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NUCLEAR
Licensing for Advanced Nuclear Power Plants to Be Tested
The Nuke Next Door
World Bank pledges to nearly double aid to reduce danger
Pentagon: Uranium Didn't Harm N.Y. Unit
Depleted Uranium deaths could surpass worst-case predictions
ABC's of DU
North Koreans Agree To Mid-Level Talks
Kim Jong-il agrees to attend next nuclear talks
N. Korea Nuke Talks to Convene in China
U.S. to Bolster S. Korea Missile Defenses
Advice raises North Korea nuclear spectre
US to deploy new air defense missiles in South Korea this year
Russia set to join antiproliferation group
More radioactive material at lab raising fears
Nuclear lab denies security concerns
WIPP oversight agency shuts doors
NRC rejects request to halt VY fuel movement
MISSING FUEL REPORT WAS NEVER FILED
MILITARY
Not-guilty plea in case of missile parts trade
Thailand Sends Troops to Counter New Attacks
France Struggles to Curb Extremist Muslim Clerics
Germany puts its first Eurofighters into service
U.S. Weighs Falluja Pullback, Leaving Patrols to Iraq Troops
Marines Plan Handoff To Militia in Fallujah
Deal Is Reached to Cede Control of City to Iraqi Troops
Ex - Weapons Inspector: Too Few Iraq Troops
AP Toll Says 1,361 Iraqis Killed in April
Sharon's Gaza Pullout Plan May Face His Party's Rebuff
Sharon's Party May Reject Plan
Public Must Defend Itself in War on Terror, Expert Says
Israeli Military Says It Regrets Killing of a Palestinian Lecturer
Letter to President Bush from Former U.S. Diplomats
Some on Hill Seek to Punish Syria for Broken Promises on Iraq
US lauds Pakistan Cooperation In War Against Terror
Arabs inflamed by Iraq photos
Allegations of Abuse Lead To Shakeup at Iraqi Prison
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
'Appalling' UK Soldiers Torture Iraqi Detainee
KGB Resurrection
Intelligence
U.S. Weighs U.N. Proposal for an Interim Iraqi Leader
U.N. Struggles to Find Troops to Police Haiti
A Full Range of Technology Is Applied to Bomb Falluja
Pentagon to Try to Fix War Zone Voting Woes
U.S. Deaths in Iraq Up Sharply in April
Pentagon reports 128 troops killed in Iraq
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Scientist Details Oklahoma City Bomb Residue
Quashed Testimony
Chemical Plant Security Lagging Under Bush, Kerry Tells Mayors
Study Tracks Boom in Prisons and Notes Impact on Counties
Prisons Skew Census Data, Report Says
As Terrorists Strike Arab Targets, Escalation Fears Arise
Zarqawi cements role as al Qaeda's voice
Terrorist: Wish We Had That Bomb
POLITICS
Former Envoy Talks in Book About Source of C.I.A. Leak
Investigators Remain Mum on CIA Leak
Book Names Iraqi in Alleged '99 Bid to Buy Uranium
A READING LIST
Study Finds 25 Nations Hindered by Corruption
Bush and Cheney Tell 9/11 Panel of '01 Warnings
9/11 Panel Questions Bush and Cheney
Bush tells panel memo lacked data
Just How 'Historic' Can an Oval Office Interview Be
Some Stations to Block 'Nightline' War Tribute
Cheney Praises Fox News Channel
Al-Jazeera's Learning Curve
Promoter of U.S. Image Quits for Wall St. Job
Kerry on pre-emption
Kerry Says Bush Ignoring Imminent Threats
Reviewing Patriot's powers
Rebuilding Aid Unspent, Tapped to Pay Expenses
ENERGY
Senate Fails to Resurrect Stalled Energy Bill
OTHER
E.P.A. Will Not Withdraw Its Mercury Plan
EPA Delays Mercury Regulations
French Firm Fined for Mont. Toxic Waste
French firm fined for hazardous waste at Montana plant
Leak Near San Francisco Contained
US Senate Panel Probes World Bank
ACTIVISTS
A win-win for vegans
Italians Rally After Ultimatum Is Issued On Hostages in Iraq
-------- NUCLEAR
Licensing for Advanced Nuclear Power Plants to Be Tested
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
April 30, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2004/2004-04-30-09.asp#anchor6
The nuclear power industry is gathering its forces to build the next generation of nuclear plants. Two groups of energy companies have announced that they will participate in a joint industry-U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program to demonstrate and test the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's new licensing process for an advanced nuclear power plant.
Seven companies announced March 31 that they are forming a consortium that will work with DOE to test the new combined license to construct and operate an advanced reactor.
The companies are Constellation Generation Group, a subsidiary of Constellation Energy, Baltimore; EDF International North America, Washington, a ubsidiary of the large French utility; Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Mississippi; Exelon Generation of Philadelphia; Southern Company of Atlanta; and two nuclear reactor vendors, Westinghouse Electric Co. of Pittsburgh, and GE Energy's nuclear operations based in Wilmington, North Carolina.
The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding expressing their intent to form the consortium. Neither the planned consortium nor its members are making a commitment to build a new nuclear unit at this time.
Another consortium, led by Dominion Generation, submitted a proposal to DOE on March 17. AECL Technologies, a subsidiary of Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL); Bechtel Power Corp.; Hitachi America are partnering with Dominion Generation.
This consortium has not committed to building a new nuclear power plant at this time, but both groups have their eyes on the future.
"We must keep the nuclear energy option open for the future," said Chris Crane, president and chief nuclear officer of Exelon Nuclear. "To protect consumers against spiking energy prices and for our own national security, we need to maintain fuel diversity in the energy industry."
The consortia are responding to a solicitation from DOE last November asking energy companies for proposals to test the NRC's new Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) process.
The process is part of DOE's Nuclear Power 2010 program, established by the Bush administration to facilitate the development of advanced technology reactors.
The groups' goal in testing the COL process is to reduce any business uncertainties for companies interested in building new nuclear plants. The untested COL process was established by Congress in the 1992 Energy Policy Act to streamline the licensing of new plants.
"Advanced nuclear plants offer a promising potential - passive safety designs, stable fuel prices, lower production costs than other fuels used to generate electricity, and a very low environmental impact," said Gary Taylor, president, CEO and chief nuclear officer of Entergy Nuclear.
Exelon Nuclear Vice President Marilyn Kray will serve as the consortium's executive lead and DOE contact.
The proposals, if approved and co-funded by DOE, would determine the best cost estimate for building and operating a new nuclear plant. More detailed engineering work would be done on advanced nuclear reactor designs than ever before.
The two reactor designs selected by the consortium for further engineering work are Westinghouse's Advanced Passive 1000 and General Electric's Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor, a 1,400 megawatt design.
The team led by Dominion is using AECL's advanced Candu reactor design for its proposal.
The seven-member consortium plans to submit the COL application to the NRC in 2008. After a decision by the NRC, projected in late 2010, any combination of the consortium's members could use the COL, should they decide to build a new plant.
-------- accidents and safety
The Nuke Next Door
Do Cancers Cluster Around Atomic Plants?
By Trish Riley,
April 30, 2004
E Magazine
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?1730
Raised on fresh fruits and vegetables by his vegetarian mother, Ty-Michael Schmidt never even had a cold or ear infection before the age of five. Then doctors found a tumor in his abdomen. His mother, and some scientists, suspect the tumor has something to do with the fact that he lives near a nuclear power plant.
"I never knew a child with cancer until my son," says Audra Schmidt of Hobe Sound, Florida. "Now I know nothing but kids with cancer. At least 50 kids in our local area have it."
But there's not a cancer cluster in the neighborhood, according to the St. Lucie County, Florida Health Department, which conducted an in-depth study of the homes of 28 children with cancer. During the same period, another 12 cases were identified in near-by Martin County. Tests were conducted on water, soil, air and dust for 561 different chemicals and potential contaminants. The results were negative for all chemicals tested.
Debi Santoro with her four-year-old daughter, Jadyn, whose cancer is now in remission. (c)TRISH RILEY "We have yet to find any commonality," says James Moses, director of environmental health for St. Lucie County. "We are dealing with 30 cases from 1981 to 1997. There was no cancer cluster."
The study continues, though, because it did find a marked increase in childhood cancers of the brain and central nervous system: 15 diagnosed in three years, nine within a seven-month period. The report notes that the trend should be monitored and perhaps studied further.
Health officials did not test for Strontium 90 (Sr-90), a radioactive carcinogenic byproduct of nuclear fission. The Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a nonprofit research center in New York City, recently released a study linking increased incidence of childhood cancers to areas near nuclear power plants. The study was published in the peer-reviewed Archives of Environmental Health last year.
"Of the 14 areas studied, the two counties closest to the reactors in St. Lucie County had the highest cancer rates," says principal researcher Joseph Mangano, national coordinator of the RPHP. Mangano says the Florida State Cancer Registry lists four cases in St. Lucie County for children under 10 from 1981 to 1983, but this increased to 30 cases from 1996 to 1998. Accounting for a near doubling of population, the incidence still represents a 40 percent increase, compared to an average national increase of 11 percent in childhood cancers.
The RPHP has also been studying radiation levels in baby teeth of children around the country. Dubbed the Tooth Fairy Project, (see Your Health, "Glowing in the Dark," May/June 2002), researchers report higher levels of Sr-90 near nuclear power plants, including St. Lucie and Miami-Dade counties. Water samples indicate higher levels of Sr-90 in areas within 20 miles of the nuclear power plants than in more distant locales. The study also found that the levels of Sr-90 in the teeth of children diagnosed with cancer were nearly twice as high as levels in children who do not have cancer.
These results are hotly disputed by the multi-billion dollar nuclear power industry. "Their claims are false," says Rachel Scott, spokesperson for Florida Power and Light, which owns the St. Lucie and Miami's Turkey Point nuclear power plants. "Cancer levels are not higher in South Florida. The levels of Strontium 90 are not higher in South Florida, according to the Florida Department of Health and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
The nuclear industry blames any Sr-90 still in the environment on residual effects of bomb testing. But a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report says because of decay, insignificant levels of Sr-90 remain in the soil and atmosphere from the bomb tests that ended 40 years ago.
"This touches a nerve in the nuclear power industry," says Stephen Lester, science director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ). "These plants are releasing small quantities of low-level radiation every day. The amounts may seem insignificant, but when you look at 50 cities, you can see it slowly has an impact."
At least two families were sufficiently convinced to file suit against Florida Power and Light because of their children's illnesses, which include one death. "A huge thing at stake here is the state of nuclear power plants," says Nancy LaVista, attorney for the plaintiff families. "If in fact it is giving cancer to our children, we have a right to know and a duty to protect all citizens of Florida."
St. Lucie and Martin County families have joined forces to create a packet detailing their children's illnesses. "It's not so much for our children, who are already sick," says organizer Debi Santoro, whose four-year-old daughter, Jadyn, contracted cancer when she was six months old. "It's for the children to come. These children are dying and they're not going to die in vain-they're going to help other children." In another part of the country, New York's Westchester and Suffolk counties and the state of New Jersey have appropriated funds to study areas near nuclear plants where cancer clusters are suspected.
A 2003 report released by the European Committee on Radiation Risk found the risk from low-level radiation to be significant, concluding that "the present cancer epidemic is a consequence of exposures to global atmospheric weapons fallout in the period 1959 to 1963 and that more recent releases of radioisotopes to the environment from the operation of the nuclear fuel cycle will result in significant increases in cancer and other types of ill health."
Meanwhile, U.S. industry officials insist on labeling the reports "junk science," and eagerly push a nuclear energy agenda. The federal government and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are currently promoting legislation to renew interest in nuclear power and encourage the development of more new nuclear power plants for the first time since the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.
Stephen Lester of CHEJ suggests the power industry adopt his organization's new Be Safe Campaign. "It's based on the fundamental principle of public health that says, 'if it is dangerous or has the potential to harm, proceed with caution.'"
Now 10, Ty-Michael Schmidt spent a year in the hospital undergoing radical experimental treatment for a rare form of cancer. Doctors have never been particularly encouraging about his prognosis, giving him only six months to live when he was diagnosed four years ago, but he is in remission and he's beaten the odds thus far. Doctors say his cancer can be traced to fetal cells, meaning it developed in utero.
For now, RPHP researchers recommend that concerned people try a remarkably simple precaution: drink only water that comes from a deep, protected source or that has been filtered to remove Sr-90 particles (such as by reverse osmosis). If only Audra Schmidt and the dozens of other parents of ill children in her community had known that.
-------- asia
World Bank pledges to nearly double aid to reduce danger of radioactive waste sites in Kyrgyzstan
Friday, April 30, 2004
By Kadyr Toktogulov,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-30/s_23350.asp
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - The World Bank is pledging to nearly double aid to Kyrgyzstan to reduce the danger from radioactive waste sites that could threaten Central Asia's densely populated Fergana Valley, officials said Thursday.
Kyrgyzstan inherited several radioactive dumps from the Soviet nuclear industry, and uranium waste sites in the southern town of Mayluu-Suu have the potential to contaminate water resources in the Fergana Valley, which is shared by two other former Soviet republics.
In November, the World Bank pledged US$5 million for ecological projects, part of which was supposed to be used to rehabilitate sites in Mayluu-Suu.
But the World Bank and Kyrgyz government have now agreed to increase funding for rehabilitation projects to US$11.8 million, said Emil Akmatov, spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry. The Finance Ministry said Kyrgyzstan was pledging US$2 million of that amount.
The proposal still must be approved by the World Bank's board of directors in June, the Finance Ministry said.
Akmatov said landslides could cause radioactive dumps at Mayluu-Suu to leak into a river that runs into the Uzbek part of the Fergana Valley if no action was taken to prevent them. He called the situation there "critical."
Kyrgyzstan is an impoverished ex-Soviet republic that has appealed to the international community for help in solving ecological problems and to deal with the consequences of natural disasters that have shaken the country in recent years.
On Thursday, officials called for international help to resettle some 2,000 families from landslide-prone areas in the country's south.
-------- depleted uranium
Pentagon: Uranium Didn't Harm N.Y. Unit
Friday April 30, 2004
By ADAM ASHTON
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4037119,00.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040430-0033-soldiers-depleteduranium.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of a National Guard military police unit who said they fell ill after exposure to depleted uranium in Iraq did not have abnormal levels of the metal, Pentagon officials said Thursday.
The results did not reassure at least one of the soldiers.
Members of the 442nd Military Police Company, based in Orangeburg, N.Y., had complained of headaches, soreness and insomnia. A private test this month indicated that four of them had unhealthy levels of uranium in their urine. Further tests by the military showed that depleted uranium exposure did not cause the ailments, the Pentagon said.
``Those people all had normal levels of uranium in their urine,'' said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of the Deployment Health Support Directorate.
Depleted uranium is the hard, heavy metal created as a byproduct of enriching uranium for nuclear reactor fuel or weapons material. It is about 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium, Kilpatrick said.
The U.S. military uses the metal in rounds fired by M1 Abrams tanks and A-10 attack jets to penetrate tank armor - a practice that has been criticized for causing unnecessary risks to soldiers and civilians.
``As long as this is exterior to your body, you're not at any risk and the potential of internalizing it from the environment is extremely small,'' Kilpatrick said.
Most studies have indicated that depleted uranium exposure will not harm soldiers. But a 2002 study by Britain's Royal Society said soldiers who ingest or inhale enough depleted uranium could suffer kidney damage. The report cautioned its results were inconclusive and recommended a long-term study of soldiers exposed to the metal.
About 1,000 soldiers returning from Iraq have been tested for exposure to the metal. Of those, three showed unhealthy levels in urine samples. All three had fragments embedded in their bodies, Kilpatrick said.
Soldiers must choose to take a test for depleted uranium. All members of the 442nd will be able to take one if they ask, Kilpatrick said. Twenty-seven members of the unit have been tested so far.
One company member, Sgt. Ray Ramos, said the latest results did not reassure him. He has suffered from migraine headaches, breathing problems and pain in his elbows since returning from Iraq in September.
An earlier test suggested depleted uranium may have been partially responsible for his pain. He said he will pursue a third test from an independent doctor to compare the results.
``When I become ill, or possibly become ill later on, I want to have things in place,'' said Ramos, 41, of New York City.
The Pentagon is monitoring a group of 70 veterans from the first Gulf War who have pieces of depleted uranium embedded in their bodies. Kilpatrick said none of them has shown health problems related to depleted uranium.
Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute and a Gulf War veteran, said the military should test all soldiers returning from Iraq to determine whether fears about the metal are valid.
----
Depleted Uranium deaths could surpass worst-case predictions
by Amy Worthington
April 30, 2004
Idaho Observer
http://proliberty.com/observer/20040410.htm
The Pentagon has just announced that 18,000 American troops were medically evacuated from Iraq during the first year of operations there. Thousands more have been sickened and maimed in Afghanistan since 2001. No one knows how many U.S. troops have actually died in these two quagmires, because the Pentagon cooks the books by listing the not quite dead as "wounded," conveniently excluding them from the death count when they do die.
There are now two bills pending in our graft-ridden Congress to authorize mandatory national service obligation for both young men and women. These are HB163 and S89. Reinstatement of the draft is not feasible until after the November elections.
Meantime, as the war/occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan grinds on, military recruiters are frantically mining high schools and colleges across the nation for new cannon fodder. Under provisions of G.W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, recruiters have access to names, addresses and phone numbers of all American high school juniors and seniors.
The Associated Press explains that these hapless kids are being seduced to the killing fields with hot rod races, trendy ads and online games. When a recruiter excites the immature with his laptop game "Powerpoint Rangers," you can bet these devious psychological tools show kids neither the horrors of missing limbs nor the after effects of depleted uranium.
No American kid should sign on the military's disingenuous dotted line before reading a new book by Dennis Kyne, former Army air medic in the 18th Airborne Corps during Gulf War I. This easy-read book, despite a few expletives, should be a basic primer in all American high schools. It is guaranteed to give kids a perspective on the realities of the atomic battlefields to which Washington has been sending American troops since 1991.
Kyne comes from a family with a proud military heritage, but his experiences in Gulf War I revealed that the military structure as it exists today is not what it claims to be. He describes the filthy living conditions, lies, corruption and incompetence that continually put our young troops in harms way.
He confirms the military's despicable treatment of vets when they return to the United States decimated from disease, battlefield toxins, vaccines and radiation. Desperately needing adequate medical testing and care, they are abused with games and denials from a callous establishment determined to escape responsibility and save money.
The fact that America deliberately creates and arms the enemies it will fight later is not lost on Kyne. He notes that the United States sent $1.6 billion in arms and high tech equipment to Saddam and that one U.S. shipment landed in Iraq just one day before the U.S. went to war against him in 1991. Kyne says, "Much like the casinos in Las Vegas that give you money to get you started at the black-jack table, we were giving Iraq the weapons to get a war started."
This is why Corporate America, including Dick Cheney's gluttonous Halliburton, Inc., now growing tick-fat from ongoing Middle Eastern conflagrations, has continued to supply Saddam into the late 1990s.
Kyne illustrates the incredible disinformation to which both the American public and U.S. forces are continuously plied to stampede the U.S. into perpetual war so lucrative for corporate warmongers. He says, "As citizens we were told that our mission was to save Kuwait and so we voiced our support of intervention without knowing the truths of the war. We did not know that the Kuwaiti girl speaking before the U.S. Senate, about atrocious things Iraqi soldiers had done, was the Emir of Kuwait's niece, lying profusely. We did not know that the oil fields of Kuwait and Southern Iraq were set ablaze by our own forces."
What worked for father George, worked for son W. Thus America has been abused with the 9-11 and WMD scams, costing a bankrupt America $3.7 billion a month in Iraq and $900 million a month in Afghanistan.
Kyne's most shocking revelation is that 75 percent of U.S. Desert Storm casualties in 1991 were caused by friendly fire, a fact he says is confirmed by an MIT study. Considering a recent media report about marines being strafed with depleted uranium by a U.S. A-10 in Nasiriyah, Iraq, this comment by Kyne hits home:
"Combat fight badges are awarded to officers when they obtain combat flight hours .... commanders would get up and lose their minds in the sand storms.
"Lacking any points of reference or terrain recognition skill, these officers flew with no knowledge as to where they were going, or which side the enemy was on... Most [on the ground] cried into the transmitter and started picking their own troops out of the sand while they pissed themselves in fear..... It became who gets who first between the United States and itself."
Kyne, who like hundreds of thousands of Gulf War I vets, suffers from Gulf War Syndrome, describes the horrendous depleted uranium exposure endured by U.S. troops during and after the three-day ground war of Desert Storm.
U.S. air forces had spent 45 days contaminating Kuwait and Iraqi territory with depleted uranium weaponry into which our ground forces were then forced to march. Kyne tells potential military recruits, "It is time for the world to know that the United States military is using young soldiers for guinea pigs, not defenders of the constitution."
Kyne's excellent web site is DennisKyne.com. It contains graphic pictures of radiation-melted Iraqi bodies, demonstrating the horrific effects of U.S. nuclear weaponry now used routinely and illegally in foreign nations for the aggrandizement of the amoral U.S. defense industry.
Kyne's book and an 8-minute video are only $10 plus $2 shipping. The book is gripping and easy read. The video brings home the message of battlefield radiation that has killed thousands of U.S. troops and which will continue to poison hundreds of thousands more. This is a great package for informing friends and family. If any young person you know is contemplating military suicide, give him or her this book and video and consider it an investment in America's future.
Write Denis Kyne at PO Box 720254, San Jose, CA 95172
The Idaho Observer P.O. Box 457 Spirit Lake, Idaho 83869 Phone: 208-255-2307 Email: observer@coldreams.com Web: http://idaho-observer.com http://proliberty.com/observer/
----
ABC's of DU
2004/04/30
Mehr News, Tehran Times
By Charles Larkin
http://www.mehrnews.com/wfNewsDetails_en.aspx?NewsID=74622&t=Political
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=5/1/2004&Cat=2&Num=025
TEHRAN, April 30 (MNA) -- Depleted uranium is what is left over when most of the highly radioactive isotopes of spent (or partially spent) uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. The depleted uranium may be used in armor-piercing munitions and in enhanced armor protection for some Abrams tanks.
When it comes to depleted uranium, among other things, it puts out a small amount of the very worst and most harmful of all radiation when it comes to human health: neutron radiation. Neutron radiation, in comparison to alpha, beta, gamma, and x-ray radiation, is the worst there is for human cells because of its mass/size. Alpha and beta don't go very far, they are like photons of light. However, they have some mass. They are charged electrons (about as small as you can imagine, maybe one-ten-thousandth the size of the nucleus of an atom, which includes protons and neutrons).
When electrons are emitted from an isotope, they are charged electrically and are therefore drawn to other electrons in the air or to other atoms. Alpha and beta particles travel only a few inches or feet from a source, such as U-238, and are then "knocked down" or attracted to other particles of matter.
Now a neutron is a different thing entirely, and that's one of the things depleted uranium emits. A neutron is, in relation to an alpha or beta particle or an electron something like a hot-air balloon or soccer ball compared to a marble. Imagine rolling a marble through a gymnasium full of basketballs on the floor. If the basketballs on the floor are ten feet apart, the marble has less of a chance of hitting a ball across the distance of the court. The larger the item you roll, the more chance it has to hit a basketball, such as a soccer ball would. And when the neutron hits another atom or electron, the mass/weight of it causes much worse damage. It either destroys a human cell or causes it damage which may cause it to mutate into a cancer cell.
NEUTRONS ARE LETHAL! And since the "depleted uranium" is, in fact, undergoing criticality (splitting and become numerous and varied particles of light, energy, electrons, heat, gamma rays, x-rays, etc.) it also puts out different elements and isotopes, going from perhaps U-238 to a radioactive isotope of iodine along with all the other aforementioned material and energy. The worst damage is done to human cells by the neutron, and there are numerous neutrons emitted with every splitting of the atom.
Standing next to depleted uranium is like standing next to a small, noiseless, miniature operating nuclear bomb without the concussion and heat. The neutron radiation kills or mutates human cells more than any other type of radiation. No noise, nothing detected by our senses, and it lasts for thousands or millions of years after a shell is fired. The effect of the neutron radiation on the human cell may not appear for years, such as in the case of cancer. And the longer the human cell is subjected to neutron radiation, the more chance of damage or death to the cells. Ingesting DU is extremely dangerous, as is being near a DU source, such as sleeping on it for days or months, due to the time it has to do damage.
Uranium is used because it is so dense that it can penetrate almost any type of armor meant to protect a tank or vehicle.
-------- korea
North Koreans Agree To Mid-Level Talks
By Anthony Faiola and Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53194-2004Apr29.html
TOKYO, April 29 -- North Korea agreed Thursday to attend a round of mid-level diplomatic talks starting May 12 aimed at dismantling its nuclear weapons program but bluntly stated that it must receive a "reward" for taking even the preliminary step of a nuclear freeze.
Agreement on the new round of talks, to be held in Beijing between mid-ranking delegations from the United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea, was confirmed Thursday by participating countries, including China and South Korea. The new negotiations will follow two previous rounds that involved higher-ranking diplomats from the six countries but failed to yield significant results.
Chinese and South Korean officials said the new talks were a step toward breaking the stalemate over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But the government's statement on Thursday, attributed to a North Korean Foreign Ministry source on its official KCNA news service, immediately signaled just how far apart the two main participants -- the United States and North Korea -- remain from a meaningful agreement.
The Bush administration has taken a hard-line position that North Korea must agree to a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear programs without any immediate benefits up front. North Korea insists that talks address its demands for economic and diplomatic compensation including oil shipments and an end to existing sanctions against it in exchange for a temporary freeze. It is also demanding security assurances from the United States, something the Bush administration has said it was willing to provide only within the context of a regional agreement involving North Korea's neighbors.
Many U.S. officials are skeptical the working-level talks will yield much progress, in part because there is little incentive for either North Korea or the United States to reach an agreement before the U.S. presidential elections in November.
On Thursday, the North Korean government restated its demand of "reward for freeze." But the Bush administration has been loath to even use the word freeze at the negotiating table, believing it sounds too similar to a suspension deal on North Korea's nuclear programs reached in 1994 with the Clinton administration, which later fell apart. Instead, the Bush administration has said a freeze would be acceptable only if it were clearly tied to further steps toward dismantlement.
U.S. officials say the North Koreans admitted to breaking the Clinton agreement in late 2002. Since then, North Korea is believed to have made significant headway on its nuclear arsenal. U.S. intelligence officials said this week that they are set to raise their estimate of the number of nuclear devices North Korea possesses from two to at least eight.
China, Russia and South Korea have urged the United States to be more flexible in order prevent North Korea from officially becoming the world's newest nuclear power.
Chinese officials suggested that despite North Korea's public demands, "this time the agenda will be open, and all the parties can present their views," said a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Kong Quan. "The basic goal is to prepare for the next round of six-party talks" between higher-ranking officials.
At a regular ministry briefing, Kong called on the governments involved in the talks to be patient, a request seen as an appeal to the Bush administration. Indeed, Vice President Cheney on his recent tour of Asia suggested that time was running out on the Chinese-led diplomacy.
"There is a saying in China, that you must be very patient to achieve results," Kong said.
The nuclear issue was a centerpiece of a surprise summit held this month in Beijing between Chinese officials and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il. But Kong evaded questions about whether North Korea's agreement to attend the working-level talks resulted from Kim's visit.
Cody reported from Beijing. Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
----
Kim Jong-il agrees to attend next nuclear talks
2004-04-30
Reuters
http://www.etaiwannews.com/Asia/2004/04/30/1083291890.htm
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed Pyongyang would join a first round of six-party working level talks on his nuclear programs on May 12 after a visit to China this month, media and officials said yesterday.
The lower-level talks to focus on details rather than strategy would be the first concrete result of two rounds of high-level talks involving China, Russia, the two Koreas, the United States and Japan in Beijing in the last year on North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.
The breakthrough came when reclusive North Korean leader Kim made a rare visit to Beijing this month and met Chinese President Hu Jintao to set the May 12 date, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.
Kim's trip came just days after a visit to Beijing by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who brought more evidence of North Korea's efforts to develop a nuclear force.
"There is no period set, there are no specific topics fixed," South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck told reporters.
He suggested only one working group meeting in Beijing was likely before the next round of six-way talks and that this seemed to be North Korea's doing.
"As far as I know if North Korea wanted to have talks just once then there will be talks only once," he said.
The talks were expected to last about five days, Kyodo said.
The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials say communist North Korea disclosed it was working on a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons, in violation of an international agreement.
"The talks will likely discuss mainly the CVID (complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling) issue," Lee said.
The U.S. has offered to provide security assurances to Pyongyang if it agrees to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear arms programs.
One analyst said North Korea may soon cease its denials of a program to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, enabling progress.
"I believe North Korea will admit it has a uranium enrichment program during the upcoming working-level talks or a third round of the six-party talks," said Hajime Izumi, Korea expert at Shizuoka Prefectural University near Tokyo.
A failure to do so could jeopardize further high-level talks.
"North Korea is considering whether it can gain more by making concessions just before the U.S. presidential election," he said, referring to the November elections.
Washington recently notified China that it had accepted a May 12 date for the inaugural working group meeting, Kyodo said.
Participants would include Joseph DeTrani, U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, Akitaka Saiki, deputy director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and Ning Fukui, Chinese ambassador in charge of North Korean nuclear issues, Kyodo said.
The six parties have held two rounds of senior-level talks on the North's nuclear programs, the first in August 2003 and the latest in February this year.
In the February talks in Beijing, the six agreed to meet again before mid-year and to start working-level talks before that to discuss the dispute. No progress had been reported since.
U.S. officials said on Wednesday that Washington was working on a new intelligence estimate that is expected to find North Korea's nuclear weapons program is more threatening that previously thought.
Asked about such a report, Lee said: "When we asked the U.S. government about this report they explained that this report was groundless."
The reports appeared to be based on the assumption that all 9,000 used fuel rods at Pyongyang's plutonium plant had been reprocessed, Lee said "But it has never been confirmed that the reprocessing has been completed."
North Korea said last year it had restarted a frozen nuclear reactor and completed making weapons-grade plutonium from fuel extracted from the plant.
Pyongyang has reversed its reported admission to the United States that it had the uranium-based program.
----
N. Korea Nuke Talks to Convene in China
April 30, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The six nations negotiating the North Korean nuclear standoff will lay the groundwork for another round of talks at low-level meetings next month in Beijing, South Korea and China said Thursday.
Word of the apparent breakthrough came as North Korea repeated demands for aid in return for freezing its nuclear program, and a newspaper reported that the United States was prepared to upgrade its estimate of Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal to at least eight atomic weapons. The United States has said the North had ``possibly two'' weapons.
But American and South Korean officials on Thursday denied that there were new estimates.
``Our official government estimate, of which there's not a new one, I don't think is going to be a subject of discussion,'' at the May 12 talks, U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.
On Wednesday, the Washington Post, citing unnamed officials, reported that the estimate overhaul is being prepared by U.S. intelligence officials to account for strides North Korea has made since last year, when it restarted its nuclear reactor and plutonium reprocessing facility in Yongbyon.
The officials have also concluded that a separate uranium-based nuclear program will be operational by 2007, producing enough material for as many as six additional weapons a year, the Post reported.
An upgrade would be seen as upping pressure on other participants in the six-nation negotiations to back Washington at the table.
In Seoul, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck quoted U.S. authorities as saying the Washington Post report was ``groundless.''
Lee said that an estimate of eight nuclear bombs is based on the assumption that the communist state has reprocessed all its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods.
The rods, if chemically treated, can yield enough plutonium for several bombs. North Korea says it has reprocessed all and is already increasing its ``nuclear deterrent.'' Speaking at a news conference, Lee said: ``There is no scientific proof that the North has reprocessed all the 8,000 rods.''
South Korea believes that rival North has enough nuclear material to build one or two nuclear bombs.
Lee said that the six nations involved in resolving the dispute -- the United States, China, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan -- are scheduled to begin working level talks May 12 in the Chinese capital.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said the ``fundamental goal'' of the so-called working-group meetings was to prepare for a third round of six-party talks by the end of June.
Lee said South Korea, the United States and Japan would consider giving the North energy aid if it freezes all its nuclear facilities, including those for power generation, with the condition that it will eventually completely dismantle them.
On Thursday, North Korea demanded economic aid in return for a freeze of its nuclear facilities.
However, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman criticized the U.S. demand for a ``complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling'' of the North's nuclear facilities.
``The U.S. is putting pressure upon (North Korea), talking about `irreversible' or something like that although it is not a defeated nation,'' he said.
``If the U.S. insists on this stand, (North Korea) does not feel any need to sit at the negotiating table with it,'' he added.
The nuclear standoff began in October 2002, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.
North Korea says it will dismantle its nuclear weapons facilities only if the United States provides economic aid and makes a nonaggression pledge. The United States demands that North Korea first scrap all its nuclear facilities.
----
U.S. to Bolster S. Korea Missile Defenses
April 30, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Missile-Defense.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The United States will deploy new missile defense batteries in South Korea this autumn as part of a $11 billion upgrade on the Korean peninsula, the military said Friday.
The U.S. 8th Army's new 35th Air Defense Brigade, located at Fort Bliss, Texas, and equipped with Patriot Advanced Capability 2 and 3 systems, will be deployed to South Korea, the U.S. and South Korean Combined Forces Command in Seoul said in a news release.
The PAC 2 and 3 missile systems are designed to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and enemy aircraft. There are already several batteries fielded in South Korea.
Two batteries will be added at Gwangju Air Base and the 35th Air Defense Brigade headquarters will be located at Osan Air Base with about 500 soldiers, the release said.
Last September, North Korea denounced the deployment of a PAC-3 defense system in South Korea, accusing the United States of building up arms to invade the communist North.
Pyongyang said it was ``part of the escalating military confrontation moves of the U.S. which drive the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.''
Tensions have run high over North Korea's suspected development of nuclear weapons. North Korea also has an aggressive missile development program.
The United States keeps 37,000 soldiers in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The new missile defense systems are part of a $11 billion package to improve U.S. military readiness on the divided peninsula. The overhaul includes swift-action units, high-tech air surveillance and high-speed transport for troops based in Japan.
----
Advice raises North Korea nuclear spectre
By Carol Giacomo
Washington April 30, 2004
Reuters
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/29/1083224514427.html
North Korea's nuclear weapons program may be more threatening than previously thought, according to US officials who are working on the new theory.
The Bush Administration is still debating the matter, but some officials believe Pyongyang has manufactured as many as eight nuclear weapons as part of a plutonium program.
They fear that a covert highly enriched uranium program could be operational by 2007, and capable of producing another half a dozen bombs.
US officials said they hoped a new, more alarming estimate would convince sceptics such as China that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons efforts were a growing danger, and pressure must be exerted to halt them.
With the November US election looming, this could fan a new crisis by highlighting the lack of a North Korea nuclear deal as President George Bush campaigns for re-election and grapples with Iraq.
American officials and experts have long worried that if the economically strapped North expanded its arsenal, it would start to sell nuclear arms to other states. Advertisement Advertisement
Word that the Administration is working on the new estimate was first reported in Wednesday's Washington Post.
US officials said, however, that the Administration, often at odds over North Korea, was squabbling over key details.
"If the numbers have changed, I am not aware of it," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Berlin. "My last estimate from the director of intelligence was that we believe they could have had, might still have, one or two weapons."
The CIA refused to comment. For years, the agency has asserted that Pyongyang has enough plutonium for one or two nuclear weapons.
-------- missile defense
US to deploy new air defense missiles in South Korea this year
SEOUL (AFP)
Apr 30, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040430033721.2gpzr8iw.html
The United States will deploy new air defense Patriot missiles in South Korea later this year as part of its build-up against North Korea, military authorities said.
The US-South Korean combined forces command said a new US air defense brigade would arrive later this year with two anti-missile batteries and 500 soliders.
The reinforcement of the Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) and upgraded PAC-3 systems designed to destroy ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft is part of the 11-billion-dollar US military build-up plan in South Korea, the command said.
South Korea has been vulnerable to North Korea's artillery and missile attacks, according to US and South Korean military authorities.
"The deployment of this strictly defensive air defense artillery Patriot missile unit brings additional deterrent capabilities to the peninsula," said Lieutenant General Charles Campbell, commander of the 8th US Army.
The United States has also been upgrading its air defense systems, already deployed in South Korea.
North Korea has deployed short-range Scuds and Rodong missiles with a range of 1,300 kilometers (800 miles), while actively developing longer-range Taepodong missiles.
-------- russia
Russia set to join antiproliferation group
Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)
April 30, 2004
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040430wo41.htm
Russia is expected to join the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), an international program to stamp out proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including ballistic missiles, possibly before a Group of Eight summit meeting scheduled for June in Sea Island, Ga., a government source said Thursday.
The PSI currently comprises 14 countries including Australia, Britain, Japan and the United States. The members currently are coordinating over whether to formally admit Moscow to the PSI at a meeting to mark the first anniversary of the group's founding in late May, according to the source.
Russia would be the last country among the G-8 nations to join the PSI. Moscow's participation is likely to further strengthen global efforts to prevent proliferation of WMD by countries such as North Korea.
Russia is likely to attend the two-day commemorative assembly that is scheduled to be held from May 31 in Krakow, Poland, the city where U.S. President George W. Bush proposed the initiative in May last year.
The 14 member states and several associate members including Turkey meet to discuss proliferation and conduct joint military exercises.
The 14 basically have agreed on Russia's participation in the PSI, the source said.
Since Russia, the world's second-largest nuclear power, has great influence over neighboring countries, its participation in the PSI is expected to enhance enforcement of joint activities such as inspections of ships and airplanes to block the illegal transportation of WMD and the transfer of related technologies. The three-day G-8 summit meeting scheduled to begin in Georgia on June 8 is expected to make strengthening the framework for the prevention of proliferation one of its top priorities.
The United States has been calling for Russia to join the PSI ahead of the summit meeting to expand and strengthen the group.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
More radioactive material at lab raising fears
By Kerana Todorov
San Joaquin News Service
Friday, April 30, 2004
http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2004/04/30/news/06_livermore_040430.txt
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's plan to store twice as much radioactive material as it does now is dangerous, wasteful and unnecessary, grassroots activists told lab officials Wednesday.
During a hearing at Tracy's Holiday Inn, members of the public and lab officials focused on expansion plans that could allow the lab to more than double its plutonium storage capacity from 700 kilograms to 1,500 kilograms. It also could allow the staff to work on up to 30 grams of tritium at a time, rather than 3.5 grams.
Officials say the changes are necessary to protect the safety of the nation's nuclear program.
Stockton's John Huntoon was among those who questioned the proposal, which he said would increase the risk of nuclear war. The weapons, Huntoon said, will be used either purposely or accidentally.
"There are plenty of nuclear weapons right now to destroy the earth four, five times over," he said. "You hand them in the hands of a president who describes himself as a 'war president.'"
"The development of nuclear warfare is not deterring anybody," he added, referring to North Korea and others.
Most of the 19 people who spoke Wednesday belong to Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a Livermore-based grassroots organization.
The lab should get rid of its nuclear materials, partly because the lab is close to seismic faults and heavily populated areas, they said.
According to Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CARE's executive director, a concern is that prevailing winds carry particles in the air from Livermore to Tracy most of the year.
"And so Tracy residents have reason to be concerned in the increase in nuclear weapons activities and nuclear materials," Kelley said.
The group may file a lawsuit if the lab continues with its plans, she said.
But Mike Schmidt, CEO for the Tracy Chamber of Commerce, said that while the chamber understands the concerns, it would favor the lab's plans. The lab employs 8,500 people in the area, he noted.
The plan, which Department of Energy officials will approve or deny in January 2005, also includes a proposal to build a 40,000-square-foot facility at the lab's Site 300 testing site near Tracy to replace three old facilities, said lab spokesman Tom Grim.
Site 300, which now receives and treats its own well water, would be connected to San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy water distribution system in a cost-saving measure, Grim said, though the well water's quality is suitable.
Hank Khan, a lab engineer, estimated the pipes would be connected less than six miles from Site 300 and pipe 648,000 gallons of water per day.
Also this week, congressional analysts in Washington, D.C., urged that security at the nation's nuclear weapons research laboratories be increased against terrorist attacks.
The consolidation of nuclear research at one site would make the facilities easier to protect, but make research more difficult, said David Schwoegler, a Lawrence Livermore spokesman. He said he thinks the lab is secure.
The ultimate decision on the future of plutonium work at Lawrence Livermore and elsewhere will rest with the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, he said.
Lab officials, who conducted two hearings on the 10-year plan in Livermore Tuesday, had a second meeting at the Holiday Inn on Wednesday evening.
A fifth public hearing is scheduled for Friday at the Department of Energy's office in Washington, D.C.
The public has until May 27 to forward comments to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The University of California operates Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Comments can be forwarded to the National Nuclear Security Administration Livermore Site Office, L-293, 7000 East Ave., Livermore, CA 94550-9324; or faxed to (925) 422-1776.
For more information, call (925) 422-0704 or (877) 388-4930; or e-mail tom.grim@oak.doe.gov. Contact reporter Kerana Todorov at kerana@tracy-press.com.
----
Nuclear lab denies security concerns
By Richard Clough rclough@media.ucla.edu
UCLA DAILY BRUIN REPORTER
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=28734
A battle between intellectual advancement and national security concerns in Northern California may result in significant changes in the research capabilities of one University of California-managed laboratory.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the primary nuclear weapons labs in the United States, has been criticized recently for its perceived vulnerability to terrorist attacks and has been urged to move its store of plutonium and highly enriched uranium to a more secure location.
The lab has resisted this measure because the removal of the nuclear material would hinder its research efforts. Livermore officials maintain that the lab's security, which is constantly reevaluated, is adequate to combat potential terrorist threats.
"Security has never been better than it is right now," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the Energy Department, which oversees research labs across the country, including Livermore.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the lab has instituted a number of security upgrades. But a report released Tuesday by the General Accounting Office, the investigative wing of Congress, admonished the lab and four others for their lingering vulnerabilities.
The report also cited the labs' proposed time frames to update their security procedures as unrealistic.
Concern has arisen over the prospect of a terrorist group infiltrating the labs and constructing and detonating a makeshift nuclear device within minutes.
The Design Basis Threat is a program instituted by the labs that will require them to be able to defend against a "larger attacking force" by 2006. The GAO report said the labs will likely not be ready by then.
"They (the GAO) don't think we can meet our own standards that we laid out for ourselves but that's absolutely not true," Wilkes said.
"Sept. 11 changed a lot of things and since Sept. 11, we have been doing a lot of things to improve security at all of our sites," he said.
The security concerns surrounding Livermore, located about 45 miles southeast of San Francisco, are derived largely from the lab's vicinity to residential communities.
Testifying before the House Subcommittee on National Security on Tuesday, Danielle Brian, executive director of independent watchdog group, Project on Government Oversight, said the lab "will not be able to comply with the new directives" and poses a serious threat to its neighboring communities.
"The encroaching residential community surrounding Lawrence Livermore has made it nearly impossible to properly protect the weapons quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium stored there," Brian said.
Brian recommended the nuclear materials at Livermore be moved to the Energy Department's Nevada Test Site.
Moving the materials will make them more secure, but researchers at Livermore question whether this outweighs the benefits of their research.
"If all the nuclear securities in the United States were in one area, it would make security much easier," said David Schwoegler, a spokesman for Livermore.
"You have to strike a balance between what's in the best interest of national security from a research standpoint and what's in the best interest of national security from a materials protection standpoint," he said.
A large portion of the research done at Livermore is environmentally friendly, Schwoegler said, as it study methods to dismantle, immobilize and store nuclear weapons that create as little nuclear waste as possible.
-------- new mexico
WIPP oversight agency shuts doors
By Victoria Parker-Stevens
Current-Argus
Apr 30, 2004
http://www.currentargus.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=323&num=6292
CARLSBAD - Sixteen workers who spent their days analyzing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant are now without jobs.
Friday was the final day of work for many employees of the Environmental Evaluation Group, but the oversight organization may be resurrected later this year by Congress, said the office of Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. Many of the eight people in the Carlsbad office had been with the EEG for 10 years or more, and no one had been there for less than a couple of years, said Director Matthew Silva, who was in Carlsbad Friday.
Three employees will remain through May to close the facility, and some have offered to finish reports on their own time, he said.
The EEG also employs eight people at the main Albuquerque office, which handled many of the more controversial issues, Silva said.
In addition to the exiting of employees, EEG air monitors in Carlsbad, Loving, Artesia and at the WIPP site have been removed, along with gamma radiation detectors at the site fence line and near the WIPP truck parking area.
The EEG notified employees a couple of weeks ago that they would be out of work by the end of the month if the federal Energy Department didn't provide more money.
The need for funds was a regular occurrence, and the DOE always came through, often with the encouragement of New Mexico officials, Silva said.
But this year, the clock ticked down further than usual, and Silva went public with the situation.
The attempt was unsuccessful.
Last Friday, the DOE said no more money would be granted, citing many other unanticipated budget requests and displeasure with EEG management.
Silva said Friday he hadn't seen it coming.
"I didn't know there would be a change in (DOE) policy at the end of the (five-year) contract period," he said.
In recent days, the EEG garnered support from longtime backers Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.; Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M.; and Gov. Bill Richardson.
But Domenici - who, with Bingaman, co-sponsored the legislation that supported the EEG - was not behind Silva's efforts - an issue on which Silva declined to comment.
Initially, Domenici had remained quiet, but in more recent days, he said, through a spokesman, that the DOE had "finally called the management's bluff."
"It's a shame the EEG employees are going to have to suffer," said spokesman Chris Gallegos. "It does seem that their funding problems are related to a management issue with consistent overspending of appropriated funds over the past few years."
While Domenici strongly supports the EEG's oversight role, he would like to see a review of the group's mission, Gallegos said.
Later this year, Domenici plans to pursue reauthorization of the group, and a review would likely be a part of that, he said.
Even if the EEG had not disbanded, congressional reauthorization was needed this fall for the group to continue.
Silva has said the Energy Department has obligations under federal law that require the EEG, although the DOE has disagreed with that contention.
Silva and the DOE also part ways when it comes to the reason for EEG's closure. Inferences of mismanagement make Silva bristle.
The EEG never agreed that the DOE's five-year contract figure of $7.6 million was enough to complete the work it is legally required to do, he said.
Congress doesn't appropriate money for the EEG, which is funded under a contract.
Silva said it was up to the DOE to initiate discussions about how the EEG could meet its responsibilities under the budget, which it never did.
He said even before the most recent contract, the group has needed $2 million a year and has had to negotiate for it.
Since 1990, the EEG has had the same number of employees, said Silva - who was with the organization at the time, although he has only been director for four years.
Last year, the Energy Department allowed the group to borrow $500,000 against this year's budget. It also evaluated a list of projects and gave thumbs down to some, Silva said.
Those included studying a proposed plutonium pit production facility at WIPP and whether brine water was compromising radioactive detection equipment.
Silva said the projects were within the agreed-upon workscope, and the EEG went ahead with them.
Again this year, the DOE said it would release more money if it was provided with a project list, but Silva said he didn't want to see the group's independence compromised.
Federal law says the director is responsible for determining the work to be completed, he said.
Silva said the DOE's offer showed the department had money to give the EEG if it wished.
"This is not a budget issue," Silva said, noting the DOE would prefer not to have oversight of WIPP.
And this is a time when oversight is very needed because there are many important issues the site is facing, he said.
Those include the proposed relaxation of transportation and waste analysis requirements, the receipt of higher level remote-handled waste, the reclassification of high level waste for shipment to WIPP and new shipping containers with only one level of containment.
In addition to reports on topics such as these, the EEG took air and water samples. The group recently verified the detection of a small amount of plutonium in an air sample, Silva said.
"We always operated in the open," he said.
That's especially important as the DOE now has more regulators, but still has areas of self-regulation, Silva said.
For example, no organization regulates the radioactive portion of the waste while workers are handling it, he said.
The EEG is a unique organization, Silva said. It has been in existence since the late-1970s, when it was created to keep New Mexico informed about WIPP.
The group has been responsible for many positive changes, Silva said, including the current location of the burial panels due to brine water and the use of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission-approved shipping container.
"(WIPP) has enjoyed five years of safe operations due to the good work of the DOE and (contractors and labs), but also due to the oversight of EEG," Silva said. "Because of our well-known integrity, the public has confidence in the facility."
For an oversight group to be successful, it must be respected, trusted and independent, Silva said.
The EEG's 90 reports were not subject to editing by any governmental body, and the scientist responsible for the report put his name on the cover, he said.
He said the group never sought to keep either the DOE or interest groups happy and managed to draw the ire of both.
"I'm very proud we commanded the respect of regulators and scientists," he added, noting the group had the favor of many organizations, including the highly respected National Academy of Sciences. "And we merited the trust of the public and elected officials."
The EEG has also had a healthy exchange with (WIPP contractor) scientists, who utilized the group's lab, he said.
Silva said he hasn't heard anything from the DOE since last Friday and isn't sure what is supposed to be done with EEG property, such as lab equipment, a library and radioactive materials.
He also didn't know if the Energy Department would pay for costs incurred in the shutdown.
"It's been a great group. We took on some tough issues, and we worked together as professionals," Silva said. "This has been the most fascinating and intellectually stimulating work of my career."
The Energy Department didn't return phone calls seeking comment Friday.
-------- vermont
NRC rejects request to halt VY fuel movement
By CAROLYN LORIÉ
Brattleboro Reformer Staff,
Friday, April 30, 2004
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~2118094,00.html
BRATTLEBORO -- It's too late to stop the movement of fuel at Vermont Yankee, the New England Coalition learned on Wednesday, because there's no more moving to be done.
The outage is almost over, the reactor sealed and the plant is ready to start back up early next week.
Following Vermont Yankee's announcement that two segments of fuel rods were missing from a container in the spent fuel pool, the coalition filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The coalition has asked that the movement of all fuel should stop until a full inventory is conducted at the plant.
But in a phone conference with the NRC on Wednesday, coalition staff advisor Ray Shadis and expert witness Paul Blanch were told that the reactor, which has been opened for refueling, was now closed.
"This is typical. We ask for expedited action and they move at snail's pace, hoping that the problem will go away," said Shadis.
The petition was filed on April 23. According to Shadis, the NRC received the petition prior to the sealing of the reactor.
Neil Sheehan, NRC spokesman for region 1, said that the agency responded as quickly as it could.
"There wasn't any effort on our part to delay discussing it with them," he said, adding that the petition was received only a few days prior to Wednesday's meeting.
The call, said Shadis, was arranged by petition manager Allen Wong. There will be a follow-up phone call next week between the NRC petition review board and the coalition, which members of the public are invited to listen in on but not contribute to.
Shadis said that Entergy has been invited to take part in the meeting. Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams said that the company had not yet been notified about the meeting.
On Wednesday, Blanch and Shadis also requested that the NRC provide the documents detailing the 1980 incident that led to breaking of the rod in question.
"They were somewhat taken aback," said Shadis. "They want us to walk in with the evidence so that they could put staples in it and dismiss it."
Blanch, who worked in the industry for 35 years, said that record-keeping in the late 1970s and early 1980s was often lacking, so the documents may not even exist.
The NRC also agreed to turn over the paperwork related to a 1992 incident that the coalition learned about through a whistleblower. Shadis said that he was concerned that there may be fuel fragments in the spent fuel pool, which is being searched with a robotic camera, but it may not be the segments missing from the canister.
Williams said that the 1992 incident did not result in broken fuel rods. Although there are other containers in the spent fuel pool, they contain items such as irradiated metal, control rods and filters, not spent fuel.
"NEC has no basis for its claim," said Williams.
Shadis said that although it was too late to stop the movement of fuel, Entergy, with NRC supervision, should still be required to account for its inventory.
"We want NRC oversight to be stringent enough that the NRC can certify that inventory is accurate and complete," said Shadis.
Next week's meeting has not yet been scheduled but will be announced publicly prior to taking place.
Ed Anthes of Nuclear Free Vermont said that public interest in taking part will most likely be high.
"Everybody is talking about it. At first, people were quite scared because there was no good explanation of what happened. People are less scared but no less concerned," said Anthes, who said he hopes to listen in on next week's phone call.
----
MISSING FUEL REPORT WAS NEVER FILED
By SUSAN SMALLHEER,
Rutland Herald
April 30, 2004
http://www.rutlandherald.com/04/Story/82887.html
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. never filed a report with federal regulators when it broke two fuel rods in 1979, creating the pieces that are now missing.
The New England Coalition said it made an extensive document search - assisted by NRC staff - over the past week, seeking information about the incident, but turned up nothing.
NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said she didn't know whether broken fuel rods had to be reported to federal regulators back in 1979, or now.
"I don't know what the requirement is now and I don't know what was reportable then, and they do change over time," Screnci said. She noted there was an extensive list of "reportable" events and she would have to research the issue.
Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, which bought the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon in 2002, said he didn't know anything about the lack of reports in 1979, or whether broken fuel rods warranted an official report to regulators.
Williams said the fuel rod pieces were created when Yankee personnel tried to put the damaged fuel rods into new assemblies. While the 12-foot fuel rods broke into several pieces, the two pieces that are now missing were so short they _were put in a special container.
All the other pieces are accounted for, Williams said.
New England Coalition technical advisor Raymond Shadis said that an NRC official told him Thursday that nuclear power plants were allowed to break a small percentage of its fuel rods a year without filing an official report with regulators, as long as radiation levels remained within certain limits.
But Shadis disputed Williams' assertion that the plant knows where all its fuel rods - and pieces - are.
"They have lost control of their fuel inventory. You don't lose nuclear fuel," he said.
Vermont Yankee has more than 150,000 fuel rods in its spent fuel pool, and about 19,000 in the reactor core at any given moment.
Shadis said the NRC reported that Vermont Yankee broke two faulty fuel rods when they were trying to insert them into the spent fuel pool. The fuel rods had been removed from the reactor core in 1979 because of leaking radiation.
The New England Coalition filed a citizens' petition last week, asking that the movement of fuel into the reactor be halted until the missing fuel rod pieces were found, and saying it had evidence of other broken fuel rods.
"The two rods are the only rods unaccounted for. In 1992 there were fuel problems, but there was no breakage into separate segments. There is no more fuel unaccounted for," Williams said.
Shadis said he had been told by a plant employee that a fuel rod had "exploded," in 1992 and the employee had seen a video of the damaged fuel which looked like it had blown apart, as if it had disintegrated.
Entergy Nuclear has already finished refueling the reactor, having already fixed the cracks in the steam dryer, which is at the top of the reactor, and had returned the top to the reactor, bolting it back in place.
Meanwhile, Gov. James Douglas said Thursday said he had no problem with Vermont Yankee resuming operation next week, despite the fact that the missing fuel rod pieces haven't been found.
"The storage of the spent fuel rods is an issue that's related to, but still different from, the operation of the plant, and I don't think that it will necessarily hold up the restart of the plant next week," Douglas said at his weekly news conference.
Douglas has called the loss of the fuel rod pieces "unacceptable" and has demanded accountability from both Entergy and the NRC.
"We have no regulatory hold, the schedule is theirs," the NRC's Screnci said. "We would have to have a reason it wasn't safe to operate to keep them from starting the plant. I know of nothing that would prevent them from starting."
Douglas has been pushing the NRC for a commitment for a so-called independent engineering assessment, and has left open the possibility that it would ask for a much more detailed, lengthy and expensive independent safety assessment.
So far, the NRC has been noncommittal about doing even the engineering review, which the Vermont Public Service Board has set as a condition of the plant's permit for a power increase or uprate.
Screnci said there was no connection between the missing fuel and the plant's ability to operate.
And she said there was no reason to stop the plant from resuming power generation.
Vermont Yankee provides about one-third of the state's power needs, about half of its production. The rest of its power is sold out of state.
The plant, which shut down in early April, is expected to resume power generation on Monday, if things go as planned.
Williams said that a special remote camera - less than 3 inches tall - had been placed in the 40-by-30-foot fuel pool to try to locate the missing fuel pieces. He said, if necessary, another, more technical camera could be brought in.
He said the camera came from R.O.V. Technologies of Vernon, a company that specializes in remote cameras used by the nuclear power industry.
Once the camera was put in the spent fuel pool, it too became radioactive waste, Williams said.
On yet another front, Wallace Malley, an assistant attorney general, said he was researching the issue of whether of the "four little words," that Entergy Nuclear wants added to a 1977 state law dealing with the storage of high-level nuclear waste at the Vermont Yankee site in Vernon.
Malley is doing the research at the request of Sen. John Campbell, D-Windsor.
Malley said he might have the legal opinion finished today, but he said it was a complicated issue and it might be Monday before the opinion is completed. "It's a high priority and we may have something tomorrow," he said.
The four little words - "its successors or assigns" - would clear the way for Entergy Nuclear to seek approval from the Public Service Board to store high level waste at the Vernon reactor, and not have to have approval from the Legislature as well.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms
Not-guilty plea in case of missile parts trade
By MICHAEL P. MAYKO mmayko@ctpost.com
Friday, April 30, 2004
http://www.connpost.com/Stories/0,1413,96%7E3750%7E2118535,00.html
BRIDGEPORT - A Hasidic Jew and his two corporations accused of illegally shipping missile parts and accessories for a fighter jet radar system to Israel pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday.
Meanwhile, federal authorities and the Israeli National Police continue their investigation into suspicions that the parts were destined for Iran.
Leib Kohn, and his companies, L&M Manufacturing and Nesco NY, both located in Brooklyn, N.Y., entered the pleas before U.S. Magistrate Judge William Garfinkel who set jury selection for June 16 before U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney in Hartford.
Kohn and his companies are accused of conspiring to violate and violating federal export laws. The two charges each carry a maximum 10-year prison sentence and up to $1 million in fines.
Kohn is accused of purchasing the parts from Radio Research in Waterbury and then shipping them to Israel.
A raid on the Israeli warehouse by that country's national police turned up the HAWK missile parts and the radar components for the F-4 fighter jet. Israeli police arrested Eli Cohen, who they believe runs Q.P.S. in Binyamina, Israel. Cohen is suspected of previously shipping armored carrier personnel parts to Iran.
The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service is continuing their investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Appleton, who specializes in anti-terrorism and international weapons trafficking cases, is prosecuting.
-------- asia
Thailand Sends Troops to Counter New Attacks
April 30, 2004
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/asia/30thai.html
BANGKOK, April 29 - Thailand flooded its predominantly Muslim south with about 1,000 soldiers on Thursday as local residents and human rights groups questioned the overwhelming force used to kill more than 100 lightly armed attackers on Wednesday.
Saying he feared retaliatory attacks, Defense Minister Chettha Thanajaro ordered two battalions of reinforcements into an area where the government's use of force has fed resentment and violence.
Interviewed on Thai television, local residents voiced anger and bewilderment at the killings, particularly an attack on a mosque in which about 30 of the men had taken refuge.
The locals identified some of the dead - mostly young men in their teens - as local villagers, including 18 members of a soccer team, according to The Associated Press.
Altogether, the government said, 108 attackers had died, along with 5 soldiers and police officers.
Much larger questions concerned the motives for the attacks on a dozen police stations and outposts early Wednesday and the identity of the people who organized them.
The attackers shouted Islamic slogans, but they also appeared to be some of the same young men who analysts said had been hired in the past to burn schools and carry out raids.
Southern Thailand, which was annexed by what was then Siam a century ago, is home to most of the 6 million Muslims in this largely Buddhist nation of 66 million people.
It seethes with vendettas, political rivalries, criminal gangs, smugglers, drug runners and a dangerous feud between the military and the police, as well as with the remnants of a separatist rebellion that was mostly quelled more than a decade ago.
"There are too many things going on there for anybody to actually point a finger and say this is the thing that caused it,'' said Saroja Dorairajoo, an expert on the region at the National University of Singapore. "The causes are multiple.''
Like other experts, she said she doubted the involvement of international terrorist groups, although members of these groups have had a presence in Thailand.
The violence, which has intensified since a well-planned raid on an armory in January, has brought an atmosphere of fear to the region.
A newly deployed security force has used brutal tactics that experts say include killings and kidnappings, heightening local anger at the largely Buddhist military and police presence in the region.
If Thailand continues to emphasize a military response to the southern unrest, a backlash could grow, several experts and human rights campaigners said.
The military said it was bracing for more violence.
"I would say the military phase has just started,'' Gen. Pallop Pinmanee, who commanded the attack on the mosque, told a radio station.
The country's top Muslim cleric, Sawas Sumalayasak, spoke out on television in support of the military's aggressive response to Wednesday's attacks and its own attack on the mosque.
"The authorities exercised reasonable restraint in dealing with the situation,'' he said. "They were patient and waited for a long time outside the mosque.''
Newspapers and television stations in Bangkok reacted with shock at the high number of fatalities.
Under a banner headline reading "Kingdom Shaken,'' The Nation, an English-language daily, said the episode "may change Thailand forever,'' and warned it could lead to "an era of constant fear, mistrust and intolerance among people of different beliefs.''
The Thai Post, a mass-circulation daily, wrote: "The government said the attackers were teenagers who were lured and hired by adults to carry out the unrest. If this information is true, and as Thailand is a civilized country, should they have been killed?''
It continued: "If the government does not understand what has caused the problem in the south and intends nevertheless to use such strong measures, it may lead to more violence that cannot be quelled.''
The United States and international human rights groups expressed concern over the killings.
"Most of the attackers only had machetes and knives,'' Forum Asia said in a statement. "So surely the well-armed soldiers and police who are trained to deal with this can handle these people, so why shoot to kill?''
Along with scores of machetes and knives, it said only six firearms were recovered from the attackers.
-------- europe
France Struggles to Curb Extremist Muslim Clerics
April 30, 2004
By CRAIG S. SMITH
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/europe/30FRAN.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
VÉNISSIEUX, France, April 23 - This town's largest mosque is temporarily leaderless, its chief cleric having been expelled from France last week for advocating wife beating, stoning and other medieval Islamic views at odds with the principles of the modern French state.
The cleric, Abdelkader Bouziane, was the fifth cleric expelled from France this year on charges of spreading a dangerously divisive brand of radical Islam. The country has kicked out dozens since 2001.
"The government cannot tolerate the public statement of views that are contrary to human rights, attack the dignity of women and call for hate or violence," the country's new interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, said recently.
France has long maintained one of the strictest antiterrorism programs in Europe, in part because the country was hit early by Islamist terror and because it has the largest Muslim population on the Continent. Many other countries in Europe have been far more tolerant in allowing radical discourse to flourish in their mosques.
But making such a hard-line stance stick is difficult, even here in a country that has been more willing than most of its European neighbors to limit free speech in the interest of a calm and cohesive society.
Mr. Bouziane, 52, won an appeal that would allow him to return from his native Algeria to France, despite the Interior Ministry's presentation to the court of evidence that Mr. Bouziane has links to groups that support terrorism.
[On Thursday, President Jacques Chirac, who has been criticized by moderate Muslims for his handling of the case, vowed to take further legal action if Mr. Bouziane returns from Algeria. "If we have to change our law to avoid repeating this kind of case, which is unacceptable for us, we will change the law so we can expel people who say such things," he said at a news conference.]
The expulsion and possible return of Mr. Bouziane highlight a thorny issue that most countries across Europe are facing as they struggle to meet the needs of their growing Muslim populations and protect traditional civil liberties while trying to curb the spread of extremist Islamic thought.
Part of the problem is a dearth of domestically trained clerics to lead congregations of European-born Muslims. As a result, mosques like that in Vénissieux often have to rely on imported imams or self-proclaimed clerics who espouse fundamentalist beliefs that grate against Europe's more tolerant societies.
"The problem is that we have 1,500 imams, but the great majority of them don't have any knowledge of the land," said Azzedine Gaci, who heads the Muslim Council in the Rhône-Alps region.
Only about 10 percent of the imams preaching in France's mosques and prayer rooms are citizens, and half do not speak French, according to the Interior Ministry.
The issue has become more pressing in the 10 years since a wave of Islamist terrorism swept France and has continued to spread around the world. The fundamentalist clerics provided inspiration and support for Islamists returning from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe jihads - among them the hijackers who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. They have also helped prepare fresh recruits from among Europe's frustrated, disenfranchised second-generation immigrant youths now rediscovering their religious roots.
Mr. de Villepin said last week that France would have to help Muslims to train moderate prayer leaders here to encourage the emergence of a tolerant "French Islam." The country's government-sponsored Muslim Council is working on a training program but says it needs state aid. Any government move to support such a program, however, faces huge obstacles because of France's strict laws barring the state from meddling in religion.
The robed men streaming into the mosque for Friday prayers this week angrily refused to answer questions from outsiders, arguing that they have been misrepresented by the news media. "Apparently, the government is giving away airplane tickets for free," said a long-bearded man, referring to Mr. Bouziane's expulsion.
But extreme fundamentalist congregations in Vénissieux and other working-class suburbs east of Lyon, France's second-largest urban center, have produced violent militants in the past.
In September 1995, the police killed an Algerian Islamist in a shootout near Lyon after recovering his fingerprints from an unexploded bomb found on the tracks of the high-speed rail line between Lyon and Paris. The man, believed to have been behind a spate of bombings that terrorized Paris earlier that year, had attended a fundamentalist mosque in Vaulx-en-Velin, Lyon's other principal working-class suburb with a concentration of Muslims.
In January this year, the police arrested six men from Vénissieux who were alleged to be part of a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda that had planned a chemical weapons attack in Paris in 2002. One of the men taken into custody ran a small radical prayer room in town, and another was leading an effort to expand the mosque at which the now-expelled Mr. Bouziane preached.
Two Vénissieux men are among people taken prisoner two years ago in Afghanistan and are now detained at the United States naval station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
France has tried to regulate its five million Muslims by creating a national advisory body to address issues like the training of clerics and to act as the Muslim representative in dealing with the government. But the country's most extreme fundamentalists have refused to take part.
"People like Mr. Bouziane live in another world," said Mr. Gaci, who is part of a broader trend of young, politically active second-generation Muslims here who are struggling to establish a united front to give Europe's Muslims a stronger voice and indisputable power. He worries that the scattered but spreading fundamentalist movement is hurting that effort.
Mr. Bouziane has preached at several mosques in and around Lyon since arriving in France from Algeria in 1979. After a six-month stint in Saudi Arabia, he began preaching at the Vénissieux mosque, an unassuming gray concrete box a block from the town's largest housing development.
The imam's extreme views were well known among Muslims in the region and drew the attention of the local authorities last year after he reportedly issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for jihad against American interests in France.
The Interior Ministry issued an expulsion order in February, but did not immediately execute it. Then, in early April, a local publication, Lyon Mag, published an interview with Mr. Bouziane in which he spoke about his support for the Koran's teaching that adulterous women should be stoned and that it was a man's right to strike his wife if she was unfaithful.
"He shouldn't hit her in the face, but aim lower, the legs or stomach," he said in the interview, adding that a man can hit hard to instill fear in his wife.
France's national press picked up the article, and within days the Interior Ministry executed the expulsion order. Mr. Bouziane was put on a plane to Algiers, where he was apparently detained for questioning.
But the expulsion drew sharp criticism from many Muslims across France, who saw it as part of a broader attack on Muslims by the French state. The country has recently issued a law banning girls from wearing Muslim veils at school, for example.
In the housing projects near Mr. Bouziane's mosque, a young man with a closely cropped beard said he thought that the cleric had done nothing wrong. "If my wife cheats on me, I have the right to correct her," he said, "and not just with a slap on the bottom, but with a gunshot."
--------
Germany puts its first Eurofighters into service
Apr 30, 2004
LAAGE, Germany (AFP)
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040430134530.9d0swotg.html
The German air force announced Friday that it had officially put its first five Eurofighter jets into service in the northern city of Rostock.
The five aircraft, which will be used mainly for training purposes, were given to the Steinhoff fighter squadron based in Laage.
Germany, which was the first country to take delivery of the European-made fighter but the second to put it into service after Italy, has ordered 180 of the combat aircraft at a cost of 80 million euros (95 million dollars) each.
The Eurofighter Typhoon is a multi-role combat jet with a range of 2,500 kilometres (1,560 miles) and can be equipped with a mix of missiles depending on its mission.
It is built by a four-nation consortium involving the French-Spanish-German group EADS, Britain's BAE Systems and Italy's Alenia.
Britain has ordered 232 aircraft, Italy 121 and Spain 87. Last year Austria became the first nation outside the consortium to place an order, asking for 18. Greece has committed to 60 with an option for a further 30 aircraft.
-------- iraq
SIEGE
U.S. Weighs Falluja Pullback, Leaving Patrols to Iraq Troops
April 30, 2004
By JOHN KIFNER and IAN FISHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/middleeast/30IRAQ.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
FALLUJA, Iraq, April 29 - United States military commanders here moved to loosen their siege of this city on Thursday, proposing to turn over the task of ending a fierce anti-American insurgency to a new force of Iraqi soldiers, led by officers once loyal to Saddam Hussein.
The plan seemed tentative at best, with conflicting statements from commanders here and military officials in Washington.
News of the proposal emerged as fresh American airstrikes and skirmishes were erupting late on Thursday inside Falluja. Pentagon officials, who often hear of decisions by battlefield commanders several hours later, said that negotiations on a number of possible solutions had been under way to end the three-week siege here, and that the plan was one under discussion.
If it goes forward, the plan would mark a shift in the strategy to end weeks of violence that have cost many American and Iraqi lives as well as support for the war among ordinary Americans.
The top Marine Corps officer in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, explained in an e-mail message on Thursday night that the new Iraqi unit, which he said was formally called the First Battalion of the Fallujah Brigade, would be made up of "mostly former Iraqi Army officers and men."
General Conway said a small group of marines would be assigned to the unit as a liason to American forces. The head of the Iraqi force would be the former commanding general of the 38th Iraqi Infantry Division, and would report to General Conway.
Even as details of the plan leaked out, 10 American soldiers were killed on Thursday, 8 by a huge suicide car bomb south of the capital, Baghdad, and two others in separate attacks, one in Baghdad and one in Baquba.
Under the plan, which officials say was proposed by tribal leaders and former Iraqi military officers, Marine units would pull back from in and around Falluja, to be replaced in stages by some 900 Iraqis under direct command of former Iraqi officers.
Placing Iraqis, and not Americans, on the front lines to control thousands of insurgents would seem to help ease several problems for the occupation force. Heavy fighting here early this month transformed Falluja into a symbol of resistance to the occupation, and officials here worried that any new battles, especially ones in which Iraqi civilians died, could stir mass uprisings.
Moreover, the plan would seem to give a greater public role to Iraqi authorities, something United States officials are eager to display amid doubts here about the true extent of power that will be ceded to Iraqis on June 30. Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne here called the plan "an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem." He said: "They know the populace. They know the terrain."
Another Marine commander also called the arrangement a way to "enfranchise" the Sunni Muslims, the minority that lost its favored position with the fall of Mr. Hussein. The insurgents here are largely Sunni. In addition, he said, it could be a way to pacify the city "without the butcher's bill of having to clear it block by block."
In answer to a question about whether Falluja was a decisive battle, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday on MSNBC's "Hardball," "Well, there's no question that, for success in Iraq, you can't have a city taken over by a bunch of terrorists and the former regime elements and have that persist over a sustained period of time."
He added: "The marines on the ground are the ones that are making those judgments. And that's why they calculated that it's in our interests to do it the way they're doing it and to have these discussions with the Sunni tribal leaders." It is unclear, however, how much power the new Iraqi force will be able to exert over the embattled insurgents, who have shown some military skill and are said to include foreign fighters. There is much skepticism among United States forces about the effectiveness of Iraqi soldiers, many of whom refused to fight alongside Americans in Falluja.
The plan emerged on an especially deadly day for American troops. The deaths brought to 126 the number of American soldiers to have died in the Iraq conflict this month, the most of any month so far.
The eight soldiers were killed along a highway near the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, as they conducted a foot patrol in search of roadside bombs. Brig. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, of the First Armored Division, said the soldiers noticed a car parked on the side of the highway, which leads from Baghdad south to Basra.
"They went to investigate why the car was there and it blew up," he said. A military statement said it was a suicide attack. Declining to release details, he said four other soldiers were injured by a bomb estimated to weigh 300 to 400 kilograms. He said roadside bombs had been a growing problem in that area. On Thursday night, the road south of Mahmudiya was blocked to traffic and crowded with tanks and soldiers warning away drivers.
In Baghdad on Thursday, the military reported one soldier killed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack at 5 a.m. Another soldier was killed on Thursday in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad, by a roadside bomb.
In the surrounded cities of Najaf and Kufa, south of Baghdad, there were reports of continuing skirmishes between American soldiers and militiamen loyal to the rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Seven mortars were also fired at an American base near Najaf, where Mr. Sadr is hiding out. No injuries were reported.
The standoffs in Falluja and Najaf have presented American officials with their most difficult test yet: how to quell two rebellions without stoking still greater anger in Iraq. Military commanders have all but ruled out storming Najaf, a city held holy to Shiites, to capture or kill Mr. Sadr, who led an uprising early this month in several cities.
And amid condemnation in Europe and elsewhere for what some leaders say are heavy-handed tactics in Falluja, American military and civilian officials in Iraq have shown much reluctance to return to all-out fighting here either, despite strong talk from President Bush and other administration officials about ending the insurgency.
On April 5, the Marines threw a cordon around this city of roughly 300,000, following the ambush murder of four American security contractors. Hundreds of Iraqis died in intense fighting, and Falluja emerged among many Iraqis as a rallying cry against the occupation.
Last week, American officials agreed not to restart a military offensive if local leaders could persuade insurgents to hand over their heavy weapons. So far, military officials say, few serviceable weapons have been turned in.
Despite that, American officials said Sunday they would defer any large-scale attack in favor of joint patrols with members of the American-recruited security force known as the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Still, there have been repeated clashes, including an attack by an AC-130 Specter gunship on Tuesday night on a truck carrying ammunition or bombs that produced spectacular explosions on live television along with sniper activity. Dozens of Iraqis are believed to have been killed.
Even on Thursday night, after details of the new plan emerged, explosions and gunfire could be heard from the Jolan area in the northwest of the city, an insurgent stronghold. The Navy reported dropping three 500-pound bombs in the Falluja area.
News of the new plan came so swiftly on Thursday that some Marine company commanders were still glumly working over maps to coordinate the earlier plans for joint patrols with Iraqi forces when word reached them. The exact source of the new plan remained sketchy, but several military officials said they were approached by military and tribal leaders from Falluja looking for a way to end the violence here.
"They came to us," one ranking officer here said. "We would be foolish not to listen to them."
Under the plan, Colonel Byrne told reporters, his troops from the First Battalion, Fifth Marines would withdraw from positions in buildings in the southern industrial zone. The Falluja police chief, Saber al-Janabi, told the Reuters news agency that the Americans would withdraw troops from the city. Marine units on the northern edge of the city are staying put for the moment, an officer said. Several officers said the plan was to have 300 Iraqis report on Friday, 300 on Saturday and another 300 on Sunday.
Soon after taking control of the country last spring, the occupation authority disbanded the Iraqi Army, which many commanders now say was a mistake, and purged members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party from many positions in society. In recent days, the chief occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, has announced an easing of these rules, including allowing many senior military officers to return to their posts. In a sense, their return may be a first test of this policy.
"The Iraqi military was a respected institution in the society of Iraq," one officer here said. "Not every member of the Iraqi Army is a black-hearted individual."
The plan could also test the tolerance of the many Iraqis, especially among the majority Shiites, who resent any new role for former leaders of Mr. Hussein's government. The commander to be placed at the head of the new unit was identified only as a Gen. Salah.
In Basra, a South African civilian was killed in a drive-by shooting on Thursday.
--------
Marines Plan Handoff To Militia in Fallujah
Car Bomb Kills 8 Soldiers in Baghdad Suburb
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52255-2004Apr29?language=printer
FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 29 -- U.S. Marines will withdraw from this violence-wracked city and hand over responsibility for pursuing insurgents to a new militia headed by former Iraqi army officers under a deal brokered by the top Marine general in Iraq, military officials here said Thursday. In Washington, senior Pentagon officials insisted a final agreement had not yet been reached, but Marine commanders here said they had received orders to prepare for a pullout that would begin Friday.
In one of Baghdad's southern suburbs, meanwhile, eight U.S. soldiers were killed by a car bomb in one of the deadliest single attacks against American forces in weeks.
The surprise agreement in Fallujah, which was authorized by Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, is intended to give more responsibility to Iraqis for subduing the city while attempting defuse tensions by pulling Marines back from front-line positions. But some U.S. military and civilian officials privately expressed concern that Conway's strategy involves too hasty a retreat and relies too heavily on Iraqis whose combat skills and allegiances have not been fully examined.
After word of the agreement made its way though Fallujah, insurgents resumed firing on Marines, some of whom were preparing to depart. The exchange of fire prompted commanders to summon airstrikes, and Navy fighter jets dropped at least three 500-pound bombs on the city.
It is not clear whether Conway conveyed the terms of the deal to his superiors in Baghdad and at the Pentagon, or even to leaders of the U.S. occupation authority. One person familiar with the deal said it took senior U.S. military and civilian officials in Baghdad by surprise. Because of the apparent lack of consultation, some officials said elements of the agreement, particularly the speedy troop withdrawal, may be tempered by the Pentagon or by the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of operations in Iraq.
"It's very confusing right now," a senior Pentagon official said. "There's a disconnect here and we can't figure it out."
The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry DiRita, said Marine commanders have considerable authority to negotiate deals within certain "broad objectives," including bringing to justice those Iraqis responsible for the killing and mutilation in Fallujah of four civilian U.S. security contractors on March 31. In general, DiRita said, the objectives involve ensuring that Fallujah is not "left in the hands of the former regime elements and whoever else" is in league with them.
"There is some uncertainty as to what exactly General Conway and the other commanders are working through," DiRita said. "But the commanders have an enormous amount of discretion, working closely with the political folks in Fallujah, to determine the arrangements they think they can establish in order to meet the broad objectives."
Conway's agreement is the latest and boldest attempt to pacify Fallujah, which has become a bastion of armed resistance to the American occupation of Iraq. U.S. officials estimate that there are anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand insurgents in the city.
Under the deal, Marine battalions stationed in and around Fallujah will begin pulling away from the city over the next several days. In addition to giving up front-line positions inside Fallujah -- some of which were gained only after Marines suffered significant casualties during fighting this month -- the Marines also will lift their cordon around the city of 200,000.
Ahmed Hardan, a physician who led a group of Fallujah residents in earlier negotiations with U.S. forces, said on the al-Arabiya satellite channel that the latest deal calls for U.S. troops to move out of the city's southern neighborhoods by early Saturday and to leave the northern part of Fallujah beginning Sunday.
The Marines will be replaced by a new militia called the Fallujah Protection Army, which will consist of 900 to 1,100 Iraqis who served in the military or other security services under former president Saddam Hussein, Marine officers said. The militia will be commanded by a group of former Iraqi generals, the officers said.
"They will bring in former Iraqi soldiers who are committed to fighting and maintaining the peace in Fallujah," said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, a battalion commander who was briefed on the deal.
"They'll pick up from us," Byrne said. "The plan is that eventually the whole of Fallujah will be under the control of the Fallujah Protection Army. The goal is that anyone should be able to come into the city without being attacked."
The Fallujah Protection Army will be subordinate to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and report directly to Conway, Byrne said.
Byrne and other Marine officers did not reveal the full name of the Iraqi force's overall commander or the individuals who agreed to the deal with Conway. Marine officers met with representatives of the new force on Thursday at a municipal building on Fallujah's outskirts.
"We are doing this because we love our country and we want these thugs out of our country," said Mohammed Faur, a former colonel in the Iraqi Intelligence Service who is serving as a liaison between the militia and the Marines.
Faur said most members of the new force would be from Fallujah. "It's about time for them to take responsibility," he said. "It's an Iraqi problem. The Iraqis are getting angrier. People are upset that Syrians and foreigners are causing trouble here."
Some American officials familiar with efforts to pacify Fallujah said they were concerned about the background of the participants and questioned whether they would be screened for past human rights abuses and other crimes. Marine officers said they did not know the details of how the force would be assembled. One American with knowledge of the plan said procedures for vetting participants had not been detailed by Conway.
A Marine officer familiar with the arrangement acknowledged that some former insurgents may be part of the force, creating the potential situation of U.S. troops having to work with people who have very recently been shooting at them.
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, announced last week that elements of the Iraqi army, which was hastily dissolved after U.S.-led forces took control of the country, would be rehabilitated and returned to service. That decision, combined with the fresh approach in Fallujah, could help regain some support from Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, which ran the country under Hussein. U.S. officials consider Sunni support crucial to the successful handover of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.
The deal also could exploit any divisions among Sunni insurgents in the city, which appear to be growing, according to Marine officers.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, the military announced the deaths of 10 U.S. soldiers, eight of them in a single car-bomb explosion at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday in Mahmudiyah, a southern suburb of the capital. At least four other soldiers were wounded in that blast, U.S. military officials said.
A military statement said the casualties in Mahmudiyah were part of a 1st Armored Division task force that was "working to make the roads south of Baghdad safe for the citizens and those traveling to the holy sites in the area." While the soldiers were working on one of the roads, the statement said, a driver in a station wagon approached and detonated the car bomb.
Earlier in the day, a rocket-propelled grenade attack on an Army patrol in eastern Baghdad killed one soldier from the 1st Cavalry Division. A few hours later, a soldier from the 1st Infantry Division died when a roadside bomb exploded as a military convoy passed near Baqubah, a Sunni-dominated city 30 miles northeast of Baghdad.
The attacks brought the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat this month to 122, making it the deadliest since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003.
While U.S. officials weighed how to tame Fallujah and the Shiite holy city of Najaf, insurgents maintained the tempo of their attacks on U.S. troops outside those areas. The violence came as an influential Shiite cleric in the city of Karbala called on the United States to hand over full sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, not the limited version that has been discussed in recent weeks.
"We have recently seen the occupation authority's policy going in curves, without purpose or direction," Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mudaressi, a scholar who has cast himself as an Islamic reformer, said at a news conference. "We must tell the coalition authority that force cannot fix things, that we need more wisdom, understanding and dialogue to avert escalating violence."
Despite a drumbeat of attacks across the country, eliminating resistance activity in Fallujah has emerged as a top priority for U.S. commanders and civilian officials. Marines entered the city in force on April 5, five days after the American security contractors were killed.
Correspondents Sewell Chan and Scott Wilson in Baghdad, staff writer Bradley Graham in Washington and special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Mahmudiyah contributed to this report.
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Deal Is Reached to Cede Control of City to Iraqi Troops
April 30, 2004
By JOHN KIFNER and EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/middleeast/30CND-IRAQ.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
FALLUJA, Iraq, April 30 - The Marines began moving from some of their positions here today as a former Iraqi Army general entered the besieged city under a plan intended to restore order with a new Iraqi force of 600 to 1,000 troops led by officers who once served Saddam Hussein.
The officer who will lead the takeover, Gen. Jasim Muhammad Salih, entered Falluja in his old uniform to cheers from hundreds of onlookers, and he paid a visit one of the largest mosques in the city.
A spokesman for the American military, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, declined to provide details about the leader of the new Iraqi force, but said that "he has been carefully chosen, has been initially vetted."
Outside the town, a hotspot of anti-American resistance throughout the year-old American-led military occupation, two marines were reported killed and six were wounded in a suicide car bombing this morning.
The Marines, who have born the brunt of the fighting on the coalition side of the three-week battle over Falluja, will continue to "maintain a presence in around Falluja" until the new Iraqi "battalion's units demonstrate a capability to man designated checkpoints and positions," General Kimmitt said.
"The coalition objectives remain unchanged - to eliminate armed groups, collect and positively control all heavy weapons and turn over foreign fighters and disarm anti-Iraqi insurgents in Falluja," General Kimmitt said in a Baghdad briefing. "We are certainly not withdrawing from Fallujah," he added. "Nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the Marine forces are repositioning around Fallujah."
In a Pentagon briefing from Qatar, Gen. John Abizaid, who commands all United States forces in the Middle East, expressed a cautious optimism of a "possible breakthrough" in Falluja.
"The opportunity is to build an Iraqi security force from former elements of the army that will work under the command of coalition forces, that will be mentored and worked next to by coalition forces," General Abizaid said. "And I think that we should be very careful in thinking that this effort to build this Iraqi capacity will necessarily calm down the situation in Falluja tonight or over the next several days. It's a step-by-step effort that will have to include a clear understanding of the security situation." General Kimmitt emphasized that the Marines would retain authority over the new Iraqi unit.
"This battalion will be recruited largely from former soldiers of the Iraqi army," he said. "The battalion will function as a subordinate command under the operational control of the First Marine Expeditionary Force."
News of the proposal emerged on Thursday as fresh American airstrikes and skirmishes were erupting late in the day inside Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad. Pentagon officials, who often hear of decisions by battlefield commanders several hours later, said that negotiations on a number of possible solutions had been under way to end the three-week siege here.
The plan marked a shift in the strategy to end weeks of violence that have cost many American and Iraqi lives as well as support for the war among ordinary Americans.
The top Marine Corps officer in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, explained in an e-mail message on Thursday night that the new Iraqi unit, which he said was formally called the First Battalion of the Fallujah Brigade, would be made up of "mostly former Iraqi Army officers and men."
General Conway said a small group of marines would be assigned to the unit as a liason to American forces. The head of the Iraqi force would be the former commanding general of the 38th Iraqi Infantry Division, and would report to General Conway.
Even as details of the plan leaked out, 10 American soldiers were killed on Thursday, 8 by a huge suicide car bomb south of the capital, Baghdad, and 2 others in separate attacks, one in Baghdad and one in Baquba.
Under the plan, which officials say was proposed by tribal leaders and former Iraqi military officers, Marine units would pull back from in and around Falluja, to be replaced in stages by some the Iraqi force under direct command of former Iraqi officers.
Placing Iraqis, and not Americans, on the front lines to control thousands of insurgents would seem to help ease several problems for the occupation force. Heavy fighting here early this month transformed Falluja into a symbol of resistance to the occupation, and officials here worried that any new battles, especially ones in which Iraqi civilians died, could stir mass uprisings.
Moreover, the plan would seem to give a greater public role to Iraqi authorities, something United States officials are eager to display amid doubts here about the true extent of power that will be ceded to Iraqis on June 30. Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne of the Marines here called the plan "an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem." He added: "They know the populace. They know the terrain."
Another Marine commander also called the arrangement a way to "enfranchise" the Sunni Muslims, the minority that lost its favored position with the fall of Mr. Hussein. The insurgents here are largely Sunni. In addition, he said, it could be a way to pacify the city "without the butcher's bill of having to clear it block by block."
In answer to a question about whether Falluja was a decisive battle, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on Thursday on MSNBC's "Hardball" program, "Well, there's no question that, for success in Iraq, you can't have a city taken over by a bunch of terrorists and the former regime elements and have that persist over a sustained period of time."
"The marines on the ground are the ones that are making those judgments," he said. "And that's why they calculated that it's in our interests to do it the way they're doing it and to have these discussions with the Sunni tribal leaders."
It is unclear, however, how much power the new Iraqi force will be able to exert over the embattled insurgents, who have shown some military skill and are said to include foreign fighters. There is much skepticism among United States forces about the effectiveness of Iraqi soldiers, many of whom refused to fight alongside Americans in Falluja.
The plan emerged on an especially deadly day for American troops. The deaths on Thursday brought to 126 the number of American soldiers to have died in the Iraq conflict this month, the most of any month so far. The casualties from today's suicide bombing outside Falluja would raise that to 128.
The eight soldiers killed on Thursday were attacked along a highway near the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, as they conducted a foot patrol in search of roadside bombs. Brig. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, of the First Armored Division, said the soldiers noticed a car parked on the side of the highway, which leads from Baghdad south to Basra.
"They went to investigate why the car was there and it blew up," he said.
A military statement said it was a suicide attack. Declining to release details, he said four other soldiers were injured by a bomb estimated to weigh 300 to 400 kilograms. He said roadside bombs had been a growing problem in that area. On Thursday night, the road south of Mahmudiya was blocked to traffic and crowded with tanks and soldiers warning away drivers.
In the surrounded cities of Najaf and Kufa, south of Baghdad, there were reports on Thursday of continuing skirmishes between American soldiers and militiamen loyal to the rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Seven mortars were also fired at an American base near Najaf, where Mr. Sadr is hiding out. No injuries were reported.
Today in Najaf, the chief of police said he had begun negotiations with representatives of the rebel cleric leading the insurrection there, Moktada al-Sadr, in an effort to get Mr. Sadr's so-called Mahdi Army to leave the town and allow the police to regain control. But at Friday prayers in Kufa, Mr. Sadr said he would stick to the way of "jihad."
The standoffs in Falluja and Najaf have presented American officials with their most difficult test yet: how to quell two rebellions without stoking still greater anger in Iraq. Military commanders have all but ruled out storming Najaf, a city held holy to Shiites, to capture or kill Mr. Sadr, who led an uprising early this month in several cities.
And amid condemnation in Europe and elsewhere for what some leaders say are heavy-handed tactics in Falluja, American military and civilian officials in Iraq have shown much reluctance to return to all-out fighting here either, despite strong talk from President Bush and other administration officials about ending the insurgency.
On April 5, the Marines threw a cordon around this city of roughly 300,000, following the ambush murder of four American security contractors. Hundreds of Iraqis died in intense fighting, and Falluja emerged among many Iraqis as a rallying cry against the occupation.
Last week, American officials agreed not to restart a military offensive if local leaders could persuade insurgents to hand over their heavy weapons. So far, military officials say, few serviceable weapons have been turned in.
Despite that, American officials said on Sunday that they would defer any large-scale attack in favor of joint patrols with members of the American-recruited security force known as the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
Still, there have been repeated clashes, including an attack by an AC-130 Specter gunship on Tuesday night on a truck carrying ammunition or bombs that produced spectacular explosions on live television along with sniper activity. Dozens of Iraqis are believed to have been killed.
Even on Thursday night, after details of the new plan emerged, explosions and gunfire could be heard from the Jolan area in the northwest of the city, an insurgent stronghold. The Navy reported dropping three 500-pound bombs in the Falluja area.
News of the new plan came so swiftly on Thursday that some Marine company commanders were still glumly working over maps to coordinate the earlier plans for joint patrols with Iraqi forces when word reached them. The exact source of the new plan remained sketchy, but several military officials said they were approached by military and tribal leaders from Falluja looking for a way to end the violence here.
"They came to us," one ranking officer here said. "We would be foolish not to listen to them."
Under the plan, Colonel Byrne told reporters, his troops from the First Battalion, Fifth Marines would withdraw from positions in buildings in the southern industrial zone. The Falluja police chief, Saber al-Janabi, told the Reuters news agency that the Americans would withdraw troops from the city. Marine units on the northern edge of the city are staying put for the moment, an officer said. Several officers said the plan was to have 300 Iraqis report on Friday, 300 on Saturday and another 300 on Sunday.
Soon after taking control of the country last spring, the occupation authority disbanded the Iraqi Army, which many commanders now say was a mistake, and purged members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party from many positions in society. In recent days, the chief occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, has announced an easing of these rules, including allowing many senior military officers to return to their posts. In a sense, their return may be a first test of this policy.
"The Iraqi military was a respected institution in the society of Iraq," one officer here said. "Not every member of the Iraqi Army is a black-hearted individual."
The plan could also test the tolerance of the many Iraqis, especially among the majority Shiites, who resent any new role for former leaders of Mr. Hussein's government..
Ian Fisher and Christine Hauser reported from Baghdad and Mark J. Prendergast contributed reporting from New York for this article.
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Ex - Weapons Inspector: Too Few Iraq Troops
April 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Inspector.html
TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- The Bush administration failed to prepare adequately for postwar Iraq and has stationed too few troops there to maintain security during the occupation, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector said Friday. David Kay, who resigned from the CIA in January and told Congress ``we were almost all wrong'' about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, said he expects U.S. involvement in the country to result in more violence.
``We have too few troops there,'' Kay said at a speech to the Oklahoma Bankers Association. ``We had enough troops for a brilliant military victory ... But it's too few to win the peace.''
Kay, now a senior fellow at the Arlington, Va.-based Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, said the U.S. needs about 200,000 troops to maintain security in Iraq. There are currently are 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 24,900 troops from coalition countries, according to the Pentagon.
President Bush had used Saddam Hussein's alleged program to build banned weapons as justification for the U.S. invasion.
``We've reached a point where we have two options: Cut and run, but this wouldn't be pretty and it would be irresponsible; or we can struggle and try desperately to lower the level of violence in the next 60 days when we can turn it over to the Iraqis or the U.N.,'' Kay said.
June 20 is the target date for the partial turnover of power to an interim Iraqi government.
Kay, also a former chief nuclear inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the United States is still trying to figure out how to ensure national security in the post-Cold War era.
He said nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are now easier to obtain, and terrorists have replaced other nations as America's enemies.
``We've entered an era when the ability to inflict mass casualties is much easier than it's ever been,'' Kay said.
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AP Toll Says 1,361 Iraqis Killed in April
Apr 30, 2004
By LEE KEATH
Associated Press Writer
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/A/APRIL_TOLL_IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Volunteers hunting for bodies in Fallujah find a woman and her daughter in their home, killed in the siege but undiscovered for days. Chanting mourners bury two boys caught in the crossfire of a Baghdad gunfight. A morgue in Basra overflows with torn and burned bodies from a suicide bombing.
Victims - young and old, women and men, insurgents and innocents - have been piling up day by day, making April the deadliest month for Iraqis - and Americans - since the fall of Saddam Hussein a year ago.
Official and complete death counts for Iraqis nationwide are unavailable. But a count by The Associated Press found that around 1,361 Iraqis were killed from April 1 to April 30 - 10 times the figure of at least 136 U.S. troops who died during the same period.
The Iraqi tally was compiled from daily records of violence reported by AP based on statements issued by the U.S. military, Iraqi police and local hospitals. The count includes civilians, insurgents and members of the Iraqi security forces, though a detailed breakdown was not possible. The Iraqi health ministry and the Red Crescent could not be reached Friday.
Also, the tally is likely incomplete, because witnesses reported deaths in some attacks that could not be confirmed by a hospital, the Iraqi police or U.S. officials.
The daily carnage, seen by Iraqis before their own eyes and in bloody images and photos transmitted around the country by Arab television and Iraqi newspapers, has heightened anti-U.S. sentiment across the country - even when the deaths were caused by insurgent attacks.
The siege of Fallujah, where Americans unleashed their arsenal of warplanes and tanks, became a symbol of resistance that rallied many Iraqis - Shiite and Sunni - to the anti-occupation cause.
And the sheer variety of violence - car suicide bombs, roadside bombs, insurgent rocket and mortar attacks on civilian neighborhoods, gunbattles - has deepened Iraqis' sense of instability and left them skeptical of U.S. promises of peace and prosperity.
"For this to be happening a year after Saddam fell, Iraqis are shocked," said Mahmoud Othman, a member of the U.S.-picked Governing Council.
"This shows that the United States cannot rule Iraqi properly. They thought they could do a better job than if they created an Iraqi government right from the start."
The majority of Iraqi deaths likely took place in the Marine siege of Fallujah, but the toll there has been a source of controversy. The head of Fallujah's hospital, Rafie al-Issawi, said Friday his records show 731 killed and around 2,800 wounded since the Marine siege began on April 1, though he could not immediately provide a breakdown on how many were women or children. His number is factored into the AP count.
The Iraqi health minister, Khudayer Abbas, gave a much lower number on April 22, saying 271 people were killed in the city. He also put the total number of Iraqi dead for the month so far, including Fallujah, at 576 - far lower than the AP count.
U.S. officials have said they do not have a count of Iraqi civilians killed this month. On April 20, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said troops had killed 1,000 insurgents in April. That number was not factored into the AP count because it was not known what specific battles he was referring to.
By comparison, the next deadliest month for Iraqis since the start of the U.S. occupation was March, when 301 Iraqi civilians were killed, according to the Brookings Institution, which keeps a rough but widely respected monthly tally.
The Brookings number does not include insurgent or Iraqi police deaths, as the AP's April tally does. But at the most, a few dozen armed Iraqis died in March, not nearly enough to reach the number of April's dead.
The April toll still falls short of the number of Iraqi deaths during the U.S. invasion. An AP survey of records from 60 of Iraq's 124 hospitals found that at least 3,240 civilians died from March 20, 2003, to April 20, 2003; the complete number during that period is sure to be significantly higher.
The AP count includes single attacks that caused large numbers of casualties. In Basra, 74 people were killed when suicide attackers set off five car bombs nearly simultaneously outside police stations on April 21. A day earlier, a mortar barrage by guerrillas against Baghdad's largest prison, Abu Ghraib, killed 22 prisoners, all of them detainees held on suspicion of being members of the insurgency.
It also includes U.S. reports of insurgents killed in fighting with American troops. The military said 100 Sunni guerrillas were killed in a fierce battle April 12-13 in the village of Karma, outside Fallujah, and that 64 Shiite militiamen died Monday in U.S. airstrikes and a firefight outside Najaf, south of Baghdad.
But many of the deaths came in small incidents around Baghdad or scattered around the country as violence stretched from the far north to the far south.
A volley of mortars hit the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City on Saturday, some hitting a market, killing six people. Another shell pierced a home, went through two floors and tore a woman sleeping in her bed to pieces.
In Baghdad on Thursday, Mostapha Fadhl, 6, and Mostapha Salah, 7, were playing near a road in western Baghdad when insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol nearby. In the gunbattle that ensued, the boys were wounded and later died.
The carnage in Fallujah, where U.S. Marines battled to uproot Sunni insurgents from their greatest stronghold, traumatized an entire city. Residents blame many of the deaths on Marine snipers or bombings by warplanes, including fearsome AC-130 gunships and F-18s dropping 500-pound bombs.
Two football fields were turned into cemeteries, with hundreds of freshly dug graves, marked with wooden planks scrawled with names - some with names of women, some marked specifically as children. At one of the fields, an AP reporter was told by volunteer gravediggers on April 11 that more than 300 people had been buried there.
On Friday, with the U.S. military trying to implement a tentative deal to lift the siege, volunteers drove around looking for the dead that never made it to hospitals or graveyards. At least eight highly decomposed bodies were loaded into station wagons, including those of a woman and her daughter found in a home in the Golan neighborhood, scene of heavy fighting this week.
During the height of the siege, residents were unable to get outside, so an unknown number of dead were buried in backyards.
"We buried two of my relatives at home," said Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, a doctor at one of five local clinics in Fallujah that have been treating the wounded and counting the dead. "We cannot give the total number of martyrs."
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon's Gaza Pullout Plan May Face His Party's Rebuff
April 30, 2004
New York Times
By GREG MYRE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/middleeast/30shar.html
JERUSALEM, April 29 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced the prospect of a major political setback on Thursday as three separate polls all showed that members of his own party were likely to vote down his proposal for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Sharon's rightist Likud Party is holding a referendum on the Gaza withdrawal plan on Sunday, and Mr. Sharon has said it will amount to a vote of confidence on his leadership.
"You can't be for me, but against my plan," he said on the Israeli radio, adding, "Only in this way can I fulfill my promise to bring peace and security."
Even though the referendum is not legally binding, Mr. Sharon warned that a defeat could have wide-ranging repercussions, risking the party's hold on power and jeopardizing assurances that the prime minister received from President Bush during a White House visit this month.
Mr. Bush endorsed Mr. Sharon's withdrawal plan, and indicated that Israel would probably keep some West Bank land, which includes all of the largest Jewish settlement blocs, in a future political arrangement.
In recent weeks, opinion surveys suggested that Mr. Sharon was likely to squeak by with a narrow victory on Sunday, giving him a running start as he looked to the cabinet and the legislature for formal government approval.
But a loss would leave him at odds with his party, which has aggressively advocated the expansion of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, not their dismantling.
Settlers and right-wing Israelis have waged a campaign to defeat his proposal. Their efforts were evident on Tuesday, Israel's Independence Day, when an estimated 70,000 Israelis traveled to the Gush Katif settlement bloc in Gaza to express their opposition to a withdrawal.
The country's two largest newspapers, Yediot Aharonot and Maariv, each released polls on Thursday that showed Mr. Sharon's plan in trouble among Likud members.
In Yediot Aharonot, 47 percent of Likud voters said they opposed the plan, and 39 percent said they would support it, with 14 percent undecided. In Maariv, 45 percent were against and 42 percent in favor, with 13 percent undecide. Both polls had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Meanwhile, a poll by the Israeli radio found 51 percent of Likud voters planning to reject the Gaza withdrawal, and 43 percent to support it. No margin of error was given.
Opinion surveys polling a cross-section of citizens have indicated that a strong majority of Israelis favor a Gaza pullout.
Mr. Sharon has been a leading patron of the settlements for decades, and his proposal to remove the 7,500 Jewish residents from 21 Gaza settlements was an abrupt turnabout.
But he says the Gaza settlements should go as part of his broader "disengagement'' from the Palestinians. Under the plan, Israel would relinquish Gaza and a few small, isolated settlements in the West Bank, while working to consolidate Israel's hold on the larger West Bank settlements.
The Palestinian leadership says it would welcome an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of a wider peace effort. But the Palestinians say that they do not believe that Mr. Sharon is serious about a comprehensive settlement, and that his Gaza proposal would still leave the Israelis in control over many aspects of Palestinian life in the territory.
On Thursday, Mr. Sharon said the interests of the settlers could not be placed above Israel's larger interests.
"I would say these people are really heroes, living under very difficult security conditions," he said of the Gaza settlers. "But one has to understand, they are a small part of the state of Israel. And a responsible party that heads and runs the country, if it wants to continue to run the country, must see this as part of a whole range of Israeli interests."
----
Sharon's Party May Reject Plan
Polls Show Opposition to Gaza Pullout
By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53280-2004Apr29.html
MALEH ADUMIM, West Bank, April 29 -- Four separate public opinion surveys published Thursday reported growing opposition within the Likud Party of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to his plan to withdraw Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip.
The party's 193,000 members are to vote Sunday in a nonbinding, advisory referendum. Only two weeks ago, Sharon was riding high after returning from Washington with a strong endorsement of his plan and promises from President Bush that the United States opposed the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel and supported Israel's eventual annexation of some Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A poll of Likud members published April 15 in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper showed supporters of what Sharon has called his disengagement plan holding a 22 percentage-point lead over opponents.
But the polls published Thursday revealed a marked shift. A poll published by the same newspaper showed 47 percent of Likud members who were questioned opposed the plan and 39 percent favored it; one by Maariv, another daily paper, showed 45 percent opposed and 42 percent in favor; Israel Radio's poll had 47 percent against and 43 in favor; and the Haaretz newspaper's poll registered 43 percent against and 36 in favor.
The campaign against the initiative is being waged by such Likud activists as Gidon Ariel, working from his apartment here in the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement. He updates a database listing which party members support and oppose Sharon's plan -- while dozens of like-minded activists are pounding the pavement and working the phones, arguing, cajoling and pleading with party members to vote no. Ariel said he and others began mobilizing against Sharon's plan from the moment it was announced, seeing it as a dangerous precedent that could lead to the abandonment of West Bank settlements. Others opposing the pullout said they feared that Palestinians would see the Gaza evacuation as proof that terrorism pays.
"It's the coercive expulsion of more than 7,000 people from their homes," Ariel said, referring to the Jewish settlers in Gaza, noting that some had lived there for 30 years.
Several hundred volunteers placed at least two phone calls to each of the 1,437 Likud members in Maleh Adumim, located outside Jerusalem, Ariel said, and then visited their homes at least twice, some with a 10-minute video about the Gaza settlements shown on laptop computers. Then a friend was designated to call the members. To get voters to the polls on Sunday, he said, "we're going to pick them up in a rickshaw if we have to."
Sunday's referendum is not legally binding. Sharon's advisers initially said he would be bound by it and would do as instructed by the Likud's members. But as support for the plan fell off in the past two weeks, Sharon reversed himself, saying he would take the plan to his cabinet and Israel's parliament, the Knesset, whether or not it was approved by the Likud.
Of the 14 Likud ministers in the 23-member cabinet, four are on record opposing the plan. In addition, some of the party's best-known and most popular cabinet ministers -- most notably Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom -- have given only lukewarm endorsement to the plan and have not actively campaigned for its passage.
In interviews published and aired Thursday, Sharon said that a vote in favor of the plan was a vote of confidence in him. He stopped short of threatening resignation if the plan were defeated.
"You can't support me and not vote in favor of disengagement," he told Maariv. "It doesn't work that way. Those who want me have to vote with me."
Defeat of the plan, he told Israel Radio, would damage Israeli-U.S. relations, the economy and the stock market. He said it would lead to the downfall of Likud and would be a major victory for the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and the radical Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas.
It was unclear whether Sharon could turn the numbers around before Sunday, especially since the opposition is highly motivated and well organized. The political ramifications of a defeat are also uncertain. "If he fails, he will try to find the most promising way to have his own way after all," said Abraham Diskin, a political science professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. "He might call for early elections."
Sharon has done little to build rank-and-file support for his proposal.
"What's surprising is that Sharon was kind of aloof," said Gideon Doron, a professor at Tel Aviv University. "It takes some hard work -- which he hasn't done."
A senior government official close to Sharon, who insisted on anonymity because of prohibitions against civil servants being involved in party politics, said the prime minister was handicapped by party limitations on campaign spending, while the opposition was being funded by the Yesha Council, Israel's main settlement organization. The official also cast doubt on the survey findings, saying Likud members responded to pollsters "with their hearts, but the day they go to the polls for the referendum, when they have to make a critical choice and shoulder this responsibility, I think they will vote differently."
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Public Must Defend Itself in War on Terror, Expert Says
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
April 30, 2004
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200404%5CFOR20040430d.html
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - If the West wants to win the global war against terrorism, major changes are needed in public thinking as well as international law and intelligence, a former Israeli spy chief said.
Speaking at a conference on terrorism countermeasures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem this week, Efraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad (secret service), said the war against terrorism is a world war like no other.
There is no specific battlefield, the enemy is not always clearly defined and the two sides are using completely different weapons systems and different concepts, he said.
And, he added, this is the first time that the public has been responsible for its own defense in a war.
Halevy said that nearly three years into the global war, there have been far fewer casualties than there were during the first two World Wars -- and yet the fallout has been far greater.
"I think this is the first war in which private enterprise is going to be -- and is already -- a major element in this struggle," Halevy said.
Halevy said this is the first war in which the state has been unable to "provide a full kit of protection" for the individual, and the individual will not be able to depend on his country's weapons systems to defend him. The citizen must protect his own life, factory or business.
"In this war a large element of the struggle, a large element of the defense, will be on the individual, on private enterprise." He said utilities, banks, hospitals, communication systems, private companies, and public companies will have to "take care of themselves."
In Israel, he said, that is already the case. Businesses, hospitals, restaurants, malls, public places are responsible for providing a certain level of security that is not funded by the state.
Israel, which has been waging a war against Palestinian terrorism for decades, has been at the cutting edge of developing counterterrorism theory and measures.
Whereas the state conducts the offensive part of the war - the bombs and bullets angle -- the defensive part of the war is largely up to the individual and private enterprise, Halevy said.
And while the other side may not be using very sophisticated weapons - such as a plane flying into a building - those fighting against terror will have to develop more and more sophisticated means to confront such tactics.
Halevy also said that global cooperation was not a substitute for individual countries doing their utmost to fight terrorism.
Global cooperation
But Cary Gleicher, a legal attache at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the FBI's representative to Israel, called global cooperation the "ultimate weapon" against global crime and terrorism.
After 9/11, the FBI realized it had "a lot to learn" from foreign services, Gleicher said at the same conference.
The FBI has 45 offices throughout the world, which rely on information and cooperation from local security and intelligence offices, he said.
Last year nine Israelis from the army, the internal intelligence services and police came to FBI headquarters to train agents there on countering suicide terrorism.
"It was the first time in FBI history that a foreign government came into our building to train our people," Gleicher said.
Change needed
According to Halevy, winning the war against terrorism and ensuring the survival of Western society will require a major effort to educate the public about what's at stake.
The enemy doesn't want to conquer new territory, he said. "They want to bring down society, they want to bring down the economy, they want to effect an international change."
Halevy said it's important to "school the world in the idea of preemption," without which "we stand no chance of success."
Israel has come under strong international condemnation for its version of preemption - the targeted killings of terrorist leaders -- although Washington has been quietly supportive of such measures.
Two other areas where there need to be major shifts, he said, are in intelligence and international law. Without giving details, Halevy said called for a "new approach" to intelligence while international law would have to rise to meet the challenges before it for the "survival of society" before other "worse solutions" are found.
Halevy said it's human nature for people to resist change unless they are confronted by a traumatic event.
"The traumatic events can work both ways. They can either galvanize society the way the United States sprung to the challenge after 9/11 or they can react differently -- the way the Spanish population acted after the attacks on trains," he said.
"We have to realize that this is a challenge that none of us can afford to lose."
----
Israeli Military Says It Regrets Killing of a Palestinian Lecturer
April 30, 2004
New York Times
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/middleeast/30pale.html
JERUSALEM, April 29 - In an admission of error, the Israeli military said Thursday that a Palestinian academic shot dead last week in a West Bank village was not involved in terrorism, as the army initially claimed, but a civilian hit during a shootout with Palestinian gunmen.
The university lecturer, Yaser Ahmed Abu-Laymoun, 33, was shot in a field in Taluza, north of Nablus, on April 23. That day, Israeli military officials said they had killed an armed member of the Hamas faction, although they did not identify Mr. Abu-Laymoun by name.
Mr. Abu-Laymoun's relatives and colleagues at the Arab American University in Jenin, where he had taught courses in hospital administration for the past two years, described him as a doting father and husband with no ties to militant groups.
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, the Israeli Army said it had investigated the incident and determined that Mr. Abu-Laymoun was accidentally caught in the cross-fire between the army and Palestinian gunmen.
The Israeli military "regrets Abu-Laymoun's death," a statement said.
The army said a wanted Hamas man, Issam Fukah, was also injured in the shooting and was arrested the next day.
But Palestinians said that the army's admission of guilt was incomplete, and that the shootout did not take place until about 10 minutes later, in a different spot in the village.
Mr. Abu-Laymoun's widow, Dalal Jawabreh Abu-Laymoun, 21, said she was in the field with her husband when Israeli forces jumped out from behind a tree and started shooting.
"When they saw us, they started opening fire on Yaser randomly," she said. "There were no strangers or wanted people in the area."
Waleed Deeb, president of the Arab American University in Jenin, said of the army's statement: "The least that they can do is to admit that it was a mistake. I'm sure it's not enough for the family."
Palestinians often complain that many of those killed and wounded by the Israeli forces are not involved in militant activities, as the Israeli military says. Often the claims and counterclaims are difficult to reconcile.
Mr. Abu-Laymoun earned his M.B.A., with a specialty in health care management, at Philadelphia University, in Pennsylvania. MarySheila McDonald, the assistant dean for graduate business programs there, said he excelled in his studies.
In the Gaza Strip, an explosion early Thursday morning damaged the entrance to the home of the Palestinian police chief in Gaza, Ghazi al-Jabali. No one was wounded in the blast, which took place at about 2 a.m., while Mr. Jabali's wife was at home but shortly after he had stepped out.
In a statement, Mr. Jabali did not say who was to blame but hinted that it was a militant Palestinian faction.
The explosion was seen as part of the growing lawlessness that has taken hold in Gaza, and it was not the first time Mr. Jabali had been singled out. In February, gunmen raided his headquarters, killing a police officer and wounding 10.
In a separate development, Israeli military officials said reserve forces shot and killed a Palestinian they spotted throwing a large object, perhaps a stone or an explosive device, at an Israeli vehicle traveling on a road near the West Bank settlement of Ariel on Thursday night. The officials said four Israelis were injured in the same area earlier this week when a stone was thrown at their car.
Agence France-Presse reported that Palestinian security officials identified the man as Ahmad Kuleb, 22, and said he was shot during an Israeli raid into his village, Hares, which is near Ariel.
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Letter to President Bush from Former U.S. Diplomats
April 30, 2004
miftah.org
By Former U.S. Diplomats
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=3639&CategoryId=18
President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
We former U.S. diplomats applaud our 52 British colleagues who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair criticizing his Middle East policy and calling on Britain to exert more influence over the United States. As retired foreign service officers we care deeply about our nation's foreign policy and U.S. credibility in the world.
We also are deeply concerned by your April 14 endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plan to reject the rights of three million Palestinians, to deny the right of refugees to return to their homeland, and to retain five large illegal settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank. This plan defies U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for Israel's return of occupied territories. It ignores international laws declaring Israeli settlements illegal. It flouts U.N. Resolution 194, passed in 1948, which affirms the right of refugees to return to their homes or receive compensation for the loss of their property and assistance in resettling in a host country should they choose to do so. And it undermines the Road Map for peace drawn up by the Quartet, including the U.S. Finally, it reverses longstanding American policy in the Middle East.
Your meeting with Sharon followed a series of intensive negotiating sessions between Israelis and Americans, but which left out Palestinians. In fact, you and Prime Minister Sharon consistently have excluded Palestinians from peace negotiations. Former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo voiced the overwhelming reaction of people around the world when he said, "I believe President Bush declared the death of the peace process today."
By closing the door to negotiations with Palestinians and the possibility of a Palestinian state, you have proved that the United States is not an even-handed peace partner. You have placed U.S. diplomats, civilians and military doing their jobs overseas in an untenable and even dangerous position.
Your unqualified support of Sharon's extra-judicial assassinations, Israel's Berlin Wall-like barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories, and now your endorsement of Sharon's unilateral plan are costing our country its credibility, prestige and friends.
It is not too late to reassert American principles of justice and fairness in our relations with all the peoples of the Middle East. Support negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, with the United States serving as a truly honest broker. A return to the time-honored American tradition of fairness will reverse the present tide of ill will in Europe and the Middle East-even in Iraq. Because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the core of the problems in the Middle East, the entire region-and the world-will rejoice along with Israelis and Palestinians when the killing stops and peace is attained.
Sincerely,
Andrew I. Killgore, Ambassador to Qatar, 1977-1980
Richard H. Curtiss, former chief inspector, U.S. Information Agency
Colbert C. Held, Retired FSO and author
Thomas J. Carolan, Counsel General Istanbul, '88-'92
C. Edward Bernier, Counselor of Embassy, Information and Culture, Islamabad, Pakistan
Donald A. Kruse, American Consul in Jerusalem
Ambassador Edward L. Peck, former Chief of Mission in Iraq and Mauritania
John Powell, Admin Counselor in Beirut, '75-'76
John Gunther Dean, last position held U.S. Ambassador to India
Greg Thielmann, Director, Office for Strategic Proliferation Military Affairs, Bureau of Intelligence and Research
James Akins, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
Talcott Seeyle, Ambassador to Syria
Eugene Bird, Counselor of Embassy in Saudi Arabia
Richard H. Nolte, Ambassador to Egypt
Ray Close, Chief of Station Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 1971-1979
Shirl McArthur, Commercial Attache, Bangkok
Source: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
-------- mideast
Some on Hill Seek to Punish Syria for Broken Promises on Iraq
By Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54975-2004Apr29.html
Syria has failed to fulfill key promises to cooperate on Iraq, particularly to close down the traffic of foreign fighters, smugglers and others across its border, which is triggering new congressional efforts to impose tougher U.S. restrictions on Damascus, according to U.S. and congressional officials.
President Bashar Assad has also not returned to Iraq $3 billion from Saddam Hussein's government held in Syrian banks, or closed offices of Islamic extremists and Palestinian radicals in the Syrian capital, as he promised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in talks a year ago, U.S. officials said.
At the time, Powell told Assad that if he wanted to avoid sanctions contained in a bill proposed in Congress, he needed to take action to satisfy U.S. concerns. But Syria often failed to live up to administration expectations. While Hussein's money was frozen, for instance, the Syrian government then used it to pay claims to Syrians who said they were owed money by Iraq, reducing the amount left, U.S. officials said.
The White House last fall lifted its objections to the bill, known as the Syrian Accountability Act, and now pressure is mounting on the Bush administration to finally impose the sanctions it outlines. The administration was expected to select from a list of possible sanctions more than six weeks ago, but has repeatedly deferred action.
Congressional sources said the administration intended to impose penalties in stages, to see if a gradual unrolling would prod the Syrian government to reverse course. The law requires the administration by June 12 to ban export to Syria of any dual-use goods that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction -- though some exemptions will be made for products such as communications gear -- and then pick at least two of six punitive measures listed in the legislation.
But some House lawmakers said they were tired of waiting and intend to introduce a new Syria-Lebanon liberation act, modeled to some extent on the Iraq Liberation Act, that would mandate broader sanctions against Syria than are called for in the current law and, by implication, support government change.
"My patience has run out," said Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), one of the co-sponsors.
U.S. officials said the Bush administration is also frustrated, in part because the Syrian government has been either unable or unwilling to stop the traffic across the 400-mile border that it originally encouraged or facilitated, despite repeated pledges of action.
"It's a mixed bag at best. On occasion they are cooperative when they're motivated to do so. They could do a lot more on the borders of Iraq and hint that they will, but we'd like to see more evidence of it," said a U.S. official familiar with the discussions. "There's not a lot of progress on stopping people going through or the money. They're reluctant to be excessively helpful, and there's no good explanation why -- maybe solidarity with neighbors or not wanting to be seen to collaborate with the Americans."
Because Syria does not require visas for Arabs, the Syrian border has been the main route into Iraq for foreign fighters, many of whom are now fighting in Fallujah, officials say. In the early days of the U.S.-led intervention, the Syrians helped arrange logistics and transportation for anyone interested in crossing into Iraq, U.S. officials say.
Under pressure from the United States, Syria has repeatedly promised to end its direct help, but has been unable or unwilling to cut off the infrastructure it put in place, the officials say.
Part of the problem is that the Syrian government does not totally control the border. In some cases, tribes along the border have facilitated cross-border travel because of bribes or disinterest in heeding the message from Damascus; in others, Syrian border guards have looked the other way for bribes, the officials say. Over the past year, traffic across the border has become good business. Many Syrians do not agree with government policy or any move that is seen to assist forces occupying an Arab country, U.S. officials say.
Many Syrians are among the fighters who have shown up in hospitals or in custody, another reason Washington has continued to pressure Damascus, U.S. officials say.
But the U.S. official called Syria's failure to comply over the past year "a missed opportunity," adding that the administration had not been surprised by the failure to follow through on its promises.
State Department officials said that the White House has not put into effect the provisions of the original sanctions law because it did not want to overshadow the scheduled Arab League summit last month or embarrass Egyptian and Jordanian leaders, who had just held talks with Assad, during their visits to Washington this month. But the Arab League summit and the visit of the Jordanian king have been postponed until May, further delaying White House actions, State Department officials add.
But congressional officials say the administration is divided on whether to sanction Syria when the United States needs cooperation. "There is obviously an internal debate going on pitting some inside the NSC [National Security Council] and Defense against State and [CIA director George J.] Tenet," said a senior congressional aide familiar with the conversations between Capitol Hill and the White House. "Tenet is the voice, saying, 'Slow down, slow down, no matter how big a trickle [of cooperation there] is, at least it is a trickle.'"
The State Department's annual report on terrorism, released yesterday, said Syria has cooperated in fighting al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and has discouraged signs of public support for al Qaeda within Syria. But it was faulted for continuing to provide "political and material support to Palestinian rejectionist groups." The report said that a number of groups continue to operate from Syria, "although they have lowered their public profiles since May, when Damascus announced that the groups had voluntarily closed their offices."
-------- pakistan / india
US lauds Pakistan Cooperation In War Against Terror
2004-04-30
Pakistan News Service
http://www.paknews.com/main.php?id=4&date1=2004-05-01
WASHINGTON, USA : May 01 (PNS) - The 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' Annual Report 2003 released Thursday said "Pakistan continues to be one of the United States' most important partners in the global coalition against terrorism." "President Musharraf has himself been the target of terrorist violence, narrowly escaping two assassination attempts in late 2003." "US assistance supported Pakistan's efforts to establish a government presence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and eliminate terrorist safehavens."
The report prepared by the U.S. State Department, was released today by deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. The report says: "Pakistan continued operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, capturing and killing a number of terrorist operatives."
-------- prisoners of war
Arabs inflamed by Iraq photos
By Samia Nakhoul
Fri 30 April, 2004
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=502638§ion=news
DUBAI - Photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners has inflamed Arab sentiment, sparking rage, hatred and a grim comparison that U.S. liberators were no better than ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"They keep asking why we hate them? Why we detest them? Maybe they should look well in the mirror and then they will hate themselves," said Khadija Mousa from Syria. "What I saw is very very humiliating. The Americans are showing their true image."
"The liberators are worse than the dictators. This is the straw that broke the camel's back for America," said Abdel-Bari Atwan on Friday, editor of the Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.
The CBS News programme "60 Minutes II" on Wednesday broadcast photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison late last year showing U.S. troops abusing some Iraqis held at what was once a notorious centre of torture and executions under Saddam.
The pictures showed U.S. troops smiling, posing, laughing or giving the thumbs-up sign as naked, male prisoners were stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts with one another.
The U.S. military has brought criminal charges against six soldiers relating to accusations of abuses from November and December 2003 on some 20 detainees, including indecent acts with another person, maltreatment, battery, dereliction of duty and aggravated assault.
"This will increase the hatred of America, not just in Iraq but abroad. Even those who sympathised with the Americans before will stop. It is not just a picture of torture, it is degrading. It touches on morals and religion."
"Abu Ghraib prison was used for torture in Saddam's time. People will ask now what's the difference between Saddam and Bush. Nothing!," added Saudi commentator Dawoud al-Shiryan.
The pictures drew world condemnation by America's staunchest allies, including Britain. U.S. President George W. Bush said he "shared a deep disgust". U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply disturbed".
"DEEP CONTEMPT"
Jamal Khashokggi, media advisor to Saudi Arabia's ambassador in London, said U.S. officials responsible for policy in Iraq should be held responsible for such acts which he said reflected "deep contempt" for Arabs.
The publicity could not have been worse for Muslims with the sexual humiliation depicted in the photos particularly shocking.
"That really, really is the worst atrocity," Atwan said. "It affects the honour and pride of Muslim people. It is better to kill them than sexually abuse them."
"What it does is inflame the feelings of the masses about coalition forces...and it gives more reason for hatred of American policy in Iraq," said Egyptian Ahmed Sherif, 49.
Arab satellite televisions, seen by millions of Arabs and Muslims, began their news bulletins with the pictures, which they said showed the "savagery" of U.S. troops.
"The pictures reflect the brutality of occupation and the absence of values and ethics which Americans said they came to Iraq to promote. They have shown the world how much malice and hatred they carry against Arabs," added Ali Mohsen Obadi.
Arabs said the photos would only fuel growing animosity and attacks against the United States by Muslims, already angered by its occupation of Iraq and its "unlimited support" of Israel.
"I was saddened. This was not just the humiliation of those poor Iraqis. I felt humiliated too and so all Muslims and their leaders should feel," said Palestinian Mahmoud Shaker, 20.
Driver Hatem Ali, 30, said: "Americans are racists and cowards, that's what I understood from these pictures."
Most Arabs said Washington's credibility as the world's leader of democracy and human rights was exposed.
"These soldiers are being touted as the saviours of the Iraqi people and America claims to be the moral leader of the world, but they have been caught with their pants down, they have been exposed, the whole world sees them as they really are," said Mahmoud Walid, a 28-year-old Egyptian writer.
----
Allegations of Abuse Lead To Shakeup at Iraqi Prison
By Sewell Chan and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54540-2004Apr29?language=printer
BAGHDAD, April 29 -- The commander of the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been transferred to Iraq to oversee the treatment of 8,000 detainees as part of an investigation into alleged sexual and physical abuse at a U.S. Army-run prison outside Baghdad, officials said Thursday.
The officials also disclosed that the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, has ordered administrative penalties against seven unnamed officers who supervised the Army Reserve military police unit that was responsible for the Abu Ghraib detention facility in November, when Iraqi prisoners allegedly were subjected to beatings and sexually degrading acts by American soldiers.
Criminal charges were filed in March against six members of the unit, the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cumberland, Md. The charges included conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another, the military's term for sexual abuse.
Three of the suspects have been recommended for court-martial. The other three face preliminary hearings in May and June to determine whether a court-martial is warranted.
An Army spokesman said charges are likely to be filed against a seventh soldier, and three more soldiers are still under investigation and could face criminal charges.
According to sealed charging papers that were provided to The Washington Post, soldiers forced prisoners to lie in "a pyramid of naked detainees" and jumped on their prone bodies, while other detainees were ordered to strip and perform or simulate sex acts. In one case, a hooded man allegedly was made to stand on a box of MREs, or meals ready to eat, and told that he would be electrocuted if he fell off. In another example, the papers allege, a soldier unzipped a body bag and took snapshots of a detainee's frozen corpse inside.
Several times, soldiers were photographed and videotaped posing in front of humiliated inmates, according to the charges. One gave a thumbs-up sign in front of the human pyramid.
The documents add to growing accusations of improper prisoner treatment at Abu Ghraib, which was Iraq's largest and most notorious prison during the rule of ousted president Saddam Hussein. In addition to the military's announcement in March that soldiers had been charged, details of the abuses and photographs from inside the prison were broadcast Wednesday night by CBS's "60 Minutes II."
On Thursday, U.S. officials confirmed that the images were authentic and said they had taken several steps to stop the mistreatment of prisoners.
This month, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller took over the U.S.-run detention facilities in Iraq as deputy commander for detainee operations, reporting directly to Sanchez. Miller had previously overseen the detention facility at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which holds hundreds of detainees from about 40 countries, many of them from the 2001 war in Afghanistan.
In addition, Sanchez has ordered new training on the requirements of the Geneva Conventions and on the military's rules of engagement. He also has ordered the creation of a team of officers that would retrain prison guards on conditions of confinement, "with emphasis on treating detainees with dignity and respect," said the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.
"New leadership at the confinement facility is clearly aware of the need to heighten their vigilance to prevent any possible mistreatment of Iraqi detainees," Kimmitt said.
The military would not disclose the administrative penalties that Sanchez has recommended against the seven supervising officers, who can contest the orders. The possible penalties range from an oral admonishment to a formal memorandum of reprimand that could effectively end an officer's career.
A senior U.S. official said Thursday that Sanchez was surprised by the severity of the abuses and the apparent lack of response by the military police unit's officers.
"One of the things General Sanchez was concerned about was the fact that this was more than one bad apple, one bad incident," an aide to Sanchez said on condition of anonymity, because of the continuing investigation. "Why wasn't the chain of command involved? Why wasn't the chain of command aware?"
In January, after a soldier tipped off investigators about abuses at Abu Ghraib, Sanchez suspended 17 soldiers from their duties and ordered separate criminal and administrative investigations.
The highest-ranking officer to be suspended was Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, based in Uniondale, N.Y., to which the 372nd Military Police Company was temporarily attached. Karpinski was responsible for all U.S. military detention facilities inside Iraq.
An administrative review conducted by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba found April 4 that officers in both the company and the larger brigade neglected to properly supervise the work of the prison guards.
A separate review, which grew out of the criminal probe, will examine interrogation practices in the prison, officials said. A new unit, the 16th Military Police Brigade, has taken over responsibility for Abu Ghraib.
Relatives of three of the six soldiers who were charged, and a lawyer for one of them, said in telephone interviews that the soldiers were being made scapegoats for following orders from officers who actively supported, and even commended, the way they treated the prisoners.
The lawyer for Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, Gary R. Myers, said in a telephone interview, "We are strongly urging the general [Sanchez] to treat this as an administrative matter, just as all the senior people have been treated."
The soldiers "were provided no guidance on how to run the prison while they were there," Myers said. "They came under the influence of the intelligence community, whose interests may not be necessarily consistent with good prison management. The prison was set up in such a fashion that the intelligence community had far too much influence.
"They were instructing or advising the MPs to create 'favorable conditions' for interrogation. . . . 'Favorable conditions' were conditions where the detainees were susceptible to providing intelligence information, and that process involved techniques of humiliation."
The soldiers were congratulated by their senior officers, he said. "These guys are being told they are doing a fantastic job for their country, that they are saving lives and to keep up the good work," Myers said.
During Frederick's hearing, three of his supervisors appeared, and all invoked their constitutional right against self-incrimination, Myers said. The accused was told he could not question the alleged victims, military investigators or other officers because they were "not reasonably available."
Frederick's wife, Martha, said she and her husband lived in Buckingham, Va., and worked at the Buckingham Correctional Center. "He's not the type of person to do those types of things without being told this is what they wanted him to do," she said. "It seems that the person at the bottom is the one who carries the blame."
The father of another one of the soldiers charged, Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits, from Hyndman, Pa., also maintained that his son was following orders. "He was asked to take pictures and he did what he was told," Daniel Sivits said. "Where was their leadership? Why wasn't somebody supervising these people?"
Sivits said his son was trained by the Army as a mechanic, not a military police officer. "He's never had military police training," he said.
Robin Harman of Lorton also said her daughter, Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, was not properly trained.
"She's being railroaded," Harman said of her daughter, who before the Iraq war was an assistant manager at a pizzeria. "This kid has never hurt anyone in her life. They took her fresh out of boot camp and threw her platoon over there."
Spinner reported from Washington. Staff writer Christian Davenport in Annapolis and staff researchers Bobbye Pratt and Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
----
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH,
New Yorker
Issue of 2004-05-10 Posted 2004-04-30
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world's most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women-no accurate count is possible-were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.
In the looting that followed the regime's collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however-by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers-were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of "crimes against the coalition"; and a small number of suspected "high-value" leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces.
Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners.
General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, "living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn't want to leave."
A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army's prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski's brigade headquarters.) Taguba's report listed some of the wrongdoing:
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added-"detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence." Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their "extremely sensitive nature."
The photographs-several of which were broadcast on CBS's "60 Minutes 2" last week-show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects-Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits-are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.
The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.
Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. "Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other-it's all a form of torture," Haykel said.
Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.
The 372nd's abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine-a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) in the case against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory, near Baghdad, one of the witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P., told the courtroom what happened when he and other soldiers delivered seven prisoners, hooded and bound, to the so-called "hard site" at Abu Ghraib-seven tiers of cells where the inmates who were considered the most dangerous were housed. The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section of the prison. Wisdom said:
SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.
When he returned later, Wisdom testified:
I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there. I didn't think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, "Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds." I heard PFC England shout out, "He's getting hard."
Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and assumed that "the issue was taken care of." He said, "I just didn't want to be part of anything that looked criminal."
The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick. A government witness, Special Agent Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an abridged transcript made available to me, "The investigation started after SPC Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across pictures of naked detainees." Bobeck said that Darby had "initially put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was very wrong."
Questioned further, the Army investigator said that Frederick and his colleagues had not been given any "training guidelines" that he was aware of. The M.P.s in the 372nd had been assigned to routine traffic and police duties upon their arrival in Iraq, in the spring of 2003. In October of 2003, the 372nd was ordered to prison-guard duty at Abu Ghraib. Frederick, at thirty-seven, was far older than his colleagues, and was a natural leader; he had also worked for six years as a guard for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Bobeck explained:
What I got is that SSG Frederick and CPL Graner were road M.P.s and were put in charge because they were civilian prison guards and had knowledge of how things were supposed to be run.
Bobeck also testified that witnesses had said that Frederick, on one occasion, "had punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the detainee almost went into cardiac arrest."
At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General Karpinski and all of Frederick's co-defendants, would not appear. Some had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. "The purpose of an Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts," Gary Myers told me. "We ended up with a c.i.d. agent and no alleged victims to examine." After the hearing, the presiding investigative officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial against Frederick.
Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client's defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, "Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?"
In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said:
I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell-and the answer I got was, "This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done." . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.
The military-intelligence officers have "encouraged and told us, 'Great job,' they were now getting positive results and information," Frederick wrote. "CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI's request." At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. "His reply was 'Don't worry about it.'"
In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called "O.G.A.," or other government agencies-that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees-was brought to his unit for questioning. "They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away." The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison's inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, "and therefore never had a number."
Frederick's defense is, of course, highly self-serving. But the complaints in his letters and e-mails home were reinforced by two internal Army reports-Taguba's and one by the Army's chief law-enforcement officer, Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general.
Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder's report, filed on November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights, training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib.
There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to "set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews"-a euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. "Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state." General Karpinski's brigade, Ryder reported, "has not been directed to change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations." Ryder called for the establishment of procedures to "define the role of military police soldiers . . .clearly separating the actions of the guards from those of the military intelligence personnel." The officers running the war in Iraq were put on notice.
Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed, he said, he found "no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices." His investigation was at best a failure and at worst a coverup.
Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his fellow-general. "Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder's] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation," he wrote. "In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment." The report continued, "Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder's report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to 'set the conditions' for MI interrogations." Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors "actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses."
Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, "MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick's job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk."
Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told C.I.D. investigators, "I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules." Taguba wrote, "Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: 'Loosen this guy up for us.''Make sure he has a bad night.''Make sure he gets the treatment.'" Military intelligence made these comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. "The MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, 'Good job, they're breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They're giving out good information.'"
When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, "Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing"-where the abuse took place-"belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse."
Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of wrongdoing, said, "I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their mattresses, sheets, and clothes." (It was his view, he added, that if M.I. wanted him to do this "they needed to give me paperwork.") Taguba also cited an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a translator who was an employee of Titan, a civilian contractor. He told of one night when a "bunch of people from MI" watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and Frederick.
General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen "who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' which were neither authorized" nor in accordance with Army regulations. "He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse," Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had "received no formal communication" from the Army about the matter.)
"I suspect," Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib," and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action.
The problems inside the Army prison system in Iraq were not hidden from senior commanders. During Karpinski's seven-month tour of duty, Taguba noted, there were at least a dozen officially reported incidents involving escapes, attempted escapes, and other serious security issues that were investigated by officers of the 800th M.P. Brigade. Some of the incidents had led to the killing or wounding of inmates and M.P.s, and resulted in a series of "lessons learned" inquiries within the brigade. Karpinski invariably approved the reports and signed orders calling for changes in day-to-day procedures. But Taguba found that she did not follow up, doing nothing to insure that the orders were carried out. Had she done so, he added, "cases of abuse may have been prevented."
General Taguba further found that Abu Ghraib was filled beyond capacity, and that the M.P. guard force was significantly undermanned and short of resources. "This imbalance has contributed to the poor living conditions, escapes, and accountability lapses," he wrote. There were gross differences, Taguba said, between the actual number of prisoners on hand and the number officially recorded. A lack of proper screening also meant that many innocent Iraqis were wrongly being detained-indefinitely, it seemed, in some cases. The Taguba study noted that more than sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society, which should have enabled them to be released. Karpinski's defense, Taguba said, was that her superior officers "routinely" rejected her recommendations regarding the release of such prisoners.
Karpinski was rarely seen at the prisons she was supposed to be running, Taguba wrote. He also found a wide range of administrative problems, including some that he considered "without precedent in my military career." The soldiers, he added, were "poorly prepared and untrained . . . prior to deployment, at the mobilization site, upon arrival in theater, and throughout the mission."
General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: "What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers."
Taguba recommended that Karpinski and seven brigade military-police officers and enlisted men be relieved of command and formally reprimanded. No criminal proceedings were suggested for Karpinski; apparently, the loss of promotion and the indignity of a public rebuke were seen as enough punishment.
After the story broke on CBS last week, the Pentagon announced that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new head of the Iraqi prison system, had arrived in Baghdad and was on the job. He had been the commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center. General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators.
As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba's report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.
The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib may have done little to further American intelligence, however. Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as a C.I.D. agent, told me that the use of force or humiliation with prisoners is invariably counterproductive. "They'll tell you what you want to hear, truth or no truth," Rowell said. "'You can flog me until I tell you what I know you want me to say.' You don't get righteous information."
Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an "imperative" security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guantánamo.
As the photographs from Abu Ghraib make clear, these detentions have had enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had nothing to do with the growing insurgency; for the integrity of the Army; and for the United States' reputation in the world.
Captain Robert Shuck, Frederick's military attorney, closed his defense at the Article 32 hearing last month by saying that the Army was "attempting to have these six soldiers atone for its sins." Similarly, Gary Myers, Frederick's civilian attorney, told me that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability in the case extended far beyond his client. "I'm going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court," he said. "Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance."
----
'Appalling' UK Soldiers Torture Iraqi Detainee
By Andrew Woodcock, Political Correspondent, PA News
Fri 30 Apr 2004
Scotsman
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2863375
Shocking photographs apparently showing British troops torturing an Iraqi detainee were published tonight.
The Ministry of Defence launched an immediate investigation into the alleged incident which was condemned as "shameful" by the Army's most senior officer and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
The pictures, printed in the Daily Mirror, show soldiers apparently beating the man - a suspected thief - with rifle butts and urinating on him.
He was allegedly threatened with execution during an eight-hour ordeal, which left him bleeding and vomiting, with a broken jaw and smashed teeth.
Tonight's revelation comes hot on the heels of the publication of photos of hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners being taunted and abused by US troops.
Those photographs led to a wave of revulsion across the world and were strongly condemned by President George Bush and Mr Blair.
Tonight, Chief of General Staff General Sir Michael Jackson said: "I am aware of the allegations which have been made today of the abuse of prisoners by British soldiers in Iraq.
"If proven, not only is such appalling conduct clearly unlawful, but it also contravenes the British Army's high standards.
"All allegations are already under investigation. If proven, the perpetrators are not fit to wear the Queen's uniform. They have besmirched the good name of the Army and its honour.
"Most emphatically, the British Army should not be judged by the reprehensible ill-discipline of a few soldiers who, by their shameful behaviour, have let down those tens of thousands of British soldiers who have worked, and still do, in difficult and dangerous conditions in the most commendable way, in particular in Iraq, where their sole purpose is to help the Iraqis to a new and better future."
The Mirror said it was given the pictures by serving soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, who were horrified at the act depicted and concerned that "rogue elements" in the Army were undermining attempts to win the hearts and minds of local people in British-administered southern Iraq.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the soldiers told the paper that the unnamed captive, against whom no charges were brought, was driven away and dumped from the back of a moving vehicle following his ordeal. It was not known whether he survived.
The soldiers said they were making the photos public to show why the US-UK coalition was encountering such fierce resistance in Iraq.
One told the paper: "We are not helping ourselves out there. We are never going to get them on our side. We are fighting a losing war."
Tonight's revelations are certain to cause uproar in Iraq, amid growing anger of the behaviour of some members of the occupying US/UK coalition forces.
In a hastily arranged press conference, Gen Jackson tonight insisted that the vast majority of British troops in Iraq had behaved impeccably.
He left no doubt that any servicemen shown to have abused prisoners would face the most severe discipline.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "The Prime Minister fully endorses both the statement by General Sir Michael Jackson and the action he is taking, as well as the speed with which the Army is acting.
"The Prime Minister agreed that allegations of this nature are treated most seriously, but they should not be taken as a reflection of the general behaviour of coalition forces and the work they are doing with the Iraqi people.
"As the Chief of General Staff underlined, we expect the highest standards of conduct from our forces in Iraq despite the difficulties they face."
Michael Ancram, shadow foreign secretary, said: "These allegations are most serious.
"If the alleged conduct is true, it is wholly unacceptable and damaging. Government must conduct a swift, full and in depth inquiry into the truth and take appropriate action."
-------- russia / chechnya
KGB Resurrection
By Jamie Glazov FrontPageMagazine.com
April 30, 2004
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13210
Despite the fall of communism in Russia more than a decade ago, thousands of former KGB officers and other members of the Soviet nomenklatura hold significant positions of power in Russia today. The nation also appears to be experiencing a process of re-Brezhnevization, which is marked by the resurrection of the former secret police. What is the significance of this phenomenon? How will it affect U.S. -Russian relations and, more importantly, America's war with militant Islam?
Frontpage Symposium is honored to host a distinguished panel on this subject. In a world premiere, we have two ex-spy chiefs from opposite sides of the Cold War and a former leading Soviet dissident joining us. One of our guests is the only head of a former Communist espionage service to have ever defected to the West, and he has never been involved in any public dialogue with a former head of the CIA. To add to this unprecedented mix, we are graced by the presence of one of the most courageous and prominent soldiers against totalitarianism in the 20th century.
So, today, Frontpage Symposium has the privilege of introducing the following guests:
Ion Mihai Pacepa, the former acting chief of Communist Romania's espionage service, whose book Red Horizons was republished in 24 countries;
James Woolsey, director of the CIA from 1993-95 and a former Navy undersecretary and arms-control negotiator;
and
Vladimir Bukovsky, a former leading Soviet dissident who spent twelve years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals for his fight for freedom, and whose works include To Build a Castle and Judgement in Moscow.
Frontpage Magazine: Gentlemen, welcome to Frontpage Symposium. It is a privilege to be in the company of three distinguished titans.
Mr. Bukovsky, perhaps I will begin with you. Could you kindly get us started on this discussion of the resurrection of the KGB in Russia? How real is this development and what are its main ingredients?
Bukovsky: Our national tragedy (as well as the tragedy of all other former communist countries) is that there was no clear defeat of the ruling communist system, no Nuremberg-style trial of its crimes, no vigorous lustration (de-communisation) process. The West was quick to celebrate the end of the Cold War and the victory of democracy in the former Iron Curtained countries, but in reality there was no change of "elites" there. The former communist "nomenklatura" has remained in the position of power in all branches of the government, albeit under a different name.
One particular part of the communist "nomenklatura" - the KGB - is of special interest to us. The Soviet secret police/intelligence service, originally called VChK, was defined by Lenin as an "armed detachment of the Party," and remained as such throughout Soviet history, while changing its name every few years (VChK, OGPU, NKVD, MGB, KGB, FSB...). Its prime task was to safeguard the interests of the Party and of its ideology, both at home and abroad.
By the 1970s, like anybody else, they came to resent the ideological supervision of the Party which they perceived as hampering their efficiency. They vigorously supported Gorbachev in his "perestroika" campaign, and he, in turn, has heavily relied on their services. Their task, (as it was the task of Gorbachev's leadership), was to salvage the remnants of the Soviet system, not to abandon it.
The subsequent collapse of the USSR was the final blow to the KGB as we knew it. Many left for working in the "commercial structures" (hence the "Russian mafia"), others resigned. But the leadership has retained its position. The most able and loyal officers were sent to work "underground," creating the gangs to blackmail the businessmen and to control the organized crime. The others were strategically placed in the administrative structures as civil servants (while still remaining in the service of the KGB). Thousands of operatives were called back from the West to apply their experience at home. Among them, a KGB major Vladimir Putin was called back from East Germany and planted as a Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg. The "armed detachment of the Party" has continued to blow up the trains and bridges even though the Party has disappeared.
Meanwhile, the Russian leadership's crisis has continued to deepen. Yeltsin, who was not prepared at all to inherit the power in the first place, did not even try to use it either. Having failed to go forward, to stage any trial over the former Soviet regime, or to purge the former Soviet nomenklatura from the position of power, he began a long retreat. First, he sacrificed his policies of reform, next he sacrificed his team, and finally, by 1993, he had to fight for his political survival. By then, he lost all political support in the country, and the only force he could count on were "siloviki", the "Power Ministries" - The Army, The Interior Ministry and the FSB. They were the only forces in the country which still supported him, although, in Lenin's words, they supported him like a rope that supports the hanged. From that moment onwards, his main concern was to find an heir who would guarantee him and his family an immunity from prosecution. This is why all three of his last candidates were from the KGB (FSB) - Primakov, Stepashin, Putin.
The rest is recent history which most would remember. Explosions of apartment blocs in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, (blamed on Chechens but obviously caused by the FSB), a "small victorious war" in Chechnya, which still goes on and has turned into a genocide (but still continues to fuel Putin's rating), closure of all independent mass media in Russia, attack on independent businessmen, a Stalin-type atmosphere of xenophobia and spy-mania, first political prisoners, strict censorship and a prevalent fear in the country. KGB is in power again, with all the consequences it entails.
But this time, it cannot be justified even by a crazy ideology, and there is no control over it by any ideological body. What used to be done for the glory of an idea, of the World Socialist Revolution, is done today for the sake of a personal ambition of few non-entities, and of a corporation called KGB. And this time around, it is much easier for them to murder their opponents in a dark lane than to put them into Gulag. Cheaper and easier. As Josef Stalin used to say: "No man - no problem".
FP: Mr. Pacepa, what do you make of Mr. Bukovsky's interpretation of events?
Pacepa: I agree. KGB general Aleksandr Sakharovsky, my former de facto boss, who rose to head the almighty Soviet espionage service during the most important Cold War years, repeatedly told me: "every society reflects its own past." A Russian to the marrow of his bones, he believed that someday Marxism might have been turned upside down, and even the Communist Party itself might have become history. Both Marxism and the party were foreign organisms that had been introduced into the Russian body, and sooner or later they would have to be rejected in any case. One thing, though, was certain to remain unchanged: "our gosbezopasnost" (the state security service). Sakharovsky used to point out that "our gosbezopasnost" had kept Russia alive for the past five hundred years, and "our gosbezopasnost" would guide her helm for the next five hundred years.
So far Sakharovsky has proved to be a dependable prophet. The Soviet Communist Party was indeed disbanded, and nobody within the country really missed it. Until Lenin came along, Russia had never had a significant political party anyway. Russia's first freely elected president, Boris Yeltsin, who made history by dissolving the Soviet Union, began his rule in the Kremlin by building up his own political police, not his own political party. In October 1993, when the Russian parliament rebelled against Yeltsin, he did not resort to political measures to solve his problem. Rather he ordered his political police to storm the parliament building with artillery and then to arrest Yeltsin's chief antagonists.
In the summer of 1996 Boris Yeltsin was elected Russia's president for the second time, but he had not yet created a real political party that would define the democratic future of Russia. Rather, he relied more and more heavily on the historically Russian way of governing the country with the help of his political police, which now reportedly had more officers per capita than the former Soviet Union had had. According to Yevgenia Albats, a Russian intelligence expert and author of a well-documented book about the KGB, "the Soviet Union, with a population of 300 million, had approximately 700,000 political police agents; the new 'democratic' Russia, with a population of 150 million, has 500,000 Chekists. Where we once had one Chekist for every 428 Soviet citizens, we now have one for every 297 citizens of Russia."
The rest is indeed history. Vladimir Putin was the very chief of the entire gosbezopasnost before becoming Russia's president, and his former KGB colleagues now occupy nearly 50% of the top government positions there.
FP: Mr. Woolsey, as Mr. Pacepa infers, there is a psychology in the Russian character that actually needs a powerful and ruthless KGB to be operating, since the opposite would mean a life of too much individuality and freedom, which poses too much danger and risk. Your take?
Woolsey: I can't think of two people whose judgment about this issue I admire more than Mr. Bukovsky and Mr. Pacepa, and I have no quarrel with their characterization of history or the current situation. For example, like Mr.Bukovsky, I am inclined at this point to believe, based on the information I've seen in David Satter's articles and books, that the Chekists were responsible for the apartment bombings that were blamed on the Chechens and provided the excuse for this most recent Chechen War.
I would point out two long-term trends in Russia that will have a great deal to do with its future -- and may be even more influential than its history and the current dominance of the siloviki.
First, Russia is living a demographic nightmare, with a tiny birth rate (except among its Muslim citizens) and very short life expectancies, especially for males. By around the middle of the century, if these trends stay in place, the population could fall to under 100 million. This could point in any of several directions, including an effort to, in effect, re-establish much of the USSR (although of course not under that name) to provide security -- continuing post-Cold War Russian aggression against Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine; it could also point toward an inability to defend such a massive country on such a small population base and could lead to fragmentation of Russia itself. Your guess is as good as mine as to which way things will go -- what I don't see is stability.
Second, oil prices will drive the health of the Russian economy, and indirectly many political and social trends, for a long time. Oil wealth has not often been conducive to the development of a vibrant, entrepreneurial middle class. It will take real creativity for a Russian government, if it were so inclined, to figure out how to distribute the proceeds of oil sales in such a way as to promote the interests of the people as a whole and to do so in a way that does not promote a mentality of dependence. The siloviki will prosper, but will anyone else? Here also, the odds don't seem to favor positive developments.
To overcome the negative influence of much of its history and the problems presented by demographics and oil, Russia will need leadership as bold and as willing to break with the past as that which was provided, e.g., to Turkey in the aftermath of WW I by Kemal Attaturk. Mr. Putin has in no way shown himself to be a leader of that caliber. We must hope that the great Russian people are, at some early point, able to produce a leader worthy of the better angels of their nature.
FP: So Mr. Bukovsky, Putin is clearly consolidating his powerful control of Russia. He is placing myriad former KGB officers in his presidential administration posts and has appointed Mikhail Fradkov, also KGB, as chief of government. The Russian media is increasingly practicing self-censorship and political opponents face increasing violence and intimidation. Russia is clearly going back to an authoritarian security state and Putin has made himself somewhat of an oligarch.
Where do you see all of this going? Russia's re-Sovietization, and I realize this term must be used with caution, clearly can't be a good thing in terms of America having a strong ally in the international environment. Might a new Cold War with Russia emerge? How will this fit in the War on Terror? Since both America and Russia have an enemy in militant Islam, will the two powers have an alliance on certain grounds? How will the West's war with militant Islam be affected overall?
Bukovsky: If by "re-Sovietization" we mean a restoration of some sort of the Soviet Union, then we can be sure that such an attempt is doomed to failure. Contrary to what Mr. Putin and his KGB cronies might think, there were objective reasons for the Soviet collapse, and those reasons did not disappear just because they took over. The former Republics' ruling bureaucracy (which now became the governments of independent states) wants to restore Moscow's control over themselves even less than the KGB wants to restore the Communist Party control over itself. A military solution is hardly an option, as we have seen in Chechnya. If the entire Russian Army could not conquer this tiny speck on the map, it surely cannot re-conquer the Ukraine or Central Asia, or even the Baltic states. Clearly, restoring the Soviet Union is less feasible a project than restoring Roman Empire.
If, on the other hand, we mean by it a restoration of a totalitarian state in Russia, this again seems to be an exercise in futility. Soviet leaders launched their "glasnost & perestroika" campaign not because they suddenly saw the light on the road to Damascus and converted to liberalism, but because they could see that their system was incompatible with the modern technology, and was leading them to a deadly structural crisis. Fifteen years later, preconditions for a totalitarian rule could hardly improve. Just try to imagine a problem of maintaining an Iron Curtain in the time of internet, satellite television and mobile phones.
Besides, how can anyone maintain a totalitarian control in a fantastically corrupt country, in which a certain percent of people is wealthy enough to buy off a secret policeman or a judge? Odd as it may sound, one needs a certain critical mass of fanatics in order to exercise tight control over a society.
Then, again, let us not forget that the Soviet Union has collapsed as a result of its bankruptcy. To put it simply, the Soviet economic base turned out to be too small for its global ambitions. The ever-growing cost of empire and of the arms race has just exhausted it, while a sudden drop of the oil price in 1986 has finished it off.
Is the Russian economy so much better now that they can sustain the cost of a second Cold War? Hardly. The Russian economy has changes considerably less than the Western observers think. It was not thoroughly restructured during Yeltsin's decade and still remains suitable mainly for a large-scale military production, or for gigantic projects of socialist Utopia (and it will remain so as long as the oil prices are high, while Americans provide $ billions a year for its "conversion"). Once those two factors change, once the oil price goes down and Americans wisen up, Russia will experience a second bankrupcy, far more devastating than the first one. And if the first one has led to disintegration of their empire, the second is most likely to lead to fragmentation of Russia proper. So, all in all, re-Sovietization is not a realistic prospective. Perhaps, the only sphere where we observe it is in the return of Soviet mentality. Self-censorship in the media, shameless public glorification of the Supreme Leader, political jokes told to close friends in the privacy of one's kitchen and a dominant sense of fear in the society - all of it has returned with a frightening speed, as if there were no years of "glasnost". Above all, Soviet mentality reigns supreme in the Kremlin again. And this is why, inspite of everything said above and contrary to elementary logic, new Kremlin comrades will try to re-create Soviet Union, to re-establish totalitarian control, to scare the world into accepting this Upper Volta with rusty missiles as a "Great Power". No doubt, they will fail. But how much damage will be caused by this lunacy?
I think it was Karl Marx who once said that if history repeats itself, what happened the first time as a drama, the second time comes as a farce. Indeed, what was once a collossal tragedy played by fanatics, might very well be staged again as a farce by non-entities with inferiority complex. We can only hope this farce is not going to be as bloody.
FP: Mr. Pacepa, your thoughts? Mr. Bukovsky is pointing out that any kind of "re-Sovietization" of Russia is simply mired in futility. How does the resurrection of the KGB play a role in this context? It is, and will obviously be, a different kind of KGB than the one of the past, right?
Pacepa: In today's nuclear age, even farces could be deadly dangerous. When people talk about the KGB they generally think about its visible acts of repression, brutal interrogations and gulags. There is little public awareness of the fact that the KGB, which is calling the shots in today's Russia, holds the launching codes for 6,000 nuclear missiles. Even fewer people know that the KGB has also been charged to develop, produce, stockpile and guard the country's weapons of mass destruction. When I was in Romania, the KGB's nuclear component alone had as many as 87 "secret cities," some occupying whole islands, such as the hush-hush military laboratories on Vozrozhdeniye and Komsomolsk islands in the Aral Sea. All were secret towns built and run by the KGB, and not listed anywhere, not even on the Soviet Union's most highly classified military maps. Chelyabinsk city in the Urals, for instance, was on a map of the Soviet Union, but Chelyabinsk-40, a city of 40,000 people located in the Urals, where 27 tons of weapons-grade plutonium were stockpiled, was not.
The same KGB, with a new nameplate on the door, is now playing an even more prominent role in today's Russia than it ever did in the Communist age.
FP: Mr. Woolsey, in the context of the KGB resurrection that Mr. Pacepa describes, could you sum up for us what danger it poses and what American policy toward Russia should now be?
Woolsey: Once again, I have no substantial disagreement with the views of these two remarkable men. It seems to me that the direction of Russia is decidedly negative and that the question for us in the West is the one Lenin was fond of posing: "What is to be done?"
Our oil dependence is an even more salient issue than when our percentage of imports was much less during the two oil shocks of the 1970's. The Russian economy is heavily influenced by the price of oil. Saudis, controlling at least half of the world's swing production capacity, dropped the bottom out of the oil market in 1985 and the Soviets never really recovered. We will never have that kind of control, but we can to a great extent reduce our dependence, give ourselves more leverage over the oil market, make it more difficult for the Saudis and others to raise prices to our economic and political disadvantage, and lead the Russian regime to realize that it may need to re-assess its direction.
I used to believe that anything, including a strong oil market, that bolstered the Russian economy and produced prosperity would be likely to cause the growth of a middle class and, in time, more pressure for economic and political liberalization. The events of the last eighteen months or so have convinced me that such is not correct. Putin has used the economic prosperity produced by a strong oil market to consolidate his power and lead Russia toward a form of fascism -- oil prices have given him the idea that he can do anything he wants. Oil can tend to centralize power in any society except in a mature democracy such as Norway.
It now seems to me that it is in our interest both in terms of our dealings with Russia and with the Middle East to do as much as possible to reduce our reliance on oil. To do this we would need to move toward alternative fuels, especially those produced from waste, that can be used in the existing infrastructure and toward more fuel efficient vehicles, such as hybrids, that are available now -- not wait on the hydrogen economy.
In spite of their very high levels of oil production the Russians can't bring new production on- and off-line quickly as the Saudis can due to weather, location, etc. So if the Russians see us moving steadily toward reducing our oil use and thus their ability to make money from their high-cost production they may become far more reasonable than they are now. Today they have the bit in their teeth and, to mix a metaphor, they feel as if they have the world by the tail more and more firmly with each dollar the price of oil increases. They need to be shown that their prosperity is not assured without some fundamental changes and that it would be good for their economy and society if they diversified their economy. For more reasons than one it is in our interest for them to be worried about the possibility that oil prices could fall.
To read the rest of KGB Resurrection Symposium Click Here. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13212
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Intelligence
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
April 30, 2004
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual appearance yesterday before the congressionally mandated National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
The White House initially resisted the appearance on the grounds that presidential power needed protection from congressional encroachment.
But there was another reason the White House at first refused to have the president and vice president appear: Top officials feared the testimony by the president and vice president will have a chilling effect on U.S. intelligence analysts, now and in the future.
High-level second-guessing by the nation's top elected officials would cause analysts in the future to be reluctant to speak candidly and frankly within the closed world of interagency intelligence, we are told.
In the end, public pressure led Mr. Bush to appear before the so-called 9/11 commission.
Intel help
The high-powered Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is offering its help to the September 11 commission on the pivotal question of how to improve intelligence collection on terrorists.
In a letter this week to Chairman Thomas H. Kean, Potomac President Dennis K. McBride offered a briefing on Project Guardian. The white paper was the institute's grand plan for assessing threat warnings from human sources.
"The Project Guardian proposal offers a high-integrity way to improve the acquisition of information critical to stopping terrorists, then to integrate all information relevant to the threat for analysis, and finally to distribute that analysis to those on the front lines against terrorists," Mr. McBride wrote.
The study's director is Daniel J. Gallington, a longtime U.S. intelligence official who most recently was an aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States will file its report this summer. It will recommend fixes to an intelligence community that failed to foresee the September 11 attacks.
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U.S. Weighs U.N. Proposal for an Interim Iraqi Leader
April 30, 2004
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, April 29 - The Bush administration is considering a United Nations proposal to appoint Iraq's current planning minister, a Shiite, as prime minister when the American occupation is dissolved on June 30, administration officials said Thursday.
Dr. Mahdi al-Hafidh, the planning minister, was described by American and Iraqi officials as a secular-leaning Shiite who could win broad acceptance from Iraqi factions, including Shiite followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whose backing is considered crucial to any American plans for Iraq.
The job of prime minister is conceived by American and United Nations planners as the principal post in the caretaker government that will assume power after June 30. Dr. Hafidh would be expected to step aside once an elected government is formed next year, the officials said.
American officials see Dr. Hafidh's identity as a Shiite as likely to help shore up the support of Ayatollah Sistani for the caretaker government. But they also said that Dr. Hafidh's secularism meant he would not favor an Islamist government, which some of the ayatollah's supporters want.
Plans for the interim government call for a president to be a largely ceremonial job and for two deputy prime ministers who are to help in the day-to-day governing of Iraq. These three jobs are expected to be shared by members of Iraq's principal ethnic and sectarian groupings: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
An administration official said Dr. Hafidh, who has also served as an envoy to the United Nations, had won the support of Lakhdar Brahimi, the special United Nations envoy enlisted by the Bush administration to help select the caretaker government that will take office when Iraq's sovereignty is restored.
"He's the man Brahimi prefers and he is acceptable to the administration," said the official.
But another official said that although Dr. Hafidh was "very highly regarded" throughout the administration, it was too early to appoint anyone prime minister.
The current Iraqi government is led by a 25-member Iraqi Governing Council chosen last year by the American authorities under L. Paul Bremer III, the occupation administrator. Administration officials say that many Iraqis dismiss the council as a puppet government.
The expectation of Bush administration and United Nations officials is that Mr. Brahimi will select members of the new government in consultation with the administration, the Iraqi Governing Council, other Iraqi leaders and occupation officials.
A spokesman for Mr. Brahimi said the envoy would have no comment on the selection process. But an Iraqi official familiar with the political situation in Iraq said Dr. Hafidh would be seen as a compromise choice for a government expected to have only limited powers while plans are made for an election in early 2005.
In addition to Dr. Hafidh's appointment, administration and Iraqi officials said, talks are under way with Shiites to write an annex to the laws adopted in March by Iraqi leaders picked by the American occupation.
The annex, these officials said, would make it clear that the caretaker government could not make changes in the laws that would diminish the power of any group in Iraq, particularly Shiites.
Language effectively handcuffing the new interim government from making such changes is being discussed in Baghdad and Washington, according to these officials.
They said Ayatollah Sistani was particularly interested in making sure that no changes were made that would give Kurds, a rival group to the Shiites, a greater veto power than they already have over ratification of a constitution next year.
The ayatollah was also said to be concerned that a caretaker government might bar the possibility of Islamic law governing such things as family issues in Iraq. Any provision for the role of Islamic law should only be made by an elected government, Shiites are demanding.
"What Sistani is most concerned about is to prevent the caretaker government from making any decisions that would be binding on a successor government," said an administration official.
The official added the search for a prime minister of Iraq was guided by the principal that whoever was chosen should not entertain political ambitions of his own.
Along with a new prime minister, Iraq's leadership is to consist of the ceremonial job of president and two deputy prime ministers.
In addition to these leaders, the caretaker Iraqi government is expected to have perhaps a dozen cabinet ministers. Mr. Brahimi has said that he expects most of these jobs to be filled by nonpartisan technocrats.
Officials familiar with Mr. Brahimi's deliberations said that the posts of deputy prime minister and president might not be filled before June 30, and that they could be chosen by a "national conference" of as many as 1,500 Iraqis that Mr. Brahimi wants to convene later in the summer.
Mr. Brahimi has said he does not favor the participation of leaders of existing Iraqi factions or parties, including leaders of former exile groups like Ahmad Chalabi, in the caretaker government. Mr. Chalabi, a current member of the Iraqi Governing Council, has been a favorite of the Pentagon for leadership of Iraq.
Senior Bush administration officials, disagreeing with Mr. Brahimi on this one point, say they do not necessarily oppose participation by politically connected Iraqis in the caretaker government. Some Iraqi leaders share that view.
"Iraq needs a strong government," said an Iraqi official. "Whatever government comes in after June 30 will need broad political support. Some of the figures now in the Iraqi Governing Council will no doubt be excluded, but you can't exclude some of the heavyweights on the council."
Last week, administration officials acknowledged in Congressional testimony that Iraq's sovereignty after June 30 would be limited, with no final say on deployment of its own security forces and no ability to enact laws.
This week, administration officials said these limits were incorporated into American plans for the caretaker government at the request of Ayatollah Sistani, conveyed in conversations with Mr. Brahimi.
To this end, administration officials said, the annex to the so-called transitional administrative law adopted in March is aimed at making these limits more explicit.
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U.N. Struggles to Find Troops to Police Haiti
April 30, 2004
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/americas/30hait.html
WASHINGTON, April 29 - Just a month before its deadline, the United Nations finds itself hard-pressed to sign up peacekeeping troops and French-speaking police officers to take over security in Haiti from an American-led interim force, United Nations officials and diplomats say.
The Security Council is considering a request by Secretary General Kofi Annan to send 6,700 peacekeepers and 1,622 civilian police officers to Haiti, which was shaken in February when armed insurgents opposed to the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide took over much of Haiti's north and moved on the capital.
Planners cite several challenges as they seek to replace nearly 2,000 troops from the United States and about 1,500 from France, Canada and Chile who were deployed to keep order after Mr. Aristide left.
Although this interim force has managed to impose a modicum of stability, diplomats express concern that large parts of the country remain under the rebels' control, and that there has been no systematic effort to disarm them.
One problem is the competition for French-speaking peacekeepers, as missions are prepared for Ivory Coast and Burundi this year, United Nations representatives said.
In addition, some potential contributors are reluctant to offer troops because of lingering doubts about the conditions of Mr. Aristide's departure, on Feb. 29: he was assisted into exile by American officials in an incident he later referred to as a kidnapping. The Bush administration denies this, saying it acted to safeguard Mr. Aristide from attack and to avert a rebel takeover.
"The big problem they have is the controversy over Aristide's departure,'' said a senior diplomat who is involved in the negotiations. "It remains a cancer, and it tends to limit support.''
The countries that currently have troops in Haiti have signaled their willingness to stay under the new mandate, and Brazil has said it would take part. A Canadian official said French-speaking nations in Africa had been asked to join in, and he said he was optimistic that the United Nations would reach its goal of more than doubling the interim force. "I think the world will be able to provide that,'' the official said.
The 15 nations in the Caribbean Community, or Caricom, have withheld recognition of Haiti's interim government, whose leaders were selected by a council of elders. Caricom has settled into an ambiguous stance, not ruling out a role in the new security forces and deferring a decision on recognizing Haiti's government until July.
One Caricom diplomat said the group had been stymied by the dispute over whether Bush administration officials undermined its diplomatic efforts and forced Mr. Aristide into exile. But Caribbean foreign ministers met last weekend and decided to take a more active role, now that the United Nations is involved.
In a report last week, Mr. Annan noted that his efforts to raise even small amounts of money for Haiti had fallen short, with the response to his appeal for $35 million in emergency assistance "slower than anticipated.''
Potential donors are expected to make an assessment next month to identify specific needs.
Mr. Annan's report calls for a force that would take over Haiti's security on June 1 and remain in place until elections can be held next year, and for an "appropriate period of time thereafter.''
The open-ended nature of the mission has caused some skepticism among potential contributors. The last peacekeeping mission - a joint operation of the United Nations and the Organization of American States - followed an American intervention in 1994 and lasted until 2001. Mr. Annan's report criticized the international community for having pulled out too quickly.
Calling for a sweeping United Nations program to develop the economy and civil society, Mr. Annan said conditions in Haiti now were actually worse than before foreign involvement began.
A key to progress, he said, would be establishing a process of national reconciliation and putting an end to a climate of impunity and revenge.
"Our task will not be easy,'' Mr. Annan wrote. "The situation looks more daunting today than it did a decade ago.''
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ARMAMENT
A Full Range of Technology Is Applied to Bomb Falluja
April 30, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/middleeast/30AIR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, April 29 - The airstrikes in Falluja in the past three days by American warplanes and helicopter gunships have been the most intense aerial bombardment in Iraq since major combat ended nearly a year ago, military officials said Thursday.
In the past 48 hours, Air Force F-15E and F-16 warplanes, and carrier-based F-14 and F-18 fighter-bombers, have dropped about three dozen 500-pound laser-guided bombs in three different sections of Falluja, Air Force officials said, destroying more than 10 buildings and 2 sniper nests identified by troops as sources of attacking fire, and other targets.
By day, AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters have hovered over the city, launching Hellfire missiles at guerrillas who fire on the Marines. By night, lumbering AC-130 gunships have pounded trucks and cars ferrying fighters with the distinctive thump-thump of 105-millimeter howitzers. British Tornado ground-attack planes are also flying missions over Falluja, and remotely piloted Predator reconnaissance aircraft prowl the skies.
But Falluja is not only a military target; it also holds incalculable symbolic power. A bloodbath might return the city to American control, only to galvanize resistance around the country.
Commanders say they go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but they acknowledge they do not know how many civilians have died in recent attacks. Pilots concede that in at least one case, an American warplane mistakenly bombed the wrong building in Falluja.
"The big problem now is that friendlies, civilians and bad guys are all mixed together," Brig. Gen. Jack Egginton, commander of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, said in a telephone interview from his base in the Persian Gulf.
The stepped-up air assault has sought to minimize the risks to both civilians and the military, senior officers said. Bombs guided by lasers or satellites permit American forces to attack weapons caches or clusters of fighters more precisely and with less risk to civilians than with ground fire, they say.
The air campaign's weapons of choice - 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bombs - are timed to detonate a split second after piercing a building's floor, imploding the structure and limiting the blast's effects. The Air Force has also dropped 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs, and Maverick missiles.
"Air power in Falluja has had the ability to come in overhead and hit targets precisely, and has allowed marines to stay out of lethal range," Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, the senior American air commander in the Middle East, said in a telephone interview from Qatar.
To try to reduce risk to civilians, pilots use computer programs to figure out what kind of bomb, dropped at what angle, using which type of detonating device, will destroy a target with a minimum of what the military calls collateral damage.
"This urban thing is very complicated and requires much discipline," Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force vice chief of staff who directed the air campaign during the invasion, said in an interview on Thursday. "It's not something that you just shoot into a city. It is not carpet-bombing. It is not indiscriminate bombing. It is not just firing into an area. This is very hard to do."
Pilots work closely with spotters on the ground to identify targets. Spotters relay target coordinates or guide bombs to their destination with laser designators, a process that may take only minutes. But, commanders say, if bombing is needed near mosques, schools or hospitals, the spotters may be allowed hours.
"It requires the commander on the ground to determine the target and provide the positive identification of the target, the positive location of the target, and then to also do the assessment on the collateral damage - in other words, what unintended consequences would have by striking that particular target," said Maj. Gen. John F. Sattler, chief of operations for the United States Central Command.
This week's intensified airstrikes are still well below the 275 daily strike missions of a year ago. Excluding helicopters, the number of allied aircraft based around the Persian Gulf to support the invasion was about 750; today there are about 350.
But Navy and Air Force combat missions were on the increase across the country even before the latest spasm of violence. Those forces are now flying 55 to 60 combat flights over Iraq each day, more than double the number earlier this year. They are also flying 45 to 50 combat support missions a day, military officials said.
Ground commanders piece together intelligence from land and airborne sensors to help pinpoint enemy positions. RC-135 Rivet Joint planes sweep up electronic transmissions, including cellphone calls, to help identify insurgents' hideouts.
The Air Force has also sent about a dozen Rover laptop computers to Iraq, which allow ground spotters to receive live video feeds from Predators. A Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft is to arrive next week.
American and British aircraft continue to patrol major supply routes, power lines and other critical installations.
"Most of our missions are about presence and working with ground forces," Capt. Alan Wesenberg, an F-15E pilot from Arvada, Colo., said in a telephone interview. "Most of the time we're looking for potential problems: vehicles pulled off the side of the road or a bridge knocked out."
None of the gunships' Special Operations aviators would discuss the Falluja mission, but some spoke of the AC-130's precision by recalling a mission last year in support of American ground forces closing with the Iraqi Army: The AC-130's surveillance equipment, which includes live feeds from Predators, allowed the crew to identify individuals.
"The good guys were closing in one side, and suddenly we saw Iraqis shooting their own guys in the back, trying to push them forward," said one pilot. "So we left those soldiers in front alone and I said, `Let's get the really bad guys.' We trained our firepower on them. We could see all that from above, and could separate the bad guys from the really bad guys."
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Pentagon to Try to Fix War Zone Voting Woes
By Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54396-2004Apr29.html
Plagued by a history of problems delivering mail, especially in wartime, the Pentagon will soon be unveiling a program to do a better job of getting ballots overseas and back so units deployed in combat zones and elsewhere can cast votes in the fall presidential election.
The pledge for improvement comes amid critical reports on laggardly military mail service and complaints of shortages of forms to request absentee ballots for overseas civilians.
Pentagon studies of recent elections have found about a quarter of overseas military service members who try to get an absentee ballot do not get it in time or do not get it back to their local election office in time for it to be counted. More recently, a General Accounting Office study released this month said historic military mail problems have resurfaced in Iraq.
The Pentagon and the Postal Service are putting finishing touches on a joint agreement for speedy handling of ballots going back and forth to units overseas. The ballots will travel in specially colored containers so everyone knows they need priority handling, said Charles S. Abell, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. His portfolio includes the Federal Voting Assistance Program responsible for more than 6 million military and civilian voters overseas.
The Postal Service will keep track of how many absentee ballots go out and come back.
"We're going to move ballots more quickly and more efficiently," Abell said. "We are really focused on how does that guy in the remotest section of Afghanistan and Iraq get his ballot and get it in and counted."
Samuel F. Wright is skeptical of the "snail mail" solution.
"We've heard that before. I'm hopeful, but the proof is in the pudding," said Wright, director of the Military Voting Rights Project for the National Defense Committee in Arlington.
Wright said the title is grandiose for his part-time, one-man operation but says he has been fighting the problem of missed military ballots for 23 years. "Have you seen the 1952 congressional hearings?" he said. Those hearings focused on mail problems in the Korean War before he was born.
Wright sent out his own survey in 2002, which found that more than two out of five military voters' ballots did not get counted because of paperwork errors, missed deadlines or other problems. Wright supports online voting, but the Pentagon two months ago canceled its pilot program that had expected to let 100,000 overseas citizens vote over the Internet. The $22 million experiment died after experts said the Internet is so insecure that counting online votes could jeopardize the integrity of the entire election.
Wright noted that Pennsylvania officials are under federal court order to count overseas ballots from Tuesday's Senate primary for another three weeks because absentee ballots were not sent abroad early enough to meet federal deadlines. Sen. Arlen Specter (R) has enough of a lead that the late military ballots are not likely to have any impact, but the fiasco of different rules and standards in treating thousands of late ballots from abroad was a lowlight of the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida.
Already voters abroad are complaining of problems in this year's presidential contest. The Pentagon's voting assistance program distributes a postcard that can be sent to any local election office for overseas citizens to request an absentee ballot. Advocacy groups including Democrats Abroad and Republicans Abroad usually get hundreds of thousands of the postcards to distribute at events and to members to encourage voting. But the groups said embassies in Asia and elsewhere have already run out of postcards. Voters can print a copy of the postcard from the Internet.
"It's a lot more effective to hand them the actual [postcard] than to tell them to go to the Internet to print it out," said Ryan King of Republicans Abroad. Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), John B. Larson (D-Conn.) and Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday wrote to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld complaining of shortages and asking him to order printing of more postcards.
"If there's a shortage, we are not aware of it," Abell said. " If we were to get such a report, we would respond immediately to overwhelm them with the necessary materials."
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U.S. Deaths in Iraq Up Sharply in April
Fewer Casualties in '03 Major Combat
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54639-2004Apr29?language=printer
With the deaths of 10 American soldiers in Iraq yesterday, more U.S. troops have died in combat in April than in the six weeks of sustained military operations required to take Baghdad last year. Since April 1, more than 120 troops have been killed in action in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.
Defense officials and analysts said the sharp rise in casualties this month is in large part because of the shifting nature of the fight, as both coalition forces and insurgents have been taking increasingly offensive action. The result is the highest number of U.S. military losses in one month since the waning days of the Vietnam War.
Some experts said they expect the violence to continue or increase as the United States prepares to transfer political power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30 and as the United Nations works to organize national elections this winter. The increase in violence by insurgents, experts said, probably reflects their desire to erode the will and resolve of the American public and its support for the war.
"These are acts of desperation on behalf of the insurgents because they clearly know that the political transfer is inevitable, and they see it as a death knell for them," said retired Gen. Jack Keane, former vice chief of the Army. "I believe they'll try to keep this level of violence through the summer and into the fall and December. . . . It's challenging, and it will test our perseverance and our will."
Tomorrow marks a year since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq. Since then, more than 400 U.S. troops have been killed in combat, about 30 percent of them this month.
In all, 729 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the invasion, including those killed in combat and in accidents and other non-hostile situations, according to Washington Post research based on Pentagon figures. An additional 3,864 troops have been wounded, the Pentagon said.
The surge in casualties in the past month has not changed the public's key judgments on Iraq, however. While Bush has clearly lost public support for his policies there, much of that erosion occurred before the current wave of violence. Bush's approval rating for dealing with the situation in Iraq stood at 45 percent in a Post-ABC News poll conducted two weeks ago, unchanged from mid-March but down from 55 percent in January. The president also has not suffered politically from the spiraling casualty count and continues to run even or slightly ahead of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry in most polls.
In recent days, the casualties have mounted as a result of small-arms combat, mortar attacks, rocket-propelled grenades, car bombs and the war's first waterborne suicide mission. While roadside bombs continue to injure and kill U.S. troops, those random attacks have given way to more traditional warfare casualties from gunfire, ambush and mortar fire. U.S. forces died at a rate of more than four each day in April.
And what the American public could see in coming weeks is an increase in the number of Reserve and National Guard troops who are killed in Iraq, since they now make up about 40 percent of the 135,000 troops there.
In an example of how such deaths can hit an area of the country particularly hard, a single unit of the Arkansas National Guard -- the 39th Brigade Combat Team -- lost five members last weekend, seven in all.
Maj. Gen. Don C. Morrow, adjutant general of the ANG, said the deaths made for the roughest day for the state's guard since the Korean War. Morrow will attend several funerals and memorial services this weekend, and said the losses show that "the defense of this country belongs to all of us."
Lt. Col. Mark Lumpkin of the 39th said: "The bottom-line truth is that you can't ever be ready for something like that. It's devastating, and that pain will subside, but it probably never completely will go away."
Yesterday's announcement that 10 more soldiers were killed in Iraq -- eight in a car bomb attack south of Baghdad -- pushed combat fatalities to 122 for the month of April, plus eight non-combat deaths. The six-week operation to take Baghdad in March and April 2003 killed 115 in combat, and 23 died in non-hostile events, according to Post research.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week that much of the fighting is isolated to hot spots such as Fallujah and Najaf. The insurgency has no broad popular support, they said, and is caused mainly by thugs and loyalists of former president Saddam Hussein. Recent attacks have been better planned and organized, and Myers has said it is important for the military to shift to meet a learning, thinking enemy.
"What's going on is some terrorists and regime remnants have been attacking our forces, and our forces have been going in and killing them," Rumsfeld said yesterday.
Michael E. O'Hanlon, a defense expert with the Brookings Institution, said the warfare around Fallujah and Najaf is the most intense fighting since the invasion.
"If we want to root out this resistance, then we're going to have to go after them with some pretty tough urban tactics," he said, making troops more vulnerable. "I don't think we can be very comfortable with this kind of casualty rate for more than a few months."
Most who died this month were regular Army (56) and Marines (50). The rest were members of the Air Force, Navy, Reserves, National Guard and Coast Guard.
"It's increasingly clear that we are now entering a phase of the war which is going to result in larger and larger numbers of Americans fighting, and of soldiers and Marines being killed and wounded," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "The American people are now beginning to realize a high price is going to be paid in lives and injuries by a sustained guerrilla war."
Tom Donnelly, a defense and national security expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said April's casualty rate was not particularly high when compared with major historical conflicts. He said it is unlikely the insurgency will be able to keep up such violence for long, but expects "terrorist-style" attacks to continue indefinitely.
"We did regime removal extremely well and relatively bloodlessly," Donnelly said. "The hard part wasn't going to be getting rid of Saddam, but trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again."
Researchers Robert E. Thomason, Madonna Lebling and Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
--------
Pentagon reports 128 troops killed in Iraq
April, bloodiest month of the war
Apr 30, 2004
WASHINGTON (AFP)
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040430210725.05s3dcqv.html
The Pentagon reported Friday that 128 US troops were killed in April, at least 121 of them in hostile fire, making it the bloodiest month of the war.
Deaths reported by US military spokesmen in Iraq were even higher, totalling 131 for the month. Of those, 124 were deaths in combat.
More US troops were killed in combat in April than the 109 killed in the six weeks before President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1, 2003.
The Pentagon count put the total number of troops killed in Iraq as of April 29, 2004 at 726 -- 524 of them killed in action.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Scientist Details Oklahoma City Bomb Residue
April 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/national/30NICH.html
McALESTER, Okla., April 29 - An F.B.I. scientist testified Thursday at the state murder trial of Terry L. Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombing conspirator, that he had found explosive fertilizer residue embedded in a single piece of the truck that carried the bomb.
The scientist, Steven G. Burmeister, head of the scientific analysis unit at the Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratory, said ammonium nitrate fertilizer was also found in a search of Mr. Nichols's house in Herington, Kan., three days after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Mr. Nichols was at home that day.
Prosecutors say the finding is central to proving that Mr. Nichols helped Timothy J. McVeigh, who was convicted of the bombing, build the giant fertilizer bomb, which killed 168 people. Ammonium nitrate is crucial in making such a bomb. Mr. McVeigh, convicted of federal murder charges, was executed in 2001.
Mr. Nichols, 49, is serving a life sentence after a federal jury convicted him of conspiracy and the involuntary manslaughter of eight federal agents. In Oklahoma, he is charged with 161 counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the other victims and a victim's fetus. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
A photograph of the wood debris with the microscopic crystals was shown to the jury on television monitors. The plywood came from the cargo container of the Ryder truck that delivered the bomb and is the only direct evidence of the explosive.
Mr. Burmeister said he concluded a month after the bombing that a fertilizer bomb caused the explosion. The microscopic crystals that helped him reach that finding had disappeared when the plywood was examined again in November 1996.
"I went to the area where I knew it to be present, and it wasn't there," he said. "They dispersed. They went away. They dissipated."
Defense lawyers say that the truck fragment may have been contaminated in the testing and that it is impossible to identify the handlers. On cross-examination, Mr. Burmeister speculated that the crystals might have fallen or been knocked off or that they might have had contact with moisture and been absorbed into the atmosphere.
The prosecution expects to end its case on Friday. The defense is to begin Thursday.
--------
Quashed Testimony
govexec.com
By Chris Strohm cstrohm@govexec.com
April 30, 2004
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0404/043004lb.htm
The Justice Department succeeded this week in temporarily preventing an FBI whistleblower from testifying in a class action lawsuit over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
A federal court on Monday granted Justice an emergency motion to prevent former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds from giving testimony to a group of Sept. 11 relatives and survivors who have filed a civil suit against international banks and two members of the Saudi royal family for allegedly aiding al Qaeda. Edmonds has been under a Justice Department gag order since October 2002.
The government argued that information provided by Edmonds "would cause serious damage to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States." Justice officials asserted that, because all the testimony the plaintiffs seek from Edmonds was obtained through her official FBI duties, the information remains bureau property.
Edmonds worked for the FBI from Sept. 20, 2001, to March 2002 as a contract linguist. She was hired to retranslate material that was collected prior to Sept. 11 to determine if anything was missed in the translations relating to the plot. Edmonds concluded that documents clearly showed that the Sept. 11 hijackers were in the country and plotting to use airplanes as missiles. She said documents also included information relating to their financial activities.
On Oct. 18, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft asserted "state secrets privilege" over Edmonds, preventing her from discussing what she did or information she obtained. Edmonds has since filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department and FBI to lift the gag order.
The law firm of Motley Rice, which represents about 500 Sept. 11 family members and survivors, subpoenaed Edmonds. She was to testify Tuesday, prompting the emergency motion from the Justice Department.
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia quashed the subpoena pending a review filed by the government in Edmonds' lawsuit, said her lawyer, Mark Zaid. He said the government must provide the court copies of documents by May 10, and return to court on June 14.
"Anyone interested in the truth behind 9/11 should be distressed at the lengths to which the executive branch is proceeding to ensure Sibel Edmonds is silenced," Zaid said.
The government argued that federal law provides that a court must quash a subpoena if it "requires disclosure of privileged or other protected matter and no exception or waiver applies."
Read Him His Rights
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Services Wednesday overturned the sentence of a soldier who pleaded guilty to a sex crime, ruling that a military judge failed to adequately inform him of his constitutional rights.
Marine Corps Pfc. Jamie Hansen was convicted in March 2000 of having carnal knowledge and sodomy with a child under the age of 16 by a court martial composed of a military judge alone. Hansen was sentenced to a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 16 months, and reduction to the lowest enlisted grade.
The court of appeals, however, ruled it could not reasonably conclude that Hansen understood all his constitutional rights, and knowingly and intelligently waived them when he entered a guilty plea.
"The military judge is required to ensure that the accused personally understands the rights he is about to waive. We cannot be certain that this was the case here," the court wrote on Wednesday. "Based on this record, we believe appellant was advised of, understood, and knowingly waived his right to a trial of the facts. However, we are not prepared to conclude the same with respect to appellant's right against self-incrimination or his right to be confronted by and cross-examine witnesses."
The court returned the record of the trial to the Judge Advocate General of the Navy. A rehearing may be ordered.
Chief Judge Susan Crawford dissented from the court's decision, saying she believed the record showed that Hansen was adequately advised of his rights.
Hansen's plea "was informed and voluntary," Crawford wrote. "This court should no longer invite appellants and counsel to negotiate a bargain, plead guilty, gain the benefit of the bargain, and then have the conviction set aside with no demonstration of prejudice and every indication of waiver."
U.S. vs. Hansen, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, No. 03-0363.
-------- homeland security
Chemical Plant Security Lagging Under Bush, Kerry Tells Mayors
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53639-2004Apr29?language=printer
PHILADELPHIA, April 29 -- Sen. John F. Kerry accused President Bush of failing to adequately secure the nation's chemical plants from terrorist attacks, as the presumptive Democratic nominee on Thursday stepped up criticism of the administration's homeland security plans.
"It's nearly 21/2 years after 9/11, and the administration is still dragging its feet when it comes to fighting to secure our chemical plants," Kerry told the National Conference of Black Mayors.
The senator from Massachusetts warned in prepared remarks provided to reporters that 1 million people in Philadelphia could be killed or injured if its underprotected chemical plants were attacked by terrorists, but he omitted this warning from his speech.
Kerry nonetheless accused Bush of placating the chemical industry, which has contributed to his reelection campaign, by opposing mandatory security measures proposed by some congressional Democrats.
Bush's campaign received $267,212 from "chemical and allied products" in 1999 and 2000, and has received $165,676 from them during the current campaign for a total of $432,888, according to Dwight L. Morris & Associates Inc., which tracks political money.
"This administration unfortunately has been unwilling to take these steps because they have sided with the chemical industry," Kerry said.
Kerry cited FBI warnings that al Qaeda may attempt to launch conventional attacks on nuclear and chemical industries as well as official concern that terrorists may strike before the November elections. "So what are we waiting for?" Kerry asked.
Kerry's visit with black mayors comes as the candidate is facing criticism from his own party that his top campaign staff is dominated by whites.
Kerry aides distributed a news release titled "John Kerry Assembles . . . All-Star Team of African American Staffers" during a speech Tuesday by Congressional Black Caucus chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) at the National Press Club.
Before his speech, Cummings said the criticism of Kerry "concerns me, and I plan to address it."
The newcomers to Kerry's campaign include senior advisers Art Collins, a member of the Black Caucus board of directors, and Janice Griffin, who served as director of African American outreach for Al Gore's 2000 campaign.
Devona Dolliole, a media relations manager for Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), will also join Kerry's staff. Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said hiring black staffers had long been in the works.
Meanwhile, Kerry's campaign announced it has raised $80 million this year, breaking Democratic records and reaching a previously announced fundraising goal three months early.
"The Kerry campaign has over 400,000 financial supporters, and we are just getting started," Cahill said. She announced a new goal of $100 million by the July Democratic convention, a target that should be relatively easy to reach, given the campaign's success since early March.
Kerry and President Bush have rejected public matching money during the primaries, freeing them to raise unlimited amounts. Bush has raised far more than Kerry. At the end of last month, Bush had $86.6 million, while Kerry had $32 million.
Kerry's latest critique of Bush's homeland security policies was largely based on media reports about lax safety at some chemical plants and what he termed Bush's refusal to push for tough security requirements for these potential terrorist targets. The chemical industry has fought successfully to block a bill written by Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.), which would impose mandatory security measures on some plants. The industry has long advocated voluntary standards and insists that it has put in place many safeguards on its own.
Kerry said he wants to identify high-priority plants that could be targets, require adequate fencing and surveillance, and allow companies flexibility in implementing these safety measures.
Bush has called for the Department of Homeland Security to work with Congress to enact legislation requiring security measures at some chemical facilities. He supports a GOP plan that calls on the companies to submit plans to DHS for review, and threatens enforcement action if they are deemed inadequate, said Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign.
Bush is backing a bill offered by Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) that critics charge provides too little oversight and enforcement of the industry. The Inhofe plan does not require DHS to formally approve each plant's security plans.
Kerry is planning to follow up his criticism of chemical industry security with a broad indictment of Bush's Iraq policy during a speech Friday in Missouri.
Kerry told the black mayors that as president he would send $25 billion to the states in 2005 that would help cover a multitude of homeland security costs currently picked up by state and local governments. He originally promised $50 billion over two years, before halving that amount recently.
Staff writers Thomas B. Edsall and Darryl Fears in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Study Tracks Boom in Prisons and Notes Impact on Counties
April 30, 2004
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/national/30INMA.html
A study mapping the prisons built in the boom of the last two decades has found that some counties in the United States now have more than 30 percent of their residents behind bars. The study, by the Urban Institute, also found that nearly a third of counties have at least one prison.
"This study shows that the prison network is now deeply intertwined with American life, deeply integrated into the physical and economic infrastructure of a large number of American counties," said Jeremy Travis, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and an author of the study.
"This network has become a separate reality, apart from the criminal justice system," Mr. Travis said. "It provides jobs for construction workers and guards, and because the inmates are counted as residents of the counties where they are incarcerated, it means more federal and state funding and greater political representation for these counties."
In addition, Mr. Travis said, because the study found that prisons were increasingly being built far from the cities where most inmates come from, "we are making it harder and harder for their families to remain in contact with them." As a result, he said, "we have made it harder for these inmates to successfully re-enter society when they are released."
The study, "The New Landscape of Imprisonment: Mapping America's Prison Expansion," was released yesterday. The number of federal and state prisons grew from 592 in 1974 to 1,023 in 2000, and this study is the first effort to show where all the building has taken place. In 1923, the United States had 61 prisons.
The report focuses on the 10 states that had the largest increases in the number of prisons between 1980 and 2000, when the number of state and federal inmates soared to 1.3 million from 315,974.
Texas led the way, building 120 prisons in those two decades, or an average of nearly six a year. Texas also has the most prisons in operation, 137, and the largest percentage increase in the number of prisons, 706 percent.
"Texas is in a league of its own," the report concluded.
Florida has been the second-busiest prison builder since 1980, with 84, while California is third with 83. New York, with 65, is fourth.
One of the most striking findings of the report was that in 1980, only 13 percent of the counties in these 10 states had a prison, but by 2000, 31 percent did. In Florida, 78 percent of the counties have at least one prison. In California, 59 percent do, while in New York the figure is 52 percent.
One force behind the spread of prisons to so many counties, Mr. Travis said, has been a strong argument by rural legislators that building prisons in their communities would be an economic boon. "We've seen the development of a prison construction advocacy position," he said.
But the report said there was no clear evidence that building prisons in poor rural areas had a significant economic impact. In fact, it cited one study, by the Sentencing Project, using 25 years of employment and per capita income data from rural counties in New York, which found "no significant difference or discernible pattern of economic trends" between counties that were home to a prison and counties that did not have one.
The Sentencing Project is a research and advocacy group based in Washington that calls for alternatives to incarceration.
But having a large number of inmates can produce extra federal and state financing for a county, the Urban Institute report pointed out. Federal money for Medicaid, foster care, adoption assistance and social services block grants is based on the census, and the census counts prison inmates as residents of the county where they are incarcerated, not where their homes are. Conversely, the federal money is lost to the home communities of the inmates or their families, creating a financial burden on those areas because inmates disproportionately come from concentrated areas of large cities.
Similarly, within a state, money for community health services, roads and local law enforcement is also based on census figures.
The report found that the county with the largest share of its residents in prison was Concho County, Tex., with a population of just under 4,000 and 33 percent of its population in prison.
--------
Prisons Skew Census Data, Report Says
By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54688-2004Apr29.html
A two-decade boom of prison building across the nation has established so many prisons in small, rural counties that inmates now make up a significant portion of some of those areas' populations and are skewing decisions on state and local aid and other matters determined by census counts.
"The New Landscape of Imprisonment," a 52-page report to be released yesterday by the Urban Institute, examines the prison-building pattern in the 10 states that built the most prisons from 1979 to 2000. Nearly one-third of counties in those states had at least one state-run prison in 2000, up from 13 percent in 1979, the report says.
Because the U.S. census counts people where they live, small counties with large prisons appear to be much more populous than they actually are, while some urban areas show up as being slightly smaller, creating problems in matters as diverse as political representation to state and federal funding, said Jeremy Travis, co-author of the report and an Urban Institute senior fellow.
"We've created a vast network of prisons around the country that we didn't have 20 years before, and this infrastructure will be very difficult to dismantle," Travis said.
The Justice Department has reported that the number of state-run prisons across the country jumped from 1,207 in 1990 to 1,558 in 2000, but it did not show the location of prisons within the states. The Urban Institute report shows that more states are building more prisons further from where many inmates lived prior to incarceration.
In 114 of the 1,052 counties included in the study, inmates counted for at least 5 percent of the county's population. Two counties -- one in Florida and one in Texas -- had populations that were composed of more than 30 percent prison inmates, the report says.
"There is a growing trend in rural areas to pursue prisons and jails as a tool for economic development," said Joe Weedon, legislative director for American Correctional Association.
The 10 states in the study are California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Texas.
-------- terrorism
THE ARABS
As Terrorists Strike Arab Targets, Escalation Fears Arise
April 30, 2004
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/international/middleeast/30MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, April 29 - A string of significant terrorist actions, all within days of one another, in major Arab capitals, may signal that the war in Iraq is fueling the very kind of extremism it was supposed to curtail, Arab officials and analysts said Thursday.
They believe that the attacks - in Damascus, Syria; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Amman, Jordan - were the acts of terrorist cells that have been formed throughout the region in response to a call by Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda, to rise up and strike the West and to the images of Americans killing Iraqis shown on television.
There are as yet no direct indications that any structural or organizational ties link the loose-knit groups committing such acts, the analysts said. Rather, they are bound by a common ideology of jihad, or holy war, and common enemies - the West, particularly the United States, and Arab governments they perceive as traitors to Islam.
"The American policy in Iraq created a chaotic atmosphere, which has had a ripple effect across the region, inspiring chaotic, random operations," said Mohammed Salah, an expert on extremist groups and a writer for Al Hayat, an Arab newspaper in London.
Investigators have yet to uncover any formal links between the three attacks.
"I doubt they were coordinated," Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told a gathering of editors at The New York Times on Wednesday. "I say this partly because of the lack of professionalism in the attacks in Saudi Arabia. Now they are using targets of opportunity, not design."
The bombing outside the traffic police headquarters in Riyadh last week seemed partly inspired by the fact that it was one of the few significant government buildings in the Saudi capital not ringed by large concrete barriers.
Prince Saud also noted that the attackers, at least those in Saudi Arabia, did not have the discipline of earlier ones, leaving behind weapons and not scrubbing their hideouts of all traces that they had been there.
"They are less efficient but not necessarily less dangerous," Prince Saud said. "There is no method to their madness."
Experts believe the one thing probably linking all of them is the fatwa or religious fiat that Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda issued in February 1998 to "fight Jews and crusaders" wherever they are. Israel's attacks on Palestinians provided some incentive for extremists to answer this call, but nothing galvanized it quite like the presence of American military forces occupying Iraq.
"There is an active underground party in the Arab world that believes in jihad; they actually call one another jihadis," said Jamal Khashoggi, an expert on extremist groups within Islam and a senior advisor to Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to London. "It looks like the call from Osama bin Laden for jihadis to rise up and hit American and other Western targets is being answered across the Arab world."
The American-led invasion of Iraq, in particular, motivated more people than the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because the stakes seemed higher and it was so much more accessible. Decapitating Saddam Hussein's government without having any security system to replace it created the kind of anarchy that allowed shadowy groups to multiply endlessly. The same thing happened previously in places like Somalia and Lebanon, but nothing matched the scale of Iraq.
"The Americans are creating more and more locations for Al Qaeda to operate," said Mr. Khashoggi.
The experts noted that there is tendency to blame Al Qaeda for everything when there may be no tie other than sympathy.
"Each operation can inspire a cell in another country to act," said Mr. Salah, the columnist. "They inspire each other, but they don't necessarily contact each other or know each other."
On the other hand, the experts noted that all such cells used to be isolated by nationality. The groups that went to Afghanistan to train together all tended to stay together and take the fight to their own countries - Algerians to Algeria, Egyptians to Egypt. But the movement has become much more fluid now that the jihadis are being chased around the world, with different nationalities showing up in attacks in different locations. Those who fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya or other major conflicts probably know each other, although they may not be in contact.
The experts noted that true Qaeda operations tend to have certain similarities - particularly a spectacular target that will create maximum publicity at minimal cost.
The recent suicide bombing attempts against Iraq's oil-loading facilities in the Persian Gulf, for example, was probably a Qaeda operation, the analysts suggested. The bombing in Damascus probably was not, they said, given the lack of an obvious Western target and the operation's poor execution.
The experts were also doubtful that the plan the Jordanian government announced, including the capture of enough chemical explosives reportedly to kill 80,000 people, was something Al Qaeda would support. Qaeda operatives have tried to justify the killings of small numbers of Muslims as an unfortunate side effect of ridding the Arab world of the infidels, but such a mass killing of other Arabs would likely turn the public against them.
Indeed, an estimated 40,000 marchers filed through the Jordanian capital on Thursday to protest such attacks. In Saudi Arabia, too, there has been an outpouring of sympathy for the police officers.
A group called the Brigade of the Two Holy Mosques, believed to be linked to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the Riyadh bombing, using the jihadist vocabulary to declare that the Saudi government had renounced Islam, evidently through its close ties with the United States. A few days later, however, another recording made by the reputed leader of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, after public opinion was clearly universally negative to the attack, claimed that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the blast, which killed five.
"They are local groups but they function one way or another under the Qaeda umbrella," said Ahmed Moussalli, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut and an expert on Islamic fundamentalist movements. "But there is no coordination in terms of - on this day we will do this, we will do this in Riyadh on this day and then on this day in Damascus."
One of the groups' major objectives is to prove that these governments are weak despite their ties to America.
This appears true even in the case of Syria. While Damascus has sharply criticized the American occupation of Iraq and has voiced support for the resistance, it also publicly has heralded its role in helping the United States against Al Qaeda. Showing that small cells can acquire arms even in a police state like Syria comes as something of a shock to both the government and the public.
Another motivation, the experts believe, is to try to influence the American election by showing that the war on terrorism has failed.
"They want to prove that the American policy and the war on terrorism did not quell the Islamic resistance," said Mr. Salah. "I would expect such attacks to increase in the coming months on a wide scale."
--------
Zarqawi cements role as al Qaeda's voice
Fri 30 April, 2004
(Reuters)
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=502504
BERLIN - The voice on the tape is measured and unemotional but the language is that of al Qaeda.
In an audio message broadcast on Arabic television on Friday, a speaker claiming to be fugitive militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said his supporters had planned a major attack on Jordan, to target "the black source of evil in our homeland".
A similar tape several weeks ago was judged genuine by the CIA, and a separate Web site statement in Zarqawi's name this week claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Iraq's Basra oil terminal last weekend by bombers using three boats.
The barrage of statements suggests Jordanian-born Zarqawi, 37, is raising his propaganda role and cementing his status as al Qaeda's most active operational figure in Iraq and the neighbouring countries.
Even before Friday's tape, U.S. intelligence officials had said they considered him the prime suspect for both the Basra attack, in which three U.S. navy soldiers died, and the Jordan plot which was foiled by officials there.
Washington believes Zarqawi is most likely in Iraq and has blamed him for a string of attacks there, although European officials caution against the automatic assumption that he is behind every incident.
U.S. officials consider him a significant threat to their efforts to bring stability to the Greater Middle East, and see him in the vanguard of al Qaeda's jihad (holy war), with Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri on the run and removed from operational roles.
Yet the available information on him is patchy and sometimes contradictory.
He first drew international attention shortly before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell named him as an associate of Osama bin Laden and part of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda".
Powell's evidence for that link, made in a speech to the United Nations, was later called into question amid fierce controversy over the quality of U.S. intelligence used to justify the war.
It was not until last October that Washington offered a reward of up to $5 million (3.46 million pounds) for information leading to Zarqawi's capture -- subsequently doubled to $10 million in February.
The U.S. State Department's "Rewards for Justice" Web site says he was born on October 30, 1966 in Zarqa, Jordan -- hence his name, which is an alias -- and is known to use three other identities.
The best-known picture of Zarqawi shows him wearing a cap and a neat, trimmed beard, but the Web site also presents him a wide variety of other guises -- with or without glasses, clean-shaven and with a moustache.
He is widely reported to have lost at least part of one leg while fighting in Afghanistan.
In February, the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq said that month it had seized a computer disc containing a letter in which Zarqawi claimed responsibility for 25 attacks in Iraq and outlined plans to foment civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
The letter contained erudite historical and religious references. At least one European intelligence agency had doubts whether these were in Zarqawi's style, though officials said it might have been written on his behalf.
The recent audiotapes are concise and clear, mainly political in content, and less frequently interspersed with Koranic verses than those of bin Laden and al-Zawahri.
The speaker uses the terminology of al Qaeda, referring to the U.S.-led coalition as "crusaders" and "infidels" and calling Arab governments "traitors" and "apostates".
He speaks in classical Arabic, standard throughout the region, and not in any dialect which would betray his origin.
----
Terrorist: Wish We Had That Bomb
"Yes, there was a plot to demolish the Jordanian General Intelligence building," said the voice in the message, on an Islamic web site. "Jordan has turned itself into a hidden base of supplies for the occupying army in Iraq."
(AP) AMMAN, Jordan,
April 30, 2004
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/26/world/main613825.shtml
A purported message from the al Qaeda operative Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi said Friday his group did not plan a chemical weapons attack as the Jordanian authorities have alleged.
"The (allegation) that there was a chemical bomb to kill thousands of people is a mere lie," the reported voice of al-Zarqawi says on a tape broadcast via an Islamic site on the Internet.
"God knows, if we did possess (a chemical bomb), we wouldn't hesitate one second to use it to hit Israeli cities such as Eilat and Tel Aviv," the voice said.
Jordanian state television has broadcast confessions of a group of plotters allegedly linked to al-Zarqawi who said they were plotting al Qaeda's first chemical bomb attack, which would have been directed against Jordan's secret service building in Amman. The broadcast commentator said the suspects had prepared enough explosives to kill 80,000 people.
But al-Zarqawi said his group did plan to attack the Jordanian intelligence building, calling it "the source of all evils in our home."
The speaker introduced himself as Musab al-Zarqawi. The voice could not be immediately authenticated as that of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian wanted by the United States for allegedly organizing terrorists to fight U.S. troops in Iraq on behalf of al Qaeda.
U.S. officials have offered a $10 million reward for al-Zarqawi's capture.
"Yes, there was a plot to demolish the Jordanian General Intelligence building," the voice said. "Jordan has turned itself into a hidden base of supplies for the occupying army in Iraq."
The tape also says the General Intelligence building in Amman is the "Arabs' Guantanamo detention camp," referring to the prison for terror suspects at the U.S. Naval base on Cuba.
The building is a "big data base used by the enemy of Islam to track down holy warriors," the tape added.
Jordanian officials say the plot was foiled when security forces arrested six militants in at least two police raids since late March. Four other militants died in a shootout with police in Amman last week.
The plotters are alleged to have been planning to strike other buildings in Amman, such as the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister's office.
Jordanians held a mass demonstration against the plot on Thursday in which Queen Rania took part. The marchers carried banners pledging support for Jordan's royal family and chanted slogans against terrorism.
The discovery of the plot caused widespread fear in Jordan, a moderate Arab nation that is closely allied to the United States, has a peace treaty with Israel, and enjoys relative stability in the Middle East.
"The Jordanian authorities lied twice," the voice on the Internet tape said. "Firstly, when they claimed that we were planning to kill Muslims and innocent residents. Secondly, when they claimed to have foiled a plot to save the blood of the people of Islam."
The tape claimed the Jordanian authorities acted "only for the sake of protecting their masters and the leaders of the Jews and Christians."
Jordanian officials say the plotters entered the country from neighboring Syria. Syria has denied this.
-------- POLITICS
Former Envoy Talks in Book About Source of C.I.A. Leak
April 30, 2004
By DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30LEAK.html
WASHINGTON, April 29 - Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV says in a new book that he believes the White House official behind the disclosure of his wife's identity as an undercover C.I.A. officer was "quite possibly" I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. But Mr. Wilson offers no firm evidence to support his assertion, and the White House has denied it.
Mr. Wilson writes that Mr. Libby "evidently seized opportunities to rail openly against me" and was an "ardent neoconservative" who had the "motive and means" to conduct a covert inquiry to identify Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.
Her name was disclosed by Robert D. Novak in his syndicated column in July 2003 after Mr. Wilson publicly criticized the Bush administration's handling of reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger, in Africa. Federal prosecutors are investigating who gave Mr. Novak the information about Ms. Plame; disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a crime.
The book, being published on Friday by Carroll & Graf, is titled "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's C.I.A. Identity - A Diplomat's Memoir."
The Plame-Novak controversy has its roots in the State of the Union address in 2003 when Mr. Bush said that the British government had learned that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa, a possible indication of Saddam Hussein's interest in nuclear weapons.
Mr. Wilson has said and recounts in the book that he knew that Mr. Bush's remark about Africa was wrong. Mr. Wilson traveled to Niger in February 2002 at the C.I.A.'s request to investigate the assertion and concluded that it was false. The C.I.A. told him it had become involved because Mr. Cheney had asked whether there was any truth to the reports about Iraq's interest in Niger's uranium, the book said. The White House has maintained that Mr. Cheney did not learn about Mr. Wilson's trip until Mr. Wilson wrote an Op-Ed article about it for The New York Times last July 6.
Mr. Bush's comment in the State of the Union address, Mr. Wilson writes, ignored two previous inquiries by Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, an American ambassador to Niger, and Carleton Fulford, a Marine Corps general, who also found that the Iraq-Niger story was not credible.
Mr. Wilson writes that a White House effort to damage him began at a March 2003 meeting called to develop a critique of him for the vice president's office. Citing an unnamed source "close to the House Judiciary Committee," Mr. Wilson writes that "either the vice president himself or, more likely, his chief of staff, Lewis (Scooter) Libby chaired a meeting at which a decision was made to do a work-up on me."
Mr. Wilson writes that the meeting was attended by senior Republicans, possibly including Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. Gingrich, Rick Tyler, said Mr. Wilson's account was a "complete fabrication."
Mr. Wilson says those in the meeting decided that "the strategy of the White House was to confront the issue as a `Wilson' problem rather than as an issue of the lie that was in the State of the Union address."
As to the leaker, Mr. Wilson does not limit his suspicions to Mr. Libby. He says another person whose name "has most often been repeated to me" is Elliott Abrams. Mr. Abrams is a former official in President Ronald Reagan's administration who became embroiled in the Iran-contra affair and now works in the National Security Council.
Last year, Mr. Wilson identified Karl Rove, senior political adviser to Mr. Bush, as the probable source of the leak, but he later backed off from that accusation. In the book, he writes that Mr. Rove circulated information from the work-up on him within the administration.
The White House has denied that Mr. Libby, Mr. Abrams or Mr. Rove were involved in the disclosure.
Asked about Mr. Wilson's account, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said he was "simply not going to review or promote a book whose author has said his primary purpose is to pursue a political agenda to defeat the president."
Mr. Wilson is supporting Mr. Bush's Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, in the presidential race.
Apart from the White House denials, the issue of how Mr. Novak obtained the information for his column has turned from an embarrassment into a serious legal matter. In December, after a preliminary three-month inquiry by the Justice Department and the F.B.I., Attorney General John Ashcroft referred the matter to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago.
Mr. Fitzgerald has conducted a grand jury investigation into the disclosure as a special counsel, summoning several current and former White House aides to testify. No one has been charged.
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Investigators Remain Mum on CIA Leak
April 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson is offering his best guess about who leaked the name of his CIA operative wife, but so far the federal investigators looking into the incident are mum.
Seven months into the probe to determine which Bush administration official disclosed Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak last summer, little is known other than it's continuing.
FBI and Justice Department officials refused Friday to discuss any aspect of the investigation, which began in September 2003.
Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime. A federal grand jury in Washington has heard from witnesses and combed through thousands of pages of documents turned over by the White House, but returned no indictments.
The probe is being handled by Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, appointed after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case because of his political ties to the White House.
Absent a breakthrough from the documents or a cooperating witness, prosecutors may be forced to try to identify the leaker through Novak or other reporters. However, journalists pressed by the prosecution could assert a First Amendment privilege to protect their sources.
``The reason these investigations often don't go anywhere is that the reporters don't talk,'' said Julie Rose O'Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor in New York and now a law professor at Georgetown University.
But, she said, such privilege claims may not hold up in court if a judge believes the leak caused a serious breach of national security ``where someone's life could be endangered.''
``If there's any gray area here, it may be in the newspapers' best interests to try and see if there's a way to cooperate,'' O'Sullivan said.
In a book released Friday, Wilson suggested Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was the leaker. But Wilson's book, ``The Politics of Truth,'' give no conclusive evidence for the claim.
The White House flatly denies the claim and accuses Wilson of seeking to bolster the campaign of Democrat John Kerry, for whom he has acted as a foreign policy adviser.
``I don't plan on any book review of somebody who has clearly stated that his main objective is a political agenda,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. ``We are cooperating with the officials overseeing the investigation.''
Plame's name surfaced after Wilson criticized Bush administration claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger, which Wilson investigated for the CIA and found untrue. Wilson has said he believes his wife's name was leaked -- and her career as an undercover operative destroyed -- as retribution for his criticism.
In the book, Wilson contends that Libby was ``quite possibly the person who exposed my wife's identity.'' His evidence is largely circumstantial -- an unidentified source ``close'' to the House Judiciary Committee who said Libby was involved in a White House decision to do a background ``workup'' on Wilson, which would have uncovered his wife's secret CIA employment.
Libby, Wilson writes, ``is one of a handful of senior officials in the administration with both the means and the motive to conduct the covert inquiry that allowed some in the White House to learn my wife's name and status, and then disclose that information to the press.''
Wilson also said it's possible the leak came from Elliott Abrams, a figure in the Reagan administration Iran-Contra affair and now a member of Bush's National Security Council. And Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, may have circulated information about Wilson and Plame ``in administration and neoconservative circles'' even if Rove was not himself the leaker, Wilson writes.
Another possibility is that two lower-level officials in Cheney's office -- John Hannah or David Wurmser -- leaked Plame's identity at the behest of higher-ups ``to keep their fingerprints off the crime,'' Wilson speculates.
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Book Names Iraqi in Alleged '99 Bid to Buy Uranium
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54640-2004Apr29.html
It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.
That's according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy enriched "yellowcake" uranium. Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source.
That knowledge has not altered Wilson's much-expressed view that the Bush administration distorted intelligence on Iraq's weapons capabilities to help make the case for going to war. Wilson maintains that someone in the administration retaliated against him by disclosing to columnist Robert D. Novak that his wife was a CIA operative, a leak now the subject of a grand jury investigation. The revelation about Sahhaf, contained in "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity," adds an odd bit of detail to the uranium saga.
Sahhaf was dubbed "Baghdad Bob" and "Comical Ali" by the Western news media for his often farcical televised pronouncements about how Iraq was winning the war last April even as U.S. troops were rolling into Baghdad. "Those Iraqi fighters are slapping those gangsters on the face, and then when they flee, they will kick their backsides," he asserted at one point.
Sahhaf, now a broadcast correspondent in Abu Dhabi, could not be reached for comment yesterday. He was interviewed when the U.S. military took control if Iraq but was not held. "He wasn't wanted for anything. Unfortunately, being a bad spokesman is not a crime," a U.S. official said.
Sahhaf's role casts more light on an aspect of Wilson's report to the CIA that was publicly disclosed last summer. On the heels of Wilson's public criticism that intelligence was exaggerated and his statement that his trip to Niger had turned up no uranium sales to Iraq, agency Director George J. Tenet took the blame for allowing President Bush to make assertions about the Iraqi quest for nuclear material in his 2003 State of the Union address. Tenet said the intelligence had been too "fragmentary" to merit inclusion in the speech.
Tenet's statement noted that Wilson had reported back to the CIA that a former Niger official told him that "in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."
In his book, Wilson recounts his encounter with the unnamed Niger official in 2002, saying, he "hesitated and looked up to the sky as if plumbing the depths of his memory, then offered that perhaps the Iraqi might have wanted to talk about uranium." Wilson did not get the Iraqi's name in 2002, but he writes that he talked to his source again four months ago, and that the former official said he saw Sahhaf on television before the start of the war and recognized him as the person he talked to in 1999.
Much of Wilson's book recounts the events surrounding the disclosure that his wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA. A grand jury investigating the disclosure has been highly active in the past seven weeks, suggesting that it may have reached a new stage, people familiar with the probe said. Plame was a covert operative. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is illegal to knowingly disclose the name of a covert CIA employee.
FBI agents and prosecutors have interviewed some current and former White House officials repeatedly, people involved in the case said. Several administration officials testified before the grand jury in recent weeks.
Staff writer Linton Weeks contributed to this report.
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A READING LIST
The Bush White House
April 30, 2004
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/bush-books.html
Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror
By RICHARD A. CLARKE
Former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke's memoir made headlines - and it's a thumping good read.
Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe, and the War in Iraq
By WILLIAM SHAWCROSS
A liberal internationalist ardently defends American and British actions in Iraq.
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
By KEVIN PHILLIPS
Kevin Phillips detects a pattern of secrecy and deception in four generations of the Bushes.
America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy
By IVO H. DAALDER AND JAMES M. LINDSAY
Two veterans of the Clinton National Security Council say that President Bush's foreign policy is nothing less than a "revolution."
Bush at War
By BOB WOODWARD
Bob Woodward's remarkable book is something akin to an unofficial transcript of 100 days of debate over war in Afghanistan.
Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror
By LAURIE MYLROIE
Laurie Mylroie lashes out at the C.I.A. for refusing to agree that Iraq was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
Disarming Iraq
By HANS BLIX
Hans Blix describes his attempt to steer between two intransigent governments, American and Iraqi.
An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
By RICHARD PERLE and DAVID FRUM
Richard Perle and David Frum advocate getting tough with regimes that have been linked with terror.
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
By NOAM CHOMSKY
Noam Chomsky argues that the Bush administration has built upon a long tradition of interventions carried out in the name of "counterterror."
House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties
By CRAIG UNGER
Craig Unger says that United States policy toward Saudi Arabia is shaped by the Bush family's financial ties.
The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush
By ANN GERHART
In Ann Gerhart's portrait, Laura Bush's independent intellectual life somewhat complicates her image as a traditional wife and mother.
Plan of Attack
By BOB WOODWARD
Bob Woodward's book lives up to the hype, offering by far the most intimate glimpse we have been granted of the secretive Bush White House.
The President of Good & Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush
By PETER SINGER
The Princeton philosopher Peter Singer examines the ethics of the man he calls America's "most prominent moralist."
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
By RON SUSKIND
In this account, Paul O'Neill learned that political expediency trumps good policy in the Bush White House.
The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush
By DAVID FRUM
David Frum's contribution to the genre of White House memoirs by former speechwriters is often engaging, if not especially revealing.
Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet
By JAMES MANN
James Mann's group biography of President Bush's foreign policy advisers begins with Vietnam.
Ten Minutes From Normal
By KAREN HUGHES
In her memoir, Karen Hughes portrays George W. Bush as a man without flaws, but reveals little about his behavior in private.
A Time of Our Choosing: America's War in Iraq
By TODD S. PURDUM and the staff of The New York Times
Based on reporting from The Times, Todd S. Purdum has written a guide to understanding the causes, conduct and consequences of the war in Iraq.
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Study Finds 25 Nations Hindered by Corruption
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54390-2004Apr29.html
A survey of government accountability and openness in 25 countries around the globe has found that each one is challenged by corruption and lacks sufficient protections against electoral abuses, including developed democracies such as the United States, Germany and Japan.
The year-long effort involved 150 journalists, social scientists and researchers on six continents under the supervision of a nonpartisan Washington-based group, the Center for Public Integrity. The resulting report, released yesterday, produced a ranking of nations in which none was labeled "very strong" on integrity of key institutions and accountability to the public.
The United States was joined by Portugal, Australia, Italy, Germany and South Africa in receiving a "strong" rating, while seven countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa received "moderate" ratings. Russia joined Panama, Indonesia, Kenya and six other countries in being rated "weak." Guatemala and Zimbabwe fell below that level.
"This study shows that no country, regardless of wealth, size or population, is immune from corruption" and its ensuing problems, said Charles Lewis, the center's executive director. He said the study was meant to illuminate the "true extent and specific nature of abuses of power" around the globe and to help the public press for reforms.
In comparing nations on a rudimentary scale of anti-corruption mechanisms, the center joins a growing number of groups shining a spotlight on governance problems that have historically been given short shrift by U.S. and allied governments, as well as by the World Bank, the European Union and other major aid donors.
Only in the past decade has corruption been regarded by key international funders as a serious hindrance to development, and only in the past two years -- under a controversial Bush administration foreign aid program known as the Millennium Challenge Account -- has the United States emphasized good governance as a key condition for economic assistance.
But donors' attitudes toward corruption are slowly being changed by the work of groups such as Transparency International, which annually surveys corruption in 34 countries with financial support from Britain, Germany, the United States and private foundations.
"Legal regimes governing political finance are generally inadequate" everywhere, Transparency International said in its 2004 report, explaining that no regulations exist in one-third of the countries and that enforcement is weak in many others. It also cautioned that corruption has been pervasive in the former communist countries set this weekend to join the EU, which lacks a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy.
Similar warnings have been made by the American Bar Association, which recently prepared a judicial reform index and surveyed institutional shortcomings in 15 struggling Central European and Eurasian nations.
According to the Center for Public Integrity's survey -- which Lewis called "a work in progress" that he wants to expand to 25 additional nations next year -- particular shortcomings exist in mechanisms to ensure that elections are free and fair, a key test of democracy. Turkey, for example, now trying to clear a series of hurdles so it can eventually join the EU, lacks laws providing for public audits of political party finances and public access to reports about campaign financing and candidate assets.
Turkey's head of state, and those in 13 other countries in the survey, cannot be prosecuted for corruption. Turkey also scored its "weak" ranking because journalists there have been harmed or imprisoned for investigating corruption, a circumstance it shared with 16 other nations, and because the ruling party controls two-thirds or more of the parliamentary seats -- a feature shared by five other countries.
More-developed countries were not above reproach, however. Australia, Germany, India, Italy and Japan were criticized because the top official in each of those countries -- as well as in Namibia and Zimbabwe -- is not legally obligated to disclose publicly all personal assets.
Although the United States was rated strong or very strong in nearly every index measure, it was faulted in particular for lacking a national ombudsman -- along with four others of the 25 nations surveyed -- and for ineffective protections of government whistle-blowers. Lewis also sharply criticized the climate in Washington in which former officials and relatives of top officials in the Bush and Clinton administrations have profited from their access to decision makers.
"It's not Indonesia, Nigeria or Russia that boasts such an unabashed, mercenary culture in which influence peddlers so shamelessly cash in . . . but the United States," Lewis said. Private gain from public life, he noted, is both common and legal here.
-------- investigations
Bush and Cheney Tell 9/11 Panel of '01 Warnings
April 30, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON and DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30BUSH.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, April 29 - President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were questioned in the Oval Office for more than three hours on Thursday by the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. They said intelligence warnings they received throughout 2001 suggested that Al Qaeda was poised to strike overseas, not on American soil, according to accounts of commission and administration officials.
After a meeting that both the White House and the commission had billed as historic, Mr. Bush appeared before reporters in the Rose Garden and described the question-and-answer session with the 10 members of the bipartisan commission as "very cordial." He said he "answered every question that they asked."
In its own press statement after a closed-door meeting that began at 9:30 a.m. and ended three hours and 10 minutes later, the commission, which is in the final weeks of its investigation of the 2001 terror attacks, described the Oval Office session as "extraordinary" and said the panel "found the president and the vice president forthcoming and candid."
The setting for the panel's long-awaited interview of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who insisted on talking with the commission together, was orchestrated to take advantage of all of the symbolic power of the Oval Office while making clear that the White House did not consider the meeting to be adversarial.
Administration officials said the president and vice president were seated in wing-back chairs in front of the Oval Office fireplace, with the commission members seated on a pair of couches and several wooden chairs in an informal semicircle around them, the day's strong sunlight streaming in from the windows behind them.
Commission members and the White House agreed to reveal only one substantive matter that came up during the interview: the president's annoyance that the Justice Department had recently provided the Senate with declassified copies of a series of internal department memorandums drafted in the Clinton administration by Jamie S. Gorelick, who was then deputy attorney general. Ms. Gorelick is a Democratic member of the commission. [Page A24.]
The president and vice president were not sworn in, which is consistent with the past practice of the commission, which has generally required sworn testimony only when witnesses testify in public. The meeting was not recorded electronically, as a result of a decision made by the White House. The commission was allowed to bring along its staff director as a note taker.
Commission and administration officials said the answers provided by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had been consistent with their previous accounts and with recent testimony to the commission, which is investigating intelligence and law enforcement failures before the Sept. 11 attacks.
In response to disclosures from the panel in recent weeks suggesting that the administration had been lax in dealing with the dire terrorist threats that reached the White House in 2001, Mr. Bush and his senior deputies have said they were aware of intelligence warnings but believed them to refer to threats overseas.
Commission and administration officials said that during the session with the panel Mr. Bush repeated his assertion that the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing about domestic terrorist threats was mostly historical and did not recommend that the White House step up security in the United States.
Commission members said after the Oval Office meeting that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had offered no startling new information about the Sept. 11 attacks. "There were no surprises," said the panel's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, who was named to the position by Mr. Bush. "There was information that we did not have. But it was not information that was a surprise."
He said in an interview that the questioning was "very sharp but very fair - by sharp, I mean in the sense of intellectually sharp." He continued: "We learned things we did not know about the events of the day of 9/11 and, very importantly, the president gave us real insights into his thinking."
Mr. Kean said that despite speculation among Congressional Democrats and other critics that Mr. Cheney might try to dominate the session, "the opposite was true" and the president had handled nearly three-quarters of the questions raised by the commissioners. If the public had been allowed to witness the meeting, he said, "I think they would have had a lot more confidence in our government."
Another of the panel's Republicans, John F. Lehman, Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, said Mr. Bush had answered the panel's questions with little hesitation or need for assistance from Mr. Cheney or Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, who attended the session along with two other White House lawyers.
He said Mr. Gonzales had said little. "He chimed in on some questions where he was able to clarify some dates and facts," Mr. Lehman said. "The questioning of the president did not pull any punches. It was very direct. And the president was equally sharp but polite in responding."
A Democrat on the panel, Bob Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska who is now president of the New School in New York, said he had also been impressed by the president. "He answered directly and completely and in a very cordial and respectful way," Mr. Kerrey said, adding that the session would "improve the quality of our report."
Despite what both sides agreed was the polite, even friendly tone of the meeting, the commissioners were treated as outsiders by the White House. They were seen being searched by hand for weapons before they stepped into the Oval Office, a requirement for all visitors to the White House apart from many foreign leaders.
Their notebooks were taken from them before they left the session, with the White House saying they would be returned after being reviewed for classified information.
In an appearance before reporters after the session, the president offered his first public explanation for why the White House had wanted him and Mr. Cheney to be interviewed together. Mr. Bush said he had wanted the commission to understand how he and Mr. Cheney operated as a team - both on Sept. 11 and in its aftermath.
"I wanted them to know how I set strategy, how we run the White House, how we deal with threats," Mr. Bush said. "The vice president answered a lot of their questions - answered all their questions. And I think it was important for them to see our body language as well, how we work together."
Asked if the commission had questioned Mr. Bush about the possibility that Qaeda terrorists were still in the United States, Mr. Bush said, "No, they didn't, but I'm not going to get into any more details about what they asked me." He added that "we are still vulnerable to attack." The length and cordiality of the meeting - commission members said the session ended only when the panel signaled that it had run out of questions and after two commissioners had left because of other appointments - was in stark contrast to the earlier relationship between the panel and the White House.
Mr. Bush had initially opposed creation of the panel, and his lawyers struggled for months last year to prevent the commission from getting access to highly classified Oval Office intelligence reports.
The Democratic panel members who have been mostly sharply critical of the White House in the past praised the meeting on Thursday.
"The president was very forthcoming and answered all of our questions," said Richard Ben-Veniste, the former Watergate prosecutor. "I don't think we have the need to ask any further questions of the president."
Despite the grave nature of much of the questioning about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, members of the commission said there was frequent laughter during the questioning of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney.
James R. Thompson, the former Republican governor of Illinois, said the president could be a "bit of a tease" in his dealing with commissioners and over all praised Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney for "five-star performances."
Mr. Lehman said Mr. Bush would sometimes get a "twinkle in his eye" to make clear that he was acquainted with some of the more heated moments of past public hearings by the commission, in which Democrats on the panel had harshly interrogated administration witnesses.
"He let us know that he had read some of the more, shall we say, impassioned statements of some of the commissioners, that he was aware of some of the public utterances," Mr. Lehman said. "The president got off a couple of good shots. Some of the commissioners got off a couple in return."
Bremer Warning Reported
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - The head of the United States-led coalition in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, warned six months before the Sept. 11 attacks that the Bush administration seemed to be paying no attention to terrorism and appeared to "stagger along" on the issue.
Mr. Bremer, who in 1999 was chairman of a national commission on terrorism, gave a speech on Feb. 26, 2001, in which he said the "general terrorist threat" was increasing. "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism," Mr. Bremer said in remarks to the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation.
"What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, `Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?' "
"That's too bad. They've been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking advantage of it. Maybe the folks in the press ought to be pushing a little bit."
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9/11 Panel Questions Bush and Cheney
Members Cite New Details About Strategy
By Dan Eggen and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52692-2004Apr29?language=printer
The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks questioned President Bush and Vice President Cheney for more than three hours yesterday in a historic Oval Office meeting, a session that Bush described as "wide-ranging" and "very cordial."
The private interview, which was not tape-recorded, came after 18 months of discord between the bipartisan 10-member commission and the White House. Bush initially refused to meet with the panel and later sought to limit the number of questioners and the length of time he would appear. In the end, he agreed to meet with the entire panel but required that Cheney appear with him.
Also yesterday, the White House took the unusual step of publicly rebuking the Justice Department for posting on its Web site declassified memos. Some GOP lawmakers and Justice officials said the documents show that one of the panel's Democratic members hindered counterterrorism activities while serving in the Clinton administration.
Bush's statements and his spokesman's scolding of the Justice Department -- which Bush shared with commission members -- appeared to be aimed at calming tensions that have escalated in recent weeks between Republicans and the panel.
The commission is beginning work on a final report that is likely to include significant criticism of the administration and is due to be completed by July 26, the first day of the Democratic nominating convention.
Bush and his questioners described the session as amicable and, according to some members, even jovial at times. Neither side disclosed much detail about the substance of the discussion, but three commission members said they learned new details about the government's counterterrorism policies and strategies in the months before the attacks, as well as about the events of Sept. 11. One of the commissioners said there were "several surprises."
Commissioners had said previously that likely subjects would include the Bush administration's overall strategy in combating al Qaeda and its handling of an Aug. 6, 2001, presidential briefing document that warned of the terrorist network's intent to strike on U.S. soil.
"I'm glad I took the time," Bush said in the Rose Garden after three hours and 10 minutes of uninterrupted questioning. "This is an important commission, and it's important that they ask the questions they ask so that they can help make recommendations necessary to better protect our homeland."
The president also said he "answered every question they asked," and he added that appearing alongside Cheney was helpful for the panel.
"If we had something to hide, we wouldn't have met with them in the first place," Bush said. "We answered all their questions. . . . I think it was important for them to see our body language, as well, how we work together."
Bush aides said the session's emphasis was on steps taken since the attacks rather than the administration's actions beforehand. In his briefing, press secretary Scott McClellan said "the president was asked a little bit" about the August 2001 intelligence report that told him al Qaeda sought to attack within the United States and was interested in aircraft hijackings. McClellan disavowed that statement later in the briefing, though two commissioners said the memo was a focus of discussion.
Several commissioners said in interviews afterward that 80 percent to 95 percent of the questions were directed specifically at Bush. Cheney answered questions directed at him and added to some of Bush's answers, these commissioners said. White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, who was also in the room, provided dates and other small details, two commissioners said.
Chairman Thomas H. Kean, a Republican former governor of New Jersey, said Bush "gave us insights into his thinking not only from the day of [the attacks], but in terms of policy both before and after 9/11. . . . To get inside a president's head and have him lead you through his thinking is really quite remarkable."
Republican commissioner John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary, said "nobody pulled punches" during the questioning.
"The usual suspects asked some very pointed questions on the expected subjects, but in a respectful way," Lehman said. "And the president responded in exactly the right tone. He took it in the right way, but came back just as pointedly on some issues. . . . The Republicans certainly didn't throw puffballs either."
Timothy J. Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana who has sparred publicly with several GOP witnesses, said he was able to ask two rounds of questions along with a follow-up question. "It was truly a historic meeting, and I think everybody felt the weight of the history and the obligation to get this right," he said.
Commission and administration officials characterized yesterday's meeting between a sitting president and an independent investigative body as unprecedented in U.S. history . Former president Ronald Reagan met with a congressional commission probing the Iran-Contra affair in 1987, but Kean said that meeting was more limited and "semi-criminal" in nature.
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, as the panel is formally known, has interviewed former president Bill Clinton and former vice president Al Gore separately. Both interviews were tape-recorded. Yesterday, the panel's executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, and White House staffers took notes.
Despite the White House attempt to cool the temperature, partisan squabbles over the panel continued yesterday. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ridiculed Bush and Cheney for going "hand in hand into this very important commission meeting." And Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.), in a conference call arranged by Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, said Bush was "misleading the country" by saying after the session that "we're doing the best we can."
The Justice Department also continued to display on its Web site documents related to actions taken by Democratic commissioner Jamie S. Gorelick when she was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. The 1995 documents were posted Wednesday, two weeks after Attorney General John D. Ashcroft released a memo from Gorelick that he characterized as creating a wall between law enforcement and intelligence agencies seeking to track terrorists. Gorelick and others have disputed that description of the memo.
McClellan said the White House was not involved in the decision to post the memos written by Gorelick and others. "I think he's disappointed that that information was placed on their Web site like that," McClellan said of the president. He added that Bush had expressed his displeasure to the commission and that Bush aides had also complained directly to Ashcroft's staff.
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo declined to comment. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) defended the posting, saying he requested that Ashcroft provide the memos.
Two of the Democratic commissioners left the session about an hour early. Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton was scheduled to introduce the Canadian prime minister at a luncheon, and former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey left to meet with Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) on funding issues related to New School University, where Kerrey serves as president.
Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.
--------
Bush tells panel memo lacked data
April 30, 2004
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040429-113358-9307r.htm
President Bush told the September 11 commission yesterday in a closed-door meeting that a memo saying Osama bin Laden wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the United States did not provide enough intelligence for his administration to stop the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Mr. Bush explained that the intelligence did not specify a time or place for an attack, but if his administration had known more, it would have taken every action to thwart the al Qaeda terrorists.
One commission member told The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity that Mr. Bush was asked several questions in the three-hour Oval Office session about the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing, titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike In U.S."
The commission said yesterday that Mr. Bush, who testified with Vice President Dick Cheney, was "forthcoming and candid."
In addition, several commission members rebutted Democratic charges from before - and after - the meeting that Mr. Bush insisted on being with Mr. Cheney in order to have a coach at his side for hard questions.
"There was no huddling, no looking over his shoulder," Republican panel member John Lehman said, noting that Mr. Bush never consulted with Mr. Cheney or White House Counsel Albert Gonzales before answering a question.
"He certainly did not need to look at any cheat sheets or look to anyone else," he said.
Despite clamoring by several of the five Democrats on the commission that the president was not allotting enough time to answer questions, the meeting ran so long that two members - former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and former Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton - left early to attend previous commitments.
Mr. Hamilton left 40 minutes early because, as president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, he needed to introduce Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin before he spoke at the center.
Mr. Kerrey said in a statement that he left at the same time because he had a "previously scheduled meeting with Senator Pete Domenici on Capitol Hill."
Mr. Lehman said the president was not miffed by the early departures.
"We all have day jobs," Mr. Lehman said. "I don't think anybody expected the session to go on as long as it did."
After more than a week of heightened rhetoric and predictions that the question-and-answer session, like the public testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, would be acrimonious and dramatic, both sides offered only praise and respect after the meeting.
"They had a lot of good questions," Mr. Bush said of the 10 commission members, who had crowded around the president and vice president on couches and chairs near the Oval Office fireplace.
"I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I took the time. This is an important commission, and it's important that they ask the questions they ask so that they can help make recommendations necessary to better protect our homeland," he told reporters in the Rose Garden after the meeting with the panelists.
No commission member would answer specific questions about what Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney said. Mr. Kerrey told the Associated Press that some of Bush's answers were "surprising" and "new," but he declined to give details.
Mr. Bush also refused to divulge specific details of the discussions, saying merely that he and Mr. Cheney had "enjoyed" a "good conversation with the 9/11 commission" and answered "every question they asked."
The president said he offered insight into "how I think and how I run the White House and how we deal with threats. ... I wanted them to know how I set strategy."
He sternly rebuked a reporter who asked whether Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney appeared jointly so they "could keep your stories straight."
"First of all - look, if we had something to hide we wouldn't have met with them in the first place. We answered all their questions," Mr. Bush said. "The vice president answered a lot of their questions - answered all their questions."
In response to another question, the president said he "was never advised by my counsel not to answer anything."
After the meeting, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, repeated the Democratic implications that the joint meeting was fishy, saying, "The whole process would have been better served if the president had gone in alone and the vice president had gone in alone."
"It really begs the question of why they had to go in hand in hand to this very important commission meeting which is so important to the American people," she said.
Several commissioners said the meeting went well.
"On our side, everybody got to ask their questions, we got all the issues we wanted covered," Mr. Lehman said. "The president answered all the questions fully, completely, I thought and it filled in a lot of blanks," he said, adding that Mr. Bush did "95 percent of all the speaking."
Mr. Kerrey agreed, calling the meeting "cordial and respectful."
"The purpose was to give the president an opportunity to say in his own words what happened," he said. "I think we did fulfill our mission."
Republican commissioner James R. Thompson said Mr. Bush was "confident, determined, passionate, knowledgeable. He was very much in charge."
"My sense was that we got a chance to ask all of the questions that we wanted. I asked three, some snuck in six or seven or eight. The president was not jumping up to leave. He even went back to [commissioner Richard] Ben-Veniste, saying, 'Richard, you got another one?' "
The panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, released a brief statement, saying, "The meeting was extraordinary."
"The commission found the president and the vice president forthcoming and candid. The information they provided will be of great assistance to the commission as it completes its final report. We thank the president and the vice president for their continued cooperation with the commission," the statement said.
The commission will hold several more meetings in May and June before releasing a final report no later than July 26.
The meeting was closed to all but the panel members, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Gonzales and two other White House lawyers, Tom Monheim and Bryan Cunningham. The commission sent one aide to take notes, but no audio recording of the session was made and no stenographer transcribed the conversation. Nobody was under oath, as Miss Rice was earlier this month.
Mr. Lehman said there were "moments of humor. It was serious business in a relaxed manner, which helped the information flow." He said Mr. Bush occasionally "teased" an unnamed commission member, who Mr. Lehman said took the ribbing good-naturedly.
•James G. Lakely contributed to this report.
-------- propaganda wars
THE TV WATCH
Just How 'Historic' Can an Oval Office Interview Be if It's Not Recorded?
April 30, 2004
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30WATC.html
If an important meeting takes place in the Oval Office and there are no television cameras to record it, did the meeting matter?
ABC, NBC and CBS all led their evening news programs with the Sept. 11 commission's meeting with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday. Yet no television news program had images of the encounter. A paranoid conspiracy theorist could conclude that the much-anticipated White House interview never took place.
There were no pictures of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney sitting side by side in front of the Oval Office fireplace. There was no tape of the president or Mr. Cheney greeting or talking to commission members at the White House entrance.
The most that news cameras could capture of the event was a distant, blurry shot of Mr. Cheney entering the White House early yesterday morning, carrying a paper coffee cup, and similarly remote and indistinct images of commissioners arriving in black sedans and leaving three hours later. The White House declined to release a photograph of the questioning taken by an official White House photographer.
Instead, Mr. Bush strode out to the Rose Garden shortly after 1 p.m. and described the meeting to reporters while standing alone, between two American flags. All the networks and cable news programs showed the moment live.
On a day when viewers could watch American marines battling rebels in Falluja and see Jayson Williams squirm in his courtroom seat while awaiting a verdict on manslaughter charges, the blackout at the White House was striking.
All three major networks tried to fill in the blanks on their evening news programs by showing old videotape of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush together. But particularly on NBC, which used one such picture as a teaser to introduce the broadcast without labeling it as a file picture, those dated images could have confused some viewers into believing they were pictures taken at the White House yesterday.
Throughout the day, the torrent of words used on cable news shows to describe the meeting ("exceptionally rare," "extraordinary," "historic") clashed almost comically with the meager visual images.
CNN and other cable networks had to resort to showing, over and over, an archival tape from a 2003 interview that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney gave while seated in armchairs in front of the Oval Office fireplace. The closest most viewers got to the Oval Office yesterday was watching "The Wayne Brady Show," whose guest was Dule Hill, the actor who plays a White House aide on "The West Wing."
Without images, television resorted to issuing telex-like bulletins about the meeting.
Midmorning on CNN, the White House reporter Dana Bash delivered a report from the White House lawn, wincing under the crashing sounds of construction work going on behind her. CNN flashed the conditions of the meeting across the screen ("not under oath," "no stenographer," "no transcript," "no recording"). The cable network even put up a list of questions likely to be asked of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney ("Describe actions on Sept. 11, 2001").
Fox News, the conservative cable network, paid less attention to the meeting than CNN or the networks did and was far more sanguine about the secrecy - as well as Mr. Bush's insistence that Mr. Cheney be at his side during the interview.
On "Good Morning America," the ABC reporter Terry Moran tried to explain how the White House had sought to use the Oval Office to keep commissioners humble. His piece had a graphic showing the dimensions of the Oval Office and the placement of couches across from the president's and vice president's chairs. "Is there an intimidation factor here?" Charlie Gibson asked George Stephanopoulos.
"No question about it," Mr. Stephanopoulos replied. "This is the president's turf."
The White House's insistence on a private, no-tech meeting made political sense - the president's aides have no interest in allowing pictures that might make him look vulnerable under questioning or overly reliant on his older vice president. But the nonvisual event was so anathema to television that at one point, the CNN anchor Daryn Kagan said it seemed as if "the event took place in the 18th century."
--------
THE MEDIA
Some Stations to Block 'Nightline' War Tribute
April 30, 2004
By BILL CARTER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/business/media/30TUBE.html
Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest owners of local television stations, will pre-empt tonight's edition of the ABC News program "Nightline," saying the program's plan to have Ted Koppel read aloud the names of every member of the armed forces killed in action in Iraq was motivated by an antiwar agenda and threatened to undermine American efforts there.
The decision means viewers in eight cities, including St. Louis, Jacksonville, Fla., and Columbus, Ohio, will not see "Nightline."
ABC News disputed that the program carried a political message, calling it in a statement "an expression of respect which simply seeks to honor those who have laid down their lives for their country."
"ABC News," the statement added, "is dedicated to thoughtful and balanced coverage, and reports on the events shaping our world without fear or favor."
But Mark Hyman, the vice president of corporate relations for Sinclair, who is also a conservative commentator on the company's newscasts, said tonight's edition of "Nightline" is biased journalism. "Mr. Koppel's reading of the fallen will have no proportionality," he said in a telephone interview, pointing out that the program will ignore other aspects of the war effort.
Mr. Hyman, who said Sinclair had reviewed Mr. Koppel's overall reporting on Iraq, accused Mr. Koppel of "being a naysayer from the beginning." Mr. Hyman himself took a Sinclair news crew to Iraq in February to uncover positive but untold developments of the war.
The Sinclair stations will instead broadcast their own special, which Mr. Hyman called "a full debate" about the "Nightline" special..
Sinclair, which owns 62 television stations in 39 markets, also made news in September 2001, when it ordered news personnel at its Baltimore station to read patriotic statements supporting President Bush.
The company's reaction to "Nightline" is consistent with criticism from some conservatives, who are charging ABC with trying to influence opinion against the war.
Mr. Koppel and the producers of "Nightline" said earlier this week that they had no political motivation behind the decision to devote an entire show, expanded to 40 minutes, to reading the names and displaying the photos of those killed. They said they only intended to honor the dead and document what Mr. Koppel called "the human cost" of the war.
Janet Weaver, dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute, an educational foundation for journalists, said she was surprised that anyone could find the mere reading of such a list a political act. "It is a piece of this reality," she said. "It would seem to me you can read it as you read it, depending on your point of view. It's really a Rorschach test."
--------
Cheney Praises Fox News Channel
Vice President Calls Network 'More Accurate' Than Others
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53974-2004Apr29.html
Vice President Cheney endorsed the Fox News Channel during a conference call last night with tens of thousands of Republicans who were gathered across the country to celebrate a National Party for the President Day organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign.
Fox News styles its coverage as "fair and balanced," but it has a heavy stable of conservative commentators that makes it a favorite around the White House. It is unusual for a president or vice president to single out a commercial enterprise for public praise.
The comment came as Cheney took questions from supporters at 5,245 parties that were held in 50 states to energize grass-roots volunteers building a precinct-by-precinct army for President Bush's campaign.
"It's easy to complain about the press -- I've been doing it for a good part of my career," Cheney said. "It's part of what goes with a free society. What I do is try to focus upon those elements of the press that I think do an effective job and try to be accurate in their portrayal of events. For example, I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they're more accurate in my experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many of the other outlets."
Cheney, who recently was chosen by Bush's aides to address the National Rifle Association's national convention, is the leading ambassador to conservatives for the campaign and the administration. The vice president spoke live shortly after 8:30 p.m.
Cheers could be heard erupting behind an insurance representative from Johnson County, Iowa, as she began asking Cheney her question. She complained about "the inconsistencies that we see in the media" and asked him to "clarify some of the things that are happening in Iraq that really are good but just never get through the media."
Cheney told the questioner he has "experienced the same kind of frustration you have."
"The fact is that we spend a lot of time talking to a broad range of people out there to make sure we've got a good fix on what's going on," Cheney said. "You can't simply rely just upon the press coverage. The situation today is clearly -- we've made enormous progress when you think about where we came from a little over a year ago. Saddam Hussein was in power. Tonight, he's in jail. His sons are dead. The government is gone. It's been taken down. The extent to which you had a regime there that hosted terrorists over the years and also pursued and used weapons of mass destruction -- that's all been dramatically changed."
Campaign manager Ken Mehlman opened the call by saying : "Our opponent, John Kerry, has a very different approach than going after the terrorists and continuing forward on economic recovery." Mehlman said the participants can "set up future parties for the president at any time, for any day of your choosing" and said the campaign will organize another nationwide party in mid-July.
Hosts were sent packets that included volunteer signup sheets, bumper stickers, and a video message and letter from Bush. Some organizers served refreshments in their homes, and others hosted events in restaurants, churches and community centers. The roster included 420 parties in Florida, 286 in Pennsylvania, 199 in Missouri, 197 in Wisconsin and 157 in Iowa.
Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, has announced a National House Party Day for May 22.
--------
Al-Jazeera's Learning Curve
By Nora Boustany
Friday, April 30, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55012-2004Apr29.html
A round-table session at the Brookings Institution on Thursday featured Qatar's foreign minister and began with discussions about reform in Arab countries, many of which face tricky transitions to democracy as extremist ideologies lurk in the background.
But the debate gravitated toward the performance of al-Jazeera, a satellite television network based in Qatar, which has come under attack recently for what some critics have called inflammatory and emotionally charged reports from Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, where an anti-American insurgency is underway.
"I am not a spokesman for al-Jazeera," the foreign minister, Hamad Bin Jasim Thani, said. "I heard with great attention what the U.S. administration had to say about it. I am not directly involved, but I will certainly deliver it to the right people in Qatar."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Wednesday that he and Thani had had "very intense" and candid discussions about the 24-hour news channel.
Thani, during the session at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said that he did not defend everything that al-Jazeera reported but that "it is good to see or hear what happens in the Arab world and what reflects the mood of Arabic or Islamic public opinion."
He said not all of the news broadcast by the network was what he would call professional journalism, but like other Qatari officials, he cautioned that a policy should not be imposed on the network.
"Some of the noise, of course, at the moment, is extraordinary. . . . Sometimes people get overexcited. I cannot defend or agree with all of it," he said. "We have to see how to improve things, but not impose any Western, Arab or Islamic opinion."
Bashir Al Shirawi, an economic adviser to Qatar's Foreign Ministry who accompanied Thani to Washington, said in a separate interview that al-Jazeera's board of directors had assigned a "reevaluation commission." He also suggested that government funding for the station was about to end. "They have a market. If they gave it to me, I could run it," said Shirawi, who was educated in the United States. He explained that all organizations go through several stages, beginning with "insipience, then growth and then maturity, before declining or leveling off." Al-Jazeera, he said, was in the "pre-maturity" stage.
Al-Jazeera broadcast a program Thursday afternoon about its standards. During the program, which the network's Washington bureau chief, Hafez al-Mirazi, described as "50 minutes of al-Jazeera bashing," some reporters seemed to be overcome with emotion during their Iraq reports, "as if they were leading the battle," said a spokesman for the State Department, Nabil Khoury.
The question, Khoury said from London, was whether the station filled a "journalistic role or a role of mobilization."
"There have been some mistakes . . . there is a feeling that al-Jazeera is inciting citizens to carry arms against coalition forces," he said, commenting at the conclusion of the program that perhaps the network was going through a period of "adolescence."
Salameh Nematt, Washington correspondent for the London-based Al Hayat newspaper, said al-Jazeera should point out the "murderers and terrorists" who have attacked Iraqi policemen, busloads of children and nationalists and not lump them all in one basket as if they were part of the Iraqi opposition.
Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, countered that U.S. officials could not object to reporting about the killing of 600 Iraqis in Fallujah, mostly civilians. Solomon is a frequent critic of U.S. policy.
Thani, a member of Qatar's ruling family, said the electoral process would help establish democracy and blunt the extreme ideology of militants.
A restive and bloody period follows every revolution before matters settle, he said, adding, "In order to fight this, one has to go to the polls."
Asked if he agreed with President Bush's statement that what happened in Iraq would have a ripple effect in neighboring countries, Thani said the drive to bring about reforms in other countries should proceed regardless of the outcome in Iraq.
"Iraq is on the edge of civil war, in my opinion, and this has nothing to do with reforms. It is part of a dynamic of one group wanting to gain power over another. . . . We have to accept the majority in the vote after there is a referendum there. Right now, we should not favor one party against the other, or put one party against another," he said, referring to Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
"We still have this hope to see Iraq as a model," Thani said.
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Promoter of U.S. Image Quits for Wall St. Job
April 30, 2004
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30tutw.html
WASHINGTON, April 29 - Margaret D. Tutwiler, the State Department veteran who was summoned from abroad to overhaul the public diplomacy effort, said Thursday that she was resigning to take a position at the New York Stock Exchange.
The move was a blow to the Bush administration's hopes to improve America's image and better articulate its policy goals as the country faces growing opposition to the war in Iraq and to its support of Israel's plan to redraw its boundaries.
It also highlighted the administration's difficulty in retaining managers of public diplomacy. Ms. Tutwiler's predecessor in the job was Charlotte Beers, a former New York advertising executive, who resigned in March of last year. At the White House, another official responsible for the administration's international message, Tucker Eskew, quit after about a year.
Ms. Tutwiler, a blunt-spoken Washington insider who served as spokeswoman for Secretary of State James A. Baker III and later went on to become President Bush's ambassador to Morocco, heads to the stock exchange after a management shake-up there.
In an interview on Thursday, Ms. Tutwiler, who is 53, said she had returned to government saying she would serve only a single presidential term. Although friends said she had voiced frustration in her State Department job, she denied it Thursday. "Absolutely not," she said.
Her new title at the stock exchange will be executive vice president for communications and government relations, the statement said. Ms. Tutwiler will leave on June 30, a pivotal date for the American-led forces in Iraq, when the authorities plan to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis. Mark Helmke, a policy aide to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican, said Ms. Tutwiler's departure would probably mean that her job, under secretary of state for public affairs, would remain vacant until well into next year. It will be difficult to find a replacement in the short period before the November election, he noted, and with the expected departure of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell by year's end, the delay could be compounded.
Ms. Tutwiler was called back to the State Department in December to address concerns within the administration and elsewhere that the United States had failed to capitalize on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and was facing growing hostility in Iraq and the Middle East. She came in to replace Ms. Beers, whose tenure was best remembered for producing videos that showed how Muslims enjoyed religious freedom in the United States. Several Arab countries refused to broadcast the material, and some State Department diplomats mocked it as naïve.
Patricia S. Harrison, the assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs, took over in an acting capacity after Ms. Beers left, and she is expected to do the same after Ms. Tutwiler leaves.
An extensive report on public diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world, released in October, painted a dire picture of American efforts to reach out to foreign countries and build support for Washington's actions. The bipartisan report, called "Changing Minds, Winning Peace," found that America's prestige had dwindled, that its good works were largely ignored and that it lacked strategic direction in its message.
Ms. Tutwiler embraced the conclusions of the report. In her first public testimony as under secretary, she said that the United States had let public outreach languish since the cold war, and that it would take "years of hard, focused work" to fix the problem.
-------- us politics
Kerry on pre-emption
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
April 30, 2004
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
Democratic presidential contender Sen. John Kerry has criticized the Bush administration for taking pre-emptive military action to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq, without United Nations or NATO backing.
"The failure of the administration to internationalize the conflict has lost us time, momentum, and credibility - and made America less safe," the Massachusetts senator said in a radio address April 17.
However, Mr. Kerry was playing a different tune in 1989 when he urged the United States to take unilateral action against Libya to take out Tripoli's chemical arms program.
We have obtained a portion of a transcript of a hearing with the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Kerry urged a policy of unilateral pre-emption, similar to Israel's daring 1981 aerial bombing raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor.
Mr. Kerry asked retired Army Maj. Gen. William F. Burns, the ACDA director, why the United States didn't conduct "some kind of pre-emptive action that could eliminate the capacity of Libya to further develop [chemical arms], similar to what happened with Iraq and the nuclear power plant with Israel?" The hearing took place Jan. 24, 1989.
----
Kerry Says Bush Ignoring Imminent Threats
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 30, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Kerry-Plant-Security.html
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Amid warnings that another devastating terrorist attack on the United States could be imminent, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Thursday accused President Bush of leaving the nation's chemical plants vulnerable because of his political ties to the industry.
``I wish their policies were in touch with the tough rhetoric that you keep hearing,'' Kerry told the National Conference of Black Mayors. ``What are we waiting for? Instead of misleading us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they ought to lead this nation to take every step to prevent one of our own chemical plants from being turned into a weapon of mass destruction against our own people.''
Kerry painted a bleak picture of the danger facing Americans and suggested there could be an attack before the November election. He said every report out of Washington shows that it's not a matter of whether there will be another terrorist attack, but when.
``So if we know it's a matter of when, then when are we going to stop pretending that all has been accomplished in our shared mission to keep America safe?'' he asked. ``When are we going to start dealing with dangers that we still know exist in this country?''
Kerry said not all attacks can be prevented because terrorists who are willing to risk their lives are impossible to stop. But he said he has a plan for many vulnerabilities that the Bush administration has not addressed -- U.S. ports are not secure enough to prevent nuclear material from arriving by ship, the country's borders are wide open, and the FBI does not share vital information with local officials about suspected terrorists.
The mayors applauded loudly when Kerry said the Bush administration is asking them to protect the homeland, then sticking them with the bill.
The Bush campaign said the administration is doing almost everything that Kerry proposes to protect chemical sites.
``John Kerry has played politics with homeland security throughout this campaign, and today he is doing it again,'' Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said. ``John Kerry voted against the Department of Homeland Security six times and wants to weaken the Patriot Act. His speech today is not a credible alternative but a retread of policies that the president has already advocated.''
Kerry said Bush has accommodated the chemical industry, which favors voluntary efforts to improve security, because of campaign contributions from executives.
The Kerry campaign cited pledges to Bush during 2000 and 2004 of at least $1.5 million from 15 fund-raisers it said were tied to the chemical industry. The campaign also cited nearly $6.5 million in soft-money contributions -- corporate, union or unlimited donations -- from the industry to Republicans during the 2000 and 2002 campaigns.
``This administration unfortunately has been unwilling to take these steps because they have sided with the chemical industry that pushes back,'' Kerry said. ``We don't care who they're writing campaign checks to. It's time for them to make America stronger.''
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Brian Roehrkasse, said the agency already was working with chemical plants to improve defenses.
``Chemical plant security has been a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security and we are not waiting for legislation to be enacted,'' Roehrkasse said. ``We are currently working with over 300 facilities considered the most vulnerable if attacked to put in place enhanced measures that go above and beyond the requirements of any legislation.''
Two years ago, the CIA warned of the potential for an al-Qaida attack on U.S. chemical facilities. According to the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, about a fifth of the nation's 15,000 chemical facilities are close enough to population centers that a terrorist attack could harm at least 10,000 people.
Kerry said he will require chemical plants at risk of terrorist attack to implement adequate physical security, including fences, guards and surveillance. He said his plan calls for government action to implement the requirements only if plants fail to act, including assessing their vulnerability on an individualized basis.
The plan mirrors legislation Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, sponsored in early 2003 with Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and other Democrats. It stalled in the Senate over opposition from Republicans, who said it sought to inappropriately micromanage the nation's $450 billion chemical industry.
Kerry would require the Department of Homeland Security to review and certify vulnerability studies for chemical plants deemed high-priority targets. There presently are no legal requirements for such plants to assess vulnerabilities or take security actions to guard against a terrorist attack, although the industry's leading trade group, the American Chemistry Council, requires its members to do so.
A key Senate committee approved a compromise bill supported by Republicans in October 2003 that would require security assessments to be sent to Homeland Security, but would not require any formal certification or approval.
An industry spokesman, the chemistry council's Marty Durbin, said government should consider auditing a percentage of all companies' vulnerability studies, not each one.
``At least that provides for an incentive,'' Durbin said.
On the Net:
Kerry campaign: http://www.johnkerry.com
----
Reviewing Patriot's powers
April 30, 2004
Letters to the Editor,
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040429-085651-2592r.htm
As co-authors of the sunset provisions that apply to some of the most sensitive provisions of the Patriot Act, we must respectfully take issue with the president's characterization of them ("Patriot Act called lifesaver," Nation, April 20).
The president implies that Congress made these provisions subject to review and renewal because of a belief that the threat of terrorism itself would soon pass. That is not the case.
At the time they were written, we and others in Congress knew the war on terrorism would take years, and maybe even decades. The straightforward purpose of the sunset provisions is to ensure that these powerful new tools given to government are used properly.
They are intended to encourage the Justice Department's cooperation with congressional oversight. Not only is it appropriate, but it also is necessary that Congress have the ability to review the record before renewing extensions of government power such as these, which, if abused, can needlessly compromise the freedoms of the American people.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY
U.S. Senate REP. RICHARD ARMEY Retired, U.S. House Washington
----
Rebuilding Aid Unspent, Tapped to Pay Expenses
By Jonathan Weisman and Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 30, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54692-2004Apr29?language=printer
Seven months after Congress approved the largest foreign aid package in history to rebuild Iraq, less than 5 percent of the $18.4 billion has been spent and occupation officials have begun shifting more than $300 million earmarked for reconstruction projects to administrative and security expenses.
Recent reports from the Coalition Provisional Authority, the CPA's inspector general and the U.S. Agency for International Development attest to the growing difficulties of the U.S.-led reconstruction effort. And they have raised concerns in Congress and among international aid experts that the Bush administration's ambitious rebuilding campaign is adrift amid rising violence and unforeseen costs.
Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, cited "bureaucratic infighting" and a "loss of central command and control" at a hearing yesterday as he sharply questioned top administration officials: "I have very serious concerns about the pace of assistance in Iraq and the management of those funds."
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz pointed to successes in rebuilding and blamed contracting snafus for some of the delays. But Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary at the State Department, which will take over from the CPA this summer, refused to make what he called "excuses."
"Of course we're not satisfied," he said. "We feel the same sense of urgency that Paul feels to get on with it."
Of the $18.4 billion in Iraqi aid approved by Congress in October, just $2.3 billion had been steered to projects through March 24, the CPA told Congress this month. Only $1 billion has actually been spent, the authority's inspector general told congressional aides Monday. In January, the CPA had said it had planned to spend nearly $8 billion during the first six months of this fiscal year.
The first round of rebuilding funds, about $4.5 billion, focused on rebuilding the electricity grid, restoring the flow of oil, Iraq's main source of revenue, and fixing schools and hospitals.
In a report this month, occupation officials warned Congress that security, project management and logistics expenses may "reduce slightly" the level of funding for reconstruction but said they were still working with the Office of Management and Budget to determine how much money would be moved.
So far, occupation officials have reassigned $184 million appropriated for drinking-water projects to fund the operations of the U.S. Embassy after the provisional authority is dissolved June 30. An additional $29 million from projects such as "democracy building" were reallocated to fund the U.S. development agency's administrative expenses.
And more diversions may be coming. Armitage said the State Department still faces a shortfall of $40 million to $60 million in embassy operating funds this year. And embassy construction and operations could consume as much as $2.5 billion in fiscal 2005, none of which has been requested by President Bush.
"The first time there' s talk of a supplemental [appropriations bill], we'll be up here early and often," Armitage told House members yesterday. Until then, he said, State will have to rely on its authority under last year's Iraqi aid law to divert as much as 10 percent of the aid -- $1.84 billion -- into overhead. In addition, the CPA, which was allocated $858 million for operating expenses, can spend up to additional 1 percent of the total funding on itself.
The shift of money has already raised objections from Capitol Hill and fueled worries that it could undermine the U.S. government's position with the Iraqi people.
Aides from both parties told CPA officials this week to find the embassy money somewhere else, said Tim Rieser, chief Democratic clerk for the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee.
"Cutting funds from water and sanitation makes no sense," Rieser said. "Potable water is desperately needed in that country."
Administration officials said the money was taken from drinking-water projects because such projects have been allocated $2.8 billion through 2005, of which only $14 million has been channeled to projects. They said they felt it would be easier to take the full $184 million they were allowed to shift to CPA expenses from one place, rather than siphoning off smaller amounts from various accounts.
"We worked with Congress to develop a package of options to ensure the embassy would have needed resources," said White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton. "We are continuing to work with Capitol Hill as the process moves forward."
Attacks on foreign civilians have also made the CPA reassess its plan for rebuilding the Iraqi security forces. Some $93 million has been reallocated from facilities protection, border enforcement and the Iraqi Armed Forces to build a fortified police training facility in Baghdad, in addition to an $800 million training academy in Jordan. The reason is that international police trainers needed a secure place to work in the Iraqi capital, said Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee responsible for aid funding.
Almost since the very beginning, the reconstruction of Iraq has been set back by problems including the widespread looting in the country and competition between various U.S. agencies. "At its worst," Kolbe said yesterday, the infighting "has led to different parts of the U.S. government pursuing different policies in a given country."
The first set of contracts was awarded before the war ended, and occupation authorities reported significant progress in rebuilding schools and power plants by last fall. But turning the new round of congressional funding into visible projects and jobs has been hampered by continuing administrative and security problems.
Shortly after Congress approved the funds in mid-November, senior government officials became embroiled in a debate over who would manage the money and whether proper financial controls were in place. The Pentagon had set up a new entity called the Program Management Office to coordinate between the various contracting agencies. Some officials argued that the idea of the new office was too experimental and that it might be better for USAID or another agency to take over. The result was that the first major group of contracts were awarded in March, instead of February.
The Program Management Office Web site now says $1.5 billion in work is "under way" on 42 projects, and its director, David J. Nash, a retired Navy rear admiral, said in Iraq last week that $5 billion of the funds "will be committed to construction" by July 1.
Meanwhile, the deteriorating security situation has forced CPA officials to change some spending priorities.
USAID spokesman Luke Zahner said the shift of funds from "democracy building," electricity, education and water to agency overhead was a technical adjustment. Limited funds were allocated for operations by Congress because it was unclear last fall which agency would oversee which projects in Iraq, he said.
Most of the reallocation is for security, said Lu'ay Eris, deputy president of Baghdad City Council, which he called a reasonable decision.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry, Asim Jihad, agreed: "Everything is linked to everything else. If there is no security, it will be impossible to do reconstruction projects."
But, Eris predicted, "taking this money will affect reconstruction. It will lengthen the period."
The CPA's recent report to Congress shows how little of Congress's latest rebuilding allocation has been spent since Oct 1.
Of the $279 million earmarked for irrigation projects, for instance, none has been spent. The same goes for $152 million allocated for dam repair and construction. The occupation government earmarked $240 million for road and bridge construction, of which $20 million has been "obligated" to projects so far. One bridge, at Al Mat, has been rebuilt, another at Khazir is partially reopened.
Some of the programs that generated objections as gratuitous and expensive when debated in Congress last fall also have yet to take hold. The administration's $75 million witness protection initiative got its first team of U.S. marshals on March 25 to begin designing the program.
Congress pared back Bush's $400 million request for two new prisons to $100 million; so far, only "the initial scope of work" has been approved. The Defense Department did shift $15 million from judicial security to prisons to fund 107 contractors "as trainers and mentors."
Special correspondent Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad contributed to this report.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Senate Fails to Resurrect Stalled Energy Bill
Story by Tom Doggett and Charles Abbott
REUTERS USA:
April 30, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24952/newsDate/30-Apr-2004/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The Senate, in a pair of party-line votes tinted by election-year politics, refused on Thursday to debate either reform of U.S. energy policy or a federal mandate to double the use of corn-based ethanol.
The first overhaul of U.S. energy policy in more than a decade stalled in a Senate filibuster months ago. An Energy Committee spokeswoman said the bill was still alive despite the latest failure to break the filibuster.
On votes that followed party lines, the Senate blocked a Democrat-led proposal to attach the ethanol mandate to an Internet tax bill and a Republican alternative to paste a slimmed-down energy bill to the Internet bill. The ethanol language was one of the most popular parts of the energy bill.
"Energy will be coming up again this spring but in a more appropriate forum," said Energy Committee spokeswoman Marnie Funk. She declared the votes were "a double victory" that prevented a splintering of the energy bill and avoided the complication of merging energy policy with Internet taxes.
Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, author of the ethanol amendment, said Republicans abandoned ethanol. Last year, 68 senators voted for the requirement for use of 5 billion gallons of ethanol a year in 2012, double current usage.
Ethanol is popular in rural America, including South Dakota where Daschle is running for re-election. It is seen as a way to boost farm income and reduce U.S. reliance on oil imports.
With 60 votes needed for victory, senators refused, 41-58, to prevent a filibuster of the ethanol plan. On a 55-43 vote, they failed to block a filibuster on the energy bill. There are 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats and one independent in the Senate.
"Both votes today had a lot more to do with politics than with policy," said an ethanol lobbyist. He said the votes showed strong support for ethanol and the energy bill if the issue was debated in a "serious" setting.
When the Senate began work on Thursday, Majority Leader Bill Frist said he supported larger ethanol use but as part of an energy bill that also modernizes the nation's electric grid, backs an Alaskan natural gas pipeline and promotes renewable energy sources.
"We should not break apart the energy bill and attempt to pass it piecemeal," said Frist, Tennessee Republican. "We in the United States need a comprehensive energy policy."
The House of Representatives has passed energy legislation that differs from what the Senate has proposed.
House Republican leaders demand the energy bill include protection against product-defect lawsuits for makers of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a fuel additive and rival to ethanol, which is distilled from corn. Opposition to the MTBE language helped mire the energy bill in the Senate.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
E.P.A. Will Not Withdraw Its Mercury Plan
April 30, 2004
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30MERC.html
WASHINGTON, April 29 - Rebuffing pressure from Democrats and environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday that it would not withdraw its plan for regulating mercury from coal-fired power plants.
But the agency's administrator, Michael O. Leavitt, said it would take an additional three months before issuing a final regulation. The new deadline, March 15, 2005, would become especially significant if control of the White House changes in the November election.
Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is among the 45 senators and 10 state attorneys general who have asked the agency to withdraw the proposal.
The proposal allows power plants to buy and sell the rights to emit mercury, with a target of reducing emissions 70 percent by 2018. Environmental groups argue that the Clean Air Act calls for strict plant-by-plant controls by 2007.
--------
EPA Delays Mercury Regulations
Final Action on Plant Emissions Rules Slated for March '05
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54514-2004Apr29.html
Confronted with a flood of public responses to proposed new regulations to limit the amount of toxic mercury emitted by power plants, the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday extended the comment period by two months and said it would push back final action on the rule to March 2005.
Environmentalists had charged that under the proposed rule it would take too long to reduce mercury emissions generated by coal-fired plants. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can interfere with a child's development if a mother is exposed to excessive amounts during pregnancy.
Industry representatives have said that more stringent deadlines for reducing mercury would force adoption of unproven technologies and drive up energy costs.
"The regulation of mercury is critically important to the American people, to this agency and to me personally," said EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt in a telephone news conference. "This will give more opportunity for the public to make comment, for us to have all the available data. This will allow us more time."
Leavitt, Utah's former governor, was named to head the agency in November, long after work on the regulation had been underway.
The delay, which will postpone the final rule from December 2004 until March 2005, pleased the Natural Resource Defense Council and other environmentalists who had sought an extension.
"We asked EPA to take the time to do the proper analysis that the White House would not let them do," said John Walke, the NRDC's clean air director. "And now the agency has to go back and come back with a rule that will truly protect our children."
Several lawmakers have also pressured the administration to take the flood of public comments into account. At a news conference yesterday, Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) urged the administration to heed the more than 500,000 comments submitted on the proposed rule.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group said the EPA has received more comments on the proposed mercury rule than on any regulation it has ever proposed. EPA officials could not be reached to confirm this.
"Despite the Bush administration's best efforts to use every tactic in its public relations arsenal to convince Americans that more mercury in their water, their food and their bodies over a longer period of time is the best we can do, it is not working," Leahy said.
Leahy and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) sent a letter yesterday to Leavitt pushing for greater reductions in mercury emissions.
"Leavitt is basically admitting this proposed rule is a disaster," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental advocacy group. "The question now is he really going to fix it or is it a PR move."
Industry representatives dismissed such criticism.
"There is some irony in NRDC and others complaining that mercury reductions come too slow and then in the next breath demanding a delay," said Scott Segal, who represents utilities as director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council. "That said, a rule that's too inflexible or makes unrealistic assumptions about control technology will result in too much switching to natural gas, and with natural gas prices as high as they are, that's bad news for consumers, the elderly and industrial competitiveness."
Also yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called on the EPA to investigate a possible conflict of interest on the part of a former employee, a lawyer who, the chamber said, worked on the mercury rule while at the agency under President Bill Clinton. The employee, David Doniger, worked for the NRDC both before and after joining the federal agency.
But the NRDC produced a memo from Doniger in which he recused himself from working on the mercury rule while at the EPA.
--------
French Firm Fined for Mont. Toxic Waste
April 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Hazardous-Waste-Fine.html
BUTTE, Mont. (AP) -- The French owners of a defunct Montana phosphorous plant were fined more than $16 million Thursday by a federal judge who warned the cleanup must be completed properly.
Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula ordered Rhodia Inc. to pay $16.2 million to the federal treasury for illegally storing hazardous waste at the shuttered plant, plus restitution of $1.8 million to the state Department of Environmental Quality.
He also sentenced the company to five years probation and ordered it to perform 1,000 hours of community service.
As a condition of probation, Rhodia must clean up the Silver Bow site near Butte, and those costs will likely far exceed the fine, with estimates ranging from $50 million to $100 million, prosecutor Kris McLean said.
McLean said the fine was the second-largest criminal penalty lodged nationwide under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The highest was the $16.5 million fine levied at Colorado's Rocky Flats nuclear waste site, he said.
Rhodia, a multinational corporation based in Paris, pleaded guilty in January to two felony criminal counts of illegal hazardous waste storage and agreed to pay the fine and restitution.
Rhodia must work with state and federal agencies to devise a cleanup plan and make quarterly reports on its progress.
The illegally stored waste contains elemental phosphorus, which can burst into flames when it contacts air.
The main issue is whether about 500,000 gallons of sludge-like crude phosphorus stored in a tank can be capped onsite or whether the waste must be hauled to a treatment facility.
Molloy asked whether cleanup negotiations will turn into a ``dogfight,'' and Rhodia lawyer Kevin Evans said that could happen if the Environmental Protection Agency insists the waste be removed.
Molloy said he didn't want the disagreement back in court. ``You have an obligation to continue with the cleanup, and it must be done in the correct way and in good faith,'' he said.
--------
French firm fined for hazardous waste at Montana plant
Friday, April 30, 2004
By Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-30/s_23343.asp
BUTTE, Montana - The French owners of a defunct Montana phosphorous plant were fined more than $16 million by a federal judge who warned the cleanup must be completed properly.
Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula on Thursday ordered Rhodia Inc. to pay $16.2 million to the federal treasury for illegally storing hazardous waste at the shuttered plant, plus restitution of $1.8 million to the state Department of Environmental Quality.
He also sentenced the company to five years probation and ordered it to perform 1,000 hours of community service.
As a condition of probation, Rhodia must clean up the Silver Bow site near Butte, and those costs will likely far exceed the fine, with estimates ranging from $50 million to $100 million, prosecutor Kris McLean said.
McLean said the fine was the second-largest criminal penalty lodged nationwide under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The highest was the $16.5 million fine levied at Colorado's Rocky Flats nuclear waste site, he said.
Rhodia, a multinational corporation based in Paris, pleaded guilty in January to two felony criminal counts of illegal hazardous waste storage and agreed to pay the fine and restitution.
Rhodia must work with state and federal agencies to devise a cleanup plan and make quarterly reports on its progress.
The illegally stored waste contains elemental phosphorus, which can burst into flames when it contacts air. The main issue is whether about 500,000 gallons (1.9 million liters) of sludgelike crude phosphorus stored in a tank can be capped onsite or whether the waste must be hauled to a treatment facility.
Molloy asked whether cleanup negotiations will turn into a "dogfight," and Rhodia lawyer Kevin Evans said that could happen if the Environmental Protection Agency insists the waste be removed.
Molloy said he didn't want the disagreement back in court. "You have an obligation to continue with the cleanup, and it must be done in the correct way and in good faith," he said.
--------
Leak Near San Francisco Contained
Story by Adam Tanner
REUTERS USA:
April 30, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24949/newsDate/30-Apr-2004/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - A diesel oil pipeline spill that polluted hundreds of acres of wetlands near the San Francisco Bay, which occurred on Tuesday but was not made public until Thursday, has been contained, officials said.
A pipeline belonging to energy company Kinder Morgan Energy Partners leaked diesel oil on Tuesday night, affecting between 300 and 600 acres of marshland near Suisun Bay north of San Francisco, Coast Guard spokesman Glynn Smith said.
Officials said they did not know how much fuel had leaked and it was not clear why news of the spill did not become publicly known until Thursday. The Coast Guard arrived at the scene at about 4 p.m. on Wednesday, nearly a full day after the spill, Smith said.
"The original spill began approximately 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday and the computerized system that monitors the line that Kinder Morgan has detected a problem in the pipeline," Smith said. "The valves on either side of the breach were closed and Kinder Morgan sent out a crew."
Kinder Morgan Partners, controlled by Houston-based pipeline operator Kinder Morgan Inc., is the nation's largest pipeline master limited partnership.
Smith said that hot sun had helped evaporate much of the leaked diesel fuel since the spill.
"Yesterday, you could see a sheen on the water," the Coast Guard official said. "The folks coming back from the scene today are all telling me that you can't see anything, it's a hot day, a sunny day, and diesel is evaporating."
Kinder Morgan spokesman Jerry Engelhardt said the 14-inch diameter pipeline, which is buried under Suisun Bay adjacent to the San Francisco-Sacramento railroad line, was shut down after the problem was detected.
Another spokesman Larry Pierce said the source of the leak in the welded steel pipe was discovered on Wednesday between 1:30 and 2 p.m. in a marsh area.
"We are confident that we have contained the release; it is an area that has been boomed off," Pierce said. "At this time there is no indication whatsoever that any product has been released to either San Francisco Bay or the Suisun slough."
The pipeline carries diesel and jet fuels and gasoline from refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area to Sacramento and points east and north.
Experts said it would be unusual for news of an oil leak to be kept two days from the public, especially in an environmentally sensitive area.
"That's a violation of what I understand the protocol for handling oil spills is supposed to be," said Mary Nichols, director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of California at Los Angeles. "Normally there are announcements made right away."
Kinder Morgan spokesman Pierce could not explain the delay in informing the public.
Speaking about diesel fuel, Nichols, a former secretary of the California Resources Agency added: "That's the most toxic petroleum product that could be spilled, especially in a sensitive habitat like Suisun marsh."
Suisun Bay, fed by the San Joaquin and Sacramento river delta, is home to one of the nation's largest inland estuarine wetlands, providing important habitat to water fowl, said Craig Noble, a spokesman for the environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Ronald Tjeerdema, a biologist at University of California at Davis, said diesel can kill fish and other marine life invertebrates by shutting down their nervous systems if the concentration high enough.
"Diesel is more water soluble than crude, but it also tends to evaporate quickly, especially when it is warm and windy like it is today," he said.
(Additional reporting by Leonard Anderson in San Francisco; Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; and Timothy Gardner in New York)
-------- imf / world bank / wto (economics)
US Senate Panel Probes World Bank
Story by Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
REUTERS USA:
April 30, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24956/newsDate/30-Apr-2004/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has started to investigate allegations of corruption in projects funded by the World Bank and its affiliates, Senate sources say.
Committee staff have been quietly looking into charges for some time and the first public hearing is set for May 13.
Projects under review include the Yacyreta Dam on the Argentina-Paraguay border, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and projects in Cambodia, according to letters obtained by Reuters.
The probe was initiated by committee chairman Senator Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, whose panel has oversight responsibility for international financial institutions receiving more than $1 billion (560 million) in U.S. funding.
"Senator Lugar strongly supports the goals and objectives of international development institutions, including eliminating poverty in the Third World and working to improve standards of living, such as providing clean water," a committee staff member told Reuters.
"Having said that, the chairman has now undertaken an ongoing review of the international financial institutions as it relates to their success in combating corruption," he said.
Lugar wants to "bring about accountability in the system and this review is an opportunity for the banks to tell their story, what they are doing to fight corruption," the aide said.
The World Bank welcomed the review of its anti-corruption work and said it would cooperate with the Senate panel.
"We have a vigorous program to investigate any allegations of corruption in bank projects which has led to more than 180 debarments of companies and individuals," a bank spokeswoman said.
CONCERNS RAISED
In a letter to World Bank President James Wolfensohn dated April 20, Lugar expressed concern that the bank may have overlooked key issues in a forthcoming report on the Yacyreta Dam project.
"Reportedly, the Yacyreta Dam project was budgeted to cost $2 billion when it began in 1973 and now has a debt of $10 billion -- and it is still not completed," he said.
Lugar said the project could cost another $800 million. The debt affects the project's financial viability and is an indirect burden on Argentina and Paraguay's governments, he said.
Lugar asked if the bank had ordered a financial audit.
"Before work continues on this project and new programs are developed for the region, it is important that the international community learns how Yacyreta's financial position deteriorated to this level," he said.
In a letter on April 16, Lugar questioned the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and the fact that three contractors were found guilty of bribery.
Lugar said none of these companies are on the World Bank's list of reprimanded firms or on the list of disbarred firms that violated bank fraud and corruption provisions.
He asked Wolfensohn if the bank is investigating these companies and if it has acted to minimise corruption.
The project, jointly developed by Lesotho and South Africa, involves construction of roads, bridges and electricity transfer stations as well as dams.
According to news reports, a dozen more multinational firms could also face charges.
In a third letter dated April 9, Lugar voiced concerns about the "potential for abuse of World Bank funds in Cambodia" and asked Wolfensohn to explain what the bank is doing to "minimise the misappropriation of funds."
There are three projects in the pipeline for Cambodia, 19 active projects and three closed projects.
An aide said the committee is also looking into World Bank affiliates such as the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank.
-------- ACTIVISTS
A win-win for vegans
April 30, 2004
Letters to the Editor,
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040429-085651-2592r.htm
With fad-diet advocates urging us to eat more meat, it was great to read a piece about the benefits of a meat-free diet ("Avowedly vegan," Metropolitan, Tuesday). More and more studies find that vegetarian eating can reduce the risks of various cancers, heart disease and diabetes while effectively combating obesity. There also has never been a better time than now to try meat-free foods, especially in our nation's capital.
By eliminating meat from our diets, we are also taking a stand against animal cruelty. Each year, billions of animals raised for food live in filthy, miserable conditions; endure physical abuse; and are routinely mutilated without the use of painkillers. Adopting a vegetarian diet is a simple step we can take to remove our support from this cruel industry and promote a more compassionate world for us all.
ERICA MEIER
--------
Italians Rally After Ultimatum Is Issued On Hostages in Iraq
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55015-2004Apr29.html
VATICAN CITY, April 29 -- Several thousand demonstrators and a clutch of desperate relatives of three Italian hostages held in Iraq marched to Vatican City on Thursday, days after Iraqi kidnappers demanded that Italians protest the presence of their troops in Iraq.
Many of the marchers said they were not giving in to blackmail but were only calling for peace. Several hundred people who brought up the rear carried banners calling for the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to withdraw Italian forces and cheered what they called the victory of Iraqi guerrillas holding the city of Fallujah against an onslaught of U.S. Marines.
In an ultimatum issued Monday, the kidnappers said that unless Italians marched in Rome within five days, the three captives would be killed.
Whether the kidnappers will judge the turnout as meeting their demands remains to be seen. Further anti-war protests are expected Saturday during annual May 1 labor parades.
Pope John Paul II issued a statement calling for the release of the captives. The three, Umberto Cupertino, Salvatore Stefio and Maurizio Agliana, were among four security guards detained April 12 by a group that called itself the Green Brigades. The kidnappers killed the fourth, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, two days later.
Antonella Agliana, mother of Maurizio, insisted Thursday that the march had "no political message."
"It is just for peace," she told reporters.
Francesco Cupertino, the brother of Umberto Cupertino, issued an appeal to Italians to show "solidarity with our pain and the agony of the Iraqi people." He did not mention the kidnappers' demands. But the mayor of Sammichele di Bari, Cupertino's home town, said: "In this way, we are offering them an alibi to release Cupertino, Stefio and Agliana"
Members of Berlusconi's ruling coalition did not take part in the march. But some opposition politicians who want to bring home the 2,700 Italian paramilitary police in Iraq endorsed the march, while at the same time declaring that they were not bowing to terrorists. Piero Fassino, leader of the Democratic Left, the largest opposition party, said that participation of party members was not related to the fact that they all want to pull Italian troops from the country. Fassino said he could not attend because he had a previous engagement but would be there in his heart.
However, Massimo D'Alema, a former prime minister and another top party official, announced that he would stay away "so as not to risk being used." Other party members said they would attend and make no effort to hide that doing so was a political gesture.
The verbal maneuvering "shows there are no simple answers," said Tana de Zulueta, a senator from the Democratic Left. "Many of the politicians here today asked themselves if it was right to come. The appeal by the families was the deciding factor. It would be wrong to turn their backs on them."
Vatican officials indicated that the pope would not appear publicly because of confusion over the framework of the demonstration. They agreed to host a prayer meeting at the end of the march so long as it was held in the spirit of prayer and in silence, according to news media reports.
In his message, the pope praised people who were working to establish "full sovereignty and independence of the country," an apparent reference to U.N. efforts to create an Iraqi government that would assume authority in Iraq and end U.S. dominance there.
Relatives received word from the Chaldean Church patriarch of Iraq, Emanuele III Dally, that the hostages were safe. "In the end, I think they will be freed," he told a news agency of the Italian Bishops Conference. The Chaldeans are under the umbrella of the Vatican.
Italian newspaper interviews with Salim Kubaisi, a Sunni Muslim religious leader in Baghdad, suggested that the path to freeing the hostages was open. Kubaisi said the ultimatum was a "gift" to the Italians, because it gave time for the May 1 demonstrations to take place. Kubaisi has preached that kidnapping is against the precepts of Islam. About two dozen captives have been brought to his Baghdad mosque and released at his behest.
The kidnappings roiled an already turbulent political climate in Rome. Berlusconi came under criticism early in the hostage crisis for predicting a quick release for the captives. His appointed civilian administrator for south Iraq, Barbara Contini, suggested that the Italians had paid for the release. The hostages, however, remained in custody.
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