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NUCLEAR
Coolant Leak Closes Jenkinsville, S.C., Nuclear Plant
Hanford, Wash., Tank Farms Come under Review
Commission Findings on Sellafield welcomed
Britain: Chicken-Equipped Nuke Not a Hoax
Chicken bomb was true, Britain insists
Warfare Fowl plan to foil attack by Soviets
Taiwan to develop ballistic, cruise missiles: Jane's
Depleted Uranium Casualties: Care Denied
Depleted Uranium Weapons of War
13 Lucky Years Later
Iraqis Grapple With Heavy Health Legacy After Handover
US to host informal Korean nuclear crisis talks
SHARON REMARKS BLOCKED U.S. DATA ON LIBYAN NUKES
Dream-Filled Missile Silos
Hell in a Suitcase
NGOs Criticize Draft U.N. Nonproliferation Resolution
Companies file to build nuclear plant
A 2nd Consortium Wants a Reactor
Snail-like Service
Cleanup workers find broken drum at INEEL
Weapons-grade nuclear material to go from New Mexico to Nevada
Judge Rejects Washington Contractors' Defense in Nuclear-Radiation Mishaps
Bush Admin Holds Back Clinton Papers From 9/11 Panel-Atty
House Backs 'Parity' In Federal Pay Raises
MILITARY
Afghan Army Moves Into Unruly Province Near Iran
'Racism' of Rwanda
Revenge of the Killer Drones
Pentagon Announces Plans to Sell Radars to Taiwan
Cuba 'bioterror threat to US'
U.S. Deal To Lease Tankers Criticized Report
Contract work in Iraq pays well, but is perilous
BAE Systems Wins Two Weapons Contracts
China Denounces Taiwan's Leader, Rejects Call for Talks
U.S. Civilians Mutilated in Iraq Attack
Descent Into Carnage in a Hostile City
Marines Defend Decision to Stay Out of Falluja After Killings
Israeli Settlers, Troops Clash Over Outpost, Jerusalem Site
U.S. Urges Palestinians' Terror Crackdown
Puerto Rico braces for the base closing
In Puerto Rican Town, Navy Is History, the Future Hazy
Shooting Stars
After 50 Years of Military Space Efforts, Pioneers Look Ahead
Speak Into My Attache Case
Pentagon officials considering consolidation
Defense Dept. to Encrypt All Wireless Communication
The War Room
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Sept. 11 Commission Sets Rice Hearing for April 8
Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism
Bush Counsel Called 9/11 Panelist Before Clarke Testified
Review of death sentences ordered
U.S. Told to Review Death Row Cases
World Court Rules U.S. Should Review 51 Death Sentences
Afghans Ask for Economic Aid to Prevent Domination by Drug Trade
Data-Sharing Fails European Vote
With Friends Like Uzbekistan...
Most Say They Are Less Safe Since 9/11
ACTIVISTS
After 18 Years in Prison, Mordechai Vanunu's Day of Freedom Nears
Liberal Radio Network Hits Air With Left Jab
The new gang color? School cracks down on pink clothes
Hong Kong Protest Opposes Potential Curbs on Democracy
Russian Parliament Moves Toward a Ban on Public Demonstrations
Support for Camilo Mejia!
9/11 Widows Skillfully Applied the Power of a Question: Why?
Iraqi Police Fire On Protesters In Basra, Killing One
Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Coolant Leak Closes Jenkinsville, S.C., Nuclear Plant
Thu, Apr. 01, 2004
By Kyle Stock,
The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News,
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8332619.htm
Apr. 1 - The Jenkinsville nuclear power plant, co-owned by Santee Cooper and Scana Corp., has been shut down after monitors discovered a radioactive coolant leak.
The utilities expect the V.C. Summer plant to be closed for about two weeks while the leak is fixed. Because of relatively mild spring temperatures, neither power company will have to buy electricity to replace the lost generating capacity.
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has inspectors stationed at the site full time, said there is no health danger.
"Something like this happens five or six times a year across the (nation's) fleet of 106 or so plants," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based industry watchdog. "The good news is the leak was detected fairly rapidly, which allowed workers to shut down the plant before things got worse."
The split was in a 1-inch pipe that led to one of the plant's reactor coolant pumps. The fractured cylinder was releasing about a pint of coolant per minute.
"Incidents like this are more common than we would like, but that's why you have the monitoring equipment there," said Scana spokesman Brian Duncan.
Roger Hannah, an NRC spokes-man, said the leak was well below the threshold considered dangerous.The radiation and constant hydraulic pressure involved with generating nuclear power weakens metal, however, and small fractures are becoming more common at the nation's power plants, most of which are approaching the end of their preliminary 40-year permitting windows.
Monitors at the Midlands plant detected a similar leak in the fall, a split that was patched when the plant closed to refuel. In October 2000, a much more serious leak was discovered in a 2-foot-wide coolant pipe. If the crack had ruptured, the utilities would have had a serious toxic problem on their hands.
Nonprofit environmental and safety groups say the NRC doesn't inspect older plants as often as it should, in part because of budget shortfalls.
"The bottom line is, you don't want leaks to happen. You're talking about reactor coolant water that could leak into the environment and harm people and wildlife," said Jill Johnson, Southeast field director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an environmental advocacy organization based in Washington. "These plants are getting older and more dangerous."
V.C. Summer, which started generating power in 1984, is under review for an additional 20-year permit extension. The license renewal would push the plant's closing date from 2022 to 2042. The plant has cleared all the major inspection hurdles, and Scana expects to get the new permit by June, Duncan said.
Duke Power Co.'s Oconee nuclear plant in Greenville has reported about six similar incidents since 1987, the most recent in early January. Still, the plant was one of the nation's first to get a 20-year permit extension in May 2000.
Unless a plant has a recurring pattern of equipment failure or operational mistakes, cracks such as the one discovered Tuesday at Summer are not expected to affect the re-permitting process.
"It's not likely to be a showstopper or deal breaker," Lochbaum said. "Every plant has an occasional glitch, and Summer has been doing above average."
Scana's South Carolina Electric & Gas subsidiary gets about 21 percent of its electricity from the nuclear plant. Santee Cooper draws about 6.4 percent of its power from the facility.
Besides the Summer and Oconee plants, South Carolina is home to two other nuclear generating stations: Catawba, near Rock Hill in the Upstate, owned by Duke Energy; and Robinson, near Florence in the Midlands, owned by Carolina Power & Light.
To see more of The Post and Courier, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.charleston.net
----
Hanford, Wash., Tank Farms Come under Review
Thu, Apr. 01, 2004
By Annette Cary,
Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8331113.htm
Mar. 28 - Most work has stopped at the Hanford tank farms as contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group reviews whether more should be done to keep workers safe.
Workers allowed on the tank farms to perform essential tasks, such as monitoring, are being required to wear respirators.
That requirement "may be in place for an extended period of time" as CH2M Hill performs a thorough evaluation and consults with the Department of Energy, Hanford workers and organized labor officials, according to a statement from CH2M Hill.
Among the permanent changes being considered are requiring all employees to wear respirators as work resumes and improving monitoring for fumes. Now, respirator use is voluntary if monitors show no vapors present.
The changes come after more than 40 workers have reported exposure to vapors from the underground tanks since January 2002. As work has progressed to empty the tanks instead of just monitor them in recent years, more people have been working near the tanks. Despite many changes made by CH2M Hill by February 2004 to reduce exposure to vapors, 11 workers reported smelling vapors in the last two weeks.
The vapors come from huge underground tanks of highly radioactive waste from the past production of plutonium at Hanford for weapons. Hanford has 177 tanks that vent into the atmosphere buried in fields, or "farms."
Most of the chemicals present in the fumes in the tanks are in very small quantities, such as a few parts per billion, according to CH2M Hill. It has set standards to clear workers from an area when ammonia is measured in amounts far less than allowed under federal safety standards or when total organic chemicals are present at 2 parts per million.
CH2M Hill has acknowledged that breathing the ammonia fumes is unpleasant and may cause symptoms, particularly in those most sensitive. But the contractor does not believe that the fumes have caused more than temporary symptoms.
Workers have reported symptoms such as headaches, nosebleeds, skin irritation, nausea, accelerated heart rate and breathing difficulty, according to GAP.
CH2M Hill began limiting work and requiring respirators for essential work temporarily last week after three workers smelled vapors and one developed a nosebleed two hours later.
"We decided to continue it indefinitely until we ensure the safest possible practices for tank farm workers," said Joy Turner, spokeswoman for the DOE contractor.
The move has DOE's support after more reports of tank vapors in recent weeks.
"This increase in exposures appears to indicate the actions being implemented are not sufficient and has elevated our concerns for the continued safety of tank farm workers," wrote Roy Schepens, DOE manger of the Office of River Protection, in a letter Friday to CH2M Hill President Ed Aromi.
"Nothing is more important to CH2M Hill than the health and safety of our workers," Aromi said in a prepared statement.
In addition to considering whether the use of respirators should be permanently expanded, the contractor also is assessing monitoring. That includes the frequency of monitoring, an assessment of whether different or additional equipment is needed and whether additional personal monitoring of workers may be used.
It's also looking at engineering changes that could have the potential to reduce or eliminate vapor exposures.
In the early 1990s, when the content of tank vapors was unknown, more precautions were taken for workers. But with what CH2M Hill says is a better understanding of what is in the tanks, it had made use of respirators voluntary and had prohibited systems, similar to scuba gear, that provided supplied air.
It found that tripping and decreased visibility with supplied air systems made their use hazardous.
The new and, for now, temporary requirement that workers wear respirators in the tank farms is the result of both the anxiety of workers and an increase in tank vapor incidents, Turner said.
The contractor has taken several other steps as worker concern has grown over exposure to tank vapors.
The farms with 149 single-shell tanks, the oldest of the tanks, have been inspected, and any possible leaks from equipment into the air have been sealed with foam or tape. Instrument cabinets that sometimes have had vapors leak in at hose and pipe connections have had fans installed to dispel any buildup before workers enter.
Two new types of respirators are being offered to employees that are more comfortable than traditional full-face air-purifying respirators.
CH2M Hill is providing more training to workers, including a mandatory eight-hour class for workers with unescorted access to the tank farms. It educates workers on the content of the tanks, controls in place and the symptoms and effects of chemical exposure.
The contractor also has tried raising the discharge vent on one tank to 15 feet above the ground, well out of the worker's breathing zone. Its effectiveness is being evaluated to see if the same approach should be used at other tanks.
As CH2M Hill launches a fresh round of safety assessments and improvements, several agencies are watching. Investigations or evaluations of tank farm safety are being conducted by Washington state officials, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and DOE's Office of Independent Oversight and Safety Assurance.
-------- britain
Commission Findings on Sellafield welcomed
Thu, 01/04/04
Limerick Post (Ireland)
http://www.limerickpost.ie/dailynews.elive?id=4963&category=Daily-Wed
Mr. Martin Cullen, T.D., Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government described the decision on Sellafield as a hugely significant development. " The Irish Government has set the lead on Sellafield. Our robust approach legally, politically and diplomatically is vindicated by the Commission decision," he said.
The Minister was speaking following the decision by the European Commission to impose sanctions on the United Kingdom for its failure to adequately control stocks of highly radioactive Plutonium at Sellafield.
The Minister said "The Commission's decision reflects Ireland's concerns, stated consistently over many years, that the Sellafield authorities have operated under a veil of secrecy." It is unacceptable that the UK has failed to properly account for the plutonium held at Sellafield given its Euratom obligations. I will be studying closely today's findings with my officials and the Attorney General.
"The Government has regularly voiced its concerns to the UK
Government about access to information at Sellafield. It was the central approach of our two legal challenges to the UN Court of Arbitration.
Today's decision is further evidence that the UK Government is struggling to cope with the legacy of 50 years of nuclear power."
The Minster has met regularly with his UK counterparts in past two years. He has argued that the UK plans for nuclear decommissioning would need firm commitment for years to come, in order to make safe some of the many aging facilities and buildings at the Sellafield site.
Today's meeting of European Commissioners, which imposed stringent requirements on the UK for its failure to take adequate measures to comply with the provisions of the Euratom Treaty concerning accounting for nuclear material at one of its Sellafield plants. The plant, known as B30, is a fuel storage pond for spent Magnox fuel and has been in use since the 1950s. The Commission has been inspecting this plant regularly since the 1980s, but because of the condition of the B30 plant, the Commission has been unable to physically verify how much plutonium is held in the facility.
Under the Safeguards provisions of Euratom, the Commission has the right to inspect facilities where nuclear fuel cycle material is stored, as well as the records for such facilities, to verify that the material has not been diverted to non-peaceful uses. The UK will have until 1 June 2004 to submit a plan to the Commission proposing measures to deal with the problem and must submit progress reports to the Commission every six months thereafter.
----
Britain: Chicken-Equipped Nuke Not a Hoax
Thu Apr 1, 2004
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040401/ap_on_fe_st/britain_chicken_bomb
LONDON - A claim that Britain considered using live chickens in a nuclear weapon aroused skepticism Thursday, but officials insisted it was not an April Fool's hoax.
"It's a genuine story," said Robert Smith, head of press and publicity at The National Archives.
The archives released a secret 1957 Ministry of Defense report showing that scientists contemplated putting chickens in the casing of a plutonium land mine.
The chickens' body heat was considered a possible means of preventing the mine's mechanism from freezing.
Listing ways of extending the armed life of the land mine, the declassified document proposed "incorporating some form of heating independent of power supplies under the weapon hull in the emplacement. Chickens, with a heat output of the order of 1,000 BTU (British Thermal Units) per bird per day are a possibility."
The seven-ton device, code named "Blue Peacock," would have been detonated from a distance or by timer in the event of a retreat from invading Soviet troops, to prevent them from occupying the area.
Andy Oppenheimer, co-editor of Jane's World Armies, said he found the idea of using chickens hard to believe.
"I have a feeling that it's an April Fool," he said in a phone interview. He said wrapping the device in fiberglass to keep it warm would have been a better option.
Some newspapers also expressed skepticism.
"Is today the day to reveal the chicken-powered nuke?" The Times of London wrote, referring to the April 1 date. Nonetheless, The Times put it on page one.
Tom O'Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, said he had no doubt that the document was authentic.
"None whatsoever," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's not the kind of thing the civil service does, to set up an April Fool's joke."
O'Leary said the idea is mentioned briefly in a long document.
"It's purely a suggestion in an official document that that is a possibility that was proposed," he said, and there was no indication that the feasibility was ever tested.
The "Blue Peacock" project began in 1954 and was aimed at preventing enemy occupation of territory due to nuclear contamination. Designs were based on Britain's "Blue Danube" free-fall bomb, which consisted of a plutonium core surrounded by a sphere of high explosive with detonators spread across the surface.
Officials decided in 1957 to acquire 10 "Blue Peacock" land mines, each weighing 16,000 pounds (7,250 kilograms), and to station them with the British Army of the Rhine in Germany. However, in 1958 the Ministry of Defense Weapons Policy Committee decided that work on "Blue Peacock" should stop, after reservations emerged about the fallout hazard.
A prototype survives in the historical collection of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, a government agency which has its headquarters at Aldermaston west of London.
"The whole operational scenario appeared somewhat theatrical," said an article in the AWE's magazine in January. It did not mention chickens, but did deal with the problem of maintaining the right temperature.
"The nuclear warhead had to be kept within a specific temperature range, but environmental trials suggested it might not have survived the rigors of a mid-European winter," the article said.
Details of the chicken proposal feature in an April 2-Oct. 30 exhibition entitled "The Secret State" at the National Archives in Kew, west London.
On the Net:
The Secret State: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/17.htm
Atomic Weapons Establishment: http://www.awe.co.uk/index.html
AWE article on Blue Peacock, http://www.awe.co.uk/Images/blue_peacock_tcm6-1992.pdf
---
Chicken bomb was true, Britain insists
Associated Press
Thursday, Apr. 1, 2004
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040401.wbomb0401/BNStory/International/
London - A claim that Britain considered using live chickens in a nuclear weapon aroused skepticism Thursday, but officials insisted that it was not an April Fool's hoax.
"It's a genuine story," said Robert Smith, head of press and publicity at The National Archives.
The archives released a secret 1957 Ministry of Defence report showing that scientists contemplated putting chickens in the casing of a plutonium landmine.
The chickens' body heat was considered a possible means of preventing the mine's mechanism from freezing.
Listing ways of extending the armed life of the landmine, the declassified document proposed "incorporating some form of heating independent of power supplies under the weapon hull in the emplacement. Chickens, with a heat output of the order of 1,000 BTU (British Thermal Units) per bird per day are a possibility."
The seven-tonne device, code named Blue Peacock, would have been detonated from a distance or by timer in the event of a retreat from invading Soviet troops, to prevent them from occupying the area.
Andy Oppenheimer, co-editor of Jane's World Armies, said he found the idea of using chickens hard to believe.
"I have a feeling that it's an April Fool," he said in a phone interview. He said wrapping the device in fibreglass to keep it warm would have been a better option.
Some newspapers also expressed skepticism.
"Is today the day to reveal the chicken-powered nuke?" The Times of London wrote, referring to the April 1 date. Nonetheless, The Times put it on page one.
Tom O'Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, said he had no doubt that the document was authentic.
"None whatsoever," he said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. "It's not the kind of thing the civil service does, to set up an April Fool's joke."
Mr. O'Leary said the idea is mentioned briefly in a long document.
"It's purely a suggestion in an official document that that is a possibility that was proposed," he said, and there was no indication that the feasibility was ever tested.
The Blue Peacock project began in 1954 and was aimed at preventing enemy occupation of territory due to nuclear contamination. Designs were based on Britain's Blue Danube free-fall bomb, which consisted of a plutonium core surrounded by a sphere of high explosive with detonators spread across the surface.
Officials decided in 1957 to acquire 10 Blue Peacock landmines, each weighing 7,250 kilograms, and to station them with the British Army of the Rhine in Germany. In 1958, however, the Ministry of Defence Weapons Policy Committee decided that work on Blue Peacock should stop because of reservations about the fallout hazard.
A prototype survives in the historical collection of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, a government agency which has its headquarters at Aldermaston west of London.
"The whole operational scenario appeared somewhat theatrical," an article in the AWE's magazine said in January. It did not mention chickens but did deal with the problem of maintaining the right temperature.
"The nuclear warhead had to be kept within a specific temperature range, but environmental trials suggested it might not have survived the rigours of a mid-European winter," the article said.
Details of the chicken proposal feature in an April 2-Oct. 30 exhibition titled The Secret State at the National Archives in Kew, west London.
----
Warfare Fowl plan to foil attack by Soviets
Gerard Seenan
Thursday April 1, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1183263,00.html
In the surreal field of imagining chickens' involvement in global warfare it is, perhaps, beyond even the imagination of Chicken Run creator Nick Park.
But at the centre of a new exhibition at the National Archives in Kew, south-west London, is a cold war document revealing Britain's top-secret plan to stave off the Red Army: a nuclear device, warmed by chickens, and planted on the north German plain.
The scheme was hatched by British scientists at the height of the cold war. In their wisdom, they decided the key to the safety of British troops escaping the red menace was keeping a seven-tonne bomb operational with the body heat of a few fowl.
The bomb was, in effect, a nuclear landmine about the size of a small truck. It had a plutonium core surrounded by explosives and would be detonated by remote control.
There was one small problem. In the winter, temperatures in northern Germany plummet, and the scientists were worried their bomb would seize up. Enter the chickens.
With a normal body heat of 40-42C (102-107F), scientists reckoned, chickens could be used to make the bomb last for eight days in the cold rather than the four in which it would ordinarily have seized up. They suggested that before retreat soldiers should place a few chickens into the casing of the device to keep it operational.
The exhibition, curated by the author Peter Hennessy, also examines Britain's preparation for nuclear attack during the cold war.
-------- china
Taiwan to develop ballistic, cruise missiles: Jane's
TAIPEI (AFP)
Apr 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040401055857.l2bggidv.html
Taiwan plans to develop surface-to-surface missiles capable of hitting rival China, a leading defense journal said Thursday.
Tentative plans include the production of 30 mid-range (2,000 kilometre, 1,250 mile) and 120 short-range (1,000 kilometre) surface-to-surface missiles capable of striking mainland China, London-based Jane's Missiles and Rockets magazine said.
"These will be based on the Tien Kung surface-to-air missiles (SAM)," it said, citing a document obtained by Jane's.
The missile development plan is part of Taiwan's missile procurement plans covering a 10-year period, it said.
Taiwan's defense ministry plans to procure six batteries of Patriot PAC-3 missile-defence systems within that timeframe.
China has targeted Taiwan with at least 500 short-range ballistic missiles and is adding more at the rate of 75 a year, according to US officials.
The Pentagon said Wednesday Taiwan has requested the sale of two Ultra High Frequency long-range early warning radars capable of detecting ballistic and cruise missiles. It said they were worth nearly 1.8 billion dollars.
Pentagon officials said the announcement had no connection with China-Taiwan tensions in the wake of the re-election in Taipei of President Chen Shui-bien.
Taiwan has deployed three batteries of PAC-II missiles to defend the densely populated greater Taipei area.
Other missile-defence programmes include a plan to deploy 80 new-generation home-made Tien Kung 3 (Sky Bow) SAMs, Jane's said.
Taiwan also intends to produce 500 land-attack cruise missiles with a range of 1,500 kilometres based on its Hsiung Feng anti-ship missile, it said.
China has threatened to invade Taiwan should the island declare formal independence, prompting Taiwan to seek more advanced weaponry.
Beijing has regarded Taiwan as part of its territory waiting to be reunified by force if necessary since their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
-------- depleted uranium
Depleted Uranium Casualties: Care Denied
From: Dlind49@aol.com (Doug Rokke)
Please post to all web sites and distribute to the world
Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D. Major (retired) United States Army Reserve
Former Director U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project April 1, 2004
Although published U.S. Army regulations and "Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Exposures" (Headquarters, Department of the Army, October 14, 1993) require that military medical treatment facility personnel provide a radio-bioassay within 24 hours of depleted uranium contamination exposure and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs directives also specify completion of a radiobioasay followed by relevant medical care for all individuals who were exposed to uranium contamination via inhalation, ingestion, absorption, or wound contamination while:
"a. Being in the midst of smoke from DU fires resulting from the burning of vehicles uploaded with DU munitions or depots in which DU munitions are being stored.
b. Working within environments containing DU dust or residues from DU fires.
c. Being within a structure or vehicle while it is struck by DU munitions." Medical care has been willfully denied to the majority of DU casualties who are supposed to receive care. Gulf War Review (Volume 12, No. 1, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) states that as of September 2003, only two hundred and sixty two (262) veterans had been tested for depleted uranium exposures.
This is only a fraction of the 424 Gulf War 1 depleted uranium friendly fire and recovery team veterans who were exposed to uranium contamination during Gulf War 1 according to a September 28, 1998 briefing provided to President William Clinton's Presidential Special Oversight Board under Senator Warren Rudman by Office of Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses officials under the U.S. Secretary of Defense. However the 424 number of exposed individuals is only a fraction of the thousands of U.S. and U.S. coalition forces who were exposed and it does not include thousands of Iraqi military personnel and none of the thousands of civilians and non-combatants who were exposed during combat operations, DU weapons manufacturing, or DU weapons testing.
While a small fraction of confirmed U.S. DU casualties have received medical care, all other confirmed or suspected DU casualties have been and still are being denied medical care. This required medical care must be provided to all exposed individuals independent of whether they are combatants or non-combatants. They must be provided immediate medical care now! The excuses must stop! THE DENIAL OF MEDICAL CARE MUST STOP! But even when very limited medical care has been provided to veterans, including myself, with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs service-connected disabilities they are billed for their medical care and prescriptions. Then when they refuse to pay the illegal bill they have received formal letters from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officials threatening garnishment of their disability check to pay for service connected medical care. This practice must stop.
In addition, the confirmed mismanagement and loss of individual military service medical records and personnel records that has occurred at the U.S Department of Defense National Records and ARPERSCOM / HSC under the command of Colonel Debra Cook, U.S. Army, located in St. Louis Missouri must cease.
As the confirmed Gulf War 1 casualty count that including our nation's finest sons and daughters exceeds 221,000 injured and/or ill with over 10000 dead and the confirmed Gulf War 2 casualty count exceeds 18,004 and over 600 dead as of March 30, 2004 it is time for President George W. Bush, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, and Secretary of Defense William Rumsfeld to solve the problems of denied, delayed, and ineffective medical care. It is time for them to stop the billing of our nation's heroes for medical care they earned while serving our nation!
WE MUST TAKE CARE OF OUR NATION'S VETERANS AND NOT CONTINUE THEIR ABANDONMENT
----
Depleted Uranium Weapons of War
April 01, 2004
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #788
http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/index.cfm?St=1
Uranium is a naturally-occurring element that is both weakly radioactive and a toxic heavy metal. Naturally-occurring uranium contains two main radioactive isotopes: U-238 (99.3%), and U-235 (0.7%). When uranium is "enriched" to make an A-bomb (which requires lots of U-235), the leftover "depleted uranium" (DU) is 99.8% U-238 and retains about 60% of the radioactivity that was present in the original natural uranium.[1, pg. 3]
Depleted uranium is created by "uranium enrichment" plants that process natural uranium to extract the U-235, but those same plants also may process spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors. For this reason, some DU is known to be contaminated with very low levels of some of the most dangerous radioactive substances known to science: Plutonium-238, Plutonium-239, Plutonium-240, Americium-241, Neptunium-237 and Technicium-99.[1, pg. 6]
Radioactive decay is a natural process. Radioactive elements spontaneously emit energetic particles or rays, and in the process they change from one element into another. When U-238 spontaneously undergoes radioactive decay, it emits alpha particles (and turns into Thorium-234). You can think of an alpha particle as something like a tiny cannon ball -- it does not travel very far (a few centimeters in air), but if it hits a living cell, the damage can be enormous. Sometimes cells damaged by alpha particles die immediately, but sometimes they start to multiply uncontrollably, causing cancer. (The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has identified "internally deposited radionuclides that emit alpha particles" as Group I carcinogens, meaning substances known to cause cancer in humans.[1, pg. 85])
So, DU's alpha particles won't penetrate the outermost (dead) layer of your skin, but if you get DU inside you -- say, in your lungs -- it can have deadly consequences. Several studies of workers in uranium enrichment plants show that they get lung cancer at higher-than-normal rates.[1, pg. 86]
The half-life of U-238 is 4.5 billion years, which tells us that it does not decay rapidly and therefore that it does not emit many alpha particles per second. However, "many" is a relative term. In absolute numbers, a microgram of DU (a millionth of a gram, and there are 28 grams in an ounce) will emit slightly more than 12 alpha particles per second or 390 million alpha particles each year.[1, pg. 6] So one microgram of DU lodged in your lungs will have more than a million opportunities EACH DAY to start a cancer growing in your cells. Obviously, the hazard is greater for children because they have a longer lifetime ahead of them during which alpha particles will have an opportunity to start a cancer, plus they are very likely more sensitive to harm than adults (because they are growing, so more of their cells are dividing).
In recent decades, as we have manufactured more atomic bombs and therefore more depleted uranium, there has been growing pressure to find new uses for our huge stockpile of depleted uranium.[1, pg. 26] In my opinion, the psychology behind this is pretty simple: as it becomes crystal clear that subsidizing nuclear technologies was one of the dumbest mistakes humans have ever made, there is enormous pressure to show that something good can come from it. It is the psychology of the optimist, whom Ronald Reagan defined as the man who enters a room full of horse manure and says, "There must be a pony in here somewhere."
Because it is almost twice as dense as lead and not very radioactive, DU has been used as shielding for medical devices and in casks for transporting spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Because it is so dense (and therefore heavy), DU has also been used as ballast -- weights or counterwights -- on ships, satellites and aircraft. For example, each Boeing 747 jumbo-jet requires about 1500 pounds of ballast (or counterweights), and as many as 15,000 DU weights were manufactured for this purpose. In recent years, DU has been replaced by tungsten in aircraft ballast, perhaps to avoid questions about the wisdom of flying radioactive materials around in planes. A plane that crashed into a row of apartments in Amsterdam in 1992 was carrying 282 kg (620 pounds) of DU as ballast, and a Boeing-747 that crashed in England in 2000 was carrying 1500 kg (3,300 pounds) of DU. [1, pg. 26]
In the Amsterdam crash, some 152 kilograms (334 pounds) of DU were never found, and the Dutch commission of inquiry concluded that the fiery crash may have released some of the DU in the form of a radioactive fume or dust, just as you would expect it might. DU is pyrophoric, meaning that it catches fire under some circumstances and turns into a very fine radioactive fume or dust, which can blow around.[1, pg. 44]
In the past 20 years, DU has found its way into weapons of war -- both for heavy tank armor and for armor-piercing projectiles -- again, because it is plentiful and cheap (thanks to government subsidies) and almost twice as dense as lead. As noted above, it is also pyrophoric, meaning that under some circumstances it catches on fire.
When a DU projectile strikes an armored target, such as a tank, it does not flatten on contact but instead penetrates and "self sharpens" as it passes through the armor. This occurs because as the DU projectile is penetrating its target, its outer layer catches fire, creating a very fine radioactive dust, essentially lubricating the remaining projectile, helping it penetrate further. The result is a very clean hole in the target -- which looks as if it had been drilled -- and a great deal of radioactive dust. Somewhere between 10% and 70% of a DU projectile is transformed into radioactive dust when it strikes a sufficiently hard target.[1, pg. 46]
This dust creates special problems. As noted above, if DU dust gets into your lungs, it can cause lung cancer.
DU dust is heavy and so it settles to earth within a few hundred yards of where it was created -- unless it is picked up again and moved by the wind.
To help get the health threat into perspective, in discussing DU, I prefer to express the amount of DU in micrograms, on the assumption that a few hundred micrograms (perhaps less) is a dangerous amount of DU dust. It is important to remember that not all (or even most) DU munitions strike hard targets that would cause them to catch fire and emit radioactive fumes (dust).
Ground-attack airplanes like the A-10 Warthog fire 30 mm projectiles at the rate of 70 projectiles per second, and each 30-mm projectile contains 0.27 kg (9.5 ounces, or 270 million micrograms) of DU. Heavy tanks fire 120 mm rounds, each containing 4.85 kg (10.6 pounds, or 4.8 billion micrograms) of DU.
It was reported in 1995 that U.S. arms manufacturers had produced more than 55 million 30-mm DU penetrators and 1.6 million DU penetrators for tank ammunition.[1, pg. 27] No doubt more have been manufactured since then.
The U.S. has acknowledged using DU weapons during the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, and NATO has acknowledged using DU weapons during the Kosovo conflict of 1999. DU munitions have extensively contaminated U.S. military proving grounds and firing ranges such as the ones at Yuma, Arizona, Aberdeen, Maryland, Jefferson, Indiana, and Viecques, Puerto Rico.[1, pg. 50]
Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have been fooling around with DU for 60 years, during which time they have dumped an estimated 38.5 tons of DU into a mountain canyon out back, behind the lab.[1, pg. 49]
During wartime, the greatest civilian threat from DU is assumed to involve children, who have been photographed in Kosovo and Iraq playing on burned-out military vehicles including tanks disabled by DU projectiles.[1, pg. 49] Much of this equipment is heavily contaminated, inside and out, with radioactive dust.
Many children also eat dirt (9 to 96 mg/day) as a normal part of growing up, and soil contaminated with DU dust presents a special hazard in such cases, according to the World Health Organization.[1, pg. 38]
However, U.S. military officials deny that children -- or any other civilians -- are at risk from DU.[2] The Pentagon says only soldiers are at risk. It is clear that the Pentagon considers DU plenty hazardous to soldiers -- an Army training manual says that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain must wear respiratory and skin protection (because DU might enter the body through a scratch or other open wound).[3]
Once you get DU in your lungs, much of it will stay there for a long time, irradiating lung cells, and the World Health Organization says, "The risk of lung cancer appears to be proportional to the radiation dose received."[1, pg. 85] (In other words, the only way to have zero risk is to have zero exposure.) The British Royal Society studied DU and concluded that its use was not risk-free for anyone involved.[4] The truth is, DU has been studied remarkably little, given that we blast tons of it into areas inhabited by civilian populations for the avowed purpose of helping them. No one has studied the effects of DU on the immune system, the metabolic system, the nervous system, the reproductive system, the endocrine system (and other biological signaling mechanisms), and growth, development, and behavior. It's amazing what we don't know about DU and that -- in the face of such ignorance -- anyone could claim to know that it is safe for use near civilians.
Unfortunately, even many crucial details about the lung cancer hazard remain missing. Although they have been making and studying DU since 1940, military scientists still don't know exactly how long inhaled DU is retained in the lung. They say that somewhere between 57% and 76% of inhaled DU stays in the lung with a half-life of "longer than 100 days" but how much longer they seem not to know.[1, pg. 64] The half-life is the amount of time it takes for half of a substance to go away. It is also not clear where inhaled DU goes after it leaves the lungs. Is it coughed up and excreted, or does it dissolve, enter the blood stream and then the urine? Or does it lodge elsewhere in the body? In male rats intentionally contaminated, uranium collects in the brain and the testicles.[1, pg. 65]
Military specialists like to point out that DU munitions that miss their target simply bury themselves in the ground. But the World Health Organization is not so sure the story ends there:
"However, in some instances the levels of contamination in food and ground water could rise after some years and should be monitored and appropriate measures taken where there is reasonable possibility of significant quantities of depleted uranium entering the food chain... Areas with very high concentrations of depleted uranium may need to be cordoned off until they are cleaned up."[1, pg. vi] Cleanup of DU-contaminated areas has not occurred in Kosovo or Iraq.
Who ever thought that DU in the ground would always stay put? Between 1970 and 1997, the Starmet Corporation, a military contractor making DU weapons, dumped DU into an unlined pit in the ground in downtown Concord, Mass. Now soil in Concord is contaminated with DU as far as a mile from the dump, and local wells are contaminated because DU has moved into groundwater. Who would have expected any other outcome? Nevertheless, we should acknowledge that the directors of Starmet are not as dumb as they might appear. Shortly before their radioactive dump was added to the national Superfund list, Starmet officials took precautionary action and declared bankruptcy. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accepted Starmet's bankruptcy without a peep, so U.S. taxpayers are now paying for the difficult cleanup.[5]
The U.S. Navy stores DU in San Diego, Calif.; Seal Beach, Calif.; Crane, Indiana; Indian Head, Md.; Colts Neck, N.J.; Hawthorne, Nev.; McAlister, Ok.; Charlestown, S.C.; Tooele, Utah; Dahlgren, Va.; Norfolk, Va.; Sewells Point, Va.; and Yorktown, Va., and large quantities are reportedly stored at ten other locations. When the military ships DU around the country, the containers are not marked "radioactive" even though the cargo is definitely radioactive as well as explosive. (See ACTION ALERT, below.)
In addition to being radioactive, DU is toxic; specifically it is known to be toxic to the genes of humans.[1, pg. 75] Studies of Gulf War vets living with DU shrapnel in their bodies (from "friendly fire" during the Gulf War) show evidence of genetic damage.[6] At least one military scientist -- Alexandra Miller a radiobiolgist with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. says DU may be more dangerous than previously believed because its chemical toxicity and its radioactivity may combine in unexpected ways to cause harm.[7]
Miller also points out that genetic damage (from chemical toxicity or radioactivity, or both) can be inherited and passed along to successive generations, so harm may not become apparent until many generations after the event that caused it.[7] This puts DU munitions squarely into the class of weapons known as "weapons of mass destruction or indiscriminate effect."
U.S. planes, under NATO command, fired 10 tons (9 trillion micrograms) of DU projectiles at targets in Kosovo in 1999. During the Gulf War of 1991 against Iraq, the U.S. fired projectiles containing somewhere between 300 and 338 tons of DU (or 272 trillion to 302 trillion micrograms).[1, pg. 45]
The total quantity of DU munitions expended during the Iraq War of 2003 has been estimated to be 100 to 200 tons (90 trillion to 180 trillion micrograms).[8] Much of it was expended in or near urban areas where civilian populations live, work, play, draw water, and sell food.
It seems clear, then, that DU weapons produce special, continuing hazards to civilians, especially children, and that the harm from these weapons may be passed to future generations. No doubt this is why a United Nations subcommission in 1996 named DU munitions as "weapons of mass destruction or indiscrimate effect" and recommended that their use be outlawed.[9]
Tungsten alloy weapons can kill tanks and other hardened targets as effectively as DU, so continued use of DU weapons by the U.S. seems unnecessary and a slap in the face to the principles of public health, international law, world opinion, and common decency. --Peter Montague
-
ACTION ALERT
By June 30, 2004, the U.S. Department of Transportation must renew (or deny) the military's exemption that allows them to ship DU weapons without marking them as radioactive or explosive. In case of accident or fire, first responders need to know this information. Here's what we can all do about it:
Contact the Department of Transportation Exemptions division and ask that the DOT immediately terminate and not renew DOT-E 9649. Depleted uranium munitions should have a "Radioactive" placard and an "Explosives" placard on shipments.
Send correspondence regarding DOT-E 9649 to: Mr. Delmer Billings DHM-31 Director, Office of Hazardous Materials Exemptions and Approvals Department of Transportation 400 7th St. SW Washington, D.C. 20590
Fax: (202) 366-3308 E-mail: delmer.billings@r...
Information from: http://www.gzcenter.org/DU.htm
-
NOTES and REFERENCES
[1] Department of Protection of the Human Environment, World Health Organization, Depleted Uranium; Sources, Exposure and Health Effects (Geneva, Switzerland, April 2001). Available at http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/ir_pub/en/ .
[2] Matthew D. Sztajnkrycer and Edward J. Otten, "Chemical and Radiological Toxicity of Depleted Uranium," Military Medicine Vol. 169, No. 3 (2004), pgs. 212-216.
[3] Army manual quoted in Larry Johnson, "Activists want depleted-uranium munitions labeled; military's exemption is challenged," Seattle (Wa.) Post-Intelligencer Dec. 4, 2003.
[4] Susan Mayor, "Report suggests small link between depleted uranium and cancer," British Medical Journal Vol. 322 (June 23, 2001), pg. 1508.
[5] Ed Ericson, "Dumping on History: A Radioactive Nightmare in Concord, Massachusetts," E/The Environmental Magazine Mar. 5, 2004.
[6] Melissa A. McDiarmid and others, "Health Effects of Depleted Uranium on Exposed Gulf War Veterans: A 10-Year Follow-up," Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, Vol. 67 (2004), pgs. 277-296.
[7] Duncan Graham-Rowe, "Depleted uranium casts a shadow over peace in Iraq," New Scientist Vol. 178, No. 2391 (April 19, 2003), pg. 4.
[8] Dan Fahey, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq War: An Initial Assessment of Information and Policies." Berkeley, Calif., June 24. 2003. Available at http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/pdf/duiq03.pdf
[9] The United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities passed a resolution condemning the use of depleted uranium weapons during its 48th session in August, 1996, as described in U.N. Press Release HR/CN/755, "Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities Concludes Forty-Eighth Session." Relevant section available at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/antiwar/UNres.htm
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS Environmental Research Foundation P.O. Box 160 New Brunswick, N.J. 08903 Fax (732) 791-4603; E-mail: erf@r...
----
13 Lucky Years Later
By Steven Manchester,
Magic City News, Millinocket, Maine,
Apr 1, 2004,
http://magic-city-news.com/article_1233.shtml
In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait with his henchmen, compiling the fourth largest army in the world. The atrocities and inhumane acts committed toward Kuwait prompted support from around the globe. War was declared. The world called it Operation Desert Storm and volunteer soldiers were called to serve their countries. Within a few short months, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines arrived in the Middle East to defend Saudi Arabia, liberate Kuwait and embarrass the biggest bully of the post cold war era. America's sons and daughters entered a barren wasteland to exact justice. The responsibilities brought to bear, however, were immense, as there was so much at stake. Politically, there was America's leadership of the free world. Economically, one tenth of the world's oil resources. Morally, the protection of human life. But silently, there was a rebirth of America's spirit. The veterans of Operation Desert Storm went to heal their nation from a ghost that had haunted them for two decades; the poltergeist of Vietnam.
In 1991, as a shield was replaced by an angry storm, Saddam Hussein threatened America with the mother of all battles. In turn, President George Bush drew a line in the sand. That line was quickly wrapped around Iraq and used to choke the life out of thousands. Fortunately, due to the heavy debt paid by the veterans of the Vietnam War two decades earlier, military tactics had dramatically changed. Foot soldiers were no longer expected to step on enemy soil until absolutely necessary, so 41 days of uninterrupted bombing cleared their way. All that was needed for victory was given: The phenomenal support of a patriotic country, and enough troops and equipment, so that backfilling and a war of attrition would never be suffered. We were blessed!
Though Hussein swore it would take the Americans months to cross the breach from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, it took only hours. The Allied Forces moved fast, crushing the first of three Iraqi lines of defense. As if they weren't even there, the American war machine rolled right over them, discovering they had overestimated the enemy. It was clear:
While Hussein chose to sit out the air campaign, the Iraqi people bore the brunt for their ruthless dictator and like all victims of war; they paid with gallons of their own blood. In such a time and place, it seemed necessary. They were wearing uniforms. It was war.
It took four days, or a mere 100 hours, before the ground war was ceased. History was made. In triumph, Kuwait was liberated, while Hussein was humiliated before the whole world. An unconditional withdrawal was ordered. Politically, the sadistic demon was slain. In reality, unlike thousands of his own people, he still lived. Yet, from the perspective of the servicemen and women in the Gulf; people who were not tasked to dictate foreign policy, but instead, follow orders and proudly perform their duty, all objectives had been met and the mission- completed.
America's moral crusade was complete. On February 28, 1991, ten years ago, Iraq surrendered. Yet, the fighting for many was far from over. While America's technology continued to erase the poltergeist of Vietnam, many servicemen and women were invaded with their own ghost of torment. Amidst the daily chaos, they experienced the frailties of their own mortality and unlike CNN's sanitized version of the desert clash- the realization that there was no glory in war. Then, as a lasting memento, most were brutally introduced to "The Mystery Illness."
Unfortunately, these factors only added up to half of our veterans' inner struggles. From many perspectives, Operation Desert Storm became a war of anxiety and rage. Soldiers were trained to fight, sent to strike, yet watch as technology did the job. Adding to the frustration, many criticized that it was merely a war for oil. Only ignorance would claim that America was not protecting its vital interests in the Gulf region. However, as Hussein displayed the same behavior as Adolf Hitler, that same ignorance might believe he would have never invaded Saudi Arabia, seized its vast oil resources and translated those profits into more weapons. To say the least, it was an honorable and just cause.
Returning, visibly whole, to a proud and grateful nation, many Persian Gulf veterans reported being violently ill with flu-like symptoms. Immediately, the cruel game was sinful. After the meticulous pre-war exam, most veterans of Operation Desert Storm weren't even given a token physical examination. The army didn't even pretend to care. Sharing the same painful tradition as their predecessors of Vietnam, Uncle Sam just wanted them off his menial payroll. After months of selfless service to their country, most were dismissed without so much as a proper medical screening. Only months earlier, America's defenders of democracy proudly answered their country's call. With honor, they helped free Kuwait from the forces of oppression. Now, suffering from a wide variety of debilitating symptoms, they were never diagnosed or treated for any. People who were once great assets to their country had now become liabilities.
In retrospect, there were several likely causes for the crippling ailments. Veterans were exposed to radioactive depleted uranium used by the Allied Forces. There were preventive, or experimental, vaccines administered to all American troops. There was also the possibility that chemical agents were used in the many Iraqi Scud attacks. The government has offered other potential causes. They claim that the puzzling illnesses could have been caused by microwave radiation, petrochemicals, insect bites, parasites, contamination from oil well fires, even the Allied bombing of specific bunkers storing Iraqi chemical agents. The list grows by the month. They point fingers in every direction but their own. Ironically, the answers needed, can only come from the same government that's always realized some truths are just too big, or too expensive, to tell.
Together, they were forced to fight again. This new battle, however, would prove far more fierce, with an invisible enemy much better prepared to fight. Now, ten years later, he veterans of Operation Desert Storm are still fighting for the truth; the truth about what the government quickly labeled the "Persian Gulf Syndrome," or "Mystery Illness-" which is never a promising adjective.
And although most Persian Gulf veterans have learned that all war wounds aren't suffered on the battlefield, the government was generous enough to hand them another dark, little secret. Not all war wounds are visible either. For many Desert Storm Veterans, although the yellow ribbons and flags were taken down, the shiny medals have lost their gleam and the euphoria of victory has subsided, the war is far from over!
Operation Desert Storm was completed one decade ago, yet many veterans still embark on a more painful mission. Most have been carried away in the eye of their own storms; the type of storms that rage out of control deep inside, tearing at the spirit; the whole being. Unlike Hussein's vast army, there are two enemies to fight this time. The first is the U.S. government. The second battlefront, and one far more ferocious, still rages within his heart and mind.
291 American lives were lost in the theater of operations, while nearly 10,000 other brothers and sisters have died since returning home. Some have criticized the length of the war in which we served, though I sincerely doubt that the families and friends of these fallen comrades have grieved any less. Countless other Persian Gulf veterans silently suffer from an invisible disease that often equates into cancer, neurological diseases, respiratory diseases?the list goes on. The numbers, in fact, are staggering. Out of 700,000 troops serving in Operation Desert Storm, with nearly 600,000 being eligible for benefits through the VA, 45% have sought medical treatment at the VA, while 1/3 of those have filed claims for service-related medical disabilities. These numbers do not even touch on the higher rate of birth defects in our children, the many marriages lost, the careers destroyed and the other hefty prices paid for freedom; many of which are still being paid. So, it has become quite apparent: Anything not easily detected by the eye is easily dismissed. We cannot let this happen. We must not let this happen!
Personally, my experience in the Gulf was, no doubt, quite ordinary. Though I lost my endocrine, or gland system, and have endured many of the symptoms of the Persian Gulf Syndrome, I've always known I was blessed and have felt it my duty to give more. For years, I have screamed aloud so that those who suffer silently would have a voice. For those who served in the Gulf, it is important to me that they never feel alone again. It is imperative that they always know there are others who wrestle with the same feelings of fear and rage, who now suffer from the same invisible illness, and who also fight for personal justice with the government. For those who did not serve, but might still care to listen: Please know that understanding brings about compassion. I swear it: Without the support of family and friends, the darkness would prove unbearable. In many respects, war is a state of mind and a person cannot live in two worlds at one time. One must face his demons and call an internal truce before there is ever a chance for peace.
My message is clear: We were taught to value loyalty above all things except honor, yet those who called us to serve have shown neither. Silence has become our greatest enemy and the truth is no longer for the government to conceal. Though they fear compensation, we seek treatment. Those who served back in '91 are men and women of honor; not people looking for a handout, but only the truth so that they can return to their lives and take care of their families. That shouldn't be too much to ask.
Again, the complaint was never in being sent. With babies being tossed from incubators in Kuwait, it was an honorable cause and it was we who volunteered to right that wrong. The complaint lies in the way we were returned; having legitimate issues and nowhere to turn.
My brothers and sisters of Operation Desert Storm once stood together against an evil oppressor and fought to liberate those who could not free themselves. No one can ask us now to be seated and not stand for what we still believe. So- we must stand together again- to fight for our own government's acknowledgement and treatment.
We helped to win the war, now we only need to win the peace. Thankfully, not one of us is alone!
Steven Manchester is the author of The Unexpected Storm: The Gulf War Legacy.
----
Iraqis Grapple With Heavy Health Legacy After Handover
A sharp shortage of medicine is also there, much to the suffering of Iraqis
By Samir Haddad & Mazen Ghazi,
IOL Correspondents, (IslamOnline.net)
April 1, 2004
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/01/article01.shtml
BAGHDAD - The U.S. occupation forces handed over the Health Ministry to the Iraqis who are now burdened with a heavy legacy of ramshackle health structures and sharp shortage of medical services.
U.S. Civil administrator Paul Bremer handed over the keys of the ministry to Health Minister Khodeir Abbas in a ceremonial meeting on March28 .
Iraq now has 240 hospitals and 1200 medical centers, all ready back to work, Bremer told the gathering.
But the Ministry officials said the picture is rather acrimoniously grim, as the health sector has been the most to bear the brunt of two weeks of heavy strikes and one year occupation marked with a cauldron of chaos and anarchy.
"The occupation forces handed the Health Ministry affairs to the Iraqis, but they still have full authority over the financial allocations through senior advisors, the official, who asked to be anonymous, told IslamOnline.net on Wednesday, March31 .
The move came as disappointing to many Iraqi medics and ordinary civilians, given the major health legacy left by two weeks of heavy bombings and months of following lack of basic services and health care.
World Health Organization (WHO) expected in May 2003 a cholera epidemic in southern Iraq, and warned that other infectious waterborne diseases could break out in the war-scarred country.
A medical report by a British medical charity also warned in November that Iraqis would feel the brunt of the U.S.-British invasion for years and "maybe generations" to come with the "alarming deterioration" of the health care system.
The official said that although medical team members could now get much higher salaries, the medical service did not witness a similar improvement.
"The salaries saw an increase, but the medical reality is still gravely beneath the red line," said Mazen Farahan, the deputy director of Child Cancer Hospital in Baghdad.
A Farahan's colleague said that cancer tumors and deformations have witnessed an increase among newborns, amidst reports that the invading forces used missiles with depleted uranium in the strikes.
Scarce Medicine
File photo of an Iraqi child injured in the U.S. military offensive
A sharp shortage of medicine is also there, much to the suffering of Iraqis, thousands of whom were injured since the beginning of the offensive on March20 .
"Drugs are still scare, with some sorts are not at all there," said Sadek Al-Hammash, a surgical pediatrician in the Baghdad hospital.
He said that medicine to cure dyspnea and syringes for injecting cases inflected with poisoning are not available.
"The occupation forces gave us no new medical equipment, despite the havoc wrought as a consequence of the war and the following waves of looting," Hammash said.
Pediatrician Noaman Nafie is of a similar mind, saying the trajectory of infant fatalities keeps turning up.
"The equipment are still primitive," Nafie said, calling on health officials to begin training medical teams.
The U.S. forces organized a two-week course for doctors "with more theories and little practice," he said.
In a report by the United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) published on June8 , the number of children who suffer from diarrhea, Iraq's number one killer of infants, has more than doubled over this time last year.
Some chronic diseases that require quick medical containment have plagued the war-ravaged country, including Cholera.
More Outrageous
For ordinary Iraqis, the health problems have triggered much outrage, given earlier U.S. promises of a better life after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
"The situation under occupation is similarly deteriorating as under the Saddam regime," said Om Abdullah in the Kadhimiya hospital.
"The doctor checked up my son and wrote some drugs, only one of which was found at the hospital's pharmacy - the same as what was happening under Saddam," she lamented.
With almost 85 percent of the drug stockpiled in Iraqi government hospitals stolen during the free-for-all looting waves that followed hot on the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi patients are wholly dependent on medical aid sent by neighboring countries. Better
For Um Ali, the service is much better, with old medical systems cancelled and doctors turning more cooperate.
"But other accumulating negative aspects are still there," she said.
The Medact, a medical non-governmental organization grouping health professionals, said in the November report that the invasion has caused "a further deterioration in the health of the Iraqi people and contributed to the chronic stress on the environment".
The group pointed to dangers such as leftover explosives and ammunition - Unicef has said this has hurt more than1 , 000children - landmines, and risks of cancers from toxic dust from weapons with depleted uranium.
"Limited access to clean water and sanitation, as well as poverty, malnutrition and disruption of public services including health services, continue to have a negative impact on the health of the Iraqi people," read its report.
With the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime following the invasion of U.S.-led forces, many Iraqi hospitals have been badly looted, and are also overburdened by the number of casualties.
The nation's suffering from impure water supplies, uncollected garbage and a lack of electricity also aggravated the health crisis.
-------- korea
US to host informal Korean nuclear crisis talks
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Apr 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040401165544.iwtijfo1.html
The United States confirmed Thursday that it would hold unofficial talks with Japan and South Korea next week on the Korean nuclear crisis.
The "informal trilateral meeting" in San Francisco on April 7-8 "is part of our continuous, ongoing dialogue about North Korea policy," a US official said. "I don't expect any major announcements."
The three countries together with Russia and China are involved in so-called six-party talks with North Korea to help resolve the nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula.
The second round of the six-party talks, held in China in February, agreed to set up a working group but failed to achieve a breakthrough in the nuclear standoff.
US State Department official Joseph DeTrani discussed preparations for the third round of talks with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, one of Beijing's top North Korea hands, in Beijing on Thursday.
Japanese media reported this week about the upcoming trilateral informal talks and said the agenda would include the setting up of the working group.
The parties hope to hold the first working group session in late April, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) reported.
Those expected to attend the San Francisco talks are Mitoji Yabunaka, director of the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo Hyuck and James Kelly, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
The three each led their countries' delegations in the six-party talks in February.
Washington had accused North Korea in October 2002 of having a program to enrich uranium and demanded that the Stalinist state completely and verifiably dismantle its nuclear programmes.
Pyongyang has sought security guarantees and economic aid in return for denuclearization while Washington has insisted that a verifiable dismantling of its nuclear program come first.
-------- libya
SHARON REMARKS BLOCKED U.S. DATA ON LIBYAN NUKES
Thu, 01 Apr 2004
[MENL]
http://menewsline.com/stories/2004/april/04_02_3.html
TEL AVIV -- Israel's intelligence community detected Libya's nuclear weapons program as early as 2001, but a public disclosure by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon slammed the door to vital data from Britain and the United States.
Israeli military sources said the intelligence community learned of the outlines of Libya's nuclear weapons program about three years ago and reported this to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and leading ministers. But the sources said Sharon disclosed Libya's nuclear program publicly on two occasions, thereby angering Britain and the United States.
The account by the military sources was confirmed by a U.S. official. The official said Britain and the United States refused to discuss Libya's weapons program out of concern of Israeli leaks amid the Western effort to persuade Moammar Khaddafy to abandon its weapons of mass destruction.
"The U.S. intelligence community was furious with Sharon and a high-level message told him to stop discussing the subject," the U.S. official said. "At that point, the subject became taboo in the intelligence exchange between Israel and the United States."
-------- missile defense
Dream-Filled Missile Silos
April 1, 2004
NY Times Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/opinion/01THU1.html
The Pentagon is foolishly racing to deliver on President Bush's grandiose 2000 campaign promise to have a still unproven, money-munching missile defense system deployed in time for the November election. It's supposed to provide protection against incoming ballistic missiles. But, so far, the rush into the old "Star Wars" dream amounts to an extravagant political shield.
The administration's obstinate intent is to fill the first silos in Alaska as early as this summer, even though the complex project - a composite of 10 separate systems for high-tech defense - is years from being fully tested or built. Plagued with cost overruns and technical failures, the overall missile defense program's main feat of rocketry has been its price tag: roughly $130 billion already spent, and $53 billion planned for the next five years.
Mr. Bush ought to pay attention to the powerful advice just offered by a group of 49 retired generals and admirals who say he should shelve his fantasy start-up plan. They urge that the money for that project be spent instead on bolstering antiterrorist defenses at American ports, borders and nuclear weapons depots. As things stand now, the administration is again looking for showy but questionable ways to reinforce Mr. Bush's identity as a wartime president, while ignoring sensible and effective low-tech strategies to reinforce homeland security.
There is no denying the theoretical virtue of a missile shield, considering the threat that North Korea or some other rogue nation may eventually present to the United States mainland. But the retired brass, who served in the highest precincts of the Pentagon, argue sensibly that the money for the project scheduled for early deployment, $3.7 billion of the $10.2 billion the president plans to spend next year for missile-shield projects, should be diverted to protecting parts of the American mainland that could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
Making a show of rushing missile shield components into place before they are required, to complete a system that may not work anyway, is a Potemkin defense. It invites more of the cost overruns and test failures that have bedeviled the program. The Pentagon had to tell Congress last week of another round of setbacks in developing one piece of the Star Wars puzzle: an infrared satellite system crucial to the project. This will mean more lost time and higher costs for an oft-revamped plan that even Pentagon analysts have called a "case study" for how not to build a complex space project. Voters paying for this buy-now, fly-later dream deserve realistic planning and candor, not another slice of political pie in the sky.
-------- terrorism
Hell in a Suitcase
By Ralph Kinney Bennett
04/01/2004
Tech Central Station
http://www.techcentralstation.com/040104C.html
I will never forget the image. An unassuming looking man walking the streets of London with a bulging briefcase. Inside it, an atomic bomb.
It was back in 1950. I was just a kid, and I sat immobilized in my seat at the Manos Theater in Latrobe, Pa., watching a British film "Seven Days to Noon." In it, a leading British atomic scientist, played by now-forgotten actor Barry Jones, posts a letter to the Prime Minister saying he has taken a small nuclear weapon and will detonate it in the center of London in seven days unless the government agrees to abandon its atomic weapons program.
The story of how the police track down "Professor John Willoughby," meanwhile evacuating the city of London, was absolutely riveting. And the scenes of a deserted London as the last day approached were eerie and unforgettable.
I'm pretty sure this Boulting Brothers movie -- filmed in black and white with an almost documentary feel to it -- was the first to introduce the idea of carrying a nuclear weapon around in some sort of case. Very little was publicly known about nuclear weapons at that time. People had little sense of their size or shape. There was only a vague understanding that something relatively small had caused horrendously big explosions at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So the idea of an atomic bomb in a suitcase was not implausible.
We now know how really big and heavy the first atomic bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy, were. But within a few years of the appearance of this movie the U.S. had developed not only artillery shell-sized nuclear munitions but also an 11- by 16- inch oval warhead, the W-54. Dubbed the Davy Crockett, it weighed as little as 51 pounds and could be fired by a soldier from a recoilless rifle!
The closest the U.S. is known to have come to a "suitcase" or hand-carried weapon was a variation of the W-54 called, interestingly enough, the SADM (small atomic demolition munition). This device -- officially the Mk-54 -- would have required a mighty big suitcase. It was a fat cylinder, 15 inches (diameter) by 24 inches, not unlike one of those big plastic buckets you can buy bulk paint in at Home Depot, and it weighed 150 pounds.
Since the deployment (and eventual retirement) of these weapons, more ingenious designs and advances in explosives, structural materials and microelectronics, have brought relative miniaturization of nuclear weapons to a multi-billion dollar high art, making possible the stuffing of warheads by the half-dozens into missile nose cones
"Relative" is the key word here. How small can a nuclear bomb be? What are the downscale physical limits to making one? It is important to have some concept of these limits as we consider the occasional alarms in the media regarding terrorists and "suitcase" or (lately) "backpack" nuclear bombs. Last week were heard al-Qaeda claims that it has a couple of suitcase bombs it bought from Russians years ago. Chechnyan rebels have made similar claims in the past, as have Palestinian terrorists.
The infamous Soviet-made suitcase bombs that supposedly disappeared from inventory sometime after the break-up of the Soviet Union have been the subject of numerous investigations and much fevered speculation. It is known that the Soviets, like the United States, developed small nuclear munitions, small enough to be fired in artillery shells or to be hand-carried (by one or more soldiers) as a demolition device. If they designed and built one that could actually fit in a large brief case, one of them has not shown up anywhere, nor has an official photograph or blueprint of it.
The ones described by Soviet General Alexander Lebed, in sensational Congressional hearings back in 1997, were supposedly in suitcases approximately 24 x 16 x 8 inches. A mock-up of such a bomb, using the warhead of an American nuclear artillery shell, was constructed and, indeed, all the necessary items -- neutron generators, batteries, arming mechanism etc. -- were successfully stuffed in around the cylindrical device itself. (For a photo of the mock-up and more see nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/Lebedbomb.html. This is an excellent site thanks to the expository writing of Carey Sublette.)
There continue to be disturbing rumors, and in some cases evidence of fissile material and dangerous nuclear byproducts (strontium, cesium etc.) floating around the international underworld. And while nothing should be considered beyond the scope of determined terrorists with enough money, building a hand carried nuclear weapon "from scratch," so to speak, would be very difficult.
The starting point would be a critical mass of plutonium or U-233. This would be a sphere about 4 or 5 inches in diameter and weighing roughly 28 to 30 pounds. Since the carriers of the weapon would presumably be in close quarters with it for some period of time, the critical mass would have to be of "supergrade" plutonium, which would be relatively safe to handle because it gives off lower neutron emissions. Beyond that, design variations (neutron reflector, high explosive, trigger type etc.) and the packaging for the device would add to size and weight depending on materials used, ingenuity of layout and other factors.
Part of the design of U.S. and probably Soviet small atomic munitions was to insure maximum safety to handlers and enough robustness to preclude accidental damage. These might not be particularly acute considerations for some terrorists, who would be thinking more about portability and concealment.
There can be little doubt that next to the acquisition of an actual contained nuclear munition (in a suitcase or whatever) the acquisition of an artillery-type nuclear warhead would be the ticket for terrorists -- a sort of advanced starter kit. The smallest one the U.S. ever deployed in its arsenal was the M-45, which could be fired from a 155 mm cannon. It was 6.1 inches in diameter (caliber) and 34 inches long. It weighed up to 128 pounds. Remove the conical tip and fuse from one of those and you reduce the length enough to barely fit diagonally in the Soviet-sized suitcase.
But, hey, why not a larger suitcase? Or a crate, or a strong cardboard box? How about the trunk of a car? The possibilities for concealing or disguising a nuclear weapon are endless. Take a look, for instance, at one of those high-capacity air compressors you can buy in any Sears hardware department.
The big question is the shelf-life and availability of nuclear artillery shells. The U.S. shells are apparently accounted for and secure. Whether all the Soviet era mini-warheads can be accounted for is another story.
The shelf-life issue is important. If there is a nuclear munition or more than one "out there," its condition could be in question. A nuclear weapon involves the melding of a variety of materials in close proximity -- metals, plastics, ceramics, exotic high explosives and, of course plutonium and uranium. Things happen inside a nuclear weapon even when it is just sitting.
The plutonium core gives off quite a bit of heat. This will warm the other parts of the weapon up to as much as 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Uranium "rusts" in much the same manner as steel when exposed to the air. And even though warheads are sealed in airtight metal containers, the materials inside -- the explosives and plastic, for instance -- give off trace amounts of oxygen, hydrogen and water vapor that can eventually cause oxidation and corrosion, both of which are abetted by the weapon's intrinsic heat. The high explosives in the detonating "lenses" of a weapon also have been known to deteriorate.
So, unless the purloined (or purchased) warhead was regularly monitored and, if necessary, refurbished by experts it might become dangerously unstable or perhaps not work at all. It's conceivable that the conventional explosives might detonate incompletely and that the nuclear core might be scattered rather than being "assembled" to cause a nuclear explosion. Thus a "dirty bomb" incident, spreading radioactive material, would be the result.
Of course a nuclear weapon gives off a significant signature in the form of both gamma rays and neutrons. A huge effort is being made to employ a variety of gamma and neutron spectrometry devices at ports of entry and the perimeters of potential targets. But these devices (and more sophisticated ones are now being worked on at the national laboratories) are not foolproof. Distance, shielding of various types (tungsten, lead, steel of a given thickness) and the problem of false positives and false negatives are some of the challenges now being wrestled with by detection experts.
In the end, an atomic bomb in a suitcase is really just a metaphor, not only for the portability of nuclear weapons but for the new and ominous possibility of who might be carrying them. The fictional tweedy professor who terrorized London in "Seven Days to Noon" was a misguided idealist with a bomb in a satchel. Those who now seek to terrorize the West and particularly the United States are hate-filled killers who have glorified suicide as a virtue and are bending every effort to secure and use "the bomb," be it in a suitcase, a packing crate, a car or whatever will surreptitiously deliver it to target. "If" is not the question. Where and when are.
Ralph Kinney Bennett recently wrote for TCS about the military's efforts to reduce collateral damage.
-------- treaties
NGOs Criticize Draft U.N. Nonproliferation Resolution for Ignoring Disarmament
By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2004_4_1.html#FCBE7C8D
UNITED NATIONS - Nongovernmental experts on arms control and international law yesterday criticized a draft resolution before the Security Council designed to deny terrorists and other "nonstate actors" access to weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, March 25).
John Burroughs of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy said that while "there is clearly an urgent need to prevent nuclear proliferation involving nonstate actors," this resolution is the wrong vehicle.
The NGOs' made two major criticisms: the draft ignores the role of disarmament in promoting nonproliferation and it would turn the Security Council into a kind of global legislature.
The text "refers only to the prevention of proliferation, and is silent, rhetorically or substantively, on the imperative of disarmament," said Burroughs. "It's absolutely hypocritical because there's nothing in it about the disarmament obligations of the five nuclear states under the NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty]" (see GSN, March 30). Those five states - the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France and China - are also the five permanent members of the council.
Susi Snyder, director of the U.N. office of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, said, "It is safe to say that the world would be much more receptive to collective action on preventing proliferation involving nonstate actors if there was progress instead of backsliding on the arms control/disarmament front."
The draft, if approved, would require states to "adopt and enforce appropriate effective laws" to deny nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, their components and "means of delivery" (such as missiles and drones) to any "nonstate actors." The text invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, meaning the requirements of the resolution would be legally binding. The United States and United Kingdom had been negotiating with the other permanent members of the council since December. The text distributed to the 10 elected members last week was approved by all five permanent members.
In releasing the draft, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said the draft "fills a gap in the nonproliferation regimes" because governments are subject to international controls, but "what there aren't are obligations targeted at the terrorists." He added, "What we have to do is stop the ultimate nightmare: the bringing together of weapons of mass destruction and the terrorist."
Burroughs said the draft "imposes no obligations on the P5" - the permanent five council members - because those five also have veto power over any council action, but "it certainly affects countries outside the NPT because it's going to place obligations, for example, on Pakistan to ensure that nuclear materials do not find their way via nonstate actor networks to other countries." In February it was revealed that the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The NGOs also called for a public meeting of the council before any action is taken. "A resolution of this magnitude, which does not involve all nations during the deliberations, will only inspire distrust and resentment," Snyder said.
Snyder said she and Burroughs had met so far with four of the elected members of the council. "In general, they have been supportive of the idea of an open debate, especially in noting that because this resolution affects so many that by passing it without an open debate it would not allow for their voices to be heard," she added.
Snyder said the delegates they talked to were "concerned with the lack of transparency over the initial negotiations on this resolution and have been concerned with the definitions - or lack of definitions - and some of the terms."
Burroughs said that at first, he "was more sympathetic to the idea of a Security Council mandatory resolutions, but as I studied the issue, I began to see what the consequences would be for international law if suddenly the Security Council becomes an ongoing global legislature."
The precedent for the council imposing mandatory obligations on countries without any treaty negotiations is Resolution 1373, the counterterrorism resolution adopted in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sep. 11, 2001. The resolution requires states to enact national legislation that would make it harder for terrorists to operate or hide resources in all countries (see GSN, March 29).
Like Resolution 1373, Burroughs said this draft "would represent a far-reaching assumption of authority by the Security Council to enact global legislation requiring each state to modify its national legal system and policies." He added, "There is nothing in the U.N. Charter that confers such authority on the Security Council. Rather the Charter contemplates multilateral agreements entered into by states as the primary mode of global lawmaking."
The authors of the draft were aware of this concern when they publicized the draft last week. Jones Parry said the draft "does not represent the Security Council trying to impose its will to replace the role of properly negotiated multilateral regimes, it is a responsible reaction by the Security Council to a real threat."
The NGOs proposed instead that any resolution on the subject not be mandatory requirements but rather "guidelines and requests" for states to address the problem. In addition, implementation should be in the hands of the secretary general, not the president of the council. This way it "would remove the basis for any claim of 'enforcement,'" said Burroughs, and "would be an excellent opportunity to involve the concerned international bodies in this matter" if the work was done by the secretary general rather than the council.
German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger, who assumes the rotating presidency of the council today, said the sponsors have not yet asked for consultations over the draft. If asked, "we would certainly do that," he said. "We are completely open."
Pleuger said Germany supports the draft "because there is a gap in international law pertaining to nonstate actors. We cannot wait for normal procedure of international law of negotiating a convention or a treaty. We have to act, the urgency is there, so the resolution in principle is a good move."
On the other hand, he said, "There is certainly room for improvement."
Germany has proposals "that relate the resolution to disarmament and disarmament obligations that are already existing under international law because there is a connection, of course. Weapons that are disarmed cannot be proliferated, it's as easy as that."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Companies file to build nuclear plant
ASSOCIATED PRESS,
April 01, 2004
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20040331-085946-5850r.htm
Seven companies have agreed to jointly apply for a license to build a new commercial nuclear power plant, the first new reactor application to be filed in three decades, the companies announced yesterday.
The five energy companies and two reactor vendors emphasized that none of the companies have made a commitment to actually build a new plant, but are taking the initiative to test the government's streamlined licensing process.
The companies intend to commit $7 million a year to the effort under a cost-sharing program with the Energy Department. The goal is to get license approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by 2010.
While three utilities previously have submitted applications for early site approval for reactors, this represents the first time the industry has actually said it would seek construction and operating approval for a new nuclear power plant since 1973.
Interest in new reactors faded after the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. Many projects were canceled after the accident, although 51 reactors in the pipeline were completed.
The consortium includes four of the country's largest electricity-generating companies: Chicago-based Exelon Corp., which owns 17 reactors; Entergy Nuclear, a unit of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., operator of 11 reactors; Baltimore-based Constellation Energy; and Atlanta-based Southern Co.
Also in the group are EDF International North America Inc., a subsidiary of Electricite deFrance, which owns interest in a number of U.S. fossil fuel plants and 58 reactors in France, and two reactor vendors, General Electric and Westinghouse Electric Co. Westinghouse is a subsidiary of the British nuclear company BNFL.
Both vendors have designs for next-generation reactors before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In the announcement, the participants emphasized that the decision to submit a license application is aimed at testing the government's new approach to licensing, which for the first time would have the NRC approve a generic reactor design and consider in one process both a construction permit and operating license.
Such a test is considered a major step in the gradual move toward building new reactors. The consortium gave no indication when or where a plant actually might be built. The announcement said neither the consortium nor its members "are making a commitment to build a new nuclear unit at this time."
Any decision on a future plant would be left to the individual participants in the consortium, the announcement said.
"We must keep the nuclear energy option open for the future," said Chris Crane, president and chief nuclear officer at Exelon.
Michael Wallace, president of Constellation Energy Group, said while his company "has no immediate plans" for building a new reactor, "our decision to join this consortium is indicative of our strong desire to see the process by which new plants are sited streamlined to support efficient construction in the future."
The consortium hopes to complete the application process by 2008 and get a decision from the NRC by 2010. After that, any company or combination of participants can use the permit to proceed with a construction plan.
----
A 2nd Consortium Wants a Reactor
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
April 1, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/politics/01NUKE.html?ex=1081486800&en=2701b7d3cc1c05e6&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
WASHINGTON, March 31 - A second consortium of companies has made public its own plan to win permission to build what would be the nation's first new nuclear power reactor in decades, executives of one of the companies said Wednesday.
The consortium consists of Dominion Resources Inc., Hitachi America, Bechtel and an American subsidiary of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. It applied to the Energy Department on March 17 for financial help with work needed to win that permission, from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But the application was not disclosed until Dominion did so on Wednesday, several hours after another consortium, of five power companies and two equipment manufacturers, announced as expected that it was filing such an application.
Dominion has already applied to the regulatory commission for approval of a reactor site adjacent to its existing North Anna reactors, 60 miles northwest of Richmond, Va. Atomic Energy of Canada has submitted to the commission a preliminary application for review of a design for the new reactor, which would use natural uranium and heavy water; Hitachi would build the steam turbine and other crucial components; and Bechtel would provide engineering services.
Dominion is proposing to spend $61 million over six years, and the other partners combined somewhat more, in an effort to win the commission's approval.
----
Snail-like Service
Thursday, April 1, 2004
Columbian editorial writers
http://www.columbian.com/04012004/clark_co/131560.html
Even by the standard snail-like pace we've come to expect of the federal government, the U.S. Energy Department's efforts to help ill nuclear weapons plant workers have been atrociously, unacceptably slow.
On Tuesday the Senate Energy Committee was told that, almost four years after Congress took action and despite having $74 million to work with, the Energy Department has issued only one check for $15,000. Furthermore, only 372 of 22,000 workers who have filed for help have been told if their illnesses are job-related.
As Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said, "Our Cold War veterans are not being treated fairly." She also said members of the Senate Energy Committee are eager to "work on legislation to help get these workers the compensation they need and so richly deserve."
This issue is of immense national importance, but especially so in Washington state. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland costs about $2 billion a year to run and involves about 11,000 workers. Hanford made plutonium for nuclear weapons for four decades and now is storing more than half the nation's high-level radioactive waste.
The intransigence of the Energy Department has caused some legislators to suggest turning over the compensation program for ill workers to the U.S. Labor Department, which already is running another compensation program for weapons plant workers. That may be a viable solution, but the Energy Department still must explain its own ineffectiveness. Robert Card, the department's undersecretary, said the program needs an additional $33 million to become more efficient. Of course, that won't wash. First, the department must show it can wisely and expeditiously spend the $74 million it has received.
No list of excuses can erase the statistics that have become a national embarrassment: one check, $15,000. And that inefficiency has occurred despite outsourcing to companies hired to run the program, companies such as Science and Engineering Associates, which bills the government as much as $90 an hour for nurses who help process claims.
"Only in a government contract can people make so much money and perform so poorly," complained Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Unfortunately, he's right.
-------- idaho
Cleanup workers find broken drum at INEEL
Idaho Statesman
04-01-2004
http://www.idahostatesman.com/Story.asp?ID=64435
IDAHO FALLS - A project removing buried waste at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory was temporarily stalled after workers discovered a broken waste drum buried only 4 feet below the soil´s surface.
Radioactive and chemically hazardous wastes were buried in the Subsurface Disposal Area between 1954 and 1970. Now a Superfund site, workers are trying to excavate and clean the 97-acre area to prevent waste from getting into the groundwater.
A Bechtel BWXT Idaho crew had been working on preparing a portion of the site called Pit 4 for two days before an excavator uncovered the broken drum on March 20, officials said. Digging was stopped that day to give officials time to re-evaluate the work, Department of Energy Project Manager Jeff Perry said.
"We want to look at what went wrong and what could happen next," he said.
It was no surprise that the drum was broken, said Tim Jackson, spokesman for the Department of Energy. Many of the waste containers buried in the area are either broken or decomposing.
But the drum was buried about 2 feet higher than expected, he said.
"We were going to leave about 2 feet of soil over the drums until we built the containment structure over that section of the pit," Jackson said. "Now we´re re-evaluating exactly how to prepare that section of pit before we build the containment structure."
The drums contain high concentrations of plutonium as well as other radioactive wastes and volatile chemicals used as solvents and degreasers.
The worker who discovered the shallow drum was not exposed to anything dangerous, Jackson said. The crew covered the drum up with clean soil and suspended work.
-------- nevada
Weapons-grade nuclear material to go from New Mexico to Nevada
ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 01, 2004
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2004/apr/01/040110217.html
LAS VEGAS (AP) - The federal government plans to begin shipping weapons-grade nuclear materials in September to the Nevada Test Site from a New Mexico complex that critics contend is vulnerable to terrorist attack.
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced Wednesday that the shipments from Technical Area 18 site at Los Alamos National Laboratory will take about 18 months.
A government watchdog group called the move "a big win-win" for the Energy Department, but criticized the planned pace of the shipments and the plan to move only half the material from Los Alamos.
"It will not only significantly increase national security, but will also save taxpayers about $30 million a year," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.
Pete Stockton, an investigator for group in Washington, D.C., said shipments should be done in a year instead of 18 months, and said moving only half the material doesn't solve problems of security and cost.
Officials said 2 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium will be moved to the Device Assembly Facility, a high-security storehouse in a remote section of the test site, a vast federal reservation 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
In a statement issued Wednesday, NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said the move will help consolidate special nuclear materials in a newer, more secure facility.
Technical Area 18 at Los Alamos is considered a high-risk facility after security breaches occurred there during a series of war games.
Last month, Rep. Jim Greenwood, R-Pa., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, expressed dismay that the Nuclear Security Administration had not yet begun transferring the materials.
"When NNSA finally moves these materials from Los Alamos to the Nevada Test Site, it will achieve improved security and a significant reduction in security costs," Greenwood said.
NNSA and the U.S. Department of Energy decided in December 2002 to move the materials after an analysis of the technical site's old facilities and high cost of security.
The transfer was put on hold last summer after cost estimates soared from the original projection of $100 million to about $310 million.
The Los Alamos site stores and uses materials for criticality experiments that investigate controlled nuclear chain reactions. It was the site of a September 2002 test that used neptunium, rather than uranium or plutonium, to achieve a critical mass for the first time.
The announcement that shipments will start did not disclose costs, and NNSA spokesman Brian Wilkes in New Mexico said the cost issue had not been resolved.
-------- washington
Judge Rejects Washington Contractors' Defense in Nuclear-Radiation Mishaps
Thu, Apr. 01, 2004
By Karen Dorn Steele,
The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8334706.htm
Apr. 1 - A federal judge has rejected an argument by Hanford contractors that they aren't responsible for radiation releases in Eastern Washington starting in the 1940s because they were following government orders to make plutonium for nuclear bombs.
U.S. District Judge Frem Nielsen's ruling on "contractor defense" was issued late Tuesday. It's the first ruling in the country by a federal trial judge on whether Congress intended to exempt nuclear contractors from radiation damage claims.
Nielsen's order puts the big Hanford downwinders' case one step closer to a March 2005 trial of 11 test cases for people alleging their health was harmed by the radiation releases.
Nielsen sided with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled this year in another case that the government's immunity against lawsuits does not extend to contractors.
In his ruling, Nielsen said Congress provided a "comprehensive scheme" in the Price-Anderson Act to indemnify nuclear contractors, using taxpayer money to pay for any nuclear mishaps while still allowing for the imposition of contractor liability under state laws.
"A contractor is not the government and does not have sovereign immunity," Nielsen said in his order.
Attorneys for the downwinders said they are pleased with Nielsen's ruling.
"It's an extremely important decision," said Peter Nordberg of Philadelphia, the plaintiffs' attorney who argued the motion last month before Nielsen.
"We are pleased to see some of the legal underbrush cleared away so we can move forward on the merits," Nordberg said.
Kevin Van Wart of Chicago, lead attorney for the Hanford contractors, said he'll probably seek permission from Nielsen to appeal.
"We respectfully disagree with the judge. He admits no court has decided this before," Van Wart said.
Any appeal of Nielsen's ruling will be "vigorously opposed" by attorneys for the downwinders, said Spokane counsel Richard Eymann.
The big case, which now has 2,322 plaintiffs, was filed in 1991 against the contractors who ran Hanford during World War II and the Cold War.
The defendants include E.I DuPont de Nemours, General Electric Co., Atlantic Richfield Co., United Nuclear and Rockwell International Corp.
Hanford made plutonium in a messy process that leaked iodine 131 and other radioactive elements into the air and the Columbia River. It is now the nation's largest nuclear cleanup site.
People in the region didn't know about the extent of the Hanford radiation releases until U.S. Department of Energy monitoring documents were declassified in 1986.
After years of appeals and the March 2003 recusal of U.S.
District Court Judge Alan McDonald, the high-profile case was reassigned to Nielsen.
Attorneys for the downwinders challenged the contractor defense issue, moving to strike it in a recent motion after Nielsen allowed the issue to be raised.
"We wanted to be the first to see whether, as a matter of law, it belonged in the case," said Louise Roselle of Cincinnati, lead attorney for the downwinders.
In an April 25, 2003, letter to Nielsen, Van Wart said the defendants would try to use contractor defense to get the case dismissed.
-------- us politics
Bush Admin Holds Back Clinton Papers From 9/11 Panel-Atty
04-01-04
(AP) Dow Jones Newswires
http://news.nasdaq.com/news/newsStory.aspx?&cpath=20040401%5CACQDJON200404011418DOWJONESDJONLINE000968.htm
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.--The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks isn't getting a full picture of former President Clinton's terrorism policies because the Bush administration won't forward all of Clinton's records to the panel, a lawyer said.
Bruce Lindsey, Clinton's legal representative for records and a longtime confidant of the former president, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that only about 25% of nearly 11,000 pages have been turned over.
"I don't want (the commission) drawing the conclusion the Clinton administration didn't do X or Y and then there be a document that contradicts that and they didn't have access to that document because the current administration decided not to forward it to them," Lindsey said.
While presidential records are sealed by law for five years after a president leaves office, an exception was made to allow early access for the Sept. 11 commission. But the National Security Council and Bush administration attorneys decided to turn over just a fraction of Clinton's documents, Lindsey said.
"The administration has interpreted the commission's request differently from the archives and, putting in the best light, has found that three-fourths of the pages did not comply with the commission's request," he said. "That's a fairly big difference of opinion."
Taylor Gross, a White House spokesman, said the administration has fully met the commission's requests for information.
"Whether documents from the Clinton administration or the Bush administration we have worked to ensure the commission has all the information it needs to get its job done," he said.
Clinton and former Vice President Gore have agreed to meet privately with the 10-member commission. The panel also plans to schedule a joint private interview with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Just Tuesday, the White House reversed itself and agreed to allow National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify before the panel publicly and under oath. The administration previously had insisted she meet privately with the commission, citing constitutional concerns, but eventually bowed to public pressure.
----
House Backs 'Parity' In Federal Pay Raises
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40569-2004Mar31.html
The House defied Bush administration objections yesterday and voted to continue giving civilian federal employees the same pay raises that military personnel receive.
The 299 to 126 vote was a victory for Washington-area lawmakers from both parties, who said the White House proposal would have sent a signal that civilian workers are less valued and less important than those in military uniforms. Despite the administration's position, House GOP leaders did not actively oppose the "pay parity" measure, and 95 Republicans joined all House Democrats in backing the bill.
The vote virtually ensures that civilian federal employees will receive a 3.5 percent pay raise in fiscal 2005.
The White House has proposed a 3.5 percent pay increase for the military but wanted civilian workers held to a 1.5 percent increase, which would free about $2.2 billion for other purposes, including equipment for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress has approved equal pay raises for military and nonmilitary employees in 19 of the past 21 years, pay-parity advocates said.
Technically, yesterday's measure was a nonbinding "sense of the House" resolution, but lawmakers said Appropriations Committee members will adhere to the guideline as they shape the fiscal 2005 budget in the coming months. The Senate previously endorsed a 3.5 percent pay raise for all federal workers.
"This is a huge win for the federal workforce," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who led the pay-parity effort with Reps. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).
In an interview after the vote, Davis thanked House leaders for not fighting the effort, adding: "It did not help to have the White House against us. It leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth. . . . I'll probably get over it in a couple of days."
In an hour-long floor debate, Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.) read a White House letter urging lawmakers to hold the civilian pay increase to 1.5 percent. The $2.2 billion cost of not doing so would amount to an " 'unfunded mandate' that agencies must cover with existing funds," said the letter, signed by budget director Joshua B. Bolten.
Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) said civilian jobs have become more dangerous in an age of terrorism. He cited the deaths of federal workers in the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, recent attacks on U.S. civilian workers and military personnel in Iraq, as well as other examples. "These people have to know they are appreciated and respected," he said.
But Istook said "the vast majority" of civilian federal workers are "not in harm's way. . . . We are being more than fair with 1.5 percent. We don't need to go overboard."
Hoyer said after the vote: "Civilian employees and uniformed personnel play complementary and equally critical roles in protecting this nation and promoting the general welfare of its citizens."
All House members from Virginia voted for the measure, as did all members from Maryland, except Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R), who voted nay.
The leaders of federal employee unions applauded yesterday's action.
"Today, the House rejected President Bush's pay raise proposal that both insulted and discounted the essential role of federal civilian employees," John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.
Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, called the bipartisan vote a message that federal employees are valued. "It is another important step in the government's continuing efforts to recruit and retain the high-quality employees the public wants and expects in federal agencies," she said in a statement.
Staff writer Christopher Lee contributed to this report.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Afghan Army Moves Into Unruly Province Near Iran
April 1, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/asia/01HERA.html?pagewanted=all&position=
HERAT, Afghanistan, March 28 - "Did you see Karzai's army?" a young Afghan security guard asked in a hushed voice. "They are all over the airport." Hundreds of men in green berets and combat fatigues, troops of the fledgling Afghan National Army, have encamped in this city close to Afghanistan's border with Iran.
In addition to the troops in the airport, hundreds more have settled into the IV Army Corps base in the center of town and have rapidly become a familiar sight, driving around in new camouflage-painted Ford pickups.
But the soldiers, sent from Kabul by President Hamid Karzai, are far more than a friendly presence. Since they arrived with their American trainers, they have quietly, without fuss, changed the political and military dynamics in western Afghanistan.
Since the national aviation minister was shot dead in the city on March 21, setting off hours of heavy fighting between men loyal to his father, Ismail Khan, the governor of Herat Province, and those of an ambitious young division commander whose guards had shot the minister, the people of Herat have been wondering what will happen next.
Their first fears were that the 17th Division commander, Zaher Naibzadah, 34, who fled the city that night, would return and attack with a new force. Instead, to their surprise, hundreds of newly trained Afghan National Army troops showed up, averting for now the possibility of a brutal and destructive war.
"They are in control of the place," a Western diplomat in Herat said. Once the full contingent of 1,500 men has arrived, the soldiers will patrol in the city and out to the Iranian border 75 miles to the west with the local police, the diplomat said.
It is a setback for Governor Khan, who was ruling Herat with an increasingly strong hand and with little regard for the central government. But, reeling from the death of his son and chief ally in the cabinet, Mirwais Sadeq, he has had to accept the troops. "He is not in a position to refuse," the diplomat said.
"It is time for the central government to extend its grip on the periphery," said Abu Diek, the United Nations representative in Herat. "We are embarking on a political process, and it would be good if the A.N.A. stayed."
The most powerful warlord in the country, Mr. Khan was accustomed to wielding overwhelming military, political and economic control in his province, and strong influence in the poorer neighboring provinces of Ghor and Badghis. In the two years since the fall of the Taliban, he has shown a stubborn disdain for sharing power or heeding the strictures of the central government.
As the country prepares for national elections in September and tries to push through a program of disarmament and demobilization of thousands of militiamen, Mr. Khan's unchecked power was looming as a serious obstacle.
Even as he prepared to bury his son, Mr. Khan, a former mujahedeen commander famed for his bravery in fighting the Soviet occupation, still tried to resist the deployment of the Afghan National Army.
"Don't rub salt into our wounds," he reportedly told President Karzai, when informed of the plan by telephone, according to a local journalist. "Karzai said, `It's for your benefit,' and cut the phone," the journalist said.
The American commander of the local provincial reconstruction team, Lt. Col. James H. Hand, said the Afghan troops had received good cooperation so far from the governor and his officials. Buses met the troops, and facilities were provided, the colonel said.
The 13,000 American troops in the country are still so busy in the south and east pursuing Taliban forces and hunting for Al Qaeda's leaders that the last thing they want is protracted strife in the west to add to their problems, another American officer said.
Not satisfied with curbing Mr. Khan's military power, major figures in the central government are determined to remove him completely from western Afghanistan, offering him a position in Kabul or the governorship of another province. He has refused all offers so far, but close aides acknowledge that discussions are in progress.
Under his rule Herat has emerged as the economic jewel of Afghanistan, prospering from a surge in trade with Iran. One diplomat in the region estimates that 300 trucks come through Herat customs daily, bringing in up to $300,000 in levies.
At about $100 million a year, that represents a fifth of the national budget. That figure alone infuriates many in Kabul, although for the last year Mr. Khan has been passing a share of the custom revenues to the central authorities.
His conservative religious values and strict control of the media and political activity have alienated the intellectual class in Herat, which is a highly sophisticated city. Young people are chafing at the social controls and say they wish Herat had a movie theater. But everyone agrees that he has delivered on the most important thing, security.
Mr. Khan's reaction to the killing of his son is indicative of how strained his relations are with the central government. He has said the killing was part of a conspiracy that included an attack on the governor himself, and suggested that members of the central government had a hand in it.
The deputy interior minister, Hilaluddin Hilal, called it a "tragic accident."
Whatever its cause, the sudden outburst of violence was a sign of the growing tensions between Mr. Khan and Mr. Naibzadah, who was one of the military commanders who supported cooperation with Kabul and the Defense Ministry in opposition to Mr. Khan.
While Mr. Khan appears much weakened by the incident, he still has the support of some diplomats and members of the American military, who want stability and security above all.
"He has opponents, but a great many think that for the time and the future, he may be the best alternative," Colonel Hand said.
But the government is determined to capitalize on this opportunity to make an example of Mr. Khan. "It gives a signal to all who are up to some sort of mischief that they'd better think it over," said the deputy defense minister, Rahim Wardak.
-------- africa
'Racism' of Rwanda
April 01, 2004
By Mort Rosenblum
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040331-093452-5434r.htm
PARIS - Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who grieves for the hundreds of thousands of Rwandans his token U.N. force could not save 10 years ago, fears "self-interested racism" among the big powers could lead to genocide again.
"Not all humans are human in the international context," Lt. Gen. Dallaire told the Associated Press in an interview. "Some countries are seen as important, but we have coldly created a tier of orphan nations."
Ten years ago, Bosnians counted much more because they were Europeans, and the Balkans represented a strategic interest worthy of international military intervention, Gen. Dallaire said. He described this as "self-interested racism."
"I'm sure there would have been more reaction if someone had tried to exterminate Rwanda's 300 mountain gorillas," he said.
In 1998, President Clinton stopped in Rwanda to apologize for the world's failure to prevent the 90-day slaughter, saying: "Never again."
Between April and June 1994, a government of extremists from Rwanda's Hutu majority orchestrated the slaughter of Tutsis as well as many moderate Hutus. Most were killed with machetes.
History is not clear on how many people were hacked to death, burned or shot in the three months. Most estimates say more than 500,000. Gen. Dallaire, who watched the massacre from start to finish, says 800,000.
The blood bath ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Tutsi-led rebel group, toppled the Hutu extremists.
Gen. Dallaire's book, "Shake Hands With the Devil," dispassionately relates how U.N. headquarters - on orders from Washington and European capitals - left his 2,000-member peacekeeping force powerless.
In conversation, he drew lessons for the present. He condemned U.S. strategists who he says pay little heed to the political and human consequences of overturning a society.
"You don't gain anything by just going in and blowing them away, as we see now in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said. However Washington explains it, "most of the world - and the victims - see imperial motives and economic interests."
A main-force invasion may be essential, Gen. Dallaire said, but afterward "soft skills" must be left to the armies of small nations, with no vested interests, operating under a U.N. flag.
Gen. Dallaire, a 57-year-old Quebecois, has a bristling gray mustache and penetrating eyes that suggest a fierce mien, but his voice is soft.
He still takes antidepressants to get through the day, but three years with his manuscript have taken him far beyond the suicidal low point when he was found drunk under a park bench.
Now retired as a three-star general, he pulls no punches about Rwanda.
In January, he flew to Tanzania to testify at a U.N. tribunal.
His book, just released in France, is a best seller in Canada. But, he said with a touch of rue, no American publisher seems interested in ancient Rwandan history.
Gen. Dallaire reached Kigali months before a mysterious plane crash killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6, 1994, as well as many of their ministers. The massacres, clearly planned in advance, started before the wreckage stopped smoking.
In cable after cable and 40 telephone calls, Gen. Dallaire pleaded for more soldiers and a change in the orders that allowed widely dispersed troops to shoot only in self-defense. A committed force of 5,000 could have stopped the killing, he said.
"The world just did not want to hear about it," he said. "Americans had suffered their humiliation in Somalia and had no more taste for casualties in Africa."
France had its own strategic reasons to lean toward the Hutus, he added.
That April 21, the Security Council, which requires nine votes and no vetoes to take action, refused to help. Instead, Gen. Dallaire's token force of 2,000 was reduced to just 270 peacekeepers.
He said his U.N. superiors told him the U.S. government insisted it had no business in Rwanda and would not help any other country that wanted to get involved.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali calls it "my worst failure at the United Nations."
Speaking to AP in Paris, where he heads an organization of French-speaking nations, Mr. Boutros-Ghali said Washington paralyzed action by setting impossible conditions.
Reminded of Mr. Clinton's "Never again" pledge, Mr. Boutros-Ghali said, "Why didn't he say that four years earlier?"
He added: "We asked permission to send help without U.S. participation, but they said no because [the Americans] would have to pay 30 percent and were afraid of being called in if things went wrong."
Mr. Boutros-Ghali also blamed France, Britain and Belgium. He quoted an unidentified Belgian officer as saying, "Let the Bougnols kill each other." Bougnol is a derogatory word for Africans.
James Rubin, who was a top adviser to Mr. Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine K. Albright, said Washington voted no because no one was ready to commit troops in any case.
"It was our fault, everybody's fault," he told AP by telephone from Washington. "There is no question we failed. But we opposed the resolution because it was a meaningless piece of paper."
At the time, he said, "we had this ridiculous fear of supporting a resolution that wouldn't get implemented."
It is easy for Mr. Boutros-Ghali and others to criticize Mrs. Albright now, he said, but Washington believed that no country would send enough troops to head off the massacres.
Gen. Dallaire said he was told by U.N. officials in New York that "Rwanda was of no value in any way, shape or form." Left on his own, he struggled with an impossible mission.
After he tried to persuade Rwandan Hutu leaders to stop the killing, his own flag-flying car was blocked and sprayed with gunfire. He and his aide barely escaped alive.
He had to stand back helpless as 10 Belgian paratroopers under his command were captured and fatally tortured at Rwandan army headquarters.
Even if he had defied orders, he said, his troops, mainly from Bangladesh, were so reluctant to fight that they sabotaged their armored cars by putting rags in the exhaust pipes.
Apart from the hundreds of thousands massacred, he said, 3 million Rwandans were left homeless, ravaged by an AIDS epidemic and fed by inept aid programs.
"I saw children die because all their mothers were given was whole corn with no water or wood for cooking," he said. "Kernels swelled up when they ate them, and they suffered a slow, horrible death."
Had big powers reacted, he concluded, "we would have saved millions from this calamity. But I'm afraid we haven't learned, and the same thing could happen again. How do you live with that?"
-------- arms
Revenge of the Killer Drones
By Noah Shachtman
Apr. 01, 2004
Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62893,00.html
ARLINGTON, Virginia -- They've served, mostly, as spies. Once in a great while, they've moonlighted as assassins. But now, unmanned aircraft are slowly starting to become full-fledged killing machines -- armed to the teeth, and designed for the deadliest parts of war.
In just five years, the U.S. military wants a handful of battle-ready fighting drones. This week, in a hotel ballroom just a few miles from the Pentagon, a group of a hundred or so Defense Department officials and defense contractors laid out their road map for how they'll reach this goal.
The next step will come in a few days, when a prototype unmanned combat aerial vehicle (or UCAV, for short) will soar over the Navy's China Lake testing range in California's Mojave Desert and drop its first smartbomb.
Drones have quickly become a central part of U.S. military efforts because they can hover over a combat zone for hours on end. A flesh-and-blood pilot poops out after about 10 hours; some robotic planes can stay aloft for more than three times that long.
In Pentagon-ese, this is known as "persistence." The Defense Department would like to shift from persistent surveillance -- which the drones are now starting to provide -- to an always-on ability to kill, should an adversary pop up in a pilotless plane's sights.
"The idea is to be there when targets present themselves," Northrop Grumman program manager Scott Winship told the group gathered for the Combat UAV 2004 conference here. Northrop is one of two firms working on prototype fighting drones.
Already, the RQ-1 Predator spy drone, equipped with Hellfire missiles, has taken out al-Qaida operatives in Yemen and destroyed the Iraqi television broadcast center. But the Predator is slow, cruising at around 85 miles per hour, and low -- normally flying at 10,000 feet. That would make it an easy target over a well-defended country.
What the Pentagon wants instead is a new plane that could knock out an opponent's air defenses; strike hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles deep into enemy territory; and serve as a scout in hostile skies -- all without risking the life of a single American pilot. Enter the UCAV.
Northrop and Boeing are building the test models for the combat drone, called the X-47 and X-45 respectively. Boeing is a little further along in the process. Its two X-45A prototypes have flown about 25 times, while the X-47A has only been aloft once. It's the X-45 that will drop a 250-pound, satellite-guided small-diameter bomb over China Lake. Roughly a month later, according to X-45 program manager Darryl Davis, the two Boeing drones will start flying together at the same time.
More-refined designs of the aircraft -- both of them will have wingspans around 49 feet and will carry 4,500 pounds of bombs and sensors -- should be ready to fly by 2006 or 2007. The Pentagon will then put the drones through a series of tests that should last until about 2009. That's when it will make a decision about whether to mass-produce either model.
Even if neither drone is developed further, the Pentagon will have a few UCAVs in its arsenal by the end of the decade.
"If we wanted to take them to war, we could do that," said Dyke Weatherington, deputy director of the defense secretary's task force for unmanned planes.
At this point, however, the shape and size of the planes is almost secondary -- "just a dust cover," in Weatherington's words. The military may want the UCAVs to take on very different roles in the years to come. So what's important now is to begin to build an architecture on which the drones can rely.
"We need an integrated, plug-and-play type of system, so we can add new technologies without ripping the whole vehicle apart," Weatherington said.
The Navy, the Air Force and Pentagon research division Darpa are working together with Boeing and Northrop on these Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems, or J-UCAS.
Right now, drones from one manufacturer often have trouble talking to a base station made by another; think of the problems PCs and Macs have had communicating. So, one of the biggest steps in the J-UCAS process will be to develop a common operating system for the drones. It's like an Internet protocol for robotic fighters.
But the Pentagon wants the UCAVs to be able to do more than chat with one another. The unmanned planes should be able to take off, fly and defend themselves as a group without a human telling them what to do. Darpa is working on a "decision aid system" that will automatically handle the many tasks of directing a UCAV team, explained Marc Pitarys, a deputy program director at the agency.
Let's say there's a problem with the route a drone is following. The decision-aid system would pick a new one and upload it to the UCAV -- or it would enable the vehicle to "make up one on its own," Pitarys said.
Such a system has already been demonstrated in the lab, noted Michael Francis, Pitarys' boss. And, within the next few months, it will be loaded onto the planes themselves.
But at least one of the pilots who remotely operate the drones of today doesn't want to take humans too far out of the loop.
"Any time we go to automation -- things just happening, a guy not thinking -- that's the wrong direction," said Michael Keaton, commander of the 11th Reconnaissance Squadron (PDF), one the few Air Force groups that use unmanned planes. "You've got to make sure there's a person to make the split-second, instantaneous decisions."
It's unclear whether the software will be smart enough to handle the job, in any event. On a scale from zero to 10, Boeing official Stan Kasprzyk told National Defense magazine, the UCAV is "heading toward an autonomy level of 1 to 2."
Even if the system's autonomy climbs higher, that may not be an entirely beneficial thing, some outside analysts say.
"We already have in this country a predisposition that the world is a set of problems with military solutions. One of the only checks on that is the threat of American boys coming home in body bags," said GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike.
Unmanned systems could remove one of those final checks. Pike asked, "What happens when we can resort to violence, when we can hurt others, without being hurt in return?"
----
Pentagon Announces Plans to Sell Radars to Taiwan
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40580-2004Mar31.html
The Pentagon announced plans yesterday to sell Taiwan two long-range early-warning radars and associated equipment totaling nearly $1.8 billion in cost as part of an effort to bolster the island's defenses in the face of a Chinese missile buildup.
The proposed sale risks angering China, especially against the backdrop of renewed tensions between China and Taiwan over the reelection on March 20 of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, who Monday called his narrow victory a mandate to press ahead toward formal independence. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and argues that U.S. arms sales embolden independence activists there.
But U.S. officials characterized the deal as a purely defensive measure and noted that it has been in the works for several years.
"China doesn't like any arms sales to Taiwan," said a State Department official who specializes in Asian affairs. "But you can't get more defensive than this."
The ultra-high-frequency radars would enable Taiwan to detect Chinese missile launches earlier, providing more warning time. Eventually, if Taiwan obtains a more sophisticated missile defense system beyond its older-model Patriot batteries, the radars could be incorporated and play a tactical role, officials said. But, initially, the State Department official said, the radars would be "essentially a civil defense tool."
U.S. and Taiwanese authorities have been looking at ways of strengthening Taiwan's defenses since 1996, when China fired missiles into the waters off Taiwan. The radar sale was approved in principle in 1999 by the Clinton administration. It has taken five years to be completed while Taiwanese authorities weighed its cost and explored alternatives.
More than $20 billion in other arms sales approved by the Bush administration for Taiwan have also shown little movement. One problem has been Taiwan's defense budget, which has shrunk over the past decade as a share of total government spending. But in November, the defense committee of Taiwan's parliament gave the go-ahead for the long-range radars.
"It's a positive sign that they're going to fund this program," said a Pentagon official who follows Asian affairs. "It shows a willingness to do something about the increasing missile threat from China."
In its most recent annual assessment of the Chinese military, published last July, the Pentagon said that China had accelerated the production of short-range ballistic missiles not only to hold Taiwan at peril but also "to complicate United States intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict." The report said China had deployed about 450 short-range ballistic missiles within striking distance of Taiwan and would likely expand that force by 75 missiles a year for the next few years. China was also said to be developing a version of the missile that could hit Japanese or U.S. forces as far away as Okinawa.
The planned sale of the U.S. radars "will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security and defensive capability of the recipient, which has been and continues to be an important force for economic progress in the Far East," the Pentagon's Defense Security and Cooperation Agency said in a statement yesterday. Congress was notified on Tuesday about the proposed deal, the statement added.
Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. are the two largest U.S. companies expected to bid for the project, the statement said.
-------- biological weapons
Cuba 'bioterror threat to US'
From AFP correspondents in Washington
April 1, 2004
Australia Daily Telegraph
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=1132851
A TOP Bush administration diplomat has renewed and refined charges that Cuba is a "terrorist and (biological weapons) threat to the United States" amid the ongoing US war on terror, and as the US presidential election looms.
John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told Congress in written testimony yesterday that the island "remains a terrorist and (biological weapons) threat to the United States".
"I believe the case for the existence of a developmental Cuba (biological weapons research and development) effort is strong," Bolton said.
Bolton's charge came as part of a 25-page written statement on the development and spread of nuclear, chemical and biological arms, despite the fact the Bush administration gently backed away from the same allegations after Bolton made them in May 2002 and did not offer evidence.
Yesterday Bolton also more specificially said Cuba had been successful at hiding details of its weapons program due to data passed to Havana by convicted spy Ana Belen Montes, ex-senior Cuba analyst for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. Montes is serving 25 years in federal prison having pleaded guilty to spying for Cuba in 2002.
Montes "participated in interagency coordination of a national intelligence estimate on (biological weapons), and passed some of our most sensitive information about Cuba back to Havana", Bolton's written testimony said.
"Additionally, Montes' espionage materially strengthened Cuba's denial and deception efforts; the data Montes passed gave Havana ample opportunity to generate controlled information that could, via defectors and emigres, reach Washington."
Cuba, which the US State Department lists as a state sponsor of terrorism, was outraged by the charge Bolton made in May 2002 and demanded that the US government offer proof. It did not.
On June 5, 2002 Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl Ford conceded in testimony before Congress that Washington did not have evidence Havana had a full-fledged biological weapons "program" but maintained the administration was worried about Havana's capabilities.
"We never tried to suggest we had a smoking gun," Ford said at the time. Pressed as to the extent of any related US intelligence, and the difference between an alleged Cuban "effort" and a "program", Ford specifically stated that a "program" would suggest "something much more substantial that what we have seen".
Still, Bolton renewed his charges yesterday.
For Wayne Smith, who was the top US diplomat in Havana during president Jimmy Carter's administration: "There's no evidence whatever.
"It's more WMD. You say they have this, and there's no evidence they do, but you say it anyway," Smith said, referring to the Iraq war.
"I would say all of that is quite absurd," Smith said.
In addition to the independent Centre for Defence Information which visited Havana "others have travelled down, been through the biotech industry and no one finds any evidence at all that the Cubans are developing a bioweapons system or even preparing to do such a thing", he said.
"Cuba does have a biotech industry that produces medicines and vaccines and its true that if you have that sort of infrastructure (potential exists yet) any country with the capacity to manufacture aspirin would have that capability," Smith stressed.
Havana is fiercely proud of its biotech industry's development of vaccines and medicines that are more affordable for developing countries.
-------- business
U.S. Deal To Lease Tankers Criticized Report: Procedures Waived for Boeing
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40905-2004Mar31.html
The Air Force negotiated a contract to lease refueling aircraft from Boeing Co. that could cost hundreds of millions to several billions of dollars more than it should, and followed a procurement strategy that demonstrated poor stewardship of Defense Department funds, according to a long-awaited report by the department's inspector general.
The $23.5 billion program -- the costliest lease in U.S. history -- is currently suspended, pending a series of Defense Department reviews and the outcome of a criminal investigation in Virginia into potential wrongdoing. But the report, which was presented yesterday to members of the U.S. Senate, indicates the deal is unlikely to proceed on anything like the original contract terms.
It states that senior Air Force officials failed to comply with military contracting laws, wrongly exempted Boeing from disclosing vital price information, accepted insufficient or inaccurate Boeing data during its negotiations, and wrongly waived any right to audit the program once it gets started.
It also states that the Air Force -- despite past pledges -- cannot "ensure to the warfighter" that the tankers will meet the military's operational requirements. Specifically, the planes "may not be . . . effective, suitable, and survivable" in battle.
The tanker lease had aroused controversy inside and outside the Bush administration for the past two years. The Pentagon's leadership agreed to back the project last year despite objections from a few members of Congress and initially the Office of Management and Budget, after President Bush personally asked his aides to work out a deal, according to a senior administration official and internal Boeing communications unearthed in a congressional investigation.
Bush's chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. became directly involved in the contract negotiations following an aggressive lobbying campaign by Boeing, a major donor to Bush's inauguration and to key members of the House and Senate armed services committees. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.), whose districts are in states with Boeing facilities, are major advocates of the leasing deal.
A grand jury in Virginia is nearing the end of its investigation into potentially illegal actions by Darleen Druyun, a top Air Force official involved in the contract talks, according to officials who spoke on condition they not be named. Druyun was hired by Boeing while the contract talks were underway, and then fired after an internal review found improprieties in her hiring.
Boeing also fired its chief financial officer over what it depicted as an attempted coverup of the hiring procedures. The Pentagon subsequently decided to suspend the contract pending completion of the inspector general's report and separate studies by the Defense Science Board and National Defense University of the plane's price and capabilities.
Boeing spokesman Douglas Kennett said he could not comment in detail until the report is officially released. But he said the tanker meets all Air Force requirements and is better than any competition. Air Force spokeswoman Alvina Mitchell said "we are heartened by the fact that the IG's number one observation was that there was no compelling reason not to proceed. Before we proceed, we will ensure that it is a good deal for the U.S. taxpayer, that it has been thoroughly reviewed by DOD [the Department of Defense] with oversight by Congress."
Air Force Assistant Secretary Marvin Sambur, who oversaw the contract negotiations, is recorded in the report as dissenting from most of its conclusions. But Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz said in the report that he stuck by its conclusions, despite Sambur's complaints. "The Air Force used an inappropriate procurement strategy and did not demonstrate best business practices or prudent acquisition procedures" in its contract talks, the report states.
"The strategy places the Department at high risk of paying excessive prices and profits and precludes good fiduciary responsibility for DOD funds," it states.
Senior Air Force officers relied in part on "questionable," inappropriate or unreliable pricing and cost data from Boeing Web pages and brochures related to other aircraft, the report states. They also failed to comply with laws that require testing of such major weapons systems. The deal does not, moreover, meet three of six regulatory criteria for leasing instead of buying aircraft. The report said leasing instead of buying may cost the Pentagon "at least $560 million more."
Separately, the report states that the price of the 100 aircraft could be "overstated from $530 million to $2.4 billion," without making clear if this estimate includes the other estimate of the overspending.
Schmitz said that while he found no "compelling reason" during his own review not to proceed with the tanker program, he recommended that the Pentagon decide "whether leasing rather than purchasing" the aircraft provides "the best value," and said that in any event, the contract terms should be altered.
----
Contract work in Iraq pays well, but is perilous
MILITARY INCREASINGLY RELIANT ON CIVILIAN SECURITY
By Scott Dodd and Peter Smolowitz
Thu, Apr. 01, 2004
Knight Ridder
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8327955.htm
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The former police officers and special-operations soldiers who work for Blackwater USA in northeastern North Carolina find themselves playing a controversial role in the occupation of Iraq.
With the U.S. military stretched thin, they have lucrative jobs -- civilian security members can earn more than $15,000 a month -- defusing roadside bombs, escorting food convoys, protecting visiting dignitaries and even guarding U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer.
They often work in the most dangerous parts of the country, including the town of Al-Fallujah, where four Blackwater employees were ambushed and killed in their SUVs on Wednesday. Dancing Iraqis dragged their charred corpses through the street and strung them up from a bridge.
National security analysts say that as the war on terror lengthens, more and more jobs once done by soldiers are being handled by for-profit contractors who often are less equipped and trained.
``We weren't being realistic with ourselves about the role the contractors played and the potential risks,'' said Peter Singer, a Charlotte native with the Brookings Institution in Washington who wrote a book, ``Corporate Warriors,'' about private defense contractors. ``There's a lot more dangers and a lot more costs.''
Blackwater's success is a result of the military's increased reliance on civilian partners. Founded in 1996 by an ex-Navy SEAL, it recruits in part from police departments and military bases in the Carolinas and traffics heavily with the Defense Department.
The company has been awarded more than $57 million in contracts since 2002, according to government records and an inspector general's report. Its responsibilities include training more than 10,000 Navy sailors in security each year and providing guards and two helicopters for Bremer's security detail.
The company sits on a 6,000-acre compound in Moyock, N.C., a half-hour drive from Norfolk, Va., and the world's largest Navy base. It uses elaborate facilities to train the military and law enforcement -- such as a mock R.U. Ready High School that simulates Columbine-like attacks.
``They are one of the largest employers in the region,'' said Currituck County economic-development director Wayne Leary. He estimates that it employs more than 200 people in the area.
Providing security appears to be Blackwater's newest operation. Blackwater Security Consulting -- the division that employed the four men killed Wednesday in Iraq -- was formed last year, North Carolina records show.
The company itself would not say much. Its founder was out of town Wednesday, and a company representative would not say whether the employees killed in Al-Fallujah were from North Carolina.
Besides security, the Pentagon is relying more on contractors to fill other traditional military roles, such as providing troops with food and housing, and training Iraqi police. National security analysts say the military is stretched thin and does not have enough troops to do all the jobs.
Part of the motivation is political, as well, said Mark Burgess of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. Using contractors keeps down the casualty counts of U.S. troops, and there is usually less outcry after violence.
``It almost puts a layer between political bosses and events on the ground,'' Burgess said. ``Appearances are everything.''
But Burgess said giving contractors a more prominent role is likely to inflame Iraqis, angry about the high-paying jobs going to foreigners -- much the same as U.S. workers are upset when jobs are outsourced.
More than 15,000 contractors work in Iraq -- about one for every 10 U.S. soldiers, Singer of the Brookings Institution estimated.
----
BAE Systems Wins Two Weapons Contracts
By William Welsh
Washington Technology
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40867-2004Mar31.html
BAE Systems has won contracts totaling $170 million from the Army and Air Force to develop and upgrade weapons systems, the company announced yesterday.
In the first deal, BAE Systems Information and Electronics Warfare Systems has won a five-year, $111 million contract from the Army's Communication and Electronics Command to supply a family of next-generation thermal weapon sights for soldiers.
BAE will develop the thermal weapon sight with Team Soldier at Fort Belvoir, a military program to develop and field everything that the modern soldier wears, carries and operates. The contract could be worth $250 million if all options are exercised, the company said.
In the second deal, BAE Systems Information and Electronics Warfare Systems won three follow-on contracts from the Air Force for weapon systems upgrades to the EC-13H Compass Call aircraft. The contracts total $59 million.
-------- china
China Denounces Taiwan's Leader, Rejects Call for Talks
By Philip P. Pan and David E. Hoffman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40996-2004Apr1.html
BEIJING, April 1 -- China denounced President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan on Wednesday for continuing to insist the island is an independent country and rejected his offer to hold cross-strait talks without preconditions as deceitful.
In the Chinese government's first full response to the March 20 presidential election, a senior official, Maj. Gen. Wang Zaixi, said in an interview that Chen's narrow reelection victory remains in dispute and that China is watching the recount process carefully. But he said Chen's recent statements have shown he "is not a man of credibility" and "has never given up his Taiwan independence activities."
Wang described Chen's rejection of Beijing's "one China" principle, which holds that both the mainland and Taiwan are part of China, as a "provocation," and he condemned Chen's push to write a new constitution for the island by 2006 as "virtually a timetable for Taiwan independence."
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has threatened to use force to seize the self-governing island of 23 million off its southeastern coast if it formally declares independence. The government has warned that a new constitution in Taiwan could amount to such a declaration.
Chen said in an interview with The Washington Post this week that he had won a mandate despite his victory by only 0.2 percent of the vote and refused to back down from any of his campaign positions on relations with mainland China, including his pledge to write a new constitution and implement it by 2008.
Chen also sharply criticized China's resistance to democratic reform in Hong Kong, describing as a "total failure" the "one country, two systems" policy that promised a high degree of autonomy for the former British colony upon its return to Chinese rule in 1997. China has insisted that Taiwan accept unification with the mainland under the same policy.
Wang said he was not surprised by Chen's attack on the Hong Kong policy, which came as Beijing was preparing a legal ruling that could squash growing public demands for direct elections to choose the territory's next chief executive.
"By raising the Hong Kong issue to attack the 'one country, two systems' policy, Chen Shui-bian actually has [shown] his ulterior motive," said Wang, deputy director of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office. "He has never accepted the 'one China' principle, and he has all along stood against the 'one country, two systems' policy."
Wang, in a written statement that accompanied the interview, repeated a warning by Premier Wen Jiabao that China would "pay any price to safeguard the unity of our country" and described Chen's agenda as "an immediate and real threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits."
He urged the United States and other nations to continue putting pressure on Chen. "I think the United States is well in a position to do that," he said.
The Bush administration rebuked Chen in December for proposing a referendum on relations with China that it considered provocative and unnecessary. A senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official said last week the Bush administration should do more, including cutting off arms sales to Taiwan, ending official contacts with the island's leaders and withdrawing support for Taiwan's efforts to win representation in international organizations.
In the interview, Chen proposed that the two sides set aside their differences on Taiwan's status and hold talks without preconditions. He offered to discuss unification in the distant future, but said "one China definitely does not exist now."
Chen also argued that his proposal to write a new constitution had nothing to do with Taiwan's independence and was instead aimed at deepening democratic reform and improving governance in Taiwan, by reducing the size of the legislature, for example.
Wang rejected the overtures, insisting that Chen was "trying to fool the public opinion." He said the Chinese government has watched Chen for four years and concluded he "is only paying lip service" whenever he says he wants to improve relations with China.
"All the comments he's made on improving cross-strait relations and improving relations with the mainland are to a large extent for propaganda purposes and for his political needs," Wang said. "He has never been sincere."
He also blasted Chen for denying the existence of "one China," describing the statement as a provocation aimed at both China and the United States. "I think . . . 'one China' is a fact from a jurisprudence perspective and a historical perspective. Over 160 countries in the world do recognize 'one China,' so how can he negate the existence of 'one China'?
He said Chen's refusal to accept the principle meant that "it will be impossible for the two sides to have a stable and strong, principled relationship."
-------- iraq
U.S. Civilians Mutilated in Iraq Attack
4 Die in Ambush; 5 Soldiers Killed By Roadside Blast
By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40722-2004Mar31?language=printer
FALLUJAH, Iraq, March 31 -- Four American civilians were ambushed and shot or beaten to death here Wednesday by insurgents, witnesses and U.S. officials said. Townspeople mutilated the bodies of at least two of the men, dragged them through the streets, suspended them from a bridge and burned them while crowds danced and cheered.
Two hours earlier, 12 miles away near the town of Habbaniya, five U.S. soldiers were killed when their armored vehicle ran over a roadside bomb that left a 10-by-15-foot crater. It was the deadliest roadside bombing against American soldiers since the invasion of Iraq one year ago, and it made March the second-deadliest month for the U.S. military since the beginning of the war.
The four men killed in the Fallujah ambush were not immediately identified. Officials said they were employed by a private security firm, Blackwater Security Consulting, of Moyock, N.C., which issued a statement confirming the deaths of four of its employees.
The extraordinary attacks stunned U.S. officials and signaled a new level of violence and brutality in an insurgency that has directed its lethal energy at every symbol of the American-led occupation: troops, contractors, aid workers and Iraqis viewed as collaborators. Even on the battle-scarred streets of Fallujah, residents said they were shocked by the ferocity of the insurgents and their sympathizers.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan blamed terrorists and loyalists of deposed president Saddam Hussein for the "horrific attacks" and vowed that they would not alter U.S. plans to turn over political power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30. In Baghdad, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said, "Fallujah remains one of those cities in Iraq that just don't get it."
The violence here came five days after a running gun battle in the streets of Fallujah left 15 Iraqis and one Marine dead. The city, about 35 miles west of Baghdad, has been the site of some of the fiercest anti-American attacks in the country. None of the earlier violence, however, featured the grisly acts played out across the center of Fallujah for hours on Wednesday.
U.S. officials said their information about the assault was limited and sketchy.
"Quite frankly, we don't yet know what has happened today," Kimmitt, the deputy director of operations for the military's joint task force in Iraq, said at a news conference. "It would be premature to judge or criticize or make even any assessment of what happened today until we know all the facts."
Iraqi witnesses interviewed hours after the attack provided descriptions of the violence that were generally consistent but could not be independently verified.
The ambush was carried out by three insurgents who drove into town on a large truck, witnesses said. After shooting the four Americans, the attackers left the area, witnesses said. The desecration of the victims' bodies was perpetrated by mobs of enraged townspeople.
Lt. Col. Jalal Sabri Khamis Taee, the head of police patrols in Fallujah, said 11 of his officers arrived after the killings and found "hundreds of people, old and young," chanting slogans against the Americans.
Crowds carried the bodies of two victims to the nearby Euphrates River and hung the corpses from one of two bridges that span the waterway. Hours later, the bodies were cut down, tossed onto a pile of tires and set afire.
The bodies were then dragged behind a donkey cart to Fallujah's municipal building and dumped there, only to be tied to the bumper of a car and dragged away to an unknown location.
By nightfall, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which took over responsibility for security in western Iraq last week, had not entered Fallujah to retrieve the bodies.
The deaths of the four Americans brought to 16 the number of foreign civilians killed in Iraq since March 9. Before Wednesday, six Americans, two Finns and one citizen each from Britain, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands had been slain.
The statement issued by the company that employed the Americans, Blackwater Security, said four members of its staff were killed in the attack while providing security on a food convoy for a U.S. government subcontractor. The company did not provide details about the identities of the dead men or about whether there were more than two vehicles in the convoy.
Blackwater Security is a division of Blackwater USA, which has a 6,000-acre training site in northeastern North Carolina. Blackwater trains security and law enforcement personnel for domestic and overseas assignments and emphasizes its use of former Special Operations forces from the military, particularly Navy SEALs, an elite commando unit. The name Blackwater alludes to the commando practice of deploying into water at night.
The company also has a contract to provide the personal security detail for L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq.
Some witnesses said the insurgents had planned Wednesday's ambush in advance. Esam Yassin, 22, who sells biscuits and soft drinks at a small shop on Highway 10, said owners of businesses along the four-lane road were warned Wednesday morning to stay away from the area because of an impending clash with the Americans.
The attack occurred in a commercial district that is normally busy. But on Wednesday, Yassin said, the morning streets were nearly devoid of their normal pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
Yassin said insurgents were circulating this message: "We will be waiting here for them and a big battle will happen. So we don't want civilians to be around."
Wednesday's bombing of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle near Habbaniya brought to 408 the number of U.S. troops killed in combat since the invasion of Iraq. At least 48 of those deaths came in March, making it the deadliest month for American forces since November, when 82 troops were killed.
In Baghdad, several thousand young Shiite Muslim men marched on Wednesday to protest the closing of a newspaper published by an anti-American cleric.
The march was peaceful, but the young, mostly unemployed men who make up the so-called Mahdi Army chanted their readiness to take up arms on behalf of their Shiite clerical leader, Moqtada Sadr.
Special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Fallujah, correspondent Karl Vick in Baghdad and staff writers Mary Pat Flaherty, Dana Priest and Jackie Spinner in Washington contributed to this report.
--------
Descent Into Carnage in a Hostile City
In Fallujah, Mob Unleashes Its Rage
By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40445-2004Mar31?language=printer
FALLUJAH, Iraq, March 31 -- From 10 a.m. until late afternoon Wednesday, all activity in Fallujah was clustered in two areas -- the busy downtown shopping district where gunmen ambushed and killed four American security guards, and the nearby Euphrates River where the bodies of two victims were suspended from a bridge and then burned on the riverbank.
Ahmed Obayid, 38, a commercial truck driver, said the ambush was carried out by three insurgents who drove into town on a large truck. He said the insurgents, whom he described as mujaheddin, Arabic for holy warriors, cleared the area by detonating an explosive device that created a loud noise but did not cause any damage. Shops were shuttered and pedestrians fled.
"There were three who jumped from the truck, shooting," Obayid said.
The Americans were approaching in two SUVs, he and other witnesses said. Under fire, the driver of one of the vehicles swerved across the median in an unsuccessful effort to turn back. Obayid said one American survived the first volley of gunfire but was pulled from his disabled vehicle by a gathering mob.
"He had gotten shot in his chest," Obayid said. "The people killed him by throwing bricks on him and jumping on him until they killed him. They cut off his arm and his leg and his head, and they were cheering and dancing."
Obayid said the attackers soon departed as townspeople went on a rampage.
For hours, young men and boys roamed the streets proclaiming their hatred of the U.S.-led occupation. Iraqi security forces, organized and trained by the occupation authority, were scarce. Local police stayed away from the gory aftermath of the assault. No one dared make an arrest.
By about 1 p.m., people milled around the smoldering SUVs at the site of the attack.
Young men leaped on the wrecks and smashed any windows, mirrors or other glass that remained unbroken.
Burhan Ahmed Ali, 21, a laborer, said, "The mujaheddin shot those two cars and killed everybody. . . . If you go to the bridge, you will find them hanging there, just like slaughtered sheep."
Saad Salim, a 16-year-old who was standing nearby, pointed upward. A severed right leg had been attached to a brick with some string and was suspended from a power line that spanned the street, hanging above the concrete median. "They cut off his leg and threw it up there," Salim said.
Several blocks away, on the east side of the Euphrates next to the older of two bridges spanning the river, two bodies lay on the ground.
"They hung those two bodies for a long time, and there was dancing and cheering," said Ghanem Khuweilid Halbusi, 33, who sells cigarettes near the bridge. "They were throwing stones and beating them with sticks."
Then the bodies were cut down, placed atop a pile of tires and set afire, he said.
At about 2 p.m., a cart pulled by a gray donkey dragged the corpses back from the riverbank. Three men sat atop the wooden carriage. One wore a yellow T-shirt with black stripes and black trousers and carried a knife in his hand. The second wore a white shirt and a red-and-white kaffiyeh, or head scarf, which he removed during the procession. The third man used a long piece of plastic to prod the donkey.
About 70 people followed the cart, shouting "shwaretek" -- a word in colloquial Iraqi Arabic that is used to question someone's nerve. "What makes you come here, Bush, and mess with the people of Fallujah?" they chanted.
The cart traveled back toward the scene of the attack, then eastward on Highway 10, the four-lane main road through town, dropping the corpses in front of the municipal building.
A short while later, a man driving a battered white Toyota Corona attached the corpses to his rear bumper and drove away.
Since the invasion of Iraq a year ago, Fallujah has been the scene of seemingly countless attacks on occupation troops and civilians. U.S. soldiers and Marines have killed Iraqis; Iraqis have killed Americans and their supporters. On Wednesday, no one was more frank about the city's volatility than local police officials.
"I am an honest person," said Maj. Abdelaziz Faisal Hamid Mehamdy, a native of Fallujah, who said he joined the police force last year. "We put ourselves in danger for the city we were born in."
"The violence is increasing against the Americans," said Mehamdy, who said he had been a lieutenant colonel in the army during the rule of former president Saddam Hussein. "They took over the country and they didn't give us anything. They came for democracy and to help the people, but we haven't seen any of this, just killing and violence."
But even after months of frequent bloodshed, many residents said they were unprepared for the brutality that erupted on Wednesday. Some invoked the concept of haram, acts prohibited by Islam.
"They really shouldn't do this to the bodies," said Jamal Mehsen, 18, a student carrying a book in his arm and a blue pen in his shirt pocket. "It's religious sin to do this to the bodies after they killed them. . . . It's disgusting."
Throughout the day, people anticipated a clash between the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which formally took control of western Iraq last week, and the insurgents believed to permeate the city's crowded alleyways and cramped buildings.
Halbusi, the vendor, said he feared vengeance. "If the Americans come and see those people, they will kill everyone here," he said. "It's too dangerous." Then he walked quickly away.
By nightfall, however, the Marines had not entered Fallujah to retrieve the civilians' bodies.
"It will be better for them to send either some of the tribal leaders or the police to get the bodies back to the base, instead of coming in here," said Ahmed Salaam, 21, who was selling refreshments from a sidewalk stand near the eastern edge of the town.
--------
Marines Defend Decision to Stay Out of Falluja After Killings
April 1, 2004
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/middleeast/01CND-IRAQ.html?hp
FALLUJA, Iraq, April 1 - Marine commanders defended their decision today not to send troops into Falluja to quell the macabre disturbances that followed after four American civilians were killed and their bodies dragged through the streets.
More than 4,000 marines are stationed near the restive town in the Sunni Triangle but when the violence broke out on Wednesday and the streets of Falluja exploded in mayhem, Marine commanders decided not to intervene.
"Should we have sent in a tank so we could have gotten, with all due respect, four dead bodies back?" said Col. Michael Walker, a civil affairs commander. "What good would that have done? A mob is a mob. We would have just provoked them. The smart play was to let this thing fade out."
As the rage cooled and life got back to normal in Falluja today, many townspeople said they felt a mixture of pride and shame. Pride in the attack that killed four American security consultants, who many people in town still think were working for the Central Intelligence Agency. And shame in watching the bodies get ripped apart and mutilated, a grave sin in Islam.
"All the Falluja people accept this incident but they did not accept the dragging of bodies," said Mohammed Khalifa, a trader of spare parts who closed his shop during the disturbance in a sign of disgust. "All men are creatures of God. The clerics will not tolerate this."
American officials said they met today with local leaders, including Falluja's mayor and several clerics. American officials said the clerics committed to issuing a fatwa, or religious edict, at Friday prayers condemning the attack. The clerics also helped American authorities recover three of the four bodies, which were dragged from burning vehicles by a jeering mob and then taken to a bridge over the Euphrates where at least two charred corpses were strung up by a rope and dangled over the water.
American officials said many of Falluja's elders were embarrassed by the grisly scene and all the publicity it received.
"These people are acutely aware that Falluja now has a reputation as the worst place on earth," said an occupation official working in the area, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But they have to be careful what they say. Or they will end up dead."
Shortly after the meeting with town elders today, a translator for the Marines was shot in the neck. He was in critical condition tonight.
Also today, a Marine Humvee was attacked - twice. First it was disabled by a roadside bomb, which wounded several marines. Then, after the marines left, a crowd set fire to the Humvee in a scene reminiscent of the blaze on Wednesday.
American soldiers have not ventured into downtown Falluja for days. But military commanders said they were not backing off the area, an ongoing flashpoint of anti-American hatred.
"We will be back in Falluja," said Brig. General Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for the occupation forces. "It will be at the time and place of our choosing. We will hunt down the criminals. We will kill them or we will capture them. And we will pacify Falluja."
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Settlers, Troops Clash Over Outpost, Jerusalem Site
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40562-2004Mar31.html
JERUSALEM, March 31 -- Israeli soldiers ripped down two uninhabited outposts in the West Bank on Wednesday morning, and at about the same time, a group of Jewish settlers took over two buildings in a predominantly Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, according to Israeli security officials.
The events underscored the deep divisions among Israelis in the tug-of-war between attempts to evacuate Jewish settlements and competing efforts to expand them.
Angry Jewish settlers hurled insults and rocks at Israeli soldiers who tore down a canvas tent at an outpost called Hazon David near the West Bank city of Hebron, witnesses said. Settlers said the lone tent was a synagogue.
"If anywhere else in the world the government forcibly tore down a synagogue, it would be headlined as an act of anti-Semitism," said David Wilder, a spokesman for Hebron settlers, according to the Reuters news agency. "We are not going anyplace and we will rebuild it."
Opponents of Israeli settlement accused the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of making a weak show of dismantling outposts a day before the arrival of U.S. officials. The officials are to discuss Sharon's proposals for evacuating Jewish settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip, while maintaining most major settlements in the West Bank.
"This is nothing but the same old game of Sharon choosing the most insignificant point on the West Bank map," said Dror Etkes, who monitors settlement issues for the organization Peace Now. Etkes said Sharon wanted to show President Bush "how badly he suffers even removing such a small outpost."
Jonathan Peled, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said, "The government is committed to dismantling illegal outposts any time the opportunity arises." He added, "I don't see any connection" with the visit of the U.S. officials, which begins Thursday.
Soldiers encountered no resistance when they removed two shipping containers at a second unmanned outpost near Bethlehem, Israeli military officials said.
Etkes said approximately 100 outposts, which range from small uninhabited sites to communities with dozens of families, are scattered across the West Bank. Outposts often are the seeds of new settlements or are used to expand existing settlements.
Bush administration officials have been critical of the expansion of settlements and outposts in the Palestinian territories as an impediment to a U.S.-backed peace plan that calls for an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
In the past year the Israeli military has removed a few of the smallest outposts, which settlers usually rebuild within days or reestablish a few hundred yards from the original location. Israel's Channel 2 television reported that settlers had set up a new tent at the Hazon David site by Wednesday night.
In the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, about 50 Jewish settlers from 11 families moved into a multistory apartment building and a smaller housing compound just after 2 a.m. Wednesday, according to witnesses and Jerusalem police.
Clashes erupted in a narrow alley, and Palestinian residents threw stones from roofs, the Associated Press reported. Police and soldiers fired tear gas at the demonstrators, and troops pulled young men out of nearby homes and beat one of them with a baton.
"The riots went on and we arrested nine Palestinians," Shmuel Ben Ruby, a police spokesman, said. "Six policemen were wounded lightly from the stone throwing."
After the melee, police officers heard conflicting claims from settlers and Palestinians, Ben Ruby said. The settlers' papers "said that their house was sold in the year 2000," he said. "On the other hand there were Arabs who claimed that the house was sold a few months ago to them."
Early Wednesday morning, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian near the Jewish settlement of Neve Dkalim in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli military spokesman said. Soldiers said they later found a rifle, hand grenades, a bulletproof vest and a cell phone nearby.
--------
U.S. Urges Palestinians' Terror Crackdown
April 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- American diplomats told skeptical Palestinian officials Thursday that Israel's plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip brings an opportunity to revive the ``road map'' peace initiative, but they said future progress would depend on a Palestinian crackdown on militants.
The U.S. envoys delivered the message in a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia in the West Bank town of Jericho. The team then headed to Jerusalem for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
In another development, Sharon said Israel might move against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the future, Israel TV reported. Sharon made the remark during a series of news interviews ahead of next week's Jewish holiday of Passover.
Arafat has been confined to his West Bank headquarters for more than two years. Several months ago Israel's Cabinet declared that Arafat is responsible for violence and should be ``removed.''
Sharon has proposed pulling Israeli troops and settlers out of Gaza and small parts of the West Bank. He says the Palestinian government is not a partner for peace talks and that a unilateral withdrawal is necessary to protect Israeli interests.
The American team is in the region to discuss Sharon's plan, which he will present to President Bush in Washington on April 14.
The Palestinians want assurances the plan will be the first step toward a larger withdrawal from the West Bank, while Israel is seeking American support for limits on future Palestinian demands.
After Thursday's meeting, Qureia said he would welcome an Israeli pullback from Gaza, but only if it is part of the U.S.-backed ``road map'' peace plan.
The road map aims to bring about an independent Palestinian state by next year but has been stalled for months amid violations by Israel and the Palestinians.
Qureia said he sought assurances the Gaza plan would not prejudice future talks on a permanent settlement, including the status of the West Bank and Jerusalem and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees who claim property in what is now Israel.
``Unilateralism is not the solution,'' Qureia said. ``The only thing that will help and bring forth Palestinian commitments is to negotiate with the Palestinians.''
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the Americans believe Sharon's plan is an opportunity to revive the road map. ``They see it as part of the road map, and not as a substitute to the road map,'' he said.
However, he said, the U.S. diplomats made it clear they expect the Palestinians to honor their road map obligations -- particularly the requirement to dismantle violent groups that have killed hundreds of Israelis in the past three years.
The American diplomats -- White House officials Steve Hadley and Elliot Abrams, and State Department Mideast envoy William Burns -- did not comment after the meeting. But earlier, American officials said they would be telling both sides that Sharon's plan has to be consistent with the road map.
``We don't see unilateral disengagement as a replacement for the road map. It's a way to jump start the road map,'' one official said on condition of anonymity.
Israel officially remains committed to the road map. But it, too, has failed to meet its interim obligations of freezing settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israeli officials have held a series of meetings in Washington recently, seeking U.S. guarantees in return for the Gaza pullout. Among the requests: recognition of some Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank and assurances that a Palestinian state will resolve the refugee problem. Sharon faces considerable opposition, both within his government and from the Israeli public, to his withdrawal plan. Earlier this week, Sharon announced a binding referendum among the 200,000 members of his Likud Party on the plan. Initial polls suggest a pullback would win narrow approval.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority implemented a long-awaited reform Thursday, directly depositing the salaries of its security officers in their bank accounts rather than giving them to security chiefs to dole out in cash.
The move had been demanded by Western donors for years as a key reform to reduce the power of security chiefs and to prevent them from skimming millions of dollars from the Palestinian Authority.
``This is very important. We can now say that we have an unprecedented system of paying salaries through banks,'' said Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, a respected former World Bank official who has spent the past two years sorting out Palestinian finances.
Western diplomats welcomed the reform. One diplomat, who has been following the process critically, called it a major achievement that will go a long way toward restoring donor goodwill.
Police, meanwhile, arrested 14 Israelis trying to rebuild a West Bank settlement outpost demolished Wednesday by the army. Israel is supposed to remove dozens of such outposts under the road map, but has taken little action. The army also arrested five Israelis protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
A U.N. agency said it was suspending food aid to 600,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza because of increased Israeli restrictions at a crossing. Israel instituted new procedures after two Palestinian suicide bombers were smuggled through the crossing and blew themselves up at Israel's Ashdod port, killing 10 Israelis.
-------- puerto rico
Puerto Rico braces for the base closing
April 01, 2004
By Larry Luxner
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040401-123456-9250r.htm
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After 60 years, the U.S. Navy yesterday officially closed its sprawling Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in eastern Puerto Rico - already dropping property values and flooding the surplus housing market.
In the short term, Puerto Rico expected to suffer with closure of the base, which pumped an estimated $300 million a year into the U.S. commonwealth's economy. Long term, nearly 4 percent of the island's land area will be available for tourism, housing and industrial development.
Rosy Roads, as the military installation has long been nicknamed, was shut because the Navy could no longer use the nearby island of Vieques for bombing practice after May 2003. At one time, as many as 10,000 soldiers, civilian employees, outside contractors and their dependents lived on the base, though that number has shrunk throughout the years.
The Puerto Rican government is giving the nearby municipalities of Ceiba and Naguabo $1.2 million each to make up for what they lost in gross sales and excise taxes. A skeleton staff of 200 Navy personnel will maintain the base and keep it secure until it is disposed of sometime in late 2005.
"We're trying to make the best of it," said Milton Segarra, Puerto Rico's secretary of economic development, in a phone interview from San Juan. "We're talking about a once-in-a-lifetime asset management opportunity that could bring a significant positive impact to our economy."
As of Sept. 30, when President Bush signed legislation directing the Navy to close the base within six months, the naval base's population had already dropped to about 4,500.
"Rosy Roads supported the Vieques bombing range, and with the closure of that, the requirement for a support base evaporated," said David MacKinnon, associate director of the Pentagon's Office of Economic Adjustment.
"Any base closure that removes jobs from an area will have at least a temporary negative effect," Mr. MacKinnon said. "The military people will all go somewhere else, and their dependents go with them. Our role is to help make a transition from a military facility to a civilian one through technical and financial assistance."
About 85 percent of the base lies in the municipality of Ceiba; the remaining 15 percent is in Naguabo. As such, the nine-member local redevelopment authority includes the mayors of both towns as well as private and public-sector officials.
Mr. Segarra said that a small number of federal agencies, including the Army Reserve, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs, have asked to hold onto 255 of the base's 8,612 acres. The rest could be opened up to a combination of hotels, tourist resorts, middle-class housing, a marina, a cruise-ship port - even a science park geared toward the island's booming pharmaceutical industry.
"It's not going to be all tourism," he said. "The key is to have a well-balanced mix of economic development. You will not see a plan from this government that puts all efforts in just one sector."
Among other things, the base contains more than 1,200 residential units and a number of buildings; more than 50 percent of the area consists of environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to the yellow-shouldered blackbird and other endangered species.
Clouding the shutdown is the issue of contamination, including groundwater polluted with heavy metals and volatile organic compounds, and soil with PCB and sediments, according to the EPA. Mr. Segarra said "it's a priority for the Local Redevelopment Authority that the Navy comply with its obligation to clean up the lands," though Mr. MacKinnon said contamination levels are relatively modest.
"It won't be a big problem to clean it up. Rosy Roads was not an industrial site, and the airfield was used only for transport, not training," Mr. MacKinnon said.
In the long term, said Mr. Segarra, the naval base's nine piers and geographic proximity to Vieques, Culebra and the Virgin Islands offer "tremendous maritime opportunities" for the area.
"Every single year, the cruise companies are adding luxury liners to their fleets, and I see an excellent opportunity to make Ceiba a port of call for some of these cruise ships, as well as develop opportunities in nautical tourism," Mr. Segarra said. "Ceiba is located in such a position that it opens up the Caribbean for cruise ships as well as private yachts."
He added that offering ferry service between Ceiba and Vieques will shave 20 to 30 minutes off the travel time of the current ferry, which serves Vieques from the town of Fajardo, about five miles north of Rosy Roads.
The base also boasts an airport with an 11,000-foot runway, leading some to speculate that the facility could someday supplement or even eclipse San Juan's Luis Munoz Marin International Airport.
What's eventually done with the former naval base is the subject of a $600,000 reuse master plan being drawn up by C.B. Richard Ellis Inc. The plan is expected to be submitted to Mr. Segarra's office by August.
"The idea is that the airport would tie into tourism and take some pressure off San Juan's airport," Mr. MacKinnon said. "There's also some discussion about moving the Puerto Rico Air National Guard from San Juan to Rosy Roads."
What surprises Mr. MacKinnon, a 30-year veteran of the Pentagon, about this particular base closing is the speed at which it's happening.
"Six months is basically unheard of for a major base and employment center," he said. "In the 1990s, with all of the bases that closed - several hundred in total, including 97 major ones - the shortest time frame for closure was 18 months. More typical was two to three years. It really depended on how quickly the mission could be shut down."
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In Puerto Rican Town, Navy Is History, the Future Hazy
April 1, 2004
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/national/01BASE.html
CEIBA, P.R., March 31 - The people of this coastal hamlet never resented making room for the American military, unlike their neighbors on Vieques, the island where the Navy conducted bombing exercises until last year. Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, which opened here in 1943 and later supported the Vieques operations, had long pumped money into the town of 14,000 and kept it lively.
So when Congress and President Bush decided last summer to close the base on March 31, much faster than the typical shutdown of a military post, many here feared the worst. That is, until they decided they might have a golden real estate opportunity on their hands.
Now, as the rambling base on Puerto Rico's northeastern coast goes dark, taking with it 1,300 civilian jobs and the $300 million a year that it had pumped into the Puerto Rican economy, the people of Ceiba are breathlessly polishing proposals to redevelop its 8,600 acres. They, along with the administration of Gov. Sila M. Calderón, envision a port for cruise ships and an aquarium where battleships once docked, a regional trauma center on the old naval hospital site, kayaking tours through the mangrove swamps and posh housing along the waterfront, which affords views of Vieques, the Virgin Islands and the fog-veiled mountains of El Yunque rain forest.
And that is only the beginning.
"If the base is going to be redeveloped, we have to redevelop the town, too," said Horacio Hernández, who heads one of the community groups submitting ideas for the property. "Like the restaurants: now we have Burger King, simple Puerto Rican food; we need a steakhouse, a lobster place. We need to be more attractive, more special."
A year ago, nobody was expecting this kind of upheaval, at least not so soon. The Navy abandoned Vieques last May, after years of passionate protest from residents who said the bombing had contaminated their idyllic island and made many of them ill, and from American politicians and movie stars who supported their cause. Soon afterward, Congress passed a bill to close Rosey Roads, as the base is known, within six months of enactment and put the vast, horseshoe-shaped property up for sale. The president signed the legislation in September.
Many in Puerto Rico saw the move as retaliation for the longtime opposition to the Vieques operations, but the Navy said that without Vieques, it simply had no use for Roosevelt Roads. When the Puerto Rican government protested plans for the sale, however, Congress agreed to shut down Rosey Roads under standard base-closing procedures, which give the affected community a say in the property's fate.
Now Puerto Rican leaders say that what happens to Rosey Roads and Ceiba (pronounced SAY-bah) can be a model for the wave of base closings around the country that the Defense Department is to propose to an independent base-closing commission next year.
There is a difference, though: the Pentagon usually allows three to five years for a closing, giving the community time to adjust. "Nobody has ever had to deal with this collapsed a time frame before," said David MacKinnon, associate director of the department's Office of Economic Adjustment. "They are responding admirably to a very difficult schedule."
Which is not to say things will go smoothly from here. Like the Navy property on Vieques, Roosevelt Roads is environmentally contaminated, partly from the tanks that refueled ships off the base's nine piers and planes on its 11,000-foot runway. Though a study is under way, Puerto Rican officials say that at this point no one knows the extent of the damage or how expensive a cleanup would be. Recent newspaper accounts of the contamination enraged the Puerto Rico Independence Party, long the loudest opponent of the island's status as a United States commonwealth.
Factors other than the environmental issue could also affect the fate of the property. Governor Calderón is stepping down this year, and a heated race to succeed her is on. A victory by former Gov. Pedro Roselló of the New Progressive Party, the chief opponent of Ms. Calderón's Popular Democratic Party, could mean a scrapping of the plan that her administration put together. In an interview, Mr. Roselló said his vision for the property was of a terminal where large ships coming from points south could transfer goods to smaller ships.
"That would be a good alternative," he said, "to make Puerto Rico a significant point in world shipping."
Some predict that whoever wins the election, ambitious plans will stagnate, as they did after Ramey Air Force Base, on Puerto Rico's western coast, closed in the early 1970's, devastating the town of Aguadilla.
Others, like Karebee Tirado, who works at a rental car outlet outside town, are not much fond of the big plans to begin with. Ms. Tirado said new tourist attractions on the base property would only further squeeze mom-and-pop business downtown.
Michelle Hoffman, a native of Pittsburgh who opened Splash Tattoo near the base's main gate in 1995, said she had lost more than half her business since last summer and had fired her staff of three tattoo artists.
Yet Ms. Hoffman, 38, is not among those mourning the Navy's departure. She has built up enough of a local clientele to survive, she said, and prefers Puerto Rican clients anyway.
"I don't think many local people like the military," she said. "They wanted to be catered to, waited on, and acted like they were better than everyone here. They bought a lot of stuff, but that's it."
There was no joy, however, on the face of Ruth Morales, Ms. Hoffman's receptionist, as she told of previously earning $70 or more a day doing laundry for federal officials who were on visits to the base or driving them to the San Juan airport.
"Everyone in Ceiba owes a big thanks to the Navy," said Ms. Morales, who worked on the base for 15 years. "It was something secure for us. Now everything is dead."
Terry Aguayo contributed reporting for this article.
-------- space
Shooting Stars
U.S. Military Takes First Step Towards Weapons in Space
By Marc Lallanilla
ABCNEWS.com
April 1, 2004
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/US/space_weapons_040330.html
Mar. 30- For all of human history, people have looked at the stars with a sense of wonder. More recently, some U.S. military planners have looked skyward and seen something very different - the next battlefield.
While the military's presence in space stretches back decades, now there appears to be a new emphasis. Officials in the Bush administration and the Department of Defense are actively pursuing an agenda calling for the unprecedented weaponization of space.
The first real step in that direction appears to be coming in the form of a little-noticed weapons program at the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. The agency has now earmarked $68 million in 2005 for something called the Near Field Infrared Experiment.
The NFIRE satellite is primarily designed to gather data on exhaust plumes from rockets launched from earth, and defense officials claim it is therefore designed as a defensive, rather than offensive weapons.
But the satellite will also contain a smaller "kill vehicle," a projectile that takes advantage of the kinetic energy of objects traveling through low-Earth orbit (which move at several times the speed of a bullet) to disable or destroy an oncoming missile or another orbiting satellite.
As one senior government official and defense expert described the program, which has seen cost-related delays and increased congressional scrutiny: "We're crossing the Rubicon into space weaponization."
Blueprint for Lasers Weapons, Rod Bundles
"A lot of folks in the Air Force are leery of lobbing weapons into space, so they want to creep up on this issue," added the official, who asked to remain unnamed. "It's very hard to kill anything in the Missile Defense Agency budget - it's politically protected."
The missile agency was reborn from the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, with a mission to develop integrated missile defense systems, including the use of space-based platforms.
But the agency's program is far from the only effort to bring weapons to space.
A wide-ranging outline of possible weaponization came from the U.S. Air Force last November. That Transformation Flight Plan outlines planned weapons programs including air-launched anti-satellite missiles, laser strike weapons and metal projectiles called "hypervelocity rod bundles" to hit ground targets from space.
The USAF weapons programs are, however, still in the conceptual phase and not yet budgeted for development.
"There are two paths and we're at a crossroads now," warns one critic of such efforts. Says Laura Grego, space weapons expert at the Washington, D.C.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, "Space is a beautiful research laboratory above the atmosphere. Putting that in danger to fulfill a Star Wars fantasy doesn't make sense."
'A Space Pearl Harbor'
The militarization of space is nothing new. After the former Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the U.S. military began to develop and deploy satellites for communications and reconnaissance.
By 1978, the military deployed the first global positioning system satellite, a technology now widely used for both military and commercial purposes. GPS - which has provided for the military what Lt. Col. Peter Hays, USAF, and executive editor of Joint Force Quarterly, describes as a "radical improvement and a kind of quantum leap in the use of space" - is but one example of how satellites are part of the daily lives of Americans, going far beyond satellite TV and weather forecasts.
With that ubiquity in mind, the current administration has been building its emphasis on space-based weapons since even before President Bush took office.
Shortly before his appointment as secretary of defense, for instance, Donald Rumsfeld chaired a blue-ribbon commission investigating the role of space in national security. It concluded in January 2001 the likelihood of an attack on U.S. space systems needed to be taken seriously to prevent another "space Pearl Harbor."
Land, sea and air have seen conflict, the report noted, asserting space will be no different. "Given this virtual certainty, the U.S. must develop the means to both deter and to defend against hostile acts in and from space."
The report remains consistent with the Defense Department's current position on weapons in space, a Defense spokesperson confirmed.
Space as 'Public Good'?
But the idea of weapons in space is greeted coldly by some.
"Weapons in space are not inevitable. If it were, it would have happened already," argued the senior defense expert, adding, "We should instead be taking the lead to make [weapons] agreements with other countries."
Indeed, other nations have moved for the non-militarization of space. As early as 1967, for example, the United Nations brokered the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the use of weapons of mass destruction in space. The United States is a signatory to the treaty.
Summarizing the differences between the United States and European views on space was Jean-Jacques Dordain, head of the European Space Agency, who said in a recent interview: "For the U.S., space is an instrument of domination - information domination and leadership. Europe should be proposing a different model - space as a public good."
Criticism of the U.S. plans to weaponize space is not limited to Europeans. The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Defense Information, a non-governmental organization founded by retired senior U.S. military offices, said in a 2002 report, "Space is already 'militarized' by both military and commercial satellites. The only practical place to draw the line today is space weaponization."
Concluded the report: "The United States has and will continue to have more interests in space assets both civil and military than most countries, and it will retain a net benefit if no one [including the United States itself] has weapons in space."
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After 50 Years of Military Space Efforts, Pioneers Look Ahead
By Leonard David Senior Space Writer
01 April 2004
http://www.space.com/news/nss_update_040401.html
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado - This year marks the golden anniversary of Air Force missile and space programs, and pioneers today discussed how the field has evolved to legitimacy.
Those early days of the 1950s were fraught with great debate and many failures. Stick-to-it "space cadets" in both military and industrial circles slowly demonstrated the value of strategic missile forces and satellite-based military capabilities.
Decades later, space now plays an indispensable role to the services in fighting wars and protecting the United States and its allies from enemies.
How the U.S. military has evolved its space prowess over a half-century of effort -- and where it is headed in years to come -- was captured in a panel titled "50 Years of Space and Missiles - From the Past, to the Future" at the 20th National Space Symposium held here this week. The meeting is conducted by the Space Foundation.
Can you spell satellite?
Getting the nation to pay attention to the importance of space in those early years was an uphill battle, recalled Brigadier General William G. King, Jr. (Retired)
"We were called the Air Force 'space weenies,'" King recalled. "It's great to see that space has become a legitimate occupation."
Cited as a space pioneer, King successfully advocated the findings of a RAND Corporation report published in the early 1950s that made the case that space-based systems were technically feasible.
How to hurl a satellite into orbit was tough duty, King said. He recounted how $2 million dollars was spread out between organizations to study how best to loft satellites into space. One of those groups turned down the money, he added, calling such work a "frivolous endeavor."
In those prehistory times, the word satellite was often misspelled, King joked. Meanwhile, early rocketry had a tendency to go south, not up. Through an aggressive and rapid-fire schedule in the early 1960s, launcher technology began to mature to more reliable levels.
Hit the ground running
"We went from a situation in the early on where when you launched it was, 'Gee, I hope it works' to now where you expect it to work. And when you don't, it's a big problem," said Lt. Gen. Forrest McCartney, USAF (Retired).
McCartney previously served as commander of the Space Division and vice commander of a then-fledgling Air Force Space Command. He led the transition effort needed to command the first missile-detection satellites.
America's premier spy satellite effort -- the Corona project -- suffered a string of 12 consecutive failures before success. Satellites would tumble. They lacked solar cells in the beginning and were short-lived.
Back then, you took corrective action "crank it up and try again," McCartney said. Doing that today, would not be possible, he added.
McCartney pointed to the growth in satellite uses, not only for intelligence gathering, but weather monitoring, as well as handling military communications and navigation needs.
First crawling in military space operations, the 1980s were characterized as jogging. "In the 1990s, "we hit the ground running," McCartney said.
Zealot for space
Gen. Thomas Moorman, Jr. USAF (Retired) served in a variety of intelligence and reconnaissance-related positions within the United States and worldwide. He is now Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton.
In the mid-70s, space was pretty well perceived as research and development, high-tech, highly classified, highly fragmented, Moorman explained. "Being a zealot for space was sometimes a high risk endeavor."
Moorman said that in that time frame, the Soviet Union had a "full-service space capability" every bit as robust as America's competency in space. In fact, the Soviet's capability was more robust, exhibiting a variety of different capabilities, along with rapid launch, he said.
Moreover, Soviet anti-satellite testing in 1976 caught the White House cold. That action sparked numbers of studies about the vulnerability and survivability of U.S. space assets, Moorman explained.
Another item that ratcheted up military space interests, Moorman said, was the emergence of the U.S. space shuttle - initially backed by the White House as the sole vehicle of choice for putting national security and civil space payloads into orbit.
Inextricably embedded
Lt. Gen. Eugene Santarelli, USAF (Retired), was most recently vice commander, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. "If you look at the services, the future warfighting concepts...they are unexecutable without space capabilities."
Santarelli said in joint service warfighting today, and in the future, "space is inextricably embedded."
Looking to the future, Santarelli underscored two issues that military space leaders and policy makers must deal with.
"The potential threats to our space capability demands that we get serious about space control and space superiority...and look at it militarily from a defensive and an offensive perspective," Santarelli said. "Responsive launch is another one of those issues that we must work our way through so that our space capability is truly relevant in all future war fighting operations, regardless of the spin-up time we have."
-------- spies
Speak Into My Attache Case
At the U.N., few conversations are safe from listening devices. Many envoys shrug off the intrusion as the price of good ties with the U.S.
By Maggie Farley
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 1, 2004
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/latimes107.html
UNITED NATIONS - As Cuban Ambassador Orlando Gual remembers it, he and his staff had just had a heated discussion in their mission about health insurance plans when a sheaf of insurance ads suddenly came rolling off the fax machine. Another time, after a debate on where to lease a car, it mysteriously disgorged pages of options.
"One time, I heard someone coughing when I picked up the phone. I recommended some cough medicine, and the voice said, 'Thank you very much.' They're human," he said, smiling. "And at least they're polite."
Long before a former British Cabinet minister revealed in February that she had seen transcripts of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's private conversations inside the U.N. about negotiations over Iraq on the eve of war, few at United Nations headquarters assumed that their conversations were secret.
After all, the U.N. has been a beacon for spies since the day of its creation. During the 1945 San Francisco conference that set up the world body, U.S. intelligence services intercepted delegates' coded cables to determine each country's negotiating positions, according to historian Stephen C. Schlesinger. President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed to place the organization in New York in part to enable U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop more easily.
At this tiny patch of international territory on the East River, the doors are open to those nations the United States has little access to otherwise - and vice versa. Here, almost anything goes.
"It's like a candy store," said a former high-ranking CIA official at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, who asked not to be identified primarily because the CIA has never admitted it has a presence here. "All of our targets are there: the North Koreans, the Russians, the Cubans. You just go across the street and there they are, and you sit in daily meetings with them. Nothing, nobody is off limits."
Annan thinks the U.N. should be out of reach. After Britain's former international development minister, Clare Short, revealed in February that she had read transcripts of Annan's presumably private conversations, his spokesman, Fred Eckhard, reacted with muted anger. Any kind of interference in confidential diplomatic discussions was illegal, he said, and if it was occurring, Annan "would want the practice stopped."
Asked if he thought those listening in on Annan would heed his request to stop, Eckhard shrugged and said, "No."
Nonetheless, he cited three pieces of international law that U.N. legal officers said conferred protection on the U.N. premises and its officials. But those treaties are routinely flouted. The former CIA official said that certain laws "prevent us from too much activity in the U.N." but that the only real prohibition - out of honor - is against spying on Britain, America's intelligence partner.
And although Annan's office or other countries may have the right to take legal action, the consensus here seems to be that it's not worth an embarrassing public fight that might upset delicate relations.
The U.S. ambassador must approve any potentially embarrassing intelligence operations at the U.N., the former official said.
Eavesdropping on the secretary-general, a particularly sensitive target because of his position and prestige, would have to be approved at a higher level, the former official said. Short's disclosure of the Annan transcripts caused great embarrassment for the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. But though the transcripts came to light in Britain, they would be made and passed along by the U.S., which has traditionally held responsibility for monitoring the United Nations, a National Security Agency expert and the former CIA official said.
"The U.S. has primary responsibility for the U.N.," said James Bamford, the author of "Body of Secrets," an expose of the National Security Agency. "I don't know why, if the U.S. has been bugging the U.N. for 50 years, they would ask the British to do it."
U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte and his British counterpart, Emyr Jones Parry, declined to comment for this article, saying they don't discuss intelligence matters. The NSA also declined to comment. Some U.S. ambassadors disapproved of spying under their watch. Andrew Young, who held the post from 1977 to 1979, banned the recruitment of U.N. diplomats to spy on their own countries, a rule that stayed in place until Jeanne Kirkpatrick took the post in 1981, the former CIA official said. From then on, the operations resumed at full speed.
"You have to weigh the benefits against the risks," the former CIA official said. "Ambassadors just don't want to be embarrassed."
At the height of the Cold War, Soviet agents poured into the United States, posing as diplomats or U.N. officials. Several top-ranking officials were Soviet secret agents, says Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB general who once worked as a Radio Moscow "correspondent" at the U.N.
The most notorious was Arkady Shevchenko, an undersecretary-general in charge of political affairs who became the highest-ranking Soviet diplomat to defect to the U.S., Kalugin says.
The U.S. recruited him as a double agent and left him in place for about two years, until his wild drinking and extramarital activities made him more of a liability than an asset. Officials then expedited his defection.
With such unprecedented access to Cold War foes, everyone began listening to everyone, engendering a culture in which diplomats are looking over their shoulders and into their neighbors' secrets at the same time. And proximity helps immeasurably: Diplomatic missions are based in a constellation of office buildings and elegant townhouses near the U.N. headquarters. The U.S. mission is directly across the street.
The arrangement is mutually useful for most here, except those for whom the information flow is one-way, such as smaller countries - and the secretary-general, who does not have the capacity to spy, even if he had the right to, Eckhard said.
But even more than gathering intelligence, the former CIA official said, the United Nations was good for recruiting agents. Even if someone didn't have access to important information while at the U.N., the hope was that he or she would return to a prominent position at home and prove useful later. But these days using advanced technology is far easier - and more reliable - than questioning people whose expertise is generally narrow, intelligence specialists say.
Echelon, a satellite listening network run by the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, can intercept e-mail, telephone and fax traffic, and sift it through supercomputers that hunt for keywords at the rate of a million messages a minute, said Bamford, the author.
And even for those who know they're being spied on, the technology has become much harder to defend against. "If the NSA really wants to know what you're doing, there's not much you can do," Bamford said.
The air around 45th Street and 1st Avenue, the midpoint between U.N. headquarters and the U.S. mission, fairly crackles with electronic traffic.
"This place may have the highest density of activity in the world," said Rob Muessel, the director of TSCM Technical Services, a security firm that helps military contractors and governments around the world protect their secrets.
Fiddling with the controls of a spectrum analyzer, a device that detects electronic signals, Muessel dialed past the spectrum occupied by cellphones - hundreds were on within a few-hundred-yard radius, creating a pattern on the small screen that resembled the New York skyline. Then he homed in on a part of the bandwidth reserved for U.S. government use. On the screen, green needles seemed to jump out of an electronic haystack, then disappeared.
"Frequency hopping," he said. "It's a sign of encrypted devices." A black limousine rolled by his car and suddenly the screen flat-lined. "Wow," he said. "A jamming device." Someone else was as aware as Muessel of the electrified air, and didn't want to be listened to.
He found the same frequency-hopping government signals in front of Annan's stately Sutton Place townhouse.
"That could be a secure line provided by Washington, though they usually don't give those to foreigners," the former CIA official said. "It could be a listening device. If he doesn't know about it, then it certainly is."
In times of international crisis, the U.N. becomes a significant source for real-time intelligence gathering, and during the months of negotiations before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it once again took center stage.
Six days before the bombs began to drop on Baghdad, six members of the U.N. Security Council sat in a small, stuffy meeting room at the Chilean mission, drafting a last-ditch compromise resolution to avert immediate war with Iraq. And they were nervous.
They had reason. The countries - Chile, Mexico, Angola, Cameroon, Guinea and Pakistan - were the half-dozen undecided nations whose votes could make or break the U.S.-British resolution to authorize war. Because earlier drafts of the resolution had found their way to the American mission, each ambassador was given a copy and told to look at it but not take it out of the room. "I thought, how the hell were they getting everything we were discussing?" said Chile's ambassador at the time, Juan Gabriel Valdes.
The precautions didn't matter. In the middle of the discussions, diplomats began receiving calls on their cellphones telling them to walk out of the meeting. Washington was calling the countries' foreign ministers complaining that the meeting was "an unfriendly act against the United States," said one diplomat present.
"That morning, we realized that our friends knew everything," Valdes said. They had prior knowledge of the text, of the meeting, and exactly what was being discussed, while it was being talked about.
Soon after, the Chileans brought in security experts to sweep their mission and homes. The team detected a microphone aimed at Valdes' desk from an adjacent building. There was a bug in his residence. And all the phones at the mission and diplomats' phones were tapped.
Mexico's then-ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, also suspected he was being listened to. Immediately after an evening meeting with envoys from the swing countries, he received a phone call from an American diplomat who told him the U.S. would reject their proposals.
"The American mission always knew too well, too quickly, exactly what we were thinking," he said. "And at that point, they didn't want any new cards on the table."
After a memo from the NSA to British counterparts was leaked revealing that the undecided countries had been targets of an "intelligence surge," many ambassadors made light of the disclosure. "It goes with the territory," Pakistan's ambassador, Munir Akram, said with a smile. "It is regarded as one of the privileges of the host country."
Bulgarian Ambassador Stefan Tavrov said that it's almost a mark of prestige for smaller countries to have the U.S. pay such close attention to them. "It's almost an offense if they don't listen," he said. "It's integrated in your thinking and your work."
But Gual, the Cuban envoy, and other diplomats acknowledge that life at the U.N. makes one justifiably paranoid. In some meetings, the secretary-general asks his visitors to turn off their cellphones, ostensibly to avoid interruptions but also because they can be used as microphones. Ambassadors routinely avoid talking about sensitive topics on the phone, or use code words when they must. Private discussions are saved for walks outside.
Some even avoid talking in rooms where there are windows, wary of a technology that the former CIA official says is used at the U.N. in which lasers or microwaves can pick up voice vibrations from the glass and translate them into words.
Top-secret conversations are held on encrypted phones, or in "bubbles" - secure, soundproof rooms that are built like a bank vault and contain equipment to detect listening devices. Analysts send secret cables home in cipher.
"What is normal here is really very abnormal," Gual said.
But some delegates don't even bother to check for bugs, even after it is clear someone is listening. "We haven't looked," Akram said. "If I take one out, there will be another in its place. If we found one, we wouldn't necessarily know who put it there. And if we did, there would have to be a formal reaction, and we don't want to do that."
For a long time, even Mexico didn't look for bugs. Part of the rationale derived from a culture in which eavesdropping is "practically a national sport," Zinser said.
During a phone interview with the former ambassador in Mexico in March, the clicks on the line - a sign of another listener tapping in - nearly drowned out conversation. That week, Mexican newspapers were filled with scandals in which two of President Vicente Fox's main political rivals were taped taking or seeking bribes. In that context, risking a diplomatic incident over common practice seemed strident and unnecessary.
But Zinser ultimately decided to lodge a protest last year out of principle. "Why not raise the question?" he said.
"Steps could be taken to guarantee that international legal instruments banning espionage are complied with." Then he laughed wryly. "Of course, technology is so advanced that you can't know if there is compliance until a source reveals that there is not."
Chile, too, quietly but formally protested. Valdes was transferred to his country's embassy in Argentina after the Iraq war in a pragmatic attempt by Chile to resume relations with the U.S. with a clean slate. When he later spoke publicly about discovering the bugs, he was criticized in Chilean papers for jeopardizing the country's relationship with the United States.
"I spent 12 years under Pinochet in Chile. I've grown used to being bugged," he said in an interview from Argentina. "We were not surprised by it. At the same time, we weren't deceived by it. It's not just an offense of dignity, but a violation of international law. Some people made light of it, but we don't see it as a game."
-------- us
Pentagon officials considering consolidation
BY FRANK DAVIES
Thu, Apr. 01, 2004
Knight Ridder Newspapers
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/8333664.htm
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Top Pentagon officials are studying a plan to combine the U.S. Southern Command, based in Miami, with the Northern Command, created in 2002 to defend the U.S. homeland from terrorist attacks.
Defense Department spokesmen said Thursday that the possible consolidation is a long way from reality, and is part of a larger, ongoing review of ways to overhaul the military's command structure, long a goal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Army Gen. James Hill, commander of Southcom, was asked about the "rumor" of consolidation by Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, at a Thursday hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"It's under study and advisement," Hill said.
When Nelson defended the need for an independent Southcom working with Latin American leaders, Sen. John Warner, chairman of the committee, added his agreement.
"Given its value, and the fact that the Northern Command has a full plate, we ought to leave this as the status quo," said Warner, a Virginia Republican.
"Those words are gold," Nelson quickly responded.
One Capitol Hill staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Warner's comment was an important signal from a powerful chairman not to tinker with Southcom's independence.
The idea of consolidating the two commands first emerged two years ago, when Rumsfeld announced the formation of a Northern Command to coordinate military defense with what became the Department of Homeland Security.
"This idea has been suggested before, but we think our area of responsibility Latin America is just as important as ever, even after" the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Steve Lucas, Southcom spokesman.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind, said of the possible consolidation: "The key word here is `study' and that's all it is right now."
Southern Command, which moved from Panama to Miami in 1997, has brought economic benefits and some intangible prestige to South Florida. About 1,200 staff members work out of offices in the Doral area and throughout the hemisphere.
Hill and his staff work closely with many civilian and military leaders in the region, and respond to crises such as the recent upheaval in Haiti. Nelson said such involvement might be diminished under consolidation.
"And the place of easiest destination for these leaders in the region is not Latin America, it's Miami," Nelson said.
----
Defense Dept. to Encrypt All Wireless Communication
By Joab Jackson
Government Computer News
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40869-2004Mar31.html
The Defense Department will soon issue a policy to guide the use of WiFi equipment, said Ronald Jost, the department's director of wireless technology. Jost spoke yesterday in Washington at the National High Performance Computing Conference.
The new policy will mandate that no information -- classified or unclassified -- will be allowed to travel unencrypted across a wireless network. But the Defense Department will encourage use of wireless networks, as they reduce the amount of time it takes to set up and tear down local area networks, or LANs.
The department also will establish Web sites instructing offices how to set up wireless networks for both classified and unclassified use.
In addition to setting guidelines for WiFi networks, the Defense Department is developing a policy for the use of cellular phones. Jost said the department will establish relationships with selected commercial providers who will be able to provide military personnel with cellular voice and data connections. The process will involve companies certifying their equipment as secure.
For more information, go to www.gcn.com.
-------- propaganda wars
The War Room
Steven Rosenfeld senior editor
TomPaine.com,
Apr 01 2004
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10182
The Bush administration planned for the invasion of Iraq, but not for its post-war occupation. That assertion has been repeated so often by the president's critics that it has become a political cliché. But it is not correct.
There was plenty of planning for the post-war occupation at senior levels throughout government, says Col. Tom Gross, who was chief planner for Lt. General Jay M. Garner, director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, and then-chief of staff for Ambassador Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator.
"There was a plan," said Gross, who is retiring from the military. "The administration chose not to accept it. Their plan was to put [Iraqi exile] Ahmed Chalabi in charge and run with it."
Indeed, as former Clinton and Bush administration anti-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke's recent testimony to the 9/11 commission revealed, the top staffers at the National Security Council and at the departments of State and Defense do almost nothing but plan, strategize, evaluate contingencies and sometimes get orders to act. But what people who were riveted by Richard Clarke's testimony may not realize is that the most powerful figures in the Bush administration-from its earliest days-dispensed with the interagency planning process prior White Houses used to evaluate threats, make decisions to go to war, and plan and carry out those actions. "The interagency process is dead," said Ehsan Ahrari, an independent strategic analyst based in Alexandria, Virginia, who follows military affairs.
Richard Clarke's testimony to the 9/11 commission described what happened to the interagency process as it concerned fighting terrorism prior to the 2001 attack. According to Clarke's now well-known testimony, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice downgraded the role and reach of Clarke and his staff. Under Rice and unlike the Clinton administration, the anti-terrorism czar said he could no longer aggressively coordinate government agencies and implement the nation's anti-terror policies.
This breakdown in the interagency process can also be seen in the contrast between how prior administrations and the Bush administration prepared for war. Just how the Bush White House broke with past precedent is explained in exquisite detail in a new book by James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet. Mann is a senior writer in residence at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies and former longtime correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
According to Mann, the president's war cabinet-Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice-didn't want to cede any decision-making powers to senior State Department or Pentagon officials. What becomes apparent in Mann's book is that not since Henry Kissinger was both national security adviser and secretary of state for Richard Nixon have presidential advisers held and exercised so much war-making power.
Col. Gross said he saw the impact of that concentration of power while in Iraq as a top aide to General Garner and Ambassador Bremer.
"When Jay Garner and I were there, they made decisions out of the Pentagon that made no sense whatsoever," Gross said. "We'd provide guidance to the OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense). They'd blow it off... Most of my perspective is the political stuff. What sticks in my mind is a cavalier approach to the whole thing."
Gross said there were detailed plans and assumptions-from both the State Department and the military's Central Command-about what would be needed to transition from a post-war occupation to a self-rule. He said that at a meeting with Garner, Wolfowitz was told it would take 36 months to put a viable Iraqi government together and that a sizeable American military force of more than 100,000 troops would be needed for five, maybe 10 years. When Garner's office told Rumsfeld that they were ready to write a detailed political-military plan based on those estimates, Gross said "Rumsfeld said no." The most powerful figures in the Bush administration dispensed with the interagency planning process prior White Houses used to evaluate threats, make decisions to go to war, and plan and carry out those actions.
Gross said he told Garner that they needed a political adviser, and a top State Department official was brought over to Iraq. From 2001 to 2003, this official ran a special project that worked with Iraqis to envision how a post-Saddam Iraq could be built. "There were thousands of documents, with Iraqis doing it, not Americans," Gross said. "We told Garner we needed a political adviser, so he came over. He lasted 12 hours. Rumsfeld fired him." Gross said he then asked Wolfowitz to "let us have the documents. Wolfowitz wouldn't let us touch one document from the Department of State."
Former senior CIA, NSC and State Department officials contacted said they'd all heard this account.
"I think I know why" Rusmfeld and Wolfowitz acted this way, said Tom Maertens, former National Security Council director for nuclear non-proliferation for both the Clinton and Bush White Houses. "They apparently thought that Chalabi had some sort of popular following in Iraq. They flew in Chalabi with his cronies and they thought that was the new Iraqi government." As Mann's book makes abundantly clear, the Bush war cabinet-Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Armitage, Powell and more recently Rice-have a decades-long history of distrusting both career diplomats and Pentagon generals who do not believe in American supremacy on the global stage or are reluctant to forcefully use American military power. Thus, the Bush White House purposefully unplugged the so-called interagency process, which in effect had been a system of shared responsibilities-and checks and balances-in the way America used its military power around the world.
Gross said Rumsfeld has now given his deputy, Wolfowitz, the job of dealing with Iraq.
It's interesting," he said. "My take is there is now a huge rift between Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. What I think is Rumsfeld's agenda is military transformation. Iraq is a sideshow. What he has done is turned the Iraq keys over to Wolfowitz..." Not since Henry Kissinger was both national security adviser and secretary of state for Richard Nixon have presidential advisers held and exercised so much war-making power.
According to Mann's book, the deputy secretary of defense has been focused on, if not obsessed with, Iraq since the mid-'70s. Then, he served in the Pentagon during the Carter administration and predicted that America's oil supply from Saudi Arabia and Iraq could be endangered by an aggressive Iraq under Saddam Hussein. After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, when he was outside government, Wolfowitz wrote numerous papers and articles urging that the U.S. military return to Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein.
"Wolfowitz is the most dangerous guy in America right now," Gross said. "He doesn't listen. The interagency process is broken. The bad thing is nobody will call him out. Condi doesn't say anything about it. Cheney is not going to do anything about it. And Rumsfeld is doing military transformation."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Sept. 11 Commission Sets Rice Hearing for April 8
April 1, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON and DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/middleeast/01CND-PANE.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, April 1 - The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is expected to hear testimony from the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, next Thursday.
In preparation for her appearance, the staff of the commission is conducting a detailed review of all discrepancies found in public and private statements by Ms. Rice and Richard A. Clarke, Mr. Bush's former counter-terrorism director, in drawing up questions for her, commission officials have said.
The commission's leaders and the White House had been trying to schedule sworn testimony by Ms. Rice for late next week, so this afternoon's report that she would appear for about two and a half hours next Thursday was not unexpected.
"She's obviously a very important witness who will be able to share the facts that pertain to the counterterrorism policy in the Bush administration, particularly in its earliest months," the commission spokesman, Al Felzenberg, told The Associated Press. "The commission looks forward to hearing from her."
The White House has seemed eager to limit any political damage to the president by having Ms. Rice testify quickly in the hope of ending the furor over the accusations made by Mr. Clarke, Mr. Bush's former counterterrorism director.
Mr. Clarke said in testimony before the commission last week and in his new best-selling memoir that the Bush administration - and Ms. Rice, in particular - largely ignored threats by Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Officials said the 10-member bipartisan commission wanted Ms. Rice's testimony by the end of next week in order to move onto a new issue, law enforcement failures before Sept. 11, 2001, at a separate set of hearings scheduled to begin April 13.
"We're working with the commission to move forward as quickly as possible," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said on Wednesday. `'I think most Americans view Dick Clarke and his contradictions as yesterday's news."
President Bush announced Tuesday that he would allow Ms. Rice to testify at a public hearing, reversing himself after the White House had argued for weeks that testimony by such a senior presidential aide would erode the president's constitutional authority.
Commission members, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the panel's staff had been asked in the wake of Mr. Clarke's testimony last week to carefully review all testimony and other remarks that both he and Ms. Rice had made since Sept. 11, to determine where they disagreed.
The commission's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, suggested Wednesday that the questioning of Ms. Rice would center on the early months of the Bush administration, the period in which Mr. Clarke has insisted that the issue of terrorist threats was largely overlooked.
"I think the thing that Mr. Clarke emphasized the most is a lack of attention by the Bush administration to the problem of terrorism," Mr. Kean said on CNN.
As the White House and the commission sought to work out the logistics for Ms. Rice's testimony, Mr. Clark received new support on Wednesday from the staff director of the bipartisan joint Congressional inquiry that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks in 2002.
The former staff director, Eleanor J. Hill, a former federal prosecutor and Congressional aide whose management of the investigation was widely praised by Democrats and Republicans alike, said the Congressional investigation turned up evidence to support Mr. Clarke's contention that the Bush administration had paid too little attention to terror in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ms. Hill said that while she no longer had access to transcripts of the classified testimony given by Mr. Clarke to the joint investigation, she could not identify large contradictions between his testimony last week and his testimony to Congress two years ago.
"I didn't hear any major factual discrepancies," said Ms. Hill, adding that the central differences between Mr. Clarke's account and that of Ms. Rice "appeared to be an opinion issue, not so much a fact issue."
She cited passages in the joint investigation's final report that appeared to back up Mr. Clarke's contentions, especially this finding:
"It appears that significant slippage in counterterrorism policy may have taken place in late 2000 and early 2001. At least part of that was due to the unresolved status of Mr. Clarke as national coordinator for counterterrorism and his uncertain mandate to coordinate Bush administration policy on terrorism and especially on bin Laden."
That passage of the report would seem to contradict Ms. Rice, who has insisted that the Bush administration considered terrorism a high priority throughout 2001 and that the White House had gone on "battle stations" to deal with dire warnings from intelligence agencies about an imminent, possibly catastrophic attack by Al Qaeda.
Congressional Republican leaders asked last week that the Bush administration declassify Mr. Clarke's 2002 testimony, saying it would show glaring inconsistencies in his account of the Bush administration's performance on counterterrorism.
Administration officials said Wednesday that the White House was insisting that it play a role in a decision about how much of the secret testimony is declassified.
A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said the White House would do so because Mr. Clarke was on the council's staff at the time. "There's an established procedure for declassification, and in this area, it's being followed," Mr. McCormack said Wednesday.
But the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee issued a preemptive complaint against what she warned might be "selective declassification" on the part of a White House to bolster the position of Dr. Rice and President Bush.
"The N.S.C. is the White House; they are an interested party, and they should have no role in this process," said the lawmaker, Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California.
A transcript of Mr. Clarke's testimony was sent to the N.S.C. for review last Thursday by Representative Porter J. Goss, the Florida Republican who is chairman of the House intelligence committee, and was forwarded to the C.I.A. on Friday, administration officials said. Under standard procedures, any material that the C.I.A. agreed to declassify would be sent back to the House committee, which would then have the final say on whether to make that version public.
Along with the Senate intelligence committee, the House panel now serves as the steward of testimony before the joint Congressional panel, which was disbanded after it issued its final, classified report in December 2002. Much of that report was never declassified at the insistence of the White House.
The involvement of agencies like the N.S.C. in declassification reviews was described by current and former government officials as standard practice in cases involving those agencies.
"When you have something involving a former employee of an agency, that agency will play a role" in the review, Mr. McCormack, the N.S.C. spokesman, said in defending the decision to apply the standard to Mr. Clarke.
Ms. Harman said in an interview that she regarded Mr. Clarke's testimony before the Congressional panel as the property of Congress, not the executive branch.
And Senator Bob Graham of Florida, who was the ranking Senate Democrat on the joint Congressional panel, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that Mr. Clarke's testimony should be released "in toto, so there's not another case of selective editing, in which only portions favorable to the White House are made public."
--------
Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism
Rice Speech Cited Missile Defense
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40697-2004Mar31?language=printer
On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.
The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.
The speech was postponed in the chaos of the day, part of which Rice spent in a bunker. It mentioned terrorism, but did so in the context used in other Bush administration speeches in early 2001: as one of the dangers from rogue nations, such as Iraq, that might use weapons of terror, rather than from the cells of extremists now considered the main security threat to the United States.
The text also implicitly challenged the Clinton administration's policy, saying it did not do enough about the real threat -- long-range missiles.
"We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. "[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"
The text of Rice's Sept. 11 speech, which was never delivered, broadly reflects Bush administration foreign policy pronouncements during the eight months leading to the attacks, according to a review of speeches, news conferences and media appearances. Although the administration did address terrorism, it devoted far more attention to pushing missile defense, a controversial idea both at home and abroad, the review shows.
Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism rated lower on the list of priorities, as outlined by officials in their own public statements on policy.
The question of whether the administration was properly focused on the terrorist threat before Sept. 11 is central to a building political storm in Washington, as a commission investigating the attacks prepares to take public testimony from Rice. Last week, President Bush's former counterterrorism chief, Richard A. Clarke, accused the administration of failing to take seriously enough the danger from al Qaeda -- a charge the White House strenuously disputes.
The White House declined to release the complete text of Rice's speech, since it was not given. The White House did confirm the accuracy of excerpts given to The Post, and former U.S. officials provided a detailed summary of the speech.
"The president's commitment to fighting terrorism isn't measured by the number of speeches, but by the concrete actions taken to fight the threat," said James R. Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser for communications, when asked about the speech. "The first major foreign policy directive of this administration was the new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda that the White House ordered soon after taking office. It was eliminating al Qaeda, not missile defense, not Iraq, and not the [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty," he said.
The administration requested such a directive in May 2001, but it did not take shape until a week before Sept. 11, according to a staff report of the commission investigating attacks. Bush signed the final directive in October, weeks after the attack.
A review of major public pronouncements in the first eight months of 2001 found relatively few extensive statements by Bush, Vice President Cheney or Rice about al Qaeda, bin Laden or other Islamic extremist groups.
The president set the tone. In his first address to Congress, on Feb. 27, 2001, Bush acknowledged the danger of bomb-wielding terrorists, but also promoted missile defense as the priority in protecting the United States.
"Our nation also needs a clear strategy to confront the threats of the 21st century, threats that are more widespread and less certain. They range from terrorists who threaten with bombs to tyrants and rogue nations intent on developing weapons of mass destruction. To protect our own people, our allies and friends, we must develop and we must deploy effective missile defenses," he said. Later this year, the administration plans to put into operation the first phase of a system to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles.
In most public comments about Afghanistan before Sept. 11, Bush talked mainly about limited freedoms afforded under Taliban rule. One of the few presidential statements citing bin Laden and al Qaeda was on June 30, 2001, in a letter renewing Clinton administration-era sanctions on the Taliban.
During the summer of 2001, as al Qaeda operatives were in flight training and finalizing plans for the attacks, the administration's public focus was on other matters.
After his first meeting with NATO heads of state in Brussels in June 2001, Bush outlined the five top defense issues discussed with the closest U.S. allies. Missile defense was at the top of the list, followed by developing a NATO relationship with Russia, working in common purpose with Europe, increased defense spending in NATO countries, and enlarging the alliance to include former East European countries. The only reference to extremists was in Macedonia, where Bush said regional forces were seeking to subvert a new democracy.
Top officials continued that public focus right up to the eve of the al Qaeda attacks. On Aug. 2, 2001, Cheney emphasized the bold new U.S. plan for a 21st century approach to security. "We're fundamentally transforming the U.S. strategic relationship around the world as we look at missile defenses and modifications to our offensive strategic arms," he said at a news conference with Republican congressional leaders on Capitol Hill.
And two days before Sept. 11, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Rice said the administration was ready "to get serious about the business of dealing with this emergent threat. Ballistic missiles are ubiquitous now."
In the speech prepared for Sept. 11, Rice intended to point out that the United States had spent $11 billion on counterterrorism, about twice as much as it spent on missile defense, during the previous year, although the speech did not point out that that was when President Bill Clinton was still in office.
Rice's text noted that Bush appointed Cheney to oversee a coordinated national effort to protect against a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction. At the time, the U.S. concern about terror was heavily focused on Iraq and rogue states, and missile defense was viewed as a weapon against that terrorism -- a different interpretation of the leading threats and responses that would take hold after jetliners hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
In April 2002, Rice followed through on her postponed Sept. 11 speaking engagement at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. But the speech she delivered did not contain any of the original text, former U.S. officials said.
In the revamped speech, Rice's focus was on the threat of international terrorists -- and missile defense was mentioned only once, almost in passing.
"An earthquake of the magnitude of 9/11 can shift the tectonic plates of international politics," she noted.
Staff researcher Lucy Shackelford and staff writer Mark Stencel contributed to this report.
---------
Bush Counsel Called 9/11 Panelist Before Clarke Testified
By Dana Milbank and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40578-2004Mar31.html
President Bush's top lawyer placed a telephone call to at least one of the Republican members of the Sept. 11 commission when the panel was gathered in Washington on March 24 to hear the testimony of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, according to people with direct knowledge of the call.
White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales called commissioner Fred F. Fielding, one of five GOP members of the body, and, according to one observer, also called Republican commission member James R. Thompson. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to Gonzales yesterday asking him to confirm and describe the conversations.
Waxman said "it would be unusual if such ex parte contacts occurred" during the hearing. Waxman did not allege that there would be anything illegal in such phone calls. But he suggested that such contacts would be improper because "the conduct of the White House is one of the key issues being investigated by the commission."
White House spokesmen were unable to get a response from Gonzales.
Fielding did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Thompson declined yesterday to say whether he spoke with Gonzales. "I never talk about conversations with the White House," he said. Asked about the source of his information for his questioning of Clarke, Thompson said: "I ask my own questions."
During the commission's 21/2 hours of questioning Clarke, Fielding and Thompson presented evidence questioning the former official's credibility.
Fielding, a former White House counsel under President Ronald Reagan, raised questions about Clarke's "integrity," and suggested classified testimony he gave a congressional inquiry in 2002 was different from his current version of events.
Thompson, a former Illinois governor, pointed to Clarke's remarks praising Bush in a previously anonymous 2002 news briefing. It was reported on Fox News two hours before the hearing started; the White House that morning had authorized Fox News to identify the anonymous briefer as Clarke.
The commission has functioned largely on a bipartisan basis, but the testimony by Clarke, which was highly critical of Bush, split the members along party lines.
Clarke was counterterrorism coordinator in the Clinton and Bush White Houses, and has charged that the Bush administration was insufficiently concerned about terrorism before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The White House has worked aggressively to raise doubts about him and his account. It alleges that he is a disgruntled former colleague, has partisan motives and is trying to promote his book on the subject.
Staff researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
-------- death penalty
Review of death sentences ordered
April 01, 2004
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040401-121629-2426r.htm
NEW YORK - The International Court of Justice ruled yesterday that the United States "must" review the convictions and death sentences of 51 Mexicans in U.S. jails, saying local authorities had failed to consult Mexican consulates in violation of international law.
The Mexican government had petitioned The Hague-based world court to scrap the convictions and order retrials for the Mexicans, who would receive its legal advice this time.
William Taft, a lawyer representing the United States before the court, had argued that the prisoners received fair trials and that any remedy "must be left to the United States."
International Court of Justice rulings are usually considered "legally binding," but the court has no enforcement power, nor does the court have any authority to order an American state to review a sentence or a conviction. This leaves it to the U.S. government to decide what to make, if anything, of the decision.
If the court is not satisfied with the response, it might refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council "for appropriate action," according to the ICJ statute. But it is not clear what that would mean, either.
In one earlier, highly publicized case, the German government in 2001 tried to win a stay of execution in the case of two German brothers who were convicted of murder during an armed robbery. The two had been raised in the United States and never had requested consular contact.
The international court nevertheless found for the German government in a case that Washington dismissed as an attempt to hold a referendum on capital punishment. Arizona executed one brother before the court issued its final ruling and executed the other shortly afterward.
Two years earlier, the Paraguayan government tried to win a commutation for an admitted rapist and murderer, but Virginia refused to comply after a personal plea by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.
In a written argument to the court, the United States had argued that Mexico's request for new trials would be a "radical intrusion" into the U.S. justice system, contradicting laws and customs practiced in every city and state in the nation.
In his decision yesterday, presiding Judge Shi Jiuyong of China said the United States "should provide, by means of its own choosing, meaningful review of the conviction and sentence" of the 51 Mexicans.
Judge Shi said the review could, in most cases, be carried out under the normal appeals process. But three of the 51 defendants have exhausted all appeals, and in their cases, he said, the government should provide a further opportunity for review. A 52nd Mexican was found to have been convicted in conformity with international law.
In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli suggested, without saying how, that the convictions might be reviewed as ordered by the court.
"This is a 61-page ruling, a very complex ruling, and the short answer is that we will study it carefully," he told reporters. "Let's look at the decision, and we'll decide, based on studying it, how we can go about implementing it."
At The Hague, Mexico's ambassador to the Netherlands, Juan Gomez Robledo, said, "Mexico was not vindicated. The rule of international law was vindicated. Of course we are confident the United States will fully comply with the ruling."
Mexico, he added, "doesn't contest the United States' right as a sovereign country to impose the death penalty for the most grave crimes," but wants to make sure Mexico's citizens aren't abused by a foreign legal system that they don't always understand.
The 1964 Vienna Convention calls on all signatories to contact the local consulate of a foreign national shortly after his or her arrest. This is especially important, according to diplomats, when there is a language barrier, the charges are particularly complex or the death penalty is a possibility.
State and Justice Department officials have acknowledged that local law-enforcement and court systems failed to notify consulates in the cases at issue yesterday, saying authorities usually are unaware of the requirement. The Mexican prisoners in this case were tried in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Nevada, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon and Texas.
•David Sands in Washington contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
-------
U.S. Told to Review Death Row Cases
World Court Says 51 Mexicans Were Denied Access to Help From Consulates
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40560-2004Mar31.html
MEXICO CITY, March 31 -- The International Court of Justice ordered the U.S. government on Wednesday to review the cases of 51 Mexicans facing the death penalty, saying they had been denied access to consular officials who could have aided their defense. Mexican officials and human rights groups applauded the ruling as vindication of Mexico's claim that the United States had systematically violated the prisoners' rights.
The ruling was a victory for Mexico on an emotional issue that has created friction for years with the United States. Mexico, which has neither a death penalty nor life imprisonment, has long viewed the U.S. death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment meted out disproportionately to minorities, including Mexicans. The Mexican government routinely -- and always unsuccessfully -- petitions the United States to stop the execution of Mexican citizens.
The Bush administration had no immediate response to the decision, which was issued in The Hague. Adam Ereli, the State Department deputy spokesman, told reporters in Washington that U.S. officials were studying the "very complex ruling" and "will decide on appropriate steps based on that study."
Mexican President Vicente Fox, in a speech in the border city of Reynosa, said, "We receive with jubilation the resolution of the International Court in The Hague," calling the decision "a triumph for international law, for human rights." Arturo Dager, a top Foreign Ministry official, said at a news conference that he had "full confidence" that the United States would comply with the court's ruling, which cannot be appealed.
The timing of the ruling was especially significant, because one of the 51 Mexicans on death row, Oklahoma prisoner Osvaldo Torres Aguilera, convicted of a double murder during a 1993 burglary, is scheduled to be executed May 18.
Mexico filed a complaint at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, in January 2003, alleging that the United States had violated the rights of Mexicans on death row. The Mexican government argued that U.S. law enforcement officials had failed to comply with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which guarantees people access to their country's diplomatic missions when accused of a crime in a foreign country.
The following month the court issued a unanimous decision by its 15 members calling for the United States to stay the executions of three Mexicans while the court considered Mexico's case. None of the three -- Torres, and Texas inmates Cesar Fierro Reyna and Roberto Moreno Ramos -- has been executed, but all have exhausted their legal appeals. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, refused to consider an appeal by Torres based on the consular notification issue, although Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer expressed misgivings about that decision.
In August 2002, Texas authorities executed a Mexican man, Javier Suarez Medina, after Fox had personally appealed to President Bush and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R). The United Nations, the European Union and rights groups also had asked for a stay. When Suarez was executed by lethal injection, Fox canceled a scheduled visit with Bush at his Texas ranch -- a visit that finally took place earlier this month.
Ana Maria Salazar, a political analyst, said Mexicans would be outraged, but not surprised, if Torres were executed despite the court's ruling. "It's happened before," she said, noting that the United States ignored a World Court ruling in 1999 and executed two German brothers who had not been advised of their consular rights. "The important thing is that Fox took a public stand and did the right thing by using international institutions to try to defend the rights of Mexican nationals."
In pleadings before the court, Mexican lawyers argued that consular notification is especially important in capital cases. They said a defendant has a better chance of avoiding a death sentence with an experienced lawyer who speaks the same language, along with the help of the Mexican government investigating possible mitigating circumstances. They said those services can be provided when consulates are notified. Otherwise, many defendants end up facing capital charges with an inexperienced lawyer who may not speak Spanish.
"Today's decision could make the difference between life and death for foreigners prosecuted in the United States," Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Giving defendants access to consular officials means that they can get good defense lawyers -- the surest way to avoid the death penalty."
Critics of the U.S. position said that it could lead other countries to deny arrested U.S. citizens the right to see U.S. consular officials. The issue puts the State Department in the position of trying to persuade other countries to follow a treaty that U.S. officials routinely ignore.
Ereli, the State Department spokesman, said U.S. officials have "already made efforts to improve our record of compliance with the Vienna convention" through "education and coordination between local and federal law enforcement and judicial bodies."
Lawyers representing the United States did not dispute Mexico's assertion that the defendants were not advised of their right to speak to Mexican consular officials. But they said that each of them was given due process under the U.S. legal system, including all rights to a fair trial and all appeals allowed by law.
--------
World Court Rules U.S. Should Review 51 Death Sentences
April 1, 2004
By MARLISE SIMONS and TIM WEINER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/europe/01COUR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
THE HAGUE, March 31 - The International Court of Justice on Wednesday ordered American courts to review death sentences imposed on 51 Mexicans in the United States, saying their rights under international law had been violated.
The decision, by the United Nations' highest court, was seen as a moral victory in Mexico and as a stinging rebuke to the United States.
In a firm ruling read out before the judges in the stately hall of the Peace Palace in The Hague, the court said the prisoners' rights to speak with Mexican consular officials after their arrests had been repeatedly violated.
It ordered the United States to undertake "an effective review" of the convictions and the sentences. The next Mexican to be executed in the United States is scheduled to die May 18 in Oklahoma.
President Vicente Fox of Mexico called the decision "a victory for international rights, for human rights."
Arturo Dager, a senior legal adviser to the Mexican Foreign Ministry, said Mexico "totally trusts that the United States will do the right thing and the necessary thing to fulfill this decision."
It is unclear whether American courts will heed the ruling, and federal officials reacted cautiously, saying they needed time to study the list of decisions. "It's a very complex ruling," said Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman. "We'll decide, based on studying it, how we can go about implementing it."
The United States acknowledges the jurisdiction of the court to resolve disputes between nations arising under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which allows people arrested abroad to meet with representatives of their governments and says detainees must be advised of this right. The United States regularly invokes the convention to visit Americans in foreign jails.
Although the laws of an international treaty should prevail over national law, the Bush administration has often criticized the application of international law. Even if it bows to the ruling, federal officials may not be able to compel states to heed the court.
Gov. Rick Perry, who succeeded President Bush in Texas, has said that "the International Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction in Texas."
If the decision is ignored, Mexican officials noted on Wednesday, they can return to the court, bringing further pressure. While the court's rulings are binding, it has no power to enforce them.
Mexico was the third country in five years to sue the United States for similar violations of the Vienna Convention, after Germany and Paraguay. It filed its complaint in January 2003 to halt the imminent execution of three of its citizens.
The United States did not deny that it had breached the convention. In the past, it apologized and promised better compliance. It also argued that the American practice of allowing defendants to ask for clemency provided an adequate remedy because it often resulted in pardons or in the commutation of death sentences.
But the court said an apology or a clemency hearing was not enough. Instead, it said, each case should be examined to see if a defendant suffered legal prejudice from not having early access to a diplomat.
"This is great news; it means my client's case will now be looked at again," said David Sergi, a lawyer from San Marcos, Tex., who was present in The Hague and represents Roberto Moreno Ramos, a Mexican awaiting execution in Texas.
Mr. Ramos was sentenced to death in 1992 for killing his wife. Mr. Sergi said he had evidence that Mr. Ramos was mentally retarded, which was not raised by his previous lawyers. "If the U.S. ignores this right to call your consul, why should the rest of the world honor it?" Mr. Sergi said.
Mexico's filing with the court specifically covered Mr. Ramos, another Texas prisoner, César Fierro, and Osbaldo Torres, who is scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma on May 18. There are Mexicans on death row in seven other states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Nevada, Ohio and Oregon.
Human rights lawyers said the court's ruling had respected American sovereignty. It ruled that it was up to the United States to decide how it would review the cases and stressed that it was not debating whether any conviction or sentence was correct. "It is for the courts of the United States to examine the facts," the ruling said.
The court also rejected the demand by Mexico that all 51 convictions and death sentences be annulled. The decision, Mexican diplomats said, may affect the cases of almost 100 other Mexicans facing death sentences before American courts.
But the ruling aims to have even broader applications. The court said that because it was deciding on a principle, namely the obligation to abide by the Vienna Convention, its ruling applied to "other foreign nationals finding themselves in similar situations in the United States."
Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, based in New York, said the ruling applied to more than 120 foreigners from 29 countries on death rows in the United States.
"The right to see your consul is not just a technicality, it is a way to avoid all kinds of errors or miscarriage of justice," Mr. Brody said. "Of course this right is just as important to Americans abroad." The convention covers 165 nations.
Mexico does not have a death penalty, except in its military code. Executions of Mexicans in American prisons are widely publicized and almost universally resented in Mexico. Mr. Fox canceled a scheduled visit in August 2002 to Mr. Bush's ranch in Texas to protest the state's execution of a Mexican.
The ruling was applauded across the political spectrum in Mexico, where even opposition politicians praised Mr. Fox for taking a stand against the United States in the international court.
Silvia Hernández, a member of the opposition and president of the Mexican Senate's foreign relations committee, warned of an outcry should the states begin again to execute Mexican prisoners.
"That would be a deception," she said. "It would generate enormous distrust towards the American authorities, and it would send a very dangerous message that the United States only obeys favorable rulings under international law."
Gabriel Guerra Castellanos, a foreign policy analyst in Mexico City, said: "The United States usually does not pay much attention to the international court unless the court rules in its favor. It would be wrong for the United States to disregard this ruling. At a time when it is looking for allies everywhere around the world, it would be a huge mistake."
Marlise Simons reported from The Hague for this article and Tim Weiner from Mexico City.
-------- drug war
Afghans Ask for Economic Aid to Prevent Domination by Drug Trade
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38915-2004Mar31.html
BERLIN, March 31 -- Afghan leaders pleaded with international donors Wednesday to provide a guaranteed stream of aid in the coming years to bolster the country's fragile reconstruction and prevent Afghanistan from regressing to a failed state dominated by the drug trade.
"Nobody wants to be called a drug dealer, especially not a nation," President Hamid Karzai told senior officials from more than 60 countries gathered here. He assured the potential donors that "in a few years Afghanistan will not be a burden on your shoulders [but] will stand on its own feet."
Afghanistan, the biggest producer of poppy-derived opium in the world, is also the most aid-dependent nation in the world, generating barely 5 percent of its revenue, according to U.N. estimates. Afghan officials are seeking $27.5 billion over the next seven years for reconstruction and development, or about $4 billion a year, double the country's current aid budget. Afghan officials estimated that this aid would raise the per capita annual income to $500 over the next decade, moving the country from absolute poverty to what one official called "dignified poverty."
Late Wednesday, the countries gathered here pledged $4.4 billion in grants and loans for the Afghan fiscal year that started this month, with more than half -- $2.3 billion -- from the United States, most of it already approved by Congress. The countries also said that for the next three years they planned to give about $8 billion, with more than a third offered by the United States. Many countries, including the United States, are unable to make commitments beyond one year because of legislative requirements, so U.S. officials said the three-year total could grow if Congress appropriated the funds.
Japan announced that it would contribute an additional $400 million over the next two years, and European countries also made significant pledges. But Persian Gulf states did not offer funds, which U.S. officials said was a disappointment.
U.N. officials struggled to reach a goal of winning $80 million in commitments here to help procure equipment in time for presidential and parliamentary elections set for September. The United States offered about $20 million, and later increased its contribution by $5 million if more donations were made. The United Nations ultimately decided to scale back its request to $65 million, and that target was reached, a senior State Department official said.
"There are two scenarios," Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the U.N. Development Program, said in an interview. "One is Afghanistan can move stably forward to start building some real sustainability and modest prosperity or it could lapse back into a kind of narco-terrorist state. That's the thing about Afghanistan. Every statement about it can be countered by the opposite."
A January 2002 reconstruction conference in Tokyo raised about $4.5 billion, but according to Afghan figures little of that money has reached the country. About $2 billion has been placed in bank accounts for disbursement, with about $1.8 billion committed to projects that have been started, though not much of that has been spent yet in the country. Afghanistan also receives huge amounts of basic humanitarian aid.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell hailed what he called "extraordinary achievements," including the creation of a constitution, "for a nation that has so recently emerged from more than two decades of war, misery, chaos and oppression."
"Never again will tyrants and terrorists rule Afghanistan, and never again will Afghanistan become a seedbed of instability," Powell said at the conference.
But other attendees struck a more cautious note, saying security is minimal in rural areas and the country is teetering on the edge of chaos. "Progress has been made, but there is so much pressure for success," Paul O'Brien, a Kabul-based policy advocacy coordinator for CARE. "We are concerned about a premature march for victory, and that Afghanistan will fall off the radar screens after the U.S. elections."
-------- homeland security
Data-Sharing Fails European Vote
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40593-2004Mar31.html
The European Parliament yesterday opposed a European Commission agreement to share information about international airline passengers with the United States, probably further delaying a U.S. program to comb airline records for suspected terrorists.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials reached agreement with the European Commission in December to have European airlines provide information such as passengers' names, addresses, phone and credit card numbers before planes arrive in the United States. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency would scan the records for criminals and suspicious people.
The agreement would also allow the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to use the passenger information to test a proposed computer system that would verify travelers' identities and assign risk scores to them. The system is called CAPPS 2, short for the second version of Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System.
The 229 to 202 vote yesterday in Strasbourg, France, is not legally binding. But the European Parliament, a lawmaking body directly elected by Europeans, stated in its resolution that it would "reserve the right" to take the commission's agreement before Europe's highest court, the European Court of Justice, to decide whether the deal violates European privacy laws. The parliament said the European Commission, which is in charge of negotiating trade deals and protecting European laws, failed to adequately uphold privacy laws in the deal it struck with the U.S. government.
The parliament urged the European Commission to renegotiate.
The commission, which spent eight months negotiating with the U.S. government, said it "will consider its next steps" at an upcoming meeting, according to Anthony Gooch, a European Union spokesman in Washington.
Bush administration officials yesterday said the vote was a setback for Customs operations and CAPPS 2, although they were hopeful that the European Commission would formally implement the data-sharing agreement and that the matter would not go before the court. Currently, European airlines share passenger data with the United States under a temporary, informal agreement.
"We hope they do not take that course" of going to the court, said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for Homeland Security's Border and Transportation Security unit. "The fact that the vote was very close indicates a growing recognition that this type of exchange of information is needed for security and safety purposes. I do not see that the parliament vote, in and of itself, is a roadblock."
But an administration official who spoke on condition of not being identified said going to court could further delay CAPPS 2, which cannot screen both international passengers without European approval. Already, the CAPPS 2 program likely wouldn't get started until December because the TSA plans to issue a public notice, with a lengthy period for public comment, to require U.S. airlines to provide information similar to what European carriers have been asked to turn over.
CAPPS 2 would run every passenger's name, address, home telephone number and other details through a database to verify his or her identity and would compare each name to those on various terrorist "watch lists." Passengers would then be coded with numerical scores about the risk they pose to the aircraft, which would affect how much security screening they receive at the airport.
"People all over the administration have grave concerns" about CAPPS 2, because the practicality of starting a program that can look for terrorists and yet protect privacy is more complex than officials originally thought, the official said.
U.S. airlines have not shared passenger data with the TSA for CAPPS 2 testing because of concerns that the agency has not addressed privacy questions. Two airlines, JetBlue and Northwest Airlines, acknowledged in the past year that they shared private passenger data with the government to help with other airport security projects. Both face class-action lawsuits on behalf of passengers, and the TSA has since required privacy training for all of its employees in response to the incidents.
The lack of data has hindered CAPPS 2. The TSA has not developed key aspects of the program, such as cost estimates and milestones for when it will become operational, according to a recent General Accounting Office report.
The vote is "a further blow for CAPPS 2, which is already kind of on life support," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program.
-------- human rights
With Friends Like Uzbekistan...
by Jim Lobe
April 1, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2216
This week's outburst of apparently Islamist-related violence, which has killed more than 40 people in two major cities in Uzbekistan in the past three days, could spur renewed attention to the strategically located Central Asian country's deplorable human rights record.
In a new report whose release coincided with the bloodiest day yet in three days of bombings and gun battles, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged that the government of President Islam Karimov had arrested and tortured thousands of nonviolent Muslim dissidents who practiced their faith outside state-controlled mosques, and called on Uzbekistan's Western allies, of which the United States is the most important, to apply real pressure on Tashkent to improve its human rights performance.
"The Uzbek government is conducting a merciless campaign against peaceful Muslim dissidents," said Rachel Denber, the acting director of HRW's Europe and Central Asia Division. "The scale and brutality of the operations against independent Muslims makes it clear that these are part of a concerted and tightly-orchestrated campaign of religious persecution."
Both the 319-page report as well as the violence in Tashkent and Bukhara pose major dilemmas for Washington and other Western donors that have treated the Karimov government as a close ally in the US "war on terrorism."
In the aftermath of the September 11 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Karimov provided Washington with access to strategic bases from which US intelligence and military operations were run during and after the US-led effort to oust the Taliban government in neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001. Hundreds of US troops and intelligence officers are still operating from the Khanabad air base, which also acts as a supply facility for US operations in Afghanistan.
In exchange, President George W Bush publicly denounced the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as an affiliate of al-Qaeda and sharply increased military, security and economic assistance to Karimov's government. Two years ago, Karimov, who also ruled over Uzbekistan when it was still a Soviet republic, was received by Bush himself at the White House, and Tashkent has since become a regular pilgrimage site for senior administration officials, most recently Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, who visited last month.
Washington and other Western countries have long warned Karimov that his failure to respect human rights and implement serious political and economic reforms, and his repression of independent Muslims in particular, could destabilize the country. But he has responded mainly with only token gestures, while insisting that any far-reaching relaxation of his control would likely lead to a major upsurge of terrorism by the IMU and another, much larger group, the Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has called for the replacement of his regime with a Central Asian caliphate, albeit by nonviolent means.
As a result, the Bush administration has tried to walk a tightrope with Karimov by, on the one hand, condemning human rights abuses and urging reforms, and on the other by supporting him as a strategic ally in the "war on terrorism."
This balancing act - reminiscent of US alliances with anti-Soviet autocrats during the Cold War - has been on display in just the past week, with the White House expressing its solidarity with Tashkent on Monday by declaring: "These attacks only strengthen our resolve to defeat terrorists wherever they hide and strike, working in close cooperation with Uzbekistan and our other partners in the global war on terror," while on Tuesday, the State Department stressed that "more democracy is the best antidote to terror."
The government has blamed the violence, which has reportedly included at least two suicide bombings, apparently by women, on the work of "international terror," as well as members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the group that, according to the HRW report, has been the principal target of the regime's brutality and repression.
A series of detailed eyewitness reports by a pseudonymous EurasiaNet correspondent with access to radio communications by the state security forces, stressed that the fighting may be the work of a "homegrown insurgency, rather than a strike by international terrorists," with many people in the streets asserting that the attacks were in response to police abuses.
The HRW report also lends credence to the notion, as suggested in its title, "Creating Enemies of the State: Religious Persecution in Uzbekistan," that the revolt could indeed be homegrown, given the nature and extent of Karimov's repression. It estimates that some 7,000 independent Muslims are currently in prison and subject to torture and other abuses. "Uzbekistan cannot hide behind the global war on terrorism to justify religious repression," said Denber.
A particularly notorious case came to light last year when Fatima Mukhadirova, a shopkeeper, persuaded the British Embassy in Tashkent to investigate the August 2002 death of her son, Muzafar Avozov, in prison based on photographs of his corpse. An independent examination carried out by the University of Glasgow concluded that the father of four and member of Hizb ut-Tahrir had died after being immersed in boiling water, although the photographs also showed that he suffered serious wounds around the head and neck and that his fingernails were missing.
For her efforts, Mukhadirova was herself sentenced to six years of hard labor, although she was released after a major international outcry on the eve of Rumsfeld's visit.
Avozov, however, was hardly the last to suffer torture, which the HRW report describes as a routine action against detainees and prisoners in Uzbekistan but whose practice is particularly severe against independent Muslims in order to force confessions or testimony against others. The report documents 10 deaths from torture over the past five years, although that toll excludes cases for which there is no direct evidence, such as the death under suspicious circumstances of a 44-year-old independent Muslim prisoner, Abdurahman Narzullaev, just two weeks ago after he participated in a prison hunger strike.
Based on five years of research throughout Uzbekistan, including some 200 interviews with victims and their relatives, as well as other witnesses, human rights defenders and government officials, the report notes that independent Muslims are arrested on vague charges of "subversion," "encroachment on the constitutional order," or "anti-state activities," tried "in grossly unfair proceedings," and routinely sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. Those targeted for arrest include people whom the state deems "too pious," a term that may include those who pray at home or wear a beard.
The report details cases of numerous prisoners who were tortured by methods such as beatings, rape, electric shock, asphyxiation, suspension from wrists or ankles, and burning with cigarettes or lit newspapers.
The regime has also used mass public denunciations of the families of independent Muslims in which they are paraded before their neighbors to be denounced as "traitors" or "enemies of the state" in demonstrations that recall the Stalin period. In addition, police are known to arrest and torture family members of alleged "extremists" or "Wahhabis" in order to gain their surrender.
The report noted Western countries, including the US, have conditioned some of Uzbekistan's aid on improvements in the human rights situation. Denber called on them to strongly denounce such abuses and withhold aid pending substantial progress.
"It is shameful that the international community has stood by and allowed this [repression] to continue," she said. "If Uzbekistan's allies want the world to believe that they are against the persecution of Muslim dissidents, they are going to have to take some action to show where they stand."
-------- terrorism
Most Say They Are Less Safe Since 9/11
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40571-2004Mar31?language=printer
Fewer than half of all Americans think the country is safer now than it was on Sept. 11, 2001, and more than three-quarters expect the United States to be the target of a major terrorist attack at home or abroad in the next few months, according to a new poll.
The survey, released yesterday by the nonpartisan Council for Excellence in Government, found that about half of respondents were concerned that terrorists would strike near their home or work. Seventy-three percent identified themselves as anxious or concerned about terrorism, and 26 percent said they were calm.
The survey findings come at a time when national security is a central issue in the presidential campaign, and after the Bush administration waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of fighting terrorism and making the United States safer from foreign threats. The findings follow by one year the creation of the Department of Homeland Security to better focus government resources on the task of keeping Americans safe at home. And they exist in an environment in which numerous buildings and airports have been fortified with security checkpoints to ward off potential attacks.
"These numbers present a big challenge," said Patricia McGinnis, president of the council, "because less than 50 percent feel more safe today than they did after September 11, after all that's happened."
A spokesman for the Bush administration's National Security Council declined to comment on the record on the survey results.
The survey of 1,633 adults from Feb. 5 to Feb. 8 also found that although Americans are concerned about terrorism, they rank it behind the economy and health care as the nation's top priorities. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The council commissioned the poll by Hart/Teeter Research as part of a larger homeland security initiative that included a series of town hall meetings and will result in recommendations on what government, citizens and businesses can do to improve the fight against terrorism.
The survey numbers show that the country is making progress, McGinnis said.
In polls immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, for instance, a greater share of Americans, 71 percent, said they feared terrorists would strike near their home or work. And 47 percent in the most recent poll said the United States is safer now than on Sept. 11, up from 38 percent a year after the attacks.
Moreover, three-quarters of Americans said they were very or somewhat satisfied with the job the government is doing to prevent terrorist attacks, according to the poll.
Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in homeland security issues, said despite the progress, President Bush and other policymakers should not find much comfort in the poll results.
"If I were in the White House, I would be worried because the essence of what I'm arguing is that I am now safer than I was before," Daalder said. "The total money that we have spent on the war on terrorism writ large is well over $200 billion. And if I can't get people to see that we're safer, that either means that I'm not spending the money well or my message is not getting out or, in fact, they've given up. They don't think we can actually do much about it."
The poll found the most feared types of attacks were bioterrorism, cited by 48 percent of respondents, and chemical weapons, cited by 37 percent. Suicide bombings, a much more commonly employed tool of terrorists around the world, were mentioned by 21 percent.
While results are mixed, the survey appears to show that Americans are willing to sacrifice some privacy to strengthen the government's hand against terrorism.
Fifty-nine percent, for instance, said the government should have access to companies' personal information about their customers if it might help prevent terrorism. And yet the survey found that only 27 percent of Americans strongly trust the government to use personal information appropriately.
In a similar vein, 56 percent of respondents believe that the USA Patriot Act -- a law that expanded government surveillance powers and information-sharing by law enforcement agencies -- is good for the country. However, 13 percent said the law is not working and should expire. An additional 50 percent said there are important questions about how the act has been implemented, which Congress should debate before renewing it.
McGinnis said her reading of such mixed results was that Americans are willing to increase some government powers but still want strong government oversight and accountability. "People are willing to trade their privacy for security, but they would like to have some sense of ground rules and process," she said.
Pollsters say the survey shows the government can do more to reach out to communities. Most respondents (62 percent) said they would be willing to help with homeland security efforts. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) said they have tried to watch out for people "who look or act like terrorists."
But many said they were unfamiliar with local preparedness plans in their state (18 percent), workplace (36 percent) and school (27 percent). And fewer than a third (32 percent) said they have a plan for their family in case of a terrorist attack. Two in five, or 41 percent, said they have stored away a kit of food, water, batteries, first aid and other emergency supplies.
Retired Air Force Col. Randall Larsen, chief executive of the consulting firm Homeland Security Associates, said the survey shows the public has a "realistic assessment" that another big terrorist attack probably will happen, but not in their own communities.
"The most fundamental step in homeland security is having a transportation plan, a communication plan and a readiness kit for your family," Larsen said.
As for what else government should do, respondents said officials could bolster homeland security by improving information-sharing among law enforcement, health and emergency agencies; tightening border security; and creating a "terrorism hotline," similar to 911, through which citizens could report suspicious activity to authorities.
-------- ACTIVISTS
After 18 Years in Prison, Mordechai Vanunu's Day of Freedom Nears
By Delinda C. Hanley
April 2004,
Special Report pages 10-11
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2004/0404010.html
Mordechai Vanunu awaiting a July 3, 2003 parole hearing at the district courthouse in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva (AFP photo/Haim Horenstein).
http://www.wrmea.com/images/hanley.jpg AFTER SERVING nearly 18 years in an Israeli prison - 1112 [days] in solitary confinement - Mordechai Vanunu should be a free man on April 21. Now 49 years old, he has spent the prime of his life locked in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell in Ashkelon prison for blowing the whistle on Israel's secret nuclear arsenal.
Vanunu's friends and enemies alike worry about what will happen next.
As his release date nears, Vanunu is said to be in good spirits. He knows he did the right thing by telling Israelis and the rest of the world what his country was up to, and he looks forward to a new beginning-perhaps moving to the United States, where his adoptive parents live, and becoming a history teacher.
One of 11 children born to Moroccan Jewish parents, Vanunu emigrated to Israel in 1963, when he was 9 years old. Following his obligatory service in the Israel Defense Forces, he worked for 10 years as a technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear "research center" in the Negev Desert.
Throughout the 1970s and '80s, inside what it claimed was a textile factory in Dimona, Israel built an underground plutonium separation plant and a bomb assembly factory. The underground complex extended six stories beneath the two-story building.
For years Israel has maintained a policy of nuclear "ambiguity"-neither denying nor confirming that it possesses nuclear weapons. Because it objects to international inspections, Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-unlike Iran, Iraq or North Korea. Israel's weapons of mass destruction thus remain uncounted and unregulated.
Troubled by his work with Israel's nuclear bomb program, Vanunu decided to leave the country. Before he left, however, he took photographs inside the factory to document Israel's undisclosed nuclear weapons program. He then backpacked through Asia and ended up in Sydney, Australia, where he became active in an Anglican church social justice community. In 1986, he converted to Christianity.
His story about his experiences in Dimona came to the attention of Britain's Sunday Times, which flew him to London. The newspaper prepared to publish Vanunu's startling revelations: Tiny Israel had become a major nuclear power, rivaling Britain, China and France. For two decades the Jewish state had been producing weapons clandestinely at Dimona and possessed "at least 100 and as many as 200 nuclear weapons." The Oct. 5, 1986 article, written by Peter Hounam, included a drawing of the entire Dimona underground complex and the photographs Vanunu had secretly taken of the control room.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Vanunu very nearly was assassinated. In a Reuters report published in the Feb. 5, 2004 Haaretz, former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit admitted that, after first learning about the Sunday Times interview, his spy agency considered assassinating Vanunu. "But," Shavit said, "Jews do not do that to other Jews. He was a traitor, so in accordance with Jewish morality and Jewish law he paid for it with imprisonment."
Thus, even before the Sunday Times went to press-in a scheme masterminded by Shavit-the then 31-year-old Vanunu was lured from London to Rome by "Cindy"-in real life Cheryl Ben Tov, a blonde American Mossad agent who now lives in Orlando, Florida with her husband, Ofer, a former major in the Israeli intelligence service. On Sept. 30, 1986, he was kidnapped, drugged, hustled onto a ship, and spirited from Rome back to Israel. After a seven-month secret trial, Vanunu was found guilty of espionage and treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The Israeli government has kept Vanunu in conditions Amnesty International called "cruel, inhuman and degrading." For years Vanunu's human contact was restricted to his prison guards, and infrequent visits with his siblings, a lawyer, or a priest. Released into the general prison population after more than a decade in solitary confinement, Vanunu still was restricted from contact with Palestinian prisoners and denied access to phones or the press. His mail was censored and delayed, and he was allowed only infrequent visits with Nicholas and Mary Eoloff, the St. Paul, Minnesota couple who adopted him in 1997.
With Mordechai's long ordeal drawing to an end, the Washington Report contacted the Eoloffs to ask what they thought might be in store for their son. They explained how they first heard Mordechai's incredible story from Sam Day, who, until his death in January 2001, was campaign coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordecai Vanunu. The campaign now is coordinated by Felice Cohen-Joppa.
After exchanging letters for years, the couple's affection for the isolated prisoner grew, along with their frustration and a sense of powerlessness. If they could adopt Mordechai, thought these earnest Americans, they would be allowed to visit him in prison-and, they believed, they could petition then-President Bill Clinton, who might help strike a deal in which Mordechai could finish his sentence in the U.S. Clinton, however, refused to help the Eoloffs.
Over the years, Mordechai repeatedly was denied parole or early release because, the courts charged, he could divulge secrets. Those secrets, however, Nick pointed out, have disappeared or now are nearly 18 years old.
The latest allegation appearing in Israeli papers, Eoloff added, is that if Mordechai is allowed to speak he may slander the State of Israel.
Vanunu's adoptive father went on to describe his and his wife's last visit with Mordechai in November, when Mordechai was counting the days until he could walk out the gates of Ashkelon a free man. The Eoloffs will be there to greet him, along with Mordechai's friends and supporters from around the world, Nick told the Washington Report. In addition to Mordechai's American friends and family, Nick said, will be a good number of his U.K. supporters, who have been holding a "Countdown to Freedom Campaign" marking the number of days to Mordechai's freedom in banners, newspaper ads, and Web sites.
The Eoloffs are determined to help their son obtain a new Israeli passport and leave Israel if he wants to. According to Nick, there have been reports from anonymous Israeli security officials that Israel could place Mordechai under administrative detention, under a gag order, and prevent him from leaving the country. "Mordechai told us Shin Beit, Israel's secret police, had already paid him a visit to ask about his future plans," Nick said. "They wanted to take his papers and books to examine them before his release."
When asked if Mordechai would move to Minnesota, Nick laughed. "He's not too enthusiastic about our winters," he explained. "He may try the East or West Coast."
Mary Eoloff is worried about her son's safety as long as he stays in Israel. "I'm not going to talk about 'What ifs?'" she said. "But I'm not going to rest easy until he is safe." Reminding the writer that, just before his troubles began, Vanunu had converted to Christianity, Mary said that Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal in Jerusalem has agreed to provide sanctuary if needed.
Mary also said her son needs letters from the outside world, both to cheer him and to remind Israel that Mordechai is not a "non-person." With every letter sent to her son, to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, to ambassadors, public officials and newspapers-both in Israel and around the world-Mordechai's chance for freedom improves.
If the ruckus over the recent release of a BBC documentary is any indication of what lies ahead after Vanunu is freed, however, we'd better fasten our seat belts. "Israel's Secret Weapon" told Vanunu's shocking story to an English audience in March 2003 and was rerun June 28 around the world, including in Israel-but not the U.S. The film so infuriated the Jewish state that it boycotted the BBC, denied interviews to its reporters and invitations to government briefings, and generally made it difficult for the BBC to obtain press cards and work visas in Israel.
The hard-hitting documentary examined Israel's nuclear weapons policies and went on to warn against the danger posed by Israel's unregulated and aging nuclear and biological installations.
Thousands of people work at two aging nuclear plants in Dimona, the BBC report revealed, as well as at other nuclear plants in Nahal Suryak, south of Tel Aviv, Raishon Liston, and Haifa. Because of Israel's failure to monitor environmental safety, the documentary charges, employees at the nuclear reactors, as well as at Israel's biological institute at Nes Tziona, are at risk. Nes Tziona has been the site of fires, spills, and explosions of toxic gas. Former workers who are ill-including more than a hundred with cancer-are denied compensation because Israeli authorities pooh-poohed their claims that they worked with nuclear material. Victims are warned that, if they complain, they will end up like Vanunu.
Deeply disturbing footage also shows a Palestinian youth writhing in convulsions after exposure to an unknown new gas used by the Israelis in Gaza in February 2001. Israel claimed it was tear gas, but doctors had no idea how to treat 180 convulsing patients exposed to the mysterious gas.
Because it has refused to sign treaties or even admit to its chemical or biological capabilities, Israel doesn't release information on or monitor its lethal weapons. In the film, Israeli nuclear scientist Uzi Even describes the country's biological and chemical weapons and nuclear submarines as a "final insurance policy."
The Israeli Embassy in London lobbied the BBC to postpone the broadcast of "Israel's Secret Weapon." The BBC buckled, delaying its originally scheduled spot and instead showing it late the following night. After the documentary aired, the BBC received record amounts of mail.
When the Washington Report asked the BBC how to purchase the documentary, we were told the BBC has no plans to sell a video of the documentary, and reminded that it is illegal to copy, sell or distribute the copyrighted documentary.
"Israel's Secret Weapon" has not been shown on U.S. network television. Americans wishing to see the film may contact their local stations to request a U.S. showing-or move abroad.
It is rumored that Canada soon will release another documentary on Vanunu.
The Israeli press already is discussing the whistleblower's "crime" and speculating about damage control measures after his release.
Former Mossad chief Shavit, who retired from the intelligence agency in 1996 and now chairs the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, told Haaretz that he fears Vanunu will spill more state "secrets" upon his release from prison. In his letters from prison, according to Haaretz, Vanunu has vowed to keep campaigning to expose Israel's non-conventional weapons capabilities.
Shavit has called for Vanunu to be legally silenced after his release. "I propose gagging this man," he said. "The main consideration should be his intent to go on causing damage to Israel. And who will guarantee that he will only speak the truth? What is to stop him imagining things?"
According to unnamed security sources, the Justice Ministry may refuse to issue Vanunu an Israeli passport in order to prevent him from leaving the country, and may subject to military censorship any press interviews he gives. If Vanunu attempts to discuss state "secrets" he could face arrest and a new trial, the Haaretz report warns.
In 1986 the international community allowed Israel to kidnap Vanunu on foreign soil, try him in secret and incarcerate for 18 years a man guilty only of whistleblowing. The world is watching now to see if Israel will allow Vanunu, who has paid a heavy price for his convictions, to enjoy life and freedom.
For too long the world has turned a blind eye to Israel's nuclear arsenal. In recent months, however, the climate has changed. Libya, Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan now discuss their weapons programs, and Israel's neighbors are calling for a nuclear- free Middle East. It may be in Israel's interest to take this opportunity to join the nearly 150 nations which have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to come clean about its nuclear and biological weapons programs.
For more information on Mordachai Vanunu, or to send financial support to help him after his release, contact: The U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, P.O. Box 43384, Tucson, AZ 85733, phone/fax (520) 323-8697, e-mail <freevanunu@mindspring.com> or visit the Web site <www.nonviolence.org/vanunu>.
For information on the UK Campaign to Free Vanunu e-mail campaign@vanunu.freeserve.co.uk or visit the Web site http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk
Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
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Liberal Radio Network Hits Air With Left Jab
Programming Debuts With Al Franken
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40719-2004Mar31?language=printer
Al Franken set a lofty standard on his new radio show yesterday, casting it as "a battle for truth, a battle for justice, a battle for America itself."
"Not to be grandiose about it," he added.
Air America Radio didn't have a grandiose debut -- the signal was elusive in Los Angeles, its San Francisco station didn't materialize and its Internet feed kept breaking off -- but the fledgling liberal network managed to plant its flag in what has been overwhelmingly conservative turf.
With a preaching-to-the-converted tone, Franken ripped President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter ("a walking horror show," he called her), the target of several parodies in which the conservative commentator was portrayed -- in rather mean fashion -- as an ill-tempered, cursing, borderline racist.
A parade of liberal guests scored their partisan points on "The O'Franken Factor." But perhaps the most entertaining moment came when conservative talker and onetime Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy called in from his radio show.
"I know if someone comes after me, you'll kill them," Franken said.
"And not quickly," Liddy noted. "Slowly and painfully."
A comedian who made a name on "Saturday Night Live" and later wrote a book attacking Rush Limbaugh, Franken is the marquee draw for Air America, which launched on stations in New York, Chicago, L.A., Portland, Ore., and suburban southern California and on XM Satellite Radio. A station in Minneapolis, Franken's home town, is picking up his show. Air America is seeking a Washington station, but area listeners can access the network online at www.airamericaradio.com.
The venture was rushed on the air by Chevy Chase businessman Mark Walsh, a former executive at HBO and America Online who worked for John Kerry's presidential campaign last year, and Manhattan financier Evan Cohen. Walsh, the company's chief executive, says he expects the firm, which has fewer than 100 employees, to lose $30 million in the coming years but hopes to gain a foothold among liberal and independent listeners hungry for a left-leaning alternative on the radio.
Mindful that such liberal politicians as Mario Cuomo and Jerry Brown have flopped as radio hosts, Walsh has assembled a lineup that leans heavily on entertainers, from comedian Janeane Garofalo to rapper Chuck D to Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."
Conservative pundits have been dismissive. O'Reilly said on his Fox News show that "this whole liberal network scheme is just plain stupid. . . . These pinheads backing the venture will lose millions of dollars because the propaganda network is simply tedious and tedious doesn't sell."
Conservative radio host Jay Severin mocked the venture in the Boston Globe: "Yes, we know you believe with utmost sincerity that we are monstrous Neanderthals, but do you really believe your left-wing/pacifist/United Nations/French worldview will win a big middle-class audience? In America?"
Katherine Lanpher, formerly of Minnesota Public Radio, proved a useful foil as Franken's co-host on the noon program, chiding him for promoting his latest book and at one point telling him to "zip it." She did much of the heavy lifting during an interview with former senator Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 commission, although Franken displayed detailed knowledge of the terrorism issue as well. When Franken referred to "Gorelick," Lanpher had to explain that he meant former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, also a member of the Sept. 11 commission.
A conspiratorial caller asked about rumors that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had warned then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown not to fly on Sept. 11, 2001, which Kerrey dismissed as unsubstantiated. Franken made sure to add that "I don't believe for a second that they knew this was going to happen. . . . I do believe they were asleep at the wheel."
A good radio show has strong pacing and a deft mixture of ideology, confrontation and humor. Franken's "Factor" was meandering and discursive, almost NPR-like, sounding more like someone shooting the breeze at a dinner party than trying to persuade listeners. The "bumpers" between segments were soft and Muzak-like. With Franken speaking in a relatively low voice, the self-proclaimed "Zero Spin Zone" sometimes sounded like a zero energy zone.
An interview with liberal author and filmmaker Michael Moore wandered from the writing of his two-year-old book "Stupid White Men" to joking about connections between the Bush family and the Saudi royal clan to Moore reading letters from soldiers who don't like the president.
Half an hour into the interview, it was Lanpher who pressed Moore on why, while endorsing Wesley Clark for president, he called Bush a "deserter." Moore insisted it was an accurate description of Bush's allegedly spotty National Guard service.
Unlike Moore, Franken declined to engage a New Jersey caller named Eric who said that the war in Iraq would save thousands of lives over time.
A surprise call from Al Gore was frittered away as Moore offered an apology (for supporting Ralph Nader in 2000) so convoluted that the former Democratic nominee asked: "What are you saying?" Gore said he was making an exception to his no-interview policy because "your show is a really important show" and promised to return. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is slated for today.
Franken got off a good rant now and then, such as when he talked about Bush's television ads: "They can't show the carrier footage with him in front of 'Mission Accomplished' -- it just looked stupid. Now I think they can't do 9/11. The only thing they're going to be able to do is ads of him clearing brush."
But a mock news interview with an Arab man at the London airport who seemed to suggest he was bringing on board a dog who had swallowed box cutters seemed insensitive as well as unfunny.
The bombast level quadrupled with a burst of rock music when Randi Rhodes, a brassy Brooklynite and longtime Florida radio host, took over at 3 p.m. She served up red meat by the slab.
"We're here because you're smarter than George W. Bush," Rhodes declared. "The Bush family is just like the Corleones. . . . Jeb fixed his brother's election." Within 15 minutes she had worked in the word "penis," and after that "girls' panties."
Rhodes defended the former attorney general's response to terrorism, compared with her successor, John Ashcroft: "I know Janet Reno. . . . She's more man than he is."
Seeming to embody liberal anger, Rhodes launched into an extraordinary diatribe about why the president continued to speak to a second-grade class after two planes hit the World Trade Center, and said he then flew to Nebraska because he was "scared . . . Republicans have been drinking this Kool-Aid for a really stinking long time."
At 7 p.m. media analyst Marty Kaplan provided some comic relief by interviewing actor Larry David, who described how he was kissing an actress on his show for HBO, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." But even this had a political point: David abruptly stopped when he saw that the woman had a photo of Bush.
Garofalo, who emerged as an anti-Iraq war spokeswoman last year, engaged in stream-of-consciousness bar banter with her sidekick, actor Sam Seder. The 8 p.m. host slammed what she called "closet-bigot, homophobe, misogynist people who masquerade as Republicans," saying they practice "the politics of extreme belligerence, elastic ethics and very malleable and bendable truths." And she was just warming up.
Garofalo also groused about Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume and his "Special Report" panelists -- "his Algonquin table of apologists" -- whom Seder half-jokingly characterized as "extreme right, far extreme right and very, very far extreme fascist right."
HBO talk show host Bill Maher told Garofalo it was inappropriate for conservatives to talk about putting Ronald Reagan's image on currency and even Mount Rushmore while he is still alive. Garofalo responded: "They want to put his name on everything -- airports, park benches, bidets."
Garofalo later complained about the "very vulgar things" said about Bill Clinton when he was trying to battle al Qaeda during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Maher, taking a swipe at the "lazy" and "stupid" press, offered Garofalo and her network words of encouragement. "There is not a liberal media," he said. "That's why I'm glad you guys are there."
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The new gang color? School cracks down on pink clothes
4/1/2004
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-04-01-pink-protest_x.htm
MERRILLVILLE, Ind. (AP) - About 100 middle school students wore pink to protest restrictions imposed by school officials concerned that the color was associated with gang activity.
The protest Wednesday at Clifford Pierce Middle School resulted in mass wardrobe changes, said Principal James Joiner. Administrators made some students who wore pink shirts replace them with school T-shirts. Several students, anticipating the order to change, brought a second set of clothes to school.
No students were disciplined for wearing pink, he said.
Joiner said he understood that students may feel the policy is unfair, but he said the protest - which included roughly one-tenth of the student body - distracted from education.
"I will continue to listen to any student who wants to tell us how they feel. But it's really important that students not pour fuel on fire," he said.
About 10 Merrillville High Schools students were forced to change Monday when they wore pink T-shirts over black T-shirts to protest the policy, said Principal Mark Sperling.
Administrators last week urged students at the district's high school and two middle schools to avoid wearing pink clothing or accessories out of concerns that a Chicago gang had adopted pink and black as its colors.
"It's just a color," said Mike Padgett, 16, a sophomore. "Pink is the same as blue and red. We should be allowed to wear it at school," he added.
Superintendent Tony Lux said the policy had been misinterpreted as a ban.
"Students are not banned from wearing pink clothing," Lux wrote in a letter sent home to parents Wednesday.
"However, the wearing of any color when worn by groups of students to set themselves apart as an exclusive group ... will be investigated as possibly violating the student handbook regarding the wearing of gang colors."
Lux said that gangs have not infiltrated the northwestern Indiana school district because "our administrators try to head off any potential problem with the sole interest of keeping our schools safe from inappropriate behavior."
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Hong Kong Protest Opposes Potential Curbs on Democracy
April 1, 2004
New York Times
By KEITH BRADSHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/asia/01CND-HONG.html
HONG KONG, Friday, April 2 - Dressed mostly in black and holding white candles, a couple of thousand people held a vigil here on Thursday night to protest Beijing's plans to restrict Hong Kong's movement toward greater democracy.
A series of speakers called for the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress not to proceed with its announced intention of reviewing and officially interpreting Hong Kong's laws on how residents here can choose their chief executive and lawmakers. The committee is scheduled to meet from today until Tuesday, and could issue its interpretation at any time during the meeting, although the interpretation is expected to come toward the end.
A crowd of mostly young protesters marched to the headquarters of Hong Kong's government after the vigil and began a demonstration that, by police estimates, quickly grew to about 400 people.
More than a dozen students entered an inner compound before being surrounded by the police, who closed the compound's tall, heavy steel gates and brought in a dozen vans full of reinforcements.
Joyce Ho, a student activist, exhorted the crowd, using a microphone connected to a megaphone held by a youth who had climbed atop the unoccupied police sentry booth outside the gates. She said in an interview that the students only wanted to enter the compound to present a petition to Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's chief executive.
But the police issued a statement just before midnight accusing some of the youths of having forcibly entered the compound, and saying that the police had twice warned the crowd that it was an unlawful assembly. A police spokeswoman said early this morning that no arrests had been made during the vigil or during the early moments of the protest at the government offices.
Organizers estimated that 3,000 people attended the vigil on Thursday night. But the crowd appeared smaller, based on the area it covered and its density. The police said they had prepared a crowd estimate but declined to release it, saying it was only for internal use.
The organizers and participants said that bad weather may have depressed the turnout. Heavy rain fell all afternoon, and only faded to drizzle and then stopped as the vigil began.
The prospect of protesting against Beijing, and not just the local government, may also have deterred many from coming at all. Richard Tsoi, a pro-democracy candidate for the legislature, said that he noticed that people would drop money into the organizers' donation box and then quickly duck and leave, apparently leery of being identified.
Whereas protesters against the Hong Kong government have been happy to give their names in huge marches drawing up to 500,000 people, protesters at the vigil refused to do so, citing uncertainty about the future. "It's so sad, the freedom of speech gets narrower and narrower, day by day," said a balding man who identified himself as a retired electrical systems manager.
Although Hong Kong's laws prohibit restrictions on freedom of speech, Beijing officials have caused considerable nervousness here since mid-February with a series of venomous criticisms of democracy advocates here, calling them clowns, idiots and even traitors.
Using tactics reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese officials have questioned whether democracy advocates feel patriotism toward China. They have even, on one occasion, criticized a politician here, Martin Lee, for being the son of a general who fought the Japanese for the Nationalists instead of the Communists.
The issue of patriotism is difficult here because Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997, when it was handed over to China. Many democracy advocates are lawyers who want to preserve the rule of law that Hong Kong inherited from the British, and object to the issuance of unilateral interpretations of laws by legislatures.
Such interpretations are an accepted practice in China, however.
Further complicating the patriotism issue here is that while Hong Kong's tycoons mostly side with Beijing, many of them have foreign passports, acquired as insurance in the 1980's and 1990's in case Beijing tried to expropriate their holdings after the handover.
The tycoons have since emerged as Beijing's biggest defenders, however, warning that greater democracy could result in more social spending and higher taxes that might undermine this city's competitiveness as an international center of business.
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Russian Parliament Moves Toward a Ban on Public Demonstrations
April 1, 2004
New York Times
By SETH MYDANS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/europe/01RUSS.html
MOSCOW, March 31 - The Russian Parliament took the first step on Wednesday toward passing a law that would ban demonstrations in most public places, narrowing one of the crucial freedoms won as the Soviet Union came to an end.
The bill passed the first of three readings by a vote of 294 to 137, reflecting the dominance of supporters of President Vladimir V. Putin, who also won an overwhelming majority of votes when he was re-elected on March 14.
The draft law prohibits rallies outside government buildings, embassies and international organizations, on major roads, near schools, hospitals, stadiums, concert halls and religious centers, and at pipelines and environmentally hazardous sites.
"This would be the end of political life in the streets," said Sergei Reshulsky, a member of the Communist Party, which has asserted itself over the years in street rallies.
The liberal Yabloko Party, which was shut out of Parliament in an election in November, protested, saying, "The bill is aimed at eliminating the right of citizens for peaceful meetings, demonstrations and pickets" granted by the Constitution.
Yabloko Party members were among the demonstrators who rallied outside Parliament with signs reading, "No to a police state." Rally organizers had not obtained the necessary permit, and the demonstration was broken up by the police.
Several demonstrators were briefly detained, including the deputy head of Yabloko, Sergei Mitrokhin.
Proponents of the bill said it would help ensure national security and public order, issues that had contributed to Mr. Putin's popularity during the election.
The leader of the president's parliamentary bloc, Boris V. Gryzlov, said that there would still be plenty of places to hold demonstrations and that formal permission would no longer be required, only advance notice.
The proposed law, however, contains a clause that would allow officials to block any gatherings if "their aim contradicted the Constitution, generally accepted norms of public morality and federal law."
Advocates for democracy and human rights have grown worried in recent months as Mr. Putin has tightened control of the news media and restricted serious political opposition.
But a number of recent public opinion polls show that there is a constituency for restrictive measures. Most people appear to favor a strong central government that would limit their freedoms, including the imposition of censorship.
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Support for Camilo Mejia!
Thursday, April 01, 2004
From: "Nicaragua Network Hotline"
The Nicaragua Network has received this letter from "Military Families Speak Out." It tells you how to write letters of support to Camilo Mejia, the conscientious objector son of Nicaragua singer-songwriter Carlos Mejia Godoy. The web page of "Military Families Speak Out" is: http://www.mfso.org
Dear Military Families,
We received the following letter from Maritza Castillo, member of "Military Families Speak Out," regarding her son Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia. Staff Sergeant Mejia is a soldier with the Florida National Guard, who has served in the Army and National Guard for over eight years. He served in Iraq from March to October, 2003. He returned to the U.S. for a two-week R&R in October, and decided he could not in good conscience return to the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. On March 15, Camilo Mejia reported back to the military at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, and submitted to them a 40-page application for Conscientious Objector status. He has been at Ft. Stewart in George since March 17th. On March 25 he was charged by the Army with desertion. He is currently confined to base at Ft. Stewart. You can access many of the articles that have been written about Camilo by going to www.google.com , clicking on "News" and typing in Camilo Mejia in the space for "search."
Several Members of Congress have already written to the Army asking them to give serious consideration to Camilo's application for Conscientious Objector status. Camilo's lawyers plan to put the WAR on trial at Camilo's trial later this spring or summer.
Please read Maritza Castillo's letter below and please take action for peace and justice.
In Peace and Solidarity, Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson, for Military Families Speak Out www.mfso.org www.bringthemhomenow.org
My name is Maritza Castillo and I'm an active member of Military Family Speak Out (MFSO). I'm also the mother of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia.
On March 24, 2004, Louis Font, my son's lawyer informed me about the charges that my son is being accused of. This is what he told me:
"Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, 28, of Miami, Florida was charged by his commanders at Ft. Stewart, Georgia with desertion on Wednesday, March 24, 2004. He will be tried by a Special Court Martial, which means that the maximum sentence he can receive is one year imprisonment and a Bad Conduct Discharge."
I've also learned that army officials have restricted Camilo to Ft. Stewart and have barred him from conducting face to face interviews on the base with the media. Louis Font, his civilian attorney, plans to challenge this "gag" order, arguing that my son's rights to free speech are being abridged.
President Bush does not give any explanation about the weapons of mass destruction that have not been found and for which he invaded and bombarded the people of Iraq and sent our young soldiers to die in this illegal and immoral war. Instead he makes a mockery about the reasons he's had to spend the money of the American people in this bellicose adventure. When he is asked about the weapons of mass destruction and the chemical weapons, he responds with vulgar gestures.
It is in this context that the army ignores the conscientious objection application that my son Camilo submitted to this institution. Instead they accuse him of desertion.
I'm addressing the people of the United States of America, the Hispanic Community and the world to express my deepest sorrow and indignation about the injustice that is being made against my son. I want to ask you to continue giving him your support. Please write letters to Camilo expressing your support towards his cause. Send letters to the Army Officials and to the Congress of the United States demanding that his conscientious objection application be accepted.
Camilo's Address:
Ssg. Mejia Camilo
A Company USAG MED-HOLD
865 Hase Road, Ft. Stewart, GA 31315
Commanding General, Fort Stewart's Address:
Major General William G. Webster, Jr.
Commanding General, Fort Stewart,
42 Wayne Place, Ft Stewart GA 31314
Peace and Solidarity to the world.
Maritza Castillo
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9/11 Widows Skillfully Applied the Power of a Question: Why?
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
April 1, 2004
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/national/01FAMI.html?ei=1&en=62549e1333faa65c&ex=1081798667&pagewanted=print&position=
ASHINGTON, March 31 - Kristen Breitweiser was at home in Middletown, N.J., cleaning out closets. Patty Casazza of Colts Neck was dashing to the dry cleaners. Lorie Van Auken of East Brunswick was headed out to do grocery shopping. Her neighbor Mindy Kleinberg had just packed her children off to school.
Then came word, Tuesday morning, that President Bush had agreed to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. All at once, the cellphones started ringing and the e-mail started flying and "the Jersey girls," as the four women are known in Washington, were getting credit for chalking up another victory in the nation's capital.
Americans just tuning in to the work of the commission investigating the attacks may not have heard of Ms. Breitweiser and the rest. But on Capitol Hill, these suburban women are gaining prominence as savvy World Trade Center widows who came to Washington, as part of a core group of politically active relatives of Sept. 11 victims, and prodded Congress and a recalcitrant White House to create the panel that this week brought official Washington to its knees.
"They call me all the time," said Thomas H. Kean, the commission's chairman and a former Republican governor of New Jersey. "They monitor us, they follow our progress, they've supplied us with some of the best questions we've asked. I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them."
The families have spent months pressing for Ms. Rice's public testimony; when the White House failed to send her to last week's hearings, they walked out in silent protest. On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Charles E. Schumer of New York, suggested that the families think about asking Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to testify publicly as well.
Ms. Van Auken said that had always been their preference. "Of course we would like them to testify publicly," she said Wednesday.
Before Sept. 11, the Jersey girls (the nickname, which distinguishes the women from their New York and Connecticut counterparts, was popularized in song by Bruce Springsteen) knew little about government and less about politics. The closest Ms. Casazza came to foreign affairs was processing visa applications for French trainees while working for the cosmetics company Lancôme. Ms. Van Auken could not keep the two chambers of Congress straight.
"I remember saying to Patty: `Which one is the one with more people, the Senate or the House?' " she recalled.
The story of how they helped move a seemingly immoveable bureaucracy is at once the tale of a political education, and a sisterhood born of grief. They gathered Monday in the sun-drenched living room of Ms. Casazza's spacious home to tell it. The place, with its well-tended lawn and tennis court out back, spoke of another life. Ms. Casazza, who has a 13-year-old son, is planning to sell it. "Downsizing," she said simply.
Three of them were married to men who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, but the women were strangers until after the attacks. Ms. Breitweiser, 33, and Ms. Casazza, 43, voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. Ms. Van Auken, 49, and Ms. Kleinberg, 42, voted for Al Gore. All insist they had no political agenda, then or now.
But they had a burning question. "We simply wanted to know why our husbands were killed," Ms. Breitweiser said, "why they went to work one day and didn't come back."
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers were pressing for a commission; in December 2001, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, had proposed a bill. By the spring of 2002, Ms. Kleinberg had befriended the father of a victim of Pan Am Flight 103, the plane that was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. "He said, `The bill is languishing. If you want it to go anywhere, you have to make it happen.' "
The women went to Home Depot, sawed wood for signs and staged a Washington rally; 300 people came out in the blistering heat. They staked out lawmakers and boarded the elevators marked "Senators Only." They wheedled their way into the White House. Jay Lefkowitz, a former Bush domestic policy adviser, recalls giving them chocolate chip cookies, even as he successfully opposed some demands.
They stayed up nights surfing the Web, taking notes on things like Islamic radicalism and the Federal Aviation Administration's hijacking protocols.
"The Internet," Ms. Breitweiser said, "has been our fifth widow."
In the Capitol, they cried, they pleaded, they cajoled. Ms. Breitweiser showed her husband's wedding ring, found at ground zero still attached to his finger. Ms. Casazza brought photos of a Cantor Fitzgerald pool party, telling lawmakers, "All the men are dead."
They befriended reporters: Gail Sheehy, in The New York Observer, dubbed them "the four moms." With her articulate manner and Ivory girl complexion, Ms. Breitweiser became a fixture on the television networks.
"No one wanted to say no to these women," said a Republican who participated in negotiations over the commission. He said the women "were used" by Democrats, an accusation Republicans repeated recently when Ms. Breitweiser criticized the Sept. 11 images in a Bush campaign advertisement. It is an acccusation she hotly denies.
Since the commission began its work, the Sept. 11 relatives, who call themselves the Family Steering Committee, have dogged its every move. When the panel complained of a lack of money, they lobbied for a bigger budget - and won. When the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, refused to grant the panel an extension, they headed to Washington again, and the speaker retreated. "Public pressure by the 9/11 families," Mr. Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery, said about the reversal. "There is no doubt about that."
For every battle they have won, though, the families have lost others. The commission rejected their calls to subpoena classified intelligence briefings and to fire its executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, who co-wrote a book with Ms. Rice. The families also complained that last week's hearings deteriorated into a partisan spat over a book by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official. "They were right on that one," Mr. Kean conceded.
So the Jersey girls are not congratulating themselves now on Ms. Rice. "There are no victories here," Ms. Casazza said. Ms. Breitweiser added: "A victory implies that this is a game. And this is not a game."
----
Iraqi Police Fire On Protesters In Basra, Killing One
Dow Jones Newswires,
1 Apr 2004
http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004040110250001&Take=1
BAGHDAD (AP)--Iraqi security forces in the southern city of Basra Thursday fired on protesters demanding jobs as policemen, killing one demonstrator and wounding two others, officials said.
A U.K. military vehicle that was in the area at the time was hit by some stones thrown by the protesters, but it later left the area.
The clash occurred outside the local Customs building in Basra. Hospital official Khaled Abdullah said the wounded were in a serious condition in hospital.
Last week, a clash between unemployed Iraqis demanding jobs as policemen and U.K. troops left 14 soldiers wounded.
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Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts
Theologian Charges White House Complicity in 9/11 Attack
by Nick Welsh,
April 1, 2004
Santa Barbara Independent
http://independent.com/news/news906.htm
There's nothing the least bit wild-eyed or hysterical about David Ray Griffin. In person, he's disarmingly calm, and speaks in the unflappably precise and deliberate style of a lifelong academic. Which is exactly what Griffin is. A respected philosopher of religion at the Claremont School of Theology since the 1970s and longtime Santa Barbara resident, Griffin is now raising questions that even President Bush's harshest critics are afraid to think, let alone ask aloud.
In his latest book, The New Pearl Harbor - released just two weeks ago - Griffin all but accuses the Bush administration of taking a dive on September 11 and giving Al Qaeda terrorists an unobstructed shot at the World Trade Center. According to Griffin, a case can be made that the Bush administration arranged the attack, or allowed it to happen. He is aware that he may be dismissed as a conspiracy nut, but given the "transcendent importance" of the issue, Griffin is willing to assume that risk and has taken to repeating Michael Moore's line on the subject: "Personally, I'm not into conspiracy theories except those that are true." I met with Griffin over coffee to discuss his book and the September 11 investigation. The following is an edited account of their conversation.
NICK WELSH: Is there a smoking gun that shows the Bush administration knew 9/11 was likely to happen and did nothing about it?
DAVID RAY GRIFFIN: I think there are four. One is the fact that standard operating procedures for dealing with possibly hijacked airplanes were not followed on 9/11. Those procedures call for fighter jets to be sent out immediately upon any sign that a plane may have been hijacked. These jets typically get to the plane within no later than 15 minutes anywhere in the United States. And on that day, there were four airplanes that went for a half-hour or more after they were hijacked without jets intercepting them.
What's the official explanation of that? I'm afraid the press has not done its job. They have not forced government officials to explain why standard operating procedures were not followed that day, nor have they pressed the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to explain why they didn't report these hijackings as they were supposed to. The official story is that [the fighter jets] were very late.
And the other smoking guns?
The second strongest piece of evidence I would say is the crash at the Pentagon. The physical evidence contradicts so violently the official account, that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757 - Flight 77, that is. The physical evidence, photographs, and eyewitness testimony say that the Pentagon was hit by something that caused a hole no larger than 18 feet in diameter. The story the Pentagon put out, and was published by the Washington Post, was that the hole in the Pentagon was five stories high and 200 feet wide. If you look at the photographs taken by Tom Horan of the Associated Press - that's just not the size of the hole. But if the hole was only 18 feet wide, it had to have been created by something other than a Boeing. Whatever went into the Pentagon pierced six reinforced walls. This was the west wing, the part of the Pentagon being refurbished and reinforced. These walls were extra strong, and yet whatever it was went through six walls creating a hole about seven feet in diameter in the sixth wall. This had to have been something with a very powerful head on it. A Boeing 757 has a very fragile nose, and would not have pierced through all those walls; it would have been crushed by hitting the Pentagon. And given that it only penetrated these three rings, the rest of the aircraft would have been sitting outside on the yard. And yet the photographs taken just as the fire trucks got there - very shortly after the crash - show no plane whatsoever.
What do they show?
They show no aircraft whatsoever. And everyone agrees on this. The official story is that the whole aircraft went inside the Pentagon. The problem with that - the firefighters in there would have seen the airplane. They would have seen the engines, they would have seen the aluminum fuselage, but they reported nothing. Ed Plower, the fire chief, when asked what he saw, said, "I didn't see any big pieces, no fuselage, no engines, no nothing." But about a month later, when asked he said, "Oh yes, I saw all that." His memory had had time to be refreshed.
If what you're saying is accurate - that it was a missile - then what happened to the plane and all the people on it?
That's why I stress I'm not trying to give an account of what really happened. I have no idea what happened to Flight 77.
President Bush has also been criticized for behaving somewhat bizarrely that day.
As he and the Secret Service got word that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and that three planes had been hijacked, there could have been no possible doubt in their mind that the United States was under terrorist attack . . . The most horrendous attack the United States had ever suffered. And they would have had to assume that one or more of them were heading toward President Bush himself. And so upon learning about this, the Secret Service surely would have whisked him away immediately. In fact, one Secret Service agent on the scene said, "We're out of here." But obviously he got overruled because President Bush stayed there. After Andrew Card reported the second crash on the World Trade Center, the president just nodded as if he understood and said, "We're going to go ahead with the reading lesson." And he sat there another 15 minutes listening to the children read a story about a pet goat. This was a photo op and when it was over he lingered around talking to the children and talking to the teacher.
Bill Sammon, of the Washington Times, wrote a very pro-Bush book, yet he comments how casual and relaxed the president was given the fact he'd just learned the country was under attack. He said Bush took his own sweet time and in fact called him "Our Dawdler in Chief." And then the president went on national TV, going forward with an interview that had been planned and announced in advance . . . then they took their regularly scheduled motorcade back to the airport. In other words, [Bush and the Secret Service] showed no fear whatsoever that they would be targeted for attack, which strongly suggests they knew how many aircraft were being hijacked and what their targets were.
Couldn't it have been that he was trying to project calm in the eye of the storm, that this was Bush projecting Churchillian resolve in the face of calamity?
People who want to believe such things can, of course, imagine such scenarios. But the president in a situation like that does not make the decisions; the Secret Service team makes the decisions. And the guys in the Secret Service are trained to be ready for a catastrophe like this where they make snap decisions and whisk the president to safety immediately. They would have had an escape route planned; they would have had contingencies planned - they always do. It is at least not very plausible to think they would have remained there and endangered the lives of all the children and teachers at that school in order to exude that Churchillian confidence.
What about the plane thatcrashed down?
We know that on Flight 93, which crashed over Pennsylvania, the passengers were trying to get control of the aircraft. They had decided the hijackers did not have bombs and probably didn't even have guns. And because their plane didn't take off until a half-hour after the others, they knew that the others had crashed into the World Trade Center - so they knew they were going to die anyway, even if they didn't do anything. So as one of the passengers is saying, "They're doing it, they're forcing their way into the cabin, they're going to make it." As soon as that happened, with the FBI listening in, the plane went down. There was a whoosh, then the sound of wind. And people on the ground reported hearing what Vietnam veterans said sounded like a missile. Furthermore, there was debris from the plan eight miles from the crash site, suggesting the plane had been hit and stuff started falling out. And one of the engines was found over a mile from the crash site. Of course, if it had been a missile that downed the plane, it most likely would have been a heat-seeking missile that would have found the engine and knocked it off.
Why would the government have an interest in doing this? So the hijackers couldn't speak to anyone?
That would be a very good reason. If it were a conspiracy and the hijackers knew about it, it would have been very threatening to those who made the plan to have anybody left alive. Again, I don't pretend to know, but that's at least a plausible scenario. There were many rumors that day that the plane was shot down, but the government denied it.
You suggest that the World Trade Center buildings must have been detonated with explosives to account for the heat generated and the speed the structures collapsed on themselves. That sounds extreme. What's the evidence?
The evidence is cumulative - several things that point to controlled demolition. First, a steel-framed building, according to all the reading I've done, has never collapsed solely because of fire. They will bend and buckle in a very large all-consuming fire that lasts for a very long time. But they have never collapsed.
But it was not just fire - it was fire and impact at the same time. The twin towers were very large buildings and extremely well built with a lot of redundancy. Even people who believe the official theory say that the crash of the plane into the towers should have been insignificant, that the shock would have been immediate, but it was over very soon and that the buildings were extremely solid and stable and not moving. In the south tower, much of the fuel from it spilled outside as it collided into the corner. So there was a giant firebomb which looked very impressive, but what that means is that most of the fuel was burned up within a minute, so there was not much fuel inside. Therefore, the fire in the south tower had almost gone out in less than an hour. And that brings us to another strange fact about the towers. If the official story were correct, that the combination of the crash and the fire brought the buildings down, we would expect the north tower to have come down first, because it was hit first. And yet the south tower collapsed first. It collapsed in less than an hour. That makes perfect sense if you're willing to accept that it was caused by controlled demolition, meaning the building was wired with explosives. And if the official story has it that the buildings were brought down by fire, you'd want the buildings to go down before the fire had completely gone out.
What you're suggesting sounds like something from. X-Files. But on X-Files, you always had agents Scully and Mulder trying to get the truth out. Here we don't have any Scullys and Mulders. You'd think this whole new unilateral expression of military supremacy might have opponents within the administration coming unglued and that they'd be leaking info damaging to Bush, but we don't hear those voices. Why not?
Members of the FBI, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies have taken oaths to not reveal things they've been told not to reveal . . . and if they violate this oath, repercussions may occur. You have a wife and children, and somebody says to you, "If you go public with that I cannot guarantee the safety of your family." Would you go public with that? You have to choose between your family's welfare and the welfare of the nation, and your story might not do that much good. You might just be denounced as a conspiracy kook. The press would ignore you, belittle you. People might look into your past and find that you had done some things you're not so proud of. People would learn very quickly to keep their mouths shut.
Let's say there has been this complicity. To what end?
There were several benefits that could have been anticipated from 9/11. One was the so-called Patriot Act. It did appear that the Patriot Act, given how fast it was rushed into Congress, voting had already been prepared. The Patriot Act is so large that it's inconceivable it could have been written after 9/11. Rushing it through Congress when most members had not even read a small portion of it was clearly one benefit, giving the government increased powers. Also, there was the desire to wage war in Afghanistan to force out the Taliban and put an American-friendly government in place because of the desire of Unical and other gas companies to build an oil pipeline, which they felt was too dangerous with the Taliban in power. There was a meeting in Berlin in July 2001, a final effort to get an agreement between the Taliban and the United States that would allow a sort of joint government, where the Taliban would share power with more American-friendly leaders. The Taliban refused, at which point they were told, "If you don't take our carpet of gold, we'll bury you under a carpet of bombs." The Pakistani representative at this meeting said the Americans told him that the war would start before the snows came that October. And after 9/11 happened, there was exactly the right amount of time for the U.S. forces to get organized to begin the war, and the war began on October 7. Another benefit is that many senior members of the Bush administration had for a long time wanted to attack Iraq. Getting control of the oil there was one motive; the more general motive was to secure a military presence in that part of the world.
Don't you think it's a good thing that Saddam Hussein was taken out, and don't you think Bush had a moral obligation to do so because it was his father who was responsible for building up Hussein in the first place? Certainly you can say there were some benefits to the people of Iraq. But if we had an obligation to take out Saddam Hussein then we have obligations to take out many other nefarious leaders around the world, many of whom are far worse, believe it or not, than Saddam Hussein. And the sorry history is that we have in fact supported such leaders and that Saddam Hussein was in power only because of American support. He remained in power after gassing the Kurds became common knowledge. Donald Rumsfeld himself visited Saddam at that period. Actually our aid to Saddam went up after we knew that he had done this.
So you think this is mostly about oil.
It is to a significant extent about oil, given the projections that the world is beginning to run out of oil. The United States wants to get control of it because our way of life, which is so dependent upon oil, is nonnegotiable. And also because military dominance itself runs to great extent on oil. But it's not just about oil. It's about geopolitical dominance. And this brings up the U.S. Space command. In the document "Rebuilding America's Defenses," published in 2000 by the Project for the New American Century - an organization founded by people such as [Richard] Perle and [Paul] Wolfowitz and [Dick] Cheney and Rumsfeld - there is a statement in there that says we need to move forward with this revolution in military affairs. The central feature of this is the augmentation of the U.S. Space Command through which the United States would have what's called now Full Spectrum Dominance. In addition to having dominance over land, air, and sea, we would have dominance in space. But building the space stations and the satellites for the weaponization of space will be an extremely expensive undertaking. One projection has the first stage of it being about a trillion dollars. So an enormous amount of money has to be shifted from the American taxpayers and other parts of the economy to the military and the space command. The document states that such a revolution in military affairs will probably proceed very slowly absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event such as a new Pearl Harbor.
Hence the title of your book . . . You've complained the American media has been asleep at the switch on this. How do you account for this? It is very difficult for Americans to face the possibility that their own government may have caused or deliberately allowed such a heinous event. Secondly, one can understand that insofar as the media is owned by companies like General Electric, which is one of the largest makers of weapons, stations like NBC that are owned by GE would not wish to publicize these connections. And finally, 9/11 was immediately treated not only as a matter of patriotism but almost as a religious event. Bush declared his war on terrorism from the national cathedral. And so from then on, any questioning of the official account could be and was criticized as being undemocratic and almost sacrilegious. I at least hope that if we can begin to get a public discussion of 9/11 and of the many, many discrepancies between the official story and what at least appear to be the facts, that some of those people might be emboldened to step forward.
How has researching and writing this book affected you personally?
I fear that our democracy is in much worse shape than I had imagined, and that even the appearance of democracy we now have might be quickly swept aside.
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