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NUCLEAR
The sludge in the defense bill
Kerry has plan to stem WMD proliferation
Seychelles Assembly paves way for peaceful use of nuclear material
Alliant [DU] protest draws sizable group
Americans on the run
Iran Is Violating Agreements on Nuclear Arms, U.N. Says
US renews nuclear weapons charges against Iran
Iran Still Making Nuclear Materials, U.N. Agency Says
Iran still making centrifuge equipment despite claiming suspension
U.S. Says Iran Hiding Nuke Bomb Program from UN
U.S. Accuses Israeli of Selling Nuke Triggers to Pakistani
Iran Denies Nuke Relations With N. Korea
West's spies missed Libya nuke shipment from Turkey
Americium Travels Along The Rivers
U.S. Welcomes Russia Arms Security Effort
Kerry Vows Action on Threat of Nuclear Terrorism
Remarks of Senator John Kerry
The Bush Administration's Nonproliferation Policy:
Bush Urges World to Stem WMD Trafficking
Sounding the Alarm on Nuclear Proliferation
Senators: NRC gave state brushoff on Yankee
Contractors Cleared in Nuke Illness Case
A nuclear band-aid
Atomic Waste Disposal Rules Set for Debate by Congress
Nuclear waste / Best plan: No dregs left behind
MILITARY
Invisible beam tops list of nonlethal weapons
The United States of Boeing
Accenture Wins $10 Billion Border Security Deal
Chinese army preparing military exercises aimed at Taiwan
No signs of Chinese wargames: Taiwan
French defense minister calls on EU to set up own defense force
Haiti's U.S.-Backed Government Survives on Foreign Troops, Aid
U.N. Peacekeepers Take Over Haiti Mission
Iran Says It's Building Stealth Missile
Ghazi al-Yawar on Iraqi Politics
Shocking video you didn't see
'It Is Getting Worse by the Day Here'
Iraqi water sector undermined by crippled infrastructure
Sunni Is Chosen as President; Governing Council Disbands
Car Bomb in Baghdad Kills Four Iraqis
Some Seek Date for U.S. Troops to Exit Iraq
At Least 5 More G.I.'s Are Killed in Iraq
Palestinians Call for Negotiations On an Israeli Pullout From Gaza
Terror Wave Persists in Saudi Arabia
Defence chiefs come clean on abuse
Bomb Kills 16 at Shiite Mosque in Pakistan
Dates on Prison Photos Show Two Phases of Abuse
Putin Talk Worries Independent Groups
U.S. wants to build space laser in total secrecy
Troops Would Leave Iraq in '06 Under Plan
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Justice Dept. Details Case Against 'Dirty Bomb' Suspect
POLITICS
Army Investigates Wider Iraq Offenses
Bush Consults Lawyer in CIA Leak Case
How a Superpower Lost its Stature
ENERGY
Germany sees conference strengthening industrialized world
Use renewables, not nuclear: report
Sierra Club Showcases Hybrid Vehicles Coast to Coast
Dyer: An overdue debate: Boosting nuke power to avoid climate chaos
OTHER
Looking for Some Help for Love Canal's Other Site
ACTIVISTS
Kach supporters chase away Vanunu
Hold DOE Accountable on Waste Transportation to Yucca!
Anti-war MEP's Iraq visit 'blocked'
Hong Kong March Marks Tiananmen Killings
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
The sludge in the defense bill
The Senate should wipe clean toxic language that would allow the government to leave nuclear waste in tanks
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Oregon Live
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/10858323389300.xml
The Bush administration is playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek with the law requiring the cleanup of nuclear waste in deteriorating storage tanks around the country, including the Hanford reservation on the Columbia River.
On behalf of the Department of Energy, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has slipped language into a huge Defense Department spending bill that would allow the government to cover some remaining radioactive waste with a layer of grout, and abandon it. It's remotely possible that such a policy is worth debating, but this sneaky approach suggests the Department of Energy isn't interested in a public discussion of the issue.
This dramatic policy change, which could affect the health and safety of millions of Americans, hasn't been the subject of a single public hearing in Congress. The stakes are as high as they get: Fifty-three million gallons of high-level waste is stored in leaking tanks at Hanford just seven miles from the Columbia River. More than 1.5 million people live downstream.
The Energy Department has tried for years to escape its responsibility for cleaning up nuclear waste left at Hanford and sites in South Carolina and Idaho. A 1982 law requires that all high-level wastes left from reprocessing plutonium for weapons must be shipped to a central repository.
The Energy Department first tried simply to reclassify high-level nuclear waste as less dangerous, and leave the sludge in leaking tanks instead of cleaning it up. Several states, including Washington, sued, and the courts have roundly rejected the agency's plan. Now the Energy Department is trying a new dodge.
It has inserted two changes in the defense spending bill. One would give the agency authority to reclassify high-level waste now stored in South Carolina as "incidental," allowing it to lower the standard for cleanup. The other would give the agency the ability to withhold critical funding -- $350 million -- from the states until they agree to comply with its scheme to lower cleanup standards.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has strongly objected to the Energy Department's plan. When the Senate takes up the defense spending bill, perhaps as soon as late today or Wednesday, Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith should add their voices to those demanding that the language on nuclear cleanup be stripped from the bill.
It's wrong to use a defense bill, especially now, to play this kind of political game. It's also wrong to stealthily weaken the law requiring the cleanup of nuclear waste.
----
Kerry has plan to stem WMD proliferation
By JAMES RAINEY
Los Angeles Times / Union Leader
June 1, 2004
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=38472
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., points toward supporters as he leaves the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington on Monday. (AP) While Sen. John F. Kerry has struggled to lay out a distinctive policy for Iraq, he will attempt this week to draw a compelling contrast with President Bush on another pressing national security issue - reducing the chance that terrorists can obtain chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Kerry plans to deliver an address in Florida Tuesday outlining what advisers say would be a more aggressive policy for finding, securing and destroying such weapons that could threaten the safety of the United States.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is expected to argue that even a relatively nominal increase in the U.S. annual investment of less than $1 billion would reap enormous security benefits, according to experts who have been advising Kerry on the issue.
That money would be used to secure weapons and dangerous materials that often go lightly guarded in Russia and other states that made up the Soviet Union - efforts collectively known as "cooperative threat reduction."
The Massachusetts senator also will call for a high-level presidential appointee to lead the threat reduction push, for more police and firefighters to beef up the ranks of "first responders" to any mass attack in the United States and for revamped diplomacy in Iran and North Korea to slow nuclear programs in those nations.
Kerry has previously proposed significantly accelerating the time frame for securing "loose" nuclear materials that the Russians have agreed to store or eliminate. He wants those efforts accomplished within four years, instead of the 13 years projected in one recent study.
With his speech Tuesday, Kerry is pursuing a goal he has touched upon in past remarks: elevating weapons nonproliferation "to the top of the global agenda."
Arms control advocates and Democratic strategists believe the threat reduction issue might resonate with voters because of a combination of factors: uncertainty over whether the Iraqi war has helped or hurt security at home, continuing reports that weapons of mass destruction remain relatively unprotected in many nations and new warnings that terrorists are planning to attack the United States this summer.
The Bush administration tried to slow or eliminate several cooperative arms-reduction projects before Sept. 11, 2001, amid complaints that the Russians were not doing their share. But the president shifted course after the terrorist attacks.
In the summer of 2002, he pledged $10 billion over 10 years to a global partnership for rooting out weapons of mass destruction, with other Western nations committing another $10 billion. Also under his watch, the longtime rogue state of Libya agreed to eliminate its development of nuclear weapons.
Last week, the Bush administration pushed ahead on another delayed cooperative measure. The Energy Department said it would undertake a $450 million campaign to retrieve nuclear materials that the United States and Soviet Union sent to more than 100 nations for use in research reactors.
The nonproliferation subject appears to be of no small concern to many voters.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans have listed "preventing the spread of nuclear weapons" as a top foreign policy concern, just below "fighting international terrorism," according to surveys by the Council on Foreign Relations in Chicago.
Experts have been calling for years on America and other nations to work harder to eliminate weapons that could be destructive to all - recommendations that grew louder after 9/11.
Toward the end of the administration of President Clinton, a bipartisan commission co-chaired by former Republican Sen. Howard Baker recommended that the United States increase its annual investment in multinational arms reduction programs from less than $1 billion a year to $3 billion. Under Bush, expenditures have remained relatively flat.
Last week, a study by Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs concluded less nuclear material has been secured since Sept. 11 than in the two years before the terrorist attacks.
In addition, key programs to reduce the nuclear threat have stalled. The United States and Russia had agreed to eliminate 68 tons of plutonium that both countries stockpiled during the Cold War. Like enriched uranium, plutonium can be used to make an atomic weapon.
The program has been held up because of a disagreement between the Bush administration and Russian leaders over who should assume liability in the case of an accident or sabotage at Russian arms centers. Many arms-control advocates say the United States should drop its insistence that the Russians assume blanket liability, because of the urgency of removing plutonium that is vulnerable to terrorists.
Similarly, fences and electronic sensors and other "quick-fix" materials - which could protect dozens of Russian arms sites - have remained in warehouses while the two nations feud over how much access American contractors should have to the facilities.
The Bush administration "has spent billions looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," said Paul Walker, who heads the U.S. chapter of an organization founded by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to reduce weapons threats. "We have been telling them we know where the weapons are. We just need the political leadership and the money and we can go get them."
Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said that, under Bush, "You have had an almost complete lack of attention from the presidential level (on threat reduction), and so summit after summit after summit (with Russian President Vladimir Putin) has gone by without making any progress on these issues."
Although he once worked on a science advisory panel in the Clinton administration, Bunn also criticized Clinton for not doing enough to advance "cooperative threat reduction."
"Both the successes and failures in this field have been completely bipartisan," he said.
All sides agree that the impacts of a terrorist attack could be fearsome: A relatively small 10-kiloton nuclear bomb exploded in central New York City would kill half a million people and cause an estimated $1 trillion in economic losses.
Against that backdrop, Kerry is expected to argue that increasing the less than $1 billion national investment in nonproliferation projects is a small price to pay when contrasted with well over $100 billion in spending in Iraq and a defense budget of $402 billion a year.
The presidential-level envoy he will propose would be responsible for better coordinating programs internally - making sure that efforts by the departments of Defense, Energy and State do not languish - and assuring that lines of communication with Putin are open, so that technical disputes can be resolved more quickly.
Kerry will note the increasing danger from the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs since Bush took office - claiming that the president's unbending stance toward North Korea had left leader Kim Jong Il feeling he had to speed up the nation's nuclear program.
Kerry plans to deliver his speech Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Fla., a port city, to spotlight the threat of weapons being delivered in shipboard containers. He's likely to repeat a call for the installation of sensors in shipping containers, only 4 percent of which are inspected before they enter the United States.
The candidate also is expected to criticize the administration over the findings of a General Accounting Office study, released in late April, that concluded nuclear weapon storage sites in the United States are vulnerable to terrorists. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham responded with a plan for security upgrades, but Kerry has called that too little, too late.
-------- asia
Seychelles Assembly paves way for peaceful use of nuclear material
June 1, 2004
Seychelles Online
http://www.seychelles-online.com.sc/archives/6010604.html
Members of the National Assembly gave their stamp of approval to allow Seychelles to make use of nuclear technology materials for peaceful purposes after they endorsed the ratification of a nuclear arms non-proliferation treaty.
Ratification means Seychelles could pursue technology used for radio-active treatment for cancer patients.
The motion in last Tuesday's assembly, which called for the ratification of the Agreement for the Application of Safeguards in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and Protocols, was presented by the Leader of Government Business Patrick Herminie.
The protocol being ratified, he said, allowed countries which are not nuclear powers to have access to materials that can be used for various purposes condoned under the main treaty, such as for electricity, medical use, food security or mine detection.
The protocol itself has three main components, including material accountancy, containment and surveillance. Material accountancy, Mr Herminie said, regulated the quantity of plutonium and uranium to be used by a non-nuclear power in its projects.
The country concerned has to give precise information to other member states about the project in question and disclose means of getting rid of excess materials. This aspect of the treaty, he said, was important to ensure strict monitoring so that the materials did not end up in the hands of rogue nations or terrorists organisations.
Mr Herminie said currently Seychelles was not in possession of any nuclear materials, but revealed that the government was in preliminary talks with the International Atomic Agency to get access to nuclear technology to be used in a radio-active treatment for cancer to be introduced in the future.
Seychelles signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in March 1985.
-------- depleted uranium
Alliant [DU] protest draws sizable group
Tue, Jun. 01, 2004
St Paul Pioneer Press
Brian Bonner
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/8806407.htm?1c
EDINA, MN - A Memorial Day protest at Edina-based Alliant Techsystems drew at least 200 people. No arrests were reported, although people allegedly trespassed on company property.
The Minnesota Alliant Action, which organized the demonstration, put the number of protesters at closer to 350, although a company spokesman said his own head count showed a crowd of 200 to 225 people.
That's not the only point of contention between the two sides.
The Alliant Action objects to products made by the defense contractor, particularly depleted-uranium munitions and cluster bombs. "We look at everything they make as being useless," said protest organizer Tom Bottolene.
Company spokesman Bryce Hallowell said that depleted-uranium munitions and cluster bombs are not part of Alliant's product line. Hallowell said the company provides the armed services "with the very best weaponry" so that "the fewest lives are at risk in any conflict, and we are proud to do it."
The turnout for Monday's protest was higher than for many of the weekly protests outside Alliant.
----
Americans on the run
US tells its citizens to pull out of Saudi Arabia
06/01/2004
Pravda (Russia) Editorial
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/397/12980_hostages.html
The United States of America has told its nationals to move out of Saudi Arabia after a weekend of violence which saw 22 people killed and 50 foreigners taken hostage.
41 hostages were freed from the Oasis compound in Khobar on Sunday morning by Saudi special forces after nine people were executed with their throats slit after trying to escape. Further violence on Saturday night left 22 people dead (8 Indians, 3 Filipinos, 3 Saudis, 2 Sri Lankans, 1 American, 1 Italian, 1 Swede, 1 South African, 1 Briton and 1 Egyptian). 25 others were wounded.
A nationwide search is under way for three gunmen who are believed to have escaped. According to one eye-witness, reported by the BBC, security guards allowed them to escape after a deal was made, offering them freedom is they did not blow up the compound, which houses ex-patriate company executives.
However, this version has been strongly denied by the Saudi Foreign Ministry, which claims that there was no collaboration between the terrorists and the security forces.
Intelligence sources claim that it is probable that such attacks will increase in future, since there are believed to be tens of militants ready to hit soft western targets across the country.
The illegal act of butchery perpetrated by the United States of America and the United Kingdom in Iraq, based on lies, greed and forged documents, will have done nothing to increase the safety of westerners in the area or elsewhere.
All the reasons for tit-for-tat terrorist attacks were provided on a silver platter by these regimes, who perpetrated the most shocking and callous act of mass murder in recent history, bombing civilian homes, strafing infrastructures necessary for life support, murdering ten thousand innocent people, mutilating 35,000 others, dropping cluster bombs into civilian areas, contaminating large swathes of territory with Depleted Uranium ammunition, knowing that this is a war crime.
It is hardly surprising that as a result the nationals of these two countries in particular and of foreigners in general are regarded with hatred among Arabs who see in the sorry spectacle which unfolded before their eyes in Iraq that Washington and London are the enemies of the Arab nation and as such, through the wanton violence they perpetrated, set themselves up for attack.
George Bush and Tony Blair have done more to damage international security than any other leader in history since the Second World War.
-------- iran
Iran Is Violating Agreements on Nuclear Arms, U.N. Says
June 1, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Iran.html
KRAKOW, Poland (AP) -- In a reversal, Iran has acknowledged importing parts for advanced centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium, the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Tuesday in a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press.
The report by the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency credited Iran with more nuclear openness but said questions remained about nearly two decades of covert activities first revealed nearly two years ago.
The dossier was issued for the June 14 meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors that has wrestled for more than a year about what to do about what that the United States and its allies say is a weapons program.
Uranium enrichment is one way to make nuclear warheads, although the process can also be used to generate power, depending on the degree of enrichment.
In an interview with The Associated Press before the report was leaked, U.S. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton accused Tehran of engaging in ``denial and deception.''
``We are convinced that they are pursuing a clandestine program to acquire nuclear weapons,'' he said.
Bolton, who was at a review conference of the U.S.-launched Proliferation Security Initiative to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, said Washington was determined to have it answer to the U.N. Security Council.
While the report did not appear critical enough of Iran to marshal strong support at the board meeting for such a move, it also was far from the clean bill of health Tehran had hoped for in making a case that the books should be closed on its nuclear activities.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, said earlier Tuesday his agency had not found proof to date of a concrete link between Iran's nuclear activities and its military program, but ``it was premature to make a judgment.''
Iran has rejected the U.S. allegations, saying its nuclear program is geared only toward generating electricity.
Concerns over Iran's nuclear program mounted after IAEA inspectors found traces of highly enriched uranium at two Iranian sites. Iran said the uranium was already on equipment imported from abroad.
But the report leaked Tuesday noted continued inconsistencies, including different levels of uranium enrichment and varying isotope ``fingerprints'' -- both casting doubt on Tehran's assertion that the traces of enriched uranium were already on equipment it bought second hand from abroad.
Without directly naming Pakistan, the source of the equipment, the report said that that the provider state disputes being the source of all the enriched uranium traces found in Iran -- potentially strengthening arguments that Tehran itself enriched uranium, something it denies.
Iran agreed last year, under international pressure, to suspend uranium enrichment and allow intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities, and the report suggested that pledge has been generally met.
But while, ``the Agency continues to make progress in gaining a comprehensive understanding of Iran's nuclear program ... a number of issues remain outstanding,'' the report said. Besides the source of the enriched uranium samples, it said ``important information'' about Iran's advanced centrifuge program ``has frequently required repeated requests, and in some cases continues to involve changing or contradictory information.''
One example cited was the reversal of previous denials that it bought centrifuge parts from abroad.
Answering all outstanding questions ``is of key importance to the agency's ability to provide the international community with the required assurances about Iran's nuclear activities,'' it said.
The United States has pushed for Security Council involvement for months, asserting that Iran is in breach of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Bolton said that the United States and its European allies were closing ranks on taking a harder line on Iran.
Bolton said outside the conference that the United States was convinced Iran wants to acquire nuclear arms. ``We obviously haven't yet gotten to the bottom of the program.''
Key European allies France, Germany and Britain, in particular, have advocated a softer line, arguing that persuasion was less risky than confrontation. But Vienna-based European diplomats have in recent days suggested that -- with key questions still unanswered -- patience with Iran was wearing thin.
Bolton acknowledged that the June 14 board meeting might still not agree to haul Iran before the Security Council, saying ``exactly when and how we get there is still not agreed upon.
But ``I think there's a realization that ... we should not allow the Iranians to divide us or divert us.''
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency, www.iaea.org
----
US renews nuclear weapons charges against Iran
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Jun 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040601194440.nnotz1ig.html
The United States on Tuesday renewed accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons after revelations that UN inspectors have discovered new signs the Islamic republic may be seeking to enrich bomb-grade uranium.
The State Department did not directly address the new information but said Washington's view was "borne out by the facts" and said it looked forward to discussing the matter next when the governing board of the UN's nuclear watchdog meets in Vienna to address the Iranian program.
"I think what is clear, as we approach the next phase of discussion at the International Atomic Energy Agency, is that Iran has still not fulfilled the requirements of the board of governors, nor has it fulfilled its own commitments to provide full and complete information," spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Asked whether the United States held to its longstanding charges that Iran is trying to cloak nuclear weapons development with a civilian energy program, he replied: "I think that's borne out by the facts, yes."
Boucher spoke shortly after it emerged that IAEA experts had found more contamination in Iran by highly enriched uranium that could be bomb-grade and that Tehran had provided "changing or contradictory information" on its work with sophisticated P-2 centrifuges which can enrich uranium to that level.
The findings were contained in a confidential report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei prepared ahead of a June 14 meeting of the agency's 35-nation board of governors.
Iran must clear up these questions about uranium contamination and centrifuges if the international community is to believe Iran's claims its nuclear program is strictly peaceful, the report said. The United States says Iran is hiding a program to build the bomb and has called for the IAEA, which has been investigating the Iranian program since February 2003, to refer the Islamic Republic to the UN Security Council for possible international sanctions.
But ElBaradei told a NATO meeting in Bratislava on Tuesday "the jury is still out" on Iran's nuclear program, although he would not hesitate to recommend taking Tehran to the UN Security Council if a military link were found.
Diplomats say the IAEA will not be able to reach a decision on Iran in June since Tehran has delayed inspections and only last month submitted a report on its program which the agency will need months to evaluate.
----
Iran Still Making Nuclear Materials, U.N. Agency Says
June 2, 2004
New York Times
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/02/international/middleeast/02nucl.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Nearly two months after pledging to suspend its nuclear program, Iran is continuing to make parts and materials that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear arms, according to a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The report, distributed yesterday to the agency's member nations, deepens the challenge of forcing Iran to give up a program that President Bush has charged is intended to turn the country into a nuclear power.
The Iranians insist that they are seeking to enrich uranium simply to produce commercial nuclear power, but the atomic energy agency's report cites continuing evidence that Iran misled inspectors with many of its early claims, especially on questions about where it obtained critical components.
Iranian officials have now told the agency that some of those parts were purchased abroad, after initially insisting that Iran had made them itself.
Last night a senior administration official in Washington said the questions raised in the agency report ran so deep that there was little chance that Iran could seek to have the inquiry into its nuclear activities closed at the June meeting of the agency in Vienna, as Iranian officials had previously demanded. The Iranians had told several European nations that they planned to suspend their operations "on the way to cessation of producing nuclear materials."
"Not only is there no meaningful suspension," said the administration official, "but there are activities that can only be explained as moving forward to enrichment."
Even so, the report said the agency had found no unambiguous evidence of an Iranian program for making nuclear weapons.
"The jury is out on whether the program has been dedicated exclusively for peaceful purposes or if it has some military dimension," Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a NATO meeting yesterday. "We haven't seen concrete proof of a military program, so it's premature to make a judgment on that."
The investigation is part of a continuing effort by the agency to understand the scope of the black-market network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, known in Pakistan as the father of its nuclear bomb. Dr. Khan's network also provided technology and parts to North Korea and Libya and is suspected of selling them to other nations.
The atomic energy agency's report, obtained from diplomatic officials, said three workshops in Iran were making centrifuge parts despite Tehran's claim to have suspended uranium enrichment and related activities on April 9. In addition, it says, Iran is preparing to make uranium hexafluoride, the material that is fed into centrifuges to produce enriched uranium.
As the centrifuges spin, they enrich uranium to a purity that is useful for nuclear reactors and, in higher concentrations, for nuclear weapons. The work on centrifuge fuel, said the report, "is at variance with the agency's previous understanding as to the scope of Iran's decision regarding suspension."
The report also said the Iranians had secretly sought to obtain magnets to make at least 4,000 P-2 centrifuges, a second-generation Pakistani model. It is the most advanced centrifuge sold by Dr. Khan's network.
Finally, the report said Iran's explanation for how its earlier P-1 centrifuges became contaminated with highly enriched uranium appeared to be false. The Iranians said the contamination had been on the equipment when it arrived from abroad. Investigators have said the centrifuges came from Pakistan.
The report says that explanation now appears less believable. Western diplomats interviewed yesterday said the probable source of the contamination would turn out to be either the nuclear black market or Iran's own enriching of uranium into highly concentrated forms suitable for making atomic bombs.
The findings raise the level of suspicion surrounding the Iranian nuclear program and seem likely to bring new diplomatic pressure to bear on the Islamic republic, possibly climaxing in a confrontation with the agency's board later this month.
The agency could judge Iran in violation of nuclear nonproliferation accords and send the case to the United Nations Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
The findings also bolster the Bush administration, which has long charged that Iran, in part openly and in part secretly, has been building a sprawling complex to make nuclear warheads. New evidence that Iran may still be hiding crucial elements of its nuclear program prompted a sharp response yesterday from the Bush administration.
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonpartisan arms control group in Washington, said: "We're seeing more holes in the Iranian story. They give the strong impression that they're not telling you everything."
The agency's report was distributed to the agency's board, which is to meet this month to review Iran's nuclear status, among other issues. Based in Vienna, the agency is an arm of the United Nations that acts as a global inspector to make sure that nations live up to their pledges to pursue only peaceful nuclear programs.
The report noted that Iran declared its suspension of production of centrifuge parts as of April 9. While able to confirm the suspension at three workshops, the agency found three others, all belonging to private companies, that have continued to operate. The companies say they have not been compensated by Iran's own atomic energy organization, and thus cannot stop producing.
The uranium hexafluoride for the centrifuges, the report said, is to be made "in the near future." It added that Iran said its "voluntary suspension of enrichment activities" did not include that material, whose production is a key step in making fuel for atom bombs and nuclear reactors.
The report said Iran now admitted having imported magnets for the advanced P-2 centrifuges, despite having previously said it had obtained none of them or their parts from abroad and insisting that it had made them domestically.
It said Iran had imported some magnets from Asia and inquired about buying 4,000 magnets for P-2 centrifuges, apparently from European suppliers. China was a major source of such magnets for Pakistan in the mid-1990's, leading to a major conflict with the United States, but it is unclear what Asian nation may have been involved in the Iranian deal.
The report also said Iran delayed for a month, until mid-April, letting agency inspectors check locations where the P-2 centrifuges were housed, resulting in delayed sampling for nuclear clues.
The report's discussion of the mysterious origins of the highly enriched uranium centered on samples that contained 36 percent of the rare uranium-235 isotope, which, in bombs and reactors, easily splits in two to produce bursts of atomic energy.
That level of purity is short of the 90 percent preferred for most nuclear bomb designs, but much greater than that needed for most nuclear reactors.
Last year, the discovery of the samples set off international alarm bells, raising questions about Iran's overall nuclear objectives and where the material had originated.
Earlier this year inspectors found evidence that some of the highly enriched uranium found in Iran might have come from Russia, where 36 percent enrichment is used in certain submarine engines and research reactors.
The report said "only negligible traces" of highly enriched uranium had been found on imported parts, in contrast to Iranian-made ones.
"They've ruled out the Iranian side of the story," said a Western diplomat. "It shows they imported the nuclear material, or did it themselves. This could have implications for the black market."
William J. Broad reported from New York for this article, and David E. Sanger from Palo Alto, Calif.
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Iran still making centrifuge equipment despite claiming suspension
VIENNA (AFP)
Jun 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040601180133.k4o1w142.html
Three workshops in Iran are continuing to produce centrifuge components despite Tehran's claiming to have suspended uranium enrichment and related activities, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a confidential report Tuesday, according to diplomats.
Iran had stated that it had suspended production of centrifuge components as of April 9.
The International Atomic Energy Agency "has been able to confirm this at three workshops but three workshops belonging to private companies have continued production," the IAEA said in a report, which diplomats read to AFP.
The IAEA said the workshops claimed they had not been given compensation for stopping production.
It also said Iran has now admitted to importing "some" magnets for sophisticated P-2 centrifuges, which can be used to make bomb-grade highly enriched uranium, despite having previously said it had not obtained any P-2 centrifuges or parts from abroad, having made these domestically.
The IAEA said Iran has admitted to having inquired to buy 4,000 magnets for P-2 centrifuges, enough for 2,000 centrifuges, although it had not bought any.
----
U.S. Says Iran Hiding Nuke Bomb Program from UN
June 2, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran-usa.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday that Iran continues to cover up a nuclear weapons program and that the latest report by the U.N. atomic watchdog had only made this more apparent.
``I think that this persistent refusal to fully cooperate (with U.N. inspectors) fits a long-term pattern of denial and deception that can only be designed to mask Iran's military nuclear program,'' the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, Kenneth Brill, told reporters.
The United States accuses Iran of running a secret nuclear weapons program that is parallel to its declared atomic energy program. Iran denies this, insisting its ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Tuesday in a confidential report on Iran, obtained by Reuters, there were two major issues it must resolve. First is the origin of enriched uranium traces found at sites in Iran, which some diplomats on the IAEA board say had raised concerns Iran was secretly enriching uranium for use in weapons.
The second is Iran's centrifuge program, especially its interest in advanced P2 enrichment centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium. The report said Iran had admitted importing P2 parts and may have had interest in parts for thousands of centrifuges -- contrary to what it had previously said.
``Unanswered questions continue to be the hallmark of Iranian cooperation with the (IAEA),'' Brill said.
``The more the IAEA digs, the more problems it finds. It is equally clear that the IAEA is not buying Iranian explanations on the key questions and that the list of outstanding issues is larger than it was in March,'' he said.
The IAEA issued its last report on Iran in March. One of the most controversial issues in that report was the discovery of previously undeclared research on the P2 centrifuges.
The IAEA board begins meeting on June 14 to discuss the new report on Iran. The United States is expected to push hard for a resolution condemning Iran's less-than-total cooperation, though it is unlikely to push for a report to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, Western diplomats said.
-------- israel
U.S. Accuses Israeli of Selling Nuke Triggers to Pakistani
June 1st, 2004
Village Voice
Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway
Additional reporting: Alicia Ng and Oorlagh George
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0422/mondo2.php
ast week, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed it was scrutinizing scrap-metal yards in Jordan for nuclear equipment it believes may have been removed from Iraq military and industrial sites. This matériel, hauled by flatbed trucks into Jordan under the eye of the American occupation, could easily find its way into the international underground market for nuclear components and be sold to countries seeking to get going with their own nuclear-weapons projects.
The underground nuclear market is extensive, with roots deep in the U.S. In a May 24 article in the Los Angeles Times, Josh Meyer provides a glimpse of what's going on with his account of the odd case of Asher Karni, 50, an Israeli businessman now living in South Africa, who was arrested in the Denver airport and charged with attempting to sell parts of nuclear weapons to a businessman in Pakistan. He was charged with violating the federal Export Control Act and other nuclear-export statutes. He is in a jail just outside Washington, and the feds oppose letting him out for fear he might skip the country. If convicted, Karni would face a 10-year prison sentence.
The government thinks Karni is a key man in a big deal to export some 200 electrical components-stuff that can be used in medical applications or nuclear weapons-to one Humayun Khan, a Pakistani businessman. These components, called triggered spark gaps, are electrical switches that have such medical uses as breaking up kidney stones. But they also emit an electrical charge that can be used to detonate nuclear weapons, and for that reason, their export is restricted.
The story has it that Khan, who the U.S. thinks is hooked up with the Pakistani government, put in an order for the switches last summer. Pakistan denies any involvement in the deal, and both Khan and Karni deny violating any U.S. laws and insist they have no ties with Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan or his network.
But the Times discovered that Humayun Khan was engaged in purchasing matériel for Pakistan's nuclear program in 1975 and had dealings with former Nazi and big-time nuclear-parts wheeler-dealer and industrialist Alfred Hempel. During the 1970s and 1980s, Hempel spread nuclear gear all over the world through a secret network of agents. He died in 1989.
The feds got on to Karni after an anonymous tipster told them that Karni was using dummy companies, misleading shipping documents, and straw buyers to sell restricted products to India and Pakistan. The feds tracked the intricate deal, watching as Karni tried unsuccessfully to buy the switches straight up from a U.S. electronics firm, and then apparently persuaded a New Jersey firm to buy the switches, claiming they were to be used in a South African hospital, renamed them to avoid export controls, and shipped them to Karni's Cape Town office. From there, the switches were sent through Dubai-a world center for creepy deals-and on to Islamabad and to the final buyer at Humayun Khan's address, which was listed as a lithography company, but which authorities believe is an office of a Pakistani political party that runs part of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and has terrorist links.
-------- korea
Iran Denies Nuke Relations With N. Korea
June 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Iran.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Iran said Tuesday it has never received nuclear technology from communist North Korea.
``We never had nuclear relations with North Korea,'' Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said at a press conference in Seoul.
Kharrazi said Iran's nuclear technology is self-developed, and the international community doesn't need to worry about his country's nuclear capabilities, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
Iran Embassy officials in South Korea were not immediately available for comment.
Earlier this month, diplomats told The Associated Press that evidence gathered by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency suggests North Korea was the source of nearly two tons of uranium hexafluoride delivered to Libya as part of attempts by Moammar Gadhaffi to build nuclear warheads.
The investigation was incomplete, but the evidence highlights concern that North Korea could be running a uranium-based nuclear weapons program, or supplying other nations the know-how to build atomic arms.
The United States and other countries accuse Iran of running a covert nuclear weapons program. Iran has rejected the allegations, saying its program is geared only toward generating nuclear power.
``We will act in accordance with the International Atomic Energy Agency,'' Kharrazi said, according to Yonhap.
On Saturday, North Korea denied allegations it provided Libya with uranium in early 2001, and accused the United States of running a ``smear campaign'' against it.
-------- mideast
West's spies missed Libya nuke shipment from Turkey
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
By Louis Charbonneau,
Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-01/s_24380.asp
VIENNA - As U.S., British, and U.N. experts were busy disarming Libya, a shipment of nuclear-bomb-related machinery from Turkey slipped past Western intelligence agencies into Libya in March, an atomic expert said recently.
Libya, which swiftly disclosed the shipment, has also denied purchasing nuclear materials from North Korea, casting doubt on news reports that Pyongyang secretly provided Tripoli with uranium, said diplomats close to the United Nations.
David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of a U.S.-based security think-tank, said this was a shining example of the "failure of export controls" that enabled the creation of an illicit nuclear market.
In a report issued on Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said:
"One shipment of (centrifuge) components actually arrived in Libya in March 2004, having escaped the attention of the (Western) state authorities that had seized the cargo ship BBC China in October 2003."
The atomic energy expert, who is familiar with the IAEA investigation and its new Libya report, said, "These components that arrived in March were assembled in Turkey and sent to Libya via Dubai."
There was no suggestion that Libya, which has been cooperating with U.N. inspectors, tried to hide the shipment. The IAEA said, "Libya notified the agency of the arrival of this container, and it has since been shipped out of the country."
The work of dismantling Tripoli's atom bomb program by U.S. and British experts in Libya was underway in March. But the experts missed the shipment's arrival, diplomats said.
A diplomat from an IAEA board member country said there may be more such orders made before Libya renounced its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs in December that have yet to reach Tripoli.
U.S. and British intelligence officials arranged the seizure in Italy of the BBC China while carrying centrifuge components made in Malaysia to Libya via Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Turkey was first named as a player in a nuclear black market linked to the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, said Abdul Qadeer Khan in a Malaysian police report based on testimony of Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman.
There were two Turkish men named in the police report. One had worked for the German engineering firm Siemens (SIEGn.DE).
Malaysian authorities said on Friday they had arrested Tahir. Washington said this was a key step in shutting down Khan's network which stretched from Europe to Africa and across the Middle East to Asia.
No Trade with North Korea
Separately, Western diplomats close to the IAEA said Libya denied purchasing 1.6 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) from North Korea, which would have indicated the communist state was selling nuclear material directly to states hungry for a bomb. UF6, a solid at room temperature, becomes a gas when heated and can then be fed into gas centrifuges that enrich uranium for use as fuel for atomic power plants or in weapons.
"Libya has denied buying anything directly from North Korea," said one of the diplomats.
News reports about Libya's alleged direct trade with North Korea said the IAEA had "strong evidence" for this claim based on interviews with members of Khan's black market.
But diplomats said the IAEA has no strong evidence, only second-hand testimony of persons interviewed by Pakistani authorities given to the U.N. by Pakistan. The IAEA is taking this information seriously but has no way of confirming it. The diplomats said that the Libyans have generally been cooperative and are considered trustworthy.
But these diplomats and the atomic expert said that even if North Korea did not sell it directly to Libya, this did not mean the uranium did not originate in North Korea. They said it was possible the Pakistanis acted as middlemen, buying the uranium from Pyongyang and reselling it to Libya.
The Malaysian police report, released in February, said the UF6 "was sent by air from Pakistan to Libya."
-------- russia
Americium Travels Along The Rivers
Informnauka (Informscience) Agency
01.06.2004
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/environment_sciences/report-29754.html
The Moscow radiochemists have developed and applied in practice new methods for analysis of transuranium elements in the environment objects. With the help of the most up-to-date techniques, they have investigated in detail the americium and plutonium migration paths in water and soils of some regions in Siberia and Southern Ural which are in particular need for such type of monitoring - in the vicinity of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Mayak" Manufacturing Company and Federal State Unitary Enterprise "GHK" ("Mining and Chemical Enterprise") - i.e. the areas where nuclear fuel is produced and nuclear waste is utilized.
This investigation seems too specific at first sight, but in fact it refers to every inhabitant of the planet. As in the post-nuclear epoch, after all types of experimental and not only experimental explosions, radio-active waste discharge into open water bodies, technological failures and accidents at the nuclear fuel cycle enterprises, there is not a single location on the Earth which is absolutely free of transuranium elements. Apparently, there would be no such locations in the future. Therefore, Russian researchers are now actively developing new analytical methods to ensure safety of people.
The problem is that the concentration of these radionuclids in the objects of the environment are extremely low, therefore, the researchers have to literally seek individual atoms. Before chemical analysis is carried out, these elements need to be educed from water and soil and concentrated. Respective analytical methods were developed in the Radio-Chemistry Laboratory, Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences. Doctoral thesis by Alexander Novikov, who has recently withheld it successfully, is devoted to this topic.
The researchers have found out the following after they analyzed multiple water, soil and bottom sediment samples, including samples from Karachai Lake, where water contaminated by radionuclids was discharged for a long time, and from the wells near "Mayak" Manufacturing Company, and also from the Yenisei River almost 200 kilometers downstream from the Krasnoyarsk Mining and Chemical Enterprise.
It has turned out that various transuranium elements behave differently in the natural environment. Some of them remain for a long time in the vicinity of the source of contamination and get accumulated at the bottom of water bodies. Some others "prefer" to travel along the rivers and float away hundreds of kilometers downstream.
Plutonium, for example, is mainly accumulated on the bottom, where it is tightly retained by silt. This radionuclid remains there almost infinitely long: the half-life period of 239-Plutonium (which is not the most long-lived isotope) makes 24 thousand years. Certainly, if the silt is not taken out of the water body and the kitchen gardens are not fertilized by it. In contrast, extremely toxic americium is a "fidget". Having saddled colloid particles of several nanometers in size, americium is capable of floating downstream for tens and even hundreds of kilometers and also of percolating rather deeply into the soil.
Therefore, ecological monitoring should in no circumstances be limited by measuring of the transuranium elements concentration only in the vicinity of their evident sources. Unfortunately, transuranium elements sometimes migrate rather successfully.
And secondly, people should be cautious about catching and buying fish in some regions. Even if the fish seems to have been swimming far from dangerous locations, as some radionuclids can also float that far. It is worth taking radiochemists' opinion into account. The more so, as the methods which allow to determine precisely how much and what radionuclids are contained in the water are now available for radiochemists and ecologists.
----
U.S. Welcomes Russia Arms Security Effort
GEORGE JAHN
Tue, Jun. 01, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/world/8806641.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Poland-Weapons-Conference.html
KRAKOW, Poland - The United States welcomed Russia on Monday as a key partner in fighting the spread of weapons of mass destruction, after Moscow said it was joining a year-old U.S. initiative to track and seize weapons components worldwide.
Moscow's announcement came as countries taking part in the Proliferation Security Initiative met in Krakow to review progress, a year after President Bush launched the initiative in the Polish city.
It calls on nations to cooperate to stop the trafficking of missiles and other components of weapons of mass destruction at sea, in the air and on land.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who visited Moscow in May to win over Russia, said that country's participation was "a critical development."
"This is a development that the United States has been working on almost since the beginning," he told reporters at the Krakow meeting. "We look forward to active participation by Russia in ... interdiction activities globally."
U.S. officials have said that Russia's joining would be especially significant because it would encourage China to follow suit, and because Moscow could bring its influence to bear on other former Soviet republics that have weak export controls.
Washington has been eager for Russia to join up before Group of Eight leaders meet in June in Sea Island, Georgia, where the United States wants the anti-proliferation initiative to be a major topic.
"We expect that our intelligence sharing and law enforcement and military assets working with the Russian Federation will make a major contribution to our efforts to interdict WMD trafficking worldwide," Bolton said.
Moscow had expressed doubts over the initiative, with officials saying they were unsure whether the plan met international legal standards and would be in Russia's national interest.
But the Foreign Ministry said Monday that "Russia today joined with the group of founding states of the Proliferation Security Initiative."
Its biggest success so far was the interception last October of a German freighter loaded with an illegal shipment of uranium enrichment equipment bound for Libya, Bolton said.
The seizure - said to have involved cooperation by U.S., British and German intelligence - sealed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's December decision to dismantle his nuclear weapons program, Bolton said.
Bolton renewed U.S. concerns about North Korea's weapons programs, accusing the reclusive communist country of being "one of the most extensive proliferators in the world," especially of ballistic missile technology.
"There's fear that if they develop sufficient quantities of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium that they ... would be prepared to sell that or actual weapons to other rogue states or terrorist groups," Bolton said.
-------- terrorism
Kerry Vows Action on Threat of Nuclear Terrorism
June 1, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-campaign-kerry.html
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - Democratic candidate John Kerry on Tuesday proposed to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism by securing all atomic arms in the former Soviet Union in four years and negotiating a global ban on new production of enriched uranium and plutonium.
The party's presumptive presidential nominee also said he would open direct talks with North Korea on ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
And he said he would call Iran's bluff by organizing nations to offer Tehran the nuclear fuel it says it needs for peaceful purposes and take back spent fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb.
``If Iran does not accept this, their true motivations will be clear,'' Kerry said in a speech designed to draw a sharp contrast with President Bush on the need to reduce the chance of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons.
In the second of three addresses on national security, Kerry also called for creation of a high-level White House coordinator to focus exclusively on preventing nuclear terrorism and said he would accelerate the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.
Kerry, who is locked in a tight race with Bush five months before the Nov. 2 election and has grappled with challenging the White House on Iraq, said keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands required new leadership to repair ``shredded'' U.S. alliances.
But Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt welcomed Kerry's ``embrace'' of nonproliferation goals already laid out by the president.
``The enemy is different and we must think and act anew,'' Kerry said. ``We have to do everything we can to stop a nuclear weapon from ever reaching our shore and that mission begins far away.''
Calling the nexus of nuclear weapons and terrorism ``the greatest threat we face today,'' he recommended ``a layered strategy'' that invoked U.S. nonmilitary strength early enough so force did not become the only option.
ASK HONEST QUESTIONS
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Kerry said Americans needed to ``take away politics, strip away the labels'' and ask honest questions.
``Have we done everything we could to secure these dangerous weapons and materials? Have we taken every step we should to stop North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs? Have we reached out to our allies and forged an urgent global effort to ensure that nuclear weapons and materials are secured?''
``The honest answer, in each of these areas, is that we have done too little, often too late, and even cut back our efforts,'' he said.
A Kerry foreign policy adviser said Bush had slowed the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, known as Nunn-Lugar after its two sponsors -- former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn and Republican Sen. Richard Lugar -- by failing to make it a top priority.
Over the past decade, the program has spent billions of dollars to help former Soviet states eliminate or secure nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. But Kerry said if work continued at the pace Bush had set, it would take 13 years to complete.
``If we secure all bomb-making materials, ensure that no new materials are produced for nuclear weapons and end nuclear weapons programs in hostile states like North Korea and Iran, we will dramatically reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism,'' he said.
The senator from Massachusetts, a 20-year veteran of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he would immediately ask members of the U.N. Security Council to formally pledge never again to produce material for nuclear weapons and then lead a broad international coalition to verifiably ban such production by any country.
Kerry criticized Bush for refusing to hold bilateral negotiations with North Korea. He said he would adopt a two-track policy of continuing the six-party talks that include Russia, Japan, China and South Korea while also holding direct discussions with Pyongyang.
Hoping to capitalize on polls showing Bush's popularity at its lowest since he took office and a decline in support for the Iraq war, Kerry is mid-way through an 11-day mini-campaign devoted to national security. On Thursday in Independence, Missouri, he will discuss modernizing U.S. military forces to meet new threats.
Bush and his Republican allies have tried to portray Kerry as an equivocating liberal, soft on defense and weak on fighting terrorism.
----
Remarks of Senator John Kerry
6/1/2004
U.S. Newswire
Contact: Allison Dobson of John Kerry for President, 202-712-3000
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=151-06012004
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., June 1-- Following is a transcript of remarks by Senator John Kerry (as prepared for delivery): Thank you and thank you all for being here. This weekend, thousands of men and women and children lined the streets in Florida to watch the Memorial Day Parades. They waved flags. Sons and daughters sat on their fathers' shoulders and cheered as high school marching bands and bands of brothers- and sisters-marched passed them with their heads held high.
It is a great time in America-a common scene to honor uncommon valor. Every year we gather in our cities and towns to remember. We praise our fathers and mothers. We mourn lost brothers and sisters. We miss best friends. And we thank God that we live in a country that is good as well as great.
In America, we are blessed to have World War II veterans like Debra Stern to lead us in the "Pledge of Allegiance." We are blessed that hundreds gathered at Royal Palm Memorial Gardens to dedicate a memorial to our most recent veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. We are blessed that so many in Florida could stop and pause to remember their neighbors and friends and the 35 who have fallen Iraq.
In America, we are blessed. When you stop and think about what it takes for people to risk their lives, say good-bye to their families, and go so far away to serve their country - it is a profound gesture of honor.
It symbolizes the spirit of America - that there are men and women who are ready to do what it takes to live and lead by our values. I met so many of them when I fought in Vietnam and I have met them since from Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Their love of country is special. And we will never tire of waving a flag, saying a prayer, or laying a wreath for those who fell to lift the cause of freedom.
Their sacrifice calls us to a higher standard. In these dangerous times and in our determination to win the war on terror, we need to be clear about our purposes and our principles. When war and peace, when life and death, when democracy and terror are in the balance, we owe it to our soldiers and our country to shape and follow a coherent policy that will make America safer, stronger, and truer to our ideals.
Last week, I proposed a new national security policy guided by four imperatives: First, we must lead strong alliances for the post 9-11 world. Second, we must modernize the world's most powerful military to meet new threats. Third, in addition to our military might, we must deploy all that is in America's arsenal - - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas. Fourth, to secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Middle East oil.
These four imperatives are a response to an inescapable reality: the world has changed and war has changed; the enemy is different - and we must think and act anew.
These imperatives must guide us as we deal with the greatest threat we face today-the possibility of al Qaeda or other terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear weapon. We know what al Qaeda and terrorists long to do. Osama bin Laden has called obtaining a weapon of mass destruction a sacred duty.
Take away politics, strip away the labels, the honest questions have to be asked. Since that dark day in September have we done everything we could to secure these dangerous weapons and bomb making materials? Have we taken every step we should to stop North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs? Have we reached out to our allies and forged an urgent global effort to ensure that nuclear weapons and materials are secured?
The honest answer, in each of these areas, is that we have done too little, often too late, and even cut back our efforts or turned away from the single greatest threat we face in the world today, a terrorist armed with nuclear weapons.
There was a time not so long ago when dealing with the possibility of nuclear war was the most important responsibility entrusted to every American President. The phrase "having your finger on the nuclear button" meant something very real to Americans, and to all the world. The Cold War may be over, the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States may have ended, but the possibility of terrorists using nuclear weapons is very real indeed. The question before us now is what shadowy figures may someday have their finger on a nuclear button if we don't act. It is time again that we have leadership at the highest levels that treats this threat with the sense of seriousness, urgency, and purpose it demands.
I can think of no single step that will do more to head off this catastrophe than the proposal I am laying out today. And that is why I am here today to ask that America launch a new mission, that America restore and renew the leadership we once demonstrated for all the world, to prevent the world's deadliest weapons from falling into the world's most dangerous hands. If we secure all bomb making materials, ensure that no new materials are produced for nuclear weapons, and end nuclear weapons programs in hostile states like North Korea and Iran, we can and will dramatically reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism.
We can't eliminate this threat on our own. We must fight this enemy in the same way we fought in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, by building and leading strong alliances. Our enemy has changed and is not based within one country or one totalitarian empire. But our path to victory is still the same. We must use the might of our alliances.
When I am president, America will lead the world in a mission to lock up and safeguard nuclear weapons material so terrorists can never acquire it. To achieve this goal, we need the active support of our friends and allies around the world. We might all share the same goal: to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but we can't achieve it when our alliances have been shredded.
It will take new leadership-the kind of leadership that brings others to us. We can't protect ourselves from these nuclear dangers without the world by our side.
Earlier this year, my colleague Senator Joe Biden announced the results of a challenge he issued. He asked the directors of our national laboratories whether terrorists could make a nuclear bomb. The bad news is they said "yes" - and when challenged to prove it, they constructed a nuclear bomb made entirely from commercial parts that can be bought without breaking any laws, except for obtaining the nuclear material itself. The good news is the materials-the highly enriched uranium and plutonium needed to detonate a bomb-do not occur in nature and are difficult for terrorists to produce on their own-no material, no bomb.
The weapons are only in a few countries, but the material to make a bomb exists in dozens of states around the world. Securing this material is a great challenge. But as President Truman said, "America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand."
We know how to reduce this threat. We have the technology to achieve this goal - and with the right leadership, we can achieve it quickly.
As president, my number one security goal will be to prevent the terrorists from gaining weapons of mass murder, and ensure that hostile states disarm. It is a daunting goal, but an indisputable one-and we can achieve it.
I think of other great challenges this nation has set for itself. In 1960, President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon. Our imagination and sense of discovery took us there. In 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly brought the world to nuclear disaster President Kennedy called for a nuclear test ban treaty. At the height of the Cold War, he challenged America and the Soviet Union to pursue a strategy "not toward ... annihilation, but toward a strategy of peace." We answered that challenge. And in time, a hotline between Moscow and Washington was established. The nuclear tests stopped. The air cleared and hope emerged on the horizon.
When America sees a great problem or great potential, it is in our collective character to set our sights on that horizon and not stop working until we reach it. In our mission to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, we should never feel helpless. We should feel empowered that the successes in our past will guide us toward a safer, more secure world.
Vulnerable nuclear material anywhere is a threat to everyone, everywhere.
We need to employ a layered strategy to keep the worst weapons from falling into the worst hands. A strategy that invokes our non-military strength early enough and effectively enough so military force doesn't become our only option. America must lead and build an international consensus for early preventive action.
Here's what we must do. The first step is to safeguard all bomb making material worldwide. That means making sure we know where they are, and then locking them up and securing them wherever they are. Our approach should treat all nuclear materials needed for bombs as if they were bombs.
More than a decade has passed since the Berlin Wall came down. But Russia still has nearly 20,000 nuclear weapons, and enough nuclear material to produce 50,000 more Hiroshima-sized bombs.
For most of these weapons and materials, cooperative security upgrades have not been completed - the world is relying on whatever measures Russia has taken on its own. And at the current pace, it will take 13 years to secure potential bomb material in the former Soviet Union. We cannot wait that long. I will ensure that we remove this material entirely from sites that can't be adequately secured during my first term.
It is hard to believe that we actually secured less bomb making material in the two years after 9/11 than we had in the two years before.
At my first summit with the Russian President, I will seek an agreement to sweep aside the key obstacles slowing our efforts to secure Russia's nuclear stockpiles. But this threat is not limited to the former Soviet Union.
Because terror at home can begin far away, we have to make sure that in every nation the stockpiles are safeguarded. If I am president, the United States will lead an alliance to establish and enforce an international standard for the safe custody of nuclear weapons and materials.
We will help states meet such standards by expanding the scope of the Nunn-Lugar program passed over a decade ago to deal with the unsecured weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union. For years, the administration has underfunded this vital program. For a fraction of what we have already spent in Iraq, we can ensure that every nuclear weapon, and every pound of potential bomb material will be secured and accounted for.
This is not just a question of resources. As president, I will make it a priority and overcome the bureaucratic walls that have caused delay and inaction in Russia so we can finish the important work of securing weapons material there and around the world.
The Administration just announced plans to remove potential bomb material from vulnerable sites outside the former Soviet Union over the next ten years. We simply can't afford another decade of this danger. My plan will safeguard this bomb making material in four years. We can't wait-and I won't wait when I am president.
The second step is to prevent the creation of new materials that are being produced for nuclear weapons. America must lead an international coalition to halt, and then verifiably ban, all production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for use in nuclear weapons -- permanently capping the world's nuclear weapons stockpiles.
Despite strong international support for such a ban, this Administration is stalling, and endlessly reviewing the need for such a policy.
In addition, we must strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to close the loophole that lets countries develop nuclear weapons capabilities under the guise of a peaceful, civilian nuclear power program.
The third step is to reduce excess stocks of materials and weapons. If America is asking the world to join our country in a shared mission to reduce this nuclear threat, then why would the world listen to us if our own words do not match our deeds?
As President, I will stop this Administration's program to develop a whole new generation of bunker-busting nuclear bombs. This is a weapon we don't need. And it undermines our credibility in persuading other nations. What kind of message does it send when we're asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons, but developing new ones ourselves?
We must work with the Russians to accelerate the "blending down" of highly enriched uranium and the disposition of Russian plutonium stocks so they can never be used in a nuclear weapon.
We don't need a world with more usable nuclear weapons. We need a world where terrorists can't ever use one. That should be our focus in the post 9/11 world.
Our fourth step is to end the nuclear weapons programs in states like North Korea and Iran.
This Administration has been fixated on Iraq while the nuclear dangers from North Korea have multiplied. We know that North Korea has sold ballistic missiles and technology in the past. And according to recent reports, North Korean uranium ended up in Libyan hands. The North Koreans have made it clear to the world - and to the terrorists - that they are open for business and will sell to the highest bidder.
We should have no illusions about Kim Jong II, so any agreement must have rigorous verification and lead to complete and irreversible elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. For eighteen months, we've essentially negotiated over the shape of the table while the North Koreans allegedly have made enough new fuel to make six to nine nuclear bombs.
We should maintain the six party talks, but we must also be prepared to talk directly with North Korea. This problem is too urgent to allow China, or others at the table, to speak for us. And we must be prepared to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that addresses the full range of issues of concern to us and our allies.
We must also meet the mounting danger on the other side of Asia. While we have been preoccupied in Iraq, next door in Iran, a nuclear program has been reportedly moving ahead. Let me say it plainly: a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable. An America, whose interest and allies could be on the target list, must no longer sit on the sidelines. It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve those issues.
This is why strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is so critical. The Iranians claim they're simply trying to meet domestic energy needs. We should call their bluff, and organize a group of states that will offer the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they can't divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this, their true motivations will be clear. The same goes for other countries possibly seeking nuclear weapons. We will oppose the construction in any new countries of any new facilities to make nuclear materials, and lead a global effort to prevent the export of the necessary technology to Iran.
We also need to strengthen enforcement and verification. We must make rigorous inspection protocols mandatory, and refocus the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop the spread of nuclear weapons material.
Next, we must work with every country to tighten export controls, stiffen penalties, and beef up law enforcement and intelligence sharing, to make absolutely sure that a disaster like the AQ Khan black market network, which grew out of Pakistan's nuclear program, can never happen again. We must also take steps to reduce tension between India and Pakistan and guard against the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands there.
So let it be clear: finally and fundamentally, preventing nuclear terrorism is our most urgent priority to provide for America's long term security. That is why I will appoint a National Coordinator for Nuclear Terrorism and Counterproliferation who will work with me in the White House to marshal every effort and every ally, to combat an incalculable danger.
We have to do everything we can to stop a nuclear weapon from ever reaching our shore-and that mission begins far away. We have to secure nuclear weapons and materials at the source so that searching the containers here at the Port of Palm Beach isn't our only line of defense-it is our last line of defense.
This is not an easy topic: it can be frightening. At this hour, stockpiles go unguarded, bomb making materials sit in forgotten facilities, and terrorists plot away. They sit in unassuming rooms all across the globe. They have their technology. They have their scientists. All they need is that material. But we can stop them. Remember. No material. No bomb. No nuclear terrorism.
We are living through days of great and unprecedented risks. But Americans have never surrendered to fear. Today, we must not avert our eyes, or pretend it's not there-or think that we can simply wait it out. That is not our history-or our hope.
Last Saturday, I attended the dedication of the World War II memorial. I had the honor to sit next to a brave man, Joe Lesniewski who was one of the original "Band of Brothers" from the 'Easy Company" of the 101st Airborne Division. He's part of the Greatest Generation and jumped into enemy territory during the invasion of Normandy. Like so many other young men that day, he looked fear in the face and conquered it. June 6th-this coming Saturday-marks the anniversary of that day which saved the free world.
Sixty years ago, more than 43,000 young men were ready to storm Omaha Beach. Their landing crafts were heading for an open beach, where they averted a wall of concrete and bullets. They knew there was an overwhelming chance that they might die before their boots hit the sand.
But they jumped into the shallow waters and fought their way ashore. Because at the end of the beach, beyond the cliff was the hope of a safer world. That is what Americans do. We face a challenge-no matter how ominous-because we know that on the other side of hardship resides hope.
As president, I will not wait or waver in the face of the new threats of this new era. I will build and lead strong alliances. I will deploy every tool at our disposal. I know it will not be easy, but the greatest victories for peace and freedom never are. There are no cake-walks in the contest with terrorists and lawless states.
We have to climb this cliff together so that we, too, can reach the other side of hardship and live in a world that no longer fears the unknowable enemy and the looming mushroom cloud on the horizon.
We must lead this effort not just for our own safety, but for the good of the world. As President Truman said, "Our goal is collective security...If we can work in a spirit of understanding and mutual respect, we can fulfill this solemn obligation that rests upon us."
Just as he led America to face the threat of communism, so too, we must now face the twin threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. This is a great challenge for our generation-and the stakes are as high as they were on D-Day and in President Truman's time. For the sake of all the generations to come, we will meet this test and we will succeed.
-------- treaties
The Bush Administration's Nonproliferation Policy:
An interview with Assistant Secretary of State John S. Wolf
June, 2004
Arms Control Today
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_06/Wolf.asp
Assistant Secretary of State for Nonprolif-eration John S. Wolf spoke with Arms Control Today Editor Miles A. Pomper and Arms Control Association Research Director Wade Boese May 13 about the Bush administration's nonproliferation policy. The discussion followed a recently concluded Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting that assembled to plan the 2005 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.
ACT: The U.S. theme at the recently concluded NPT PrepCom was that a crisis of noncompliance currently exists with regard to the treaty. Could you briefly discuss the magnitude of the problem and what the U.S. solutions are to resolving it?
Wolf: In the last dozen years or so, we have seen North Korea fail to comply with its safeguards obligations, violating its Article II and III NPT obligations.[1] We have seen Libya admit to having had a nuclear weapons program. (See ACT, March 2004.) We have seen clear evidence of Iranian violations which in our view constitute Article II and III violations: the clandestine nature of their program, the unwillingness to respond to repeated calls by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [to resolve questions about the Iranian nuclear program], and the continuing clandestine nature of part of their program. The whole question of the A. Q. Khan network, which has shown that nonstate parties are capable of gathering and selling sensitive nuclear technologies, up to and including nuclear weapons designs. (See ACT, March 2004.) The treaty was put together by states-parties determined to end the increasing number of countries that had nuclear weapons. That's not to mention states that are outside the NPT, which are repeatedly talked about: India, Pakistan, and Israel. So, the treaty, which has three parts-disarmament, peaceful uses, and nonproliferation-can't be successful if the core principle, the one that creates confidence in the international community, is being violated, and it's the compliance pillar that's being violated. That [lack of compliance] clearly will have an impact on other aspects of the treaty.
ACT: How do we bolster the compliance pillar then?
Wolf: We're doing a variety of things to bolster compliance. First of all, we think it's important for the world community to be clear and categorical that it's determined not to see an expansion in the number of countries with nuclear weapons. The six-party process in Asia looks at the North Korean nuclear weapons program and says that the only acceptable solution is complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of [North Korea's] weapons and nuclear programs. The insistent demand by the international community and the IAEA that Iran end its noncompliance and return to compliance is a first step, but I think it will take more than just the IAEA. It will take the international community writ large making clear to Iran that it faces two choices. If [Iran] chooses to continue down the nuclear weapons path, it will face increasing political and economic isolation. The alternative is to give up that path and be restored as a reputable member of the international community. Libya chose the benefits of coming clean. The work we are doing to root out the A. Q. Khan network makes clear that we are not prepared to accept those kinds of networks.
Then comes a whole set of things revolving around the president's proposals of February 11. (See ACT, March 2004.) There is an increasingly widespread belief that the sensitive nuclear technologies related to enrichment and reprocessing should not spread horizontally.[2] We need to continue to strengthen the safeguards capabilities of the IAEA. We did that with a budget increase for the current biennium. We are doing that by looking to see the Additional Protocol become the new universal standard [for safeguards].[3] We hope that Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) countries will agree not to sell nuclear technology to countries that don't have in place an additional protocol or certainly [haven't] signed one by 2005.[4] We believe there are some IAEA management reforms that could also be pursued.
Resolution 1540, which [the UN Security Council] passed a couple of weeks ago, was a clarion call to the international community that every country has to raise the levels of its export controls and improve the nature of its enforcement. (See ACT, May 2004.) A. Q. Khan's successes make clear that it's possible even with good export controls to export, buy, and assemble sensitive nuclear technology. That's an enforcement question and a sharing of information question. We will use the Proliferation Security Initiative increasingly as another active tool to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction-nuclear, chemical, and biological-and the means to deliver. [Those are several] things in motion to raise international standards, improve enforcement, and stop shipments of proliferation technologies as they occur.
ACT: Speaking of Resolution 1540, the United States persuaded other countries to accept it on the basis that it was aimed at nonstate actors. However, as you just noted in your remarks, it will require actions by states to toughen their export control laws, so it will be states that will ultimately be held accountable under the resolution. What are the standards to measure whether states live up to their responsibilities under Resolution 1540, and what are the consequences if they do not?
Wolf: The resolution seeks to improve export controls and enforcement measures to stop nonstate parties from acquiring dangerous weapons and technologies. I would submit that the resolution also looks at state-state transactions, as well as state-nonstate transactions. There's a whole universe of state-state, state-nonstate, nonstate-nonstate, nonstate-state [transactions], and all of those need to be covered by comprehensive export controls and rigorous enforcement. We're not any safer if it's state proliferation to another state. We're certainly not safer if it's North Korea shipping weapons technology to Iran or if Iran is acquiring weapons technologies through state purchasing agencies.
ACT: At the PrepCom, the United States pushed members to judge compliance by intentions rather than capabilities. This would appear to put more of the burden on the accused rather than the accuser to prove its case. Is this a new interpretation of compliance?
Wolf: No. You have to look at both capabilities and intentions. The intentions part covers, for instance, a willingness to dissemble, false statements, and misdeclarations. All of those have to be in addition to the capabilities, which may be physical. You have to factor in the degree to which a country takes efforts to deceive the international community. North Korea did it. They did it from the get-go. They did it when they signed the NPT. They did it in the Agreed Framework.[5] So, you take all that into account. If you look at my PrepCom statements last week, you'll see that I pointed to several cases where Iran said one thing in 2003, only to see it disproved by IAEA inspections during the last nine months. That kind of willful deception ought to be part of what countries take into account. Undersecretary [of State for Arms Control and International Security John] Bolton's speech made clear that, if the test [for determining noncompliance] is simply either seeing a nuclear weapon or seeing a nuclear weapons test, then it's far too late for the international community to act.
ACT: The recent PrepCom was intended to provide a set of recommendations for next year's regular five-year treaty Review Conference. However, the meeting concluded with no such recommendations. Why?
Wolf: It was supposed to make efforts to come up with substantive recommendations. PrepComs haven't. It also was supposed to complete work on a number of procedural issues, and it's disappointing that it didn't conclude all procedural work. It did choose a president-elect. It did come up with financing arrangements. It did come up with rules for procedure. But in the end, the Non-Aligned Movement[6] failed to agree to any of several proposals that were on the table on an agenda for the Review Conference. There were at least four, including the chairman's own proposal, that the United States could have supported. So, in a way it's disappointing that we failed to complete that work. It is not surprising that it didn't come up with substantive recommendations. In the history of Review Conferences, that tends to be the kind of thing that gets done at the Review Conference and not before the Review Conference.
The meeting was actually good in terms of the opportunity that it presented to member states to express their views. Thirty-eight countries, I think, expressed concerns about Iran, for instance. Many talked about the problems of compliance. Many called for universal adoption of additional protocols, as well as safeguards arrangements for those states that still don't have them. Many countries called for improved export controls.
The United States and other nuclear-weapon states had an opportunity to make the case that disarmament is in fact taking place. We reiterated our commitment to Article VI.[7] We talked about 13,000 weapons dismantled. The Moscow Treaty[8] reductions will lead to an 80 percent reduction in U.S. operationally deployed strategic warheads. Nearly 90 percent of U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons have been eliminated since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Over the last 10 years, we have eliminated 1,200 strategic bombers and missiles. No U.S. nuclear tests have taken place since 1992. No fissile material[9] has been produced for 15 years. Nine billion dollars has been spent on Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs.[10] In the former Soviet Union, over 1,000 ballistic missiles were eliminated, and 6,000 strategic warheads were removed. Seven hundred tons of fissile material have been removed from the weapons stockpiles in Russia and the United States, of which 250 tons of that have been converted to low-enriched uranium. In other words, it gave us a chance to make clear that disarmament is proceeding. But the fact is that it also provided us with opportunities to say the problem is not the nuclear-weapon states. It is the failure of some non-nuclear-weapon states to live by their obligations. And the failure by a few puts at risk the benefits for many.
ACT: Nevertheless, as you alluded to, the Non-Aligned Movement and the New Agenda Coalition[11] both criticized the United States for not doing enough on disarmament. And they also identified as one of the reasons for the failure to come up with [Review Conference] recommendations a U.S. reluctance to reaffirm the 13 steps.[12] Does the United States still support the 13 steps?
Wolf: On the first point, it's really interesting that when [the PrepCom was] talking about some of the proposals that the Non-Aligned [Movement] put forward at the last moment, the Russian delegate made the point, for instance, that one of their [Non-Aligned Movement] recommendations is that the nuclear-weapon states should improve reporting. He said that Russia had been providing reports and whenever Russia asked the Non-Aligned Movement, "Well, what do you think of our report? How could it be improved? Where do you see problems?" Russia gets no answers. So, [regarding] this sort of drumbeat about disarmament, some might wonder whether or not people are actually looking at the facts or simply reading the speech from last year without taking account of what happened in the year previous. The CTR programs go forward in Russia and the former Soviet Union; we continue to dismantle strategic weapons systems or they continue to dismantle warheads; we continue to immobilize fissile material, not by the kilo but by the ton; and yet those issues just seem to wander off the table.
ACT: What about with regard to the 13 steps?
Wolf: The 13 steps were an important conclusion to the 2000 Review Conference. But the world moves on, and the discussion ought not to be locked in 2000. Some things have been overtaken by events. [The upcoming Review Conference] ought to focus next year on what's relevant for 2005. I will give you one example. One of the 13 steps was the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The United States and the Russian Federation have terminated the ABM Treaty.[13] So, to spend a lot of time debating whether or not we support that step is a real exercise in irrelevance, and we are not prepared to do it. The treaty does not exist anymore. It was a bilateral treaty, and it was ended legally.
ACT: I think we can all agree on the fact that it's no secret that the ABM Treaty is no longer in operation, but what about the other 12 steps?
Wolf: I am not going to wander through the other 12 steps now and go through each one. It just does not serve a purpose. We would prefer to talk about the disarmament we are doing, and we are doing a lot of it. We could return to 2000 and pretend that the next five years did not exist, but we would rather start in 2005, see what the world situation is, and discuss where we go from 2005 forward.
ACT: What would the United States see as a successful outcome to the 2005 NPT conference?
Wolf: It's just critical that the Review Conference takes a strong stand and looks at ways in which we can ensure that compliance takes place. A number of discussions will take place between now and then in specific fora, including the IAEA, its Board of Governors, and the [NSG]. I am not sure that I want to lay out today what our goals are going to be a year from now because I am not sure I can put it in specifics. But we will come back to the theme that we discussed [the last two years], which is that the treaty is put at risk by those few who are failing to meet their obligations and who are seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and weapons capabilities clandestinely.
ACT: Clearly, there is a disconnect between the nuclear-weapon states and the non-nuclear-weapon states on prioritizing disarmament versus nonproliferation. How can the treaty survive if these two groups of states can't find a way to balance those two objectives?
Wolf: Because none of us have interests in seeing countries like Iran or North Korea have nuclear weapons. All of our security is jeopardized when countries like Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons programs. What is put at risk for all of us is the ability to continue disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states and peaceful nuclear cooperation because the system just won't be able to continue to operate in the face of mass violations.
ACT: On this theme of getting tough with proliferators, the administration said little when Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pardoned A. Q. Khan for leading the largest black-market proliferation ring ever exposed. Does the administration's blind eye to Khan's lack of punishment undercut the U.S. message on enforcement and compliance?
Wolf: You made at least two assertions that I do not accept. I am not sure that we were silent, and I am not sure that we have turned a blind eye. We expect Pakistan to continue to take vigorous action both to help identify and then to help root out the Khan network. That is a consistent message. It has not changed, and it's repeated to Pakistan at the very highest levels.
ACT: Is there confidence then that the Khan network is shut down, or is that still being worked on?
Wolf: We are working on that.
ACT: Pakistan has been very resistant to allowing outside governments or international inspectors into its territory. How can you have confidence that it is fulfilling the needs of shutting down this network if there is not access to their weapons programs, their officials, or to Khan himself?
Wolf: Both through our dialogue with [Pakistan] and through other means. I think we will have a good view as to whether or not they are cooperating. The Khan network is not limited to Pakistan, and so we are active with the United Kingdom, the IAEA, and others in a variety of countries to deal with people and entities elsewhere around the world.
ACT: Why not press the Pakistanis to allow U.S. officials to interview Khan? The United States was very insistent with Iraq leading up to the war that it have the ability to talk to their weapons scientists. Why hasn't the United States had the same insistence when it comes to Pakistan, which is a U.S. ally?
Wolf: I think we have a continuing dialogue with Pakistan, and I'm not going to go into the details of it.
ACT: The practice of "naming names" is an important element of this administration's nonproliferation strategy. However, it has been used to publicly name those states suspected of illicit weapons programs rather than their suppliers. For instance, at the recent PrepCom there was some dancing around the fact of not calling on Russia or other European states explicitly for their involvement or ties to Iran. Why shouldn't suppliers be held as accountable as the recipients?
Wolf: We do hold them accountable. We do hold them accountable to the extent that, if sales of technology and technical assistance violate U.S. laws, we use sanctions, among other things, to take action against proliferators. If you look at the Federal Register, you will see more than several dozen sanctions cases that have been concluded within the last year. (See ACT, September 2003.) We have a very active dialogue with a whole variety of countries when we see entities engaged within a country in proliferation activities. I suppose we have nonproliferation dialogues with a dozen or more countries.
ACT: Russian and Chinese entities regularly appear on the list of sanctioned parties. Are these companies acting independently of their government? Is this something where their government is not enforcing their own export controls or turning a blind eye toward these activities?
Wolf: It would be best to say they are not enforcing adequately their export controls. China now has a new set of export controls. (See ACT, January/February 2004.) One would assume that with the new export controls-if one assumes that it's not with the acquiescence of the government, and I'm not saying it is or isn't-then that requires better enforcement. So, we are constantly working with countries like China, but not just China. We do export control cooperation with 40-some countries because your chain is only as strong as the weakest link. You identify China, but if you look at where A. Q. Khan purchased his goods, he worked in western Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. So, it is not any one country. We have a continuing dialogue with China, we have a continuing dialogue on export controls and enforcement with Russia, and we have these dialogues with 40-some other countries.
ACT: Does the United States support China's bids to join the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)[14] and the NSG?
Wolf: NSG, yes. MTCR, I do not think we have taken a decision on that yet.
ACT: In an address to the PrepCom, you called on Pakistan and India, who are obviously not parties to the NPT, to refrain from deploying or testing additional nuclear weapons because this would undermine the nonproliferation regime. Why doesn't U.S. research into new nuclear weapons undercut the nonproliferation regime as well?
Wolf: We have a nuclear stockpile. It actually includes low-yield weapons, and the research and development is simply related to whether they are effective in the configuration they are in. We have made no decision to build a new weapon. We certainly have not tested a new weapon. This is a research and development process. I think there is a clear difference between our nuclear weapons stockpile and the question of deploying weapons and nuclear missiles in a volatile region like South Asia.
ACT: Does the United States support the European Union's efforts to engage Iran by linking a potential trade agreement to Iran's compliance with its safeguards agreement?
Wolf: I shouldn't speak for the EU, but I think the decision to hold up the trade and cooperation agreement was based on a number of issues, including concern about Iran's proliferation and human rights. The initiative by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom is quite different. (See ACT, November 2003.) All I would say about that initiative is that, to date, there are no signs that Iran is complying with it, as the initiative was originally described to us, and no signs that the initiative has had any palpable effect on Iran's strategic decision to continue forward toward a nuclear weapons capability.
ACT: Are you saying it is essentially a pointless exercise that they are engaged in?
Wolf: I did not say that. I said, so far it has had no palpable effect. We think Iran is still moving in the direction of a nuclear weapons capability. I guess it would be better to say we cannot measure what impact it has had because it has led to a suspension of some things for now, but we still believe that Iran continues some clandestine efforts, not withstanding their commitments to the EU or the IAEA.
ACT: Specifically on that, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Semmel stated April 29 that "there is strong reason to question whether [Iran's additional protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement] is being fully implemented as Iran claims." What is the strong reason, i.e., what is the evidence that they are not implementing their additional protocol?
Wolf: Because we have good reason to believe it.
ACT: I assume that means it is some sort of intelligence information?
Wolf: Well, no. It is good reasons.
ACT: The United States has repeatedly called on the IAEA Board of Governors to refer the Iran issue to the UN Security Council so that "appropriate measures" could be taken. What types of measures does the United States want the Security Council to take with regard to Iran?
Wolf: We believe that the IAEA Board of Governors has a responsibility [to report noncompliance to the Security Council]. In essence, they found noncompliance with safeguards obligations as long ago as last November. (See ACT, December 2003.) So, if the treaty architecture is to have any validity and have any strength when noncompliance takes place, [the noncompliance] needs to be reported. What the Security Council might do is still a bit of a hypothetical, but it would be far too simplistic to say that the only option would be to impose sanctions. There are a whole variety of things the council could do.
ACT: Such as?
Wolf: As a first step, I expect that it would add its political voice, the voice of the Security Council, in calling for Iran to adhere to its treaty obligation. That would be an important additional political fact that might help wavering countries, which have not yet accepted the noncompliance, to see that, in fact, there has been noncompliance.
ACT: Given that the council took no action after the Board of Governors referred the North Korean case in February 2003, why is the United States pursuing this course with Iran?
Wolf: We think it is important for the IAEA board to take decisions where it has a responsibility to take decisions. We think it is important for the Security Council to act. We don't want to give up an important tool of the international architecture. It is always perplexing that, when the United States chooses to do something bilaterally or [multilaterally] outside an established international treaty, then we are called unilateralists. But when we say we believe that the multilateral system should address real issues consistent with treaty obligations and the UN Charter, people ask us why we are doing it.
ACT: What will the administration do in the event [the Iranian case] is referred to the Security Council and the Security Council does not act?
Wolf: We hope that the international community will take its responsibilities seriously.
ACT: The United States is calling for the ratification of the model Additional Protocol by every state by the end of 2005 as a condition for it to be eligible for nuclear trade. How is the United States expecting to accomplish this? Is this going to be something that is determined by the NSG, or is this adding a provision to the NPT? What is the process?
Wolf: I suspect that we would like to see the nuclear suppliers all have a common position.
ACT: When you say nuclear suppliers, are you referring to the group itself or also including those countries that are outside the regime such as India and Pakistan, that are becoming second-tier suppliers to programs around the world?
Wolf: To whom?
ACT: Well, with Pakistan you have the Khan network operating from its territory.
Wolf: Well, the Khan network was not government policy. It was private capitalism. India? Is India helping anybody?
ACT: I am not certain that they are, but given that these countries have the capabilities, the material, and the technologies, is it enough just to have the NSG...
Wolf: I am not aware that either of those countries have any intentions to export.
ACT: So, right now the focus is on getting the NSG to make a decision.
Wolf: Right.
ACT: And similarly along those lines, the other major proposal that you spoke about earlier is the denial of enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to those states that do not already possess fully functioning facilities and those that are not in compliance with the NPT. Is this something that will be done through the NSG then as well?
Wolf: We are working in a variety of settings to build support for that proposal. Ultimately, it might come to the NSG, but that is not the only place in which we are addressing it. We are addressing it bilaterally and in other groups. We will address it again in the NSG as we did in March at the experts meeting.
ACT: Another proposal is the creation of a special committee of the IAEA to focus on compliance and enforcement. There is also the call to prohibit countries suspected of or found to be violating their NPT commitments not to sit on the IAEA Board of Governors. My understanding is that some countries have referred to those proposals as being dead in the water right now. Is that the case? Is the United States going to continue to promote these two initiatives?
Wolf: Some people may think they are dead in the water, but we continue to promote them. I am sure we will come back to them both at the board and this fall at the [General Assembly].
ACT: Is there anything that we did not touch on that you would like to expand on or say for the record? This is your chance to get in the last word.
Wolf: No. You have asked a lot of questions. It is never a good policy to volunteer information.
ENDNOTES
1. Article II of the NPT commits non-nuclear-weapon states to not pursue or acquire nuclear weapons. Article III obligates those same states to put in place safeguards verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to prevent the diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful purposes to nuclear weapons.
2. Uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing are part of the nuclear fuel cycle, but they have direct application for building nuclear weapons. See "Curbing Nonproliferation: An Interview with Mohamed ElBaradei," Arms Control Today, November 2003, pp. 3-6.
3. The 1997 model Additional Protocol empowers the IAEA to conduct more intrusive inspections and requires states to volunteer more information on their nuclear programs.
4. The Nuclear Suppliers Group is a voluntary export control regime of 40 states, including the United States and Russia, which pledge to coordinate and restrict their nuclear trade.
5. Signed in 1994 by the United States and North Korea, the Agreed Framework required North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and freeze construction and operation of nuclear reactors suspected of being part of Pyongyang's drive to acquire nuclear weapons. In exchange, North Korea was promised two different reactors less capable of being used to build nuclear weapons and the delivery of heavy- fuel oil for its energy needs in the interim.
6. The Non-Aligned Movement is a loose coalition of more than 100 states from the developing world, including Iran, India, and Pakistan, which have strongly pushed for nuclear disarmament by the five recognized nuclear-weapon states: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
7. Article VI of the NPT commits the nuclear-weapon states, as well as all other states-parties, to work toward nuclear disarmament.
8. Also known as the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), the Moscow Treaty commits the United States and Russia to reduce their number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to fewer than 2,200 by December 31, 2012. Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin signed the accord, which does not require the destruction of nuclear warheads or delivery systems but simply their separation, in May 2002.
9. Highly enriched uranium and plutonium are fissile materials, which are the materials essential to making nuclear weapons.
10. Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs are programs designed to help Russia and other former Soviet states secure and destroy their excess or outlawed nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
11. The New Agenda Coalition, which wants to see faster progress toward nuclear disarmament, is composed of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden.
12. At the 2000 Review Conference, the states-parties agreed to 13 "practical" steps, such as bringing into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which could be taken to achieve progress toward nuclear disarmament.
13. Signed in 1972 by the United States and the Soviet Union, the ABM Treaty barred both countries from pursuing nationwide strategic missile defense systems. The United States withdrew from the accord in June 2002 despite opposition from Russia and most of the world.
14. The Missile Technology Control Regime is a voluntary export control regime of 33 countries that pledge to restrict their transfers of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction.
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Bush Urges World to Stem WMD Trafficking
June 1, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bush-Weapons-Conference.html
KRAKOW, Poland (AP) -- President Bush on Tuesday hailed the success of a year-old international effort to disrupt the spread of weapons of mass destruction, urging more than 60 nations backing the initiative to remain vigilant.
``We are determined to keep the world's most dangerous weapons out of the world's most dangerous hands,'' Bush said in a videotaped message to a conference marking the anniversary of his Proliferation Security Initiative.
Launched during a visit to Krakow last year, Bush's program calls on countries to work together to intercept components of weapons of mass destruction on planes, ships and on land.
Bush attributed Libya's decision to renounce its nuclear and chemical weapons programs in December largely to the initiative.
International intelligence sharing and other cooperation under the program led to the interception of a freighter bound for Tripoli laden with components to enrich uranium, he said.
Bush also cited international cooperation in breaking up the illicit nuclear trafficking led by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist implicated in selling his country's nuclear secrets to Libya, North Korea, Iran and possibly other countries.
The initiative led to ``the unraveling of A. Q. Khan's nuclear network,'' which showed its ``potential to end a program that threatens us all,'' Bush said.
In separate videotaped comments to the 62-nation meeting, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said the threats of proliferation went beyond nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs being secretly developed by rogue nations.
``The dangers will become even greater if weapons of mass destruction fell into the hands of terrorists,'' he warned.
Addressing the conference, U.S. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton urged nations worldwide to scrutinize shipments to and from North Korea, Iran and Syria -- nations he described as ``serious proliferation threats.''
He said he expected the cooperation among PSI partners to evolve to the point where ``we will have shut down the ability of persons, companies or other entities to engage in this deadly trade ... and we will have made it increasingly difficult and costly for rogue nations and terrorists to engage in their deadly work.''
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Sounding the Alarm on Nuclear Proliferation
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4758-2004May31?language=printer
The Armed Services Committee was not exactly the assignment the self-described South Carolina country lawyer imagined for himself when he arrived as a House of Representatives rookie in 1983.
He tried to find his way onto Energy and Commerce, to no avail. He would have loved a spot on Ways and Means, but no go. Armed Services was where a spare seat awaited 40-year-old Democratic Rep. John M. Spratt Jr.
"You could understand why people weren't exactly enthralled with the subject matter," Spratt recalled, "because the hearings were dull as dishwater."
From those beginnings, fueled by a puzzle-solver's patience for detail and an education fancier than he readily lets on, Spratt has become an expert on U.S. nuclear policy and one voice among a devoted few on Capitol Hill sounding the alarm about atomic danger.
Now, talking about weapons design, he says things in casual conversation such as, "You've got the HE's side-by-side with the RVs." (Translation: High explosives are close to the reentry vehicle.)
He also says, "The threat of a fire next time, a nuclear incident, is real enough that we should be devoting much more attention."
When Spratt, the House Budget Committee's senior Democrat, examines President Bush's nonproliferation budget requests, he sees an approach he calls "politically correct" but "not aggressive at all. You don't get the impression that it's being pushed as a big priority."
Bush administration officials dispute that assessment, of course. Last week, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced $450 million in spending over the next decade to retrieve enriched uranium from around the world.
But the polite and amiable Spratt is politely and amiably unimpressed. He figures that "in a budget growing this fast" -- defense spending has grown from less than $300 billion a year to more than $400 billion a year -- "surely if you wanted, you could find more money for nonproliferation."
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, describes Spratt as "the most influential House Democrat on defense and nonproliferation issues." In January, he became assistant to the House Democratic leader.
Political science professor Robert Botsch of the University of South Carolina at Aiken, describes Spratt as a deficit hawk who is "not flamboyant. Quiet. But when it comes to talking about future generations paying for today's spending, he gets pretty exercised."
But Spratt, 61, is an accidental nuclear specialist. A history major from Davidson College who makes references to Talleyrand, he reached Congress at a moment when he was beginning to think his hopes for a House seat had passed. Six days before the primary in 1982, the incumbent dropped out and Spratt saw his chance.
"Frankly," he said one recent afternoon as he crossed Independence Avenue to the Capitol, "it's something I always wanted to do."
As a boy, he helped his father, a prominent Democrat in small-town York, S.C., with political campaigns. At York High School, Spratt was elected president of the student body. At Davidson, ditto. He won a Marshall Scholarship that sent him to Oxford, where he studied economics and politics. Then came Yale Law School and the Army.
The United States was in the thick of the Vietnam War in 1969 when Spratt received an ROTC commission as an Army captain. He spent the next two years stateside, working on the staff of the Defense Department comptroller's office, examining procurement troubles.
For the next dozen years, Spratt practiced law in York, where he also spent time as the county and school district attorney. He prospered, becoming a bank president and owner of an insurance agency in nearby Fort Mill. His brother-in-law is Hugh L. McColl Jr., former chairman of Bank of America.
Elected to Congress the day after his 40th birthday, Spratt landed in Washington as a provincial star without many connections, like the high school football captain who arrives at college to discover himself surrounded by others who were captains, too. He went to the Armed Services Committee, where the future chairman, Les Aspin (D-Wis.), looked out for him.
Spratt chaired a panel on President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as Star Wars, the precursor to the missile defense system. When a colleague returned to claim the panel's top job, Spratt needed to look for something new.
"You play the ball where it lies," Spratt said. "If I wanted to have a role, I had to go after things other people weren't flocking towards. I had to find something fairly esoteric, that was both justified and didn't ruffle too many feathers."
Nuclear weapons. Highly enriched uranium. Atomic testing. Combined with his interest in budget matters, Spratt had found his metier.
When Bill Clinton won the White House in 1993 and made Aspin his secretary of defense, Aspin offered Spratt the job as Army secretary. Spratt turned it down. After a decade on the job, Spratt felt he was drawing closer to a leadership role in the House and was not convinced that an Army secretary would have enough "power, authority, discretion."
These are frustrating times for House Democrats who face the iron discipline of the GOP leadership. Spratt's ire was triggered most recently when he tried to move $400 million, including a large sum from the missile defense program, into raises for senior noncommissioned officers and warrant officers.
"This was not just a 'gotcha' amendment. These guys are the backbone of an army," Spratt said. "I thought we needed to have that debate on the House floor."
His amendment failed to make it that far, a predicament he said would not have occurred in an earlier, more collegial time.
"I raised hell about it," he said.
And what happened next?
"Nothing," Spratt said. "The well of the floor ought to be a great national forum, a crucible where we grind out good ideas for the country. I'm afraid that's not what we have now."
Spratt is deeply troubled by the administration's follow-through on the president's nonproliferation pledges. A particular peeve is the administration's recent increases in spending on research into new atomic warheads. He believes a resumption of testing, despite repeated denials, is "on the horizon."
"What troubles me most," Spratt told a recent Arms Control Association gathering, "is the attitude this administration seems to take. This administration seems to believe that the United States can move the world in one direction while we ourselves move in a different direction."
He was dismayed last year when the administration and its allies repealed a restriction, coauthored by Spratt, that had banned research and development on new nuclear weapons with yields lower than five kilotons. He said the administration is "taking us back to somewhere where we were years ago and were thankful to have moved beyond."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- vermont
Senators: NRC gave state brushoff on Yankee
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Rutland Herald Staff
Jun. 1, 2004
http://www.rutlandherald.com/04/State/Story/84546.html
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Vermont Senate: "Drop dead."
That's how Sen. Peter Welch, D-Windsor, Senate president pro tempore, reads it.
"The NRC took six pages to say, 'NRC to Vermont Senate: Drop dead,' that's what it basically says," Welch said Tuesday.
Welch, one of the authors of the Senate resolution asking for a more detailed study of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant by federal regulators said he was very disappointed by the NRC's response.
Welch said the letter did nothing to address the safety concerns the Senate raised in its March 17 resolution, which passed the state Senate unanimously.
The Senate had asked for a detailed "independent safety assessment" of Vermont Yankee by the NRC prior to the federal regulators giving approval to Entergy Nuclear to increase power by 20 percent.
"The staff believes that the specific actions requested by the Senate are already satisfied in one way or another through current or planned NRC processes," wrote J.E. Dyer, director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
"We believe the NRC's program of review and oversight is comprehensive, effective and responsive to the needs of the Vermont Senate," Dyer concluded.
The Senate resolution followed closely the request from the state Public Service Board for an "inde Welchpendent engineering assessment," of Vermont Yankee prior to any power increase approval by federal regulators. The engineering assessment was described as not as extensive as what the Senate wanted.
Welch said that since the letter was sent to the NRC, the problems at Vermont's only nuclear reactor have only gotten worse: Two pieces of irradiated fuel have turned up missing, and about 20 cracks were discovered in a key component, the steam dryer.
"The letter doesn't provide any assurance that they are going to treat this differently," Welch said. "It's business as usual."
Sen. Roderick Gander, D-Windham, said his reading of the NRC letter was disappointing. "It was a brushoff, and they're not taking us very seriously."
Gander said that people in Brattleboro and Windham County were "waiting for the next shoe to drop" at the Vernon reactor, and remained skeptical that the plant was capable of handling the additional stresses associated with the power increase.
Sen. Jeannette White, D-Windham, said she was very disappointed with the NRC's response. "We wanted an independent study. We did not want them to do what they always do," she said.
"They're putting their own spin on it," she said.
White said the sponsors of the resolution had worked hard to get a unanimous vote from the Senate, and she said that some controversial clauses of the original resolution were deleted in the interest of unanimous support.
White said the biggest concern at the time was that the Senate was interfering in a process that was the domain of the Public Service Board.
She said the resolution was being discussed at the time the Public Service Board came out with its conditional approval of the power increase, or uprate.
"The biggest concern was we were interfering with a process that we shouldn't," White said.
"I'm not satisfied. I don't think it's adequately reviewed," White said. "I don't think they're being genuine, they're just dismissing us."
A month ago, the NRC told the PSB that it would perform a "detailed engineering inspection" of Vermont Yankee in light of the request to change its license to increase power production.
Nils Diaz, chairman of the NRC, said that was part of a new engineering inspection program the NRC had been developing.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
-------- washington
Contractors Cleared in Nuke Illness Case
June 2, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Hanford-Workers.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Energy Department investigation found no evidence of criminal misconduct by contractors accused of trying to cover up evidence of worker illnesses at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, the department's inspector general said Wednesday.
The IG report said the investigation ``did not substantiate criminal misconduct'' related to any of the charges against the contractors that provide health services and are involved in cleaning up highly radioactive waste in 177 underground tanks at the facility near Richland, Wash.
A private watchdog group, citing complaints from some of the workers, had accused the contractors of altering or destroying health records, filing false injury reports and hiding questionable ammonia vapor readings involving the tank cleanup.
But Inspector General Gregory Friedman said Wednesday, in summarizing the report, that none of these charges could be substantiated, despite interviews with more than 70 current and former Hanford workers, managers and health specialists.
``Therefore, absent additional relevant and compelling information, we intend to close this case,'' wrote Friedman in a memo to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. He said he turned the report over to the U.S. attorney's office.
Nevertheless, Friedman said the investigation revealed some concerns in the way Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, the contractor in charge of occupational medicine and hygiene services at the facility, has handled illness and injury complaints.
Noting that many workers interviewed ``had unresolved concerns'' about safety, Friedman said that ``management needs to intensify its efforts to improve employee confidence in the occupational health and safety program at Hanford.''
But on the allegations of criminal misconduct, the report said it found no evidence that HEHF altered or destroyed medical records, filed false injury reports or inflated the results of an annual performance assessment report to downplay illnesses and injuries.
The report also cleared CH2M Hill, the contractor in charge of the tank cleanup program, of any criminal conduct involving ammonia vapor readings at the tank farm. Some workers had charged that the company had covered up excessively high vapor exposure readings.
``The facts developed during the investigation did not substantiate criminal misconduct relating to alleged cover-ups of vapor readings,'' wrote Friedman. He said that the investigation produced ``conflicting testimony'' on the issue but that investigators could find ``no independent corroborating evidence'' to support the charges.
Based on worker complaints, the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit watchdog group, in September 2003 listed 45 incidents of workers exposed to chemical vapors from underground tanks. In a previous report the IG said it had found two of the 45 incidents improperly classified and nonreportable.
Bob Carpenter of the watchdog group said he was dismayed by the inspector general's findings and maintained that the investigators took no sworn testimony and ``apparently ignored'' much of the information provided by some of the workers.
Abraham said in a statement that the inspector general's findings demonstrated that ``worker protection is at a high level'' at Hanford. But he said he has directed that recommendations made by this report as well as others be implemented ``to further enhance worker protections.''
On the Net:
Energy Department report: http://www.oa.doe.gov
-------- us nuc waste
A nuclear band-aid
June 1, 2004
Boston Globe Editorial
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/06/01/a_nuclear_band_aid/
IF THE SENATE isn't careful, it could vote this week to allow the Department of Energy to cover some of the nation's most hazardous nuclear waste with grout instead of treating it properly and eventually entombing it in a proper waste depository. The material, left over from Cold War weapons production, sits in huge tanks in South Carolina and Western states.
The plan, backed by the Department of Energy to save billions of dollars in cleanup costs, would reclassify radioactive sludge as low-level waste and permit much less stringent cleanup measures. Most of the waste left over from reprocessing plutonium for weapons would still be shipped to a disposal site in Nevada. The sludge that the department wants to cover with cement-like grout and keep in place is the material adhering to the sides and bottoms of the huge tanks.
Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state is leading opposition to the proposal, a stealth amendment to the defense authorization bill, saying grout is something people use in bathrooms and shouldn't be used for capping nuclear waste. Her state is affected because while the amendment would permit the government to reclassify sludge only in South Carolina, it would allow the department to withhold cleanup funds for similar tanks in Idaho and Washington until they agree to keep their wastes.
The department prevailed on South Carolina's Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to sponsor the measure, which is opposed by that state's Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings. The amendment, which contradicts the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, has moved forward without a single hearing and without consideration by the committee with jurisdiction over nuclear waste cleanup, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
"This is a major change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that was done in a closed-door session with no debate and no public hearing," Cantwell said in an interview last week. She said independent scientists believe that the grouting process would be hard to correct if it doesn't work, and leaving the sludge where it is threatens to contaminate ground water. The Senate should strip the defense spending bill of this toxic measure.
----
Atomic Waste Disposal Rules Set for Debate by Congress
June 1, 2004
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/politics/01tanks.html
WASHINGTON, May 31 - A dispute over whether millions of gallons of radioactive waste can be safely left in aging steel tanks has become an issue in the military authorization bill for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.
In contention is an Energy Department plan to let it decide how to handle waste created while making nuclear weapons. The department says it could cut decades off the ongoing cleanup of radioactive waste and reduce the cost by tens of billions of dollars if it left substantial amounts of waste in underground tanks and covered them with a grout.
But environmentalists sued, saying that disposal method was unsafe. Last July a Federal District Court in Idaho, where some of the tanks are located, ruled that a 1982 law requires deep burial.
The Energy Department countered by asking Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, to introduce an amendment to the military bill now before the Senate to allow the department to decide how much of the waste can be left permanently in the tanks. Debate on that amendment is expected to be one of the first orders of business when Congress returns on Tuesday.
When the bill reached the Senate floor on May 20, just before the recess, Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington State, where more tanks are located, tied up deliberations with a lengthy denunciation of the idea.
"For most Americans, grout is something they see in their bathroom, not something they do with nuclear waste," she said. She said that the Energy Department was engaged in a "sneak attack" to reclassify the waste to avoid the requirement for deep burial and that this would overturn 30 years of federal policy without public debate.
"Who wants to save money by leaving nuclear waste in the ground, where it is leaking into the Columbia River or the Savannah River, or other areas of the country?" she asked, speaking for about two hours.
The Energy Department is seeking to establish a deep-burial site in Yucca Mountain in Nevada, though any disposal there is at best years away. In the meantime, it says the federal ruling, by Judge B. Lynn Winmill of Federal District Court in Boise, Idaho, has left it unable to proceed with any cleanup.
Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said the amendment would allow the Energy Department "to pursue the best plan to dispose of this nuclear material."
"That plan saves our taxpayers money," he said. "It shortens the amount of time the waste remains in the tanks. It is a safe way to do it. It is a well-thought-out way of doing it and one that has been the subject of a lot of daylight."
Kyle E. McSlarrow, the deputy secretary of energy, said in an interview that the result of the court case, initiated by the Natural Resources Defense Council, was "paradoxical" because it was holding up cleanup of the tanks, many of which have already leaked some of their contents.
But in his ruling, Judge Winmill described the department's criteria for reclassifying the waste as based on little more than "whim."
At the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C., the Energy Department has already grouted two tanks. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, who has been studying environmental problems at Savannah River since the 1980's, said in a statement: "There is no experience with grout that can allow containment projections of this magnitude. On the contrary, experience with grout so far has been unsatisfactory."
He said that if 10 percent of the strontium-90, a prominent radioactive material in the tanks, was left behind and the tanks were grouted, leakage could not rise more than one part in 100,000 per year for a century, or underground water supplies would be contaminated above the current federal drinking water standards.
The department and the Natural Resources Defense Council disagree about how to characterize the amount of waste that the department proposes to leave in tanks.
Mr. Graham said in an interview that he understood that the states would reach agreement with the Energy Department on what fraction of waste could be left behind. But the text of his amendment does not specify how that would be done.
-----
Nuclear waste / Best plan: No dregs left behind
June 1, 2004
Minneapolis Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/4801639.html
When the U.S. Senate reconvenes today, one of the first issues it is to address is a significant change in the way this nation handles its worst nuclear waste. Senators should not hesitate to reject this ill-advised move.
The waste in question is the mostly liquid byproduct of plutonium processing at U.S. weapons plants. Much of it has been collected for temporary storage in tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, the Savannah River facility in South Carolina and the former Idaho National Nuclear Laboratory, now known as INEEL. The ultimate plan is to seal it in glass logs for permanent storage in the vault now planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Deteriorating tanks have begun to leak in Washington and South Carolina, threatening serious contamination of the Columbia and Savannah rivers; INEEL sits atop an aquifer that recharges the Snake River in dry spells. Understandably, the Department of Energy is interested in speeding the cleanup process at all three sites. Incredibly, it has proposed to do so by simply reclassifying some waste so it can be left right where it is.
In essence, DOE proposes to extract and encase as much waste as it deems reasonable, then cover the dregs with concrete. It's possible that some solution along these lines might make sense. But as Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., points out, its proponents have failed to provide enough details -- such as the volume of material to be left behind -- to permit an independent scientific review. Moreover, the nature of this waste is such that radioactivity is especially concentrated in the residues.
Having failed to negotiate a deal with Cantwell and other like-minded officials, DOE obtained an executive order allowing it to unilaterally reclassify high-level waste at the three repositories, in effect exempting it from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and to withhold cleanup funds from their states if they refused to comply. That effort was struck down in federal court. Now the department quietly attached equivalent provisions to the defense appropriations bill; they are to be voted on as early as today. Cantwell and allies have succeeded in removing Hanford and INEEL from its provisions, and expect they can strip the language permitting fiscal punishment of uncooperative states.
But Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., insists on letting his state and the Energy Department cut their own deal on Savannah River (to the consternation of other South Carolinians, including his Democratic colleague, Sen. Fritz Hollings). His arguments are that, first, the cleanup process will be much quicker and cheaper if some waste can be left behind, and, second, that South Carolinians ought to be able to decide what's best for South Carolina.
Quicker and cheaper can be valid considerations in planning a pollution cleanup, even when the pollutant is concentrated nuclear waste -- but only after the highest level of safety has been guaranteed. And those guarantees must satisfy national standards, not the terms of a side deal.
The idea that U.S. policies on nuclear waste ought to be subject to local-option exemptions is a perennial complication of a process that is already complex enough. In the short run, Graham's accommodation of the Energy Department's new agenda is a bad idea for South Carolina (and Georgia, which shares the Savannah River). It would also set a troubling precedent for waste handling in other states, beginning with Washington and Idaho, but conceivably extending to every other state with nuclear waste, military or civilian, in temporary storage. If shortcuts can be taken at Savannah River, why not Prairie Island?
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-------- MILITARY
-------- arms
Invisible beam tops list of nonlethal weapons
By Greg Gordon
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/9499345p-10423294c.html
WASHINGTON - Test subjects can't see the invisible beam from the Pentagon's new, Star Trek-like weapon, but no one has withstood the pain it produces for more than three seconds. People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain disappeared instantly. The long-range column of millimeter-wave energy is known as the "Active Denial System" for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing. Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop evaluation this fall, say years of testing has produced no sign it will lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.
It is among the most potent of a new generation of futuristic, "less-than-lethal" weapons being developed by the Defense Department - tools that could dramatically alter the way police control riots and soldiers fight wars.
Other nonlethal devices undergoing tests include "superlubricants" that could make a road or runway too slippery for car or airplane tires to gain traction; directed sound waves to drive people away from an area; and nets able to stop cars.
Marine Col. David Karcher, who heads the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, says the energy beam is aimed at helping troops and police in confusing situations by offering options "between bullets and a bullhorn."
Marine Capt. Dan McSweeney, a spokesman for the Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, pointed to "instances in Iraq where crowd situations have unfortunately ended in violence" and death.
Karcher and other military officials are trying to alleviate fears that the device might be misused to harm civilians or converted into a torture machine that leaves no marks.
In an attempt to anticipate how the world would greet the new weapon, the Air Force this month asked social science graduate students at the University of Minnesota and other colleges for help.
Researchers were offered $12,000 to spend the summer reviewing literature and assessing how Americans and other cultures might react to its use.
In the solicitation, Maj. Jonathan Drummond of the Air Force's Directed Energy Bioeffects Division noted that the Active Denial System could provide U.S. forces "with a nonlethal capability in military operations other than war." Among possible uses, he listed peacekeeping, humanitarian operations and crowd control.
Introduction of such a device in either noncombat or wartime situations could raise thorny questions: Would it be acceptable to inflict so much pain on unruly protesters? How would such a weapon be viewed if used on crowds in Third World countries? Would it violate international humanitarian principles if used in battle? Might it be used secretly during interrogations to torture suspected terrorists into cooperating?
Karcher said the Active Denial System "is absolutely not designed or intended or built" to be a torture device.
"To use this as any sort of torture device would be in direct violation of" the Pentagon's definition of nonlethal weapons, he said. "Nor, as professionals, would any of us sign up for it."
But in an era of secret interrogations of al-Qaida suspects and revelations of U.S. abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Executive Director Doug Johnson of the Minneapolis-based Center for Torture Victims is skeptical.
"It seems fundamentally a weapon that's designed to create a great deal of pain and fear," Johnson said. "The concern I would have is ... once this kind of technology is available and there's a perception that it's safe and nonlethal, it seems like a natural device to be used in interrogations.
"Is it torture if it only creates a sensation of pain, but leaves no marks and no long-term damage? I would say yes. Torture is primarily a psychological device, and finding different ways to use the body against the mind has been the struggle of torture technologies for thousands of years."
He said "human history would demonstrate" that once a potential torture technology is available, it usually is put into action.
Karcher and other military officials stressed that the device has received interim approvals from international treaty conventions, has twice passed Pentagon legal reviews and will be subject to clear rules of engagement.
Eleven years in the making at a cost of more than $50 million, the Active Denial System is still years from deployment. It weighs about 4 tons and consists largely of a big dish and antenna that are mounted on a Humvee multipurpose vehicle.
But researchers are hoping to miniaturize it, Karcher said. Air Force officials want to work with the prime contractor, the Raytheon Corp., to design a version that could be mounted on a military transport plane so its beam could cut a broader swath on a battlefield.
Once an operator has aimed the antenna using a scope, the press of a button sends out a column of millimeter-wave, electromagnetic energy at the speed of light. Pentagon officials say that the weapon's exact reach and its column size are classified, but that it can extend beyond the 550-meter effective range of bullets. Its intensity is the same at any distance.
Susan Levine, the Pentagon's project manager for the energy beam, said years of tests on humans and animals enabled researchers to establish a margin of safety. After several seconds, the device automatically shuts off to avoid burning its target, she said.
When the beam hits an individual, it penetrates 1/64th of an inch beneath the skin and heats water molecules to 130 degrees in less than a second.
"It tricks the pain sensors into thinking they're on fire," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.
Garcia knows firsthand. He was among hundreds of test volunteers, standing in a doorway with his back facing the device.
"They did a full body back shot," he said. "It hit in the small of my back first. For the first millisecond, it just felt like the skin was warming up. Then it got warmer and warmer and you felt like it was on fire."
He said he lunged out of the doorway.
"As soon as you're away from that beam your skin returns to normal and there is no pain," Garcia said. "I thought to myself, 'Why you wimp. You know it's not causing any damage. You'll be able to override it.' Each of the next three times, I was on there a little bit longer.
"The fourth one was the longest. It was about two seconds. It felt like my hair was on fire."
The beam easily penetrates clothing, he said, because clothes are porous, though a thin suit of armor would block it.
The Bee's Greg Gordon can be reached at (202) 383-0005 or ggordon@mcclatchydc.com.
-------- business
The United States of Boeing
by Brandon Snider
June 1, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/snider.php?articleid=2704
The U.S. has, slowly, since the beginning of the twentieth century, become a giant weapons factory. A partnership between massive private firms and government exists, all funded by the U.S. taxpayer.
One of the largest such firms is Boeing. Boeing's history mirrors that of the U.S. at large. Begun as a manufacturer of civilian aircraft, Boeing has, through mergers and takeovers, metamorphosed into a contractor of what it terms "Integrated Defense Systems." The U.S., begun as a rejection of coercive domination by a foreign nation, is now the world's lone "superpower," a position attained and maintained by coercive domination of foreign nations.
How big is Boeing? According to this article, Boeing is the biggest aerospace company in the world, employing 200,000 people in 27 states and several foreign countries. This year, for the first time, Boeing is expected to earn more revenue from its "defense" business than from civilian aircraft. Some well-known projects Boeing has been involved in are the disastrous V-22 Osprey helicopter, and the over-budget, overdue F/A-22 Raptor "stealth" fighter.
Boeing has been involved in several high-profile scandals in recent years. The most recent began when Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) inserted an item in an appropriations bill in September 2001, following the 9/11 attacks. The item called for the Air Force to lease one hundred 767 tankers from Boeing. Immediately criticized by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), it ballooned into a scandal which cost Boeing's chief executive, Phil Condit, his job. It also cost Air Force Secretary James Roche a possible promotion. What was the scandal? As Joseph L. Galloway reported in the Detroit Free Press:
"The Air Force gave the Boeing Co. five months to rewrite the official specifications for 100 aerial refueling tankers so that the company's 767 aircraft would win a $23.5-billion deal, according to e-mail and documents.
"In the process, Boeing eliminated 19 of the 26 requirements the Air Force originally specified, and the Air Force acquiesced in order to keep the price down.
"The Air Force then gave Boeing's competitor, Airbus, 12 days to bid on the project and awarded the contract to Boeing even though Airbus met more than 20 of the original 26 specifications and offered a price that was $10 billion less than Boeing's."
Rick Anderson has done a series of articles for the Seattle Weekly exposing Boeing's "ethical failures." Anderson reported in December 2003 that "in the past five years under Condit, Boeing racked up more than $100 million in fines and settlements for federal violations."
No problem, since Boeing's revenues run into the tens of billions every year. Most of these ethical violations involve documents stolen from both governments and Boeing's competitors, and bribes to government officials. What's the difference between a bribe and a campaign contribution? According to Citizen.org,
"In the 1999-2000 election cycle, Boeing gave $1.9 million to federal parties and candidates. The money was divided almost equally between Democrats and Republicans. Through June 2001, Boeing contributed $468,000 to federal parties and candidates; 58 percent of the money has gone to Republicans and 42 percent to Democrats.
"Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), a major proponent of the 767 lease deal, has received $3,000 from Boeing this year. In the 2000 election cycle, Boeing contributed $10,000 to Stevens' candidate committee and $1,000 to Stevens' Northern Lights PAC.
"Boeing's federal lobbying expenditures hit $7.8 million in 2000. (Boeing spent $7.4 million on lobbying in 1999.) In the first half of 2001, Boeing spent $3,783,310 lobbying Congress and federal agencies and employed 39 lobbyists. Nine lobbying firms - plus company lobbyists - are representing the company in 2001. Lobbyists include former Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-LA)."
Airbus never stood a friggin' chance! This is a full-throttle application of the military-industrial complex, which President Eisenhower identified in his farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Ike hadn't seen anything. Here's how the complex works: Defense contractors "lobby" (bribe) Washington politicians - since war is politics continued through violent means, politicians start wars which require increased "defense" (attack) spending on the "defense" contractors (merchants of death), and the circle is completed. This has been very profitable for Boeing, particularly since the beginning of the 1990s, when Boeing decided to diversify their business, first acquiring defense contractor Rockwell International and then merging with McDonnell Douglas. Boeing is always very high on the Fortune 500 list, but Boeing isn't the world's largest defense contractor.
And Then There Was Lockheed Martin
The biggest merchant of death in the world is Lockheed Martin. The firm became famous in the 1950s for building two great spy planes, the U-2 and the SR-71. By 1970 however, the firm was nearing collapse. In rolled Uncle Sam with a $250 million "bailout." BusinessWeek Online reported:
"Beset by cost overruns, inflation, and lack of demand for a new jetliner, the L-1011, Lockheed Corp. asked Congress for support. The aerospace giant argued that should it fail, its demise would not only imperil the nation's defense and leave 60,000 workers unemployed, it would also ground commercial airlines that had paid Lockheed for future aircraft. After a contentious debate, lawmakers approved $250 million in loan guarantees. The turnaround was anything but smooth: Revelations that Lockheed had paid foreign bribes compelled the feds to oust two top execs and closely scrutinize Lockheed's activities."
According to G. Edward Griffin's The Creature from Jekyll Island, the U.S. government essentially purchased a controlling interest in Lockheed. Is it any surprise then, that Lockheed is now the biggest defense contractor in the U.S.? At the time of the bailout, Lockheed, which has since merged with Martin Marietta, employed 60,000 people. Today, it employs 130,000 in several countries. It has "939 facilities in 457 cities and 45 states throughout the U.S.; internationally, business locations in 56 nations and territories." Is that all? In better shape than the ethically challenged Boeing, Lockheed hasn't been without an ethics scandal itself.
Back to those mergers. In 1993, the Pentagon decided to grant money to defense contractors who wished to merge. Predictably, countless mergers have since occurred, with the taxpayers picking up the tab in each case. In a 1997 study for the Cato Institute, Dean Stansel chronicled the breathless spate of mergers which occurred in just a few years following the policy change:
"Numerous mergers and acquisitions have subsequently taken place. The newly formed Lockheed Martin acquired Loral. Boeing acquired Rockwell International and soon thereafter merged with McDonnell Douglas. Northrop Grumman acquired Vought, and Raytheon has recently merged with Hughes."
Stansel knocked down the contractors' arguments in favour of the "corporate welfare":
"The claim that defense-merger subsidies will save millions of taxpayer dollars ignores a key factor: the role of competition in keeping down costs and encouraging innovation. ... Does anyone believe that the Pentagon will be able to get better value for the taxpayers' dollars if there is only one company, rather than four, from which to purchase missiles?
"[M]ilitary contractors should not be exempt from marketplace pressures to keep overhead costs low. If market conditions require defense contractors to merge in order to survive, then they should do so. It is nonsense to argue that because those mergers may save taxpayers money, taxpayers should subsidize them.
"If two defense contractors decide that merging makes sense economically and is in their shareholders' interest, then they should do so. However, if those two firms conclude that merging would be unwise, then they certainly should not do so. Instead, the Pentagon's policy says to those two companies, go ahead and merge, we'll make the taxpayers pick up the tab. ...
"[W]e hear the constant refrain that we 'cannot afford' tax cuts. If we cannot allow taxpayers to keep more of their own earnings, how can we possibly afford to give away hundreds of millions of their tax dollars to huge corporations that decide to merge?"
Making taxpayers pick up the tab is one area where the merchants of death have become ever more efficient. Paying off politicians, stealing documents, building dangerously sub-standard equipment and over-charging for it - hey, it's all in a day's work. There are many more defense contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, on the Fortune 500 list. All are ethically questionable to say the least, but they are just going where the money is; they manipulate and are manipulated by a political system that's up for sale.
----
Accenture Wins $10 Billion Border Security Deal
June 1, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Border-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Accenture LLP, a technology and management consulting company, was awarded a government contract Tuesday worth up to $10 billion to develop and expand biometric technology for checking identities of foreigners visiting America.
The system, known as US-VISIT, requires foreigners to be fingerprinted and photographed upon entering the United States at a major airport or seaport. The technology also can include iris scans to identify people.
The Department of Homeland Security awarded Accenture the contract over two other bidders, Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Md., and Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif. Accenture's parent company is Accenture Ltd., which is incorporated in Bermuda.
The contract is for five years with five one-year options beyond then. Homeland Security officials put its value at between $10 million and $10 billion. It was announced by Asa Hutchison, the department's undersecretary for border and transportation security.
``US-VISIT is one of the top priorities of the department,'' said Homeland Security spokesman Dennis Murphy.
The system began operating in 115 airports and 14 seaports in January. By the end of the year, the department is to have a similar system in place at the country's land borders. It also is required to have a system in place to keep track of whether foreigners leave when required.
Murphy said doing so is a far greater challenge. In 2002, 358.3 million U.S. and non-U.S. citizens entered the United States through the nation's land borders.
Accenture is a publicly traded company with more than $11.82 billion net revenues reported in 2003, according to the company's Web site. Its shares rose 75 cents, or 3 percent, to close at $25.36 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The parent company has more than 110 offices in 48 countries and in 50 U.S. cities.
-------- china
Chinese army preparing military exercises aimed at Taiwan
BEIJING (AFP)
Jun 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040601090421.prdcq539.html
China was gearing up Tuesday for joint military wargames aimed at "taking control of the Taiwan Strait," with 18,000 troops backed by guided missiles preparing a mock amphibious landing on Taiwan, officials and state press reports said.
"It is necessary and rational for China to hold military exercises for the sake of national defense," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told journalists at a regular briefing.
"We will never allow Taiwan independence and never allow anybody in any form to separate Taiwan from China."
The exercises were to take place in June and July on Dongshan Island in southeastern Fujian province just 150 nautical miles west of Taiwan's Penghu Island, the New Express Daily said, citing a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper.
With China becoming increasingly agitated with independence-leaning Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, state press reports called the wargames the first-ever aimed at "striving to control the Taiwan Strait."
The 18,000 soldiers will be deployed from the land, navy and air force of the Nanjing Military Region, where some 500 short-range ballistic missiles are pointed at Taiwan.
"Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets will be outfitted with KN59M guided air-to-surface missiles in an effort to maintain control over the Taiwan Strait and ensure that tank brigades can make a landing and engage in warfare," the report said.
Submarines, war ships and a guided missile brigade would also be involved in the exercises that were to be led by Lieutenant General Huang Jiang, it said.
Soldiers were deployed on Dongshan Island in mid-May where tanks and armoured personnel carriers had been practicing amphibious landings daily on Jinluan beach, it said.
It was not clear if the full-blown exercises had already begun.
Western diplomats in Beijing played down the drills, saying the number of troops involved was not that large and that the exercises appeared to be routine.
"They are sending a signal by holding the exercises in Fujian, but it is not a provocation due to the size of the exercises," one diplomat told AFP.
According to Hong Kong's Apple Daily, the exercises would be smaller than similar drills held in 2001, when some 100,000 soldiers engaged in amphibious exercises and mock sea warfare aimed at sinking an aircraft carrier.
The Chinese side has taken in consideration the safety of the international shipping lanes in the Taiwan Strait during the games, Liu said, while reiterating that "it is not the first time that China has held such exercises."
Since the re-election of Chen in March, and especially since his inaugural address on May 20, the mainland has racheted up the rhetoric on Taiwan, repeating its long-standing vow to take the island by force should Chen move the territory towards formal independence.
Beijing has considered Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification since the end of the civil war in 1949.
Taiwanese defence officials said in April that Taiwan was conducting its own massive military exercises to evaluate the island's defense capabilities against the threat of attack from China.
The seven-month drills, codenamed "Han Kuang (Han Glory) 20", are scheduled to end in November and would test the joint operations of the armed forces.
The United States, Taipei's biggest arms supplier, has repeatedly urged China and Taiwan to refrain from any provocative actions.
Last week, it blasted Beijing in a defense department report for developing a variety of "credible military options" to prevent Taiwan from achieving independence.
In response, Liu Tuesday warned Washington against selling arms to Taiwan.
"We request the United States to fulfill its commitment to the one China policy ... and stop selling weapons to Taiwan in any form, in order not to send the wrong signals to Taiwan separatist forces," Liu said.
----
No signs of Chinese wargames: Taiwan
TAIPEI (AFP)
Jun 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040601100547.uhfoyymj.html
Taiwan's defense ministry said Tuesday it had not discovered any signs of military exercises by rival China reportedly intended to prepare for a mock landing on the island.
Between May and August, when the weather is normally good for holding wargames in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese troops often conduct routine exercises on Dongshan Island in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, the defense ministry said.
"But as of now there were not any signs detected showing that Chinese communist troops are going to hold a military exercise on Dongshan Island," defense ministry spokesman Huang Suey-sheng told reporters.
He said Taipei would keep a close eye on any military movements near Taiwan.
The Beijing-based New Express Daily said China was gearing up for large-scale military wargames aimed at "taking control of the Taiwan Strait", with 18,000 troops and the amphibious landing of a tank brigade.
The exercises were to take place in June and July on Dongshan Island just 150 nautical miles west of Taiwan's Penghu Island, the daily said.
Soldiers were deployed on Dongshan Island in mid-May where tanks and armoured personnel carriers had been practicing amphibious landings daily on Jinluan beach, it said.
Since the re-election of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian in March, China has racheted up its rhetoric towards the island, reiterating its long-standing vow to take it by force should Chen move the territory towards formal independence.
Beijing has considered Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification since the end of a civil war in 1949.
-------- europe
French defense minister calls on EU to set up own defense force
BUDAPEST (AFP)
Jun 01, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040601174446.i000ejc3.html
Visiting French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie on Tuesday called for the 25-member European Union to set up its own defense force in order to stand up to new threats, notably terrorism, facing the continent.
Alliot-Marie, speaking at the French cultural center in Budapest before a group of students and representatives from the Hungarian foreign and defense ministries, said that European countries could make themselves heard only if they joined together.
She said that Europe's defense ambitions would not threaten the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as feared by some countries.
"For us, NATO remains the ultimate defense against any danger threatening Europe," she said. "But the alliance must adapt in order to face new threats."
Alliot-Marie was on a one-day trip to Hungary during which she also met with her counterpart Ferenc Juhasz as well as Foreign Minister Peter Medgyessy.
-------- haiti
Haiti's U.S.-Backed Government Survives on Foreign Troops, Aid
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4863-2004May31?language=printer
SAINT-MARC, Haiti -- Police chief Jean Ronald Baptiste has a .38-caliber pistol in his holster and a nicely pressed policeman's uniform with shiny black shoes. That's the extent of his crime-fighting gear. He said he's so out-gunned and out-manned by the armed factions in this volatile town that he and his 90 officers never leave the station without an escort of peacekeeping soldiers from France.
"The police really exist only in name," said Baptiste, standing in his police station, which, like many across the nation, was looted and burned during weeks of violence that led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29. "For the time being, the country has no control."
Three months after Aristide left the country for exile aboard a U.S. government plane, Haiti has barely picked itself up. A U.S.-led military force of 3,600 troops has been patrolling the country since Aristide's departure, but is phasing out starting Tuesday, to be replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping team, led by Brazil, with 6,700 soldiers and more than 1,600 civilian police officers. Officials said 1,900 U.S. troops would be rotated out of the country over the next several weeks.
Haiti has been almost completely dependent on foreign troops for its security and foreign aid to stave off insolvency and feed its people. Floods last week that killed at least 1,300 people underscored the country's near-total dependence on international assistance. For days, the only aid to reach people in the disaster areas was donated food ferried in on U.S. and Canadian military helicopters.
"The government doesn't have control of the country; it is very weak and very slow," said Pierre Esperance, head of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights in Port-au-Prince. "If the government was willing to make more effort, they could do more. But you don't see their efforts, you don't feel them."
The spasm of violence that killed scores of people in February is over, but violent pro-Aristide and anti-Aristide groups have not been disarmed. Baptiste, Esperance and others said the foreign military presence is the only thing keeping those gangs from picking up their weapons again.
Esperance credited the international forces with bringing general security back to the streets, but said they should be doing more to confront the remaining armed gangs: "The international forces are not here on vacation; they should be disarming these people."
The new prime minister, Gerard Latortue, presides over an interim government that is seen by foreign observers and many Haitians as honest but weak. Some said it was too soon to judge the government's performance, especially given the enormous problems it inherited in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
In addition to preparing for new presidential elections next year, Latortue's chief mission at the moment is to fix the financial "mess" he inherited from Aristide to keep the country from going broke, said a Haitian government official familiar with economic policy.
A review of the country's accounts revealed that Aristide's government went on a "spending spree" in its last five months in office and that tens of millions of dollars from government checking accounts were unaccounted for, said the official, who showed a reporter government financial records on the condition that he not be identified.
He said at least 60 percent of the Aristide government's spending, not including salaries and debt service, was run through discretionary accounts with no records of who received the money. For example, he said, the government last year appeared to have overpaid for new Port-au-Prince city buses by at least $3 million under a contract brokered by a friend of Aristide.
"It is hard for me to fathom that level of spending," the official said.
Asked if Aristide stole money from the treasury, Leslie Voltaire, a U.S.-educated former minister in Aristide's government and one of his closest advisers, said, "I don't know." Asked about allegations by Aristide's critics that the former president was also involved in drug trafficking, Voltaire said, "I don't think so," and added, "There are a lot of rumors."
The economic official who reviewed Haiti's accounts said that largely because of the unaccounted-for spending during Aristide's final months, Haiti is facing a "very precarious" economic situation. He said it is seeking at least $80 million to pay its daily operating costs through the summer, plus at least a half-billion dollars in the next two years to begin rebuilding nearly nonexistent institutions, including systems of justice, health and education.
The United States has pledged $35 million toward the country's budget shortfall, part of a package of $100 million in aid it announced this week. The rest is for programs to promote job creation and security. The United States, Canada, France, the European Union, the World Bank and other donors are scheduled to announce a more comprehensive aid package for Haiti in July. The Haitian official said Haiti was hoping for as much as $700 million.
Voltaire accused the new government of kowtowing to demands from the United States and other donors. He said the fiscal reforms demanded by the donors -- including more transparent financial management, restoration of cash reserves and measures to control the inflation that has topped 25 percent in the past year -- were being done "without anesthesia" and would be painful.
"Mr. Latortue has taught us a lesson," Voltaire said. "If you want to get some results from the international community, you have to bow and tap-dance."
As the government struggles with security and economic woes, many Haitian people said they had seen few improvements. That sentiment was common in interviews here in Saint-Marc, a commercial port city about 40 miles northwest of the capital. This city was the site of some of the worst fighting in February, when anti-government rebels, including former death squad participants, accused drug traffickers and members of Haiti's disbanded military, entered the country from the Dominican Republic. They launched a wave of attacks that spread across the country and ultimately forced Aristide to flee.
Officials estimate that as many as 50 people were killed in Saint-Marc, which was taken over by an anti-government group, then taken back four days later by armed groups loyal to Aristide, including a gang called Bale Wouze, meaning Clean Sweep in Creole. Residents said most of the killing was done by that group, much of it on a single day, Feb. 11, when witnesses said the militiamen massacred anti-government rebels and their sympathizers.
Baptiste, the police chief, patrols in the force's only vehicle, a pickup truck with a cracked windshield that was confiscated from the rebels. He said he fled Saint-Marc for Port-au-Prince when the rebels came. When he returned his house had been ransacked.
Things are better now, but there is still tension, he said. "There is an element of fear all over and the people are very fearful and even we policemen are very fearful," he said.
Ernst Etime, 45, a shopkeeper, fled his house in the La Scierie neighborhood just before Bale Wouze fighters torched it that day. His house is still charred and damaged from the fire, as are several others on his street, which is littered with burned-out cars and graffiti calling Aristide a vampire and a dog.
Etime said he was captured by men from Bale Wouze, who beat him so badly that he still has trouble seeing out of his left eye. He said they tied him up and took him to a nearby beach, where they said they would execute him. But he said he was eventually able to pay his captors $2,000 in cash to spare his life.
Now, he said, Saint-Marc has "a little more security -- at least we are able to get some sleep."
It was difficult to find anyone in Saint-Marc who admitted to supporting Aristide. After he fled and his armed supporters eventually gave up power, there were several reported cases of reprisal killings, often gruesome, of armed militiamen who terrorized Haiti in his name. As a result, many who supported Aristide now keep that fact to themselves.
"They all changed their shirts," said Damalus Clairvoy, 81, who lives near the city's commercial port in a neighborhood identified by residents as supportive of Aristide. "If I didn't do that, I wouldn't be here to talk to you."
The town's split allegiances can be seen in graffiti spray-painted on businesses and houses, several of which were burned, looted and smashed to rubble in the fighting. Things were calm Sunday in the town's square, where children in sky-blue school uniforms buzzed along in scooters, and the Kiss Inn advertised a weekend stay for the equivalent of $37.
In his little shop, which sold items from Guinness Stout to Red Rhino Energy Drink, Edgar Buissereth, 76, said the seeming tranquility was "just a facade." "There's no security, there's not an atmosphere where you can grow," he said.
Asked if the government was in control of Haiti, Buissereth smiled.
"We're asking ourselves the same question," he said. "Does Haiti really have a government? Has anything changed?"
--------
U.N. Peacekeepers Take Over Haiti Mission
June 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Haiti-UN-Mission.html
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- U.N. peacekeepers took command from an American-led multinational force Tuesday, facing uncertainty about troop numbers and funding, while flood victims wait for urgent help and armed rebels roam the countryside.
In a symbolic ceremony at the police academy, Brazilian army Gen. Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira took control of the projected 8,000-strong U.N. force, only a fraction of which has arrived. Most of the troops are expected by the end of June, when U.S. forces leave.
Their initial mission will be to provide security, which includes disarming rebels who helped oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, and pro-Aristide militants. Both sides have said they will disarm if the other side does the same, but the U.S.-led troops have collected fewer than 200 weapons.
``Disarmament is very important, but what is also important is the disarmament of the spirit and the desire to rebuild,'' said Heleno as about 80 troops, including Brazilians, Chilean, Canadian and Nepalese, replaced their camouflage caps with blue U.N. berets.
Fewer than a dozen of the 1,900 U.S. troops will stay in Haiti with the U.N. peacekeepers. Troops from other countries in the 3,600-member multinational force -- France, Canada and Chile -- will remain until September.
``The U.N. has a big job ahead of it, but they're coming in with double the force and will be here for twice as much time,'' U.S. Ambassador James Foley told The Associated Press.
``The operation will deal with security, but it will also help the government spread its authority, which is not the case now,'' Foley said, noting that ``rebels are still in control of a pretty significant chunk of real estate.''
The U.N. handover comes as the country of 8 million copes with deadly floods that have killed more than 1,700 in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It was unclear whether the new troops would be involved in emergency operations to flooded areas.
The United Nations says the force will eventually number 6,700 troops and 1,622 civilian police from over two dozen countries, led by 1,200 Brazilian troops.
However, when, or whether, the force will reach full strength is unclear. Brazil, Chile and Argentina have pledged up to 2,500 troops. Other countries, including troubled nations such as Nepal and Rwanda, have promised 750 troops each.
Haiti's interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said he would try to persuade the Americans to extend their June departure, saying only U.S. troops have a ``dissuasive effect'' on the population. Barring that, he hoped the U.N. force would stay until Feb. 7, 2006, when an elected president should be installed.
He also asked the international community to tackle the root of Haiti's instability, which he said was grinding poverty.
``What we need here is a U.N. mission that will not limit itself to maintaining the peace,'' Latortue told reporters after the ceremony. ``They will have to get involved in the development process.''
After a decade of failed missions, many in the traumatized nation wonder whether the peacekeepers can succeed.
This U.N. mission will again try to keep a tentative peace and again train an ill-equipped and understaffed police force.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked member nations to make a long-term commitment to transform Haiti -- which has suffered more than 30 coups in 200 years -- into ``a functioning democracy.'' But only a fraction of the $35 million he requested has arrived and the mission's mandate remains six months.
Some Haitians are skeptical. ``I don't understand what they're coming to do,'' said Marie Andre, 31, from the flood-hit southern village of Fond Verrettes.
U.S. troops last intervened in Haiti in 1994 to restore Aristide after a 1991 coup.
In 1995, they handed over to U.N. peacekeepers. That mission was supposed to last a year but continued until February 2001, unfolding as the Haitian government held disputed 2000 legislative elections which ultimately soured relations with the international community and led to the freezing of hundreds of millions of aid dollars.
The mission was dealt another blow when its transport chief was dragged from his car by a mob and shot and killed in 2000. Annan closed that mission, citing a ``combination of rampant crime, violent street protests and incidents of violence targeted at the international community.''
This time the troops said they are hopeful it will be different.
``Here, it's a lot more calm than in our country right now. We're looking forward to doing humanitarian projects and really helping,'' said Nepalese Army Maj. Deepak Basnyat, one of six soldiers on hand from his country at the ceremony.
Following the U.S. and U.N. missions a decade ago, Haitian leaders blamed the troops, saying neither had done enough to disarm factions, particularly the army that ousted Aristide in 1991 and that he in turn disbanded in 1995.
U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Ronald S. Coleman said the U.S.-led force he commanded accomplished what it intended, bringing stability to a nation thrown into chaos as rebels and pro-Aristide gangs went on a rampage of killing and looting during the revolt that shoved Aristide from power.
``If you ask me whether we accomplished the mission, the answer is yes, but given the choice, everyone would volunteer to stay,'' Coleman said. ``Haiti has been beaten up a whole lot.''
-------- iran
Iran Says It's Building Stealth Missile
June 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Missile.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran is producing its first stealth missile, a rocket that can evade electronic detection, the Iranian Defense Ministry said Tuesday while withholding its range.
The missile, named Kowsar after a river in Muslim descriptions of paradise, will be capable of hitting ships and aircraft, Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Reza Imani told The Associated Press.
He refused to give the missile's range or provide other details. Features of the Kowsar, such as its guidance and positioning systems, are currently on show at an exhibition in Tehran that is open only to select government officials.
Iranian state television announced the Kowsar Tuesday while screening pictures of a missile flying through the air.
Iran manufactures various missiles, chief among them the Shahab-3 whose range of 810-miles makes it capable of reaching Israel.
Iran also produces tanks, armored personnel carriers, and a fighter plane.
The Kowsar river is mentioned in the Quran, Islam's holy book.
-------- iraq
Ghazi al-Yawar on Iraqi Politics
Some documents on the new Iraqi president
by Juan Cole
June 1, 2004
Some flavor of the new president can be gathered from this recent FNS interview.
Federal News Service May 27, 2004 (Note: The following was translated from Arabic)
QUESTION: Would you be willing to intervene personally in trying to stop the fighting at Annajaf al Ashraf [Najaf]?
GHAZI AL YAWAR: I think that the issue of Annajaf al Ashraf is more difficult than that of al-Fallujah. Mr. Muqtada al Sadr has a large following. I am present on behalf of the Governing Council, and on my social standing to deal with this issue. But any work should be a part of group work for the sons of the region to pave the way for any involvement, and not a one person's involvement.
But it will honor me to undertake such an initiative in order to end the bloodshed of our dear families in this sacred city. Annajaf, al-Fallujah, Zakho, Basra, al Moussil, and Kirkuk are all like parts of a beautiful face. If one of these parts is disfigured, the entire face would be disfigured.
QUESTION: Once the authority is given to the new provisional government, who will be in charge of the new multinational forces in Iraq?
GHAZI AL YAWAR: I would assume that the leader of these forces, who will work with the Iraqis, would probably be American. Battalions of the Iraqi army will participate alongside this multinational force once the UN resolution is issued.
The important thing is not who will be in command of this force. The Iraqi armed forces will be under Iraqi command, but some battalions have to be under some foreign leadership irrelevant of who that leadership is.
QUESTION: Would you call for an Arab participation in these forces?
GHAZI AL YAWAR: We would welcome the Arab countries participation in these forces, as a part of the multinational forces in Iraq.
QUESTION: Do you have any idea as to the schedule or the time that these forces should stay in Iraq?
GHAZI AL YAWAR: There is no schedule, and we can't put a time limit because there are some bad elements who would wait for this date to come to restart their attacks. That's the reason why we did not have a time limit for the multinational forces.
But when the Iraqi leadership is ready to take the responsibility, we will not hesitate to thank our friend and request from them to leave Iraq. This, however, won't be any soon because its presence is a necessity.
QUESTION: There are some reports that after the transfer of power, the new American Embassy will relocate to the Republican Palace. Is this true?
GHAZI AL YAWAR: The Republican Palace, which was built in the 1950s is a symbol of sovereignty of Iraq, and many Iraqi leaderships used it. We will not accept the embassy relocating there and they have not asked.
QUESTION: Could you comment on President Bush's decision to raze the Abu Ghraib prison?
GHAZI AL YAWAR: President Bush was very clear in what he said. He asked if the Iraqis wanted it destroyed, and we, in the Governing Council said no. But the decision will be left for the new provisional government to make.
QUESTION: Thank you Mr. Ghazi al-Yawar, current President of the Governing Council.
UPI, May 25, on al-Yawar's reaction to the UN resolution submitted by the U.S. and the UK:
Rotating President Ghazi al-Yawar said Tuesday the draft disregarded Iraqi demands for granting the transitional government control over a national development fund and a multinational peacekeeping force that might be deployed under a United Nations' resolution.
April 10, on al-Jazeera, via BBC world monitoring:
Text of live telephone interview with Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, member of the interim Iraqi Governing Council in charge of negotiations with the representatives of the al-Fallujah residents, in Baghdad, by al-Jazeera TV presenter Fayruz Zayyani in the Doha studio, broadcast by Qatari al-Jazeera satellite TV on April 10
Zayyani: Are there any details about the negotiations which you held in al-Fallujah?
Al-Yawar: In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. The negotiating delegation is still in al-Fallujah city. It has concluded a round of negotiations and it is holding now another round, but the most serious thing present there is the fact that the cease-fire has not been respected by both sides the U.S. forces and the al-Fallujah residents. The most serious issue is the intervention of the U.S. Air Force and the F-16 jet fighters, which are raiding the city. We called the coalition parties and informed them about our condemnation and we expressed our surprise at these acts. We held them responsible for what they are doing and also for the safety of the delegation. We informed them that this situation would not allow calm negotiations to proceed.
Zayyani: We heard that the al-Fallujah residents were rejecting the arrival of any delegation that represented the Iraqi Governing Council IGC in the city. What changed these conditions and let you enter al-Fallujah?
Al-Yawar: This is not true. They did not reject us, but they blamed us for not making any moves towards them. We are moving as parties and in our capacity as having acquaintances and being well-known inside al-Fallujah within tribal, religious and political circles. We are acceptable parties and we have with us the Muslim Ulema Council and many other benevolent parties. The situation is very serious and should come to an end peacefully.
Zayyani: What about the humanitarian conditions in al-Fallujah? You we were able to see the situation for yourself there. What is going on in the al-Fallujah and what about your efforts there from the humanitarian viewpoint, in addition to the political efforts you are exerting now?
Al-Yawar: The humanitarian situation is very bad and heartbreaking. We, with the benevolent forces, are doing a lot in collecting donations, but we hold the occupation forces, which are occupying Iraq - and according to the UN resolution - completely responsible for Iraq and responsible for allowing humanitarian and medical aid to enter into al-Fallujah. These are Iraqi people and they the U.S. forces are responsible, before international law, for their safety and for delivering the food stuff and aid to them.
Zayyani: Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, IGC member in charge of negotiations with the representatives of the Al-Fallujah residents, thank you.
In February al-Yawar spoke out about the weakness of the Sunni Arabs on the Interim Governing Council to ash-Sharq al-Awsat (via BBC world monitoring):
In their statements, Al-Yawar and Al-Chadirchi talked about the weakness of the Sunni voice in the political arena and in the Governing Council and the strength of the Shi'i and Kurdish voice.
Al-Yawar said that this went back to the period that accompanied the change of regime. During that period, he said, the Kurdish and Shi'i figures were closer to the coalition authority while the Sunnis were the weak link in this relationship. In several instances, he said, several Sunni figures were brought closer to the coalition authority following nominations or consultations with the other sides. He added that the interim Governing Council is not the only body that has political weight in the Iraqi arena. There are other Sunni religious and political parties and movements that should be relied upon and with whom alliances should be formed to strengthen the position of the Sunnis. We should blame ourselves for not coordinating our positions among ourselves both inside and outside the Governing Council, he said.
"Suspicions" about federation
Al-Yawar added, "The Iraqi Kurds have unified their voices and efforts and they are in agreement on their stands and demands. That is why we see them these days insisting on federal rule for their regions. This demand is something new and strange to Iraqi politics and to politics in the whole region. It is a vague demand that is subject to rumors and that entails doubts, suspicions and vagueness and that denotes a hard-line stand by the brother Kurds. They want to impose a federation on the Iraqi people despite the lack of census statistics and before any elections or general elections are held. They want to consecrate an ethnic federation whether the Iraqi people like it or not."
Al-Yawar said: "The Shi'is and Sunnis should work together to salvage what can be salvaged. They should not ignore the big issues, such as the issue of a federation. We have to sit with the brother Kurds and come to a frank understanding. This is a major problem; it is not an easy one. We have to understand what they really want and what they are planning for the future. Even Lakhdar Brahimi sensed this Iraqi problem and said that if the Iraqis did not wish to save their own country, no power on earth could help them. This is a fact." Al-Yawar added: "The Kurds are insisting on a federal rule while the brother Shi'is are insisting on elections although all the other forces insist that such elections are not feasible at present. The United Nations will adopt a similar stand; in other words, the current conditions are not suitable to hold such elections. What worries us most is the sectarian problem in Iraq. The issue of nationality between Arabs and Kurds is simple and can be surmounted. Sectarian sedition, however, is extremely dangerous, particularly since some neighboring countries or some regional and international forces are encouraging such sedition."
"Misperception" of Sunni ties to former regime
Al-Yawar stated: "There is a misunderstanding that is lumping the Arab Sunnis in Iraq with Saddam Hussein. The misperception is that the Arab Sunnis were in the service of the former regime and that they enjoyed huge privileges under Saddam's rule. However, we all know that Saddam did not believe in any religion or sect. His injustices were inflicted on Sunnis, Shi'is, Kurds and all other national groups and sects. He did not differentiate between one Iraqi and another. Moreover, the Arab Sunnis of Iraq are the last people to think of sectarianism. All our ideas are purely Iraqi and nationalist ones. We can become a link between the Kurds and the Shi'is since we have nationalist links with both the Sunni and Shi'i Kurds. The Kurds are the most successful in coordinating their stands while the Shi'is understand one another the most. They hold periodic meetings called the 'Al-Bayt Al-Shi'i.' The Shi'i House whereas we have failed to hold such meetings due to personal or other reasons."
The member of the Governing Council added that it never crossed his mind that the configuration of the council would be formed on ethnic or sectarian bases and quotas. He said, "one week after the council was formed, I understood this was a process that the brothers had agreed upon in the London conference of the Iraqi opposition. I do not understand how a conference held in London two years ago could impose its will on 25 million Iraqis. I do not know how the quotas were determined. I believe that an accurate, scientific and neutral census under the supervision of the United Nations will reveal the real figures and ratios on condition that it is a fair census without armed militias."
January 22 in ash-Sharq al-Awsat via BBC world monitoring, on elections and Sistani:
Ghazi Ujayl al-Yawar said Ayatollah al-Sistani's view "is very important. He is the source of authority for a broad sector of the Iraqis. I am not saying Shi'is and Sunnis because we are all Muslims and the authority is the authority for Sunnis as it is for the Shi'is."
He added: "This religious leader is searching for the ideal solution for the issue of handing power over to the Iraqis. I do not believe there is any Iraqi who rejects holding free and honest elections. But how can these elections be free and honest when there are five armed militias affiliated to parties and political movements? Who will ensure the people's safety and how can the elections be held when there are the militias of the two Kurdish parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Al-Da'wah Party, National Congress and the Accord? How can the elections be free and honest when there are irregular armed forces? Security should be provided for the voter and we must ensure that no pressures are exerted on him. The presence of these militias sends a bad message to the Iraqi people confirming that the security situation in the country is out of control ..."
Al-Yawar called for "amalgamating these militias in the Iraqi army and for their loyalty to be for Iraq and not a party, a political movement or a specific person" ...
Al-Yawar went on to say ... "Some want to stoke up the fire of sectarian sedition between the Shi'is and Sunnis. I say that there is not such a division in Iraq. We must say that the Iraqis are Arabs and Kurds and not Sunnis and Shi'is. It is odd that we do not hear anyone who says Iraq and demands Iraq's unification."
He concluded his statement by saying: "The important thing now is to restore Iraq's sovereignty and take over power from the occupiers. Any party delaying this causes us pain. The occupation is a wound to our dignity, at least morally. If we delay the hand-over of power, then everything will be delayed and this is not in the country's interest. The calls to rush the elections does not reflect the true image of what Iraqis want."
On December 10 al-Yawar gave an interview with a Kurdish newspaper, Hawlati, opposing decentralization and purely religious law (via BBC world monitoring):
In an interview with Hawlati, the chief of Shammar tribe and member of the Iraqi Governing Council, Ghazi Ujayl al-Yawar, said he does not support the devolvement of governorates into a federal system because he fears that in place of one dictator we would get 25 in Iraq one for each of the 25 governorates. In the interview, he rejected religious governing system for Iraq. He said: "The Iraqi people are made up of a number of diverse national and religious groups. They should be taken into consideration. Our era is not the era of religious states." He expressed his support for federal status for Iraqi Kurdistan region ...
Last December when a short-lived U.S. plan was announced to retain several militias and meld them under Iyad Allawi into a new security force, al-Yawar went ballistic, according to Ed Wong of the NYT:
The composition of the militia has raised concerns among some council members. Ghazi Yawar, a council member who does not represent any political parties, said forming a militia of soldiers from different parties could lead to violent factionalism. He added that the Governing Council was not consulted about this, and that only council members representing the five largest parties - ones that would contribute soldiers - took part in talks on the matter with General John Abizaid, the senior American military commander. "I am very outraged; this is stupid," Yawar said. "How many people are running Iraq? I'm very upset. This can lead to warlords and civil war. Should I form my own militia? I can have 20,000 people or more here. But that is not what I want to do." Yawar said the council members not involved in planning the creation of the militia had only learned about it on Saturday, after Talabani informed them of the proposal. His understanding of the militia differed somewhat from that of Mustafa's. Yawar said only five parties would contribute to the militia, with 160 to 200 people picked by each party.
On November 25, Joel Brinkley of the NYT reported Yawar's opposition to a plan to retain the IGC as a sort of senate even after a caretaker government was elected. One gets a sense that a lot of al-Yawar's complaints really had to do with Ahmad Chalabi and his clique.
"This is from people who have a fear of losing a grip on things," said council member Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, an important tribal sheik. "If we do this, we will be another Yasser Arafat," the Palestinian leader whose enemies accuse him of routinely reneging on agreements. Among the proponents of keeping the council intact in some manner are leaders of its most important factions, including the two major Kurdish parties, powerful Shi'ite clerics and prominent exile leaders including Ahmed Chalabi.
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Shocking video you didn't see
Tue Jun 01, 2004
Antiwar.com Blog
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P996
A must-read article by Jason Vest: On-the-ground-reality TV: Shocking footage of US military conduct in Iraq is available through major news services, yet the American public seldom sees what reporters see
Here's an excerpt:
In a yet-to-be-released documentary, a top international investigative reporter offers a tentative explanation for both forms of derailment. On March 14 - almost six weeks before 60 Minutes II aired its Abu Ghraib story - the Australian NineNetwork's Sunday newsmagazine program aired a scaled-down version of Iraq - On the Brink, reported by Ross Coulthart, a journalist whose award-winning investigations have spanned rough-and-tumble assignments in East Timor and Afghanistan to seminal intelligence and public-corruption investigations in the US and Australia. Indirectly, Coulthart raises serious questions about American media self-censorship - something journalists have been wrestling with since the first Gulf War. The film also raises the possibility that, then as now, such self-censorship may have helped the military cover up Iraqi wartime deaths. (A 15-minute trailer for Iraq - On the Brink can be seen at www.journeyman.tv/?lid=14772. Latest RealPlayer required. American audiences may get to see snippets of the documentary in Michael Moore's award-winning Fahrenheit 9/11, depending on how it's released.)
[...]
The soldiers don't exactly approach with stealth. They kick open a gate to the house's yard. What happens next, as Coulthart explained in an interview with the Phoenix, illustrates a perilous gap in American and Iraqi cultural understanding. "First, you have to understand that guns are ubiquitous in Iraq - most people have them, and it's very common for them to shoot them in the air all the time for any number of reasons - from celebrations to anger to whatever," he says. "Burglary has become very common in the past year, and oftentimes, if people hear something outside their homes at night, they'll fire a shot or two into the air to scare burglars away. Now, you could just go up to a house, like other soldiers do, and just knock on the door. But some treat these missions like full-fledged combat operations and start kicking things in with guns drawn, and then you get what happens next."
Coulthart's voiceover continues: "The officer's son - thinking the soldiers are thieves - goes to the roof of the house and fires into the air to scare them away." The response from US soldiers: "We've got a shooter on the roof!" followed by a hail of bullets loosed at the house.
The next shot - of film, that is - shows Abbas, a clearly unarmed, middle-aged, balding man in pajamas, hands above his head, trembling as he stands across from at least a half-dozen US soldiers whose M-16s are trained on him. "Inside the house, the officer surrenders, but he doesn't understand what the Americans are saying - and they don't have a translator," Coulthart explains. Abbas repeats the only English he appears to know - "Welcome! Welcome!" - over and over again, keeping his hands far above his head as the Fourth Infantry Division soldiers handle the situation in a way almost exactly the opposite of how the Third Cav troops acted in similar circumstances. The Fourth Infantry soldiers' manner foreshadows the images at Abu Ghraib that the world would see months later.
"Want me to shoot him in the leg?" one soldier yells. "I might shoot you!" another growls at Abbas. As Abbas stands motionless in the doorway between his kitchen and the next room, one soldier shouts, "He's trying to draw us in there!" Another solider half mutters, half yells, "I don't give a shit, I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna shoot!" while another hollers, "I can shoot him in the leg!"
"Get the fuck over here, get the fuck over here," shouts another, while the previous soldier repeats his desire to shoot Abbas in the leg, adding that someone should also "shoot him in the foot."
Abbas steps away from the doorway and moves his back to the wall. "The Iraqi officer, thinking he's about to die," Coulthart's voiceover resumes, "can now be heard praying." The American response is far from ecumenical, with one soldier yelling, "Who the fuck are you talking to? Who the fuck are you talking to? Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!" The soldier then grabs the man's pajama top and hurls him across the room into the hands of another soldier, who in turn hurls him into a chair that goes flying as the Iraqi sprawls onto the floor. One soldier begins to kick Abbas, who, though on his back, has his hands in the air again, repeating "Welcome! Welcome!" Three soldiers put their gun barrels in his face, with one solider yelling repeatedly, "Shoot him!" Another asks, "Who's shooting?" when he hears gunfire from the roof, and then yells, "Bullshit" at the prone Abbas, who continues to repeat, "Welcome!"
The next sequence shows the capture of Abbas's adult son, who had shot the gun off on the roof; as he's being restrained, a soldier's voice barks menacingly, "Take the camera off him." The film then resumes with a shot of two women - apparently Abbas's wife and daughter - kneeling on the ground at gunpoint, their hands on their heads, their faces pictures of anger and humiliation.
The final shot shows the former general. Though fleeting, it is, perhaps, the most disturbing sequence of the film, given that in his previous appearance Abbas was terrified but physically unharmed. Now, his arms are restrained behind his back. His face is battered and bruised. His left eye is beginning to swell shut. The front of his shirt is stained with blood, and a stream of snot and blood dangles from his left nostril.
"No one here was killed," Coulthart's voice resumes. "But it's raids like this that can only fuel the resentment against Coalition forces."
Speaking with the Phoenix from Australia, Coulthart doesn't entirely fault the soldiers for their initial reaction to gunfire from the roof: "One could reasonably, though incorrectly, conclude that one was being fired on, and it makes perfect sense to fire back if that's what you think." But, he says, it again raises the question of who gave the order for the squad to apprehend the general in the way it did - especially without a translator - given the obvious potential for creating an unnecessarily inflammatory situation. "People don't seem to realize the incalculable damage something like this causes," he says. "You can see on the face of the young woman that her heart and mind are gone forever to the Americans. When we first saw this footage, the first reaction of our Iraqi fixers was absolute anger - I can only begin to guess what the reaction is to the scenes from Abu Ghraib."
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'It Is Getting Worse by the Day Here'
by Dahr Jamail
June 1, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=2709
Late night writing due to the sweat alarm that has gone off, shortly after the electricity has cut out yet again. The electricity seems to have gotten worse lately, which is not surprising, in that this coincides with the gas shortage - also growing more severe by the day.
So many things leave imprints on me as I go through the day here, it has grown nearly impossible to jot them all down. One of the reasons I've written fewer blogs this trip has been because it has been overwhelming. The situation is so much worse now than when I was here in December and January. And it was bad then, to be sure.
During an interview earlier today with a young sheikh who is very much a Sadr supporter, I asked him what he would do if Moqtada Al-Sadr was captured or killed by the U.S. military. I wondered if the seemingly unorganized followers and ill-trained militia would disintegrate and fade away.
He pulled his 6-year-old daughter forward, her cute smiling face proudly beaming from under her small hijab, and asked her my question in Arabic. Her reply: "We will always follow Moqtada Al-Sadr."
It reminded me of another occurrence that left an impression on me my very first day in the field here this trip, at the beginning of April.
I was in Sadr City the day after some heavy fighting between the Mahdi Army and U.S. forces, and was talking with an American tank crew. Two of the men were sweeping debris off the top of their tank, which had the few portals of its glass smashed. What other loose pieces on the tank had been torn off and were lying on the ground. Rocks were everywhere.
One of the soldiers told me a group of around 200 kids had surrounded them and pelted them with stones. All they could do was sit inside and ride it out.
He went on to tell me that he was a bit shaken up by it saying, "They are just kids, and we are a tank!" So the kids were attacking them during the day, and the men from the area attacked them at night with Kalashnikovs and RPGs.
My friend Aziz came by this afternoon ... shaken. He told me that there had been an assassination attempt on Ismail Zayer, the editor of the New Sabah, a newspaper Mr. Zayer founded after breaking ranks with the CPA-controlled Sabah newspaper. According to the story, a group of men in four cars, one of them an Iraqi Police vehicle, showed up at Zayer's office and told him the Minister of the Interior had requested that he accompany them to his office.
Zayer told them he needed to change and went inside to call the Minister to verify this, as he knew the Minister personally. The Minister told him he did not order this, and did not know what it was about.
Meanwhile, Mr. Zayer's driver and body guard were taken away by the men, later to be found shot in the head.
I'd seen Zayer's body guard: a large man with a pony tail - not many Iraqis have pony tails. He was very friendly when I'd gone there to interview Mr. Zayer a few weeks ago. Even though he wasn't a friend, just someone I'd met, it is always difficult to reconcile that someone I know is gone now. And not just gone, but shot in the head.
So it's happened to me now. That which has happened to every Iraqi friend of mine. Everyone here knows someone personally who has died an untimely death.
Ater telling me about this horrible story, Aziz said, "It is getting worse by the day here."
How is life possibly going to get better in Iraq? Kids are being raised to fight against the most powerful military the Earth has ever known. Every U.S. soldier who comes here knows they will be in-country for at least one full year. More troops are on the way. More soldiers have been killed near Ramadi and Fallujah recently. The truce in Najaf and Kufa came and went. A man has been selected by the IGC as the president whom every single Iraqi I know thinks is an absolute bastard.
One man I know, when asked what he thought about Alawi, said frankly, "He will be killed, insh'allah." Another Iraqi friend said, "If he lasts a month, he'll be very lucky."
So as the Bush and Blair camps race about trying to paint a picture of stability and structure in Iraq, with June 30 is now just a month away - this place is coming apart at the seams. For each step forward the coalition makes, two disasters occur ... whether they take the form of deadly attacks on the occupying forces, more mortars blasting into the CPA, sabotage of a pipeline or power plant, a murder, another SUV of secret service or security mercenaries taken out by an RPG, or something less obvious ...
A child being raised to fight. A woman dying of breast cancer from depleted uranium exposure. A highly trained engineer, without work, sweating in his car, which he drives as a taxi, which means waiting for hours in a fuel line. A family home raided in the middle of the night by the military. Women not being able to leave their homes in safety. Nor men, for that matter. A soldier who has lost his legs in an IED blast goes home to his country. He and his family having to learn to live with his disability. An Iraqi war veteran begging on the street - has no family.
Iraq has been shattered. And now, today, over a year since the horrible regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown, what is left of the country seems to be unraveling more and more with each passing day.
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Iraqi water sector undermined by crippled infrastructure, absence of security, minister says
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
By Shafika Mattar,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-01/s_24388.asp
SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan - Iraq has sufficient water resources from lakes and rivers, but the vital sector is undermined by impotent infrastructure and lack of security in post-war Iraq, Iraqi Water Resources Minister Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid said this week.
"Unfortunately the security (situation) in Iraq is bad, and certain people take advantage of that to carry out looting acts and sabotage our reconstruction efforts," said Rashid.
He said another challenge was the sector's underdeveloped infrastructure, which was "really ignored in the last 35 years because the policy of the (previous) regime concentrated on the military and continuous wars."
He continued, "Iraq is rich with water resources. We have two rivers, secondary rivers, lakes, and good recharge because of rainfall," he said. "But infrastructure development is a big task for us, and it is challenging."
Rashid's ministry was one of seven government offices that the U.S.-led occupation authority handed over control of to Iraqi ministers on May 10 under a U.S. plan to give nominal sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30. The other ministries were health, education, municipalities and public works, science and technology, and agriculture.
Like all of Iraq's 25 government ministries, the seven ministries had been run by Western advisers. The handover allowed some U.S. advisers to remain on the staff.
Rashid spoke on the sidelines of a conference gathering some 1,500 water experts and officials from 30 countries to discuss the management of water resources. The were meeting at an isolated Dead Sea resort, 45 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of the capital, Amman.
The four-day meeting, which opened Sunday under the patronage of Jordan's King Abdullah II, will enable experts and policy-makers to share ideas and experience about efficiency and conservation. The conference is organized by Jordan's Water Ministry, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and other international agencies.
Rashid said since September, his ministry, in cooperation with international agencies, began clearing irrigation canals and re-flooding the enormous marshlands in southern Iraq that were drained under orders of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"Now those marshes have 50 percent of their previous water capacity," he said.
He said future plans, estimated to cost nearly US$4 billion, include managing underground water reservoirs, building more dams across the country, and eradicating pollution, which he described as a "very serious problem that needs a lot of investment."
Rashid's Jordanian counterpart, Hazem al-Nasser, told a news conference that Jordan has prepared a plan to train Iraqi personnel on water management upon a request from the World Bank. He said there was no endorsement yet on the plan from the bank and the Iraqi government.
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Sunni Is Chosen as President; Governing Council Disbands
June 1, 2004
By DEXTER FILKINS and KIRK SEMPLE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/international/middleeast/01CND-IRAQ.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 - An interim Iraqi government reflecting the diverse ethnic and religious landscape of the country took shape today, ending weeks of bruising negotiations between Iraqi leaders, American administrators and the United Nations envoy here.
The Sunni Arab tribal leader Ghazi al-Yawar was chosen today as the president of the interim government after another leading candidate favored by the Bush administration refused the position. Later, Prime Minister Iyad Alawi, a secular Shiite who was appointed last week and will lead the new government, announced the members of his cabinet.
The Iraqi Governing Council, which backed the selection of Mr. Yawar, then declared that it would immediately disband rather than remain in office until the June 30 transfer of sovereignty.
The appointment of Mr. Yawar to the largely ceremonial presidency broke a deadlock over the composition of the interim government, which will assume power from the American-led governing authority and which is supposed to guide the country until nationwide elections are held next year.
The Governing Council had lobbied for Mr. Yawar to be president while the Bush administration and the United Nations envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, had pushed for Adnan Pachachi, the former Iraqi foreign minister.
President Bush, in a televised appearance in the Rose Garden, commended the appointments, calling the new interim government "a team that possesses the talent, commitment, the resolve to guide Iraq through the challenges that lie ahead."
As the various political developments unfolded today, an explosion ripped through the Baghdad headquarters of one of the country's main Kurdish parties, near the headquarters of the American-led coalition, killing at least three people and injuring at least 20, Lt. Col. Robert Campbell of the First Cavalry Division said.
In his first public statements after his appointment, Mr. Yawar said he wanted the United Nations Security Council to grant the country "full sovereignty" in a resolution now under discussion in New York.
"We the Iraqis look forward to being granted full sovereignty through a Security Council resolution to enable us to rebuild a free, independent, democratic and federal unified homeland," he said at a news conference.
The newly appointed foreign minister, Hoshiyar Zebari, was heading for New York to lobby the United Nations for full sovereignty, news agencies reported.
Last week, Mr. Yawar criticized the draft resolution for giving Iraqis only limited control over the American troops that will remain in Iraq after the transfer of sovereignty.
The Bush administration argues that the resolution guarantees full sovereignty.
In addition to Mr. Zebari, a Kurd, the cabinet announced today will include the Shiite politician Adel Abdul Mehdi as finance minister, Hazim al-Shalaan as defense minister and Falah al-Naqib as interior minister, Dr. Alawi said during a news conference.
Mr. Brahimi, the United Nations envoy, announced that Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite from the Dawa Party, and Rowsch Shaways, of the Kurdish Democratic Party, were to be Mr. Yawar's vice presidents.
Mr. Yawar is the leader of the Shamar tribe, one of the largest groups in Iraq. He is an engineer who was educated in the United States and spent several years in exile in Saudi Arabia. American and Iraqi officials had agreed that the presidency ought to go to a Sunni Arab, the country's second-largest group. Dr. Alawi, who will lead the government as prime minister, is a Shiite Muslim, part of Iraq's largest demographic group.
In recent televised interviews, Mr. Yawar has criticized the American presence and said that the worsening conditions in Iraq were due to the blunderings of the American military.
Mr. Yawar's appointment happened after Mr. Pachachi refused the post.
At a news conference today at his home in the upscale Mansour neighborhood, Mr. Pachachi confirmed that he had been offered the office of president but had turned it down.
"This position is an honorary position, and the Iraqi people need someone in this office who has the most public support," Mr. Pachachi said.
The news media had portrayed him in the last several days as receiving great support from the Americans, he said, and that ruined his credibility among the people of Iraq. As a result, he added, he felt he might be viewed as illegitimate by the Iraqi people if he were to take office.
"The fact that I was portrayed as having been nominated by the Americans made me look less patriotic than the others," he said.
A close aide to Mr. Pachachi, Fareed Yaseen, said the offer of the presidency was a legitimate one, not a face-saving deal in which Mr. Pachachi had been pressured to turn it down. "It was not a sham offer, it was a genuine offer," Mr. Yaseen said.
Mr. Pachachi did not decide until this morning to reject the offer, the aide added.
"A lot of people lobbied really hard, really, really hard, to get him to take it," Mr. Yaseen said. "We felt there were a number of objective reasons that made him a better candidate to help lead Iraq over the next several months."
The appointment of Mr. Yawar followed a bruising political battle that pitted the governing council against L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator here, and Mr. Brahimi.
The dispute arose last week when Mr. Bremer and Mr. Brahimi objected to the decision by the governing council to support Mr. Yawar for president.
Mr. Bremer and Mr. Brahimi preferred Mr. Pachachi, a close friend of Mr. Brahimi. Officials in the Bush administration said they favored Mr. Pachachi, a Sunni Arab, in part because he was seen as more likely to support the interim constitution, which provides for broad individual rights, Kurdish federalism and the separation of church and state. The governing council drafted the interim constitution earlier this year, but some Iraqi political leaders have indicated they might not heed all of its restrictions.
Though the Iraqi presidency is envisioned as a mostly ceremonial job, the deadlock took on a larger significance, with Iraqi leaders declaring that a pair of foreign diplomats were trying to dictate the future shape of the Iraqi government.
For their part, American and United Nations officials questioned the legal right of the Iraqi Governing Council, which was appointed by the Americans, to select the president.
Mr. Brahimi, a former foreign minister of Algeria, arrived here earlier this month at the invitation of the Bush administration and the Iraqi Governing Council to help form the interim government.
Dexter Filkins and Ed Wong contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article and Kirk Semple contributed reporting from New York.
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Car Bomb in Baghdad Kills Four Iraqis
Two U.S. Troops Dead After Flare-Up in Najaf
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4493-2004May31.html
BAGHDAD, May 31 -- A powerful car bomb killed four Iraqis and wounded about 25 in downtown Baghdad Monday, while two U.S. soldiers were killed in clashes with insurgent Shiite militiamen that persisted despite a ragged truce around the sacred city of Najaf.
The suicide bombing here and the continued flare-ups of fighting 80 miles to the south added to the growing sense of insecurity that has settled over the 13-month-old occupation of Iraq as U.S. officials move toward a June 30 deadline for transferring limited power to an interim Iraqi government.
The bombing, in Baghdad's well-to-do Al Harthiya neighborhood, blasted a 10-foot-wide crater in the street and shattered the windows of nearby shops and homes. It occurred about a mile from the U.S. checkpoint where Izzedin Salim, then occupying the rotating presidency of the Governing Council, was killed May 17 in a similar suicide bombing as his motorcade waited to enter the U.S. occupation headquarters.
Kareema Habib, 39, was injured in the head, shoulder and feet when she was thrown to the ground by the blast as she walked down the street with her niece to visit a brother who lives nearby. "I don't know what hit me," she said from her bed at Yarmouk General Hospital. "Suddenly I was on the ground, bleeding, and my niece was all over me."
Mowaffak Rubaie, the council's national security adviser, told al-Arabiya television that he believed he was the intended target. An unidentified caller had threatened Rubaie earlier Monday, the Dubai-based network said, and warned that all council members would be targets of such bombings if they did not stop cooperating with U.S. occupation authorities.
But Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman here, said that Rubaie was nowhere near the blast and that there was no reason to believe he was the target. The blast killed four people in addition to the driver, Iraqi police said.
An underground insurgency seeking to drive U.S. occupation forces from Iraq has mounted an increasingly intense campaign of bombings and ambushes in recent months. Although aimed primarily at U.S. soldiers and other foreigners, the attacks have also targeted Iraqis who work for foreigners or are part of the Governing Council.
One Iraqi policeman was killed and another wounded in an attack Monday near Baghdad, and a soldier with occupation forces was killed by a homemade roadside explosive on the edge of the city, Kimmitt reported. An Iraqi security guard was killed Sunday during an assault on unidentified foreigners passing in a convoy of several vehicles, he said.
Kimmitt said clashes erupted twice Sunday night in Kufa, which adjoins Najaf, between patrolling U.S. soldiers and militiamen loyal to Moqtada Sadr, a Shiite Muslim cleric whose Mahdi Army has been challenging U.S. authority in the heavily Shiite region for the last month. Another confrontation erupted Monday evening when Mahdi Army fighters attacked a U.S. convoy on the edge of Kufa, according to Qais Khazali, a Sadr spokesman in Najaf.
Kimmitt said two U.S. soldiers were killed in the earlier clashes. Two Mahdi Army fighters were killed in the later exchange of fire, Khazali said.
Kimmitt declined to describe the continued fighting as a breakdown of the truce reached Thursday after mediation by Shiite Muslim members of the Governing Council and other Shiite leaders. One council member who participated in that mediation, Ahmed Chalabi, told reporters in Najaf on Monday that he is trying now to extend the agreement and work out ways it can be carried out more thoroughly.
Chalabi said that he came away from a Sunday night meeting with Sadr aides with a proposal for improving implementation of the cease-fire that he would put to U.S. authorities. It was unclear how welcome Chalabi's efforts would be, however, since U.S. officials have distanced themselves from him in recent weeks.
The governor of Najaf, Adnan Zurufi, said Monday evening that there was "an agreement from all sides" within the city and that they were now awaiting a response from the U.S. military.
Under the terms of Thursday's agreement, U.S. forces were supposed to begin joint patrols with Iraqi police in Najaf and surrounding areas in an effort to ease the impact of their presence. In return, Sadr's militiamen were supposed to leave the streets. Since then, Sadr's forces have largely disappeared from Najaf's streets but continue to challenge U.S. troops in Kufa.
The joint patrols have yet to be deployed. About 100 Iraqi security police who were taken to Najaf for that purpose returned immediately to Baghdad, saying their accommodations were inadequate. Kimmitt said in the capital that their return was not desertion, as some reports portrayed it, but the result of inadequate preparation for their billeting.
"We expect that over the next days, as things get worked out, they'll get down there," he said at a briefing.
In the northern city of Irbil, a cart carrying TNT exploded near the main gate of the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish political party, injuring at least one child, a party official told the Associated Press. The official said the explosion occurred when a U.S. military contingent was a few blocks away visiting a local university.
Special correspondents Khalid Saffar in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
--------
Some Seek Date for U.S. Troops to Exit Iraq
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4756-2004May31?language=printer
Bursts of gunfire and bad news are prompting growing numbers of foreign policy experts to begin debating the contours of a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, echoing a national discussion reflected in opinion polls about the fate of the American mission.
Few prominent American voices have demanded the immediate exit of the 138,000 U.S. troops now leading the Iraq occupation, but a number of commentators have argued in recent days for establishing a date or a concrete list of tasks whose completion would trigger a U.S. departure.
"The destruction of the Baathist regime is the fullest expression of liberation that we can accomplish," said Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel who favors a pullout. "It is simply beyond our ability to bring into existence a liberal democratic order, and to persist in attempting to do so is, first of all, to end in failure."
Win Without War, a coalition of 42 antiwar groups, called Thursday for the setting of a withdrawal date on the grounds that the presence of an "unwelcome occupation force" and the ill treatment of Iraqi prisoners are strengthening the bloody anti-American insurgency.
Even so, neither Bacevich nor Win Without War is demanding an immediate pullout. As with others who are uneasy about the U.S. role in Iraq, the antiwar organization is torn, with some members favoring a quick exit amid mounting casualties and others believing troops should leave only when Iraqis have a government of their choosing.
"People feel strongly that the United States has an obligation to the Iraqi people, given what we are responsible for," said Tom Andrews, national director of Win Without War. He maintains that U.S. public opinion reflected in the polls is moving faster than Washington-based politicians, policymakers or pundits.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll last week found that 40 percent of respondents thought U.S. troops should be withdrawn to avoid further casualties, even if it meant civil order would not be restored. A Gallup poll in early May found that 29 percent wanted to withdraw all troops, while an additional 18 percent wanted to withdraw some. Twenty-five percent wanted to send more.
Polls of Iraqi public opinion show a majority in favor of an immediate U.S. withdrawal.
Among national security specialists who favor setting a date, none suggests a U.S. withdrawal before expected January elections for a constituent assembly. Many say American forces should remain through 2005 to provide security for a constitutional referendum and national elections.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a sharp critic of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq conflict, said it is too early to choose a date.
"It would give the bad guys and those who want us to fail a target. And when you start to think exit strategy, you start doing things to minimize your cost," said Zinni, who favors making an assessment after the June 30 political handoff to an interim Iraqi government.
President Bush has often said U.S. forces will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and he has not set a timetable or explicit preconditions for a pullout. Before the war, the Defense Department hoped for a far more rapid reduction of U.S. strength in Iraq. But a stubborn insurgency that has killed 476 Americans and wounded more than 4,100 forced a change of plans.
In his May 24 speech to the U.S. Army War College, Bush said it is imperative that the United States prevail in Iraq and bequeath a representative democracy. Calling Iraq "the central front on the war on terror," he said a "return to tyranny" would embolden terrorists to strike around the world.
"We may have to leave earlier than we thought," said former U.S. diplomat Morton Abramowitz. "Setting a date is probably, under the circumstances, the best way of concentrating the mind. The only ones who are going to save us are the Iraqis. The shorter we can cut the occupation, the better."
Abramowitz believes it would be a mistake to withdraw right away, but he advocates designing a departure strategy and announcing it in the name of transparency. He thinks an appropriate date would be sometime before the end of 2005, a view shared by James Steinberg, former deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration.
Steinberg argues that the Bush administration should pledge to end the military occupation by the end of next year -- after the adoption of a constitution and national elections. One reason is to dispel Iraqi suspicion that the United States has long-term designs on the country and its oil.
"The more we talk about staying 'as long as it takes,' the more it appears we are trying to impose our vision on Iraq -- further alienating the Iraqi public," Steinberg and Brookings Institution colleague Michael O'Hanlon wrote in a May 18 op-ed article in The Washington Post.
They worry that the Iraqis will insist the Americans leave before the country has become stable, creating a security vacuum "that could ignite civil war and wider regional strife." Likewise, if the United States pulled out now, Steinberg said in an interview, "there's almost no chance you would have a meaningful election because you wouldn't have the security environment."
At the United Nations, where the Bush administration is seeking Security Council approval for the creation of an interim Iraqi government, Algeria's U.N. ambassador has said the United States should include a firm date for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
"I believe everybody would like to see a date for the end of the presence of foreign forces," Abdallah Baali said. "Now we have to find a way to do it."
Most countries -- including Iraq war opponents France, Germany and Russia -- have taken a more nuanced approach. They say the formal mandate for foreign forces should end when a new Iraqi government is elected. At that point, Iraqi authorities could decide whether to ask outside troops to stay.
China, meanwhile, circulated a paper at the United Nations last week asking that the Security Council be given the authority to decide whether the multinational force can remain in the country after elections.
A key reason not to withdraw before Iraq has stabilized, said retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, former supreme allied commander of NATO, is the danger of deadly attacks on huge departing convoys. The image he suggests is of American forces fighting their way out of the country, just as they fought their way in.
"If you're under pressure, if you're under fire, you have to set up perimeters to protect your pullout area," Joulwan said. "Remember how Saigon looked when we pulled out."
Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.
--------
COMBAT
At Least 5 More G.I.'s Are Killed in Iraq, 2 in Unraveling of Militia Truce in Kufa
June 1, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/international/middleeast/01IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 31 - At least five American soldiers died in Iraq during a 24-hour period that began Sunday, two of them fighting insurgents in the holy city of Kufa during the unraveling of a cease-fire agreement with a rebel Shiite cleric, military officials said Monday.
The two soldiers were the first to be reported killed in combat in the adjoining southern cities of Najaf and Kufa since the First Armored Division began operations there to put pressure on the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, to disarm his militia. At least 808 American troops have died since the war began in March 2003.
The American-appointed governor of Najaf said Monday that prominent Shiite political and religious leaders had persuaded Mr. Sadr to agree to a new truce. Under the proposal, Mr. Sadr's militia would put away its weapons in exchange for the Americans' halting patrols for 48 hours. But American commanders had not approved the deal as of late Monday.
Violence in the country continued Monday afternoon as a car bomb exploded on a busy commercial and residential street near the fortified American headquarters in Baghdad, killing at least four Iraqi civilians and wounding at least 25 people, military officials and witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear whether a suicide bomber was responsible, though some witnesses said the light blue sedan carrying the bomb appeared to be moving along Al Kindi Street shortly before it exploded, after 1 p.m. Bits of human flesh and blackened metal parts lay strewn over the street and surrounding buildings. A guard for a British power company in a nearby two-story building showed a charred hand and forearm that had landed in the rear garden.
The bomb exploded more than a thousand feet away from an entrance to the American compound, which is sometimes used by members of the Iraqi Governing Council, witnesses said. On May 17, the president of the council for that month, Ezzedine Salim, was killed along with six other people by a suicide bomber at that entrance. But at the time of the explosion on Monday, there were apparently no prominent figures on the street.
Witnesses said the car had exploded near several construction workers who were repairing the street.
"There were no Americans there," said Thaier Stefan, a resident who pointed out a charred piece of metal that had landed on the trunk of his family sedan. "There was nothing. There were only workers rebuilding the street. I think a falafel vendor might have been killed."
The bursts of violence in Baghdad and the southern part of the country came as the American administration, the United Nations envoy here and the Governing Council wrangled over who should be appointed to be president of the interim government. More than a year after Saddam Hussein was deposed, many people here consider the security situation to be at one of its lowest points, and attacks are expected to continue unabated against the new government.
The new posts will be filled mostly by members of the American-selected Governing Council, which many Iraqis view as an illegitimate body. That would be likely to spur the insurgents on.
American soldiers standing behind concertina wire at the scene of the bombing appeared tense and nervous. After a loose power line on a side street began making noises that sounded like gunshots, one soldier fired a burst from his M-16 down the street, sending dozens of bystanders behind him racing for cover.
The explosion left a three-foot-deep crater near the sidewalk and shattered windows within several blocks. The blackened hulk of a car sat near the crater. Most of the people hurt in the blast were wounded by flying glass, said Col. Mike Murray, commander of the Third Brigade of the First Cavalry Division, which is charged with controlling Baghdad.
"Right now, my initial impression is that it's just a random act of terrorism," he said as he stood 100 feet away from the crater. "There are some pretty desperate people out there."
In the south, two soldiers were killed Sunday evening in Kufa in separate ambushes by insurgents, the American military said. One soldier was killed when his patrol was ambushed by militiamen, and the other when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his tank during a patrol, according to a written statement.
In the conflict with Mr. Sadr, an agreement was reached Thursday under which the Mahdi Army, Mr. Sadr's militia, would put away its weapons in exchange for an American withdrawal from the centers of Najaf and Kufa. But attacks on soldiers have continued over the weekend in Kufa, where insurgents openly parade around the streets with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
American generals are giving contradictory information about the state of the violence in those cities.
Brig. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, assistant commander of support for the First Armored Division, said in an e-mail message on Monday that soldiers and insurgents engaged in a firefight on Sunday at the Kufa cemetery. That contradicted a report on Sunday by Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the occupation forces, who said at a news conference that the battle had taken place in the northwest corner of the Najaf cemetery.
General Hertling also said, "There never was a cease-fire; there was only a temporary halt to offensive operations." But General Kimmitt has used the word cease-fire to describe the agreement between the American forces and Mr. Sadr.
General Kimmitt has suggested that Mr. Sadr might view the agreement as applying only to Najaf, where he lives, and not to Kufa, where he preaches at a mosque. That could explain why attacks are continuing in Kufa, he said.
A CNN reporter traveling with American soldiers in the area said the troops engaged in a "very intense firefight" late Sunday in what appeared to be an offensive operation aimed at seizing a police station in Kufa. A videotape shot in green night-vision showed armored vehicles firing their cannons, and explosions flaring in the distance.
But General Hertling denied in his e-mail message that there had been an offensive operation. He said Americans had been engaging in "force-oriented zone reconnaissance."
The recently installed governor of Najaf Province, Adnan al-Zurufi, said at a news conference on Monday that Mr. Sadr had agreed to order his militia to lay down weapons if the Americans promised to stay in their bases during the next 48 hours and let Iraqi policemen run patrols in the cities. Shiite leaders in the area have been growing steadily angrier at the continuation of fighting by both the Americans and the Mahdi Army.
Mr. Zurufi said the leaders were awaiting a decision by American commanders on whether to accept the agreement.
In other violence, a soldier from the First Armored Division was killed Sunday evening and two others were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded south of Baghdad, the military said. At 11:40 p.m., another soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb went off in southwest Baghdad.
A soldier from the Stryker Brigade died Sunday from wounds received in a mortar attack on Saturday in the troubled northern city of Mosul.
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Najaf for this article.
-------- israel / palestine
Palestinians Call for Negotiations On an Israeli Pullout From Gaza
Unilateral Action Risks More Violence, Leaders Say
By Robin Shulman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4938-2004May31.html
GAZA CITY -- Palestinian leaders expressed concern in recent interviews that Israel's plan for a phased withdrawal from the Gaza Strip risks increased violence, and called on Israeli leaders to negotiate the terms of the pullout, rather than depart unilaterally.
If the Palestinian Authority is expected to halt violence in Gaza, it needs to be able to offer a clear political program, said Mohammed Dahlan, the former security chief in Gaza who continues to wield power here without official position. "There's no other idea except the withdrawal from Gaza on the table, no political ideas or political plan," Dahlan said.
Fighting by militant groups, against Israel or even against other Palestinian factions, could best be suppressed "if there is serious negotiation and serious hope for the future," Dahlan said.
"If the Palestinian side is not a real partner in this plan, there will not be quiet during the phases of the withdrawal," said Samir Masharwi, the general inspector of the Palestinian interior ministry in Gaza.
Representatives of Palestinian militant groups, security chiefs and politicians in Gaza said in interviews that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's proposed pullout of Israeli soldiers and settlers does not offer a clear political outcome that would give militants an incentive to stop attacks.
Israeli officials have said they are considering a unilateral pullout because there is not a Palestinian partner to negotiate with, and they have often accused the Palestinian Authority of failure to halt terrorist attacks on Israeli targets.
"I don't think that any partial withdrawal will help the situation," said Marwan Kanafani, a Gaza representative to the Palestinian Legislative Council who has been involved in talks between factions on cooperation after an Israeli withdrawal. "I think, on the contrary, it might ignite it more," he said.
The proposed Israeli handover would be "gradual, based on performance," said Ziad Abu Amr, a Gaza representative on the Palestinian Legislative Council, "which leaves any initial arrangement susceptible to intervening circumstances."
Continuing Israeli military strikes have added to Palestinian doubts that a withdrawal could proceed peacefully. On Saturday Israeli forces demolished another 20 houses in Rafah and fired two rockets in Gaza City, killing a civilian and two militants from the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas.
Representatives of militant groups said they had no consensus about how to react to a withdrawal.
A spokesman for Hamas said the group would stop launching attacks from Gaza if Israeli forces and settlers were entirely withdrawn. "But that's not what we're looking at now," said Sami Abu Zohri.
Abu Qusay, of the Rafah division of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization, said in an interview that his organization would lay down arms if the Palestinian Authority reached an agreement with militant groups. But he made his own demand: "We need the prisoners from Israeli jails and the remains of bodies."
Smaller groups, too, laid out separate conditions for a cease-fire. There must be guarantees for Palestinian statehood, said Sami Abu Samhadaneh, who is affiliated with the Popular Resistance Committees, made up of defectors from Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Palestinian Authority has been discussing power-sharing with militant groups in Gaza for several years. Recently, that dialogue has focused on the aftermath of an Israeli withdrawal, according to participants in the meetings.
Weeks before the assassination by Israel of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader had announced a plan for Hamas, Fatah and other factions to unite in administering Gaza in the event of a unilateral withdrawal. But negotiations were stalled by his death and the assassination of his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said Palestinian Authority members who had been part of the talks. The new Hamas leadership has avoided such meetings for fear of assassination.
"There is no evidence of a major serious effort taking place on the ground," said Abu Amr, who had been part of the talks among factions and has published books about Hamas. "Political decisions are lacking."
The Palestinian Authority, uncertain about Israel's intentions, is unprepared politically for an Israeli withdrawal, Abu Amr and Kanafani said.
Palestinian leaders said they are also concerned about restructuring their own security forces. Egypt plans to send a delegation in June to consult about restructuring the forces, Masharwi said. But leaders said that Palestinians must find a way to assimilate militants into a stable structure for governing Gaza.
Gaza leaders also expressed dismay that the current Israeli plan would allow continued Israeli control of ports and borders, which they said would strangle economic activity and prevent passage of people across the border with Egypt.
"Some people have optimistic points of view on this volatile area of shifting sands," said Abu Amr, the Palestinian legislator. "I don't know what's going to happen tonight. This place is so fragile, any event can create new realities."
-------- mideast
Terror Wave Persists in Saudi Arabia
By DONNA ABU-NASR
Associated Press Writer
Jun 1, 2004
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAUDI_SECURITY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Thirty-five people, mostly foreigners, have been killed over the past six weeks in a dramatic, new style of terror attacks for this kingdom: bodies dragged on streets, traffic police blown up in their offices, hotel guests taken hostage and a chef shot outside an ATM machine.
The attacks are escalating despite an aggressive campaign by the government to root out terrorism, leaving many wondering whether the violence is just the beginning or - as the government insists - the last gasps of a desperate group reacting to the pressure of the hunt.
"It's wrong what some in Saudi Arabia say ... that terrorism is taking its last breaths," Saudi columnist Abdul-Rahman al-Rashed wrote in Asharq al-Awsat newspaper Tuesday, after a 25-hour assault by militants left 22 people dead this weekend. "We truly do not know how big the stock of air that it has in reserve."
Saudi officials say they are fighting an unconventional, low-intensity war against an enemy that is hard to catch: it looks like them, speaks like them, can blend in to society and knows how to hide.
They believe the terror cells were formed in the 1990s by militants who spent years in Afghanistan fighting Soviet invaders and feeding off an anti-Western doctrine laid down by Osama bin Laden and Egypt's militant Islamic Jihad group.
The militants' goal, the officials say, is to depose the royal Al Saud family, take control of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the Muslim faith, and set up an Islamic caliphate that would set out to conquer and convert the world.
One way for the militants to reach their goal is to scare off Westerners so the economy would suffer and unemployment would soar, officials say. That would make it easier to turn people against their ruler. Officials say the kingdom's terror cells do not appear to have a central command center. A cell is dormant until it interprets a news item, an event or a development - such as the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American jailers - as a call to action.
A recent Internet statement purported to be from al-Qaida's alleged leader in Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin, said al-Qaida relies on independent cells that function without "organizational cohesion." The statement said al-Qaida cells follow the group's example as well as books and periodicals on how to carry out attacks.
A Saudi prince said the militants make sure the cells are isolated so that if authorities break one up, it will be difficult to link the cell to its creator. He said each cell is probably made up of 15 people, divided into three groups for flexibility. For instance, one group could be used for deception - to attract security forces away from the target - as the two others carry out attacks.
Abdul-Mohsen al-Akkas, a member of the Consultative Council - an appointed body that acts like a parliament - says the frequency of attacks means the terrorists are no longer underground.
"They're all out now; they're not in the basement," he said. "They want to take us back to the Middle Ages because they think this is what Islam is. But this is not Islam."
Mohsen al-Awaji, a lawyer who says he has shifted from his extremist past, said he is part of a group of intellectuals trying to persuade the militants to lay down their arms.
Once senior militants are captured, he said, the rest are "tools that will not have any hands to use them." The government has issued a list of 26 most-wanted militants. Eighteen remain on the list.
He said one way to "get rid of those deadly people" who do not want to lay down arms is to tell them "there are lots of occupied territories that require resistance," such as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian Authorities and Chechnya.
"If someone decides to go, we wish him luck," said al-Awaji. "He's going to die anyway, so let him die there while achieving something, not die here and kill innocents with him."
Saudi authorities and diplomats say the extremists recently have begun expanding their repertoire of tactics, which previously involved mainly nighttime suicide bombings of residential compounds.
The first unusual attack came April 21, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of the traffic police building, killing five people.
On May 1, four militants stormed the offices of Houston-based ABB Lummus Global Inc. in Yanbu, killing six Westerners and a Saudi during office hours. The attackers then dragged the body of an American from the bumper of their car before they were killed.
On May 2, a German chef was gunned down outside a bank by an assailant who escaped.
And on Saturday, militants went on a shooting spree that targeted two oil company compounds and then took hostages inside a residential compound in Khobar. The 25-hour assault killed 22 people; three of four attackers escaped.
In a break from previous attacks, the gunmen in Khobar tried to spare the lives of Muslims, interviewing residents and examining their apartments. Authorities and diplomats said the killing of Muslims in earlier attacks made it more difficult for the militants to recruit.
There have been suggestions the Khobar gunmen were allowed to leave, forcing a deal with Saudi forces after beginning to kill hostages. A Saudi security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not directly address that, but said: "Our main priority was the hostages, and those guys who ran away, we know how to find them."
The prince said the core of the problem is a lack of coordination among authorities. He said the army, navy, air force, special forces, police and intelligence agencies operate independently - even their radios are on different frequencies.
He said the three militants could not have escaped if the force on the ground - which he said reported to the Interior Ministry - had gunships.
"The sad thing is we do have gunships, but they are with the army, the navy and the air force and not with the Interior Ministry," the prince said.
-------- pacific
Defence chiefs come clean on abuse
By Tom Allard, Defence Reporter
June 1, 2004
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/31/1085855502334.html
Senator Robert Hill and General Peter Cosgrove in Parliament yesterday . . . the minister admitted Red Cross complaints last year painted a "grim picture" of detention practices.
The Federal Government's claim that no Australian personnel knew of abuses of Iraqi prisoners until January was demolished during an extraordinary Senate hearing yesterday amid accusations of a cover-up by the Government and military leaders.
While the Defence Minister, Robert Hill, denied senators the opportunity to question the military lawyer at the centre of the uproar, Major George O'Kane, Defence chiefs, departmental officials and the minister revealed sensational new details about what the Australian military knew of abuse complaints, and when, during a marathon grilling before an estimates committee.
The revelations, which contradicted recent public statements by some of the most senior figures in the Government and the military, include:
. Major O'Kane made five visits to Abu Ghraib jail outside Baghdad between last August and January 4, some specifically to investigate concerns about abuse of prisoners. Six other Australian military lawyers were also revealed to have visited the jail, where the worst of the abuses by the US military occurred. Advertisement Advertisement
. Major O'Kane received two Red Cross working papers in October and November, among other material, detailing allegations of abuse. These were passed on to Defence on May 11, but were not drawn to the attention of Senator Hill or the Prime Minister, resulting in them making false statements.
. Defence officials in Canberra were told on December 4 that Major O'Kane went to Abu Ghraib "in response to concerns raised by the [Red Cross] about conditions at the prison".
. Major O'Kane made more than 10 references to his work with the Red Cross to his Australian military superiors in Iraq in weekly reports but he never expressed concerns that the complaints were serious.
. A Defence survey of its officers asked only if they were aware of abuses such as those shown in graphic images revealed by the media in late April. The survey was used to deny any knowledge of "abuse or serious mistreatment" by Australians.
. The Chief of the Defence Force, General Cosgrove, endorsed the removal of a photograph from the Defence website showing Major O'Kane outside Abu Ghraib soon after the abuse scandal went public.
. Major O'Kane advised on interrogation techniques last August.
The Secretary to the Department of Defence, Ric Smith, and General Cosgrove were also shown to have made misleading statements about when Australians became aware of the abuses. They issued a statement on Friday night saying no Australians were aware of "abuse or serious mistreatment" before January.
Senator Hill stressed that no Australians had taken part in torture and said the abuses that Major O'Kane dealt with were not as bad as those uncovered in April. But he admitted that the Red Cross complaints in October and November painted a "grim picture" of detention practices.
The Government, citing Red Cross protocols, would not reveal the content of the October and November reports but the deputy Defence secretary, strategy, Shane Carmody, referred the senators to a February Red Cross report that summed up the earlier complaints.
This report found that physical and psychological coercion was "standard operating procedure" at Abu Ghraib that in some cases "might amount to torture". Detainees were left naked and alone in concrete cells in the dark for days; Muslims were forced to wear women's underwear on their heads; sleep deprivation involved loud music and bright lights.
While the Red Cross said these techniques breached more than a dozen articles of the Geneva conventions, Senator Hill said Major O'Kane insisted that they accorded with international law.
Mr Howard - who called the Herald "contemptible" after breaking the story about Major O'Kane - stood by his remarks, a spokesman said. These included his statement last week that the abuses related only to food, clothing and communications opportunities.
Labor's defence spokesman, Chris Evans, said: "This evidence clearly establishes that there was Australian knowledge of the seriousness of the abuse allegations, and that no action was taken by the Australian government.
"It also makes clear that the Prime Minister's public statements and statements to Parliament on this issue were wrong and totally misleading."
-------- pakistan / india
Bomb Kills 16 at Shiite Mosque in Pakistan
Karachi Attack Follows Slaying of Sunni Cleric
By Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4187-2004May31.html
KARACHI, Pakistan, May 31 -- A bomb blast tore through a Shiite Muslim mosque during evening prayers on Monday night, killing 16 people and wounding at least 30 others, officials said, one day after the assassination of a prominent Sunni cleric in this southern port city.
The attack at the Ali Raza mosque provoked violent clashes between angry mobs and police, who used tear gas to disperse the rioters. The protesters torched vehicles and buildings. Two people were killed and 20 others wounded in the fighting, authorities said.
The powerful explosion was heard for several miles around the mosque, located about a half-mile from where Nizamuddin Shamzai, the Sunni cleric, was gunned down Sunday morning. Body parts and debris rained over the busy evening traffic on the central M.A. Jinnah Road, witnesses said.
"We were in the middle of the prayers when a deafening sound was heard from the rear of the mosque," said Ali Sibtain Zaidi, 40, a carpenter who suffered head injuries in the blast. "Everybody was shouting for help," he said. "I don't know what happened later."
Karachi Mayor Naimatullah Khan said that ambulances were blocked by traffic from reaching the bomb scene and that most of the dead and wounded were transported to hospitals on motorbikes and in private cars.
"The blast ripped at least five people into pieces while most of the wounded brought to us had third-degree burns," said Azmat Ali Abdi, a physician at Liaquat National Hospital.
Manzur Mughal, senior superintendent of police for investigations in Karachi, said the attack on the mosque was thought to be in retaliation for the killing of Shamzai. "We have many reasons to believe that today's bombing was a response to yesterday's murder of Mufti Shamzai," he said.
The police chief, Asad Ashraf Malik, said a preliminary investigation indicated the blast was caused by about four pounds of C4 plastic explosives, detonated by remote control. The same type of device was used in a suicide attack at another Shiite mosque on May 7, in which 23 people were killed and 35 wounded, officials said.
Shamzai, according to several of his disciples, was a hard-line ideologue in his seventies who had met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and was a supporter of the ousted Taliban government of Afghanistan. The followers said he was one of the few Sunni clerics from Pakistan invited to the 1998 wedding in Afghanistan of bin Laden's son, and that many ministers of the Taliban government had studied with him.
Much of the violence in Karachi has been blamed on Islamic militants who oppose support by the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for the U.S. antiterrorism campaign in Afghanistan. But about 3,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis in the last eight years. Sunnis make up about 80 percent and Shiites about 17 percent of Pakistan's population of 150 million.
-------- prisoners of war
Dates on Prison Photos Show Two Phases of Abuse
By Scott Higham, Joe Stephens and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4810-2004May31.html
On May 1, a U.S. Army investigator took the stand in a criminal proceeding in Baghdad against one of the seven military police soldiers charged in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. There was, he said, "absolutely no evidence" that military intelligence officers or the military police chain of command had authorized the abuse to aid interrogations.
"These individuals were acting on their own," said Army special agent Tyler Pieron, who investigated the case for the Criminal Investigation Division. "The photos I saw, and the totality of our interviews, show that certain individuals were just having fun at the expense of the prisoners. Taking pictures of sexual positions, the assaults and things along that nature were done simply because they could. It all happened after hours. The fear instilled in the prisoners after these incidents may have been a benefit, but I don't know for sure."
A month later, that assessment has hardened into the accepted position on the abuse scandal for the Bush administration and the Pentagon. Yet an analysis of the dates of the photographs that form the heart of the case against the MPs provides a more nuanced picture.
Some of the photographs support the theory that MPs sought to humiliate prisoners for entertainment. The infamous shots show a naked human pyramid, a hooded man standing on a box and detainees forced to masturbate -- acts that apparently were staged to punish prisoners or amuse guards, not specifically to coerce confessions for military intelligence (MI).
But questions remain about the shots of snarling dogs intimidating detainees. The photos were taken weeks after the most publicized MP abuse occurred, according to date stamps accompanying photographs obtained by The Washington Post. The date stamps, which are in a database obtained by The Post that was apparently compiled by military investigators, show that the widely published photograph of a naked man confronted by unmuzzled German shepherds was taken on Dec. 12 -- a month after the human pyramid and during a period when military intelligence officers were in formal control of the prison.
The date stamps reveal that the recording of the abuses started shortly after the MPs arrived at the prison and built to a crescendo of perversity, with the naked human pyramid on Nov. 8. One of the photographed incidents stands out because it contains military intelligence officers in the frame -- showing soldiers gathered around three naked men lying shackled together on Oct. 25. Finally, the photographs suggest that two distinct types of abuse occurred at the prison. First, sexual humiliation and crude brutality at the hands of the MPs. Then, the more targeted use of dogs.
The photographs have always been a tantalizing but limited body of evidence. They are hard to dispute, but it is also hard to know what happened outside the frame or in between the photographs. Transcripts show that investigators aimed to get the stories behind the images.
"Our main purpose was to identify the personnel in the photos; we also wanted to find out if MI told MPs to do these acts," Pieron said. "If so, we wanted to know who told them; that's why we interviewed everyone. No one said, 'Do this to that person,' or anything specific."
Of the seven MPs charged in the case, at least three have given statements suggesting that military intelligence fostered the abuse. But those MPs provided few specifics and did not identify any military intelligence officers by name. The MPs said other soldiers -- Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II and Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr. -- acted as liaisons with military intelligence, but one soldier said that "nothing was ever in writing." Graner and Frederick have invoked their right against self-incrimination and declined to give statements.
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, whom top commanders asked to look into the abuse, said in his report that he suspected that two military intelligence commanders at the prison and two civilian contractors working with military intelligence were "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses."
Maj. Gen. George R. Fay is now investigating the role of military intelligence in the scandal.
'Part of the Process'
Taguba's report lists 13 acts of "intentional abuse" that form the basis of the criminal charges against the MPs, who are all members of the 372nd Military Police Company based in Cresaptown, Md. The abuse first occurred shortly after the 372nd arrived at Abu Ghraib on Oct. 15, taking control of Tier 1A, which held prisoners wanted for questioning by military intelligence.
Around this time, the top commanders issued new rules for interrogations. A sheet labeled "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" was posted at the prison, requiring the top general's approval for harsher methods, including sleep deprivation, stress positions for detainees and intimidation with dogs. The rules noted that Geneva Conventions applied and commanded that "detainees will NEVER be touched in a malicious or unwanted manner."
But there is evidence that those rules were already being violated.
In mid-October -- the exact date is not specified -- Red Cross officials visited Tier 1A. They "witnessed the practice of keeping persons deprived of their liberty completely naked in totally empty concrete cells and in total darkness," a Red Cross report states. When Red Cross officials complained, "The military intelligence officer in charge of the interrogation explained that this practice was 'part of the process,' " the report states. The report also noted the detainees were being forced to wear women's underwear.
The 372nd MPs' digital cameras soon started recording the images of naked Iraqis.
In the photographs obtained by The Post, the earliest abuse appears in those dated Oct. 17 and Oct. 18. One shows a hooded Iraqi handcuffed to the bars of his cell; another shows a handcuffed naked man with women's underwear covering his head.
Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, one of the charged MPs, later told investigators she had heard that it was standard operating procedure to strip-search the detainees on Tier 1A, and that female guards were allowed to be present. But Harman said she was unsure who had told her that: "Either MI, SSG Frederick or CPL Graner."
The next photograph in the sequence is the famous shot of Pfc. Lynndie R. England holding a dog leash fastened around the neck of a naked man. It is dated Oct. 24.
Spec. Roman Krol, 23, a military intelligence interrogator and a reservist with the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion in Devens, Mass., said he witnessed the scene during a late-night visit he made to prisoners he had been interrogating on Tier 1A.
"I said, 'People are stupid,' and I just kept on walking," he said in his first public interview. "If I knew that our people were telling them to do that, I would try to stop it. I just didn't know. I don't want to get into it that deep. I basically didn't ask anyone anything."
The night after the incident, soldiers on the cellblock gathered around three shackled naked men splayed out on the floor. Krol identified himself in one photograph standing to the side while an MP is hunched over the three men, who were being disciplined for allegedly raping a boy in the prison.
Krol also said he was just wandering by when the incident occurred and thought it violated the tenets of good interrogation.
He said he "guessed someone told the MPs" to soften up Iraqi detainees. But he said he never raised concerns with the MPs, other military intelligence officers or anyone in his chain of command, choosing instead to keep what he saw to himself.
"I really don't know how it got started," said Krol, now back in the United States after a two-month assignment interrogating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. "It's [military police's] job, I guess. I didn't tell them what to do, and they didn't tell me what to do."
It was "immoral," he says now.
"I saw this going on. I just stood there for a few minutes. I don't know why they were doing it. They were brutal, but it's their job to handle the prisoners."
He added: "They were yelling at them. Whatever they were doing, they were doing it and I didn't care."
Krol also identified two others in the picture: a civilian translator, Adel L. Nakhla, and a military intelligence officer, Spec. Armin John Cruz. Krol said that he believed the man standing next to him in uniform was an MP whose name he does not know, and that Graner was kneeling over the three men. Other sources have identified a third military intelligence officer in the picture, Spec. Israel Rivera.
The photograph is significant because it places military intelligence at the scene of what is now considered a criminal act in the cases against the MPs. After that incident, Krol said, he stopped visiting the cellblock during the night shift. "I didn't want to see anything anymore," he said.
Krol said that was the only abuse he witnessed before leaving the prison in mid-November. He said the abuse was not designed to glean military intelligence. "I would never tell anyone to do this," he said. "If you do this, it's likely they will never talk to you."
Krol, Cruz, Rivera and Nakhla are all listed as witnesses in the cases against the MPs. Cruz and Rivera have declined to testify and invoked their right against self-incrimination, documents show. So has Nakhla, who works for the Titan Corp.
Violating Rules
The next photograph in the sequence is the one of the hooded man standing on a military food box, his arms outstretched and wires attached to his extremities. It is dated Nov. 5, which conflicts with military documents that say it was taken on Nov. 8. Also on Nov. 5, Graner and Harman posed with a body left on the cellblock.
"We would spray air freshener to cover the scent," said Spec. Bruce Brown, an MP testifying at a preliminary court hearing. "MI or OGA interrogated this guy, and somehow he died. They finally took the body away." OGA stands for "other government agency," a common term for the CIA.
Spec. Jason A. Kenner, another MP, testified that officers from other government agencies and a Navy SEAL team brought the detainee in alive with a bag over his head; Kenner said he later saw that the man had been severely beaten on his face. OGA officers took the detainee to a shower room used for interrogations, Kenner said, and shackled him to a wall.
"About an hour later, he died on them," Kenner testified. "They decided to put him on ice. There was a battle between [OGA] and MI as to who was going to take care of the body. A couple days later, he was finally disposed of."
Five of the 13 acts of abuse -- the most by far -- occurred on one night, Nov. 8. That is when the MPs built a naked human pyramid with seven detainees accused of inciting a riot in another part of the prison. The MPs told investigators that Frederick and Graner orchestrated the incident. England, who did not work on the cellblock and came by that night to celebrate her birthday with her friends, told investigators that Frederick photographed the pyramid. Graner and Harman posed, smiling, behind the naked bodies.
Also on Nov. 8, prisoners were forced to masturbate, arranged in sexually explicit positions and punched by Frederick and Graner, according to some of the MPs' statements.
Sgt. Samuel Provance, a military intelligence systems analyst at the prison, testified that the events of Nov. 8 clearly violated the interrogation rules of engagement.
"I have never heard of any of these techniques used by MI," he said at a hearing, adding that inexperience was to blame. "It was confusing the way the place was run. It was an important mission run by reservists who did not know what they were doing. They were just on their own."
The prosecution cases against the MPs so far have focused on the events of Nov. 8 and a few nights -- Oct. 24 and 25, and Nov. 5. Some of the MPs appear from documents and testimony to have had limited involvement.
Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits, an auto mechanic whose primary jobs at Abu Ghraib were to maintain a fleet of light vehicles and fill prison generators with fuel, apparently was in the cellblock only once, for a total of 30 minutes. On May 19, Sivits pleaded guilty to photographing some of the abuse and not trying to stop it.
Spec. Megan M. Ambuhl, who by at least two accounts was standing on an upper level looking down on the alleged abuse, appears not to have touched any of the detainees. She is pictured in only one photograph watching England hold the dog leash. There is also evidence that Sivits and Ambuhl helped a detainee who was punched in the chest by another MP.
At Ambuhl's Article 32 hearing, a preliminary step toward a court-martial, the investigating officer concluded that while she was present for the pyramid and the forced masturbation, there was insufficient evidence to show that she participated. He did find enough evidence to allow charges to proceed that she conspired with the others in the dog-leash incident and was derelict in her duty for not protecting detainees.
Use of Dogs
The last of the iconic images in the sequence is of the naked man being threatened by dogs and cowering to cover his genitals. The date stamp shows it was taken Dec. 12.
Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the military police commander at the prison, said in transcripts accompanying Taguba's report that the idea to use dogs came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who was in charge of the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
By then, Pappas had been given tactical command of Abu Ghraib, in an order dated Nov. 19, making military intelligence responsible for the MPs conducting detainee operations. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, has testified that the order gave military intelligence responsibility only for protection of the facility. But it gave Pappas responsibility for "security of detainees and base protection," according to a copy of its classified language.
On Nov. 24, a riot occurred in an outdoor compound at the prison. Nine U.S. soldiers were injured, three detainees were killed by military police and nine other detainees were wounded. Also that day, on Tier 1A, an MP was shot by a detainee, who had obtained a weapon from an Iraqi prison guard. Five military dogs were brought into the cellblock "to either intimidate or cause fear or stress," Taguba noted during his interview with Pappas.
In his report, Taguba lists using unmuzzled military dogs to intimidate and frighten detainees as one of the 13 intentional acts of abuse.
Staff writer R. Jeffrey Smith and research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
-------- russia / chechnya
Putin Talk Worries Independent Groups
Civil Society Activists on Defensive
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4855-2004May31.html
MOSCOW, May 31 -- Irina Yasina said her phone started ringing almost as soon as President Vladimir Putin stopped speaking. Alarmed callers wanted to make sure the director of one of Russia's largest foundations had heard the president's unmistakable warning.
Putin last week launched a broadside at nongovernmental groups during his annual state of the nation address to parliament, complaining that instead of defending "the real interests of the people," some organizations were interested only in securing financing from foreign sources or serving "dubious group and commercial interests."
To Yasina and her callers, it was a threat aimed squarely at Russia's community of human rights and civil society activists, who are increasingly the only voices of dissent raised against Putin's policies. Most depend on international funding from sources such as billionaire George Soros and the U.S. government. Yasina's foundation, Open Russia, is one of the few that do not, but her group's funder, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been jailed in a long-running feud with the Kremlin.
"Everybody started to call us, saying he was talking about you. We understand very well that next it will be our turn," Yasina said. "As I listened, I was under the impression I'm living in the USSR again."
A day after Putin's speech, a human rights group that Open Russia has funded in the regional capital of Kazan was ransacked by two masked men, who smashed computers, a TV set and a fax machine. The attack on the office of the Tatarstan Human Rights Center came hours after the group held a news conference accusing local police officials of pressuring them.
"The people who organized this attack in our office were trying to follow the president's instructions," the center's Oleg Khabibrakhmanov said by telephone. "This was Putin's signal."
In the days since, nervous activists and their international funders have convened emergency meetings to work out a response to the president as Russian officials have issued more threatening statements. The Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters, for example, that nongovernmental groups in Chechnya "are predominantly engaged in collecting information, not in providing real humanitarian aid." And Kremlin consultant Gleb Pavlovsky accused groups that receive international funding of a "conflict of interest" because they embraced foreign notions of human rights.
Such rhetoric has convinced many activists that Putin's speech was the beginning of a new campaign to punish groups that do not adhere to the government's line. The nongovernmental sector, they say, is the logical next target as the Kremlin seeks to establish what Putin advisers call "managed democracy."
"The government has already taken under control the mass media, parliament and many other independent structures, and this is a step to attack our independence and a desire to take us under control," said Arseny Roginsky, chairman of the public council of the human rights group Memorial, which relies on funds from Soros, the Ford Foundation and other international organizations.
Putin's signal to Russian officials was clear, Roginsky said. "If it was not a direct threat from the president, then at the least it's a signal given to bureaucrats that they should divide organizations into good and bad, help the ones they consider good and build barriers for the ones they consider to be bad."
On Monday, exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky responded to Putin's speech by vowing to give an unspecified amount of additional funds to 100 groups here ranging from the antiwar Committee of Soldiers' Mothers to prisoner rights' groups. Berezovsky, an implacable Putin foe granted political asylum in Britain, said in a statement, "Putin declared war on Russia's civil society. Our duty is to give it resources for self-defense."
But Russian businesses are not likely to follow suit. The bottom line, according to activists and their international funders, is that Russians simply haven't stepped in to foster major philanthropic and activist work and are almost certain not to do so in the wake of Khodorkovsky's arrest, which was interpreted here as a warning to avoid politicized activities.
"We think it's really unfortunate that only Western foundations finance activities here," said Yuri Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum. "But the problem is there are no Russian sponsors."
Putin's speech marks his most harsh rhetoric to date about funding of independent groups, but top officials in his government have long inveighed against international funding of human rights organizations. The Peace Corps was thrown out of Russia during Putin's presidency, as was the longtime AFL-CIO representative here. Several international humanitarian groups have been denied access to Chechnya, and homegrown rights groups often complain they are pressured by authorities.
Just a few weeks ago, a top Justice Ministry official accused human rights campaigner Lev Ponomaryov of inciting prison riots and asserted that Ponomaryov's funding from Berezovsky's foundation meant that he was being financed by "criminal structures."
-------- space
U.S. wants to build space laser in total secrecy
Weapon could be in use before it's made public, Canadian military fears
David Pugliese
The Ottawa Citizen
June 1, 2004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NucNews/pending?view=1&msg=11209
The U.S. has renewed its interest in building a space-based laser as part of its missile shield, but could be moving the development of such a weapon into "black territory" to keep its existence from the public, Canadian defence planners believe.
Black programs are considered ultra-secret and in the past have involved the development of such revolutionary weapons as the stealth bomber and fighter.
Such a move by the U.S. could also give the federal government some political breathing room as Canadians would be unlikely to find out about any progress on the controversial space weapon until it becomes part of the missile shield the Pentagon is now building.
Both the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP are trying to make Canadian involvement in the shield an election issue, and NDP leader Jack Layton has accused Paul Martin's Liberal government of signing on to a Star Wars program involving weapons in space.
But Mr. Martin, whose government is still negotiating a role for Canada in the missile shield, has said he opposes weapons in orbit.
He has said he would walk away from any deal that involves such devices. He notes the system planned by the U.S., at this point, involves using ground and sea-based interceptors designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
But earlier this year the Pentagon requested $47 million to start development of a space-based interceptor as part of the shield. In February, the U.S. air force unveiled its plan to put weapons into orbit and destroy other countries' satellites as part of a strategy that views space as being dominated by the U.S. and its allies.
In addition, Canadian defence planners note that the U.S. has renewed its interest in building a constellation of 12 to 24 orbiting lasers to blast apart enemy missiles, according to a report obtained by the Citizen under the Access to Information law. Each of the satellites would be outfitted with a laser with a range of 1,000 to 5,000 kilometres, according to a Department of National Defence report produced in March 2003.
But the information the public receives on such a controversial program may become scarce in the future as Canadian planners believe the Pentagon is interested in taking the space laser and "possibly moving (it) into 'black' territory where progress will be concealed."
The report adds that no breakthroughs on the laser system are expected in the near term but that a test version of the weapon could be in orbit by 2012. "A substantial and important amount of work may be conducted in this general area, but out of the spotlight," it notes.
Theresa Hitchens, vice-president of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said she wouldn't be surprised if the space-based laser became a black program because of the ongoing controversy surrounding it and other such space weapons. "If it goes black you wouldn't likely find out about (the laser) until it had already been tested or was in use," said Ms. Hitchens.
The Liberal government has gone to great lengths to portray the development of space weapons as remote. According to Defence Minister David Pratt, the use of such systems is so far off in the future that Canadians should not be concerned about them. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has claimed that the development of space weapons is still in the realm of science fiction.
Darren Gibb, a spokesman for Mr. Pratt, reiterated that Canada firmly opposes weapons in space and that negotiations under way do not involve such devices as part of the missile shield.
But Ms. Hitchens said Canadian government officials are either naive, poorly informed or deliberately misleading the public. She noted that the Bush administration is intent on putting such devices into orbit. "Space weapons are part of the missile defence system plan, no matter what your government officials continue to say or hope," added Ms. Hitchens.
Some critics contend that the decision has already been made for Canada to take part in the shield but that the Martin government, if re-elected, won't reveal that until well after the election. That claim has been vehemently denied by government officials.
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011 (207) 729-0517 (207) 319-2017 (Cell phone) http://www.space4peace.org
-------- un
Troops Would Leave Iraq in '06 Under Plan
June 1, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United States and Britain circulated a revised resolution on post-occupation Iraq Tuesday that would give the new interim government control over the Iraqi army and police and end the mandate for the multinational force by January 2006 at the latest.
The new draft was introduced at a council meeting just hours after the full composition of the interim government was announced in Baghdad. Russia, France, Germany and other council nations have said they want to see whether this government is acceptable to the more than 20 million Iraqis before they adopt a resolution.
Many council members also want to consult with the new leadership on the text, and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari was heading to New York to press the council for full sovereignty for the country.
The new draft states that the interim government will be ``fully sovereign'' and reaffirms the right of the Iraqi people to determine their political future freely, control their natural resources and coordinate international assistance.
While the draft notes ``that the presence of the multinational force in Iraq is at the request of the incoming interim government,'' it doesn't specifically give the new leaders the right to ask the force to leave.
Instead, it anticipates that the incoming government will make a formal request ``to retain the presence of the multinational force'' and leaves room for the date of that letter to be included in the resolution.
The new interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, said Tuesday the multinational force will be asked to stay on and promised that Iraq's security forces will be a ``pivotal partner'' with U.S. and other coalition troops in the fight to restore security to Iraq.
The new draft does put an expiration date on the mandate for the multinational force -- the installation of a constitutionally elected government, which isn't expected until December 2005 or January 2006.
It calls for a review of the force's mandate in 12 months or at the request of the transitional government that will take power after elections, expected in January 2005. It also declares the council's readiness to terminate the mandate at the request of the transitional government.
``We've made it clear that the multinational force mandate isn't open ended, but will end at a given moment once the political process finishes,'' said Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.
Both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell have said their forces will leave if asked by the interim government.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday ``the revised draft underscores what we've said publicly, that the United States will respect decisions of the sovereign Iraqi government regarding the presence of the multinational force.''
The revised draft starts out with a new declaration, stating that the council is ``marking a new phase in Iraq's transition to a democratically elected government, and looking forward to the end of the occupation and the assumption of authority by a fully sovereign interim government of Iraq by June 30, 2004.''
It takes note of Tuesday morning's ``dissolution of the Governing Council of Iraq'' following the announcement of the interim government, and welcomes progress in Iraq's political transition.
The new draft ``welcomes efforts by the incoming interim government of Iraq to develop Iraqi security forces.''
It states clearly for the first time that the Iraqi forces ``will operate under the authority of the interim government of Iraq and its successors,'' and that the Iraqi police will be under the control of the Interior Ministry.
The resolution also states that the Iraqi forces ``will progressively play a greater role and ultimately assume responsibility for the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq.''
The language on the U.N. role was also changed to address concerns of some council members that Secretary-General Kofi Annan didn't have enough flexibility to determine when U.N. staff return to Iraq. He pulled all U.N. international staff out of Iraq in October following two bombings at U.N. headquarters and a spate of attacks.
The draft now states that ``as circumstances permit,'' the United Nations will play ``a leading role'' in assisting in the convening of a national conference to select a Consultative Council, in the electoral process, and in promoting a national dialogue and consensus on the drafting of a new constitution.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who helped in the formation of the interim government, is remaining in Baghdad to work on the national conference, which is expected next month.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Justice Dept. Details Case Against 'Dirty Bomb' Suspect
June 1, 2004
By DAVID STOUT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/politics/01CND-PADI.html?hp
WASHINGTON, June 1 - The government sought today to portray Jose Padilla, the American citizen who has been detained as a suspected terrorist for two years, as even more dangerous than previously described, asserting that he wanted to blow up apartment buildings and hotels in the United States.
In what amounted to a plea for public understanding, Deputy Attorney General James Comey said at a news briefing that Mr. Padilla had terrorist ambitions even beyond his desire to carry out an attack with a radioactive "dirty bomb," an accusation the authorities first made in 2002 after Mr. Padilla was arrested at a Chicago airport.
Mr. Comey said the full facts of Mr. Padilla's plotting "will allow the American people to understand the threat he posed and also understand that the president's decision was and continues to be essential to the protection of the American people."
Mr. Comey was referring to the decision by President Bush and the Justice Department to label Mr. Padilla an "enemy combatant" and hold him indefinitely, largely without access to counsel, even though no charges have been lodged against him.
The case of Mr. Padilla and the similar detention of Yaser Esam Hamdi, another American citizen who was seized in Afghanistan where he was accused of fighting on behalf of the Taliban, have stirred a far-reaching debate over what rights, and whose rights, should be curtailed in the cause of national security.
The Supreme Court heard arguments on the cases in April and will rule before recessing for the summer. The cases are widely acknowledged to be among the most important to come before the tribunal in decades.
Mr. Comey said the information released today about Mr. Padilla, which included documents based in part on interviews with him, showed that he and an Al Qaeda accomplice hoped to blow up high-rise apartment buildings.
"They would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time," legal papers contended, according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Padilla's lawyers were said to be planning to rebut the latest accusations at an afternoon news conference in New York City.
The information released today was compiled in response to inquiries from Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Comey said. He said federal agencies had been working long before getting Mr. Hatch's request in late April to gather and declassify information about Mr. Padilla.
Mr. Comey said that if Mr. Padilla had been handled by the usual standards of the criminal justice system - allowed access to counsel and been able to refuse to answer questions, for instance - he could have stayed silent and "would likely have ended up a free man."
"Much of this information has been uncovered because Jose Padilla has been detained as an enemy combatant and questioned," Mr. Comey said. "We have learned many things from Padilla that I'm not going to discuss today and that we did not include in our answer to Senator Hatch."
The deputy attorney general said the timing of the new accusations against Mr. Padilla had nothing to do with trying to influence the Supreme Court. In any event, the justices, having heard arguments on April 28, may well be on their way to deciding, collectively or otherwise.
Mr. Comey's briefing may have been meant more for the court of public opinion. "We have decided to release this information to help people understand why we are doing what we are doing in the war on terror and to help people understand the nature of the threat we face," he said.
Mr. Comey said he had not ruled out the possibility that Mr. Padilla might face criminal charges one day, but that prosecuting him was secondary to finding out what he knows.
Had Mr. Padilla been charged initially, "he would very likely have followed his lawyer's advice and said nothing, which would have been his constitutional right," Mr. Comey said. "He would likely have ended up a free man, with our only hope being to try to follow him 24 hours a day, seven days a week and hope - pray, really - that we didn't lose him."
-------- POLITICS
-------- investigations
Army Investigates Wider Iraq Offenses
Cases Include Deaths, Assaults Outside Prisons
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4807-2004May31?language=printer
Over the past year and a half, the Army has opened investigations into at least 91 cases of possible misconduct by U.S. soldiers against detainees and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, a total not previously reported and one that points to a broader range of wrongful behavior than defense officials have acknowledged.
The figure, provided by a senior Army official, extends beyond the much-publicized abuse of detainees in military-run prisons to include the mistreatment of dozens of Iraqis in U.S. custody outside detention centers. It covers not only cases that resulted in death but also those that involved nonlethal assaults. It also includes as many as 18 instances of U.S. soldiers in Iraq allegedly stealing money, jewelry or other property.
Previous statistics cited by Army officials have tended to avoid an aggregate number of misconduct cases or have given a lower figure for alleged mistreatment of detainees and civilians outside detention facilities. Officials also have not previously disclosed the number of investigations into reports of soldiers stealing from Iraqis.
Taken together, the 91 cases indicate misconduct by U.S. troops wider in type and greater in number than suggested by the focus simply on the mistreatment of Iraqis held at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The majority of the cases under investigation occurred in Iraq, although the Army has not provided an exact accounting of all the locations.
President Bush and other senior administration officials have sought to explain the abuses at Abu Ghraib as reflecting the aberrant behavior of a few low-ranking soldiers last fall, graphically exposed in photographs and an internal Army report that emerged a month ago. But the Army's list of investigations appears to bolster the contention of others, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, that misconduct by U.S. forces has been more extensive -- and its consequences more damaging -- than can be blamed on the troubled actions of a small group.
Although the new figures show at least 59 of the 91 investigations are now closed, the Army has reported the disciplining of only several soldiers. According to the senior Army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the assault cases have led to at least 14 courts-martial and seven nonjudicial punishments.
But the official had no information on who was prosecuted, for what or with what results. The Army has been slow to make these details public despite requests from Congress and news organizations for more specifics about all the investigations, whether completed or ongoing.
The lack of detail about many of the cases has made it difficult to assess the full significance of the reported misconduct. But the few specifics that have emerged about some of the death cases point to the involvement of an assortment of Army units and to abusive behavior that stretches over a long period of time, from late 2002 to spring 2004.
Reflecting the concern of senior Pentagon officials that the scope of the misconduct may indeed stem from deeper problems with training, organization and command, the inspectors general of the Army and the Army Reserve are engaged in broad reviews of policies and practices on the handling of detainees. A separate probe of the role played by military intelligence personnel also is being conducted by a senior intelligence officer.
The criminal investigations parallel these administrative inquiries. They have intensified in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, with Army investigators taking a new look at some death cases that were initially attributed to natural causes or that have dragged on unresolved for months.
Reports about the criminal probes have dribbled out in bits and pieces. Army spokesmen said late last week that top officials were trying to put together a comprehensive record of the probes.
Of the 91 investigations, 42 involve alleged abuse inside detention facilities, and 49 deal with allegations of misconduct outside, the senior Army official said.
The inside cases can be split into two groups: Thirty of them are related to the deaths of 34 individuals; the other 12 concern assaults -- including kicking, punching or other abusive action -- on an unspecified number of detainees.
Half the death cases have been attributed to natural causes or undetermined factors. Four cases, involving eight detainee deaths, were ruled justifiable homicides, meaning U.S. soldiers were deemed to have killed in self-defense or to prevent escapes.
But 10 other homicides had no such justification. Only one case so far has resulted in disciplinary action, with a soldier being demoted and discharged after shooting a prisoner who was throwing stones at a detention center northwest of Baghdad last Sept. 11. Another homicide case, involving a contractor employed by the CIA, has been turned over to the Justice Department.
Investigations into the other eight homicides remain open amid evidence the dead detainees were assaulted before or during interrogation sessions.
Of the alleged prison assaults that did not result in death, disciplinary action has been reported in two cases. One is the main Abu Ghraib case, in which seven military police reservists have been charged. In the other case, three military intelligence soldiers were alleged to have sexually assaulted a female detainee at Abu Ghraib in October. Investigators failed to confirm the assault, but the three soldiers were faulted for being in the prison's female wing without permission, fined several hundred dollars each and demoted.
Of the 49 cases of alleged misconduct outside detention facilities, three involved deaths, 28 centered on assaults in which soldiers allegedly kicked or punched Iraqi civilians or fired weapons to frighten them, and 18 dealt with thefts that occurred during raids on houses or other operations in Iraq. The theft cases were first reported yesterday by the New York Times.
The three death cases were described briefly by U.S. officials at a Pentagon briefing May 21. In one, a soldier shot and killed an Afghani who had attempted to grab a weapon. In another instance, an Iraqi drowned after being forced off a bridge. In the third case, a U.S. soldier shot an Iraqi who had lunged at a sergeant escorting the Iraqi.
Investigations into 39 of the 49 outside cases have been completed, the senior Army official said.
A large majority of the 91 cases -- 69 of them -- are being handled by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, which is responsible for probing crimes that may involve Army personnel. As a matter of policy, the organization investigates every death of a detainee in U.S. custody.
To shield their work from command influence, the criminal investigators operate independently of commanders in the field. But their reports then go to the commanders, who are responsible for deciding whether to bring charges, take nonjudicial action or do nothing.
The remaining 22 investigations, all involving allegations of detainee abuse that occurred outside military-run detention centers, have been conducted by other commands that also have authority to initiate probes. These cases have run the gamut from kicking detainees to trying to intimidate them by withholding water if they refused to cooperate, the senior Army official said.
-------- us politics
Bush Consults Lawyer in CIA Leak Case
June 2, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-CIA-Leak.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer about possibly representing him in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year, White House officials said Wednesday night.
There was no indication that Bush was a target of the leak investigation, but the president's move suggested he anticipates being questioned about what he knows.
A federal grand jury has questioned numerous White House and administration officials to learn who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the news media. Wilson has charged that officials made the disclosure in an effort to discredit him.
``The president has made it very clear he wants everyone to cooperate fully with the investigation and that would include himself,'' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
He confirmed that Bush had contacted Washington attorney Jim Sharp. ``In the event the president needs his advice, I expect he probably would retain him,'' McClellan said.
A number of journalists have received federal subpoenas to face questioning about the leak, and FBI officials have visited the White House to interview officials. There was no indication Bush had been questioned yet.
Bush has been an outspoken critics of leaks, saying they can be very damaging, but he has expressed doubts that the government's investigation will pinpoint who was responsible. While Bush has said he welcomed the investigation, it has been an awkward development for a president who promised to bring integrity and leadership to the White House after years of Republican criticism and investigations of the Clinton administration.
Even though he has a White House counsel, Bush is dependent on outside lawyers for private matters. A memo distributed to the staff last year reminded officials that the counsel's office works solely for the president in his official capacity and is not a private attorney for anyone.
Democrats seized on the news to criticize the president.
``It speaks for itself that the president initially claimed he wanted to get to the bottom of this, but now he's suddenly retained a lawyer,'' said Jano Cabrera, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. ``Bush shouldn't drag the country through grand juries and legal maneuvering. President Bush should come forward with what he knows and come clean with the American people.''
Plame was first identified by syndicated columnist and TV commentator Robert Novak in a column last July. Novak said his information came from administration sources.
Wilson has said he believes his wife's name was leaked because of his criticism of Bush administration claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger, which Wilson investigated for the CIA and found to be untrue.
Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime. The grand jury has heard from witnesses and combed through thousands of pages of documents turned over by the White House, but returned no indictments.
The probe is being handled by Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, appointed after Attorney General John Ashcroft stepped aside from case because of his political ties to the White House.
Absent a breakthrough from the documents or a cooperating witness, prosecutors may be forced to try to identify the leaker through Novak or other reporters. However, journalists pressed by the prosecution could assert a First Amendment privilege to protect their sources.
Wilson has suggested in a book that the leaker was Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. But Wilson's book, ``The Politics of Truth,'' give no conclusive evidence for the claim.
The White House denies the claim and accuses Wilson of seeking to bolster the campaign of Democrat John Kerry, for whom he has acted as a foreign policy adviser.
Wilson also said it's possible the leak came from Elliott Abrams, a figure in the Reagan administration Iran-Contra affair and now a member of Bush's National Security Council. And Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, may have circulated information about Wilson and Plame ``in administration and neoconservative circles'' even if Rove was not himself the leaker, Wilson writes.
Another possibility is that two lower-level officials in Cheney's office -- John Hannah or David Wurmser -- leaked Plame's identity at the behest of higher-ups ``to keep their fingerprints off the crime,'' Wilson speculates.
Bush expressed doubt last year that the leaker would be found.
``You tell me: how many sources have you had that's leaked information, that you've exposed or had been exposed? Probably none,'' Bush said last October.
``I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official,'' Bush said then. ``I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth.''
But Bush said, ``This is a large administration and there's a lot of senior officials.''
----
How a Superpower Lost its Stature
By Michael Lind
Financial Times,
June 1, 2004
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/lindft.htm
The image of America the Liberator has been replaced by the image of America the occupier and America the torturer
The debacle in Iraq has discredited the American neoconservative dream of a benevolent CS empire, freed from the petty restraints of multilateral diplomacy and international law. But the neoconservative vision is not the only dream that has died in the rubble of Falluja and torture cells of Abu Ghraib prison. What until recently was the alternative endorsed by many Democrats and some centrist Republicans US world leadership exercised through multilateral security institutions can also now be included in the collateral damage done by George W. Bush s war In Iraq.
Since the cold war, many American neoliberals - sometimes described as humanitarian hawks or muscular internationalists have supported a highly interventionist US military policy. Un1ike the neoconservatives, however, the neoliberals believed the US should pursue ambitious programmes of global reform by means of the United Nations and Nato not in spite of them. The first Gulf war and the Clinton-led Nato intervention in the Balkans provided models for those who sought to combine multilateral diplomacy with unipolar power.
While neoconservatives have focused on rogue states such as Iraq, neo-liberals have seen opportunities for muscular multilateralism in failed states such as Liberia. They hoped that US-dominated international protectorates could provide law and order until such societies could be rebuilt. Some suggested the establishment of a UN-Nato protectorate in Palestine in the period between an Israeli withdrawal and the formation of a fully sovereign Palestinian state.
The idea was promising: American power in the service of multilateral legitimacy, rather than American power without multilateral legitimacy or multilateral legitimacy without American power. Tragically, this alternate strategy for the US is now moot. Mr Bush, in discrediting his own neoconservative strategy, has unwittingly destroyed any possibility that a successor administration would adopt muscular multilateralism on a large scale. The reason is simple: neoliberalism, like neoconservatism. depended on the mystique of American power. The American mystique always had two components: material and moral. The mystique of US material power was the first to be destroyed unintentionally by this administration. After 1989, the argument that America was an awesome superpower similar to ancient Rome, erroneous though it was, arguably served the US and its allies well. Ironically, it was a neoconservative-led war that refuted neoconservative claims about US power. Even with the help of allies, the US has not been able to impose countrywide order in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lacking the troops to do so, the Pentagon turned to private contractors for basic US military functions, including the interrogation of prisoners of war. Some Rome; some empire.
Even more important to the mystique of American power was the moral element. The dark side of US history - including the treatment of the Indians, slavery and segregation - has not been forgotten by the world. Still, in the eyes of many, the US was the liberal, democratic superpower that opposed the fascist and communist empires. Now, the image of America the liberator has been replaced by the image of America the occupier and America the torturer. The atrocities at Abu Ghraib can no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents in light of accumulating evidence that the Bush administration either instituted or permitted tortures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and perhaps on US soil.
The horrors that we know about, and those about which we have yet to learn, are even more fatal to the neoliberal project than to its neoconservative rival. After all, the neoconservatives are willing to invade countries without permission either of locals or of allies. The neoliberals, however want US troops to be invited as part of multinational forces. What population now will want US soldiers in their country - even as members of a multilateral UN or Nato force? And how many US allies will risk being tainted by association with US soldiers? Without US forces doing the heavy lifting in UN or Nato interventions, the ambitious neoliberal strategy of muscular internationalism becomes Impossible.
Then there are failed states, the subject of so much neoliberal strategic thought in the 1990s. Iraq has proven that Washington does not know how to bring order to anarchic societies.
The implications of Mr Bush s inadvertent destruction of the American mystique have yet to sink into America s progressive internationalists. Many hawkish neoliberals hope that if John Kerry is elected, Europeans. Arabs and others will let bygones be bygones. If only it were so. A new administration could do much to repair the damage that Mr Bush and his team have done to America s reputation. But it will take a generation or more to rehabilitate America s image.
The spring of 2004 may prove to be a turning point not only in the history of America but also in that of the world. Until recently, Bush critics could hope the Iraq war would be an unfortunate but minor episode ahead of a long period of benevolent US global hegemony. Now that America s reputation for benevolence and irresistible power has been severely damaged, the US will be forced to settle for a far more modest role in the world than that sought by both neoliberals and neoconservatives. Whether Mr Bush is re-elected or not, his legacy is already apparent.
The writer is the Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and director of the American Strategy Project.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Germany sees conference strengthening industrialized world's commitment to renewable energy
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
By Geir Moulson,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-01/s_24389.asp
BERLIN - An international conference this week will send a signal that industrialized countries are committed to developing renewable energies as "a serious pillar of our energy supplies," Germany's environment minister said in an interview broadcast this week.
Officials from more than 100 nations are expected at the four-day Renewables 2004 conference, which opens in Bonn Tuesday amid concern over high oil prices. Germany organized the meeting to focus pressure for targets on boosting the use of energy from the Sun, wind, and other renewable resources.
"The fact that Germany is organizing this conference makes it clear that industrialized countries are betting on renewable energy, that this is not inferior technology for developing countries but a serious pillar of our energy supplies, a serious pillar of tomorrow's energy security," Environment Minister Juergen Trittin told Deutschlandfunk radio.
The Bonn conference is meant to produce a political declaration stating a shared goal of an increased role for renewable energy as well as an "international action program" setting out specific commitments by governments and international organizations.
"We must be very concrete," said Trittin, a member of the environmentalist Greens party, the junior partner in Germany's coalition government. "We don't just want promises of specific projects, partnerships, and investments. We want the fulfillment of these pledges to be examined," possibly by the United Nations, he added. Trittin also urged the World Bank to channel its support for energy programs toward renewable sources.
Germany's development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, said she hoped "enlightened self-interest" would prompt countries to implement their pledges.
"I'm gradually getting tired of the fact that, every time oil prices rise, people talk about how we have to become less dependent on oil, but the practical conclusions are never drawn," she told ARD television. "Anyone who thinks we should not be dependent on an unstable region like the Middle East should ensure energy sources are diversified."
Germany proposed the conference after delegates at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg failed, despite pressure from European countries, to agree on timetables and targets for boosting renewable energy use.
Environmental groups blamed the United States, oil-exporting countries, Canada, Australia, and Japan for spearheading resistance. The summit's final declaration contained only an appeal for countries to promote renewable energy.
At the Bonn conference, the United States will be "represented at an appropriately high political level," Trittin said. He did not elaborate but stressed that "they want to participate seriously."
Trittin argued that increasing access to energy supplies for people in developing countries is essential to global efforts to reduce poverty.
"This access cannot be assured largely by fossil fuels," he said. "That is too expensive for many of these people. They cannot afford high oil prices, so this is linked strongly with renewable energies."
----
Use renewables, not nuclear: report
Gillian Livingston
Canadian Press
June 1, 2004
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=06c98faa-6087-4f2d-a74a-0a031173ccdd
TORONTO -- If the Ontario government wants to shut down its coal plants by 2007, it must permanently sideline the restart of the Pickering A nuclear unit and instead focus on the construction of natural gas-fired plants and renewable energy facilities, says a report to be released Tuesday.
Although the report by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance gives the government a B-plus grade for taking steps to phase out the province's five coal-fired plants, it warns the government will only be falling into a sink hole if it continues with the rehabilitation of Unit 1 at the Pickering A nuclear reactor.
"Hopefully they will reject that recommendation because that could badly sidetrack the government and lots of money could be wasted on pursuing nuclear, which is the highest-cost and highest-risk option to phase out coal in Ontario,'' Jack Gibbons, chair of the alliance and an author of the report, said in an interview.
Ontario Power Generation has a dismal record for cost overruns and lengthy delays with its refurbishment of its nuclear reactors, says the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.
A decision by OPG's board about the reactor is expected in June, but the final decision will rest with Premier Dalton McGuinty and his cabinet, the report says.
The report also says it would be about 45 per cent cheaper to build a high-efficiency natural gas electricity generating plant than to spend about $500 million on the restart of Unit 1.
The alliance gives the government kudos for its call for 300 megawatts of renewable energy and 2,500 megawatts of conventional electricity, along with its promotion of energy conservation and its move to more realistic energy prices.
But there's still a long way to go before the government can make up the energy supply that will be lost by the closure of the polluting coal plants, the report says.
"There is no question that if the government doesn't pick up the pace of its actions in the next six months, it risks falling seriously behind and missing key opportunities to improve public health for the people of Ontario,'' Gibbons said.
The coal plants are one of the province's worst polluters.
The government has missed a number of key opportunities as it aims to shut the coal plants by 2007, the report says.
The government hasn't ordered the Independent Market Operator to develop an aggressive demand-response program -- such as paying major energy consumers like factories to curb use during peak hours in the summer.
The IMO would get the money back through its charges to market participants, and all businesses would benefit since electricity prices would drop along with demand, Gibbons said.
In the next six months, the government must move ahead on having smart electricity meters installed in homes so people can save money by conserving energy, the report says.
----
Sierra Club Showcases Hybrid Vehicles Coast to Coast
June 1, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2004/2004-06-01-094.asp
On Memorial Day, the Sierra Club kicked off its new Hybrid Evolution Campaign which encourages Americans to demand clean cars and clean energy at a time when gas prices are hitting record highs, U.S. oil dependence is increasing, and global warming is heating up.
Driving hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles campaigners are touring the country, stopping in communities to hold rallies. The hybrid vehicles will travel three routes - along the East Coast from Key West, Florida to Portland, Maine; across the Midwest from Chicago to Los Angeles; down the West Coast from Seattle, Washington to San Diego, California.
The rallies are intended to give Americans a chance to test drive hybrid vehicles, and learn about renewable energy.
There is a political component to the tours as well - Sierra Club workers will speak about "how Bush administration policies threaten the local environment." The will criticize the Bush administration's "backward energy policy that increases America's dependence on oil and other polluting sources of energy."
"The Sierra Club is playing Paul Revere," said Dan Becker, Washington director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming program. "We're driving hybrids from town to town to tell people that hybrid cars and renewable energy are a reality. We'll invite people to get behind the wheel, kick the tires, and demand action from the Bush administration."
In addition to the hybrid road tours, the Sierra Club will be placing a series of new print ads targeting trendsetting audiences. These ads feature young people standing confidently in the foreground while wearing Hybrid Evolution tee shirts. The ads highlight clean cars and clean energy and encourage viewers to ask whether the Bush administration is for or against evolution.
"The Bush administration prescription is gas guzzlers and polluting power plants," said Brendan Bell, associate Washington representative for the Sierra Club's Global Warming program. "So we're taking clean cars and clean energy up the East Coast, down the West Coast, and across the Midwest to demand a 40 mile per gallon fleet average, 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, and energy efficiency."
The campaign website: www.iwillevolve.org, links the campaign activities around the country. The website will feature regular updates and photos from the road tours, ad images, tour dates, and facts on evolved energy solutions and how they contrast with the Bush administration's energy policies.
-------- energy
Dyer: An overdue debate: Boosting nuke power to avoid climate chaos
Gwynne Dyer SYNDICATED COLUMNIST,
May 31, 2004
Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/May/05312004/commenta/commenta.asp
"Unless we stop now, we will really doom the lives of our descendants. If we just go on for another 40 or 50 years faffing around, they'll have no chance at all, it'll be back to the Stone Age. There'll be people around still. But civilization will go."
James Lovelock, The Independent, May 24
When James Lovelock calls for a massive expansion in nuclear power generation to ward off the worst effects of climate change, as he did in a front-page article in The Independent this week, you have to pay attention. The future may view him as the most important scientist of the 20th century, and he is revered by the Green movement, which hates nuclear energy. But now he writes: "Every year that we continue burning carbon makes it worse for our descendants and for civilization. . . . I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy."
Lovelock is an independent scientist who grew wealthy by inventing equipment to measure the presence of CFCs, the chemicals used in spray cans and refrigerators that were destroying the ozone layer before they were banned. But his real claim to fame, on a par with Darwin's and Galileo's, was his insight that the Earth is a living system.
He often expresses regret for having named that system 'Gaia' (after the Greek goddess of the Earth), because the Green movement and various New Agers started using it as a beautiful metaphor, and delayed its acceptance as a valid scientific observation for several decades. But it is finally being accepted by the scientific community worldwide (with a name change to Earth System Science to placate the guardians of academic orthodoxy).
Lovelock has always been worried about radical climate change, because the essence of the Gaia hypothesis is that the current composition of the Earth's air and seas -- the global temperature regime, the salinity of the oceans, even the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere -- has been shaped over the eons by the activity of living things. Our planet would be radically different, he argues, if living things did not actively maintain the status quo that is so hospitable to life.
The concept of Gaia is no more mystical than the notion that triple-canopy tropical jungles create a local microclimate under their leafy ceiling. The emerging "earth system science" just studies the hugely more complex system of biological interactions and feedbacks, involving millions of species, that has evolved over several billion years to optimize conditions on Earth for living things. But this system can lurch into massive change if some major input (like the proportion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) is changed.
Recent evidence, including last summer's unprecedented heat wave in Europe and new data on the speed that the Greenland ice-cap is melting, has persuaded Lovelock that global warming is now moving far faster than most studies anticipated, and will have calamitous effects on key support systems of human civilization, such as food production, in decades rather than centuries. He doesn't believe that current efforts to reduce the output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases through the Kyoto accord (which has still to be ratified, in any case) and the encouragement of power generation by wind, wave and solar power can possibly cut carbon emissions enough in time.
"I think we should think of ourselves as a bit like we were in 1938," he said. (He's 84, so he remembers.) "There was a war looming, and everybody knew it, but nobody really knew what the hell to do about it." The Kyoto protocol, he said, is "the perfect analogy for the Munich agreement," because it would solve nothing: The cuts it mandates in greenhouse gases are tiny, while it lets politicians look like they are doing something." And the Greens' attachment to renewable energy is "well-intentioned, but misguided, like the left's attachment to disarmament in 1938."
So the man who was among the first to warn of climate change says that there should be a massive expansion of nuclear power, which produces hardly any carbon, to deal with the inevitable growth of demand for power without toppling the world into climate change so abrupt and extreme that it would cause a massive human die-off. The problems of radioactive waste and the danger of nuclear accidents are minuscule by comparison, and there is no third alternative.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Looking for Some Help for Love Canal's Other Site
June 1, 2004
By ANTHONY DePALMA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/nyregion/01toxic.html?pagewanted=all&position=
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - Niagara's rush and roar have long drawn both visionaries and hucksters, but few ever matched the audacity of William T. Love, a fast-talking drifter who vowed in 1893 to build a canal linking this city to a fertile field seven miles away and there erect "the most perfect city in existence."
Just a small section of canal was dug, but today the two places that would have been connected by water are bound instead by a pair of environmental nightmares that arose from the ruins of Mr. Love's grandiose dream.
Near the southeastern end of this city lies the infamous Love Canal, the remnant of Mr. Love's doomed plan where tons of toxic chemicals were dumped. Federal environmental officials recently declared a formal end to the Love Canal cleanup, though monitoring continues.
But there is no end in sight for the problems that have arisen at what would have been the northern terminus of Mr. Love's canal. He called the area Model City, and now it contains one of the largest hazardous-waste landfill sites in the country, right next to a government storage site containing radioactive residues from the construction of the first atomic bomb.
In Model City, as in Love Canal, questions are being asked about fault and fairness. While the federal government's actions to clean up the Love Canal hazards appear to be finally approaching an end, the people who live in the Model City area face a struggle just to get officials to heed their calls for help.
"To the government, there are no health issues, no economic issues, no community issues," said Vincent Agnello, who leads a group of local residents fighting the landfill, run by Chemical Waste Management, Inc. and known around town as C.W.M. To the government, "This is just a great place to dump," he said.
Substantial changes in attitudes and regulations help explain the disparity between the two communities. The chemical dump at Love Canal was ancient by modern standards. It was no more than the open pit left by Mr. Love when dumping started in 1942, and it had none of the safety features now required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The chemical landfill in Model City, by contrast, was acquired by Chemical Waste in 1984 and is far more technologically advanced and more closely regulated.
State and federal environmental officials insist that the waste sites in Model City pose no threat to nearby residents. "The C.W.M. operation is run properly," said Walter E. Mugdan, regional director of environmental planning and protection for the Environmental Protection Agency. "It does not represent an inappropriate level of risk."
That assurance, however, means little to the people living around Model City. Having watched the intensive government effort to clean up Love Canal, residents of Model City expected the same diligence in their area and are increasingly frustrated that it has not materialized.
"The whole history of Love Canal has left a legacy of distrust," said Sean Q. Kelly, an associate professor of political science at Niagara University. "When the government comes in and says there's no problem in a place like Model City, people don't believe it."
While Love Canal's origins are now largely forgotten, the horrors of what came later are well known. The Hooker Chemical Company of Niagara Falls used it as a dumping ground. The canal was capped in the early 1950's and sold to the city for $1.
In the 1970's, water seeped through the broken cap and forced chemicals into the basements of homes that had been built near the canal. Residents organized and demanded action, which provided the catalyst for passage of the federal Superfund law to identify and clean up the worst industrial pollution sites in the country.
Some residents - the ones who, like 78-year-old Sam Giarrizzo, never considered the canal all that dangerous to begin with - were relieved when the Environmental Protection Agency said in March that the $400 million cleanup was over. A resident of the Love Canal neighborhood since 1957, Mr. Giarrizzo never moved.
But while some of the contaminated houses have been bulldozed and lie buried beneath the surface along with the 20,000 tons of hazardous chemicals that could not be removed, Mr. Love's dream-turned-nightmare lives on.
"You never get rid of Love Canal," Mr. Giarrizzo said of the lingering atmosphere of doubt. "We'll have it forever."
Although the city of Niagara Falls is trying to erase the memory of these problems - even renaming the Love Canal neighborhood Black Creek Village - residents are bracing for a new round of controversy. Sometime next year, the State Department of Health is expected to release the results of an epidemiological study of 6,000 people who lived in the Love Canal neighborhood from the 1940's to the late 1970's.
That study is examining the rates of cancer, mortality and birth defects among those residents and comparing them with the rates in the rest of Niagara County and the state.
Luella Kenny, 67, moved from Love Canal to nearby Grand Island two decades ago after Jon, her 7-year-old son, died of a kidney ailment. She believes Love Canal chemicals that seeped into a creek behind her house made him ill.
Mrs. Kenny, who is participating in the state study, said she feared that it might turn out to be inconclusive, which would allow detractors to claim that Love Canal had never presented any real danger.
"If you take down Love Canal, you take down everything," she said. "All the grassroots groups fighting around the country would be undone."
One of those community environmental groups is in Model City, where the grimy front windows of the Model City Country Inn look out on a steady stream of trucks loaded with waste headed to either the Chemical Waste Management landfill or a huge garbage dump next to it. The Chemical Waste site is the only commercial hazardous waste landfill in the Northeast and contains some of the contaminated soil from Love Canal.
State and federal officials consider the Chemical Waste site to be well run and have no objections to its continued operation. But William C. Roland, a local resident, thinks 62 years of being dumped on is enough. He belongs to Residents for Responsible Government, which fears that the site's operation has harmed the health of people living nearby.
During a recent public hearing, which drew more than 650 residents, he said he has taken cues from Lois Gibbs, the Love Canal resident who received national attention for her cleanup demands by refusing to allow a federal official to leave a meeting until some action was taken.
"We wanted to do this professionally," Mr. Roland said, "but if we have to do what Lois Gibbs did, we will."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Kach supporters chase away Vanunu
Jun. 1, 2004
Jerusalem Post
By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1086058011212
Supporters of the outlawed far-right Kach Party assaulted Mordechai Vanunu at the Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday, forcing him to seek refuge in a nearby pharmacy.
Vanunu, who was accompanied by an unidentified woman, later slipped out of the store without notice.
The crowd had come to the court in support of former Kach spokesman Noam Federman, who was fighting his administrative detention when Vanunu suddenly appeared. They called out, "Traitor! Collaborator! Leave the country!"
Vanunu was released from prison last month after an 18-year sentence for leaking secrets about the Dimona nuclear reactor where he once worked.
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Hold DOE Accountable on Waste Transportation to Yucca!
From: GRACE Public Fund <alerts@gracepublicfund.org>
Date: Tue Jun 1, 2004 0:19pm
On April 8, 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a notice in the Federal Register (69 FR 68: 18565-18569) calling for comments on the scope of its upcoming Environmental Impact Statement regarding rail transportation of radioactive waste in Nevada on the way to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. Basically, by law, the DOE is required to write a report detailing all the potential environmental effects that will result from construction and operation of a 319-mile rail line for transporting irradiated, or "spent", nuclear fuel through the Nevada desert to Yucca. The route is known as the Caliente corridor, and was chosen, also on April 8, as the route waste will take by train through the state.
The implications of constructing hundreds of miles of train tracks through pristine desert, both flat and mountainous, through ranchers' land and sensitive wilderness areas, and then shipping thousands of tons of nuclear waste through it over the course of decades, are wide-reaching. We want to ensure that all the various effects of this proposal are fully evaluated, from terrorism and health effects to land use issues and environmental effects.
TAKE ACTION! Submit comments to the DOE on the environmental impacts of its proposal via Public Citizen's Web site: http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=351&source=3
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Anti-war MEP's Iraq visit 'blocked'
Martin Shipton,
Jun 1 2004
Western Mail UK (Wales)
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/newspolitics/tm_objectid=14292085&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=anti-war-mep-s-iraq-visit--blocked--name_page.html
AN ANTI-WAR Euro MP has criticised the Foreign Office for double standards after she was forced to cancel a planned visit to Iraq.
Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans says the Foreign Office warned her she was likely to be killed if she visited British-occupied southern Iraq, and refused to facilitate a trip there.
Yet, she pointed out, Cynon Valley's pro-war Labour MP Ann Clwyd had received every assistance when she visited Baghdad's notorious Al Ghraib prison.
Ms Evans raised the issue during a trip to the Carmarthenshire home of Plaid Cymru's honorary president Gwynfor Evans, who experienced similar problems when seeking to visit Vietnam 38 years ago as an anti-war campaigner.
"Of course I would not want to visit somewhere if my life was in serious danger," said Ms Evans. "But the Foreign Office was very happy to facilitate Ann Clwyd's trip to Baghdad.
"I believe I was refused assistance by the Foreign Office because of my opposition to the war."
Ms Evans, who is also chair of CND Cymru, said she had visited a hospital in Basra before the war, where she had met people who were suffering the effects of exposure to depleted uranium at the time of the first Gulf War.
"People there also told me how it was not possible to decontaminate the land as the materials required could not be imported because of the sanctions imposed on Iraq. It would be very interesting to see the latest situation in the hospital after the extensive use of depleted uranium last year.
"There was a lot of interest in the trip and TV journalists were planning to make a documentary."
Ms Evans said her peace campaigning had been inspired by Gwynfor Evans, now aged 91 and living in Llanybydder.
In 1966, when he was Plaid Cymru's newly elected MP for Carmarthen, Mr Evans tried to gain admission to Vietnam as part of a "stop the bombing" protest. He was refused entry to the country, but participated in a protest outside an American base in Thailand.
The Foreign Office's website says, "We advise against all but the most essential travel to Iraq.
"The security situation is dangerous and there continue to be widespread outbreaks of violence."
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Hong Kong March Marks Tiananmen Killings
June 1, 2004
(AP)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HONG_KONG_CHINA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
HONG KONG -- Thousands of people marched through Hong Kong on Sunday to commemorate the killing of students by Chinese troops who broke up pro-democracy rallies in Tiananmen Square 15 years ago.
The June 4, 1989 crackdown, in which Beijing used soldiers and tanks against the unarmed activists, shocked Hong Kong, then a British territory. Hong Kong reverted to China in 1997.
"Chinese people will never forget this incident," said Thomas Ma, an unemployed 44-year-old. "Using guns to suppress defenseless people - you tell me whether it's right."
Demonstrations are held here every year to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown.
But this year's protests marking the 15th anniversary were more highly charged because Beijing last month ruled out direct elections for the territory in coming years.
Rally organizer Szeto Wah said 5,600 marched Sunday - doubling the previous year's turnout. Police estimated at least 3,000 participated.
As the demonstrators marched, they chanted "Reverse the verdict on June 4" and "Return power to the people."
Several people carried a black coffin. Others waved banners demanding democracy in Hong Kong.
China says its troops acted properly in stopping what officials have called a counterrevolutionary riot. Hundreds if not thousands of activists were killed.
"The students were innocent. They shouldn't have been suppressed with tanks and machine guns," said one man visiting from Shanghai who identified himself as Chen.
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