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NUCLEAR
Miners Drawn to Illegal Congo Uranium
Nuclear arrest taints Malaysian PM
Twelve questions for President Bush
Marine's recovery a long journey
Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War
North Korea accuses U.S. of concocting uranium bomb program
MILITARY
Rules of War Often Broken but Still Vital
U.S. is lost in Afghanistan
Raytheon Delivers First Production Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missile
Lockheed Brings A THAAD To Troy
American contractors' role in Chalabi raid revealed
Cheney office 'coordinated' Halliburton deal
Contractors Sometimes Stretch Their Deals
Contracts Awarded
Federal Contracts
U.S.: China Rethinking Strategy on Taiwan
U.S.: China Rethinking Military Tactics
Jiang Puts Hard Line To the Test In China
Former Paramilitary Chief Killed In Colombia
Dissident Chief of Force Killed in Colombia
Iran makes its first anti-ship missile
Inside The Takedown
Iraqis Decry U.S. Over President Choice
Politicians Taking Top Interim Roles in Iraq
2 U.S. Soldiers Killed as Truce in 2 Iraqi Cities Unravels
Clashes in Najaf and Kufa Cause Cease-Fire to Fray
Sharon, Netanyahu Clash on Gaza Plan
Sharon Still One Vote Short in Cabinet Debate on Gaza Plan
Slayings Spurred Saudi Rescue
Saudi Military Storms Complex to Free Hostages
Jailed - for showing dislike of US invaders
Defence report urges firms to develop space weapons
Old Spies Tell Some Tales
Military Completed Death Certificates for 20 Prisoners
Where Does Iraq Stand Among U.S. Wars?
Army Is Investigating Reports of Assaults and Thefts by G.I.'s
More Than 200 Troops Killed in April, May
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Contracting Justice
Some in GOP Want Private Airport Screeners
Total Information Awareness II?
Gaps Seen in 'Virtual Border' Security System
Police Access to Federal Files Questioned
Brazil: Police rounding up escaped cons
Terror Suspects Beating Charges Filed in Europe
POLITICS
From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity
Kerry Criticizes Bush's Military Policy
Hawaii Democrats in Tune with Kerry, Dean on Environment
OTHER
Europe's Green Week Focus on Behavior Change
ACTIVISTS
Common Cause Looks for New Battle to Fight
Democracy Supporters March in Hong Kong
Greenpeace Orange Roughy Protest Meets Rough Response
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- africa
Miners Drawn to Illegal Congo Uranium
By TODD PITMAN
Associated Press Writer
May 31, 2004
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_CONGO?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
SHINKOLOBWE, Congo (AP) -- Business is booming in the mining zone that supplied uranium for the atomic bombs unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - despite a decree by Congo's president banning all mining activity here.
President Joseph Kabila ordered the zone closed three months ago amid growing concerns that unregulated nuclear materials could get into the hands of so-called rogue nations or terrorist groups. Yet 1,000 miles away from the capital, Kinshasa, thousands of diggers are still hacking away at a dark cavity of open earth in this southeastern village, filling thousands of burlap sacks a day with black soil rich in cobalt, copper - and radioactive uranium.
The illegal mining provides stark evidence of how little control Africa's third-largest nation has over its own nuclear resources, highlighting the government's weak authority beyond the capital in the aftermath of Congo's devastating 1998-2002 war.
"They're digging as fast as they can dig, and everyone is buying it," John Skinner, a mining engineer in the nearby town of Likasi, said of the illegal freelance mining at Shinkolobwe. "The problem is that nobody knows where it's all going. There is no control."
The raw uranium is an inadvertent addition to the miners' real prize - high-grade cobalt in lucrative concentrations - and there is no evidence Congo's uranium is being spirited away to terrorists. The United States, which pressured Kabila to close the mine out of concern over the uranium, said in March it did not believe there was any "worrisome movement" of the radioactive ore at Shinkolobwe.
But some proliferation experts worry because the digging is uncontrolled, and they caution that even small amounts should be tracked for misuse.
Shinkolobwe's deposits were discovered in 1915 when Congo was a Belgian colony. The find helped thrust the world into the nuclear age, providing much of the uranium used in the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in 1945. Shinkolobwe ceased to be profitable and closed in 1960, Mining Minister Diomi Ndongala said. Belgian authorities, apparently concerned about the mine's safety, filled the main uranium shaft with concrete.
Congo's war and accompanying lawlessness brought prospectors back in 1998. Miners dug new pits just a couple hundred yards from the rusting, weed-choked uranium factory.
Kabila moved against the mine in February to "protect the environment, the population and the world against terrorism," Ndongala said.
His ban has never been enforced, however. Ndongala spoke of plans to drive the miners away from Shinkolobwe with soldiers, but said his cash-strapped government "doesn't have the means" to do so.
And perhaps, little real incentive.
Mining is big business in Congo. Government officials declined to give figures on the cobalt industry, but overall exports - including cobalt, diamonds, copper and coffee - topped $1 billion in 2002.
Today at Shinkolobwe, some 5,500 Congolese using shovels, hoes and bare hands haul ores overland to nearby Likasi, where businessmen from Africa, India, China and elsewhere have set up 13 smelting mills.
The end product, and just as often the raw material itself, known as heteroginite, is shipped south by road to neighboring Zambia, and then abroad.
Industry officials say the heteroginite primarily contains high-grade cobalt. But "trace quantities of uranium are being exported unwittingly" along with it, said Skinner, the mining engineer, a Zimbabwean who is a longtime Congo resident.
The diggers, uneducated, hungry and fearful for their jobs, deny any uranium is being mined.
Provincial governor Aime Ngoy Mukena confirmed to The Associated Press that the heteroginite contains uranium, but he and other officials declined to say precisely how much.
Alex Stewart (Assayers) Ltd., a British-based company that provides lab services to the mining industry, found "a high concentration of the highly radioactive uranium-235 in steels from Shinkolobwe," European Parliament member Bart Staes wrote to the European Commission in 2003.
The isotope uranium-235 is needed to support chain reactions in nuclear reactors and weapons. The metal must be refined first, a process called enrichment.
Foreign experts say the uranium being dug up at Shinkolobwe is not significant enough to attract terrorists - a basic bomb needs a half-dozen tons of the raw ore. But no one consistently monitors how much is being mined or exported.
About 20 state mining police officers are posted at Shinkolobwe, but their main task is to ensure diggers pay their taxes. On the Congolese frontier, underpaid officials are easily bribed to let shipments through.
"It's a whole other problem when governments can't control what happens on their own land," said Michael Levi, a science and technology fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Mukena, the governor, told AP that government experts test all minerals for export, but state labs do not have the means to detect uranium.
"There is no local laboratory that can do it," Mukena said, adding that Shinkolobwe was closed partly for that reason.
The U.S. government recently sent experts to inspect Shinkolobwe. U.S. Embassy officials in Kinshasa declined to detail their findings.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. organization that monitors nuclear facilities, also has offered to inspect the mines. The government has not taken up the offer, agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said by telephone from IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria.
The IAEA begins tracking uranium ore only after it has been enriched into weapons-grade material, a process that requires extremely sophisticated technical know-how, Fleming said.
"There is a huge, long process you have to go through before it gets to a point of concern for the world," Fleming said.
Tom Cochrane, director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based advocacy group, agreed.
Pre-enriched, "it's not very good dirty-bomb material," he said.
Levi, however, argued that even small quantities should be tracked.
"The assumption in the past was always that you'd have to divert a huge amount of uranium to make a bomb," Levi said from Washington. "But you can do most of the research leading to a bomb with small amounts of uranium. So you can get very far without being detected."
Saddam Hussein's intelligence archives show a middleman in Nairobi, Kenya, offered to supply Iraq with Congo uranium in 2000, Newsweek reported in its May 17 issue. A note in the intelligence service's file suggested Iraq was then under too much international scrutiny to pursue the deal but recommended Iraq "maintain contact" with the middleman.
The Shinkolobwe mine is not Congo's only nuclear worry. In the capital, an aging, low-power research reactor still operates on an erosion-prone hill at the university.
It has been criticized for lax security, and two of its nuclear fuel rods were stolen in the late 1980s. One was later found in Italy. The other remains missing.
As for Shinkolobwe, "if there was really a political will to close it, it could be closed in a day," Skinner said. "But everybody is making money out of it, and at the end of the day, that's what it's all about."
-------- asia
Nuclear arrest taints Malaysian PM
By Mark Baker, Asia Editor
May 31, 2004
The Age (Australia)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855434566.html
Singapore - The belated arrest of a Sri Lankan businessman at the centre of an international nuclear arms-smuggling scandal is shaping as a serious embarrassment for Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.
Buhary Syed Abu Tahir is accused of secretly training Libyan nuclear technicians in Malaysia as well as using a company formerly controlled by Mr Abdullah's multimillionaire son, Kamaluddin, to make components for Libya's clandestine nuclear weapons program.
Mr Tahir, who is a permanent resident of Malaysia, was arrested while shopping with his family in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. He was ordered to be held for two years under the country's Internal Security Act, which provides for indefinite detention without trial.
The 44-year-old businessman was described in February by US President George Bush as the "chief financial officer and money-launderer" of a syndicate run by disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
US authorities claim Dr Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, illicitly sold nuclear technology and equipment to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Advertisement Advertisement
At the time, Mr Abdullah declared there was no evidence that Mr Tahir had broken Malaysian laws. A police inquiry also cleared Scomi Precision Engineering - a company then owned by Kamaluddin Abdullah - of knowingly exporting parts for the construction of Libyan nuclear-processing centrifuges.
But Malaysian Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar announced at the weekend that Mr Tahir had deceived Scomi into making the centrifuge parts and had "arranged secretly for technicians from Libya to undergo training on handling quality-control machines that were part of Libya's nuclear weapons program".
He gave no further details about where or when the training took place.
Mr Noh claimed Mr Tahir's actions had exposed Malaysia "to possible threats of attack by the big powers and to economic sanctions".
"Since December 2001 (Tahir) has been involved in activities that are illegal at an international level, that are contrary to United Nations treaties and resolutions, by involving himself in an illicit international network of nuclear proliferation, especially in Libya," he said.
The fresh allegations against Mr Tahir have renewed questions about his relationship with Mr Kamaluddin, one of Malaysia's richest men with a fortune of more than $100 million.
Mr Kamaluddin, 36, who has avoided responding publicly to the allegations involving his business empire, is reported to have recently sold Scomi and some related companies.
The Cambridge-educated tycoon controlled Scomi through his holding company, Kaspadu. Mr Tahir was a director of Kaspadu until last year, and his wife, the daughter of a Malaysian diplomat, was also a director until the Libyan scandal broke and she sold her 13.75 per cent stake to Mr Kamaluddin.
Scomi executives have claimed they believed the parts ordered by Mr Tahir - a consignment of which was intercepted en route to Libya by British intelligence agents in October - were for legitimate use in the oil and gas industry.
Mr Tahir's arrest is believed to have followed intense pressure from the US.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said US authorities were delighted by the move. "We think the arrest is a major step and it will serve as a catalyst to international efforts to shut down the Khan network."
-------- depleted uranium
[Check out question #9]
Twelve questions for President Bush Meant to Help Strengthen His Remaining Speeches about Iraq
ZNet InterActive /TomDispatch
by Chalmers Johnson
May 31, 2004
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5623
1. Please tell us more about your notion of "full sovereignty" for Iraq. Will this be like our returning Okinawan sovereignty to Japan in 1972, when we retained exclusive control over the 38 military bases on the island and the deployment and behavior of American forces on them?
2. Please tell us: If we plan to return Iraq to the Iraqis, why is the U.S. currently building fourteen permanent bases there?
3. Presumably the American troops to be stationed on these bases will remain under the control of the Pentagon and beyond the legal reach of any "sovereign" Iraqi state. Such arrangements are usually covered by a "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA) that we normally impose on the government in whose territory our bases are placed. Who will sign the SOFA on the Iraqi side? What are its terms? Will it be binding on the new government you hope the Iraqis will elect early next year?
4. The sovereignty discussion has been focused mainly on the question of who will control the actions of what troops -- Iraqi or American -- in the coming months. But American advisers will be stationed in every Iraqi "ministry"; the new government will evidently be capable neither of passing, nor abrogating laws or regulations laid down by the occupying power; and the economy, except for oil, will remain open to all foreign corporate investors. Please tell us if this really strikes you as "full sovereignty"?
5. You say that we will tear down Abu Ghraib prison if the Iraqis so wish. What if they wish to preserve it as a monument to our cruelty as well as Saddam Hussein's?
6. Your administration has recently confirmed that while captured Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were not, in your eyes, covered by the Geneva Conventions, Iraqi prisoners and detainees were. The acts in Abu Ghraib prison contravened those conventions. We now know that teams of interrogation experts were sent by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, commandant of our Guantánamo prison from Cuba to Abu Ghraib to teach Americans working there "better" interrogation techniques. If these contravened the Geneva Conventions, should General Miller be brought to trial for this? If General Miller acted at Guantánamo and elsewhere on the basis of guidelines and urgings from his superiors in the Pentagon and the military chain of command, should they face the same? Your views on this would be appreciated.
7. If it turns out to be true that some of the acts of torture in Abu Ghraib prison were, in fact, committed by members of the Israeli intelligence services, who were placed in the prison via our independent contractors, does this not further confuse American policy in the Middle East with that of Ariel Sharon's Israel? Is this really a good idea?
8. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the war and occupation in Iraq by 130,000 U.S. troops now costs close to $5 billion per month, or $60 billion a year. So far the war has cost American taxpayers $186 billion in direct military expenses. You've asked for another $425 billion in defense appropriations for the 2005 Pentagon budget, plus another $75 billion for Iraq, $25 billion for the development of new generations of nuclear weapons, and untold billion for such things as military pensions and veterans' health care. Not included in these figures are the multibillions in secret amounts spent on the CIA and other intelligence activities, not to speak of other Department of Defense "black budget" activities kept out of the appropriations process. Where is all this money going to come from? Why is our government putting all this money on the tab for future generations to deal with?
9. Speaking of military pensions and health care, would you please address the fact that something like 30% of the troops who participated in the first Gulf War are now seeking disability payments for illnesses contracted there -- chiefly as a result of our use of depleted uranium shells. Would you please discuss some of these long-term dangers of modern warfare (even when our initial short-term casualties seem relatively modest)? How will our military hospitals be able to care for all the soldiers who are likely to develop cancer or give birth to children with birth defects as a result of the current war?
10. On June 1, 2002, in your West Point speech enunciating your new doctrine of preventive war, you said there were 60 countries that were potential targets for regime change. Would you please list those 60 countries for us, and are you still determined in a second term to proceed down this list?
11. If you are determined to start new wars, or if the Iraq war drags on and not enough soldiers re-enlist, will you reinstate the draft?
12. Why do you usually give your speeches to the American people before audiences of servicemen and women at military academies, on bases, and the like, where they have been ordered by their superiors to attend and to applaud? Why not give one of your speeches -- especially if you're going to propose reinstating the draft -- at a large state college?
Chalmers Johnson is the author of The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic and of an earlier volume, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, among other works.
[This article first appeared on Tomdispatch.com, a weblog of the Nation Institute, which offers a steady flow of alternate sources, news, and opinion from Tom Engelhardt, long time editor in publishing and author of The End of Victory Culture and The Last Days of Publishing.]
------
Marine's recovery a long journey
By MARK SOMMER
Buffalo News Staff Reporter
5/31/2004
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040531/1047044.asp
Marine Pfc. Jason Keough, who has endured a long recuperation since being wounded in Iraq last year, has requested an early leave from the service.
The April 7, 2003, cover of Newsweek was its first to show wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Under the headline "How Bloody?," wounded Marine Pfc. Jason Keough of Orchard Park was shown being led out of harm's way in Nasiriyah, Iraq.
That day, Keough suffered two ruptured eardrums, broken tibia and fibula bones above his right ankle and shrapnel wounds.
Since then, the 27-year-old has endured months of off and on hospitalizations, including 79 straight days in the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
"I've been in hospitals so much, it's all run together," Keough said from Jacksonville, N.C., where he's serving at Camp Lejeune and living with his fiancee, Melissa, and 9-month-old son, Benjamin.
Keough, who enlisted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, returned to part-time duty last week, answering phones at a Marine career planning center. His enlistment is up in December 2005, but he has requested an early leave from the Physical Evaluation Board, which would also determine his medical retirement benefits.
For now, he's looking forward to getting married next March 19 and starting anew. "I'm just waiting to get out and get myself a nice cushy desk job somewhere," Keough said.
Keough suffered his injuries when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the amphibious assault vehicle he was in, causing a rocket in the vehicle to explode.
Since then, it has been a long journey toward recovery, with no end in sight:
A surgeon inserted a plate and 11 screws into his right leg, allowing him to walk again. But his foot is prone to bleed if he stands too long, and the pain is so great he's compelled to take increasingly higher daily doses of morphine.
His hearing has improved, although it's not as good as before his injury.
The shrapnel works its way occasionally to the surface of his body, forcing him to have it removed in a hospital before infection sets in.
Keough has also developed high blood pressure from the various medications he takes, gets sick easily and is subject to constant infections. One unknown is the effect of shrapnel that went into his arms and face from a "friendly fire" accident. The shrapnel, later removed, contained radioactive depleted uranium that has been linked to a variety of health maladies since first being used in the 1991 Gulf War.
Keough, a 1995 graduate of Orchard Park High School, said he doubts he will ever know the root cause of why he is so often sick and prone to infections. When he gets out of the Marines, he said, he plans to explore alternative medicine approaches - such as acupuncture - not utilized by military doctors.
-------- iraq / inspections
Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War
United Press International,
May 31, 2004
http://www.wokr13.tv/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=83E2BD4A-5F1C-4E84-9166-4E3A8E847643
The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing.
The artillery shells were rigged to explode as a roadside bomb but failed to detonate. Apparently unknown to the bomber, the shells did not contain explosives but two liquid chemicals that were meant to mix and create sarin, a deadly nerve agent.
U.S. Army soldiers found the shells and detonated them in place, releasing a small amount of sarin gas that sickened them.
Rodriguez said the sarin shells were the only ones of their kind found yet.
It's the only two we've seen the entire time, said Rodriguez.
An artillery shell bearing traces of mustard gas was discovered in Baghdad, Knight-Ridder reported May 7.
Neither find is being offered as evidence of Saddam Hussein's alleged illegal weapons programs, one of the prime reasons offered by the Bush administration for the March 2003 invasion and war.
Saddam's forces used both sarin and mustard gas against Kurds in Halabja in the 1980s.
-------- korea
North Korea accuses U.S. of concocting uranium bomb program as pretext for war
(AP)
May 31, 2004
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2004/05/31/pf-480564.html
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Monday accused the U.S. administration of making up reports about the North's nuclear weapons program as a pretext for war, saying it echoed similar allegations Washington made about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion.
The published commentary came as regional powers are trying to arrange a third round of talks on defusing the standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The United States, North Korea and four other countries agreed to meet before July, but no date has yet been set.
At issue are Washington's charges that North Korea is running a secret enriched uranium-based nuclear weapons program besides the plutonium-based one the communist country has acknowledged.
The dispute flared in October 2002, when the United States said North Korea admitted operating the uranium program in violation of international agreements. North Korea has publicly denied this, and the nuclear talks have since bogged down, in part, over the question of how to handle the uranium allegations.
On Monday, North Korea accused the United States of fabricating the uranium program as a way of fanning concern about weapons of mass destruction and winning public support for an invasion.
"The Bush war forces are going to apply what it used in Iraq to the DPRK," said North Korea's official KCNA news agency. "Having worked out a plan to launch a new war on the Korean peninsula in the wake of that in Iraq, the U.S. is building up in advance public opinion about fictitious development of 'enriched uranium' in the DPRK."
DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.
Eradicating weapons of mass destruction was cited by the U.S. administration as a primary reason for invading Iraq. No such weapons have been found, despite extensive searches.
Before the war, U.S. President George W. Bush had lumped Iraq together with North Korea and Iran as members of what he called the "axis of evil."
"The U.S. does not hesitate to wantonly violate the sovereignty of other countries by setting afloat sheer lies for its own selfish interests," the KNCA report said.
The United States believes North Korea already has one or two atomic weapons and enough raw material to make several more on short order.
North Korea says it is willing to freeze its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid. But Washington demands that the alleged uranium program be included and says assistance won't come until the North has committed to "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling" of all nuclear development.
-------- MILITARY
Rules of War Often Broken but Still Vital
May 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Prison-Abuse-Rules-of-War.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Though often flouted, even by the proudest of armies, the international rules of war are perhaps more vital to U.S. forces today than when drafted many decades ago, according to military analysts and battle-tested officers.
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers -- depicted to the world in graphic photographs -- has only underscored the importance of training U.S. service members to observe those rules regardless of circumstances, said Col. Patrick Finnegan, who heads the law department at the U.S. Military Academy.
``We try to get the cadets to think about what the rules mean and why we follow them, even when the other side might not,'' said Finnegan, a veteran of the first Gulf War.
``Your first responsibility is self-defense, but at the same time we're trying to do the right thing,'' he said. ``The more you overreact to a situation, the worse it plays to the Iraqi people and the rest of the world.''
No single document codifies the rules of war. They are a series of international agreements, including the Geneva Conventions drafted after World War II, that stipulate how commanders and soldiers should act during conflicts. Matters addressed include treatment of POWs and endangerment of civilians.
Some politicians and commentators have suggested that the prisoner abuse was no more than hazing, and that outrage should be directed instead at terrorist attacks or the Iraqis who dismembered American contractors.
``What amounts to hazing is not even in the same ballpark as mass murder,'' Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, wrote recently in the Des Moines Register. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said that if detainees might have information that could save American lives, ``I think you should get really rough with them.''
But Dana Dillon, a retired Army major who is now an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said U.S. forces should be wary of modulating their ethical standards.
``On the battlefield, when fighting an armed, recognized enemy, we don't have any obligation to be fair to them,'' he said. ``But we don't base our standards on what the enemy does, on what al-Qaida does. We have a set of laws that we follow.''
The U.S. military takes the rules seriously enough to require annual instruction in them for every unit, Finnegan said. Exercises might simulate a sudden barrage of rocks thrown by civilian youths, or the appearance of a woman who seems to be pregnant, yet may be concealing a weapon.
Still, some experts suggest the training has not been adequate for some of the National Guard and Reserve units deployed in Iraq -- such as the military police company implicated in the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.
``The vast majority of our Army is doing good job, but we're incredibly stretched, and that can result in mistakes,'' said retired Col. Robert Maginnis, a military analyst who was chief of the Army Infantry School's leadership and ethics training branch.
The abuse scandal ``has been a major embarrassment for all of us,'' Maginnis said. ``To take someone unarmed and then humiliate and abuse them, it's a mockery -- some of our reservists haven't really caught on to that ethos.''
Michael Peters, who served as in Army officer in Vietnam, Panama and the Gulf before becoming executive vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said there are practical reasons for treating enemy prisoners properly.
``You'd hope to be treated the same way if you were captured,'' he said.
Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-based group that monitors a wide range of abuses worldwide, gave mixed grades to American forces for rules-of-war compliance during the first phases of the Iraq war.
The air campaign was commended for inflicting relatively light civilian casualties; ground troops earned praise and criticism.
``We saw some fine examples of heroism by soldiers and Marines, holding fire and putting themselves in danger when the Iraqis were using human shields,'' said Marc Garlasco, a Human Rights Watch military analyst. ``But there also was use of ground-launched cluster munitions that killed a lot of civilians unnecessarily.''
Garlasco said the ongoing anti-occupation insurgency, much of it waged in cities, has prolonged the challenge of minimizing civilian casualties.
``The U.S. military makes a good faith effort,'' he said. ``But the problem is you're asking soldiers and Marines to do a job that's not part of their mandate. It's not easy to flip from being a killer to a peacekeeper.''
David Phillips, a conflict-prevention specialist with the Council on Foreign Relations, said Iraq provided a vivid example of how military missions have evolved.
``The Powell doctrine always was the use of overwhelming force, annihilating the adversary,'' Phillips said. ``But now we have to think about nation-building and transforming adversarial forces into peacekeeping partners.''
The U.S. military's historical record regarding the rules of war is generally considered good, albeit marred by horrific atrocities such as the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Phillips noted that German troops at the close of World War II sought to surrender to American soldiers in expectation of better treatment than they would get from the Russians.
``It's imperative -- particularly right now, after Sept. 11 -- that we don't just win the battle itself,'' Phillips said. ``We have to win the hearts and minds.''
-------- afghanistan
U.S. is lost in Afghanistan
May 31, 2004
BY ROBERT NOVAK,
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak31.html
The handful of valiant American warriors fighting the ''other'' war in Afghanistan is not a happy band of brothers. They are undermanned and feel neglected, lack confidence in their generals and are disgusted by Afghan political leadership. Most important, they are appalled by the immense but fruitless effort to find Osama bin Laden for purposes of U.S. politics.
This bleak picture goes unreported because journalists are rarely seen there. It was painted to me by hard U.S. fighters who are committed to the war against terrorism but have a heavy heart. They talked to me not to undermine policy but to reveal problems that should and can be corrected.
Afghanistan constitutes George W. Bush's clearest victory since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The Taliban regime has been overthrown, eliminating al-Qaida's most important base. But the overlooked war continues with no end in sight. Narcotics trafficking is at an all-time high. If U.S. forces were to leave, the Taliban -- or something like it -- would regain power. The United States is lost in Afghanistan, bound to this wild country and unable to leave.
The situation in Afghanistan, as laid out to me, looks nothing like a country alleged to be progressing toward representative democracy under American tutelage. Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-sponsored Afghan president, is regarded by the U.S. troops as hopelessly corrupt and kept in power by U.S. force of arms.
Those arms are not what they seem. The basic U.S. strength in Afghanistan is 17,000 troops of ''straight-legged'' infantry -- conventional forces ill-prepared to handle irregulars. The new unit assigned to Afghanistan is the 25th Infantry Division, which has been stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and has not seen combat since the Vietnam War.
More important than this conventional infantry division are two commando units known as Black SOF (Special Operations Forces) and White SOF. Black SOF, by far the more numerous of the two, is assigned to capture Osama bin Laden. Nothing would do more to boost President Bush's sagging popularity than getting the designer of the 9/11 attacks.
The problem is that nobody I have talked to in the military thinks his capture is likely or may even be possible. The American fighting men think ''UBL'' (as he is called) is hiding in Pakistan, impossible to find. Most exasperating to the men in the field is the manpower and effort expended on what they consider to be a helpless cause.
It is White SOF that is given the task of confronting armed narco-terrorists. There are hardly more than 100 American soldiers assigned to this duty, many of them bearded and dressed as Afghans. They are augmented by British and New Zealand special forces, CIA paramilitaries and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency operatives.
They are also hamstrung by senior officers who may be expert in conventional warfare but are at a loss to understand American troops who are far closer in style to Lawrence of Arabia than George Patton. The special operations soldiers and junior officers have a low opinion of Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, the U.S. military commander. On paper, he looks good: West Pointer, Ranger, veteran of the Grenada and Panama invasions. But they grumble that Barno does not have a clue.
It is a strange war, with the JAGs -- Judge Advocate General military lawyers -- given a hand in military decisions. My sources tell of commanders, despite credible intelligence of enemy forces, calling off air strikes on the advice of JAGs. This is the kind of restraint the U.S. military has experienced starting with the Korean War, when as a noncombat Army officer, I knew our forces had their hands tied behind their backs.
I am told that one discouraged and now discharged Special Forces officer, who always has voted Republican and admires Bush, thought about contacting a former military colleague now advising John Kerry. He decided that would accomplish nothing and would inject him in politics. Being lost in Afghanistan transcends politics and is a long-term American burden.
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Raytheon Delivers First Production Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missile
Tucson AZ (SPX)
May 31, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/missiles-04ze.html
Raytheon has delivered to the U.S. Navy the first production model of the next-generation Tactical Tomahawk (Tomahawk Block IV) cruise missile at the company's Missile Systems operations.
The concept for Block IV arose from a challenge by the Pentagon to implement the U.S. Navy's vision of a low-cost "Tactical" Tomahawk system that would provide affordable, responsive fire power, affordable follow-on production, and significantly reduce life cycle cost.
"The Navy-Raytheon Team is very honored and excited to provide the warfighter the Tactical Tomahawk missile. This revolutionary weapon, with its flexible targeting and loitering capabilities, builds on the tremendous 32- year tradition and success of the legacy Tomahawk Program," said Navy Capt. Bob Novak, Tomahawk All-Up Round program manager. "The Navy's weapon of choice is now even more affordable, lethal and survivable."
"Reaching this production milestone is a testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone who was part of the design, development, testing and now, production, of this next generation system," said Louise L. Francesconi, Raytheon Missile Systems president.
"This new Block IV missile is the result of the collective commitment of the Navy and Raytheon to provide affordable, operational capabilities for critical long-range, precision strike missions. This first production delivery confirms our commitment to deliver this needed capability to the warfighter."
Tactical Tomahawk will be the centerpiece of the Navy's new Tomahawk Baseline IV Weapons System. The system integrates the Tactical Tomahawk missile with improved mission planning and platform weapons control capabilities.
This latest version of the Navy's surface- and submarine- launched precision strike standoff weapon incorporates innovative technologies to provide unprecedented operational capabilities while dramatically reducing acquisition, life cycle and ownership costs.
The Block IV missile will have a 15-year warranty and recertification cycle, compared to the Block III variant's eight-year recertification cycle.
The new capabilities that Block IV Tomahawk will bring to the Navy's sea strike capability are derived from the missile's two-way satellite data link that enables the missile to respond to changing battlefield conditions. The strike controller can "flex" the missile in flight to preprogrammed alternate targets or redirect it to a new target.
This targeting flexibility includes the capability to loiter over the battlefield awaiting a more critical target. The missile can also transmit battle damage indication imagery and missile health and status messages via the satellite data link. And, for the first time, firing platforms will have the capability to plan and execute Global Positioning System-only missions. Block IV will also introduce an anti-jam GPS receiver for improved mission performance.
The Navy and Raytheon are entering into a five-year multi-year procurement contract to replenish Tomahawk inventory at the most affordable cost. The legacy program Tomahawk missile is the Navy's weapon of choice for critical, long-range precision strike missions against high value, heavily defended targets. The Block IV will cost less half the price of a newly built Block III missile.
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Lockheed Brings A THAAD To Troy
Troy AL (SPX)
May 31, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-04p.html
Lockheed Martin began manufacturing the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile today at its Pike County Operations facility in Troy, AL. The facility will perform final integration, assembly and testing of the THAAD missile, which is an integral part of the THAAD weapon system and the United States' network of layered defenses against ballistic missile attack.
THAAD is designed to defend U.S. troops, allied forces, population centers and critical infrastructure against short- to medium-range ballistic missiles. THAAD comprises a command and control/battle management system, missiles, launchers and radar.
The THAAD missile uses hit-to-kill technology to destroy targets, and is the only weapon system that engages threat ballistic missiles at both endo- and exo-atmospheric altitudes. A key element of the nation's Ballistic Missile Defense System, THAAD is a Missile Defense Agency program, with the program office located in Huntsville, AL.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and Rep. Terry Everett were on hand for a ceremony marking the start of missile production. Sen. Sessions said, "It is important to appreciate the need for the THAAD system. We need a capability to defend our troops, and this missile will be a critical part of that effort."
Rep. Everett said, "Two years ago, I was here to break ground on this facility. The THAAD system is of enormous importance to this nation. The lives of Americans are depending on the work done here in Pike County, Alabama."
"After four years of rigorous design, development and testing, the THAAD team is eager to begin flight testing the missiles that will be produced in this plant," said Tom McGrath, THAAD vice president and program manager for Lockheed Martin. "We are pleased to be manufacturing the THAAD missile in this state-of-the-art facility in Troy, just two years after ground-breaking."
Flight-testing of THAAD begins in late 2004 and continues through early 2009, with low-rate production to support an initial operating capability expected to begin in 2007.
In August 2002, Lockheed Martin began construction of the 46,000-square- foot, $12 million facility specifically for THAAD missile integration, assembly and test operations.
The first THAAD missile manufactured in Troy will be a "pathfinder" missile, used to demonstrate and validate test processes and procedures. Immediately following the pathfinder missile, the first of 16 developmental flight test missiles will be manufactured.
Pike County Operations also will build the new Joint Common Missile (JCM), slated to ultimately replace the Hellfire II, Longbow and Maverick missiles, and will also produce the Non Line-of-Sight - Launch System (NLOS-LS) Loitering Attack Missile (LAM). In addition, the facility builds the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and is Lockheed Martin's Center of Excellence for Strike Weapons.
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American contractors' role in Chalabi raid revealed
By Scott Shane
May 31, 2004
Baltimore Sun
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855436368.html
When Iraqi police raided the Baghdad home and offices of politician Ahmed Chalabi on May 20, US officials hurried to distance themselves from the operation, saying it was an Iraqi affair and that no US Government employees were involved.
But eight armed American contractors paid by a US State Department program went on the raid, directing and encouraging the Iraqi policemen who, witnesses say, ripped out computers, turned over furniture and smashed photographs.
Some of the Americans helped themselves to baklava, apples and diet soda from Mr Chalabi's refrigerator, sitting in a garden outside to enjoy their looted snacks, according to members of Mr Chalabi's staff.
The contractors work for DynCorp, a subsidiary of Computer Sciences Corporation and the company in charge of training and advising the Iraqi police on a State Department contract. A State Department official confirmed the DynCorp workers' presence during the raid.
The participation of gun-toting American contractors in a raid the US Government has insisted it did not order is the latest instance of problems posed by the 20,000 contract security workers serving in Iraq.
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Report: Cheney office 'coordinated' Halliburton deal
5/31/2004
(Reuters)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-05-31-cheney-halliburton_x.htm
WASHINGTON - A Pentagon e-mail said Vice President Cheney's office "coordinated" a multibillion-dollar Iraq reconstruction contract awarded to his former employer Halliburton, Time magazine reported Sunday.
The e-mail, sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official March 5, 2003, said Douglas Feith, a senior Pentagon official, provided arrangements for the RIO contract, or Restore Iraqi Oil, between Halliburton and the U.S. government, Time said.
The e-mail said Feith, who reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, approved arrangements for the contract "contingent on informing WH (White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's (vice president's) office."
A spokesman for Cheney said his office had no role in the contract process.
"Vice President Cheney and his office have had no involvement whatsoever in government contracting matters since he left private business to run for vice president," said Kevin Kellems, a spokesman for Cheney.
An administration official familiar with the e-mail, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the memo merely mentions the fact that the White House had been given a standard courtesy call notifying that a contract decision that had already been made and was being publicly announced soon.
Cheney was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 until he joined President Bush's presidential ticket in 2000.
The Texas oil services firm has been accused by some Democrats of war profiteering after winning billions of dollars in contracts from the U.S. military in Iraq.
The company has strongly denied it obtained favorable treatment.
A spokesperson for Halliburton was not immediately available for comment.
Time said the Pentagon e-mail was located among documents provided by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group.
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Contractors Sometimes Stretch Their Deals
Iraq Work Done Beyond Scope of Agreements
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3505-2004May30.html
In April 2003, the Defense Department hired Military Professional Resources Inc., an Alexandria government contractor, to supply Arabic translators in Iraq. The two parties agreed on a $1.9 million price and the deal was done.
The translators were hired under a federal contract category designed for the employment of education and training analysts, not linguists, according to a report by the Defense Department's inspector general. The military contracting officer who approved the deal told investigators he did not check the General Services Administration schedule to make sure that translation services were within the scope of MPRI's contract with the government. "Noncompliance of a GSA schedule is an issue between the GSA and the contractor," the report says.
MPRI, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications Corp., was never disciplined by the GSA, according to company and government officials.
Stretching the boundaries of large federal contracts is commonplace, and one the government has often overlooked, many contracting experts say.
That attitude may be shifting. Last week, CACI International Inc. said the GSA, the federal agency that administers large interagency contracts, had begun an investigation into the procedures the company used to place civilian interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq under an information technology contract. The Arlington defense contractor said the GSA is trying to determine whether CACI should be allowed to continue doing business with the government.
Companies are obliged to inform the government when the work they are being asked to do falls "outside the scope of their contract" a GSA spokeswoman said last week. But some experts say that policy is not widely known or generally enforced.
The Defense Department inspector general's report on contracting procedures in Iraq, issued in March, said "supplies and services were acquired quickly and contracting rules were either circumvented or liberally interpreted."
CACI was not mentioned in the report.
None of the companies that are named in the report -- MZM Inc. of the District, Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego, Unisys Corp. of Blue Bell, Pa., or MPRI -- are being investigated by the GSA's suspension and debarment office, Eleni Martin, an agency spokeswoman, said Friday.
Martin said she did not know whether the GSA had ever taken disciplinary action against a company for agreeing to do work beyond the specifications in a contract. Contractors usually don't turn down government requests for their services, even if those requests are for work that falls slightly outside an agreement, said Claude P. Goddard, a government contracts attorney at Wickwire Gavin PC in McLean. Until the CACI case, there has not been a negative reaction to such practices, he said.
"What I have seen is kind of a wink and a nod by GSA, sort of turning a blind eye," Goddard said. "So you'll see all sorts of things being ordered that you wouldn't think would fall within the scope of the products or services of the actual schedule that the company holds."
Jacob B. Pankowski, a government contracting lawyer with Nixon Peabody LLP, said: "I don't know of any cases where a contractor has rejected an order on the basis that it's not within the scope of their government-wide order -- nor would one expect them to. The gist of this threatened action [against CACI] is to require government contractors to become the policemen of government contracting officials' conduct."
Pankowski defended the practice of allowing an agency to use an existing contract to order goods and services. He said it streamlines a process that would otherwise take months or years. "They find one of these vehicles, but it doesn't quite fit, they'll say 'I'm gonna order it anyway. It's close enough,' " Pankowski said.
Danielle Brian, executive director for the Project on Government Oversight, a District watchdog group, said government agencies should not be allowed to ask companies to take work outside the scope of their contracts. She said being forced to rewrite a contract or issue a new one, is "more work for the contracting officer. But I think it should be."
But Brian and other critics said that for the system to work, contractors also must be told they will be held accountable if the work they are doing is not covered by a contract.
"You're telling the contractor: 'It's very simple, don't do things that are pretty clearly outside the scope of your contract authority without making it clear to the government that the contract has to be changed,' " said Daniel J. Guttman, a fellow at the Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University. "The assumption is that the government is capable of knowing what's going on, where in fact those in the contracting business know that that is too often is not the case."
The Defense Department report says that contracting officers in Iraq sometimes relied on the companies they hired determine whether they "could or could not comply with the requirements under the GSA schedule."
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Contracts Awarded
Monday, May 31, 2004
States News Service
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3050-2004May30?language=printer
Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. of Newport News, Va., won a $182.45 million contract from the Navy for design, material, construction, systems development, engineering services and feasibility studies for the future aircraft carrier program.
AT&T Government Solutions Inc. of Vienna won a $54.55 million contract from the Navy for professional, administrative and management support services.
SecTek Inc. of Reston won a $50 million contract from NASA's Ames Research Center for guards and patrol services.
Mitretek System of Falls Church won a $48 million contract from the Air Force for high-level advisory and assistance services.
STG International Inc. of Alexandria won a $42.7 million contract from the Health and Human Services Department for medical services.
Raytheon Technical Services Co. of Norfolk won a $19.87 million contract from the Navy for technical representative services.
BAE Systems Applied Technologies Inc. of Rockville won a $17 million contract from the Navy for engineering and technical services for communication electronic platforms, systems and subsystems.
BAE Systems Applied Technologies Inc. of Rockville won a $16.43 million contract from the Navy for engineering, technical and logistics services.
AT&T Government Solutions Inc. of Vienna won a $10.36 million contract from the Navy for engineering and technical support services.
ITT Industries Inc. of Roanoke won a $5.32 million contract from the Army for search, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical and nautical system and instrument manufacturing services.
Adams Burch Inc. of Landover won a contract valued at up to $3.75 million from the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service for toiletries.
HydroGeoLogic Inc. of Herndon won a $3.4 million contract from the Army for environmental remediation services.
WEGCO Inc. of Washington won a $3.2 million contract from the General Services Administration for building services.
Norfolk Dredging Co. of Chesapeake, Va., won a $2.78 million contract from the Army for maintenance and repair services.
Technical & Management Resources Inc. of Fairfax, B&W Technologies Inc. of Oxon Hill and Qsack & Associates Inc. of Arlington each won a contract valued at up to $2.5 million from the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service for administrative and general management consulting services.
Heffner & Weber of Linthicum won a $2.12 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers for industrial building construction services.
Mitre Corp. of McLean won a $1.99 million contract from the Army for research and development services.
IAQ Inc. of Oakton won a contract valued at up to $1.5 million from the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service for administrative and general management consulting services.
BHM International Inc. of North Potomac won a contract valued at up to $1.25 million from the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service for administrative and general management consulting services.
Hayes, Seay, Mattern & Mattern Inc. of Roanoke won a $1 million contract from the Army for architect and engineering services.
Hiller Systems Inc. of Chesapeake, Va., won a $984,822 contract from the Bureau of Reclamation for fire-control equipment.
International Business Initiatives Corp. of Arlington won a contract valued at up to $875,000 from the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service for administrative and general management consulting services.
Smiths Detection -- Edgewood I of Edgewood, Md., won a $576,001 contract from the Army for electrical equipment and component manufacturing services.
Kollmorgen Corp. of Radford, Va., won a $357,752 contract from the Air Force for motor and generator manufacturing services.
Long Fence Co. of Capitol Heights won a contract valued at up to $250,000 from the General Supply Service's Federal Supply Center for fabricated structural metal manufacturing.
Safety Tech International Inc. of Frederick won a $237,320 contract from the Army for fire fighting, rescue and safety equipment.
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. of Linthicum Heights won a $200,163 contract from the Office of Naval Research for research and development services.
Mistral Inc. of Bethesda won a $181,160 contract from the Army for engine accessories.
Nurad Technologies Inc. of Baltimore won a $169,960 contract from the Navy for electrical and electronic equipment components.
BAE Systems of Rockville won a $149,992 contract from the Navy for engineering services for guided missiles.
Radian Inc. of Alexandria won a $140,267 contract from the Army for business support services.
Pepper Medical Products Inc. of Bethesda won a $125,000 contract from the Veterans Affairs Department for medical equipment and supplies.
Old Dominion University of Norfolk won a $92,961 contract from the Langley Research Center for research and development.
Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. of Newport News, Va., won a $90,000 contract from the Navy for ships, small craft, pontoons and floating docks.
Tazewell Hotel & Suites of Norfolk won an $86,040 contract from the Homeland Security Department's Coast Guard for facility rentals.
Academy Health of Washington won a $74,800 contract from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for professional, administrative and management support services.
21st Century Systems Inc. of Herndon won a $69,900 contract from the Navy for research and development.
Coleman Microwave Co. Inc. of Edinburg, Va., won a $64,000 contract from the Navy to maintain, repair and rebuild equipment.
Titan Corp. of Hanover won a $60,960 contract from the Navy for computer peripheral equipment.
Prizm Advanced Communications Electronics of Elkridge won a $56,200 contract from Naval Surface Warfare Center for information technology equipment.
Creative Science & Software of Burke won a $50,000 contract from the Navy for professional services.
These contracts were awarded by the federal government to companies in Maryland, Virginia and the District. For more information, call States News Service at 202-628-3100, ext. 266.
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Federal Contracts
SI to Move Ammunition Training Online
By Anitha Reddy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3051-2004May30.html
SI International Inc. won a contract worth up to $5 million from the U.S. Army to design and build an online system to train students in the use and disposal of ammunition and explosives.
The Army's Defense Ammunition Center said 5,000 to 10,000 students from the military, the Pentagon, state and federal agencies and allied nations would take courses each year through the system, planned for use by 2005.
By cutting out the breaks and question-and-answer session of a typical week-long instructor-led course, students on a computer would be able to cover the material in as little as eight hours, said Keith Anderson, the program manager overseeing the contract at SI.
The system would rely on sophisticated three-dimensional imaging to teach students how to identify different kinds of ammunition. Simulation technology would also let students participate in virtual sweeps of weapons sites or view demonstrations of proper storage techniques for explosives.
Oklahoma State University is working closely with SI International on the project and will eventually analyze student coursework to see if the Web training is effective.
SI, based in Reston, is also responsible for assembling a panel of ammunition experts that will be available as needed for the Army.
The contract has a term of one year but could be extended by three years. SI employees are to work on the project at offices in Reston, Rockville and Oklahoma City.
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U.S.: China Rethinking Strategy on Taiwan
By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer
May 31, 2004
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CHINA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
WASHINGTON (AP) -- China is reassessing how it would counteract the U.S. military in a potential conflict over Taiwan, based on what it saw in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon says.
Chinese leaders have taken note of the speed with which American ground forces captured Baghdad in April 2003 and the prominent role that was played in Iraq by U.S. special operations commandos.
In its annual report to Congress on developments in the Chinese military, the Defense Department said China is rethinking the concept that American airpower alone is sufficient to prevail in a conflict - a concept it inferred from the 1999 air war over Kosovo, which involved no U.S. ground forces. "The speed of coalition ground force advances and the role of special forces in (Iraq) have caused the People's Liberation Army theorists to rethink their assumptions about the value of long-range precision strikes, independent of ground forces, in any Taiwan conflict scenario," the report said.
The report is an annual assessment to Congress of Chinese military power and strategy and was posted on the Pentagon's main news Web site late Saturday night.
Other aspects of the Iraq war have reinforced the Chinese belief that the United States' long-range strategy is to dominate Asia by containing the growth of Chinese power, the report said. These include recent Pentagon decisions to base long-range bombers, cruise missiles and nuclear attack submarines to the Pacific island of Guam - moves related in part to the Iraq conflict.
"China's leaders appear to have concluded that the net effect of the U.S.-led campaign (against terrorism) has been further encirclement of China," specifically by placing U.S. military forces in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian nations, and strengthening relations with Pakistan and India, the report said.
The Chinese also believe, partly from its assessment of the Bush administration's declared war on terrorism, that the United States is increasingly likely to intervene in a conflict over Taiwan or other Chinese interests, according to the Pentagon analysis.
"Authoritative commentary and speeches by senior officials suggest that U.S. actions over the past decade ... have reinforced fears within the Chinese leadership that the United States would appeal to human rights and humanitarian concerns to intervene, either overtly or covertly," it said.
Because China's leaders believe their military forces are not yet strong enough to compete directly with the American military, they are putting more emphasis on preventing U.S. intervention first. This includes development of what the Chinese call "assassin's mace" weapons, the Pentagon said.
The report said U.S. officials are not sure what "assassin's mace" is.
"However," it said, "the concept appears to include a range of weapon systems and technologies related to information warfare, ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles, advanced fighters and submarines, counter-space system and air defense."
While the concept of "assassin's mace" is not new in China, it has appeared more frequently in Chinese professional journals since 1999, particularly in the context of Taiwan, the U.S.-supported island that split from China after its communist takeover in 1949.
Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory and has threatened to take it by force.
In Beijing on Sunday, officials said President Bush had reassured Chinese officials that Washington will stick to its "one-China policy" toward Taiwan. That long-standing policy says the American government recognizes Beijing as the only legitimate Chinese government, although the United States also has pledged to provide enough defensive equipment to Taiwan to assure its security.
Bush's comments to Chinese President Hu Jintao, released by China's Foreign Ministry, appeared to be an attempt to soothe Beijing's anger over Washington's decision to permit Taiwanese Vice President Annette Lu to stop in two U.S. cities before and after a Latin America tour.
The Pentagon for several years has expressed concern at China's military modernization, especially its emphasis on deploying additional shorter-range ballistic missiles that can strike Taiwan.
The new study said that since the Pentagon's report to Congress a year ago, China's imports of armaments have increase by 7 percent in value. These include a $1 billion deal for 24 Russian Su-30 0fighter aircraft and $500 million for Russian SA-20 surface-to-air missile systems.
On the Net:
Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil/advisories
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U.S.: China Rethinking Military Tactics
Associated Press
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3663-2004May31.html
The speed with which U.S. ground forces captured Baghdad and the prominent role played in Iraq by U.S. commandos have led China to rethink how it could counteract the American military in the event of a confrontation over Taiwan, the Pentagon says.
The Chinese also believe, partly from their assessment of the Bush administration's declared war on terrorism, that the United States is increasingly likely to intervene in a conflict over Taiwan or other Chinese interests, according to the Pentagon analysis.
"Authoritative commentary and speeches by senior officials suggest that U.S. actions over the past decade . . . have reinforced fears within the Chinese leadership that the United States would appeal to human rights and humanitarian concerns to intervene, either overtly or covertly," the Pentagon report said.
The analysis is in an annual Defense Department report to Congress on Chinese military power. The Pentagon took the unusual step of releasing the report late Saturday.
The report said China is rethinking the concept that U.S. air power alone is sufficient to prevail in a conflict -- a concept it inferred from the 1999 air war over Kosovo, which involved no U.S. ground forces.
Because China's leaders believe their military forces are not yet strong enough to compete directly with the U.S. military, they are putting more emphasis on preventing U.S. intervention. Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory and has threatened to take it by force.
The Pentagon for several years has expressed concern at China's military modernization, especially its emphasis on deploying more shorter-range ballistic missiles that can strike Taiwan.
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Jiang Puts Hard Line To the Test In China
Ex-President Limits Leaders' Options on Hong Kong, Taiwan
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3238-2004May30?language=printer
BEIJING, May 30 -- China's former president, Jiang Zemin, is strengthening his hold on power by promoting a hard-line approach toward Hong Kong and Taiwan, making it more difficult for the country's new leaders to consider concessions on either issue, according to sources in the government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Jiang and his successor, President Hu Jintao, have not clashed over the policies, the sources said, and Hu also favors a firm stand against Taiwan's push for independence and Hong Kong's demands for democratic reform. But Jiang has limited Hu's room to maneuver in tackling two of the most sensitive problems facing his government, the sources said.
A prolonged struggle for power between Jiang's allies and those who support Hu has created a dynamic in which any senior leader who argues for even a slightly more moderate policy risks being attacked by rivals in the other camp as too weak to govern, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity and said they favor neither faction.
"Policy is being used as a weapon in the power struggle," said one government official with access to the senior leadership. "Under these conditions, no one wants to be soft. Everyone wants to be tougher."
Though Hu took over as the party's general secretary in late 2002 and as president in March 2003, Jiang, 77, continues to wield influence as chief of the nation's military. Sources say he is resisting pressure to retire and to relinquish that post to Hu at a key party meeting later this year and that he is using the challenges posed by Taiwan and Hong Kong to his advantage.
Jiang has also packed the ruling Politburo Standing Committee with his allies and may be considering an attempt to have Hu replaced.
The rivalry between Jiang and Hu has led some officials to complain in private that the party has "two centers," a phrase used in Chinese politics to describe a dangerous split in the leadership. Some expressed concern about the risk of political instability and paralysis in government at a time when the party is confronting rising social discontent and managing a painful transition to capitalism.
The uncertainty over the leadership has slowed party decision-making on various issues. For example, Hu and his partner, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, want to devote resources to the country's interior and its rusting industrial northeast, while Jiang and his allies are trying to preserve economic benefits for their power base in the Shanghai region, the sources said.
But they said the impact of the rivalry is most evident in Beijing's decision to stand by Hong Kong's unpopular chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, who was appointed by Jiang, and to rule out direct elections in 2007 to choose his successor. The competition for power has also made any compromise with Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian less likely, they said.
Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have been running high since Chen narrowly won reelection in March after waging a pro-independence campaign. He has offered to hold talks with China without preconditions, but Beijing has insisted that Chen first acknowledge that Taiwan is part of China. The Beijing government has also threatened to attack the self-governing island if it moves toward formal independence.
Wen has already been criticized by Jiang's camp for not taking a strong enough stand on Taiwan during his trip to the United States last December, even though President Bush issued a strong rebuke of Chen during the visit, party sources said. Wen was also criticized for sounding too conciliatory after visiting Hong Kong on the day of the mass anti-government protests there last July, the sources said.
Jiang further asserted his authority over Hong Kong and Taiwan policy during a tour of southern Guangdong province in January and February that party officials said recalled a similar swing through the region in 1992 by China's last paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, who was fighting a challenge by party conservatives at the time.
State media did not report Jiang's visit, and government spokesmen declined to comment on it. But local officials confirmed that Jiang spent a few weeks receiving visitors at a guesthouse on an island on the Pearl River in Guangzhou. Employees at a cultural park in nearby Shenzhen also confirmed Jiang's visit, adding that he mounted the stage and danced with Tibetan and Uighur performers.
A party source said Jiang used the trip to emphasize his experience in Taiwanese affairs and the volatility of cross-strait relations by inspecting several military units in Guangdong that would participate in any conflict with Taiwan.
Jiang also held a series of meetings with local officials, academics and businessmen in Shenzhen, located just across the border from Hong Kong, to discuss growing demands for direct elections in the former British colony. During the meetings, party sources said, Jiang outlined a firm response by Beijing and referred to a statement by Deng that "patriots must form the main body" of Hong Kong's leaders.
Days later, according to a senior editor at a party newspaper, the central propaganda department in Beijing called a meeting of state media executives and ordered them to prepare a series of reports highlighting Deng's statement. Vice President Zeng Qinghong, Jiang's most senior aide and his favored candidate to replace Hu, addressed the meeting by telephone and personally delivered instructions, the editor said.
The articles, which appeared on the front page of all major party newspapers, were followed by attacks on pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong as unpatriotic and on U.S. and British support for them as interference in China's internal affairs. Then, in March and April, the Chinese government ruled out elections to choose Hong Kong's next chief executive in 2007 and its entire legislature in 2008.
The decision marked a sharp change in strategy by Beijing, which had adopted a softer line after the July demonstrations and allowed the withdrawal of the strict anti-subversion bill that sparked the protests. Zeng orchestrated the policy shift after assuming control of a new senior leadership committee on Hong Kong affairs, the sources said.
"They're afraid of democracy in Hong Kong," said a person who met with Jiang in Guangdong. "They're afraid if people in the mainland see that Hong Kong can elect its own leaders, they will begin to ask why they can't do the same."
In the past month, three popular radio talk-show hosts in Hong Kong critical of Beijing quit their jobs after receiving threats that they alleged were authorized by the Chinese government.
Several officials acknowledged that Beijing's tough policies in Hong Kong could prompt a backlash. Democracy advocates are organizing another mass demonstration there on July 1, the anniversary of last year's march and the territory's 1997 return to Chinese rule. They are also campaigning to win a majority in legislative elections in September, which they could use to block government legislation and try to force Beijing to compromise on political reform.
But the government official with access to the leadership said such a setback in Hong Kong might not hurt Jiang and his allies. "Even if tough policies produce bad results, you won't be blamed," he said. "But you can always be blamed for being soft, regardless of the results."
He and other sources said Jiang has sought to use the sense of crisis surrounding Hong Kong and Taiwan to bolster his bid to stay on as chairman of the Central Military Commission. Deng stepped down as head of China's military two years after giving up his other posts, and some party elders have called on Jiang to do the same, which would mean retiring late this year, the sources said.
But a party official said that in meetings held during the annual session of the National People's Congress, the Chinese legislature, Jiang argued that he should retain control of the military. In one meeting, the official said, Jiang stunned participants by quoting an ancient Chinese historian's observation that transfers of political power are often accompanied by bloodshed.
Newspapers and magazines controlled by the military have been praising Jiang's role in modernizing the People's Liberation Army and highlighting the risk of war with Taiwan. One magazine published an article discussing strategies that Chinese troops might employ in the event that the United States used nuclear weapons in such a conflict.
State media have also highlighted a proposal to adopt legislation that would write into law the government's threat to attack Taiwan if the island formally declares independence. "The more tense the situation is, the easier it is for Jiang to justify that he should stay in office," said the editor at the party newspaper.
Hu has been careful not to confront Jiang, party sources said, and instead has accepted his criticism, sometimes expressed in letters. In some cases, the sources said, Hu has reversed himself after Jiang objected to a decision.
But Hu has also been steadily appointing allies to fill provincial and municipal posts across the country. And in repeated appearances with impoverished workers and farmers, he and Wen have distinguished themselves from Jiang and won support from a broad cross section of society.
-------- colombia
Former Paramilitary Chief Killed In Colombia
Victim Had Rejected Group's Drug Ties
Associated Press
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3518-2004May30.html
BOGOTA, Colombia, May 30 -- Gunmen in a coastal Colombian city killed a former right-wing paramilitary leader who objected to the militia's involvement in drug trafficking, police said Sunday.
Carlos Mauricio Garcia, known by his nom de guerre, Rodrigo 00, was shot in the head five times as he left a Santa Marta supermarket Friday night, police Col. Oscar Gamboa said. No arrests have been made.
In an e-mail to the Associated Press earlier this month, Garcia said drug traffickers within the paramilitary group led by Diego Fernando Murillo wanted him dead.
"You can use my name," he wrote. "Because what else can happen to me? Will they want to kill me more times, or with more intensity, or with a bigger gun?"
Garcia's killing comes one month after the disappearance of Carlos Castaño, the former top commander of the paramilitary umbrella group known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC. Castaño, who is presumed dead by many of his colleagues, is wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
The paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s -- financed by ranchers and drug traffickers and backed by Colombia's military -- to fight leftist guerrillas, including the country's main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The paramilitary fighters became notorious for committing massacres and became deeply involved in the cocaine trade.
Garcia led the Metro Bloc, a paramilitary faction based in Medellin, which battled leftist rebels in poor neighborhoods in Colombia's second-largest city. He later split with the main paramilitary group.
In an interview with The Washington Post in July 2003, Garcia said he believed the U.S.-backed Colombian government had misjudged the paramilitary movement and might agree to a peace accord with an organization that had no intention of giving up its most profitable enterprise: drug trafficking. Garcia warned that the group would use peace negotiations to gain political legitimacy and to escape prosecution with its huge profits intact.
Like many paramilitary commanders, Garcia was once a Colombian army officer.
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Dissident Chief of Force Killed in Colombia
May 31, 2004
By JUAN FORERO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/americas/31colo.html
CARACAS, Venezuela, May 30 - Assassins in Colombia have killed a dissident leader of a right-wing paramilitary force who had harshly criticized his colleagues for trafficking in drugs as the organization embarked on American-backed disarmament negotiations with President Álvaro Uribe, Colombian officials said.
The leader, Carlos Mauricio García, 39, who went by the name Rodrigo Franco, was shot in the head as he walked along a trendy beachfront stretch on Friday night in the Colombian coastal city of Santa Marta.
Though no arrest has been made, Mr. García knew he had been a target since breaking with other commanders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia while publicly accusing them of forming a drug cartel.
"What could happen to me, that they kill me with a bigger bullet if they find me, or that they kill me several times?" Mr. García had said in April in an e-mail message to The New York Times in which he outlined the Self-Defense Force's ties to the cocaine trade.
His death means that the two paramilitary commanders most critical of the group's connections to drug trafficking are now gone.
In April, one of the group's founders, Carlos Castaño, disappeared after a rival faction tried to assassinate him at his ranch in northern Colombia.
Early this month, the Uribe administration granted 10 paramilitary commanders a 142-square-mile haven where they could negotiate free from the threat of arrest or extradition to the United States on drug charges. Several of those commanders were recently classified as drug trafficking kingpins by the United States Treasury Department.
Mr. García had been particularly critical of the group's most powerful commander, Diego Fernando Murillo. He also warned of the risks the group posed for the government.
"As it continues to fight extradition, it is converting Colombia into a narco-democracy of small feudal states that are run by warlord narcos," he said in one e-mail message.
-------- iran
Iran makes its first anti-ship missile
TEHRAN (AFP)
May 31, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040531132712.27djenxy.html
Iran has begun manufacturing its first locally made anti-ship missile, a "kind of cruise missile" named the Kosar, the state-run news agency IRNA reported Monday.
Quoting the Islamic republic's defense ministry, the report said the missile was being made by Iran's Aerospace Industries Organisation and had been "designed for defensive purposes".
According to the report, the new missile can target its goals in three different positions as coast to sea, sea to sea and air to sea, and has been designed to be either televised or radar guided.
"The new missile has been designed according to geographical specifications of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman," the report added, without specifying its range.
"Kosar" is a Koranic term referring to a river of eternal life in paradise.
-------- iraq
Inside The Takedown
A TIME investigation reveals why the U.S. dumped Chalabi and what he may have told Iran
By BRIAN BENNETT; MICHAEL WEISSKOPF/WASHINGTON
May 31, 2004
TIME online (6/7/04 edition)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1101040607-644167,00.html
The White House meeting in late April opened with the presentation of a seven-page, single-spaced memo titled "Marginalizing Chalabi." Drafted by the National Security Council (NSC), the document detailed three options for sidelining the controversial Iraqi political figure Ahmad Chalabi - methods ranging from gently pushing him offstage to cutting off U.S. funds for his intelligence-gathering operation. Once a Pentagon favorite to lead Iraq, Chalabi had been criticizing Washington for dragging out the transfer of power to Iraqis. It was time for Chalabi to go.
The April memo marked the beginning of the White House's strategy to cut its ties to Chalabi - a campaign that reached its climax late last month when Iraqi police, backed by U.S. forces, raided the former exile's house and office in Baghdad. But that move hardly came out of the blue. New details of the relationship between the U.S. and Chalabi, provided to TIME by senior Administration and intelligence officials, reveal that after a decade of lobbying Washington, Chalabi began to lose his footing early this year after he ran afoul of President Bush and L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq.
The extent of Chalabi's alleged malfeasance is still being unearthed. Senior Administration officials tell TIME that the U.S. is investigating whether Chalabi revealed to the Iranians highly sensitive information about how the U.S. gathers intelligence in the region. Other U.S. officials told TIME that the FBI has begun reviewing logs and other data that might turn up clues as to when sensitive information was divulged; the feds are also interviewing and giving lie-detector tests to U.S. officials in Iraq who may have had access to the information.
The White House has been steadily losing patience with its former client. The beginning of the end came in February when Chalabi was quoted in a London Daily Telegraph article saying that even if the intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs that Chalabi passed to the U.S. before the war was faulty, it was "not important," compared to the end result of toppling Saddam. "We were heroes in error," he said in the article. Chalabi insists he was misquoted, but the damage was done. "That set the President off," a senior Administration official told TIME. The general feeling among top officials was "We gotta do something about this guy."
The NSC office of Iraqi expert Robert Blackwill was commissioned to draft a plan to cut its ties to Chalabi. Blackwill's recommendations for "marginalizing Chalabi" were endorsed by State Department and CIA officials, who have long criticized intelligence provided by Chalabi.
The Iraqi had also fallen out with Ambassador Bremer. In early spring an Iraqi judge issued a search warrant in an investigation into alleged theft of property and government vehicles by members of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (I.N.C.). Bremer wanted to make an example of the I.N.C. and prove that no political party is above the law, but the search was stymied: according to a senior U.S. official, the police couldn't get into the I.N.C. offices the first time they went. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials who were working in a Pentagon-funded intelligence program attached to Chalabi's group stopped the officers at the door, arguing that the sensitive intelligence inside needed to be protected. But on May 13, after the Administration decided to cut off the $335,000 monthly subsidy to the I.N.C., the DIA agents vacated the I.N.C. offices. Administration officials say Bremer sent the police back a week later, backed by U.S. soldiers. Bremer has denied prior knowledge of the raid, but sources say he authorized it. Bremer didn't inform the White House or the Pentagon of the timing of the move, an official says, but Chalabi had few allies left in Washington willing to defend him. "Nobody can protect anyone anymore," says a Pentagon official.
It was the CIA that was responsible for launching the separate leaks probe, which Chalabi's backers see as just the latest in a long series of attempts by the agency to undermine him. Richard Perle, a Bush defense adviser who has met with White House officials to plead Chalabi's case, says, "The CIA has disliked Chalabi for a long time and has concocted a case against him." Chalabi has described the accusation that he gave intelligence to Iran as "nonsense."
If Chalabi did betray U.S. secrets to Iran, it appears he was playing a brazen double game. U.S. commanders in Iraq have said the information Chalabi's organization has passed on to the U.S. since the war began has been helpful. According to a March assessment by a high-ranking military intelligence officer reviewed by TIME, the I.N.C. provided about 50 reports a month last year of "actionable" intelligence, which, among other things, led to the arrest of former leaders of Saddam's regime. The officer stated that the I.N.C. was "directly responsible for saving the lives of numerous" U.S. troops. For his part, Chalabi is attempting to turn the U.S.'s campaign to "marginalize" him into a political coup, telling any Iraqi who will listen that he is clearly no U.S. stooge. Says a senior White House official: "We expect Chalabi to be very politically active on the ground there." That may be the only thing you can count on from Ahmad Chalabi.
With reporting by Matthew Cooper, Michael Duffy, Viveca Novak and Elaine Shannon/Washington; Scott MacLeod/Cairo; Vivienne Walt/Baghdad; Hassan Fattah/Amman
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Iraqis Decry U.S. Over President Choice
May 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Politics.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi Governing Council members accused American officials Monday of pressuring them to accept Washington's choice for Iraq's new president, prompting a delay in the announcement of a new government to take power from the U.S.-led coalition June 30.
U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had hoped to complete the selection of the 26-member Cabinet by Monday. However, a Governing Council session that was to have chosen a president was postponed until at least Tuesday, with sharp differences remaining between the council and the coalition over the largely ceremonial head of state job.
``I hope it will be taken tomorrow,'' Governing Council spokesman Hameed al-Kafaei said of the choice of president. ``But then again, there is no sacred date and it could take another day or two.''
Most council members favor civil engineer Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, 45, the current council president. The Americans are backing former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi, 81. Both are Sunni Muslims.
Two council members said other candidates may be put forward to break the deadlock.
The U.S.-run coalition maintains ultimate authority in Iraq, but the Americans must decide whether they want to risk a major breach with their Iraqi allies at a sensitive period as Washington prepares to hand control of a still-unstable, war-ravaged country to an untested leadership.
Coalition spokesman Dan Senor insisted the Americans have not shown a preference for Pachachi, a claim that many council members dismissed as untrue.
``We in the council have agreed that Sheik Ghazi al-Yawer should be the president of Iraq,'' council member and prominent Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani told Al-Arabiya television. ``But if the coalition has a different opinion, then they must come and explain to the council. There is a near consensus in the council that Sheik Ghazi is the better-suited man for the job.''
Asked what the council would do if the Americans refuse to budge, Talabani said he had great respect for Pachachi ``but we will not accept an imposition.''
Although most Cabinet posts have been filled, no agreement can be announced until a decision on the presidency. The new government will serve until national elections by Jan. 31.
President Bush, facing election in November, must ensure that Iraqi politicians who take power next month are supportive of American goals in Iraq.
With more than 800 U.S. military dead since the Iraq war began in March 2003, Washington is eager to see a government that can tackle the security crisis, including a year-old Sunni revolt in Baghdad and areas north and west of the capital and a Shiite uprising to the south.
The next Iraqi government must negotiate the legal basis under which the 135,000 American troops and other coalition forces will remain here under a sovereign Iraqi government.
Council sources said that the Americans warned that if the members went ahead and voted for al-Yawer, the United States might not recognize the choice.
Al-Kafaei, the council spokesman, suggested that the American pressure was not producing results.
``Those who support Pachachi still support him and those who support Sheik Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer still support him,'' al-Kafaei told Associated Press Television News. ``I don't think any pressure will produce results.''
The coalition-backed Baghdad daily Al-Sabah reported Monday that al-Yawer had turned down a request by Iraq's U.S. governor L. Paul Bremer to take himself out of the running. Al-Yawer insisted that the selection must be made by the council, the newspaper said.
There was no independent confirmation of the report, but another council member, Sondul Chapouka, complained that she and most other members were not involved in the process of choosing a president. She told APTN that Bremer has told the council that other candidates beside Pachachi and al-Yawer were now in the running.
Younadem Kana, an Assyrian Christian member of the Governing Council, said he too has learned from coalition officials that other candidates were being considered to break the deadlock, but did not know who they were.
``We must have a bigger role in these deliberations,'' said Chapouka, an ethnic Turk from the northern city of Kirkuk. ``We must be part of the process. ... As a government we should know who are the persons taking these posts.''
The tough stand by Bremer in support of Pachachi was unexpected because the presidency will be a figurehead post and the Americans had signaled they were primarily interested in approving the choice for prime minister -- a job that went Friday to Iyad Allawi, a U.S.-backed Shiite Muslim.
Pachachi was instrumental in overseeing the drafting of an interim constitution that U.S. officials have hailed as among the most progressive and democratic in the Arab world. The document was adopted despite reservations by Shiite council members and over the objections by the country's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.
Pachachi, who fled to the United Arab Emirates after Saddam's Baath Party seized power in 1968, is well connected within the United States, United Nations and pro-U.S. nations of the Persian Gulf.
During a recent television interview, al-Yawer, who routinely wears traditional Arab robes and head gear, has been sharply critical of the American occupation, blaming U.S. ineptness for the deteriorating law and order. Al-Yawer also has denounced violence against American and other coalition forces.
Al-Yawer, a graduate of the Petroleum and Minerals University in Saudi Arabia and of Georgetown University, is a prominent member of the Shammar tribe, one of the largest in the Gulf region that includes Shiite clans. He enjoys the support of Shiite and Kurdish council members.
Pachachi, whose family has been prominent in Iraqi politics for more than a half century, has said foreign troops must remain in Iraq until the violence is quelled and the army and police are fully prepared to protect the nation.
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Politicians Taking Top Interim Roles in Iraq
U.N. Envoy Had Sought Technocrats
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3151-2004May30?language=printer
BAGHDAD, May 30 -- Before U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi returned here a month ago on a mission to form a transitional administration that will take power on June 30, he called for Iraqi politicians to "stay out of the interim government," and sought independent technocrats who would act as caretakers until elections are held next year.
But the results of Brahimi's work thus far have been the opposite of what he wanted, according to U.N. and Iraqi officials. The leadership now taking shape will be heavy with politicians, prompting concern among diplomats and political analysts here that it could lack legitimacy in the eyes of many ordinary Iraqis. A government without broad support could falter in the tumultuous months after the handover, as an independent Iraq struggles to deal with a violent insurgency, religious and ethnic tensions, a stagnant economy and a host of other problems.
"The stakes are enormous," said a senior U.S. official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition he not be identified by name. "We have to get this one right."
On Friday, Brahimi endorsed Shiite politician Ayad Allawi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, to be prime minister. Then he spent the weekend considering several other politicians and council members for the presidency, two vice presidential jobs and 26 cabinet minister posts.
The choice of president has been particularly contentious. Brahimi and the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, wanted Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister, to get the job. But a large majority of council members continued to back Ghazi Yawar, a U.S.-educated tribal sheik who holds the council's rotating presidency. Although a council session was scheduled for Monday to debate the issue, council officials said they had received indications from Brahimi and Bremer that they would drop their insistence on Pachachi.
The political maneuvering came as violence continued to smolder in southern Iraq. U.S. soldiers clashed with Shiite gunmen in Najaf for the second day in a row, shaking a tentative cease-fire with militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr. Fighting also erupted Sunday night in the neighboring city of Kufa. A CNN reporter embedded with the U.S. troops in Kufa said a "major firefight" occurred when soldiers tried to secure a police station. CNN quoted soldiers as saying it was the heaviest fighting in the area in the past six weeks.
A roadside bomb exploded beside a U.S. Army vehicle south of Baghdad on Sunday, killing one 1st Armored Division soldier and wounding two, the Reuters news agency reported.
In Baghdad, gunmen attacked a convoy of sport-utility vehicles carrying foreigners, killing at least two Iraqis, according to witnesses interviewed by news services. The foreign occupants, who were armed, commandeered a passing car and escaped, the witnesses said.
Brahimi, who was sent to Iraq at the behest of the White House, has been frustrated by both the council's intransigence and pressure from the U.S. occupation authority to accept its favored candidates, according to people involved in the process.
Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, became committed to the idea of a technocratic caretaker government after speaking to many Iraqis on a visit in April. Politicians, including members of the Governing Council, enjoy little public support. Most political leaders lived in exile until the fall of former president Saddam Hussein, fueling a perception that they are out of touch. Iraqis also remain inherently suspicious of parties because of the abuses of Hussein's once-powerful Baath Party, which dominated the political scene for more than three decades.
"The majority of Iraqis with whom we spoke told us that, under the circumstances, they favored the establishment of a new caretaker government comprised of honest and technically qualified persons," Brahimi told the U.N. Security Council last month.
But as soon as he arrived back in Iraq in early May, he ran into resistance from the council. "Any future government must enjoy wide popular support so it can run the nation's affairs at this crucial stage of its history," the council said in a May 8 statement. Such a government, the statement insisted, must have "political capability."
Several members bluntly demanded positions for themselves in the new administration.
U.N. officials initially said Brahimi would not be swayed by the council. "You don't need all the members to say 'Aye,' " a senior U.N. official said at the time. "If there are a few naysayers, you can still pull it off."
Brahimi eventually settled upon a man he reportedly believed was an ideal candidate to be prime minister: Hussain Shahristani, a Shiite Muslim nuclear scientist who spent more than a decade in the Abu Ghraib prison after refusing to work on Hussein's nuclear weapons project. Shahristani is not affiliated with any party and has spent the past year working on humanitarian aid projects. He also is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's most powerful Shiite cleric, whose support is essential to the viability of an interim government.
But Shiite politicians on the council who wanted the prime minister's job for themselves refused to support Shahristani. They suggested to Brahimi that they would oppose the interim government if Shahristani were named prime minister, people familiar with the process said.
Over the course of a few days it became clear to Brahimi that he could not bypass the council, U.N. officials said. Making a clean break from the council would have risked a potentially divisive confrontation, an outcome that he and the U.S. government wanted to avoid, the officials said.
When Shahristani withdrew from consideration, Brahimi's list of candidates able to muster support on the council dwindled to Allawi and two other members, Adel Abdel-Mehdi of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Ibrahim Jafari of the Dawa party.
There have been differing accounts of the role U.S. officials in Baghdad played in the process. Some people involved in the process said Bremer and White House envoy Robert D. Blackwill supported Shahristani until council members backed away. Others familiar with the negotiations said the U.S. government had been worried that Shahristani was not seasoned enough and not sympathetic enough to American policies, particularly the Bush administration's desire for U.S. forces to have unfettered power in the country after the handover.
With Shahristani out, Bremer and Blackwill urged Brahimi to back Allawi, whose party has long been supported by the CIA, officials involved in the process said. At the same time, Allawi was actively building support for his candidacy among other members of the council.
The process came to a head on Friday, when the council unanimously nominated Allawi to be prime minister. Bremer and Brahimi, who were aware of the council's meeting, subsequently endorsed him.
Emboldened by its success, the council has pushed to select much of the rest of the interim government. Members have demanded that Yawar receive the presidency instead of Pachachi. Yawar, a Sunni tribal leader, is a moderate, but he is regarded by members as more independent and less supportive of American policies. Yawar's tribe, the Shamar, has many Shiite members, and he has the support of most Shiite members on the council.
"Dr. Pachachi represents old Iraq while Sheik Ghazi represents the tribal and Arab values that are important to the people," a senior council official said.
The council's effort to impose its own candidates extended well beyond the presidency. Several members said they wanted the two vice presidential jobs to go to Jafari and Rowsch Schaways of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, who is a close associate of council member Massoud Barzani.
Council members also pushed for fellow members to assume three important cabinet posts: Abdel-Mehdi as finance minister, Sameer Shaker Sumaidaie as interior minister and Rajaa Habib Khuzai as health minister, Iraqi politicians said.
---------
2 U.S. Soldiers Killed as Truce in 2 Iraqi Cities Unravels
May 31, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/middleeast/31CND-MILI.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 31 - The American military said two soldiers were killed early this evening in fighting in Kufa, as a cease-fire between American forces and insurgents loyal to a rebel cleric appeared to be unraveling in Kufa and the nearby city of Najaf.
Footage shot through night vision scope and broadcast on CNN showed armored vehicles firing off cannons and explosions in the distance. Soldiers pumped off rounds from their M-16's.
In other violence today, a suicide car bomb exploded in the early afternoon in central Baghdad, killing four Iraqi civilians and wounding 25, witnesses and American military officials said.
The bomb was carried in a light-blue sedan along Al Kindi Street and detonated shortly after 1 p.m. about 900 feet away from an entrance to the so-called Green Zone, the American headquarters compound here.
It exploded on a commercial and residential street that is sometimes traveled by military patrols and cars carrying members of the Iraqi Governing Council into the headquarters. Earlier this month, Ezzedine Salim, president of the council, was killed by a car bomb at the entrance just down the street.
There were no obvious military or political targets on the block where the bomb exploded, leading people to speculate that it might have detonated prematurely, before reaching the Green Zone or some other target.
"Right now, it's my initial impression that it's just some random act of terrorism," said Col. Mike Murray, commander of the Third Brigade of the First Cavalry Division, which controls Baghdad.
An American military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said hospital records showed 4 people died and 25 were wounded. He confirmed initial evidence that it was a car bomb.
A half hour after the bomb exploded, charred metal scraps from the car that carried it littered the street. A crater three feet deep had been gouged into the road by the blast. Bits of red flesh lay scattered over the street, and the guard of the nearby compound of a British power company showed a reporter a blackened human hand and forearm that he had put into a plastic trash bag.
On Sunday three soldiers from the First Armored Division were wounded south of Baghdad when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, American military officials said. One of the soldiers later died.
Four Iraqi civilians and three American soldiers were wounded in Najaf, a hospital official and a military spokesman said. The fighting in Najaf on Sunday was the first combat in that city since officials on both sides announced the cease-fire on Thursday. The Sunday-night assault by the Americans in Kufa appeared to be a resumption of offensive operations that had been suspended under the terms of the cease-fire between occupation forces and the militia of Moktada al-Sadr, the 31-year-old radical cleric.
Prominent Shiite politicians and religious and tribal leaders met in Najaf on Sunday afternoon to debate what to do about the seemingly intractable problem posed by Mr. Sadr. The last time the Shiite leaders had met was on Thursday, when they helped hammer out the cease-fire.
The meeting on Sunday took place at the office of Bahar al-Oluum, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a prominent Shiite cleric. Mr. Oluum's spokesman, Ali al-Kuraishi, did not give details of the meeting. But representatives of Mr. Sadr have yet to meet with the occupation forces, he added.
The battle in Kufa apparently broke out when Americans tried staging a major operation on Sunday night to take back a police station. A The CNN reporter embedded with forces in the area said American tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled toward the station and engaged in a "very intense firefight." The fighting in Najaf broke out earlier Sunday near the city's sprawling cemetery, when a patrol of soldiers came under fire from insurgents, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the occupation forces.
Earlier this month, American soldiers surrounded the Najaf cemetery with tanks and attacked insurgents whom commanders accused of shooting at soldiers with mortars. Shiite pilgrims come from all over to bury their dead in the cemetery, a dense sea of above-ground tombs and small minarets and a perfect hiding place for guerrilla fighters.
On Saturday, clashes broke out in Kufa between American forces and insurgents. Fighting also erupted there on Friday.
But the violence on Sunday was the first time that the cease-fire had been violated in Najaf, a much larger city that sprawls around the golden-domed Shrine of Ali.
On Sunday afternoon, before the American offensive in Kufa, General Kimmitt said it was unclear why insurgents were still attacking American soldiers. Perhaps it was because those fighters had not received word of the cease-fire, he said, or perhaps they belonged to a splinter group that did not take orders from Mr. Sadr.
In announcing the cease-fire, officials on both sides said that Mr. Sadr had agreed to order his militia, the Mahdi Army, to lay down arms in exchange for the Americans' pulling troops from the centers of Najaf and Kufa. In addition, insurgents who were not residents of Najaf or Kufa were supposed to leave those cities.
But armed fighters continued to walk the streets of Kufa, flaunting AK-47's and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. General Kimmitt said his understanding was that the agreement for the fighters to lay down their weapons applied to both Najaf and Kufa, but he suggested that Mr. Sadr might have interpreted the agreement as applying only to Najaf. In any case, General Kimmitt said at a news conference: "Moktada's militia is a declared hostile force. Our soldiers have the obligation to take action."
Under the conventions of war, soldiers may attack combatants of a "declared hostile force" without being shot at first. General Kimmitt was in effect saying that American soldiers had the right to shoot at insurgents displaying weapons. Iraqi officials have said the Americans were persuaded to compromise with Mr. Sadr last week by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential cleric. Ayatollah Sistani lives close to the Shrine of Ali, and he had been growing increasingly concerned over the battles near that shrine and two other shrines in Karbala. On May 21, days after residents of Karbala protested in the streets at the urging of Ayatollah Sistani, American forces and insurgents withdrew from the city's center.
The cease-fire in Najaf on Thursday did not require Mr. Sadr to disband his militia or to submit to an arrest warrant that an Iraqi judge had issued in connection with the killing in April of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, an American-backed cleric who had returned from exile to Najaf.
Meanwhile on Sunday, people in the streets of Najaf were handed mysterious fliers with Mr. Sadr's picture that said, "Moktada was followed by the Iraqi police for his ties to the slaying of Khoei, and due to violent actions he was killed during an attempt to arrest him."
Another flier had a photo of Iraqi policemen and the words, "The Justice Ministry tried to arrest Mr. Sadr, but he and his followers resisted fiercely, which drove the Iraqi police to defend themselves."
The fliers appeared to have been made by Iraq's Justice Ministry or its allies to be handed out in case Iraqi policemen killed Mr. Sadr. Somehow, they were distributed prematurely. There were no reports of Mr. Sadr's death.
Mr. Sadr's office also issued a conciliatory statement to Sadr al-Din al-Kubanchi, a prominent cleric linked to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or Sciri, an influential Shiite party. On Friday, gunmen shot at Mr. Kubanchi outside the Shrine of Ali, but he was unhurt. Members of Mr. Sadr's militia captured one of the attackers, but did not turn him over to the Badr Organization, Sciri's armed wing.
That led Sciri officials to accuse Mr. Sadr and his militia of organizing the attack and then trying to cover it up. In his statement, Mr. Sadr denied any role in the attack. "I send my greetings and my willingness to meet you and my brothers in Sciri and the Badr Organization," he said. "You can hold your weekly Friday Prayer, and I am ready to attend it hand in hand with you to ensure your safety."
--------
INSURGENCY
Clashes in Najaf and Kufa Cause Cease-Fire to Fray
May 31, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/middleeast/31MILI.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Monday, May 31 - A cease-fire between American forces and insurgents loyal to a rebel cleric appeared to be unraveling as fighting erupted Sunday and early Monday in the centers of the cities of Najaf and Kufa.
Four Iraqi civilians and three American soldiers were wounded in Najaf, a hospital official and a military spokesman said. It was unclear early Monday how many people might have been wounded or killed in Kufa. A CNN reporter traveling with forces in the area said American soldiers trying to seize an insurgent-controlled police station in Kufa had come under "heavy, heavy attack."
The fighting in Najaf on Sunday was the first combat in that city since officials on both sides announced the cease-fire on Thursday. The Sunday night assault by the Americans in Kufa appeared to be a resumption of offensive operations that had been suspended under the terms of the cease-fire between occupation forces and the militia of Moktada al-Sadr, the 31-year-old radical cleric. Spokesmen for the First Armored Division, which is trying to assert control over the area, could not be reached for comment early Monday.
Prominent Shiite politicians and religious and tribal leaders met in Najaf on Sunday afternoon to debate what to do about the seemingly intractable problem posed by Mr. Sadr. The last time the Shiite leaders had met was on Thursday, when they helped hammer out the cease-fire.
The meeting on Sunday took place at the office of Bahar al-Oluum, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a prominent Shiite cleric. Mr. Oluum's spokesman, Ali al-Kuraishi, did not give details of the meeting. But representatives of Mr. Sadr have yet to meet with the occupation forces, he added.
The battle in Kufa apparently broke out when Americans tried staging a major operation on Sunday night to take back a police station. The CNN reporter said American tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled toward the station and engaged in a "very intense firefight." The fighting in Najaf broke out earlier Sunday near the city's sprawling cemetery, when a patrol of soldiers came under fire from insurgents, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the occupation forces.
Earlier this month, American soldiers surrounded the Najaf cemetery with tanks and attacked insurgents whom commanders accused of shooting at soldiers with mortars. Shiite pilgrims come from all over to bury their dead in the cemetery, a dense sea of above-ground tombs and small minarets and a perfect hiding place for guerrilla fighters.
On Saturday, clashes broke out in Kufa between American forces and insurgents. Fighting had also erupted there on Friday. But the violence on Sunday was the first time that the cease-fire had been violated in Najaf, a much larger city that sprawls around the golden-domed Shrine of Ali. On Sunday afternoon, before the American offensive in Kufa, General Kimmitt said it was unclear why insurgents were still attacking American soldiers. Perhaps it was because those fighters had not received word of the cease-fire, he said, or perhaps they belonged to a splinter group that did not take orders from Mr. Sadr.
In announcing the cease-fire, officials on both sides said that Mr. Sadr had agreed to order his militia, the Mahdi Army, to lay down arms in exchange for the Americans' pulling troops from the centers of Najaf and Kufa. In addition, insurgents who were not residents of Najaf or Kufa were supposed to leave those cities.
But armed fighters continued to walk the streets of Kufa, flaunting AK-47's and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. General Kimmitt said his understanding was that the agreement for the fighters to lay down their weapons applied to both Najaf and Kufa, but he suggested that Mr. Sadr might have interpreted the agreement as applying only to Najaf. In any case, General Kimmitt said at a news conference: "Moktada's militia is a declared hostile force. Our soldiers have the obligation to take action."
Under the conventions of war, soldiers may attack combatants of a "declared hostile force" without being shot at first. General Kimmitt was in effect saying that American soldiers had the right to shoot at insurgents displaying weapons.
Iraqi officials have said the Americans were persuaded to compromise with Mr. Sadr last week by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential cleric. Ayatollah Sistani lives close to the Shrine of Ali, and he had been growing increasingly concerned over the battles near that shrine and two other shrines in Karbala. On May 21, days after residents of Karbala protested in the streets at the urging of Ayatollah Sistani, American forces and insurgents withdrew from the city's center.
The cease-fire in Najaf on Thursday did not require Mr. Sadr to disband his militia or to submit to an arrest warrant that an Iraqi judge had issued in connection with the killing in April of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, an American-backed cleric who had returned from exile to Najaf.
Meanwhile on Sunday, people in the streets of Najaf were handed mysterious fliers with Mr. Sadr's picture that said, "Moktada was followed by the Iraqi police for his ties to the slaying of Khoei, and due to violent actions he was killed during an attempt to arrest him."
Another flier had a photo of Iraqi policemen and the words, "The Justice Ministry tried to arrest Mr. Sadr, but he and his followers resisted fiercely, which drove the Iraqi police to defend themselves."
The fliers appeared to have been made by Iraq's Justice Ministry or its allies to be handed out in case Iraqi policemen killed Mr. Sadr. Somehow, they were distributed prematurely. There were no reports of Mr. Sadr's death.
Mr. Sadr's office also issued a conciliatory statement to Sadr al-Din al-Kubanchi, a prominent cleric linked to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or Sciri, an influential Shiite party. On Friday, gunmen shot at Mr. Kubanchi outside the Shrine of Ali, but he was unhurt. Members of Mr. Sadr's militia captured one of the attackers, but did not turn him over to the Badr Organization, Sciri's armed wing.
That led Sciri officials to accuse Mr. Sadr and his militia of organizing the attack and then trying to cover it up. In his statement, Mr. Sadr denied any role in the attack. "I send my greetings and my willingness to meet you and my brothers in Sciri and the Badr Organization," he said. "You can hold your weekly Friday Prayer, and I am ready to attend it hand in hand with you to ensure your safety."
An Iraqi employee of The Times contributed reporting from Najaf and Kufa.
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon, Netanyahu Clash on Gaza Plan
Cabinet Meeting Ends Without A Vote Taken
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2393-2004May30.html
JERUSALEM, May 30 -- A bitter debate erupted Sunday between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his main political rival, Binyamin Netanyahu, over a U.S.-backed plan to withdraw Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip that Sharon presented to his deeply divided cabinet.
Sharon accused Netanyahu at Sunday's cabinet meeting of putting personal ambition above state security, and he warned that cabinet ministers would provoke a diplomatic confrontation with the Bush administration if they rejected the proposal, which calls for Israel to withdraw soldiers and Jewish settlers from all of Gaza and from four West Bank settlements. The prime minister also threatened to oust enough rebellious ministers to pass the plan, according to an approved transcript of the meeting read to reporters afterward.
Netanyahu, a former prime minister who is now finance minister, replied that by going forward with the proposal Sharon would be breaking his pledge to honor the decision by his Likud Party, whose members rejected the plan in a referendum earlier this month. Netanyahu proposed withdrawing from only three of Gaza's 21 settlements.
Sharon averted a governmental crisis by adjourning the seven-hour session without a vote on the plan, which appears one vote shy of winning majority approval in the 23-member body. Sharon's supporters said he would continue to press for cabinet approval at next Sunday's session, while Netanyahu's camp said he would consider a compromise proposal from Deputy Prime Minister Yosef Lapid of the centrist Shinui party.
The adjournment brought a temporary truce after a day packed with an unusual amount of drama, anger and personal confrontation, even by Israel's volatile standards. Two longtime opponents -- Sharon, 76, who may be nearing the end of a long political career, and the 54-year-old Netanyahu, who hopes to succeed him -- sparred with each other for the title of champion of Israel's security interests.
Sharon had set the stage last week when he presented to various cabinet members, including Netanyahu, his unilateral withdrawal proposal, which calls for a four-phase disengagement from Gaza that would conclude by the end of 2005. He argues that Israel has no purpose in maintaining 7,500 settlers in small enclaves among 1.3 million Palestinians and no one to effectively negotiate terms for its departure. Polls here indicate that the plan, which received President Bush's personal endorsement when Sharon journeyed to Washington last month, has the support of between 60 percent and 70 percent of the Israeli public.
But it is opposed by the influential settlers' movement and by those who argue that pulling out of the region without first exacting Palestinian concessions would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks on Israel from the area.
Sharon opened Sunday's session by warning certain ministers, who were not publicly identified, against "exploiting the crisis in order to achieve personal gains." And he warned anyone planning to vote against him on the plan that he was prepared to take "unprecedented political steps," including firing ministers or widening his ruling coalition to include other parties, to get it through Israel's parliament.
Netanyahu angrily denied he was acting out of personal interest, saying that "nobody in this room has a monopoly over the good of the state." And he told Sharon: "You committed yourself to accepting the referendum results and you cannot go back on your word."
Sharon retorted: "I am very touched to hear the finance minister talking about democracy, after 10 years ago he voted against the party's position in favor of directly electing the prime minister." Sharon added that the Likud referendum results were not binding on the cabinet. "We are the government of the entire nation and must act according to what the majority wants," he said.
Sharon also argued that a rejection of the agreement would damage Israel's warm relationship with the Bush administration.
Sharon's supporters in recent days have asserted that Bush administration officials and leaders of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, have warned against rejection. Netanyahu responded that he had spoken directly with U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, who had told him the vote on the plan would have no impact on relations with the United States.
Natan Sharansky, a cabinet minister opposed to Sharon's plan, said he told those attending the meeting that Israel should make its own decision, noting that it would be in neither country's interest if withdrawal from Gaza led to increased terrorism.
A U.S. official confirmed that Kurtzer had met separately last week with both Sharon and Netanyahu. The official said Kurtzer had reaffirmed U.S. support for the disengagement proposal but had taken no stand on the political maneuverings surrounding it. An AIPAC spokesman said the group would not comment on "private discussions" with the prime minister's office.
After the heated beginning, Sharansky said, the cabinet meeting settled into a more businesslike atmosphere. "It became clear there is definitely some desire to find a compromise on both sides, and that's what I think will happen," he said. Deputy Prime Minister Lapid told Israel radio that he proposed a compromise that would endorse the first phase of withdrawal from three settlements while "noting" the remainder of the proposal.
For now Sharon and Netanyahu appear stalemated, analysts said. If Sharon carries out his threat to dismiss recalcitrant ministers, he could trigger a walkout that would bring down his government. Netanyahu might have enough support in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament, to form a new government. But he would be in charge of a narrow right-of-center coalition based upon opposition to a plan that has widespread popular support.
"My feeling is the only chance for a plan to pass is if it is accepted jointly by both men because neither one can totally defeat the other guy," said a veteran Likud activist with ties to each leader's camp.
--------
Sharon Still One Vote Short in Cabinet Debate on Gaza Plan
May 31, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/middleeast/31mide.html
JERUSALEM, May 30 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip has the support of most Israelis and the blessing of President Bush. But a seven-hour cabinet debate ended Sunday with Mr. Sharon still apparently one vote short of winning over his own ministers.
His proposed Gaza pullout is his most ambitious initiative since coming to power in 2001, and is the one Middle East proposal currently showing signs of life amid the grinding Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yet the heated discussions at the cabinet meeting on Sunday reflected the deep split it has caused within Mr. Sharon's right-wing coalition government, and he is locked in one of the most difficult political battles of his tenure as prime minister.
He had already faced one defeat this month on his Gaza plan, when his Likud Party soundly rejected the proposal in a May 2 referendum. Facing a similar prospect within his cabinet, he announced at the beginning of the session on Sunday that there would be no voting on the Gaza proposal. He declined to set a date for when a vote might be taken.
He told the cabinet in remarks later broadcast on Israeli radio: "The plan will allow us to guard our national interests, also security interests, and it will free Israel from the dangerous diplomatic stalemate."
He then said he was prepared to dismiss ministers who opposed the plan. But there was no sign that any ministers had changed their minds on Sunday. The Israeli news media said the breakdown in the cabinet remained the same: 11 ministers support the plan, and 12 oppose it.
The Palestinians, meanwhile, have been reduced to mere bystanders while the Israeli debate continues. Palestinian leaders say they would support an Israeli evacuation from Gaza, but they want the process to be coordinated with them and linked to a comprehensive peace effort.
The Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, gave a rare interview with Israeli television, and offered to meet Mr. Sharon. "Why not?" he said. "If there is a will for peace, it will overcome all other ideas."
But Mr. Sharon has shunned Mr. Arafat, accusing him of encouraging violence. Mr. Arafat has been confined to his West Bank compound in Ramallah for more than two years.
If Mr. Sharon cannot win approval for his Gaza plan, he will be further weakened politically. The cabinet infighting over the Gaza proposal has reopened Mr. Sharon's long-running rivalry with Benjamin Netanyahu, the finance minister and a former prime minister.
The two have traded gibes in recent days, and the verbal sniping continued Sunday, according to those present at the cabinet session.
At Mr. Sharon's urging, Mr. Netanyahu agreed in April to back the Gaza plan, though his endorsement was lukewarm. Since the proposal's defeat in the referendum, Mr. Netanyahu has refused to endorse the original plan, saying the will of the party should be respected. However, he says he is open to compromise.
Even if Mr. Sharon pushes his plan through the cabinet, he still faces a complicated political future. Two far-right parties have threatened to leave the coalition if the Gaza pullout is approved.
Their departures would rob Mr. Sharon of his majority in Parliament. He could seek an alignment with the center-left Labor Party, but such an arrangement is seen as inherently unstable because of their wide policy differences.
The champion of settlement building for decades, Mr. Sharon said in February that Israel should relinquish the small settlements in Gaza and concentrate on consolidating its control of the much larger settlement blocs in the West Bank.
Mr. Sharon said he feared that if Israel did not do that it would face increasing international pressure to make far greater concessions.
About 7,500 Jewish settlers live in Gaza, compared with around 230,000 in the West Bank. The settlements are built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and the Palestinian leadership is seeking all of Gaza and the West Bank for a future state.
The Likud Party vote opposing the Gaza evacuation was nonbinding, and in the past few weeks, Mr. Sharon has lobbied cabinet ministers with a watered-down version of the plan, which called for removing only a small number of Gaza settlers, at least initially.
But Mr. Sharon was unable to win backing for the scaled-back plan in the cabinet. On Friday, he scrapped that proposal and opted to present the cabinet with what was essentially the original plan, with a few modifications.
This calls for all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and 4 small settlements in the West Bank to be removed by the end of 2005.
Meanwhile, there was more violence in Gaza on Sunday.
The Israeli Air Force fired missiles in Gaza City that killed a senior Hamas figure, Wael Nassar, and another wanted Hamas man riding on the same motorcycle, the Israeli military and Palestinian witnesses said.
-------- mideast
Slayings Spurred Saudi Rescue
22 Dead in Attack At Compound for Foreign Oil Staff
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2174-2004May30?language=printer
Saudi commandos stormed a compound where Islamic extremists had seized foreign oil workers after the gunmen began executing the hostages early Sunday, Saudi officials said. About 50 hostages were rescued, but one American and 21 other people were killed in the Persian Gulf city of Khobar, 250 miles northeast of Riyadh, the capital.
Saudi officials said they captured the ringleader of the gunmen, adding that he was shot and wounded while trying to escape. They did not identify him by name but said he was among the 25 most wanted terrorism suspects in the kingdom.
A group allied with al Qaeda asserted responsibility for the attack and released statements indicating that the plot was an attempt to destabilize world oil markets and drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The attack will have no direct impact on petroleum supplies, analysts said, but it showed that extremists are capable of striking this oil-producing region and is likely to intensify concerns about the vulnerability of markets to a supply disruption. [Story, Page A18.]
There were conflicting reports on the total number of gunmen and what happened to them. Three gunmen escaped after they commandeered a car and used some of the hostages as shields, according to a Saudi security official. Other officials said there were as many as seven assailants.
It was the fourth time in 13 months that Islamic extremists have launched deadly attacks on foreign targets in the desert kingdom.
Witnesses said the gunmen went room to room inside the walled compound searching for foreigners to kill or kidnap, but tried to leave Muslims unharmed.
The dead included citizens from at least 10 countries. In addition to the American, they included eight Indians, three Saudis, three Filipinos, two Sri Lankans, a Briton, an Egyptian, an Italian, a Swede and a South African, the Saudi Interior Ministry reported. Twenty-five people were injured, the ministry said.
Among the roughly 250 people who were trapped inside the compound were two members of the U.S. military who lived there, a Saudi security official said on condition of anonymity. The military officers were rescued by a Saudi special forces team, the official said.
Jamal A. Khashoggi, an adviser to the Saudi ambassador to London, said in a telephone interview that Saudi forces rushed the gunmen after they started to execute some of the hostages on the sixth floor of the Oasis Residential Resorts, a complex that caters to foreign oil workers and their families. "The terrorists started killing them, and that's when Saudi security stormed the building," he said.
Television footage from Khobar showed Saudi forces landing from helicopters on the roof of the resort building. Several hours later, commandos stormed the sixth floor and freed most of the 50 or so hostages that the gunmen had been holding there, but only after defusing bombs laid as booby traps on two of the floors below, according to reports on Arab television channels.
A Saudi group allied with al Qaeda asserted responsibility for the attack, posting statements on Islamic Web sites that described in gruesome terms the deaths of an American, a Briton, a Japanese and an Italian. An audio recording posted with one of the statements blamed the Saudi government for providing "America with oil at the cheapest prices according to their masters' wish, so that their economy does not collapse."
A Japanese Foreign Ministry official, however, said no Japanese citizen was among those killed, the Reuters news agency reported.
The speaker on the recording identified himself as Abdulaziz Muqrin, a leading al Qaeda operative in Saudi Arabia
Until last year, the Saudi government has played down evidence that it faced a growing threat from Islamic radicals who wanted to sever ties with the West. Since the spate of deadly attacks erupted, Saudi security forces have tried to crack down on such groups, rounding up hundreds of suspects and issuing a list of wanted al Qaeda sympathizers.
"Their intent . . . is to frighten, it is to murder people, it is to try to cripple the Saudi economy and the world economy," Nail Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, told CNN. "They're trying to play on that split of culture, split of civilization, but it's not going to work."
Oil and gasoline prices have soared in recent weeks, and the Saudi government has responded by promising to increase production to meet rising worldwide demand.
Despite the recent attacks against foreign oil workers, Saudi officials have tried to reassure world energy markets that their pipelines, terminals and oil processing center are well-guarded and not vulnerable to attack.
Nawaf Obaid, a Riyadh-based consultant to the Saudi royal family, said in an article published this month in Jane's Intelligence Review that the risk of a disruption to the flow of oil was "very low."
"Saudi Arabia takes the security of its oil facilities extremely seriously," Obaid wrote. "At any one time, there are up to 30,000 guards protecting the country's oil infrastructure, while high technology surveillance and aircraft patrols are common."
Khashoggi, the Saudi adviser in London, acknowledged that the government was originally taken aback by the persistence of the insurgents. Security has been stepped up, he said, but there is only so much that the kingdom could do to prevent attacks.
"All of us underestimated the threat," he said, referring to the Saudi and Western governments. "The oil installations are very much protected. But these people are attacking soft targets, and soft targets are available. There are thousands of foreigners all over the kingdom."
Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told reporters in Khobar that the danger from extremist groups remained high. "We believe further attacks may be in the final stages of preparations," he said, though he did not give details. At least one Briton, an oil executive, Michael Hamilton, 61, was killed in the attack, he said. Witnesses said earlier that the body of a Briton was dragged through the streets, the Associated Press reported.
The attack began just after dawn Saturday, when the gunmen entered a walled office compound and overpowered two guards. The gunmen killed some oil company employees on the spot. They then started seizing hostages, taking them to the sixth floor of the high-rise building in the luxury residential compound. Saudi commandos occupied floors above and below but did not rush the gunmen until the executions began, government officials said.
--------
Saudi Military Storms Complex to Free Hostages
May 31, 2004
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/middleeast/31SAUD.html?pagewanted=all&position=
HOBAR, Saudi Arabia, May 30 - Saudi commandos in helicopters stormed an upscale residential complex in this oil center on Sunday, freeing most of the dozens of Westerners and other foreigners who had been trapped by four armed militants in the compound's hotel for 24 hours. The militants killed 22 people, the Interior Ministry announced.
Twenty-five people were wounded, according to a ministry statement carried by the official Saudi press agency. It also said the militants began the siege of the compound by vaulting over a fence, after their attempt to drive a car booby-trapped with explosives into the compound had failed.
The militants' leader was critically wounded and captured, the statement said, but three other gunmen held hostages at gunpoint and used them as cover to escape in a stolen car. It was unclear what happened to those hostages, but checkpoints set up on major highways around this city on the Persian Gulf were examining all cars.
The attack on Saturday on the luxurious complex, known as the Oasis Residential Resorts, was the second brazen assault this month against the Saudi oil industry, which is heavily dependent on foreigners, and statements of responsibility attributed to Al Qaeda quickly appeared on Arab Islamist Web sites.
Moreover, the attack came as Saudi Arabia is trying to increase production to ease pressure on record global oil prices. The psychological impact of the Oasis attack on the major oil markets in New York and London, which are closed on Monday, remained to be seen.
In the tense finale of the Oasis attack, the Saudi commandos were shown on television leaping from helicopters onto the roof of a building in the compound. Of the 22 victims, including an American, 9 were killed in or around the Oasis, a luxurious guesthouse that features amenities like an ice-skating rink. The militants had held the resort overnight, apparently picking off victims as they encountered them.
"They were found all over the place, some of them in the corridors and others near the entrance and some on the steps," said one Saudi witness. He said most appeared to be either Indian or Filipino, except for two Westerners.
Details of the assault and the mopping-up operation remained murky. The Saudi Interior Ministry statement said 41 hostages had been rescued by the commandos, but a Western diplomat explained that they were not all held together in the hotel, a five-story building constructed around a courtyard swimming pool. The diplomat said some had been hiding to avoid being killed by the gunmen who seized the place.
"The gunmen were going through the compound and either shooting people or letting them go," the Western diplomat said. "They shot non-Muslims and they let the Muslims go."
The Oasis attack was the first large-scale assault in the heart of the kingdom's oil-producing region along the Persian Gulf, and followed a similarly brazen assault on foreign oil workers in the Saudi city of Yanbu on May 1.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, and other senior government officials sought to reassure world oil markets that production continued uninterrupted. The Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, was reportedly meeting with Western officials and oil company executives to reassure them that the attacks would not affect oil supplies.
"The terrorists' goal is to disrupt the Saudi economy and destabilize our country," Prince Bandar said in a statement released in Washington. "But they will not succeed. With every desperate act of violence, our effort and resolve to destroy the terrorists only grows."
Prince Bandar also told Fox News that seven Americans had been rescued from the compound. Diplomats in the kingdom said he was referring to seven American government workers who lived at the compound and had managed to elude capture by the militants, although two of them suffered gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening.
The total of 242 people evacuated from the Oasis compound - also home to executives for leading firms like Royal Dutch/Shell, Total and Lukoil - were taken either to hospitals or nearby hotels, depending on their condition.
A group affiliated with Al Qaeda, the network whose founder Osama bin Laden has vowed to disrupt the close ties between the kingdom and the West, took responsibility for the attack through an unsubstantiated claim on a Web site associated with the militants. It threatened to drive all "crusaders" from "the land of Islam." In a taped statement posted on Islamist Web sites, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, a reputed leader of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, promised that the coming months would be "bloody and miserable for infidels."
Saudi and other analysts suggest that it is likely that Qaeda admirers, rather than the organization itself, were responsible. Much like the bloody assault in Yanbu, which left six Westerners and a Saudi dead, the Oasis attack, against a site used mainly by Westerners, appeared intended to create maximum carnage.
That suggests that the terrorists are getting weaker, rather than stronger, the analysts believe, because they are unable to attack anything substantial. A crackdown that was started after three suicide attacks killed 35 people including the bombers in Riyadh last May has seriously hampered their ability to organize.
"It reflects a late stage in the life of these groups because when they are very weak, they choose very easy targets with very bloody results," said Hassan Abu Taleb, an expert on Saudi affairs at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic studies in Cairo. "They want something that causes the maximum propaganda and media impact to try to show that they are strong."
Before hitting the Oasis complex, the attackers had opened fire at the Khobar Petroleum Center building, which houses the offices of numerous Western firms, and shot their way through another building used by Apicorp, the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation. An Egyptian schoolboy was among those killed there.
"These targets are not strategic," Mr. Abu Taleb noted. "They did not attack oil fields for example, so it has no affect on the grip of the Saudi royal family."
Such strikes mean that the level of violence may not drop any time soon, because there are literally thousands of places in the kingdom for anyone with a gun to shoot at Westerners.
Expatriate residents of the Eastern Province, where the kingdom's oil production is centered, said they expected a large exodus at least of families once the school year ends. The American Embassy repeated its April 15 warning that all Americans should depart the kingdom.
Many Saudis expressed revulsion over the attacks, but there were a few gloating messages on extremist Web sites that some of the militants had been able to elude capture.
Khobar is also the name of the barracks in nearby Dhahran that were the site of a terrorist attack in 1996, when 19 American servicemen died from a huge truck bomb. In hindsight it was labeled a Qaeda attack.
Crown Prince Abdullah, the country's actual ruler in the face of King Fahd's longstanding infirmity, reiterated the kingdom's determination to stamp out the militants.
In the short run, analysts said, they are aided by the fact that each such attack tends to persuade people to unite around the ruling family. But in the long run, they said, police operations alone will not work because the extremists are rooted in the same Wahhabi religious tenets as the royal family.
"The security solution is not enough; these are ideological groups who want to topple the regime itself," said Abdel Rahman al-Lahem, a Saudi lawyer and expert in Islamist movements. The tradition of leaving public discourse up to the religious alone has to be abandoned for a broader base, he suggested.
The extremists were evidently returning to attacking Westerners because their recent attacks - including a car-bombing in Riyadh in April and an attack on a compound there last November - had mostly killed Saudis and other Muslims.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said the dead from the Oasis attack were one American, eight Indians, one Briton, two Sri Lankans, one Egyptian child, one Swede, one Italian, one South African, three Filipinos and three Saudis.
Barrie Peach, the spokesman for the British Embassy, identified the dead Briton as Michael Hamilton, 61, who had spent 25 years working in the region and was vice president for projects at Apicorp, one of the businesses attacked Saturday.
The Italian Foreign Ministry identified the dead Italian as Antonio Amato, 25, who had arrived in the kingdom in recent weeks to work as a cook at the Oasis complex.
-------- prisoners of war
Jailed - for showing dislike of US invaders
By Douglas Jehl and Kate Zernike in Washington
May 31, 2004
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855439930.html
Hand of hope . . . a released prisoner reaches out to a friend as a bus takes him and others from the infamous Abu Ghraib jail. Photo: AFP/Awad Awad
Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners were held in Abu Ghraib prison for long periods even though there was no evidence that they posed a security threat to US forces, a US Army report says.
The unpublished report, by Major-General Donald Ryder, reflects what other senior officers have described as a deep concern among some US officers and officials in Iraq over the refusal of top US commanders in Baghdad to authorise the release of so-called security prisoners.
Some prisoners were held for interrogation at Abu Ghraib.
General Ryder, the army's provost marshal, reported that some Iraqis had been held for months for nothing more than expressing "displeasure or ill will" towards the US occupying forces.
The report, drafted in November, said the process for deciding which arrested Iraqis posed security risks justifying imprisonment violated the Pentagon's own policies. It also said the conditions in which they were held sometimes violated the Geneva conventions.
General Ryder's report to Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq, was obtained by The New York Times. Advertisement Advertisement
Senior military officials also revealed that interrogation experts from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay were sent to Iraq in the second half of last year and played a big role in training US military intelligence teams at Abu Ghraib.
Meanwhile, human rights groups say Iraqi women who were held at Abu Ghraib have complained of rape by US and Iraqi jailers. Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, chief military spokesman for the US-led coalition in Iraq, said the prisons department was "unaware of any such reports at Abu Ghraib".
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Defence report urges firms to develop space weapons
U.S. missile shield offers chance to make millions, it says
David Pugliese
Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service
May 31, 2004
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=0c05346e-a236-483c-aab9-057521d0193b
OTTAWA - Canadian companies should develop space weapons and other "kill vehicles" if they want to win lucrative contracts for the U.S. missile defence shield, a federal government report recommends.
In addition, there could be work for Canadian firms in testing parts of the Pentagon's missile system in the Arctic, notes the Department of National Defence report produced last year.
The acknowledgement the U.S. is moving toward putting weapons into orbit, and that Canadian companies can support such efforts, appears to fly in the face of government claims that such systems aren't part of the missile shield. It could also provide ammunition to the Bloc Quebecois and NDP, who have tried to make Canada's participation in the missile shield an election issue.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Paul Martin told the Commons that Canada opposes weapons in space and said the country will not take part in the U.S. system if it involves such capabilities.
In January, Defence Minister David Pratt admonished NDP Leader Jack Layton for referring to the missile shield as "Son of Star Wars," a reference to former U.S. president Ronald Reagan's program of the 1980s to put weapons into orbit. Pratt accused Layton and other critics of the missile shield of scaremongering with their predictions it would lead to weapons in space.
The first phase of the shield, to be ready by the fall, will use ground- and sea-based interceptors to shoot down missiles headed towards North America. According to Pratt, the development of space weapons are so far off, they need not be of concern.
But the Defence Department report estimates there is the potential for Canadian companies to earn $100-$180 million US per year in missile shield contracts but that the government must quickly sign on to the plan for that to happen.
"Committing soon will provide Canada with (a) preferential position for winning industrial opportunities," it notes. "2004 will be the next window of opportunity but we must start developing strategic plans now for possible participation."
Pratt's spokesman Darren Gibb said he had not seen the report but noted government policy does not support weapons in space.
"What we're looking at is a land- and sea-based system that does not in any way include weaponization of space," he said. "The weaponization of space is a deal breaker."
Greenpeace Canada spokeswoman Jo Dufay said the Martin government is misleading Canadians, as space weapons will form a major part of the missile shield in the coming years.
"To say we can selectively participate in some parts of this program while not others is like saying we can be a little bit pregnant," she noted.
Canadian and U.S. officials continue to negotiate Canada's involvement in the missile system. But many defence analysts believe Canada will announce this year that it is signing on.
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Old Spies Tell Some Tales
Office of Strategic Services Predated CIA, Special Forces
By Dana D'Aniello
Associated Press
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2969-2004May30.html
Retired Maj. Gen. John Singlaub vividly recalls the day he helped liberate nearly 400 Allied prisoners during World War II. They'd been held for months, beaten and starved by their Japanese captors, and were close to execution when Singlaub and his team freed them.
"It was a great way to end a war," Singlaub says.
Singlaub was one of many veterans of the Office of Strategic Services who gathered last week to share stories of wartime heroism, espionage and covert operations.
"Tales From the OSS, America's First Intelligence Agency" also featured OSS veterans Fisher Howe, assistant to the OSS leader, Gen. William J. Donovan, and Elizabeth McIntosh, author of "Sisterhood of Spies."
"There are so many heroes in this room," said moderator Patrick O'Donnell, author of "Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War II's OSS."
The predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Special Forces, the OSS marked the United States' first government-wide coordination of strategic intelligence activities.
President Roosevelt established the OSS on June 13, 1942, six months after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II.
OSS members gathered intelligence against the enemy by working with resistance groups in occupied foreign territories. The OSS also intercepted Axis communications and used psychological warfare against the enemy.
Howe recalled Donovan as an "engaging" and "powerful" leader: "If you define leadership as having a vision for an organization, and the ability to attract, motivate and guide followers to fulfill that mission, you have Donovan in spades."
Singlaub said the spirit of the OSS was one of cooperation for the greater good. The team he led to liberate POWs from Hainan Island, off the coast of China, included two interpreters, one of them Chinese and the other Japanese.
"Countries, boundaries, nationalities didn't make any difference," he said. "We had a mission to accomplish. The need broke down those social barriers that had been so destructive of our country for so many generations."
McIntosh, one of about 4,500 women to serve the OSS, said she left her job as a White House correspondent covering first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to join the OSS. McIntosh helped perform morale operations against Japanese forces in Burma.
The OSS workforce was made up of both civilians and members of the armed forces. At its peak in late 1944, the agency employed nearly 13,000 people, according to the CIA's OSS Web site. More than half served at posts overseas, from Europe to Africa to the Far East.
OSS ranks included future directors of central intelligence William Casey, William Colby, Richard Helms and Allen Dulles. Other notable members included Julia Child; Col. Aaron Bank, founder of the Green Berets; Arthur Schlesinger Jr., assistant to President John F. Kennedy; Sterling Hayden; Paul Mellon; and S. Dillon Ripley.
Despite its pivotal role in World War II's Allied victory, the OSS was dissolved on Oct. 1, 1945, in the wake of postwar demobilization efforts. Two years later, the CIA was established. It continued to perform intelligence functions once undertaken by the OSS.
The OSS veterans met at the International Spy Museum in the District, the only public museum in the country dedicated to the craft and history of espionage.
Singlaub has been a controversial figure over the years. President Jimmy Carter, early in his term, recalled Singlaub as chief of staff for U.S. Forces/Korea after the general voiced objections to Carter's plan to phase out U.S. troops from South Korea.
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ABUSE INVESTIGATION
Military Completed Death Certificates for 20 Prisoners Only After Months Passed
May 31, 2004
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/middleeast/31INQU.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, May 30 - Twenty death certificates for Afghan and Iraqi prisoners who died in American custody were completed in a 10-day rush only after the investigation into the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib became public last month, even though some of the deaths occurred months - in some cases many months - before.
Officers from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the headquarters of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, signed the certificates between May 12 and 21, including one certificate for an Afghan prisoner killed at the American military base at Bagram on Dec. 10, 2002, in what an autopsy found was a homicide.
In the aftermath of the international outcry over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the Pentagon has repeatedly said it thoroughly investigates all accusations of mistreatment and misconduct. But as the handling of the death certificates suggests, many of the known investigations into abuses against Afghan and Iraqi detainees moved glacially, at least until the photographs of hooded, shackled and naked Iraqi prisoners appeared late last month.
According to military officials and a review of Army documents, the investigations have been complicated by a variety of factors, including austere and violent conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, cultural and language barriers and a convoluted and sluggish military bureaucracy. Many of the witnesses are former prisoners who melted back into society and soldiers who have returned to the United States or redeployed to other countries.
Moreover, only a few dozen military investigators are in Iraq, and they are responsible for examining everything from petty crimes by soldiers to war crimes Iraqi forces committed against Americans during the war.
Some, including lawyers for those accused at Abu Ghraib, have called for a special court of inquiry that would consolidate the investigations and remove them from the military chain of command, which includes commanders whose role in authorizing or creating conditions that allowed abuse to fester.
The abuses at Abu Ghraib have prompted an array of investigations, including one by the Army's inspector general and another by the deputy head of Army intelligence, but each has distinct mandates, limited scope and, to some, inherent conflicts of interest.
"There is already ample evidence of a confusing array of investigations," said Eugene Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice in Washington. "I believe the situation has already lost focus. It has all the makings of an investigative debacle."
After first giving conflicting accounts, the Pentagon now says that at least 33 investigations have been opened involving 37 deaths of prisoners. There are also an unknown number of investigations into assaults and other abuses. Some of the deaths were attributed to natural causes; others involved prisoners killed in what investigators determined to be justified homicides, like the shooting deaths of four Iraqis during a riot at Abu Ghraib in November.
But even now, officials say they cannot specify how many cases remain under criminal investigation, though the death certificates and an Army summary of cases obtained by The New York Times show that at least 12 cases involving homicides or unexplained deaths of prisoners remain unsolved, 8 in Iraq and 4 in Afghanistan.
The officials acknowledge they are not even sure how many deaths have occurred in American custody. Even before the Abu Ghraib abuses, the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights organizations reported mistreatment of prisoners, and even deaths, involving American or other troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not clear that those cases are under investigation.
Of the 37 deaths that have been investigated, only one soldier, who has not been identified, has been punished for what was ruled a homicide, according to Army officials and the documents. He was demoted and discharged, but not court-martialed, after fatally shooting a prisoner who was throwing stones at a detention center northwest of Baghdad on Sept. 11, 2003.
In another case, involving the Marine Corps, two marines face court-martial this year in connection with the death of Nagem Sadoon Hatab, an Iraqi who died in a prison camp near Nasiriya last June 6.
The 20 recently completed death certificates were among 23 that the Pentagon released a week ago. It is not clear why there is not paperwork for all 37 prisoner deaths that the Pentagon acknowledges in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials said that in some cases, though not all, no death certificates had been completed because no autopsy was conducted.
"We also know that it's not the complete picture," a senior Pentagon official said when the documents were released.
A Pentagon spokesman could not explain why the certificates - seven of which classified the deaths as homicides - were completed only this month, but he suggested that it was a bureaucratic oversight that did not affect investigations now under way.
"At the time of the autopsies, the emphasis was on getting an autopsy report out to the investigative agency, not the certificate," the spokesman, James Turner, said in a written response to questions. "Death certificates are a document for society to use. And we had no one to issue a death certificate to in Iraq. We have a mixture of certificates in the case files: some hand-written, some typed, and in some cases, no death certificate."
Nevertheless, the Pentagon has changed its policy and will now complete certificates within two weeks after an autopsy - the same required for any American soldier who dies, Mr. Turner wrote.
The Army's Criminal Investigation Command investigates every death involving Americans, including the deaths of soldiers or of detainees in American custody.
The exact number of the command's agents now in Iraq is classified, but a spokesman, Christopher P. Grey, said it was in the dozens. They are operating outside the chain of command to shield them, in theory at least, from the influence of commanders.
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, in his report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib, praised the "superb job" done by investigators who conducted more than 50 interviews with witnesses and suspects after the discovery of photographs depicting the mistreatment there.
Others, however, have raised questions about the Criminal Investigation Command's ability to investigate such complex and delicate cases thoroughly and promptly.
A soldier from 377th Military Police Company, an Ohio Reserve unit, who is being questioned about the deaths of two prisoners in the company's custody in Afghanistan in December 2002, said in an interview that agents interviewed him for the first time in late January or early February, more than a year after the deaths and after the Abu Ghraib investigations began.
Harvey Volzer, a civilian lawyer who represents one of those accused in the Abu Ghraib abuses, Specialist Megan M. Ambuhl, complained that the agents in that investigation had not aggressively asked follow-up questions or pursued investigative trails that would have led to higher-ranking officers.
Documents in the investigation, including a copy of agents' reports, also raised questions. In a list of recommended charges, one suspect is listed simply as an unknown white male with the 372nd Military Police Company from Maryland, even though there was enough evidence to charge him with indecent assault, cruelty and other serious crimes.
In another document, Lt. Col. Jerry L. Phillabaum, commander of the 320th Military Police Battalion, which oversees the 372nd, wrote that he had helped an agent "secure evidence and take sworn statements" even though the accusations were against soldiers under his command and his own actions would, presumably, be under scrutiny. He was later suspended and given a reprimand, but has not been charged with any crimes.
Mr. Grey, like other Pentagon officials, declined to discuss the details of any case, saying that to do so could compromise the investigation. Asked about the length of some of the inquiries, he replied in writing, "Criminal investigations are conducted to a thoroughness standard, not necessarily to a timetable."
He acknowledged that the investigations of two cases in Bagram in December 2002 had recently received new urgency after "additional leads were identified and questions arose that required further investigation." He added that those two cases "are near completion."
"These investigations are not like on TV," he said in a telephone interview. "They're in a combat zone. You can't just jump in a squad car and go interview a couple suspects."
Douglas Jehl, Eric Schmitt and Kate Zernike contributed reporting for this article.
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Where Does Iraq Stand Among U.S. Wars?
Total Casualties Compare to Spanish-American, Mexican and 1812 Conflicts
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3022-2004May30?language=printer
With more than 800 U.S. military personnel killed and more than 4,600 wounded, U.S. casualties in Iraq over the past 14 months now compare to those of several of the smaller wars in the nation's history.
In total casualties -- that is, combined dead and wounded -- the U.S. military now has suffered more in Iraq than in the Spanish-American War. The wounded tally in Iraq -- but not the death total -- has surpassed the figures for the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.
Some military historians and other specialists are beginning to see the Iraq campaign as at least as significant as those other conflicts in its impact on the nation's politics and public opinion.
"Iraq began as an intervention, has now become a minor war and stands to become a medium war as time passes," said Kalev Sepp, a former Special Forces officer who teaches defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School.
"The Iraq war is a genuine minor war in the American experience," said James Burk, a military sociologist at Texas A&M University and one of the nation's leading experts on the impact of military casualties on public opinion.
By that, Burk said, he meant that it has become "at least the equal of the Mexican War and Spanish-American War in its capacity to make or break political leaders and eventually to affect who Americans think they are in the world."
With the Iraq war still going on, it is impossible to predict how historians and the rest of the American public will ultimately regard it. Burk and others warn that if the pace of casualties in Iraq keeps up, the war's impact on American life could become more like that of the Vietnam War than of those earlier conflicts.
While historians agree that the Iraq intervention is becoming a significant event in the nation's history, they disagree sharply about several other points, such as how comparable it really is to conventional wars. And a few historians, along with some military officers, argue that the fighting in Iraq really is part of a larger war against Islamic extremism and therefore should not be considered in isolation.
The key to much of the disagreement is that most of the nation's smaller wars occurred in the 19th century. American life and culture were so different then, some say, that it is hard to compare the impact of casualties then and now.
But there is general agreement that small numbers of casualties have more political impact now than they did in 1813 or 1847.
"Up through World War I, high casualties were looked at with pride, and bluntly, a lot of people were a lot tougher then -- mentally more than physically," said Robert L. Goldich, a defense expert at the Congressional Research Service. "Death was everywhere, and lots of people died early from disease or complications from injuries or childbirth." In addition, he said, in the dominant political ideology of the time, combat deaths were mourned but were also held to be "glorious and necessary and to be celebrated."
Kurt Hackemer, a specialist in 19th-century U.S. military history at the University of South Dakota, also noted that combat casualties had less immediacy in an age of slow, image-less communications.
"For the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, people read about -- not saw -- casualties well after the fact," Hackemer said. "Because there were no real images associated with casualties, I think they remained something of an abstraction, which allow ordinary citizens to think about them in highly idealized terms."
Some historians say that in some ways, the Iraq effort looks like the long-running, low-intensity conflict of the Army's fighting against Native Americans in the Old West. "Our Army today has a lot in common with the professional army that fought against Native Americans in the American West during the 19th century," said G. Kurt Piehler, a University of Tennessee military historian. Both forces were not only professional, he said, but also relatively small and all-volunteer.
But several other experts said that in size and political impact, the Iraq war now most resembles the U.S. anti-insurgency effort in the Philippines that lasted from 1899 to 1902, with a total of 7,192 dead and wounded U.S. troops.
"Conceptually, I would say that we are closer to the Philippine Insurrection than any of those prior conflicts," Hackemer said. "We are fighting an insurgency that has some measure -- difficult to determine -- of popular support as we attempt to install a government that fits our concept of 'representative' for the Iraqi people."
Indeed, the leading expert on the Philippines war said he finds the U.S. military experience there strikingly similar to the U.S. foray into Iraq.
"Both the Philippine and Iraq wars were seen as imperial conflicts and as radical departures from previous foreign policy," said Texas A&M's Brian M. Linn. He ticked off several other specific similarities.
"In both wars, there was a somewhat justified concern that the U.S. was invading a country that did not present a clear and present danger, and overthrowing an indigenous government," Linn said. "In both wars, the initial conventional operations were successful and the ensuing guerrilla campaign was far longer, more costly and more controversial. In both wars, the Army and political leadership failed to appreciate the diversity and intensity of popular resistance and dismissed it as followers of a tyrant, bandits and terrorists. In both wars, allegations of atrocities against civilians -- indiscriminate fire, torture and property destruction -- tarnished the Army's reputation and created widespread indigenous resentment."
In the Philippines, he said, that anger still persists, a century later.
Linn also offered one other similarity: In 1900, he said, the Republican candidate for president, William McKinley, was a war hero, while the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, "had used his political connections to get a commission in the National Guard and avoid combat."
But he also saw one major difference: He thinks the plodding, low-tech army of a century ago, with its roots in the Indian wars, was better at putting down an insurrection than is today's Army, "which has devoted itself to high-intensity machine warfare designed to rapidly knock out an opponent."
One thing that all three campaigns -- against the Native Americans, against the Filipino rebels and in Iraq -- have in common is that they were not, or are not being, waged against conventional militaries or states. That makes them fundamentally different from most other U.S. wars, said Dale C. Smith, chairman of the department of medical history at the Defense Department's own medical school, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
"Wars are acute events, like hemorrhages from cuts," Smith said. "The Philippines, the Indian campaigns of the late 19th century and Iraq are all 'chronic diseases' of the body politic." That is, he said, "like a gastric ulcer, they bleed us slowly and steadily, with occasional flare-ups of acute bleeding and pain. Over time, they can make us anemic and sap our strength, and most importantly, they cannot just be bandaged and gotten over -- they have to be managed with lifestyle changes and complex therapeutic regimens."
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MILITARY
Army Is Investigating Reports of Assaults and Thefts by G.I.'s Against Iraqi Civilians
May 31, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/middleeast/31ABUS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, May 30 - The Army is investigating at least two dozen cases in which American soldiers are accused of assaulting civilian Iraqis or stealing their money, jewelry and other property during raids, patrols and house-to-house searches, senior Defense Department officials said Sunday.
In some instances, investigators say, soldiers were reported to have stolen cash from Iraqis they stopped at roadside checkpoints, apparently under the pretext of confiscating money from suspected insurgents or their financial backers.
The Army's Criminal Investigation Command is also examining at least six cases in which soldiers on missions reportedly kicked, punched or beat civilian Iraqis, or fired their weapons near the Iraqis to scare or intimidate them.
Those statistics and broad descriptions are included in an internal summary prepared earlier this month by the investigation command at the request of senior Army officials who are struggling to understand the scope of mistreatment and potential crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq beyond the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and other Army-run detention sites.
While military officials here and in Iraq say the reports of thievery and lawlessness are isolated cases among more than 135,000 American troops, other military officials say the official numbers probably underestimate the actual offenses because most Iraqis are too frightened to file a formal complaint with the American authorities.
The Army has acknowledged it is investigating 37 deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan involving prisoners in American custody. Other confidential Army documents have chronicled a widespread pattern of abuse involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan that implicates more military units than previously known.
But this new summary of previously undisclosed reported abuses, a description of which was provided by a senior Defense official, widens the scope of potential wrongdoing beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib and other prisons, to the daily operations of American forces in Iraq.
"We want to be viewed as liberators and as examples of a professional army working for the good of people," said the Defense official. "To have a soldier act criminally certainly can damage that reputation. For your average Iraqi, the question becomes, what's the difference between what Saddam Hussein's forces did and what these soldiers did?"
The summary lists categories of offenses under review - 18 theft and 6 assault cases in Iraq as of May 21 - but it does not describe details of each incident, which units were involved, whether each case is pending or closed, or what, if any, disciplinary action was taken.
The incidents were reported to have taken place in the past 15 months and were reported by Iraqis and, in a few cases, by American soldiers. Military officials said it was difficult to compare those figures with other areas where American troops are operating, including Afghanistan, where the United States has only 10,000 troops, and is conducting far fewer house-to-house searches and roadside checkpoints than in Iraq.
A spokesman for the investigation command did not respond to several phone calls and e-mail messages over the weekend.
Senior military officials have reluctantly acknowledged that small numbers of an American force in Iraq that they characterize as well trained and highly disciplined have committed assaults, thefts and other abuses against civilian Iraqis, outside of detention sites, since American troops invaded Iraq in March 2003. "There have been, sadly, cases where soldiers have operated outside established, trained rules of engagement and rules for the use of force - a very, very small number in a force of over 150,000," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's chief spokesman in Iraq, told reporters on March 22. "While each of those cases is nothing to take great pride in, the fact is that 99-plus percent of the soldiers are operating well within those rules of engagement, under very tough conditions, showing remarkable restraint, day after day, operating inside this country," General Kimmitt added.
One Defense official cautioned Friday that the summary figures for reported thefts and assaults against Iraqis outside detention sites are just the beginning. The official said several Iraqis and some soldiers have come forward since the summary was prepared to make more reports of abuses, emboldened by the highly publicized Abu Ghraib cases.
Human rights advocates have complained for months that American forces had committed abuses on or near the battlefield throughout the 15-month conflict and insurgency in Iraq. A report by the International Committee of the Red Cross that was submitted to the military high command in Baghdad in February concluded that American and other allied forces had carried out "brutal behavior" during arrests of suspected insurgents that "appeared to go beyond the reasonable, legitimate and proportional use of force required to apprehend suspects or restrain persons resisting arrest or capture."
During raids, the report said, the treatment of Iraqis by the American forces "often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles."
In one case, the Red Cross reported that on Sept. 13, 2003, allied forces arrested nine Iraqi men in a hotel in Basra. The men were forced to kneel, with their hands and faces against the ground. The soldiers then stamped on the backs of the necks of those prisoners who raised their heads. The soldiers confiscated their money without issuing receipts, Red Cross inspectors said. The report did not make clear whether the soldiers were American, other allied soldiers or a combination.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 19, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander of American forces in the Middle East, sounded a dismissive note about at least some of the Red Cross findings, suggesting that the organization had little understanding of the confusing and deadly circumstances swirling on the battlefield.
"I am aware that the International Red Cross has its view on things," General Abizaid said. "A lot of its view is based upon what happens at the point of detention, where soldiers fighting for their lives detain people, which is a very brutal and bloody event."
Other senior military officials in Washington said the new summary of potential abuses by American soldiers involved Iraqis who were either in American custody on the battlefield or, more likely, had "run-ins" with United States forces in their homes or on the road.
"These are either people who are under U.S. control or they're just Iraqis caught up in the conflict or at checkpoints," said a senior Army official.
Abdullah Khalil, who worked as an Arabic-speaking translator last spring for units from the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in and around Balad, Iraq, said in an interview that many Iraqi civilians complained to him about strong-arm tactics or shakedowns by American soldiers. But Mr. Khalil said many Iraqis said they were too frightened of the soldiers to report the abuses.
As the Army's primary criminal investigative organization, the Criminal Investigation Command, often called the C.I.D., is responsible for conducting criminal investigations in which Army personnel are or may be involved. The command is headed by Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, the Army's provost marshal or senior law enforcement official, who conducted a review of prisons in Iraq last summer and fall at the request of the ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez.
With headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Va., the investigation command has sent scores of agents and support personnel to Iraq to examine cases ranging from homicide to fraud. The agents have been attached to military police units, and conduct their investigations independently of commanders in the field. The commanders receive the agents' reports, and mete out disciplinary action or initiate criminal charges based on that information and subsequent inquiries.
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More Than 200 Troops Killed in April, May
May 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Iraq-US-Casualties.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- American troops in Iraq died in May at a rate of more than two per day, pushing the combined death count for April and May beyond 200, according to Pentagon figures.
For the National Guard and Reserve, whose part-time soldiers make up at least one-third of the 135,000 American troops in Iraq, the trend in casualties during May was especially troubling.
At least 22 citizen soldiers died, nearly one-third of all U.S. losses in May. As a percentage of the month's death toll, that is about double what it had been in most previous months of the war. It also shows that the Guard and Reserve are bearing an increasing combat load.
Three states -- Arkansas, North Carolina and Washington -- now have an Army National Guard combat brigade in Iraq. In the next rotation of troops that will begin late this summer, there will be at least three others, and probably a fourth, plus a National Guard division headquarters.
The most persistent killer, more than a year after President Bush declared major combat over, is the homemade roadside bomb. The military calls it an improvised explosive device. This month, they have killed least 19 soldiers, seven of them National Guardsmen.
``Our biggest menace now is the improvised explosive device,'' Maj. Gen. John Sattler, director of operations for the U.S. Central Command, said in a telephone interview with Pentagon reporters Friday.
He said multiple agencies of the U.S. government are searching for technological solutions, including electronic jammers that can stop the detonation of hidden bombs.
``The laws of physics conspire to keep these things hidden once they're emplaced, so unless you figure out through other means where they got put down, you're in trouble,'' says Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
Months ago the Army sent a team of experts to Iraq to solve the problem, but to little apparent avail.
This kind of bomb took the life of the youngest female soldier to die in Iraq so far -- Pfc. Leslie D. Jackson, 18, of Richmond, Va. She was killed in Baghdad on May 20 when her military vehicle was hit.
Others have been killed by snipers and suicide bombers, as well as mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. Accidents, including two electrocutions, also have taken a toll.
At least 69 American troops died in May, according to the Pentagon's published tally. That figure does not include three Marines who died in action Saturday in western Iraq.
Their hometowns reach across America. Maple Valley, Wash., Ayden, N.C., and Lisbon, Maine. Chicago, New Orleans and Miami. California and Texas. Vermont and Delaware. Mississippi and Missouri.
May was deadlier than most previous months, but far less so than April, when the death toll was 136. That was by far the highest for any month since U.S. forces invaded in March 2003. The bloody fight for the city of Fallujah raged throughout April but has calmed down in the past few weeks.
In total, the Iraq conflict has taken the lives of more than 800 American troops so far, and last week the Pentagon reported that the number wounded in action is approaching 4,700.
The military says it continues to make progress in stabilizing Iraq, but the steadily rising death toll has become a political burden for a White House that also is focused on re-election.
Especially troubling, O'Hanlon says, is the continued reluctance of ordinary Iraqis to throw their support behind the American effort.
The Marine Corps in March stopped reporting the circumstances of its casualties in Iraq, so the actual number of deaths by the homemade bombs this month is likely higher than the 19 reported by the Army.
Among the 22 citizen soldiers killed in May was Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney, of the Illinois Army National Guard. At age 59, he was the oldest soldier to die in Iraq since the invasion began.
Chaney, of Schaumburg, Ill., died May 18 at a U.S. military hospital in Germany of complications following surgery for a noncombat related condition that he developed while in Iraq.
National Guardsmen often are older than their active-duty counterparts, and May's death toll reflects that. A 50-year-old Army Reserve soldier from Shreveport, La., died May 14; a 44-year-old Reserve soldier from Owensboro, Ky., was killed by a suicide car bomber that same day.
Two Vermont National Guard members were killed in a mortar attack May 25. They were the first Guardsmen from that state to be killed in action since at least the Korean War, half a century ago.
A Navy Reserve unit, the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14, based in Jacksonville, Fla., suffered extensive losses in May. Five of its men were killed and 28 were wounded in a mortar attack on a Marine base near the city of Ramadi in western Iraq on May 2. Two days earlier, two other members of that unit were killed when their vehicle convoy was hit by a homemade bomb.
(SUBs 12th graf bgng At least... to correct May deaths to 69 sted 59.)
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
------- courts
Contracting Justice
Private contractors accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners are not in court, much less prison.
MotherJones
Nonna Gorilovskaya
May/June 2004 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2004/06/06_513.html
None of the civilian contractors named in the leaked Army report by General Antonio M. Taguba as being "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses" of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison has been charged with any crime by the Justice Department. By contrast, military courts have sentenced two Marines and one Army reservist to prison time, with six more service members facing court-martial for their involvement in the abuses. Legal ambiguities combined with a Justice Department that can't be bothered to prosecute the very people President Bush assured the world would be punished, have shielded contractors from facing trial -- anywhere.
On Wednesday, frustrated with the Justice Department's unwillingness to follow the military's lead, the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a federal lawsuit on racketeering charges against CACI and Titan -- two of the private companies named in the Taguba report -- on behalf of former inmates at Abu Ghraib. The lawsuit alleges that there was a "scheme to torture, rape, and in some instances summarily execute plaintiffs" as companies extracted intelligence which would meet the obligations of their contracts and guarantee their renewal.
When the Abu Ghraib story broke last month, many, including on Capitol Hill, expressed outrage that the military outsourced one of its most sensitive functions -- the interrogation of prisoners -- to private contractors. The fallout from Abu Ghraib exposed the legal Bermuda Triangle that has so far protected civilian contractors from being tried on charges of abuse, rape, and even murder in U.S. courts -- a situation that the U.S. government has long refused to remedy.
As Peter W. Singer, an expert on private military contractors and the author of the book "Corporate Warriors," told National Public Radio in May:
"...We have a situation where we've dropped somewhere between 15 to 20,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq, and not one has been charged with any single crime. And we all know that if we took 15 or 20,000 people from anywhere in the world and dropped then in a place over the course of the year some crime would happen, let alone the specifics we know about Abu Ghraib. But we're led to believe that, really, nothing has happened, and I think that's pretty fantastic. And it questions, really, the lack of oversight here because, remember also, the CPA [Coalition Provision Authority] isn't even tracking how many people are working, let alone the potential crimes that are happening."
As Slate's military correspondent Phillip Carter asked back in May, what happens "when private military contractors break the law, what can be done to discipline them?" Carter answers his own question thusly:
"Quite a bit, as it turns out. Misbehaving firms can have their government contracts terminated; they can be barred from competing for future contracts; and they may also be subject to civil and criminal liability. However, nearly all of these penalties are at the discretion of the agency that issued the original contract. Procurement officials, political leaders, prosecutors, and judges get to decide whether to sanction contractors for allegedly breaking the law in Iraq."
Unfortunately, the U.S. government has done none of the above. In fact, while the names of the contractors mentioned in the Taguba report were splattered in every major newspaper over the country, CACI and Titan pointed out -- and continue to do so -- that neither the Pentagon, nor the Justice Department has informed them of any wrong-doings by their employees. The absence of any lawsuits -- criminal or civil -- by the government against those named in the Taguba report seem to confirm the companies' claims, although Titan did fire the employee cited in the report. The Defense Department has for now suspended orders for new interrogators from CACI and is investigating whether the $19.9 million contract for "interrogator support" and a $21.8 million contract for "human intelligence support"under which the interrogators were supplied should have been issued at all. In defiance of the findings of its own Taguba report, however, the Defense Department stated that it was "satisfied with the services" of CACI interrogators. Only recently has the Justice Department opened an investigation of an unidentified civilian contractor.
As civilians, contractors can't be tried in military courts. Last year, the Coalition Provision Authority declared that foreign civilians in Iraq can not tried in Iraqi courts. When asked during last month's Senate hearings if the June 30th transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis would alter the status of contractors, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage replied, "I don't know."
There is also no precedent for extraditing civilian contractors to face criminal and civil charges in U.S. courts. The civilians implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuses may be extradited under the 2000 Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act [MEJA]. MEJA was supposed to prevent the repeat of what happened in Bosnia, where employees of Virginia-based DynCorp -- incidentally, the company in charge of training the Iraqi police -- avoided trial on rape charges because of jurisdiction conflicts in the case. Unfortunately, not only is MEJA untested, it is also limited in scope. For example, it only covers civilians under contract by the Defense Department and is applicable only to U.S. citizens. It does not apply either contractors employed by the CIA or citizens of "third countries" -- as is the case with some of those named in the Taguba report.
Should the contractors be tried in U.S. court, they may still go free, if they can prove that they carried out government instruction as specified -- what is known as "government contractor defense" -- and thus are not liable for the consequences. The Supreme Court has upheld the "government contractor defense"in a product liability case, but it remains to be seen if it would apply beyond that.
Domestic and international law -- including the Geneva Conventions, to which U.S. is a signatory -- prohibit the use of torture. This is one big reason why the U.S. government has been insisting that what went Abu Ghraib did not amount to torture, though the allegations of rape, beatings, and possible homicide that occurred in that prison suggest otherwise. Bertrand Ramcharan, the United Nation's acting high commissioner for human rights told the New York Times that "willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment" violated international law and "might be designated as war crimes by a competent tribunal." However, the trial of U.S. citizens employed by the military, let alone that of military personnel, in third countries or international courts is something that the White House and Congress -- regardless of party loyalties of it members -- would refuse to comply with. Further, recently leaked Pentagon and Justice Department documents have argued that the U.S. was not bound by domestic and international law prohibiting the use of torture and claimed that the weight of a presidential order acts as a shield against possible criminal persecution.
Reasonable people can agree to disagree about whether the increasing privatization of the military is a good or bad thing. But the U.S. government has been all too willing to leave the responsibility for the screening of private contractors, including interrogators, to the companies themselves. This lack of oversight has resulted in the hiring of unqualified individuals, some with criminal pasts. There is also a strong case to be made that private contractors -- who are not part of the military chain of command and thus not subject to military law -- should not be allowed to perform such sensitive tasks as the interrogation of prisoners. However, even the most ardent proponents of outsourcing should be troubled by the loopholes in U.S. law that allow private civilians hired by the government to escape punishment for criminal acts committed overseas.
President Bush promised that the United States will not condone the abuse that went on at Abu Ghraib and that the "wrongdoers will be brought to justice." Government sources have mentioned at least two cases -- one in Iraq, one in Afghanistan -- in which contractors hired by the CIA may have committed murder. Last month, Representative Marty Meehan (D-MA) introduced the Contractor Accountability Act of 2004 that closes some of the loopholes that have allowed civilian contractors to avoid facing criminal and civil charges in U.S. courts -- legislation that Congress should pass and President Bush sign into law. The status quo whereby civilian contractors are getting away with -- not to say cashing in on -- criminal behavior must be put to an end.
-------- homeland security
Some in GOP Want Private Airport Screeners
May 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Shrinking-Security-Agency.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The anti-terrorism agency that Congress rushed into existence just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks to protect America's planes, trains and trucks is shrinking, and could all but fade away.
The Transportation Security Administration, which hired some 65,000 employees and has spent more than $10 billion over 3 1/2 years, has been beset by complaints about its performance, leaving it vulnerable to congressional Republicans who want to reduce the size of government.
After the terrorist attacks, ``people were panicked to put in place a massive bureaucracy,'' said House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica.
The Florida Republican says the time has come to rethink TSA and cut it back.
The federal air marshal program which places armed, undercover officers on select planes, already has been transferred elsewhere within the Department of Homeland Security, for instance. Also, TSA has cut its work force of passenger and baggage screeners -- who make up the bulk of its employees -- from 60,000 to 45,000.
Mica and other Republicans, who were never entirely comfortable with creating a new bureaucracy, want to return all airport security screener jobs to the private sector, where they were before Sept. 11, 2001. If so, the federal screeners would get the first opportunity to apply for the private jobs.
Mica argues that private companies will do a better, more efficient job at the screening that currently is the TSA's primary function.
``They were given almost an impossible task, and they did complete the task Congress requested,'' Mica said of the TSA. ``Now the question comes to sheer numbers and performance, and there's a lot to be desired.''
Mica plans to meet with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge soon to talk about reorganizing TSA.
The law creating the Homeland Security Department has a sunset provision for the transportation security office. It says the TSA has only to be maintained as a distinct entity until November 2004.
TSA Deputy Administrator Stephen McHale said he wasn't aware of any plans to change the agency's status as a separate entity. But, he acknowledged recently, ``I'm not saying such a plan won't develop.''
But many Democrats believe the federal agency is needed to protect travelers. They say Republicans set it up to fail by refusing to give it enough money.
``I helped to create TSA, which is now being disassembled,'' said Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, ranking Democrat on the aviation subcommittee.
The TSA started from nothing and grew quickly as part of the Transportation Department. It was incorporated into the Homeland Security Department when that Cabinet-level agency was formed as a result of separate legislation early last year.
The law creating TSA gave airports the choice of returning to privately employed screeners to check passengers and bags as of Nov. 19. An estimated 100 airports, out of 445 with TSA screeners, already have expressed interest in taking advantage of that option this fall.
Some think that would be better for fliers. Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, expects private contractors to put ``more focus on customer service and civility.''
Brian Jenkins, a special adviser to the Rand Corp. thinktank, said he wouldn't be surprised if the TSA disappears. He said many lawmakers were not enthusiastic about creating TSA but voted for it because of the pressure to do so soon after the attacks.
``Opposition was translated into mechanisms that would enable them to go back and dismantle it later on,'' Jenkins said.
Recent reports by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general and the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, showed that passenger and baggage screening remains lax despite the TSA's efforts.
Still, Democrats say private screeners will do worse and have pledged to fight for TSA.
``We will not go back to the days of private screeners,'' vowed Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
In the meantime, other TSA responsibilities are being whittled away -- its grant-giving authority was transferred and its research and development functions will be consolidated elsewhere within the Department of Homeland Security.
Though Congress originally charged the agency with protecting all modes of transportation, it has done little beyond aviation. A full 98 percent of its $5.3 billion budget request for next year is devoted to air transport.
Mica sees TSA's future as a limited agency that retains influence over the air security system.
``The TSA should set policy, do oversight, conduct audits, possibly do background checks,'' he said.
On the Net:
Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov
Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov
--------
Total Information Awareness II?
Editorial
A St. Petersburg (Florida) Times
May 31, 2004
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/31/Opinion/Total_Information_Awa.shtml
It is time for Gov. Jeb Bush and the federal government to provide solid privacy assurances to the public before continuing to use a computer database that was sold as a tool for criminal investigations but could be used as a back-door effort at data-mining for terrorist suspects.
The system known as the Matrix - which stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange - was built by Seisint, Inc., a Florida-based company, and presented as an innocuous time-saving tool for local law enforcement. When it was launched, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement asserted that the Matrix database was merely a collection of public records that would ease investigations of particular crimes and suspects. The program was to be state-driven with some federal funding; and repeated assurances were made by the FDLE that the powerful database would not resemble Total Information Awareness, the data-mining program shut down by Congress last year due to privacy concerns.
Data-mining is an untested idea that uses algorithms applied to massive amounts of data on the general public. Patterns are then analyzed to try and tease out potential terrorists. When the Pentagon launched TIA, the program came under sharp attack for seeking to aggregate commercial and government records that would scrutinize the lives of innocent people. The program would have made every person in the country a potential suspect. After Congress cut off funding for TIA, the program died, but according to a new General Accounting Office report some federal agencies have been experimenting with alternative data-mining programs for terror suspects.
Records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Associated Press point to the very real possibility that the Matrix also has the potential to be a recreation of TIA. It is known that at one point that a precursor to the system was used for data-mining terrorist suspects. Seisint turned over the resulting 120,000 names - people the company claimed had a high terrorism quotient after being run through the system's terrorism scoring system - to federal and Florida law enforcement authorities. These suspects were "unearthed" after analyzing data on age and gender, pilot and drivers' licenses, ethnicity and investigation records, among other factors.
Mark Zadra, chief of investigation for the FDLE, claims that the terrorism scoring algorithm is not operational and is not part of the Matrix system used by Florida. But as recently as last year Gov. Bush was promoting the Matrix's data-mining capabilities and anti-terrorism potential to Vice President Dick Cheney. The meeting in January 2003 was an attempt to get Cheney's support for more federal funding. Bush has also been a leader in trying to enlist other states to join the Matrix.
There is another reason to be concerned that pattern analysis data-mining may at some point become a central feature of the Matrix. In July 2003, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness granted $8-million for the expansion and operation of the Matrix. In exchange, the office was afforded direct administrative control over the program.
Suspicion of the Matrix has been spawned by a general lack of forthrightness by public officials. These suspicions have led Utah and at least eight other states to pull out of the program. If Florida is going to continue to participate, formal constraints should be established relative to the kinds of data that may be used, how it may be used and for what purpose. Zadra says that every Matrix transaction is logged. Those logs should be publicly available within a reasonable period of time. The Matrix can easily be turned into a highly invasive system and a TIA clone. Accountability, transparency and privacy protections should be established before harms occur.
-------- immigration / refugees
Gaps Seen in 'Virtual Border' Security System
May 31, 2004
By JOHN MARKOFF and ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/technology/31security.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Computer scientists and engineers are raising questions about a government plan to create a multibillion-dollar computer system of "virtual borders" intended to identify would-be terrorists entering the United States.
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security plans to announce the award of a contract to extend the reach of its program, called U.S.-Visit, to permit the Customs service to capture fingerprints and other profile information on hundreds of millions of people who enter or leave the United States each year.
The system, which investigators estimate could cost as much as $15 billion over 10 years, is intended to help officials determine who should be prohibited from entering the country, to identify visitors who have overstayed or violated the terms of their admission, and to help law enforcement agencies track those who should be detained.
Supporters of the system argue that the database would have provided the means to apprehend some of the Sept. 11 terrorists who were known to the F.B.I., but, they say, could not be located before the attack.
The critics include some computer scientists and technologists, who maintain that the government has had a bad record in building computerized systems based on unproved technology. "All you have to do is look at the track record of other government agencies," said Willis H. Ware, a scientist at the RAND Corporation and a computer industry pioneer. The Internal Revenue Service, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration have all fumbled large projects, he said.
The system will capture biometric data, like fingerprints, photographs and voiceprints, at 211 visa-issuing posts overseas beginning in October. It is intended as an early warning, providing customs and border officials instant access to a web of databases storing intelligence and law enforcement watch lists, profile data and information from foreign governments.
Computer scientists and security experts said that the problem facing border officials was in many ways similar to some of those faced by designers of antiballistic missile defenses. Despite decades of development work, antimissile systems cannot reliably detect and home in on enemy missiles that may be hidden in clouds of decoys.
Similarly, border control systems might detect individuals who appear in law enforcement or intelligence databases but provide little protection against attackers not yet known to the government.
"Trying to do some of these things is just beyond what we are able to do," said Nancy Levison, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist who is an expert in complex systems and safety issues. "Look how long it took to get the baggage system at the new Denver airport to work."
Moreover, critics said the Department of Homeland Security had given the three contractors who are bidding on the project - Accenture, Lockheed Martin and the Computer Sciences Corporation - wide latitude in specifying the technology and capabilities of the U.S.-Visit system. In the past, government contracts for unproved technologies that were poorly defined have frequently been saddled with problems and led to big cost overruns.
"The government doesn't know how to buy software," said Barbara Corn, a retired software engineer who has served on NASA advisory panels. "They never have the requirements nailed down." A Homeland Security Department spokesman, Dennis Murphy, replied that the initial phase of the U.S.-Visit project had come in on time and under budget. "It's not just theoretical now," Mr. Murphy said. "We know how the system works."
While acknowledging that it was almost impossible to catch terrorists without previous records or matching intelligence data, he said the system was intended to minimize the risk. "There is an enormous intelligence-gathering capability worldwide," Mr. Murphy added, "and we're working with partners around the world to feed information into our systems."
Accenture said its approach had been proved in other contracts like a project for the Defense Logistics Agency, where it had established that it could save tax money. "We have proven out the return on investment," said Eric Sting, project leader on Accenture's bid for the U.S.-Visit system. "We think there is a very compelling business rationale."
In addition to concerns about program management, several computer security experts warned that even if a system worked it might not justify the investment.
This point was first raised by the General Accounting Office in October 2002 in a review of the state of biometric identification techniques. It examined seven technologies that might be used for border control, including facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, hand geometry, iris recognition, retina recognition, signature recognition and speaker recognition. The agency estimated that such a system might cost $1.3 billion to $2.9 billion and then $700 million to $1.5 billion a year to operate.
"Whether the financial and nonfinancial costs are warranted by the benefits of greater security is a policy issue that should be determined before biometric technologies are implemented in a border control system," the report concluded.
A supplier of biometric equipment has also raised questions. VAS International, an Atlanta company that specializes in voice-recognition technology, has been lobbying in Washington against the way that biometrics have been used in some projects, saying it led to false positives and negatives.
The company noted the failure of the matrícula consular card issued by Mexico, which is supposed to be secure. Arrests of illegal aliens have turned up repeated cases of people with more than one forged card.
"U.S.-Visit isn't really designed to keep the terrorists out," said Marc E. Nolan, president of VAS International, which has sent a report to Congressional officials about what the company regards as drawbacks in the program.
He argued that restricting it to facial recognition - which has run into problems in some tests - or to other individual methods could cause problems because there are no strict standards in place. "To have one be the panacea for all of them isn't going to work," he said, adding that a varied approach was needed.
Critics also challenge the value of the basic goal of real-time ability for the system. Although this means that data would be immediately available on central control and border inspection computers, military analysts say there is a risk in coping with the vast amount of information that would be uncovered by a real-time tracking system.
"What the designers may have missed is the cost of false positives and false negatives in this kind of system," said Michael Schrage, a research associate at the M.I.T. Security Studies Program, who is concerned that so many alerts would be generated that it would be impossible to keep up with the deluge. "The whole notion of defining this problem as real time may be the challenge," he said. "What are the trade-offs?"
The Homeland Security Department's spokesman, Mr. Murphy, said that from experience so far, false positives would not be a major problem. He acknowledged that "one of the big issues with any big project like this is false positives." But the agency, he said, had processed more than four million travelers since January using photos and prints, and the false positive rate was less than one-tenth of 1 percent.
Several computer scientists also raised questions about the prospects for success of a project that had not been adequately tested.
"The real question," said Gordon Bell, a Microsoft computer researcher and former official at the National Science Foundation, "is how much homework have they done. They should have been running tests two years ago. When you build a big system, the key thing is to run some small experiments first."
-------- police
Police Access to Federal Files Questioned
May 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terrorism-Sharing-Info.html
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Civil-liberties groups are voicing concerns over a first-in-the-nation system giving local police in New York and Vermont instant access to federal files on terrorism.
Critics of the pilot program caution that it poses an ``enormous risk'' of arrest and detention of people without cause. However, officials announcing the new information-sharing system last week emphasized that civil liberties will be protected.
``It's a very dangerous assumption that just because the information is in the system, it's right,'' said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. ``In the drive to collect data and share it, there has been a neglect of the safeguards that are absolutely essential to protect us from the misuse of information.''
The system will allow state and local police to check 12 databases maintained by federal agencies, and provide officers with a direct line to federal agents to report suspicious activities.
If a police officer has reason to believe a person might be involved in terror-related activities, state officials with security clearance will share data with their counterparts at federal agencies in Washington. The procedure is designed to keep sensitive information from becoming public.
In announcing the system last week, FBI and state officials said they would like to see the program expanded nationally if it succeeds in New York and Vermont.
``After all, that's what the war on terror is all about -- to preserve the freedom and liberty that is so important to the American people,'' Vermont Gov. James Douglas said. ``We're going to be sure as this pilot project unfolds it will be sure to protect the civil liberties that we all cherish.''
Jonathan Gradess, executive director of the New York State Defenders Association, said he is worried the flow of information will add unsubstantiated reports to federal databases.
``The major flaw in the program rests on its major purpose,'' Gradess said. ``Its major purpose is to put every scrap of information into the system on the assumption that it may somehow be relevant.''
James McMahon, head of New York's homeland security office, said baseless inquiries made into the databases would ``disappear'' without record.
For example, McMahon said, it would be impossible to enter the names of everyone pulled over for speeding in New York.
``You're talking about 3.5 million people,'' said McMahon, former New York state police superintendent. ``Most of those people are just honest people who can't drive the speed limit.''
Officers' decisions to report information or inquire about a check to the data-sharing center will be judged on an ``investigative'' basis, McMahon said.
Gradess questioned whether a police officer stopping a person with an Arab-sounding name for a traffic violation would not automatically try to run the name through the federal databases.
``Nobody wants to make a mistake, so there is sort of permission to err on the side of overkill,'' he said.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Brazil: Police rounding up escaped cons
May. 31, 2004
Sao Paulo, (UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040531-020816-8286r.htm
Brazilian police have recaptured 67 prison inmates following a massive pre-dawn escape Monday from a facility in the south of Sao Paulo.
According to Agencia Estado news agency, a group of six men armed with machine guns overpowered prison guards and forcing them to open cells containing 188 prisoners.
Up to 150 men escaped, reported Estado, though other sources say closer to 90 inmates in all fled the prison.
The gunmen were reportedly attempting to free Ricardo Ferreira who was arrested earlier this month for stealing a car and shooting at police. Ferreira and his six machinegun-toting liberators are still at large, said police officials.
The mass escape in Sao Paulo follows a weekend of upheaval at a Rio prison where inmates took more than two dozen people hostage, killing one guard on Sunday as he tried to flee.
--------
Terror Suspects Beating Charges Filed in Europe
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3150-2004May30?language=printer
BERLIN -- The defendant, a Tunisian man with a bushy beard, sits inside a bulletproof glass box in the courtroom. Since his arrest more than a year ago, German authorities have declared the suspect, Ihsan Garnaoui, to be a terrorist and a threat to national security, a man who plotted attacks against U.S. and Jewish targets here.
But since his trial began earlier this month, prosecutors have struggled to make their accusations stick. Witnesses for the state have displayed shaky memories. Security officials have refused to allow two confidential informants to take the stand. And a key police report is missing.
The evidence has been so thin that prosecutors have been unable to provide basic details of the attacks Garnaoui was allegedly planning, such as where they would take place or who else was involved. One of the defendant's attorneys, Michael Rosenthal, wears a happy grin in court and confidently predicts an acquittal. "There's nothing there," he said.
The trial already bears the hallmarks of many other failed terrorism prosecutions across Europe that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. European governments have rounded up hundreds of suspects, claiming to disrupt numerous spectacular attacks in the making, only to see the cases collapse months or years later in the courts.
Officials say that difficulties in investigating secretive terror cells, limited cooperation from intelligence agencies and judicial safeguards of defendants' rights have all contributed to this outcome. Muslim spokesmen and civil liberties groups say that police and prosecutors under intense pressure for results often simply go after the wrong people.
European governments have deeply criticized the Bush administration's decision to keep hundreds of terrorism suspects out of the civilian judicial system and put them instead in the custody of U.S. military or intelligence agencies in places such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Such tactics are gross human rights violations, many officials here say. But their own approach has produced few convictions.
In Italy, nine Moroccans who had been held for more than two years on charges of conspiring to poison the water supply of the U.S. Embassy in Rome were acquitted last month after prosecutors admitted they lacked evidence against most of the defendants. Two days later, in a separate trial, three Egyptians were cleared of charges that they intended to bomb Rome's Fiumicino Airport and an American military cemetery.
Those verdicts followed a bungled case last year in which 28 Pakistani men in Naples were exonerated of police claims that they were involved in a convoluted plot with al Qaeda and the Mafia to assassinate a British admiral. "The reports are completely exaggerated and they create the impression that there is a threat when there isn't one," said Homza Roberto Piccardo, national secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy. "Muslims come to Italy thinking there is legitimate law enforcement, but those expectations are immediately betrayed."
In Spain, a magistrate in charge of investigating terrorism has indicted dozens of people linked to the Sept. 11 hijackings, but has yet to convict any of them on those charges. In the Netherlands, prosecutors have lost two major terrorism cases, including an alleged conspiracy to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris, after judges ruled that evidence obtained by spy agencies was inadmissible in court.
France and Britain have some of the toughest anti-terrorism laws in Europe, enabling them to detain suspects for lengthy periods without trial. But they, too, have had difficulty achieving convictions.
In Britain, 544 people were arrested under anti-terrorist legislation between Sept. 11, 2001, and this January, according to figures provided to Parliament. Total convicted so far: six.
Barry Hugill, a spokesman for Liberty, a British civil liberties group, said authorities could not blame the outcomes on legal technicalities or sympathetic judges. "Given the current climate, the current fear of terrorist attack, getting convictions would not be difficult if there's even a shred of evidence," he said.
In some cases, police or security agencies are quick to make arrests based on rumor or misinterpreted intelligence, as in the case of 10 people arrested last month on suspicion of planning to blow up the stadium of the Manchester United soccer team.
The suspects were released a week later, after authorities determined they were simply sports fans, not Islamic fanatics. "Anyone who just accepts without question what the security services say, we think is very, very naive," Hugill added.
At the same time, European authorities have been less aggressive than American investigators in the pursuit of some well-known radicals.
U.S. officials unsealed a federal grand jury indictment last week against Abu Hamza Masri, a radical London cleric, accusing him of orchestrating a hostage-taking plot in Yemen, among other crimes. The case involved the 1998 kidnapping of 16 Western tourists, a dozen of whom were British.
British officials have long considered Hamza a public menace because of his outspoken support for al Qaeda and have sought to strip him of his citizenship, possibly so he could be deported. But they have never been able to develop a criminal case against him, or to take him into custody until last week. And that was only in response to a U.S. request for his extradition.
On Friday, British Home Secretary David Blunkett said U.S. officials had simply been able to assemble more evidence against Hamza. "If we had that evidence and it related to our country," Blunkett told BBC radio, "we would have been able to take action through our courts."
In Germany, where the government estimates that more than 30,000 people belong to radical Islamic groups, the biggest targets have similarly remained beyond the reach of the law.
A German court last year did convict a Moroccan man, Mounir Motassadeq, of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder for aiding the Hamburg al Qaeda cell that carried out the Sept. 11 hijackings. But that verdict was overturned in March by federal appellate judges, who ruled that he was denied a fair trial and deserved a new one. Another alleged 9/11 accomplice, Abdelghani Mzoudi, was acquitted outright in February.
In the Motassadeq case, the appellate court threw out the verdict in part because U.S. officials would not allow testimony or interrogation transcripts from Ramzi Binalshibh, an al Qaeda leader and accused ringleader of the Sept. 11 plot. The defendant's lawyers had argued that Binalshibh could have verified that their client was unaware of the hijackers' plans.
As a result, some Germans have blamed the United States for the outcome of the case and the fact that Motassadeq remains a free man.
"We have a huge problem with the behavior of the U.S. authorities," said Ulrich von Jeinsen, an attorney representing Americans who lost family members in the Sept. 11 attacks. "It is a question to the American side: What are they willing to give us? It is simple and easy. We will have a reluctance [to pursue other cases in court] unless we have an exchange of cooperation among intelligence services."
Some legal experts, however, said German prosecutors and intelligence agencies should be held at least equally accountable. Christoph Safferling, a criminal law professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said the appellate judges wanted to send a signal that the German judiciary should be more skeptical of evidence in future terrorism cases.
"When you read the decision handed down, it is in some passages quite angry," Safferling said, referring to the overturning of the Motassadeq verdict. "It is quite angry that this person was convicted on such weak evidence, and also very angry with the intelligence services' [lack of] cooperation."
"The prosecutor was not well prepared in this case," he added. "They were relying on a lot of assumptions and hypotheses but couldn't prove them. I think they were under political pressure. I think if the prosecutor had really thought about it, maybe he wouldn't have indicted in the first place."
Public sentiment is building to change laws in an attempt to bolster security. An April poll by the Allensbach Institute found that 57 percent of Germans surveyed feared that there would be terrorist attacks in the country in the near future, the highest level recorded by the firm since shortly after the Sept. 11 hijackings.
Last week, after years of debate, German political leaders reached a compromise on a new immigration policy that among other things will make it easier for the government to deport terrorism suspects and keep them under closer surveillance.
"It needs to be possible to remove these people from Germany," said Reinhard Grindel, a member of the German Parliament from the opposition Christian Democrats. "There were holes in the laws here, and [the new immigration law] will now close them. The political consequence is that these people will no longer be able to stay in Germany."
But some scholars said it was unlikely that Germany would take stronger steps to expand police powers or allow indefinite detentions, in view of memories of Nazi rule and the Gestapo.
Special correspondents Shannon Smiley in Berlin and Stacy Meichtry in Rome contributed to this report.
-------- POLITICS
-------- propaganda wars
From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity
Scholars Say Campaign Is Making History With Often-Misleading Attacks
By Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3222-2004May30?language=printer
It was a typical week in the life of the Bush reelection machine.
Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all" and said the senator from Massachusetts "promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office."
On Tuesday, President Bush's campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.
The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.
On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.
The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.
Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.
Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush's campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads -- or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate. The assault on Kerry is multi-tiered: It involves television ads, news releases, Web sites and e-mail, and statements by Bush spokesmen and surrogates -- all coordinated to drive home the message that Kerry has equivocated and "flip-flopped" on Iraq, support for the military, taxes, education and other matters.
"There is more attack now on the Bush side against Kerry than you've historically had in the general-election period against either candidate," said University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an authority on political communication. "This is a very high level of attack, particularly for an incumbent."
Brown University professor Darrell West, author of a book on political advertising, said Bush's level of negative advertising is already higher than the levels reached in the 2000, 1996 and 1992 campaigns. And because campaigns typically become more negative as the election nears, "I'm anticipating it's going to be the most negative campaign ever," eclipsing 1988, West said. "If you compare the early stage of campaigns, virtually none of the early ads were negative, even in '88."
In terms of the magnitude of the distortions, those who study political discourse say Bush's are no worse than those that have been done since, as Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar put it, "the beginning of time."
Kerry, too, has made his own misleading statements and exaggerations. For example, he said in a speech last week about Iraq: "They have gone it alone when they should have assembled a whole team." That is not true. There are about 25,000 allied troops from several nations, particularly Britain, in Iraq. Likewise, Kerry said several times last week that Bush has spent $80 million on negative and misleading ads -- a significant overstatement. Kerry also suggested several times last week that Bush opposed increasing spending on several homeland defense programs; in fact, Bush has proposed big increases in homeland security but opposed some Democratic attempts to increase spending even more in some areas. Kerry's rhetoric at rallies is also often much harsher and more personal than Bush's.
But Bush has outdone Kerry in the number of untruths, in part because Bush has leveled so many specific charges (and Kerry has such a lengthy voting record), but also because Kerry has learned from the troubles caused by Al Gore's misstatements in 2000. "The balance of misleading claims tips to Bush," Jamieson said, "in part because the Kerry team has been more careful."
Attacks Get Early Start The attacks have started unusually early -- even considering the accelerated primary calendar -- in part because Bush was responding to a slew of attacks on his record during the Democratic primaries, in which the rivals criticized him more than one another. And because the Bush campaign has spent an unprecedented sum on advertising at this early stage of the campaign, "the average voter is getting a much more negative impression," said Ken Goldstein, who tracks political advertising at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
From the president and Cheney down to media aides stationed in every battleground state and volunteers who dress up like Flipper the flip-flopping dolphin at rallies, the Bush campaign relentlessly portrays Kerry as elitist, untrustworthy, liberal and a flip-flopper on major issues. This campaign is persistent and methodical, and it often revs up on Monday mornings with the strategically timed release of ads or damaging attacks on Kerry, including questioning medical and service records in Vietnam and his involvement in the peace movement afterward. Often, they knock Kerry off message and force him to deflect personal questions.
Sometimes the charges ring true. Last week, Kerry told NBC: "I'm for the Patriot Act, but I'm not for the Patriot Act the way they abuse the Constitution." That brought to mind Kerry's much-mocked contention in March on Iraq spending: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
But often they distort Kerry's record and words to undermine the candidate or reinforce negative perceptions of him.
One constant theme of the Bush campaign is that Kerry is "playing politics" with Iraq, terrorism and national security. Earlier this month, Bush-Cheney Chairman Marc Racicot told reporters in a conference call that Kerry suggested in a speech that 150,000 U.S. troops are "universally responsible" for the misdeeds of a few soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison -- a statement the candidate never made. In that one call, Racicot made at least three variations of this claim and the campaign cut off a reporter who challenged him on it.
In early March, Bush charged that Kerry had proposed a $1.5 billion cut in the intelligence budget that would "gut the intelligence services." Kerry did propose such a cut in 1995, but it amounted to about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget and was smaller than the $3.8 billion cut the Republican-led Congress approved for the same program Kerry was targeting.
The campaign ads, which are most scrutinized, have produced a torrent of misstatements. On March 11, the Bush team released a spot saying that in his first 100 days in office Kerry would "raise taxes by at least $900 billion." Kerry has said no such thing; the number was developed by the Bush campaign's calculations of Kerry's proposals.
On March 30, the Bush team released an ad noting that Kerry "supported a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax" and saying, "If Kerry's tax increase were law, the average family would pay $657 more a year." But Kerry opposes an increase in the gasoline tax. The ad is based on a 10-year-old newspaper quotation of Kerry but implies that the proposal is current.
Other Bush claims, though misleading, are rooted in facts. For example, Cheney's claim in almost every speech that Kerry "has voted some 350 times for higher taxes" includes any vote in which Kerry voted to leave taxes unchanged or supported a smaller tax cut than some favored.
Stretching the Truth
Incumbent presidents often prefer to run on their records in office, juxtaposing upbeat messages with negative shots at their opponents, as Bill Clinton did in 1996.
Scott Reed, who ran Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign that year, said the Bush campaign has little choice but to deliver a constant stream of such negative charges. With low poll numbers and a volatile situation in Iraq, Bush has more hope of tarnishing Kerry's image than promoting his own.
"The Bush campaign is faced with the hard, true fact that they have to keep their boot on his neck and define him on their terms," Reed said. That might risk alienating some moderate voters or depressing turnout, "but they don't have a choice," he said.
The strategy was in full operation last week, beginning Monday in Arkansas. "Senator Kerry," Cheney said, "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all. He said, quote, 'I don't want to use that terminology.' In his view, opposing terrorism is far less of a military operation and more of a law enforcement operation."
But Kerry did not say what Cheney attributes to him. The quote Cheney used came from a March interview with the New York Times, in which Kerry used the phrase "war on terror." When he said "I don't want to use that terminology," he was discussing the "economic transformation" of the Middle East -- not the war on terrorism.
On Tuesday, the Bush campaign held a conference call to discuss its new ad, which charged that Kerry was "pressured by fellow liberals" to oppose wiretaps, subpoena powers and surveillance in the USA Patriot Act. "Kerry would now repeal the Patriot Act's use of these tools against terrorists," the ad said.
Kerry has proposed modifying those provisions by mandating tougher judicial controls over wiretaps and subpoenas, but not repealing them. In the conference call, Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman was prodded to offer evidence that Kerry was pressured by liberals or that Kerry opposed wiretaps. He offered no direct evidence, saying only that Kerry objected to the Patriot Act after liberals did, and that "a common-sense reading indicates he intends to repeal those important tools."
Meanwhile, Kerry was greeted in Oregon and Washington state with television ads paid for by the Bush campaign that underscore what ad analysts call the negativity and misleading nature of many of the Bush TV spots. One titled "Doublespeak" pulls quotes from several major newspapers to argue that Kerry has waffled on major issues and has often said one thing and done another. The quotes, however, are often from editorials, sometimes from opinion pages hostile toward Kerry, such as that of the Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, as Kerry talked about rising gasoline prices, the Bush campaign recycled its charge that Kerry supports raising the gasoline tax by 50 cents per gallon. This was done in a memo to reporters and through Bush surrogates such as Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.). The Bush-Cheney Web site also features a "Kerry Gas Tax Calculator," allowing users to learn "How much more would he cost you?"
In Thursday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tracey Schmitt, regional spokeswoman for Bush-Cheney '04, echoed the point: "John Kerry helped block the bill in the Senate and is now inserting himself into the debate in a blatant display of political opportunism. Senator Kerry supported higher gas taxes at least 11 times, including a 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax," Schmitt said.
On Thursday, after Kerry delivered a major foreign policy address, the Bush campaign dispatched Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to make this statement to the Green Bay Press-Gazette in his home state: "John Kerry has a history of making proposals and casting votes that would decrease America's safety." Kerry was campaigning in Green Bay on Thursday and Friday.
It is true Kerry has voted numerous times to eliminate weapons systems and opposed the 1991 Iraq war. But Cheney voted against many of those same weapons systems, and Kerry has voted for several defense increases, especially in recent years.
At Bush campaign headquarters on Thursday, Mehlman held a conference call with Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and George Allen (R-Va.) to level similar charges. "For John Kerry, the war in Iraq and the overall war on terror are a political game of Twister," Mehlman said.
Mehlman also drew reporters' attention to a new feature on the Bush Web site, allowing visitors to "Track Kerry's Shifting Positions on Iraq." That feature joined a Web log that points out negative coverage of Kerry, a feature called "John Kerry: The Raw Deal," "The Kerry Line," "Kerry Flip Flop of the Day," and "Journeys with John," a Kerry itinerary allowing people to see why "John Kerry is wrong for your state."
On Wednesday, a Bush memo charged that Kerry "led the fight against creating the Department of Homeland Security." While Kerry did vote against the Bush version multiple times, it is not true that he led the fight, but rather was one of several Democrats who held out for different labor agreements as part of its creation. Left unsaid is that, in the final vote, Kerry supported the department -- which Bush initially opposed.
Staff writer Howard Kurtz contributed to this report.
-------- us politics
Kerry Criticizes Bush's Military Policy
May 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Kerry.html
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) -- Democrat John Kerry ventured in to Republican leaning Virginia on Monday with a Memorial Day pitch targeting military families and a charge that President Bush ``didn't learn the lessons of our generation in Vietnam.''
Kerry joined Virginia Gov. Mark Warner for a Memorial Day parade in Portsmouth, home to naval shipyards and other big military installations, and later promised he could get American troops home from Iraq sooner than Bush would.
``I believe I can lead us out of Iraq effectively by accomplishing goals we need to accomplish but without putting our troops at greater risk,'' he said
Kerry flashed a big grin at one local fan carrying a sign promoting no CARB diet-- no Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld or Bush.
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt, shot back: ``John Kerry never misses an opportunity to deliver a political attack. Sadly, that even seems to include Memorial Day, a day of remembrance that should be above politics.''
The Kerry campaign is displaying new interest in Virginia, hardly typical territory for a Democratic presidential candidate.
``I don't care what's usual or not usual'' Kerry said. ``We are going after a lot of places this year.''
Kerry offered himself as a ``Navy guy'' and promised a Kerry administration would ``do better'' by veterans and military personnel than has Bush.
``I think this administration has overextended our military'' he said in an interview with a local TV station.
``It has turned the Guard and Reserve into almost active duty. ... even while they are creating more veterans, they are not taking care of the veterans we have the way they ought to be'' he said.
Kerry's campaign accused Bush of planning budget cuts that would devastate programs for veterans, women, children and homeland security -- and yet do little to reduce the nation's deficit.
A campaign statement and the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, cited recently disclosed Bush administration memos to officials who oversee the programs.
The documents, which have been previously detailed in news stories, ask the officials to prepare preliminary 2006 budgets that would cut spending after the presidential election.
The among the agencies targeted is the Veterans Affairs Department whose budget would be slashed by 3.4 percent, or about $1 billion, to $28.7 billion.
The White House Office of Management and Budget said the documents were routine procedural guidelines so officials could start gathering data about their needs for 2006 spending and not necessarily reflect the final budget blueprint.
Spratt said in an interview the administration has a predicament, because the president promised to cut the deficit in half by 2009, while making tax cuts permanent and adding additional tax reductions.
``He has to bolster homeland security and he's got a huge bill for his military and international affairs agenda,'' said Spratt. ``...The budget can't be balanced out of nondiscretionary defense spending alone.''
Spratt, who called a reporter at the Kerry campaign's request, said the cuts won't be popular, ``so the administration doesn't want to bring them out in open daylight.''
Spratt said the administration also is planning to cut two mandatory programs: one that provides nutritious food for poor women, infants and children and the popular Head Start preschool program.
While Virginia is widely expected to be a strong state for Bush, Warner said Kerry shouldn't be counted out.
Democrats have made recent inroads in the state legislature and he said Kerry should have appeal among high-tech voters in northern Virginia, military families in the Hampton Roads area and even among textile, tobacco and other workers in southern Virginia -- people coping with a changing economy.
His ``message of economic revival will do very well'' in Virginia, said the governor.
Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, began his day with a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial , where he crouched to slowly rub his thumb over one of the newest names to be added.
``So young,'' Kerry mused as he looked at a photograph of William Bronson, who died in 1976 from a seizure caused by a head wound he received in combat eight years earlier.
The Massachusetts senator worked with the Navy to have Bronson's name added to the wall-- panel 52, line 46. Kerry was joined by Bronson's mother, Barbara, and other family members as he surveyed the new names.
----
Hawaii Democrats in Tune with Kerry, Dean on Environment
By Sunny Lewis
HONOLULU, Hawaii, (ENS)
May 31, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2004/2004-05-31-01.asp
This is the season when state political parties gather to choose the delegates they will send to the national political conventions - to the Democratic convention July 26 to 29 in Boston, or to the Republican convention August 30 to September 2 in New York. Since the choice of Presidential contenders already has been decided, it falls to the stars of each party to energize the party faithful who will get out the vote for the November 2 election.
At the Hawaii Democratic Convention on Saturday, former governor of Vermont Howard Dean, M.D., got the delegates up on their feet and applauding time and time again - against the Iraq war, for veterans' benefits, for universal health insurance, and for environmental protection linked to fair trade.
Dean lost the Democratic presidential nomination to John Kerry earlier this year, but he is out on the campaign trail raising support for Kerry now.
"Who do you think is going to stand up for ordinary working people in this country? George Bush or John Kerry? My vote's with John Kerry," he declared, to a standing ovation.
"We need to strengthen the hand of organized labor in this country so that organized labor can stand up for their people and make work pay again," said Dean, tying organized labor to environmental protection.
"I'm tired of the middle class taking it on the chin in this country, I'm tired of exporting our best paying jobs all over the world. If you want trade, let's have trade, but let it be trade with human rights standards, trade with environmental standards, and trade with decency and respect not just for the workers of America, but for the workers all over the world," Dean told the applauding delegates.
To Dean, fair trade means that "you can't dump your industrial byproducts in the river in one country if you can't do it in the United States."
"Right now," he said, "we're essentially paying a subsidy to businesses to move offshore because they know they don't have to comply with environmental regulations. That isn't good for America. It's not good for our workers, it's not good for Mexican workers, it's not good for Chinese workers."
Calling the capitalist system, "the greatest system that man has ever designed in order to take advantage of all our energies to be productive," Dean said the role of government is to make sure that "the excesses" of capitalism "are controlled and contained so that all of us benefit."
His example was environmental - the mad cow disease crisis that erupted last December when a single cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, was discovered in Washington state in a cow believed to be non-ambulatory - a downer. Some 50 countries banned beef imports from the United States, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is still struggling to reopen those markets and reassure the world that U.S. beef is safe to eat.
"Three months before the mad cow disease was discovered," Dean told the crowd, "the beef industry prevailed on the President to kill an amendment by Senator [Tom] Harkin from Iowa, that said there wouldn't be any downer cows allowed in the food supply."
The beef industry fought it on that basis that the amendment was unnecessary regulation, which they saw as a big problem," Dean explained. "The price they paid was $4.5 billion in profits. The price their employees paid is their work weeks went from 60 hours a week to 15. The price that small beef farmers paid is that they couldn't sell their products any more. It was a disaster," he said.
Dean made it clear that Democrats stand for some governmental regulation, but not "too much."
"We understand that too much regulation's a bad thing, but that doesn't mean we ought not to have any," he said. "Some regulation helps save workers lives, helps the working people make their fair share, and most importantly of all, it sends a strong message that the government's job is to make sure that everybody benefits from the extraordinary success of capitalism, not just people who make $45 million a year running those corporations."
In Hawaii, a long-time Democratic state that elected a Republican governor, Linda Lingle, in 2002, rousing the party faithful is what it will take to keep the state in the Democrat camp.
Mazie Hirono, the former Democratic Lieutenant Governor who Lingle defeated for the governorship, told ENS that both Hawaii and the United States need a more environmentally committed President.
Hirono said she expects "an environmental ethic will permeate the White House," if Kerry is elected.
"The Bush administration's environmental record is awful," said Hirono, pointing to the President's support of drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and clearcut logging in the national forests.
Under a Kerry administration, we will see a move toward energy self-sufficiency, Hirono said. "Hawaii is the most oil dependent state, with about 99 percent of our energy coming from imported fossil fuels. Kerry will focus on alternate energy sources," she said, and that would be in Hawaii's best interest.
Dean says the Democrats in the Kerry camp are enthusiastic about renewable energy. In an interview after his speech, Dean told ENS, " Renewable energy is the best environmental issue that we can talk about. It encompasses jobs, defense policy and reduction of global warming."
"Kerry has an excellent renewable energy program," Dean said. "I came to know it very well from the many debates we had. It's about a substantial increase in renewables and dramatic reduction in the use of fossil fuels - using wind, solar, other renewables. That creates jobs, it reduces greenhouse gases, but it also is great for defense."
"Our oil money goes to the Middle East and some of it is diverted to terrorists and terrorist groups, and that's obviously not good for the United States," said Dean. "I think the President completely doesn't get that renewable energy policy is also a good anti-terrorist policy."
Questioned about the administration's hydrogen fuel cell policy, Dean was contemptuous. "That's blather on the administration's part," he said. "I almost threw up when George Bush put that in his address a year and half ago. He knows very well that technology is not going to be marketable for the next 10 years. The only reason they put that in the speech is to avoid having to do anything else about renewable energy for the remainder of his time in office, which I hope will be confined to the next seven months."
As a medical doctor, Dean sees environmental issues as health issues. "We've seen skyrocketing rates of asthma directly tied to pollution in the cities, partly because of the internal combustion engine."
Dean said as governor of Vermont, he supported electric vehicles, and hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles. "Hybrids are going to be very useful and we're seeing those starting to be sold now as gas gets more expensive," he said.
Dean supports a federal renewable energy portfolio. "We have one in our state, and we ought to have one federally," he said, bringing up Kerry's 20-20 initiative - 20 percent of the energy supply would come from renewables by the year 2020.
Democrats can bring the environment more to the forefront in this election by talking more about it, Dean says.
"Kerry does talk about it. Kerry has very solid credentials in the area of the environment," said Dean, in contrast to the President, who Dean says only claims to be protecting the environment.
"The Bush administration is well acknowledged to the be the worst administration in terms of protection of the environment since the League of Conservation Voters has been keeping records," Dean said. "The first President in my lifetime that has every gotten a zero from the League of Conservation Voters."
Back on the state level, the Hawaii Democrats passed many environmental resolutions at the convention. One supports Kerry's 20-20 renewable energy initiative. It calls for research and development funding to ensure there are sufficient renewable energy sources to supply 20 percent of Hawaii's energy needs by the year 2020.
Since both the state Senate and Assembly are held by Democrats, such as resolution might pass into law in the foreseeable future.
Other resolutions would minimize municipal solid waste going to landfills, support the acquisition of undeveloped coastal lands, particularly those directly threatened by developers, and protect watersheds using the traditional integrated Hawaiian approach to the land.
One resolution calls for eradication of the Caribbean tree frog, coqui, so named for its loud croak that can exceed 70 decibels, the state's maximum permissible sound level.
Other resolutions called on county and state governments to "instruct their administrators to enforce air, water and other environmental regulations," and repeal the automatic approval of land use and environmental permits for incinerators, power plants," as well as "quarries and resorts."
Internationally, the Hawaii Democrats passed a resolution urging the U.S. Senate to ratify the Kyoto climate protocol that limits the emission of six greenhouse gases by industrialized countries in the 2008 to 2012 time period.
"Rising ocean levels, a direct outcome of climate change, is particularly devastating to the residents and inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands and the Island societies of the Pacific region," the resolution says, pointing out that Kerry, and other Democratic senators support the protocol.
The Hawaii Democrats are sending their delegates to Boston to let the National Democratic Party know they want it to "demand that the U.S. Senate take immediate action to ratify the Kyoto Protocol Treaty."
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Europe's Green Week Focus on Behavior Change
May 31, 2004
BRUSSELS, Belgium, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2004/2004-05-31-04.asp
Brussels and Bonn will be the focus of major environmental debates during the first week of June. The European Commission's latest annual Green Week will unfold in the European Union capital, while Germany will host four days of discussions in Bonn on boosting renewable energies worldwide.
The Commission's objective during Green Week is to encourage people to "think aloud" about how citizens, businesses, policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, authorities, teachers, scientists and young people can really change their environmental behavior.
Green Week in Brussels will involve a series of seminars and workshops ranging across topical European environmental issues. Also expected are numerous side events, report launches and press conferences by stakeholder organizations.
Emissions-free transportation in England (Photos courtesy FreeFoto) Highlights on Tuesday will include publication of the European Environment Agency's latest annual "environmental signals" review. The EU's official report on bathing water quality in 2003 will also be released.
Green Week conference sessions will focus on how citizens can be involved more in environmental policy making.
On Tuesday evening the latest European business awards for the environment will be presented. The event will herald a series of other business focused debates.
On Wednesday, the annual Green Week conference will discuss the relationship between environmmental policies and economic growth, with sessions on ecobusiness, green branding and advertising, and environmental technologies.
Sessions on Thursday will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the EU's pioneering 1979 directive on protecting wild bird species. Friday will be dedicated to discussions on Europe's seas and oceans.
Representatives of governments from around the world will gather in Bonn from Tuesday to Friday for "Renewables 2004." Organized as a followup to the Johannesburg sustainability summit of 2002, the event is meant to boost the momentum of renewable energy growth.
Outcomes will include a political declaration, an international action program and guidelines on policies to support renewables. Debate will continue to focus on demands for regional and global targets for boosting renewables.
The European Commission will propose new long-term EU renewable energy targets in 2007, it said on Wednesday in a hotly disputed communication. Earlier drafts of the communication made no commitment at all to setting new targets.
Kirkheaton Wind Farm, Northumberland, England (Photo courtesy Freefoto) Nevertheless, environmental groups poured scorn on Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio over the absence of immediate new targets, one calling her "unfit for the job."
In a second significant shift, the published communication emphasizes obstacles to renewable energy growth as the reason for not proposing 2020 targets immediately. Previously it blamed EU member states' failure to show they could reach existing 2010 targets.
Obstacles include "technical and practical limits" on renewables' cost-effective availability," it now says. A previously unmentioned staff working paper analyzing these "difficulties" is being released alongside the communication.
As a result of this analysis, the communication concludes, more thorough assessment is needed before deciding on EU targets beyond 2010. This will include an extended impact analysis, taking into account competitiveness, security of supply, technical feasibility and environmental aspects.
The assessement will be issued before November 2005 "in order to set in 2007 a target for the period after 2010."
The bulk of the communication evaluates progress across countries and technologies towards existing 2010 targets of a 12 percent share of renewable energy in the EU-15 countries and a 21 percent share of renewable electricity across the enlarged EU-25. As became clear last month, the Commission believes both will be missed.
In the run-up to Bonn, the German environment minister welcomed the Commission's pledge on setting new EU targets as a "pleasing and strong signal." Juergen Trittin noted the European Parliament's call for a European target of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020.
Europe's renewable energy industry is continuing to push for even more ambitious targets. On Thursday, the European Renewable Energy Council released scenarios showing that renewables could provide 50 percent of global energy supply by 2040.
In a related development, European biomass industry association Aebiom and the conservation group WWF issued a report concluding that industrialized countries could cut carbon dioxide emissions by one billion metric tons if they used biomass instead of coal to generate electricity.
An exhibition will be a centerpiece of Green Week, showcasing some 60 projects by environmental organizations and networks, businesses, consumer organizations, educational and research establishments, and EU, national, regional and local authorities.
This year, the exhibition will also feature a sustainable stock market. Visitors will be able to buy and sell stocks in sustainable and non-sustainable companies. The visitor that has the highest return at the end of the week will receive a prize. With this stock market simulation the Environment Directorate hopes to demonstrate "as is the case in real life," it says, that "sustainable stocks will give you as much - if not more - return on investment as non-sustainable stocks without any significant difference in terms of risk."
An Art Gallery will permanently display the 50 winning entries in the Green Week 2004 painting and photographs competitions. The theme of this year's competition is "birds in their natural habitat," organized to highlight the 25th anniversary of the EU Birds Directive.
To find out what Green Week events are happening across Europe, view a clickable map at: http://urbangreendays.org/index.php?id=1059
-------- ACTIVISTS
Common Cause Looks for New Battle to Fight
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page E01
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3007-2004May30.html
When I think of campaign finance reform, I picture Common Cause. For as long as I've been in Washington, which is more than 20 years, the self-styled "citizens' lobby" has been synonymous with the battle to rein in wealthy political interests.
Sadly, those days are now gone. Common Cause doesn't care as much about campaign finance as it used to. And that says a lot not just about the organization but also about how lobbying groups in general must struggle to survive.
"We're in the process with a new president of reevaluating what other issues there are that we ought to be focusing on," says Common Cause board member Bradley S. Phillips, a partner in Los Angeles of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.
Some fans of the organization are aghast. Take, for instance, Common Cause's initial reaction to a plan at the Federal Election Commission to regulate "527" organizations, the new vehicles for collecting unlimited "soft money" contributions, which have long been the bane of campaign reformers. To the shock of like-minded groups, Common Cause was adamantly opposed.
Although it's softened its objections lately, the very notion that Common Cause wasn't four square in favor of a crackdown on soft money was a clear sign that a new era had begun.
At the height of the Vietnam War protests in 1970, John Gardner, a former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, founded Common Cause with the battle cry, "Everybody's organized but the people." The group went on famously to press for civil rights, lobby disclosure, government ethics standards, open-meeting laws and, most prominently, campaign finance reform.
Common Cause was also an innovator in methods of swaying lawmakers. It was one of the first groups to establish a permanent telephone bank to prod its members to contact members of Congress on issues. It orchestrated some of the original, large-scale letter-writing campaigns on such matters as the MX missile and the space-based missile defense system known popularly as "Star Wars."
But the core of its efforts for decades has been restraining the influence of money on politics. It was at the forefront of the post-Watergate reforms in the mid-1970s. And its role in enacting landmark campaign finance legislation two years ago was so significant that the new law could well have been called McCain-Feingold-Common Cause.
These days Common Cause isn't at the forefront of anything. Its grass-roots lobbying techniques have been replicated and improved upon by its corporate nemeses. And its heady success on campaign finance reform has had the effect of robbing it of its signature issue.
The organization has fallen victim to the worst malady that any group in politics can face: total victory. Without a big, long-term issue to pursue, its leaders say Common Cause has been forced to fight for its life.
As part of the attempted turnaround, Common Cause hired a new president, Chellie Pingree, a former legislator from Maine. Her job, to put it bluntly, was to find new reasons for the group to exist.
The board of directors was "looking for somebody who could think beyond McCain-Feingold, to think what happens next," says Pingree, who's been on the job a little over a year. And that's turned out to be a lot less about political fundraising than has ever been the case at Common Cause.
Pingree says Common Cause hasn't given up on campaign finance reform. The group is still interested in fixing the presidential campaign finance system and in pushing public financing, especially in the states, she says.
But Pingree concedes that she has chosen another issue -- battling against consolidation in the media business -- as the group's new major cause. "It's turned into a central focus for us," Pingree says.
One reason for the change, she admits, is that the public gets more excited about taking on media giants than slogging through what remains of the campaign finance issue. "No one wakes up in the morning and says, 'Gosh, I want to fix the campaign finance system,' " she says.
Inspired by the prospect of battling big media, thousands of people have added their names to Common Cause's e-mail list. The organization's young staffers are so moved by the issue that they stick signs on their office windows to taunt employees of the National Association of Broadcasters, whose headquarters is in plain sight across Connecticut Avenue.
What's more, Common Cause's membership has started to expand again, which was badly needed. Membership today stands at 190,000, not quite double the number when Gardner got things going 34 years ago. Based on early returns, Pingree thinks the media issue has the potential to keep the organization growing and also to help attract younger members. The average Common Causer at the moment is in her sixties.
To keep an organization fresh and vital, Pingree says, "You have to be talking to people through the issues of the day." And that doesn't include tromping back over the same old ground, which, she suggests, is precisely what campaign finance has become.
There's a great deal of truth to this. Common Cause is also far from alone in pressing the case against the clout of lucre on government. Dozens of other groups have taken up the cudgel in the years since Common Cause started the trend. The question for the organization, Pingree says, is "Where do we belong that we're not just duplicating what everyone else is doing? It doesn't matter what your memory of Common Cause is. A lot of people are doing that stuff."
There's another -- and to me disturbing -- reason for Common Cause's search for a new issue. The group was late in applying for foundation grants to monitor 527s. As a result, other nonprofit organizations, which were faster off the mark, got the money and therefore have an incentive that Common Cause doesn't to keep a close eye on the next phase of campaign financing.
"To be honest, we didn't get foundation money," says Celia Viggo Wexler, Common Cause's vice president for advocacy. "We didn't get the resources to do that kind of monitoring."
If any organization on earth understands the power of money in shaping behavior, Common Cause is surely that group. Only now, it appears, Common Cause is itself a case study.
Common Cause's quandary isn't unique. All organizations tied to politics have to contort themselves to stay current. "They have to stay true to their core membership -- that's why they're there -- but they also have to appeal to new members and new interests," says Suzanna DeBoef, professor of political science at Penn State University. "That can be a tough balancing act."
Scott Harshbarger, who preceded Pingree as president, says finding the right balance for a group as storied as Common Cause is particularly hard. "It remains a struggle," he says. And who knows? Maybe some day campaign finance reform will return to the top of its agenda.
In the meantime, only one thing is clear: The future of one of Washington's great lobbies is very much up in the air.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum writes about the intersection of government and business every other Monday. His e-mail address is kstreetconfidential@washpost.com.
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Democracy Supporters March in Hong Kong
May 31, 2004
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/asia/31hong.html
HONG KONG, May 30 - Thousands of demonstrators marched here on Sunday afternoon to mark the coming 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and to protest the growing restrictions on this territory's democratic development. It was the first rally in what promises to be a politically turbulent summer.
Under leaden skies and in tropical humidity, the crowd marched from a palm-fringed park to the main government offices, carrying black banners and a black coffin representing the deaths of students in Beijing on June 4, 1989. Organizers estimated the crowd at 5,600 people, while the police said "more than 3,000" had taken part.
The march coincided with an ongoing debate over why three prominent radio talk show hosts, all outspoken advocates of democracy, suddenly quit and left Hong Kong. The territory has been a special administrative region of China since Britain turned over the former colony in 1997.
The Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, a nonprofit group set up by prominent lawyers here, contends that Beijing officials were involved. Law Yuk-kai, the group's director, said Chinese officials had encouraged threats against two of the three, Albert Cheng and Raymond Wong, and their families by Hong Kong's triads, secret societies that dominate organized crime.
"As long as I keep my mouth shut and don't talk to you, I'm safe,'' Mr. Cheng said in a telephone interview. "Particularly I don't talk to the foreign press."
Mr. Wong could not be reached to comment.
Police Commissioner Dick Lee said Friday that he had no specific evidence of intimidation or threats, but that the talk show hosts' complaints were being investigated.
The third talk show host to quit, Allen Lee, recently returned to Hong Kong. He told a panel of the local legislature on Thursday that he had resigned after a former mainland official asked to speak with him about his show and said Mr. Lee's wife was very virtuous and his daughter very beautiful, comments that Mr. Lee interpreted as threats.
The official New China News Agency in Beijing said Thursday that freedom of the press was being protected in Hong Kong.
Security police in mainland China have reportedly been placing large numbers of democracy advocates under house arrest in preparation for the anniversary on Friday of the Chinese military's suppression of student demonstrations in Beijing. But The Associated Press reported the released Sunday of Li Hai, who was imprisoned for nine years after he compiled lists of people arrested in the crackdown that followed the Tiananmen Square protests.
Hundreds of police officers closed roads and provided tight security along the route of the march on Sunday. Organizers had voiced fears that Beijing's supporters might attack demonstrators.
In sharp contrast with other pro-democracy rallies over the past year, very few demonstrators brought children on Sunday. "There were all these rumors that people might try to start trouble," said Sharon Chan, a 29-year-old graduate student who carried a sign that read, "Demand accountability for June 4 massacre."
But the march proceeded peacefully down broad avenues lined with onlookers.
Under Hong Kong law, the organizers of a march or demonstration can be sued for injuries or property damage and held personally liable. While the organizers of the march were able to obtain insurance for similar events in previous years, this year was different.
Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy lawmaker who is the vice chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China, the group here that organizes the Tiananmen Square memorial events, said the group had been denied liability insurance by 23 local insurers and 10 London-based insurers.
After the denial became a political issue here, Bernard Chan, who holds a seat in the legislature reserved for a representative of the insurance industry, ordered his own company to provide coverage for the march on Sunday and for the candlelight vigil on Friday. But Mr. Lee said he had been unable to find coverage for a much larger rally planned for July 1, the seventh anniversary of Britain's transfer of Hong Kong. The anniversary march last year drew nearly a tenth of this territory's 6.9 million people.
Triad members, known for their dexterity with meat cleavers during attacks, have had a long history of political activism here, helping Nationalists, Communists, the British and the Japanese at various times. The Japanese military allied itself with local triads when it attacked Hong Kong in 1941, hours after the assault on Pearl Harbor.
The triads were so effective as combatants that they drove British soldiers from Kowloon Peninsula to Hong Kong island with little help from the Japanese. Triad members captured British machine guns and installed them in the Kowloon Post Office to fire on the last Star Ferry evacuating the Allied forces from the peninsula, according to "The Fall of Hong Kong," (Yale University Press, 2003) by Philip Snow, a prominent historian here.
While the British tried to suppress the triads, a mainland Chinese official raised eyebrows here a few years ago when he defended triads, saying some of the secret societies were "patriotic."
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Greenpeace Orange Roughy Protest Meets Rough Response
May 31, 2004
NELSON, New Zealand, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2004/2004-05-31-03.asp
This morning Greenpeace New Zealand activists covered the building of the Orange Roughy Management Company in Nelson with a huge fishing net to protest deep sea destruction by the orange roughy fishery. The demonstration was broken up by angry fisheries workers who tore down the net and fought with the demonstrators.
A delicious, white-fleshed fish, orange roughy are long-lived and slow growing. After 20 years of intensive fishing, some populations are depleted.
The Motueka choir stood in the company doorway singing about destruction of life in the deep sea. Each singing activist held placards showing pictures of creatures wiped out by bottom trawl nets.
Greenpeacers and members of the Motueka choir under a net at the Orange Roughy Management Company (Photo by Peter Kemp courtesy Greenpeace) The otherwise anonymous outside wall of the company headquarters was painted with a large arrow that read "Deep Sea Destruction."
The Orange Roughy Management Company's response was rough. Greenpeacers were kicked and dragged away by fishing industry workers. The fishing net was torn down. Cameras were smashed in an attempt to stop recording of the event.
Greenpeace Campaign Manager, Bunny McDiarmid, said the protest was staged to request the New Zealand fishing industry involved in high seas bottom trawling to stop deep sea destruction and support a global moratorium on the high sea.
Over 1,000 scientists from 60 countries, including New Zealand, issued a statement in December calling for a global moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. Greenpeace is working internationally and nationally to support this call.
"Research is showing that bottom trawling is destroying unique and fragile deep sea life in the effort to catch what amounts to a few fish. Scientists now consider bottom trawling to be the biggest threat to deep sea life, and are warning of extinctions of creatures virtually unknown to science and whole habitats being wiped out," said McDiarmid.
"The high seas are the global commons, they belong to all of us, not just the fishing industry. We must ensure that the benefits of bottom trawling are not taken at the total expense of other deep sea life," she said.
In 2001, 12 countries, including New Zealand, took approximately 95 percent of the reported high sea bottom trawling catch.
Last Thursday, CEO of the Orange Roughy Management Company, George Clement told Radio New Zealand that orange roughy bottom trawling is benign and that New Zealand had done more than most other countries to protect deep sea environments.
Angry fishing industry workers pull down the net Greenpeace threw over their company building. (Photo by Peter Kemp courtesy Greenpeace) The New Zealand orange roughy fishery is the largest and oldest in the world. For more than two decades, the majority of the world's orange roughy market has been supplied by the oceans around New Zealand. Most New Zealand orange roughy are exported to the United States.
The deep sea is the last undiscovered frontier on the planet. Once thought to be void of life, scientists now estimate between 500,000 to 100,000,000 species live in the deep sea. Many of these species are situated around seamounts - underwater mountains.
"The Orange Roughy Management Company are being hypocritical," said McDiarmid. "On one hand boasting New Zealand has protected areas of the deep sea whilst on the other mounting a legal challenge against a decision to protect deep sea life within New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)."
In September 2000, Fisheries Minister Pete Hodgson announced that 19 out of 860 underwater mountains inside our EEZ would be protected from bottom trawling, citing "scientific studies show that marine life on seamounts is diverse and vulnerable to the impacts of bottom trawling. A number of species found on seamounts are long-lived, slow growing and slow to reproduce."
The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is in waters off New Zealand investigating the environmental impacts of bottom trawl fishing.
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