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NucNews - February 5, 2004
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NUCLEAR
Malaysian Company Tied to Nuclear Trade Network
Depleted uranium bullets pose threat to Japanese troops in Iraq
URANIUM: CONTROVERSIES ON CORPORAL MELIS' DEATH
Legal case for Gulf war syndrome to collapse in UK
Fewer than 10 Gulf war troops had uranium poisoning
Iraqi children -- between agonizing past and dream of bright future
Fears over depleted uranium lead to GSDF use of dosimeters
Nuclear scientist makes apology
Pakistan President Pardons Nuke Scientist
Pakistan nuclear architect could not have acted alone: analysts
Q&A: Pakistan's nuclear secrets
Pakistan admission backs US nuclear claims
Musharraf Pardons Scientist Who Shared Nuclear Secrets
Pakistani A-Bomb Guru Says He, Alone, Let Secrets Out
Pakistani Scientist Apologizes Nuclear Assistance Unauthorized
Pak govt not involved in N-spread: Armitage
Alleged Nuclear Offer to Iraq Is Revisited
Not everyone got it wrong on Iraq's weapons Former UN inspector
Israel Weighed Killing Nuke Whistleblower Vanunu
CBS 11 Investigates U.S. Patriot Missile System
AP Enterprise: Rogue Hunt Goes Worldwide
Toxic Metal Detected at Uranium Plant
Savannah Free From Plutonium For Another Year
PDG Environmental, Inc. Awarded Term Contract
Utah may gain say-so on N-waste
Time Bomb?
Vit plant construction progresses
California utility abandons plan to ship nuclear reactor vessel
Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe
The Trouble With Handpicked Councils
Bush: Arms 'We Thought' Were in Iraq Not Found
Chomsky: "Another Four Years Of The Same Policies
MILITARY
To rein in Afghan intelligence service, Karzai removes its leader
Afghan Leader Removes Chief of Intelligence
ISRAEL DISPLAYS UNMANNED NAVAL SYSTEM
Tory Leader Calls on Blair to Quit for Iraqi Weapons Claim
Blair admits he did not know 45-minute claim
MAKING MONEY ON TERRORISM
Halliburton faces bribery probe
Boeing's Tanker Deal Could Be on Hold
Portuguese opposition wants answers on Iraq WMD claims
Iran's Supreme Leader Tries to Defuse Crisis
Reports of Assassination Attempt on Shiite Cleric in Iraq
Israeli Police Question Sharon in Bribery Investigation
NATO plans special brigade to fight terror risks
Defence plan for $1bn sky robots
Australia doubles defence spending in desire to become top military player
British and US spies ready to blame each other
US, British spies busted Pakistani scientist's nuclear leaks
The shadowy world of US intelligence agencies
Former UN weapons inspector accuses CIA chief of "deception" over Iraq
CIA Boss: Iraq Not Called Imminent Threat
Tenet Admits U.S. May Have Overestimated Iraqi Weapons
Tenet to Defend CIA's Role In Prewar Iraq Intelligence
Tenet Highlights CIA Successes Overseas
Rumsfeld and Tenet Defending Assessments of Iraqi Weapons
How Bush, Others Described Iraq Threat
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Bush, in Reversal, Supports More Time for 9/11 Inquiry
Extension of 9/11 Probe Backed
Terror alert system riles House committee
Ridge Asserts Action Halted Terror Attack
Ridge Believes Holiday Security Averted Attack
N.Y. City Council Passes Anti-Patriot Act Measure
Seven years jail, $150,000 fine
Williams Wants Police in Schools Mayor Working On New Security Plan
Nations Step Up Campaign Against Terror
OTHER
Citizen Groups Blast Abandoned Mine Lands Proposal
Whistleblower says EPA used unreliable data for sludge decision
Pesticides Taint India's Colas, Parliamentary Panel Confirms
ACTIVISTS
ZIMBABWE - Police arrest 100 to stop protest
A challenge of our time
Are You On Uncle Sam's No Fly List?
Thousands of Hondurans protest
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- asia
Malaysian Company Tied to Nuclear Trade Network
February 5, 2004
By RAYMOND BONNER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/asia/05MALA.html
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 4 - A publicly traded Malaysian oil and gas conglomerate that supplied high-quality nuclear components to Libya is the latest link to emerge in a rogue nuclear trading network stretching back to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the creator of Pakistan's atom bomb.
The components were made by Scomi Precision Engineering of Selangor, Malaysia, a subsidiary of Scomi Group Berhad, Malaysian and Western investigators and the company said Wednesday. The parts were shipped to a company in Dubai in four consignments between December 2002 and August 2003, Scomi Group said in a statement.
Scomi Group's largest shareholder is the son of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, Kamaluddin Abdullah. The prime minister's son, who is 35, has no management role in the company and does not sit on the board. He is only a shareholder, a Malaysian official familiar with the company said. Scomi's chairman is Tan Sri Asmat Kamaluddin, a former secretary general of Malaysia's international trade ministry.
The Scomi engineering company was not told by the Dubai company, Gulf Technical Industries, where the components were going, Scomi Group said, declining to answer any questions beyond the four-paragraph statement it issued.
A government official said Wednesday that the prime minister would insist on a thorough investigation of the transaction.
Western and Malaysian investigators said the equipment was ordered by Dr. Khan, who admitted responsibility for trading nuclear secrets in a televised statement to the nation in Pakistan on Wednesday. Dr. Khan made periodic trips to Malaysia over the past few years, according to Malaysian and Western intelligence agencies, not always traveling under his real name.
The components, which were to be used in centrifuges to make weapons-grade uranium, were "very high quality, very high tech," said a Western official. "It required a lot of expertise."
United States and United Nations officials are investigating the secret network of trade in nuclear weapons designs and equipment that originated in Dr. Khan's laboratory and extended to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
In its statement, Scomi said that the contract for the components was arranged by B.S.A. Tahir, described as a Sri Lankan businessman based in Dubai. Mr. Tahir is the controlling shareholder of Gulf Technical Industries, which has five employees, Malaysian investigators said.
On one occasion, a Malaysian official said, Dr. Khan came to Malaysia for Mr. Tahir's wedding. A Malaysian government official said that Mr. Tahir is now in this country. He has not been arrested or detained, the official said, and he is cooperating with the investigation.
"Malaysia was an unwitting participant in all this," an official in the prime minister's office said. But with the tight control that the Malaysian government has traditionally exercised, many Malaysians and foreign diplomats doubt that a sale of this nature would have been possible without the knowledge of at least some senior government officials, probably in the military.
Scomi was founded in 1982 as a marketing company for industrial chemicals. In 2001, the group began manufacturing precision engineering products through Scomi Precision Engineering.
"Our top-priority question is to find out if any other customers bought into this nuclear network," Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna said.
A diplomat in Vienna said the agency had found similarities in the nuclear gear of Libya and Iran, and was investigating the possibility that the countries used the same Malaysian suppliers.
-------- depleted uranium
Depleted uranium bullets pose threat to Japanese troops in Iraq
Mainichi Shimbun,
Japan, Feb. 5, 2004
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20040205p2a00m0fp012000c.html
THE HAGUE -- Depleted uranium bullets and asbestos pose potential threats to Japanese troops dispatched to Samawa, southern Iraq, a Dutch Parliament report obtained by the Mainichi Shimbun has suggested.
The report on Dutch troops' activities in Samawa is likely to prompt Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) personnel deployed in the area to take measures to protect themselves from such threats.
Critics of the dispatch of Self-Defense Force personnel have already pointed to the fear that Japanese troops could be the target of terrorist attacks.
The report was compiled on the basis of the results of investigations that Dutch ruling and opposition legislators conducted there in late October last year.
It cited depleted uranium bullets left in Samawa and its vicinity and cancer-causing asbestos used in buildings as potential threats to the health of Dutch soldiers. The report also warned of possible skin diseases and enteritis as well as heatstroke.
The report also stated that Dutch troops and U.S. forces jointly cracked down on dealers of illicit weapons in a bid to ensure security in the area.
According to the report, Dutch and U.S. soldiers used video cameras and taxis to monitor the secret market for illicit weapons. They raided the market after concluding that the dealers used children as messengers, and that some local residents were harboring the dealers.
In the operation, Dutch and U.S. troops detained about 120 people including four former high-ranking officials of Saddam Hussein's regime, and confiscated some 100 weapons.
Furthermore, Dutch troops asked local residents for information on terrorists' activities.
Some 1,100 Dutch soldiers are designated to guard GSDF troops in Iraq.
----
URANIUM: CONTROVERSIES ON CORPORAL MELIS' DEATH
(AGI) Rome, Italy,
Feb.5, 2004
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200402052036-1244-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia
The death of corporal Melis, who died, after four missions in the Balkans, of Hodgkin's disease (a type of leukemia), has caused many reactions, even in the political sphere.
The quaestor of the Chamber of Deputies, Edouard Ballaman (Northern League) said: "fortune is blind, but hard luck has an excellent eyesight. Yesterday - he went on - I was writing a letter on depleted uranium and on the 23 casualties and 263 sick people it caused. When I got to know about this 24th death, considering that many politicians still go on about the therapeutic effects of depleted uranium, I feel I must make another appeal to the investigation committee, to propose a new regulation".
According to Ballaman, "by this stage, while the Mandelli committee keeps on saying that all these deaths and diseases are just 'hard luck', we can say that hard luck is a real sniper, considering it seems to haunt only the militaries who operated in the former Yugoslavia. I am outraged by the slowness of the Defence Ministry, which isn't dealing with the sick, nor with the victims' families, and keeps on denying that the disease is linked to operational activities".
Even the Left Democrats agree on the institution of an investigation committee. Senator Lorenzo Forcieri said that "corporal Valery Melis is unfortunately the umpteenth Italian soldier who died after having been on peace-keeping missions in the Balkans and in other areas where depleted uranium weapons were used. There are also many sick people, and this means that there will probably be more deaths. That's why I insist that an investigation committee be established".
Forcieri, president of the Italian parliamentary delegation to NATO, also wrote to Left Democrats senators' president Gavino Angius, to ask that the Party's group at the senate propose "the bill for the institution of the investigation committee. The text" - said Forcieri - "has been signed by 36 colleagues so far, including a member of the majority. Nevertheless, the senate has not included this item on its agenda. I get the impression we're getting hindered when we try to shed light on this case. There must be great transparency in the transitory phase between military service and a professional army. We must shed light on what caused the death of the Italian soldiers who accept to represent our country in missions abroad".
Roberta Pinotti, Silvana Pisa and Beppe Lumia, of the Left Democrats-Olive Tree, ask that the Defence Minister intervene now: "the death of Valery Melis forces the government to investigate clearly on this issue, which regards thousands of Italian soldiers deployed in the Balkans" they wrote in a letter sent to the Defence Minister. They point out that Melis' relatives "had asked the state to acknowledge that the death is due to duty, but it wasn't. Minister Martino had promised, when visiting the US base in Sardinia, that everything would be done to solve an 'unsolved case'. Victims' and military associations reported the many cases of diseases developed after having gone on duty in the Balkans".
Finally, they ask "how were Melis and his family supported in these 5 years spent suffering the disease, and what results has the Mandelli commission reached after its investigation?".
"Unfortunately, it's too later to obtain serious answers to these questions" - said Enrico Buemi (SDI) - "I had asked once again for an investigation on the desperate case of corporal Melis. Today, we can only mourn the loss of the soldier, and show all our solidarity to his family and to the soldiers who are in a bad state, abandoned by those who didn't inform on the existence of weapons featuring depleted uranium, which cause irreversible and often fatal diseases. By this stage - concluded Buemi - minister Martino, even in honour of private Melis, must provide some clear explanations on this situation, and tell us what he intends to do to avoid further similar cases".
----
Legal case for Gulf war syndrome to collapse in UK : report
www.chinaview.cn
2004-02-05
(Xinhuanet)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-02/05/content_1300677.htm
LONDON, Feb. 5 -- An eight-year, multimillion pound legal battle by more than 2,000 British veterans for compensation for Gulf war syndrome has collapsed due to lacking enough scientific evidence to prove their case in court, a British newspaper reported on Thursday.
The Legal Services Commission (LSC), which was estimated to have spent about 4 million pounds (about 7.3 million US dollars), was expected to withdraw legal aid this month after being told by the veterans' lawyers that the action has no real chance of success, the Guardian newspaper said.
Taking the case to trial in the high court could cost a further4 million pounds in legal aid, it added.
To succeed in their claim against the British Ministry of Defense (MoD), the veterans would have to produce scientific evidence not only that their illness was caused by service in the 1991 Gulf War, but that the MoD had been negligent, the paper said.
But a trawl by scientists through 10 years of research worldwide, overseen by the veteran's lawyers and funded by the LSC, has found no evidence which establishes any specific cause for the range of health problems they suffer and there was also scant evidence of negligence on the part of the MoD, the paper added.
Many of the 55,000 British troops who served in the Gulf have experienced a range of symptoms, including muscle weakness, neurological symptoms, headaches, depression, fatigue, short-term memory loss and difficulty in concentrating, joint and muscle pain, sleep disturbances, skin rashes and shortness of breath.
The syndrome has been attributed to stress, smoke from oil-burning wells, injections, depleted uranium ammunition and other causes, although many believe the nebulous condition could be psychosomatic.
The United States and Britain have refused to accept a direct link between the war and the syndrome, even though they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars researching possible causes.
----
Fewer than 10 Gulf war troops had uranium poisoning
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent,
February 05 2004
UK Herald
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/9323-print.shtml
FEWER than 10 of the 70,000 British troops involved in operations in Iraq over the past 11 months have tested positive for signs of depleted uranium (DU) contamination, according to figures obtained by The Herald.
All of those affected were hit by shrapnel from DU tank or aircraft cannon shells during "friendly fire" incidents in the advance on Basra and have since received treatment for "very low-level" radiation poisoning.
The news comes a day after a Scottish veteran of the 1991 Gulf conflict became the first British soldier to win a war pension for DU poisoning.
Kenny Duncan, a father of three from Clackmannanshire, convinced a pensions tribunal that his subsequent ill health was directly attributable to inhaling uranium dust from burned-out armoured vehicles he was ordered to carry back from the front lines on his tank transporter 13 years ago.
Successive governments have resisted calls for a public inquiry into the harmful effects of depleted uranium ammunition to avoid compensation claims, which could potentially cost them hundreds of millions of pounds.
DU is the waste product of nuclear power stations and is 1.7 times as dense as lead, making it perfect for penetrating tank armour.
Shaped into rods and fired from either tank guns or the rapid-fire cannon on American A10 "tankbuster" aircraft, it also produces intense heat on impact.
Both the MoD and the US Defence Department still insist that the radioactive dust plume produced when a round strikes its target is only harmful if inhaled, swallowed or in wounds caused by shrapnel when the shell fragments.
Veterans' organisations claim the dust, relatively harmless outside the body, can lodge in the lymph glands if ingested and cause cancer.
Every serviceman or woman who took part in last year's Iraq campaign or has since been posted to Basra on garrison duty has been offered the chance of supplying a urine sample to determine whether there is DU in his or her body.
An MoD spokeswoman said only 275 have submitted samples. All have tested negative for contamination.
----
Iraqi children -- between agonizing past and dream of bright future
Xinhua news,
February 5, 2004
http://english.eastday.com/epublish/gb/paper1/1168/class000100006/hwz180219.htm
"My dreams are nightmarish...because I always dream of warplanes bombing my house and killing dad and mam!" said Fatima, an eight-year schoolgirl.
According to a latest study, whose findings were published in local Iraqi media recently, most Iraqi children used to draw tanks and warplane.
When Mustafa, a 12-year-old boy, was asked why he drew tanks with Iraqi flag and not trees, he said "soon after I began to sense the outside world, I used to see tanks on TV more than anything else."
Asked about now, Mustafa said, "I see more US tanks, but no Iraqi ones."
Psychiatrist Abdul Majeed believed that Iraqi children needed many years to free themselves from the agony of wars and violence and help them forget all about the bitter experience of their country in the past two decades.
Dr. Abdul Majeed added "however the current troubled situation in Iraq is unhelpful to raise normal kids!!"
Meanwhile, the UN figures indicate that almost 25 percent of Iraqi students have left their classes to help their families make a living.
A visitor of the Iraqi capital nowadays could see thousands of underage children selling cigarettes, or dealing in black market, or doing some jobs at a time when the per capita of most Iraqis has dropped to US$360 nowadays from US$2,500 per annum in 1989, the last year before UN sanctions.
The three successive wars experienced by Iraq left hundreds of thousands of orphan children and divided families, with street children who are often exposed to sexual abuse.
Iraqi children, due to the troubled situation in their country in the past two decades are considered among the most agonized children in the world.
In the past two decades, Iraqis experienced three wars and 13 years of harsh UN sanctions which took a heavy toll from these children, who have been denied even the opportunity to dream of a bright future.
According to UN figures more than half a million Iraqi children under 5 had died between 1990 and 2000 as a result of malnutrition or shortage of medicine.
Iraq was subjected to UN sanctions in punishment for invading oil-rich Kuwait in August 1990 by order of its former President Saddam Hussein.
Saddam, who was captured last month, had been ousted from power by US-led coalition forces last April.
The use of depleted Uranium Ammunition against Iraq in 1991 US- led war, which resulted in the eviction of Iraqi army from Kuwait, had resulted in the birth of thousands of children with congenital deformations.
The fear of giving birth to such deformed children made thousands of newly-married Iraqi women refuse pregnancy.
The sound of explosions during the three wars experienced by Iraq in the past two decades spread horror among Iraqi children.
Dr. Abdul Majeed said "Iraqi children have the right, like any other normal children in the world, to dream of a better future."
The only thing remains to be seen, he added, "is when this will come true."
--------
Fears over depleted uranium lead to GSDF use of dosimeters
By NAO SHIMOYACHI
The Japan Times
Feb. 5, 2004
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040205a4.htm
Responding to concerns over the use of depleted uranium rounds by the U.S. military during the Iraq war, the Defense Agency is equipping Ground Self-Defense Force troops in the country with hundreds of radiation dosimeters.
Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba stressed in a Diet session Wednesday that the dosimeters will "allow (the GSDF) to assess the danger" of radiation, if any.
But some experts and nongovernmental organizations have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the devices.
They claim the dosimeters that Japanese troops carry are designed to detect only gamma and X-rays, while the most likely danger is posed by alpha rays.
Uranium emits alpha and beta particles and gamma and X-rays in the process of its decay.
Yuko Fujita, a professor of physics at Keio University, conducted a field trip in May to Iraq, including southern parts of the country where GSDF members are now being deployed.
Fujita said he was only able to detect gamma rays from heavily contaminated objects, such as a destroyed Iraqi tank that was heavily riddled with depleted uranium rounds.
"To detect gamma rays, you need to have a large amount of radiation," he said.
More threatening, he said, are minute alpha particles that can remain in the air.
These particles, undetectable by the dosimeters that Self-Defense Forces personnel will carry, are easily inhaled and can spread into a person's internal organs via the circulatory system.
"They are only microns in size and hardly detectable," he said. "But still they pose grave threats to human bodies."
A Tokyo-based manufacturer won a Defense Agency contract last month to supply dosimeters for the Iraq mission.
The agency has reportedly purchased 600 devices at a cost of 45,000 yen each.
Makoto Yanagida, a member of the Depleted Uranium Center Japan, a nongovernmental research group, said the GSDF would need to use higher-grade devices to detect alpha rays emanating from depleted uranium.
The dosimeters that "do not work" could "do harm by giving GSDF personnel a false sense of safety," Yanagida said.
In March, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks of the U.S. Central Command said U.S. military forces had used a very small volume of depleted uranium projectiles during the invasion of Iraq.
But some experts believe their use was more extensive.
For example, Asaf Durakovic, director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, an independent organization with offices in the U.S. and Canada, estimates that 1,700 tons of depleted uranium rounds were used.
Durakovic, a former military doctor for the U.S. Defense Department, made a three-week field trip to Iraq in September and October.
He is now analyzing samples of substances such as soil, along with tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers, as well as urine samples from civilian residents.
The U.S. has admitted it used some 300 tons of depleted uranium during the Gulf War in 1991.
-------- india / pakistan
Nuclear scientist makes apology
February 05, 2004
Washington Times From combined dispatches
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040204-100146-9262r.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Top Pakistani scientist and national hero Abdul Qadeer Khan made a dramatic personal apology yesterday for leaking atomic secrets, the latest twist in a proliferation scandal stretching from Libya to North Korea.
In a somber address on state television, Mr. Khan, revered at home as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, absolved the government and fellow scientists of any blame in an apparent bid by all concerned to draw a line under the damaging affair.
The speech followed days of negotiations with the government leading to an understanding that an apology would help him avoid a messy public prosecution, intelligence officials said.
Commentators said his confession smacked of a coverup, possibly part of a wider agreement to spare the powerful military unwanted scrutiny in a trial and allow President Pervez Musharraf to avoid pressure from Islamists and nationalists.
"My dear brothers and sisters, I have chosen to appear before you to offer my deepest regrets and unqualified apologies," Mr. Khan said on state-run Pakistan television.
"There was never, ever any kind of authorization for these activities by the government. I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon," the silver-haired 69-year-old scientist added, speaking in English.
Western diplomats and many Pakistanis believe Mr. Khan could not have sold nuclear secrets and sent technology for enriching uranium abroad without the knowledge of top military officials.
Earlier, Mr. Khan met with Gen. Musharraf at the president's Rawalpindi residence, where he is reported to have pleaded for clemency.
The National Command Authority, which oversees Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and is headed by Gen. Musharraf, said yesterday it had referred Mr. Khan's "mercy petition" to the Cabinet, which is scheduled to meet today.
In Washington the White House said a trial was a matter for Pakistan, but a spokesman said: "We appreciate their efforts to address what is a serious concern, which is proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
The apology by Mr. Khan, at the center of an international storm over Pakistan's role in nuclear proliferation during the 1980s and 1990s, was greeted with skepticism.
"There is no doubt that it is a coverup," said Shahid-ur-Rehman, a Pakistani journalist and nuclear expert.
Mr. Khan sought to clear his fellow scientists, who he said acted under his instructions. Four other scientists have been questioned in the probe along with two brigadiers responsible for security at the nuclear facility where he worked.
----
Pakistan President Pardons Nuke Scientist
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON
Associated Press Writer
Feb 5, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A pardon granted Thursday to Pakistan's top nuclear scientist for leaking weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea will ease domestic political pressure on the Islamic nation's U.S.-backed president and head off a deeper inquiry of official involvement into years of proliferation, analysts said.
Just two weeks after condemning possible rogue elements in Pakistan's nuclear program as "enemies of the state," a defiant and unapologetic President Gen. Pervez Musharraf forgave Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan after the disgraced scientist took responsibility on national television for leaks that spanned at least a decade starting in the late 1980s.
Musharraf's decision to back away from a public trial appeared weak to some international observers suspicious of his and Kahn's contention that the Pakistani government didn't authorize or know about the proliferation.
But key allies like the United States and Britain pointedly withheld criticism Thursday. Analysts said Washington was unlikely to seek tougher action against Khan for fear of putting the Pakistani leader in a tight spot.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan sidestepped repeated questions about whether the Bush administration wants Pakistan to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"President Musharraf provided us assurances that the government of Pakistan was not involved in any kind of proliferation activity," McClellan said.
"The investigation by the government of Pakistan demonstrates their commitments to addressing the issue of proliferation, and this proliferation is no longer. The actions of Pakistan have broken up this network and that's important."
Musharraf, who seized power in 1999, is a key Washington ally in its war on terrorism and the hunt for al-Qaida fugitives, particularly along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
"They do not want to embarrass him further and make his job more difficult," said Talat Masood, a Pakistani military and political analyst. "Without Musharraf, the whole war on terror would be compromised."
Strongly worded criticism of Khan's pardon came Thursday from former U.S. chief weapons inspector David Kay.
"I can think of no one who deserves less to be pardoned," Kay said in Washington. He called the disclosures "a wake-up call" and said Khan was "running essentially a Sam's Club" of weapons technology.
But Khan is regarded by many of Pakistan's 150 million people as a national hero. Trained in Europe, he founded the program that made Pakistan the Islamic world's first nuclear-armed state in 1998, to rival the military might of its historic enemy and larger neighbor, India.
"From Musharraf's standpoint, it's far preferable to try to draw a line under the issue by accepting Khan's confession, rather than run the political risks of a full-scale investigation and trial," said Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
A public trial of Khan could have led to a showdown with hard-liners and proved embarrassing to top government and military officials.
Islamist and opposition groups have protested Khan's fall from grace since Pakistan launched an investigation in November. The inquiry came in response to information from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, that Pakistani technology had been found in Iran and Libya.
Musharraf was unapologetic about pardoning Khan, whom he referred to as a "hero" many times in a two-hour news conference at army headquarters Thursday. "Whatever I have done, I have tried to shield him," he said.
Details of the pardon weren't made public, including whether Khan would have to repay any of the millions he is suspected of receiving for selling Pakistan's nuclear secrets.
No announcement was made on the fate of the six other suspects: two scientists and four security officials at Pakistan's top nuclear facility, the Khan Research Laboratories, named after Khan.
In Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency, warned that Khan's activities were "the tip of an iceberg" in the international nuclear black market, and promised further investigations.
Musharraf ruled out an independent investigation of any military involvement in proliferation, or any U.N. monitoring of its nuclear program - despite emerging evidence of Khan's central role in an international nuclear black market, also suspected to involve manufacturers and middlemen in Asia and Africa.
"This is a sovereign country," said Musharraf, wearing camouflage fatigues. "No documents will given, no independent investigation will take place here and we will not submit to the United Nations coming inside here."
Musharraf also lashed out at fellow Muslim nations Iran and Libya for caving in to international inspectors and turning over documents on their nuclear programs. "Muslim brothers did not ask us before giving our names," he said.
However, he invited the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency to share in the findings of Pakistan's two-month probe into the nuclear leaks, which has involved the questioning of at least 11 lab employees and two former army chiefs.
In a note of defiance, Musharraf announced Pakistan would test within one month, for the first time, its Shaheen II missile, which has a range of 1,240 miles - nearly three times the range of its current top missile. He also vowed to keep Pakistan's nuclear capability.
"This country will never roll back its nuclear assets," Musharraf said. "It can never be done."
Khan appeared on national television Wednesday to apologize and appeal for the government's mercy. It was a shock to many Pakistanis, although the scientist is actually no stranger to controversy.
After earning a doctorate in metallurgy in Belgium, Khan worked at a Dutch laboratory in the early 1970s run by the British-German-Dutch nuclear conglomerate URENCO.
In 1983, a Netherlands court convicted Khan in absentia on a charge of stealing confidential material from URENCO - allegedly used to jump-start Pakistan's nuclear program in 1976 - and sentenced him to four years in prison. He denied the charge, and the conviction was later overturned on a technicality.
----
Pakistan nuclear architect could not have acted alone: analysts
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Feb 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040205192509.jem4bqvh.html
Pakistan's disgraced nuclear godfather must have had at least tacit state approval to export secrets abroad, analysts said Thursday, dismissing as "incredible" assertions that he acted alone.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, founder of Pakistan's nuclear programme, confessed on Wednesday in a televised statement that he leaked nuclear technology overseas during 25 years at the helm of Khan Research Laboratories (KRL).
Khan, who was given clemency by President Pervez Musharraf on cabinet recommendation Thursday, said the leaks during the past two decades were not authorised by any government or official.
Investigators earlier said Khan had shared sensitive nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea for more than a decade.
Musharraf was grilled during a press conference Thursday on the possibility of the military's role in nuclear proliferation.
He said two former army chiefs Mirza Aslam Beg and General Jehangir Karamat, were thoroughly questioned but there was no evidence of their involvement in the leaks.
"We started our own investigations and we found that no government or military is involved but certain individuals are involved," Musharraf said. "All proliferation, unfortunately, was under the supervision or orders of doctor Khan."
He rejected demands for an independent investigation, sharing of documents with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), or opening of nuclear installations to UN inspections.
"This is a sovereign country, no documents will be submitted to the IAEA, to an independent inquiry and we will not allow UN to supervise our nuclear" programme, Musharraf said.
But IAEA officials would be welcome to visit and Pakistan would discuss with them the results of its own investigation, he said.
Musharraf acknowledged that Pakistan faced international scrutiny and asked the media to refrain from talking of government or military involvement as that would amount to "inviting trouble."
The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in Vienna Thursday that Khan's revelations were "the tip of the iceberg."
Pakistani analysts insisted the question of state involvement remained unanswered.
"The issue of the state responsibility or institutional responsibility regarding the nuclear leaks remain wide open," said Riffat Hussain, head of the strategic studies department at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University.
"Even though A.Q. Khan has admitted there was no explicit government permission given to him, still it really strains the credibility to argue that he could have done all this without the tacit approval of those who were supposed to have kept a watch on him," Hussain told AFP.
Analyst Hasan Askari said: "Despite the confession of Dr A.Q. Khan, the international community would continue to doubt the credibility of the confession to the extent that he was the only person responsible for it.
"The security system of the nuclear installations is so tight that one wonders how could things move out without the knowledge and information of the security agencies," said Askari, former head of the political science department at Punjab university.
"So the government will have to do this kind of explaining," he said.
Hussain said Khan's carefully scripted confession had been designed to lay the matter to rest, snuffing out the possibility of a trial and the risk of damaging revelations emerging.
"(It was) quite obvious that a deal was cut to close the issue and not let it develop into a confrontation with unpredictable consequences," Hussain said.
Analyst Najam Sethi said it was hard to believe Khan could have proliferated on his own without the knowledge of the government.
"Most Pakistanis don't believe that the scientist could have proliferated to such an extent without the knowledge of and in some cases approval of the government officials in charge of the programme," Sethi said.
----
Q&A: Pakistan's nuclear secrets
Simon Jeffery explains the background to the proliferation of Pakistan's nuclear knowledge
Thursday February 5, 2004
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,2763,1141781,00.html
Who has them?
It had long been assumed that they were solely in the possession of Pakistan. However, investigations by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Authority, into the Iranian nuclear programme - and later into Libya's - revealed that some of Pakistan's technologies had spread. It is also alleged that North Korea's nuclear bombs were built using Pakistani knowhow.
How did they get there?
Pakistan launched an investigation in November, and discovered that the founder of its nuclear programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, was at the centre of the black market deals. He admitted, in a televised apology, that he accepted "full responsibility for all the proliferation activities conducted".
Was it just him?
There are six other suspects, but many are incredulous at the thought that Dr Khan could have acted without the wider support or knowledge of Pakistan's government and military elite. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, has also said that the scientist is just "the tip of an iceberg" of the many people in many countries who form an international trafficking network. "There's a lot of chains of activity that we need to follow through on," he said.
Police in Malayasia are currently investigating whether a company controlled by the prime minister's son supplied nuclear components to Libya in a deal linked to Dr Khan. The Associated Press has reported that Pakistani officials told it Dr Khan occasionally ordered "disused equipment" to be sent to Malaysia for reconditioning before it was shipped to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Who is Dr Khan?
The 69-year-old returned to Pakistan in 1976 after studying in Europe, and led the country's nuclear programme. The first tests of the country's nuclear deterrent against India in 1998 turned him into a national hero.
What will happen to him?
Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, granted Dr Khan a pardon after his televised apology for his role in the trade. Putting such a popular figure on trial would have caused domestic difficulties for the president - opposition groups demonstrated on the streets in support of Dr Khan - and could also have led to embarrassing revelations about senior government and military officials.
Why did he do it?
"What is the motive of people? Money, obviously. That's the reality," Mr Musharraf said after granting the pardon. However, if there was a wider complicity on the part of elements of Pakistan's military and government, it is possible that money was not the sole motivation.
The US and Britain went to war against Iraq to stop proliferation. Why did they ignore Pakistan?
In part, there was an intelligence failure. Iraq's WMD programmes were believed to be more advanced than they actually were, while Iran's and Libya's, and the smuggling networks that created them, caught the international community off-guard. Little is known of the true extent of North Korea's programme, although it is believed that the country has enough reprocessed plutonium to manufacture a small number of bombs.
But there is also a question of politics. Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan, is an important US ally, and Washington is unwilling to put the kind of pressure on Mr Musharraf that would threaten his rule or make his job more difficult. The US state department has said that Pakistan has given it assurances that it will not allow its "technology to be used to help other nations that might be trying to develop weapons of mass destruction".
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Pakistan admission backs US nuclear claims
By Andrew Ward in Seoul
ebruary 5 2004
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1075982309938
Pakistan's admission that its top nuclear scientist secretly traded technology with North Korea has added weight to US claims that the communist state is operating a secret uranium-based weapons programme.
Washington has been struggling to convince the world that Pyongyang is developing nuclear bombs using highly-enriched uranium (HEU), amid global scepticism about US intelligence following the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But the confession by Abdul Qadeer Khan, creator of Pakistan's uranium-based atomic weapons, that he leaked nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya has lent credibility to Washington's allegations.
It was the US claim 15 months ago that Pyongyang was developing a clandestine HEU programme - in addition to its known plutonium-based programme - that plunged the divided Korean peninsula into crisis.
Washington says North Korea admitted to the secret programme during talks in Pyongyang in October 2002 but Kim Jong-il's regime has since denied any involvement in uranium enrichment.
With Washington admitting that it does not know where the HEU facilities are located or how advanced the programme is, some voices in China and South Korea had begun to question US intelligence.
"The confusion about North Korea's enriched uranium programme is still far from being clarified," said the Korea Herald newspaper on Thursday.
However, Mr Khan's confession will make it easier for the US to press its case against North Korea when the pair hold six-party talks with South Korea, China, Japan and Russia in Beijing later this month.
Pyongyang's denial of the HEU programme is considered one of the biggest obstacles to a peaceful settlement because the US will make dismantlement of both the plutonium and uranium facilities a condition of any deal.
Diplomats say the US has been reluctant to reveal its intelligence about the HEU programme because much of it is embarrassing to Pakistan, an important ally in the war against terror.
Analysts close to the Bush administration say US intelligence showed that North Korea provided missile technology to Pakistan in return for help in setting up an HEU programme.
Satellite pictures allegedly caught a Pakistani military aircraft collecting missile parts from a North Korean airfield in July 2002. Other evidence indicated that Pakistan supplied Pyongyang with the designs and machinery needed to turn uranium into weapons.
Islamabad needed Pyongyang's ballistic missile technology to provide a delivery system for its nuclear warheads. With a range of more than 1,000km, the North Korean No-dong missile would allow Pakistan to target both of India's main cities: New Delhi and Mumbai.
According to the US, Pyongyang wanted Pakistan's expertise in uranium enrichment to develop an alternative source of nuclear weapons to its original plutonium-based programme, which was frozen under a 1994 arms-control deal with the US.
Washington's allegation that North Korea had secretly started a second nuclear programme caused the 1994 agreement to unravel in late 2002. Since then, Pyongyang has resumed its original programme, claiming to have produced enough plutonium in the past year for up to six bombs.
Now, North Korea is attempting to negotiate a fresh freeze of its plutonium facilities but refuses to discuss the HEU programme. Even by North Korea's standards of obfuscation, such a stance is likely to prove difficult to maintain following this week's revelations by Mr Khan.
----
Musharraf Pardons Scientist Who Shared Nuclear Secrets
February 5, 2004
By DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/asia/05CND-STAN.html
SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 5 - The president of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, granted a full pardon today to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, who admitted sharing nuclear technology with other countries in a contrite television appearance on Wednesday night.
General Musharraf cited Dr. Khan's scientific contribution to the nation as grounds for the pardon, which had been recommended by his cabinet.
The president said his government had tried to walk "a fine line" to satisfy international demands that the scientists involved be held responsible and domestic demands that Dr. Khan, a revered national hero, not be humiliated.
General Musharraf repeated previous statements that neither the government nor the army was aware of Dr. Khan's sharing of the nuclear technology, which took place over a decade.
Military experts, however, have said it would have been virtually impossible for Dr. Khan to carry out the scheme without the tacit approval of Pakistan's army, a powerful force within the country.
When asked by journalists at a news conference today what motivated the scientists to pass on the technology, President Musharraf replied, "Money."
It was unclear what would happen to four scientists and low-level security officials still in government detention who were not granted a government pardon.
Speaking to journalists after the news conference, General Musharraf said Dr. Khan would be under close supervision to prevent him from carrying out any more proliferation, but he added that there would be no further investigation.
The tone of his comments indicated that he wished to put the scandal behind him.
In a three-minute nationally televised speech on Wednesday, Dr. Khan said, "I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon."
Dr. Khan, for three decades one of the most powerful men in Pakistan, said he had acted entirely on his own. "There was never, ever any kind of authorization for these activities from the government," he said.
Pakistani officials say Dr. Khan and intermediaries from Sri Lanka, Germany and the Netherlands shared nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea from 1989 to 2000. Their activities appear to be one of the most successful efforts to evade international controls on the spread of nuclear weapons technology.
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Pakistani A-Bomb Guru Says He, Alone, Let Secrets Out
February 5, 2004
By DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/asia/05STAN.html?pagewanted=all
SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 4 - Appearing shaken and contrite, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, went on national television Wednesday night to admit that he had shared Pakistani nuclear technology with other countries and to ask his nation for forgiveness.
"I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon," said Dr. Khan, for two decades one of the most powerful men in Pakistan.
Wearing a tan suit jacket and a striped tie, Dr. Khan, 67, spoke in English and said he was appearing with the deepest "sense of sorrow, anguish and regret." He said that his actions had been taken in "in good faith" but were "errors in judgment."
He said he had acted entirely on his own. "There was never, ever any kind of authorization for these activities from the government," he said.
The three-minute speech placed Dr. Khan, a national hero for turning his country into a nuclear power, in the unaccustomed role of supplicant. It was widely perceived in Pakistan to be a carefully staged attempt to defuse a potentially grave political crisis for the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and to prevent Dr. Khan from naming senior military officials who knew of his activities.
Hours earlier, Dr. Khan visited General Musharraf to request a presidential pardon, and a silent video of their meeting was also broadcast. General Musharraf was expected to announce at a news conference on Thursday whether the government would punish Dr. Khan and six close aides, officials said.
The White House had little to say about the confession, but American experts on proliferation of nuclear weapons said their concern was not whether Dr. Khan was punished but whether the illicit spread of nuclear technology could be stopped.
For months President Bush's strategy has been to put as much pressure as possible on the Musharraf government, a crucial ally in the campaign against terrorism, to close down Mr. Khan's network. The administration has been careful not to take a public role, for fear of triggering a backlash in Islamabad, where General Musharraf's opponents already charge that he is doing Washington's bidding.
But American officials in Washington said they assumed that Dr. Khan and General Musharraf had struck a deal - perhaps an agreement not to put the scientist on trial, in return for Dr. Khan's announcement that no government officials had been involved in his two decades of proliferation.
That contention is one that few American intelligence officials believe. The Military retained tight control over the nuclear program and government transport planes were used to trade weapons with North Korea. But it is a polite fiction that the White House may be willing to live with if it is the only way to keep a close ally in power while dismantling the Khan trading network.
"We don't know what kind of deal was struck, and we may not know for a while," one administration official said. "With Pakistan, sometimes you never know."
Pakistani officials say Dr. Khan and intermediaries from Sri Lanka, Germany and the Netherlands shared nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea from 1989 to 2000. Their activities appear to be one of the most successful efforts to evade international controls on the spread of nuclear weapons technology.
In an interview with a reporter from state-run television after the meeting, Dr. Khan said he had asked for the meeting with General Musharraf and described the president as very kind. "He listened with a kind heart," the scientist said. "God willing, he will discuss with the cabinet, with the prime minister and other colleagues and then he will take a decision how to proceed."
A senior Pakistani government official and a Pakistani military official said Wednesday that Dr. Khan's statement and the visit to General Musharraf seeking a pardon had been carefully negotiated in meetings on Tuesday.
American experts on the spread of nuclear weapons said the critical issue was not whether Dr. Khan would be punished, but whether Pakistan would thoroughly investigate all aspects of Dr. Khan's nuclear black market and convey every detail to the United States. They said the smuggling network and sales of nuclear technology must be stopped.
A former senior American diplomat in Pakistan said this week that he believed that successive Pakistani military and civilian leaders had intentionally turned a blind eye to Dr. Khan's activities. The former diplomat said Dr. Khan had come up with things that Pakistan felt it needed - ballistic missile technology from North Korea, for example - to counter its nuclear-armed rival, India. Dr. Khan also became a potent political force of his own.
"It's like Iran-contra - they didn't want to know," said the former diplomat, referring to the Reagan administration scandal involving clandestine sale of weapons to Iran and illegal use of the proceeds to finance Nicaraguan insurgents. "They needed the things he brought them."
Dr. Khan's request for a pardon, which opposition political leaders called coerced and humiliating, marked an ignoble end for a scientist lionized at home but derided in the West. His fall from grace also represented another public humiliation for Pakistan, which has struggled since coming into existence in 1947 to establish a clear national identity.
"In a way it shatters the confidence of the people in their leaders," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and political analyst. "They built up an image of this man. And all that explodes in the faces of poor, innocent Pakistanis."
Dr. Khan's career began auspiciously. He was urgently called to government work in 1975, the year after India detonated its first atomic bomb, and was placed in charge of Pakistan's uranium enrichment program. Before that he worked in Holland as a metallurgist, and he is believed to have stolen plans for centrifuges used in enriching uranium, a key part of creating an atomic bomb.
For the next 20 years in Pakistan he oversaw a sprawling global effort by Pakistan to covertly acquire the components, machines and other technology needed to build hundreds of centrifuges.
Pakistani officials said this week that Dr. Khan had operated with virtually no government or military oversight. The officials said the brigadier general in charge of security at the Khan Research Laboratories, the top-secret nuclear facility named after Dr. Khan, reported to Dr. Khan, not the army.
"His superior was Dr. A. Q. Khan," a senior Pakistani official said. "He was not under the supervision of the armed forces at that time."
Pakistani military experts have said that is virtually impossible. Pakistan's military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, must have tightly monitored the lab and Dr. Khan, the experts say, if only to prevent Indian agents from sabotaging the lab or harming Dr. Khan.
After Dr. Khan retired in March 2001, he opened scores of charities, foundations and schools across Pakistan. Reports of lavish houses, large bank accounts and shady business dealings surfaced, but no officials challenged the national hero. Pakistani officials angrily dismissed foreign news reports about covert nuclear proliferation.
Former colleagues who have fallen out with Dr. Khan described him as domineering, fame-obsessed and egomaniacal. All of that seemed gone Wednesday night as a tired, downtrodden figure said he had been humbled. But even in his plea for forgiveness, the truth was elusive.
Dr. Khan said the proliferation the government described was "invariably initiated at my behest." But he was vague about what, exactly, he had initiated.
"I have voluntarily admitted," he said, "that much of it is true and accurate."
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Pakistani Scientist Apologizes Nuclear Assistance Unauthorized, He Says
By John Lancaster and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11527-2004Feb4?language=printer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 4 -- In a televised address Wednesday, nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan admitted providing nuclear weapons expertise and equipment to Iran, Libya and North Korea, saying he had done so without authorization from the Pakistani government.
"My dear brothers and sisters, I have chosen to appear before you to offer my deepest regrets and unqualified apologies to a traumatized nation," Khan said in a taped four-minute address that aired on state-run Pakistan Television after a meeting between Khan and Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
"There was never ever any kind of authorization for these activities by the government," he added, speaking softly in English. "I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon."
Khan agreed to speak on television in return for assurances that he would not be prosecuted for transactions that Pakistani investigators say provided him millions of dollars over a period of almost two decades, according to a cabinet minister and an individual outside of the government who was involved in brokering the agreement.
The deal appeared to eliminate the prospect of a public confrontation between the government and Khan that could prove uncomfortable for Musharraf if it led to disclosures that Pakistan's military played a role in Khan's activities.
It also appears to mean that Khan will essentially go unpunished for presiding over what Pakistani officials now acknowledge, after years of denials, was a far-reaching scheme to peddle hardware, blueprints and design assistance by means of a thriving nuclear black market stretching from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "We think that the process of investigation that's been undertaken by the Pakistani government does indeed demonstrate that President Musharraf and the government of Pakistan take seriously their commitments, their assurances that they were not going to allow their technology to be used to help other nations that might be trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. . . . The way this has been proceeding is evidence that Pakistan, too, is determined to meet those commitments."
On Wednesday morning, Khan met with Musharraf to present a clemency petition based on his service to the nation. After Khan's televised speech, Musharraf chaired a meeting of the National Command Authority, a civilian and military body that oversees the nuclear arsenal, at which he recommended that Khan's plea be accepted, according to a participant. The recommendation was forwarded to the cabinet, where approval Thursday is considered a formality, the participant said.
Musharraf has been under heavy public pressure to go easy on Khan, 67, a European-trained metallurgist who is considered a national hero for his pivotal role in developing nuclear weapons that helped redress a strategic imbalance with arch rival India. India tested its first nuclear device in 1974; Pakistan's first test was in 1998.
Leaders of an alliance of hard-line Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis Amal, have promised to hold a nationwide protest Friday against the investigation of Khan and other scientists and officials associated with the Khan Research Laboratories. Khan founded the laboratories nearly three decades ago in Kahuta, about 20 miles from Islamabad, to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. Partly in response to U.S. pressure, Musharraf forced Khan to retire from the lab in 2001.
"Obviously you can't bring a man of his stature to trial," Sen. Mushahid Hussain, a Georgetown-educated newspaper columnist and member of the main pro-government party, said Wednesday. "He is someone who has made a tremendous contribution to Pakistan's national security, and he's highly respected for that achievement."
Pakistan launched its investigation last year after the International Atomic Energy Agency produced evidence that Pakistani scientists had provided hardware and expertise to Iran for building high-speed centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. The United States separately expressed concern that Pakistan had provided similar assistance to North Korea. Pakistani authorities subsequently widened their investigation after Libya admitted in December that it had a nuclear weapons program.
Over the past two months, Pakistani investigators uncovered evidence that Khan had conducted transactions with all three countries and made millions of dollars in the process. They found he had spread his wealth among foreign bank accounts, palatial homes in Pakistan and properties abroad, including a hotel named for his wife, Hendrina, in the West African state of Mali.
According to investigators, Khan said he provided the assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya to deflect international attention from Pakistan's nuclear program.
He also has maintained, according to a friend of Khan's and a senior investigator, that three army chiefs of staff, including Musharraf, were aware of the assistance he provided to North Korea in exchange for help with Pakistan's ballistic missile program. Khan's statement Wednesday contradicted that claim, however, and government officials, including Musharraf, have denied that military commanders knew Khan had sold nuclear secrets abroad.
Many Pakistanis have questioned how Khan could have conducted such an ambitious series of illicit sales without some level of official support. Though he enjoyed great autonomy as lab director, security at the facility was the responsibility of the military and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).
As a kind of insurance policy, Khan several weeks ago provided his daughter, Dina, who lives in England, with evidence that the military knew of his nuclear dealings abroad, instructing her to make the evidence public if the government were to prosecute or take other punitive action against him, according to a friend of Khan's who has spoken with him twice during the investigation.
But the government also exerted leverage on Khan. Lt. Gen. Ehsan ul-Haq, the head of the ISI, and Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, the head of the Strategic Planning and Development Cell, last week confronted Khan with "reams of evidence" that he had not only made large sums from his foreign clients but also from improper deals with suppliers of technology for Pakistan's program, a senior official said.
They threatened to make the evidence public if he did not sign a confession, which he did on Friday after discussing his options with S.M. Zafar, an attorney and former law minister, the official said.
The 12-page confession, which was drafted by Makhdoom Ali Khan, Pakistan's attorney general, will be presented to the IAEA at the conclusion of Pakistan's investigation as part of an effort to convince the world that Pakistan takes its responsibilities as a nuclear power seriously, the official said.
Despite the written confession, officials said they still needed Khan to make a public statement that he had signed the document willingly and that the government was not concocting its case against him. The terms of the deal -- clemency for a televised admission of guilt -- were hashed out over the past several days during intensive negotiations in which Zafar played a key role, officials said.
"The government had to dangle a carrot and a stick," said a cabinet minister who sits on the National Command Authority. "He has made tons of money, but no one in the government believes that he was the only one to milk the program."
The deal was concluded on Tuesday and unfolded Wednesday according to a carefully prepared script. In the morning, Khan traveled to the city of Rawalpindi, where he made his clemency plea to Musharraf during an hour-long meeting at Musharraf's army office, some of which was shown later on television. Wearing a camouflage army jacket, the Pakistani leader sat stone-faced as Khan leaned forward on a couch and addressed him with an earnest expression.
In his television address, Khan contritely acknowledged that "the investigation has established that many of the reported activities did occur and that these were . . . initiated at my behest. . . . I was confronted with the evidence and the findings, and I have voluntarily admitted that much of it is true and accurate."
Khan owned up to "errors of judgment" but did not address allegations that he had profited from his activities, which he said "were based on good faith."
Over the course of the investigation, authorities have detained a number of Khan's laboratory colleagues, four of whom -- two scientists, a retired brigadier and a major who served as Khan's personal assistant -- were ordered on Tuesday to be held for another 90 days. All four have provided detailed information about Khan's dealings with foreign clients, officials said, adding that they too are unlikely to be prosecuted.
In his statement, Khan sought to absolve his colleagues of responsibility, asserting that "those of my subordinates who have accepted their role in the affair were acting in good faith, like me, on my instructions."
Khan reported from Karachi, Pakistan.
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Pak govt not involved in N-spread: Armitage
Says Musharraf right man at right time; White House terms investigation sign of Islamabad's strong commitment
Thursday February 05, 2004
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2004-daily/05-02-2004/main/main2.htm
"WASHINGTON: US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has said the government of Pakistan is not involved in nuclear proliferation, only individuals are being investigated, and that President Musharraf "is the right man at the right time in the leadership of Pakistan".
Armitage, who was interviewed by Japan's Asahi Shimbun, said the US had significant discussions with the Pakistan government, which had been "very forthright in the last several years with us about proliferation".
The US, he said, did not have any information that Pakistan government was involved. "The question of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is one that is under investigation by Pakistani authorities. I will let them make any comments they want to about it. I don't care to talk about that, nor any intelligence we may have on it. I think there is a growing realisation that President Musharraf is the right man in the right time in the leadership of Pakistan. The very fact that some people are trying to assassinate him indicates to me that he is being successful in trying to bring Pakistan into a modern and productive life, both in South Asia and more broadly in the world," Armitage said.
Also, the State Department on Monday welcomed Pakistan's probe into leaked nuclear secrets. "We welcome the Pakistani investigation," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "It marks a sign of how seriously the government takes the commitments that President Musharraf has made to make sure that his nation is not a source of prohibited technologies for other countries." But Boucher declined to call for the prosecution of Khan, saying it was up to Pakistan to decide how his case should be handled.
The White House spokesman said on Tuesday, the United States "values the assurances" given by President Pervez Musharraf, and "the ongoing investigation into these proliferation issues by the government of Pakistan is a sign of how strongly Pakistan takes that commitment",.
In response to a question about the stated remarks by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, spokesman Scott McClellan told the daily press briefing the spread of nuclear weapons-related goods and technology is a matter of global concern, particularly since the attacks of September 11th. "And I think that the investigation by the government of Pakistan demonstrates their commitment to working to address proliferation issues. And we are working with other nations, as well, to stop individuals who are involved in the proliferation, as well as to work with other issues on the proliferation security initiative, which is another tool to help stop the spread of these technologies to states and other non-state actors."
McClellan said: "I made it clear-very clear that we value President Musharraf's assurances. He has assured us that Pakistan was not involved in any of the proliferation activity that you are talking about. And we continue to expect Pakistan to follow through on those assurances." The spokesman pointed out that "Pakistan is working closely" with the United States "on a number of fronts in the global war on terrorism." "And we are continuing to work closely with Pakistan to win the war on terrorism- and we appreciate the efforts they are taking to address these proliferation issues," he stated. He reiterated that the United States "values" President Musharraf's "assurances."
Separately, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Office Zhang Qiyue said China believes in Pakistan's sincerity that it was not involved in transferring nuclear technology to other countries. Talking to APP here, she said, "China also fully trusts that Pakistan's nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes." She said, China thinks that Pakistan always opposed proliferation of nuclear technology.
Earlier, replying to a question by a foreign correspondent at a regular news briefing regarding alleged involvement of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan in the transfer of the nuclear technology, Zhang Qiyue said, "We hope the government Pakistan will properly handle this issue."
-------- iraq / inspections
Alleged Nuclear Offer to Iraq Is Revisited
Memos Indicate Attempt to Sell Pakistani Bomb Plans, Equipment on Eve of '91 War
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14070-2004Feb4?language=printer
The confession yesterday by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that he provided Pakistan's nuclear secrets to other countries has rekindled interest in one of Khan's alleged ventures: an attempt to sell designs for a nuclear bomb to Iraq on the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Reports of the alleged attempted deal have circulated since the late 1990s, when U.N. weapons inspectors discovered Iraqi documents describing a business proposition from a man claiming to represent Khan. The proposal allegedly offered nuclear weapons blueprints and uranium enrichment equipment for an upfront price of $5 million.
The Pakistani government and Khan have long denied any knowledge of the deal. But recent disclosures of Khan's assistance to other countries give the Iraqi documents new credibility, according to a report released yesterday by a nuclear research group in Washington that has studied the matter.
"These documents provide additional indicators that Pakistani scientists may have offered a range of countries both uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons designs," says the report by the Institute for Science and International Security.
Khan's alleged offer was described in an October 1990 memo by Iraq's intelligence service, the Mukhabarat. According to a U.N. translation of the document obtained by the institute, a man identified as Malik relayed an offer from Khan to help Iraq in making enriched uranium and nuclear weapons. "He is prepared to give us project designs for a nuclear bomb," the Iraqi memo states, referring to Khan.
The Iraqis were initially suspicious, thinking the offer was a scam, said David Albright, president of the institute and co-author of the report with Corey Hinderstein. Still, Iraqi officials decided to seek samples from the middleman, the documents show. No such samples were delivered, the institute's report says, and three months later the outbreak of war essentially ended Iraq's nuclear program.
The Iraqi documents -- combined with the recent discovery of weapons designs in Libya -- raise new concerns about whether Khan's other clients also received bomb plans. "The big question is whether bomb designs were also sold to Iran," Albright said.
Iran has denied having the designs for building a nuclear bomb or the intention to do so.
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Not everyone got it wrong on Iraq's weapons Former UN inspector
Scott Ritter
International Herald Tribune
February 05, 2004
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=128261
WASHINGTON 'We were all wrong,'' David Kay, the Bush administration's former top weapons sleuth in Iraq, recently told members of Congress after acknowledging that there were probably no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Kay insisted that the blame for the failure to find any such weapons lay with the U.S. intelligence community, which, according to Kay, provided inaccurate assessments.
The Kay remarks appear to be an attempt to spin potentially damaging data to the political advantage of President George W. Bush.
The president's decision to create an ''independent commission'' to investigate this intelligence failure only reinforces this suspicion, since such a commission would only be given the mandate to examine intelligence data, and not the policies and decision-making processes that made use of that data. More disturbing, the commission's findings would be delayed until late fall, after the November presidential election.
The fact, independent of the findings of any commission, is that not everyone was wrong.
I, for one, was not. I did my level best to demand facts from the Bush administration to back up their allegations regarding Iraq's WMD and, failing that, spoke out and wrote in as many forums as possible in an effort to educate the publics of the United States and the world about the danger of going to war based on a hyped-up threat.
In this I was not alone. Rolf Ekeus, the former head of the UN weapons inspec tors in Iraq, has declared that under his direction, Iraq was ''fundamentally disarmed'' as early as 1996. Hans Blix, who headed UN weapons inspections in Iraq in the months before the invasion in March 2003, stated that his inspectors had found no evidence of either WMD or WMD-related programs in Iraq. And officials familiar with Iraq, like Ambassador Joseph Wilson and State Department intelligence analyst Greg Theilmann, both exposed the unsustained nature of the Bush administration's claims regarding Iraq's nuclear capability.
The riddle surrounding Iraq's WMD was solvable without resorting to war. For all the layers of deceit and obfuscation, there existed enough basic elements of truth and substantive fact about the disposition of Saddam Hus sein's secret weapons programs to permit the Gordian knot to be cleaved by anyone willing to try. Sadly, it seems that there was no predisposition on the part of those assigned the task of solving the riddle to do so.
Bush's decision to limit the scope of any inquiry to intelligence matters, effectively blocking any critique of his administration's use - or abuse - of such intelligence, is absurd, especially when one considers that the Bush administra tion was already talking of war with Iraq in 2002, prior to the preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) - the defining document on a particular area of the world or specified threat - by the director of Central Intelligence.
According to a Department of Defense after-action report on Iraq titled ''Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategic Lessons Learned,'' a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times in September 2003, ''President Bush approved the overall war strategy for Iraq in August last year.'' The specific date cited was Aug. 29, 2002 - eight months before the first bomb was dropped.
The CIA did eventually produce a National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq, but only in October 2002, after Bush had already decided on war. The title of the NIE, ''Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction,'' is reflective of a predisposition that was not supported either by the facts available at the time, or by the passage of time.
Stu Cohen, a 28-year veteran of the CIA, wrote in a statement published on the CIA Web site on Nov. 28, 2003, that the Oct. 2002 National Intelligence Estimate ''judged with high confidence that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles in excess of the 150-kilometer limit imposed by the UN Security Council. ... These judgements were essentially the same conclu sions reached by the United Nations and a wide array of intelligence services - friendly and unfriendly alike.''
Cohen said the October NIE was ''policy neutral'' - meaning it did not propose a policy that argued either for or against going to war. He also stated that no one who worked on the NIE had been pressured by the Bush White House.
Cohen is wrong in his assertions. The fact that a major policy decision like war with Iraq was made without the benefit of an NIE is, in and of itself, policy manipulation. I worked with Cohen on numerous occasions during this time, and consider him a reasonable man. So I had to wonder when this intelligence professional, confronted with the totality of the failure of the CIA to accurately assess the WMD threat threat posed by Iraq's WMD, wrote that he was ''convinced that no reasonable person could have viewed the totality of the information that the intelligence community had at its disposal - literally millions of pages - and reached any conclusions or alternative views that were profoundly different from those that we reached.''
I consider myself also to be a reasonable person. Like Cohen and the intelligence professionals who prepared the October 2002 NIE, I was intimately familiar with vast quantities of intelligence data collected from around the world by numerous foreign intelligence services (including the CIA) and on the ground in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors, at least until the time of my resignation from Unscom in August 1998. Based on this experience, I was asked by Arms Control Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association, to write an article on the status of disarmament regarding Iraq's WMD.
The article, ''The Case for Iraq's Qualitative Disarmament,'' was published in June 2000 and received broad coverage. Its conclusions were dismissed by the intelligence communities of the United States and Britain. But my finding - that ''because of the work carried out by Unscom, it can be fairly stated that Iraq was qualitatively disarmed at the time inspectors were withdrawn [in December 1998]'' - was an accurate assessment of the disarming of Iraq's WMD capabilities, much more so than the CIA's October NIE or any corresponding analysis carried out by British intelligence services.
I am not alone in my analysis. Ray McGovern, who heads a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, or VIPS, also takes umbrage at Cohen's ''no reasonable person'' assertion. ''Had he taken the trouble to read the op-eds and other issuances of VIPs members over the past two years,'' McGovern told me, he would have found that ''our writings consistently contained conclusions and alternative views that were indeed profoundly different - even without having had access to what Stu calls the 'totality of the information.' And Stu never indicated he thought us not 'reasonable' - at least back when many of us worked with him at CIA.''
The fact is that McGovern and I, together with scores of intelligence professionals, retired or still in service, who studied Iraq and its WMD capabilities, are reasonable men. We got it right.
The Bush administration, in its rush to war, ignored our advice and the body of factual data we used, and instead relied on rumor, speculation, exaggeration and falsification to mislead the American people and their elected representatives into supporting a war that is rapidly turning into a quagmire. We knew the truth about Iraq's WMD. Sadly, no one listened.
The writer was chief UN inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 and is the author of ''Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America.'' This comment was distributed by Global Viewpoint for Tribune Media Services International.
-------- israel
Israel Weighed Killing Nuke Whistleblower Vanunu
By REUTERS
February 5, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-israel-vanunu.html?pagewanted=print&position=
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's spy agency considered killing nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu in 1986 before deciding to abduct him for trial on treason charges, a former Mossad director said Thursday.
Shabtai Shavit, who masterminded a ``honey trap'' for Vanunu after he told a British newspaper about his work at Israel's main atomic reactor, said he feared the ex-technician intends to spill more secrets upon his release from prison this April.
``I would be lying if I said that thoughtdid not go through many of our minds,'' Shavit said, recalling Mossad debates after the Sunday Times interview that blew away Israel's policy of ambiguity over its nuclear capabilities. ``But Jews do not do that to other Jews. He was a traitor, so in accordance with Jewish morality and Jewish law he paid for it with imprisonment,'' Shavit told Reuters.
Vanunu, 49, embraced Christianity and anti-nuclear activism after being fired from the Dimona reactor. He spoke to the newspaper on the promise of undisclosed payment.
In jailhouse letters he has vowed to keep campaigning to expose Israel's non-conventional capabilities.
Vanunu's revelations, and 60 accompanying photographs, led independent experts to conclude Israel had between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads -- making it a military superpower.
Israeli officials, who point out that most Arab countries are still formally in a state of war with Israel, make no apologies for the assumed arsenal though they have never confirmed its existence.
Absent from the interview were the names of Vanunu's former colleagues at Dimona and details on security precautions at the site.
Fearing these could also become public knowledge when Vanunu winds up his 18-year jail term on April 21, Shavit has been calling for Vanunu to be legally silenced.
``I propose gagging this man,'' said Shavit, who retired from Mossad in 1996 and now chairs the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center.
``The main consideration should be his intent to go on causing damage to Israel. And who will guarantee that he will only speak the truth? What is to stop him imagining things?''
According to security sources, the Justice Ministry might confiscate Vanunu's passport to prevent him leaving the country, subjecting any press interviews he gives to military censors. Attempts by him to discuss state secrets could mean a new trial.
-------- missile defense
CBS 11 Investigates U.S. Patriot Missile System
"Blue On Blue" How Did An Army Patriot Missile Battery Shoot Down A Navy F-18?
By Robert Riggs Chief Investigative Reporter
CBS 11 News
Feb 5, 2004
http://cbs11tv.com/localnews/local_story_036173439.html
An investigation by CBS 11 News (KTVT-TV Dallas/Fort Worth) questions, "Did chronic problems with the U.S. Army's newly upgraded three billion dollar Raytheon built Patriot Missile system contribute to shooting down the only U.S. Navy pilot lost during combat in Iraq?"
The Army has uniformly praised the Patriot Missile system's performance during the war, shooting down all nine Iraqi tactical ballistic missiles (TBM's) it engaged.
Until now, the circumstances of the Patriot fratricide that killed 30-year-old Navy Lieutenant Nathan White of Abilene, Texas on April 2nd of last year have been cloaked in the secrecy of an Army investigation. So has the March 2003 Patriot Missile downing of a British RAF Tornado Bomber ten days earlier.
A CBS-11 News investigation conducted by reporter Robert Riggs, who was embedded with a Patriot Missile battery during the war, has uncovered evidence that friendly aircraft showed up on Patriot radars as incoming enemy missiles. Yet, Patriot operators on the ground were not alerted, nor coalition aircrews above, that similar problems had surfaced in a Patriot Missile unit stationed in Jordan in the months before the invasion.
In Lieutenant White's last email sent home from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, Dennis White says the only warning his son and fellow pilots ever received was the chilling news some four days earlier that a Patriot Missile had blasted apart a British RAF Tornado, killing its two crew members. An email that Lt. White sent to his mother in Abilene shortly before a Patriot Missile blew up his own plane talked about, "steering clear of the Patriot batteries."
On April 2, 2003, a Patriot Missile fired by fellow American soldiers in Iraq sheared off the cockpit of Lt. White's F-18, and the smoldering tail of his F-18 crashed into a south-central Iraq lake located west of Karbala. More than one hundred Navy, Marine, Army, and Special Operations launched a massive search and rescue operation. They recovered Lt. White's body floating near the eastern bank of the lake on April 12, 2003.
Lt. White was buried at the Arlington National Cemetery on April 24th with full military honors. A wife and three children survive him.
At his home in Abilene, Dennis White proudly chronicles his son's life with snapshots from their Boy Scout campouts, memories of Nathan White's work as a Mormon missionary in Japan, and flight deck photographs of the beloved F-18 pilot nicknamed "OJ".
Dennis White is a former Air Force pilot who flew C-130 cargo planes during the Vietnam War. He also flew with the current Governor of Texas, Rick Perry. White has patiently waited ten months for an official explanation of how a Patriot missile killed his son. White stresses that he will do what he can to prevent another Patriot fratricide, or "blue on blue" incident, from taking the life of anyone else's son or daughter.
Last February, an embedded news team from CBS 11 (KTVT in Dallas) witnessed chronic problems with the Patriot missile system. CBS 11 News reporter Robert Riggs, photographer/editor, Billy Sexton and field producer, Steve Narissi were embedded with the 5th Battalion 52nd Air Defense Artillery (5-52 ADA) which had been deployed to Kuwait from Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
The CBS 11 News team first witnessed problems on the Patriot's radar shortly after arriving at Camp Virginia in Kuwait, headquarters' for the Army's V Corps. Ground rules for embedded reporters at that time prohibited them from reporting about the problems.
Inside, the 5-52 ADA's Tactical Operations Center (TOC) soldiers focused on what appeared on their radar display screens as the symbol of an incoming tactical ballistic missile (TBM) from Iraq. Suddenly, an employee of Raytheon, the Patriot's defense contractor, threw open the door to the TOC and yelled, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Soldiers present breathed sighs of relief and told our news crew that, "We just came close to shooting down a Navy F-18".
A few days earlier BG Howard Bromberg had expressed strong confidence in the Patriot system during an interview with CBS 11 at Camp Doha in his headquarters for the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command. Bromberg, speaking about the newly fielded PAC-3 missile system said, "I was involved with testing before so I am very comfortable with the capability we have here right now. I think it was more than adequate, numerous test shots before we decided to field this system. So I am comfortable with that".
Yet, CBS-11 has learned that the American military had indication that there were problems with the Patriot system much earlier.
John Pike of the Washington DC-based think tank Global Security said he discovered a confidential "Initial Lessons Learned" power point report about the Patriot's problems that was inadvertently posted on the Army's Fort Bliss website in November 2003. Pike posted the report on his Global Security-dot-org before the Army realized its mistake and deleted it.
The report states that a Patriot Missile battery in Jordan before the invasion experienced problems with false enemy missile tracks. "This information was not shared with Patriot units supporting the Marine Expeditionary Force in Kuwait...had the...experience been shared throughout the (area of responsibility) then the problem...could have been minimized," The internal Army report, published six months after the invasion, stated.
Pike said complex computerized weapon systems can-and did, in the Patriot's case-act up in mysterious ways, "The problem was that there was not a single ghost in the machine but that it was a haunted house. They had lots of ghosts. Every radar was reporting a separate track and if you get enough data input the computer is going to get awfully confused."
Ted Postol, the MIT science professor who testified before Congress about problems he found with the Patriot's performance during the 1991 Gulf War, says the Army's Patriot organization "has a long history of failing to fix problems and failing to acknowledge problems". Postol adds, "The fact that they know or knew that this was a problem was going on, raises questions of negligence."
A Raytheon spokesman referred questions about the Patriot's performance to the Army. An Army spokesman at the Pentagon and the spokeswoman at Fort Bliss say their commanders cannot discuss what happened until the two fratricide investigations are finished.
Meanwhile, the Army's official, widely published report on the Patriot's war record does not acknowledge that hundreds of false missile tracks occurred and that both downed coalition fighters showed up on Patriot Missile radar scopes as enemy tactical ballistic missiles (TBM's).
In northern Kuwait in the weeks before the invasion, unfolding problems with the 5-52 ADA's Patriot missile batteries became evident to CBS-11's news team.
Echo Battery's launchers marked the first line of defense against Saddam Hussein's SCUDS and other types of tactical ballistic missiles, and tensions were rising among U.S. soldiers.
Intelligence briefings during the battalion's daily battle updates indicated Saddam would likely launch a preemptive missile attack tipped with weapons of mass destruction. Captain David McCoy, the commander of Echo battery, stressed the importance of the Patriot's protection against Iraq's TBM's saying, "It can disrupt the battlefield. It can slow down friendly forces. Cause immense casualties. Mass casualties. It's just something you don't want to be hit with and the threat is always there that he can load those missiles with that type of agents whether it be chemical or biological. And we are the ones who are going to knock it down".
That threat was felt most intensely inside Echo Battery's war wagon called an Engagement Control Station (ECS). Inside a compartment mounted on a truck, a pair of Echo Battery's soldiers sat side by side at battle stations watching their individual radarscopes for signs of trouble. From his right seat position, Lt. James Chase, the Tactical Control Officer told CBS 11 that a big mental challenge in a combat situation was, "being a quick thinker. As well as staying calm and making the right decision".
In the left seat, Specialist Terrence Barnes, the Tactical Control Assistant, described how he would manipulate the radar's joystick to "hook" a target to start the process of identifying if it was a friend or foe, "You've got to be quick and you've got to be a fast thinker. You've got to be able to react fast". The Patriot soldiers would have precious few minutes if not seconds to try to shoot down an Iraqi missile moving up to three times the speed of sound. Neither of the soldiers was involved in the later friendly fire incident.
Patriot radarscopes began showing friendly aircraft as enemy TBM's. More often, the radar showed false or what the Army called "spurious" missile tracks that did not exist. The CBS-11 team witnessed heart-pounding moments when false missile targets appeared on the radar screens.
Commanders and soldiers told CBS-11 they had never seen anything like the ghost missiles until operating in Kuwait. We observed one battalion Battle Captain writing daily reports about the problem, which he said, were being sent to higher command.
After repeated false missile incidents CBS-11 was present when Battalion Commander LTC Joe Fischetti confronted a Raytheon representative attached to the unit. Fischetti demanded answers. "You guys are suppose to be the geniuses," Fischetti said forcefully, demanding: "Tell me what's wrong!"
CBS-11 witnessed briefings in which Raytheon's on site trainer explained that he was unable to get the Patriot system to replicate the false missile tracks for training purposes. The absence of additional help appeared particularly frustrating to Echo Battery. Colonel Heidi Brown, Commander of the 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade, had heaped praise on Echo's qualifications saying, "This is a great battery. They are very motivated. There are very few Patriot batteries in the world. Everyone wants them. Everyone wants their piece of ground covered."
The battalion's soldiers struggled to figure out how to tell the difference between a false missile track and a real one. And when the Iraqis started firing real missiles, there appeared to be some uncertainty among the Patriot operators about the sophisticated weapons system.
On March 20, 2003, one of Echo Battery's counterparts, Delta Battery of the 11th Brigade Air Defense Artillery, shot down the first Iraqi missile over Kuwait. Army commanders praised the Patriot missile system for protecting four thousand soldiers and one hundred helicopters from the 101st Airborne based at a tactical assembly area named Thunder.
But during an interview shortly after that first engagement, a soldier in the Engagement Control Station (ECS) told CBS -11 that at first he wondered if the missile was real.
The following day, Echo Battery moved out as part of the spearhead of the massive ground invasion force. It was the first Patriot unit to cross into Iraq. Echo's mission was to charge deep into Iraq to near Najaf to provide an umbrella of air coverage for the desert base of the 101st Airborne Division. The Army planned to initially position forty percent of its helicopters there.
Despite the false missile track readings on the Patriot's radar, CBS-11 did not witness any change in the rules of engagement. Patriots were on "weapons free," meaning a battalion could launch without higher approval.
On the third day of the invasion, Echo learned that Charley Battery, which was under command of the 11th Brigade, shot down a British Tornado returning to Kuwait from a mission in Iraq.
Initially , word of the catastrophe reached Echo Battery that fault lay with the two dead crewmembers. It has since been reported in published news accounts that the bomber crew had failed to turn on the IFF, a special device designed to signal coalition forces that theirs was a friendly aircraft.
But CBS-11 has learned from Army sources that Charley Battery's radar showed the British jet as an incoming enemy cruise missile.
On April 2, 2003, just after midnight, Lt. White was completing a bombing raid over south-central Iraq. He was high over a strategic area known as the Karbola Gap, a chokepoint on the invasion route to Baghdad. If the Iraqis could mount a successful defense there, the invasion could be thwarted, at least temporarily.
Prior to the start of the war, CBS-11 was present when the 5-52 had received intelligence briefings that had predicted heavy attacks with missiles loaded with chemical warheads in the Karbola Gap.
The CBS-11 news team departed Echo Battery, but sources describe what happened next.
The soldiers of Echo and other Patriot batteries were on high alert. Their radar's were clearly showing friendly aircraft in the region at the time. But the, sources say, Echo's Patriot radar scopes displayed Lt. White's Navy F-18 as a highly credible enemy ballistic missile symbol that did not resemble any false missile track that had been seen before.
The symbol indicated that the TBM was being tracked on radar by multiple Patriot batteries. Moreover, the Patriot radar showed a launch point in Iraq and an impact point on none other than Echo Battery's position.
Sources say there was further corroboration that an enemy missile had been launched and was headed Echo's way.
The ICC for the 5-52 ADA also showed the TBM track and a second target that the radar identified as unknown. The Information and Coordination Central (ICC), the battalion's mobile command and control center for the Patriot's air battle, confirmed the enemy missile track.
With precious seconds remaining before the incoming missile's predicted impact, an officer in the ICC issued the order for Echo Battery to bring its launchers up to operate. That in effect "cocked the gun" to set in motion a sequence leading to an automated launch of two missiles.
Under ideal conditions, the soldiers could have obtained additional information about the attributes of the target. By pressing a tab called track amplification data, it would tell whether the target was flying as fast as a missile or as slow as an aircraft. But before the data could be checked, the Patriots were leaving the launchers at supersonic speed.
Inside the war wagon a few seconds later, radars showed that the TBM target had been destroyed. But unbeknownst to the euphoric crews of Echo and the 5-52, what was left of Lt. White and his Navy F-18 was hurtling down into a lake.
Their euphoria, however was short lived. About 100 miles south of Echo, the Patriot crew of Alpha Battery narrowly averted shooting down Lt. White's lead F-18, which was still flying. The second F-18 had suddenly turned from an unknown target symbol on the radarscope into another enemy TBM. Being further to the rear, Alpha had more time to examine their flight data, sources say.
And despite orders to launch, officers waited to closer examine the flight data for the TBM target.
Army sources say the false missile tracks continued the next day. Echo Battery's radar displayed fifteen TBM's at once and the battery had lost communication with the ICC for additional confirmation. Echo had the authority to shoot in that situation but its air battle commanders did not trust the system to take any action. Sources say the TBM's tracks were believed to have been friendly aircraft.
For the Army's fratricide investigation, it is nearly impossible to accurately reconstruct the events. None of the electronic data recorders in the 5-52 were working. CBS-11 News team had heard frequent complaints from soldiers that the data recorders had a long history of breaking down and that spares were in short supply.
Lt. White's father, Dennis White, decries the Army's failure to make all Coalition pilots aware that the Patriot radars were showing friendly aircraft as enemy missiles.
"I feel absolutely that they didn't include the Navy or the Air Force about what the potential dangers were and how to avoid it."
White says he has deep compassion for the Army soldiers involved in the incident, "I wish I could talk to them. I don't know that I could put their heart at rest or at ease, but again I know that they were doing their level best under a very trying condition."
And, he said he worries that low ranking soldiers who were there may be made scapegoats for technical problems.
Sources say the false missile track problem has continued in recent months during training exercises at Fort Bliss. The Army's official version of the Patriot's war record makes no mention that friendly aircraft were being identified on radar as enemy missiles.
White says he is worried that more pilots may be place in harm's way, "To pretend that it doesn't exist. That worries me because I can see, we are going to have some other mom and dad out there who are sitting comfortably in their home and they do not know who they are yet but they are going to understand exactly how we feel."
-------- terrorism
AP Enterprise: Rogue Hunt Goes Worldwide
February 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Black-Market.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The hunt for middlemen who worked with the father of Pakistan's nuclear program to supply rogue regimes with weapons technology has widened to Japan and Africa, diplomats said Thursday.
Suspects in Germany and two other European countries are also being investigated in the growing probe of the clandestine black market apparently headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan of Pakistan, they said.
Also, Malaysia announced Thursday it would investigate a company controlled by the prime minister's son for its alleged role in supplying components to Libya's nuclear program. The company also has been linked to the international nuclear black market tied to Pakistan.
The chief U.N. nuclear inspector said Thursday that Khan was an ``important part'' of the clandestine supply chain, but he said long and painstaking investigations into who sold what and to whom lay ahead.
``Dr. Khan was not working alone,'' said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ``There were items that were manufactured in other countries, items that were reassembled in different countries.
``Dr. Khan was the tip of an iceberg for us, but we still have a lot of work to do.''
ElBaradei said middlemen in five countries supplied nuclear technology and expertise to Iran -- which denies running a nuclear weapons program -- and to Libya, which has owned up to having weapons of mass destruction or programs to make them. Pakistani officials have said Khan's network had supplied North Korea, too, but ElBaradei said he couldn't confirm that.
The five countries include Germany and Japan as well as two countries in Europe and one in Africa that the diplomats would not name.
In Washington, CIA Director George Tenet confirmed that Khan was at the center of the nuclear black market. He said U.S. and British intelligence had been tracking its movements for years.
``His network was shaving years off the nuclear weapons development timelines of several states, including Libya,'' Tenet said in a speech, adding that now ``Khan and his network have been dealt a crushing blow.''
Pakistan -- and Khan -- became the focus of international investigation on the basis of information Libya and Iran gave the IAEA about where they covertly bought nuclear technology that can be used to make weapons.
In Islamabad, President Pervez Musharraf said the IAEA was welcome to come and discuss the proliferation issue. ``We are open and we will tell them everything,'' Musharraf said.
Still, Musharraf said Pakistan wouldn't submit to any U.N. supervision of its weapons program, and that no documents would be handed over to the IAEA. He also ruled out an independent investigation of the military's role in spreading nuclear technology.
Pakistan, which did not sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, is not obliged to submit its nuclear weapons activity to outside scrutiny.
Musharraf also pardoned Khan, heading off any trial that could have uncovered revelations about government and military involvement.
In the nuclear procurement chain headed by Khan, hundreds of millions of dollars are thought to have changed hands over the past 15 years.
Among items bought by Libya were engineer's drawings of a nuclear weapon, now under IAEA seal in the United States.
One of the diplomats said that drawing appeared to be of Chinese design but cautioned against assuming it came directly from China.
``There are no fingerprints on the drawings which lead you to any specific country,'' he said.
China is widely assumed to have been Pakistan's key supplier of much of the clandestine nuclear technology that Khan used to publicly establish Pakistan as a nuclear power in 1998.
The revelations that nuclear know-how, and turnkey level equipment needed to enrich uranium to weapons grade was traded over the past two decades have escalated fears of similar clandestine programs elsewhere.
ElBaradei said he was not aware of covert weapons development in countries other than Libya, Iran and North Korea. But one diplomat said the success of the network -- as measured by the nuclear weapons blueprint and high-tech enrichment equipment sold to Libya -- were cause for alarm.
``Libya for the most part tried to buy its way into the nuclear club,'' he said. ``It was on its way,'' to getting everything, he added.
In Malaysia, the company under investigation said it didn't know that some centrifuge components it made were headed for Libya.
The company, Scomi Precision Engineering, or SCOPE, accepted a contract from a Dubai-based company after negotiating with a middleman, identified as a Sri Lankan, B.S.A. Tahir, police said.
SCOPE's parent company, the Scomi group, confirmed it made ``14 semifinished components'' for Gulf Technical Industries and shipped them in four consignments between December 2002 and August 2003, under a deal negotiated by Tahir and worth $3.4 million.
U.S. and British intelligence said the deal between SCOPE and Tahir involved components that could be used for uranium enrichment.
Kamaluddin Abdullah, 35, the only son of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is Scomi's largest shareholder, although he has no management role. He could not be reached for comment.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- ohio
Toxic Metal Detected at Uranium Plant
February 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sick-Workers.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The toxic metal beryllium has been detected in everyday production equipment at one of two government uranium plants, and it could be sickening plant workers, Energy Department officials said Thursday.
The beryllium was discovered last month in aluminum blades used to produce enriched uranium at the plant in Piketon, Ohio, said William Murphie, the Energy Department official who oversees cleanup efforts at the Ohio nuclear facility and a plant in Paducah, Ky.
Murphie said the agency had not thought the metal was present at the Ohio plant, believing it was only found in areas of the sprawling Paducah plant where old weapons work had been performed.
``This was in fact a surprise to us,'' Murphie said Thursday.
The Louisville Courier-Journal first reported the discovery of the beryllium in its Thursday edition.
Murphie said USEC Inc., a Bethesda, Md.-based company that runs the government plant, made the discovery. He said it started testing work areas in Paducah and Piketon after the workers' union shared the results of screenings it had conducted.
More than a dozen current and former workers had beryllium sensitivity, Murphie said. Blood tests indicated their bodies have formed a reaction to the metal and they could develop chronic beryllium disease later. The scarring lung disease can be fatal.
One worker at each site tested positive for the disease, Murphie said.
Murphie said the area in the Piketon plant where the beryllium was detected last month has since been cordoned off and similar steps were taken protectively at the Paducah plant.
He said further testing will be done at both plants.
``We're still just at the very beginning of the sampling program up there,'' Murphie said. ``We may well find it in some of the other places.''
Beryllium has been used to make triggers for nuclear weapons, nuclear plant rods and computer circuit boards. It is not dangerous in solid form, but its dust can cause serious respiratory ailments if inhaled. Government regulations call for tight controls and protection for workers from the metal.
On the Net:
Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov/
-------- south carolina
Savannah Free From Plutonium For Another Year
Thursday February 05, 2004
(AP)
http://www.abcnews4.com/news/stories/0204/123945.html
Columbia - A facility to convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants won't begin construction this year at the Savannah River Site near Aiken.
A federal official says disagreements between Russia and US Russia have committed to disposing of 68 metric tons of plutonium.
Construction of the MOX facility in South Carolina was scheduled to begin as early as spring.
The nearly four billion dollar plant is expected to create 500 jobs.
----
PDG Environmental, Inc. Awarded Term Contract With a Value Up to $3.0 Million
BUSINESS WIRE
Feb. 5, 2004
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040205005202&newsLang=en
PDG Environmental, Inc. (OCTBB:PDGE), an environmental and specialty contractor, today reported that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Enviro-Tech Abatement Services Co., has been awarded a term contract with the Westinghouse Savannah River Company (WSRC) to perform asbestos abatement at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. SRS was constructed during the early 1950's to produce the basic materials used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons, primarily tritium and plutonium-239, in support of our Nation's defense programs, and is now undergoing decommissioning.
PDGE's task order contract has an initial term of one year with an option for two additional years. The contract is a unit price indefinite quantity/delivery contract with a value not-to-exceed $3.0 million. The initial task orders involve asbestos removal in four separate buildings, which began in January 5, 2004 and will be completed in mid-February, 2004.
John Regan, Chairman and CEO, commented, "We are very pleased and excited to have been chosen by WSRC for this contract. PDGE's qualifications, expertise and management capabilities were among the factors used during the contractor selection process."
PDG Environmental, Inc., is an environmental and specialty contractor providing asbestos and lead abatement, insulation, microbial remediation and demolition and related services dedicated to assisting its commercial, industrial and governmental clients in complying with environmental laws and regulations. Regional marketing and project operations are conducted through branch offices located in New York City, NY; Hazelton and Export, PA; Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, FL; Houston and Pasadena, TX; Phoenix, AZ; Rock Hill, SC; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; and Los Angeles, CA. For additional information on the company, please visit http://www.pdge.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under Private Securities Act of 1995: The statements contained in this release, which are not historical facts, may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, deployment of new services, growth of customer base, and growth of service area, among other items. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in any forward-looking statement with regard to magnitude, timing or other factors. Deviation may result from risk and uncertainties, including, without limitation, the Company's dependence on third parties, market conditions for the sale of services, availability of capital, operational risks on contracts, and other risks and uncertainties. The Company disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement.
Contacts
PDG Environmental, Inc.
John C. Regan, 412-243-3200 Or
Porter, Le Vay & Rose, Inc.
Michael Porter, Investor Relations
Margarerit Drgos, Media Relations
Jeff Myhre, Editorial
212-564-4700
FAX 212-244-3075
www.plrinvest.com
plrmail@plrinvest.com
-------- utah
Utah may gain say-so on N-waste
By Judy Fahys - fahys@sltrib.com
THURSDAY February 05, 2004
Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Feb/02052004/utah/utah.asp
The day may be coming sooner than lawmakers expected when they, along with the governor, have the final word on the low-level radioactive waste coming to Utah.
The details of Rep. Stephen Urquhart's "Don't-Dump-on-Us" bill that came out Wednesday would, in effect, force lawmakers to say "yes" or "no" on two new types of waste Envirocare of Utah wants to put in its landfill.
The St. George Republican's legislation is structured to allow a broader definition of "special nuclear material," thereby expanding the type of waste the Tooele County landfill can accept.
But Envirocare won't say how much more radioactivity will come to the site, where the waste would come from, or the number of shipments of special nuclear material that would be covered by the change, so lawmakers who vote on the bill won't know exactly what new waste the state might get.
The momentum for increasing the control Utah political leaders have on waste policy increased last fall after the U.S. Energy Department, with an act of Congress, sought to exploit a loophole in federal waste law so that Envirocare could be used for disposal of highly concentrated radioactive sludge from government cleanup sites in Fernald, Ohio, and Niagara Falls, N.Y. The Tooele County landfill ultimately withdrew its application for that waste, but not before the public and lawmakers demanded more control over Utah's radioactive waste policy.
Urquhart's bill, backed by the legislative task force on hazardous and radioactive waste, would allow expansion of radioactive waste disposal only if specifically approved by the Legislature and the governor.
For years, Utah's radioactive waste policy has been set by state and federal bureaucrats. Employees of the state Division of Radiation Control have approved more than 18 amendments to Envirocare's license in 16 years. Bureaucrats at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have approved 48.
According to the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, the amendments expanded the original three types of radioactive material first permitted at Envirocare to more than 200.
Envirocare spokesman Tim Barney restated on Wednesday the company's contention that the special nuclear material is no "hotter" than the stuff currently permitted by the state. Urquhart's bill amounts to legislators "micromanaging" the waste company, he said.
"For us, this is a matter of principle," Barney said. "You have to draw the line somewhere."
Envirocare is unhappy with Urquhart's bill because it would force the company to come back to the Legislature and the governor to win approval of a second new waste type now under regulatory review -- "mixed" radioactive and chemical waste that has higher concentrations of radioactivity than now allowed in the mixed waste area of Envirocare.
Community activists want the exception for special nuclear materials taken out of the bill. That waste contains plutonium and enriched uranium, they pointed out.
"Given the security and health risks posed by these materials, they should immediately fix that portion of the bill," said Claire Geddes of Utah Legislative Watch, a consumer watchdog group.
-------- vermont
Time Bomb?
With a higher power output, Vermont Yankee could be a disaster waiting to happen
by Stephanie Kraft
February 5, 2004
Valley Advocate
http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:52700
Also see cover art PAUL SHOUL PHOTO
http://valleyadvocate.com/binary/52700-273-2/cover-2545.jpeg
To most people in Vermont, let alone Massachusetts, New Hampshire and southern Canada, the Vermont Public Service Board is not exactly a household word. Yet this agency holds the safety of people in this entire region in its hands as it prepares to render a decision on whether the owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant near Brattleboro can increase the plant's power output by 20 percent.
Entergy Nuclear of Louisiana, the owner of Vermont Yankee, wants to hike the 32-year-old plant's power production from 524 megawatts to 634. Such an increase is called an uprate, and it's becoming more and more common now that no utilities are investing in new nuclear plant construction. Uprates typically increase a plant's output by 1 or 2 percent; the 20 percent uprate Entergy is asking for is the maximum allowable under federal rules. Only one other nuclear power plant has had an uprate approaching this magnitude approved.
"This is a precedent-setting case. It has implications for the whole country," said Peter Alexander, director of the New England Coalition, which monitors safety issues at the plant.
Uprates put stress on a nuclear power plant's systems. They increase the amount of spent fuel that must be stored at a plant. They put added strain on components of the all-important cooling systems that keep the reactor core from overheating and going into an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. Running the reactor at a new, higher level of power may raise the temperature of cooling water, bringing it nearer the point at which it could boil and compromise the entire reactor cooling system.
Opponents of the uprate at Vermont Yankee have brought in expert consultants who say even a minor malfunction could lead to a loss of cooling water that might cause Vermont Yankee -- built before federal law required layer upon layer of backup safety systems -- to melt down.
A nuclear engineer for the state of Vermont, working independently of the activists, has reached a similar conclusion.
For the Public Service Board, the situation is not simple, since the PSB is not empowered to turn thumbs up or down on the project purely because of safety concerns. The last word about safety has to come from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But the PSB can ask the NRC for a thorough safety review of the plant, and make the agency feel the weight of public concern about that issue. Public concern can be enormously influential in such decisions; in the early 1990s, an application for a license extension for the Yankee Rowe plant in Franklin County took a u-turn that led the NRC to shut the plant down for good after hundreds of people expressed their worries about the extension in public hearings.
The controversy over the uprate for Vermont Yankee puts the spotlight on the Public Service Board, which can give or withhold its approval of the project based on its economic and environmental impact on the state of Vermont, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In hearings held during January by the Public Service Board, an alarming picture emerged: Entergy operators are depending on a strategy experts believe to be flimsy and inadequate to deal with an accidental loss of coolant in the reactor core.
If these warnings are true, Entergy's plan could lead to a disaster significantly worse than the one that occurred at Three Mile Island.
The New England coalition has assembled a group of experts with formidable credentials to help it assess safety issues associated with the uprate. Among them is Paul Blanch, who has spent over 30 years in the nuclear industry, first in the Navy's nuclear program and as a 25-year employee for Northeast Utilities. Blanch was among the whistleblowers who outed unsafe practices at NU's Millstone nuclear plants in Connecticut in the 1980s, and was also an expert witness in civil litigation following the incipient meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.
The Coalition has also enlisted David Lochbaum, a former nuclear industry executive who now serves as a consultant on nuclear power to the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Ray Shadis, a farmer and artist from Maine who is a part-time nuclear safety consultant. Shadis helped initiate the movement that got the Maine Yankee nuclear plant shut down, and has been invited several times to speak to the NRC on reactor oversight and safety issues.
The three represent a range of positions on nuclear power. Blanch, who did a stint as a consultant for Entergy as recently as last year, still describes himself as a "supporter of safe nuclear power," a phrase that could fairly describe Lochbaum as well. Shadis is more generally critical of nuclear power and the NRC, whose latest methods of grading nuclear plant safety -- the methods that the agency would apply in a review of Vermont Yankee --he describes as "better [that the older methods] in some respects, but largely a fluff job."
Blanch is not alone in his fear that the NRC may let Entergy take gambles with public safety as it pushes for an uprate to make the plant more profitable. "We're very afraid of the NRC," said Alexander. "We regard the Public Service Board as the last real line of defense."
Here's the way the NEC and its consultants describe the scenario that worries them most.
In Yankee's containment building sits a large doughnut-shaped vessel called the torus, which contains water that could be pumped into the reactor to cool it in the event that the reactor's cooling system fails. The torus would also receive steam from the overheated reactor.
The danger is that if that water gets too hot -- if it reaches boiling temperature -- huge bubbles could form that would prevent the pumps from sucking the water in so it could be carried to the reactor. The water would also be unable to enter the pumps if it got so hot that it flashed to steam. The situation is further complicated by the fact that just activating the big pumps can cause a sudden lowering of pressure.
Meanwhile, time would be critical because overheated fuel rods could bend and twist so that control rods could not be inserted between them. The placement of control rods between the fuel rods is the normal way of controlling the speed of the nuclear reaction. If the reactor loses coolant and the fuel rods burn out of shape so the control rods can't be accepted, the reactor's operators are looking at an out-of-control nuclear reaction called a China syndrome.
A China syndrome is a worse scenario than the incipient meltdown that occurred at Three Mile Island. As former Northeast Utilities employee and whistleblower Paul Blanch told the Advocate , "Certainly an accident at Vermont Yankee does have the potential to be very much worse than TMI."
The trick to keeping the water in the torus from boiling is related to something as commonplace as using a pressure cooker, or making tea or coffee on a hike up a high mountain: water boils at 212 degrees under normal atmospheric pressure, but can leap into a boil at a lower temperature under lower pressure. Entergy says its operators can carry out a complicated balancing act between water temperature and water pressure in the containment building that will keep the water from boiling up into enormous bubbles, or flashing to steam before it could be piped into the reactor.
By keeping the pressure high in the containment, they say, they can keep the water from boiling.
The proposal to use this precipitous tactic to manage a volatile situation has sparked a firestorm of debate and protest among activists in the Brattleboro area and the experts they have enlisted to scrutinize the uprate plan. "The NRC has in many technical documents said this is a bad idea. It's risky. If you must do it, don't do it for more than a few minutes," said Shadis. "In Vermont Yankee's plan they propose that they could do this up to 50 hours."
But Entergy may squeak by with its plan. Two years ago the NRC proposed to allow increases in containment pressure to be used as a safety measure in loss of coolant accidents. The agency has allowed operators of at least two other nuclear power plants, Dresden and Quad Cities, to handle loss of coolant in that way.
Blanch says it's not safe, however, and adds that the NRC is "to blame" for letting companies like Entergy think they can push the envelope on safety considerations. NEC staff and other opponents of the uprate have also pointed out that a breach of the containment building by terrorists or by a more commonplace accident would disperse the pressure, possibly sending the water to a boil.
Under normal conditions, the temperature of the emergency cooling water is around 183 degrees. At 634 megawatts -- Entergy's proposed new output level -- that temperature would rise to 194 degrees, only 18 degrees below the 212-degree boiling point. With low pressure in the containment building, the water might boil at an even lower temperature.
This plan by Entergy -- to deal with a cooling system failure by balancing off pressure against water temperature -- was discovered by Blanch and by Vermont state nuclear engineer William Sherman. The two men found the information independently of each other as they pored over thousands of pages of documents from Entergy. And those piles of information represent only a fraction of the paperwork that should be reviewed, Blanch said.
"If Bill Sherman and I, who have spent maybe 150 hours going over these documents, can find major safety issues, what would happen if we had adequate time to review all the safety issues? What else would we find?" said Blanch. "This particular issue and the way they are addressing it clearly bring into question the NRC's most basic requirements for protecting the public."
Blanch pointed out that because Vermont Yankee was built in 1967, before redundant safety systems were required in nuclear plants, parts of its cooling system have no backup. The possible failure of a system without backup -- called a "single failure" -- makes it crucial that the next layer of defense, such as the plan for dealing with a loss-of-coolant accident, leave nothing to chance.
"In the event of one single failure, the emergency core cooling pumps will fail -- notice I said will, not may -- likely causing a meltdown," said Blanch. "They have to absolutely maintain a high presssure in the torus, which is extremely radioactive. If they lose that pressure, then they lose all their cooling when they need it the most."
On Dec. 8, Sherman wrote the NRC about the risks involved in the company's plan for dealing with a loss of coolant. In the letter, he points out that using the plant's containment to maintain a safe level of pressure in case of a loss of coolant gives the containment itself a new status as a component of the safety system, and suggests that the containment should be pressure-tested to see if it is up to its new job.
He also made the point that the agency used to be "unequivocal" in prohibiting containment pressure from being factored into the safety equation for loss-of-coolant accidents, and questioned the new rule allowing it.
At press time the NRC had not responded.
Shadis said the threat Entergy's plan poses to public safety is too clear to be obscured by arcane scientific jargon. "The emergency core cooling system is likely to be overheated, causing its pumps to fail under accident conditions," he said. "If they want to avoid a meltdown, they will have to send out for ice -- I figure, about 8 billion bags of it."
Over the last 20 years, some 99 nuclear plants around the country have asked for and received uprates. When the Quad Cities plant in Illinois got a 17 .8 percent uprate in 2002, a large piece of metal in the reactor broke apart and crashed into other components. The operators were totally unprepared for the potentially disastrous incident, which Lochbaum described as "a wake-up call" for other companies seeking large uprates.
In Vermont, concerned state officials have to walk a fine line, since federal law makes the NRC the final arbiter on safety issues. Entergy can't do the uprate unless it gets a so-called "certificate of public good" from the state Public Service Board, but the criteria for that certificate are, first, that the project have no negative environmental effects, and, secondly, that the people of the state realize some economic gain from it.
The first criterion, Sherman admits, involves an irony. Because the plant already exists, and federal law assumes that nuclear power plants are safe barring abnormal incidents, the environmental question is somewhat nullified. In other words, for legal purposes the reactor is considered environmentally harmless -- unless it melts down and wipes out Vermont, western New Hampshire and a swatch of Canada. That would happen if an accident occurred when the prevailing winds, which move northeast over the reactor, were blowing.
(That doesn't mean, however, that areas south and west of the reactor are safe. That would depend on the weather at the time of the accident, the duration of radioactive releases if the containment were breached, and other variables. In western Massachusetts, Bernardston, Leyden,Northfield, and parts of Gill, Warwick, Colrain and Greenfield are located within 10 miles of the reactor.)
Entergy bought itself the points to meet the economic criterion by offering the state $20 million for a cleanup of Lake Champlain and other environmental amenities, a move that reportedly has Gov. James Douglas's administration squarely on the company's side.
All that said, however, Sherman told the Advocate that the Public Service Board can refuse to support the uprate proposal if it isn't satisfied on the score of safety. The PSB's decision is expected in middle or late March.
Meanwhile, in December, Entergy found itself with egg on its face when it was informed by the NRC that the information it had submitted to the agency in September, when it applied for the uprate, was inadequate. The company has still not supplied the necessary data to the NRC. Entergy spokesman Rob Williams said the company expects a decision from the NRC in less than a year, because the agency has already begun reviewing the application. But NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the decision won't come for a year after all the information is supplied.
Still, the distrust Entergy's incomplete documentation has inspired in people living near the plant apparently isn't shared by the NRC -- or if it is, they aren't admitting it. When we asked Sheehan if the flawed documentation suggested that the company might be lax in its operations, Sheehan answered, "No, I mean it suggests to us that this is a complex, involved undertaking. I wouldn't read anything else into it at this point."
-------- washington
Vit plant construction progresses
By Annette Cary,
Tri-City Herald staff writer
Thursday, February 5, 2004
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/4707995p-4658832c.html
Over the past 33 years, ironworker Ed Smith of Walla Walla has worked on projects from the Alaska pipeline to a San Francisco high-rise.
But, he said, among the most interesting jobs he's had is the one he's been working on for the last five months.
Wednesday, he was welding iron on the largest construction project in the nation this year, Hanford's waste vitrification plant.
"It gives us the opportunity to do the best we can," he said. "They want quality work."
The vit plant is being built to treat highly radioactive waste generated from producing plutonium at Hanford from 1944 to 1989. It's been sitting in underground tanks that were intended for temporary use.
The size of the plant is deceptive.
Surrounded by miles of sage-covered desert in the center of Hanford, there are few man-made structures to lend perspective.
But if the finished pretreatment building were set down next to the Columbia Center mall, it would dwarf the shopping complex. The building will be about 15 stories high and the size of four football fields.
It's just one of three main processing plants being built on the 65-acre site. After pretreatment separates radioactive waste into high-level waste and low-activity waste, the two kinds of waste will be sent to separate plants to be blended with molten glass and put in stainless-steel canisters for permanent disposal.
The first concrete for the waste treatment project was poured in July 2002. Now, the processing buildings are taking shape.
Nearby, the four largest of hundreds of tanks that will be used in the project are being built. They'll each hold 375,000 gallons of radioactive waste within stainless steel walls an inch thick. It makes the steel used in a car look like tin foil in comparison, said Jim Henschel, project director for the Hanford contractor building the plant, Bechtel National.
The tanks will be moved into the pretreatment building with a crane when they're completed. Bechtel's strategy was to build them separately to speed construction. Workers were able to start building the tanks without waiting for the first floor to be completed.
The low-activity waste building is the furthest along. On Wednesday, workers were putting up the walls of the first floor, above a basement and basement mezzanine level. Construction on the high-level waste plant is running on schedule, but about eight months behind the low-activity waste plant construction.
The work is exacting.
Once the vit plant starts operating in 2011, there will be areas called black cells that will be too radioactively hot for humans to ever enter again. Concrete walls in the high-level waste plant will be poured 5-feet thick to shield people from radiation.
A few more than 900 construction workers are on site now, a part of a total work force of about 1,200 assigned to the project. The majority of construction workers are carpenters, ironworkers and laborers.
So far, most have come from the Mid-Columbia, although there also are workers that commute for the work week from Spokane and Idaho, said George McClain, Bechtel's deputy site manager.
Mike Corbett, a West Richland carpenter, has been working on the project for 11?2 years.
"We build the forms (for concrete walls), rig it to a crane and fly it into place," he said Wednesday at the low-activity waste building.
Most recently, he worked on the Umatilla incinerator for nerve gas components.
There's a certain similarity to the work on construction sites, he said. But he likes this one because he's part of a project that's been talked about in the Tri-Cities for years.
"I think it's a great boon for the economy," he said.
He and Smith praised Bechtel for its "safety first" attitude toward construction.
Three of what may be the best jobs on the site are held by the men who operate the three tower cranes on site. When the cranes first went up, the workers had to climb staircases up to 200 feet into the sky to reach their cages high over the construction.
Now they take an elevator up for four 10-hour shifts a week. Blue Porta Potties sit on the arms of the cranes so there's no reason to come down until the workday has ended.
"The view is great," said Carrie Meyer, a Bechtel spokeswoman. And while workers on the buildings swelter in the summer heat and freeze in the winter cold, the tower crane operators look down in air-conditioned or heated comfort.
Communication is by radio, as operators lift bundles of rebar and piping and "fly" it into the buildings.
The number of construction workers is expected to peak in late 2005 and early 2006. By then, more of the workers will be pipefitters, electricians and millwrights.
Earlier projections estimated that as many as 2,500 construction workers would be needed at the peak of construction. But better planning has evened out job projections so the top construction employment may be closer to 1,600, and more workers will be employed for longer periods of time.
-------- us nuc waste
California utility abandons plan to ship nuclear reactor vessel around tip of South America
Thursday, February 05, 2004
By Seth Hettena,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-02-05/s_12803.asp
SAN DIEGO - A California utility abandoned a plan this week to send a 600-ton decommissioned reactor vessel on what would have been the longest voyage ever for a piece of nuclear waste in U.S. history.
Southern California Edison blamed delays that came as it finalized plans to send the vessel on a 15,500-mile trip around the icy tip of South America to a nuclear graveyard in Barnwell, S.C., spokesman Ray Golden said.
The vessel will remain safely in place, wrapped in tons of steel and concrete, at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station next to the ocean between Los Angeles and San Diego. Edison will explore other options to get the vessel to the East Coast, including a domestic route.
Edison has spent several million dollars getting the vessel ready for shipment and seeking approval from more than a dozen government agencies since 1999.
Plans had called for a truck to carry the decommissioned reactor vessel down a 17-mile stretch of the California coast. A barge was to take the vessel on a 90-day voyage past Cape Horn to the East Coast. Finally, a train was to haul the vessel to South Carolina.
"It's good news from an environmental perspective because the reactor's much safer in our opinion ... on site," said Tom Clements, senior adviser to Greenpeace International's nuclear campaign. "Plus, it avoids a diplomatic confrontation with Chile and Argentina."
Critics said the company was risking disaster by sailing the vessel past Cape Horn, one of the world's most dangerous nautical passages. Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles-based nuclear watchdog group, called it "the worst possible route from a safety standpoint you can come up with."
Countries along the route had raised objections - most notably Argentina, where a federal court last month banned the vessel from entering its 200-mile territorial waters.
Continued delays would mean the passage around Cape Horn would occur closer to South America's winter, when the weather often turns treacherous, Golden said. The utility also had to avoid the March breeding season of the western snowy plover, a threatened species that nests on the beaches where the reactor would have passed.
Edison's record-breaking route wasn't its first choice. A plan to get the vessel to South Carolina by rail and barge fell apart when Edison failed to reach terms with a railroad company. Then the Panama Canal refused to waive new weight limits for nuclear waste.
The decommissioned reactor generated enough power for 450,000 homes from 1968 until it was shut down in 1992. Modifications that could have kept it running were deemed too expensive.
-------- us politics
Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe
Feb. 5, 2004
By Richard Sale
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/02/17/National/Cheneys.Staff.Focus.Of.Probe-598606.shtml
Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.
According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.
The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.
The case centers on Valerie Plame, a CIA operative then working for the weapons of mass destruction division, and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who served as ambassador to Gabon and as a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad in the early 1990s. Under President Bill Clinton, he was head of African affairs until he retired in 1998, according to press accounts.
Wilson was sent by the Bush administration in March 2002 to check on an allegation made by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address the previous winter that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from the nation of Niger. Wilson returned with a report that said the claim was "highly doubtful."
On June 12, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus revealed that an unnamed diplomat had "given a negative report" on the claim and then, on July 6, as the Bush administration was widely accused of manipulating intelligence to get American public opinion behind a war with Iraq, Wilson published an op-ed piece in the Post in which he accused the Bush administration of "misrepresenting the facts." His piece also asked, "What else are they lying about?"
According to one administration official, "The White House was really pissed, and began to contact six journalists in order to plant stories to discredit Wilson," according to the New York Times and other accounts.
As Pincus said in a Sept. 29 radio broadcast, "The reason for putting out the story about Wilson's wife working for the CIA was to undermine the credibility of [Wilson's] mission for the agency in Niger. Wilson, as the last top diplomat in Iraq at the time of the Gulf War, had credibility beyond his knowledge of Africa, which was his specialty. So his going to Niger to check the allegation that Iraq had sought uranium there and returning to say he had no confirmation was considered very credible."
Eight days later, columnist Robert Novak wrote a column in which he named Wilson's wife and revealed she was "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Since Plame was working undercover, it exposed her and, in the opinion of some, ruined her usefulness and her career. It also violated a 1982 law that prohibits revealing the identity of U.S. intelligence agents.
On Oct. 7, Bush said that unauthorized disclosure of an undercover CIA officer's identity was "a criminal matter" and the Justice Department had begun its investigation into the source of the leak.
Richard Sale is an intelligence correspondent for UPI, a sister wire service of Insight magazine.
----
The Trouble With Handpicked Councils
by Karen Kwiatkowski
February 5, 2004
Lew Rockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski63.html
The White House is putting together a small group of privileged persons to fix a little problem that has Karl Rove in a pickle. George W. Bush will soon select the members of this group, no doubt with Dick Cheney close at hand, guiding his hand. The group will "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."
News flash! We already know what happened and why. Some parts of the intelligence community (uh, that would be the top leadership) caved to the incredible political pressure created by some bull-headed politicos with a single well-formulated if nutty paradigm regarding Iraq as center of evil today, center of the American energy empire tomorrow. To the extent that the intelligence community resisted the paradigm, Chalabi's perspective on the situation in Iraq was passed off as fact directly to the VP and the Presidents' speechwriters. No harm injecting a little healthy competition, right? Team B and all that, you know.
The goal was to take Saddam out and put Ahmed Chalabi and company in. This little Iraq out-and-in operation was intended to be old news before the 2004 re-election campaign unfolded. It would be called, past tense, a liberation, Iraqi freedom, glorious democracy.
Iraq was to be a Bush-branded success, as well as a brand new frontier for the empire, and a nice little crutch for the ever-struggling dollar, petro and otherwise.
Hand picking councils to conduct sham jobs on the people seems to be an enduring mark of the beast known as the first Bush Junior administration.
We have all certainly enjoyed the delightful performance of the 9-11 Commission, the gyrations of the GAO inquiry into the Cheney-led energy policy task force, the never-ending rainbow of goofball decisions made by the Homeland Security monstrosity, the intrigue of who leaked the identity and occupation of Victoria Plame. With this for entertainment, who needs to watch the Super Bowl halftime show? I mean, ripping our entire Constitution is at least as significant as ripping half of a Victoria Secret's brassiere.
Actually, given the respective news coverage and national awareness, maybe it isn't.
Mr. Bush's tendency to try to solve problems by enlisting his friends into even higher places is fine, but perhaps we can learn a thing or two about how to respond from our new friends, the Iraqis.
Iraqis recognize a handpicked council of stooges when they see it. They understand that the council the Bush Administration selected for them has the power to do only what the stooge-pickers want, and no power to resolve core issues important to the rest of the people.
Their reaction has been, unlike our national reactions to similar stooge operations out of Washington, somewhat effective. They have loudly exclaimed their dissatisfaction in the street, in their communities and in their media. Some have made sure that the United States stooges are unable to travel freely throughout the country, and that they are forced to maintain expensive private or military security. They have rallied to their own homegrown leadership, emerging from existing familial, ethnic or religious groups, or from the dynamic of community meritocracy that chaos fosters.
While the U.S. appointed and supported Iraqi Governing Council whines and rolls to please its master and keep the cash flowing, the big dogs of Iraq begin to growl and pace. The IGC periodically punishes legitimate but critical al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera media enterprises, simultaneously passing "laws" designed to show that they care about the Iraqi people and Iraqi tradition. A future in Baghdad after America grants "elections" and "sovereignty" must be worrisome for members of the IGC. Most will have to go back into exile, maybe forever.
The IGC is worried about their future. It is a sign of the quiet success of democracy in Iraq and a movement toward accountability in government. Like sunspots, eruptions of extreme violence are part and parcel to the continued existence of a nation, or two or three. Our own Thomas Jefferson remarked on this, in his reference to blood spilled periodically by patriots and tyrants.
Junior Bush, impatient to prove not only that he is not his father, but better than him too, would have us believe that he liberated Iraqis. But what Mr. Bush and the whole neoconservative/imperial foreign policy designers don't understand is that the Iraqis will liberate themselves. They are doing it every single day.
There may yet be some good to come from this most recent example of illegal, costly and deadly preemptive war, drummed up by this administration through a series of lies to Congress and the people, in pursuit of an agenda never fully declared. Perhaps in taking back their country, Iraqis will show Americans how to do it here.
Karen Kwiatkowski [send her mail] is a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. She now lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley, and writes a bi-weekly column on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for militaryweek.com.
----
Bush: Arms 'We Thought' Were in Iraq Not Found
February 5, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-bush.html
CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - President Bush acknowledged on Thursday that the United States had not found banned weapons ``we thought'' were in Iraq, but defended the war as ``the right thing'' to do.
``We have not yet found the stockpiles of weapons that we thought were there,'' Bush said in a speech at the port of Charleston, South Carolina, in his clearest acknowledgment of problems with prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons.
However, he said, ``Knowing what I knew then and knowing what I know today, America did the right thing in Iraq.''
In a speech that laid out a political defense of his Iraq policy in an election year, Bush also blasted critics of the war, saying, ``If some politicians in Washington had their way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power.''
Bush spoke shortly after CIA Director George Tenet defended his agency's work despite intelligence that had inaccurately accused ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of maintaining stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Those accusations were at the heart of Bush's case for going to war. Tenet said in a Washington speech that the intelligence community was neither ``completely right nor completely wrong'' about Iraq, and said analysts ``never said there was an imminent threat.''
Bush and other administration officials did say before the war that Iraq presented an ``immediate'' or ``gathering'' threat, and long after the war they maintained confidence in finding banned weapons. The former chief U.S. arms inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said last week U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons was almost all wrong.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush still had ``great confidence'' in Tenet.
``WE HAD A CHOICE''
And Bush said on Thursday he acted properly in going to war. ``We had a choice -- either take the word of a madman or take action to defend the American people. Faced with that choice I will defend America every time.''
Saddam ``had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction,'' including scientists, technology and infrastructure, he said.
``We know Saddam Hussein had the intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass destruction because he hid all those activities from the world until the last day of his regime. And Saddam Hussein had something else: He had a record of using weapons of mass destruction against his enemies and against innocent Iraqi citizens,'' Bush said.
Bush is expected to announce on Friday the appointment of a commission to investigate prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Bush's speech to military personnel and others, in South Carolina, a state that had been crawling with Democratic presidential candidates before Tuesday's primary, was heavily laced with re-election campaign themes of the economy and national security.
After the speech, Bush also made a campaign-style quick stop at the ``Sticky Fingers'' restaurant and bar to greet customers.
The South Carolina stop was similar to one in New Hampshire two days after that state's primary last month.
``These Democrats have had the state playing field to themselves for months,'' said Republican strategist Scott Reed. ``They have spent millions of dollars advertising, and most of it has been negative toward Bush. There is something to be said for going back in there, getting the (poll) numbers back in balance, and charge up the base of your party so they stay in the Bush column.
Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by a 57 percent to 41 percent margin in South Carolina in 2000. The winner of this year's Democratic primary in South Carolina, Sen. John Edwards, was born in the state and represents neighboring North Carolina in the U.S. Senate.
--------
Chomsky: "Another Four Years Of The Same Policies Could Be Extremely Dangerous For The Country And The World"
Thursday, February 5th, 2004
Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/05/177223
The United Nations Society of Writers and Artists this week presented MIT professor of linguistics and author Noam Chomsky with the Award of Excellence. We hear Chomsky responding to reporters' questions after the award ceremony. [Includes transcript] We turn now to famed linguist and political activist: Professor Noam Chomsky.
On Tuesday, The President of the United Nations Society of Writers and Artists Hans Janitschek presented Chomsky with the Award of Excellence at the UN Correspondents Association Club in New York.
Chomsky is an institute professor and professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest For Global Dominance, 9-11, Power and Terror and many other books.
After the awards ceremony, Chomsky addressed a large crowd talking about US imperialism, Iraq, space travel and more. He then took questions from reporters.
- Noam Chomsky, speaking at the United Nations Correspondents Association Club in New York after being presented the Award of Excellence by the United Nations Society of Writers and Artists.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...
AMY GOODMAN:We turn now to the famed linguist and political analyst and activist Professor Noam Chomsky. On Tuesday, the president of the United Nations Society of Writers and Artists, Hans Janochek presented Noam Chomsky with the Award of Excellence at the U.N. Correspondence Association Club, in the United Nations in New York.
HANS JANECK:Professor Chomsky, it is a great honor for us that you accepted our invitation, but even more so that you accept this, our Award of Excellence, which the Society of Writers has been giving annually to outstanding literary and political figures for their contribution to peace and understanding. In fact, over the past 15 or 17 years, so far, and it was previously awarded to international statesmen such as Mikhail Gorbachev and great writers like Norman Mailer. The members of the society, founded in 1989, are diplomats and journalists accredited to the United Nations, as well as individual staff members with a distinguished literary record. We deeply believe that there is a link between politics or diplomacy on one hand, and literary art on the other. Because so many things that you cannot say in a political or diplomatic fashion, you need a literary element. So, this is one of the things that we have admired about you for many years. It's not only what you say it's, how you say it. And you can see what the response that you have. You never raise your voice, you never swear, and you never hit the table with your fist. You always keep calm, but are always persuasive. Persuasive, indeed. This is why the citation for the award, which is a medal on a blue ribbon, on a with an inscription that translates as "from the spirit of the world." There are other interpretations, but what it means really, is the conscience of mankind. That's what it's all about. Professor Chomsky, we honor you today in gratitude. You have kept the flame of reason and common sense alive when they were threatened. You stayed calm in the clash of civilizations, but recorded the conflict in a uniquely somber and persuasive style. Your voice is heard all over the globe. You have earned the respect of millions, eager to find the truth in a troubled world. There is no better place to express our respect you to than here at the United Nations, whose spirit and principles you represent.
JUAN GONZALEZ:That was Hans Janecek, presenting Noam Chomsky with the Award of Excellence at the United Nations Correspondents Association Club in New York. Noam Chomsky is an institute professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, 9-11, Power and Terror, and many other books. After the awards ceremony, Chomsky addressed the large crowd at the United Nations talking about US hegemony, Iraq, space travel, and many more subjects. He then took questions from reporters.
REPORTER:Mr. Chomsky, I want to ask you two brief questions. One is, in your view, what is the risk of four more years of Bush, both inside the United States and for international systems, what the impact will be. And secondly, do you think that Kofi Annan should cede to U.S. pressure and send U.N. personnel back to Iraq, and does he have any room to say no?
NOAM CHOMSKY:It's very hard to predict the weather, and predicting human fate is difficult. But there is a fair possibility, a possibility beyond what I think any rational person would accept, that another four years of the same policies, could be extremely dangerous for the country, and the world, and could cause, maybe, irreparable harm. Remember, we have a lot of evidence. It's not just the past four years. The same people, essentially, were in office for 12 years from1981 to 1992, and there is a rich record of what they accomplished. It is not discussed in the United States because we have a kind of a principle here that you're not supposed to look into the mirror. That's not unique to the United States, but very striking here. So, anything that happened in the past didn't happen. Because we have changed course, or some miracle has taken place. We are, therefore, not permitted to carry out the rational approach that we would to anyone else. And if Saddam Hussein appears in a trial and says, well, why are you bringing up all of that old stuff from the 1980's...It doesn't mean anything now, I'm a nice guy, I just had a born-again experience and I'm going right to heaven...We wouldn't even bother laughing. But when that is done year after year after year, as it is by our own leaders, we applaud. That's what it means to be a disciplined intellectual. If we don't want to accept that discipline, we can treat the matter just as we would in the case of Saddam's crimes or Stalin's crimes or anyone else's. We can ask, well, what did they do during those 12 years, and what have they been doing in the last four years. It's a reactionary selection from the first 12 years. It's clear enough, they have a domestic agenda, which is not hidden. They're trying to unravel the progressive legislation of the past century to overcome the achievements of popular struggles, hard ones, to gain some benefits for people, what we call minimal welfare state... To transfer power into the hands of unaccountable private tyrannies in one-way or another. Every aspect of the program is like that. Internationally, they have the programs that I have described. They may back off from them because they may find them unfeasible, but the programs are clear, and that's only part of them. I mean, there are also programs about international economic arrangements. I think these could be very dangerous. In fact, the kinds of programs that I just talked about could literally lead to destruction of the species. Again, you cannot put a probability on that. We all know what the likelihood was of a devastating nuclear war in 1962, when the world was literally one word away from a nuclear exchange. One Russian submarine commander countermanded and -- an order to shoot off nuclear-tipped torpedoes during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which very likely would have led to a devastating nuclear response. And then on and on, and then Eisenhower's destruction of the northern hemisphere. One word. That was 1962. January, 1959, 1995, was much more dangerous, far greater destructive capacity. At that point, we were two minutes away. As these threats are being increased, the militarization of space alone is increasing the threats significantly. And you know, rational people don't take chances like that. No matter what their subjective probability is, but it will increase.
REPORTER And about Kofi Annan and the U.N.?
NOAM CHOMSKY:Basically no one has a right to be in Iraq but Iraqis'. So, they should take the lead in determining what happens. The invasion has left such wreckage that -- how Iraqis might decide to deal with what remains, you know, I cannot say. I mean, we know what they say in polls. You can make your own judgments from that. In recent Iraqi polls, the most favorable rating for a foreign leader is Jacques Chirac-- by about five to one. They regard the U.S. and British forces as occupiers, not liberators. Right after Bush made his speech about how we're changing course once again and going to bring democracy to the world, that's reiterating what Reagan had said 20 years earlier and everyone else. After that speech, which was greeted with the usual reverential awe in the United States, there was a poll in Iraq about asking Iraqis why they thought the U.S. was in Iraq, and some agreed with President Bush and the commentators here. 1% thought that the goal was to bring democracy to Iraq. About 70% thought it was to control Iraq's resources ,and to reorder the Middle East consistently with the goals of the United States and Israel. Actually, their responses were more nuanced and sophisticated. When it went further, it turned out about half, although 1% thought the U.S. was trying to bring democracy, about half thought that the United States wanted democracy, if the U.S. could control it. Now, that's the sophisticated response. The one that's based on history. The one that is understood by everyone in Latin America, for example.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
To rein in Afghan intelligence service, Karzai removes its leader
Carlotta Gall,
New York Times / International Herald Tribune
Thursday, February 5, 2004
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=128092
KABUL President Hamid Karzai removed the head of the Afghan intelligence service on Wednesday in a move to reform one of the most uncontrolled organizations in the country.
The removal of Mohammad Arif Sarwari from the National Security Directorate, announced by the official Bakhtar news agency, came amid a flurry of new appointments in the last week.
Four provincial governors and several police chiefs in the regions were named as part of the government's agenda to improve efficiency in its departments, aides said. But coming soon after a new constitution was approved, the appointments are also a sign of Karzai's growing confidence.
The National Security Directorate, designed on the lines of the KGB, is a leftover of the Soviet era and has been criticized in the last two years for abusing human rights, repressing citizens, and serving factional interests rather than those of the president and Afghanistan. Some Western diplomats have cast aspersions on the directorate's performance on intelligence matters.
Sarwari is a Panjshiri, a member of the powerful clique from the Panjshir valley that still dominates the foreign and defense ministries and the National Security Directorate in Karzai's government. He was removed by presidential decree and appointed as an adviser to the president without portfolio, the Bakhtar news agency reported.
The presidential chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, said that Sarwari had asked to step down, complaining of the heavy workload, but military, United Nations and human rights officials as well as foreign diplomats have long called for his removal.
His replacement has not yet been announced, but officials said it was likely to be Amrullah Saleh, a former assistant to the intelligence chief and also a Panjshiri.
Saleh, however, is a younger, well-educated, English speaker, and has served until now as the chief liaison officer with the foreign military and diplomatic presence in Kabul.
Replacing Sarwari would open the way for the modernization of the intelligence service and reduce its size and make it more effective, a presidential aide said.
"He was removed because of the need to reform the intelligence service, and we think this area is an extremely important one to focus on," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Sarwari had served as the head of intelligence for the Northern Alliance during its resistance to the Taliban and was in charge when the Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah Masud, was assassinated by suspected Al Qaeda operatives on Sept. 9, 2001.
Although blamed by some for that security lapse, Sarwari became head of the National Security Directorate when the Taliban fell and the Northern Alliance took control of Kabul in December 2001.
His deputy was among three men accused by other ministers of murdering the minister for civil aviation, Abdul Rahman, at Kabul airport on Feb. 14, 2002. None of the men have ever been charged. A young man also died while being interrogated in custody of the directorate in 2002. Sarwari was not implicated in either event.
Karzai spoke passionately about the need to abolish a service that spies on its own people in a speech to the constitutional loya jirga a month ago.
--------
Afghan Leader Removes Chief of Intelligence
February 5, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/asia/05AFGH.html?pagewanted=all
KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 4 - President Hamid Karzai removed Muhammad Arif Sarwari, the head of the National Security Directorate, the Afghan intelligence service, on Wednesday in a move that many here took as a sign of Mr. Karzai's growing confidence.
The dismissal, announced by the official Bakhtar news agency, came amid a flurry of new appointments in the last week, including four new provincial governors and many new regional police chiefs.
The appointments, coming soon after the approval of a new constitution, are part of a drive to improve efficiency and governance, aides to the president said, as well as an indication of Mr. Karzai's increasing influence. Foreign diplomats and military, United Nations and human rights officials had long called for Mr. Sarwari's removal.
The National Security Directorate, designed along the lines of the KGB, is a Soviet-era relic that was criticized in the last two years for human rights abuses, spying on citizens and serving factional interests rather than the interests of the president and the country. Some Western diplomats have cast aspersions on the directorate's performance on intelligence matters.
Mr. Sarwari is a Panjshiri, a member of the powerful clique from the Panjshir Valley, which still dominates the key ministries of foreign affairs, defense and intelligence in Mr. Karzai's government. He was removed by presidential decree and appointed as an adviser to the president without portfolio, the news agency reported.
Replacing Mr. Sarwari will open the way to modernizing the intelligence service, a presidential aide said. Mr. Sarwari's replacement has not been announced, but officials said it was likely to be Amrullah Saleh, a former assistant to the intelligence chief and also a Pansjhiri. Mr. Saleh, younger than Mr. Sarwari, well educated and an English speaker, has served until now as the chief liaison officer with the foreign military and diplomatic corps in Kabul.
Mr. Sarwari served as the head of intelligence for the Northern Alliance during its resistance to the Taliban in the years before the American invasion in 2001, and was in charge when the alliance's leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated by suspected Al Qaeda operatives on Sept. 9, 2001.
Although blamed by some for that grave security lapse, Mr. Sarwari, better known as Engineer Arif, became head of the National Security Directorate in Kabul when the Northern Alliance took control there in December 2001.
In a speech to the loya jirga, or grand council, Mr. Karzai spoke passionately about the need to abolish a service that spies on its own people. The council approved the constitution a month ago.
-------- arms
ISRAEL DISPLAYS UNMANNED NAVAL SYSTEM
February 5, 2004
[MENL]
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2004/february/02_05_2.html
TEL AVIV -- Israel has displayed an unmanned naval combat system.
The system is based on unmanned surface vehicles integrated with radar and targeting equipment. The platform was developed to protect against suicide naval attacks by insurgents.
The Protector system was developed by Rafael, Israel Armament Development Authority and Aeronautics Defense Systems. The system's payload contains a search radar and Rafael's Toplite stabilized multirole multisensor optronic payload, electro-optical day/night observation and targeting pod.
Executives said the system can be used in such missions as counter-insurgency, mine warfare, electronic warfare and precision strikes. They said the unmanned system can operate in all weather and at any hour.
-------- britain
Tory Leader Calls on Blair to Quit for Iraqi Weapons Claim
February 5, 2004
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/europe/05CND-BRIT.html?pagewanted=all
LONDON, Feb. 5 - The leader of the Conservative Party of Britain, Michael Howard, called on Prime Minister Tony Blair today to resign, saying that Mr. Blair failed to ask fundamental questions about Saddam Hussein's weapons before taking the country into war.
Mr. Howard's sudden assault on Mr. Blair came after the admission by Mr. Blair in Parliament on Wednesday that he was unaware that intelligence suggesting Mr. Hussein could activate chemical or biological weapons in 45 minutes referred to short-range battlefield weapons, and not strategic weapons that could threaten British and American forces in nearby countries.
Though Mr. Howard's challenge is not yet a serious political threat to Mr. Blair, whose Labor Party has a commanding position in Parliament, it suggests that the Tory leadership senses vulnerability in the record of prewar decision making that Mr. Blair laid out this week. And as a new inquiry is getting under way to examine the uses made of intelligence in the run-up to the war, Mr. Howard's resignation call may stir new rebellion in Mr. Blair's party. In any case, it was another indicator that Mr. Blair's political troubles are not yet over.
Mr. Blair's defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, appeared before a parliamentary defense committee today to try to ease the criticism over Mr. Blair's admission. Mr. Hoon said that while he had personally inquired in his department for a clarification of what kind of weapons could be activated in 45 minutes, when he received the answer, he did not pass it on to Mr. Blair, and that Mr. Blair made no inquiry of his own about it.
"It was not a significant issue," Mr. Hoon asserted.
Yet the claim of 45-minute readiness for Mr. Hussein's most dangerous weapons was mentioned four times in Mr. Blair's September 2002 intelligence dossier on Iraq and was prominently reported on the front pages of newspapers around the world. A British intelligence chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, later testified that the claim was misinterpreted, but neither Mr. Blair nor Mr. Hoon sought to correct the record, leading to allegations that they had deliberately sought to exaggerate the threat from Mr. Hussein.
Mr. Howard, traveling outside London to Portsmouth today, told reporters: "I am accepting what the prime minister told us at face value. He said he never knew, he never bothered to ask this question. If I were prime minister and I had failed to ask that basic question before committing our country to war, I would be seriously considering my position."
Asked if that meant he was calling on Mr. Blair to resign, he replied, "Yes."
--------
Blair admits he did not know 45-minute claim referred to battlefield weapons
By Nigel Morris and Ben Russell
05 February 2004
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=487953
Tony Blair admitted yesterday he led the crucial parliamentary debate that approved the war in Iraq without knowing the full truth behind the Government's claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
He was pressed in the Commons to spell out when he knew that the claim Iraq could launch a deadly attack with weapons of mass destruction within that period related only to battlefield weapons, rather than long-range missiles. Mr Blair said: "I've already indicated exactly when this came to my attention; it wasn't before the debate on 18 March.
"When you say that a battlefield weapon would not be a weapon of mass destruction, if there were chemical or biological or nuclear battlefield weapons that most certainly would be held as a weapon of mass destruction and the idea that their use wouldn't threaten regional stability I find somewhat eccentric."
In comments that appeared to contradict evidence to the Hutton inquiry by Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Blair said: "The report from the Secret Intelligence Service [MI6] did not specify the specific delivery system to which the time of 45 minutes applied."
Mr Hoon admitted to the Hutton inquiry he had known it probably referred to battlefield weapons but had done nothing to correct the media reporting.
Winding up the debate last night, Mr Hoon acknowledged that he knew the 45 minute claim related only to battlefield weapons before the March debate, even though Mr Blair did not. He insisted "the issue of the delivery system was not an issue at the time" and said he had only asked about the type of weapon "out of curiosity".
Challenged to explain why Mr Blair did not know the claim related to battlefield weapons, Mr Hoon said: "The Prime Minister will speak for himself, but I make it clear that inevitably... in the details of Government activity in the responsibilities I carry out are inevitably going to provide a great deal more detailed information than is available at all times."
But an incredulous Michael Howard, the Tory leader, said: "Is the Secretary of State seriously suggesting that he had this information but that he did not pass it on to the Prime Minister? Is that what he is telling the House this evening?"
Critics of the war seized on Mr Blair's comments. The former foreign secretary Robin Cook said: "I find it difficult to reconcile what I knew and what I'm sure the Prime Minister knew at the time we had the vote in March." The claim by Brian Jones in The Independent yesterday that the anxieties of intelligence officers about the dossier were overruled was repeatedly aired during the debate, which had to be suspended for 10 minutes because of heckling by anti-war demonstrators.
Mr Blair acknowledged that there was a question over the failure of intelligence chiefs to consider the doubts of Dr Jones over the threat posed by Iraq. But the Prime Minister insisted questions of procedure within Dr Jones's department were "a million miles away" from the former BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan's claim that Downing Street "sexed up" the dossier that made the case for war. He said Dr Jones's concern about the wording was "hardly of earth-shattering significance".
Mr Blair rejected demands, led by the Tory leader, Michael Howard, to publish the secret intelligence that is said to have backed the 45-minute claim. Mr Howard said: "Dr Jones saw all the intelligence there was to see on it; so incidentally did Lord Hutton. The intelligence referred to in the [Independent] article which he did not see was, I am told, intelligence about the production of chemical and biological warfare agents ... because the SIS put it out on a very restricted basis due to source sensitivity. His superiors were, however, briefed on the intelligence. It does not actually bear on the 45-minute point at all."
Mr Blair said the BBC report that prompted the Hutton inquiry was "100 per cent wrong", but he conceded intelligence service concern over the phrasing of the Government's dossier was the "grain of truth" behind Mr Gilligan's story.
Flanked by Mr Hoon, and 10 other Cabinet ministers, Mr Blair agreed with one MP that opposition to the Hutton report's findings was prompted by "frustration" that no ministers had been forced out by the issue. He said: "The report clear, forensic and utterly comprehensive in terms of the analysis of the evidence is the best defence to the charges of government whitewash, often by the same people who just over a week ago were describing Lord Hutton as a model of impartiality, wisdom and insight." Mr Howard said:"Writing in The Independent today, Dr Brian Jones has made a specific request to the Prime Minister to publish now the intelligence which he was not shown at the time, which he says lies behind the Government's claims that Iraq was actively producing chemical weapons and could launch an attack within 45 minutes of an order to do so. Dr Jones clearly does not believe, given that Saddam Hussein has now been overthrown, that even if that intelligence came from a source that was sensitive then at the time when Saddam still ruled Iraq, it is sensitive now. It seems to me the request which Dr Jones has made is an entirely reasonable one."
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "The Government made every conceivable effort to have a public presentation, in terms of the interpretation of that document, that clearly was designed to move people decidedly in one direction, and one direction only."
Andrew Mackinlay, a Labour MP, urged parliamentary committees not to take the "soft option". He said: "It's our duty not to buckle under this. It seems to me that what we want are MPs who are still prepared to ignore the sign which says, 'no trespass, don't go here'."
Bernard Jenkin, shadow defence secretary at the time of the war, said: "If we want the public to believe that published intelligence information is intelligence and not propaganda we've got to be able to answer the question: at what stage does intelligence become propaganda when it is in the hands of the spin doctors and the politicians?"
Tam Dalyell, a Labour MP and critic of the war, said outside the chamber: "As Father of the House, in 41 years in the Commons, I thought I had heard it all. Not so. I have just heard Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon say from the despatch box 'Ask the Prime Minister'.
"I fear the awful truth is that Blair did jolly well know on March 18 that any weapons of mass destruction were battlefield weapons - and suppressed the information from the House before the crucial vote."
-------- business
MAKING MONEY ON TERRORISM
by William D. Hartung
Arms Trade Resource Center
2/9/04
THE NATION,
February 5, 2004
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040223&s=hartung
We all know that Halliburton is raking in billions from the Bush Administration's occupation and rebuilding of Iraq. But in the long run, the biggest beneficiaries of the Administration's "war on terror" may be the "destroyers," not the rebuilders. The nation's "Big Three" weapons makers--Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman--are cashing in on the Bush policies of regime change abroad and surveillance at home. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was on target when he suggested that rather than "leave no child behind," the slogan Bush stole from the Children's Defense Fund, his Administration's true motto appears to be "leave no defense contractor behind."
In fiscal year 2002, the Big Three received a total of more than $42 billion in Pentagon contracts, of which Lockheed Martin got $17 billion, Boeing $16.6 billion and Northrop Grumman $8.7 billion. This is an increase of nearly one-third from 2000, Clinton's final year. These firms get one out of every four dollars the Pentagon doles out for everything from rifles to rockets. In contrast, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act is underfunded by $8 billion a year, with the additional assistance promised to school districts swallowed up by war costs and tax cuts.
The bread and butter for the Big Three are weapons systems like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (Lockheed Martin), the F/A-18 E/F combat aircraft (Boeing/Northrop Grumman), the F-22 Raptor (Lockheed Martin/Boeing) and the C-17 transport aircraft (Boeing). Northrop Grumman is also a major player in the area of combat ships, through its ownership of the Newport News, Virginia and Pascagoula, Mississippi, shipyards. All three firms are also well placed in the design and production of target-ing devices, electronic warfare equipment, long-range strike systems and precision munitions. For example, Boeing makes the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), a kit that can be used to make "dumb" bombs "smart." The JDAM was used in such large quantities in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that the company has had to run double shifts to keep up with Air Force demand.
The Bush nuclear buildup--large parts of which are funded out of the Energy Department budget, not the Pentagon--is particularly good news for Lockheed Martin. The company has a $2 billion-a-year contract to run Sandia National Laboratories, a nuclear weapons design and engineering facility based in Albuquerque. Lockheed Martin also works in partnership with Bechtel to run the Nevada Test Site, where new nuclear weapons are tested either via underground explosions--currently on hold due to US adherence to a moratorium on nuclear testing--or computer simulations. Late last year, Congress lifted a longstanding ban on research into so-called "mini-nukes"--nuclear weapons of less than five kilotons, about one-third the size of the Hiroshima bomb. It also authorized funds for studies on a nuclear "bunker buster" and seed money for a multibillion-dollar factory to build plutonium triggers for a new generation of nuclear weapons. These new investments will be presided over by Everet Beckner, a former Lockheed Martin executive who now heads the National Nuclear Security Administration's nuclear weapons complex.
The Big Three are also poised to profit from President Bush's plan to colonize the moon and send a manned mission to Mars, both of which are stalking horses for launching an arms race in space. Boeing and Lockheed Martin were already well positioned in the military-space field through major contracts in space launch, satellite and missile defense work, plus a partnership to run the United Space Alliance, the joint venture in charge of launches of the space shuttle. Northrop Grumman bought into the field through its acquisition of TRW, a major space and Star Wars contractor. The new presidential commission charged with fleshing out Bush's space vision is being chaired by Edward "Pete" Aldridge, the Pentagon's former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and a current member of Lockheed Martin's board of directors. Meanwhile, over at the Air Force, the under secretary in charge of acquiring space assets is Peter Teets, a former chief operating officer at Lockheed Martin. His position was created in accordance with the recommendations of the Commission to Assess US National Security Space Management and Organization, an advisory panel that published its blueprint for the militarization of space just as Bush was taking office. The group, which included representatives of eight Pentagon contractors, was presided over by Donald Rumsfeld until he left to take up his current post as Bush's Defense Secretary. Rumsfeld has been dutifully implementing the commission's recommendations ever since.
The Big Three are also wired into numerous other sources of federal contracts for everything from airport security to domestic surveillance, all in the name of fighting what the White House now calls the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism). The $20 billion-plus total that Lockheed Martin receives annually is more than is spent in an average year on the largest federal welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a program that is meant to provide income support to several million women and children living below the poverty line. Under Bush and company, corporate welfare trumps human well-being every time.
One would think that with the military budget at $400 billion and counting--up from $300 billion when Bush took office--all would be well in the land of the military-industrial behemoths, especially since the Pentagon budget is only one opportunity among many. (The budget of the Department of Homeland Security is $40 billion and counting, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have racked up $200 billion in emergency spending to date, over and above normal Pentagon appropriations.) Yet in my discussions with industry representatives at the June 2003 Paris Air Show as well as in their recent behavior, I have detected an unmistakable sense of desperation, a sense that even this embarrassment of riches may not be enough to stabilize these massive companies.
On the desperation front, Boeing is head and shoulders above its rivals. After losing the highly touted "deal of the century"--the $300 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program--to its rival Lockheed Martin in 2001, the company took a huge hit to its commercial-airliner business when air travel plummeted in the wake of the September 11 attacks. A bailout was in order, and the company pulled out all the stops to create one in the form of a deal that would have required the Air Force to lease 100 Boeing 767s for use as aerial refueling tankers. As initially crafted, the deal would have cost $26 billion over a decade, $5 billion more than it would have cost to buy the planes outright. Behind it was a group that included Senator Ted Stevens, who used his clout as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee to insert an amendment into the Pentagon's budget specifically requiring the lease arrangement; Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, a former VP at Boeing's sometime partner Northrop Grumman; Boeing senior vice president of Washington operations Rudy deLeon, a former top official in Bill Clinton's Pentagon; and House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Like most pork-barrel projects, the deal was a mix of strategic thinking and self-interest. Roche made no bones about the fact that part of the point was to throw some money Boeing's way so that it would remain healthy. What you and I might call a "bailout," folks in the Pentagon call "maintaining the defense industrial base."
Boeing used every possible lever to get the deal done. It hosted a fundraiser in Seattle for Stevens at which Boeing executives threw $22,000 into his campaign coffers. It enlisted Hastert, who had wooed the company to move its headquarters to his home state of Illinois, to weigh in directly with President Bush. Representative Todd Tiahrt, whose Wichita district includes the Boeing plant that would retrofit the 767s for use as tankers, raised the issue so often with Bush that the President nicknamed him "Tanker Tiahrt." Members from Washington State, home of Boeing's main production complex, also lobbied vigorously. Defense Policy Board member and Rumsfeld pal Richard Perle wrote an op-ed in favor of the deal for the Wall Street Journal--but only after Boeing had invested $20 million in Trireme, a Perle investment firm. Boeing sponsored the 2001 annual dinner of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a neocon redoubt with which Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith was closely associated before joining the Administration. The honorees were the secretaries of the three military services: The Air Force's Roche, Navy Secretary Gordon England (formerly of General Dynamics) and Army Secretary Thomas White (formerly of Enron). The host for the evening was Boeing Washington office head Rudy deLeon.
For once all this influence-peddling may go for naught. The deal is on hold thanks to relentless questioning by Senator John McCain, who has denounced it from the beginning as "war profiteering," and persistent public pressure by good-government groups. The last straw was the revelation that Boeing offered Air Force acquisition official Darleen Druyun a job while she was negotiating the lease deal with the company.
Boeing isn't the only corrupt weapons company; it's just the one that was too desperate for a short-term payoff to cover its tracks. Rumsfeld's preference for industry executives and ideologues of the Perle/Feith variety has created an ethically challenged, politically tone-deaf environment that needs to be opened up to public scrutiny and reform. Some steps are under way. The Pentagon's Inspector General is investigating all Boeing contracts that Druyun was involved in. The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on the Boeing deal, and McCain has promised hearings on the Pentagon-industry "revolving door."
Much more needs to be done. At the height of World War II, Senator Harry Truman made a name for himself by uncovering profiteering and fraud at companies providing supplies for the war effort. Given the high political and economic stakes in the war on terror, a comparable investigation is in order now. Whether the work is being done in Iraq, Washington or points in between, contracts involving US national security should be opened to true competitive bidding. Profits should be limited, and the books of contractors doing the public's business should be open and available for inspection. Politicians and bureaucrats who are lining their pockets under the guise of fighting terrorism should face criminal penalties, not symbolic fines. The public should demand that all candidates for the presidency and Congress renounce campaign contributions from companies involved in the rebuilding of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan or any of the other far-flung outposts of Bush's war on terrorism.
The culture of cronyism that allows arms-industry executives to pull down multimillion-dollar compensation packages while wounded veterans are shunted into makeshift medical wards has to end. Getting rid of George W. Bush and his gang of neocon profiteers is an excellent place to start. But it's only a start.
----
Halliburton faces bribery probe
February 05, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040204-111242-1177r.htm
The Justice Department is looking into accusations that a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. was involved in payment of $180 million in bribes to win a contract for a natural gas project in Nigeria, officials said yesterday.
The $4 billion Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Plant was built in the 1990s by a consortium that included Kellogg, Brown & Root at a time when Vice President Dick Cheney headed Halliburton.
A call to Mr. Cheney's office seeking comment was not immediately returned last night.
Two senior Justice Department officials, speaking yesterday on the condition of anonymity, said the department had requested that Halliburton voluntarily provide documents on the accusations.
Those documents, they said, could determine whether or not a full investigation is launched. Halliburton has complied with the request, the officials said.
One factor in the Justice Department's decision on whether to press corporate fraud charges is whether the company is cooperative.
Halliburton, already under fire for its handling of contracts related to the war in Iraq, disclosed the Justice Department request in a Jan. 21 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A French magistrate, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, also is investigating the Nigerian payments and has said in a memo that embezzlement charges ultimately could be filed against Mr. Cheney in Paris. Mr. Cheney's aides have refused comment on the accusations.
According to Halliburton's SEC filing, the illegal payment accusations involve a joint venture of which Kellogg, Brown & Root was a 25 percent owner. The other partners were Technip SA of France, ENI SpA of Italy and Japan Gasoline Corp.
The filing says the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are reviewing the accusations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The payments reportedly were made to Nigerian officials.
"Halliburton has engaged outside counsel to investigate any allegations and is cooperating with the government's inquiries," the company says in the filing. "If illegal payments were made, this matter could have a material adverse effect on our business and the results of operations."
Halliburton's troubles do not stop there. The Defense Department is conducting a criminal probe into the Houston-based company's contract to supply gasoline to Iraqi civilians.
Last month, Kellogg, Brown & Root reimbursed the Pentagon $6.3 million after disclosing that two employees had taken kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor in return for providing services to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Halliburton has complained repeatedly that criticism of its work in Iraq is politically motivated, in part because of its past ties with Mr. Cheney, the company's chairman from 1995 to 2000.
--------
Boeing's Tanker Deal Could Be on Hold
February 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Boeing-Tankers.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Boeing Co. said Thursday it will await completion of three additional government reviews of its controversial plan to lease and sell 100 jets to the Air Force for use as air-refueling tankers.
The Defense Department said the Air Force can't proceed with the contract until reviews by the Pentagon's general counsel office, the Defense Science Board and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces are completed.
The new reviews are expected to take at least three months, spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin said Thursday. The contract, estimated to be worth $20 billion to the Chicago-based aerospace giant, has been suspended for two months pending an investigation.
The Pentagon's inspector general had been looking into the case since critics began questioning the company's relationship with the Air Force.
The Air Force has said it needs the 767 tankers to begin replacing its aging fleet of 544 tankers, used to refuel bombers, fighters and other planes in midair. Most of the tankers are at least 40 years old.
Phil Condit resigned as Boeing CEO in December after the company fired two top executives involved in the contract. The company said that then-chief financial officer Mike Sears improperly discussed a possible job at the company for senior Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun in 2002, when she was in a position to influence the Boeing contract decision.
Druyun was hired a few months later as deputy general manager of Boeing's Missile Defense Systems unit.
With the investigation by the inspector general now complete, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently ordered the additional reviews, saying it was important to thoroughly look at all aspects of the deal.
``We are proceeding in an orderly and systematic way to try to come to the truth as to what took place,'' Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. ``I assure you that if there has been wrongdoing, as there appears to have been, we will take appropriate action.''
His comments came under questioning by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the leading critic of the deal. McCain assailed the ``incestuous relationship that went on between Boeing and the United States Air Force.''
Boeing spokesman Doug Kennett said Thursday that Boeing has halted its discussions with the government about the contract until the three studies are concluded.
Congressional supporters said they believe the deal will proceed, despite the latest setback.
``This will only serve as validation, because we're convinced that the Defense Science Board will see the urgent need for replacing our tanker capability,'' said George Behan, chief of staff to Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., a key backer of the deal.
Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Virginia-based Teal Group said Boeing can take heart from the fact the tanker deal still appears to be on the agenda. ``Three months, in the larger scheme of things, doesn't matter all that much,'' he said.
Boeing is now led by CEO Harry Stonecipher. Its shares rose 80 cents to $44.36 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Associated Press writer Dave Carpenter in Chicago contributed to this report.
On the Net:
www.boeing.com
-------- europe
Portuguese opposition wants answers on Iraq WMD claims
LISBON (AFP)
Feb 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040205201900.b3rlmtx7.html
Portuguese opposition parties on Thursday demanded Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso take part in a parliamentary debate over "the lies" they say the government based its vocal support for the war in Iraq.
Portugal's centre-right government solidly backed the conflict on the grounds that the deposed Iraqi regime was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction -- the justification given by Washington and London for the war.
Durao Barroso said before the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq last March that he had seen intelligence reports proving the existence of the weapons.
But Washington's former chief weapons hunter David Kay said last month that pre-war intelligence was wrong and Iraq did not have stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons as alleged.
"The prime minister lied," Communist lawmaker Antonio Filipe told parliament.
"What we want to know is if he deliberately wanted to trick us all or if someone gave him information that tricked him."
Filipe called on Durao Barroso to go before parliament, and demanded that he declassify all Portuguese intelligence service reports relating to Iraq, used by the government to base its support for the war.
His call was backed by the main opposition Socialists and the far-left Left Block party.
"There are today strong doubts that there is any proof of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Socialist lawmaker Jose Saraiva said.
"The prime minister has the opportunity now to deny what he said or confirm that such documents exist."
Durao Barroso's government backed the war in the face of huge opposition from other parties and the public at large.
Antonio Nazare Pereira, a lawmaker from the ruling Social Democrats, responded to the onslaught by arguing the brutal nature of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein alone justified the military intervention.
"If Saddam Hussein had a clear conscience he would not have acted the way he did," he said.
The deposed Iraqi leader was found by US soldiers on December 14 hiding in a hole under a mud hut near his home town of Tikrit in northern Iraq.
Lisbon allowed Washington to use a military base on its mid-Atlantic Azores archipelago during the military strike against Iraq and has contributed 130 national guards to a multinational stabilization force currently in the country.
In addition, Durao Barroso hosted a summit on the Azores islands in March between US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, just days before Bush ordered an attack on Iraq.
-------- iran
Iran's Supreme Leader Tries to Defuse Crisis
February 5, 2004
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/middleeast/05IRAN.html?pagewanted=all
TEHRAN, Feb. 4 - In a move to resolve a confrontation between reformist supporters of President Mohammad Khatami's government and their hard-line opponents, Iran's supreme religious leader has ordered a review of the disqualifications of thousands of parliamentary candidates, a government spokesman said Wednesday.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, agreed to the review in a meeting with President Khatami on Tuesday after rejecting calls that the parliamentary election, set for Feb. 20, be postponed, the spokesman, Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, said.
"We hope that by tomorrow we can announce honestly to people that we will hold the elections under minimum, not ideal, conditions," Mr. Ramezanzadeh told reporters.
Mr. Ramezanzadeh's comments were the first in days to suggest that negotiations by senior religious officials might diffuse the recent political crisis.
The members of Parliament who have been striking in protest since last month met with President Khatami on Wednesday. They are expected to end their strike on Thursday.
-------- iraq
Reports of Assassination Attempt on Shiite Cleric in Iraq
February 5, 2004
By DEXTER FILKINS and EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/middleeast/05CND-SIST.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 5 - Unidentified assailants tried today to kill Iraq's most powerful spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, according to the spokesman for a politician with close ties to the Shiite cleric.
But others denied there was an attack, and the American military said it had no confirmation.
The spokesman for Mowaffak al-Rubaie, an independent Shiite member of the Iraqi Governing Council who met Ayatollah Sistani this afternoon, said the attempt against the ayatollah took place in the southern city of Najaf a few hours earlier, near the golden-domed shrine of Ali, a religious landmark. The attempt failed, said the spokesman.
"Some people tried to kill Sistani this morning, but he's now in very good health," Mr. Shapoot said. The ayatollah, who is 73 years old, is rarely seen in public.
Al Jazeera, the Arab-language television station, reported that gunmen had fired at Ayatollah Sistani as he left his office to go home. The Reuters news agency quoted a member of Ayatollah Sistani's security detail as saying that gunmen "opened fire" on the ayatollah at 10 a.m. as he greeted people in Najaf.
More than 12 hours later, no eyewitnesses had emerged, and The Associated Press quoted a shop owner whose store was in the area as saying nothing had happened.
A person who answered the phone at the ayatollah's office late tonight in the holy city of Najaf, where the attack was said to have occurred, called the reports of an attack "lies" and hung up.
The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a political party with ties to Ayatollah Sistani, said there had been no attack, as did the son of another grand ayatollah in Najaf.
"The people of Najaf are very worried about Sayed Sistani's safety," said Muhammad Hussein al-Hakim, the son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim. "There's a lot of communication going from the Iraqi people to Sayed Sistani's office to check if that's true."
In a telephone interview, Dr. Rubaie said he had met with Ayatollah Sistani this afternoon and found him in good health after an incident earlier that he would not describe. "What happened, happened this morning," he said. He said the ayatollah was in a "safe place."
"He is robust physically and psychologically," said Dr. Rubaie, a neurologist.
"He did not sustain any injury."
It was unclear where the reported attack took place. Ayatollah Sistani lives in an alleyway several blocks from the shrine of Ali, which is usually thronged with Shiite pilgrims.
With the confusion surrounding the conflicting reports, and given the complex political motives for Iraqis to describe events in different ways, it was impossible to say how Ayatollah Sistani's followers might react to what they were hearing.
Ayatollah Sistani, spiritual leader of this nation's 15 million Shiite Muslims, is a central figure in the postwar Iraqi political scene, and the man upon whom rests myriad American hopes for an orderly transfer of power to the Iraqi people. In the 10 months since the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Sistani has urged his followers to treat the Americans with patience, thereby mollifying the country's largest and potentially most restive group.
In recent months, Ayatollah Sistani has challenged the Americans by insisting the country hold direct elections for a national assembly before the Americans hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people, which the Bush administration is determined to do by June 30. American leaders say holding elections before June 30 is impractical, and they have proposed instead a series of nationwide caucuses. Through it all, the ayatollah has kept his distance, refusing to meet with the American leaders but holding out the possibility of a compromise.
The prospect of Ayatollah Sistani's murder is therefore horrifying to American administrators here, who would not only lose an important ally but also one of the country's main sources of stability.
It was unclear whether the report of an attack on Ayatollah Sistani was related to the arrival of a United Nations team that is supposed to offer an advisory opinion on whether direct elections would be possible before June 30. Ayatollah Sistani, has indicated that he would be willing to accept something less than direct elections, if the United Nations team persuaded him that such elections were impossible.
American officials believe that anti-government guerrillas are terrified of the prospect of the sovereignty transfer, lest it undercut their support, and they have been preparing for the possibility of greater violence.
Ayatollah Sistani, an enigmatic figure who sports a long gray beard and a black turban, rarely leaves his home and receives few visitors. As a follower of the "quietist" school of Shiite Islam, he believes in keeping the worlds of politics and religion separate, setting him apart from many of his colleagues in Iraq and in his native Iran.
Despite that precept, though, Ayatollah Sistani has taken an active role in the negotiations over the transfer of sovereignty, speaking to the Americans entirely through intermediaries.
The attempt on Ayatollah Sistani's life recalled the scene last Aug. 30, when a car bomb in Najaf killed another senior cleric, Muhammad Bakr Al-Hakim, and more than 80 others. Like Ayatollah Al-Sistani, Ayatollah Hakim was an important moderating influence among Iraqi's Shiite majority. Five days before Ayatollah al-Hakim was killed, he was wounded in a car bomb attempt.
Ayatollah Hakim's killers have not been found, but any one with an interest in wrecking the American enterprise here could be considered a suspect.
Word of the assassination attempt on Ayatollah Sistani had spread by evening through Najaf, though it seemed to exist mostly at the level of rumor.
In Baghdad today, an American soldier was killed and another was wounded in a mortar attack on a checkpoint outside Baghdad International Airport. The wounded soldier was evacuated, and the name of the dead soldier was being withheld pending notification of the soldier's family.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Police Question Sharon in Bribery Investigation
February 5, 2004
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/middleeast/05CND-MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, Feb. 5 - The Israeli police questioned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon here today as part of a bribery investigation that could impede his plan for "unilateral disengagement" from the Palestinians and withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
The investigation, into whether an Israeli developer bought Mr. Sharon's influence to advance a project in Greece, has been under way for months, and Mr. Sharon has been questioned before. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The investigation moved to the center of Israeli politics last month with the indictment of the developer, David Appel, on charges that he tried to bribe Mr. Sharon by paying roughly $700,000 to Mr. Sharon's son, Gilad, to consult on the project.
The indictment quoted Mr. Appel as telling Mr. Sharon that his son would make a lot of money. Justice officials are looking into whether there is cause to indict Mr. Sharon and his son.
In a measure of the political strain the inquiry is now causing Mr. Sharon, his announcement on Monday of plans to evacuate settlers from the Gaza Strip was seen by commentators across the political spectrum as an attempt to shift attention elsewhere. He denied any connection.
The inquiry, into what is known here, rather salaciously, as "the Greek Island affair," now dominates political gossip in Israel, particularly inside Mr. Sharon's Likud faction, where maneuvering is under way to succeed him.
It may be months before prosecutors decide whether to indict the prime minister. Mr. Sharon has said he will continue to serve "at least until 2007," when elections are scheduled.
The continuing investigation, and news leaks, could weaken Mr. Sharon as he is trying to accomplish his most difficult feat: rallying domestic and international support to impose a separation plan on the Palestinians that would involve evacuating up to 17 settlements in Gaza and others in the West Bank.
Some leading members of Likud have not announced whether they will support his planned evacuation. But Mr. Sharon received the backing today of his defense minister, Shaul Mofaz. Mr. Mofaz told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, "Evacuating the Gaza Strip would ensure greater security for Israeli residents than they have now."
That argument represents a stunning about-face for Likud politicians, who have traditionally contended that settlements in Gaza are a cornerstone of Israeli security, and that to evacuate any of them while violence continues is to reward terrorism. Mr. Mofaz is not an elected member of the Israeli Parliament and owes his post in government to Mr. Sharon.
One deputy minister in the government, Zvi Hendel, a Gaza settler and member of the ultranationalist National Union party, has said of a Gaza withdrawal, "The extent of the pullout will correspond to the depth of the investigation."
Likud politicians and settlers have speculated that Mr. Sharon is seeking to curry favor with prosecutors, widely believed on Israel's right wing to be from the left.
Mr. Sharon was questioned at his official residence in Jerusalem for two and a half hours by at least four members of the International Criminal Investigations unit of the Israeli police. Mr. Sharon cooperated fully, a police official said, adding that there were no plans now to question him again.
The indictment accused Mr. Appel of trying to bribe Mr. Sharon beginning in the late 1990's, when he was foreign minister in a previous government. But Mr. Appel told Israel's Channel 2 television on Wednesday that when Mr. Sharon was foreign minister, "he didn't know about anything that is tied to this, not from me at least."
Mr. Sharon says that he will pursue his unilateral plan if he judges that the Bush administration's peace initiative, the road map, has failed. Mr. Sharon says the governing Palestinian Authority has not proven itself a credible partner for negotiations.
Palestinian officials accuse Mr. Sharon of deliberately undermining the Palestinian Authority to avoid negotiations that might force him to yield more territory.
Conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are increasingly chaotic. In Gaza today, a Palestinian gunman opened fire inside a police headquarters, wounding at least 11 officers.
-------- nato
NATO plans special brigade to fight terror risks
February 05, 2004
By Bruce I. Konviser
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040204-100140-3022r.htm
PRAGUE - NATO is creating a special rapid-reaction brigade in response to fears that its military units as well as civilians could be attacked by terrorists with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
At least 13 member nations, including the United States, have enrolled in the battalion, which is expected to be operational this summer.
"The battalion can be deployed individually or together with other units," said Petr Pavel, the Czech Republic's deputy commander of joint forces.
"Possible operational scenarios include threat or real use of [weapons of mass destruction] against military or civil objectives, industry accidents of great scale, outflows of dangerous materials caused by natural catastrophes, etcetera," he said.
The Czech army, renowned for expertise in weapons of mass destruction, is to take the lead in training the battalion.
The U.S. military will be committing a biology lab, a team that will collect air and ground samples, and a decontamination team that will be able to cleanse people, rooms and vehicles, Czech officials said.
The unit, known as the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense Battalion (CBRN), was formed in December.
The battalion will be able to rapidly deploy mobile analysis labs that can work in contaminated areas, operate a specialized infection hospital that would carry stocks of vaccines against biological weapons for deployed forces, do reconnaissance and risk assessments, and perform light and heavy decontamination of people and vehicles.
It will enable other NATO troops to carry out missions that otherwise would be threatened by a nuclear, biological or chemical attack.
The battalion will operate both independently and as part of the new NATO Response Force, a rapid deployment force of up to 21,000 troops, which began training in October but won't be fully operational for three years.
Once a nation's CBRN troops have gone through the training, they will be on call from their home country, on a rotational basis, by NATO command for quick deployment abroad.
They also will be able to aid their civilian emergency crews in case of a terrorist attack at home, said Robert Pszczel, a NATO spokesman in Belgium.
Military units may aid civilian populations in the event of a terrorist attack, but ultimately it's the local authorities and police, fire and ambulance services that will be on the front lines of such an attack, said Gerald Epstein, a homeland security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"New York City is as prepared as anyone is to handle an attack with weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Epstein said, "but many other cities are considerably further behind."
-------- pacific
Defence plan for $1bn sky robots
By Brendan Nicholson Canberra
February 5, 2004
The Age (Australia)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/04/1075853937666.html
The Australian Defence Force will spend up to $1 billion on a fleet of high-performance robot planes to patrol the skies over and around Australia.
Releasing the Government's $50 billion defence capability plan yesterday, Defence Minister Robert Hill said the so-called "unmanned aerial vehicle" would also revolutionise the gathering of intelligence for Australian troops deployed on foreign battlefields. Two versions of these robot planes are being considered, but the Global Hawk, a sophisticated aircraft that can photograph crewmen on a warship from 50 kilometres away, is the leading contender.
The $1 billion allocated in the defence plan will cover a squadron of about 12 aircraft. The high-tech leap to unmanned technology was the surprise of the defence capability plan.
The Government had planned to spend only $150 million on the multi-mission aircraft, but they have proved so successful in tests and in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq that their planned role has expanded dramatically.
Senator Hill said the Global Hawk could be involved in operations ranging from defensive patrols far from Australia's coastline to searches for people smugglers and bushfire patrols.
In 2001, a Global Hawk flew non-stop from California to Australia. With a 35-metre wingspan, it is bigger than a Boeing 737. It can fly at around 60,000 feet for more than 36 hours and can search a far greater area of land or ocean than the RAAF's P-3 Orion patrol planes.
The latest defence plan details $50 billion of spending to modernise the armed forces over the next 10 years with new ships, aircraft, fighting vehicles and communications and surveillance technology.
"When we send our forces on often dangerous operations Australians have the right to expect that they are properly equipped and prepared - with the right capabilities to get the job done safely," Senator Hill said. "We owe our troops nothing less."
The plan includes the $15.5 billion cost of the new Joint Strike Fighter to replace the ageing F-111 bombers and F/A-18 fighter bombers but does not include any money to help cover the multibillion-dollar cost of the US anti-ballistic missile shield that has been dubbed "Son of Star Wars". But Senator Hill said Australia remained committed to joining the project and Australia was still negotiating an agreement with the US on the extent of that involvement.
Senator Hill said the three air warfare destroyers to be built in Australia at a cost of more than $6 billion could play a significant role in the missile defence system.
The plan includes up to $600 million for a force of new tanks for the army and Senator Hill said a decision would be made soon on which of three contenders would be bought. They are the American Abrams, the German Leopard 2 and the British Challenger 2.
Defence Force chief General Peter Cosgrove welcomed the spending commitments.
"This is all about our sons and daughters who are at present in short pants and who will one day maybe put on their country's uniform," he said.
He said the unmanned aerial vehicle was a good choice. "We are presently very interested to know what's happening in our economic zones, in our territorial waters, in the general maritime approaches to Australia."
Opposition defence spokesman Chris Evans said the plan confirmed a major cost blow-out.
Program director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Aldo Borgu said some of the projects had doubled in cost since original commitments were made and many were late.
----
Australia doubles defence spending in desire to become top military player
David Fickling in Sydney
Thursday February 5, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,12070,1141402,00.html
Australia will more than double its defence budget over the next three years under plans that will turn the country into one of the world's major military powers.
The government has revealed it intends to increase overall spending by £21bn over the next 10 years. The proposal highlights the country's determination to position itself as a key ally of Washington in conflicts around the world, and could place Australia behind Japan and Saudi Arabia as the biggest military spender outside Europe and the UN security council.
Describing the plan as a "quantum leap forward" for the Australian defence force (ADF), the defence minister, Robert Hill, said involvement in the Middle East, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands made it more difficult for the military to meet its targets.
"The unprecedented level of recent deployments indicates that our forces must adapt to a broad range of operational demands in widely varied environments," he said.
In 2006, the highest-spending period of the plan, additional spending is likely to be pushed as high as £8bn - more than doubling the existing sum. The final cost over the lifetime of the plan is likely to be even greater, as the paper does not mention Australia's promised involvement in America's "son of star wars" national missile defence system.
Opposition defence spokesman Chris Evans said that cost over-runs detailed in the paper indicated that the final bill would be larger than current estimates. "The problem with the defence capability plan has never been the plan itself. It has always been with the government's ability to deliver new capabilities on time and on budget," he said.
Analysts believe such over-runs could push the total cost to £26bn.
Border security is a key priority for Canberra, which fears terrorist activity in its neighbour Indonesia, and the arrival of refugee boats on its northern shores. The budget includes more than £400m to be spent on a squadron of 10 unmanned aerial surveillance aircraft, £1.9bn for maritime patrol aircraft, and a £400m upgrade of electronic surveillance equipment covering northern Australia and Indonesia.
The biggest single ticket is the £6.2bn earmarked for spending on the joint strike fighter, a project to overhaul Australia's fighter aircraft, which is unlikely to be delivered on time.
-------- spies
British and US spies ready to blame each other
05.02.2004
New Zealand Herald
By ROBERT VERKAIK in London
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3547473
The special relationship between Britain and America will be severely tested as both countries embark on inquiries that are set to blame each other for the intelligence failure over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Britain is expected to draw first blood when the inquiry headed by former Cabinet secretary Lord Butler reports in the next few months.
George W. Bush - quite deliberately - will have to wait until after this year's US election before he gets his response.
In the meantime, America's intelligence community will be trying to pre-empt Lord Butler's findings by briefing both countries' media on flaws or shortcomings in Britain's intelligence-gathering operation .
Last year's transatlantic intelligence tiff over MI6's claim that Saddam had cultivated contacts with Niger may be a taster of what is to come. In the end it forced Bush into an embarrassing climbdown and the admission that they had been over-reliant on British intelligence. The fall-out left MI6 and CIA on bad terms.
But the central issue for both inquiries will be whose intelligence formed the basis of the flawed assessment of Saddam's weapons haul.
In other words, who followed whom? For once Britain's reliance on American intelligence might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
If Blair can show that the false war prospectus was based on American intelligence failures he may well escape some of the political damage from his own inquiry.
But the question will then be: why was British intelligence so dependent on America?
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US, British spies busted Pakistani scientist's nuclear leaks : Tenet
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Feb 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040205180043.0zjc3n9o.html
Daring US and British spies exposed Pakistan's disgraced national hero Abdul Qadeer Khan after penetrating his covert nuclear smuggling ring stretching across three continents, CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday.
Tenet publicly revealed how US intelligence shamed the man who gave Pakistan the bomb, and is accused of leaking nuclear secrets to Libya, North Korea and Iran.
"Our spies penetrated the network through a series of daring operations over several years," said Tenet in a speech at Georgetown University designed to defend the Central Intelligence Agency's data used to justify the Iraq war.
"Through this unrelenting effort, we confirmed the network was delivering such things as illicit uranium centrifuges."
Tenet spoke at Georgetown University hours after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan, who begged for forgiveness in a sensational television interview.
The father of Pakistan's nuclear program was "shaving years off the nuclear weapons development timelines of several states, including Libya," Tenet said.
"Khan and his network have been dealt a crushing blow and several of his senior officers are in custody," said Tenet.
"Malaysian authorities have shut down one of the network's largest plants. His network is now answering to the world for years of nuclear profiteering."
CIA agents, working with British spies pieced together a picture of the network revealing subsidiaries, scientists, companies, agences and manufacturing plants on three continents, he said.
Musharraf on Thursday called Khan a "national hero" for developing Pakistan's nuclear bomb, but said he had made "mistakes".
He said "money" was the motivation for Khan's actions, and those of five nuclear other scientists arrested following a probe into the nuclear leaks and promised that "no military or government official was involved" in the leaks.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency told reporters that Khan's operation was the "tip of an iceberg" in the sale of nuclear secrets.
He said Pakistan has been "quite cooperative so far" with the IAEA in trying to piece together "a supermarket" of international smuggling of nuclear materials and information such as weapons blueprints the United States has found in Libya.
He said the IAEA, was able to gather information from Libya and Iran, where it is verifying compliance with international safeguards, about how Khan and others helped them acquire nuclear technology.
The IAEA set off the Khan scandal when it alerted Pakistan last year that Iran had blueprints for centrifuges that were similar to ones Pakistan had used in building the bomb and which Khan acquired when he worked in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
Now, said ElBaradei: "We're looking into who else got ... materials, other than Libya or Iran."
He said individuals in at least five countries were involved in trafficking that went back at least to the 1980s.
Khan "was an important part of the process. Now he's cooperating with Pakistani authorities so hopefully we'll get as much information as we need," ElBaradei said.
------
The shadowy world of US intelligence agencies
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Feb 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040205214239.a55vmx6k.html
US Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet sits atop the US intelligence services, a community of several agencies with some 100,000 civil and military employees.
Here are the main agencies:
CIA: The Central Intelligence Agency, created in 1947, is based in Langley, Virginia outside Washington. It has 17,000 employees and an estimated 3.1-billion-dollar annual budget. It backed coups to overthrow unfriendly foreign governments during the Cold War, but its mission has changed since the fall of communism. It is involved in economic espionage and it gathers, corroborates and analyzes information that could affect US security. The agency has several divisions, including a Directorate of Operations and a Directorate of Science and Technology.
NSA: The National Security Agency, created in 1952, is based in Fort Meade, Maryland, a state bordering Washington. Its 21,000 agents specialize in deciphering coded messages, listening to telephone calls and infiltrating e-mails. It uses satellites that can read a car's license plate number from space. The ultra-secretive agency, sometimes known as "No Such Agency," has an estimated 3.6-billion-dollar annual budget.
NRO: The National Reconnaissance Office, created in 1960, is based in Chantilly, Virginia. It oversees the intelligence community's satellites and provides images to the CIA and the Pentagon. Its budget and personnel figures are unknown, but employees come from the intelligence, military and science fields.
FBI: The Federal Bureau of Investigation, created in 1908, is based in Washington. Its 11,400 agents stepped up their role in intelligence gathering and analysis after September 11 2001. Outside the country, the FBI contributes to intelligence gathering in investigations of terrorism and plane attacks.
Homeland Security Department: The agency was created in 2003 to group 17,000 employees from 22 federal departments and agencies linked to national security. Its mission includes combining and analyzing intelligence from multiple sources such as the FBI and CIA.
Other agencies: Each armed forces service has its own intelligence division. These services -- in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force -- employ a total of 54,000 people and have an estimated 11-billion-dollar annual budget.
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Former UN weapons inspector accuses CIA chief of "deception" over Iraq
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Feb 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040205184521.jgvu383f.html
A former chief UN weapons inspector who has been highly critical of Washington's policy on Iraq on Thursday accused CIA director George Tenet of deception in comments he made earlier about Iraq.
"George Tenet was again deceptive and misleading in everything he said," Scott Ritter told the US news channel CNN.
"He provided no substantive facts to back up any of the allegations,
"I can tell you right now that if this was a trial, he was on the witness stand and I have the opportunity to cross-examine, knowing what I know, all of the allegations he made would have been exposed as being rumors and speculations," he added.
Tenet, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, earlier Thursday hit back at critics of the US intelligence used to justify last year's invasion of Iraq.
He insisted in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had planned to resume efforts to build a nuclear bomb.
And he denied that political pressure was put on US intelligence analysts to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Ritter resigned in 1998 from the UN commission charged with disarming Iraq, criticising the US administration's policy on the country.
In 2002, he also criticised preparations for the war in Iraq, deeming statements by the US administration on the existence of weapons of mass destruction to be insufficiently backed-up.
Ritter also contradicted Tenet's claim that UN inspectors discovered Iraq's programme of biological weapons thanks to the defection of Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, in August 1995. He said the UN uncovered the programme in April of that year.
"If George Tenet is wrong in something as basic as that, how can we believe anything he just told us?" he asked adding: "Nothing he said in his speech can be sustained with fact."
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CIA Boss: Iraq Not Called Imminent Threat
Feb 5, 2004
(AP)
By KATHERINE PFLEGER
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040205/D80H69MG0.html
WASHINGTON - In his first public defense of prewar intelligence, CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday U.S. analysts never claimed before the war that Iraq posed an imminent threat.
Tenet said analysts had varying opinions on the state of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and those differences were spelled out in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate given to the White House. That report summarized intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs.
Analysts "painted an objective assessment for our policy makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests, " he said in a speech at Georgetown University.
"No one told us what to say or how to say it," Tenet said.
He said that "in the intelligence business, you are never completely wrong or completely right ... When the facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right nor completely wrong."
He also noted that the search for banned weapons is continuing and "despite some public statements, we are nowhere near 85 percent finished. " That was a direct rebuttal to claims made by David Kay, Tenet's former top adviser in the weapons search.
Since Kay resigned two weeks ago, his statements that Saddam Hussein's purported weapons didn't exist at the time of the U.S. invasion have sparked an intense debate over the prewar intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the war.
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction is turning into a major political issue ahead of the presidential election, calling into question the justification for the war as U.S. casualties mount. Republicans in Congress have increasingly been blaming poor intelligence and Tenet, who was originally appointed by President Clinton.
Democrats have said intelligence agencies deserved only part of the blame and have accused the White House of showcasing intelligence that bolstered the case for war, while ignoring dissenting opinions.
Bush was expected to announce another commission this week to review the intelligence community. At least five other inquiries into prewar intelligence are already under way.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., scheduled a meeting Thursday to study a 200-plus-page report compiled by committee staff on the prewar intelligence.
Even as he acknowledged some intelligence shortcomings in Iraq, Tenet listed other work that he said represented great successes. He credited U.S. intelligence on Iran and Libya's nuclear programs with recent decisions by those countries to cooperate with international arms inspectors.
Tenet agreed with Kay's comments that the United States didn't have enough human spies in Iraq and acknowledged that the CIA had not penetrated Saddam's inner circle. But he said it is strong elsewhere and "a blanket indictment of our human intelligence around the world is dead wrong."
"We have spent the last seven years rebuilding our clandestine services," he said.
Tenet credited CIA spies with the arrests of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, purported mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and Asia's leading terror suspect, Hambali.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended intelligence work at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
"The reality is we have had some wonderful successes, and some of them not public," Rumsfeld said. "The failures are very visible, and that's always the case."
Just as Bush and his aides have backed away from their predictions that weapons would be found, Rumsfeld said he thinks Iraq may have had weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded and inspectors need more time to search for them.
Tenet outlined the sources of the CIA's prewar estimates, saying they were based on years of United Nations weapons inspections. Once the inspectors left in the late 1990s, it was based mostly on informants - some he acknowledged as suspect - and on technical intelligence.
Tenet acknowledged that many of the agency's weapons of mass destruction prewar estimates have not been borne out so far. For example, U.S. analysts believed that Saddam's regime was trying to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program but have found no evidence of that, he said.
On chemical and biological weapons, Tenet said analysts believed that Saddam had ongoing programs and perhaps stockpiles and have found no evidence of such ongoing programs. He asserted, however, that the weapons searching teams needed more time.
Two sources with high-level access to Saddam's regime told the CIA in the fall of 2002, shortly before the war, that production of biological and chemical weapons was ongoing, Tenet said.
Those sources "solidified and reinforced ... my own view of the danger posed by Saddam's regime," Tenet said, taking direct responsibility for what was passed on to Bush.
On one key point that is befuddling weapons inspectors, Tenet said he did not know at this point whether it was possible Saddam's own officials had lied to the Iraqi leader about what his regime had in the way of weapons.
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Tenet Admits U.S. May Have Overestimated Iraqi Weapons
February 5, 2004
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/international/middleeast/05CND-INTE.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 - George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, acknowledged today for the first time that American spy agencies may have overestimated Iraq's illicit weapons capabilities, in part because of a failure to penetrate the inner workings of the Iraqi government.
In a remarkable address at Georgetown University, Mr. Tenet presented an impassioned defense of American spy agencies and their integrity. The speech marked the first attempt by Mr. Tenet to provide a comprehensive accounting of the gaps between prewar intelligence on Iraq and what was has been found on the ground there, which critics have called a major intelligence failure.
"When the facts on Iraq are all in, we will be neither completely right nor completely wrong," Mr. Tenet told a gathering of students and faculty that had been arranged at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency on less than 48 hours' notice.
To underscore his argument that intelligence agencies had acted independently, Mr. Tenet did note that intelligence analysts had never portrayed Iraq as presenting an imminent threat to the United States before the American invasion last March. Some Democrats, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, seized upon that reference as evidence that the White House had no foundation for President Bush's prewar claim that the threat posed by Iraq was "grave and gathering."
With American teams still hunting in Iraq for weapons of illicit weapons and information about them, Mr. Tenet cautioned repeatedly in his speech that it was too soon to draw firm conclusions.
But among the elements of what he called a "provisional bottom line," Mr. Tenet said intelligence agencies "may have overestimated the progress" that Iraq was making toward development of nuclear weapons. He also acknowledged that the prewar assessment that Iraq possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, which remains unsubstantiated, was based in large part on reports relayed by a friendly foreign government from human sources whose information the United States has still been unable to corroborate.
"We did not ourselves penetrate the inner sanctum," Mr. Tenet acknowledged, saying that American agents remained "on the periphery" of Iraq's illicit weapons activities. "What we did not collect ourselves, we evaluated as carefully as we could," he added. "Still, the lack of direct access to some of these sources created some risk - such is the nature of our business."
Mr. Tenet's acknowledgment of possible misjudgments by the intelligence agencies on Iraq, though careful and calibrated, went beyond any previous admission by the Bush administration. It was the administration's most detailed presentation on the issue since last October. And it came at a time when months of failure by weapons hunters in Iraq to find illicit weapons there have forced administration officials including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to grapple in public for the first time with the possibility that prewar judgments might have been mistaken.
In Charleston, S.C., today, President Bush himself acknowledged that American inspectors in Iraq "have not yet found the stockpiles of weapons that we thought were there."
In their tone, Mr. Tenet's remarks today were very different from those of a year ago, when in strong and unwavering testimony to Congress he spoke of a "solid foundation of intelligence" on illicit weapons programs in Iraq.
He nevertheless went to new lengths to portray American intelligence in other areas as active and reliable, by making public new details of American successes in unraveling evidence of links between Pakistani scientists and the Libyan nuclear program. He said American spies had played a crucial role in penetrating what he called the black market for nuclear weapons in which a Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has played a pivotal role.
Until he appeared this morning in an ornate hall at Georgetown, from which he graduated 28 years ago, Mr. Tenet had not spoken in public since last May. He and his aides decided only this week to plunge into the debate about intelligence on Iraq after David A. Kay, until recently the top American weapons inspector there, said he believed that Iraq did not possess large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the time of the American invasion last March, and that intelligence agencies owed Mr. Bush an apology for their misjudgments.
Mr. Tenet sought to distance himself from Dr. Kay's conclusions, saying it was too soon for anyone to say anything with certainty about Iraq's prewar stockpiles. He insisted that the agency had honored its obligation to play an independent role in the prewar debate, saying that it had not been influenced by Bush administration policymakers seeking to build a case for the American invasion.
In speaking out, Mr. Tenet was clearly seeking in part to pre-empt the criticism of intelligence agencies' performance on Iraq that is spelled out in a classified draft report prepared by the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, which was reviewed for first time today by members of the panel.
"Did we clearly tell policymakers what we knew, what we didn't know, what was not clear, and identify the gaps in our knowledge?" Mr. Tenet asked. "We are in the process of evaluating just such questions, and while others will express views on the questions sooner, we ourselves must come to our own bottom lines."
In offering his first, interim accounting of the intelligence agencies' performance on Iraq, Mr. Tenet said he gave the highest marks to prewar estimates that Saddam Hussein's government was expanding its missile program in violation of United Nations sanctions, a conclusion that he said was "generally on target." He said intelligence agencies had also been right in detecting the development of a prohibited unmanned aerial vehicle, though `the jury is still out" on whether either of two U.A.V. programs under way in Iraq was intended for delivery of biological weapons, as the intelligence community believed.
Mr. Tenet was less upbeat in his conclusions about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.
While the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 said Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, Mr. Tenet said his current view was that Iraq "intended to reconstitute a nuclear program at some point."
On biological weapons, Mr. Tenet contradicted recent remarks by Dr. Kay and said there was still "no consensus" within the intelligence community as to whether mobile trailers discovered in Iraq after the war were for making biological weapons, as the intelligence agencies initially concluded, or for making hydrogen, as many intelligence analysts now believe.
He said he currently believed that Iraq "intended to develop biological weapons" but that "we do not know if production took place."
On chemical weapons, which intelligence agencies had judged with "high confidence" that Iraq possessed, Mr. Tenet said the United States had "not yet found the weapons we expected." He said his "provisional bottom line" was that Mr. Hussein's government "had the intent and the capability to convert civilian industry to chemical weapons production," even though "we have not yet found the weapons we expected."
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Tenet to Defend CIA's Role In Prewar Iraq Intelligence
By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14074-2004Feb4?language=printer
CIA Director George J. Tenet plans today to deliver a spirited and highly unusual public defense of his agency's prewar conclusions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and to disclose previously secret success the CIA had in uncovering weapons programs in Libya and Pakistan, senior intelligence officials said yesterday.
The speech at Georgetown University is a response to former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay and others who are criticizing the CIA for misjudging Iraq's weapons threat, President Bush's main rationale for going to war with Iraq. Officials said the speech was Tenet's decision and did not go through the usual White House vetting process.
The White House "had no role whatsoever in the drafting of the speech," one administration official said. "It's likely Tenet will give them a copy as a courtesy and say, 'This is the speech I'm going to give.' "
Tenet's speech will coincide with the circulation of a 300-page, classified draft report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which will be seen only by members of the panel. Congressional and intelligence officials said the draft criticizes the CIA and Tenet for relying on outdated and circumstantial information and unreliable informants in concluding that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and had an advanced nuclear program.
Associates of Tenet have said that the director, who has served for nearly seven years, will not criticize the White House's decision to go to war, as Democrats and other critics would like, but also will not let himself or his agency become what a friend called "a scapegoat" for that decision.
Tenet has always prided himself on maintaining good morale at the CIA, and he sees part of his job as standing up for mid-level collectors and analysts who contributed to the overall assessment on Iraq. Several current and former CIA officers said agency employees are feeling particularly besieged recently by the attacks on their work.
"People are just down in the dumps," one CIA officer said. "They feel used. They felt at least the president was on their side."
Now, the officer said, all the caveats they included in the assessment of Iraq's weapons have been forgotten in the whirlwind of accusations over how the intelligence was used by the Bush administration to make the case for war.
On Capitol Hill yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld staunchly defended the intelligence community and said it is far too early to conclude that biological or chemical weapons will not be found in the country.
"It took us 10 months to find Saddam Hussein," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The reality is that the hole he was found in was large enough to hold enough biological weapons to kill thousands of human beings. . . . And unlike Saddam Hussein, such objects can stay buried."
Tenet is expected to make the same point in the speech, to be delivered this morning at Georgetown University, his alma mater. Tenet will say that anyone who asserts the weapons-hunting Iraq Survey Group has accomplished "85 percent" of its mission, as Kay has said, "is 100 percent wrong," said a senior administration official familiar with the prepared text.
Tenet also plans a response to Kay and others who have said the agency was not only wrong in Iraq but also was caught unaware by recent revelations about weapons programs in other countries.
Kay singled out such intelligence "surprises" in Iran, Libya and Pakistan in an interview with National Public Radio on Jan. 25.
"We've had Iran, and we've had Libya," Kay said. "The Iranian program was not found either by the international inspection agencies or by domestic intelligence services. It was Iranian defectors, Iranian opposition groups outside of Iran, that brought that to the world's attention."
And this week, Bush announced he will appoint an independent commission to look into the CIA's performance on Iraq. Administration officials have said it will also assess U.S. intelligence on those other nations.
In response, officials said, Tenet will say for the first time in public today that the intelligence community had long-standing knowledge of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's weapons-program dealings with North Korea, and that it had prior knowledge of Libya's nuclear program.
Although the material on Khan was highly classified, a discreet public reference was included in the unclassified 2002 worldwide threat assessment. A more detailed version was given to policymakers and members of the intelligence committees.
With Libya, the agency had tracked the purchase of nuclear-related materials over the years, officials said.
In December, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi agreed to give up his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the result of secret consultations between the Libyans and officials from the CIA and British intelligence. Senior U.S. intelligence officials say the CIA's knowledge of Libya's programs helped convince Gaddafi that he should end them.
In defending the administration yesterday, Rumsfeld pointedly denied assertions by leading Democrats that he and other Bush administration officials manipulated intelligence to support their plans for invading Iraq.
Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), the committee's ranking Democrat, asked Rumsfeld to explain a discrepancy between his public statement in late September 2002 that Hussein had "amassed large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons" and a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate drafted weeks earlier that "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons."
"I'm sure I never saw that piece of intelligence," Rumsfeld responded. He said he and other administration officials drew their conclusions from broader assessments by the intelligence community.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) pressed Rumsfeld on a statement Rumsfeld made in late March during the war, as U.S. troops advanced on Baghdad, that "we know where they are," referring to weapons stockpiles. Rumsfeld conceded that he had misspoken and should have said he was referring to "suspect sites," where analysts believed chemical or biological weapons might have been stored.
"You're quite right -- shorthand 'we know where they are' probably turned out not to be exactly what one would have preferred in retrospect," Rumsfeld said.
Also yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said there is a "great deal of interest" among Democrats for a closed-door session of the Senate to explore intelligence failures, including assessments that Bush used in making his case for the Iraq war.
Daschle said that he has had conversations with Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) about the possibility of such a session but that no decisions have been made.
Executive sessions, conducted in secret under tight security, are rare but not unprecedented. Closed sessions were last held in 1999 during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton and in 1997 during debate on the chemical weapons treaty.
It takes only two senators to demand a closed session, but most recent sessions have resulted from joint leadership decisions, a Senate aide said.
Staff writers Helen Dewar, Vernon Loeb and Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.
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Tenet Highlights CIA Successes Overseas
February 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Tenet-Spy-Stories.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's an adage in intelligence circles: Failures are open for all the world to see; successes stay secret forever. On Thursday, CIA Director George Tenet sought to reverse that by shedding a bit of light on what he described as major successes by intelligence agencies.
He called them spy stories.
Intelligence agencies learned the secrets of Iran and Libya's nuclear programs, Tenet said. They discovered the secret proliferation network of Pakistan's top nuclear scientist. And they gave diplomats the information they needed to confront North Korea about violations of international agreements.
Outside intelligence experts caution, however, that because most of what the CIA does and learns is known to only a handful of people in the U.S. government, it is difficult to fact-check Tenet's claims of success.
Tenet told a few spy stories at Georgetown University on Thursday:
--IRAN: ``I want to assure you of one thing: that recent Iranian admissions about their nuclear programs validate our intelligence assessments. It is flat wrong to say that we were surprised by reports from the Iranian opposition last year.'' Tenet wouldn't go into further detail.
--LIBYA: Tenet claimed the country agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs only after U.S. and British intelligence learned details of it. Intelligence agencies penetrated Libya's foreign supplier network, learned when Libya was going to receive centrifuge parts and helped stop the shipments. They also learned Libya was working with North Korea to get longer-range ballistic missiles, he said.
When negotiations began with Libya, CIA officers and British colleagues showed the Libyans how much they knew about their programs, Tenet said. ``When the Libyans said they would show us their Scud-Bs, we said, 'Fine. We want to examine your longer range Scud-Cs.'''
--NORTH KOREA: ``It was patient analysis of difficult-to-obtain information that allowed our diplomats to confront the North Korean regime about their pursuit of a different route to a nuclear weapon that violated international agreements,'' Tenet said.
--PAKISTAN: Tenet talked about Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who leaked weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Tenet said intelligence agencies are responsible for destroying Khan's ``nuclear profiteering'' network.
``First, we discovered the extent of Khan's hidden network. We tagged the proliferators, we detected the networks stretching across four continents offering its wares to countries like North Korea and Iran,'' he said.
Working with British intelligence, the agencies ``pieced together the picture of the network, revealing its subsidiaries, its scientists, its front companies, its agents, its finances and manufacturing plants on three continents. Our spies penetrated the network through a series of daring operations over several years.''
Critics say the United States did not put enough pressure on Pakistan to stop Khan before now.
On some topics, Tenet wouldn't bite.
Asked by a student at Georgetown about the Malaysian government's possible involvement in Khan's network, Tenet wouldn't answer. ``How about baseball? Let's go there,'' he said.
-------- propaganda wars
Rumsfeld and Tenet Defending Assessments of Iraqi Weapons
February 5, 2004
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/politics/05MILI.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 - After months of silence, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, has decided to mount a strong public defense of the prewar judgments made by American intelligence agencies about Iraq and its illicit weapons stockpiles, intelligence officials said on Wednesday.
In a speech scheduled on short notice at Georgetown University on Thursday, Mr. Tenet will seek "to correct some of the misperceptions and downright inaccuracies concerning what the intelligence community reported and didn't report regarding Iraq," an intelligence official said.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offered his own defense of the Bush administration's prewar intelligence. Mr. Rumsfeld told Congress that he believed that the American-led team still searching for illicit weapons in Iraq might eventually find them despite comments last month by David A. Kay, the group's former leader, that no stockpiles of such arms existed in Iraq at the time of the American-led invasion last March.
The dual defenses come as the strongest administration response to Dr. Kay, and follow a stir caused by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's comment that he was not sure he would have recommended an invasion if he had known that Iraq did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons.
Mr. Tenet and Mr. Rumsfeld, both of whom played pivotal roles in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq, have often been at odds in debates over which should have the upper hand in intelligence matters, and their departments have at times disagreed about intelligence on Iraq. Now they appear to be allies in the administration's efforts to defend the prewar intelligence.
Mr. Bush himself has tried to deflect criticism of the intelligence. In a speech on Wednesday at the Library of Congress, Mr. Bush did not mention banned weapons, saying only that in deposing Saddam Hussein the United States had dealt with a dictator who had "the intent and capability" to threaten his own people and the world.
In back-to-back hearings of the Senate and House armed services committees on Wednesday, Mr. Rumsfeld became the first of Mr. Bush's top aides to testify to Congress since Dr. Kay made his assertions after stepping down from his post last month.
Mr. Rumsfeld sought to play down Dr. Kay's view that "we were all wrong, probably" in believing that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of illicit weapons before the war. Mr. Rumsfeld said that was just a "hypothesis" to explain the difference between the prewar intelligence and what has been found on the ground.
Other theories that weapons inspectors must now pursue, he said, are that Mr. Hussein spirited his illicit arms out of Iraq, buried them in hidden bunkers in Iraq, or was tricked by his own scientists and engineers into believing Iraq possessed weapons it did not have.
"What we have learned thus far has not proven Saddam Hussein had what intelligence indicated and what we believed he had," Mr. Rumsfeld said in the same words to both panels, "but it also has not proven the opposite."
Mr. Rumsfeld said the inspectors needed more time to track down leads in a country the size of California, noting that it took American forces 10 months to find and capture Mr. Hussein. "It's too early to come to final conclusions, given the work still to be done," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld said that American intelligence "got it essentially right" when it determined that Iraq was desperately trying to build missiles able to reach beyond the 90-mile limit set by the United Nations after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
"If we were to accept that Iraq had a surge capability for biological and chemical weapons, his missiles could have been armed with weapons of mass destruction and used to threaten neighboring countries," he said. Surge capability means the ability to produce the weapons quickly on short notice.
Mr. Rumsfeld repeatedly defended the intelligence work on Iraq, saying at one point, "The intelligence community's support in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the global war on terror overall, have contributed to the speed, the precision, the success of those operations, and saved countless lives."
Mr. Rumsfeld faced sharp questions from Democrats who accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to suit their goal of toppling Mr. Hussein. "The debacle cannot all be blamed on the intelligence community," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. "Key policy makers made crystal clear the results they wanted from the intelligence community."
Mr. Rumsfeld told Mr. Kennedy that his assertions were baseless. "You've twice or thrice mentioned manipulation," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "I haven't heard of it, I haven't seen any of it, except in the comments you've made."
Mr. Tenet's planned address at Georgetown University, his alma mater, will come on a day when members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are scheduled to gather in a secure room in the Capitol to review for the first time a classified 300-page draft report by committee staff members that is expected to be strongly critical of conclusions that intelligence agencies drew about Iraq and its weapons before the war, few of which have been borne out by facts on the ground.
In an interview on Wednesday, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, said that the panel's eight-month inquiry had found the misjudgments to have been part of "a world intelligence failure" in which a basic assumption that Mr. Hussein's government possessed illicit weapons became "a runaway train that was very hard to stop."
Mr. Tenet's last public speech was in May 2003, and he has not yet testified before Congress, even in closed session, to defend the intelligence agencies' prewar judgments about Iraq. For weeks, however, a draft of testimony that he originally planned to deliver next month before the Senate intelligence committee has been circulating for review within the administration, and intelligence officials said they expected that it would form the core of his public remarks on Thursday.
"Among other things, I think he'll talk about the difficulties and complexities inherent in the intelligence business," one intelligence official said. "There are people who have leapt to the conclusion that the intelligence was all wrong, and they don't know what they are talking about."
Admirers of Mr. Tenet say it would be unfair for the intelligence chief to be held responsible for any lapses involving Iraq. In this view, any prewar misjudgments by intelligence agencies about Iraq reflect institutional shortcomings, not personal ones.
But critics including Senator Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who formerly headed the Intelligence Committee, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser under President Carter, have said that someone should be held responsible for the misjudgments. In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Mr. Brzezinski said that he did not want to single out Mr. Tenet or anyone else. Still, he said, "I feel very strongly that you cannot have credibility if there's not accountability for a very serious failing, and I think the failure is a very serious one."
With inquiries on Iraq by the Senate panel and others still under way, Mr. Bush had initially resisted calls by members of Congress for an independent commission to look into Dr. Kay's comments about intelligence failures. The president reversed course last weekend but is not expected to name members to an investigating panel until Friday at the earliest, White House officials said Wednesday, to allow time for administration lawyers to vet nominees for possible conflicts of interest.
That effort was described as an attempt to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment felt at the White House when Henry A. Kissinger, whom Mr. Bush appointed as the first chairman of the commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks, decided to step down rather than release a list of clients of his consulting firm.
--------
How Bush, Others Described Iraq Threat
February 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Intelligence-Quotes.html
Prewar statements by President Bush and other administration officials on the urgency of stopping Saddam Hussein:
``What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness.'' -- Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 29, 2002, speaking to veterans of the Korean War in San Antonio, Texas.
``The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence.'' -- Bush, Sept. 12, 2002, speaking at the United Nations. ``He's a threat that we must deal with as quickly as possible.'' -- Bush, Sept. 13, 2002, remarks to press.
``We do know that he (Saddam) has been actively and persistently pursuing nuclear weapons for more than 20 years. But we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons.'' -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Sept. 18, 2002, before House Armed Services Committee.
``There are a number of terrorist states pursuing weapons of mass destruction ... but no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.'' -- Rumsfeld, Sept. 19, 2002, Senate Armed Services Committee.
``On its present course, the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency.'' -- Bush, Oct. 2, 2002, after reaching agreement with House leaders on Iraq resolution.
``The danger is already significant and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?'' -- Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati.
``The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq, whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands.'' -- Bush, Nov. 23, 2002, radio address.
``The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world. Let me now turn to those deadly weapons programs and describe why they are real and present dangers to the region and to the world.'' -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5, 2003, at United Nations.
``The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations.'' -- Bush, March 16, 2003, news conference after Azores summit with Spanish, British and Portuguese leaders.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Bush, in Reversal, Supports More Time for 9/11 Inquiry
February 5, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/politics/05PANE.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 - The White House reversed itself on Wednesday and said it would support a request from the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to extend its deadline until late July, even though that would mean the panel's final report would be released closer to the height of the presidential campaign.
The White House, which had previously opposed any extension of the May 27 deadline, said it had come to accept the commission's judgment that an additional two months was needed to complete the report.
"The president is pleased to support the commission's request, and we urge Congress to act quickly to extend the timetable," said Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary.
Congressional Democrats and members of the commission suggested that the White House was acting to pre-empt a move in Congress to extend the life of the panel into next year, allowing the commission to continue digging through Election Day. Republican political advisers worry that the inquiry could embarrass President Bush and harm his re-election chances by cataloging intelligence and law enforcement blunders before the Sept. 11 attacks.
The White House announcement on Wednesday was welcomed by the commission. At the same time, though, the panel moved closer to a showdown with Mr. Bush and his lawyers in a dispute over access to information included in highly classified Oval Office intelligence briefings given to the president in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Panel members say they could vote as early as next week to serve a subpoena on the White House for access to the intelligence reports, which are known as the President's Daily Brief and are presented to Mr. Bush each morning by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The reports are among the government's mostly highly classified documents, and the White House has confirmed news reports that at least one of them, provided to Mr. Bush in August 2001, suggested that Al Qaeda might use commercial airplanes in a terrorist attack.
The commission threatened last year to subpoena the daily intelligence reports, but an agreement was struck then allowing three members to review them. The renewed threat of a subpoena results from the White House's refusal to let those three members share their notes on the information with the seven others. The White House has cited executive privilege.
" `Angry' is not the right word," the panel's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey, said in describing his recent negotiations with the White House over access to the notes. " `Frustrated' might be a better word. We feel as a commission - unanimously, I think - that all commissioners are equal, that they should all have the same information."
A Democratic member, Timothy J. Roemer, former congressman from Indiana, said he was prepared to introduce a motion to subpoena the White House documents as early as Tuesday, when the commission is scheduled to meet. "When you give the White House veto authority over access to this material, the commission should not be surprised when they use it," Mr. Roemer said. "This was not a process we should have agreed to in the first place."
Another Democrat on the panel, Richard Ben-Veniste, who like Mr. Roemer is not among the three members with access, said he was likely to support issuance of a subpoena if the White House did not relent before next week. The subpoena threat, he said, "is very much alive."
A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, said that she was unaware of the subpoena threat but that "we've been working with the commission on a number of issues, and we look forward to working with them in a spirit of cooperation."
Despite the White House request that Congress extend the commission's deadline, Republican leaders there suggested Wednesday that they might not agree. In a radio interview with Michael Smerconish, a conservative talk show host on WPHT in Philadelphia, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said he was adamantly opposed to an extension.
"I want to have everything out in front now and let them finish this thing," Mr. Hastert said. "They've had a year to do their investigation. They've probably found everything they have to find."
The speaker accused Democrats on the commission of leaking information to news organizations about the panel's work and initial findings.
"I think there's a belief that they would like to drag this thing out and drag it out and then have death by a thousand cuts," he said. "There are Democrats on this thing that are leaking things already. They will leak it through all the way to the election and make it a political issue."
Mr. Roemer, one of five Democrats on the 10-member panel, said he was outraged by Mr. Hastert's remarks.
"There have not been any leaks," he said, "either from Democrats or Republicans."
--------
Extension of 9/11 Probe Backed
Bush Reverses Stand, Wants July 26 Deadline
By Mike Allen and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13964-2004Feb4.html
President Bush reversed himself yesterday and agreed to support a two-month extension of the deadline for completion of an independent investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Yielding to pressure from the panel conducting the probe, the lawmakers who established it and families of victims, the White House set a schedule that calls for release of the unclassified version of the report by July 26, a month before Republicans gather for their national political convention near Ground Zero in New York City. Any extension of the deadline must be approved by Congress.
In announcing support for the delay, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush wants the 10 members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States to "have all the information they need to do a thorough job and complete their work in a timely manner." McClellan added that if the commission "has information that can help prevent another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, we need to have that information as soon as possible."
The White House previously insisted that the bipartisan commission stick to its original plan and issue its report by May 27, saying the work should be completed as soon as possible. Privately, Republican officials said they wanted time for any politically damaging findings to blow over before the heat of the presidential campaign.
But the panel, citing numerous delays in obtaining information, said it needs more time. Victims' families supported the postponement in order to produce a more thorough report, and the two main architects of the Sept. 11 panel, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), introduced legislation three days ago to give the commission until January 2005. McCain and others said a longer delay would avoid putting the commission's report in the middle of the election cycle.
That proposal was supported by many victims' family members, but commission staff aides opposed the idea in part for logistical reasons. Many key employees have other jobs and obligations that would not allow them to serve through the end of the year.
Adoption of the new deadline could depend on how hard the White House pushes for it. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) continues to believe the commission should stick to its original timetable, a spokesman said.
A senior Republican official said the White House acceded to the postponement after learning from commission sources that the report is likely to "have some criticism of the White House, but will not conclude that there was a failure by Bush himself.
"A lot of it will be pre-Bush and about the Clinton era, and there is very little direct ammunition aimed at the president himself," the official said.
Commission officials said that assessment may be premature because final deliberations have not occurred. The most outspoken members of the commission are Democrats.
The panel was formed in late 2002 after months of opposition from the White House. Commission members said they have been hampered by fights with the Bush administration and the city of New York over access to documents and other material.
In the latest dispute, the White House has refused to give all 10 members notes on presidential briefing papers written by some commission members who have reviewed the sensitive documents. That has prompted the commission to consider issuing subpoenas for what it considers its own documents.
The commission is also still attempting to secure private testimony from Bush and Vice President Cheney, as well as from former president Bill Clinton and former vice president Al Gore.
The commission has scheduled a private interview on Saturday with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and has conducted similar sessions with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, CIA Director George J. Tenet, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and others, sources have said. Rice, Rumsfeld and other Cabinet-level officials have not yet agreed to testify publicly, however, sources said.
Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean, a Republican former governor of New Jersey, and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton, a Democrat who served in Congress from Indiana, said in a statement that they "welcome the administration's support and commitment to work with Congress" to finalize an extension.
"The additional time will enable the commission to complete planned interviews and document review, to hold several sets of hearings in Washington and New York, and to complete a strong and credible report," the statement said.
Under Bush's proposal to extend the deadline, the commission would cease operations within 30 days after the report is published, rather than the scheduled 60 days.
-------- homeland security
Terror alert system riles House committee
February 05, 2004
By Shaun Waterman
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040204-111246-6560r.htm
Homeland-security officials got a tongue-lashing yesterday in a House committee hearing about the nation's color-coded terror alert system, but defended the system as a work in progress.
Rep. Christopher Cox, California Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said the nation could not afford the "senseless, unfocused, nationwide response" that too often was caused by "unspecified threat alerts."
The Homeland Security Advisory System - as the five-level, color-coded warning system formally is known - was introduced on March 11, 2002.
In the past year, it has been raised from Code Yellow, or "elevated," to Code Orange, or "high," three times, but it also has come under increasing criticism, much of it reiterated by lawmakers yesterday.
Panel members argued that the system was too broad, offered too little guidance to the public and imposed crippling costs on state and local governments.
Rep. Jim Turner of Texas, the panel's senior Democrat, called for the system to be eliminated because its "all-or-nothing nature" forced the entire country into a defensive posture.
"A wide range of federal, state, local and private-sector protection plans go into effect, although the intelligence has not suggested that all sectors of our society are specifically threatened," he said. "State and local governments spend hundreds of thousands of dollars - perhaps millions - to defend against an amorphous threat."
Adm. James Loy, deputy homeland-security secretary, replied that the system was "evolving" as better information on terror makes more "targeted actions and prevention measures" available.
He cited the Code Orange alert during the holiday season as an example. When the threat level was lowered Jan. 9, the department recommended for the first time that "several industry sectors and geographic locales continue on a heightened alert status."
Lawmakers also were concerned about advising the public on how it should behave when the threat level is increased.
"When they are on high alert," Rep. Christopher Shays, Connecticut Republican, said of Israeli authorities, "there are certain things they don't want [the public] to do," such as large assemblies like those that took place across the country on New Year's Eve.
"Tell me one thing that you don't want the public to do" when the threat level rises, demanded Mr. Shays, who had urged people not to attend the Times Square celebration on New Year's Eve and came under fire from New York officials for his warning.
When Adm. Loy suggested that he would address the issue in a closed-door session, Mr. Shays became visibly angry.
"Why?" he demanded, before being gaveled down by the chairman. "Why should you know, and I know and other people know, but not the public?"
Later he told reporters that his "outrage" about the "bureaucratic stupidity" of the officials' unwillingness to talk about threats in public had angered him.
"That's why I lost it," he said.
--------
Ridge Asserts Action Halted Terror Attack
February 5, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/politics/05HOME.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 - Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, said on Wednesday that he believed flight cancellations and other government actions over the holiday season had prevented a catastrophic terrorist attack by Al Qaeda.
While acknowledging the tensions created with foreign governments and the frustrations of airline passengers, Mr. Ridge said he was convinced that terrorists had planned to carry out an attack and were foiled by the actions of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
He said, however, that he had no intelligence to prove it conclusively. "My gut tells me that we probably did," he said when asked at a meeting with reporters on Wednesday if he believed the government had averted an attack. "But proving an unknown is a pretty difficult thing to do."
On Dec. 21, Mr. Ridge raised the color-coded national threat alert level and warned that the danger of a terrorist attack was "perhaps greater now than at any point since Sept. 11, 2001." Within days, several airline flights into and out of the United States were canceled as a result of what the government described as detailed threats to those flights. More flights were canceled last week.
Mr. Ridge said that the intelligence regarding the threats in December was credible and came from several sources that he would not describe in detail.
He said there had been specific threats to New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
--------
Ridge Believes Holiday Security Averted Attack
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13898-2004Feb4.html
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said yesterday that he believes security crackdowns over the Christmas holidays, including the cancellation of some passenger flights into the United States, averted a terrorist attack. But intelligence on the threat was so wispy that U.S. officials may never know for sure, he said.
The volume of threat information from many separate sources, some mentioning the same cities and the same international flights, was alarming and unprecedented, Ridge said. It led to the raising of the national threat alert level to orange, or "high risk," on Dec. 21. The index was lowered three weeks later.
"It was very unusual," he said. "My gut tells me we did" avert an al Qaeda operation during that time, he told reporters yesterday.
Sixteen flights between the United States and London, Paris and Mexico City were canceled because of security fears during that period, or because of delays in takeoff resulting from time-consuming vetting of passenger manifests by U.S. investigators.
Besides the warnings that U.S. officials picked up about possible attacks on Washington, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Ridge said, there were indications of an operation planned specifically against Hollywood. U.S. officials have previously noted al Qaeda's interest in attacking the symbolic center of the U.S. movie industry. After checking the passenger lists for a number of U.S.-bound flights over the holidays, French and British officials said they doubted that any passenger intended to hijack a jet. But U.S. officials said that perhaps some terrorists did not show up for the flights or aborted their plans.
"Their assessment of some of the information was different from ours," Ridge said.
Although he said Washington, Paris and London communicated well during the holiday alert, there also were "uncomfortable" moments. Ridge said he took responsibility for some of them because, about Dec. 20, with time running out amid fears over some Paris-to-New York flights, he called Air France officials to insist they take some security precautions without informing French officials.
"I created the tension over the holidays," he said. He also acknowledged that his call several days later for foreign airlines entering U.S. airspace to deploy armed air marshals annoyed some foreign governments.
U.S. officials are asking foreign airlines to send detailed data about passengers -- such as passport numbers -- to Washington when flights are booked, rather than when travelers arrive at the airport. Late-arriving information often causes U.S.-bound flights to be held on the ground pending checks, he said.
Concerned that the public is becoming jaded about the threat warnings, Ridge repeated his desire to go to orange alert only in the most dire cases. Recalling one four-month period last year when three orange alerts were raised, he said "that horrible period" left Americans "anxious and angry."
Overall, Ridge said, the entire business of canceling flights or basing national security options on vaporous intelligence is a guessing game, at best.
"I can't emphasize enough the incompleteness of the intelligence," he said. "You get bits and pieces. . . . It's the toughest job in any war."
--------
N.Y. City Council Passes Anti-Patriot Act Measure
By Michelle Garcia
Washington Post
Thursday, February 5, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13970-2004Feb4.html
NEW YORK, Feb. 4 -- New York City, site of the country's most horrific terrorist attack, Wednesday became the latest in a long list of cities and towns that have formally opposed the expanded investigatory powers granted to law enforcement agencies under the USA Patriot Act.
The New York City Council approved a resolution condemning the law, enacted by Congress six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with a voice vote in its chambers a few blocks from the gaping hole at Ground Zero.
"The Patriot Act is really unpatriotic, it undermines our civil rights and civil liberties," said council member Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan), the bill's sponsor. "We never give up our rights that's what makes us Americans."
The resolution criticized the Patriot Act for allowing infringements on privacy rights. Among other provisions, the Patriot Act allows investigators to see citizens' library records and eases requirements for search warrants. The council requested that Congress deliver periodic reports accounting for the information and records on New Yorkers the federal government has culled under the Patriot Act, but the measure has no means to enforce that request.
The vote follows months of negotiations between resolution supporters and New York City Council leadership. A major sticking point in the original proposal of the resolution centered on language prohibiting the New York Police Department from enforcing immigration laws, collecting information on activist groups and businesses, and refraining from establishing an anti-terrorism reporting database.
After Wednesday's vote, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (D) said the measure in its final version "strikes the right balance."
"The resolution has evolved to focus on what's really needed: amendments to the law to protect civil liberties particularly, at a time of war," he said.
New York joins 246 municipalities and counties and three states that have passed legislation in opposition to the Patriot Act, according to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, an organization that helps local governments craft anti-Patriot Act legislation.
"So much is being done in the name of New York, we are saying don't use our name to infringe on people's rights," said Glenn C. Devitt, an organizer with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.
Local governments in Virginia and Maryland have approved similar measures, including Montgomery County, Prince George's County and Alexandria.
Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, dismissed the local governments' resolutions, saying the majority were passed in locales with left-leaning constituencies and based on "erroneous" information about the Patriot Act.
Corallo said the act has been "one of the most important tools Congress has given the government to fight terrorism and prevent terrorist acts."
A handful of New York council members, both Democrats and Republicans, agreed and voted against the resolution.
Dennis Gallagher, a Republican from Queens, called the resolution a vehicle for attacking the Bush administration. New York suffered a great loss on Sept. 11, 2001, he said. The Patriot Act "is one step in ensuring this never happens again."
But at a rally of supporters, Monica Tarazi, New York director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the Patriot Act and other tactics to fight terrorism has sowed fear within New York's ethnic communities and activists.
"This country is not about registering [people] and ethnic profiling," she said. "We need this [resolution]. We need this as Americans."
-------- internet
Seven years jail, $150,000 fine if you don't tell the world your email and home address
By Kieren McCarthy
05/02/2004
UK Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/35376.html
If you don't tell the world your email, home address and telephone number you could face a seven-year jail sentence and a $150,000 fine under new legislation that the US Congress is trying to push past today.
Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas - chairman of the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee - yesterday produced from nowhere extensions to the 1946 Trademark Act that would make giving false contact information for a domain name a civil and criminal offence.
His bill (HR 3754) was discussed today at 10am Washington time in his Subcommittee. It was live here.
No you're not dreaming, this is what the Bill proposes. Mr Smith's attempt to "provide additional civil and criminal remedies for domain name fraud" may be laudable, but his approach is as unthinking and blinkered as the Intellectual Property lobbyists that have his ear.
The extensions to the Trademark Act would make the provision of misleading contact details when registering a domain an offence. Not only that but a "willful" offence - which in American law means three-times normal payout. Also, anyone "acting in concert with the violator" or "maintaining or renewing such registration" would also be guilty. In the case of a trademark infringement on the domain "the maximum imprisonment otherwise provided by law for a felony offense shall be increased by 7 years".
The intention for this legislation is clearly peer-to-peer sharing networks, but by making the provision so wide, it is pulling in millions of normal Internet users and businesses. Not to mention registrars.
While the provision of nonsense registration details has proved an irritation - particularly to IP lawyers - many millions of people do not provide their full details because it is freely available to anyone on the Internet and so intrudes on their privacy. Domain name details are also regularly farmed by spammers.
Minding the farm
In fact, the entire WHOIS issue has been controversial for years; and only recently have new systems been introduced to make Internet domains fully functional yet not wide open to abuse. One example is the extra password people have to type in to get at WHOIS information, which cuts down automated email farming.
However, Mr Smith - who can be neatly summed up by pointing to the fact that he introduced the Clean Airwaves Act banning eight profanities from being broadcast, and that he proudly describes himself as a fifth-generation Texan - sees everything from the IP lawyers' point of view.
In fact, invited to speak at the American Intellectual Property Law Association in November last year, he told the assembled: "The gravity of intellectual property crimes are too often dismissed by those who believe they have a right to work created and owned by others. We're going to do our best to bring IP crime to the forefront of the Congressional agenda and focus attention on it in a new way."
He went on: "There are billions of illegal file downloads every week on peer-to-peer networks. The result is lost jobs, lost sales to businesses and lost royalties to artists and copyright owners. One way to reduce this illegal activity is through the court system. Most people agree that stealing is wrong. We can all agree that it is wrong to walk into a record store, put a CD in your pocket, and walk out. It's just as wrong to illegally download a song from the Internet. But many people do not recognize that these actions are one and the same."
There is much more along this vein, but you get the idea. Smith also introduced the cybercrime legislation that was whisked through with the "Patriot" Act, which hugely expanded the authorities' ability to wire and electronic tap individuals. He also boasts that he was given the "Cyber Champion Award" by the Business Software Alliance - a concept of such ridiculousness that it is hard not to smile.
Congressman Smith is however an influential man in Washington and his attempts to introduce such legislation and provide IP lawyers with exactly what they want should be taken seriously.
Hogging the conversation
The arguments for and against accurate and accessible WHOIS information were concisely covered by Milton Mueller in his book on ICANN "Ruling the Root" back in 2002. This quote from it (p.237) should provide food for thought.
"Just how radical a shift in the balance of power the intellectual property agenda for WHOIS represents was illustrated by an amusing exchange on a public email list between Judy Henslee, the US trademark manager for Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and an intellectual property lawyer, John Berryhill. Ms. Henslee was complaining about the limitations of the current WHOIS protocol on the INTA email list, and she concluded, 'The ability to produce (or at the very least, purchase) accurate lists of all domains owned by a single person or entity would be extremely helpful to the trademark owner.'
"Mr Berryhill replied: "Dear Ms. Henslee, I was sitting on my back porch this evening, and someone drove by riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle with a defective exhaust system. My community has strictly enforced noise and smog ordnances, and this person was clearly in violation of the law. I shouted at the rider, whereupon he rode across and damaged my lawn. I would like to bring a trespass against him, but I could not identify him. However, I can identify the make, model, year and colour of the hog. I went to your Web site, and I noticed that Harley Davidson does not include a readily accessible database of warranty registrations or, indeed, any other information that will assist me to identify the violator.
"As you surely can appreciate based on your comments concerning the WHOIS database, your provision of this information would certainly help in bringing this lawbreaker to justice, as well as anyone who uses a Harley Davidson product to violate the law. As I'm sure you're aware, despite the fine reputation enjoyed by Harley, and my own admiration for your machines, there is an element of the subculture associated with your company's product which has been known to demonstrate a pattern of unlawful behaviour such as gang activity and drug transportation. Many of them may own more than one motorcycle. So, I'm sure there is considerable demand for this data.
"Since there doesn't appear to be a convenient database, is there some way that I can arrange to purchase the names, postal addresses, email addresses, and telephone and fax numbers of people who own Harley Davidson motorcycles? If I send the description to you, will you help me identify the owner?"
-------- police
Williams Wants Police in Schools Mayor Working On New Security Plan
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14067-2004Feb4?language=printer
Mayor Anthony A. Williams will announce plans tonight to have D.C. police take over security at the city's public high schools, starting with an increased presence at the Southeast Washington school where a student was fatally shot Monday, administration officials said.
The proposal was still in skeletal form yesterday, with no concrete estimates on cost, deployment or the number of officers involved, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
But the changes would go far beyond what is found in other school systems in the Washington area, where metal detectors are rare and school officials -- not police -- oversee security. Police officers from local departments serve as school liaisons throughout the region but don't generally patrol hallways.
The Williams administration was scrambling yesterday to assemble a plan of action in response to the Ballou High School shootings -- which killed 17-year-old James Richardson and wounded a second student -- and to the community outrage that followed. At a six-hour public meeting Tuesday night, the mayor was pilloried as uncaring and ineffective.
Williams, who is scheduled to give his annual State of the District address tonight, said yesterday that the criticism from Ballou parents and students was the most intense and personal he has experienced in five years as mayor. He called it "tormenting" and "two or three notches" beyond what he experienced in an emotional confrontation at Union Temple Baptist Church in February 2001, when opponents attacked him for closing D.C. General Hospital.
His speech tonight, which he postponed so he could attend the Ballou meeting, comes after a bruising two-week period in which he has been accused of being insensitive in his dealings with the family of 14-year-old Jahkema Princess Hansen, who was murdered, being oblivious to dangerous lead in the city's water supply and being inept in controlling crime in city schools.
At the meeting at Ballou, the crowd booed when Williams was announced. But it went wild for former mayor Marion Barry, chanting his name and yelling, "We need you back, Marion."
"You've got to let people vent and express themselves and then try to address things in a positive, constructive way," Williams said yesterday. "I didn't spend a lot of time talking about how, you know, I actually am over here more than you think. . . . It wasn't time for that."
D.C. Council member Sandy Allen (D), whose Ward 8 includes Ballou, stayed for the entire meeting, as did Williams.
"People don't feel that they connect, that the mayor is in tune to their actual needs and desires," Allen said. "He comes across as distant."
Williams said he is developing a plan to address many of the concerns expressed at Ballou. He intends to seek federal homeland security money to better protect schools, and he hopes to use the city's burgeoning charter schools to provide vocational education options to students struggling in traditional high schools, he said.
The mayor also said that his efforts to toughen the city's juvenile justice system and take control of the school system would improve security. He favors making the superintendent a member of his cabinet and stripping the school board of most of its powers.
School board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz opposes the mayor's efforts to take control of the system but said she favors having the police provide security at most high schools and some middle schools as well. "They are experts," she said.
A move to involve the police department more heavily in school security is likely to find support on the D.C. Council, which would vote on any extra spending related to the plan, council members said.
"It's a great idea," said council member Kevin P. Chavous (D-Ward 7), who added that he has long advocated such a change and is proposing legislation to make it happen.
Ballou started the school year with a security staff of fewer than a dozen, but after recent fights and an incident in which students spread mercury in the school, the security force grew to 20, including D.C. police officers and a couple of armed guards, officials said.
Police deployment has long been a sensitive issue in Washington, with many residents complaining that the city's officers spend too much time protecting federal enclaves instead of neighborhoods.
Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who as chairman of the judiciary committee oversees the police force, said she would seek assurances from police officials that they would adequately staff school security if given the task.
Patterson also expressed concern about the school system's use of a private company for security. "Some things are inherently government functions, and this may be one of them," she said.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said yesterday that police could improve the security situation in schools if they received extra officers and money. He had no estimate for how many additional resources the schools would demand.
"It's what we do for a living," Ramsey said. "We are police officers. We have sworn powers. Dealing with young people is something that we are not unaccustomed to."
Ramsey said he would also consider adding surveillance cameras to photograph anyone coming into the school through side doors and that he would favor changing the doors to make them harder to access from outside. He said that he was not sure what role there would be for the private guards who now patrol the schools.
The State of the District address is scheduled for 7 tonight at the Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW.
Staff writers Petula Dvorak, David A. Fahrenthold and Clarence Williams contributed to this report.
-------- terrorism
Nations Step Up Campaign Against Terror
February 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Asia-Terror-Conference.html
BALI, Indonesia (AP) -- Asian and Pacific countries on Thursday moved to step up the international campaign against terror with a new law enforcement center in Indonesia and legal commitments that would make it easier to extradite and prosecute terrorists.
Delegates at the two-day anti-terror conference on this bomb-scarred tourist island said they hoped the meeting would help keep the terror fight at the top of governments' agendas.
``This has been a historic meeting. This gives real momentum to the campaign against terrorism,'' said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who laid a wreath Thursday at a memorial for victims of the October 2002 nightclub bombings on Bali that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
The conference, co-chaired by Australia and Indonesia, was inspired by those bombings.
Ministers and other senior officials from more than two dozen nations -- including U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft -- convened in a heavily guarded beach resort and resolved to give a transnational response to a transnational threat.
``People saw they were not alone in their problems. They saw that all their neighbors in the region are confronted with the same problems and that you can address them collectively,'' Philippine Foreign Secretary Delia Domingo Albert told The Associated Press.
The countries set up two working groups to bolster evidence and intelligence sharing, encourage extradition treaties and improve cooperation among the police forces of the Asia Pacific region.
They also urged states to improve maritime and aviation security, stop the flow of terrorist funding and prevent the illegal movement of nuclear, chemical and biological materials, a closing statement said.
Most of the recommendations were short on specifics, however, and it remained unclear if the commitments would go beyond the lofty talk that has characterized many previous conferences.
Some terror experts had been calling for more multilateral anti-terror measures such as a regional police force or a region-wide extradition treaty. But those proposals weren't even placed on the table.
Still, delegates said the conference helped establish a framework for a more multilateral approach in a region where mutual suspicions often drive policy.
``We have been effective but not sufficiently because al-Qaida is increasingly decentralized,'' said Heraldo Munoz, Chile's United Nations ambassador, who chairs a key U.N. anti-terrorism committee.
``In a sense, al-Qaida is a world franchise. There is a head that sets up the strategic objectives and the ideological justification but it is the local groups that carry out the terrorist actions. And that's why the combat must be global.''
Underscoring the continued threat of terrorism in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, officials said Thursday that police earlier this week had seized 19 bombs and five homemade firearms on the island of Sulawesi, where Muslim extremists have recently stepped up their attacks on Christians.
The conference established one working group to improve cooperation among the region's legal systems. Delegates said they want to make it easier for courts in one country to use evidence and witness testimony obtained in another.
A second working group will concentrate on sharing law enforcement information.
During the conference, Australia and Indonesia announced the creation of a new anti-terrorism training center to be established in Indonesia by the end of the year and run jointly by the two countries.
The facility -- called the Indonesia Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation -- will also serve as an information clearinghouse and provide experts to regional governments fighting terrorism.
Australia is contributing $29.5 million to the center over five years and will have 20 Australian staffers there, Downer said.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Citizen Groups Blast Abandoned Mine Lands Proposal
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
February 5, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2004/2004-02-05-09.asp#anchor3
A network of citizens groups concerned with environmental issues surrounding coalfields is upset with the Bush administration's proposal to reauthorize the Abandoned Mine Lands program. The administration touted a $53 million increase to support the program, but according to the Citizens Coal Council this money will sent to politically powerful states that do not have an abandoned mine problem.
"It is a political payoff that does not fix the problem," says Randall Moon, Citizens Coal Council board member representing Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. "Abandoned mine lands are the entire coal industry's legacy and they must be solved on a national basis - not driven by a narrow political agenda."
Created by Congress in 1977, the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund cleans up dangerous mines abandoned before 1977. The program has suffered from chronic underfunding and more than 7,000 mines abandoned before 1977 have not been cleaned up.
Without reauthorization, the program will expire later this year, but federal officials estimate more than $6 billion is still needed to make these sites safe.
The $53 million in the budget for reauthorization would pay off "certified states," such as Wyoming, Texas and Montana, that have already completed reclamation of their mines.
The Citizens Coal Council offered lukewarm praise for support for the reauthorization and for the focus on cleaning up abandoned mines in states with historical mining problems. In addition, Moon acknowledged that it gives high priority to water projects.
But the council criticized as "an outrageous giveaway" the Bush administration plan use money from the fund to buy reclamation bonds for coal companies that remine.
A coal company buying a reclamation bond is part of the cost of doing business and the public's insurance that the company will clean up the site, said Judy Bonds of the West Virginia based organization Coal River Mountain Watch.
"The reasons we have bonds in the first place is so we do not have any more abandoned mines," Bonds said.
The council also blasted the proposal to cut the amount paid by coal companies into the fund by 20 percent - a move that will cost the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund $700 million to $800 million over 14 years.
"Why are we cutting the revenue when the work is not done?" asks Ellen Pfister, the Citizens Coal Council representative from Northern Plains Resource Council in Montana.
U.S. Senator Arlen Spector, a Pennsylvania Republican, has introduced legislation to implement the administration's reauthorization plan.
The organization says the White House plan doles out millions to coal companies and favored states like Texas, Wyoming, and Montana, rather than using the funds to fix serious threats to public health and safety.
----
Whistleblower says EPA used unreliable data for sludge decision
Thursday, February 05, 2004
By Erica Werner,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-02-05/s_12798.asp
WASHINGTON - A former government scientist accused the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday of knowingly using unreliable data when it denied a petition to halt the use of sewage sludge for fertilizer.
The microbiologist, David Lewis, testified at a House subcommittee hearing that the EPA used data about sludge quality at two Georgia dairy farms that had already been rejected by Georgia state officials as "completely unreliable, possibly even fraudulent."
He asked the House Resources Committee's subcommittee on energy and mineral resources to call on the EPA for an internal investigation of the moratorium and other matters.
Lewis, a former EPA employee who says he was fired in May after raising concerns about sludge standards, also said the panel should press the EPA for additional whistleblower protections.
"This whole process ... is nothing more than a scam," Lewis said in written testimony.
House Resources Committee spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said later that the committee's chairman, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., was open to Lewis' suggestions.
The EPA in December denied a petition from 73 labor, environment, and farm groups for an immediate moratorium on land-based uses for sewage sludge. Such a moratorium would affect more than 3 million tons of sludge used each year as fertilizer. In its decision, the EPA cited data showing levels of heavy metals in sludge at the dairy farms were within allowed limits.
In fact, Lewis said, studies by Georgia state agencies found the sludge was so corrosive that it dissolved fences and emitted toxic fumes that could sicken cows. Lewis said the faulty data was produced by local officials in Augusta, Georgia, several years ago and knowingly used by the EPA in December, in spite of an audit by Georgia officials that found it unreliable.
"Mr. Lewis is entitled to his opinion. We stand by our December 2003 decision," said EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman, noting the agency is in the process of revising its approach to sludge.
Lewis' departure from the EPA came after he worked 32 years there. It was protested by Republican Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and James Inhofe of Oklahoma. But the EPA said then that Lewis had signed an agreement specifying he was to step down.
Lewis is now an adjunct professor at the University of Georgia. His testimony came at a hearing on peer-review and "sound science" standards for writing federal regulations.
-------- health
Pesticides Taint India's Colas, Parliamentary Panel Confirms
NEW DELHI, India, (ENS)
February 5, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2004/2004-02-05-04.asp
Twelve cola products, including Pepsi and Coca-Cola, did in fact contain pesticide residues as alleged by a New Delhi nongovernmental organization, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Soft Drinks declared in its report released on Wednesday. The residues were identified as chemicals commonly used in India to control insects in agricultural fields and homes.
The 15 member Joint Parliamentary Committee, headed by then Nationalist Congress Party Leader Sharad Pawar, was set up in August 2003 to probe a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which had alleged the presence of pesticide residues in the soft drinks.
Member of the Indian Parliament from Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar chairs the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Soft Drinks. (Photo courtesy Parliament of India) The committee report said two laboratories selected by the government independently analyzed samples of the same 12 brands collected and sent to them by the Directorate General of Health Services. The lab results showed the presence of organochlorine and organophosphorous pesticide residues.
"The committee is of the view that the CSE findings are correct on the presence of pesticide residues in carbonated water in respect of three samples each of 12 brand products of Pepsico and Coca-Cola analyzed by them," the report states. "CSE stands corroborated on its finding pesticide residues in carbonated water."
Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi repeated that their products in India are "absolutely safe" and meet international quality standards.
"Our products manufactured in India are world class and safe. We follow one quality system across the world," Coke said in a statement Wednesday.
"We have always produced beverages in India that are absolutely safe and made according to the same high quality standards we use around the world," Pepsi Foods said in a separate statement.
But the labs that conducted tests on behalf of the government found pesticide residues 1.2 to 5.22 times higher than the European Union limit for total pesticide residues in drinking water in 75 percent of the samples.
The government in its response said, "the assertion of the soft drink manufacturers that their product is within the EU limits has also not proved to be correct for 100 percent of the samples."
Little boy with a plate of rice on a Calcutta street. (Photo by G. Bizzarri courtesy FAO) The Joint Parliamentary Committee dismissed claims by both Coke and Pepsi their franchisee owned bottling plants were responsible for the pesticide residues.
"The committee feels that the existence of a bottlers' agreement cannot absolve the producers and marketers of their responsibility towards ensuring freedom from contamination of the beverages sold to consumers," it said.
At a marathon meeting in New Delhi last week, the Joint Parliamentary Committee members finalized their 300 page report. It is based on hearings that spanned five months and included testimony from soft drink manufacturers and the Ministry of Health.
In August 2003, the Centre for Science and Environment published lab results showing that Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Mirinda orange, Mirinda lemon, Blue Pepsi, 7-Up, Coca-Cola, Fanta, Limca, Sprite, and Thums Up contained varying amounts of organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides.
The most prevalent of the pesticides was lindane, found in 100 percent of the soft drink samples tested by Centre for Science and Environment. On average, lindane concentration in all brands was 21 times higher than the European allowable level.
Lindane damages the human central nervous system and immune system and is a confirmed carcinogen.
Drinks samples tested positive for malathion, DDT, and chlorpyrifos, which in one of the brands, Miranda Lemon, was found in concentrations 42 times the European allowable limit.
The CSE report cited government estimates that as of March 2001, Indians purchased 6.54 billion cold drink bottles per year, enough for each man, woman and child in the country to consume six bottles of soft drinks each year. "In Delhi, the consumption is a whopping 50 bottles per person per year," CSE wrote.
In view of its findings, the Joint Parliamentary Committee has asked the government to formulate strict quality standards for carbonated drinks. Currently, no standards for soft drinks exist in India.
-------- ACTIVISTS
ZIMBABWE - Police arrest 100 to stop protest
February 05, 2004
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
HARARE - Zimbabwean police arrested more than 100 people yesterday during a crackdown on an antigovernment protest, witnesses said.
Lovemore Madhuku, an outspoken critic of President Robert Mugabe who called the protest, said he was assaulted and severely injured while leading the demonstration, which was illegal under Zimbabwean law.
Mr. Madhuku, chairman of the political pressure group National Constitutional Assembly, said police had detained 116 persons near a square in central Harare where the NCA was to hold a demonstration to press its demands for constitutional reform.
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A challenge of our time: irreversible disarmament and nonproliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
February 05, 2004
Washington Times
Letters to the Editor
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040204-084710-5677r.htm
International terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction represent a most urgent threat.
Countering these threats must be accorded the highest priority.
The Nordic-Baltic region is located outside the main zones of conflict. Yet, international terrorism is a global challenge.
September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks around the world demonstrate that terrorists can strike anywhere at any time. Their aim is to spread the greatest amount of death and destruction. We can only imagine the impact of terrorists getting hold of weapons of mass destruction. Our efforts to halt the spread of such weapons and their means of delivery have taken on a new urgency.
A growing number of politically unstable states in possessionofthesedeadly weapons gives an increased risk that such weapons may end up in the hands of nonstate actors. More states with such weapons increase the vulnerability to sabotage, leakage and accidents that may have long-term consequences on environmentalandpublic safety.
Developments in North Korea give particular cause for concern. The announcement to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is a key challenge to the authority and integrity of the treaty that for decades has been the cornerstone of collective security. The norms set by the nonproliferation treaty are more important than ever.
We - the parliamentarians of the Nordic and Baltic countries - call on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to reverse its course of action, to comply with her obligations under the nonproliferation treaty and to cooperate fully and unconditionally with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Only in international cooperation - and only by employing the whole range of diplomatic, political, economic and legal instruments - can we succeed in our efforts to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The decision by Iran to accept the request by the international community and cooperate fully with the IAEA is a victory for diplomacy.
Disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation measures are crucial to our efforts of halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. We need to strengthen the international and multilateral instruments in this field. We need to ensure strict compliance. We must take every measure to safeguard material that may be used in the production of weapons of mass destruction.
For several decades, the Nordic-Baltic region was traversed by the Iron Curtain. The world's largest concentration of nuclear weapons was a stone's throw away on the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia. Left to this day is a dangerous legacy of abandoned nuclear reactors, most of them inside decommissioned, nuclear-powered submarines. Terrorists combining conventional explosive devices with stolen radioactive material to construct a "dirty bomb" - which is a real threat also to U.S. cities, including Washington - is a real and frightening scenario. Such a bomb may, in addition tocausingmaterialand human devastation, contaminate large areas of valuable resources.
The secure handling and storage of nuclear waste and material in northwest Russia is a matter of global concern. It requires concerted international efforts.
We have moved beyond the stereotypes of the Cold War confrontation between East and West. The Russian Federation works closely with the United States, NATO and the European Union. Russia is a contributing partner in a web of regional and subregional organizations in the Nordic and Baltic region. The Barents Sea Cooperation, the Nordic Council and Arctic Cooperation, the Baltic Sea States Subregional Co-operation, as well as the EU Northern Dimension initiative, are focal points in our mutual efforts.
The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, initiated by former Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, and Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, is a cornerstone of nonproliferation. We are pleased that the program has funded the dismantling of a large number of nuclear-powered submarines.
The EU Northern Dimension's Environmental Partnership has established a support fund for financing projects on nuclear safety and security in the High North. The second Northern Dimension Action Plan 2004-06, adopted in June 2003, highlights the challenges to nuclear safety, particularly in northwest Russia.
The signing earlier this year of the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program in the Russian Federation adds momentum to the dismantling of nuclear submarines, increases nuclear reactor safety and helps in the handling of radioactive waste.
Good and stable relations with Russia give hope for a better future. Yet, we, as representatives of the Nordic and Baltic electorates, still harbor concern. Russian democracy and transparency is a prerequisite also in our common struggle to impede the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Russian democracy must deepen. Infringements on press freedom must be taken seriously. Otherwise, our struggle is at risk.
The Russian Federation is not the only player of significance in our wider region. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan have expertise on weapons of mass destruction. Western countries must not neglect these states in the aftermath of successful enlargements of the European Union and NATO. We should contribute to bringing them in as reliable and constructive partners in dealing with a range of complicated issues such as preventingthespreadof weapons of mass destruction.
In November 2003, an interparliamentary conference on reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction convened at the European ParliamentinStrasbourg, France. Here, members of parliaments of a great number of nations pledged their willingness to contribute to the G8 Global Partnership.
The parliaments of the Nordic and Baltic countries would go a step further and point to concrete objectives that should serve as guides for a coherent policy of nonproliferation.
First, we must achieve universal adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. We must strengthen these regimes, in particular, the verification mechanisms. Second, we must strengthen the missile nonproliferation regime and address noncompliance with relevant international treaties. Third, we must make sure that nonstrategic nuclear weapons are included in the disarmament process. Last, and most important of all, we must strengthen our common goal of general and irreversible disarmament and nonproliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
JENS HALD MADSEN
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Denmark)
MARKO MIHKELSON
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Estonia)
LIISA JAAKONSAARI
Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Finland)
SOLVEIG PETURSDOTTIR
Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Iceland)
INESE VAIDERE
Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Latvia)
GEDIMINAS KIRKILAS
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Lithuania)
THORBJORN JAGLAND
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Norway)
URBAN AHLIN
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (Sweden)
--------
Are You On Uncle Sam's No Fly List?
A CBS 2
Special Report
Feb 5, 2004
http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/local_story_036144559.html
NEW YORK (CBS) The war on terror casts a wide net and has so far prevented a second September 11th. But is that net too wide? CBS 2 has learned of a top secret government list of Americans who are not allowed on any commercial airlines.
Are they terrorists or violent criminals or something else? CBS 2's Cheryl Fiandaca investigates.
The airport counter: This is as far as Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams say they are allowed to go at San Francisco International Airport. The last time they checked in for a flight to Boston to visit Gordon's 80-year-old father, an airline employee called the police.
"She came back and said you turned up on the FBI no-fly list. We have called the San Francisco police. We were shocked, really shocked," recalled Adams.
"We were detained. We were definitely detained. I couldn't even get a drink of water," Gordon remembered.
So why would two women in their 50's, U.S. citizens, San Francisco homeowners and long-time peace activists with no criminal records be on a federal watch list with suspected terrorists?
That's just one of the questions the couple wanted answers to.
An ACLU attorney tells CBS 2 the government won't even tell them if Gordon and Adams are on the list.
Last April, the ACLU of Northern California filed suit against the Transportation Security Administration and the FBI on behalf of the pair and demanded answers to basic questions, including how many people are on the secret list, who is on the it, how do you get on it and how can you get off it.
This what they got back: hundreds of pages of blacked out text that give them no answers to any of their questions.
"The government has blacked out the information about what criteria they use to place people on these lists. So we don't know how someone gets on the list. How they can get off the list if they're on it incorrectly, we don't know. If the government monitors the list, we don't know if any of this makes us any safer. What we do know is hundreds, maybe thousands, of passengers are being routinely hassled, innocent passengers, because of these lists," ACLU attorney Jayashri Srikantiah told CBS 2.
Civil rights activists don't dispute the governments right to keep a watchlist, but they do have a problem with who's on it and why.
"It's very scary that our government is keeping a list. That's scary," Adams said.
Scary and all too real. The government has admitted it has a secret no-fly list of people who are not allowed to fly. And also has a secret selected list of people who are to be singled out, detained, and questioned.
Both are stored in airline databases and are accessed at check in. The lists allegedly contain thousands of names of passengers who are to be stopped before boarding commercial flights.
The list isn't new. It has been in existence since about 1990 but was expanded after the September 11th attacks.
"It's a no-fly list, it's a list of names gathered through intelligence and law enforcement of individuals who are either known terrorists or have links to known terrorists," TSA spokesperson Mark Hatfied told Fiandaca.
The list is now alleged to include not only suspected terrorists and those believed to be a threat to aviation security but civil rights activists say it also targets people based on their political views. A list that is thought to include members of the Green Party, a Jesuit priest who is a peace activist and two civil rights attorneys.
In Gordon and Adams' case, the ACLU believes the couple may have been targeted for their work on War Times, a free bilingual newspaper that has been critical of the war and the Bush administration's policies on terrorism.
It's very scary that two people who pose no danger, who are publishing something, which last time I looked we were allowed to do, are being detained at the airport and having the police called and they won't tell us why," Adams said.
And as of today, Gordon and Adams still don't have any answers from the government but have a court hearing set for April 9th. This controversy isn't likely to go away anytime soon, since the government is planning on implementing a color code system this summer to track passengers and that list too is expected to be secret.
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Thousands of Hondurans protest U.S.-led war in Iraq
Thursday, February 5, 2004
(AP)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/02/05/international2128EST6181.DTL
(02-05) 18:28 PST TEGUCIGALPA -- Thousands of radical activists clogged the streets of five major Honduran cities Thursday to protest the U.S.-led war in Iraq and decry American "imperialism."
Organized by the Popular Block, a consortium of more than 50 student groups and leftist organizations, the demonstrations snarled traffic in the capital of Tegucigalpa as well as San Pedro Sula and Tocoa in the north of the country.
Protesters simultaneously took to the streets in the western city of Copan and in Comayagua in central Honduras.
"Es are against the politics that Washington has pushed on Honduras and the world," said Carlos H. Reyes, the Popular Block's coordinator. "We will fight until we stop American expansionism."
Reyes was among those who led the demonstration in Tegucigalpa, where protesters marched more than 2 miles (4 kilometers) through the capital's congested streets. They eventually gathered in front of the presidential palace before blocking a major highway on their way out of town.
The protesters waved mammoth signs condemning U.S. President George Bush and Honduran President Ricardo Maduro, who they attacked as too-sympathetic to the Bush administration. One of the placards featured a large portrait of the Maduro with an American flag covering his mouth.
Labor leaders representing unions of primary teachers, doctors, nurses, farmers and day-laborers joined members of the Popular Block in protesting.
The government was so worried about protest-related violence that it urged thousands of civil servants to go home early, prompting many government offices to shutdown due to high absenteeism. There were no reports of arrests, however.
Honduras sent 370 troops to Iraq to participate in humanitarian and rebuilding efforts. Since July, the Popular Block has organized five major anti-U.S. demonstrations, two of which turned violent.
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