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NUCLEAR
Military officials dismiss depleted uranium fears
Most Japanese favor revision of pacifist statute: poll
Make safety a priority around Livermore lab
EPA, Energy Department reach agreement on K Basin sludge
Bill Backs Energy Dept. in Atomic-Waste Battle
U.S. to Give Notice on Nuclear Waste Move
MILITARY
Good condition, one careful owner
EU unlikely to lift China arms embargo soon
Macedonia Charges Ex-Official in Staging of Anti-Terror Killings
Punched, kicked, then left to die
SHAME OF ABUSE BY BRIT TROOPS
Now British army is in the dock as Allies outrage world opinion
'I asked for help and warned of this but nobody would listen'
Britain Considering More Troops in Iraq
Border town laments new EU 'curtain'
Europe Cheers Meeting of East and West
Little hope for Gypsies
US Marines insist they are still in charge in Fallujah
Marines Start Fallujah Withdrawal
Iraq Attacks Kill 4 U.S. Service Members
Iraq Complications Grow as Deadline Nears
Top Hussein Officers Vetted for New Army
Falluja Choices Exhausted, U.S. Turns to Iraqi Officer
Sharon in a Last-Minute Push for Gaza Plan
SPEECH GIVEN BY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FIDEL CASTRO RUZ
Americans Being Held at US Torture Prison in Iraq?
Soldier's diary details wider abuse at prison
Contractors in Iraq questioned about abuse
Arab Reaction to Photos of Prisoner Abuse
U.S. Tries to Calm Furor Caused by Photos
Bush Voices 'Disgust' at Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners
Iraqis see dignity crushed in prison abuse photos
Many Muslims feel prisoners' 'humiliation'
Bush's Space Initiative Stalled
Data Show Different Spy Game Since 9/11
Ex-diplomat on wife's spy identity leak
U.N. Votes To Set Up Mission In Haiti
Camp X-ray chief takes over Baghdad prison
Selective Service eyes women's draft
Program Launched For Disabled Soldiers
In Laos, Sifting the Earth for American Dead
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
F.B.I. Got Records on Air Travelers
POLITICS
Former insider takes aim at Cheney
When intelligence is disinformation
Bush Cites Racism in Remarks On Iraq
Bush Defends Year-Ago Claim Of End of 'Major Combat' in Iraq
Tutwiler's mission impossible
Mission Not Accomplished
Congress Ignores 'Dirty War' Past of New Iraq Envoy
Kerry wants NATO role in Iraq
Kerry Tells Bush to Make Goals in Iraq the World's
Iraq Veteran Will Deliver War Critique for Democrats
ENERGY
Solar ovens catching on in U.S.
ACTIVISTS
Italy demos 'win hostage safety'
Hostages ordered to cry on video
Japanese ex-hostages deny being at fault in Iraq
Fear confines Vanunu to church
300 Local Governments Slam PATRIOT Act
Ethnic Russians protest Latvia's EU entry
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Military officials dismiss depleted uranium fears
By Sandra Jontz,
Stars and Stripes European edition,
Saturday, May 1, 2004
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=21933
ARLINGTON, Va. - No U.S. troops involved in the war in Iraq are showing signs of medical problems caused by exposure to depleted uranium, Pentagon health officials said, negating recent complaints by some troops to the contrary.
Since the war started last March, about 1,000 troops who indicated they might have been exposed to depleted uranium have been tested. Of those, three who have fragments of depleted uranium ammunition in their bodies have tested positive for higher-than-normal levels, but none show adverse health consequences, said William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for Health Affairs.
Recently, National Guard soldiers from New York's 442nd Military Police Company complained of maladies from headaches to soreness, insomnia and breathing problems, and that independent medical tests of their urine showed high levels of DU.
But military-run medical tests have shown just the opposite, Winkenwerder said during a Thursday press roundtable.
Twenty-seven soldiers from the 442nd have had their urine tested.
"All 27 have normal levels of urine uranium," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director for deployment health support directorate for Health Affairs. Of those tested, the highest level of natural uranium found was 16 nanograms of per liter of urine, with the average about seven nanograms, he said. A nanogram is one billionth of a gram.
Uranium is a natural element found in the air, water, soil and even food. People have about 100 micrograms of natural uranium in their bodies, and excrete between 10 to 50 nanograms per liter of urine, Kilpatrick said.
"Servicemembers should know that the potential health risks of depleted uranium are extremely, extremely low, and we have no evidence that there are health consequences among people who, even after many years, have high levels of exposure," Winkenwerder said.
The Pentagon's assertions that DU exposure doesn't harm are false, said former Army Maj. Doug Rokke, who headed the Pentagon's depleted uranium project in the mid-1990s and now is a staunch critic of the use of DU and the Pentagon's policies allowing it.
"They're liars and the U.S. continues to lie concerning depleted uranium munitions," he said Friday in a phone interview. "Iraq joins Afghanistan and Bosnia and Vieques in being a toxic dump for depleted uranium that you just can't clean up. It's there for eternity."
He said he has 5,000 times the normal levels of radiation in his body and suffers from respiratory and other medical problems.
The U.S. military continues to use DU because of its effectiveness in penetrating armor. Depleted uranium, a byproduct of enriching uranium for nuclear fuel, is used to manufacture ammunition because, as a hard, heavy metal, can pierce armor. While 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium, it still is radioactive. DU ammunition ignites when impacting a target, and when combined with oxygen, forms toxic dust.
"The bottom line, as long as this is exterior to your body, you're not at any risk," Kilpatrick said. "And the potential of internalizing it from the environment is extremely, extremely small."
Continuous medical evaluations of roughly 70 servicemembers who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and have depleted uranium shrapnel embedded in their bodies show no health complications linked to the DU, the health officials said.
The 70 excrete between 150 nanograms to 45,000 nanograms per liter of uranium in their urine, Kilpatrick said, "and their kidneys are perfectly normal." The kidneys are the principle organs affected by DU exposure.
-------- japan
Most Japanese favor revision of pacifist statute: poll
TOKYO (AFP)
May 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040501042758.7u3cpbdx.html
A majority of Japanese people favor revising the constitution, with close to a third wanting to rewrite a pacifist clause and a tenth agreeing to the use of military force abroad, a poll showed Saturday.
Some 53 percent of 1,945 people polled by the Asahi Shimbun on April 11 and 12 said there was a need to revise the statutes, up from 47 percent in a poll taken in April 2001, the paper said.
The first majority support for constitutional revision since the paper began polling in 1955 stemmed from rising security concerns, the paper said.
"The 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States; the North Korean abduction of Japanese nationals; suspicions about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons... These appear to have accelerated interest in constitutional revision," it said.
Some 31 percent said the constitution's Article 9, in which Japan renounces war as a sovereign right, should be changed, up from 17 percent in the last poll. Some 60 percent opposed any change, down from 74 percent.
The poll was taken ahead of Monday's celebration of Constitution Day, and as some 550 of Japan's Self-Defense Forces troops continued their humanitarian and reconstruction work in southern Iraq.
Only 25 percent of those polled said the future role of Japan's military overseas should include reconstruction aid in nations where combat is continuing, "like Iraq", while 45 percent said it should be limited to UN-sponsored peacekeeping.
Some 13 percent favored the military's use of force overseas "if needed for Japanese interests", while 12 percent said the SDF should not be allowed to operate overseas at all.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
Make safety a priority around Livermore lab
Sat, May. 01, 2004
San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/8566400.htm
In studying about Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, I found that there have been several leaks of plutonium 239, the last occurring in 1967. While the level of plutonium in the soil contaminated by the last leak was below levels considered harmful, the soil had been widely distributed throughout the community before any plutonium contamination was detected.
The laboratory's management has been criticized recently for, among other things, inadequate safety plans. As the population continues to increase around the laboratory and in the East Bay, it is imperative that the laboratory has a rigorous monitoring system in place to detect leaks, and that the community has an emergency evacuation plan.
Larissa J. Lippert, 14 The Athenian School Danville
-------- washington
EPA, Energy Department reach agreement on K Basin sludge
05/01/2004
By SHANNON DININNY
Associated Press
http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D829GPI00.html
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department have reached a tentative agreement on new deadlines for cleaning up pools of spent nuclear fuel at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
The EPA had set a May 1 deadline for the Energy Department to come up with a new plan for removing radioactive sludge in the K East and West basins, or face fines of up to $500,000. The indoor, leak-prone pools of water once held 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel about 400 yards from the Columbia River. About 85 percent of the fuel has been removed.
Once the fuel is removed, what will remain is sludge from corroded spent nuclear fuel stored in the huge water-filled basin, along with dust and dirt and sloughed material from the basin walls.
The Energy Department missed a legal deadline established under the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement - the legal pact governing cleanup at Hanford - to begin removing the sludge by Dec. 31, 2002. EPA fined the agency $76,000 last year.
The new agreement will require a review by the state Department of Ecology and the public before it becomes final.
"It's unfortunate that we're so far behind on getting started on the sludge, but it's a positive that we're finally getting started," EPA spokesman Nick Ceto said Friday. "We can't go back in time and meet the deadlines they already missed, so our goal was to get an overall strategy for dealing with the sludge that was better than before."
The previous plan called for removal of all fuel, debris and water, as well as both basins, by the end of July 2007.
Under the new agreement, the deadline would be bumped to spring 2009, but a new deadline was added to remove one basin that has been known to leak by March 31, 2007.
The new plan also requires that the sludge be treated before being shipped out of state to a national waste repository, Ceto said. The waste is expected to be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The previous plan called for the sludge to be eventually removed from the basins and stored in containers at Hanford before being shipped offsite.
About 2,100 metric tons of spent fuel were stored in the K Basins, built in the 1950s to hold the highly radioactive fuel rods that came out of the N Reactor, which was used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board also has asked the Energy Department to provide a technical plan by April 30 for removal and disposal of sludge.
Colleen Clark, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said that the plan would be late but it was expected to be delivered by next week.
-------- us nuc waste
Bill Backs Energy Dept. in Atomic-Waste Battle
By MATTHEW L. WALD
May 1, 2004
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/politics/01NUKE.html
WASHINGTON, April 30 - A Senate committee is preparing to take up an Energy Department proposal that would leave millions of gallons of highly radioactive sludge in underground tanks in three states.
The legislation, which Senate aides say has wide support, is an effort to overturn a federal judge's ruling last year that the department's plan violates a law governing radioactive waste.
At issue in the debate, to be taken up by the Senate Armed Services Committee next week, are hundreds of underground tanks at three nuclear-bomb-making plants, in South Carolina, Idaho and Washington State.
The Energy Department has been removing some of the wastes from those tanks and solidifying them in glass, in preparation for burying them deep inside Yucca Mountain, the Nevada site where the department wants to establish a repository for high-level waste.
But the department has also declared that it wants to cut costs and speed the cleanup by leaving some residual waste in the tanks. At one of the three plants, the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., it has already mixed residual waste with cement and then sealed the two tanks holding them.
An environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, is suing the department, arguing that the 1992 federal law that allows the Yucca repository also requires that high-level wastes be buried deeply and not left in the tanks. A federal district judge in Boise, Idaho, agreed with the group in a ruling last July. The three states where the tanks are situated have joined the group in the suit, as has Oregon, whose border lies near the Washington plant.
The department has appealed but has also said it will cease some cleanup work until the issue is resolved. Overruling the judge by changing the law has "significant support," said a Senate staff member involved in nuclear waste issues, and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, is circulating an amendment to a military financing bill that would exempt the department from some provisions of the statute, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. It is this amendment that the Armed Services Committee is to address next week.
A lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Geoffrey Fettus, said that if the waste disposal rule was changed, the effect would be to allow "nuclear cesspools" at the weapons plants. Indeed, Mr. Fettus said, the Savannah River plant would become the most polluted nuclear site on earth.
The Energy Department has argued that cleaning out the tanks completely is too slow and expensive a process to be practical. Mr. Graham's proposal would allow the energy secretary to decide what was clean enough.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Graham said that the State of South Carolina was near completion of an agreement with the Energy Department giving the state veto power over cleanup plans, and that his amendment would give legislative authorization to such arrangements.
The senator said that allowing the Energy Department to leave some waste in place would save billions of federal dollars over the next 20 years. Environmentalists oppose the idea, he said, only because they want to "create as many impediments as possible to remediating nuclear waste" and so make it harder to build new nuclear reactors for electric power.
----
U.S. to Give Notice on Nuclear Waste Move
May 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Waste-Fernald.html
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- The Energy Department promised Friday to give Nevada officials 45 days' notice before shipping radioactive waste from a former uranium-processing plant in Ohio to a desert disposal facility.
The announcement prompted state officials to declare success in their effort to halt shipments from the plant to the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles north of Las Vegas. But an Energy Department official said the government still plans to send Nevada the most dangerous waste remaining at the former Fernald plant, about 20 miles northwest of Cincinnati. Fernald processed uranium from 1951 until 1989 for use in government reactors to produce nuclear weapons.
``We have a schedule,'' department spokesman Joe Davis said. ``The exchange of letters does not, in our opinion, upset the schedule.''
Davis declined to say when shipments might begin and described Friday's promise as ``trying to be responsive to the state of Nevada.''
Nevada officials threatened earlier this month to sue in federal court to stop the shipments if the Energy Department did not respond by April 30.
``They blinked,'' said Marta Adams, a senior deputy Nevada attorney general. ``We're delighted that (the Department of Energy) decided to rethink this ill-conceived plan.''
The Energy Department has been moving low-level radioactive wastes from Fernald to the Nevada site for years. But Nevada officials say higher-level radioactive waste, including uranium ore sludge and powdery metallic production wastes, will need a more secure disposal site with lined pits.
The test site, a federal reservation larger than Rhode Island, is administered by the National Nuclear Security Administration, a branch of the Energy Department.
The state also has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an emergency order to stop the shipments. Commission officials in Rockville, Md., did not immediately respond Friday to messages seeking comment.
Nevada also is battling the government in federal court over plans to open a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, on the western edge of the test site.
On the Net:
Nevada Attorney General: http://www.ag.state.nv.us
Fernald: http://www.fernald.gov
Nevada Test Site: http://www.nv.doe.gov/nts
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms
Good condition, one careful owner
By Brian Robins and Gerard Ryle
May 1, 2004
Sydney Morning Heral
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/30/1083224588605.html
It is supposed to be the tank that can't be blown up, which is why the Government will spend $550 million to buy 59 of them. Yet the Abrams tank is not invincible. TV footage from Iraq last month showed the burnt-out wreck of an Abrams, while a missile from a Russian-made Kornet anti-tank launcher holed its supposedly impenetrable armour during last year's invasion.
The tanks' huge weight and the impossibility of defending tanks against new-generation anti-tank weapons have encouraged more and more armies - including the US, and most recently Canada - to opt for alternatives such as mobile armoured gun units.
New-generation tanks weigh more than 60 tonnes, which means they have to be shipped to the action, rather than airlifted. This reduces severely the quick-strike capability of armed forces. They also have limited manoeuvrability, especially in urban fighting.
True, the tanks Australia is buying will not have depleted uranium armour, making them 700 kilograms lighter. However, the replacement skin, made of advanced composites, gives less protection to crews. Depleted uranium is extremely hard, hence its effectiveness as armour.
The cost of the tanks means that we can afford only 59, a significant reduction from the 100 Leopard tanks in Australia's armed forces. After taking out those needed for training plus those in need of maintenance and repairs, the actual fighting force will be only about half the total bought. Also the Abrams will be in service for a little over a decade - in 2012 the army is to decide on a $1.5 billion round of spending on a new fleet of armoured vehicles.
And our Abrams tanks will be second-hand.
"In every case they have been refurbished to as-new condition," says Dr Stephen Gumley, the head of the Defence Materiel Organisation. "And if you can get something for half price, and it is refurbished to as-new condition, then clearly you are getting greater value for money for the Commonwealth. Military technology is expensive and we have got to get the best deal we can."
Defence argues that there will be no delays in bringing the new tank into service because it will be an "off-the-shelf" purchase, avoiding the technical problems that have plagued a host of earlier acquisitions when the equipment is "Australianised".
"We wanted low risk," says Brigadier Mike Clifford from the army. "We didn't want to get caught creating something uniquely Australian or creating technical risk." But doubts remain.
"They start as off-the-shelf purchases, but once approved, Defence insists upon changes," says Gary Brown, a senior associate at the consultancy Stratwise. Others, such as former senior Defence staffer Hugh White are unsure about the future role of tanks in armed forces.
----
EU unlikely to lift China arms embargo soon
By Axel Berkofsky,
May 1, 2004
Asia Times
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/FE01Ad06.html
BRUSSELS - Is the European Union going to get rid of its weapons embargo imposed on China after Beijing decided to use the People's Liberation Army against the people, violently crushing peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, 1989? The anniversary is just around the corner.
A noncommittal "maybe, but not just yet", was the message from this week's meeting of the European Union (EU) Council's foreign ministers in Luxembourg. After the weapons embargo issue failed to make it onto the agenda of the last EU Council meeting in late March, the EU foreign ministers, the EU's High Representative for the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Javier Solana and other high-ranking EU Commission officials decided to discuss the issue over a "working lunch" this week, an indication the sensitive issue is receiving a lower level of official focus, or at least out of the media spotlight.
The EU, however, is considering modifying its nonbinding weapons sale code of conduct for China. It opposes sales to end users who abuse human rights or who use arms to suppress dissent or undertake international aggression. The code, however, does not carry the force of law and is open to the interpretation of member states; it only requires states to inform each other about arms export licenses they intend to issue to China. Some observers had said that if the arms embargo were to be lifted, the code of conduct would still prohibit sales to China, but that does not appear to be the case, since EU states retain discretion.
China has been urging the EU to scrap the embargo - imposed because of the Tiananmen human rights abuses - ever since German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder promised Beijing last December that getting rid of the ban was "only a matter of time". EU foreign ministers, however, did little more than delegate the controversial issue to a lower level at their embassies in Brussels.
When visiting China last December, the German chancellor not only promised to do his very best to get the EU embargo lifted soon, but also agreed to have an entire German plutonium factory dismantled and delivered to China in 2004. While the German business delegation traveling with the chancellor at the time was delighted with the Schroeder initiative to boost German-Chinese business ties, the public and the political opposition on the home front was less than enthusiastic.
Only some time ago, Germany decided to dismantle its nuclear power plants before 2010. Shipping second-hand plutonium factories to China and elsewhere is certainly not acceptable, claimed the critics. Earlier this week and under intense domestic pressure, the German government announced it would indefinitely postpone the factory's disassembly and shipment to China,
Luxembourg lunch: China arms on the menu
Back to the Luxembourg lunch: "The Council requested," the official summary of the lunch time discussions reads, "the Permanent Representatives Committee [Committee of EU member states' ambassadors] and the Political and Security Committee [ambassadors plus military officials from EU member states] to take the issue forward."
On Saturday, 10 new countries will officially join the EU: Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. That means further delays, so lifting the embargo won't get any easier for China, says Frank Umbach, security analyst and resident fellow at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations.
"If finding a consensus amongst 15 EU members to deal with the embargo is already difficult, getting 25 EU countries to agree on such a controversial issue might become next to impossible," he told Asia Times Online.
Already one week before the EU Council meeting in Luxembourg, Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen told his Chinese counterpart that attempts to exert intense pressure on the EU to lift the ban against weapons sales to China are unlikely to pay off in the near future.?
"I have given to my Chinese colleague this presidency's frank assessment that we don't believe - as things stand - that a decision is likely during our presidency," Cowen said when meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing at the Asia-Europe ministerial meeting in Straffan, Ireland, on April 20. Li dismissed the bad news nonchalantly, indicating that Beijing is prepared to wait. "All good things take time. It is all up to our European friends," he said, knowing that France and Germany share Beijing's perception that the embargo is "outdated" and "has served its time".
China's state-controlled media was optimistic, announcing weeks before the EU Council meeting in Luxembourg that the EU "will very likely" make a decision to lift the embargo. French state-of-art Mirage jets and stealthy German submarines could be on the way to China before too long, China's official People's Daily cheered earlier in April.
Wishful thinking, at least for the time being, and Ireland, currently holding the rotating EU presidency, is unlikely to lose much, if any, sleep over a decision to lift the embargo. Instead, Dublin would prefer to leave the issue up to the incoming Dutch presidency beginning in July, says John Quigley, Brussels representative of the Dublin-based Institute for European Affairs. "Ireland has enough on its plate both with the EU's enlargement and the stalled talks on a European constitution to worry about Franco-German ambitions to lift the embargo," he told Asia Times Online.
Dutch support arms embargo, cite human rights
The Netherlands, for its part, is still opposed to lifting the embargo and has a standing parliamentary resolution that keeps the embargo in place until China comes up with clear and specific evidence that its human rights record has improved "significantly".
"Human rights, however, are unfortunately not on top of China's EU agenda," an EU Council source tells Asia Times Online.
Already in 1996, Brussels and Beijing established a human rights dialogue, progress in which ranges from "absent" to "very limited", as some EU diplomats complain, very much off the record.
Despite the EU Council's decision to put the weapons embargo on the back burner until further notice, a majority of EU foreign ministers present in Luxembourg seemed in favor of lifting the embargo, provided the EU's Code of [arms sales] Conduct, has, in EU lingo, "sufficient safeguards".
In the meantime, the EU Council will charge one of its own working groups with reviewing and possibly modifying the current Code of Conduct to "keep the criticism and controversy in check", an EU Council official said. The inner-Council's so-called Working Party on Conventional Arms (COARM) is expected to address United States concerns that the "right" interpretation of the Code of Conduct will enable France and other EU members to export weapons and weapons technology to China if the embargo is lifted.
The EU Code of Conduct, updated in 1998, obliges all EU member states to inform each other about arms export licenses they issue to China and sets out clear criteria for granting those licenses. Although not legally binding, the code stipulates that EU weapons licenses cannot be issued if the recipient country violates human rights or international law, uses the weapons for internal repression or international aggression.
While EU Council officials hope that COARM will convince alarmed US policy-makers that the code is more than a flexible gentlemen's agreement, others believe that the US is likely to alert and opposed to modifying the code for some time and wants to add the issue of dual-use technology exports to the EU-US agenda.
Dual-use technology the 'real' export issue
Dual-use technology exports provide China with technology and hardware, capable of being used for military or civilian applications, and that is indeed the "real issue", Umbach claims. "The current Code of Conduct," he maintains, "is completely insufficient to prevent EU member states from exporting militarily sensitive dual-use technology to China and elsewhere."
China is already the EU's second largest trading partner with bilateral trade accounting for roughly US$150 billion in 2003. Franco-Chinese bilateral trade amounts to an annual $13 billion and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), a Franco-German arms manufacturer, is keen to get a big slice of the pie. EADS is reported already to have shown vivid interest in selling weapons and weapons technology to China, including radar and possibly air-to-air missiles.
Roger Cliff and Evan S Medeiros, political scientists at the Washington-based RAND Corporation, fear European high-tech weapons exports to China could resume quickly, once the EU jettisons the embargo.
"European technology transfers before 1989 played a key role in enabling China to develop modern surface-to-air and air-to-air missile systems," they write in the International Herald Tribune. Lifting the EU embargo, they claim, would further boost the modernization of China military which is "largely aimed at preparing for a potential conflict with Taiwan".
Updating China's missile program by introducing and deploying precision-guided missiles is part of these efforts, and the EU's Galileo radio satellite navigation system might just be what China is waiting for, says Steve Tsang, reader in politics at St Anthony's College, Oxford University.
At the sixth EU-China summit in Beijing last October, China signed up to jointly develop Galileo with the EU, but China is mainly interested in the military use of the system, Tsang writes in the Far Eastern Economic Review.
China wants Galileo alternative to US GPS
"China's keen interest in the EU's Galileo radio satellite project is mainly driven by the prospect of acquiring an alternative to the American-operated Global Positioning System (GPS) for its version of the US Joint Direct Attack Munitions [JDAM]," said Tsang. The US' JDAM is a GPS-guided "smart bomb" that can be produced inexpensively and, unlike conventional missiles, is able to evade missile defense systems.
Indeed, the EU and US could become rivals over the Chinese arms market, says David Shambaugh, director of the China policy program in the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington. Lifting the EU arms embargo, Shambaugh warns in the Financial Times, might put pressure on the US administration to lift its own restrictions, opening up the lucrative Chinese market to the US weapons manufacturers.
"No doubt the American defense industry would like to make sales if permitted, and if EU companies begin to do so, then the domestic pressure may grow to relax the US sanctions to permit competition," he writes.
Alarmism aside, lifting the embargo would probably be more "symbolic than of substance", an EU Council official cautions. "As the EU wants China to become a 'strategic partner'," the official said, "China's ambitions to get off the list of countries subject to EU weapons embargoes is understandable."
Apart from China, the EU imposed weapons embargoes on Sudan, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.
Beijing's policy makers have long insisted that the embargo is a "relict of the Cold War", standing in the way of Brussels' goal to establish a "strategic partnership" with Beijing, envisioned in the EU's recently published security strategy paper, titled "A Secure Europe in a Better World", carrying Javier Solana's signature. Although the paper calls for a "strategic partnership" with China in the context of the EU's CFSP, it provides no details on the how and what of EU-China security cooperation.
While many analysts believe that the envisioned security partnership is very unlikely to go beyond the paper tiger stage any time soon, France for its part didn't wait for Brussels bureaucrats to walk the talk.
Without consulting EU member states, Paris decided to stage naval military exercises with China only a few days before Taiwan's presidential elections on March 20. The joint military drills took place off Qingdao, about 800 miles from Taiwan's northernmost point, and led to strong criticism from Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian, who accused France of "willing to be used" by China.
Washington, of course, believes that France has a hidden agenda when pushing to lift the EU weapons embargo. Paris, the US government claims, is engaged in backdoor geopolitics seeking to secure Chinese support for its opposition against US unilateralism. Beijing and Paris announcing their support for the concept of a "multipolar world" confirmed this suspicion to a US administration that has made France-bashing a way of life, ever since Paris opposed the US invasion of Iraq.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao will visit Brussels in May and more Chinese inquiries on the weapons embargo are in the offing, EU observers say.
Additional Chinese patience, however, might be required, given that EU leaders are, at least for the time being, unlikely to help China threaten Taiwan, which it calls a breakaway province, with European weaponry. Principles over business in Brussels, until further notice.
Dr Axel Berkofsky is a research fellow and policy analyst at the Brussels-based European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) where he is dealing with EU-Asia/EU-Japan Relations. He also teaches EU-Asia relations/East Asian and Japanese security at European universities and think tanks.
-------- balkans
Macedonia Charges Ex-Official in Staging of Anti-Terror Killings
May 1, 2004
By NICHOLAS WOOD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/international/europe/01MACE.html
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia, April 30 - Macedonia charged its former minister of the interior on Friday with staging the killing of seven South Asian migrants two years ago, in an attempt to show the United States that the government was actively supporting the campaign against terror.
The minister, Ljube Boskovksi, was accused with three senior police commanders of ordering the murder of six Pakistanis and an Indian close to the capital, Skopje, in March 2002. Two other police officers and a businessman have also been charged.
The killings were described recently by senior Western diplomats as a crude attempt by the government to win a free hand to deal harshly with Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority, which had won major civil rights concessions from the government after a 2001 conflict.
At the time, Mr. Boskovski said the police had foiled a plot by the National Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian guerrilla group, to attack the American, British and German Embassies. The men had been killed, he said, when they opened fire on a police patrol.
When news of the deaths was first announced, photographs were shown of the men with pistols stuffed in their pockets.
New automatic rifles wrapped in plastic were put on display along with new uniforms marked with the insignia of the guerrilla group, all of which the police said had been found with the dead men.
Mr. Boskovski was interior minister until September 2002 when his Macedonian nationalist party was voted out of office in parliamentary elections.
Former ethnic Albanian guerrillas are now members of a coalition government with a center left Macedonian party.
Before the charges were announced, Mr. Boskovski denied he had allowed the killing of civilians.
"Before I'm taken into custody, I solemnly declare I'm telling you the truth," he told reporters, according to Reuters. "I have not given any such order to eliminate such a group. There was no order to kill civilians."
-------- britain
Punched, kicked, then left to die
Iraqi detainee 'beaten and urinated upon' as accusations of widespread mistreatment spread to UK forces
Saturday May 1, 2004
The Guardian
Matthew Taylor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1207569,00.html
The British Army was at the centre of new torture allegations last night after pictures showed an Iraqi prisoner being battered with rifle butts, threatened with execution and urinated on by British soldiers.
The shocking images drew immediate condemnation from the prime minister and led the Ministry of Defence to launch an investigation.
The prisoner - thought to have been a thief - had his jaw broken and his teeth smashed during an eight-hour ordeal after being arrested near the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Bleeding and vomiting, he was eventually driven away from the army camp, still hooded, and thrown off the back of a moving vehicle. He was not charged with an offence and it is not known whether he lived or died.
The photographs were given to the Mirror newspaper by soldiers who said the horrific treatment of prisoners was widespread and was one of the main reasons why coalition forces faced such fierce opposition in Iraq.
One told the newspaper: "We are not helping ourselves out there. We are never going to get them on our side. We are fighting a losing war."
Last night the chief of general staff, General Sir Michael Jackson, condemned the incident.
Sir Michael 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."
A soldier who witnessed the man's arrest and beating told the Mirror how the prisoner had been held during a raid on suspected thieves at Basra docks in southern Iraq.
"We just caught the one guy that time. Straight away, he gets a beating - a couple of punches and kicks to put him down. Then he was dragged to the back of the vehicle." A sandbag was placed over the man's head and his hands tied.
The soldier said the man had been hit with batons. "You normally try to leave off the face until you are in camp," he told the Mirror. "If you pull up with black eyes and bleeding faces, you could be in a bit of shit. So it is body shots, just scaring him."
The prisoner was kept for around eight hours while the beatings were carried out. The photographs show him being bludgeoned with rifle butts in the head and groin.
A gunbarrel is placed in the prisoner's mouth through the bag on his head, while others kick and stamp on him. One soldier urinates on him.
In the final few photographs the man is barely conscious, his shirt torn, while vomit seeps through the sack on his head.
The soldier, who admits he took part in the attack, said the man was pleading with the others to stop.
"He could speak a few words, 'No mister, no mister.' What I did was less than others, but yes, I joined in." The soldier said he feared the man would die. "He was dying, basically, so he could not take any more, so basically they threw him out."
"One of the officers came down to get him and it was like, a bit of a mini-bollocking, but nothing really. Then it was, 'Get rid of him, I've not seen him. The paperwork gets ripped."
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SHAME OF ABUSE BY BRIT TROOPS
Rogue British troops batter Iraqis in mockery of bid to win over people
By Paul Byrne
May 1 2004
UK Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14199634%26method=full%26siteid=50143%26headline=shame%2dof%2dabuse%2dby%2dbrit%2dtroops-name_page.html
A HOODED Iraqi captive is beaten by British soldiers before being thrown from a moving truck and left to die.
The prisoner, aged 18-20, begged for mercy as he was battered with rifle butts and batons in the head and groin, was kicked, stamped and urinated on, and had a gun barrel forced into his mouth.
After an EIGHT-HOUR ordeal, he was left barely conscious and close to death. Bleeding and vomiting and with a broken jaw and missing teeth, he was driven from a Basra camp and hurled off the truck. No one knows if he lived or died.
URINATED ON: A British soldier urinates on an Iraqi prisoner in a vile display of abuse. The captive was beaten and hurled from a moving truck. Army chiefs are investigating.
The shocking pictures on this page were handed to us by one of the attackers and a colleague. We have agreed to protect their identities as they fear reprisals.
Last night, their damning testimony was in the hands of appalled ministers and Army chiefs who pledged an urgent investigation.
Chief of the General Staff General Sir Michael Jackson said: "If this is proven, the perpetrators are not fit to wear the Queen's uniform. They have besmirched the good name of the Army and its honour."
No 10 said: "The Prime Minister fully endorses the general's statement."
The outrage, which emerged the day after US troops were pictured torturing Iraqi prisoners of war, makes a mockery of the Army's attempts to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
GUN TO HEAD: The terrified suspect cowers as a gun is placed at his head - then the rifle barrel was forced into his mouth
Army chiefs believe it was an isolated incident involving a few rogue troops. But, it is claimed, officers turned a blind eye. One of the soldiers said: "Basically this guy was dying as he couldn't take any more. An officer came down. It was 'Get rid of him - I haven't seen him'. The paperwork gets ripped. So they threw him out, still with a bag on his head."
Weeks after the pictures were taken, a captive was allegedly beaten to death in custody by men from the same Queen's Lancashire Regiment. It is also alleged a video was found of prisoners being thrown off a bridge.
Soldier A told how the young victim was hauled in suspected of stealing from the docks.
He said: "You pick on a man and go for him. Straightaway he gets a beating, a couple of punches and kicks to put him down. Then he was dragged to the back of the vehicle."
Immediately a sandbag was placed over the man's head and his hands tied behind his back.
Soldier A said:
As we took him back he was getting a beating. He was hit with batons on the knees, fingers, toes, elbows, and head.
You normally try to leave off the face until you're in camp. If you pull up with black eyes and bleeding faces you could be in s#!t.
"So it's body shots - scaring him, saying 'We're going to kill you'. A lot of them cry and p!$$ themselves.
Because it was so hot we put him in the back of a four- tonner truck which has a canopy over it. That's where the photos were taken. Lads were taking turns giving him a right going over, smashing him in the face with weapons and stamping on him. We had him for about eight hours.
BLEEDING: Blood seeps through the mask of battered suspect
You could see blood coming out early from the first 'digs'. He was p!$$#d on and there was spew.
"We took his mask off to give him some water and let him have a rest for 10 minutes. He could only speak a few words, pleading 'No, mister' . No, mister'.
I did less than the others. But I joined in. Me and my mate calmed down. Then two lads come on and it starts again.
"He was missing teeth. All his mouth was bleeding and his nose was all over the place. He couldn't talk, his jaw was out. He's had a good few hours of a kicking. He was on his way to being killed. There's only so much you can take.
After the officer allegedly told the attackers to get rid of the suspect he was driven off.
Soldier A said: "The lads said they took him back to the dock and threw him off the back of a moving vehicle. They'd have freed his hands, but he'd still be hooded. He'd done nothing, really. I felt sorry for him. I'm not emotional about it, but I knew it was wrong."
Referring to the second alleged beating in custody - said to have taken place in September - Soldier B said: "It was only a matter of time.
BUTT IN GROIN: A rifle is cruelly jabbed in the young man's groin as his eight-hour nightmare goes on
"We had one who fought back. I thought 'Don't do that', it's the worst thing you can do. He got such a kicking. You could hear your mate's boots hitting this lad's spine.
"One of the lads broke his wrist on a prisoner's head. Another nearly broke his foot, kicking him. We're not helping ourselves out here. We're never going to get the Iraqis on our side. We're fighting a losing war."
Soldier B claimed after the alleged September beating troops were told to destroy incriminating evidence.
He said: "We got a warning, saying the Military Police had found a video of people throwing prisoners off a bridge. It wasn't 'Don't do it' or 'Stop it'. It was 'Get rid of it.' "
The death is being probed. At least one soldier is expected to be charged with manslaughter.
The two infantrymen claim abuse has started because Iraqi police are powerless to process suspects.
Soldier B said: "There's no point taking them to the police station because they're released within 20 minutes. The coppers don't want any comeback and let them go. All we do is teach them a lesson our way.
"You're knackered and you don't want to be going to a police station and doing statements, just for them to be released. Give them a kicking, then it's done and dusted.
"A lot of the younger ones are worse. It's as though they've something to prove. You've got a gun and you're the law. You can make people do whatever you want."
Both men fear the situation is worsening , with UK troops now seen as the enemy, rather than liberators.
One said: "I can't believe it has taken the Iraqis so long to fight back. If it had been me or my family, I'd have retaliated straightaway.
"They've just got f####d around so much. You can't go in now, and say 'Right, let's forget about what has happened and start again'.
"We're struggling now. There are too many people against us."
The MoD confirmed eight cases of alleged mistreatment of Iraqis by British personnel are being investigated by the army's Special Investigations Branch. A spokesman said: "All allegations will be investigated - and every soldier knows it."
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Now British army is in the dock as Allies outrage world opinion
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
01 May 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=517052
As pictures of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners caused outrage across the world yesterday, human rights rights campaigners warned that they were just the tip of the iceberg.
The international rights group Amnesty International claimed it had received numerous accounts of torture and illegal detention by troops.
The US and British Governments said the American pictures represented the isolated actions of a handful of renegade GIs. But, hours later, the allegations of a more widespread problem were given dramatic support, with the emergence of a second, even more shocking set of photographs. This time, the pictures were of British soldiers appearing to beat up and urinate on an Iraqi detainee.
The two sets of images are likely to be disastrous for the Alliance's attempts to pacify Iraq, endangering itstroops in the country and shattering what remains of its standing in the Arab world.
Already, the firestorm over the pictures may have had an impact on the broader military strategy in Iraq. Quite possibly the first images influenced the decision to pull back the US Marines from Fallujah just a few days after those same commanders were insisting that insurgents would be crushed, and those responsible for the murder there of four US security contractors on 31 March would be brought to justice.
Instead, the US has been obliged to enlist a general from Saddam's disbanded Republican Guard to head an all-Iraqi force in the city, and the insurgents can claim a moral victory.
Even beforehand, General John Abizaid, who is in overall charge of US military operations in Iraq, was privately warning the White House that the subjugation of Fallujah might lead to more, not less, resistance across Iraq.
That calculation would surely have been doubly true had a full-scale military assault followed the revelation of the demeaning treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Now, even assuming a "peaceful" solution in Fallujah, the prison abuse footage will be used by opponents of the US to turn public opinion decisively against the occupation.
The new Iraq, it was said, would be different from Saddam's dictatorship. Now it transpires that the US military has been conducting its own admittedly less murderous maltreatment of the Iraqis it was supposed to be rescuing, in the Abu Ghraib prison that was the symbol of Saddam's repression.
Yesterday the prison pictures were being shown on television throughout the Arab world by the cable channel al-Jazeera, which denounced the "immoral practices" of Iraq's occupation forces.
Among the images were those of a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands, and a pile of naked prisoners entwined as if engaged in a sex act. Most humiliating of all perhaps, for a culture in which male nudity is considered shaming, was the footage shown by al-Jazeera and the al-Arabiya station of a young female soldier, grinning and apparently smoking a cigarette, standing near a hooded naked prisoner and pointing at his genitals.
Maybe, as their lawyers claim, the six military policemen who are facing criminal charges were poorly trained and acting on the orders of superiors. These latter include intelligence officers and private-sector "investigators" hired by the Pentagon, who had told the low-ranking soldiers to soften up the prisoners and then congratulated them for the "fantastic job" they were doing.
Maybe the soldiers had not been properly trained, and were badly supervised. Such niceties may mitigate their punishment by a court martial. But they will surely be lost on Arab public opinion. So too will the expression of "deep disgust" by President George Bush yesterday, and his insistence that the servicemen responsible "do not reflect the true nature of the American people ... or the nature of the men and women we send overseas". For all too many people in the Arab people, one suspects, they do.
Even without mentioning the prison abuse controversy, Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, described the situation in Iraq as "disintegration verging on collapse". On Capitol Hill too, the voices of protest have been drowned out by partisan exchanges to mark the first anniversary of Mr Bush's "mission accomplished" appearance on an aircraft carrier flight deck, and the grim daily tidings from Iraq, where more US soldiers died in April than in the seven-week-long war last year.
One exception was the Republican congressman Jim Leach of Iowa, an opponent of the war. "The US has historically prided itself on treating prisoners of war with decency and respect," he said. "This has to be investigated, and accountability obtained, within the American military justice system."
The US authorities are trying to repair the damage. The commander of Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba another US military prison where the treatment of detainees has drawn fierce controversy will take charge of the various detention centres in Iraq.
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq, has also ordered administrative punishment for seven officers who supervised the six military policemen who have been charged. But this will not resolve the issue of the privately contracted security personnel estimated to number 20,000 in Iraq whose relationship with the US military is as murky as their legal status.
Five Democratic senators are now demanding a formal inquiry into the activities of private military contractors, virtually unregulated by the federal government.
But the damage, almost certainly, has been done.
SOLDIERS IN SHAME
Brigadier General Janis Karpinski
Put in charge of the Iraqi prison system last June, General Karpinski, left, the commander of the 800th military police brigade, is the only female of her rank in Iraq.
Karpinski, who has been suspended,faces possible disciplinary action and could face a court-martial.
Karpinski, 50, is a reservist who served in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War. Before her suspension she was in charge of 15 jails and had 3,400 troops under her command. She is married to a lieutenant colonel who is based at the US embassy in Oman.
In civilian life Karpinski runs corporate executive training programmes. Ivan 'Chip' Frederick, 37, who is among six officers facing a court martial from the 800th brigade's 372nd unit, is a correctional officer who has been in the reserves for 20 years. His lawyer said "higher ranking people" taught him how to humiliate Arabs. Frederick is the only soldier involved in the abuse to have spoken on camera to 60 Minutes.
Lynndie England, 21, is one of the soldiers who were photographed hamming it up in front of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners. She told her mother in January just before the charges were laid about potential problems with the prisoners.
Jeremy C Sivits from the same unit, told his father he "was told" to take the pictures.
Sgt Javal S Davis Sgt Davis, 26, who faces court martial, has been in the region since February 2003. His wife Zeenethia, also an army reservist, says he believes he is a scapegoat.
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'I asked for help and warned of this but nobody would listen'
Saturday May 1, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1207452,00.html
After an investigation was launched into the alleged abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick decided to keep a journal to ensure his side of the story would be revealed. The journals seen by the Guardian begin on January 19 2004 and detail the conditions of the prisoners, apparent torture, and the death of one inmate after interrogation.
· Prison conditions
"Prisoners were forced to live in damp cool cells. MI [military intelligence] 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. MI personnel and even CID agents were present at these times. On or about the first week of Jan 2004 ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] was to make an appearance at the facility. Prisoners that were not processed were rushed out to processing immediately to be processed. I pulled Lt Col Phillabaum aside while he was in 1A. I questioned him about how MI wants things done and about how prisoners were being treated in 1A/B. His reply was "Don't worry about it." I have asked for support from BN [battalion] and the company as to dealing with certain prisoners' behaviour and have received nothing."
"I had a few small rooms within the tiers ... I was often told to place them in these rooms that were as small as 3ft by 3ft. When I brought this up with the acting BN commander he stated "I don't care if he has to sleep standing up." "Prisoners were forced to sleep in areas not suitable, such as tents that had water in them from rain, only 2 or 3 blankets to shield them from the weather. A prisoner with a clearly visible mental condition was shot with non-lethal rounds for standing near the fence singing when a lesser means of force could have been used."
"The hardsite never knew who to accept or not to accept. MI prisoners were left in cells for as many as 60 days before their handler would ever know that they were there."
· Use of dogs
"MI has encouraged and told us great job that they were now getting positive results and information. CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI's request. [A] CID agent told the soldier working 1A to stress one prisoner out as much as possible that he wanted to talk to him the next day. On the 18th Jan 2004 an unruly prisoner with a broken arm. The prisoner was placed in a head lock and choked out in the presence of CID agent team."
· Death in custody
"Back around Nov an OGA prisoner was brought to 1A. 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 24 hours in the shower in the 1B. The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away. This OGA was never processed and therefore never had a number."
· Health facilities
"There was a large breakout of body lice among many prisoners. Only solution given was razors.
"Prisoners that were infected with TB were housed in the same tier as other prisoners and ... the soldiers to be possibly infected by this airborne virus.
· Freedom of religious expression
"Prisoners have a mosque at the facility but are not allowed the privilege to go to it."
Two emails, one written before the abuse was discovered and one after are also telling.
· December 18, 2003
Email to Mimi Frederick
"It is very interresting (sic) to watch them interrogate these people. They don't usually allow others to watch them interrogate but since they like the way I run the prison they make an exception ...
We have had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually end up breaking within hours ..."
· January 22, 2004
"Dear Mimi,
I am feeling so bad at how the army has come down on me. They always said that shit rolls downhill and guess who is at the bottom? I have asked for help and warned of this and nobody would listen. I told the battalion commander that I didn't like the way it was going and his reply was 'Don't worry about it. I give you permission to do it'.
"I just wish I could talk to someone about what is going on but I was ordered not to talk to anyone besides my attorney and CID. As far as trusting someone, DON'T."
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Britain Considering More Troops in Iraq
May 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Iraq.html
LONDON (AP) -- Britain is considering sending more troops to Iraq to fill the gap created by Spain's withdrawal of its 1,300 soldiers, an official in Prime Minister Tony Blair's government said Saturday.
But Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that no decision had been taken and no formal request has been made.
``That is something which clearly has to be considered given the fact that there is now a changed situation on the ground because of the withdrawal of the Spanish forces,'' Ingram said when asked if Britain would send more soldiers to Iraq.
``We are in discussion with our coalition partners in all of this.''
There are about 7,500 British soldiers in southern Iraq. On Tuesday, Blair appeared to rule out sending more, saying Britain had ``sufficient troops to do the job.'' However, he added that the situation was being reviewed.
Ingram denied that the situation had changed enough in recent days to make Britain reconsider.
``We do believe we have sufficient presence there at this time, but evolving situations require different determinations,'' he said.
Also on Saturday, a former British foreign secretary criticized Blair's policy on Iraq and said the U.S.-led coalition was losing control of the situation there.
Lord Hurd, foreign secretary under Conservative prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major in 1989-1995, told the BBC that the decision to invade Iraq was a ``basic mistake'' and the situation now is ``in a nose-dive.''
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Border town laments new EU 'curtain'
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Megan McCloskey
May 01, 2004
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20040430-115503-6496r.htm
The shadow of the old Iron Curtain grew darker for residents along the Ukraine-Slovakia border yesterday, even as millions of people elsewhere celebrated the European Union's enlargement with 10 new nations.
Since the time of Stalin, a barbed-wire divide has run through main street in the small village of Szelmenc, trapping friends and family members on opposite sides.
But a 60-year quest by villagers to have a border crossing in the town became a lot more complicated at midnight (6 p.m. EDT yesterday) when Slovakia and nine other countries became members of the European Union.
Szelmenc exemplifies a larger issue facing Europe.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a more elusive economic divide replaced the physical separation.
The new borders exaggerate the problem as opportunities for Eastern Europe will be vastly better in those nations now in the European Union.
Millions of people throughout Europe yesterday celebrated the European Union's expansion into a potential economic and political powerhouse of 25 nations and 450 million citizens.
But the legacy of the Soviet Union continued to affect the daily lives of the residents of Szelmenc - or Solontsi on the Ukrainian side and Velke Slemence on the Slovakian side.
"Both villages are dead-end streets," Lajos Toth, mayor of the Slovakian side, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill recently.
Development has stalled on both sides, leaving the village populated by ethnic Hungarians with crumbling streets and no public lighting.
Even before yesterday if a villager in Ukraine wanted to visit a friend on the other side in Slovakia, he had to apply for a visa a couple weeks in advance, pay $35, and then travel to Cierna - a day's journey from the village - just to get to a house he could see from his window.
The Soviet Union created the peculiar situation in 1944 to push its territory as far west as possible, said Miklos Zelei, a Hungarian author who wrote a book about Szelmenc.
Family members caught on opposite sides were not allowed to go home.
On the Ukraine side, the only public facilities are a Catholic Church and a grocery store, said its mayor, Jozsef Illar.
Moreover, officials from both sides said relationships between family members are quickly being lost. When someone dies, the casket is brought up to the fence so loved ones on the other side can say their goodbyes.
Under EU law, Slovakia had to institute visas with Ukraine, which went into effect in June of 2000.
Before that, when Ukraine had grown accustomed to an open border with Slovakia, Szelmenc had been left behind because the nearest border crossing was 30 miles away.
Since the border between the two countries is now an external border of the European Union, building a border crossing in the village is even more complicated.
EU member countries no longer have internal border checks; traveling among the countries is similar to crossing state lines in the United States.
In an age of global terrorism, free travel within the European Union makes its outside borders important to security, and therefore all border crossings along the perimeter of the union must be full-fledged, international checkpoints requiring passports - and visas from certain neighboring countries.
With some of the 15-member European Union ambivalent about yesterday's expansion and with thwarting terrorism a top priority, the 10 new EU nations have a tightrope to walk in terms of border control.
There is a fear of being labeled as having a weak border, said Rastislav Kacer, Slovakia's ambassador to the United States.
Slovakia has to balance its desire to help the villagers of Szelmenc without facilitating illegal immigration or undermining security, he said.
Addressing the challenges facing the newly enlarged European Union, the bloc is considering legislation that would allow Szelmenc and other border towns to have a pedestrian border crossing for local residents.
The U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus, considers the plight of the villagers a humanitarian issue.
On March 29, members of the caucus wrote a letter to the leaders of both countries to encourage a solution.
Slovakia was behind the original Iron Curtain, which separated Soviet-bloc nations such as Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia from Western Europe.
The divided village represented another aspect of the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union sought further separation from its Eastern European satellites.
However, Olexander Scherba, counselor for the Ukraine Embassy, said, "Ukraine doesn't see it as a Yalta problem. This is a reflection of the new danger facing Eastern Europe."
The Slovak side of Szelmenc, located in one of the poorest regions of Slovakia where the average earnings are only 30 percent of the EU average, will benefit from EU funding programs. The Ukraine half of the village is expected to remain stagnant.
Mr. Kacer described the region in eastern Slovakia as appearing like the end of the world - a place where Ukraine is being left behind while Slovakia takes its place alongside its wealthier neighbors.
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Europe Cheers Meeting of East and West
10 New EU Members Include Eight From Old Communist Bloc
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57515-2004Apr30?language=printer
DUBLIN, May 1 -- With fireworks and concerts, solemn speeches and street revelry, millions of Europeans jubilantly marked the formal entry of 10 new members into the European Union early Saturday morning and the symbolic end of the continent's Cold War division.
The EU flag -- gold stars in a circle on a light blue field -- was hoisted in ceremonies in the capitals of the new members, eight of them former communist states in the east. They are hoping for the prosperity and peace that a half-century of integration in Western Europe has helped bring.
The leaders of Austria, Italy and incoming EU member Slovenia shook hands at the 4,700-foot Tromeja summit in the Alps where their three countries share a border. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel declared: "Slovenia, welcome to Europe!"
Here in Ireland, which currently holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, the union's formal expansion at midnight was greeted with street parties, a massive fireworks display and copious amounts of Guinness.
In Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, merrymakers began gathering early for concerts in Wenceslas Square, site of the 1989 demonstrations against Communist rule.
In Lithuania, once a republic of the Soviet Union, residents turned their lights on at midnight and bonfires were lit, in an effort to literally outshine the other new EU members. Organizers hoped the stunt would be visible from space. Neighboring Estonia, another ex-Soviet republic, is marking its entry with the more earthly endeavor of planting 1 million trees.
"We are returning to where we belong, to a community that shares the same values and visions," said Estonian Prime Minister Juhan Parts.
And in Poland, the largest of the new EU countries, Lech Walesa, the former shipyard worker whose Solidarity trade union movement brought down Communist rule, told the Reuters news agency, "Poland's entry into the European Union fulfils my dreams and lifetime work."
The expansion advances the vision of the original crafters of what is known here as the European project, a decades-long attempt to break down the continent's historic divisions and knit together the economies -- and increasingly the political systems -- of countries as disparate as Sweden and Italy, Portugal and Estonia.
The new EU members are Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Malta and Cyprus. In Cyprus, divided into ethnic Greek and Turkish zones since 1974, membership will apply only to the Greek side for now.
The expanded EU is home to 450 million people, whose gross domestic product will be larger than that of the United States. The new members have pledged to adopt the common European currency, the euro, in years ahead.
The enlargement also brings challenges and risks. People in new member countries and old fear job disruption as border controls are dismantled. Without new rules to govern itself, the EU could become unwieldy, because under current rules much decision-making requires unanimity.
The newcomers are already chafing over the sense that they are second-class members, with workers from the east not enjoying the rights to live and work freely in the rest of the union.
The economic and social disparities are huge. The newcomers are far poorer, and together they account for the output of just one old EU member, the Netherlands. A Hungarian, a Czech or a Slovak is likely to drink more alcohol and smoke more cigarettes, and is more likely to die of lung cancer or another disease, than a Scandinavian, a Frenchman or an Italian.
As it attempts to end these disparities and improve the living standards of the eastern countries, the EU is increasingly likely to concentrate on internal economic matters rather than on such external concerns as a common foreign policy, many experts have said.
"We're going back to point zero," said Sebestyen L. Gorka, a Hungarian political scientist and executive director of the Institute for Transitional Democracy and International Security in Budapest. "If we say now at 15 there's a problem finding a common denominator between, say, Ireland and Portugal, how much harder is it going to be to get a common denominator between Ireland and Estonia?"
Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive body, was largely upbeat in an interview about how the enlarged EU will function. "I'm not worried about the increasing number of countries, because the problem is not the number of countries," Prodi said, speaking Thursday in Brussels. "The problem is the rules."
A European constitution being drafted would alter the decision-making process by scrapping the current unanimity requirement for many types of decisions in favor of majority rule. Prodi said he hoped the constitution would be ready for enactment at the EU's next summit in late June. But it faces an uphill battle, with at least seven countries -- most recently Britain -- promising to present it first to their voters in referendums.
Alongside the revelry, misgivings were expressed about the perceived loss of sovereignty and job disruption. In Warsaw, skeptics heckled President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who delivered a speech declaring that Poland was "making history," Reuters reported.
France and Germany, the current EU heavyweights, could see a diminution of their traditional roles as the engine driving EU integration. French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday tried to assuage public opinion with a rare news conference in which he laid out his vision of an enlarged Europe as a union of common values.
Prodi said that the traditional Franco-German engine role may not fit in the expanded EU.
"The playground is wider and bigger," Prodi said. "They must build majorities. It's a wider game."
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Little hope for Gypsies
May 1, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/30/1083224588602.html
For Europe's most vilified ethnic group, the Gypsies, a new economic union promises little change from an age-old struggle, writes Tania Branigan
Radoslav Puky lies in the farthest corner of Trebisov's town cemetery, his name scrawled across the rough wooden cross in black marker.
To his neighbours, the slim, dark-haired young man was quiet but friendly, while his overwhelming love for his baby son was "like an addiction". But to most Slovaks, Radoslav was just another Gypsy, a 28-year-old unemployed Rom from the squalid slums of eastern Slovakia.
To many western Europeans, he was a threat: one of the millions of Romany people in accession states who could, in the London-based Daily Express's warning, "flood" Britain and "leech" on Britons when the European Union expands.
The Roma have every reason to leave Slovakia where the 400,000-strong community makes up 7.5 per cent of the population, but is treated as a despised underclass. There are towns that have banned Roma from entering, never mind living there. To many Slovaks, including officials and police, they are "filthy"; to some even "thieves" and "vermin" fit only to be "sent to the gas chambers". Advertisement Advertisement
One glance at the conditions in Trebisov's Romany ghetto shows why infant mortality rates there are three times the average. A shantytown sprawls around crumbling apartment blocks, shacks thrown together from corrugated iron and bits of wood. Inhabitants share latrines and fetch water from standpipes. Toddlers play amid broken glass along the rutted mud track.
Few can remember when they last had a job.
Yet they are too scared to speak of Radoslav Puky, whose death exemplifies the effect of accession on Roma. So far, it has done almost nothing to help, and everything to harm.
In January the Slovakian Government slashed state benefits by half in a desperate attempt to make its struggling economy competitive with other EU members. It left many Roma with a choice: pay rent or buy food. Or, to put it another way, choose homelessness or hunger.
The following month men from the settlement walked into stores and took groceries to feed starving families. Radoslav was not one of them, but the police response was indiscriminate. Amnesty International says 250 officers stormed the settlement, beating men, women and children with truncheons and cattle prods. Radoslav was last seen fleeing police; relatives later pulled his body from a lake. Police say he drowned accidentally and had no external injuries. Friends - too frightened to be named - say he had a broken ribcage.
Joining the EU was supposed to help the Roma. Candidate states were meant to prove they had tackled human rights abuses and improved social conditions.
Instead, according to Beata Olahova, the Slovakian monitor for the European Roma Rights Centre: "Accession has drastically changed life for the worse for Roma. The Government [now] has a good strategy. But they don't know about it at local levels and it's not implemented."
Although the Roma originated in India, they have been largely sedentary since arriving in central Europe in the late 13th century. Yet white Europeans, and particularly the Slovaks, have never learned to love their neighbours.
According to a European Roma Rights Centre report: "The history of the Roma and the state [in] what is now Slovakia is a continuous shift between policies which are openly hostile up to murderous towards the Roma, and policies disguised as assistance which actually degrade."
They include centuries of slavery, wholesale death in Hitler's gas chambers, and the introduction of forced sterilisation (which persists) under communism. Yet in Trebisov even the elders - and they are few, since Romany life expectancy is 15 years shorter than average - say life has never been quite this hard.
Britain is relatively welcoming. In February, the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, announced that migrants from accession countries could work legally in Britain if they registered with the authorities.
But the Government has already warned that it will follow the lead of the other big states - which have imposed work restrictions as far ahead as 2011 - if numbers exceed the official forecasts of around 12,000 a year. It has also banned migrants from claiming benefits for up to two years, extendable to seven years if they believe the system is being abused.
Romany dreams of a better life have dwindled. They know they are not "desirable" migrants; they lack the languages and skills, even if they could scrape together enough Slovakian crowns to make their way out of the country. The appalling quality of education for Roma and years of unemployment have made many unemployable even at home.
Despite their lack of status, many Roma see Slovakia as their home. Alexander Musinka, an anthropologist at the University of Presov, says Britain is too expensive to reach and too far from their families to attract many migrants. Some of the integrated and better educated Roma may try to move to the Czech Republic or other accession countries, where they face marginally less discrimination, but he would be surprised to see "even 1000 Roma moving" when the borders open.
Those migrants may not get a warm welcome, however. "Other countries claim to be democratic and criticise Slovakia," says Beata Olahova. "But they have the same prejudices themselves. Look at Britain. Even you are afraid to open your doors."
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US Marines insist they are still in charge in Fallujah
AFP
May 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040501083258.vspv84qp.html
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) May 01, 2004 Even as their units pull out of Fallujah to allow a new Iraqi force to handle security in the embattled Iraqi city, US marine commanders insist they still remain in control and could move back in at any time.
Amid questions as to whether the newly formed Fallujah Brigade can be trusted, the commanders stress they will be closely monitoring the performance of the still incomplete Iraqi force, which is made up mainly of people who served in ousted president Saddam Hussein's former army.
They also say that while they are happy to put an Iraqi face on security operations in the flashpoint city, the Iraqi troops fall under their overall command.
Senior marine officers have been careful to avoid presenting the move as a withrawal from Fallujah, where they lost dozens of men since laying siege to the city on April 5.
But since the decision to send in the new force, marines have given up their main foothold in the city and pulled back to camps further away. They still have some positions on the outskirts of the city, but are expecting to move out of those within days.
The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (1st MEF), which is deployed in the area, stresses the force, officially named the 1st Battalion of the Fallujah Brigade, will come under its operational control.
It also said the marines will maintain a presence in and around the city "until the battalion's units demonstrate a capability to man designated checkpoints and positions."
The first 200 men of the new forces commanded by a former Iraqi general showed up at one of the checkpoints on the outskirts of Fallujah Friday, but remained at the roadblock and did not immediately venture further into town, according to Colonel John Coleman, chief of staff of the 1st MEF.
He pointed out that what he called a "transition of forces" did not mean an end to the siege of Fallujah, but simply that "another element of the coalition" will be handling the job the marines had been doing in the rebellious Sunni Muslim city.
The force is headed by Major General Jassem Mohammed Saleh, a former senior officer in Saddam's army, who also will control Iraqi police and the US-trained paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in Fallujah.
The hand-over of security duties to the general stands in sharp contrast to the marines' recent warning that if the estimated 1,500 insurgents thought holed up in the city do not surrender, they will come under attack.
But commanders insist the new concept is being applied on a trial basis.
"Day by day they'll judge us and we'll judge them," said Coleman, speaking at the marines' Camp Fallujah, just outside the city.
Asked what happens if the Fallujah Brigade fails, a ranking commander said simply: "We'll be back."
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Marines Start Fallujah Withdrawal
Embrace of Hussein's Former Generals Marks Major Shift in U.S. Strategy
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55329-2004Apr30?language=printer
FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 30 -- U.S. Marines began withdrawing from this volatile city Friday, taking up positions a few miles away as commanders began to hand over responsibility for pursuing insurgents to a new Iraqi brigade led by former officers who served in Saddam Hussein's military.
The exit of some Marine units from Fallujah and the embrace of former Iraqi generals reflected a major strategy shift for the U.S. military as it attempts to retake the city from well-armed fighters. The top Marine commander in Iraq has chosen to assemble what amounts to a Sunni Muslim militia run by officers once blacklisted by U.S. occupation forces in an attempt to avoid a new offensive that could be politically damaging to the United States in Iraq and across the Arab world.
The general who will lead Iraqi troops in Fallujah made a triumphant entry into the city on Friday. Jassim Mohammed Saleh, 49, the former commander of a brigade of Hussein's elite Republican Guard, was cheered as he entered the city bedecked in the olive-green uniform and red beret he wore as a major general in Hussein's army.
But the plan drew condemnation from many quarters of Iraq's fractious population and appeared to raise tensions between majority Shiites and the Sunni minority that dominated Hussein's government. Even as the transition unfolded, a car-bomb attack killed two Marines and wounded six at a base outside Fallujah.
After initial confusion among senior U.S. officials about the new arrangement, the Marine command in Iraq issued a statement saying that the new Fallujah Brigade, referred to by some U.S. commanders as the Fallujah Protection Army, will "assume responsibility for security and stability" by manning checkpoints and other positions in the city of 200,000. The brigade, which initially will comprise 600 to 1,100 former soldiers from the Fallujah area, will also be charged with combating insurgents so that Marines can resume reconstruction projects here, U.S. officers said.
The U.S. military's chief spokesman in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, insisted at a news conference in Baghdad that Marines were not withdrawing from the city and that the new Iraqi force would be "completely integrated" with U.S. forces. Until the Iraqi units demonstrate a capacity to handle designated checkpoints and positions, Marines will continue to maintain a strong presence in and around Fallujah, he said.
But in Fallujah, Marines were observed traveling out of the city for much of the day in convoys of Humvees and seven-ton transport trucks. Positions along a six-foot-high sand berm, manned by Marines in assault vehicles just a day ago, were abandoned by Friday afternoon along with many other locations.
Marine commanders did not comment publicly on Friday's troop movements, except in the most general terms, and forbade journalists embedded in Marine units to report details of the realignment until Saturday. Nevertheless, the progression of Marine convoys out of Fallujah suggested that a significant adjustment of forces was underway.
Saleh, who is from Fallujah, commanded a Republican Guard brigade and an infantry division before he was placed on active reserve duty in 1996, according to former army officers who know him.
His former colleagues described him as an opportunist who reached out to U.S. officials shortly after the war, only to be turned away at a time when senior Baath Party officials were forbidden by the occupation authority to take part in the governance and reconstruction of Iraq. Kimmitt said U.S. military officials had vetted Saleh before giving him the post.
Saleh drove into Fallujah on Friday afternoon, stopping at a cloverleaf at the eastern end of the city to shake hands with Col. John Toolan, the commander of the Marine regiment responsible for the area.
"You are our dear friends," Saleh said as the two shook hands, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.
But several platoons of Iraqi soldiers belonging to the new force failed to show up at the intersection as planned.
Arab journalists in the city reported seeing three groups of Iraqis wearing new desert camouflage uniforms and waving Hussein-era Iraqi flags, but Marine officers said they had no independent confirmation of those reports. The officers also said that members of the new force had not taken up positions in and around the city that had been vacated by Marines.
"We're still waiting for them," one exasperated officer said. The officer said there were no plans for his unit to integrate with the new Iraqi battalion.
Nevertheless, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, said the handover was going smoothly.
"Initially, it appears that a transition to the Fallujah Protection Army is working," he said, calling it "the Iraqi solution we've all been looking for in this area."
As U.S. troops withdrew, families who fled Fallujah during weeks of siege tried to return but were stopped at U.S. military checkpoints. Dozens lined up in front of weary U.S. troops in the blazing sun.
"I have come back even though the situation is not safe inside the city," Ahmed Salim, 38, said from behind the wheel of a car carrying all eight members of his immediate family. "But I came back because I cannot afford to stay in Baghdad. I don't have a job now."
U.S. military officials said that as the city calms down, they will begin permitting 200 families a day to return to their homes.
The departure of U.S. troops from parts of Fallujah appeared to bring little political benefit to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Baghdad, 35 miles to the east. At Friday prayers in Sunni and Shiite mosques, clerics continued to use Fallujah as a rallying point for resistance to the occupation, either ignoring the agreement to ease the siege of the city or portraying it as a trick.
"In Fallujah, the Americans shake hands with you with the right and shoot with the left," Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarrae, a Sunni sheik, told about 600 worshipers at the Umm al Qurra Mosque in Baghdad.
In Sadr City, the vast Shiite slum in northeastern Baghdad that has been increasingly hostile to the occupation, clerics celebrated the continuing resistance in the southern cities of Najaf and Kufa led by Moqtada Sadr, a firebrand cleric sought by U.S. forces. Sadr leads the Mahdi Army, a militia that largely controls those cities.
"Those who work at the Governing Council as spies and servants of the foreigners, may the curse of God be on them," the sheik, Abdul Hadi Darraji, told hundreds of worshipers, who interrupted the angry sermon several times with chants of "Long live Sadr; Moqtada to paradise."
The sermon followed by a few hours the grisly discovery of the body of Suwadi Shaty, chairman of a U.S.-appointed municipal advisory board. Shaty, who had been missing for 48 hours, was found at dawn Friday hanging from an electrical pole in Sadr City, U.S. officials said.
He apparently was beaten, tortured and then hanged, Kimmitt said. Shaty was found by his family with a sign hanging on his chest reading: "Mahdi Army business."
In his sermon Friday in Kufa, Sadr used the U.S. agreement in Fallujah to remind his followers that the Sunni-dominated Baath Party oppressed Iraq's Shiite majority and oversaw the killing of thousands of Shiites in a U.S.-inspired uprising that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
"Here are the occupiers returning the Baathists to their jobs," Sadr said. "They removed the former regime and now they return the Baathists. This proves their hatred of the Iraqis."
In nearby Najaf, fuel supplies dwindled and the price of basic food items began to rise as supplies ran short after weeks of limited shipments. Unlike the largely local Fallujah resistance, Sadr's militia has arrived mostly from outside Najaf. Many local residents, fearing a U.S. attack, expressed anger over the militia's tactics.
"We live in horror," said Faris Mayyali, 52, a car dealer. "The Mahdi Army cannot fight the U.S. Army face to face. They do not have tanks or planes. If the Mahdi Army wants to fight, let them fight outside the cities."
Wilson reported from Baghdad. Correspondent Sewell Chan in Baghdad and special correspondents Naseer Nouri near Fallujah and Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Kufa contributed to this report.
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Iraq Attacks Kill 4 U.S. Service Members
May 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html?pagewanted=all&position=
FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents killed a U.S. soldier and two civilian contractors in northern Iraq and attacked a U.S. convoy in Baghdad on Saturday, as scores of people took to the streets of Fallujah celebrating a deal ending a monthlong siege of the city.
In London, an official in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government said the country is considering sending more troops to Iraq to fill the gap created by Spain's withdrawal of its 1,300 soldiers. But Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told British Broadcasting Corp. radio no decision had been taken and no formal request had been made.
The U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside bomb attack on his convoy Saturday near the town of Qarraya, 45 miles south of Mosul, the military said. A second soldier died Saturday of wounds suffered in a Friday roadside bombing in the same area. The latest deaths brought to 140 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the current wave of violence began in early April.
In another Saturday bombing, two foreign contractors were killed and five other foreigners were wounded in an attack in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. military and witnesses said. The victims' nationalities were unavailable.
In the Baghdad attack, a bomb set a military tanker truck ablaze as a convoy traveled along the main highway between Fallujah and the capital. When U.S. reinforcements arrived, the attackers fired four mortar shells, which caused no casualties, witnesses said.
Elsewhere, a British soldier was wounded Saturday in an ambush in the southeastern city of Amarah, the British military said. The Al-Mahdi Army, led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is active there.
The latest violence followed a deal signaling the apparent end of the siege of Fallujah, launched last month after a mob killed four U.S. contractors and mutilated their bodies.
Amid mounting international criticism, the U.S. military forged an agreement to withdraw U.S. Marines from much of the city and turn over security to an Iraqi force made up largely of former soldiers from Saddam Hussein's army, which the U.S.-led occupation authority disbanded last year.
The agreement proceeded despite the deaths of four U.S. troops Friday in the volatile region west of Baghdad. Two Marines were killed in a car bombing near Fallujah and two sailors died in another incident in the same province.
Some 1,360 Iraqis also have died, according to a count by The Associated Press -- more than in any month since Saddam's fall.
By Saturday, all 700 Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment had pulled out of the industrial zone, their main forward base inside Fallujah.
With the siege apparently over, scores of Iraqis gathered in the streets Saturday morning, some flashing V-for-victory signs and raising the Iraqi flag. Motorists drove through the streets, shouting ``Islam, it's your day!'' and ``We redeem Islam with our blood!''
Malik Khalif, who fled the city during the fighting, looked at the remains of his destroyed house.
``I don't mind losing and sacrificing my life or my properties for the sake of the honorable resistance of Fallujah,'' he said.
Saeed Abid, a grocer, also returned for a reunion with his family.
``I'm happy to see my sons, my wife and grandsons again. I'm happy to see them alive,'' he said.
Members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council praised the agreement lifting the siege of Fallujah, saying it spared the city an all-out Marine assault and would help reduce tensions inflaming anti-American anger throughout Iraq.
``The withdrawal is a good step to defuse the crisis and spare bloodshed,'' said Dara Nor al-Din, a Kurdish member of the council. ``There is wisdom in that.''
After days of threatening an all-out offensive against insurgents in Fallujah, the United States rapidly changed tacks and reached the deal for a pullback, or ``repositioning,'' as commanders have called it. Washington was facing strong international pressure to peacefully resolve the standoff, and many U.S. officials feared that attacking the city would be extremely bloody.
The answer was to call in a former Saddam general, Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh, to deal with insurgents -- thought to include many disgruntled army veterans -- in a shift from previous U.S. strategy, which abolished the Iraqi army last year and called for marginalizing former members of Saddam's Baath Party.
Under the plan, a force of 600 to 1,100 Iraqis, many of them former soldiers from the Fallujah area, will man checkpoints inside the city. Marines will remain around the city's perimeter and at a later stage conduct their own patrols inside the city.
At the checkpoint at the city's main eastern entrance, Gen. Saleh shook hands with Col. John Toolan, commander of the 1st Marine Regiment, as Iraqi forces raised their own flag over a checkpoint Marines were withdrawing from.
Saleh -- a burly ex-member of Saddam's Republican Guard with a Saddam-style mustache -- arrived in the city to the cheers of some residents.
Convoys of U.S. troops and equipment could be seen heading out of parts of Fallujah, replaced by red-bereted Iraqi troopers from the new force.
``Initially it appears that the transition to the Fallujah Protective Army is working,'' said Marine. Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne. ``The Fallujah Protective Army is the Iraqi solution we've all been looking for in this area.''
The Fallujah force will be under the ultimate command of the Marines.
Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. operations in the Middle East warned that ``it may be necessary to have a strong fight in there'' if the insurgents do not cooperate.
Abizaid said the United States was sticking to most of the objectives outlined when Marines stormed Fallujah on April 5.
``Clearly, we will not tolerate the presence of foreign fighters,'' Abizaid said. ``We will insist on the heavy weapons coming off the streets. We want the Marines to have freedom of maneuver along with the Iraqi security forces.''
For Marine Pfc. Andrew Twocrow of Ignacio, Colo., the withdrawal was bittersweet. One of his buddies was killed in an ambush.
``I wanted to stay there and fight it to the end,'' he said.
Negotiations also were taking place in the southern city of Najaf, where tribal leaders and police agreed to a three-day truce as part of a plan to resolve a standoff between soldiers and militiamen loyal to al-Sadr.
In Germany, the Foreign Ministry said the body of a German Embassy security agent missing for three weeks has been found.
The agent was one of two who went missing on the road from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad on April 7 after their convoy was ambushed near Fallujah. Both were presumed dead.
AP correspondent Scheherezade Faramarzi in Najaf contributed to this report.
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Iraq Complications Grow as Deadline Nears
By Glenn Kessler and Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57850-2004Apr30?language=printer
Facing a deadline of just two months for returning some political power to Iraqis, the Bush administration is squeezed between quelling the insurgency and the search for any idea that reduces the chances of a violent confrontation. But it's uncertain whether some of its new tactics will resolve problems quickly enough for the administration's self-imposed timetable.
The decision to turn to former Iraqi army generals to help regain control of Fallujah, for instance, took place under confusing circumstances, with military officials in Iraq announcing terms that officials in Washington had yet to review. It also came against the backdrop of rising Iraqi anger at the U.S.-led occupation and televised images of possible psychological and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers.
To some analysts, the administration left the impression it was grasping at alternatives, with little sense of how this new tactic fit into the larger strategy or of its possible pitfalls. In much of the world, in fact, the agreement was first described as a retreat by Americans in the face of stubborn resistance by insurgent forces.
The balancing act will only get harder, analysts said, even after an interim Iraqi government takes charge and begins to prepare for elections. "We are dealing with the foothills. The Himalayas lie beyond," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He added that, among Americans, "the assumption had been that this next foothill [June 30] was the peak."
The decision to pull U.S. Marines back from Fallujah and allow former Iraqi officers to take the lead represents a calculated risk that officers once loyal to Saddam Hussein could indeed prove useful partners in establishing a new Iraqi order, officials said.
U.S. authorities insisted the Marines were not retreating and would maintain command over the new Iraqi force. They also stressed that U.S. forces would retain the right to patrol Fallujah and possibly mount an offensive against foreign fighters taking refuge in the city.
Speaking to reporters, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, stressed that the United States had not relaxed its key demands regarding Fallujah, including the detention of those responsible for the March 31 killing of four U.S. civilian security contractors in the city.
But under the new arrangement, U.S. military commanders will be handing over a large measure of responsibility to Iraqi military leaders who previously had been shunned, and relying on the new force to work inside the city with police and other Iraqi authorities.
A senior administration official, briefing reporters yesterday on the condition on anonymity, said the administration was trying to "find the least possible violent outcome to this situation in Fallujah." He said Marines had suspended offensive operations for three weeks, and during this period Iraqis -- "city fathers," sheiks and now military officers -- had offered assistance in an effort to avoid a bloody military conflict.
"We took the initiative in some of these but not all of these," he said. "But we have to have tangible results out of this. . . . The question is how long do we wait for them to try to produce a positive outcome. We're trying to wait as long as we can."
Abizaid, too, cautioned against expecting quick results. "We should be very careful in thinking that this effort to build this Iraqi capacity will necessarily calm down the situation in Fallujah tonight or over the next several days," he said. "It's a step-by-step effort."
The agreement won rare praise from Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the administration's toughest critics on Iraq.
"We have to give the deal a chance to work," Biden said, calling it "a very difficult call." He said he hopes "this decision reflects a new strategy to generate legitimacy by getting more Iraqis and the major powers to buy in to success."
But other experts said the arrangement has huge risks, in part because it appears to suggest that there is a reward for determined resistance to the U.S. occupation.
"We are flirting with disaster," said Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who until earlier this year was a political adviser to the U.S.-led occupation authority. "It represents a triumph of short-term thinking over the long-term good."
The agreement spared the Marines, at least for now, from attempting a full-scale assault on the city to root out insurgents -- a move that would certainly have cost more U.S. lives and inflamed public opinion in Iraq and the rest of the Muslim world. But it brought no guarantee of success and left U.S. officials struggling to counter the impression they were surrendering and handing the insurgents a public relations victory.
Kenneth Pollack, research director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said the agreement does not deal with the long-term problem of Fallujah, "where there are 250,000 to 300,000 people who hate our guts." "It's not much more than a face-saving agreement," he added.
He said the standoff in Fallujah is the result of a failure to deal with the anger and resentment growing in the city in the past year because of a lack of military resources. By contrast, he said, an entire brigade -- roughly 5,000 troops -- was dispatched to Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, and civil reconstruction was directed there as well. Now that city "is doing pretty well," he said.
Daniel Byman, an assistant professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, said the Iraqi forces will serve largely as a symbol of U.S.-Iraqi cooperation at first but will require "massive retraining" to be effective.
U.S. officials have acknowledged the failure of many members of Iraq's reconstituted police and military ranks to confront insurgents in Fallujah and other parts of the country since the surge in violence a month ago. In some cases, security officers joined the militants.
But the Fallujah arrangement contains a new element that some analysts said yesterday makes it appear more promising. This time the Iraqi force will be led by former generals who served under Hussein, part of a recent decision by the U.S. occupation authority to reverse last year's ban on such participation. The idea is that these former officers will provide the leadership and cohesion that the new security services have lacked.
"Even if it's a group of Saddam's old guys, their willingness to work with us is a good thing because it indicates that some of the old order believe it's worthwhile to compromise rather than fight and die," Clawson said.
Any interpretation of the new arrangement remained complicated yesterday by conflicting accounts of what it entailed. One senior Pentagon military officer, who was briefed on the plan, said it was his understanding that, in the near-term at least, it involved "a handful of checkpoints being turned over" to the new Iraqi brigade. But journalists in Fallujah reported large contingents of Marines withdrawing from positions in the southern part of the city and moving several miles away.
Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.
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Top Hussein Officers Vetted for New Army
Candidates Recruited Throughout Iraq
By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57848-2004Apr30?language=printer
BAGHDAD, April 30 -- The appointment of a former Iraqi general to bring order to the restive city of Fallujah was a result of several months of collaboration among U.S. and Iraqi officials to resurrect a cadre of top officers who served under ousted president Saddam Hussein.
American officials confirmed Friday that they had chosen Jassim Mohammed Saleh, who had been a commander in the Republican Guard, to lead a brigade in Fallujah composed almost entirely of former Iraqi soldiers.
The decision to put Saleh, 49, and his brigade on the front line in Fallujah reflected a dramatic about-face in U.S. policy toward the Iraqi fighting force that was defeated and quickly disbanded by the United States and its allies a year ago. With Iraq's new army still in its formative stages just weeks before the June 30 deadline for handing sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, Hussein-era officers are being brought back.
U.S. commanders across Iraq's 18 provinces have been asked to nominate and submit biographies of former officers who seem friendly to American authorities. An Army colonel, who reports to L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, has traveled extensively, recruiting and evaluating the candidates.
"We're going out and taking a look at the prior military officers," said Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, who had criticized Bremer's decision last year to suddenly disband the Iraqi army.
"There's a good number of prior Iraqi military officers," Batiste said. "Many of these were Baath Party members. But a good number of these people want to be part of the solution for Iraq."
In early April, the Pentagon assigned Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who spent most of the past year in Iraq as commander of the 101st Airborne Division, to oversee the organization and training of all Iraqi military and security forces. But for Iraqis, the public face of the new effort to lure former military officers to Iraq's new army is Defense Minister Ali Abdul-Amir Allawi.
A soft-spoken civil engineer who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Allawi, 56, said Iraqis would guide the process, even though U.S. officials will have the final say over new appointments.
"We have sought and been given considerable leeway, if not as yet total authority, over the employment, or over the recruitment, of officers," he said. "In the course of the near future, there is a very strong willingness on the part of the coalition to hand over these responsibilities totally to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense."
Hussein's army had 11,000 general officers within a force of about 300,000, but the new army will only number 35,000, with three divisions, nine brigades and 27 battalions. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a separate paramilitary force also reporting to Allawi, will have 40,000 members.
Allawi said reconstituting the army could take two to three years. "It will not be the same size as the Saddam army, so regrettably, it will be very difficult to employ or return most of these officers back into the army," he said. "We have to make hard choices."
Candidates are being closely screened to determine whether they were "involved directly with repressive or abusive operations or violated human rights during the past regime," Allawi said.
On April 18, Allawi named two former generals from the Hussein era to lead the country's new military establishment.
Gen. Amer Hashimi, the new army chief of staff, was deputy commandant of the Iraqi Military Academy before retiring in 1997. A Sunni Muslim from Baghdad, Hashimi, 58, graduated from the Pakistani Military Academy in 1970 and has noted with pride that he never joined the Baath Party.
Hashimi's deputy is Lt. Gen. Daham Assal, 63, a Shiite Muslim from Nineveh province. He graduated from Iraq's military academy in 1962 and later from Britain's Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and the U.S. Army Ranger School. He commanded divisions, taught at the Iraqi's military college and worked with reserve forces.
The generals, along with Allawi, appeared Wednesday at a contentious two-hour meeting in the Baghdad Convention Center, where they were confronted by more than 120 veteran officers interested in returning to military service.
The veterans voiced concern not only about pay and training but about the future direction of the military.
Khudair Abbas Samarrae, a former general, said many former officers were destitute and living on emergency assistance. Allawi said the ministry would help to find civilian jobs for officers who didn't make the cut in the new military. "We won't neglect the veterans and senior officers who served the country with hard work and loyalty," he said.
Defense Ministry officials took pains to praise the former officers and solicit their advice.
"You are our brothers and you are our leaders," Hashimi said. "We will be happy to receive you at any time and any place. We welcome your observations and your guidance, and we need your prayers and your help to support us on this path."
Bruska Shaways, a Kurdish former militia commander who is now the Defense Ministry's top civil servant, said many of the former officers did not support Hussein's policies.
"We know there are military people that suffered under the old regime," he said. "We are considering recruiting them in this ministry, based not on their ranks in the old regime but on what they can offer to this new operation."
--------
SIEGE
Falluja Choices Exhausted, U.S. Turns to Iraqi Officer
May 1, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/international/middleeast/01MILI.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, April 30 - The hastily improvised plan to send a small Iraqi force into Falluja, led by a former general in Saddam Hussein's army, is a last-ditch effort to avert a violent and politically charged urban battle, senior Pentagon officials and American commanders said Friday.
Privately, senior military officers expressed skepticism that dispatching an untested 900-man Iraqi battalion into Falluja would pacify the embattled city of nearly 300,000 people.
But the move is an important shift to a tactic that these same officers have urged for months: the immediate reconstitution of Iraqi forces under a seasoned Iraqi commander.
"What we have there is an opportunity and not necessarily an agreement," said Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American commander in the Middle East. "The opportunity is to build an Iraqi security force from former elements of the army that will work under the command of coalition forces."
But General Abizaid, mindful of the disastrous performance of many American-trained Iraqi security forces earlier this month, cautioned that the new recruits would not "necessarily calm down the situation in Falluja tonight or over the next several days."
"It's a step by step process," he added.
Nonetheless, the tenuous plan represents a possible face-saving alternative to two onerous options the American marines confronted: a prolonged assault on the city that would leave hundreds if not thousands of civilians dead, or the continuation of a seemingly endless series of shaky cease-fires that have exposed marines to guerrilla attacks and emboldened the insurgents the longer they stood up to the superior force.
"We are doing what we can to find the least violent possible outcome to the situation in Falluja," said a senior administration official. "We've done that for three weeks, and the troops are responding only when attacked."
But this official noted that, so far, none of the interventions by Falluja civic leaders, tribal sheiks and former military officers have resolved the standoff, and he warned that military action might ultimately be needed.
On Capitol Hill, the military's plan drew tentative support from some who have criticized the Bush administration's Iraq policy.
"We have to give the deal a chance to work," said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. "If it doesn't, then we may well have to use force, but that should be our last option. We don't want to generate more Fallujas."
It was just a week ago that Marine Corps commanders were on the brink of ordering an all-out offensive against what they estimated were 2,000 foreign fighters, former Hussein loyalists and other insurgents. But with pressure building from United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and his envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, to avoid a violent confrontation, the commanders began looking for a way out.
"It's hard to get the pendulum set just right," said one senior Defense Department official.
The new plan emerged from discussions by the top Marine commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway; other American officers; officials from the American-led civilian administration in Baghdad, and a group of retired Iraqi Army generals in the Falluja area.
American officials familiar with the meetings said the prospect of having the former generals reconstitute a reliable and effective paramilitary force against the insurgents was worth pursuing. These officials expressed cautious optimism that if the Iraqi generals could form a battalion-size force in a relatively short time, it could enhance the chances for resolving the standoff.
The Iraqi force will be under the command of the Marine Corps, which will keep more than 3,000 troops around the city and remain poised for a major offensive should the Iraqi force fall apart under attack, senior military officials warned. "We cannot allow Falluja to be a safe haven for Baathist militants," one Pentagon official said.
The Iraqi commander, Maj. Gen. Jasim Muhammad Saleh, is said to be the former head of the Iraqi Army 38th Infantry Division, but not even Pentagon intelligence officers had heard of him, suggesting that he was not a high-ranking Baath Party member or favorite of Mr. Hussein.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for the American military in Iraq, said General Saleh had been "initially vetted" by the Marines, and had the confidence of the two top Marine generals in Iraq, General Conway and Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis.
In an e-mail message on Thursday night, General Conway said the new Iraqi unit, which he called the First Battalion of the Falluja Brigade, would be made up of "mostly former Iraqi Army officers and men," presumably from the Falluja area.
He said a small group of marines would be assigned as liaison to American forces. General Conway said General Saleh "will take mission, taskings and timings from the M.E.F. commander," referring to his own position as head of the First Marine Expeditionary Force.
Until the new Iraqi battalion demonstrates it can operate checkpoints and other positions, marines will continue to maintain a strong presence, military officials said.
Establishing strong Iraqi leadership for security forces is a top priority for American officers.
"You can't expect in this part of the world for Iraqi security forces to fight for the United States of America," General Abizaid said in an interview last week. "They need to fight for Iraq, an Iraq that has a defined leadership that's legitimate, and that's broadly supported."
Senior American officers said their goal was still to eliminate the insurgents in Falluja, collect all their heavy weapons and track down the killers of four American private security contractors.
But they acknowledged that those guerrillas and other militants might have already slipped through the cordon the marines threw around the city earlier this month. "We will get the murderers of the contractors and we will find them," General Abizaid said on Friday, "but we may not necessarily find them in Falluja."
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon in a Last-Minute Push for Gaza Plan
May 1, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/international/middleeast/01mide.html
JERUSALEM, April 30 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned members of his rightist Likud Party on Friday that they could potentially bring down the government and force new elections if they rejected his proposal to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
With polls indicating that Likud members are likely to vote down the plan in a party referendum on Sunday, Mr. Sharon made a push to win over voters in a series of television interviews on Friday. He linked the success of the initiative with the party's continued hold on power.
"If the disengagement plan is not approved, I believe it will lead to new elections, which would be very bad for Israel and utterly superfluous," Mr. Sharon told Channel 2 television.
His coalition government has been stable since a landslide election victory in January 2003. The ballot Sunday is nonbinding, and a defeat would not force Mr. Sharon to change his government. If he continues to pursue his Gaza withdrawal plan after a loss at the ballot box, however, it is certain to generate tremendous friction among coalition members who oppose the plan.
Mr. Sharon was asked repeatedly if an electoral defeat on Sunday would lead him to resign, and he declined to answer directly. "The question is not whether I will resign or not," he said, "the question is how Likud will be able to continue leading the country."
Until this week, opinion polls showed Mr. Sharon heading for a narrow victory as he tries to move ahead with the unilateral separation plan from the Palestinians. The prime minister appeared particularly strong after President Bush endorsed the initiative at a White House meeting two weeks ago.
But a coalition of right-wing Israelis, Jewish settlers and some prominent members of Mr. Sharon's own party have waged a grass-roots campaign against the plan. In general, they oppose what they consider territorial concessions to the Palestinians and say it would be a "reward for terrorism" if Israel uprooted its 21 settlements and 7,500 settlers in the Gaza Strip, along with several small settlements in the West Bank.
The Yesha Council, the main group representing settlers, has sent members to the homes of the Likud voters countrywide, where they have made video presentations on laptop computers. The council has also conducted a phone campaign while posters have been plastered on the sides of buses and fliers are being distributed at busy intersections.
"It looks like this campaign is definitely bearing fruit," said Josh Hasten, a council spokesman.
In contrast, Mr. Sharon's supporters have been much less active.
In the past two days, five separate opinion surveys have indicated that Likud voters are likely to turn down the Gaza withdrawal by margins from one to eight percentage points.
Still, the polls show that 10 percent or more of the 193,000 eligible Likud voters are still undecided, and the outcome is considered too close to call with any certainty.
"I know that the disengagement entails great pain of evacuating settlements," Mr. Sharon said in a statement published Friday in Yediot Aharonot, the country's largest circulation daily. "As one who has spent his life defending Israelis, establishing and strengthening communities and realizing our full right to the entire land of Israel, I know we will not sit in Gaza forever."
The prime minister says he is willing to part with the Gaza settlements and some in the West Bank while working to strengthen Israel's hold on the larger ones in the West Bank, where the bulk of the 230,000 settlers live.
If Mr. Sharon wins the referendum, he is expected to present the plan to the cabinet and Parliament for approval.
-------- latin america
SPEECH GIVEN BY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE CELEBRATIONS FOR LABOUR DAY WHICH TOOK PLACE IN REVOLUTION SQUARE ON MAY 1, 2004
From: "Public Relations" <publicrelations@cubanmission.com>
Dearest guests, dear comrades:
This is the 45th time we have celebrated a glorious Labor Day since the triumph of the Revolution.
Extremely important things are taking place both inside and outside our country.
The Revolution is following its triumphal course with more strength and success that ever. We have had proof of this recently: the Geneva meetings on April 15 and 22 will go down in the history of revolutionary diplomacy. They mark the moment when a crushing blow was dealt to the enormous hypocrisy, permanent falsehood and cynicism the masters of the world use to try to preserve the rotten system of political and economic domination they have imposed on the world.
Our country had bee placed in the dock yet again. The new US administration and the states in the European Union made the mistake of forgetting that at the extreme eastern end of Cuba one of the most horrendous examples of human rights violation ever to take place in this world was underway at that very moment in a 117.6 square kilometer section of land occupied by force, where the Guantánamo naval base is located - which in itself is a gross violation of the sovereign rights of a small country and of international law.
We were never consulted beforehand. We were simply informed of the decision taken by the US government to transfer the prisoners to that base.
On January 11, 2002 the Cuban government published a statement in which it clearly set forth our country's position.
The world knows that the horrible crime committed against the Twin Towers in New York was unanimously condemned by all conscious people on the planet.
Nevertheless, the government of the most powerful nation on earth, showing contempt for all norms concerning what the world understands as the elementary principles of human rights, created this horrible prison where hundreds of citizens from many countries, including some from the United States' own allies, are kept locked up, without having been tried, incommunicado, without having been identified, with no legal defense, no guarantee for their physical integrity, with no criminal, no procedural law and for an indefinite length of time. They could have used their own territory for such a bizarre contribution to civilization, but they did it on a stretch of land that they occupy illegally and forcibly in another country, Cuba, whom every year in Geneva they accuse of human rights violations.
It spite of that, admirable thing do take place in the Commission on Human Rights.
It current world conditions, there is a generalized fear of the fierce empire, of its threats, pressure and reprisals of all kinds, especially those against the most vulnerable countries of the Third World. It is almost suicidal to vote in Geneva against a resolution drafted and imposed by the United States, especially if it is against Cuba, the country which for almost 50 years has defied its arrogance and imperiousness. Even the strongest and most independent states find themselves obliged to take into consideration the political and economic consequences of their decisions.
Still, as could be seen just a few short days ago in Geneva, Cuba and 20 other countries -some acting out of principle and others showing amazing courage- opposed the resolution and 10 abstained, thus maintaining their dignity and self-respect. Only 22 of the 53 members of the Commission, including the United States, joined in this infamy.
There were seven from Latin America, four of whom suffer from great economic and social poverty, are highly dependent and have governments obliged to be totally abject. Nobody could consider them to be independent states. Up to now they have been pure fiction.
Peru, the fifth Latin American government which voted with the United States against Cuba, provides an example of the degree of servility and dependence into which imperialism and its neo-liberal globalization have led many countries in Latin America, whom they ruin politically in the twinkling of an eye.
The Peruvian head of state has seen his popularity drop to only 8 per cent in just a few months. It is absolutely impossible to tackle the colossal economic and social problems affecting that country with such insignificant support. In fact, he does not govern, nor can he govern, anything; the transnationals and the oligarchies take care of that, until society explodes, as has already begun to happen in more than one country.
Then we have the Chilean and Mexican governments.
I am not going to judge the former. I prefer that the way the president of Chile behaved in Geneva be judged by Salvador Allende, who went down fighting and who now occupies a place of honor and glory in the history of this continent, by the millions of Chileans vanished, tortured and murdered by design of those who drafted and proposed this resolution to censure Cuba - where not a single act of that sort, nor anything similar ever took place- and by those who in their name are the standard bearers of the noble ideals and aspirations to create a truly humane society.
In Mexico, a beloved, sister country to all Cubans, the National Congress asked their president to abstain from voting for the resolution, although President Bush had demanded that he do so. It is truly painful to see the great prestige and influence Mexico earned in the eyes of Latin America and the world with its unimpeachable international policy, which stemmed from a genuine, far-reaching revolution, turn to ashes.
Latin America's solidarity with and support for Mexico and Mexico's for Latin America are crucial. More than half of Mexico's territory was snatched from it by its northern neighbor and great danger threatens what is left. The US-Mexican border is to all practical purposes no longer the Rio Bravo of which Martí spoke. The United States has gone much deeper into Mexico. That border is today the line of death, where about 500 Mexican die every year. And all because of a brutal, ruthless principle: free passage for capital and goods; persecution, exclusion and death for human beings. And yet, millions of Mexicans take that risk. Today, the country obtains more income from their remittances than from oil exports, in spite of the high price of the latter.
Will such an inequitable and unfair situation really be solved by voting for anti-Cuban resolutions in Geneva, by accusing her of violating human rights?
The worst and most humiliating part for Mexico was that the news about its vote in Geneva, both on April 15 and 22, were announced in Washington.
The European Union, as usual, voted as a bloc, like a Mafia mob allied with and subordinate to Washington.
These sempiternal dirty, immoral displays against the Cuban Revolution never had any success until the socialist bloc disappeared. A plague of renegades, anxious for the credits and goods of consumer society added their votes to those of the European Community mafia. Thus they completed those petty deliveries in the Commission on Human Rights: resolutions pulled out with forceps, in the hard-fought battle which Cuba has never ceased to wage against the loathsome comedy which the empire, its allies, followers and vassals push through in order to gain an advantage of one or two votes over the opposition and abstentions of 60 per cent of the Commission's members. The empire calls these Pyrrhic victories successes and condemns Cuba, despite the fact that the political effort and cost are greater every year.
When this year Cuba suggested sending a Commission representative to see what was going on in the Guantánamo naval base, panic spread through the herd of hypocrites, especially those from the European Community. Morale collapsed. Some European governments were truly ashamed, they had to confess their failure to act according to their principles and their hypocrisy, or do the impossible - disobey the empire. This was too much for such august defenders of human rights whose darts are only aimed at those who for centuries were their colonies, where they wiped out tens of millions of natives and to which they brought countless human beings from Africa whom they turned into slaves with less freedom than work horses.
And that is how they treat millions of people in the Third World, victims of the plunder, unequal terms of trade and looting of their natural resources and all the hard currency reserves in their central banks, which are deposited in US or European banks, for the most part, and which are used to finance investments, trade and fiscal deficits and for the military adventures of the empire and its allies.
As a result of the Cuban proposal in Geneva, Bush himself and his senior officials had to work frantically, personally calling presidents and heads of state. No one knew where he found the time, nor how he could attend to Iraq, the financial problems of the government, fundraising banquets and matters related to the elections. Perhaps it is not fair to call him Fürher; perhaps he is a genius.
Why can Bush talk of a fiscal deficit of $512 billion and a similar trade deficit, a total of a trillion dollars in just one year? Because he manipulates and spends the hard currency of the immense majority of the world's population in order to defend those and other privileges. They are armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated war machinery and they wage wars of conquest in search of raw materials.
The international situation is complex. The adventurist policies of this administration have given the world increasingly insoluble problems. The economic order imposed is ever more unsustainable.
An impressive, encouraging event took place in Spain. It was an extraordinary achievement, accomplished almost exclusively by the Spanish people, especially the younger generation. Its heroic political battle, scarcely 48 hours after the tragedy and on the eve of the elections, dealt a devastating blow to the treacherous maneuvers of the previous Spanish government to manipulate the awful acts of March 11 in its favor and in the warmonger interests of the United States.
The present government has kept its promise to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. This is undoubtedly a commendable act. But the Spanish state, under the previous administration, had taken upon itself to recruit a considerable number of young Dominicans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans to be sent as canon fodder to Iraq with the Spanish Legion, something unique in the history of this hemisphere. Spain, which as the former colonial power in Latin America aspires to be given respect and consideration and even to play a certain role in Latin American and the Caribbean, has the responsibility and moral duty to fight for the return home of those young Latin Americans who were sent to Iraq due to the actions of the previous government.
The peoples of the world, including the Cuban people, do not hate the American people nor do they want young American soldiers to die -many of whom are black, mixed race or Latin American- who were induced by poverty and unemployment to take up soldiering and who today are the victims of an unnecessary, stupid war.
We do not support any government in Iraq or any given political system; this is the exclusive prerogative of the Iraqis. We felt solidarity with those who died in the attacks in New York and Madrid and we condemn such methods. The enormous and growing world sympathy with the Iraqi people was generated by the brutal bombings of Baghdad and other cities which sowed terror and death among innocent civilians, totally ignoring the terrible trauma which will affect millions of children, adolescents, pregnant women, mothers and old people all of their lives, bombings for which there is no possible justification, based as they were on barefaced lies. This sympathy is growing, because billions of people have come to realize that it is a war of conquest to gain possession of the country's resources and raw materials, because there was no justification, nor legality whatsoever, because international laws were breached, because the United Nations' prerogatives and authority were ignored.
The people of Iraq are today struggling for their independence, their lives, the lives of their children and for their legitimate rights and resources.
The US government is facing a complicated situation because of this, as it insisted on taking the path of violence, war and terror. I have the moral authority to propound this point of view, because long before this warmongering policy was unleashed, on September 11, 2001, the very same day as the horrendous attack on the Twin Towers, in a ceremony to inaugurate the school year for 4,500 young primary school teachers I said, and I quote:
"It is very important to know what the reaction of the US Government will be. Possibly the days to come will be dangerous for the world, and I do not mean Cuba. Cuba is the most peaceful country in the world for several reasons: our policy, our kind of struggle, our doctrine, and also, comrades, for the absolute absence of fear".
[...]
"The days to come will be tense both inside and outside the United States. A number of people will start voicing their views.
"Whenever there is a tragedy like this, even when they are sometimes so difficult to prevent, I see no other way but to keep calm. And if at some point I am allowed to make a suggestion to an adversary who has been tough on us for many years knows [...] if under specific circumstances it were correct to suggest something to the adversary, for the well being of the American people and based on the arguments I have given you, we would advise the leaders of the powerful empire to keep their equanimity, to act calmly, not to be carried away by a fit of rage or hatred and not to start hunting people down dropping bombs all over the place.
"I reiterate that none of the world problems, not even terrorism, can be solved with the use of force, and every act of force, every reckless use of force anywhere would seriously aggravate the world problems.
"The way is neither the use of force nor war. I say this here with the full credibility of someone who has always been honest, with the sound conviction and the experience of someone who has been through the years of struggle that we have lived through in Cuba. It is only guided by reason and applying an intelligent policy based on the strength of consensus and the support of the international public opinion that such a predicament could be definitively solved. I think this unexpected episode must be used to undertake an international struggle against terrorism. However, this international struggle against terrorism cannot succeed by killing a terrorist here and another one there, that is, by using similar methods to theirs, sacrificing innocent lives. It is resolved, inter alia, by putting an end to State terrorism and other repulsive crimes, by putting an end to genocide and by honestly pursuing a policy of peace and respect for unavoidable moral and legal standards. The world cannot be saved unless a path of international peace and cooperation is pursued".
The Iraq war brings to many people memories of the Vietnam War. To me, it brings back memories of the Algerian war of liberation, when French military might shattered against the resistance of a people with a very different culture, language and religion, in a country which in places is just as desert-like as many regions of Iraq, a people that managed to defeat the French troops and all their technology, which was fairly advanced for its time. The French had previously sustained defeat in Dien Bien Phu, where Bush's predecessors were on the point of using nuclear weapons.
In this type of war the entire arsenal of a hegemonic superpower is superfluous. This superpower can conquer a country with its enormous power but it is impossible to administer and govern that country if its population battles resolutely against the occupiers.
I never thought that one day Mr.Bush would address a kind letter to the President of Syria and the authorities of the Iranian government -both countries considered terrorists until now-- and ask them with humility to help in the solution of the Iraqi conflict. It is still more amazing that, according to press dispatches, two days ago the US marines were pulled out of Fallujah and replaced by Iraqi soldiers led by an ex General from Saddam Hussein's army.
I do not criticize any peace effort or initiative which the current US administration decides to take, but I doubt very much that there can be any solution other than withdrawing US troops from Iraq - where they should never have been sent- and returning full independence to the Iraqi people. This would have the support of the international community, which would no doubt find a way to resolve the complex situation that has been created there.
Meanwhile, we Cubans will continue to observe what happens and will continue to wage our most resolute battle against those who give themselves the luxury of advocating political changes based on the physical removal of some of us. The worst thing is that those who talk of speeding up the aforementioned changes are characters whose same old murderous ideas are quite familiar to us.
Now they are once again making themselves hoarse shouting threats of upcoming measures to affect our economy and destabilize the country. They would do well to return our five prisoners of the empire to us, who with unequalled dignity are withstanding the most shameful and cruel case of human rights violations. Their fate in federal government prisons, where they are kept completely separate, is hardly any better that that of those held captive in the Guantánamo naval base. But despite all that, we do not hesitate in suggesting to those who govern the United States that they be calmer, more sensible, saner and wiser.
To those who persist in their efforts to destroy the Revolution, I simply say in the name of the crowd gathered here on this May 1st, as I said at Girón and at other decisive moments in our battles:
Long live socialism!
Homeland or Death!
We shall overcome!
-------- prisoners of war
Americans Being Held at US Torture Prison in Iraq?
by Mark Rothschild,
May 1, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/rothschild.php?articleid=2459
American citizens held since 2003 at the Abu Ghraib military prison may be among those imprisoned and tortured by the US military in Iraq. The American General in charge of U.S. prisons in Iraq, Brig. Gen Janis Karpinski, said in September 2003 that Americans being held at the Abu Ghraib prison were being interrogated by US military intelligence. The prisoners, said Karpinski, spoke with American accents.
Now that photographs of US torture victims have been displayed on the front pages of numerous newspapers, the fate of the other 12,000 detainees in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison has become a focus of concern.
US Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who is no longer in Iraq, commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade. It is unclear whether she has been suspended or will face charges, but she has not been relieved of her command. Six members of the Brigade she commanded are facing criminal charges in an investigation that has taken three months and is still not at a stage where the US military will comment on the identities of the personnel being charged.
The torture pictures leaked to the TV program 60 Minutes do not include other pictures still being withheld by the US military that reportedly show bodies of prisoners beaten to death and being attacked by guard dogs.
However, the New Yorker magazine has revealed that it has in its possession a secret U.S. Army report on the horrors taking place at Abu Ghraib prison detailing, in the words of the leaked report, "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses."
The secret Army report admits to the rape and sodomizing of prisoners and the burning of prisoners with liquid chemicals. Its report was completed a month after the Army's internal investigation of torture at Abu Ghraib prison began in January, but has remained classified.
Will the full extent of the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison ever be reveled or will the atrocities at Abu Ghraib remain incomplete, known only from a few leaked pictures and documents? This is a question that will probably be answered in the near future.
Amnesty International, an organization that has been investigating "frequent reports of torture" in Coalition prisons, said the torture pictures were, "not an isolated incident," and that there was a "real crisis of leadership in Iraq ...." Amnesty has joined the growing chorus of voices demanding an independent inquiry: "There must be a fully independent, impartial and public investigation into all allegations of torture. Nothing less will suffice."
Brigadier General Ricardo S. Sanchez, who bears ultimate responsibility for US military actions in Iraq, has refused to discuss the issue of personal responsibility - including his own - and his spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt has implied that the names of those responsible may never be released.
----
Soldier's diary details wider abuse at prison
Va. staff sergeant facing court-martial implicates other agencies in Army
By Scott Shane
Baltimore Sun National Staff
May 1, 2004
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.diary01may01,0,6510246.story?coll=bal-iraq-headlines
The Iraq journal of Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, penned in careful handwriting and mailed home as he feared becoming a scapegoat for egregious military misdeeds, paints a nightmarish picture of overworked, undertrained guards coping with hostile Iraqi prisoners and using tactics that flagrantly violated international rules for treatment of detainees.
If true, the 37-year-old reservist's statements are a devastating indictment of a U.S. military that toppled a brutal dictator only to be accused of torturing Iraqis in a prison, Abu Ghraib, notorious for similar and worse horrors during Saddam Hussein's rule.
Frederick wrote his 10 pages of dated, diary-style entries and sent them to four relatives as the Army prepared to charge him with assault and other crimes. His account presumably seeks to minimize his responsibility for the abuse.
But his journal is replete with dates, names and grisly details - from the cover-up of the death of a prisoner in custody to descriptions of detainees left naked in chilly isolation cells for days. And it accords with complaints lodged for months by the human rights group Amnesty International, which called yesterday for a "fully independent, impartial and public investigation" of prisoners' treatment throughout Iraq.
In its most chilling lines, Frederick's journal describes the death in November of an Iraqi described as an "OGA prisoner" - an abbreviation for "Other Government Agency," military jargon for the CIA and other nonmilitary agencies.
"They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away," Frederick writes. The corpse was packed in ice and later prepared to suggest falsely that the prisoner had died under medical care: "The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake I.V. [intravenous drip] in his arm and took him away. This OGA [prisoner] was never processed and therefore never had a number."
Abuse urged, he writes
A disturbing repeated assertion in Frederick's journal is that the abuse was encouraged by U.S. interrogators from "MI," or military intelligence, and "CID," or the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Both are under intense pressure to help stop attacks on U.S. troops.
But no intelligence or CID personnel are among the 17 people, including Frederick, whom the Army has charged or named as under investigation. So Frederick's journal suggests that culpability reaches far beyond those implicated to date.
Frederick writes that when he questioned guards' conduct - "leaving inmates in their cells with no clothes or in females' underpants, [and] handcuffing them to the door of their cell" - he was told not to worry.
"The answer I got was this is how Military Intelligence (MI) wants it done," he writes. "MI didn't want any of the inmates talking to each other. This is what happened when they were caught talking."
Later, describing how prisoners were stripped naked and deprived of light, ventilation, water and toilets, Frederick asserts: "MI has been present and witnessed such activity. MI has encouraged and told us great job [and] that they were now getting positive results and information."
Likewise, an agent from the Army's Criminal Investigation Command told a guard "to stress one prisoner out as much as possible [because] he wanted him to talk the next day," according to Frederick.
Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Criminal Investigation Command, said he could not comment because the investigation of prisoner abuse is not over. No spokesman for military intelligence could be reached, but an officer in one MI unit mentioned by Frederick said he had no knowledge of any abuse.
In civilian life, Chip Frederick is a $26,722-a-year senior correctional officer at Buckingham Correctional Center, a medium-security prison in rural central Virginia. His wife, Martha, works in the prison's training department.
The prison houses 985 inmates - roughly the same number now held at Abu Ghraib - including some convicted of murder. Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Correction, said officers such as Frederick are trained at a state academy.
'A long bumpy road'
Frederick's uncle, Bill Lawson, described his nephew as a well-built man of 6-foot-2 who enjoys fishing and barbecuing. Stepfather of his wife's two teen-age daughters, Frederick worked at a Bausch & Lomb factory until it closed down and got the prison job about six years ago, Lawson said.
Reached by phone at Buckingham Correctional Center, Martha Frederick said, "We realize it's going to be a long, bumpy road." Of her husband, she added, "He's doing OK."
Frederick's journal portrays himself and his fellow military police officers as struggling, with little guidance or support, to cope with prisoners who could be extremely challenging. He writes that the guards were "working a 12 to 14 hour shift ten straight days before getting a day off" and facing inmates emboldened by their belief that they "would not be treated as under Saddam."
Frederick contrasts the absence of clear rules at Abu Ghraib with the precise instructions he has at the Virginia prison, where guards have approved sanctions to use to control prisoners' behavior.
The only independent inspections of Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities are carried out by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Spokesman Florian Westphal in Geneva said that by policy, Red Cross inspectors never publicize mistreatment they find to preserve access to detainees.
Instead, they complain to prison authorities. If nothing changes, "in some instances, we've gone right up to the head of state," Westphal said.
In his journal, Frederick mentions that before a January visit from the Red Cross, there was a flurry of activity to "process" prisoners, or formally document their identity and status.
Early reports
An Amnesty International spokesman said yesterday that as long ago as July, his group reported that prisoners released from Abu Ghraib were describing severe mistreatment.
One detainee, arrested "after slapping his son and nephew to stop them fighting," spent 44 days in Abu Ghraib without being able to change clothes, shave or cut his hair, Amnesty reported. "Detainees were not given blankets to lie on, water was limited and the toilet was an open trench in view of all," the report said.
"We warned that denying access to prisoners by lawyers and family members removes an important protection against ill treatment," said Amnesty spokesman Alistair Hodgett.
Amnesty's watchdog work has turned up similar abuses in other facilities, he said.
"Questions about the treatment of prisoners in Iraq obviously goes far above the level of the guards," Hodgett said.
Sun staff writers Gus G. Sentementes and Jeff Barker contributed to this article.
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Contractors in Iraq questioned about abuse
Los Angeles Times
May 1, 2004,
Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2543800
WASHINGTON -- A private military contractor acknowledged Friday that its employees had been questioned in connection with allegations that U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners at the U.S. military's main detention center in Iraq.
CACI International of Arlington, Va., said the employees had volunteered to be interviewed in a case in which six U.S. soldiers have been charged with sexually and physically abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.
CACI, which provides services to the U.S. military ranging from intelligence gathering to computer networking, declined to identify the employees or their jobs at the prison, which houses about 8,000 convicted criminals and military detainees.
Military and industry sources said CACI was involved in the interrogation of some Iraqis being held at the prison.
A lawyer for one of the accused soldiers said CACI employees had encouraged military police to "soften up" Iraqis for questioning.
At Abu Ghraib, CACI conducted interrogations and a second U.S. company, San Diego-based Titan Corp., provided interpreters, industry and military sources said.
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Arab Reaction to Photos of Prisoner Abuse
Saturday, May 01, 2004
by Juan Cole
http://www.juancole.com/2004_05_01_juancole_archive.html#108339227989927746
The sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war, a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions by US soldiers at the Abu Ghuraib prison, has naturally produced outrage in the Arab world. This is a big thing, folks. I saw the American rightwing talking heads Friday evening trying to shrug off the photos and the incidents as minor affairs. They are not, in the world of public diplomacy. Can you imagine what the mood would be like in the United States if some foreign power had treated US POWs like this and then the photos came out?
Samia Nakhoul of Reuters has gathered up some immediate reactions from the person on the street, a few of which I quote here. She reports that a Syrian woman, Khadija Mousa, said, "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 . . . What I saw is very very humiliating. The Americans are showing their true image."
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the pan-Arabist London newspaper, al-Quds al-Arabi, said, "The liberators are worse than the dictators. This is the straw that broke the camel's back for America . . . "That really, really is the worst atrocity. It affects the honour and pride of Muslim people. It is better to kill them than sexually abuse them.""
Daud al-Shiryan of Saudi Arabia: "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!"
Driver Hatem Ali, 30: "Americans are racists and cowards, that's what I understood from these pictures."
Mahmoud Walid, a 28-year-old Egyptian writer: "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."
Az-Zaman did an interview with General Mark Kimmitt in which it asked him whether the soldiers who abused these prisoners were Jewish, or possibly Israeli, and whether Israeli security forces were helping the US at Abu Ghuraib. Kimmitt said "no." But clearly that is the rumor in Iraq, that this abuse was carried out by Zionists put on a long leash by the US military. Since the United States has in fact coddled the Israeli army with regard to its abuse of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, the Arab public has gotten used to thinking of Washington and Tel Aviv as a team, dedicated to oppressing and humiliating Arabs. The photographs are graphic illustrations of racism, hatred and contempt by some Americans for Arabs.
Although Kimmitt maintains that these actions were carried out by only a handful of soldiers out of 130,000, the commanding officer at Abu Ghuraib would not have been suspended if there had not been something systemic here. Some of the blame is being put on intelligence field officers who encouraged clueless young reservists to soften up the prisoners for interrogation. But another possible guilty party is "civilian contractors" (some would say mercenaries): ' A military report into the Abu Ghuraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian newspaper showed that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison. One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young, male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him. The military investigation names two US contractors, CACI International and the Titan Corporation, for their involvement in Abu Ghuraib. ' Actually, Titan only provided translators, not interrogators.
Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker gives further evidence that these prison abuses were systemic and not the work of a few out of control privates. He quotes a report by Major General Antonio Taguba:
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. '
In significant part these practices are a direct result of Rumsfeld policies--the Pentagon's kidnapping of unprepared reservists for long-term military duty in Iraq, supplemented by unregulated cowboy security firms. It has already been forgotten that some of the fighting around Najaf was done by US private security guards, who even deployed an attack helicopter! The rhetoric that all those who oppose the US presence in Iraq are "terrorists" also dehumanizes prisoners of war and implies that they are akin to the 9/11 hijackers, when in fact many of them are just neighborhood boys who took up a gun to defend their city quarter from what they saw as a foreign incursion.
I really wonder whether, with the emergence of these photos, the game isn't over for the Americans in Iraq. Is it realistic, after the bloody siege of Fallujah and the Shiite uprising of early April, and in the wake of these revelations, to think that the US can still win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi Arab public?
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U.S. Tries to Calm Furor Caused by Photos
Bush Vows Punishment for Abuse of Prisoners
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57849-2004Apr30.html
Arab countries reacted with rage and revulsion yesterday after images of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners were broadcast around the world.
Bush administration and U.S. military officials scrambled to contain the furor and to assuage concerns among allies. The photos showed U.S. troops celebrating as prisoners were sexually humiliated and otherwise abused.
"I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated," President Bush said in a Rose Garden appearance with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America. And so I didn't like it one bit." Bush said the abuses will be investigated and the perpetrators "will be taken care of."
Analysts said the strong response by Bush appeared directed less at an American audience than at an international audience skeptical about U.S. intentions in Iraq. The United States and Britain are struggling to meet a June 30 deadline for a transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, and the images threatened to undermine already tenuous international cooperation.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply disturbed" by the photos, and the British government called the matter appalling, though later it confirmed it was investigating allegations of abuse by British soldiers.
Arab countries were more strident, with the Arab League calling the mistreatment "savage acts" and Arab broadcast networks describing the incidents in similar terms. Arab newspapers and students and even a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council said the images could be pivotal in turning Iraqis against the United States.
"This is the logic and modus operandi of imperialist conquest and colonial occupation," the Tehran Times wrote. "The pictures of torture, brutality and sexual sadism are representative of the entire criminal operation being conducted in Iraq."
The photos, first broadcast Wednesday on CBS's "60 Minutes II," showed hooded prisoners piled in a human pyramid and simulating sex acts, as U.S. soldiers celebrated. One photo showed a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands; the prisoner was told, falsely, that he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box.
"It provides a graphic portrayal of many of the worst impressions that much of the world has about America," said Andrew Kohut, who, as director of the Pew Research Center, has polled extensively in Arab and European countries. "It's red meat to large numbers of people all around the world who are increasingly anti-American and don't think we represent the things Americans pride themselves on."
Foreign policy experts said the photos could cause lasting damage to U.S. efforts. "It is a disaster," said Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and until earlier this year a political adviser to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. "Five or six people have managed to soil the reputation of American soldiers worldwide."
Arab commentators said the images were particularly damaging because of Muslim restrictions on nudity. The photos also invited parallels to Saddam Hussein's regime because the abuse occurred in Abu Ghraib, a prison used by Hussein for torture.
Without detailing the abuses, the military brought criminal charges in March against six soldiers over incidents, allegedly the ones in the photos, at the prison in November and December 2003. Charges included indecent acts with another person, maltreatment, battery, dereliction of duty and aggravated assault. The military has also recommended disciplinary action against seven U.S. officers involved in running the prison.
In addition, the commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, is being sent to Iraq to take over the coalition detention facilities. And the CIA said yesterday that its inspector general has two long-standing probes into abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, including one investigation into a prisoner's death. But a CIA spokesman said there is "no direct evidence" connecting the CIA to the incidents in the photographs.
In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a military spokesman, said he tried to limit the damage before the CBS show on Wednesday. "I talked with the Arab press two nights ago, before the '60 Minutes' show was broadcast because I wanted the Arab press to understand and possibly communicate to their fellow Iraqis a couple of key points," he said. Kimmitt said the U.S. military is "absolutely appalled" by the photos and that the perpetrators are facing criminal charges. He also said authorities believe the incident involves fewer than 20 of about 8,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"Please don't for a moment think that that's the entire U.S. Army or the U.S. military, because it's not," Kimmitt said in remarks directed at Iraqis. "And if you think those soldiers that are walking up and down the street approve of what they saw, condone what they saw or excuse what they saw, I can tell you that I've got 150,000 other American soldiers who feel as appalled and disappointed as I do at the actions of those few."
Staff writers Sewell Chan in Baghdad and Glenn Kessler and Dana Priest in Washington contributed to this report.
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Bush Voices 'Disgust' at Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners
May 1, 2004
By THOM SHANKER and JACQUES STEINBERG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/international/middleeast/01ABUS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, April 30 - President Bush said Friday that he was deeply disgusted by reports that Iraqi detainees were abused by American military police, and he vowed that any soldier found to be at fault would be punished.
Mr. Bush spoke in the White House Rose Garden on a day that photographs circulated around the globe showing American soldiers smiling, laughing and holding their thumbs up as naked Iraqi detainees were forced into sexually abusive and humiliating positions.
The photographs drew particular anger in the Arab world just as the American military in Iraq was seeking to pacify a rising insurgency and gain the trust of a larger percentage of the local population ahead of passing sovereignty to a new government in Baghdad on June 30.
"I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated," Mr. Bush said. "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people." He added that the actions of a handful of soldiers should not taint the tens of thousands who serve honorably in Iraq. Mr. Bush emphasized that the investigation into the case was moving ahead. "I think they'll be taken care of," he said.
The American military in Iraq announced on March 20 that six members of an Army Reserve military police unit assigned to Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghad faced charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees. Inquiries are also under way into whether any commanders should be held responsible for the actions of their subordinates, as well as a far-reaching administrative review of policies and procedures at all of the prisons controlled by occupation forces in Iraq. A defense lawyer for one of the soldiers facing charges has indicated that he plans to claim that the military police were following instructions to break down the resistance of the detainees. But senior military commanders have said that there is no excuse for the behavior. They are withholding further comment because the matter is under investigation.
The military is considering action against Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the senior officer at the prison when the abuse occurred against 20 detainees in November and December. Pentagon officials said Friday that no final action had been determined. General Karpinski and other officers who are the subjects of the inquiry are now in a stage of the military legal process where they are allowed to write responses to the investigators' findings. General Karpinski has left Baghdad, part of the scheduled rotation of troops for Iraq. The acts of sexual humiliation and other abuses were documented in photographs first broadcast this week by the CBS News program "60 Minutes II." In one photograph, naked Iraqi men are stacked in a human pyramid, one with a slur in English written on his skin. In another, a prisoner stands on a box, with his head covered and wires attached to his body. The program said the detainee was told that he would be electrocuted if he fell. Other photographs show male prisoners simulating having sex.
The images received heavy coverage over two satellite networks that strongly influence public opinion in the Arab world, Al Jazeera, which broadcasts from Qatar, and Al Arabiya, based in Dubai.
Al-Jazeera, which opened its news bulletins with the story for part of the day, described the conduct of the American soldiers as "unethical and inhuman." Speaking to Nabil Khoury, a spokesman for the State Department in London, the Jazeera anchorwoman spoke of criticism leveled at Jazeera by the Bush administration, which has accused the network of broadcasting deliberately inflammatory material. She asked if CBS News would face similar censure. Mr. Khoury demurred, saying the prison incident was regrettable and would be thoroughly investigated, while acknowledging that it would not help the image of Americans in the Arab world.
The photos were carried by newspapers in France, Italy and Britain, and on television in Turkey. While some newspapers reported on the photographs in fairly straightforward fashion, La Repubblica, a left-leaning Italian daily, used one of the photos to illustrate a package that included a front-page editorial critical of the American-led war. "The parallel worlds of political fiction and real war, of optimistic propaganda and terrifying news, continue to travel without crossing in the imaginary universe of George Bush," the editors wrote. "But there is nothing imaginary, unfortunately, in the little world of prison horrors that one of his generals created in the cruelest depths of Saddam's Iraq."
In Britain, The Guardian ran a front-page photo that showed an Iraqi man in a black hood and robe standing on a box, arms outstretched. The headline, which ran the full width of the newspaper, read, "U.S. military in torture scandal." The Times of London ran a similar front-page photo, under the headline, "Scandal over humiliation of Iraqi prisoner." Inside, it published several more photos, including one of a female soldier, apparently an American, pointing and grinning at the genitalia of a naked Iraqi. (In the photo, the genitalia were blurred.)
Reuters reported that Britain began an investigation on Friday into allegations that British troops had abused Iraqi prisoners.
In the United States, there was little consensus among news organizations on whether to reproduce the photos. While The Daily News of New York, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday and The Washington Post each published at least one photo on Thursday or Friday, other newspapers, including The New York Post and USA Today, did not. "If there's a handful of U.S. soldiers who've mistreated prisoners," said Col Allan, The New York Post's editor in chief, "I don't think that should be allowed to reflect poorly on the 140,000 men and women over there who are risking their lives and doing a good job."
Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, said the newspaper's news desk had initially held off on publishing the photos, only because it "could not, in the time available, ascertain their authenticity."
The Daily News of New York published one of the photos, of a hooded man with his hands attached to electrical wires, on page 22 on Thursday. "If we want to be more than mere propaganda sheets," said the newspaper's editorial director, Martin Dunn, "then surely there is a duty to show them."
For The Baltimore Sun, which published photos on Thursday and Friday, the story hit close to home: several of the reservists involved are believed to be from a police company based in Cumberland, Md.
"Without the photos it's hard for the reader, if they hadn't seen the show, to understand what happened or what was going on," said Jim Preston, assistant managing editor for photography for The Sun.
As outrage swirled around the globe, much of the military's official response on Friday was a repeat of steps already taken, and previously announced. In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the coalition military, said a new senior officer, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, was improving conditions at detention facilities. The assignment of General Miller as deputy commander for detainee operations in Iraq was announced by the Pentagon on March 22, two days after the initial charges in the case were disclosed. Military investigators are also looking at whether any of the civilian interrogators should be held accountable for the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Senator John Kerry, Mr. Bush's Democratic challenger, issued a statement Friday saying: "I am disturbed and troubled by the evidence of shameful mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. We must learn the facts and take the appropriate action.
"As Americans, we must stand tall for the rule of law and freedom everywhere," Mr. Kerry added. "But we cannot let the actions of a few overshadow the tremendous good work that thousands of soldiers are doing every day in Iraq and all over the world."
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Iraqis see dignity crushed in prison abuse photos
By Joseph Logan
01 May 2004
(Reuters)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LAD145486.htm
BAGHDAD - In Washington, shocking images of foreign troops abusing Iraqi prisoners are seen as an exception to the rule of American good intentions. In Baghdad, they look like signs of what Iraq's dignity means to its occupiers.
"Pimps...don't do what the Americans do. Who takes a bearded man, a Muslim, and lays him down with his face in another man's genitals?" said Abdel Wadoud Muhbal, a currency trader in the Iraqi capital, on Saturday. "They want jihad (holy war)."
Photos from a Baghdad prison, aired on a U.S. network and Arab channels, show nude Iraqi men forced to lie in a heap and simulate sex acts, as their laughing captors pose and give the thumbs-up sign.
The images, as well as those of soldiers from U.S. ally Britain urinating on their Iraqi captives, have inspired Arab outrage, international condemnation and a plea from U.S. President George W. Bush for Iraqis to judge his nation on its avowed principles, not the scenes of degradation in Iraq.
Iraqis saw the images of abuse via television. Iraq's major newspapers, including those at odds with the U.S.-led occupation, did not publish the photographs which have been splashed across the pages of Saturday's European publications.
Iraqi editors were not immediately available for comment on Saturday, a holiday observed across the country. Senior U.S. military officials have discussed the handling of the images with Arab satellite channels, but it was not immediately clear whether those contacts included print media.
"Those few people who did that do not reflect the nature of the men and women we've sent overseas," Bush said on Friday. "That's not the way the people are. It's not their character, that are serving our nation in the cause of freedom."
But among Iraqis whose general relief at the fall of Saddam Hussein has turned into resentment of the army that ousted him, Bush's words were dismissed as lip service from an ally of Israel intent on subjugating and humiliating Arabs and Muslims.
"They came to destroy Islam, and what they are doing to the Palestinians they now do to us -- throw us in prison, rape us and try to destroy our honour," said Muhbal, an officer of the Saddam-era army Washington dissolved before recruiting its senior figures to help rein in a guerrilla uprising.
U.S. forces have previously closed the Baghdad office of an Arab TV station accused by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council of inciting violence against them, and last month sparked riots by shutting down the newspaper of firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Critics of those moves have likened them to the repression of ousted Iraqi strongman Saddam, a comparison that found favour among Iraqis with regard to the scenes of abuse.
"I can't describe what I felt when I saw those scenes; they revolted me and proved the barbarity of the occupation forces," said Mohammad Salman, a traffic policeman.
"What's the difference between them and Saddam? They are finishing what he started," he said.
(Additional reporting by Falah Hassan, editing by Lisa Vaughan)
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Many Muslims feel prisoners' 'humiliation'
Public nudity is a major cultural taboo
Cicero A. Estrella, Jonathan Curiel,
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writers
Saturday, May 1, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/01/MNG9M6E9C51.DTL
The actions of U.S. soldiers seen to be abusing Iraqi prisoners, many of them naked, are especially egregious to the Muslim community, which considers modesty one of its most sacred values.
"The worst thing in Arab culture is for a man to be naked in front of another man," said Gulshen Beyatli, director of Arabs Without Borders in San Francisco. "I heard about the photos on the radio today, and I was horrified. This is going to have multiple effects on people."
The images of naked Iraqi prisoners, shown on American and Arab television this week, set off a firestorm of anger, especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
"A huge part of our religion and culture is to be modest in the way women and men dress," said Ahmed Hashem of the Iraqi Community Association in Sunnyvale. "Modesty is a key part in our worship of God."
One of the pictures shown was of several naked Iraqi prisoners intertwined as if they were engaging in a sex act and one of a female U.S. soldier grinning at the camera while pointing at the genitals of a naked Iraqi prisoner.
Hussein Ibish, communications director with the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee in Washington, D.C., said the images had done even more damage to the United States, already perceived by many Arabs as being anti-Muslim.
"These images are so powerful because they encapsulate a humiliating relationship," he said. "It's proven to be very difficult (since the airing of the CBS show) to communicate successfully to Americans the level of degradation, the level of humiliation that Arabs feel themselves personally and vicariously on behalf of the people who are in the images.
"That's because there's a level of humiliation (already existing) in the Arab world that culturally doesn't exist here."
Hatem Bazian, who teaches Islamic studies courses at UC Berkeley, says that while the pictures are humiliating, most people viewing them realize the prisoners were unwilling participants.
"Nudity is prohibited, but you blame the ones who are ordering the prisoners," he said.
Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, said the images "come at a very sensitive time."
"The window of opportunity for the U.S.-led occupation is becoming narrower and narrower," Gerges said. "More and more Iraqis are becoming suspicious of American goals. The visual images could pour fuel on already raging anti-American sentiment in Iraq and in Arab and Muslim lands and basically reinforce perceptions that the United States doesn't care about democracy, doesn't care about Iraqis."
Gerges added: "The mistreatment of Iraqi (prisoners) was basically exposed by American soldiers -- let's remember this. But, unfortunately, these facts could get lost in the fog of anger and outrage."
E-mail the writers at cestrella@sfchronicle.com and jcuriel@sfchronicle.com.
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Bush's Space Initiative Stalled
Questions, Doubts Mount in Congress
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57790-2004Apr30?language=printer
President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" made headlines when it was announced 31/2 months ago, but Congress has refused to even consider funding the initiative until NASA comes up with more concrete proposals to flesh it out.
The impasse has brought to a standstill NASA's plans to begin work on the new strategy, even as long-standing programs ranging from the grounded space shuttles to Earth science and aeronautics remain mired in uncertainty.
Space advocates in both the Senate and the House have already rebuffed NASA's attempts to reallocate money in the current year to jump-start parts of the plan and have warned the agency that its 2005 budget proposal will not pass at its $16.2 billion price tag -- and maybe not at any price -- in a Congress trying to cope with record budget deficits and protracted war.
The pessimism shrouding the proposal is unusual for Capitol Hill in that it is both bipartisan and unequivocal. "I cannot commit this Congress or future Congresses to support an undefined program," Rep. James T. Walsh (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, said at a hearing last month.
"There's a lot of consternation about this process," added Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), the ranking minority member. "I think we would like a plan, and that's not apparent here at all."
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, making his budget pitch to the panel, promised "we're prepared to deliver whatever you believe is necessary," but several lawmakers said selling the initiative may be beyond O'Keefe.
"It comes down to what priority the president gives it," said Rep. Bart Gordon (Tenn.), ranking Democrat on the Science Committee. "Is he committed?"
Bush unveiled the "Vision" in a Jan. 14 speech, promising to "extend a human presence across our solar system," starting with a return to the moon by 2020 and an eventual human spaceflight to Mars.
The plan called for completion of the international space station by 2010, after which the three remaining space shuttles would be retired. A new "crew exploration vehicle" would be designed and developed to travel to the moon and beyond.
He described the initiative as "a journey, not a race" and, in a concession to burgeoning deficits and war costs, asked for only $1 billion in new money for the plan for the next five years. The remaining $11 billion would be reallocated from within NASA's existing programs.
Despite charges of election-year grandstanding, Bush appears to have gained nothing politically from the announcement. A Jan. 18 Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 62 percent of Americans opposed the plan. Bush has not mentioned it since the speech.
In Congress, however, Bush appeared to win almost universal approval for providing a badly needed new direction for NASA, still reeling from the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia last year.
In a recent telephone interview, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), involved in NASA and space funding for well over a decade, echoed several colleagues when she described Bush's concept as "a wonderful dream."
But the devil is in the details, and in the three months that have elapsed since the Bush speech, lawmakers say NASA has done relatively little to fill in the original broad-stroke outline: "What they have is a schedule, not a plan," Mikulski said. Right now, she added, "I am overtly opposed to it."
In repeated appearances on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, first to win support for the plan and now to gain approval of NASA's 2005 budget, O'Keefe has braved withering criticism for failing to detail adequately what Mollohan described last month as a restructuring of NASA, "major in every way."
Throughout these ordeals, NASA's chief has stressed the virtue of avoiding over-promising early in an initiative likely to last decades. The president has pointed NASA in a different direction, he says, and given it the flexibility to adjust its timetable and funding as circumstances dictate.
The lack of details is "not a reluctance on our part," O'Keefe said in an interview. "We establish the program details as we move forward, and build on the successes as they are achieved. All of these things should be refined as you move along."
This approach is meeting with little success. "I like Sean O'Keefe a lot," House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) said in an interview, but "we can't be faulted for asking for more information." He said O'Keefe has scant hopes of getting his requested budget, an increase of $866 million over 2004. "Congress wants to eliminate the deficit, and we're adding rather than subtracting," he said. Shrinkage, he added, "is inevitable."
But the increase by itself does not irk lawmakers nearly as much as what they perceive to be NASA's failure to satisfy them with details about what specific programs will be added and cut because of the vision, and by how much.
"Where does the financing come from?" Boehlert asked. "What is the impact on other areas?"
NASA's 2005 budget proposal shows increases for some areas of "space science" -- especially those associated with the new initiative; cuts for others; substantial cuts for Earth science, which includes satellite monitoring of Earth's atmosphere, weather and geology; and aeronautics, NASA's aviation research arm.
Lawmakers' efforts to pin NASA down have prompted several testy exchanges with O'Keefe. "They tell us what they're going to spend but don't say what we get for it, or when," said Gordon, a frequent critic. "And they don't tell us what programs they're going to cannibalize -- they simply have to be more forthcoming."
O'Keefe said NASA is moving "as briskly as possible" to provide details. "You can't disprove something that's a blanket assertion," he said. "You have to be specific. Show me what you don't have and we'll provide it."
O'Keefe said he "didn't see a big substantive difference" between NASA and Congress, but late last month, in a rare bipartisan rebuke, the leaders of appropriations subcommittees in both chambers of Congress -- Walsh, Mollohan, Mikulski and Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) -- sent a letter to O'Keefe denying him the authority to reprogram 2004 funds in order to launch the new initiatives.
"NASA has not provided sufficient information" to justify the changes, the lawmakers said. Further, the letter added, "any activities that have begun without prior approval by the Committees . . . will be suspended," and any cuts in programs or staff "shall be subject to review of the Committees prior to approval."
By preventing NASA from making changes, the letter has brought the new programs to a dead stop. And by denying NASA the ability even to lay the groundwork, the letter ensured that no changes will occur should Congress fail to pass a new NASA spending bill this year and simply continue 2004 levels. There is a strong possibility that this could occur in an election year.
This face-off has left many proven NASA programs in limbo, particularly those in Earth science and aeronautics, and could also disrupt the timing of the Vision initiative. O'Keefe told the House subcommittee last month that 85 percent of NASA's 2005 budget increase was related to space station activities -- including the space shuttle -- and that the plan would be "compromised" if budget increases were denied.
Gordon said only a "wild optimist" would believe NASA's prediction that the shuttle will be finished servicing the space station by 2010, a statement echoed by colleagues of both parties. Should the deadline slip, costs "will skyrocket," Mikulski added. Shuttle operations -- projected at $4.3 billion for 2005 -- are by far the biggest item in any NASA budget.
This concern has opened a debate on whether NASA should scrap the shuttle sooner rather than later and channel the savings into the Vision programs. "The shuttle is key," said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), chairman of the Commerce subcommittee on science, technology and space. "How much more money do we put in it?"
Getting rid of the shuttle would mean prolonging dependence on Russian spacecraft for trips to the space station and would make it impossible to send up the components needed to finish the station. Gordon said he could not tell whether such a plan "is feasible, but we ought to take a serious look at it."
All sides on Capitol Hill agree, however, that the fate of the president's proposal is, at best, in doubt. Should Congress vote on the plan, the outcome would be "very iffy," Boehlert acknowledged. But "we have to have [the debate] -- and it's anybody's guess how it comes out."
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Data Show Different Spy Game Since 9/11
Justice Department Shifts Its Focus to Battling Terrorism
By Dan Eggen and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57859-2004Apr30.html
For the first time, the number of secret surveillance warrants issued in federal terrorism and espionage cases last year exceeded the total number of wiretaps approved in criminal cases nationwide, according to new statistics released yesterday.
The data provide further evidence of how the Justice Department and the FBI have shifted their focus from traditional criminals to suspected terrorists and their associates, and mark a milestone in the history of domestic surveillance by U.S. law enforcement agencies, government officials and legal and privacy experts said.
Federal and state courts authorized the use of wiretaps and other electronic surveillance in 1,442 criminal cases last year, according to data released yesterday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. By comparison, the FBI says the number of warrants filed last year with the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington jumped to more than 1,700.
The volume of secret wiretaps has grown so rapidly over the past two years that the Justice Department has fallen behind in processing applications, resulting in serious "bottlenecks," according to a recent report by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The report said the approval process "continues to be long and slow" and that the requests "are overwhelming the ability of the system to process them."
Although the government does not provide details about the secret warrants, officials and legal experts said the two sets of statistics provide a reliable measure of the types of surveillance conducted by state and federal law enforcement agents. Intelligence warrants can also include physical searches, but current and former government officials familiar with the process say that nearly all involve some form of electronic surveillance.
The monitoring allowed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in terrorism and espionage cases, as opposed to criminal investigations, can be far more aggressive and wide-ranging, can last longer, has fewer restrictions and may be approved even if law enforcement agents do not meet standards of probable cause for criminal cases.
"This really amounts to the first statistical proof that the Justice Department has redefined its mission and has undergone a fundamental shift in the way it conducts surveillance," said David L. Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which monitors government surveillance policies. "The fact that it is now a secret court that is overseeing the majority of surveillance activity, in cases that do not require probable cause, does raise significant privacy and constitutional issues."
The latest statistics come amid an ongoing national debate about the use of the USA Patriot Act, which was passed shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, and gave the FBI broader power to search and surveil. President Bush in recent weeks has called on Congress to make permanent some controversial portions of the law that are due to expire in 2005.
The House Judiciary Committee is set to consider legislation next week that would expand the government's ability to conduct surveillance.
Officials stressed that in urgent cases, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft may circumvent the backlog of FISA warrant applications by seeking emergency orders while awaiting approval of standard warrants.
They said a task force of 10 FBI and Justice Department lawyers has recently been assigned to plow through the backlog of cases. Ashcroft also decided two weeks ago that FBI agents should send their requests directly to the Justice Department, rather than to FBI headquarters, for initial legal review, officials said.
In addition, FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell said 12 bureau lawyers are being transferred to the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review at Justice, where the applications are drafted. Previously, FISA requests from field offices were first sent to those FBI lawyers for a review of legal sufficiency.
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said more lawyers are being assigned to work with the 44 lawyers who now handle the applications, along with three more supervising lawyers. "What you have is a system that since 9/11 has seen an enormous increase in activity without an enormous increase in personnel," Corallo said.
The Patriot Act and a landmark 2002 decision by a secret appeals court substantially broadened the government's use of electronic surveillance under FISA. The legislation allowed the FBI to seek such warrants not just in cases in which the primary objective is intelligence gathering, but when criminal prosecution is the primary goal. The number of FISA applications has mushroomed as a result.
The number of FISA warrants filed in 2003 was an 85 percent increase over the total in 2001, when 934 applications were approved, according to statistics provided by the FBI in April to the commission investigating the terrorist attacks. The Justice Department is scheduled to formally release a final number tomorrow.
By comparison, wiretaps approved by regular federal courts -- including surveillance sought by the FBI in traditional criminal cases -- totaled 578 last year, according to the statistics released yesterday by the U.S. courts office. The rest, 864, were issued by state courts, primarily in the Northeast, Florida and California, the statistics show.
Timothy Edgar, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the increase in secret surveillance warrants shows that "the Bush administration is using spy-hunting tools to sidestep the basic protections that exist in criminal cases."
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Ex-diplomat on wife's spy identity leak
Wilson suggests vice president's aides behind exposure of CIA wife
May 01, 2004
By Campbell Brown
Dateline NBC
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4856570/
Over the past few weeks, several new and controversial books have taken us inside the Bush administration, questioning the decisions that led to the war against Iraq. Another new book does more than raise questions. The author -- Joseph Wilson -- levels direct and serious accusations against the White House. He says the administration not only lied, but that someone close to the president may have committed a crime by revealing the identity of an undercover operative for the CIA -- Wilson's wife. Why did it happen? And who does he think was responsible?
Joseph Wilson: "We were at a reception at the Turkish ambassador's residence. And I just looked across the room and there was this attractive pale blonde."
It all began like something out of a fairy tale. One night in Washington, Ambassador Joseph Wilson saw a woman, and suddenly, the world seemed to stop.
Wilson: "She gave me this great big smile. And suddenly all the noise stopped, and I could no longer see people in the room. And she just started floating in slow motion across the room."
Campbell Brown: "It was love at first sight?"
Wilson: "Oh, absolutely. They call it in French, 'le coup de foudre.' It was a lightening bolt."
It was 1997. He was a career diplomat about to join the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. She was Valerie Plame, a private energy consultant. Or so he thought. They dated for several months before she finally told him she had a secret.
Brown: "How did she bring it up with you?"
Wilson: "Well, she just said, 'You know, I just need to tell you something before we go any further in this relationship.' And then she said, 'This is what I do. This is who I work for.'"
Turns out, he'd fallen in love with a spy, an undercover agent for the CIA.
Brown: "Were you surprised?"
Wilson: "Yeah. I was surprised that she had played her cover so well that I had no idea."
Brown: "Make her a little more intriguing, even?"
Wilson: "By that time I was landed -- hook, line, and sinker. I was madly and passionately in love."
Brown: "And you asked her-"
Wilson: "Well, 'Is your name really Valerie?'"
Before long, he would retire from government to become a private consultant. They would marry, and together, the former ambassador and his CIA agent wife would have two children. By all outward appearances, they were leading a normal life, hiding a secret that was about to be shattered.
It was January 2003. President Bush was making his case for going to war against Iraq. In his State of the Union message to Congress and the country, the president said Saddam Hussein was more than a brutal dictator, that he was a growing threat, intent on obtaining the most lethal weapon of all: a nuclear bomb.
That's when the president spoke these dramatic words:
" .. Saddam Hussein recently sought significant qualities of uranium from Africa."
Brown: "When you first heard those now famous 16 words about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Africa what did you think?"
Wilson: "Well, I was a little surprised, to say the least. "
In a new book, "The Politics of Truth," Wilson tells how he discovered the president's claim wasn't true, how he blew the whistle, and how the White House retaliated by blowing the cover of his CIA agent wife.
Joe Wilson's diplomatic career had spanned three decades, including a memorable face-to-face meeting with Saddam Hussein just four days after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, triggering the first Gulf War. Wilson vowed not to fall for a trick Saddam used to make people look like they were paying homage to him.
Wilson: "He would put his hand low. And so in order to grab his hand, you would have to look down to see where it was. And in looking down, you would inevitably bow. And that was the image that was broadcast to all the Iraqi people. Well, this day, I was determined that I was not going to be caught bowing to him. And so I just looked him right in the eye and just groped until I grabbed his hand."
Wilson successfully negotiated the release of more than a hundred American hostages, the so-called "human shields," his efforts earning a personal thank-you from then-president George Bush.
Wilson: "The president came to the door, opened the door. I walked in and he said, 'Gentlemen, let me introduce you to a true American hero.'"
And before that, Wilson had spent years in Africa, including Niger, a country that's one of the world's sources for a type of uranium called "yellowcake." So, two years ago, when Vice President Dick Cheney asked the CIA to find out if Saddam was trying to buy uranium there to build a bomb, Wilson says the CIA asked him to help investigate.
Brown: "What did you find?"
Wilson: "I determined that it did not happen and could not have happened without a lot of people knowing. And there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that such a transaction had taken place or even been contemplated."
Wilson says he reported his findings to the CIA, which passed them on to the White House. But months later, there the claim was in the president's speech as he made the case for war.
The information in the president's speech had been based on documents allegedly from Niger, but which turned out to be forged. When the United Nations revealed the forgeries, the president's National Security Advisor insisted that top White House officials never had any reason to doubt them:
Condoleeza Rice: "No one knew at the time in our circles. Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency. But no one in our circles knew."
Her statement flabbergasted Wilson. How could that be when he'd investigated the very same claim a year before and reported it was false? Wilson concluded that part of the president's case for war had been built on a lie. And now the administration was lying again to cover it up.
Brown: "About Dr. Rice's comments, you say in the book, 'that was a lie and I knew it. She had to have known it as well.'"
Wilson: "Absolutely, Absolutely. They were continuing to stonewall and to deceive the American people."
Brown: "But could it have just been a mistake--a lot of people dropped the ball?"
Wilson: "I suppose that that's one explanation. But frankly, dereliction is even less satisfying as an excuse than deception. For the National Security Advisor to have a lapse of memory on something as important as whether or not an avowed enemy of the United States might be engaged in rebuilding his nuclear weapons program is unacceptable."
Convinced there was a pattern of lies, Wilson says he decided to blow the whistle writing an article for the New York Times: "What I didn't find in Africa."
Within days, officials at the White House seemed to acknowledge there'd been a mistake, saying the claim shouldn't have made it into the president's speech. But instead of blaming the people who made the mistake, Wilson says the White House blamed him for pointing it out.
Wilson: "Now I don't know about you, but if I'm the chief executive officer and somebody puts a lie in my speech, I'm going to want the head of the person who put that lie in my mouth. Instead of wanting the head of the person who put the lie in his mouth, the White House trained their guns on me."
Actually, Wilson and his wife. The attack came one week later in an article, critical of Wilson, by columnist Robert Novak. Citing "two senior administration officials," Novak reported that Wilson's wife "Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." With those words, the identity of an undercover CIA agent was revealed to the world, her cover blown forever.
Brown: "How did you react?"
Wilson: "My own reaction was one of probably uncontrolled fury at this, at how low these guys would go."
Brown: "How did you tell Valerie?"
Wilson: "Well, I brought the newspaper up and showed it to her."
Brown: "What was her initial reaction?"
Wilson: "I think she was just -- her stomach was turning. If your life is a cover, if it is like a play that never ends and you're playing a role in it, to wake up in the morning and see your name is pretty gut wrenching."
Wilson saw the leak as proof of just how far the White House would go to punish people who spoke out.
Wilson: "What they were doing by this act was sending a signal to others who might be coming forward."
Brown: "This was a message?"
Wilson: "This was a message to everybody else."
And it may have been a crime, because revealing classified information about a CIA agent can be a felony.
A federal grand jury is now investigating who leaked Valerie Plame's name.
White House records, even phone logs from Air Force One, have been subpoenaed. And one-by-one, top administration aides are being called to testify.
Brown: "You say in the book that you believe you know who was behind the leaks. Who do you blame?"
Wilson: "Well, I think this leak took place right in very close to the President of the United States. What people have told me, and this is not just a theory, these are people who have been out there sleuthing, have told me that it originates in the office of the vice president.
In his book, Wilson lists a small circle of aides close to Vice President Dick Cheney, including the man Wilson believes is most responsible.
Wilson: "The names that have been brought to my attention have been, Mr. Libby-"
Brown: "Vice president's chief of staff."
Wilson: "Vice president's chief of staff."
Brown: "Scooter Libby."
Wilson: "Scooter Libby. As well as people working for Mr. Libby."
Brown: "Do you have any hard evidence that would back up those names?"
Wilson: "All I have is what a number of different sources have told me."
Brown: "Do you feel confident that there is enough evidence that you're not just going on hearsay -- to put their names in your book?"
Wilson: "I feel absolutely confident that irrespective of whether or not a crime can be prosecuted to conviction, that there has been a breach of national security. And that has not yet been addressed by the White House."
Wilson admits he's now openly campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. And in speeches, he's accusing the Bush White House of putting politics and revenge ahead of national security.
Although her name is now known, Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame has only allowed one photograph, in "Vanity Fair." She's partially disguised because she still works at the CIA. But Wilson says her 18-year career as a spy, with assignments around the world, has been destroyed, her undercover contacts, possibly endangered.
Brown: "You talk about Valerie so passionately, it is a little bit personal."
Wilson: "Well, of course, it's personal. And I've said repeatedly that if I could give her back what her government took away from her, I would do it in a minute. Absolutely. "
But for Joe Wilson and his wife, it's more than just personal.
Wilson: "We have always looked at this, first and foremost, as a breech of national security. We believe that the country has been victimized by his act."
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U.N. Votes To Set Up Mission In Haiti
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56781-2004Apr30.html
UNITED NATIONS, April 30 -- The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to establish a U.N. mission in Haiti on June 1 with more than 8,300 peacekeepers to replace a U.S.-led force that is maintaining stability in the troubled Caribbean nation.
The council's action is part of a carefully choreographed exit strategy worked out between the United Nations and the United States and its military allies. U.S., French, Canadian and Chilean troops intervened with 3,600 troops in Haiti to keep the peace after the Feb. 29 flight of Haiti's exiled president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The U.N. force, which will be headed by Brazil, will also include troops from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Benin and Nepal. Several other countries, including Chile, are considering making a commitment to the mission.
U.N. officials said that they are engaged in discussions over the pace of the transfer of power with U.S. military officials at U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Miami.
A U.S. official said the United States plans to gradually reduce its contingent of about 1,800 Marines to a "handful" once the U.N. forces get into place. "There will be a decrease in the number of U.S troops as we increase the number of international troops," said Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
The resolution calls on the United Nations to oversee its second major effort in more than a decade to rebuild Haiti's institutions and restore democracy. It also contains an appeal to wealthy nations to channel large sums of development aid to Haiti, which is the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
"In the past, we didn't have enough patience with Haiti, we didn't stay the course and the situation worsened," said Chile's U.N. ambassador, Heraldo Munoz. "Now we have to face the challenge and correct the mistakes of the past."
The new U.N. mission, which will include 6,700 troops and more than 1,600 police and other law enforcement advisers, has a broad mandate to provide security, disarm gangs, create a national police force of 10,000 officers and help prepare for national elections by 2005.
U.N. officials said they are facing a major challenge recruiting French-speaking police and other law enforcement officials to serve in the mission. He said the United Nations is facing overwhelming demand for peacekeepers from the French-speaking world with new missions being established in Haiti, Ivory Coast and Burundi.
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Camp X-ray chief takes over Baghdad prison
By Sewell Chan, Jackie Spinner
Washington Post
May 1, 2004
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/30/1083224580279.html
The commander of the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been transferred to a US Army-run prison outside Baghdad to oversee it as part of an investigation into alleged sexual and physical abuse, officials have said.
The officials also disclosed that the top US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, has ordered administrative penalties against seven unnamed officers who supervised the Army Reserve military police unit responsible for the Abu Ghraib detention facility in November. Iraqi prisoners were allegedly subjected to beatings and sexually degrading acts then by US soldiers.
Major-General Geoffrey Miller has taken over the detention centres in the new position of deputy commander for detainee operations, reporting to General Sanchez.
Criminal charges were filed in March against six members of the unit, the 372nd Military Police Company. 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 are being investigated and could face criminal charges. Advertisement Advertisement
According to sealed charging papers provided to The Washington Post, soldiers forced prisoners to lie in "a pyramid of naked detainees" and jumped on their prone bodies. 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 ready-made meals and told he would be electrocuted if he fell. In another example, the papers allege, a soldier unzipped a body bag and took snapshots of a detainee's frozen corpse inside.
Soldiers were photographed and videotaped several times posing in front of humiliated inmates, the charges say.
The documents add to a growing body of accusations of improper prisoner treatment at Abu Ghraib - Iraq's largest and most notorious prison during the rule of ousted president Saddam Hussein. As well as the military's announcement in March that soldiers had been charged, details of the abuses and photographs from inside the prison were broadcast on Wednesday night by CBS's 60 Minutes II.
On Thursday, US officials confirmed the images as authentic and said they have taken steps to stop the mistreatment.
Major Miller, who took over the detention centres this month, had previously overseen the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which holds hundreds of detainees from about 40 countries, many from the 2001 war in Afghanistan.
General Sanchez has ordered new training on the requirements of the Geneva Conventions and on the military's rules of engagement. He has also ordered the creation of a team of officers to retrain prison guards on conditions of confinement, "with emphasis on treating detainees with dignity and respect", a spokesman said.
In January, after a soldier tipped off investigators about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, General Sanchez suspended 17 soldiers from their duties and ordered separate criminal and administrative investigations.
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Selective Service eyes women's draft
The proposal would also require registration of critical skills
By ERIC ROSENBERG,
Saturday, May 1, 2004
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html
WASHINGTON -- The chief of the Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services.
The proposal, which the agency's acting Director Lewis Brodsky presented to senior Pentagon officials just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, also seeks to extend the age of draft registration to 34 years old, up from 25.
The Selective Service System plan, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, highlights the extent to which agency officials have planned for an expanded military draft in case the administration and Congress would authorize one in the future.
"In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills," the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to senior Pentagon officials.
Brodsky and Richard Flahavan, the agency's director of public and congressional affairs, reviewed the six-page proposal with Pentagon officials responsible for personnel issues. They included Charles Abell, principal deputy undersecretary for personnel and readiness, and William Carr, deputy undersecretary for military personnel policy.
The agency officials acknowledged that they would have "to market the concept" of a female draft to Congress, which ultimately would have to authorize such a step.
Dan Amon, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, based in Arlington, Va., said that the Pentagon has taken no action on the proposal to expand draft registration.
"These ideas were only being floated for Department of Defense consideration," Amon said. He described the proposal as "food for thought" for contingency planning.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Defense Department, said the Pentagon "has not agreed to, nor even suggested, a change to Selective Service's current missions."
Nonetheless, Flahavan said the agency has begun designing procedures for a targeted registration and draft of people with computer and language skills, in case military officials and Congress authorize it.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say they oppose a revival of the military draft, last used in 1973 as the American commitment in Vietnam waned, beginning the era of the all-volunteer force.
Mandatory registration for the draft was suspended in 1975 but was resumed in 1980 by President Carter after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. About 13.5 million men, ages 18 to 25, currently are registered with the Selective Service.
"I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who believes that it would be appropriate or necessary to reinstitute the draft," Rumsfeld said last month.
At present, the Selective Service is authorized to register only young men and they are not required to inform the government about any professional skills. Separately, the agency has in place a special registration system to draft health care personnel in more than 60 specialties into the military if necessary in a crisis.
Some of the skill areas where the armed forces are facing "critical shortages" include linguists and computer specialists, the agency said. Americans would then be required to regularly update the agency on their skills until they reach age 35.
Individuals proficient in more than one critical skill would list the skill in which they have the greatest degree of competency.
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Program Launched For Disabled Soldiers
Army, VA Try to Ease Access to Aid
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57583-2004Apr30.html
For U.S. soldiers who are seriously wounded in combat, the maze of red tape they face upon returning home can be dizzying. In the transition to a civilian life filled with rehabilitation, emotional difficulties and financial concerns, many soldiers don't know where to turn.
The Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a new program yesterday designed to help soldiers with serious disabilities navigate the return from war and maneuver through an often complex system of services and agencies.
The new Disabled Soldier Support System -- dubbed DS3 for short -- does not add to existing services for injured soldiers but will act as an advocacy group and a clearinghouse for information. Army officials said the program is reaching out to the nearly 200 soldiers from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts who have been classified as "seriously wounded" with lost limbs, blindness or debilitating injuries. Program officials also are endeavoring to help soldiers or retired soldiers who believe they are not getting the assistance they deserve.
"We want to make sure no soldier ever drifts away and can't find their way back," Les Brownlee, acting secretary of the Army, said yesterday at a news conference.
Brownlee and Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi said DS3 arose out of a need to offer an array of services to soldiers with relative ease, rather than leaving it up to the individual to figure out where to call and how to search for help. They said the services simply weren't coordinated properly, creating confusion and frustration.
In addition, officials said, some services lagged or lost direction over the past few decades as the volume of serious disabilities ebbed. They expect to see more soldiers in need of help -- there have been more than 12,000 soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan so far, and the numbers are rising.
Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for human resources, said the program has cost about $1 million to implement. Officials hope the program will serve as a pilot that other armed services can follow.
For retired Sgt. James O. Sides, 31, of Wynne, Ark., DS3 helped his family keep their lives together. He was one of the first soldiers helped by the office, which invited him to use the service before yesterday's official launch. Sides -- a flight medic whose helicopter crashed into the Tigris River on May 9, 2003 -- emerged from Iraq in a coma, suffering brain bruises, broken bones, a stroke and a collapsed lung. Near death, he had to be revived in the field. When he awoke from the coma on July 11, his family was without income, had to move to a new home, and didn't know what to do.
"I felt totally lost and totally helpless," Sides said, his wife, Rebecca, sitting behind him. "One phone call was all it took to find the answers."
DS3 officials can be reached at 800-833-6622, or on the Internet at www.armyds3.org.
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In Laos, Sifting the Earth for American Dead
Team Is Part of Search for Vietnam MIAs
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57786-2004Apr30?language=printer
SARAVAN, Laos -- On the first day of the dig, Franklin Damann spied what appeared to be a bone fragment resting on the soil surface. But he could not be sure. He put it in a Ziploc bag labeled "Possible Osseous Remains."
He hoped that the fragment, and several more found over the next few days, would yield DNA to help identify U.S. Air Force Col. Norman Dale Eaton or his navigator, Lt. Col. Paul E. Getchell. Their B-57 exploded and crashed on a remote hill in southern Laos in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War.
Damann, a forensic anthropologist, and about a dozen U.S. service members shoveled and sifted hundreds of buckets of dirt from that metal-pocked hill in February. In several equally isolated and treacherous sites in Cambodia and Vietnam, other teams were also scanning for every shard of steel, canvas, plastic, bone or, best of all, tooth that might help identify men who died in the Vietnam War, more than 1,800 of whom are still missing.
Since 1992, 10 times a year, the military has sent teams to the old battlegrounds of Southeast Asia to search for Vietnam combatants' remains. Two to six teams go on each trip. So far, they have accounted for 724 Americans, according to the Pentagon.
But time is running out. Witnesses are dying. Investigators are now talking to people who can remember their fathers telling them about a crash site. The most accessible areas already have been excavated, and bone disintegrates more readily in the acidic soil of Southeast Asia.
It is an arduous yet optimistic endeavor, costing $100 million a year spread over five agencies. Though the military has long proclaimed that no man or woman shall be left behind on the battlefield -- and made recovery efforts for several years after World War II and the Korean War -- it took the emotional upheaval of the Vietnam War to spur the government to undertake a continuous search effort. Scientists and recovery teams have been finding and identifying remains of those killed in World War II, the Korean War and the Cold War in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific.
They have identified remains of about 500 service members from World War II, Korea and the Cold War. The U.S. military estimates that 88,000 service members are still missing from all wars. The effort to find them is destined to continue, officials say, as long as the United States sends its men and women into battle zones.
"I can't think of a more noble mission," said Marine Capt. William P. "Bay" Dobbins, 29, leader of a team searching for the remains of a Navy pilot downed in southern Laos. Dobbins, who served in Iraq last year, said he had been waiting for this job with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. "I love the idea of bringing these guys home," he said.
So it was that on a chilly morning in February, a dozen soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines and Damann, who works at the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu, piled into an aging Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter at the team's base camp in southern Laos. Twenty minutes later, they landed on a hill in Saravan province that was traversed by the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network of paths used by the North Vietnamese to ferry supplies along the border with Laos into South Vietnam. The team hiked down a long, steep slope and, putting spade to soil, dug in a space roughly as long and wide as an Olympic swimming pool.
About 90 Laotian villagers, who live a day's trek away and were hired for a small daily wage, were already there. They formed a bucket brigade down the slope, men and women with high cheekbones and broad faces, wearing old jeans, Nike caps and wool head scarves.
Pairs of villagers rocked trays slung from bamboo poles, massaging red dirt through quarter-inch wire mesh. As a boombox blared a Motown mix, the American team members scanned for pieces of zipper, boot, oxygen hose -- what the investigators call life support material.
The hill was not an easy one. At a 35-degree angle, it had a view at 3,700 feet of a valley below filling with deceptively fast-moving clouds. Army Sgt. Robert Bryson, in charge of team safety, warned the crew: "This site is dangerous. When the pilots say go, there's no lollygagging or we'll be here overnight."
During a mission three years ago, seven military personnel and nine Vietnamese died when their Mi-17 helicopter slammed into a fog-shrouded hill.
The site was surveyed last summer by Joan Baker, an anthropologist who also works at the Honolulu forensics lab. She found no crash crater, leading her to conclude that the plane had exploded before it plunged. Her investigative team found hundreds of pieces of fan blades, wires and bolts strewn over more than 350 square yards. Then she saw a small metal object nestled in the roots of a tree. It was a dog tag, bearing Eaton's name. "It was pretty exciting," Baker recalled. "I couldn't believe it for a minute. I was like, 'No!' " Team members planted a yellow stake wherever they found even a jot of debris, turning the hill into a dandelion field of stakes.
Damann held up a slice of rusted metal to the gray light filtering through the trees. The words "cylinder hydraulic actuating" were still visible. The metal plate was engraved with the manufacturer's name, Glenn L. Martin Ltd., Baltimore, Md., which in the 1960s retooled the British-made B-57s from straight-and-level planes to dive bombers.
"We'll be pulling stuff all day," said Damann, a lanky Louisianan who analyzes skeletal remains to figure out a person's size, sex, race and other characteristics.
As it turned out, the team would not be pulling stuff all day. After lunch, the clouds rolled in, obscuring the valley below. Bryson gave the word to load up the buckets and gather the tools. "It's time to get off the hill," he said.
The son of a Vietnam Navy veteran, Bryson is a mortuary affairs specialist, or 92-Mike in Army lingo. He was on his 31st recovery mission to Southeast Asia, has worked directly with MIA families and relishes the satisfaction of delivering a memento to a wife or parent.
"There are cases where a family member said, 'He always carried a 1945 buffalo nickel,' and then you go to the site and dig and pull it out of the dirt," he said. "There are the wedding rings, the crucifixes, wallets with pictures." Working one World War II case, he said, he found letters ready to be mailed home. "You bring them home to a wife or mother, and the gratitude is immense. That's pretty amazing you can do stuff like that." Unexploded Ordnance
Elderly locals are another source of information. Khampoy Khun, a grandfatherly man with an impish grin, was trying to clear a rice field about a decade ago when he came upon metal aircraft parts poking up from the soil. He eventually told his story to American investigators and led them to a site where a Navy pilot had plowed into a hill in April 1970.
"I would be very glad if the Americans find what they are looking for and can return the remains to the families," said Khampoy, 70, cheering on the Americans and Laotians digging, hauling and screening soil. "I think the families back home are hoping the remains will be found."
He had one request, though: that the United States do more to remove unexploded ordnance left from the war. "I am very poor," Khampoy said. "And I cannot work my rice fields with the unexploded bombs. It's all over the place."
In February, the team looking for the Navy pilot's remains unearthed a 500-pound unexploded bomb.
Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. air campaign dropped more than 2 million tons of explosive ordnance on the hills and valleys of Laos, the world's most heavily bombed nation per capita, according to United Nations Development Program statistics. Some of the craters were as large as houses. Up to 30 percent of the ordnance, it is estimated, failed to detonate and continues to kill about 200 people, many of whom are children, each year, according to the program.
In fiscal 2003 the United States spent $1.2 million on clearing the ordnance in Laos, about one-fourth of the total international donor aid to the effort, U.S. officials said.
After 30 days, Damann, Bryson and their team flew back to Honolulu. Another team took their place in March to continue the dig. All the evidence found is bagged and sent to the lab. There, a different set of anthropologists examines the remains and the life support material.
The lab, which is part of the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, identifies on average two Americans a week. The best way to make an identification is to match a tooth, especially one that has had a filling or a drilling, to dental records, Thomas Holland, the lab's scientific director, explained in a telephone interview from Honolulu. "No two fillings are alike," he said. "That's really how most identifications are made."
Even as the difficulty of the missions has increased, the technology has improved, Holland said. These days, up to 70 percent of cases are identified by matching mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through the maternal line, from remains to a relative from the same maternal line, he said. About five grams of dense bone, the type found in the arm or leg, is needed to gather enough DNA for an identification.
In the mid-1990s, the military began taking a DNA sample from all service members in case it is needed for identification. 'Off Target'
On the night of Jan. 13, 1969, Eaton and Getchell took off from Phan Rang Air Base in South Vietnam. They flew west toward Laos, to drop bombs and napalm on a target along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in an effort to disrupt the enemy's supply line.
Eaton's last recorded words before the plane crashed were "Off target," according to a wartime Air Force report. A C-130 pilot who was flying nearby, directing Eaton's strike, said that his cockpit was lit up by the flash from the bomb Eaton dropped, and lit up again five seconds later by the B-57's crash, according to the report. No parachutes were seen. A two-second emergency beeper signal was heard by another aircraft in the area, but it was unclear if that was from Eaton or Getchell.
Eaton, then 43, had always said that when he went, he wanted to "go down in a ball of fire," his wife, Jeanne Eaton, now 75, recalled in a telephone interview from Alexandria. He loved to fly, loved "that wonderful, celestial feeling," she said, though he had his concerns about the war.
Eaton's oldest son, Paul Eaton, 53, is now a major general in the Army, stationed in Baghdad, the commander in charge of training the nascent postwar Iraqi army.
Getchell was 32, slender, dark-haired and a carpenter with a philosophy degree. "He was always learning and reading," and looked forward to teaching, recalled his widow, Teresa Getchell, 67.
As the years passed, the two women, who have never remarried, gradually came to terms with their husbands' deaths. For Getchell, it has been so long since her husband died, she said, that finding any remains now will not mean much. "It will just verify what I feel is already the case, that he's gone," she said from her winter home in Bradenton, Fla.
For Eaton, the search holds out hope for some peace of heart.
"The very fact that they found my husband's dog tags, at least there's a substance there, there's a reality," she said. "Hopefully, they will find some tangible evidence of him."
In March, the team that took over from Damann found more possible remains at the site. The evidence will be sent to the lab. A new team returns in June to continue the hunt.
Staff researcher Robert Thomason contributed to this report.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security
F.B.I. Got Records on Air Travelers
May 1, 2004
By JOHN SCHWARTZ and MICHELINE MAYNARD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/politics/01AIRL.html?pagewanted=all&position=
In the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the nation's largest airlines, including American, United and Northwest, turned over millions of passenger records to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, airline and law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday.
A senior official with the F.B.I. said the airlines cooperated willingly. Some, like Northwest, provided as much as a year's worth of passenger records, which typically include names, addresses, travel destinations and credit card numbers.
"There was no reluctance on the part of anybody," added the senior F.B.I. official, who said that bureau rules required him to speak anonymously.
The official said the requests were made under the bureau's general legal authority to investigate crimes and that the requests were accompanied by subpoena, not because that was required by law or because the bureau expected resistance from the airlines, but as a "course of business" to ensure that all proper procedures were followed.
Airline industry officials said they could not remember another such sweeping request. In the past, airlines have routinely provided data to the F.B.I., but typically requests concerned the passengers on a single flight, or the travel patterns of an individual passenger.
"It was an extraordinary event," the bureau official said. "People wanted to cooperate with the F.B.I. because of the events that had just occurred - and particularly the airlines, because airplanes were the tool by which the attacks were carried out."
The F.B.I. official said that the purpose of the data dragnet was to detect attacks in the making through patterns in the travel records.
"They developed a model of what these hijackers were doing," he said, "and went back and looked, based on that model, to see if we could find associates, conspirators or other groups out there, particularly in the time immediately following 9/11."
There is no indication that the passenger data produced any significant evidence about the plot or the hijackers, the F.B.I. official said.
The sharing of airline passenger data with the government has sparked some of the most contentious conflicts underlying the uneasy balance between privacy and security in the post-Sept. 11 world. Three airlines, Northwest, American and JetBlue, have acknowledged sharing weeks or months' worth of data with government researchers or contractors as part of an effort to help develop new methods to spot terrorists.
But the disclosure that airlines had handed over such an enormous trove of data directly to government criminal investigators, 6,000 CD-ROM's full of digital records from Northwest alone, raised red flags among privacy advocates, who played a role in uncovering the information transfer.
"It certainly takes the airline privacy issue to a new level, because it's much more material than we've ever seen disclosed," said David Sobel, the general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a high-tech policy and advocacy group in Washington.
The group discovered that airlines had handed over personal information through the results of a Freedom of Information Act request on a related matter.
"The F.B.I. has adopted a vacuum cleaner approach to investigations involving information on the lawful activities of millions of citizens," Mr. Sobel said.
But a former privacy official for the Clinton administration, Peter Swire, said that the request and the cooperation should be viewed in the context of the terror attacks and might qualify as the kind of "hot pursuit" of criminals that temporarily gives law enforcement greater leeway.
"This is probably the tip of the iceberg of what companies gave the government right after Sept. 11," said Mr. Swire, who is now a law professor at Ohio State University.
Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines, said the company "cooperated fully" with the F.B.I. in the days and weeks after the attacks, in which it lost two planes.
Northwest, in a written response to questions, said the release of data was justified. "Northwest Airlines cooperated fully with the F.B.I. in its investigation, including the provision of passenger name records (P.N.R.'s) for a 12-month period leading up to September 2001, as requested by the F.B.I.," the statement said. "Northwest acted appropriately and consistently with its own privacy policy and all applicable federal laws."
United Airlines also responded to inquiries with a statement.
"United, committed to assisting the F.B.I. with its criminal investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, complied with the government's subpoenas for information following the events of 9/11. United provided the F.B.I. with information in a manner that is consistent with our corporate policy on privacy."
Delta Air Lines, the nation's third largest, declined to comment on whether it had given passenger records to federal investigators.
"We continue to cooperate with the government in ongoing security investigations," a spokeswoman said, "but we do not comment on the subject of those investigations."
The first hint of the large-scale data hand over came in January during hearings of the 9/11 commission. Andrew Studdert, the former chief operating officer of United Airlines, testified that United set up extensive facilities for F.B.I. agents in its headquarters near Chicago and had made available "thousands of pages of records."
But that disclosure was overlooked because of dramatic testimony the same day from Gerard J. Arpey, American's chief executive, who played a tape of a call from a flight attendant, Betty Ong, to a reservations center from aboard the hijacked Flight 11.
Some records, including financial information and health records, have strong privacy protection under federal and state laws, but the data in passenger records do not fall under the protected areas, the F.B.I. said.
The F.B.I. has not destroyed or returned the records and cannot legally do so, in case they fall under a legal discovery order in a criminal case. "We didn't want to retain the data ourselves," the F.B.I. official said, adding that the data is not being used "for any other investigative purpose."
Last September, a privacy advocate uncovered evidence that JetBlue shared more than five million passenger records with a Pentagon contractor one year earlier. This year, Northwest acknowledged that it had given three months' worth of 2001 passenger data to NASA's Ames Research Center for a research project into passenger profiling. On April 9, American admitted that it, too, had quietly passed along passenger data to government contractors, as well.
Stewart Baker, an expert in privacy issues who was general counsel for the National Security Agency, said that the incident, because of the vast scale of the information given to the government, "is clearly something that is going to be, at minimum, a public embarrassment."
"Probably there will be litigation" against the airlines, he added.
But unless the companies directly violated their own privacy policies, he said, legal action against them by customers is unlikely to succeed. Most airline policies include a provision explaining that they have the right to comply with law enforcement requests without violating any privacy restrictions.
Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting for this article.
-------- POLITICS
-------- propaganda wars
Former insider takes aim at Cheney
Book suggests vice-president's staff were behind smear campaign and unmasking of CIA agent
Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday May 1, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1207429,00.html
A former US ambassador who questioned the Bush administration's justification for war in Iraq accused vice-president Dick Cheney's office of masterminding a smear campaign against him and his wife, a CIA officer, in a book published yesterday.
Joseph Wilson's book, The Politics of Truth, is the latest volume by a former government insider to take aim at the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror.
Mr Wilson - who served in Africa and Iraq and was the last American diplomat to meet Saddam Hussein - returned to prominence last July when he published a newspaper article accusing the White House of twisting intelligence on Iraq's pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme to bolster the case for invasion.
Soon afterwards, administration officials leaked the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA official tracking the international trade in weapons of mass destruction.
The leak represented a serious felony under US law and a federal investigation is nearing completion in Washington into who was responsible.
"It's coming to a close, and my understanding is there are going to be indictments," said one source familiar with the investigation.
If those indictments include senior administration officials, the consequences could be seriously damaging for the White House.
Mr Wilson does not definitively unmask the guilty party but he voices his suspicions, based on his own inquiries, about a group of senior right-wing officials.
In The Politics of Truth, he claims that a meeting was held in March 2003 in Mr Cheney's office "to do a workup on me".
"As I understand it, this meant they were going to take a close look at who I was and what my agenda might be," Mr Wilson writes. He concedes he does not know who chaired the meeting but claims it was "either the vice-president himself or, more likely, his chief of staff, Lewis ('Scooter') Libby".
In 2002, Mr Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate documents purporting to prove Iraqi attempts to buy uranium.
He found the claims were groundless and the documents turned out to have been forged.
Nevertheless, the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa found its way into President Bush's state of the union address in January 2003, making the case for war.
In March, Mr Wilson began to make his concerns known about the claim, and that is when he says he began to be targeted by the administration.
"Over a period of several months, Libby evidently seized opportunities to rail openly against me as an 'asshole playboy' who went on a boondoggle 'arranged by his CIA wife' - and was a Democ ratic Gore supporter to boot," Mr Wilson writes.
The spokesman for the vice-president's office was said to be travelling yesterday and unavailable for comment. In the past the White House has emphasised Mr Wilson's links to the Democratic party.
Mr Wilson said that he did make a contribution to the Al Gore presidential campaign in 2000, but pointed out he also made a contribution to the George Bush campaign at the time of the 2000 Republican primaries. He has become a foreign policy adviser to the John Kerry campaign, but said that was only after the fiasco over Iraq intelligence and the White House campaign against himself and his wife.
Mr Wilson comes closest to blaming Mr Libby for his wife's unmasking. "The man attacking my integrity and reputation - and, I believe, possibly the person who exposed my wife's identity - was the same Scooter Libby..." he writes.
"He 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."
He also names Elliott Abrams, a senior White House adviser on the Middle East, and Karl Rove, the political mastermind behind the president's re-election strategy, as members of that group.
"According to my sources, between March 2003 and the appearance of my article in July, the workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neo-conservative circles," Mr Wilson claims in his book. He also accuses Mr Rove of "pushing" the story about his wife in the media after her identity was revealed.
----
When intelligence is disinformation
May 1, 2004
WorldNetDaily.com
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38294
During the Cold War, Soviet intelligence agencies sometimes provided us "disinformation" - false information, intended to obscure the truth. Hence, there were frequently sharp differences of opinion within our own intelligence community as to whether or not information provided to us by Soviet "traitors-in-place" and/or "defectors" was genuine intelligence or disinformation.
Now, anyone who provides disinformation to Congress has committed a felony. If the provider is a U.S. government official intent on starting a war, it could amount to treason. So, wouldn't the director of Central Intelligence make every effort to see that disinformation is never presented to Congress?
In particular, DCI George Tenet would never have told Congress that he had "slam-dunk" intelligence that Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction" if there were any chance that intelligence was disinformation.
In fact, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD he provided Congress in September 2002 was replete with caveats, qualifications and contrary interpretations. Even though Tenet may have attempted to persuade Congress there was a consensus within the intelligence community, it should have been obvious to the most casual observer that there was anything but.
By 1997, U.N. inspectors had confirmed that Gen. Hussein Kamel - Saddam Hussein's son-in-law - had told them and the CIA the truth. He was not an agent of disinformation. He was a genuine defector. In charge of Iran-Iraq War WMD programs, he had ordered all WMD destroyed on the eve of the Gulf War. By 1995, when he defected, "nothing remained."
Perversely, some analysts within the intelligence community chose to disbelieve Kamel and the U.N. inspectors. They chose to believe Khidir Hamza - the man Kamel had labeled a "professional liar" - and other "little birds." They began compiling a list of sites wherein Saddam was alleged to have hidden chem-bio weapons or to have begun reconstructing WMD production facilities.
Consequently, Tenet's NIE of September 2002 began:
Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD)programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.
Alas, in the months immediately following, the chem-bio weapons inspectors under Hans Blix and the nuke inspectors under Mohammed ElBaradei visited all the "suspect" sites at the top of the little birds' list and found nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Hamza's response? Blix and ElBaradei were incompetent. The United States would have to invade and occupy Iraq in order to uncover and destroy the well-hidden WMD production facilities. So, on the basis of Tenet's "slam-dunk" intelligence, we invaded Iraq and have searched high and low for more than a year and have yet to find any of the WMD "everyone" believed were there.
Why bring that up now? Well, Tenet is still presenting to Congress "intelligence" that is regarded in some sectors of the intelligence community as disinformation.
For example, here is what the director of Central Intelligence recently told Congress about Iran's "nuclear" programs:
The United States remains convinced that Tehran has been pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program, in violation of its obligations as a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). To bolster its efforts to establish domestic nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities, Iran sought technology that can support fissile material production for a nuclear weapons program.
"The United States remains convinced"? Even after IAEA inspectors had been accorded unprecedented access to any and all Iranian "suspect" facilities and had found no "indication" - much less "evidence" - of a clandestine nuclear weapons program or of any NPT "violation"?
And here is what DCI Tenet told Congress about North Korea:
In late April 2003, North Korea told U.S. officials that it possessed nuclear weapons, and signaled its intent to reprocess the 1994 canned spent fuel for more nuclear weapons.
North Korean officials vigorously deny having told U.S. officials anything of the kind. And even if they are lying, how can we be sure now what they are alleged to have said last April was not "disinformation."
Nevertheless, Tenet is reportedly readying an estimate that North Korea now has 8-10 plutonium nukes and will soon have the capacity to produce a half-dozen uranium nukes per year, even though there is no "hard" evidence whatsoever that North Korea is capable of producing either.
In particular, IAEA inspectors visited the site where the Koreans were alleged to be developing a high-explosive implosion system for nukes and found nothing sinister.
Perhaps they ought to have checked out Ryongchon. North Korea likened last Thursday's train blast in Ryongchon, a town of 130,000 near the Chinese border, to "100 bombs, each weighing one ton" going off at the same time.
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
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Bush Cites Racism in Remarks On Iraq President's Target Unclear
Saturday, May 1, 2004
Washington Post; Page A06
Mike Allen
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57791-2004Apr30.html
President Bush said yesterday that people who have skin that is "a different color than white" are capable of self-government.
Bush made the comment during a Rose Garden news conference, while discussing his goal of more freedom in the Middle East.
"There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern," Bush said.
"I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern."
That was a variation on Bush's frequent point that he disagrees with those who say that Muslims or people who are brown-skinned cannot be self-governing or free.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan was peppered later with questions about what Bush meant. Bush never says who the people are who think that, and McClellan did not, either.
"There are certainly people out there that reject the idea that certain people can be free," McClellan said. "The president disagrees with that assessment. The president believes all people yearn to live in freedom."
----
Bush Defends Year-Ago Claim Of End of 'Major Combat' in Iraq
President Appeared Under 'Mission Accomplished' Banner
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56540-2004Apr30.html
One year ago today, President Bush donned a flight suit to land on an aircraft carrier and declare "victory" in Iraq beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished," and Democrats fretted that the election -- not just the war -- might be over.
Now, the United States is struggling to secure Iraq. More than four times as many members of the U.S. military have been killed in Iraq since that day as were lost during the "major combat operations" that Bush declared ended last May 1 -- 591 vs. 138. And Bush is in a neck-and-neck race for reelection. His opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), cited the Bush speech yesterday in Missouri, saying he did not know anyone who does not "wish those words were true."
Nevertheless, Bush stoutly defended his trip to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln when a reporter asked him about it in the Rose Garden yesterday. Bush said the mission had been the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein," Bush said. "And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result, a friend of terror has been removed, and now sits in a jail."
In the carrier speech, Bush had spoken in more sweeping terms. "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," he said. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on."
The carrier episode illustrates how quickly political advantage can change because of unpredictable world events.
Polls have shown that since the speech, Bush's wartime popularity has dimmed and voters have become much more skeptical of his Iraq policy. In a Washington Post-ABC News Poll released just before the speech, 70 percent of respondents thought the war in Iraq was worth fighting; two weeks ago that was down to 51 percent. Over the same period, approval of Bush's handling of Iraq fell 30 percentage points, to 45 percent, and the president's overall approval dropped from 71 percent to 51 percent.
Despite the daily attacks and casualties, the White House said yesterday that major combat has not resumed in Iraq. Press secretary Scott McClellan, pressed repeatedly on how the fighting could not be considered "major," described the violence as "certain areas in Iraq that are dangerous" and "certain areas in Iraq where there are pockets of resistance."
People who live there say there are very few safe places in the country, including heavily fortified centers of U.S. operations. But McClellan said the United States "went in to initially remove the regime of Saddam Hussein from power, and that's what the president was referring to one year ago."
"For those who are still fighting, they're involved in combat operations," he noted several times.
Bush, in describing the mission yesterday, made no mention of weapons of mass destruction, which he had given as a major reason for going to war. The night of the invasion, he said in a prime-time address, "Our mission is clear: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people."
Bush gave a different response about the carrier when he was asked at a Rose Garden news conference in November if his declaration had been premature. "The 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished," Bush said. "I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff. They weren't that ingenious, by the way."
White House officials later acknowledged that the banner had been produced at their direction but said it was the idea of the crew on the ship.
Karl Rove, Bush's senior adviser, told the editorial board of the Columbus Dispatch two weeks ago that he regretted the placement of the banner, although he said it was referring to the mission of the Lincoln's crew. "I wish the banner was not up there," he said. "I'll acknowledge the fact that it has become one of those convenient symbols."
Bush, who met reporters yesterday with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at his side, made his comments when he was asked if conditions were getting better rather than worse in Iraq. "We're making progress, you bet," Bush said. "There is a strategy that will help us achieve the objective, which is a free and peaceful country in the heart of the Middle East that is desperate for freedom and democracy and peace."
Bush reminded listeners that in the carrier speech, he had said: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."
A year ago, when U.S. forces had just finished routing Hussein's forces, Democrats feared that Bush had staged the political commercial of a lifetime and asked publicly whether the Republican National Committee had a camera aboard the Lincoln.
With suicide bombings plaguing occupation forces and U.S. troops being held in Iraq past the dates they had been promised they would return home, Democrats believe the "Mission Accomplished" imagery will help them erode Bush's credibility and portray him as acting out of hubris, shoddy planning and debunked intelligence.
"This was clearly a case of spiking the ball on the 50-yard line," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who was President Bill Clinton's political director.
White House officials said they expect frequent reruns of the carrier footage.
Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor at Towson University in Maryland who is an authority on the history of White House communications, said the carrier landing "looked too good to be true" and said Bush's aides are so skilled at stagecraft that the visuals "can overtake or confuse the message."
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Tutwiler's mission impossible
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor-at-large
5/1/2004
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040501-113546-6241r
WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- The shameful pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating naked Iraqi prisoners were the final straw for Margaret D. Tutwiler. Moved out of her post as Ambassador to Morocco last December to become Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs, Ms. Tutwiler was instructed to spruce up the Bush administration's image in the Arab world in particular and the Muslim world in general.
It took her only four months to conclude this was mission impossible.
She was the third "image" czarina to come a cropper in three years. Competing against the Qatar-based al-Jazeera and Dubai-based al-Arabyia and their coverage of the occupation of Iraq gave Ms. Tutwiler about the same chance of success as going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
The U.S.-funded al-Hurra channel ($60 million seed money plus $40 million added by Congress to reach 80 percent of Iraq's population with over-air transmitters) quickly lost its luster with the siege of Fallujah seen from inside the city on rival networks. The final straw for U.S. credibility were still pictures of the sadistic indignities inflicted by American military policemen on some of the 7,000 prisoners in Baghdad's central prison. These were front-paged and the lead item on television news the world over.
Under an $82.3 million contract awarded to San Diego-based Science Applications International, the Iraqi Media Network, a second U.S. venture dubbed al-Iraqiya, took over the former regime's state-owned television network. But even before Fallujah and the incriminating pictures, the network was struggling against Iran-sponsored networks that moved into Iraq as soon as the Saddam Hussein regime fell -- lock, stock and satellite networks
For the past year, al-Jazeera -- later joined by al-Arabyia -- broadcast 24/7 in Arabic and blankets the Arab world from Marrakech to Muscat. They have long supplanted CNN, FOX, CBNC and the venerable BBC (the beeb) and offer unrelenting video that shows "collateral" damage in the form of dead women and children, or women and children alive but bleeding from wounds inflicted by U.S. bombs and bullets. Their people-in-the-street interviews recount hair-raising tales of American cruelty juxtaposed with U.S. soldiers breaking into homes and finding nothing except for terrified women and children.
These Arabic channels have some forty crews between them and staff every major city. From inside Fallujah, besieged by U.S. Marines, they broadcast live from bombed out buildings, damaged mosques and an overcrowded hospital.
Al-Jazeera receives videotapes from time to time from Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, which they edit before airing them. U.S. requests for the original, uncut, raw tapes go unanswered.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has appealed directly to the rulers of Qatar to curb the excesses of al-Jazeera, the network the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, launched with a $90 million subsidy. But the emir keeps repeating that he believes in freedom of the press and al-Jazeera enjoys total freedom. But the network still gets an annual subsidy of some $30 million from the Qatari government. The satellite network's talking heads criticize conservative regimes from the Gulf to North Africa. But the 4,000-strong ruling Al Thani family remains off limits
Ms. Tutwiler recently accepted a senior position with the New York Stock Exchange. Burnishing NYSE's tarnished image is duck soup next to what Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak described as a level of anti-Americanism never seen or felt before.
U.S. prestige has steadily dwindled since the Sept. 11, 2001, aerial attacks against New York and Washington. Confirming the worst suspicions of the Arab world's conspiracy theorists, al-Arabyia and al-Jazeera juxtapose Israelis killing Palestinians and Americans killing Iraqis. From university professors to cab drivers, Iraqis argue they are victims of a Judeo-Christian crusade against the Muslim world.
Long gone are the heady days of liberation from Saddam's sadistic tyranny. The Financial Times, a newspaper read by government, academic and media elites in some 200 countries, commented, "The misjudgments of Paul Bremer and his Pentagon masters, far from steering Iraq towards freedom and democracy, have brought it to just beyond the brink of anarchy."
Israel's leading newspaper Ha'aretz delivered the knockout punch to the Bush Administration's image problem when Orit Shohat wrote, under the headline "Remember Fallujah," that the U.S. was now guilty of "war crimes."
During the first two weeks of April, the Ha'aretz story said, "the American Army committed war crimes in Fallujah on a scale unprecedented for this war...The sight of decapitated children, the rows of dead women and the shocking pictures of the soccer stadium that was turned into a temporary grave for hundreds of the slain -- all were broadcast to the world only by the al-Jazeera network. During the operation in Fallujah, according to the organization Doctors Without Borders, U.S. Marines even occupied the hospitals and prevented hundreds of the wounded from receiving medical treatment. Snipers fired from rooftops at anyone who tried to approach."
The article in Israel's equivalent of the New York Times said, "The only conclusion that has been drawn thus far from the indiscriminate killing in Fallujah is the expulsion of al-Jazeera from the city. Since the start of the war, the Americans have persecuted the network's journalists, not because they report lies, but because they are virtually the only ones who manage to report the truth. The Bush administration, in cooperation with the American media, is trying to hide the sights of war from the world, and particularly from American voters."
Adding insult to injury, the Ha'aretz's article continued, "the ethical dilemma in Israel over the targeted killings must make the American government laugh. After Fallujah, Israeli Defense Forces commanders can feel easier with their consciences -- and especially with the consciences of those who refuse to carry out such operations. The one-ton bomb that was dropped on an apartment building in Gaza in order to assassinate Salah Shehadeh, which also killed 14 civilians, is almost like throwing candy compared to the number of bombs the Americans dropped on the houses of residents of crowded Fallujah."
The Israeli news report has been widely circulated in the Arab world -- and denials, however convincing, won't carry any weight. Exit Ambassador Tutwiler. Her mission was indeed impossible.
-------- us politics
Mission Not Accomplished
by Sen. Robert Byrd,
May 1, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/byrd.php?articleid=2449
A year ago, the President of the United States harkened back to his days as an aviator for the Texas Air National Guard to deliver a dramatic, made-for-television speech. Eager to experience the thrill of a carrier landing, the President donned a flight suit, strapped into a jet, and rocketed off into the wild blue yonder for a 30-mile journey.
This flight of fancy concluded with the dramatic landing of that speeding plane onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln - so named for the stoic leader who guided our country through one of its most troubling times.
Such was the scene on May 1, 2003, under the warming rays of the California sun. The President delivered to the sailors on that ship a welcome and long overdue message: he commended the men and women on their outstanding service to our country during the trials of the war in Iraq, and welcomed them back to the United States of America.
While the President delivered those words of appreciation, every television viewer in the country - and, indeed, the world - could see in the background a banner with the words "Mission Accomplished" superimposed upon the Stars and Stripes.
In contrast to the simple humility of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, President Bush's speech was designed from the outset to be remembered right up until November 2, 2004.
The President announced unequivocally that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," and that "in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." Now, one year later, combat deaths are more than five times that of a year ago when our President celebrated "mission accomplished."
Since that time, Iraq has become a veritable shooting gallery. This April has been the bloodiest month of the entire war, with more than 120 Americans killed. Young lives cut short in a pointless conflict and all the President can say is that it "has been a tough couple of weeks." A tough couple of weeks, indeed.
Plans have obviously gone tragically awry. But the President has, so far, only managed to mutter that we must "stay the course." But what course is there to keep when our ship of state is being tossed like a dinghy in a storm of Middle East politics? If the course is to end in the liberation of Iraq and bring a definitive end to the war against Saddam Hussein, one must conclude, mission not accomplished, Mr. President.
The White House argues time and again that Iraq is the "central front" on the war on terrorism. But instead of keeping murderous al Qaeda terrorists on the run, the invasion of Iraq has stoked the fires of terrorism against the United States and our allies. Najaf is smoldering. Fallujah is burning. And there is no exit in sight. What has been accomplished, Mr. President?
Al Qaeda has morphed into a hydra-headed beast, no longer dependent on Osama bin Laden. The Administration has flippantly claimed that it is better to tie down terrorists in Iraq than to battle them in our homeland. Mr. President, with hundreds of thousands of American troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and a worldwide campaign of terrorism gathering steam, who is tying down whom?
Indeed, our attack on Iraq has given Islamic militants a common cause and has fertilized the field for new recruits. The failures by the United States to secure the peace in Iraq has virtually guaranteed al Qaeda a fertile field of new recruits ready to sacrifice their lives to fight the American infidels. These extremists openly call for "jihad," swear allegiance to bin Laden, and refer to the September 11 murderers as the "magnificent 19." According to intelligence sources, hundreds of young Muslims are answering terror recruitment calls with a resounding "yes."
Amidst all this, the American people are asking themselves one central question: Have we been made more safe by the President's war in Iraq? Do we sleep more soundly in our beds now that Saddam Hussein is captured? Or, instead, are we starting to fully comprehend and regret the fury which has been unleashed by the unprovoked attack on Iraq?
Deaths and casualties of Iraqi civilians are in the thousands, but an actual number cannot be obtained. Is it any wonder that Iraqis see us, not as liberators, but as crusaders and conquerors? A growing number of Iraqis see us as we would see foreign troops on the streets of Chicago, New York, Washington, or any small town in America. Surely one can understand the hatred brewing in Iraq when we see the agony of an Iraqi family that has lost a loved one due to an errant bomb or bullet.
One year after President Bush proclaimed the conclusion of major combat operations in Iraq, is the world any safer from terrorism? Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists of all stripes. The Middle East seethes in deepening violence and the culture of revenge. Our war on terror appears to many as a war against Islam. A one-sided policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict drives both sides away from the peace table, and hundreds of millions more to hatred of our country. No, the world is not safer.
One year after the "mission accomplished" speech, is America safer? We have not secured our homeland from terrifying threats of destruction. This President has sown divisions in our long-standing alliances. He has squandered our treasure in Iraq and put us deep in debt. Our brave soldiers are pinned down in Iraq while our enemies see the invincible American armor as penetrable by the sword of urban guerrilla warfare. No, America is not safer.
One year ago, the President announced an end to major combat operations in Iraq. Yet, our troops are having their deployments extended in Iraq while our lines are stretched thin everywhere else. Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars are being poured into Iraq. Seven hundred and twenty-two American lives have been lost. Unknown thousands of Iraqis are dead. Claims of WMD and death-dealing drones are discredited. And bin Laden is still on the loose.
I stand behind no one in supporting our troops through the dangers they face every day. I grieve along with the families that have lost loved ones. The failures of post-war Iraq lay squarely on the Bush Administration for recklessly sending this country to war. A war that should not have been fought. A war in the wrong place, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.
Mission accomplished? The mission in Iraq, as laid out by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, has failed. Even more disturbing, the disdain for international law, and the military bombast of this cocky, reckless Administration have tarnished the beacon of hope and freedom which the United States of America once offered to the world.
How long will America continue to pay the price in blood and treasure of this President's war? How long must the best of our nation's military men and women be taken from their homes to fight this unnecessary war in Iraq? How long must our National Guardsmen be taken from their communities to fight and die in the hot sands in Iraq? How long must the fathers and mothers see their sons and daughters die in a far away land because of President Bush's doctrine of preemptive attack? How long must little children across our land go to sleep at night crying for a daddy or mother far away who may never come home?
President Bush typified the Happy Warrior when he strutted across the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln a year ago this coming Saturday. He was in his glory that day. But on this May 1, we will remember the widows and the orphans that have been made by his fateful decision to attack Iraq; we will be aware of the tears that have been shed for his glory.
How long?
----
Congress Ignores 'Dirty War' Past of New Iraq Envoy
by Jim Lobe,
May 1, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2448
John Negroponte, the Bush administration's nominee to become Washington's first ambassador to Iraq since last year's invasion, was talking about how much "sovereignty" the country's new government will enjoy after Jun. 30, when U.S. military forces will remain in control of security.
"When it comes to issues like (the siege of) Fallujah," said Negroponte, currently Washington's ambassador to the United Nations, "I think that is going to be the kind of situation that is going to have to ... be the subject of real dialogue between our military commanders, the new Iraqi government, and, I think, the United States mission as well."
That was too much for Andres Thomas Conteris, a human rights and peace activist who was sitting in the hearing room.
At that point, he stood up and, in a determined voice, said: "There is no sovereignty, Mr. Ambassador, if the US continues to exercise security. Senators, please ask the ambassador about Battalion 316. Ask him about a death squad in Honduras that he supported."
Security personnel quickly confronted Conteris and escorted him from the room, while Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar gaveled the hearing back to order, and Negroponte, the smooth-as-silk career diplomat fluent in five languages, went on as if nothing had happened.
And, while everyone in the hearing room knew exactly what Conteris was referring to, the senators also ignored the interruption, repeatedly praising Negroponte for his distinguished career and his courage in taking on such a challenging and potentially dangerous assignment. Only two senators alluded to Honduras, albeit obliquely, suggesting they may have had some differences with the nominee in the distant past, but that it was all behind them now.
With the committee's approval in hand, Negroponte, by all accounts an accomplished diplomat who has held senior posts in the White House and the State Department and headed US embassies in Quito, Tegucigalpa, Mexico City and Manila, will direct the world's largest US embassy when it opens its doors in Baghdad on July 1, the day after "sovereignty" is to be transferred from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to a yet-to-be-chosen new Iraqi government. He will be in charge of nearly 2,000 employees, most of them Americans.
A longtime friend of Secretary of State Colin Powell, Negroponte is generally considered to be a pragmatist - rather than an ideologue - albeit one with a hawkish reputation that dates to his work as a young diplomat in Vietnam in the 1960s. Some describe him as a low-key version of CPA chief Paul Bremer.
But Bremer did not work in Honduras.
"I spoke up because Negroponte at that moment was talking about sovereignty," Conteris, whose mother is Uruguayan and who has lived in Bolivia and Honduras, told IPS later. "I lived in Honduras for five years, and I know the impact Negroponte's policies had there in the early 1980s (when) Honduras was known as the USS Honduras, basically an occupied aircraft carrier."
Negroponte was sent by the incoming administration of then President Ronald Reagan (1981-89) to Tegucigalpa in early 1981 to transform Honduras into a military and intelligence base directed against Nicaragua and the left-wing insurgents in neighboring El Salvador - a mission he largely accomplished in the four years he spent running what at that time was Washington's biggest embassy in the Americas.
To do so, he and the station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Donald Winter, formed a close alliance with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, the army's ambitious and murderous commander who admired - and implemented - the "dirty war" tactics that he had learned from the Argentine military in the late 1970s.
The Argentine junta sent advisers to Honduras at Alvarez' request to begin building what would become a U.S.-backed contra force against Nicaragua.
Until Negroponte's arrival, Honduras was a sleepy, relatively untroubled backwater in the region whose military, unlike those of its neighbors, was seen as relatively progressive, if corrupt, and loathe to resort to actual violence against dissidents. But with the support of the CIA and the Argentines, Alvarez moved to change that radically, according to declassified documents as well as detailed and award-winning reporting by the Baltimore Sun in the mid-1990s.
A special intelligence unit of the Honduran Armed Forces, called Battalion 316, was put together by Alvarez and supplied and trained by the CIA and the Argentines. It was a death squad that kidnapped and tortured hundreds of real or suspected "subversives," "disappeared" at least 180 of them - including US missionaries - during Negroponte's tenure. Such activities were previously unknown in Honduras.
At the same time, Negroponte, who was often referred to as "proconsul" by the Honduran media, oversaw the expansion of two major military bases used by US forces and Nicaraguan contras, and, after the US Congress put strict limits on the training of Salvadorian soldiers in-country, he "persuaded" the government to build a Regional Military Training Center (RMTC) on Honduran territory, despite the fact that Honduras and El Salvador were traditional enemies who had fought a bloody war less than 15 years before.
Throughout this period, Negroponte steadfastly defended Alvarez, at one point calling him "a model professional," and repeatedly denied anything was amiss on the human rights front in Honduras despite rising concern in Congress about reports of disappearances and killings by death squads.
In a 1982 letter to The Economist magazine, he asserted it was "simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras." He said much the same in testimony before Congress at the time.
Embassy employees were told to cleanse their reports about rights abuses, even as the military's role in the killings and disappearances became widely known - and reported by Honduran newspapers - within the country. One exiled colonel living in Mexico denounced Alvarez for creating a death squad: Negroponte denied the charge.
Alvarez's excesses, the unprecedented human rights abuses and the country's total alignment with US plans eventually became too much for the Honduran military itself. In a move that caught Negroponte and Winter completely by surprise, his fellow-officers deposed the armed forces chief in a barracks coup in 1984. Negroponte, whom the insurgents reportedly wanted to have declared persona non grata, was back in Washington within the year.
As more details about Battalion 316 have come to light in the 20 years since, Negroponte has continued to deny any knowledge of its existence or activities. As late as 2001, when President George W Bush nominated him as United Nations ambassador, Negroponte insisted, "To this day, I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras."
Negroponte's protests of innocence are simply not credible to many observers, including his predecessor in Tegucigalpa, who claims to have personally briefed him about Alvarez and his murderous plans. Rights groups have also pointed out he successfully intervened with the army to gain the release of at least two people who had been abducted, suggesting that he must have known who was responsible.
Activists and some senators with whom he had tangled over Honduras in the past had hoped his record would have been closely scrutinized by the Senate when he was nominated to the U.N. ambassadorship, but his nomination was rushed to the floor for confirmation in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, when the administration argued there was no time for extended hearings given the urgency of directing the US response at the world body.
Now he goes to Iraq to oversee its democratization.
----
Kerry wants NATO role in Iraq
May 01, 2004
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Stephen Dinan and Bill Sammon
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040501-121756-7089r.htm
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said America faces a "moment of truth" in Iraq as he called yesterday for NATO to make the nation a central mission and for President Bush to make a better case to Europeans about why they must get involved.
Mr. Kerry, speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., the site of Winston Churchill's 1946 Iron Curtain speech, said he was there "to give the country and the world the gift of hard truths and a sense of hope" about the situation in Iraq.
"This is a moment of truth in Iraq. Not just for this administration, the country, the Iraqi people, but for the world," he said. "This may be our last chance to get it right. And we need to put pride aside to build a stable Iraq."
Today marks the one-year anniversary of when President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," and declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Mr. Kerry said he only wished that were true.
"I don't think there's anyone in this room today or 6,000 miles away who doesn't wish that those words had been true," he said. "But we've seen the news, we've seen the pictures and we know that we are living through days of great danger."
But Mr. Bush was unapologetic about the Lincoln landing.
"A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein," Mr. Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden.
"And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result, a friend of terror has been removed, and now sits in a jail.
"I also said on that carrier that day that there was still difficult work ahead," added the president, who was joined by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. "And we've faced tough times in Iraq, Mr. Prime Minister, we've had some tough times."
But the president vowed to prevail in Iraq by crushing the insurgents in Fallujah and elsewhere. Mr. Bush used the anniversary of the Lincoln landing to honor the American troops who have given their lives in the war against terrorism.
"Any time you talk about somebody who died in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, is a moment for me to thank them and their families for their sacrifice," he said. "And their sacrifice will not go in vain because there will be a free Iraq."
Mr. Kerry also said he is committed to building a stable Iraq.
"Our duty is to make sure that parents, families and friends who lost loved ones will know that they did not die in vain," he said.
He and Mr. Bush differ little in their broad plans to have U.S. forces committed in Iraq to whatever degree military commanders say is necessary. Still, Mr. Kerry says he would do more to win support politically and militarily from other nations, mostly through being humble.
He called on Mr. Bush to build a coalition based on the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have the coalition endorse the U.N. plan for an interim Iraqi government and establish a high commissioner to oversee the transition.
As for the security side, he said NATO should play a key role, and can be brought on board if the member nations "have been treated with respect."
"NATO is now a global security organization, and Iraq must be one of its global missions because of its global implications," he said, calling on Mr. Bush to personally "reach out and convince them that Iraqi security" is in the global interest.
With several key members of NATO having opposed Mr. Bush's action in Iraq, the alliance has shown little indication it can get involved as a whole. And NATO is already handling the coalition still fighting Taliban forces in Afghanistan, which is where some NATO nation leaders have said the alliance must focus.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan was not impressed with Mr. Kerry's plans.
"I'm not sure what he says from one day to the next. It's kind of hard to tell where he is," he said. "That's why I said it's important to have strong and steady leadership, particularly in tough times, and particularly when you're at war."
Unlike the president, Mr. Kerry said he believes "mistakes have complicated our mission and jeopardized our objective of a stable, free Iraq."
Mr. Kerry was invited to appear at Westminster after Vice President Dick Cheney spoke earlier this week and gave a speech blasting Mr. Kerry's voting record on defense legislation. His partisan speech disappointed college President Fletcher Lamkin.
Mr. Lamkin sent an e-mail message to students, telling them he would invite Mr. Kerry to balance things out.
----
Kerry Tells Bush to Make Goals in Iraq the World's
May 1, 2004
By JODI WILGOREN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/politics/campaign/01KERR.html
FULTON, Mo., April 30 - One year after President Bush celebrated what he described as the end of major combat in Iraq by landing on an aircraft carrier decorated with a "Mission Accomplished" banner, Senator John Kerry challenged him Friday to internationalize the operation immediately.
Mr. Kerry urged the appointment of a United Nations high commissioner to oversee Iraq's reconstruction and political transformation. He said such a high commissioner, modeled on the role of the United Nations representative deployed to Bosnia, would be authorized by the Security Council to organize elections, draft a constitution and work with both Iraq's interim government and the United States ambassador.
The senator also called on NATO to make Iraq's security one of the alliance's global missions, before the June 30 deadline set by the United States for the transfer of power to Iraqis. He sought as well a "massive training effort" to build a native security force in Iraq.
"We must lead, but we must listen," Senator Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, declared at Westminster College here, drawing one of five sustained ovations from a largely partisan audience.
"This is a moment of truth in Iraq," he said, "not just for this administration, the country, the Iraqi people, but for the world. This may be our last chance to get this right. We need to put pride aside to build a stable Iraq."
More an elaboration of longstanding positions than an offering of new proposals, the speech was Mr. Kerry's first in a month devoted entirely to Iraq. He spoke in the very gymnasium where in 1946 Winston Churchill coined the term Iron Curtain to describe the imposition of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. It was also in the gym that Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a stinging attack on Mr. Kerry only four days ago, calling him unfit to lead the nation in wartime.
The first anniversary of Mr. Bush's appearance on the aircraft carrier is Saturday, and Mr. Kerry had planned to note the occasion with a speech Thursday. But he hastily rearranged his schedule after Westminster's president, Fletcher M. Lamkin, disappointed with what he called Mr. Cheney's "Kerry-bashing," issued an invitation.
Embracing Dr. Lamkin's map to the high road, Mr. Kerry did not utter the names "Bush" or "Cheney," and skipped some of the harsher language of his regular critiques of the administration's performance in Iraq, though he did deliver several subtler jabs.
"We must do the hard work to get the world's major political powers to join in this mission," he said. "To do so, the president must lead."
As he has throughout the week, Mr. Kerry mentioned his own military experience several times in the 30-minute speech. At one emotional point, he told of having been greeted upon landing in Missouri by a cousin of Don Droz, a close friend who was killed when he and Mr. Kerry fought in Vietnam.
"Eulogies and rifle salutes and the last lone note of taps have echoed across our towns," Mr. Kerry said, noting that "722 men and women have fallen" in Iraq thus far.
"The hard truth is that we know that more lives will be lost until the mission is truly accomplished," he added, "and our duty is to make sure that parents, families and friends who lost loved ones will know that they did not die in vain."
In Washington, Mr. Bush, asked about Saturday's anniversary while appearing with Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada in the White House Rose Garden, vowed that those soldiers' "sacrifice will not go in vain, because there will be a free Iraq."
"A year ago," the president told reporters, "I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we had accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein."
"I also said on that carrier that day that there was still difficult work ahead," he added. "We've had some tough times. And we've had some tough fighting, because there are people who hate the idea of a free Iraq. They are trying to stop progress, because they understand what freedom means to their terrorist ambitions. And so we're making progress. You bet."
The issue of Iraq has been one of Mr. Kerry's stiffest challenges throughout the presidential campaign. During the primary campaign, when Howard Dean was winning support with an antiwar message, the senator struggled to explain to liberal audiences his vote authorizing the invasion. Since he all but clinched the nomination, Republicans have attacked him as a flip-flopper for voting afterward against the $87 billion sought by Mr. Bush for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Though Mr. Kerry on Friday referred to "all the mistakes that have been made" in Iraq, his speech reflected a narrowing of differences on the issue between himself and the president. Both, for example, now seek an increased role for the United Nations and its special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi.
Mr. Kerry's "rhetoric simply echoes the policies the administration is already implementing, while offering nothing but criticism," Senator George Allen, Republican of Virginia, said in a statement circulated by the Bush campaign.
"He calls for NATO assistance when NATO is helping," Mr. Allen said. "He calls for U.N. involvement when the U.N. is involved, and he is advocating training Iraq security forces when that is being done."
Rand Beers, Mr. Kerry's chief foreign policy aide, said the distinction was not so much in what the two men would do in Iraq as in how quickly and forcefully they would move to change strategies.
In his speech, Mr. Kerry himself said, "If the president will take the needed steps to share the burden and make progress in Iraq - if he leads - then I will support him on this issue."
For Westminster, a campus of 851 undergraduates here in this central Missouri town of 12,000, Mr. Kerry's visit capped a remarkable week of national attention.
On both Monday and Friday, students waited in line for more than an hour to claim the scores of seats allotted them. On Monday, Republican lawmakers and other V.I.P.'s took up most of the gym, while on Friday firefighters and government workers in their yellow and green union T-shirts crowded the bleachers.
"This is a once in a lifetime," said Kayla Wells, a sophomore majoring in elementary education. "One speech is enough, but to have two, it's just crazy."
--------
Iraq Veteran Will Deliver War Critique for Democrats
May 1, 2004
By CARL HULSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/politics/campaign/01VET.html
WASHINGTON, April 30 - A National Guard member from New York who served almost a year in Iraq will deliver the national Democratic radio address on Saturday morning, filling a role usually reserved for prominent members of Congress and other political figures.
The serviceman, First Lt. Paul Rieckhoff, 29, whose unit was attached to the Third Infantry and was stationed in Baghdad, is expected to deliver a critique of President Bush's leadership of the war on the first anniversary of his appearance on the carrier Abraham Lincoln with the posted "Mission Accomplished" banner. He will also recount his own experiences.
Lieutenant Rieckhoff, who was in Iraq from April 2003 until last February, was in a guard unit whose tour in Iraq was extended repeatedly.
According to information from the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry, Lieutenant Rieckhoff is a resident of New York who was living in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, and helped in the rescue efforts that day and later at ground zero with his National Guard unit.
Kerry campaign officials said Lieutenant Rieckhoff approached them and was one of several Iraq veterans who had contacted the campaign with concerns about the war.
Republicans, preparing for what they expected would be Lieutenant Rieckhoff's tough recounting of his time in Iraq as well as a critical assessment of administration policies, circulated a CBS News report from Iraq in October 2003 that featured him.
In the report, Lieutenant Rieckhoff discussed the difficulties of the military's job in Iraq but said American forces had made "incredible" strides. "It's going to take time to re-establish this entire government, this entire country, but I think it has enormous potential," CBS quoted him as saying. "And I think the sky's the limit for the people of Iraq."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Solar ovens catching on in U.S.
(UPI)
May 1 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040501-095723-8097r.htm
CHICAGO, , May. 1 (UPI) -- Sales of solar ovens in the United States have jumped almost 400 percent in the last month, the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday.
"It's probably the rise in fuel prices," Paul Munsen, president of Sun Ovens International Inc., based in Elburn, Ill., told the Tribune. "Our North American sales spurts usually result from some negative. We got a nice boost out of Y2K."
The ovens operate outside and focus solar rays in the baking compartment, producing temperatures of 360 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. The only fuel is sunlight.
"Most of our sales are in developing countries, but there is pent-up demand in this country," Munsen said. "People like the idea of an oven that works on renewable energy, and when something gives them an excuse to buy, they do."
The ovens sell for $229.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Italy demos 'win hostage safety'
The men were seized on 12 April
Saturday, 1 May, 2004
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3675893.stm
Three Italian hostages in Iraq have been saved from harm by street protests in Rome, a militant group has told al-Jazeera TV.
Earlier this week, a group calling itself the Green Brigade threatened to kill the men within five days unless Italians staged demonstrations.
The Arabic TV channel quoted a statement saying that Thursday's protests had satisfied the demand.
A fourth Italian was murdered soon after the group was seized.
There was no immediate confirmation of the authenticity of Saturday's statement.
"They are telling the Italian people that they appreciate how the Italian people went onto the streets and now they are not going to harm the hostages," a spokesman for the Qatar-based channel told Reuters news agency.
Prisoner demand
Al-Jazeera said the statement also called on the Italian government to seek the release of "political prisoners" held in prison in Kurdish areas of Iraq.
References to the statement were later dropped from al-Jazeera bulletins.
The first statement, threatening the hostages with death, was sent to al-Arabiya television station.
The three men, Salvatore Stefio, Umberto Cupertino and Maurizio Agliana were captured on 12 April outside Baghdad, where they were working as security guards for a private US firm.
Their colleague Fabrizio Quattrocchi, 36, was shot on 14 April, and his murder filmed.
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Hostages ordered to cry on video
May 1, 2004
By MAKOTO USHIDA,
The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200405010184.html
Noriaki Imai, right, and Soichiro Koriyama explain their ordeal Friday in Tokyo.
Two Japanese taken hostage in Iraq told reporters Friday they were ordered to cry and look terrified in video footage that carried death threats against them, but the leader of the hostage-takers had already guaranteed that they would live.
Soichiro Koriyama, a 32-year-old photojournalist based in Tokyo, and Noriaki Imai, an 18-year-old from Sapporo who writes on depleted-uranium weapons issues, held their first news conference in Tokyo since they were released April 15.
Another freed hostage in their group, Nahoko Takato, a 34-year-old aid worker, was unable to attend the news conference in Tokyo due to poor health.
During the news conference, Koriyama and Imai said that the hostage-takers' leader, called ``General,'' repeatedly apologized to the three.
``We will guarantee your lives,'' the General said on the first day of the nine-day crisis, according to Imai.
``I thought they were like vigilantes and most of them said their family members were killed in U.S. attacks on Fallujah,'' Koriyama said.
The two said they left Jordan around 10:30 p.m. on April 6 by taxi and crossed into Iraq early the next morning. Before reaching Fallujah, they were held captive at a gas station. Imai and Takato were forced into one car, while Koriyama was kept in another with three gunmen.
He said the gunmen began screaming and pointing their guns at him. ``It was the most terrifying moment,'' he recalled.
Imai and Takato were surrounded by gunmen who had grenades in their hands. Takato was crying hysterically, Imai said.
``I thought they are going to commit a suicide bombing,'' he said.
The three were then taken to a building where the video was filmed.
The General, who could speak some English, asked them, ``Are you spy?'' The others said, ``Japanese army, why?''
Takato, who could speak English, explained, ``I am here for humanitarian aid.'' But the captors didn't understand.
When Takato said she supplied medical equipment to hospitals in Iraq, the group calmed down and began saying ``sorry.''
They were given a big chicken plate and were treated better.
However, they said they were ordered to cry and look terrified when the video was shot. Their hair was pulled and they were threatened with knives in the footage. The captors said they would kill them if Japan refused to withdraw the Self-Defense Forces from Iraq.
Koriyama said he couldn't understand the sudden change in their attitudes.
Later, the hostages were told several times that they would be freed, but each time it turned out to be untrue. They changed locations several times.
They were finally released at a mosque in Baghdad and returned to Japan on April 18, where they came under a barrage of criticism for ``irresponsible behavior'' and ignoring government warnings about travel to Iraq.
Koriyama said his job is to report from risky places, and that it is ``a matter of course for the hostages' families to ask for the withdrawal of the SDF.''
He also questioned Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's refusal to pull the troops from Iraq.
``(Such a refusal) could endanger journalists and NGO aid workers working in risky places,'' he said.
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Japanese ex-hostages deny being at fault in Iraq
01.05.2004
REUTERS
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3563817&thesection=news&thesubsection=world
Two Japanese civilians who came home to a storm of criticism after being held captive in Iraq admitted on Friday they may have been ill-prepared for the danger but denied their actions had been irresponsible.
Noriaki Imai, an 18-year-old high school graduate, and freelance photographer Soichiro Koriyama, 32, were captured by militants who threatened to kill them unless Japan withdrew its troops from Iraq.
Also taken captive was aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34, who is said to be suffering from stress and did not appear at Friday's news conference.
The three, along with two other civilians captured separately and also released, were criticised by the government and some media and ordinary Japanese for going to Iraq despite the obvious danger and repeated official warnings.
Koriyama said that while he could have taken better precautions, taking risks was part of his job.
"Precisely because it is dangerous, journalists must take the risk to tell the truth and report the news," Koriyama told a packed news conference, the first by the two since their return on April 18.
"I don't think the argument of 'personal responsibility' applies," he added, referring to a phrase repeatedly used by government officials and other critics of the hostages.
Imai, who went to Iraq to research the effects of depleted uranium weapons, told the news conference he thought it was his responsibility to tell the public about his experience.
He said he had been scared when the militants grabbed him and held him at gunpoint while making a video -- which shocked Japan when it was aired on nationwide television.
Some Japanese tabloids had suggested the entire episode was faked. The two former hostages said Takato had been told to cry when the filming started and that the Iraqis apologised when it was over, but added they had been forced to do as they were told.
Koriyama said he thought the captors were resistance fighters and vigilantes who were trying to protect Falluja.
"They are awkward people who can only send messages out to the world by capturing foreigners," Koriyama said.
Japan's military reconstruction mission in Samawa, southern Iraq, is the nation's riskiest since World War 2 and the hostage crisis was prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's toughest challenge since taking office in 2001.
An unhappy ending could have rocked Koizumi's government ahead of an election for parliament's Upper House in July, especially since the public has been deeply divided over the troop deployment.
Opponents of the dispatch, many of whom say it violates Japan's pacifist constitution, seized on the crisis to repeat calls for the troops' withdrawal, and the captives' families echoed that demand, often in highly emotional language.
That, analysts said, was one big reason ruling politicians were quick to insist the hostages were to blame for their plight.
"The Japanese government... has been very apprehensive about the possibility of people getting tired of the war in Iraq and saying the troops should come home," said Takashi Inoguchi, a University of Tokyo political science professor.
"That could be triggered by anything -- Americans getting shot one by one, or a hostage incident, or anything," he added.
Conservative and tabloid media quickly joined in the hostage-bashing. "You had the government, a polarised public and an extremely controversial policy," said Brad Glosserman of Hawaii-based think tank Pacific Forum CSIS.
"You also had a public largely uninformed on security issues and a media inclined... to manipulate these issues," he added.
Some domestic media, however, have argued the hostages' case.
"There are plenty of hot spots around the world where journalists and aid workers would be unable to fulfil their duties if they meekly followed the government advice," said the liberal Asahi Shimbun newspaper in an editorial last week.
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Fear confines Vanunu to church
May 1, 2004
By Ed O'Loughlin Jerusalem
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/30/1083224580361.html
Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu is to remain in the keeping of Jerusalem's Anglican cathedral for the foreseeable future, his brother says.
Meir Vanunu - an Australian citizen living in Sydney - told The Age that fears for Mordechai's safety had confined him to St George's Cathedral since his release from an 18-year prison sentence last week.
He said threats had been made against his brother and "the fear for his safety is real as far as we can see".
Most Israelis, who overwhelmingly support their country's nuclear capability as their ultimate defence in a hostile region, regard Vanunu as a traitor, not a whistleblower. His parents and most of his 10 siblings have renounced him.
Vanunu's supporters had hoped he would be allowed to leave Israel when his sentence was served but the Israeli security establishment has banned him from leaving the country. The Israeli Government says it believes the former nuclear technician still has secret information to reveal about the country's nuclear activities. Advertisement Advertisement
A former technician at the Israeli nuclear centre in Dimona, Vanunu gave details of the plant to the Sunday Times in London in 1986 for an undisclosed fee.
Before the story was published, Vanunu was kidnapped and smuggled back to Israel. He was sentenced to 18 years' jail for espionage and treason.
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300 Local Governments Slam PATRIOT Act
by Jim Lobe,
May 1, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2446
The tiny Martha's Vineyard hamlet of Tisbury, Massachusetts, this week became the 300th local or state government to denounce the USA Patriot Act, even as President George W. Bush was campaigning for Congress to make the Act permanent before its expiration next year.
Tinsbury's voters Tuesday joined New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago - the country's three biggest metropolises among others - in approving a resolution condemning provisions of the Act as threats to basic civil liberties.
The city councils of Pittsburgh and El Paso approved similar resolutions earlier in the week.
As of Thursday, the 300 local and municipal jurisdictions - including the states of Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and Vermont - that have passed such measures represent more than 51 million people, or one in every six U.S. residents, according to the Massachusetts-based Bill of Rights Defense Committee which has been working with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups to marshal public opinion against the Act.
Meanwhile, the ACLU disclosed Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a provision in the Act which permits the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI ) to compel Internet service providers to turn over information about their customers or subscribers in counterterrorism or counterintelligence cases without a judge's approval.
The lawsuit, which was filed April 6 but not made public due to its extraordinary sensitivity until Thursday, challenges the authority given to the FBI under the Act to issue "National Security Letters" (NSLs) that require the recipients - which may include banks, telephone companies, and even libraries - to provide records about their clients. The same provision makes it a crime for the NSL recipients to notify the subjects of the NSL that their records have been turned over.
"As a result of the Patriot Act, the FBI may now use NSLs to obtain sensitive information about innocent individuals who have no connection to espionage or terrorism," according to the ACLU which has argued that all such requests should be authorized by a court.
The Patriot Act, which was rushed through Congress in October, 2001, has drawn widespread criticism from a range of groups across the US political spectrum.
A survey of 65 criminal justice and legal experts by Thomson Wadsworth (a publishing division of Thomson Learning) released this week found strong disapproval of the Act, with 95 percent of respondents agreeing with the statement, "The USA Patriot Act was passed too quickly and/or without adequate analysis on its impact on other laws and public policy."
Three quarters of the respondents said they believed that some of the Act's provisions "violate individual rights" while more than two-thirds agreed that the government had its disposal before the Act's approval sufficient authority to protect the nation from terrorism.
The 300 local and state jurisdictions that have gone on record against the Act have objected especially to the sweeping powers given to the Justice Department to round up, detain, and summarily deport immigrants without filing charges or providing them with access to attorneys, or, in some cases, even to their family members; the use of racial and ethnic profiling by federal agencies in targeting suspects; and/or the granting of unprecedented powers to the FBI to secretly obtain information with little or no judicial review about individuals.
Of the 25 most populous US cities, 15 - including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Dallas, Denver, San Jose, Seattle, San Francisco, and Milwaukee, and Washington, D.C. - have approved resolutions urging that the Act be amended or repealed.
Hundreds of other communities and states are currently considering similar resolutions, while the last December, the National League of Cities called for the Act to be amended.
New York's resolution, approved in February, is among the most far-reaching.
Approved by the City Council, Resolution 60 urges local agencies, the New York Police Department (NYPD) in particular, not to subject New Yorkers to secret detentions without access to counsel, to protect the free-speech rights of individuals, and refrain from enforcing federal immigration laws or engage in racial or ethnic profiling.
The measure, which was approved by voice vote, also calls upon the New York delegation in Congress to "actively work for the repeal of those sections of the USA PATRIOT Act (USAPA) and related federal actions that unduly infringe upon fundamental rights and liberties."
"The city of New York - perhaps more than any city in America - is keenly aware of why we are engaged in a war on terror," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The impact of the City Council's vote on security is likely to be put to a major test when the Republican National Convention meets in New York Aug. 30 to Sept. 2. Large-scale protests are expected.
Nancy Talanian, director of the Defense Committee, said that the growing grassroots movement against the Act represented a serious challenge to the Bush administration that could affect the upcoming elections. "This movement will play a role in helping people make informed choices in this election year," she said.
Both Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have insisted that the Act was carefully drafted and do not represent a threat to civil rights or lawful dissent.
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Ethnic Russians protest Latvia's EU entry
UPI
May 01, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040501-080016-6239r.htm
RIGA, , May. 1 (UPI) -- While Latvia formally joined the European Union Saturday, ethnic Russians in the country held a huge rally in defense of their language rights.
The ex-Soviet nation along with nine other states joined the EU Saturday. But at least 20,000 protestors marched peacefully through Riga to protest a law curbing the use of Russian in education, the BBC reported.
Under an EU law, all schools must teach mainly in Latvian.
Russian speakers make up almost a third of Latvia's population, and less than half of them have been given citizenship.
The demonstrators, many bused into the capital, sang the anthem of the Russian-language movement, a version of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall."
The demonstration centered at the Soviet-era Victory Monument, which commemorates the defeat of Nazi Germany. Many Latvians see the monument as a symbol of the beginning of Soviet oppression.
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