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NUCLEAR
25 Years After Three Mile Island, Concerns Linger
Nuclear Dump Workers Exposed to Vapors
Questionable safety at Flats
Public split on decision at Rocky Flats wildlife area
Congo Authorities Seize Radioactive Uranium Cases
Britain faces Brussels nuclear inspection
Gulf troops' babies 'are 50pc more vulnerable'
Stillbirth dangers are 'no greater' for Gulf veterans: Scotsman
North Korean Leader Meets China Diplomats
Russia's nuclear boss says Iran plans back on track
Number of signatories of nuclear test-ban treaty now at 171
Law of the Sea Treaty Battle Surfaces in the Senate
Yucca Mtn. Waste Site Could Be Delayed
Richard Clarke terrorizes the White House
MILITARY
U.S. Sets Up Base in Afghan Mountains
OP-ED COLUMNIST Ethnic Cleansing, Again
Findings Reopen Rwanda's Wounds
US, India to work on gadgets for 'futuristic' soldiers: report
Kosovo Marks Anniversary of NATO Bombing
Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence
BAE Appoints Oil Executive As New Head
Military Was Sold Lead-Tainted Fabric for Tents
Taiwanese President Yields to Calls For Fast Recount of Disputed Vote
China Halts Rights Talks With U.S.
New Haitian Cabinet Holds First Meeting
11 Iraqi Police Officers Are Killed by Gunmen
Ambushes in Iraq Kill 11
Official: Yassin Offered Israel a Truce
Sharon in appeal for peace with Arab world
Fear of Reprisals Casts a Pall on Jerusalem
Bush Backs Israel on Self-Defense
Hamas Says It Will Target Sharon, but Not U.S.
Israeli Tanks Advancing Gaza Strip City
Syria Brushes Aside U.S. Sanctions Threat
Gains by Kin in Iraq Inflame Kurds' Anger at Syria
Russia to confront NATO chief over warplanes in Baltic states
Return of Australian troops from Iraq becomes an election issue
Chinese Space Experts Discuss Their Future Lunar Mission Hopes
U.S. Eyed Use of Drones to Nab Bin Laden
C.I.A. Chief Defends Efforts Against Al Qaeda Before 9/11
On 9/11, CIA Was Running Simulation
Palestinians Push for New U.N. Resolution
'Don't Ask' Dismissals Drop in Wartime
Retirees Now Can Work in Defense Jobs at Full Pay
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
9/11 Panel Critical of Clinton, Bush
Clarke to Testify on 9/11 Today
For a Day, Terrorism Transcends Politics as Panel Reviews Failures
Report Details C.I.A. Steps, and Missteps, Against bin Laden
Colombia gets results in drug war
U.S. Law Puts World Ports on Notice
White House Irks Senators by Inaction on Immigrants
OTHER
Stem Cell Trials Await Approval
ACTIVISTS
A legacy of truth
Local band rocks campus
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
25 Years After Three Mile Island, Concerns Linger
Story by Chris Baltimore
REUTERS USA:
March 24, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24420/story.htm
WASHINGTON - Twenty-five years after a near-catastrophe at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant exposed lax safety practices, owners and regulators of the nation's aging fleet of 103 reactors still face nagging questions about their ability to prevent mishaps.
These concerns, worsened by recent findings of massive corrosion at a plant in Ohio, have so far kept utilities from pursuing new nuclear plants for more than two decades despite their potential to replace aging, air-polluting coal units.
In a bid to change that trend, the Bush administration has promoted incentives to build new nuclear plants. But the outlook is uncertain because a Republican-written energy bill with some of the administration's proposals has long been stalled in the U.S. Senate.
On March 28, 1979, Walter Cronkite opened his nightly news broadcast for CBS television, calling the accident at Three Mile Island "the first step in a nuclear nightmare."
That was the first time that many Americans heard of the mishap, the most serious accident in U.S. nuclear history.
A string of mechanical failures and human errors caused the accident at the Pennsylvania plant after operators with Metropolitan Edison Co. switched off crucial equipment that could have lessened the severity of the partial meltdown.
Early that morning, pumps feeding cooling water to the plant's reactor failed, and 32,000 gallons (121,000 liters) of radioactive, superheated water spewed from a dodgy valve into the domed concrete reactor housing. Without water to cool them, more than half of the reactor's 36,000 nuclear fuel rods ruptured.
Government scientists said the 636,000 people living within 20 miles of the plant got only minor doses of radiation.
The near-catastrophe at the plant perched on an island in the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg effectively halted any expansion of the U.S. nuclear energy industry, which generates about 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
The resulting cancellation of dozens of planned nuclear plants forced utilities to rely on decades-old nuclear and coal-burning plants for growing electric power demands.
Meanwhile, activist groups worry that current security measures cannot prevent a terrorist attack on a U.S. nuclear plant.
OHIO PLANT RAISES FRESH CONCERNS
Safety concerns continue to plague the industry.
NRC inspectors in early 2002 found massive corrosion at an Ohio nuclear plant owned by FirstEnergy Corp. . Leaking boric acid used as a coolant ate a football-sized hole in the steel outer hull protecting the Davis-Besse plant's reactor core.
No radiation was released, and the NRC allowed FirstEnergy to begin reviving the unit this month after the utility agreed to change its "safety culture."
NRC Chairman Nils Diaz said the agency "dropped the ball" by not spotting the corrosion sooner. "It was no way to do business, either on the part of operators or regulators," Diaz said.
Nuclear industry officials bristle at any connection between the Three Mile Island and Davis-Besse incidents, and point to advances in operator training and plant design.
But industry watchdogs say the aging U.S. nuclear utility fleet could be nearing the end of its trouble-free life, with incidents like Davis-Besse foreshadowing mishaps to come.
"We haven't seen a lot of near-misses in this country since (Three Mile Island)," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "But the other end of the curve is what we're approaching, if we're not there already."
The Bush administration, meanwhile, wants to jump-start the industry with an energy plan aimed at building at least one new nuclear power plant in the United States by 2010.
One version of the energy bill stalled in the Senate would give tax incentives to build new plants, with a cost of $10 billion. The incentives could be stripped from the bill to appease budget concerns from the administration and others.
Utilities have relied on squeezing more megawatts from existing nuclear plants. Capacity factors went from 58 percent in 1980 to 92 percent in 2002, forestalling the need to build new plants, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
The industry says the NRC carefully reviews capacity increases to ensure safety.
But with a dearth of new building, aging nuclear plants pose a risk, said Jim Riccio, an antinuclear advocate at Greenpeace.
"After Three Mile Island, the pendulum definitely swung in the direction of safety," he said. "In the last 25 years, it has swung in the other direction. They're running these plants to the verge of breakdown."
----
Nuclear Dump Workers Exposed to Vapors
SHANNON DININNY
Wed, Mar. 24, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/8268221.htm
RICHLAND, Wash. - Six workers at a research site that once made plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal sought medical attention last week after being exposed to chemical vapors wafting from underground tanks of radioactive waste, a watchdog group said Wednesday.
Workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation were exposed in three separate incidents on March 16 and 17 while cleaning up tanks containing waste left over from years of nuclear weapons production, according to the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, based in Seattle.
A U.S. Energy Department official confirmed the six were evaluated and later returned to work.
Tom Carpenter, director of the accountability project's nuclear oversight campaign, criticized Hanford officials for not equipping the workers with respirators.
"Not only are the vapors toxic and perhaps lethal, the workers have inadequate protection," Carpenter said. "Hanford put these workers in harm's way - it borders on criminal negligence."
The exposures were reported to company managers in a daily meeting and later to employees in a memo.
Rob Barr, director of environmental safety and quality for the U.S. Energy Department's Office of River Protection, called the exposures a "learning experience" for Colorado-based contractor CH2M Hill, hired to handle tank-waste cleanup at the facility in south-central Washington.
A company vice president said the contractor shares concerns about vapors but insisted scientific evidence showed no threat to workers. "All the technical information I have says we are not endangering anyone," said Susan Eberlein, CH2M Hill's vice president of environmental safety, health and quality.
More than 800 workers at Hanford's sprawling "tank farm" are cleaning up 177 underground tanks holding about 53 million gallons of radioactive waste. Some of the tanks date back to World War II and could contain as many as 1,200 different chemicals.
Contractors have identified the contents of some tanks by sampling, but critics contend no one knows exactly what is in them or what vapors they might give off. Some of the tanks have leaked into ground water.
The exposures come as Hanford officials face state and federal investigations into allegations they have ignored safety concerns to speed cleanup at the facility, considered the most heavily contaminated nuclear research site in the nation.
For 40 years, the 586-square-mile reservation made plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons. Cleanup costs are expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion, with the work to be finished by 2035.
----
Questionable safety at Flats
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~417~2036730,00.html
The contractor handling the cleanup of Rocky Flats must do better at training workers and following safety procedures. But the U.S. Department of Energy, which recently fined contractor Kaiser-Hill $522,500, also must better monitor safety at the former nuclear bomb trigger factory south of Boulder.
Much progress has been made at the facility since a full-court press was launched nearly a decade ago to clean up and close the plant. For example, plutonium pits (the bomb triggers) have been shipped to more secure storage in other states.
That's good - the DOE and Kaiser-Hill deserve praise for what they've accomplished so far. Remember, before the $7 billion fast-track contract was approved in 1995, experts said cleanup would take decades and cost $35 billion.
Yet, a tremendous amount of work remains undone, so it's imperative that the DOE and Kaiser-Hill stay committed to safety. Indeed, public support for fast cleanup - slated to finish by 2006 - is based on the DOE's promise that safety won't be compromised.
Last May, though, Kaiser-Hill workers made several avoidable but worrisome mistakes. One exposed a worker to unsafe levels of radioactivity.
The most troubling episode was a fire inside a two-story "glove box." A trash pile containing plutonium-soaked materials ignited. Instead of immediately calling properly trained emergency crews, workers tried to pour water on the blaze, thereby creating a risk that the highly radioactive material would "go critical," or release an intense burst of radiation. Apparently, workers didn't know the pile contained plutonium - which is alarming, because by that stage of the game, the DOE and Kaiser-Hill should have identified the locations of all plutonium wastes.
The DOE says it "continues to be concerned with (Kaiser-Hill's) recurrent work control deficiencies." Its report describes the accidents with phrases such as "measures were not taken to maintain (safe) radiation exposures," "work was not performed consistent with the technical standards," and "personnel were not adequately trained."
A humbled Kaiser-Hill told the DOE that the company is committed to fixing the problems.
While the DOE ripped Kaiser-Hill for its failings, the public may wonder where the agency's own personnel were when the accidents occurred.
As plant buildings have been closed, the DOE has moved many of its employees off the site. So, agency experts may not stroll around the site as often as in the past, when they could more easily note potential hazards before accidents occurred. And because of budget cuts, an independent federal watchdog called the Defense Nuclear Facilities Board no longer assigns a full-time employee to Rocky Flats.
The DOE's decision to make 50 of its employees part-time safety inspectors is an implicit admission that the agency needs to pay more attention.
The department was right to fine Kaiser-Hill. The government also should remember the slip-ups when deciding on contractor bonuses.
But the DOE should take a hard look at its own decisions - especially its sins of omission. The government is hardly blameless in the matter.
----
Public split on decision at Rocky Flats wildlife area
Support divided among public access, restriction at planned refuge
By Alisha Jeter,
Broomfield Enterprise Staff Writer
March 24, 2004
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/broomfield_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2495_2719580,00.html
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials took comments Thursday night at a public hearing on the planned Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge - mostly from people outside Broomfield's borders.
About 20 people argued in favor of two alternatives under consideration for management of the site - one that would allow public access to trails, hunting and wildlife viewing and one that would leave the nearly 6,000-acre "buffer" area mostly untouched.
Few Broomfield residents attended the meeting, but a contingent of city officials spoke. Two City Council members, the city's Open Space and Trails director Kristan Pritz and others spoke in favor of the plan to allow moderate public access.
That option is known as Alternative B and is among four options. It calls for extensive public access such as more trails and a comprehensive visitor center. One option - Alternative A - would largely leave the site alone at Broomfield's southwestern border and another would promote restoration of the site to its pre-settlement nature.
"I've lived in Broomfield a very long time and I've seen Rocky Flats go through a number of changes. Alternative B accomplishes what I had envisioned for this site," Councilwoman and 30-year resident Lori Cox said, echoing city officials' comments that the plan offered a balanced option between public use and wildlife preservation.
The Fish and Wildlife Service also supports Alternative B.
"We feel that has been a middle of the road (alternative) from what people have told us," said project leader Laurie Shannon.
Rick Warner, a Broomfield resident who helped clean the Rocky Mountain Arsenal site, called the Rocky Flats refuge site "very dangerous" and said he'd prefer to see the site not visited by people, even saying he was concerned efforts to restore the site might kick up contamination.
"It's better to be on the side of caution than the side of haste," Warner said.
Several people raised concerns for public safety on the site, which surrounds the 300-acre industrial area once used in the production of plutonium triggers for nuclear arms.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is not involved in the cleanup of the site, but officials said the Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment must certify the land is clean before it is transferred to the wildlife service for a national wildlife refuge, Shannon said.
Other people argued for and against hunting on the site, as well as dog access. Dogs won't be allowed on the refuge, as wildlife workers worry about the animals harassing wildlife and leaving waste, refuge manager Dean Rundle said. The agency also assumed dog access is ample at Front Range open spaces.
Thursday's meeting was the last of four to comment on the refuge's draft conservation plan and environmental impact statement.
Written comment may still be sent to Laurie Shannon, Rocky Flats Refuge, Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Bldg. 121, Commerce City, CO 80022, or via fax at (303) 289-0579. The deadline for those comments has been extended to April 26.
Rocky Flats cleanup
Rocky Flats clean-up contractor Kaiser-Hill Co., as well as overseers from the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state health department, will discuss cleanup on the site in a public meeting April 14. Upon cleanup, much of the site is to be transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.
The meeting will be at the Broomfield Municipal Center, 1 DesCombes Drive, from 6 to 8 p.m.
-------- africa
Congo Authorities Seize Radioactive Uranium Cases
Story by Dino Mahtani
REUTERS CONGO:
March 24, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24428/story.htm
KINSHASA - Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo seized two cases containing illegal radioactive uranium in the capital, Kinshasa, earlier this month, a senior atomic energy officer said.
The two cases, weighing over 100 kilograms (220 lb), contained a mixture of stable uranium-238 and radioactive uranium-235, said Professor Fortunat Lumu, Congo's General Atomic Energy Officer and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
He told Reuters both cases had a relatively low level of radioactivity but it was "still enough" to cause radioactive contamination if detonated in a home-made bomb.
"We were alerted by state security who seized the cases, and we were able to confirm that they were radioactive," he said.
Some 50 cases of radioactive uranium and highly radioactive caesium have been seized by Congolese authorities in the central African country over the last four years, said Lumu.
Officials say cases carrying radioactive material are smuggled into the country, from where they are traded across sparsely guarded borders to several of Congo's nine neighbors.
They suspect the cases are brought in to Congo for industrial use in the region's oil and mining sectors, bypassing international conventions on shipping radioactive material.
"It is possible that some of the cases brought in for such use are then stolen or traded into the wrong hands, but we cannot say for sure how many times this has happened," Lumu said.
The two cases seized earlier this month were of a similar size to many others smuggled in and could also have been destined for industrial use.
State authority and border controls are often weak or non-existent in the former Zaire, recovering from over five years of a war that involved several of its neighbors.
Most of the illegal cases seized in the past have been discovered in Kinshasa, although identical cases have also been found in neighboring Uganda and Tanzania, said Lumu.
Oil rich Congo Republic is thought to be the most common destination for the nuclear material, with only the Congo river separating its capital, Brazzaville, from Kinshasa in the DRC.
Last week, police in neighboring Zambia arrested two men in possession of a suspected bomb-grade uranium cache, adding they suspected it came from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
-------- britain
Britain faces Brussels nuclear inspection
Wed, 24 Mar 2004
EUpolitix.com
http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200403/78344ad8-2400-4988-819f-55ad692e59e2.htm
The UK next week could face orders from the European Commission finally to let EU safety inspectors check on the controversial Sellafield nuclear power plant.
The commission claims that British authorities have for almost 20 years been blocking attempts to investigate nuclear waste on the Sellafield power plant - most recently whilst insisting on full nuclear checks in Iraq.
And a restricted document, due to be adopted by commissioners next Wednesday, would give London until May to allow inspectors full access to the site, rather than fobbing them off with written assurances as has so far been the case.
Commission sources say that earlier attempts to challenge the UK via a so-called 'written procedure' were blocked by the veto of internal reform chief Neil Kinnock, who said that a May deadline was too early.
The sources add that this "seems a bit strange as they've had ten years."
In particular Brussels objects to the UK's failure to say exactly how much plutonium waste is stored in the outdoor ponds known as B30, and what they intend to do with it.
Radioactivity around B30 is so high that employees can only in safety spend one hour a day there.
The ponds have existed since the 1950s, when no proper records were kept, and the commission has been asking for things to be set straight since 1986 when the site came under the remit of Euratom, the EU nuclear watchdog.
The restricted document claims that a transfer of plutonium is now "highly overdue" and that a significant amount of plutonium "of strategically important nuclear fuel is not properly accounted for".
It further states that "The remaining nuclear material [in B30] is old, unidentified fuel stored in skips or sludge accumulated at the bottom of the pond".
Britain in December 2003 admitted that "it has long been recognised that conditions in B30 mean the safeguard verification activities that can be carried out are limited".
Brussels also says that Sellafield has continuously failed to keep proper operating and accounting records.
If the infringement continues after a May 30 deadline, says the document, it would lead to sanctions on British Nuclear Fuels "proportionate to the severity of the infringements".
-------- depleted uranium
Gulf troops' babies 'are 50pc more vulnerable'
By Nic Fleming
24/03/2004
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/24/ngulf124.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/24/ixnewstop.html
Babies whose fathers served in the first Gulf war are 50 per cent more likely to have physical abnormalities than those born to soldiers not sent to the region, according to a study published today.
Increased risks of genital, urinary and renal abnormalities and deformed limbs, bones and muscles were found in the Ministry of Defence-funded survey.
Of 13,191 pregnancies among the partners of male Gulf veterans, 686, or 5.2 per cent, had some form of physical abnormality, compared with 342, or 3.5 per cent, of the 9,758 non-Gulf pregnancies.
Miscarriages were also 40 per cent more common in the pregnancies of wives and partners of male veterans deployed in the conflict.
Female veterans were found to have no increased risk of suffering miscarriages.
The six-year study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, found no strong link between service in the Gulf and chromosome, heart and nervous system damage in the offspring of veterans or of stillbirths.
Dr Pat Doyle, the epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who led the study, called for close monitoring of babies born to British troops sent to Iraq last year.
Malcolm Hooper, the emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at Sunderland University and an adviser to the veterans, said: "The findings will be very worrying for them.
"I strongly endorse the call for further studies on those who served in Gulf war two.
"There are grave concerns and significant anecdotal evidence about the inability to sustain normal pregnancies as a result of Gulf service."
Dr Doyle said the study was important, but warned against reading too much into the findings. "I believe our findings on renal problems and miscarriages are important and need to be investigated in greater detail," she said.
She added that although "associations were found between fathers' service in the Gulf war and increased risk of miscarriage and other malformations", the findings should be interpreted cautiously because of recall bias, the potential uncertainty of results based on people's memories.
Terry English, of the Royal British Legion, said: "Anecdotal evidence from veterans has suggested a greater rate of miscarriage and this appears to be the first scientific evidence that confirms this."
Of 53,000 British troops sent to the first Gulf war, about 630 have died and almost 6,000 have claimed war pensions.
A range of causes for the illnesses have been suggested including depleted uranium fallout from munitions, vaccinations administered and tablets taken before the conflict.
An MoD spokesman said: "It is important to note the researchers have cautioned that the findings may be susceptible to recall bias, and that it is a comparison with a control group in which miscarriage may have been under reported.
"Independent researchers and the military medicine health advisory group of the Medical Research Council have said that overall there is a lack of evidence to link reproductive health problems to service in the Gulf."
Mandy Duncan, from Clackmannanshire, has had three children since her husband Kenny returned from the Gulf. Kenneth, nine, was born with deformed ears, constant headaches and needs special shoes.
Andrew, eight, wets his bed and has asthma. Heather, six, is partially deaf and suffers bowel and bladder problems.
Mrs Duncan said last night: "I don't need a study to tell me my kids have been affected by Kenny's Gulf service. I want to know what the Government is going to do about it."
----
Stillbirth dangers are 'no greater' for Gulf veterans: Scotsman
Wed 24 Mar 2004
The Scotsman
http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=340262004
GULF War veterans are no more likely to suffer a stillbirth or have a child with deformities than those who did not serve in the early-90s conflict, researchers said today.
The study did find a 40 per cent increased risk of miscarriage among women whose partners served in the Gulf, with some evidence of a higher risk of genital and renal system malformations.
But the researchers said these findings should be interpreted with caution and overall veterans should be reassured that possible exposure to hazardous chemicals and depleted uranium should not affect their reproductive health.
The research, conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was said to be the first epidemiological study of reproductive health among UK troops serving in the conflict.
Earlier this month soldiers who served in the latest war in Iraq voiced concerns about the health of their unborn babies after other parents blamed anthrax jabs for a cluster of infant deaths.
The latest study, funded by the Ministry of Defence, followed concerns raised after the first Gulf War about apparent clusters of birth defects and miscarriages.
The researchers said there was "no strong evidence" for a link between the father's deployment in the Gulf and an increased risk of stillbirth or chromosomal malformations. Female veterans were also found to be at no greater risk of miscarriage.
-------- korea
North Korean Leader Meets China Diplomats
By HANS GREIMEL
Associated Press Writer
Mar 24, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KOREAS_NUCLEAR?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Il held a rare meeting Wednesday with China's foreign minister as the communist allies discussed the region's nuclear dispute.
Beijing said the session was a "very important contact."
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, who arrived Tuesday, is the first foreign minister from Beijing to visit the North in five years. The visit is seen as bolstering the push for a third round of six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programs as efforts to organize working level groups hang in limbo.
As Pyongyang's last major ally, China has taken on the role of host and coordinator of the meetings.
The Chinese diplomat and North Korean officials are expected to discuss a date for the crucial working group meetings, which will seek to nail down details before the next full round of six-nation talks, sometime before July, according to South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.
South Korea has accused the North of dragging its feet on the working groups.
In Hong Kong, a North Korea expert said Pyongyang may skip the next round of nuclear talks because of the uncertainty caused by November's presidential election in the United States. "What are they going to do there? Now, is anybody going to strike a deal?" said Charles Pritchard, a former U.S. State Department official.
It is unlikely that President Bush will offer a deal before the election, while his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, likely would start a direct dialogue with Pyongyang if he wins, Pritchard said.
In Pyongyang, Li's delegation toured a street market, laid flowers at a statue of national founder Kim Il Sung and met various North Korean dignitaries in a "warm atmosphere," according to the North Korea's official KCNA news agency.
Li also met Kim Jong Il, who assumed control from his father after Kim Il Sung's death in 1994.
Li presented greetings from Chinese President Hu Jintao, KCNA reported. Before Li departed for Pyongyang, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kong Quan described the trip as a "very important contact between our two sides."
Earlier in Seoul, South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban said North Korea likely will attend the next six-nation nuclear talks despite its recent rhetoric over U.S.-South Korean military exercises and the impeachment of South Korea's president.
A recent rupture in inter-Korean relations has fanned concern that the communist North might use the joint war games or South's leadership upheaval as grounds for postponing nuclear negotiations.
The U.S. military describes the annual U.S.-South Korean war games, which began earlier this week, as defensive. But North Korea routinely criticizes them as preparation for an invasion.
The United States, two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan have agreed to convene a third round of talks on North Korea's nuclear program by July. A second round ended in Beijing last month without a major breakthrough.
In the meantime, participants are trying to form a "working group" to nail down details. Ban is scheduled to meet Li in Beijing next week.
The United States insists that the North dismantle its nuclear weapons programs completely and verifiably. North Korea says it will only do so if the United States provides economic aid and security guarantees.
North Korea threatened Friday to boost its nuclear arsenal in "quality and quantity," blaming the United States for the lack of progress in nuclear talks.
-------- russia
Russia's nuclear boss says Iran plans back on track
REUTERS RUSSIA:
March 24, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24425/story.htm
MOSCOW - Russia's plans to finish an atomic reactor in Iran are back on track after a pause that followed a tough new resolution on Iran by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Russia's top atomic official said.
Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution that deplored Iran's failure to declare sensitive nuclear technology which could be used to make bomb-grade uranium.
"A certain pause in Russia's cooperation with Iran happened because of an IAEA board meeting where this new resolution on Iran was passed," Alexander Rumyantsev, head of the Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
"But the question of construction of the Bushehr power plant in Iran has never been revised."
The row between Iran and the IAEA prompted industry insiders to suggest Russia, wary of U.S. criticism of its nuclear ties with Iran, could ditch the $800 million project altogether.
Iran later vowed to continue to cooperate with the IAEA as long as Washington, which accuses Iran of seeking atomic arms, does not push its case up to the U.N. Security Council.
"Technical cooperation with Iran on construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant is continuing, and I do not see any reason why we should limit this cooperation," Rumyantsev said.
Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has been locked in months of tough talks with Iran over the project.
The first generating unit of the 1,000-megawatt plant was originally due to have begun full operation in 2003. But as negotiations dragged on, the launch was rescheduled to 2006.
Rumyantsev said "a number of financial issues" had yet to be settled, but did not elaborate.
He did not say whether a key bilateral deal requiring Iran to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia - a measure aimed to alleviate some U.S. concerns - would be signed during his visit to Iran over coming months.
"The Iranian side wants a few months to study what other countries normally do when it comes to returning spent nuclear fuel," he said. "They have, however, said they are in principle ready to sign this document."
-------- treaties
Number of signatories of nuclear test-ban treaty now at 171
VIENNA (AFP)
Mar 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040324163851.if79t69w.html
The Caribbean state of Saint Kitts and Nevis has signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), bringing the total number of signatories to 171, the CTBT office in Vienna said Wednesday.
The office said in a statement that Saint Kitts and Nevis had signed the treaty on Tuesday and that the number of signatories in the Latin America and the Caribbean region "now stands at 27".
But the 1996 test ban treaty had only been ratified as of January by 109 states, the last being Libya that month.
The treaty commits countries which have ratified it to refrain from any kind of nuclear weapons testing.
The treaty appears likely to collapse, however, as all the countries with nuclear capabilities must ratify it in order for it to come into force. The United States has indicated that it has no plans to ratify it.
----
Law of the Sea Treaty Battle Surfaces in the Senate
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
March 24, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2004/2004-03-24-02.asp
President George W. Bush and his administration are in support of Senate ratification for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a top State Department official told a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.
John Turner, assistant secretary of state for oceans policy, reaffirmed the administration's support for the treaty in testimony Tuesday before the Senate Environment Committee.
Senator James Inhofe, Republican chairman of the Senate Environment Committee and a critic of the treaty, cited published newspaper accounts reporting that the Bush administration was retreating from its effort to win Senate endorsement for the treaty under pressure from conservatives who believe it gives the United Nations too much power.
Turner rebutted those reports. "I wouldn't be here testifying before you if there was any retreat or change of position of the administration," Turner said. He expressed the "full support" of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and key national security agencies, he said.
The 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention became legally binding in 1994 after it was ratified by 60 countries. Now ratified by 143 countries, the treaty has been called by the former Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral James Watkins, "the foundation of public order of the oceans."
It sets forth standards for navigating the oceans by commercial and military vessels, fishing on the open seas, mining the sea bed, laying communications cable, and protecting the marine environment.
The Convention gives direct support to the global moratorium on commercial whaling, it supports the creation of sanctuaries and other conservation measures, and requires Parties to cooperate not only with respect to large whales, but with respect to all cetaceans.
President Bill Clinton sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification, but it stalled on opposition from Senator Jesse Helms, then the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
In February, the Foreign Relations Committee, now chaired by Republican Senator Richard Lugar, unanimously approved the treaty after listening to testimony from dozens of witnesses during two hearings in October 2003.
"Our hearings revealed broad support for U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention. They also revealed the need for U.S. accession to be completed swiftly," Lugar wrote in the March 8, 2004 issue of "Navy Times."
In its report, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed its belief that the Convention "advances important U.S. interests" in a number of areas.
"It advances U.S. national security interests by preserving the rights of navigation and overflight across the world's oceans, on which our military relies to protect U.S. interests around the world, and it enhances the protection of these rights by providing binding mechanisms to enforce them."
"It advances U.S. economic interests by enshrining the right of the United States to explore and exploit the vast natural resources of the oceans out to 200 miles from our coastline, and of our continental shelf beyond 200 miles, and by protecting freedom of navigation on the oceans over which more than 28 percent of all U.S. exports and 48 percent of all U.S. imports are transported."
"It advances U.S. interests in the protection of the environment by creating obligations binding on all States to protect and preserve the marine environment from pollution from a variety of sources, and by establishing a framework for further international action to combat pollution."
"Becoming party to the Convention also advances the ability of the United States to play a leadership role in global oceans issues, including by allowing the United States to participate fully in institutions created by the Convention such as the International Seabed Authority, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea," the Lugar committee report states.
The current urgency over U.S. ratification arises because the treaty is open for amendment for the first time later this year. Turner reminded the Senate Environment Committee that the treaty will be open to amendments, whether the United States participates or not. "It seems to me the United States ought to join now," Turner said.
He said he found it "unbelievable" that the United States might not be participating as Russia and other countries start staking out mining claims on the continental shelves.
At the most recent annual meeting of Parties to the treaty in June 2003, Russia was the first country to submit the delineation of its continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical miles that is agreed under the treaty to be the limit of any country's sphere of governance.
Governments are lining up for sea bed mining permits beyond their 200 mile limits, a process controlled under the treaty by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) based in Kingston, Jamaica.
In the 2002 to 2003 time period, the ISA considered the first set of annual reports by seven registered pioneer investors, as well as proposals for regulations for prospecting and exploration for polymetallic sulphides and cobalt rich ferromanganese crusts.
The Bush administration does not want the United States to be left behind in the rush to mine the seabed.
Turner told the Senate Environment Committee that the United States would not need to change any environmental laws or enforcement practices as a result of ratification.
Also, U.S. ratification would promote the Bush administration initiative against weapons proliferation by promoting cooperation with other countries under a common legal framework for boarding and intercepting vessels, Turner said.
Critics of the treaty fear that the material wealth of the seas would be shared among nations under the jurisdiction of the United Nations.
Conservative columnist Frank Gaffney, an official in the Reagan administration who is founding president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC, writes in the "National Review" of February 26, 2004, "U.S. adherence to this treaty would entail history's biggest and most unwarranted voluntary transfer of wealth and surrender of sovereignty."
But Senator Lugar says that the "basic tenets of the treaty" have been U.S. policy since first enunciated by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. "Over the next dozen years the U.S. won in negotiations on the questionable aspects of the treaty, and signed on in 1994," Lugar says, but if the United States is not party to the Convention when amendments are considered, "U.S. ability to protect Convention rights that we fought hard to achieve will be significantly diminished."
A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the presumptive Democratic candidate for President in November, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry says "as a longtime supporter of this treaty" he is in favor of ratification.
Kerry as the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard, warned that provisions of the treaty must not limit the United States' ability to pass laws in its own interests. "Congress must also be assured that we will have the flexibility to enact protections here at home in the absence of international action, or that are more stringent than those that can be agreed upon internationally," he said in a statement published with the committee's report.
On security issues, Kerry said, the treaty "strikes a careful balance between the rights of free passage and the ability of coastal states to protect their borders." He said the United States must ensure that ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention "will not interfere with our ability to protect our ocean borders from terrorist threats."
If a ratification resolution passes the Senate Environment Committee, the Law of the Sea Convention goes to the full Senate where approval of a treaty requires a two-thirds vote in favor. The House of Representatives does not vote because it has no constitutional authority over treaties.
The 14th Meeting of States Parties to the Law of the Sea Convention is scheduled from June 14 to 18, in New York.
The Law of the Sea Convention and related agreements are online at: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm
The Lugar Foreign Relations Committee report with history from the U.S. point of view is online at: http://lugar.senate.gov/sfrc/seareport.pdf
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Yucca Mtn. Waste Site Could Be Delayed
March 24, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- If Congress doesn't provide all of $890 million for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project next fiscal year, the facility will not be able to open on schedule in 2010, a top Energy Department official said at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
``Meeting the 2010 objective will require much greater resources than the program has thus far received,'' said Margaret Chu, who as director of the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management is in charge of the project.
The Bush administration is seeking $559 million, an increase of $155 million, directly for the repository project, including for design and preparation for a license application. The rest of the money would go for developing a plan to transport fuel to the Nevada site and other related programs.
Chu said the department plans to submit its license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December. It will take several years for the review.
``We are committed to the goal of beginning to receive and transport spent nuclear fuel and high-level (government) waste to an NRC-licensed repository in 2010,'' Chu told the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water.
After the hearing she told reporters that without all the money the Bush administration requested, she did not believe the 2010 deadline could be met. She said 2005 ``is a critical year'' for the project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The repository, if built, will hold 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent reactor fuel now at commercial power plants in 31 states and government waste from its nuclear weapons program.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, the subcommittee chairman, said he's confident that the administration funding levels will be approved in the House.
The Senate could be another matter. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, has vowed to cut Yucca Mountain funding as much as possible. Nevada has filed a string of lawsuits and is challenging the waste project in the courts.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department announced it had hired a new law firm to help present the government's case for a license to build and operate the Yucca facility. The Washington D.C., firm of Hunton and Williams will represent the department before the NRC, according to a DOE statement.
It will replace the Chicago firm of Winston & Strawn, which withdrew from the project in November, 2001 because of a conflict or interest dispute. It was discovered that Winston & Strawn had conducted lobbying for a pro-nuclear group while working for the Energy Department.
Hobson said he worried that adding a new legal team at this late date might force the government to play ``catch up'' against the team of lawyers assembled by the state of Nevada as it challenges the NRC license application.
``This is a major last stand'' by the state against the Yucca project, he said.
-------- us politics
Richard Clarke terrorizes the White House
In a provocative Salon interview, the former terrorism czar fires back at the Bush administration, blasting its "big lie" strategy and "attack dog" Dick Cheney.
By Joe Conason
March 24, 2004
Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/24/clarke_moveon/print.html
Editor's Note: Welcome, MoveOn members, to Salon! We wanted to make sure you saw the latest from former NSC counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke. After Clarke's new memoir blasted the White House for doing "a terrible job" fighting terrorism, Vice President Dick Cheney told Rush Limbaugh Clarke was "out of the loop." In a candid interview with Salon, Richard Clarke fights back. Salon usually requires readers to watch a short ad or subscribe in order to view a complete article, but we thought this story was just too important -- so we're giving you full access without further ado.
NEW YORK -- After more than 30 years of dedicated service, including stints as the National Security Council's counterterrorism chief under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Richard A. Clarke has delivered a scathing assessment of Bush administration policy and personnel in his new memoir, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror." Clarke portrays the president and his top aides as arrogant, insular and uninformed about the changed world they faced when they entered the White House in January 2001. They did little about the growing peril from al-Qaida, despite urgent briefings from the outgoing Clinton national security team, and remained willfully ignorant despite repeated, even obsessive warnings from Clarke and CIA director George Tenet.
For almost nine months, according to Clarke, he sought approval from top Bush officials for an aggressive strategy against Osama bin Laden. Clarke writes that he could not convince National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to schedule meetings to advance an action plan against al-Qaida. Instead, George W. Bush and his most powerful officials -- Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz -- pursued an obsession with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. When the Sept. 11 attacks took place, their first instinct was to bomb Iraq -- even though Clarke and other experts had long assured them that there was no intelligence connecting Iraq to any recent acts of terrorism against the United States. On Sept. 12, Bush pulled Clarke aside to demand that he search for evidence of Saddam's involvement, which never existed.
Since Clarke's debut on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday, administration officials have been bombarding him with personal calumny and abuse. They have called him an embittered job-seeker, a publicity-seeking author, a fabricator, a Democratic partisan and, perhaps worst of all, a friend of a friend of John Kerry. On Tuesday Bush himself responded to Clarke's charges, insisting "had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on 9/11, we would have acted."
Clarke, an expert on surprise attacks, is not shocked by the ferocity of the White House response. During an interview with Salon on Tuesday, on the eve of his scheduled public testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission), Clarke blasted Cheney as an "attack dog" and described the administration's attacks on his credibility as another example of the "big lie" strategy it has pursued since winning the White House. While he is critical of all four of the presidents he served, Clarke draws sharp contrasts between the records of the Clinton and Bush administrations. He compares Clinton's understanding of terrorism as the most significant threat to U.S. and international security and his efforts to combat it to the neglect and illusions of Bush.
You said on "60 Minutes" that you expected "their dogs" to be set on you when your book was published, but did you think that the attacks would be so personal?
Oh yeah, absolutely, for two reasons. For one, the Bush White House assumes that everyone who works for them is part of a personal loyalty network, rather than part of the government. And that their first loyalty is to Bush rather than to the people. When you cross that line or violate that trust, they get very upset. That's the first reason. But the second reason is that I think they're trying to bait me -- and people who agree with me -- into talking about all the trivial little things that they are raising, rather than talking about the big issues in the book.
Why did you write the book now? That's a question they raise. Did it occur to you that this would be an election year and it would be especially controversial because of that, and that these commission hearings were coming up?
I wanted the book to come out much earlier, but the White House has a policy of reviewing the text of all books written by former White House personnel -- to review them for security reasons. And they actually took a very long time to do that. This book could have come out much earlier. It's the White House that decided when it would be published, not me. I turned it in toward the end of last year, and even though there was nothing in it that was not already obviously unclassified, they took a very, very long time.
Were you seeking to make a political impact, in the way that the White House spokesmen have accused you of trying to do?
I was seeking to create a debate about how we should have, in the past, and how we should, in the future, deal with the war on terrorism. When they say it's an election year, and therefore you're creating not just a debate but a political debate, what are they suggesting? That I should have waited until November to publish it, waited until after the election? I don't see why we have to delay that debate, just because there's an election.
Vice President Cheney told Rush Limbaugh that you were not "in the loop," and that you're angry because you were passed over by Condi Rice for greater authority. And in fact you were dropped from Cabinet-level position to something less than that. How do you respond to what the Vice President said?
The vice president is becoming an attack dog, on a personal level, which should be beneath him but evidently is not.
I was in the same meetings that Dick Cheney was in, during the days after 9/11. Condi Rice and Dick Cheney appointed me as co-chairman of the interagency committee called the "Campaign Committee" -- the "campaign" being the war on terrorism. So I was co-chairing the interagency process to fight the war on terrorism after 9/11. I don't think I was "out of the loop."
The vice president commented that there was "no great success in dealing with terrorists" during the 1990s, when you were serving under President Clinton. He asked, "What were they doing?"
It's possible that the vice president has spent so little time studying the terrorist phenomenon that he doesn't know about the successes in the 1990s. There were many. The Clinton administration stopped Iraqi terrorism against the United States, through military intervention. It stopped Iranian terrorism against the United States, through covert action. It stopped the al-Qaida attempt to have a dominant influence in Bosnia. It stopped the terrorist attacks at the millennium. It stopped many other terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. embassy in Albania. And it began a lethal covert action program against al-Qaida; it also launched military strikes against al-Qaida. Maybe the vice president was so busy running Halliburton at the time that he didn't notice.
Did Cheney ever ask you a question of that kind when you were in the White House with him?
No.
Why did they keep you on, if they were so uninterested in what you were focused on? And then why did they downgrade your position?
They said, in so many words, at the time, that they didn't have anyone in their Republican coterie of people that came in with Bush, who had an expertise in this [counterterrorism] area [and] who wanted the job. And they actually said they found the job a little strange -- since it wasn't there when they had been in power before.
Dr. Rice said that.
Yes, Dr. Rice said that. And the first thing they asked was for me to look at taking some of the responsibilities, with regard to domestic security and cyber-security, and spinning them off so that they were no longer part of the National Security Council.
Why do you think Cheney -- and the Bush administration in general -- ignored the warnings that were put to them by [former national security advisor] Sandy Berger, by you, by George Tenet, who is apparently somebody they hold in great esteem?
They had a preconceived set of national security priorities: Star Wars, Iraq, Russia. And they were not going to change those preconceived notions based on people from the Clinton administration telling them that was the wrong set of priorities. They also looked at the statistics and saw that during eight years of the Clinton administration, al-Qaida killed fewer than 50 Americans. And that's relatively few, compared to the 300 dead during the Reagan administration at the hands of terrorists in Beirut -- and by the way, there was no military retaliation for that from Reagan. It was relatively few compared to the 259 dead on Pan Am 103 in the first Bush administration, and there was no military retaliation for that. So looking at the low number of American fatalities at the hands of al-Qaida, they might have thought that it wasn't a big threat.
Dr. Rice now says that your plans to "roll back" al-Qaida were not aggressive enough for the Bush administration. How do you answer that, in light of what we know about what they did and didn't do?
I just think it's funny that they can engage in this sort of "big lie" approach to things. The plan that they adopted after Sept. 11 was the plan that I had proposed in January [2001}. If my plan wasn't aggressive enough, I suppose theirs wasn't either.
Is it true that you're a registered Republican, as someone told me yesterday?
Well, I vote in Virginia, and you can't register as a Republican or a Democrat in Virginia. The only way that anybody ever knows your party affiliation in Virginia is when you vote in a primary, because you have to ask for either a Republican or a Democratic ballot. And in the year 2000, I voted in the Republican presidential primary. That's the only record in the state of Virginia of my interest or allegiance.
Will you tell me whom you voted for in the Republican presidential primary in Virginia in 2000?
Yeah, I voted for John McCain.
[Bush press secretary] Scott McClellan said he was deeply offended that you suggested the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented, but I didn't hear you say that.
I didn't say it. I said we'll never know, and I've said that over and over again. We will never know. There were certainly some steps that, had they been taken, would have perhaps resulted in the arrest of two of the hijackers. But we'll never know whether that would have led to the arrests of the others.
McClellan also said that although you criticize the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in the book, you had attempted to become the No. 2 in that department and were passed over -- and that's yet another reason why you wrote this critical book.
They're trying to bait me, and they're trying to get me to answer all these personal issues. You know, the fact is that Tom Ridge opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. George Bush opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. And then one day, they turned on a dime and supported it. Why?
As I said in the book, the White House legislative affairs people counted votes. Senator [Joseph] Lieberman had proposed the bill to create the Department of Homeland Security -- and the legislative affairs people said Lieberman has the votes; it's going to pass. They said, "You've got the possible situation here, Mr. President, where you're going to have to veto the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. And if you don't support it now, if you don't make it your proposal, not only will it pass but it will be called the Lieberman bill."
The Lieberman-McCain bill.
The Lieberman-McCain bill, in fact. So that there were two outcomes possible. One in which we have this Frankenstein department, created during the middle of the war on terrorism, reorganizing during the middle of a war. That was possible. It was also possible that a second thing would happen, and that was that Lieberman would get credit for it. And therefore the president changed his position overnight, and became a big supporter of the Department of Homeland Security.
Did you see a memo to that effect? I wondered about that when I was reading the book, because you don't say how you know they gave the president that advice.
No, I don't say ... It was from oral conversations in the White House.
In the first chapter of your book, which I must say is gripping, you give your account of your actions on 9/11, when great authority was turned over to you [by Cheney and Rice]. Is there an issue of disloyalty or ingratitude there? To be honest, it seemed to me that you saved their asses that day.
Well, that's for other people to say. As regards my loyalty to President Bush, I was a career civil servant. I wasn't loyal to any particular political machine. When the president makes a big mistake -- like he has in the way that he has fought the war on terrorism by going into Iraq -- I think personal loyalty or party loyalty has got to be put aside.
Did you speak up about the U.S. going into Iraq? Now, one of the more substantive criticisms of you by the White House is that you didn't say anything about it. You let that go, you kept your job and didn't resign in protest -- or according to them, do anything that suggested you were so strongly opposed to their plan for war.
If they were listening, they would have heard me. I started saying on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 that their idea of responding to the terrorist attacks by going to war with Iraq was not only misplaced but counterproductive.
Before Sept. 11, I was so frustrated with the way they were handling terrorism that I had asked to be reassigned to a different job. And the job I proposed was a job I helped to create -- a job to look at the nation's vulnerability to cyber-attack. So that job was supposed to be one that I went into on Oct. 1 [2001]; the actual transfer was delayed, of course, because Sept. 11 intervened. But it's important to realize that I asked for that transfer out of the counterterrorism job before Sept. 11, out of frustration with the Bush administration's handling of terrorism.
When I was doing the cyber-security job, toward the end of 2001 and into 2002, I wasn't asked for my opinion on Iraq. I wasn't in a position to give my opinion on Iraq. I was carrying a different portfolio. They certainly didn't come and ask me. But I made it very clear to Condi Rice, although she may choose to forget it, that I thought going into Iraq was a mistake. And I thought if you did have to go in -- if the president was determined to do that -- then it had to be done within the United Nations context.
What is your estimation of Dr. Rice, given that you have known and worked with the past seven or eight national security advisors?
I don't want to get involved in personal attacks on her just because she's involved in personal attacks on me. I think she has a great personal relationship with the president, and that's one of the best things a national security advisor can have. I think she has a great understanding of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Central Europe, which was the area of her expertise before she became national security advisor ... She's very, very knowledgeable about that.
You criticize both the Bush and Clinton administrations, although I have to say the press coverage of your discussion of the Clinton administration varies considerably from what is actually in your book ...
I'm glad you noticed.
I did notice that ... How different were the two administrations in their approaches to terrorism?
Well, prior to 9/11, the Bush administration didn't have an approach to terrorism. They'd never gotten around to creating an administration policy. It was in the process of doing so, but it hadn't achieved that. And it was clear that the national security advisor didn't like this kind of issue; she didn't have meetings on this issue. The president didn't have meetings on the issue of terrorism.
Now the White House is saying, oh, they had meetings every day. But let's be clear about what those meetings every day were. Every day George Tenet, the CIA director, would do the morning intelligence briefing of the president, and he would raise the al-Qaida threat with great frequency. That's not the same as having a meeting to decide what to do about it. That's not the same as the president shaking the lapels of the FBI director and the attorney general and saying, "You've got to stop the attack."
Apparently on one occasion -- of all these many, many days when George Tenet mentioned the al-Qaida threat -- the president on one occasion said, "I want a strategy. I don't want to swat flies." Well, months or certainly weeks went by after that, and he didn't get his strategy because Condi Rice didn't hold the meeting necessary to approve it and give it to him. And yet George Bush appears not to have asked for it a second time.
In fact, he told Bob Woodward in "Bush at War" that he kind of knew there was a strategy being developed out there, but he didn't know at what stage it was in the process. Well, if he was so focused on it, he would have kept asking where the strategy was. He would have known where it was in the process. He would have demanded that it be brought forward. He had a fleeting interest.
Did you have access to the president's daily briefings?
On a daily basis, no; I did see some of them. There was never any system in place that worked to get them to me every day.
Did you see the PDB for Aug. 6, 2001 [which reportedly contained references to an impending attack by al-Qaida]?
I really can't recall it. I think its importance has been overblown. What happens in the presidential daily briefing is that the president asks questions of the briefer, which is usually Tenet on Monday through Friday. And the briefer then takes notes of the questions and goes back to CIA to get papers written to respond to the questions.
In response to the drumbeat day after day of intelligence that there was going to be an al-Qaida attack, the president apparently said, "Tell me what al-Qaida could do." And in response to that the CIA went off and wrote a paper that listed everything possible that al-Qaida could do. It didn't say we have intelligence that tells us the attack will be here or there, the attack method will be this or that. It was rather a laundry list of possible things they could do.
Do you think it's true that the Saudis gained added influence when the Bush crowd returned to the White House?
The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, had worn out his welcome in the Clinton White House. But he had very, very good ties to the Bush family. His standing, his influence greatly increased when the Bush people came back into power.
Were you aware of the Saudi airlifts of their nationals after 9/11, at the time that they were happening?
What I am aware of is that sometime after 9/11, in the days immediately thereafter, the Saudi embassy requested to evacuate some of its nationals because it feared there would be retribution. That information came to me and I was asked to approve it. I said no, I would not approve it, until the FBI approved it. And I asked the FBI to approve it, to look at the names of people on the flight manifests, and the FBI approved it.
Now, there's a big tempest about this in retrospect. People think the FBI should have done a better job of looking at the names. The FBI could have called me and said they wanted more time, and I would have given it to them. They could have said they want this individual or that individual detained, and I would have said fine. I am still unaware to this day of anyone who left on any of those flights who the FBI now wants.
Were you concerned about your friendship with Rand Beers being used, as it is now, to suggest that you did this in order to help John Kerry in his presidential campaign?
This is the most interesting charge against me -- that I am a friend of Rand Beers, as if that's some terrible thing. Who is Rand Beers? Until a year ago, he was someone who was working for George Bush in the White House. He worked for George Bush's father in the White House. He worked for Ronald Reagan in the White House. But now it's a terrible thing to be a friend of Rand Beers? He and I have been friends for 25 years. I'm not going to disown him because he's working for John Kerry. He's my friend, he's going to stay my friend, we teach a course together [at Harvard]. He works for John Kerry. I don't.
About the writer
Joe Conason writes a twice weekly column for Salon. He also writes a weekly column for the New York Observer. His new book, "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth," is now available.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Sets Up Base in Afghan Mountains
By NOOR KHAN
Associated Press Writer
Mar 24, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AL_QAIDA_SPECIAL_OPS_CAMP?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ON THE AFGHAN BORDER (AP) -- Using bulldozers to slice bunkers and a helicopter landing pad out of a mountainside, U.S. special operations forces dug in Tuesday on a peak overlooking Pakistan - fortifying the area for the intensifying battle against al-Qaida and Taliban forces.
Special operations forces - who include Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and CIA operatives - are playing a secretive but leading role in the battle against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects believed to be hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan's tribal areas.
Remote posts like this one near the Afghan city of Orgun, scratched out of a mountainside to house a small contingent of U.S. forces and a larger Afghan militia unit, serve as forward launch pads for the fight.
An Associated Press writer on Tuesday became the first to report from the special operations' observation post since the start of Operation Mountain Storm, a 2-week-old American offensive designed to capture Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants.
Village elders in this hamlet of 45 families in Paktika province said the Americans arrived 18 days ago with Afghan militia. The camp is home to 60 Americans, working with 200 Afghan militia, the Afghan militiamen say. The Westerners wear T-shirts and sunglasses, and most sport beards and mustaches, with pistols strapped to their legs. Rank and file U.S. soldiers must remain in uniform and are banned from growing beards, but special operations forces are not subject to the same regulations.
Villagers see the Americans out building their base and patrolling, at times with allied Afghan militia - helping close the border against what villagers say are frequent incursions by al-Qaida and Taliban.
The U.S. military says its forces also are sharing information with Pakistani troops across the border - intelligence typically coming everywhere from satellites to intercepted radio calls.
On Tuesday, the Americans were erecting 100 yards of wire fence along the border beside their base. They also dug holes, which will become bunkers, to live in while their Afghan allies put up tents.
Workers used construction equipment to level a helipad.
Americans around the camp refused to speak to AP. Relaying their request through Afghan militiamen, they eventually asked the reporter to leave, saying no journalists were allowed in the area.
The U.S. military as a matter of policy does not comment on special operations. But asked about buildup along the Afghan-Pakistan border in the area, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said: "We do have some positions that are constantly changing. We are constantly rearranging."
On the Pakistan side, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has said about a dozen U.S. "technical experts" are in his country. Some are located across the border from the special operations post in Miran Shah, Pakistani intelligence officials told AP.
Last week, a Pakistani army spokesman, Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said a dozen or so U.S. intelligence agents were in the country "assisting Pakistan in technical intelligence and surveillance." The CIA declined to comment.
Afghan villagers near the new post said they welcomed the U.S. crackdown, saying they have come under a growing cross-border rocket barrage from Pakistan.
"So many rockets. We are living in fear of rockets," said shopkeeper Shawar Khan in Sisandi, a village near the U.S. encampment.
Both sides of the border around Miran Shah have come under repeated rocket attacks by militants hoping to hit U.S. or Afghan military posts. Authorities blame al-Qaida fugitives and allied Pakistan tribesmen. Taliban fighters are believed to be hiding in the mountains as well.
No uniformed American forces have been seen in recent days along one of the front lines in the U.S. campaign against terror suspects based in Pakistan's North and South Waziristan, locals say.
Across the border and about 45 miles to the south, in South Waziristan, Pakistan's military has arrested scores in its toughest and bloodiest operation against terror suspects in the tribal areas since Musharraf allied with the United States against terror in 2001.
These mountains in Afghanistan are a hot spot as well. On March 5, U.S. special operations forces killed nine suspected insurgents near this stretch of border when a group of 30 to 40 men appeared to try to flank a U.S.-Afghan position here, the U.S. military said.
Village leaders say Taliban and al-Qaida attackers cross the border at will. Asked for proof, they laughed, as if there could be no doubt.
"Everyone can come easily into Afghanistan. Everyone can go easily into Pakistan," said Mohammed Khan, another shopkeeper in Sisandi. "There are no Afghan checkpoints."
"For 2 1/2 years, they are coming and attacking" from Waziristan, said Shawar Khan. "That's why in this area, there are no schools, there's no health clinics, there's no development. Everyone is afraid to come to our area."
Since the Americans' arrival, villagers have stayed inside after dark, saying the U.S. security outweighed the inconvenience of the curfew.
The U.S. and Afghan forces have closed this part of the border, at least, to any attacks, Mohammed Khan said.
"Right now, from this area, it's impossible that anyone can come," the villager said. "But it's a huge border."
Associated Press writer Munir Ahmad contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan.
-------- africa
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Ethnic Cleansing, Again
March 24, 2004
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/opinion/24KRIS.html?hp
ALONG THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER - The most vicious ethnic cleansing you've never heard of is unfolding here in the southeastern fringes of the Sahara Desert. It's a campaign of murder, rape and pillage by Sudan's Arab rulers that has forced 700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villages.
The desert is strewn with the carcasses of cattle and goats, as well as fresh refugee graves that are covered with brush so wild animals will not dig them up. Refugees crowd around overused wells, which now run dry, and they mourn loved ones whose bodies they cannot recover.
Western and African countries need to intervene urgently. Sudan's leaders should not be able to get away with mass murder just because they are shrewd enough to choose victims who inhabit a poor region without airports, electricity or paved roads.
The culprit is the Sudanese government, one of the world's nastiest. Its Arab leaders have been fighting a civil war for more than 20 years against its rebellious black African south. Lately it has armed lighter-skinned Arab raiders, the Janjaweed, who are killing or driving out blacks in the Darfur region near Chad.
"They came at 4 a.m. on horseback, on camels, in vehicles, with two helicopters overhead," recalled Idris Abu Moussa, a 26-year-old Sudanese farmer. "They killed 50 people in my village. My father, grandmother, uncle and two brothers were all killed."
"They don't want any blacks left," he added.
Most refugees have stories like that. "They took the cattle and horses, killed the men, raped the women, and then they burned the village," said Abubakr Ahmed Abdallah, a 60-year-old refugee who escaped to Toukoultoukouli in Chad.
"They want to exterminate us blacks," said Halime Ali Souf. Her husband was killed, and she fled into Chad with her infant.
Once refugees like Ms. Halime have fled into Chad, their troubles are not over. The only source of water for many border villages is the riverbed, or wadi, marking the boundary between the two countries, and the Janjaweed regularly shoot men who go there to get water or gather wood.
Zakaria Ibrahim was shot dead a few days ago. "He went to get sticks to build a hut," said his haggard widow, Hawai Abdulyaya, who is left with five children.
The Janjaweed regularly invade Chad to seize cattle and attack Sudanese refugees. In addition, the Sudanese Army has dropped bombs on Chadian villages like Tiné and Besa.
These skirmishes are taking place in a sparsely populated land of sand, shrubs and occasional oases. The only roads are dirt tracks barely navigable by four-wheel-drive vehicles - except when the rainy season makes the area completely impassible. (Join me for a multimedia tour of Africa at www.nytimes.com/kristof.)
The U.N.'s Sudan coordinator, Mukesh Kapila, described the situation in a BBC interview on Friday as similar in character, if not scale, to the Rwanda genocide of 1994. "This is ethnic cleansing," he said. "This is the world's greatest humanitarian crisis, and I don't know why the world isn't doing more about it."
Countless thousands of black Sudanese have been murdered, and 600,000 victims of this ethnic cleansing have fled to other parts of Sudan and are suffering from malnutrition and disease. The 110,000 who have fled into Chad are better off because of the magnificent response of the Chadian peasants. Chadians are desperately poor themselves, but they share what little food and water is available with the Sudanese refugees.
"If we have food or water, we'll share it with them," said a Chadian peasant, Adam Isak Abubakr. "We can't leave them like this."
Let's hope that we Americans will show the same gumption and compassion. We should call Sudan before the U.N. Security Council and the world community and insist that it stop these pogroms. To his credit, President Bush has already led the drive for peace in Sudan, doing far more to achieve a peace than all his predecessors put together. Now he should show the same resolve in confronting this latest menace.
In the 21st century, no government should be allowed to carry out ethnic cleansing, driving 700,000 people from their homes. If we turn away simply because the victims are African tribespeople who have the misfortune to speak no English, have no phones and live in one of the most remote parts of the globe, then shame on us.
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Findings Reopen Rwanda's Wounds
French Judge Says Kagame's Orders Triggered Genocide
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19055-2004Mar23.html
KIGALI, Rwanda - Ever since an airplane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down late on the night of April 6, 1994, the mystery behind the incident has been this Central African country's equivalent of the JFK assassination. Hutus blamed Tutsis, Tutsis blamed Hutus. But at the time, no one was interested in talking. Answering the question is essential to unraveling the history of this impoverished country as it tries to recover from one of the world's bloodiest genocides. The death of Rwanda's president, Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, launched the 100-day slaughter of nearly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
But a recent investigation by a French judge offers a controversial explanation for the killing. It accuses Rwanda's current president, Paul Kagame, of giving the command to shoot down the plane. The accusation prompted a fiery response from Kagame, who was then the military chief of a mostly Tutsi rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Kagame accused the French, who backed the Habyarimana dictatorship, of trying to cover up their own complicity in the killing spree.
"The French knew about it. They supported it. They provided weapons, they gave orders and instructions to those who carried out the genocide," Kagame told Radio France International last week. "They also took part in the operations directly at checkpoints on roads to identify people according to their ethnic background, by punishing the Tutsis and showing favoritism to the Hutus."
The French government, which had troops in Rwanda at the time, has denied the charges.
With dozens of heads of state from Africa and elsewhere set to arrive by April 7 for ceremonies and conferences marking the 10th anniversary of the genocide, the bitter accusations and counter accusations have deepened the acrimony between France and Kagame's government, reopening one of the genocide's most troubling questions.
The results of the French investigation -- requested by the families of the presidential jet's pilots but kept classified for six years -- were published last month in the French newspaper Le Monde. In the latest twist, the United Nations announced it had discovered a crucial piece of evidence -- the jet's flight recorder -- in a filing cabinet at U.N. headquarters in New York. But within days, the United Nations said the black box shipped from Africa a decade ago contained a 30-minute conversation from a different flight.
That's when Kagame and his top aides, trying to quiet the diplomatic spat, played down the importance of the mystery.
"We cannot be diverted by those who want to make this an issue. I don't think it's important for the survivors to find out who shot down the plane," said Emmanuel Ndahiro, a close presidential adviser. "We should be helping the people who are still alive, not worried about something that happened in the past."
But establishing responsibility for setting the massacres in motion lies at the heart of the passionate debate within Rwandan civil society and among international human rights groups over the causes of the genocide.
"We are not just talking about any plane," said Francois Grignon, the Central Africa project director for the International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based research organization. "This is an important key to Rwanda's history."
Some say Kagame and his rebel movement shot down the plane to spark a war that would enable the Tutsis to seize power and allow the return of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi refugees from Uganda and other neighboring countries.
Others say the astonishing speed with which the genocide started after Habyarimana's death reflected months of planning. Within hours of the attack on the plane, Hutu militias set up roadblocks and broadcast radio diatribes rallying Hutus to kill Tutsis.
Rwanda today is a place where survivors and those who killed and raped are uneasy neighbors. The country is about to launch a nationwide plan to try some genocide suspects in village courts -- known as gacca -- where the accused ask for forgiveness.
On the hilly, tree-lined streets of Kigali, people were tight-lipped when asked about the French report linking Kagame to Habyarimana's killing. Many are reluctant to challenge a government that they say stifles dissent by labeling anyone who questions it a "divisionist" bent on another genocide.
The government now refers to New York-based Human Rights Watch as "Hutu Rights Watch" and accuses one of the group's researchers, Alison DesForges, of being a "genocide apologist." DesForges and other human rights groups accused Kagame of manipulating last year's presidential election by intimidating Hutu and Tutsi opposition candidates.
In the end, Rwandans may never know who fired the shot that launched the genocide. Those trying to educate young Rwandans about the genocide say the edgy uncertainty is part of Rwanda's history.
"We are talking about a country divided throughout its history. The entire country is traumatized," said John Rutayisire, a prominent Rwandan educator in Kigali. "Security lies not in our missiles or AK-47s, but in people's minds."
-------- arms
US, India to work on gadgets for 'futuristic' soldiers: report
NEW DELHI (AFP)
Mar 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040324064257.27nhdrqg.html
India and the United States will work together to develop gadgets for "futuristic land warriors" who will carry tracking devices and other communications systems along with weapons, a report said Wednesday.
The new-style soldiers would be used in low-intensity conflicts and carry equipment such as compact radio transmitters, tracking devices, antennas and built-in cooling systems, The Asian Age said.
The development work will start in June and be carried out by India's leading Defence Research and Development Organisation and US laboratories chosen by Washington, the newspaper said.
Indian and US military ties have warmed sharply over the past few years after the two nations were on opposite sides during the Cold War.
The Indian research organisation said Washington has an ongoing "land warrior" project under which new technologies for "futuristic soldiers" are being developed, and that India will launch one soon.
The Indian research group chief V.K. Atre said the high-tech gadgets would require backup power for which miniature batteries would need to be developed.
The Indian organisation will coordinate with the US laboratories. They will work independently and meet up every three or four months to swap notes.
Atre said the United State was also keen to share India's experiences in keeping soldiers fit in extreme climates. Indian soldiers have to endure freezing temperatures high in the Himalayas along the country's disputed Kashmir frontier with Pakistan as well as searing heat.
In addition, the two countries would work together on a project to develop vaccines to counter biological and chemical warfare, the report said.
-------- balkans
Kosovo Marks Anniversary of NATO Bombing
By FISNIK ABRASHI
Associated Press Writer
Mar 24, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KOSOVO_CLASHES?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- Ethnic Albanians marked the fifth anniversary of the start of a NATO-led bombing campaign on Wednesday even as the alliance tracked down suspects behind recent violence that has deepened ethnic hatreds in the province.
The top U.N. official in Kosovo, Harri Holkeri, appealed for a new beginning following the worst violence since the end of war in 1999. He called on people to isolate those who "tried to destroy the whole future of Kosovo."
"They are responsible for severe crimes against humanity," Holkeri said Tuesday.
Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova called for people to remember the "one of the most important dates of Kosovo's history." Billboards were erected throughout the provincial capital, Pristina, reading, "Days of Hope - The New Beginning."
In Belgrade, the capital of Serbia-Montenegro, memorial services were scheduled for the Serbs slain in the alliance bombing campaign.
Despite appeals for calm in Kosovo, attackers ambushed a police patrol in the village of Sakovica, 15 miles northeast of Pristina, killing one officer from Ghana and one local officer, as well as one of the assailants, said U.N. police spokesman Derek Chappell. An interpreter was seriously injured.
"This is a very extensive crime scene," Chappell said. "A lot of bullets have been fired."
The red and white U.N. police car was run off the side of the road, its blue light still flashing. NATO-led peacekeepers and police reinforcements arrived at the scene and started searching a small hill with flashlights.
The attack - only the second in Kosovo involving an international police officer - seemed certain to increase tensions that were already high following last week's rioting by ethnic Albanian mobs that left 28 people dead, about 600 injured and 4,000 homeless.
Some 366 Serb homes and 41 churches or monasteries were burned in the rampage that followed the drowning of two ethnic Albanian boys allegedly chased into a river by Serbs.
International officials have blamed the recent spate of attacks targeting Serbs on ethnic Albanian extremists. They also have sharply criticized the province's leaders for failing to directly condemn attacks on Serbs.
The ethnic clashes overshadowed the anniversary marking the first day of NATO's 78-day air war, which was launched to stop former President Slobodan Milosevic from cracking down on ethnic Albanians seeking independence.
Kosovo has been an international protectorate since then, its final status to be decided by the United Nations. For now, it officially remains a part of Serbia-Montenegro, the successor state of Yugoslavia.
The European Union's top foreign policy chief Javier Solana - who ordered the NATO bombing five years ago when he was NATO chief - toured a school burned during the recent rioting in the city of Kosovo Polje.
Solana and EU Commissioner Chris Patten were expected to meet later with local leaders to condemn the violence.
Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has criticized the U.N. mission and NATO, saying they bear "some responsibility" for failing to prevent last week's violence, which Belgrade dubbed "ethnic cleansing" of Serbs in Kosovo.
The extent of the latest violence underscored the depth of hatred between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who want independence, and Serbs, who want Kosovo to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro.
It also raised questions about why NATO - in charge of keeping the peace in Kosovo since the end of the war - was unable to prevent it or stop it fast.
While the United Nations administers Kosovo and U.N. police are expected to keep law and order, the presence of nearly 20,000 NATO-led peacekeepers was - until last week - believed to be a strong deterrent to major violence.
A NATO commander in the central part of Kosovo apologized for failing to anticipate the potential for trouble.
"We got it wrong," Brig. Gen. Anders Braennstroem said at a meeting with leaders from the Serb communities near Pristina. "For that, I am very sorry."
--------
Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence
March 24, 2004
By NICHOLAS WOOD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/international/europe/24KOSO.html?pagewanted=all&position=
SVINJARE, Kosovo, March 23 - There is not much left of this village. Every Serbian house has been burned - all 136 of them. Smoke still rises from some of the embers of buildings where some 320 people lived until last week, when they were forced from their homes by an ethnic Albanian mob.
The only houses left standing were a group in the center of the village, each with an Albanian flag on the door or roof to ward off intruders.
Yet Svinjare is in a region of Kosovo under the authority of the United Nations. It lies just 600 yards from a camp of United Nations peacekeepers whose task is to protect the people living there.
The village was among dozens of Serbian communities across Kosovo attacked by ethnic Albanians during two days of violence last week, during which United Nations officials now say 28 people died.
More than 400 Serbian homes were ruined, 30 churches were destroyed and 11 damaged, and 72 United Nations vehicles were destroyed, United Nations officials said. They acknowledged that Svinjare (pronounced SVIN-yah-reh) was among the worst cases, though no one died there. United Nations police and soldiers managed to evacuate the village in time.
There were mirror-image scenes in Kosovo just less five years ago. Then, hundreds of villages were burned as Serbian security forces sought to expel the majority ethnic Albanians - some 1.8 million people - from the territory.
The United States government estimates that up to 10,000 Albanians were killed in massacres by the Serbian police and paramilitaries.
In March 1999, NATO forces intervened with a bombing campaign. By June, the Serbian forces withdrew and the United Nations was placed in charge of the province. Some 800,000 Albanian refugees began to return home. Many of them sought revenge against their Serbian neighbors, and once again whole villages went up in flames.
United Nations officials have said that progress has been made and that interethnic violence has declined. But analysts say the underlying cause of those conflicts has never been addressed, even by the United Nations: What should become of Kosovo?
The ethnic Albanians want independence. The Serbs, who make up less than 10 percent of the population, want to return to Serbian rule. Albanian hard-liners, some United Nations officials believe, want to redraw the province's ethnic map again, by seeking to fuel interethnic hatred.
A senior police commander said the apparent failure of the peacekeepers demonstrated how their concern over possible mass violence had diminished as interethnic relations appeared to improving.
"Maybe we were a little bit sleepy," said Lt. Col. Jerzy Szezytynski, the commander of the Polish Special Police Unit in Kosovo, who has worked in the province since 1999. "It was a big surprise for all of us." But he said the United Nations - with more than 3,000 troops in the northern region, bolstered by several hundred police officers - should have been able to stop the violence. "It was a failure," he said.
A spokesman for the French brigade in charge in northern Kosovo, Lt. Matthieu Mabin, said the violence had spread too quickly and across too wide an area. "We can't protect everywhere all of the time," he said. "It's the reality on the ground, very simply."
The United Nations' spokeswoman in Kosovo, Jing Hua, said the United Nations troops had restored order quickly. "The developments here took everyone by surprise," she said, "but within two days they had gained control of the situation."
The situation remains volatile, however. Two policemen were killed late Tuesday when their patrol car came under fire on the main road between Kosovo's capital, Pristina, and Pudujevo, close to the boundary with Serbia.
Svinjare villagers said they were alerted to the possibility of an attack last Thursday, a day after violence erupted in the neighboring city of Mitrovica. That afternoon, a United Nations police car drove at high speed toward the north of Svinjare. Svinjare was the only Serbian village bordering the Albanian-dominated south of Mitrovica, just half a mile away.
The rioting was continuing in Mitrovica for a second day. Villagers said the entrance to Svinjare was being protected by a truck filled with seven or eight Moroccan peacekeepers. Lieutenant Mabin, the French brigade spokesman, said 20 soldiers were on duty.
Pedrag Antic, 49, a former electrician, said he was standing at the end of the village with four other men when the speeding United Nations police car slowed to pull alongside the Moroccan patrol. Within seconds, he said, several hundred youths came into sight, running along the road by the perimeter fence of the French base.
Mr. Antic said he and his neighbors began warning families nearby to retreat into the village. "I can't even find the words to describe how fast they were coming," he said.
Suddenly, he said three armored United Nations police jeeps carrying 12 officers came from behind the youths and reached the edge of the village before them. But the mob continued to advance, and within minutes, he said, houses at the village's northern end were being set alight. In less than 15 minutes, he said, perhaps a dozen houses were ablaze.
"We were shouting at the police to stop them," he said.
Mr. Antic's cousin, Milas Antic, 49, recalled his terror. "I thought we would all be dead," he said.
Pedrag Antic and several other villagers said the United Nations police officers and the Moroccan patrol did nothing to stop the mob but drove parallel to it as the young men threw Molotov cocktails, set more buildings on fire and fired guns. A regional commander of the United Nations police said his unit fired 7 to 10 shots to ward off the group.
The mixed convoy of police and military vehicles drew to a halt several hundred yards into the village, ahead of the mob, forming a roadblock. Villagers said the youths began to pull back.
Meanwhile, as a precaution, soldiers arranged for the village's women and children to be taken to the French base, Camp Belvedere. But then the soldiers told the villagers that they could not defend the village, and that every one would have to leave.
Svinjare had been reinforced by then, according to the United Nations police and the peacekeeping force, with an additional 20 soldiers and 50 Polish antiriot police officers.
"We asked them if they could secure us, but they were trying to convince us they were not able, because they had to go elsewhere," Pedrag Antic said.
The decision to evacuate was taken by the French general responsible for Northern Kosovo, Gen. Xavier Michel, Lieutenant Mabin said, because the French forces were needed elsewhere. He said he did not know where.
"We had a choice between human lives or houses," he said. "It was clear we had to save lives."
The families were loaded onto a bus. "People were crying and yelling," said Capt. Cezary Luba of the Polish unit. Most villagers said they left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.
The Polish troops were also ordered to leave the village, the police said. The threats to Albanians were spreading; the Poles were sent to help protect groups of Albanian-speaking Roma in a town to the south of Mitrovica. But their commander, Colonel Szezytynski, said there were still enough peacekeepers in the village to defend it. "There were only five houses burning when they left," he said, referring to his men. "When they passed by again all the houses were on fire."
About 100 men from the village made their way on foot to the base, which lies on a hill overlooking the village. So they saw the mob returning, shortly after nightfall, he said, and they saw the fires.
Graffiti left on the scorched walls suggests the Albanians intended to rebuild the village for themselves. "Taken by Qerkim," "Taken by Safeti," and other Albanian names.
The peacekeepers evacuated 204 people to the French camp; they have now been moved to an empty housing project in the Serb-dominated northern side of Mitrovica, on a hill where they can still see their village.
"We really believed KFOR would come to protect us, but you see how it turned out," said Milorad Vasic, referring to the peacekeeping force. Mr. Vasic fled his house with his wife and three children.
"We lived in hope," he said. "We counted on them. They told us they were democrats. We thought it would get better. That's why we stayed."
-------- business
BAE Appoints Oil Executive As New Head
Mar 24, 2004
(AP)
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BAE_CHAIRMAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
LONDON -- BAE Systems PLC, Britain's largest aerospace and defense contractor, has named oil industry veteran Dick Olver as chairman, the company said Wednesday.
Olver, currently deputy chief executive at energy group BP PLC, will take over from retiring BAE chairman Sir Richard Evans on July 1.
Olver, 57, is an engineer by training and has worked at BP for 30 years. BAE will appoint him as a non-executive director on May 17 before his becoming chairman.
Olver will continue his association with BP, serving as deputy chairman of its Russian joint venture TNK-BP starting in May. He also will work as a consultant for BP, the energy company said.
In addition, Olver is a non-executive director of media and information group Reuters Group PLC. Olver joins BAE as it tries to expand its already substantial business in the United States and profit from U.S. government spending on defense.
BAE has long expressed its openness to a possible trans-Atlantic merger, arguing that European defense groups can't compete in the future without access to U.S. technologies. American defense company General Dynamics Corp. reportedly broke off exploratory talks about a merger with BAE in October.
--------
Military Was Sold Lead-Tainted Fabric for Tents
March 24, 2004
By NEIL A. LEWIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/24TENT.html
WASHINGTON, March 23 - Almost three-fourths of the camouflage-patterned tents, tarpaulins and jeep covers used by the United States military throughout the world are made from fabric manufactured with toxic lead compounds that can cause a variety of illnesses including cancer, according to undisputed evidence in a lawsuit being tried mostly behind closed doors in federal court.
While the chemicals - lead chromate, hexavalent chromium and trivalent chromium - are prohibited by the military in the fabrics it buys, a Pentagon spokesman said last week that tests by the Army have shown that they are present in the tent fabric, though in concentrations too small to pose any risk.
"We determined that even though it was out there, the products were safe for continued use without restriction," said Maj. Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesman. "There is no risk to the troops."
Lawyers for the plaintiff who first brought the suit say that an outside expert they hired to review the report believes that the military's tests were inadequate and inconclusive.
Even though the Pentagon says the fabric poses no threat, the company that used the lead and chromium compounds in the manufacture of camouflage fabrics, the BondCote Corporation of Pulaski, Va., is being sued by the government in Federal District Court in Savannah, Ga. It is also the subject of a federal criminal investigation in Virginia.
The Justice Department, according to a document in the case, has proposed a settlement of the civil suit against the contractor by imposing a penalty of $1.7 million. Pentagon officials declined to provide a precise figure for how much business BondCote has done with the military, beyond saying it provides more than 70 percent of the camouflage fabrics used by subcontractors.
The discovery and investigation of the material began after a Virginia resident, Keith Ayers, filed a citizen's complaint 14 months ago against BondCote charging that it was secretly using lead chromate to lower its costs in providing camouflage fabrics to meet military specifications. Most of the filings in the suit have been sealed by the court.
The suit by Mr. Ayers, who had a business dispute with BondCote, was brought using the federal False Claims Act, a law that allows private citizens to sue contractors for defrauding the government. Under the law, sometimes known as the whistle-blower's act, an individual can sue on behalf of the government and, if successful, can be rewarded with a percentage of any settlement.
The law also allows the government to assume control of the lawsuit; that is what happened in the BondCote case. Mr. Ayers and his lawyers are challenging the $1.7 million figure as far too small.
"This was a massive fraud on the military, with the potential for serious illness," said Mike Bothwell, the Georgia lawyer who helped Mr. Ayers bring his lawsuit and who first contacted The Times about the issue.
Mr. Bothwell asserted that Justice Department lawyers had told him they were seeking a modest settlement so as not to put BondCote out of business because they needed the company to remain a viable supplier.
"They told me flat out," Mr. Bothwell said, that if a substantially higher penalty were to be imposed, Stonebridge Partners L.P., the White Plains investment company that owns Bondcote, "will just bankrupt Bondcote and put it out of business."
Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, said he would not comment on any aspect of the case.
Paul R. Thompson, who represents BondCote, said in an interview that the company's annual revenues were about $30 million, with coated fabrics accounting for only part of that. The size of the settlement was reasonable, Mr. Thompson said, because BondCote is a small company with fewer than 140 employees.
The fabrics come in green camouflage and tan camouflage. The lead chromate is used to help the product meet requirements for flexibility and visibility to infrared light.
In a brief statement, Ted Anderson, the president of BondCote, said that extensive testing demonstrated conclusively that the fabric was safe.
"There is simply no truth to the baseless suggestions that the material poses any risk," he said.
In a letter to Mr. Ayers in January 2003, Mr. Anderson asserted that BondCote had not used lead chromate. The company apparently dropped that position after a May 2003 raid on its warehouse by federal agents. The company now says that the chemicals did not pose any threat and that it no longer uses them.
A Pentagon official said that procurement officials said that BondCote had acted improperly, but that there was no real harm done because the tests showed no risk.
According to a Sept. 30, 2003, report by an Army research agency, tests on 20 "lightly worn" tents over three months showed "low-level hexavalent chromium," a byproduct of lead chromate degradation, but at amounts far lower than would cause concern for troops living and working in them during a full year.
A report by a toxicologist hired by Mr. Bothwell said the government report was flawed because only lightly worn tents were tested.
-------- china
Taiwanese President Yields to Calls For Fast Recount of Disputed Vote
By Tim Culpan and Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18965-2004Mar23.html
TAIPEI, Taiwan, March 23 -- Taiwan's newly reelected president, Chen Shui-bian, acceded Tuesday to opposition demands for a swift recount of Saturday's contested vote and pledged to abide by the results.
Acting on the decision, Chen's Democratic Progressive Party proposed amending Taiwan's election law to make any vote won by a margin of less than 1 percent subject to a quick recount. The revision would be retroactive, applying to the vote Saturday in which Chen defeated his Nationalist Party opponent, Lien Chan, by only 29,000 out of about 13 million ballots.
"I will accept it 100 percent, absolutely accept it," Chen said in a televised address, his first appearance in public since the vote.
China, meanwhile, called on the United States to move more forcefully to make sure Chen's reelection does not lead to any move toward independence. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing made the request in a telephone conversation Sunday with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing announced.
Since the independence-minded Chen was elected four years ago, attempts to lower tensions across the Taiwan Strait and to take practical steps to improve relations between China and Taiwan have been frozen. Chinese sources with access to official thinking said the Chinese leadership regards Chen as reckless in his determination to pursue independence for Taiwan, which Beijing insists is a part of China that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Lien, backed by Nationalist protesters camping for the third day in front of the presidential office, has insisted on an immediate recount of Saturday's vote to assess what he charged were a number of potential irregularities. In particular, he said, the number of annulled votes -- 330,000 -- was suspiciously high.
Lien also told a CNN interviewer that the shooting of Chen and his vice president, Annette Lu, on the day before the election produced a large sympathy vote for the incumbent and that outside investigators, in addition to the Taiwan police, should look into it. "We lost half a million votes," Lien declared in the interview.
Without citing evidence, he and other Taiwanese have suggested there was something suspicious about the incident, in which a still-unidentified gunman fired two shots, one that hit Chen in the abdomen and another that struck Lu in the right knee. Neither Chen nor Lu was seriously wounded.
Chen, in his address, also said he would agree to "more participation" in the investigation. He said he was just as eager as anyone to find out who did the shooting and why.
Changing the electoral law as suggested by Chen's party would bypass a three-judge panel named to consider whether Lien's complaints justify a recount. That procedure, set in motion according to the law as it now stands, would take several months, judges told reporters.
Lin Chia-lung, Chen's cabinet spokesman, said the law proposed Tuesday could take effect seven days after passage and a recount could be carried out within a few days after that.
Chen's willingness to move swiftly seemed to reflect a desire to put the political turmoil of the last several days behind him and return this island of 23 million to normalcy. With that in mind, he called on the Nationalist Party protesters to leave the streets and allow Taiwan to get back to work.
Lien had no immediate comment on Chen's decision. But his followers in the legislature blocked the proposed election-law revision for the time being, saying it should be tied to broadening the investigation into Friday's shooting. Moreover, Wang Jin-pyng, legislative speaker and a senior member of Lien's campaign team, told reporters that the revision should be rejected in favor of an immediate executive order for a recount from Chen himself.
The dispute over Chen's narrow reelection has overshadowed the outcome of a controversial referendum that was voted on alongside the presidential balloting. Taiwanese were asked whether they wanted to return to negotiations with China and whether the island should buy more missile defenses if China refused to withdraw the estimated 500 short-range missiles based in southern China, just across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait.
In what was hailed as a major victory in China -- and a major defeat for Chen -- fewer than 50 percent of all eligible voters in Taiwan cast a ballot in the referendum, thus rendering it invalid. The Chinese government charged that the real purpose of the referendum was to set a precedent that could be followed to alter the Taiwanese constitution and, ultimately, to hold a plebiscite on independence.
"For Chen Shui-bian, the referendum was a tool to kidnap the will of the island's people, provoke the mainland and carry out his own self-indulgent political gambling," said an editorial carried Tuesday by the official New China News Agency. "The referendum on March 20 was a political fraud meticulously designed by Chen Shui-bian, aiming to split the nation, provoke relations between the two sides and seize power."
The agency comment, breaking two days of silence by the Chinese government, avoided any reference to the presidential vote or the recount dispute. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kong Quan, called the vote a local affair, seeking to emphasize Beijing's position that Taiwan is not a country but a rebellious Chinese province.
Cody reported from Beijing.
--------
China Halts Rights Talks With U.S.
Beijing Condemns Move Seeking U.N. Resolution
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18964-2004Mar23.html
BEIJING, March 23 -- A day after the Bush administration sought a U.N. resolution condemning China's human rights practices, the Chinese government announced Tuesday that it had suspended human rights dialogues with the United States and accused Washington of provoking confrontation.
"The United States should bear all the consequences that might arise from this," Deputy Foreign Minister Shen Guofang told U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt Jr., according to a Foreign Ministry statement. "The United States' insistence on provoking confrontation has seriously damaged the foundation of our two countries' human rights dialogue and exchange," Shen was quoted as saying.
The U.S. proposal and the swift Chinese reaction injected a sour note into what have been increasingly good relations in recent months. Ties have been particularly friendly since President Bush in December called on the Taiwanese president, Chen Shui-bian, to call off a controversial referendum that Chinese leaders feared could be a precedent for a plebiscite on a declaration of independence. Chen went ahead with the referendum, but it was defeated in voting last Saturday.
The practical effect and the duration of China's suspension were unclear, but the ministry made it clear only human rights dialogues were targeted. That suggested the broad range of U.S.-Chinese relations -- billions of dollars in economic exchanges, anti-terrorism cooperation and diplomatic coordination on the North Korean nuclear crisis -- was unlikely to suffer. For instance, China also called Tuesday for more U.S. diplomatic efforts to make sure Taiwan did not move toward independence because Chen led the voting Saturday.
The Bush administration, in its latest human rights report, accused China of backsliding on respect for human rights in 2003 after showing improvement the previous year. As a result, U.S. officials had warned that, although they did not so do in 2003, they were likely to seek a U.N. censure this year, citing the stifling of dissident religious and political figures, police killings and torture in police custody.
China warned repeatedly that such a move would damage U.S.-China cooperation on human rights and, in contacts with U.S. diplomats, sought to dissuade the administration from pressing the issue.
As the contacts were underway, China over the last month released from prison three prominent dissidents from a list of seven high-priority human rights cases pressed on Beijing by the Bush administration. The releases were seen as gestures to bolster the Chinese case that the U.N. resolution was unnecessary. In addition, the National People's Congress on March 14 amended the constitution to include for the first time a formal guarantee for human rights, another gesture in the direction urged on China by the United States.
U.S. envoys on Monday nevertheless proposed a resolution condemning China at the annual U.N. Human Rights Conference meeting in Geneva. The resolution would have no binding effect, but would put the United Nations on record as criticizing China's human rights record.
According to the Foreign Ministry statement, Shen complained to Randt that the decision to go forward caught China by surprise because, in the view of Chinese officials, contacts were still under way and the question was still open. "Even as the two sides were negotiating on the issue, the U.S. side went back on its word and suddenly announced its resolution against China," Shen was quoted as saying.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing declined to comment on the issue. A spokesman said only that Randt was in contact with "representatives of the Foreign Ministry."
The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said the administration went ahead because the Chinese government failed to carry out specific promises for improvement made during contacts in 2003. "We are concerned about backsliding on key human rights issues that has occurred in a variety of issues since that time," Boucher said.
Aside from individual cases, China and the United States have broadly different views about what respect for human rights entails. In discussing the constitutional amendment 10 days ago, for instance, Premier Wen Jiabao made it clear China still considers stability to have precedence over political freedoms. A week earlier, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said the human rights to a decent standard of living and health care were just as important as such human rights as freedom of speech or assembly.
-------- haiti
New Haitian Cabinet Holds First Meeting
By STEVENSON JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
Mar 24, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HAITI?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haiti's new Cabinet met for the first time Wednesday to discuss the urgent need to disarm gunmen in a nation terrorized by rebels, street gangs and escaped convicts despite thousands of U.S.-led peacekeepers.
Haitian police officers are among those accused of fueling the turmoil, with a report Wednesday that five officers have been detained on suspicion of killing five supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party.
The National Coalition for Haitian Rights said that according to relatives of the victims, the officers rounded up and executed the men, ages 17 to 24, over the weekend. The officers were detained Monday, but no charges had been filed.
Police have also been accused of brutalizing opponents of Aristide, who fled the country Feb. 29 as a three-week popular rebellion neared Port-au-Prince, the capital. Scores of police were among more than 300 people killed in the revolt; hundreds fled before the rebels, who torched police stations and freed thousands of convicts.
A month later, rebels remain armed and in charge in Haiti's three largest cities outside the capital, while some smaller towns are under the sway of street gangs and convicts. In Les Cayes, on the southeast peninsula, gangs carried out a public execution Monday, U.N. relief worker Fernando Arroyo told The Associated Press.
A 14-year-old boy caught stealing was chased by a mob, which dragged him before an improvised jury that ordered him shot to death, Arroyo said.
In northeast Fort Liberte, there were reports that "a gang of convicts is basically running the place," Arroyo said.
An AP reporter watched rebel leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a convicted assassin, acting as judge this week in the northern port of Cap-Haitien, where Aristide supporters and French peacekeepers say bodies still are appearing in the bay.
Chamblain holds court despite the arrival last week of 150 French troops and the return of about 50 police officers.
Arroyo said the "still chaotic" situation was stifling access for aid workers.
Dock workers in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday began loading 1,550 tons of food onto a ship expected to arrived in Cap-Haitien on Saturday to help feed 180,000 people throughout northern Haiti, the World Food Program said. Cap-Haitien port was looted a month ago when rebels seized the town, and the port remains in their hands.
While officials of the U.S.-backed interim government and the U.S.-led peacekeeping force agree on the urgency for disarmament, little is being done.
U.S. Marine Maj. Richard Crusan said troops had collected 67 weapons since they began disarming a week ago.
"Everybody has to be disarmed. Without disarmament, there will be no security," Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's aide, Miguel Auguste, told AP. He said Latortue was working with U.S. and French troops to make disarmament a priority.
Cabinet Minister Robert Ulysse said Latortue met with senior police officials for several hours Tuesday night and would report to the Cabinet.
Auguste also said officials were considering new training and education programs to help reintegrate into society impoverished and armed Aristide supporters.
But he did not address disarming the rebels, led by ex-soldiers of Haiti's disgraced army, whom Latortue has been criticized for hailing as "freedom fighters."
-------- iraq
11 Iraqi Police Officers Are Killed by Gunmen
March 24, 2004
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/international/middleeast/24IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 23 - In the latest attacks against Iraqi police officers, gunmen on Tuesday killed nine officers riding in a minibus in southern Iraq and two officers parking a car in northern Iraq.
The police officers in the minibus were shot as they drove to work near Hilla, about two hours south of Baghdad, a spokesman for the occupying authorities said.
According to police reports, a car with gunmen hanging out the windows and blasting assault rifles swerved in front of the minibus. The bullets drilled right through the aluminum-skinned bus and into the officers seated inside.
The Hilla area, home to a large American presence, has become increasingly violent. Earlier this month, two American civilians working for the occupation authorities were killed on an empty road near Hilla. Four Iraqi policemen were arrested in connection with those slayings.
The second attack on Tuesday happened in the northern city of Kirkuk, a caldron of ethnic tension among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. The two police officers who were killed were twin brothers, according to The Associated Press. They were parking a car near a mosque when they were ambushed.
The shootings are not thought to be connected, though they follow a relentless pattern of attacks against Iraqi police officers and recruits that have claimed more than 400 lives.
Occupation authorities say the killings have not discouraged new applicants. For every police job there are six people applying, occupation officials said, and already 70,000 have been hired.
"These attacks have been going on for months," said a spokesman for the occupation authorities, who declined to give his name. "But there are still a lot of people who want these jobs."
Starting salary for Iraqi policemen is $69 a month.
While attacks on American-led military forces have dropped decisively to about 20 a day from a high in November of 50, Iraqi forces face intensifying risks. Of the 200,000 Iraqi policemen, border police officers, soldiers and civil defense troops, most lack heavy weaponry and even bulletproof vests, and many work in stations not protected by blast walls.
In February, more than 50 police recruits were killed in a car bombing in Iskandariya, 30 miles south of Baghdad, as they were standing outside a police station waiting to apply for work.
Also on Tuesday, L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator, made a quick trip to Najaf, the hometown of Iraq's most powerful cleric, and tried to calm worries about the transfer of sovereignty scheduled to take place by June 30.
Mr. Bremer met local religious and tribal leaders for about 30 minutes and addressed concerns about the country's constitution that had been raised by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In a letter made public this week, Ayatollah Sistani wrote that he would refuse to meet with United Nations officials when they arrived to help the country draw up plans for a new government.
In his letter, Ayatollah Sistani wrote that the interim constitution agreed to earlier this month by the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council "enjoys no support among most of the Iraqi people." The ayatollah, who commands the allegiance of much of the country's Shiite Muslim majority, wrote that there would be "dangerous consequences" if the United Nations endorsed the document.
Mr. Bremer tried to allay concerns that the interim constitution would unfairly influence the drafting of a permanent charter.
"On what will be included in the permanent constitution, it will be decided by elected people and not the coalition," Mr. Bremer said, according to a reporter allowed to attend the meeting.
Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article.
--------
Ambushes in Iraq Kill 11
As Snipers Target Police Effort to Replace Americans Set Back
By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16920-2004Mar23?language=printer
BAGHDAD, March 23 -- Gunmen killed at least 11 Iraqi police officers and trainees in separate attacks Tuesday, striking another blow against the fledgling security services that have been created to eventually take over public safety from U.S.-led occupation forces.
In the desert outside Musayyib, about 35 miles south of Baghdad, gunmen ambushed a bright yellow minibus full of police recruits heading south toward a training academy in Hilla.
According to the U.S. military, nine were killed and two were injured around 7:20 a.m. However, a Musayyib police official at the scene said that 10 were dead and four were wounded at 6:45 a.m.
Witnesses said the gunmen, riding in a Toyota or a Daewoo sedan, slowed alongside the minibus before firing, according to a police official who would give his name only as Major Ali.
The driver's side of the bus was riddled with bullet holes that appeared to have been caused by an assault rifle. As workmen prepared to remove the minibus with a crane Tuesday night, blood was still visible on the vehicle's seats and on the dusty road outside.
In another attack, two police officers -- twin brothers -- were killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Kirkuk, the Associated Press reported. The attack occurred as the officers parked their car in a main square and worshipers left a nearby mosque, the Associated Press reported, citing a Kirkuk police official.
In recent months, police stations have been attacked with grim and lethal regularity: Baqubah in November, Khaldiya in December, Mosul in January, Iskandariyah and Fallujah in February. Dozens of police officers have died.
The light blue shirts and navy blue armbands of the Iraqi Police Service -- one of five new security forces -- are perhaps the most pervasive symbol of the effort to recruit, train and equip more than 200,000 Iraqis to take over security duties from the U.S.-led military coalition.
In a related development, the civilian head of the U.S. Army, on a visit to Iraq, acknowledged that problems in the contracting process have delayed the training and equipping of Iraq's fledgling army.
The comments by Les Brownlee, the Army's acting secretary, came as military commanders in Iraq have complained about delays in providing the Iraqi army, police force and civil defense corps with uniforms, radios and other basic supplies.
Speaking to reporters at the headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authority, Brownlee said that supplying the Iraqi forces was a key focus of his visit, his fourth since June.
"We're going to get this done," Brownlee said. "It's vitally important. I have said that not just the training, but the proper equipping, of these forces is essential, and I've been saying that for some time. . . . It is in our interests to make sure that this happens."
The Army is responsible for choosing the contractors that will receive most of the $18.6 billion in supplemental reconstruction funding that Congress authorized last fall, because the occupation authority does not have independent authority to spend federal funds.
On March 5, U.S. officials, citing "irregularities" in the procurement process, canceled a $327 million contract to equip the new Iraqi army. The contract had been awarded in January to Nour USA Ltd., a firm based in Vienna, Va., that had limited military supply experience. Other bidders protested and questioned Nour's ability to do the work.
Brownlee said the contract "was just done in haste" because the Army only recently began doing the procurement work in Iraq.
"It was very early in the game, before we really got into it. Now we're into it, and we'll be sure it's done right."
Brownlee conceded that the cancellation had delayed the Iraqi security force's readiness. U.S. Army officials have discussed splitting up the contract into smaller parts to speed up the procurement of supplies. "We are looking at other ways and other contract instruments to get this in here," Brownlee said.
In recent weeks, several commanders have publicly expressed frustration with the slow pace of equipping Iraqi forces.
The top U.S. commander in northern Iraq, Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham, said March 9: "There are training, organizational and equipment shortfalls in the Iraqi security forces. There's no question about that."
The following day, Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, which has control over western Iraq, described having to put off legitimate requests from Iraqi officials.
"I would tell them that I would get body armor in soon, that I would get radios in soon, and I had to keep on postponing that in their minds," Swannack said. "The most frustrating factor for me is to see that I could not get the quantities of equipment that I needed to go ahead and give to the Iraqis who wanted to do the job, so that they could do the job."
The U.S. military freed 272 detainees from Abu Ghraib, a military jail on the western outskirts of Baghdad. Many had been held after sweeps for suspected insurgents, their financiers or arms traders.
In the northern city of Mosul, a soldier in the Stryker Brigade, part of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, died from what the Army described as a "non-combat-related shooting." His name was withheld pending notification of next of kin.
[A hotel housing foreign journalists and contractors was hit by a rocket early Wednesday. No injuries were reported. The Sheraton Hotel, which is ringed by concrete blast barriers and guarded by U.S. troops, suffered only minor damage.]
In the western town of Ramadi, Iraqis protesting the assassination by Israel of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the Palestinian group Hamas, burned police cars and threw grenades at the governor's office, the Reuters news agency reported.
Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Musayyib contributed to this report.
-------- israel / palestine
Official: Yassin Offered Israel a Truce
By MARK LAVIE
Associated Press Writer
Mar 24, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ISRAEL_YASSIN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, assassinated in an Israeli air strike, offered Israel a 30-year truce in 1997, the mediator who arranged Yassin's release from prison said Tuesday.
Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad operative who was called in to resolve an Israel-Jordan crisis after a botched assassination attempt against a Hamas leader in Jordan in 1997, made the disclosure in an interview on Israel TV.
Halevy was a confidant of Jordan's King Hussein, and he suggested releasing Yassin from Israeli prison as the price for freedom for six Mossad agents captured in the abortive attempt to kill Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. Yassin was imprisoned in 1989.
Halevy, who later served as Mossad chief and is now a private citizen, said that just before the Mashaal affair, "Yassin brought up the idea of a cease-fire of 30 years between Israel and the Palestinians."
Aides to the Israeli prime minister at the time dismissed Halevy's disclosure as meaningless. In the TV interview, Halevy did not state Yassin's conditions for such a long-term truce. Yassin, who was killed Monday in an Israeli air strike, often said that Israel would wither away by 2024.
In an interview with The Associated Press shortly after he was released in 1997, Yassin offered Israel a 10-year truce if Israel would withdraw its troops and settlers from all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, Yassin made it clear that even then, Hamas would continue to pursue its goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic state.
Yassin made the 30-year truce proposal while still in prison, Halevy said. Yassin "sent the idea to King Hussein, who transferred the message to Israel," he said. However, the proposal was not discussed by the Israeli government, and then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not have known about it before ordering the attack on Mashaal, he said.
"Perhaps the proposal would have been rejected as not serious, but it was definitely made," Halevy said in the TV interview.
Netanyahu is now Israel's finance minister. His office said Tuesday that such an offer by Yassin, if it was made, would have been "worthless," because "Yassin was involved in terrorism while in prison and encouraged terrorism in prison and outside."
In 1997, Israel and the Palestinians were engaged in peacemaking based on a process of interim peace accords that began in 1993.
Hamas was trying to torpedo the efforts, sending suicide bombers to blow themselves up in Israeli buses and public places, leading Netanyahu to order the assassination of Mashaal, the most powerful Hamas leader outside the Palestinian areas.
----
Sharon in appeal for peace with Arab world, including Palestinians
JERUSALEM (AFP)
Mar 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040324104013.lrkdtgp2.html
Israel is seeking peace with the Arab world, including the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared Wednesday in a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the Jewish state's peace treaty with Egypt.
"This is the kind of peace Israel is striving for, not only with Egypt and Jordan but with all Arab countries, first and foremost with our neighbours Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority," he told deputies.
"Israel is willing to march forward again with its neighbours, beyond the already existing peace, with depth and determination, exactly as it did 25 years ago in signing the peace agreements with Egypt."
In his speech, Sharon praised the former Israeli leader Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat for managing to "bridge the chasms of hatred and suspicion between the two countries".
Sharon's calls for peace came just two days after Israel assassinated the founder and spiritual leader of the radical Hamas movement, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, provoking a chorus of outrage and anger in the Arab world and the rest of the international community.
The killing prompted Egypt to abruptly withdraw from the 25th anniversary celebrations, with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak expressing undisguised disgust at the assassination.
----
Fear of Reprisals Casts a Pall on Jerusalem
Israelis Desert Restaurants and Buses
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18651-2004Mar23?language=printer
JERUSALEM, March 23 -- At lunch hour Tuesday on Jerusalem's most fashionable street, Mor Naki stood sentry with his Uzi outside the nearly empty Caffit Cafe.
"At this time, the restaurant is usually full," the 22-year-old security guard said, glancing down Emek Rafaim Street on the south side of Jerusalem. "Look around -- there are people out, it's a beautiful warm spring day. But very few of these people will consider going into a restaurant on a day like this, after an event like the assassination of Yassin, because a restaurant is a good target for a terror attack."
The day after Israeli helicopter pilots assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader and founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, Israelis awoke to the kind of pervasive atmosphere of fear that hasn't been felt here in months.
The morning's first dose of anxiety arrived with the daily newspapers: "ALERT" warned the headline dominating the front of the daily tabloid Maariv.
Shopping malls and restaurants across the country were deserted. Commuters stayed off city buses in droves. The NATAL Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War reported a 50 percent spike in calls to its hot line, many from Israelis saying they were too terrified to leave their homes.
In a poll taken by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, 81 percent of Israelis surveyed said they believed the assassination would lead to more attacks against Israel; 3 percent said they believed it would reduce them. Even so, a majority of the respondents -- 60 percent -- said they believed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was correct in ordering the assassination of the leader of a Palestinian group that has dispatched dozens of suicide bombers into the streets of Israel and has launched hundreds of attacks against soldiers and Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
"Sure I'm concerned about reprisals," said Michael Glenner, 33, a restaurant chef who moved to Israel from the United States a decade ago. "But that doesn't mean that it wasn't the right thing to do. I can't stand it that people are saying that he was in a wheelchair and was nearly deaf and blind -- like that is an excuse not to kill him. That 'poor man,' as they called him, gave his personal blessing to suicide bombers who came into Israel and murdered innocent people."
In Jerusalem, which has withstood more bombings than any other city in Israel, even one of the warmest days of the spring could not dispel the gloom that settled over streets, shops and conversations. On Emek Rafaim Street, the mood was funereal.
The strip of glass-fronted coffee houses, trendy restaurants and trinket shops runs through the heart of neighborhoods that have experienced some of the worst recent attacks, partly because the bombers have come from the Bethlehem area, barely five miles away. On Tuesday, passengers on buses plying the two-lane street either stared out the windows grim-faced or uneasily scrutinized fellow passengers. The few people who ventured into cafes and restaurants took the tables farthest from the doors.
Over the last two years, the street has become a fortified playground -- ever since a suicide bomber made it inside the Caffit Cafe but was tackled and defused by an alert security guard before he could detonate his bomb. Every restaurant, bar and snack stand has an armed sentry at the door. So do the grocery store, the wine shop and the hair salon. On days of high alerts, like Tuesday, Israeli soldiers and police swarm the sidewalks, cruise the street in patrol vehicles and set up checkpoints for cars.
The bombers have not been deterred -- or entirely defeated. Hillel Cafe, one of the glitziest additions to the street, was hit by a suicide bomber in September; seven people were killed. In January, a bus blew up a few blocks away. Last month, another bus exploded at the head of the street.
Just after noon on Tuesday, Glenner, the chef, was the lone patron sitting at the bar inside the Coffee Shop. He was willing to enter the coffeehouse, but he drew the line at getting on a bus.
"I don't ride buses at times like this," said Glenner, sipping a latte between bites of a croissant. "My parents are terrified that I'll ride a bus -- they even try to send me money so I'll take taxis."
Olga Karpova, 39, a Ukrainian immigrant who cleans houses to support her two daughters, said she doesn't have the luxury of choice.
"I am always afraid to take a bus, and today more than usual," she said, waiting at an Emek Rafaim bus stop. "But what can I do? I have two daughters who depend on me, and I have no other way to get to work."
She was one of the minority of Israelis willing to criticize Yassin's assassination.
"I don't think that Ariel Sharon thought about me, or people like me, when he gave the order to kill Sheik Yassin," she continued. "We, the little people, are the ones who live in fear. He does not shop in the market like I do. He does not take public transportation. He doesn't have small children. Therefore, he cannot know the fear of a mother who has to do all these things just to pay her rent, feed her children."
Karpova, who wore her brown hair tied back and was clad in a drab beige dress, said she felt no sympathy for Yassin, however.
"I'm glad that another terrorist is dead, believe me," she said. "But I don't know if it is worth the Israeli lives that will surely be lost as a result. Maybe they were thinking about the future, but I am thinking about the present, about my everyday life."
In Washington, The State Department issued a travel advisory Tuesday, warning U.S. citizens against traveling to Israel, the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
[Early Wednesday, about 10 Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships thrust into the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza and bulldozers razed several homes overlooking a Jewish settlement, witnesses told the Reuters news agency.]
Researcher Hillary Claussen contributed to this report.
--------
Bush Backs Israel on Self-Defense
U.N. Begins Debate Over Killing of Hamas Founder
By Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18980-2004Mar23.html
President Bush yesterday defended Israel's "right to defend herself from terror," one day after a spokesman said the administration was "deeply troubled" by the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and concerned it could derail efforts to jump-start the peace process.
Bush made his remarks to reporters shortly before the U.N. Security Council began a debate on the Israeli action and as a group of Israeli officials met with White House officials to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally separate from the Palestinians. Bush announced that next week a team of senior U.S. officials will likely make their third trip to Israel in two months to continue discussions on the Sharon plan.
Bush said the Middle East is "a troubled region and the attacks were troubling. There needs to be a focused, concerted effort by all parties to fight terror." He expressed hope that Israel "keeps consequences in mind as to how to make sure we stay on the path to peace."
On Monday, State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said the United States was "deeply troubled" by Israel's killing of Yassin, which "increases tension and doesn't help our efforts to resume progress towards peace."
U.S. officials are generally very guarded in how they respond to military actions by the Israeli government, often refusing to comment on the actions themselves and instead confining remarks to warning of the consequences. In this case, officials noted, the killing of the founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as Hamas, came in response to a double suicide bombing at an Israeli seaport.
For two days straight, Boucher has declined to restate the U.S. policy against targeted killings, saying merely that the U.S. stance on the issue is clear. The Bush administration has generally not restated the policy since the United States conducted its own targeted killing of a senior al Qaeda operative in Yemen in November 2002.
At the Security Council last night, however, other nations condemned Israel's action. Algeria's ambassador to the United Nations, Abdallah Baali, said Israel's killing of "an elderly sheik" constituted a "very grave crime" that will immerse the region in a "boiling cauldron" of violence. He said the council has an obligation to force Israel to "put an end to the policy of assassination" and to "respect . . . international law."
European governments noted Hamas's history of violent attacks against Israeli civilians, but they said Sharon's government has gone beyond the bounds of international law in combating the organization. "Germany as well as the European Union have always strongly opposed extrajudicial killings," said Gunter Pleuger, Germany's envoy to the United Nations. "They are, in my government's view, unacceptable."
But the United States blocked an effort by the Palestinians and Algeria, the council's lone Arab government, to win adoption of a formal resolution or statement condemning Israel.
John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defended the U.S. position on the ground that the Arab sponsors of the U.N. statement refused to "refer to terrorism conducted by Hamas" in the text.
Israel's ambassador, Dan Gillerman, struck back at the council, saying it was an "outrage" that the body has routinely remained silent in the face of Hamas terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. But now, he said, it was convening a meeting to "come to the defense of . . . a godfather of terrorism."
Lynch reported from the United Nations.
--------
Hamas Says It Will Target Sharon, but Not U.S.
March 24, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- The new Hamas leader in Gaza said Wednesday the militant group had no plans to attack U.S. targets, while another top official in the organization said it has targeted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for death.
The Islamic group had made veiled threats it would retaliate against the United States for Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin on Monday, but it has rarely attacked American targets during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Fearing retaliation, Israel has gone on high alert since Yassin's death, and troops south of the West Bank city of Nablus stopped a 16-year-old Palestinian boy wearing a suicide bomb vest from crossing through a checkpoint. Soldiers forced the boy, Hussam Abdo, to remove the explosives-packed vest and strip to his underwear.
The army said its experts later detonated the bomb.
It was unclear whether he was sent as a suicide bomber or as a courier trying to smuggle the bomb through the checkpoint. His neighbors in Nablus identified him as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant group.
Israeli troops also entered a village near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, witnesses said, and gunfire was heard in the area. The village was put under curfew and tanks were outside it, the witnesses said.
Israeli military officials confirmed that forces entered the village of Yamoun after being shot at. The soldiers returned fire and chased the gunmen into the village, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Army tanks later surrounded the village, which was put under curfew, witnesses said. Residents reportedly threw stones at the soldiers.
Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a hard-liner named Tuesday as Hamas' new Gaza chief, said the group's militant activities were aimed solely at Israel, which it has pledged to destroy and replace with an Islamic state.
``We are inside Palestinian land and acting only inside Palestinian land. We are resisting the occupation, nothing else,'' Rantisi told reporters in Gaza. ``Our resistance will continue just inside our border, here inside our country.''
Rantisi denied reports that Hamas would join with al-Qaida, calling the claims ``Zionist propaganda.''
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Wednesday he opposed ``any attack on civilians, whether they were Israel or Palestinian.''
The State Department on Tuesday repeated a long-standing warning urging Americans not to travel to the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, meanwhile, overall Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who is based in Damascus, Syria, said the group's military wing would assess its abilities to kill Sharon.
``I hope that the holy warriors can retaliate against this awful crime by targeting the most prominent Zionist leaders ... including Sharon,'' Mashaal said in an interview posted on a Hamas Web site. ``I hope they can succeed.''
For its part, Israel has decided to target the entire Hamas leadership. Israel says Hamas has killed 377 Israelis in hundreds of attacks, including 52 suicide bombings, over the past three and a half years.
Rantisi, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in June, said Wednesday he was not concerned.
``It's death by killing or cancer,'' said Rantisi, a trained physician. ``If it's cardiac arrest or an Apache (helicopter), I prefer to be killed by an Apache.''
Rantisi, 54, has appeared in public frequently since Yassin's death, but always in large crowds that deter an Israeli attack.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians at a Gaza City soccer stadium cheered the announcement Tuesday night that Rantisi had been chosen leader. One by one, senior Hamas officials got up and swore loyalty to him.
Rantisi rejects even a temporary suspension of attacks on Israel.
He led about 1,000 people in noon prayers Wednesday at the stadium, where Hamas has organized mourning for Yassin. As he spoke to reporters afterward, he was surrounded by about 25 youths wearing green Hamas bandanas.
Several hundred women, many wearing Hamas headbands, gathered in a mourning tent near Yassin's home in a run-down Gaza City neighborhood and chanted: ``Rantisi, give weapons to the women.''
Security has been stepped up throughout Israel, and malls, restaurants and buses have been empty as people remain close to home.
The Israeli military went on the offensive in Gaza and along the Lebanese border to prevent Palestinian attacks. A total of four Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting.
The army said that troops had killed two armed Palestinian militants who had tried to infiltrate the Gaza settlement of Morag late Tuesday. Troops also confiscated a bag of explosives. Hamas claimed responsibility for the failed attack.
In the Khan Younis refugee camp, forces razed four Palestinian farms, partially demolished two houses and destroyed a road linking two parts of the shantytown during an overnight raid, Palestinian officials said. Early Wednesday, the troops withdrew from the area.
The army said it had removed some brush and two abandoned buildings that were used to fire on settlements. It said troops opened fire after being attacked by an anti-tank missile and gunfire. No casualties were reported.
Late Tuesday, Israeli gunboats opened fire off the coast of Gaza, witnesses said. No one was hurt. The Israeli military said gunboats fired at a suspicious object at sea.
Around the same time, Israeli helicopters opened fire at guerrillas setting up rocket launchers aimed at Israel in south Lebanon, the military said. Lebanese officials identified them as Palestinians and said two were killed and one wounded in the airstrike.
On Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry withdrew diplomats and their families from missions in the Arab countries of Qatar and Mauritania as a precaution.
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Israeli Tanks Advancing Gaza Strip City
March 24, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Gaza-Raid.html
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Several Israeli tanks advanced late Wednesday in the direction of Khan Younis, a city in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Residents said 12 Israeli armored vehicles advanced from the Jewish settlement of Ganei Tal to the Palestinian side of a main intersection. They stopped in a part of a refugee camp targeted in earlier operations during which a number of buildings were destroyed.
Residents said there was some gunfire, but no casualties were reported. They said Israeli attack helicopters had been circling in the area for several hours.
Late Tuesday Israeli armored vehicles and bulldozers moved into the same area and destroyed some structures. The Israeli military said the buildings were used by Palestinian militants as cover for firing at soldiers and Jewish settlements.
Tension has been high in Gaza since Monday, when Israel assassinated the founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in a helicopter missile strike.
-------- mideast
Syria Brushes Aside U.S. Sanctions Threat
By SAM F. GHATTAS
Associated Press Writer
Mar 24, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SYRIA_SANCTIONS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Syria's vice president brushed aside the threat of U.S. economic sanctions, while analysts predicted the economic effects would be limited and the measures would make cooperation between the two nations on terrorism more difficult.
President Bush is expected to order economic sanctions against Syria under the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which Bush signed into law in December after it won overwhelming approval in the House and the Senate. An announcement on the new penalties, to be imposed because of Syria's support for militant groups, could come as early as this week.
Sanctions are expected to include barring Syrian planes from flying over or landing in the United States, prohibiting new investments by U.S. oil companies in the Arab country and banning U.S. exports to Syria other than food and medicine.
However, the small state-owned flag carrier, Syrian Airlines, does not fly directly or indirectly to U.S. cities. And with bilateral trade relatively small, at about $300 million a year, the economic effect of new sanctions is expected to be limited.
If Americans are barred from investing in the oil sector, the Syrians don't anticipate any problem in looking to European and other international companies. If U.S. exports are banned, they can buy from other sources.
"There are alternatives," said Ayman Abdel-Nour, a Syrian analyst and publisher of an online newsletter on Syria. He added, however, there will be an indirect impact.
"It will have a psychological effect on European investors, it will increase risk assessment and will hike interest rates on credit for investment in the country," Abdel-Nour said. How much that ultimately could cost the country isn't known.
It's the political message, Abdel-Nour said, that will come through strongest: "The message (from the Americans) is that 'we are serious and we are not playing.'"
Others warned, however, that sanctions could hinder a more important American goal - winning the war on terrorism.
Syria provided the United States with intelligence on al-Qaida after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But its ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, said earlier this month that intelligence-sharing has declined since Congress approved the sanctions because U.S. officials are now reluctant to deal with Syria.
"They need Syria," Patrick Seale, a British expert on Syrian affairs, said of the Americans. "Syria remains a major player ... on all these fronts - the Arab-Israeli front, the Iraqi front, the terrorist front. They need such partners instead of alienating them. They should befriend them."
Imposing sanctions would be "piling error into error," Seale said in a telephone interview from Paris.
Europeans, he added, would be happy to supply goods the Americans cut off.
Abdel-Nour criticized Washington for flip-flopping on its position toward Syria, saying that to do so only weakens its hand in fighting terrorism. "One day they say to the Syrians you helped us and the next day they impose sanctions," Abdel-Nour said by telephone from Syria.
Syrian Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam already has brushed aside the threat of sanctions.
"It will have no effect whatsoever. No one can punish Syria. No state can punish another state," he told reporters Sunday. Addressing the United States without naming it, Khaddam said such measures "will be against the interests of those who impose them."
Syria has been on the State Department's list of terror-sponsoring nations for its support of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah that attack Israel. U.S. officials have also said that Syria hasn't done enough to prevent anti-American fighters and arms from crossing its border with Iraq. They have also criticized its domination of Lebanon, where it has based thousands of soldiers.
Despite the tough talk from Washington, the administration has sought to keep its links with Syria. Congressional delegations have continued to visit. New ambassadors were accredited to both countries.
Also, in the last year Syria signed oil exploration deals with American companies worth $34 million.
"These (sanctions) are only symbolic, in order to apply pressure on Syria," said Syrian analyst Nabil Sukkar, a former senior economist at the World Bank.
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Gains by Kin in Iraq Inflame Kurds' Anger at Syria
March 24, 2004
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/international/middleeast/24SYRI.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
QAMISHLIYE, Syria, March 22 - The larger-than-life statue of the late president, Hafez al-Assad, that towers over a traffic circle here stands hidden beneath a blue and red striped tarpaulin, which residents say hides the fact that antigovernment protesters knocked off its head.
In Malikiya, a nearby town, two gilded plaster busts of the elder Mr. Assad and his son, President Bashar al-Assad, the main décor inside a culture center, were also decapitated and the building was set on fire. Someone scrawled "Kurdistan" in bright red spray paint across an interior wall of the gutted Water Authority building there, too.
Antigovernment protests are extremely uncommon in Syria, where grim memories are vivid of thousands of Islamic militants mowed down by government troops in the early 1980's. But grievances simmering within the Kurdish minority for decades - over their difficulties in obtaining citizenship, the ban on their language, their poverty amid rich farmland - finally boiled over in the last few weeks.
Kurdish Syrians, 2 million of Syria's 17 million people, say that watching rights for Kurds being enshrined in a new if temporary constitution next door in Iraq finally pushed them to take to the streets to demand greater recognition. In their wake is a toll of blackened government buildings, schools, grain silos and vehicles across a remote swath of the north.
"What happened did not come out of a void," says Bishar Ahmed, a 30-year-old Kurd whose cramped stationery shop sits right next to a cluster of blackened buildings in Malikiya. "The pressure has been building for nearly 50 years. They consider us foreigners; we have no rights as citizens."
Clashes on March 11 between fans from rival soccer teams set off the sudden squall, which officially left 25 people dead and dozens wounded. But the raw emotions shocked Syrians and left officials painting a sinister picture of foreign plots to partition the country.
To a man, local officials all suggest that the Kurds were motivated by infiltrators from Iraq. "They came from outside the country, from the east, and they have been paid in U.S. dollars supplied by Bremer and his gang," said Ahmed al-Salah, an employee of a burned-down government feed warehouse in Qamishliye, some 400 miles northeast of Damascus. He was referring to L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator of Iraq.
For their part, Kurdish residents claim the government responded to what they call peaceful protests with violence as an excuse to say Syria remains too unstable to introduce the kind of democratic reforms that are helping their brethren in Iraq.
"We want democracy like the others," said Hoshiar Abdelrahman, another young shopkeeper in Malikiya, 60 miles east of Qamishliye.
The question of minorities remains a highly sensitive, largely unspoken topic in Syria, particularly because one small group, the Alawites, dominates the government. "Unity" has been their rallying cry. Already edgy about the possibility Iraq will split on sectarian lines, Syrian officials see the Kurdish riots as another step in an attempt to partition all Arab states.
After the first few demonstrators were killed, Kurdish areas throughout Syria bubbled over with years of repressed grievances, local residents say. In Malikiya, a town of one and two-story buildings, the tide of angry voices at the Saturday market eventually led to a march on city hall. As the crowd approached, troops opened fire, killing a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old, residents said.
The government version is that the Kurds starting setting fire to buildings first and the government fired on them to protect its property. "If we were attacked by an Israel missile, we would respond with all means possible," said Salim Kabul, governor of Hassakeh Province, where Kurds are concentrated. "So what do you expect when we are attacked from inside?"
He put the toll in his province at 20 dead, including 14 Kurds and 6 Arabs, among them two policemen. Kurds suspect the toll is far higher.
The area produces significant amounts of oil, wheat and cotton, and yet, residents say, they get little development money. Instead, they complain, for the past four decades the government has been slowly moving more Arabs into the area, trying to form a belt 10 miles wide and 165 miles long to sever the Kurds from ethnic kin in Iraq and Turkey.
Village and even mountain names have been Arabized and the Kurdish language banned, although most families teach it at home. Worse, tens of thousands of Kurds are denied citizenship. (Kurdish groups say more than 200,000; the government says 100,000.) The government says Kurds denied citizenship are the offspring of illegal immigrants who came over the border from Turkey to find jobs and stayed.
"My grandfather was born here, yet my father is considered a foreigner, I am a foreigner and my 3-year-old son has no nationality," said Mr. Abdelrahman, the shopkeeper. Both he and his wife's identification cards read "single"; their marriage is not recognized.
He pulls out a tattered orange identification card that reads, "Foreign Records Department, Hassakeh Governorate," and notes that the bearer cannot travel outside Syria.
Suddenly every young man in a crowd that has gathered starts waving similar cards and shouting against the government. It was a brazen, unusual display of discontent, considering that the Ministry of Information had organized the recent tour for a few journalists, who were escorted by security officers.
Syrian officials deny that the Kurds face any discrimination or have any real basis for their complaints. They note that the young President Assad visited the area in 2002 and pledged greater development, which will come.
After the riots, the Kurdish Democratic Party in Iraq issued a statement suggesting that Damascus do something to end the problems in "Syrian Kurdistan" peacefully. Shock waves rippled through the government here.
Hoshar Zubairy, Iraq's Kurdish foreign minister, made his first official visit to Syria, partly to try to smooth ruffled feathers. At a news conference on Monday, where Mr. Zubairy was peppered with questions that fell just short of calling him an American stooge, he said Iraq had enough trouble with instability to want to create any here.
Of course, not even a riot in the Middle East seems complete without invoking some historical precedent, in this case, Saladin. This Kurdish warrior, who is buried in Damascus, evicted the Crusaders from Jerusalem in 1187.
Syrian officials asked aloud this week how a country that enshrined Saladin could mistreat his descendants. "We want a political dialogue because our nation is for all," Ahmed Haj Ali, a consultant to the minister of information, said on Al Arabiya satellite television.
But Abdul Baqi Youssef, a Kurdish opposition figure in Qamishliye, said that by drawing all the warriors and intellectuals out of the Kurdish area to battle the Crusaders, Saladin left it buffeted by overlords to this day. "The Arabs should consider him a saint, but he brought devastation to the Kurds," Mr. Youssef said.
-------- nato
Russia to confront NATO chief over warplanes in Baltic states: minister
MOSCOW (AFP)
Mar 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040324134339.4cidyqww.html
Russia will confront NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at upcoming talks in Moscow over the alliance's plans to station warplanes in the ex-Soviet Baltic republics, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday.
"In the nearest future the NATO general secretary is due to visit here, and I hope that he will inform us about plans to expand the alliance's military presence into the Baltic states," Interfax quoted Ivanov as saying.
The defence minister repeated warnings that Russia reserved the right to take retaliatory steps to protect its security.
"We are following this situation closely and if these actions violate the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, we will have the right to take measures in the interests of our own security," he said.
In 1999, 30 countries including the US and Russia meeting in Istanbul signed an updated version of the 1990 CFE treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe, a pact designed to eliminate the risk of surprise attacks.
Contacted by AFP, the NATO representative office in Moscow confirmed that Scheffer was scheduled to visit Russia "in the near future" but said the exact date was still under discussion.
Russia has shown increasing irritation at NATO's plans to provide an air defense umbrella for the three Baltic states, which will formally join the US-led military alliance on April 2.
Denmark is contemplating sending four F-16 fighter jets to patrol Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, a Danish military spokesman said last week.
Ivanov urged NATO in February not to put new military facilities in Poland and the Baltics, warning that Moscow could boost its military presence in its Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and the Baltics.
Russia has watched warily as the Atlantic alliance has expanded eastwards ever closer to its borders following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The bloc already includes former Soviet satellites the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland which joined in 1999.
In April NATO takes in four other former Warsaw Pact countries -- Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia -- plus the Baltic states.
-------- pacific
Return of Australian troops from Iraq becomes an election issue
SYDNEY (AFP)
Mar 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040324015619.mm6676ks.html
Plans by the Labor opposition to bring Australian troops home from Iraq by Christmas became an election issue Wednesday as the government condemned the move as populist and a threat to civilians working in Baghdad.
Opposition leader Mark Latham said on Tuesday that with a planned handover of power to a new Iraqi government at the end of June, Australia's 850 troops and advisers could be home by the end of the year if Labor wins the elections expected by the end of the year.
Latham conceded that problems with the transition of power could lead to the troops remaining longer.
"But our intention is to ensure that once the responsibility is discharged, and that is at the time of the handover to the new sovereign government in Iraq, then Australian troops will come back under a Labor government," he added.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the government wanted to maintain its embassy in Baghdad and security for civilians was essential.
"We have quite a lot of Australians working in Baghdad in our embassy there and in other roles and one of the principle functions of our troops there is to protect those Australians," he told reporters.
"I don't want to see those Australians left unprotected in Baghdad and I'd like Mr. Latham to stop and think about that and perhaps consider the policy rather more carefully.
"I don't think this is a time in history where we should just be jumping around in a populist way. I think this is a time in history when we should be focusing very much on persuading the public about what's in the national interest."
Latham announced the plan as a new poll showed two thirds of Australian voters believe fear Australia's decision to join the US-led war in Iraq had increased the chances of terrorist attack here.
The Australian newspaper said its Newspoll findings were the clearest sign yet that voters are dubious about government assurances involvement in the Iraq war would not increase the terrorist threat.
Defence Minister Robert Hill said this week that Australia would consider keeping its troops in Iraq after the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people scheduled for June 30.
-------- space
Chinese Space Experts Discuss Their Future Lunar Mission Hopes
Mar 24, 2004
SpaceDaily
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-04m.html
Beijing - China's lunar probing program formally started when the project was approved by the state in January 2004, marking a significant step forward in the country's deep space exploration.
At the invitation of People's Daily, three experts in this field wrote a special article to make an overall introduction to the national moon probing project.
Probing the moon in a fast, efficient and economical way By Sun Jiadong, general designer of the program Prologue to deep space exploration For China to conduct deep space probe with the moon as a starting point is a natural and inevitable choice since by now we have both conditions and needs for expanding the space activities.
Under such a circumstance the state made the decision to launch the lunar probe immediately, in the hope of gaining first-hand data in a fast, efficient and economical way so as to accumulate experience and create conditions for deeper probes to follow.
The work we are doing is another innovation at a new starting point, for in the past our space activities were all focused on the earth, but now the round-the-moon flight has raised the curtain for China's deep space probe.
A little step forward carries something further The main aim of our lunar probe is to make an understanding of the moon-the nearest celestial body from us-from a scientific point of view and develop our space engineering technology.
As the program is unfolding step by step, we are going to master the technologies needed for rounding the moon flight, landing on its surface and cruising automatically there as well as collecting samples automatically and then returning to the earth.
This is going to be realized by developing and launching probing satellites, soft landing probe, lunar rover, sample collector and returning devices. We will set up and improve a whole set of engineering system of lunar probe so as to lay a technical foundation for future deep space activities.
As the program advances, related technologies as space system integration, deep space communication, new type carrier rocket and launching will also forge ahead, and so the country will raise its overall quality in space technology and achieve progress by leaps and bounds.
Meanwhile, space-related technologies will also offer an impetus to other hi-tech technologies in the fields of information, new energy resources, new materials and micro-mechanics and electronics.
We will establish a mechanism to promote technological achievements scored in the lunar probe and corresponding engineering projects in order o push forward the hi-tech in the related fields, thereby serving the whole society with the sci-tech progress funded by the state.
Blazing a shortcut to deep space probe The probe into the unknown world is a permanent theme of human activities. The results achieved may not be put into an immediate use, but they are of lasting value. When the former Soviet Union launched the first manmade satellite, our forerunners wouldn't be able to foresee such a close tie between our life and space as we do today.
China is a nation boasting of a long tradition in exploration and innovation, while the lunar probe program serves just a practical and convenient way leading to deep space exploration.
Relying on our excellent space team and years of successful experience, and by sticking to the principle of being "serious and earnest, attentive and careful, stable, reliable and perfectly safe", we are sure to complete tasks in three stages of "orbiting", "landing" and "returning", thereby laying a solid technological foundation for future probes and making contribution to the nation as well as to the whole mankind.
Though late yet a higher start By Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist on lunar applied science An abortive launch By 1994 China had started its manned space program. At that time we planned to develop from Long March 2E rocket into a 2F rocket, but scientists had different opinions on what to launch by such a rocket. Some proposed to launch a lunar probe satellite using our limited funds, and worked out a simple exploration plan.
But the plan aborted at last due to lack of a complete program plan and a long-term, in-depth scientific exploration of its objectives. Moreover, the national economy has just picked up and the space foundation was quite fragile. At that time we could only expect a simple flight around the moon, thus and could only do a limited contribution to the progress of national science and technology.
We are deeply enlightened from this experience. Formulating a development plan and scientific objective means to combine properly the scientific plan with technological ability. A good plan turns out a moon in the water without technological ability, while technological ability having no support of a scientific plan will never yield any quality result.
We've got a keen feeling that since we set out late we must carry it out from a higher level. We must keep up with international practices and consider our national conditions as well. We must seek for a sustainable development while making breakthrough in some key fields.
Starting from 0.5g of lunar sample American announced its plan for "returning to the moon" this year, a plan which could be traced back to 1994 when exploration and re-landing objectives were put forward.
At the same period the world saw a second-round of lunar probe waves after the Cold War, with Europe, Japan, India, Ukraine, Germany and Russia all putting out their exploration plans.
In fact, China began to conduct its primary studies on the moon as early as in 1978 when Mr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, then National Security Assistant to the US President, presented the Chinese government with one gram of lunar sample. Relevant researches were then done with 0.5g of that and lunar aerolite and by some other ways. Deeper studies followed after 1994, with more solid results achieved.
Off from 1999, the Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense organized related departments for discussions over scientific objectives for lunar exploration. The Chinese Academy of Sciences approved them in 2001 with the corresponding research kicked off.
Beginning from 2000, the Commission organized engineers and scientists to work out a technological plan, which was completed two years later and formally approved by the state in January 2004.
From the earth to the moon By Luan Enjie, director of China National Space Administration Space activities go deeper A thorough review of the history of space sci-tech and activities both at home and abroad shows that space activities are mainly in the three areas -- the launch of manmade earth satellites, manned space flight and deep space probe. After accomplishing the first two it's a proper time for China to start its deep space probe beginning from lunar exploration.
Internationally the "return to the moon" project is still at a fledgling stage, and it's just the right time for China to catch up and join the world in its forefront.
Three steps for unmanned lunar exploration Considering our sci-tech level, overall national strength and the national strategic development as a whole, China will focus on unmanned lunar probe in 2020 and the period to come and by three stages we men orbiting the moon, soft landing and cruising on its surface, sample collecting and returning to the earth.
As the first step, the main points of orbiting the moon include 3D lunar image analysis, distribution of useful elements, depth of lunar soil and space environment between the moon and the earth. The core of the project is to go from the earth to the moon.
We will develop and launch lunar probe satellites by making full use of the existing maturing space technology and achieve breakthroughs in technologies as for earth-moon flight, long-distance control and communication, orbiting the moon, lunar remote control and analysis, so as to set up a primary exploration system of our own.
China's first lunar probe is expected to be launched by 2007, and work for the second and third stages are under discussions as part of the nation's medium-and-long-term development plan.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
-------- spies
U.S. Eyed Use of Drones to Nab Bin Laden
March 24, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sept-11-Predator.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Intelligence and military officials intensely debated how far to go using an unmanned aircraft to spy on -- and perhaps attack -- Osama bin Laden in the year before Sept. 11, 2001, according to preliminary findings of an independent commission investigating the attacks.
The discussions, which reached some of the highest levels of government, centered on when and how to use a cutting-edge unmanned drone called the Predator.
The small, slow aircraft was flown on 16 missions over Afghanistan in the fall of 2000, according to the report released Wednesday. At least twice, a Predator spotted a security detail around a tall, robed man, believed to be bin Laden.
At about the same time, Clinton administration counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke and other officials learned that the Air Force had undertaken a ``promising and energetic'' effort to arm the Predators with missiles, according to the report.
That gave officials hope that rather than just spotting targets, the aircraft might also be able to launch an attack without putting an American pilot at risk. The question became whether to keep flying the planes on reconnaissance missions over Afghanistan or wait until the armed version was ready.
With the planes grounded due to harsh winter weather, CIA Director George Tenet and military officers in the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to postpone reconnaissance missions until the armed drone was ready. They worried about tipping the U.S. hand to the Taliban.
Tenet and others also feared one of the valuable drones could be shot down, and wanted to keep enough at home for testing with the missile capability, according to the staff report.
When the weather broke, Clarke and one of Tenet's deputies wanted to get the drones flying so they collect intelligence and possibly work with the military in a strike.
Still, ``Tenet's position prevailed,'' the report said.
According to Tenet's testimony, problems including the missile's fusing occurred during testing in May and June 2001.
Policy questions also lingered: Who would authorize any firing of the missiles? Would the Defense Department or the CIA be responsible if a Predator were lost?
Tenet said the agencies agreed to split the cost. ``After September 11, it became a nonissue,'' he said.
Air Force officials told the commission staff that policy debates did not slow the program. Instead, the report said, Air Force officials were tossing out the normal rules in order to get the project done. ``A program that would ordinarily have taken years was, they said, finished in months,'' the report said.
Technical issues were still being resolved on Sept. 11, 2001. But one Air Force program manager told the commission, ``We just took what we had and deployed it.''
On Oct. 7, 2001, weeks after al-Qaida's attack on the United States, one country gave approval to fly the Predator's first armed mission, Tenet said.
It was flown that day.
Since then, Predators armed with Hellfire missiles have been used several times. They were credited with airstrikes that killed al-Qaida members including Mohammed Atef, the terror network's military chief.
In November 2002, a Predator strike in Yemen killed another top al-Qaida operative.
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C.I.A. Chief Defends Efforts Against Al Qaeda Before 9/11
March 24, 2004
By TERENCE NEILAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/24CND-PANE.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
Under sometimes tough questioning, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, today defended his role and that of his agency in fighting terror under the Bush and Clinton administrations as the special commission investigating the 9/11 attacks began its second day of hearings in Washington.
Mr. Tenet said that even if Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, had been been captured or killed in 2001, he did not think it would have prevented the 9/11 attacks, a point made to the panel on Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Later, the national security adviser for President Bill Clinton, Samuel R. Berger, disputed an assertion by Mr. Tenet that the C.I.A. had not been given authority to kill Mr. bin Laden.
"There could not have been any doubt about what President Clinton's intent was after he fired 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles at bin Laden in August '98," Mr. Berger testified. "I assure you they were not delivering an arrest warrant. The intent was to kill bin Laden."
But according to a commission staff report presented at the hearing, Mr. Tenet said C.I.A. officials had interpreted directives from Mr. Clinton to apply to the military, and that the C.I.A.'s role was only to capture Mr. bin Laden, not to kill him.
"They believed that the only acceptable context for killing bin Laden was a credible capture operation," the report said, quoting Mr. Tenet as having said, "We always talked about how much easier it would have been to kill him."
Earlier, in answer to a question by one of the bipartisan commission's 10 memers, Jamie S. Gorelick, Mr. Tenet said that the predominant intelligence reporting had taken "us overseas, but we could not discount the possibility of an attack on the homeland, although the data just didn't exist with any specificity to take you there."
Mr. Tenet, who previously testified to the panel in private, added, "I mean, that was what was maddening about this."
Ms. Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, described the intelligence that was being collected by the C.I.A. from April through August 2001 as "hair-raising," adding, "And you have told us, `Our collection sources lit up during this intense period.' "
The reports, which had been widely disseminated in the government, suggested that the targets were American, Ms. Gorelick said, though some reporting "simply pointed to the West or to Israel."
In questioning that at times appeared to reflected partisan divisions on the panel, Mr. Tenet told James R. Thompson, a Republican former governor of Illinois, that to his knowledge, Mr. Bush had never been given any information by anyone, especially the Central Intelligence Agency, that would have allowed him to predict the 9/11 hijacking attacks.
Tougher questions came from Timothy J. Roemer, a former Congressman from Indiana, one of five Democrats on the panel.
Mr. Roemer cited declassified intelligence reports containing uncorroborated information that Mr. bin Laden had wanted to hijack airplanes to gain the release of militants held by the United States and indicating that bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the United States with explosives.
"Why weren't we concentrating more on those kinds of possibilities?" Mr. Roemer asked Mr. Tenet. "You were running around saying something spectacular is going to happen. You were worried about this. You were on record from 1998 on saying you were at war with Al Qaeda, but why wasn't the United States government more about those attacks?"
Mr. Tenet in effect sidestepped the question, advising Mr. Roemer to put those questions to a later witness, Richard A. Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser to Presidents Bush and Clinton.
Mr. Clarke's testimony this afternoon is perhaps the mostly highly anticipated of the day, as he goes before the panel amid a furor sparked by recent criticism of the Bush administration that he has leveled in interviews and a book.
Today's proceedings of the independent, bipartisan panel, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, follows a remarkable day of questioning on Tuesday, in which officials like the former secretary of state, Madeleine K. Albright, and Mr. Rumsfeld defended their actions in handling the threat of terrorism against the United States.
At the same time, the commission issued a staff report on Tuesday that said, among other things, that intelligence reports in 2001 had warned of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda, and that Mr. Rumsfeld had not ordered any new preparation against Al Qaeda or the Taliban from the time he took over the Pentagon in early 2001 until the 9/11 attacks.
In his book, published on Monday, Mr. Clarke says the Bush administration not only failed to take Al Qaeda seriously before the attacks, it followed up with "an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide."
On Sept. 12, 2001, Mr. Clarke writes, Mr. Bush approached him in the White House Situation Room and three times asked him to "look into" whether Iraq had been involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"And in a very intimidating way, I mean, that we should come back with that answer," Mr. Clarke, who also served under President Bill Clinton, said in a later television interview.
Stung by Mr. Clarke's assertions, the Bush administration quickly staged a counterattack, sending out top officials, including the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to the morning television talk shows to rebut Mr. Clarke's charges. Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed on the syndicated Rush Limbaugh radio program on Monday and noted that there had been several terror attacks during Mr. Clarke's watch in the Clinton administration.
The rebuttal was continued on Tuesday before the panel by Mr. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
The charges in Mr. Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," were dismissed by administration officials as politically motivated and the work of a disgruntled former employee.
But today Mr. Clarke will have the opportunity to reaffirm his charges, even though he can expect sharp questioning from the 10-member bipartisan panel.
This morning represented the second opportunity this for Mr. Tenet, who also served under Mr. Clinton, to state his position on what was known before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
In testimony before a Senate panel on March 9, Mr. Tenet said he did not think the administration had misrepresented facts to justify going to war. At the same time he said that he had privately intervened on several occasions to correct what he regarded as public misstatements on intelligence by Mr. Cheney and others, and that he would do so again.
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On 9/11, CIA Was Running Simulation of a Plane Crashing into a Building
March 24, 2004
Memory Hole
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=51531;title=APFN
Associated Press picks up story first reported by The Memory Hole [see below] http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/cia-simulation.htm
>>> Here's another admission which destroys the government's lie that it couldn't possibly have foreseen the use of planes to ram buildings.
The National Law Enforcement and Security Institute will be holding a conference called "Homeland Security: America's Leadership Challenge" in Chicago on 6 Sept 2002. The star speaker is Rudolph Giuliani. One of the other speakers is CIA man John Fulton. Here is the crucial sentence from the promotional literature for the conference:
On the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team at the CIA were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building.
Fulton's entire passage from the promotional literature
John Fulton - Intelligence Networking & Analysis
On the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team at the CIA were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day. Information is the most powerful tool available in the homeland security effort. At the core of every initiative currently underway to protect our country and its citizens is the challenge of getting the right information to the right people at the right time. How can so much information from around the world be captured and processed in meaningful and timely ways? Mr. Fulton shares his insights into the intelligence community, and shares a vision of how today's information systems will be developed into even better counter-terrorism tools of tomorrow.
About John Fulton
John Fulton's 25 years in the intelligence community has contributed to his recognition as an expert in risk & threat response analysis, scenario gaming, and strategic planning. He is on staff for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), currently serving as Chief of the Strategic War Gaming Division of the National Reconnaissance Office, and as a member of U.S. Joint Forces Command's Project Alpha - a prestigious "think tank" for advanced concepts related to such issues as homeland security. He formerly served as the mission director for our nation's satellite imagery program as well as replacing Army Astronaut Same Gemar as the Director of the National Security Space Master Plan for the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Space Communities under the auspices of the Deputy UnderSecretary of Defense (Space).
His counter-terrorism and homeland security responsibilities include advising the Director Central Intelligence Staff for Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshall's Office, and collaboration with the National Security Council.
In the private sector Fulton has developed a number of patents related to positioning, "smart GPS " applications, communications, and audio/video technology. He oversees the development of public & personal safety applications of these capabilities through SafeSTAR projects, and contributes to the strategic planning and conceptual design of the SafeSTAR Homeland Security Command Center.
One week after The Memory Hole first reported this story (14 August 2002), it was picked up by the Associated Press in the following article:
Agency planned drill for plane crash last Sept. 11 Associated Press August 22, 2002
WASHINGTON -- In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft crashed into one of its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism -- it was to be a simulated accident.
Officials at the Chantilly, Va.-based National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise that morning in which a small corporate jet crashed into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure.
The agency is about four miles from the runways of Washington Dulles International Airport.
Agency chiefs came up with the scenario to test employees' ability to respond to a disaster, said spokesman Art Haubold. To simulate the damage from the plane, some stairwells and exits were to be closed off, forcing employees to find other ways to evacuate the building.
"It was just an incredible coincidence that this happened to involve an aircraft crashing into our facility," Haubold said. "As soon as the real world events began, we canceled the exercise."
Terrorism was to play no role in the exercise, which had been planned for several months, he said.
Adding to the coincidence, American Airlines Flight 77 -- the Boeing 767 that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon -- took off from Dulles at 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 11, 50 minutes before the exercise was to begin. It struck the Pentagon around 9:40 a.m., killing 64 aboard the plane and 125 on the ground.
The National Reconnaissance Office operates many of the nation's spy satellites. It draws its personnel from the military and the CIA.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the 3,000 people who work at agency headquarters were sent home, save for some essential personnel, Haubold said.
An announcement for an upcoming homeland security conference in Chicago first noted the exercise.
In a promotion for speaker John Fulton, a CIA officer assigned as chief of NRO's strategic gaming division, the announcement says, "On the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team ... were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day."
The conference is being run by the National Law Enforcement and Security Institute.
Man Jumps from the top of the WTC Tower 1. http://www.apfn.org/apfn/wtc_man_jumps_photo.jpg
CLICK FULL STORY:
PROOF "THEY KNOW".... HERE'S THE ALERT TO AIRLINES! http://www.apfn.org/apfn/travel_6-23-01.htm
--
U.S. Airlines may be a terror risk over next 3 days
AIRJET AIRLINE WORLD NEWS -- AJN
23JUN2001
mirrored from: http://www.hcfhawaii.com/news/terror_risk.htm
WASHINGTON - 23JUN2001 (AirlineBiz.Com) With U.S. Gulf forces already on high alert, the U.S. State Department is expected to issue a travel advisory shortly warning Americans traveling overseas to be on their guard.
Videotapes allegedly show Osama bin Laden threatening to attack U.S. interests in the region. Indictments against 13 Saudi nationals and one Lebanese, charging them with killing 19 US servicemen at a military base in Saudi Arabia in 1996 appears to be the catalyst.
With the announcement of the indictments, U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft noted how terrorists are targeting the United States. "Americans are a high-priority target for terrorists," he said.
In recent years, U.S. citizens have found themselves the target of several attacks by the terror network of Osama bin Laden. One such attack involved a plot to destroy 12 U.S. airliners in Asia.
A jury found Ramzi Ahmed Yousef the alleged mastermind of the scheme, and two other defendants, guilty on all counts. Yousef is also the alleged mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and is also linked to schemes to assassinate President Clinton and the Pope.
Just prior to the attack of the Saudi military base, officials uncovered the plot to blow up 12 U.S. airliners on January 6, 1995 when a fire broke out in a Manila apartment.
During the trial a Secret Service agent testified that Yousef boasted during his extradition flight to New York that he would have blown up several jumbo jets within a few weeks if his plan had not been discovered. The government said the defendants even devised a name for their airline terror plot named, "Project Bojinka."
Tapes played in court showed the defendants talking about how much they enjoyed killing Americans. In a test run, a bomb was placed on a Philippine Air Lines 747 flight to Tokyo. It exploded, killing a Japanese passenger.
The Arabic satellite television channel MBC has reported, "the next two weeks will witness a big surprise."
A reporter of MBC said, "A severe blow is expected against U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide." MBC said the reporter met with Osama bin Laden two days ago in Afghanistan.
"There is a major state of mobilization among the Osama bin Laden forces. It seems that there is a race of who will strike first. Will it be the United States or Osama bin Laden?" the correspondent said.
June 25 is the fifth anniversary of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers bombing which killed 19 U.S. servicemen. Bob Monetti, President of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 said, "I hope the airlines are watching this situation closely."
Mr. Monetti, who lost his son Rick on Pan Am 103 is also a special advisor to the FAA on security related matters. Monetti is hopeful about the progress that has been made since the bombing of Pan Am 103.
However, Monetti expressed serious concern about the abilities of the airlines to stop a terrorist organization from carrying out their plans as promised. Monetti noted that Osama bin Laden has had several terrorist targets over the years and not all of them have been military.
"The airlines are at risk -- They need to take all appropriate measures and counter-measures to ensure the safety of their passengers," Monetti said.
Airline News Wire: http://AirlineBiz.com/wire
~~
United Sued for WTC Hijacking Attack
Thursday December 20
(Reuters)
NEW YORK - The widow of a New Hampshire man who was a passenger on the United Air Lines flight that slammed into the World Trade Center filed on Thursday what is believed to be the first suit against an airline stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks.
The wrongful death suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges that United breached its duty to care for the safety of the passengers on Flight 175. The suit filed by Ellen Mariani, whose husband, Louis, was killed in the attack, seeks unspecified damages.
The Nolan Law Group, the Chicago firm that filed the suit, said it believed this was the first action against an airline seeking to hold it liable for the hijacking.
Louis Mariani, a 59-year-old retired sales coordinator at H.P. Hood, died when the plane hit Tower Number Two of the World Trade Center. The suit alleged that he suffered severe fright and terror before dying in the crash.
A spokesman for United said the airline does not comment on pending litigation.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011220/bs/attack_lawsuit_dc_1.html
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Palestinians Push for New U.N. Resolution
March 24, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mideast-yassin-un.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Palestinians pushed for a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Wednesday that would condemn Israel's killing of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, an action the United States is bound to oppose.
Yassin, the quadriplegic spiritual leader of Hamas, died on Monday in an Israeli helicopter missile strike outside a mosque in Gaza. The action has been criticized around the world as an escalation of Middle East violence.
But council members were deadlocked after more than three hours of public council debate late on Tuesday, with the United States insisting it would not criticize the assassination without mentioning the suicide bombings Hamas has carried out against Israeli civilians.
However, Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian U.N. observer, told reporters, ``We cannot accept any mentioning of any Palestinian group by name.''
Algeria, the Arab member of the council, is conducting negotiations on behalf of the Palestinians and Islamic nations.
``Our goal is to have action taken by the Security Council now in the right way,'' al-Kidwa told reporters, adding that he was not aiming for a veto from the United States.
'GODFATHER OF TERRORISM'
During the debate, Israel's U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, called Yassin a ``godfather of terrorism'' and accused the United Nations of singling out his country instead of the 425 attacks that have killed 377 Israelis in three and half years.
``To cast him as a spiritual leader is to attempt to characterize Osama bin Laden as a Mother Teresa,'' he said.
The United States and Algeria failed earlier on Tuesday to agree on a council statement that would have criticized the killing. A statement, which carried less weight than a resolution, would have needed unanimous endorsement.
If a resolution gets the minimum nine votes and a U.S. veto, Arab nations could take the issue to the 191-member General Assembly where they are bound to get approval as they have done in the past. Assembly resolutions are not binding as some council measures are.
Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram told the council that the Middle East was on the brink of another great crisis with the Israeli rocket attacks in Gaza threatening to ``undo in one strike the achievements of years of diplomacy.''
Iran's U.N. ambassador went further, saying that Sheik Yassin was ``an inspiration for the resistance against occupation.''
Javid Zarif told the council Yassin ``was neither involved nor in control of the resistance, a phenomenon that is caused by the occupation itself and not by any individual or group.
European nations were more measured, condemning extra-judicial killings as well as actions by Hamas.
``This practice by the Israeli armed forces must stop,'' said Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, France's U.N. ambassador. He said that terrorist attacks were ``morally reprehensible'' and ``unjustified'' for any reason.
Even U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said the killing ``escalated tensions in Gaza and the greater Middle East, and sets back our effort to resume progress toward peace.''
But he did not condemn Israel's action.
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'Don't Ask' Dismissals Drop in Wartime
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19172-2004Mar23.html
The number of gays dismissed from the military under the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has dropped to its lowest level in nine years as U.S. forces fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a report by an advocacy group.
The military discharged 787 gay men and lesbians last year, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. It attributed the decline to the importance of U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The figure marks a 17 percent decrease from 2002 and a 39 percent drop from 2001, just before the conflicts began in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"You have to ask yourself, and you have to ask the Pentagon, why are the discharges going down?" said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of the advocacy group and one of the report's authors. "When they need people, they keep them. When they don't, they implement their policy of discrimination with greater force."
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.
The policy has been in place since 1994. It allows gays to serve in uniform so long as they don't reveal their sexual orientation.
The military has discharged nearly 10,000 people for violations of the policy since it first took effect, according to the report.
The number of gays discharged increased steadily from 1994 to 1998. Dismissals decreased slightly in 1999 and then increased until they peaked at 1,273 in 2001.
All the services except the Air Force dismissed fewer gays last year than the year before. It dismissed 142 people for violating the policy, up from 121 in 2002.
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Retirees Now Can Work in Defense Jobs at Full Pay and Keep Pension
By Stephen Barr,
Washington Post
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19176-2004Mar23?language=printer
The Pentagon has announced a new policy that will allow civil service retirees to return to work at the Defense Department and be paid a full salary while collecting their federal pension.
The policy change was approved by Congress last year as part of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization act and applies only to federal retirees hired by the Defense Department on or after Nov. 24, 2003.
Under previous law, civil service retirees who went back to work at Defense usually faced a deduction in pay equal to the amount of their annuities. Defense officials asked Congress to do away with the restriction as part of its overall effort to create a more flexible workforce. Officials also pointed out that Congress lifted the so-called double-dip curb on military retirees several years ago.
In a memo last week to senior Defense officials, David S.C. Chu, defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness, said the policy change "will help address the challenges of 'retirement-driven talent drain' as our current generation of dedicated civil servants become eligible to retire."
The new policy has been eagerly awaited by many government retirees wishing a return to public service. But some may be disappointed, because it comes with a number of restrictions.
The Pentagon said retirees should be hired only for jobs that have historically high turnover, a severe shortage of applicants or other significant recruiting problems. The retirees also must have specialized skills or qualifications "not generally available," according to the Pentagon guidelines accompanying Chu's memo.
To discourage perceptions that Defense employees could retire and easily reclaim their old job, the guidelines said that retirees cannot return to their previous or similar job without the approval from the "next level manager or supervisor," who must certify that critical conditions justify the return.
Although the guidelines do not limit the length of time a retiree may hold a job, the guidelines stipulate that retirees may work no longer than a year when assigned "to mentor less experienced employees and/or to provide continuity during critical organizational transitions." Before any retiree can be hired, the position must be offered to qualified defense workers who have lost their job through no fault of their own, the Pentagon said. Settlement in TSP Dispute
A company that produces financial services software will pay the government $425,000 to settle allegations that it overstated labor charges under a contract to help deliver a new record-keeping system for the Thrift Savings Plan, the Justice Department has announced.
SunGard Employee Benefit Systems helped bring the TSP's new computer system online last year after the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which oversees TSP, fired the original contractor for allegedly bungling the project.
The settlement resolves allegations that SunGard misled the government by overstating labor hours during portions of late 2001 and early 2002, the Justice Department said.
The agreement also includes the resolution of claims brought by Frank Roemer, a former SunGard employee. He had filed a suit in June 2002 under the whistle-blower provisions of the False Claims Act and will receive $85,000 of the settlement as his statutory award, the department said.
In a statement, SunGard denied the allegations and said it agreed to a settlement "to ensure that its continuing support of the federal government retirement plan proceeds without distraction and to expeditiously resolve the civil action."
Ray Davis, the chief executive at SunGard Employee Benefit Systems, said in the statement the company "has been fully committed to meeting -- and when necessary exceeding -- the contractual and legal requirements for this project. In fact, our employees worked thousands of unbilled hours above contract requirements to add the considerable custom features needed for the new Thrift Savings Plan system and to have it ready to go live as early as possible." Diary Live Today
Please join me at noon today for a discussion of federal employee and retiree issues on Federal Diary Live at www.washingtonpost.com.
E-mail: barrs@washpost.com
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
9/11 Panel Critical of Clinton, Bush
Officials From Both Administrations Defend Response to Al Qaeda Threat
By Dan Eggen and John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18972-2004Mar23?language=printer
The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks issued a stinging condemnation yesterday of the U.S. government's failed hunt for Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network, finding that both the Clinton and Bush administrations focused too heavily on diplomacy that did not work and were reluctant to consider aggressive military action.
The criticism prompted spirited defenses from top Clinton and Bush officials, who testified in a day-long public hearing that the government proceeded as aggressively as possible given what was known about the threat from al Qaeda.
Several of the witnesses, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, also suggested that there was little public or congressional appetite for military action against Afghanistan, which harbored al Qaeda, until after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that even removing bin Laden may not have prevented the hijackings.
"This administration came in fully recognizing the threat presented to the United States and its interests and allies around the world by terrorism," Powell said. "We went to work on it immediately. The president made it clear it was a high priority."
But the new reports by the commission's investigative staff portray the Bush administration as giving terrorism scant attention during its first eight months, noting that officials did not draw up concrete plans to confront al Qaeda and its Afghan protectors until just days before the Sept. 11 attacks.
The reports suggest that many of the Clinton administration's policies also were ineffectual, revealing significant new details about as many as four missed opportunities to kill or capture bin Laden in 1998 and 1999.
The reports also appear to confirm some of the key criticisms made by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism coordinator for Clinton and Bush, in a book released Monday that has revived the bitter debate over the government's war on terror. Clarke set off a political firestorm with allegations that the current administration neglected the al Qaeda threat in part because senior officials were obsessed with attacking Iraq, and accused both administrations of failing to act aggressively enough. He is scheduled to testify before the commission today, along with CIA Director George J. Tenet, Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage.
Addressing what more could have been done, Madeleine K. Albright, Clinton's secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, said: "I can say with confidence that President Clinton and his team did everything we could, everything that we could think of, based on the knowledge we had, to protect our people and disrupt and defeat al Qaeda. We certainly recognized the threat posed by the terrorist groups."
The panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is a 10-member bipartisan commission established by Congress to examine the missteps leading up to the attacks. Unlike previous efforts, including a joint inquiry by the House and Senate intelligence committees, the commission is conducting a wide-ranging probe that reviews foreign policy, aviation, border control and other issues. It is scheduled to issue a report this summer.
The panel has engaged in repeated battles with the Bush administration over access to documents and witnesses, and several commissioners repeated their request yesterday that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice be permitted to testify. Rice, citing the opinion of White House lawyers, has declined to appear, but has submitted to private interviews with the commission. The current and former presidents and vice presidents also are scheduled to be interviewed privately.
The panel's staff issued reports earlier this year showing that the government fumbled repeated opportunities to stop many of the hijackers from entering the country. Among the new findings disclosed yesterday:
• The Clinton administration had as many as four chances to kill or capture bin Laden between December 1998 and July 1999, but all the operations were scuttled because of uncertain intelligence and fears that civilians or dignitaries might be killed. In one example, in May 1999, sources provided detailed reports about bin Laden's whereabouts in the Kandahar area over a period of five nights, but strikes were not ordered because the military was concerned about the accuracy of the reports and the risk of collateral damage, investigators found.
"Having a chance to get [bin Laden] three times in 36 hours and foregoing the chance each time has made me a bit angry," a CIA unit chief wrote to a colleague, adding that Tenet "finds himself alone at the table, with the other princip[als] basically saying 'we'll go along with your decision Mr. Director,' and implicitly saying that the Agency will hang alone if the attack doesn't get [bin Laden]." • Rumsfeld told the commission in earlier interviews that he "did not recall any particular counterterrorism issue that engaged his attention before 9/11," other than the debate over preparing armed drones to target bin Laden.
• A month after the Clinton administration launched missile strikes on al Qaeda targets in retaliation for the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa, counterterrorism officials within the Pentagon prepared a paper proposing "a more aggressive counterterrorism posture" to "take up the gauntlet that international terrorists have thrown at our feet." The authors also warned that in case of more "horrific attacks . . . we will have no choice nor, unfortunately, will we have a plan."
The eight-point proposal went nowhere, in part because senior officials thought the plan was too aggressive, investigators found.
• In the spring of 1998, the Saudi government broke up a plot organized by bin Laden to launch attacks on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia using portable missiles. Scores were arrested, but the Saudis did not publicize the case at the time, the commission report said.
• U.S. officials learned that Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistani intelligence, had assured Taliban leaders in July 1999 that he would provide three or four hours of warning before any U.S. missile launch as he had the "last time" -- an apparent reference to the failed 1998 missile strike.
Testifying yesterday were Albright, Powell, Rumsfeld and Clinton defense secretary William S. Cohen. The pairs of representatives agreed with one another on many broad issues, including the difficulties of targeting bin Laden and his allies before Sept. 11, 2001, and the perceived lack of political support for military action during those years. Some commissioners, particularly former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), argued that both administrations could have rallied support for military operations just as they did in Kosovo and Iraq, respectively.
The officials from both administrations also struck a similar theme on the question of preventing the terror strikes, arguing that it is unclear how effective aggressive action might have been, given the extent of the plot and the determination of the participants. Powell noted that al Qaeda and its allies have launched attacks since the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001.
"Anything we might have done against al Qaeda in this period or against Osama bin Laden may or may not have had any influence on these people who were already in this country," Powell said.
Albright said that "things looked very different before 9/11. We were mostly accused of overreacting, not underreacting."
But each side disparaged the other on several occasions. Albright, for example, bemoaned many of the policy changes pursued by Bush and his aides after they took office, while Rumsfeld said the new president was determined not to repeat the Clinton administration's tactic of "bouncing the rubble" by sending cruise missiles at al Qaeda sites of little strategic value.
Rumsfeld and Powell defended the administration's pace in adopting new strategies to battle al Qaeda and persuade the Taliban to give up bin Laden. Final plans for both were completed the week before the terrorist attacks.
Cohen and Albright similarly defended Clinton's actions against al Qaeda. Cohen said that missile strikes against bin Laden were called off in each instance because of CIA doubts about the accuracy of the intelligence involved.
In his testimony, Powell confirmed one claim by Clarke that Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary who strongly supported U.S. military action against Iraq, suggested an attack on the government of Saddam Hussein during a meeting at Camp David just four days after the 2001 attacks. President Bush "said first things first," Powell said. "He decided on Afghanistan." Wolfowitz, who appeared alongside Rumsfeld later, did not directly address the issue.
Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
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Clarke to Testify on 9/11 Today
Author of Book Critical of Bush Bridged Two Administrations
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18978-2004Mar23.html
Richard A. Clarke and his allegations in a new book about President Bush's handling of counterterrorism were called "the elephant in the room" by a commissioner at hearings yesterday investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the charges by the former White House official provoked questions for the president, first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Official Washington lavished attention on Clarke as he was giving interviews in New York. With White House officials seeking to discredit his account, he had been described only the day before by Vice President Cheney as "out of the loop." National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Clarke was uninvolved "in most of the meetings in the administration" when he was still on the job as Bush's counterterrorism expert.
Clarke, who is to testify today before the independent commission looking into the attacks, said in a telephone interview that CIA Director George J. Tenet used his morning briefings to warn Bush "over and over" beginning in June 2001 that al Qaeda would "almost certainly" stage a major attack. Clarke said the CIA believed it was "most likely" to occur overseas.
"Virtually every day, George Tenet said to him: There's an impending al Qaeda attack," Clarke said. "You know the old Shakespearean line -- I think they doth protest too much. They're guilty of not having done enough."
Bush, asked about the book when reporters were ushered in at the end of a Cabinet meeting, said nothing about Clarke but thanked the troops for their dedication to the war on terrorism. Bush said the United States has "been chasing down al Qaeda ever since the attacks" and has "captured or killed two-thirds of their known leaders."
"The facts are these," Bush said. "George Tenet briefed me on a regular basis about the terrorist threats to the United States of America. And had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on September the 11th, we would have acted."
Laura Bush added in Chicago that it was "just wrong" for anyone to imply that her husband had shirked his duty as commander in chief.
Powell, testifying before the commission, said the administration had used the expertise of Clarke, who had been counterterrorism coordinator under President Bill Clinton but stayed on and left the Bush administration 13 months ago.
Powell added: "In fact, the policy of the previous administration had not eliminated al Qaeda." Powell said the government responded to the threats "with warnings, with emergency action, committee meetings in our embassies to make sure that we were buttoning down."
Clarke pointed to Bush's later statement to Bob Woodward and Dan Balz of The Washington Post that he "didn't feel that sense of urgency" about Osama bin Laden before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Clarke was not present for the briefings, but said Tenet -- a fellow holdover from the Clinton administration -- "told me." Clarke said he "also read those briefings that he gave the president every day."
The CIA and the White House said they do not comment on the content of the president's intelligence briefings, but pointed out most of the threat information concerned a possible attack overseas.
Tenet has said publicly that the CIA was becoming increasingly worried about an attack during the summer, with concern focused overseas.
National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said Clarke asked to brief Bush just once, in June or July. The topic was cybersecurity.
The White House has asserted that Clarke has political motives for releasing the book in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he said the book could have come out sooner if White House lawyers had completed their national security review of it more speedily.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the book's text was received Nov. 4. He said the review was complete in early January and Clarke was given clearance Feb. 4.
Bush aides released Clarke's resignation letter, which praised Bush for "the courage, determination, calm and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th."
"A polite resignation," Clarke said. "How shocking and terrible."
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NEWS ANALYSIS
For a Day, Terrorism Transcends Politics as Panel Reviews Failures
March 24, 2004
By TODD S. PURDUM
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/24ASSE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, March 23 - The setting was a nondescript Senate hearing room, but the scene was as singular as democracy itself: successive secretaries of state and defense with more than 14 years' combined service across Democratic and Republican presidencies being questioned by a bipartisan citizens' commission of familiar faces.
Yes, election-year politics crackled in the air. Yes, Republican panel members prodded and scolded Bill Clinton's cabinet members, and Democrats did the same to President Bush's. But the secretaries themselves often agreed with one other, regardless of party, and their public presence was a powerful sign that terrorism transcends politics - and that blame abounds for failing to fully face the threat in time.
Madeleine K. Albright and Donald H. Rumsfeld cannot often be accused of seeing eye to eye. But the former secretary of state and the current secretary of defense agreed that there was limited public or international support for large-scale military action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban before Sept. 11.
Dr. Albright dryly noted that Mr. Clinton faced criticism as moving too rashly to bomb Qaeda training camps after the bombing of American embassies in East Africa in 1998, days after he confessed to lying about his affair with an intern.
Former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen testified that his greatest concern on taking office in 1997 was "that we're able to persuade the American people to having a viable, sustainable national security policy even when there is no clearly identifiable enemy on the horizon," while Secretary of State Colin L. Powell surmised that even the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden would not have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks, because the hijackers were already at work on American shores.
All the elaborate rituals of courtesy could not disguise the gravity of the occasion. One commission member, former Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, greeted Dr. Albright by saying, "It's very nice to see you again," but did not spare his fellow Democrat from a painful and pointed line of questioning.
"I keep hearing the excuse, `We didn't have actionable intelligence,' " Mr. Kerrey said, describing the Clinton administration's frustrated failures to eliminate Mr. bin Laden in the years after the embassy bombings and the first World Trade Center attack, in 1993. "Well, what the hell does that say to Al Qaeda? Basically, they knew, at the beginning of 1993, it seems to me, that there was going to be limited, if any, use of military, and that they were also free to do whatever they wanted."
Dr. Albright responded that the Clinton administration had moved to freeze assets, apply diplomatic pressure and order airstrikes. Then she added: "You, Senator, I know, were the only person that I know of who suggested declaring war. You were, you know, in retrospect, you were probably right."
From the sinking of the Titanic to the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the presidential commission set up to study urban unrest in the 1960's and the 1970's Senate inquiry into intelligence abuses by the C.I.A. and F.B.I., public and Congressional panels have delved into some of the most calamitous events in American history. But usually after the fact. Tuesday's hearing made it clear that the threat of terrorism remains ever present.
For the Clinton administration officials, this week's hearings were a chance to defend actions - or lapses - that have already passed into history. For the Bush appointees, the stakes were a good deal higher: They hope to keep making history for another four years. A year to the day after the capture of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq, cable television screens were filled not so much with images of combat as with recrimination and regret - a blend that poses delicate challenges for Mr. Bush.
"These things are very unusual, and only come after great national disasters," said Richard N. Goodwin, the former speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy who as a young lawyer served on the staff of the Congressional inquiry into the rigging of television quiz shows. "Especially in an election year, the political stakes are high. There's an enormous amount of tension and pent-up passions and political rivalry. But, thank God, we have these ritual forms. In the 1850's, half the guys in Congress were carrying revolvers on the floor."
For relatives of the Sept. 11 victims, the hearing was a chance, finally, to get the public attention that they believe the commission's work has long lacked. They came with still-broken hearts and photographs of the dead, seeking answers they did not quite expect to receive.
"I want the truth," said Bob McIlvaine, whose son, Bobby, died in the attacks. He wore a green jacket and a pained look, and carried a copy of Craig Unger's book, "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties" (Scribner, 2004). "I don't think this commission is going to be asking the questions that need to be asked."
Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, who was seated next to Mr. Rumsfeld, also wore a pained expression for much of the afternoon. He rejected any suggestion that the Bush administration had taken too long - until September 2001 - to devise a plan for dealing with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
"A plan is not a military option," Mr. Wolfowitz told the panel. "A military option is to a plan what a single play in football is to a whole game plan, and this notion that there's a single thing that if we had only done it, it would work, is like a Hail Mary pass in football, which is what a desperate, losing team does in a hope that maybe they can pull things off at the end. A plan has got to anticipate what the enemy will do next."
The commission was created by Congress with Mr. Bush's reluctant assent and is scheduled to conclude its business this summer. But Tuesday's hearing was a sign that Mr. Bush ought to be anticipating what comes next. He already has his hands full with the continued fighting in Iraq, and the threat of more attacks at home, and the history of past panels might give him pause.
"The Kerner Commission on inner-city riots was appointed by Lyndon Johnson as a way of defusing the issue," the presidential historian Robert Dallek recalled. "But its report became a very public document, and in the end Johnson was very unhappy with it, because he feared it would lead to greater demands for spending on antipoverty programs. And he was trying to get a tax increase to finance the Vietnam War."
--------
Report Details C.I.A. Steps, and Missteps, Against bin Laden
March 24, 2004
By DAVID STOUT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/24CND-HUNT.html
WASHINGTON, March 24 - Long before 9/11, the Central Intelligence Agency worked tirelessly to disrupt Al Qaeda terrorists and capture Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants in Afghanistan, a government report concludes. But the efforts were frustrated by an over-reliance on Afghan tribesmen and murky instructions from high-level Washington officials.
The efforts to "get" Mr. bin Laden may even have been thwarted by what seems in retrospect to have been an excess of scruples. "Two senior C.I.A. officers told us they would have been morally and practically opposed to getting C.I.A. into what might look like an assassination," the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said in a staff report made public today.
Indeed, the report said, one senior intelligence officer asserted that before Sept. 11, 2001, "he would have refused an order to directly kill bin Laden."
But not everyone in the C.I.A. was squeamish. "We always talked about how much easier it would have been to kill him," a former chief of a special unit set up in 1996 to pursue Mr. bin Laden told the commission in an interview.
Leaders of the Northern Alliance, Afghan insurgents who were eventually allied with American forces in ousting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, even laughed at the policy restraints placed on working-level C.I.A. officers before Sept. 11, especially the message that Mr. bin Laden could be killed only in the course of an operation that could credibly be described as meant to capture him.
"You Americans are crazy," a Northern Alliance leader told a C.I.A. officer, according to the report. "You guys never change."
Afghan tribesmen working for the Americans sent word "on about a half-dozen occasions" before Sept. 11 that Mr. bin Laden was moving in convoys along rough roads in Afghanistan.
"On one occasion, security was said to be too tight to capture him," the report said. "Another time they heard women and children's voices from inside the convoy and abandoned the assault for fear of killing innocents, in accordance with C.I.A. guidelines."
One disadvantage of Washington's reliance on the Northern Alliance was that the alliance's main intent was to defeat the Taliban, not to find Mr. bin Laden or attack Al Qaeda, the commission said today.
"By deciding to use proxies to carry out covert actions in Afghanistan before 9/11, both administrations placed the achievement of policy objectives in the hands of others," the report said, referring to the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George Bush.
Besides, the report said, "for covert action programs, proxies meant problems," adding, "First, proxies tend to tell those who pay them what they want to hear."
The panel, formally the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, concluded in its report that the director of central intelligence since July 1997, George J. Tenet, was "clearly committed to fighting the terrorist threat."
And yet, the report said, Mr. Tenet understood the limitations of the American approach before Sept. 11, 2001, and estimated chances of "getting lucky" and bagging Mr. bin Laden at no better than 20 percent, even though "serendipity had led to some of the C.I.A.'s past successes against Al Qaeda."
Nor were all policymakers and intelligence officers in agreement on the danger posed by Mr. bin Laden in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks.
By early 1997, the special unit formed to track Mr. bin Laden knew he "was not just a financier but an organizer of terrorist activity," the commission staff report stated. The unit was convinced that Mr. bin Laden was planning operations against American interests around the globe and was trying to obtain nuclear material.
"Although this information was disseminated in many reports, the unit's sense of alarm about bin Laden was not widely shared or understood within the intelligence and policy communities," the report concluded. "Employees in the unit told us they felt their zeal attracted ridicule from their peers."
Unarmed Predator drones flew over Afghanistan 16 times in 2000. "At least twice, the Predator saw a security detail around a tall man in a white robe who some analysts determined was probably bin Laden," the report said. The flights prompted the Taliban to speculate through the Afghan press service that the strange aircraft might be looking for Mr. bin Laden.
A high-ranking C.I.A. official, the report said, and Richard A. Clarke, a presidential adviser on counterterrorism, suggested using an armed predator to kill Mr. bin Laden. By the fall of 2000, they wanted to use it as quickly as possible.
But Mr. Tenet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed an armed-Predator strike against Mr. bin Laden, deciding among other things that an armed version of the unmanned craft was not ready for operation. Moreover, they also wanted reconnaissance flights stopped, on grounds that they would erase whatever element of surprise might be left.
The commission report recalls that, during the transition period from the Clinton to the Bush administrations in late 2000 and in the early months of the Bush presidency in 2001, there was some confusion and indecision about what to do about Al Qaeda, and when.
Throughout the summer of 2001, intelligence analysts picked up more and more intelligence "traffic" hinting at terror attacks. "By late July, there were indications of multiple, possibly catastrophic, terrorist attacks being planned against American interests overseas," the report stated.
Meanwhile, the development of the armed Predator was greatly speeded up. Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley ordered it ready by Sept. 1.
At a Sept. 4 meeting of the National Security Council, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, summarized a consensus that the armed Predator was not yet ready "but that the capability was needed."
One week later, catastrophic attacks were indeed carried out - not overseas but in New York City and against the Pentagon.
-------- drug war
Colombia gets results in drug war
March 24, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040323-111236-5123r.htm
Cocaine production in Colombia dropped significantly last year, prompting President Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe yesterday to discuss ways to intensify the war against narco-terrorists in that South American country.
Meeting at the White House for the third time in two years, the two leaders focused on "Plan Colombia," a $2.5 billion program that provides training and military hardware, including helicopters and intelligence equipment, to authorities in that country to combat drugs.
Colombia wants Washington to provide funding for the program until at least 2009.
"I have found in President Bush a huge level of understanding that we cannot leave this fight halfway," said Mr. Uribe, a staunch U.S. ally who was the only South American leader to join Mr. Bush's war coalition in Iraq.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Mr. Bush reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to build on a "strong partnership" between the two nations, and commended Mr. Uribe "for efforts in standing firmly against terrorism and combating drug trafficking."
"The two leaders discussed the importance of continuing to work together to combat terrorism and drug trafficking," Mr. McClellan said.
After the White House meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Uribe also announced that free-trade negotiations between the two countries, and possibly other Andean countries, would begin May 19, aimed at expanding trade with Colombian officials and others.
In the war on drugs, Robert Charles, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, credited Mr. Uribe's leadership since he took office in August 2002 for much of a 21 percent decline in coca production in that country during 2003.
"Thanks to President Uribe's superb leadership, substantially less coca is being grown in Colombia and real progress is being made against the scourge of cocaine," said Mr. Charles, adding that net coca cultivation by producers in Colombia dropped from 355,347 acres in 2002 to 280, 071 acres last year in what he described as a "stunning" 33 percent decline in coca cultivation from the peak growing year of 2001.
"The two-year, double-digit decline in coca cultivation underscores the effectiveness of the State Department-supported Colombian National Police aerial eradication program, which has sprayed record amounts of coca in the past two years," he said. "More broadly, these numbers show the American taxpayers' investment is paying off."
The Drug Enforcement Administration has said cocaine is the second-most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, and that 10 percent of Americans over 12 have tried it at least once, about 2 percent have tried crack, and nearly 1 percent is currently using cocaine.
The Mexico border is the primary point of entry for Colombian cocaine headed to the United States, the DEA said, and Colombian organized crime groups control the worldwide supply of cocaineþ which sells for between $12,000 to $35,000 a kilo or 2.2 pounds.
Mr. Charles said coca eradication, combined with interdiction, reduces profitability and economic incentives, which have brought the United States to the "tipping point" in efforts to deter coca cultivation and disrupt the work of the traffickers and the terrorists they feed.
"As our efforts continue and farmers abandon coca cultivation in favor of other, legitimate crops, we will continue to see the cultivation of coca fall, leading to a reduction in the amount of cocaine for sale in the United States and elsewhere," Mr. Charles said.
The decline in coca cultivation in Colombia has not been offset by production in Peru and Bolivia, he said, adding that Andean regional coca production declined by more than 15 percent in 2003, almost double the 8 percent decline in 2002.
"We look forward to continuing our work with the government of Colombia in a common effort to rid the country of the affliction of narco-trafficking," he said.
-------- homeland security
U.S. Law Puts World Ports on Notice
March 24, 2004
By TIM WEINER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/international/americas/24PORT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
PUERTO CORTÉS, Honduras - "Right there," said Manuel Pereira, a security guard here at the largest shipping port in the Caribbean, pointing to the ground beneath his feet. "That's the new border of the United States."
Since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, American officials have spoken of "pushing back the borders" of the United States in the name of national security. Now they are doing it across the seas.
The threat they envision is a catastrophic attack on a major American port by a ship bearing a bomb. Al Qaeda has sought for seven years to use commercial ships to attack the United States at home and abroad, public records show.
A seaborne terrorist attack could cost thousands of lives and inflict billions of dollars in damage, maritime security experts say, while closing major American ports at a cost to world trade measured in tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.
"Their ultimate goal is attacking our economy," said Adm. James M. Loy, deputy secretary of homeland security and retired commandant of the Coast Guard. "Our link to the global economy is by water - 95 percent of what comes and goes to this country comes and goes by ships."
The response to this threat is a new law of the sea, spurred by Admiral Loy, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush 16 months ago. A parallel global code was adopted days later under American pressure by the United Nations's International Maritime Organization.
The law and the code set a July 1 deadline for all of the world's ships and ports to create counterterrorism systems - computers, communications gear, surveillance cameras, security patrols - to help secure America against an attack.
The cost of compliance at home and abroad will be many billions of dollars. Many American and foreign ports lack the funds to comply. But the cost of not complying could be steeper still. The law's demands create a stark confrontation between world trade and national security.
If a ship, or any one of the last 10 ports it visited, does not meet the new security standards, it can be turned away from American waters. If a port falls short, no ship leaving it can enter American harbors. That means ports, and their nations, can be barred from trading with the United States.
"We're dead serious about this," said Rear Adm. Larry L. Hereth, director of port security for the Coast Guard. The law holds "some very harsh economic consequences," he said, like banning ships and blacklisting ports, "and we're prepared to do that." Enforcement will largely fall to the United States.
The high costs and the tight deadline have created a scramble in the world's major ports - especially in poor ones like Puerto Cortés, a sprawling, run-down harbor crucial to the livelihood of Honduras and its neighbors in Central America.
Some say the price is too high, the task too huge and the time too short to comply.
"The developing world is saying that the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world is exporting the cost of protecting itself onto some of the world's poorest countries," said Stephen E. Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander and a maritime security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
American officials contend that the costs are outweighed by the benefits: higher security against terrorism will also cut cargo thefts and the smuggling of drugs, guns and people. But if the United States cannot balance the competing demands of national security and global trade, "we are playing with fire," Mr. Flynn said. "If the U.S. locks down its ports for more than two weeks, the entire global trade system crashes."
Policing the sea is daunting: the maritime system is bigger, more complex and far less controlled than international aviation. Ninety percent of world commerce moves on water, though, in 46,000 ships plying 3,000 ports. They carry millions of containers with billions of tons of goods. Roughly half of all international shipping is carried out under "flags of convenience" - registries based in countries like Liberia, often intended to disguise a vessel's true ownership.
Here in Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, the economy depends on Puerto Cortés, which is about 350 miles south of Cancún, Mexico. More than 100 ships a month leave the port for the United States, carrying everything from bluejeans to bananas, returning with American exports.
If the United States were to bar ships from the port for even a week, "our national economy would collapse," said Mauro Membreño, chief of Honduras's new National Commission on Port Security.
The port was a wide-open place, protected mainly by a rusting five-foot-high chain-link fence and a poorly paid police force, until the Honduran government began trying to secure it three months ago. Under an emergency decree, Honduras is spending $4 million to buy computer systems, patrol boats, police cars, cameras and other security gear for Puerto Cortés. "We have gotten moral support from the United States," said the national port director, Fernando Álvarez. "Nothing concrete."
A United States official in Honduras says American pressure to secure Puerto Cortés is intense, but notes that the United States is not paying for security, as it did when it gave Honduras more than $250 million during Central America's anti-communist campaigns in the 1980's.
"We've got a gun to their heads," the official said. "If this is the war on terrorism - well, this is not how we fought the war on Communism."
Dennis Chinchilla, Honduras's new national port security officer, said "the people who work in Puerto Cortés will have to completely change their way of life" to adapt to the American law. Once the commercial harbor is secured, he said, the law demands that Honduras fix its main tourist port, on the island of Roatán, where 250,000 travelers a year disembark from cruise ships. The security there today is a dollar-an-hour guard in a shack without a phone.
In the United States, many ports and ships missed a Dec. 31 deadline for submitting security plans. Port authorities note that President Bush's budget for port security in the coming year is $46 million, while the costs of compliance in the United States alone will reach $7 billion.
The Coast Guard, which must enforce the law, has three people assigned to international compliance, Mr. Flynn said. They confront a tradition of secrecy and deception that makes the maritime trade a tempting target for terrorists.
Roughly half of the world's commercial ships fly flags of convenience registered in more than two dozen nations, including tiny tax havens and money-laundering centers like the Cayman Islands and Vanuatu. The tradition, which began with United Fruit Company vessels in Honduras in the 1920's, was devised to cut costs and, in many cases, evade taxes.
"It's a bit like Swiss banks," Mr. Flynn said.
Flags of convenience "allow shippers to function with a high degree of anonymity," said Rupert Herbert Burns, a senior analyst at the Maritime Intelligence Group, a security firm in Washington.
Maritime security officials say an American port could be struck in several ways. A cargo ship filled with fuel oil and ammonium nitrate fertilizer could become a waterborne fireball; a ship could carry a radiological "dirty bomb" into a harbor; a speedboat carrying explosives could blow up a tanker laden with oil or delivering liquefied natural gas.
Admiral Loy, citing court testimony and government reports, warned two years ago in the military journal Defense Horizons that Osama bin Laden, through associates using flags of convenience, controlled a fleet of cargo ships, including the vessel that delivered the explosives that blew up American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
He noted that a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, Italian inspectors found an Egyptian on a ship bound for Canada. The Egyptian, hiding in a shipping container, had a false Canadian passport, a satellite phone, two computers, forged security passes for airports in three countries and papers identifying him as an aircraft mechanic.
Uncovering such a suspect is like finding a particular shark in a boundless sea. United States officials say the threat of an attack demands that nations like Honduras do their part. But Carl Bentzel, a Democratic counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee, said most of the world's ships and ports "have so far to go and the costs are so high that most will not be in compliance" by July 1.
If that happens, the United States has three choices, maritime security experts say. It can enforce the law, creating potential economic chaos abroad; bend the law, saying economic imperatives make full enforcement impossible; or apply the law selectively, creating a two-tier system in which rich ports in Europe and Asia trump poor Caribbean ones like Puerto Cortés.
At Puerto Cortés, Fermin Chong Wong, an American-educated computer expert working for the national port authority, is trying to track 400,000 containers and more than 2,000 ships a year.
"I don't think there will be enough time to meet the United States requirements everywhere in the world," he said. "I don't think U.S. ports can meet them. Here, we are going to try - and we might. But the time's too short and the money's too scarce to do all this."
"We want to protect our borders," said Kim Petersen, who runs one of the world's biggest maritime consultancies, SeaSecure. "But what happens when we cripple the economy of a developing country and create a breeding ground for the very problems we're trying to prevent?"
-------- immigration / refugees
White House Irks Senators by Inaction on Immigrants
March 24, 2004
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/24IMMI.html
WASHINGTON, March 23 - Republican and Democratic senators accused the Bush administration on Tuesday of doing too little to transform President Bush's sweeping immigration plan into legislation that might be voted into law this year.
Mr. Bush made headlines in January with his proposal to grant temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. But administration officials have yet to propose any specific legislation, and Republicans in Congress, who are deeply divided over the proposal, say it is unlikely that a major immigration bill will pass in this election year.
Administration officials told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on Tuesday that the president was unlikely to back any other immigration bills pending in Congress, including bipartisan legislation intended to provide legal status to some illegal farm workers and certain groups of students.
Among those expressing frustration at the lack of progress were Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John McCain of Arizona and Larry E. Craig of Idaho, all Republicans, and Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Barbara Boxer of California, all Democrats. They warned that the session would probably end without the passage of any significant immigration legislation unless prompt action was taken.
"This is an immense task for us, and it is going to require intense presidential leadership," Mr. Hagel told Bush administration officials at the hearing. "My question would be: What is the administration doing? What will the administration do to push this issue since you do not have your own proposal up here?"
"The president deserves credit for stepping forward, as I have said many times publicly, but that only takes us 5 percent of the way," said Mr. Hagel. Mentioning it is good, but that doesn't move the ball."
Eduardo Aguirre, director of immigration services for the Department of Homeland Security, said the White House remained committed to its plan, but he acknowledged that the administration had yet to provide specific legislative guidance to Congress. Mr. Aguirre also said the White House was not ready to back other existing immigration bills.
"I don't think any one of those proposals meets exactly the president's initiative," Mr. Aguirre said of the various immigration plans proposed by Mr. Hagel and others. "But we're happy to engage and find common points of convergence."
"I certainly expect that action will be taken," Mr. Aguirre said. "Whether or not it's going to pass the Senate and the House, I'll leave it to you."
Mr. Bush hopes to revamp an immigration system widely viewed as broken and to re-establish his credentials as a compassionate conservative, particularly with Hispanic and swing voters. But his plan has been criticized by conservative Republicans, who have condemned it as an amnesty for lawbreakers.
At the hearing on Tuesday, several Republican senators who have expressed support for the president's immigration plan emphasized the need for prompt action. Mr. McCain cited the mounting deaths of illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican border into Arizona "to emphasize the urgency of this situation."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- genetics
Stem Cell Trials Await Approval
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19258-2004Mar23.html
ST. PAUL, Minn., March 23 -- The University of Minnesota is awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials into the therapeutic use of stem cells in humans.
The university would be the first public research institution to conduct human clinical trials with stem cells, said James Battey, chairman of the stem cell task force for the National Institutes of Health.
In one set of trials, researchers will use stem cells taken from adults. Another set of trials will use stem cells harvested from embryos, state lawmakers were told Monday by John Wagner, clinical research director at the university's Stem Cell Institute.
Wagner said the university is in the process of briefing the FDA, NIH and the United Nations on the human clinical trials. "This is a tremendous undertaking for a tremendous gain," Wagner said.
Neither Wagner nor other university officials present would comment further on the upcoming trials.
-------- ACTIVISTS
A legacy of truth
by Geov Parrish
WorkingForChange.com
03.24.04
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16639
Interview with Helen Thomas, the reigning octogenarian queen of the Washington press corps and, now, a fierce critic of the Bush Administration
Interviewing Helen Thomas is sort of like preparing dinner for a world-renowned chef. It's just a tad intimidating. It's hard to get around the knowledge that I'm asking questions of someone internationally renowned for, well, asking questions. Good ones. Of powerful people.
Fortunately, she's also at no loss for opinions. Thomas is now a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, after a stunning 57 years working for UPI, 40 of them as the wire service's White House correspondent. She's grilled presidents from Kennedy to Dubya, and has set a host of firsts: the first woman officer of the National Press Club after it agreed to admit women as members; the first woman president of the White House Correspondents Association; the first woman member of the Gridiron Club, and later its first woman president; the first woman reporter, in 1961, to close a presidential news conference.
These days, as the reigning octogenarian queen of the D.C. press corps, she's free to speak her mind -- and her take on White House journalism, and on the administration it now covers, is scathing.
"We've always been manipulated and managed, back to when I began with Kennedy and certainly before, but never to this extent... The secrecy in this administration has reached the highest levels. That's never been seen before. Everybody has to be on board with this president. Nobody plays devil's advocate... There is no search for answers in this President."
The result of all that secrecy, says Thomas, isn't just a lack of information for journalists - it's lack of accountability to the public.
"We are truly, truly being denied the information we should have. 9-11 gave it greater impetus. 9-11 instilled in everyone that we have to be patriotic.
"You get out of that by demanding answers: What is terrorism? What is terror? Why did the President try to kill two investigations of 9-11?... If you can't get to the root of a problem, how can you solve it? There aren't enough guns in the world to kill hatred.
"How can you want to be a war president? No past president, not even Eisenhower, wanted to be known as a war president."
Bush has held fewer news conferences than any other modern-day president, but, Thomas says, even his administration's twice-daily White House press briefings have become politicized.
"He won't call on me, and I'm in the back row now so I'm ignored... They don't like my questions. That's okay, just so somebody asks them, but they just don't want me to ask questions... If I was a favored columnist, I'm sure I'd be in the front row again. But I have the prerogative of asking the questions, I do try. "I do think all of us [in the press] have laid down on the job early on [after 9-11]. Some of us are coming out of a coma. But nobody's being challenging enough. We are adversarial, we aren't there to worship at anybody's shrine. We're there for accountability."
Thomas also bemoans the trends in journalism that abet non-accountability: the emphasis on entertainment and noise, the talk shows where hosts and guests dish out opinions without ever giving audiences the unvarnished facts.
"People think talk show [hosts] are journalists, but they're not," Thomas scoffs. "They're getting just plain opinion. I think people are much better served when we get a straight news story, even though I'm a columnist now. My opinion isn't worth anything.
"I wrote for 57 years for UPI. I was never accused of slant. I wrote dull copy."
In many ways, Helen Thomas represents a vanishing breed: from the mythic Murrow era of journalism, when working-class reporters placed their responsibility for getting the full story to the public above all. These days, national TV news anchors perform (and are paid) like rock stars, politicians lie and pander shamelessly to feed the media beast's appetite for sensation -- and Thomas has become a celebrity herself. She's become one, ironically, because she's a visible symbol of what's been lost in celebrity journalism: a desire for the information necessary for citizens to make informed choices in a democracy.
What, after all these years, keeps her going? "Outrage," she promptly ssys. "And interest in the world, and knowing that I'm lucky to be alive.
"Maybe we can leave a legacy of truth." She pauses. "Maybe."
--------
Local band rocks campus
Eztli Nahua displays unique blend of style
Brian Day:
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
http://www.talonmarks.com/news/2004/03/17/News/Local.Band.Rocks.Campus-633849.shtml
The sounds of celebration filtered through the area around the Student Center Tuesday at noon, as local quartet, made up entirely of Cerritos College students, Eztli Nahua took the stage....
[T]he band members infuse their political and philosophical statements into the mix as well. "We like to play for the community," said Edgar Modesto. "We like expressing issues and concerns. We want people who listen to know what's going on."
Furthermore, they push their message past language barriers. They write their songs in both English and Spanish, and have even incorporated the indigenous language of Nauhtl into some of their songs.
The band gives an energetic performance of their well-written, original songs. It is clear they love their music and they love to play.
The drums range from deep and mellow reggae time-keeping, to feverishly paced Latin beats with a fury that seems to borrow from punk, sometimes within a single song, as is the case in "Depleted Uranium." ....
Contact them at www.eztlinahua.com
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