candidates.
Mohammad Reza Khatami, the party leader and younger brother of President Mohammad Khatami, said that his Islamic Iran Participation Front had decided by a large majority not to take part in the poll.
"We have no hope that free and legal elections will be held on Feb. 20," he said at a news conference. "Therefore, it is impossible for the Participation Front to take part in the elections under current circumstances."
The tension between reformist supporters of President Khatami, who control Parliament, and their hard-line opponents has been building since early January, when nearly half of the 8,200 people who had filed as candidates were rejected by the conservative 12-member Guardian Council. Last week, after protests, the council reinstated more than a 1,000, but most of the liberal candidates, including 87 sitting members of Parliament, were excluded.
With the Islamic Participation Front out of the running, conservatives stand a good chance of winning enough seats to retake the 290-seat Parliament, which has been controlled by reformists since 2000.
On Sunday, hard-liners attacked the office of one of the reformist party's outspoken members, Akbar Alami, in the northwestern city of Tabriz. Mr. Alami, one of the few reformists whose candidacy had been approved by the council, was among the 125 legislators who resigned in protest on Sunday.
The assailants painted statements like "death or withdrawal" on the walls and severely injured an employee. Mr. Alami said he had received several telephone threats in recent days, demanding that he end his campaign, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
One pro-democracy student group had said on Sunday that it was seeking permission to hold public demonstrations on Wednesday to protest the ban. Iran is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its Islamic revolution.
"Unfortunately, at a time when the world is moving toward democracy and free elections, and we have good experience of democracy, at the 25th anniversary of our revolution, we do not see conditions appropriate for healthy competition," Mohammad Reza Khatami, the party leader, said on Monday. "The government cannot be called the reformist government anymore if it goes ahead with the vote."
He said his party was not calling on people to boycott the polls but warned of a recurrence of what happened a year ago, when less than 15 percent of eligible voters in large cities cast ballots in local council elections.
For a second time, the Interior Ministry urged the Guardian Council to postpone the election and review more candidates. The speaker of Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, appealed Sunday to the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on all state matters, to intervene and resolve the issue.
But a member of the Guardian Council, Reza Zavarehi, said Monday that the council's work "was finished," the agency reported.
-------- iraq
IRAQI SELF-RULE
Panel Starts to Draw Up Constitution for Short Run
February 3, 2004
By DEXTER FILKINS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/international/middleeast/03DRAF.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 2 - Iraq's American-appointed leaders have begun deliberating a temporary constitution that would grant broad rights to ordinary Iraqis and serve as a guide until a permanent Iraqi system is adopted next year.
The 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council, which took up a draft of the constitution on Saturday, have until Feb. 28 to approve a final version of the document, which is supposed to remain in force until a permanent constitution is ratified by Iraqi voters in October 2005. Nationwide elections for a new government would be held two months later.
The interim constitution is a central element in the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people from the American occupation forces, now scheduled to take place by June 30. Even though the proposed constitution would probably be in force for less than two years, it is seen as the starting point for debates on the permanent one.
The document now being discussed by the Iraqi Governing Council would confer on the Iraqi people broad political and civil rights that were unknown here during the era of Saddam Hussein and which are unknown in many parts of the Arab world today. The draft constitution would grant full and equal rights to women, as well as guaranteeing them two of every five seats in the proposed national assembly.
Some members of the council have objected to parts of the plan, particularly the number of seats allotted to women. Mowaffak Al Rubaie, a governing council member, said he did not think the governing council would endorse a quota that large. "Twenty percent for women is much more realistic," he said.
The draft constitution would grant freedom of speech and assembly, the right to free movement across the country and the right to privacy. It would confer on every Iraqi a right to health care and schooling. It would also establish such American-style bedrocks as an independent judiciary and civilian control over the military.
The role of Islam is explicitly recognized in the proposed structure, but in a carefully delineated role. While Islam is described as the official state religion, it is regarded in the draft document as "a principal source among other sources of legislation," and not the only one. The draft also recognizes the freedom of non-Muslims to practice their faiths.
The proposed interim constitution, also known as the "basic law," defers some of the trickiest questions for another day. In setting up a federal system, the plan would grant wide autonomy to the country's Kurdish region, which has governed itself since 1991. It also puts off the difficult issue of who would control Kirkuk, the northern city that is one of the centers of Iraqi oil production. The city has a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs and others, and is seen as one of the country's economic prizes.
"Within the parameters of reintegrating the Kurdish region into the country, the idea is to maintain the status quo," said Feisal Istrabadi, one of the principal drafters of the document. "We don't want to spend a lot of time arguing about the basic law."
The plan calls for the formation of a 258-member national assembly, but carefully bypasses the question of how those members will be selected. American administrators here are engaged in intense negotiations with Iraqi leaders over the means by which the national assembly will be chosen.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's pre-eminent Shiite leader, is insisting that the members be chosen by direct election. The Americans, as well as many Iraqis, are opposed to elections on the grounds that the country does not yet have adequate voter rolls. There are also concerns that the Iraqi and Americans forces would not be able to provide security in a nationwide election.
The deadlock over the selection of assembly members threatens to drag the completion of the interim constitution past the Feb. 28 deadline.
In one of the plan's more widely disputed proposals, opposed by some governing council members, the government would be run by a three-member presidency, chosen by the national assembly. The presidency would presumably include a member of each of the country's three major groups, the Shiites, the Arab Sunnis and the Kurds. The three members of the presidency would select a prime minister and would be required to make a unanimous choice.
Mr. Istrabadi, who helped draft the document, said one of the principal ideas in the plan was to set up several power centers in the government to ensure that no one part of it became too strong.
-------- israel / palestine
Buoyed by Polls, Sharon Stands by Gaza Pullout
February 3, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html?hp
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Buoyed by opinion polls, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed Tuesday to forge a new government if pro-settler coalition partners try to block his plan to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie described Sharon's Gaza plan as ``good news.''
Shimon Peres, Israel's leading dove, won a vote in the main opposition Labor Party to extend his term as leader through 2005, positioning him to prop up Sharon should pro-settlement coalition partners try to topple the prime minister.
Once considered the godfather of the settlement movement, Sharon survived a confidence vote in parliament by a single vote Monday after saying he had ordered plans be drawn up to remove 17 of the 21 Gaza enclaves. Some 7,500 settlers occupy 21 percent of Gaza amidst more than one million Palestinians.
The announcement, which stunned friends and foes alike, marked the first time Sharon had revealed details for such an extensive pullout from land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war that Palestinians want for state of their own.
A senior Israeli official said Israel might one day be willing to hand over some Israeli Arab areas to Palestinian rule in exchange for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
There was no immediate Palestinian comment on the proposal, which a Sharon spokesman said would be taken to ensure a Jewish majority in the face of a higher Arab population growth.
Facing an outcry from settlers and their allies, Sharon defended his plan as ``painful'' but vital to Israel's security. However, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said it could tear apart Israel's rightist coalition and bring early elections.
Despite the brewing political crisis, a poll in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily showed 59 percent of Israelis supported uprooting Gaza settlements. Thirty-four percent opposed the idea.
``Of course, it is good news for us,'' Qurie told Voice of Palestine radio, in his first public remarks on Sharon's political bombshell. ``We hope that Israel will withdraw from all Palestinian areas.''
Sharon, in remarks published Tuesday, said the process would take one to two years and would include evacuation of three of the more than 120 settlements in the West Bank.
``I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza,'' he told the daily Haaretz. He said he would seek U.S. approval and financial aid to ``relocate'' the settlers from the fenced-in strip.
Polls show Israelis largely willing to part with Gaza. Its enclaves require a heavy military presence to protect and have little of the biblical significance that draws Jews to the West Bank, where more than 200,000 settlers live.
Sharon's plans, laid out to his right-wing Likud party in a tense meeting Monday, enraged members of the Jewish settler movement he championed for decades.
THREAT
The National Religious Party, a coalition partner, threatened to bolt after abstaining in the confidence vote. ``We won't participate in this,'' said Housing Minister Effi Eitam.
The National Religious Party has six seats in parliament, and if it left the coalition, Sharon would command a shaky 62-58 majority in the 120-member Knesset (parliament).
``I will not hesitate to set up another government,'' Sharon told Yedioth Ahronoth. ``Not that I am rushing to take such a step, but I have no intention of being at the mercy of factions... that won't permit me to handle matters of state.''
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which use Gaza as a key stronghold, called the proposed withdrawal a testament to Israel's failure to stop them and vowed no let-up in attacks on Israel. They are the main groups behind a campaign of suicide bombings.
Some of Sharon's critics suggested he was trying to distract attention from a widening corruption probe focusing on him and his family. Sharon denies any wrongdoing.
Peres congratulated Sharon for the new initiative, telling a party convention ``there is no turning back.''
``If Sharon carries out his proposal, I promise him our support in the Knesset, for as long as he travels on that path,'' Peres said.
Sharon, who will take the proposal to Washington this month, won praise from the White House which called it ``bold steps.''
A close ally, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said implementation could begin this summer under a disengagement plan Sharon has threatened to impose if a stalled U.S.-backed peace ``road map'' collapses. Sharon has said such moves would leave Palestinians with less land than they seek for a state.
--------
Angering Settlers, Sharon Says Most May Have to Leave Gaza
February 3, 2004
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/international/middleeast/03MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
JERUSALEM, Feb. 2 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday that he might seek to evacuate almost all Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip, outraging members of the settlement movement he helped create.
"I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza," Mr. Sharon told the liberal daily Haaretz. He made similar comments in a very tense meeting of legislators from his Likud Party, said people who took part.
It was Mr. Sharon's most specific disclosure to date about what he calls "unilateral disengagement" from the Palestinians, a step he has said he will take if he judges that the Bush administration's peace initiative, known as the road map, has failed.
Mr. Sharon said he had given orders to plan for the evacuation of 17 of at least 20 settlements in Gaza. But his spokesman, Ranaan Gissin, cautioned that that was the most far-reaching of three options that Mr. Sharon was preparing to submit for the approval of his cabinet.
"It may be less settlements that have to be evacuated," Mr. Gissin said. "We have to prepare for an interim plan that will maximize security for our citizens and minimize friction with the Palestinians."
Mr. Sharon set no timeline for a withdrawal, though his allies said it could begin by summer. His opponents on the right and skeptics on the left were quick to accuse him of posturing to divert public attention from a bribery investigation. Mr. Sharon has not been charged in the scandal.
Settlers warned of political action to bring down Mr. Sharon's government, but far-right parties did not immediately bolt from his governing coalition, an indication that they did not consider action against settlements to be imminent or inevitable.
Palestinian officials suggested that the announcement might be nothing more than a public relations maneuver.
Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, reacted with scorn, saying Mr. Sharon was referring only to removing 17 trailers. "What, so they can replace them with another 170?" he asked.
Mr. Sharon astonished even some of his own ministers with his comments on Monday. Told by an Israeli reporter of the Haaretz interview, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said, "I don't know of this decision." He added, "My view is clear and has not changed, that unilateral steps will not bring less conflict and friction. They might even increase it."
In the last 18 months, Mr. Sharon has made a series of statements that have alarmed longtime allies on the right. He has endorsed the idea of an eventual Palestinian state, criticized Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, most recently, said he intended to remove some isolated settlements. During that period, settlements continued to expand.
But even among rightist Likud politicians, there is new support for relinquishing territory, for fear that Arabs will soon outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In the Likud meeting, Mr. Sharon warned that Israel must now prepare to act should the Bush administration's peace initiative fail. "He spoke about a situation in which it will become evident that the road map is dying," said Yuval Steinitz, a Likud member of Parliament.
Mr. Steinitz said Mr. Sharon would seek the support of the United States and major European countries. Mr. Gissin said Mr. Sharon would discuss his plans "in detail" with President Bush.
Likud politicians said Mr. Sharon also intended to evacuate a smaller number of West Bank settlements.
Mr. Sharon told Haaretz, "It is my intention to carry out an evacuation - sorry, a relocation - of settlements that cause us problems and of places that we will not hold onto anyway in a final settlement, like the Gaza settlements."
Eran Sternberg, a spokesman for the Gush Qatif settlement bloc in Gaza, said, "We are quite sorry for these miserable declarations of Sharon, which probably come from the pressure of the investigations."
He promised a "tough struggle" against Mr. Sharon, and like other settler leaders warned that a unilateral Israeli withdrawal would embolden terrorists.
"Today Gush Qatif is the finger in the dike that blocks terrorists from flooding the world," he said.
Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the Arab-Israeli war of June 1967. Gaza, which is bracketed against the Mediterranean Sea by a closely guarded Israeli fence, is about 7 miles wide and 25 miles long. It is home to 7,500 Israeli settlers and more than 1.2 million Palestinians.
In the West Bank, which is slightly smaller than Delaware, about 230,000 settlers live in 125 settlements, among more than two million Palestinians.
Within Israel there is broad support for evacuating the Gaza settlements, which are widely seen as extremist redoubts that drain Israel's resources and needlessly endanger its soldiers.
Mr. Sharon said Monday that he would evacuate Gaza settlements only after reaching an agreement with their residents.
Gaza settlers argue that the territory is part of Jews' biblical birthright. But though Mr. Sharon has long made common cause with religious settlers, he came to the settlement movement from a different perspective, focusing on Israel's modern security needs more than its ancient claims.
In April 2002, referring to Netzarim, one of the most isolated Gaza settlements, he said, "The fate of Netzarim is the fate of Tel Aviv." But his remarks to Haaretz suggest that he now views the Gaza settlements as creating "problems." Haaretz published only excerpts of its interview on its Web site on Monday.
Mr. Gissin said Mr. Sharon was concerned about growing chaos in the Palestinian Authority. He said Mr. Sharon wanted to "seize the initiative" rather than risk having a settlement imposed on Israel that might force it to return to its pre-1967 borders. Mr. Sharon calls those borders impossible to defend.
Mr. Gissin said that if the Palestinian Authority collapsed, the Palestinians might "shout to the Security Council, `Send an international force to the territories' " and " `push Israel back to the '67 borders.' "
Palestinian officials say Mr. Sharon has deliberately undermined the Palestinian Authority, sowing chaos to avoid political negotiations and impose his own preferred borders.
Israeli politicians are increasingly preoccupied with what they call the demographic threat, the danger that within a few years more Arabs than Jews will live in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The fear is that Israel would then have to sacrifice either its Jewish identity or its democratic character. Ehud Olmert, the deputy prime minister, has raised the concern that Israel may come to be regarded as an apartheid state.
To avoid that, some members of Likud argue that Israel must draw borders in a way to part with as many Arabs - but as little land - as possible. But many hard-line settlers argue that to give up one settlement is to start down a slippery slope.
In the Gaza Strip on Monday, Israeli forces killed four Palestinian gunmen during a raid that the Israeli Army said had been intended to arrest one of them.
--------
Sharon Says He Wants Plan to Remove Gaza Settlements
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6883-2004Feb2.html
JERUSALEM, Feb. 2 -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he had ordered a plan drawn up for the evacuation of 17 settlements in the Gaza Strip, which he said eventually could lead to the relocation of almost all of the 7,500 Jewish settlers currently living in Gaza, an Israeli newspaper reported Monday.
Sharon said in an interview with the Haaretz newspaper that the Gaza plan would be discussed with President Bush the next time they meet, perhaps this month. He did not give a timetable for the settlement closure but said, "I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza."
In a closed-door meeting Monday with members of his Likud Party, Sharon described the settlements he wants removed as a "security burden" and a "source of continuous friction," news services reported.
A senior Israeli official familiar with Sharon's thinking said, however, that the plan to evacuate 17 of 21 Gaza settlements was only one of "several alternative plans" that Sharon has ordered his advisers to draft. "Other options talk about more and less" settlement closures, he said, adding, "I wouldn't vouch for the numbers."
Palestinians and some Israeli analysts discounted the significance of Sharon's remarks, saying he has made many promises in recent months but has acted on few of them.
The Palestinians' chief negotiator with Israel, Saeb Erekat, said, "I tell Mr. Sharon: No Palestinian will stand in the way if he wants to leave Gaza, but I'll believe it when I see it. Every time Sharon's going to meet Mr. Bush we see these statements. It's time for action."
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also expressed disbelief. "Seventeen trailers? What, so he can replace them with another 170?" the Associated Press quoted him as saying.
In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said it was "encouraging that Israel is considering bold steps to reduce tensions between Israelis and Palestinians."
The news of Sharon's statement came on a day when Israeli soldiers shot and killed four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and one in the West Bank.
An Israeli military spokesman and Palestinian security officials said the Gaza raid targeted Yasser Abu Aesh, a senior member of Islamic Jihad who lost both legs and an arm about two years ago when explosives he was carrying detonated.
Abu Aesh, who the Israeli military spokesman said was behind numerous attacks on Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip, lived much of his life in hiding, Palestinian security officials said. But he emerged for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha to visit his family in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, the officials said. Israeli troops apparently were tipped off that he was there early Monday morning, they said.
At about 3:30 a.m., Palestinian security officials and witnesses said, Israeli jeeps, armored personnel carriers and tanks, supported by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, surrounded the family's house. The Israeli military spokesman said the goal was to arrest Abu Aesh, "but when the Israeli force entered the house in which he was hiding, several Palestinian gunmen opened fire" and the soldiers returned fire.
Palestinian witnesses said the Israelis fired three missiles at the house and began bulldozing it as the firefight continued.
The Israeli military spokesman said Abu Aesh was shot and killed after throwing a grenade at advancing soldiers. He said soldiers also killed two gunmen who fired at them.
Palestinians, however, said four people were killed, including Abu Aesh's brother, Hussein, also a member of Islamic Jihad. Palestinian security officials and hospital authorities identified the other dead as Majdi Khatib, head of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Rafah, and Bahaa Judah, a member of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas.
The Israeli spokesman said the military knew of only three people killed in the incident -- Yasser Abu Aesh, Khatib and another gunman. One Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in the raid, he said.
At about noon, the military spokesman said, soldiers entered the Aida refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, to arrest a senior Hamas operative, Mohammed Abu Uda. The spokesman said Abu Uda was being sought because he had dispatched the Palestinian suicide bomber who attacked a crowded bus in central Jerusalem on Thursday, killing 11 people and himself.
The spokesman said that Abu Uda, hiding in a building, surprised soldiers who were searching for him by opening fire, injuring four. Other soldiers discovered Abu Uda, shot and killed him, and then, fearing booby traps, blew up his hiding place with his body inside.
A spokeswoman at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem said that one of the wounded soldiers was in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head and another was in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the chest. Of the others, she said, one suffered moderate injuries and one had light injuries.
-------- prisoners of war
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners common, Marine says
By Rick Rogers
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 3, 2004
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040203-9999_1m3marine.html
CAMP PENDLETON - A former Marine guard testified yesterday that it was common practice in Iraq to kick and punch prisoners who didn't cooperate - and even some who did.
Lance Cpl. William S. Roy, granted immunity for his testimony, said guards often abused prisoners at the Camp White Horse detention center.
Roy testified on the sixth and last day of a preliminary hearing in the death of Nagem Sadoon Hatab, an Iraqi prisoner at Camp White Horse.
Although guards beat and choked Hatab and although he died in their custody, Col. William Gallo, the investigating officer, said he had not seen evidence to substantiate charges of negligent homicide against two Marines in the case: Maj. Clarke Paulus and Lance Cpl. Christian Hernandez.
Gallo said there might be enough evidence, however, to send Sgt. Gary Pittman to trial.
The Marines are facing charges arising from the death June 5 of Hatab, a ranking member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, while he was at Camp White Horse near Nasiriyah, Iraq.
The Marines are with the 2nd Battalion, 25th Regiment, a reserve unit based in New England that was running Camp White Horse. Because the regiment was assigned to the 1st Marine Division, the military's version of a preliminary hearing is being held here, the division's home.
Paulus, an active-duty Marine assigned to the reserve unit, was in charge of the camp; Pittman and Hernandez were guards.
Roy testified yesterday that he, Pittman and another Marine once beat a sheik who had resisted being taken into U.S. custody. The man had a bag over his head and his hands were tied behind his back.
In Hatab's case, Roy said the Iraqi might have received more abuse because he was a difficult prisoner and because he was linked to the ambush on the Army's 507th Maintenance Battalion. It was during that ambush that Jessica Lynch was taken prisoner.
Medical experts have disagreed on what killed the 52-year-old Hatab.
Government prosecutors argued that he died of injuries after Hernandez dragged him by the neck from one holding area to another on orders of Paulus.
Defense teams for Paulus and Hernandez countered that any neck injury was not fatal.
Gallo said that he heard little that suggested Paulus or Hernandez should go to court-martial, but he said that Roy's testimony might be enough to recommend a trial for Pittman.
Gallo will send his recommendations to Maj.Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, who will decide how the cases will be handled.
Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com
-------- spies
Time to vet CIA spies
February 03, 2004
By Richard L. Russell,
Washington Times Editorial
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040202-085402-3297r.htm
Players in Washington politics during a presidential election year are casting about for a fall guy for the intelligence failures in the run up to the war against Iraq. Partisan politics aside, a fair and hefty share of accountability for Iraq intelligence shortcoming should be placed at the door of the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO), which is responsible for recruiting and running spies to steal secrets that other states want to hide from American policy-makers.
Secretary of State Colin Powell spent endless hours atCIAheadquarters preparing his presentation to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003, where he cited human intelligence reports that Iraq was manufacturing biological weapons in mobile labs, but these reports have not panned out. Poor quality CIA human intelligence reports misinformed assessments that Iraq held large chemical and biological weapons stocks and was reconstituting a nuclear weapons program.
The DCI also passed along CIA human intelligence reports to President Bush about Saddam Hussein's reported location that prompted the war's start with an attempt to decapitate the Iraqi regime. Alas, Saddam's captivity shows that CIA human intelligence again let the president down.
The DO, too, suffered from glaring shortcomings in quality of human reporting in the 1990-91 Gulf War. The memoirs of former Secretary of State James Baker and Commander of Central CommandNorman Schwarzkopf reveal flashes of frustration over the lack of human intelligence reporting coming out of Saddam's regime. CIA human intelligence failed miserably at detecting the then-massive scopeofIraq'snuclear weapons program.
The DO's failures in Iraq over the past 14 years is a manifestation of the CIA's longstanding inability to produce human agents to report on the innermost workings of actors hostile to the United States, as well as those plotting courses at odds with American policy. The Joint House-Senate Commission that investigated the CIA's failure to warn of the September 11 attacks found that the CIA suffered from an over reliance on the human intelligence sources from other intelligence services, while the CIA had little to no unilateral human agents deep inside al Qaeda. Adm. David Jeremiah, who led the investigation of CIA's failure to warn policy-makers of India's 1998 nuclear weapons detonation, found that CIA human intelligence there was seriously limited.
The DO, by the account of former DCI Robert Gates, failed to penetrate the inner workings of the Soviet Union's political apparatus during the entire Cold War. Likewise, the DOfailedtopenetrate Moscow's clients in North Vietnam and North Korea while the United States fought wars with each in the 1950s, '60s and early '70s, and was outwitted by East German and Cuban intelligence services that ran double agents against the DO for much of the Cold War.
The DO bureaucracy is set in its ways and operates in a rut created during the Cold War. It has no vested interest in instigating controversial reforms. In the past, internal reforms have amounted to little more than window dressing to appease the House and Senate oversight committees that approve the CIA budget. The DO is even resistant to DCI-directed changes, opting to wait them out and let any reform agendas fade away after a DCI departs from CIA headquarters.Although George Tenet has had a longer tenure at CIA than most of his predecessors, it is hard to discernanyrevolutionary changes he has implemented in the DO. In light of the poor showing in Iraq and failure to warn of the conspiracy of September 11, the often-heard CIA refrain to critics that "agency successes cannot be made public" is wearing thin.
But by looking back over the battlegrounds littered with CIA intelligence failures - in all of which the lack of accurate and reliable human intelligence reports were decisive contributing factors - it is clear that the DO has performed dismally against its core mission.
Despite the DO's dismal (if not derelict) performances, it has escaped a sustained, rigorous and critical examination of its operations. It is long past time for investigating - perhaps under the auspices of the bipartisan commission to be unveiled by the White House this week - the origins of the DO's systemic human intelligence collection failures.
The spy organization desperately needs to be set right because American policy-makers and citizens deserve better than the DO is delivering.
Richard L. Russell, a former CIA political-military analyst, is a professor at the National Defense University and an adjunct assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. The views expressed are the author's alone.
--------
Analysts: Tenet Likely to Remain CIA Head
February 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Iraq-Intelligence-Tenet.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- First the CIA missed clues that might have led to the Sept. 11 hijackers. Now President Bush is planning an independent investigation to examine whether U.S. intelligence on Iraq was wrong and why.
The two apparently massive intelligence breakdowns would seem to jeopardize the future of CIA Director George Tenet. But despite scattered calls for his dismissal, Tenet is considered unlikely to go any time soon, lawmakers and analysts say.
His position is strengthened by close ties to the president, good relations with Democrats and Republicans, and apparent loyalty from CIA staff. His supporters credit him with intelligence successes and question how much he can be blamed for the failures.
Moreover, with Iraq intelligence potentially a hot issue in the presidential election, both parties have political incentives to keep Tenet: Democrats say the CIA alone doesn't bear the blame for intelligence failures in Iraq. They suspect the Bush administration manipulated prewar intelligence and don't want Tenet used as a fall guy. For Republicans, Tenet's dismissal could be seen as blunt acknowledgment that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction in recent years.
Former weapons inspector David Kay's recent statements that the prewar intelligence was ``almost all wrong'' -- and Bush's decision to create a commission to investigate -- put Tenet in one of the most difficult points in his 6 1/2-year tenure, and his position is certainly not guaranteed.
Pressure on Tenet could intensify as the House and Senate intelligence committees wrap up separate inquiries that are expected to echo Kay's criticisms.
But Frederick Hitz, a former CIA inspector general now at Princeton University, said he doesn't believe Bush would be inclined to fire Tenet.
``He's loyal to his people and I think he would like to have George Tenet depart on his own terms. So I think he would try to avoid any rupture if possible,'' Hitz said.
Tenet has support from Democrats and Republicans. He was appointed by President Clinton and confirmed unanimously by the Senate in 1997. He had previously worked with both parties as a staff member for the Senate Intelligence Committee, eventually serving as staff director.
Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel Berger, said Tenet ``has done about as good a job as any CIA director in my lifetime in balancing the three constituencies that the director of Central Intelligence has to balance:'' the president, Congress and CIA staff.
``I'm hard-pressed to think of many folks who have done a better job in more difficult circumstances,'' Berger said.
Tenet has strong critics, though. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., a former Intelligence Committee chairman, said Tenet at first ``brought stability to the agency and was beginning to get the agency focused on international terrorism.'' But more recently, ``he has not demonstrated the ability to coordinate the intelligence community toward a new priority on terrorism,'' Graham said.
And other critics are emerging. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a member of the Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday he wants to see a ``preemptory strike'' to deal with intelligence failures, part of which means questioning if the right people are in charge.
``I would just say, 'Look, the information we got was unreliable. We are going to reorganize the intelligence community, and we are going to change the people,''' Lott said. ``If it were my call, I think that we have a problem with the intelligence community and it begins at the top.''
But, Lott added, it's Bush's call.
The congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks concluded the intelligence agencies had ignored important clues, had not shared information and had paid inadequate attention to the likelihood of a major attack.
Eleanor Hill, the inquiry's staff director, said it is difficult to say how much blame can be placed on Tenet.
``What we saw was that a lot of these problems go back a long way and I'm not sure we can tag them on one individual,'' she said.
Intelligence agencies won praise for their work during major combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially in identifying targets.
But the Iraq war led to new criticism as prewar intelligence was called into question.
In his State of the Union speech last year, Bush cited British intelligence reports that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. The administration later acknowledged it had no proof and that the intelligence had been discredited.
The White House blamed Tenet, and he accepted responsibility though some outside observers believed the White House was at fault.
Criticism mounted after Kay quit as chief weapons inspector and told Congress the prewar Iraq intelligence had not panned out. Kay said he believed U.S. intelligence agencies had lacked the needed human informants in Iraq and that analysts had been too quick in making conclusions without adequate data.
Even so, few lawmakers have called for Tenet to step down.
``Should heads roll about these things? That's up to the president,'' said Rep. Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. ``I'm much more interested in fixing the problems than in dismissing people.''
-------- un
U.N. Team to Assist in Iraq Transition
February 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bush-UN-Iraq.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United Nations will send a team to Iraq to help its political transition in anticipation of the turnover of power there June 30, Secretary General Kofi Annan told President Bush on Tuesday.
The two men met in the Oval Office, where Bush said, ``I'm upbeat and optimistic about the future of the world.'' He said the United Nations has a vital role in Iraq.
Annan said the U.N. team would work with the Iraqis ``in finding the way forward'' and would talk to as many Iraqis as possible to ``steer things in the right direction.''
``I believe that the stability in Iraq is in everyone's interest. The U.N. does have a role to play,'' Annan said.
He noted that there are differences in Iraq about how to establish a provisional government, and said the U.N. team would try to help resolve those issues.
Bush said the United States was still committed to the June 30 deadline for turning over power.
``We've discussed ways to make sure that by working together, the Iraqi people can be free and the country stable and prosperous and an example of democracy in the Middle East. And the United Nations does have a vital role there,'' the president said.
Annan said the U.S.-led occupation authority and the Iraqi Governing Council have indicated they would accept the conditions under which the U.N. team would work. ``So we do have a chance to help break the impasse which exists at the moment and move forward,'' he said.
--------
Annan, U.S. Officials to Meet on Iraq
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Robin Wright
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6997-2004Feb2.html
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is scheduled to hold talks today with the Bush administration on Iraq as the United States and the United Nations sort out the next steps in organizing a political transition in Baghdad, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.
After more than a year of rancorous relations, the administration is now emphasizing the need to collaborate with the world body. "The United Nations has an important role to play in international affairs, and the President looks forward to his meeting with Secretary General Annan," the White House said in a statement yesterday.
The looming issue is how much responsibility the United Nations will have -- as an adviser or as a partner in running the political transition -- after its team visits Iraq this month to evaluate whether elections can be held before the occupation ends June 30. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in an interview yesterday that he hopes the United Nations plays a "vital role," but he added that Annan has expressed reluctance about assuming authority that it can't exercise.
Powell also said the U.S.-led coalition still hopes it can bridge the gap between its plan to have Iraqis select a provisional government through 18 regional caucuses and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Shiite cleric who has demanded direct elections.
Annan is to meet with Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, have a working lunch with President Bush and then hold talks with congressional leaders. Also on the agenda are the Middle East peace process, resolution of Sudan's war and reconstruction in war-ravaged Liberia.
-------- us
Major overhaul eyed for Army
February 03, 2004
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040203-120659-2745r.htm
A U.S. Army that for decades has fought in brigades and battalions is taking on new-age terms such as "units of action" and "modules."
The new terminology is the brainchild of Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the once-retired former "snake-eating" commando who was reactivated last summer by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to remake the Army, from tail to tooth.
Mr. Rumsfeld could not get the Army he wanted out of the last leadership team. Now, the task has fallen to his handpicked Army chief of staff to turn the 480,000-soldier force into a quicker, more flexible juggernaut.
Gen. Schoomaker, after a series of meetings with Mr. Rumsfeld, his staff and officers in the field, already has come up with a general plan to mix and match his 10 active divisions, according to confidential Army documents obtained by The Washington Times.
The first battlefield laboratory is the vaunted 3rd Infantry Division, based in Georgia. Gen. Schoomaker is remixing and adding to the basic building block of most divisions: three brigades of about 6,000 soldiers, armed with 60-ton Abrams M-1A tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Apache attack helicopters.
All the people and systems will stay, the documents show. But they will be broken up into "brigade-like maneuver units of action with assigned support and service support elements to provide ... combatant commanders more deployable/flexible forces for employment."
Each "unit of action" will be outfitted with support units - such as military police - that today are added at the last moment before deploying to war. The idea of backfitting from the start is to cut down on the time it takes to "round out" a deploying division.
The documents state that the 3rd Infantry's reorganization should be in place by the time it might be needed again in Iraq in 2005. The division led the Army's drive from Kuwait to Baghdad in Operation Iraqi Freedom and then returned home to Georgia.
"Third Infantry Division reorganization into five maneuver UAs [units of action], combat ready, trained and prepared to execute the OIF 3 [Operation Iraqi Freedom] rotation, or any other mission assigned," the Army papers said.
Gen. Schoomaker appreciates speed, deception and agility. His previous command was U.S. Special Operations Command, whose covert warriors specialize in the kind of unconventional warfare needed to win the war on terrorism.
Gen. Schoomaker told the House Armed Services Committee last week that, "We are in very serious moods right now, looking at modulizing the Army, standardizing it, developing an Army that's more lethal, more agile, more capable of meeting the current and future operating environment tasks." In all, Gen. Schoomaker is taking the 10-division Army from 33 to 48 combat brigades. Another window into Gen. Schoomaker's thinking is his series of talks to officers in the field. The general seems to spend more time at military schools, training centers and combat units than he does in his "E-Ring" office at the Pentagon. The Times obtained an officer's notes from one such session.
Gen. Schoomaker's spokesman declined to comment. "I won't comment on the validity of e-mails or conversations that may have occurred between any Army senior leader in a conference or meeting," Lt. Col. Michael J. Negard said.
The notes reveal the kind of feisty innovator Mr. Rumsfeld was looking for to fundamentally change how the Army deploys and fights. The new Army will become an expeditionary force like the Marine Corps, but with more firepower to fight large land wars.
At his talk, Gen. Schoomaker made a number of frank assessments about the state of the military-industrial complex, according to the officer's notes.
•"America underfunds its military," and the industry base cannot surge production of urgently needed equipment, such as improved armored Humvee utility vehicles for soldiers in Iraq.
•Army Personnel Command, which regulates the assignment of troops, has many problems. "May have to take it completely down in order to build it back up."
•Berets, new head gear introduced by retired Gen. Eric Shinseki, will stay. But commanders do have flexibility to allow soldiers to wear soft caps when appropriate. Meanwhile, Gen. Schoomaker is "relooking purpose and value of Class A" uniform - the coat-and-tie ensemble. He will order all battle-dress uniforms, the ones worn on deployment, to feature the American flag on the right shoulder "to emphasize expeditionary mind-set."
•The ambush of Jessica Lynch's 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq has become a "defining report card," which the general compared to sluggish deployment of Apaches to Albania in 1999 during the Kosovo conflict.
(Pfc. Lynch's supply company was ambushed by Iraqi guerrillas in an area that was supposed to be behind enemy lines. The attack exposed flaws in the training and equipping of noncombat arms soldiers. As a result, the Army has moved to toughen recruit training for the support branch to ensure the soldiers have better combat skills before deploying.)
•Many three- and four-star officers cannot think strategically, yet many platoon lieutenants can.
•On transformation, "As far as I'm concerned, there is not a damn thing sacred about what we are doing in the Army except our values. ... I'm often asked, how far can I move the Army? I tell them as far as I can. The Army is tremendously resilient. You can't fool around on the margins if we're going to change. We're going to move very quickly."
On that front, Gen. Schoomaker is keeping his word.
Already, the general is taking down artillery battalions and replacing them with military police units needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gen. Schoomaker will likely showcase his new Army this summer.
--------
Army Study of Iraq War Details a 'Morass' of Supply Shortages
February 3, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/politics/03ARMY.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 - The first official Army history of the Iraq war reveals that American forces were plagued by a "morass" of supply shortages, radios that could not reach far-flung troops, disappointing psychological operations and virtually no reliable intelligence on how Saddam Hussein would defend Baghdad.
Logistics problems, which senior Army officials played down at the time, were much worse than have previously been reported. While the study serves mainly as a technical examination of how the Army performed and the problems it faced, it could also serve as a political document that could advance the Army's interests within the Pentagon.
Tank engines sat on warehouse shelves in Kuwait with no truck drivers to take them north. Broken-down trucks were scavenged for usable parts. Artillery units cannibalized parts from captured Iraqi guns to keep their howitzers operating. Army medics foraged medical supplies from combat hospitals.
In most cases, soldiers improvised solutions to keep the offensive rolling. But the study found that the Third Infantry Division, the Army's lead combat force, was within two weeks of being halted by a lack of spare parts, and Army logisticians had no effective distribution system.
"The morass of problems that confounded delivering parts and supplies - running the gamut of paper clips to tank engines - stems from the lack of a means to assign responsibility clearly," the study said.
It also found that the Pentagon's decision to send mostly combat units in the weeks before the invasion had the "unintended consequence" of holding back support troops until much later, contributing greatly to the logistics problems.
The findings are contained in a 504-page internal Army history of the war written by the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The unclassified study, a draft of which was obtained by The New York Times, was ordered last spring by the former Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who clashed with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over troop strength for postwar Iraq. It draws on interviews with 2,300 people, 68,000 photographs and nearly 120,000 documents.
Its senior author was Gregory Fontenot, a retired Army colonel who commanded a battalion in the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and a brigade in Bosnia.
The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy are all conducting similar reviews of their forces' performance.
Army officials said the timing of the study was not intended to influence passage of a proposed military budget the Bush administration submitted to Congress on Monday. But it could fuel a debate on Capitol Hill over whether the military, and the Army in particular, has enough troops to carry out missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots.
Senior Army officials say lessons from the study - from revamping how soldiers are deployed to overhauling battlefield supply-distribution networks - are being incorporated into Army training centers and among the 110,000 troops now replacing 130,000 soldiers in Iraq.
The bulk of the study, a book entitled "On Point," is a lucid narrative devoted largely to detailed accounts of several pivotal battles. For the most part, it praises the Army's combat operations and the ability of soldiers and commanders to adapt to rapidly shifting battlefield conditions.
The report refers only glancingly to two of the most contentious issues of the war: Iraq's suspected illicit weapons and the Pentagon's preparations for securing and rebuilding the country after major combat ended.
The study does note, however, that the strategy of starting the war before all support troops were in place, in order to achieve an element of surprise, taxed the postwar resources of local commanders, who in many cases were shifting back and forth between combat operations and the task of restoring civil services.
"Local commanders were torn between their fights and providing resources - soldiers, time and logistics - to meet the civilian needs," the report concluded. "Partially due to the scarce resources as a result of the running start, there simply was not enough to do both missions."
The study's authors saved their most biting critique for the logistics operations. When the combat forces raced ahead, the supply lines - "force flow" in military jargon - could not keep pace. "As the campaign progressed, the force flow never caught up with the operational requirements," it found.
Put more bluntly elsewhere in the study, it said that "no one had anything good to say about parts delivery, from the privates at the front to the generals" at the command headquarters.
Other problems cropped up. While divisional commanders could communicate with one another, officers at lower levels often could not. Units separated by long distances in the fast-moving offensive found their radios suddenly out of range, leaving troops to improvise solutions using mobile phones or secure e-mail messaging.
Commanders were relying on an extensive psychological operations campaign of leaflets and broadcasts to coax Iraqi soldiers into surrendering, as they did in large numbers in the 1991 gulf war, and to refrain from sabotaging Iraq's oil fields.
The study found that those messages either had failed to reach many of the intended Iraqi units or had baffled the Iraqi soldiers who got them. In addition, Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters inserted in Iraqi Army units threatened and, in many cases, killed Iraqi soldiers who tried to desert or surrender.
Leaflets were prepared for the first 48 hours of combat, but the system to approve new written messages was so cumbersome that psychological operations teams on the ground were forced to rely solely on loudspeakers. "It is clear that on the whole, psyop produced much less than expected and perhaps less than claimed," the report found.
Despite elaborate Army planning for a final battle in Baghdad - including the mapping of every section and building in the city of 5.5 million people - commanders and intelligence analysts were at a loss to determine how the Iraqis would defend Baghdad, if at all.
"Intelligence officers at all echelons continued to have great difficulty accurately describing the threat in the city," the study concluded.
Not until armored columns carried out probes, called "thunder runs," through Baghdad, the study found, did American commanders realize that the city was not heavily defended.
The study also found that future adversaries could draw several lessons from the war: that American forces' reliance on high-tech surveillance satellites and aircraft could be countered by decoys and the imaginative disguise of weaponry; that more powerful warheads for rocket-propelled grenades, already effective against helicopters and light vehicles like Humvees, could offset American armor; that American forces could be drawn into a protracted, costly urban war, more effectively than they were by the Iraqis; and that American forces are vulnerable to classic insurgency tactics, like car bombs.
--------
President Again Rejects Military-Civilian 'Pay Parity'
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6971-2004Feb2.html
For the second consecutive year, President Bush has proposed a military pay increase more than double that for civilian employees, ignoring bipartisan calls in Congress for equivalent raises for both sectors.
Bush proposed a 3.5 percent average pay increase for members of the armed forces under his 2005 budget released yesterday. In contrast, civilian employees would get a 1.5 percent increase, although agencies could reward top workers with extra performance raises or recruitment and retention bonuses.
Clay Johnson III, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, said the civilian raise would allow all employees to keep up with inflation but grant bigger increases only to the best of them and to those with hard-to-find skills. It is part of the Bush administration's long-term goal of overhauling a federal pay system that OMB officials say too often rewards longevity in a job rather than performance.
"Giving the same salary increase to everybody, civilian and military, has never been shown to be an effective incentive for quality people to hire-on, stay and/or perform at a high level," Johnson wrote in a letter to 10 Washington area House members who had called for "pay parity." ". . . I urge you to join with us in supporting the more proven approach."
The bipartisan group of House members, led by Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), had urged Bush last month to uphold the tradition of granting equivalent base increases to civilians and the military. Paying civilians less "sends the regrettable message that the services they provide to America every day are not highly valued," the lawmakers argued in a Jan. 21 letter.
Hoyer said yesterday he was "disappointed that President Bush continues to show a lack of regard for civilian federal employees' hard work and service. . . . Civilian federal employees, from scientists at the Centers for Disease Control to CIA agents to border patrol agents, are a dedicated group of Americans who spend every day at work serving their country. I will fight for the principle of pay parity to provide them with a fair pay adjustment in 2005."
Bush and Congress have engaged in a similar tug of war over pay for the past two years, with Bush proposing two-tiered increases each year that included a higher raise for the military. In the most recent tussle, Congress swept aside Bush's recommendation of a 2 percent raise for civilians and instead approved a 4.1 percent increase, roughly equivalent to what military members received. Bush relented and signed the measure into law.
Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said the disparity in Bush's pay raise proposals for the military and civilian employees will make it harder to attract and keep talented workers.
"The message that federal employees get from this president is that they are not as important, that they are not valued and that their work is somehow less important than that of their uniformed counterparts," Kelley said in a statement. "That is where the real damage is done."
Administration officials have argued that members of the military deserve higher increases in light of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the continuing struggle against terrorism.
Bush also wants to tie pay more closely to performance by limiting across-the-board increases in base pay and providing avenues for the best workers to get the highest raises. To that end, his 2005 budget includes an extra $200 million that agencies can use for increases for top performers or workers with hard-to-find skills. An additional $300 million would be devoted to a Human Capital Performance Fund that agencies could tap for the same purpose.
John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the administration's talk about pay for performance has been little more than lip service. He noted that the proposed $300 million performance fund represents a tiny drop in an overall annual civilian payroll of more than $100 billion.
"To fairly reward hundreds of thousands of federal workers, such a fund requires far more money," Gage said in a statement.
According to budget documents, there are projected to be about 1.87 million federal employees in fiscal 2005, up from 1.76 million workers in fiscal 2002, the first that reflected Bush's budget priorities. Agencies expected to grow the most include the departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security and the Treasury, as well as the Social Security Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
When members of the military and the U.S. Postal Service are included, total federal employment is expected to be 4.14 million workers in fiscal 2005, down from 4.21 million workers this year. The payroll for them all is expected to total nearly $331 billion, according to budget documents.
--------
For the Record Bush's Guard Service In Question
Democrats Say President Shirked His Duty in 1972
By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7372-2004Feb2.html
In recent days, a one-year gap in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service during the height of the Vietnam War has been raised by Democrats.
While none of the presidential candidates has directly criticized Bush's service, some Democrats, including Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe, have accused the president of shirking his military duties in 1972, when Bush transferred to an Alabama unit. McAuliffe on Sunday called Bush "AWOL," or "absent without leave," during that period.
Terry Holt, spokesman for the Bush campaign, accused McAuliffe of trying to "perpetuate a completely false and bogus assertion." Holt said, "The president was never AWOL."
Questions about Bush's Guard service first surfaced during the 2000 presidential race, when he ran against Vice President Al Gore, a Vietnam veteran. A review of Bush's military records shows that Bush enjoyed preferential treatment as the son of a then-congressman, when he walked into a Texas Guard unit in Houston two weeks before his 1968 graduation from Yale and was moved to the top of a long waiting list.
It was an era when service in the Guard was a coveted assignment, often associated with efforts to avoid active duty in Vietnam. Bush was accepted for pilot training after having scored only 25 percent on the pilot's aptitude test, the lowest acceptable grade.
In 2000, the Boston Globe examined a period from May 1972 to May 1973 and found no record that Bush performed any Guard duties, either in Alabama or Houston, although he was still enlisted.
According to military records obtained by The Washington Post, Bush first requested and received permission in May 1972 to be transferred to the Alabama National Guard so he could work on a U.S. Senate campaign. After he was in Alabama, he received notice from the Guard personnel center that he was "ineligible" for the Air Reserve Squadron he requested.
In August 1972, Bush was suspended from flying because he failed to complete an annual medical exam. A month later, Bush requested to be assigned to a different unit in Alabama and was approved. Although he was required to attend periodic drills in Alabama, there is no official record in his file that he did.
According to the records, Bush had been instructed to report to William Turnipseed, an officer in the Montgomery unit. "Had he reported in, I would have had some recall and I do not," Turnipseed, a retired brigadier general, told the Globe in 2000. "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."
White House communications director Dan Bartlett said yesterday that although no official record has been found, "obviously, you don't get an honorable discharge unless you receive the required points for annual service." He said Bush "specifically remembers" performing some of his duties in Alabama. Bartlett also provided a news clipping from 2000 quoting friends of Bush's from the Alabama Senate campaign saying they recalled Bush leaving for Guard duty on occasion.
Bush said in 2000 that he did "show up for drills. I made most monthly meetings, and when I missed them I made them up."
Reached in Montgomery yesterday, Turnipseed stood by his contention that Bush never reported to him. But Turnipseed added that he could not recall if he, himself, was on the base much at that time.
Bush returned to Houston after the election, and again his service is vague in the records. His officers at Ellington Air Force Base wrote in May 1973 that Bush could not be given his annual evaluation, because he "has not been observed" in Houston between April 1972 and the following May. Ultimately, another officer states in a subsequent document that a report for that one-year period was unavailable for "administrative reasons."
The records indicate that Bush surfaced at the end of May 1973 and fulfilled point requirements 10 times between May 31 and July 30. In September 1973, Bush requested an early discharge to attend Harvard business school; in October he received an honorable discharge.
The issue of military service has been out front this year, with two decorated veterans -- Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark -- in the race and with Republicans questioning the Democrats' commitment to national security.
During the New Hampshire campaign last month, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore -- a Clark supporter -- referred to Bush as a "deserter" at a rally of 1,000 people outside Concord. Two days later in Iowa, former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), who lost three limbs during the Vietnam War, told voters that Kerry is "the one guy who can call his hand on the hypocrisy of a bunch of people that never went to war."
Kerry said yesterday that he had not decided whether to make Bush's service an issue in the general election. Asked whether he has suggested that surrogates pursue this line of attack, he said: "I have not suggested to any of them that they do so, and I spoke out against the use of the word deserter, which I thought was inappropriate, wrong and over the top."
Staff writer Ceci Connolly, traveling with Kerry, and researchers Don Puhlman and Lucy Shackelford in Washington contributed to this report.
--------
Major Iraq troop rotation gets under way
In the largest turnover since World War II, Iraq-bound soldiers face a steep learning curve.
By Ann Scott Tyson
The Christian Science
02/03/2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0203/p01s03-woiq.html
WASHINGTON - In the backwoods of Louisiana, 4,500 National Guardsmen contend with mortar attacks, road bombs, and ambushes in a mock Iraqi province with hundreds of Arabic-speaking role players.
It's an eye-opening rehearsal for the 30th Brigade of the National Guard, which hasn't been called into combat since 1944. Many of its soldiers have never been abroad. This month, the North Carolina unit will ship out to Iraq's "Sunni triangle" as part of the biggest US troop movement since World War II. The rotation - by May replacing the bulk of US servicemembers now in Iraq - comes with risks as well as opportunities. Fresh units like the 30th Brigade will take over from more seasoned US forces to try to quell a shifting insurgency and prevent political turmoil as Iraq nears a June 30 deadline for self-rule.
Between a rise in nationalism and more frequent terrorist attacks on Iraqi security forces and civilians, the job of policing Iraq is growing increasingly complex for newly dispatched soldiers. Perhaps most crucial, relationships forged over months with local Iraqi officials, tribal chiefs, and religious leaders cannot be duplicated overnight.
"We're very, very sensitive to the fact that the great progress we've made has an awful lot to do with the understanding and relationships we've established at the local level," Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week.
A vast influx of forces to Iraq and Kuwait will peak in March, raising to 220,000 the number of US troops there and temporarily doubling the size of the American military "footprint." As a result, US commanders "will have a very, very large force in there and a very capable force," which they will leverage to "keep the pressure on the enemy," says a senior Army official.
But the surge in troops means more targets, and large movements themselves are often dangerous. Over four months, 14 brigades will overlap with and replace 17 brigades as the number of divisions drops from four to three. The projected total force of 110,000 will consist of 80,000 soldiers, 25,000 marines, and 5,000 Air Force and Navy ground personnel such as truck drivers and engineers.
Even with a smooth "battle handoff," incoming troops will lack the firsthand political experience vital to navigating Iraq's escalating factional conflicts. Sunnis and Shiites, Kurds and Arabs are vying for resources and power. Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence is on the rise. Insurgents are appealing to nationalism or radical Islam as rallying points rather than loyalty to Saddam Hussein.
"The hard part is the ... personal relationships that you build with the leaders. That will always take some time," says Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the Army's Fourth Infantry Division. The lack of established relations will have "an impact" as new US forces help set up an Iraqi government, he said. Based in Tikrit, General Odierno's division patrols the Sunni triangle and will be replaced beginning next month by the First Infantry Division from Germany and the 30th brigade. For months, the units have been sharing information to ease the transition.
In the triangle, where 80 percent of attacks on US forces take place, Odierno says his troops have succeeded recently in breaking up cells of regime loyalists. Only a handful of cells remain, he says, compared with 15 to 20 before Mr. Hussein's capture on Dec. 13. But he warns that "the threat is moving toward somewhat of a nationalistic threat" as religious and ethnic factions jockey for position in a future Iraqi government. Such infighting is evidenced by a steady rise in attacks on Iraqi police and officials. Meanwhile, terrorist strikes on Iraqi civilians, which some military officials attribute to radical Islamic groups, have multiplied.
Both trends suggest a war zone riddled with new political complexities for soldiers headed to Iraq.
Here in the US, the 30th brigade is soaking up as many lessons from Iraq as it can. This month at Fort Polk, La., they patrolled in a town with Arabic signs and native speakers. There were mock mortar attacks from insurgents and meetings with local imams and police chiefs.
Like other Army and Marine forces deploying to Iraq, the 30th Brigade has tailored its equipment and organization for the conflict. A heavy armored unit, its soldiers have drawn the latest gear designed for airborne troops at a cost of $3,000 per soldier: new kevlar vests, kneepads, and Infrared laser sights. Meanwhile, its four-man tank and howitzer crews have switched to Humvees. Overall, units headed to Iraq are lighter and more maneuverable, with fewer tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and artillery pieces, and more
Humvees."Initially it was a little weird, a little quirky" for tankers to train as motorized infantry, says Capt. Matt Handley, a brigade spokesman. "But the comfort level has come up." As protection against explosive devices, the Army is adding armor to hundreds of vehicles in Iraq. Ingoing brigades will also have greater reconnaissance capabilities, including unmanned aerial surveillance drones.
Army and Marine reservists will make up nearly half of the new rotation, compared with about one third of the force currently in Iraq. As a result, training has intensified between reserve and active-duty units assigned to serve together. The 30th Brigade and 1st Infantry Division have held staff-level exercises in Germany, for example, to test communications and tactical operations.
After a farewell ceremony at Fort Bragg in mid-February, soldiers from the Clinton, N.C.-based brigade will fly to Kuwait to pick up equipment. Once in Iraq, they will spend two or three weeks learning the ropes with the 4th Infantry Division on joint missions called "right seat rides." American commanders in Iraq will use the temporary influx of forces to maximize combat power, according to the senior Army official. "These right seat rides are ... not just dry runs, these are not scrimmages, they are full-up operations," he says.
Although the rotation as planned will eventually reduce the total US force by about 15,000, many of these will come from logistics units whose services have been contracted out, while others will come from headquarters, according to military officials. Overall combat capabilities will stay the same or increase, they say.
--------
Was Death of Ex-Embed Linked to Iraq Experience?
The Virginian-Pilot
By Joe Strupp
February 03, 2004
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2082210
NEW YORK Dennis O'Brien, a military reporter with The Virginian-Pilot and a former Iraq war embed who died over the weekend, apparently committed suicide, according to sources in and outside the paper -- sparking speculation that his war experience might have contributed to his death.
The Virginian-Pilot reported Sunday that O'Brien, 35, had died Saturday, without revealing a cause.
Several editors at the paper would neither confirm nor deny that O'Brien took his own life. Norfolk police confirmed they had responded to a suicide on Saturday, but would not reveal the exact circumstances or the identity of the deceased. Several sources, however, said the reporter had taken his life, and suggested his time in Iraq may have played a role.
"I think it was a contributing factor," said one colleague, who requested anonymity. "He saw some awful things while he was over there. I saw things get worse when he got back. He did tell people it was an awful experience."
Coming just seven months after O'Brien returned from a nearly six-month reporting stint with a U.S. Marine unit in Iraq, his tragic death sparked concern among journalists about the potential deadly effects of war reporting.
"That is very distressing news," Sig Christenson, a military reporter for the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News and vice president of Military Reporters & Editors, said upon hearing about O'Brien. "People should try to know why it happened and if it had anything to do with the war."
Virginian-Pilot Managing Editor Denis Finley downplayed speculation that O'Brien's Iraq service might have been a factor. "I don't believe they are related," he said. "I am sure there are others who believe that. It was part of his job. I didn't see where it really affected him. It is something he wanted to do, and requested -- it was one of his dream assignments."
O'Brien, who joined the paper in July 2000, was one of the first embedded journalists in Iraq, joining Charlie Company of the U.S. Marines' 2nd Light Armor Reconnaissance Batallion in January 2003, traveling with the group until June 2003, according to the paper. The story also mentioned that he had been involved in an ambush while in Iraq, but was not injured.
O'Brien wrote about his war experiences in a July 27, 2003, story in the Virginian-Pilot: "I lost 30 pounds, and 4 inches off my waist. I also probably lost a little of my mind, but it's coming back -- I hope. I'm just glad that's all I lost.
"I can't tell you how many times the sailors and Marines told me I was crazy. They couldn't believe I volunteered for this. Never mind that they also had volunteered -- and for much longer tours of duty.
"They were just doing their job, they said. And I was doing mine."
Editors at the paper said they did not reveal the cause of death at the request of O'Brien's family. He was married with a two-year-old daughter.
Staff writer Steve Stone, who wrote Sunday's story, seemed prepared for readers seeking further information on the cause of death. He placed a message on his regular voice mail explaining that the cause was withheld at the family's request.
Kay Tucker Addis, Virginian-Pilot editor and vice president, said the paper does not normally cover suicides, but will on a case-by-case basis. "We don't believe it was a public incident," she said about O'Brien's death. "We covered it consistent with the way we cover the death of a fellow colleague."
Addis would not speculate on whether O'Brien's death was related to his time in Iraq, adding that "It would be wrong for people to leap to assumptions. I don't think it is appropriate for anyone to talk about what was his state of mind."
Professional grief counselors were brought in to the newspaper for two sessions with staff members on Monday, according to Addis, who said the paper also held two special staff meetings to discuss the incident. The paper is creating a memorial book of O'Brien's work and condolence cards and letters for his daughter, while also discussing formation of a trust fund for her.
In the paper's story Sunday, Addis said: "Dennis was a talented and committed journalist who touched people around the globe with his dispatches from Iraq." O'Brien wrote 67 stories during his coverage of the war "that gave a unique, up-close look at the war through the eyes of those on the front lines," she added.
-------- propaganda wars
What Blair said about Iraq's banned weapons
February 3, 2004
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4270236
LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called an independent inquiry into possible intelligence failings following the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the primary reason he gave for war.
Until recently, the government has maintained evidence of weapons programmes could yet be found and had refused to hold an investigation into the inability of Washington and London to find them.
The following is what the prime minister said about those banned weapons, both before and after the war.
BLAIR FOREWORD TO GOVERNMENT'S SEPTEMBER 2002 IRAQ DOSSIER:
"I wanted to share with the British public why I believe this issue to be a current and serious threat to the UK national interest."
"Saddam Hussein is continuing to develop WMD, and with them the ability to inflict real damage upon the region and the stability of the world."
"What I believe the intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme."
"I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he has made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped."
"The document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."
BLAIR'S SPEECH TO PARLIAMENT, MARCH 18, 2003, WHEN HE SECURED BACKING FOR THE WAR:
"We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years -- contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence -- Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."
"Iraq continues to deny that it has any weapons of mass destruction, although no serious intelligence service anywhere in the world believes it."
BLAIR TO PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE, JULY 2003;
"For me, the jury is not out. I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes."
BLAIR NEWS CONFERENCE IN SEPTEMBER 2003:
"I've got no doubt at all that they will find evidence that those programmes were continuing well after Iraq was saying they'd been discontinued and shut down."
BLAIR'S CHRISTMAS 2003 MESSAGE TO THE ARMED FORCES IN IRAQ:
"The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles."
----
Blair follows Bush's lead with inquiry into WMD
By George Jones, Political Editor and Marcus Warren in New York
03/02/2004
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$PXK0RINS4VHO5QFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2004/02/03/nwmd03.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/03/ixnewstop.html
Tony Blair bowed to pressure last night to follow President George W Bush's lead when he ordered an inquiry into British intelligence and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
He will announce the terms of the inquiry when he attends a twice-yearly televised question and answer session with senior MPs at Westminster this morning. Caught off guard: Tony Blair
Michael Martin, the Speaker, ruled that Mr Blair should make the announcement at 9am after talks with other party leaders took longer than expected last night. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, will make a statement to the Commons later.
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, is understood to have pressed for political judgments that led to war to be part of the inquiry. Tories said that their leader, Michael Howard, was confident that agreement could be reached.
It is understood that Mr Blair will propose that a committee of MPs and outside experts will look at the intelligence failings and what had happened to the WMD.
Downing Street refused to say whether Mr Blair now shared the growing doubts that the weapons existed at the time of going to war.
A spokesman said: "The Prime Minister believes that the war was justified and remains justified."
The American inquiry into discrepancies in intelligence used to justify the war will be conducted by an independent commission. The president said he wanted "to know all the facts".
No 10 denied that Mr Bush's decision had forced Mr Blair into an embarrassing about-turn. But until yesterday ministers had insisted that there was no need for an inquiry, arguing that a team of international experts in Iraq should be allowed to complete its search for WMD.
Mr Bush said the commission would be independent and bipartisan. No chairman has been named but the investigation's importance has been compared to that of the Warren Commission and its inquiry into President John F Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
Among the figures tipped to lead it is Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to President Bush's father but a sceptic on the justification for the second Gulf war.
Downing Street appeared to have been caught off guard by Mr Bush's announcement. Although officials said they had been working in parallel with the White House, the Government held hurried consultations to find suitable figures to lead an inquiry.
The absence of weapons of mass destruction has developed into a highly-charged issue which has dogged Mr Blair since Saddam Hussein was toppled.
Before the war, the Prime Minister spoke with certainty that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons that posed an urgent threat to the region and British interests. Officials acknowledged, however, that it was now time to address "valid" questions about the weapons.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the Hutton report, which cleared the Government of "having politically interfered with, falsified or hyped the intelligence on WMD", had opened the way for a broader inquiry.
"That allows us to address - hopefully in a more rational context - the perfectly valid question that people have asked about WMD," he said.
The last time a similar inquiry was held was on intelligence failures that led to the Falklands conflict in 1982.
Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary and a leading critic of the war, said the decision to go to war was political. It would be an "outrage if the intelligence services were left to carry the can".
The possibility that an inquiry could embarrass the Government as well as MI6 was highlighted by a report from the Commons foreign affairs select committee.
It said the continued failure of the American-led coalition to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had damaged the credibility of America and Britain in their conduct of the war against terrorism.
Donald Anderson, the Labour chairman of the committee, said an inquiry was needed to "re-establish trust in our intelligence community".
--------
Colin Powell Defends Decision on Iraq War
February 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Powell-Iraq.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that even if Iraq had no stockpiles of dangerous weapons, President Bush made the right decision to go to war to remove Saddam Hussein.
Powell, whose support for the war helped swing political moderates behind Bush, said, ``The right thing was done.''
``Other information that might have been available earlier I don't know would have changed the outcome,'' Powell told reporters, referring to postwar searches that failed to turn up caches of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that Bush and Powell insisted Saddam had hidden.
``It was something we all agreed to, and would probably agree to again under any other set of circumstances,'' he said.
``Nor did I say it would have changed the outcome,'' Powell said in reference to an article in The Washington Post about an interview he gave the newspaper Monday.
According to the article, Powell was asked if he would have recommended an invasion knowing Iraq had no prohibited weapons, and he replied: ``I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world.''
He also told the newspaper that the ``absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus; it changes the answer you get.''
Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council a year ago Thursday, which accused Iraq of stockpiling hidden weapons, failed to muster the council's support for the war Bush ordered six weeks later.
The regard Powell commands along a wide spectrum of Americans' political views, however, made Bush's decision palatable to many normally skeptical of the president and other, hard-line, senior advisers.
Powell had been briefed over several days by CIA Director George Tenet before making his U.N. speech. ``What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence,'' he told the council.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the private Arms Control Association, said Tuesday Powell's U.N. statement was inaccurate even as he gave it.
``Colin Powell should have known that several of his allegations were based on statements that were clearly in dispute in the U.S. intelligence community,'' Kimball said in an interview.
For example, he said, Powell's charge that Iraq was using aluminum tubes for centrifuges for uranium enrichment was disputed by the Energy Department and his own State Department intelligence bureau. Inspectors have since said they were for use in legal artillery rockets.
As inspectors failed to turn up hidden weapons, both the U.S. intelligence and the way it was used by the Bush administration came under challenge.
Finally, David Kay, Bush's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, resigned last month and said he doesn't think Saddam, the deposed Iraqi president, had weapons stockpiles when U.S. and British troops invaded last March.
Bush has responded by agreeing to order a bipartisan investigation, while Congress intends to hold a parallel and separate investigation of its own.
Meanwhile, administration contentions that Saddam had ties to the al-Qaida terror network led by Osama bin Laden also have come into question.
``The president made the right decision,'' Powell said Tuesday after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and escorting him to a waiting limousine that took Annan to the White House to talk to Bush about ways to end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.
Powell, standing before news cameras at the State Department diplomatic entrance, said Bush ``made the right decision based on the history of this regime, the contempt that this terrible despotic leader had'' and on his weapons capacity.
``It was clear that this was a regime with intent, capability, and it was a risk the president felt strongly we could not take,'' Powell said.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
INTELLIGENCE
Commission to Decide Itself on Depth of Its Investigation
February 3, 2004
By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/politics/03WEAP.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 - White House officials said Monday that the commission being created to investigate intelligence shortcomings would decide for itself if it would examine a highly charged political issue: whether President Bush and other senior administration officials exaggerated the evidence that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of illicit weapons.
A draft of the executive order Mr. Bush is preparing to sign this week to create the commission makes no explicit reference to a study of how the intelligence assessments were used. Instead, it only directs the panel to compare intelligence findings about Iraq produced before the war with the absence of stockpiles of unconventional weapons found by American inspection teams on the ground.
On Monday, Democratic leaders in Congress sent a letter to Mr. Bush urging that the scope of the inquiry include "the collection, analysis, dissemination and use by policymakers of intelligence on Iraq." The Democrats, including the minority leader, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, also said members of the commission should be appointed "on a bipartisan basis by the Congressional leadership" rather than by the president himself.
Mr. Bush, the White House said, plans to appoint the members himself, though Vice President Cheney has been calling around Capitol Hill sounding out ideas.
Among the names being mentioned by members of Congress and administration officials as candidates are Robert M. Gates, the director of central intelligence under President Bush's father; Warren B. Rudman, a former senator from New Hampshire and an intelligence expert; Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence who has been leading the C.I.A.'s internal review of Iraq intelligence; and David A. Kay, until recently the chief American weapons inspector in Iraq. William Perry, who has extensive experience in intelligence matters and was defense secretary under President Clinton, and Gary Hart, a former Democratic senator from Colorado who is a national security expert, have also been mentioned.
Mr. Bush had lunch at the White House on Monday with Mr. Kay, whose acknowledgments in the last 10 days that American intelligence agencies overestimated Iraq's capabilities forced the president to order the bipartisan inquiry, a step he had long resisted. Neither the president nor Mr. Kay spoke publicly.
But earlier in the day, speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, Mr. Bush sidestepped a question about whether Americans deserved answers before the presidential election in November to questions about the yawning gap between prewar allegations that Iraq possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and the later failure of American inspectors to discover any such weapons.
"I don't know all the facts," Mr. Bush said in response to the question. "What we don't know yet is what we thought and what the Iraqi Survey Group has found, and we want to look at that. But we also want to look at our war against proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, kind of in a broader context. And so I'm putting together an independent, bipartisan commission to analyze where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this war against terror."
Congressional Democrats said they wanted a voice in who was chosen. "For President Bush to say he is going to do this on his own, going at it unilaterally again, which is his wont, that is not going to fly," said Senator Carl Levin, the Democrat of Michigan who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It has to be independent of him, as well as independent of Congress."
At a briefing on Monday, the White House had little more to say about who would be appointed to the commission, what its exact mandate might be and when it would be expected to report back to Mr. Bush.
The question of whether inquiries into apparent intelligence failures on Iraq should extend to the use of intelligence by administration officials has divided Republicans and Democrats for months.
To date, Republicans have used their political control over both houses of Congress to focus inquiries by the Senate and House Intelligence Committees almost solely on the judgments reached by intelligence agencies rather than on the public statements issued by the White House or the administration itself.
But as Democrats have argued at length, it was in statements by Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others that the allegations about Iraq's weapons were presented with the fewest qualifications.
In his presentation to the United Nations Security Council last Feb. 5, for example, Mr. Powell described the evidence that Iraq possessed illicit stockpiles as reflecting facts and not allegations.
In an interview published in the Monday issue of The Washington Post, Mr. Powell said he did not know if he would have recommended invading Iraq based on what is now known about the weapons, saying "it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world." Nonetheless, he said he believed the invasion was "the right thing to do, and I think history will demonstrate that."
Senator Levin said any further inquiry "can't just stop at the water's edge; we need to ask, did the user stretch the intelligence or misuse it in some way?"
By contrast, Representative Porter J. Goss, the Florida Republican who is chairman of the House intelligence committee, said in a separate interview on Monday that the commission should have a broad, forward-looking mandate.
"This is an opportunity to realign our intelligence capabilities to address the threats that exist in the world today, not as they did in 1947 when the intelligence community was set up," Mr. Goss said.
--------
Intelligence Panel Will Cast Net Beyond Iraq
By Dana Priest and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6915-2004Feb2.html
The commission that President Bush will appoint to investigate the failures of prewar intelligence on Iraq will also review the CIA's misjudgments about weapons programs in Iran, Libya and North Korea, administration officials said yesterday.
Bush said the nine-member panel -- which White House officials said would include current and former officials with experience in intelligence matters -- will "look at our war against proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, kind of in a broader context."
Although the secret weapons programs of Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea and Pakistan have long been a top concern of U.S. national security officials, the intelligence agencies have missed critical weapons developments in each country. Administration officials have found themselves surprised at recent disclosures about nuclear weapons programs in Iran, Libya and North Korea. And the intelligence community was caught off guard when Pakistan tested a nuclear device in 1998.
Stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has become a priority for the administration since Sept. 11, 2001, because of the fear that al Qaeda terrorists will try to acquire such weapons from secretive and sometimes cash-starved states that produce them.
Bush conferred yesterday with former chief CIA weapons hunter David Kay, who told Congress last week that the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq was wrong and that he does not expect anyone to find weapons of mass destruction.
The White House said the president will release the names of the commission members later this week when he signs an executive order creating the panel. The group will include some former and current members of Congress, one White House official said.
The administration has already contacted some people it hopes will serve, and it is waiting for acceptances, officials said. They declined to provide names but spoke admiringly of former senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who is president of the New School University, as the sort of nonpartisan statesman they are seeking. He is a member of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. Other names floated by officials were William H. Webster and James Woolsey, both former CIA directors. Woolsey said in an interview that he had not been contacted.
Congressional Democrats, who had demanded an independent commission to assess the prewar claims about Iraq, criticized Bush for deciding to make all the appointments to the panel himself.
"A commission appointed and controlled by the White House will not have the independence or credibility necessary to investigate these issues," said a letter signed by Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), Senate intelligence committee Vice Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other Democratic congressional leaders. "Even some of your own statements and those of Vice President Cheney need independent scrutiny. A commission appointed and controlled by the White House will not have the independence or credibility necessary to investigate these issues."
Critics of the war and many congressional Democrats have said it is crucial to know whether White House policymakers cherry-picked the CIA's intelligence on Iraq -- dropping the many caveats and using only the most inflammatory assessments -- in making its case for war.
But Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees, which have been looking at prewar intelligence for months, have failed to persuade the Republicans who control the committees to ask the administration for this material. Even if they did request it, White Houses typically claim executive privilege, which safeguards communications between the president and other executive offices from outside scrutiny.
In an interview yesterday with Washington Post editors and reporters, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he expects the panel to look "at the analysts at the bottom all the way up to the policymakers" who rely on that intelligence.
Asked whether discussions between CIA Director George J. Tenet and Bush would be an important element in the commission's work, Powell said, "I would assume that the commission will look into this."
"My recommendation would be to give [the commission] as much access as you can," he added, "but I have to hold a little hook here because there may be some presidential privileges or executive privilege issues that I'm not aware of that the White House may have."
He said he hopes the commission will "see whether or not there are gaps in the kinds of things we're doing and are there things we have overlooked in terms of how to cover these kinds of situations, whether it's North Korea or Libya or Iran."
Bush, fielding a question on the commission after a meeting with his Cabinet, carefully avoided an acknowledgment that the Iraq intelligence was wrong. "First of all, I don't know all the facts," he said. "What we don't know yet is what . . . the Iraqi Survey Group has found, and we want to look at that."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the commission will incorporate the findings of the Iraq Survey Group; the weapons-hunting team is not expected to finish its work for months. "The Iraq Survey Group is doing its work, separately and apart from this commission," he said. "But it's important that their work -- that the commission look at their work as part of this broad assessment of our intelligence capabilities."
Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the front-runner in the Democratic primary race, called the investigation "long overdue" and said waiting until after the elections to produce findings is "reflective of the attitude of this administration" to drag its feet on investigations.
"We need a president of the United States who isn't slow to the table, slow to the walk, who gets it right the first time," Kerry said. "I hope this will not be an effort to sideline these issues which the American people deserve answers on before the election. We deserve this to be a true bipartisan effort and a rapid effort."
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Bush "is showing strong leadership once again by establishing a panel of experts to perform a 'no holds barred' review of America's intelligence community to make it stronger and more effective in a post-9/11 world."
--------
Bill Would Give 9/11 Panel Time
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Dan Eggen
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7278-2004Feb2.html
Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation yesterday to postpone the deadline for an independent commission studying the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to complete its work, proposing to give the panel until January 2005.
By law, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States must finish its report by May 27; its members say they need at least two months more. The White House has said it will oppose any extension.
The proposal by Lieberman, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, and McCain would also give the panel an extra $6 million. Supporters say a 2005 deadline would avoid the release of the controversial report in the midst of the presidential election cycle.
-------- homeland security
Tests Indicate Poison In Senate Mail Room Of Majority Leader
February 3, 2004
By CARL HULSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/politics/03POIS.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 - A suspicious substance was found in the mail room of the Senate office of the majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, on Monday afternoon, and officials said repeated tests indicated the presence of the poison ricin.
The Capitol Police said they received the report of the material in a room of the Dirksen Senate Office Building adjacent to the Capitol about 3 p.m. and conducted initial tests that came back positive for ricin. About 16 workers, who were on the fourth floor, were evacuated, and aides said the material was sent away for testing. Two of these three tests were positive, Police Chief Terrance Gainer said.
Officials said that the ventilation system had been shut down and that the mail room workers had been moved elsewhere in the building for medical supervision and decontamination. Dr. Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon who wrote a book advising the public on how to prepare for a bioterror attack, said no one had shown signs of sickness.
"Most importantly, nobody has been hurt," Dr. Frist said.
An official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Monday night that if the case appeared to be a criminal or terrorist act against a member of Congress, the bureau was prepared to begin an investigation.
Ricin (pronounced RICE-in) could cause illness or death if enough was ingested, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Envelopes containing anthrax were mailed to the offices of Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Two postal workers at an office that processed the envelopes died.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Tainted prison food sparks controversy
February 03, 2004
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040203-052934-8347r.htm
TOWNSVILLE, Australia, Feb. 3 -- Australia's Queensland prisoners may lose the privilege of preparing meals for the prison guards due to a pubic hair found in a guard's chocolate pudding.
The guard at the Townsville prison made the discovery when he sat down to eat dessert Saturday night.
Trusted prisoners have cooked food for prison officers both as part of their rehabilitation, as well as a cost-saving plan for the Department of Corrective Services.
But the Melbourne Herald says some convicts have confessed that food often contains saliva and urine, while plates are rubbed on prisoners' genitals.
On Monday, Premier Peter Beattie said the practice may need to be reviewed. "It would be a brave guard that would eat the food prepared by some of the prisoners," he told reporters on the state election campaign trail in Mackay.
A corrective services spokesperson said the organization was not yet aware of any prison officers taking legal action against the department for food contamination.
-------- terrorism
Poison Ricin Found in Sen. Frist's Office
February 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Capitol-Suspicious-Powder.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A white powder found in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office tested Tuesday as the deadly poison ricin, forcing cancellation of most Senate business in the second such scare from a lethal toxin to hit the capital.
Between 40 and 50 Capitol employees were quarantined briefly and decontaminated, said Senate aides who spoke on condition of anonymity -- considerably more than originally thought.
Although more tests were being conducted, Frist said he was positive the substance was ricin and officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said several of their tests identified it as ricin. They said they were awaiting the results of additional confirmatory testing.
The CDC officials said they were somewhat reassured because none of the people who were quarantined and decontaminated turned up sick.
One Senate aide said that up to 50 people, including 10 police officers, were quarantined -- and then decontaminated -- Monday night in a room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Other aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that dozens of employees went through the process.
Some Senate employees had been cleared to go home Monday after the powder was discovered, only to be telephoned later by their colleagues and advised to put their clothes in a plastic bag and rinse themselves off as a precaution, Senate aides said.
Frist said that a ``definitive test'' had confirmed that the powder was ricin.
Said CDC Director Dr. Julie Geberding: ``As each minute ticks by, we are less and less concerned about the health effects.'' If the ricin were pure, she said, ``We would expect very early onset. The fact that we haven't seen that is reassuring.''
President Bush was briefed on the situation, and the administration established an interagency team to investigate what Frist told colleagues was a chilling crime.
Although Senate leaders made a show of conducting business as usual Tuesday, they later canceled all votes that had been scheduled for the day. At the Senate office buildings, entrances were locked and many staffers were said to be working from home.
Buildings were eerily quiet, underscoring the sense that the area has essentially been under a terrorism threat since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Police told lawmakers not to open any mail. Mail to congressional offices has been irradiated since the 2001 anthrax attack, but radiation would not have an effect on ricin, Frist said.
A simple ``Closed'' sign was tacked onto one of the main, ornate doors of the Dirksen office building that housed Frist's office. Through a window of the Dirksen building a pile of red, plastic bags could be seen in the hallway. Yellow sheets were erected to cordon off areas off the hall.
Adding to the tension was the discovery later Tuesday of a white powdery substance on the first floor of the Capitol building itself, prompting a partial shutdown and evacuation. A corridor was reopened after preliminary tests were negative, said Capitol Hill police spokeswoman Contricia Ford.
Frist said he had been told ``the definitive test'' on the powder ``said it was ricin for sure.'' Frist said he was referrseing to a type of testing known as PCR or polymerase chain reaction, that detects a gene from the castor plant from which ricin is made.
The CDC planned additional PCR tests to confirm if the powder contained ricin. Also, Army scientists were to inject samples of the powder found in Frist's office into laboratory animals to see if they become ill, said a federal health official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no threatening letter or note linked to the powder has been found.
Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota, majority leader in 2001 when deadly anthrax was found in letters sent to his office and the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called the ricin discovery ``obviously a criminal act.''
``I believe that it is an act of terrorism,'' Daschle said. ``It certainly is criminal. I don't draw a distinction between the two, frankly.''
Some senators opened temporary work areas in the Capitol on Tuesday.
``There's sort of an odd sense of deja vu with the anthrax and that this is happening again,'' said Tessa Hafen, a spokeswoman for Sen. .Harry Reid of Nevada, the senate's No. 2 Democrat.
A U.S. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that although ricin is a harmful toxin, the situation in the Frist's office does not bear the marks of international terrorism.
``Somebody in all likelihood manufactured this with intent to harm,'' Frist told his colleagues at the opening of the Senate session.
In 2001, an anthrax-laced letter shut down Congress briefly and closed the Hart Senate Office Building for months of expensive cleaning. Five people were killed and 17 sickened nationwide after coming into contact with letters containing anthrax. An investigation continues.
A clue to ricin poisoning is a suddenly developed fever, cough and excess fluid in the lungs, a fact sheet from CDC says. These symptoms could be followed by severe breathing problems and possibly death, it said. There is no known antidote.
On the Net:
Senate site: http://www.senate.gov
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facts about ricin: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/ricin/facts.asp
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Bush Budget Slashes Environment, Agriculture Spending
By J.R. Pegg
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
February 3, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2004/2004-02-03-10.asp
The $2.4 trillion budget released by the White House on Monday doles out big increases for defense and homeland security, but cuts or holds the line on spending for much of the rest of the federal government. Seven of 15 cabinet level departments will have their budgets slashed under the Bush plan, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) facing some of the largest cuts.
The Bush plan would reduce the EPA budget by 7.2 percent and the USDA budget by 8.1 percent. The departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice, Transportation and Treasury will also be cut.
President George W. Bush told reporters the budget reflects his priorities of winning the war on terrorism, protecting the homeland, strengthening the economy and reducing the federal budget deficit.
The President said the proposal would trim the budget deficit from a record $521 billion to $363 billion and would eliminate or shrink more than 120 major federal programs.
"I am confident our budget addresses a very serious situation ... we are at war and we [have] dealt with a recession," Bush said. "And our budget is able to address those significant factors in a way that reduces the deficit in half." President George W. Bush and his Cabinet discuss the budget with reporters Monday at the White House. (Photo by Eric Draper courtesy White House) "We propose, the Congress disposes," Bush added. "We look forward to working with the appropriators to meet our priorities and to reduce the deficit in half. We are confident we can do so."
The overall budget increases federal spending by some 3.9 percent over 2004 appropriations. It contains a 7 percent increase in defense spending and a 10 percent increase in spending for homeland security.
The $29 billion in new money for defense and homeland security increases this part of the budget to $432 billion, a figure that does not include funding for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan or Iraq.
The rest of the discretionary budget is held to a spending increase of 0.5 percent - a total of $2 billion in additional spending.
The USDA budget calls for increased funding for food safety programs, but cuts conservation programs by $120 million and rural development spending by $244 million.
The $7.76 billion proposed for the EPA falls short of the $8.6 billion approved for the agency's fiscal 2004 budget, but the Bush administration stressed that it is committed to environmental protection.
The White House has embraced "the philosophy that a growing American economy is the solution to improving our environmental quality," said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt noted that the nation has made enormous progress in protecting the environment over the past 30 years and said "this budget will enable the EPA to pursue even better ways to care for the environment and protect people's health." EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt is confident the cuts will not impede environmental progress. (Photo courtesy the EPA) The White House has earmarked $1.4 billion for the Superfund program - a $124 million increase of 2004 appropriations - and provided additional money for grant programs to monitor underground storage tanks and brownfields development.
But the Bush budget cuts some $500 million from the Clean Water state revolving fund, which provides grant money to state and tribal governments for development and upgrades of sewage.
In addition, it slashes water infrastructure funding by more than $300 million and cuts funding for the EPA's clean air and global climate change programs by $21 million.
Vermont Independent Senator James Jeffords said the budget "not only shortchanges our environment, it challenges our nation's role as a global environmental leader."
"Virtually every environmental program under my committee's jurisdiction has been targeted for funding cuts," said Jeffords, the ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Congress will not let this stand."
Leavitt focused on several funding announcements he unveiled last week, including $65 million to expand a grant program aimed at reducing harmful air emissions from school buses, $45 million for contaminated sediment cleanup in the Great Lakes, $10 million in grants to protect the Chesapeake Bay and $20 million for new water monitoring studies. The overall EPA budget is cut by 7.2 percent, but the administration plans a $60 million increase for a grant program to cut harmful air pollution from school buses. (Photo courtesy the EPA) "With the President's budget, we can pick up the pace - protecting our land, cleaning our air and cleansing our water - efficiently, effectively and without impairing the economy," Leavitt said. "We can accelerate our environmental progress in protecting our spectacular landscapes, our vital ecosystems, and the health of our communities and their citizens."
Phillip Clapp of the National Environmental Trust says the EPA budget reflects the administration's disinterest in protecting the environment.
The $124 million increase for the Superfund "looks good on paper" but it is tied to the cuts in clean water funding, Clapp said.
"Clean water or toxic waste - as if Congress is going to choose one over the other in an election year," he said. "At best, expect the status quo."
----
Navajo, Hopi Agree on Tuba City Tank Cleanup
SAN FRANCISCO, California, (ENS)
February 3, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2004/2004-02-03-09.asp#anchor4
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency and the Hopi Tribe Department of Natural Resoures, have selected a final cleanup plan for the leaking underground tank site in Tuba City and Moenkopi, Arizona.
After numerous public meetings, hearings, outreach efforts and consideration of comments from community members, the agency and the Tribes selected two cleanup technologies designed to remove petroleum contaminants from the soil and ground water at and around the intersection of highways 160 and 264.
The first technology pumps air into the ground water which attaches to gasoline molecules that are extracted when the air returns to the surface. The injected air also stimulates the growth of naturally occurring bacteria that breaks down petroleum contamination.
The second technology enhances this natural process by injecting oxidizers into the soil and shallow ground water. These methods have proven effective in cleaning up petroleum contamination at underground storage tank sites across the Southwest, the EPA says.
"By working together with the Hopi and Navajo people, we are ensuring that we can provide a clean and healthy environment for our communities," said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr.
"This cooperative effort reinforces the fact that we are all concerned about the safety of our environment and the quality of living as we work toward preserving our homelands," said Hopi Tribe Chairman Wayne Taylor, Jr.
Petroleum contamination was first discovered in Tuba City in the mid-1980s. In 1996, the EPA ordered Thriftway, National Petroleum Marketing Inc., and Sunshine Western, Inc., which operated what is now the Superfuels station, to investigate underground contamination from leaking fuel tanks and pipes from the operation of the gas stations.
Representatives from the EPA, Navajo Nation EPA and Hopi Department of Natural Resources held public meetings and public hearings in Tuba City and at the Hopi Village of Upper Moenkopi in August. The public was invited to comment on the proposed cleanup strategy for the site. This resulted in a final cleanup plan that includes responses to the written and oral comments submitted by the public during the meetings and public comment period.
Thriftway is currently performing all the work at the site on behalf of itself and all the responsible parties. Thriftway previously installed the air injection technology at two locations and these systems have been incorporated into the final cleanup plan.
"This is a great step toward cleaning up this site," said Jeff Scott, the director for the EPA's Waste Management Division for the Pacific Southwest region. "We thank the Navajo and Hopi Tribes for their dedication and commitment in protecting their communities' environment and public health."
-------- health
Vitamins vital?
February 03, 2004
By Jen Waters
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20040202-102619-8471r.htm
Amey St. Clair of Arlington had migraines for months. The headaches were so severe they were affecting her quality of life. When her nutritionist suggested taking magnesium for the problem, she decided she would try anything.
After regularly taking the mineral by mouth and soaking in baths of Epsom salts, which also contain magnesium, her pain has disappeared.
Although Ms. St. Clair, 41, knows some people might question whether the magnesium actually eliminated the pain, she believes vitamins and minerals play a strong role in allowing the body to heal itself. When she had flu-like symptoms a few months ago, she took high doses of vitamin C, instead of an antibiotic, and felt better.
"My aunt influenced our family to start taking vitamins," she says. "I have a great-aunt who is 85 who has outlived her siblings who passed away in their 60s. She swears it's because of vitamins that she's been taking for about 30 years. She takes a daily multivitamin, calcium, niacin, vitamin C, vitamin D and vitamin E. She says this has kept her well."
Although most nutritionists and doctors rely upon the standards in the Dietary Reference Intakes created by the National Academy of Sciences in Northwest, which outlines the amounts of vitamins and minerals essential for a healthy lifestyle, they have a hard time agreeing upon the full effects of the substances on the body. Some medical professionals believe dietary supplements simply end up excreted with the urine, while others believe the substances might prevent major health problems.
There also is disagreement about organic versus synthetic vitamins, says Ted O'Brien, a licensed nutritionist for George Washington University's Center for Integrative Medicine in Northwest. He suggests buying supplements labeled as organic or food-based, rather than synthetic ones.
Food-based supplements, which are usually more expensive than synthetic ones, have bioactive ingredients extracted from foods believed to have health-promoting benefits. They are condensed to fit into tablet or capsule form, while synthetic supplements are made in the laboratory.
Experts debate whether organic vitamins actually work better than synthetic ones. Mr. O'Brien says there are many possible factors that influence vitamin and mineral absorption in the body. For instance, he says, the combination of other essential nutrients is important. Calcium will absorb much better in the presence of magnesium. Also, he says, the quality of the nutritional supplement affects its outcome on the body. Further, the function of the digestive system of the individual who is taking the supplements can alter the absorption rate.
"Vitamins are very safe," Mr. O'Brien says. "Generally, a person should have a multivitamin with mineral supplements. One pill a day."
If people have food allergies or lifestyle restrictions that inhibit them from eating properly, vitamins could significantly improve their health, says Dr. Ann Marie Gordon, a private internist with an office at the Washington Hospital Center in Northwest. For instance, if an individual is on a low-calorie diet, fewer than 1,200 calories a day, taking a multivitamin would be important.
"If you don't eat the recommended five vegetables and three fruit a day, taking a multivitamin supplement would be reasonable," she says. "We know sometimes the demands of family and work can preclude eating a balanced diet. ... There is evidence that multivitamins may improve immune function and decrease risk for some infection."
Since vegetarians eliminate meat from their diets, they may need to take additional vitamin B12, Dr. Gordon says. Also, women who are pregnant or breast-feeding always need more nutrients, such as folic acid and iron. And the elderly also could benefit from taking B6 or B12 because their bodies tend to have problems absorbing those vitamins.
If a person doesn't spend at least 15 minutes in the sun a day, they should take calcium and vitamin D, says Dr. Gordon. Also, the absorption of vitamins and minerals is decreased in the bodies of persons who smoke or use tobacco, therefore, they should take supplements of vitamin B6, vitamin C, folic acid and niacin, she says.
Impaired digestion and absorption usually are problems for heavy drinkers. They should take thiamin, folic acid, vitamin A, vitamin D and vitamin B12 daily. Alcohol, which alters the metabolism, affects minerals in the body, such as zinc, selenium, magnesium and phosphorus.
"If you drink excessively, you may also substitute alcohol for food," Dr. Gordon says. "This results in a diet that lacks nutrients."
Some people don't take any vitamins because they are concerned about overdosing on them, says Stephanie Dacko, a clinical dietitian at Georgetown University Hospital in Northwest. Although the total ramifications of supplements on the body are unknown, she believes unneeded water-soluble vitamins or minerals simply pass through the body in urine once the body has obtained the necessary nutrients.
However, she says fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E and vitamin K, have the potential to be toxic, since they are stored in the body and can't be excreted through urine. In general, she says persons should avoid megadoses and not exceed the Dietary Reference Intakes.
She says she is unsure whether vitamin E can prevent Alzheimer's disease, as some medical professionals hope.
"Some people think it can help protect the cells from the damage that results from the aging process and maintain brain function," she says. "Others think there's no benefit at all."
The debate about the influences of supplements isn't a black or white issue, says Rebecca Costello, deputy director of the office of dietary supplements at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.
In fact, the way in which supplements are regulated through the Food and Drug Administration is different than prescription medicines. Whereas prescription medicines have pre-market evaluation, supplements are monitored after they come on the market.
"It's a very young science," she says. "We're learning. It's one thing to study vitamins in an isolated system. When we put them in the human body, and they interact with multiple targets, then, the picture becomes a little bit more confusing."
When researchers started to study nutrients about 100 years ago, Mrs. Costello says they focused on deficiency diseases. People were becoming ill because of a lack of a certain vitamin or mineral. For instance, in the early 1900s, medical professionals discovered rickets, a disease of the skeletal system, is caused by a lack of vitamin D.
"We're more focused now on preventing disease," she says. "We're spending a lot of money evaluating how the nutrients work ... and how they play a role in chronic disease prevention."
Where to find them:
Vitamins
Vitamin A: Fish liver oils, carrots, parsley, spinach, collards, cantaloupe
Vitamin B1: Brewer's yeast, rye and whole-wheat flour, beans, seeds, brown rice
Vitamin B2: Almonds, brewer's yeast, cheese, chicken, organ meats, wheat germ
Vitamin B3: Beef liver, brewer's yeast, white-meat chicken, sunflower seeds, meats
Vitamin B9: Whole grains, lentils, oranges, whole wheat, green leafy vegetables
Vitamin B12: Beef, dairy products, seafood, not found in vegetables
Vitamin C: Many fruits and vegetables
Vitamin D: Fortified milk, some seafoods
Vitamin E: Vegetable oils, nuts, green leafy vegetables
Vitamin H: Whole grains, nuts, meats, lentils, brewer's yeast, tuna, chocolate
Vitamin K: Spinach, green tea, cabbage, turnip greens, brussels sprouts, alfalfa, soybeans, cheddar cheese, oats, cauliflower
Minerals
Calcium: Dairy products, green vegetables, dried legumes
Chromium: Brewer's yeast, chicken, dairy products, seafood, fresh fruit, potatoes with skin, whole grains
Cobalt: Organ and muscle meats, milk
Copper: Lentils, wheat germ, blackstrap molasses, some nuts, mushrooms, honey
Iodine: Seafood, iodized salt
Iron: Liver, meat, eggs, legumes, whole grains, green leafy vegetables
Magnesium: Beans, nuts, whole grains, leafy green vegetables
Manganese: Avocados, beans, oatmeal, nuts, buckwheat
Phosphorus: Meat, dairy products, beans, peas, cereals, poultry, grains
Potassium: Avocados, bananas, apricots, potatoes, and many other foods
Selenium: Seafood, meat, grains
Zinc: Widely distributed in food, especially pumpkin and sunflower seeds
More information: For the Dietary Reference Intakes log onto: www.iom.edu/file.
Source: Ted O'Brien, licensed nutritionist for George Washington University's Center for Integrative Medicine
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.