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NUCLEAR
Group wants hearings on nuclear shipment
Tokyo: Bush and US Found Guilty of War Crimes
Uranium shipments set to begin this month
Powell to Seek Nuclear Details From Pakistan
akistani's Nuclear Earnings: $100 Million
Powell Seeks Answers on Pakistan Nukes
UN Nuclear Chief Says the Ball Is in Iran's Court
Iran Confirms U.N. Nuke Inspections Can Resume
Ex-U.N. Inspector Has Harsh Words for Bush
A Vindicated Hans Blix Returns to U.S.
U.S. showcases gear from Libyan arsenal
U.S. Displays Nuclear Parts Given by Libya
Russian nuclear warheads help to power US
Training for Nuclear Plant Guards Off
MOUNTAIN VIEWS: STATE DUMPS MORE TOXIC WASTE
Uranium shipments set to begin this month
Yankee uprate approved
Yankee uprate OK'd, with conditions
Power boost meets with mixed reaction from residents
New England Coalition Applauds Vermont Senate
Eight Governors Object New Packing Rules For INEEL Waste
Energy Officials Seek Alternate Cleanup Plan for Tennessee Nuclear Waste
Radioactive Waste Piling Up at Savannah River Site
Kerry says Bush using 9/11 as 'political prop'
Rumsfeld Hedges on June 30 Iraqi Sovereignty Date
MILITARY
Neighbor sees terror breeding in Somalia
U.S. Forces Training Armies in Africa
North Korea Claims South in 'Anarchy'
Va. Company Protests Army's Cancellation of Iraq Contract
Pentagon Must Make Case for Costly New Fighter, GAO Says
GAO Asks Pentagon to Justify Fighter Jet
Beijing quiet ahead of election
EU Backs Away from New Anti - Terror Organizations
Spanish vote casts shadow across allies
New Leader In Spain Calls Iraq 'Disaster'
Spanish troops set to withdraw
Kurds say they deserve more rights, land, autonomy
More Civilians Are Killed in Iraq as Ambushes Continue
Israel Beginning New Military Campaign in Gaza Strip
Israeli Missiles Hit Gaza After Suicide Bombing
New Talks Ruled Out by Sharon After Attack
The slow death of the State of Israel
The real fight is for civil rights
Pakistani Troops Kill 24 in Terror Hunt
Police stop terror attack
U.S. Consulate in Karachi Targeted
Space Wars
Army agents spy on Islam conference
Army, captain near deal in espionage case
Iraqi Leaders Said to Be Split on Giving U.N. a Big Role
Soldier Surrenders After Abandoning Iraq Unit
Many in Europe Suspect Spain Misled Them About Attackers
The Worst of Bush's Iraq Whoppers
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
The U.S. Supreme Court and The Imperial Presidency
Senate reviews railroad security
Agents aim to seal Arizona border to smuggling
U.S. Takes Steps to Tighten Mexican Border
Marshals Service found 'deficient'
U.S. Releases 26 Guantanamo Detainees
23 Afghans From Guantanamo Arrive Home
Similar Tactics, Different Names Al Qaeda-Like Groups Scrutinized
OTHER
E.P.A. May Tighten Its Proposal on Mercury
D.C. Lead Issue Was Debated for Months
ACTIVISTS
Iraq War Protesters Name Hundreds Lost
Absent From Unit in Iraq for Months
Missing peace
Protesters urge return of troops
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Group wants hearings on nuclear shipment
By Bruce Smith
The Associated Press
Tue, Mar. 16, 2004
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/local/8197229.htm
CHARLESTON - Local residents and Greenpeace on Monday called for hearings on a Department of Energy plan to ship 330 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium through Charleston to France for processing. "We want a full hearing before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the [export] license, and we also want a full environmental impact statement so the public can comment," said Tom Clements, a nuclear materials expert working for Greenpeace International.
The shipments are part of a long-range plan to neutralize 34 metric tons of plutonium and make it useless for nuclear weapons by converting it into fuel for commercial reactors.
Building a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, plant at the Savannah River Site to process such material will cost $4 billion and create 500 jobs for 20 years. Construction has been delayed until at least next year.
The 300 pounds of plutonium powder, which critics say could make 50 nuclear weapons, will be shipped to France for processing and then returned for use in a commercial reactor test run next year.
The Energy Department applied for an export license last fall to ship the material from the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico to Charleston and then by a special armed and escorted ship to France.
Clements said the shipment could pose a danger in an accident and could make a target for terrorists.
"We believe the local community needs to be made aware of the DOE's plan, and we have many questions about the safety precautions," said Marcella Guerriero, a local resident.
Instead of a more extensive environmental impact statement, the Department of Energy compiled a supplement to an earlier study on plutonium disposition at the Savannah River Site, Clements said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing the export license request from the Department of Energy and the request from Greenpeace, said Sue Gagner, a spokeswoman for the commission.
Earlier, when the Department of Energy applied for the license, spokesman Joe Davis rejected suggestions the shipments posed a terrorist risk.
-------- depleted uranium
Tokyo: Bush and US Found Guilty of War Crimes
by Michael Arvey,
March 16, 2004
OpEd News
http://www.opednews.com/arvey031604_bush_war_Crimes.htm
In the aftermath of World War II, my father, a commissioned Lieutenant in the US Navy, deployed to Japan upon completing a Japanese training course at the then Navy's Japanese Language School at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The entire family accompanied him to Tokyo (where I learned to speak Japanese before I spoke English), whereupon he ended up working as a Navy translator at the Guam War Crime Trials. Although the Japanese trials were the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials in the East, they received less notice, lacking the horror of gas chambers and other Nazi mass atrocities. Many of the islands in Japan's archipelago underwent their own separate trials. The trials in Tokyo, which prosecuted the Imperial Army's top brass, was the most well known.
Luckily for Guam's Japanese defendants, my father was born with a penchant and a flair for languages, and could learn a language more quickly than I can read a book. I wax hyperbolic, yet it was upon his nuanced interpretive skills that Japanese soldiers received an accurate vetting in that muggy, wan courtroom.
Although he passed long ago, I wonder how he would react to the March 13, 2004 findings of a citizen's International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan at Tokyo, The People v. George W. Bush. After a two year investigation, the tribunal has found President Bush guilty of war crimes resultant to US attacks against Afghanistan in 2001. (See the entire 74-page document presented at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5855.htm)
Nao Shimoyachi, The Japan Times, March 13, reported Bush was found guilty "for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms," and the "tribunal also issued recommendations for banning depleted uranium shells and other weapons that indiscriminately harm people." Anyone hear about this in the US press?
It is appropriately ironic that the tribunal consisted primarily of Japanese citizens, lawyers and professors joined by a small contingent from Germany and the US. My father never had to translate war crime issues such as the use of depleted uranium, cluster bombs, and daisy cutters--only issues such as cannibalism, murder and torture. He would be surprised that the tribunal found the US and Bush guilty of torturing Afghani prisoners of war, however, presumably because the US has long touted itself as a civilized nation. What he wouldn't be surprised at, though, is the charge that the US used illegal weapons of war. The US was guilty of this action in 1945.
The recent Tokyo tribunal, guided by the principles of International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law, found President George Bush guilty of the following crimes:
a.. for waging a war of aggression against Afghanistan and its people;
b.. for the use of weapons prohibited by the laws of warfare causing death and destruction to the Afghani people;
c.. for crimes against humanity resulting in inhumane acts affecting large sections of the population caused by the military invasion, bombing and lack of humanitarian relief;
d.. for the torture and killings of prisoners of war who has surrendered, and for their detention and deportation;
e.. for the crime of "omnicide," the extermination of life, contamination of air, water and food resources, and the irreversible alteration of the genetic code of living organisms as a consequence of the use of radioactive munitions, further affecting other countries in the region;
f.. for exposing soldiers of the coalition forces to radioactive contamination, hazarding their lives, their physiology, and that of their future progeny by the irreversible alteration of their genetic code. The tribunal's summation delineates that the principles of International Law have clearly banned weapons falling into these categories:
a. Their use has indiscriminate effects;
b. Their use is out of proportion with the pursuit of military objectives;
c. Their use adversely affects the environment in a widespread, long term and severe manner;
d. Their use causes superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.
By these definitions, the weapons unleashed upon Afganistan are deemed illegal (US aggression against Iraq dovetails here as well), and therefore the Commander-in Chief of the US is guilty of war crimes.
The tribunal's judgment concludes: "If truth is known, tyranny and injustice will be defeated. The Tribunal has performed its judicial task. It is now for people to ensure implementation of this verdict." With such lawlessness prevailing in governments that engage in illegal wars, the pursuit of justice would appear to rest upon the shoulders of citizens worldwide.
For my father's sake, it is fitting that one war crime trial was enough in his lifetime, and he didn't have to translate the machinations of President George W. Bush before an international court. As for the rest of the world, how to implement?
Michael Arvey writes from Colorado.
----
Uranium shipments set to begin this month
March 16, 2004
By: Paul Parson
Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/031604/new_20040316039.shtml
Up to 2,900 depleted uranium hexafluoride cylinders are expected to be shipped out of Oak Ridge to Piketon, Ohio, by Sept. 30 - the end of the current fiscal year. It's part of an agreement the Department of Energy has reached with Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency. Beginning later this month, the cylinders will be loaded onto trucks for highway transport from the Oak Ridge K-25 site to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
"We are confident of the safety of these shipments and have worked closely with the states of Ohio and Tennessee and the commonwealth of Kentucky to plan this effort," said Gerald Boyd, manager of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office.
In addition, shipments of the remaining stockpile of cylinders - around 3,000 - are expected to occur in FY 2005 under a separate agreement with Ohio, according to DOE officials.
Depleted uranium hexafluoride is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, where uranium is ultimately processed into nuclear reactor fuel and weapons-grade material. While DOE's shipment figures add up to around 6,000 cylinders, some officials previously told The Oak Ridger there were around 4,800 cylinders that were actually filled with depleted uranium hexafluoride at K-25.
While DOE won't confirm the transportation route, Oak Ridge Turnpike reportedly won't be used. Based on K-25's location, the cylinders could possibly be transported off the federal government's Oak Ridge Reservation via Bear Creek Road, which runs past the Y-12 National Security Complex; Bethel Valley Road, beside Oak Ridge National Laboratory; or state Highway 58 to Interstate 40 east.
Officials said the shipment route for the cylinders has been coordinated with respective environmental, emergency management and radiological health organizations in Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. In addition, contingency plans for these shipments have been developed, and DOE staff has conducted training of more than 500 emergency response personnel along the route.
DOE and the participating states plan to monitor and track the shipments between the K-25 and Portsmouth sites. According to a DOE document, the cylinders will not be in transport for more than 10 consecutive hours.
Transportation of the cylinders is being managed by Bechtel Jacobs Co., which oversees cleanup work for DOE in Oak Ridge.
-------- india / pakistan
Powell to Seek Nuclear Details From Pakistan
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60215-2004Mar15.html
NEW DELHI, March 15 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Monday that he planned to press Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to disclose whether his country's probe of a nuclear trafficking network blamed on scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had uncovered the involvement of other Pakistani officials.
Powell, speaking to reporters on his plane shortly before arriving here Monday night to begin a swing through South Asia, said he was seeking a detailed briefing on "what else they may have learned about the network" that he had not "been made aware of through normal intelligence channels."
In particular, Powell said, he would "be interested to see whether there is any involvement of past officials or any official involvement in any of this over the years. I think that is something the government of Pakistan should look into and I think is looking into."
The scope of Khan's dealings suggest that key members of the Pakistani military, intelligence services or government may have aided or ignored Khan's efforts to peddle nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea. But Bush administration officials have been wary of probing too deeply because the United States needs Pakistan's assistance in the search for Osama bin Laden and members of his al Qaeda network.
Powell said that the administration wants even greater Pakistani cooperation. "Pakistan has undertaken a number of operations recently along the border . . . and we just want to see them do more of that," he said. Referring to the militia that once ruled most of Pakistan's neighbor, Afghanistan, he said, "We want to see if they can do a better job of apprehending Taliban persons who we might be able to identify for them."
Khan, who long ran Pakistan's main nuclear weapons plant and is known as the creator of the country's nuclear bomb, acknowledged last month that he had passed nuclear secrets without government authorization; Musharraf then pardoned him. The Pakistani government launched an investigation of Khan last year after receiving evidence from the United States.
Powell is to hold talks with Indian officials on boosting U.S. exports to India and about the growing thaw between Pakistan and India. Powell also is to discuss how to implement an agreement in which the United States will help India with its nuclear energy and space technology in return for India's promise to use the aid for peaceful purposes and to help block the spread of dangerous weapons.
Powell noted that tensions have eased enough between Pakistan and India that they have begun a series of cricket matches this week. But he arrived the day after India's Foreign Ministry rejected Musharraf's insistence that the disputed region of Kashmir was the central issue dividing the countries.
Over the weekend, Musharraf said India and Pakistan must resolve the 56-year conflict over Kashmir in order for the two nuclear powers to resolve their differences.
Powell also has scheduled a visit to Afghanistan to confer with Afghan leaders about their preparations for an election and efforts by the central government to win greater control -- and tax revenue -- from areas now controlled by regional military leaders.
--------
Pakistani's Nuclear Earnings: $100 Million
March 16, 2004
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/asia/16NUKE.html
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 15 - The Bush administration said Monday that the clandestine network created by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, netted $100 million for the technology it sold to Libya alone, and for the first time officials displayed a carefully selected sample of the type of equipment that the network sold to arm Libya, Iran and North Korea.
Under extraordinary security - guards with automatic weapons stationed every few yards - officials showed reporters the most basic of the high-speed centrifuges that Dr. Khan marketed to countries seeking to enrich uranium for bomb fuel. Many of the centrifuges, flown out of Libya and stored here at one of America's first nuclear weapons laboratories, were still in their original packing crates.
But the most critical components shipped out of Tripoli - including 4,000 more advanced centrifuges and the drawings Dr. Khan sold showing how to turn the uranium into crude warheads - were kept out of view. So were labels and other evidence that would link specific products to Pakistan, Germany, Malaysia and a dozen other countries where Dr. Khan's network of suppliers and manufacturers operated over the past decade.
North Korea and Iran are believed to have purchased essentially the same package of technology that Libya obtained after negotiating with Dr. Khan in the mid-1990's.
The event here on Monday was part of a weeklong effort by the administration to trumpet what it views as one of its biggest foreign-policy accomplishments growing out of the invasion of Iraq a year ago.
"We've had a huge success here," said Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, who is in charge of overseeing the American nuclear stockpile. Surrounded by the cache of nuclear equipment, Mr. Abraham argued that the decision announced in December by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to disarm completely and rapidly came because of "the resolve that we and others conveyed in Iraq, which has forced countries to make a choice."
Mr. Abraham said that virtually all of the 55,000 pounds of nuclear gear already brought out of Libya, which appears headed to a lifting of most American economic sanctions next month, now rests here, behind barbed-wire fences in the hills of eastern Tennessee.
The equipment, he said, was "the largest recovery, by weight, ever conducted under U.S nonproliferation efforts" but was "just the tip of the iceberg" because a shipload of Libyan equipment is currently sailing to the United States.
Such work, he said, "spells out our commitment to winning the war against terrorism."
Libya never began to produce enriched uranium, though experts here said that if assembled, the equipment that the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other nations have recovered could have produced enough fuel to make up to 10 nuclear weapons a year.
Libya had obtained a bit less than half of the 10,000 centrifuges it hoped to operate, before determining that the program was not worth the diplomatic cost. "The program was much more advanced than we assessed," Robert Joseph, who heads counterproliferation efforts in the National Security Council, said here. "It was much larger than we assessed."
The $100 million estimate was nearly twice as high as the highest previous estimate of what Libya paid for its nuclear technology. That figure does not include what Iran and North Korea or other customers of the Khan network that the officials declined to identify Monday, citing continuing investigations, paid to the network of suppliers.
On Saturday, Iran announced a freeze on inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to protest the terms of a resolution that chided the country for failing to cooperate fully with inspectors. On Monday, the head of the agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in Washington that Iran had changed its position and would allow the inspections to resume on March 27.
The $100 million figure does, however, explain how a government scientist like Mr. Khan could afford a lavish lifestyle, in Pakistan, in homes around the world and at his hotel in Mali. One official noted that given the relatively small number of principal players in the Khan network - maybe a dozen people in all - it "made it a very lucrative trade."
"The network's financial dealings were deliberately complex and we do not yet have a complete picture," said Jim Wilkinson, a deputy national security adviser who made the trip here. "The developing picture, however, indicates that the Khan network received at least $100 million for supplying technology, equipment and know-how" to Libya, he said. "It was truly one-stop shopping."
Under a tent in a parking lot of the heavily guarded complex here, officials set up a display of dozens of large wooden packing crates that contained Libya's disassembled nuclear program, as well as small number of items that they had declassified. Among them were four aluminum centrifuges, called P-1's, the nomenclature for the first generation of Pakistani centrifuges based on a design that Dr. Khan stole from Europe and used to make the uranium for the first Pakistani nuclear weapons.
Gleaming, the aluminum tubes stood more than six feet tall, with three pipes coming out the top of each. The centrifuges, basically hollow metal tubes, spin at the speed of sound to separate uranium 235 - which is used as the main ingredient for bombs - from unneeded uranium 238.
In front of the display lay a six-foot-long piece of cascade piping - the line that in an operating plant would tie the centrifuges together. A set of thousands of centrifuges, called a cascade, concentrates the rare U-235 isotope to make potent bomb fuel. Each centrifuge in a cascade makes the uranium a little more enriched in the U-235 isotope.
-------
Powell Seeks Answers on Pakistan Nukes
By GEORGE GEDDA
Tuesday March 16, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Powell.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3867954,00.html
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday he will ask Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this week whether Pakistani officials aided rogue scientist A.Q. Khan in leaking nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Powell also waded into the growing U.S. political dispute over American companies sending jobs overseas, asking India to help create more jobs in the United States by opening its markets to more U.S. exports. But he said that was not a precondition for the continued outsourcing of American jobs to India.
``There is no quid pro quo here,'' Powell told reporters after discussing the sticky subject with Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha.
On Pakistan, Powell said he would ask Pakistan's president about the black market nuclear network headed by Khan.
``We can't be satisfied until this entire network is gone, branch and root,'' Powell said. He later met with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Seeking to cut costs, companies from the United States and other Western countries have hired about 170,000 workers in India for jobs such as payroll accounting, telemarketing and customer support services.
Powell said that despite job losses in the United States, outsourcing will continue.
``These kinds of dislocations will take place and we have to minimize these dislocations and provide more opportunities for workers,'' he said.
Sinha said the two sides agreed to discuss the situation further.
``We will not allow this or any other issue to create any misunderstanding between us,'' Sinha said.
Powell said the U.S. response should not be to prevent American firms from exporting jobs but to train young Americans in skills needed by the rest of the world.
Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for helping it become the first Islamic country with nuclear weapons, appeared on television seven weeks ago and disclosed his role in selling nuclear secrets to foreign governments. He said he was solely responsible - an assertion that has been greeted with widespread disbelief.
Musharraf has told U.S. officials that the Pakistani government was not in league with Khan's black market operation.
But Powell said he wondered whether individual officials collaborated with Khan. The question, he said, is ``who else was involved in that network, was involved within past Pakistani governments or anything that might be taking place of a continuing nature.''
Musharraf fueled suspicion about complicity of Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies in Khan's operation when he pardoned the scientist 24
hours after his confession. The White House then that Pakistani officials had broken up the network.
As for U.S. relations with India, Sinha said ties have never been better in more than 50 years of Indian independence.
The most obvious breakthrough was a U.S.-Indian agreement reached in January to increase technology cooperation, permitting U.S. exports of sensitive civil nuclear and civilian space equipment. In return, India agreed to strengthen its own controls on the export of sensitive technology to other countries.
Powell took a break from his official talks here in late afternoon when he fielded questions from Indian teenagers for a program to be aired on ND-TV, a local station.
One questioner drew applause from his peers when he suggested that the United States was being hypocritical in continuing to possess nuclear weapons while demanding that other nations foreswear such armaments.
Powell said the U.S. arsenal has diminished sharply since his days as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990's when the country's nuclear repository numbered 28,000 weapons.
``I hope for the day when no one has nuclear weapons because no one has a need for them,'' Powell said. ``But they can't all suddenly go away unfortunately because there is still the requirement for a deterrent.''
-------- iran
UN Nuclear Chief Says the Ball Is in Iran's Court
March 16, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran-elbaradei.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency called on Iran on Tuesday to help him prove Tehran's nuclear program was for peaceful purposes and not aimed -- as Washington contends -- at building bombs.
``I trust that Iran understands the importance to ... create confidence,'' Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters after meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. ``Confidence is very important. It takes time.''
``The ball is in Iran's court,'' ElBaradei told reporters during the flight to Washington, where he is on a four-day official visit.
ElBaradei said after the meeting with Armitage he hoped to report good progress in understanding Tehran's nuclear program at the IAEA's board of governors meeting in June.
``The June report is a crucial report,'' he said.
The IAEA board passed a resolution on Saturday that stopped short of reporting Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, but ``deplores'' Iran's failure to disclose information on sensitive technology like the advanced ``P2'' centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium.
It deferred a decision on how to respond to those omissions until June -- when it could opt for a council report.
ElBaradei described the revelation about the P2 -- which Tehran failed to declare in an October dossier it described at the time as complete -- as a ``setback.''
``However, Iranian authorities understand that they now need to come with all the details of their program in a prompt manner if we were to report positively (on) Iran,'' he said.
IRAN BLAMES U.S. 'BULLYING'
Iran was so infuriated by the draft version of the resolution -- which it said was the result of U.S. ``bullying'' -- that it canceled a visit to Tehran by IAEA inspectors scheduled for Friday. It relented on Monday and said inspectors could return on March 27.
At a State Department briefing, spokesman Adam Ereli said the two-week inspection delay showed ``a continuation of a pattern of delay and deception and denial.''
Thanks to Britain, France and Germany, Saturday's resolution also complimented Iran for suspending uranium enrichment and opening its sites to IAEA inspectors.
The suspension was part of a deal clinched by the three countries -- dubbed the European Union's ``Big Three'' -- in October.
The three have taken a very different approach from Washington to the Iranian issue, preferring to engage Tehran with dialogue and promises of peaceful nuclear technology. The United States wants to isolate and punish the Islamic republic for hiding its uranium-enrichment program for two decades.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, said in a statement released in Paris on Tuesday that the three European countries' efforts to soften the tough U.S.-backed U.N. atomic resolution had ``not been up to our expectations.''
But ElBaradei told reporters on the plane from Washington that if Iran cooperated fully with the U.N. watchdog, the Europeans were determined to take it off the IAEA board's agenda as a special item -- something Tehran has been lobbying hard for.
``The three Europeans said they would like -- if progress is made on the remaining issues, if there are no new revelations -- that the Iran issue would be dealt with like other safeguards issues and not as a special item,'' ElBaradei said.
Several Western diplomats who follow the IAEA say it is too simplistic to portray the United States and the three Europeans as opponents. They say the Big Three and Washington have the same ultimate goal -- an Iran free of nuclear weapons.
--------
Iran Confirms U.N. Nuke Inspections Can Resume
March 16, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran-rohani.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Iran's chief nuclear negotiator confirmed Tuesday that Tehran had agreed to let U.N. nuclear inspectors back into the country on March 27 without any conditions, ending a freeze that Washington had said was an attempt to hide a covert nuclear weapons program.
``March 27 has been decided as the date,'' Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told a news conference in Tokyo, where he is meeting Japanese officials. ``There are no conditions.''
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday that Iran had informed him it would allow nuclear inspectors to return on March 27.
ElBaradei, speaking in Washington, said he regretted the interruption in the inspections but believed the date set for resumption was ``still within our time schedule.''
The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog condemned Iran Saturday for suspending inspections.
Iran said it had taken the step Friday to show its displeasure at the drafting of an IAEA resolution criticizing it for failing to report sensitive research and development that, the agency argued, could have military use.
The IAEA also said it would decide in June how to respond to the omission, which diplomats said kept the door open for a possible report to the U.N. Security Council and economic sanctions.
Rohani said that, as a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran had the right to seek a nuclear program for peaceful purposes, but said it was not building nuclear weapons.
``We never had intentions to develop nuclear weapons, and we never will,'' Rohani said.
U.S. ALLEGATIONS 'GROUNDLESS'
Rohani also criticized Washington for making false allegations about Tehran's nuclear program.
U.S. officials had said Iran's decision to suspend inspections was a possible attempt to buy time to hide undeclared activities.
``The United States is spreading a lot of groundless talk. With Iraq, they said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but nobody has found them,'' Rohani said.
``If the United States is aware of something that we are hiding, then they should notify the IAEA and we would be glad to have the IAEA inspect us.''
In addition to the NPT, Iran signed in December the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which grants the U.N. agency broader inspection powers and the right to much more information about a country's nuclear program.
Tehran has not ratified the protocol, but Rohani said that it was acting as if the protocol was already in place.
Later Tuesday, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi held talks with Rohani and urged Iran to ratify the protocol.
``We welcome the positive steps Iran has taken toward resolving its nuclear problem... It is important for Iran to ratify the additional protocol to secure international confidence,'' a Japanese official quoted Kawaguchi as telling Rohani.
In his reply, Rohani said the Iranian government would try its best to win public support for ratifying the protocol, according to the Japanese official.
``We must win trust and backing from legislators in order to ratify in parliament,'' Rohani was quoted as saying.
Rohani, due to meet Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday, welcomed the recent ``deepening'' of both economic and political ties between the two nations.
Japan last month sealed a $2 billion deal to develop Iran's Azadegan oil field despite pressure from the United States to back off because of concerns Tehran was developing nuclear weapons.
``Azadegan is a symbol of the economic cooperation between our two nations,'' Rohani told reporters.
Japan, which relies on the Middle East for almost all its oil, had been caught between its desire to develop the Azadegan field and the pressure from the United States, its key security ally.
--------
Iran Allowing Unfettered Nuke Inspections
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 16, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Iran-Nuclear.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Iran's top nuclear negotiator confirmed Tuesday that Tehran would allow international nuclear inspections to resume unconditionally later this month.
Iran had said Saturday that it was indefinitely shutting out IAEA inspectors, after the agency's 35-nation governing board adopted a resolution that said it ``deplores'' recent discoveries of uranium enrichment equipment and other suspicious activities that Iran had failed to reveal.
But the head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Monday that Iran was ready to allow inspectors back into the country starting March 27. Hasan Rowhani, on a three-day visit in Japan, backed that Tuesday.
``It is certain. And it will be without any conditions,'' Rowhani, who also heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said at a news conference in Tokyo.
Tehran insists its nuclear activities are for the generation of electricity, but Washington suspects it has a secret program to build nuclear weapons and had called for even harsher language in the agency's resolution.
Asked about the allegations, Rowhani said: ``The United States has made many groundless statements.'' He reaffirmed Iran's claim that it only wants to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Washington should present to the IAEA any evidence it has to back its suspicions, and inspectors will go and check it, Rowhani said.
Rowhani met with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi later Tuesday. Most of the 2 1/2-hour meeting was devoted to the latest development on nuclear inspections, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Last month, Japan closed an estimated $2 billion deal with the Iranian government to develop the Azadegan oil field, believed to be one of the largest in the Middle East. The United States had opposed because it fears the money could go to nuclear proliferation.
-------- iraq / inspections
Ex-U.N. Inspector Has Harsh Words for Bush
March 16, 2004
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/middleeast/16BLIX.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 15 - Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector, said Monday that the Bush administration convinced itself of the existence of banned weapons based on dubious findings before invading Iraq and was not interested in hearing evidence to the contrary.
"I think they had a set mind," Mr. Blix said on the NBC News program "Today" as he began a ten-day American book tour in the week marking the first anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq.
"They wanted to come to the conclusion that there were weapons," he said. "Like the former days of the witch hunt, they are convinced that they exist, and if you see a black cat, well, that's evidence of the witch."
In a talk to a crowd of 1,200 people on Monday night at New York University, Mr. Blix said he did not share the Bush administrations' view that the war had made the world a safer place.
"Sorry to say it doesn't look that way," he said. "If the aim was to send a signal to terrorists that we are determined to take you on, that has not succeeded. In Iraq, it has bred a lot of terrorism and a lot of hatred to the Western world."
Speaking more assertively on "Today" about the Iraq war than he does in "Disarming Iraq," his new book, Mr. Blix charged the Bush administration with invading Iraq as retaliation for the terrorism strikes on the United States, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attackers.
"So in a way, you could say that Iraq was perhaps as much punitive as it was pre-emptive," he said. "It was a reaction to 9/11 that we have to strike some theoretical, hypothetical links between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists. That was wrong. There wasn't anything."
Mr. Blix said the Americans and British depended too much on defectors and exercised too little critical judgment in assessing their information. "The C.I.A. certainly is very used to debriefing defectors, so they must have had a critical mind," he said, "but they also knew what they wanted to hear at the top."
Mr. Blix, 75, a Swedish constitutional lawyer and the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997, came out of retirement three years ago to head up the United Nations inspection team in Iraq.
In the book, written in the same judicious and patient style that Bush administration officials disparaged when they criticized his approach to inspections, Mr. Blix concedes that as late as a month before the war, he still thought the Iraqis were concealing banned weapons.
He limits his judgment on whether the Americans and British manipulated intelligence to saying only that it was "probable that the governments were conscious that they were exaggerating the risks they saw in order to get the political support they would not otherwise have had."
Speaking of Mr. Bush and his principal ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, he writes, "I am not suggesting that Blair and Bush spoke in bad faith, but I am suggesting that it would not have taken much critical thinking on their own part or the part of their close advisers to prevent statements that misled the public."
In more pointed passages, he identifies Vice President Dick Cheney as his chief tormentor in the White House, saying he was "disdainful" of the inspection process.
In a meeting with Mr. Cheney in October 2002, Mr. Blix writes, "He stated his position that inspections, if they do not give results, cannot go on forever and said the U.S. was `ready to discredit inspections in favor of disarmament.'
"A pretty straight way, I thought, of saying that if we did not soon find the weapons of mass destruction that the U.S. was convinced Iraq possessed (though they did not know where), the U.S. would be ready to say that the inspectors were useless and embark on disarmament by other means."
--------
A Vindicated Hans Blix Returns to U.S.
March 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Blix-is-Back.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have lost credibility, the world isn't safer now that Saddam Hussein is out of power and it was clear 10 months ago that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to Hans Blix, the former U.N. weapons inspector who returned to New York on the one-year anniversary of the war.
Blix, who was often vilified by supporters and opponents of an invasion in the run-up to the Iraq war, left his post at the United Nations last June at a time when many held out hope that biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons could be found by U.S. troops in Iraq.
But dozens of search teams over the last year have came up empty handed and much of the initial resources devoted to the hunt have since been reallocated.
In an address Monday at New York University, Blix said the United States should have known months ago that there were no weapons to be found.
``By May I knew there was nothing because the Americans had interrogated so many Iraqis by then and even offered money and still they found nothing.''
On a speaking tour for his new book ``Disarming Iraq,'' Blix offered some tough assessments of American accomplishments in Iraq and suggested that the United States was motivated to go to war because of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
``It was a reaction to 9/11 that we have to strike some theoretical, hypothetical links between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists. That was wrong. There wasn't anything,'' he said in an interview with NBC's ``Today'' show.
And he disagreed that the war had made the world a safer place.
``Sorry to say it doesn't look that way. If the message was to terrorists that we are willing to take you on, then that has not succeeded. In Iraq, it has bred a lot of terrorism and a lot of hatred to the Western world,'' he told an audience of 1,200 at NYU.
``Disarmament by war and democracy by occupation are difficult prospects.''
He was especially critical of the United States and Britain for claiming the war was meant to uphold U.N. resolutions when the rest of the Security Council refused to back the conflict and he said Bush and Blair ``oversold'' what they knew.
``The moral of this story was clearly a loss of credibility for the leaders of this war and that they didn't think the council mattered, that was a mistake,'' Blix said.
Referring to passages from his book, the 75-year-old Swede identified Vice President Dick Cheney as his No. 1 opponent inside the Bush administration.
In a meeting with Mr. Cheney in October 2002, Blix said he was told the United States 'was ready to discredit inspections in favor of disarmament,' unless Blix's teams were able to find weapons the White House insisted were in Iraq.
Blix's return to the United States, after nine months in Sweden working on the book, was triumphant compared to his quiet departure last June, which was marred by a U.S. refusal to let his inspectors back into Iraq.
Blix spent Monday appearing on TV talk shows and signing copies of his book, which came out this week in the United States.
At NYU, he was introduced by faculty members as a ``real-life hero,'' ``unbiased and critical,'' and his comments drew rounds of thunderous applause during his two hour appearance.
It was a striking contrast to the contentious appearances he made in the U.N. Security Council in the months leading up to the war. At that time, he was often criticized as pro-Iraqi or anti-American because his teams were coming up empty and refusing to blame Saddam for their failures.
Blix said he had been convinced for years that the Iraqis were hiding weapons of mass destruction but began having doubts when intelligence provided by the United States and other countries wasn't producing results. He blamed an over-reliance on defectors and a refusal on the part of the White House to consider the possibility that the intelligence was wrong.
-------- mideast
U.S. showcases gear from Libyan arsenal
March 16, 2004
(AP)
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040315-102151-1199r.htm
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - Claiming one victory in the fight against weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials yesterday displayed a few examples of the tons of nuclear-weapons gear retrieved from Libya.
The display included a dozen of the aluminum casings that would have enclosed high-speed centrifuges to separate weapons fuel from ordinary uranium hexafluoride gas. Guards armed with M-4 assault rifles flanked the display and encircled the tent where officials showed off the haul.
The equipment was part of a shipment of 55,000 pounds of gear the United States flew out of Libya in January, after Col. Moammar Gadhafi agreed to give up his country's nuclear-weapons program.
Libya bought most of its nuclear equipment from an underground supply network led by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program. Mr. Khan admitted this year he sold such equipment to Libya, Iran and North Korea, but Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf immediately pardoned him.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the 50 crates of equipment represented a breakthrough in the fight against the spread of nuclear weapons.
"All of the ingredients were available for a weapons program," Mr. Abraham said. "Happily, this equipment is no longer in Libya."
--------
U.S. Displays Nuclear Parts Given by Libya
Abraham Calls Haul A 'Big, Big Victory'
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61439-2004Mar15.html
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 15 -- The shadowy trading network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was paid $100 million for the nuclear components and bomb designs it delivered to Libya over two decades, Bush administration officials said Monday, as they displayed some of the wares for the first time.
Flanked by guards armed with automatic rifles, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham led journalists past wooden crates containing 50,000 pounds of machine parts used for enriching uranium -- the "tip of the iceberg" of a vastly larger quantity of sensitive technology sold to Libya by Khan and his black-market associates, Abraham said.
"Those are the ingredients that could have provided Libya with nuclear weapons capabilities," Abraham said, gesturing to a web of shiny metal pipes and tubes that were part of a gas-centrifuge machine used to enrich uranium. He described the haul as "the largest recovery, by weight, ever conducted under U.S. nonproliferation efforts."
The nuclear parts -- which Libya voluntarily turned over to the United States earlier this year -- were laid out in rows inside an enormous white tent in a parking lot at the Energy Department's Y-12 National Security Complex in eastern Tennessee. The rare display, witnessed by 45 journalists who were flown to the complex by chartered jet, was intended to call attention to what Abraham called a "big, big victory" in the administration's effort to combat weapons of mass destruction: Libya's unilateral decision to give up its unconventional weapons.
White House officials have hailed Libya's decision as vindication of the administration's tough line against states with unconventional weapons programs. "It is the president's hope that other nations will find an example in Libya's decision to disarm," Abraham said.
White House officials said the parts, in combination with information coming from Libyan weapons scientists, continue to yield important clues about the nature and scope of Khan's smuggling network. The network is now known to have involved suppliers and middlemen working on three continents, as well as training programs for Libyan nuclear technicians in Europe and North Africa.
The $100 million believed to have been pocketed by Khan and a small group of allies "made for a very lucrative trade," said one senior administration official who briefed reporters on the newest findings.
"It was truly one-stop shopping," Jim Wilkinson, a deputy national security adviser, said of the network. "The network took considerable effort to obscure the transfer of funds between the customers and the network's participants."
Libya's decision to disband its weapons program brought about the collapse of Khan's network and the exposure of its links to other states, including Iran and North Korea. Libyan officials made initial overtures to British and U.S. intelligence agencies a year ago, as the United States was poised to begin its invasion of Iraq.
Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi announced his decision to disarm in December, two months after the interception of a Libya-bound freighter carrying parts for thousands of gas centrifuges.
Most of the parts had been manufactured by a Malaysian company in a deal arranged by a Khan business associate, a Sri Lankan named Buhary Syed Abu Tahir. Those centrifuges were part of a larger order of 10,000 machines Khan had agreed to deliver to Libya, administration officials said.
"If [Libya] had gotten that shipment, it would have had enough components to make weapons-grade uranium, as well as the designs to make a weapon," said an administration official who briefed reporters about Libya's program.
U.S. investigators say the nuclear-bomb design provided to Libya by Khan's network was essentially a bonus, something thrown into the package by Khan to sweeten the deal. The apparent casualness with which the network gave out weapons blueprints has fueled fears among U.S. and European officials that the network also provided the designs to other known clients -- notably North Korea and Iran. Both countries have denied receiving nuclear weapons know-how from Khan.
The weapons designs are in U.S. custody, along with the thousands of highly sensitive components that were flown out of Libya in January and February. A ship containing thousands of additional parts is steaming toward the United States, the officials said.
"By any objective measure, the United States and the nations of the civilized world are safer as a result of these efforts to secure and remove Libya's nuclear materials," Abraham said. "Libya itself is safer, too."
-------- russia
Russian nuclear warheads help to power US
Story by Nigel Hunt
REUTERS USA:
March 16, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24297/story.htm
LOS ANGELES - Few Americans realize that uranium once intended to destroy their civilization is now helping to keep it very much alive by powering televisions, microwaving dinners and chilling beer.
Uranium extracted from Russian nuclear warheads helps supply about 10 percent of U.S. electricity, according to USEC Inc. (USU.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , which has charge of the "Megatons to Megawatts" project that has helped Russia reap profits from previously loss-making nuclear disarmament. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company purchases uranium taken from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads under a 1993 U.S.-Russian nonproliferation agreement.
The treaty was designed to lower the risk of the Russian uranium falling into the wrong hands and posing a security risk. The highly enriched mineral from the warheads is diluted in Russia prior to shipment to the United States.
USEC then sells the uranium to operators of nuclear plants that supply about 20 percent of electricity in the United States.
The company is the world's leading supplier of uranium to nuclear power plants. The U.S. government created USEC in the early 1990s as part of its restructuring of its uranium enrichment operation. Privatization was completed in 1998.
USEC sells the grade of uranium used in power plants, known as low enriched uranium, in both the United States and overseas. Sales of its Russian material are limited to the United States.
Chief Executive William Timbers said about half of the uranium used by U.S. nuclear plants currently comes from Russian warheads.
The program is scheduled to run for 20 years. During the first decade, about 8,000 nuclear warheads were dismantled with the uranium extracted and used in U.S. power plants.
PROFITABLE DISARMAMENT
"It has transformed the prior loss-making process of nuclear disarmament into an economically effective one," Valeriy Govorukhin, Russia's deputy minister of atomic energy, said in an interview earlier this year.
"For Russia, this contract has not only contributed to an increase in international security, but has also been an important source for economic growth," he added. USEC had 2003 revenue of $1.46 billion. It reported a modest profit of $10.7 million last year, compared with a 2002 loss of $3.3 million, and its stock has been climbing during the last 12 months.
The company's shares were trading around $8.10 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, near the upper end of its 52-week range of $5.20 to $9.
Timbers said additional Russian uranium would probably be available when the program is due to end, raising the possibility it could be extended.
Such a move would depend on the U.S. and Russian governments because the program was signed at a presidential level.
With power plants' demand for this uranium roughly equal to the supply, the United States would have to return to a method of electricity generation that has been out of favor for more than 20 years to justify expanding the U.S.-Russian program or developing similar ones.
"If there are to be more similar programs with other countries, there needs to be an expansion of demand (for uranium)," Timbers said. "We need additional nuclear power plants."
SAFETY CONCERNS
Nuclear power fell out of favor partly due to safety concerns following an accident in 1979 at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.
Nearly 200,000 people fled their homes and local schools were temporarily closed after operator error resulted in parts of the core beginning to melt and traces of radioactive iodine were detected in nearby communities.
Massive cost overruns at the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire contributed to the bankruptcy of utility Public Service Company of New Hampshire in 1988, further dampening enthusiasm for embarking on such projects.
Sentiment has begun to change, however, as the United States seeks ways to meet growing demand for electricity amid increasing environmental concerns about the greenhouse gases emitted by the leading source, coal-fired power plants.
Nuclear plants emit virtually no greenhouse gases. "New ground is being broken, activity is going on," Timbers said, noting newer designs for nuclear power plants are simpler in design and had lower construction costs.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recently pointed to the development of new "meltdown-proof and proliferation-resistant" nuclear plants as one of the keys to meeting the nation's growing demand for energy.
If the Bush administration's dream becomes a reality, then America's energy future could become increasingly dependent on a legacy from an era when their very existence appeared to be threatened - massive stockpiles of Cold War nuclear weapons.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Training for Nuclear Plant Guards Off
March 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Plant-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nuclear weapons plants have eliminated or reduced training for guards responsible for repelling terrorist attacks, leaving the government unable to guarantee the plants can be adequately defended, the Energy Department's internal watchdog said Tuesday.
One plant has reduced training hours by 40 percent, and some plants conduct tactical training only in classrooms, according to a report from the department's inspector general.
Some contractors fear that injuries among guards during training exercises could reduce bonus payments from the government, the report said. Guards typically receive 320 hours of training.
Only one of 10 plants surveyed, Hanford, Wash., trains guards in the basic use of a shotgun, according to the report. None of the plants teaches guards how to rappel down buildings or cliffs because of concerns that guards might be injured. The report noted that one guard died rappelling in 1995. ``Inconsistent training methods may increase the risk that the department's protective forces will not be able to safely respond to security incidents or will use excessive levels of force,'' said the report prepared by Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman's office.
It said changes in training weren't coordinated. At some plants training was deemed too dangerous; other plants continued to offer the same exercises. Investigators interviewed instructors who ``could not understand how personnel at one site could deem a practice acceptable while others would refuse to administer the block of training using prescribed levels of force.''
The National Nuclear Security Administration, which protects nuclear plants, acknowledged in a letter responding to the inspector general that training for guards has suffered because of overtime demands at weapons plants. It promised to review training to make sure it was adequate.
The criticisms were the latest leveled against the government's ability to protect nuclear facilities, long considered prime targets for espionage and terrorist attacks.
The inspector general complained in January that security guards who repelled four simulated terrorist attacks at the Y-12 weapons plant in Tennessee had been tipped in advance. The plant processes parts for nuclear weapons and maintains vast supplies of bomb-grade uranium.
That earlier report determined that at least two guards defending the mock attacks had been allowed to look at computer simulations one day before the attacks, and it also uncovered more evidence of cheating during mock attacks against U.S. nuclear plants over the past two decades.
The newest report said some of the nation's weapons plants aren't adequately training guards how to use handcuffs, fight hand-to-hand or defend against terrorists in vehicles. In some cases, mock fighting during exercises is performed in slow motion to avoid injuries.
``Defense tactics training should be as realistic as possible,'' the inspector general's report said. ``Anything less may rob the trainee of the exposure to the levels of force, panic, and confusion that are usually present during an actual attack and increase the possibility of an inappropriate response in high stress situations.''
At some weapons plants, for example, instructors used wooden mock-ups or removed windshields from the vehicles of mock terrorists for safety. But experts said that prevents guards from learning how glass affects gunfire or the visibility of a target inside.
The report said all 10 weapons plants surveyed have reduced guard training in at least two important areas.
The plants were the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; the Nevada Test Site near Nellis Air Force Base; the Oak Ridge Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site near Denver; the Hanford Site; Sandia National Laboratories in California; the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
On the Net:
Inspector General's report: http://www.ig.doe.gov/pdf/ig-0641.pdf
-------- new york
MOUNTAIN VIEWS: STATE DUMPS MORE TOXIC WASTE ON US, HUDSON RIVER PCBs ARE JUST PILING ON
By John Hanchette
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com
March 16 2004
http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/hanchette105.html
OLEAN -- About 35 years ago, in the late 1960s, I bought a roomy old house on Pletcher Road in the Town of Lewiston. It was the original Pletcher farmhouse built in the 19th century.
The rural land around it seemed abundant and gentle. The soil was rich. The air was fresh. The lawn was huge and good for touch football. An abandoned orchard out back still produced fruit, huge English walnut trees dropped annual bounty, and a small pond just right for hockey during winter freezings pleased me, my kids and the nimble family black lab assigned to play defense for both sides. The well-regarded Lewiston-Porter High School was nearby, almost within walking distance. The couple I sold the house to in 1977 turned it into a successful bed-and-breakfast.
Pletcher Road is now a typical crowded suburban street, with new houses cheek-by-jowl, toys in the driveways and busy traffic. But to this day, that peaceful old farmhouse remains my favorite of all the dwellings I have ever lived in. I carry its picture in my wallet.
The only misgivings I ever harbored about the area centered on a former federal property about a mile down the road toward Model City -- a dump site rumored to harbor ample toxic wastes and radioactive leavings of the Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb. The health authorities frequently assured one and all that nothing harmful was present. Not to worry, they routinely counseled -- only harmless levels of normal "background radiation" had ever been measured. Still, every once in awhile one would notice helmeted and visored men in heavy white or yellow protective gear wielding Geiger counters and taking spot-check radiation measurements near the site.
Those misgivings have apparently blossomed and multiplied in northern Niagara County in recent years. If you are reading this on day of publication -- Tuesday, March 16 -- then be aware a 6 p.m. meeting in the Lew-Port High School auditorium is expected to be overflowing, raucous and key in determining the future health, welfare and peace of mind of thousands of Niagarans who want to know just what kind of hideous substances will be buried beneath the neighboring earth.
The state's Department of Environmental Conservation is receiving public commentary on a hazardous waste "siting plan," which would formally list 700-plus Model City acres managed by the huge Chemical Waste Management conglomerate just off Balmer Road as the only government-approved toxic waste disposal location in the entire Northeast.
Local residents can be forgiven for believing the impact hearing is the obvious child of outrage.
The DEC's original brilliant idea was to hold public commentary meetings on the controversial site plan in places like New Paltz and Long Island and other locations hundreds of miles away -- eschewing the obvious duty to let residents in the towns of Porter and Lewiston learn what's up and have their say. Only a pre-Christmas outcry by the Sierra Club and a local activist group called Residents for Responsible Government forced tonight's commentary session.
The Residents for Responsible Government are set to raise hell about several provisions of the siting plan that they consider dangerous, misleading, unhealthy and unfair:
a.. It pretends to meet federal environmental requirements for "geographical dispersion" of hazardous waste facilities, but the alternative disposal sites mentioned are either closed, shut down by health authorities, or licensed only for the limited use of on-site owners.
b.. It makes no mention of health concerns or consequences.
c.. It flouts federal and state environmental law language requiring "equitable distribution" of toxic waste disposal sites by leaving the Chemical Waste Management acreage the only such licensed location in not only New York State but the entire Northeast.
d.. It leaves in place the current odious circumstance of northern Niagara County being the only government-approved spot on the map that receives hazardous toxic waste from 30 states and Canada.
Sierra Club official Charles Lamb, of nearby Youngstown, believes the real bombshell set to go off at the impact hearing is a prospect not even mentioned in the 50-page siting plan: Is CWM's Model City acreage the intended dumping ground for 650 tons of poisonous PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) to be dredged from the upper Hudson River?
CWM has refrained from commenting on the destination of the huge volume of the toxic river bottom removal, but Lamb thinks as many as 176,000 truckloads of the dredged material may be headed our way if the siting is approved. He writes in the "Trailblazer" Sierra Club newsletter that the DEC -- in its see-no-evil impact statement -- is ignoring results that would be disastrous: "There is no concern whatsoever about putting toxic wastes on top of already contaminated areas and the unknown dangers this may pose."
PCBs -- usually found as an oily substance -- were for decades used by utilities and manufacturing firms as a coolant and very efficient insulator. But in recent years scientists have found them carcinogenic to lab animals, and studies of people in Japan and Taiwan who unknowingly ingested the contaminant showed higher cancer mortality and increased frequency of lung infections. The "New England Journal of Medicine" reported eight years ago that children whose mothers ate substantial quantities of Great Lakes fish contaminated with PCBs exhibited more behavioral problems and lower intelligence than those whose mothers did not.
The Environmental Protection Agency lists PCBs as "probably human carcinogens" and ranks them among the top 10 percent of chemicals toxic to human health. The federal government banned PCBs in 1977 as an unacceptable pollutant and gave the EPA policing and cleanup powers.
But before it did, the mammoth General Electric Co. -- for three decades between 1947 and 1977 -- dumped almost 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the bed of the upper Hudson River along a 41-mile stretch north of Albany. Sediment drifts. In 1983 the EPA designated 200 miles of the upper Hudson an official federal toxic Superfund site. Three years ago the EPA ordered GE to dredge the gunk from the waterway and pay for its removal -- a long, complicated job that may cost GE more than half-a-billion dollars.
Just the math is astounding. In all, GE will have to complete removal of almost 2.7 million cubic yards of sediment. This amounts to about 40 football fields 30 feet deep.
Lewiston and Porter residents are understandably concerned this may end up in their backyards. While CWM is mum, members of Residents for Responsible Government report conversations with truckers who say they have already been unofficially told by the company there may be chances to bid on such lucrative hauling contracts, and who have been scoping out the Model City site.
Niagara County has long been a national dumping ground for toxic wastes. Its residents are now paying the balloon mortgage on citizen lethargy combined with government secrecy.
The CWM site is part of a 7,500-acre expanse that was top secret during World War II. The federal government -- through the Army -- purchased the acreage in 1942 from mostly farmers, some willing and some who had to be kicked off their land, to build the old Army TNT plant for wartime purposes. After the Army stopped making TNT, the site was used to test rocket fuel, store chemical weapons and as a dump for radioactive, biological and chemical wastes.
It was formally known as the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. The land is just north of the Tuscarora Indian Reservation. Much of it is swampy and unsuited to burial of waste -- even non-toxic waste. Even state and federal government officials are nervous about seeking to learn the measure of previous folly, for to dig it up to catalog what's there is to unearth anew a Pandora's box of health hazards.
Gradually the property was divided and transferred or sold to other government agencies, citizens, municipalities and private waste removal businesses -- including CWM.
Some of the stuff buried there is downright insulting to Niagarans.
For instance, after the still-untraced anthrax letter bombs (which killed several people) were mailed to politicians and celebrities in the months following Sept. 11, the desk used by NBC television news anchor Tom Brokaw -- an anthrax addressee -- was pulverized and shipped to the CWM site for burial. Brokaw was never infected with the deadly microbe, and his desk tested clean, but it was disposed of just in case. To those who thought of Niagara County first in getting rid of this questionable artifact -- thanks a lot.
And somewhere on the former Lake Ontario Ordnance Works site are the remains of lab animals used in dubious University of Rochester radiation experiments involving plutonium, one of the most toxic elements known to man.
Federal records show a huge cache of radioactive radium-226 -- residues from the processing of pitchblende ore -- is buried only 2,500 yards from Lew-Port High School, where the site plan meeting takes place.
The last time I glimpsed my Pletcher Road house as an owner was shortly after Christmas of 1976 when my oldest son and I drove away in my car. I was headed to Florida to start a new job. He was headed for the airport to return to college. The old farmhouse was pristine in its mantle of snow, winter night air and clear frosty moonlight. The house resembled a Christmas card. At the end of the driveway, I idled the car. My son and I cried silently in recognition we would live there no more.
Were I still a resident of Pletcher Road, I would be crying anew. Then I would be protesting against this plan like all the furies of hell.
John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years. He can be contacted via e-mail at Hanchette6@aol.com.
-------- tennessee
Uranium shipments set to begin this month
By: Paul Parson
Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/031604/new_20040316039.shtml
Up to 2,900 depleted uranium hexafluoride cylinders are expected to be shipped out of Oak Ridge to Piketon, Ohio, by Sept. 30 - the end of the current fiscal year.
It's part of an agreement the Department of Energy has reached with Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency. Beginning later this month, the cylinders will be loaded onto trucks for highway transport from the Oak Ridge K-25 site to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
"We are confident of the safety of these shipments and have worked closely with the states of Ohio and Tennessee and the commonwealth of Kentucky to plan this effort," said Gerald Boyd, manager of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office.
In addition, shipments of the remaining stockpile of cylinders - around 3,000 - are expected to occur in FY 2005 under a separate agreement with Ohio, according to DOE officials.
Depleted uranium hexafluoride is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, where uranium is ultimately processed into nuclear reactor fuel and weapons-grade material. While DOE's shipment figures add up to around 6,000 cylinders, some officials previously told The Oak Ridger there were around 4,800 cylinders that were actually filled with depleted uranium hexafluoride at K-25.
While DOE won't confirm the transportation route, Oak Ridge Turnpike reportedly won't be used. Based on K-25's location, the cylinders could possibly be transported off the federal government's Oak Ridge Reservation via Bear Creek Road, which runs past the Y-12 National Security Complex; Bethel Valley Road, beside Oak Ridge National Laboratory; or state Highway 58 to Interstate 40 east.
Officials said the shipment route for the cylinders has been coordinated with respective environmental, emergency management and radiological health organizations in Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. In addition, contingency plans for these shipments have been developed, and DOE staff has conducted training of more than 500 emergency response personnel along the route.
DOE and the participating states plan to monitor and track the shipments between the K-25 and Portsmouth sites. According to a DOE document, the cylinders will not be in transport for more than 10 consecutive hours.
Transportation of the cylinders is being managed by Bechtel Jacobs Co., which oversees cleanup work for DOE in Oak Ridge.
-------- vermont
Yankee uprate approved
Tue, 16 Mar 2004
By CAROLYN LORIÉ
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2020307,00.html
BRATTLEBORO --The state has cleared the way for Entergy Nuclear Corp. to increase the power output by 20 percent at Vermont Yankee power plant in Vernon.
The Public Service Board announced its decision on Monday in a lengthy order containing several stipulations that prompted both supporters and opponents of the power "uprate" to claim the decision as a win.
Vermont Yankee spokesperson Rob Williams said the company was very pleased with the board's decision. "As the board says, 'as conditioned in the order, the power uprate should have minimal additional adverse impacts while at the same time providing added energy to the region and economic benefits to the state of Vermont,'" he said.
The order calls for the plant to undergo an "independent engineering assessment," in addition to the analyses that will be part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission review of the uprate request.
The board also calls for Vermont Yankee to provide assurance that the price of electricity will not increase if the plant is forced to reduce production due to lack of storage space for its spent fuel. In other words, if the uprate creates a situation in which Vermont Yankee had to reduce generation
because it had exhausted its storage capacity, Vermont consumers would not be adversely affected.
Vermont Yankee produces approximately one-third of the state's total electricity. The uprate means that the plant will go from generating about 510 megawatts to 620.
The proposed uprate is the most allowed by federal law and will be among the highest increases ever done. This is something that concerns opponents, considering that Vermont Yankee, which went on line in 1972, is among the oldest plants in the nation. Its operating license expires in 2012.
Although Entergy, which purchased the plant in July 2002, still has to get NRC approval, most consider the uprate all but guaranteed as the commission has never denied an uprate request. The review process is expected to be completed in early 2005.
The board accepted a $20 million memorandum of understanding between Entergy and the state Department of Public Service, but rejected specific allotments of the funding and ordered the money to go directly into the state's general fund.
Peter Alexander, executive director of the New England Coalition, a nuclear watchdog group that was an intervenor in the uprate case, said he was pleased, despite the fact that the certificate was issued.
"We're going to declare this a victory. It's clear that none of these requirements would have been put on the certificate of public good if we had not intervened," he said.
He added, however, that he was disappointed that the board did not take a stronger position regarding, among other things, the call for an independent safety assessment.
Neal Sheehan, NRC spokesperson for Region I, said he could not comment on what exactly the board meant by "independent engineering assessment," until he read the order, which was more than 80 pages long.
There was no comment from Vermont Yankee on the board's call for an independent assessment. "We're still reviewing all the conditions," said Williams.
There has been some criticism of Entergy recently by uprate opponents over the use of the term "independent safety assessment."
According to Paul Blanch, industry whistleblower and expert witness for the coalition, the term refers to a very specific process employed at Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in 1997. That plant underwent a rigorous inspection and was eventually shut down when the owners decided that they could not afford to remedy all the safety problems uncovered by the assessment.
However, Ray Shadis, advisor to the coalition, said the board was smart to use the term "independent engineering assessment," instead of "independent safety assessment" as it does not have the authority to regulate nuclear safety. "[The board] tempered their language. They tied engineering to reliability versus safety," he said.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 states that the NRC has sole control over the regulation of health and safety concerns related to nuclear power. Had the board worded its decision in such a way that it appeared to be directing the commission on matters of nuclear safety, Entergy could have appealed the decision in federal court on the grounds that it was preemptive, said Shadis.
He went on to say that a comprehensive engineering assessment will accomplish the same thing as a similar analysis based on safety. "If there are safety issues hidden in there they will emerge in that study," he said.
Today, the Senate is scheduled to debate a resolution calling for an independent safety assessment. Resolution sponsor Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, applauded the board's decision.
"The board does not appear to be rubber-stamping the work that the NRC has done at other plants and is seeking a safety assessment that meets a higher level," said MacDonald, who also serves on the state's nuclear advisory panel.
Sen. Rod Gander, D-Windham, said that he believed that the Senate would still call for an independent assessment, even though the board's order makes a very similar request. "I think we'll go ahead with renewed vigor in support of the board's decision," he said.
Although most opponents of the uprate expressed support of the board's stipulations, most echoed the sentiments of Alexander, saying that the board did not go far enough.
"We hoped that the public service board would be a little stronger, especially considering the dirty tricks and high jinx that Entergy put on during the process," said Drew Hudson, of Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
Entergy was sanctioned last year by the PSB and required to pay a fine for failing to provide intervenors with information in a timely and efficient manner.
David Deen of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, also an intervenor in the case, said the board supported only one of the four requests made by the council. According to Deen, the plant will now have to shut down as quickly as it can in the event of a cooling tower failure. Under the original wastewater permit, the plant had up to 24 hours to shut down.
The council has also requested that Vermont Yankee assess the reliability and capacity of its cooling towers before the uprate; urged a requirement that the water discharged could not raise the river temperature above 88 degrees Fahrenheit; and asked that the funds agreed upon in the memorandum of understanding be earmarked for the Connecticut River.
According to Deen, none of the requests were supported by the board. "I feel bad that we could not do a better job in terms of the river because we didn't have the resources, but we did the best we could," said Deen.
In an earlier interview, he said that he didn't know if the council could continue to work against the uprate considering its limited resources.
Shadis, however, said that the coalition would continue to fight the uprate on every front including through the NRC, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agency of Natural Resources and in the public arena.
"Some relentless sense of justice wants me to stay fighting. It's the little guys versus the big guys," he said. Carolyn Lorié can reached at clorie@reformer.com
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Yankee uprate OK'd, with conditions
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Rutland Herald Staff
Mar. 16, 2004
http://www.rutlandherald.com/04/Story/80637.html
The Public Service Board gave Entergy Nuclear the green light Monday to retrofit the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to produce 20 percent more power, but added a condition that the plant undergo an "independent engineering assessment" before it starts generating that power.
The board also said Vermont ratepayers need additional protection from possible rate shock, in the event the plant has to shut down early because of lack of storage for its highly radioactive spent fuel.
The board ruled that additional power was good for the New England power grid, and would bring economic benefits to Vermont.
The 150-page ruling, issued at the close of business Monday, pleased Entergy Nuclear officials and to a lesser extent anti-nuclear activists, who had fought the 20 percent power increase and had asked for an "independent safety assessment" by federal regulators to reassure the public of the integrity of the aging reactor.
The board released its letter to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asking for the unique review and analysis.
The PSB said it was concerned that the plant would be less reliable and create more radioactive waste once it started generating an 110 additional megawatts of power. Anti-nuclear critics have been pushing for a similar review for two years.
The board said the $20 million agreement that Entergy Nuclear agreed to in order to gain support from the Douglas administration was actually only $7.7 million. The board added that how the money is spent should be up to the Legislature, as well as the governor, and not paid into special accounts.
"All of us at Entergy Vermont Yankee are pleased that the PSB has approved our proposal to increase power production at our plant," said Entergy Nuclear spokesman Robert Williams. "As the board says, the power uprate should have minimal additional adverse impacts, while at the same time providing additional energy to the region and economic benefits to the state of Vermont."Asked about the independent engineering evaluation, Williams said the ruling contained "a lot of detailed information and it would be imprudent to comment. We're very happy with this order."
The ruling came about two weeks before Entergy Nuclear hoped to start work on the $60 million-plus renovations that the plant will need to produce more power.
The plant will shut down in April for its annual refueling and maintenance outage. This time more than 1,000 additional workers will be hired at the Vernon reactor.
Raymond Shadis, staff advisor for the New England Coalition, the anti-nuclear group which had contested the power increase, said he believed the board had protected Vermonters, in large part, from a large corporation.
"The board did some good things and also made some errors," Shadis said.
He said recent information about problems at other nuclear reactors undergoing similar power increases had been kept from the board by Entergy, and the board had refused to consider the late information because the legal hearings had been completed.
"The board can't talk about safety, but it can talk about reliability," Shadis said, noting that the board rejected the word "safety" in its call for a special review.
According to well-established federal law, nuclear power plants' safety issues are the responsibility of the federal government, not state government.
"This is an antiquated plant with an antiquated design," Shadis said.
"The board was very creative and very wise in stipulating an independent engineering assessment, they side-stepped the federal pre-emption," Shadis said.
"It's not as strong as we would like, but we think it's a win," said Peter Alexander, the executive director of the coalition.
Anti-nuclear activists have been pushing the Public Service Board for more than two years to support an in-depth evaluation, similar to one at the now-closed Maine Yankee nuclear power plant. The Maine review revealed many serious problems that led to the plant's shut down and dismantlement.
Alexander said the NRC put a team of 25 engineers, for a total of 4,000 engineering hours, to review Maine Yankee, while the Public Service Board only asked for four engineers for four weeks at Vermont Yankee.
"It's something, but inadequate, we feel. We're please that we got as much as we did to help protect Vermont against this company that doesn't care," Alexander said.
The board also asked Entergy for further ratepayer protection in the event the plant has to shut down because of lack of storage for its spent nuclear fuel, a problem that is only expected to accelerate under the uprate proposal. Entergy Nuclear only has storage capacity until 2008, while its license runs to 2012.
Shadis said it was too bad that it was the New England Coalition, and not the ratepayers' official watchdog, the Public Service Department, that raised many of the questions that his group did.
"We really did good for a little outfit," Shadis said. "This is a signal victory, we saved the people of Vermont an incredible amount of money."
Sarah Hofmann, the senior attorney with the PSD, said the department was reviewing the lengthy decision and declined to comment late Monday afternoon.
"We're digesting it, and we'll have a statement in the morning," she said.
The department had refused to endorse Entergy's plan until November, saying there was no clear benefit to Vermonters since most of the electricity is expected to go out of state.
The department negotiated what it called a $20 million deal from Entergy to sweeten the benefit to the state; critics called it a thinly disguised bribe.
Paul Blanch, one of the New England Coalition's expert witnesses and a nuclear industry whistleblower, had warned that the power uprate put too much pressure on the old reactor, which he pointed out was grandfathered into current nuclear regulations.
"I really think this was a big win for NEC in that they did get the requested independent assessment and a few other requirements. Exactly what is included in this assessment will be interesting," said Blanch, who calls himself pro-nuclear.
"The real problem is that the plant is admittedly not in compliance with today's NRC regulations and neither Entergy or the NRC have any idea as to the magnitude and risk of this present non-compliance," Blanch said.
David Deen, river steward with the Connecticut River Watershed Council, said
he was disappointed with the decision, which bounced the responsibility of controlling hot water discharges into the Connecticut River to the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
Deen, who is also a state representative from Westminster, said the board "did the worst possible thing" by leaving the revenue-sharing provisions of the power increase to be divided up by the Legislature and the governor, rather than the board.
"For those of use in the Connecticut River valley, there are a lot less of us than in the Chittenden valley," Deen said, referring to the Douglas administration's plan to use a big share of the Entergy Nuclear money to clean up algae blooms in Lake Champlain.
There is a bill pending in the Legislature to use the money to foster economic development in the Connecticut River Valley, in large part offering cheaper electricity to industrial customers reusing old buildings.
Vermont Yankee currently provides one-third of Vermont's electric needs; about half of its generation is sold to Vermont utilities.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
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Power boost meets with mixed reaction from residents
Tue, 16 Mar 2004
By JUSTIN MASON
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2020320,00.html
BRATTLEBORO -- Local activists and officials expressed differing reactions to the conditional approval by the state Public Service Board to authorize Entergy Nuclear to increase Vermont Yankee's output by 20 percent.
Vernon selectboard member and Yankee senior engineer Michael Ball said the uprate will benefit both the state, town and the plant.
"It's a great thing for the town and a great thing for Yankee," he said.
Although he hadn't spoken with other members of the selectboard, Ball was fairly certain they would be in favor of the decision. By next year, the town could be reaping the financial benefits from the uprate, he said.
"We're looking forward to that coming to our town," he said.
Ball said increasing the plant output wouldn't likely affect the plant's safety. He said extensive testing would be conducted by the plant during the increase in order to determine if there were any burgeoning problems that needed to be addressed.
"The plant is still going to be as safe as it was before," he said.
Ball said plant officials have worked hard to ensure that the plant would be able to withstand the additional capacity. He added they would continue to take great precautions to prevent any safety hazards.
"A lot of people have put in thousands of hours during the review process," he said. "It's something that you don't do lightly."
Judith Davidson, a former Dummerston selectman and member of Nuclear Free Vermont, was dismayed by the PSB's decision.
"I'm disappointed that the Public Service Board approved the uprate," she said. "But I'm very glad that they have an independent safety assessment."
Davidson hopes that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn't conduct a "paper and pencil application" review of the plant, but instead conducts an assessment like the one done at Maine Yankee in 1996.
During that review, a team of NRC engineers physically assessed the plant "from top to bottom" and consulted with a group of civilian experts, she said.
"That was a very important piece of the whole plan," she said. "So that (town residents) could have access to the results."
Davidson said she was still concerned over testimony by industry whistleblower Paul Blanch at the PSB's hearing in January. Blanch reported that net suction pumps at the plant could fail as a result of the uprate, which could trigger a cooling accident.
"I have some serious concerns with parts of their uprate plan," Davidson said. "Many engineers question if they can do it."
Derrik Jordan of the Vermont chapter of the Citizen's Awareness Network was also pleased that the PSB included a review order in their decision.
"It sounded like (they) listened the public and responded to some of the citizen's concerns," he said. "That's good to hear."
But Jordan said the NRC might not be independent enough to conduct an unbiased review.
"We're concerned that the NRC is the nuclear industry's lapdog, not the watchdog," he said.
Jordan hopes an aggressive assessment will help put to rest community fears about the plant or expose any of its shortcomings.
"The depth and the scope of their evaluation is what we are concerned about," he said.
Citizen's Action Network member Ned Childs thinks any review of Yankee conducted by the NRC would be a farce. If there is a review of the plant, it should be conducted by a non-partisan group, he said.
"I don't think the NRC can provide an independent assessment," he said. "I don't think NRC is capable of acting as an independent auditor."
Letting the NRC review the plant's safety was like letting "the fox watch the hen house," Childs said.
"They have never shut down a nuclear power plant," he said.
Childs doesn't believe there is any reason for the plant to increase energy output and thinks the public service board bowed to pressure from plant officials who will likely appeal the public service board's review condition, he said. Rather than waiting for NRC to review the plant, Childs thinks Gov. Jim Douglas should order an independent safety assessment.
"That is the very least we could hope for," he said.
Justin Mason can be reached at jmason@reformer.com
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New England Coalition Applauds Vermont Senate
New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution
POST OFFICE BOX 545,
BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT 05302
Contact: Peter Alexander 802-380-3080 Raymond Shadis 207-882-7801
March 16, 2004 FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New England Coalition Applauds Vermont Senate Resolution for In-Depth Assessment at Vermont Yankee.
New England Coalition had words of praise today for the Vermont State Senate for unanimously passing a resolution this morning calling for an Independent Engineering Assessment of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, now owned by Entergy Corporation.
The Senate vote came on the heels of a decision yesterday by the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) granting a Certificate of Public Good for Entergy's application to boost the nuclear power at Vermont Yankee to 120% of its original design capacity. The PSB's order called for an Independent Engineering Assessment of the 31-year old plant.
An in-depth assessment of the plants safety systems is the prudent, right, and conservative thing to do, said Peter Alexander, Executive Director of the New England Coalition (NEC), a Brattleboro-based nuclear watchdog group that was a full intervener in the Uprate case with the PSB. How else could the people of Vermont be reasonably assured that under the extreme conditions of a 20% power uprate the plant could be reliably or safely operated? The Senate has unanimously expressed the will of the people. We hope that the Governor now adds his name to the long list of those calling for an in-depth assessment of the safety systems at the plant.
The Senate resolution calls for an inspection that:
1) Assesses the conformance of the facility to its design and licensing bases, for operating at both 100 percent and 120 percent of its originally intended power production level, including appropriate reviews at the plants site and its corporate offices;
2) Identifies all deviations, exemptions and/or waivers from (a) regulatory requirements applicable to Vermont Yankee and (b) regulatory requirements applicable to a new nuclear reactor (i.e. todays safety regulations) and verifies that adequate safety margins are retained despite the cumulative effect of such deviations, exemptions, and/or waivers for both the present licensed power level and under the proposed extended power uprate;
3) Assesses the facility's operational safety performance giving risk perspectives where appropriate;
4) Evaluates the effectiveness of licensee self-assessments, corrective actions, and improvement plans; and
5) Determines the root cause(s) of safety-significant findings and draws conclusions on overall performance
"These five criteria are identical to the Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) performed in 1996 at Maine Yankee at the request of then Governor Angus King" said Raymond Shadis, Staff Advisor to NEC. "Entergy has been trying to twist the words Independent Safety Assessment around, but the Senate has proven too smart for them. The Vermont Senate has hit the nail on the head. New England Coalition has made it plain from the get-go that this tired old plant needs a thorough physical. What the Senate has done is just great, Shadis said. Good for the people of Vermont."
The Senate resolution originated from the Senate Finance Committee where it was sponsored by Senators MacDonald, Ayer, Gander, and Cummings, the Committee Chair. It was passed 28-0 in two back to back voice votes of the full Senate this morning.
--
S.R. 21.
Consideration was resumed on Senate resolution entitled:
Senate resolution urging state and federal regulatory authorities to proceed with great caution in considering authorization of the proposed extended power uprate at Vermont Yankee.
Thereupon, pending the question, "Shall the resolution be amended as recommended by the Committee on Finance?" Senator MacDonald, on behalf of the Committee on Finance, moved to substitute a proposal of amendment for the proposal of amendment as follows:
Whereas, Vermont Yankee is a 540 megawatt nuclear generating station located in Vernon, Vermont, and
Whereas, Vermont Yankee began operation in 1972, and
Whereas, Vermont Yankee was purchased by Entergy Nuclear in 2002, and
Whereas, Entergy now proposes to perform an extended power uprate of the facility, increasing reactor power and electric output of Vermont Yankee by 20 percent, and
Whereas, Vermont Yankee is one of 103 operating nuclear power plants in the United States, and
Whereas, only 10 nuclear plants have performed an extended power uprate of 13 percent or more, and
Whereas, no nuclear plant as old as Vermont Yankee has ever been granted such a power increase, and Whereas, a reactor power uprate of 20 percent is the maximum permitted limit of extended power uprates, and
Whereas, a 20 percent power uprate for a 32 year old facility is without precedent, and
Whereas, prior to increasing the plants power output, the approval of regulatory bodies, including the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Public Service Board (PSB), is required, and
Whereas, a comprehensive analysis of an uprate proposal requires that federal regulatory authorities have access to a comprehensive and objective inspection report detailing all aspects of Vermont Yankees physical condition and operational status before making any regulatory decisions which can have an impact on the safety of Vermont Yankee employees and the residents of the surrounding communities, and
Whereas, the safety of the Vermont Yankee facility, its employees, and nearby residents is a matter of great concern to Vermont Yankee, to all citizens of Vermont and the General Assembly, and
Whereas, the Public Service Board made its approval of the uprate request on March 15, 2004 contingent on an independent engineering assessment being completed prior to NRC approval, now therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate:
That this legislative body urges the NRC to condition approval of any uprate at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power facility upon performance of an independent engineering assessment being completed at Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee as called for in the Public Service Board ruling and which independently:
1) Assesses the conformance of the facility to its design and licensing bases, for operating at both 100 percent and 120 percent of its originally intended power production level;
2) Identifies all deviations, exemptions and/or waivers from (a) regulatory requirements applicable to Vermont Yankee and (b) regulatory requirements applicable to a new nuclear reactor (i.e. today's safety regulations) and verifies that adequate safety margins are retained despite the cumulative effect of such deviations, exemptions, and/or waivers for both the present licensed power level and under the proposed extended power uprate;
3) Assesses the facility's operational safety performance giving risk perspectives where appropriate;
4) Evaluates the effectiveness of licensee self-assessments, corrective actions, and improvement plans; and
5) Determines the root cause(s) of safety-significant findings and draws conclusions on overall performance, and be it further
Resolved: That the Secretary of the Senate be directed to send copies of this resolution to Nils J. Diaz, NRC Chair, to Governor James H. Douglas, and to David OBrien, Public Service Commissioner.
Which was agreed to.
Thereupon, the recurring question, "Shall the resolution be amended as recommended by Senator MacDonald, as substituted?" was agreed to on a roll call, Yeas 28, Nays 0.
Senator Campbell having demanded the yeas and nays, they were taken and are as follows:
Roll Call
Those Senators who voted in the affirmative were: Ayer, Bartlett, Bloomer, Campbell, Canns, Condos, Cummings, Doyle, Dunne, Gossens, Greenwood, Illuzzi, Kittell, Leddy, Lyons, MacDonald, Maynard, Mayo, Mazza, Miller, Mullin, Munt, Scott, Sears, Shepard, Snelling, Welch, White.
Those Senators who voted in the negative were: None.
Those Senators absent and not voting were: Collins, Gander.
Thereupon, third reading of the resolution was ordered on a roll call, Yeas 28, Nays 0.
Senator Bloomer having demanded the yeas and nays, they were taken and are as follows:
Roll Call
Those Senators who voted in the affirmative were: Ayer, Bartlett, Bloomer, Campbell, Canns, Condos, Cummings, Doyle, Dunne, Gossens, Greenwood, Illuzzi, Kittell, Leddy, Lyons, MacDonald, Maynard, Mayo, Mazza, Miller, Mullin, Munt, Scott, Sears, Shepard, Snelling, Welch, White.
Those Senators who voted in the negative were: None.
Those Senators absent and not voting were: Collins, Gander.
Bill Passed
Peter Alexander New England Coalition PO Box 545 Brattleboro, VT 05302 (802) 257-0336 (802) 380-3080 (cell) www.necnp.org
-------- us nuc waste
Eight Governors Object New Packing Rules For INEEL Waste
March 16, 2004
KIFI News, Idaho
http://www.localnews8.com/home/652641.html
Eight western governors want the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reconsider its decision to relax the packaging standards for plutonium-contaminated waste headed for burial in New Mexico. Under the rule change, the Department of Energy could send radioactive rubble to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad in single-walled steel containers. The waste is temporarily stored in Idaho and other states.
Currently, the drums used to transport the waste have two layers of steel.
The governors say there's no indication the N-R-C seriously considered the possibility that a single-contained package would be less secure in a terrorist attack.
The letter was signed by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and the governors of Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
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Energy Officials Seek Alternate Cleanup Plan for Tennessee Nuclear Waste
By Frank Munger
Tue, Mar. 16, 2004
Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8201543.htm Mar. 15
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - After a long courtship, the government has fallen out of love with "in situ vitrification."
The U.S. Department of Energy wanted to use ISV, a melting technique, to turn old pits of nuclear waste into glass. The idea was to permanently seal the radioactive gunk and keep it from migrating into local waterways.
But, when the estimated cost reached $55 million -- double the original estimate -- DOE began shopping for other environmental technologies.
"We need to cut costs where we can," said Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge.
Money, however, isn't the only issue, at least not according to Bechtel Jacobs. The federal contractor said standing water in the waste trenches raised safety concerns about using the melting technology here.
A water buildup caused an explosion in a 1996 test, but since then, Oak Ridge officials repeatedly said improved ISV techniques could overcome the problem. In late 2002, a Bechtel Jacobs manager said two old trenches near Oak Ridge National Laboratory were "perfect candidates for ISV."
A further review, after the cost estimates grew, apparently convinced officials that ISV wasn't worth the risk.
DOE now plans to use grout injections to stabilize two waste trenches with concrete and stem the leakage.
"After taking a hard look at it, we feel that grouting is equally protective. It will do just as good a job of isolating the radioactivity -- at a much lower cost," said Bob Sleeman, an environmental manager in DOE's Oak Ridge office.
The cost of grouting trenches is estimated at $14 million. That's a projected savings of more than $40 million.
The trenches are located in waste burial grounds a couple of miles from ORNL. The waste area is partly to blame for radioactive discharges reaching the Clinch River and downstream reservoirs.
The old trenches are about the length of a football field. They were used for waste disposal in the 1960s. Each of the trenches received about 9.5 million gallons of liquid nuclear waste. Both were backfilled and covered with asphalt in 1966.
AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc. was the only company to bid on the ISV project, and officials said the lack of competition was disappointing. Sleeman said DOE hoped multiple bidders would help drive down the costs.
If the revised project uses grouting instead of ISV, there should be plenty of competition, he said.
The change in strategy has raised questions. Skeptics have suggested DOE and Bechtel Jacobs are reacting more to tight budgets than concern for the environment.
Bechtel Jacobs is under tremendous pressure to cut cleanup costs to meet the terms of its new five-year contract with DOE.
Before altering the nuclear project, DOE must get approval of state and federal regulators. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concurred with DOE on the earlier ISV plan, which was included in a legally binding "record of decision." That document would have to be amended or superseded by another action.
John Owsley, the state's environmental oversight chief in Oak Ridge, said state officials don't want to waste taxpayer money. But a new approach must still protect human health and environment, he said.
"We will consider it," Owsley said.
Leo Thompson, who heads AMEC's Geomelt Division, said his company tried to work with Bechtel Jacobs to reduce the cost of the project.
The company's original bid in October 2003 was $39.8 million, Thompson said. A few months later, at Bechtel Jacobs' request, AMEC scaled down its proposal and reduced the bid to $32.4 million, he said.
The $55 million figure used by Oak Ridge officials apparently included costs tied to Bechtel Jacobs' administration of the project.
Thompson said he hopes the public understands that grouting the trenches at a lower cost won't provide the same level of treatment offered by AMEC. He said grout would not reach some areas outside the trenches where radioactivity already has spread.
The melting technique would have encapsulated 4,800 cubic yards of soil and waste, Thompson said. The grouting will only address about 2,000 cubic yards, he said.
Both the state and DOE said the goal is to seal the trenches for 200 to 300 years, enough time for most radioactive products there to decay significantly and reduce the potential hazards. Thompson noted that some of the nuclear contaminants, such as plutonium and uranium, would be radioactive for much longer than that.
Everyone agreed that ISV is a more permanent solution, but the official record of decision only deals with the short-lived radioactive materials.
Sleeman said saving money was the main reason for changing the Oak Ridge project. But it was not done just to help Bechtel Jacobs meet terms of its new contract, he said.
"I don't think the contract is the biggest factor," the DOE official said.
Hill said Bechtel Jacobs would not pocket any cost savings. He also said the revised project would not sacrifice safety or environmental quality.
Grouting, he said, "has been deemed the best overall approach in terms of cost, effectiveness and safety."
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Radioactive Waste Piling Up at Savannah River Site
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
March 16, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2004/2004-03-16-10.asp
The federal government is not doing enough to prevent radioactive waste stored at the nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, South Carolina from contaminating the Savannah River, according a report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). The study says the U.S. Energy Department's program to secure the waste is failing and criticizes the federal agency for plans to curtail environmental monitoring of the site.
"The Department of Energy is creating the first ever high-level waste dumps in South Carolina," said the study's lead author and IEER president Arjun Makhijani.
The report says the Energy Department does not have a reliable inventory of how much waste and contamination is at the site and its long term plan to safeguard the waste is flawed.
The 310 square mile Savannah River Site is located close to several major cities, including Augusta and Savannah, Georgia; as well as Columbia, Greenville, and Charleston, South Carolina. The site is owned by the Department of Energy's Savannah River Operations Office and managed by Westinghouse Savannah River Company.
The facility was built in the early 1950s to produce plutonium and tritium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. More than a third of U.S. weapons plutonium and almost all of its tritium was produced there. The federal government has stored the high level radioactive waste produced at the plant on site in 51 massive underground tanks with the aim of retrieving it and moving it elsewhere for safe storage.
Although the liquid wastes can be drawn out and removed, the Energy Department's method for removing the most radioactive sludge out of the tanks has proven unsafe and alternatives are being explored.
The report criticizes the department for its plan to dilute the waste in all 51 tanks with grout and leave it on site permanently.
Two tanks have already been diluted with grout despite evidence that the residual radioactivity had concentrations far above the maximum limits allowed by federal regulations for shallow land disposal of waste.
"This is making a residual waste problem that could be remedied in the long term - with development of technology - into one that will be extremely difficult or impossible to remediate," Makhijani said.
The Energy Department "is assuming that it can maintain site control essentially forever," Makhijani said.
For the federal government to leave the grouted tanks on site, the waste would have to be reclassified as less hazardous. But last year a federal court in Idaho rejected the Energy Department's attempt do this through a federal rulemaking process.
The Bush administration is appealing the Idaho decision and asking Congress change federal law in order to the waste to be reclassified and left on site at nuclear weapons plants.
The report says past waste dumping and mismanagement at the Savannah River Site, along with a failure to implement a sound cleanup plan, have created extensive water pollution beneath the site as well as serious risks for water resources in the region. Groundwater contamination with radium, tritium, strontium, chromium, mercury, lead and cesium has been well documented.
Current levels of contamination are well within present safe drinking water limits, Makhijani said, but "recent research indicates that tritium standards may not be adequate to protect pregnant women and developing fetuses from adverse health effects."
The Savannah River Site management says that the Savannah River, which ultimately receives the wastewater, is continually monitored to assure that the amounts of tritium, facility effluents and other substances are within federal limits. The facility operates monitoring stations on the river at points upstream from the site and as far downstream as 100 miles from the site, and has cooperative programs to share information with the appropriate jurisdictions on a regular basis.
An enhanced tritium monitoring program is designed to provide prompt notification to downriver consumers of significant changes in tritium concentrations, management says.
In recent years, the maximum dose to an individual who consumes Savannah River water, from either the Beaufort-Jasper Water Treatment Plant or the Port Wentworth water treatment plant near Savannah, has been about 0.1 millirem per year, or less than three percent of the four millirem annual limit established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, says the site management.
"The federal government needs to recover the buried wastes dumped decades ago that are still polluting the Savannah River, and to tighten tritium standards to protect those most at risk," Makhijani said.
But ultimately, the Savannah River Site says, "Because tritium oxide is actually a radioactive form of water, it cannot be physically or chemically removed like solvents."
Even so, the IEER report calls on the federal government to expand its monitoring of the water in the Savannah River, which is a critical source of drinking water and a popular water body for recreational fishers.
Georgia state officials highlighted the report's criticism of the Energy Department for its plan to terminate a three year, $1.89 million radiation monitoring study along the Georgia side of the Savannah River.
"We are going to work in a bipartisan way in the state of Georgia to hold the federal government's feet to the fire," said Georgia State Representative Orrock, a Democrat and Majority Whip of the Georgia House of Representatives. "The Department of Energy simply must not be allowed to put our most precious natural resource - water - at risk in this appalling way."
The federal department called the Georgia program "redundant" because the city of Savannah and the state of South Carolina have monitoring programs.
Makhijani says the Energy Department's nuclear waste cleanup policy at Savannah River - and across the country - is drifting into "a direction of lax cleanup, waste mismanagement, and disregard of the long term health of water resources for short term expediency."
"These are all hallmarks of the Cold War era, when the Energy Department and its predecessor agencies relegated the health of the public and the environment into second place, if that, did grave harm," Makhijani said. "It was an era that the federal government promised had ended with the Cold War. But it seems to be back."
The report does not comment on the federal government's new and proposed nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel production programs at the Savannah River site.
A tritium separation facility is being built there and there are proposals to build a plant to make mixed plutonium uranium (MOX) fuel for reactors and another plant to manufacture plutonium bomb cores.
-------- us politics
Kerry says Bush using 9/11 as 'political prop'
March 16, 2004
By Stephen Dinan and Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040315-102209-4165r.htm
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry yesterday accused President Bush of playing politics with the September 11 terrorist attacks, telling a firefighters union that Mr. Bush has used homeland security as a "political prop."
"When it comes to protecting America from terrorism, this administration is big on bluster and they're short on action," the Massachusetts senator said. "But as we saw again last week in Spain, real action is what we need. The Bush administration is tinkering while the clock on homeland security is ticking."
Meanwhile, Mr. Kerry was endorsed yesterday by another Democratic presidential candidate, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who took the unique step of offering his support even while officially continuing to challenge Mr. Kerry for the nomination. The endorsement came after Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Sharpton.
"It would be misleading and futile to campaign for the nomination, but it continues for the platform and direction of the party," Mr. Sharpton told the Associated Press. "My campaign continues now to pick up delegates so that we can go to the convention to coalesce with other delegates."
Mr. Kerry is poised in today's primaries to win the required number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Boston this summer, thus securing his position as the nominee.
Yesterday, he issued a broad challenge of the administration's record on homeland security.
"America doesn't need leaders who play politics with 9/11 or see the war on terror as just another campaign issue. Our nation's safety is too important," he said. "If I am president, we will work toward victory in the war on terror, knowing that those on the front lines of this battle are heroes, not political props."
The International Association of Fire Fighters was the first major union to endorse Mr. Kerry, in September, and has been among his staunchest supporters, along with a dedicated group of Vietnam veterans.
Both groups have been rewarded with frequent mentions in Mr. Kerry's speeches, and Mr. Kerry has promised as president to hire 100,000 firefighters.
A senior Bush campaign official expressed incredulity at Mr. Kerry's remarks yesterday.
"If there's ever a speech that deserves the gall-of-the-year-award, this is it," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "You've got a guy whose entire record and whose entire approach is completely at odds with the speech he just gave in Washington."
As evidence, the official pointed out that Mr. Kerry has called the threat of terrorism "exaggerated" and considers it more of a criminal and intelligence matter than a war. The Massachusetts Democrat also bowed to union bosses on work rules during the creation of the Homeland Security Department.
The official said that although Mr. Kerry is enjoying the support of firefighter union leadership, the president is backed by many rank-and-file firefighters.
"We're going to have a lot of firemen who come out and endorse us, and you'll see that in a big way. We're already talking to them," the official said. "Obviously, today at their conference is not the best time to be rolling them out."
--------
Rumsfeld Hedges on June 30 Iraqi Sovereignty Date
By Will Dunham,
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
(Reuters)
http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20040317/iraqusarumsfelddc.html
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday he could not be sure that a June 30 date would be met for ending the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and handing sovereignty over to Iraq.
"Everybody, including the Iraqi Governing Council, has set that date as a target," he said in a radio interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation at the Pentagon.
"And do I think it will happen? It has a chance of happening, yes. Will it happen for sure? Who knows? I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow," Rumsfeld added.
The United States, the United Nations and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council set the date for restoring Iraqi self-governance, which ended with the U.S.-led invasion a year ago that toppled President Saddam Hussein.
"What we do know is that the Iraqis and the coalition have worked together, and the Iraqis have produced an interim constitution. They're pointed toward the date of June 30th. And why can't we just wait and see how well they do? They've done pretty darn well so far," Rumsfeld added.
Although the Iraqis have taken the important step of agreeing on an interim constitution until elections can be held at the end of this year or in 2005, they and U.S. authorities have not yet agreed on the form of the Iraqi body that would take power in Iraq on the return of sovereignty.
The Rumsfeld interview was one of a number by Pentagon leaders to mark this week's anniversary of the Iraq invasion.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was also asked about the June 30 date. "Well, I'm not in the business of predicting dates," he told CNN.
"We are very committed to having that handover take place on that date. And I think it's important because it will mean the end of the occupation. It will mean Iraqis being in charge of their own country. But it's not going to be a change from night to day," he said.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "right now we are working toward a June 30 sovereignty transfer and that's our operating assumption."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has emphasized the importance of June 30. After a U.N. team visited Iraq last month, he issued a report saying, "Virtually every Iraqi with whom the mission met stressed that the date of June 30, 2004, is a deadline that must be respected." (Additional reporting by Saul Hudson)
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Neighbor sees terror breeding in Somalia
March 16, 2004
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040315-100016-4186r.htm
Washington and the international community do not fully appreciate that lawless Somalia has become a breeding ground for international terrorism, Kenya's terrorism and security chief said yesterday.
"In Somalia, there are home-grown terror cells. There is no central authority, and terrorists can find safe refuge," Christopher Murungaru, minister of state for provincial administration and national security, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
He said his government was afraid that Somalia, Kenya's neighbor to the northeast, could become a failed state like Afghanistan under the Taliban.
"Frankly, we have not been very encouraged by the response of the international community. We feel almost abandoned," he said, adding that the U.S. State Department has expressed some concern regarding Somalia, but not enough.
"We encouraged the United States not to give up. We are hoping for a good response," Mr. Murungaru said about Somalia peace talks. A gathering of 500 delegates has been hosted and housed in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, for two years.
In Washington to discuss U.S.-Kenyan cooperation and coordination in the war on terror, Mr. Murungaru said Kenya has made enormous strides against terrorism in the past 18 months, but Kenya's accomplishments are not fully recognized. He said that since December 2002 - when opposition politician Mwai Kibaki was elected president in a landslide that ended Daniel Arap Moi's 24-year rule - Kenya has strengthened its intelligence gathering and cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism.
Kenya has been a target of terrorist attacks since 1998, when al Qaeda operatives car-bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, killing 200 and injuring thousands. In November 2002, 10 Kenyans and three Israelis were killed when a car bomb exploded at an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombassa. A simultaneous rocket attack on an Israeli airliner missed its target.
"Most Kenyans did not think of terrorism as a Kenyan problem. They consider themselves victims. The causes of terrorism are from somewhere else. It was a problem being played out on our soil," Mr. Murungaru said. He said the Mombassa attack was a "wake-up call."
In May, the United States issued a warning against traveling to Kenya, after discovering a credible terrorist threat. Thousands of tourists canceled vacations and safaris, and business executives postponed their trips.
"Our economy was battered, and it is still hurting. Tourism is very important for us," he said.
Daily visa receipts at the Kenyan Embassy in Washington dropped from about $10,000 a day to less than $2,500 a day after the travel warning was issued. When the advisory was lifted last summer, tourists began booking safaris again.
Thursday's train bombings in Spain added to Kenya's problems when the State Department on Friday issued another travel warning for Kenya and other East African nations.
-------- africa
U.S. Forces Training Armies in Africa
March 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-War-on-Terror-Africa.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Opening a new front in the war on terrorism, the United States has begun training and equipping armies in parts of Africa that U.S. officials see as an inviting refuge for terrorists as well as a long-term source of oil.
Soldiers of the Army's 10th Special Forces Group are training troops in Mali and Mauritania, on the fringes of the Sahara Desert. And Marines are preparing for missions in Niger and Chad.
The effort, which began last November in Mali with almost no public notice, is an extension of the Bush administration's anti-terror campaigns in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, where U.S. troops are operating with local forces and conducting aerial and maritime surveillance.
But the new focus on Africa also marks a shift for the United States, which had been reluctant to become involved militarily in a continent beset with instability. Now there are plans to rotate U.S. troops regularly into certain bases and airfields, although they would not establish large bases.
The developing partnership was apparent last week when the country of Chad made an urgent call for U.S. help in the aftermath of a deadly clash with fighters from an Islamic extremist group. The U.S. training in Chad is not expected to begin until summer, but American forces nevertheless quickly responded.
To aid Chad's casualties, two U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo planes delivered 19 tons of medical supplies, blankets and food on short notice to an airfield in north-central Chad. They flew from Ramstein airbase in Germany under the authority of the U.S. European Command, whose geographic area of responsibility includes Chad and the rest of Africa, except the Horn.
One defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. surveillance aircraft also have helped in recent months to monitor and track movements of the extremist group believed involved in the Chad fighting.
Chad shares a long border with Sudan, which once gave refuge to Osama bin Laden.
In Mali, meanwhile, the Special Forces unit that is training forces is scheduled to complete it work this week, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. M.J. Jadick, spokeswoman for European Command's special operations unit. Special Forces teams also are conducting training in two other locations in Mali.
In a telephone interview Tuesday from Timbuktu, in central Mali, the second-in-command of the Special Forces unit said about 120 Malian soldiers are receiving basic training.
The way they use the skills will be up to the Malian government, he said, speaking on condition that he not be identified by name or rank. That is in line with usual restrictions on deployed Special Forces soldiers.
``It's a good move,'' said J. Stephen Morrison, an African affairs specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
There could be drawbacks, however. At times in recent history, the United States has found that supplying arms or military training to some underdeveloped nations, such as Afghanistan in the 1980s, can backfire if political forces shift and the same weapons are then used against the United States or its allies.
Morrison sees three main motives for the heightened U.S. interest in the region.
-- Terrorism. As bin Laden's al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups with similar anti-Western aims get squeezed harder in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, the regions of western and northern Africa are becoming more inviting.
That includes members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, a radical group that has pledged its allegiance to al-Qaida. One of its leaders is an Algerian, Saifi Ammari, who is said to be recruiting among Muslims in Mauritania, Niger and Libya and operating with small armed groups.
Chad's government said Ammari may have been among the fighters who clashed with Chadian troops last week.
-- International crime. Morrison says west Africa is a ``warren of crime syndicates,'' including some that deal diamonds and launder money in support of Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group whose armed wing has been branded a terrorist group by the State Department.
-- Oil. The United States already gets 17 percent of its imported oil from sub-Saharan Africa, and some are forecasting that within a decade that figure will rise to nearly 25 percent. The biggest suppliers in the region are Nigeria and Angola.
U.S. oil companies also are involved in Chad, where a consortium of companies led by Exxon Mobil Corp. is building a $3.7 billion underground pipeline from oil fields in Chad, through Cameroon to the Atlantic.
Another benefit of a more robust U.S. military presence in west Africa -- including more frequent U.S. Navy ship visits off the Atlantic coast -- would be improved maritime security, Morrison said.
-------- asia
North Korea Claims South in 'Anarchy'
March 16, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-Politics.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea claimed South Korea was in a ``state of anarchy'' Tuesday as the South braced for a prolonged legal and politically charged battle over whether to unseat President Roh Moo-hyun.
South Korea's leadership upheaval has raised concern Pyongyang may use the political turmoil to complicate six-nation talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. On Tuesday, the South's interim leader, Prime Minister Goh Kun, urged an early resumption of the negotiations between the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan.The six nations hope to meet for a third time before July.
Goh also called for firm preparedness against ``accidental clashes'' in disputed waters off the west coast where the North and South navies fought deadly gunbattles in 1999 and 2002. The region is traditionally a source of tension and North Korea has a history of provoking armed skirmishes to affect South Korea's domestic politics.
North Korean delegates did not show up for inter-Korean economic talks Monday in South Korea. The North said ``instability'' makes the South an unsafe place to travel.
Continuing the argument Tuesday, Pyongyang accused South Korean opposition parties of ``creating the present state of anarchy and making it impossible for both sides to have even a safe contact.''
Parliament voted Friday to impeach Roh for alleged election-law violations and incompetence. The Constitutional Court has 180 days to uphold the impeachment or restore Roh's presidential powers.
Goh, who is leading the administration until the ruling, has repeatedly urged the Constitutional Court to make a quick decision. But on Tuesday the chief prosecutor said the hearings will probably take months.
``A much simpler case takes months to deliberate,'' said Kim Ki-choon, a member of the opposition Grand National Party and chairman of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee. ``I don't think this case of grave importance, where there are many points to verify and argue over, can be finished within a month.''
Roh has said he will step down if the small, liberal Uri Party that supports him fares poorly April 15 parliamentary elections.
South Korea is struggling to prevent damage to its feeble economy, the world's 12th largest. The central Bank of Korea warned that prolonged political uncertainties could hurt consumption and investment, possibly bringing ``a delay in the economic recovery.''
South Korea's financial markets seemed to recover from the initial shock of the impeachment. The main stock index bounced back Monday and finished down just slightly on Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, 3,000 people turned out in Seoul to protest the impeachment. The number of protesters dropped sharply to 3,500 people on Monday from the 50,000 who converged over the weekend to wave candles chant for the president's reinstatement.
South Korea's political crisis began Friday, when the opposition-dominated National Assembly used security guards to drag out screaming and kicking pro-Roh lawmakers. It then passed a bill impeaching Roh for alleged election-law violations and incompetence.
-------- business
Va. Company Protests Army's Cancellation of Iraq Contract
By Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61825-2004Mar15.html
A Northern Virginia company yesterday formally protested an Army decision to cancel its $327 million contract to outfit the new Iraqi army, saying the action could cause a six-month delay in equipping the Iraqi military and cost $20 million to $30 million in termination costs to the company and its suppliers.
Nour USA Ltd. of Vienna told the U.S.-led occupation authority in Baghdad in its protest letter that the company's proposal had been one of only three given the highest rating, and that it had never been told an official reason for the cancellation. Nour executives said separately that they had already signed orders for more than $40 million worth of goods and had some telecommunication equipment, body armor and weapons ready to ship when the contract was killed.
U.S. Army officials terminated the contract March 5, sayings errors made by contracting officers working for the occupation authority exposed the government to legal challenges. "Ambiguities" in the phrasing of the contract led to a wide range of prices among the 19 bidders that suggested they didn't understand what work was expected, Army spokesmen said.
In dropping the Nour contract, Army officials said they hoped a new one could be awarded in 60 to 90 days, and that they would explore piggybacking on existing government contracts.
In news reports on Nour's winning of the contract, its competitors suggested it had won because of political favoritism, due to the friendship between its chairman, A. Huda Farouki, and Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Nour spokesman Robert Hoopes has said there is no business relationship between the two men. In killing the contract, the Army said the action was "not a reflection on Nour and its capabilities."
--------
Pentagon Must Make Case for Costly New Fighter, GAO Says
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61777-2004Mar15.html
The Pentagon needs to make a case to keep the F/A-22 fighter program in the face of vastly increased costs and technical problems, congressional investigators said yesterday.
The General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, said in a report that the military can now afford only 218 of the planes within a $36.8 billion spending cap. The Air Force originally planned to buy 750 but has since reduced the number to 277, which it still says it can afford once it makes the program more efficient.
The F/A-22 Raptor, intended primarily as a stealthy replacement for the F-15 Eagle, was built to shoot down other planes. Unlike its predecessor, the F/A-22 can fly at supersonic speeds for long ranges.
The plane was conceived 18 years ago, at the end of the Cold War, but critics note the U.S. military's current generation of fighters have been more than a match for every air force and air defense network the military has faced in the wars since.
The Air Force is also trying to make the F/A-22 more useful by giving it the ability to attack ground targets. But that is making it even more expensive, to the tune of $11.7 billion, and adds significant technical challenges, the GAO said. Some of that money has already been spent.
The first combat-ready planes are supposed to take to the skies next year, and the military is supposed to decide by December whether to continue with full production of the plane. Later this month, the Pentagon will determine whether to advance the plane to a more rigorous phase of testing.
Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. is making Raptors at a low rate for testing, and President Bush's proposed 2005 budget includes $4.7 billion for the program, which would include the purchase of 24 fighters.
The plane has had problems with its tail fins, canopy and computer software, the report notes. Its avionics computer processors are obsolete, and changing to new ones necessary for the plane's expanded role will cost years and hundreds of millions of dollars, the report said.
The report called on the Pentagon to submit to Congress a detailed justification of the program before it makes a December decision whether to go ahead with full production. The Pentagon responded in a letter to GAO that it intends to look at the program in already scheduled reviews.
The new concerns come at a time that the Pentagon has shown a willingness to cancel some big-ticket weapons systems, particularly the Army's Crusader artillery gun and Comanche scout helicopter.
Several watchdog groups reacted to the GAO report by calling for the cancellation of the F/A-22.
"There's no place for weapons without a mission like the F/A-22 given the current budget squeeze. Our military's transformation cannot happen until we let go of these Cold War weapons," Eric Miller with the Project on Government Oversight said in a statement.
--------
GAO Asks Pentagon to Justify Fighter Jet
Report Cites Cost, Delays on F/A-22
By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page E12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61867-2004Mar15.html
The General Accounting Office yesterday called on the Pentagon to do a better job of justifying why it needs the F/A-22 fighter plane, a Lockheed Martin-built Air Force program that the agency said continues to suffer from delays and escalating costs.
Coming in a climate when tight budgets and debate over future military needs has already led to the cancellation of one major weapons program, the Comanche helicopter, the GAO report renewed calls from opponents for an end to the F/A-22, which has already cost some $40 billion and could cost another $40 billion to complete.
"Congress needs to act swiftly and eliminate this platinum-plated boondoggle," Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense said in a news release.
A spokesman for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s factory in Marietta, Ga., that builds the plane said many of the problems identified in the GAO report have been addressed. "Overall the program is healthy. It's technically sound, and it remains the Air Force's highest modernization priority," spokesman Greg Caires said.
The GAO, which is the investigative arm of Congress, said the program's costs have climbed so much that the Air Force won't be able to buy as many of the radar-evading fighter planes as it wants. The service plans to buy 277 planes but could afford only 218 at current costs, the report said.
It said the per-plane price of the F/A-22, not counting the cost of development, has risen to $153 million from the $69 million envisioned by the Air Force when the program began in the late 1980s. The plane's technology is still being developed even though the Pentagon has already ordered 52 planes -- with preliminary orders for 22 more. Development costs have risen as well -- by 127 percent, the report said.
What's more, the Air Force plans to add extra air-to-ground missions to a plane designed for air-to-air combat, which could push costs up another $8 billion or more, the report said.
The GAO said it was concerned that glitches have caused so many delays that the Air Force will not have enough time to complete testing before it is scheduled to decide whether to start full-scale production of the plane in December.
For instance, the agency said the Air Force originally wanted to see the plane's sophisticated avionics, or electronics gear, achieve 20 hours of uninterrupted flying time without a software failure. When the plane couldn't achieve that, the Air Force changed its goal to flying five hours without a software failure. As of January, the plane could average no better than 2.7 hours.
In addition, the plane's microprocessor is an obsolete model no longer manufactured. The Air Force plans to switch to a newer type, including one created for the upgraded F-16 fighter jet, a type of plane far older than the F-22 but also built by Lockheed Martin.
The GAO also found that the F/A-22's computer-based maintenance system has suffered glitches that cause the plane to miss a significant amount of test-flying time. The Air Force had hoped to get the plane to fly nearly two hours between maintenance events by this point in the program, but has been unable to do better than an average of 30 minutes, the report said.
Caires said many of those problems have eased since January, when the GAO last investigated. The avionics gear is close to flying five hours between failures, he said. While the microprocessors are outmoded, they are ample for current mission requirements, and the plane has plenty of room to add computer gear, he said.
The maintenance system also is improving with use, "learning" how to adjust for real-world experience versus engineering expectations, Caires said.
He said the company was "willing to support" any effort by the Pentagon to look more closely at the costs and benefits of the program, as suggested by the GAO. The Defense Department, in a written response to the GAO report, said it was giving the program a more thorough review as part of the president's next budget submission to Congress.
-------- china
Beijing quiet ahead of election
March 16, 2004
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040315-102154-6322r.htm
China's military is not using war games to threaten Taiwan before the island's elections, though Bush administration officials said yesterday that Beijing clearly supports the opposition party.
"There's no question who Beijing wants to win," said one official, adding that there is no evidence of covert Chinese efforts to influence Saturday's vote in the Republic of China.
China used war games in 1996 and 2000 to try to influence Taiwan's elections, but the efforts apparently backfired.
China would like to see Taiwanese voters choose the opposition Kuomintang Party, known as KMT, instead of re-electing President Chen Shuibian's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which Beijing views as moving the island toward formal independence.
National security officials in the Bush administration are monitoring the Taiwan Strait for any signs that Beijing may attempt to influence the elections and a key referendum on the threat posed by China's short-range missiles, which are targeting the island.
One of the U.S. officials said there are signs China might try to provoke a crisis if Mr. Chen is re-elected over KMT challenger Lien Chan.
The race is said to be too close to call, officials said. "We're confident that China will act prudently," said a second administration official involved in Taiwan Strait policy. "We're confident that China will not act to precipitate a crisis in which they would certainly emerge as the loser."
A third official said China's communist leaders have failed to grasp democratic processes.
"They don't understand them in Hong Kong, they don't understand them in Taiwan," the third official said. "The belief in Beijing is that as long as you have a favorable party in place, it would put the lid on what appears to be a movement of [Taiwanese] people away from the mainland."
The officials spoke with The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity.
China is continuing to threaten the use of force against Taiwan and is backing up the threats with large-scale weapons purchases and new missile and aircraft deployments, the officials said.
China has about 500 short-range missiles deployed near Taiwan and is adding up to 75 missiles a year, the officials said. China's missiles, which are increasing in range, accuracy and lethality, include new precision-guided warheads and warheads designed specifically to attack airfield runways, the officials said.
The key issue up for a vote in Taiwan is whether the island should invest in missile defenses.
One of two referendum questions asks voters whether Taiwan should purchase advanced antimissile systems if China refuses to withdraw its missiles from areas near Taiwan. The second referendum is on whether the government should negotiate with Beijing.
The Bush administration has increased arms sales and other defense cooperation with Taiwan. It also is trying to help Taiwan boost its defenses.
"What Beijing needs to understand is that the reason we're doing what we're doing with Taiwan is because of them. It's because of the increasing threat that they pose to Taiwan," one official said.
The main system under consideration for sale to Taiwan is the Patriot PAC-3, the most advanced missile-defense system in the U.S. arsenal.
In 1996, China sought to influence the outcome of presidential elections by holding large-scale war games near Taiwan. The exercises included short-range missile tests that landed north and south of the island.
The war games might have contributed to the election of pro-independence President Lee Tenghui, and they touched off a crisis with the United States, which sent two aircraft-carrier battle groups to the region.
In 2000, China scaled back its exercises but continued deploying missiles within striking distance of Taiwan, a move that was followed by the election of Mr. Chen.
-------- europe
EU Backs Away from New Anti - Terror Organizations
March 16, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-eu-security.html
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union appeared to back away Tuesday from calls for new institutions to fight terrorism after the Madrid bombings, stressing instead the need to implement agreed measures and share information.
The leaders of France and Germany poured cold water on proposals, notably from Belgium and Austria, for a ``European CIA'' in the wake of last Thursday's Madrid train attacks in which 201 people died and 1,500 were injured.
The executive European Commission played down the idea of appointing a single EU counter-terrorism Czar, urging member states to adopt and apply legislation already on the table and make their police and intelligence services cooperate.
Law enforcement officials said when EU ministers hold emergency security talks Friday, they should focus on bolstering existing, practical cooperation, rather than get distracted by calls for new bodies.
Politicians' vows of tougher EU action are seen by some as an attempt to calm public fears that the attacks are a sign that Islamic militants are now targeting Europe.
``Shocking events, like the bombings in Madrid, tend to provoke the same reactions from politicians: calls for new laws...are raised almost automatically,'' said Heinz Kiefer, the head of the European Confederation of Police.
``What Europe needs to beat terrorism is not another decision on paper,'' he said in a statement.
Kiefer said member states should address shortcomings in the EU's fight against terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.
AL QAEDA 'CHANGED EVERYTHING'
After meeting French President Jacques Chirac in Paris, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said an EU equivalent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was not the priority.
``I think the main task is to improve cooperation between the existing intelligence services,'' he said. Chief European Commission spokesman Reijo Kemppinen said the EU often displayed a knee-jerk reaction to call for a ``Mr. This'' or a ``Ms. That'' when a new problem arose.
The Commission listed a raft of measures proposed in the aftermath of September 11 that member states had either failed to implement or not yet enacted.
One such measure is a European search and arrest warrant, still not in force in five EU states -- Germany, Italy, Greece, Austria and the Netherlands -- which was designed to sweep away time-consuming extradition procedures.
Other steps stuck in the pipeline included a common definition of terrorism, harmonized sentences for terrorist acts and more moves to cut off terror financing.
``What good is a decision on a European arrest warrant when it takes member states years to implement it?'' Kiefer asked.
A senior European Parliament leader, Graham Watson of the centrist Liberal Democrats, told a news conference: ``The most important things we can do are getting police forces working together, our judicial authorities working together and perhaps most importantly getting our intelligence services working together.''
``We can no longer pretend...that terrorism is a national phenomenon. Al Qaeda has changed that forever and our individual national experiences with terror are worthless if we cannot build them into a common multilateral strategy for the future.''
EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino urged member states to make better use of the EU's police agency Europol to pool intelligence and Eurojust, created last year to boost cooperation between national judicial authorities.
--------
Spanish vote casts shadow across allies
March 16, 2004
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040316-121404-1835r.htm
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's electoral defeat in the wake of terrorist attacks in Madrid has raised concerns among U.S. and foreign officials about whether terrorists can drive other American allies from office.
"This was a big defeat for us," a Pentagon official said. "Al Qaeda caused a regime change better than we did in Baghdad. No cost."
Also, a White House official said any attack against a nation that has battled terrorism as tenaciously as Spain "sends a terrible message" to other countries engaged in the global war against terrorism.
The concerns came as Spain's incoming prime minister yesterday repeated his campaign vow to pull his nation's 1,300 troops out of Iraq by June 30, unless "the United Nations take control and the occupiers give up political control."
Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also criticized President Bush for deposing Saddam Hussein, telling a Spanish radio network that "the war in Iraq was a disaster."
However, other members of the anti-Saddam coalition, including Australia, Britain and Poland, held firm yesterday.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who is up for re-election later this year, downplayed the possibility of terrorists driving him from office with a similar attack.
"I think it's drawing a pretty long bow to start comparing what happened in Spain to what might happen at the end of this year," said Mr. Howard, who supported Operation Iraqi Freedom. "I think people ought to take a bit of a cold shower on that and not get too excited."
But Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said al Qaeda might conclude from Sunday's election results in Spain that they have the power to punish leaders who supported Mr. Bush's liberation of Iraq.
Particularly vulnerable are leaders who backed the United States in the face of intense domestic opposition.
"Governments that acted without the strong support of their own peoples are very vulnerable," he said. "I mean, up to 80 percent of Spaniards opposed the war."
Meanwhile, other U.S. allies in Operation Iraqi Freedom vowed to continue supporting the United States, despite the Madrid bombings and pressure from opposition lawmakers. Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller said he would not withdraw troops leading a multinational force in southern Iraq.
"It would amount to an admission that the terrorists are right and that they are stronger than the whole civilized world," Mr. Miller said.
Several Latin American nations and Japan also said yesterday they would not reconsider their decisions to send troops to Iraq.
Spain's threat to pull out was roundly condemned yesterday by conservative politicians in Western Europe.
"It's a dangerously naive option," said Italian lawmaker Emma Bonino, a former senior European Union official and a political ally of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. "It would be irresponsible for Spain or anyone to leave Iraq and hence bolster a civil war there."
She said it also would encourage terrorists to kill across Europe, hoping for further changes of course.
"Whoever is calling for pulling out troops is just obeying the political agenda of [Osama] bin Laden," added Mrs. Bonino, who said she initially had opposed the launching of the Iraq war.
A senior figure in Britain's Conservative Party, Michael Portillo, lamented that terrorists had managed to topple a democratic government and "will now think they can do the same at future elections all around Europe."
In an interview with the BBC, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned yesterday that all Western countries were under "a threat from Islamic extremism."
"No one should believe that somehow if you say, 'I opposed the military action in Iraq,' that this makes you safer or exempts you as a potential victim," he said.
In October, Poland and Spain were named as targets on a taped message attributed to bin Laden.
"We reserve the right to respond at the appropriate time and place against all the countries participating in this unjust war [in Iraq], particularly Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy," said the voice on the tape, broadcast on Al Jazeera.
A posting on Global Islamic Media, a Web site that supports al Qaeda and is monitored by intelligence agencies, said on Dec. 10 that attacks on Spain could help the Socialists domestically and result in Madrid pulling out of Iraq.
The upcoming Spanish general elections "must be exploited in the extreme," the posting noted. "We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows or three at the most before it will be forced to withdraw [from Iraq] because of public pressure."
The tract, prepared by the Centre for Services to the Mujahideen, added: "If [Spanish] forces remain after these blows, the victory of the Socialist party will be almost guaranteed, and the withdrawal of Spanish forces will be on its campaign manifesto. Lastly, we assert that the withdrawal of Spanish or Italian forces from Iraq will create tremendous pressure on the British presence which Tony Blair may not be able to bear.
"So the dominos will fall quickly - but the basic problem remains, how to bring down the first one."
Vice President Dick Cheney said last week's attacks in Madrid merely proved that the world must continue to aggressively root out terrorism.
"The attack in Spain once again reveals the brutality of our enemy and once again shows that the fight against terrorism is the responsibility of all free nations," Mr. Cheney told Republicans at a Phoenix fund-raiser. "The terrorists are testing the unity and the resolve of the civilized world, and we must rise to that task."
The electoral defeat of Mr. Aznar was a blow to Mr. Bush, who met with him exactly one year ago today in the Azores to map strategy on the eve of war. The Spanish leader and his wife, Ana Botella, who was running for political office, both privately expressed concern to Mr. Bush that their support for war was enormously unpopular.
The president urged them to stand strong and expressed hope that their leadership would be rewarded at the ballot box.
After Mr. Aznar's defeat Sunday, Mr. Bush placed a ceremonial telephone call to his successor to offer congratulations yesterday.
"The two leaders said they both looked forward to working together, particularly on our shared commitment to fighting terrorism," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr. Bush's closest ally in the Iraq war, made a similar courtesy call to fellow socialist Mr. Zapatero, which Mr. Blair's office described as "warm and friendly."
•Rowan Scarborough in Washington and Paul Martin in Madrid contributed to this report.
--------
New Leader In Spain Calls Iraq 'Disaster'
Incoming Premier Affirms Vow on Troop Withdrawal
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61544-2004Mar15?language=printer
MADRID, March 15 -- Spain's incoming prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, offered sharp criticism Monday of the Iraq war and the U.S. occupation and reaffirmed a campaign pledge to withdraw Spanish peacekeeping troops unless the United Nations takes control of the operation by the end of June.
In comments a day after the surprise victory of his Socialist Workers' Party, Zapatero made clear that he would pursue a "cordial" but decidedly more distant relationship with the United States than did his predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, one of President Bush's closest allies in Europe.
"The war has been a disaster; the occupation continues to be a disaster," Zapatero told a radio interviewer. At a news conference later, he called the Iraq war "an error." He added, "It divided more than it united, there were no reasons for it, time has shown that the arguments for it lacked credibility, and the occupation has been poorly managed."
He pledged to continue to combat international terrorism, but said the fight should be conducted with "a grand alliance" of democracies and not through "unilateral wars," a clear reference to Iraq.
Initially, the Iraq war was deeply unpopular in Spain, and last Thursday's train attacks in Madrid's morning rush hour, which killed 200 people and wounded more than 1,400, returned the war to the forefront of the election campaign. The government first blamed the Basque separatist group ETA for the attacks, the worst in Spanish history, but as evidence pointed to the al Qaeda network, Spaniards accused the government of withholding information to avoid a backlash at the ballot box.
Investigators arrested three Moroccans and two Indian-born Spanish nationals on Saturday, and they continued to search for clues that could definitively link the suspects or the bombings to al Qaeda. Investigators were increasingly focused on the al Qaeda ties of one of the arrested Moroccans, 30-year-old Jamal Zougam, who had been under suspicion for involvement in multiple suicide bombing attacks in Casablanca last May that killed 33 civilians.
Spain's interior minister, Angel Acebes, said on Sunday that forensics tests on the victims of the Madrid bombings indicated that none was a suicide bomber, previously a hallmark of al Qaeda attacks. But on Monday, the newspaper El Pais reported that forensics experts were reexamining one unidentified corpse to determine whether that person's injuries were consistent with those of a suicide bomber.
Investigators here and from intelligence agencies around the rest of Europe have not identified the speaker on a videotape found after the blasts, who identified himself in Moroccan-accented Arabic as Abu Dujan al Afgani, head of al Qaeda's military wing in Europe. In a transcript released by the government, Afgani asserted that al Qaeda staged the Madrid attacks in retaliation for Spain's role as an ally and military partner of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Zapatero, a largely untested 43-year-old lawyer and longtime Socialist member of parliament, said one consequence of the Iraq war was his surprise victory Sunday over Aznar's ruling Popular Party. He also attributed the victory to his promise that "Spanish troops will come back."
Although he reiterated his intention to withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops from Iraq, he left open the possibility that the soldiers could remain if a new U.N. resolution were passed giving the world body control over Iraq's political reconstruction. He said the United Nations would have to be in control by June 30, the date when the current Spanish military mission there is scheduled to end.
"Unless there is a change, in that the United Nations takes control and the occupiers give up political control, the Spanish troops will come back, and the limit to their presence is June 30," he said.
The Spanish contingent represents about 1 percent of the total foreign troop presence in Iraq. In the wake of Zapatero's victory, and his repeated statements on Monday, leaders of other countries in the military coalition were quick to say they had no intention of withdrawing their contingents.
Zapatero addressed criticism directly at Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, another steadfast supporter of the United States in Iraq. "Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush must do some reflection and self-criticism. You can't organize a war with lies," he said.
Nevertheless, Zapatero said he wanted to have cordial relations with Washington. "That's the beauty and greatness of democracy," he said. "It allows you to disagree while maintaining good relations."
On Monday, he accepted a telephone call from Bush that the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, described as "congratulatory." McClellan said that the issue of Iraq was not discussed in the brief conversation, but that the two discussed "the importance of working together and advancing the strong relations that we have."
Although the Socialists fell short of an absolute majority in parliament, Zapatero, who is expected to take office in about a month, said he would try to govern without a permanent coalition. Instead, he will try to form alliances with smaller political parties representing Spain's 19 autonomous regions. Those parties did particularly well in Sunday's voting.
And although he has yet to name his choice as foreign minister, one name frequently mentioned here is Miguel Angel Moritanos, a veteran Spanish diplomat and Middle East expert who worked in Spain's embassies in Morocco and Israel and who is now the European Union's special envoy to the Middle East peace process.
Zapatero said that improving relations with Spain's North African neighbors would be among the "three pillars" of the incoming government's foreign policy. The others, he said, were improving on Spain's historic ties with Latin America and its relations with the rest of Europe. He pointedly did not mention the United States when discussing the outlines of his emerging policy.
Meanwhile in Lavapies, the ethnically mixed, blue-collar Madrid neighborhood where the three arrested Moroccan suspects lived and worked, some residents who knew the men expressed strong doubts about their involvement in the attacks.
A Moroccan man who spoke on condition of anonymity said he worked for several years in a clothing shop on Trivuleta Street next to the small cell phone shop operated by Zougam and Mohamed Chaoui, 34. He said the two men "were very hard-working people, decent people. So when they were arrested, everybody was surprised and stunned."
The man said the two men were half brothers and had run a vegetable stand before getting involved in the cell phone business. He said they were well-known for supplying cell phone chips that could be used in both Spain and Morocco, and that police might have suspected they were involved in illegal business involving cell phone sales. Another local resident who would not allow his name to be used said the third detainee, Mohamed Bekkali, 31, was a fun-loving bachelor at odds with the image of an Islamic militant. "This was a disco-type guy, a suit-and-a-tie kind of guy," he said. "Nothing to do with religious fanatics. I know that."
Police have said Chaoui and Bekkali have no police records, while Zougam has been named as a possible participant in al Qaeda-related activities in Spain and Morocco, including the Casablanca bombings. But residents said they believed the men had been arrested because police needed to show they were taking action. The residents said they feared Muslims could be unfairly targeted for suspicion and arrest because of last week's bombings.
Special correspondents Robert Scarcia and Pamela Rolfe contributed to this report.
--------
Spanish troops set to withdraw
March 16, 2004
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040315-100020-7333r.htm
MADRID - Spain's incoming Socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, announced yesterday he will withdraw his country's 1,300 troops from Iraq, saying the "disastrous" U.S.-led effort there had increased terrorism worldwide.
With al Qaeda increasingly believed to have staged the series of train bombings that killed 200 persons Thursday, the Spanish prime minister-elect pledged to focus on fighting terrorism, but said that needed to be done primarily through collaboration within the expanded European Community.
He also said he wanted "cordial" ties with Washington, but "magnificent" relations with France and Germany, the two countries that most vigorously opposed the war.
"I have said clearly in recent months that, unless there is a change in that the United Nations take control and the occupiers give up political control, the Spanish troops will come back, and the limit for their presence there is June 30," Mr. Zapatero told reporters on the morning after his upset victory.
"Time has shown that the arguments for [the war] lacked credibility and the occupation has been managed badly," he said. Referring to President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a separate radio interview, he said, "You cannot organize a war with lies."
Mr. Zapatero achieved an unexpected victory in parliamentary elections Sunday, just three days after a wave of terror attacks claimed by al Qaeda as retribution for Spain's support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Many voters appear to have been angered that outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a close ally of Mr. Bush, initially blamed the Basque terrorist group ETA for the attacks, which injured 1,500.
In Washington, U.S. counterterrorism officials told The Washington Times they are investigating whether al Qaeda and the ETA might have collaborated on the attacks.
New information about the attack was obtained by Spanish authorities over the weekend with the arrest of several people, including three Moroccans, at least one of whom was known as an Islamic extremist.
"There is still not sufficient information to make a judgment about who was responsible," one official said. "But it appears increasingly more likely that Islamic extremists were involved. Whether they are linked to al Qaeda, that is a possibility."
As for a joint ETA-al Qaeda operation, the official said, "We can't rule it out."
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported Friday that about 80 members of an ETA offshoot traveled to Iraq in the days before U.S. military action began.
Two of the ETA foreign fighters in Iraq were arrested Feb. 29 in a van bound for Madrid with 1,100 pounds of explosives, the Milan daily stated. The two men were identified as part of the Euskal Herria Brigade, Basque Territory, an ETA faction linked to Iraqi opposition fighters operating in Fallujah and Al Ramadi.
The Italian military intelligence service, known SISMI, said in a recent report to the Italian parliament that Islamic terrorists were working with other indigenous terrorist groups in Europe, the report said.
Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary of homeland security, said on ABC's "Good Morning America": "I'm satisfied there are connections to al Qaeda."
White House officials said Mr. Bush called Mr. Zapatero yesterday to congratulate him on his election victory and that both said they "look forward to working together, particularly on a shared commitment to fighting terrorism."
However, there was no discussion of the Spaniard's plan to withdraw from Iraq, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
Aides to Mr. Blair said after talks between the British prime minister and Mr. Zapatero that the latter might be persuaded to keep his troops in Iraq.
Noting that sovereignty in Iraq will be returned to Iraqis on June 30, they said Mr. Zapatero might be satisfied with a new U.N. resolution that recognizes the change and provides for a significant U.N. role.
•Bill Gertz in Washington contributed to this article.
-------- iraq
Kurds say they deserve more rights, land, autonomy
March 16, 2004
By Borzou Daragahi
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040315-100009-9985r.htm
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq - Publicly, Kurds celebrated this week's signing of a new Iraqi transitional law that guarantees them cultural and political rights.
But Kurdistan's crisp, cool mountain air and cacophany of new-construction noise obscure deep anxieties about the major issues left unresolved by the law. It is a precursor to an Iraqi constitution slated to be drafted and ratified after U.S.-led occupation forces hand over the country's authority to a transitional government on July 1.
Many of Iraq's 4 million Kurds, who fought side by side with Americans in capturing oil-rich cities such as Khaneqin and Kirkuk, say they have paid their dues, enduring Saddam Hussein's violence and racial policies as well as giving up martyrs in the war.
Now, they say, it's time to collect. "If not now, when?" asked Sara Kamal, a 28-year-old English instructor at the University of Sulaymaniyah.
"We have suffered a lot, now it's time for us to speak and show our own voice and get our rights. We deserve more."
Kurds have controlled this mountainous swath of northern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. From the rubble of wars and neglect, they built up the Kurdistan Regional Government, a relatively prosperous, liberal and secure autonomous zone ruled by Governing Council members Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani.
In contrast to the rest of Iraq, the Kurds enthusiastically took part in the war to overthrow Saddam, who had subjected them to several ethnic-cleansing campaigns and sprayed chemical weapons on the Kurdish town of Halabja and other villages in 1988.
Voicing rare criticism of Mr. Talabani and Mr. Barzani, they said they felt their leaders had betrayed them, not winning enough for the Kurds in the Baghdad negotiations over the future of Iraq.
Specifically, Kurds want Kirkuk and Khaneqin included in a future government and the 50,000-man Peshmerga militia enshrined into law. They also are seeking control over northern Iraq's natural resources, which include considerable oil and water reserves.
"We should have gotten more," said Mola Bakhtiyar, a Kurdish politician.
Not all Iraqi Kurds are dissatisfied. Nechirwan Mustawfa, a journalist and adviser to Mr. Talabani, said he is overjoyed with the transitional law.
"For the first time, I feel Iraqi," said Mr. Mustawfa, who fondly recalls his days as a Baghdad University student in the 1960s. "For 80 years, we fought in Iraq for our natural rights. Now I can relax."
But among the young generation, Kurds generally don't have much love lost for Arabs, don't identify with the Iraqi nation and consider Baghdad the wellspring of 80 years of anti-Kurdish policies.
"We have different skin color," said Aryan Dara, a student at the university.
Kurds are deeply suspicious of any future Baghdad government dominated by Arabs.
"The Arabs will simply elect another version of Saddam," said Mahmoud Fallah, a taxi driver. "It was the government of Baghdad that wronged us in the previous decades."
Thousands of Kurds have signed a petition calling for a referendum on the status of northern Iraq.
"We want to let the people decide whether we're a part of Iraq or a something else, like a new state," said Amanj Saeed, who runs a health center and collected signatures for the petition.
Their separatist tendencies long have worried Turkey, Iran and Syria, all home to large, restless Kurdish minorities. Both Ankara and Tehran have wrestled with armed Kurdish uprisings in the past several decades.
They view Iraqi Kurds' demands for autonomy as a dangerous inspiration for their Kurds.
"What the Kurdish street doesn't understand is that there's a big difference between declaring and sustaining a Kurdish state," said Fareed Asasard, director of the Kurdistan Strategic Studies Center.
"They would like an independent state. But no one would recognize or back up such a state." Barham Salih, the prime minister of the eastern half of Kurdish Iraq, said he is taking on critics publicly in a series of televised town hall meetings. Instead of nationalism, Mr. Salih has voiced a vision of Kurdish Iraq as part of a global economic and cultural community.
His government is about to launch a wireless Internet network for local high schools. It hired a Turkish firm to build the city's airport for commercial air traffic.
Indeed, northern Iraq is booming with so much construction activity that Kurds are thinking about importing laborers from the Arab parts of Iraq.
--------
More Civilians Are Killed in Iraq as Ambushes Continue
March 16, 2004
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/middleeast/16CND-IRAQ.html?hp
BAGHDAD, March 16 - Two European engineers were shot to death in a drive-by attack today, the latest killings in a rash of ambushes against foreign civilians in Iraq.
Military officials said the two hydraulic engineering specialists, one from Germany, the other from the Netherlands, were driving along a remote stretch of highway in southern Iraq when their four-wheel drive vehicle was blasted by gunfire from a passing car. Two Iraqis with the engineers were also killed.
The shooting came less than 24 hours after four American missionaries were shot in their car, in similar circumstances, in northern Iraq. Three missionaries were killed instantly and a fourth died this morning while being airlifted to a military hospital.
No suspects have been identified in either attack. Last week, occupation authorities arrested four Iraqi policemen in connection with the deaths of two American civilians working for the United States government. The two were also shot in a roadside ambush.
The targeted killings have heightened the fear of foreign workers already on edge.
"I've been here long enough to know when there's a lull in violence and when there's a peak and right now we're in a peak," said Bill L. Evans, a telecommunications specialist from New Hampshire who has been working in Iraq since October. "When I'm driving around, my weapon sits on my lap now, not in my holster."
For months, American military commanders have warned that the enemy is recalibrating its tactics. Insurgents have moved away from ramming cars into blast walls and taking on heavily armed convoys. Instead, as the past weeks have shown, civilians, both foreign and Iraqi, have become the targets of choice.
The bloodiest attacks of the nearly year-old occupation happened earlier this month when more than 140 Shiite worshippers were killed in Baghdad and Karbala during religious festivals by a combination of suicide bombs, mortars and grenades. Now, foreigners in so-called "soft-skinned" vehicles, ordinary cars easily punctured by high velocity bullets, seem especially vulnerable.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez of the United States Army, the highest ranking commander in Iraq, spoke at a military ceremony today and said: "Clearly there has been a shift in the insurgency and the way the extremists are conducting operations. It is very clear they are going after these targets that might create some splits within the coalition."
Attacks on Iraqis seen as collaborators are also going up. Today, military officials said a translator working for the occupation authorities was killed and two of her family members were injured in a drive-by shooting in Mosul, an especially volatile city in northern Iraq.
Last week, two washer women working at a military base in southern Iraq were killed. Shortly before that, two sisters who served as translators for American forces in Baghdad were shot, one fatally, while driving home.
Military officials have provided few answers on how to stop the violence. Even the most secure areas in Iraq are vulnerable. The "green zone," the heavily protected compound in central Baghdad that is the seat of the occupation government, has been repeatedly shelled, and tonight mortar fire nearby sent large plumes of white smoke rising from the rooftops.
The area used to be the home of the former ruler, Saddam Hussein. Nearly a year ago, during the invasion of Iraq, it was heavily bombed by American warplanes.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Beginning New Military Campaign in Gaza Strip
March 16, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/middleeast/16CND-MIDE.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
JERUSALEM, March 16 - Israeli helicopters blasted a Palestinian house with missiles today, killing two people in what Israel called the start of an intensified military campaign in the roiling Gaza Strip.
Hours earlier, Israel's security cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, approved military action in response to recent Palestinian attacks emanating from Gaza, including a double suicide bombing on Sunday that left 10 Israelis dead.
The Israeli authorities did not divulge the full scope of the operation, but suggested that it would include both airstrikes and ground actions in operations that could last for days, if not longer.
"We are going to put these terrorist groups under continuous pressure," a spokesman for Mr. Sharon, Raanan Gissin, said. "The leaders of these terror organizations will have to spend their time hiding, not planning terror attacks."
The military will pursue Palestinians involved in violence, but it does not intend to establish long-term positions in Palestinian cities in the Gaza Strip, as it has in the West Bank, Israeli officials said. The leaders of the Palestinian factions are also considered targets, the officials added.
Israeli armored vehicles gathered at the main entrance points to Gaza during the day, but by nightfall, it did not appear that they had advanced.
The Israeli moves came a day after Mr. Sharon declared that there would be no political negotiations at present with the Palestinians. He again accused the Palestinian leadership of refusing to act against terrorism during three-and-a-half years of fighting.
In a speech to Parliament, Mr. Sharon also indicated that he was moving forward with plans for unilateral Israeli action because he did not consider the Palestinian leadership a partner for negotiations under the stalled Mideast peace plan call the road map.
The Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, speaking in Ramallah, in the West Bank, said, "The Palestinian partner does exist, and he is committed to the peace process, but Israelis are running away from their responsibilities."
Mr. Qurei called on the Israelis to "put a halt to the violence they generated in the first place, so that we can do the same."
Aides to Mr. Sharon and Mr. Qurei met on Sunday with the aim of arranging a face-to-face meeting between the prime ministers this week. But Mr. Sharon called off those preparations after the Palestinian suicide bombers struck in southern port of Ashdod that same day.
The Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat has been confined to his compound in Ramallah and has not set foot in Gaza in more than two years. Mr. Qurei and other senior Palestinian politicians have made only fleeting visits, and the impoverished territory has grown increasingly chaotic as the Mideast conflict grinds on.
The Gaza fighting has intensified since Mr. Sharon said last month that he was considering a unilateral withdrawal of Israelis soldiers and settlers from the coastal territory. About 7,500 settlers, guarded by a large military contingent, live in enclaves surrounded by about 1.3 million Palestinians.
Israeli security officials believe Hamas has stepped up its attacks as part of a campaign to claim that it is forcing Israel out of the territory.
In turn, the Israeli military is seeking to deal a heavy blow to Hamas to weaken its capabilities and show that the army is not being driven out of Gaza.
"We will continue to develop the disengagement plan, but we will also continue to act against terrorists," said Mr. Gissin.
Today, the Israeli helicopters struck shortly before 6 p.m., with helicopters firing missiles that heavily damaged a one-story house in the northern part of Gaza City. The military said it had chosen a building "in which a number of Islamic Jihad terrorists, planning and involved in attacks against Israelis, were present." Islamic Jihad is a militant faction that has carried out many bombings against Israeli targets.
Two Palestinians were killed and more than a dozen people were wounded, including several children, according to Shifa Hospital. As ambulances wailed, hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the street and called for attacks against Israel.
The two dead men belonged to Islamic Jihad, a group member said. But an Islamic Jihad leader, Muhammad al-Karoubi, the presumed Israeli target, managed to escape, he added.
In recent weeks, Palestinians from Gaza have carried out several attacks, including the double suicide bombing on Sunday in Ashdod, less than 20 miles north of Gaza's border.
The attack was particularly alarming to Israelis because it was the first time that Palestinian suicide bombers had made their way out of Gaza, which is bordered by a fence, to strike inside Israel.
"Until now, it was fairly safe and no terrorists came out of there," Interior Minister Avraham Poraz said on Israeli radio. "We have failed now for the first time, and so we must locate the crack in order to seal it up tightly."
Throughout much of the Mideast fighting, Israel's military has employed distinctly different tactics in Gaza and the West Bank.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces have been in or near Palestinian towns for the past two years. The troops stage almost nightly arrest sweeps and have imposed tough restrictions on the movements of Palestinians.
In Gaza, Israeli troops have staged only periodic raids into the congested Palestinian towns and refugee camps. Israeli military officers have expressed reservations about maintaining an extended troop presence in or near Gaza City, the largest Palestinian city and a stronghold for militants.
Palestinian factions in Gaza, led by Hamas, frequently launch rockets and mortars at Jewish settlements inside Gaza and Israeli communities just beyond Gaza's frontier. The firing causes few casualties, but Israel says it cannot tolerate such attacks on its citizens.
When Israeli armored vehicles enter the densely populated towns in Gaza, heavy gunfights often erupt, and the Palestinians often suffer heavy casualties. In its last major raid into Gaza, Israeli forces killed 14 Palestinians on March 7.
Israel has carried out many of what it calls targeted killings in Gaza. In a series of airstrikes last summer, Israel killed one Hamas leader and wounded three others. In the months that followed, Hamas attacks declined sharply.
--------
Israeli Missiles Hit Gaza After Suicide Bombing
March 16, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed two Palestinians in an air strike on Gaza City Tuesday, launching what it said would be relentless military action against militants after a suicide bombing at a strategic port, witnesses and medics said.
Israel carried out the air raid soon after its security cabinet decided on sustained operations, including attempts to kill militant leaders, in response to a double suicide bombing that killed 10 people in Ashdod port Sunday.
Israeli tanks gathered at Gaza's northern border for a possible push into the strip as Palestinian gunmen took up defensive positions under the cover of darkness.
The militant Islamic Jihad group said Mohammed al-Kharoubi, a senior member of its military wing, was in the one-story house in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City hit by three missiles, and that he survived the attack.
It said Naser Yassin, 27, a member of its al-Quds Brigades, and a passerby, aged 45, were killed.
Israel and Palestinian militants have made clear their intention to bloody one another as much as possible so that each can claim victory after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's planned evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Sunday's double bombing at Ashdod, 16 miles north of Gaza, shook Israel's sense of security because the attackers managed to sneak out of fenced-in territory for the first time in almost 3-1/2 years of conflict.
``This is part of a sustained, targeted and effective operation against terrorists who are continuing their attacks against Israel,'' a senior Israeli security source said after the air attack. ``I am speaking mainly of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.''
The source said more such operations were likely soon. ``No one will be exonerated. There will be no immunity,'' he said.
Violence has worsened since Sharon disclosed plans to remove settlers as part of unilateral moves in the face of an impasse in peacemaking that would also mean Palestinians losing swathes of land in the West Bank that they want for a state.
PALESTINIANS SAY ISRAELI MOVES COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE
Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said Israel's new military strikes would only perpetuate a cycle of violence.
``We call on (Sharon) to return to negotiations, because only this will lead to an end to the cycle of violence,'' Erekat said.
Sharon reiterated before parliament Monday that he saw no chance for substantive peace talks as long as militants kept up attacks. He broke off contacts to arrange a summit with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahned Qurie after the Ashdod bombing.
Persistent violence has stalled a U.S.-backed ``road map'' peace plan envisaging a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said his group could withstand any assault by Israel. ``When a Hamas leader is killed, a hundred other leaders arise,'' he told Reuters.
Hamas, the main Islamic group, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of the Fatah faction that runs the Authority, claimed joint responsibility for the port bombing. They called it revenge for killings of Palestinians in recent army raids.
--------
New Talks Ruled Out by Sharon After Attack
March 16, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/middleeast/16MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, March 15 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday ruled out political negotiations with the Palestinians for now, saying their leaders had repeatedly failed to halt attacks like a double suicide bombing a day earlier.
In a speech to Parliament, Mr. Sharon said that the bombings on Sunday in the southern port of Ashdod, which killed 10 people, reinforced "the understanding that there is no Palestinian leader with the courage, the ability, to struggle against terrorism."
Mr. Sharon was called before Parliament by opposition lawmakers seeking specifics on his plans for unilateral Israeli action that could involve withdrawing soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
He gave no new details, but said he was continuing to pursue his "disengagement plan" because he saw no prospect of negotiations with the Palestinians under the current Middle East peace initiative. The effort began last June but stalled shortly afterward.
"Soon it will become clear to the world that Israel has no real Palestinian negotiating partner for peace talks," he said. "Clearly, in this situation, there will be no political negotiations with the Palestinians."
Mr. Sharon's speech on Monday was filled with tough language, underscoring his refusal to negotiate while the violence continued. But Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Mr. Sharon, said it did not mark a change in policy.
The bombing on Sunday prompted Mr. Sharon to postpone plans for a meeting with the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei. The two had been expected to meet this week in what would have been their first face-to-face session since Mr. Qurei became prime minister in October.
Ghassan Khatib, the Palestinian labor minister, said Mr. Sharon's speech was "another step in the direction of avoiding bilateral negotiations and resorting to a unilateral approach."
"I think he took it a step further in this regard," Mr. Khatib added. "He was stronger and harsher in dismissing the Palestinian side as a partner. But we feel he has been making these kinds of statements all along."
Mr. Sharon's proposals for unilateral action face criticism from Israelis as well.
Yuval Steinitz, an influential legislator in Mr. Sharon's Likud Party, said Israel should "destroy all the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure, including the leadership, in Gaza."
He called for sending the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, back to Tunisia, where he spent years in exile.
Left-wing politicians have questioned whether Mr. Sharon is serious about carrying out the disengagement plan.
"Once and for all explain to the public in Israel what is behind your statements," said Yossi Sarid, a leader of the left-wing Meretz Party. "Nothing is going to come out of this because there is no plan and there never was."
Parliament approved Mr. Sharon's statement by a vote of 46 to 45. Two of the four factions in his coalition government stayed away from Parliament and did not cast ballots.
Meanwhile, Israel buried its dead from the attack on Sunday in which two Palestinian teenagers blew themselves up within a moment of each other, and about 100 yards apart, at the entrance to the large port at Ashdod.
The bombing was unusual in several respects. Palestinian factions said the two came from Gaza, the first time Palestinian bombers have managed to make it out of the fenced-in coastal territory and strike inside Israel.
On Monday, Israeli authorities still had no explanation about how the pair managed to slip out of Gaza.
It was also unusual, though not unprecedented, for the Palestinians to attack a major industrial complex rather than a crowd of Israeli civilians.
Israel carried out helicopter missile strikes in the early hours of Monday, attacking two machine workshops in Gaza City where Hamas manufactured weapons, according to Israel.
In a separate development, Israeli soldiers briefly detained a 12-year-old Palestinian boy at a West Bank checkpoint when they found a large bomb hidden in a bag he was carrying, security officials said.
The boy worked carrying bags for Palestinians at the checkpoint, outside the city of Nablus. He was unaware that his parcel was an explosive, which weighed about 20 pounds and was attached to a cellphone that could activate it, the officials said.
The officials believe that Palestinian militants intended to set off the explosive when the boy approached the soldiers. But, the soldiers were able to seize the bomb and detonate it in a controlled explosion, and the boy was released, the officials added.
--------
The slow death of the State of Israel
by Andy Martin
(Tuesday 16 March 2004)
Andy Martin (www.andymartin.com <http://www.andymartin.com> )
Media Monitors Network (MMN) <http://www.mediamonitors.net/>
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/5610/
"Unless and until American officials stop playing politics with our Middle East policy, and unless and until Israeli politicians stop seeking to manipulate the American political process, Israel remains on a path for inevitable decline and ultimate extinction as a nation state."
It used to be said that Social Security was the "third rail of American politics." (A "third rail" exists in transit systems and carries the electrical charge; touching the rail leads to electrocution). Candidates and officials were afraid to discuss Social Security because talking sense was courted instant death from voters.
Today Israel is the Third Rail. To attempt in any manner to discuss the failure of American policy, and to address the slow death of the State of Israel, is to court instant attacks as an "anti-Semite" and worse. Last year, then-presidential candidate Howard Dean suggested the U.S. should be "evenhanded" in dealing with the Middle East. There was an outcry from Jewish leaders. The United States must not be fair and evenhanded, they said; Israel is a "democracy."
A few weeks ago, in what can only be described as a "kowtow" identical to that used in ancient China to do obeisance to Chinese emperors, presidential candidate John Kerry was forced to appear before "Jewish leaders" and to recant mild statements he had made about Yasser Arafat. To paraphrase the late Senator Barry Goldwater, Kerry was told that anything less than extremism in defense of Israel is heresy and cause for political extinction.
The Bush administration has become extremely pro-Israel, courting Jewish voters and "conservative Christians," while American foreign policy in the Middle East becomes a shambles and laughingstock. No genuflection to Israel is sufficient when the votes of conservative Christians (calling Mel Gibson) are at stake in 2004. (It should be noted that neither American Jews nor Israelis ever express support for the genuinely most pro-Israel president in history, Richard Nixon, who saved Israel from defeat in 1973. There are no "Richard Nixon Boulevards" in Israel, though there ought to be.)
To even suggest that the Emperor Sharon has no clothes (and more importantly no policy) and that he is single-handedly destroying the State of Israel, is one more cause for being branded an anti-Semite. Just as it is considered bad form to say that one's "best friends are Jews," today many American Jews justify irrational support for Israel by claiming they "oppose Sharon" but "still support Israel," as though the contradictory nature of these statements can be harmonized.
On my own radio talk show, the Andy Martin Show, we enjoy a large Jewish audience, and lively discussion about the fate of Israel. Occasionally someone tries to brand me an anti-Semite, but it is clear to regular listeners I am no enemy of Jews or Israel, but merely a friend to all peoples in the Middle East.
Thus, I feel comfortable in observing that however much politicians may avert their eyes (they also avert their eyes when they reach backwards with open hands for campaign contributions), Israel is slowly dying. Ironically, Israel is dying as much due to the support of its "friends," as it is due to the successes of its enemies. Today, Israel's "friends" are its greatest enemies.
Israeli supporters continue the pretense that Israel is a "democracy." Israel is not a democracy. Israel is a military dictatorship with regular elections at which voters are manipulated to endorse militarism and national self-destruction.
Israel is supposedly the target of "terrorism." On the contrary, Israeli policies create terrorism as a natural backlash to occupation, subjugation, genocide and simple boorishness. Last week, Israeli Arab workers were branded with red "x's" to expose them in the same way that Jews wore forced to wear a Star of David in Nazi Germany. Israeli politicians create the conditions for terrorism to exploit and manipulate their own supporters.
On Sunday March 14th, suicide bombers attacked a large Israeli port facility. Israeli officials admitted that a "new phase" has begun in the war between the occupiers and the occupied. Yes it has. Unless sane minds and strong hands take control of a situation that is spinning out of control, the whole world is endangered.
As someone who will soon be a U.S. Senate candidate in Florida, let me be clear: America must be evenhanded in the Middle East. Political pandering to American Jews undermines national security for both Americans and Israelis. Period.
Ariel Sharon's policies are a prescription for perpetual war, and the inevitable decline and demise of Israel. Palestinians will never surrender, no matter how much terror is directed at them by Israeli leaders. The relentless Israeli attacks on Gaza, with missiles repeatedly fired into crowds and crowded streets, is state terrorism, nothing less. Militant Islamic groups should have Sharon's picture on their recruiting posters; Sharon has done more to energize hatred than any leader in Israel's history. As long as Israelis tolerate a leader who is a war criminal, they lack the moral legitimacy to criticize the Palestinian leadership.
Time is not on Israel's side. Period. Israelis and their supporters think that developing new weapons and new tools of oppression will somehow buttress them against the inevitable path of history. They will not and cannot. Israel's high tech weapons and nuclear armaments as are as helpless and irrelevant as America's power was in seeking to defeat Saddam Hussein.
What will work? What will save Israel from inevitable destruction? From eventually falling helplessly into the desert sand, Ozymandias-style?
First, the United States must take control of the fault line between Israel and Palestine. We were willing to invade Iraq, but we are afraid to police the 1967 border between Palestine and Israel. Far from being an anti-Semite or enemy of Israel, I believe that only a commitment of American troops can help end the impasse and bring peace to the region.
Second, Israel will have to remove all settlements and completely withdraw to its 1967 borders. If the Israeli regime refuses to remove its illegal settlements, the world community must forcibly remove them.
Third, the United States must extend a security commitment--an equal commitment--to both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel can no longer be allowed to conduct state terrorism, invading Palestine at will, killing civilians, destroying property. Once Palestine is established, both Israeli and Palestinian terrorism must cease. Period.
Fourth, we must acknowledge that the existence of Israel is not an excuse for the failed states of the Middle East. Arab dictatorships have played a cruel hoax on their peoples, and on themselves. America must stand ready to make a meaningful effort to help create representative institutions and democracy.
Finally, as President Bush has said so often, but as his underlings seem to ignore, "Islam is not the enemy." Islam has a millennium of tolerance behind it. Militant Islam is largely a reaction to colonialism, oppression and the American-Israeli axis.
As a Christian, I know that confession is an essential predicate to cognition and contrition. Unless I confess my sins, I am bound by them. Unless American leaders have the strength and courage to confess that our policies have been a colossal failure over the past sixty years, and open a new day in the Middle East, a day of respect and recognition for all peoples, we are prisoners of the past and hostages to the future.
The foregoing suggestions were part of the "Andy Martin Peace Plan," which I promulgated in 2000 in response to the supposed "failure" of the peace process at that time. My suggestions are as essential and unavoidable today as they were in 2000.
Unless and until American officials stop playing politics with our Middle East policy, and unless and until Israeli politicians stop seeking to manipulate the American political process, Israel remains on a path for inevitable decline and ultimate extinction as a nation state.
-------- pacific
The real fight is for civil rights
March 16 2004,
The Age (Australia)
http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/03/15/1079199157315.html
ASIO has "form" when it comes to the character assassination of Australian citizens, writes Jeff Sparrow.
In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith endures prolonged torture before he learns to love Big Brother. Melbourne writer and humorist Tim Ferguson ("In defence of the top secret life of ASIO", on this page last Thursday) evidently needs no such inducements.
How else to explain Ferguson's extraordinary suggestion that ASIO should be applauded for doing "wicked things in the name of our security" because "we need people who will stop at nothing to protect us"?
With Australian security forces enjoying unprecedented powers, it's hard to see the humour in a newspaper columnist urging spies to embrace "exploitation, blackmail or deceit".
After all, on these matters, our spooks have (as they say in law-enforcement circles) "form".
Files released under the so-called 30-year rule reveal ASIO employing Ferguson-style tactics against anti-Vietnam War activists rather than terrorists. Indeed, the agency seems to have considered the two more or less interchangeable.
When Jim Cairns, then a senior figure in the ALP, proposed that the Vietnam moratorium sit down (gasp!) for a few minutes in Bourke Street, ASIO shrieked: "Cairns' activities could lead, via civil, industrial and political unrest to the growth of elitism in every sphere, to the manipulation of people by demagogues, to the fascist cult of the personality, to the worship of force, and to the destruction of the democratic parliamentary system of government and its replacement by a form of collectivism... That way lies anarchy and, in due course, left-wing fascism."
The archives reveal ASIO gathering information on the movements, telephone calls and political views of just about anyone who opposed the war, and then adding its own anonymous assessments of their character, personality and habits.
A file on the early women's liberation movement in Melbourne classifies feminists as to whether they are "attractive", "Jewish-looking" or "trouble-makers"; while participants in an anarchist conference are rated "fat and unattractive", "half Maori and not very impressive" and so on.
What such scuttlebutt had to do with security remains anybody's guess, but ASIO certainly took it seriously. The dossier (ASIO and Special Branch) on Sydney anti-war personality Bob Gould alone runs to 8000 pages.
Tim Ferguson might consider anonymous character assassination trivial beside the skulduggery he favours. Yet ASIO put the information it gathered to use.
The file of one activist - now a prominent neo-conservative - contains scurrilous assessments of his political views, alcohol consumption and personal hygiene, and seems to have been consulted whenever he applied for government jobs.
There's a long record of people who found it impossible to obtain citizenship or employment because of references on dossiers they were never permitted to see.
These days, even former US defence secretary Robert McNamara considers Vietnam an immoral conflict. Why then did ASIO monitor people protesting against the war rather than those cheering it on?
To ask the question is to answer it. From its inception, ASIO saw its role as combating the left and comforting the right. A year after ASIO's formation, its then chief, Sir Charles Spry, began compiling lists of leftists (eventually numbering some 7000) for detention in army camps should war break out.
As late as the mid-'60s, ASIO controlled hundreds of informers within the moribund ranks of the Communist Party and its affiliates. At the same time, it ignored the most significant campaign of domestic terrorism in years, a wave of bombings conducted by right-wing Croatians.
In response to criticism, ASIO resorts to the traditional plea of the repeat offender: "I'm a changed man, yer honour!" It draws a line between the bad old days of eavesdropping on the New Housewives Association and the good new days of combating Osama bin Laden.
But there's reason to be sceptical.
Consider the more recent example of the Victoria Police's Operations Intelligence Unit. In 1997, leaks to The Age revealed the unit - the successor to the notorious Special Branch - to be out of control, with files on innocuous community bodies such as Pensioners for Peace and the Victorian Child Care Action Group. During the late-'80s and early-'90s, the unit's undercover operatives ran a breakfast radio show on 3CR, infiltrated Friends of the Earth and sabotaged the anti-nuclear Peace Fleet.
A subsequent Ombudsman's investigation pointed to lack of accountability, a culture of secrecy and a willingness to sacrifice legality for expediency - precisely the attributes Ferguson so admires in ASIO.
Today, September 11 provides a justification for each and every new assault on civil liberties. Isn't it time we said that this particular emperor has no clothes?
Of course Australian participation in illegal and immoral wars overseas increases the likelihood of terrorism at home. But notwithstanding Bali and notwithstanding Spain, more people die in this country from lighting strikes than al-Qaeda attacks - and we don't give the Bureau of Meteorology carte blanche to kick down our doors during storm season.
In many ways, the "war on terror" resembles precisely the kind of conflict Orwell imagined, a war that requires a victory not over the terrorists but ourselves.
Tim Ferguson seems to have already achieved a happy state of surrender. Many of the rest of us, however, still consider civil liberties worth defending.
Jeff Sparrow is the co-author of Radical Melbourne II: 1940-2000, to be published later this year by The Vulgar Press.
-------- pakistan / india
Pakistani Troops Kill 24 in Terror Hunt
Mar 16, 2004
By AHSANULLAH WAZIR
Associated Press Writer
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN_BORDER_OPERATION?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
WANA, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani troops killed 24 suspects in a fierce crackdown Tuesday on al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives in the rugged tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, the army spokesman said.
At least eight Pakistani soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in the operation.
Troops attacked a large fortified mud-brick compound with mortar and machine gun fire shortly after 5 a.m. near Wana, in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, just a few miles from the Afghan border, army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press.
The operation was launched a day after the country's military president promised to rid the rugged tribal belt of 500 to 600 foreign terrorists he says were hiding there.
It also followed an announcement over the weekend that American forces were stepping up a sweep on the Afghan side of the border to capture al-Qaida and Taliban holdouts, including terror chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
"We believe that 24 suspected terrorists have been killed," Sultan said of the Pakistan operation.
The majority of casualties appeared to be Pakistani tribesmen suspected of sheltering the terrorists, but Sultan said several of the dead also were foreigners presumed to be members of al-Qaida. There was no indication that any senior al-Qaida or Taliban leaders was among the dead.
Sultan said soldiers had only been able to retrieve a small number of the dead because of continued tension in the region, though the fighting had ended by Tuesday night. The bodies of all eight dead soldiers were taken to army headquarters at Wana.
About 700 paramilitary forces began the operation early Tuesday in Kaloosha, a village about six miles west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
A Kaloosha resident, Qasim Khan, said paramilitary troops exchanged fire with people inside the compound, which consisted of several low buildings, surrounded by a high wall and several lookout towers. The fortress-like design is common in the lawless tribal belt.
It was unclear who was inside, but it was believed to belong to one of seven tribesmen from the Yargul Khel clan accused of harboring al-Qaida and Taliban suspects. The seven had refused to surrender to authorities.
"We are not allowed to go out of our homes," Khan told an Associated Press reporter by telephone from the besieged village.
The operation was the latest in a series of military sweeps in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal regions.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf vowed on Monday to rid the areas of suspected terrorists, and acknowledged for the first time that 500-600 foreigners were being sheltered in the region. He appealed to tribal elders for their cooperation in the counterterrorism drive.
His comments came one day in advance of a scheduled two-day visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
On Monday, police defused a large car bomb outside the U.S. Consulate in the southern city of Karachi minutes before it was timed to explode.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the weekend announced the start of Operation Mountain Storm, a large-scale sweep to hunt down al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives believed to be hiding in the border region.
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that U.S. forces were involved in ongoing checkpoint and house searches and patrols in Paktika, the Afghan province bordering South Waziristan. He said American commanders "continue to coordinate and cooperate" with the Pakistanis, but would not say if there were any operations linked to the Wana crackdown.
Paktika Deputy Gov. Sadokhan Ambarkhil told AP he had no information about any military activity on the Afghan side of the border, but that drivers coming from the border region had told of U.S. forces carrying out an operation last Friday.
He had no details or firsthand information.
"We have no administration in those areas," he said.
Pakistan is a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but has faced criticism because rebels of al-Qaida and Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban regime are believed to still be launching attacks in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil.
Mehmood Shah, a government administrator for the tribal areas based in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said Tuesday's operation involved about 700 paramilitary soldiers.
The paramilitary forces blocked a road leading to Kaloosha from Wana and vehicles heading toward the village were turned back. An AP reporter could hear mortar fire.
A cleric issued an appeal by loudspeaker from Wana's main mosque for negotiations to end the fighting.
"People should go to Kaloosha to mediate a cease-fire so that ordinary people are saved from bloodshed," Bazid Khan said at the Pir Sultan mosque.
In the past two years, Pakistan has deployed 70,000 troops in the tribal areas for the first time since independence, and has staged five military operations.
Last month, Pakistan army troops using helicopter gunships and artillery raided several villages near Wana, capturing 25 people, none of whom was reported to be a top al-Qaida or Taliban figure.
--------
Police stop terror attack
March 16, 2004
By Afzal Nadeem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040315-100021-3891r.htm
KARACHI, Pakistan - Police defused a large bomb less than five minutes before it was timed to detonate outside the U.S. Consulate yesterday, averting a devastating terrorist attack two days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visits this country.
The close call came as President Pervez Musharraf, a top Washington ally, said a Libyan member of al Qaeda was behind two bombings he narrowly escaped in December. Mr. Musharraf has vowed to purge Pakistan of hundreds of foreign terrorists.
It was not clear who was behind the thwarted attack on the consulate in Karachi - Pakistan's largest city of 14 million people and scene of a wave of anti-Western bombings since September 11 - but suspicions immediately focused on Islamic extremists blamed for previous blasts.
Pakistan's military leader has enraged radicals because of his backing of the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Gen. Musharraf switched allegiance in the days after September 11, withdrawing what had been strong support for Afghanistan's hardline Taliban militia government and working with Washington to engineer its ouster.
"The man or men who left this van near the U.S. Consulate building wanted to blow it up," said Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, in Islamabad.
The Pakistani government and U.S. Embassy said Mr. Powell, currently in India, would arrive tomorrow for a two-day visit of Pakistan as planned. Mr. Powell's itinerary does not include this southern city.
Pakistani police, using footage from surveillance cameras at the U.S. Consulate, said a man dressed in a traditional Pakistani tunic parked a van outside the heavily guarded consulate at 7:14 a.m. and fled in a car after he was challenged by a paramilitary guard.
Inside the van, police bomb disposal experts found a plastic water tank containing about 200 gallons of a liquid explosive mix - including the combustible fertilizer chemical ammonium nitrate - attached to detonators and a timer. They moved the bomb to a safe location and defused it.
A police investigator, Qazi Chand, said that "only four and a half minutes were left for the bomb to detonate when bomb disposal experts successfully defused it."
The van used in the attempted bombing had been seized from a 17-year-old Pakistani student late Sunday in Karachi.
Andrew Steinfeld, the counselor for public affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, said police defused the bomb before most of the two dozen American and Pakistani staff had arrived for work. The consulate was shut for the day. Hundreds of policemen and paramilitary troops cordoned off the consulate - scene of at least two previous attacks.
In June 2002, a suicide bomber blew up a truck in front of the U.S. Consulate, killing 14 Pakistanis. In February 2003, a gunman opened fire on a police post guarding the consulate, killing two policemen and wounding at least five other persons.
Four men suspected of belonging to the outlawed Islamic militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen Al-Almi were convicted last year for the June 2002 bombing.
--------
U.S. Consulate in Karachi Targeted
Police Disarm Bomb Inside Van Parked at Diplomatic Compound
By Kamran Khan and John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59087-2004Mar15.html
KARACHI, Pakistan, March 15 -- The U.S. Consulate in Karachi, which has been the target of two terrorist strikes over the past two years, narrowly escaped a third attack Monday morning when police defused a large bomb inside a van parked just outside the heavily guarded facility.
The attempted bombing came at an awkward moment for Pakistan as well as for the city of Karachi, which has been basking in favorable international attention after successfully hosting a long-anticipated cricket match -- the first of a five-week series -- between the Indian and Pakistani national teams on Saturday. And it came just days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was due to arrive in Pakistan on his first official visit since 2002. Powell is not scheduled to visit Karachi.
Police and intelligence officials said the incident began about 7:30 a.m., when a man parked a Suzuki van on a main street near the wall that surrounds the consulate, which is situated in a busy commercial area. As a guard watched, the driver jumped into a car carrying three other young men, two of whom were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, the officials said.
Police examined the van, where they found a large blue water tank filled with about 200 gallons of liquid explosives, officials said. The bomb was wired to a detonator made from a washing-machine timer. The vehicle was towed to a nearby sports field where the bomb was defused. A police investigator, Qazi Chand, told the Associated Press that less than five minutes remained on the timer when the bomb was disarmed; other officials said that assertion could not be confirmed.
"For the first time in Pakistan, liquid explosives have been used for a terrorist act," Karachi's police chief, Asad Ashraf Malik, said. "In the space of just 15 seconds a young man left the bomb-laden van in front of the consulate premises and boarded another car that followed him."
In June 2002, a suicide car bombing just outside the consulate killed 14 Pakistanis. In February 2003, a gunman opened fire at the security checkpoint outside the gate of the diplomatic compound, killing two policemen. Last year, four members of Harkat ul-Mujaheddin al-Almi, a Pakistani extremist group linked to al Qaeda, were convicted of helping to carry out the suicide bombing.
A senior intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said there had been two warnings about possible attacks on the consulate in the past three months. "The U.S. Consulate is the prime target for al Qaeda remnants and desperate jihadis in Karachi," the official said.
Police said the bomb was made from three chemicals, including ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that is sometimes used in explosives, the Associated Press reported. The consulate had not yet opened for business when the bomb was discovered, and the building closest to the van is largely unused.
"The device wouldn't have created tremendous destruction, but it would have triggered a massive fireball just under the Stars and Stripes," said Fayaz Leghari, who is heading the police investigation.
In a separate development Monday, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, told a gathering of tribal elders in Peshawar that a Libyan member of al Qaeda was behind two attempts to kill him in December, the Associated Press reported.
Pakistani officials had previously hinted at an al Qaeda role in the two bomb attacks against Musharraf's convoy in the city of Rawalpindi within a 10-day period in December. But Musharraf on Monday went further, saying a Libyan terrorist had paid between $26,100 and $34,000 to a Pakistani to recruit local Islamic militants to carry out the bombings. He did not name the Libyan but promised that the government would soon reveal more details of its investigation.
Musharraf also said there were about 500 to 600 foreigners "from different countries" hiding in the semi-autonomous tribal zone along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, and vowed to drive them out.
"You give any name to them, al Qaeda or not, but I will not allow these foreigners to stay in our tribal areas and create problems for us," Musharraf said. "We will not allow them to get training in our tribal areas, store explosives and go back to Afghanistan for killing their Muslim brothers."
Lancaster reported from New Delhi.
-------- space
Space Wars
Interview with Bruce Gagnon
Dollars & Sense magazine
Issue #252, March/April 2004
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/0304gagnon.html
The administration's proposal for human space exploration is designed to project U.S. military power into the skies.
"Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit. So let us continue the journey." With these words, President Bush unveiled a plan in January to establish a permanent base on the moon for use as a launching pad for missions to Mars. Dollars & Sense asked Bruce Gagnon, the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, to explain the earthly motives behind the administration's celestial designs. -Adria Scharf Dollars & Sense: Why did George W. Bush announce this new initiative now, in the face of a historic budget deficit?
Bruce Gagnon: The timing has to do with fear he won't be re-elected. The idea is to get these programs institutionalized-embedded into the budget-before he leaves office. Second is the fear that China, which recently launched an astronaut into space, will beat us to the moon. Whoever has bases on the moon will be able to control the "earth-moon gravity well"-the pathway between the moon and earth. The administration wants to gain control over the shipping lanes there and back before any other country does so first. The moon is also the gateway to cheaper space exploration beyond. Spacecraft built on the moon lift off using less energy because of the lower gravity. So controlling the moon would give the U.S. control over getting elsewhere.
D&S: Why establish "shipping lanes" to the moon?
BG: Helium-3 [an isotope of ordinary helium], found in lunar soil, could become a substitute for dwindling fossil fuels. Some see it as the energy source of the future. It would be used in fusion reactors. Helium-3 is one of the reasons the United States never signed the 1979 U.N. moon treaty, which says no one can claim ownership of the moon or have bases there. It's like a modern-day gold rush, but helium-3 could be far more valuable than gold.
Read Air Force Space Command's "Strategic Master Plan-FY06 and Beyond." It says: "While our ultimate goals are truly to 'exploit' space ... we cannot fully 'exploit' that medium until we first 'control' it." The document outlines a 25-year plan to sustain, modernize, and maximize war-fighting capability in space. It also says: "Military forces have always viewed the 'high ground' position as one of dominance and warfare advantage . This capability is the ultimate high ground of U.S. military operations . Our charter is to rapidly obtain and maintain space superiority . ."
D&S: Is a "Star Wars"-type "strategic defense system" part of these plans?
BG: Bush's fiscal 2005 budget includes $47 million for technological development on an advanced, lightweight, space-based missile interceptor, to be developed by the Pentagon.
Meanwhile, NASA's Project Prometheus is developing nuclear-powered rocket engines. The nuclear engines will be used to provide power for another initiative, the space-based laser, which the Pentagon calls the "Death Star." The idea is to have a constellation of 25 to 40 orbiting battle stations powered by nuclear reactors knocking out others' satellites with lasers. Ultimately their dream is to hit targets on the earth as well. Because projecting a laser requires huge power, they need a way to refuel. So the battle stations would have nuclear reactors on them. The problem is, inevitably they'll start tumbling back to earth like the Columbia shuttle did last year, burning up on re-entry.
Both the missile interceptor and the death star laser are designed to be used offensively. None of this is really about defense. It's about controlling space, dominating space, and denying others access to space.
D&S: How does Mars figure in to the president's initiative?
BG: They believe they'll find magnesium, cobalt, and uranium there. The Mars Exploration Rovers are not looking for the origins of life. They're doing soil identification. NASA has said it hopes to have mining colonies established on Mars by 2025. New rocket technologies will be required to make it cost effective to haul mineral resources back to earth. Listen carefully to the language in Bush's speech, and you'll hear him talk about new "propulsion" technologies. That's code for nuclear-powered rockets.
The rovers already on Mars are themselves also powered in part by plutonium. Project Prometheus is working on developing many more nuclear missions. These planned nuclear-powered mining colonies will mean a massive increase in launches of nuclear materials into space, on rockets that have a historic 10% failure rate.
D&S: How risky was the launching of the Mars rovers, and have any accidents involving nuclear materials in space already occurred?
BG: All rocket launches are risky. Launch explosions happen. Multiple event failures happen. As you increase the number of launches, the risk of a major disaster increases. We've already had bad accidents involving nuclear power in space. In 1996, a Russian Mars mission with a half-pound of plutonium fell back to earth soon after its launch, raining debris over the mountains of Chile and Bolivia. In 1964, a U.S. military satellite powered by 2.1 pounds of plutonium fell back to earth, burned up on re-entry, and spread radioactive nuclear particles into the atmosphere, where they scattered globally. Dr. John Gofman, professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley, believes this is a cause of the increase in cancers around the world since the 1960s. According to a NASA environmental impact statement for the 1997 Cassini Space Mission, which had 72 pounds of plutonium on board, a launch accident could have released plutonium over a 60-mile radius.
When Bush took office, he appointed Sean O'Keefe as head of NASA. O'Keefe, who used to work for Dick Cheney in the Department of Defense, and served as Secretary of the Navy under Bush senior, is a big proponent of nuclear propulsion.
D&S: President Bush seemed to downplay the cost of his space initiative, announcing just $1 billion in new funding, plus plans to reallocate $11 billion from existing NASA programs. What do you make of these figures?
BG: His plan is to get this rolling by embedding technological development into the budget now. The real money will kick in after he's gone. The collective cost estimates go back to his father, who had similar plans to send humans to the moon and on to Mars. In 1989 the plan was costed out at $400 billion. Today experts estimate it will cost $500 to $750 billion, but NASA space missions have a historic 100% cost overrun ratio. The International Space Station was even worse. Originally projected to cost $10 billion, it has cost $100 billion.
In the next five years, they plan to spend over $55.1 billion just for Star Wars technological developments. That doesn't count nuclear projects embedded in the Department of Energy (DOE) budget, or the costs of developing a whole new generation of satellites. It doesn't count other NASA projects, National Security Agency projects, or the costs of satellite development by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) [a Department of Defense agency that designs and operates spy satellites]. The funding is allocated and buried in different budgets. Some is hidden in civilian or dual-use programs. You start adding it all up-and it amounts to an enormous expenditure.
Plus, when they finish constructing the space station, they're planning to close it down and shift the funding over. We'll ride the shuttle a couple more years, then shut it down. Each shuttle flight costs about $500 million.
A major aerospace industry publication, Space News, published an editorial in 1999 arguing that the Mars missions are affordable. It argued that the place to look for funding is entitlement programs. That's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, what's left of welfare. The aerospace industry has identified these programs for financing and is going after them.
D&S: What aerospace corporations and Pentagon military contractors stand to benefit from this and how?
BG: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman are the big four. They'd all profit from a space arms race. Star Wars will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet earth. These are the same corporations that have brought us endless war here on earth, and now they want to move this madness into the heavens. If they get away with it, there will be no money left for anything else. And NASA has said that once the aerospace industry can successfully mine the sky for profit, the whole program will be privatized.
D&S: What are the connections between the aerospace industry and the nuclear industry?
BG: It's the same gang-military contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin are working on developing nuclear generators and reactors for use in space, and space weapons. Corporations in the nuclear industry do a lot of work with the DOE, which recently announced that it would expand production capability at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee by allocating $100 million to the lab to meet the growing demand for space nuclear power. The DOE owns the lab and contracts it out to aerospace corporations.
We know the DOE has a terrible history of contaminating local communities and exposing workers to radioactive material. So we should be worried about nuclear-powered militarization of space not only because of space accidents, but because of the whole production process and its effects on workers and communities.
Think of the 15th century, when Spain sent Columbus to look for the "New World." Once Spain had staked claim to the "New World," it had to spend 100 years building an armada in order to maintain control over the wealth of resources, the sea routes, and the emerging markets. This helped to create the global war system. NASA and the Pentagon are doing the same long-range planning today.
Interview conducted by Adria Scharf, co-editor of Dollars & Sense.
RESOURCES The Global Network has a new video called "Arsenal of Hypocrisy: The Space Program and the Military Industrial Complex." For more information, visit www.space4peace.org
-------- spies
Army agents spy on Islam conference
March 16, 2004
(AP)
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040315-113810-4501r.htm
AUSTIN, Texas - Army counterintelligence agents improperly tried to gather information on civilian participants at a University of Texas conference on Islam, the Army said yesterday.
Two agents of the Army's Intelligence and Security Command from Fort Hood went to the law school on Feb. 9, seeking information on people who attended a conference titled "Islam and the Law: The Question of Sexism."
Conference organizers and civil rights activists accused the Army of spying on the conference and using tactics meant to stifle free speech.
The Army is prohibited from investigating civilians unless the FBI waives its jurisdiction or requests assistance, and that was not done, said Deborah Parker, a spokeswoman for the Army Intelligence and Security Command, based at Fort Belvoir, Va.
"It was a lapse in judgment," Miss Parker said. "It was not something that was done maliciously."
The conference, which had taken place a week earlier, was open to the public. Conference organizers said they refused to give the agents a list of participants and a video of the event.
Maunica Sthanki, co-chairman of the UT Chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild, said the conference did not merit military suspicion.
"The message I think that the Army and the government are sending is that anybody who chooses to learn about Islam is going to be investigated," she said. "I don't think the American public should accept that message of fear, and that's why the issue isn't over."
Douglas Laycock, an associate dean for research at the law school, said the Army agents overreacted. "You can't be suspicious of everyone who attends an academic conference," he said.
An Army statement said the agents were acting on a report by two Army lawyers who attended the conference , where they were assigned to deal with legal issues involving the U.S. military and the Muslim population.
--------
Army, captain near deal in espionage case
March 16, 2004
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040316-120512-9392r.htm
Capt. James Yee and prosecutors are near an agreement under which the Army would drop its most serious criminal charges against the Muslim chaplain and he would agree to undergo up to 30 days of counterintelligence interrogations and a polygraph test.
Once accused of spying, Capt. Yee ultimately was charged with adultery and mishandling classified information while assigned to Task Force Guantanamo, where he tended to the religious needs of Taliban and al Qaeda detainees.
Capt. Yee was undergoing a pretrial hearing, called an Article 32, in December at Fort Benning, Ga., when a military judge suspended the proceedings because prosecutors had not performed a required classification review of documents seized from the chaplain.
Negotiations ensued between U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Eugene R. Fidell of Washington, Capt. Yee's civilian attorney.
The deal would have the government drop the classified-information charges. Capt. Yee would be subjected to administrative punishment on charges of committing adultery and storing pornographic material on his computer. He would resign from the Army with an honorable discharge.
The agreement would also give him immunity from charges stemming from his answers to questions about whether he engaged in espionage.
The military originally accused Capt. Yee of five espionage-related charges and implied to his military attorneys that he might face the death penalty.
At the closed magistrate hearing, prosecutors presented a confinement document, a copy of which was viewed by The Washington Times. It listed charges of spying, espionage and aiding the enemy. Based on the government's submission, the magistrate ordered Capt. Yee held in a Navy brig, where he stayed for 76 days.
But when the military brought formal charges, none of those accusations appeared. Prosecutors charged Capt. Yee, a West Point graduate, with less serious offenses of mishandling classified material.
The material, which included a list of detainees, was seized by authorities when Capt. Yee arrived in Florida on leave from his duties at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon has classified the names of detainees so as not to provide the information to the enemy.
Mr. Fidell has repeatedly said his client is innocent of espionage charges.
The Army has transferred Capt. Yee from Fort Benning to Fort Meade, Md.
-------- un
Iraqi Leaders Said to Be Split on Giving U.N. a Big Role
March 16, 2004
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/middleeast/16CND-NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 16 - The United Nations said today that the spriritual leader of Iraq's majority Shiites had disassociated himself from reports that some Shiites did not want the organization to play a role in Iraq's political transition.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had written to Secretary General Kofi Annan this week to say he was not behind comments from some Iraqi Governing Council members who had questioned a further United Nations role.
"There were quite a little bit of vibes coming out of Iraq now saying that the U.N. is not wanted, but that is not the impression we have," Mr. Brahimi said at a news conference here. "The impression we have is that a lot of Iraqis do want the U.N. there."
Several members of the American-appointed council, who earlier had called for the United Nations to lend legitimacy to the transfer of power scheduled June 30, have been saying in recent days that they want the world organization to stay away. One of them, Intifad Qanbar, a spokesman for Ahmed Chalabi, a high-profile Shiite member of the council, said that the United Nations was an unwelcome and inefficient outside influence and that many Shiites were unhappy with its past involvement in Iraq.
The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Iraq in October, after a series of attacks on relief workers and the August bombing of its Baghdad headquarters that killed 22 people, including its mission chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The United States initially kept the United Nations out of its transition plans, but when those plans ran into difficulties in January, the Bush administration reversed course and asked the organization to take on a major responsibility for shaping the transfer.
The most vocal advocate for a United Nations return at that time was Ayatollah Sistani, who said he would drop his insistence on full national elections in June, a proposal that threatened to scuttle American plans, only if the United Nations sent a team to Iraq and verified that a credible vote in that short a time was not feasible.
Mr. Brahimi went to Iraq in February and concluded that the transfer of sovereignty should take place on June 30 and that elections should be held in 2005. "The impression, or even more than an impression, we came back with then was that the Iraqis more than agreed with this finding," Mr. Brahimi said today.
Mr. Brahimi said that the United Nations needed a formal invitation to return and that it was still awaiting word from the council and the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority. He said he expected that an invitation was forthcoming and said the United Nations stood ready to help in any way it was asked.
"We are not pressing for a job, we are not begging for a role, but if we are needed, we will help," he said. "If we are not needed, that would be great."
He added: "I think the international community as a whole would be happier if the U.N. were there. I think there is unanimity about that now, even with the occupying power."
The United Nations position is that it is up to the Iraqis themselves to reach a consensus on forming an interim administration and that the United Nations will assist them if needed. Regardless of what occurs now, the United Nations is expected to return to Iraq in force after the transition to help plan elections and write a new constitution.
Mr. Brahimi, 70, a former Algerian foreign minister who was Mr. Annan's envoy to Afghanistan the past two years, appeared undisturbed by the reported discord on the council and the delay in the issuance of an invitation. "We are very relaxed to let them come to us in their own time," he said.
-------- us
Soldier Surrenders After Abandoning Iraq Unit
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61591-2004Mar15.html
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass., March 15 -- A Florida National Guardsman who abandoned his unit after returning from Iraq in October surrendered to military officials Monday afternoon, claiming conscientious objector status.
Army Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, 28, of Miami is believed to be the first soldier to turn himself in after refusing to return to Iraq, his lawyer said.
"I am saying no to war; I have chosen peace," Mejia said at a morning news conference at the Peace Abbey, a pacifist institute, in nearby Sherborn, Mass. "I went to Iraq and was an instrument of violence, and now I have decided to become an instrument of peace."
Coinciding with the first anniversary week of the start of the war in Iraq, Mejia's surrender will be a "test case for the military that will have broad impact on other objectors or potential objectors," said Tod Ensign of Citizen Soldier, which he described as a soldiers' rights advocacy organization.
Ensign said that as many as 600 soldiers have failed to return to their units after home leaves from Iraq.
Mejia, who was born in Nicaragua and is a permanent U.S. resident but not a citizen, arrived in Iraq with his infantry battalion in May 2003 after a brief stint in Jordan. He returned to the United States in late September to address immigration issues.
During his time in Iraq, he said, he became increasingly convinced that war was unjust, citing a firefight after an ambush on his unit that left several civilians dead. He decided not to return to his unit for redeployment on Oct. 16.
"I am glad to hear that he turned himself in. His unit had tried to get in touch with him when he was gone and could not reach him," said Lt. Col. Ron E. Tittle, chief of public affairs for the Florida National Guard, who said that any legal issues probably would be dealt with at Fort Stewart, Ga., where Mejia's unit was assigned after it was activated in January 2003. "We wish he could have returned and served with his comrades and served over there," Tittle said. "But that is another issue."
In a story published in Monday's Chicago Tribune, some of Mejia's commanders suggested that he was an unmotivated soldier who had lost his nerve.
Mejia disputed claims that he had not performed well under fire. "I was there and did my job as a soldier," he said.
After signing documentation saying he was a conscientious objector and speaking with reporters for about a half-hour Monday, Mejia boarded a school bus along with his parents and other family members and about two dozen peace activists to this air base on the western outskirts of Boston.
Wearing a medallion that read "Make me an instrument of your peace" and carrying a backpack containing a Bible, clothes and writing tools, Mejia surrendered to two military policemen. He was released on his own recognizance and ordered to report to his battalion's Miami headquarters, said Louis Font, his attorney.
Along with his mother and aunt, Mejia boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale late Monday evening, said Font, a West Point graduate and conscientious objector from the Vietnam War, who specializes in military law.
At the news conference, held outdoors in front of a stone memorial for unknown civilians killed in war, Mejia said he had spent the past five months hiding out with friends and relatives, mostly in New York City. He chose to surrender in Massachusetts, he said, after a visit earlier this year to the Peace Abbey, which also houses a small museum with artifacts from Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and other pacifists. "I have not committed a crime and I should not run," he said.
Font said that if Mejia is court-martialed, he could face maximum penalties of five years in a military prison for desertion and an additional five years for missing a movement to avoid a hazardous duty, followed by a dishonorable discharge.
The desertion charge would require prosecutors to demonstrate that Mejia did not intend to return to duty, which his surrender shows is not true, Font said, adding that he will argue that Mejia's case should be handled administratively, without a trial. To be classified as a conscientious objector Mejia would have to demonstrate that he is opposed to all war, "and he certainly is that," Font said.
Mejia's mother, Maritza Castillo of Miami, said she is scared of what might happen to her son but hopes he will be treated fairly. "I am proud of him. I want justice," she said.
-------- propaganda wars
INTELLIGENCE
Many in Europe Suspect Spain Misled Them About Attackers
March 16, 2004
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/europe/16SPIN.html
MADRID, March 15 - Senior European officials complained Monday that their governments and the United Nations felt misled by the government of Prime Minister José María Aznar in the way it initially blamed the Basque separatist organization ETA for the terror attacks last week.
On Thursday, the day of the bombings, at Spain's insistence, the Security Council passed a resolution attributing responsibility to ETA.
Also on Thursday, Javier Solana, a Spaniard who is the European Union's top foreign policy official, gave television interviews in three languages saying it seemed certain that militant Basque separatists were responsible because the type of explosives and the tactics used were those of ETA.
Mr. Solana made his remarks at the request of the Spanish government, one senior European official in Brussels said.
His comments carried great weight not only because of his current position, his expertise on terrorism and the respect he enjoys, but also because he served as Spain's foreign minister under the last Socialist government. He is also a former secretary general of NATO.
Spain's support of the American-led war in Iraq and its dispatch of 1,300 troops to Iraq were opposed by 90 percent of Spaniards, according to some polls. But the ruling conservative party remained in the lead until the bombings.
If the suspects who have been arrested were linked to ETA and not apparently to Al Qaeda, the government's policies would not have come under such scrutiny. A long history of ETA attacks made it logical that the group would be viewed as a likely suspect. But when it emerged that militants linked to Al Qaeda were more likely responsible, political allegiance shifted sharply to the leftist opposition, especially because many Spaniards felt the government had not been completely forthcoming about the news.
"My government didn't tell the truth to the people, or at least not the whole truth," Diego López Garrido, a senior Socialist Party official and constitutional law expert who could emerge as minister of defense, interior or justice, said in an interview. "The government was withholding evidence."
Mr. Solana, reached by telephone in Madrid as he headed to China, declined to say whether the Spanish government had misled him. But he called the outcome of the Spanish election "a sign that a society reacted in a very clear manner in a case in which things were not very transparent."
Spain's foreign minister, Ana Palacio, said there was no attempt to mislead anyone. "I haven't told anyone to say anything we did not believe," she said in an interview. "The truth is, we really believed what the investigators believed and this was the version we had. The idea honestly - honestly - was that it was ETA. We told the people in real time what the findings are."
At the United Nations on Monday, Spain submitted a letter to the 15-member Security Council reiterating the point.
The letter concluded: "The inquiries will continue. It is not possible at the moment to arrive at definitive conclusions. The government of Spain will inform the Council of the results of the investigation."
It was not clear that the letter would satisfy Council members, many of whom had expressed misgivings on Thursday and were concerned about later events.
"We are very, very angry," one Council ambassador said Monday, speaking on a condition that he not be identified. "We were utilized for political maneuvering, and at best it was irresponsible to pressure us."
The spokesman for another ambassador said members had felt "that the Council was in a way hijacked - I wouldn't say manipulated because we cannot prove that at the time Spain didn't trust its information."
Ms. Palacio sent directives to all Spanish embassies around the world urging her country's diplomats to stress the ETA connection, European officials said.
"You should use any opportunity to confirm ETA's responsibility for these brutal attacks, thus helping to dissipate any type of doubt that certain interested parties may want to promote," her memo said, according to the daily El País.
Ms. Palacio, who said she had not seen the message before it went out in her name, acknowledged that such a message was sent but said it happened early on Thursday "because all the embassies were asking for guidance."
"We just sent what we knew," she said. "It would have been so stupid for us to manipulate. When the minister of the interior came out with additional information, we were as bewildered as everyone else."
Before the election, Spain's center-right government accused the Socialist opposition of waging a smear campaign by suggesting that the government was guilty of a cover-up in withholding intelligence about the investigation.
At the United Nations, when the matter of citing ETA came up, both France and Russia initially resisted and Germany suggested adding the word "allegedly." A number of envoys said that Council resolutions tended not to identify perpetrators, and that the precedent could be exploited to settle scores in the future.
"It was unusual because no one knew for sure who was responsible," said a senior French official reached in Paris. "After much back and forth, the words" - citing ETA - "were added. Under the circumstances, nobody wanted to say no."
Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations for this article.
--------
The Worst of Bush's Iraq Whoppers
03/16/2004
Capital Games
David Corn
The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1321
For months now I have been contemplating a grand project: chronicling every misleading statement George W. Bush and his crew uttered before the war about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the supposed operational connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. I covered much of this in my book The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. But there was only so much room I could devote to the task; I had to reserve space for Bush's untruthful remarks about tax cuts, global warming, missile defense, homeland security, the energy bill, Enron and many other topics. Sadly, I was forced to highlight only the most illustrative examples of Bush's pre- and postwar dis- and misinformation. In the months since my book was published, I have often come across various Bush administration assertions about Iraq that have made me exclaim, "Shoot, I wish I had this one earlier."
Several Democratic members of Congress, including Senators Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy, have recently assembled decent compilations. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put out a report in January that presented a good sampling of the best--or worst--of the administration's false remarks about Iraq's WMD and the al Qaeda-Iraq relationship. But the prize goes to Representative Henry Waxman.
He just released a report that identifies 237 specific misleading statements made by Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in 125 separate public appearances. There's even an on-line database. (Click on the link above to reach the website.) Want to peruse the whoppers about Iraq's supposed biological weapons? Plug "biological weapons" into the search feature, and up pops 91 examples of Bush officials claiming there were bioweapons in Iraq. The evidence to date, of course, indicates they were wrong. And there is indisputable evidence that Bush and his underlings were mistaken not because the intelligence was off but because they exaggerated or ignored the available intelligence. One example: in an October 2002 speech, Bush said Iraq had a "massive stockpile" of biological weapons. But according to the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, the intelligence community had not reached such a conclusion, and CIA director George Tenet said a few weeks ago that the intelligence analysts had possessed "no specific information" on bioweapons stockpiles.
What's your favorite prewar untruth from the Bush gang? When Cheney in August 2002 said there was "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction "to use...against us"? When Bush in May 2003 said "we found the weapons of mass destruction"? (Bush was referring to two tractor-trailers discovered in northern Iraq. From the start, analysts questioned the administration's claim that these were mobile biological weapons factories. And Tenet has noted the jury is still out on the tractor-trailers. It seems more probable they were designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons.) These unforgettable lines--at least they ought to be unforgettable--are among the Waxman's Top 237.
Is the Waxman list complete? Not entirely. Comments made by Ari Fleischer, Paul Wolfowitz and other significant administration figures are not included in the database. (Are there bandwidth limitations?) And I could not find one of my favorites: Rumsfeld on September 13, 2002, exclaiming, "There's no debate in the world as to whether they have those weapons....We all know that. A trained ape knows that." (I guess it depends on whether that trained ape was trained to misread and hype intelligence reports.) But Waxman and his staff deserve credit for rounding up and archiving many of the false and disingenuous assertions Bush and his gang used to grease the way to war.
If the commission Bush begrudgingly appointed to study the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMDs is going to investigate whether Bush abused the intelligence, this website would be of tremendous value to it. As of now, though, it seems that the commissioners--all chosen by Bush--will duck that mission and that Waxman's site will not be on their computer browser's list of favorites. But Waxman's report practically makes it unnecessary for the commissioners to worry if Bush falsely characterized the prewar intelligence. After all, why bother bother investigating a question with such an obvious answer?
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
The U.S. Supreme Court and The Imperial Presidency
How President Bush Is Testing the Limits of His Presidential Powers
By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Jan. 16, 2004
FindLaw
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040116.html
Can the President of the United States arrest any American he suspects of being a terrorist and toss him in a military brig, deny him a lawyer, omit to bring any charges against him -- yet indefinitely keep him imprisoned nonetheless?
Can the President kidnap foreigners charged with violating federal law, and bring them to the United States to stand trial? How about Osama bin Laden, for starters?
These are only a few of the issues raised by cases now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that will examine the limits of presidential powers. As David Savage, the legal writer for the Los Angeles Times, has noted, this is a remarkable collection of cases.
"[T]he justices have voted to take up five cases that test the president's power to act alone and without interference from Congress or the courts," Savage explains. The description of these cases, as Savage has ably summarized them, is startling: "They involve imprisoning foreign fighters at overseas bases, holding American citizens without charges in military brigs, preserving the secrecy of White House meetings, enforcing free-trade treaties despite environmental concerns, and abducting foreigners charged with U.S. crimes."
What the Supreme Court has placed on its agenda, in short, is the Imperial Presidency -- that is, the Presidency in which the Executive largely acts alone, pushing the Constitution to the limits and beyond. And how the Justices deal with this overwhelmingly important topic could affect the reelection prospects of the Bush presidency, for, as David Savage notes, at least four of the five rulings are anticipated to be handed down during the summer of 2004 -- right in the middle of the presidential campaign.
The High Court and Nixon's Imperial Presidency
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s The Imperial Presidency gave the term its currency. He traces its growth from George Washington to Richard Nixon, showing how a presidency never contemplated by the founders has evolved. As a basis for their authority, presidents typically cited their role as commander-in-chief -- an undefined constitutional term -- and "inherited powers" other presidents had used before them.
After Nixon pushed the presidential powers even further than past presidents had, both the Congress and Supreme Court acted to curtail his activities. In the name of protecting national security, Nixon wanted to be able to wiretap without the approval of a judge. The authority for this power? Before the Court of Appeals, Nixon relied on a vague "historical power of the sovereign to preserve itself" and "the inherent power of the President to safeguard the security of the nation."
Later, arguing the issue before the Supreme Court, the government got even more vague -- just loosely using the national security contention. In the end, the Court -- in the ironically named case United States v. United States Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (which became known as the Keith Case) -- said no. Joining the opinion were all of Nixon's own appointees -- except William Rehnquist, who recused himself.
In another Supreme Court case, New York Times Co. v. United States, Nixon also tried, but failed to get the Supreme Court to extend Executive powers. Then, Nixon's government sought an order blocking publication of the Pentagon Papers. It claimed the release of the classified documents that had been leaked to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers, could harm national security. Again, Nixon lost.
Then, in United States v. Nixon, Nixon resisted turning over to the Watergate Special Prosecutor his taped conversations. He asserted his implied authority to invoke "executive privilege." But once again, he lost: It was the Supreme Court's unanimous decision that the privilege did not protect the tapes, when a grand jury had sought the information. This ruling, of course, ended Nixon's presidency.
After Nixon had departed, the Supreme Court also addressed Nixon's effort to impound federal funds -- to not spend money that Congress had appropriated. Nixon claimed he was only doing as his predecessors had done (albeit a bit more aggressively than they had). But the Court again unanimously ruled against him. It held that the president had exceeded his constitutional authority.
In short, at the zenith of the Imperial Presidency era, the Supreme Court consistently ruled in such a way as to pull the presidency back into Constitutional balance with the other branches. Its rulings were wise, for the alternative would have been to allow presidential power to burgeon, at the expense of the balance of power with the Legislative and Judicial branches.
Bush's Imperial Presidency?
Not inaccurately, the Bush presidency has been called imperial, in Schlesinger's sense. The evidence? Its "preemptive" and "preventive" military policy, its contentions that it can go to war regardless of whether Congress approves, its policies calling for American world domination, and its unprecedented blending of national security policy and domestic law enforcement. In my view, these policies and positions not only easily establish the Bush presidency as imperial, they also rank it beyond anything in the annals of the modern American presidency. This may be the most imperial Presidency our history has yet seen.
I've spoken with Arthur Schlesinger about it -- asking him if he thought the Bush presidency fit his description of an imperial presidency. In response, he chuckled, and said, "I'd certainly say this is an imperial presidency."
The fact that five cases currently before the Supreme Court address the question of presidential powers -- and whether or not the Bush presidency has exceeded them -- speaks for itself. Bush has had almost twice as many such cases before the Court as Nixon had, in half the time.
The new level of exertion of presidential authority is a combination of the circumstances following 9/11, the war on terrorism, and Vice President Dick Cheney's long held views on executive power. Accordingly, these are hardly small issues with this presidency. In fact, they are precisely the issues that will be an integral part of the debate during the presidential campaign.
Democrats, and many Republicans, believe that Bush and Cheney have pushed too far, taken too many liberties, and far exceeded the constitutional boundaries -- many of them defined by these cases. For that reason, it is difficult to suggest a collection of cases, over our history, that were more likely to have a political impact -- whichever way the Supreme Court rules.
Stated more bluntly: Rulings for Bush will help him politically. Conversely, holdings against him will show a president who is operating outside the Constitution.
Will the Supreme Court Place Checks on the Bush Presidency?
Predicting Supreme Court rulings is a tricky business. Yet it is clear that the current Court is more center-to-conservative than the Court that checked Nixon's activity. And when members of the Court start thinking about leaving the high bench -- and several on this Court have been mulling that for some time -- they also think about who will be in the White House to select their successor.
Without dissecting the legal matters at issue in each of these cases -- all with their own complexes and nuances -- at this time, it is not possible to know how the Court will rule. Some pundits claim, however, that the recent ruling of the Court not to review the case of Center for National Security Studies v. Justice Department is a favorable omen for the Administration.
There, the court rejected a petition, joined by twenty-three news organizations, that it should hear a high profile case involving First Amendment and Freedom of Information Act issues. The result was to allow the government -- specifically, the Justice Department -- to continue to withhold the names and other details about the hundreds of Muslims and other Middle Eastern men rounded up, and detained (even abused, according to the Justice Department's Inspector General's report) after 9/11.
The pundits have suggested that this denial of review shows that the Bush administration is correct to be confident that it will win the executive power cases before the Court. But frankly, I don't believe anything can be read into a decision of the Supreme Court not to review any case, even this one.
For one thing, the issues in Center for National Security Studies are quite distinct from the issues in the other pending executive authority cases. Second, as with virtually all denials of review, no one outside the Court can really understand why Justices turned down the case. Those pundits who claim otherwise are thus off the mark.
The Executive Power Cases the Court Will Hear Soon
As I noted at the start of this column, it has been three decades since the Court will have tackled such important presidential power questions -- with such potential political implications for a presidential race. For that reason, the five cases that raise these questions should be on the radar screen of all president -- and Supreme Court -- watchers.
The cases are:
a.. Sealed Case. A case so secret it does not appear on the Court's docket, and the Solicitor General simply refers to it as "this matter . that is required to be kept under seal." In fact, it is not all that secret. It involves Mohamed Kamel Baellahouel, who wants the Court to rule on whether he was improperly secretly jailed. The government want to argue its case in secret. But some twenty news organizations are opposing this extreme secrecy.
a.. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. This case raises the rights of an American citizen -- Yaser Hamdi -- who was captured overseas and held in the United States as an "enemy combatant." Hamdi was arrested in Afghanistan.
a.. Rasul v. Bush, and Al Odah v. United States. These cases address the habeas corpus rights of aliens detained at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The government is maintaining that these aliens do not have the right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. federal courts.
a.. Padilla v. Rumsfeld. This case involves Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who is being held indefinitely, in a military prison, as an "enemy combatant." He was arrested when deplaning in Chicago. (Thus, his case may be treated differently from that of Hamdi, who was arrested abroad, in Afghanistan.) The Second Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, held that Padilla's detention violated the Non-Detention Act of 1971, which asserts that no citizens may be held by the federal government "except pursuant to an act of Congress." The Government is appealing, claiming that the President has power to unilaterally cause such detentions to occur.
a.. Cheney v. Judicial Watch and Sierra Club. This case involves the right of the vice president (and, by implication, of the president) to refuse to turn over documents in a civil lawsuit. The suit seeks to determine if Cheney violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (the law that forced First Lady Hillary Clinton to open up her sessions on health care).
Given the importance of all of these cases (with their implications), I've got them on my docket, and plan to follow them in the coming weeks and months.
-------- homeland security
Senate reviews railroad security
March 16, 2004
By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20040315-093357-8088r.htm
Nearly $1.3 billion would be spent on rail security under federal legislation introduced since the Madrid train bombings last week.
The money would include $515 million in fiscal 2005 for more surveillance of rail facilities and closer monitoring of passengers.
The senators who introduced the legislation are seeking an additional $777 million to pay for railroad tunnel safety improvements, including $40 million for the Amtrak tunnel running under the Supreme Court and Capitol Hill offices to Union Station.
"The harsh truth is that our passenger rail system is far from safe and unless we do something about it and do it quickly, we could suffer a similar or even worse fate," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat.
Thursday's Madrid train bombings killed 200 passengers with simultaneous explosions on commuter trains approaching downtown stations. More than 1,500 passengers on four trains were injured by the bombs concealed in backpacks.
"If we don't use this tragic event in Madrid as a wake-up call and start investing in rail security, in my opinion, we are making a tragic mistake," Mr. Biden said.
The proposed legislation for fiscal 2005 would order the Homeland Security Department to assess terrorism risks of railroads and to develop strategies for protecting passengers and infrastructure.
Part of the money would be given to Amtrak, commuter railroads and freight railroads as security grants.
Other provisions would ask the Homeland Security Department to study the possibility of screening passengers, baggage and cargo on Amtrak trains.
The separate proposal for tunnels would spend $667 million to improve fire, ventilation and other emergency systems in six New York tunnels. The Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel outside of Baltimore's Penn Station would get $57 million.
Specific surveillance techniques and how passengers would be more closely monitored are part of what the Homeland Security Department would be ordered to determine under the Senate proposal.
The new emphasis on rail security also responds to criticism from the railroad industry, which has warned since the September 11 terrorist attacks that the emphasis by Congress on aviation security overlooked vulnerabilities of the rail system.
However, federal officials in charge of transportation security say maintaining security on the nation's vast rail network creates unique problems.
The "open" nature of passenger rail means "it is difficult and challenging to have a 100 percent secure guarantee of safety," Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary of homeland security, said yesterday on CBS' "The Early Show."
He also has dismissed the idea of searching all rail passengers as impractical.
Bill Ghent, spokesman for Sen. Thomas R. Carper, a Delaware Democrat who co-sponsored the rail bill, said less-intrusive security methods are available. They could include computerized searches of passenger financial records for suspicious transactions and greater use of bomb-sniffing dogs.
He said money for rail security could be diverted from other parts of the Homeland Security Department's budget, which is $30.4 billion this year.
"That would be up to the appropriators," Mr. Ghent said. "It's a matter of setting priorities."
Amtrak is spending less than $50 million on security this year. Commuter railroads and other urban rail systems often fund their security jointly with local police departments.
"It would be virtually impossible to duplicate the kind of controlled access that airlines are able to employ," Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.
-------- immigration / refugees
Agents aim to seal Arizona border to smuggling
March 16, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040315-102152-5388r.htm
Federal agents will begin a new law enforcement initiative today aimed at shutting down the Arizona border to the smuggling of illegal aliens, which has spawned violence that has spread 200 miles north into the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, who heads border and transportation security for the agency, will announce the program - known as the Arizona Border Control Initiative - during a press conference at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, saying it seeks to achieve "operational control of the Arizona border."
The initiative will bring together agents and inspectors from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), as well as the Interior Department and numerous other law enforcement agencies.
Law enforcement authorities in southern Arizona have told Homeland Security authorities the area is under siege by illegal aliens, smugglers of aliens, drug traffickers and others, who have caused a huge surge in violent crimes in the Phoenix area.
Last year, the federal government responded to that concern with a high-profile operation known as "Ice Storm," a massive federal law enforcement effort begun in November that sought to dismantle smuggling organizations, prosecute alien and drug smugglers, and seize their assets.
More than 1,600 people have been arrested since then on various charges, including alien smuggling, money laundering, drug trafficking and kidnapping, and nearly $2 million in illicit cash has been seized.
A financial analysis last year by ICE showed that during a six-month period in early 2003, more than $160 million was funneled into Phoenix through money-transmitting businesses. Investigators said much of that cash was earmarked to pay smuggling fees.
Last week, Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl asked Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge for improved federal support to secure the southern border, saying security improvements in other parts of the Southwest had resulted in a "funneling effect, driving drug traffickers, alien smugglers and migrants through the Arizona desert."
In a letter, the two Republicans said local authorities have been struggling to respond to border and other immigration-related security concerns without adequate federal coordination, noting that agents in Arizona in the past month raided 16 drop houses, apprehended 750 illegal aliens and arrested 20 suspected smugglers.
Drop houses, where illegal aliens are held either until they pay off their smugglers or while in transit to other cities, have increased dramatically in the Phoenix metropolitan area over the past few years - corresponding to a similar rise in alien-smuggling operations.
During Ice Storm, 97 agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were assigned to the Phoenix office, along with 50 temporary agents, while 135 were detailed to the Tucson office, which incudes Nogales, Douglas and Sells.
In addition, the Tucson and Yuma sectors have about 2,100 Border Patrol agents dedicated to border enforcement. They apprehended 18,745 more illegal aliens in the first two months of this year than in the same two months of 2003.
--------
U.S. Takes Steps to Tighten Mexican Border
March 16, 2004
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/national/16BORD.html
PHOENIX, March 15 - Federal officials have become increasingly worried about a surge in violence and instability along the Arizona-Mexico border and will begin what they describe as a major air and ground initiative to help keep out illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and possibly terrorists, officials said on Monday.
The $10 million plan, to be announced on Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security, will include the first use of unmanned aircraft for border patrol, the addition of several hundred agents and the creation of seven tent complexes to detain illegal border crossers.
Asa Hutchinson, an under secretary for domestic security, said in an interview that a tightening of security in border areas in California, Texas and elsewhere had led smugglers to turn in increasing numbers to Arizona - often with violent results.
"This is not a secure border," Mr. Hutchinson said. "Arizona has become the chokepoint. This is our current battleground."
But some human rights and immigrants' advocates believe that broader economic and political changes - rather than a law enforcement crackdown - are the answer.
"Our border is in utter chaos here in Arizona," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, head of a Tucson group called Humane Borders that provides relief for migrants, "but a Berlin Wall is not the way to solve the problem."
Moreover, the unmanned aircraft face technical and safety hurdles. A report in January by the Congressional Research Service said that drones, as the aircraft are commonly known, offer several attractive features for border patrol work and can identify "a potentially hostile target the size of a milk carton at an altitude of 60,000 feet." But their use is also hindered by accident rates more than 100 times that of manned aircraft, according to the report.
"I think the jury is still out" on unmanned aircraft, Mr. Hutchinson acknowledged, but he added that "we're looking for new tools."
Homeland security officials expect to begin using the remote-controlled aircraft in June to supplement manned air and ground patrols. It will be the first time the drones will be used for border patrol in the United States, other than on a trial basis, officials said.
The officials would not give details about the drones, including their numbers or how frequently they would patrol.
The unmanned aircraft will allow federal officials to spot crossers along parts of the more than 300 miles of the often-desolate border in Arizona that are not regularly patrolled, said David Aguilar, who is chief border patrol agent in Tucson.
Federal officials also plan to expand their patrols with helicopters and manned airplanes, create a new interagency network to coordinate the initiative, and add 200 permanent border patrol agents and 60 temporary agents trained in search and rescue operations. The increase will bring the number of border agents in Tucson to more than 1,900.
Officials will also create seven air-conditioned tent complexes to house and detain some immigrants until they can be sent home, rather than freeing them before court appearances and risking having them flee, Mr. Hutchinson said.
Homeland Security officials said they expected to spend $10 million in the next six months on the additional personnel and technology.
"This is going to make a tremendous difference," said Mr. Aguilar, who will run the interagency effort. "It will be a very different focus."
The past few months have seen a spasm of violence and apprehensions along the Arizona border, even as illegal border crossings in other parts of the country have dropped.
Border Patrol agents in Arizona apprehended nearly 200,000 people from last October to early March, a rise of 34 percent over the same period a year earlier. And seizures of marijuana at the border were up 17 percent, Mr. Aguilar said.
With the influx have come more immigrant deaths in the desert - more than 200 last year by Mr. Hoover's count, many because of the heat. There have also been execution-style shootings, tortures and kidnappings that law enforcement officials blame on human smuggling rings. Four people died in a shootout between immigrant smugglers on an Arizona interstate last November.
Mr. Hutchinson described the smugglers and other traffickers in immigrants and drugs across the Arizona border as "greedier, more ruthless and more violent" than before. "These are people who have no regard for anyone's safety," he said.
He added that the potential problems went beyond drugs and illegal immigrants. "Any time you have vulnerabilities at the border, you have to worry about terrorists taking advantage of that too," he said.
But Mr. Hoover, whose group provides water stations in the Arizona desert for immigrants, said resourceful traffickers would always find a way to get across the border unless officials looked at the root causes of immigration problems.
"It's like putting rocks in a river - the water just goes around it," he said. "You can show off a lot of new technology and more men and women in uniform, but it's all just more of the same."
Death Penalty Sought for Driver
HOUSTON, March 15 (AP) - Federal prosecutors said Monday they would seek the death penalty against the driver of a truck in which 19 illegal immigrants suffocated last year.
Prosecutors say Tyrone Williams, 33, of Schenectady, N.Y., drove more than 70 illegal immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic on May 13 from the Rio Grande Valley toward Houston. Prosecutors say that when the immigrants began succumbing to the heat in the trailer, Mr. Williams abandoned it 100 miles southwest of Houston. Seventeen immigrants were found dead inside the truck. Two others died later.
-------- police
Marshals Service found 'deficient'
March 16, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040315-102145-4401r.htm
The U.S. Marshals Service is "deficient" in its ability to assess potential threats against members of the federal judiciary, including judges who preside over high-profile terrorism cases, a report said yesterday.
The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General questioned the Marshals Service's ability since September 11 to assess threats and determine appropriate measures to provide necessary protection for the nation's federal courts and court personnel.
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said while the agency had placed greater emphasis on security by hiring 106 court inspectors and increasing courthouse security, it was deficient in protecting the federal judiciary during high-threat trials and while personnel are away from the courthouse.
"The Marshals Service should take immediate steps to enhance its ability to assess threats and provide protection for the federal judiciary," Mr. Fine said. "Despite its efforts to improve judicial security since September 11, our review found clear deficiencies that need improvement."
In a written response, the Marshals Service noted that in its 215-year history, only four judges had been assassinated and none since 1989, and that since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the agency has hired more than 800 deputy marshals - its largest recruitment in 40 years.
"While a single assault or assassination is unacceptable, the full picture actually supports, rather than questions, the [Marshals Service´s] capabilities," the agency said, adding it had brought prisoners before judges more than 1 million times since September 11 without a single injury to a judge.
While the protection of the federal judiciary is a prime responsibility, the Marshals Service also tracks fugitives, transports prisoners, protects federal witnesses and oversees and manages assets seized from criminal enterprises.
The Inspector Generals' report, however, said threat assessments by the agency were "often untimely and of questionable validity," and that it had "limited capability to collect and share intelligence on potential threats" from its districts, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and other sources.
It said the agency failed in 73 percent of the cases to meet its own internal standard that requires threats against judges to be assessed within a specific time period. Also, the report said the agency failed to improve the timeliness of its threat assessments despite a 30 percent decrease in the number of reported threats since fiscal 2000.
Mr. Fine said agency databases used to assess threats had not been updated since 1996, and they contained no information on more than 4,900 threats made since then - including threats related to terrorism cases since September 11.
He also said the agency had no central program to collect, assess and share intelligence on threats to the judges, noting that a centralized intelligence collection and assessment program was eliminated as part of a 1994 reorganization.
Mr. Fine called the agency's intelligence collection outdated, saying it had not been revised to use new authority to collect and share intelligence on terrorism and other threats under the Patriot Act. He said the agency did not fully participate in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, assigning only 29 deputy marshals to the 56 task force field offices.
In two high-threat trials, Mr. Fine said the agency's limited capability to collect and share intelligence affected its efforts to protect the federal judiciary. In one trial of people accused of providing financial aid to terrorists, he said the agency was unable to receive critical classified task force intelligence because the district's task force representative did not have a Top Secret security clearance.
He recommended the agency ensure that threats are assessed within established time frames; that threat databases be undated or a new system developed; that full-time representatives be assigned to all 56 task force offices; and that a centralized capability to identify, collect, analyze and share intelligence with the agency's districts be established.
-------- prisons / prisoners
U.S. Releases 26 Guantanamo Detainees
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61753-2004Mar15.html
The U.S. military said yesterday that it released 23 Afghan and three Pakistani citizens from the U.S. Navy prison for terrorism suspects in Cuba, leaving about 610 still in detention.
They were flown back to Afghanistan and Pakistan on U.S. aircraft, officials said.
In a brief statement, the Pentagon did not say specifically why the 26 were let go but said each case is reviewed separately to determine whether a prisoner is of further intelligence value to the United States and whether he is believed to pose a threat to this country.
"The circumstances in which detainees are apprehended can be ambiguous, and many of them are highly skilled in concealing the truth," the statement said. "The process of evaluation and detention is not free of risk -- at least one detainee has gone back to the fight" after being released.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that one released terror suspect had rejoined the fight against the United States, but other Pentagon officials refused to elaborate.
Terms of yesterday's prisoner release were not disclosed, but it appeared it would be up to the prisoners' governments to decide what to do with them.
The Pentagon says it has released a total of 119 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, and 12 others have been transferred for continued detention elsewhere.
--------
23 Afghans From Guantanamo Arrive Home
Mar 16, 2004
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Associated Press Writer
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HOME_FROM_GUANTANAMO?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Stepping into freedom in new denim jackets and gleaming white sneakers, 23 bearded Taliban and Taliban suspects headed to their homes Tuesday after one of the largest single releases of prisoners from U.S. captivity in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
For most, Tuesday marked the end of more than a year in U.S. military custody.
"Brothers, you are welcome to your country," Jamil Khan, a criminal investigations director, told the men at a Kabul prison, where they spent a final night behind bars Monday, after arriving from Cuba the same day.
"You are going back safe to your home," Khan told them. "Go, see your family."
The Pentagon announced the releases on Monday, making 119 one-time terror suspects now freed from Guantanamo, with about 610 still in detention there. It gave no explanation for the releases, saying each case was evaluated separately.
Prisoners freed Tuesday included hard-line Taliban who fought to the end as the fundamentalist regime fell in late 2001 under attack from U.S. forces and their Afghan allies.
Journalists spoke to the men as they gathered in a mosque at the prison, before being handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross for help returning to distant villages and towns.
The U.S. military provided the denim jackets. The men wore them over traditional tunics and pants supplied by the Red Cross.
Red spokeswoman Jessica Barry said it was believed to be the largest single release of prisoners from Guantanamo.
The men's account of their physical treatment at Guantanamo varied sharply - with some saying they were abused and deprived of sound sleep for weeks at a time and others saying they were treated well.
"They did everything to us - they tortured our bodies, they tortured our minds, they tortured our ideas and our religion," ex-prisoner Mohamed Khan told Associated Press Television, in Arabic, without elaborating.
All spoke of the humiliations of captivity at Guantanamo and of the wrenching separation from home.
"We were in a cage," said Abdullah, an Afghan arrested in the Baluchistan province of neighboring Pakistan, who says he spent 22 months in captivity.
"They didn't beat me - but jail is jail," said Barak, 50, who like all the men interviewed refused to give their last names. Many Afghans go by only a single name.
A resident of Afghanistan's Paktia province, Barak said he was arrested after authorities found a weapons cache in his village. He spent 17 months in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and then Cuba.
Barak looked ahead - to home and family. "I have one child - I will be happy to see my child, because the child is so sweet," he said.
Others looked behind, bitterly.
In Guantanamo, "Many times, I say, 'God help me. You have forgotten me, God,'" said Mohammed, a 27-year-old held more than two years.
Mohammed, wearing crisp black curls and, like all the other prisoners, black beards, said he was captured at the end of the U.S.-led Afghan war, when holdout Taliban strongholds in the north - Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif - fell to Afghan warlords allied to the United States.
Caught by fighters serving warlord Atta Mohammed, he said, he saw eight wounded friends buried alive.
Transferred to a prison outside Mazar-e-Sharif, Mohammed said he survived what rights groups have identified as one of the greatest atrocities of the 2001 military campaign - suffocation of hundreds of captured Taliban fighters and others by northern alliance commanders in metal containers in November 2001. "In mine, in one container, we had 100 people, and no oxygen," he said. "We were dying."
Mohammed said he was one of only eight in that container to survive.
In U.S. custody, he said, American wardens frequently challenged and offended his Muslim faith.
Behind razor wire at the U.S. detention center at Kandahar, Mohammed said, he saw Americans deliberately deface a Quran, the Muslim holy book.
Later, at Guantanamo, a top officer offended many prisoners by referring to the beauty of Afghan women - a sight some conservative Muslims believe is sacrosanct to the privacy of home.
None of Mohammed's claims could be independently verified. The U.S. military has barred most access to prisoners at Guantanamo and Afghanistan, including by their lawyers, but says the prisoners are being treated well.
One of his last sights at Guantanamo was of an American warden holding up an orange prison jumpsuit, Mohammed said. "You do this again, you'll be wearing this again," he quoted the American as telling him.
-------- terrorism
Similar Tactics, Different Names Al Qaeda-Like Groups Scrutinized
By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61664-2004Mar15.html
U.S. and European counterterrorism officials have seen a growing number of clues in the Madrid bombings that point to terrorists from any one of dozens of Islamic jihadist groups that use tactics similar to al Qaeda's but conduct operations and choose targets independently, the officials said yesterday.
This evidence, although preliminary, includes the use of cell phones to trigger explosive devices, a tactic al Qaeda has employed, and a strong suspicion that part of the operation was planned outside the targeted country, also an al Qaeda signature, two U.S. counterterrorism officials said yesterday.
No evidence points directly to Osama bin Laden's network, but counterterrorism officials believe they may be seeing proof of their worst fears: the carrying out of a spectacular, coordinated attack aimed at making a worldwide political statement by terrorists who might emulate al Qaeda but operate autonomously.
"It would be disheartening but not totally surprising if we were seeing shadow-type groups adopting [al Qaeda's] methods throughout the world," one U.S. intelligence official said. Some officials hold out the possibility that ETA, the Basque separatist movement, may have helped facilitate the attack.
Meanwhile, intelligence officials have recorded an increase in intelligence reporting in recent days indicating possible terrorist strikes in Rome, France and Turkey, according to one European intelligence official. Such intelligence reports often surge after a terrorist attack. U.S. officials also point to a message bin Laden delivered in October warning of attacks in Spain, Britain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy, in response to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
CIA Director George J. Tenet and other intelligence officials have warned in recent months of the danger posed by largely autonomous terror groups that use al Qaeda's tactics and have relatively loose ties to the network. Finding and destroying groups that are widely dispersed and only informally linked is even harder than eliminating bin Laden and his organization, officials caution.
"The steady spread of Osama bin Laden's anti-American sentiments through the wider Sunni [Muslim] extremist movement, and through the broad dissemination of al Qaeda's destructive expertise, ensures that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future, with or without al Qaeda in the picture," Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 9.
Tenet also identified as part of the new, growing threat outside al Qaeda "so-called foreign jihadists" -- religiously motivated individuals "ready to fight anywhere when they believe Muslim lands are under attack by those they see as infidel invaders."
Among the other bits of preliminary evidence in Madrid that point to an al Qaeda-like signature is that the bombs used in the attack were dispersed quickly and widely. Al Qaeda is believed to have adopted that tactic from the Japanese religious group Aum Shinrikyo, whose members punctured bags of deadly sarin inside Tokyo subway cars in March 1995.
Authorities have also discovered what they believe to be at least one safe house near the attacks that was used by terrorists. The use of close-in safe houses to rehearse operations and store equipment and supplies is an al Qaeda trademark seen in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the 2003 bombing of a Saudi housing complex and other attacks.
Al Qaeda, unlike ETA or the Irish Liberation Army, frequently draws on members of nationalities whose countries are U.S. allies, most notably men from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Spanish suspects include Moroccans and Indians.
U.S. officials stress that Spanish investigators do not have enough evidence to conclude who carried out the Madrid bombings, and no one appears to be in a hurry to do so. Spanish officials who blamed ETA immediately after the attack were embarrassed when their pronouncement turned out to be premature.
Similarly, the Oct. 12, 2002, bombing of a Bali nightclub that killed more than 200 was initially blamed on al Qaeda. Later, intelligence officials attributed it to Jemaah Islamiah, an Indonesian terrorist group with some links to al Qaeda.
Yesterday, U.S. officials took a similarly cautious position. "It could be something that's not a card-carrying al Qaeda group," one senior U.S. intelligence official said. "Or ETA, or a splinter group from either one."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
E.P.A. May Tighten Its Proposal on Mercury
March 16, 2004
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/politics/16ENVI.html
WASHINGTON, March 15 - The Bush administration says it is rethinking its proposed rules limiting mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants and as a result may tighten the proposal.
Administration officials, who have been under pressure on the issue from states and environmental groups, are now uncomfortable with analyses indicating that if the proposal is adopted, the Environmental Protection Agency could miss, perhaps by more than a decade, its own 2018 target for reducing those emissions by 70 percent.
Michael O. Leavitt, who took the helm of the environmental agency only weeks before the proposed regulations were announced, was largely uninvolved in their initial development. But in the last several weeks, E.P.A. employees say, he has immersed himself in briefings about the rules, which have provoked criticism from scientists, state officials and environmental advocates.
"I've spent hours in briefings," Mr. Leavitt said in an interview on Monday. "I've been crawling through the blueprints of power plants. I've been meeting with people on technology, both engineers and scientists."
On Friday, Mr. Leavitt briefed the White House, where, administration officials say, he indicated that his agency would consider exploring tougher alternatives or adjustments to the proposal.
"What our models now show is that we wouldn't get there as soon as we expected we would," Jeffrey Holmstead, assistant environmental protection administrator in charge of the air office, said of the agency's goal in an interview on Sunday. "We are looking at things that fall within the basic structure of the proposal that could be slightly different variations of what we proposed."
Coal-burning power plants are currently the nation's largest source of unregulated emissions of mercury, spewing about 48 tons of it a year, equivalent to some 40 percent of all human-caused mercury emissions. But court-ordered deadlines, resulting from a lawsuit that environmental groups brought against the Clinton administration, mandated the E.P.A.'s introduction of a mercury proposal by last Dec. 15, with a final rule due on Dec. 15 of this year.
The proposal that the Bush administration offered in December, and that it is now reconsidering, would allow power plants to buy and sell among themselves, starting in 2010, a limited right to pollute with mercury, much as with the current regulation of sulfur dioxide, a component of acid rain. Environmental groups, calling that approach questionable under the Clean Air Act, favor a stricter system that would force all power plants to install pollution controls by 2007, a deadline utility companies call technically unfeasible.
E.P.A. staff members have themselves complained that analysis has been unusually limited for a regulation so complex.
"The most important point is that the analysis isn't complete," Mr. Leavitt said in the interview. "I've asked for an array of additional analysis to be done."
Mercury has become a politically delicate issue for the administration, particularly in the Great Lakes States, some of them expected to be closely fought in the presidential election and, because of mercury pollution, almost all with statewide water-contamination warnings about eating fish.
Mercury is also an issue among another important constituency: women. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that one in eight women have mercury concentration in their bodies that exceeds safety levels. And scientists at the environmental agency recently said that of some four million babies born a year, 630,000 - double the previous estimate - might have been exposed as fetuses to unsafe levels of mercury. In January, a committee of doctors advising the children's health office of the agency sent a letter to Mr. Leavitt raising concern that the proposed rules did not provide enough protection for children.
Further, since the proposal was issued in December, several states, Connecticut and New Jersey among them, have moved to regulate mercury pollution more strictly than the administration would.
The administration's proposal calls for utilities' caps on mercury emissions to be gradually reduced while the system of trading among them proceeds from 2010 to 2018. By then, if the administration's goal was realized, mercury emissions would be reduced by 70 percent from current levels.
But a crucial concern among administration officials is that the trading system allows companies that reduce mercury pollution levels ahead of schedule to "save" those credits to apply later, when the control levels become more strict. Internal environmental agency analysis shows that "saving" would mean actual pollution reduction of only about 50 percent by 2018. Members of the agency's staff say models show that the goal of 70 percent would not be achieved even by 2025 and perhaps not until after 2030.
Mr. Holmstead, the assistant administrator, said those forecasts might not be accurate, however, in part because the agency's models do not build in the assumption that mercury controls will become cheaper, and so more appealing to the utilities, as time passes.
-------- health
D.C. Lead Issue Was Debated for Months
Regional EPA Office Decided No Federal Action Was Needed
By Carol D. Leonnig and D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61565-2004Mar15.html
Federal authorities responsible for ensuring the safety of Washington's water knew about the toxic levels of lead and the likely solution more than a year ago but took no action, according to records and interviews.
On Nov. 21, 2002, a staff member in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional office in Philadelphia told his supervisors in writing that "fast action" might be needed to solve the lead contamination problem in the water.
The alarm, sounded by an EPA liaison to the District, was based on test results received a few months earlier that confirmed unsafe amounts of lead in the District's tap water. On Nov. 26, the EPA staffer also e-mailed the D.C Department of Health about the public health risk, according to a copy of the correspondence, but there are no indications that local officials followed up.
EPA officials exchanged memos on the lead problem over the next few months and ultimately decided they would revisit the issue with the Washington Aqueduct, which supplies the water and is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. According to an EPA briefing paper written in January 2003, regulators discussed the costs associated with controlling lead leaching and objections raised by the Corps of Engineers and the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority.
Regional officials at the EPA also determined that WASA, which distributes the water, was properly informing the public and complying with all regulations. No federal action was needed, according to the briefing paper.
The contamination detected in 2002 appeared to prove what consultants had been warning since 1994: that the treatment used by the Washington Aqueduct was making the water corrosive and could be detrimental in a city with a large number of lead pipes. But the EPA's Region III office in Philadelphia, which oversees the District's water supply, consistently deferred to WASA and the aqueduct on treating the water and handling the problem.
"We were dealing with it as a compliance issue," acknowledged Jonathan Capacasa, director of water quality for EPA Region III. "In hindsight, we missed some opportunities . . . to engage earlier."
City Administrator Robert C. Bobb, who was hired last year, said it is "unacceptable" that the D.C. Health Department appeared to receive a notice in 2002 and did not act to alert the mayor and the public.
"We should have pulled people in and find out what does this mean for the residents of the District of Columbia," he said. "If I had known this, everybody who had a hand in this issue would have been around my conference table within a matter of days."
Local officials and experts on lead say the EPA's decisions have had broad consequences. More than 1 million residents relied on a water supply that for at least two years showed unsafe levels of lead.
Corrosive water may have harmed pipes in thousands of homes. Experts looking at new treatments predict that solving the problem now will prove more complicated.
"In fairness, the best minds were trying to make the best decisions at the time," Capacasa said. "We're all working feverishly now to solve the problem and correct it."
Jonathan Clement, an EPA consultant, concluded in 1997 that there were only "two viable treatment strategies" for the Washington Aqueduct to mitigate lead contamination, according to his report. Both were aimed at reducing the corrosive power of the water, which could leach lead from pipes.
The first choice was to sharply increase the water's pH level, a measure of acidity, to about 9.0. The second was to maintain the pH in the 7.4 to 7.8 range and begin using a chemical additive called orthophosphate.
Thomas P. Jacobus, the manager of the Washington Aqueduct, said he objected to both options. He said adding phosphates would cost the aqueduct and WASA more money when the water and sewage were treated. He also argued that the higher levels of pH would leave calcium deposits on machinery and create a maintenance problem.
In July 2000, George Rizzo, the EPA Region III official in charge of the District's drinking water, verbally approved the aqueduct's position. The Corps of Engineers could keep the pH in the lower range of 7.4 to 7.8 but without adding the orthophosphate. Rizzo confirmed his earlier approval in a letter dated May 2002 and sent to Jacobus.
Water quality experts who are now part of a task force studying the lead contamination believe the lower pH -- along with another change in the chemicals used to treat the water -- combined to trigger the current problem, according to government officials familiar with their work.
By the summer of 2002, lead levels in the city's water had reached 75 parts per billion, as measured by the EPA, five times the level considered safe. In November that year, the EPA's liaison to the District, Chris Ball, sent an e-mail to a colleague about trying to alert his supervisor, Capacasa, to the D.C. lead threat.
"Got through to Jon C on the drinking water issue," Ball wrote. "It was news to him and he is looking into what's going on now. He agreed that if it appears to be a real problem, fast action by EPA would be key. . . ."
A few days later, Region III staff members prepared a memo explaining that the spike in D.C. lead levels was a sure sign that the water was corroding pipes and fixtures. In it, the EPA surmised that the aqueduct's new chemical to treat bacteria, chloramines, was a likely cause.
Chloramines "may also leave the pipe interiors more susceptible to corrosion," the memo said. "EPA will work with the Aqueduct to revisit corrosion control treatment options."
According to a copy of a Nov. 26, 2002, e-mail, Ball wrote to Ted Gordon, deputy director of the D.C. Department of Health, and one of his assistants and alerted them to the high lead levels and offered help in advising residents.
"Ted{ndash}As you likely know already, recent tests of DC tap water . . . have exceeded" the federal level for lead in water, he wrote. "There are obviously difficult public health questions to be answered. . . . Please let me know if I [sic] EPA can be of any assistance to your agency as you continue to work to protect the public health."
Gordon has previously said he was never alerted to the lead problem and learned about it only from the media Jan. 31. In an interview last week, he said he has no record of receiving Ball's e-mail and does not recall any notice sounding an alarm.
"And if EPA thought it was such a big problem that they had to write to me, why the heck didn't they fix it?" Gordon said.
The next day, Ball wrote to Rizzo that WASA needed to "unbury" the mention of lead problems on its Web site "if they really want to make the information accessible." He said he had struggled to find it: "I can only imagine the problems other DC residents may have in downloading it."
On Jan. 8, 2003, Rizzo and his supervisor, Rick Rogers, briefed the EPA regional administrator, Don Welsh, for about 10 minutes on the D.C. lead problem. According to his written notes for the presentation, Rizzo stressed that WASA's high lead levels were not a legal violation and that the utility was complying with the law by announcing the problem and alerting "consumers how they can protect themselves from exposure to lead in drinking water."
Rizzo also warned that trying to control the lead corrosion by adding phosphates, as experts recommended, had a downside. WASA and the two Northern Virginia jurisdictions it serves, Falls Church and Arlington, opposed adding phosphates because they would increase the cost of treating sewage and could be discharged into the Chesapeake Bay.
"Consideration must be given to its effect on the other customers of the Washington Aqueduct and the waste water stream to Blue Plains," Rizzo wrote.
When the next WASA tests came into the EPA's office in late October 2003, they revealed that more than 4,000 homes in the District had unsafe levels of lead in the water. The EPA office then hired consultants to study "if a more effective corrosion control treatment might be implemented."
On Feb. 9, 2004, 10 days after news of the lead contamination broke, EPA officials met with managers from WASA and the aqueduct, established a working group and ordered an extensive laboratory analysis. The goal: to find a new treatment by May that will make the water less corrosive and stop lead from leaching into the water. One of the options is to add phosphates, as experts urged years ago.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said last week that he believes the EPA, along with the aqueduct, helped created the lead crisis and now must help pay for the solution. No estimate has been provided.
"They need to tell us when they plan to correct the corrosion that is causing this problem," Williams said. "More and more it appears this is the result of actions taken and decisions made by the federal agencies."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Iraq War Protesters Name Hundreds Lost
Memorial Held Across From White House
By Manny Fernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page B04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61443-2004Mar15.html
They read aloud the names of the dead, one by one.
Standing on a box of a stage in the park across from the White House, a group of antiwar activists, veterans and military family members leaned into two microphones and called out the names of men and women they had never met. Some wiped tears from their eyes, and some simply stepped off the stage after they were done, hands in pockets and heads down.
Vietnam veteran Bill Steyert read the name of Cedric Lennon, 32. Peace activist Jen Carr spoke the name of her friend Gregory E. MacDonald, 29. The names -- U.S. troops, coalition soldiers and Iraqis killed in the war and occupation of Iraq -- became a kind of antiwar chant, dragging on so long that organizers had to cut the readings short.
There were 900 names total printed up on thick, white cards for the roughly 200 protesters gathered at Lafayette Square yesterday.
The readings stopped after about 45 minutes, as protesters attempted without success to deliver the brown-painted, plywood coffin that held the cards to the White House.
It was part of a demonstration that was more memorial service than street protest, one of many antiwar events in Washington and across the country this week set to mark the first anniversary of the war on Saturday. Steyert, 60, came to Washington from Queens, N.Y., wearing a pin with a picture of his 5-year-old granddaughter flashing the peace sign. "Each one is a guy like me," Steyert said of the names on the cards. "There wasn't any reason for this. That's what's so tragic about this."
Yesterday's event focused on mourning and honoring U.S. and Iraqi casualties, culminating a two-day procession from the Delaware Air Force base where U.S. war dead arrive to the Washington military hospital that treats wounded troops to the gates of the White House. Protesters criticized the Bush administration and the Pentagon for keeping the human toll of the war out of the public's view.
Officials have barred media coverage of the bodies of troops arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and activists said that the president's decision not to attend funerals of soldiers killed in the war illustrates the administration's reluctance to acknowledge the rising number of dead and wounded.
"These human consequences are being deliberately hidden by the Bush administration," said Gordon Clark, 42, national coordinator of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, one of the groups sponsoring the procession. Clark said the idea for the demonstration took shape in November in response to the president's absence at funerals for fallen soldiers. "Well, if he will not go to a funeral, perhaps we can bring a funeral to him," said Clark, of Silver Spring.
Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said that the president's decision to not attend the funerals was made out of respect for the privacy of grieving family members. Duffy said that Bush has met privately with the families of fallen soldiers on numerous occasions, most recently at Fort Carson in Colorado, and has also visited recuperating soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
"The president mourns the loss of every life," Duffy said.
Twenty-one U.S. military personnel from the District, Maryland and Virginia have been killed in Iraq and Kuwait. As of yesterday morning, a total of 564 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq, the Pentagon said. About 3,200 have been wounded, the majority injured in action.
One of those wounded was Army Spec. Jason Gunn, 24. His mother, Pat Gunn, of Lansdowne, Pa., was among the speakers at a brief service outside Walter Reed, which has treated thousands of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Jason was one of the lucky ones," Gunn told about 100 activists who assembled outside the black iron gates of the Georgia Avenue NW hospital yesterday morning. Gunn, one of several military family members who took part in the procession, said she believed that her son was injured fighting in an unjust war. "It's time to bring our soldiers home now," she said, as she held onto a framed photo of her son in a uniform.
Protesters began their journey on Sunday, marching three miles from Camden, Del., to the main entrance of the base in Dover, where activists held a brief service before going to Baltimore, where many stayed overnight. Early yesterday morning, protesters drove to Washington, converged on the hospital and later marched six miles to the White House.
At Lafayette Square, they stood on a stage in front of the coffin and rows of wreaths made of pieces of black garbage bags tied around Hula-Hoops. Activists had planned on risking arrest by attempting to deliver the coffin to the White House. But after a stalemate with uniformed Secret Service officers at an entrance near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW that lasted about an hour, the group returned to Lafayette Square.
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Absent From Unit in Iraq for Months, Soldier Turns Protester and Surrenders
March 16, 2004
By PAM BELLUCK
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/national/16SOLD.html
BOSTON, March 15 - For the last five months, Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia of the Army National Guard has done his very best to disappear.
He avoided his home and family in Miami, even his 3-year-old daughter, instead holing up with friends in Boston and New York City. He paid cash everywhere he went and traveled mostly by bus so as not to risk being stopped by a state trooper.
"I haven't been home and I haven't been driving my car," Sergeant Mejia said Monday. "It's been very difficult because you can't get on with your life."
Such was the world of Sergeant Mejia, 28, since October, when he was allowed home from Iraq on a two-week furlough seeking to be discharged and failed to report back to his unit.
On Monday, however, he turned himself in to the military authorities at Hanscom Air Force Base west of Boston and said he wanted to be considered a conscientious objector.
"I made the decision to disagree with this war," Sergeant Mejia said in an interview, asserting that his commanders had unnecessarily put soldiers in harm's way and that his commanders were too quick to take the lives of Iraqis. "I think this war is particularly immoral."
Sergeant Mejia is one of about 7,500 soldiers who fail to return to their units each year from a force of 1.4 million, including Guard units, Defense Department statistics show. In the Army, only a handful of soldiers have sought conscientious objector status. Last year, 31 of 60 applications were approved, Martha Rudd, an Army spokeswoman, said. So far this year, 2 of 5 applications have been approved.
Sergeant Mejia took the unusual step of making his surrender public. He spoke at a news conference on Monday morning and arrived at the Air Force base with cheering peace activists. Officials at Hanscom ordered him to take the next flight to Miami. He was to report to his Guard unit to await a decision about whether his application would be granted or whether he would face military charges, said his lawyer, Louis Font, and a spokesman for the Florida National Guard, Lt. Col. Ron Tittle.
Mr. Font said Sergeant Mejia would comply. His unit, the First Battalion, 124th Infantry, returned from Iraq this month, suggesting that Sergeant Mejia was unlikely to be sent back to Iraq, Colonel Tittle said.
A native of Nicaragua, Sergeant Mejia is the son of a well-known singer in Managua, Carlos Mejia Godoy, who became a kind of cultural apostle of the Sandinista revolution, which engendered anti-American feeling. As a teenager, Sergeant Mejia moved to the United States with his mother, Maritza Castillo, a naturalized American citizen. Sergeant Mejia is a permanent resident.
He enlisted in the Army at 19 because he wanted to "identify with the culture and the people" of his new country. Three years later, he signed up for a five-year stint with the National Guard. He was studying at the University of Miami and about to graduate when his unit was called to Iraq in April.
In Iraq, where he was a squad leader, he became increasingly disillusioned, he said. At first it was the sense that his unit was not given adequate supplies. Then, Sergeant Mejia said, he started to question tactical maneuvers out of concern that his commanders were intentionally courting combat so that they could be awarded medals.
"They were trying to draw the enemy onto us for medals and Purple Hearts," he said.
According to his conscientious objector application, Sergeant Mejia was particularly upset when a young Iraqi boy was shot and, because of confusion at the medical unit, died. Sergeant Mejia was also angered when his unit was reprimanded for celebrating their escape from an ambush; he said his commander told them their job was to kill the enemy, not run away.
"When you join, you have no idea what war is like," Sergeant Mejia said. "The people who are paying for it with their blood are in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Colonel Tittle, the Florida National Guard spokesman, said of the unit, "Their job was to engage the enemy." He added, "You want to get them out there and engage with them on your terms rather than wait for them to do it on their terms."
He said Sergeant Mejia's commander, Capt. Tad Warfel, had heard complaints from other soldiers "about Sergeant Mejia not taking responsibility as a squad leader and they were concerned about their squad not getting the right leadership."
Sergeant Mejia was granted furlough to pursue his contention that noncitizens were to be discharged after eight years of service. But once home, he said, the military rebuffed his claim and he contacted Citizen Soldier, a peace advocacy group.
Colonel Tittle said that in wartime, eight-year contracts like Sergeant Mejia's are automatically extended. He said that when Sergeant Mejia went home, Captain Warfel had "had a gut feeling" that he would not come back.
Katie Zezima contributed reporting for this article.
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Missing peace
Anti-war activists keep the faith as violence continues in Iraq
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
By Will Evans -- Bee Staff Writer
The Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/8538508p-9467160c.html
It might be awkward, Elizabeth Bradley thought, to hold a sign for peace at a busy Sacramento intersection. But finally here was a chance to do something.
It was fall 2002, the war in Iraq looming. She felt alone in her opposition. Standing in line to watch the Michael Moore film "Bowling for Columbine," she was handed a flier for a peace vigil - and that ignited the fuse of her activism.
She hadn't plunged into politics since her teenage fury at the Vietnam War. But the community of like minds at the vigil and the honks of support at 16th and J streets astounded her. She picked up another flier, and curiosity led her to another protest ...
Now, Bradley, 49, is in charge of coordinating the small weekly vigils at 16th and J.
The peace movement born of the Iraq conflict sucked in new activists like Bradley and spawned new groups that, it appears, aren't going away. On Saturday, they will mark the first anniversary of the war with protests in San Francisco. The movement has broadened - connecting to other issues, grappling with bigger questions and carrying on with more endurance than previous anti-war movements, say veteran organizers and academics.
Yet there is no peace. Plenty of Americans back military intervention in Iraq and lay off the car horn when at 16th and J. Some conservative commentators deride the protesters as anti-American fanatics. Other groups have staged counter-demonstrations to salute the commander in chief, though local organizers say rallies to support the troops and President Bush have dropped off.
In the past year, Bradley, a paralegal, twice has been arrested protesting at the Sacramento federal building at Fifth and I streets. She's on probation after getting arrested in Georgia protesting the former School of the Americas, a cause she hadn't heard of until she came to that first vigil.
Military brat, daughter of Republicans, watcher of Fox News and wife of a Vietnam veteran who plays devil's advocate to her ideas, Bradley is not your usual suspect. She grew more outraged as she absorbed books and lectures and learned about globalization at last summer's protests against an international agriculture conference.
"A little knowledge can be dangerous," Bradley says. "I understand so much more that I don't think I'd be comfortable not being an activist now."
She has a new understanding for a changed world: A year after massive demonstrations clogged downtown San Francisco and racked up 1,400 arrests in one day, the war is now less defined. Yes, major combat in Iraq was declared over in May and Saddam Hussein was captured in December, but the Iraqi and American death count swells and U.S. troops are in Haiti now, too.
An anti-war stance now seems more mainstream. Democratic presidential candidates who originally supported the war took a more critical view during primaries, and controversy eats at the government's justifications for war.
According to the latest Gallup poll, the nation is evenly split over whether "it was worth going to war," the lowest level of support for the war so far. In comparison, a year after the start of 1991's Persian Gulf War, up to 66 percent of the population thought it was worth going to battle, according to Gallup polls.
Their previous pleas unheeded, peace activists now demand that U.S. troops come home.
At this point, an anti-war movement normally will drop from public view, says Michael Nagler, professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. The people roused to action for a specific conflict slip back to their routine. That has happened somewhat, but this time the movement has managed to keep momentum, he says.
"There's much more awareness that, OK, that was one manifestation of the system that we're fighting, and now let's roll over to the next one," he says.
The fliers summoning mass dissent this Saturday, for example, proclaim a lengthy agenda: Bring the troops home now! End colonial occupation from Iraq to Palestine and everywhere! Money for jobs, education, health care and housing - not war! Stop the attacks on civil rights and civil liberties!
Anti-war activist Leisa Faulkner Barnes organized a small gathering Friday at the Sacramento federal building, condemning the U.S. role in the recent Haitian turmoil. Just two days after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left his country, the Haiti signs were ready to go at 16th and J: "Restore Democracy: Bring Back Aristide!"
"People realize that it's not over," Barnes says of the anti-war campaign. She's new to organizing but already is headed for federal prison for illegally entering military property last year.
"What if next week it's North Korea - would we all be too surprised?"
Meanwhile, monthly vigils outside Arden Fair mall declare the war's connection to Consumerism Central: "Want to end sweatshops, corporate exploitation, environmental degradation? Stop U.S. militarization," read one sign.
Many believe the motive of the war in Iraq is control of oil resources. So fuel conservation - bike riding, or eating locally grown food that's not dependent on long-distance shipping - becomes work for peace, activists say.
With that in mind, Sacramento Area Peace Action sprouted a "sustainability committee." Its potlucks draw together environmental groups, gardeners and the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op to network at the nexus of peace and sustainable lifestyles.
Peace Action and other groups also unfurled voter-registration and education campaigns. (Some activists note, however, that while they will vote in November for the apparent Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, they won't campaign for him, as they would have for a stronger anti-war candidate.)
Peace Action is proposing an alternative foreign policy based on international cooperation and arms reduction, says JoAnn Fuller, the chapter's secretary. That's why volunteers who showed up for the war are sticking around, she says.
Decades ago, protesters in the anti-nuclear movement, for example, often didn't see their connection to those in the environmental movement and vice versa, says UC Berkeley's Nagler.
What scooped diverse progressive issues together in a web of mutual activism was the anti-globalization movement culminating in the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization, Nagler says. That movement opposes the current economic system, which activists say exploits people and the environment.
This anti-war campaign, he says, rose up in that context and included many of the same groups. So it's natural for the connections to continue.
There are also those who, from the beginning, viewed the protests as an anti-American orchestration by a hodgepodge of leftover hippies and fringe freaks. They aren't any more impressed now with the potpourri of causes.
"They're rent-a-protesters," says Mark Williams, a KFBK (1530 AM) radio host who emceed a rally to support the troops and the president last March.
The pro-Iraq war populace may not be as vocal these days, he says, but that's because they - in contrast - have "got lives."
"Middle America has gone back to work, has gone back to programming its TiVo, has gone back to paying taxes that support the parasites that make their hobby protesting against the country," he says.
Last year's Rally for America was meant to support the commander in chief and the country, but not necessarily to be an endorsement of President Bush's politics, says Dave Jenest of Sacramento-based Patriot Defenders Network. His organization helped organize the rally but isn't planning another because, during election season, it could be seen as more political than patriotic.
Public demonstrations are only the spilling over of something deeper in the American consciousness, says Michael Smith, professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis. And that invisible fight for the country's direction isn't going away.
Broader and deeper peace activism is a natural reaction to the war on terrorism, a foreign policy that's not specific to one enemy or geographic region, he says. It's difficult to separate Iraq, Afghanistan and conflicts elsewhere from the overall issue of how the United States should use its power.
"The larger questions were always there, but it's harder to avoid them now," Smith says. "You can't just say, 'Bring our troops home.' You have to be able to say, 'This is what we want to accomplish.' "
Nagler says the call by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, for a U.S. Department of Peace is inspiring plans to create a peace-oriented think tank. Others want a nonviolent peace force that will insert itself as a human shield in international conflicts, he says.
And with new groups bubbling up, the ideas are likely to keep coming. California State University, Sacramento, students formed several progressive organizations in the past year, such as Campus Peace Action, Progressive Students Union and Political Film Club.
Campus Peace Action is headed by bright-faced Heather Woodford, who is so green she thought "CD" meant "compact disc" instead of "civil disobedience" at a recent meeting.
Xochitl Lopez, active in the group last year and now doing union-organizing on campus, says it's refreshing to see the new leadership. "I think the war in Iraq is a first step for a lot of people," she says. "We gained skills and knowledge and understanding of how social change happens, and then we move on."
At C.K. McClatchy High School, an even younger generation of activists is carrying on the school's Peace Coalition, signing up seniors to vote and petitioning against military-recruitment policies in high schools.
Meanwhile, the honking of car horns at 16th and J hasn't let up. Some honks come hard and angry, others beep out a rat-a-tat pep talk, punctured occasionally by the low blast of a big rig.
Every so often, the vigils detonate the ire of a pro-war citizen. Some give a thumbs down, others another certain finger up.
Either way, Elizabeth Bradley says she can sympathize with the frustration of a war supporter, recalling her patriotic childhood on military-base housing even as she waves peace signs to passing cars.
"I really was Ms. Average Citizen - and the war on Iraq brought me out.
"But it's everything that I've learned since then that's kept me involved."
---------
Protesters urge return of troops
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 16, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20040315-102211-8596r.htm
War protesters marched more than five miles yesterday to the White House from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where many wounded soldiers are treated, urging President Bush to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.
Carrying memorial wreaths, more than 100 demonstrators read names of hundreds of war victims printed on slips of paper, which they then placed in a mock coffin.
"The administration needs to start telling the truth, stop hiding the toll and bring them home now," said Gordon Clark, 43, of Silver Spring, coordinator of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, which organized the protest with Military Families Speak Out. "No one should be dying on a false case for war."
The demonstration was part of a two-day rally that began Sunday in Dover, Del., to mark this week's one-year anniversary of the war. Participating were veterans and members of families who have lost loved ones, with many of them wearing signs that read, "Mourn the Dead, End the War."
Some of the protesters criticized Mr. Bush for declining to attend any of the funerals for the dead and, continuing the practice of previous administrations, not allowing the public or media to witness the arrival of remains.
Jean Prewitt, 53, of Birmingham, Ala., mourned the loss of her 24-year-old son Kelley, during fighting south of Baghdad last April. A former supporter of Mr. Bush, Mrs. Prewitt said she refuses to vote for him now after he waged a war based on reputed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that have yet to be found.
"My son died in vain, and I'm frustrated and mad," Mrs. Prewitt said at the demonstration outside the White House.
"I believed our president, but he didn't come clean. He never attended a funeral of a slain soldier and he won't even show remorse."
On Sunday, about 250 activists marched in Dover carrying signs that read "Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home."
They stood outside Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, home to the nation's largest military mortuary, where the bodies of more than 550 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq have been processed and prepared for return to their families.
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