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NUCLEAR
DOE nuclear waste cleanup faulted
US plan to get highly enriched uranium out of civilian cycle: IAEA
China flexes missile muscle on eve of Taiwan vote
US to make Pakistan non-NATO ally
House candidates commit to veterans' issues
Massachusetts: Contamination inquiry to start
Court seeks government answer on detention of Pakistani nuclear scientists
Islamists slam Pakistan's non-NATO ally status
US: Military reward to Pakistan should not anger India
U.S., Iran Are Urged to Talk Over Nuclear Plans
UN Watchdog Suggests US-Iran Nuclear Dialogue
U.S. Said to Seek Iran's Nuclear Details by June
Inspector: No proof Iran has nukes
N. Korea: Disarming Will Lead to Invasion
Libyan Nukes Were Intended For Israel
Libya ships Soviet nuke fuel to Dimitrovgrad, leaving a money trail
Canadian personalities demand Ottawa withdraw from US anti-missile shield
NASA wants nuclear craft for deep-space missions 03/18/04
Shutting Down The Nuclear Underground
Nuclear Security Training Lacking
The Witch Of Yucca Mountain
More Spending, New Tax Cuts Backed
MILITARY
Afghan Elections Face Delay, Karzai Says
Nigeria deploys warship
Lockheed Puts Its F-16 Fighter Jet Manuals Online
Washington Must Head Off European Arms Sales to China
South Korea cancels plans to send troops to northern Iraq
At Least 17 Killed in Ethnic Clashes in Kosovo
NATO Reinforces Kosovo Force After Clashes
Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in '99
Britain rushes an extra 750 troops to simmering Kosovo
KBR Told to Conform to Federal Billing Rule
Pentagon Withholds Halliburton Payment
Spain Declassifies Intelligence Reports on Bombing Probe
Poland 'taken for a ride' over Iraq's weapons: president
Car Bomb Kills Dozens In Baghdad Hotel
Iraq Violence Continues as War's First Anniversary Nears
Explosions Heard in Central Baghdad
AP Tally: Iraq Suicide Bombs Killed 660
Brazil frees nearly 5,000 slaves in 2003
Pakistan Leader Says Al Qaeda Target Is Surrounded
Iraqi Council Agrees to Ask U.N. for Help
French FM proposes creation of UN 'disarmament corps'
More Private Forces Eyed for Iraq
Bush Hails Returning Troops on Eve of Iraq Anniversary
No Surprise That Media Briefing on Iraq Costs Was Cancelled
The Damage Done Verlyn Klinkenborg
Valiant Neocons, Spanish Appeasers: Manipulating Madrid's Tragedy
Did the Media Give us John Kerry?
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Scalia Angrily Defends His Duck Hunt With Cheney
TSA Defends Its Scrutiny of Airport Workers
US-led forces 'violate' rights in Iraq
Probe Begun Over Halabi Investigator's Documents
ENERGY
University of the Virgin Islands is launching solar-powered lights
OTHER
EPA Urged To Tighten Rules on Tap Water
EarthTalk: How can I tell if something is made from old-growth wood?
Park Services Slashed, Memos Instruct Staff to Mislead Media
ACTIVISTS
Protesters Arrested at Church
Antiwar Groups to Rally Around World on March 20
The Further Invention of Nonviolence
Arbitrary arrest and continued detention of peace activists
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
DOE nuclear waste cleanup faulted
March 18, 2004
JEFF JOHNSON, http://pubs.acs.org/cen/staff/biojwj.html
Chemical & Engineering News,
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/today/8212doe.html
Fears of radioactive contamination of groundwater and the Savannah River were voiced on March 11 by elected Georgia officials, residents living downriver from the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, and scientists with the Institute for Energy & Environmental Research. The institute also released a report warning that DOE's current cleanup plan will leave at least 1 million curies of radioactivity in 51 underground tanks at the site, which, although in South Carolina, borders Georgia. DOE intends to leave most of the radioactive waste volume at the site, mixed with grout inside the tanks. The elected officials and institute charge that the cleanup will create a "de facto high-level radioactive waste dump" as the steel tanks break down. DOE however, maintains that most of the radioactivity--if not most of the volume--will be vitrified and moved to underground storage at the high-level waste repository being planned for Yucca Mountain, in Nevada. The elected officials and the institute say that radioactivity left in the grouted waste, although technically legal, will be 14 times above the highest level of radioactivity allowed for shallow land burial, which the tank waste will become over time. The site holds two-thirds of the total radioactivity in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, the result of decades of plutonium and tritium production there.
--------
US plan to get highly enriched uranium out of civilian cycle: IAEA
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318180105.9d5m4rm1.html
The United States is working on an "action plan" to get countries worldwide to stop using highly enriched uranium, which can be the raw material for nuclear weapons, in civilian programs, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Thursday. "They are working on an action plan already," ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told reporters after meeting in Washington with US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
He said the plan was "to clean up all the highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium that is still in the civilian cycle."
This represents 100 facilities in 40 countries, ElBaradei said.
HEU can be used to make an atom bomb but also as fuel in civilian research reactors.
Department of Energy officials had no comment on the plan.
ElBaradei, who met Wednesday with US President George W. Bush, said "the president agreed" it was "unacceptable" that countries are still using HEU in civilian programs.
He said they had also agreed the time had come to "change many of the rules" in order to strengthen the fight against nuclear proliferation that is the mission of the IAEA.
ElBaradei had said Wednesday it did not matter if the HEU which countries possessed had come from Russia, the United States or other weapons powers.
"My suggestion to the president is that we need a good plan to clean up all this nuclear weapons useable material that is all over the place," ElBaradei said.
Asked if countries would accept recyling HEU to low enriched uraniumwhich is not a weapons risk, ElBaradei said Thursday: "I think that's why we need US, Russian and other leadership."
The IAEA is now overseeing a reactor in Libya from which highly enriched uranium is taken to Russia, which is to return it as low enriched uranium, which cannot be used in a bomb.
ElBaradei said he thinks most people "understand the security concern and if you get the same results with an LEU research reactor, I don't think anyone will" complain.
"It's a question of identifying what needs to be done and who will be in touch with each country on which issues," ElBaradei said.
In another front in the non-proliferation fight, ElBaradei said he and Bush had "agreed on the need to revisit the whole export control regime ... as a result of A.Q. Khan associates and the lesson we have learned from that."
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, confessed in January to running an international black market ring that shared sensitive nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea for more than a decade.
ElBaradei also wants to eliminate the danger that nuclear fuel declared for peaceful uses could also be used to make atomic bombs by having a multilateral body make the fuel, rather than letting individual states do it.
The United States has however stressed setting a "moratorium or cut-off date" after which countries that have not mastered the fuel cycle would stop trying to do this.
-------- china
China flexes missile muscle on eve of Taiwan vote
By Bill Gertz,
March 18, 2004
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040317-105827-1441r.htm
China carried out at least five missile tests since January as part of a major buildup of missile forces before a vote in Taiwan on the mainland missile threat, U.S. intelligence officials said yesterday.
The test firings included four types of missiles, including Beijing's new DF-31 intercontinental ballistic missile and at least one new type of warhead.
"There is a big push underway and missile development and testing is a large part of their military modernization effort," one official said.
Disclosure of the missile tests comes as Taiwan plans a referendum Saturday on the threat posed to the island by China's missiles, including about 500 missile now deployed within striking distance.
The referendum asks voters whether Taiwan should buy advanced missile defenses if China refuses to withdraw its 500 missiles aimed at the island. The new warhead tested by the Chinese recently was described as a "cluster warhead" that spreads multiple bomblets rather than a single blast.
The warheads are used against airfields and troop concentrations.
The missile tests appear to be a subtle signal to Taiwan ahead of the presidential elections set for Saturday, the officials said. China has held off from conducting large-scale war games near Taiwan as it has done in the past.
The vote this weekend could determine whether Taiwan goes ahead with plans to buy U.S. missile defense systems, including Patriot PAC-3 systems and eventually Aegis-equipped warships, that are the base for a new Navy wide-area, sea-based missile defense.
Officials said the tests included short-range missile tests of the DF-11 and DF-15, also known as CSS-7 and CSS-6 respectively.
These are the missiles that China has deployed opposite Taiwan in large numbers. About 500 short-range missiles are now deployed in the provinces across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan and China is adding up to 75 new missiles a year.
Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith recently traveled to Beijing where he urged Chinese leaders to withdraw the missiles in order to avoid further destabilizing the region.
Mr. Feith was told by the Chinese that the missile deployments are an internal affair of Beijing.
In addition to the short-range missiles, China also recently tested a DF-21 medium-range missile. The DF-21 has a range of about 1,116 miles and can be fired from land-based silos and from submarines.
Finally, the long-range DF-31 was tested. The DF-31 is a new, road-mobile ICBM that China has been developing for several years. The missile is estimated to have a range of about 5,000 miles.
The DF-11 and DF-15 have ranges of 186 miles and 372 miles respectively.
All the missiles were fired from the Wuzhai missile testing center in central China and traveled toward the western part of the country.
There had been fears that the Chinese would test the missiles toward Taiwan, but China avoided west-to-east launches due to concerns about Taiwan, officials said.
"These tests make a mockery of all the efforts made by Washington to suppress the Taiwan missile referendum," said Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military with the Center for Security Policy.
Some officials in the Bush administration have said the missile referendum is not needed because it might upset Beijing, which views the missile referendum as a step toward Taiwan's independence.
The Taiwanese government this summer plans to submit a budget to the legislative yuan, as the parliament is known, for $16 billion in new defense spending over 10 years, double its current defense budget.
-------- depleted uranium
US to make Pakistan non-NATO ally
Midday March 18, 2004
PTI (Press Times India)
http://web.mid-day.com/news/world/2004/march/78985.htm
Islamabad: The United States will designate Pakistan a "major non-NATO ally" in a move that will significantly enhance military cooperation between the two countries, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said here today. The step, an apparent reward for Pakistan's support of the global war on terrorism, comes despite ongoing US concerns about nuclear proliferation conducted by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
"I advised the foreign minister this morning that we will also be making a notification to our Congress that will designate Pakistan as a 'major non-NATO ally' for the purposes of our future military to military relations," Powell told a press conference after meeting his counterpart Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.
The designation means Pakistan will join an elite group of nations, including Japan, Australia, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, South Korea, Argentina, New Zealand and the Philippines, which are granted significant benefits in the area of foreign aid and defense cooperation.
Major non-NATO allies of the United States are eligible for priority delivery of defense material and the purchase, for instance, of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds.
They can stockpile US military hardware, participate in defense research and development programs, and benefit from a US government loan guarantee program, which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports.
However, the designation does not afford them the same mutual defense guarantees enjoyed by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
--------
House candidates commit to veterans' issues
Associated Press
Thu, Mar. 18, 2004
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/8217284.htm
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Democratic congressional candidate Stephanie Herseth told veterans that ignoring their basic health care requirements shows disrespect for their service.
Herseth, speaking in Sioux Falls Wednesday on the 85th birthday of the American Legion, said she will support veterans if elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
"In Congress, I will cast South Dakota's vote in favor of re-establishing our commitment to our nation's veterans, prioritizing their needs and honoring their service," she said.
Herseth faces Republican nominee Larry Diedrich in the June 1 special election for the seat vacated by Bill Janklow.
Roger Andal, a Vietnam War vet and Herseth supporter, said budgetary shortfalls will likely pose problems for veterans.
"This is a fight that needs to be fought now," Andal said. "Next year's budget is a terrible budget."
Diedrich said in an interview later that he also supports veterans and has an appreciation for their commitment to the country.
"Personally, whether it is in regard to health insurance or making sure our people who come home from extended stays have jobs available, that is a top priority," Diedrich said. "We have made commitments to our veterans, and we have to live up to those obligations."
If elected to Congress, Diedrich said, he would be able to sit at the table with the majority party to work through the veterans issues.
Lanny Stricherz told Herseth that the issue of depleted uranium weapons and ammunition from the Desert Storm conflict is a major health concern for those veterans.
"Nobody is talking about it, and somebody needs to," he said.
Herseth said she will focus on issues such as that, just as Sen. Tom Daschle did with Agent Orange when he began running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978. "We need to make sure we don't go for many years without those health needs being addressed," she said.
Several key votes are expected in Congress this summer, making it important that state veterans be heard, she said.
"If I am representing South Dakota, I will vote against enrollment fees, for access to VA care, against raising veterans' prescription drug co-pay and for full funding of the VA health care," she said.
----
Massachusetts: Contamination inquiry to start
Starmet cleanup still years away
By Davis Bushnell,
Boston Globe Correspondent,
3/18/2004
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/03/18/contamination_inquiry_to_start/
Investigations into the extent of contamination on Starmet Corp.'s 46-acre site in West Concord are scheduled to begin this summer, according to the project coordinator for the firm that is spearheading the investigative and design work for the property cleanup.
Bruce Thompson of de maximis Inc., based in Weatogue, Conn., said Monday that work on the Superfund site probably will begin shortly after a public meeting is held in July to discuss his firm's 2,000-page project plans. A July meeting date has yet to be selected, he said.
The investigation is expected to last 1 years, Thompson said, adding that a risk-assessment phase will take an additional three to six months to complete. It's unlikely that a cleanup plan would be firmed up before 2008. Once that happens, it would take five years, at the very least, to rid the property of all contaminants, he said. The US Environmental Protection Agency is conducting its final review of de maximis's plans, said Melissa Taylor, a remedial project manager charged with the Starmet property cleanup. ''In general, we're impressed with the plan, one of the most conclusive that we've seen," she said. One of the first tasks, Thompson noted, will be digging up and examining between 60 and 70 55-gallon barrels that ''have been underground for some time." Located near a former holding basin and cooling water pond, these barrels are believed to contain some depleted uranium and a mixture of other hazardous materials, possibly including beryllium, he said.
Although ground water will be scrutinized, Concord's public water supply does not draw from wells that could be tainted by Starmet ground water, the EPA and Thompson have emphasized. The town relies on a reservoir. Starmet's predecessor firm, Nuclear Metals Inc., made uranium-tipped bullets for the Army in the 1970s, 1980s, and late 1990s. The site off Route 62 went on the EPA's Superfund list in June 2001.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is now close to reaching an agreement with the Army on removing 3,700 drums of depleted uranium from Starmet buildings, DEP spokesman Ed Coletta said last Friday.
But de maximis will not investigate those buildings until the drums have been removed, Thompson said.
Last June, the EPA, which had spent $1.2 million earlier in the year on the temporary cleanup of the Starmet site, cited the Army and four others as the parties responsible for cleaning up the property's contamination. The other parties named were the US Department of Energy; Whittaker Corp. of Simi Valley, Calif.; Textron Inc. of Providence; and MONY Life Insurance Co. of New York City.
Under the terms of the EPA consent order, the Army and the Department of Energy will pay 98 percent of the total bill for the final environmental studies, the three companies the remaining 2 percent. The estimated tab for the final studies undertaken by de maximis is $8 million, with a cap of $10 million.
-------- india / pakistan
Court seeks government answer on detention of Pakistani nuclear scientists
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318142208.2r3sanux.html
Pakistan's Supreme Court Thursday asked the government to respond in three weeks to petitions challenging the detention of disgraced nuclear architect Abdul Qadeer Khan and his associates, state media reported. The court issued notice to the state attorney to submit comments on the detentions, the official Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said.
The notice was issued after the court held preliminary hearing on four petitions filed on behalf of Khan's key aid Islam ul Haq and others, including nuclear scientist Muhammad Farooq.
A two-judge bench of the Punjab provincial High Court last month dismissed similar petitions after the government said the detentions of six nuclear scientists and officials were necessary to stop nuclear secrets from being leaked.
Pakistan detained six employees of its key enrichment facility Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) during its investigations into the transfer of nuclear technology to other states.
Khan last month took "full responsibility" for nuclear leaks to other states and was conditionally pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf, but has since been restricted to his private residence in Islamabad.
--------
Islamists slam Pakistan's non-NATO ally status
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318141112.9ak6mxu6.html
Islamist opposition here slammed a US plan to grant Pakistan "major non-NATO ally" status for its role in the war against terror, saying Thursday it would make the country a "client state." "I will be very unhappy if Pakistan is inching towards this alliance with the US," Khurshid Ahmad, vice president of the main fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, told AFP.
"This is neither an honour, nor a step towards global security. We have to avoid becoming a mercenary and a client state," Ahmad said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced at a news conference in Islamabad Thursday that President George W. Bush would soon designate Pakistan a "major non-NATO ally" as a reward for its anti-terror support.
The announcement came as Pakistani troops unleashed their second major assault this week on Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters near the border with Afghanistan.
The designation means Pakistan will join an exclusive club of nations -- including Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines, which are given preferential treatment in the areas of foreign aid and defense cooperation.
"I don't think this as a reward, it is a new trap after, luckily, we withdrew ourselves from the previous US alliances during the Cold War era," Ahmad said.
Hasnat Qadri, spokesman for the moderate Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (JUP), a key member of six-party Islamist grouping, said the new role will be "dangerous for Pakistan's military."
"By entering into such alliance, Pakistani soldiers will be made US mercenaries," Qadri said. "Muslims will be used against Muslim countries by the US."
But ruling party Senator and political analyst Mushahid Hussain said the new status would increase the level of satisfaction in Pakistan amid concerns over growing defence cooperation between its rival India and Israel.
"Pakistan is a valued ally for the US and the new status signifies that there is a strong long-term strategic relationship between the two countries."
Powell unveiled the decision despite US concerns over a nuclear proliferation scandal involving father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Hussain said that US concerns over nuclear proliferation in Pakistan would not affect the new relationship.
Defence analyst Talat Masood also said the move raised Pakistan's status as an ally of the United States.
Pakistan has been chosen for this new role "because there is convergence of national and military interests as the two countries are now partners in the war against terrorism," Masood, a retired Pakistani army general, told AFP.
--------
US: Military reward to Pakistan should not anger India
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318222557.jn2vkj72.html
The United States said Thursday its grant of special military status to Pakistan should not anger neighboring nuclear rival India.
"No, it shouldn't," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said at a media briefing when asked whether it would heighten tensions between them.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced during a visit to Pakistan Thursday that President George W. Bush would soon designate the country as a "major non-NATO ally."
The designation means Pakistan will join an exclusive club of nations -- including Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines -- given preferential treatment.
Pakistan has become a key US ally in the war on terror, dropping its support of the Taliban, allowing US troops to use its airbases and intelligence for the campaign to oust the regime in late 2001 and arresting more than 500 al-Qaeda fugitives.
"Practically, what it involves is access to war reserve stockpiles on Pakistani territory, cooperative training agreements with the United States and ability to use foreign military financing for commercial leasing of certain defense articles," Ereli explained.
He said the reward came on the heels of Washington's pledge to work with Congress on a three-billion-dollar assistance package for Pakistan.
Ereli emphasized that Washington did not see its relationship with India or Pakistan as a "zero-sum game."
India, he said, had "a good and close relationship, independent of the relationship with Pakistan."
He cited a "special partnership" arrangement forged between Washington and New Delhi in January, which he said demonstrated "the strength and depth" of bilateral ties, particularly in trade and development of high-tech goods.
Secretary Powell had played a pivotal role in coaxing the hostile neighbors back from the brink of war two years ago, when they had a million troops massed against each other along their shared frontier.
-------- iran
U.S., Iran Are Urged to Talk Over Nuclear Plans
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2936-2004Mar17.html
The United Nations' top nuclear official appealed to President Bush yesterday to begin new talks with Iran as a step toward resolving the controversy over the Islamic nation's aggressive pursuit of nuclear power.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also urged the administration to support a global freeze on the production of fissile material such as enriched uranium and plutonium. The discovery two years ago of a massive uranium enrichment plant south of Tehran triggered the current diplomatic showdown over Iran's nuclear program.
"This is a different ballgame, and we have to change the rules," ElBaradei told reporters after 45 minutes of meetings with Bush and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
ElBaradei said Iran appears to have resumed cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, four days after Iranian leaders barred a team of IAEA inspectors from entering the country. But he suggested that direct talks with the United States may be key to ending the crisis.
"The best way to resolve these problems is through dialogue," ElBaradei said. Asked whether he had relayed a private message to Bush from the Iranians, ElBaradei declined to comment.
The meeting between Bush and ElBaradei came amid reports of a split within the administration over whether to pursue negotiations with Iran, a country that Bush has labeled part of an "axis of evil."
Yesterday, the Financial Times of London reported that Iran offered 10 months ago to hold secret talks on normalizing relations with the United States. The talks reportedly would address U.S. concerns over Iran's nuclear program as well as the Islamic republic's support of terrorist groups.
The Bush administration did not respond publicly to the call for dialogue. Before the meeting with ElBaradei, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration had "not received any official proposals" from Iran, and he played down the usefulness of new talks in resolving the conflict.
"There are obviously a number of concerns we have with regard to Iran [that] they need to address," McClellan said. "We've always said in the past that there are established channels of communication when we have issues of mutual concern to address."
A State Department spokesman yesterday expressed satisfaction with the IAEA's recent moves to pressure Iran into fully disclosing past nuclear activities. On Saturday, the agency's governing board approved a resolution that sharply criticized Iran for failing to acknowledge efforts to acquire advanced centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium.
"We shared the view that the best way to deal with that [Iran's] program is through the IAEA," spokesman J. Adam Ereli said.
Earlier in the day, ElBaradei told a congressional panel that it is too early to tell if Iran's nuclear program was entirely peaceful, as its government contends. Asked if Iran had begun work on nuclear weapons, the IAEA chief said: "The jury is still out."
"We have not yet seen that, but I am not yet excluding that possibility," ElBaradei told the House International Relations Committee's subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia.
During his White House talks, ElBaradei asked the Bush administration to back several of his initiatives to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, including the freeze on the production of fissile material. He also asked for U.S. help in securing supplies of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that are used as fuel in scores of nuclear research reactors around the world. Such fuels, if obtained by terrorists, could easily be used in making a nuclear bomb.
"We need to have a good plan in place to clean up nuclear materials that are all over the place," ElBaradei said.
--------
UN Watchdog Suggests US-Iran Nuclear Dialogue
18/3/2004
Story by Carol Giacomo,
Reuters Diplomatic Correspondent
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24331/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief, during meetings in Washington this week, suggested a U.S. dialogue with Iran as a way of resolving a growing controversy over Tehran's nuclear program, U.S. sources said. A participant in one of the meetings told Reuters that Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, "thinks the Iranians are open to a deal" on the nuclear issue but it would need to include a move toward normalized ties between the United States and Iran.
ElBaradei raised the idea of a U.S.-Iran dialogue in talks with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who took the idea "under advisement," a U.S. official said.
While the United States is willing to talk to Iran "if we see it in our interest to do it," the U.S. official said the Americans were unclear if ElBaradei was communicating a message from Tehran or expressing his own views.
ElBaradei "said what others have said before, that the Iranians are interested in talking," the official said. But he added: "It's not clear where this is coming from."
A western diplomat based in Vienna said the IAEA chief told Armitage, "It's time for dialogue" and that he was reflecting views Iran was keen for the Americans to hear.
The United States has accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons and has been pushing to put the issue before the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
Washington will keep pressing Iran to let IAEA inspectors probe its nuclear facilities and produce a clear and verifiable declaration of Iran's activities, U.S. officials said.
The issue could come to a head in June when the IAEA board of directors next meets.
U.S. DIVISIONS
European Union countries led by Britain, France and Germany have favored a negotiated solution to the Iran nuclear row, although they went along with a tough IAEA resolution last week after Iran temporarily halted IAEA inspections.
President Bush's administration has been divided about dialogue with Iran. Many experts doubt Bush would risk a bold gesture toward Tehran before the November U.S. presidential election, especially since Iranian hard-liners in recent elections tightened their hold on the government. Moreover, many U.S. experts doubt that Iran would ever give up a weapons-related program that it hid from the world for 18 years. Iran insists the program is peaceful.
In the meeting with Armitage, ElBaradei did not discuss specifics of a "deal" but spoke generally about Iran's interest in dialogue with the United States, the U.S. official said.
Another source said ElBaradei had "obviously thought a lot about" a diplomatic solution to the nuclear controversy.
The trade-off would involve U.S. and European guarantees supporting Iran's development of nuclear energy in return for Tehran giving up a "closed fuel cycle" for nuclear weapons.
That is essentially what Britain, France and Germany promised last October in return for Iran's vow, later broken, to disclose all its nuclear secrets to the IAEA.
But ElBaradei also signaled that for Iran "the crux of the deal is being able to use it to reestablish a modicum of normal relations with the United States," the source said.
The United States and Iran have not had diplomatic ties since the 1979 Islamic revolution when student fundamentalists held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
ElBaradei, on a four-day visit to the United States, also met this week with CIA Director George Tenet to discuss the global nuclear black market linked to Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's atom bomb.
Yesterday, ElBaradei meets Bush. Talks are expected to include recent proposals by both men to curb proliferation.
"I think U.S. leadership is very much needed in this area, and we need to work - all of us - as one," ElBaradei said.
--------
U.S. Said to Seek Iran's Nuclear Details by June
March 18, 2004
By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/politics/18INSP.html
WASHINGTON, March 17 - The head of the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, said Wednesday that President Bush and his aides had told him they regarded June as "an important deadline" for Iran to reveal all the details of its clandestine nuclear program. But he said Mr. Bush had left unclear what action he might take if Iran failed to do so.
After a 45-minute meeting with Mr. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, Mr. ElBaradei also said he sensed that the administration was "still mulling" some kind of direct dialogue with Tehran on its nuclear program and other issues.
In an interview after the meeting, Mr. ElBaradei said the subject of Iraq's weapons programs - so contentious a year ago - never even came up Wednesday in the Oval Office.
Instead, the discussion, which Mr. ElBaradei said had covered Pakistan and North Korea as well as Iran, centered on their somewhat different proposals for controlling the world's supply of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and keeping it out of the hands of both terror groups and rogue nations.
Mr. ElBaradei said he pressed Mr. Bush to help him get his inspectors into Pakistan to take samples of its nuclear material, which he needs to match up with traces of nuclear material found in Iran. It is a network created by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb, that is suspected of supplying Iran with the materials and technology to make atomic weapons.
Mr. Bush has said publicly that he believes that Iran is attempting to build nuclear weapons; Mr. ElBaradei says he does not yet have evidence of a weapons program.
Iran's account of its nuclear activity has constantly changed. Last year it admitted that it had hidden 18 years of nuclear development programs. It conceded this year that it had experimented with an advanced type of centrifuge apparently supplied by Mr. Khan's network.
Senior American officials have said they will decide in June whether to seek sanctions against Iran in the Security Council.
--------
Inspector: No proof Iran has nukes
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 18, 2004
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/031804/pag_noproof.shtml
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency told Congress on Wednesday "the jury is still out" on whether Iran was developing nuclear weapons. "I don't have any specific proof," Mohammed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a congressional panel on a day in which he also urged President Bush to open a dialogue with Iran on its nuclear program.
"They are mulling it over," ElBaradei said after a 45-minute White House session with Bush and another meeting with Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security assistant.
U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced Iran is edging closer to producing nuclear weapons.
ElBaradei told members of Congress, however, that he did not have specific proof.
"I have to be certain," he said.
The U.N. official said he was careful with statements about Iran's nuclear intentions. "This could make a difference between peace and war," he said.
At the White House, ElBaradei told reporters that Iran was cooperating fully with U.N. inspectors after barring inspections for two weeks. They are to resume March 27.
Still, Bush expressed concern about Iran's program, said ElBaradei.
"My answer is that the jury is still out," ElBaradei said. "We would like to continue to work hard on inspecting Iran before we come to a conclusion."
After meeting with Bush, ElBaradei said he hoped he would have a more definitive assessment of Iran's nuclear activities by June, when he is due to give his next report to the IAEA Board of Governors.
Iran suspended inspections last weekend after the U.N. agency adopted a resolution deploring recent discoveries of uranium enrichment equipment and other suspicious activities that Iran had failed to reveal. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, had described the IAEA resolution as "unfair and deceitful."
Though ElBaradei called the two-week suspension "regrettable" and "a bad precedent," he said the inspection that was postponed was not time-sensitive and thus probably didn't offer Iran an opportunity to hide anything. And now, he said, Iran is "back on track."
U.N. inspectors are due to return to Iran on March 27.
"I think today Iran is cooperating fully," ElBaradei said. "I expect them to be fully cooperative, to be fully transparent, to provide all information in the most detailed manner. ... We need 100 percent cooperation."
Iran says its nuclear activities are designed to generate electricity. The Bush administration suspects Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
"There certainly is no reason why they need to have nuclear energy given all their vast oil and gas resources," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "So we continue to have concerns about their behavior and about their nuclear program."
ElBaradei seemed to endorse Bush's recent call for a ban on allowing any additional countries to acquire the ability to enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel for plutonium -- even if the stated intent is to build civilian nuclear power facilities.
"We believe there is enough supply in the world that we do not like to see many other countries developing reprocessing capability, enrichment capability, provided that we provide assurance of supply," ElBaradei said.
His White House visit came after Bush gave a speech at the National Defense University last month in which the president singled out the IAEA for criticism. Bush called for the creation of a special committee to focus on safeguards and verification and to ensure that nations comply with international obligations, and he complained that nations such as Iran have been allowed to sit on the IAEA board of governors.
The agency is seen as ineffective by many in the administration who cite its failure to stop weapons programs in Libya, North Korea and other countries.
Separately, ElBaradei was pleased with what he has heard during his Washington stay on the intelligence the United States is willing to provide the inspectors. At a meeting Tuesday with CIA Director George Tenet, he said he received "assurance that the agency will get as much intelligence as we can get from the CIA and other intelligence agencies."
"We all understand that we need intelligence, we need resources, we need technology for us to do a good job," he said.
-------- korea
N. Korea: Disarming Will Lead to Invasion
By SANG-HUN CHOE
Associated Press Writer
Mar 18, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KOREAS_NUCLEAR?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea said Thursday that inspections and the dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs would only pave the way for a U.S. invasion, as proven by the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
In a statement marking the March 20 anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq, the communist North signaled a stiffening in its approach to an ongoing crisis over its nuclear weapons development, as regional powers and the United States try to broker a peaceful end to Pyongyang's atomic programs.
China, North Korea's last remaining ideological ally and key mediator in the nuclear crisis, said Thursday that its foreign minister will visit Pyongyang next week for the first time in five years to discuss how to proceed with six-nation talks aimed at easing nuclear tensions.
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing will visit North Korea next Tuesday through Thursday to discuss the nuclear talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said at a regular briefing. He didn't immediately give any details.
In Seoul, South Korea said its Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon will visit Beijing on March 28-30 to discuss the nuclear standoff with Li.
"What has happened in Iraq shows that if we agree to disarmament through unjustified inspections, it will not prevent a war but actually invite one," said KCNA, North Korea's official news agency.
KCNA was monitored by South Korean news agency Yonhap.
At last month's six-nation talks aimed at ending the North Korean nuclear standoff, Washington insisted on a "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling" of all the North's nuclear facilities.
North Korea said it would allow inspections and dismantle its nuclear programs only if the United States provides economic aid and written guarantees that U.S. forces won't not invade.
The talks, held between the United States, two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan, ended without much progress. But the sides agreed to try meeting again before July.
KCNA said the United Nations Security Council had failed to stop U.S. "aggression" against Iraq and was abused by the United States to justify its "attempts to completely disarm of Iraq through inspections."
North Korea says it has reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods in a process that could yield enough plutonium for several nuclear bombs, in addition to the one or two it is believed to already possess.
On Wednesday, North Korea said it would strengthen its "nuclear deterrent," as the United States prepared to begin joint military exercises with the South to test the allies' defense readiness.
The communist state uses the term "nuclear deterrent" to describe its atomic weapons development.
North Korea accused the United States and South Korea of increasing tension on the Korean peninsula by going ahead with the military exercises, scheduled to begin Sunday and run through March 28.
Washington and Seoul have said the annual drills are defense exercises. North Korea has denounced previous exercises as preparations by the United States to invade the North.
The United States has 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea - a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.
-------- libya
Libyan Nukes Were Intended For Israel
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem,
March 18, 2004
http://www.truthnews.net/month/2004030048.htm
Italy is prepared to serve as a diplomatic bridge between Israel and post-nuclear Libya, visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told journalists in Jerusalem on Thursday, just days after the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi admitted that Libya pursued a nuclear weapons program in order to arm itself for a war with Israel.
Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam also told the London based Al Hayat newspaper that negotiations with the US and Britain to abandon Libya's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction were concluded before the start of war in Iraq in April 2003.
As Egypt's western neighbor, Libya is one of an arc of hostile Islamic nations that Israel believes have been pursuing nuclear weapons with which to threaten the isolated Jewish State. Although none of Israel's immediate Arab neighbors are believed to have nuclear capabilities, second tier nations such as Libya, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia may all have tried to develop the potential.
While advanced Iraqi attempts were halted by a daring Israeli air strike on the French-built Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, and further frustrated by the first Gulf War a decade later, the fact that Libya apparently came close to producing an atomic bomb last year under the noses of UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, has caused shockwaves in the international community.
The arrest and subsequent pardoning of a top Pakistani nuclear scientist for selling weapons secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea earlier this year has also raised the specter that other nations, most notably Saudi Arabia, could also be close to securing the technology. Israeli intelligence has openly speculated that the Saudis could have funded Pakistan's nuclear weapons with the hope of importing the technology wholesale.
Speaking to Indian leaders during a visit to New Delhi on Tuesday US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he will press Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this week over whether Pakistani officials aided rogue scientist A. Q. Khan in leaking nuclear weapons technology to foreign governments, underlining the US belief that Khan did not, nor could not have acted alone.
Meanwhile in Washington the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday he could not rule out the possibility that Iran has been pursuing atomic weapons, as the United States contends, but defended his organization 's insistence on pursuing a diplomatic solution to the standoff, Reuters reports.
"Our statements can make the difference between war and peace. That's why we have to be careful," he told lawmakers in a Congressional subcommittee after advising US President George W. Bush at the White House to start direct bilateral talks with Tehran.
When asked whether he believed Iran had begun building a bomb, ElBaradei insisted that he had no proof, "The jury's still out," he insisted.
Iran froze all IAEA inspections on Friday, but said on Monday the IAEA could return on March 27 - a delay of over two weeks.
However, according to Reuters, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami warned on Wednesday that Tehran would only continue to cooperate with the IAEA as long as US "plots" to impose UN sanctions on the regime at the Security Council failed.
In its 13-month investigation of the Iranian nuclear program, the IAEA has uncovered traces of bomb-grade uranium and experiments with plutonium and polonium, a substance that can be used to initiate a chain reaction in an atom bomb.
----
Libya ships Soviet nuke fuel to Dimitrovgrad, leaving a money trail
Mikhail Piskunov,
2004-03-18
Bellona Foundation (Russia)
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke_industry/co-operation/32873.html
DIMITROVGRAD, Central Russia-Importing foreign parcels of Soviet produced highly enriched uranium into Russia under a Russian American cooperative agreement supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency is becoming a lucrative business for the Scientific Research Institute for Atomic Reactors, or NIIAR, at Dimitrovgrad in the mid-Volga region.
The institute seems to be raking it in, while the opacity of how the money is spent is tilling fertile soil for the growth of criminal roots.
As was revealed mid March, a load of cargo arrived in the Ulyanovsk Region from Libya on a plane owned by Volga-Dnepr airlines. In the early morning hours of March 9th the cargo was brought to the nuclear centre at Dimitrovgrad, or NIIAR, some 600 kilometers east of Moscow.
The load delivered to the centre consisted of several containers filled with fuel assemblies from an IRT-2M reactor in operation at the Tajour nuclear research centre, south of the Libyan capitol of Tripoli. The containers hold 16 kilograms of nuclear fuel. The fuel is enriched by 80 percent with uranium 235. This highly enriched nuclear fuel had been given to Libya in the 1980s by the Soviet Union. Now it is back in Russia through the efforts of Russian-American threat reduction cooperation.
This is one step in the Russia-US-IAEA tri-lateral initiative aimed at non-proliferation and preventing nuclear terrorism. Such measures, naturally, cannot be greeted with a lack of support. Indeed, as soon came to light, Libya was acquiring nuclear materials and corresponding equipment, and was carrying out a programme to create weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. Then, when Libya's administration agreed to cease further pursuits in this area, it was decided to send the Soviet produced uranium back to Russia, and any Libyan equipment related to its nuclear programme were handed over to the United States.
The nuclear fuel returned from Libya represents the third nuclear shipment to Russia, and ultimately, to NIIAR, in the past two years. The first came in 2002 with a delivery of uranium from Yugoslavia's Vinch nuclear research institute. Russia's Dimitrovgrad institute received just below 50 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
Then, in December of 2003, 17 kilograms of uranium fuel was delivered to NIIAR from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Nuclear Research and Atomic Energy.
Early March brought Libya's nuclear gift.
The Libyan delivery to NIIAR raises many questions, though answers are hard to come by, as the institute's management is keeping its silence. NIIAR's press service has published no information about the delivery in any media since it arrived. It's web site has also avoided the topic. It was necessary, therefore, to analyze information from a variety of sources. Alas, their information is not only scant but contradictory.
What is in the containers?
But what is it, precisely, that they brought to NIIAR from Libya? Was it pure un-irradiated plutonium, or was it spent nuclear fuel, or SNF? These have been the central questions that we have discussed at the Centre for Assistance on Citizen's Initiatives, the NGO I run in Dimitrovgrad. According to a March 9th Russian newswire report from the state-run ITAR-TASS, the fuel assemblies had been extracted from a reactor by IAEA specialists. This would mean we are talking about spent nuclear fuel assemblies. If they decide to reuse this fuel for nuclear energy purposes, they will then have to reprocess the fuel. To do that, they will have to at least partially cleanse the fuel of fissionable materials, which, without fail means the formation of a new parcel of radioactive waste at NIIAR, of which there are plenty.
A counterbalance to the ITAR-TASS information cited above, however, was two web dispatches on the site of the former Ministry of Atomic Energy, or Minatom, which is now known as Agency of Atomic Energy. The two Minatom articles, which included a report from the Interfax Russian newswire, both reported that the Libyan shipment contained "fresh nuclear fuel." It may be that this is the correct version of events, though it is hard to believe that a container full of fuel prepared in the Soviet Union 20 years ago returned from Libya-after such a protracted period of time-un-irradiated. After all, it's not news the IRT-2M reactor at the Tajour centre has been operating in recent years. This would suggest that the facility at least housed SNF, begging the question, where did that SNF go? It couldn't have just disappeared without a trace. Moreover, SNF presents no less a danger than "clean" un-irradiated nuclear fuel.
But, can it be that they did drop off a load of SNF at NIIAR? If that is the case, then it was no accident that Interfax reported the following: "Minatom estimates that the import of fuel with American cooperation-the programme is US-funded-will aid Russia in its entry onto the global market in SNF."
Following the Money
The issue of the financing of the project to return Soviet era nuclear materials to Russia should force one to stop and ponder. This operation is not bringing NIIAR small change, and one can only guess at the sums this deal are reaping for the institute. All that is known is that the project is financed by the Americans-primarily by the US Department of Energy, or DOE, and the money in play cannot be paltry.
For example, after the Yugoslavian fuel assemblies were removed and sent to NIIAR, US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, in an interview with Russian daily Izvestiya, pledged $400,000 to reprocess the Yugoslavian uranium. The DOE will deliver on this pledge. To take the fuel out of Yugoslavia, the Washington-based non-proliferation NGO, The Nuclear Threat Initiative, or NTI, put up $5m of its own money, while the US federal government, because of environmental clean-up restrictions placed on threat reduction efforts, put up only $2m.
According to the DOE, the IAEA and officials from the Russian-American programme to remove the uranium to NIIAR from Libya, the operation cost $700,000. Part of that money was obviously spent on transportation, and the rest, apparently was collected by NIIAR. How much is as yet uncertain. One can only guess.
Deductive reasoning suggests this: Receiving nuclear parcels of Soviet pedigree is becoming a very lucrative business for the management of NIIAR. And this concerns not hard cash payments from abroad. Un-irradiated, "clean" uranium is a most valuable material, which NIIAR is receiving practically for free. And after down-blending, this HEU can be used to make new fuel assemblies for both research and energy producing reactors. Again, sheer profit.
NIIAR's opaque use of funding
The Centre for Assistance on Citizen's Initiatives frequently receives information indicating that private firms are leeching off the profitable deals on Soviet era fuel return. For example, according to a report that appeared on the Nuclear.ru web site, "Technical help in filling out documentation and in transport [for the fuel from Libya] was furnished by the Sosny firm, which is also participating in contract work with regarding the Paks Nuclear Power Plant [in Hungary, which ships its SNF to Russia]." It is known to the Centre for Assistance on Citizen's Initiatives that Sosny was created by management-level employees of one of NIIAR's leading departments, and that huge sums of money pass through the firm. One can draw one's own conclusions.
All the while, workers at NIIAR live in conditions of poverty: workers' salaries are relatively low and are often severely delayed. NIIAR currently owes three month's worth of back pay to its workers.
NIIAR workers owed three month's back-pay
Recently, Dmitrograd's mayor participated in a call-in show on local radio. Hearing the complaints about wage arrears, he promised that the city would seek means to boost NIIAR's finances. It would be, however, infinitely more fruitful to engage law enforcement and corresponding regulatory agencies in a search for leaking funds. In the same vein, it would be of use to the mayor to know the following fact: In order to import SNF, NIIAR has to pay the regional administration. For example, the Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine, located in the Krasnoyarsk region of Central Siberia, gets 25 percent of the gross payment for the import and storage of spent nuclear fuel to the chemical combine's RT-2 SNF storage facility. But NIIAR management plays the local administration on this point like a fiddle: After NIIAR is engaged primarily in scientific research. City and regional authorities sing NIIAR's praises while promising the population all kinds of benefits due to Dimitrovgrad's proximity to NIIAR, and tell the worried citizens that their city is in the running for special federal status a science city. But according to out experts here at the Centre for Assistance on Citizen's Initiatives, these are little more than pipe dreams that have to be seriously discussed.
Mikhail Piskunov is chairman of the Centre for Assistance on Citizen's Initiatives in the city of Dimitrovgrad. He can be reached by email at csgi@vinf.ru.
-------- missile defense
Canadian personalities demand Ottawa withdraw from US anti-missile shield
MONTREAL (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318213645.mhrmmhtq.html
A hundred well-known Canadians on Thursday called on their government to pull out of talks with Washington on participation in the US space-based anti-missile shield.
"Canadian involvement in US missile defense would undermine decades of Canadian efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons," they said in an open letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin.
"It would represent our acquiescence and willingness to become an active participant in a permanent nuclear future," said the letter. "As such, it would directly collide with the wishes of the Canadian people who have expressed overwhelming support for nuclear disarmament."
Canadian participation in the US defense system "would require the reversal of a 30-year Canadian policy opposing the weaponization of space," said the letter.
The US plan is "enormously expensive" and would have long-term negative consequences on global security and "Canadian sovereignty over future foreign affairs and defense matters," said the letter.
It was signed by some 100 Canadian personalities, including former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, singers Bryan Adams, Richard Desjardins and Sarah McLachlan, anti-globalization author Naomi Klein, film maker Alexandre Trudeau, son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, and a Catholic bishop and a Nobel chemistry laureate.
-------- space
NASA wants nuclear craft for deep-space missions 03/18/04
John Mangels
Cleveland Plain Dealer Science Writer
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1079627401100100.xml
The naval designers who for more than half a century have put nuclear reactors in America 's submarines and aircraft carriers will work with NASA to create atomic-powered spacecraft for deep-space missions.
The partnership,announced Wednesday by NASA Administrator Sean O 'Keefe during a Cleveland visit, aims to build nuclear spacecraft that are faster and can make far more electricity than current vehicles propelled by bulky chemical rockets and powered by limited-life batteries and solar cells.Ultimately,a spaceship powered by a Navy-designed reactor may help NASA reach its new goal of ferrying humans to Mars sometime after 2020,O 'Keefe said.
Scientists and engineers caution, however,that there are substantial technical hurdles to overcome,such as radiation shielding to protect astronauts,coolants that perform well in space,and reactors that can work for years with little supervision.
Finding a way to propel and power spacecraft during the months or years it takes to travel to the outer solar system has long been a challenge for NASA. The small, low-powered, unmanned craft that have made the one-way journey relied on gravity's slingshot to send them along, and have used solar arrays or heat from small nuggets of plutonium to make electricity for computers and communication.
Getting larger robotic craft and eventually astronauts to Mars and beyond, as President Bush's new space exploration program calls for, will require a technological leap in propulsion and power. Faster ships are needed to cut the time astronauts are exposed to space radiation and the muscle- and bone- wasting effects of weightlessness.
In theory, a nuclear reactor not much larger than an easy chair could make 100 times more power and generate at least three times the speed of today's spacecraft, O'Keefe said. A safe, workable design is the challenge.
Working with the Naval Reactors Program to design a spacecraft power plant makes sense, O'Keefe said, because of the group's "extraordinary experience" and "flawless" safety record. The Navy has used reactors in its fleet since 1948.
O'Keefe noted the Navy's nuclear vessels have safely traveled more than 125 million miles.
The cooperative agreement and NASA's commitment to nuclear-powered spacecraft bode well for Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center, said its director, Julian Earls.
Glenn scientists and engineers are designing and testing ion engines for future spacecraft. The next-generation engines create thrust by shooting out electrically charged particles. Using a nuclear reactor as the ion engine's power source would make for a compact, highly efficient thruster.
A Glenn-designed ion engine coupled with a nuclear reactor is one of several candidates NASA is considering to power its proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. The unmanned spacecraft, to be launched in 2012 or later, would search for evidence of oceans beneath the ice-covered surfaces of Callisto, Ganymede and Europa, Jupiter's planet-sized moons.
O'Keefe spent the day in Cleveland to evaluate placing a NASA financial and procurement center here, and to visit Lorain Middle School, one of the space agency's 50 new "Explorer Schools." The schools, often in high-poverty areas, get money, technology and human assistance to nurture students in science and math.
O'Keefe and astronaut Michael Good, a Parma native, told a cheering crowd of Lorain students that it will be up to them to complete the journey into deep space that is only beginning. "My generation can get the first couple of parts of this right," O'Keefe said. "The next stuff is what you get to do."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jmangels@plaind.com, 216-999-4842
-------- treaties
Shutting Down The Nuclear Underground
Thu., Mar. 18, 2004
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/81726/1/
In early February 2004, Pakistan's national hero and the father of its atomic bomb, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted to masterminding an elaborate nuclear proliferation network that had transferred nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea--and perhaps elsewhere. The revelation underscored the growing problem of nuclear black market activity and prompted President Bush, in a speech at National Defense University on February 11, to call for a series of new measures to combat proliferation (Text of Speech Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040211-4.html).
Khan's network highlights several key features of the nuclear black market that should shape U.S. and international community efforts to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The Central Role of Insiders
Without insiders and rogue scientists acting as sellers and suppliers, the nuclear black market would not exist. These individuals have extensive networks of personal contacts plus access to sensitive information, technology, materials, and suppliers around the world. They are often motivated by ideology, money, or a combination of the two, as was apparently the case with A.Q. Khan.
A.Q. Khan's network, for example, consisted of a close circle of contacts he established more than three decades ago while studying in the Netherlands and later working for a subcontractor of Urenco, a Dutch uranium enrichment company. In 1975, a year after India's first "peaceful" nuclear explosion, Khan stole blueprints for gas centrifuges from Urenco and returned to Pakistan. He then relied on his secret contacts to obtain the materials and components necessary to assemble a uranium enrichment program to support Pakistan's nuclear weapons ambitions.
With access to centrifuge designs and with a sophisticated and trusted supply network already in place, Khan began to make frequent trips abroad, searching for potential customers. His travels included trips to Iran, Libya, and a reported 13 visits to North Korea. His near iconic status in Pakistan likely placed him above any suspicion of engaging in illicit proliferation activity.
Lax Oversight
Nuclear black market transactions tend to follow the path of least resistance, taking advantage of permissive environments in states with weak export controls and ineffective criminal laws. A.Q. Khan attempted to mask a shipment of sophisticated centrifuge parts to Libya by working through a Sri Lankan associate, B.S.A. Tahir, who allegedly set up a front company called SMB Computers in Dubai to act as the legitimate buyer of the equipment. Tahir then contracted out the manufacturing of the centrifuge parts to a Malaysian manufacturer, Scomi Precision Engineering, owned by a holding company in which he had a controlling interest.
Ill-Equipped Treaties and Regimes
International nonproliferation treaties and regimes have failed to adapt to the continuously evolving threat of nuclear black market activity. Although the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) prohibits signatories from assisting any state in acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities, the most problematic supplier states such as Pakistan and North Korea remain outside the treaty. End user states can exploit the benefits of nuclear technology for "peaceful applications" that the NPT provides, and subsequently withdraw from the treaty to build weapons.
International export control regimes are not comprehensive. The Nuclear Suppliers Group, for example, does not include countries such as China, Pakistan, Dubai, and Malaysia. Even in states that belong to such regimes, black market activity often occurs without the knowledge of the host governments. While treaties and regimes bind national governments to adhere to certain norms, insiders and front companies have little regard for such constraints on their behavior.
Impact of Globalization
The forces unleashed by globalization increasingly complicate efforts to thwart nuclear black market activity. Technological innovation and diffusion fosters widespread access to information on how to design and build nuclear weapons and the facilities needed to produce weapons-usable fissile materials. The ease of international travel, electronic communication, and financial transactions facilitates connections between insiders, suppliers, and end users. Layers of middlemen and corporate intermediaries conceal the identities of end users. Moreover, the dual-use nature of many nuclear technologies and materials makes it difficult to distinguish between end users with legitimate aims and those who intend to divert sensitive technologies to clandestine nuclear weapons programs.
Recommendations
Shutting down nuclear black markets involves strengthening efforts at every stage of the proliferation "pipeline" and requires an unprecedented level of cooperation between intelligence, law enforcement, and national security communities at both the national and international level.
Strengthen and Expand Programs to Prevent Brain Drain
Programs such as the Nuclear Cities Initiative (http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/na-20/nci/index.shtml), Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/na-20/ipp.shtml), and the Civilian Research and Development Foundation (http://www.crdf.org) can help eliminate the financial and psychological incentives that drive some nuclear scientists and engineers to become black-market insiders. These programs provide challenging, peaceful research and employment opportunities for scientists in the former Soviet Union. The United States has recently established similar programs in Iraq and is exploring options for Libya. Other countries, such as Iran, should also be considered candidates for these efforts. These programs should assign highest priority to projects that engage scientists in research on nuclear safety, remote sensing and detection devices, proliferation-resistant nuclear technologies, and sustainable energy development.
Encourage Stricter Personnel Reliability Programs
Programs to prevent brain drain will do little to deter individuals who are motivated to sell nuclear weapons technology and materials because of greed, ideology or vengeance. The United States should therefore complement brain drain programs by promoting cooperation among all nuclear supplier countries in developing and implementing effective personnel reliability programs. The focus of such international cooperation should be sharing technology, training, and "best practices" so that all countries can detect and weed out individuals who present a high risk of engaging in proliferation activity.
Improve Intelligence to Detect and Interdict WMD Proliferation
When brain drain and personnel reliability programs fail, the United States must be able to detect proliferation activity and stop sensitive materials and technologies from reaching their final destinations. New programs such as the Proliferation Security Initiative (http://www.state.gov/t/np/c10390.htm) can enhance U.S. interdiction capabilities, but are only as effective as the intelligence that supports them. The United States should therefore continuously improve intelligence collection, sharing, and analysis in the area of WMD proliferation.
In addition, the international community should strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by empowering it to inspect any declared or undeclared facility suspected of illicit nuclear weapons activity or involvement with black market proliferation. As a first step, all countries should be urged to sign the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which grants the IAEA broader rights of access to facilities. (See the Center's Issue Alert on the Additional Protocol, http://64.177.207.201/pages/16_483.html)
Enact Criminal Legislation Against Proliferation
If proliferation is discovered after the fact, the international community should possess the legal power necessary to bring perpetrators to justice. The United States should therefore cooperate with countries around the world to criminalize proliferation in international law, and also to adopt strict laws against proliferation at the national level with severe punishments for violators. President Bush's recent call for such measures is a welcome step in the right direction. In the interim, the world community needs a vehicle for learning the full extent of proliferation that has occurred. The inability of the United States or IAEA to question A.Q. Khan about his activities reveals the barriers that exist.
Focus on Fissile Materials
Although the United States and the international community should do what they can to discourage and disrupt nuclear black market activity, they should not lose sight of the fact that policing knowledge has become exceedingly difficult in an age of globalization. It may ultimately prove impossible to completely stem the flow of nuclear know-how, design information, and dual-use technology.
On the other hand, acquisition of highly enriched uranium and plutonium remains the principal obstacle to terrorist and rogue state acquisition of nuclear weapons. Securing and disposing of these materials worldwide should therefore remain the primary focus of U.S. nonproliferation efforts. (See Harvard Report by Center Board member Matthew Bunn, Anthony Wier, and John Holdren, "Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials: A Report Card and Action Plan," http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/overview/report.asp)
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Nuclear Security Training Lacking
Plants Eliminated or Reduced Drills Designed to Repel Attacks, U.S. Says
Associated Press
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2869-2004Mar17.html
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.
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 and released Tuesday.
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 is 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 also determined that at least two guards defending the mock attacks had been allowed to look at computer simulations a day before the attacks.
The newest report said some of the plants are not adequately training guards how to use handcuffs, fight hand-to-hand or defend against terrorists in vehicles.
"Defense tactics training should be as realistic as possible," the 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 training in at least two important areas. The plants were the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; the Nevada Test Site near Nellis Air Force Base; the Oak Ridge Complex in Tennessee; the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site near Denver; the Hanford site; Sandia National Laboratories in California; the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Tex.; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
-------- nevada
The Witch Of Yucca Mountain
March 18, 2004
Content by M.I.T.
Technology Review Magazine,
http://www.thebakersfieldchannel.com/technology/2923030/detail.html
There is an almost primal fear of radioactivity. It may be a new manifestation of an old Jungian archetype: the fear of unseen danger, perhaps originally a predator or enemy lurking in ambush. Other incarnations include the fear of witches, germs, communists, and monsters under our beds. But radioactivity is worse. Not only is the threat hidden, but so is the attack. Your genes are invisibly mutated, showing no sign of the assault until a decade or two later when the damage manifests itself in a growing cancer.I put radioactivity on this witch list in an effort to make sense of the furor over nuclear waste storage at the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada. When I work out the numbers, I find the dangers of storing our waste there to be small compared to the dangers of not doing so, and significantly smaller than many other dangers we ignore. And yet a contentious debate continues. More research is demanded, and yet every bit of additional research seems to raise new questions that exacerbate the public's fear and distrust. I've discussed Yucca Mountain with scientists, politicians, and many concerned citizens. The politicians believe it to be a scientific issue, and the scientists think it is a political one. Both are in favor of more research-scientists because that is what they do, and politicians because they think the research will answer the key questions. But I don't think it will.
Let me review some pertinent facts. The underground tunnels at Yucca Mountain are designed to hold 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The most dangerous part of this consists of "fission fragments" such as strontium-90 and iodine-131, the unstable nuclei created when the uranium nucleus splits. Because these isotopes have a shorter half-life than uranium, the waste is about a thousand times more radioactive than the original ore. It takes 10,000 years for the waste (not including plutonium, which is also produced in the reactor, and which I'll discuss later) to decay back to the radioactive level of the mined uranium. Based largely on this number, people have searched for a site that will remain secure for 10,000 years. After that, we are better off than if we left the uranium in the ground, so 10,000 years of safety is clearly good enough.
How can we plan to keep Yucca Mountain secure for this long? What will the world be like 10,000 years from now? Think backwards in order to appreciate the time involved: ten thousand years ago humans had just discovered agriculture, and writing wouldn't be invented for another 5,000 years. Can we possibly see 10,000 years into the future? No. It is ridiculous to think we could. So nuclear waste storage is obviously unacceptable. Right?
Of course, calling storage unacceptable is itself an unacceptable answer. We have the waste and we have to do something with it. But the problem isn't really as hard as I just portrayed it. We don't need absolute security for 10,000 years. A more reasonable goal is to reduce the risk of leakage to 0.1 percent, i.e. to one chance in a thousand. Since the radioactivity is only 1,000 times worse than that of the uranium we removed from the ground, that means that the net risk (probability times danger) is 1,000 x 0.001 = 1-that is, basically the same as the risk if we hadn't mined the uranium in the first place. (I am assuming the unproven "linear hypothesis" that total cancer risk is independent of individual doses or dose ratebut my argument won't depend strongly on its validity.)
Moreover, we don't need this 0.1 percent level of security for the full 10,000 years. After 300 years, the fission fragment radioactivity will have decreased by a factor of 10; it will only be 100 times as great as the mined uranium. So by then, we should rationally require only a 1 percent risk that all of the waste leaks out. That's a lot easier than guaranteeing absolute containment for 10,000 years. Moreover, this calculation assumes 100 percent of the waste escapes. For leakage of 1 percent of the waste, we can accept a 100 percent probability. The storage problem is beginning to seem tractable.
But the unobtainable-and unnecessary-criterion of absolute security dominates the public discussion. The Department of Energy continues to search Yucca Mountain for unknown earthquake faults, and many people assume that the acceptability of the facility depends on the absence of any such faults. Find a new fault-rule Yucca Mountain out. But the issue should not be whether there will be an earthquake in the next 10,000 years, but whether there will be a sufficiently large earthquake in the next 300 years to cause 10 percent of the waste to escape its glass capsules and reach ground water with greater than 1 percent probability. Absolute security is too extreme a goal, since even the original uranium in the ground didn't provide it.
But why compare the danger of waste storage only to the danger of the uranium originally mined? Why not compare it to the larger danger of the uranium left in the ground? Colorado, where much of the uranium is obtained, is a geologically active region, full of faults and fissures and mountains rising out of the prairie, and there are about a billion tons of uranium in its surface rock. (This number is based on the fact that granite typically contains 4 parts per million of uranium. I take the area of the Colorado Rockies to be about 300 by 400 kilometers, and consider only rock from the surface to 1,000 meters depth.) The radioactivity in this uranium is 20 times greater than the legal limit for Yucca Mountain, and will take more than 13 billion years-not just a few hundred-for the radioactivity to drop by a factor of ten. Yet water that runs through, around, and over this radioactive rock is the source of the Colorado River, and is used for drinking water in much of the west, including Los Angeles and San Diego. And unlike the glass pellets that store the waste in Yucca Mountain, most of the uranium in the Colorado ground is water-soluble. Here is the absurd-sounding conclusion: if the Yucca Mountain facility was at full capacity and all the waste leaked out of its glass containment immediately and managed to reach ground water, the danger would still be 20 times less than that currently posed by natural uranium leaching into the Colorado River.I don't mean to imply waste from Yucca Mountain is not dangerous. The Colorado River example only illustrates that when we worry about mysterious and unfamiliar dangers, we sometimes lose perspective. Every way I do the calculation, I reach the same conclusion: waste leakage from Yucca Mountain is not a great danger. Put the waste in glass pellets in a reasonably stable geologic formation, and start worrying about real threats-such as the dangers of continued burning of fossil fuels. A related issue is the risk of mishaps and attacks while transporting nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain site. The present plans call for the waste to be carried in thick reinforced concrete cylinders that can survive high-speed crashes without leaking. In fact, it would be very hard for a terrorist to open the containers, or use the waste in radiological weapons. The smart terrorist is more likely to hijack a tanker truck full of gasoline, chlorine, or some other common toxic material and then blow it up in a city.
So why are we worrying about transporting nuclear waste? The answer is ironic: we have gone to such lengths to assure the safety of the transport that the public thinks the danger is even greater. Images on evening newscasts of concrete containers being dropped from five-story buildings, smashing into the ground and bouncing undamaged, do not reassure the public. This is a consequence of the "where there's smoke there's fire paradox" of public safety. Raise the standards, increase the safety, do more research, study the problem in greater depth, and in the process you will improve safety and frighten the public. After all, would scientists work so hard if the threat weren't real?
Well-meaning scientists sometimes try to quench the furor by proposing advanced technological alternatives to Yucca Mountain storage, such as rocketing the waste into the sun, or burying it in a tectonic subducting zone at sea, where a continental plate will slowly carry it into the deep Earth. Such exotic solutions strongly suggest that the problem is truly intractable, and they only further exacerbate the public fear.
Let me return now to the danger of the plutonium in the waste. Plutonium is not a fission fragment; it is produced in the reactor when uranium absorbs neutrons. But unlike the fission fragments, plutonium doesn't go away by a factor of 10 in 300 years; its half-life is 24,000 years. Not only that, but many people think plutonium is the most dangerous material known to man.
Plutonium is certainly dangerous if you make nuclear weapons out of it. If turned into an aerosol and inhaled, it is more toxic than anthrax-and that's very toxic. But when ingested (e.g. from ground water) it isn't. According to the linear hypothesis, when consumed by a group of people, we expect about one extra cancer for each half-gram of plutonium swallowed. (Click here for a good reference.) That is bad, but not a record-setter. Botulism toxin (found in poorly prepared mayonnaise) is a thousand times worse. The horrendous danger of ingested plutonium is an urban legend-believed to be true by many people, yet false. Moreover, I think it a mistake to bury the plutonium with the waste. It is a good fuel for reactors, as valuable as uranium. I sense that original reason for burying it (rather than extracting and using it) was to keep the public from worrying about it, but that approach has backfired.
By any reasonable measure I can find, the Yucca Mountain facility is plenty safe enough. It is far safer to put the waste there than to leave it on site at the nuclear plants where it was made and is currently stored. We should start moving it to Yucca Mountain as soon as possible. Research should continue, because more knowledge is good, but the hope that it will reassure the public is forlorn. Further studies are no more likely to reduce public concern now than scientific research would have calmed the fears of the people of Salem in 1692.
-------- us politics
More Spending, New Tax Cuts Backed
Turning Tough Talk on Deficits Into Action Is Hard, Experts Say
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2849-2004Mar17.html
Surging federal deficits have dominated the debate over the 2005 budget winding through Congress. But in the span of five hours last week, the Senate added $7 billion for the Pentagon, boosted spending on veterans health care, forest management and medical research, and stripped out a relatively modest $3.4 billion cut in entitlement spending over five years.
Then, yesterday, the House Budget Committee adopted a budget plan that takes a tough line on spending, but more than offsets those spending cuts with $150 billion in additional tax cuts over the next five years.
So far, budget analysts say, the effort to craft a budget resolution is demonstrating how hard it is to translate tough talk into action -- especially in an election year. "It's a lot harder than it looks," said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the Urban Institute.
The Senate made waves last week when a few Republicans joined Democrats to insist that any new tax cuts be offset by spending cuts or increases in other taxes. Only a 60-vote majority in the 100-seat Senate could waive that restriction.
Less noted before final passage of the Senate budget were the measures likely to increase the deficit, which is projected to reach $477 billion this year.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (R-Okla.) had insisted that lawmakers tighten all areas of spending under Congress's discretion, including defense. But the Senate overwhelmingly rejected that notion, adding $7 billion in defense spending to comply with President Bush's request. Also added: $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $1.7 billion for emergency responders and port security, $343 million for forest restoration, $33 million for college tuition assistance, $101 million for veterans health research, and $5.6 billion for an expansion of health insurance for military reservists and National Guardsmen.
Most of those spending increases are to be paid for by unspecified cuts to general government funding or federal "allowances." But without specifics, Republican and Democratic Senate aides say those offsets will never happen. In all, a Senate GOP leadership aide said, as much as $15 billion was tacked on to the budget.
Democrats, with the help of eight Republicans, also stripped out language that would have eased passage of $3.4 billion in cuts in mandatory spending programs -- mainly Medicaid and the earned-income tax credit. They then added language to grease passage later this year of $2 billion in tax refunds for low-income workers with children.
"You've got to think of this as an evolutionary process," Reischauer cautioned. "We're not going to get significant reforms in an election year."
Early this month, House GOP moderates announced that they, too, would push to ensure that new tax cuts be offset by spending cuts or tax increases. "If these principles are adopted, taxpayers and markets will be assured the federal government will spend within its budget," Rep. Mark S. Kirk (R-Ill.) said.
By yesterday, the moderates had dropped the matter. Instead, the House Budget Committee approved along party lines legislation that would impose strict caps on federal spending but no restrictions at all on tax cuts. Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) said committee Republicans pursued "a veiled, cynical attempt to pretend that you're being fiscally responsible without having to make tough choices."
Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) retorted: "The real challenge to the deficit long-term is controlling the spending side."
As for the moderates, Kirk said with a shrug: "If you're looking for a story on a great war between Republican moderates and leadership, you won't find it here. I'm . . . a team player, so I'm trying not to be divisive."
The committee's budget -- likely to pass in the House next week -- is tough-minded on discretionary spending. Government spending outside of defense and homeland security would drop 4.8 percent next year, then rise over the next five years at a rate that would not keep up with inflation. By decade's end, domestic spending would still be below this year's level, even before adjusting for inflation.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, domestic programs would face cuts totaling $120 billion over five years. By 2009, environmental and natural resources programs would be sliced 14 percent below this year's level, adjusted for inflation. Even veterans programs would be cut 6 percent, according to the liberal center.
The House budget resolution orders $13 billion in entitlement-spending cuts, significantly more than the Senate was unable to pass. But with $150 billion in tax cuts also included, the House budget would leave the government $235 billion in the red by 2009. Deficits between 2005 and 2009 would total $1.4 trillion, $17 billion lower than Bush's proposal, on which House Republicans vowed to improve.
Budget experts question whether the cuts will happen. Already, interest groups are pressing to restore funding to politically popular programs. Debt AIDS Trade Africa, the international assistance group founded by U2 singer Bono, began airing an ad yesterday in Nussle's district demanding that he restore $4.7 billion that had been cut from international aid, which group leaders say will come out of Bush's global AIDS fund.
Spending cuts "can't work if they impose too much political pain," said Rudolph Penner, a Republican and former CBO director. "They're bound to disintegrate."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Afghan Elections Face Delay, Karzai Says
By Glenn Kessler and Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1969-2004Mar17.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 17 -- Long-sought direct elections in war-torn Afghanistan could be delayed until August, President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday, providing the strongest hint yet that his struggling government will miss a June 30 deadline set at the end of 2002.
With Secretary of State Colin L. Powell standing by his side at a news conference, Karzai said difficulties in registering millions of eligible voters in rural areas had made a delay increasingly likely. "By the end of May we should be able to register 8 million people," but with only 1.5 million registered so far, only a major push by the United Nations would help bridge the gap, Karzai said.
"If this is done on time by the United Nations," he said, "the Afghan government is keen to have elections in June, July or in August -- depending on the preparations for elections."
Powell's seven-hour visit here was designed in part to bolster the registration effort before foreign donors meet in Berlin this month to consider pledging further aid to Afghanistan. A sense that the country's is faltering in its transition to democracy could complicate efforts to raise the more than $28 billion in aid and reconstruction financing sought by the Afghan government over the next seven years.
Before meeting with Karzai, Powell stopped at a voter registration center housed in a girls' school. He also met with 11 women chosen to represent Afghan civil society and told them: "The United States is here for the long term. We're not just waiting for the election and we can say, 'That's it, let's go home.' "
Powell pledged twice -- to the group of women and to Karzai at the presidential palace -- that the United States would make a significant contribution at the Berlin conference: "Another billion dollars on top of the $1.2 billion we have already committed," he said. But he later conceded to reporters that he was referring to money that was appropriated by Congress last year and was already being spent in Afghanistan. "It's not a new supplemental," he said. President Bush has requested another $1.2 billion for Afghanistan in the budget for the fiscal year starting in October.
The next stop on Powell's trip through South Asia and the Middle East is Pakistan, where he is scheduled to meet Thursday with the country's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Powell, during his news conference with Karzai, praised Pakistan for "picking up the pace" of raids targeting suspected al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts on the Afghan-Pakistani border. Powell said a fierce clash between paramilitary troops and armed tribesmen Tuesday, in which 40 people were killed, demonstrated Pakistan's "good intentions" in not allowing the border area "to be used as a haven for the Taliban," which ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until U.S. troops and Afghan militia forces drove the radical Islamic group from power in late 2001.
Under an international agreement reached in Bonn in December 2002, Afghanistan's interim government agreed to prepare "for free and fair elections by June 2004," after a national assembly approved a new constitution. But progress toward elections has been extremely slow.
Voter registration has been beset with problems of security, logistics and Afghan tradition. Registration has been especially low in conservative rural areas among women, who rarely leave their homes but must travel considerable distances to reach registration centers, which have been set up only in eight major cities.
Moreover, the government has yet to approve or publish an election law, making it impossible for candidates to register and for other preparations to get underway. Karzai remains the only major candidate, with no serious rivals and no significant organized political opposition. It also remains an unresolved question whether parliamentary elections would be held at the same time.
Under heavy pressure from U.N. and U.S. officials here, the government is attempting to speed up the election process. Officials plan to open 4,200 registration sites by May. In some areas, the centers will be segregated by sex so women can register without violating cultural traditions.
While continuing to insist that they hope to hold elections on time, various Afghan officials have suggested in recent days that it may not be possible. But Karzai's comments Wednesday marked the first time he has acknowledged they might be delayed until August. He is expected to announce a new election date at the Berlin donors conference.
Powell noted that even the population of Afghanistan is unclear. "I think if they can get up to 8 or 9 million people to register, you have got proper representation of total population," he said. "Whether it's June or July or August remains to be seen. . . . I don't think it's a significant difference as long as it's done well and seems honest, fair and effective."
-------- africa
Nigeria deploys warship off Equatorial Guinea amid coup fears
ABUJA (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318202115.3w7lbui5.html
Nigeria has sent a warship to patrol off the coast of Equatorial Guinea amid allegations that foreign mercenaries are seeking to overthrow the government there, a senior Nigerian official said Thursday.
"It's just to register Nigeria's place as a peacemaking country, a country that delights in peace and tranquility, not only for itself but for its neighbours," said Remi Oyo, spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The ship was deployed from Nigeria's southeastern port of Calabar last weekend and is now patrolling off Bioko, Equatorial Guinea's main offshore island and the seat of its capital Malabo, according to reports in Nigeria.
Last week, the government of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema arrested 15 foreign nationals and accused them of being mercenaries and of planning to launch a coup d'etat in favour of an exiled opposition leader.
At the same time, Equatorial Guinean security forces began a sweep to round up suspected illegal immigrants, expelling hundreds of west and central Africans. More than 100 Nigerians took refuge in their embassy.
But Oyo emphasised that Nigeria remains a friend to its near neighbour, which lies just 100 kilometres (62 miles) off its southern coast. Both countries have significant oil fields under the Gulf of Guinea.
"Equatorial Guinea remains a close ally of Equatorial Guinea," she said.
"If there's a threat to peace anywhere, there's a threat to peace in Nigeria, there's a threat to peace in west Africa," she added.
Asked if Obiang's government had requested the deployment, she said simply: "Our ship is there and Equatorial Guinea is not against it."
Nigeria has west Africa's most powerful military, and has been the backbone of international peacekeeping missions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but has a limited naval strength based around four former World War II US patrol ships.
-------- arms
Lockheed Puts Its F-16 Fighter Jet Manuals Online
REUTERS USA:
March 18, 2004
Story by Chelsea Emery
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24333/story.htm
NEW YORK - Take heart, environmentalists. U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. sees your point of view when it comes to saving trees and saving money, too.
The maker of fighter planes and communication networks for the military is about to replace its paper instruction manuals for all its F-16 fighter plane with a computer-based system. Some 1.4 million pages of data will eventually appear online. When the system launches later this year, Lockheed's military plane unit will join defense contractor Boeing Co., as well as leading-edge technology companies such as handheld organizer maker Palm Inc., in the Internet age.
Tech firms have long encouraged customers to get most of their instruction from Web sites, and Boeing in 1995 made electronic manuals the standard for its newest F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets. Lockheed's move suggests the trend is spreading.
"It's quite a savings in paper and ink, as well as handling and bundling costs," said Geoff White, Lockheed's senior manager for publications in Fort Worth, Texas. "The savings could exceed hundreds of millions of dollars."
The U.S. Air Force alone could conserve more than $500 million in printing and paper costs over the next 40 years, Lockheed said in a statement.
The Fighting Falcon's 250 manuals comprise some 50,000 pages in total. Currently there are more than 4,100 planes in the field, spread around 20 countries. And each order calls for multiple copies of documents.
Even more stacks of paper are required when a change is made on any plane; updates are slow and expensive.
"Whenever you have a new country or a new block of the aircraft that comes on board, that's a lot of ink and a lot of paper," said White.
Environmentalists applaud the move. Their only complaint? It hasn't happened sooner.
"It's a good idea and ought to be implemented more," said Carl Zichella, a regional staff director for the Sierra Club.
--------
Washington Must Head Off European Arms Sales to China
March 18, 2004
by John J. Tkacik, Jr.
Backgrounder #1739
Heritage Foundation
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg1739.cfm
Recent moves to lift the European Union (EU) embargo on arms sales to China have caused consternation on both sides of the Atlantic, and Washington should be more concerned about it than it appears to be. Under pressure from France and Germany, EU leaders will likely lift the arms embargo at the March 25-26 summit in Brussels, although some EU member nations have expressed concerns over human rights in China and China's policy toward Taiwan.
The EU members need to ask two questions: Which country is the most likely adversary against which China would employ advanced European military systems, and have the conditions that justified imposing the EU ban changed significantly?
The Administration, supported by Congress, should protest the impending European action by:
a.. Reminding the EU why the embargo exists,
b. Pointing out that lifting the embargo could threaten U.S. forces and could be interpreted as an unfriendly act, and
c. Excluding from defense technology cooperation those companies that sell arms to China.
Background
In the past week, senior Chinese diplomats held talks with EU officials in Brussels in an attempt to persuade the EU to lift its 15-year-old ban, which prevents EU firms from soliciting contracts with the Chinese military. The embargo was a punitive EU response to the brutalities that the Chinese People's Liberation Army inflicted on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The Chinese position is--and always has been--that the arms embargo is "inappropriate." The Chinese imply that, if the EU lifts the sanctions, China will direct their big-ticket civilian purchases, including aircraft, power stations, and urban mass transit, away from U.S. vendors to EU firms. This is in addition to big-ticket weapons purchases that would be directed away from the Russian Federation to EU defense contractors.
Trading Weapons for Commercial Contracts
On his visit to Beijing in December 2003, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told Premier Wen Jiabao, his Chinese host, that Germany was amenable to ending the EU arms embargo. Pointing to the huge delegation of German businessmen that accompanied Schroeder, a senior German official declared, "[T]here are some [in the EU] that are for the end of the embargo--for example our French partners--and that is our position as well."1 The following day, European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy expressed a willingness to "reconsider" the EU weapons ban as well.2
A few days later, the German defense ministry said that it had no objection to the transfer of a plutonium-fueled nuclear power plant to China as long as there "is a guarantee from the Chinese government that the plutonium factory will not be used for military purposes but for peaceful purposes to produce atomic energy."3 Even Germany's anti-nuclear Green Party, which opposes such power plants in Europe, shrugged its shoulders. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Green Party) deadpanned that there were "sometimes situations where you have to make bitter decisions."4
Not to be outdone, French President Jacques Chirac invited Chinese President Hu Jintao to Paris, ignoring complaints of French human rights groups, and lavished on him one of the most extravagant receptions that France has ever given a foreign leader--including the night-time spectacle of the Eiffel Tower bathed in rich red floodlights, a first ever for the Parisian landmark, and designating 2004 as the "Year of China."
In the course of fawning over his Chinese guest, Chirac ignored China's massive missile threat to Taiwan--over 500 short-range ballistic missiles now aimed at the island, with 75 new missiles deployed each year--and vehemently condemned Taiwan's plans to hold a referendum to protest the missiles. On the embargo, Chirac was firm. At a joint news conference with Hu, Chirac spoke out strongly in favor of lifting the European arms embargo, saying that "This embargo no longer makes any sense'' and "will, I hope, be lifted in the months to come."5
Even the British seemed to be waffling. When asked about the British government's position on lifting the China weapons ban, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (British Minister of State, International Trade and Investment) could only respond that the "ministers are currently considering the United Kingdom's position [and] in the meantime, we shall continue fully to implement the arms embargo."6
On January 27, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin explained to reporters that "China is now a special partner...playing a key and responsible role in the international system," and declared that the EU "should encourage it in this direction to contribute to international stability and security, especially in Asia."7 Fortunately, on the same day, de Villepin's attempt to lift the China arms ban was voted down 14 to 1 at an EU foreign ministers conference. The ministers were concerned that China's human rights record did not warrant the action and that China's missile deployments against Taiwan made it unwise. But the ministers did agree to reconsider the French proposal to lift the ban by April 1 at a future session.
Press commentary in Europe charged that President Chirac's drive to ease sanctions was motivated not only by the prospect of commercial sales, but also by Chirac's hope of drawing China into strategic multipolar alliance with the EU to counter American hegemony.8
The appearance of the Chinese vice foreign minister in Brussels in the past week signals that both the French and the Chinese, and no doubt the Germans and probably the Italians, are intent on lifting the embargo sooner rather than later. Indeed, when Zhang Yesui, China's vice foreign minister in charge of relations with Western Europe, raised the issue with EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, Patten seemed willing to acquiesce. Without a hint of irony, according to one source, Patten told Zhang that "more assurances from Beijing on human rights would make it easier for EU governments to explain any decision to lift the embargo."9
Even Denmark has fallen under the spell of the Chinese market. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in early March that Denmark favored removing the embargo if China improved its human rights behavior. Among EU members, only the Netherlands and Sweden are said to be reluctant to lift the ban--again citing China's human rights record.10
The U.S. Response
In the meantime, the U.S. State Department seems unsure about how to approach America's European allies. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage allowed that the United States had "talked with Europeans about the wisdom of lifting the embargo because of our concerns about human rights."11 Secretary of State Colin Powell assured the House International Relations Committee on February 11 that the United States was continuing to pressure the European Union not to lift the ban.
Whether the State Department is doing enough is uncertain. On February 6, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless told a congressional commission that if Europe sold arms to China, Beijing's ability to use those arms would be far more advanced than when the EU embargo was imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. "China's ability to acquire, integrate and thereby multiply its force posture has really increased dramatically," said Lawless. "What the EU may have to offer now may make a lot more sense in the context of where China needs to go than it ever has in the past."12
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Randall G. Schriver told the commission that the State Department had informed America's European partners that the U.S. opposed lifting the China arms embargo for three reasons:
1.. The ban was originally imposed because of concerns over human rights, and the human rights situation in China has not improved to the point where it merits lifting the ban. In fact, there are continuing problems.
2. The U.S. has concerns about Chinese export controls and the ability to protect sensitive technology from being transferred to a third country.
3. The U.S. has obligations and interests in maintaining a balance between Taiwan and China and ensuring that Taiwan can defend itself. On this last point, Secretary Schriver alluded to, but did not explicate, the nub of American concerns: "There are scenarios where we could actually be involved in this. So any contribution to the other side of the equation complicates our position and that is why we're opposed."13
Schriver might more accurately, if less diplomatically, have said that China still threatens Taiwan with war and that the United States has obligations under law to help Taiwan defend itself and "maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan."14 If the Europeans are not concerned about Taiwan, they should at least understand that American security could be threatened.
Gravest National Concern
In other words, China is most likely to use advanced weaponry from European defense firms against the United States. (China's existing arsenal is already sufficient to take on Taiwan and more than enough to meet any other security threat on its borders.) China's acquisition of European arms, therefore, should be a matter of the gravest national concern in Washington.
China's $65 billion defense budget is the second largest in the world after the U.S., and China is aggressively modernizing its military to increase combat capability. It seeks to acquire the most modern military technology available, including French Mirage fighter jets and German stealth submarines.
While the Europeans balked at selling China full weapons systems during the 1990s, their arms embargo was honored more in the breach than in the observance. France sold over $122 million in defense articles to China between 1993 and 2002. The United Kingdom sold China Racal/Thales Skymaster airborne early warning radars and Spey jet engines for the Chinese JH-7 fighter-bombers (a MiG-21 derivative), and the University of Surry cooperated with China micro-satellite development, a technology that the Chinese acknowledge will be used in "parasitic" anti-satellite weapons. Germany sold diesel marine propulsion systems for the Chinese Song-class submarine. In the past few years, both the French and the Italians have sold helicopter technology to Chinese aircraft firms. In November 2003, the European Defense giant EADS purchased a large share of a Chinese aerospace firm at its initial public offering. In the fall of 2003, the EU revised its scientific security rules to permit scientists from China's military-run space program to have free access to Europe's basic space science research.15
Already, Chinese technical and scientific penetration of European defense firms offers the People's Liberation Army a potential intelligence backdoor to trans-Atlantic alliances in the defense industry. The European Union is already pressing the United States to permit China to participate in the International Space Station, and reports indicate that the White House welcomes this prospect.16
Human Rights in China Have Not Improved Since Tiananmen
The U.S. and European bans on weapons-related exports to China were a direct reaction to China's violent suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The U.S. embargo is statutorily contingent on significant improvements in China's human rights behavior.17 A review of the State Department's annual human rights reports from 1990 to 2003 shows that China either has made no progress from year to year or has grown worse.
The fact remains that China has failed to improve its human rights situation significantly. The State Department reports that China's abuses include "extrajudicial killings, torture and mismanagement of prisoners, forced confessions...and denial of due process." Political dissent is rewarded with "violated legal protections" and lengthy spells in "reeducation-through-labor camps."18 In 15 years of human rights reports, not one has shown concrete and substantive progress in the PRC's treatment of its own citizens. Why, then, should a government that cannot act responsibly within its borders be rewarded with weapons that will allow it to enforce its will outside its borders?
Indeed, in mid-December, after the German chancellor lofted his sanction-ending trial balloon, the European Parliament, which is much more sensitive to human rights than the EU foreign ministers council, voted against easing the EU embargo, citing human rights violations and quoting an EU report critical of China's human rights lapses. That report said that "persistent rights violations overshadow China's remarkable economic growth" and called the gap between China's rights record and international standards "worrisome."19
Lest any Europeans believe that Tiananmen has been forgotten, they should read a letter by retired Chinese military surgeon Dr. Jiang Yanyong, who wrote a moving description of his experiences on the night of June 3-4, 1989, to the National People's Congress. The doctor was the same brave man who warned the world of China's mendacity during the height of the SARS crisis in 2003. He now calls for a "reversal of the verdict" against the pro-democracy movement 15 years ago.20
The U.S. and European prohibitions on sale of defense items to China were imposed for the same reasons. Those reasons remain valid. Without a strong European commitment to the prohibition, the U.S. embargoes will become worthless as similar advanced defense technologies are exported from Europe.
What the Administration Should Do
European Union leaders will be reviewing this issue as early as March 25-26. The Administration should immediately take firm action.
a.. The Bush Administration should continue to state its opposition on the diplomatic level. NATO's political committee would provide an appropriate forum for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to take up the issue with the Europeans. Further, NATO's intelligence committee would provide a behind-closed-doors venue for the Administration to make its point privately, forcefully, and directly. Similarly, this could be a matter for the NATO-Russia Council. NATO's military, political, and intelligence committees were set up to address exactly this kind of issue, where the United States can speak privately and candidly to interlocutors and gather support from like-minded nations.
b. By discussing these issues at NATO, the Administration will place them on the radar screen for upcoming summits. At the series of June summits in Europe--the NATO summit, the U.S.-EU summit, and the G-8 summit--President Bush should make clear to European leaders that America opposes EU arms sales to China.
c. The Administration should also target sanctions at specific defense contractors21 that sell sensitive military-use technology or weapons systems to China. These companies can be restricted from participating in defense-related cooperative research, development, and production programs with the United States in specific technology areas or in general. Such measures are allowable under the rules of the World Trade Organization, which permit protectionist measures based on national security concerns. John J. Tkacik, Jr., is Research Fellow in China Policy in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.
1. Associated Press, "Schroeder Backs Sales to China of EU Weapons," December 2, 2003, at online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107031748329778700,00.html.
2. Dow Jones Newswires, "EU's Lamy Signals Review of Embargo on Arms to China," December 3, 2004, at online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107039952717946100,00.html.
3. Agence France-Presse, "China Must Vow Peaceful Use of German Plutonium Plant: Ministers," December 5, 2003.
4. Ibid.
5. John Leicester, "French Lawmakers Snub Chinese Leader," Associated Press, January 27, 2004. 6. Melody Chen, "UK `Strongly Opposed' to Force Across Taiwan Strait," Taipei Times, January 20, 2004, p. 2, at www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/01/20/2003092068.
7. Reuters, "EU Upholds Arms Embargo on China," Taipei Times, January 28, 2004, at www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/01/28/2003092707.
8. See Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Philip Delves Broughton, "EU Snubs Paris over Arms for China," The Daily Telegraph, January 28, 2004, at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/27/warms27.xml.
9. Richard Lawless and Randy Schriver, "Administration Views on U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations," testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, February 6, 2004, at www.fnsg.com.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Taiwan Relations, 22 U.S. Code 48, Section 3301(b)(6), at www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/title22/chapter48_.html.
15. Fisher makes the case that "the European space consortium Astrium has...lobbied to allow the PRC [People's Republic of China] to join the International Space Station. A 2003 agreement to secure a PRC financial contribution to the future European GALILEO navigation satellite constellation marked a new high-point in space cooperation." Fisher says that by October 2003, the PRC and the European Space Agency would sign a five-year space cooperation agreement on "space science, Earth observation, environmental monitoring, meteorology, telecommunications and satellite navigation, microgravity research for biology and medicine, and human resource development and training." For a comprehensive look at the impact of European defense technology on Chinese weapons development, see Richard D. Fisher Jr., The Impact of Foreign Weapons and Technology on the Modernization of China's People's Liberation Army, draft report for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, January 2004.
16. "[W]hen President Bush outlined his ambitious vision last week for a new era of space exploration, one country in particular was on his mind as he extended an invitation for international cooperation: China." Jim Yardley and William J. Broad, "The Next Space Race: China Heads to the Stars," The New York Times, January 22, 2004, at www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/international/asia/22SPAC.html.
17. See the 1989 Authorization of the State Department, which codified the economic sanctions applied to China after Tiananmen, including suspension of Overseas Private Investment Corporation assistance to U.S. businesses in China, cancellation of trade development initiatives, a ban on military and dual-use exports, and a ban on all high-technology goods on the munitions list (including satellites and police equipment). Public Law 101-246.
18. See U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)," February 25, 2004, at www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27768.htm.
19. Associated Press, "EU Considers End to Ban on Arms Sales to Beijing," Taipei Times, January 25, 2004, at www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/01/25/2003092460.
20. Jiang Yanyong, "...And Call for a Reversal of the Tiananmen Verdict," The Asian Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2004, at online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107904531592653133,00.html.
21. U.S. Code, Title 41, Chapter 1, Section 50, at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/41/50.html
-------- asia
South Korea cancels plans to send troops to northern Iraq
SEOUL (AFP)
Mar 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040319013741.oxra2wc4.html
South Korea said Friday it had cancelled plans to send troops to northern Iraq because of security concerns and was considering deploying them to other areas in the war-torn country.
"The United States and South Korea have agreed that it is inevitable to change the location for South Korean troops as the security situation in Kirkuk has become worse," the defense ministry said in a statement.
"The two countries agreed to reconsider a possible location putting the whole of Iraq under review."
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At Least 17 Killed in Ethnic Clashes in Kosovo
By Shaban Buza
Reuters
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3304-2004Mar17.html
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, March 18 -- Kosovo's fragile peace exploded on Wednesday in the worst clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs since NATO and the United Nations took control of the Serbian province in 1999. At least 17 people were killed as NATO troops scrambled to quell the outbreak.
In a severe blow to international hopes of calm ahead of talks this year or next on Kosovo's future status, the outburst of pent-up ethnic hatred in more than a dozen locations suggested that reconciliation of the two groups was years off.
Clashes were reported from Kosovska Mitrovica in the north to Urosevac in the south and Pec in the west. U.N. police officers and troops were injured in several places, at least three gravely.
The Kosovo Health Ministry said 16 people were confirmed killed -- six in Kosovska Mitrovica, three in Lipljan, three in Caglavica, two in Urosevac, one in Pec and one in Gnjilane. A 17th victim was recorded in the provincial capital, Pristina, as mob violence spread.
Kosovo has been under the control of the United Nations since NATO bombing drove Serb forces out in mid-1999, halting Serb repression of Muslim Albanian civilians.
Fueling fears that the Albanians might turn on their NATO and U.N. protectors if independence is delayed, mobs clashed on Wednesday with peacekeepers and police across the province.
Derek Chappell, a veteran U.N. police spokesman in Kosovo, called it "a very dangerous situation . . . very large scale."
The violence began when ethnic Albanians massed in Kosovska Mitrovica to vent their rage at the drowning on Tuesday of three boys. A survivor had said they were hounded into a river by Serbs exacting revenge for the wounding of a teenager in a drive-by shooting.
Shooting broke out and grenades were thrown as police and troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets to stop Albanians storming the Serb half of the town.
Two U.N. police vehicles burned and tear gas drifted over Kosovska Mitrovica as soldiers moved block to block to clear a security zone in the afternoon.
Late on Wednesday, hundreds of angry Albanians surrounded a Serb enclave in Pristina, setting U.N. vehicles on fire and stoning police who fired rubber bullets. U.S. troops were evacuating Serbs whose apartments were under attack.
Serbia's Beta news agency reported that U.S. troops in a convoy of 30 armored personnel carriers drove to the central village of Caglavica to evacuate 10 injured NATO peacekeepers after clashes with Albanians attacking an enclave of 1,000 Serbs.
Serb homes were in flames in several villages and Serbs had to be evacuated by troops of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission. A Serb post office, clinic, school and 10 homes were burned down in Kosovo Polje near Pristina.
In Belgrade, the national capital, Serb demonstrators broke through a police cordon and set fire to a mosque. Witnesses said demonstrators also smashed windows of the U.S. Embassy.
There were Serb demonstrations in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad and a mosque was burned in the southern city of Nis, television reports said.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica ruled out any military response in Kosovo province, which could trigger a confrontation with NATO.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an end to the violence. The U.N. Security Council was due to meet in special session Thursday at Serbia's request, Serb sources said.
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NATO Reinforces Kosovo Force After Clashes
March 18, 2004
By NICHOLAS WOOD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/europe/18CND-KOSO.html
PRISTINA, Kosovo, March 18 - NATO said today that it was sending reinforcements to Kosovo after clashes between Albanians and Serbs that United Nations officials described as the worst violence in the province since they took over its administration almost five years ago.
Fighting erupted on Wednesday in the divided city of Mitrovica after a protest over the drownings of at least two Albanian children. The protesters blamed Serbs for the deaths. The province, in southern Serbia, is inhabited mostly by Albanians.
By nightfall the United Nations had lost control of several city centers, and mobs of Albanian men were attacking Serbian areas at will. In the provincial capital, Pristina, machine gunfire and explosions could be heard late into the night.
NATO said in a statement today that it was sending the reinforcements to the peacekeeping force and was confident that it could restore security.
Today, a spokeswoman for the United Nations, Angela Joseph, said 22 people had been killed in the violence and hundreds wounded, according to The Associated Press. Sixty-one police officers were injured during the clashes, she said.
"This is the severest case of unrest since the end of the war,"` said Derek Chappell, the chief United Nations police spokesman in Kosovo, speaking on Wednesday.
Although the province has experienced waves of violence since NATO peacekeepers arrived in June 1999, he said none had been as widespread as the clashes on Wednesday. "This is happening all over Kosovo," he said.
The rapid escalation of violence appears to have been set off when at least two boys drowned in a river near Mitrovica on Tuesday evening. A third is still missing.
A fourth boy, who had been with the group, said they had been chased into the Ibar River by a group of Serbs with a dog. Interviews with the boy were broadcast on local Albanian-language television channels.
Thousands of Albanian men gathered in Mitrovica on Wednesday morning to protest the deaths. According to Andrew Testa, a freelance photographer for The New York Times who was at the scene, people in the crowd pushed their way past police officers guarding a bridge over the Ibar, the river that divides the Serbian-dominated northern part of Mitrovica from the Albanian-populated south.
United Nations police officers in Pristina said at least seven people had been killed in Mitrovica. Mr. Chappell estimated that 200 had been wounded. He also said 17 soldiers serving as United Nations peacekeepers had been injured.
As news of the clashes spread on Wednesday, violent crowds took to the streets in other cities. One Albanian man was shot dead by troops south of Pristina when, the police said, he tried to ram a roadblock set up by the peacekeeping troops. A crowd of several hundred gathered outside the United Nations mission's main headquarters here and attacked police cars and United Nations vehicles.
Similar protests were reported in the southern city of Gnjilane and the ethnically mixed town of Kosovo Polje.
In the northwestern town of Pec, Albanians surrounded the United Nations regional headquarters, forcing officials to evacuate the building.
In the nearby village of Bjelo Polje, where a pilot program has been set up to encourage the return of Serbian refugees who fled Kosovo at the end of the war here in 1999, United Nations police officers said a crowd of Albanians had attacked homes and set at least one on fire.
Some international officials said the violence reflected a growing impatience among Kosovo's Albanian majority about the future of the province, once tightly controlled by Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic.
Christine Hauser contributed reporting from New York.
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Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in '99
March 18, 2004
By NICHOLAS WOOD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/europe/18KOSO.html
PRISTINA, Kosovo, March 17 - At least eight people were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes between Albanians and Serbs across Kosovo on Wednesday, in what United Nations officials described as the worst violence in the province since they took over its administration almost five years ago.
The fighting erupted in midmorning in the divided city of Mitrovica after a protest over the drownings of at least two Albanian children. The protesters blamed Serbs for the deaths.
The province, in southern Serbia, is inhabited mostly by Albanians.
By nightfall the United Nations had lost control of several city centers, and mobs of Albanian men were attacking Serbian areas at will. In the provincial capital, Pristina, machine gunfire and explosions could be heard late into the night.
A United Nations police spokesman said the exact number of casualties was difficult to calculate because the police and peacekeeping troops had not re-established control.
"This is the severest case of unrest since the end of the war," said Derek Chappell, the chief United Nations police spokesman in Kosovo.
Although the province has experienced waves of violence since NATO peacekeepers arrived in June 1999, he said none had been as widespread as the clashes on Wednesday. "This is happening all over Kosovo," he said.
The rapid escalation of violence appears to have been set off when at least two boys drowned in a river near Mitrovica on Tuesday evening. A third is still missing.
A fourth boy, who had been with the group, said they had been chased into the Ibar River by a group of Serbs with a dog. Interviews with the boy were broadcast on local Albanian-language television channels.
Thousands of Albanian men gathered in Mitrovica on Wednesday morning to protest the deaths. According to Andrew Testa, a freelance photographer for The New York Times who was at the scene, people in the crowd pushed their way past police officers guarding a bridge over the Ibar, the river that divides the Serbian-dominated northern part of Mitrovica from the Albanian-populated south.
United Nations police officers in Pristina said at least seven people had been killed in Mitrovica. Mr. Chappell estimated that 200 had been wounded. He also said 17 soldiers serving as United Nations peacekeepers had been injured.
As news of the clashes spread, violent crowds took to the streets in other cities. One Albanian man was shot dead by troops south of Pristina when, the police said, he tried to ram a roadblock set up by the peacekeeping troops. A crowd of several hundred gathered outside the United Nations mission's main headquarters here and attacked police cars and United Nations vehicles.
Similar protests were reported in the southern city of Gnjilane and the ethnically mixed town of Kosovo Polje.
In the northwestern town of Pec, Albanians surrounded the United Nations regional headquarters, forcing officials to evacuate the building.
In the nearby village of Bjelo Polje, where a pilot program has been set up to encourage the return of Serbian refugees who fled Kosovo at the end of the war here in 1999, United Nations police officers said a crowd of Albanians had attacked homes and set at least one on fire.
Some international officials said the violence reflected a growing impatience among Kosovo's Albanian majority about the future of the province, once tightly controlled by Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic.
-------- britain
Britain rushes an extra 750 troops to simmering Kosovo
LONDON (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318140242.vh3quygl.html
Britain is rushing 750 extra troops to Kosovo after the worst ethnic violence in the Serbian province since it was put under UN administration in 1999, the Ministry of Defence said Thursday. The infantry troops -- from the 1st Batallion Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment -- should, in principle, be on the ground in Kosovo within four days, a ministry spokesman told AFP.
NATO earlier Thursday sent out a call for reinforcements after 22 people died in the worst violence between ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs since Kosovo was put in UN hands in July 1999 following a NATO intervention which forced Serbia to give up control of the strife-torn province.
"Obviously we're monitoring events in Kosovo with greater concern," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters.
"We have known all along when we committed ourselves to resolving the terrible ethnic conflict in the whole of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia that it was going to take some time," he said.
"The deployment announced today will support those troops already on the ground and help return stability to Kosovo."
Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said the decision to dispatch reinforcements was "an acknowledgement that we take our responsibilities to Kosovo seriously".
He said the call for help -- sent from NATO military headquarters -- was considered by chief of defence staff General Sir Mike Walker, and the decision announced by Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon at a weekly cabinet meeting.
Blair's spokesman said the deployment should not impact on British operations in Iraq or elsewhere.
"The government would ensure that any deployments that have to be made are consistent with our other obligations elsewhere in the world," he said.
Sir Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, backed the decision to rush British reinforcements in Kosovo.
"There is a risk that the enormous gains made for Kosovo and the Balkans as a whole could be severely prejudiced by continuing unrest," he said.
British soldiers have been in Kosovo since 1999 as part of the multinational NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, though their numbers had been drawn down to about 280 prior to Thursday's announcement.
On its website, KFOR said the 12th Mechanised Brigade of the British army is headquartered in the provincial capital Pristina, with personnel drawn from the Staffordshire Regiment, Royal Engineers and Royal Military Police.
Besides Kosovo, Britain has 1,130 troops in Bosnia and Croatia, 8,800 in Iraq, 1,385 in Kuwait and other Gulf countries, 350 in Afghanistan, 1,240 in the Falklands, 420 in Gibraltar and 100 in Sierra Leone.
A further 450 troops are deployed on various UN missions around the world, plus 3,200 troops stationed in Cyprus, 22,500 in Germany and 13,500 in Northern Ireland, the Ministry of Defence said.
-------- business
KBR Told to Conform to Federal Billing Rule
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3210-2004Mar17.html
A Halliburton Co. subsidiary will have to begin withholding 15 percent of its invoices related to logistics work in Iraq starting April 1, the Defense Department said yesterday.
Federal buying rules generally require companies to bill only 85 percent until contracts are finalized. But the subsidiary, KBR, has said the requirement should not apply to the contract it has to provide contingency support services to U.S. troops. It had been billing for 100 percent of the work.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the amount the company will have to hold back is estimated to be about $300 million. While KBR could ultimately collect the money if its prices are approved, the holdback will affect its cash flow.
KBR is under criminal investigation by the Defense Department for allegedly overcharging the government under a deal with a Kuwaiti supplier to import fuel into Iraq.
"This shows that the system is working," Pentagon Comptroller Dov S. Zakheim said in a statement yesterday.
KBR said it is appealing the decision and will withhold payment of 15 percent to its subcontractors. It noted that its capital investment in Iraq-related work now exceeds $1.2 billion.
"There are very few companies in the world that could or would adapt this quickly while, at the same time, finance an operation of this magnitude," Randy Harl, KBR president and chief executive, said in a statement. "KBR pays for the equipment, supplies and manpower, and is reimbursed after the government much later after a detailed review and clarification of any bill submitted."
--------
Pentagon Withholds Halliburton Payment
March 18, 2004
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/politics/18CONT.html
WASHINGTON, March 17 - The Pentagon said Wednesday that it would withhold about $300 million from payments to a Halliburton subsidiary on a contract to feed soldiers in Iraq until auditors were certain that the government had not been overcharged.
The money represents about 15 percent of an open-ended contract with the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root. A Pentagon spokeswoman said the decision to withhold the money came from the Defense Department's auditing agency, which found "the possibility of substantial overcharges."
"This shows the system is working," said Dov. S. Zakheim, the department's comptroller.
Both Halliburton and the military have come under recent criticism over other Iraq contracts in which Halliburton was found to have overcharged the government. Department auditors have previously reported deficiencies in Halliburton's cost estimates for work in Iraq. In some cases, the company has reimbursed the government; other cases are under review.
Halliburton said Wednesday that the Army had already notified it that its contracts would be renegotiated as part of a cost-cutting drive and said that for that reason no payments should be withheld until the renegotiation was completed.
The company said that if the payments were withheld, the company in turn would withhold the same percentage from its subcontractors.
Randy Hurl, Halliburton's president and chief executive, said in a statement, "We remain confident about working through these and other issues in a cooperative manner."
-------- europe
Spain Declassifies Intelligence Reports on Bombing Probe
March 18, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-spain-intelligence.html
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain declassified intelligence reports on Thursday in a bid to show it told the truth about deadly train bombings it initially attributed to Basque guerrillas but which are now suspected to be al Qaeda-linked.
Street demonstrations accusing the government of hiding the truth on election eve were cited as a factor leading to the surprise victory of incoming Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
``Since the terrorist massacre, the government has communicated absolutely all the truth to public opinion, without hiding, manipulating or delaying any information,'' government spokesman and Labour Minister Eduardo Zaplana said.
Speaking after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Zaplana said ministers had agreed to declassify the documents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) between March 11, when the attacks took place, and March 14, the day of general elections.
The government was widely accused of too hastily blaming ETA for political gain, because the ruling Popular Party is known for its tough line on the armed Basque group but has aroused huge domestic opposition for its support of the Iraq war.
``We have suffered a campaign of defamation, of insinuations and also of lies with the sole aim of discrediting the government and presenting it as a liar and a manipulator,'' Zaplana said.
``The false accusations have reached inconceivable extremes, passing moral and political limits... The government is going to demonstrate its innocence and honor... We can lose elections but the government cannot sit by while it is called a liar.''
Interior Minister Angel Acebes said the CNI documents would demonstrate the intelligence services had initially believed the attacks, which killed 201 people, were done by ETA.
--------
Poland 'taken for a ride' over Iraq's weapons: president
WARSAW (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318205005.nk253txq.html
In a first sign of official criticism by a US ally of the invasion of Iraq, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski Thursday said that his country had been "taken for a ride" about the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in the country.
"That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride," Kwasniewski told a group of visiting French journalists.
He argued however that it made no sense to pull US-led coalition troops out of Iraq, which he said was "better" without the presence of ousted president Saddam Hussein.
His comments marked the first time Warsaw, or any other key US ally, has publicly criticised Washington's argument for invading Iraq and for winning support from Poland and other European allies such as Britain and Spain.
Kwasniewski stood by his remarks at a press conference later Thursday, although he appeared to take a softer line, arguing that the United States and the other coalition members had also been misled in the run-up to war.
"According to the information at our disposal, the term 'take for a ride' seems to me appropriate," he told reporters following a meeting of the Polish security council.
"It is also a problem faced by the United States, Britain and other countries. We were told that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq, that there was a very high probability of them existing. Today this information has not been confirmed," he added.
Kwasniewski said the misleading information had "come from the actions of the intelligence services.
"In that sense, it was a problem for all of us," he added.
Poland heads up a 9,000-strong multinational force patrolling a swathe of Iraq south of Baghdad.
Warsaw itself has the fourth-largest contingent in the coalition, with around 2,500 soldiers.
Kwasniewski's remarks had come days after the prime minister-elect of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, said Madrid would withdraw its 1,300 soldiers from the Polish-led contingent by June 30, unless the United Nations took over administration of Iraq.
The Polish head of state had questioned the wisdom of pulling foreign troops from the strife-torn country saying such a move could have a counter effect.
"What would be the point of pulling the troops if it meant a return to war, ethnic cleansing and conflict in neighboring countries," he said.
"If we protest against the United States' dominant role in world politics and we withdraw our troops knowing they will be replaced by US soldiers, what would be the point of such a move?" he questioned.
He said he was disappointed by the new Spanish government's threat to withdraw its 1,300 soldiers.
"We cannot alter our mission to stabilise Iraq to one to destabilise the country," he said. "Passiveness will lead us nowhere."
The aim of the Polish presence in Iraq was to help "successfully carry out this mission of stabilisation" and succeed in "transferring sovereignty" within Iraq to the Iraqi people, the president stressed.
Kwasniewski on Friday begins a landmark official tour of five countries in the Gulf -- Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar -- with the aim of developing bilateral economic and political relations.
He will be accompanied by Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski and Finance Minister Andrzej Raczko, as well as a delegation of businessmen, official sources said.
Arab diplomatic sources in Warsaw said the trip was aimed at "closening relations with Arab countries since its (Poland's) intervention in Iraq alongside the United States, which caused a certain resentment among some states in the region."
-------- iraq
Car Bomb Kills Dozens In Baghdad Hotel
Attack Is Latest in Series Targeting Foreign Civilians
By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1234-2004Mar17?language=printer
BAGHDAD, March 17 -- A powerful car bomb ripped through a five-story hotel filled with foreign guests Wednesday evening, killing at least 27 people and destroying nearby apartment houses days before the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.
The 8:09 p.m. explosion at the Mount Lebanon Hotel, near Firdaus Square in central Baghdad, created a 20-foot-wide crater, ignited buildings, cars and trees and blew the window panes out of a hospital across the street. It was the latest and bloodiest in a wave of recent attacks on foreign civilians, eight of whom had been killed in the previous eight days.
At least 41 people, including one American and two British citizens, were injured in the blast, according to the U.S. Army. An Army officer at the scene said the military was still trying to determine the extent of the casualties. "We are scouring the hospitals," said Lt. Col. Peter Jones of the 1st Armored Division, which has charge of the capital.
Survivors and relatives of the victims stepped through plumes of black smoke, picking at masonry rubble in a search for victims. With the hotel still burning, Iraqi police officers climbed the exposed steps of its upper floors looking for survivors. Firefighters frantically extended a hose to douse flames that lit the night sky a bright orange.
The impact of the blast in Karrada, a busy commercial neighborhood on the east bank of the Tigris River, was felt about a mile away in the Green Zone, the heavily fortified headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authority.
The Mount Lebanon Hotel has housed many foreign guests. Several employees of Orascom, an Egyptian firm that runs the only private cell phone service in the Iraqi capital, stayed there recently. In the past, U.N. employees and British and American contractors have stayed there, but a U.N. spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said Wednesday night that only four of its staff members were in Baghdad and none was at the hotel.
According to CNN, a hotel manager who escaped injury said that two Britons, two Jordanians, two Egyptians, the Lebanese owner of the hotel and about 20 employees were inside at the time of the blast.
The hotel, which was renovated about a year ago, had only two guards and was not protected by the concrete blast barriers that have become a familiar sight around hotels and government buildings in Baghdad.
Several of the hotel's neighbors said they had expressed worry that the hotel could be a target for terrorists. "We warned the hotel owner and the guards," said Bassam Hassoun, 24, who works at a carpentry shop next to the hotel and had left work minutes before the explosion. "They didn't have concrete blocks in the front of the hotel, just three or four planters for flowers."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan called the explosion "a terrible terrorist attack on innocent civilians" but said it would not halt Iraq's progress toward democracy.
"This remains a time of testing in Iraq," he said. "The stakes are high. The terrorists know the stakes are high, but they will not prevail."
Col. Ralph Baker of the 1st Armored Division told reporters at the scene that the bomb appeared to have been made from 1,000 pounds of plastic explosive, with artillery shells mixed in to maximize its destructive power.
"It fits the profile of the terrorist organizations we have been combating in the last year," Baker said. He said the attackers' tactics were similar to those used by Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist network based in northern Iraq, and Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with reported ties to al Qaeda who is wanted by the U.S.-led occupation authority.
Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim, a senior deputy interior minister who oversees the Baghdad traffic police, condemned the attack as the act of a "coward." He noted that the Baghdad Clinic, the eight-story hospital across from the hotel, was heavily damaged. More than 20 patients were evacuated, including several who were elderly, he said.
"It's no good for Iraq and no good for any people in the world," he said at the scene.
The explosion occurred as the U.S. military, joined by Iraqi security forces, launched an effort to arrest suspected terrorists and capture illegal weapons and bomb-making materials in Baghdad. The effort, called Operation Iron Promise, began Tuesday night with a raid on a suspected arms market and other targets.
The operation was intended to take advantage of the large number of U.S. troops in Baghdad. Over the next few weeks, the 1st Armored Division is to return to Germany and hand over control of Baghdad to the 1st Cavalry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex.
The operation also was meant to demonstrate the increasing role of Iraqi forces, including the new U.S.-trained Civil Defense Corps, in maintaining order in the capital.
"It should also be a very clear warning to the extremists in Baghdad not to misinterpret the transfer of authority that's ongoing here in Baghdad," said a military spokesman, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt. "Over the next few days you're going to see significant activities by Iraqi forces, outgoing 1st Armored Division forces, incoming 1st Cavalry Division forces, using actionable intelligence to kill and capture enemies of the Iraqi people and enemies of the coalition forces here in Baghdad."
Earlier Wednesday in Baghdad, a U.S. soldier and two Iraqi children were injured in a bombing in Karrada near Saddoun Street, one of the city's commercial arteries. The soldier was attending a meeting of the local neighborhood council when a suspected roadside bomb went off around 4:30 p.m., Kimmitt said.
The attack on the hotel 31/2 hours later sent a ripple of fear and anger through the neighborhood. Emotions ran especially high among the neighbors who narrowly avoided getting hurt.
"This is Islamic?" Atheer Nouri, 40, said angrily. "This is not Islam." Nouri's metal front door was blown into his living room by the explosion. A two-foot blackened shard from an automobile had landed in the courtyard in front of his apartment.
Jamal Baban, 50, an unemployed laborer who lives a few dozen yards from the hotel, was in his living room when he heard the blast. Inside his children's bedroom, large chunks of concrete blanketed the bed of his 13-year-old son, Muhammad, all but obscuring the blue bedsheet.
Muhammad and his 10-year-old sister were visiting an uncle at the time of the explosion, and Baban's two teenage daughters were watching television in the living room. "Thanks be to God," Baban said, holding an oil lamp because the electricity had been knocked out.
Baban's sister, Sanaa Baban, 36, lives with their mother in the adjacent apartment house. "It was like an earthquake," she said. "The house started shaking."
She began praying from the Koran, reciting the central article of her faith: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet."
Plaster flakes from the ceiling littered the room. Sanaa Baban cut her right hand trying to clean up shards of window glass. "When the war happened, it was very far from here, not inside the capital," she said. "Now, what God has written for us, we will see."
In a separate incident Wednesday, Mortars fired at a U.S. logistics base in the town of Balad, 45 miles north of Baghdad, killed two American soldiers and wounded six others, the Associated Press reported.
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Iraq Violence Continues as War's First Anniversary Nears
March 18, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/middleeast/18CND-IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 18 - A bomb exploded today outside a hotel in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, and guerrillas and American forces exchanged fire west of Baghdad, continuing the violence that has marked the first anniversary this week of the Iraqi war.
In a separate incident, three employees of an American-funded television station were shot dead at Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, Reuters reported.
A spokeswoman at the coalition press information center in Baghdad, Sgt. Carmen Hickman, said the center was still waiting for details on all three incidents.
The violence came as the death toll in a bombing of the five-story Mount Lebanon Hotel in central Baghdad on Wednesday was being sharply revised downward; the American military, citing the Iraqi police and ministry of health, said there were 7 dead and 35 wounded. Initial reports by the American military on Wednesday put the death toll at 27, with 41 wounded.
Asked today how the Baghdad death toll could be so significantly altered, Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt, deputy commander of operations for the American command, said early reports of incidents "had a tendency to be incorrect." He added, "The longer you wait after an incident, the more precise you can get on your numbers."
One or two people were either killed or wounded in Basra today by either a roadside bomb or a car bomb, General Kimmitt said at a news briefing here, although he added that reports were sketchy.
News agencies quoted the Iraqi police and witnesses as saying that at least four people died at the Mirbad Hotel in Basra. Two other people, including a child, were wounded, Reuters reported a British military spokesman as saying.
British coalition forces, which control the city, and the Iraqi police cordoned off the area, preventing journalists from approaching the site. General Kimmitt said a large demonstration was being held in Basra but that the people's anger was not directed at any particular group, including coalition forces.
In Falluja, at the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle 32 miles west of Baghdad, guerrillas with rocket-propelled grenades exchanged fire with American troops at the municipal council building , wounding eight United States troops, the Army said. Reuters reported that at least two Iraqis were killed.
General Kimmitt said the battle broke out as American soldiers were meeting local administrators in municipal offices. American troops were stationed on the roof of buildings around the area, the general said, and attackers fired several mortar rounds. One of them struck the roof of one of the buildings, wounding seven soldiers and a marine.
Their wounds were not life-threatening, General Kimmitt said.
The blast occurred as the anniversary of the first American bombing raid on Baghdad approaches this week; that raid took place at dawn on March 20 here last year, signaling the start of the war to topple Saddam Hussein.
American officers who had cautioned that pro-Hussein insurgents and militant Islamic terrorists might try to mark the anniversary of the start of the war with a new round of attacks were quick to point a finger at a Jordanian-born terrorist leader, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
The explosion in Baghdad reduced an apartment block across the road to a tangle of steel, masonry and shattered furniture, and it left an inferno of blazing cars and buildings that lighted the night sky for hours.
Iraqi rescue teams clawed at the rubble with hands and shovels deep into the night, but no survivors were pulled clear after the first frenzied hours. At least some victims appeared to be foreigners, mainly from Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, the police said.
Survivors of Wednesday's bombing said Americans and Britons and other Europeans were among those staying at the hotel, which has traditionally attracted visiting Arab business people and, among Westerners, people on modest budgets working for relief agencies. But in the pandemonium at the scene and at neighboring hospitals in the hours after the blast, no clear picture emerged about the nationalities of the non-Iraqis who were killed or injured.
Colonel Baker, commander of the Second Brigade, First Armored Division, who led American troops who raced to the scene in armored Humvees, said the blast in Baghdad appeared to have been caused by a car bomb with at least 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives that had been combined with a core of wired-together artillery shells. He said attackers here had used the formula frequently to cause a maximum blast and a widespread curtain of deadly shrapnel.
At least two American soldiers were killed and six wounded in Balad, near Baghdad, in a mortar attack on the logistics base there on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported today. The military did not identify the soldiers involved.
Doctors at four Baghdad hospitals visited by reporters said the death toll could rise because of burn and crush injuries among survivors, some of whom lay groaning in poorly equipped emergency rooms while doctors attended more urgent cases.
Hospital entranceways and wards were a bedlam of wailing relatives, agitated Iraqi policemen with automatic rifles pushing back crowds, and gurneys and stretchers being rushed past, carrying bodies under bloodied blankets and black shrouds.
Last year the Baghdad headquarters of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross were bombed, killing a total of almost 40 people. The worst single attack in the capital, two weeks ago, killed more than 80 people when three suicide bombers detonated themselves at a religious festival in Baghdad, simultaneously with similar attacks in nearby Karbala, which killed another 120 people.
Colonel Baker told reporters that the blast was "similar to that carried out in the past by Ansar al-Islam and the Zarqawi network." No specific evidence was offered implicating Mr. Zarqawi.
American intelligence has linked Mr. Zarqawi to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to Al Qaeda. Last month American intelligence agencies named him as the author of an intercepted message urging Qaeda leaders to support efforts by Islamic militants to provoke a civil war among Shiite and Sunni Muslims here, in hope of blocking plans for a Western-style democracy.
A $10 million American bounty has been placed on Mr. Zarqawi's head as the prime suspect in devastating bombings across Iraq in the past few months, including the United Nations and Red Cross attacks. American commanders, dismissing reports that Mr. Zarqawi has fled to Iran, said recently that they believed he was still in Iraq and active in planning new attacks.
Many of the wounded here Wednesday had long waits for attention in the ill-lighted hospitals, which have begun with American financing to recover from years of neglect and from the looting and sabotage that followed the American capture of Baghdad. But the hospitals still lack much in the way of basic equipment and medicines. Iraqi doctors said many of the most critically injured had suffered head injuries, and would be operated on overnight.
At the bombing scene, in Karada, a busy commercial district, a gaping crater marked the spot where the bomb had detonated. Iraqi police officers said the bomb might have been carried in an orange-painted car, left a tangled wreck, that was thrown 150 feet clear.
American officials said later that the crater's position, in the center of the narrow street, combined with what they described as the hotel's lack of strategic significance, was read by American investigators as a sign that the bomb might have been detonated accidentally while en route to another target.
For the Americans, the Baghdad bombing marked an inauspicious start to a new military offensive in the capital. Hours before the blast, General Kimmitt said at a news briefing that in the new phase of the counteroffensive, the strikes, based on new intelligence, would give "a clear warning to the enemies of the Iraqi people," meaning the terrorists, that theirs was ultimately a doomed cause.
With no statement claiming responsibility for the blast, the motives were unknown. But the timing, close to the anniversary of the American invasion, and on the night marked for the new offensive, suggested that the attack might have been intended to taunt the Americans.
As well, by striking at another Iraqi target, the attackers might have been seeking to deepen the sense among Iraqis that they have substituted years of repression and fear under Mr. Hussein for a new era of fear, this time of terrorists, and that the American occupiers, who came as self-proclaimed liberators, are now at the root of Iraq's woes.
In any case, the grim tableau at the bomb scene stood as a ghastly anniversary marker. The blast, throwing first a blue flash and then a spreading cloud of smoke and fire above the rooftops, took place about three-quarters of a mile from the Palestine and Sheraton hotels, which are heavily guarded by bomb-proofed blast walls and American tanks and are the headquarters for many Western news organizations.
Arriving at the scene within minutes, reporters who evaded a cordon of volatile Iraqi policemen waving guns at the gathering crowd saw black-silhouetted rescue workers combing through the burning wreckage. From ambulances arriving helter-skelter, loudspeakers boomed out a mournful appeal for people to concentrate on survivors, not the limp and broken bodies of the dead.
The mood among Iraqis varied widely, reflecting the deeper splits here between those who credit the Americans as liberators and others who regard them as a new evil. Qahcan Shukur, owner of a furniture factory, was across the road when the explosion detonated, and was hit by shards of flying glass. He turned his wrath on the Americans.
"Why don't Americans maintain security?" he said. "All of this technology they have, and they cannot prevent these attacks? I don't believe it."
A block away, another group took a different view. After watching a weeping man rushing toward an ambulance, cradling the limp body of his small daughter, Zaki Mohammad, 41, an electrical engineer, halted a reporter and asked that a message be passed to L. Paul Bremer III, chief of the American occupation authority. "Tell Bremer to hang the people responsible for this in a park in the center of Baghdad," he cried. "The American policy here is tolerance, tolerance, tolerance, soft, soft, soft. This is not the way. The way is execution."
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Explosions Heard in Central Baghdad
March 18, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- More violence struck Iraq ahead of the anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein: a deadly car bomb exploded Thursday in a southern city, three Iraqi journalists were killed in a drive-by shooting and three U.S. soldiers perished in mortar attacks.
The suicide car bombing occurred near a hotel in Basra as a British military patrol passed by, killing two men and a boy in addition to the bomber. A man who got out of the car before the blast was stabbed to death by passers-by.
The Iraqi journalists were killed as they drove to work at a coalition-funded television station in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Nine other employees of Diyala TV were wounded in the attack on their minibus, said Sanaa al-Daghistani, the station's information director.
Rebels often target Iraqis perceived as collaborators with the occupation.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, lowered the death toll in a suicide bombing at a Baghdad hotel on Wednesday to seven, after initially putting it at 27.
Late Thursday, insurgents targeted the Ministry of Oil and the Bourj al-Hayat Hotel in Baghdad with several rockets and explosive devices. There were no injuries. One projectile punctured a hole in the second floor of the hotel, which sometimes houses Kurdish politicians.
Sirens also wailed briefly in the area housing the U.S.-led coalition headquarters. A U.S. military official said there had been an attack and it was under investigation. There were no casualties.
It was unclear whether insurgents were timing attacks to overshadow the anniversary of the March 20, 2003, start of the war that toppled Saddam, though assailants have often conducted attacks on holidays and other significant dates.
The aim of anti-U.S. forces appears to be to demonstrate that Iraq is ungovernable despite some American progress in its nation-building effort, including the formation of an Iraqi police force, the signing of an interim constitution and plans to hand over power to Iraqis on June 30.
``We were fighting them knowing full well the better we did the harder it would get,'' said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division, which oversees security in Baghdad. He said the fight in Iraq was evolving into a battle against shadowy extremists who attack civilians rather than soldiers.
``It is far easier to fight an enemy who fights you conventionally and who fights you in some similar fashion to the way you fight him, than it is to fight an enemy who uses the tools of terror,'' he said.
A man suspected of involvement in the Basra bombing who left the vehicle shortly before the blast was caught by passers-by and stabbed to death, said police Lt. Col. Ali Kazem. Two others spotted getting out of the vehicle were caught by members of the public and later arrested.
At least 15 people were wounded, three seriously, hospital officials said. No British soldiers were wounded.
Unlike other areas of Iraq, Basra has been relatively calm.
Insurgents also fired mortar rounds at two U.S. military bases on Wednesday, killing three American soldiers and wounding nine others, the U.S. military said Thursday. The deaths brought to 567 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the start of hostilities last year, according to Defense Department figures.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said 35 people were wounded in Wednesday's car bombing, which destroyed the Mount Lebanon Hotel in Baghdad. Scott Mounce, 29, of Scotland was killed and another Briton was wounded, the British government said.
U.S. Army Col. Jill Morgenthaler said the attack was a suicide bombing but said the hotel may not have been the intended target because the explosives-laden vehicle was in the middle of the street and not in front of the hotel.
The hotel is in a busy district of commercial and residential buildings. The explosion set ablaze nearby homes, offices, cars and shops, sending dazed and wounded people stumbling from the wreckage.
Dempsey said if the hotel was the target, the attack bore a closer resemblance to targets of Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group with apparent links to al-Qaida.
The network of al-Qaida-linked Jordanian Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi usually attacks Iraqi targets -- Shiite pilgrims or Iraqi police -- with an aim to sowing discord and perhaps civil war.
An unidentified Jordanian suspected of having links with al-Zarqawi was arrested recently on the outskirts of Baghdad, Dempsey said. The detainee was caught with a bomb.
The Mount Lebanon was a so-called ``soft target'' because it did not have concrete blast barriers and other security measures that protect coalition offices and buildings where Westerners live and work.
In the restive town of Fallujah on Thursday, insurgents with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades clashed with U.S. troops guarding a government building. One civilian died and another was wounded, witnesses said. The U.S. military said eight U.S. soldiers and a Marine were wounded when a mortar round hit a roof.
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AP Tally: Iraq Suicide Bombs Killed 660
March 18, 2004
By TAREK AL-ISSAWI,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20040319/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_suicide_bombings
ISKANDARIYAH, Iraq - Thousands of people in Iraq have suffered from suicide bombings - a phenomenon unknown here until after the U.S.-led war toppled Saddam Hussein's regime nearly a year ago.
The cycle began nine days after fighting erupted, and has claimed at least 660 lives - far more than in 3 1/2 years of Israel-Palestinian suicide attacks - according to U.S. military officials.
The majority of victims are Iraqis, the U.S. military said. Iraqi officials and police put the death toll higher by at least 100.
In the past year, there have been at least 24 suicide bombings, including four where more than one attacker struck at the same target, according to an Associated Press tally and interviews with officials.
In comparison, since September 2000, 474 people - the majority Israelis - have been killed in 112 Palestinian suicide bombings.
One Iraqi victim, Mohammed Hamza, has a damaged ear, facial scars and a heavy feeling of guilt. His cousin, Diyaa Obaid, was not so lucky.
Both were caught last month in a suicide bombing outside a police station in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad.
Obaid was one of at least 53 people killed when a suicide bomber rammed a truckload of explosives into the police station, where hundreds of Iraqis had gathered to apply for jobs as policemen.
"I insisted that he apply. I thought I was doing him a favor. I feel so guilty. I haven't even gone to see his family," said Hamza, who is partly deaf because of his injury.
The cycle began during the opening days of the war when on March 29 an Iraqi attacker pretending to be a taxi driver needing help killed four U.S. soldiers when his car exploded at a checkpoint north of Najaf.
The carnage continued this week, after a suicide bomber detonated his car near a hotel in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least seven people. On Thursday, four people, including a suspected suicide bomber, died when a car bomb blew up in the southern city of Basra.
The toll in Iraq includes the 19 Italian paramilitary police killed in a suicide truck bombing at their base in November.
Initially, American troops were targeted, but after coalition forces improved their security the suicide bombers turned their attention to Iraqi and other civilians, who have bore the brunt of attacks.
"The suicide bombers are trying to deliver two messages. To the Iraqis they are saying that as long as you link your future to the West, there will be no security. To the West, the message is there is a huge price to pay for staying in Iraq," said Boaz Ganor, an Israeli terrorism expert.
Of the 24 attacks, 18 were carried out using vehicles and the others were suicide bombers with explosives strapped to their bodies.
In the most devastating strike, at least four suicide bombers attacked Shiite Muslim shrines earlier this month, killing 181, according to the U.S. military. Iraqi officials said 271 people were killed.
In February, twin suicide bombers killed 109 people in two Kurdish party offices in the northern city of Irbil. And in October, four suicide bombings targeted the international Red Cross headquarters and three Iraqi police stations in Baghdad, killing 40 people.
In August, a truck bomber struck the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22, including top U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have blamed al-Qaida-affilated groups for some attacks - offering little proof, but saying their methods conformed with the terror network's tendency to stage spectacular operations.
"Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism," said Dan Senor, spokesman for the coalition.
The violence in Iraq has been an issue in the presidential race, too, with the presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry accusing President Bush of creating "terrorists where they did not exist."
Analysts warn against hastily accusing al-Qaida of masterminding the attacks, and point out that several groups, both religious and secular, have much to benefit from the bombings.
The suspects are many, including former Saddam regime loyalists, Ansar al-Islam - a militant group with suspected al-Qaida links - foreign fighters and the Fedayeen, a prewar irregular Iraqi militia.
While authorities have made several arrests after many of the bombings, they don't have a clear picture of who's behind the suicide attacks and are fighting an enemy who does not leave much evidence.
The case has been further jeopardized by a weakened state of intelligence gathering after the U.S.-led coalition dissolved the mukhabarat, or Iraqi intelligence, along with the army and police.
Suicide bombers have been striking almost at will against police stations, top religious figures and international agencies, helped by an abundance of explosives and bomb-making experience, Iraq's vast landscape and Iraqis' conservatism and - in some case - anti-Western views.
"There is a campaign of intimidation, intimidation into doing nothing. It's a policy of kill one, terrorize a thousand," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military's deputy director of operations.
February was one of the most active for suicide bombers, who struck five times, killing at least 225 people and wounding hundreds of others.
Putting together a car bomb or preparing individuals for a suicide bombing is a simple procedure if the elements of discretion, expertise and organization are present, officials and experts say.
"Those suicide attacks don't require a lot of sophistication. There are enough weapons and ordnance in Iraq to construct the bombs and it can be done discreetly," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert with the Virginia-based RAND Corporation. "The terrorists go with what works. All you need is a safe house, a garage."
Hotels have been the latest suicide bombing targets, apparently an attempt to strike at foreign civilians.
"The terrorists are telling Iraqis in your face, `If you think you can depend on those institutions, think again,'" said Kimmitt.
He warned of more attacks until June 30, when Iraqis are to take over power from the U.S.-led coalition.
-------- latin america
Brazil frees nearly 5,000 slaves in 2003
March 18, 2004
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040318-082431-7380r.htm
BRASILIA, Brazil, March 18 -- Brazil freed nearly 5,000 slave laborers in 2003, more than twice the number than the year before, local news outlets reported Thursday.
According to the Minister of Labor, 4,995 people working under slave-like conditions were liberated by federal authorities.
Owners of large farms often recruit poor Brazilians to work on their farms in remote locations for a salary. Workers later find when they arrive that there is little or no compensation and no way for them to return home. Slaves trying to escape are usually either captured or killed.
Labor Minister Ricardo Berzoini told a congressional committee that Brazil needed to pass legislation that would allow the government to seize land from owners who use slave labor.
Last month, slaves were found working on a ranch in northern Brazil belonging to a senator, who denied any knowledge of the labor practices on his land.
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Pakistan Leader Says Al Qaeda Target Is Surrounded
March 18, 2004
By DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/asia/18CND-STAN.html?hp
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 18 - President Pervez Musharraf said today that Pakistan believes its forces have surrounded a high-value Al Qaeda target in a remote tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.
Mr. Musharraf said in an interview with CNN that he had spoken to his military commander in the region, who reported fierce resistance that led him to believe the fighters were protecting someone important. The commander is "reasonably sure there is a high-value target there," Mr. Musharraf said.
He did not speculate on who it might be, but in separate interviews, Pakistani government and intelligence officials said they believed it was possible that Ayman al-Zawahiri - the chief strategist for Osama bin Laden - was the one surrounded. A Pakistani independent television station also reported that it could potentially be Dr. Zawahiri.
In Washington, an American counterterrorism official said, "It would appear that the Pakistanis have surrounded a very senior Al Qaeda figure," but he said "at this point we are not certain who it is."
Mr. Musharraf told CNN that the Pakistani commander of the battle reported "fierce resistance" from a group of fighters entrenched in fort-like buildings and that there were indications that a senior figure was surrounded.
Dr. Zawahiri, 52, is an Egyptian who is considered a brilliant right-hand man to Mr. bin Laden. He was reportedly wounded in fighting in South Waziristan, just miles from the Afghan border, the scene of a two-day battle that continued today, according to television and news agency reports.
Pakistani officials have said the fighting was by far the heaviest clash since Mr. Musharraf sent 70,000 troops into the country's isolated tribal areas two years ago to capture suspected Qaeda members.
In the past several weeks, Pakistani and American forces have stepped up operations in the border region in an offensive intended to rout Taliban fighters from their hiding places.
Pakistani officials have said they are under enormous pressure from Washington to find Mr. bin Laden, the head of Al Queda, or his close associates. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visited Islamabad today and announced that Washington was bestowing the status of "major non-NATO ally" on Pakistan. Mr. Powell praised Pakistan for its help in the war on terror.
Mr. Powell left the country before Mr. Musharraf made his comments.
Mr. Musharraf has promised to rid the tribal areas of foreign terrorists, and has called on tribal leaders to help him in this effort.
Mr. Powell said Wednesday that the battle in South Waziristan suggested that Pakistan had increased its efforts to pursue Taliban and Qaeda militants who had taken shelter there.
Mr. Powell did not directly answer a question about whether United States troops in Afghanistan engaged in "hot pursuit" of suspected enemy combatants would be permitted to cross the border into Pakistan.
In a videotape broadcasts by two Arab satellite television stations last month, Dr. Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon, said the campaign against terrorism was really a war on Islam, and he condemned Islamic leaders cooperating with it.
"Bush appoints corrupt leaders and protects them," he said in a tape broadcast by Al Jazeera. "A glance at the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia will reveal those U.S.-backed leaders."
The second tape, broadcast on the Dubai-based network Al Arabiya, singled out France for its pending ban on the wearing of Islamic scarves by girls in state schools.
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Iraqi Council Agrees to Ask U.N. for Help
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2866-2004Mar17.html
BAGHDAD, March 17 -- Iraq's Governing Council agreed Wednesday to ask the United Nations for assistance in forming a caretaker government to rule the country after the U.S.-led civil occupation ends on June 30. The Bush administration had wanted the council to issue the request more than a week ago, but the council stalled because several Shiite Muslim members had refused to endorse continued U.N. involvement in formulating an interim administration. The Shiites had opposed the participation of the United Nations' chief envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, because he is a Sunni Muslim.
The Shiite members ended their opposition on Wednesday after intense U.S. diplomatic pressure, and a reported statement from the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that welcomed further U.N. involvement in the political process. On Tuesday, Brahimi said Sistani had conveyed a message to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan saying he wanted the United Nations "to continue to play a role in Iraq."
After members agreed to ask the United Nations to return, Muhammed Bahr Uloum, a Shiite cleric who currently holds the council's rotating presidency, sent a letter to Annan asking for assistance in forming a caretaker administration and holding elections to choose a transitional government by the end of January 2005, council spokesman Hamid Kifaie said.
"The council has asked the United Nations to provide advice to Iraq in the field of elections and the formation of a transitional government," Kifaie said.
Daniel Senor, a spokesman for the occupation authority, lauded the move, saying the 25-member body was "making progress" in addressing the difficult issue of how Iraq should be governed once the occupation ends.
The Bush administration had wanted an interim government chosen through regional caucuses. That plan was scuttled after opposition from Sistani, who wanted elections held before June 30, a timetable considered unrealistic by the United States. In an effort to find a compromise, Brahimi and several U.N. elections experts traveled to Iraq in February and later issued a report saying that while elections could not be held before June 30, they could be organized by the end of the year.
But Brahimi's initial report did not broach the question of how Iraq should be governed from June 30 to the day elections are held. Iraqi political leaders are deeply divided on the shape of the caretaker administration. Some council members want the council to serve as the interim government; others want the body expanded to 75 members or more before it assumes sovereignty; and yet others favor different approaches, such as holding a national conference to select interim leaders.
"There is no consensus on this issue," said Jalal Talabani, one of the country's top ethnic Kurdish leaders. "This is why we need the United Nations. We need their help to find the best solution."
Although it was Shiite leaders who initially wanted the United Nations involved in the political process, their interest cooled after Brahimi refused to support their call for elections before June 30. Shiite leaders have also expressed concern that Brahimi would recommend an interim government that would increase representation of Sunnis, who are underrepresented in the Governing Council, at the expense of Shiites.
U.S. officials had urged the Shiites to reverse course, arguing that Brahimi would be fair to all of Iraq's disparate ethnic and religious groups. In an effort to resolve the impasse, the White House dispatched Robert Blackwill, a senior member of the National Security Council staff, to meet with council members along with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq.
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French FM proposes creation of UN 'disarmament corps'
PARIS (AFP)
Mar 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318145315.d56zvpej.html
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin on Thursday proposed the creation of a UN "disarmament corps" that would operate in crisis zones to determine whether a nation has weapons of mass destruction. In an interview with Radio France Internationale, de Villepin also called for the creation of a "human rights corps" that would inform the UN Security Council of rights violations committed by "bloodthirsty dictatorships".
"In learning the lessons of the situation in Iraq, we propose the creation of a true disarmament corps, that, in a crisis situation, can operate on the ground to inform the Security Council," de Villepin told RFI.
In March 2003, the United States -- convinced that then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was secretly developing weapons of mass destruction -- invaded Iraq before UN weapons inspectors could finish their work there.
A year later, US forces have not yet uncovered any of the illicit weapons, and their own experts have expressed doubt that such programs even existed.
Faced with the growing threat of weapons proliferation, experts have put forth the idea of creating an independent agency to monitor the existence of chemical and biological weapons, modeled on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog.
"Along the same line of reasoning, as we cannot allow dictatorships, which are often bloodthirsty dictatorships, to remain in power, we ask for the creation of a human rights corps that would inform the international community and allow it to act if such actions were justified," de Villepin said.
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More Private Forces Eyed for Iraq
Green Zone Contractor Would Free U.S. Troops for Other Duties
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2867-2004Mar17.html
The U.S.-led authority in Iraq plans to spend as much as $100 million over 14 months to hire private security forces to protect the Green Zone, the four-square-mile area in Baghdad that houses most U.S. government employees and some of the private contractors working there.
The Green Zone is now guarded primarily by U.S. military forces, but the Coalition Provisional Authority wants to turn much of that work over to contractors to free more U.S. forces to confront a violent insurgency. The companies would employ former military personnel and be responsible for safeguarding the area for the first year after political authority is transferred to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.
Surrounded by 15-foot concrete walls and rings of barbed wire, the Green Zone is on the west bank of the Tigris River and serves as a relatively secure home, office and relaxation area for more than 3,000 people in what is otherwise an increasingly dangerous city.
The car bomb that killed at least 28 yesterday destroyed a hotel across the river and less than a mile from the Green Zone, in a neighborhood where some of the U.S. authority's contractors live and where security is far less robust.
U.S. officials expect attacks by insurgents to increase as the June 30 deadline for the political transition nears, and are struggling to protect employees of the CPA and civilians employed by its contractors.
The U.S. Embassy slated to open in June will be in the Green Zone, though not in Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace that has housed CPA Administrator L. Paul Bremer. Also within the guarded area are the al-Rashid Hotel; the Iraqi Governing Council offices; the Convention Center where news conferences are held, a military police compound; a recreation facility, restaurants; two compounds for food and service employees of contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root; a parking area; and a heliport.
The zone has regularly come under attack in past months. On March 7, seven rockets were fired into the zone, five hitting the al-Rashid Hotel. Saturday night, in what officials said was a first, someone stabbed and badly wounded a U.S. Army officer who was walking inside the gated compound. Dan Senor, chief spokesman of the Coalition Provisional Authority, said Monday that it was not known whether the attacker was Iraqi, American or some other nationality.
Bremer, his staff and Iraqis working with the CPA are now protected by the U.S. military and some private security organizations already on contract. Expanding the commercial security force will "augment coalition military forces and allow coalition military forces to focus on counterterrorism and the highest priority sites within the Green Zone," according to the March 7 solicitation for bids.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters yesterday that the U.S. military is trying to reduce the number of troops inside Baghdad and station them in six bases on the city's perimeter. "That will reduce much but not all of the coalition presence here inside the city of Baghdad, because we certainly will be continuing the presence of American and coalition forces inside to provide a safe and secure environment," said Kimmitt, who did not address plans for hiring additional civilian forces to take over in the Green Zone.
The threats that the private security force will be asked to meet provide a summary of the dangers facing U.S. and coalition personnel 10 months after President Bush declared the main fighting over. The contractor, according to the bid proposal, must be prepared to deal with vehicles containing explosive devices, the improvised explosives planted on roads, "direct fire and ground assaults by upwards of 12 personnel with military rifles, machine guns and RPG [rocket-propelled grenade], indirect fire by mortars and rockets, individual suicide bombers, and employment of other weapons of mass destruction . . . in an unconventional warfare setting."
To meet that challenge, the bidders' personnel must have prior military experience, and those involved directly in force protection must have "operated in U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization or other military organizations compatible with NATO standards."
If Iraqis are hired by either the prime contractor or subcontractors, they cannot be former senior members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party or affiliated with any organization the Iraqi Governing Council labeled as prohibited. No contractor or subcontractor can "display the image or likeness of Saddam Hussein or other readily identifiable members of the former regime or symbols of the Baath Party or the former regime in government buildings or public spaces," the solicitation said.
Contractors will also be expected to provide dogs and handlers experienced in detecting explosives to provide 24-hour per day, seven-day-a-week coverage for all entry control points and all other locations, the proposal states.
The bids are due Sunday, and selection will apparently be quick. The winner is expected to begin work on April 1. For its part, the U.S. government will supply housing, meals and minor medical care to the contractor employees along with vaccinations against anthrax and smallpox.
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Bush Hails Returning Troops on Eve of Iraq Anniversary
March 18, 2004
By DAVID STOUT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/middleeast/18CND-BUSH.html?hp
WASHINGTON, March 18 - A year after he sent soldiers to war, President Bush told thousands of veterans of the Iraq campaign today that their valor and sacrifice had made the Middle East, and the world, safer.
"One year ago tomorrow, the armed forces of the United States entered Iraq to end the regime of Saddam Hussein," Mr. Bush said at Fort Campbell, Ky. "After his years of defiance, we gave the dictator one final chance. He refused. And so in one year's time, Saddam Hussein has gone from a palace to a bunker to a spider hole to jail."
The president told the troops, many of whom applauded and whooped enthusiastically during the televised address, that they had "delivered justice to many terrorists, and you're keeping the rest of them on the run."
Mr. Bush's words took on an added dimension with news as he spoke that Pakistan was telling reporters that its troops were closing in on a man believed to be a high-ranking Al Qaeda member hiding along the border with Afghanistan. A United States counterterrorism official said it appeared that "a very senior" leader of Al Qaeda was surrounded, but that his identity could not be confirmed.
"You've helped to remove two of the most violent regimes on Earth," Mr. Bush said, alluding to the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan as well as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. "With daring and skill and honor, you've held true to the Special Forces motto, `To liberate the oppressed.' America's indebted to you."
Fort Campbell is home to the storied 101st Airborne Division, known as "the Screaming Eagles," and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Mr. Bush said the huge base has a special place in his memory.
"Fort Campbell was the first Army post that I visited in the weeks after our country was attacked," Mr. Bush recalled. "It was around Thanksgiving."
In fact, Mr. Bush said, he ate turkey with the troops and told they had "a rendezvous with destiny."
"That's what I said when I was here last," the president said. "And when the orders came, you carried out your missions. You made history once again."
Thousands of troops from Fort Campbell served in Iraq. Sixty soldiers from the fort were killed in Iraq and 14 in Afghanistan, the White House said. Mr. Bush was to meet privately with relatives of about 40 fallen soldiers this afternoon.
Standing in a military-style jacket under a warm sun, Mr. Bush told the troops that they had written a glorious new chapter in American military history, one marked by peacekeeping as well as war. "By your decency and compassion, you are helping the Iraqi people to reclaim their country," Mr. Bush said. "Because you care, you're helping the Iraqis live as free people."
Mr. Bush's visit to Fort Campbell was part of what campaign aides say is a concerted effort to portray him as the steady commander in chief in a time of both peril and opportunity.
As part of that effort, the Bush campaign has tried to portray the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, as weak and indecisive, and thus ill-suited to protect the country's security. (That effort was diluted somewhat today, when Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, called Mr. Kerry a friend and declared in two television interviews that the Democrat was not "weak on defense," regardless of what the Bush campaign said.)
Mr. Bush did not mention Mr. Kerry or the Democratic Party today. Instead, he cast the mission in Iraq as part of a worldwide struggle against terrorism, and one of historic importance.
"Because America and our allies acted, one of the most evil, brutal regimes in history is gone forever," Mr. Bush said. "Because America and our allies acted, a state sponsor of terror was put out of business."
Mr. Bush said the paramount lesson of Sept. 11, 2001, was that "America must confront threats before they fully materialize."
The president said America was engaged in "a different kind of war," citing the recent terror bombings in Madrid and Baghdad.
"This terrorist enemy will never be appeased because death is their banner and their cause," he said. "There is no safety for any nation in a world that lives at the mercy of gangsters and mass murderers. Eventually there is no place to hide from the planted bombs or the far worse weapons that terrorists seek. For the civilized world, there's only one path to safety. We will stay united and we will fight until this enemy is broken."
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No Surprise That Media Briefing on Iraq Costs Was Cancelled
Meanwhile, the number of soldier suicides keeps climbing, as the army dutifully updates journalists who call.
By Wayne F. Smith
March 18, 2004
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000465506
While President George W. Bush, his war cabinet and their consultants are making the rounds this week in their current Iraq war anniversary blitz, pushing their message on the benefits of the conflict, a long-awaited media briefing by the army on the cost part was cancelled.
The elusive report is the product of a mental health advisory team dispatched to Iraq last summer at the request of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) commander general Ricardo Sanchez following a spike in U.S. soldier suicides in July. The report covers only the period until the end of October and as a result is unlikely to contain any numeric bombshells that haven't already been reported. It was to be released earlier this week but the so-called "media roundtable" was postponed once again (See Suicides Among Soldiers Who Served in Iraq (subscription only).)
Still, the number of suicides keep climbing, as the army dutifully updates journalists and other interested parties who call.
To date, the Army reports 23 OIF soldiers killed themselves in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003, well above normal Army rates. That number rose very recently because two of five "non-combat" deaths that were under investigation have now been classified as suicides. Then there are the soldiers who have killed themselves back in the United States. That number was six -- until last weekend..
Last Sunday, in Monument, Colo., a 36-year-old Special Forces soldier named William Howell, just three weeks back from Iraq, shot himself in the head. There had been a disturbance; a phone call to the police by his wife. When police arrived at their home, Howell was following his wife around the front yard waving a handgun. "He was ordered to drop his weapon by one of the officers, but instead placed the weapon to his head and pulled the trigger," according to a statement issued by the El Paso County Sheriff's office.
Police said they had no record suggesting there had been any kind of domestic disturbance in the Howell household before William went to Iraq.
The Denver Post observed that the incident "sent shock waves through the military community and forced many around the Colorado Springs-area Army post to ask if Howell was given the help he may have needed to beat combat stress upon returning from the war last month."
For me, the army's suicide data and the tragic homecoming narratives of some Iraq war soldiers are beginning to impugn the administration's apparent cost-benefit ratio. Postponing the release of the Army's long awaited suicide report because it conflicts with the administration's anniversary "take" on the war may alter perception but it doesn't change the indicators that suggest thousands of OIF soldiers could be suffering from the burden of that war. Wayne F. Smith is a former combat medic in Vietnam and former therapist/counselor at the Veteran's Administration's Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Counseling Program. Currently, he is a special assistant to the president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.
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The Damage Done Verlyn Klinkenborg
March/April 2004 Issue
Mother Jones Magazine
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/03/03_100-8.html
It's hard to say just when the word "hero" went bankrupt. But in the aftermath of 9/11, America became, to its own mind, a nation of heroes. We spread the word around like butter on toast. It has become cultural pabulum, a national panacea, a psychological commonplace. Children are now encouraged by well-meaning adults to grow up to become their own heroes, as if that wouldn't make them insufferable. And yet in a nation that is sick with celebrity, the word "hero" works in strange ways. We fear the elitism of the word, and so we democratize it, bestowing it everywhere, without really understanding what we're doing. In the past few years, our overuse of the word has trivialized the notion of duty and diminished the idea of professionalism. We say the word "hero" so much that we must be very afraid, as if a world full of heroes felt safer or at least more interesting. Somehow our lives suddenly seem to require heroism to sustain them. It's the password in an insecure world, the mantra we use against the dullness of ordinary life.
The men in these photographs are soldiers who were wounded in Iraq. Two of them were wounded in firefights. One was delivering ice. Another walked off into the desert on a bathroom break and stepped on a mine. One was wounded while blowing up a munitions dump. Two of the soldiers who look the least damaged are blind, far more damaged than the camera can record. Whatever they may feel about their condition now, these men tend to sum up our involvement in Iraq in simple, blunt phrases. Like this, from a double amputee: "The reasons for going to war were bogus, but we were right to go in there. Saddam was a bad guy."
No one has the right to say that these men are not heroes. But I also suspect that few people understand the contemporary hollowness of that word better than they do. Private Jessica Lynch is only the most recent in a long line of soldiers throughout history to dismiss the word. To a soldier coming home from war, the word "hero" looks surprisingly like a gesture of incomprehension, especially in our time when the word is on everyone's lips. It measures the appalling gap between civilians and soldiers, the inexplicable difference between peace and war.
-------- propaganda wars
Valiant Neocons, Spanish Appeasers: Manipulating Madrid's Tragedy
March 18, 2004
by Christopher Deliso balkanalysis.com
http://antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=2148
Given that 90 percent of Spaniards had opposed their leaders' support for the Iraq War, it's not hard to understand that the government would be punished in elections held immediately after the worst terrorist attack in Spain's history.
Neocon mouthpieces maintain that, until the Madrid bombing, the Popular Party of incumbent Prime Minister José María Aznar had been expected to win. Therefore, they cry, this shows that terrorism gets results, and that the weak-kneed Spaniards are now guilty of "appeasing" terrorism. The neocons fear this scenario will be repeated in other countries, with future terrorist attacks forcing pro-American governments to be voted out of power. This, of course, is a temptation for stout-hearted voters to resist. In other words: "Buck up, Europe! The moment will come for you, too, to show more gumption!"
However, the real appeasing occurred one year ago, when the Aznar government slavishly signed up for George Bush's war on Iraq. That disastrous war has only radicalized the world more, creating terrorists where there had been none and turning much of Europe into a juicy symbolic target. These latest terrorist attacks come as no surprise - the only amazing thing is that it took so long for them to arrive. The grim, apocalyptic world of constant terror and carnage predicted by the neocons is here. Yet the warmongers commend themselves as geniuses when it's only their malevolent, self-fulfilling prophesies that are coming true.
The Zapatero Revolution
Now, new Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is very consciously trying to make his country an example for other European countries - and more power to him!
Among the many choice comments Zapatero has made recently we have:
"...What simply cannot be is that - after it became so clear how badly it (Iraq) was handled - there be no consequences. Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair will have to reflect and engage in some self-criticism, so things like that don't happen again."
''...You can't organize a war on the basis of lies... you can't bomb a people just in case."
''...Spain is going to see eye to eye with Europe again....Spain is going to be more pro-Europe than ever. I am deeply convinced of that.''
America: Removed from the Christmas Card List?
Such strong statements aimed at the American global bully would be remarkable coming from any world leader. Yet coming from the untested prime minister of a relatively little country- and in his very first week on the job no less- they are almost unbelievable.
Yet Zapatero seems quite comfortable confronting Washington. He recently stated that his government will maintain "cordial relations" with all the governments of the world, and thus, "naturally, with the government of the United States." Nevertheless, Zapatero tellingly left the Americans off of his immediate foreign policy to-do list:
"...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."
A Domino Effect?
What the US can't comprehend is that, for the first time, a European "coalition" leader is actually standing up to it. If other nations also start to recognize the wisdom of following their citizens' wishes, the mighty "coalition of the willing" that the White House boasted of last year is going to start looking pretty thin.
The US administration is mostly concerned, however, lest the coalition start looking thin on the ground. If Spain withdraws its troops from Iraq, as Zapatero has threatened, there will be severe and wide-ranging consequences for Bush's war effort. Hard-pressed Poland, for example, was set to hand over command in central and southern Iraq on July 1, to the Spaniards. Now this is very much in doubt. At the same time, the Ukrainian government is said to be considering a proposal to bring home the country's 1,800 troops - a potentially crushing blow for George Bush and his increasingly unraveling coalition.
Neocons Cry, "Appeasers!"
The line that Spanish voters are a bunch of wussies was pushed in a San Francisco Chronicle piece that could not go two whole paragraphs without citing a member of a neocon-infested think-tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The article charges that yellow-bellied Spanish voters changed their minds at the last second, in order to,
"...give the terrorists what they wanted. They were joined by citizens who weren't going to vote, but decided to go to the polls, oddly, to further the terrorists' goals."
Out of this fog of reasoning, the epic conclusion emerges:
"...Basque separatist leaders now must be looking at how al Qaeda achieved victory through violence and be wondering if they should be more ruthless, too."
This conclusion ignores the fact that after 9/11 the Basques, the IRA, the Albanians, etc., all kept a pretty low profile out of justified fears of being condemned by the growing anti-terrorism fervor. It's hardly likely that the ETA will see this, Spain's "3/11," as its golden moment to strike.
Simultaneously, the think-tank that Doug Feith credited with birthing the neocons weighed in with a similar argument. The Heritage Foundation's Nile Gardiner declared:
"...this is a huge blow to the Bush administration... Aznar was a hugely important symbol of European support for America. The Spanish statement has sent the wrong messages to the rest of Europe. It amounts to a policy of appeasement. And it will strengthen anti-Americanism in Europe."
This equally ludicrous argument reveals the self-absorbed narcissism of the War Party, forever convinced that It's All About Us. If the terrorists "succeeded," the argument goes, they did so solely in order to "undermine the coalition" led by the United States, and also Bush's re-election chances. And of course their other big victory was in breeding "anti-Americanism" in Europe, to further "drive a wedge" between the trans-Atlantic allies. Yet in my experience, at least, the orientation of Europeans is actually more akin to the sentiment voiced by Luis Gonzales, a 56 year-old high school teacher in Spain:
"...we love America - Faulkner, Hemingway, Coca-Cola and Marilyn Monroe - but we have something against your government.... Aznar took us into a war that wasn't our war, but only for the benefit of the extreme right and the American companies."
A Problem: Deceiving the Public
Since there are two very good reasons why the "appeaser" argument is a bogus one, it follows that the Bush administration would like to drown them out under its rhetoric of "stay the course, weak appeasers!"
The first reason, in fact, reminds us of the many investigations now underway in America, designed to gauge the level of lies spouted by the government to justify war. The Financial Times argues that it was the old Spanish government's deception of the public, and not the terrorist attack itself, that brought about its downfall:
"...the election result seems to have sprung from indignation at how the government of José María Aznar, the outgoing prime minister, handled the crisis. In particular Mr. Aznar was blamed for his ostensible certainty that the carnage was the work of Eta, a stance that appeared to validate his government's hard line on the Basque question. Madrid even managed to persuade the United Nations Security Council to state Eta's responsibility in its resolution of condemnation."
This argument is seconded by the New York Times, which cites EU and UN Security Council leaders who suspected the Aznar government of lying:
"'...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.'"
For its part, the European Union was definitely hijacked by Javier Solana, current EU foreign policy chief and former NATO secretary-general during the "successful" Kosovo bombing. Soon after the Madrid attacks, Solana seemed to be acting on orders, but not those of his current employer:
"...[Solana] 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.
...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."
Another Problem: The Terrorists' Goal
Further, those charging the Spaniards with "appeasement" run into contradictions. The usual line, as broadcast by Perle and Frum, is that the terrorists want to cause endless confrontations, retaliations, and war, all leading up to the apocalyptic "clash of civilizations" that the neocons are evidently rooting for. Yet at the same time, they fear the Madrid attacks will cause Spain, and, subsequently, other countries, to drop out of war in Iraq and elsewhere - thereby reducing their involvement in what was originally perceived as being Israel's and America's fight anyway.
This possibility is, in fact, exactly what the War Party International fears:
"'...no one should get the idea that somehow if you are a country that was opposed to the military action in Iraq, you are less of a target,' [UK] Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio."
The beauty of Straw's argument lies in its negativity: since the War Party claims that terrorism can happen anywhere, the antiwar countries have escaped so far through sheer luck. Nothing can change the neocons' opinion that everyone everywhere is in mortal danger. We are merely naïve to think otherwise, according to such eloquent 'experts' as Mark Steyn. Yet this both underestimates the rationality of the terrorists and ignores the symbolism of their attacks - on British and Jewish interests in Istanbul, and on the urban heart of Aznar's Spain. Like any other group, the terrorists' power and capabilities have certain limits, and they, too, must make their priorities.
The neocon accusation of Spanish cowardice is especially galling when we consider that the perceived relation between war and retributive terrorism is not new - and hardly some knee-jerk reaction lacking any historical basis. Precisely this kind of retributive attack was feared by European coalition countries, from Spain to Hungary to Bulgaria, before the Iraq war even started. The Madrid tragedy was clearly avoidable, yet Spanish leaders did not have the guts to do what their people asked and stand up to the Americans over Iraq.
Bush's "Brave Face"
Media reports say that President Bush, his foreign policy in shambles, is now trying to put on "a brave face" following the Spanish defection. We should wish him luck. It must take a lot of courage to fight the war for freedom and democracy from the air-conditioned bunkers of Washington, with the biggest concern being to find damage control for embarrassments like the one unfolding now with Spain. The War Party's operating logic is to pick a policy in advance, steamroller it through over all opposition, and justify it later - if at all. Yet just as there is nothing brave about the imperial strategy of using proxy armies in one's wars, there is even less to be commended about using proxy continents, as Europe seems to have become.
Ignoring local realities of geography and demographics, the US has needlessly accelerated and radicalized terrorist activities worldwide with its invasion of Iraq. The Muslim immigrant population is much larger in Europe than in the US, and so Europe is bound to suffer the consequences of the latter's actions first. Spain and Turkey are the European countries that have felt this already, and more will probably follow. This can only lead to unnecessary death, destruction and fear - but hopefully, also to a radical reappraisal of the neocon approach to fighting terror.
--------
Did the Media Give us John Kerry?
Exclusive commentary by Vincent Fiore
Mar 18, 2004
Washington Dispatch
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_8470.shtml
It was not all that long ago that the Gallup Poll had Senator John Kerry polling at an abysmal 9% nationwide, in the single digit cellar with the likes of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun, and the Rev. Al Sharpton. The 9% reflects a January 9-11 sampling of 426 Democrats who seemed about as enamored with Senator Kerry as a canary would be with the cat. However, in just three short weeks from that date, Senator Kerry went from invisible to invincible, leading all remaining Democrats at 49%. By that time, Mr. Kerry had pulled off the twin victories of Iowa and New Hampshire. By February 16, the stodgy John Kerry had effectively claimed the mantle of Democratic nominee, polling among Democrats at a blistering 65%.
But let's backtrack a bit. After winning Iowa from out of nowhere, Mr. Kerry certainly gained momentum going into New Hampshire, thereby leading to another win. From there on, what some have called a "cascading effect" took over, the Democratic electorate wanting to be seen as voting for a winner, and even believing they have one in Mr. Kerry. Now of course, is no longer "candidate Kerry", but "Democratic nominee for President Kerry."
But when I look back, I wonder just how this really came to be. Nobody has been able to explain to me just what happened in early January of this year to propel Senator Kerry to the nomination. Single digits in the polls, inadequate funds, and no distinct platform of his own, Senator Kerry was written off dead. Then, methinks, the media caught its collective breath.
When Senator Kerry announced his bid for the presidency, he was instantly spotted as the favorite, or establishment candidate, by the mainstream media. But as time went by, someone else soon had risen to the forefront. The media soon lost its luster for Mr. Kerry, and instead focused its accolades on Howard Dean, the three-term Governor of Vermont. Mr. Dean represented the unruly dissatisfaction of the American left, and though unsure of his viability as "The" candidate to lead Democrats from out of the political wilderness, the media glorified his self-proclaimed Internet revolution and his firebrand rhetoric towards President Bush.
On the same Gallup poll conducted January 9-11, Dean stood at 26% to Kerry's 9%. But as we all have seen, the candidacy of Howard Dean started a slow-motion course towards destruction with one incredibly acerbic miscue after another, culminating with his now memorable "I have a scream" speech on the night of the Iowa caucuses where he finished a debilitating third. But months earlier, the media had started to have second thoughts over Mr. Dean, as the specter of Dean's electability on a national scale were played out daily among the editorial pages. Mindful of Washington whispers that said the Bush Administration would welcome the fight against Mr. Dean in November, the media attempted a mid-stream correction in its course. Enter General Wesley Clark.
Officially entering the race in September of 2003, Wesley Clark was an overnight sensation that was principally media induced. A virtual unknown to most Americans, a steady cadence had built up around General Clark nevertheless. Fawning press, like Newsweek's Sept. 29th issue which pointedly asked "Who is this G.I.?" attempted to parley the General's four stars into political success. The only problem here was the General himself. When Wesley Clark entered the presidential race in September of 2003, he led in the Gallup poll with 22%. By the time he had bowed out of the running, he stood at 10%.
No amount of media massaging could hide the fact that the General was a four star political disaster, exposing his political naiveness and a penchant for conspiracies. In short, he had turned into a mirror image of Howard Dean; prone to ill-thought statements and accusations, with the added caveat of no vision to speak of except the ever present mantra of scorn against Mr. Bush. Here too, as time went on, his viability as a national candidate was ever fleeting.
These facts were not lost on an elite media that see the present administrat ion as possibly the greatest threat to world peace since President Ronald Reagan announced his conception of the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, in 1983. It also sees this administration as a bulwark against the creeping socialism that they have been a part of since FDR's "New Deal" ushered in a new dawn of generational spanning liberalism.
So now the media presents to you Senator John Kerry. As to the Senator having what it takes to beat President Bush is a question that will have to wait till November. But that does not really matter all that much now, as somebody had to run against Bush. At the beginning of the process, the Democratic Party and those most sympathetic to them among the press were somewhat despondent over the field of nominees that had chosen to take the field against Mr. Bush. What is left of that field is not necessarily the best Democratic Party can do, it is really a case of what the media had to work with.
The elite media has taken a direct interest in the outcome of this election, of this I am sure. Senator Kerry has yet to be openly vetted and challenged, and has received news coverage worthy of a coronation. He is allowed to straddle the fence on every issue of importance, voting record be damned. He has been given a pass on his lowbrow politicking on the stump, even using 9/11 to his political advantage by demagoguing those who rightly and justly do.
Even so, the best the editorial board rooms like that of the NY Times can muster when endorsing Senator Kerry in the New York primary can do is point to his ability "to reflect his appreciation that life is not simple. He understands the nuances and shades of gray in both foreign and domestic policy." Yes, that fits rather nicely in regard to Senator Kerry, the unprincipled choice of an unprincipled media elite. You wanted him, and now you got him.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Scalia Angrily Defends His Duck Hunt With Cheney
March 18, 2004
By STEVE TWOMEY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/politics/18CND-SCAL.html?hp
Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court today bluntly rejected demands that he step aside in a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney, mocking criticism that a duck hunting trip the two were on in January suggested he would be biased toward his longtime friend.
Hours later, the Sierra Club, which had formally asked Justice Scalia not to participate in a case it had brought against the vice president, said it would take no more legal action against the justice, even though it believed his ``recusal was still warranted'' to ensure public faith in the integrity of the court.
In a 21-page memorandum filled with scorn and with lessons in the ways of Washington, Justice Scalia wrote that if people assumed a duck hunting trip would be enough to swing his vote, ``the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined.''
He said that throughout American history, justices have been friends with high-ranking government officials, and that as recently as Christmas other justices socialized with Mr. Cheney at the vice president's home.
``A rule that required members of this court to remove themselves from cases in which the official actions of friends were at issue would be utterly disabling,'' Justice Scalia wrote.
During the hunting trip to Louisiana, which the memorandum said involved 13 hunters as well as Mr. Cheney's security detail, ``I never hunted in the same blind with the vice president,'' he said.
``Nor was I alone with him at any time during the trip,'' he continued, ``except, perhaps, for instances so brief and unintentional that I would not recall them - walking to or from a boat, perhaps, or going to or from dinner. Of course we said not a word about the present case.''
Three weeks before the trip, the court agreed to hear an appeal of a case in which the Sierra Club sought information about who had participated in private meetings of Mr. Cheney's energy task force in 2001. Justice Scalia's decision to go hunting with someone who had litigation pending before the court prompted editorial pages across the country to echo the Sierra Club's belief that the public might believe he could not render an impartial ruling.
David Bookbinder, the Washington legal director of the Sierra Club, said in a telephone interview today that ``it would have been terrific'' if Justice Scalia had explained in January how little contact he had had with Mr. Cheney during their outing. Bookbinder cited specifically Justice Scalia's statement in the memorandum that flying to Louisiana on Mr. Cheney's jet did not constitute accepting a prohibited gift because he flew back on a commercial airline, buying a round-trip ticket and not saving ``a cent.'' If the public had known all the details, the outcry might not have been as great, Mr. Bookbinder said.
He added, however, that Justice Scalia had failed to be forthcoming earlier, allowing the perception to grow that he might not be impartial in the Cheney case. Therefore, Mr. Bookbinder said, he still should step aside.
In his memorandum, Justice Scalia suggested that he had an obligation to recuse himself if the personal fortune or freedom of a friend were at stakebut not if the issue was a friend's official actions, as he argued was the case with Mr. Cheney.
He said the Sierra Club had failed to cite any precedent in which a justice had recused himself from a case involving a friend's official action. The club, instead, had relied largely on newspaper editorials that had questioned whether he could be impartial in the Cheney case, he said.
``The implications of this argument are staggering,'' Justice Scalia wrote. ``I must recuse because a significant portion of the press, which is deemed to be the American public, demands it.'' He went on to point out what he said were mistakes in numerous editorials about the hunting trip, citing newspapers by name.
Justice Scalia has excused himself from cases before. He decline to participate in a case this year that involved whether the words ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional. He had expressed a view about the case before it reached the Supreme Court.
-------- homeland security
TSA Defends Its Scrutiny of Airport Workers
By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2916-2004Mar17?language=printer
The acting chief of the Transportation Security Administration yesterday defended his agency's practice of allowing the more than 1 million ground employees at U.S. airports to bypass security checkpoints that screen for weapons.
Under sharp questioning from members of a congressional panel, David M. Stone said the TSA relies on employee identity badges that are provided after background checks.
"We place a heavy emphasis on background checks . . . rather than the guns, gates and guards approach," Stone told the House aviation subcommittee.
Stone was testifying at a hearing called to examine the TSA's plan to enhance airport security by conducting vast computerized background checks on passengers.
The plan, which would implement the second generation of the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System, calls for the creation of a central database of information on passengers that would be checked by security and airline personnel at airports to confirm each traveler's identity.
At the hearing yesterday on CAPPS II, legislators questioned whether it is more effective to target an individual's background or to focus on screening for weapons. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, ground personnel -- including mechanics, baggage handlers and restaurant workers -- were fingerprinted, screened against FBI criminal databases and issued new identification badges.
The TSA maintained its policy of not forcing the workers to undergo physical screening or searches at the airport.
"What sense does that make?" asked Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), who said that in Britain and France, ground crews have to pass through metal detectors as well as undergo rigorous background checks. Meanwhile, he said, all U.S. passengers have to wait in long security lines every day.
Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) wondered if a low-wage earner such as a fast-food restaurant employee might easily be enticed by a payoff of $10,000 or $20,000 to bring a gun into the gate area and hand it to a terrorist who had already passed through security.
Stone said the United States has 445 major airports -- far more than any European country -- making the cost of employee screening not worth the benefit as long as background checks are adequate. Workers pass through metal detectors at some airports, although the TSA does not require it.
Stone added that the agency plans to require deeper background checks for workers, but it has not yet formulated a plan to do so.
"How is it that we haven't gotten to it yet?" DeFazio asked. "I don't find that acceptable. . . . to have waited this long after that fateful day."
As for CAPPS II, Stone said its reliance on background checks of passengers would alleviate long airport lines and improve security.
Data collected from passengers would include, at a minimum, full name, home address, home telephone number and date of birth, which would be used to validate identity.
Passengers would be rated by perceived risk. Security officials would be called if someone matched government watch lists for known terrorists or other criminals. Passengers with results that are suspicious or inconclusive would face extra scrutiny that would include opening their bags for inspection in the same way that many travelers are now checked randomly.
Stone said he expects a first version of an integrated government watch list to be available at the end of the month.
He said that while about 300,000 passengers a day are now searched, the number would drop to about 75,000 under the new system.
But the plan has met with sharp criticism from privacy advocates and an array of industry and public-interest groups.
They worry that such systems are easily defeated by identity thieves or forgers. They argue that inaccurate data might flag innocent passengers, who would have no legal means of challenging the TSA's evaluations.
And they fear "mission creep," in which personal data would be used by the government for more than just providing air security.
Last month, the General Accounting Office criticized the TSA for not yet putting out adequate privacy guidelines, policies on how data would be safeguarded and how airlines would have to provide data.
At the hearing yesterday, several legislators expressed doubts about the new system.
"I strongly favor developing a passenger profiling system" said committee chairman Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla). "However, that profiling system must not discriminate, or invade or abuse privacy."
DeFazio and Ney said focusing on screening for weapons was paramount.
CAPPS II "is a non-starter," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).
David L. Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, testified that the TSA's plan raises serious constitutional questions and runs afoul of a 1974 privacy law.
"This is a secret, classified system," he said, with the TSA under no obligation to tell passengers what data has been collected about them. Nor, he said, would the public have any legal rights to correct information that is wrong.
Stone said the program would have an ombudsman who would receive complaints, allowing for quick changes to the data.
The airline industry, meanwhile, said that while it supports the CAPPS II concept, it has been unable to get a clear answer from the TSA on how companies would have to retrofit their computer systems to provide the necessary data.
Moreover, James C. May, head of the Air Transport Association, said airlines will not provide further passenger data to enable the TSA to test its system until the agency provides clearer privacy guidelines.
Two airlines, JetBlue and Northwest, faced an angry response from customers when it was disclosed that they had secretly provided passenger information to the TSA.
May urged adoption of a "trusted passenger" program, in which those willing to submit their data for a background check would be issued frequent-traveler cards that would speed them through check-ins.
Stone said the agency will begin a test of such a system in 90 days.
Paul Rosenzweig of the Heritage Foundation defended CAPPS II. He said the plan needs work but that high-tech methods such as pre-screening are more effective and less invasive than rummaging through innocent people's bags.
-------- human rights
US-led forces 'violate' rights in Iraq
Thursday 18 March 2004
Aljazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/21DD1296-FE4D-4250-B025-BD31DF4FDE9E.htm
The human rights situation in Iraq remains "critical" one year after the launch of the US-led invasion, Amnesty International has said.
In a report published on Thursday, the London-based group estimated that more than 10,000 civilians had been killed since the invasion began on 20 March last year.
Condemning "flagrant violations" of human rights in occupied Iraq, Amnesty said, "One year after the war on Iraq was launched, the promise of improved human rights for Iraqi citizens remains far from realized."
"The past year has seen scores of unarmed people killed due to excessive or unnecessary use of lethal force by coalition forces during public demonstrations, at checkpoints and in house raids," it said.
Torture
"Thousands of people have been detained, often under harsh conditions, and subjected to prolonged and often unacknowledged detention. Many have been tortured or ill-treated and some have died in custody."
It said that "scores of civilians have been killed apparently as a result of excessive use of force by US troops, or have been shot dead in disputed circumstances."
Apart from compensation paid to victims' families, "no US soldier has been prosecuted for illegally killing an Iraqi civilian," the organisation noted.
"Iraqi courts, because of an order issued by the US-led authority in Baghdad in June 2003, are forbidden from hearing cases against US soldiers or any other foreign troops or foreign officials in Iraq," said Amnesty.
"In effect, US soldiers are operating with total impunity," it said.
Violence
"Violence is endemic, whether in the form of attacks by armed groups or abuses by the occupying forces," it said, accusing resistance fighters of targeting civilians as well as the occupation forces of "crimes against humanity".
"The human rights situation remains critical," concluded Amnesty, whose report was compiled from numerous visits to Iraq since the launch of the invasion.
"For the next year to be better than the last, the occupying forces, Iraqi political and religious leaders and the international community must make a real commitment to protecting and promoting human rights in Iraq," Amnesty said.
"Iraqi civilians are still being killed every day."
More than 10,000 Iraqi civilians are estimated to have been killed "as a direct result of the military intervention in Iraq, either during the war or during the subsequent occupation," it said.
"The figure is an estimate as the authorities are unwilling or unable to catalogue killings."
Amnesty said the US-led occupation recognised holding around 8,500 detainees. "However, one Iraqi human rights organisation put the number of detainees at 15,000," it said.
"Many detainees have alleged they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation," the report said.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Probe Begun Over Halabi Investigator's Documents
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2862-2004Mar17.html
A military investigator who worked on the case of Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. Halabi, the Guantanamo Bay prison linguist charged with mishandling classified documents, is himself under investigation for allegedly having classified materials at his home, according to a government document.
Last week, Air Force lawyers prosecuting Halabi asked the judge to exclude from the case any mention of the probe of Special Agent Marc Palmosina of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Palmosina's alleged misconduct is similar to some of the charges against Halabi.
The documents on compact discs at Palmosina's home did not concern the Halabi case, but instead focused on cargo transport operations, an area to which the agent had been assigned before he was sent to Guantanamo Bay, where the United States is holding more than 600 alleged al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, the government document said.
Palmosina, who has been removed from work on the Halabi case, could not be reached for comment, and the Air Force declined to confirm whether he is being investigated or to provide the name of his attorney.
The Syrian-born Halabi, 25, who has been in detention at a California military base since last summer, is accused of illegally possessing letters from Guantanamo Bay detainees and other documents about the jail. He is also accused of espionage involving an alleged plan, apparently never carried out, to pass information to someone in Syria. Halabi's lawyers have said he was in touch with the Syrian embassy to secure a visa to travel there for his wedding.
Three other members of the military at Guantanamo Bay face breach of security allegations. Army Capt. James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain there, is charged with mishandling classified material from the prison, adultery with a female officer there and downloading pornographic material onto his laptop computer. Army Reserve Col. Jack Farr, who served in the Guantanamo Bay unit that interrogates detainees, was charged in November with mishandling classified material and lying to investigators after he was found with classified papers in his bags.
And Ahmed F. Mehalba, a Muslim linguist who worked as a prison contractor, faces charges in a federal court of lying to investigators and mishandling classified data after secret files about the prison were allegedly found on his computer when he landed at Boston's Logan International Airport on a flight from Egypt.
Military officials began looking at Palmosina last fall, during his one-month stint at Guantanamo Bay working on the Halabi case, the document said. Last Friday, prosecutors in the Halabi case filed the document, which asks the judge to remove from Halabi's upcoming court-martial any mention of the Palmosina investigation.
Halabi's lawyer, Donald Rehkopf, said he has not "had an opportunity to officially respond to the prosecution's motion."
Gregory Travalio, a colonel in the Army Reserve judge advocate general's corps and a law professor at Ohio State University's law school, said violations of rules on classified material are common, and "there's a fair amount of prosecutorial discretion in handling them." Though he said he is not familiar with the Palmosina case, he said it appears "there's an irony" in his being investigated for this kind of misconduct.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
University of the Virgin Islands is launching solar-powered lights on St. Croix campus
Thursday, March 18, 2004
By Mat Probasco,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-18/s_14137.asp
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands - With no shortage of sunshine over this U.S. Caribbean territory, a local university is launching a solar-powered light system it hopes will save money and set an environmentally friendly example.
The University of the Virgin Islands was unveiling the 72 new self-sustaining lights at its St. Croix campus at dusk Wednesday, university spokesman Patrice Johnson said.
"Inside of two years the university will essentially have free lights," Johnson said, adding that the university community also needs "to be conscious of how we impact the environment."
The university now spends more than US$1.5 million of its US$25 million annual budget on energy, project manager Patrick O'Donnell said.
As electricity rates continue to rise with inflation, the school has sought alternatives including solar-powered hot water tanks at dormitories and more energy-efficient light-bulbs. So far, the efforts have cut energy expenses 6 percent, O'Donnell said.
"Solar is characterized unfairly as being nice for the environment but not cost competitive. And here we show that's very wrong," said Onaje Jackson, spokesman for Sustainable Systems and Designs, which worked on the project.
The new system on the St. Croix campus consists of solar-powered lights mounted on poles and requires no external wiring, Jackson said.
"Put the pole in the ground and you've got power for 30 or 40 years," he said.
The system, paid for by a US$275,575 grant from the territory's housing authority, also has allowed the school to light up areas on campus that were previously dark.
St. Croix's government has installed similar lights at a parking lot in Christiansted's historic district and outside a local shopping mall, both of which have since become meeting points during emergencies like hurricanes because the lights do not rely on power plants.
The university, which also has a campus on St. Thomas, "is on the cutting edge by going ahead with this," Greenpeace spokeswoman Kristen Casper said. "But it's a growing trend," she said, adding that within a decade most U.S. universities would likely be using some sort of renewable energy.
-------- environment
EPA Urged To Tighten Rules on Tap Water
House Members Cite District Crisis
By David Nakamura and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2996-2004Mar17.html
Congressional leaders urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday to change its rules governing lead contamination of tap water, saying the recent crisis in the District has revealed multiple flaws in the federal regulations.
In a seven-page letter to the EPA's top water administrator, Benjamin Grumbles, members of the House Government Reform Committee called the agency's regulations "weak" and urged major changes in the way local jurisdictions are required to test for lead, control corrosion of pipes and notify residents of contamination problems.
In the face of heavy public criticism of their handling of the lead problem, D.C. Water and Sewer Authority officials have repeatedly said that they relied on EPA directions and guidelines on public notification and corrective action. The congressional letter is a clear sign that federal leaders believe the EPA must improve its oversight.
If the EPA enacts the recommended changes, utilities in every state likely would be required to increase testing and report more data to the federal agency. More explicit public notification about potential health risks and incentives for replacing private portions of lead service lines also would be required.
"We are concerned that the lack of an enforceable regulatory standard for lead at the tap may have delayed the response to a spike in lead levels," said the letter signed by committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). "Weak public notification requirements may have prevented people living and working in the District from being adequately informed of the situation. . . . It is critical that EPA swiftly and effectively correct identified weaknesses in public health protections against lead in drinking water."
Although both the EPA and WASA, which distributes water in the city, have known about the lead problems since 2002, D.C. leaders and residents say they were unaware until The Washington Post disclosed the widespread contamination in late January. At a congressional hearing this month, Davis and others blasted the responses from the local and federal agencies.
The District's experience has exposed flaws in the assumptions guiding the EPA's rules on detecting high lead levels and solving the problem. Required EPA tests, covering just 50 homes in the District, did not find the severity and breadth of the problem. Flushing the water for one to two minutes, as suggested by EPA guidelines, did not reduce lead levels in the tap water of many homes and, in many cases, increased the levels.
"We're calling on the federal government to do its job, and the EPA has a clear responsibility," Waxman said in an interview. "We expect them to evaluate these matters and act on them."
Grumbles could not be reached for comment yesterday, but he has said previously that he has ordered a review of the EPA's lead rules. EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the agency will "look closely at their suggestions and continue our efforts to review" the federal regulations.
D.C. leaders said they welcome congressional pressure on the EPA.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) yesterday questioned the EPA's approach to monitoring the city's response to the lead crisis. Williams said recent media reports show that EPA officials who are now criticizing the District delayed before taking any action to solve the problem.
"There's ample evidence that's been published that everybody was sitting around in a comfortable manner discussing this around a table more than a year ago . . . [and] that EPA was involved in all of these discussions," Williams said at a news conference. "Now for them to turn around 180 degrees and say, 'Oh my God!' -- it's a little late."
Since the congressional hearing, the EPA has ordered WASA to improve its response to nearly every aspect of the problem.
EPA officials recently sent a letter to WASA demanding that the local agency retest the water in as many as 500 homes after it was learned that the tests might have been conducted improperly because of an error in the instruction letters sent to the homes.
The letters, sent by a new contractor, gave inaccurate advice to residents about how to draw the two water samples that are required in the testing. WASA officials said the letters were mailed March 3 through last Friday to at least 50 homes and as many as 500. The problems did not affect more than 7,000 tests that were conducted last month or the 6,118 tests conducted last year, officials said.
"We have a firm handle on this," said WASA General Manager Jerry N. Johnson, who disputed whether the letter was confusing but agreed to retest the homes.
Rick Rogers, a drinking water chief at the EPA's regional office in Philadelphia, which oversees WASA, said he was notified of the inaccurate letter by a city resident. WASA uses test results "to convey to the public whether the water is safe or not," Rogers said in an interview. "They've got to get that right."
As city and federal leaders make new pronouncements about who was responsible for overseeing the District's response to the lead problems, a team of scientists continues to seek solutions to stopping the lead from leaching off pipes and into the water supply. The EPA and the Washington Aqueduct, which treats water for WASA, are conducting laboratory tests to determine the best chemical to add to the water to help control the leaching.
Williams and D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large), co-chairs of an interagency task force, said they will seek to meet with White House officials to secure federal aid to help pay for the rising costs related to managing the lead crisis. A collection of environmental groups is planning to make a similar plea for $300 million in federal funds at a rally at noon today in front of the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
Staff writer Arthur Santana contributed to this report.
--------
EarthTalk: How can I tell if something is made from old-growth wood?
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
From the editors
E/The Environmental Magazine
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-16/s_13161.asp
Dear EarthTalk: I've heard I should avoid buying wood products made from "old-growth timber." To what does that refer? And how can I tell if something is made from old-growth wood?
- Anna Hunt, Sierra Madre, California
"Old growth" is often defined as trees that have been growing for approximately 200 years or longer. The problem, according to the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), is that the lumber industry classifies trees by lumber grades, not age, and because old-growth wood provides the highest quality lumber, it is highly prized. Most old growth in this country is found in the Pacific Northwest and California.
While there hasn't been much successful legislation to protect old growth in this country, it is possible to trace where your wood comes from and protect old-growth forests by boycotting products made from this irreplaceable resource, said Richard Donovan, chief of forestry at the Rainforest Alliance, which created the SmartWood forest certification program.
"One can identify suppliers and then look at their forest management," he said.
Donovan recommends buying forest products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as sustainably harvested from a well-managed forest and warns that the new certification label from the American Forest and Paper Association, created in 2002 and called the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) label, is not sufficient.
According to the Rainforest Alliance, few groups outside of the timber industry recognize the legitimacy of the SFI label. Organizations such as the U.S. Green Building Council, and corporate leaders in sustainable wood, including IKEA, Home Depot, and Kinko's, use FSC-certified products in some cases because of pressure from rainforest activists. The Rainforest Action Network says the SFI label fails to protect old-growth forests, roadless areas and federal lands, endangered species, and indigenous rights.
RAN also recommends using timber alternatives when possible, such as recycled wood, composite wood made from plastic, and kenaf paper.
Got an environmental question? Mail it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881. Or submit your question at www.emagazine.com or email us at earthtalk@emagazine.com.
-------
Park Services Slashed, Memos Instruct Staff to Mislead Media
March 18, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2004/2004-03-18-01.asp
Top National Park Service officials have recently given detailed instructions to park superintendents to further reduce maintenance and services in America's national parks, according to internal agency memos. The memos also reveal how officials instructed park superintendents to mislead the media and the public about the nature and severity of the service cuts.
These instructions were meant to help park superintendents steer clear of political controversy and avoid making budget related statements that led to the suspension of U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers last December.
The Park Service forced Chambers onto administrative leave on December 5, 2003 after she told media outlets Park Police had been forced to cut back on patrols because of a $12 million budget shortfall.
The memos are based on a February 17, 2004, meeting of National Park Service (NPS) deputy regional directors convened by Park Service Deputy Director Randy Jones, a top lieutenant to NPS Director Fran Mainella.
Among the possible cuts listed in the memo are the following: "close the visitor center on all federal holidays, eliminate life guard services at ... guarded beaches, eliminate all guided ranger tours ... close the park every Sunday and Monday."
One memo details that Jones suggested at the meeting "that if you feel you must inform the public through a press release on this year's hours or days of operation for example, that you state what the park's plans are and not to directly indicate that 'this is a cut' in comparison to last year's operation."
"If you are personally pressed by the media in an interview, we all agreed to use the terminology of 'service level adjustment' due to fiscal constraints as a means of describing what actions we are taking," the memo said.
The National Park Service is responsible for 385 national park units covering 84 million acres. The agency has been caught in a budget squeeze that has left many park facilities with urgent maintenance and repairs unfunded.
The memo to Midwest park superintendents reads in part, "As we emphasized in the zone meetings, we are at a point where we can no longer be doing more with less. The realization should now be clear to everyone that we are crossing the line into new territory where we hope to rationally and objectively choose the best things to do and not to do."
"He (Jones) has asked each region to review the 'service level adjustments' of each of their parks and then communicate to him those that are the most sensitive. We will need to be sure that adjustments are taken from as many areas as is possible so that it won't cause public or political controversy," one memo states.
The internal agency correspondence was released to the public Wednesday by the nonpartisan Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, which consists of more than 220 retired park service officials, including several former directors, deputy directors, and regional directors and some 70 former superintendents or assistant superintendents.
The group notes that the memos were distributed internally within the park service only four days before the administration announced a tourism promotion pact between the park service and the Travel Industry Association of America (TIAA).
"The Bush administration, Department of Interior and the National Park Service simply can not have it both ways," said Denny Huffman, former superintendent of Dinosaur National Monument and spokesperson for the coalition of retirees.
"You can not engage in large scale efforts with the travel industry to ramp up visitors to the park and then at the same time pressure superintendents to cut service," Huffman said.
The national park system is plagued by maintenance backlog estimated at some $5 billion and conservationists say the Bush administration has done little to address it.
"The only possible outcome from reduced operations of parks that already are critically far behind in needed maintenance is a reduced quality in the visitor's experience," Huffman said. "If you support the parks and you want more visitors, you have to be prepared to fix the problems and improve services - not the exact opposite of that, which is what we are seeing happen today."
In January, the White House snubbed representatives of the retirees who sent President George W. Bush a letter requesting a meeting. The letter expressed their concerns that "actions are being taken in the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service that are short-changing, ignoring or violating the longstanding legislation and policies comprising the mission of the National Park Service."
The retirees fear that the Department of Interior is abandoning its core mission of conservation. In particular, the retirees are critical of the snowmobiles allowed this year in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks over the objections of a federal judge who upheld their phaseout.
In addition, the retirees are critical of the federal government's recent claim to water rights in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The Black Canyon Monument became a national park in 1999 with the Act specifically excluding the addition of any new water rights. But on January 17, 2001 the NPS filed in Division 4 Water Court, a request that if granted would allow the park service to control about 60 percent of all Gunnison River flows to and through the park.
The park service says the water is needed to protect a gold medal trout fishery that has developed. The state of Colorado on behalf of the Water Conservation Board, the Division of Water Resources, and the Division of Wildlife, along with some 350 other objectors, have filed statements of opposition to the case.
"Once again, this appears to be a derogation of the [Interior] Department's responsibilities, under the NPS Organic Act, to protect the park and the river that is its heart," the retirees wrote. This park was established to protect Black Canyon's spectacular gorges and additional features of scenic, scientific and educational interest."
The memos made public by the retirees add to the mounting criticism of the Bush administration's stewardship of the national park system - a report released Tuesday by the National Parks Conservation Association criticized the White House for staffing and budget shortfalls hampering the Park Service.
"The Park Service is telling the public, the media, and the Congress that everything is fine ... that promises are being kept ... and do not look too closely," said Jeff McFarland, executive director, Association of National Park Rangers. "The recent removal of the chief of the U.S. Park Police sent a clear message to park superintendents - you may lose your job for telling the truth about your park budgets."
"As stewards of many of our nation's most precious natural and cultural resources, we believe that national parks and the American people deserve better than this," said McFarland.
In addition, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals, issued a statement this week that accuses the Bush administration of undermining the law that protects air quality in national parks by permitting political appointees to nullify the air quality findings of NPS scientists.
"As a result, the special safeguards for visibility and breathability of the air in our National Parks have been quietly gutted without public involvement or Congressional approval," PEER said.
In the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments, Congress designated nearly all National Parks as areas where existing air quality conditions may not be allowed to deteriorate in a significant way. The law allows only small increases in particulates and sulfur dioxide (SO2), called "increments."
To implement this law, NPS scientists establish the baseline concentrations of SO2 and particulates at any given park. Then, using computer modeling techniques, scientists scrutinize each proposal for a new emitting facility, such as a power plant, to determine if the emissions will increase pollutants in that park.
If the scientists determine that the added pollutant load will exceed the allowable increment, the NPS recommends that the Interior Secretary notify the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or the state if it has an EPA approved program, to deny the permit.
In February 2003, NPS scientists modeled the impact of the proposed new coal fired Thoroughbred Generating Station in Kentucky and concluded that it would adversely impact Mammoth Cave National Park located 50 miles away.
In the fall of 2003, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Craig Manson and his deputy Paul Hoffman withdrew the adverse impact determination made by NPS scientists, making this the first time in the 25 year history of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments that a political appointee has directly overruled an NPS science based determination.
In another instance, NPS scientists have long concluded that the allowable increment in pollutants had already been reached at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. This means that emissions from two new proposed coal fired power plants would be disallowed.
On February 13, 2004, the EPA announced that it would allow the state of North Dakota to recalculate the pollution concentrations in the area around the Park so that the increment will not have been exceeded, even with the added pollution from the two new power plants.
In December 2002, NPS scientists concluded that the nearly 4,000 tons of annual SO2 emissions from a new coal burning power plant in Roundup, Montana would adversely affect air quality and visibility 112 miles away at Yellowstone National Park.
Rejecting the science, on January 10, 2003 Manson wrote to the state of Montana and withdrew the NPS' adverse impact determination, clearing the way for the new plant. Manson and Hoffman said that the NPS scientists had erred in their forecast.
Environmentalists have been wary of Manson's commitment to environmental protection for years. In November 2001, when Manson was being considered for his current position, Friends of the Earth wrote a letter of concern to U.S. senators based on Manson's actions in the 1990s when he was chief counsel for the California Department of Fish and Game.
Manson "supported weakening of the California Endangered Species Act, the failure to collect fees from developers to ensure environmental review and restoration of endangered species habitat, and an overall lack of enforcement of Fish and Game rules," the environmental group wrote.
In 1995 Manson wrote an emergency waiver, issued by then California Governor Pete Wilson, which suspended endangered species act provisions during natural disasters for five years. This wavier was later found to violate provisions of the California Endangered Species Act by the 1st District Court of Appeals and was overturned, Friends of the Earth pointed out.
For her part, NPS Director Mainella says the Bush administration is committed to the nation's national parks. On February 26, she told the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands of the House Committee on Resources that the President's fiscal year 2005 budget request of about $2.4 billion would increase appropriated funding for the NPS by over $100 million above the 2004 level, or over four percent.
"This budget proposal demonstrates a strong commitment to sustaining the National Park System," Mainella said, "with emphasis on reducing the maintenance backlog, strengthening law enforcement and improving visitor safety programs, enhancing resource management, and expanding partnership and volunteer activities."
But millions of dollars detailed in the budget proposal are not new funds, they are imported from other government programs, and about half the acquisitions request is for energy development rather than parks conservation.
Mainella said the budget proposal's federal land acquisition request is $84 million, with nearly half of that amount, $40 million, slated for potential acquisition of a portion of the oil and gas holdings underlying Big Cypress National Preserve.
This summer most national parks could feel the pinch that has been evident in the impact of service and maintenance cuts at Everglades National Park, which has just completed its biggest season.
At the Everglades, the retirees said Wednesday, 20 percent of permanent staff positions were left empty, nearly half of the permanent positions in the interpretation division, the staff that interacts directly with the visiting public, went unfilled, and no evening programs were held for park visitors.
And in the northeast United States, it is estimated that 68 of 74 parks will have a smaller budget for park operations this year than in 2003.
Park Rangers Association head McFarland said, "The mission of the Park Service - to enable our children and grandchildren to enjoy the full splendor of our national parks - at our present level of effort, simply will not happen."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Protesters Arrested at Church
Demonstrators Try to Derail Trial of Lesbian Minister
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3473-2004Mar18.html
BOTHELL, Wash., March 17 -- Singing hymns and holding up stop signs, 33 protesters were arrested Wednesday as they attempted to stop the United Methodist Church from putting a minister on trial because she is a lesbian.
After the nonviolent protesters were led away in plastic handcuffs, a jury of 13 Methodist clergy began hearing evidence in the church trial of the Rev. Karen Dammann, who could lose her ordination and her job as pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Ellensburg, Wash., if she is found guilty of "practices incompatible with Christian teachings."
Dammann's case was set in motion three years ago when she wrote a letter to Seattle Bishop Elias Galvan saying she was "living in a partnered, covenanted, homosexual relationship." Her admission is testing the Methodist Church's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gay clergy, which has become a deeply divisive issue within the 8.3 million-member church, the nation's second-largest Protestant denomination.
As more and more cities and states move toward recognizing same-sex unions, some Methodists view their church's rules against "self-avowed, practicing" gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex couples as a last stand for traditional marriage and biblical authority. But others see them as an embarrassment, particularly when the church is running national television advertisements with the slogan "open hearts, open minds, open doors."
Those emotions were as raw as the weather outside the Bothell United Methodist Church, where Dammann's trial is being held. Standing five deep in white T-shirts soaked by a cold rain, protesters from Soulforce, a national interfaith group dedicating to stopping "spiritual violence" against gays, barred the entrance to Galvan and the retired bishop he has appointed to preside over the trial, William B. Grove of Charleston, W.Va.
"You are about to assault a person's humanity, her dignity, the essential dignity God has given her. You are putting her on trial not because of anything she has done, but because of who she is," said Soulforce's chairman, the Rev. Jimmy Creech, a former Methodist minister in Nebraska. Creech lost his pulpit in a 1999 trial, also presided over by Grove, for performing "holy unions" of same-sex couples. "Bishop Grove, don't do this again," he said. Grove remained silent as Galvan, in a soft voice, politely thanked the protesters.
"Your presence here tells us how deeply you feel about the issues that confront us at this time in the conference, in the church and in society," Galvan said. "I also want to thank you because of your support for Karen, our pastor, who is a respected, loved member of our conference, and you're being supportive of her, and I want to thank you."
But after repeatedly asking the protesters to join him in prayer and to move aside, Galvan turned to a regional church administrator and a police officer who used bullhorns to warn the protesters that they were about to be arrested for trespassing. Led away without resistance, they were later released on $250 bail each. Bothell Police Capt. Bob Woolverton said that under the terms of an agreement with the district attorney, they will not be prosecuted.
Grove, in a subsequent interview, said he was "touched" by the protesters' pleas. "I promised at my ordination to uphold the Book of Discipline until the church changes it. That's why I'm here," he said. "That does not mean I do not identify deeply with the people who are protesting this trial."
Dammann, 46, was moved to tears as she hugged Creech and extended her hands to the protesters, who had come from as far as Florida and Pennsylvania. "Thank you for being here," she said in a choked voice before stepping back behind a police line.
Standing with Dammann was her partner, Meredith Savage. They have lived together since 1995 and were married last Thursday in Portland after county officials there began giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Both women wore signs around their necks saying "My partner is of Sacred Worth," a reference to church laws that affirm the "sacred worth" of gay people but says the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teachings.
In an interview on the eve of the trial, Dammann said she knew she was testing the church's rules but never expected to become a symbol in a national debate. She said her main motivation was that she did not want to raise her 5-year-old son in an atmosphere of dishonesty.
As the trial opened, the church's counsel told the jury that Dammann, by her own admission, had violated church law. While they may disagree with that law, said the Rev. Robert C. Ward, "Remember, this is a judicial process and not a legislative process. It is not the law of the church that is on trial here today."
Dammann's counsel, the Rev. James C. Finkbeiner, urged the jurors to consider the entire body of church teachings and to remember that there was a time when African Americans and women could not become ministers. He also said the "don't ask, don't tell" policy encourages gay ministers to live a life of "hiding and lying."
"Karen has chosen not to live the lie," Finkbeiner said. "And she is inviting the United Methodist Church to come out of the closet with her and live a life of open honesty."
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Antiwar Groups to Rally Around World on March 20
Thursday, March 18, 2004
By Grant McCool
(Reuters)
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=837504&tw=wn_wire_story
NEW YORK - Anti-war activists, boosted by Spaniards voting out a government that supported the invasion of Iraq, will demonstrate around the world on Saturday for an end to the occupation and to condemn terrorism.
The protests on the first anniversary of the March 20 start of the war were organized by groups that brought millions onto the streets on Feb. 15, 2003, in a failed attempt to stop the U.S. and British-led invasion of Iraq.
Under the banner "The World Still Says No to War," New York and San Francisco will host the largest U.S. rallies.
The demonstrations come as President Bush, campaigning for reelection, has been questioned over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- his main rationale for overthrowing President Saddam Hussein.
"We take tremendous inspiration from the Spanish people who used a tool, their vote, to say on the issue of Iraq, 'We are going to reject the government that sent our troops to Iraq and elect a government that pledged to bring them home,"' said New York protest organizer Leslie Cagan of the United For Peace and Justice coalition, .
Last weekend, voters in Spain ousted the conservative government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a Bush ally, and elected the Socialist party, which has said it will probably withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq.
The shock election result came days after 10 bombs thought to have been planted by Islamic militants blew up four Madrid commuter trains and killed 202 people.
In France, organizers said they did not anticipate an anti-American tone, but the March 11 Madrid bombings prompted them to change the message to condemn the war and terrorism.
"We of course remain opposed to Bush's war in Iraq, but we realized that to attract attention we had to broaden our message," said Jacques Fath, coordinator of the protest for the French Communist Party.
LONDON RALLY
"We feel a definite resurgence of anti-war sentiment now, what with the anniversary coupled with the developments in Spain," said Bill Hackwell of the ANSWER coalition organizing San Francisco events.
Stop the War, planning Saturday's march and rally at Trafalgar Square in central London, said it wanted to stress activists' belief that the policies of Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair increased the terror threat.
"We demand an end to the occupation and the right of the Iraqis to run their own country," the group said.
Even with 240 protests planned in the United States and scores across Europe, organizers said they do not expect the turnout to be nearly as large as last year's.
One U.S. demonstration will be in Fayetteville, North Carolina, home of Fort Bragg, one of the country's largest military bases. Another is in the small town of Crawford, Texas, site of Bush's vacation ranch.
Italians, many of whom have protested Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's support for the war, will march under two banners, "No more terrorism and violence" and "Get the troops out of Iraq."
In Japan, peace activists plan rallies in Tokyo and other cities to call for an end to the occupation and the withdrawal of Japanese troops sent to help rebuild Iraq.
Anti-war protesters in Australia, a staunch backer of the Iraq invasion, plan a major rally in Sydney.
The "Stop the War Coalition" said the vote to remove Spain's conservative government was a "decisive vote against the war." It said Australian Prime Minister John Howard could face the same fate if he did not withdraw Australian troops.
"The so-called war on terror has not made the world a safer place," said anti-war coalition spokeswoman Anna Samson. "He could suffer the same fate as his Spanish counterpart."
Howard, trailing in opinion polls, is expected to call an election in the second half of 2004.
(Reporting by Paris, London, Madrid, Tokyo, Sydney, San Francisco and Rome bureaus)
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The Further Invention of Nonviolence
by Kathy Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness
http://antiwar.com/orig/kelly.php?articleid=2128
Last month, Judge G. Mallon Faircloth sentenced me to three months in prison for participating in a November, 2003 peaceful protest, organized by the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), at Fort Benning, GA. During three days of trial, 27 activists offered moving testimony about why they carried crosses and coffins onto the base. Defendants called for an end to the U.S. Army combat training school, the SOA-WINSEC. All were found guilty. Some were sentenced to probation, others to probation with fines, and still others to three to six month terms in prison. As in previous years, the trial provided a forum for defendants to speak on behalf of people whose voices can never be heard in U.S. courts, the voices of those who've been wounded, orphaned, maimed, disappeared and murdered because of U.S. militarism.
For my part, it was important to recall experiences tracing back to 1985, when I traveled to San Juan de Limay, in the north of Nicaragua. Children there were radiant and friendly, many of them too young to understand that during the previous week, U.S.-funded Contras had kidnapped and murdered 25 people in their village. Later that summer, I fasted with Nicaragua's Foreign Minister, Rev. Miguel D'Escoto, himself a Maryknoll priest, and listened to stories pour forth as many hundreds of Nicaraguan peasant pilgrims vigiled and fasted in the Monsenor Lezcano church to show solidarity with the priest-minister's desire to nonviolently resist Contra terrorism. Rev. Miguel D'Escoto urged those of us from the U.S. to return to our homes and there develop nonviolent actions commensurate to the crimes being committed. This experience gave me reason to believe that the U.S. could have used negotiation and diplomacy to resolve disputes with Nicaragua.
Likewise, in Haiti, the poorest country of the western hemisphere, nonviolent activists had experienced, through peace teams, an arrow pointing to the potential for nonviolent activism to protect human rights. The Christian Peacemaker Teams maintained a steady presence in Jeremie, in the southern finger of Haiti, throughout the time when the U.S. had determined it was too dangerous for U.S. soldiers to be there. I was there for three months in 1995 just before the U.S. troops returned. Throughout this stretch of history, the U.S. spent more money on moving, equipping, and training troops, than it spent on meeting human needs. The Commandant of the region, Colonel Rigobert Jean, commented publicly that he was "ashamed and embarrassed that it was left to the Oblans (Creole for foreigners) on the hill to preserve peace and security in the region." He was referring to our five person team. Again, I had reason to believe that unarmed peacemakers with almost no funding could be relied on to create greater security than the military could provide, in an area of intense conflict.
Indelibly marked in my memory from that summer are the Creole words that children could no longer suppress as evenings drew to a close and they longed for adequate meals. "M'gen grangou" - I'm hungry.
More recently, in Iraq, during the U.S. bombing in March and April of 2003, I saw how children suffer when nations decide to put their resources into weapons and warfare rather than meeting human needs. All of us learned to adopt a poker face, hoping not to frighten the children, as ear-splitting blasts and gut wrenching thuds exploded across Baghdad. During most days and nights of the bombing, I would spend a little time holding little Miladhah and Zainab in my arms. That's how I learned of their fear. These two little girls were grinding their teeth, morning, noon and night. But they were far more fortunate than the children who were survivors of direct hits, children whose brothers and sisters and parents were maimed and killed, and children who were themselves scarred and deformed.
A recent report in the London Observer quoted U.S. Armed Forces medical personnel warning that 20 percent of the veterans returning from Iraq will suffer post traumatic stress disorders - already 22 soldiers have committed suicide. As of this writing, over 500 U.S. soldiers, caught in an inconclusive war in Iraq, have been killed, and 9,000 wounded.
How can we best educate the U.S. public about the futility of pouring U.S. resources down the rathole of military spending?
During the recent SOAW trial in Columbus, GA, as co-defendants told what motivated them to risk imprisonment and heavy fines, we heard stories of military atrocities that explain why increasing numbers of people in other parts of the world feel seething rage and antagonism toward the U.S. In a very real sense, our dangerously over-consumptive lifestyles were on trial, just as much as U.S. readiness to use threat and force, overwhelming military force, to protect the American way of life. The belief that, as President George Bush said at a 1992 energy conference in Rio de Janeiro, "the American way of life is non-negotiable," leads others to justify violent responses to stop U.S. imperialism.
For most of us, the U.S. government does not want our bodies on the line in combat. It wants our assent and our money. Elected officials often perceive that we put them in power to protect our inordinately comfortable lifestyles, and if they have to use violent means to do so, we will foot the bill. Refusal to pay for war (through war tax resistance) and readiness to radically resist militarism through nonviolent means helps us find what Rev. D'Escoto pointed us toward: "actions commensurate to the crimes being committed."
Before sentencing me, Judge Faircloth asked me why the campaign I work most closely with is called "Voices in the Wilderness." I explained that we believe there is a wilderness of compassion here in the U.S. I'm grateful to have been part of the passion that motivated defendants in the courtroom. We haven't given up on nonviolence. Rather than advocate that others risk torture and slaughter as the only way to resist U.S. warmaking, this group and the many thousands of supporters who are part of the SOAW network are committed to "the further invention of nonviolence."
By telling a judge that we are willing to go into the prison system, and there give witness on behalf of mothers and fathers separated from their children by a cruel and wrongheaded prison-industrial complex, we can point to a radically countercultural departure from accepting the status quo that now exists in the U.S.
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Japan: Arbitrary arrest and continued detention of peace activists is a violation of their basic rights
Press release,
18/03/2004
Amnesty International
http://news.amnesty.org/mav/index/ENGASA220012004
Amnesty International strongly condemns the detention in police custody of three activists for over two weeks for distributing pamphlets opposing the despatch of Japanese Self-Defence Forces (SDF) to Iraq.
The three activists -- two men and a woman -- were arrested in the western Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa on 27 February 2004 under charges of "trespassing" under Article 130 of the Japanese Criminal Code.
The activists were distributing pamphlets which called for people to think more carefully about the deployment of the SDF. They were distributed to mailboxes at the SDF personnel's housing units in the western Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa.
Amnesty International considers these activists to be prisoners of conscience, detained in violation of their right to freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an international treaty to which Japan is a state party. They should be released immediately.
The organization also notes with concern the harassment meted out to the families of the three activists including searches of their houses and the subsequent impounding of their notes and personal computers.
The three activists have been in police custody in Tachikawa where they have been subjected to nearly eight hours of interrogation every day since their arrest. No lawyer is present during the interrogation. Information received by Amnesty International suggests that they have been interrogated by authorities belonging to the public security unit of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police suggesting that this case has national security implications.
"We call for their immediate release and pending their release, Japan should ensure that their rights -- as guaranteed in international human rights standards to which Japan is a state party -- are protected," Amnesty International said.
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