Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
Chernobyl Health Effects Studies
Sightseeing in the dead zone
Bush's War on America
No Nukes Is Good Nukes
U.S. Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons
Saddam's wife assigns a Jordanian lawyer to defend her husband
Half of Swedes want nuclear power despite phase-out plan: poll
Sources: Iran Military Supervising Atomic Experts
U.S.: Iran May Be Running Nuke Programs
U.S. Patience on North Korea May Be Wearing Thin
Missile defense system could be put on alert in September
General Touts U.S. Missile Defense Plan
DOE changes in works for nuclear security
Report to urge clampdown on nuclear plants' security
U.S. Warns of Countries Seeking Nukes
GAO: Nuke weapons sites remain vulnerable
GAO Questions U.S. Nuclear Security
Livermore Lab seen as vulnerable
Kucinich pitches peace platform
Grilled to Order
MILITARY
Bush Signs Directive on Biodefense
British Weigh More Troops for Iraq
Blair Says U.K. Has Enough Troops in Iraq
British Ex-Diplomats Assail Blair on Mideast
Britain's Blair Leaves Door Open to More Iraq Troops
Defense-Boeing back-scratching
China Condemns U.S. and Britain on Hong Kong Democracy
China Rejects Wider Elections For Hong Kong
China Bars Steps by Hong Kong Toward More Democratic Voting
The Denial of Democracy in Iraq
Intense Fighting Erupts in Two Cities
U.S. Troops Kill 57 Insurgents in Battle Near Najaf
Iraqis Say Council-Approved National Flag Won't Fly
Sharon Has No Plans to Quit, Official Says
Cold War missiles will be destroyed
JORDAN - Militants describe chemical attack plot
U.S. got secret aid in Iraq war
Almost 80 Russian servicemen commit suicide since January
At NASA, Science Sharply Shifts Course
Chinese Diplomats Escorted Off N.M. Lab
U.S. to Change Tactics After Gulf Attacks
U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
U.S. Toll in Iraq Hits 115 for Month
Lack Of Armor Claims Troops
College Host Chides Cheney
Letter From Fallujah
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Supreme Court Hears Cheney Energy Task Force Case
Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Cheney's Secret Energy Panel
Mr. Cheney's Day in Court
Staying One Step Ahead of Disaster
Interest Growing in 'Security' Blimps
Congressional Oversight of Intelligence Criticized
Democrats Question Use Of 9/11 Emergency Fund
Prosecutor Named to Probe Senate Files Case
Justice Dept. Opens Inquiry on Memo Theft
OTHER
Nearly half of extinct species were in Hawaii
African heads of state meet at Niger River basin conference
UN uses atomic technology to fight malaria mosquito
HHS Withholds Funds for Global Health Meeting
ACTIVISTS
Kidnapped Italians 'will be killed in five days' unless Italians protest
Freed Japanese hostages billed $21,000
Thousands of Israelis Rally Against Gaza Pullout
Boisterous Protest Greets World Financial Leaders
Huge rally targets president's agenda
Thousands demand end of monarchy in Nepal
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Chernobyl Health Effects Studies
April 27, 2004,
U.S. Department of Energy
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/health/ihp/chernobyl/chernobyl.html
Introduction
On April 26, 1986, during a testing operation, there was a major accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. The electrical generating plant is located 130 km north of Kiev, near the current convergent borders of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. This resulted in a release to the atmosphere of large quantities of radioactive substances across Europe for over one week. Belarus, Ukraine, and a part of Russia experienced the most contamination.
After the accident, a series of meetings between senior officials of the United States and the former Soviet Union resulted in a memorandum of cooperation on nuclear reactor safety. This memorandum established the Joint Coordinating Committee for Civilian Nuclear Reactor Safety (JCCCNRS). The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was the lead organization in the United States; the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was responsible for leading health and environmental effects research.
After the dissolution of the JCCCNRS, DOE, in partnership with the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI), took on a greater role in sponsoring international studies of the health impacts of the Chernobyl accident. These include studies of thyroid cancer and thyroid diseases in Belarus and Ukraine, as well as a leukemia study in Chernobyl clean-up workers ("liquidators") in Ukraine. In addition, DOE sponsors a study of ocular cataracts in Ukrainian liquidators. DOE's involvement in the evaluation of the adverse health affects from Chernobyl and current activities are described below.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Accident
Late on the night of Friday, April 25, 1986, the Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor was shut down for routine maintenance and testing. During the testing, operational errors and inadequate safety precautions resulted in a sudden increase in heat production, which ruptured part of the nuclear fuel. The 1000-MWe water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor did not have a concrete containment vessel as do most reactors designed in the United States. By 1:30 a.m., Sunday, April 26, hot fuel particles, reacting with water, had caused a steam explosion. Within seconds, this was followed by a second explosion. The explosions totally destroyed the Unit 4 reactor core and roof of the building.
By 5:00 a.m., although over 100 local firefighters succeeded in extinguishing conventional fires in what remained of the building, a graphite moderator fire began and was not extinguished until May 6. This fire was responsible for the dispersion of radionuclides into the atmosphere. Firefighters suffered the highest radiation exposures and casualties. Seven months later, the remains of the destroyed reactor and building were enclosed in a concrete sarcophagus designed to provide some containment of the damaged nuclear fuel and to reduce further releases of radioactivity until a more permanent containment facility could be designed and implemented.
The Contamination
The accident on April 26, 1986 and subsequent 10-day fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant released large amounts of iodine131 (40 to 50 million curies) and short-lived radionuclides into the atmosphere. The area affected was large because of the dispersion of small particles into the upper atmosphere and duration of the release. However, changes in wind direction and rainfall throughout the 10-day period resulted in an unevenly distributed significant deposition of radionuclides, mainly over Belarus, Ukraine, and a part of Russia. The doses outside the former Soviet Union were low, and varied depending upon whether rainfall occurred during the passage of the radioactive cloud.
The most three most highly contaminated areas were:
- The 30-km zone surrounding the reactor, where cesium137 ground depositions exceeded 1,500 kBq/m2;
- The Bryansk, Russia area and Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus, 200 km north-northeast of the reactor, where cesium137 ground depositions exceeded 1,500 kBq/m2; and
- The Kaluga-Tula-Orel area of Russia, 500 km northeast of the reactor, where cesium137 ground depositions exceeded 555 kBq/m2.
People were exposed to both internal and external radiation. The major routes of human exposure to radiation were from ingestion of cow's milk contaminated with iodine131 (resulting in internal exposure), contact with gamma/beta radiation from the radioactive cloud, and contact with cesium137 deposited on the ground (resulting in external exposure).
The Remediation
Residents from the nearby town of Pripyat were evacuated on April 27. As the deposition pattern became apparent through measurements permitting dose assessments, nearly 135,000 people were evacuated during the first weeks following the accident, mainly from the 30-km exclusion zone. Although efforts were made to use potassium iodide to prevent uptake of radioiodine by the thyroid, optimal administration (1 to 2 hours before and during exposure) was rarely achieved.
Countermeasures to reduce exposure were implemented. These included decontamination of buildings, cleaning roads, suppressing dust, and decontaminating water supplies.
Seven months after the accident, a concrete sarcophagus was built as a temporary solution to entomb the reactor and minimize further release of large quantities of radioactive materials. Clean-up operations produced large quantities of radioactive wastes and contaminated equipment stored in sites within and outside of the 30-km exclusion zone.
The Consequences
The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is considered to have been the worst nuclear accident in that:
- 50 tons of radioactive dust were dispersed over 140,000 square miles, mainly Belarus, Ukraine, and a part of Russia; and
- 4.9 million people were estimated to have been exposed to radiation.
The major radioactive contaminants of concern were iodine and cesium. Iodine131 and other iodine radioisotopes contained in fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests are among the radionuclides most likely to be released in a nuclear reactor accident. The target organ is the thyroid gland. The risk of thyroid disease attributable to iodine131 remains unknown. The accident and subsequent 10-day fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant released large amounts of iodine131 (40 to 50 million curies) and short-lived radionuclides into the atmosphere. The plume moved predominately northward and then over western Europe. Seventy percent of the radiation was deposited over Belarus.
Those most affected by the radiation were:
- The liquidators, including plant staff, firefighting, emergency health care, and military personnel; and
- Children who consumed milk contaminated with radioiodine in May and June 1986.
In Ukraine alone, it is estimated that as many as 600,000 were exposed to radiation. In addition to the general population, 600,000 - 800,000 Ukrainian liquidators also exposed. Of these, 300,000 had measurable doses from working on site in hot areas. Of these, 30,000 wore dosimeters.
Since 1987, there have been large increases in the incidence of childhood thyroid cancer in populations of Belarus and Ukraine among those exposed to higher levels of radioiodine. The thyroid cancers appear to be more prevalent in those aged 0 to 5 at the time of the accident and in areas determined to be more heavily contaminated with iodine131.
Children who consumed fresh cow's milk contaminated with iodine131 received the highest doses to the thyroid. Estimated thyroid doses in Belarussian and Ukrainian children ranged from less than 0.1 Gy to more than 10 Gy. Thyroid doses received by Russian children appeared to be an average of two times smaller than those received by Belarussian children.
The effects of the exposure to ionizing radiation, apart from thyroid cancer, have not yet been demonstrated. Although one would expect a wide variety of health effects following the catastrophic nature of the Chernobyl accident, these effects may be too subtle and too few collectively to be detected by epidemiological methods above background rates of disease. Some of the Chernobyl liquidators (remediation workers) with high radiation doses are expected to have increased rates of cancer.
There have been no excess leukemia, congenital abnormalities, adverse pregnancy outcomes or other radiation-induced disease in the general population.
There is evidence of the impact of psychological effects on health. In addition to acute (deaths and radiation sickness) and chronic adverse health effects (thyroid cancer) from Chernobyl, psychological effects manifested as anxiety and stress also have been reported. Stress-related illnesses, which can also impact health, have been attributed to both fear of radiation and the government-ordered evacuations.
International Agreement Led to the Formation of JCCCNRS
As a result of the accident, on April 26, 1988, the U.S. NRC and the Soviet State Committee for the Utilization of Atomic Energy (SCUAE) signed a "Memorandum of Cooperation in the Field of Civilian Nuclear Reactor Safety." This memorandum established the JCCCNRS and included studies of the health effects associated with nuclear reactor operations and accidents. NRC was designated as the lead U.S. agency; Dr. James M. Taylor, Executive Director, NRC, and his Russian counterpart, co-chaired JCCCNRS.
Of the twelve working groups were formed, responsibility for Working Group 7.0, Health Effects and Environmental Protection Consideration, was assigned to DOE. Two sub-groups were established under Working Group 7.0: 7.1 - Environmental Transport and 7.2 - Health Effects of Radiation. In September 1989, the first formal scientific meetings to establish research agendas of these subgroups were held in Moscow (7.1 - Environmental Transport) and Kiev (7.2 - Health Effects).
In 1990, DOE began funding studies on the health effects from the Chernobyl accident. In 1992, DOE signed an interagency agreement with NCI to fund the Chernobyl projects, which received matching funds from NCI and co-funding from NRC. Under this agreement, NCI had primary responsibility for the management, development and implementation of three studies. In 1997, this agreement was renewed for 5 years.
Impact of the Dissolution of the Former Soviet Union on the JCCCNRS
The dissolution of the former Soviet Union in September 1991 changed the work conducted under the JCCCNRS. In 1993, JCCCNRS was divided into two committees: one for research related to the aftermath of Chernobyl and another for research related to the Russian Federation. The Chernobyl research continued under the auspices of the JCCCNRS in a separate agreement between the United States and Ukraine. In addition, DOE has a separate agreement with the Ministry of Health in Belarus to continue activities begun there under the auspices of JCCCNRS.
The U.S./Russian committee formed from the JCCCNRS in 1993 is the Joint Coordinating Committee for Radiation Effects Research (JCCRER). In 1994, the United States and Russia began to sponsor collaborative studies in the Russian Federation. These studies were intended to broaden collaborative efforts beyond Chernobyl and to manage health effects studies of worker and community populations affected by MAYAK nuclear weapons production facility in the southern Urals region of Russia.
By 1997, the emphasis of the JCCCNRS shifted to conducting epidemiological studies and dose reconstruction studies focusing on the Chernobyl population with significant, current exposure. Because of change in the focus of the studies, DOE and NCI took on greater leadership roles, NRC discontinued its role, and the NCCCNRS ceased functioning.
Four Chernobyl Health Effects Studies Underway
There are a large number of ongoing research efforts to study Chernobyl-related health effects sponsored by various international organizations and governments. To help characterize the adverse health effects of ionizing radiation following Chernobyl, DOE in partnership with NCI, sponsors studies of thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases in Belarus and Ukraine and a leukemia study in Ukraine liquidators. In addition, DOE sponsors a study of radiation-induced ocular cataracts in Ukrainian liquidators.
- Ukrainian Ocular Study
Radiation-induced cataract formation in 12,000 Ukrainian liquidators as a function of the radiation dose that they received is being examined. This study is the largest ever conducted of radiation-induced cataracts in a population with individual estimates of radiation exposure. The study is in its sixth and final year and is sponsored by DOE.
Dr. George Parkhomenko, the key ophthalmologist, viewing clinical examples of radiation-induced ocular cataracts.
Academician Dr. Yuri Kundiev of the Kiev Institute for Occupational Health and the Ukrainian-American cataract team of investigators. The Scheimpflug slit lamp with the recorded images of Barry Fountos' right eye.
- Ukrainian Thyroid Study
Thyroid cancer and thyroid diseases in Ukraine among approximately 12,000 individuals who were less than 19 years old at the time of the Chernobyl accident are the subject of intense interest. Data from thyroid examinations and dose reconstruction will be used to evaluate the relationship among the radiation dose to the thyroid, the age of exposure, and the incidence of thyroid disease. The study is in its fifth year. The study is managed by NCI and supported by DOE and Ukraine.
- Belarus Thyroid Study
A study similar to the Ukrainian thyroid study is being conducted in Belarus among approximate 12,000 individuals who were less than 19 at the time of the Chernobyl accident. All had their thyroids measured for radioactivity following the accident. The study is in its sixth year. The study is managed by NCI, and supported by DOE and Belarus.
- Ukrainian Leukemia and Other Hematologic Diseases Study
The relationship between exposure to ionizing radiation and the incidence of leukemia, lymphoma, and related blood disorders in 80,000 Ukrainian liquidators is being examined. The Phase I pilot study began in 1996 and was completed in 2000. The Phase II case-control study is now underway. This study is managed by NCI and supported by DOE and Ukraine.
DOE's Role
Under the Interagency Agreement Between DOE and NCI on Jointly Sponsored Chernobyl Research, NCI has responsibility for both the scientific and technical aspects of the Belarus childhood thyroid study; the Ukraine childhood thyroid study; and the Ukraine leukemia study in Chernobyl liquidators. DOE will continue to fund a major portion of the research.
This shift of authority from DOE to NCI empowers NCI to focus on obtaining results, eliminates DOE oversight, and reduces wasteful paperwork across agencies through program consolidation/administrative simplification.
Importance of the Chernobyl Health Effects Research Relative to DOE Workers and the American Public
By its size, dose distribution, and accessibility, the Chernobyl population presents an unparalleled opportunity to consider both risk issues and modalities for monitoring populations at risk. These studies are expected to produce risk coefficients for thyroid cancer, leukemia, and cataracts relative to radiation. This information will fill a major gap in the world's knowledge of radiation effects, and will provide guidance for radiation protection and public health policies near operational nuclear reactors.
For further information, please contact:
Mohandas Bhat Program Manager U.S. Department of Energy Office of Health Programs EH-6/270 CC 19901 Germantown Road Germantown, MD 20874-1290 Telephone: (301) 903-1719 Facsimile: (301) 903-1413 E-mail: mohandas.bhat@eh.doe.gov
----
Sightseeing in the dead zone
April 27, 2004
The Telegraph, London
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/26/1082831497202.html
Ghost town ... Pripyat, which was evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster.
Daytrippers with Geiger counters pay to explore the wasteland of the world's worst nuclear disaster, writes Tom Parfitt.
Nearly two decades after the world's worst nuclear disaster, the Chernobyl power plant and the poisonous wasteland that surrounds it have become an unlikely tourist destination. Increasing numbers of adventurers are finding their way into the irradiated zone, seeking the eerie thrill of entering family homes unchanged since they were evacuated at a few minutes' notice, two decades ago.
They sift through the abandoned homes of 48,000 workers and their families, whisked away as a veil of plutonium settled over the city. Photographs, telephones, furniture upturned in the hasty departure, shoes, clothes and other belongings lie scattered through apartments.
Naturalists come to explore Chernobyl's "Garden of Eden" - the proliferation of greenery and wildlife that has sprung up in the exclusion zone around the ruined power station since the local population fled. More than 3000 visitors go to the site every year, and hundreds more explore the abandoned villages in the 32-kilometre evacuated "dead zone".
"Strange as it may sound, people visit here from all over the world - the United States, Australia, Japan, the UK," said Yulia Marusich, an official guide who leads visitors to a viewing platform overlooking the concrete sarcophagus that encloses the remains of Reactor Four.
As she spoke, standing beside the sarcophagus, a Geiger counter began to tick frantically. It registered 50 times the natural background level of radiation - apparently a "tolerable" level of exposure for a short visit, officials say. Engineers say there is a serious risk that the sarcophagus could collapse, exposing hundreds of tonnes of unstable nuclear debris.
The Chernobyl catastrophe happened 18 years ago on April 26, 1986, when an explosion destroyed the reactor, expelling a huge plume of radioactive dust that drifted across Europe. Some 31 firefighters who fought the blaze were killed by massive doses of radiation, and thousands of civilians are thought to have died since from radiation-induced cancers. About 200 tonnes of concrete and debris mixed with nuclear fuel are trapped under the hastily constructed concrete shell. Travel companies in Kiev are charging daytrippers $266 for a tour of the disaster area in northern Ukraine.
Tourists can enter the dead zone, visit the ruined fourth unit, talk to villagers who returned to live in the area and see a graveyard of hundreds of trucks, helicopters and armoured vehicles which, say the brochures, are "so soaked with radiation that it is dangerous to approach".
Towns and villages that were evacuated in the days following the disaster are the biggest attraction - a time capsule from the late Soviet era. At Pripyat, 3.2 kilometres from the nuclear plant, communist banners painted for May 1 - a date the city never greeted - are stacked in the back of a ruined theatre.
Tour agents say that there is no health risk from taking the trips. Areas of high radioactivity are marked off with triangular yellow signs. The journey involves passing through military roadblocks. Recently, officials from the nuclear plant led a group of foreign journalists and aid workers on a tour of the disaster zone. The concrete sarcophagus is to be covered by a new steel shell in 2008. Marusich said that debris stacked against the inside of the shell's southern wall is slowly shifting and "could result in the entire structure collapsing". Parts of the shell are criss-crossed by cracks.
As preparations for the new structure advance, several thousand employees are dismantling the plant's remaining reactors and processing the leftover nuclear fuel. Each night they are taken by train to Slavutich, the town built outside the dead zone especially for workers.
Visiting the skeleton of the city that Slavutich replaced is the most poignant moment on the tour. Pripyat was a model town with elite apartments, shops, swimming pools and kindergartens. A day and a half after Reactor Four exploded, the entire population of the city was loaded onto buses and taken away. "There was a forest nearby that turned red from radioactive dust," remembered Nikolai, a driver who was a traffic policeman overseeing the evacuation. "People begged us to get past it as fast as we could."
Today, Pripyat is a ghost town. A fairground ride, finished days before the disaster, is enveloped in weeds and contorted vines. Birdsong is clear in the total silence.
Many locals are surprisingly unconcerned by the legacy of Chernobyl. About 600 people have returned to live inside the dead zone. Maria Dika, 42, leaning from a balcony in Chernobyl town, said she had suffered no long-term ill effects after three months of treatment for acute radiation sickness. She was working as a security guard at Reactor Four on the night of the disaster.
"We're fine," she joked. "No health problems. The radiation has got used to us." Tatiana Khrushch, 66, agreed. "The air's clean, the water's lovely and the mushrooms are great," she said. "This is a fine place."
-------- depleted uranium
Bush's War on America
By Sam Hamod,
Al-Jazeerah
April 27, 2004
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/April/27%20o/Bush's%20War%20on%20America%20By%20Sam%20Hamod.htm
"The average American is growing poorer by the day as the Bush policies drive the nation into bankruptcy. " Kevin Phillips
The military families at Camp Pendleton are living in mold, garbage, with rats and infestations while Bush sends their husbands off to war. The Congressman of that area, ignores their pleas for help and says all is fine; in fact, it's not and he's wrong morally and in terms of truth. Michael Byron and Tom Calabrese who photographed and spoke out about the Camp Pendleton situation
"America cannot "win" in Iraq because the brutality of our military has antagonized even those Iraqis who welcomed us." Sam Hamod
While the Bush administration keeps talking up and spending America into the red in it's "war on terrorism," it is making war on America's education, health, elderly and the long term future of America. Add to this the hundreds of thousands of homeless without shelter,60 % of whom are children, makes this spending even more of a moral sin.
Untold billions, not millions, are being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, in wars that America cannot "win" in a conventional sense because America cannot occupy either country and in both cases, the peoples of those countries will fight and fight, until they are all killed rather than allowing the Americans to dominate them, or American puppets such as the Iraqi Governing Council, which is closer to the Vichy French than to anything else one can think of in the modern era. This Vichy government has been shunned by Iraqis, and I'm sure they wouldn't last a day without American military and private security. In the meantime, they and the Bush gang are handing out contracts in the name of Iraq--all of which is quite illegal, but will benefit their cronies but not America or its citizens.
In the meantime, the fat cats, like Halliburton and Bechtel, Blackwater, and Brown and Root are making billions in Iraq, paying their security men $150, 000to $200, 000per year while our soldiers are making less then $24, 000per year, with their families in welfare lines, in foodbank lines and getting charity where they can--because they cannot afford the normal cost of living--all the while, risking their lives for Bush's war, while he does nothing to help them and their families. In fact, he recently said, "Since the war is over, our military men should not get higher combat pay." So much for who is profiting from this "war on terror."
Nevertheless, Bush and his administration will not admit that they can lose in Iraq and Afghanistan; they will send in more and more troops, which will cost billions and billions more, and yet they still cannot win because the Iraqis and Afghans have been fighting invaders for thousands of years. Furthermore, the Americans do not have enough troops, nor will they have enough--even if they draft all the kids in college and high school--to dominate these fiery peoples and their cultures that teach them to die before submitting to what they consider to be another "crusade" by the West.
In the meantime, every school district in America, every hospitalized elderly person or youngster who needs medical help, all on welfare, all those homeless, are all wanting--all being left high and dry by the known and secret Pentagon budget and spending, the tax havens Bush and his gang allow to go unchecked, and the tax breaks for the corporations that outsource jobs that once belonged to American workers.
One wonders if anyone has thought where the taxes will come from if so many people are outsourced out of a job. Certainly, low level McDonald's types of jobs will not furnish the taxes to keep the American government running, nor to pay for high priced pharmaceuticals, hospital care, education, or even the vaunted "war on terrorism." Where will all the money come from? As David Cay Johnston pointed out in a recent interview on CSpan, in the Eisenhower era, over70 % of American corporations paid federal taxes; in this era, less than7 % are paying taxes in America. The burden falls directly on the shoulders of salaried workers and the middle and lower classes--because the very rich and the corporations are all invested in tax shelters to evade taxes.
Another interesting fact came out recently--the IRS is cutting back on its corporate tax investigations, but increasing those on private citizens.
Add to this, America has allowed the dollar to go into free fall--some of the oil producing countries and others are thinking of switching to the Euro--and you can see what a mess we are in economically. True, the weak dollar may help sell a few more tanks, planes and cars--but it is hurting the national economy and costing us more and more for oil and other fuels. The drop in the dollar has made a $ 35barrel of OPEC oil , in real money, only worth $ 22dollars to these countries because they often have to trade with countries that deal in Euros. Thus, after a while, many countries--such as Japan, China and the Middle East--will stop investing in American bonds, treasuries, stocks and other financial instruments because even if they "make money" , they will be losing money with the unstable and falling dollar. This does not bode well for the long term future of American--for you, your children and your grandchildren.
Under Bush and his absurd war and his absurd tactics--in every sector that made America strong and a model to be emulated--we are failing. In the latest example of how out of touch with reality he is, his Treasury Secretary, Bush himself, and others in his administration are now telling American workers that outsourcing is good for the American economy. Yes, let us ship your jobs overseas and you will see, it will make us stronger. True, it will make some corporations stronger, and richer--but not the citizens of America. Of course, the corporations will not care, as they are multi-national and can exist anywhere. America can go down the tubes while their corporate officers live and work anywhere in the world they please (many have 5 and 6 homes or more) while typical wage earners struggle with higher taxes at work, on their homes and with even higher insurance premiums and hope they will have a job tomorrow.
Many months ago, in "Method to Bush's Madness: Bankrupting America," I said there was a method to Bush's madness of trying to bankrupt the Federal Government--now that is becoming clearer and clearer. Outsource--thus, the taxes will be smaller--then cut the government down in size and give it all over to private industry. Not only this, but these corporations have major investments in foreign companies who can come in and make even more money, while the American citizen goes further and further into poverty and has less and less clout in terms of influencing the government because the majority of our citizenry will be preoccupied with simple survival. Remember that less than9 % of our population controls over 95 % of our monies--the skewing will get worse as more and more people are out of work or in very low paying jobs.
Bush's wars overseas and his outsourcing promotions push more and more money overseas--not back into American jobs and investments. In the meantime, everyone in America, from cities to states, is scrambling and raising taxes. Bush takes the federal taxes and sends them overseas for his wars, or uses them for tax breaks to American firms that are outsourcing and setting up shop overseas. Then they send goods back to America through all the "free trade" open doors--thus these corporations make more money while American citizens suffer more and more.
When some lawmakers proposed spending more on revamping our crumbling American infrastructure--water pollution, sewers, highways, bridges, the electrical power grid--all in massive decay and in need of major and costly repairs--Bush said he'd veto such a bill, that he needed the money for his "war on terror." Once again, money spent on infrastructure would create more jobs, keep the money in America and repair the country--but no, Bush wants his monies to go to Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater Security, and to Brown and Root--old Texas allies who helped finance his campaigns for governor and president. Basically, Bush is saying the American people and our nation can go to hell.
Also, note the number of families, the physical casualties in the military from Bush's war, and the civilian families who are doing without so that Bush can keep spending money outside of America. Are you aware that we have over 700 bases in over 123 countries in the world? Can you imagine the real cost of those bases, and of the men and women to equip and man them?
Those fancy new weapons that Rumsfeld wants for his "shock and awe" warfare cost more billions. Just think, the cost of one of those fighter planes could educate tens of thousands of children! The cost of the new rockets and missiles are enough to provide health insurance for all seniors in America for a period of 5 years! The cost of keeping our troops where they are not longer wanted--in Japan and Germany--is enough to provide for the repair of most of our major cities' sewers and streets. The money spent in Iraq in one month would be enough to help extend social security another year. If you multiply all these things, you'll see that our monies are being wasted, while they are going into the coffers of the industrial/military complex.
Even for the military fighters, they get the short shrift of the stick. As an example, Camp Pendleton Marine Base has among the worst housing situations of any in the world. During an investigation by veterans, Tom Calabrese (who worked at Camp Pendleton in a civilian capacity after retiring) and Michael P. Byron (a professor of Political Science, and an active candidate for U.S. Congress) found and photographed mold on the walls, mold on the floors, leaks in the ceilings, toilets that did not work and other dire circumstances in which the families of the marines lived. When they had families speak up, the women were warned by some of the senior officials to be quiet--when Calabrese continued to speak up, he was fired, and Byron was threatened. The local congressman, Darrell Issa, said everything was fine and that there was no mold, no rats and nothing need be done to improve the situation for the military families. So much for the families of the military men who are fighting Bush's "war on terror". Yes, ask the men and women to put their lives in danger, and have their families living in rot, mold and rats. So much for all that.
It is time for you to speak to your congressman and your senator. Ask them why we are in so many countries, with so many bases. Ask them, "what is our real course, that we are 'staying', in Iraq--Bush has never defined it, but he loves to use that phrase, "stay the course." How can we fund these distant wars at the expense of our young men and women and their families and with diminishing American funds?
If we don't do something to stop Bush soon, you, your children and your grandchildren will have no future.
Ask your lazy and pork-barrel legislators what they are doing to improve education, health, welfare, infrastructure, senior aid and the future of America; not what they are doing in their song and dance to follow the king who has no clothes, no truth, no vision and no care for the American people. Ask them why our young men and women who are being sacrificed for his big lie--this alleged "war on terrorism" that Bush is making worse everyday as he attacks other countries, other peoples and wonders why people are tired of us and want us out of their countries.
When illiterate fools tell you that "the people hate us because of our democracy," tell them, NO, the people don't hate us, they hate our leaders and their behavior; they hate us for attacking them with F-16s and Apache helicopters and for supporting oppressive regimes like that of Sharon and his brutalization of the Palestinians.
Bin Laden is a terrorist, but he is no more a terrorist than Bush--Bin Laden killed less than3000 , Bush has killed over 125 , 000in Iraq alone, and who knows how many more will die from the spent Uranium shells America is using in its attacks on Iraqi resistance fighters. How many thousands of our troops will develop cancer later from the spent DPU (depleted uranium shells) we use in Iraq and Afghanistan; just as many thousands died of cancer from Agent Orange after Viet Nam was over.
Think about these things when you hear that we must keep giving all of our young men and women, our resources and all of our time to this "war on terror" and wonder if America under Bush isn't the real terrorist. He is terrorizing not only others, but by withholding funds for America, he is making war on America--terrorizing the nation with false alarms, creating more enemies by the hour, and by short-changing you, your children and your grandchildren out of a present and out of a future.
So the next time you hear your mayor, your governor or your senators and congressmen saying they have no money to take care of you, their citizens, ask them why they are allowing Bush to send all your monies overseas, while you can't afford medical care, your children education, while your social security is allegedly going dry and why there is no money for seniors. Just ask them.
Ask them why we have to keep sacrificing our young men and women in a war that profits only Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater and Brown/Root and their mercenaries? Ask them.
And, if they can't do something about it, then it is time for you to vote them out of office.
Professor Sam Hamod writes on world affairs, especially the Middle East, he also comments on economics and speaks at international business and political conferences; he founded3 rd World News in Washington, DC; he may be reached at shamod@cox.net
----
No Nukes Is Good Nukes
Helen Caldicott has devoted her life to fighting nuclear development
by James Thompson,
April 27, 2004
Rocky Mountain Bullhorn
http://www.rockymountainbullhorn.com/Week_34_2004/nv1_Q-N_A.htm
Dr. Helen Caldicott wants to save the world-from total annihilation. For 30 years, she's been one of the world's leading anti-nuclear activists. Caldicott founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament and the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI), and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Australian physician has given countless lectures, made several films and written a few books, too-her most recent, 2002's The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex, was reissued earlier this year.
Caldicott was in Fort Collins earlier this month to speak about the horrors of nuclear development, and to raise money for completion of the film Conviction: U.S. v. Gilbert, Hudson and Platte about the three nuns who spilled their blood on a Weld County missile silo in October 2002 in protest of nuclear weapons.
Last week, Caldicott spoke with the Bullhorn from NPRI in New York. Here are some excerpts from that interview.
Rocky Mountain Bullhorn: In the film trailer for Conviction, you said that we are at a nuclear crossroads. What exactly do you mean by that statement?
Helen Caldicott: America's putting up the national missile defense. It's specifically designed to be used against Russia, not North Korea, and as Russia sees that as a threat, she has said...they will build many more nuclear weapons to saturate your [America's] missile defense shield, and China has intimated that she'll do the same. So that creates a new vertical nuclear arms race between Russia, China and America.
Meanwhile, the nuclear weapons labs in this country are designing, testing, building up to 500 new hydrogen bombs a year, which will encourage a lateral proliferation. As other countries look at America, they say, "Well, why shouldn't we have nuclear weapons?"
So that's a sort of nuclear cross, and as we proceed at a pace with no halt to what is happening, prognostically, things look very grim in terms of a possibility of a wide-scale, worldwide nuclear war between Russia and America.
RMB: You claim the U.S. is designing new weapons in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. What kind of new weapons are we looking at?
HC: The weapons they are designing and building are bunker busters, little ones for little bunkers, and great big ones-one megaton-to take out two mountains in the Urals in Russia, where they have what is called the "dead hand."
In other words, America strikes Russia first, knocks out the satellites, knocks out the command center and goes to knock out all their missile silos before the missiles are launched. This center in the middle of the Urals will launch a single rocket called a "dead hand," which will send a signal to all the Russian missiles to be launched automatically by computer.
So one-megaton bombs are being designed to take out those mountains, so America can fight and win a first-strike nuclear war, which is really the policy of the United States.
They're also designing neutron bombs again, which is the ultimate capitalist bomb, because it leaves many buildings standing...
RMB: You write that the Clinton presidency resulted in a more volatile nuke situation than the Reagan buildup of nukes before the end of the Cold War. How so?
HC: Well, Reagan was doing more weapons-he actually spent more money than all past presidents combined building weapons. But he started working at the end of his presidency with Gorbachev. ... I think he deserves credit for helping to end the Cold War with Gorbachev.
When Clinton got into power, he set up a committee to investigate why Russia and America still target each other with thousands of weapons-incidentally, there are 40 hydrogen bombs targeted, as I speak, on New York, let alone the other major cities-and Clinton never went near this nuclear posture view...so the weapons are still in place.
America's got over 3,000 H-bombs targeting Russia, and Russia's got about 2,500 targeting America. The weapons on the missiles only take about half an hour to go from launch to land, and the whole event between the two countries is over in about one hour. It's very difficult to get the media to attend this particular situation at the moment.
RMB: Do you think depleted uranium (DU) weapons caused the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome?
HC: Yes, we actually had a press conference this morning at the National Press Club with two of the soldiers who are excreting uranium. And many of the symptoms they're experiencing-skin rashes and headaches and the like-can be explained by the side effects of uranium. In fact, the Pentagon outlined those symptoms in a pre-1991 report on DU.
RMB: What do you think is the biggest flaw in the missile defense program?
HC: Well, A, it will never work; B, they're giving fraudulent test data on the tests they're doing; C, Rumsfeld has closed down on the test data and won't let anyone know what they're finding when they're testing missile defense; D, it will provoke a massive nuclear arms race with Russia and China and America and probably lead to a nuclear war. Apart from that, it's a fine idea.
Also, it might cost over $1 trillion over the next 20 years to construct-that's your money. If you spent a million dollars a minute since Jesus was born, you would have just about got to a trillion dollars.
RMB: What is your impression of the three nuns, Jackie Hudson, Carol Gilbert and Ardeth Platte?
HC: I think they're wonderful; I think they walk in the shoes of the fisherman. That's what Jesus would do if he came back. They're trying to prevent the annihilation of God's creation.
----
U.S. Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Causes Dangerous Rise in Radiation Level in Iraq
April 27, 2004
Tehran Times
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/28/2004&Cat=2&Num=016
http://www.mehrnews.com/wfNewsDetails_en.aspx?NewsID=73958&t=Political
TEHRAN (MNA) - Canadian research centers have reported that during the war against Iraq the U.S. military used depleted uranium (DU) weapons which caused the radiation level to rise at least 300 times above normal, and the weapons caused similar effects in Afghanistan.
U.S. troops have recently begun removing contaminated topsoil in Iraq, taking it to an unknown location.
Scientists believe the next generation of children of citizens of both countries exposed to DU will suffer from higher rates of birth defects and cancer.
The Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) issued a report based on a 13-day survey throughout the primary conflict zones in urban and rural areas of central and southern Iraq on October 2003, according to Risq News.
The team performed radiation surveys, nuclide analysis, interviewed civilians and community leaders, collected biological and field samples, and investigated the possible health effects of depleted uranium contamination on Iraqi civilians.
According to the report, the U.S. has used uranium oxide deposits as strong explosives in common and fire bombs.
The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in southwestern Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the international airport and hosts one of the largest coalition bases around Baghdad, occupying the operational headquarters of the Iraqi Special Republican Guard. The area was subject to considerable aerial bombing and rocket fire prior to the coalition ground forces' arrival followed by several ground skirmishes along the main routes to the international airport and western entrances to the city.
Departing the coalition-occupied base was a long, a steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand, heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base. As the team passed the base's main entrance, the gates were opened to reveal bulldozers spreading soil while front-end loaders were filling the trucks that had just emptied their loads of soil (silt and sand). The arriving trucks were delivering loads of sand into the base while the departing trucks were hauling away the base's topsoil.
The method of topsoil removal and replacement at U.S.-occupied bases, living facilities, and administrative buildings is mechanically resuspending tons of potentially contaminated particulate. The dust clouds are lofting above and spreading over the entire area -- 5,000,000 residents in Baghdad alone. It is also exposing thousands of U.S. military personnel and the many frequent foreign visitors including NGO staff, reconstruction crews, business and trade delegates, and diplomatic and foreign service employees.
It's not just UMRC that has reported the high level of radiation in Iraq, many American journalists and researchers have also confirmed the reports.
The situation in Afghanistan is worse, with tests showing even higher levels of radiation than Iraq.
Soldiers in Desert Storm (Persian Gulf War I) knew the danger of uranium toxicity from U.S. and British ordnance, and many believe that Gulf War syndrome is caused by exposure to depleted uranium.
At a recent international conference on uranium contaminated weapons held in Hamburg, Germany, researchers and witnesses from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, Greece, Spain, Iraq, and Afghanistan presented various types of undeniable evidence and documents to illustrate the connection between depleted uranium and Gulf War syndrome.
----
Saddam's wife assigns a Jordanian lawyer to defend her husband
Iraq-Jordan, Politics,
4/27/2004
Arabic News
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/040427/2004042701.html
The prominent Jordanian lawyer Muhammad Najib al-Rashdan got an official authorization to defend the toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his wife and Saddam's daughters who fell in the fist of the American occupation forces in December 2003, 8 months after his rule was toppled.
Lawyer al-Rashdan said in a statement in Amman on Sunday evening that he had got the signature of Sajida Kheiraluuah Talfah, wife of Saddam Hussein on behalf of her self and her daughters Raghad, Rana and Hala during her stay in the Syrian capital Damascus after her fleeing from Iraq following the American- British occupation of the country in 2003. Al-Rashdan said he finds no difficulty in following up contacts with Mrs. Sajida in the context of this case.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that Sajida Kheirallah moved several weeks ago to live in Doha while her daughters Raghad and Rana and their nine children live in Jordan since Autumn 2003. Saddam has two sons ode and Qusai who were killed in an attack for the American forces in al-Musil to the north of Iraq in August 2003.
Al-Rashdan said that he asked the American embassy in Amman to follow up the question of his defense of Saddam Hussein but did not so far receive an official answer and that he also asked for the same from the Swiss government in its being the sponsor of the Geneva agreement but did not receive an answer. He attributed the slow response of the Swiss government to the US practiced pressures on it.
The lawyer said he studies the issue of filing a case against the American government to pressure it in order to visit his client Saddam Hussein.
As for the trial of the former President, al-Rashdan said that the governing council in Iraq does not have from the legal aspect any authority to make this trial. He expressed fears over saddam's life from his American jailers.
The American occupation forces had appointed Salem al- Chalabi, nephew of member of the governing council and leaders of the Iraqi national congress Ahmad al-Clabai- as chairman of the court commission which is presumed to try Saddam Hussein over what is considered by Washington as war crimes.
The Jordanian lawyer builds his strategy to defend Saddam on defying both the US and Britain to provide any " legal cover or base for the aggression against Iraq and therefore all allegations to detain Saddam are null." Worthy mentioning that al-Rashdan was a member in the Baath Arab socialist Party, Jordan Branch until 1990. In 1982 he volunteered within the al-Yarmouk people's units, dispatched then by the late Jordanian King al-Hussein Bin Talal to the Iraqi fighting front during the war with Iran between 1980- 1988.
Al-Rashdan had two cases that ended up not in the interest of the former Iraqi government. The first was in 1992 when Kuwaiti filed a case in London against Iraq demanding USD 600 million as a compensation for its planes fleet two years after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the second was in 1998 when Iraq thought of trying the US in Washington because of the consequences of using depleted Uranium in shelling and missiles that targeted the country.
-------- europe
Half of Swedes want nuclear power despite phase-out plan: poll
STOCKHOLM (AFP)
Apr 27, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040427102915.57pkzkg0.html
Almost half of Swedes want to maintain Sweden's nuclear power facilities, which are to be phased out over the next 40 years after the government abandoned a 2010 target date, a poll on Tuesday showed.
A total of 46 percent want to keep the country's 11 reactors in use, compared to 34 percent which want to see them shut down, according to the Gothenburg University study which questioned 3,000 people in October 2003.
Meanwhile, 15 percent were even in favour of building additional reactors -- a threefold rise since 1998.
"This is the strongest support for long-term nuclear use that we have seen in a series of such polls," said political science professor Soeren Holmberg, in charge of the study.
However, a Sifo institute poll in January 2003 showed that 55 percent of Swedes were in favour of nuclear power.
Sweden voted in a non-binding referendum in 1980 to phase out the country's 12 nuclear reactors by 2010, but that target was abandoned in 1997 after officials acknowledged that there would not be sufficient alternative energy sources to replace the nuclear output.
The reactors account for nearly half of the nation's electricity supply.
The first reactor was shut down in 1999 and a second was due for closure in 2003, but the government has delayed the closure by at least two years while it looks for alternatives.
In June 2002, parliament endorsed a government plan to phase out nuclear power in the Nordic country over the next 30 to 40 years.
Modelled on Germany's plans to phase out nuclear energy, the programme says existing plants should continue running as long as they "contribute economically", which means, in effect, until the end of their normal operating lives.
-------- iran
Sources: Iran Military Supervising Atomic Experts
April 27, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards are overseeing some 400 nuclear experts in order to prevent further leaks of sensitive information about Tehran's atomic facilities, an Iranian exile and informed diplomats said.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, who disclosed in August 2002 that Iran had a hidden uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Arak, told Reuters his new information came from the same sources who told him about Natanz and Arak.
``According to the latest information I have from well-placed sources inside Iran, some 400 nuclear experts are now under the control and supervision of the Revolutionary Guards,'' he said.
The Revolutionary Guards were set up after the 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force dedicated to protecting the revolution. It works in parallel with the regular army and its head is appointed directly by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Jafarzadeh was a spokesman for the exiled opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran before the United States, which lists it as a terrorist organization, closed the NCRI's Washington office last year. He is now president of the Washington-based Strategic Policy Consulting Inc.
The United States accuses Iran of using its atomic energy program as a front to build the bomb, and insists the Iranian military is intimately involved in Tehran's nuclear activities. Tehran denies this, saying it is a civilian program dedicated to the peaceful generation of electricity.
Since August 2002, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been attempting to verify Tehran's statements that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. However, Tehran has in the past withheld information from the IAEA about potentially weapons-related technology.
PARALLEL NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Jafarzadeh said that Iran's nuclear program had been split into two parallel operations -- a secret one run by a ``special unit'' of the Revolutionary Guards and other military institutions and headed by Khamene, and a publicly declared one run by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
``The military special unit has its own advanced labs and facilities, which operates away from the IAEA inspections, and are kept totally secret,'' he said. ``Many of the experts operate under the pretext of (being) an ordinary university professor.''
He said the secret program was focused on building a bomb. Despite being secret, this parallel program draws on resources of the public one declared to the IAEA when necessary.
A diplomat who follows Iran's nuclear program told Reuters the guards' supervision of the nuclear program was not new.
``Since a long time ago, the Revolutionary Guards have taken over supervision of all the nuclear activities and have trained some of their people to work there,'' the diplomat said.
``There are hundreds of them'' now working at nuclear sites up and down the country, the diplomat said. He said they had placed some sites ``off limits'' to personnel they do not trust.
Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, Pirooz Hosseini, told Reuters: ``I have not heard such information. I don't think we should put too much emphasis on such news.''
Other diplomats told Reuters it was no secret that the Revolutionary Guards were one of the most powerful hard-line elements inside Iran. Unlike many of the reformists who oppose building an atom bomb, the diplomats said the Revolutionary Guards want Tehran to build a bomb as soon as possible.
The guards have even forced some personnel changes inside the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, the diplomats said.
--------
U.S.: Iran May Be Running Nuke Programs
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Iran.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran may be running a covert military nuclear program parallel to the peaceful one it has opened to international scrutiny in efforts to dispel suspicions it has weapons ambitions, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said new intelligence on Iran's nuclear activities was strengthening suspicions of two programs -- one that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have access to and another, run by the military and geared toward making nuclear weapons.
``We are beginning to see indications that there is a parallel military program,'' one of the officials told The Associated Press. The source cautioned that the ``limited evidence'' was not enough to draw firm conclusions.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a former spokesman for Iran's exiled opposition National Council of Resistance, said ``between 350 and 400 nuclear physicists'' are involved in the weapons program.
Another official spoke of ``explicit concerns'' of that the military is controlling nuclear programs aimed at making weapons.
The United States has long maintained that Iran is not telling the truth when it says its nuclear programs are geared only toward generating energy, insisting that Iran's real goal is to make arms.
Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton has repeatedly said that Iran is actively violating its treaty obligations.
But the comments Tuesday by the U.S. sources appeared to be the first suggesting that Tehran was running two programs -- one for public show and the other to make weapons.
Pirooz Hosseini, Iran's chief delegate to the Vienna-based IAEA, dismissed the comments as ``baseless allegations.''
Any valid information on Iran's nuclear intentions ``will come from the IAEA and not from these kinds of people,'' Hosseini told the AP.
The IAEA declined comment.
But Jafarzadeh said sources ``with access to the Iranian regime's nuclear program'' told him that hard-liners answering directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had recently formed a ``new military special unit to take over the (military) nuclear program.''
Jafarzadeh said the unit controlled a program separate from that under the responsibility of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran now being probed by IAEA inspectors.
That program runs facilities scattered over the country, including secret sites used for enriching uranium with the objective ``of making (nuclear) weapons, he said from Washington.
Jafarzadeh said ``between 350 and 400 nuclear physicists, experts and researchers are under the control of the military special unit.''
He spoke as a senior U.S. State Department official accused Iran of using the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- the cornerstone of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons -- ``as cover for the development of nuclear weapons.''
``States like Iran are actively violating their treaty obligations, and have gained access to technologies and materials for their nuclear weapons programs,'' Bolton said, speaking at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The best thing Iran can do now is ``come clean,'' answer all outstanding questions, and open its nuclear program ``to transparent inspections,'' said Bolton.
Iran said it suspended uranium enrichment last year under international pressure but continued manufacture of uranium-enriching centrifuge components. This month it said it had also stopped building centrifuges.
Iran's nuclear aims first came under international scrutiny after the IAEA discovered a covert centrifuge facility at Natanz. First word of the existence of the centrifuges came nearly two years ago from Jafarzadeh. He now runs the Strategic Policy Consulting think thank after his exile organization was closed down in the United States, which lists it as a terrorist group.
Since the initial discovery of the centrifuges, traces of weapons grade, highly enriched uranium, new, more advanced centrifuge prototypes and suspicious covert experiments that can also have military applications have increased suspicions, even though Tehran says it was interested only in low-enriched uranium for power generation.
Tehran last month acknowledged for the first time that its military was involved in the country's nuclear program but insisted that its participation -- building centrifuges -- had been for the civilian sector.
After several inconclusive board meetings of the IAEA on Iran's agenda, agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei hopes to present a fuller assessment of Iran's nuclear activities to the next board of governors gathering in June.
Iran said Saturday it has offered the ``complete story'' to the U.N. nuclear watchdog both about the traces of weapons-grade uranium and documents pertaining to advanced centrifuges that could be used to produce atomic bombs.
-------- korea
U.S. Patience on North Korea May Be Wearing Thin
April 27, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north-bolton.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A leading U.S. hard-liner suggested Tuesday that Washington's patience with talks to try to end North Korean nuclear ambitions may be wearing thin.
Undersecretary of State John Bolton, one of Pyongyang's harshest critics in Washington, said sustained international pressure was needed to persuade North Korea to end its suspected nuclear weapons programs.
Asked whether force was also an option in dealing with North Korea, Bolton said President Bush ``has said repeatedly he wants a peaceful diplomatic resolution.''
``But we've also said all options remain on the table. That's what we say and that's all I am going to say today,'' he told reporters after addressing a U.N. meeting on the proliferation of nuclear arms.
The United States, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas have held two rounds of talks but have yet to make demonstrable progress toward the U.S. goal of the ``complete, verifiable and irreversible'' dismantling of Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities.
``The United States continues to support the six-party process, but we have long said that we will measure success in the talks through concrete progress,'' Bolton told the meeting. ``Simply continuing to talk, however, is not progress.''
The crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said Pyongyang disclosed it was working on a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons.
This was in addition to a separate program for producing plutonium, another type of nuclear fuel, that was frozen under a 1994 U.S.-North Korea accord but has since been resumed.
Pyongyang may have at least one and perhaps as many as eight nuclear weapons, U.S. officials say.
If North Korea agrees to dismantle its nuclear program, Washington is expected to reaffirm an intention to provide Pyongyang with security assurances, and other negotiating parties, perhaps South Korea, are expected to offer energy assistance to the country, U.S. officials said.
``We now face the danger not only of a North Korea in possession of nuclear weapons, but the risk that it will export fissile material or weapons to other rogue states or to terrorists,'' Bolton said.
-------- missile defense
Missile defense system could be put on alert in September even if it fails tests: general
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Apr 27, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040427171218.4mmtu8mv.html
The Pentagon could put a ground-based missile defense system on alert as early as September when the first interceptor missiles will be deployed in Alaska even if it fails two flight tests this summer, the general who heads the program said Tuesday.
Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said no decision had been made on when to put the first interceptor missile on alert.
"From a common sense standpoint, the earliest would come when we have at least one bullet in the chamber, one missile," Kadish told reporters here.
The first five ground-based interceptor missiles will be in their silos at Fort Greely, Alaska by September, complete with hardware, software and communications, he said.
Three or four more missiles will be added in December, and another 10 at both Greely and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California the following year if Congress funds the Pentagon's 9.2-billion dollar budget request, he said.
Critics have charged that the system is being fielded without being sufficiently tested. The General Accounting Office, a congressional watchdog, said in a report this month that the system was "largely unproven" despite eight intercept flight tests.
Two more flight tests -- only one of them an attempted intercept -- are slated to be held in a few months, Kadish said.
Asked whether the system could be put on alert even if those tests fail, Kadish said, "it could."
"When it goes on alert it could be a function of many different things, including the world situation at the time," he said.
But he acknowledged that successful flight tests were "confidence builders" that showed that all the systems parts work together as designed.
"If they both fail, we're got big problems that we're going to have to go figure out what to do about," he said.
The Bush administration has made fielding a missile defense system a top priority, arguing that even a rudimentary system would deter countries from seeking to develop long-range missiles.
Kadish said US intelligence indicates no change in the long-range missile threat from North Korea and Iran.
The first phase of the ground-based system would defend all 50 US states against a missile attack by North Korea, but not Iran.
Of eight previous attempts at intercepting a long-range target missile, five have been successful.
But the last intercept attempt was more than two years ago in December 2002, and the next test is more than three months behind schedule.
The interceptor's "kill vehicle," which is guided into a collision course in space with an incoming missile, has since been redesigned.
Kadish said the discovery of circuit board failure in March prompted an intensive review of the the redesigned kill vehicle, which has set back the testing.
"Once that's complete we'll do the flight test. We expect them to be successful. Let me make that clear," he said. "But the nature of rocketry and the way things are we may have a mishap, and something small could be very catastrophic."
"We're going to do flight tests when we're ready, not on a scheduled date just to do it on a scheduled date, and the preponderance of evidence is going to drive the decision on whether or not to use it on alert," he said.
----
General Touts U.S. Missile Defense Plan
April 27, 2004,
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief of the military's missile defense programs said Tuesday he expects to be able to protect all of the United States from a North Korean attack by the end of 2004, but said failures in two upcoming tests could mean ``big problems'' for the controversial program.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Ron Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told reporters that a decision when to put the first missile interceptors on alert has not been made, but that plans call for several to be ready to fire by September.
By the end of the year, close to 10 interceptors are expected to be on alert at two sites: Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. They will be linked to a specialized radar able to track inbound missiles over the Pacific Ocean.
But the interceptors face two upcoming tests of their ability to find and destroy incoming ballistic missiles, the first expected in late spring or early summer.
``If they both fail, we've got big problems,'' Kadish said. ``We expect them to be successful.''
He stopped short of saying two failures would delay deployment of the first interceptor missiles in Alaska. Officials note those first interceptors will serve a dual role: as subjects of further testing, as well as actual defenses in an emergency.
The Bush administration has made the deployment of missile defenses a key aspect of its national security policy, saying it is vital to defend the nation against missiles launched by hostile nations.
Critics charge the technology is neither ready nor affordable, and say it fails to address the greater threat of weapons of mass destruction brought into the country by terrorists or other means.
Citing MDA figures, a recent report from the congressional General Accounting Office said that missile defense programs will cost $53 billion between 2004 and 2009.
Despite the apparent elimination of Iraq and Libya as future long-range missile threats, Kadish said the danger from ballistic missiles is growing. He pointed to North Korea and Iran's missile programs as the most worrisome, although he declined to describe any recent intelligence on developments in either country.
North Korea, which intelligence officials believe has an untested intercontinental ballistic missile, is regarded as the most immediate threat, which is why the initial system of radars and interceptors are geared toward strikes from across the Pacific.
``Any adversary that would want to go against this system would have to think more than twice,'' Kadish said.
In the longer term, Iran could develop missiles capable of reaching the United States. A radar in Great Britain, once it is upgraded in 2005, will allow Alaskan-based interceptors to target missiles launched from the Mideast toward North America, Kadish said.
Kadish said the United States and its European allies are considering a third interceptor base in Europe to protect European countries from those missiles.
Kadish's agency oversees a number of other anti-missile programs and is working with allies to develop missile defenses in other countries.
He acknowledged delays in the Airborne Laser, a program that aims to mount a laser cannon on a Boeing 747, which would shoot down missiles as they were launched. So far, engineers have not been able to fire the main laser, which has not yet been put onto the test aircraft. Nor have the targeting optics on the plane undergone full trials, he said.
-------- terrorism
DOE changes in works for nuclear security
April 27, 2004
(AP)
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=1821947
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is changing the way it wants security planners to prepare for possible attacks on nuclear weapons sites.
It has asked for the first time that planners look at the possibility that a terrorist could try to take over a facility holding nuclear weapons, try to make a crude nuclear weapon and then use it in a suicide attack.
Meantime, Congressional investigators say the department's deadline for upgrading nuclear weapons site security isn't realistic.
Auditors say the upgrades ordered after 9/11 might not be fully in place for five more years, leading to the possibility that plutonium and weapons-grade uranium may have to be removed from some facilities.
The Energy Department had set a 2006 deadline for meeting the new security requirements.
Even with the delays, department security officials say the plants are safe, saying terrorists who might try to look for "soft spots" won't find any.
----
Report to urge clampdown on nuclear plants' security
By Ralph Vartabedian
Tue, Apr. 27, 2004
Los Angeles Times
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/nation/8530478.htm
Amid growing concern that nuclear weapons labs are vulnerable to a terrorist attack, senior Energy Department officials are seriously considering major steps to improve security - including the removal of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other weapons sites.
A classified directive issued late last year ordered the department, which already was examining the security of its weapons-grade nuclear materials, to consider consolidating them in fewer locations, according to congressional sources.
Energy officials said Monday that security at their facilities was "strong." But they acknowledged they are reviewing proposals to improve protections by consolidating the sites where the government stores plutonium and highly enriched uranium - the elements essential to a nuclear bomb.
The pace of improvements, however, has left many outside experts and leaders in Congress dissatisfied.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the House national security subcommittee, said the system remains vulnerable and that the Energy Department is underestimating the threat it faces. Shays' committee will a hearing on the matter today. The Energy Department has nuclear materials in at least seven major weapons sites across the nation, but Livermore - 44 miles southeast of San Francisco and surrounded by residential communities - is closer to a major metropolitan area than the others.
In the last year, the Energy Department has increased its assumptions about the size and firepower of terrorist teams that could assault its labs. Government officials now say that anyone bent on attack likely could use high-powered explosives to punch holes though reinforced concrete walls and then be able to penetrate razor wire fencing and defeat the most sophisticated electronic surveillance systems.
But the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, will report today that the threat posed by terrorists against the U.S. weapons labs is estimated by intelligence agencies to be far more lethal than what the Energy Department has accepted in its most recent planning for security.
The bomb-making materials at Livermore have received particular attention, based on concerns about the site's vulnerabilities. The materials are kept in a fenced area known as the Superblock, situated about a quarter mile from a residential tract.
Unlike the security forces at other weapons sites, Livermore's personnel do not have certain high-powered weapons, door-breaching explosives or helicopters to defend the site. Superblock is packed into the dense Livermore complex, making it tougher to defend than remote facilities, security experts said.
The most serious concern is that a highly trained suicide terrorist team could penetrate Superblock or any Energy Department site and construct a crude bomb known as an improvised nuclear device.
During a 2002 Senate hearing, Energy Department weapons experts estimated that a bomb with a yield of one-kiloton could be built in minutes by terrorists once they gained access to the materials. Such a bomb would destroy the lab, the surrounding city and cause tens of thousands of casualties, the experts warned. A lesser, although still lethal threat, would be a dirty bomb, in which radioactive materials would be released dispersed into the air.
Before Sept. 11, 2001, such a scenario was never considered. But energy officials have come to accept the potential of such suicide squads and have dramatically changed their strategy. The goal in the past was to prevent the theft of plutonium and to contain any terrorist who would enter a lab. Now, the goal is to deny entry - a far more difficult task.
A training video produced by the Energy Department shows terrorists defeating the most intensive security measures, using devices called platter charges than destroy thick concrete and lasers to blind surveillance cameras. The teams are shown moving with lightning speed, penetrating buildings in seconds after alarms go off.
--------
U.S. Warns of Countries Seeking Nukes
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-US-Weapons.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Several countries in addition to Iran and North Korea may be trying to develop nuclear weapons, and Washington is pursuing the customers of an underground Pakistani network, U.S. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Tuesday.
He said he wasn't prepared to name any of the other countries because U.S. officials are still seeking information.
``There are several others,'' Bolton said. ``There's a lot of information that we don't necessarily have corroboration for, but we are pursuing our concerns where we do have information, trying to get additional information, learning from others, and trying to assess the exact magnitude of the threat.''
``Certainly one of the things that we're very interested in is finding out if A.Q. Khan's network had other customers, and we're pursuing that in cooperation with a number of other states,'' he said.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, set up an underground network that supplied nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. In February, he admitted being the mastermind of the scheme and was pardoned by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
``There's more out there than we can discuss publicly,'' Bolton said, ``and it's one of the reasons why the depth of our concern about the international market black market in weapons of mass destruction and related materials is as substantial as it.''
Bolton spoke to reporters after accusing ``at least'' four countries that have ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of using its provisions ``as cover for the development of nuclear weapons,'' either currently or in the past.
``States like Iran are actively violating their treaty obligations, and have gained access to technologies and materials for their nuclear weapons programs. North Korea violated its NPT obligations while a party, and then proved its strategic decision to seek nuclear weapons by withdrawing from the treaty entirely,'' he said.
In the past, Iraq and Libya also violated the treaty, Bolton told a meeting of the committee preparing for next year's U.N. conference to review the 1968 pact, which is considered the cornerstone of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Declaring that ``there is a crisis of NPT compliance,'' Bolton said President Bush ``is determined to stop rogue states from gaining nuclear weapons under cover of supposed peaceful nuclear technology.''
Under the treaty, countries that ratify and give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons are allowed to obtain fissile material and nuclear technology for peaceful uses such as power plants. But in February, Bush made a series of proposals to address what the United States sees as loopholes in the treaty.
Bolton said there was ``very broad consensus'' to limit nuclear enrichment and reprocessing plants to countries that now possess them, though ``how exactly it's done is still the subject of discussion.''
The United States wants to ban the Nuclear Suppliers Group -- which provides fissile material under the treaty -- from selling enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology ``to any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants.'' The suppliers would have to ensure a regular supply of nuclear fuel at reasonable prices to countries in compliance with the treaty.
Nuclear experts say the U.S. proposal would keep Iran from building nuclear enrichment and reprocessing plants.
Bolton noted that Iran has expressed interest in buying up to six additional nuclear power plants and has informed the U.N. nuclear agency it is pursuing a heavy-water research reactor at Arak, ``a type of reactor that might be well suited for plutonium production.''
Stressing that Iran has oil and gas reserves that will last several hundred years, he claimed the only role of Iran's nuclear power program is provide material and technology for covert nuclear weapons development.
Tehran has repeatedly denied it is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
Bolton said the United States has not decided whether it will seek to have the International Atomic Energy Agency's board cite Tehran for noncompliance at its June meeting.
The best thing Iran can do now is ``come clean'' and open its nuclear program ``to transparent inspections,'' Bolton said.
As for North Korea, he said the United States hopes six-party talks will achieve ``a peaceful, diplomatic end to North Korea's nuclear programs.'' But he cautioned that ``simply continuing to talk ... is not progress.''
Libya has said it has given up its weapons programs.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
GAO: Nuke weapons sites remain vulnerable
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Tue, Apr. 27, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/nation/8532779.htm?1c
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Security.html
WASHINGTON - Security upgrades ordered at nuclear weapons sites after the Sept. 11 attacks may not be fully in place for five more years, auditors say.
The delay has led to the possibility that plutonium and weapons-grade uranium might have to be removed from some facilities.
Investigators with the General Accounting Office said Tuesday the Energy Department's 2006 deadline for meeting its new security requirements at weapons labs and other facilities probably is not realistic, short by possibly as much as three years.
At the same time even that program, based on assumptions developed last year about the kind of terrorist assault that might be expected given the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is being revised, administration and congressional officials acknowledged.
For the first time, the Energy Department is asking security planners to prepare for the possibility that a terrorist would try to take over a facility holding nuclear material, barricade himself inside and try to fashion a crude nuclear weapon and detonate it in a suicide attack.
Security plans previously have been designed under an assumption that a terrorist would break in to steal the material and could be thwarted on the way out.
Some lawmakers and private watchdog groups have said that some facilities would be impossible to defend against a suicide assault and that plutonium and highly enriched uranium at those sites should be relocated.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., asked why it took nearly two years after the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon for the Energy Department to develop its revised May 2003 assessment of the kinds of terror attacks security forces probably would have to defend against. He also wanted to know why it will take another two to five years to deal with the increased risks.
"We know the terrorists will not wait that long to try to exploit lingering vulnerabilities in our nuclear complex defenses," said Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee dealing with nuclear security.
Energy Department officials acknowledged their latest security plans won't be fully in place everywhere the government has weapons-grade material until the end of 2006. They characterized the GAO assessment that another three years might be needed as overly pessimistic.
"Today, no nuclear weapons, special nuclear material or classified materials are at risk anywhere within the nuclear weapons complex," Linton Brooks, head of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, told the subcommittee members.
Brooks acknowledged risk always exists but assured the lawmakers, "People looking for a soft spot would be ill-advised" to target DOE facilities. "There are no soft spots."
Shays said that some of the sites should be closed, or at least their nuclear materials transferred elsewhere. It "should have been immediately obvious" that the government "has too many facilities housing nuclear materials" and that consolidation is needed.
Plutonium and weapons-grade uranium are being kept at nearly a dozen facilities within the DOE weapons complex including five national laboratories.
Brooks said the department is reviewing the weapons complex to determine where material can be consolidated, either in more secure areas within facilities or at other sites. Plans already are in place to move plutonium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the Nevada Test Site.
"But consolidation is not a panacea," Brooks said.
He said he opposes moving the plutonium at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to another location, for example, because scientists there need the material to assess the weapons stockpile properly. To move material from another DOE facility, the Y-12 complex near Oak Ridge, Tenn., could take decades, probably cost billions of dollars and accomplish little in the short term, Brooks said. Current plans would consolidate the material within the Y-12 complex.
Citizen groups and watchdog organizations have singled out Lawrence Livermore, near residential areas 40 miles from San Francisco, and the expansive Y-12 complex as among sites having significant security shortcomings.
"Both face serious physical security challenges, perhaps insurmountable challenges," testified Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a private watchdog group that has worked on security at weapons complex facilities with government whistle-blowers.
"Clearly they will not be able to comply with the new (security) directives," Brian maintained.
In addition to Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Y-13, weapons-grade nuclear materials are at the Hanford reservation in Washington state; Rocky Flats facility in Colorado; Savannah River complex in South Carolina; the Pantex facility in Texas; Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory; the Argonne National Laboratory in Idaho; and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
----
GAO Questions U.S. Nuclear Security
by Thom J. Rose
Washington (UPI)
Apr 27, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-blackmarket-04a.html
The Department of Energy acknowledges that defending U.S. nuclear facilities is a vastly different project than it was before Sept. 11, 2001, but some observers say the department is changing its methods much too slowly.
The threat of organized suicide attackers has turned nuclear security on its ear, Robin Nazzaro, a director at the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, told a Tuesday hearing of the House Committee on Government Reform.
"In the past we had determined that someone would have to get in and out (of a nuclear facility to do damage), and now we've determined that all they have to do is get in," Nazzaro said.
Department of Energy weapons experts told a 2002 Senate hearing that if terrorists were able to breach a nuclear site containing the proper materials, they might be able to assemble and detonate a 1 kiloton bomb capable of killing thousands in several minutes.
That possibility has precipitated fundamental changes in the way nuclear sites are required to be protected.
A directive issued April 5, 2004, orders sites containing the most dangerous class of nuclear materials to assume a heightened "denial" level of defense designed not only to prevent terrorists from stealing material, but also to keep them from even entering the sites, Danielle Brian, Executive Director of the Project on Government Oversight told the committee.
That directive comes in addition to a new "Design Basis Threat" nuclear security standard that the Department of Energy created after Sept. 11 in response to changing security concerns.
That new standard has attracted controversy, however, and is strongly criticized in a GAO report released Thursday.
The report begins by questioning the two years the Department of Energy took to create the standard after Sept. 11.
"During this extended period, (the department's) sites were only being defended against what was widely recognized as an obsolete terrorist threat level," the GAO report says.
"We certainly said that 2 years is a long time to do this," Nazzaro added.
The report goes on to question the content of the new Design Basis Threat standard, which Government Reform Committee Chairman Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said some observers think "might be more accurately called the 'Dollar Based Threat,'" since some believe it compromises security to save money.
The GAO report also says the new standard does not pay enough attention to the improvised nuclear bombs the department's weapons experts said terrorists might be able to put together in minutes.
It says the new standard should put more emphasis on the potential for radiological, chemical and biological sabotage as well.
"We're really concerned that (the Department of Energy) is not treating nuclear materials in the way they are treating nuclear weapons," Nazzaro said.
Linton Brooks, the administrator of the energy department's National Nuclear Security Administration disagreed, saying, "We believe that the highest level of defense should be reserved for nuclear weapons."
The GAO report goes on to say that some U.S. nuclear sites will not be able to meet the new standards for up to several years and should be required to put in place additional provisional measures in the meantime.
Both the existence of sites that won't be able to meet the news standards and the implementation of provisional security measures have attracted controversy.
Brian said some nuclear sites were built when security concerns were completely different and will have to be completely rebuilt or abandoned in response to current threats.
"It's simply impossible for these facilities, as they exist, to implement these requirements," Brian said.
Shays said, "Faced with the new security imperative to deny access, not just contain or catch intruders, it should have been immediately obvious (the department) has too many facilities housing nuclear materials, and those facilities are old, above ground, scattered and cluttered World War II-era plant configurations not buffered by adequate setback space."
Consolidating U.S. nuclear materials in more secure sites is a stated Department of Energy goal, but Shays said the department has so far made little progress in that direction.
The department's latest plans to improve nuclear security include moving nuclear material out of one Nevada test site and possibly from further sites, but the efforts have met with continued resistance.
Brian said some of that resistance comes from site operators who fear their importance will diminish when their most dangerous material is gone.
"The people in charge of implementing (the Nevada move) seem to have a different agenda than" Secretary of Energy Spencer Abrahams, who ordered the move, Brian said.
While consolidation and fortification efforts remain incomplete, sites are increasing their use of guards.
That practice, which was widespread after Sept. 11 and continues at sites that are more difficult to protect, worries some observers, who say the additional guarding capacity comes mainly in the form of overtime worked by current employees. Too many hours of overtime, especially for guards expected to remain vigilant, can lead to substandard performance, Brian and others say.
Brooks said his department does face a range of challenges in protecting nuclear sites, but added that he believes all nuclear material in the United States is adequately protected.
"The people looking for soft spots would be ill-advised to come to the facilities for which I am responsible," Brooks said.
-------- california
Livermore Lab seen as vulnerable
Energy Department may consider removing plutonium, enriched uranium from weapons lab to improve security
By Ralph Vartabedian,
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2111034,00.html
Amid growing concern that nuclear weapons labs are vulnerable to a terrorist attack, senior Energy Department officials are seriously considering major steps to improve security -- including the removal of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other weapons sites.
A classified directive issued late last year ordered the department, which already was examining the security of its weapons-grade nuclear materials, to consider consolidating them in fewer locations, according to congressional sources.
Energy officials said Monday that security at their facilities was "strong." But they acknowledged they are reviewing proposals to improve protections by consolidating the sites where the government stores plutonium and highly enriched uranium -- the elements essential to a nuclear bomb.
The pace of improvements, however, has left many outside experts and leaders in Congress dissatisfied.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the House national security subcommittee, said the system remains vulnerable and that the Energy Department is underestimating the threat it faces. Shays' committee will hold a hearing on the matter today. The Energy Department has nuclear materials in at least seven major weapons sites across the nation, but Livermore is closer to a major metropolitan area than the others.
In the last year, the Energy Department has increased its assumptions about the size and firepower of terrorist teams that could assault its labs. Government officials now say that anyone bent on an attack likely could use high-powered explosives to punch holes though reinforced concrete walls and then be able to penetrate razor wire fencing and defeat the most sophisticated electronic surveillance systems.
But the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, will report today that the threat posed by terrorists against the U.S. weapons labs is estimated by intelligence agencies to be far more lethal than what the Energy Department has accepted in its most recent planning for security.
The bomb-making materials at Livermore have received particular attention, based on concerns about the site's vulnerabilities. The materials are kept in a fenced area known as the Superblock.
Unlike the security forces at other weapons sites, Livermore's personnel do not have certain high-powered weapons, door-breaching explosives or helicopters to defend the site. Superblock is packed into the dense Livermore complex, making it tougher to defend than remote facilities, security experts said.
The most serious concern is that a highly trained suicide terrorist team could penetrate Superblock or any Energy Department site and construct a crude bomb known as an improvised nuclear device.
During a 2002 Senate hearing, Energy Department weapons experts estimated that a bomb with a yield of one-kiloton could be built in minutes by terrorists once they gained access to the materials. Such a bomb would destroy the lab, the surrounding city and cause tens of thousands of casualties, the experts warned. A lesser, although still lethal threat, would be a dirty bomb, in which radioactive materials would be released dispersed into the air.
Before Sept. 11, 2001, such a scenario was never considered. But energy officials have come to accept the potential of such suicide squads and have dramatically changed their strategy. The goal in the past was to prevent the theft of plutonium and to contain any terrorist who would enter a lab. Now, the goal is to deny entry -- a far more difficult task.
A training video produced by the Energy Department shows terrorists defeating the most intensive security measures, using devices called platter charges than destroy thick concrete and lasers to blind surveillance cameras. The teams are shown moving with lightning speed, penetrating buildings in seconds after alarms go off.
"We have concluded, working with insiders, that Livermore cannot adequately protect its materials," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C., group that has been pressing the Energy Department to improve its security. "The only way to address the problem is to get those materials out of there."
The group has asked energy officials to eliminate the materials from Livermore and two other sites in Idaho -- and to move plutonium to underground sites in Tennessee and South Carolina.
Brian said she met with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Jan. 22 to recommend that the department move the Livermore materials to the Nevada Test Site's defense assembly facility, an underground lab located in a remote desert. "He seemed genuinely concerned and committed to fixing the problem," she said.
Energy spokesman Bryan Wilkes acknowledged Monday that the department is looking at consolidating or removing nuclear materials at a number of sites. Earlier this year, it decided to remove the materials from TA-18, a weapons site at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
"It is part of the consolidation process that we are doing," Wilkes said. "We are always driving to reduce our nuclear materials."
But eliminating the materials from Livermore would be controversial -- and opposed by the lab. "The lab's plutonium facility is a vital national-security asset," Livermore spokesman David Schwoegler said. "Its work is ... conducted under the highest security conditions."
Schwoegler added that Livermore recently went through a security assessment that resulted in its protective force earning a rating of "effective performance," the highest possible.
Livermore is one of two national labs that design nuclear weapons. Its work is credited with the development of the hydrogen bomb and the miniature nuclear bombs for missiles that carry multiple war heads. It is expected to play a key role in future efforts to modernize the nuclear weapons complex.
The exact amount of nuclear materials at Livermore is not known, but it is estimated the site has between a half ton and a ton of plutonium alone. Any decision to move it to Nevada would likely take years and require substantial investments to duplicate the technical capabilities at Superblock.
Although Energy Department officials say their security is strong, outside experts have raised a number of serious questions.
In the past three years, the Energy Department and its contractors have fired more than a half dozen employees who have expressed concerns about security. Several of the employees were reinstated under court orders.
Mathew Zipoli, vice president of Livermore's Security Police Officers Association, said his group has asserted there are major deficiencies in training, equipment and personnel practices at the lab. After earlier providing information to the Energy Department's inspector general about security problems at Livermore, Zipoli was fired. He was later reinstated.
"The equipment is extremely inadequate," Zipoli said, adding that he could not discuss the specifics of the problem. "We have made the case that we are under-gunned to handle the adversarial threat."
Zipoli said that Livermore guards are not sworn federal law enforcement officers, meaning they do not qualify for life insurance or disability if they are injured defending the lab. "How can you expect somebody to die defending this lab when nobody will provide for their families afterward?" he said.
-------- us politics
Kucinich pitches peace platform
April 27, 2004
By NICOLE MONTESANO and DAVID BATES
Oregon News-Register
http://www.newsregister.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=179469
Not only is the war in Iraq unjustified, it's high time Americans started questioning the rationale behind all war, presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich told a standing-room-only crowd Monday at Linfield College.
Kucinich, the last remaining challenger to Democratic front-runner John Kerry, conceded the nomination for the Democratic Party has long since been decided in Kerry's favor. What's at stake now is the direction in which the Democratic Party is headed, he said.
He is focusing his efforts on Oregon, saying, "This state can have as much impact on the debate within the party as Iowa and New Hampshire had in the direction of the nomination."
Kucinich got a standing ovation upon entering the room, and again when he concluded his hourlong presentation. He followed several speakers who called on an audience of about 100 to get involved in politics and revive the state's progressive wing.
"This is one of the most dangerous administrations in American history," said McMinnville activist Mark Davis. "We are at a crossroads."
Linfield's Seth Prickett encouraged fellow students to join a new political action committee, the New Leaf Network, which is dedicated to supporting progressive candidates. The group was inspired, Pricket said, by the partisan and bitter political climate in the Oregon Legislature.
"We have to focus on the things students care about in order to get young people involved," he said.
Kucinich is advocating a wide variety of changes, from an improved elections process to universal health care to better protections for workers, but he spent much of the hour discussing the war in Iraq. He warned that a military draft already is being considered in Congress, and that the war is likely to turn into the same kind of quagmire the Vietnam War became.
Kucinich said he is "the only one in Congress who has offered a plan for getting out."
Americans should have a better choice than a decision whether to have a Republican or Democratic version of the war, he said.
"We are being told we have to stay the course, that we can't cut and run," he said. "We are dedicated to this war despite the fact that it is wrong, because America has long-term interests there. Read, oil."
The first step of his eight-step withdrawal plan is to ask the United Nations to temporarily assume control of Iraq's oil export industry on behalf of Iraqis, and to take over the handling of all rebuilding contracts, he said. "No more Haliburton sweetheart deals," he said to widespread applause.
Not only would that convince Iraqis and the world community that the United States is genuinely interested in helping Iraq rather than plundering it, Kucinich said, it also would put Iraqis back to work in a country where jobs are desperately needed.
"We have no legal right to privatize Iraq," he said. "The Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention state that you cannot seize the assets of another country and sell them... The wealth of the people of Iraq does not belong to us to control."
Also included in his plan are reparations to the families of civilians killed during the war and occupation.
"More than 10,000 innocent civilians have died in Iraq," he said. "That's more than three times the number that died in the World Trade Center.
"We seldom hear about that in this country. It's as if talking about it is unpatriotic. We have a moral obligation."
Kucinich also criticized the use in both Afghanistan and Iraq of weapons made from depleted uranium, saying they are contaminating the ground, causing health problems for soldiers and civilians and leading to birth defects.
"I believe such munitions are covered under the Geneva Convention, and their use is illegal," he said. "They constitute, in my opinion, an offense against humanity.
"Their use can never be ameliorated. We are creating many Superfund sites all over Iraq and Afghanistan."
Kucinich said he is always criticized by at least someone in his audiences for naivetZ when he advocates rethinking the necessity and logic of war.
"There's always someone who says, 'Oh God, a peacenik. The world's a tough place. There are a lot of killers out there.'"
But he said, "If any of us believe that war is inevitable, what happens?"
His audience shouted back, "We have war."
"Are we victims of the world we see, or are we victims of the way we see the world?" Kucinich asked. "At this moment, we need to think about our thinking and the way it affects the world."
----
Grilled to Order
What we'd Like to ask when Bush and Cheney take the hot seat
April 27th, 2004
Village Voice
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0417/mondo2.php
On Thursday, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will sit together and speak-off the record and in private-to the 9-11 Commission. Bush and Cheney can make a record of the interview, but the commission, under a bizarre agreement, is prohibited from doing so.
By refusing to appear separately or in public, the two may have taken the panel for a ride, but they can't avoid the tough questions forever. Both give every sign of having been asleep at the switch on 9-11. Worse, for months they have been engaged in collusion to obstruct justice by thwarting first congressional and then commission investigations. Sooner or later, both must be served with subpoenas, sworn to tell the truth, and ordered to testify under threat of impeachment and/or criminal prosecution.
Let's start with Bush. Here's the setup: Morning, September 11, 2001. At 8:40 NORAD is notified Flight 11 has been hijacked. At 8:43 NORAD is notified Flight 175 is hijacked. At 9, Bush arrives at the Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, where he takes a call from Condoleezza Rice before entering an elementary school classroom for a photo op. Certainly by that moment Rice must have known that one plane had hit the World Trade Center and another had been hijacked.
Now a few simple questions for our president, the last six from the Family Steering Committee, whose members lost loved ones on 9-11:
1. What did you know about the emerging crisis before speaking to Rice?
2. Who told you? What was your response?
3. What did Rice tell you?
4. And why, after speaking to her, did you go ahead with a meaningless photo op?
5. Why was Flight 77 allowed to plow into the Pentagon 52 minutes after Flight 11 had smashed into the WTC?
6. Given the warnings on hijackings and flying bombs, why were there only 14 fighter planes assigned to cover the entire U.S., with only seven airborne that morning?
7. A briefing prepared for senior U.S. officials in early July 2001 stated: "Based on a review of all-source reporting over the last five months, we believe that [bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning." As the weeks went by, senior officials continued to receive intelligence information warning of an imminent Al Qaeda attack.
Did you receive such warnings before 9-11? If so, what did you do in response?
8. Mr. President, European security forces were widely reported to have prepared elaborate measures to prevent a possible bin Laden attempt to assassinate you at the G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, in July 2001. According to German intelligence sources, the plot involved bin Laden paying German neo-Nazis to fly remote-controlled model aircraft packed with Semtex into the conference hall and blow the leaders of the industrialized world to smithereens. The reports were taken so seriously that you stayed overnight on an aircraft carrier offshore, according to CNN, and other world leaders stayed on a luxury ship. Two days before the summit began, the BBC reported: "The huge force of officers and equipment which has been assembled to deal with unrest has been spurred on by a warning that supporters of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden might attempt an air attack on some of the world leaders present."
Italy surrounded the summit with anti-aircraft batteries, kept fighters overhead, and closed off local airspace. No attack occurred. U.S. officials at the time stated that the warnings were "unsubstantiated," but after 9-11 reversed themselves and took credit for preventing an attack. Were you aware of the planned Al Qaeda attack on Genoa using planes as weapons? If so, what did you do to safeguard the homeland and U.S. facilities overseas?
9. As commander in chief on the morning of 9-11, why didn't you return immediately to Washington, D.C., or the National Military Command Center once you became aware that America was under attack? At specifically what time did you become aware that America was under attack? Who informed you of this fact?
10. Please explain why you remained at the Sarasota, Florida, elementary school for a press conference after you had finished listening to the children read, when, as a terrorist target, your presence potentially jeopardized their lives?
11. What was the purpose of the several stops of Air Force One on September 11? Was Air Force One at any time during the day a target of the terrorists? Was Air Force One's code ever breached on September 11?
12. Was there a reason for Air Force One lifting off without a military escort, even after ample time had elapsed for military jets to arrive?
13. What prompted your refusal to release the information regarding foreign sponsorship of the terrorists, as illustrated in the inaccessible redacted 28 pages from the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry Report? What actions have you personally taken since 9-11 to thwart foreign sponsorship of terrorism?
14. Who approved the flight of the bin Laden family out of the United States when commercial flights were grounded, when there was time for only minimal questioning by the FBI, and especially when two of those same individuals had links to WAMY, a charity suspected of funding terrorism? Why were bin Laden family members granted that special privilege and protection, when protection wasn't available to American families whose loved ones were killed on 9-11?
Now for the vice president:
1. Mr. Cheney, we know-more or less-what Bush did on 9-11. What did you do? A chronology, please.
2. Did you receive any orders from Bush that morning? If so, what were they?
3. Did you issue any orders, either in your own or in the president's name, to civilian and/or military agencies of the U.S. government that day? If so, what were they?
4. Before 9-11, Bush entrusted you to head a task force to work alongside the new Office of National Preparedness, a part of FEMA. This office is supposed to oversee a "national effort" to coordinate all federal programs for responding to domestic attacks. You told the press, "One of our biggest threats as a nation" may include "a terrorist organization overseas. We need to look at this whole area, oftentimes referred to as homeland defense."
The focus was to be on state-funded terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, and you mentioned neither bin Laden nor Al Qaeda. Your task force was supposed to report to Congress by October 1, 2001, after a review by the National Security Council. Bush stated that he would "periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." Yet neither your review nor Bush's seems to have taken place before 9-11. Your deadline was a couple of weeks later.
What had you done up to then? How many meetings had you held? Who were the members of your task force?
Additional reporting: Alicia Ng and Phoebe St John
----
Protest! ACTION ALERT:
Negroponte to be Ambassador to Iraq !!!
May Day Message
Tue, 27 Apr 2004
From: Marlene Santoyo <msantoyo@erols.com>
The Nicaragua Network has received the following important update from Nonviolence International on the confirmation hearing of John Negroponte to be U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.
The final vote on Negroponte's nomination by the full Senate will be on Thursday. Call your Senators and tell them to vote "NO" on Negroponte's nomination. The phone number of the Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.
Media Alert
April 27, 2004
Human Rights Activist Detained for Calling Ambassador Negroponte a "Death Squad Supporter" at the U.S. Senate Committee Hearings to Confirm him as Ambassador to Iraq.
Democracy Now! will cover the Negroponte hearing disruption and interviews with human rights activists on Wed. April 28 at 8:00am Eastern on the internet: www.democracynow.org and on Pacifica Radio stations
(Washington, DC) Andrés Thomas Conteris, Nonviolence International Program Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, was detained and released in the Capital after interrupting Mr. Negroponte?s Senate nomination hearing for U.S. Ambassador to Iraq." Conteris said, ?We need to support nonviolence, not the violent polices of the US. There is no sovereignty Mr. Ambassador, if the US continues to exercise security. Senators, please ask the ambassador about Battalion 316. Ask him about a death squad in Honduras that he supported.? He was then removed from the hearing room by the Capital Police.
Conteris, Co-Producer of the feature-length documentary about the School of the Americas "Hidden in Plain Sight" later added, ?The people of Honduras consider you to be a state terrorist for supporting the Battalion 316 death squad. It is time for a Truth Commission in the U.S. to investigate and punish human rights violators like Mr. Negroponte and not reward them.? said Conteris. Nonviolence International is calling for people of conscience around the world to protest the Negroponte nomination and demand a Senate rejection.
According to Mubarak Awad, NI founder and chairman, "the appointment of Negroponte is likely to inflame the outrage of many Iraqis, and rightly so." Awad, suggests that Congress also question Negroponte's knowledge and involvement with the recent spying on the UN security council and forcing Chile and Mexico to change their ambassadors to the UN for their anti-war stands. "Under Negroponte's leadership, the US influence and support at the UN are at all time lows. Nobody is being held accountable for this record."
Negroponte has a long history of involvement and leadership in the policies of US counter-insurgency warfare in Vietnam and Central America. During the Vietnam era, he served in the political section of the US embassy in South Vietnam and during the Reagan Administration he served as ambassador to Honduras.
According to Conteris, "This Senators are not performing their duties under the Constitution if they do not investigate the crimes against humanity committed by Negroponte in Central America. The ambassador has copious quantities of blood on his hands for his active support for the Contras who attacked Nicaragua from Honduras while he was Ambassador there. Many Iraqi and US lives will be lost if he is appointed."
Nonviolence International, founded in 1989, is a worldwide network promoting the nonviolent resolution of conflicts. Spokespersons: Andres Thomas Conteris, 202 232 1999; Michael Beer 202 244 0951; 4545 42nd Street, #209, Washington. DC 20016 USA From: Kim Alphandary [mailto:kalphandary@earthlink.net] ...
To those who worry about what will happen in Iraq after our troops leave, they should consider the effect of having foreign troops: continued, escalating bloodshed, continued insecurity, increased hatred for the United States in the entire Muslim world of over a billion people, and increased hostility everywhere.
Howard Zinn
-------- MILITARY
-------- biological weapons
Bush Signs Directive on Biodefense
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Bioterrorism.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, who has made national security the centerpiece of his re-election campaign, has signed a directive to help protect Americans from biological attacks.
The presidential directive, which Bush signed last week and is being announced on Wednesday, aims to plug gaps in the nation's defense against terrorists who might use biological agents.
Specifically, it works to coordinate what the government already is doing to protect food and water supplies, for example. A classified version of the directive instructs agencies on how to best carry out their biodefense work.
An unclassified version of the directive will be released at a briefing Wednesday when it is announced jointly by the Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and Defense departments, an administration official said Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
The administration declined to publicly release the directive on Tuesday, but memos posted on the Web site of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, said the directive ``has a strong emphasis on the water sector.''
One memo said the general concept the directive to protect water is a ``surveillance system'' for water supplies that would be similar to an early-warning system designed to detect intentional releases of harmful biological materials. The new directive charges the Environmental Protection Agency with developing a plan to examine how such a surveillance system could be set up to protect the nation's water supply, the memo said.
Administration officials worked for months to identify holes in the nation's defense against biological attacks -- and then find ways to fix them. The effort was led by retired Gen. John Gordon, Bush's homeland security adviser, who took a broad look at the problems, focusing on the threats that were the most likely to materialize.
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee have accused the Bush administration of not moving fast enough to help prevent biological attacks.
``The administration has not responded to this threat as aggressively or as comprehensively as is needed, leaving foreign and domestic stores of deadly pathogens unsecured,'' they said in a report released in late February on the one-year anniversary of the creation of the Homeland Security Department.
The report said a comprehensive plan would include securing stocks of biological agents around the world; boosting and targeting federal public health funds and deploying drugs, vaccines and other equipment throughout the nation to combat possible infection and illness.
-------- britain
British Weigh More Troops for Iraq
50 Ex-Envoys Urge Blair to Press for Change in U.S. Mideast Policy
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44668-2004Apr26.html
LONDON, April 26 -- British officials said Monday they were considering a proposal to dispatch more troops to Iraq, while more than 50 former British ambassadors published a letter pleading with Prime Minister Tony Blair to use his influence to change U.S. Middle East policies that they called "doomed to failure."
Spokesmen for Blair's office and the Defense Ministry said the government was weighing whether to send forces to make up for the loss of about 1,300 Spanish troops being pulled out by the new government in Madrid and to deal with escalating violence in Iraq. While the officials would not confirm numbers, press reports here indicated they were considering sending up to 2,000 more soldiers to supplement the current British force of 7,500.
Britain has deployed the second-largest military force in Iraq after the United States. Most of its soldiers are based around the southern city of Basra, which had been relatively calm since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government one year ago until last week, when five car bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in suicide attacks, killing 68 people and wounding at least 200, according to authorities.
New troops might be dispatched to take the place of the Spanish in more volatile cities such as Najaf, home of Moqtada Sadr, the Islamic cleric whose militia has staged an uprising against the U.S.-led occupation.
An opinion poll by ICM Research for the Guardian newspaper last week showed that support for the war had dropped to 41 percent from 53 percent in January. Only 28 percent of those polled had "a lot" or "a fair amount" of confidence in the Bush administration's handling of the situation.
The protest letter -- an unprecedented move among former envoys here -- expressed the dismay that many British foreign policy experts say they have felt over the Bush administration's evolving role in Iraq and in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The ambassadors said the U.S.-led coalition had "no effective plan" for Iraq after the war and an apparent disregard for the lives of Iraqis. The letter put the number of Iraqi dead at between 10,000 and 15,000 since last year's invasion.
"To describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful," the letter added.
Concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the letter criticized Blair for failing to press Bush for further action on the diplomatic initiative known as the "road map for peace."
The letter condemned Bush's decision two weeks ago to endorse an Israeli plan to retain some settlements in the West Bank while withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, and it also criticized Blair's public support for "this backward step."
Alan Munro, former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Algeria and one of the signatories, said the letter was triggered by a news conference Bush and Blair held after meeting at the White House 10 days ago . "Up until then we'd all been muttering, but the Washington affair brought it to a head," he said in a telephone interview. "It's not just a matter of wagging our finger. We're saying that we've got to think again."
Munro said the diplomats believe Blair has been placed in a corner by the concessions that Bush had bestowed upon visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon two days before Blair arrived in Washington. "We understood that Blair had faced a dilemma after Sharon's visit," Munro said. "But we felt he should have been firmer in restating what had been the British position. "
A Foreign Office spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the government would seriously consider the letter but believes that the current policy is effective.
--------
Blair Says U.K. Has Enough Troops in Iraq
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Blair-Iraq.html
LONDON (AP) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday that Britain has enough troops in Iraq and appeared to rule out sending more immediately despite the withdrawal of Spanish, Honduran and Dominican soldiers.
``We keep the question of troops under review,'' Blair said at a joint news conference with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, responding to a question about whether he planned to send more soldiers.
``The advice that we have now is that we have sufficient troops to do the job,'' Blair said.
Britain currently has 7,500 troops in southern Iraq.
``For us, we are determined to see this thing through,'' Blair said. ``We have been greatly heartened also by the news that Japan and South Korea have been committing forces.''
Berlusconi told reporters that Italy remained committed to its contribution to the coalition effort.
``We started this mission, and we intend to carry on,'' he said.
The coalition's aim was ``to bring democracy, freedom and human rights'' to Iraq, he added.
Berlusconi's conservative government has been a strong ally of President Bush. After the Iraq war, some 3,000 Italian troops and paramilitary troops were deployed in Iraq for reconstruction and humanitarian missions.
``It is important that Iraqis do work with us, not as an occupying force but as we are there to bring them peace and freedom,'' Berlusconi said, speaking through a translator.
Blair paid tribute to Berlusconi's staunch support, especially at what he called a difficult time. Three private security guards from Italy are being held hostage by Iraqi insurgents.
``We send our deep sympathy and our concern and our best wishes to the Italian people and the families of the hostages,'' Blair said.
--------
British Ex-Diplomats Assail Blair on Mideast
April 27, 2004
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/international/europe/27BLAI.html
LONDON, April 26 - In a rebuke of British and American policy in the Middle East, 52 former ambassadors and senior government officials signed a letter on Monday criticizing Prime Minister Tony Blair for his unflinching support for the Bush administration's approach to occupied Iraq and to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The letter, delivered to Mr. Blair's office and released to the news media, asserted that those policies were "doomed to failure."
Among those signing the letter were former ambassadors to Israel, Iraq and other Middle Eastern capitals, as well as senior British envoys to the United Nations.
They accused both governments of abandoning important principles of impartiality in the Holy Land, while engaging in poor planning and military overkill against Iraqi resistance forces in the Sunni Muslim areas west of Baghdad and in Shiite Muslim strongholds around Najaf.
"It is not good enough to say that the use of force is a matter for local commanders," the letter said, adding, "Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Falluja, all these have built up rather than isolated the opposition."
In the Holy Land, the diplomats said, the decision by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to publish a "road map" to peace between Israelis and Palestinians had "raised hopes that the major powers would at last make a determined and collective effort to resolve a problem which, more than any other, has for decades poisoned relations between the West and the Islamic and Arab worlds."
But instead of pressing ahead, the diplomats said, "Nothing effective has been done either to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence." They added, "Britain and the other sponsors of the road map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain."
A spokesman for Mr. Blair defended the government's policies as energetic in the pursuit of peace and stability. He said the letter would be studied and a reply drafted. The pointed criticism from career diplomats, all Middle East specialists, who served both Labor and Conservative prime ministers, put Mr. Blair's government immediately on the defensive at a crucial moment of Iraqi crisis and diplomacy. In recent weeks, Mr. Blair's influence in Washington has been questioned as intensely as his influence in Europe, where Britain seeks to play a bridging role.
With political sovereignty in Iraq scheduled to be turned over to an interim government in nine weeks, Britain and the United States are being forced to bolster their occupation forces to take account of the withdrawal of 2,000 soldiers from Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.
A spokeswoman for the British Ministry of Defense appeared to confirm reports that as many as 2,000 more British troops might be dispatched to supplement the troops in Iraq now.
The spokeswoman said that "in light of recent events," discussions were under way "with coalition partners" on troop levels required to cope with a wave of instability that is expected to peak with the transfer of power on June 30.
The letter on Monday came as a surprise, and Mr. Blair's aides were seeking to reiterate his arguments that he believed that the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan might be enhanced by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to pull forces and Israeli settlers out of the Gaza Strip.
One long-serving Middle East envoy who did not sign the letter was Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who has just returned from a six-month tour in Iraq as Mr. Blair's representative in the occupation authority. He complained that his colleagues had failed to "prescribe any alternatives" to the current policies.
"Let's have a bit of persistence in finishing this job," he said in an interview. Nonetheless, Sir Jeremy added that he, too, expressed criticism in Baghdad of some policies because he believed that the "coalition had been careless about killing civilians" and that the initial phase of the military assault on Falluja "was not handled the way it should have been."
Still, he said, there is now a "clear political process" in Iraq, based on negotiation and a more precise use of force. The former diplomats, he said, "should be more balanced" in their assessment.
The diplomats said they shared Mr. Blair's view that Britain has an interest in working closely with the United States in order to exert "real influence as a loyal ally."
But now is the time, they said, to use such influence, and if it is unwelcome in the Bush administration, then "there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure.
--------
Britain's Blair Leaves Door Open to More Iraq Troops
April 27, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-britain-troops.html
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair left the door open Tuesday to sending more troops to Iraq, saying gaps left by the withdrawal of Spanish forces had to be filled.
Blair said that the latest advice was that Britain had enough troops in Iraq but his spokesman said the government was still consulting with allies about troop numbers.
``Obviously we will have to make good any deficiencies,'' Blair said at a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. ``We keep the question of troops under review at all times.''
But Blair muddied the waters by adding: ``The advice that we have is that we have sufficient troops to do the job.''
British media has suggested up to 2,000 more troops could be sent from Britain to join around 7,500 already in Iraq. London has the second largest force there next to the United States.
Spain said Tuesday its 1,400 soldiers would be out of Iraq by May 27.
Blair's spokesman told reporters that Britain would continue to consult with allies over troop numbers.
``We have to go through the proper processes of assessment and review,'' the spokesman said.
Sending more troops to Iraq would be a political gamble for Blair, who came under an unprecedented attack Monday from 52 former diplomats over his support for the policies of President Bush on Iraq and the Middle East.
-------- business
Defense-Boeing back-scratching
April 27, 2004
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040426-090534-7393r.htm
Federal investigators have nabbed the highest-ranking Pentagon official to be implicated in a corruption case since the 1980s. In doing so, they have bolstered the credibility of government surveillance and restored justice to an egregious case of deception and greed. The Pentagon also has said it will look more closely into rules governing the movement of Pentagon officials into the private sector. Some of the details surrounding the corruption case indicate such a review is merited.
Darleen A. Druyun, a former senior Air Force official, pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy. She admitted to negotiating a $250,000 executive job at Boeing Co., which included a $50,000 signing bonus, while overseeing a $23 billion deal between that company and the Pentagon. Druyun and Boeing's chief financial officer, Michael M. Sears, were fired from the company in November. Mr. Sears says he has done nothing wrong.
Druyun's brisk entry into Boeing in January 2003 after negotiating the Pentagon's deal to lease up to 100 Boeing refueling planes had raised eyebrows among some public officials. The e-mail exchanges between Druyun and her Boeing contact indicate that they were both clearly aware they were engaged in wrongdoing. An e-mail following up on an October meeting between Druyun and a Boeing executive referred to the reunion as a "non-meeting." So, lack of clarity on the rules doesn't seem to have been a problem.
An audit by the Pentagon's inspector general found significant problems in the deal's procurement process. This is most unfortunate, since U.S. taxpayers ultimately pay the price for such compromised deal-making. While Boeing appears to have taken a positive first step in firing Mr. Sears, it has otherwise inspired little confidence. When asked whether other Boeing employees were aware of the talks with Druyun, Boeing spokesman Doug Kennett told The Washington Post: "We're aware of the facts, and there are no facts that would support allegations of wrongdoing by other Boeing executives."
Some of Druyun's past behavior is also suspect. Druyun's daughter is a Boeing employee and was involved in the employment negotiations on her mother's behalf. Heather McKee was hired by Boeing after Druyun asked a Boeing executive for help in finding her daughter a job. Another contract Druyun was involved with to modernize some NATO planes grew from $551.3 million to $1.3 billion, with no independent cost estimate, according to the Pentagon's inspector general.
The Pentagon's review of links between public and private sector in defense procurement are welcome. Americans deserve to have their hard-earned dollars maximized by public officials, rather than squandered to benefit individual employees and companies.
-------- china
China Condemns U.S. and Britain on Hong Kong Democracy
April 27, 2004
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/international/asia/27CND-HONG.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
HONG KONG, April 27 - China's foreign minister responded angrily today to American and British criticisms of its latest restrictions on democracy here, accusing both countries of holding China to a double standard after ignoring the lack of democracy in Hong Kong during more than a century of British rule.
The strong reaction was the latest sign of a growing assertiveness in China's foreign policy, as Beijing has sought to position itself as a rising diplomatic power in Asia with influence to match its increasing economic might. Historians and politicians here noted that there was some truth to Beijing's complaint of a double standard, with Britain and the United States showing little interest in democracy here except in the 1940's and again in the 1990's.
"Do you think Hong Kong was democratic under British rule?" Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing asked reporters in Shanghai today. "Did the British raise concerns about that? Did the Americans raise concerns? No. Why don't you take a look at this double standard?"
Mr. Li joined other Chinese officials in saying that the running of Hong Kong was an internal concern of China. "Are you clear on that?" he asked. "Hong Kong is China's Hong Kong."
Kong Quan, the spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, denounced at a news conference in Beijing what he described as foreign interference in China's internal affairs. He pointed out that while London used to appoint governors to rule here, China had allowed a committee of prominent local residents to choose the chief executive, subject to Beijing's approval.
The committee, which has 800 members, is dominated by business executives with large investments on the mainland, and they tend to follow Beijing's wishes. Tung Chee-hwa, the Beijing-backed chief executive since Britain transferred Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, ran unopposed in 2002 for a second five-year term.
Spokeswomen at the American and British consulates here declined to comment today on the criticisms from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's Communist Party-controlled Parliament, barred Hong Kong on Monday from holding popular elections for the chief executive in 2007 or for more than half of the seats in the legislature in 2008.
Bill Rammell, the British foreign office minister for China and Hong Kong, called in the Chinese ambassador to London to protest the erosion of the "high degree of autonomy" in Hong Kong that Beijing had pledged to observe before the territory was returned to it in 1997. In Washington, State Department and White House spokesmen also criticized the decision, as did the American consul general here, Jim Keith.
"The United States believes that the Hong Kong people's aspirations should be given priority in determining the pace and the scope of democratization in Hong Kong," said Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman.
Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party here, said today that the British had introduced very little democracy in Hong Kong until the final years of their rule. Direct elections for the Legislative Council began only in 1991, with 18 of the 60 seats chosen by the public.
That proportion has gradually increased since then and will reach 30 directly elected seats in elections to be held in September. On Monday, the National People's Congress capped this ratio at half the seats, while the rest will continue to be elected by representatives of so-called functional constituencies, like insurance and local chambers of commerce, that tend to be dominated by pro-Beijing executives.
Mr. Lee said that he was nonetheless disappointed that Beijing had resorted to such a blunt declaration on Monday that it would not permit greater democracy here. Beijing could have simply asked Mr. Tung not to introduce any bills containing electoral reforms to the legislature; the Basic Law, Hong Kong's miniconstitution, effectively bars members of the legislature from introducing such bills.
"They are really telling the world they don't care what they think, they want to rule from Beijing," Mr. Lee said.
Philip Snow, a leading historian of Hong Kong, said that the United States had shown little interest in Hong Kong until the early stages of World War II, when it actually put pressure on the British to return most of the territory to China's Nationalists. The United States was still opposed to colonialism then and was troubled by British rule here, which had allowed practically no democracy up until then, Mr. Snow said.
Only two members of the 13-member Urban Council were elected before World War II, and only people who were completely fluent in English were allowed to vote, which excluded most of the local population. The remaining members of the council were appointed, and the council had little power in any case, with the governor making all important decisions in consultation with London.
Under American pressure, Britain did begin making plans in mid-1943 to allow more popular rule here. At the time, Japan occupied Hong Kong, controlling the territory from 1941 until 1945, a period of large-scale killings, rapes and starvation of civilians by Japanese military forces.
Sir Mark Young, the British governor who came to Hong Kong soon after the surrender of the Japanese, put forward a detailed plan for a municipal council with two-thirds of its members elected by the general public. But interest in the plan faded after his retirement in 1947, while American officials stopped voicing support for democracy here after 1948, in response to the Communist takeover in mainland China.
The plan was finally scuttled in the early 1950's to a considerable extent because of the opposition of British and Chinese tycoons alike, who feared that greater democracy would lead to higher social spending and higher taxes.
Local business leaders have in recent months raised the same objections to popular elections, siding with Beijing against the large majority of Hong Kong's population that, polls show, favor direct elections. Prominent executives have warned that elections could lead to the establishment of a welfare state, a concern also raised in the late 1940's.
"The elite of the society, then as, I suppose, now, were dead against democratization," Mr. Snow said.
--------
China Rejects Wider Elections For Hong Kong
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43176-2004Apr26.html
BEIJING, April 26 -- China declared on Monday that it would not allow Hong Kong to elect its next chief executive in 2007 or to expand legislative elections in 2008, rejecting the demands of the territory's democracy movement in unequivocal language for the first time.
The announcement marked a major shift in strategy by the Chinese Communist Party, which for months has tried to quash growing calls for democratic reform in Hong Kong without explicitly ruling out universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008. By acting now, the party appears to have decided to risk a popular backlash in an attempt to end the debate in the former British colony.
The decision provoked an immediate outcry among Hong Kong's democracy advocates, who vowed a series of large-scale demonstrations this summer, and prompted criticism from U.S. and British diplomats, who warned that Beijing was eroding the high degree of autonomy promised the territory upon its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
"This is terrible news, absolutely awful. They're telling the whole world that Beijing will now run Hong Kong," Martin Lee, a veteran lawmaker and democracy supporter, said by telephone. "They're not even hiding it or pretending anymore."
The ruling, issued by the Chinese government's top parliamentary committee, follows a similar declaration three weeks ago in which Beijing said it alone had the power to initiate political reform in Hong Kong. At the time, mainland and Hong Kong officials said no decision had been made about introducing elections in the territory.
But the new ruling explicitly states that "universal suffrage shall not be applied" to select Hong Kong's next chief executive and that only half the seats in the territory's Legislative Council can be filled through direct elections in 2008, the same proportion that will be popularly elected this September.
Hong Kong's other lawmakers are selected by small professional and business groups, most of which favor the Chinese government. The territory's chief executive is also currently selected by a committee tilted in Beijing's favor.
In the decision, the Chinese government said conditions in Hong Kong, a prosperous port city of 6.8 million, were not ripe for universal suffrage. It asserted that Hong Kong's residents have not had enough experience with elections and remain divided about the pace and substance of political reform.
"At a time when Hong Kong is undergoing economic restructuring, when the Hong Kong economy is turning around, we cannot radically change the institutional arrangement without regard to the consequences," said Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy secretary general of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's parliament. "We have to develop democracy in Hong Kong on a step-by-step basis. Only then will we be able to maintain stability, prosperity and social harmony."
In a televised address in Hong Kong, Qiao also argued that direct elections could threaten the territory's capitalist system because business interests might not be properly represented. China's Communist government promised to preserve Hong Kong as a capitalist enclave after its handover, and the territory's business tycoons have been among Beijing's strongest supporters.
Democracy advocates in Hong Kong urged the public to show its dissatisfaction in the streets and in voting booths.
"The Hong Kong people aren't going to just take this," said Rose Wu, chairwoman of the Civil Human Rights Front, the pro-democracy group that organized a demonstration last July of more than 500,000 people, embarrassing the Beijing government. "We will not stop voicing our disagreement, our grievances and our anger. . . . This is an immoral government. They may create fear and disappointment, but they can't win the hearts of the people."
A large protest is scheduled in late May to mark the anniversary of the violent 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Another is planned for July 1, the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule and of a huge march last year that forced Beijing to withdraw a controversial anti-subversion bill.
Yeung Sum, chairman of the opposition Democracy Party, called on people to vote in the legislative elections in September, when democracy advocates hope to win a majority that could block government bills and force Beijing to negotiate about political reform. "We will never give up the fight for universal suffrage," he said.
Hong Kong's unpopular chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, who was installed by Beijing in 1997, defended the Chinese government's decision and urged the public to respond with calm. "I fully appreciate that there are some people in Hong Kong who are worried" about the decision, he said. "I hope they'll be rational and calm. . . . Let's work hard together to seek a consensus on constitutional reforms."
In recent weeks, some democracy advocates had expressed hope that Beijing might let Hong Kong voters elect Tung's successor while maintaining control of the nominating process, or allow a small increase in the proportion of legislative seats filled through direct elections. But the decision ruled out both approaches and set no timetable for introducing universal suffrage.
By taking such a hard line, the Chinese leadership might be trying to undermine public fervor for democratic reform. Recent polls indicate that about 60 percent of Hong Kong residents support universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008, but the share who say they expect such change has dropped from about one-third to less than one-fifth.
The Chinese government said some changes to the electoral system were still permissible, including expanding the 800-member committee that now selects the chief executive. But Lee, the legislator, dismissed such proposals as tinkering. "It may change on paper, but it won't be more democratic," he said.
--------
China Bars Steps by Hong Kong Toward More Democratic Voting
April 27, 2004
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/international/asia/27HONG.html?pagewanted=all&position=
HONG KONG, April 26 - Beijing on Monday barred popular elections for Hong Kong's chief executive in 2007 and ruled out any expanded voting by the general public for the legislature in 2008, in the latest in a series of moves to restrict democracy here.
The decision angered democracy advocates here, who promised street demonstrations, and drew sharp criticism from the United States and Britain, which said Beijing was eroding the autonomy of Hong Kong that it had pledged to preserve.
Beijing has been intervening increasingly in the territory's political affairs. It has now made clear that it intends to give Hong Kong's people a very junior role in decisions about how to open the electoral system in the future.
Bill Rammell, the British foreign office minister for China and Hong Kong, called in China's ambassador in London to complain about the move, saying in a statement that it was "inconsistent with the `high degree of autonomy' which Hong Kong is guaranteed under the Joint Declaration." The declaration, by Britain and China in 1984, cleared the way for Hong Kong's transfer to Chinese rule.
China's leaders are tightening controls here after a series of developments that began with a march by 500,000 people last July 1 to protest stringent internal-security legislation.
In November elections for neighborhood councils, pro-Beijing parties were trounced by pro-democracy parties, suggesting a grim future at the polls for Beijing's allies. Finally, Taiwan's politicians moved further toward independence, making Hong Kong less useful as an example of how Taiwan might someday be reunited politically with the mainland.
The Basic Law, the legal framework governing Hong Kong, says that democratic changes can begin in 2007. But at a meeting in Beijing on Dec. 3, President Hu Jintao of China ordered Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's chief executive, to stop preparations for those changes.
Through February and March, Beijing resorted to the tactics of the Cultural Revolution in denouncing democracy advocates as "clowns" and "traitors."
On April 6, the Standing Committee of China's Parliament, the National People's Congress, which is controlled by the Communist Party, ruled that no moves to change election laws here could even be started without prior approval from Beijing.
Under the Basic Law, the general public is already scheduled to elect half the legislature's members in the next elections, to be held in September. Many here had expected Beijing to increase this proportion in 2008 as a small, conciliatory gesture.
But on Monday the Standing Committee ordered that the ratio remain fixed. If more democratically elected seats are added, the committee said, more seats must also be added for so-called functional constituencies.
Those seats represent specific industries or professions, like banking and accounting, that tend to follow Beijing's wishes closely. In some of those constituencies, fewer than 100 people are allowed to vote, most of them tycoons with big investments on the mainland.
The Standing Committee also declared Monday that no changes would be allowed to the provision that the Chinese government inserted into the Basic Law after the military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.
That provision says bills backed by the Beijing-selected chief executive of Hong Kong need only a simple majority to pass, while bills and amendments introduced by members of the legislature must clear a much higher hurdle: the support of a majority of the democratically elected members plus a majority of the members representing functional constituencies.
Despite the Standing Committee's actions, democracy advocates still could win a majority of the legislature's seats in the September elections by taking almost all of the publicly elected seats plus a handful of seats in certain functional constituencies. That would produce the first pro-democracy legislative body in the People's Republic of China since the Communists took power in 1949.
The Bush administration, eager to enlist Beijing in curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons program, has been cautious about assailing China's increasingly hard line here. On Monday, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, remained somewhat muted, saying, "We continue to stand on the side of democratic reforms, as outlined in the Basic Law."
James R. Keith, the United States consul general here, took a tougher stance.
"The central government's decision to limit the debate on constitutional development here in Hong Kong by ruling out universal suffrage in 2007 is disappointing," he said Monday afternoon. "The Hong Kong people have not yet reached a conclusion on their own. The imposition of the central authority's outcome on a debate that has not yet occurred in Hong Kong is an erosion of the high degree of autonomy that the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration guaranteed."
Jackie Hung, the financial secretary and chief spokeswoman of the Civil Human Rights Front, a coalition of pro-democracy groups, said she hoped foreign governments would put steady pressure on China to tolerate more democracy in Hong Kong.
Mr. Tung, the Hong Kong chief executive, defended the latest decision by Beijing, saying it was "conducive to the long-term interests of Hong Kong."
Ma Lik, the chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, the biggest pro-Beijing political party, said in a telephone interview that Beijing's decision made sense to him because "stability is more important than radical change."
Beijing officials have called for an end to the active discussions of democracy here.
Donald Tsang, the chief secretary and Hong Kong's second-ranking official after Mr. Tung, said Monday that further democracy proposals by the public should be confined to the possibilities offered by Beijing's decision.
But Christine Loh, the chief executive of the Civic Exchange, a nonprofit research group here, said that while Beijing had the ability to ban formal changes in Hong Kong, it would have a harder time trying to silence the debate. "You still have a corner of China where the high-level officials of China have made a decision and it's not going to be obeyed," she said.
In a clear indication of concern about the potential for further demonstrations, Mr. Tung said at a news conference, "I'd like to urge various sectors of the community to be calm and rational."
Democracy advocates are planning demonstrations on June 4, the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and on July 1, which is a public holiday to commemorate the transfer of control of Hong Kong to China in 1997 but is now seen largely as the anniversary of the huge protest last year.
Mr. Tung subsequently withdrew the security legislation, which had been strongly backed by Beijing.
Mr. Tsang said there might be room for broadening the number of people who can vote in some of the functional constituencies.
The number of members of the Legislative Council elected by the general public is rising, to 30 of 60 in the September elections from 24 out of 60 in the current session of the legislature, under a schedule set before the transfer to Chinese rule. Mr. Tsang and Mr. Ma said it was important to see how this worked instead of planning a further increase in 2008.
-------- iraq
The Denial of Democracy in Iraq
ZNet InterActive
by Aseem Shrivastava
April 27, 2004
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5411
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. - John Quincy Adams, Sixth US President
"Be careful of what you want. You might get it!" This is the sobering lesson being learnt nowadays with regards to the American enterprise of dictating democracy in Iraq.
"All men are created equal." But some are more equal than others. The situation in Iraq shows that colonialism, in its most devastatingly compassionate form yet, is alive and well in the Brave New World of the 21st century. So is the accompanying racism. And the repercussions for the world could be catastrophic.
During its brutal suppression of the massive Fallujah uprising in early April - which took the lives of over 800 people - the U.S. bombed a mosque and killed 40 Iraqi civilians to avenge injuries to 5 marines from shots fired by insurgents, alleged to be hiding in the mosque. These "insurgents" were, till very recently, ordinary civilians. They were not hiding among civilians. They were civilians. In the streets of Ramadi and Fallujah even women have started carrying guns (latest recruits for Al-Qaeda? American democracy gives citizens "the right to bear arms." Why shouldn't Iraqi democracy be fashioned along similar lines?) In Baghdad and Najaf, families are giving away all their sons to Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. (One irony escapes the Americans: how did Al-Sadr, whose father was executed by Saddam Hussein, turn against them?) In Basra, relatively "calm" till last week, people poured into the streets in protest against the occupation, after the bombings which accounted for 70 people including many children. This was followed by "suicide speedboat" attacks on coastal oil installations in which 2 American troops were killed.
There are more than a few - an Iraqi poet for instance - who believe that the U.S. itself has been engineering some of the bombings and blaming it on insurgents in order to justify its prolonged presence. The U.S. has certainly been gunning down all and sundry, including TV journalists from the Iraqi media.
Liberal, arrogant use of U.S. military talent has ended up achieving the precise opposite of what Washington had wished for: that the Shias and the Sunnis would remain divided enough for the U.S. to claim that its long-term presence in Iraq was necessary to avoid a civil war. Minarets from Shiite mosques in Baghdad now call openly for people to donate money and blood for fighters in the Fallujah uprising. There are widespread calls for the U.S. to leave Iraq. Moqtada Al-Sadr, besieged and threatened by the U.S. in Najaf (and whose popularity has made the U.S. military wary of "bombing him out"), calls the Iraqi Governing Council the "Governed Council".
Arabs in neighboring countries are increasingly considering the parallels between the twin occupations, of Palestine and Iraq, especially after they discerned U.S. complicity in the second open assassination of a Hamas leader carried out by Israel within a month, close on the heels of Ariel Sharon's return from Washington. In several Arab countries, like Egypt, they continue to burn American and Israeli flags together.
Let's go back to World War II for a moment. Hitler's armies invaded and conquered France in 1940, installing a puppet regime, headquartered in Vichy. Thereon, the Nazis controlled the destiny of France, rounding up and executing Jews wherever possible. The French premier, Marshall Petain, provided his cowardly assistance. Finally, the Allies, led by Britain and the U.S., entered Paris in August 1944 and liberated France from Nazi occupation.
The analogy with Iraq is, of course, inexact. In France, an occupying power was removed through intervention by other foreign powers. In Iraq a dictator has been removed by a foreign power which has, in turn, occupied the country. But it is worth pursuing the analogy to some degree. While France's sovereignty was restored through the liberation, Iraq's has been lost. If the U.S. had bombed Paris to liberate the French, would any Frenchman have believed that the Allies were interested in liberating France? Wouldn't they have rightly suspected that the Allies were, in turn, seizing their opportunity of conquering France? Perhaps to gain control of its uranium deposits? Or at least to prevent the Soviets from getting there first?
Why shouldn't Iraqi people, Sunni or Shia, regard the U.S.-led invasion in similar light? It takes a remarkable crisis of the moral imagination for the West to fail to see how clearly the Iraqi people know the truth about the U.S. occupation. Their intelligence has been rudely insulted. In fact, only fearful delusions and racist assumptions about the inferiority of Arabs and coloured people can make anyone in the West imagine that the Iraqis would mistake the goals of their conquerors, that their "hearts and minds" would be won by bombing them into subservience to American diktat. They have suffered enough from Anglo-American betrayals over the last century. The British promised them liberation from the Ottoman Turks in 1917 and instead seized control themselves. Winston Churchill, as Secretary of State at the War Office in 1919, told the RAF not to be "squeamish" about putting down "recalcitrant Arabs" (who were in fact Kurds) by spraying them with poison gas since it will cause "a lively terror" among "uncivilized tribes." This has been the legacy of Western racism in the region.
Such has been the sustained pitch of media mendacity in Western countries that, apart from some commendable exceptions, few have dared to challenge the root assumptions of this war of conquest. A whole leg has been amputated in order to heal a wounded knee, and many Western intellectuals still believe that "Iraq is better off without Saddam"! Are chaos and anarchy, bullet-ridden with everyday brutality, better than dictatorship?
The West, especially the U.S., can only look at the whole Iraq issue from its own solipsistic angle. Two questions are uppermost in people's minds: Is the world safer from terrorism after the Iraq venture? What is the loss, in terms of men and money, from the whole exercise? The answer to the first question was given by the President of the European Commission recently, when he said that the world was "infinitely" more dangerous one year after Americans moved into Baghdad last year. The answer to the second question is that the losses will continue to mount with each passing week that the U.S. stays in Iraq. Since the Fallujah uprising, it is already becoming clear that Iraq is turning into that dreaded monster - America's next "Vietnam." The month of April has seen more Coalition casualties than in any other month during the whole campaign, including the period of the official war last year. The first significant public release of American casualty pictures last week has already made the White House put a ban on the press taking photographs of body bags returning from the Gulf. At stake is the outcome of the U.S. elections in November.
That Saddam Hussein's Iraq, with one-third of the military expenditure of neighboring Kuwait, a nation more disarmed than any in history, according to ex-U.N. weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, posed a red-hot threat to the security of Europe and America, that the Baathist regime, with a good many Christians in the cabinet, was in league with Islamic fundamentalist Al-Qaeda terrorists, and thus constituted a legitimate enemy in the war on terror, that it was 45 minutes away from delivering weapons of mass destruction to mortal Western enemies, all this was seemingly believed at the highest levels by governments in the West. Worse still, by credulous intellectuals and the general public. The media sold it at a discount. They bought it with greedy glee. Anywhere from 15,000 to 50,000 corpses have already paid the price of this unconscionable deceit. If the norms of Nuremberg still mean anything, here is a "crime against humanity" committed in broad daylight, by a hyper-power which seeks moral exemption from all such indictment. Since its goals are, after all, so noble, never mind the dreadful means. "Democracy" will come one day. Meanwhile, the oil can flow.
Now that every week books are being published revealing the elaborate subterfuge of the Bush and Blair administrations, surprise is being expressed (feigned?) all around about the deceptions that have led the mighty West into this shameful impasse. However, the American presence in Iraq is being seen as a fait accompli. It is argued in many quarters that for the U.S. to leave Iraq suddenly would be to invite civil war (a belief long nurtured by opinion-makers in Washington, but belied in obvious ways by facts on the ground: Shias taking refuge from American troops in Sunni mosques, for instance).
What has happened? What has happened is that leaders in many European countries and the U.S. have been systematically lying to and deceiving their own people, and themselves, just what they were accusing the evil Saddam Hussein of sometime back. And true to times of decline in democratic political culture, the lies have been willfully swallowed, suggesting at least gullibility and indifference, if not widespread national self-deceits. Barring some notable exceptions, such as the citizens of Italy and Spain, vigilance, somehow, is not the word that springs to mind to describe the state of public consciousness in the West with respect to events in Iraq. Somnolence or apathy come closer.
Educated humanity in the contemporary Western world likes to believe that it is free. That it thinks for itself, that it feels for fellow-humans suffering in remote parts of the planet. It feels obliged to act, to redress injustices on their behalf. So convinced it is that it is correct in its belief that it means well, that it thinks nothing of moving the United Nations or sending massive armies, bombers and warships to remote parts of the world, not merely to defend freedom, as was purportedly the case in Vietnam, but to extend it, as in the on-going case of Iraq. In the process, given the evil character of the means, and the futuristic remoteness of the good goals, much terror and misery have been brought to numerous hapless peoples around the planet.
The horror of good intentions! What has changed since the days of Conrad and Kipling? The words "Christian mission" and the "White man's burden" of civilizing the savages can be replaced by "democracy", the latest Western coinage in an ongoing rape of language. All else remains the same. In fact, the present is worse. With stories of the effects of depleted uranium and cluster bombs growing, the horror of the means is too obvious to detail.
The real reasons for the war continue to be kept in the closet of White House obscurity. The word "oil" is not mentioned too often these days. Nor is it known to too many people that in 2002 Saddam Hussein was in negotiations with Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuala to create the basis for trading oil in Euros, a step which, if successful, would have severely jeopardized the position of the dollar in global markets, thanks to the 7 trillion dollar debt that is owed by the U.S. to the rest of the world. So the fact that this war has been centrally about oil and that most of the haste with which the U.S. went into Iraq is to be explained by the urgency of controlling the long-run oil supplies of its key global competitors, Europe and East Asia (since the U.S. itself gets only one out of seven barrels of oil that it consumes from the Middle East, and that too from Saudi Arabia), and protecting its currency from market attack (after an alternative Reserve currency, the Euro had come into existence in early 2002), all this, if it was ever known to parts of the general public in the West, has now been pushed down the black-hole of memory. The media only discusses the "news fit to print", that is, fictions, about possibilities of "democracy" and hand-over of power.
Meanwhile, the Chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer insists that the time is not ripe for handing over real sovereignty to an Iraqi leadership. He claims that even after power is transferred to Iraqis at the end of June, there will be a strong American military presence in the country. One index of the degree of control the Americans wish to maintain is a fact which has not been publicized too much: that the U.S. is planning to build its largest-ever embassy anywhere in the world - 3000 people manning it - in Baghdad. It indicates exactly how much confidence Washington has in the ability of Iraqi people to democratically govern themselves. It also betrays the fear the Americans feel towards the prospect of achieving their stated goal in Iraq: democracy, for it would be inevitably Islamic and would prefer to make them redundant. Hence the influential Ayatollah Sistani's question to the Americans: "Thanks for removing Saddam Hussein, but when will you leave?" A Shia uprising once took place against Saddam Hussein, after the First Gulf War in 1991 and was incited - and betrayed - by the Americans. Now it is the Americans' turn to face both Sunni (Fallujah) and Shia (Najaf) rebellions.
The liberal abuse of U.S. military might has the predictable capacity to bring about despair in all vulnerable peoples of the world, whether they are from Afghanistan or the Middle East. We have seen this time after time in recent years. What the Western world has been taught to recognize as "terror" is merely the language of the desperate. Evil fanatics merely envious of freedoms in the West (as so many official spokesmen would like the public to take them for) cannot have the mad courage of suicide-bombers. Governments in the West should be very cautious with policies which are likely to dishonor a people and often reduce them to the status of enraged paupers in their own land. Such is the fate of the people of Iraq at this time. The most reliable recruiting sergeant for Osama Bin Laden is the Department of Defense.
This highly self-respecting corner of rational, humane, civilized humanity in the West lets its fogged brains be filled with beliefs that their governments would like them to carry. And still feel that it can do some good for those ruined by their governments! Well, what it can do is to listen to Gandhi: "All that the rich can do is to get off the backs off the poor."
It is perhaps still not too late to avoid Armageddon in the Middle East, though the Hamas killings, and their endorsement by, among others, no less a figure than the Democrat Presidential hopeful in the U.S., John Kerry, the recent postures adopted by Ariel Sharon towards Yasser Arafat (who is the intended next target of Israeli assassination), growing public discontent and outrage in the Arab world, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the constant provocation of Syria and Iran, make it far from unlikely.
If it has any inkling of the likely future, the U.S.-led coalition would do well to follow the example of Spain. In a pioneering act of statesmanship, the new premier, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, overturning the decision of his predecessor Jose Maria Aznar, has called back his troops (whether or not the U.S. hands over power to the U.N. in June) and has emerged as a leading voice of official dissent in the West against the vast American enterprise of gunboat democracy. He alone, so far, seems to understand the difference between courage and cowardice, in what is otherwise a bleak landscape of savage human folly. There is much worse to follow, if drastic and unfashionable steps towards armistice and peace are not taken soon. Poland, Norway and Honduras are among a growing band of nations who are following in Spain's footsteps.
Without the termination of patronizing Western imperialism in the Middle East there isn't even a prayer for reaching anything in Iraq which would be worth regarding a democracy. Success, understood in American terms, would imply a client-puppet government, perhaps the foremost imperial outpost for Washington in the Middle East, after Israel, given the political uncertainties which afflict the Saudi-U.S. relationship, especially after 9/11. It would certainly keep American oil corporations pleased, but it is doubtful if it could ever claim legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi population.
Success in Iraqi terms would imply the West standing firm on its promise of genuine democracy, not as pre-determined by it, but as Iraqi people may conceive it. This would, of course, involve U.S. withdrawal. How can the West claim that it wants to see a democratized Middle East if it is not even willing to trust the political capacities and aspirations of the Iraqi people to do for themselves as they see fit? Herein lie some of the racist assumptions about the innate superiority of Western political culture, when the truth is that, given their long-standing oil interests, Britain and the U.S. have done more than anyone else to undermine democratic possibilities in the Middle East, ever since the League of Nations gave Britain the mandate to rule over Mesopotamia after the First World War and the end of the Ottoman Empire.
Nobody in the West seemed to mind, or even notice (just like they don't notice Saudi Arabia even today), an un-democratic Iraq for the longest time. In fact the U.S. incited and supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran throughout the 1980s. Following the First Gulf War in 1991 and the genocidal sanctions imposed for over a decade, the U.S. suddenly decided to bomb Iraq to democracy. How did it turn out that democracy wouldn't come about without going through war?
A third possibility is that neither side backs down and the ensuing stalemate is increasingly violent, leading to unforeseen levels of death and destruction, not merely in the Middle East but, after the Madrid bombings, in the West as well. Where might "Al-Qaeda" (that useful catch-all name for what might be hundreds of "affinity groups", growing in number and intensity with each American offensive) strike next? Washington? London? Canberra? Rome? Warsaw? Any country which has offered its loyalty to Washington and gone out of its way to interfere illegally in the affairs of Iraq is fair game. The overall situation in the Middle East could easily escalate given the growing unrest in the region especially after the Hamas killings by Israel.
More terrorism would also mean less liberty. If citizens in the West do not catch up with the lies of their governments soon enough, it is doubtful if their own peace and democratic rights will last much longer in the long run. What is at stake in the issue of peace in the Middle East is also the little matter of continued freedom and peace in the West.
--------
Intense Fighting Erupts in Two Cities
U.S. Forces Attacked In Fallujah and Najaf
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44840-2004Apr26?language=printer
FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 27 -- Intense firefights erupted Monday between U.S. forces and insurgents here and in Najaf, two cities surrounded by thousands of troops.
In Fallujah, which became a symbol of Iraqi resistance during a U.S. military offensive this month, a Marine patrol was attacked by insurgents hiding in a mosque. In the pitched gun battle that followed, one Marine and an estimated eight insurgents were killed and the mosque was damaged by tank fire, U.S. officials said.
Intense fighting also erupted just after dark south of Baghdad in Najaf, the holiest city of Islam's Shiite branch, where rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr has taken refuge from U.S. forces. Witnesses said the fighting began about 8 p.m. and appeared to be isolated around a small occupation military base, far from the sacred shrine of Imam Ali at the center of the city.
The fighting moved to the adjoining city of Kufa, near the mosque that serves as headquarters for Sadr and his militia, the Mahdi Army, which controls much of both cities. A hospital official counted six dead, including three from Sadr's militia. In addition, the official said 22 people were wounded, including four women. The fighting continued on the outskirts of Kufa until 3 a.m. Tuesday.
The U.S. military said that 43 "anti-coalition" forces were killed Monday in Najaf and that an anti-aircraft system was destroyed by an AC-130 gunship.
The battles followed repeated warnings by senior U.S. officials that stockpiling weapons in mosques was creating an explosive situation.
"The coalition certainly will not tolerate this situation," L. Paul Bremer, head of the occupation authority, said in a statement read aloud by a spokesman at the start of a news briefing Monday evening. Bremer issued a similar warning in interviews with Arabic-language media on Sunday.
"The restoration of these holy places to calm places of worship must begin immediately," Bremer said.
The fighting at the Najaf base began after Sadr's forces discovered that U.S. troops had moved into the building, replacing a small force led by Spanish troops who moved out as part of Spain's unilateral withdrawal from Iraq. Militiamen said the Americans entered through a rear entrance of the structure, which was built as an administrative annex to a hospital next door.
Sadr's militia attacked the U.S. forces, sparking more than an hour of heavy rifle, machine-gun and mortar fire, witnesses said. Militiamen fell back after U.S. attack helicopters arrived but appeared to regroup and add reinforcements.
Monday's attack in Fallujah began when insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at a Marine patrol from the al-Maadhidy mosque in the city's northern Jolan neighborhood, military officials said. Two hours earlier, Marines had been fired on from the same mosque, but when they went inside they found it empty.
The later attack was so intense that the Marines became pinned down and had to request backup that arrived in the form of tanks, attack helicopters and fighter jets.
The fighting produced the first American fatality in the city in more than 10 days, and eight Marines were wounded. U.S. officials estimated that eight insurgents were killed. U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's chief spokesman in Baghdad, said the mosque was damaged in the fighting, and the Associated Press reported that U.S. tank fire demolished a minaret.
Despite the attack, and the doubts it fueled about the ability of civic leaders to rein in insurgents, commanders said they still planned to conduct joint patrols this week. "We will continue to move forward with this," said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
Byrne's battalion began training 30 Iraqi police officers and civil defense troops on Monday, drilling them in the safe handling of weapons in advance of a joint patrol now set for Thursday. The project is framed as an effort to peacefully assert sanctioned Iraqi control over Fallujah by methods short of a full-scale military offensive.
Kimmitt said U.S. officials would still honor the terms of a peace deal that calls for both sides to take steps to dislodge the insurgents. He said Fallujah residents were expected to deliver a significant number of heavy weapons in a show of good faith on Tuesday, and he showed a videotape of Marines handing water bottles to refugees and an Iraqi police officer kissing a baby.
"And this is what we get in return," Kimmitt said, as the screen flashed to combat footage showing gunfire coming from the Fallujah mosque.
"We certainly hope that there is an epiphany on the part of the belligerents inside of Fallujah tonight to recognize that there are two tracks: There is a peaceful track, a peaceful settlement, or there is a settlement that is achieved by force of arms," Kimmitt said. "It's their choice."
In Baghdad, two U.S. soldiers were killed and five were wounded when a storefront chemical warehouse exploded while they were raiding it.
Kimmitt said the blast occurred as a U.S. team was investigating a tip that the shop had provided chemicals for bombs. Kimmitt said it was not immediately known what caused the explosion, which brought down most of three adjoining stores and covered four armored Humvees in debris.
Witnesses said the soldiers had broken a lock off the door of the shop and emerged with a sack of yellow powder, which they lit and then extinguished. They went back inside with a man and a woman wearing gas masks, said Ali Amer Taee, an employee of a Middle Eastern newspaper located next door.
"After about 10 minutes there was white smoke and the woman ran out of the shop, followed by four other soldiers," Taee said. "Then the place exploded. I heard three explosions almost at the same time." Parked cars bounced in place, he said, and flames reached 15 yards into the street.
"I saw the woman, she had burns and was running, and the soldiers ran after her to catch her and carry her away," Taee said. "The other four soldiers who got out were also burned. The rest were under the building."
Vick reported from Baghdad. Special correspondents Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Hoda Ahmed Lazin in Baghdad contributed to this report.
--------
U.S. Troops Kill 57 Insurgents in Battle Near Najaf
April 27, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/international/middleeast/27CND-IRAQ.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 27 - American troops killed 57 insurgents in a brief but furious overnight battle near the southern town of Kufa, an American official said today.
There were no reports of American casualties in that fight, but American troops suffered a death in Baghdad, where an American soldier was killed in an ambush near the tense neighborhood of Sadr City, the official, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said.
Officials believe the insurgents near Kufa were members of the Mahdi Army, a militia headed by the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who has led a three-week uprising against the coalition. The Mahdi Army is in control of Kufa and the nearby town of Najaf.
The clash occurred after insurgents loosed rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft fire at an M-1 tank patrolling the eastern side of the Euphrates River near Kufa, said General Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the American command. American forces called in attack helicopters to supplement ground troops, killing the 57 insurgents.
In an earlier clash near the same location, seven rebels were killed after they ambushed a patrol with small-arms fire, the official said.
American troops have moved in to replace departed Spanish troops at bases between Kufa and Najaf, but General Kimmitt emphasized today that coalition troops had not conducted operations in either city, both of which are Shiite religious centers. American officials have avoided taking the fight inside the cities for fear of inciting wider opposition and bloodshed, and instead have pursued negotiations, fruitless so far, to end the standoff with Mr. Sadr's militia.
In the only reported death today among American troops, one soldier was killed and another wounded when their patrol was attacked near Sadr City, General Kimmitt said. He offered no further information about the incident.
Still, American officials at the daily news briefing here seemed to want to convey a more upbeat estimation of American progress in subduing rebels in the south and in Falluja, where American troops have established a cordon and are trying to squeeze a Sunni Muslim rebellion into submission.
General Kimmitt stressed that negotiations continued with civil leaders in Falluja and that the city had experienced only three violations of a cease-fire in the last 24 hours. He said the authorities felt there had been sufficient "intangible progress" toward a peaceful settlement of the standoff to forestall an invasion of the city.
"The negotiations, in the minds of the commanders on the ground, are continuing to go well," the general said. "There doesn't seem to be any significant backsliding on the part of the enemy."
The officials also said they were forced to delay joint patrolling by American troops and Iraqi security forces because the Iraqis had not yet received sufficient training. The officials had hoped to begin those patrols today but suggested that they may begin in the next few days. The plan was put forward by Falluja civic leaders on Sunday to avert an American invasion of the city.
American authorities trying to roll back the tenacious insurgencies in hopes of a peaceful transfer of sovereignty on June 30 have been heartened in recent days by the increasing emergence of Iraqi voices opposed to the resistance.
"I think, below the radar screen, perhaps, of some of the press, some of the Western press, I think there is a real discussion going on," Dan Senor, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said. "There is a real debate among Iraqis, and more and more Iraqi leaders are beginning to emerge and speaking out about which direction this country should go in light of the events that have occurred here over the past few weeks, and we think that that is a positive sign."
The overnight fighting near Kufa came hours after a protracted firefight between marines and insurgents in a Falluja suburb culminated in an American tank round toppling a mosque's minaret, further dimming hopes for a peaceful resolution to the three-week-old siege there.
The American command said the battle had erupted when insurgents breaching a shaky cease-fire in Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad, used the mosque to attack Marine positions with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. After two hours pinned down by fire, the Marines called in helicopters and tanks, which directed "suppressing fire" at the mosque, the command said.
One American marine was killed and eight were wounded in the battle, which also left eight insurgents dead, an American spokesman said.
General Kimmitt said today that the mosque had lost its protected status as a holy site under the Geneva Convention when rebels used it as a firing point. He said they were using the mosque "to create a wedge" between Americans and Iraqis.
But he emphasized today that once peace was restored in Iraq, American forces would rebuild the minaret with the people of Falluja.
American commanders say the contrast between their willingness to engage in confrontation in Falluja, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, and their more restrained approach in Najaf, holy to Shiite Muslims the world over, reflects the distinct challenges of the two centers of resistance.
Reports from inside Najaf said the growing anger of residents there against Mr. Sadr and his men, who have sown a pattern of lawlessness since their uprising in the city began this month, had taken a startling new turn, with a shadowy group killing at least five militiamen on Sunday and Monday.
Those reports, from residents who reached relatives in Baghdad by telephone, said the killers called themselves the Thulfiqar Army, after a two-bladed sword that Shiite tradition says was used by the patron saint of Shia, Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. The group distributed leaflets in Najaf threatening to kill members of Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army unless they fled Najaf immediately, according to accounts.
One Najaf resident said some of Mr. Sadr's militiamen were shedding the black clothing that has been their signature. The same resident said that he knew of two killings of Mahdi Army members on Sunday and that three others had been killed later on Sunday or Monday.
If reports of violence against Mr. Sadr's followers suggested that the American occupiers might be seeing the beginnings of Iraqis' taking action of their own to curb the cleric - as L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator, has urged - events in Baghdad on Monday underscored how potent a force Mr. Sadr remains, at least among many young Shiites who have found a release from their impoverishment in the cleric's anti-American oratory.
On Monday, troops raiding a chemical storage warehouse in Baghdad were caught in a huge explosion that sent a tower of white smoke roiling hundreds of feet into the air and tons of masonry cascading onto a busy street. The American command said two soldiers had been killed and five others wounded; at least eight Iraqi civilians were hurt. Four American Humvees were set on fire.
American military spokesmen withheld details of the blast's cause. One report by a witness suggested that it had been set off by a spark as the troops broke into the warehouse. Another possibility was that the Americans, belonging to the Iraq Survey Group, set up to search for illegal weapons, could have stumbled into a trap set when an informant reported that the chemical store's owner and his associates were supplying chemical agents to "terrorists, criminals and insurgents," as a command statement put it.
The explosion set the scene for another frenzied demonstration of anti-American feeling, with young men dancing on top of the burned Humvees. Others rushed up to television crews with American helmets, and placed one on the head of a donkey. Still others ran down the street displaying charred remnants of chemical-weapons clothing from the Humvees, some with shoulder patches bearing the survey group's motto, "Find, exploit, eliminate."
The explosion offered a rare glimpse into the mostly unseen work of the survey group. Their efforts have been largely unavailing, and the ill-fated search on Monday, at a row of stores that provide chemicals for the cosmetics industry, suggested something of the complexities involved.
General Kimmitt said the tip-off that drew the survey group to raid the store suggested that it was used to produce "chemical munitions" as well as chemical agents used in insurgents' bomb-making. Asked to identify the munitions, he replied, "It could be smoke, it could be anything," meaning smoke bombs. He added, "But it apparently had enough credibility to it, the information, that we sent coalition forces in to do the inspection."
At perfume shops along the street, owners sweeping up shards of glass from the explosion pointed to rows of decanters labeled with the names of scents. Hamad Taha, 39, one proprietor, was incredulous. "The American forces are always coming and searching this area because they think people are providing the raw chemicals for explosives," he said. "We have ethanol, alcohol and acetone for nail polish remover and cosmetics, as well as chemicals for perfume-making. Instead of breaking the door of the store down, the Americans should have asked us to explain it all to them."
When the perfume makers' protests were relayed to General Kimmitt, it was his turn to be incredulous. "There was quite an explosion inside that building, which cost the life of two coalition soldiers, injured a number of them and a number of Iraqi civilians," he said. "So if it was making lipstick, that's some pretty high-test lipstick."
At Falluja, the fighting around the mosque underscored the odds against a lasting breakthrough to avert a military showdown. The agreement on Sunday to have joint American and Iraqi patrols through the city came as a huge relief to many Iraqis, especially in Baghdad, where there were fears that a resumed Marine offensive could set off a wave of anti-American violence.
But the Monday events revived the widespread conviction that both sides have made Falluja a watershed of the wider Iraqi struggle, and that neither the American forces nor the insurgents will back down. If the battle at the mosque suggested that the insurgents were still a long way from submitting, it also showed the marines' willingness to use some of their heaviest weapons against them.
General Kimmitt said the marines had reacted to the first volleys from the mosque, in the northwestern district of Jolan, by advancing under fire, then pausing to allow the insurgents a chance to surrender. When nobody emerged, the general said, marines went in and found the mosque deserted, "with the exception of a significant amount of expended shell casings in the minaret."
He said the Americans had then pulled back, only to take renewed fire from the mosque.
Kirk Semple contributed reporting from New York for this article.
--------
Iraqis Say Council-Approved National Flag Won't Fly
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43438-2004Apr26.html
BAGHDAD, April 26 -- It was supposed to be the perfect symbol for a new and unified Iraq: an Islamic crescent on a field of pure white, with two blue stripes representing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a third yellow stripe to symbolize the country's Kurdish minority.
But the new national flag, presented Monday after an artistic competition sponsored by the Iraqi Governing Council, appears to have met with widespread public disapproval here -- in part because of its design and in part because of the increasing unpopularity of the U.S.-appointed council.
In interviews in several Baghdad neighborhoods, a variety of residents expressed strong negative reactions to the flag, which was reproduced in most daily newspapers. In particular, people objected to the pale blue color of the crescent and stripes, saying it was identical to the dominant color in the flag of Israel, a Jewish state.
"When I saw it in the newspaper, I felt very sad," said Muthana Khalil, 50, a supermarket owner in Saadoun, a commercial area in central Baghdad. "The flags of other Arab countries are red and green and black. Why did they put in these colors that are the same as Israel? Why was the public opinion not consulted?"
Other residents objected to the removal of the phrase, "God is greatest," which adorned the previous national flag, and said there was no need for a new one until national elections are held next January and a new constitution is written.
Hamid Kifaie, the chief spokesman for the Governing Council, said Monday night that the winning design, by Rifaat Chaderchi , an Iraqi artist, was chosen from among 30 entries. A committee of council members felt best it represented the major values and attributes of Iraq, Kifaie said.
"This flag represents the democracy and freedom of the new Iraq, where the old one represented killing and oppression and dictatorship," he said. "We are not imposing this flag on the people; it was chosen by the legitimate representatives of Iraq. When a new national assembly is elected, it can decide whether to keep it or change it."
To a large extent, however, public objections to the new flag seem to be intertwined with broader unhappiness over the 25-member Governing Council, which many Iraqis closely identify with American interests.
Criticism of council members, and disputes among them, have sharply increased with the approach of the June 30 deadline for U.S. authorities to hand over power to a new interim government, which is to remain in office until elections are held early next year.
Some members have made it clear they want to be part of the new government. But both U.S. and U.N. officials here have suggested a clean sweep may be in order.
A proposal by Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special representative to Iraq, calls for the council to be scrapped and replaced by what he described in an interview Friday as a government composed of technocrats who are "acceptable to the Iraqi people." He said the United Nations would insist on qualities of "credibility, honesty and expertise," but would also seek a balance among major ethnic and religious groups.
In commenting on the new flag, some Baghdad residents quickly shifted to criticism of the council, saying it had no independent authority -- even to introduce a national emblem -- and was too deferential to American wishes.
"I will be delighted when this council is dissolved and a new government is formed," said Amer Abdulaimy, 38, a day laborer, who said he preferred the old flag and saw no reason to change it. "The council has done nothing for us, and it is the same as the American government. We need free elections."
As June 30 approaches, some council members have broken publicly with U.S. officials here and have become embroiled in internal spats.
Last week, when U.S. officials criticized a program created last year to review petitions from former members of Hussein's Baath Party who had been fired from government jobs, Ahmed Chalabi, the council member in charge of the program, reacted strongly. Chalabi, an exile leader once highly favored by Washington, said the Americans' call to reform the review process was equivalent to allowing former Nazis to return to power in Germany.
Meanwhile, aides to Chalabi excoriated Adnan Pachachi, another council member. In an essay Monday in the newspaper published by Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, Pachachi was accused of being a dictator and a paranoid power-monger who was working with U.S. authorities to squeeze political party leaders out of the new government.
Special correspondent Huda Lazin contributed to this report.
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon Has No Plans to Quit, Official Says
April 27, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-sharon.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has no plans to resign over his Gaza withdrawal plan, a senior official said Tuesday, in response to a published report. The official spoke to Reuters in response to a report on the Web site of the Haaretz daily newspaper that the Israeli leader has threatened to quit if his plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip failed a May 2 party referendum.
``He's not going to resign, because he's not going to lose,'' the vote, said the official, dismissing the report as ``speculation.''
Opinion surveys show that Sharon's plan to uproot all Jewish settlements in Gaza and four out of 120 in the West Bank is far from guaranteed to win a majority of the traditionally pro-settler Likud Party's 200,000 members.
A poll Friday showed 59 percent of the party's members in favor and 39.5 percent against.
Sharon says his plan would boost Israeli security and break a diplomatic stalemate after three and a half years of fighting with the Palestinians. But many in the Likud oppose ceding any land.
Palestinians see Sharon's plan as a ruse to annex large swathes of West Bank territory they want for a state.
-------- latin america
NICARAGUA
Cold War missiles will be destroyed
April 27, 2004,
Washington Times
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
MANAGUA - Nicaragua will destroy 350 surface-to-air missiles it obtained from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, partially bowing to U.S. demands to scrap its missile stockpile, newspapers said yesterday.
The SAM-7 missiles, which are among some 2,000 surface-to-air weapons held by Nicaragua, probably will be put out of commission in May.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called on the Central American nation during a visit last year to get rid of all of the shoulder-fired missiles.
-------- mideast
JORDAN - Militants describe chemical attack plot
April 27, 2004,
Washington Times
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
AMMAN - Jordanian state television yesterday aired what it said were confessions by militants tied to al Qaeda who said they had planned chemical attacks that could have killed thousands of people.
The captured militants, who included Syrians, said they were ordered by Abu Musab Zarqawi, accused by Washington of being a top al Qaeda supporter, to attack targets that included the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy.
The Jordanian report said at least 80,000 people would have been killed by toxic fumes spreading over a radius of more than three miles if the plot had succeeded.
----
U.S. got secret aid in Iraq war
April 27, 2004
By John Solomon
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040426-092916-2048r.htm
During the Iraq war, Saudi Arabia helped the United States with far more assistance than has been acknowledged, allowing operations from at least three air bases, permitting U.S. Special Forces troops to stage attacks from Saudi soil and providing cheap fuel, U.S. and Saudi officials said.
The American air campaign against Iraq essentially was managed from inside Saudi borders, where military commanders operated an air command center and launched refueling tankers, F-16 fighters and sophisticated intelligence-gathering flights, the officials said.
Much of the assistance has been kept quiet for more than a year by both countries for fear it would add to instability inside the kingdom. Many Saudis oppose the war, and the U.S. presence on Saudi soil has been used by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden to build his al Qaeda terror movement.
But senior political and military officials from both countries told the Associated Press the Saudi royal family permitted widespread military operations to be staged from inside the kingdom during the coalition force's invasion of Iraq.
These officials would talk only on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity and the fact that some operational details remain classified.
Although the heart of the ground attack came from Kuwait, thousands of soldiers were permitted to stage their operations into Iraq from inside Saudi Arabia, officials said. These staging areas became essential once Turkey declined to allow U.S. forces to operate from its soil.
In addition, U.S. and coalition aircraft launched attacks, reconnaissance flights and intelligence missions from three Saudi air bases, not just the Prince Sultan Air Base where U.S. officials have acknowledged activity.
Between 250 and 300 Air Force planes flew missions from Saudi Arabia, including AWACS, C-130s, refueling tankers and F-16 fighters during the height of the war. Air and military operations during the war were permitted at the Tabuk air base and Arar regional airport near the Iraqi border, the officials said.
Saudis also agreed to permit search-and-rescue missions to stage and take off from their soil, the officials said.
Gen. T. Michael Moseley, a top Air Force general who was a key architect of the air campaign in Iraq, called the Saudis "wonderful partners," although he agreed to discuss their help only in general terms.
-------- russia / chechnya
Almost 80 Russian servicemen commit suicide since January
MOSCOW (AFP)
Apr 27, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040427112006.zcc9c0i3.html
Seventy-eight Russian army and naval servicemen, among them 24 officers, have committed suicide since the start of 2004, a defense ministry official told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday.
"Suicides make up over 50 percent of the total (non-combat) losses of personnel in the Russian armed forces," the unnamed official said.
"The number of suicides increased at the end of the winter, from February to April," he added.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced earlier that 337 Russian servicemen were killed in 2003 as a result of crimes and accidents.
Desertions, suicides and killings are frequent in the 1.1-million-strong Russian military, where conditions are harsh and recruits -- who serve two years in the army -- are often subjected to bullying and violence.
-------- space
At NASA, Science Sharply Shifts Course
April 27, 2004
By DENNIS OVERBYE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/science/space/27NASA.html?pagewanted=all&position=
After President Bush's order that NASA redirect its energies toward human exploration of the Moon and Mars, the space agency has drastically shifted its scientific priorities, delaying missions and cutting the projected budgets of programs that it does not perceive as related to the exploration.
Much attention has been focused on the decision to let the Hubble Space Telescope die by canceling the shuttle mission to maintain it. But in the meantime, whole fields of science have been demoted to asterisks on NASA budget projections over the next few years, leading many scientists to fear for the future of science in space.
Two missions known as Beyond Einstein, devoted to investigating black holes and the space-time ripples called gravity waves, have been delayed two years and one year, respectively. Another series of probes, including a collaboration with the Energy Department to study the "dark energy" that seems to be pushing the universe apart, has been indefinitely delayed.
About $1.2 billion of $4.5 billion previously projected to be spent over the next four years has been cut from a program to understand how the Sun and Earth interact. The importance of that line of study was underscored last summer, when a series of solar explosions threw out giant blobs of radiation and particles capable of disrupting radio communications and, perhaps, endangering astronauts.
And despite President Bush's promise to seek answers to the questions about global warming, about $1 billion has been removed from the projected earth science budget over the next four years, delaying by two years the launching of a satellite that will measure worldwide precipitation.
NASA says it is not taking away any money from space science and adds that its science budget will grow 41 percent over the next five years. "No missions were canceled," Dr. Edward J. Weiler, associate administrator in charge of space science, said. "In some cases, the rate of growth decreased."
In an interview, he cited a list of big-ticket items that had fared well in the new budget: Gravity Probe B, a $700 million experiment to test Einstein's theory of gravity, which was launched last week; the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble's successor, to be launched in 2011; Kepler, a satellite designed to search for Earth-like planets around nearby stars, to be launched in 2007; and a mission to return a sample of rocks and soil from Mars in 2013 that Dr. Weiler described as "the end of the rainbow for Mars scientists."
But the changes in science plans have stirred anxiety among astronomers and members of Congress. Representative Sherwood Boehlert, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Science Committee, said in a recent speech that the Moon and Mars initiative was riddled with uncertainty.
"Will funding this initiative rather than other programs move science forward or hold it back?" he asked.
Mr. Boehlert noted that the proposed cuts in earth science would occur as more satellite information than ever was needed to resolve questions about climate change.
Many astronomers said they foresaw an end to the "golden age" in which they could use heroic instruments like spaceborne telescopes and other satellites to parse the light from the remains of the Big Bang or from the hearts of distant galaxies.
"The golden age is in jeopardy," Dr. Michael S. Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, said. "I'm very nervous."
Dr. Lennard A. Fisk, a professor of space science at the University of Michigan and the chairman of the National Academy of Sciences' Space Studies Board, which helps set priorities for space research, said the emphasis on "exploration" had thrown priorities out of balance, splitting the fields of science into "haves" and "have-nots."
"Many of us feel this demarcation doesn't make sense," Dr. Fisk said. "Exploration is bigger than wandering around the solar system."
Dr. David N. Spergel, an astronomer at Princeton and a member of NASA's space science advisory committee, said the new initiative was good for the human program but that its effects on science were mixed.
"Space science has been the jewel in NASA's crown," Dr. Spergel said, listing recent achievements like the Mars rovers. "I think that the root of this success has been NASA's evaluating missions on their scientific impact. I fear under the initiative missions are being evaluated on, `Does this support the exploration program?' rather than on, `Is this great science?' "
In a letter to Dr. Weiler this month, the entire advisory committee, led by Dr. Andrew B. Christensen of the Aerospace Corporation, agreed.
"NASA should not step away from this pre-eminence in science through an overly narrow interpretation of the exploration initiative," the astronomers wrote. "We strongly recommend that `highest quality science' remain the guiding principle" of the Office of Space Science.
Even astronomers who might be expected to benefit from the rearrangement say they do not know what to make of it. Dr. Reta F. Beebe, a planetary astronomer at New Mexico State University who heads a National Academy of Sciences committee on planetary exploration, called the human exploration initiative "grossly undefined."
Dr. Beebe said it would have little effect over the next few years on the robotic exploration of Mars, which is following "a very solid, very realistic road map" worked out by scientists.
In January, Mr. Bush said that to pay for the new exploration program, he would increase the NASA budget about 20 percent over the next five years and shift $11 billion from other programs. The retirement of the space shuttles in 2010 will free about $5 billion a year.
While many scientists say human spaceflight needs a grand goal like Mars, few say the money allocated so far will be enough to pay for it.
"Inevitably, there will be overruns and problems," said Dr. Christopher F. McKee of the University of California at Berkeley, co-chairman of a recent National Academy committee charged with setting priorities for astronomy in this decade. "And there could be a tendency to take funds out of science budgets."
Dr. Edward W. Kolb, chairman of a NASA advisory committee on cosmology, said: "Many of us are concerned that the other shoe will fall. Instead of stretching out these programs, they will be killed."
Scientists say the process that involves them in setting scientific priorities for NASA has been a strength of its program. Every 10 years, committees impaneled by the National Academy canvass their colleagues and hammer out a report that sets out the priorities for how the nation should spend its research dollars.
Because the academy groups work hard to build a consensus, the so-called decadal surveys carry weight on Capitol Hill and set the tone for agencies like NASA, the Energy Department and the National Science Foundation.
Testifying recently before the House Science Committee, Dr. Fisk said the consensus building had given scientists "a sense of ownership" in scientific programs at the space agency. So far, he added, scientists do not have that same sense of ownership about human spaceflight.
NASA's science activities are spread over different divisions. The largest is the Office of Space Science, which is organized around themes that include the origins of life, stars and galaxies; structure and evolution of the universe; planetary exploration; Mars exploration; the Sun-Earth Connection; and a newly added field, lunar exploration. Earth sciences and biology and zero-gravity physics each have their own divisions.
Dr. Fisk, associate NASA administrator for science in the late 80's and early 90's, said that all the branches of space science were considered important then, adding, "The idea was to move everybody forward at a reasonable pace."
The new budget relegates the Sun-Earth and universe themes, as well as earth science, to the "aeronautics and other science" category.
The earth science reductions could have effects beyond NASA, said David Goldston, staff director for the House Science Committee, who noted that the space agency was involved in climate-change projects with other federal agencies.
"NASA basically provides the tools these other agencies have to use," Mr. Goldston said.
Asked whether NASA's science program had become unbalanced, Dr. Weiler said science would take up almost a third of the NASA budget by 2009, up from 20 percent in the old days. "That's not bad," he said.
Dr. Beebe expressed sympathy for her colleagues, saying political uncertainty was part of the space game.
"Seeing new missions appear and old ones disappear is part of the world we live in," she said. "You have to say, `I'll wait for the next high tide.' These guys got caught on this one."
Many astronomers are particularly dismayed at the cutbacks in the Einstein program, which along with the impending loss of the Hubble will leave them without the means to trace the history of dark energy, which Dr. Turner of Chicago called "the most profound question in science."
Indeed, the investigation of dark energy was given the highest priority in a report issued last week by a federal task force on the physics of the universe chartered by the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Science and including representatives from NASA and other agencies.
Dr. Adam Riess, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, asked, "If dark energy is such a profound mystery, why isn't it on NASA's budget?"
Dr. Weiler said that as an astronomer he could not agree more with these concerns, but that as a public official, he had a budget to meet.
"I don't have the G.N.P. to spend," he said. He added that he hoped to be able to move money around to speed up the gravity wave project, known as Lisa, for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.
Dr. Kolb, of the NASA advisory panel on the universe, said: "Dark energy, black holes and the Big Bang are still as compelling now as when we proposed the initiative, and it's distressing to see it stretched out. We want to do these, not because of Bush, not in spite of Bush, but because it's great science and it's the kind of thing that only NASA can do."
-------- spies
Chinese Diplomats Escorted Off N.M. Lab
Tuesday April 27, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4027614,00.html
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - Two Chinese diplomats were escorted off restricted property at Los Alamos National Laboratory after they drove through an open security checkpoint, a lab spokesman said Tuesday.
``This was not a major event,'' spokesman Kevin Roark said.
The incident occurred Feb. 26 in an area where guards have stopped several people who mistakenly passed a temporary security booth that was set up on a formerly open road after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The diplomats, from the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles, were stopped a quarter-mile to a half-mile past the checkpoint, which does not have a gate, Roark said. They were questioned, and their car was searched.
``They had no opportunity to see anything,'' he said.
Consulate officials in Los Angeles did not immediately return a call for comment.
Earlier, consulate spokeswoman Xiao Mei told The Washington Times the two diplomats were visiting New Mexico in preparation for a visit to Santa Fe by Chinese officials and suggested they may have been trying to find a local science museum.
The diplomats had not told the State Department's Office of Foreign Missions they planned to visit Los Alamos, a violation of U.S. rules, said State Department spokeswoman Brenda Greenberg.
-------- us
U.S. to Change Tactics After Gulf Attacks
Assaults on Oil Terminals Lead to Tighter Security
By Josh White and Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44841-2004Apr26.html
A pair of nearly concurrent suicide bombing attacks on oil terminals in the Persian Gulf on Saturday -- the first waterborne assaults since the United States invaded Iraq -- has spurred the American military to significantly tighten security and change engagement tactics.
The attacks did little damage to the Iraqi Khawr al Amaya and al Basra oil terminals in the northern Gulf, but one explosion killed two Navy sailors and a Coast Guardsman, Nathan Bruckenthal, 24, a Herndon High School graduate and the first member of the U.S. Coast Guard to be killed in combat since Vietnam. Both attacks came from small boats that approached separate oil terminals at sea, using tactics similar to the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 off the coast of Yemen.
Naval officials said the attacks -- one from a dhow, or small sailing boat, and the other involving two speedboats -- were unprecedented during Operation Iraqi Freedom and caused immediate concern about increased versatility on the part of insurgents and terrorists fighting coalition forces. Pentagon officials said the attacks had not come entirely as a surprise, since intelligence reports had predicted for some time that such assaults could occur.
Though thwarted, the attacks exposed a potential weakness in naval security and prompted the tight enforcement of wide exclusionary zones and the examination of boarding and interception procedures. A senior military officer at the Pentagon said the attacks also prompted the dispatch of an emergency response force of about 50 Marines to the terminals, with orders to remain in the area for the near term.
"Before this, we had something posted advising boaters to stand clear of the area, but now enforcement will become more stringent," the officer said. "We're going to be more inclined to shoot first."
Navy and Coast Guard sailors have been patrolling the Persian Gulf for years, enforcing maritime regulations and boarding vessels for inspection. Since last year's invasion, U.S. crews regularly have boarded suspicious boats looking for terrorists or weapons. They also have provided security for oil terminals, which are crucial to Iraq's economy and have long been seen as potential targets for former president Saddam Hussein's loyalists.
On Saturday evening, a dhow was spotted approaching the Khawr al Amaya terminal and the U.S. ship Firebolt sent an inflatable rigid-hull craft to intercept it. Navy Cmdr. James Graybeal, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said the dhow exploded as the seven-member intercept team was preparing to board.
The Navy boat flipped in the explosion, killing three and seriously injuring three others. Bruckenthal, one of about 300 Coast Guardsmen assigned to the region to provide port security and to help with vessel inspections, died of wounds sustained in the attack. It was his second tour in Iraq.
Friends and family described Bruckenthal as intensely patriotic, dedicated to his work and a source of humor among his colleagues. His wife in Florida is expecting the couple's first child later this year.
"He was a good backbone for people," said his sister, Noabeth Bruckenthal, in an interview at her home in Ashburn last night. "He was very warm and convivial and loud and funny -- not obnoxious loud, not center-of-attention loud -- but just jovial."
About 20 minutes after the attack that killed Bruckenthal, two unidentified speedboats approached the al Basra oil terminal, where a tanker was moored. Iraqi security forces fired on the boats as they neared, and they exploded within yards of the terminal.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Carter said the security precautions prevented serious disruption to the oil terminals, but he said the water-based bombings concerned officials because they had not seen such tactics before.
"You do learn from what the enemy is doing, and we see now that they've taken this tack, so, yes, we're going to refine the way we do boardings," Carter said.
Saturday's assaults followed an April 21 attack on another part of Iraq's oil complex -- a bombing of a stretch of pipeline north of Baghdad. Although Pentagon officials said they had no evidence linking the two events, they were clearly worried by them.
One official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the targeting of oil facilities twice in the same week underscored the continued vulnerability of a system that is crucial to Iraq's economic development.
"The bad guys certainly have knowledge of the oil infrastructure and where to try to hit it to cause serious damage," said the official, who has access to internal Pentagon reports on Iraq.
Military investigators were still trying to determine the identities of the attackers. Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with links to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility on an Islamist Web site, the Associated Press reported.
But evidence recovered Saturday pointed toward operatives loyal to Hussein rather than to affiliates of al Qaeda, the senior Pentagon officer said.
The evidence includes fragments of munitions that had been aboard the speedboats and that ended up on the tanker and the terminal dock. The fragments were from old shells and other ordnance similar to munitions that are abundant in Iraq and are customarily used by former members of Hussein's security forces. By contrast, al Qaeda has tended to use plastic explosives and other sophisticated munitions.
Staff writer Michael Laris and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
--------
U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-US-Deaths.html
As of Tuesday, April 27, 719 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq last year, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 518 died as a result of hostile action and 201 died of non-hostile causes.
The British military has reported 58 deaths; Italy, 17; Spain, eight; Bulgaria, six; Ukraine, four; Thailand, two; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia and Poland have reported one each.
Since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 581 U.S. soldiers have died -- 409 as a result of hostile action and 172 of non-hostile causes, according to the military's numbers.
The latest deaths reported by the military:
-- A soldier was killed Tuesday in an attack in Baghdad.
The latest identifications reported by the military: -- No new identifications reported.
--------
U.S. Toll in Iraq Hits 115 for Month
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Deaths.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A U.S. soldier was killed Tuesday by insurgents in Baghdad, bringing the American combat death toll for April to 115 -- the same number of U.S. combatants killed in the two-month invasion of Iraq a year ago.
Tuesday's death occurred when Shiite gunmen attacked a patrol near the Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said. A U.S. soldier also was wounded, he said.
The district is a stronghold of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army militia.
So far, 714 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq last year. Of those, 513 died as a result of hostile action and 200 died of non-hostile causes.
Since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 574 U.S. soldiers have died -- 403 as a result of hostile action and 171 of non-hostile causes.
-------
Lack Of Armor Claims Troops
April 27, 2004
United Press International
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_armor_042704,00.html
WASHINGTON - Twenty percent of the U.S. troops killed in Iraq might have lived had there been more armored, heavier vehicles available to them, Newsweek reports Monday.
A top Army general is recommending the Army send more Stryker medium-weight fighting vehicles to Iraq, which are lighter than tanks but heavier than Humvees, according to the magazine.
Newsweek reports that an unofficial study by a defense consultant now circulating through the Army says 142 Americans were killed by land mines or improvised roadside bombs and 48 others by rocket-propelled grenades.
"Almost all those soldiers were killed while in unprotected vehicles, which means that perhaps one in four of those killed in combat in Iraq might be alive if they had had stronger armor around them," according to Newsweek's account.
The Army is racing to send "up-armored" Humvees to Iraq, but remains almost 1,800 vehicles short for its needs.
-------- propaganda wars
College Host Chides Cheney
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A07
Mike Allen
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45130-2004Apr26.html
Vice President Cheney was rebuked by his host yesterday after lambasting Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in a speech at a private college in Missouri.
Fletcher M. Lamkin, president of Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., e-mailed students, staff and faculty shortly after Air Force Two headed back to Washington.
"I must admit that I was surprised and disappointed that Mr. Cheney chose to step off the high ground and resort to Kerry-bashing for a large portion of his speech," Lamkin wrote. "The content and tone of his speech was not provided to us prior to the event -- we had only been told the speech would be about foreign policy, including issues in Iraq."
The speech was a Bush-Cheney campaign event, but Westminster officials said they had been led to expect academically oriented remarks.
Cheney drew frequent applause and a standing ovation mid-speech.
Lamkin invited Kerry to come and "make his views known."
The Bush-Cheney campaign said in a statement that "robust debate about how best to protect our country from the threat of global terror is central to this election."
--------
Letter From Fallujah
Amid an Unseen Enemy, The Welcome Dog of War
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44878-2004Apr26.html
"So, what's your blood type?"
The young lieutenant's face was cheerful, but his bluntness took me aback.
In all my years of covering violence and conflicts abroad, no one had ever asked me that question before, and I frankly had no idea what the answer was.
I was headed into an urban war zone, surrounded by strangers who had little B+'s and O-'s marked on their helmets, their flak jackets, even their socks. The marks were both grim warnings and reassuring talismans. Out here, we all had a good chance of being wounded, but also of being saved.
For the next two weeks, I would live among a battalion of Marines in a deserted factory filled with thousands of crates of soda pop. Snipers and anti-rocket nets had been placed on the roof. Sandbags and barbed wire scrolls surrounded the gates.
Beyond lay Fallujah, the kind of gritty, turbulent city I had roamed on foot in a dozen countries, looking for human drama. But this time, I was an "embedded" journalist -- an extension of an occupying military force, for whom the entire city was enemy territory and every foray beyond the factory gates was a dangerous mission, carefully planned and heavily armed.
I resented the physical barriers and resisted making the mental leap -- until the first time I found myself on a scarred, barren block, crouching behind the nearest Marine and panting to keep up in my helmet and heavy vest each time he sprinted across an intersection to give the snipers less time to aim. When we made it back through the factory gates, I was flooded with relief.
Inside, my seven embedded colleagues and I quickly became part of an all-American military microcosm, soon learned Marines' names and faces and home towns. The Zuni sniper from New Mexico, the Jewish fireman from New York, the African American bagpiper from Detroit. The white sergeant major with his southern bark and cynical gaze, the young Salvadoran-born medic with his baby's snapshot inside his helmet.
We ate the same plastic-wrapped junk food the troops did, battled the same dust and flies, borrowed their pocket knives and loaned them our portable satellite phones to call California or Georgia, wondering fleetingly what our corporate accounting departments would think when they received the bills. "Don't worry, Ma. I'm still in the same boring town I was last week," I heard one young man fib reassuringly into my phone.
There was nothing to do but work. Every day we waited for word that another convoy was leaving, scrambled into our boots and helmets and flak jackets, and climbed into the nearest Humvee to head for a command post or patrol.
After a week, my legs were covered with purple bruises from slipping on ammo crates, diving for cover and missing footholds on the heavy metal trucks.
Every evening, I wrote, ate and slept fitfully on the same couch in the factory manager's apartment, creating an imaginary private space in a jumble of journalists' backpacks and computer gear. I wore the same dusty clothes for 16 days and nights, except for an occasional shower in an open-air wooden stall beneath a palm tree, where I could blissfully close my eyes and think of "South Pacific."
At night, all of us in the temporary press quarters steeled ourselves for the terrifying sounds of war -- the AC-130 gunships that sounded like giant dentists' drills when they fired, the high-flying bombers whose payloads hurtled to earth with deceptively muffled whomps, the insurgent mortar rounds that landed with deafening booms within yards of our shaken walls.
After each attack, I strained to listen for signs of humanity in the darkened city. I imagined holocaust -- city blocks in flames, families running and screaming. But the only sounds were the baying of frightened dogs and the indecipherable chanting of muezzins, filling the air with a soft cacophony of Koranic verse.
Sometimes the Marines answered the Muslim prayers with barrages of heavy metal rock, part of a psychological operations campaign to goad the insurgents into a fighting frenzy. I tried to ignore the disturbing musical blasts that reached us when the wind shifted. But one afternoon, when I was typing a story about a fierce firefight, I heard the opening violins of Pachelbel's Canon in D from a colleague's CD player, and I burst into tears.
The Marines were there to kill enemies, and the troops' private comments were full of gleefully murderous, dehumanizing epithets. But the official briefings and press releases couched every action in abstract euphemisms -- "contact" and "addressing" and "air support" -- that made every battle sound bloodless.
We were forbidden, on pain of being immediately "dis-embedded," to report specific Marine deaths -- a rule that was designed to protect military families and led to semantic contortions in our stories. In one dramatic tale, a tank strayed onto the wrong block, came under heavy insurgent fire, and coincided with one unidentified Marine being killed somewhere in central Iraq.
The flip side of that restriction was the privilege of being able to interview any Marine we met. To a man, the troops believed they had been sent to Fallujah to help free its people. Their commanders had invoked Guadalcanal, Hue and other historic Marine battles to inspire them, and the soda factory bristled with esprit de corps.
But the insurgents remained invisible, and the only clues to their identities and motives were the scraps of paper found in a hastily abandoned shed full of weapons. Among the jumble of camping equipment were suicide belts and farewell letters to families that spoke of dying in a beautiful battle for Islam.
The populace, hidden in their homes on the far side of the front lines, remained frustratingly beyond our reach. We knew people were running out of food, and we heard rumors of clinics flooded with the dead and wounded. But the few Fallujans we encountered were either prisoners with handcuffed wrists and hooded heads, homeowners waiting sullenly for their houses to be searched, or refugees timidly approaching military checkpoints with white flags.
The Marines had brought only a half-dozen interpreters, so most of their interactions with civilians were conducted in sign language and pidgin English. Sometimes on patrols, people approached us reporters and pleaded for help in Arabic, but there was nothing we could do. In our cumbersome military gear, we felt like intimidating spacemen in a city of bewildered Martians.
But after a few days in this remote military cocoon, an astonishing thing happened. Readers began sending me supportive e-mails by the dozen.
Strangers prayed for my safety, friends begged me to come home. It was Eastertime back in Washington, and several writers described taking long Sunday walks, enjoying the spring blossoms and birds. As I read, I temporarily forgot my grim and graceless surroundings.
Still, I felt I had to salvage something more than a few dramatic headlines from the wasteland of war. I did not know what it was until I was visiting a command post one morning and found a small dog hiding in an abandoned car.
She followed me into the post and immediately fell asleep in my lap.
Knowing I was making a huge mistake, I popped her into a Humvee and snuck her back to the factory.
Everything Apache did was wrong. She chewed on computer cables, she let out piercing yips when the colonel came by to brief us, she howled at the sky when my colleagues were trying to fall asleep after 18-hour days. Finally we were reduced to sleeping together in a closed factory storeroom to avoid being summarily dis-embedded by both the USMC and the Fourth Estate.
By the end of my second week in Fallujah, I had become an exhausted wreck, fast losing my ability to craft an intelligible sentence. But the fighting was on hold, the story was waning, and traffic was flowing again. Summoning my last reserves of energy, I trundled baggage and dog into a wheelbarrow, flagged down an ambulance headed for the capital, and collapsed on a stretcher in the back.
On the floor lay my helmet and flak jacket, still unmarked. As I drifted off to sleep, I realized I never had learned my blood type after all.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Supreme Court Hears Cheney Energy Task Force Case
By J.R. Pegg
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
April 27, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2004/2004-04-27-10.asp
The U.S. Supreme Court today will hear oral arguments on whether Vice President Dick Cheney must release internal documents detailing what role energy industry lobbyists and officials played in the work of the White House energy task force. The merits of the case have been somewhat overshadowed by concerns about the impartiality of Justice Antonin Scalia, but at issue is a fundamental pillar of the U.S. government - the separation of powers.
The case centers on a task force - officially known as the National Energy Policy Development Group - created by President George W. Bush shortly after he took office in January 2001.
The mission of the group, which was chaired by Cheney, was to "develop a national energy policy designed to help the private sector, and as necessary and appropriate federal, state, and local governments, promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy."
The group gave its report to Bush in May 2001 - its recommendations were the basis of an energy policy submitted to Congress the following month.
A bill containing much of this policy, which centers on further support for fossil fuels and nuclear technologies, has stalled in Congress.
In the wake of media reports that energy industry officials and lobbyists were involved in the task force and after the White House declined to release information about the meetings of the group, Judicial Watch and Sierra Club each filed a lawsuit to force disclosure of relevant documents.
The suits, now consolidated, focus on the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which mandates open public access to records of advisory committees that include nongovernmental members.
In July 2003, a three judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Bush administration is subject to "discovery" and must comply with requests for information.
In rejecting the government's arguments, the court wrote that the White House's position would "transform executive privilege from a doctrine designed to protect presidential communications into virtual immunity from suit."
The administration asked the appeals court for a rehearing, but that request was rejected in September, prompting the White House to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
Bush officials deny industry lobbyists and executives served as "de facto" members of the energy task force, but refuse to turn over documents that might prove this on the grounds that the White House should be able to gather information and advice without public scrutiny.
In the brief filed with the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson says the lower court erred in its ruling, He argues that FACA does not apply because task force members were all members of the federal government.
The lower court ruling that would force the White House to turn over documents, Olson argues, is a clear case of the judiciary overstepping its authority.
The orders from the lower court "subject the Vice President and other senior presidential advisors to discovery at least as broad and constitutionally problematic as the disclosure requirements imposed by FACA itself, in order to determine whether FACA even applies," Olson says in his brief to the court."
"Interpreting FACA to authorize such wide ranging discovery based solely on a naked assertion of unofficial, de facto members would render the statute plainly unconstitutional," Olson says.
The defendant groups, Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club, contend that the lower court ruling for limited discovery does not violate the separation of powers because it only involves information on the composition of the task force.
"The district court's discovery orders do not remotely resemble petitioners' characterizations of them," wrote the Sierra Club in its Supreme Court brief.
"The bottom line is that whatever constitutional problems there may be for some aspects of FACA as applied in some situations to presidential advisory committees, there is no basis for this Court to rule on the truly sweeping claims of unconstitutionality raised by petitioners," the environmental group says in the brief.
The two defendant groups, thrown together by the courts in this case, could not be more different. Judicial Watch is a Washington based legal watchdog that filed 50-plus legal actions against the Clinton administration and represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment case against President Bill Clinton.
Founded in 1892, the Sierra Club claims 700,000 members and has the stated mission to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.
The Supreme Court has granted a request by Judicial Watch that it and the Sierra Club be allowed to present separate arguments. Judicial Watch will focus on countering the claim that the Federal Advisory Committee Act is unconstitutional. The Sierra Club will argue that the court should not even consider the merits of the constitutionality argument.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said "courts have rejected three times already Vice President Cheney's power grab and contempt for the judicial process."
"We hope the Supreme Court will do the same," Fitton said.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its ruling in June 2004.
The merits of the case, however, have in part been overshadowed by Justice Scalia's close friendship with the Vice President.
The Sierra Club, citing a January 2004 hunting trip the two took together with several other friends, called on Scalia to refuse himself from the case.
The environmental group, which has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration, said the trip raised legitimate questions about the justice's impartiality in the case. Judicial Watch said it did not believe there was enough evidence for recusal.
In an unprecedented 21 page memorandum released last month, Scalia provided many of the missing details of the trip and defiantly refused to remove himself from the case.
"The question simply put, is whether someone who thought I could decide this case impartially despite my friendship with the Vice President would reasonably believe that I cannot decide it impartially because I went hunting with that friend and accepted an invitation to fly there with him on a government plane," Scalia wrote. "If it is reasonable to that a Supreme Court Justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined."
The Sierra Club said Scalia missed the point and added that if specific details had been provided regarding the trip when the issue first surfaced, they might never have requested the recusal.
The Bush administration is also appealing a lower court decision that ruled it violated the Freedom of Information Act when it refused to turn over documents from federal agencies regarding their role in the energy task force.
In response to a legal challenge by Judicial Watch and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a judge ordered the Energy Department in February 2002 to turn over such records - last March another federal judge found the response to that first order was inadequate.
"The administration should stop wasting taxpayer dollars appealing and delaying, but instead come clean with the information," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino. "Some information can certainly be protected but the administration should not continue to hide what the law says it cannot."
--------
Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Cheney's Secret Energy Panel
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Cheney.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Constitution gives presidents and vice presidents power to gather advice and make decisions without being forced to reveal every detail of how those decisions are made, the Bush administration's top Supreme Court lawyer argued Tuesday.
``This is a case about the separation of powers,'' Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the justices at the start of lively arguments about privacy in White House policy-making.
The nearly three-year fight over access to records of Vice President Dick Cheney's work on a national energy strategy came to the high court after a federal judge ordered what Olson called a broad, unconstitutional release of White House documents.
The White House is framing the case as a major test of executive power, arguing that the forced disclosure of confidential records intrudes on a president's power to get truthful advice. Environmental and other interest groups claim the records will show whether the energy industry got special access or favors.
Justices were told that former Enron chairman Ken Lay and others were players, but until the government produces records, it won't be clear if they actually drafted the government's policies.
``The question is what happened at those meetings,'' said Alan Morrison, the attorney for the Sierra Club.
The legal issues in the case have been almost overshadowed by a political controversy involving Justice Antonin Scalia. He has refused to step down despite a controversy over a hunting trip he took with Cheney, an old friend, weeks after the high court agreed to hear Cheney's appeal.
Scalia took his seat behind the court's high bench as usual Tuesday, and almost immediately posed a hard question to the administration lawyer. Since the case concerns whether outsiders influenced the outcome of the task force's work, why not release voting records of the energy task force, Scalia asked.
Told that such a disclosure would raise privacy concerns, Scalia sounded skeptical.
``All I'm saying is, why would that be such an intrusion ... just to know whether anybody who voted on any of the recommendations was a nongovernment employee?'' he asked.
But later, Scalia fired question after question at Morrison, at one point telling him his arguments were implausible.
The high court is expected to rule by July. The case began in July 2001 when a government watchdog group sued over Cheney's private meetings. The case has never gone to trial, but a federal judge ordered the White House to begin turning over records two years ago.
The Bush administration has lost two rounds in federal court. If the Supreme Court makes it three, Cheney could have to reveal potentially embarrassing records just in time for the presidential election.
Most of the talk among spectators who began lining up the night before was about Scalia, not the case.
``The big deal is Scalia,'' said 23-year-old law student Peter Stockburger of Austin, Texas. ``It was dumb that he went on the hunting trip. It was stupid, but it wasn't illegal.''
Watchdog group Judicial Watch and the environmental group Sierra Club sued to get the task force papers. The Sierra Club accused the administration of shutting environmentalists out of the meetings while catering to energy industry executives and lobbyists.
Olson told the justices in court filings that no energy industry officials participated improperly in meetings.
The Supreme Court also is known for private meetings.
``The court utilizes the process of confidential deliberation just as the executive branch does. Memos are drafted, deliberations occur and drafts of opinions are circulated -- all behind closed doors,'' said Kris Kobach, a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. ``In both branches, deliberation is more candid, honest and valuable if it sometimes is sheltered from public scrutiny.''
Martin Shapiro, a Supreme Court expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said while the court engages in private consultation, ``the justices are used to themselves making decisions on the basis of what they hear from two sides publicly.''
The case requires the court to clarify a federal open-government law. Scalia had said he did not discuss the case with Cheney when they flew together on a government jet to Louisiana for the duck hunt at a camp owned by an oil rig services executive.
``If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined,'' Scalia wrote in rejecting the Sierra Club's request that he disqualify himself.
The case is Cheney v. U.S. District Court, 03-475.
On the Net:
Supreme Court: http:www.supremecourtus.gov
--------
Mr. Cheney's Day in Court
April 27, 2004
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/opinion/27TUE1.html
The Supreme Court hears arguments today on Vice President Dick Cheney's attempt to keep the public from knowing who met with him behind closed doors three years ago to draft the administration's energy policy. The case is best known for the controversy over Justice Antonin Scalia's decision to go duck hunting with Mr. Cheney while it was pending. But it raises important issues in its own right. The court should affirm the decisions of the lower courts and order Mr. Cheney to disclose the names of the participants. It should also be mindful of the role Justice Scalia plays. There is a real danger that his participation will damage the court's reputation.
In early 2001, Mr. Cheney convened an energy task force whose membership was secret. Environmental groups charge that he let energy companies and other big campaign donors participate in drafting energy policy and let them lobby for huge subsidies for themselves. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club sued, saying that because people who are not federal employees were de facto members of the task force, the Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that its records be made public. Mr. Cheney says the act does not apply because the task force's members were all federal employees.
To decide who is right, the trial court had to know something about who participated. It ordered limited disclosure, but Mr. Cheney argued that the order violated his executive privilege. The trial court said it was willing to take reasonable steps to guard the information, such as by reviewing it in private. But Mr. Cheney rejected these offers and is instead seeking a blanket order that he does not need to release the names.
Mr. Cheney is on weak legal ground, as both the trial court and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit have ruled. Many of the legal issues are arcane procedural questions about when pretrial discovery orders can be appealed. But the case also raises more substantive issues about the degree to which a vice president can claim to be above the law. As the Supreme Court held in a landmark case involving President Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes, executive privilege has its limits. Mr. Cheney may be entitled to ask that the disclosure requests be narrowed, but there is no basis for exempting him entirely.
When Justice Scalia's hunting trip became public, there were widespread calls for him to recuse himself. The Supreme Court said that the decision was Mr. Scalia's, and that he had chosen not to. That may resolve the question legally, but it remains troubling. If the court decides this case, which has implications for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, by 5 to 4, with Justice Scalia casting the deciding vote, it will bring back memories of Bush v. Gore. And it will further harm the reputation of a court whose authority has always derived from its claim to be a legal body, not a political one.
-------- homeland security
Staying One Step Ahead of Disaster
April 27, 2004
By MICHAEL LUO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/nyregion/27evacuate.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Inside a squat, light blue warehouse in Coney Island is a subway tunnel where disasters happen.
The other day, the tunnel and two trains inside began filling with smoke. The 50 or so people on board one of the trains calmly formed a line to file out the back.
"Watch your head," said a beefy man stationed by the door, as people descended one by one down a narrow stepladder to the roadbed.
When everyone had made it safely, the group turned around to do it again.
It was all a charade, of course. The subway tunnel is actually an elaborate mock-up, part of a training center that opened in 1997. The smoke comes from a machine usually found on movie sets. Here, train operators, conductors, station agents and other employees of the nation's busiest mass transit system, the New York City subway, practice for the worst.
Although the need to evacuate subway trains because of fires or other problems has always been a part of travel underground, the training that goes on here has taken on newfound importance in a jittery world of orange alerts and terrorist threats.
"There is a higher sense of, 'Boy, I could be in this,' " said Rocco Cortese, assistant vice president of training for New York City Transit. "Everybody's starting to realize that."
Partly because of terrorism concerns, transit officials are planning to offer the daylong fire safety and evacuation training sessions to more workers and make those who have already gone through it do so more often.
Train operators, conductors and station agents all get the training when they start their jobs, but only train operators are required to go through refresher courses every three years. Beginning May 1, officials will make conductors do the same. They are also considering training car cleaners, track workers and employees in other departments, in case they need to help in an evacuation.
The measures are long overdue, according to leaders of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, who have been pushing for more training.
"There can never be too much training, obviously, in today's world, especially after what happened in Madrid, what happened in Tokyo, the attacks on our city," said Jimmy Willis, a conductor and union official. Mr. Willis, who said that he has been through the evacuation training once in his 16 years on the job, supports putting employees through it at least once a year.
Transit officials point out that they have been steadily expanding training of all kinds, especially in recent years. Decades ago, safety training was mostly informal, passed on from one worker to another. During the 1980's, with the emergence of stricter standards from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, training became more formalized and centralized in a single department. Evacuation training, however, was done out in a train yard, on an old subway car.
The opening of the training center represented a huge step forward, allowing the transit agency to build in a realism it did not have before. After Sept. 11, 2001, agency officials revamped an introductory class for new employees to teach awareness of nuclear, biological and chemical threats. And last year, officials also added a 40-hour hazardous materials training course, again for designated workers.
The agency is trying to be methodical by making sure it has the resources to sustain new programs so the additional training will be effective, said Art Basley, senior director of safety training.
"You don't want to start doing something you can't see through," he said.
In the evacuation training, the students start out in the classroom, with an instructor going over procedures from a manual. Much time is spent on keeping passengers calm. The manual reads: "Good, clear communication to all involved is essential in controlling panic." Also: "Keeping customers informed of the problem, using a clear, authoritative voice and timely announcements will help keep panic to a minimum."
"You're really going to need to put on your acting faces," said Jim Leckie, an instructor, to his students. "They're going to be looking for an authoritative face."
Later, the students move inside the warehouse, where a pair of old trains sit side by side. Mr. Leckie starts out by demonstrating how to contact the subway system's control center from the emergency alarm boxes that are mounted under blue lights along the tracks. A worker has to pull a lever, which triggers a ticker-tape printout in the control center that identifies the location of the box. Then, he or she has to pick up the phone immediately and tell the desk superintendent to shut off the power to the electrified third rail.
If the phone is missing or does not work, Mr. Leckie tells his class to take the lever and "pull it a second time, pull it a third time." That way, the control center will know it is not someone in the tunnel pulling a prank.
Even after the power is cut, however, workers should always still assume the rail is "hot," Mr. Leckie said, and try to keep riders away from it. Mr. Leckie moves quickly on to discussing the evacuation of passengers from the train to the roadbed. But this, he said, should be done only as a last resort.
Again, he warned his students about panic.
"Panic inside the car is one thing," he said. "Panic on the roadbed is another."
Next, the students practice a train-to-train evacuation. This is normally the first choice in an emergency so that riders would not have to plunge into the tunnel. Whenever possible, a rescue train would be sent into the tunnel and line itself up alongside the train that needs to be evacuated.
Mr. Leckie positions two students at the entrance of one car and two students across the narrow gap in the other car and has them link arms to form what he calls a "human banister." A yellow emergency device with a stepladder on one side and a ramp on the other bridges the gap between the trains.
Once again, the students line up to file out of the train. By now, however, the smoke is thick, limiting visibility to less than 15 feet. Suddenly, the lights go out. Several students turn on flashlights.
"I'm afraid of the dark," one man jokes.
At this point, Mr. Leckie pauses to talk to his students about what to do if, for instance, a person in a wheelchair is on the train, since a wheelchair cannot fit onto the emergency ramp.
"Our main concern is to evacuate as many people as possible, as quickly and safely as possible," he said, telling his students to move the handicapped person off to the side and provide assurances that "help is on the way." The rider would probably have to wait for firefighters to arrive.
In the darkness, Mr. Leckie walks his students through the last drill of the day, what is known in transit parlance as "train-to-benchwall," meaning from the train to the narrow walkway that runs along the side of subway tunnels.
He tells the transit workers to take their right hand and place it on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Leave the other hand available, he said, to grab hold of the railing. The hands on the shoulders, he said, would help keep panic to a minimum. Like a conga line, the group shuffles out of the train on cue.
"Are they sending help?" someone asks.
The group shuffles through the smoke down the catwalk, out a door and up some steep steps to fresh air.
Just like that, the exercise is over. It took less than an hour.
Afterward, Ralph Boozer, 45, with 21 years on the job, said that he would be ready if something happened. Two decades ago, he had to evacuate 2,000 people on a packed train when a train in front of his caught fire. Also, during the blackout last summer, he had to evacuate his train because it was caught inside a tunnel.
But Glen Burnett, 52, another veteran train operator, worried about overexcited passengers inciting panic. All it takes is one, he said, and pandemonium follows.
On a train, the only people who are trained to handle most emergencies are the conductor and the train operator, he said. "It's two against 2,000."
It is that kind of hysteria that cannot be replicated in any drill, said O'Neal Barno, 40, another train operator. He is not sure if the short class has prepared him.
"Hopefully, it does," he said. "But to be honest with you, I don't think so."
The consensus among many transit workers, he said, is that a terrorist attack against the subway system is inevitable. As a result, the classes have changed markedly over the years.
"People are paying a little more attention now," he said, "just in case."
--------
Interest Growing in 'Security' Blimps
April 27, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Eyes-in-the-Sky.html
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) -- The horizon someday may be lined with giant floating orbs guarding people below from the enemy.
While it might sound quite sci-fi, a plant near the Army's Fort Benning plans to start producing unmanned spherical airships that resemble giant golf balls. They could be used to protect areas from terrorists and missile attacks, watch weather developments and perhaps even provide wireless telephone service to developing nations.
Interest in airships has grown in recent years, with nearly 20 companies developing them in the United States and Europe. Their advocates argue they are cheaper than satellites and manned reconnaissance aircraft and would fill a gap between the two.
``I've had requests from all over the globe for this technology. If I had 100 airships today, they'd all be sold,'' said Mike Lawson, president of Techsphere Systems International, which will build its spherical airships, ranging up to 300-feet in diameter, in Georgia.
Today's most visible blimps have company logos plastered on their sides and hover over major sporting events. They trace their heritage to the Navy blimps that provided surveillance for allied convoys crossing the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.
Now researchers are updating lighter-than-air technology for the 21st century with new power systems and fabrics to help them survive the stratosphere's extreme temperatures and intense solar radiation.
Floating about 13 miles above the earth and holding a stationary orbit for 12 to 18 months, they would provide more constant scrutiny than existing unmanned reconnaissance planes such as the medium-altitude Predator and the high-altitude Global Hawk that have to move around.
And unlike satellites, airships could return to earth for equipment upgrades.
Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors already has a $40 million government contract to develop a high-altitude prototype in Akron, Ohio, home of the Goodyear blimps.
The giant aerospace firm, which has built more than 300 airships and thousands of tethered balloons known as aerostats since 1928, is sticking with the traditional blimp shape. But its 500-foot-long by 150-foot-wide prototype will be about 25 times larger than the Goodyear blimps.
Researchers at New Mexico State University's Physical Science Laboratory, which has more than 45 years of experience designing balloons for NASA and other government agencies, have proposed a futuristic wing-shaped balloon that would use wind currents to keep it in position without propulsion. It would operate at altitudes of about 100,000 feet and remain in position for three months at a time.
All the proposed airships would be unmanned and controlled from the ground or from satellites.
G. Guy Thomas, a science and technology adviser for the U.S. Coast Guard, said the lighter-than-air craft could carry equipment that would allow homeland security officials to detect approaching ships 500 to 1,000 miles from the coast.
``I know of five different programs out there looking at airships,'' he said. ``I think we're going to see some in the not-so-distant future. We're going to try to team with some people to buy one.''
John Robinson, managing editor of the Washington-based Defense Daily, said airships could provide additional intelligence for troops in Iraq who are being attacked almost daily by snipers and roadside bombs.
``I see this as a tremendous growth area because it's relatively cheap and it doesn't require a lot of people to operate,'' he said. ``There's tremendous potential for the types of sensors you can put on.''
A satellite costs the government about $150 million. Airship developers say their craft would cost considerably less.
Techsphere plans to build its spherical airships up to 30 stories high in Columbus, a Georgia city of about 186,000 along the Alabama border.
The company is using a design perfected over the past 21 years by airship developer Hokan Colting of Canada, who set a world airship altitude record of 21,000 feet last year in a 62-foot version. His design is maneuvered by propellers mounted around the sides.
Techsphere soon will establish a plant near Fort Benning, home of the Army's Soldier Battle Lab, and plans to build another plant to accommodate its largest airships. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers will develop a propulsion system, possibly using solar panels and fuel cells, to power the propellers during missions of a year or more at 65,000 feet.
``Our high-altitude airship program is well on its way,'' said Lawson, who hopes to deliver his first ship next year.
Airships date back to 1783, when a French chemist flew the first manned hydrogen-filled balloon over Paris. Lockheed Martin began building helium-filled blimps for the Navy in 1928. The Germans offered trans-Atlantic flights on its luxurious hydrogen-filled Zeppelins until 35 people died in 1937 as the majestic Hindenburg erupted in flames while docking at Lakehurst, N.J.
Interest in airships has continued, despite the Hindenburg disaster, said Tom Crouch, a senior curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum.
``There's always been a desire to bring them back, to find an economic niche,'' he said.
On the Net:
Techsphere Systems International: http://www.techspheresystems.com/
New Mexico State University: http://www.nmsu.edu/
Lockheed Martin: www.lockheedmartin.com
-------- investigations
Congressional Oversight of Intelligence Criticized
Committee Members, Others Cite Lack of Attention to Reports on Iraqi Arms, Al Qaeda Threat
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44837-2004Apr26?language=printer
In the fall of 2002, as Congress debated waging war in Iraq, copies of a 92-page assessment of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction sat in two vaults on Capitol Hill, each protected by armed security guards and available to any member who showed up in person, without staff.
But only a few ever did. No more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page National Intelligence Estimate executive summary, according to several congressional aides responsible for safeguarding the classified material.
The lack of congressional attention to the nitty-gritty details of Iraq's weapons programs is symptomatic of Congress's approach to a range of intelligence matters, according to current and former intelligence committee members and a broad swath of intelligence experts.
Responsibility for congressional oversight is vested in the House and Senate select committees on intelligence, which get daily classified reports from the intelligence agencies and annually review and approve the intelligence budget. But as described by former members and outside experts, the committees' performance in oversight and investigations has deteriorated.
"The oversight is still by and large feckless and episodic," said Loch Johnson, a University of Georgia professor who has written extensively on the subject. "September 11 was an intelligence failure, but it's also a policy failure, not only in the White House but in Congress. There's really a heavy onus on these intelligence committees to probe what's going on."
The committees' role in oversight and investigations "has almost gone away," said former representative Timothy J. Roemer (D-Ind.), a committee member for three years and now a member of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "You're so busy with the budget and keeping up with daily events."
Iraq is not the only major issue on which experts say the intelligence committees fumbled: The CIA, the FBI and the Bush administration have come under sharp criticism recently for not detecting and disrupting al Qaeda's plot against the United States. But for the past 10 years, the intelligence agencies shared considerable classified information about the growing capabilities of al Qaeda, and committee members did little to ring an alarm.
The chairmen and vice chairmen of the committees, for example, had seen and discussed five major "memorandums of notification" describing presidentially directed covert actions against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, according to recent testimony by CIA Director George J. Tenet. Tenet also listed bin Laden as one of the top three threats facing the United States each year since he became the director in 1997, and in classified session the agency described the threat in detail.
Had they demanded to know, the committees would have discovered that before Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI had no real idea of al Qaeda's strength within the United States, according to Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and the joint House-Senate report on the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The committee could have and should have given more attention to the emerging threat [of terrorism] and assessed how well our intelligence community was making the transition from the Cold War into the new era," said Graham, who was chairman of the Senate intelligence committee when the attacks occurred.
Committee members acknowledge in hindsight that they presided over damaging cuts in the CIA's operational budget over the past decade. They knew the details: that the intelligence community's budget had been cut every year between 1990 and 1996, and that it remained flat from 1996 to 2000. They knew the agency had been forced to cut 25 percent of its personnel and closed some stations overseas.
As Tenet told the Sept. 11 panel on April 14, "The infrastructure to recruit, train and sustain officers for our clandestine services -- the nation's human intelligence capability -- was in disarray." And, he added, "we were not hiring new analysts, emphasizing the importance of expertise or giving analysts the tools they needed."
There are other examples of Congress's lack of interest in the details of intelligence:
• Although many have criticized the president for appearing inattentive to reports on al Qaeda before Sept. 11, the Senate intelligence committee, which is given classified daily reports on terrorism and other intelligence, held only one closed-door hearing devoted to al Qaeda and bin Laden in the months before the attacks, according to congressional and administration officials. Some staff members recalled holding a second meeting; others did not.
• Forty-six senators -- none of them members of the intelligence committee -- demanded that the CIA declassify a section of the House-Senate Sept. 11 report that dealt with Saudi Arabia, saying it was crucial to the public's understanding of the terror plot. But most of the 46 senators, including the campaign's leader, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), never read the 28 pages they insisted be released. "I intentionally didn't read it because this administration plays hardball on things like this," said Schumer, who said he talked to senators who had read the 28 pages and told him it contained no real secrets. "Had I read the report and been critical, they would have accused me of leaking it the way they've done with other senators."
• The House intelligence committee believed the voluminous House-Senate report was so important that it temporarily changed its rules to allow all members of the House to read the classified report. "There weren't a lot of takers on the 9/11 report," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the committee's vice chairman. Partly, she said, this was because members' personal staffs were not given access, leaving the hard work to members themselves. "Some didn't want to do the homework," she said.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said some members with packed daily schedules are deterred simply by the prospect of trekking across Capitol grounds to the secure Hart Senate Office Building room where the Senate's classified material is kept.
"Everyone in the world wants to come to see you" in your office, he said, and having to go to the secure room is "not easy to do." Members can't take notes, there is no staff to synthesize the material, and "it's extremely dense reading," he said. "It's the Brahms of music."
The congressional intelligence panels are unusual among Capitol Hill committees. Members do not have committee staffers assigned to them, for example, so greater responsibility for oversight resides with the members, and with the committees' overworked professional staffs.
House and Senate traditions and rules also mean the panels work without the typical scrutiny by the public or interest groups. Both committees rarely hold public hearings. The business they conduct behind closed doors, even when it is not classified, cannot be discussed publicly without committee approval. Staff members have been fired for sharing information about unclassified matters with staff members of other committees.
Also, rules established after the 1975 hearings chaired by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) that exposed CIA abuses overseas give unusual powers to the committees' chairmen and vice chairmen. They alone are briefed on the most sensitive covert actions, for example. To prevent members from being co-opted by the intelligence community, the commission also set eight-year term limits.
But the term limits, members and outside experts say, have significantly hobbled members' ability to develop a firm understanding of the secret world they enter, one in which even the basic acronyms are unfamiliar.
"The learning curve on this committee is the toughest of any committee I've served on," said Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), a committee member who favors lifting the term limits. "It's really technical, really tough."
Making the learning curve even steeper, DeWine said, is a culture of passive resistance within intelligence agencies. "They answer your questions, but you have to ask the right questions. What counts on the committee is experience and institutional memory," he said.
But experience levels on intelligence committees pale in comparison to the panels' closest counterparts, the armed services committees. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the former Navy secretary who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been the committee's chairman or ranking member a total of nine years and has served on the committee for 26 years. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who spent most of his career on Capitol Hill, has chaired the intelligence panel for one year and is in his eighth and last year on the committee.
Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), a lawyer and vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has spent 25 years on that panel, the last seven as chairman or vice chairman. By contrast, Rockefeller, a former college president and Peace Corps volunteer, joined the intelligence committee 31/2 years ago and became its vice chairman 15 months ago.
"The way the intelligence business has expanded, given what we are confronted with, I'm sorry to say, but the days of a handful of people" overseeing intelligence "are gone," said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House intelligence committee and a former CIA case officer.
Goss and most other members of both committees say the term limits should be abolished, at least for some members. DeWine and others say the committees need major reworking.
"There is a general consensus among most of us," DeWine said, that "we need to restructure the intelligence committee. There's a realization of how difficult it is to really understand what's going on in the intelligence community."
Restructuring will not ease the partisanship that has recently dominated both committees as they try to wrap up nine-month reviews of the intelligence community's faulty prewar assessment that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
When Democratic senators demanded that the committee also scrutinize how the Bush administration publicly portrayed intelligence, the committee came up with a compromise: a second report devoted to that topic, to be published before the end of the year. At the moment, however, finishing the first report has been bogged down by party-line squabbling over how far to go in criticizing the CIA.
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats on the House committee have gone their separate ways entirely, with the minority and majority each working on its own report.
Roberts, chairman of the Senate committee, said the partisan finger-pointing diverts attention from solving the systemic problems facing the intelligence community.
"We're in danger now of seeing the politicization of the whole intelligence issue," Roberts said. "What really worries me is this 'gotcha' business."
--------
Democrats Question Use Of 9/11 Emergency Fund
Lawmakers Seek 'Full Accounting' of $40 Billion
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44646-2004Apr26.html
The ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees charged yesterday that the Bush administration had not complied with reporting requirements set by Congress for the use of a $40 billion emergency fund approved three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In a letter to President Bush, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.) and Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.) outlined "numerous concerns about the administration's stewardship of these funds" and requested a "full accounting" of the entire $40 billion.
The $40 billion Emergency Response Fund was approved Sept. 14, 2001, to assist victims of the attacks, counter new attacks at home and abroad, and strengthen national security. Bush was given broad flexibility over the use of $20 billion of the total.
But according to the letter sent to the president yesterday:
• The law required the White House budget office to send Congress quarterly reports on the use of the money, but the last report was sent May 9, 2003, covering expenditures through February 2003.
• The law required the administration to consult Congress about the use of the funds, but Byrd and Obey said they have no record the Pentagon consulted Congress on the use of $178 million that funded 21 Pentagon projects in the Persian Gulf region to "support the global war on terrorism."
• On Sept. 30, 2003, the administration notified Congress it was allocating $290 million from the emergency fund to support the government in Afghanistan. But the May 9 report indicated only $21 million remained in the emergency fund.
"While we had no objection to the support for the government of Afghanistan, your report begs the question: From whence came the money?" the letter stated.
Yesterday, James W. Dyer, GOP chief of staff of the House Appropriations Committee, said the panel is "looking into" administration compliance with reporting requirements tied to a series of supplemental appropriations for the war on terrorism.
"We've nagged and ragged them [in the administration], but frankly we haven't gotten full satisfaction," he said.
The White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement yesterday: "The president asked for and Congress provided unprecedented flexibility for funds to wage the war on terrorism. Since then, the administration has kept Congress fully informed about obligations from the Emergency Response Fund."
The burst of congressional interest in the administration's use of tens of billions of dollars of emergency spending authority follows publication of the book "Plan of Attack" by Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward.
The book suggests that the administration began planning to build up facilities near Iraq well before Congress approved an Iraq war resolution in October 2003 and that it was planning to tap into emergency appropriations.
"The big-muscle movement was for airfields and fuel infrastructure in Kuwait where a massive covert public works program had been launched," Woodward writes. A key objective was to move enough fuel to the Iraqi border "to move and support a giant invasion."
In an interview with Woodward, Bush praised Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of the U.S. Central Command, for their foresight in expanding the infrastructure.
"He acknowledged with a terse 'Right. Yup.' that the Afghanistan war and the war on terrorism provided the excuse, that it was done covertly, and that it was expensive," Woodward wrote of his interview with the president. Bush cautioned him, however, that the pre-positioning should not be viewed as a commitment at that time to go to war.
A new Pentagon briefing paper states that in August and September 2002, $178 million was made available to the Central Command to support communications equipment, fuel supplies and improvements in forward headquarters.
The money went to such things as headquarters, oil pipelines and staging areas, according to documents provided to Congress by the Pentagon. The briefing paper stressed that "no funding was made available with Iraq as the exclusive purpose."
Obey and Byrd wrote, however, that they had no record of Congress being consulted about the expenditure "nor is there sufficient detail in the Department of Defense quarterly reports to indicate whether funds were used to prepare for the war in Iraq."
-------- justice
Prosecutor Named to Probe Senate Files Case
By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44725-2004Apr26.html
The Justice Department tapped a U.S. attorney from New York yesterday to investigate whether laws were violated when two Senate Republican aides accessed Democratic computer files on strategy for blocking President Bush's judicial nominations.
The probe will be conducted by David Kelley, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York -- a choice that appeared to satisfy Democrats, who had pushed for a tough prosecutor who would conduct an aggressive probe free of influence from Washington.
In a letter to Judiciary Committee leaders, Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella called Kelley an "experienced prosecutor of the highest integrity and independence" and added, "We are confident the investigation will be handled in a thorough, fair, impartial and professional manner."
Kelley took his current position after his predecessor, James B. Comey Jr., left to become deputy U.S. attorney general. Senate Democratic staffers said Kelley is a Democrat.
The department's action came in response to a three-month investigation by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William H. Pickle, who found early last month that the two GOP staffers systematically downloaded and leaked thousands of Democratic files dealing with judicial nominations.
Pickle's report identified the two staffers as Jason Lundell, a nominations clerk, and Manuel Miranda, a more senior staff member who later served as the top aide to Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on judicial nominations. Both left their jobs during the investigation. Miranda has denied any illegal actions.
Pickle forwarded his records to the Justice Department without recommendation after the Judiciary Committee split over how a further investigation should proceed. While the committee was unable to reach a formal agreement, its nine Democrats -- joined by three Republicans -- signed letters urging appointment of a professional prosecutor with full investigative authority.
In response to Moschella's letter, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a statement saying: "This is a serious matter that deserves and requires careful investigation. The Senate sergeant-at-arms made a good start with his investigation and report. With the powers available to a federal prosecutor, this matter can now be more thoroughly investigated, so that those who engaged in criminal conduct may be brought to justice."
Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra declined to comment.
The department recently assigned two other recent high-profile cases to special prosecutors outside the normal lines of jurisdiction.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago is running the grand-jury probe of the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. In Detroit, a federal prosecutor is investigating the handling of the case against members of an alleged al Qaeda terrorist cell.
Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
--------
Justice Dept. Opens Inquiry on Memo Theft
April 27, 2004
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/politics/27PROB.html?hp
WASHINGTON, April 26 - The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into accusations that Republican Congressional aides stole sensitive Democratic memorandums, and the department has tapped David N. Kelley, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, to lead the politically charged case, officials said Monday.
The decision to bring in Mr. Kelley, rather than have prosecutors in Washington pursue the case, came after lawmakers from both parties urged the Justice Department to appoint an independent prosecutor to avoid the appearance of a conflict.
The department said in a letter dated Monday that it was confident that Mr. Kelley would conduct the investigation "in a thorough, fair, impartial and professional manner." Several leading Democrats applauded his appointment, with Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York saying it was "a very good first step."
The opening of the criminal inquiry increases the significance of the case, which has provoked open hostilities between Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in their continuing battle over President Bush's judicial nominations.
In March, the Senate sergeant-at-arms concluded in a 65-page report that two Republican staff aides had engaged in widespread, unauthorized and possibly illegal spying by reading Democratic strategy memorandums on a Senate computer system.
Over at least 18 months, the aides improperly read, downloaded and printed 4,670 files concerning Democratic tactics in opposing many of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees, the report said, and some of the material was leaked to conservative groups supporting the nominees and news media outlets.
The sergeant-at-arms suggested that the unauthorized spying could have violated laws against the receipt of stolen property and lying to investigators, among others. The report also suggested that many other Republican aides might have been involved in trafficking in the stolen documents, and Democrats have questioned whether officials at the Justice Department and the White House were also privy to the material in working to support Mr. Bush's nominees and derail Democratic opposition.
The two aides implicated in the affair have both left the Senate. One, Manuel C. Miranda, who had worked for both the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has defended his conduct in numerous interviews, saying he was able to access the computer memorandums because of Democratic negligence in securing them, not because of any theft or criminal wrongdoing.
Some conservative groups have said that the memorandums reveal ethical improprieties by the Democrats in colluding with liberal groups to block Mr. Bush's nominations. But there is no indication that this will be an element of the criminal inquiry by Mr. Kelley, officials said.
Mr. Hatch, who said in March that he was "mortified" by the ethical breach, said through a spokesman on Monday that he "has every faith" that the Justice Department and Mr. Kelley's office "will do the right thing here."
Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the judiciary panel, also welcomed the Justice Department's decision, saying, "With the powers available to a federal prosecutor, this matter can now be more thoroughly investigated, so that those who engaged in criminal conduct may be brought to justice."
Senator Schumer said that while Mr. Kelley, a Democrat, was an independent and capable prosecutor "without conflicts," Attorney General John Ashcroft should still remove himself from oversight of the case to avoid any potential conflicts.
A Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity said, "Ashcroft has a potential conflict on many levels because he has a personal relationship with many of the Republican senators and he has direct control over Justice Department employees who may become involved in the investigation."
Mr. Kelley's office declined to comment. While the letter sent Monday by the Justice Department said that Mr. Kelley had been assigned to the case, it left open whether he would have the type of broad autonomy given to the prosecutor in another politically sensitive case involving the leak of a C.I.A. officer's identity.
In that case, Mr. Ashcroft recused himself after months of complaints from Democrats, and his deputy gave the United States attorney in Chicago, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, authority to conduct an independent investigation.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Nearly half of extinct species were in Hawaii
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Ron Station,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-27/s_23200.asp
HONOLULU, Hawaii - Nearly half of the 114 species that have become extinct in the first 20 years of the federal Endangered Species Act were in Hawaii, according to a new report by an advocacy group.
The report by the Center for Biological Diversity says the federal government's failure to protect species "has been spectacular" and accuses the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of knowingly delaying listings "to avoid political controversy even when it knew the likely result would be the extinction of the species."
A statement from the Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency "denies the inflammatory claim" and challenged the accuracy of the report. It said recovery of species is a very long process and noted that at the time the act was passed in 1973 that some species were in such bad shape the agency couldn't recover them.
The agency said funding has been limited because of litigation over critical habitat and noted that fish and wildlife habitat has been declining for decades because of urbanization.
The report released Wednesday said "the number (of extinct species) is shocking and indicates a grave failure in federal management of the nation's most powerful environmental law." A co-author of the report said that with so many unique species, Hawaii faces the worst problem in the country.
Species lost from the islands include the large Kauai thrush, which once was the most common bird on the island; the Molokai thrush, which was endemic to Molokai, and 11 species of Oahu tree snails.
Only 19 percent of the extinctions involved species on the endangered list, showing that the 1973 law is working ? at least for species that make the list, said Kieran Suckling, the center's executive director and a co-author of the report.
"But species known to be endangered were stuck in bureaucratic delay and went extinct before they had a chance to be listed," Suckling said. "That should never have happened."
Nearly all the species could have been saved if the Endangered Species Act had been properly managed, fully funded and "shielded from political pressure," he said. "Instead they were sacrificed to bureaucratic inertia, political meddling, and lack of leadership."
The report lays much of the blame on the Fish and Wildlife Service.
"Listing delays and extinctions have plagued the Fish and Wildlife Service for 30 years, but the Bush administration has pushed the crisis to an unprecedented level," said Brian Nowicki, another co-author of the report.
The Bush administration has placed an average of only nine species on the list per year, while the Clinton administration averaged 65 listing per year, Nowicki said.
The statement from the Fish and Wildlife Service said part of the problem the agency faces in its listing backlog when a complete moratorium on listing took in effect.
"The funding for the Endangered Species listing program in which species are listed as threatened or endangered has shrunk to only a little more than $3 million per year.
"This is because litigation over critical habitat designations has forced almost all the service's funding to be directed toward critical habitat at the expense of listing."
Hawaii is unique not only because it has 52 species on the list, but because state law requires that every species placed on the list is automatically added to a state list, said Michael Buck, administrator of the Forestry and Wildlife division of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which works in partnership with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
He acknowledged, however, that "just getting something on the list does not save endangered species." The No. 1 issue for Hawaii, Buck said, is "coming up with resources and public support."
California was the next highest state in the report with 11 extinctions. Guam had eight, while Alabama and Texas each had seven.
Fifteen of Hawaii's extinct species were terrestrial snails, 13 each were flowering plants and insects, eight were birds and three were moths. Birds accounted for all but two of the extinctions on the U.S. territory of Guam, where the bird population already had been devastated by the brown tree snake and other predators.
The four-angled pelea, a flowering plant endemic to Kauai, is an example of a species being lost by inaction, Suckling said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service became aware it was endangered in 1975 when the Smithsonian petitioned to have it listed, he said. The following year, the agency said it would propose adding it to the list, but when nothing happened, the Smithsonian re-petitioned in 1978, he said.
In 1980, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed the plant was endangered but put it on the candidate list, Suckling said. In 1994, the agency listed it as endangered, but it had become extinct in 1991, he said.
"The extinction crisis in Hawaii is worse than anywhere else," Suckling said. "We believe the Fish and Wildlife Service should have no higher job than preventing species from going extinct."
Buck said extinctions have been occurring since Western sailors first visited the islands in 1778.
The extinction rate probably has increased in the past 10 years, Suckling said. "There is no reason to believe it went down," he said.
--------
African heads of state meet at Niger River basin conference
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Christine Olliver,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-27/s_23198.asp
PARIS, France - African leaders gathered in Paris on Monday for a conference on the receding waters of the Niger River, the continent's third-longest river and a lifeline that sustains 100 million people.
Representatives of nine African countries are trying to come up with an action plan to encourage better management of the water, prevent its levels from dropping further.
"The basin is today threatened with becoming a place of desolation and misery," said Niger President Mamadou Tandja, who is head of the Niger Basin Authority.
The authority has been trying to define for two years "a shared vision for the durable development of the Niger River," he said.
Some 4,200 kilometers (2,600 miles) in length, the Niger River is the third-longest in Africa after the Nile and the Congo and is the most important river in West Africa. Its vast basin is shared among nine countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
The population that the river system services is about 100 million people and is expected to double by the year 2020.
Toxic waste from hospitals and industrial sites, as well as garbage and human waste, are dumped in the river and its tributaries without treatment, polluting the water and spreading disease.
The opening of the conference Monday was attended by European Commission President Romano Prodi, World Bank president James Wolfensohn, as well as the following African heads of state: Benin President Mathieu Kerekou; Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore; Cameroon President Paul Biya; President Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali; Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Idriss Deby of Chad.
The river basin has been affected by drought, climate change and desertification since the 1970s, making navigation and fishing impossible during certain periods of the year. Between 1985-1990, the river essentially stopped flowing in Niamey, the capital of Niger.
"The access to water is still, for much of the population of the African sub-Sahara, a daily challenge," said President Jacques Chirac in opening remarks. "In the world, nearly a billion and a half people are deprived of drinking water and if nothing is done, their numbers will multiply by two in the next 20 years."
-------- health
UN uses atomic technology to fight malaria mosquito
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Louis Charbonneau,
Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-27/s_23203.asp
SEIBERSDORF, Austria - The United Nations is harnessing nuclear technology to try to eradicate the mosquitoes whose bite transmits malaria, a deadly disease devastating the African continent.
Sunday is Africa Malaria Day, when governments will focus attention on a disease which kills millions of Africans a year, most of them children, and costs the continent at least $12 billion in lost gross domestic product.
Bart Knols, a Dutch entomologist at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), estimates there are "three to five hundred million cases of malaria every year on a world-wide scale, 90 percent of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa."
"Sub-Saharan Africa also suffers the major burden... of mortality," he told Reuters during a tour of the IAEA's entomology laboratories.
One African child dies of malaria every 20 seconds. People in poor, remote villages are usually unable to get treatment and so Knols's research aims to nip the problem in the bud by destroying the mosquito that transmits the malaria parasite.
The IAEA is best known for its inspections of countries like Iran and Iraq who are suspected of building atomic weapons. But the agency has already used its expertise to wipe out the dreaded tsetse fly, which can transmit fatal sleeping sickness, from the island of Zanzibar.
Nuking Mosquitos
The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is a simple idea. Scientists breed insects and expose the males to enough radiation to render them sterile. The males are then released into the environment to breed with the females, whose eggs are unfertilized and never hatch.
"The whole idea or concept is that the population would actually start to crash and eventually may actually lead to eradication of the insect, and therefore eradication of the disease and less malaria," said Knols, who has personally suffered nine bouts of malaria through working with mosquitoes.
Alan Robinson, the entomologist in charge of the IAEA's entomology unit, said the $4 million project was still in its infancy. He described it as a "high-risk project" with many hurdles to overcome before it is ready for field trials.
Over the next five years, they need to reach a point where they can produce a million sterile male insects a day.
The males they breed must be robust enough to survive when released from planes into the environment and tough enough to compete with fertile males during mating. The females, the ones which bite humans, only mate once in their two-week lives.
Knols and Robinson point out that in the 1970s, El Salvador successfully used the SIT to eradicate the malaria mosquito from part of the country.
"They brought that insect into the lab, started producing it in large numbers, sterilized it and then released it in a small area... about 15 square kilometers, and successfully induced 100 percent sterility in the population," Knols said.
Afterwards, they started a much larger project in which they were producing a million male insects a day. But when civil war broke out the project ended.
"We think we can do a better job than they did in El Salvador," said Robinson.
He said the technique of sterilization could not be used all over Africa and would have to be combined with other population control techniques to eradicate the malaria pest.
"But there's no alternative to irradiation for the sterile insect technique. It's a very clean technique," he said, adding that there was no risk of contamination. "The insects are not radioactive when they're released."
--------
HHS Withholds Funds for Global Health Meeting
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44652-2004Apr26.html
After complaints from Republican congressional staff members and conservative groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition, Bush administration officials have decided to withhold money for an international health conference that opponents say promotes abortion.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Global Health Council over the past few years, backed off plans to contribute $170,000 for the June conference because it appeared the money could be used for lobbying, HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said.
Conservative activists, however, took credit last night for persuading the administration to abandon a conference the federal government has supported for 30 years.
"Obviously this conference does not reflect the administration policies," said Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition. Initial reports that the liberal MoveOn.org would participate demonstrated a "clearly political agenda" that was not "in sync" with the Republican administration, she added.
STOPP International, a subsidiary of the American Life League, and Focus on the Family also lobbied against giving federal money to the conference, Lafferty said.
House Republican aides Sheila Maloney and John Cusey distributed an e-mail alert addressed to "Pro-life Groups" saying it was "outrageous" that taxpayer money would underwrite the event. In particular, Maloney, legislative assistant at the Republican Study Committee, warned that the conference included speakers from the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the United Nations Population Fund, groups that she said "perform abortions or help the communist Chinese force them on women."
Conference organizers said the three-day meeting will include a diverse mix of experts speaking on such topics as reproductive health, infectious diseases and emerging threats such as SARS, nutrition and disaster assistance. The theme of the conference is "Youth and Health: Generation on the Edge." Louis W. Sullivan, HHS secretary in the first Bush administration, is a member of the board of the council.
"There's balance in this thing," said James M. Sherry, vice president of Global Health Council. "You can't deal with global health and not have some issues of controversy come up." MoveOn.org was asked to speak about using technology to organize grass-roots groups but could not attend, Sherry said.
As part of a five-year $1 million grant, the U.S. Agency for International Development has pledged about $150,000 for the conference. Sherry said the council has been told "to expect a letter" forthwith rescinding that portion of the grant. Spokesmen for USAID did not return several phone calls.
The Hill newspaper and a publication sponsored by Focus on the Family first reported some elements of the controversy.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Kidnapped Italians 'will be killed in five days' unless Italians protest
27 April 2004
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=515707
An Arab television channel yesterday broadcast a video of three Italian hostages captured in Iraq this month and said an accompanying letter contained a threat to kill them unless Italians protested against their government's policies in Iraq.
The men are seen in the video shown on Al-Arabiya eating from a large pot with their fingers. They are bearded and their faces look drawn. It was not clear when the video was made.
The men, who were working as private security guards, were kidnapped on 12 April as they took a taxi from Baghdad. A fourth Italian who was abducted with them was later executed.
Al-Arabiya said that with the tape it received a letter from an Iraqi armed group calling itself the "Green Brigade" in which it threatened to execute the hostages unless Italians staged "a huge demonstration". It urged them to "call on your government to withdraw its troops from our country and we give you five days ... [or] we will kill them without any hesitation".
The government of Silvio Berlusconi has been a strong ally of the US and some 3,000 of its troops have been deployed in Iraq. Before the war the Italian public turned out for huge marches opposing the invasion.
Initial comments from the centre-left opposition, which opposed the war, said Italy should hold firm against the kidnappers. Giovanna Melandri, a former left-wing minister, said: "What's important to stress in these hours is that no giving in to the kidnappers is possible."
--------
Freed Japanese hostages billed $21,000
3 released in Iraq returned home to storm of criticism
The Associated Press
April 27, 2004
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4843265/
TOKYO - Three Japanese who were held hostage for a week in Iraq were billed about $7,000 each to cover their plane tickets home and other miscellaneous expenses, an official said Monday.
The three returned last week amid a storm of criticism that they behaved recklessly in going to a country that Japan had repeatedly warned civilians to avoid.
The government said aid workers Noriaki Imai, 18, and Nahoko Takato, 34, and freelance photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32, were being billed in the same manner as other Japanese civilians who have been transported home after getting into trouble overseas.
A travel agency has sent the former hostages and their families invoices, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. The ministry believes the three should pay the agency directly, she added.
They were kidnapped by militants who threatened to burn them alive if Tokyo did not withdraw its troops from Iraq within three days. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi refused to comply, and the gunmen released the three unharmed a week later after an appeal by Islamic clerics.
Chilly welcome
They received a chilly welcome in Japan, however, amid accusations they imperiled Tokyo's humanitarian mission. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined them, said the pressures of coming home to Japan added to their stress of being in captivity.
Takato had worked with street children in Baghdad and was planning to go back when she and the two others were grabbed by militants. Imai had intended to do research to raise awareness about the health effects of depleted uranium munitions, while Koriyama planned to report on Iraq for a weekly news magazine.
The three, who have not spoken to the media since their return April 18, did not respond publicly to the news about their bill.
Sayo Saruta, a lawyer and a member of a support group acting as a media liaison for the victims and their families, said her group believes the three should pay whatever fees would normally be charged in such circumstances.
Their families have already paid for their medical checkups in Dubai and their accommodation there, the ministry official said. The government earlier said the three would be charged roughly $6,000 each.
Harumi Arima, a political analyst, said the public backlash against the victims stemmed from how their relatives tearfully - and at times angrily - demanded the government withdraw its troops from Iraq to save the lives of their loved ones.
"It's the families and the way they demanded a pullout," Arima said. "People thought, 'It was you who went to Iraq. Why are you asking the government to rescue you when you've been kidnapped? You were told not to go."'
Boost for Koizumi
Arima said TV images of some of the victims' siblings yelling at government officials to do more fueled the criticism.
The families toned down their requests as the crisis dragged on, later declining to repeat their early demand for an immediate troop withdrawal.
One of the government's sternest critics of the hostages, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, said Monday they had to be ready for the worst when they entered Iraq.
--------
Thousands of Israelis Rally Against Gaza Pullout
April 27, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Israelis rallied on Tuesday in the Gush Katif settlement bloc to protest against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to abandon Jewish enclaves in the Gaza Strip.
The surprisingly high turnout of upwards of 50,000 flag- waving Israelis for an Independence Day march stirred hopes among settlers of defeating a crucial May 2 referendum of Sharon's right-wing Likud party on his ``disengagement'' plan.
``There are many more people here than we ever expected... People from all over Israel have come here to say 'we are not disengaging, we are sticking by you','' settler Dror Vanunu, of the southern Gaza settlement Neveh Dekalim, told Reuters.
Israeli media and witnesses said more than 50,000 attended the rally and that thousands more were delayed by traffic jams that choked the narrow border roads and checkpoints into Gaza.
The number of protesters was well above the 7,500 Israelis who live in the 21 settlements in Gaza, a 140 square-mile seaside territory that is also home to 1.3 million Palestinians.
In an attempt to sway the hard-liners, Sharon stressed in a television interview that he would take tougher action against militants after a Gaza pullout, and that U.S.-Israeli ties could be harmed if his party fails to pass the plan.
Sharon's plan calls for uprooting all Jewish settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank, but polls show it is far from guaranteed to be approved by the traditionally pro-settler Likud party. A survey on Friday showed 49 percent of the party's 200,000 members in favor and 39.5 percent against.
Sharon, whose plan was endorsed by President Bush during a visit to the White House this month, could suffer a major blow should the proposal be voted down.
But a senior official dismissed a report on the Haaretz newspaper Web site that Sharon had threatened to resign if he lost the referendum. ``He's not going to resign, because he's not going to lose,'' the official told Reuters.
Sharon was still confident on Tuesday the plan would be carried out.
``I hope that during the next Independence Day we will be in the middle of the disengagement process,'' Sharon told a military ceremony.
Sharon said in recorded television interviews broadcast on Tuesday that a Gaza withdrawal was essential to improving Israeli security after three and a half years of fighting with Palestinians.
Israel's reactions to attacks by Palestinian militants would be ``much stronger'' after a Gaza withdrawal, Sharon said.
Palestinians see Sharon's plan as a ruse to annex large swathes of West Bank territory they want for a state.
In continuing confrontations in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinian militants in a confrontation in the town of Tulkarm and critically wounded a nine-year-old boy in the head, Palestinian medics said.
Israeli military sources said the men belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups responsible for a campaign of suicide bombings that has killed hundreds. Hamas said both militants belonged to its ranks.
Soldiers fired warning shots at a fishing boat off the northern Gaza coast after dark on Tuesday, to prevent it docking near a settlement, but no injury was caused, an Israeli military source said.
The latest deaths bring to at least 34 the number of Palestinians killed by Israel troops since the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi on April 17. Militants have killed one Israeli border policeman over the same period.
--------
Boisterous Protest Greets World Financial Leaders
Story by Laura MacInnis
REUTERS USA:
April 27, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24888/newsDate/27-Apr-2004/story.htm
WASHINGTON - Thousands of demonstrators banged pots and pans, blew whistles and beat drums on Saturday in a Latin American-style protest of World Bank and IMF policies in poor countries.
Some carried signs reading "people over profits" and "debt relief now" to underscore their message to international lenders holding their spring meetings.
The boisterous rally modeled after "cacerolazo" pot-banging protests common in South America led protesters to a park across the street from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund headquarters in downtown Washington.
"We need to have people in the street to show that we're paying attention to what the IMF and World Bank are doing," said protester Tito Bourdon, 23, of Virginia.
Mobilization for Global Justice, an umbrella group of activists behind Saturday's protest, estimated between 3,000 and 3,500 people participated in the demonstration, though reporters on the scene estimated the crowd at closer to 1,000.
Police reported three arrests. One protester was charged with destruction of property and another with assaulting a police officer, apparently using a slingshot device to shoot thumbtacks, said Metropolitan Police spokesman Kenny Bryson.
A third person was charged with a misdemeanor for carrying what appeared to be a fetus in a jar, Bryson said. The man was arrested near a Planned Parenthood office, and was not believed to be linked to the anti-IMF rally. There is an abortion rights demonstration planned for Sunday in Washington. Both pro-life and pro-choice signs were visible among the anti-IMF and World Bank crowd.
Susanna Reid, a 57-year-old doctor from Oregon, said she had traveled to Washington for Sunday's women's march but decided to join the anti-globalization rally in a sign of solidarity with the movement.
'ENSLAVED BY DEBT'
"On a personal level, I believe that most people in this country are enslaved by debt, and the same is happening in countries around the world," she said.
Many critics of the IMF and World Bank argue the lenders restrict the policy choices of countries who accept their loans. Mobilization for Global Justice calls for the outright cancellation of all poor country debt using the bank and fund's own resources. World Bank spokesman Damian Milverton said the street protests ought not overshadow the contributions of civil society groups and nongovernmental actors in this weekend's IMF and World Bank meetings.
An array of groups including Oxfam, ActionAid and Friends of the Earth are taking part in dialogue sessions on debt relief, water privatization and poverty reduction.
"While the small protests do go on this weekend, we are determined to keep to our agenda of focusing on the pace of poverty reduction in the world, and the need to accelerate it," Milverton said.
"We will be looking very closely in particular at what more can be done on education, on AIDS and on debt sustainability."
Metal barricades restricted access to several blocks of downtown Washington around the lenders' headquarters and meeting sites. Several hundred officers patrolled the streets.
Past anti-globalization protests in Washington and other cities have attracted tens of thousands of people, and led to clashes between police over threats to "shut down" financial leaders' meetings.
This year, however, police said they expected few such problems. Mobilization for Global Justice said it had no plans to disrupt the IMF and World Bank meetings. The March for Women's Lives on Sunday is also expected to be peaceful.
-------
Huge rally targets president's agenda
April 27, 2004
By James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040426-102801-2478r.htm
Hundreds of thousands of pro-choice and anti-Bush activists marched on the Mall Sunday, the largest demonstration against the agenda of a sitting president in decades.
But the question remains whether the spirit of the march represents the vanguard of a growing movement that will topple President Bush in November, or if it is merely a loud celebration of what will remain a sizable minority out of power for at least another four years.
Charles Black, an informal adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign, saw the rally as little else than a well-financed, well-organized gathering of hard-core Democrats.
"I can't imagine anyone came to that rally undecided," Mr. Black said. "Obviously, the pro-choice groups went to a lot of trouble and expense to put forward a huge crowd, including bringing in people from overseas. I compliment them on it.
"But, I doubt seriously if there is much new in terms of political meaning to it."
Although the focus of the march was abortion rights, many left-wing groups took the opportunity to express broader views. The organizers of the March for Women's Lives said more than 1,200 groups participated, ranging from the moderately liberal to hard left wing, and many unrelated to abortion rights.
Elaine Kamarck, a former staffer in the Clinton White House who teaches at the Kennedy School of Government, said the rally will be the tipping point to reverse Mr. Bush's narrow lead in national polls over Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
"People are really mobilized against him," Ms. Kamarck said. "There is the same kind of intensity against Bush that the Republicans had against Bill Clinton."
That intense partisan opposition to Mr. Clinton did not result in his defeat in 1996. But this time, Ms. Kamarck said, it will be different.
"President Clinton ran a good government. He had a wonderful, hot economy," she said. "Even people who hated Bill Clinton for personal reasons said, 'Gee, he's doing a good job.' That is what people want from their president, and on no account is this president doing a good job."
National polls and polls in many battleground states for the November election show Mr. Bush leading Mr. Kerry - despite increased violence in Iraq, public hearings on the September 11 attacks and a slate of books critical of the president.
A poll released yesterday by Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion shows Mr. Bush is favored by 47 percent of registered voters, with Mr. Kerry trailing with 44 percent.
Charles O. Jones, a senior fellow for governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said Sunday's rally was "probably the largest" march against a president's policies since Lyndon B. Johnson was directing the Vietnam War.
"Unquestionably, it was a Democratic rally," Mr. Jones said. "It suggests that both parties' conventions will be expressive to say the least."
What the march also showed, Mr. Jones said, is that the nation is not just evenly divided, but sides are passionately entrenched in their positions.
"It has come to be perfectly acceptable for public officials to not only oppose the president, but to use language which is quite extraordinary, to call him a liar, for example," Mr. Jones said. "That seems to me to be different and unusual."
But the passion of the left displayed on Sunday also can serve to fire up Mr. Bush's base of Republican voters.
"The president and his supporters now must be motivated to set the record straight," Mr. Jones said.
--------
Thousands demand end of monarchy in Nepal
Tuesday April 27, 2004
The News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2004-daily/27-04-2004/world/w7.htm
KATHMANDU: Thousands of protesters Monday urged the opposition to declare Nepal a republic as party leaders set conditions for talks with King Gyanendra to end nearly a month of demonstrations.
"Declare a republic! Put the king on trial!" some 6,000 demonstrators chanted in downtown Kathmandu, in some of the strongest language used in the daily protests urging a return to democratic rule.
Riot police took about 400 of the protesters away in waiting trucks, witnesses said.
In Birganj in southern Nepal, demonstrators Monday knocked down a statue at the main government office of King Mahendra, the current monarch's father and a champion of direct royal rule, residents said.
Political parties began the protests to demand an all-party government instead of the cabinet appointed by King Gyanendra, who dismissed the elected government in 2002 for "incompetence."
But women's activist Sujata Koirala said protesters were growing increasingly disgruntled with the monarchy as an institution.
"If the king delays correcting his mistakes, things may get out of hand and party leaders won't be able to stop the country from adopting a republic," said Koirala, the daughter of five-time prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, a protest leader.
The king has held talks in the past week with political leaders including Sher Bahadur Deuba, the elected premier he ousted in 2002, but Koirala and other original organisers of the palace have refused to go to the palace.
The pro-royal government on April 8 banned demonstrations in Kathmandu saying they could be infiltrated by Maoist rebels active in the countryside who staunchly oppose monarchy.
The government began relaxing the ban on Friday but demonstrations are still outlawed near the palace and in other sensitive areas.
Officials say about 40 demonstrators remain in custody, with most people released within hours of protests.
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.