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NUCLEAR
N.D. Students Testing Homes for Radon
North Korean Leader Is Reported in China
Nuke-for-energy deal for Kim?
S.Korea Eyes China's Nuclear Power Market
G.I.s press Army for uranium test
Returning soldiers do not have dangerous DU radiation levels
Parts Of Iraqi Nuclear Reactor 'Resettled'
Bush's Hope of Finding Weapons in Iraq Is Futile
Vanunu: Israel Should Destroy Reactors
Nuke Whistleblower Wants Israel's Reactor Destroyed
The Vanunu Myths and Israeli Deterrence Policy
S. Korea Eyes China's Nuclear Power Market
Rocky roads
Researcher: open Rocky Flats slowly to public
No more nuclear waste
President Bush's Global Nonproliferation Policy: Seven More Proposals
Kerry would change war on terror
With CIA Push, Movement to War Accelerated
Special-Interest Add-Ons Weigh Down Tax-Cut Bill
Kerry Calls Bush's Iraq Policy 'Ineffective'
Airing of Powell's Misgivings Tests Ties in the Cabinet
Saudi envoy had knowlege of Iraq invasion
MILITARY
Bush Plans Aid to Build Foreign Peace Forces
U.S. General in Afghanistan Says Pakistan Has Hurt Al Qaeda
Blair Expected to Allow Vote on a European Constitution
US Army buy anti-armor weapons, training systems from Swedish Saab
British troops 'in Iraq for ten years'
Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
U.S. Rice Growers Push for Iraq Contracts
Pentagon to Award $25 Bln in Contracts
Robot plane drops bomb in test
Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
Top European Backs Spain on Pullout
Pullout takes Poland by surprise
10 GIs Die in Attacks In Iraq
Leaders in Falluja Urge Rebels to Halt Attacks on U.S. Forces
Bremer Is Increasing Pressure for a Quick End to Iraqi Uprisings
Iraq Peacekeepers Deal With Spain Pullout
Carnage dims hopes for political way
Will Cheney Flash Sharon 'Green' To Kill Arafat?
Hamas Chief Mourned By Thousands in Gaza
No 'Heads-Up' on Israeli Attack, Rice Says
Israeli Rightists Endorse Plan to Withdraw From the Gaza Strip
Russia and NATO
Pentagon, Justice Department sparred
Top Guerrilla Killed in Chechnya
Russia kills key Chechen rebels
Saudi-Born Leader Killed in Chechnya
Intel: The CIA vs. the DIA
Lack of Resolution in Iraq Finds Conservatives Divided
Records of Buried Veterans on Web Site
Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
US marines down to two hot meals a day
Chambliss, Sessions propose closing European bases
'They Hate Us Because of Our Freedom'
Tony Blair lied to us over war in Iraq
Chinese Gave Cheney Speech Their Own Form of Openness
George W. Bush Goes Mad, Right Before Our Eyes
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Man Upset Over Brother's Redeployment Shot
High Court to Clarify Judge-Only Sentencing
U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Argument
FTC to Look Closer at 'Spyware'
Police Lineups Falling Out of Favor
Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions
ACTIVISTS
Israel must not impose conditions on Vanunu after release: Amnesty
I'm not a traitor, says Israeli nuclear whistleblower on eve of release
Israeli Nuke Whistleblower Makes Appeal
GEORGIA Laws limit G-8 protests
Scottish protester arrested in West Bank
Pro-life teachers angered by march
US 'soldiers of conscience' take Sixties route to Canada
G-8 Protest Organizer Finds Hurdles on Path to a Permit
Earth Day celebration educates despite rain
A Letter From An Iraqi Mother
Truth still not told in killing of Rachel Corrie
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
N.D. Students Testing Homes for Radon
April 19, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Radon-Studies.html
BELCOURT, N.D. (AP) -- Science students at Turtle Mountain Community College are testing homes on the reservation for radon, a radioactive gas linked to lung cancer.
The first round of preliminary sampling found nearly a third of homes tested high for the radioactive gas, but the project coordinator says more tests likely will change those results.
Project coordinator Gale Harmes said homes are tested in the winter, when they are sealed against the weather, to get the highest readings. He said testing also must be done in the summer to determine the annual average.
About 30 percent of the 250 homes tested for radon this winter had high readings, Harms said. That figure is not a major worry at this point, because many will fall within the recommended limit once the average is obtained, Harms said.
The study is funded through the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If the grant funding continues, the project aims to test 600 homes before it concludes next year.
Radon is an invisible, odorless radioactive gas created by the decay of uranium found in rocks and soil. It is estimated to be a health risk in as many as one in 15 homes in the country, according to the American Lung Association.
Test kits in the college project use activated charcoal to collect dust particles to which the radon attaches itself. Turtle Mountain Community College gets the kits from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.
Students go to the home of each resident who signs up for the testing and place a kit in the area of the house that is most used. The students retrieve the kits after 3.8 days, considered to be the half life of radon, and the kits are returned to the Colorado lab for results.
``One of the things we do in this program is encourage people to quit smoking, because if a person smokes and lives in an atmosphere of radon, their chances of contracting lung cancer are at least a magnitude of 10 to 100 times more likely,'' Harms said.
Radon seems to be higher in clay soils, found on much of the Turtle Mountain Reservation, Harms said.
As part of the Turtle Mountain project, students are mapping the location of homes tested. The information will be overlaid on a map of soil types and analyzed.
About 10 students are involved in the project, which began in February. They receive a stipend for their time and travel.
Many of the students are taking a life science course at the college as part of their study in nursing, chemistry or environmental science. The project provides a varied education in skills ranging from social skills to scientific analysis, Harms said.
``They are learning teamwork. They are learning self motivation. They are learning what running a scientific sample really is,'' he said. ``There are more benefits than what meets the eye.''
A variety of methods can be used to reduce indoor radon levels, such as sealing cracks in floors and walls or changing the air flow in a home. Sometimes, eliminating the radon source is as simple as putting a cover over a sump pump hole or a plastic barrier in a crawl space.
On the Net: Radon specialists: www.health.state.nd.us/ndhd/environ/ee/rad/Radon/index.htm
Information from: Minot Daily News, http://www.ndweb.com
-------- asia
North Korean Leader Is Reported in China
By REUTERS
April 19, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/asia/19BEIJ.html
SEOUL, South Korea, Monday, April 19(Reuters) - The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, entered China by train on Sunday and arrived in Beijing on Monday for talks on the crisis over his country's nuclear weapons program, South Korean media outlets reported.
Mr. Kim will meet with President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in the first summit meeting since the new Chinese leaders took office last year, the South Korean YTN cable television network said.
China has been the host for two rounds of talks with North and South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia. North Korea is being urged to give up its programs for producing nuclear weapons.
The reports on Mr. Kim's arrival in the Chinese capital follow a visit to Japan, China and South Korea by Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney appealed to the three countries to help speed up efforts to end North Korea's nuclear programs.
Chinese leaders are likely to dangle the prospect of significant economic help before Mr. Kim, while pressing home the point that it firmly opposes a nuclear-armed North Korea and insists that the problem be resolved peacefully, analysts say.
Mr. Kim last visited China, North Korea's ally, in May 2001.
YTN said Mr. Kim had crossed into China late on Sunday in his special train amid heavy secrecy and had traveled overnight to reach Beijing at midday.
No mention of the visit was made by North Korea's official news agency, KCNA, or by China's official New China News Agency.
----
Nuke-for-energy deal for Kim?
By Jong-Heon Lee
UPI Correspondent
4/19/2004
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040419-071645-8417r
SEOUL, South Korea, April 19 (UPI) -- Will North Korean leader Kim Jong Il bring a breakthrough on the nuclear impasse?
Kim's surprise visit to Bejing this week for a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao raised hopes of progress in the long-stalled nuclear issue.
China is considered one of few nations that have leverage over Kim's defiant regime, which has been heavily dependent on Beijing's food and energy aid. Beijing's economic assistance is vital for the North's tattered economy. China also needs North Korea to ease the nuclear standoff to boost its leverage in pressing for a more accommodating U.S. stance toward Taiwan.
"The two nations need each other's help. The Beijing summit was arranged for mutual benefit," said Moon Heung-ho, a China expert at Hanyang University in Seoul. "We hope to see progress in the nuclear stalemate in the North Korea-China summit," Seoul's Foreign Ministry official said.
Kim held talks with Chinese President Hu on Monday in Beijing after arriving in the Chinese capital by train earlier in the day for an informal visit, according to South Korea's media reports and diplomatic sources in Seoul.
Neither the South Korean nor the Chinese government would confirm Kim's visit, which was cloaked in secrecy. But both sides are widely expected to announce his visit after Kim returns to Pyongyang, as they have done in the past.
When Kim visited China in 2000 and 2001, neither side announced the visits in advance or commented on the trips until after he returned home. "North Korea has requested that Kim's schedule be kept secret due to security concerns," a diplomatic source in Seoul said.
Kim crossed the border city of Sinuiju into China around 9 p.m. Sunday after leaving his office in Pyongyang at 1 p.m. that day by special train. Kim was greeted at the Chinese border city of Dandong by Wang Jiarui, the Communist Party's director of international relations, South Korea's official Yonhap News Agency said in a report from the Chinese capital that quoted "informed diplomatic sources."
Kim's train, carrying an entourage of some 40 high-level ruling party, state and military officials, drew into Beijing's main railway station around 6 a.m. Monday amid tight security. Beijing's railway station was guarded by military police and a station official said it was closed for the arrival of a "special visitor."
A convoy of unmarked cars, including a black Mercedes limousine, pulled out of the railway station and headed west towards the state guesthouse, where Kim has stayed on previous trips, said Yonhap and Seoul's state-run television, KBS.
Kim reportedly met Hu over lunch at Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound in Beijing. It was the first summit between the two communist allies since the new Chinese leaders took office last year.
No details of the summit were available, but media reports quoted sources as saying it was focused on how to end the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arms ambitions, Beijing's food and energy assistance, and North Korea's economic reforms.
At the summit, Kim said his country was ready to give up its nuclear development program if the United States dropped its hostile policy towards Pyongyang. He also asked for economic and energy aid from China.
In return, Hu reportedly called for Pyongyang to move to ease the nuclear crisis, saying U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on a visit to Beijing last week warned that time was running out for a resolution on the issue.
Analysts in Seoul said Beijing wanted to hear Kim's position on North Korea's nuclear program and use the summit to make progress toward six-party talks to end the nuclear crisis. "China invited the North Korean leader to visit Beijing to offer economic aid and persuade Pyongyang to make concessions to break the nuclear impasse," said Paek Seung-joo, an analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis in Seoul.
China has been mediating between North Korea and the United States at the six-way talks, which also involve South Korea, Japan and Russia, aimed at seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis. China hosted two rounds of six-party talks, the latest one in February, but no agreement has been reached.
"North Korea is not in a position to dismiss Chinese pressure," said Lee Tae-hwan, a China specialist at the Sejong Institute, a private think tank in Seoul, "because China provides between 70 percent and 90 percent of North Korea's oil and more than one-third of its imports and food aid."
"Beijing wants to use its role in defusing the nuclear crisis as leverage in dealing with Washington over the Taiwan issue," a Western diplomat said, requesting anonymity. "With the North Korea card in hand, China would call for the United States to discourage Taiwan from adopting a confrontational stance with the mainland following Chen Shui-bian's re-election as the island's president.
Kim Jong Il's China trip came after Cheney came to China last week armed with fresh evidence of North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities and pressing Beijing to take a tougher line with its communist neighbor.
After the summit, Kim visited Zhongguancun technology park, China's leading high-tech development zone. He is scheduled to have a series of meetings with Chinese leaders, including former President Jiang Zemin, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, parliamentary leader Wu Bangguo and Vice President Zeng Qinghong.
On his way back to North Korea on Wednesday, he is expected to visit Shenyang or Dalian in China's northeast to study government efforts to boost the economy with outside investment.
-------- china
S.Korea Eyes China's Nuclear Power Market
April 19, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-utilities-korea-china.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's state-run nuclear power firm said on Monday it had formed a consortium with local companies to bid for nuclear power projects abroad, including the growing Chinese market.
A spokesman for Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co (KHNP), a unit of state-run power monopoly Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), said the consortium included builder Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Ltd and two other KEPCO units.
KHNP operates all 18 of the country's nuclear power plants.
``We formed the consortium to bid for overseas orders, but we haven't been awarded any contracts as yet,'' he said, adding that no bids had been submitted so far.
``We are awaiting tenders from China.''
KHNP has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indonesian government for a three-year feasibility study on nuclear power plants.
Competition for a bigger slice of energy-hungry China's growing nuclear power market is heating up as France, the United States and Russia vie to win lucrative Chinese energy projects.
The spokesman said the two other KEPCO units were focused on fuel supply and plant design and that Doosan Heavy had already exported steam generators to China, the United States and Taiwan.
South Korea, which relies on nuclear energy for 40 percent of its electricity needs, built its first nuclear power plants decades ago with U.S. or European technology, but now has the capability to export its own reactors.
Robust economic growth and a worsening power shortage has spurred China to accelerate construction of nuclear power plants. Beijing hopes to quadruple its nuclear power capacity to more than 32,000 megawatts (MW) by building roughly two plants per year between 2005 and 2020.
China has built eight reactors over the past two decades.
The Chinese government is evaluating proposals to build four 1,000-MW plants costing an estimated $6 billion in eastern and Guangdong provinces, but no time frame has been set for a decision.
Framatome ANP, a venture between France's Areva and Germany's Siemens, Electricite de France, and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, an unlisted global nuclear equipment maker have shown keen interest in breaking into the Chinese market.
-------- depleted uranium
G.I.s press Army for uranium test
April 19, 2004
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/185258p-160518c.html
Hundreds of soldiers back from Iraq have asked the Army to test them for radiation exposure after the Daily News revealed four members of a New York Army National Guard unit are contaminated with depleted uranium.
Up to 800 G.I.s already have handed in their 24-hour urine samples, and hundreds more are waiting for appointments, according to a source at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
But several independent uranium experts who reviewed one of the first official lab results that Walter Reed doctors provided to a soldier last week are questioning whether the Army's testing methods are adequate.
"They are using an instrument that apparently isn't very accurate," said Glen Lawrence, a professor of biochemistry at Long Island University.
"The instruments they used are just not sophisticated enough to give accurate readings," agreed Leonard Dietz, a retired scientist from the Knolls Atomic Laboratories who invented one of the instruments for measuring uranium isotopes.
The demand for tests was sparked by a News investigation that found four soldiers from the 442nd Military Police Company are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops.
One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, was told at Walter Reed last week that the Army's testing of his urine had come back negative.
Ramos, who has suffered for months from unexplained ailments, demanded copies of reports from the two Army labs that analyzed his urine.
One lab reported that different uranium isotopes in the sample were "not detectable."
The other lab listed an error ratio so large in its analysis that it was impossible to tell for certain whether the uranium in Ramos' urine was natural, depleted or enriched.
"We know the way this data is reported can be confusing," said Lt. Col. Mark Melanson, the program manger for health physics at the second lab.
The main issue, Melanson said, is how much total uranium was found in Ramos - and his total was 6.3 nanograms (parts per billion) per liter.
That "is within the dietary ranges reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is safe," Melanson said.
The Army, according to Melanson, does not even bother to analyze a sample for depleted uranium unless the total natural uranium concentration is more than 268 nanograms per liter.
"That's an extraordinarily high cutoff," said Dr. Tom Fasy, a pathologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
When told of the criticisms of the Army's methods, Melanson said, "As an additional check, we are sending samples to the CDC for independent analysis."
This is not the first time the Army's depleted uranium screening operation has come under scrutiny. Last December, two congressmen demanded an investigation of the program by the General Accounting Office.
Reps. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Tex.) and Robert Filner (D-Calif.) charged the Defense Department has previously misled investigators about soldiers' depleted uranium exposure during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
----
Returning soldiers do not have dangerous DU radiation levels officials say
'No one can say with confidence there are no health problems related to DU exposures,' Gulf War vets group says
By Deborah Funk
Army and Marine Times staff writer
April 19, 2004
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2831251.php http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2831251.php
Army officials say none of more than 1,000 troops returning from Iraq who have been tested show dangerous amounts of radiation from the depleted uranium used in many munitions.
Three of the tested Operation Iraqi Freedom soldiers had levels of uranium above that of the average U.S. population, but still within acceptable levels for workers in the nuclear industry, said Army Col. (Dr.) Dallas Hack, chief preventive medicine officer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
Those three soldiers had depleted uranium shrapnel embedded in them, and the levels of uranium found were not high enough to warrant medical intervention, he said.
Depleted uranium, a heavy metal with low levels of radiation, is used to make armor-piercing munitions, as well as to reinforce tank armor.
The issue of whether depleted uranium components are responsible for any of the illnesses suffered by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War has been the subject of debate, and researchers still are trying to learn what long-term adverse health effects DU may cause.
Most research has focused on kidney problems and cancer. Research in rodent studies indicate that embedded DU shrapnel can cause tumor growth in animals, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, which recently received a presentation on the subject.
But Hack said the animal model studies are not completed, so conclusions cannot be drawn.
The New York Daily News has reported that it has tested some returning soldiers and found depleted uranium in four soldiers suffering from "unexplained illnesses."
The National Gulf War Resource Center, an umbrella group of military associations and veterans, is calling for large-scale scientific studies on soldiers, and in Iraq where depleted uranium was used 13 years ago.
"No one can say with confidence that there are no health problems related to DU exposures," the group said in a prepared statement. "Now is the time for real science to take the place of spin."
U.S. troops who have concerns about exposure to depleted uranium can be administered a test to measure the amounts of and types of uranium in their bodies, Hack said.
"We're redoubling our efforts to make sure anybody who has a concern is tested," Hack said. "We remain committed to taking care of the medical problems these people have."
-------- iraq / inspections
Parts Of Iraqi Nuclear Reactor 'Resettled': Sources
There is "extensive removal of equipment and in some instances, removal of entire buildings", ElBaradei
By Hossam Al-Sayed, IOL Staff,
April 19, 2004
(IslamOnline.net)
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-04/19/article06.shtml
CAIRO - Parts of Iraq's neutralized nuclear reactor have been resettled somewhere in the far-reaching country, an Iraqi scientist told IslamOnline.net Sunday, April18 .
"This can help the United States find a way out of the current limbo of failing to come across a sniff of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction," the central rationale of the U.S.-led war one year ago, said the source, who asked not to be named.
Material and equipment from the facility, some 40 kilometers from Baghdad, have also disappeared and been looted under the watchful eye of the U.S.-led occupation troops, well-placed sources here told IOL.
Backed by U.S. warplanes, gunmen disembarked frequently from unidentified jets in the location of the Osirak reactor, looting some of its material, the sources at the Iraqi Atomic Agency (IAA) said.
'None Of Your Business'
They noted that some IAA scientists reported the incident to the U.S.-led occupation authorities, asking for a protection to the facility and its depots.
The request fell on deaf ears as a U.S. Let. Gen. told the scientists "it is none of your business", according to the source.
"They [the gunmen] were instructed by someone from his KIA and tampering with the reactor under U.S. protection," another Iraqi scientist, who requested anonymity, told IOL.
"I myself happened on some non-registered materials in the reactor." he added. "We complained umpteen times to the U.S. occupation troops, who eventually denied us access to the facility."
An Iraqi translator working for the occupation troops confirmed the incident, claiming that the gunmen were Israelis.
He asserted that they dismantled parts of the Russian-made reactor, which was struck by Israeli warplanes in 1981 in a preemptive strike to undermine Iraq's nuclear capabilities.
The translator added that the parts were rushed to unknown destinations in armored vehicles.
On Friday, April16 , the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Mohammed ElBardei said he was concerned about the disappearance of nuclear material from the occupied country.
Baradei said in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on the findings, which were based on satellite images.
The U.N. Security Council was also kept posted on the situation in another letter from ElBaradei.
According to the letter, satellite imagery shows "extensive removal of equipment and in some instances, removal of entire buildings". in Iraq.
"Large quantities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transferred out of Iraq," it added.
"It is not clear whether the removal of these items has been the result of looting activities in the aftermath of the recent war in Iraq or as part of systematic efforts to rehabilitate some of their locations," ElBaradei said in his letter.
The IAEA chief told the Security Council March 7 that documents allegedly proving that Iraq was seeking to procure uranium from Niger were forgeries.
David Kay, the head of the1 ,400-member Iraq Survey Group which has been searching Iraq for alleged WMD, had recently resigned his post over failure to find any truce of such weapons.
--------
Bush's Hope of Finding Weapons in Iraq Is Futile, Kay, Blix Say
April 19, 2004
(Bloomberg)
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=asd.MzIjZ_t8&refer=europe
President George W. Bush said last Tuesday there ``could still be'' weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Arms experts including David Kay, who led the search for the weapons until three months ago, say Bush is wrong.
``I don't know what evidence there is aside from hope,'' Kay, the chief U.S. arms inspector from June 2003 through January 2004, said in an interview. ``I don't want to use the term zero possibility, but I have no optimism.''
Bush argued prior to the war that Iraq had to be attacked because it possessed weapons of mass destruction. Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet had told Bush ``it's a slam-dunk case'' that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had the weapons at his disposal, according to ``Plan of Attack,'' a book by Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward that was to go on sale today. Those weapons haven't been found.
As violence in Iraq mounts, Americans' backing for the president has slipped. Support for Bush's policies in Iraq fell 7 percentage points to 44 percent in a CNN/Time magazine poll released April 9.
Bush, 57, cited at his press conference last week the discovery of 24 tons of mustard gas at a Libyan turkey farm by U.S. inspectors in January as an example of how weapons can be hard to locate. The inspectors were guided by Libyan officials to a metal barn at the farm outside Tripoli.
Exaggerated Threat
In December, Libya agreed to eliminate ``all elements'' of its chemical and nuclear weapons programs, declare all nuclear activities to UN inspectors, and eliminate all chemical weapons stocks and munitions. Thousands of pounds of documents and equipment used to develop nuclear weapons are now in a secure facility in Tennessee, the White House said.
While Iraq is twice the size of Idaho and swaths of the country are almost off limits because of armed resistance, the weapons won't be found because they probably aren't there, arms experts said.
Hans Blix, a former United Nations chief weapons inspector, said in a recently published book, ``Disarming Iraq -- The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction,'' that Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair exaggerated the Iraq threat when seeking support for the war.
Seeking Answers
Bush is under pressure from Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic candidate for president, to say that prewar U.S. intelligence was flawed and prove his administration didn't skew the information.
Kerry, 60, a four-term senator who received a Silver Star and Bronze Star for valor while serving in Vietnam, said yesterday that Bush's international policies have been ``arrogant'' and may keep other countries from working with the U.S. in the future.
Appearing on NBC's ``Meet The Press,'' Kerry said he would take the ``poison out of'' U.S. policies and seek more foreign assistance in Iraq.
The president said at his press conference that he was looking ``forward to hearing the truth as to exactly where'' the weapons are, from a commission he formed on Feb. 6 in response to calls for an investigation into intelligence failures prior to the war. ``That's why we set up the independent commission,'' he said.
The commission has until March 2005 to complete its probe, four months after the November presidential election.
`Unresolved Ambiguity'
Since the U.S. invasion began on March 20 of last year, 687 U.s. troops have been killed, including more than 380 since Bush declared the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1, the Defense Department said as of Friday. More than 90 U.S. troops have been killed in action this month, making it the most deadly month since the invasion began.
Bush said the U.S. could yet find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq if it got cooperation from the ousted government. He said the discovery of mustard gas near Tripoli was a result of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's willingness to assist inspectors, in contrast to Hussein's refusal to do so.
There will always be ``unresolved ambiguity'' with a government as secretive as Iraq under Hussein, said Kay, who also searched for weapons on behalf of the UN in the 1990s. ``What mitigates against'' finding weapons in Iraq is that ``we have not found a facility --nor have we found any Iraqi to come forward and said this is how it is done,'' he said.
Kay resigned as head of the U.S. weapons inspection team and was replaced by Charles Duelfer, the former number two UN weapons inspector in Iraq.
Getting Caught
Bush said at his press conference that Duelfer was ``amazed at how deceptive the Iraqis had been toward Unmovic and Unscom,'' inspection teams that searched Iraq for more than a decade.
``We knew they were hiding things,'' Bush said. ``A country that hides something is a country that is afraid of getting caught, and that was part of our calculation. Charlie confirmed that.''
Duelfer told Congress last month that Iraq's failure to cooperate in his search was undermining efforts to determine whether the country had a weapons program, the New York Times reported on March 31. Duelfer said his team hadn't found evidence of weapons, although he said they were continuing to pursue leads, the Times said, citing testimony he delivered to two Senate committees behind closed doors.
Duelfer didn't return calls seeking comment. Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council, declined to comment beyond Bush's remarks.
`One in 100'
Representative Curt Weldon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who backed the war, believes Iraq may still harbor weapons of mass destruction, said Michael Conallen, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Republican.
``The congressman would agree and support'' Bush in his contention that the weapons may exist, Conallen said.
Weldon led a group a lawmakers who traveled to Iraq in February to meet with Army Major General Keith Dayton, director of the group searching for the weapons.
Dayton ``indicated to the congressman and the delegation that there was a lot of work to do'' in tracking down leads and sifting through documents, Conallen said.
The chances that U.S. weapons inspectors will make a discovery in Iraq similar to the one in Libya are remote, said Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for foreign policy for the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group based in Washington.
``You can't rule it out entirely,'' Carpenter said. ``We have been in the country for a year and had access to their scientists. It's one in 100 at best.''
Either Bush was misleading the public or he was poorly briefed before the press conference, said Jessica Tuchman Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
``There is no likelihood that we will find these stockpiles of chemical and biological compounds that were advertised before the war,'' Mathews said. ``I think there was reason to know they were not there.''
To contact the reporter on the story: William McQuillen in Washington, or bmcquillen@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor of this story: Glenn Hall, or ghall@bloomberg.net
-------- israel
Vanunu: Israel Should Destroy Reactors
April 19, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Vanunu.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu said he has no more secrets to reveal, but he believes Israel's nuclear reactor near the desert town of Dimona should be destroyed, according to remarks published Monday.
Vanunu is to be released Wednesday, after serving 18 years for treason.
In 1986, the former Dimona technician provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London. Based on his information, experts at the time said Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Mossad agents kidnapped Vanunu from Italy in 1986, and he has largely been kept out of sight since then, except for occasional court appearances.
On Monday, Israeli newspapers ran rare photographs of Vanunu, provided by Israel's Prisons Authority. The white-haired, balding Vanunu was shown in a prison courtyard, wearing jeans, a brown prison uniform shirt and a blue ski jacket. The convert to Christianity wore a cross on a gold chain around his neck.
The Yediot Ahronot and Maariv newspapers published excerpts from what they said was Vanunu's interrogation by Shin Bet security agents two weeks ago. Vanunu appeared to be rambling at times, sometimes referring to himself in the third person and other times as ``we.''
Vanunu spent 12 years of his term in solitary confinement, and his mental health suffered during that time, his brother Meir and his attorney have said. Vanunu has improved since getting out of solitary, they said.
Israel is concerned that Vanunu's release will refocus attention on its nuclear program. As part of its policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel neither confirms nor denies it has nuclear weapons.
After his release, Vanunu will be prevented from traveling abroad for a year, from contacting foreigners and from discussing his work at the nuclear reactor and the circumstances of his capture. Vanunu plans to appeal to the Supreme Court if the restrictions are not rescinded.
In his conversation with the Shin Bet agents, Vanunu said the United States and Europe already know everything they need to know about Israel's nuclear program.
``As for myself, I just want to repeat the things I already said and that were published,'' Vanunu was quoted as saying. He suggested it would be difficult for the Shin Bet to monitor him, noting that he'll have access to a computer.
Vanunu said he hoped the debate over Israel's nuclear program would be revived, and he expressed disappointment that Israel hasn't come under greater pressure to dismantle Dimona.
``I want them to take the reactor, more than that, I want them to destroy the reactor, as they destroyed the reactor in Iraq,'' Vanunu said. Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor in 1981, to prevent Baghdad from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Vanunu, who began working at Dimona in 1977, said Israel should not have trusted him with sensitive information. While working at Dimona, Vanunu studied philosophy at Ben Gurion University and joined left-wing groups on campus.
Vanunu said ``bigshot psychologists'' from the Shin Bet and the Mossad should have spotted him as a potential security risk. ``You gave information to the wrong man,'' Maariv quoted him as saying. However, he insisted he was not a spy.
Vanunu said he believes he is considered a hero by much of the world.
Asked about his political beliefs, Vanunu said there is no need for a Jewish state, and that he would prefer for his family -- he is one of 11 children of Jewish immigrants from Morocco -- to live in Morocco or in a Palestinian state.
--------
Nuke Whistleblower Wants Israel's Reactor Destroyed
April 19, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-israel-vanunu.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Mordechai Vanunu, about to complete an 18-year jail term for spilling Israeli nuclear secrets, has called for the destruction of Israel's secretive Dimona reactor, newspapers reported on Monday.
``Just like the Iraqi reactor was destroyed, I want the Israeli reactor destroyed,'' Vanunu, referring to Israel's 1981 bombing near Baghdad, was quoted as saying in a videotaped meeting recently with security officers.
``I am defending the Arab world,'' he said in the interview, according to a transcript carried by newspapers. The tape was to be broadcast later in the day.
Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona reactor, was jailed in 1986 as a traitor after disclosing information to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper which led analysts to conclude Israel had produced as many as 200 nuclear bombs at the facility.
Israel maintains a strategic ambiguity over its nuclear program in an attempt to ward off its foes while avoiding a regional arms race. It has kept the Dimona facility, in southern Israel, closed to international inspection. Vanunu, 49, is expected to be placed under restrictions as soon as he is released on Wednesday, the government having decided to bar him from leaving the country, tap his phone and bar his access to the press for a probationary period.
Release of the videotape appeared aimed at bolstering the government's case in a court challenge Israel's civil liberties union is mounting on Vanunu's behalf against the edicts.
Challenging Israel's right to exist, he declared: ``There is no need for a Jewish state. There should be a Palestinian state. Whoever wants to be Jewish can live anywhere.''
Vanunu said he hoped to fight the restrictions and move overseas. He denied having anything sensitive left to divulge and threatened to defy some restrictions using the Internet.
``I've been inside for 20 years, everything has changed. Science has advanced...so what I saw seems very outdated to me,'' Vanunu said.
Vanunu also maintained he was neither a spy nor a traitor.
``I wanted to inform the world about what happened. It's not treason,'' and outside Israel ``five or six billion people (see me)...as a positive figure.''
Asked why he had chosen to convert to Christianity back in the 1980s, Vanunu replied: ``I think Islam and Judaism are both the same backward religion...Christianity is progressive.''
--------
The Vanunu Myths and Israeli Deterrence Policy
Gerald M. Steinberg
Institute for Contemporary Affairs founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation
JERUSALEM ISSUE BRIEF
Vol. 3, No. 22
19 April 2004
http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief3-22.htm
- The concept of "whistle blower" refers to individuals who go public with information on corrupt practices and violations of the law, enabling the constituted authorities to hold the culprits accountable. In contrast, by seeking to impose his personal views of Israeli security requirements on the elected representatives of the Israeli government, Vanunu acted in violation of the law and the core principles of democracy.
- The development of Israel's strategic deterrent capability resulted from the threat to national survival posed by Arab and Islamic rejectionism, and any decision to dismantle this deterrent depends on the end of this threat.
- Vanunu's supporters do not offer any pragmatic alternatives or strategies to prevent attacks against Israel, or evidence to support claims that if Israel were to give up its nuclear deterrent, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and other regional powers would cease to be threats.
- Israel's nuclear option is credited with forcing Egypt and Syria to limit their attacks in the 1973 war; with bringing Sadat to the realization that he must make peace with Israel; and with deterring Saddam Hussein from using chemical warheads in the 1991 missile attacks against Israel.
- Unlike Iran, Iraq under Saddam, and Libya, Israel did not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has not violated any of its terms. Israel has not tested nuclear weapons and declared itself officially to be a nuclear power.
Increasing attention in the Arab world and Europe is being devoted to "nuclear whistle blower" Mordechai Vanunu, scheduled to be released this month at the end of his 18-year prison sentence. Therefore, a review of the facts and context of the Vanunu case may be helpful in order to clarify Israel's nuclear policy.
For the past three decades, Israel's nuclear deterrent is widely credited with offsetting the asymmetries that encouraged major attacks, creating a degree of stability, and convincing some Arab leaders, including Sadat, of the need for peace. Unlike Iran, Iraq under Saddam, and Libya, which blatantly violated the terms of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to seek illicit weapons, Israel did not sign the treaty, and has not violated any of its terms. Furthermore, unlike India and Pakistan, Israel has not tested nuclear weapons and declared itself officially to be a nuclear power.
Vanunu undermined the core security policies of the democratically elected government of Israel, and, with external assistance, sought to transform his private views into national policy. In this context, the accolade "whistle blower" is entirely inappropriate. He violated the terms of his employment at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility and sold information to journalists. This was the basis for his trial, conviction, and prison sentence.
Israeli Strategic Deterrence and the Vanunu Case
The ostensible reason for Vanunu's revelation of Israel's "nuclear secrets" is his opposition, on what he claims to be moral grounds, to Israel's nuclear deterrence strategy. On this basis, Vanunu's cause has been adopted by anti-nuclear campaigners around the world, who have also nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Yet this messianic crusade is based on a very unrealistic view of history, in which wars, terrorism, and Arab threats to destroy Israel have been conveniently erased. Vanunu's supporters do not offer any pragmatic alternatives or strategies to prevent attacks against Israel, or evidence to support claims that if Israel were to give up its nuclear deterrent, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and other regional powers would cease to be threats.
In contrast, a large majority of Israelis support Israel's current nuclear policy.1 They view the development of a nuclear option as necessary to deter the possibility of combined Arab attacks, as have occurred in the past. All Israeli prime ministers have realized that the geographic and demographic asymmetries in the region leave Israel quite vulnerable to attack. Its tiny size prevents the possibility of "strategic depth" - the ability to absorb a first strike or surprise attack and then launch a counter-attack. Geographically, Israel appears to be a very weak state, wide open to attack by any external enemy.
As British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw recently noted, the threat of extinction "places Israel in a different security category from any other country in the world." Similarly, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, "Israel is a small state with a small population. It's a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood [where many] prefer it not be there and they'd like it to be put in the sea. And Israel...has arranged itself so it hasn't been put in the sea."2
The Logic of Deterrence
Based on the uniqueness of the Israeli threat environment, David Ben-Gurion authorized the development of a strategic deterrent designed to overcome the inherent geographic asymmetry by demonstrating that an attack that endangers Israel's survival would trigger a counter-attack that would have a parallel impact. The logic of deterrence is based on the assumption that Israel's enemies - Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. - would recognize that they could not destroy Israel without causing their own destruction. This threat did not have to be explicit - rational decision-makers would understand the implications and act accordingly, even without overt declarations and nuclear tests.
The core of this policy of "strategic ambiguity" is the Dimona nuclear reactor, where construction began in the late 1950s, providing Israel with a clear potential for retaliation. At the same time, the low profile meant that this did not trigger a nuclear arms race in the region, and also allowed for reduction of friction with the United States over this issue.
Since the mid-1960s, when Dimona became operational, Israel's ambiguous deterrence policy has worked well, and has enjoyed consistent and wide support from all political and military leaders, as well as the Israeli political consensus. With the singular exception of Vanunu, no one has taken it upon himself to reverse this strategy through unilateral action.
Israel's nuclear option is credited with forcing Egypt and Syria to limit their attacks in the 1973 war; with bringing Sadat to the realization that he must make peace with Israel; and with deterring Saddam Hussein from using chemical warheads in the 1991 missile attacks against Israel. If, as expected, Iran's fundamentalist Islamic government, which repeatedly declares its goal of destroying Israel, succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons, Israeli planners will rely on deterrence to prevent Iranian aggression.3
Israel's policy of deterrence based on nuclear ambiguity - neither confirming the existence of a weapons capability, nor denying it - is dependent on keeping the details out of the spotlight. Vanunu's tale and the accompanying photographs had exactly the opposite impact. International attention was suddenly focused on exposing "Israel's nuclear secrets," raising questions of the size of the Israeli nuclear stockpile and the nature of its weapons.
Vanunu gave away few, if any, real "secrets." Most of the information that he divulged was either already known among experts or was of questionable reliability, concerning areas and details to which Vanunu - a low-level technician - had no access. (Indeed, some foreign analysts and conspiracy enthusiasts claimed that Vanunu was really a Mossad agent, and that his "revelations" were really part of a clever plot to boost the credibility of Israel's deterrent.) The decision of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Shimon Peres to lure Vanunu to Rome and then bring him to Israel for trial added to his credibility and helped to confirm the reliability of the newspaper interviews. In retrospect, it might have been better, in terms of Israeli interests and policy, had Vanunu's revelations been ignored and ridiculed, although this might have been seen as weakness, and allowed for more self-styled crusaders to sell their secrets to journalists.
In recent years, in international frameworks such as the UN and NPT review conferences, Israel has come under increasing pressure, largely led by Egypt (particularly during Amr Musa's tenure as foreign minister), to end the ambiguity and deterrence capability. The simplistic campaign to tie the image of Israel to nuclear weapons and mass destruction is consistent with the efforts to delegitimize and isolate Israel in the international arena. Arab officials,4 European government representatives, UN diplomats, journalists, and NGOs that are spearheading the demonization of Israel in other dimensions are also active on the nuclear issue.5 From this perspective, the campaign in support of Vanunu and against Israel's nuclear deterrent policy is an important instrument in the broader political war against Israel.
The Myth of the "Whistle Blower"
Beyond the critical issues of deterrence and survival, the use of "whistle blower" to describe Vanunu is entirely inappropriate and false. The concept refers to individuals who go public with information on corrupt practices and violations of the law, enabling the constituted authorities to hold the culprits accountable through due process of law. Real whistle blowers have been instrumental in publicizing and ending illegal pollution of the environmental, secret kickbacks paid to politicians for government contracts, and similar violations.
In contrast, by seeking to impose his personal views of Israeli security requirements on the elected representatives of the Israeli government, Vanunu acted in violation of the law and the core principles of democracy. Vanunu never claimed that his former employer - the Israel Atomic Energy Commission - violated any statutes or obligations, or acted illegally or without authorization.
The primary claim voiced by Vanunu and his supporters (most of whom are not Israelis) is that in maintaining a policy of ambiguity regarding its nuclear option, Israel has infringed on moral principles and norms. This is a personal position - an opinion - and no individual, including Vanunu, has any right to impose his views on others. But this is exactly what Vanunu attempted to do.
After Vanunu left his job at Dimona, he began to travel and ended up in Sydney, Australia, without funds or skills. In 1986 he converted to Christianity, and church officials there, learning of his "unusual" background, got in touch with journalists. The Sunday Times flew him to London, negotiated a substantial payment, and published the information and photos that Vanunu provided, as well as considerable speculation and mythology.
Of the many Israelis who have been involved in Israel's nuclear program since the 1950s, only one - Vanunu - has violated the rules of the game and gone public.6 This makes his singular betrayal of trust all the more unacceptable to the vast majority of Israelis.
Given the continuing messianic self-image of Vanunu and his supporters, and the readiness of Arab, Iranian, and other officials to seek to use this case to strip Israel of its strategic deterrent, efforts to restrict his movements are understandable. Vanunu might provide information not previously revealed, such as the names of his co-workers. As a result, after his release, Vanunu will be barred from leaving the country, speaking to journalists or diplomats, and his freedom of movement will be limited and monitored. There is concern that he will try to seek asylum in a foreign embassy or church, and Jerusalem Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal (a Palestinian Arab) declared his readiness to assist.
A Middle East Free of Nuclear Weapons - Dreams and Realities
The development of Israel's strategic deterrent capability resulted from the threat to national survival posed by Arab and Islamic rejectionism, and any decision to dismantle this deterrent depends on the end of this threat. As long as the open hostility of these regimes continues, the concept of a Middle East nuclear-weapons free zone (MENWFZ) remains very far-fetched.
The continued Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, in violation of its undertakings under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the failure, to date, of the International Atomic Energy Agency (charged with verifying the treaty) to halt this activity, highlights the continuing dangers.
Notes
1. Poll of Israel Public Opinion - National Security Survey - 2002, Almidan/Mahshov Research Institute, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2003.
2. http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040207-0432.html.
3. Gerald M. Steinberg, "Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East," NonProliferation Review, 7:1 (Fall-Winter 2000); http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~steing/conflict/armspapers/Parameters_of_Stable%20Deterrence_in_ a_Proliferated_Middle_East.htm.
4. For example, Amr Mousa, who served for many years as Egyptian Foreign Minister and led the anti-Israel campaign during the 1995 NPT Review conference, is also active in the delegitimization activities as head of the Arab League. The Arab press is also active in promoting the Vanunu myths; see http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/680/re103.htm and http://www.palestinemonitor.org/takpoints/the_man_who_ knew_too_much_mordechai_vanunu.htm.
5. For example, Robert Fisk of The Independent (UK) is one of the leading anti-Israel publicists campaigning against Israeli defense against Palestinian terrorism, and is also very active in promoting Vanunu and condemning Israel's nuclear policy. Among the NGOs, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are also active in both dimensions, and HRW sponsors the screening of films "exposing the secrets of Dimona." See http://www.hrw.org/iff/2003/london/dimona.html.
6. Unlike Vanunu, Avner Cohen (author of Israel and the Bomb) was not involved in nuclear policy on an official level, but published his book in the U.S. after the military censor prohibited Israeli publication of an earlier manuscript. In another case, Brigadier General Yitzhak Yaakov, who had held high-level positions in the security structure, was tried for attempting to publicize his own role in the development of the nuclear deterrent, which is also very different from the Vanunu case.
--
Gerald M. Steinberg is a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and director of the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation at Bar-Ilan University.
Dore Gold, Publisher; Mark Ami-El, Managing Editor. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Registered Amuta), 13 Tel-Hai St., Jerusalem, Israel; Tel. 972-2-5619281, Fax. 972-2-5619112, Email: jcpa@n.... In U.S.A.: Center for Jewish Community Studies, 5800 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215 USA, Tel. (410) 664-5222; Fax. (410) 664-1228. Website: www.jcpa.org.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
The Institute for Contemporary Affairs (ICA) is dedicated to providing a forum for Israeli policy discussion and debate.
-------- korea
S. Korea Eyes China's Nuclear Power Market
By REUTERS
April 19, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-utilities-korea-china.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's state-run nuclear power firm said on Monday it had formed a consortium with local companies to bid for nuclear power projects abroad, including the growing Chinese market.
A spokesman for Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co (KHNP), a unit of state-run power monopoly Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), said the consortium included builder Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Ltd and two other KEPCO units.
KHNP operates all 18 of the country's nuclear power plants.
``We formed the consortium to bid for overseas orders, but we haven't been awarded any contracts as yet,'' he said, adding that no bids had been submitted so far.
``We are awaiting tenders from China.''
KHNP has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indonesian government for a three-year feasibility study on nuclear power plants.
Competition for a bigger slice of energy-hungry China's growing nuclear power market is heating up as France, the United States and Russia vie to win lucrative Chinese energy projects.
The spokesman said the two other KEPCO units were focused on fuel supply and plant design and that Doosan Heavy had already exported steam generators to China, the United States and Taiwan.
South Korea, which relies on nuclear energy for 40 percent of its electricity needs, built its first nuclear power plants decades ago with U.S. or European technology, but now has the capability to export its own reactors.
Robust economic growth and a worsening power shortage has spurred China to accelerate construction of nuclear power plants. Beijing hopes to quadruple its nuclear power capacity to more than 32,000 megawatts (MW) by building roughly two plants per year between 2005 and 2020.
China has built eight reactors over the past two decades.
The Chinese government is evaluating proposals to build four 1,000-MW plants costing an estimated $6 billion in eastern and Guangdong provinces, but no time frame has been set for a decision.
Framatome ANP, a venture between France's Areva and Germany's Siemens, Electricite de France, and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, an unlisted global nuclear equipment maker have shown keen interest in breaking into the Chinese market.
-------- missile defense
Rocky roads
By SAM BISHOP
News-Miner Washington Bureau
Monday, April 19, 2004
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113%7E7244%7E2093912,00.html
WASHINGTON--Interceptors for the new missile defense system can't be landed at Fort Greely's airfield until it is fixed sometime this summer, according to military officials.
The military has the money to do the job, thanks to about $45 million delivered in the last two federal fiscal years.
The work should be starting soon, said Maj. Eric Maxon, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency's site activation command in Alaska.
Missile Defense Agency officials have said in reports released in recent months that the missile system may be functioning at Fort Greely as early as midsummer.
Until the Allen Army Airfield is fixed, though, the interceptors must be flown into Eielson Air Force Base southeast of Fairbanks and then trucked 80 miles to Fort Greely, Maxon said.
The official goal is still to have up to six interceptors ready to fire by the end of the year, Maxon said.
Even with the airfield difficulties, the MDA expects to meet that goal, he said.
"We are on track to provide the initial capability by the end of the year," he said.
Critics of the missile defense system have said that the Bush administration is rushing it into operation to meet a political deadline--the November election.
The Pentagon's chief testing and evaluation official said in a report earlier this year that the system might be put in place by this fall, but it will not have had the testing necessary to tell whether it will work in a real emergency.
Missile defense officials say it's better to have some capability than none at all.
For security reasons, Maxon said, he couldn't say when the first interceptors will be arriving in Alaska.
"Those components will be delivered to Fort Greely throughout the course of this year to meet initial defensive operations," he said.
According to last year's environmental impact statement on the system, the interceptors are about 54 feet long and 4 feet in diameter, and weigh up to 25 tons. They hold about 45,000 pounds of solid propellant.
Alaskans driving between Eielson and Greely shouldn't expect the Richardson Highway to be blocked during transport of the missiles, Maxon said.
"We're not expecting any significant delays in traffic," Maxon said. "They may slow traffic on inclines but no more than a motor home caravan--that's pretty common in the summer in Alaska."
Military officials have been aware of trouble at the Allen Army Airfield for several years.
The runway fell out of use in the first part of the decade as the base was all but shut down through the nationwide base closing and realignment process. In November 2001, a 10-year-old boy had to be driven by ambulance to Fairbanks after a trailer tongue fell on him, because the field hadn't been plowed and a medevac plane couldn't land. The nearby town of Delta Junction only has a daylight airport.
"We don't really have a mission there," said an Army Alaska spokesman at the time. "There's no system in place, nor is there a requirement to do it."
During the next year, as it became clearer that the fort would house a missile defense site of some sort, the military's interest in the field renewed.
In the fall of 2002, Congress agreed to spend $12 million for design and construction work on the main runway. That money was to extend the field, build turn-arounds and install a de-icing system.
The big money didn't arrive until September of last year, though. Congress approved another $33 million in the Defense Department's fiscal 2004 appropriations bill for repairs and new paving.
Two months later, the Air Force's Air Mobility Command issued a report on the field's condition.
"Air Mobility Command officials did find Allen Army Airfield to be unsuitable for heavylift aircraft operations due to lack of adequate weight-bearing capabilities and deteriorating runway conditions," said Mark Voorhis, spokesman at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, in an e-mail this week.
Heavylift aircraft include the C-141 Starlifter, the C-17 Globemaster III and the C-5 Galaxy, Voorhis said.
"Once AAAF runways are repaired, AMC officials will reassess them and the Airfield Suitability Report will be updated," Voorhis said.
Maxon, with the MDA's site activation command, said he didn't have information immediately available about whether a contract to fix the field had been issued yet.
"That work will commence here as soon as weather conditions allow it, and spring is arriving rapidly," he said. "Things are warming up and the snow is melting pretty fast."
Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop can be reached at sbishop@newsminer.com or (202) 662-8721.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- colorado
Researcher: open Rocky Flats slowly to public
Associated Press
Apr. 19, 2004
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0419rockyflats-ON.html
GOLDEN, Colo. - A University of Colorado researcher says visitors will face little risk of contamination at a wildlife refuge at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, but the area should be opened to the public slowly.
James Ruttenber of the CU's School of Medicine has conducted extensive studies of cancer rates among people who worked at Rocky Flats. He said the risk of contamination would be minimal in outlying areas of the 6,200-acre site northwest of Denver.
Still, Ruttenber said, the reasonable approach would be to take time in allowing visitors to the site, which will be a national wildlife refuge once cleaned up.
Boulder County and the cities of Boulder and Superior say recreational use of the site should be restricted because of the plutonium and other materials that were at the plant for decades.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which will manage the refuge, is taking comments on plans for the site. Fish and Wildlife proposes limited public access on designated trails.
Ruttenber said a reasonable approach would be to monitor the area for a while before allowing regular visits. Fish and Wildlife workers should be on the lookout for places where things might be buried.
"A lot of this is perception and building confidence," Ruttenber said.
He noted that bomblets containing the nerve agent sarin have been found at the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Commerce City, also being converted to a federal wildlife refuge.
Parts of the arsenal, a Superfund cleanup site, were closed to public while crews searched for more munitions. Chemical weapons and pesticides were produced at the arsenal for decades.
Rocky Flats made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons from the 1950s to 1989. The last weapons-grade plutonium was removed in August.
-------- washington
No more nuclear waste
MONDAY April 19, 2004
Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04192004/public_f/158539.asp
I read "Hanford nuclear site workers' concerns prompt investigation of facility, protocol" (Tribune, April 10) with great interest. The Hanford site, the infamous Fernald site, Rocky Flats and a number of other facilities that were used to manufacture uranium and plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons are now contaminated with highly radioactive waste that no one wants. Turns out, a lot of this waste has been dumped in Utah.
An issue that is frequently glossed over in discussions of resuming nuclear testing is waste generation. As the article discusses, the cleanup at Hanford is expected to cost upward of $50 billion in taxes and will not be finished until 2035 at best. The administration is seeking nearly $30 million for the construction of a new Hanford, known as the Modern Pit Facility. What deadly waste and contamination will be generated there? How much will the cleanup and decontamination of that site cost? Could any of that waste be slated for Utah?
In upcoming months, Sens. Bennett and Hatch will have the opportunity to vote on whether to appropriate funding for this new nuclear bomb factory. If our senators are serious about representing Utahns' interests, they will vote against funding the Modern Pit Facility and against all government activities that pave the way toward resuming nuclear weapons testing.
Vanessa Pierce Salt Lake City
-------- us politics
President Bush's Global Nonproliferation Policy: Seven More Proposals
by Henry Sokolski
Heritage Lecture #829
April 19, 2004
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl829.cfm
Among post-Cold War presidencies, the Bush Administration is unique and deserves credit in emphasizing nonproliferation enforcement--particularly in the cases of North Korea, Iraq, and Libya. In fact, the example the Bush Administration has set in these cases has prompted the most significant debate about how to strengthen nonproliferation since India exploded its first bomb in 1974. We need to exploit this window of interest to toughen nonproliferation enforcement, close as many loopholes as we can, and do so in as country-neutral a fashion as possible.
To this end, the Administration itself has proposed a new, tougher set of nonproliferation rules. By far, the most important of these have to do with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Nearly all of these suggestions can be found among the seven specific proposals the President made on February 11, 2004, in an address at the National Defense University (NDU). These proposals are significant. Properly understood, they recommend an accurate reading of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)--one that is truer to the NPT's original intent and one that deflates mistaken treaty interpretations that have enabled North Korea, Libya, Iran, and, earlier, Iraq to acquire much of what is needed to make bombs.
President George W. Bush rightly characterized these misguided views as a "cynical manipulation" of the NPT. Specifically, those who want to acquire or share nuclear weapons technology have twisted the NPT's call for the sharing of peaceful nuclear technology into an unqualified right to "the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information."
This it clearly is not. As the NPT's first article makes clear, no nuclear weapons state that is a party to the NPT (the United States, Russia, China, France, or the United Kingdom) is permitted to "in any way...assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon state to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." Similarly, the NPT's second article prohibits all other members of the treaty from "manufactur[ing] or otherwise acquir[ing] nuclear weapons" and from "seek[ing] or receiv[ing] any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons." When the NPT speaks in Article IV about "the inalienable right" of NPT members to develop nuclear energy "without discrimination," it explicitly circumscribes this right by demanding that it be exercised "in conformity" with the first and second articles.
For years, too little effort has been made to define what "in conformity" means. This is what President Bush tackled in his February 11 address. He rightly emphasized that nations seeking to develop peaceful nuclear energy have no need for either materials that can be used directly to fuel bombs--separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium--or the uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing plants required to produce these materials. As such, he proposed that the world's leading nuclear suppliers of relatively safer lightly enriched uranium fuel only supply this fuel to nuclear energy-developing states that are willing to renounce trying to build enrichment and reprocessing facilities themselves. He further proposed that nuclear supplier states should refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing equipment or technology to any state that does not already "possess full-scale functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants."
Beyond this, the President proposed to strengthen international efforts to interdict illicit nuclear shipments and procurement networks; do more to reduce the accessibility to nuclear weapons-usable materials; and tighten procedures at the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Finally, President Bush urged that within a year, no nuclear supplier should export nuclear equipment to any state that has not yet signed the new, tougher IAEA inspections agreement known as the Additional Protocol.
All of these proposals constitute a needed departure from nuclear "business as usual." They all give teeth to the NPT's prohibitions against the export and acquisition of nuclear weapons. They also constitute a useful extension of the calls by former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, nearly 30 years ago, to discourage the use of nuclear weapons-usable fuels for commercial purposes.
President Bush's proposals, though, should not be seen as being all that is required, but rather as first steps. In fact, several additional measures logically follow from the President's seven proposals and will be needed to assure their success. Building on the Bush proposals, the U.S., other nuclear suppliers, and like-minded states will also need to:
1. Suspend efforts now to sell controlled nuclear goods to countries that export nuclear commodities in defiance of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines;
2. View large civilian nuclear projects--including nuclear power and desalinization plants, large research reactors, and regional fuel cycle centers--with suspicion if they are not privately financed or approved after an open bidding process against less risky alternatives;
3. Starting with the U.S., but including Pakistan and India, formally get as many declared nuclear weapons states as possible to agree henceforth to not redeploy nuclear weapons onto any other state's soil in peacetime and to make the transfer of nuclear weapons-usable material to other nations illicit if the transfer is made for a purpose other than to dispose of the material or to make it less accessible;
4. Refuse to buy or sell any controlled nuclear items or materials from or to new states attempting to develop enrichment or reprocessing plants;
5. Demand that states that fail to declare nuclear facilities to the IAEA (as required by their safeguards agreement) dismantle them in order to come back into full compliance and disallow states that are not clearly in full compliance from legally leaving the NPT without first surrendering the nuclear capabilities they gained while NPT members;
6. Support U.N. adoption of a series of country-neutral rules that track the above recommendations to be applied to any nation that the IAEA and the United Nations Security Council cannot clearly find in full compliance with the NPT; and
7. Build on the successful precedent of Libya's nuclear renunciation by getting its neighbors--starting with Algeria--to shut down their largest nuclear facilities.
What do these proposals entail? How do they relate to the President's efforts? Why do they deserve attention now? To answer these questions, each proposal is examined more closely below.
1. Suspend efforts now to sell controlled nuclear goods to countries that export nuclear commodities in defiance of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines.
Nearly half of President Bush's seven nuclear nonproliferation proposals were aimed at restricting what nuclear suppliers can export under the guidelines of the NSG--a multilateral nuclear control regime. One of the most important of his proposals is "that by next year, only states that have signed the Additional Protocol be allowed to import equipment for the civilian nuclear programs."
This is a sensible restriction, but it ought not to wait. Indeed, its credibility may be undermined unless we speak up and act to back it now. In this regard, a clear test case is China's recently announced reactor sales to the world's worst proliferator, Pakistan--a nation that has neither allowed full-scope IAEA safeguards (as required by the NSG) nor signed the Additional Protocol. China announced January 27, 2004, that it intends to become a full-fledged member of the NSG. Yet, only weeks later, news reports emerged detailing Chinese plans to build Pakistan two large power reactors.
The NSG guidelines proscribe such sales: NSG members are not allowed to sell any such controlled nuclear items to states that do not allow the IAEA to inspect all of their nuclear facilities. Technically, of course, China may claim it can make these sales because it is not yet formally a member of the NSG. Yet this hardly recommends U.S. silence. Certainly, if we can't find anything sufficiently wrong to publicly protest these reactor sales to Pakistan--a country that would have difficulty justifying the financial extravagance of two new nuclear power plants, has the world's worst proliferation record, and is the least bound by nonproliferation pledges or agreements--on what basis could we protest any other nation's nuclear imports?
Yet, to date, there is no evidence that the U.S. or any of its allies have protested. Instead, our government apparently is preparing to do all that it can during Vice President Dick Cheney's April visit to Beijing to sell China a heavily U.S.-subsidized Westinghouse reactor design known as the AP 1000. This pitch could not be more poorly timed. Admittedly, the French and the Japanese are also trying to sell reactors to China, so competition exists. Still, it would make far more sense for the U.S. to protest China's sale to Pakistan and to urge Japan and France to join us in withholding nuclear sales to China until it drops its proposed Pakistani reactor bid.
China should at least be urged to hold off until Pakistan reveals its proliferation activities. Such an appeal is clearly within our power to pursue. To fail to do so now simply suggests that we are not serious about the President's proposal, about backing or strengthening the NSG, or about promoting nuclear restraint in general.
1. View large civilian nuclear projects--including nuclear power and desalinization plants, large research reactors, and regional fuel cycle centers--with suspicion if they are not privately financed or approved after an open bidding process against less risky alternatives.
Among the most important of President Bush's proposals are those that would restrict fresh reactor fuel exports to nations that fail to renounce enrichment and reprocessing, and to ban reprocessing and enrichment exports to states that do not already have "full-scale functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants." As the President noted in his February 11 NDU speech, these steps are essential to prevent new states from making nuclear weapons fuel.
This is not because we can detect covert reprocessing or enrichment activities in a timely fashion. As our experience with covert enrichment and reprocessing activities in Iran and North Korea demonstrates, we cannot. Nonetheless, it is still important to make new reprocessing and enrichment activities illicit, if only to prevent discovered covert reprocessors and enrichers from legally excusing themselves by claiming--as Iran did--that they merely "forgot" to notify the IAEA of their activities.
Making the mere possession of such facilities illicit should at least make exposed covert reprocessing and enrichment activities clearly out-of-bounds. However, the only surefire technical safeguard against suspect nations quickly acquiring nuclear weapons is to prevent them from acquiring significant amounts of fresh, lightly enriched fuel or from generating significant quantities of spent reactor fuel. Lightly enriched uranium can be fed into a covert enrichment line to make a bomb's worth of highly enriched uranium in a matter of days: Spent fuel can be covertly reprocessed to extract a bomb's worth of plutonium just as quickly. Both of these materials are part and parcel of nearly any large reactor's operation. This means that not only will we need a rule that will help make suspect reprocessing and enrichment-related facilities illicit, but we will need a country-neutral way to spotlight suspect nuclear reactors as well.
How might this be done? Fortunately, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of free markets and competition can help. As it turns out, many large commercial nuclear projects and all suspect nuclear projects in less developed nations are demonstrably uneconomical compared to less risky options. Nuclear power and desalinization plants have significantly higher capital costs than their non-nuclear alternatives. In poorly developed countries, the performance of these plants has been abysmal.
Given the surfeit of isotope-producing research reactors--nearly 300 are in operation in 69 countries worldwide--there is scarcely any economic justification for the further construction of additional large research reactors: One can import medical, agricultural, and industrial isotopes from existing machines and send one's scientists to do research much more cheaply than one can build a large research reactor. Virtually all of the existing reactors can be converted to run on non-weapons-useable fuels.
As for recent Department of Energy (DOE) and IAEA proposals to create regional reprocessing and enrichment parks, these too are a bad buy. Right now, we have more than enough enrichment capacity to supply lightly enriched fuel to the on-line civilian reactors. If anything, the lack of demand would suggest the need to further downsize existing enrichment capacity.
Reprocessing, meanwhile, is an uneconomical answer to a problem that doesn't exit: It makes much more sense, from a security and economic perspective, to store spent fuel in casks and to use fresh reactor fuel rather than to recycle weapons-usable plutonium for civilian reactor use.
What this suggests, then, is a simple tenet: Any large civilian nuclear project that is started before considering safer alternatives in an open international bidding process should be regarded as suspect. Certainly, Iran's power reactor and enrichment activities, as well as North Korea's entire program, Pakistan's import of Chinese reactors, Algeria's large research reactor, and Brazil's proposed uranium enrichment undertaking, would all fail this test. To make this guideline credible, however, the U.S. and its allies will have to apply it to their own civilian nuclear undertakings as well.
The good news is that we are well on our way to doing this. Germany and the United Kingdom have either terminated state support of their nuclear industry or established clear deadlines for doing so. Recently, the U.S. Congress refused to pass an energy bill that contained billions of dollars in guaranteed loans to utilities that might buy new reactors and also put aside hundreds of millions of dollars more to build a commercial-sized hydrogen-producing reactor. This year, the Department of Energy quietly killed plans to build commercial-sized versions of its Generation IV reactors.
We need to continue this sensible trend. Further federal funding of commercial-sized undertakings such as the Westinghouse AP1000 and the ill-starred $6 billion-plus mixed oxide plutonium disposition program should also cease. This should not be seen as anti-nuclear, but rather as anti-subsidized commercialization. Certainly, if it made sense for Congress and Ronald Reagan to oppose federal funding of such large and potentially dangerous energy projects on economic grounds 20 years ago, it makes even more sense today--after 9/11 and the clear lag now in nuclear demand.
1. Starting with the U.S., but including Pakistan and India, formally get as many declared nuclear weapons states as possible to agree henceforth to not redeploy nuclear weapons onto any other state's soil in peacetime and to make the transfer of nuclear weapons - usable material to other nations illicit if the transfer is made for a purpose other than to dispose of the material or to make it less accessible.
One of the most nettlesome nonproliferation challenges President Bush discussed in his February 11 NDU speech was reining in the nuclear proliferation activities of non-NPT states such as Pakistan. Islamabad's blatant proliferation activities technically broke no law. Even worse proliferation, however, is possible: There is reason to worry that a future Pakistan might transfer nuclear weapons to another country. Saudi Arabian officials are reported to be studying how they might acquire nuclear weapons from another country such as Pakistan.
What makes these plans plausible--besides Pakistan's and Saudi Arabia's close security ties--is that they could be carried out legally under the NPT. The treaty, in fact, allows nuclear weapons to be transferred to non-weapons state members (e.g., to nations like Saudi Arabia) so long as the weapons remain under the control of the exporting state. This loophole was explicitly inserted into the NPT in the l960s by U.S. officials who were anxious to continue deploying U.S. tactical nuclear weapons on NATO's and Pacific allies' soil.
Today, keeping this loophole open no longer looks so attractive. In fact, the U.S. has already withdrawn its tactical nuclear weapons from foreign allied bases it had in the Pacific, including South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. The reason is simple: With air- and sea-launched cruise missiles, nuclear-capable carrier-based aircraft, stealth bombers, and accurate submarine-launched and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles to quickly deliver nuclear weapons, there is no longer any need to base tactical nuclear weapons on foreign soil.
The U.S. is now withdrawing much of its military from Europe. As these troops are withdrawn and as concerns about nuclear terrorism and proliferation grow, the rationale for keeping U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in places like Germany will become weaker, and the desire to prevent other states from redeploying their nuclear weapons onto other states' soil will increase. To address this concern, it would be useful to close the loophole in the NPT that allows this.
The question is how. Some have suggested that we simply make these nations nuclear weapons state members of the NPT. The problem with this approach is that such a move would appear to reward states that have stayed out of the treaty and violated its tenets. A sensible alternative would be for the United States to work with as many nuclear weapons states as possible to get a formal agreement that, henceforth, no nation will redeploy nuclear weapons onto another nation's soil during peacetime. The U.S. could also try to get other nuclear weapons states to agree to make the redeployment of such weapons or the transfer of nuclear weapons-usable materials illicit so long as the transfer was for purposes other than disposing of these materials or making them less accessible.
If the U.S. agreed to impose such limits on itself, it could help persuade other nuclear weapons states--including those that have not yet signed the NPT--to agree to do so as well. Finally, one could match such diplomatic efforts with initiatives to get as many non-weapons states as possible to agree not to receive nuclear weapons in peacetime.
1. Refuse to buy or sell any controlled nuclear items or materials from or to new states attempting to develop enrichment or reprocessing plants.
President Bush proposed that nuclear supplier states not sell fresh fuel to nations that are unwilling to renounce reprocessing or enrichment, and that they should refuse to sell any enrichment or reprocessing technology and equipment to states that do not already possess "full-scale functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants." Implementing these rules would certainly help establish a norm against the further spread of commercial reprocessing and enrichment plants. What would be more effective in deterring new states from developing reprocessing or enrichment, however, would be to cut off the nuclear commercial intercourse with such states by getting the NSG membership, and as many other states as possible, to refuse to buy or sell any controlled nuclear commodities from or to new states attempting to develop enrichment or reprocessing plants.
Who would this rule hit hardest? Iran is a prime example. Nuclear officials in Iran claim that they intend to export reactor fuel from their uranium enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities.
If the U.S. is firm about what constitutes "full-scale functioning plants," Brazil and Argentina could also be affected. Brazil is about to launch a commercial enrichment effort at Resende. Officials there concede, however, that their effort would not be able to supply even 60 percent of Brazil's own fuel requirements until the year 2010. They have not even reached an agreement with the IAEA about the proper safeguarding of Brazil's enrichment facility. Still, Brazilian officials have already announced that they intend to export enriched uranium by 2014.
Certainly, if the U.S. and other like-minded nations grandfather Brazil's enrichment effort as being "full-scale and functioning" while demanding that Iran shut its facilities down, the hypocrisy would be more than just clumsy: It would undermine the credibility of the President's enrichment and reprocessing restrictions for any other country. As for Argentina, it is considering offering reprocessing services to states that buy its large export research reactors.
Neither of these countries' nuclear programs could survive in the short run without nuclear imports. More important, neither could credibly push their enrichment and reprocessing efforts without customers. If the U.S. is serious about achieving the President's goal of freezing the number of states that have reprocessing and enrichment plants, pursuing this complement to the President's proposals would be useful.
1. Demand that states that fail to declare nuclear facilities to the IAEA (as required by their safeguards agreement) dismantle them in order to come back into full compliance and disallow states that are not clearly in full compliance from legally leaving the NPT without first surrendering the nuclear capabilities they gained while NPT members.
The Bush Administration, indirectly by its actions and words in North Korea, Iraq, and Libya, has gone a long way toward establishing the rule that whenever a violating nation fails properly to declare nuclear facilities to the IAEA, it must dismantle them in order to come back into full compliance with its NPT obligations. What the U.S. should do now is to propose this requirement explicitly.
This would certainly be a helpful, country-neutral rule to have in place when dealing with countries like Iran. The U.S. should also make it clear that no nation that the IAEA and the U.N. Security Council is unable to clearly find in full compliance with the NPT will be allowed to leave the treaty legally without first surrendering all the nuclear capabilities it gained while a member of the NPT. The idea behind this is that one cannot enter into a contract, gain the means to violate it, proceed to do so (or announce the intent to do so), and not be held accountable.
Some U.S. government legal counsels have objected to this commonsense requirement out of fear that it might somehow raise questions about the legality of the U.S. withdrawing from treaty obligations, such as the ABM Treaty. Their concerns, however, are unfounded: The U.S. is a law-abiding nation that complies with its treaty obligations. If it takes actions inconsistent with a treaty, it only does so after it is no longer a member or because it has formally chosen not to be a party. This certainly was the case with the ABM Treaty.
1. Support U.N. adoption of a series of country-neutral rules that track the above recommendations to be applied to any nation that the IAEA and the United Nations Security Council cannot clearly find in full compliance with the NPT.
The idea here would be to take advantage of something that, so far, has frustrated U.S. and allied diplomats--the difficulty that the IAEA and the U.N. Security Council have in making definitive determinations. Rather than wait upon either of these bodies actually to find a specific country in clear violation of the NPT and then try to get a consensus to sanction, it would make far more sense to delineate in country-neutral terms and in advance what the minimal consequences should be for any country the IAEA and the U.N. Security Council cannot clearly find to be in full compliance. This approach has the clear advantage of being country-neutral and of forcing the IAEA and the U.N. Security Council to reach consensus only if they want to prevent action.
1. Build on the successful precedent of Libya's nuclear renunciation by getting its neighbors--starting with Algeria--to shut down their largest nuclear facilities.
President Bush has rightly spotlighted the success he has had in getting Libya to renounce its nuclear weapons program. The challenge now is figuring out how to establish this precedent as a practical nonproliferation standard that can be applied again in at least one other case. In this regard, neither North Korea nor Iran seem particularly promising prospects, since they are resisting cooperation--much less denuclearization.
The prospects, on the other hand, look much better closer to Libya itself. Specifically, now that Tripoli no longer has a nuclear program, it would seem reasonable for its neighbors to reciprocate by at least shutting down their largest nuclear plants.
Questions have been raised about Algeria's need for a second large research reactor. This reactor can make nearly a bomb's worth of plutonium per year; is located at a distant, isolated site; is surrounded by air defenses; and only makes sense if it is intended to make bombs. In fact, Algeria already has a second, smaller, less threatening research reactor in Algiers. Shutting down the larger plant at Ain Ousseara would save Algeria money and make everyone breathe easier.
Additionally, there is Egypt's large research reactor purchased from Argentina. It, too, can make nearly a bomb's worth of plutonium annually. Perhaps Egypt could offer to mothball this plant in exchange for Israel shutting down its large plutonium production reactor at Dimona. The latter is so old that it will take hundreds of millions of dollars to refurbish it just to keep it operating. Israeli critics opposed to the continuing operation of the Dimona reactor have publicly called for its shutdown in the Knesset.
Certainly, progress on any of these fronts would be helpful in addressing other proliferation problems in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.
The point here, as with the other proposals above, is to build on the clear nonproliferation successes we now have. Certainly, if we do, we will be safer. If we don't, it is just as certain that we will be buying far more trouble than we can afford.
Henry Sokolski is Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. These remarks are based on his testimony before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations on March 30, 2004.
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Kerry would change war on terror
April 19, 2004
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040418-113744-5087r.htm
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry said yesterday that he will treat the war on terror "primarily" as law-enforcement action even as he pledged to remain committed to Iraq and to personally plead for international help in policing and rebuilding that nation.
"In order to know who they are, where they are, what they're planning and be able to go get them before they get us, you need the best intelligence, best law-enforcement cooperation in the world," the Massachusetts senator said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It's an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort," he said. "And we're putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas. We need to get it straight."
Marc Racicot, chairman of President Bush's re-election campaign, said Mr. Kerry's formula won't work.
"Serving terrorists with legal papers will not win this war. This is a pre-9/11 attitude that turns a blind eye to the threats that face our country," he said.
In other comments on the show yesterday, Mr. Kerry stood by his statements that he received endorsements from numerous foreign leaders and made light of his 1971 assertion of having committed "atrocities" while serving in Vietnam.
Mr. Racicot also criticized Mr. Kerry for saying he would consider voting against funding for the war effort in the future, as he did last year, depending on the circumstances.
"This conditional support for the troops John Kerry voted to send to Iraq in the first place demonstrates a disturbing lack of judgment," Mr. Racicot said.
Mr. Kerry said a change of president also would help attract international efforts in stabilizing the situation in Iraq.
"It may well be that we need a new president, a breath of fresh air, to re-establish credibility with the rest of the world, so that we can have a believable administration as to how we proceed," he said.
In his appearance yesterday, Mr. Kerry also said he would uphold the trade embargo on Cuba, at least "for the moment," though he also suggested that he would lift U.S. limits on travel to the communist nation.
Four years ago, Mr. Kerry called for a re-evaluation of U.S. trade policy toward Cuba, but yesterday he said he since has become more attuned to what the Cuban-American community thinks about the issue.
"What I have done is sat down with members of the community and listened. And I find that there is a willingness within the community to begin to think about other alternatives and options," he said.
Under questioning from Tim Russert, Mr. Kerry defended his statement earlier this year that he has met foreign leaders who have told him that they want him to win this election.
An investigation by The Washington Times found no opportunities for Mr. Kerry to have had a face-to-face meeting with any foreign leader. Yesterday, Mr. Kerry did point to potential opportunities, but continued his campaign's refusal to identify names or specific opportunities.
"You can go to New York City and you can be in a restaurant and you can meet a foreign leader. There are plenty of places to meet people without traveling abroad," he said, adding that he "would be stupid" to name the leaders, because they still must deal with Mr. Bush.
Mr. Kerry said he still stands by his statement and challenged news organizations to investigate whether his point was correct.
"I invite you, I invite The Washington Times editorial, go to European, go to foreign capitals, travel in the world. Talk to any American businessman who has been abroad," he said. "Never has the United States of America been held in as low a regard internationally - and polls have shown this - as we are today. We're not trusted, and this administration is not liked."
Mr. Russert showed a clip of Mr. Kerry on "Meet the Press" in 1971, saying that in Vietnam: "I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed."
"You committed atrocities," Mr. Russert said yesterday. Mr. Kerry tried to interject some humor. "Where did all that dark hair go, Tim? That's a big question for me," he said.
Mr. Kerry then said using the word "atrocities" and calling U.S. leaders "war criminals" were not the best choice of words.
"The words were honest, but, on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top," he said.
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With CIA Push, Movement to War Accelerated
Agency's Estimate of Saddam Hussein's Arsenal Became the White House's Rationale for Invasion
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22552-2004Apr18?language=printer
This is the second of five articles adapted from "Plan of Attack," a book by Bob Woodward that is a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President Bush decided to go to war against Iraq. Simon & Schuster. (c) 2004.
On Jan. 2, 2002, CIA Director George J. Tenet met with Vice President Cheney -- at Cheney's request -- to brief him on what the agency could do in Iraq.
In the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Iraq was much less of a priority than terrorism for Tenet, but not for one of the agency officials who accompanied him to the meeting, the chief of the Iraqi Operations Group, a former covert operations officer who can be identified only by his nickname, Saul.
Within the CIA's Near East Division, which handled some of the hardest, most violent countries, the Iraqi Operations Group was referred to as "The House of Broken Toys." It was largely populated with new, green officers and problem officers, or old boys waiting for retirement. After taking it over in August 2001, Saul had begun a full review of where the CIA stood with Iraq.
At 43, Saul had worked for years in sensitive undercover posts as a case officer and senior operator in CIA stations around the world. Saul was born in a small town in Cuba; his father had been involved in one of the most spectacular CIA failures -- the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco in which 1,200 Cuban exiles had been abandoned on the beach by their CIA sponsors. As Saul told associates, "I am here as the result of a failed CIA covert operation."
Now Saul had a blunt message for Cheney about covert operations and Saddam Hussein. He told Cheney that covert action would not remove Hussein. The CIA would not be the solution.
The one thing the dictator's regime was organized for was to stop a coup, he said. Hussein had taken power in a coup. He has put down coups. The son of a bitch knows what a coup is, Saul said. If you are an Iraqi military unit and you have the bullets to launch a coup, you don't have the gas to move your tanks. If you have gas, you don't have bullets. Nobody stays in power long enough to launch a coup.
Only a U.S. military operation and invasion that the CIA could support had a chance of ousting Hussein, Saul told Cheney. The agency had done a lessons-learned study of past Iraq covert operations, he said, and frankly the CIA was tainted.
"We've got a serious credibility problem," he said. The Kurds, the Shiites, former Iraqi military officers and probably most attuned people in Iraq knew the history of the CIA's cutting and running. To reestablish credibility, potential anti-Hussein forces would have to see a determined seriousness on the part of the United States. Preparations for a massive military invasion might send that signal, nothing else.
Saul laid out for Cheney the problems with standing up at the United Nations, talking negotiations and containment, while secretly telling the Saudis and Jordanians the United States was going to remove the regime covertly. They needed a single national policy that everyone supported and explained in the same way.
Another lesson was that the CIA couldn't sustain a covert action program for a lengthy period of time. The regime would find some of the human sources that the agency might recruit and roll them up. So they had to move fast.
Cheney was used to briefers coming to his office with ambitious declarations and promises that their department or agency would deliver. The CIA message, which Saul later delivered to President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was the opposite, sobering, highly unusual in its judgment that it really could not do the job.
Saul was discovering that the CIA reporting sources inside Iraq were pretty thin.
What was thin?
"I can count them on one hand," Saul said, pausing for effect, "and I can still pick my nose."
In effectively casting a vote for military action as the only feasible way of removing Hussein, the CIA contributed to the gathering momentum that carried the United States to war in Iraq. It would make other contributions as well -- by successfully establishing a network of informants inside Iraq whose lives were in jeopardy as long as Hussein was in power; and by providing the evidence for what became the Bush administration's main rationale for the war: that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Agents on the Ground in Iraq
With Tenet's approval, Saul, Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin and James L. Pavitt, the deputy director for operations, worked on a new Top Secret intelligence order for regime change in Iraq that Bush signed on Feb. 16, 2002. It directed the CIA to support the U.S. military in overthrowing Hussein and granted authority to support opposition groups and conduct sabotage operations inside Iraq.
The cost was set at $200 million a year for two years. The leaders of the Senate and House intelligence committees were informed secretly. After some disputes in Congress, the budget was cut to $189 million for the first year.
Saul would be able to run what he called "offensive counterintelligence" operations to prevent Hussein's security apparatus from identifying CIA sources. But most important, the CIA could then work actively with anti-Hussein opposition forces inside Iraq and conduct paramilitary operations inside the country.
In March, Tenet met secretly with two individuals who would be critical to covert action inside Iraq: Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the leaders of the two main Kurdish groups in northern Iraq. The two controlled separate areas of a Kurdish region roughly the size of Maine. The areas were effectively autonomous from Hussein's Baghdad regime, but Iraqi military units were stationed just miles from the Kurdish strongholds and Hussein could easily send them to fight and slaughter the Kurds as he had done after the 1991 Persian Gulf War when they had risen up expecting U.S. protection, which was not provided.
Tenet had one message for Barzani and Talabani: The United States was serious, the military and the CIA were coming. It was different this time. The CIA was not going to be alone. The military would attack. Bush meant what he said. It was a new era. Hussein was going down. Of course, Tenet did not know if what he was saying was true, whether war was going to happen. But he had to raise the expectation of the Kurds to win cooperation and engagement. He was about to send some of his paramilitary and case officers into a very dangerous environment.
Tenet had a giant lever: money. He could pay millions, tens of millions of dollars in $100 bills. If Defense Department civilians or officers, or State Department diplomats, paid money to get anyone to act or change policy, it could be illegal bribery. The CIA was the one part of the U.S. government that was authorized to pay off people.
Tenet had told Bush that some money was going to be paid on speculation in order to establish relationships and demonstrate seriousness. And that not all of it might look as if it had been well spent. It was like chum, small pieces of fish scattered on the water to attract the big ones. In intelligence, you often had to chum far and wide. It was one more thing the president and Tenet bonded over. Bush, one of the biggest political fundraisers of all time, and Tenet, the U.S. government covert moneyman, knew the restorative power of cash.
Saul knew solid on-the-ground intelligence and effective lethal operations could not be done from the sidelines. Though the CIA had a massive effort going on all of Iraq's borders, the agency needed to be inside. Saul sent out messages seeking volunteers. At least one entire CIA station from the chief on down volunteered. Saul drafted Tim, a former Navy SEAL fluent in Arabic who was a covert operations officer at a CIA station in the region, to lead one of two paramilitary teams he was sending into northern Iraq.
Saul issued Tim oral instructions: I want Hussein's military penetrated. I want the intel service penetrated. I want the security apparatus penetrated. I want tribal networks inside Iraq who will do things for us -- paramilitary, sabotage, ground intelligence. Work the relationship with the Kurds. See if it is feasible to train and arm them so they can tie down Hussein's forces in the north.
In July, Tim and a team of CIA operatives made the 10-hour overland drive from Turkey into Iraq in a convoy of Land Cruisers, Jeeps and a truck to set up base in Sulaymaniyah in the mountainous Kurdish-controlled region of northern Iraq. In October, they returned to the same area carrying tens of millions of dollars in $100 bills stored in heavy cardboard boxes. They set up base in a lime-green building that they christened "Pistachio."
Find the weak points in the regime and push, Saul instructed. War was coming.
It was not long before they began to recruit some key sources. One was an officer in Hussein's Special Security Organization (SSO), who produced a CD-ROM with 6,000 SSO personnel files -- names, backgrounds, assignments and many personnel photos.
So rare, so mind-blowing were the informants that Tim recruited that the CIA gave them the crypt or secret designation DB/ROCKSTARS. (DB was the designator for Iraq.) Tim bought about 100 hand-held satellite telephones at $700 each and handed out phones to 87 ROCKSTAR agents from Umm Qasr in the south to Mosul in the north. The ROCKSTARS could then call in real-time intelligence to a phone bank that Tim's case officers manned.
For Tenet, the new factor was the absence of doubt at the top. Bush displayed no hesitation or uncertainty. It might be prudent to overrule an earlier decision, step back and debate the merits, but Bush was not that way. Tenet was finding that you paid the greatest price by doubting. There were often a hundred reasons not to act. Some people got overwhelmed by problems and did 50 permutations about why it was insoluble, ending up nowhere. But if you were not afraid of what you had to do, then you would work your way through the problems.
When he took problems to Bush, the president asked, Well, what's a solution? How do you fix it? How do you take the next step? How do you get around this? It was a new ethos for the intelligence business. Suddenly there seemed to be no penalty for taking risks and making mistakes.
Unequivocal Judgments Needed
The CIA had never declared categorically that it believed Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The formal December 2000 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that Hussein "retained a small stockpile" of chemical warfare agents -- not actual warheads -- perhaps up to 100 metric tons, and "might" have precursors for 200 metric tons more. This conclusion was drawn largely from accounting discrepancies between what Iraq had previously told U.N. weapons inspectors it possessed, and what records showed had been destroyed.
The classified NIE on biological weapons concluded that Iraq "continued" to work on development and was poised to have them.
Significantly, in public testimony before the Senate intelligence committee on Feb. 6, 2002, on worldwide threats, Tenet had not mentioned Iraq until page 10 of his 18-page statement, devoting only three paragraphs to Iraq.
Senate Democrats pressed the administration to provide a new comprehensive intelligence report or estimate on Iraq, and Tenet agreed reluctantly to do a rushed NIE on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability in the fall of 2002. The National Intelligence Council, a group of representatives from the key agencies, began sifting, sorting and assessing the raw intelligence. The council included the CIA; the National Security Agency, which does communications intercepts; the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency; the State Department's intelligence bureau; the Energy Department's intelligence arm; and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which performs satellite and other overhead reconnaissance.
The group had a massive amount of material, much of it old and not very reliable. Iraq was still one of the hardest intelligence targets. Hussein had improved his methods of deception and hiding his weapons programs -- whatever they might be -- underground. CIA human intelligence inside Iraq was still weak, and paramilitary teams such as those headed by Tim in northern Iraq had found nothing.
A National Intelligence Estimate is just that: an estimate. During the Cold War it became the document of choice because it was designed to give the president and his national security team an overall assessment of the capability and intentions of real threats, such as the Soviet Union and China. The format is designed for busy policymakers. So a long NIE of 50 or 100 pages has a kind of executive summary at the front called "Key Judgments" in which the intelligence analysts would try to give a bottom-line answer. Would Castro be overthrown? Would Syria attack Israel? Would the Communists win in Nicaragua? Over the decades there had been much criticism of NIEs by policymakers -- and presidents -- because the authors hedge and the "on-this-hand, on-the-other-hand" reports are littered with maddening qualifications. No matter what happened, someone could find a sentence or phrase in the NIE that had covered such a possibility.
Stuart A. Cohen, an intelligence professional for 30 years, was acting chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the Iraq assessment of WMD was being prepared. He confided to a colleague that he wanted to avoid equivocation, if possible. If the Key Judgments used words such as "maybe" or "probably" or "likely," the NIE would be "pablum," he said. Ironclad evidence in the intelligence business is scarce and analysts need to be able to make judgments beyond the ironclad, Cohen felt. The evidence was substantial but nonetheless circumstantial; no one had proof of a vial of biological agents or weapons, or a smoking vat of chemical warfare agents. Yet coupled with the incontrovertible proof that Saddam Hussein had had WMD in the past -- U.N. weapons inspectors in the 1990s had found them, tested them and destroyed them -- the conclusion seemed obvious.
The alternative view was that Hussein no longer had such weapons. No one wanted to say that because so much intelligence would have to be discounted. The real and best answer was that he probably had WMD, but that there was no proof and the case was circumstantial. Given the leeway to make a "judgment," which in the dictionary definition is merely an "opinion," the council was heading toward a strong declaration. No pablum.
Analysts at the CIA had long discussed the issue of avoiding equivocation. At times, many, including John McLaughlin, felt that they had to dare to be wrong to be clearer in their judgments. That summer McLaughlin had told the National Security Council principals that the CIA thought it had a pretty good case that Hussein had WMD, but that others would demand more direct proof. The CIA did not have an anthrax sample, and didn't have a chemical weapons sample in hand.
Intelligence analysts and officials worked on the estimate for three weeks. On Oct. 1, 2002, Tenet chaired the National Foreign Intelligence Board, the heads of all the intelligence agencies that released and certified the NIEs. No one disputed the central conclusions. Tenet felt he had a group of smart people at the table and that they knew how to craft the estimate properly.
The Top Secret 92-page document that was released said under the Key Judgments, without qualification, "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons." From that attention-getting assertion, the NIE takes a slow march back down the hill, with muted but clear equivocations. One hint of uncertainty was the second paragraph in the Key Judgments. "We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD efforts." It is the kind of statement that might be included in any intelligence report -- only a portion of anything is ever seen. In the end, the hedging and backing off telegraphed immense doubt.
The State Department intelligence bureau filed an 11-page annex outlining its objections and disagreements with the NIE, particularly on nuclear weapons, saying the evidence did not add up to "a compelling case" that Iraq has "an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons."
Failing to Persuade the 'Jury'
On Dec. 19, 2002, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice asked Tenet and McLaughlin how strong the case was on weapons of mass destruction and what could be said publicly. The agency's October national estimate that had concluded that Saddam Hussein has chemical and biological weapons had been out for more than two months; the congressional resolutions supporting war had passed by nearly 3 to 1; and the U.N. Security Council, where a weapons inspection resolution had passed 15 to 0, was actively engaged in inspections inside Iraq. Still something was missing. Even Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz had commented recently on the inconclusive nature of judgments about Hussein's WMD.
Two days later, Tenet and McLaughlin went to the Oval Office. The meeting was for presenting "The Case" on WMD as it might be presented to a jury with Top Secret security clearances. There was great expectation. In addition to the president, Cheney, Rice and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. attended.
With some fanfare, McLaughlin stepped up to brief with a series of flip charts. This was the rough cut, he indicated, still highly classified and not cleared for public release. The CIA wanted to reserve on what would be revealed to protect sources and detection methods if there was no military conflict.
When McLaughlin concluded, there was a look on the president's face of, What's this? And then a brief moment of silence.
"Nice try," Bush said. "I don't think this is quite -- it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from."
Card was also underwhelmed. The presentation was a flop. In terms of marketing, the examples didn't work, the charts didn't work, the photos were not gripping, the intercepts were less than compelling.
Bush turned to Tenet. "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?"
From the end of one of the couches in the Oval Office, Tenet rose up, threw him arms in the air. "It's a slam-dunk case!" the director of central intelligence said.
Bush pressed. "George, how confident are you?"
Tenet, a basketball fan who attended as many home games of his alma mater Georgetown University as possible, leaned forward and threw his arms up again. "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!"
It was unusual for Tenet to be so certain. From McLaughlin's presentation, Card was worried that there might be no "there there," but Tenet's double reassurance on the slam dunk was memorable and comforting. Cheney could think of no reason to question Tenet's assertion. He was, after all, the head of the CIA and would know the most. The president later recalled that McLaughlin's presentation "wouldn't have stood the test of time." But, said Bush, Tenet's reassurance -- "That was very important."
"Needs a lot more work," Bush told Card and Rice. "Let's get some people who've actually put together a case for a jury." He wanted some lawyers, prosecutors if need be. They were going to have to go public with something.
The president told Tenet several times, "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."
Libby Outlines the U.S. Case
Tenet and McLaughlin made it clear they did not want to write a speech for a political appointee or an elected official. That would be crossing the line. They cleared speeches for facts. They also did not want to write a document that had any sales or marketing element. So the result was the driest, most clinical account, with footnotes specifying the sourcing. The text, 40 pages, was sent to the White House on Jan. 22, 2003, specifying that it was still highly classified.
The president was determined to hand the evidence over to experienced lawyers who could use it to make the best possible case. The document was given to Rice's deputy, Stephen J. Hadley (Yale Law '72) and Cheney's chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (Columbia Law '75). They visited the CIA and posed a series of questions that the agency answered in writing.
As far as Libby was concerned, the CIA had made the case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and significant terrorist ties. The CIA had been collecting intelligence on Iraqi WMD for decades. There was no doubt where the agency stood: The October NIE had said Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, and Tenet had declared the case a slam dunk. Libby believed that the agency, which had the hard job of sifting and evaluating so much information, at times missed or overlooked potentially important material, intelligence that might not be definitive, but could add to the mosaic.
On Saturday, Jan. 25, Libby gave a lengthy presentation in the Situation Room to Rice, Hadley, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, Wolfowitz, White House communications director Dan Bartlett and speechwriter Michael Gerson. Though she had formally left the White House staff, Karen Hughes was there. White House political director Karl Rove was in and out of the meeting.
Holding a thick sheaf of paper, Libby outlined the latest version of the case against Hussein. He began with a long section on satellite, intercept and human intelligence showing the efforts at concealment and deception. Things were being dug up, moved and buried. No one knew for sure what it was precisely, but the locations and stealth fit the pattern of WMD concealment. He began each section with blunt conclusions -- Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, was producing and concealing them; his ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network were numerous and strong.
Libby said that Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 attacks, was believed to have met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer and cited intelligence of as many as four meetings. The others knew the CIA had evidence of two meetings perhaps, and that there was no certainty about what Atta had been doing in Prague or whether he had met with the Iraqi official. Libby talked for about an hour.
Armitage was appalled at what he considered overreaching and hyperbole. Libby was drawing only the worst conclusions from fragments and silky threads.
On the other hand, Wolfowitz, who had been convinced years ago of Iraq's complicity in anti-American terrorism, thought Libby presented a strong case. He subscribed to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's notion that lack of evidence did not mean something did not exist.
The most important response came from Karen Hughes. As a communications exercise, she said, it didn't work. The sweeping conclusions at the head of each section were too much. The president, she said, wanted it to be like the old television series "Dragnet": "Just the facts." Let people draw their own conclusions.
So who then should present the public case? Rice and Hadley pondered that. The case would have to be made to the United Nations, so the chief diplomat, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, was the logical choice. Hadley believed there were additional reasons to choose Powell. First, to have maximum credibility, it would be best to go counter to type and everyone knew that Powell was soft on Iraq, that he was the one who didn't want to go. Second, Powell was conscious of his credibility, and his reputation. He would examine the intelligence carefully. Third, when Powell was prepared, he was very persuasive.
"I want you to do it," Bush told the secretary of state. "You have the credibility to do it." Powell was flattered to be asked to do what no one else could.
Mark Malseed contributed to this report.
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Special-Interest Add-Ons Weigh Down Tax-Cut Bill
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22581-2004Apr18?language=printer
Congress's task seemed simple enough: Repeal an illegal $5 billion-a-year export subsidy and replace it with some modest tax breaks to ease the pain on U.S. exporters.
But out of that imperative has emerged one of the most complex, special-interest-riddled corporate tax bills in years, lawmakers, Senate aides and tax lobbyists say. The 930-page epic is packed with $170 billion in tax cuts aimed at cruise-ship operators, foreign dog-race gamblers, NASCAR track owners, bow-and-arrow makers and Oldsmobile dealers, to name a few. There is even a $94 million break for a single hotel in Sioux City, Iowa.
Even one of the tax lobbyists involved in drafting it conceded the bill "has risen to a new level of sleaze."
"I said a few months ago, any lobbyist worth his salt has something in this bill," said the lobbyist, who would only speak candidly on condition of anonymity. "Now you see what I'm talking about."
Senate tax aides say not even the tax bill's main architect, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), supports all of the provisions that have been slipped in to win passage. But, they say, the legislation still achieves its original goals. By repealing the export subsidy, it would force the European Union to lift retaliatory tariffs on a variety of U.S.-made goods. It would effectively lower the tax rate paid by ailing domestic manufacturers, and it would somewhat simplify the Byzantine tax system on overseas earnings of U.S companies.
Between the special-interest provisions are also some of the most ambitious curbs on corporate tax abuses to emerge since Enron Corp. imploded 21/2 years ago. The bill would ramp up penalties on corporate tax scofflaws, untie the Internal Revenue Service's hands to pursue more tax shelters, come down hard on affluent individuals who renounce their citizenship for tax purposes, and virtually eliminate the tax benefit for companies that transfer their "headquarters" to a post-office box in a Caribbean tax haven.
Those curbs, along with the export repeal itself, should fully offset the costs of the burgeoning tax breaks, the authors say.
"This bill is important and well-designed," Grassley said in a statement. "It responds to our legal obligations in the world trade community, provides tax relief to promote job creation by U.S. manufacturers, and includes the kind of corporate reforms the public is demanding."
But since the bill emerged from the Finance Committee last fall, it has grown exponentially. Out of the 264 provisions now in the legislation, 146 were added as "sweeteners" after it was voted out of committee, said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy at the budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. And senators still have more than 70 amendments pending when they take it back up, possibly this week.
"This is one of the biggest exercises in congressional vote buying we have ever seen," Ashdown said.
And not everyone is so sure the tax cuts will really be paid for. Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that more than two dozen of the tax cuts abruptly disappear in a few years, but their offsetting provisions extend over 10 years. If those tax cuts are extended, as they routinely are, the cost of the legislation would quickly balloon.
"Claims to deficit neutrality need to be taken with grain of salt," Greenstein said.
Senators from both parties have joined the frenzy, and the corporate interests have not been shy. "Even some of the main detractors of the bill, both Republican and Democrat, have special items included that increase the overall cost of the bill," Grassley grumbled.
Horse- and dog-track owners secured a provision eliminating withholding taxes for foreign gamblers, at a 10-year cost to the Treasury of $25 million. Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) would delay Treasury Department regulations that would expand the amount of foreign earnings that cruise-ship operators must immediately pay tax on.
Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), with Grassley's help, inserted a $94 million "historic rehabilitation credit for certain low-income housing for the elderly." That "certain" housing is very particular: the 74-year-old Warrior Hotel in Sioux City that an investment group hopes to convert to assisted-living quarters for the elderly on both sides of the South Dakota-Iowa border.
Bow-and-arrow makers secured an $8 million tax break for arrow components and "youth bows" not powerful enough for hunting. NASCAR track owners have been locked in a battle with the IRS over how quickly they could write off the cost of their grandstand facilities on their taxes. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), a car-racing buff, has decided to settle it at seven years, a provision that should save track owners $92 million.
Kansas' two Republican senators, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, won a $519 million tax break for small-aircraft makers like Cessna and Learjet, many of them based in Kansas.
With the help of Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), certain car dealers won $189 million in "transitional assistance" as they search for new lines of work. That assistance would go to dealers of one make of car alone, Oldsmobile, which General Motors is phasing out of production. The provision does not name Oldsmobile, but, tax aides say, the meaning is clear: It applies only to dealers of "a motor vehicle manufacturer who announced in December 2000 that it would phase-out the motor vehicle brand."
Timber companies were granted a provision they have been seeking for 15 years, an expanded tax credit worth $90 million for reforestation activities. Timber giant Weyerhaeuser Co., with the help of Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) won new bond rules worth $252 million that will allow a conservation group to purchase company forest land east of Seattle.
Insurance industry lobbyists may have pulled the most dramatic coup, one tax lobbyist said. To put off corporate income taxation, insurers for years have accumulated large cash surpluses in policyholders' accounts, which would be taxed when distributed to the policyholders. Clinton administration officials tried, but failed, in the 1990s to begin taxing those surpluses. Now insurance lobbyists have won a $482 million provision allowing them to distribute the surpluses totally tax-free.
"That was a good trick," the lobbyist said.
All of this horse-trading may be taking a toll on the bill's ultimate fate. Measured against the size of the economy, corporate tax receipts have fallen to levels not experienced since the Depression. That may make it difficult for some to swallow all these sweet deals.
"At a time when we're facing these serious mid-term and long-term deficit problems, the notion that all of the revenue saved by closing these loopholes should be plowed back entirely into new tax cuts, especially special-interest tax cuts, there's a problem with that whole framework," Greenstein, of the budget and policy center, said.
A Senate Republican leadership aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that such concerns have been expressed by members of both parties. Plans to bring up the legislation this week may have to be put off as Senate leaders work to scale it back, he said.
Some senators are beginning to speak out.
"The overall size of the tax package is still too large," Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) said earlier this month.
A senior Senate Republican tax aide said the bill is a victim of extraordinary circumstances. Each month that the export subsidies go unrepealed, the European Union's retaliatory sanctions will rise by a percentage point; in May, they reach 7 percent. That rising pressure has made the underlying repeal bill one of the few pieces of "must-do" legislation this year.
Moreover, business lobbyists have watched anxiously for three years as President Bush pushed through $1.7 trillion in successive tax cuts without significant business provisions. Each year, they have been promised their time would come. And since the corporate scandals of 2001 and 2002 erupted, the Senate Finance Committee has drafted a steady diet of legislation aimed at business excess, creating grievances among business supporters that lawmakers now want to address.
Add election-year gridlock to the mix, and one can understand how the vote-buying has gotten a little out of control, two GOP Senate aides said.
"It's the legislative process at its best in an election year," said the leadership aide.
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Kerry Calls Bush's Iraq Policy 'Ineffective'
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22656-2004Apr18?language=printer
Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday denounced President Bush's Iraq policy as "stunningly ineffective" while vigorously defending his Senate vote against last year's $87 billion authorization for Iraq and Afghanistan as "a vote for principle" designed to force a change in administration policy.
In an hour-long session on NBC's "Meet the Press" from Miami, his first extended interview since wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination, Kerry forcefully rebutted criticism from Bush and others over his past statements and votes. The senator from Massachusetts contended that he has a clear and consistent policy on Iraq and a fiscally sound domestic agenda. Saying Bush has failed diplomatically, Kerry asserted that he would actively reach out to the United Nations and other countries. He called his advocacy of multilateralism a sign of strength, but added that it was "stupid" of him to have declared in a 1971 interview that U.S. troops should be deployed "only at the directive of the United Nations."
Kerry also said he regretted his choice of words in a 1971 "Meet the Press" appearance, in which he called U.S. leaders "war criminals" for their prosecution of the Vietnam War and also that he had committed "the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers" as a naval officer in Vietnam. Kerry, who was the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at that time, yesterday called the statement "honest, but it was in anger. It was a little bit excessive."
Conservatives have hammered Kerry for his participation in the antiwar movement in the 1970s and have used his testimony before the Senate then to criticize him for attacking the conduct of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Still, Kerry appeared startled yesterday when "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert aired the tape of his 1971 appearance. An aide said the campaign had been searching unsuccessfully for the tape.
Kerry said he regrets that some soldiers were angry with him over those comments, but added: "I'm not going to walk away from that. But I wish I had found a way to say it in a less abrasive way."
While sharply opposing the administration on Iraq, Kerry expressed solidarity with the president on support for Israel. He declined to criticize the Israeli government for the assassination Saturday of the top leader of Hamas, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, calling Hamas -- also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement -- a "terrorist, brutal organization." He also said he agrees fully with Bush's support for a controversial plan advanced by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza but maintain some Israeli settlements in the West Bank and to deny Palestinians the "right of return" to Israel.
On domestic issues, Kerry said he could create 10 million new jobs and cut the deficit in half in his first term as president unless there are unforeseen circumstances. "There's no reason we can't create 10 million jobs," he said. "But you can't do it with George Bush's failed policy."
He took issue with critics who say he has proposed far more in new spending than he can pay for with the tax increases he has proposed, arguing that they do not understand "the innovative ways I am going to pay for things."
Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot, in a conference call with reporters after Kerry's appearance, said the interview added up to "little more than contradiction, confusion, inaccurate attacks and a fundamental misunderstanding" of the war on terror. He said Kerry's call for greater U.N. involvement on Iraq "is something that is already being done by this administration."
Kerry's interview came at a time when he has gained ground on Bush in some polls. Kerry is preparing to launch a new advertising campaign designed to introduce himself to an electorate that still knows little about him, despite his 19 years in the Senate and his near-sweep of the Democratic primaries and caucuses.
Russert asked Kerry about a poll showing that a majority of Americans believe he says what people want to hear, not what he believes, and about research by the AFL-CIO indicating that the Bush campaign's criticisms of him as a flip-flopper have begun to take hold.
"I'm thrilled with where I am right now," Kerry said. "The Republican Party has spent $50 million in a matter of about seven weeks to distort my record, to completely mislead Americans about me and about my record. Now, we're in a position now to be able to respond and introduce myself to the country."
Kerry is in the midst of a major fundraising drive that is breaking all Democratic records. He raised about $13 million at events last week and has a series of events in Florida and elsewhere this week. His advisers said the flood of money has helped to reduce the Bush campaign's overwhelming advantage in funds and will give Kerry the chance to respond on television.
Foreign policy dominated the interview, with Kerry asserting that "the way the president went to war [in Iraq] is a mistake." Kerry said it might take a new president to attract the support of other nations to participate in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq because of the administration's actions.
Kerry noted that Bush has embraced the work of U.N. special representative Lakhdar Brahimi to put together the government that will accept power from the United States on June 30, but said that is not enough.
"In effect, he's transferred to the U.N. now just the decision about what government will turn it over to, but he won't transfer to the U.N. the real authority for determining how the government emerges, how we will do the reconstruction of Iraq," Kerry said. "I think that's a prerequisite to bringing other countries to the table."
Kerry said Bush's failure to embrace the United Nations earlier and the current violence in Iraq make it more difficult to attract international support now, but vowed that he would "go personally to the U.N." and world capitals to seek support if he is elected. Asked whether 100,000 U.S. troops would be in Iraq a year from now if he is president, Kerry said "that depends on the situation on the ground" early next year.
Kerry was pressed hard to explain his vote against the $87 billion authorization for Iraq and Afghanistan, after having said shortly before the vote that no senator was "going to abandon our troops." Kerry supported an amendment requiring Bush to pay for the authorization by rolling back part of his tax cut.
Kerry said that his final vote against the bill would not have prevented the troops from receiving what they needed -- a statement Bush campaign officials disputed -- and that, if his vote had been decisive, the administration would have been forced to negotiate the terms of the legislation.
"We would've worked out exactly how we were going to do this intelligently, and we would have had a better bill," he said. "That's how you change policy. You stand up for principle. That was a vote for principle."
The senator called Bush's television ad on the vote deceptive, saying that it suggests Kerry cast a series of individual votes to deny U.S. forces higher combat pay and body armor and health care for reservists. Calling the ad "almost pathetic," Kerry said, "It wasn't a series of votes. It was one vote. And that is a distortion to the American people."
Kerry criticized Bush's prosecution of the war on terrorism and took issue with Bush's argument that it is primarily a military operation. "I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation," he said. "It's an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort. And we're putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas."
When the interview turned to domestic issues, Kerry vowed to put the government back on a pay-as-you-go basis for new programs and said he would scale back his campaign promises if they violate his pledge to cut the deficit in half in four years. "George Bush has no plan," he said. "He has spent $6 trillion in the last four years, unpaid for, driven up the highest deficits in American history."
Kerry said a growing economy would help to put Social Security and Medicare on sound financial footing. He pledged not to cut benefits or raise the retirement age, although he suggested that reducing the amount of Social Security benefits the wealthiest Americans receive might be a way to hold down costs.
Kerry held firm to his previous statement that he has met foreign leaders who want to see the president defeated. "I stand by my statement," he said.
As to whether his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, would release her tax returns, Kerry said that only candidates are required by law to do so but that Senate ethics disclosure statements provide a look at her extensive holdings. "My plan is to live by the law," he said.
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Airing of Powell's Misgivings Tests Ties in the Cabinet
April 19, 2004
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19POWE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, April 18 - For more than a year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his aides have tacitly acknowledged that he was concerned before the war about what could go wrong once American forces captured Iraq.
But Mr. Powell's apparent decision to lay out his misgivings even more explicitly to the journalist Bob Woodward for a book has jolted the White House and aggravated long-festering tensions in the Bush cabinet. Moreover, some officials said, the book has created problems for the secretary inside the administration just as the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and President Bush is plunging into his re-election drive.
Mr. Powell has not acknowledged that he cooperated with Mr. Woodward, but the book presents the secretary's reservations in such detail that it leaves little doubt. A spokesman for Mr. Powell said again Sunday that he would not comment on the book, "Plan of Attack."
Critics of Mr. Powell in the hawkish wing of the administration said they were startled by what they saw as his self-serving decision to help fill out a portrait that enhances his reputation as a farsighted analyst, perhaps at the expense of Mr. Bush. Several said the book guaranteed what they expected anyway, that Mr. Powell will not stay as secretary if Mr. Bush is re-elected.
The view expressed Sunday by people in the administration that Mr. Bush comes across as sober-minded and resolute in the book, asking for contingency plans for a war early on but not deciding to wage one until the last minute, saves Mr. Powell from any immediate difficulties that might grow from seeming to betray his confidential relationship to a president who prizes loyalty, several officials said.
"Look, a lot of people have been struck by the degree to which Secretary Powell is using this book as an opportunity - to be fair - to clarify his position on the issues," said an official. "But what this book does is muddy the water internally, which is very unfortunate and unhelpful."
Another official, who like others declined to be identified because of the political sensitivity of their criticism, accused Mr. Powell of having a habit of distancing himself from policies when they go wrong. "It's such a soap opera with him," this official said.
Democrats seized on Mr. Powell's portrayal, saying it would give them ammunition to criticize the administration for going to war without broad international backing or adequate planning for an occupation.
Throughout the day Sunday, Senator John Kerry brought up the Woodward book, mentioning it twice in his interview on "Meet the Press" on NBC and once at an outdoor rally at the University of Miami.
"Here we have a book by a reputable writer," Mr. Kerry told several thousand students at the afternoon campus rally. "We learn that the president even misled members of his own administration." Asked if material in Mr. Woodward's book would be grist for his party, Jano Cabrera, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview: "Absolutely. It's one thing for us to assert it. It's another thing for it to be stated as fact by his secretary of state."
And Steve Murphy, who managed the presidential campaign of Representative Richard A. Gephardt, said: "The strongest criticism of Bush is that he did not have a plan for the aftermath of the war. And that was exactly what Powell was pointing out to him. He is a credible source. This intensifies the backdrop between Bush and Kerry."
People close to Mr. Powell said Sunday that they had no doubt he would weather any criticism from within over his apparent cooperation with Mr. Woodward, an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post. Polls show that he is one of the most popular and best-known figures in government. The people close to him note that most people following the situation closely knew that he had misgivings about the war.
"Is the secretary going to be undercut for having been right?" asked an official close to Mr. Powell. "I don't think so. Undercut compared to who? Donald Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney? These are people who have some real problems right now. They're not reading Bob Woodward's book. They're reading the dispatches from the field."
Other officials close to Mr. Powell say his strained relations with Mr. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, and Vice President Cheney are common currency among Washington insiders, though they say the suggestion that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Powell are barely on speaking terms is highly exaggerated.
"I don't think there will be much change in his dealings with Cheney and Rumsfeld," said one person close to Mr. Powell. "People already thought it was this bad. It doesn't change things for them to find out that it really was. They know how to deal with each other, and they've been through quite a bit together."
When asked on "Fox News Sunday" about Mr. Woodward's contention that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Powell are so distant on policy matters that they do not talk, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, described the men's relationship as "friendly."
"I can tell you," she said, "I've had lunch on a number of occasions with Vice President Cheney and with Colin Powell, and they are more than on speaking terms. They're friendly."
But another official said Mr. Powell's dealings internally with Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld especially had made life difficult for people inside the administration.
"The day-to-day nattering of the Defense Department trying to take over the business of diplomacy at every level, it's just difficult to be on the inside," said an administration official who defends Mr. Powell's actions. "Every day is difficult. The byplay at the meetings is difficult."
Mr. Powell's standing around the world was less easy to measure this weekend. But a European diplomat said he thought the secretary's standing in Europe especially would only be enhanced because he would be seen as sharing the view of many there that the administration had been overly optimistic about subduing dissidents in Iraq.
For the people long familiar with Mr. Powell's thinking, his misgivings about an American occupation of Iraq, and his insistence on getting full international backing for American actions, goes back many years. So, they note, does his fighting with Mr. Cheney.
For example, Mr. Powell's memoir, "My American Journey," published in 1995 after he retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that he had opposed a final push to oust Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf war on the ground that an occupation would provoke a counterinsurgency and criticism among Americans.
In addition, many accounts of the planning for the first gulf war say that Mr. Cheney, then secretary of defense, opposed going to the United Nations or Congress for backing to remove Iraq from Kuwait, fearing that failure would weaken the first President Bush's administration's ability to go to war.
In 2002, Mr. Cheney was openly disdainful of Mr. Powell's insistence on getting approval of the United Nations Security Council before going to war, spreading consternation at the State Department. Mr. Powell won that argument, and President Bush authorized a bid to get a Security Council resolution supporting war.
Mr. Powell's memoir also recalls an exchange in the early 1990's, in which Mr. Powell accused Mr. Cheney - jokingly, he insisted - of being surrounded by "right-wing nuts like you." In the last year, the Woodward book says, Mr. Powell referred privately to the civilian conservatives in the Pentagon loyal to Mr. Cheney as the Gestapo.
The Woodward book also attributes to Mr. Powell the belief that although he had misgivings about going to war, it was his obligation to support the president once Mr. Bush decided to do so.
Mr. Bush told Mr. Woodward that he did not ask the secretary's opinion on whether to go to war because he thought he knew what that opinion would be: "no."
But a senior aide to Mr. Powell asserted this weekend that the secretary was not as opposed to war as some people presume, no matter what the implications in the book.
"The portrait of Powell in the Woodward book is pretty consistent with what everybody knows," the official said. "We were with the president if we had to do this. We set up an exit ramp for Saddam, and he didn't take it. Powell in the end was very comfortable knowing that."
Adam Nagourney contributed reporting from Washington for this article and Jodi Wilgoren from Miami.
--------
Saudi envoy had knowlege of Iraq invasion
By Nayyar Zaidi
Monday April 19, 2004
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2004-daily/19-04-2004/world/w10.htm
Washington: Saudi Ambassador to Washington for last two decades, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, was informed of US decision to invade Iraq, full 48 hours ahead of the briefing to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
On January 11, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney invited Ambassador Sultan to the White House where Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Richard B Myers were also present. Sitting on the "edge of the table", General Myers took out a large map labeled "TOP SECRET: NOFORN". The term meant that no foreigner (non US citizen) should see it.
These disclosures are slowly coming from the "Plan of Attack", a book by a senior editor of The Washington Post Senior Editor, Bob Woodward, who became famous for exposing the Watergate scandal in 1972. His book is coming out later this week.
Ambassador Sultan, who was treated like "Family" by senior George Bush, assured the Americans that his country could provide a cover for US invading forces by closing the Al Jawf airport in Saudi northern desert. Sultan asked if he could take a copy of the map for Crown Prince Abdullah? General Myers said the decision could be made at a "pay level" above him i.e. by defence secretary. Rumsfeld told Sultan, "We will give you all information you want. I would rather not give you the map but you can take note".
Sultan then asked: "Saddam, this time, will be out Period. What will happen to him?" At this time Cheney spoke saying "Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast". Sultan, says Woodward, did not get the map but he went home took a map of the area prepared by CIA, and with his notes reconstructed the US strike plan.
On Sunday, January 12, 2003, National Security Advisor Condolessa Rice called Sultan and told him that President Bush would like to see him on Monday, January 13. During the White House meeting, Bush started with his concerns that an attack on Iraq would create a sever reaction in Muslim world putting US interests at risk.
Sultan said, "Mr President, you are assuming you are attacking Saudi Arabia and capturing King Fahad. This is Saddam Hussain; people are not going to shed tears over Saddam Hussain. But if he is attacked one more time and by Americans and survives and stays in power after you finish this, whatever it is, everybody will follow his word. If he says attack the American Embassy they would attack the American Embassy".
Ironically, Powell, when briefed (The News April 17, 2004), did his best to dissuade the president from attacking Iraq, while the Saudi Ambassador strongly endorsed the US plans to attack.
-------- MILITARY
Bush Plans Aid to Build Foreign Peace Forces
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22637-2004Apr18?language=printer
Facing a chronic shortage of foreign troops for peacekeeping missions, President Bush has decided to launch an international drive to boost the supply of available forces -- a move that if successful could relieve some of the pressure on U.S. soldiers to join such operations, defense officials said.
A plan approved by Bush earlier this month calls for the United States to commit about $660 million over the next five years to train, equip and provide logistical support to forces in nations willing to participate in peace operations.
The campaign, known as the Global Peace Operations Initiative, will be aimed largely at Africa by expanding the peacekeeping skills of African forces and encouraging international military exercises in the region, where U.S. officials said much of the need exists.
But African forces developed under the program could be used in peace operations anywhere in the world, officials said. And the program also sets aside some assistance for armies in Asia, Latin America and Europe to enlarge their peacekeeping roles as well.
Pentagon officials who briefed The Washington Post stressed that the plan, which Bush has yet to formally announce, is not meant as a unilateral U.S. effort. They said Bush intends it to be a broad, multinational push, with other countries contributing trainers and additional resources, although consultations with potential partner nations remain at an early stage.
The initiative grows out of the frequent struggle by administration officials to recruit enough foreign forces for peacekeeping missions. In Haiti, the latest case, the administration hopes a force of 6,000 to 7,000 international troops can be cobbled together under a U.N. mandate to replace an interim contingent of about 3,800 led by the United States and including French, Canadian and Chilean soldiers.
Many of the world's peacekeeping missions operate under the auspices of the United Nations, which currently oversees more than 50,000 troops in 14 places. That troop number is due to grow by about 20,000 as four other planned operations take shape in Haiti, Burundi, Sudan and Cyprus.
But efforts to meet this surge have been handicapped by the demands of U.S. and NATO-led coalitions trying to stabilize Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. These operations have sapped troops and resources from the United States, Canada and some European countries -- traditional sources of support for U.N. peacekeeping missions.
"There is not enough capacity in the world to deal with the requirements," said Douglas J. Feith, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy. "Other countries have shown an interest in building up their peacekeeping forces, but they need help."
The goal of Bush's initiative is to train about 75,000 additional foreign troops who could be deployed on short notice and perform a wide range of peacekeeping activities, including the most dangerous and demanding ones.
"This is meant to expand worldwide capacity that could be used by the United Nations or by others," Feith said.
By focusing on Africa, Bush is building on a State Department program that has provided training assistance to the region since the mid-1990s. But funding for that effort -- the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program -- has stayed below $15 million in recent years.
Another program, known as Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capacities and used to fund U.S. training for peace operations worldwide, has received even less money.
Administration officials expect to finance Bush's initiative from Pentagon as well as State Department accounts. Some of the trainers will come from U.S. military ranks, but in certain regions, private contractors are more likely to be used, according to Joseph Collins, the Pentagon's deputy assistant for stability operations.
Although past U.S. training efforts have succeeded in creating some additional peacekeeping capacity, one of the persistent challenges has been sustaining units that have received the training.
"They have tended to dissipate as a result of people leaving, dying, getting reassigned," Feith said. "So there's a major element in the president's initiative that deals with sustainment, which is to say, continual training and incentives to keep these units together so they can be used."
On Capitol Hill, a Democratic staff member with a Senate committee -- one of the few in Congress who has been briefed on the initiative -- predicted it will receive broad bipartisan support. Several independent analysts also welcomed the initiative.
"This is an awakening for an administration that hadn't made peacekeeping a priority," said Victoria Holt, a senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington research group. "They are recognizing that if they want to have other countries participate in peacekeeping, they must provide more support."
Bush's plan has been months in the making, according to officials involved in drafting it. As early as November 2002, in a speech in Chile to a gathering of defense ministers from countries in the Western Hemisphere, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld briefly mentioned the need to do something to increase the number of peacekeeping forces available around the world.
The president's initiative stops short of establishing standing military units that would be devoted only to international peacekeeping -- an idea that U.S. officials considered but discarded as unnecessarily restrictive.
It also makes no provision for creating forces within the U.S. military that would be reserved for peacekeeping missions. This notion has gained favor with some in the Pentagon, including Arthur Cebrowski, director of the Office of Force Transformation. But it faces stiff opposition from senior Army officials who argue that combat troops can be used for peacekeeping when required and that designating a separate peacekeeping-only force would sap overall U.S. military strength.
"We are always going to do our share of peacekeeping," Collins said. "What we want to avoid is doing more than we have to."
-------- afghanistan
U.S. General in Afghanistan Says Pakistan Has Hurt Al Qaeda
April 19, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/asia/19CND-AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 19 - The top American general in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, said today that Pakistan had successfully disrupted Al Qaeda's network in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and significantly affected its ability to support the Taliban insurgency across the border.
In an interview in the Afghan capital, General Barno commended the Pakistani military for its "bold moves" against foreign fighters in the Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan in March, and said it had so far prevented an anticipated spring offensive by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"There have been some tough fights, so I give them great credit for making some bold moves over there," he said. The Pakistanis' operation since January was different in quality and quantity from their previous activity, he said, and had disrupted what had been a very stable area for Al Qaeda's foreign fighters and senior leadership where they had lived and operated free of outside military pressure for two years.
"That has had a significant unsettling effect on their organization over there and to some degree on their ability to support the Taliban as well," he said of Al Qaeda. "But clearly they are concerned about what is going on over there."
The general would not be drawn out on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda's top leaders, Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, but said he thought reports that a senior Qaeda leader had been surrounded in fighting in South Waziristan in March were not accurate.
The Pakistani authorities estimate that there are 500 to 600 foreign Al Qaeda fighters in the tribal areas, including top Al Qaeda leaders. In fighting in March, they claimed to have killed some 60 people and captured 160 more, including Uzbeks and other foreigners.
Nevertheless there was no sign that any Al Qaeda members had escaped into Afghanistan, he said. American forces positioned on the Pakistani-Afghan border to catch any fighters escaping the Pakistani operation, in what he has described as a "hammer and anvil" tactic, have seen little movement across the border into Afghanistan, he said.
"Our sense is that anyone who is there, is still there," he said.
And there was every sign that Al Qaeda fighters would stay in the Pakistani tribal areas and fight, partly because they knew it was "extraordinarily dangerous" for them to operate in Afghanistan because of the American presence, he said. He described them as trained and experienced fighters, who had deep roots and had intermarried in Pakistan.
"This isn't just a transient force, these folks are there for the long haul," he said. "Our sense is that that they are going to stay and fight the Pakistanis."
"I think ultimately they'll be destroyed regardless of which choice they make," he said. "But so far we have not seen them make any choice to come into Afghanistan. And if they do, we are certainly going to deal with them." Pakistan was showing a new determination, especially after taking casualties in the fighting in March, he said.
"They are pushing forward and they are looking to finish this fight in the tribal area," he said of the Pakistani military. "Are they having setbacks? Absolutely. Are they continuing to press forward? Yes. Are they genuine in this? I think absolutely, yes."
The Taliban, meanwhile, had failed to mount its threatened spring offensive in Afghanistan to date, partly thanks to the success of the Pakistani operation, General Barno said.
It means the hunt for bin Laden and his inner circle will remain focused in Pakistan, while American forces in Afghanistan turn part of their attention to securing the countryside for elections in September. Central to the effort will be improving regional security in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban's "pin prick" attacks on softer targets, such as government officials and officials of the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations.
A contingent of 2,000 United States marines that has recently arrived , boosting the U.S.-led coalition force in Afghanistan to 13,500 is poised to deploy to the most remote and lawless regions of Afghanistan, General Barno said. They will not be just chasing terrorists, but working with civil affairs, and local Afghan leaders to help establish a presence in important but ungovernable areas.
"Our goal is obviously to enable every Afghan to be able to cast that ballot when the time comes, both to register every one of them, and to get their vote out; that's crucial," he said.
-------- africa
Blair Expected to Allow Vote on a European Constitution
April 19, 2004
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/europe/19CND-BLAI.html
LONDON, April 19 - In a reversal that surprised political allies and rivals, Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce Tuesday that he will submit any European Union constitution that emerges this year to the British electorate in a referendum.
The date of the referendum has not been set, and behind the scenes discussions on the policy change continued today, but government officials suggested it would likely be set after national elections expected in May 2005. Conservatives said they would oppose such a delay.
Mr. Blair's decision could have a far-reaching impact on Britain's integration with Europe, on Mr. Blair's political career, and on Europe itself, where analysts said the demand for similar referenda could spread to France and the Netherlands, in addition to Ireland and Denmark where ballot questions on the constitution already seem likely.
A no vote could deal another blow to forward motion in consolidating the founding treaties, laws and amendments that make up the document intended to serve as the foundation of a European government.
The constitution, drafted by a convention working under former President Valery Giscard d'Estang of France, failed to emerge from a summit meeting of European leaders in December when Spain, a current member, and Poland, one of 10 nations joining the union next month, opposed a new voting system that would diminish their strength relative to France and Germany.
The intensity of the clash led to a consensus that the effort to adopt a constitution might have to be put off indefinitely. But last month's Spanish elections and the a change of governments in Madrid and in Poland suddenly altered the balance of power in Europe and made a new compromise possible.
"We did emerge from Brussels with a new sense of momentum and a desire to try and achieve a constitution by June," Mr. Blair's official spokesman said this morning.
The spokesman, who cannot be identified under the ground rules of his briefing, said that the prime minister would send Foreign Secretary Jack Straw before Parliament on Tuesday to lay out the government's new position. But later in the day, government officials said that given the significance of the policy change, Mr. Blair would appear and lead the debate.
Making an unrelated appearance before Parliament today, Mr. Blair refused to confirm in his public remarks that he had decided to make what his critics were calling one of the biggest "U-turns" of his career, but he said he looked forward to explaining himself.
"It will be a pleasure to debate the reality, not the myth," Mr. Blair said.
Up to now, Mr. Blair's government has insisted that the European constitution, if approved in June by heads of state, would be a "tidying up exercise" that would not require voter approval. But opposition parties on the right and left have pummeled Mr. Blair's refusal to put the question to the British people, something conservative governments in the 1980's and early 1990's were also loathe to do as the European project advanced.
In recent weeks, Michael Howard, the Conservative Party leader, has taken to taunting Mr. Blair over the referendum question, as he did at party conference in Wales earlier this month:
"When it comes to transferring power from Britain to Brussels, Tony Blair says `Trust me.' Well, conservatives say `Trust the people.' "
Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal-Democrats, said his party joined the conservatives in demanding a referendum, but for different reasons.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph last week, Mr. Kennedy said that Europe's constitution involves "the transfer of significant powers" from Britain to the European government in Brussels, and therefore the British people need to endorse the process.
Anti-European sentiment continues to run so high that Mr. Blair risks losing a referendum unless he mobilizes a long campaign, analysts said. As it is, some Labor Party and government officials said that Mr. Blair was likely to try to delay a referendum as long as he can.
The referendum risks voter repudiation of Mr. Blair's pro-European stance and thus threatens his government as he seeks to leak the Labor Party into a record-setting third term. But a successful referendum could also serve as a dress rehearsal for Mr. Blair's long-deferred attempt to broach the question of Britain's entry into Europe's single currency, political analysts said. He must now consider that a remote possibility.
"He's playing a very defensive game with this constitution," said Heather Grabbe, the deputy director of the Center for European Reform. "The government has done very little to sell this document in Britain and it needs to use the next 18 months to really sell it and it is not clear that Blair has a clear strategy for doing that."
"It is also possible, Ms. Grabbe said, that Mr. Blair, in setting a distant date for a referendum, was counting on the constitutional question to first falter in any of the other elections called across Europe.
-------- arms
US Army buy anti-armor weapons, training systems from Swedish Saab
STOCKHOLM (AFP)
Apr 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040419083822.7v351bkh.html
The US Army has ordered anti-armor weapons specially developed for urban warfare from the Swedish high-tech company Saab, it said on Monday.
"The AT4 CS are short-distance weapons for one-time use aimed at taking out tanks," Anders Florenius, a spokesman for Saab business unit Bofors Dynamics, told AFP.
Florenius refused to reveal how many of the weapons the US Army had ordered, or the value of the contract, which was finalised following a year-long qualification round.
"The value of this contract doesn't lie in this first order," he said. "It lies in the fact that the AT4 CS has passed the army's stringent qualification. We think there will be many more orders."
The US Army bought large quantities of AT4 CS's predecessor, the AT4 starting in the 1980, according to Florenius, who said there hadn't been much competition for the contract.
"They liked the predecessor, so they tested the next-generation," he said.
Another Saab business unit, Saab Training Systems, also announced Monday that it had won a 14-million-dollar (11.6-million-euro) contract for delivering six instrumentation systems to the US Army.
"This is the first order from the US Army for the combat simulation systems for use in the US itself. They have been using the systems in Europe ... This confirms that the US Army is pleased with our product, and we hope they'll buy more," Saab Training Systems spokesman Lars Birging told AFP.
-------- britain
British troops 'in Iraq for ten years'
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN IN BASRA
Mon 19 Apr 2004
Scotsman
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=439232004
BRITISH troops may have to stay in Iraq for up to ten years to ensure security, the commanding officer of British forces in the southern Iraqi city of Basra told The Scotsman yesterday.
Brigadier Nick Carter's warning came as the security situation in southern Iraq deteriorated after a day in which British troops came under sustained attack from supporters of the Shiite cleric Muqtadr al- Sadr, in the town of al-Amarah.
Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, yesterday admitted that the coalition underestimated how unstable the security situation in Iraq would become after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
To add to Mr Blair's concerns, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the new prime minister of Spain, announced he had ordered Spanish troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible. Spain's foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos later said the troops would be out within 15 days.
Speaking before the latest attacks in Iraq, Brig Carter admitted that local forces would not be capable of maintaining security on their own after the 30 June handover of power to an Iraqi government.
He said: "You will get some policemen who will identify with Sadr and some who won't.
"We are in cloud-cuckooland if we think we are going to create overnight a police force that is accountable to the population. Certainly for a number of years to come, western forces are going to have to be there to support the police force."
He added he was looking for a United Nations mandate to take action, on behalf of the Iraqi population, against those forces that continued to make trouble. "I have to be looking two, three, ten years out," he said.
British forces might not be in the country in such numbers, but he believed they would be involved to some extent in assisting the new Iraqi security forces. "I think in terms of western involvement in restructuring Iraq, we are talking many years. We have to build solid foundations now for the longer term."
His comments come amid a period of increased violence in the south of the country, which has been linked to the clash with militants loyal to Sadr.
Paul Bremer, the senior United States administrator in Iraq, last night echoed the brigadier's comments. Defending the continued involvement of US troops in the country, he said Iraq's police and armed forces would not have the capability to secure the country from the threat of insurgents by 30 June.
Troops from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment came under a prolonged assault from militia using machine guns and mortars near the town of al-Amarah in Maysan province, north of Basra, yesterday. At least one soldier suffered gunshot wounds.
In a separate attack just north of Basra, a large British military convoy carrying Warrior armoured vehicles was attacked on the main Route 6 highway running up to Baghdad.
British commanders are known to have been in contact with their US counterparts to urge caution in the handling of Sadr.
The firebrand cleric has taken refuge in Najaf and it is feared that any attempt to take him by force could trigger a major revolt among Iraq's Shiite community, with Basra regarded as particularly vulnerable.
Brig Carter said: "While they [the wider Shia community] regard Sadr as an upstart, they have some sympathy with his grievances. The Basra Shiite will see an attack on Sadr as an attack on the Shiites overall. He is becoming a bit of a talisman figure."
Posters of Sadr have appeared around Basra, where his firm stance has won the support of large numbers of moderate Shiites.
In the last two weeks, one British soldier has lost a leg in a rocket-propelled grenade attack and British forces have come under repeated attack in and around Basra.
"It has been quite a rough ride," the brigadier said. "There has been a degree of nervousness that has manifested itself in a number of attacks in Basra and Maysan. A variety of ne'er-do-wells and malcontents who would have had a go anyway have been able to use the Sadr cause to piggyback on."
He said the trouble had come from predominately Shiite groups, influenced by what was happening in Najaf, and what happened next depended very much on the handling of the current situation.
"It is a question of whether it is resolved by Iraqis. It should be resolved by the Iraqis," he said. "If the coalition feels it has to use force, it could be interesting. It is a very volatile country and we are only here because we have the support and consent of the population."
-------- business
Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
By DAVID BARSTOW
April 19, 2004
NY TIMES
This article was reported by David Barstow, James Glanz, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Kate Zernike and was written by Mr. Barstow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19SECU.html
They have come from all corners of the world. Former Navy Seal commandos from North Carolina. Gurkas from Nepal. Soldiers from South Africa's old apartheid government. They have come by the thousands, drawn to the dozens of private security companies that have set up shop in Baghdad. The most prized were plucked from the world's elite special forces units. Others may have been recruited from the local SWAT team.
But they are there, racing about Iraq in armored cars, many outfitted with the latest in high-end combat weapons. Some security companies have formed their own "Quick Reaction Forces," and their own intelligence units that produce daily intelligence briefs with grid maps of "hot zones." One company has its own helicopters, and several have even forged diplomatic alliances with local clans.
Far more than in any other conflict in United States history, the Pentagon is relying on private security companies to perform crucial jobs once entrusted to the military. In addition to guarding innumerable reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide security for the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer III, and other senior officials; to escort supply convoys through hostile territory; and to defend key locations, including 15 regional authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, the center of American power in Iraq.
With every week of insurgency in a war zone with no front, these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions between professional troops and private commandos. Company executives see a clear boundary between their defensive roles as protectors and the offensive operations of the military. But more and more, they give the appearance of private, for-profit militias - by several estimates, a force of roughly 20,000 on top of an American military presence of 130,000.
"I refer to them as our silent partner in this struggle," Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican and Armed Services Committee chairman, said in an interview.
The price of this partnership is soaring. By some recent government estimates, security costs could claim up to 25 percent of the $18 billion budgeted for reconstruction, a huge and mostly unanticipated expense that could delay or force the cancellation of billions of dollars worth of projects to rebuild schools, water treatment plants, electric lines and oil refineries.
In Washington, defense experts and some leading Democrats are raising alarms over security companies' growing role in Iraq.
"Security in a hostile fire area is a classic military mission," Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a member of the Armed Service committee, wrote last week in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed by 12 other Democratic senators. "Delegating this mission to private contractors raises serious questions."
The extent and strategic importance of the alliance between the Pentagon and the private security industry has been all the more visible with each surge of violence. In recent weeks, commandos from private security companies fought to defend coalition authority employees and buildings from major assaults in Kut and Najaf, two cities south of Baghdad. To the north, in Mosul, a third security company repelled a direct assault on its headquarters. In the most publicized attack, four private security contractors were killed in an ambush of a supply convoy in Fallujah.
The Bush administration's growing dependence on private security companies is partly by design. Determined to transform the military into a leaner but more lethal fighting force, Mr. Rumsfeld has pushed aggressively to outsource tasks not deemed essential to war-making. But many Pentagon and authority officials now concede that the companies' expanding role is also a result of the administration's misplaced optimism about how Iraqis would greet American reconstruction efforts.
The authority initially estimated that security costs would eat up about 10 percent of the $18 billion in reconstruction money approved by Congress, said Capt. Bruce A. Cole of the Navy, a spokesman for the authority's program management office.
But after months of sabotage and insurgency, some officials now say a much higher percentage will go to security companies that unblushingly charge $500 to $1,500 a day for their most skilled operators.
"I believe that it was expected that coalition forces would provide adequate internal security and thus obviate the need for contractors to hire their own security," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the new inspector general of the authority. "But the current threat situation now requires that an unexpected, substantial percentage of contractor dollars be allocated to private security."
"The numbers I've heard range up to 25 percent," Mr. Bowen said in a telephone interview from Baghdad. Mark J. Lumer, the Pentagon official responsible for overseeing Army procurement contracts in Iraq, said he had seen similar estimates.
But Captain Cole said that the costs were unlikely to reach that level and that the progress of reconstruction would eventually alleviate the current security problems.
Still, in many ways the accelerating partnership between the military and private security companies has already outrun the planning for it.
There is no central oversight of the companies, no uniform rules of engagement, no consistent standards for vetting or training new hires. Some security guards complain bitterly of being thrust into combat without adequate firepower, training or equipment. There are stories of inadequate communication links with military commanders and of security guards stranded and under attack without reinforcements.
Only now are authority officials working to draft rules for private security companies. The rules would require all the companies to register and be vetted by Iraq's Ministry of Interior. They would also give them the right to detain civilians and to use deadly force in defense of themselves or their clients. "Fire only aimed shots," reads one proposed rule, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times.
Several security companies have themselves been pressing for the rules, warning that an influx of inexperienced and small companies has contributed to a chaotic atmosphere. One company has even enlisted a former West Point philosopher to help it devise rules of conduct.
"What you don't need is Dodge City out there any more than you've already got it," said Jerry Hoffman, chief executive of Armor Group, a large security company working in Iraq. "You ought to have policies that are fair and equal and enforceable."
Company executives argue that their services have freed up thousands of troops for offensive combat operations.
But some military leaders are openly grumbling that the lure of $500 to $1,500 a day is siphoning away some of their most experienced Special Operations people at the very time their services are most in demand.
Pentagon and coalition authority officials said they had no precise tally of how many private security guards are being paid with government funds, much less how many have been killed or wounded. Yet some Democrats and others suggest that the Bush administration is relying on these companies to both mask the cost of the war and augment an overstretched uniformed force.
Mr. Rumsfeld has praised the work of security companies and disputed the idea that they were being pressed into action to make up for inadequate troop levels.
Still, the government recently advertised for a big new contract - up to $100 million to guard the Green Zone in Baghdad.
"The current and projected threat and recent history of attacks directed against coalition forces, and thinly stretched military force, requires a commercial security force that is dedicated to provide Force Protection security," the solicitation states. Danger Zones: Rising Casualties and Deal Making
The words did not match the images from Iraq.
At a Philadelphia conference last week, a government official pitched the promise of Iraq to dozens of business owners interested in winning reconstruction contracts.
William H. Lash III, a senior Commerce Department official, said Baghdad was flowering, that restaurants and hotels were reopening. He told of driving around Baghdad and feeling out of place wearing body armor among ordinary Iraqis. In any case, he joked, the armor "clashed with my suit," so he took it off.
But the view from Iraq is considerably less optimistic, with contracting companies and allied personnel alike hunkering down in walled-off compounds. "We're really in an unprecedented situation here," said Michael Battles, co-founder of the security company Custer Battles. "Civilian contractors are working in and amongst the most hostile parts of a conflict or postconflict scenario."
One measure of the growing danger comes from the federal Department of Labor, which handles workers' compensation claims for deaths and injuries among among contract employees working for the military in war zones.
Since the start of 2003, contractors have filed claims for 94 deaths and 1,164 injuries. For all of 2001 and 2002, by contrast, contractors reported 10 deaths and 843 injuries. No precise nation-by-nation breakdown is yet available, but Labor Department officials said an overwhelming majority of the cases since 2003 were from Iraq.
With mounting casualties has come the exponential growth of the little-known industry of private security companies that work in the world's hot spots. In Iraq, almost all of them are on the United States payroll, either directly through contracts with government agencies or indirectly through subcontracts with companies hired to rebuild Iraq.
Global Risk Strategies, one of the first security companies to enter Iraq, now has about 1,500 private guards in Iraq, up from 90 at the start of the war. The Steele Foundation has grown to 500 from 50. Erinys, a company barely known in the security industry before the war, now employs about 14,000 Iraqis.
In many cases companies are adapting to the dangers of Iraq by replicating the tactics they perfected on Special Forces teams. One, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group, has recruited Iraqi informants who provide intelligence that helps the company assess threats, said Michael A. Janke, the company's chief operating officer.
The combination of a deadly insurgency and billions of dollars in aid money has unleashed powerful market forces in the war zone. New security companies aggressively compete for lucrative contracts in a frenzy of deal making.
"A lot of firms have put out a shingle, and they're not geared to operate in that environment," said Mr. Hoffman, the Armor Group chief executive.
One security company, the Steele Foundation, recently turned down an $18 million contract for a corporation that wanted a security force deployed within only a few days; Steele said it simply could not find enough qualified guards so quickly. Another company promptly jumped at the contract.
"They just throw bodies at it," said Kenn Kurtz, Steele's chief executive officer.
Early on in the war, private security contractors came mostly from elite Special Operations forces. It is a small enough world that checking credentials was easy. But as demand has grown, so has the difficulty of finding and vetting qualified people.
"At what point do we start scraping the barrel?" asked Simon Faulkner, chief operating officer of Hart, a British security company. "Where are these guys coming from?"
When four guards working for a subcontractor hired by Erinys were killed in an attack in January, they were revealed to be former members of apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. One had admitted to crimes in an amnesty application to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission there. "We were very alarmed," said Michael Hutchings, the chief executive of Erinys Iraq. "We went back to our subcontractors and told them you want to sharpen up on your vetting."
Troops and Guards: Distinctions Are Hard to Keep
For private security contractors, the rules of engagement are seemingly simple. They can play defense, but not offense. In fact, military legal experts say, they risk being treated as illegal combatants if they support military units in hostile engagements.
"We have issued no contracts for any contractor to engage in combat," Mr. Lumer, the Army procurement official.
What has happened, Mr. Lumer said in an interview, is that the Pentagon has, to a "clearly unprecedented" degree, relied on security companies to guard convoys, senior officials and coalition authority facilities.
No one wants regular troops "standing around in front of buildings," he said. "You don't want them catching jaywalkers or handing out speeding tickets."
But in Iraq, insurgents ignore distinctions between security guards and combat troops. And what is more, they have made convoys and authority buildings prime targets. As a result, security contractors have increasingly found themselves in pitched battles, facing rocket-propelled grenades, not jaywalkers..
It is in those engagements, several security executives said, that the distinctions between defense and offense blur most. One notable example came two weeks ago, when eight security contractors from Blackwater USA helped repel a major attack on a coalition authority building in Najaf. The men fired thousands of rounds, and then summoned Blackwater helicopters for more.
In an interview, Patrick Toohey, vice president for government relations at Blackwater, grappled for the right words to describe his men's actions. At one moment he spoke proudly of how the Blackwater men "fought and engaged every combatant with precise fire." At another he insisted that his men had not been engaged in combat at all. "We were conducting a security operation," he said.
"The line," he finally said, "is getting blurred."
And it is likely to get more blurred, with private security companies lobbying for permission to carry heavier weapons.
"We will keep pressing for that," said Mr. Faulkner, the Hart executive - especially after four of his men spent 14 hours on a roof of their building in Kut fighting off 10 times as many insurgents. Another Hart employee was killed in the assault, his body later dismembered by the mob.
"I cannot accept a situation where four of our people are being besieged by 40 or 60 Iraqis, where they're talking to me on a telephone saying, `Who's coming to help?' " Mr. Faulkner said.
They are also seeking ways to improve communications with military units.
Two weeks ago, a team of private security guards fought for hours to defend a coalition authority building in Kut. They later complained that allied Ukrainian forces had not responded to their calls for help.
Even routine encounters between allied forces and private security teams can be perilous. Mr. Janke, the security company executive and himself a former Navy Seal, said that in a handful of cases over the last year, jittery soldiers had "lit up" - fired on - security companies' convoys.
No one was killed, but standard identification procedures might have prevented those incidents, Mr. Janke said.
Sorting out lines of authority and communication can be complex. Many security guards are hired as "independent contractors" by companies that, in turn, are sub-contractors of larger security companies, which are themselves subcontractors of a prime contractor, which may have been hired by a United States agency.
In practical terms, these convoluted relationships often mean that the governmental authorities have no real oversight of security companies on the public payroll.
In other cases, though, the government insists that security companies abide by detailed rules. A solicitation for work to provide security for the United States Agency for International Development, for example, contains requirements on everything from attire to crisis management.
"If a chemical and/or biological threat or attack occurs, keep the area near the guard post clear of people," the document states, adding in capital letters, "Remember, during the confusion of this type of act, the guards must still provide security for employees or other people in the area."
The words are emphatic, but empty.
Government contracting officials and company executives concede that private guards have every right to abandon their posts if they deem the situation too unsafe. They are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, nor can they be prosecuted under civil laws or declared AWOL.
Scott Earhart said he left Iraq because he was disgusted at the risks he was asked to take without adequate protection or training.
Mr. Earhart, 34, arrived in Iraq in October to work as a dog handler for a bomb-detection company hired by Custer Battles. A former sheriff's deputy in Maryland, he said that there were not enough weapons and that his body armor was substandard.
"If you didn't get to the supply room in time you wouldn't have a gun," he said.
Mr. Earhart said the breaking point came when he was asked to drive unarmed to Baghdad from Amman, Jordan. "I felt my safety was in jeopardy," he said.
Mr. Battles, of Custer Battles, said that it had taken longer than expected to get weapons shipments, and that the company had had "growth issues, like everybody else." But, he emphasized, "under no circumstances did we let people out into the field without proper equipment."
Clearer Rules: Search for Standards, Even a Philosophy
For more than a decade, military colleges have produced study after study warning of the potential pitfalls of giving contractors too large a role on the battlefield. The claimed cost savings are exaggerated or illusory, the studies argue. Questions of coordination and oversight have not been adequately resolved. Troops could be put at risk.
Several senior American commanders in Iraq and Kuwait, or who have recently returned, expressed mixed feelings about the use of private security companies.
"The key thing is there are many requirements that are still best filled with combat units that can call on gunship support - Apache and Kiowa Warriors overhead - medevac, and just plain old reinforcements," one senior Army general wrote in an e-mail message to The Times. "Our task is to outsource what MAKES SENSE given the enemy situation."
In an unusual reversal of roles, the push for industry standards is coming from security executives themselves. In Washington, Pentagon lawyers are reviewing the rules governing security companies. At the same time, coalition authority and Iraqi officials are drafting operating rules for the private security companies.
The draft rules urge the use of "graduated force" - first shout, then shove, then show your weapon, then shoot. And they spell out when the guards may use deadly force. But they do not cover precisely how security operators will be screened and trained.
For now, companies are often writing their own rules and procedures for Iraq.
"It's an industry that if it's not careful could easily blend into what is usually referred to as war profiteers or soldiers of fortune or mercenaries," "It is a very ill-defined operating space right now," Mr. Battles said. "We draw the lines."
Custer Battles went so far as to hire an expert in military ethics, Paul Christopher, who taught philosophy at West Point. Mr. Christopher is helping the company define its place and policies in the chaos of Iraq.
"He's the anti-Rambo," Mr. Battles said. "This is a deep thinker."
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article.
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U.S. Rice Growers Push for Iraq Contracts
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22638-2004Apr18?language=printer
When the U.S. military took control of Iraq, many farmers across America's southern rice belt looked forward to reclaiming a multimillion-dollar market lost after a post-Persian Gulf War economic embargo against Saddam Hussein's government.
They are still waiting for the payoff. In an example of the limits of power, U.S. rice sales to Iraq -- once the top market abroad -- have been negligible despite U.S. control of decisions affecting trade and the economy.
Last week, the Iraqi Grain Board, made up partly of holdovers from the government of the ousted dictator, awarded its first contract for a major rice delivery: to Thailand for 135,000 tons, according to news reports. Earlier this year, a U.N. agency arranged for a 70,000-ton shipment to Iraq from Vietnam, which is not a member of the U.S.-led coalition ruling Iraq.
U.S. authorities say they are caught between helping American farmers and letting Iraqis have more say in the run-up to full sovereignty.
"We are in control of certain things, but other things we are trying to get turned over to the Iraqis," said an American agricultural official who asked not to be named because he does not speak for the U.S. government. "We're in the role of trying to influence them without being in a position to force it."
That situation, however, has brought angry demands in Congress that the Bush administration do more to ensure that the U.S. rice industry gets its fair share of the fruits of American sacrifice and treasure.
"When contracts for food are awarded, those countries that helped in the effort to free Iraq should be the first" to make the food sales, Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) told a meeting of rice millers and growers in February.
A letter from House and Senate lawmakers to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice complained that allowing other major exporters to bid on food shipments "creates a situation where the market is quite likely to remain in the hands of competitors who are not coalition partners."
U.S. rice sales to Iraq averaged 345,000 tons a year in the 1980s and exceeded 500,000 tons in peak years. Iraq needs to import nearly 1 million tons of rice a year, worth about $200 million at current prices. Iraq gets virtually all of its rice from Vietnam, Australia and Thailand.
Overall, about half the 9 million-ton annual U.S. rice crop is sold abroad. But those exports have been unusually prone to the vicissitudes of international politics.
The reverberations have been felt across the rice belt, especially in states such as Missouri and Arkansas, which happen to be battlegrounds in the coming presidential campaign.
Much of the rice crop that carpets the lush, flat land of Missouri's "boot heel" and eastern Arkansas eventually moves down the Mississippi River into export channels.
"If we're going to have preferential treatment for U.S. contractors, we think members of the coalition should be given preference" in the sale of basic commodities, said Paul Combs, a Missouri rice farmer. He said the rice industry deserved the same consideration as Halliburton Corp., which has received more than $2 billion worth of U.S. contracts to rebuild Iraq.
But there are obstacles, concedes Lee Adams, president of American Rice Inc. of Houston.
"While I very much want Texas rice going to Iraq, our prices are $150 to $175 a ton higher than Asian rice," he said.
Iraq must rely mainly on scarce cash from its oil sales to buy food. U.S. credits and loan guarantees are blocked pending settlement of about $4 billion in debts left over from the 1980s. "Getting that debt forgiven will take forever," Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) complained at a recent House hearing.
Complicating the problem for the Bush administration is that some of this country's main allies in Iraq are its chief competitors in world grain markets.
Thailand, for example, has about 440 medical and engineering troops in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala.
"The president has made clear he won't do anything to jeopardize relations with coalition members, and that includes keeping everything open and aboveboard without favoritism," said Dan Amstutz, who until recently represented Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman at the governing Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad.
Late last year, however, the CPA stepped in to block the Iraqi Grain Board from going ahead with a major wheat purchase using specifications that appeared to favor Australia, which has enjoyed a near monopoly over Iraqi wheat imports since U.S. shipments were halted at the time of the 1991 Gulf War.
The Iraqi Grain Board's action that tilted toward Australia "caught everybody off guard," said Robert Riemenschneider, director of the grain and feed division of the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service. The wheat deal was rescinded, and the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, took control of the bidding process.
The intervention came after a bipartisan group of farm-state senators wrote the Bush administration raising questions about wheat contracts that Australia, a coalition partner, had negotiated with Iraq under the oil-for-food program, which expired last year.
To "educate" Iraqi officials about the need for openness, the Department of Agriculture sponsored a meeting in Amman, Jordan, attended by key representatives of U.S. wheat and rice exporting organizations. As a result of the meetings, the Iraqi Grain Board will be visiting the U.S. rice industry.
Although Australia has since won the bulk of the sales, the United States has made inroads. About 325,000 tons of U.S. wheat bound for Iraq are now in the pipeline.
"We've never asked for a preference; we just want an open and transparent purchasing system," said Dawn Forsythe, public affairs director for U.S. Wheat Associates.
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Pentagon to Award $25 Bln in Contracts
April 19, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-arms-contracts.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is poised to award defense contracts valued at over $25 billion in the next few months, including a $6 billion deal to build the Army's next spy plane expected in early May.
Top U.S. defense firms are vying for major military jobs such as building a new U.S. Navy ship, a joint missile and a satellite communications system -- all of which focus on joint use by military services, communications and intelligence operations.
Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank, said the new weapons programs ``are mostly about transforming the military by creating a networked force that does business in completely different ways.''
Following deep cuts in the early 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, U.S. defense spending is now about 32 percent above its level in 1998, and the George W. Bush administration is projecting further increases through the end of the decade.
Many of the contracts, due in coming months, aim to bring U.S. military platforms into the high-speed information age.
Defense analyst Joe Nadol at JP Morgan said Lockheed is involved in six of the biggest competitions, twice as many as any other contractor, and looked likely to win two or three.
-- A Pentagon acquisition panel will decide on April 22 whether to give initial approval for production of the Joint Common Missile (JCM), to replace Hellfire and Maverick missiles on Army, Navy and Marine Corps planes and helicopters.
That decision will pave the way for the Pentagon to award a contract in late May valued at around $6 billion to one of three industry teams: Chicago-based Boeing Co. (BA.N), teamed with Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC.N), is competing against teams from Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N) and Raytheon Co. (RTN.N).
-- In early May, the Army will award a multibillion-dollar contract for its next-generation airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system, which will also replace the Navy's aging EP-3 surveillance aircraft.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed is vying with Northrop for the initial $670 million Aerial Common Sensor contract, with analysts putting the total program value at $6 billion.
-- The Army and Air Force are also nearing a decision on two segments of a program for software programmable radios with voice, data, imagery and video communications capability, or Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS).
In April, they are expected to award a contract valued at up to $3 billion either to General Dynamics or ITT Industries Inc. (ITT.N). In May, they will pick two of three companies vying for an additional $4 billion of that project.
-- In late May, the Navy is due to choose one or two firms to keep designing the new Littoral Combat System, a small, stealthy ship for anti-mine, intelligence and spy missions.
Nadol said the Navy is favoring the Lockheed design over those of General Dynamics, based in Falls Church, Virginia, and Waltham-Massachusetts-based Raytheon.
-- In early June, the Navy is expected to award a $3.7 billion contract for replacement of its aging P-3 surveillance aircraft. Lockheed is offering a system based on a variant of the P-3 airframe, while Boeing has based its solution for the Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) on its 737 aircraft.
-- Also in June, the Navy will award a contract worth over $2 billion for a new narrowband tactical satellite communications system, or Mobile User Objective System (MUOS).
Lockheed has teamed with Boeing and General Dynamics to bid against Raytheon, which has partnered with bankrupt Loral Space and Communications Ltd. (LRLSQ.OB).
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Robot plane drops bomb in test
Another step for remote-control warfighting
The Associated Press
April 19, 2004
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4779727/
LOS ANGELES - A robotic plane deliberately dropped a bomb near a truck at Edwards Air Force Base on Sunday, marking another step forward for technology the U.S. military hopes will one day replace human pilots on dangerous combat missions.
Under human supervision but without human piloting, a prototype of the Boeing Co.'s X-45 took off from the desert base, opened its bomb bay doors, dropped a 250-pound (114-kilogram) Small Smart Bomb and then landed.
The inert bomb struck within inches of the truck it was supposed to hit, Boeing said, adding that had the bomb contained explosives, the target would have been destroyed.
"It's absolutely a huge step forward for us. It shows the capability of an unmanned airplane to carry weapons," said Rob Horton, Boeing's chief operator for the mission. "From the video, you see the weapon going down and a huge cloud of dust and the truck shaking around."
The X-45A was preprogrammed with the target coordinates and used the satellite-based Global Positioning System to adjust its course.
Horton, who was sitting 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the target, authorized the drone to drop the bomb, which was released from 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) as the plane flew at 442 mph (700 kilometers per hour).
The military sees such aircraft taking part in its most dangerous missions, such as bombing enemy radar and surface-to-air missile batteries, in order to clear the path for human pilots.
The Y-shaped, tailless plane has a 34-foot (10.4-meter) wingspan and weighs 8,000 pounds (3,600 kilograms) empty. It is the first drone designed specifically to carry weapons into combat.
Other robotic planes, including the Predator spy drone currently being used in Afghanistan, have been modified to carry weapons.
Boeing hopes to build hundreds of the X-45 planes, which would cost $10 million to $15 million each.
• Predator
• Global Hawk
• X-45A (UCAV)
• CamCopter
• Small UAVs
• Micro Air Vehicles
- U.S. Air Force
Drone can send back high-resolution video, infrared and radar imagery in real time via satellite. It can carry Hellfire anti-tank missiles (as shown).
Vital statistics: 26 feet, 8 inches long. Wingspan is 48 feet, 5 inches. Entered service in 1994. Costs $3.2 million.
Maximums: 138 mph speed, 26,000 feet in altitude, range of 500 nautical miles, endurance of 29 hours.
More info: U.S. Air Force: Predator
- U.S. Air Force
High-altitude, long-range, fully automatic spy plane has cameras, infrared sensors, radar, jamming equipment and other countermeasures.
Vital statistics: 44 feet, 4 inches long. Wingspan is 116 feet, 2 inches. Still being tested. Costs $45 million, but that figure could drop to less than $20 million.
Maximums: 397 mph speed, 67,300 feet in altitude, range of 14,000 nautical miles, endurance of 42 hours.
More info: U.S. Air Force: Global Hawk
- Boeing
Boeing's Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle is still under development. It would carry a variety of smart weapons as well as satellite and line-of-sight communications.
Vital statistics: 27 feet long. Wingspan would be 34 feet. First flight test in 2002, production by 2010. Production models to cost $10 million.
Maximums: High subsonic speed, medium-high altitude, range of 500 to 1,000 miles.
More info: Boeing: Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle
- Scheibel
Small-scale helicopter is controlled via laptop-style ground station. It can carry video camera, infrared imager, small payloads.
Vital statistics: 8 feet, 2 inches long. Blade diameter is 10 feet, 1 inch. U.S. Army evaluating models for demining operations. Two-copter system costs $1 million.
Maximums: 75 mph in speed. 60 miles in range. Endurance of 6 hours.
More info: Schiebel CamCopter
- Dan Splaine / Jason Foundation
NASA is developing small remote-controlled planes with sensors for environmental monitoring and other applications.
Vital statistics: Wingspan of 8 to 11 feet. Weight ranges from 10 to 20 pounds. Commercial models may be available around 2006, with cost targeted at perhaps $2,000.
Maximums: 40 mph in speed. 400 feet or more in altitude. Endurance of 120 minutes.
More info: Instrumented UAV Systems for Earth Science
- Aerovironment
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding development of small pilotless flying machines for military intelligence, such as the Black Widow shown at right.
Vital statistics: No more than 6 inches long. Production cost targeted at $1,000. Black Widow weighs 1.75 ounces.
Maximums for Black Widow: 43 mph in speed. 769 feet in altitude. Range of 0.6 mile. Endurance of 30 minutes.
More info: DARPA: Micro Air Vehicles
Source: MSNBC research, Associated Press
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Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
By DAVID BARSTOW
April 19, 2004
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19SECU.html
This article was reported by David Barstow, James Glanz, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Kate Zernike and was written by Mr. Barstow.
They have come from all corners of the world. Former Navy Seal commandos from North Carolina. Gurkas from Nepal. Soldiers from South Africa's old apartheid government. They have come by the thousands, drawn to the dozens of private security companies that have set up shop in Baghdad. The most prized were plucked from the world's elite special forces units. Others may have been recruited from the local SWAT team.
But they are there, racing about Iraq in armored cars, many outfitted with the latest in high-end combat weapons. Some security companies have formed their own "Quick Reaction Forces," and their own intelligence units that produce daily intelligence briefs with grid maps of "hot zones." One company has its own helicopters, and several have even forged diplomatic alliances with local clans.
Far more than in any other conflict in United States history, the Pentagon is relying on private security companies to perform crucial jobs once entrusted to the military. In addition to guarding innumerable reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide security for the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer III, and other senior officials; to escort supply convoys through hostile territory; and to defend key locations, including 15 regional authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, the center of American power in Iraq.
With every week of insurgency in a war zone with no front, these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions between professional troops and private commandos. Company executives see a clear boundary between their defensive roles as protectors and the offensive operations of the military. But more and more, they give the appearance of private, for-profit militias - by several estimates, a force of roughly 20,000 on top of an American military presence of 130,000.
"I refer to them as our silent partner in this struggle," Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican and Armed Services Committee chairman, said in an interview.
The price of this partnership is soaring. By some recent government estimates, security costs could claim up to 25 percent of the $18 billion budgeted for reconstruction, a huge and mostly unanticipated expense that could delay or force the cancellation of billions of dollars worth of projects to rebuild schools, water treatment plants, electric lines and oil refineries.
In Washington, defense experts and some leading Democrats are raising alarms over security companies' growing role in Iraq.
"Security in a hostile fire area is a classic military mission," Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a member of the Armed Service committee, wrote last week in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed by 12 other Democratic senators. "Delegating this mission to private contractors raises serious questions."
The extent and strategic importance of the alliance between the Pentagon and the private security industry has been all the more visible with each surge of violence. In recent weeks, commandos from private security companies fought to defend coalition authority employees and buildings from major assaults in Kut and Najaf, two cities south of Baghdad. To the north, in Mosul, a third security company repelled a direct assault on its headquarters. In the most publicized attack, four private security contractors were killed in an ambush of a supply convoy in Fallujah.
The Bush administration's growing dependence on private security companies is partly by design. Determined to transform the military into a leaner but more lethal fighting force, Mr. Rumsfeld has pushed aggressively to outsource tasks not deemed essential to war-making. But many Pentagon and authority officials now concede that the companies' expanding role is also a result of the administration's misplaced optimism about how Iraqis would greet American reconstruction efforts.
The authority initially estimated that security costs would eat up about 10 percent of the $18 billion in reconstruction money approved by Congress, said Capt. Bruce A. Cole of the Navy, a spokesman for the authority's program management office.
But after months of sabotage and insurgency, some officials now say a much higher percentage will go to security companies that unblushingly charge $500 to $1,500 a day for their most skilled operators.
"I believe that it was expected that coalition forces would provide adequate internal security and thus obviate the need for contractors to hire their own security," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the new inspector general of the authority. "But the current threat situation now requires that an unexpected, substantial percentage of contractor dollars be allocated to private security."
"The numbers I've heard range up to 25 percent," Mr. Bowen said in a telephone interview from Baghdad. Mark J. Lumer, the Pentagon official responsible for overseeing Army procurement contracts in Iraq, said he had seen similar estimates.
But Captain Cole said that the costs were unlikely to reach that level and that the progress of reconstruction would eventually alleviate the current security problems.
Still, in many ways the accelerating partnership between the military and private security companies has already outrun the planning for it.
There is no central oversight of the companies, no uniform rules of engagement, no consistent standards for vetting or training new hires. Some security guards complain bitterly of being thrust into combat without adequate firepower, training or equipment. There are stories of inadequate communication links with military commanders and of security guards stranded and under attack without reinforcements.
Only now are authority officials working to draft rules for private security companies. The rules would require all the companies to register and be vetted by Iraq's Ministry of Interior. They would also give them the right to detain civilians and to use deadly force in defense of themselves or their clients. "Fire only aimed shots," reads one proposed rule, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times.
Several security companies have themselves been pressing for the rules, warning that an influx of inexperienced and small companies has contributed to a chaotic atmosphere. One company has even enlisted a former West Point philosopher to help it devise rules of conduct.
"What you don't need is Dodge City out there any more than you've already got it," said Jerry Hoffman, chief executive of Armor Group, a large security company working in Iraq. "You ought to have policies that are fair and equal and enforceable."
Company executives argue that their services have freed up thousands of troops for offensive combat operations.
But some military leaders are openly grumbling that the lure of $500 to $1,500 a day is siphoning away some of their most experienced Special Operations people at the very time their services are most in demand.
Pentagon and coalition authority officials said they had no precise tally of how many private security guards are being paid with government funds, much less how many have been killed or wounded. Yet some Democrats and others suggest that the Bush administration is relying on these companies to both mask the cost of the war and augment an overstretched uniformed force.
Mr. Rumsfeld has praised the work of security companies and disputed the idea that they were being pressed into action to make up for inadequate troop levels.
Still, the government recently advertised for a big new contract - up to $100 million to guard the Green Zone in Baghdad.
"The current and projected threat and recent history of attacks directed against coalition forces, and thinly stretched military force, requires a commercial security force that is dedicated to provide Force Protection security," the solicitation states. Danger Zones: Rising Casualties and Deal Making
The words did not match the images from Iraq.
At a Philadelphia conference last week, a government official pitched the promise of Iraq to dozens of business owners interested in winning reconstruction contracts.
William H. Lash III, a senior Commerce Department official, said Baghdad was flowering, that restaurants and hotels were reopening. He told of driving around Baghdad and feeling out of place wearing body armor among ordinary Iraqis. In any case, he joked, the armor "clashed with my suit," so he took it off.
But the view from Iraq is considerably less optimistic, with contracting companies and allied personnel alike hunkering down in walled-off compounds. "We're really in an unprecedented situation here," said Michael Battles, co-founder of the security company Custer Battles. "Civilian contractors are working in and amongst the most hostile parts of a conflict or postconflict scenario."
One measure of the growing danger comes from the federal Department of Labor, which handles workers' compensation claims for deaths and injuries among among contract employees working for the military in war zones.
Since the start of 2003, contractors have filed claims for 94 deaths and 1,164 injuries. For all of 2001 and 2002, by contrast, contractors reported 10 deaths and 843 injuries. No precise nation-by-nation breakdown is yet available, but Labor Department officials said an overwhelming majority of the cases since 2003 were from Iraq.
With mounting casualties has come the exponential growth of the little-known industry of private security companies that work in the world's hot spots. In Iraq, almost all of them are on the United States payroll, either directly through contracts with government agencies or indirectly through subcontracts with companies hired to rebuild Iraq.
Global Risk Strategies, one of the first security companies to enter Iraq, now has about 1,500 private guards in Iraq, up from 90 at the start of the war. The Steele Foundation has grown to 500 from 50. Erinys, a company barely known in the security industry before the war, now employs about 14,000 Iraqis.
In many cases companies are adapting to the dangers of Iraq by replicating the tactics they perfected on Special Forces teams. One, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group, has recruited Iraqi informants who provide intelligence that helps the company assess threats, said Michael A. Janke, the company's chief operating officer.
The combination of a deadly insurgency and billions of dollars in aid money has unleashed powerful market forces in the war zone. New security companies aggressively compete for lucrative contracts in a frenzy of deal making.
"A lot of firms have put out a shingle, and they're not geared to operate in that environment," said Mr. Hoffman, the Armor Group chief executive.
One security company, the Steele Foundation, recently turned down an $18 million contract for a corporation that wanted a security force deployed within only a few days; Steele said it simply could not find enough qualified guards so quickly. Another company promptly jumped at the contract.
"They just throw bodies at it," said Kenn Kurtz, Steele's chief executive officer.
Early on in the war, private security contractors came mostly from elite Special Operations forces. It is a small enough world that checking credentials was easy. But as demand has grown, so has the difficulty of finding and vetting qualified people.
"At what point do we start scraping the barrel?" asked Simon Faulkner, chief operating officer of Hart, a British security company. "Where are these guys coming from?"
When four guards working for a subcontractor hired by Erinys were killed in an attack in January, they were revealed to be former members of apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. One had admitted to crimes in an amnesty application to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission there. "We were very alarmed," said Michael Hutchings, the chief executive of Erinys Iraq. "We went back to our subcontractors and told them you want to sharpen up on your vetting."
Troops and Guards: Distinctions Are Hard to Keep
For private security contractors, the rules of engagement are seemingly simple. They can play defense, but not offense. In fact, military legal experts say, they risk being treated as illegal combatants if they support military units in hostile engagements.
"We have issued no contracts for any contractor to engage in combat," Mr. Lumer, the Army procurement official.
What has happened, Mr. Lumer said in an interview, is that the Pentagon has, to a "clearly unprecedented" degree, relied on security companies to guard convoys, senior officials and coalition authority facilities.
No one wants regular troops "standing around in front of buildings," he said. "You don't want them catching jaywalkers or handing out speeding tickets."
But in Iraq, insurgents ignore distinctions between security guards and combat troops. And what is more, they have made convoys and authority buildings prime targets. As a result, security contractors have increasingly found themselves in pitched battles, facing rocket-propelled grenades, not jaywalkers..
It is in those engagements, several security executives said, that the distinctions between defense and offense blur most. One notable example came two weeks ago, when eight security contractors from Blackwater USA helped repel a major attack on a coalition authority building in Najaf. The men fired thousands of rounds, and then summoned Blackwater helicopters for more.
In an interview, Patrick Toohey, vice president for government relations at Blackwater, grappled for the right words to describe his men's actions. At one moment he spoke proudly of how the Blackwater men "fought and engaged every combatant with precise fire." At another he insisted that his men had not been engaged in combat at all. "We were conducting a security operation," he said.
"The line," he finally said, "is getting blurred."
And it is likely to get more blurred, with private security companies lobbying for permission to carry heavier weapons.
"We will keep pressing for that," said Mr. Faulkner, the Hart executive - especially after four of his men spent 14 hours on a roof of their building in Kut fighting off 10 times as many insurgents. Another Hart employee was killed in the assault, his body later dismembered by the mob.
"I cannot accept a situation where four of our people are being besieged by 40 or 60 Iraqis, where they're talking to me on a telephone saying, `Who's coming to help?' " Mr. Faulkner said.
They are also seeking ways to improve communications with military units.
Two weeks ago, a team of private security guards fought for hours to defend a coalition authority building in Kut. They later complained that allied Ukrainian forces had not responded to their calls for help.
Even routine encounters between allied forces and private security teams can be perilous. Mr. Janke, the security company executive and himself a former Navy Seal, said that in a handful of cases over the last year, jittery soldiers had "lit up" - fired on - security companies' convoys.
No one was killed, but standard identification procedures might have prevented those incidents, Mr. Janke said.
Sorting out lines of authority and communication can be complex. Many security guards are hired as "independent contractors" by companies that, in turn, are sub-contractors of larger security companies, which are themselves subcontractors of a prime contractor, which may have been hired by a United States agency.
In practical terms, these convoluted relationships often mean that the governmental authorities have no real oversight of security companies on the public payroll.
In other cases, though, the government insists that security companies abide by detailed rules. A solicitation for work to provide security for the United States Agency for International Development, for example, contains requirements on everything from attire to crisis management.
"If a chemical and/or biological threat or attack occurs, keep the area near the guard post clear of people," the document states, adding in capital letters, "Remember, during the confusion of this type of act, the guards must still provide security for employees or other people in the area."
The words are emphatic, but empty.
Government contracting officials and company executives concede that private guards have every right to abandon their posts if they deem the situation too unsafe. They are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, nor can they be prosecuted under civil laws or declared AWOL.
Scott Earhart said he left Iraq because he was disgusted at the risks he was asked to take without adequate protection or training.
Mr. Earhart, 34, arrived in Iraq in October to work as a dog handler for a bomb-detection company hired by Custer Battles. A former sheriff's deputy in Maryland, he said that there were not enough weapons and that his body armor was substandard.
"If you didn't get to the supply room in time you wouldn't have a gun," he said.
Mr. Earhart said the breaking point came when he was asked to drive unarmed to Baghdad from Amman, Jordan. "I felt my safety was in jeopardy," he said.
Mr. Battles, of Custer Battles, said that it had taken longer than expected to get weapons shipments, and that the company had had "growth issues, like everybody else." But, he emphasized, "under no circumstances did we let people out into the field without proper equipment."
Clearer Rules: Search for Standards, Even a Philosophy
For more than a decade, military colleges have produced study after study warning of the potential pitfalls of giving contractors too large a role on the battlefield. The claimed cost savings are exaggerated or illusory, the studies argue. Questions of coordination and oversight have not been adequately resolved. Troops could be put at risk.
Several senior American commanders in Iraq and Kuwait, or who have recently returned, expressed mixed feelings about the use of private security companies.
"The key thing is there are many requirements that are still best filled with combat units that can call on gunship support - Apache and Kiowa Warriors overhead - medevac, and just plain old reinforcements," one senior Army general wrote in an e-mail message to The Times. "Our task is to outsource what MAKES SENSE given the enemy situation."
In an unusual reversal of roles, the push for industry standards is coming from security executives themselves. In Washington, Pentagon lawyers are reviewing the rules governing security companies. At the same time, coalition authority and Iraqi officials are drafting operating rules for the private security companies.
The draft rules urge the use of "graduated force" - first shout, then shove, then show your weapon, then shoot. And they spell out when the guards may use deadly force. But they do not cover precisely how security operators will be screened and trained.
For now, companies are often writing their own rules and procedures for Iraq.
"It's an industry that if it's not careful could easily blend into what is usually referred to as war profiteers or soldiers of fortune or mercenaries," "It is a very ill-defined operating space right now," Mr. Battles said. "We draw the lines."
Custer Battles went so far as to hire an expert in military ethics, Paul Christopher, who taught philosophy at West Point. Mr. Christopher is helping the company define its place and policies in the chaos of Iraq.
"He's the anti-Rambo," Mr. Battles said. "This is a deep thinker."
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article.
-------- europe
Top European Backs Spain on Pullout
April 19, 2004
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/europe/19CND-REAX.html
ROME, April 19 - The European Commission president, Romano Prodi, today praised the new Spanish prime minister's decision to withdraw troops from Iraq, and he suggested that other nations were likely to follow.
"With this decision, Spain has fallen into line with our position," Mr. Prodi, who is also a leader of the Italian opposition, told reporters after an opposition meeting here. "The divide that prevented Europe from having a common position is being overcome."
A commission aide later sought to backtrack by asserting that Mr. Prodi did not favor an immediate withdrawal of European troops, and that his comments did not reflect an official commission position. Nevertheless, Mr. Prodi's comments seemed sure to inflame the debate over European support for the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, which has been sharply divided.
Along with Britain, Italy and Spain had until last week been among the most prominent members of the coalition of countries with troops in Iraq. But on Sunday, a day after taking office, the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, ordered the 1,400 Spanish troops to leave Iraq "as soon as possible."
While Mr. Zapatero, a Socialist, had campaigned on a platform against the war, his move was considered a blow to the Bush administration's efforts to convince other countries to contribute and keeps troops in Iraq. Mr. Zapatero had said he was willing to maintain troops there only under a United Nations mandate.
Today Mr. Bush spoke to Mr. Zapatero to express his regret about the decision to remove Spanish troops. He also stressed to Mr. Zapatero the importance of avoiding any action that could give "false comfort to terrorists," the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters today.
The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who is one of President Bush's strongest supporters, said late last week that a withdrawal of roughly 3,000 Italian troops was "absolutely out of the question." Today, his aides reiterated that stance.
Mr. Berlusconi has faced increasing political pressure over Iraq since four Italian security guards were taken hostage there, one of whom was later killed. Polls show that a majority of Italians oppose the war. The Italian opposition has generally called for the troops to come under United Nations control, though some opposition politicians have said they should be withdrawn at once.
The escalating violence in Iraq has also stirred a political backlash in other nations that have contributed troops, including Poland, Portugal and Norway. Still, none has followed Spain's lead and pulled out.
Mr. Prodi said today that by withdrawing troops, Spain was "applying strong pressure to speed up a solution to these problems rapidly. It is a very clear position and one that we share."
Later, a spokesman for the European Commission said Mr. Prodi was voicing his own political views, not an official commission position. The spokesman, Marco Vignudelli, said he wanted to make clear that Mr. Prodi believed that "an immediate retreat of troops will not be useful."
Mr. Berlusconi's allies accused Mr. Prodi of politicizing his duties at the commission, which is the European Union's executive body.
"It's clear that the European Commission no longer has a president," said Senator Renato Schifani, a member of Mr. Berlusconi's Forza Italia party. "Romano Prodi even today uses a role which should be above the political fray to pontificate as the Italian opposition's candidate. If he had a minimum of political honesty, he would resign."
Also today, the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, met separately with the Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, and the special United Nations envoy for Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi.
Mr. Frattini endorsed a proposal by Mr. Brahimi to transfer sovereignty in Iraq to a caretaker Iraqi government after June 30.
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Pullout takes Poland by surprise
Monday, April 19, 2004
(AP)
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/04/19/iraq.poland.ap/index.html
WARSAW, Poland -- Spain's sudden announcement that it would pull its troops out of Iraq left other members of the multinational force scrambling Monday to come up with a plan for keeping the peace in what has become one of the most tumultuous regions of the country.
Poland, which commands the 23-nation force of 9,500 troops in south-central Iraq, said it was taken by surprise by the announcement Sunday that Spain, the third-largest contributor with 1,300 troops, would be pulling out.
The Polish Defense Ministry said in a statement that commanders are now working on transferring "tasks from the Spaniards while maintaining the operational capability of the division and ensuring the safety of the soldiers."
"It's certainly a surprising decision," Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski told the Rzeczpospolita daily. "We are all working intensively on several variants on how to make up for the leaving troops. Perhaps we will have to reorganize the division."
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, sought to allay fears within the multinational force.
"Numerically those are numbers (the Spanish contingent) that should be able to be replaced in fairly short order," Kimmitt said. "There will not be a security vacuum in that area at any time."
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero made the announcement just hours after his government was sworn in, fulfilling a campaign promise.
Zapatero had initially pledged to remove the troops if the United Nations had not taken political and military control of the situation in Iraq by June 30. In making his announcement to remove them earlier, Zapatero said there were no signs that the situation would have changed enough to satisfy Spain by that deadline.
The news triggered criticism from some coalition members, such as Australia. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer worried that if other countries followed Madrid's example, "then Iraq would be left without security and Iraq would become a haven for terrorists."
Poland, which has committed 2,400 troops of its own to the multinational force, said it would not be able to make up the difference caused by the Spanish pullout.
But Albania stepped forward Monday and told the United States that it was ready to increase its military presence in Iraq, which at the moment is mostly symbolic, consisting of 71 non-combat troops patrolling the city of Mosul under U.S. command.
Slovakia's president-to-be Ivan Gasparovic, who once opposed deployment of his country's soldiers to Iraq, told The Associated Press the threat of worldwide terrorism now justified their presence. Slovakia has 105 soldiers in Iraq, most of them working in de-mining, and has said it remains committed to staying in Iraq.
"Would it be better to withdraw from Iraq and leave free hands to terrorism and leave defeated or prevail and do everything possible to stop terrorism from spreading?" Gasparovic asked.
The multinational force is in control of a region that has been the center of recent intense fighting between coalition forces and followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Jaroslaw Drozd told The Associated Press the pullout would make the situation even more difficult.
"The decision puts a new challenge ahead of us because we have to continue to carry out tasks under our military obligation," he said.
Drozd said Poland was hoping for a U.N. resolution that might help provide wavering countries the impetus to either make new troop contributions or follow through with what they have already committed. Also important is the transfer of power on June 30 from the U.S.-led coalition to an Iraqi caretaker government, Drozd said.
Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek, the commander of the multinational division, issued a statement Monday in which he said the Spanish decision "does not affect the continuity of the division's functioning."
"The decision to withdraw the Spanish troops is a sovereign decision and must be respected," Bieniek said. "But the pullout of the troops is a military operation which needs time and planning."
Apart from its own troops, Spain has commanded some 1,000 soldiers from El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Honduras, and it remains uncertain whether they might be forced to pull out as well, said Grzegorz Holdanowicz, Polish corespondent for Jane's Defense Weekly.
"Those troops depend on the Spanish troops for logistics and language reasons but as of today they are said to remain," Holdanowicz said in a telephone interview. "The situation may change though."
Holdanowicz said that some countries such as Ukraine have said they could contribute more troops and perhaps now they could fill in the void. Ukraine currently has 1,600 troops in the Polish-led sector, making it the second-largest contributor.
-------- iraq
10 GIs Die in Attacks In Iraq
Spain's New Leader Orders Withdrawal
By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21925-2004Apr18?language=printer
BAGHDAD, April 18 -- Ten U.S. troops were killed in combat across Iraq and two others died in accidents, the military announced Sunday, as Spain's new prime minister ordered the withdrawal of 1,300 Spanish troops from the country.
A day after he was sworn in, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said he did not believe the United Nations would assume responsibility for Iraq after the U.S.-led occupation formally ends June 30 -- his criterion for allowing the troops to stay.
"More than anything, this decision reflects my desire to keep the promise I made to the Spanish people more than a year ago," said Zapatero, whose Socialist party came to power after general elections on March 14. "Driven by the deepest democratic convictions, the government does not want to, cannot and will not act against or behind the backs of the will of the Spanish people."
The pullout, announced in Madrid, would deprive the United States of troops in a swath of south-central Iraq where forces are attempting to quell a two-week insurrection by militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite Muslim cleric, Moqtada Sadr. Zapatero said the withdrawal would begin as soon as possible.
The deaths of the 10 troops, all on Saturday, raised to nearly 100 the number of Americans killed in combat in April, already the deadliest month since the U.S. invasion began, as urban rebellions, ambushes of military convoys and kidnappings have convulsed the country.
In the bloodiest encounter of the weekend, five Marines were killed near the Syrian border in a day-long firefight with a force of 120 to 150 insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
The battle began when a Marine patrol came under attack at 8 a.m. Saturday near Qusaybah, according to Maj. Thomas V. Johnson, a Marine spokesman. "Additional Marines, backed by helicopter close-air support, were dispatched to the city and soon came under fire by enemy equipped with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades," he said. The Marines estimated that 25 to 30 guerrillas were killed.
The same morning, a soldier from the 1st Cavalry Division, which formally took control of Baghdad last week, was killed and two were injured when their M1-A1 Abrams tank rolled over in a northern section of the city. Rollovers involving the 63-ton tank are rare, and the division has ordered a safety investigation.
A half-hour later, another 1st Cavalry Division soldier was killed when his convoy hit a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad. In the evening, three soldiers from the 1st Armored Division were shot to death in an ambush near the southern town of Diwaniyah.
In addition, a Marine was killed "by enemy action" Saturday in western Anbar province.
In northern Iraq on Saturday night, a 1st Infantry Division soldier was electrocuted while working on a generator at a military base near Samarra around 10:30 p.m.
The deaths occurred the same day the military abruptly closed sections of several major highways to all traffic except military and contractor vehicles, severely slowing the movement of people and goods to and from the Iraqi capital.
U.S. military commanders said the shutdown applied to 180 miles of roads leading into the capital from the north, south and west. Persistent attacks on convoys have led to shortages of food and other essential supplies at American military installations and the headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authority.
Army engineers erected prefabricated modular steel bridges to temporarily replace spans south and west of Baghdad that were damaged in an apparently coordinated series of bombings that began two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, military logisticians have tried to adapt to the hazardous conditions by using alternate and less-direct routes off major highways and by prioritizing the delivery of supplies to units that need them most urgently, a military official, Army Maj. Richard W. Spiegel, said Sunday.
"In certain cases, the recent increase in attacks may have changed the way we do business, but it has not affected the way we supply or support the troops," said Spiegel, a spokesman for the 13th Corps Support Command, which manages logistics for the joint military command in Iraq. "Water, food, ammunition, fuel, spare parts and other critical supplies are still getting where they need to be when they need to be there."
Of particular concern is a major expressway, called Main Supply Route Tampa by U.S. commanders, that carries the bulk of military traffic in Iraq. The expressway runs east from the Jordanian and Syrian borders toward Baghdad before veering southeast toward Basra and the Kuwaiti border.
Two sections of the expressway -- a spur connecting northern Baghdad to the western suburb of Abu Ghraib, and a stretch from Abu Ghraib southeast to the village of Khayqan ash Sharqi in Babil province -- have been closed, the military announced Sunday, revising its earlier description of the affected roads. Highway 1, a major north-south artery, also was closed from northern Baghdad to Balad, 45 miles to the northwest.
Ambushes and bombings along the highways amount to "a concerted effort on the part of the enemy to try to interfere with our lines of communication, our main supply routes," and the effects could ripple through the Iraqi economy, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, warned on Friday.
"Fewer supplies are going to be able to get to the people of Baghdad and the surrounding region," he said. "Prices will probably go up. The reconstruction projects, which are so critical to the onward development in this country, will be slowed down because contractors will be intimidated to come in. We have not seen a major problem with that yet, but if this continues, realistically we would expect that to happen."
The owner of a trucking company in Baghdad, who gave his name only as Abu Abdullah because several of his drivers have received death threats for working with Americans, said that his employees had begun to refuse work connected to the occupation.
For much of the past year, Abu Abdullah said, his company has transported concrete barriers, food, electrical supplies for Kellogg Brown & Root, the firm that has the major contract for transporting food and supplies for the U.S. military in Iraq. The trucking company often would take materials from the Balad air base to smaller bases.
"Whatever we take, it's dangerous now," Abu Abdullah said. "The mujaheddin stop you on the road. They ask you: 'Who are taking these things for?' They want to see the papers. If you lie and you don't have the right papers, they will burn you with the trailer."
He added that Kellogg Brown & Root, a unit of Halliburton Co., has begun offering trucking companies 1 million dinars -- about $700 -- for an overnight truck trip in some cases, a large sum in a country where $200 is considered a decent monthly salary. "The drivers still refuse," Abu Abdullah said, even when the firm has offered armed escorts to accompany the convoys.
Kellogg Brown & Root suspended convoys after insurgents ambushed an Army fuel-truck convoy on April 9, killing one soldier and an Iraqi driver. The company recently resumed the convoys, a Halliburton spokeswoman said.
In a statement defending Iraq's U.S.-sponsored interim constitution, the administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, reiterated the American position that the U.S. military would still be needed to provide security after June 30, when power is to be handed over to an interim government.
"Events of the past two weeks show that Iraq still faces security threats and needs outside help to deal with them," Bremer said.
A Pentagon spokesman said Spain's decision to withdraw its troops came as no surprise. "We knew it was Spain's intention since the election to do this," the spokesman said on condition of anonymity. "We hope the withdrawal will be done in a reasonable and coordinated manner."
In another development, the new Iraqi defense minister, Ali Abdul-Amir Allawi, appointed three generals to serve as his top military adviser and the country's top two military commanders.
Gen. Babakir Zibari, 57, a former commander of the Kurdish pesh merga militias, was named senior military adviser. Gen. Amer Hashimi, 58, a major general under former president Saddam Hussein, was named chief of staff and commander of the Iraqi Armed Forces. Another former major general, Lt. Gen. Daham Assal, 63, was named deputy chief of staff.
The appointment of former military officers to the new Defense Ministry has been criticized, but U.S. commanders said recently that they are needed because management experience is lacking.
Staff writer Bradley Graham in Washington and special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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Leaders in Falluja Urge Rebels to Halt Attacks on U.S. Forces
April 19, 2004
By KIRK SEMPLE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19CND-IRAQ.html?hp
A delegation of local leaders joined with American officials today in calling for rebels in the besieged town of Falluja to surrender their weapons and permit the resumption of American and Iraqi patrols, an American official said.
The bilateral appeal is the first hint of a breakthrough in a two-week-old standoff between American troops who have encircled the town and rebel fighters inside.
But the success of the agreement will largely depend on the influence that the local leaders will have over the Sunni Muslim insurgents there, and American officials admitted today that they were uncertain if the agreement would succeed in bringing a peaceful end to the standoff.
Dan Senor, the spokesman for the chief American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, said that while the American authorities were "hopeful about the intentions of the Falluja delegation," they "also recognize that there is a big question about whether or not they can deliver, and that remains to be seen."
"We remain hopeful about their intentions," he repeated, "but we also are going to monitor closely about whether or not they are followed up with real deliverables."
Should the agreement fail to work, he added, American-led coalition troops would "reinitiate operations." The Americans announced a cease-fire in Falluja 10 days ago, but sporadic fighting has persisted.
The commitment between American officials and civic and political leaders in Falluja came a day after Mr. Bremer issued a strong warning that occupation troops would take decisive action should there be no progress in talks with rebels in Falluja and Najaf, another hot spot.
"They must be dealt with, and they will be dealt with," Mr. Bremer said on Sunday, breaking a week of silence on the confrontation with the Falluja insurgents and with Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shiite cleric, in Najaf. Mr. Bremer spoke of the need to bring an early end to the standoffs, to return Iraq to the political path the United States has mapped out, starting with the formal return of sovereignty on June 30.
A joint statement by the American authorities and the Falluja representatives called on "citizens and groups to immediately turn in all illegal weapons," including mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, sniper rifles and surface-to-air missiles, Mr. Senor said at a news conference in Baghdad.
"The parties agreed that coalition forces do not intend to resume offensive operations if all persons inside the city turn in their heavy weapons," Mr. Senor said.
The agreement also arranged for a shortening of the curfew; for the rapid passage of ambulances and security, technical and medical personnel through checkpoints, and for the gradual entry of civilians; many residents fled the town amid the fighting during the past two weeks.
On the diplomatic front, President Bush spoke with Spain's new Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who announced on Sunday that he was ordering Spanish troops to leave Iraq.
In a five-minute telephone call initiated by Mr. Zapatero, Mr. Bush also warned his counterpart against taking any action that could give "false comfort to terrorists," the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters today.
"The U.S. president expressed his regret to Zapatero about the decision to abruptly pull out Spanish troops from Iraq," Mr. McClellan said.
Mr. McClellan said Mr. Bush also "stressed the importance of carefully considering future actions to avoid giving false comfort to terrorists or enemies of freedom in Iraq."
American officials in Baghdad today said they were prepared to replace the Spanish contingent, which numbers about 1,400 troops. The withdrawal will not create a "security vacuum" and the troops will be replaced in "fairly short order," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt of the Army said at the news conference in Baghdad.
General Kimmitt said the responsibilities of the departing Spanish forces could be assumed by troops already on the ground or by incoming troops.
In the central Iraq city of Samarra, American troops shot and killed two employees of the Iraqi Iraqiya television station, the station said. A third employee was wounded, the station said.
Asaad Kadhim, a correspondent, and Hussein Saleh, a driver, were killed "after American forces opened fire on them while they were performing their duty," the station announced, according to The Associated Press. Bassem Kamel, a cameraman, was wounded, the news service said.
The station, which is financed by the Pentagon, interrupted its broadcasts to announce the deaths. The American military had no immediate comment on the deaths.
At least 24 Iraqi and foreign journalists and other members of the news media have been killed during the Iraq war and its aftermath, according to the Web site of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The developments came after a weekend in which at least 10 American marines and soldiers were killed. The deaths, announced on Sunday, pushed American troop deaths in April to more than 90, more than the 82 killed in November, the largest number until this month. Nearly 700 American soldiers have been killed since the invasion of Iraq began 13 months ago.
Unofficial counts based on tallies taken at hospitals and morgues have put Iraqi casualties in April so far, including insurgents and civilians, at about 1,000 killed.
The uprisings in Falluja and Najaf have posed the greatest challenge to American authority since the invasion, and officials, worried at times about losing control, have teetered uneasily between confrontation and conciliation. American troops have been held back in Falluja and Najaf to allow mediation, but American generals have said they will use force if the talks drag on without result.
On Sunday, Mr. Bremer, urged by his aides to speak out strongly after an unusual week in which he had said little publicly about the crisis, added his voice to those of the generals by saying that the uprising would have to be ended if Iraq's "future of hope" was to be secured.
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Bremer Is Increasing Pressure for a Quick End to Iraqi Uprisings
April 19, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS and CHRISTINE HAUSER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 18 - With no sign of a breakthrough in talks with rebels in Falluja and Najaf, the leader of the American occupation appeared to move closer on Sunday to a military showdown, saying that the rebels' failure to submit to American demands would require decisive action against those who "want to shoot their way to power."
"They must be dealt with, and they will be dealt with," the administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, said, breaking a week of silence on the confrontation with Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shiite cleric, in Najaf and Sunni Muslim insurgents in Falluja. Mr. Bremer spoke of the need to bring an early end to the standoffs, to return Iraq to the political path the United States has mapped out, starting with the formal return of sovereignty on June 30.
Mr. Bremer spoke on a weekend when at least 10 American marines and soldiers were killed. The deaths, announced Sunday, pushed American troop deaths in April to more than 90, higher than the 82 who were killed in November, the largest number until this month. Nearly 700 American soldiers have been killed since the invasion of Iraq began 13 months ago.
Unofficial counts based on tallies taken at hospitals and morgues have put Iraqi casualties so far in April, including insurgents and civilians, at about 1,000 killed.
The latest casualties announced by the American military command, all of which occurred on Saturday, included five marines killed in a 14-hour battle at a remote town on the Syrian border, and three soldiers who died in an ambush near the southern city of Diwaniya. The others were a soldier who died when an M1 Abrams tank rolled over in Baghdad, and another soldier who was electrocuted while working on a generator at an American base at Samarra, north of the capital.
The uprisings have posed the greatest challenge to American authority since the invasion, and officials, worried at times about losing control, have teetered uneasily between confrontation and conciliation. American troops have been held back in Falluja and Najaf to allow mediation, but American generals have said they will use force if the talks drag on without result.
On Sunday, Mr. Bremer, urged by his aides to speak out strongly after an unusual week in which he said little publicly about the crisis, added his voice to those of the generals by saying that the uprising would have to be ended if Iraq's "future of hope" was to be secured.
"Iraq's democratic future is challenged by violent minorities," Mr. Bremer said. He is the principal architect of the plan to return sovereignty to Iraq in about 10 weeks as the first step in a political process intended to produce a fully elected government under a permanent constitution by January 2006.
Mr. Bremer blamed former members of Saddam Hussein's forces, including his Republican Guard and his secret intelligence agency, the mukhabarat, and members of Mr. Sadr's militia force, known as the Mahdi Army, saying they were "trying to stop the process that leads to elections, to a government that respects the rights of all."
"They want to shoot their way to power," he said.
Aides say Mr. Bremer has worked intensively behind the scenes to allay impatience within the American military command over the standoffs and to give Iraqi negotiators as much time as possible to find a peaceful solution. But the aides say Mr. Bremer, too, believes that meeting the June 30 transfer date may require a decisive show of force, at least in Falluja, and that Iraqis who do not want their country to slide into chaos should speak up more forcefully against the insurgents.
American commanders clearly favor a solution in Najaf that disarms Mr. Sadr's militiamen without requiring American troops to enter the city, which is sacred to Iraq's religious Shiites. Powerful Shiite clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, considered the country's most influential religious figure, have intervened with Mr. Sadr in a bid to have him back down and spare the city an invasion.
But in a sign that diplomacy was failing, Iran said Sunday that the United States' "iron fist policy" in Iraq and a lack of security had foiled Iran's mediation efforts to end the stand-off in Najaf. The statement, at an Iranian foreign ministry news conference in Tehran, came after a senior Iranian diplomat was fatally shot in Baghdad on Thursday.
In Falluja, American calculations appear to favor military action if the Sunni Muslim insurgents there continue resisting American demands that they quit the city.
Marine commanders besieging the city have warned a delegation from Falluja shuttling to an American base outside the city that they will not tolerate for long the casualties being taken by the marines through breaches of the weeklong cease-fire.
It was partly to combat the political apathy that has set in among many ordinary Iraqis that Mr. Bremer summoned members of the Iraqi Governing Council, an advisory body, to the meeting inside the Americans' heavily protected command compound in Baghdad where he warned that military force might be needed to get the political timetable moving again.
He also appealed for some hard-headed thinking among Iraqis about the military challenges beyond June 30, when 135,000 American troops will remain in Iraq, under at least the nominal authority of an Iraqi transitional government. The role of those troops, and the independence their commanders will have from oversight by the transitional government, has become a major issue in the wake of the collapse of crucial elements of the new American-trained Iraqi forces during the uprisings in Falluja and Najaf.
"Events of the past two weeks show that Iraq still faces security threats and needs outside help to deal with them," Mr. Bremer said. "It is clear that Iraqi forces will not be able, on their own, to deal with these threats by June 30 when an Iraqi government assumes sovereignty. Instead, Iraq and troops from many countries, including the United States, will be partners in providing the security Iraqis need."
American commanders say they have been encouraged by the military situation beyond the confrontation zones in Falluja and Najaf, with levels of insurgent activity in much of the north and south at about the same level, or slightly higher, than they have been for months. But a new shock came with the battle on Saturday at Qusaybah, on the Syrian border, which had been considered a relatively pacified area.
The chief spokesman for the American command, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said Iraqi insurgents and marines fought for about 14 hours in the battle, in which insurgents used rockets, mortars and small arms in carefully plotted ambushes. A reporter for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, embedded with the Marine unit that suffered the casualties, quoted Marine intelligence reports as saying that 300 insurgents from Falluja and Ramadi, a neighboring center of the Sunni insurgency, had slipped into Qusaybah, 200 miles northwest of Falluja.
The reporter, Ron Harris, said dozens of insurgents died after they lured the marines out of their base in the neighboring town of Qaim by detonating a bomb outside the former Baath Party headquarters.
As the marines arrived at the scene, he said, they were met with a hail of rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire. A second Marine unit rushing to the scene was also ambushed, from homes along the route, causing the battle to widen and rage on past nightfall, with American helicopters strafing insurgent positions and other American helicopters ferrying the American casualties to the Marine base at Qaim.
Top Generals Appointed in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 18 (AP) - Iraq's new defense minister appointed a Kurd, a Sunni Muslim and a Shiite as his top generals on Sunday, giving the country's main communities representation in the military's senior levels.
The minister is Ali Allawi, a Shiite civilian appointed by American officials two weeks ago. He appointed Gen. Babakir Zebari as the top general and his senior military adviser. General Zebari commanded Kurdish forces in northern Iraq for decades.
The chief of staff will be Gen. Amer al-Hashimi, a Sunni and a former officer in the Iraqi infantry until he retired in 1997. Lt. Gen. Daham al-Assal, a Shiite, will be the deputy chief of staff. He had the rank of major general in the previous military.
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Iraq Peacekeepers Deal With Spain Pullout
BEATA PASEK
Mon, Apr. 19, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/8467444.htm
WARSAW, Poland - Iraq's multinational peacekeeping force scrambled to regroup Monday after Spain's announcement that it would pull out its 1,300 troops, with Albania pledging more soldiers but U.S. officials bracing for further withdrawals.
Spanish troops will leave Iraq in less than six weeks, Defense Minister Jose Bono said Monday in Madrid, but it remains unclear who will take their place. The 9,500 peacekeepers under Polish command are charged with the south-central sector, where followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are waging a bloody rebellion.
Polish officials said they thought greater United Nations involvement might help wavering countries make new troop commitments or at least follow through with what they have already promised.
"A U.N. resolution would be a great help," Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski told Poland's TVN24.
Szmajdzinski said Spain's decision caught him by surprise. "We are all working intensively on several variants on how to make up for the leaving troops," he told the Rzeczpospolita daily. "Perhaps we will have to reorganize the division."
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, sought to allay fears about the implications of the Spanish pullout, saying there would be no "security vacuum in that area at any time."
"Numerically those are numbers (the Spanish contingent) that should be able to be replaced in fairly short order," Kimmitt said.
President Bush scolded Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for the abrupt withdrawal, telling him in a telephone conversation Monday to avoid actions that give "false comfort to terrorists or enemies of freedom in Iraq."
"The president urged that the Spanish withdrawal take place in a coordinated manner that does not put at risk other coalition forces in Iraq," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
Poland has the most troops, 2,400, in the 23-nation force, and Szmajdzinski said it could not send any more.
But Albania immediately said it was ready to increase its presence. At the moment Albania's commitment is mostly symbolic, consisting of 71 non-combat troops patrolling the city of Mosul under U.S. command.
Ukraine, Australia, Portugal, Slovakia, San Salvador and the Dominican Republic said their commitments to the force would not waver.
Honduras announced Monday that its troops will serve under Polish command after the Spanish leave, but U.S. officials said they feared the Central American country also might withdraw from Iraq.
Honduras now has 370 troops in Najaf under Spanish command, alongside small forces from El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.
"Those troops depend on the Spanish troops for logistics and language reasons," said Grzegorz Holdanowicz, Polish correspondent for Jane's Defense Weekly.
San Salvador's 380 troops in Iraq will remain, and serve under Polish command, the Salvadoran military said Monday.
Honduras had planned to withdraw its contingent in July as scheduled, but State Department spokesman Richard Boucher suggested it might pull out earlier.
Honduran Foreign Minister Leonidas Rosa Bautistas said Monday that the country's president "has ordered an urgent evaluation of the situation in Iraq."
But Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek, the force commander, said troops from the three nations would stay put.
Zapatero announced the pullout just hours after his Socialist government was sworn in, fulfilling a campaign promise. Spain is the third-largest contributor of troops to the multinational force and the sixth-largest overall in Iraq.
Zapatero had initially pledged to remove the troops if the United Nations did not take political and military control of the situation in Iraq by June 30. In making his announcement to remove them as soon as possible, Zapatero said there were no signs the situation would have changed enough to satisfy Spain by that deadline.
His decision was a setback for the Bush administration, which has been eager to portray the effort in Iraq as an international cause even though it is dominated by 130,000 American troops.
Aside from the U.S. and multinational forces, some 12,000 British troops and 2,700 Italians operate in the far south.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said that with Spain's withdrawal "we can take advantage of the fact that we are now considered the closest ally in continental Europe to the United States, which is the only world superpower," the ANSA news agency reported.
However, European Commission president Romano Prodi, Berlusconi's predecessor as Italy's leader, praised Spain's decision, saying the move could help mend the rift in Europe over the war as well as increase pressure to resolve the Iraqi crisis.
"Spain with this decision has come back to our line," said Prodi.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he spoke with Spain's ambassador to express his disappointment and worried that if other countries followed Madrid's example, "then Iraq would be left without security and Iraq would become a haven for terrorists."
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Durao Barroso, whose country has 128 police officers in Nasiriyah, said his government's position "won't change ... despite any difficulties which may arise," said
Ukraine, the second-largest contributor of troops to the international sector with 1,650, also said its plans were not affected.
Slovakia's president-to-be Ivan Gasparovic, who once opposed deployment of his country's soldiers to Iraq, told The Associated Press the threat of worldwide terrorism now justified their presence. Slovakia has 105 soldiers in Iraq, most of them working in de-mining, and has said it remains committed to staying in Iraq.
"Would it be better to withdraw from Iraq and leave free hands to terrorism and leave defeated or prevail and do everything possible to stop terrorism from spreading?" Gasparovic asked.
In Tokyo, meanwhile, top Japanese military officials said Monday that greater U.N. involvement would make it easier for Japanese troops to carry out their humanitarian mission.
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Carnage dims hopes for political way
Amid U.S. military action, Iraqis increasingly loathe presence of foreigners
By Alissa J. Rubin Times Staff Writer
April 19, 2004
Los Angeles Times
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-iraqanalysis0419,0,6996673.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
BAGHDAD -- U.S. forces have stepped back from massive military action in the turbulent cities of Fallujah and Najaf, but the overwhelming sense here is that across much of Iraq, the ground is giving way beneath the Americans.
A culture of impunity has taken hold in Iraq. There are few limits to who can be taken hostage or how a hostage might be killed. In this environment, virtually any level of violence is acceptable if it is aimed at the occupation.
The loathing many Fallujah residents have for foreigners, an attitude bred of the Sunni Triangle city's long-standing insularity and 12 months of deadly faceoffs with U.S. forces, has spread. More and more Iraqis who once resented -- but tolerated -- Americans now refuse to even talk to them.
The moves on Fallujah, which Marines besieged two weeks ago, and especially on Najaf, where anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr has taken refuge, are pushing many Iraqis to choose sides between the occupation force and other Iraqis. Enduring religious animosities have been put aside as the more radical Sunnis and Shiites join to fight a new common enemy: the United States.
"If we force them to choose, they will choose their own," said a senior official in the U.S.-led coalition.
Although the military situation calmed last week, the reality on the ground was, if anything, more disturbing than the week before.
For foreigners -- troops, diplomats, contractors rebuilding the country, and journalists -- kidnappings became a daily occurrence. Shootings of people who look non-Arab -- regardless of whether they were Western, Asian or African -- became routine.
Numbers are hard to come by, since many incidents go unreported. But among the victims were half a dozen Bangladeshis attacked as they left Baghdad in a minivan; four died. At least seven Americans who were escorting a military supply convoy near the town of Abu Ghraib were attacked with small-arms fire. Several are believed to be dead, and at least two were taken hostage.
In another incident, four Italians were captured. The kidnappers shot one of their captives in the head and videotaped it, according to published reports.
Just three weeks ago, travel was easy outside Baghdad. There were risky stretches, but military convoys could pass. Foreign contractors could make their way from place to place, and journalists could drive to most areas of the country.
Now the roads out of the capital are so dangerous that few foreigners venture outside city limits. Nearly every day, a new area is closed or categorized as uncertain by the military.
On a recent trip to Karbala, a Shiite holy city about two hours' drive south of Baghdad, there were seven checkpoints manned by four different militias: the Al Mahdi army, a group mustered by Sadr; the Badr Organization, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a major religious party; the Hawza guards, linked to religious scholars in the pilgrimage towns of Najaf and Karbala; and the militia of the Islamic Dawa Party, a religious and political group. Only some of the armed men wore uniforms.
Russia, France, Japan and other countries are urging their nationals to leave Iraq. Some reconstruction projects have stopped altogether; others have slowed substantially. In the absence of a robust rebuilding effort, the economic growth that underpins a democratic society cannot take off.
In some measure, the violence against Westerners is viewed as retribution for the violence in Fallujah. Whether that is true or not, belief that Americans behaved as barbarians and that thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead is widespread. According to Arab custom and especially tribal tradition, they should be avenged.
No one knows for sure what really happened in Fallujah. All the parties involved have an interest in presenting the events in a manner that maximizes their advantage.
But the specter of carnage at the hands of Western infidels taps deep into the Iraqi consciousness, raising revulsion. It summons images of domination by the Ottoman Empire and the British, periods of profound humiliation.
"Now all the people, even the most ignorant, believe the only solution is resistance. The Americans are killing children, destroying homes, killing women," said Sheik Bilal Habashi, who runs a mosque in a Sunni-dominated neighborhood of Baghdad, near the road to Fallujah.
"The Americans want to enter Fallujah as invaders. When an invader wants to enter a city, the people start defending their city, even the women," he said.
It certainly is a possibility that U.S. forces will reassert their dominance. But at the moment, it appears that the insurgency has managed to wreak havoc in enough places that 137,000 troops are not sufficient.
"They never did have enough forces to establish security," said retired Maj. Gen. William Nash, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations who led troops in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and commanded a peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"So they had to kick a lot of cans down the road, including Sadr and the militias -- there are a lot of militias around the country, not just his," Nash said, referring to the policy of avoiding a head-on confrontation with Sadr's and other militias.
To many Westerners, the ambush and mutilation of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah appeared to be the start of the troubles. But tracing the onset of this downward spiral, two other events stand out that at the time were viewed by Westerners as relatively ordinary.
Six days before the attack on the contractors, newly arrived Marines had entered Fallujah -- the first time in months that U.S. forces had done so. In a battle for control near an entrance to the city, Marines killed between eight and 18 Iraqis, some of them civilians. That set off a cycle of revenge, including the ambush and mutilation of the contractors and a nearly simultaneous assault that killed five Marines.
The second event occurred two days after that initial battle. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority shut down a newspaper sponsored by Sadr, angering his supporters. Within hours, 500 to 1,000 followers rallied in front of the paper's office.
News spread that a key Sadr deputy had been arrested in the killing of cleric Abdul Majid Khoei, a Sadr rival who was stabbed to death about a year ago. The ranks of the humiliated and furious multiplied.
Within a few days, Sadr's chief deputies were urging his followers to take to the streets against the Americans. Soon the popular agitation spread far beyond Sadr City, the poor Baghdad neighborhood that is Sadr's base. His militia took over police stations and government offices in several southern cities and began kidnapping foreigners on the roads.
At the time, it seemed surprising that Shiites received words of support and pledges of help from Sunni insurgents in Fallujah. The alliance runs counter to decades of mistrust driven by religious differences as well as political standing. Under Saddam Hussein, the Shiite majority was ruthlessly repressed while the Sunnis enjoyed favor.
In turn, Shiite mosques warmly supported Fallujah's Sunnis, sending food, medicine and money to aid the insurgency.
What appeared as a spontaneous outpouring of anti-American emotions might in fact have reflected a secret compact between Sadr and insurgents in the Sunni Triangle to produce a national uprising around the April 9 anniversary of Baghdad's fall.
"There was a plan to control the streets around the two to three days of the anniversary of the regime's fall," said Adel Abdel Mehdi, deputy leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who often represents the organization on the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council.
"There were meetings taking place," he said. "They were preparing weapons in safe houses. Contacts were being made between people in southern Iraq and certain groups in Ramadi and Fallujah." He said that Sadr was among those with links to the Sunni Triangle.
Much of southern Iraq is calm again. An exception is Najaf, which remains under a double shadow. One is cast by the 2,500 U.S. troops who have moved near the edge of the holy city, and the other by Sadr, who is viewed by Najaf's religious and intellectual elite as a rabble rouser. However, they would find it disloyal to abandon Sadr, whose father and uncle are revered as martyrs for being assassinated on the orders of Hussein.
There is less violence in Fallujah now as well, but the city remains tense. No one believes the trouble is over. The U.S. is determined to root out the fighters, and it is clear that hundreds -- if not a couple of thousand -- are still there.
Civilians will inevitably be caught in the cross-fire. But the violence also has had a profound effect on educated Iraqis who expected the United States to show their country new ways to solve disagreements.
Bessam Jarrah is a slight, soft-spoken man who is willing to criticize violence by Iraqis. A general surgeon, he has spent much of the last two weeks coordinating efforts of the Islamic League of Medical Professionals, which has been sending volunteer physicians to treat the wounded in Fallouja. He had high hopes for the U.S. role in Iraq, but they have drained away.
"In the first months of the occupation, we, the educated people, thought America would show us a humanitarian way, a political way, to solve problems," Jarrah said. "But this use of force means the efforts to find a political solution for Iraq has failed, and now America is using Saddam's approach to problems: brute force.
"America won the war on April 9 last year; they lost the war on April 9 this year. That is what Iraqis feel."
-------- israel / palestine
Will Cheney Flash Sharon 'Green' To Kill Arafat?
by Dean Andromidas,
April 16, 2004
Executive Intelligence Review
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3115sharon_in_us.html
Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon let it be announced clearly on April 6, that he will kill Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. This would put off any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement for years and could blow up the entire Middle East. Only the American President could stay Sharon's hand. Not only has this not been done, but on April 14, Sharon will be the special White House guest of President George W. Bush.
On March 23, an Israeli rocket attack killed Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, signaling Sharon's declaration of war on Islam. Hours later, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, Lt. General Moshe Ya'alon threatened both Arafat and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Ya'alon declared that both should understand "that their turn is drawing near."
The consequences of assassinating Arafat are clear. The killing of Nasrallah is also dangerous since it could force Hezbollah to retaliate across Israel's northern border. Israel has already threatened to attack Syria or even Iran-both of whom support Hezbollah-if the latter attacks Israel.
Sharon hightened this threat by repeating it in interviews he granted to all leading Israeli daily papers on the occasion of the Passover holiday. Asked in Ha'aretz of April 6 whether he agreed with Ya'alon's threats. Sharon replied: "I wouldn't suggest that either of them feel immune," adding "I wouldn't advise any insurance company to give them coverage." Asked when this could happen, he said, "No one is safe. Anyone who sends someone to kill Jews is a marked man."
Ha'aretz published the above quotes in a short preview on April 2, prompting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to warn Israel against targeting Arafat. He declared "Our position on such questions is very well known. We are opposed, and we have made that very clear to the government of Israel." Undeterred by State Department
The April 3 London Daily Telegraph commented on Armitage's warning: "The remarks by Mr. Armitage were a fairly mild shot across the bow for Mr. Sharon, by Washington standards. Not only is he below cabinet rank, but Mr. Sharon has made no secret of his belief that he can sidestep the foreign policy bureaucrats at the State Department, dealing instead directly with the White House, as well as his supporters in Congress and the Pentagon."
When he deals with the White House, Sharon talks to Bush, but more importantly, to Vice President Dick Cheney, who clearly gave Israel the green light for the assassination of Yassin. Not intimidated by Armitage, Sharon repeated the threat even more clearly in the mass circulation Israeli daily, Ma'ariv on April 6, which asked: "Is the promise you gave President Bush regarding Arafat's safety still in effect?" Sharon replied: "In the past I accepted that obligation, not to harm him physically. That was during the time he was still greeted with red carpets worldwide ... Today, everyone knows just how harmful he is. As long as Arafat maintains control of the Palestinian security forces in complete contradiction to the road map, [Palestinian Prime Minister] Abu Ala cannot even transfer a single security officer from one end of the street to another."
When asked: "So why does Israel not assassinate him?", Sharon replied: "I wouldn't advise Arafat to view himself as having an insurance policy. He doesn't. We heard what the chief of staff and defense minister said about that. They expressed themselves clearly." Maariv pointed out that they said one should not rule out the possibility of assassinating him. The paper asked, "Aren't you countermanding them?" Sharon replied: "No."
At the White House on April 14, Sharon is expected to be given full support for his so-called "disengagement plan" from Gaza. Palestinians see the plan as Sharon's "Gaza only" plan, to be followed by the annexation of almost half of the West Bank, and the destruction of the Palestinian National Authority.
Even in Israel, there is scepticism on Sharon's plan. Ma'ariv commentator Ben Caspit writs that many Israelis believe Sharon's disengagement is in reality the implementation of his "historic map," withdrawing from Gaza and annexing most of the West Bank, and letting the Palestinians live in bantustans on less than half of the West Bank.
Sharon confirmed this to Israel's largest circulation daily, Yediot Aharanot April 6, where he called his disengagement plan "a critical blow" to the Palestinian hopes for an independent state. "In the unilateral process, there is no Palestinian state. The situation could continue for many years." Sharon added that withdrawal from Gaza will not begin until well after the United States elections in November, or even later.
In return for this, Sharon is expecting a reward from the Bush Administration. On top of his list would be a statement, issued by the White House, declaring that Israel will not have to withdraw to the so-called 1967 border. Such a statement would throw out of the window the UN Security Council resolutions, including Number 242, which have been the cornerstones of Middle East policy of the United States and international community.
Sharon is faced with the possibility of being indicted, thus ending his political career. In addition, Cheney and the financial interests that back him, are faced with an unrushing systemic financial collapse that could hit even before the November elections. Sharon and Cheney could very well want to blow up the region, creating a major international crisis behind which they can hope to save themselves. Sharon, without doubt, will meet Cheney while in America.
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Hamas Chief Mourned By Thousands in Gaza
Palestinians, Arab Leaders Condemn Assassination by Israel
By Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21798-2004Apr18?language=printer
GAZA CITY, April 18 -- Tens of thousands of Palestinians escorted the body of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi through the streets of Gaza City on Sunday as Palestinians and Arab leaders condemned Israel for his assassination and warned that fracturing the militant group could fuel greater extremism.
Hundreds of hands reached out to stroke Rantisi's shrapnel-scarred face and touch the bloodstained shroud stretched over his body outside the city's main mosque, while thousands of mourners shook their fists at Israeli F-16 fighter jets roaring above the funeral procession.
Rantisi, 56, and two bodyguards were killed Saturday evening when Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopters fired two missiles at his car near his Gaza City home, a month after he took over as the Gaza head of Hamas following Israel's assassination of the group's spiritual leader and founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, has asserted responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis.
"They said that they killed Rantisi to weaken Hamas," Ismail Haniya, a senior political leader of Hamas, told a frenzied mob through loudspeakers outside the Omari Mosque in the heart of Gaza City. "They are dreaming. Hamas might have a crisis at hand after losing its leaders, but it will not be defeated."
Rantisi's assassination occurred three days after President Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and announced a shift in U.S. Middle East policy, endorsing Israeli positions on some of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The timing cemented the views of many Palestinians that the United States and Israel had colluded in the killing, marking a potentially dangerous turning point for the United States, according to Palestinian leaders and analysts.
"Bush stands next to Sharon and after that they assassinate Rantisi," said Hani Reda, 25, as he stood near Hamas members assembling for the funeral procession in new camouflage uniforms and black masks. "We should carry our fight against the Americans as much as we are against Israel. Israel and America share the same face."
Across the West Bank, Palestinians demonstrated against the assassination. In Nablus, protesters shot, then burned effigies of Bush and Sharon, according to news service reports.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath canceled a trip to meet with Bush administration officials in Washington next week, saying that "Israel commits crimes and is rewarded by the American president."
But a spokesman for Sharon, Raanan Gissin, said that "the U.S. had nothing to do with this."
"We don't ask for a green light and we did not get a green light," Gissin said. "Rantisi was the number one terrorist operator in Gaza and we had to take him out."
He added: "Our disengagement has nothing to do with our engagement of terrorist activity. We will engage them wherever we can reach them."
Sharon has proposed removing Jewish settlements and Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip by the end of 2005, though Israel would reserve the right to continue incursions and assassinations if it perceived a threat. His disengagement plan, which Bush endorsed, also would allow Israel to keep several large Jewish settlements in the West Bank and would reject the right of return for Palestinian refugees forced from lands that are now part of Israel.
Egypt and Jordan, whose assistance Sharon has said he wants in the implementation of the disengagement plan and Gaza withdrawal, denounced the killing. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher warned that the assassination threatened to "push the region to the edge of an abyss," according to news agencies. Jordan's King Abdullah said the attack would "only breed more violence and undermine the peace process."
In a statement posted on its Web site Sunday, the military wing of Hamas, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned: "One hundred responses are on their way and the blood of Yassin and Rantisi will explode in the coming volcanoes."
Hamas leaders in Damascus, Syria, said Saturday that they had selected a replacement for Rantisi but would not announce his name in an effort to keep him from being targeted by Israel.
Palestinian analysts warned that with the leadership of Hamas in disarray and its thirst for revenge high, the organization could become more dangerous.
"This is killing any prospects for moderation," said Eyad Sarraj, a psychiatrist and human rights activist in Gaza. "It's encouraging more radicalism and violence."
For many residents of Gaza, Rantisi, a pediatrician who no longer practiced medicine, was a particularly charismatic force by virtue of his personality as much as his position.
Of the hundreds of funerals that have pulsed through the streets of Gaza City during the 31/2 years since the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israel, said Amna Abu Asha, Rantisi's was the first she has attended.
"He was a good man, he helped everybody, he was a doctor," said Abu Asha, 70, using the ends of her white head scarf to mop tears that spilled down cheeks as wrinkled as a walnut shell. "There is a big pain in my heart."
Rantisi's funeral procession, part cortege, part military show and part festival, consumed the city. Members of the military wing of Hamas, faces hidden by black ski masks or home-sewn head covers, shouldered the weapons of a guerrilla army -- polished Kalashnikov rifles and crudely constructed rocket launchers. Some wore the green headbands of Hamas, others sported green baseball caps emblazed with the Hamas logo.
Ragtag forces from other militant organizations appeared in bluejeans and T-shirts and toted aging Kalashnikovs held together by electrical tape. Among the tens of thousands of men, a few dozen women marched wearing head-to-toe black chadors that exposed only their eyes through small slits and perhaps the cuffs of bluejeans.
Along the procession route the aroma of grilled meat from roadside sandwich stands mingled with the smell of gunpowder as mourners fired into the air.
Across the city boys set garbage bins ablaze and burned tires in the middle of streets, sending black clouds of acrid smoke across the skyline. Other youngsters pushed coolers and carts, selling soft drinks and juices over crushed ice to mourners.
The funeral procession trampled over the charred remains of Rantisi's car, scraps of which were scattered across a boulevard only a few blocks from the Martyrs' Cemetery, where he was buried under a soaring pine tree.
In comments to reporters shortly after Yassin's killing, Rantisi had shrugged off Israeli threats to his life.
"It's death either by killing or by cancer," he said. "It's by Apache [helicopter] or by cardiac arrest. I prefer the Apache."
Anderson reported from Jerusalem.
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No 'Heads-Up' on Israeli Attack, Rice Says
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22393-2004Apr18.html
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States had no warning that Israel was going to kill a Palestinian militant leader hours before, adding that President Bush's overall aim in the Middle East is to ensure that the Palestinians end up with their own nation.
"We don't get heads-up on Israeli military operations," Rice said yesterday on ABC's "This Week," referring to the Israeli helicopter missile attack on Abdel Aziz Rantisi, 56, who had recently become the Gaza Strip leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as Hamas.
The ABC interview was one of several television talk show appearances by Rice yesterday. She fielded questions about the White House's controversial policies on Israeli-Palestinian relations, and about a new book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about the Bush administration's entry into the war in Iraq.
On several of the talk shows, Rice stressed that Bush was not giving Israel a free pass. Recalling Bush's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last week, she said on ABC, "The president has said repeatedly to the Israelis that they need to take account of the consequences of what they're doing."
Given the need to revive the "road map" peace talks between the two sides, the Rantisi assassination's timing "is not helpful," she added. "We understand that the Israelis have to defend themselves. It's just extremely important that the Israelis also keep in mind the long view here."
Arab leaders and some foreign governments harshly criticized Bush last week for saying after his session with Sharon that Israel should be able to retain some large Jewish settlements on the West Bank as part of an ultimate peace deal. But Rice said Bush was giving the Palestinians more concessions than were being recognized.
"For many, many years, American presidents mumbled when they got to the question of whether there was going to be a Palestinian state," she said on ABC. "This president finally said, 'There's going to be a Palestinian state; it's going to be called Palestine.' And now we have to get on the road to doing that."
On "Fox News Sunday," she hinted at what other Bush administration officials have said privately -- that Bush's stance on the West Bank settlements stemmed partly from the president's effort to boost Sharon's chances for receiving a green light from his fractious Likud Party for his plan to remove Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip. "All the president did here was to take an opportunity to help the Israeli prime minister disengage from, leave the Gaza, give up territory," she said. "Everybody has to see the opportunity in that.
"For all the negotiations, for all the special envoys, for all the trying, the Israelis had not given back essentially a kilometer of land in the occupied territories," she said. "Now we have an opportunity for an Israeli prime minister . . . to begin to remove [Gaza] settlements, to take the Israeli armed forces out of Gaza . . . and to leapfrog in many ways a lot of the careful steps that have been anticipated on the way to peace."
Rice addressed another point made by Bush, that Palestinian refugees outside Israel should not expect to return to homes they left or from which they were ejected in the 1940s. Bush was making the point that he is "not going to prejudge a final status negotiation" between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but that "there are certain realities on the ground that are going to have to be recognized," she said on ABC.
Rice also disputed a part of Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack," that she said incorrectly suggested Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell are so estranged because of disagreements about Iraq that they barely speak.
"I've had lunch on a number of occasions with Vice President Cheney and with Colin Powell, and they're more than on speaking terms," she told Fox. "They're very friendly."
She also disputed a contention in Woodward's book that Powell was out of the loop about Bush's plans to go to war during a crucial period early last year.
She addressed one passage in the book concerning a meeting she had with Bush in Texas in January 2003. Bush was expressing frustration about what he considered foot-dragging by U.N. weapons inspectors, and said to her, "I think we probably are going to have to go to war," she told CBS's "Face the Nation." She said she replied, "Mr. President, if you're beginning to think that the diplomacy is not working, it's probably time to have a conversation with the secretary of state."
"It was not a decision to go war," she said, adding that her advice to contact Powell was simply an effort to have him updated on every deliberation in the dynamic process.
"I haven't read Bob's book, which I'm sure is terrific," she said. "He's talking about a pretty complex set of discussions."
--------
Israeli Rightists Endorse Plan to Withdraw From the Gaza Strip
April 19, 2004
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
JERUSALEM, April 18 - As Palestinians massed in Gaza City to vent rage at Israel over its killing of a top militant leader on Saturday night, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon picked up crucial support on Sunday from right-wing leaders for his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip without a peace agreement.
The endorsements, including one from former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meant that Mr. Sharon would almost surely prevail in a May 2 referendum on his plan within his dominant right-wing faction, Likud, Israeli political analysts said.
If he wins the referendum, Mr. Sharon will for the first time commit Likud - a bulwark for the goal of a Greater Israel - to evacuating some settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war.
"With great difficulty and with a broken heart I have come to the conclusion that the people today want the possibility of change," said Limor Livnat of Likud, as she reluctantly backed the plan.
Seeming tired and downcast, Mr. Netanyahu, also of Likud, appeared on Israel's Channel 1 television on Sunday night to argue that he was acting as a responsible leader, even as he disappointed his most ardent rightist supporters.
Referring to diplomatic assurances provided to Israel by President Bush last week in exchange for the withdrawal plan, Mr. Netanyahu said Israelis could now "fortify our hold" over blocs of West Bank settlements. "Those who will live within the blocs know that their future and security is guaranteed," he said.
The new support for Mr. Sharon came as Gaza's streets resounded with demands for retaliation against Israel, after an Israeli missile strike on Saturday killed Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the top leader in Gaza of the militant group Hamas.
That killing, part of a continuing Israeli campaign against Hamas, underscored that the planned withdrawal may provoke more violence, at least in the short run.
Israel says it has intensified pressure on Hamas partly out of concern that the group is claiming that the withdrawal represents a defeat for Israel and a validation of militant tactics. Hamas is trying to conduct sensational attacks to support its claims, Israeli officials say.
Within Israel, the strikes on Hamas have helped protect Mr. Sharon from the accusation that he is emboldening terrorists. The backing he received Sunday, however, owed far more to the diplomatic assurances that President Bush gave Mr. Sharon.
While infuriating Palestinians, those assurances helped satisfy conditions set by Mr. Netanyahu, the finance minister, for his support.
Mr. Bush said that in any future agreement, Israel should keep some West Bank territory. And, meeting one condition set by Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Bush also rejected a "right of return" to what is now Israel for Palestinian refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and their descendants.
Mr. Bush also said that Israel would remain free after withdrawing to strike into Gaza if it felt threatened from there. That was the second of Mr. Netanyahu's conditions.
Mr. Sharon met a final condition set by Mr. Netanyahu and others on Sunday, when he assured the wavering Likud leaders that he would complete a new barrier he is building against West Bank Palestinians before evacuating any settlements.
Mr. Sharon wanted at least some of the same American commitments as Mr. Netanyahu. In setting them as explicit conditions for his support, Mr. Netanyahu strengthened Mr. Sharon's hand in Washington, while improving his own chances of eventually succeeding Mr. Sharon.
Mr. Netanyahu "was trying to maneuver himself into a position where he would be able to claim credit if and when he needs to take over as prime minister," said Eran Lerman, director of the office here of the American Jewish Committee. "He will be in a position to say, `I didn't just sign on the dotted line, I left my mark on the process.' "
That Mr. Netanyahu was looking for a way to take some credit for the withdrawal plan reflects an underlying dynamic of Israeli politics: The Likud rank-and-file appears closer to the Israeli center than the Likud leadership on the question of giving up some occupied territory.
"We have a case where the leadership is much more hawkish than the membership," said Itzhak Galnoor, a Hebrew University political scientist.
Predicting victory for Mr. Sharon in the referendum, Dr. Galnoor said that the vote would be important in giving "the formal approval to what has been going on informally for a long time." The Likud appears to be transforming itself from an opposition party with absolutist politics to a more pragmatic, governing party.
The pledges on Sunday also gave new insight into the complex political game Mr. Sharon is playing. Mr. Sharon used the reluctance of Likud members like Mr. Netanyahu to extract concessions that Mr. Sharon himself also wanted from the Bush administration. He then used those concessions to firm up support in Likud.
Now he appears to be using his likely victory in the referendum to box in far-right political parties and block them from bolting his coalition. If Likud falls into step with the overall majority of Israelis that polls suggest already supports the plan, far-right parties may marginalize themselves if they desert the government to fight it from the outside.
With a laugh, one adviser to Mr. Sharon said of these parties, "They look at the score sheet, and they don't want to be left out."
In campaigning against the unilateral withdrawal, right-wing politicians have been placing advertisements featuring pictures not of Mr. Sharon but of Shimon Peres, the dovish Labor Party leader. The advertisements warn that, if the plan goes forward, Shimon Peres and Labor will replace the far-right parties in the government, pulling Mr. Sharon to the left.
Now, faced with the possibility that could happen after the Likud vote, the pro-settler parties may elect instead to stay in the coalition, political analysts said. Otherwise, Labor will almost surely seek a fuller withdrawal from the West Bank than the limited one - from four isolated settlements - that Mr. Sharon envisions.
"There's much to be lost by the right in leaving the government to the tender mercies of the Labor party," Dr. Lerman said.
On Sunday, some pro-settler politicians were talking up the wisdom of remaining inside the coalition. "I think it's a political mistake to abandon the cabinet to the left," said Zevulun Orlev of the pro-settler National Religious Party.
A senior Bush administration official said last week that the administration expected Mr. Sharon's coalition to crack over the withdrawal plan, forcing him to recruit Labor and Mr. Peres and possibly restart talks with the Palestinians.
In pledging her support for the unilateral withdrawal plan, Ms. Livnat, the Education Minister, said she had received a commitment from Mr. Sharon not only to finish the West Bank barrier but also to build it well inside the West Bank. She said that, according to Mr. Sharon, "the Ariel bloc will be inside the fence."
The reference was to a large settlement, Ariel, and its satellites in the heart of the northern West Bank. The Bush administration had resisted Israel's plan to build the barrier around that bloc, because doing so would consume much West Bank land and obstruct Palestinians moving through the territory.
-------- nato
Russia and NATO
April 19, 2004
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy.htm
The United States is trying to make Russian critics understand that the expansion of NATO to Russia's western border is a benefit, not a threat, to its national security, according to the U.S. ambassador in Moscow.
"Some old-fashioned ideas can still be heard from the older generation of Russians, for example, that the United States is trying to ... encircle Russia," Ambassador Alexander Vershbow told United Press International in a recent interview.
He rejected a warning from Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov that a "cold peace" could replace the Cold War with the inclusion of former Soviet client states in the Western military alliance.
"We have been emphatic that there is nothing threatening about NATO enlargement," he said, adding that Washington is aware that the expansion "remains a concern for many Russians."
He said for more than a decade, NATO has tried to show a change in strategy and focus more on threats outside Europe.
"NATO today is a different organization ... and does not see Russia as a threat. NATO sees Russia as a partner," he said.
"We make the case that Russia's security is enhanced by having the countries to its west linked to a collective security structure, as these same countries are less likely to create problems in their relations with Russia."
NATO and Russia are cooperating to fight terrorism, stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and prevent regional conflicts, he said.
-------- prisoners of war
Pentagon, Justice Department sparred over US 'enemy combatants': report
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Apr 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040419004833.fnlcl2zr.html
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon sparred with the US Justice Department over how to handle US citizens with suspected ties to al-Qaeda, Newsweek reported in its issue due out Monday.
In September 2002, as Yemeni-born men from Lackawanna, New York, were being accused of training at an Afghan camp affiliated to Osama bin Laden, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued the men should be treated as "enemy combatants," the weekly magazine reported.
"They are the enemy, and they're right here in the country," Cheney said, according to a participant in the debate over how to treat the suspects, Newsweek reported.
The men should be thrown into a military brig with no right to trial or even to see a lawyer, Cheney and Pentagon argued, while Attorney General John Ashcroft contended that he could prosecute them for providing material support to al-Qaeda. The men pleaded guilty to that charge last year.
The debate over treatment of Americans with suspected ties to al-Qaeda became so heated that there were shouting matches inside the White House, Newsweek reported.
US officials have settled on informal rules to decide whether a detained US citizen should be thrown into a brig or brought to trial, the magazine said.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether Americans can be held as enemy combatants next week.
Two Americans have been branded as such.
Yaser Hamdi, who was raised in Saudi Arabia, has been held at a US naval base since US troops captured him in Afghanistan.
The second man, Jose Padilla, was arrested in Chicago and is accused of planning to explode in the United States a so-called "dirty bomb" that would scatter radioactive material with a conventional explosion.
-------- russia / chechnya
Top Guerrilla Killed in Chechnya
Saudi Who Led Arab Fighters Was Suspect in Moscow Bombing
Reuters
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22554-2004Apr18.html
MOSCOW, April 18 -- A Saudi who led Arab fighters in Chechnya was killed there a few days ago, his brother said Sunday.
Russian officials have said the Saudi, known as Abu Walid, was among those who organized a bombing in the Moscow subway that killed about 40 people in February.
"My brother has been martyred," Abdullah Saeed Ghamdi said from the Saudi capital, Riyadh. "We don't have any details but we know he was killed recently. We received the news yesterday and now people are coming to congratulate us on his martyrdom."
In Russia, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service declined to comment.
The pro-Moscow Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, said there was a "real possibility" that Abu Walid had been killed.
"Those who offered armed resistance [in the past week] have been killed. In particular, more than 10 rebels have been killed in Vedensky region near village Tazen-Kale and Ersenoi. Among them were fighters who looked like Arab fighters," Kadyrov was quoted as saying by the Russian Tass news agency.
On Sunday, Russian news agencies said troops had killed four Chechen rebels linked to the guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev in a shootout with militants near the Chechen border.
Separately, troops in the Chechen capital, Grozny, killed a Wahhabi militant who Russian security services said could be linked to a suicide bomb attack on President Murat Zyazikov of the Ingushetia region. The austere Wahhabi creed is Saudi Arabia's mainstream Muslim denomination.
The insurgency in mainly Muslim Chechnya has attracted mujaheddin, or holy fighters, from Saudi Arabia and many other Arab countries.
In March, the al-Jazeera satellite television network broadcast a videotape it said featured Abu Walid vowing to stage a new wave of attacks in Russia.
The Kremlin blames Chechen rebels for a spate of attacks, including a suicide bombing that killed almost 50 people on a train in southern Russia before last December's parliamentary elections. The Kremlin believes Abu Walid was also among those behind the 1999 apartment bombings across Russia.
Russia has been fighting separatists in Chechnya for a decade.
-------
Russia kills key Chechen rebels
Monday, April 19, 2004
(Reuters)
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/04/18/russia.rebels.reut/index.html
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian troops have killed four Chechen rebels linked to guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev near Chechnya this weekend, capping a week-long crackdown on separatists in the turbulent Caucasus region.
The leader of Arab fighters in Muslim Chechnya, Saudi-born Abu al-Waleed al-Ghamdi with close links to Basayev, was among those killed there in recent days, his brother said on Sunday.
More than 10 rebels, including Wahhabi militants, were killed in planned "special operations" by Russian troops in the mountainous region last week, news agencies reported.
Wahhabism is a strict Islamic sect dominant in Saudi Arabia.
Heavy gunfire in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya -- just over the border from Chechnya in mainly Muslim Ingushetia -- started on Saturday and ended early Sunday after troops sealed off a house where they said important rebels were holed up.
"These people, acting on Basayev's orders ... were involved in recruiting and training young women from various regions in the North Caucasus with an aim to turn them into suicide bombers," Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian military in the Caucasus, told Itar-Tass news agency.
Among those reported killed was 27-year-old Magomed Khazhiyev, a religious leader of an ultra-radical Islamic Wahhabi community in Ingushetia's Sunzhensky region.
Russia says it bringing Chechnya, where it has fought separatist guerrillas for nine years, under control and says it is reducing its troop levels and heavy weaponry. But servicemen and police are killed daily.
The Kremlin blames Chechen rebels for a spate of attacks across Russia, including those by so-called "black widow" female suicide bombers.
Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Akhmad Kadyrov told Interfax news agency more than 10 Chechen rebels were killed in various operations across the North Caucasus in the past week.
In a separate operation early on Sunday, Russian troops killed a Wahhabi militant in the Chechen capital Grozny who Russian security services said could be linked to a suicide bomb attack on Ingush President Murat Zyazikov on April 6, Tass said.
Zyazikov was not killed in that attack.
Late on Sunday, a train carrying oil products came under fire in Chechnya and immediately caught fire, Interfax news agency reported. It was unclear who was behind the attack.
--------
Saudi-Born Leader Killed in Chechnya
ANNELI NERMAN
Mon, Apr. 19, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/8467042.htm
MOSCOW - Russian officials reacted cautiously Monday to reports that a Saudi-born rebel commander in Chechnya had been killed, while a rebel Web site said the zealous Muslim died from shrapnel wounds.
Arab TV stations on Sunday reported that Abu Walid, also known as Abdul Aziz al-Ghamdi, had been killed by Russian government forces in Chechnya, quoting his brother. Badr Eldinne al-Chechani, a former deputy speaker of Chechen parliament and current director of the Jordan-based Arab-Caucasian Studies and Research Center, also confirmed the death in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Kavkaz Center, a Chechen rebel Web site, quoted a rebel source as saying Abu Walid had been praying Friday at a rebel base in the mountains of Chechnya when a bomb exploded next to him. He died from shrapnel wounds to his spine, it said.
But Russian officials, usually keen to trumpet the deaths of prominent rebel leaders, were notably cautious in their statements Monday.
"We have no intention of commenting on guesses, rumors or assumptions spread by the mass media," Col. Ilya Shabalkin, the chief spokesman for Russian forces in Chechnya, said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president, also would not confirm Abu Walid's death but said "if he really has been killed, we can only rejoice," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Kadyrov said several rebels who appeared to be of Arabic origin had been killed recently. At the same time, he warned that reports of the rebel's death could be "false information spread to allow rebel leaders to escape," Interfax reported.
President Vladimir Putin's representative in southern Russia, Vladimir Yakovlev, voiced similar doubts, saying that reports about Abu Walid's death could be a "smoke screen" to help him flee.
Abu Walid, an explosives expert believed to be in his 30s, had been reported killed five times before, the newspaper Kommersant said Monday. Russian authorities in November offered a $100,000 reward for the information on his whereabouts, Kommersant said.
Russia's Federal Security Service has said that Abu Walid arrived in Chechnya after training in militant camps in Afghanistan and fighting alongside Muslims in Bosnia. It claims most of the suicide bombings in Russia in recent years were financed from abroad and organized by Abu Walid, whom it has called the head of al-Qaida's "Arab emissaries" in Chechnya.
Abu Walid was also seen as the money man for the rebels - receiving and distributing funds smuggled in from abroad to support the Chechens' fight.
Russian forces have been bogged down in Chechnya since 1999 when they returned after rebel raids on a neighboring Russian region. The Russians fought an unsuccessful 1994-96 war against separatists that ended in de facto independence for the region.
Fighting continued in Chechnya despite Moscow's claim that the region was returning to normal. At least nine federal servicemen and local police and security officers died in the latest rebel attacks and mine explosions in the past day, according to an official in the Kremlin-backed Chechen administration who asked not be identified.
-------- spies
Intel: The CIA vs. the DIA
April 19, 2004
Newsweek
Mark Hosenball and Richard Wolffe
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4711076/
issue - The CIA and the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency are blaming each other for validating information from a dubious Iraqi defector who was the key source for Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was building a fleet of mobile biological weapons labs and factories. The defector, given the code name "Curveball," produced such detailed accounts of the alleged motorized death factories that Secretary of State Colin Powell brandished drawings based on Curveball's descriptions when he presented the case against Saddam to the U.N. Security Council. Officials acknowledge that U.S. spies never spoke directly to Curveball before using his information in speeches and papers because Germany's foreign intelligence service, which controlled access, said the informant distrusted Americans. Officials familiar with the CIA's views say it was the DIA that handled all direct dealings with German intelligence about Curveball and say the Pentagon should answer questions about whether his story was properly investigated. Defense officials say that the CIA "should look in the mirror" before blaming the fiasco on the DIA. One source who helped uncover the apparent fraud said the defector's story sounded plausible until investigators started checking out details of his story on the ground in Iraq after the war, at which point it unraveled. Powell told reporters he has "had discussions with the CIA" about Curveball's story. But a State Department official said Powell doesn't think anybody in U.S. intelligence was deliberately trying to con him.
-------- us
Lack of Resolution in Iraq Finds Conservatives Divided
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
April 19, 2004
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19CONS.html?ei=5062&en=3ead1edf3c2212dd&ex=1082952000&pagewanted=print&position=
A growing faction of conservatives is voicing doubts about a prolonged United States military involvement in Iraq, putting hawkish neoconservatives on the defensive and posing questions for President Bush about the degree of support he can expect from his political base.
The continuing violence and mounting casualties in Iraq have given new strength to the traditional conservative doubts about using American military power to remake other countries and about the potential for Western-style democracy without a Western cultural foundation. In in the eyes of many conservatives, the Iraqi resistance has discredited the more hawkish neoconservatives - a group closely identified with Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, and William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard.
Considered descendants of a group of mostly Jewish intellectuals who switched from the political left to the right at the height of the cold war, the neoconservatives are defined largely by their conviction that American military power can be a force for good in the world. They championed the invasion of Iraq as a way to turn that country into a bastion of democracy in the Middle East.
"In late May of last year, we neoconservatives were hailed as great visionaries," said Kenneth R. Weinstein, chief operating officer of the Hudson Institute, a center of neoconservative thinking. "Now we are embattled, both within the conservative movement and in the battle over postwar planning.
"Those of us who favored a more muscular approach to American foreign policy and a more Wilsonian view of our efforts in Iraq find ourselves pitted against more traditional conservatives, who have more isolationist instincts to begin with, and they are more willing to say, `Bring the boys home,' " Mr. Weinstein said.
Richard A. Viguerie, a conservative stalwart and the dean of conservative direct mail, said the Iraq war had created an unusual schism. "I can't think of any other issue that has divided conservatives as much as this issue in my political lifetime," Mr. Viguerie said.
Recent events, he said, "call into question how conservatives see the White House. It doesn't look like the White House is as astute as we thought they were."
Although Mr. Bush appears to be sticking to the neoconservative view, the growing skepticism among some conservatives about the Iraqi occupation is upending some of the familiar dynamics of left and right. To be sure, both sides have urged swift and decisive retaliation against the Iraqi insurgents in the short term, but some on the right are beginning to support a withdrawal as soon as is practical, while some Democrats, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the likely presidential nominee, have called for sending more troops to Iraq.
In an editorial in this week's issue of The Weekly Standard, Mr. Kristol applauded Mr. Kerry's stance.
Referring to the conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, an outspoken opponent of the war and occupation, Mr. Kristol said in an interview on Friday: "I will take Bush over Kerry, but Kerry over Buchanan or any of the lesser Buchananites on the right. If you read the last few issues of The Weekly Standard, it has as much or more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives."
In contrast, this week's issue of National Review, the magazine founded by William F. Buckley and a standard-bearer for mainstream conservatives, adopted a newly skeptical tone toward the neoconservatives and toward the occupation. In an editorial titled "An End to Illusion," the Bush administration was described as having "a dismaying capacity to believe its own public relations."
The editorial criticized the administration as having "an underestimation of the difficulty of implanting democracy in alien soil, and an overestimation in particular of the sophistication of what is still fundamentally a tribal society and one devastated by decades of tyranny."
The editorial described that error as "Wilsonian," another term for the neoconservatives' faith that United States military power can improve the world and a label associated with the liberal internationalism of President Woodrow Wilson.
"The Wilsonian tendency has grown stronger in conservative foreign policy thought in recent years," the editorial continued, adding, "As we have seen in Iraq, the world isn't as malleable as some Wilsonians would have it."
The editorial was careful to emphasize that the war served legitimate United States interests and that violence against Americans in Iraq deserved harsh retribution. But it concluded: "It is the Iraqis who have to save Iraq. It is their country, not ours."
Some conservatives who focus on limited government and lower taxes said they were also worried about the political costs of an extended occupation of Iraq.
"We don't want to put troops into a situation that is increasingly a public-relations problem for the president," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a group of conservative political donors. "No one wants body bags coming home in September and October."
So far President Bush appears to be sticking to Wilsonian goals. "We're changing the world," he said last week in a White House news conference, defending the occupation and pledging to maintain a military involvement after the planned June 30 handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi governing body. "My job as the president is to lead this nation into making the world a better place."
Some of the main conservative opponents of the invasion, including Mr. Buchanan and the libertarian Cato Institute - were quiet after the war began but have now renewed their criticism.
In his syndicated column last week, Mr. Buchanan, who argued against the invasion on the grounds that the United States should use military force only to defend its vital interests, posed a series of questions: "Do we go in deeper, or do we cut our losses and look for the nearest exit? How much blood and treasure are we willing to invest in democracy in Baghdad, and for how long? Is a democratic Iraq vital to our security? What assurances are there that we can win this war?"
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said conservatives were becoming more receptive to Mr. Buchanan's arguments against the neoconservatives. "Now that they see Iraq edging into a nation-building kind of thing, conservatives are more skeptical," Mr. Keene said. "It isn't that someone went out and rhetorically beat the neoconservatives in an argument. It's just that they went out and tested their scheme against reality on the ground."
In a recent interview, Representative John J. Duncan Jr. of Tennessee, one of the few Republicans who voted against the invasion, said he believed the administration should seek an exit soon. "I think we should announce to the world that no country has come close to doing as much for Iraq as we have, but there are a significant number of people who don't appreciate what we have done," Mr. Duncan said. "I think we should get on out, we should celebrate victory and we should leave."
Conservatives who question the occupation can point to a long history of opposition from the right to United States military action overseas. Conservatives opposed Wilson's entry into World War I, and many opposed United States involvement in World War II until after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
But the cold war rallied conservatives around the military interventions abroad, and the protests of the Vietnam War era solidified the reputations of conservatives as hawks and liberals as doves. Still, even if some conservatives appeared to be returning to the movement's more isolationist roots, Mr. Kristol said he was undeterred.
"If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me, too," he said.
Recalling a famous saying of his father, the neoconservative pioneer Irving Kristol, that a neoconservative was "a liberal who has been mugged by reality," the younger Mr. Kristol joked that now they might end up as neoliberals - defined as "neoconservatives who had been mugged by reality in Iraq."
--------
Records of Buried Veterans on Web Site
Associated Press
Monday, April 19, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22557-2004Apr18.html
Sally Naporlee turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs to find out more about her grandfather, who served during World War I.
After a few weeks' wait, Naporlee learned from the VA that Carmelo Castorina is buried in the national cemetery at Pinelawn in New York. Naporlee, of Spokane, Wash., also learned that her grandfather served with the Army's 161 DB unit, enlisting June 24, 1918, and that he was honorably discharged Dec. 17, 1918.
The VA has made it easier and faster for the public to get answers about family history, old war buddies or war heroes. The agency put on the Web 3.2 million records for veterans buried at 120 national cemeteries since the Civil War. The Web site is www.cem.va.gov.
The department's Nationwide Gravesite Locator also has records for some state veterans cemeteries and burials in Arlington National Cemetery since 1999.
Joe Nosari, VA's deputy chief information officer for memorial affairs, said the records used to be on paper and microfilm. Private companies have put some of the information online and charged for it, but the VA information is free, he said.
The VA's gravesite navigator includes names; dates of birth and death; military service dates, service branch and rank, if known; cemetery information; and grave location in the cemetery. The VA withholds some information, such as next of kin, for privacy purposes.
The Web site will be updated daily. Annually, about 80,000 veterans are buried at national cemeteries.
The VA also hopes to add records for veterans whose families requested grave markers from the department. Those markers may go to private cemeteries or cemeteries overseas.
--------
Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
April 19, 2004
By DAVID BARSTOW
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19SECU.html?pagewanted=all&position=
This article was reported by David Barstow, James Glanz, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Kate Zernike and was written by Mr. Barstow.
They have come from all corners of the world. Former Navy Seal commandos from North Carolina. Gurkas from Nepal. Soldiers from South Africa's old apartheid government. They have come by the thousands, drawn to the dozens of private security companies that have set up shop in Baghdad. The most prized were plucked from the world's elite special forces units. Others may have been recruited from the local SWAT team.
But they are there, racing about Iraq in armored cars, many outfitted with the latest in high-end combat weapons. Some security companies have formed their own "Quick Reaction Forces," and their own intelligence units that produce daily intelligence briefs with grid maps of "hot zones." One company has its own helicopters, and several have even forged diplomatic alliances with local clans.
Far more than in any other conflict in United States history, the Pentagon is relying on private security companies to perform crucial jobs once entrusted to the military. In addition to guarding innumerable reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide security for the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer III, and other senior officials; to escort supply convoys through hostile territory; and to defend key locations, including 15 regional authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, the center of American power in Iraq.
With every week of insurgency in a war zone with no front, these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions between professional troops and private commandos. Company executives see a clear boundary between their defensive roles as protectors and the offensive operations of the military. But more and more, they give the appearance of private, for-profit militias - by several estimates, a force of roughly 20,000 on top of an American military presence of 130,000.
"I refer to them as our silent partner in this struggle," Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican and Armed Services Committee chairman, said in an interview.
The price of this partnership is soaring. By some recent government estimates, security costs could claim up to 25 percent of the $18 billion budgeted for reconstruction, a huge and mostly unanticipated expense that could delay or force the cancellation of billions of dollars worth of projects to rebuild schools, water treatment plants, electric lines and oil refineries.
In Washington, defense experts and some leading Democrats are raising alarms over security companies' growing role in Iraq.
"Security in a hostile fire area is a classic military mission," Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a member of the Armed Service committee, wrote last week in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed by 12 other Democratic senators. "Delegating this mission to private contractors raises serious questions."
The extent and strategic importance of the alliance between the Pentagon and the private security industry has been all the more visible with each surge of violence. In recent weeks, commandos from private security companies fought to defend coalition authority employees and buildings from major assaults in Kut and Najaf, two cities south of Baghdad. To the north, in Mosul, a third security company repelled a direct assault on its headquarters. In the most publicized attack, four private security contractors were killed in an ambush of a supply convoy in Fallujah.
The Bush administration's growing dependence on private security companies is partly by design. Determined to transform the military into a leaner but more lethal fighting force, Mr. Rumsfeld has pushed aggressively to outsource tasks not deemed essential to war-making. But many Pentagon and authority officials now concede that the companies' expanding role is also a result of the administration's misplaced optimism about how Iraqis would greet American reconstruction efforts.
The authority initially estimated that security costs would eat up about 10 percent of the $18 billion in reconstruction money approved by Congress, said Capt. Bruce A. Cole of the Navy, a spokesman for the authority's program management office.
But after months of sabotage and insurgency, some officials now say a much higher percentage will go to security companies that unblushingly charge $500 to $1,500 a day for their most skilled operators.
"I believe that it was expected that coalition forces would provide adequate internal security and thus obviate the need for contractors to hire their own security," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the new inspector general of the authority. "But the current threat situation now requires that an unexpected, substantial percentage of contractor dollars be allocated to private security."
"The numbers I've heard range up to 25 percent," Mr. Bowen said in a telephone interview from Baghdad. Mark J. Lumer, the Pentagon official responsible for overseeing Army procurement contracts in Iraq, said he had seen similar estimates.
But Captain Cole said that the costs were unlikely to reach that level and that the progress of reconstruction would eventually alleviate the current security problems.
Still, in many ways the accelerating partnership between the military and private security companies has already outrun the planning for it.
There is no central oversight of the companies, no uniform rules of engagement, no consistent standards for vetting or training new hires. Some security guards complain bitterly of being thrust into combat without adequate firepower, training or equipment. There are stories of inadequate communication links with military commanders and of security guards stranded and under attack without reinforcements.
Only now are authority officials working to draft rules for private security companies. The rules would require all the companies to register and be vetted by Iraq's Ministry of Interior. They would also give them the right to detain civilians and to use deadly force in defense of themselves or their clients. "Fire only aimed shots," reads one proposed rule, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times.
Several security companies have themselves been pressing for the rules, warning that an influx of inexperienced and small companies has contributed to a chaotic atmosphere. One company has even enlisted a former West Point philosopher to help it devise rules of conduct.
"What you don't need is Dodge City out there any more than you've already got it," said Jerry Hoffman, chief executive of Armor Group, a large security company working in Iraq. "You ought to have policies that are fair and equal and enforceable."
Company executives argue that their services have freed up thousands of troops for offensive combat operations.
But some military leaders are openly grumbling that the lure of $500 to $1,500 a day is siphoning away some of their most experienced Special Operations people at the very time their services are most in demand.
Pentagon and coalition authority officials said they had no precise tally of how many private security guards are being paid with government funds, much less how many have been killed or wounded. Yet some Democrats and others suggest that the Bush administration is relying on these companies to both mask the cost of the war and augment an overstretched uniformed force.
Mr. Rumsfeld has praised the work of security companies and disputed the idea that they were being pressed into action to make up for inadequate troop levels.
Still, the government recently advertised for a big new contract - up to $100 million to guard the Green Zone in Baghdad.
"The current and projected threat and recent history of attacks directed against coalition forces, and thinly stretched military force, requires a commercial security force that is dedicated to provide Force Protection security," the solicitation states. Danger Zones: Rising Casualties and Deal Making
The words did not match the images from Iraq.
At a Philadelphia conference last week, a government official pitched the promise of Iraq to dozens of business owners interested in winning reconstruction contracts.
William H. Lash III, a senior Commerce Department official, said Baghdad was flowering, that restaurants and hotels were reopening. He told of driving around Baghdad and feeling out of place wearing body armor among ordinary Iraqis. In any case, he joked, the armor "clashed with my suit," so he took it off.
But the view from Iraq is considerably less optimistic, with contracting companies and allied personnel alike hunkering down in walled-off compounds. "We're really in an unprecedented situation here," said Michael Battles, co-founder of the security company Custer Battles. "Civilian contractors are working in and amongst the most hostile parts of a conflict or postconflict scenario."
One measure of the growing danger comes from the federal Department of Labor, which handles workers' compensation claims for deaths and injuries among among contract employees working for the military in war zones.
Since the start of 2003, contractors have filed claims for 94 deaths and 1,164 injuries. For all of 2001 and 2002, by contrast, contractors reported 10 deaths and 843 injuries. No precise nation-by-nation breakdown is yet available, but Labor Department officials said an overwhelming majority of the cases since 2003 were from Iraq.
With mounting casualties has come the exponential growth of the little-known industry of private security companies that work in the world's hot spots. In Iraq, almost all of them are on the United States payroll, either directly through contracts with government agencies or indirectly through subcontracts with companies hired to rebuild Iraq.
Global Risk Strategies, one of the first security companies to enter Iraq, now has about 1,500 private guards in Iraq, up from 90 at the start of the war. The Steele Foundation has grown to 500 from 50. Erinys, a company barely known in the security industry before the war, now employs about 14,000 Iraqis.
In many cases companies are adapting to the dangers of Iraq by replicating the tactics they perfected on Special Forces teams. One, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group, has recruited Iraqi informants who provide intelligence that helps the company assess threats, said Michael A. Janke, the company's chief operating officer.
The combination of a deadly insurgency and billions of dollars in aid money has unleashed powerful market forces in the war zone. New security companies aggressively compete for lucrative contracts in a frenzy of deal making.
"A lot of firms have put out a shingle, and they're not geared to operate in that environment," said Mr. Hoffman, the Armor Group chief executive.
One security company, the Steele Foundation, recently turned down an $18 million contract for a corporation that wanted a security force deployed within only a few days; Steele said it simply could not find enough qualified guards so quickly. Another company promptly jumped at the contract.
"They just throw bodies at it," said Kenn Kurtz, Steele's chief executive officer.
Early on in the war, private security contractors came mostly from elite Special Operations forces. It is a small enough world that checking credentials was easy. But as demand has grown, so has the difficulty of finding and vetting qualified people.
"At what point do we start scraping the barrel?" asked Simon Faulkner, chief operating officer of Hart, a British security company. "Where are these guys coming from?"
When four guards working for a subcontractor hired by Erinys were killed in an attack in January, they were revealed to be former members of apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. One had admitted to crimes in an amnesty application to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission there. "We were very alarmed," said Michael Hutchings, the chief executive of Erinys Iraq. "We went back to our subcontractors and told them you want to sharpen up on your vetting."
Troops and Guards: Distinctions Are Hard to Keep
For private security contractors, the rules of engagement are seemingly simple. They can play defense, but not offense. In fact, military legal experts say, they risk being treated as illegal combatants if they support military units in hostile engagements.
"We have issued no contracts for any contractor to engage in combat," Mr. Lumer, the Army procurement official.
What has happened, Mr. Lumer said in an interview, is that the Pentagon has, to a "clearly unprecedented" degree, relied on security companies to guard convoys, senior officials and coalition authority facilities.
No one wants regular troops "standing around in front of buildings," he said. "You don't want them catching jaywalkers or handing out speeding tickets."
But in Iraq, insurgents ignore distinctions between security guards and combat troops. And what is more, they have made convoys and authority buildings prime targets. As a result, security contractors have increasingly found themselves in pitched battles, facing rocket-propelled grenades, not jaywalkers..
It is in those engagements, several security executives said, that the distinctions between defense and offense blur most. One notable example came two weeks ago, when eight security contractors from Blackwater USA helped repel a major attack on a coalition authority building in Najaf. The men fired thousands of rounds, and then summoned Blackwater helicopters for more.
In an interview, Patrick Toohey, vice president for government relations at Blackwater, grappled for the right words to describe his men's actions. At one moment he spoke proudly of how the Blackwater men "fought and engaged every combatant with precise fire." At another he insisted that his men had not been engaged in combat at all. "We were conducting a security operation," he said.
"The line," he finally said, "is getting blurred."
And it is likely to get more blurred, with private security companies lobbying for permission to carry heavier weapons.
"We will keep pressing for that," said Mr. Faulkner, the Hart executive - especially after four of his men spent 14 hours on a roof of their building in Kut fighting off 10 times as many insurgents. Another Hart employee was killed in the assault, his body later dismembered by the mob.
"I cannot accept a situation where four of our people are being besieged by 40 or 60 Iraqis, where they're talking to me on a telephone saying, `Who's coming to help?' " Mr. Faulkner said.
They are also seeking ways to improve communications with military units.
Two weeks ago, a team of private security guards fought for hours to defend a coalition authority building in Kut. They later complained that allied Ukrainian forces had not responded to their calls for help.
Even routine encounters between allied forces and private security teams can be perilous. Mr. Janke, the security company executive and himself a former Navy Seal, said that in a handful of cases over the last year, jittery soldiers had "lit up" - fired on - security companies' convoys.
No one was killed, but standard identification procedures might have prevented those incidents, Mr. Janke said.
Sorting out lines of authority and communication can be complex. Many security guards are hired as "independent contractors" by companies that, in turn, are sub-contractors of larger security companies, which are themselves subcontractors of a prime contractor, which may have been hired by a United States agency.
In practical terms, these convoluted relationships often mean that the governmental authorities have no real oversight of security companies on the public payroll.
In other cases, though, the government insists that security companies abide by detailed rules. A solicitation for work to provide security for the United States Agency for International Development, for example, contains requirements on everything from attire to crisis management.
"If a chemical and/or biological threat or attack occurs, keep the area near the guard post clear of people," the document states, adding in capital letters, "Remember, during the confusion of this type of act, the guards must still provide security for employees or other people in the area."
The words are emphatic, but empty.
Government contracting officials and company executives concede that private guards have every right to abandon their posts if they deem the situation too unsafe. They are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, nor can they be prosecuted under civil laws or declared AWOL.
Scott Earhart said he left Iraq because he was disgusted at the risks he was asked to take without adequate protection or training.
Mr. Earhart, 34, arrived in Iraq in October to work as a dog handler for a bomb-detection company hired by Custer Battles. A former sheriff's deputy in Maryland, he said that there were not enough weapons and that his body armor was substandard.
"If you didn't get to the supply room in time you wouldn't have a gun," he said.
Mr. Earhart said the breaking point came when he was asked to drive unarmed to Baghdad from Amman, Jordan. "I felt my safety was in jeopardy," he said.
Mr. Battles, of Custer Battles, said that it had taken longer than expected to get weapons shipments, and that the company had had "growth issues, like everybody else." But, he emphasized, "under no circumstances did we let people out into the field without proper equipment."
Clearer Rules: Search for Standards, Even a Philosophy
For more than a decade, military colleges have produced study after study warning of the potential pitfalls of giving contractors too large a role on the battlefield. The claimed cost savings are exaggerated or illusory, the studies argue. Questions of coordination and oversight have not been adequately resolved. Troops could be put at risk.
Several senior American commanders in Iraq and Kuwait, or who have recently returned, expressed mixed feelings about the use of private security companies.
"The key thing is there are many requirements that are still best filled with combat units that can call on gunship support - Apache and Kiowa Warriors overhead - medevac, and just plain old reinforcements," one senior Army general wrote in an e-mail message to The Times. "Our task is to outsource what MAKES SENSE given the enemy situation."
In an unusual reversal of roles, the push for industry standards is coming from security executives themselves. In Washington, Pentagon lawyers are reviewing the rules governing security companies. At the same time, coalition authority and Iraqi officials are drafting operating rules for the private security companies.
The draft rules urge the use of "graduated force" - first shout, then shove, then show your weapon, then shoot. And they spell out when the guards may use deadly force. But they do not cover precisely how security operators will be screened and trained.
For now, companies are often writing their own rules and procedures for Iraq.
"It's an industry that if it's not careful could easily blend into what is usually referred to as war profiteers or soldiers of fortune or mercenaries," "It is a very ill-defined operating space right now," Mr. Battles said. "We draw the lines."
Custer Battles went so far as to hire an expert in military ethics, Paul Christopher, who taught philosophy at West Point. Mr. Christopher is helping the company define its place and policies in the chaos of Iraq.
"He's the anti-Rambo," Mr. Battles said. "This is a deep thinker."
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article.
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US marines down to two hot meals a day
April 19 2004
Sapa-AFP
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=123&art_id=qw1082378340532B262&set_id=1
Ramadi - Insurgents' assaults on supply convoys west of Baghdad landed a blow to United States marines' stomachs on Monday as their bases in al-Anbar province began rationing food amid fears their stocks could run low.
Since Sunday, all 1st Marine Division camps have rationed food, said spokesperson 1st Lieutenant Eric Knapp.
Some bases are down to one hot meal a day while others are still serving two, Knapp said.
On Monday, hundreds at the 1st Marine Division headquarters in Ramadi picked through the plastic-sealed field meals, known as Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) - choosing between Thai chicken, beef stew and bean and rice burrito.
chow is not more important than someone's life The headquarters was down to a hot breakfast and dinner as it looked to cut back on food supply convoys after insurgents ambushed US military and private trucks since the marines stormed into Fallujah two weeks ago.
Several US soldiers and contractors have gone missing in the attacks on the dangerous road between Baghdad and Jordan.
"We don't want to run out so we're conserving because chow is not more important than someone's life," said Staff Sergeant Denise Ruiz, the dining hall manager at the main base in Ramadi, home to about 1 200 marines.
"It's not that there is a shortage. We just want to make sure our contractors get here safely."
The military's catering is contracted out to the American firm Kellogg, Brown and Root.
Ruiz said they had not received a food delivery in at least a week, but a shipment was expected very soon.
The MREs did not appear to be affecting morale Monday.
"I'm used to eating MREs. I'm an artillery man," said Lance Corporal Jesse Smith, as the smell of chemical heaters to warm the sealed food wafted across the cafeteria.
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Chambliss, Sessions propose closing European bases
JEFFREY McMURRAY
Mon, Apr. 19, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/8468976.htm
WASHINGTON - Two U.S. senators are suggesting the Pentagon should close some American bases in Europe before trying to board up installations back home.
Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., recently returned from a tour of military bases in Europe and concluded many of the operations handled out of them could be done just as easily from the United States.
"There's no doubt that we are overcommitted to Europe," Sessions said Monday. "It's time for us to make significant changes."
Sessions said more than 128,000 troops and civilians are connected with bases in Europe, including several that were established decades ago when the Soviet Union was the largest foreign threat.
While conceding there might be a need for new bases in places like Poland and Romania, the senators said the European installations are essentially used as a training ground for troops deployed to the Middle East and other hot spots. The same could be done in American bases, they said.
"We're able to put troops in theater much more quickly than we used to," Chambliss said. "There simply is not the need for the number of bases we've got in Europe."
The senators expressed confidence the Pentagon would consider closures in Europe and elsewhere while examining which domestic bases should close. The next round of base realignment and closures is set for next year, and there is some speculation as much as 25 percent of all infrastructure could be shut down for cost-cutting reasons.
Sessions said closures in Europe wouldn't prevent major cutbacks in the United States, but a transfer of troops back home could make it necessary to keep more of the bases active.
The senators toured bases in Germany, Italy, Sicily and Spain in their four-day trip, which concluded this weekend. They also met with Marine Gen. James Jones, the supreme allied commander in Europe.
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'They Hate Us Because of Our Freedom'
by Alfred A. Hambidge, Jr.
April 19, 2004
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/hambidge/hambidge2.html
Whenever I hear "they hate us because of our freedom" or "because they hate our way of life" or some other such drivel, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. If real people didn't suffer the consequences of it, such ignorance would be amusing. But another annoying thing about statements like these is that they perpetuate the myth that we live in a land of freedom. The sad fact is, we are not free, and haven't been for a long, long time.
In They Thought they Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, Milton Mayer wrote about how the German people kept believing they were still free while the Nazis were tightening their control and extending their power over every facet of life. At first people refused to see the obvious, because the infringements on their freedom were coming in small steps. Each of those small steps, on its own, seemed to be no big deal, nothing to rebel against. But by the time you could no longer ignore the big picture, it was too late. "Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing) . . . You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair." Remember, all the people had to do for all that to happen was--nothing. The same phenomenon is happening right here, right now, in the U.S. of A. It had been proceeding at a slower rate than 70 years ago in Germany , but now the pace quickens.
I know there are some who will say, "Wait a minute, fella. You're going too far. The U.S. of A. is still a free country." O.K., then. If you're free, you should have no trouble doing something that people have done for time immemorial. Buy a cow, shelter and feed and care for it, milk it, and sell the milk. Go ahead, try it and see what happens. Come back and let us know how free you are to do such a simple thing, which has been done since the dawn of civilization.
Freedom is a state of being where an individual does not have to get permission in order to do something that harms no one else's person or property. How many things can you do without getting some form of government permission? Can you build your house on your own property without obtaining government approval? Can you put a new room on your house? Or a new porch? Put in a new toilet? Or even put a shed in your backyard? If you are not free to make your home on your own property, you are not free.
Once you have that home, can you refuse to sell it to the government if they want to use your land for some other purpose? Can you make them go away simply by telling them, "I will not sell you my property, at any price!" If you are not free to choose if, when, how, to whom, and for how much you will sell your property, you are not free.
Can you drive a motor vehicle across this "free" country without someone in government approving of you as a driver? Or without getting government permission to use that vehicle on the roads? If you are not free to travel without permission, you are not free.
Can you buy a pistol without government permission? Can you drive across the country with it on your person, even if you have permission to drive a properly permitted vehicle? There's a man, a good man from what I've heard, who got in trouble in Ohio for doing just that. And I'll bet there are many more good people that I haven't heard of who wound up in similar trouble. Let's remind them how free they are. Could anyone even ride a horse cross-country, with an old Winchester rifle in a scabbard, without being hassled? If you are not free to have a firearm at hand for self-defense, no matter where you go, you are not free.
Are you free to say to the government, "I don't like your retirement plan; therefore, I will no longer pay for it?" Can you, without penalty, tell the government that you will no longer pay for subsidies, for regulations, for wars, for empire, or for any activities that you disapprove? If you are not free to refuse to pay for things that you do not want, you are not free.
If the government decides it needs more troops to build and maintain its empire, can you refuse to go if it calls for you? Will they leave you alone if you tell them you won't kill and die for them? Can you simply ignore the draft, without consequence? Can you refuse to be a conscripted slave? If you are not free to tell the government "Hell no, I won't go!" you are not free.
Can you open a business, like a simple barbershop, without government permission? Or how about a bakery? A diner? A hot dog stand? A gun shop? It's been said that before we invaded Iraq , there were more gun shops in Baghdad than in Washington D.C. Can you wire or plumb or fix TVs or cars without a government license? If you're not free to make a living without getting permission, you are not free.
And once you have government approval to open a restaurant or bar, are you free to decide what people may do within your business? Can you choose whether or not they may smoke on the premises? Are you free to invite them to light up and enjoy a cigarette, a cigar, or a pipe with their drink, or after their meal? If you are not free to decide what people may or may not do on your property or within your business, you are not free.
Are you free to smoke a joint? Are you free to hire someone to help you satisfy a physical urge? You can do both in the same afternoon in Amsterdam . I haven't heard of anybody attacking the Dutch because of their freedom. If you are not free to entertain your mind and body in any way that does not harm another, with anyone who is willing, you are not free.
Can you undergo any medical treatment you think is in your best interest? Can you use whatever drug you deem appropriate for your condition? Can you even get some marijuana to help you avoid nausea so you can keep your meds from coming back up? Can you get it just to feel a little better for a little while? If you are not free to pursue any treatment or use any substance you think might help you obtain, regain, or retain your health, you are not free.
Are you able to criticize political candidates by name? A week before the next election or primary, place a newspaper or TV or magazine or radio ad criticizing a candidate. Let us know how you fare. The Supreme Court says it's okay to make that a crime. If you are not free to talk about politicians at any time, at any place, by any means, in any form, you are not free.
Can you take your children out of a government or conventional private school setting, without explaining to some bureaucrat how you plan to educate them? Can you homeschool them without getting government approval of your lesson plans? Can you tell everyone to buzz off, that it's none of their business how or if you educate your kids? If you are not free to teach your children what you want, where you want, when you want, and how you want, you are not free.
So, let's reiterate. You need government permission to make your home, travel, earn a living, defend yourself, obtain medical treatment, and educate your children. You will never get government approval for many of those things in many places. You will never get government permission to entertain your mind and body in unapproved ways. At certain times, you cannot criticize those who decide who and what gets approved. You must sell your property to the government if they want it, and you must kill and die for them if they tell you to. And you have no choice but to pay for it all anyway, whether you like it or not.
And still, we think we are free.
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'Tony Blair lied to us over war in Iraq, whether knowingly or not . . . for that he should resign'
Apr 19 2004
Martin Shipton,
The Western Mail
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/newspolitics/tm_objectid=14159746&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=-tony-blair-lied-to-us-over-war-in-iraq--whether--knowingly-or-not-------for-that--he--should-name_page.html
PLAID CYMRU'S deputy leader Jill Evans has demanded the resignation of Tony Blair for "lying" and taking Britain into the "illegal" war against Iraq.
Launching Plaid's fiercest attack yet on the decision to go to war, Euro MP Ms Evans told the party's Spring Conference at the University of Glamorgan, "Plaid Cymru was totally opposed to the war against Iraq from day one. An illegal war based on lies, half-truths and spin that had everything to do with consolidating US influence in the Middle East and nothing to do with the best interests of the Iraqi people.
"The cost of the war is immense. Over 10,000 Iraqi civilians are estimated to have died, thousands more have been injured; 2,500 troops killed; 45,000 Iraqi troops killed.
"The cost of missiles used in Iraq was £93m. More depleted uranium missiles were used this time than in the 1991 war and I saw for myself in Iraq the terrible long-term health effects of those weapons on the people - mainly the children. The British Treasury has put aside £3bn to be used by the military in Iraq. And has any of this brought peace? No. Has any of it brought justice? No. Is the world a safer place? No it isn't.
"We marched with millions of people throughout the world against the war. We warned of the terrible consequences of unilateral military action. But Tony Blair wasn't listening to the people - he wasn't listening to us. He was listening to George Bush then, just as he has been once again this week in Washington.
"The consequences of the invasion and then occupation of Iraq have been horrendous - look at the state of Iraq today. We always opposed Saddam Hussein - we were campaigning against him when the British and American Governments were selling him arms.
"But by tearing up the rule book for resolving international conflicts that has been in effect since the end of the Second World War - by trying to sideline the United Nations, the only body with the legitimate right to take action - Bush and Blair have made the world a far more dangerous place in which to live. And it is ordinary people, not privileged politicians like Bush and Blair that will pay the price.
"Tony Blair lied to us - whether knowingly or not - he lied to us. He made a case for war based on false information and for that he should resign."
Ms Evans argued that the marginalisation of Wales in Britain and Europe risked getting worse with the arrival of 10 new members of the EU from May 1. She said "the only answer" for Wales was to become "an independent member state in Europe" itself.
"That idea isn't so far fetched any more," she said. "After May 1, six of the 25 member states will be smaller than Wales: Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia and Luxem-bourg. They will have all the advantages of full membership. All of these countries will get a European Commissioner and a seat at Europe's Council of Ministers where so many decisions are made."
Ms Evans attacked Labour for its "scaremongering tactics to frighten people into thinking that Wales is somehow less able or worthy or welcome to be a European nation than Latvia or Malta or Luxembourg or Ireland. They don't promote Wales in Europe - they undermine Wales in Europe. Shame on them!"
The Euro MP, who stands for re-election on June 10, when both European and council elections take place, added, "Time after time in the past five years we have seen Labour and the Tories voting against the interests of the people of Wales while we have stood up for Wales every time.
"They voted against the right of countries to be GM free and have food labelling; they have voted against every proposal to give more powers to regional governments; they have voted against giving immediate rights to workers in Wales to be consulted on job losses; they have voted against giving workers a say in company takeovers; they defended the Blair Government's position on foot-and-mouth disease which brought so much misery and hardship to farmers and communities in Wales
"It is a scandal that New Labour puts the interests of big business before the interests of people."
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Chinese Gave Cheney Speech Their Own Form of Openness
By JOSEPH KAHN
April 19, 2004
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/asia/19CND-CHEN.html?ei=1&en=5705c5b938bd896e&ex=1083401044&pagewanted=print&position=
BEIJING, April 19 - Before his high-profile visit to China last week, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that Beijing leaders allow him to speak, live and uncensored, to the Chinese people.
After weeks of intensive negotiations, Mr. Cheney was granted that measure of openness - but not one millimeter more.
Anyone who tuned into CCTV-4, China's all-news television channel, at shortly after 10 a.m. last Thursday could have watched Mr. Cheney deliver an address to students at Fudan University in Shanghai. A State Department linguist provided simultaneous interpretation.
The broadcast, however, received no advance billing in the Chinese news media and was not repeated. And authorities promptly plastered leading web sites with a "full text" of the vice president's remarks, including his answers to questions after the speech, that struck out references to political freedom, Taiwan, North Korea and other issues that propaganda officials considered sensitive.
The censorship showed that even a hopeful sign of political progress in China can be more like a mirage. Officials sought to convey a relaxed attitude about what Mr. Cheney might say in public even as they worked behind the scenes to alter the record, analysts say.
"What they do to control the media is sometimes surreal," says Yu Maochun, a China expert at the United States Naval Academy who noticed discrepancies between Mr. Cheney's speech and the Chinese transcript of the address. "Censorship is a habit they can't kick."
In a similar sleight of the invisible hand late last year, a state-owned Chinese publisher issued an authorized Chinese version of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's autobiography, "Living History," that edited or elided most of Ms. Clinton's references to her and former President Bill Clinton's visits to China.
The Chinese company did not notify Ms. Clinton's publisher that it was making any changes to the text, and it had been sold as an unabridged translation.
In his speech last Thursday, Mr. Cheney spoke broadly about American foreign policy. But he devoted much of the talk and a subsequent exchange with students to links between political and economic freedom in China as well as Taiwan, the most delicate topic in United States-China relations.
The Chinese transcript was prepared immediately after the address by the People's Daily, the main newspaper of the Communist Party, and was distributed to newspapers and websites across the country. It provided a faithful translation of most of what Mr. Cheney said. But it dropped numerous references to "political freedom" and "individual freedom."
Whereas Mr. Cheney praised "rising prosperity and expanding political freedom" across Asia, the official Chinese transcript refers only to "rising prosperity." It drops his statements that "the desire for freedom is universal" and that "freedom is indivisible."
It also wiped out any record of what Mr. Cheney said about the Taiwan Relations Act, a Congressional law that mandates that the United States sell Taiwan military equipment so that it could defend itself if it came under an attack from the Chinese mainland. China maintains the act violates agreements with the United States.
Mr. Cheney said that the war on terror must not be used as a pretext to suppress "legitimate dissent." The Chinese, who have battled dissidents they say are terrorists in their largely Muslim region of Xinjiang, dropped that phrase.
The longest elisions involved Mr. Cheney's references to the North Korean nuclear crisis, Pyongyang's alleged acquisition of nuclear technology from Pakistan, and the problem of proliferation generally. China, which is closer to North Korea than any other country, is acting as a broker in negotiations over how to end North's nuclear program.
The full address was carried live on both the Chinese-language news channel and a second China Central Television channel that broadcasts in English. Although China Central Television is the main television news provider, the number of people who watch its specialty news channel during working hours is thought to be quite small.
Those who did not catch the live broadcast, which was not promoted in advance, likely saw only the edited version of the speech. The edited text, without indications of editing changes, was posted on the websites of the People's Daily, the New China News Agency, and other online venues.
An editor at the People's Daily website involved with preparing the transcript denied that any censorship had occurred. The editor, who declined to be identified, said missing sentences or sections are attributable solely to the speed with which the transcript was prepared.
Bush administration officials had been on guard against censorship after Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to China in February, 2003. State Department officials then arranged an interview with Mr. Powell on China Central Television that by diplomatic agreement was to be broadcast unedited, administration officials said.
The broadcast nonetheless left out Mr. Powell's references to human rights abuses, among other sensitive issues.
American officials say that to the best of their knowledge the Chinese side lived up to the letter of their agreement on Mr. Cheney's speech, but expressed frustration that the record was later expunged.
"It was extremely important to the White House to have a live and uncensored broadcast," said a United States consular official in Shanghai. "We feel good that we were able to do that."
Administration officials said they did not negotiate how the Chinese transcript would be handled. When the excised version came to their attention, they worked to prepare their own Chinese version. It was posted to the American embassy website on Friday.
The consular official said the American side tried to anticipate how the Chinese might censor Mr. Cheney's remarks, but could not prevent all alterations. "It's a challenge," the official said.
----
George W. Bush Goes Mad, Right Before Our Eyes
Monday, April 19
by CDeliso
http://www.balkanalysis.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=331
The full madness of George W. Bush has been revealed, as new articles describing journalist Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack are released, and as Bush himself proudly reiterates America's God-given right to proliferate 'freedom' at gunpoint everwhere on earth.
The book backs up previous accounts of Bush's determination to make war plans against Iraq immediately after 9/11. According to Woodward, who interviewed more than 75 key officials including Bush, the initial probing towards war with Iraq began in November 2001, when the president met urgently with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and said, "...let's get started on this." The next month, the president had General Tommy Franks draw up a hypothetical battle plan. And so the die was cast.
Bush's war plans intensified during 2002, when the administration's neocon "cabal" set up the Office of Special Plans to produce "intelligence" on Iraq's alleged WMD program. The cabal was apparently guided by Vice President Dick Cheney and run by his chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith.
According to Woodward's book, Colin Powell- barely on speaking terms with Cheney these days- protested that the vice president had through the OSP set up a parallel government to push the warmongering of the administration's neoconservatives.
The president's personal dedication to war had dramatically increased by early 2003:
"'...we're not winning. Time is not on our side here. Probably going to have to, we're going to have to go to war,' the book quotes Bush as telling national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in early January 2003."
Rice's significance as one of the key antagonists for war emerges in Plan of Attack. Although the position of national security advisor is one of the most important in any administration, Rice's role was heightened by the president's awareness that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell had irreconcilably opposing views on Iraq. Perceiving Rice to be more independent, Bush placed great faith in her opinion which was, unfortunately for peace, pro-neocon.
However, Plan of Attack seems to reveal a more critical, even principled side of the president than is attested in Richard Clarke's Against all Enemies and elsewhere. According to Woodward's findings, Bush found the Saddam-WMD case "less than convincing" when first presented to him in December 2002, by CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin:
"...McLaughlin's version used communications intercepts, satellite photos, diagrams and other intelligence. 'Nice try,' Bush said when the CIA official was finished, according to the book. 'I don't think this quite -- it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from.'
He then turned to Tenet, McLaughlin's boss, and said, 'I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD, and this is the best we've got?'
'It's a slam dunk case,' Tenet replied, throwing his arms in the air. Bush pressed him again. 'George, how confident are you?'
'Don't worry, it's a slam dunk,' Tenet repeated."
This revelation should and will increase the focus on the CIA director as one of the most contradictory characters in the whole Iraq mess. He has come down on both sides since that 2002 meeting, alternately praising his agency's handling of the situation and conceding that the intelligence they produced was flawed and in some cases manipulated. In the end, one wonders if Tenet is motivated by anyting more than a desire to keep his own job.
However, issues of critical circumspection aside, Bush has revealed recently why he is so dangerous: his belief that he has a higher calling to bring freedom to the world. Once committed to the cause, Bush has not wavered in his support for the occupation of Iraq; despite the growing chorus of opposition to his disastrous policy, he has only grown more recalcitrant and stubborn regarding the rightness of his mission, as was attested in his own address to the nation one week ago.
An article by Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo entitled, "George W. Bush, Neocon Napoleon" quotes from the speech, revealing the president as a megalomaniac caught up in his own self-deluded belief that he and his American vision are quite literally God's gift to the world. According to Raimondo,
"...the President stumbled through most of the Q&A, but there was one point where he waxed passionate, and became momentarily articulate, as if possessed by some neocon demon speaking through presidential lips."
In this revealing segment of the address, Bush waxed eloquent on America's "historic opportunity to change the world," by beating the hell out of Iraq and restoring it as a shining example of Jeffersonian democracy:
"...So long as I'm the President, I will press for freedom. I believe so strongly in the power of freedom.
...You know why I do? Because I've seen freedom work right here in our own country. I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom."
Well that's all well and good, George- everyone has their own beliefs, about both their personal values and the great beyond. That does not however give one the right to impose them on everyone else- unless one is a mentally deranged megalomaniac sociopath. Take him out of the suit and high office, and George W. Bush would be interchangeable with any deluded leader of a religious cult. Raimondo continues:
"...in this moment of spontaneity, unscripted by Karl Rove and completely unfiltered, Bush revealed the madness at the heart of his presidency, the corruption that eats away at the White House and infuses Washington, the Imperial City, like a dense hallucinogenic fog. He really does think his job is 'to lead this nation into making the world a better place.' Not defending the nation, not protecting our security, not getting out of the way of prosperity, but 'changing the world.'"
Whereas orthodox neocons tend to arrive at their views on proliferating freedom from certain Enlightenment philosophers' views, Bush's self-righteous stance is "smoothly messianic," as Raimondo puts it- in a more fundamentalist way. This aspect of the 'freedom thing' comes up again in Woodward's book. When speaking with the author, Bush "...enunciated an activist role for the United States based on it being 'the beacon for freedom in the world.'"
"'...I believe we have a duty to free people,' Bush told Woodward. 'I would hope we wouldn't have to do it militarily, but we have a duty.'
The president described praying as he walked outside the Oval Office after giving the order to begin combat operations against Iraq, and the powerful role his religious belief played throughout that time.
"...Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will... I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for personal strength and for forgiveness.'"
Nevertheless, when asked whether he consulted his own father, a man who had plenty of first-hand experience in fighting Saddam, Bush said:
"...you know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to."
'Well isn't that special,' to paraphrase Dana Carvey's old role as the Church Lady on SNL. After all, what could a voice of experience possibly have to say, when compared to the irresistible calling of the Divine Will? Despite his own schizophrenic denials, it seems clear that Bush's messianic vision for the world is driven by a cartoonish view of religion and a good-neighborly world run by evangelical Christians.
This kind of leadership can only lead American to ruin, and has other applications particularly harmful to American national security. As elder Republic statesman Congressman Paul Findley charges, "...Bush is overwhelmed by the influence of religious zealots both Zionist and fundamentalist Christian." Thus, according to Findley,
"...Bush seems unconcerned by the worldwide outrage at America's massive, unconditional, uncritical support of Israel, without which the Jewish state could never have carried out its humiliation and devastation of Palestinian society.
...This issue surmounts all others in the presidential political campaign. It impels me to speak out against what George W. Bush is doing. I am a Republican, and I will remain in the Party of Lincoln. I feel no joy in making this case against the president. He may be sincere in his stewardship, but he is wrong, dead wrong in the direction he is taking our country."
Any possibilities that George W. Bush remains the loveable dimwit, as perceived in the early part of his term, or the resolute patriot he was perceived as being after 9/11, have been dashed by his own testimony as recorded in Plan of Attack and in his own address of last week. As he reiterated then, "...I fully understand the consequences of what we're doing. We're changing the world."
When asked by Woodward how history would judge the war, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."
I'm sure the 600-plus US soldiers and thousands of Iraqis already killed so that freedom will ring across Iraq will second this opinion. After all, what choice do they have?
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Man Upset Over Brother's Redeployment Shot
Sunday April 18, 2004
(AP)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3992421,00.html
RIVERTON, Utah - A Utah National Guardsman, apparently distraught that his brother was being redeployed to Iraq, was shot and killed early Sunday morning after threatening his family and brandishing a shotgun at deputies, authorities said.
Chad Thompson, 32, whose family said he had been drinking, was upset after learning that his brother's tour of duty was being extended, according to Sgt. Rosie Rivera, a spokeswoman for the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Thompson, a Guardsman for more than a decade, was a full-time supply staff sergeant stationed at Camp William in Riverton.
Thompson's mother-in-law called authorities just before 2 a.m. Sunday, saying her son-in-law was en route to the family residence ``on a rampage'' and ``irate with everyone,'' Rivera said.
Deputies found the family safe but located Thompson's car in the area and began a search. Meanwhile, another call came in saying Thompson was at the home holding the family at gunpoint, Rivera said.
Thompson fled out a window with a loaded shotgun when deputies returned, and ran into a neighbor's yard, where he was cornered by a K-9 dog. Thompson was shot after waving the gun at the deputies, Rivera said. He died en route to a hospital.
The sheriff's department has placed at least one deputy on administrative leave while a joint investigation with the district attorney's office is conducted, Rivera said.
Staff Sgt. Robert Thompson is in Kuwait with the Utah Army National Guard's 1457th Engineer Combat Battalion, according to Maj. Lorraine Januzelli, a spokeswoman for the Utah Army National Guard.
Although Robert Thompson's battalion will be deployed at least another 120 days, he probably will be allowed to return home for his brother's funeral, Januzelli said.
-------- courts
High Court to Clarify Judge-Only Sentencing
Arizona Death Row Case Reaches Justices
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22639-2004Apr18?language=printer
When Judge Philip Marquardt sentenced Warren W. Summerlin to death on July 12, 1982, for the rape and murder of a debt collector, it seemed clear that the judge had considered the evidence and determined that no mitigating factors outweighed the ugly facts of Summerlin's crime.
Then it became clear in 1991, when Marquardt was disbarred, that the Arizona judge was a habitual marijuana user during the time he decided Summerlin's fate -- though he has not specifically admitted deliberating on cases while intoxicated.
Today, Summerlin's death sentence will come up for oral argument in the Supreme Court, in a case that his supporters say shows the pitfalls of state laws that gave judges, rather than juries, the power to decide between life and death.
The Supreme Court struck down such laws, 7 to 2, in 2002. But in that case, Ring v. Arizona, the court did not decide whether its ruling should apply retroactively to people, such as Summerlin, who were sentenced by judges but had lost their appeals before the Ring decision.
A victory for Summerlin could have broad implications for capital punishment in the United States. It would mean the reversal of a total of 111 death sentences in four states -- 87 in Arizona, including Summerlin's; 15 in Idaho; five in Montana; and four in Nebraska. That would eliminate 69 percent of those states' total death row population of 161, presenting the states with a difficult choice between settling for life imprisonment or spending millions of dollars to conduct new sentencing hearings in front of juries. It might also affect 15 Nevada cases in which offenders were sentenced to death under a law that let judges decide sentences in which juries deadlocked or defendants pleaded guilty. And it could also cast a long shadow over "hybrid" laws in Alabama, Delaware, Florida and Indiana, where juries recommend a penalty and judges make the final call. Those states' death row population on Jan. 1 was 637.
"[T]he Constitution, like the English common law before it, recognizes juries as more accurate fact finders," Summerlin's brief says. "The 'accuracy' of jury fact-finding is heightened in capital cases because the unanimous verdict of a cross-section of the community more accurately reflects the community's judgment regarding which homicide defendants should be eligible for the death penalty."
The central legal issue in the case is whether Ring announced a mere change in procedure or a fundamentally new rule of law, the benefits of which should flow to everyone, regardless of when his or her sentence became final.
Under a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that sped up executions by limiting capital defendants' constitutional appeals, only those relatively rare Supreme Court decisions deemed to have significantly rewritten the rule book can be applied retroactively.
Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that Ring met this standard. The court also observed that a trial by jury would materially enhance the fairness and accuracy of the sentencing process.
"Executing people because their cases came too early . . . is surely arbitrariness that surpasses all bounds," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for that court.
But Arizona and the other states whose capital punishment systems are at issue say that it is they who are being whipsawed by changing court rulings.
The Arizona statute that gave judges exclusive power to weigh factors supporting the death penalty against those arguing for leniency was enacted in 1973, in an effort to comply with a 1972 Supreme Court ruling that had struck down all state capital punishment laws as inherently arbitrary.
In 1990, the Supreme Court upheld the Arizona law. But in 2001, the court ruled, in Apprendi v. New Jersey, that all additional facts that would permit a court to increase a defendants' prison sentence beyond the maximum otherwise prescribed by law must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Anything less would violate the Sixth Amendment guarantee of trial by jury.
It was Apprendi the court invoked when it reversed course and overturned Arizona's law in 2002.
Yet Arizona argues now that Ring was not a substantive change in the law, so Summerlin should not benefit from it.
"Ring did not change what is found [at a sentencing hearing], but only who finds it," the state says in its brief.
"Retroactivity consumes time and drains finite state resources," a group of 13 states says in a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Arizona. "More importantly, retroactivity conflicts directly with the desire of the states, their citizens and American society in general to achieve the finality of criminal judgments." One of the states in the group, Michigan, does not have capital punishment. The Bush administration also supports Arizona.
As it happens, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was instrumental in drafting Arizona's death penalty law as a state legislator there during the early 1970s.
"I want you to write a death penalty we can live with," she instructed Rudy Gerber, then a young lawyer helping to revamp the state's criminal code.
Judges were designated to make the life-or-death decision, Gerber recalls, because "there was a feeling . . . that jurors would be erratic and emotional and there would be a lot of inconsistency."
But Gerber, who since served as an appellate judge in Arizona, has co-signed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of Summerlin.
For her part, O'Connor dissented in Apprendi and Ring, labeling both cases recipes for legal instability. In her Ring dissent, she suggested that the decision could not qualify for retroactive application under the court's 1989 test -- which she also wrote.
The case is Schriro v. Summerlin, No. 03-526. A decision is expected by July.
--------
U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Argument Over Guantanamo Detainees
The Orlando Sentinel,
April 19, 2004
http://wbex.com/script/headline_newsmanager.php?id=284134&pagecontent=nationalnews&feed_id=59
ORLANDO, Fla. - The Supreme Court begins a historic review of presidential power in the age of terror this week when it considers the rights of foreigners now detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay.
Taking on for the first time President Bush's efforts to fight terrorism, the justices will hear arguments Tuesday on whether hundreds of men held for more than two years without criminal charge or prisoner-of-war status at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba may challenge their detentions in an American court.
This week, the high court will consider the cases of two U.S. citizens - a suspected Taliban foot soldier, and the alleged "dirty-bomb" suspect - now being held without charge.
At stake are the extraordinary powers the Bush administration has assumed to combat terrorism in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Rulings expected later this year could restrain or endorse the administration's prosecution of what officials have characterized as an open-ended war on terror.
"This is a defining moment," said constitutional-law scholar Michael A. Mello, a professor at Vermont Law School. "We are living in a fundamental moment in constitutional jurisprudence in this country.
"It's going to be interesting to see whether there's unanimity on the court in support of the proposition that this really is a war, for purposes of defining presidential war powers with respect to civil liberties."
Up first is the detention-and-interrogation operation at Guantanamo Bay, where the military is holding about 600 terror suspects or alleged supporters without contact with lawyers or access to courts. Critics say this leaves them in a legal limbo.
"The United States has created a prison on Guantanamo Bay that operates entirely outside the law," wrote attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York who are representing two Australian and two British detainees. Their case has been joined with that of 12 Kuwaitis.
The government has argued - and lower courts have agreed - that enemy combatants captured on foreign territory and held outside the United States lie beyond the reach of the federal courts.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, whose wife died on board the airliner that slammed into the Pentagon in the Sept. 11 attacks, told the court that the Guantanamo detentions serve "vital objectives of preventing combatants from continuing to aid our enemies and gathering intelligence to further the overall war effort."
Lawyers for the detainees had raised broad civil-liberties objections to their indefinite detention and treatment, but the justices have limited their review to the question of whether they may challenge their detentions in the federal court system.
On April 28, the court will hear the cases of Jose Padilla, accused of plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States, and Yaser Esam Hamdi, a suspected Taliban foot soldier captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Both U.S. citizens, they are being held without charge in a Navy brig in South Carolina.
Susan Herman, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the court's decision to hear the cases "an important first step."
"Especially in recent years, the Supreme Court has very jealously guarded the prerogative of judicial review, and they've been very disinclined to defer either to the president or the Congress in deciding what rights people are going to have," she said.
"At the same time, we now have an administration, a president, who is very disinclined to have the courts review what decisions his administration is making.
"That really is the showdown right now, is who's going to be making the decisions about whether the detainees can claim any legal rights at all."
Mello said it is impossible to predict how the court would rule.
"The court's decision to grant review has been cheered by civil-liberties folks, but I think way prematurely," he said. "These cases are simply too big for the court, and too important for the court, to stay on the sidelines."
The decision to intervene while hostilities continue is unusual.
"It is rare for the court to be involved in the midst of a war, even a conventional war," said Douglas W. Kmiec, a former constitutional legal counsel to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "The difficulty that the court confronts is compounded when the legal issues involve a war that we've never confronted before."
He said recent escalation of violence in Iraq would add to that challenge.
"A decision that is going to in any way fetter the military and its accomplishment of its objectives today is a much harder decision to render than six months ago," he said.
Mello called the discussion "genuinely uncharted territory."
"The temporary nature of the wartime power of the president to limit civil liberties is based in part on the temporary nature of the event," he said. "I'm not sure that this war will ever end."
-------- justice
FTC to Look Closer at 'Spyware'
Privacy Experts Warn of Dangers to Unwitting Consumers
By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22514-2004Apr18.html
A relatively new kind of software that resides in many computers and tracks its users' Web-surfing habits or triggers pop-up advertisements has come under scrutiny by federal regulators who have already cracked down on deceptive or misleading spam.
The Federal Trade Commission today is hosting a daylong workshop in Washington to discuss the effects of hidden software that may be used to control or spy on a computer without its user's knowledge.
So far most "spyware" and "adware" programs, often placed on Windows PCs by such downloaded programs as file-sharing programs, appear to have been used for the relatively benign purpose of tracking consumer preferences, said Howard Beales, director of the FTC's consumer protection division. The FTC is watching to see if criminals start making widespread use of this technology to steal credit-card and Social Security numbers of unwitting computer users, he said.
"So far [we] haven't thought that it warranted regulation," he said.
Privacy experts and makers of anti-spyware software say the FTC's light-touch approach leaves too many consumers vulnerable to more unwanted advertising or even the addition of controls that consumers might not realize are on their computer.
"There's a number of concerns about spyware, which is that it takes away consumers' control over their computers," said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. "We consider privacy to be a control issue as well," and many spyware programs act as surveillance tools for advertisers without the users' consent, he said. In February, the group filed a complaint with the FTC arguing for stricter enforcement against two companies involved in using software for allegedly deceptive and unfair ads.
The software generally enters a person's computer when he or she downloads and installs free music or game programs, for example. Often, popular downloaded programs such as Kazaa and Grokster require users to agree to a licensing agreement that allows the addition of adware to the computer's hard drive, legal agreements that Beales and privacy experts concede many consumers do not fully read. Other, more underhanded spyware developers automatically install spyware without the knowledge or informed consent of the user, privacy experts and software makers said.
Estimating how many computers carry spyware or adware is difficult, in part because many consumers do not know they have it, said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter Research. Some companies consider "cookies," which are small data files that Web sites can place on a computer to store information about a user's online activity, to be a form of software, but cookies are not programs and cannot control computer functions.
Last week, Internet service provider EarthLink Inc. and anti-spyware software maker Webroot Software Inc. said a three-month audit of slightly more than 1 million computers found 29.5 million pieces of spyware, or nearly 28 per computer. Almost 24 million of these items, however, were cookies.
"We think the problem is bigger than anyone understood," said David Moll, chief executive of Webroot of Boulder, Colo. In particular, "drive-by" downloads, which occur when Web sites exploit weaknesses in Microsoft's widely used Internet Explorer browser to install spyware and adware surreptitiously, are increasingly a problem, he said.
Roger Thompson, vice president of product development of Pest Patrol of Carlyle, Pa., said: "The issue is that there is no line between good behavior and bad behavior." Although a minority of spyware is used for "malicious" purposes, "it opens a back door that allows computers to be updated by the hacker and accept commands to log keystrokes, read files, or turn on the Web cam," he said.
Federal and state legislators have taken notice. U.S. Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation that would prohibit the installation of software on a computer without notice and consent, and would require easy ways to remove it. Utah enacted legislation last month, and state legislatures in California and Iowa are considering action.
While some software installers are sneaky or fraudulent, the bigger problem may be that consumers neglect to read the fine print before loading programs, said David Sorkin, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. "It's pretty hard to install controls beyond that contract."
-------- police
Police Lineups Falling Out of Favor
Lack of Suspect Look-Alikes Helps Lead to Demise
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22512-2004Apr18?language=printer
About 20 days a year, the word goes out to the District's seven police districts that "fillers" are needed. Each district must send an officer to a third-floor room at headquarters to participate in one of law enforcement's most time-honored rituals: the police lineup.
Police department rules say a suspect must appear with seven other people.
But this is an imperfect system. Not long ago, for instance, the lineup unit requested officers who resembled a robbery suspect: slim, black male, about 21 years old, 5-foot-11 to 6-foot-2. Instead of seven officers, the lineup unit got four, and two were so far off the mark physically that they could not be used. One was 5-foot-8 and too heavy. Another was 38 and Latino.
It took detectives an extra hour to find the other fillers, and they wound up including a probation officer, an intern from the U.S. attorney's office and a civilian picked from the hallways of police headquarters.
Like woolen uniforms, wooden batons and six-shot revolvers, the old-fashioned lineup is a vanishing part of police work. The D.C. police department is the only one in the Washington area that still uses it regularly, and only a decade ago it conducted 300 lineups a year.
Police departments today are far more apt to ask victims or witnesses to identify photographs of suspects instead of the suspects themselves. Detectives can use computer programs to comb through photo databases, and can quickly create an array of pictures from which a suspect can be identified at any time or place.
Lineups, however, are conducted in the same time-consuming way they have been for generations. The suspect still stands uneasily among other people -- the fillers -- under the glare of bright lights and behind one-way glass. Most lineups in the District have eight people who wear numbers on chains around their necks. The victim or witness, on the other side of the glass, is asked by police if anyone looks like the culprit.
Defense attorneys have complained about the process for years, saying it is open to the powers of suggestion. But the lineup's demise has little to do with that issue and stems from a more basic problem: Although there are plenty of suspects, it is difficult to round up the fillers to stand beside them. And that makes the photo arrays much more convenient.
A live lineup is "a big hassle, compared to what we can do with what's already on the computer," said Capt. John Fitzgerald of the Montgomery County police.
D.C. police have trouble not only in finding enough officers who bear some resemblance to the suspect, but also in locating officers who can spare the time to go to police headquarters when they could be patrolling the streets or investigating crimes. These human scavenger hunts can take hours, they said.
"The hardest part of the whole job is just getting the fillers," said Detective Robert Pristoop, who until last year worked in the lineup unit and who still returns to headquarters to assist.
But despite the efficiency of photo identifications, the lineup has its advocates. Its supporters note that lineups display a suspect's profile, posture and other features that a simple mug shot cannot capture, all of which can aid the victim or witness in making an identification.
"They didn't look at a photo when the crime was committed. They looked at a person," said Joseph E. diGenova, a former U.S. attorney in the District.
And lineups add another dimension: voices. In lineups, police can ask everyone to repeat a phrase that the suspect allegedly said during a crime.
Pristoop recalled a lineup from the 1980s that was created for a blind victim -- a Georgetown woman who was robbed by someone posing as a door-to-door solicitor. She listened to each voice and identified the suspect, Pristoop said.
At one time in the D.C. department, it was not as difficult to find people to stand in lineups -- but only because they were not being selected as carefully. In one lineup photo, from 1973, just one person -- presumably the suspect -- is on crutches and missing a leg.
"How not to do a lineup," said Detective Cynthia Curry, chuckling at the obvious odd man out.
Several other big-city police departments that still use lineups don't have officers serve as fillers. Instead, they bring in jail inmates or recruit stand-ins from the street by offering them $20.
Retired New York City homicide commander Vernon J. Geberth summed up the reason for that: "Cops look like cops, you know?"
"Most criminals are not in good health," said Robert W. Shomer, a psychologist who has studied eyewitness identification for 25 years. "They're not as robust, they're not as clean-cut as cops are."
D.C. police said they use officers for their lineups because it removes another potential problem. If a witness picked a civilian filler -- particularly a jail inmate -- it might become an issue in court. The suspect's defense attorney might use the information to suggest that the other person could have committed the crime, asking where that other person was at the time and why he was picked.
Critics of the lineup process believe it is outdated and flawed no matter who is in the lineup. They argue, for example, that if the criminal is not in the lineup, a victim still might choose the person who looks most like the perpetrator. In addition, they said, the process can be tainted by having a police officer in the room who knows which person is the suspect. Even unintentionally, the officer could send a signal that leads to the suspect being chosen, they said.
Julia Leighton, general counsel for the D.C. Public Defender Service, said its lawyers have attempted to challenge identifications made through lineups in court. But they have not been permitted to call expert witnesses to support their arguments, she said.
D.C. police said they take safeguards to ensure fairness. They said they do their best to mask the physical differences between the fillers and the suspects so no one appears to stand out.
The eight people in a lineup are dressed similarly, usually in black pants and a donated dress shirt. They often wear hats to obscure the fact that a suspect has a distinctive hairstyle not shared, for instance, by stand-in police officers.
There are limits, though. If a suspect has a missing tooth, or a ream of gold teeth, it is nearly impossible to find seven other people with that feature. In such cases, police are inclined to tell the suspect to keep his mouth closed.
When the lineup begins, police are supposed to follow strict rules. They cannot coach the victim or witness or offer hints to help identify the suspect.
Even after an identification is made, police are not to show any emotion or reveal whether the suspect was chosen.
In about one-quarter of the cases, police have said, the witness does pick a filler -- or nobody.
That occurred at a recent lineup for a robbery suspect. The witness looked at the lineup, with the suspect and seven fillers wearing the numbers. They wore Nos. 2 through 9 because it is considered too suggestive to make anyone display the No. 1.
Pristoop asked whether the witness recognized any of the eight.
The room was silent for 30 seconds while he looked carefully at the line.
"No, sir."
"Thank you," said Pristoop, his voice as flat as the rules required. "You're free to go."
-------- prisons / prisoners
Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions
April 19, 2004
By ADAM LIPTAK
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/national/19DNA.html?pagewanted=all&position=
A comprehensive study of 328 criminal cases over the last 15 years in which the convicted person was exonerated suggests that there are thousands of innocent people in prison today.
Almost all the exonerations were in murder and rape cases, and that implies, according to the study, that many innocent people have been convicted of less serious crimes. But the study says they benefited neither from the intense scrutiny that murder cases tend to receive nor from the DNA evidence that can categorically establish the innocence of people convicted of rape.
Prosecutors, however, have questioned some of the methodology used in the study, which was prepared at the University of Michigan and supervised by a law professor there, Samuel R. Gross. They say that the number of exonerations is quite small when compared with the number of convictions during the 15-year period. About 2 million people are in American prisons and jails.
The study identified 199 murder exonerations, 73 of them in capital cases. It also found 120 rape exonerations. Only nine cases involved other crimes. In more than half of the cases, the defendants had been in prison for more than 10 years.
The study's authors said they picked 1989 as a starting point because that was the year of the first DNA exoneration. Of the 328 exonerations they found in the intervening years, 145 involved DNA evidence.
In 88 percent of the rape cases in the study, DNA evidence helped free the inmate. But biological evidence is far less likely to be available or provide definitive proof in other kinds of cases. Only 20 percent of the murder exonerations involved DNA evidence, and almost all of those were rape-murders.
The study, which will be presented Friday at a conference of defense lawyers in Austin, Tex., also found that very different factors contributed to wrongful convictions in rape and murder cases.
Some 90 percent of false convictions in the rape cases involved misidentification by witnesses, very often across races. In particular, the study said black men made up a disproportionate number of exonerated rape defendants.
The racial mix of those exonerated, in general, mirrored that of the prison population, and the mix of those exonerated of murder mirrored the mix of those convicted of murder. But while 29 percent of those in prison for rape are black, 65 percent of those exonerated of the crime are.
Interracial rapes are, moreover, uncommon. Rapes of white women by black men, for instance, represent less than 10 percent of all rapes, according to the Justice Department. But in half of the rape exonerations where racial data was available, black men were falsely convicted of raping white women.
"The most obvious explanation for this racial disparity is probably also the most powerful," the study says. "White Americans are much more likely to mistake one black person for another than to do the same for members of their own race."
On the other hand, the study found that the leading causes of wrongful convictions for murder were false confessions and perjury by co- defendants, informants, police officers or forensic scientists.
A separate study considering 125 cases involving false confessions was published in the North Carolina Law Review last month and found that such confessions were most common among groups vulnerable to suggestion and intimidation.
"There are three groups of people most likely to confess," said Steven A. Drizin, a law professor at Northwestern, who conducted the study with Richard A. Leo, a professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine. "They are the mentally retarded, the mentally ill and juveniles."
Professor Drizin, too, said that false confessions were most common in murder cases.
"Those are the cases where there is the greatest pressure to obtain confessions," he said, "and confessions are often the only way to solve those crimes."
Professor Drizin said that videotaping of police interrogations would cut down on false confessions.
The authors of the Michigan study offered dueling rationales for the murder exonerations, and both reasons, they said, were disturbing.
There may be more murder exonerations, they said, because the cases attract more attention, especially when a death sentence is imposed. Death row inmates represent a quarter of 1 percent of the prison population but 22 percent of the exonerated.
That suggests that innocent people are often convicted in run-of-the-mill cases. Indeed, the study says, "if we reviewed prison sentences with the same level of care that we devote to death sentences, there would have been over 28,500 non-death-row exonerations in the past 15 years rather than the 255 that have in fact occurred."
The study offered a competing theory, as well. Mistakes, it said, may be more likely in murder cases and far more likely in capital cases.
"The truth," the study concludes, "is clearly a combination of these two appalling possibilities."
Critics of the Michigan study questioned its methodology, saying it overstated the number of authentically innocent people. The study calls every nullification of a conviction by a governor, court or prosecutor declaring a person not guilty of a crime an exoneration.
In Astoria, Ore., Joshua Marquis, the district attorney for Clatsop County, said that many of the people exonerated under the study's definition may nonetheless have committed the crimes in question, though the evidence may have become too weak to prove that beyond a reasonably doubt.
"The real number of people on death row exonerated in the sense of being actually innocent in the modern era of the death penalty is about 25 to 30," Mr. Marquis said. The Michigan study put the number at 73.
He added that even the error rate suggested by the study was tolerable given the American prison population.
"We all agree that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be convicted," Mr. Marquis said. "Is it better for 100,000 guilty men to walk free rather than have one innocent man convicted? The cost-benefit policy answer is no."
At the University of Michigan, Professor Gross said that was the wrong calculus.
"No rate of preventable errors that destroy people's lives and destroy the lives of those close to them is acceptable," he said.
Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, said Mr. Marquis's analysis ignored another point.
"Every time an innocent person is convicted," Mr. Scheck said, "it means there are more guilty people out there who are still committing crimes."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Israel must not impose conditions on Vanunu after release: Amnesty
JERUSALEM (AFP)
Apr 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040419113656.vpv4clyk.html
Amnesty International urged the Israeli government not to impose any restrictions or conditions on nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu upon his release from prison this week.
"Mordechai Vanunu should be allowed to exercise his rights to freedom of movement, association and expression in Israel and should be allowed to leave the country if he wishes," Amnesty said in a statement.
"His release is long overdue and Israel must not continue to violate his fundamental human rights once he is released from prison."
Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona nuclear plant in southern Israel, was given an 18-year sentence in 1986 after leaking details of Israel's secret nuclear arsenal to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.
Vanunu will be subjected to a series of unprecendented restrictions after his release on Wednesday, including a ban on talking to foreigners or leaving the country. He will not be expressly forbidden from contact with the Israeli media, but they are subject to strict censorship on the nuclear program.
In footage to be shown on Israeli television Monday, Vanunu told Israeli secret service interrogators that he had no more nuclear secrets to reveal.
"First of all, I've been on the inside for 20 years -- everything has changed already," he told his interrogators.
"Second, what I went through is a process the entire world knows about ... it's clear that everything has been published. Science has progressed."
----
I'm not a traitor, says Israeli nuclear whistleblower on eve of release
JERUSALEM (AFP)
Apr 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040419094937.ss6acgju.html
Mordechai Vanunu, who is to be freed Wednesday after 18 years in prison for blowing the whistle on Israel's nuclear program, remains unrepentant and does not regard himself as a traitor, according to new footage.
"I am neither a traitor nor a spy. I only wanted the world to know what was happening" at southern Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, Vanunu said during an interrogation by security service agents which is to be broadcast on Israeli television Monday night.
Vanunu said that he had been motivated by a desire "to destroy the reactor", saying that he had acted "for the (good of the) world".
"Why did the world perceive me as a hero or appreciate what I did -- except for Israel," he said.
"Just like they destroyed the Iraqi reactor I want them to destroy the Israeli reactor," he said in reference to Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant which was the target of a 1981 Israeli air raid.
Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, was sentenced in 1986 after leaking details of Israel's secret nuclear arsenal to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.
Israeli agents lured Vanunu from London to Italy where he was kidnapped and brought to Israel. He was tried in secret and found guilty of espionage.
He will be subjected to a series of unprecendented restrictions after his release, including a ban on talking to foreigners or leaving the country.
He will not be expressly forbidden from contact with the Israeli media, but they are subject to strict censorship on the nuclear program.
But Vanunu denied that he remained any threat to national security and said he had no more nuclear secrets to reveal.
"First of all, I've been on the inside for 20 years -- everything has changed already," he told his interrogators.
"Second, what I went through is a process the entire world knows about ... it's clear that everything has been published. Science has progressed.
"Technology has taken giant steps forward, so what I saw appears to me to be very old. I don't think the Americans are interested, or the Europeans."
Israel has firmly adhered to a policy of "nuclear ambiguity", never confirming or denying it possesses nuclear weapons. But foreign experts believe the Jewish state holds at least 200 atomic warheads.
The Morocco-born Vanunu is widely perceived as a traitor by the Israeli public not only for leaking the details of Dimona but also for converting to Christianity.
"It is Christianity that progresses in the world, not Islam and not Judaism," he said.
"It is the Europeans and democracy. That isn't by chance. It is Christian America."
Vanunu's brother Meir said it was "scandalous" that the security services had allowed the tape of the interrrogation to be broadcast.
"This reminds one of the methods of a totalitarian country," he told AFP.
Despite the ban on talking to foreigners, many international supporters of Vanunu are expected to attend his release on Wednesday from Shikma prison in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
--------
Israeli Nuke Whistleblower Makes Appeal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 18, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Nuclear-Whistleblower.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The man who exposed Israel's nuclear weapons program to the world appealed a series of restrictions Israel has said it will impose on him after he is released from prison later this week.
Concerned that Mordechai Vanunu's release after 18 years will refocus unwanted attention on its nuclear capabilities, Israeli security has said it will impose several restrictions on him. He will be prevented from traveling abroad for a year, from contacting foreigners and from discussing his work at the nuclear reactor and the circumstances surrounding his capture.
He also will be required to inform the security services of his whereabouts.
``This is just the continuation of his confinement with different conditions,'' said Vanunu's lawyer, Oded Seller. ``These are the most serious restrictions.''
Vanunu asked the Interior Ministry and Israeli army on Sunday to cancel the restrictions, Seller said. If the request is denied, Vanunu will appeal to the Supreme Court, he said.
Vanunu wants to live abroad, Seller said. In addition, he would like to be in contact with his adoptive parents, who are Americans from Minnesota.
Vanunu, 50, told The Sunday Times of London in 1986 what he learned during his nine years of work as a technician at Israel's nuclear reactor. He was to be released Wednesday.
Vanunu has said he has nothing more to reveal about his work at the reactor. Using the information and pictures Vanunu provided, experts estimated Israel had the sixth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
----
GEORGIA Laws limit G-8 protests
April 19, 2004
Washington Times
Around the Nation
http://www.washtimes.com/national/aroundnation.htm
BRUNSWICK - Local governments have passed laws to control large-scale demonstrations during the Group of Eight summit this summer on nearby Sea Island.
Thousands of protesters are expected June 8 to 10 when President Bush plays host to leaders of major industrial nations.
Brunswick passed a law last month that requires protest organizers to post deposits equal to the city's estimated cost for cleanup and police protection. Protests may last only 21/2 hours. Signs may measure no larger than 2 feet by 3 feet and may not be carried on sticks that could be used as weapons.
----
Scottish protester arrested in West Bank
Mon 19 Apr 2004
Scotsman
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=439342004
A SCOTTISH woman was arrested in the West Bank yesterday while demonstrating against Israel's controversial separation barrier.
Theresa McDermott, from Edinburgh, was detained by police during a demonstration near the Palestinian village of Bidu
that had been organised by the non-violent protest group, International Solidarity Movement.
Gil Klieman, a spokesman for the Israeli police, confirmed a Scottish woman had been arrested along with three Bidu residents.
"She was arrested for being in a closed military area and participating in a riot and civil disturbances," he said.
He said the interior ministry decides in such cases whether to deport foreign nationals or bring them to trial.
----
Pro-life teachers angered by march
April 19, 2004
By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040419-124027-8621r.htm
Thousands of pro-life teachers and school staff required to belong to the National Education Association across the country are offended by the union's co-sponsorship of a pro-choice march in Washington this Sunday.
The NEA headquarters on 16th Street NW near the White House will act as a hospitality center for the March for Freedom of Choice while the union's nearby state affiliates in New Jersey and elsewhere are organizing buses to bring demonstrators for the event.
The march is being organized by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union, National Organization for Women, NARAL Pro-Choice America and other liberal and feminist groups.
Abortion "is a political issue and not an educational issue," said NEA member Connie Bancroft, a middle-school teacher for handicapped children in Mahoning County, Ohio, who opposes NEA's sponsorship of the march.
Miss Bancroft is executive director of Teachers Saving Children, a national group of 3,300 pro-life educators that seeks "a commitment to establishing respect for all human life from conception to natural death, especially among professional educators' organizations," she said.
"We're supposed to be for children, and they say it's OK to eliminate our very clientele. That's hard to understand."
The problem, say pro-life members of the 2.7-million-member teachers union, is that they are forced to be dues-paying NEA members because of collective-bargaining agreements in their school districts.
Meanwhile, the NEA takes positions on issues contrary to some members' religious beliefs, which are protected by the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act.
"Every organization - association, political party and church - has significant numbers of members who do not agree with every policy item," NEA spokesman Michael Pons said. "That is the greatness of an open, democratic organization such as ours."
Pro-life NEA members said another major objection is that the union's top management tilts toward abortion, as shown by NEA chief lobbyist Randall J. Moody's dual role serving on the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Federal Political Action Committee, for which he was an original board member and treasurer for three years.
Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion-referral agency. Mr. Moody was a member of the organization's board of directors from 1995 to 2002 and is still co-chairman of Planned Parenthood Republicans for Choice. The pro-life NEA members say Mr. Moody's roles with Planned Parenthood are a conflict of interest.
Planned Parenthood said on its Web site the forthcoming march is "the largest pro-choice demonstration in the nation's history." An "interdenominational" prayer breakfast on the Mall to precede the march is "a direct challenge to the religious right and its claims to speak for communities of faith," the organization said in a statement.
Mr. Pons did not respond to questions about Mr. Moody's dual role with NEA and Planned Parenthood, but said the union is "one of hundreds of sponsors" of Sunday's march.
"NEA is providing water, juice, a place to rest and access to our restroom facilities for our members on that day," he said. "I haven't costed out the water, but that is our only financial commitment."
The NEA does the same for its members any time they are in Washington, he said.
"Any association member is welcome to our building any time," he said.
Judy Bruns, a junior high school language-arts teacher from Coldwater, Ohio, said the NEA's support for abortion and other positions against members' religious beliefs has caused many school teachers and support staff across the country to assert their right under the Civil Rights Act for a "religious-based accommodation" freeing them of their obligation to pay NEA dues.
The law directs the NEA to provide a "reasonable accommodation" to exempt members with a religious objection from paying the union's national $134 annual dues payment.
State NEA affiliates charge union members additional dues, ranging from $230 in Oklahoma to $569 in Michigan.
NEA members receive liability, health and life insurance, which is why most school personnel stay with the union despite objections to its pro-choice stance and positions on many noneducation issues, said Sissy Jochmann, a second-grade teacher in the Pittsburgh area and chairman of the Conservative Educators Caucus, which has members in 10 states.
Mrs. Bruns, a board member of Teachers Saving Children, called the NEA's support for the pro-choice march "senseless."
"If the NEA is truly for 'choice,' we hope our union will be consistent and extend its hospitality and support to teachers who choose to participate in the annual Jan. 22 March for Life in Washington," she said.
The NEA does not sponsor the March for Life and it does not offer the pro-life march corporate support.
For many years, NEA-elected state delegates to the union's annual Representative Assembly have rejected pleas of pro-life teachers to be neutral on abortion, instead adopting an official position in supporting abortion, even for teenagers, in the name of "reproductive freedom."
Delegates at the NEA's 2003 convention in July in New Orleans rejected a proposal to drop stated opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortion.
Mrs. Jochmann said the NEA "should simply get out of the abortion issue altogether."
"Our union needs to stick to education," she said. She said abortion "is harmful emotionally, physically and spiritually to women."
"We believe women deserve better. We invite our union to support abstinence and the value of chastity, rather than partner with [the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States] against abstinence education," she said.
----
US 'soldiers of conscience' take Sixties route to Canada
By Marcus Warren in New York
19/04/2004
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$XLBRBDYRB4LZJQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2004/04/19/wdes19.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/19/ixnewstop.html
Two American soldiers opposed to the war in Iraq have abandoned their units and fled to Canada in a desertion evoking the exodus of young men north of the border during the Vietnam era.
The two soldiers are seeking asylum as refugees, arguing that they face persecution for their beliefs - and in theory the death penalty - if they return.
Their decision to run may not yet herald a mass migration but no one expects the pair to be the last to abandon their units and slip across the frontier, even at the cost of becoming deserters.
"Just because you sign a contract, that doesn't mean you abdicate the right to be a moral human being," said Jeremy Hinzman, 25, a private at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and the first of the two to reach Canada. "If you know that an order is unjust, it's your duty to disobey it."
Speaking from his new home in Toronto, he shied away from urging other servicemen to copy his example, afraid, he said, of being "seditious". But he had this message for other soldiers with moral qualms about the war in Iraq.
"They need to do what they think is right," he said. "If that means going to Canada, follow your conscience."
Already he has been joined by a second fugitive, Brandon Hughey, 18, a private who abandoned his unit the night before its deployment from Fort Hood, Texas, to the Middle East and is now living with a Quaker couple in the Ontario city of St Catharines.
"This is a war based solely on lies," Pte Hughey said. "If other soldiers feel that they cannot take part, they should talk to their superiors about it. But Canada is an option."
They both call the war in Iraq a violation of international law, a crime that overrides their duty to the army they signed up for.
Pte Hinzman had no qualms about serving in Afghanistan although he did ask his officers for a non-combat role.
They now face a difficult battle in the courts to become the first Americans to be given refugee status in Canada, although the country's ban on deporting anyone at risk of suffering the death penalty may count in their favour.
The war in Iraq has re-established Canada as a place of sanctuary for young Americans opposed to fighting in a conflict that they believe is wrong.
The generation that provided most of the manpower for the United States military in the 1960s and '70s also saw tens of thousands of young men going across the border, the majority to avoid being called up into the armed forces.
One of 60,000 Americans who fled to dodge the draft and service in Vietnam, Jeffry House, recalls turning up at the border in 1970 and simply announcing that he wanted to live in Canada. The Canadian guards asked whether he had a "military problem" and then ushered him to one side to start a new life.
Now a Canadian citizen and a lawyer, he is overseeing Pte Hinzman's and Pte Hughey's attempts to become refugees.
"They remind me of how I felt," he said. "The idea that the Pentagon would drop me into some village and I would end up killing people was horrible."
Pte Hinzman said the "crystallising moment" for his decision to abandon the army was hearing a radio report while in Afghanistan about the sharing out of oil revenue in post-war Iraq.
The two men may be a lonely vanguard of young people prepared to leave their comrades-in-arms, families and homeland for uncertainty in a foreign country.
But with more US soldiers dying so far this month than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein and military morale suffering as tours of duty are extended, reinforcements are likely to be soon on the way.
--------
G-8 Protest Organizer Finds Hurdles on Path to a Permit
April 19, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/national/19PROT.html
BRUNSWICK, Ga., April 18 - Robert Randall never knew free speech could cost so much - in dollars and in compromises - until he tried to organize a demonstration for this summer's meeting of the major industrial nations.
The coastal city of Brunswick, where Mr. Randall hopes to gather up to 10,000 people to protest the meeting of Group of 8, passed a law last month that placed conditions on public demonstrations.
Organizers must put up refundable deposits equal to the city's estimated cost for cleanup and police protection. Demonstrations may last only 2 hours, 30 minutes. Signs and banners may not be carried on sticks that might be brandished as weapons. And the signs may not be larger than 2 by 3 feet.
"This law would not exist if the G-8 was not coming here," said Mr. Randall, 51, a local therapist who has attended demonstrations since the Vietnam War. "It makes it impossible to express oneself through assembly or speech on public property unless you have money."
Thousands of antiglobalization protesters are expected June 8-10 when President Bush plays host to the leaders of Britain, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Russia on secluded Sea Island, which is near Brunswick.
Savannah, Brunswick and surrounding counties have passed ordinances governing protest permits. The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened to sue, saying the laws "place impermissible limits on free speech."
Some opposed to the laws say the cities' actions fit a national pattern of managing dissent with stronger laws and police powers that constrict constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly. The new laws are a response to the violent protests during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Demonstrators are facing some of their toughest restrictions since the 1960's, said Ronald Collins of the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va.
"Post-Seattle and 9/11, it seems more municipalities are considering measures that may well undermine existing First Amendment law," Mr. Collins said.
Miami banned items like water pistols, balloons and sticks before demonstrators arrived at a global trade summit in November. The city repealed the law last month in the face of lawsuits.
On Thursday, federal appeals court judges ruled that an Augusta, Ga., ordinance violated the rights of a women's group that sought to protest outside the all-male Augusta National Golf Club during the 2003 Masters golf tournament.
Cities are "trying to silence people from speaking out," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a Washington lawyer and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice. "And they're using the law as a political tool to do it."
Brunswick is the nearest inland community to Sea Island, which will be off limits to demonstrators. Savannah, 60 miles north, will house journalists and dignitaries. With the summit less than two months away, neither city has approved permits for demonstrations.
Brunswick requires groups of six or more to apply for permits at least 20 days before an event. The city's ordinance sets no limit on deposits, and says permits may be denied if a demonstration is likely to congest traffic, impede commerce or endanger the public.
Savannah's law is similar but does not specify the size of groups needing permits, which the A.C.L.U. says could be applied to one person.
City officials have said that protesters wanting to use public parks will be charged the same fees - $150 to $700 per day - as people renting those spaces for private events. Groups of 150 or more must pay maintenance deposits of $1.50 per head.
Mayor Otis Johnson of Savannah declined to comment, citing the threat of litigation from the civil liberties union. But City Attorney James Blackburn told The Savannah Morning News the city would review the ordinance in light of the appellate decision on the Augusta lawsuit.
In Brunswick, Mr. Randall said he was waiting to find a site for his demonstration before requesting a permit. The mayor says the city is trying to help him.
----
Earth Day celebration educates despite rain
By Ally Horn
Syracuse NYU Daily Orange - News
4/19/04
http://www.dailyorange.com/news/2004/04/19/News/Earth.Day.Celebration.Educates.Despite.Rain-664205.shtml
While some people may plant trees or pick up litter to honor Earth Day, members of the Syracuse community celebrated with catered food, live musicians and local speakers during the New York Public Interest Research Group's Earth Day Festival Sunday in Thornden Park.
"Earth Day has been a tradition since the 1970s," said Sean Vormwald, project coordinator for Syracuse University and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry's chapter of NYPIRG. "It's a good way to educate people about various environmental issues and make people more aware of them."
Even when early afternoon thunderstorms hung overhead, all the activities were moved and continued inside a park building next to the amphitheater, then slowly brought back outside as the sun returned. The event's co-sponsors included Studio FX, Follett's Orange Bookstore, Hair Trends and Phi Sigma Sigma and was free and open to all.
The Spinto Band, Party in Your Pants, Roast, local singer and songwriter Amanda Rogers and other musicians performed 45-minute sets each, while guests listened to the music, played Frisbee, walked dogs, lounged in the grass and ate food provided by Nature's Kitchen. But underlying the festivities lay a serious message.
"Environmental awareness is the key message here," said Andrea Russell, environmental project leader for the SU ESF chapter of NYPIRG. "It's the reason we're all here. We're trying to get the message out that there are tons of ways that you can take action to help our environment,"
In order to help educate Earth Day's participants, different organizations set up tables displaying information in various forms, such as posters, flyers and buttons.
Guests could sign pre-written postcards addressed to Sen. Joseph L. Bruno (R-N.Y.) and Assemblyman Sheldon Silver at the NYPIRG table, expressing support for the Bigger, Better Bottle Bill, which would add water, tea, juice, and sports drink bottles to the kinds of bottles that receive a five cent deposit.
Guests could also sign a letter to be sent to Gov. George E. Pataki urging him to cap carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Other groups attended the event to raise awareness about issues that affect Syracuse in particular, including the Syracuse Peace Council and the Partnership for Onondaga Creek, the organization that is trying to convince the county government to use underground storage as a means of sewage disposal.
"Right now raw sewage is flowing into Onondaga Creek, which is going right into Onondaga Lake," said Alicia Haley, a junior environmental and forestry biology major at ESF and Partnership volunteer. "The county's plan is to install sewage treatment plants along the creek to solve the problem. Since the plants would use chemicals that would not be good for the environment, we're trying to push underground storage of the sewage until it can be properly treated and disposed of."
Ray Trudell, a Syracuse Peace Council volunteer, explained that the military and war budget is so large that it leaves very little money for solving environmental problems.
"The government is also using uranium depleted weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is detrimental to our soldiers as well as the environment," Trudell added.
All of the different organizations at the festival agreed that their main goal was to educate people of all ages about social and environmental issues.
"Earth Day at Thornden Park is only one event we organize throughout the year to raise awareness about issues," Russell said. "We don't just do one event and then stop; it continues until we pass the bill. Even though I'm going to eventually be gone, it doesn't mean events like this will end. Someone else will take over, and the campaign will always continue on."
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A Letter From An Iraqi Mother
04/19/2004
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/98/386/12552_.html http://www.albasrah.net/maqalat/english/0404/letter_050404.htm
A Letter From An Iraqi Mother To The Mothers Of The Americans Killed In Fallujah
Dear Sisters, I call upon you because we are sisters in motherhood.
The American media described us with as "barbarians", "savages", and "criminals" in the aftermath of the mob lynching scenes of the bodies of charred Americans in Fallujah, as Iraqis beat on dead bodies then hung them off a bridge. But the American media does not want you to know the true picture against which those scenes took place, nor does it want to let you know why Iraqis did this thing.
The media does not want you to know the extent to which Iraqis have come to hate the soldiers of the occupation for them to act like this.
I address you as American women, as mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. Sisters, I know how painful it is for a woman to lose someone dear. I can feel your pain. For we, Iraqi women, have lost too much, and have suffered what no mother on the face of the earth has. For example, when your government imposed the unjust embargo on our country, we had to watch our children everyday dying from lack of medicine. Because of the weapons of mass destruction your soldiers used, especially depleted uranium, we had to carry babies in our wombs for nine months only to see them born severely deformed.
As if all this was not enough for your government, it topped all it off with a war that it launched under false pretexts just to control our wealth, our oil and resources. And it was a brutal war in which many of our children were killed and many others were arrested, both sons and daughters.
As of today, your government continues to kill and arrest our sons and daughters. So, after all this, do you still wonder why Iraqis carry such hatred in their hearts towards your kids?! Your sons, dear sisters, were not exactly angels or missionaries preaching the religion of mercy! Your sons have killed our fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. Your sons have stolen, pillaged, raped, polluted the earth and the water, and burnt the fields. In fact, dear sisters, your sons are the real barbarians, the murderers, and criminals. Therefore, please don't blame us for hating them.
Dear sisters, I call upon you, as someone just like you who has experienced the pain of Iraqi brothers and sons being killed by the invaders in the worst possible way: if you want our collective pains not to increase and multiply, and if you want the return of your sons and husbands back home safe and sound, PLEASE LET THEM LEAVE IRAQ, for they are NOT welcome here.
And, therefore, I tell you that nobody can possibly promise you that the lynching scenes of yesterday in Fallujah won't be repeated again, okay? Why do you let your loved ones be sacrificed like this, dear sisters? So murdering beasts like Bush, Rumsfeld, Sharon, and Halliburton would get richer and more powerful? Is that a good reason for them to die? We think not. We want it all to stop, for us and for you. So please let your children leave Iraq alone.
Sincerely, An Iraqi Mother
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Iowa View: Truth still not told in killing of Rachel Corrie
Peace activist was run over by Israeli bulldozer
04/19/2004
By SANGINA PATNAIK
Des Moines Register
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040419/OPINION01/404190301/1035/OPINION
This past month, Colin Powell submitted the State Department's 2003 "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" to Congress. Its findings document human-rights violations around the world and, according to Powell's introduction, informs U.S. policy changes in regard to those violations. The report includes a paragraph documenting the killing of my cousin, Rachel Corrie, by an Israeli military bulldozer.
Dressed in a neon-orange jacket, Rachel stood before a Palestinian home in an attempt to protect it from demolition by the Israeli Defense Forces - a horrifyingly common practice that has displaced more than 12,000 people in little more than three years.
Along with other international peace activists, Rachel had arrived in the Occupied Palestinian Territories after Israel and the United States vetoed a U.N. resolution calling for international human-rights monitors in the area. According to multiple eyewitness accounts, on March 16, 2003, the operator of a Caterpillar D-9 armored bulldozer ran over Rachel, and then reversed to drag the bulldozer blade back across her body.
In a press conference marking the report's release, Powell assured the audience of its importance to the Bush administration: "President Bush regards the defense and advancement of human rights as America's special calling, and he has made the promotion of human rights an integral and active part of his foreign-policy agenda."
Assume Powell and Bush meant what they said. In Bush's words, "It's essential that this nation not be a nation of empty words, but a nation that is determined to do our duty."
One year after Rachel's killing, it seems reasonable to ask why, as a nation committed to upholding human rights, we are not doing our duty in the case of an American peace activist killed by a foreign army.
The 2003 report on human-rights practices for Israel and the occupied territories states that in the case of Rachel, Israel Defense Forces "conducted two investigations into the case . . . and found . . . no negligence on the part of the operator."
A cursory reading of the report would appear to satisfy our collective conscience. The truth, however, is far more troubling.
The first of two "investigations" into Rachel's death circulated through Congress days after she was killed. It ultimately concluded that "Ms. Corrie was not run over by a bulldozer, but sustained injuries caused by earth and debris which fell on her during bulldozer operation." This assertion contradicts photos and numerous eyewitness accounts, which the Israeli military did not include in its investigation.
Months later, the IDF compiled a second and, in its view, final report. According to Richard Le- Baron, the U.S. Embassy's deputy chief of mission in Tel Aviv, its findings contain "several inconsistencies worthy of note." Unfortunately, Israel refuses to publicly release this report. Furthermore, no one in the U.S. government has had access to any of the direct evidence from which the report was drawn.
Although a House resolution calls on the U.S. government to undertake a full, fair and expeditious investigation into Rachel's death, no steps toward an investigation have been taken.
In contrast, the British government is conducting inquests into the deaths of Tom Hurndall and James Miller, British nationals who also were killed in Gaza in spring 2003. In an unusual move, the London Metropolitan Police recently transferred jurisdiction of both investigations to one coroner, reasoning that a series of similar deaths in a relatively short time could be indicative of "a more complex systematic problem" within the Israeli military.
The United States reacted decisively to the deaths of three Americans in Gaza bombings last October. Denouncing Palestinian military trials of suspects linked to the bombings as inadequate, the State Department hinged economic assistance to the Palestinian Authority upon, among other things, a "full investigation and proper trial" in the case.
Why is it that Israel, which receives $3 billion to $4 billion in U.S. aid each year, has not been asked to comply with similar requirements in Rachel's case?
The State Department mandates the "Country Reports" to "identify and close gaps between principles and practices, between internationally agreed human-rights standards and the actual enjoyment of such rights by a country's citizens."
If we value freedom as an inalienable right, not just as convenient rhetoric, then we must examine the gaps between practices and principles in our government's policies.
Such a gap exists in the U.S. government's lack of response to Rachel's killing. Contradicting their stated values and established policies, Bush and Powell continue to ignore a basic fact: When an unarmed American citizen is killed at the hands of a foreign army, her family and her country have a right to learn the truth. In Rachel's case, this will be possible only through an independent investigation.
SANGINA PATNAIK of Denison is a recent graduate of the University of Iowa.
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