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NUCLEAR
Jordan Considers Ban On Iraqi Scrap Imports
Iran, US collide on N-issue
Iran says it has no 'moral' obligation to stop enriching uranium
Iran Threatens to Resume Enrichment of Uranium
Iran Threatens to Resume Uranium Enrichment
Europe Keeps Pressure on Iran Over Nukes
Khatami Threatens Uranium Enrichment if Draft Passes
IAEA Near Sharp Rebuke of Iran on Nukes
IAEA to cut Japan nuclear inspections
US-N Korea talks set for June 23
US 'plans to keep up pressure' on Pyongyang to scrap nuclear projects
North Korea's nuke freeze plan must set stage for ending crisis: US
N. Korea to Resume Nuclear Talks; Neighbors Not Optimistic
South Korea Says Nuclear Talks Will Not Stall
Back to the future: new US-Russia arms race
Summer Olympics Shielded From Nuclear Terrorists
Original Plan for 9/11 Attacks Involved 10 Planes, Panel Says
Ukraine announces it will continue to destroy rocket fuel
Prevent Defense
Senate Backs New Research on A-Bombs
U.S. Senate backs Bush on new nuclear weapons
Senate OKs Measure to Aid Weapons Workers
Duke's plan to test nuclear fuel brings mixed reviews
Nuke growth seen as industry turns 50
Senate OKs Measure to Aid Weapons Workers
Nuclear Waste Panel Warns of Hot Storage at Yucca Mountain
Lawmakers Tackle Nuclear Project Budget
NRC hears comments about proposed factory near Eunice NM
Few concerns expressed during MOX fuel hearing
State raises questions about Yankee uprate
Hanford B Reactor endangered
Lawmakers Tackle Nuclear Project Budget
Senior Official Resigns From Energy Dept.
MILITARY
Bomb Hits NATO Vehicle in Afghanistan
U.S. concerned by Israel, Russia arms dealings with China
Pentagon Waste in Iraq May Total Billions, Investigators Say
Auditor describes waste, cost overruns in Iraq contracts
Congress Tackles Outsourcing Issues at Defense, IRS, Homeland Security
Iraq Work Awarded to Veteran of Civil Wars
Thai troops to leave Iraq by September
2 Pipeline Blasts Halt Oil Exports at Top Iraq Port
Rebel Cleric Tells Fighters in 2 Iraqi Cities to Return Home
New Attack on Oil Pipeline in Iraq
Prison Tactics A Longtime Dilemma
Dispute Over Pinochet Book Claims Another Casualty
Russia and NATO to stage military exercises in Kaliningrad
NATO Chief Leaves Door Open for Iraq Role
Soldier: Commander Tried to Change Report
Iraq Seeks Custody of Hussein; Bush Has Security Concerns
U.S. May Cede Legal Custody Of Hussein
Top Iraqi Official Objects To Treatment as POW
CIA Director Meets With Egypt's President
Silent witnesses: 20 million civilians lost to the world
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Judge Scolds U.S. Officials Over Barring Jet Travelers
Plan to Define Agencies' Roles in Emergencies Is Criticized
Lawmaker Warns About Spending at DHS Agency
Registered Traveler Program to Be Tested
US terror report misses the mark
Original Plan for 9/11 Attacks Involved 10 Planes, Panel Says
Karzai lauds U.S. war on terror
Israel, US Use Similar Torture Tactics: Report
POLITICS
House OKs $10B Contract for Accenture
Complaint Ruptures 7-Year Truce in House
9/11 Panel Disputes Iraq Link to Attacks
Sept 11 Commission Highlights
Panel Says No Signs Iraq Aided Qaeda Plots on US
Senators Complain Iraq Material Withheld
Panel to Widen Iraq Hearing
Censorship's Trial Balloons
Bush's Unsupported Assertion
White House Statements on Iraq, al-Qaida
Official: Cheney Not Briefed on Iraq Work
Iraq War Eroded U.S. Security, Former Diplomats Say
ENERGY
Interest in hybrid vehicles accelerates
ACTIVISTS
Former diplomats say Bush is a failure
State Criminal Charges Dismissed Against Peace Activists
Pope calls for end to arms trade
A Defining Issue for Humanity
Taiwan protestors to rally against 18 billion special defense budget
Homegrown memorials used as tributes, antiwar protests
Deadline Extended for Applying to Protest Convention
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Jordan Considers Ban On Iraqi Scrap Imports
Up to a thousand ton of scrap metal was leaving Iraq every day
By Tareq Delwani,
(IslamOnline.net)
June 16, 2004
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-06/16/article06.shtml
AMMAN , June 16 - Jordan is considering a ban on Iraqi military scrap imports amid fears that they could be contaminated.
A committee of ten ministries and other government-run institutions has recommended the ban, citing health and environmental hazards of the booming scrap business.
Tons of scrap metals have been imported from Iraq by Jordanian traders at low prices since the fall of Baghdad to the US-led occupation forces.
The committee said that local inhabitants of northern Amman have complained of health problems including breath difficulty and severe headaches.
The imported scrap metals include destroyed military vehicles and tanks of the disbanded Iraqi army.
Jordanians fear that these military vehicles were shelled by depleted uranium during the US-British invasion of Iraq .
On April 25, the Observer quoted military sources as affirming that depleted uranium shells and bombs used by US and British troops during Iraq invasion were five times more than the number used during 1991 Gulf war.
The Pentagon had admitted shelling Iraq with about 350 tons of depleted uranium in 1991, aggravating cancerous tumors cases among Iraqis.
In a report issued Thursday, April24 , the UN Environment Program (UNEP) pressed the occupation forces to pinpoint Iraqi sites hit by depleted uranium.
Booming Business
With a large amount of scrap metals trucked from the neighboring country, the trade is booming in Jordan .
In Al-Zarqa district in southern Amman , people tell of gangs smuggling the scrap metals from Iraq .
Others allege they had seen dismantled parts of Russian-made tanks of the Iraqi army.
Some estimated that more than 100 trucks loaded with scrap metals drive from Iraq to Jordan and the other five countries sharing borders with the war-scarred country every month.
"Spare parts of military equipment used in the Iraqi water and oil sectors are also smuggled every month to Jordan," said Abu Abdel-Rahman, a worker in the "Scrap Area" in the northern Amman city of Sahab .
Acting chief UN inspector Demetrius Perricos told the Security Council on Tuesday, June 10, that 20 engines from banned Iraqi missiles were found in a Jordanian scrap yard, raising new security questions about Iraq 's scrap metal sales since the occupation of the country.
The missile engines and some other equipment discovered in the scrap yards had been reportedly tagged by UN weapons monitors because of their potential dual use in legitimate civilian activities.
Perricos suggested that the interim Iraqi government, which will assume power on June 30, may want to reconsider policies for exporting scrap metals that apparently began in mid-2003.
He told reporters that up to a thousand tons of scrap metals were leaving Iraq every day.
"The only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap," he said.
But the Jordanian government's spokeswoman, Asma Khedr, dismissed the statements.
"The spare metals are only disposable scraps."
Khedr said that Jordan has carried out stringent procedures to prevent access of poisonous materials across borders.
But traders still make good money out of the smuggling.
US To Blame
Analysts heaped blame on the US-led occupation forces for allowing the scrap metals to move from Iraq .
Sufyan Al-Tal accused the American troops of facilitating the scrap exports to protect their soldiers.
"The scrap metals had been hit by depleted uranium, something which highlights the danger of keeping them in Jordan," he said.
A military source close to NATO unveiled in July last year that several mysterious diseases were reported among a number of American troops within the vicinity of Baghdad airport.
He asserted there were levels of radioactive pollution with destructive impacts on man and environment that may lead to risks suffered by generations to come.
Following the invasion, the US occupation authority signed contracts with Israeli companies to export the scrap metals to Jordan .
The contracts could not be cancelled by the Jordanian government or the new Iraqi interim government.
-------- iran
Iran, US collide on N-issue
Iranian President Muhammad Khatami rejects IAEA draft
Wednesday 16 June 2004,
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/69E07498-309A-4B1A-A846-EBC556288203.htm
Iran has threatened to resume uranium enrichment, a process that could be used to make atomic bombs, if the UN nuclear agency passed a toughly-worded resolution rebuking Tehran for poor cooperation.
The United States in turn has accused Iran of trying to bully the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meeting in Vienna, and said such tactics increased suspicions that Tehran was secretly making weapons.
"The basic message that Iran is sending is that they have something to hide and they're going to use any means they have, including intimidation, to keep things from coming to light," said Kenneth Brill, US ambassador to the UN in Vienna, on Wednesday.
"People who are trying to produce electricity for light bulbs don't engage in this kind of behaviour," he said.
Resolution opposed
Earlier on Wednesday, in his toughest warning to the IAEA yet, Iranian President Muhammad Khatami described as "very bad" a resolution drafted by Britain, Germany and France that "deplores" Iran's inadequate cooperation with the agency.
"If this resolution passes, Iran will have no moral commitment to suspend uranium enrichment," he told reporters.
"We have no intention of using nuclear technology for military use," he said. "We will continue our cooperation with the agency in the framework of the law and our rights."
"If this resolution passes, Iran will have no moral commitment to suspend uranium enrichment"
Muhammad Khatami, president, Iran
In Vienna, several diplomats said Europe's big three states were holding backroom meetings with board members to prepare a third draft of the resolution that could be debated on Thursday and would be acceptable to the entire board - and the Iranians.
Hossein Mousavian, secretary of the foreign policy committee of Iran's Supreme National Security Council told reporters what the main sticking point was. Iran wants a paragraph deleted that urges Iran to "reconsider" plans to operate a uranium conversion plant and begin construction of a heavy-water research reactor.
Technical
Iran says the resolution under discussion in Vienna has blown technical shortcomings out of proportion and is driven by an anti-Iranian political agenda in the US.
"The IAEA resolution is very bad ... (it) violates our country's rights," Khatami said. "Iran's nuclear row is political, and there is a political will behind it to stop us accessing peaceful nuclear technology," he said.
Iran, which denies seeking weapons, says it wants to produce low-grade enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear power reactors. But Washington and many European states fear it could use the technology to make highly-enriched, bomb-grade uranium.
Under intense diplomatic pressure to explain all nuclear activities, Iran agreed last year voluntarily to suspend uranium enrichment. Reuters
----
Iran says it has no 'moral' obligation to stop enriching uranium
Associated Press
Jun. 16, 2004
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0616IranNukes16-ON.html
VIENNA, Austria - Iran's president said his country had no "moral" obligation to stop enriching uranium even as support grew for a resolution reprimanding - but not punishing - the country for blocking a U.N. probe of its nuclear activities.
President Mohammad Khatami stopped short of saying Iran will resume enrichment or stop all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
But he said Iran would reject any resolution from the agency's board of governors that strongly criticizes Iran.
"With the ongoing trend, we have no moral commitment anymore to suspend uranium enrichment," Khatami told reporters in Tehran. "Of course, we don't declare that we want to do something ... it also doesn't mean that we are withdrawing from (the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty)."
A toughly worded draft resolution under consideration at the IAEA 35-nation board of governors meeting lacked a direct threat of sanctions but did keep pressure on Iran to come clean on aspects of its 20-year covert nuclear program that was discovered two years ago.
The document - written by Germany, France and Britain - was expected to be accepted by the meeting later this week, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.
In Vienna, Iranian chief delegate Hossain Mousavian said his country had "no option" but to continue working with the nuclear agency.
But he suggested Iran could terminate talks with France, Germany and Britain - the authors of the draft - on future sales of nuclear technology to his country in retaliation for the tone of the document, which he called "counterproductive for the continuation of cooperation."
The three European powers have held out the prospect of such sales if Iran agrees to scrap its uranium enrichment program. Iran has instead suspended enrichment but reserves the right to resume them - a threat implied by Mousavian on Wednesday.
Khatami addressed the same theme in Tehran.
"If the draft resolution proposed by the European countries is approved by the IAEA, Iran will reject it," Khatami said. "If Europe has no commitment toward Iran, then Iran will not have a commitment toward Europe."
Iran maintains that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty gives it a legitimate right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program, including enrichment.
"A resolution that denies us of our definite right (to keep a peaceful nuclear program) will not be valid. There will be no guarantee for its enforcement and we won't accept it," Khatami said.
Chief U.S. delegate Kenneth Brill accused Tehran of engaging in a "full-court press of intimidation" to sway the IAEA meeting to tone down the language of the draft.
The new draft toned down demands on Iran to abort plans to build a heavy water reactor and slightly modified language taking Tehran to task for hampering the IAEA probe. But the overall wording remained tough, according to the envoys.
One key phrase in the planned resolution "deplored" Iran's spotty record on cooperating with the agency. Other omissions by Iran were noted with "concern" or "serious concern." All the phrases are tough language in the diplomatic context.
The draft contained no deadline or "trigger mechanism" as sought by the United States and its allies that could set into motion possible sanctions if Iran continued its foot-dragging past a certain date.
However, in an apparent nod to the United States, Canada, Australia and other nations calling for more action, the draft contrasted the "the passage of time" - a year since the IAEA probe began - and the still blurry contours of Iran's nuclear program.
The draft appeared to echo the sentiments of IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who said Monday in unusually blunt comments that his agency's probe "can't go on forever."
The United States wants the IAEA to declare Iran in breach of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
A diplomat - speaking like all delegates on condition of anonymity - told The Associated Press that Washington recognized it could not get majority board support for a direct or implicit threat of U.N. sanctions.
Instead, he said, the Americans were looking ahead to the next board meeting in September with the expectation that new revelations about Iran's nuclear program would surface by then.
The results of analysis of enriched uranium traces found on military sites in Iran and now being evaluated by the agency could provide the trigger in September, said the diplomat, suggesting such a finding could support suspicions that Tehran enriched uranium domestically.
Iran denies working on enrichment beyond the experimental stage and says the traces found within the country, which include minute amounts at weapons-grade levels, were inadvertently imported.
Under growing international pressure, Iran has suspended uranium enrichment and stopped building centrifuges. It also has allowed IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities without notice. But recent revelations have raised new suspicions.
An IAEA report, written by ElBaradei, says Iran inquired about buying thousands of magnets for centrifuges on the black market - casting doubt on Iranian assertions that its P-2 centrifuge program was purely experimental and not aimed for full uranium enrichment.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency, http://www.iaea.org
----
Iran Threatens to Resume Enrichment of Uranium
June 16, 2004
By MARK LANDLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/international/middleeast/16CND-NUKE.html
VIENNA, June 16 - Iran threatened to resume its enrichment of uranium - a prerequisite for making nuclear weapons - if, as expected, the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution rebuking it for not cooperating with the United Nations watchdog group.
"With the ongoing trend, we have no moral commitment any more to suspend uranium enrichment," Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, said today in Tehran. He added that no decision had been made.
Mr. Khatami's tough words deepened the rift between Iran and the atomic energy agency, as the agency's governing board was preparing a resolution that deplores Tehran's lack of cooperation with its investigation of a nuclear program that Iran did not disclose for nearly 20 years.
The United States accused Iranian officials of trying to bully members of the 35-member board into softening the criticism.
"They're trying to intimidate the board and individual states," said the American ambassador to the agency, Kenneth C. Brill. "It really makes us question their claims that they have nothing to hide."
Despite expectations that the resolution would be proposed today, it was not ready. In the early evening, Mr. Brill and diplomats from Britain and Canada huddled in an alcove off the main chamber at the agency's Vienna headquarters, fine-tuning the words in a final draft.
Representatives from Iran, meanwhile, were still scrambling to delete a provision calling on it to cancel plans to build a heavy-water research reactor and to start operations at a uranium conversion facility.
The resolution, drafted by Britain, France and Germany, said the projects raised suspicions that Iran would not suspend uranium enrichment, as it promised last October in an agreement with the three countries.
The head of Iran's delegation here, Hossein Mousavian, insisted that the projects lie outside the scope of the agreement. He insisted that Iran had met all its obligations to the Europeans, as well as to the agency, which has been scrutinizing its nuclear program for more than two years.
The resolution, Mr. Mousavian warned, would undermine relations between Iran and the agency, particularly among hard-line members of Iran's Parliament, some of whom have threatened not to ratify an agreement permitting unannounced inspections of its nuclear facilities.
In Tehran today, the Iranian foreign minister noted that the Parliament, which has been controlled by conservative opponents of the government since elections last February, may be more reluctant to cooperate by ratifying the agreement, known as an additional protocol.
"We have told the Europeans that the new Parliament does not think the same way as the previous Parliament, and that should be considered in their calculations," the foreign minister, Kamala Karadzic, was quoted as saying by the Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA.
Despite their vitriolic tone, Iranian officials stopped short of issuing bigger threats, like refusing access to United Nations inspectors or withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Mr. Mousavian said he saw no reason to "cut relations with the I.A.E.A."
The future of ties between Iran and Europe, he suggested, was more problematic. "Internally, a lot of people cannot trust the promises of cooperation with the Europeans," Mr. Mousavian said.
Under the terms of the deal last October between Iran and the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain and France, the Europeans offered to sell nuclear technology to Iran if it agreed to stop enriching uranium. Iran, while asserting its right to enrich uranium, said it would suspend the activity.
A recent report by the agency cast doubt on Iran's claims. It said the Iranian government was continuing to make parts for centrifuges, the machines that enrich, or purify, uranium by spinning it.
The agency's director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, said it was "premature to make a judgment" about whether Iran's program was military. But he bluntly criticized Iran in a statement to the board on Monday for what he called its "changing and at times contradictory" stories.
Dr. ElBaradei said Iran had not been forthcoming about the source of enriched uranium detected at several sites. Iran claims all the contamination was on equipment imported from outside the country. The agency says it found traces of enriched uranium on domestic machinery.
He also said Iran offered conflicting explanations of its work with P-2 centrifuges, an advanced model from Pakistan. First, Iran did not disclose the program. Then it denied buying parts from abroad. Finally, an Iranian official admitted that Iran wanted to import 100,000 magnets to build P-2 centrifuges.
"Clearly, this pattern of engagement on the part of Iran is less than satisfactory if it wishes to build confidence in the international community," Dr. ElBaradei said, adding that Iran "needs to be proactive."
--------
Iran Threatens to Resume Uranium Enrichment
Reuters
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 5:03 PM
By Parisa Hafezi and Louis Charbonneau
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47261-2004Jun16?language=printer
TEHRAN, Iran/VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) - Iran Wednesday threatened to resume uranium enrichment, a process that could be used to make atomic bombs, if the U.N. nuclear agency passed a stern resolution rebuking it for poor cooperation.
The United States immediately accused Iran of trying to bully the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meeting in Vienna, and said such tactics increased suspicions that Tehran was secretly making weapons.
"The basic message that Iran is sending is that they have something to hide and they're going to use any means they have, including intimidation, to keep things from coming to light," said Kenneth Brill, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna.
"People who are trying to produce electricity for lightbulbs don't engage in this kind of behavior," he said.
In his toughest warning to the IAEA yet, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami described as "very bad" a resolution drafted by Britain, Germany and France that "deplores" Iran's inadequate cooperation with the agency.
"If this resolution passes, Iran will have no moral commitment to suspend uranium enrichment," he told reporters.
But Khatami, aware that Washington wants its case sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, balanced his tough line with assurances that Iran's aims were peaceful and that Tehran did not plan to kick out U.N. inspectors.
"We have no intention of using nuclear technology for military use," he said. "We will continue our cooperation with the agency in the framework of the law and our rights."
Europe's "big three" circulated a newly revised draft resolution late Wednesday, but Iran's chief delegate said the changes were minor and the draft was still unacceptable.
"There are some positive changes but they are very minor," Hossein Mousavian, secretary of the foreign policy committee of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Reuters. "Not much has changed, which is not at all acceptable."
Iran, which denies seeking weapons, says it wants to produce low-grade enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear power reactors. But Washington and many European states fear it could use the technology to make highly-enriched, bomb-grade uranium.
Some 900 protesters, many of them members of a hardline Islamic volunteer militia, gathered at two Iranian nuclear plants vowing to defend with their lives Iran's right to develop nuclear technology, the official IRNA news agency reported.
FAILS TO SATISFY
In Vienna, several diplomats said Europe's big three states met with board members on a new draft of the resolution they had hoped would be acceptable to the entire board -- and Iran.
Diplomats said the new draft satisfied Russia but not the non-aligned states, Iran's strongest supporters on the board.
Mousavian, Iran's chief delegate, said the main sticking point was a paragraph urging Iran to "reconsider" plans to operate a uranium conversion plant and begin construction of a heavy-water research reactor. He said the latest draft has the words "voluntarily reconsider," which was still unacceptable.
"It is important to delete this (paragraph)," he said, adding the large bloc of non-aligned countries on the board backed Iran on this.
But a Western diplomat said the reactor was a problem as it would produce little electricity but ample bomb-grade plutonium.
Iran says the resolution under discussion in Vienna has blown technical shortcomings out of proportion and is driven by an anti-Iranian political agenda in the United States.
"The IAEA resolution is very bad ... (it) violates our country's rights," Khatami said. "Iran's nuclear row is political, and there is a political will behind it to stop us accessing peaceful nuclear technology," he said.
Diplomats in Vienna say Washington had wanted a tougher resolution which would set a deadline for Iran to come clean about its nuclear plans for face the Security Council. (Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan and John Chalmers)
--------
Europe Keeps Pressure on Iran Over Nukes
By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47245-2004Jun16?language=printer
VIENNA, Austria - Europe's three major powers shrugged off Iranian threats of retaliation Wednesday and put the final touches on a tough resolution rebuking Tehran for continued nuclear cover-ups.
The new draft seen by The Associated Press retained strong language designed to maintain pressure on Iran a year after the International Atomic Energy Agency began to probe nearly two decades of its suspect nuclear program.
Delegates at a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors described the draft, written by France, Britain and Germany, as strongly worded. Slight modifications were meant to appease nonaligned nations traditionally allied with Iran, the delegates said on condition of anonymity.
"The substance remains the same," one delegate said. "The heat is still on."
A new clause "recognizing the inalienable right of states" to develop peaceful nuclear programs was one of the modifications. Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are restricted to generating electricity and not making bombs.
Another was the insertion of the word "voluntarily" in asking Iran to reconsider testing of a uranium conversion plant and construction of a heavy water research reactor - projects with possible weapons applications.
But the resolution kept key passages expressing "concern" and "serious concern" about Iran's foot-dragging or "deploring" its spotty record of cooperation with the IAEA investigation.
Suggesting agreement was close, the delegate said the draft could be formally submitted to the meeting by Thursday.
Iran has suspended its uranium enrichment program but has refused to scrap it altogether. France, Britain and Germany have promised to provide Tehran with nuclear technology if and when all suspicions about a weapons program are put to rest.
In a veiled threat that enrichment could resume if the IAEA resolution is too harsh, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami warned that his country has no "moral commitment" to maintain the suspension and would not accept a toughly worded text.
"If the draft resolution proposed by the European countries is approved by the IAEA, Iran will reject it," Khatami said. "If Europe has no commitment toward Iran, then Iran will not have a commitment toward Europe."
Hossein Mousavian, Iran's chief delegate to the meeting, sought to allay fears raised by Khatami's comments, saying in Vienna: "I don't believe that we need to cut full cooperation with the IAEA."
Chief U.S. delegate Kenneth Brill accused Tehran of engaging in a "full-court press of intimidation" to sway the IAEA meeting.
"People who are trying to produce electricity for light bulbs don't engage in this kind of behavior," he said.
The draft contains no deadline or "trigger mechanism" as sought by the United States and its allies that could set into motion possible sanctions if Iran continued its foot-dragging past a certain date. But it does contrast "the passage of time" - a year since the IAEA inquiry began - and the still-blurry contours of Iran's nuclear program.
A diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Washington recognized it could not get majority board support for a direct or implicit threat of U.N. sanctions.
Instead, the diplomat said, the Americans were waiting for new revelations about Iran's nuclear program to surface at the next board meeting in September that will increase sentiment to find the country guilty of violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. That could result in referral to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
The still-to-be-evaluated results of analysis of enriched uranium traces found on military sites in Iran could provide the trigger in September, said one diplomat.
Iran, which denies working on enrichment beyond the experimental stage, says minute finds of enriched uranium - which include traces at weapons-grade levels - were not domestically produced but inadvertently imported in purchases through the nuclear black market.
The other main agency concern is spotty, ambiguous, or lacking information on the scope of Iran's centrifuge program, used to enrich uranium. And recent revelations have raised new suspicions.
A recent IAEA report, written by agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, says Iran inquired about buying thousands of magnets for centrifuges on the black market - casting doubt on Iranian assertions that its P-2 centrifuge program was purely experimental and not aimed for full uranium enrichment.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency, www.iaea.org
--------
Khatami Threatens Uranium Enrichment if Draft Passes
Reuters
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By Parisa Hafezi
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45676-2004Jun16?language=printer
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran threatened on Wednesday to resume uranium enrichment if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approves a draft resolution rebuking it for inadequate cooperation with U.N. inspectors.
"I am not saying we will do something particular, but if this resolution passes, Iran will have no moral commitment to suspend uranium enrichment," President Mohammad Khatami, in his toughest warning yet to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
But Khatami, aware that Washington wants Iran referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, balanced his tough line with assurances that Iran's nuclear aims are peaceful and that Tehran has no intention of kicking out U.N. inspectors.
The United States accused Iran of trying to intimidate the IAEA. "What we're seeing here is a full court press of intimidation by the government of Iran and its delegation here," U.S. ambassador Kenneth Brill told reporters in Vienna, using a basketball metaphor.
Britain, France and Germany have drafted a resolution that "deplores" Iran's poor cooperation with U.N. inspectors, and the IAEA board of governors are discussing it in Vienna this week. The resolution has incensed Tehran.
In Brussels, the European Union urged Iran to comply fully with the IAEA. "Full compliance and cooperation with the IAEA are crucial" if Iran is to develop deeper ties with European and other partners, EU Commission spokeswoman Emma Udwin said in a statement.
In Vienna, several diplomats of IAEA board member countries said the majority of the board back the draft resolution and it is unlikely that the text will be changed very much.
The draft will probably be submitted to the board for formal debate later on Wednesday, and the board could take a formal position on the text as early as Thursday, they said.
"Despite the threats from Iran, the Europeans are standing firm. This is typical brinkmanship on the part of Iran," a Western diplomat from an influential IAEA board member said.
Iran says it wants to produce low-grade enriched uranium to use as fuel in nuclear power reactors. But Washington and many European states fear Iran could use enrichment technology to produce highly-enriched, bomb-grade uranium.
Khatami said such fears were baseless.
"We have never intended to enrich uranium more than 3.5 percent and have no intention of using nuclear technology for military use," he said.
Hossein Mousavian, who heads Iran's delegation at the IAEA meeting, blamed Washington for the pressure being heaped on Tehran, saying the Americans "have put a lot of pressure in order to politicize the Iranian issue."
Iran, under pressure to come clean about its nuclear activities, worked out a deal with the European trio last October to voluntarily suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for peaceful nuclear technology.
To the Europeans' annoyance, Iran has never completely stopped enrichment related activities.
Iran says the resolution under discussion in Vienna has blown technical shortcomings out of proportion and is driven by Washington's political agenda against the Islamic Republic.
"The IAEA resolution is very bad ... (it) violates our country's rights," Khatami said. "If it passes, in the future we will have more problems with cooperating with the agency."
"Iran's nuclear row is political, and there is a political will behind it to stop us accessing peaceful nuclear technology," he said.
Diplomats in Vienna say Washington wanted a tougher resolution which would set a deadline for Iran to clear up remaining ambiguities about its nuclear program. Failure to do so would see Iran reported to the U.N. Security Council.
But Khatami ruled out following the calls of some hard-liners in the Islamic Republic for Iran to withdraw from the NPT, which would remove its nuclear program from the scrutiny of U.N. inspectors. "We are a member of the NPT and we will continue to be so," he said.
He also said that "for the moment" Iran had no intention of suspending its voluntary implementation of the NPT's Additional Protocol, signed by Iran last December, which allows inspectors to conduct more intrusive, short-notice visits to nuclear sites.
The draft IAEA resolution urges Iran's parliament to ratify the protocol on snap inspections as soon as possible.
But the parliament, dominated by anti-Western Islamic conservatives, has warned it may throw out the protocol if international pressure on Iran's nuclear program persists.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on Wednesday that its ratification could not be expected any time soon.
(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan, Louis Charbonneau, John Chalmers)
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IAEA Near Sharp Rebuke of Iran on Nukes
By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45549-2004Jun16?language=printer
VIENNA, Austria - Iran lashed out at European members of the U.N. nuclear agency on Wednesday as support grew for their resolution reprimanding - but not punishing - the country for blocking a U.N. probe of its nuclear activities.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Iran has no "moral" commitment to suspend a program to enrich uranium. However, he stopped short of saying Iran will resume enrichment, or will stop all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"If the draft resolution proposed by the European countries is approved by the IAEA, Iran will reject it," Khatami told reporters in Tehran. "If Europe has no commitment toward Iran, then Iran will not have a commitment toward Europe."
In Vienna, Iranian chief delegate Hossain Mousavian said his country had "no option" but to continue working with the agency.
But he suggested Iran could terminate talks with France, Germany and Britain - the authors of the draft - on future sales of nuclear technology to his country in retaliation for the tone of the document, which he called "counterproductive for the continuation of cooperation."
The three European powers have held out the prospect of such sales if Iran agrees to scrap its uranium enrichment program. Iran has instead suspended enrichment but reserves the right to resume them - a threat implied by Mousavian on Wednesday.
Diplomats representing some of the 35 nations at the IAEA board of governors' meeting said the draft resolution would likely be formally accepted by the meeting later in the week.
While lacking direct threats of sanctions, the toughly worded document maintains pressure on Iran to come clean on aspects of what was a covert nuclear program for nearly 20 years until it was discovered two years ago.
The new draft toned down demands on Iran to abort plans to build a heavy water reactor and slightly modified language taking Tehran to task for hampering the IAEA probe.
One key phrase "deplored" Iran's spotty record on cooperating with the agency - strong terminology in diplomatic language. Other omissions by Iran are noted with "concern," or "serious concern."
The draft contained no deadline or "trigger mechanism" as sought by the United States and its allies that could set into motion possible sanctions if Iran continued its foot-dragging past a certain date.
Still, in an apparent nod to the United States, Canada, Australia, the draft noted the "the passage of time" - a year since the IAEA probe began - and the continuing gaps in information about Iran's nuclear program.
The draft appeared to echo sentiments Monday by IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei, who said Monday in unusually blunt comments that his agency's probe "can't go on forever."
One diplomat familiar with the American stance said the draft "wasn't all they were hoping for, but it's something they can live with."
Another diplomat - speaking like all delegates on condition of anonymity - told the AP Washington recognized it could not now get majority board support for a direct or implicit threat of U.N. sanctions.
Instead, he said, the Americans were waiting for new revelations about Iran's nuclear program to surface at the next board meeting in September. That could increase support for declaring the country guilty of contravening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
That, in turn, could result in referral to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
Enriched uranium traces found at military sites in Iran are being analyzed, and those results could provide the trigger in September, said the diplomat.
Iran, which denies working on enrichment beyond the experimental stage, says minute finds of enriched uranium were inadvertently imported in purchases through the nuclear black market. The traces include minute amounts at weapons-grade levels.
The other main agency concern is ambiguous, missing or withheld information on the scope of Iran's centrifuge program, used to enrich uranium.
"These are two issues where we need accelerated and proactive cooperation," ElBaradei told reporters. "The way they have been engaging us on these issues has been less than satisfactory."
Under growing international pressure, Iran has suspended uranium enrichment and stopped building centrifuges. It also has allowed IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities without notice. But recent revelations have raised new suspicions.
An IAEA report, written by ElBaradei, says Iran inquired about buying thousands of magnets for centrifuges on the black market - casting doubt on Iranian assertions that its P-2 centrifuge program was purely experimental and not aimed for full uranium enrichment.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency, www.iaea.org
-------- japan
IAEA to cut Japan nuclear inspections
By YUKIO AOKI,
June 16, 2004
Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/english/world/TKY200406160155.html
VIENNA-Convinced that Japan's nuclear facilities are being used only for peaceful purposes, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced Monday it will halve the number of annual inspections of those sites.
The reduction will allow the IAEA, which suffers from a chronic shortage of funds and inspectors, to free up resources for inspections in Iran and other countries suspected of running nuclear arms development programs.
Currently, the cost of inspecting Japan's facilities accounts for about 10 percent of the watchdog's entire inspections budget.
Japan's nuclear power plants currently undergo five inspections a year on average.
The agency's decision, which is based on its conclusion that Japan has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, follows four years of inspections of Japanese facilities. In 1999, Japan ratified an IAEA protocol on strengthening safeguards.
In Tokyo, science and technology minister Takeo Kawamura issued a statement Monday renewing Japan's pledge to contribute to strengthening the pursuit of nuclear nonproliferation around the world and the peaceful use of nuclear power.
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei announced the decision to apply to Japan what it calls ``integrated safeguards'' at a board of governors meeting held here Monday.
Only three other countries-Australia, Norway and Indonesia-are currently allowed the same leeway. However, these nations possess only research reactors, while nuclear plants represent an integral part of Japan's power generation program.
Because Japan relies on nuclear power and possesses a large quantity of plutonium, countries such as North Korea have insisted Japan was attempting to arm itself with nuclear weapons. Others have claimed the plutonium could be converted to military use.
But, after inspecting 5,000 buildings at 170 power plants, research facilities and production sites over a four-year period, the IAEA concluded Japan's nuclear power is used only for peaceful purposes.
Five other countries, including Poland and Bulgaria, also received the same stamp of approval, bringing the total number of countries endorsed as ``peaceful'' to 19.
ElBaradei also announced the same day that he has appointed a group of international experts to discuss regulations on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. He is expected to submit a report on the panel's findings to the IAEA's board in March.
-------- korea
US-N Korea talks set for June 23
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Navhind Times
http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=061618
Reuters Beijing June 15: The third round of six-party talks on the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions will take place in Beijing on June 23-26, China said today, urging all sides to work towards a resolution.
The discussions would be preceded by 2 days of working level talks, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Ms Zhang Qiyue told a news conference, confirming an earlier report by the official Xinhua news agency.
"The Chinese side hopes the relevant parties concerned will build on already reached consensus and continue to discuss in depth relevant issues and to enhance mutual understanding as to make headway in the six-party talks," Ms Zhang said.
Senior representatives of the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China have met in the Chinese capital twice without progress on an agreement on dismantling the North's covert nuclear weapons programmes.
Progress has been measured mainly by whether the parties can agree to meet again, and analysts say the stakes are rising due to the lack of movement on the North's nuclear programmes.
"If there's absolutely no progress even after the third round there will definitely be people wondering whether the process is worth continuing, even more than now," said Mr Hajime Izumi, a Korea expert at Shizuoka Prefectural University near Tokyo. North Korea swiftly illustrated the gulf between the sides on Tuesday, saying the "touchstone" for gauging US intent at the talks would be Washington's attitude to its rewards-for-freeze proposal - economic aid in return for freezing its nuclear weapons development.
The North Korean foreign ministry also put the onus for progress in the talks on the United States.
"Internal work needed for us will go on well though the talks may prove unsuccessful due to the US," it said.
The US has insisted that Pyongyang halt its programmes before offering aid, and has pushed for complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of the North's nuclear programmes.
Earlier, a spokesman at the US embassy in Beijing said plans to hold talks in the week of June 21 were "agreeable" to Washington.
The crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear arms programmes erupted in October 2002, when US officials said North Korea had disclosed it was working on a secret programme to enrich uranium for weapons, in violation of an international agreement.
Pyongyang has since denied it was engaged in a uranium enrichment programme, but in early 2003 threw out UN nuclear inspectors, withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and restarted its plutonium plant.
----
US 'plans to keep up pressure' on Pyongyang to scrap nuclear projects
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Andrew Ward in Seoul
June 16 2004
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087295123905
The US intends to stick to its demand for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of all North Korea's nuclear programmes when six-party talks resume in Beijing next week, a US official said, dismissing speculation of a change in the Bush administration's hardline position.
Analysts in Washington said neither side seemed serious about trying to break the impasse before the US presidential election in November.
While still receiving considerable economic aid from its neighbours and the US, the communist regime sees cracks appearing among Washington's allies and is holding out for a bilateral deal on better terms that might come with a new US president. For its part, the Bush administration is in no mood to make concessions in an election year.
However, the US official, who asked not to be identified, acknowledged there was a policy debate within the administration. "There are some battles still going on," he said. But a decision had been made to stick to the demand for dismantlement.
China confirmed yesterday that the third round of six-party talks, involving the US, North and South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia, would take place from June 23-26. North Korea said immediately that no progress would come without change by the US.
"Nothing will be expected from the forthcoming talks, should the United States continue to insist that North Korea dismantle its nuclear programme in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner," the foreign ministry said. "It is a demand that can be forced on a defeated country only."
Analysts said they did not expect North Korea to push the issue by taking its weapons programme further with a nuclear or long-range missile test.
Charles Pritchard, a former US envoy at the Brookings Institution, said he did not expect a breakthrough and described the talks as "almost an exercise in futility". China had questioned the reliability of US intelligence on North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment programme and asked the US to produce evidence next week, he said.
North Korea claims to have produced material for nuclear weapons from reprocessing plutonium, but denies enriching uranium.
Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said there was not a large gap between the US and Chinese positions over this issue, which Colin Powell, secretary of state, and Li Zhaoxing, his Chinese counterpart, discussed in Washington last week.
Pyongyang demands security assurances and economic assistance in return for first freezing and eventually dismantling the nuclear facilities, with both sides making concessions simultaneously. But Washington has ruled out rewards until the facilities are dismantled.
Donald Gregg, former US ambassador to South Korea, told a conference in Seoul: "The longer the US refuses to enter into negotiations, the higher the price becomes for [improved relations with Pyongyang], while the dangerous prospect of North Korea becoming a permanent nuclear power steadily increases."
----
North Korea's nuke freeze plan must set stage for ending crisis: US
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Jun 16, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040615220114.tdlskk4d.html
The United States will not object to any North Korean plans for a nuclear weapons freeze at upcoming six-party talks if they set the stage for elimination of Pyongyang's nuclear programs, an American official said Tuesday.
The official clarified that Washington was not against any North Korean proposals for a nuclear freeze, or incentives given to Pyongyang for doing so by South Korea or other neighbours.
"We're not against a freeze and we're not against people saying if they freeze on the way to dismantlement they might even do something for the North Koreans," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"But it has to be clear that any freeze is a step toward elimination of nuclear programs," he said.
The official was speaking after China confirmed Tuesday that it would host a third round of talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program between June 23 and 26, with a two-day working level session preceding the talks.
As China made its announcement, North Korea again rejected a US demand for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its weapons drive, instead demanding concessions in return for a partial nuclear freeze.
The statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said prospects for a successful outcome depended on a change in the US position.
The US official said Washington's goal was complete elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs but "what goes in parallel to that and how North Korea can achieve the benefits of not having a nuclear threat is what can be discussed.
"But you don't go into the talks and say: 'Well, give us a reward for a freeze and that will be enough' without knowing where it is going," the official explained. "We have said a freeze is not a goal."
Two previous rounds of six-party talks in Beijing involving China, the two Koreas, Russia, Japan and the United States failed to narrow differences.
The nuclear impasse erupted in October 2002 when Washington said North Korea had broken a 1994 nuclear freeze by launching a secret nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang has persistently demanded it be rewarded for giving up its nuclear program, while the US government wants a clear-cut commitment from the North for a complete dismantlement before any compensation can be considered.
While it acknowledges having a plutonium program, Pyongyang denies that it is enriching uranium to make nuclear fuel.
Special envoy Joseph DeTrani would lead the US delegation for the working group phase of the meetings while Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly will head the team to the plenary six-party talks.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters Tuesday that the American goal at the talks was "the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of North Korea's nuclear programs.
This is "because we do continue to believe that that is the only way that we can end the threat and that we can provide the kind of stability and security that all of the parties need for the future."
Boucher said the United States was going to the talks with a "real desire" to try to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis.
"We think that the whole neighborhood, but including North Korea, would be better off with a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. That is the attitude that emerged from previous rounds of talks, that that was a consensus.
"You've got to get rid of the programs. You've got to do it in a methodical and organized and a thorough way if nobody on the peninsula is going to face this kind of threat in the future."
Boucher also said that North Korea's relationship with the rest of the world should not be based on "the fear of war or the fear of nuclear weapons with other people in the neighborhood."
----
N. Korea to Resume Nuclear Talks; Neighbors Not Optimistic
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42562-2004Jun15.html
TOKYO, June 15 -- North Korea agreed to a new round of six-nation talks next week aimed at dismantling its nuclear weapons programs, officials announced Tuesday. But representatives of the four Asian countries involved immediately sought to play down the prospects of a quick resolution to the 20-month crisis in which the North Koreans are believed to have expanded their nuclear arsenal.
High-level disarmament talks are scheduled for June 23-26 in Beijing, after a two-day round of mid-level negotiations starting June 21, according to Chinese, Japanese and South Korean officials.
The talks -- involving the United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea -- follow two rounds of high-level negotiations and one round of mid-level meetings, which all failed to yield significant results.
Since the nuclear issue erupted in October 2002, U.S. intelligence has increased its estimates of North Korea's military capabilities from possessing as many as two to as many as eight nuclear devices. But few diplomats held out hope for speedy progress. In a sign of how low expectations are running, even officials from the participating nations appeared to see little immediate promise of a breakthrough.
"The Korean Peninsula's nuclear problem is very complicated," Zhang Qiyue, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, told reporters in Beijing. "It is very difficult for any side to expect to resolve all the issues in one round or two rounds of talks."
The Bush administration is locked in a stalemate with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il over U.S. calls for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of all of the Pyongyang government's nuclear weapons programs, known as CVID. For their part, North Korean officials have offered a partial freeze of the programs -- and then only if financial and diplomatic incentives are provided upfront, something the Bush administration has dismissed.
The search for common ground to date has left the two key parties -- the United States and North Korea -- drifting further and further apart. At the same time, North Korea seems to be enjoying a measure of success in its strategy of dividing the five nations seeking its disarmament, observers have said.
Chinese authorities, for instance, expressed new doubts about the U.S. stance that North Korea possesses a uranium enrichment program in addition to its admitted program to enrich plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. The U.S. government has insisted that North Korea's public admission of the existence of the uranium program is key to any agreement.
Alarmed that Kim is advancing with his nuclear ambitions while the talks have stalled, the closest U.S. allies in Asia -- Japan and South Korea -- have also moved independently to engage the government in Pyongyang in bilateral talks, an approach the Bush administration has rejected.
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi held a summit with Kim last month, offering him $10 million in humanitarian aid in exchange for the release of five children of Japanese nationals abducted by North Koreans for use in spy training camps during the 1970s and 1980s. South and North Korea, meanwhile, have forged ahead with high-level military talks which resulted in a series of agreements this month to ease tensions along the most heavily militarized border in the world as well as to open new roads and rail lines linking the divided nations by this fall.
North Korea's success in negotiations with Japan and South Korea -- and continuing brisk economic trade with China -- may have emboldened Kim to avoid giving any major concession next week, according to analysts. Instead, the North Koreans may offer more limited promises -- or nothing at all -- to bide time until U.S. presidential elections in November, analysts have said. Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumed Democratic candidate, has said he favors engaging the Pyongyang government directly in bilateral talks.
During the last round of talks in February, South Korea presented a phased proposal to resolve the crisis, starting with a "temporary halt" -- essentially a freeze -- to North Korean nuclear programs. A halt, once verified, would be followed by a South Korean promise, already accepted by China and Russia, to ship heavy oil to North Korea. The United States would join the other parties at the table in offering North Korea security assurances.
But that plan failed in part because the North Koreans refused to admit to the uranium program. According to U.S. officials, the North privately acknowledged in October 2002 that it had a program, in violation of a 1994 agreement with the Clinton administration. But South Korean officials familiar with the talks also said U.S. negotiators refused North Korean requests to broadly outline what type of rewards it might receive if it agreed to a halt.
South Korea is still pushing its plan, but there is little sense that either the United States or North Korea has budged.
"We have no indication to demonstrate that the U.S. has become more flexible," Jiro Okuyama, spokesman for Japan's Foreign Ministry, said in an interview. He said Japan still "closely shared" the U.S. position, and would continue to press North Korea for a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling.
North Korea has also vacillated on what it would do. Last month, Kim appeared to draw a step closer to compromise during his summit with Koizumi by offering what the Japanese described as a "verifiable freeze" of his country's nuclear efforts. But North Korea's official news agency KCNA on Tuesday reverted to its old line that any freeze must also carry a "reward.".
Special correspondent Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.
--------
South Korea Says Nuclear Talks Will Not Stall
Reuters
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By Jack Kim
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45528-2004Jun16.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea expects to see some progress at next week's multilateral talks on the North's nuclear programs but a lack of results would not mean the process had lost momentum, the foreign minister said on Wednesday.
The two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China will meet for four days beginning on June 23 in Beijing for a third round of the slow-moving negotiations in which simply agreeing to meet again has so far been greeted as a success.
"We expect to see some visible progress and result at the third round of talks," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told a news conference.
"But I don't think a lack thereof has to mean momentum would be lost, because this is an ongoing process that must be developed further with patience," he said.
He said South Korea was prepared to offer what it took for the North to become part of the international community, such as a security guarantee or economic aid.
"But the problem is North Korea is not responding to this," he said.
Cash-strapped North Korea considers its ability to build and deliver nuclear weapons as the ultimate means of defending itself against a pre-emptive attack by the United States.
Despite a proposal by South Korea at the second round in February that energy assistance would begin as soon as the North pledges to freeze then dismantle its nuclear programs, Pyongyang has demanded the United States first drop what it describes as a hostile policy.
"NORTH KOREA IS NOT DUMB"
North Korea would not allow the whole process to fall apart, said Lee Jung-hoon, an international affairs expert at Yonsei University.
"North Korea is not dumb and knows that it's never going to be able to go it alone on this by alienating China and to a lesser degree Russia," Lee said.
A key issue at this round would be the context of a nuclear freeze that both Pyongyang and Washington can agree on, he said.
Ban noted Pyongyang may be further intensifying diplomatic efforts to state its case to the international community and to the South. He said North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun would be attending a separate set of talks later in the month.
Foreign ministers of 23 countries including North Korea and the United will be attending the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Jakarta, and Seoul is seeking to arrange a bilateral meeting through diplomatic missions in New York and in Jakarta, Ban said.
"If this meeting can take place, I expect it to have a positive impact on the resolution of the nuclear issue and improving ties between the two Koreas," Ban said.
On Tuesday, North Korea said the outcome of the six-way talks hinged on Washington's approach to the negotiations, in particular Pyongyang's proposal for compensation in return for a freeze in its nuclear programs.
Ban denied a suggestion made by a visiting North Korean official in Seoul on Tuesday that the South's refusal to provide computers running on updated operating systems showed a lack of commitment to cross-border cooperation.
"This is not simply an inter-Korean issue. It's about an international control regime on the export of materials related to nuclear weapons," he said, referring to the Wassenaar Arrangement on the export of dual-use goods and technologies.
The vice chairman of North Korea's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, Ri Jong-hyok, was quoted in South Korean media as asking for the computers and saying that the North would ensure they were properly used.
-------- russia
Back to the future: new US-Russia arms race
By Scott Peterson
The Christian Science Monitor
June 16, 2004
http://csmonitor.com/2004/0616/p01s04-woeu.html
MOSCOW - When the US earmarked billions of dollars for a new national missile defense and broke ground in Alaska, Washington emphasized that it would be "no threat to Russia."
Then, with the inevitability of a cold-war counterpunch, President Vladimir Putin saw fit to reassure Russians that America's shield could be defeated, with a silver bullet successfully tested in February. "No country in the world as yet has such arms," Putin declared of the new weapon, which amounts to a space cruise missile. It will be "capable of hitting targets continents away with hypersonic speed, high precision, and the ability of wide maneuver."
Welcome back to the future of US-Russian rivalry. Analysts say that a combination of US military efforts - including missile defense, plans for new low-yield nuclear weapons, and expansion up to Russia's western doorstep - are chilling relations with Moscow and spurring a new, higher-tech arms race.
Despite American declarations of goodwill, Russian interpretations of US military shifts are tangled up with a deep history of rivalry, and a current fear of being left behind. A strategy rethink is under way in Moscow. Senior officers speak of an "asymmetrical" response to counter US strength without matching Washington's expenditures.
"I understand America's measures as a continuation of the arms race," says Viktor Baranets, military columnist for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. "With our slim budget we are making an effort to catch up with the rich American chariot."
"They think that we're kind of crazy to be pursuing [missile defense]," says Marshall Goldman, of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard. "It is just another example in their minds of how the US is still fighting the cold war."
And missile defense is not the only issue.
Work by the US on new types of nuclear weapons helped prompt the largest Russian military exercises since the Soviet era earlier this year. Russia is especially alert to the "possible reemergence of nuclear weapons as a real military instrument," which it views as an "extremely dangerous tendency that is undermining global and regional stability," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov wrote in the journal Russia in Global Politics. "Even a minor reduction in the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons would require Russia to revise ... the use of its units."
Mr. Ivanov also warned in March that if "anti-Russian elements" persist in any NATO "offensive military doctrine, Russia will have to adequately revise its military planning ... including its nuclear forces." In April, four Belgian F-16 fighter jets deployed to Lithuania to patrol the alliance's new shared border with Russia. The move prompted sharp criticism from Moscow of an imminent "collision."
Keeping up with GI Jones
Moscow is also trying to figure out how to at least keep up with America's growing military resources. In recent years, Russia has moved to extend the service life of its multiwarhead SS-18 and SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and purchased 30 like-new SS-19s from Ukraine. Last year, Putin said of newly deployed SS-19s: "Their combat potential, including penetrating through any missile defense, is without peer."
Though these ICBMs are a critical component of Russia's strategic nuclear forces, they don't always work. Test launches in February, intended to be the highlight of Russia's intense military exercises failed, despite the presence of Mr. Putin - smartly attired in Naval uniform - on the deck of a nearby submarine.
To the acute embarrassment of the Russian General Staff, two sub-launched missiles never left their launch tubes. A third ICBM, fired the next day, veered off course after 98 seconds of flight and self-destructed.
However, Putin's new "secret" weapon can ride atop the relatively new, three-stage SS-27 missile, known as the Topol-M. Experts say the weapon is a maneuverable warhead that can dart unpredictably at high speeds as it reenters the atmosphere, making it virtually impossible to target at that stage. It is essentially a space cruise missile, born from Soviet efforts to penetrate Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile shield, which was never built.
"It's hard to tell if [the breakthrough] would have been possible without [concern for US] missile defense," says Pavel Podvig at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. "Missile defense has no real military value ... but at the same time, it has very serious political value. Missile defense is not such a serious issue that it drives us back into the cold war, but it makes dismantling that system much more difficult."
Russian unease may also erode support for Washington's war on terror.
"It might lead to our relations becoming cooler instead of united in our effort to oppose common threats from terrorism," says columnist Baranets. "Should [the US and Russia] go on building more warplanes, missiles, and subs just because our brains haven't been cleaned from the cold war dirt? Or should we jointly protect ourselves from stones somebody might throw [our way]?"
Still, since Sept. 11, 2001, Russia cast itself as a fellow terror fighter, side by side with Washington. But Russia did staunchly oppose Washington's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in June 2002. The treaty forbade deployment of a missile defense network. The US has since began work in Alaska for an initial 10 interceptor missiles, meant to stop a single missile from a "rogue" state like North Korea.
"It's US taxpayers' money, so if they want to waste it, Russia should not involve herself explaining to Americans why [missile defense] is not worth it," says Vladimir Orlov, director of the Center for Policy Studies in Moscow.
Exploiting the shield 'threat'
Indeed, the controversies in the US that are swirling around the system have not gone unnoticed in Russia. Though a limited system is due to go online later this year, the Pentagon's top weapons tester told Congress in March that operational testing was not planned "for the foreseeable future," and that he could not be sure the system would work against a North Korean missile.
The General Accounting Office has found that only two of 10 key technologies for the system have so far proven to be workable. In light of that - and far greater concern about terrorism - 49 retired US generals and admirals wrote to President Bush in late March suggesting delaying deployment.
"The Russian military and scientists understand that [US missile defense] is a joke, but that doesn't mean that everybody understands that - it's a political environment," says Theodore Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"If I wave a plastic gun in front of the police, when they are nervous and they think I'm a terrorist, I'm going to get shot, though the gun has no capability," adds Mr. Postol. "That's the game the Bush administration has been playing, with extremely negative consequences for the US."
Some here quietly welcome those consequences. "Russia is thinking: Should it really oppose [new US weapons], or use them as an excuse to follow the same path?" says Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Center for Defense Information.
For Russia's long-neglected defense industry, the US moves are a potential boon.
"This gives the bombmakers an ... opportunity to revive programs that were actively pursued in the 1980s," says Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent defense analyst in Moscow. He says top Russian officials told him several years ago that plans had already been made "to resume [nuclear] testing, as soon as the Americans give the go ahead ... so that it will be their fault, not ours."
Already, there are signs that Russia reacted offensively to US missile defense plans before they even left the drawing board. Russia launched a 2002 exercise that simulated an attack on Moscow ABM system, which experts say mirrored a strike on a future US system.
"We know from history that people react, nations react, and I would expect Russia to gin up its nuclear weapon R&D programs in response," says David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
Indeed, military historians point to the example of the missile defense system deployed around Moscow in the late 1960s - and the exaggerated American response, which boosted the US nuclear stockpile - as a case in point.
According to a recent detailed analysis in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the CIA in 1967 estimated that Moscow's nonhardened system was "subject to saturation and exhaustion." Still, it was targeted with missiles from Polaris submarines and more than 100 Minuteman ICBMs - some 10 percent of all of the US ICBM force. The result was a "staggering average of eight 1-megaton warheads per interceptor launch site" with a combined force exceeding 7,500 Hiroshima bombs. Such "chilling examples ... fundamentally contradict the portrayal of missile defenses as nonoffensive" concludes the Bulletin.
Such hypersensitivity seemed to disappear in the post-Soviet 1990s, an era of anything-goes US-Russia contacts and joint efforts to safeguard nuclear stockpiles. But there are signs of renewed suspicion.
New ties feel old chill
Russia's secret cities, where much nuclear and other hidden military work took place, are again clamping down. Several military experts have been charged and jailed for allegedly giving away state secrets.
Even military exchanges have chilled. For example, a Harvard program for Russian officers to learn about civilian control of the military notices the change.
"When the Ukrainians and other East Europeans [take part], back home it is considered a leg up on their career path," says Harvard's Goldman, while Russians, these days, are beginning to feel the opposite. "They've been compromised if they come, because they've been consorting with the enemy."
~
US and Russian nuclear arsenals (2002 - 2003)
RUSSIA US
2,915 1,600 Intercontinental ballistic missiles
1,072 2,880 Submarine-launched missiles
864 1,660† Bomber missiles
3,380@ 800† Tactical weapons
8,231@ 6,940 Total weapons
†"Deadly Arsenals" by Joseph Cirincione, 2002 figures
@Estimated
TOM BROWN - STAFF SOURCE: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (http://www.ceip.org), 2003 figures
~
Four nuclear false alarms
On these four occasions, the US and the Soviet Union nearly launched attacks and counterattacks based on false alarms.
Nov. 9, 1979: A training tape is inadvertently loaded onto US early-warning systems, prompting false alerts that the Soviet Union had launched a massive nuclear strike. June 3, 1980: A computer chip failure in the US system sets off a series of launch warnings, with the number of "attacking missiles" fluctuating randomly.
Sept. 26, 1983: Sunlight reflected from high-altitude clouds triggered alerts on a new Soviet satellite early warning system.
Jan. 25, 1995: Russian radar systems detect a missile coming from the Norwegian Sea. Technicians think it might be an opening nuclear salvo designed to blind Russia's radar systems, but it proves to be a scientific research rocket launched from Norway to monitor the northern lights.
SOURCE: CNN, PBS (NOVA ONLINE), NUCLEARFILES.ORG
-------- terrorism
Summer Olympics Shielded From Nuclear Terrorists
June 16, 2004
ATHENS, Greece, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2004/2004-06-16-03.asp
From the moment the 2004 Olympic Games open in Athens on August 13 to the moment they close on August 29, a multi-faceted security shield will be in place to protect athletes and their coaches, organizers and spectators from the threat of nuclear terrorism.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, has an unprecedented joint action plan in place to help ensure a high level of nuclear security at the Olympics.
The action plan is designed to protect facilities and materials, to detect illicit trafficking and malicious use of radioactive materials, and to ensure that emergency response forces are effective and efficient.
Cooperation between the IAEA, the Greek Atomic Energy Commission, and the Greek Olympics Games Security Division to provide expert advice and technical assistance followed a request for assistance from the two Greek authorities to the IAEA last summer.
The physical protection of the Demokritos nuclear research reactor, located in an Athens suburb, has been upgraded and the security of radioactive sources used at medical and industrial facilities in six Greek cities has been tightened.
Radiation detection equipment has been installed at 32 locations such as borders and other entry points into Greece, and at Olympic venues. Mobile detection equipment will be deployed elsewhere.
The Athens Olympic Sports Complex (Photos courtesy Apada) Hand-held radiation monitors are being distributed amongst the thousands of security personnel and customs officials who are providing the security for the Games.
The equipment is being deployed to detect radioactive materials that might be used as a weapon by terrorists in a radiological dispersal device, a so-called dirty bomb. Detailed information on the steps that have been taken cannot be disclosed for reasons of security, the agency said.
"There has been good cooperation with the Greek Atomic Energy Commission and with the other international partners in developing and implementing this work," said Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA. "We are collectively striving for a high measure of security and the work being undertaken should enhance the capabilities of the Greek authorities."
Much of the work in Greece has been undertaken in cooperation with IAEA Member States - with substantial support provided by the United States and France in the fields of equipment, training and technical advice.
On May 25, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham officially transferred $26 million worth of hand-held radiological detection equipment to Greek officials to support increased security for the Olympic Games. The event, held at the Ministry of Development in Athens, was part of the international cooperative effort to enhance nuclear security measures for the Olympics.
"The Department of Energy is proud to cooperate with the Greek government and the International Atomic Energy Agency to improve security for the Olympic Games," Abraham said. "It is in our interest to protect the athletes and citizens who will attend this historic event."
The Spiros Louis (Olympic) Stadium in Athens seats 74,767 people. The hand-held radiation detection pagers will be used by Greek first responders to enhance their preparedness and response in the event of a radiological incident.
The U.S. Energy Department also is providing technical support to protect against the theft of radioactive materials located within Greece that could be used for terrorist purposes during the Olympic Games and is implementing the security upgrades at the Demokritos research reactor.
About 10,500 men and women, accompanied by 5,000 trainers, physiotherapists and team leaders from nearly 200 countries will compete in 28 sports in 296 events. The organizers of the Greek games say their security systems are ready.
President of the Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (ATHOC) Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said in May, "After hosting 38 sport events in our state-of-the-art sports venues - testing our security, our operations, and human resources - we can say with confidence: we will be ready for an Olympics that will be great for the athletes and good for the Games."
----
Original Plan for 9/11 Attacks Involved 10 Planes, Panel Says
"Some of the 9/11 terrorist plans, the commission staff said, called for the hijacked jets to be crashed into the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, various nuclear power plants,..."
By DAVID STOUT
June 16, 2004
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16CND-REPORT.html?hp
WASHINGTON, June 16 - As horrendous as they were, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were only a small part of terrorist visions that called for using 10 hijacked airplanes to attack both the East and West Coasts, including the United States Capitol and the White House, the staff of the independent commission investigating the attacks reported today.
The staff also asserted that "no credible evidence" had been found that Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorists cooperated in the attacks, a conclusion likely to fuel the debate over President Bush's decision to go to war to topple Saddam Hussein.
Some of the 9/11 terrorist plans, the commission staff said, called for the hijacked jets to be crashed into the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, various nuclear power plants, and skyscrapers in California and Washington State, a captured leader of Al Qaeda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has told interrogators.
Mr. Mohammed, who is believed to have originated the idea for the Sept. 11 attacks and whose nephew, Ramzi Yousef, was the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was seized in Pakistan in March 2003 and is being held at an undisclosed location.
The reports, the 15th and 16th by the panel staff, were issued as the commission, meeting in Washington, began its last two days of public hearings. A final report is to be issued by July 26.
Today's interim report on the outline of the 9/11 plot offers new details and far more context than has previously been known. It says, for instance, that Zacarias Moussaoui, who has often been dubbed "the 20th hijacker" out of speculation that he was to have joined the 19 actual hijackers, was instead meant to participate in a "second wave" of attacks, an idea thwarted when he was arrested in August 2001 after his behavior at a Minnesota flying school aroused suspicion.
The 9/11 conspirators and their leaders, while joined in their hatred of the United States, often argued among themselves over what targets to attack, and when, the staff of the bipartisan investigating commission said.
For instance, Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda's top leader, initially pushed for a date of May 12, 2001, exactly seven months after terrorists attacked the American destroyer Cole in Yemen. Then, when he learned that Prime Minister Aeriel Sharon of Israel would visit the White House in June or July, Mr. bin Laden pressed to amend the timetable.
"In both instances," the report notes, Mr. Mohammed "insisted that the hijacker teams were not yet ready."
The plot was also riven by personality clashes and, it seems, by at least one case of cold feet. In the summer of 2001, Mohamed Atta, the operational leader of the conspiracy, drove another conspirator, Ziah Jarrah, to Miami's main airport so that Mr. Jarrah could fly to Germany to visit his girlfriend.
That Mr. Atta drove Mr. Jarrah to the airport was an "unusual circumstance suggesting that something may have been amiss," the report said. At the time, Khalid Mohammed was fretting to his fellow terrorists that if Mr. Jarrah "asks for a divorce, it is going to cost a lot of money," apparently an allusion to the costs of putting another hijacker in place.
"Given the catastrophic results of the 9/11 attacks, it is tempting to depict the plot as a set plan executed to near perfection," the staff report said. "This would be a mistake."
One apparent "failure" of the plot has been known since the day of the attacks: the Boeing 757 designated United Flight 93, which took off from Newark, crashed in a field in southwestern Pennsylvania, apparently after its hijackers struggled with the doomed passengers. (That plane is believed to have been piloted by Mr. Jarrah, who got over his case of cold feet and said good-bye to his girlfriend, and his life.) There has been conjecture ever since that the hijackers on Flight 93 meant to crash the plane into a high-profile Washington target - the White House, perhaps, or the Capitol. Another jet, hijacked after it took off from Dulles Airport, near Washington, crashed into the Pentagon, while two jetliners that were hijacked after taking off from Boston were flown into the World Trade Center, destroying the Twin Towers.
Mr. Mohammed has told interrogators that "the U.S. Capitol was indeed on the preliminary target list" that he originally developed with Al Qaeda's top leader, Osama bin Laden, and other terrorist ringleaders as early as the spring of 1999.
"That preliminary list also included the White House, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center," said the staff of the commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Mr. Mohammed "claims that while everyone agreed on the Capitol, he wanted to hit the World Trade Center, whereas bin Laden favored the Pentagon and the White House."
Among Mr. bin Laden and his confederates, the Capitol was "the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel," while the White House was considered "a political symbol."
Mr. bin Laden expressed his target preferences in the summer of 2001 to Mr. Atta, who was destined to fly a jetliner into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Had he not been able to hit the tower, Mr. Atta was determined to crash the jet he was flying into the streets of Manhattan, the report says.
Mr. Atta said he thought the White House would be too difficult a target, though it was not clear why. Better to hit the Capitol, Mr. Atta reportedly argued. "Atta selected a date after the first week of September so that the United States Congress would be in session," the report states.
As have previous staff reports on the Sept. 11 carnage, this one reveals some tantalizing "what ifs." Two of the hijackers got speeding tickets in the months before the attacks, and one was involved in a car crash on the George Washington Bridge.
There is no suggestion whatever that the police officers should have sensed that the people involved in the traffic incidents were up to something. On the other hand, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was brought to justice in part because of a traffic stop.
-------- ukraine
Ukraine announces it will continue to destroy rocket fuel
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-16/s_24934.asp
KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine will destroy thousands of tons of rocket fuel from nuclear missiles that were voluntarily decommissioned by the former Soviet republic, an official said Tuesday.
Some 5,000 tons of solid fuel stored at a chemical plant in the southeastern city of Pavlohrad will be destroyed within six years, the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted plant director Yevhen Ustimenko as saying.
"Ukraine has decided to complete this program on its own," he said.
Last year the United States pulled out of a program to help dispose of the residual solid rocket fuel, saying it was not longer in U.S. interests. President Leonid Kuchma recently issued a decree that allocated funds for the decommissioning of missile fuel, starting in 2005.
Ustimenko said that "Pavlograd alone could handle fuel from 20,000 missiles" currently scattered in depots all over the country.
With the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal, including hundreds of missiles. It later renounced nuclear weapons and transferred some 1,300 nuclear warheads to Russia for decommissioning.
Ukraine's last missile silo was destroyed two years ago.
Fearing pollution, experts from the Pavlograd plant have rejected U.S.-proposed methods of disposing rocket fuel by burning it down or blasting it with explosives, Ustimenko said.
Instead Ukrainian engineers have proposed that the fuel could be washed out from rockets using high-pressure injection of liquid.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Prevent Defense
by Michael Levi Only at TNR Online
06.16.04
https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=express&s=levi061604
No American president--including the current one--has ever made stopping the spread of nuclear weapons a singular, unqualified priority, despite frequent rhetoric to the contrary. Two weeks ago in a major foreign policy address, John Kerry said that preventing nuclear terrorism would be his highest priority as president. Given that statement, you would expect Kerry to have a broad, ambitious agenda on nuclear nonproliferation. And you would be partly right--but also badly disappointed....
----
Senate Backs New Research on A-Bombs
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
June 16, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16nukes.html
WASHINGTON, June 15 - The Senate renewed its support Tuesday for research into a new generation of nuclear weapons, overcoming opposition from Democrats who said they feared that the Bush administration had already decided to develop such arms.
In its consideration of a $447 billion Pentagon spending measure, the Senate defeated, 55 to 42, a Democratic proposal to eliminate $27.6 million for a study of a nuclear weapon capable of penetrating underground bunkers and $9 million to explore other nuclear concepts, including smaller bombs known as mini-nukes.
In a vote on another provision of the bill, the Senate agreed, 65 to 33, to add to the definition of federal hate crimes those committed because of the victim's "sexual orientation, gender or disability."
That vote set up a showdown with the House, whose own version of the bill includes no such change in the definition, which now applies to race, color, religion and national origin.
As for the research on new nuclear weapons, Republicans said that not to proceed with it would be irresponsible, given a changing nature of threats to the United States.
"Irrational rogue nations and nonstate actors have emerged as a greater threat to us," said Senator Wayne Allard, Republican of Colorado.
But Democrats, who lost a similar battle last year, said that the research would spur other nations to turn to such weapons and that even bombs exploding underground would pose risks of fallout far beyond their targets. That the administration has budgeted $485 million over five years for the so-called bunker buster is evidence that the Pentagon already intends to move beyond research, said the opponents, led by Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Dianne Feinstein of California.
Backers of the administration denied that a decision to produce the weapons had already been made, saying money was included in projections of future budgets only in case Congress gave approval.
"This is a feasibility study; it is nothing more than that," said Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma.
The House version of the legislation also provides for the research, but a House Appropriations subcommittee on nuclear issues, considering a related measure, decided last week to eliminate all money for it. (The same House panel reduced spending for the program last year, though much of the money cut was restored in later negotiations.)
Taken together, the votes in the Senate and the House have made clear that Congress will be battling over this issue throughout the summer.
The hate crimes proposal was pushed by Mr. Kennedy and Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon. Mr. Smith called the change in the definition "long overdue" and said it was relevant to the Pentagon legislation because of violent crimes that have been committed against gay members of the armed forces.
"You cannot fight terror abroad and accept terror at home," he said.
Similar measures have been passed by the Senate before but have been stripped from final bills. This time, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Smith said, they believe that the strong show of support in the vote will give them leverage in talks with the House. They also have assurances from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, that he will back the language in those negotiations on the overall bill.
Some Senate Republicans criticized the proposal, saying that it would require the authorities to try to ascertain the psychological motive for a crime and that there was no evidence that offenses against the specified groups were not being prosecuted now.
"I think it is a reach both in terms of need and in terms of the danger of criminalizing thought processes rather than actions," said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama.
----
U.S. Senate backs Bush on new nuclear weapons
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By Vicki Allen,
Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-16/s_24931.asp
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate Tuesday backed the Bush administration's plan to study a new generation of low-yield and earth-penetrating nuclear weapons, rejecting concerns that the research could spur an arms race.
Voting 55-42, the Senate defeated an amendment pushed by Democrats to slash $36.6 million to study so-called bunker-busting nuclear weapons that would be used to destroy underground facilities as well as smaller nuclear arms with half the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The administration has said it has no plans to build such weapons but wants to keep the door open to their development to deal with emerging threats. It successfully pushed Congress last year to repeal a 10-year-old ban on researching low-yield weapons of less than 5 kilotons.
Democrats said just considering the new weapons takes nuclear warfare out of the realm of the unthinkable and encourages adversaries of the United States to develop such weapons.
"The specter of nuclear war looms even larger with the ominous statements of senior officials in the Bush administration that they in fact consider these new weapons more 'usable,"' said Sen. Edward Kennedy.
The Massachusetts Democrat said the smaller weapons still would kill or injure hundreds of thousands of people and leave vast areas uninhabitable for years to come.
But Republican Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado said it would be irresponsible "for us to bury our head in the sand" and not consider these weapons to confront terrorism and threats from rogue nations.
The vote came as the Senate debated a bill to authorize $422 billion in defense programs for next year and an additional $25 billion to fund operations in Iraq.
The version of the bill the House passed last month contained the weapons research money. But lawmakers will continue to tangle over the issue in bills they will consider later this summer to fund nuclear weapons programs.
"With this research, and I stress research, we may be able to solve the complex engineering challenges and identify capabilities for both nuclear and conventional weapons to address the evolving tactical challenges," said Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, disputed that the administration's call for a five-year, $485 million effort on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator would be just a feasibility study. She said it would lead to engineering and development of the weapon, intended to be about 100 kilotons, that would burrow deep into the ground before exploding.
"This ramp-up in funding can mean one thing and one thing only: the administration is determined to develop and deploy a new generation of nuclear weapons," Feinstein said.
She and other Democrats also said pursuing such weapons would undermine U.S. efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons among other countries.
"This country ought to be leading in exactly the other direction," said Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Senate OKs Measure to Aid Weapons Workers
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
Associated Press Writer
June 16, 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-weapons-workers,0,4645557.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
WASHINGTON -- The Senate approved a plan Wednesday to have the government, not federal contractors, compensate Cold War-era nuclear weapons workers sickened from exposure to toxic substances while on the job.
The amendment to the Senate defense bill also would transfer the program to the Labor Department. Lawmakers had complained that the Energy Department, in its administration of the $100 million program, has paid out only $140,000 in claims over the past four years.
"It became clear that the program has not been working as intended and this measure will help correct the situation," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The Energy Department now helps present and former workers at its weapons plants file claims for lost wages and medical expenses under state compensation programs, but relies on contractors who operated the plants to pay them.
Some of those contractors are no longer in business. Others have purchased worker's compensation insurance from private companies. The government has no power to compel those insurers to pay claims.
Under the Senate plan, approved by a voice vote, the government would pay the claims once it has evidence a worker's illness was job-related. Payments would be based on compensation laws in states where claimants worked.
Most of the nearly 25,000 claims the Energy Department has received are from people who worked at weapons-making facilities in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.
"Many of these workers are dying and should not have to wait even longer for the Department of Energy to get its act together to process and pay the valid claims in a timely manner," said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.
The House-passed defense bill makes smaller changes to the program, such as raising fees paid to medical experts who review claims, but keeps it in the Energy Department.
On the Net:
Energy Department Program: http://www.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/prog_stats/index.html
----
Duke's plan to test nuclear fuel brings mixed reviews
Weapons plutonium involved; further opposition to be heard
BRUCE HENDERSON,
Charlotte Observer
Wed, Jun. 16, 2004
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/8933271.htm?1c
Duke Power's plan to test nuclear fuel containing surplus weapons plutonium drew a smattering of public comments Tuesday during a meeting of a federal licensing board.
Later this summer, the licensing board named by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hear detailed arguments against Duke's plan. If the board recommends approval of the plan, Duke would begin testing the mixed-oxide or MOX fuel at its Catawba nuclear plant on Lake Wylie next spring.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, an advocacy group, contends the MOX fuel is dangerous and will attract terrorists. Duke says the fuel's safety has been proven by decades of use in European reactors.
The dozen speakers Tuesday, including several Duke retirees or former employees and two Blue Ridge leaders, divided almost evenly for and against the plan.
The Rev. Marshall Schenck of Charlotte was affiliated with neither side. Schenck had questions. He wanted to know how the plutonium-blend fuel will be transported into the area and whether it will be safe from terrorists.
"If it's about progress, I'm all for it," Schenck, associate pastor of Mount Moriah Primitive Baptist Church, said later. "But there are questions about this material. Is it going to be safe and secure? That's what I'm all about."
Tony Capranica of Huntersville, a former Duke employee who now moves nuclear fuel as a contractor, expressed no reservations about the safety of the tests.
"When it comes right down to it," he said, "I cast my vote 16 years ago when I bought my house" within five miles of Duke's McGuire nuclear plant.
If the tests win NRC approval, Duke would place four MOX fuel assemblies among 189 assemblies of conventional fuel at Catawba. The tests are intended to verify the safety of full-scale use of the new fuel at the Catawba and McGuire plants, expected to begin in 2009.
The NRC filed a safety evaluation of the test plan in April. An analysis of environmental effects will be produced before a final decision on the plan is issued.
Blue Ridge will argue its opposition to the tests on technical grounds before the licensing board next month. In September it will present arguments on security issues.
----
Nuke growth seen as industry turns 50
By Dave Copeland
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/business/s_199011.html
Rapidly escalating natural gas prices have brought on a resurgence in the nuclear industry, which could have the next generation of nuclear power plants up and running by 2014, industry executives and engineers said Tuesday.
The nuclear industry is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Pittsburgh this week at the 50th annual meeting of the LaGrange Park, Ill.-based American Nuclear Society, which is being billed as "A Golden Anniversary -- A Golden Opportunity." Yesterday, officials talked about opportunities to increase the industry's 20 percent share of the domestic energy generation market with new technologies.
"There are forecasts that the world's population could double in the next 50 years, and that means energy demand could double, or even triple, during that time," said Dan Keuter, a vice president with Entergy Nuclear. "We're probably going to use more energy in the next 50 years than we have in all of mankind's history."
Entergy is part of an 11-company consortium called NuStart Energy Development LLC that is working on developing the next generation of nuclear plants. The consortium includes Monroeville-based Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC, and is one of three groups working under the U.S. Department of Energy's Power 2010 program, which could add as much as 26,000 megawatts of new nuclear generation capacity by 2025.
NuStart could make a final decision on the new plant's location in 2007, and it will more than likely be located on the site of an existing plant to minimize environmental impacts. Construction could start in 2010, and NuStart would like the new plant up and running by 2014.
NuStart member Exelon Nuclear has filed for an early application permit with the nuclear Regulatory Commission for its Clinton, Ill., nuclear reactor site. Entergy also has filed for an early application permit for its site in Port Gibson, Miss.
Early site permits allow specific locations to be approved for building new reactors without a company committing to building a new plant or using a specific reactor design.
Central to NuStart's new plant design will be Westinghouse's AP 1000 reactor, an update of the company's reactor technology that is in widespread use around the world. Jack Allen, a senior vice president for Westinghouse, said the new reactor increases output by 80 percent but cost by only 20 percent when compared to its predecessor.
With natural gas prices increasing, "U.S. power companies are exploring all alternatives for energy generation, particularly nuclear and coal," Allen said. "We believe we play a key role there."
NuStart, which has asked the Department of Energy for $400 million in federal, matching funding, is also working on a second reactor prototype. The gas-powered reactor also would produce hydrogen fuel, but a demonstration project of that technology is not expected until 2015 at the earliest.
Dave Copeland can be reached at dcopeland@t... or (412) 320-7922.
--------
Senate OKs Measure to Aid Weapons Workers
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47197-2004Jun16.html
WASHINGTON - The Senate approved a plan Wednesday to have the government, not federal contractors, compensate Cold War-era nuclear weapons workers sickened from exposure to toxic substances while on the job.
The amendment to the Senate defense bill also would transfer the program to the Labor Department. Lawmakers had complained that the Energy Department, in its administration of the $100 million program, has paid out only $140,000 in claims over the past four years.
"It became clear that the program has not been working as intended and this measure will help correct the situation," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The Energy Department now helps present and former workers at its weapons plants file claims for lost wages and medical expenses under state compensation programs, but relies on contractors who operated the plants to pay them.
Some of those contractors are no longer in business. Others have purchased worker's compensation insurance from private companies. The government has no power to compel those insurers to pay claims.
Under the Senate plan, approved by a voice vote, the government would pay the claims once it has evidence a worker's illness was job-related. Payments would be based on compensation laws in states where claimants worked.
Most of the nearly 25,000 claims the Energy Department has received are from people who worked at weapons-making facilities in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.
"Many of these workers are dying and should not have to wait even longer for the Department of Energy to get its act together to process and pay the valid claims in a timely manner," said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.
The House-passed defense bill makes smaller changes to the program, such as raising fees paid to medical experts who review claims, but keeps it in the Energy Department.
On the Net:
Energy Department Program:
http://www.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/prog-stats/index.html
Labor Department Program:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/owcp/eeoicp/main.htm
-------- nevada
Nuclear Waste Panel Warns of Hot Storage at Yucca Mountain
June 16, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2004/2004-06-16-04.asp
Plans to store high-level nuclear waste deep under Yucca Mountain at temperatures greater than the boiling point of water have caused the scientific group charged with reviewing the repository's development to raise red flags.
In its latest report to Congress, made public on June 8, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board warns that if the Department of Energy (DOE) implements its current high temperature repository design, the waste packages will corrode and release radiation into the environment.
"Because of the seriousness of these corrosion concerns, the Board strongly urges the DOE to reexamine the current repository design and proposed operation," the group states. "The Board believes that the high temperatures of the current design and operation will result in perforation of the waste packages, with possible release of radionuclides."
The 10 member Board was created as an independent federal agency by Congress in the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act to evaluate the technical and scientific validity of the DOE's efforts to develop a system for disposing of the nation's high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
During the time covered in this report, January through December 2003, the Board was chaired by Dr. Michael Corradini, who also chairs the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Corradini resigned on January 12, 2004, leaving the Board without a chairman until a replacement is appointed by the President.
Dr. Mark Abkowitz at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Daniel Bullen of Iowa State University, Dr. Thure Cerling of the University of Utah, Dr. Norman L. Christensen, Jr. of Duke University, Dr. Paul Craig of the University of California-Davis, Dr. David Duquette of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Dr. Debra Knopman of the RAND Corporation, Dr. Ronald Latanision of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Priscilla Nelson of the National Science Foundation, and Dr. Richard Parizek of Pennsylvania State University were all members of the Board at some time during 2003 and their names are on the report.
Dr. Knopman resigned in January 2003, Dr. Craig resigned in January 2004, and Dr. Bullen resigned in May 2004, which leaves the Board with just six members at this time.
In its latest report to Congress, the Board says that in the year following Congress's approval of the Yucca Mountain site for development of a repository in July 2002, the Board focused on evaluating the DOE's analysis of how corrosion-resistant its Alloy 22 waste package was likely to be.
Alloy 22 contains chromium, molybdenum, and tungsten and controlled iron, and is resistant to both oxidizing and reducing acid environments as well as those containing mixed acids. It is used in the chemical processing, pollution control, flue gas desulfurization, waste incineration, and pulp and paper processing industries.
But the Board expressed detailed concerns about corrosion of the alloy in the high temperature environment proposed for storing the nuclear waste. "Localized corrosion processes are particularly insidious because initiation is difficult to predict and propagation rates can be very rapid," the Board states in its report.
"Data emerging both from the DOE's Yucca Mountain Project and from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA) suggest to the Board that crevice corrosion of Alloy 22 is likely to begin during the thermal pulse - the first thousand years after repository closure."
By law, the high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain must not release radiation for at least 10,000 years.
The Board warned that corrosion would form in the crevices of the waste packages even at temperatures below the peak temperatures on the waste package surface expected in the DOE's proposed repository design.
"Crevice corrosion, a form of localized corrosion, initiated during the thermal pulse is likely to propagate during the remainder of the thermal pulse and also is likely to continue even after the thermal pulse has passed," wrote the Board.
Work at the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses and elsewhere indicates to the Board that welds and thermal treatment - aging - increase susceptibility to crevice corrosion.
The DOE's modified waste package design has both welded areas, such as closure welds, and many other features that offer opportunities for crevice formation, the Board warned and recommended that the waste packages be redesigned to reduce or eliminate areas of increased susceptibility to localized corrosion.
In its report, the Board noted that the DOE believes that the conditions in the repository would not promote significant corrosion. The DOE points to data, gathered using thermogravimetric apparatus (TGA), to demonstrate that the conditions necessary to initiate localized corrosion will be present only briefly.
But after evaluating these data the Board "found them inadequate to support the DOE's claim."
The materials used in the DOE corrosion tests were not representative of those that would actually be present in the repository, and the tests were run only over narrow ranges of temperature and relative humidity, the Board complained.
"The experimental apparatus is an 'open' system that may not approximate short-term behavior of the microenvironment associated with crevices," the Board wrote, and in addition, "The results of other experiments conducted by the DOE seem contradictory."
The Board said that it "believes that total system performance assessment should not be used to dismiss these corrosion concerns."
The report repeatedly advises the Energy Department to rethink its high temperature repository design, relying in part on visits made by Board members to Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Britain in October 2003.
"Of the countries visited by the Board that have looked at repository design issues, none proposes keeping temperatures at or above boiling for as long as the DOE proposes," the report states.
The Board pointed out that Belgium changed its repository design to avoid keeping the waste at such high temperatures. "In changing its reference design from a high to a low temperature, the Belgian program noted that, if temperatures are kept below boiling, it will be simpler, easier, and less complicated to understand natural processes and the behavior of materials and to make predictions."
"The experience of the Belgians illustrates that repository designs and operations can and will evolve. Such evolution is to be expected. Because pressure to build a repository is not strong in this country, the changes do not appear to be viewed as a failure of or a roadblock to the program. Rather, the changes seem to be part of an incremental learning process of developing a design that is both safe and implementable," the Board wrote.
During 2003, the Board also examined the DOE's efforts to increase confidence in its estimates of repository performance, the DOE's plans for developing a system to transport high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel from sites where those materials are currently stored to Yucca Mountain, the DOE's analysis of seismicity issues associated with repository design, and the DOE's projections of the consequences for waste isolation and containment of igneous activity at Yucca Mountain.
Read the entire Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board 2003 report online at: http://www.nwtrb.gov
--------
Lawmakers Tackle Nuclear Project Budget
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47033-2004Jun16.html
WASHINGTON - The proposal for a nuclear waste site in Nevada took a tiny step forward Wednesday as House members tried to resolve a budget problem that threatens to dramatically curtail work.
The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved legislation that would send a steady stream of money for the Yucca Mountain waste project over the next five years, so the facility could open on schedule in 2010.
But Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the bill's sponsor, acknowledged there's no assurance the bill will get through the House and it's likely to run into trouble in the Senate. The full committee was expected to take up the bill next week, Barton said.
Meanwhile, proposed spending for the Yucca Mountain project for the 2005 fiscal year beginning in October has been set at only $131 million, well short of the $880 million requested by the Bush administration. At that spending level the program will be thrown into turmoil, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman for the drafting of the spending bill that includes the Yucca program, said he could find no additional money because the administration linked $749 million of its request with congressional approval of Barton's legislation.
The Barton bill approved by a voice vote in the subcommittee Wednesday would require that at least $750 million a year collected over the next five years for the nuclear waste fund must be spent on the Yucca project.
The fund was created in 1982 specifically to pay for development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility. The money comes from a one-tenth of a penny per kilowatt assessment on users of electricity generated by nuclear reactors.
The fund "has been cannibalized over the years to pay for unrelated federal programs (and) ... to pay down the national debt," Barton said.
Barton acknowledged that the legislation would apply only to future revenue and not require drawing on the $15 billion the fund already has collected.
Attempts to tinker with the way Congress uses the fund have been unsuccessful in the past and are expected to run into trouble again. Some lawmakers believe at most a one-year fix of the problem - enough to assure continue funding of the Yucca project next fiscal year - may be all that will be possible.
While Barton expressed optimism about getting his bill through the House and clearing the way for more spending on Yucca Mountain, he acknowledged problems in the Senate.
It was "unlikely" that similar legislation would have much of a chance in the Senate given the strong opposition to the Yucca Mountain project by Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who as the second-ranking Democrat could find ways to block it, Barton told reporters.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was talking with administration officials about ways to get more money for Yucca Mountain in the Senate, but has conceded it could be "very, very difficult."
The government wants to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste - used reactor fuel now held at power plants in 31 states as well as defense waste - at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Next year has been described as pivotal for the program since the Energy Department will begin the process for getting a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and developing a transportation plan for the waste.
Margaret Chu, director of the DOE office that heads the program, has told lawmakers that if it does not get the full $880 million it would be impossible to meet the 2010 deadline for accepting the first load of waste.
-------- new mexico
NRC hears comments about proposed factory near Eunice NM
06/16/2004
Associated Press
http://kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=11677&cat=BUSINESS
(Hobbs-AP) -- Attorneys for the state and for activist groups want to know how a company planning to build a uranium enrichment factory near Eunice would dispose of its radioactive waste.
A three-person panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a hearing in Hobbs Tuesday as part of the license application process by Louisiana Energy Services.
State officials worry that without a plan for long-term disposal, New Mexico might get stuck with the waste after the factory's 30-year life span ends.
An attorney for the state Environment Department, Tannis Fox, says the company has not proposed a plausible strategy for the disposal of depleted uranium.
A company attorney says the waste plans are sufficient for the NRC to grant a license for the factory.
-------- north carolina
Few concerns expressed during MOX fuel hearing
By Erica Pippins
The Herald
June 16‚ 2004
http://www.heraldonline.com/local/story/3645944p-3248424c.html
CHARLOTTE -- Area residents had the opportunity Tuesday to tell federal regulators how they feel about Duke Energy's request to use weapons-grade plutonium as fuel at the Catawba Nuclear Station.
Not even a handful showed up.
A three-person panel from the Atomic Safety Licensing Board held public meetings to get feedback from people about Duke's desire to amend the operating license of the plant on Lake Wylie to allow the use of mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel. The two sessions took place in a mostly empty ballroom at the Omni Hotel in downtown Charlotte.
The sparse crowd of roughly 20 people was primarily made up of Duke Energy officials and Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League supporters. During the first two-hour meeting, only four people came forward to make statements to the panel, none from York County. But people also had a chance to submit their comments in writing prior to the meetings.
MOX fuel contains a mix of plutonium and uranium oxides. Duke has submitted a request to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to use MOX as part of a U.S.-Russian test program to dispose of surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons. The plutonium will be converted into MOX fuel and used in nuclear power reactors.
Testing would take place in 2005. If approved, Duke wouldn't start using the fuel in its reactors until 2008.
"It's not unusual for Duke Energy to go through public meetings and hearings. We are used to it and respect the process," said Duke spokeswoman Rose Cummings. "We believe in the project and there is a lot of good science behind it."
But the Rev. Marshall Schenck, who heard about the sessions on the morning news, said he came because he had a lot of unanswered questions. For instance, how will the fuel be transported? How will the company ensure that "it doesn't fall into the hands of local terrorists?," he asked, adding that he was surprised more community leaders hadn't turned out to pose similar questions.
"When you are moving material like that around central Charlotte and the surrounding areas, there are some real safety concerns," said Schenck, an associate minister at Mount Moriah Primitive Baptist Church in Charlotte. "I don't have that much confidence in anyone."
'Sounds scary'
But Mike Tuckman, Duke's former executive vice president and chief nuclear officer, said the MOX fuel would contain only a relatively small amount of plutonium. He said federal guards would accompany all transports to the Catawba Nuclear Station.
"Using weapons-grade plutonium is a new technique, and I understand that it sounds scary to some people," said Tuckman, who recently retired and owns a cabin on the North Carolina side of Lake Wylie about three miles from the plant. "But we've been working on this for several years looking at all aspects, including safety. We would not be recommending this unless it was a good program."
Not everyone, agrees, however.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League has long opposed the use of MOX fuel at the Catawba plant or Duke's McGuire Nuclear Station in Huntersville, N.C. The league recently presented information from the French Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire showing that MOX fuel rods fail at lower temperatures than traditional uranium fuel rods.
"I know the company says there are financial incentives to the program," said Louis Zeller, safe energy campaign director for the league. "But how much are those savings worth? Are they more important to the people of Charlotte and Rock Hill than their safety?"
Erica Pippins • 329-4072
epippins@heraldonline.com
-------- vermont
State raises questions about Yankee uprate
By SUSAN SMALLHEER,
Jun. 16, 2004
Rutland Herald
http://www.rutlandherald.com/04/Story/85259.html
The Douglas administration has raised questions about the safety of several key areas with Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's plan to increase power.
The Department of Public Service has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission not to rely on the calculations done by Entergy Nuclear engineers, but to do its own, independent calculations into the safety of Yankee's cracked steam dryer, the anticipated increase in vibration in the piping throughout the plant due to increased steam flows, and containment overpressure in the reactor.
Additionally, the department said the potential release of additional radiation from the plant, in the event of an accident, because of the proposed changes, was unacceptable.
The steam dryer and pipe vibration have been trouble spots at other nuclear reactors in Illinois that have undergone similar power increases.
"Vermont asks that NRC perform independent calculations in three areas to confirm the adequacy of the proposed uprate," wrote David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service, the state's liaison with the federal agency.
O'Brien sent a second letter last week, opposing a key request of Entergy's uprate plan, that could ultimately increase the release of radiation in the event of an emergency at Vermont Yankee.
"Doubling the allowable leakage would mean potentially exposing Vermonters to twice as much radioactive leakage from the main steam isolation valves in the event of a design basis loss-of-coolant accident," O'Brien wrote."Exposing Vermonters to this increased potential is unnecessary and undesirable," O'Brien wrote.
The uprate changes would increase the radiation dose at the fence line surrounding the plant.
O'Brien asked the NRC to provide information about the increased risks to Vermonters. At the same time, the Public Service Board, the quasi-judicial board that hears utility matters, scheduled a conference with the NRC on the power boost, specifically to address whether the NRC's announcement of a 4,000-hour engineering assessment would satisfy the board's conditional approval of the so-called power uprate.
Susan Hudson, clerk of the Public Service Board, said the hearing conference on June 28 would allow the board to ask NRC officials questions about the extent of the engineering assessment that it announced last month it would do.
The Public Service Board granted Entergy Nuclear a state certificate of public good for the power increase, but conditioned it on what it called "an independent engineering assessment."
"The purpose of the meeting is to allow the NRC to describe the regulatory process and the new engineering inspection," Hudson said, noting that the board had not made any final decision on whether it would accept the new NRC inspection program.
A spokesman for the NRC, Neil Sheehan, said two top-level NRC officials from Washington would explain the first-in-the-country engineering assessment.
"In the case of the Vermont Yankee inspection, it will include components from multiple systems that are potentially affected by a power uprate, such as the emergency core cooling systems, the containment system, power conversion systems and auxiliary systems," Sheehan said.
He said the regular review will involve three weeks of on-site inspection and more than 700 hours of direct inspection time. At this point, he said, the on-site inspection work is tentatively planned for August.
Robert Williams, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, downplayed the significance of the two letters from the state about the uprate review and the upcoming hearing conference.
"This type of communication is part of the oversight process," Williams said. "We stand ready to provide any additional information."
The Public Service Board, by federal law, cannot consider safety issues because of a federal pre-emption. Its domain is economic and environmental issues. The NRC has sole responsibility for evaluating safety issues.
William Sherman, the state's nuclear engineer with the Department of Public Service, said the letters to the NRC were a follow-up on letters the department had written late last year. The state has yet to receive an answer from federal regulators on several key issues.
He said the two letters identified key technical issues that were emerging on the power increase.
Sherman said the state was concerned about the adequacy of the steam dryer, which was discovered to have 20 cracks this spring; only two were serious enough to require repairs.
The steam dryer, technically not a safety component, could crack and break, sending a piece down a pipe, compromising other safety components.
Almost two months ago, the NRC discovered that two pieces of a highly radioactive fuel rod were missing and unaccounted for at Vermont Yankee. That discovery had led to increased scrutiny and criticism of Vermont Yankee, particularly by Vermont's congressional delegation and Gov. James Douglas. Officials believe the fuel rod pieces, recently described by Entergy as bigger than originally thought, as 9 and 17 inches long.
The leading critic of Entergy Nuclear's plans said the Douglas administration was a Johnny-come-lately to the problems behind the uprate, noting that the department had long opposed any additional engineering or safety review by the NRC of the power increase.
"Basically, they hear the pitter-patter of little ballots coming up behind them," said Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor with the anti-nuclear New England Coalition.
"Anything that the state does to get NRC to do better work and more work on this case is good," he said.
But Shadis said the state made a mistake when it asked that the NRC include those three potential problem areas in its new engineering assessment. Those calculations should be made in addition to the engineering assessment, he said.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
-------- washington
[To reply: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/opinions/static/letter]
Hanford B Reactor endangered
Tri-City Herald
Wednesday, June 16th, 2004
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/opinions/story/5198172p-5131188c.html
Hanford's B Reactor making the list of the Washington's most endangered historic sites prompts mixed feelings.
The attention brought by being included on the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation's annual list is welcome, but it's maddening that the reactor is endangered in the first place.
The idea of knocking down the plant and burying the rubble is akin to cutting up the USS Missouri for scrap. The Japanese may have formally surrendered on the decks of the Mighty Mo, but the last weapon used in the Pacific was forged in B Reactor's core.
It was the world's first full-scale reactor, playing a direct role in the Cold War by producing plutonium until 1968, and an indirect role ever after as the technological parent of the arms race.
So the forces that eventually toppled the Berlin Wall were set in motion at the Hanford Engineering Works during World War II.
In other words, B Reactor was key to victories in the two major conflicts of the American century. That's fact, not hyperbole.
It's unthinkable that the plant might still be on the historical group's endangered list in 2005. Preservation of this amazing artifact ought to be guaranteed long before then.
-------- us nuc waste
Lawmakers Tackle Nuclear Project Budget
H. JOSEF HEBERT
Wed, Jun. 16, 2004
Associated Press
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/8938418.htm?1c
WASHINGTON - The proposal for a nuclear waste site in Nevada took a tiny step forward Wednesday as House members tried to resolve a budget problem that threatens to dramatically curtail work.
The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved legislation that would send a steady stream of money for the Yucca Mountain waste project over the next five years, so the facility could open on schedule in 2010.
But Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the bill's sponsor, acknowledged there's no assurance the bill will get through the House and it's likely to run into trouble in the Senate. The full committee was expected to take up the bill next week, Barton said.
Meanwhile, proposed spending for the Yucca Mountain project for the 2005 fiscal year beginning in October has been set at only $131 million, well short of the $880 million requested by the Bush administration. At that spending level the program will be thrown into turmoil, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman for the drafting of the spending bill that includes the Yucca program, said he could find no additional money because the administration linked $749 million of its request with congressional approval of Barton's legislation.
The Barton bill approved by a voice vote in the subcommittee Wednesday would require that at least $750 million a year collected over the next five years for the nuclear waste fund must be spent on the Yucca project.
The fund was created in 1982 specifically to pay for development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility. The money comes from a one-tenth of a penny per kilowatt assessment on users of electricity generated by nuclear reactors.
The fund "has been cannibalized over the years to pay for unrelated federal programs (and) ... to pay down the national debt," Barton said.
Barton acknowledged that the legislation would apply only to future revenue and not require drawing on the $15 billion the fund already has collected.
Attempts to tinker with the way Congress uses the fund have been unsuccessful in the past and are expected to run into trouble again. Some lawmakers believe at most a one-year fix of the problem - enough to assure continue funding of the Yucca project next fiscal year - may be all that will be possible.
While Barton expressed optimism about getting his bill through the House and clearing the way for more spending on Yucca Mountain, he acknowledged problems in the Senate.
It was "unlikely" that similar legislation would have much of a chance in the Senate given the strong opposition to the Yucca Mountain project by Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who as the second-ranking Democrat could find ways to block it, Barton told reporters.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was talking with administration officials about ways to get more money for Yucca Mountain in the Senate, but has conceded it could be "very, very difficult."
The government wants to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste - used reactor fuel now held at power plants in 31 states as well as defense waste - at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Next year has been described as pivotal for the program since the Energy Department will begin the process for getting a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and developing a transportation plan for the waste.
Margaret Chu, director of the DOE office that heads the program, has told lawmakers that if it does not get the full $880 million it would be impossible to meet the 2010 deadline for accepting the first load of waste.
--------
Senior Official Resigns From Energy Dept.
Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44704-2004Jun15.html
Assistant Energy Secretary Jessie Roberson, who headed the environmental cleanup program at the department's nuclear weapons sites, resigned yesterday, citing a desire to spend more time with her family.
Roberson's accelerated agenda for cleaning up weapons sites has been criticized by some state officials and environmentalists as an attempt by the Energy Department to scale back cleanup standards and saddle states with more of the highly radioactive waste.
Her resignation is the third by a senior Energy Department official closely involved in nuclear waste cleanup or environmental management in just over two months. Undersecretary Robert Card, the department's No. 3 official, who was closely involved in nuclear waste issues, and Assistant Secretary Beverly Cook, who reported to Card and was in charge of environmental and health management at nuclear complex sites, resigned in early April after tangling with Congress over a worker health issue.
According to DOE spokesman Joe Davis, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told Roberson that, in three years at the job, she had "fundamentally changed the management" of the waste-cleanup effort.
Roberson was appointed to the post after working for the Energy Department office that oversees the cleanup of the Rocky Flats nuclear site in Colorado.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Bomb Hits NATO Vehicle in Afghanistan
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46267-2004Jun16?language=printer
KABUL, Afghanistan - A bomb hit a car used by NATO-led peacekeepers in northern Afghanistan Wednesday, killing four civilians including two children, police said.
The attack came a week after 11 Chinese workers were shot in their beds in the same province, and a day after President Bush lauded Afghanistan as the "first victory in the war on terror."
Police said the bomb showered shrapnel on the SUV as it passed through a busy market in Kunduz, 150 miles north of the capital, Kabul.
"A mine was detonated on the edge of the road by remote control," Kunduz police chief Mutaleb Beg said. "The driver lost control and ran the car into a wall."
The Afghan driver, as well as two children about 10 and an elderly man who were passers-by, were killed, Beg said. Another youngster was injured, he said.
A spokesman for the peacekeepers, squadron leader Sean McFetrich, said the vehicle was clearly marked with the international force's green insignia and German flags.
He denied Beg's suggestion that it was part of a military convoy from the 250-strong German contingent, which patrols the region. He said the car was being taken to a local garage for servicing when the attack occurred.
Insurgents, active mainly in the south and east of Afghanistan, have vowed to sabotage the country's first post-Taliban national vote later this year and appear to be expanding into the relatively stable north.
The bloodshed is hampering U.N. efforts to register voters in the south and east, but both the U.S. military and President Hamid Karzai say the vote should go ahead as planned in September.
Kunduz is the only place outside the Afghan capital where the 6,400-strong NATO-led security force has a presence, though it plans to set up at least five more so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams in time for the elections.
NATO nations have been slow to pledge extra soldiers and equipment for the rollout, but the force's commander said Wednesday he expected an order to send troops to the areas around the northern cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Maymana.
"I do believe it's still possible to set the conditions for elections here," Lt. Gen. Rick Hillier said.
The 11 Chinese road workers and an Afghan guard were killed June 10 in Kunduz province in the worst attack on foreign civilians since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
Five members of medical relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, including three Europeans, were fatally shot in the remote northwest on June 2.
Another explosion early Wednesday damaged the office of Afghanaid, a British relief agency, in Faizabad in northeastern Badakhshan province, slightly injuring an Afghan guard.
Meanwhile, militants fired about 10 rockets at its soldiers in southeastern Khost province, causing no injuries or damage, a U.S. military spokesman said.
Khost is on the border with Pakistan's Waziristan tribal region, where a major army operation against al-Qaida suspects last week killed at least 72 people, including 55 militants.
On Wednesday, more than 70 militants firing rockets raided a Pakistani military post, triggering a gunbattle that left at least two militants and one soldier dead. Pakistan's army said scores of militants were wounded.
Hundreds of foreign al-Qaida-linked and Taliban militants are still believed to be hiding in Pakistan's rugged tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. They are thought to include Arabs, Central Asians and Afghans.
Cross-border attacks have stoked violence in which more than 500 people have died across Afghanistan this year, including government officials, Afghan and foreign soldiers and scores of suspected militants.
Karzai joined Bush in Washington on Tuesday to highlight Afghanistan's progress in what is an election year for both men.
Despite a boom in opium and heroin production and the deteriorating security situation, Bush gave an upbeat assessment.
"Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world," Bush said. But he added: "The road ahead for Afghanistan is still long and difficult."
-------- arms
U.S. concerned by Israel, Russia arms dealings with China
By Reuters
Wed., June 16, 2004
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/439538.html
WASHINGTON - The United States would face an increasingly lethal Chinese army modernized by Washington's friends and allies if it had to defend Taiwan in a war with Beijing, said a U.S. study released yesterday. Russia's arms exports to China are more sophisticated than ever, and Israel - recipient of some of America's most advanced technology - has an increasingly worrisome defense relationship with Beijing, the report said.
Moreover, if the European Union lifts its arms embargo on China as some members want, that could "dramatically enhance China's military capability," added the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Echoing a recent Pentagon study, the commission said China's military capabilities "increasingly appear to be shaped to fit a Taiwan conflict scenario and to target U.S. air and naval forces that could become involved." China views Taiwan as a rebel province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
The commission expressed concern that political attitudes across the Taiwan Strait had "hardened" and recommended the United States take a fresh look at its "one China" policy, which recognizes the mainland and Taiwan are part of one China, but leaves the meaning ambiguous.
The commission, created by the U.S. Congress in 2000, said a key to China's modernization had been "extensive" acquisitions of foreign military technologies, with Russia as the top supplier and Israel as No. 2.
Compared with the early 1990s, recent Russian arms exports showed an "alarming increase in lethality and sophistication," the report said.
As for Israel, commission vice chair, Dick D'Amato, told Reuters that while Washington had made "strenuous" efforts to restrain it from selling to China, "there's still not the level of cooperation and assurance that has relieved our concerns. We're very worried about this relationship."
Israel annually receives $3 billion in U.S. aid, including advanced technology. Criticism of Israel is sensitive in the United States, its leading ally.
The report said Israel in 2003 assured Washington it would not sell items to China that could harm U.S. security.
But the commission "understands that Israel has offered training facilities, including one for urban warfare, to train China's security forces for the Olympics."
In the past year, "reports indicate Israeli firms have discussed a range of projects with China, including export of sensor and observation systems, security fences, microwave and optics, training, metal detectors and packages for airport and vital facilities security," the commission said.
-------- business
Pentagon Waste in Iraq May Total Billions, Investigators Say
By T. Christian Miller
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 16, 2004
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes194.htm
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon may have wasted billions of dollars in Iraq because of a lack of planning and poor oversight, top congressional and Defense Department investigators said Tuesday.
David M. Walker, head of the General Accounting Office, told a congressional panel that Defense Department planners had failed to adequately determine the needs of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and to effectively oversee the billions of dollars' worth of contracts issued.
Though Pentagon officials blame any mistakes on the pressure of the war's early days, the investigators said they had found ongoing waste in the contracting process a year after the invasion was launched in March 2003. In remarks to reporters, Walker speculated that the total losses from waste could amount to "billions."
"There are serious problems, they still exist and they are exacerbated in a wartime climate," Walker told members of the House Government Reform Committee, which is charged with preventing waste, fraud and abuse in the government.
Tuesday's testimony by the GAO, Congress' investigative arm, and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the Pentagon's auditor, presented the most complete picture to date of the U.S. military's decision to pay private contractors billions of dollars to help wage the war and rebuild Iraq.
Though much of the contracting was done well, the agencies said, military contract managers and the companies they oversaw were frequently overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tasks in Iraq.
The agencies singled out a contract awarded to Halliburton Co. - a Houston-based oil services giant that supplies food, housing and other logistics services to the military - as a particularly egregious example of both poor oversight by the government and overcharging by the company.
For example, a GAO report says, the military did not develop adequate plans to support its troops in Iraq until May 2003, two months after the invasion, when Halliburton was ordered to supply more dining facilities and housing. Since then, Halliburton's contract to supply the troops in Kuwait and Iraq has been adjusted by the Army more than 176 times, or more than once every two days.
In addition, reservists with no more than two weeks' training were overseeing the contract at one point, said Neal Curtin, the GAO director charged with investigating Halliburton and other companies with logistics contracts. Even now, the Pentagon has only twice as many overseers monitoring contracts in Iraq as it did in Bosnia-Herzegovina, although it is spending 15 times as much money.
Other U.S. government actions also came under fire Tuesday.
The GAO found that most of the biggest contracts awarded without bidding in the early days of the war were justified by their emergency nature. But in some instances, the investigators said, Pentagon officers overstepped their authority by issuing billion-dollar jobs under existing contracts without putting the work out to bid, as required by law.
Pentagon procurement officials said significant progress had been made in Iraq, with new bridges, water systems and power stations up and running. But they acknowledged that mistakes were made, especially in the aftermath of the invasion.
"Have we accomplished this tremendous mission without missteps? No, we have not," said Tina Ballard, the Army's head of contracting.
As for Halliburton, which has Iraq contracts worth up to a total of $18.2 billion, Pentagon auditors believe the company has been billing taxpayers for millions of meals never served to U.S. troops. The auditors have recommended that the government withhold nearly $200 million in payments until the dispute is settled.
In a related development, the Army recently renegotiated a contract Halliburton had with a Kuwaiti company to provide meals. By contracting directly with the Kuwaiti company, the Army cut 40% off the cost.
"Halliburton is a company whose business base expanded extremely rapidly" after it won contracts for work in Iraq, said Bill Reed, the head of the audit agency. "They were not adequately prepared to keep pace."
The findings by unbiased sources add fuel to Democrats' efforts to draw attention to Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), one of Halliburton's fiercest critics, demanded that the committee probe more deeply into the links between Halliburton and Cheney.
Investigators testified that there had been no evidence that Cheney influenced the award of any contract to his former company, but Waxman said more investigation was necessary.
He cited recent revelations that a Pentagon political appointee had informed Cheney's chief of staff about a decision that led to a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, winning a $7-billion contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure.
"Halliburton is gouging the taxpayer, and the Bush administration doesn't seem to care," Waxman said.
But Halliburton officials defended their actions in Iraq, saying they strongly disagreed with the auditors' contention on overbilling for meals.
"We expected there would be attempts before the end of June to deflect attention from the progress being made in Iraq, but we didn't think so much of it would originate here at home," Wendy Hall, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said in a statement. "It is one thing to learn through experience, as we have, that war is difficult, but another to find that critics are using the war for purely political purposes."
San Diego-based Titan Corp., which employed two people identified in the investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, also came under fire.
Auditors found that Titan was failing to keep track of its workers' hours, and they recommended withholding up to $4.9 million from the company's contract to supply translators to occupation forces in Iraq.
Titan also recently refunded the government $178,000 paid for the services of two workers named in the prison scandal. Titan officials said that although the company had yet to be informed of employee wrongdoing, it made the refund in case the government made that finding.
"We don't know what the investigation will entail, so we took the measure to be conservative," said Ralph "Wil" Williams, a Titan spokesman.
--------
Auditor describes waste, cost overruns in Iraq contracts
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/177986_rebuild16.html
WASHINGTON -- Multibillion-dollar Pentagon contracts to support military operations and reconstruction in Iraq have been plagued by inadequate oversight, leading to waste and cost overruns, the government's chief budget investigator told Congress yesterday.
"We have no evidence to say there was willful fraud, based on the work we've done so far," said David Walker, the comptroller-general and head of the General Accounting Office. "But there have been very serious problems."
The agency has not estimated how much federal money has been lost.
Testimony before the House Government Reform Committee focused yesterday mainly on the largest recipient of Iraq-related contracts, Halliburton Co., and the company's largest project, which is to provide meals, housing and other support to the military.
The Halliburton subsidiary KBR has so far received $4.5 billion for activities in Iraq and Kuwait. The company, based in Houston, has received more than $3 billion more to import fuel and repair oil fields. "We saw very little concern for cost considerations," Walker said.
Several examples of waste or overbilling by KBR have come to light. The Pentagon's own auditing office testified yesterday that it has withheld payment of $186 million -- $10 million more than previously announced -- to the company because of evidence that KBR may have billed the Pentagon for 36 percent more meals than it actually provided. The company says it mistakenly overbilled for troop meals by only 19 percent.
But Walker said the Pentagon has repeated many of the same costly contracting mistakes it made in past military actions, as in Kosovo and Afghanistan, but this time on a vaster scale.
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Congress Tackles Outsourcing Issues at Defense, IRS, Homeland Security
By Stephen Barr
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44620-2004Jun15.html
Congress is again debating what kinds of federal work should be turned over to contractors, particularly at three bastions of civil service employment -- the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service.
As part of the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill, the Senate approved amendments Monday that would place controls on the Pentagon's use of contractors.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) added a provision aimed at ensuring that only Defense Department employees oversee contracts. Their amendment was prompted by concerns that the Pentagon is relying on companies to manage contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, even though some of the companies performing contract oversight have business relationships with the companies that they oversee.
"It seems to me we have to get the oversight back where it belongs, and that is in the hands of the Department of Defense and not in the hands of the private contractors," Wyden said. "Oversight is inherently a governmental function because accountability must be first and foremost to taxpayers."
Under an amendment sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the Pentagon would be required to continue formal cost studies when outsourcing the work of 10 or more Defense employees, to give "fair consideration" to Defense employees for new work that might be contracted out and to send Congress a report next year showing that it has adequate staff to carry out and administer contracts.
The Senate also approved an amendment sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) to ensure that all federal employees -- not just Defense workers -- would have the right to protest job competition decisions to the General Accounting Office.
Collins said that private-sector bidders have appeal rights and that the amendment would level "the playing field for all parties."
A job competition underway at the Department of Homeland Security, involving about 1,100 immigration information officers, appears to be drawing increased scrutiny from Senate Democrats. The employees handle work permits and green card renewals and guard against fraudulent claims.
Yesterday, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Kennedy wrote Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge asking him to cancel the competition because of new information casting doubt on whether turning immigration services over to the private sector would improve efficiency.
In particular, the letter said, documents obtained by the senators show that officials in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services questioned whether the jobs had been properly classified as "not inherently governmental."
"The concerns of the department's experienced immigration agency officials were rejected by DHS leadership," the senators wrote.
Charles Showalter, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Department of Homeland Security Council 117, welcomed the senators' letter. "These are dedicated officers, and it is doing a disservice to the American taxpayer to lose these officers," he said.
But Homeland Security spokeswoman Valerie Smith said the department had conducted "a full review" of the job competition. "Senior immigration officials were part of the decision-making process and were on board with that decision," she said.
Elsewhere on the privatization front, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a tax bill that would permit the Internal Revenue Service to use debt collection companies to locate delinquent taxpayers and collect overdue taxes from them.
The bill, shaped by committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), may be brought to the House floor this week for a vote.
Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said the proposal "presents a very grave danger to taxpayer privacy" and "would return to the U.S. Treasury only a fraction of the money that IRS employees would generate if taxpayer compliance efforts were funded with sufficient resources."
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Iraq Work Awarded to Veteran of Civil Wars
Briton Who Provided Units in Asia and Africa Will Oversee Security
By Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44945-2004Jun15.html
The office monitoring reconstruction projects in Iraq has awarded a $293 million contract to oversee security to a British firm headed by a longtime proponent of using hired, private foreign forces to intervene in third-world civil wars.
The contract, the largest yet awarded for security in Iraq, calls for Aegis Defense Services to provide armed bodyguards for employees of the Program Management Office, which is supposed to oversee $18.4 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds after the June 30 turnover of some government functions to Iraqi authorities. The contract also calls for Aegis to coordinate security operations throughout Iraq with thousands of private contractors.
Aegis is headed by Tim Spicer, a former lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards who was hired by warring political parties in Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone in the late 1990s. Those contracts, which were aimed at battling insurgents, sparked controversies and formal inquiries in those nations and in Britain about the role of Spicer's "private military company," as he described Sandline International, the firm he headed then.
Sandline's work in 1997 to quell rebels operating on an island with a lucrative copper mine in Papua New Guinea was followed by an army rebellion and a coup, and the elected government collapsed, according to news accounts at the time.
The company's 1998 intervention in Sierra Leone on the side of the elected government in exile included plans to supply arms at a time when a United Nations arms embargo was in place, a British parliamentary inquiry found. The inquiry determined that guns were shipped but cleared British ministers of trying to circumvent the ban. Sandline said it had British government approval for its actions. The Sierra Leone rebels also were defeated.
In his bid for the Iraq security contract, Spicer disclosed his military service and said he had done private security work in "Southeast Asia" and "Africa" since 1995. The disclosure gave no further details about what he did there, said an Army spokesman, Maj. Gary C. Tallman. Army contracting officers from Fort Eustis, Va., which vetted the bidders, would not have done a computer search or other search of news accounts on Spicer as part of their review, Tallman said.
The information provided by Spicer, who is Aegis's chief executive, "is everything that is required under current contracting policy," Tallman said. A financial review was conducted to ensure Aegis had the resources to fulfill the contract, and records were checked to see if Aegis had been previously barred from doing U.S. government work, he added.
"There's nothing else required, and whatever else occurred in the past is in the past, and we wouldn't necessarily know about it," Tallman said.
Aegis confirmed it had received the contract but declined further comment through its spokeswoman, Sara Pearson, in London. "We haven't sought publicity," she said.
Tony Hunter-Choat, security director for the Program Management Office and a retired British brigadier, said he knew about Spicer's past activities, and "while there are elements of truth" in the news accounts, some information "is wide of the mark." Aegis is already at work under his supervision, Hunter-Choat said.
Spicer's advisory council at Aegis includes a retired British general and a former British permanent representative to the United Nations. "Those two have such impeccable credentials as to never for one minute be associated publicly with a company or individual about whom they had any doubt," Hunter-Choat said.
The selection of Aegis, he said, does not indicate a more offensive posture on security in Iraq as "their work is purely defensive."
Corporate records available online show Aegis was incorporated in Britain in September 2002. Spicer resigned as Sandline's chief executive in September 2000, and Sandline ended operations in April 2004, saying on its Web site that the decision was due to "general lack of government support for Private Military Companies willing to help end armed conflicts in places like Africa, in the absence of effective international intervention."
Aegis was chosen from among six bidders for the large-scale security effort in Iraq "based on the criterion that was sought and Aegis' technical capability, not so much the cost," Tallman said. Bids were sought in February, and the award to Aegis was made in late May.
The contract is for $92 million for the first year and a maximum of $293 million over three years. The government solicitation sought as many as 75 two-man personal security details a day to protect Program Management Office employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and embarrassment." The security personnel also were required to have such skills as "mobile vehicle warfare" and "counter-sniping" and to be able to protect sites against "indirect fire and attacks by small units." Combating greater threats was for coalition military forces. The other main job for the contractor was to gather and disseminate security information for companies working on reconstruction.
Doug Brooks, an acquaintance of Spicer's and president of the International Peace Operations Association, a District-based association of private firms that provide military services, said "there is no question Sandline was instrumental in restoring democracy in Sierra Leone." Brooks also said Spicer has "a colorful past, but there is no provision in contract law to deny a contract because someone has a colorful past."
Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
-------- iraq
Thai troops to leave Iraq by September
AFP
June 16, 2004
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200406/s1133456.htm
Thai troops will leave Iraq by September after completing a one-year deployment, the country's military authorities have said.
Thailand's military Supreme Commander Somdhat Attanand approved the departure of 451 Thai troops by September 20 and said that the United States would shoulder the cost of the exercise.
"The Supreme Commander has approved the pull-out of the task force after the Thai troops finish their one-year mission," the military said in a statement.
The defence ministry and task force chief could still order a withdrawal or a move to another neighbouring country if the security situation deteriorated, it said, adding that an emergency contingency plan was already in place.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ordered the one-year deployment of a contingent of engineers, medics and a surveillance platoon last September after remaining neutral during the invasion of Iraq.
Two Thai soldiers were killed in a car bomb and mortar attack in December in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala, where the contingent has been stationed.
The presence of the troops has been hotly debated as violence in Iraq worsened, triggering the withdrawal of troops from Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.
Their equipment will start being shipped out next month.
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THE INSURGENCY
2 Pipeline Blasts Halt Oil Exports at Top Iraq Port
June 16, 2004
By EDWARD WONG and JAMES GLANZ
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/international/middleeast/16iraq.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 16 - Two explosions at oil pipelines near the Persian Gulf forced the shutdown of Iraq's main oil export terminal on Tuesday for what is expected to be about 10 days, costing the country up to $1 billion in revenue.
The shutdown, which the authorities said was caused by a bombing on Monday and a bombing or malfunction on a second line on Tuesday, came on a day when snipers lining a highway and an overpass near Baghdad International Airport staged a well-organized ambush on a convoy, killing at least four foreign contractor workers, an American military official and a security contractor said.
Today, gunmen assassinated the security chief for the northern oil fields in Kirkuk, Asam Jihad, spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry, said. The security chief, Ghazi Talabani, a member of the clan of the Kurdish political chieftain Jalal Talabani, was riddled with bullets as he left his home. Ghazi Talabani was the link between American forces, the Northern Oil Company and the private security firm Erinys as they tried to shield the oil fields from attacks.
The specter of sectarian strife coursed through the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday as hundreds of furious Shiite Muslim mourners staged a funeral march through the capital and accused a hard-line Sunni cleric in the volatile city of Falluja of ordering the deaths of six Shiite truck drivers. Their bodies were discovered Monday in a morgue in the neighboring town of Ramadi. The cleric denied giving the order and the identity of the killers and their religion could not be established.
The incidents came in the midst of a mounting number of dramatic and sophisticated attacks taking place as Iraq's new interim government prepares to assume formal control of the country on June 30. The sniper attack occurred a day after a powerful car bomb killed five foreign contractors and eight Iraqis in downtown Baghdad. The attack on the oil line was the most devastating so far in a series of ambitious infrastructure assaults clearly intended to paralyze the country.
The oil explosions crippled a pair of major pipelines in southern Iraq, shutting down exports from the country's most important oil-producing region.
The first explosion occurred late Monday about 10 miles south of the southern city of Basra and was a clear case of sabotage, witnesses said.
It was unclear whether the second explosion, at about noon on Tuesday, came as the result of another attack or because technicians tried to compensate for the first incident by increasing the oil flow in a parallel pipeline, causing a violent rupture.
In April, Basra's oil terminal was the target of a largely unsuccessful waterborne attack by suicide bombers. Attacks on Iraq's electrical grid, oil pipelines and other structures have been increasing in frequency since a major outbreak of the insurgency here in April. Last week the interim Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, said attacks on oil pipelines alone had cost the country $200 million.
"We've basically been in a race with the enemy to see if we can build them up faster than they can tear them down," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, which closely tracks developments in Iraq. "To go after the oil undercuts the ability of Iraq to finance its own reconstruction and makes it more dependent on the United States."
Together, the two southern lines could carry about 80,000 barrels of oil an hour for export to ports on the Persian Gulf, said Walid Khadduri, editor of The Middle East Economic Survey and an authority on the Iraqi oil industry. Mr. Khadduri said the pipelines could take very roughly 10 days to fix and cost the country between $450 million and $1 billion over that time, although production could be increased later to compensate for the shutdown once repairs are made.
Jamal Qureshi, a market analyst at PFC Energy, said rising oil production by other countries had dampened any immediate effect the attacks may have had on crude oil prices. Another analyst at the same company, Roger Diwan, managing director of markets and countries, said that if repairs took much longer than 10 days or there was another major attack, global markets would be affected.
"It has a cumulative impact the longer it lasts," Mr. Diwan said.
Until the latest attacks, Iraq had been exporting an average of from 1.7 million to 1.9 million barrels of oil a day, compared to somewhere between 2 million to 2.2 million before the American-led invasion last year, Mr. Khadduri said.
Amid the increasing attacks to the oil infrastructure, the way that Iraq's oil revenues are being spent in advance of the handover of sovereignty to a new Iraqi goverment on June 30 is being called into question. Iraq Revenue Watch, an initiative of the Open Society Institute, an organization backed by the billionaire George Soros, alleges that nearly $2 billion in expenditures recently authorized by a United States-controlled board in charge of the Iraqi budget until June 30 may have been rushed into committments on ill-advised projects before power switches hands.
The money includes $460 million for reconstruction of the oil sector, even though most of the nearly $2 billion that Congress allocated for oil reconstruction last fall remains uncommitted to specific projects. Occupation authorities have maintained that there is no overlap in projects to be undertaken by the two pots of money.
The attack on the convoy of foreign contractors was also part of a succession well-planned incidents clearly aimed at disrupting rebuilding efforts. It took place between 1:30 and 2 p.m. on a north-south road veering into the highway leading to the Baghdad airport, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the occupation forces. Insurgents on an overpass raked a three-vehicle convoy with gunfire. Passengers in two of the cars were apparently killed, while a third car pocked with bullet holes limped to a nearby American base.
General Kimmitt said he knew nothing of the identities of the victims and did not know exactly how many people were killed. He added that he had gotten a report of the attack firsthand "from some fairly shaken-up contractors."
A security contractor who had been briefed on the attack said it appeared that at least four people had been killed but said he did not know their nationalities, which company they worked for or the nature of their jobs. Besides the gunmen on the overpass, he said, snipers opened fire from positions they had taken up along both sides of the road. The contractor said he had been informed that the assault took place on the main road to the airport rather than on an intersecting artery.
The five-mile airport road is considered by foreigners to be the most dangerous thoroughfare in Baghdad. On June 6, insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47's killed two American security contractors and two Poles in a coordinated ambush on a convoy of sport utility vehicles. Several contractors escaped by lobbing fragmentation grenades at the attackers and commandeering a civilian car at gunpoint.
Responsibility for Monday's suicide car bombing that killed 13 people, including five foreign contractors, was claimed Tuesday by a group headed by the suspected Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A statement claiming responsibility was dated Monday and posted on an Islamist Web site on Tuesday, according to a Reuters report.
The complicated tensions underlying politics and violence emerged vividly during the funeral march through Baghdad. Hundreds of Shiite Muslims marched on Tuesday from the sprawling slum of Sadr City to a central square to demand vengeance against Sunnis for the murders of six Shiite truck drivers in Sunni-dominated Falluja, 35 miles west of the capital, according to several news wire reports.
One report quoted mourners saying the men were attacked by insurgents on a highway on June 5 after they delivered a load of tents to the Falluja Brigade, an Iraqi militia being used by the marines to try to maintain calm in Falluja.
The drivers escaped and sought refuge in a police station. The police turned the drivers over to Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi, a conservative Sunni imam, the mourners said. The imam then ordered the drivers killed, they added. The imam, however, denied that he issued such an order.
Still, Khaled Latif Matar Sihail, a tribal leader in the funeral march, told Reuters, "They are starting an old feud, a sectarian feud. We now demand blood from the residents of Falluja for our innocent sons."
The mourners carried the bodies of the drivers in wooden coffins. One 12-year-old boy, Muhammad Khudeir, told The Associated Press that he had been with the drivers when they were handed over to "a group of Arabs who spoke with non-Iraqi accents." Muhammad said he had been let go because of his age.
Sheik Janabai said in an interview on the Al Arabiya satellite television station, that if anyone had any evidence against him, he was ready to face justice before an Islamic court. He and a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, confirmed that the drivers had been killed but said they did not know who the murderers were.
Sheik Janabi said hundreds of Iraqis were killed in Falluja when the marines invaded it in April, and so it was understandable that people in town get angry at Iraqis seen as collaborators with the occupation. "People here think that anyone who works with the Americans or helps their mission is an American stooge," he said.
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Rebel Cleric Tells Fighters in 2 Iraqi Cities to Return Home
June 16, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/international/middleeast/16CND-IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 16 - Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who has led a resistance to the American occupation, told his fighters today to leave the holy cities of Najaf and Kufa and return home.
The order, communicated in leaflets distributed by his office, appeared to be another move by Mr. Sadr to try to gain legitimate political standing in Iraq. He has said he is starting a political party that may participate in elections scheduled for January 2005.
A spokesman for Mr. Sadr, Qais al-Khazali, said in an interview that the cleric was simply complying with the terms of a cease-fire announced on June 4. Since then, many members of the cleric's militia, known as the Mahdi Army, have disappeared from the streets of the two holy cities. But there have been numerous infractions of the truce. Last week, fighters overran a police station in central Najaf and freed the prisoners, burned squad cars and allowed looters to plunder the building.
But Mr. Sadr has also expressed an increasingly strong desire to take part in mainstream politics. He has given conditional approval to the Iraqi interim government, a body he once mocked. And several days ago, speaking through Mr. Khazali, he said he was starting a political party, even though he insisted he could not disband his militia because it was a popular uprising rather than an organized armed force.
American administrators here say people associated with illegal militias cannot take part in elections.
In southern Iraq today, saboteurs launched another attack on Iraq's beleaguered oil distribution network, blowing a hole in one of the country's two southern oil export pipelines, Reuters reported.
In Kirkuk, gunmen assassinated the security chief for the northern oil fields there, Asam Jihad, a spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry, said. The security chief, Ghazi Talabani, a member of the clan of the Kurdish political chieftain Jalal Talabani, was riddled with bullets as he left his home. Ghazi Talabani was the link between American forces, the Northern Oil Company and the private security firm Erinys as they tried to shield the oil fields from attacks.
Rebels also attacked an official convoy carrying foreigners in the western city of Ramadi today, Reuters reported. The attack destroyed an Iraqi police car and killed at least six Iraqis, including a policeman, Reuters reported, citing an American Marine spokesman. Witnesses told the news service that foreigners were believed to be among the casualties.
In Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, two soldiers were killed in a "rocket attack" on an American logistics base and 21 people were wounded, the American military announced without offering further details. The Associated Press reported that the two soldiers were Americans and that two of the wounded were civilians working on the base, which is known as Camp Anaconda.
The pipeline attack today came amid a shutdown of Iraq's main oil export terminal, in Basra, which was put out of service on Tuesday by two explosions at oil pipelines near the Persian Gulf. The facility, in Iraq's most important oil-producing region, is expected to be out of service about 10 days, costing the country up to $1 billion in revenue.
American-led occupation forces have suffered a mounting number of attacks as Iraq's new interim government prepares to assume formal control of the country on June 30. The attacks on the oil lines were the most devastating so far in a series of ambitious infrastructure assaults clearly intended to paralyze the country.
The first explosion occurred late Monday about 10 miles south of Basra and was a clear case of sabotage, witnesses said.
It was unclear whether the second explosion, about noon on Tuesday, came as the result of another attack or because technicians tried to compensate for the first incident by increasing the oil flow in a parallel pipeline, causing a violent rupture.
In April, Basra's oil terminal was the target of a largely unsuccessful waterborne attack by suicide bombers.
Attacks on Iraq's electrical grid, oil pipelines and other structures have been increasing in frequency since a major outbreak of the insurgency here in April. Last week the interim Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, said attacks on oil pipelines alone had cost the country $200 million.
"We've basically been in a race with the enemy to see if we can build them up faster than they can tear them down," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, which closely tracks developments in Iraq. "To go after the oil undercuts the ability of Iraq to finance its own reconstruction and makes it more dependent on the United States."
Together, the two southern lines could carry about 80,000 barrels of oil an hour for export to ports on the Persian Gulf, said Walid Khadduri, editor of The Middle East Economic Survey and an authority on the Iraqi oil industry. Mr. Khadduri said the pipelines could take very roughly 10 days to fix and cost the country between $450 million and $1 billion over that time, although production could be increased later to compensate for the shutdown once repairs are made.
Jamal Qureshi, a market analyst at PFC Energy, said rising oil production by other countries had dampened any immediate effect the attacks may have had on crude oil prices. Another analyst at the same company, Roger Diwan, managing director of markets and countries, said that if repairs took much longer than 10 days or there was another major attack, global markets would be affected.
"It has a cumulative impact the longer it lasts," Mr. Diwan said.
Until the latest attacks, Iraq had been exporting an average of from 1.7 million to 1.9 million barrels of oil a day, compared to somewhere between 2 million to 2.2 million before the American-led invasion last year, Mr. Khadduri said.
Amid the increasing attacks to the oil infrastructure, the way that Iraq's oil revenues are being spent in advance of the handover of sovereignty to a new Iraqi government on June 30 is being called into question. Iraq Revenue Watch, an initiative of the Open Society Institute, an organization backed by the billionaire George Soros, alleges that nearly $2 billion in expenditures recently authorized by a United States-controlled board in charge of the Iraqi budget until June 30 may have been rushed into commitments on ill-advised projects before power switches hands.
The money includes $460 million for reconstruction of the oil sector, even though most of the nearly $2 billion that Congress allocated for oil reconstruction last fall remains uncommitted to specific projects. Occupation authorities have maintained that there is no overlap in projects to be undertaken by the two pots of money.
The attack on the convoy of foreign contractors was also part of a succession well-planned incidents clearly aimed at disrupting rebuilding efforts. It took place between 1:30 and 2 p.m. on a north-south road veering into the highway leading to the Baghdad airport, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the occupation forces. Insurgents on an overpass raked a three-vehicle convoy with gunfire. Passengers in two of the cars were apparently killed, while a third car pocked with bullet holes limped to a nearby American base.
General Kimmitt said he knew nothing of the identities of the victims and did not know exactly how many people were killed. He added that he had gotten a report of the attack firsthand "from some fairly shaken-up contractors."
A security contractor who had been briefed on the attack said it appeared that at least four people had been killed but said he did not know their nationalities, which company they worked for or the nature of their jobs. Besides the gunmen on the overpass, he said, snipers opened fire from positions they had taken up along both sides of the road. The contractor said he had been informed that the assault took place on the main road to the airport rather than on an intersecting artery.
The five-mile airport road is considered by foreigners to be the most dangerous thoroughfare in Baghdad. On June 6, insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47's killed two American security contractors and two Poles in a coordinated ambush on a convoy of sport utility vehicles. Several contractors escaped by lobbing fragmentation grenades at the attackers and commandeering a civilian car at gunpoint.
Responsibility for Monday's suicide car bombing that killed 13 people, including five foreign contractors, was claimed Tuesday by a group headed by the suspected Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A statement claiming responsibility was dated Monday and posted on an Islamist Web site on Tuesday, according to a Reuters report.
The complicated tensions underlying politics and violence emerged vividly during the funeral march through Baghdad. Hundreds of Shiite Muslims marched on Tuesday from the sprawling slum of Sadr City to a central square to demand vengeance against Sunnis for the murders of six Shiite truck drivers in Sunni-dominated Falluja, 35 miles west of the capital, according to several news wire reports.
One report quoted mourners saying the men were attacked by insurgents on a highway on June 5 after they delivered a load of tents to the Falluja Brigade, an Iraqi militia being used by the marines to try to maintain calm in Falluja.
The drivers escaped and sought refuge in a police station. The police turned the drivers over to Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi, a conservative Sunni imam, the mourners said. The imam then ordered the drivers killed, they added. The imam, however, denied that he issued such an order.
Still, Khaled Latif Matar Sihail, a tribal leader in the funeral march, told Reuters, "They are starting an old feud, a sectarian feud. We now demand blood from the residents of Falluja for our innocent sons."
The mourners carried the bodies of the drivers in wooden coffins. One 12-year-old boy, Muhammad Khudeir, told The Associated Press that he had been with the drivers when they were handed over to "a group of Arabs who spoke with non-Iraqi accents." Muhammad said he had been let go because of his age.
Sheik Janabai said in an interview on the Al Arabiya satellite television station, that if anyone had any evidence against him, he was ready to face justice before an Islamic court. He and a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, confirmed that the drivers had been killed but said they did not know who the murderers were.
Sheik Janabi said hundreds of Iraqis were killed in Falluja when the marines invaded it in April, and so it was understandable that people in town get angry at Iraqis seen as collaborators with the occupation. "People here think that anyone who works with the Americans or helps their mission is an American stooge," he said.
Kirk Semple contributed reporting from New York for this article.
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New Attack on Oil Pipeline in Iraq
By TODD PITTMAN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45796-2004Jun16?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saboteurs blasted a key pipeline Wednesday for the second time in as many days, halting all oil exports from Iraq, officials said. Gunmen killed the top security official of the state-run Northern Oil company as insurgents stepped up attacks on Iraq's infrastructure.
The Wednesday attack north of the town of Faw crippled two already damaged pipelines, forcing a halt in all Iraqi oil exports southward through the Gulf, Southern Oil Company spokesman Samir Jassim said.
"Due to the damage inflicted on the two pipelines, the pumping of oil to the Basra oil terminal has completely stopped," Jassim said. "Exports have come to halt."
Exports were halted last month through the other avenue - the northern pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan, Turkey, after a May 25 bombing, Turkish officials said on condition of anonymity.
Two explosions on the southern pipeline occurred in the same area as a blast Tuesday. It could take up to a week to repair the damage, Jassim said.
Another pipeline carrying oil to a domestic refinery was attacked Tuesday night near Dibis, some 20 miles west of Kirkuk, according to Mustafa Awad, an official in the Northern Oil Company.
That pipeline does not carry crude oil for export, however. The fire was extinguished.
The security officer for the Northern Oil Company was killed in an ambush Wednesday in a crowded public market in Kirkuk. The victim, Ghazi Talabani, was a Kurd and a relative of the leader of one of Iraq's main Kurdish parties, Jalal Talabani.
Reviving petroleum exports is the key to restoring Iraq's economy after decades of war, international sanctions and Saddam Hussein's tyranny. However, repeated attacks have slowed the process of returning Iraq, with the world's second largest petroleum reserves after Saudi Arabia, to the forefront of global energy markets.
Insurgents are targeting the infrastructure apparently to undermine confidence in the new government, which takes power June 30. On Monday, a car bomb killed 13 people in Baghdad, including three foreign engineers working to restore the electricity sector.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition deputy operations chief, said another convoy of contractors was ambushed Tuesday in Baghdad. Two people were killed and three were injured when shots were fired from a highway overpass, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
Elsewhere, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered members of his militia to leave the holy cities of Nafaj and Kufa - unless they live there. The order Wednesday fulfilled a key aspect of an agreement meant to end fighting between his militia forces and U.S. troops.
Al-Sadr told fighters who had come to the holy cities from other parts of Iraq to help fight the Americans to return home "to carry on their duties as God wants," a statement from his office said.
The firebrand preacher said last week he would cooperate with the new interim Iraqi government if it works to end the U.S. military presence.
Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded Tuesday outside a coalition base near Hillah south of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounding another, the U.S. military said. And gunmen killed an Iraqi police official in a town near Hillah as he went to work, the military said.
Meanwhile, new allegations surfaced about the professionalism of the Iraqi police, who are due to assume greater responsibility for security after the formal end of the occupation June 30.
On Tuesday, dozens of Iraqi Shiites complained that Shiite truck drivers who had sought refuge in a police station in the Sunni town of Fallujah were instead handed over to extremists, who killed them after they were unable to pay a ransom. Six bodies were found Monday in a morgue in Ramadi, also a Sunni town.
At a protest rally, a 12-year-old boy, Mohammed Khudeir, said he was among those allegedly handed over by the police to a hardline cleric. But the cleric and his followers let him go, apparently because of his age.
"We tried to seek police protection, but the policemen handed us over," Mohammed said. He said the cleric "handed us over to a group of Arabs who spoke with non-Iraqi accents. I was tortured for a while, but then I was released."
Mohammed said the insurgents killed his brother and uncle.
One man, Alaa Mery, said that on June 8, he went to Fallujah to negotiate for the hostages' release. He said he met with some Syrians who identified themselves as members of the extremist Wahhabist sect and said they were holding the drivers because they collaborated with the Americans.
The Syrians demanded the money, which the families could not pay, he said.
"Fallujah clerics and people made a big fuss regarding Abu Ghraib torture, but now they are killing and mutilating Muslims," Mery said, referring to the American abuse of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison. "They are not resistance. They are a copy of Saddam."
-------- israel / palestine
Prison Tactics A Longtime Dilemma
For Israel Nation Faced Issues Similar to Abu Ghraib
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44664-2004Jun15?language=printer
NABLUS, West Bank -- The accounts of physical abuse of Iraqis by American guards at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad sounded achingly familiar to Anan Labadeh. The casual beatings, the humiliations, the trophy photos taken by both male and female guards were experiences he said he underwent as a Palestinian security detainee at an Israeli military camp in March of last year.
There was, he added, a significant difference: The Israelis have rules, he said, and their techniques for breaking down prisoners are far more sophisticated. "What the Israelis do is much more effective than beatings," he said. "Three days without food and without sleep and you're eager to tell them anything. It just shows us the Americans are amateurs. They should have taken lessons from the Israelis."
Many of the questions raised by the Abu Ghraib scandal, and by the United States's self-declared war on terrorism, are the kinds that Israel has been wrestling with for decades. Where is the line in a democracy between coercion and torture? What kinds of interrogation techniques are morally acceptable when dealing with a suspect who may have knowledge of a "ticking bomb" -- an imminent attack? And what about the damage those techniques inflict on relations between an occupying power and its subjects?
"Unfortunately, when you're fighting a war against terror there are many difficult issues you face every day," said a senior Israeli government lawyer who defended Israel's policy on interrogating suspects. "Maybe the United States is beginning to discover what Israel has had to deal with for a long time." Although its officials never use the word "torture," Israel is perhaps the only Western-style democracy that has acknowledged sanctioning mistreatment of prisoners in interrogation. In 1987, following a long debate in legal and security circles, a state commission established a set of secret guidelines for interrogators using what the panel called "moderate physical and psychological pressure" against detainees. In 1999, Israel's Supreme Court struck down those guidelines, ruling that torture was illegal under any circumstances.
But after the second Palestinian uprising broke out a year later, and especially after a devastating series of suicide bombings of passenger buses, cafes and other civilian targets, Israel's internal security service, known as the Shin Bet or the Shabak, returned to physical coercion as a standard practice, according to human rights lawyers and detainees. What's more, the techniques it has used command widespread support from the Israeli public, which has few qualms about the mistreatment of Palestinians in the fight against terrorism. A long parade of Israeli prime ministers and justice ministers with a variety of political views have defended the security service and either denied that torture is used or defended it as a last resort in preventing terrorist attacks.
While the issue surfaces periodically, with a small but vocal minority of Israelis advocating an end to all physical coercion, fears of a new outbreak of terror inevitably take precedence.
"We are not Holland, and we do not live in the environment of Benelux," Ehud Barak told the parliament four years ago, when he was prime minister, referring to the economic grouping of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. "We are a state that is faced with a constant threat of terror. Yet on the other hand, we are a democratic state that is part of the international community. There must be sensitivity to both needs." Broad Public Support
When she first saw cases of alleged torture cross her desk at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in the late 1980s, staff worker Hannah Friedman said it was very difficult to get human rights advocates to deal with them. Eventually, she and Hebrew University law professor Stanley Cohen, who immigrated to Israel from South Africa, set up their own organization, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, to deal exclusively with the allegations.
Shabak interrogators in those days were bound by the 1987 guidelines. While never made public, the procedures were well known to virtually every Palestinian security detainee. Prisoners were forced to stand for days at a time or were shackled in tightly contorted positions on low stools, in a procedure known as shabah. They were violently shaken, deprived of sleep, bombarded with loud, continuous music, exposed to extremes of cold and heat and forced to relieve themselves in their clothing. Their heads were often covered with canvas hoods that reeked of urine or vomit.
These techniques had widespread public support. A 1996 poll commissioned by the human rights group Btselem found that 73 percent of Israelis condoned the use of force.
Sometimes interrogators went beyond the guidelines. In October 1994, after militants abducted a 19-year-old Israeli army corporal, Nachshon Waxman, Yitzhak Rabin, then the prime minister, acknowledged that the suspected driver of the kidnap car had been tortured.
"If we'd been so careful to follow the Landau Commission, we would never have found out where Waxman was being held," Rabin said, referring to the 1987 guidelines. (Waxman was killed by his captors during an Israeli commando raid.)
Over time, interrogation techniques became less brutal and more refined. Ziad Arafeh, 40, a political activist who lives in the Balata refugee camp outside the West Bank city of Nablus, estimated he had been arrested 14 times over the past two decades. Each time, he said, his interrogators seemed to have mastered a new technique.
In the early days, he said, crude physical and sexual abuse was commonplace. When he was first arrested, in 1983, an interrogator put on rubber gloves and squeezed his testicles until he cried out in pain. On another occasion Arafeh, who was suspected of involvement in the killings of alleged Palestinian collaborators, said he was kept in his underwear in a small, cold cell and splashed with water every few hours. Now the emphasis is on psychological pressure. During his arrest a year ago, Arafeh said, he was deprived of sleep for several days but not beaten.
There is a big difference between soldiers who make arrests and Shabak interrogators, Arafeh said. The soldiers are often casually cruel, he said, kicking and humiliating detainees in ways similar to the behavior reported at Abu Ghraib. But once the interrogators take over, treatment is far more calculated and professional.
"Their strategy is much improved," he said. "They give you food without salt that makes you weak, and they prevent you from sleeping. They're more clever and more experienced." New Techniques
A turning point in Israel's treatment of detainees came in September 1999 when the Israeli Supreme Court, after a year and a half of deliberations, banned all forms of physical abuse. "Violence directed at a suspect's body or spirit does not constitute a reasonable investigation practice," the court declared.
The justices left open several loopholes. Interrogators who used force preemptively to prevent a terrorist attack could invoke the "defense of necessity" if faced with prosecution. The court also made allowances for "prolonged" interrogation, even if it involved sleep deprivation, and shackling, "but only for the purpose of preserving the investigator's safety."
Nonetheless, the ruling was a landmark. Shabak officials complained that the decision stripped them of the tools they needed to combat terrorism. An opposition lawmaker introduced a bill allowing interrogators to use force in "ticking bomb" cases. Barak supported the idea at first but later reached a compromise that gave the agency a bigger budget, a larger staff and more tools to help it solve cases without cracking heads.
Most of the specific methods used before the 1999 decision all but vanished after the ruling. Yet slowly but surely, human rights lawyers said, new techniques took their place. The latest report by the committee against torture, covering the period from September 2001 to April 2003, alleged that detainees faced a new regime of sleep deprivation, shackling, slapping, hitting and kicking; exposure to extreme cold and heat; threats, curses and insults; and prolonged detention in subhuman conditions.
"Torture in Israel has once more become routine, carried out in an orderly and institutional fashion," concluded the report, which was based on 80 affidavits and court cases.
The committee accused the Israeli legal system of effectively sanctioning torture by routinely rejecting petitions seeking to grant detainees access to lawyers. Not one Shabak interrogator has been prosecuted despite hundreds of allegations, the report said. In retrospect, said Habib Labib, an Israeli Arab lawyer who has handled dozens of security cases, the Supreme Court decision was a brief, shining moment that quickly faded. "It's like many things in this country," he said. "The theory is one thing, but on the ground things are done differently."
The case of Anan Labadeh, 31, became a cause célèbre because he is a paraplegic who has used a wheelchair since he fell from a third-story balcony while being chased by Israeli soldiers during a stone-throwing incident in the late 1980s. Labadeh was arrested in February of last year in his home town of Nablus on suspicion of helping militants who had set up a network of suicide bomb factories in the city. He was held for a month and released without being charged.
Labadeh said he was routinely punched and kicked by the soldiers who escorted him to a military detention center at nearby Hawara and then by other soldiers at the center itself over three days. He said he was blindfolded, denied food and water, left outside in the rain and cold, deprived of sleep and forced to urinate and defecate in his clothing.
"I was exhausted," he recalled. "Time became irrelevant. In the second day, it continued to rain and I couldn't tell if it was morning or afternoon."
Each night, a group of soldiers, men and women alike, held social gatherings in the courtyard where he was being held. On the second night, they took turns posing with him while he sat blindfolded and handcuffed to his wheelchair, he said.
"For a person like me to be surrounded by a group of soldiers, punched, insulted, peeing on myself, my dignity was insulted," he recalled. "Here I was, a handicapped person, and not one soldier came to say stop this, not even one."
The experience increased Labadeh's contempt for Israelis. But for all his complaints about the way he was treated, Labadeh believes the Israelis have higher standards than their American counterparts. He recalls a case when an Israeli military officer was accused of sexually abusing young Palestinians. Another officer turned him in, and the accused man was arrested immediately.
A government lawyer designated to discuss the questions raised by this article insisted that internal safeguards protect Palestinian detainees from random abuse, and he characterized Israel's treatment of suspected terrorists as a matter of self-defense. "The first priority of the government is keeping people safe," said the lawyer, who insisted on anonymity. "That's the basic social contract between a government and its people."
A key moment, he said, was the spate of suicide bombings in March 2002 that killed 135 Israelis and injured hundreds more. "It became a question of a ticking bomb -- how do you balance the need to find that bomb before it goes off at a restaurant or a pizza shop or a checkpoint with the need to respect human rights?" Israelis understood, he said, "there has to be a balance -- you can't just do whatever you want."
What is most striking, the lawyer added, is how united the Israeli public is on the subject. "For most people it's not the central story here," he said. "It's not even one of the top ten questions I get asked about the Supreme Court."
But for many Palestinians, torture is the heart of the matter. Labadeh said abuses like those that took place in Abu Ghraib or in Hawara were inevitable when people were subjected to military occupation. That is why the photos from Abu Ghraib did not shock or surprise him.
"In the end, when you put a person in jail because of political reasons and you give someone power over him, you can expect to see such films," he said. "The camera is always rolling."
-------- latin america
Dispute Over Pinochet Book Claims Another Casualty
June 16, 2004
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/books/16COUN.html
WASHINGTON, June 15 - A Princeton University expert on Latin America says he has abandoned plans to become Foreign Affairs magazine's book reviewer covering the Western Hemisphere, citing accusations that the journal bowed to pressure from Henry A. Kissinger and his associates.
The expert, Jeremy Adelman, agreed in May to take on the reviews later this month when Kenneth Maxwell leaves his post as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, which publishes Foreign Affairs. But Mr. Adelman said that he had second thoughts after reading accounts of a dispute between Mr. Maxwell and his editors and senior officials of the council.
Mr. Maxwell resigned in protest on May 13 after reviewing "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability," by Peter Kornbluh. His review angered Mr. Kissinger, the secretary of state when Gen. Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile in 1973, and William Rogers, the former assistant secretary of state for Latin American Affairs under Mr. Kissinger. (Mr. Rogers is now a vice president of the consulting firm Kissinger Associates.) Mr. Rogers contended that the review exaggerated United States responsibility for the downfall of the Chilean president Salvador Allende.
Foreign Affairs then published an exchange between Mr. Rogers and Mr. Maxwell, and gave Mr. Rogers the last word in a subsequent letter. Though the journal customarily lets authors reply to criticism, it has refused to publish Mr. Maxwell's rebuttal, in what he charges is a bid to silence debate over United States policy on Mr. Kissinger's watch. Mr. Adelman said that soon after accounts of the dispute appeared in The Nation, The New York Times and the Folha de São Paulo, a Brazilian daily, he received numerous e-mail messages , some attacking him as "a scab." His resignation was reported on Sunday in the Folha and in another Brazilian daily, O Globo.
"While I still think this is an important position and the magazine is important, the amount of time it would take for me to explain the situation to the world of Latin America experts, the world that I inhabit, was too great," he said. He added that the editor of Foreign Affairs, James F. Hoge Jr., was quoted in the Folha as saying that Peter G. Peterson, the council's chairman, had called to advise him that the review had upset Mr. Kissinger and others. Mr. Hoge acknowledged the call yesterday, but denied that Mr. Kissinger had pressured him. He demanded that Mr. Maxwell produce proof of his accusation. He said that he did not print Mr. Maxwell's final rebuttal because both sides had had their say.
Mr. Maxwell said that he had learned of the pressure in discussions with Mr. Hoge and had kept records of those conversations.
Theresa Cimino, an assistant to Mr. Kissinger, said he was traveling and could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Hoge said that he was surprised at Professor Adelman's resignation, and that the professor - not Foreign Affairs - had bowed to pressure.
-------- nato
Russia and NATO to stage military exercises in Kaliningrad
MOSCOW (AFP)
Jun 16, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040616113258.t0n6dhad.html
Russia and NATO next week are to stage military exercises next week in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, which to Moscow's chagrin is now completely surrounded by European Union member states, officials said Wednesday.
The field exercises will be joined by troops from Poland and Lithuania, the two new EU states encircling Kaliningrad, which has been at the heart of trouble in Russia's recent relations with Europe, in part because of free travel concerns.
NATO said in a statement that 1,000 soldiers would take part in the four day program that begins Tuesday. It is aimed at coordinating a joint response to potential terror strikes.
"The global threat of terrorism demands coordinated actions from all nations of the world," the NATO statement said.
The exercises will simulate a strike on an oil platform in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Kaliningrad -- one that would lead to great casualties and a massive flow of oil into the sea, the NATO statement said.
Russia, which has ruled out joining NATO and has watched the alliance's expansion up to its border with unease, is a member of the Partnership for Peace program between the US-led alliance and eastern and southern European states.
The program envisages regular military exercises between its member states, and the Kaliningrad wargames will include troops from 22 nations.
--------
NATO Chief Leaves Door Open for Iraq Role
Reuters
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 3:40 PM
By John Chalmers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47030-2004Jun16.html
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO would not "slam the door in the face" of Iraq's new government if a request came for military assistance to help stabilize the country, the alliance's secretary-general said on Wednesday.
President Bush last week said NATO ought to be involved in Iraq, but he was quickly contradicted by French President Jacques Chirac who said he did not think it was the "mission" of the alliance to intervene there.
The split at a Group of Eight industrialized nations' meeting in Sea Island, Georgia, echoed last year's damaging dispute within NATO ahead of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
But NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer seized on Chirac's comment that he would be willing to consider a NATO role if the interim government due to take over in Iraq after June 30 requested it.
"I have heard, listened and seen very clearly the president of the (French) republic," de Hoop Scheffer told news agency reporters at the headquarters of the 26-nation alliance.
"Certainly he did not exclude debate. That was clear from Sea Island. You cannot say now that if a request came...that that would lead to differences of opinion in the alliance."
So far NATO has limited itself to providing logistical support for a Polish-led division in south-central Iraq as part of coalition occupying forces.
De Hoop Scheffer said if any other countries among the 16 NATO allies with troops in Iraq were to seek such indirect assistance the alliance "would certainly say yes."
France and Germany have made clear they would not deploy troops of their own to Iraq, and their resistance to a collective mission for NATO has hardened in recent weeks because of the unrelenting violence and a prisoner abuse scandal there.
Diplomats say dismay over Bush's perceived support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians has made some European nations even less inclined to help Washington carry some of the military burden in Iraq.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said this week he expected any further NATO role in Iraq to be limited to training security forces, adding he did not expect disagreement on such a task.
De Hoop Scheffer said training was possible, but it would be up to the new Baghdad government to spell out what it wanted.
NATO is due to hold a summit in Istanbul on June 28-29, just two days before occupying powers return sovereignty to Iraqis.
Diplomats said a statement spelling out that the alliance would be willing to consider a role in Iraq if asked by the government may be released in Istanbul.
-------- prisoners of war
Soldier: Commander Tried to Change Report
Wed Jun 16, 2004
By MATT GOURAS,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040616/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/prisoner_abuse_calif&cid=542&ncid=1480
A National Guard commander told a mental health counselor to change an evaluation to show that a serviceman who accused fellow soldiers of abusing Iraqi prisoners was mentally unfit, another soldier says.
The commander has refused to comment on the allegation. And it is not clear whether the evaluation was, in fact, changed.
Sgt. Greg Ford of the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion has said he was stripped of his duties and ordered to see combat-stress counselors after reporting that three fellow soldiers in the California National Guard unit brazenly abused Iraqi detainees during interrogations in Samarra last year. He said the soldiers choked detainees, threatened them with guns and stuck lit cigarettes in their ears.
Ford was placed under the supervision of Sgt. 1st Class Michael Marciello, a team leader in the battalion. In an interview this week, Marciello said he was ordered to watch Ford's behavior at all times.
He said unit commanders believed something must have been wrong with Ford for making such "wild" claims against his fellow soldiers.
Marciello said that after a mental health evaluation came back saying Ford was OK, he witnessed a company commander in the 223rd, Capt. Vic Artiga, ask a counselor to change her evaluation.
"The company commander requested that this woman reconsider the end result of her analysis," Marciello said.
He said he did not know what the final report said.
"Something happened for them to take Greg away," Marciello said. "After a short discussion, they agreed to refer him to Germany for further evaluation. Then the following day, Greg was gone."
Ford has said that he underwent psychiatric evaluations at military installations in Germany and San Antonio, Texas, and that those evaluations found nothing wrong with him.
Ford said the counselor who evaluated him in Iraq was Capt. Merle Madera of the 113th Medical Company. She did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday.
Artiga would not say whether he influenced Ford's mental evaluation. And he defended his soldiers against Ford's abuse accusations.
"I know they conducted all their obligations legally, morally and ethically," he said.
Marciello said he had never worked with Ford until after the sergeant made the allegations, and could not corroborate his claims of abuse.
Ford, 49, said he was a state prison guard for 18 years. He has since returned home to the Sacramento suburb of Fair Oaks. His unit, the San Francisco-based 223rd, returned home in March.
Associated Press Writer Terence Chea in San Francisco contributed to this report.
--------
THE DICTATOR
Iraq Seeks Custody of Hussein; Bush Has Security Concerns
June 16, 2004
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16prex.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, June 15 - President Bush said Tuesday that the United States would hand over Saddam Hussein to the new Iraqi government only when it was clear that the Iraqis had the ability to securely keep him in custody.
His comments came after Iraq's new interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, speaking in Baghdad, called for the Americans to hand over all detainees, including Mr. Hussein, by June 30, when Iraq is to gain limited sovereignty from the United States.
Custody of Mr. Hussein was one of several issues on which the Americans and the new Iraqi government remain divided as the transfer of authority draws nearer.
For example, the new government's president, Sheik Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, demanded that the Americans cede Mr. Hussein's marble-tiled Republican Palace, a prominent symbol of power, which the American-led civilian administration had used as a headquarters and which the United States was considering as a likely annex to its vast new embassy.
At a sweltering news conference with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in the Rose Garden of the White House, President Bush addressed the question of control over Mr. Hussein. "We want to make sure that he doesn't come back to power," Mr. Bush said. "And so, therefore, it's a legitimate question to ask of the interim government - how are you going to make sure that he stays in jail?"
Mr. Bush did not say when custody would be transferred.
"We're working to make sure there's appropriate security," Mr. Bush said.
The White House had intended the news conference to promote progress in Afghanistan, and Vice President Dick Cheney and other top administration officials attended. But it was dominated by questions about Iraq.
"I mean, one thing, obviously, is that we don't want, and I know the Iraqi interim government doesn't want, is there to be lax security and for Saddam Hussein to somehow not stand trial for the horrendous murders and torture that he inflicted upon the Iraqi people," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Hussein, who was captured by United States forces in December 2003, is now being held as a prisoner of war at an undisclosed American detention facility in Iraq.
It is unclear who would guard him under the new government or where he might be held. A senior Bush administration official said late Tuesday that one option under serious discussion was for the American military to give legal jurisdiction to the new Iraqi government but to retain physical custody of Mr. Hussein until the Iraqis have a secure place to hold him.
A tribunal headed by Salem Chalabi - a nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress - has been established to bring Mr. Hussein and members of his government to trial. War crimes and genocide are among the charges that will be considered, Salem Chalabi has said.
The Geneva Conventions require a country to release prisoners of war at the end of a war or occupation, unless criminal charges are brought against the prisoners. The Bush administration has insisted repeatedly that the occupation is ending on June 30, when the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority is dissolved.
But Dan Senor, a spokesman for the authority in Iraq, said Tuesday that Mr. Hussein could remain a prisoner of war for some time. "We also do not have to hand him over until there's a cessation of active hostilities,'' he said. "Hostilities, unfortunately, continue.''
The American military has said it intends to continue to hold 4,000 to 5,000 detainees after June 30. A lawyer for the occupation authority said those released could be charged and tried by one of three Iraqi court systems.
At the news conference, Mr. Bush also said it would be up to the new government of Iraq to determine how to handle Moktada al-Sadr, a fiery Shiite cleric who has led an insurgency against the American-led occupation and who Mr. Bush has called a "thug." Mr. Sadr is forming a political party that will probably take part in Iraqi elections next year.
His actions are in direct defiance of L. Paul Bremer III, the top American civilian administrator in Iraq, who issued an order last week barring people with illegal militias - like that of Mr. Sadr - from taking part in elections in the near future.
"The interim Iraqi government will deal with al-Sadr in the way they see fit," Mr. Bush said. "They're sovereign."
In Baghdad, President Yawar said he approved of the plan by Mr. Sadr to start a political party. "I think this is a very smart move of him," he said. "I've kept on saying consistently that if I were in his shoes, I would try and go into the political arena instead of raising arms."
Another dividing point was whether Iraqi law applied to foreign contractors. Dr. Allawi wants it to; Mr. Senor, the occupation authority spokesman, said such workers would answer to Iraqi laws if they are charged with criminal acts. But an order signed by Mr. Bremer gives foreign contractors immunity from legal prosecution over any incident involving their work, Mr. Senor said.
The debate over the Republican Palace is particularly intense, given the strong symbolism involved.
"We asked that the Republican Palace be vacated at the first possible opportunity in order for us to use it as Iraqis, as a Republican Palace or a museum," President Yawar said. "Whatever we do with it is a matter for Iraqi sovereignty. It is a symbol of Iraqi sovereignty."
The Rose Garden news conference started as planned, with Mr. Bush and Mr. Karzai giving lengthy statements about Afghanistan, including a pledge that the nation would hold its first democratic elections in September. Mr. Karzai said 3.8 million voters had been registered - more than a third of the electorate, but a number far short of United Nations goals. Mr. Karzai acknowledged that he was cooperating with those mujahedeen leaders who support him as a presidential candidate, a move that has upset many Afghans. But Mr. Karzai said that the mujahedeen, who fought the Soviet occupation and have dominated Afghan politics for a decade, would not join his government.
"No deals have been made, no coalitions have been made and no coalition will be made," said Mr. Karzai. The Afghan president, known for his colorful dress, wore a lavish emerald-green silk cape. He removed it at the podium after 20 minutes under the Washington sun. Mr. Karzai was on his fourth trip to Washington as leader of Afghanistan. He sought political support, NATO troops and an American understanding of his relationship with the warlords. His trip was designed to bolster his standing in Afghanistan and help stabilize the nation before the voting in September.
For his part, Mr. Bush appeared in an ebullient mood as he stood by Mr. Karzai's side, ready to promote what he considers a good-news story of his administration, at least in relation to Iraq.
"Coalition forces, including many brave Afghans, have brought America, Afghanistan and the free world its first victory in the war on terror," Mr. Bush said. "Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world."
Joining the president in the Rose Garden was an unusual display of his high command. Along with Vice President Cheney were Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; Karen P. Hughes, an adviser to the president; and Laura Bush.
The United States in recent months has increased its forces in Afghanistan to 20,000 troops, and Mr. Bush outlined what he called America's "iron-clad" commitment to the country.Mr. Bush did not mention assistance for one of Afghanistan's biggest problems, the illegal cultivation of opium poppies. The trade has brought in $2.3 billion last year.
--------
U.S. May Cede Legal Custody Of Hussein
Ex-Leader Would Stay In American Hands
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43004-2004Jun15?language=printer
BAGHDAD, June 15 -- The United States intends to transfer legal custody of former president Saddam Hussein to Iraq's interim government if asked by the country's new prime minister, the administrator of the U.S. occupation, L. Paul Bremer, said Tuesday. But Bremer indicated that the U.S. military would continue to retain physical custody of Hussein until the Iraqi government has an appropriate detention facility to hold him.
"If they ask for him, which I have every reason to believe they will . . . we'll turn him over," Bremer said. He added, however, that "legal custody and physical custody can be two separate things."
The interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has been discussing the handover of Hussein with U.S. occupation authorities, although it was not clear whether he was seeking physical as well as legal custody of Hussein and other imprisoned former Iraqi leaders. Allawi said Monday night that Hussein and his lieutenants should be transferred to Iraqi control in two weeks, after the country recovers formal sovereignty on June 30.
"We have specific promises on this from the coalition authority, and the negotiations are under way," Allawi told CNN on Tuesday.
"We've been talking to him about it," Bremer said. "Allawi has been clear that he's going to ask."
U.S. officials said Tuesday that the physical turnover of prisoners is likely to come much later than June 30 because of the shaky security situation caused by a relentless insurgency against the U.S. occupation. Speaking at the White House, President Bush said Hussein and other senior figures of his Baath Party government would be turned over to Iraqi custody only when "appropriate security" is in place.
By giving Iraq legal but not physical custody of Hussein, the U.S. and Iraqi governments could achieve a deal that is in the best interests of both nations, a senior U.S. official involved in the process said. If the United States retained legal custody of Hussein, who has been classified by the U.S. government as a prisoner of war, it could prompt challenges from human rights groups and Hussein's lawyers because under international law, prisoners of war are to be released or charged with a crime when hostilities end.
For the Iraqi government, obtaining legal custody could provide an important symbolic boost to ballast its authority after June 30. But Iraqi leaders have indicated that assuming physical custody of Hussein could pose problems for them.
Hussein, who inspired fear among Iraqis for a quarter of a century and ordered the execution of many, would be a prisoner like no other in Baghdad. He has long been the focus of hatred for millions of Iraqis who suffered under his rule. But his loyal followers, including many of those in the insurgency, also could seek ways to rescue him from captivity.
The United States has held him in a secret location since his capture last December.
"We must first make sure than we can maintain protection for his life until he goes to trial," the country's interim president, Ghazi Yawar, told reporters Tuesday. "We must make sure that the trial goes as a legal process, he has his own fair chance of defense and the government has its own chance of expressing charges on him."
A special tribunal has been created in Baghdad to try Hussein and top officials of his government. The president of the tribunal, Salem Chalabi, has said that prosecutors will seek to charge Hussein and his lieutenants with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with his government's repression of ethnic Kurds and Shiite Muslims. Among the incidents likely to figure prominently in the charges are the use of poison gas against Kurdish villages in 1988 and the bloody suppression of a Shiite insurrection after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Bremer said the tribunal would not be ready to issue an indictment by June 30, but he said an arrest warrant from an Iraqi court could provide sufficient grounds to transfer legal custody.
The Bush administration has classified Hussein as a prisoner of war, but the status of his lieutenants is less clear.
If Iraqi officials do not ask for custody or if the U.S. government rejects the request, U.S. officials insisted that there was sufficient legal basis to hold Iraqis they classify as security detainees or prisoners of war after June 30. An agreement between the interim Iraqi leadership and U.S. officials, approved by the United Nations, expressly gives U.S.-led forces the right to detain people after June 30, they noted. Bremer also maintained that prisoners of war "can be kept until the hostilities are ended, and that isn't going to be by June 30."
The military plans to hold between 3,500 and 4,500 security detainees after the June 30 turnover, officers said. So far, about 400 cases have been turned over to a special Iraqi court established last summer by the occupation authority to try security detainees, although fewer than 20 cases have gone to trial.
Addressing another touchy issue between the U.S. and interim Iraqi governments, Yawar asserted that the United States would not be allowed to keep Hussein's main palace, now used as the occupation headquarters, as part of the future U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
"We have asked that the Republican Palace be vacated at the fastest opportunity for us to use it as Iraqis, as a Republican Palace or a museum. Whatever we do with it is a matter for Iraqi sovereignty. It is a symbol of Iraqi sovereignty," Yawar told reporters.
Meanwhile, insurgents stepped up their campaign against Iraq's infrastructure Tuesday, blasting two oil pipelines and cutting the country's oil exports through the Persian Gulf by half, the Associated Press reported.
Iraqi officials told Dow Jones Newswires they expected to have the damage repaired within a few days. However, petroleum analyst Paul Horsnell, head of energy research at Barclays Capital in London, said that Iraq would probably fail to meet its export target of 2 million barrels a day for June because of the blasts.
[On Wednesday, the al-Jazeera satellite television network reported that the head of security for oil fields in the northern city of Kirkuk had been assassinated, the Reuters news agency reported.]
On Tuesday in Baghdad, a three-vehicle convoy of foreign contract workers employed by the occupation authority was fired as it drove down a street and passed under a bridge, the U.S. military reported. [On Wednesday, the U.S. military announced that two people were killed and three were wounded in the attack, according to the AP.]
Staff writer Jackie Spinner contributed to this report.
--------
Top Iraqi Official Objects To Treatment as POW
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44663-2004Jun15.html
Gen. Amir Saadi, the onetime liaison between Saddam Hussein's government and U.N. weapons inspectors, has been kept in solitary confinement since he surrendered to U.S. troops on April 12, 2003, according to his wife and friends.
Saadi was classified as a prisoner of war by U.S. authorities a month after his surrender. The Geneva Conventions say prisoners of war "may not be held in close confinement except where necessary to safeguard their health." They also may not be "threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," if they refuse to answer questions, according to the conventions.
Detlev F. Vagts, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in international law governing wartime, said in a telephone interview, "Clearly we [U.S. forces] and Iraqi forces will have the right to confine people causing trouble or suspected of insurgency," but he added: "That would not cover al-Saadi."
A Defense Department spokesman would neither confirm nor deny yesterday that Saadi is in isolation, saying it has been the department's "policy not to discuss the disposition of individual detainees . . . because of Geneva Convention prohibitions on subjecting detainees to public scrutiny." But he said Saadi "is being treated fairly and humanely."
"It is cruel to detain innocent people in solitary confinement indefinitely, but it is far worse to be cut off from family and loved ones when they are only 15 minutes drive away and phone connections not accessible," Saadi, 66, wrote in a message delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross to his wife, Helma, on Feb. 16. She made excerpts from that message and others available to The Washington Post.
"My daily high is the exercise in fresh air, one hour in the morning, another in the afternoon," he wrote in another message that month. "These two hours are frequently curtailed" and "the twice weekly showers are sometimes missed."
Saadi was the first of the 55 most wanted senior officials in the Hussein government, the "deck of cards," to surrender, and he is among about 100 "high-value targets" who have been held in a VIP prison near the Baghdad airport. That prison is controlled by Maj. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, military head of the Iraq Survey Group, whose task has been to study Hussein's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs and to determine whether there were connections between his government and al Qaeda terrorists.
Under current procedures, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz must sign off on the release of Saadi or any other "deck of cards" official, a senior Pentagon official said. But under Article 118 of the Geneva Conventions, Vagts said, POWs "shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities."
With the transfer of limited authority in Iraq on June 30, leaders of the U.S.-led occupation and the interim Iraqi government are negotiating a transfer of custody of Hussein and former senior officials in his government. Yesterday, U.S. occupation administrator L. Paul Bremer publicly discussed the possibility of transferring legal custody of Hussein to the Iraqis while retaining physical custody until the government has an appropriate prison.
Daniel Senor, spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, told reporters in Baghdad he did not want to speculate on the release of former senior Hussein officials. "The focus of the discussions right now has been on Saddam Hussein," Senor said, "but the criteria, the same criteria applies, by and large, for that -- for the others in the deck of cards."
Under international and military law, POWs may be detained after the end of hostilities and occupation only if there are charges against them, according to the Red Cross. Senor said the U.S. view is that hostilities have not ended.
Saadi, who studied chemistry in England, rose in the Iraqi army to participate in the weapons programs that created shells, rockets and bombs that delivered VX and mustard gas to Kurds in northern Iraq and to Iranians in the 1980s. In 2000, he became adviser to Hussein for scientific affairs, setting him up to be liaison to U.N. inspectors.
Saadi repeatedly told U.N. inspectors that Iraq's weapons had been destroyed in 1991, a message he last transmitted to chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix a day before fighting started on March 20, 2003, according to Blix. He is said to have delivered the same message to U.S. interrogators.
Since he surrendered, Saadi has been questioned several times by the Iraq Survey Group. David Kay, who was CIA Director George J. Tenet's first chief inspector, said Monday that he had questioned Saadi and was not satisfied with the answers. But, he added, "I question whether there is more information to get from him."
Charles A. Duelfer, who has taken over as head of the weapons search, also believes Saadi has not fully answered questions, senior intelligence and Pentagon officials say. But another senior intelligence official said Monday, "The notion that Charles Duelfer is preventing this person's release is totally wrong."
David Albright, president of the D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security, has been in touch with Iraqi scientists and said he believes that Saadi's detention is tied to the continuing, and so far fruitless, U.S. search for weapons.
"For them to release Saadi would be acknowledgment that Iraq did not have weapons after 1991," Albright said in an interview.
In a March 22 letter to E. Scott Castle, general counsel of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Helma Saadi sought her husband's release "before occupation will officially end" because he is a POW.
"We have been told that there is no objection for his release from the Iraqi side," she wrote in the letter, which she made available to The Post. She also noted that five members of the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council would guarantee that he would be available for further questioning by U.S. officials. She included letters from two saying that Saadi was never a member of Hussein's Baath Party.
She noted that she has had no income since her husband surrendered and in August 2003 was severely injured in the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. "I had gone there for advice what to do about my husband's detention," she wrote.
-------- spies
CIA Director Meets With Egypt's President
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47556-2004Jun16.html
CAIRO, Egypt - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with CIA Director George Tenet on Wednesday to discuss Egypt's role in assisting the Palestinians after Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip.
Presidential officials gave no further details. Egyptian television said U.S. Ambassador David Welch and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman also attended the meeting.
Suleiman is the key player in the talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on what Egypt can do to help the Palestinians after Israel withdraws from Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pledged that Israeli settlers and soldiers will be out of Gaza by the end of 2005, part of a plan that also includes evacuating four small West Bank settlements.
If Israel pulls out, Egypt intends to increase the number of troops on its side of the border with Gaza and send security advisers to Gaza to help train Palestinian forces. Egypt will also help build new police stations and jails in Gaza.
Egypt reluctantly became involved in securing Gaza. It has been careful to say it is not helping Israel but defending its own borders against instability.
Mubarak told reporters that Egypt's role, with the support of the United States, might be expanded to include the West Bank, according to the Middle East News Agency.
"We offered training to the Palestinians to preserve peace and stop the continued acts of violence. ... We have agreed on that with the support of the United States and it will not be in Gaza only, but might be extended to include the West Bank," MENA quoted him as saying.
Later Wednesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia arrived in Cairo for Thursday talks with Mubarak.
Mohammed Sobeih, the Palestinian representative to the Arab League, said the talks would focus on preparing for the coming round of dialogue between Palestinian factions, scheduled for early next month.
The Egyptians have tried to secure the agreement of Palestinian militant factions in Gaza, notably Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to stop attacks against Israel so the withdrawal can proceed smoothly.
-------- un
Silent witnesses: 20 million civilians lost to the world
The innocent are the first casualties of war. Yesterday the UN admitted that it is powerless to help, reports
Declan Walsh
16 June 2004
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=531942
There are three actors in every Third World conflict. Each is armed with a weapon of survival. The soldier, usually unpaid and dressed in rags, has his gun. The politician, who stands behind him, has his voice. The civilian - who endures the brunt of misery, illness and death - has only her legs. They are only good for running. In most cases they are not fast enough.
Scruple-free governments, rag-tag rebel groups and other predators of conflict put the lives of more than 20 million people at risk, the chief of United Nations humanitarian operations, Jan Egeland, said in New York yesterday. UN and aid agencies were unable to deliver "the basic means of survival" to those that needed it most as a result of obstacles ranging from petty bureaucracy to callous obstructionism, to the outright menace of violence. "For every politician, aid is something to be twisted to their advantage," one aid worker said yesterday.
SUDAN
At risk: 2 million people
The world's worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the western region of Darfur, partly due to obstruction tactics by a government that Human Rights Watch dubs "The killers of Khartoum." For months aid agencies were forbidden from entering large parts of Darfur, where the Janjaweed, a horseback Arab militia, was burning hundreds of villages to the ground as part of a vicious ethnic cleansing. More than one million people were forced from their homes; at the latest count 160,000 had crossed into Chad.
The tactic of blocking aid workers' access is nothing new to Khartoum: for more than two decades it has used aid as a weapon in its war against southern rebels. In recent weeks intense international pressure has forced Khartoum to open access to Darfur by issuing visas to humanitarian workers within 48 hours, but huge problems remain. Up to 30 per cent of the region remained inaccessible, said one UN official, and a raft of new rules - such as requiring aid to be distributed through local organisations - were slowing the relief effort.
Some ministers were willing to help but their subordinates were "sabotaging" the aid efforts, Mr Egeland said in New York yesterday. The lack of access had already caused some deaths, and "many, many more" would follow if urgently-needed water and sanitation equipment could not be delivered soon, he warned.
Soon the travel papers might be useless: seasonal rains would soon flood Darfur, make roads impassable and trapping hundreds of thousandsin squalid camps. Up to two million lives were at risk, Mr Egeland said.
Darfur's rebels have also caused costly delays. Two weeks ago the Sudan Liberation Army detained 16 aid workers for unknown reasons, interrupting efforts for desperately needy civilians. The aid workers were released unharmed after four days.
AFGHANISTAN
At risk: 1 million people
It is not unusual for children to freeze to death in Afghanistan, because their parents cannot afford a blanket. Savagely cold winters make poverty all the more dangerous.
Few countries are in such dire need of international aid. Many of the poorest Afghans live on nothing but bread and weak tea, year round. Shoes for children are a luxury, schoolbooks unimaginable wealth for many.
Yet the aid the US and its allies promised in return for Afghan help to overthrow the Taliban never materialised. This time, Tony Blair promised, the world would not forget Afghanistan, but in all the excitement over the Iraq, Afghanistan was forgotten again.
There is need everywhere in Afghanistan except, perhaps, Kabul. The greatest need is in the most remote areas, across the world's most impenetrable mountains. The country was a nightmare to travel around at the best of times: its roads, rocky tracks that cling precariously to the ridges of mountains, a danger in themselves.
There are, however, much worse dangers for international aid agencies now, as the security situation, tenuous at best after the fall of the Taliban, collapses, in large part because the resources so desperately needed in Afghanistan have been diverted to Iraq.
The resurgent Taliban and al- Qa'ida are targeting international aid workers on the lawless roads. Even Médecins sans Frontières, whose volunteer doctors kept going to Afghanistan through some of its darkest years, have had to pull out in the after a threat was made against them.
The danger used to be just the Pashtun heartlands to the south and east, where support for the Taliban never failed, but now it is spreading. There has been an ambush in the Pashtun enclave of Kunduz in the north, and there have been killings inside Kabul.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
At risk: 2.2 million people
Gunmen have held sway in this Texas-sized country since General Francois Bozize seized power in a coup a year ago. Only the capital, Bangui, is relatively safe for aid workers; the countryside is crawling with mercenaries and rebels from neighbouring Chad.
Last year they helped Gen Bozize to power. This year they are looting, raping and plundering civilians. The fighters refuse to be disarmed until compensation is settled: they are demanding $1,800 (£980) each for their services for toppling the former government; Gen Bozize is offering $250.
The row has resulted in two million civilians being held hostage. Farms have been abandoned, and planting seasons missed, as an estimated 300,000 people fled their homes. Another 40,000 have fled north into Chad as refugees.
International apathy is also a culprit in the CAR, one of Africa's most ignored countries: as of mid-March, the latest UN appeal for $16.8 million in emergency funds had raised $700,000.
NEPAL
At risk: 3 million people
Some 5 million of Nepal's 26 million population are at risk in the brutal low-level conflict being waged between the government and a Maoist insurgency. Kathmandu has created local civilian militias - known as rural volunteer security groups and peace committees - in what risks becoming an alarming escalation of the conflict.
Civilian militias are developing into an untrained, unaccountable and undisciplined force that worsens a conflict that has already taken almost 9,000 lives.
Although the government has denied that it has already started distributing weapons, there is evidence that it is going ahead, with serious long-term consequences for the population caught in the middle.
NORTHERN CAUCASUS
At risk: 1.2 million people
Médecins sans Frontières is one of the few relief organisations still working in Russia's northern Caucasus region to help the 1.2 civilians displaced or otherwise at risk from the brutal conflict in Chechnya.
However, it had to suspend humanitarian activities in Dagestan and considerably limit operations in Chechnya and Ingushetia after the kidnapping of a Dutch worker, Arjan Erkel, who was held hostage for 20 months before being released for a ransom last April.
Kidnappings are rife in the region, which has been torn by war almost continually since 1994: Unicef suspended operations in 2002 following the abductions of two aid workers. Russia, which is still heavily engaged in the military struggle against the Chechen separatists, has been accused of placing bureaucratic obstacles in the way of the humanitarian effort.
NORTHERN UGANDA
At risk: 1.6 million people
Incredibly, a vast swathe of northern Uganda is hostage to the Lord's Resistance (LRA), a small but brutal rebel group. Led by the enigmatic Joseph Kony, the LRA claims it is on a mission from God to save Uganda. Yet his army has visited a virtual plague on the local population. A total estimated at 1.6 million have been displaced from their homes and forced into squalid, highly dangerous refugee camps.
Last week the LRA attacked yet another camp, the fourth in as many weeks. At least 35 people were killed. "Many people were hacked to death, while others were burnt in their huts," said a local Catholic priest, Father Joseph Garnar.
Aid agencies travel to the remote bush camps only with an army escort. Even then, security is not guaranteed, and some food convoys have been attacked.
The LRA has abducted about 10,000 teenage boys and girls in the past three years, brainwashing and beating them into becoming the next generation of fighters. To avoid this fate, thousands of youngsters flood into the main town every night, where they sleep in aid agency shelters, or on the streets.
Many local people blame President Yoweri Museveni's government for failing to find a peaceful solution to the LRA war. Mr Museveni has repeatedly stated his determination to quell the rebellion by military means.
PALESTINE
At risk: 3.5 million people
United Nations containers packed with flour or wheat destined for Palestinian refugees have been delayed for as long as six weeks at Israel's Ashdod port before they have been allowed to be delivered to the Gaza Strip. Other relief supplies may be held up for four hours at checkpoints in the West Bank.
For the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides food aid to about one million of its 1.5 million Palestinian charges, Ashdod is the only available port. "Our biggest challenge" said Paul McCann, the UNRWA spokesman, "is getting the food into the occupied territories and moving it around once it's there. Often we have thousands of tonnes sitting in Ashdod because of security restrictions."
The UN also complains that Israel refused to allow its workers into refugee camps during extended military offensives, such as last month's Operation Rainbow in Rafah on the Egyptian border. "We didn't get people into Rafah for five or six days," Mr McCann said. "We couldn't get assistance in. There was a shortage of water; food was rotting because the electricity was cut off. We couldn't get emergency cases, like diabetics, to our clinics. In Jenin two years ago we did not get in for two weeks."
Most of UNRWA's 60 international staff and all of its 12,000 Palestinian employees are restricted in their movements between Gaza and the West Bank. All UN vehicles leaving Gaza are checked by sniffer dogs, unless one of the passengers carries a diplomatic passport. Very few do.
Captain Jacob Dallal, an Israeli military spokesman, said: "We appreciate UNRWA's work. We try to facilitate them in doing their job. But because the terrorists are finding it harder to hit targets inside Israel, they have tried to use cargoes and vehicles of humanitarian organisations to move people and explosives. We have to check everything very carefully."
SOMALIA
At risk: 500,000 people
Relatively few aid workers risk going to Somalia, which is possibly the world's most lawless country. There has been no central government since 1991. The only rulers are gangster-like warlords, who have carved the country into a patchwork of rival areas. It is a chaotic, perilous environment that is becoming ever more hazardous for aid workers. Last month the capital, Mogadishu, was gripped by days of street battles that claimed more than 50 lives.
Other, more sinister forces may also be threatening humanitarian relief. Five foreign aid workers have been assassinated in the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland in recent months. The circumstances remain unclear, but extremist Islamic terrorists are suspected.
Last month aid workers pulled out of Dinsor, a southern town, after a freshly laid land mine was discovered on the local airstrip. UN officials said the sophistication of the device suggested it had been planted by al-Qa'ida or its local sympathisers.
The escalating security risks have forced most international aid workers out of Somalia. UN bosses must seek security clearance from New York for every trip to the capital, Mogadishu. They are often refused.
Further reporting by Anne Penketh, Eric Silver and Justin Huggler
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Judge Scolds U.S. Officials Over Barring Jet Travelers
June 16, 2004
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16flight.html
WASHINGTON, June 15 - A federal judge on Tuesday accused the federal government of using "frivolous claims" to avoid publicly disclosing who is banned from boarding airplanes because of terrorism concerns.
The sharply worded accusation came in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others seeking to find out how hundreds of people wound up on the government's "no fly" list after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The list of banned passengers has been a frequent target for civil rights advocates who accuse the Bush administration of using excessive secrecy in its campaign against terrorism.
The judge who is hearing the lawsuit, Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said in an opinion released Tuesday that he had privately reviewed voluminous government materials and that in many cases, government lawyers did not appear to have met their burden of proving that the material was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
Judge Breyer directed the government to review all the material it had withheld and to reconsider whether it could be properly exempted from public disclosure.
He said the defendants - the Justice Department, the F.B.I. and the Transportation Security Administration - had used an overly broad and "liberal application" of the law to justify the refusal to turn over critical information about how the government determined who was barred from flying and who was affected.
The A.C.L.U. estimates that more than 500 people in San Francisco alone have been stopped from boarding planes because of terrorist concerns, some of them after their names mistakenly wound up on no-fly lists.
Some passengers say they believe they were stopped because their names were similar to those of terrorist suspects, while others say they suspect their strong liberal politics were a factor. In one well-publicized incident in 2002, some two dozen members of a group called Peace Action of Wisconsin, including a priest, a nun and high school students, were detained in Milwaukee on their way to a "teach-in" and missed their flight.
Government lawyers refused to turn over much of the material sought by the A.C.L.U. because they said it involved sensitive security information or other material exempted from public disclosure.
But Judge Breyer said the withheld material included "innocuous information" about aviation protocols, publicly available information from newspapers and the names of senior transportation officials.
"Who holds a particular office at a particular time is a matter of public record,'' the judge wrote. "Thus, the redaction makes no sense."
He added that his review "demonstrates that in many instances the government has not come close to meeting its burden and, in some instances, has made frivolous claims of exemption."
A Justice Department lawyer refused to comment on the opinion.
Thomas Burke, a San Francisco lawyer representing the A.C.L.U. in the case, said the ruling represented a significant victory and could lead to more light being shed on how the government determined who should be barred from flying - and how people mistakenly put on the list might be able to get off.
"The end goal here," Mr. Burke said, "is to determine how these names were even developed in the first place."
-------- homeland security
Plan to Define Agencies' Roles in Emergencies Is Criticized
June 16, 2004
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/nyregion/16response.html
The Bloomberg administration's new plan to establish the roles of the Police and Fire Departments at emergencies - from terror attacks to stuck elevators - has sowed confusion and will cause more problems than it solves, fire union officials, City Council members and a public safety analyst said yesterday.
The criticism came at a joint session of the Council's Public Safety and Fire and Criminal Justice Committees. Most of the complaints centered on the Police Department's primacy under the new protocols in responding to emergencies involving hazardous materials. This area - which includes chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents -had long been the domain of the Fire Department. New York would be the only major city that gives that primary responsibility to the police, several council members and union officials said.
How the agencies respond to hazardous materials is at the center of the plan in large measure because of significant concerns that the a future terrorist attack could involve chemical, biological or radiological weapons. The protocol makes the Police Department the primary agency, responsible for overall site management, assessment and investigation, and gives the Fire Department responsibility for saving lives and mass decontamination.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who testified at the hearing with Joseph F. Bruno, the new Office of Emergency Management commissioner, staunchly defended the protocols and the roles the plans set for their respective agencies. They presented a largely united front, but Mr. Kelly and Mr. Scoppetta seemed to offer differing interpretations of the plan.
Mr. Kelly cited its designation of the police as the primary agency for hazardous materials calls. And at several points, Mr. Scoppetta, who has come under pressure within his agency for ceding too much ground, cited Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's statements that nothing about the Fire Department's role at such incidents has changed.
Confusion about the plan prompted a sharp exchange between Mr. Bruno and Councilwoman Yvette D. Clarke, the chairwoman of the Fire and Criminal Justice Committee. "The whole idea behind this was to create clear channels, and what you're doing right now is really muddying the situation," she said.
Stephen J. Cassidy, the United Firefighters Association president, and Daniel A. Nigro, a former Fire Department chief of department, suggested in testimony that the plan was flawed because it did not provide for a single overall incident commander in many instances, instead calling for several agency heads to work together in making decisions. The president of the city's detectives union, Michael J. Palladino, whose members work in the Emergency Services Unit, which will respond to hazardous materials incidents, said he supported the plan.
Glenn P. Corbett, an assistant professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, testified that the new protocols complicated an already inefficient system in which the Police and Fire Departments do many of the same jobs. "Instead of taking a giant leap forward through correcting longstanding major flaws in New York's City's emergency response protocols," he said, the plan "takes several steps backward."
Mr. Kelly has argued that the police should be in charge of hazardous materials incidents because, in the wake of Sept. 11, chemical leaks, tanker spills and the like could be part of a terrorist attack, a position Mr. Bloomberg has adopted. Senior fire officials have long argued that their department has 20 years of experience with such incidents.
Despite three hours of testimony, few details have been disclosed about the new plan. Known as the Citywide Incident Management System, it is meant to divide emergency responsibilities not only between the two departments, but also among other city agencies, and to conform to a broad federal plan.
But Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., who heads the Public Safety Committee, said the testimony of the three commissioners had clarified little. "We believe somebody should be placed in charge, because if there is confusion at the top, there is confusion in the trenches," he said.
The city announced the protocols on May 14 in a two-page news release with no supporting documents, just two days before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks was to hold public hearings in New York City. The commission had made clear that it was troubled by the city's failure to formalize such a system.
Both Mr. Kelly and Mr. Scoppetta, whose departments have long battled over primacy at certain types of rescues, said last October that a formal protocol was unnecessary, despite a report by a private consultant that criticized the response to the World Trade Center attack and said such a plan was needed.
Then, last July, they agreed to sign an accord after they learned it was required to qualify for millions of dollars in grants from the federal Department of Homeland Security.
The document has yet to be completed. Mr. Bruno said he would send drafts to the Police and Fire Departments in 30 days. He said it would be completed by the Oct. 1 deadline for the federal aid.
--------
Lawmaker Warns About Spending at DHS Agency
INS-Inherited Accounting Systems Are Faulted
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44666-2004Jun15.html
An agency of the Department of Homeland Security is in danger of violating federal laws against overspending congressionally approved budgets, in part because of flawed financial accounting systems it inherited from the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, a Democratic member of Congress said yesterday.
"I am deeply concerned about reports my staff are receiving from various personnel" at the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Rep. Jim Turner (Tex.), the senior Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, wrote to the department's inspector general. "These conversations revealed a severe lack of confidence" that the bureau's financial system is yielding accurate, timely information, he wrote.
ICE funds often are hastily moved among the bureau and its sister agencies to cover budget shortages, Turner said. ICE pilots don't know whether they can acquire fuel or spare parts, and some vendors are not being paid promptly because of glitches in the financial system, he said.
Homeland Security spokesmen said the bureau's financial systems are working adequately and denied that the agency might find itself in violation of laws against agency overspending.
"The budget is tight, but we're managing the budget we're given," department spokesman Dennis Murphy said. "People are meeting daily to work these things out."
In March, the Border and Transportation Security directorate -- ICE's parent organization within Homeland Security -- announced a temporary hiring freeze because of a budget crisis. The cause was lower-than-expected employee attrition, and the fact that combining the agencies' different financial systems made it difficult to track funds, officials said.
The 20,000-employee ICE -- which investigates the smuggling of arms, cash and illegal immigrants -- was created by the blending of parts of the former INS, the former Customs Service and the Agriculture Department's plant inspectors.
Many agents from the old Customs Service, which was a relatively high-performing agency with an esprit de corps, have expressed deep frustration at being forced to merge with the old INS, widely viewed as dysfunctional. Some of them call ICE "INS-occupied territory." One of their complaints is that ICE still uses some of INS's balky accounting and record-keeping systems.
Yesterday, Turner took up the cause of these agents. In his letter to Homeland Security's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, Turner asked for an investigation of ICE's financial practices.
"Problems with [ICE] financial systems have crippled the ability of managers and staff to fulfill their responsibilities," Turner wrote. "It is puzzling to me that the department would choose to stay with a [financial] system so widely recognized as inherently flawed."
"I understand that deficiencies in the ICE Federal Financial Management System are so severe that they place the bureau at risk of violating the Anti-Deficiency Act," which bars spending money Congress has not appropriated, he wrote. Violators of the act can face demotion or criminal penalties, he pointed out.
Former customs agents who now work at ICE welcomed Turner's letter. "INS was abolished by Congress, but its broken-down practices live on here at ICE," said one, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
Murphy said contending with the different financial systems used by ICE and its sister agencies is extremely difficult for the department.
"I won't sugarcoat the budget situation," Murphy said. "It is not a walk in the park. It's a multi-year effort to get this all to work smoothly. It's not smooth yet."
--------
Registered Traveler Program to Be Tested
By LESLIE MILLER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 3:53 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47089-2004Jun16?language=printer
WASHINGTON - The government expects to learn this summer whether frequent fliers will embrace the chance to avoid extra security inspections at airports by submitting to background checks in advance.
Some aviation industry officials predict an enthusiastic reaction from business travelers.
"More and more travelers will look to this voluntary program as a hassle-free way to get through government airport security lines," said Doug Wills, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, an airline industry group.
Others say frequent fliers are unlikely to sacrifice their personal privacy and note that the wait to pass through checkpoints at most airports is not too long.
The chairman of the Business Travel Coalition said his members are more aware of privacy issues since airlines disclosed they have shared passenger data with the government.
"The only benefit to the traveler appears to be a shorter line," Kevin Mitchell said. "How much of a benefit that is for all the trade-offs, it's hard to tell."
When Congress created the Transportation Security Administration after the Sept. 11 attacks, lawmakers also gave the agency the go-ahead for the program, known as registered traveler.
The agency said Wednesday the program will begin as a trial in Minneapolis this month before also testing it at airports in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington, D.C. The experiment will not sacrifice security for speed, said David Stone, the agency's acting chief.
It is not clear if the government plans to put the program in place nationally after the summer tests. If that happens, industry experts expect that participants would have to pay to join.
Frequent fliers who travel at least once a week in selected markets can participate at no charge in the tests.
They must give the government their name, address, phone number, birthdate and "biometric identifier," including fingerprint and iris scan. That information will be matched against law enforcement and intelligence databases such as the terrorist watch list. Officials also will check passengers for outstanding criminal warrants.
Participants can pass through a special lane at airport checkpoints, although they cannot bypass the metal detector and screens for carry-on bags.
Registered travelers would avoid the more intensive secondary screening if they have not set off any security devices.
Passengers now are subject to these checks if a security alarm registers or if a computer-assisted screening program has detected something unusual - a one-way ticket or ticket bought with cash, for example.
People will enroll as registered travelers if they can be certain of shorter security lines, said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.
The pilot program, which is costing $3.78 million, is too expensive and took too long to develop, said the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure's subcommittee on aviation.
"There are plenty of examples around the world of successful frequent traveler and airport secure-access programs," said Rep. John Mica said. "They spend money on wheels that have already been invented."
The government also announced the start of a 45-day test of explosives detection equipment at T.F. Green Airport in Providence, R.I. After going through the metal detector, some passengers will have to walk through a machine that sniffs the air and analyzes it for traces of explosives.
The machine, tested at a suburban Maryland train station in May, also will have tryouts at airports in San Diego, Tampa, Fla., and Rochester, N.Y.
On the Net:
Transportation Security Administration:http://www.tsa.gov
-------- terrorism
US terror report misses the mark
By Ajai Sahni,
Jun 16, 2004
Asia Times
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FF16Df03.html
The US State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 (PGT 2003) Report has been pilloried by a number of American experts, who note that, "its maths defies reality". The report contains a number of internal totaling errors that "even a third-grader could have found", according to one commentator at The Washington Times. The State Department has now taken cognizance of these errors and admitted that "the data in the report is incomplete and in some cases incorrect". It has promised to issue a "revised analysis" after a review.
But poor arithmetic and peripheral incompleteness is the least of the PGT 2003's problems. A review of the contents of the report with regard to South Asia (the only region treated in this assessment) exposes a capriciousness that does not suggest perverse intent, but utter incomprehension and abysmal ignorance on the part of those who have been charged with its compilation. The State Department indicates that the data was compiled by the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which comprises "elements from the [Central Intelligence Agency], [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and Departments of Homeland Security and Defense". If this reflects the levels of intelligence available to these agencies, or their competence, that should certainly disturb not only the American taxpayer, but people across the world who have to deal with the often disastrous consequences of American errors of policy and perception. There is, throughout the report, a comprehensive failure to identify and consistently apply clear definitions and norms and a systemic tendency to both grossly underestimate and distort the actual patterns and magnitude of terrorism globally.
Speaking from Washington during a video conference with a group of Indians (including this writer) in New Delhi on May 6 this year, Ambassador Cofer Black, the US coordinator for counter-terrorism, under whose authority the report was issued, stated: "My responsibility to the secretary and others is to reflect the reality of events on the ground. These have to be validated and checked out, they have to be multiply sourced." Little in the report suggests that any such process of validation or diversity of sourcing has actually been followed.
The report speaks of a total of 190 incidents of terrorism globally, in which 307 persons were killed, in the year 2003, with 82 of these targeting the United States. The US is, consequently, the country worst affected by terrorist acts in the year under review according to PGT 2003.
If this were indeed the true magnitude of international terrorism today, we would be living in a blessed world. India alone experiences thousands of incidents of terrorism each year, which would meet US criteria of internationality and "significance", but Appendix A of the report determines that there were a total of just 49 such incidents in the country, with a total of 99 fatalities, all of them concentrated in the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
The reality is that in J&K alone, there were at least 477 attacks on civilians in the year 2003, with a total of 658 civilian deaths recorded by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) from open source reports (official statistics available with the Institute for Conflict Management suggest the total civilian fatalities were significantly higher, at 807; the divergence mainly results from subsequent in hospital deaths of civilians injured in incidents, deaths occurring in remote areas, and delayed reports of deaths, which are often under-reported in the media). Significantly, all terrorist groups operating in J&K are headquartered in Pakistan - including the supposedly "indigenous" Hezbul-Mujahideen (HM); their cadres are armed, trained and financed by Pakistani sources, both state and non-state; they cross over into India for brief "tenures of service", and then cross back into Pakistan; and the most lethal of these groups, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) have direct and multiple links with the international Islamist extremist movement, including al-Qaeda, thus meeting any legitimate criteria on the "internationality" of their activities.
The official US position on these facts is, at best, evasive and facile. Confronted with the discrepancy in numbers, Black sought to represent the issue as a divergence in perceptions, stating, "In my dealings with the Indian government I ask them and challenge them to do a better job of representing the issue as they see it," and again, "We look forward to the Indian Government effectively communicating the reality of the situation there."
This position appears to suggest that the PGT is compiled through some kind of adjudication process, with respective national governments "making a case" before the US State Department, and the latter then pronouncing on the merits of the evidence. This is certainly not the case, and is not borne out by the actual contents of PGT 2003, with most of the incidents mentioned in the "Chronology of Significant Terrorist Incidents, 2003" (Appendix A of the report) citing unidentified "press reports".
Even on the basis of press reports, it is interesting to see how much PGT 2003 misses out on - and the inconsistency of what it chooses to include. Several minor incidents of little significance are included. Thus, on April 10, PGT 2003, displaying extraordinary diligence, records: "In Kashmir, a bomb exploded in the famous Mughal Garden causing no damage, according to press reports. No one claimed responsibility." A number of attacks on the police and security forces are also included in the chronology - militating against the projected definition of terrorism as attacks against civilians or "non-combatants". If this was applied consistently, the total fatalities inflicted by terrorists in J&K would be even higher than those indicated above (a total of 380 security forces personnel were killed in J&K, according to official sources; SATP records a total of 338 security forces fatalities from open source reports).
On the other hand, what is excluded is shocking. It is not possible here to give a full listing of the hundreds of incidents left out (though such a listing can easily be made available separately), but it is useful to look at some of the more notable omissions:
# January 28: National Conference leader and prominent businessman Farooq Ahmed Kuchchay and his personal security officer are killed by a group of four suspected HM terrorists in Udhir village, in the Chatru area of the Doda district.
# February 12: Three civilians are abducted and later killed by suspected HM terrorists at Dharam village, in the Gool area of the Udhampur district.
# April 19: Unidentified terrorists abduct a civilian and later chop off his ears, nose and tongue at Chatroo village in the Doda district.
# May 9: Unidentified terrorists kill three prominent activists of the ruling People's Democratic Party in Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's hometown of Bijbehara, in southern Kashmir.
# May 19: Four women and two children are beheaded by suspected JeM terrorists at the village of Chowkian in the Kot Dhara area of the Rajouri district.
# May 26: A group of seven unidentified terrorists intrude into the house of a Village Defense Committee member and kill all five members of the family, including three children, and later set ablaze their house in the village of Seri Khwas in the Koteranka area of the Rajouri district.
# June 13: Three civilians, including two women, are shot dead by unidentified terrorists in the Handwara area of the Kupwara district.
# July 7: Three unidentified terrorists shoot dead five civilians, including two women, and injure another woman at village Dandhok, near the Line of Control in the Nowshera sector of the Rajouri district.
# September 21: Three persons are killed and 29 others injured in a blast triggered by an improvised explosive device fitted video cassette recorder in the town of Rajouri.
# September 27: Unidentified terrorists kill four members of a family, including a two-year-old child, in the Mahore area of the Udhampur district.
# October 17: Security forces foil the first Fidayeen (suicide squad) attack on the official residence of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on Maulana Azad Road in capital Srinagar. Two Border Security Force personnel are killed and 10 persons, including three photojournalists, sustain injuries.
Interestingly, on September 9, PGT 2003 records: "In Sopat, Kashmir, armed terrorists shot and killed a former state forest minister, according to press reports. No one claimed responsibility." As a matter of fact, the attack on former forest minister Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad Shah at a marriage ceremony in Sopat village near Qazigund, was unsuccessful. Shah escaped with minor injuries, though his personal security officer was killed. So much for "validation and multiplicity of sources".
Incidentally, no group has been identified as responsible for any of the incidents in Kashmir listed in the PGT 2003 chronology. It is not clear, under the circumstances, how a determination was made regarding the "international" character of the incidents. By contrast, "probable" responsibility is attributed for most incidents in, for instance, Afghanistan.
The PGT 2003 chronology of significant incidents does not identify any acts of international terrorism anywhere in India outside J&K in the year under review. Interestingly, the South Asia Overview released by the State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Counter-terrorism does make a general reference to such incidents, and carries two photographs recording the worst acts of terrorism in India in 2003 - the twin Mumbai Blasts on August 25, in which 97 people were killed according to the report (45 at the Zaveri Bazzar in Mumbai, and 52 near the Gateway of India). The perpetrators of the Mumbai twin blasts had significant external linkages. Interestingly, after being "validated, checked out, and multiply sourced", the report gets the location of one of the explosions wrong: one incident occurred at the Zaveri Bazaar, and not at the "Zahir Bazzar" as PGT 2003 notes. Worse, the combined fatalities in the two incidents, according to reports available in India, did not exceed 52.
The hundreds of other incidents and fatalities in other parts of the country, including areas affected by left-wing extremist groups such as the Maoist Communist Center and the People's War Group - which have been included in the PGT 2003's listing of "Other Terrorist Groups" - find no mention in the report. Nor does India's terrorism-wracked northeast figure in PGT 2003, despite the fact that virtually every group operating in the region is headquartered, or has bases in Bangladesh, with some camps located in Myanmar as well, and despite the overwhelming evidence that their leadership is being directly supported by Bangladesh's covert agencies. But Black simply dismisses all this on the grounds that, "We're not on the same sheet of music with the Indians on this"; and that "We do not have sufficient amount of information in terms of quantity and quality ... that would allow us to recommend that they [the terrorist groups in the Northeast] be listed."
Bangladesh, incidentally, widely acknowledged as an emerging center of Islamist terrorist consolidation, a major supply route and transit point for illicit weapons smuggling, and a major sponsor of terrorist groups operating against India, finds no mention whatsoever in PGT 2003.
Pakistan, if we go by the report, is among America's "most important partners in the global coalition against terrorism", and has done exemplary work to arrest and neutralize terrorists, freeze their assets, pass anti-terrorism legislation and establish an efficient network of special courts to try terrorists. There is not a single negative reference to trends in terrorism in Pakistan, nor any suggestion that the country was responsible for, or has been one of the most significant locations and sources of, international Islamist fundamentalist terrorism. In fact, an interesting semantic shift in the report on India underscores the obvious intent and refusal to acknowledge ground realities in Pakistan: PGT 2002 explicitly identified Pakistan based terrorist groups operating in J&K. PGT 2003, instead, speaks vaguely of "foreign based" terrorist groups operating in J&K, though Appendix B profiling "Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations" clearly locates every single listed group that is generally known to be operating in J&K as being located in Pakistan. Another interesting omission here is that the "Location/Area of Operation" of major Pakistan backed terrorist groups such as JeM and LeT is identified as Pakistan in these profiles - no reference is made in the report to their activities in J&K. PGT 2002, by contrast, clearly indicated that members of the JeM "conduct terrorist activities primarily in Kashmir". There is a clear pattern that suggests a systematic effort to deny Pakistani culpability on international terrorism.
It is interesting to note that all this occurs in a review of the year in which the US ambassador to Pakistan, Nancy Powell, had called on President General Pervez Musharraf to end the "use of Pakistan as a platform for terrorism"; a senior State Department official, Richard Haas, confessed that Washington had been unable to persuade Pakistan to "stop cross-border terrorism" against India; and Michael Evanoff, a US Embassy official in Islamabad, termed Pakistan as "the epicenter of terrorism".
The chronology of terrorism within Pakistan is also laughable. If PGT 2003 is to be believed, a total of just four "significant terrorist incidents" occurred in Pakistan in 2003. They included the January 5 incident in Peshawar, where "armed terrorists fired on the residence of an Afghan diplomat, injuring a guard", and the January 12 incident in Hyderabad, where "authorities safely defused a bomb placed in a toilet of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant". There was only one incident, on April 13, in which (two) fatalities occurred. This would make Pakistan possibly one of the safest countries in the world, and certainly the safest in the region.
That this is as far from the truth as is possible should by now be common knowledge, even in distant America. Once again, it is not possible to list the entirety of incidents in Pakistan omitted by the PGT 2003 chronology, but if one simply totals incidents on the SATP database in which multiple fatalities occurred or important targets were attacked (parameters far more stringent than those purportedly applied in the report), at least 37 can be identified, with 142 fatalities. Among some of the important incidents PGT 2003 missed out in Pakistan:
# January 23: Anti-Taliban Afghan writer, Fazal Wahab, living as a refugee in Swat, Northwest Frontier province, is shot dead along with two other persons.
# February 22: Nine persons are shot dead and seven more wounded in an attack by unidentified armed men outside a mosque in Rafah- i-Aam Society, Karachi.
# February 28: Two policemen guarding the US Consulate in Karachi, Sindh, are killed and five others injured by an unidentified gunman.
# May 10: Approximately 11 persons are injured when an explosive device goes off inside a Kandiaro-bound passenger bus at Pathan Colony, Hyderabad.
# May 13: A powerful bomb explosion occurs outside the Christian Memorial School in the Bannu district on May 13. However, no causalities are reported.
# July 4: At least 53 persons are killed and 57 others injured as three armed terrorists, including a suspected suicide bomber, attack a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Quetta, capital of the Southwestern Baluchistan province, during Friday prayers.
# July 28: Three persons, including a woman, are killed and four others sustain injuries during a bomb explosion in the Saidgai village of North Waziristan Agency along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
# September 27: At least 12 persons are injured when a bomb of low intensity explodes in a minibus under the Brigade police station-limits on the MA Jinnah Road in Karachi.
# November 20: Chief of Jamaat-e-Islami in Dera Bugti, Amanullah Bugti, and his two associates are killed near Dera Bugti, approximately 340 kilometers from Quetta.
# December 14: Musharraf escapes an assassination attempt when an explosive device goes off at the Chaklala Bridge near Jhanda Chichi in Rawalpindi approximately two minutes after the departure of his convoy.
# December 25: At least 18 persons are killed and 40 others sustain injuries during a second assassination attempt in less than two weeks on Musharraf in the Jhanda Chichi area of Rawalpindi.
(The assassination attempts on Musharraf do, however, find passing mention in the South Asia Overview)
It is useful to note that a majority of these incidents were executed by groups directly connected to, or supported by, Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front.
As regards the other countries of the region, the report fails to go beyond bland generalizations and cannot provide anything that would meet the criteria of an objective and realistic assessment.
Given the complete lack of realism or reliability of the PGT 2003 Report in its assessment of the situation in South Asia, it is difficult to believe that it is any more accurate with regard to other parts of the world. The report can only further and severely undermine confidence in US perceptions and projections with regard to terrorism, and in the credibility of its intelligence. This is a rather unsettling prospect: to discover that the world's sole hyperpower operates on such poor intelligence is not particularly comforting to the rest of the world, or indeed, to the people of the United States who are yet to come to terms with the intelligence failures that preceded the terror attacks of September 11, and the manipulation of intelligence that preceded the ruinous misadventure in Iraq.
Ajai Sahni, editor, South Asia Intelligence Review; executive director, Institute for Conflict Management.
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Original Plan for 9/11 Attacks Involved 10 Planes, Panel Says
June 16, 2004
By DAVID STOUT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16CND-REPORT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, June 16 - As horrendous as they were, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were only a small part of terrorist visions that foresaw using 10 hijacked airplanes to attack targets on both the East and West Coasts, including the United States Capitol and the White House, the staff of the independent commission investigating 9/11 reported today.
The staff also said in a companion report that it had found "no credible evidence" that Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorists cooperated in the attacks, a conclusion likely to fuel the debate over President Bush's decision to go to war to topple Saddam Hussein. Indeed, the commission staff said, Iraq apparently rejected Osama bin Laden's requests to provide space for training camps and help Al Qaeda acquire weapons.
Some of the 9/11 terrorist plans, the commission staff said, called for the hijacked jets to be crashed into the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, various nuclear power plants, and skyscrapers in California and Washington State, a captured leader of Al Qaeda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has told interrogators.
Mr. Mohammed, who is believed to have originated the idea for the Sept. 11 attacks and whose nephew, Ramzi Yousef, was the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was seized in Pakistan in March 2003 and is being held at an undisclosed location.
Mr. Mohammed has told his questioners that he planned to fly the 10th jet himself. But rather than crashing it into a target, he would have killed every male passenger on board, then contacted American news organizations and landed the craft at a United States airport. Then he would have made a speech denouncing Washington's Middle East policies and released all of the women and children on the plane.
Mr. bin Laden vetoed that element of the operation.
The reports, the 15th and 16th by the panel staff, were issued as the commission, meeting in Washington, began its last two days of public hearings. A final report is to be issued by July 26.
Today's interim report on the outline of the 9/11 plot offers new details and far more context than has previously been known. It says, for instance, that Zacarias Moussaoui, who has often been dubbed "the 20th hijacker" out of speculation that he was to have joined the 19 actual hijackers, was instead meant to participate in a "second wave" of attacks, an idea thwarted when he was arrested in August 2001 after his behavior at a Minnesota flying school aroused suspicion. Mr. Moussaoui is awaiting trial on charges connected to the 9/11 plotting.
Mr. Mohammed has told his questioners that he initially wanted to have 25 or 26 hijackers in place in the United States. Some candidates for the suicide missions withdrew under pressure from their families, while others could not get visas to enter the United States or encountered other obstacles, the report said.
The 9/11 conspirators and their leaders, while joined in their hatred of the United States, often argued among themselves over what targets to attack, and when, the staff of the bipartisan commission said. "Given the catastrophic results of the 9/11 attacks, it is tempting to depict the plot as a set plan executed to near perfection," the report said. "This would be a mistake."
For instance, Mr. bin Laden, Al Qaeda's top leader, initially pushed for a date of May 12, 2001, exactly seven months after terrorists attacked the American destroyer Cole in Yemen. Then, when he learned that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel would visit the White House in June or July, Mr. bin Laden pressed to amend the timetable.
"In both instances," the report notes, Mr. Mohammed "insisted that the hijacker teams were not yet ready."
In the fall of 2000, it appeared that the attacks might have to be scaled back because some of the would-be pilots were slow to master the complexities of flying, the report recounts, but "a young Saudi with special credentials" helped keep the plot on track.
He was Hani Hanjour, who had studied in the United States off and on since 1991 and had undergone enough flight training in Arizona to get his commercial pilot certificate in April 1999. After training at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan in 2000, he arrived in the United States late that same year. It was he who piloted the jet that crashed into the Pentagon.
The plot was also riven by personality clashes and, it seems, by at least one case of cold feet. In the summer of 2001, Mohamed Atta, the operational leader of the 9/11 conspiracy, drove another conspirator, Ziah Jarrah, to Miami's main airport so that Mr. Jarrah could fly to Germany to visit his girlfriend.
That Mr. Atta drove Mr. Jarrah to the airport was an "unusual circumstance suggesting that something may have been amiss," the report said. At the time, Khalid Mohammed was fretting to his fellow terrorists that if Mr. Jarrah "asks for a divorce, it is going to cost a lot of money," apparently an allusion to the costs of putting another hijacker in place.
One apparent "failure" of the plot has been known since the day of the attacks: the Boeing 757 designated United Flight 93, which took off from Newark, crashed in a field in southwestern Pennsylvania, apparently after its hijackers struggled with the doomed passengers. (That plane is believed to have been piloted by Mr. Jarrah, who got over his case of cold feet and said good-bye to his girlfriend, and his life.)
There has been conjecture ever since that the hijackers on Flight 93 meant to crash the plane into a high-profile Washington target - the White House, perhaps, or the Capitol. Another jet, hijacked after it took off from Dulles Airport, near Washington, crashed into the Pentagon, while two jetliners that were hijacked after taking off from Boston were flown into the World Trade Center, destroying the Twin Towers.
Mr. Mohammed has told interrogators that "the U.S. Capitol was indeed on the preliminary target list" that he originally developed with Al Qaeda's top leader, Mr. bin Laden, and other terrorist ringleaders as early as the spring of 1999.
"That preliminary list also included the White House, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center," said the staff of the commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Mr. Mohammed "claims that while everyone agreed on the Capitol, he wanted to hit the World Trade Center, whereas bin Laden favored the Pentagon and the White House."
Among Mr. bin Laden and his confederates, the Capitol was "the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel," while the White House was considered "a political symbol."
Mr. bin Laden expressed his target preferences in the summer of 2001 to Mr. Atta, who was destined to fly a jetliner into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Had he not been able to hit the tower, Mr. Atta was determined to crash the jet he was flying into the streets of Manhattan, the report says.
Mr. Atta said he thought the White House would be too difficult a target, though it was not clear why. Better to hit the Capitol, Mr. Atta reportedly argued. "Atta selected a date after the first week of September so that the United States Congress would be in session," the report states.
In the weeks leading up to the attacks, the terrorists who were assigned to be "the muscle" in the hijackings, to stave off any resistance from passengers or crews, trained in gyms to prepare for their missions, which they are believed to have carried out with the help of box-cutter knives (most of the men were between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 7 inches tall). The plotters had also studied airline schedules and had observed while on typical flights that cockpit doors were often open a quarter-hour or so after takeoff - making that the best time for hijacking.
The commission staff said it was aware of reports that Iraq and Al Qaeda had contacts while Mr. bin Laden was in Afghanistan, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." The staff noted that "two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq."
The panel also said it had uncovered no evidence of an April 2001 meeting in Prague between Mr. Atta and a member of the Iraqi intelligence bureau, as Czech intelligence officials had said.
As have previous staff reports on the Sept. 11 carnage, this one reveals some tantalizing "what ifs."
On April 1, 2001, as they were driving from Arizona toward the East Coast, Mr. Hanjour and Salem al-Hazmi, a confederate in the hijacking of the Pentagon-bound jet, were stopped in Oklahoma for speeding.
And on June 30, Salem al-Hazmi was riding with his brother, Nawaf, and Abdulaziz al-Omari when Nawaf was involved in a minor accident on the George Washington Bridge. Nawaf al-Hazmi was also aboard the plane that hit the Pentagon, while Mr. al-Omari was on one of the planes that flew into the World Trade Center.
Finally, the once reluctant Jarrah Ziad Jarrah got a speeding ticket on Sept. 9 as he headed north through Maryland on Interstate 95, toward his team's staging point for the hijacking of the plane that left Newark and crashed in Pennsylvania.
There is no suggestion in the report that the police officers should have sensed that the people involved in those traffic incidents were up to something. On the other hand, the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was brought to justice in part because he was stopped for a traffic infraction.
Some pieces of the 9/11 puzzle may never quite fit. The commission staff reminded its readers of the previously known - but never explained - side trip by car that Mr. Atta and Mr. Omari took from Boston to Portland, Me., just before Sept. 11.
In the early morning of Sept. 11, they boarded a commuter flight from Portland to Boston. They made it to Boston barely in time to get on the plane that Mr. Atta would steer into the Trade Center.
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Karzai lauds U.S. war on terror
June 16, 2004
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Stephen Dinan
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040615-115638-6524r.htm
Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought to stiffen American resolve to fight the war on terror yesterday, comparing the U.S. liberation of Afghanistan to that of Europe during World War II and telling a joint session of Congress that American military power is a force for good.
"Today, the United States is once again leading the global effort to defeat terrorism and extremism. Afghanistan is a central front in this war against terrorism. The Afghan peoples are and will remain with you in this struggle," Mr. Karzai, who leads the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan, told Congress yesterday morning.
He then met with President Bush at the White House, where Mr. Bush called Afghanistan the "first victory in the war on terror." He said that nation's progress since the ouster of the Taliban in December 2001 makes it a model for Iraq.
"Out of kind of the desperate straits that the Afghan people found themselves, it's now a welcoming society beginning to grow. And the same thing's going to happen in Iraq," Mr. Bush said at a Rose Garden press conference.
The president laid out a five-point plan to help Afghanistan, including a training program for newly elected Afghan politicians; $4 million to create a women's teacher training institute in Kabul; expanded cultural exchange programs; $5 million to fund training programs and small business grants for women; and striving to reach a free trade agreement.
"The road ahead for Afghanistan is still long and difficult, yet the Afghan people can know that their country will never be abandoned to terrorists and killers. The world and the United States stands with them as partners in their quest for peace and prosperity and stability and democracy," Mr. Bush said.
Elections are scheduled for September, and Mr. Karzai proudly told both Mr. Bush and Congress that more than one-third of those who have registered to vote are women, and in one region women make up more than half of registered voters.
Democrats have said Mr. Bush has hurt the continuing war on terror in Afghanistan by diverting attention and resources to Iraq, and some have even said he has shirked the search for Osama bin Laden by focusing on Iraq.
"It's a mission that's been put on the back burner for a long time in Washington," Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said yesterday. The retired general now supports Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Violence continues in Afghanistan, with frequent clashes between coalition forces and remnants of the Taliban regime, backed by some local ethnic group leaders.
Asked about reports that he is negotiating with regional leaders, Mr. Karzai said as president he must talk with anyone who can help move the country toward stability, but he has not cut deals with anyone.
"No coalitions have been made, and no coalition will be made. And they did not ask for it," he said. "First of all, we don't call them 'warlords.' Some of those people are respected leaders of the Afghan resistance. Some of them are former presidents. And we respect them in Afghanistan."
Mr. Karzai said Afghanistan still is working through problems, particularly the production and export of narcotics.
"Drug profits finance private militias, terrorists and extremists. Drug profits undermine our effort to build a healthy and legitimate national economy. Drugs threaten the lives and future of children - yours and ours. We are determined to cleanse Afghanistan from this menace," he said.
In his address to Congress, Mr. Karzai painted a picture of American military might as a benevolent and humane force.
He told a story about two U.S. soldiers who were traveling in Kandahar a couple of months ago when a terrorist threw a grenade into their vehicle. Rather than throw the grenade back onto the street, where it would have exploded among Afghan civilians, the soldiers stuck it under their seat, where it exploded, badly injuring the two men.
Mr. Karzai said that is the image he holds of American military power: "To us, this is also the example of heroism and care for humanity, and we are proud of these two American soldiers."
He also told a story about a U.S. bomb that went astray in December 2001, killing 20 Afghans and four U.S. soldiers.
He said in the aftermath of that, an old man walked up to him and told him to convey a message to the Americans: "Tell them that in a war like this, things like that happen. Tell them not to lose heart. Tell them that we shall continue to fight, and we must win."
Fewer than half of the senators, and far less than half of the House, attended yesterday's address, but those that did, and the staffers that filled the other seats, gave Mr. Karzai a strong standing ovation for both stories.
Mr. Karzai also told reporters that if Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the former Taliban government in Afghanistan, are caught, he will consult with international leaders to decide how and where they should be tried.
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Israel, US Use Similar Torture Tactics: Report
An Israeli committee said torture in Israel is a "routine, carried out in an orderly and institutional fashion."
June 16, 2004
(IslamOnline.net)
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-06/16/article05.shtml
CAIRO - The accounts of physical abuse of Iraqis by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad are similar to the Israeli army techniques in torturing Palestinian detainees, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, June16 .
It cited cases of Palestinian detainees painfully tortured by their Israeli interrogators and placed in stress postures similar to those imposed on Iraqi detainees.
The daily said Palestinian detainees were forced to stand for days at a time or were shackled in tightly contorted positions on low stools, a procedure known as shabah.
The Palestinians were violently shaken, deprived of sleep, bombarded with loud, continuous music, exposed to extremes of cold and heat and forced to relieve themselves in their clothing, according to the Post.
Their heads were often covered with canvas hoods that reeked of urine or vomit, a familiar scene in Abu Ghraib, it added.
New Techniques
Ziad Arafeh, a48 -year political activist who lives in the Balata refugee camp outside the West Bank city of Nablus , recalled he had been detained 14 times over the past two decades.
Each time, he said, his interrogators seemed to have mastered a new technique, said the Post.
Arafeh stressed that at first crude physical and sexual abuse was commonplace.
When he was first detained in 1983 an interrogator put on rubber gloves and squeezed his testicles until he cried out in pain.
On another occasion Arafeh said he was kept in his underwear in a small, cold cell and splashed with water every few hours.
Now the emphasis is on psychological pressure, he asserted, recalling that during his detention a year ago he was deprived of sleep for several days but not beaten.
The Israeli soldiers are often cruel, kicking and humiliating detainees in ways similar to the behavior reported at Abu Ghraib, he told the Post.
Casual Beatings
Anan Labadeh, who was detained at an Israeli military camp in March of last year, said he was familiar with the casual beatings, the humiliations, the trophy photos taken by both male and female guards at Abu Ghraib.
"Three days without food and without sleep and you're eager to tell them anything. It just shows us the Americans are amateurs. They should have taken lessons from the Israelis."
Labadeh, 31 , became a cause célèbre after he fell from a third-story balcony while being chased by Israeli soldiers during a stone-throwing incident in the late1980 s, said the American daily.
Paraplegic Labadeh said he was routinely punched and kicked by the soldiers who escorted him to a military detention center at nearby Hawara and then by other soldiers at the center itself over three days.
He said he was blindfolded, denied food and water, left outside in the rain and cold, deprived of sleep and forced to urinate and defecate in his clothing, reported the Post.
"For a person like me to be surrounded by a group of soldiers, punched, insulted, peeing on myself, my dignity was insulted," Labadeh said.
There are around 8000 Palestinian detainees in 22 Israeli prisons, detentions and concentration camps.
New Regime
The latest report by the Israeli committee against torture, covering the period from September 2001 to April2003 , said that detainees faced a new regime of sleep deprivation, shackling, slapping, hitting, kicking, exposure to extreme cold and heat, threats, curses, insults and prolonged detention in subhuman conditions.
"Torture in Israel has once more become routine, carried out in an orderly and institutional fashion," the Post quoted the report, which was based on 80 affidavits and court cases.
The committee accused the Israeli legal system of effectively sanctioning torture by routinely rejecting petitions seeking to grant detainees access to lawyers.
Sanctioned
The Post said although its officials never use the word "torture", Israel is perhaps the only Western-style democracy that has acknowledged sanctioning mistreatment of prisoners in interrogation.
The paper said that in1987 , following a long debate in legal and security circles, an Israeli state commission established a set of secret guidelines for interrogators using what the panel called "moderate physical and psychological pressure" against detainees.
Although Israel 's Supreme Court struck down those guidelines, ruling that torture was illegal under any circumstances in1999 , the security agencies returned to physical coercion as a standard practice after the second Palestinian Intifadah against Israeli occupation in September2000 .
The authorization is similar to the memos in which the U.S. Justice Department had advised the Pentagon that torturing detainees outside the U.S. "may be justified", and that anti-torture international laws "may be unconstitutional" in interrogations related to the so-called "war on terror".
But the difference is that the torture techniques the Israeli forces have used command widespread support from the Israeli public.
A long parade of Israeli prime ministers and justice ministers with a variety of political views have defended the security agencies and either denied that torture is used or defended it as a last resort in preventing Palestinian attacks against occupation forces, said the Post.
-------- POLITICS
-------- budget
House OKs $10B Contract for Accenture
By ALAN FRAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47494-2004Jun16.html
WASHINGTON - A drive to block a massive federal contract awarded to Accenture LLP for tracking visiting foreigners was all but scuttled Wednesday by the House, despite arguments that the company should be punished for avoiding some U.S. taxes.
The near party-line 234-197 vote by the GOP-led chamber meant that language disallowing the contract - valued at up to $10 billion over the next decade - was likely to be removed later this week from a $32 billion bill financing the Homeland Security Department.
The Accenture contract would benefit a wide array of subcontractors and is strongly supported by the business community and the House Republican leadership. Accenture opponents say the company shrunk its tax bill by moving its headquarters to Bermuda. But they acknowledged they face an uphill fight and were hoping the Senate would keep the issue alive.
"These companies have an obligation to the United States of America to pay their taxes," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. "If you want to feed at the public trough, you have to pay your taxes."
The vote came as Congress belatedly plunged into its budget work for 2005. Leaders hope to finish as many of the 13 annual spending bills as they can by the Oct. 1 start of the government's new fiscal year. Lawmakers took action on everything from adding money for U.S. diplomats in Iraq to ending the U.S. Capitol Police's new mounted police force.
The Accenture vote was no surprise; similar provisions have been killed or weakened over the past two years. The bill was expected to retain language barring the Homeland Security Department from entering future contracts with companies headquartered offshore.
Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., said DeLauro's amendment was designed to "score some political points" and was picking on a company that pays all the taxes it legally owes.
In other work Wednesday:
-The House voted 241-185 to raise the National Endowment of the Arts budget to $131 million. That is $10 million more than the House Appropriations Committee approved but still below the $139 million President Bush proposed. The money was added to a $19.5 billion measure for the Interior Department and other land and cultural programs that increases spending for battling wildfires and eliminates funds for buying new land for parks.
-The House Appropriations Committee approved a $416.9 billion defense measure, including $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The panel added $685 million for diplomatic costs in both countries that, like the military money, the Bush administration had said would not be needed until at least next January.
Committee members also added $95 million for victims of starvation and fighting in Sudan and Chad; a requirement for a White House report by Oct. 1 of the expected U.S. price tag in Iraq and Afghanistan; and language curbing contracts with private companies to manage Iraqi reconstruction.
-The House Appropriations Committee approved a $28 billion energy and water measure that cuts President Bush's request for work on a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. It boosts spending for water projects in lawmakers' home districts, and eliminates funds Bush wanted to develop some new nuclear weapons.
-A subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $32 billion measure for the Homeland Security Department that adds money for protecting rail systems Bush did not request. The bill does not address the Accenture contract.
-A House Appropriations subcommittee approved $2.8 billion for Congress' own operations, excluding Senate money that chamber will add later. The total is the same as this year's, though the House's own budget would grow by 3.6 percent to $1.04 billion.
The panel also voted to abolish the six-horse, seven-officer mounted police force the Capitol Police started this spring, which Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., called "a police fashion accessory."
It also defeated an amendment by Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., that would have forbidden departing House members from filing complaints with the House ethics committee - in effect barring Rep. Chris Bell, D-Texas, from pursuing his ethics charges against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
-------- corruption
Complaint Ruptures 7-Year Truce in House
June 16, 2004
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16delay.html
WASHINGTON, June 15 - A seven-year-old unofficial truce discouraging House members from filing ethics complaints against one another disintegrated Tuesday when a freshman Democrat accused one of the most powerful members of Congress, the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, of "bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering and the abuse of power."
The Democrat, Representative Chris Bell of Texas, who is leaving Congress because he lost a primary election, filed a 187-page complaint against Mr. DeLay, also of Texas, with the House ethics committee. The complaint accuses the majority leader of illegally soliciting campaign contributions, laundering campaign contributions to influence state legislative races and improperly using his office to influence federal agencies.
Mr. DeLay said "there is no substance" to the accusations.
The complaint is deeply intertwined with Texas politics. This year, Mr. DeLay helped orchestrate redistricting there. Mr. Bell, who is white, was subsequently pushed into a district that is largely black, and he lost the Democratic nomination to a black candidate. The accusations in Mr. Bell's complaint, which news organizations had raised earlier, revolve in part around Mr. DeLay's actions in the redistricting.
The complaint makes three specific accusations, that Mr. DeLay traded contributions from the largest electric utility in Kansas, Westar Energy of Topeka, for help on measures that would save it billions of dollars; that Mr. DeLay funneled contributions from one of his political action committees to the Republican National Committee "in an apparent money-laundering scheme"; and that Mr. DeLay improperly exhorted federal agencies, including the Justice Department, to search for Texas state legislators when they fled to Oklahoma to avoid a debate on redistricting.
Mr. DeLay said the charges were "all based on press clippings." Of Mr. Bell, he said, "Evidently he is very bitter about his losing the primary, and he's using the ethics committee to express his bitterness."
Mr. Bell, who called Mr. DeLay "the most corrupt politician in America today," said that he had been preparing the complaint for months and that his defeat at the polls had nothing to do with it.
"Tom DeLay,'' Mr. Bell said, "has created a climate of fear and retribution inside the people's House, and it must come to an end."
The complaint was drafted with the help of a watchdog group, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The ethics panel, formally called the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, has 14 calendar days or 5 days while the House is in session to determine whether it meets the threshold for consideration. After that, the panel can dismiss the complaint, decide to investigate or consider it for an additional 45 days.
Since 1997, after politically charged ethics fights led to the resignation of one speaker, Jim Wright, another Texas Democrat, and a $300,000 fine against another speaker, Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, the House approved rules to bar outsiders from filing ethics complaints. Those rules prompted what has been called an unofficial truce on ethics inquiries. Though there have been inquiries since then, they have been initiated by the ethics panel itself, not by individual House members.
Mr. Bell's action provoked a controversy between Democrats and Republicans over whether the truce should have been broken and questions about a possible retaliatory complaint against a Democrat.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who rarely grants interviews, made a surprise walk through the Speaker's Lobby, the corridor that runs alongside the House chamber where reporters generally congregate to interview members.
"The worry I have," Mr. Hastert said, "is that you again politicize the process, and it denigrates what ethics is all about."
Representative Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, said, "This is the gotcha politics that ruins our system here in Washington."
Mr. LaHood said he was contemplating proposing a rule to prevent "lame-duck members" from filing ethics complaints and said Democratic leaders should tell Mr. Bell "to back off."
The Democratic whip, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said he supported Mr. Bell's right to file the complaint.
"I haven't seen the complaint," Mr. Hoyer said. "But from what I've read in the newspapers, it's a substantive complaint."
-------- investigations
9/11 Panel Disputes Iraq Link to Attacks
By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 10:52 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48056-2004Jun16?language=printer
WASHINGTON - Rebuffing Bush administration claims, the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said Wednesday no evidence exists that al-Qaida had strong ties to Saddam Hussein. In hair-raising detail, the commission said the terror network had envisioned a much larger attack and is working hard to strike again.
Although Osama bin Laden asked for help from Iraq in the mid-1990s, Saddam's government never responded, according to a report by the commission staff based on interviews with government intelligence and law enforcement officials. The report asserted "no credible evidence" has emerged that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 strikes.
Al-Qaida is actively trying to replicate the destruction of that day, the report said, though the terrorist network has been weakened by losing its sanctuary in Afghanistan and many leaders to U.S. strikes and arrests. The terror organization also is trying to obtain a nuclear weapon and is "extremely interested" in chemical, radiological and biological attacks, including the use of anthrax, it said.
"The trend toward attacks intended to cause ever-higher casualties will continue," the report said.
The commission staff said that Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed initially outlined an attack involving 10 aircraft targeting both U.S. coasts. Mohammed proposed that he pilot one of the planes, kill all the male passengers, land the plane at a U.S. airport and make a "speech denouncing U.S. policies in the Middle East before releasing all the women and children," the report said.
Bin Laden rejected that plan as too complex, deciding instead on four aircraft piloted by handpicked suicide operatives. The report said the targets were chosen based on symbolism: the Pentagon, which represented the U.S. military; the World Trade Center, a symbol of American economic strength; the Capitol, the perceived source of U.S. support for Israel, and the White House. Training for the attacks began in 1999.
The attacks were planned for as early as May 2001, but they were pushed back to September, partly because al-Qaida sought to strike when Congress would be at the Capitol. A second wave of hijackings never materialized because Mohammed was too busy planning the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the report.
Under questioning, John Pistole, the FBI's top counterterrorism official, told the commission that the government "has probably prevented a few aviation attacks" in the United States since Sept. 11 but that some operatives in those plots are still at large.
The findings were released as the commission began its final two days of hearings on the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The second day will focus on the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. air defenses. The commission's final report is due July 26.
The first day lacked the electricity of past sessions featuring appearances by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top officials. Like previous hearings, the audience included family members of people killed in the attacks, many bearing photographs of lost loved ones.
Commission member Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, expressed exasperation that the government did not act with greater urgency against bin Laden, given what was known about al-Qaida before 2001.
"I believe that we missed a tremendous opportunity very early in this game to inform the Congress, inform the American people who bin Laden was, what he was doing, what he had done and as a consequence I think we simply didn't rally until it was too late," Kerrey said.
The conclusions that al-Qaida and Iraq had no cooperative relationship run counter to repeated assertions by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials. The claims that bin Laden and Saddam were in league were central to the administration's justification for going to war in Iraq.
As recently as Monday, Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi president "had long-established ties with al-Qaida." And last fall he cited what he called a credible but unconfirmed intelligence report that Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, met in Prague, Czech Republic, with a senior Iraqi intelligence official before the attacks.
The commission concluded no such meeting occurred.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said the report's findings were evidence the "administration misled America and the administration reached too far."
"They did not tell the truth to Americans about what was happening or their own intentions." he said on Detroit radio station WDET.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, asked about the commission report, said the administration stands by its assertions that there were links between al-Qaida and Iraq.
"I think we have said, and it is clear, that there is a connection, and we have seen these connections between al-Qaida and the regime of Saddam Hussein and we stick with that," Powell said in an interview on the al-Jazeera television network. "We have not said it was related to 9/11."
The White House also released an Oct. 7, 2002, letter from the CIA to then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla., citing "solid reporting" of an Iraq-al-Qaida relationship "going back a decade" and credible reports that al-Qaida sought contacts in Iraq who might help them acquire the capability to use weapons of mass destruction.
"Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qaida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression," says the CIA letter, released by Cheney's office. The letter said much of the information came from detainees, including some of high rank.
The commission report said that bin Laden, then in Sudan, met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in 1994 to request space for al-Qaida training camps and assistance in obtaining weapons, "but Iraq apparently never responded." The meeting occurred even though bin Laden opposed Saddam's secular government and had sponsored anti-Saddam operatives in Iraq's Kurdish region.
The camps that were established in Afghanistan after bin Laden moved there in 1996 produced as many as 20,000 al-Qaida operatives and encouraged trainees to "think creatively about ways to commit mass murder," the report said.
Some of the ideas included taking over a missile launcher and forcing Russians to fire a nuclear device at the United States, mounting mustard gas or cyanide attacks against Jewish areas in Iran, releasing poison gas into a building ventilation system - and "last, but not least, hijacking an aircraft and crashing it into an airport or nearby city."
The Sept. 11 plot gradually evolved from Mohammed's original vision but was hardly a seamless operation, the commission report said. Mohammed, who is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed overseas location, wanted up to 26 operatives for the four-plane plot, but at least 10 were prevented from entering the United States because of visa problems, family objections and other reasons.
There was disagreement between Mohammed, bin Laden and Atta about whether the Capitol or White House should be targeted, a question the report says apparently never was resolved. Bin Laden also had to overcome objections to attacking the United States from Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who was under pressure from his Pakistani supporters to contain al-Qaida.
Omar, like bin Laden, has eluded U.S. capture since the attacks.
On the Net:
Sept. 11 panel:http://www.9-11commission.gov
Text of the reports is available at:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/911/040616staff15.pdf
http://wid.ap.org/documents/911/040616staff16.pdf
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Sept 11 Commission Highlights
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47369-2004Jun16.html
Highlights from reports, released Wednesday by the Sept. 11 commission, on al-Qaida's operations and the Sept. 11 plot:
-Osama bin Laden and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did not appear to have a collaborative relationship. A senior Iraqi intelligence official reportedly met with bin Laden in 1994 in Sudan and there have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan. But Iraq apparently never responded to a request from bin Laden for weapons and space to establish training camps. Two senior bin Laden associates adamantly have denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq and there is "no credible evidence" Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States.
-Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks, envisioned a plot with 10 hijacked planes, with himself as one of the pilots. Mohammed, who is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed overseas location, told interrogators that he proposed killing every male passenger aboard, landing at a U.S. airport and making a "speech denouncing U.S. policies in the Middle East before releasing all the women and children." After bin Laden rejected that plan, Mohammed wanted U.S. commercial planes in Southeast Asia to be hijacked at the same time as the U.S. hijackings. Those planes would have exploded in flight or been crashed into U.S. targets in Asia. Bin Laden canceled that part of the plan because it would have been too difficult to synchronize.
-Bin Laden wanted the fourth plane to strike the White House, but Atta believed it would be too difficult to hit and wanted to target the Capitol. Eventually, Atta agreed to the White House but kept the Capitol in reserve. Based on other exchanges between the hijackers, it remains unclear exactly which was the target on Sept. 11.
-Al-Qaida intended to use 25 or 26 hijackers for the plot, instead of the 19 who took part. The commission identified at least nine "candidate hijackers" who were supposed to be part of the attacks at one time. Two were removed by the al-Qaida leadership, two failed to acquire U.S. visas, two backed out after one of them was stopped by security officers in Bahrain, one was stopped by U.S. officials at the airport in Orlando, Fla., and two apparently withdrew under pressure from their families.
-There is no evidence the Saudi Arabian government or senior officials within it funded al-Qaida. However, al-Qaida was able to get money from a variety of Saudi charities that, until recently, were subject to little oversight. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, al-Qaida's funding has decreased significantly and its organization has become decentralized due to bin Laden's seclusion.
-The Sept. 11 date was chosen about three weeks before the attacks. Bin Laden wanted the attacks as early as mid-2000 and told Mohammed that it would be sufficient to down the planes and not hit specific targets. Mohammed argued the operation would not be successful unless the pilots were fully trained and the hijacking teams larger. Bin Laden later wanted to time the attacks for May 12, 2001, the seven-month anniversary of the USS Cole bombing. Then he wanted it to take place when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was visiting in June or July 2001. Both times, Mohammed said hijackers were not ready.
-An illegal immigrant recently deported to Yemen, Mohdar Abdullah, allegedly made claims before leaving the United States last month that he had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. Mohdar Abdullah was a San Diego State student who helped Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar obtain driver's licenses and enroll in schools. When interviewed by the FBI, he denied knowledge of the plans. But before his May 21 deportation, "Abdullah allegedly made various claims to individuals incarcerated with him about having advance knowledge of the operatives' 9/11 mission," telling one inmate he had received instructions to pick up operatives at Los Angeles International Airport and drive them to San Diego.
-Al-Qaida remains extremely interested in conducting chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks. In 1994, al-Qaida operatives attempted to purchase uranium for $1.5 million; the uranium proved to be fake. Al-Qaida had an ambitious biological weapons program and was making advances in its ability to produce anthrax before Sept. 11. Similarly, al-Qaida may seek to conduct a chemical attack by using widely available industrial chemicals, or by attacking a chemical plant or a shipment of hazardous materials.
--------
Panel Says No Signs Iraq Aided Qaeda Plots on US
Reuters
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By Deborah Charles
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47239-2004Jun16?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Contrary to the Bush administration's prewar rhetoric, investigators have found no evidence Iraq aided al Qaeda attempts to strike the United States, a commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said on Wednesday.
The report by staff of the government-established commission said al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in 1994 and had explored the possibility of cooperation, but the plans apparently never came to fruition.
Comments by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney this week kept alive the idea of an Iraqi link to al Qaeda, which is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.
However, the staff report said, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."
"There is no convincing evidence that any government financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11 -- other than limited support provided by the Taliban after bin Laden first arrived in Afghanistan," it added.
FBI and CIA counterterrorism officials testifying at the hearing said they agreed with the report's conclusion, and a bipartisan group of former diplomats accused the administration of a "cynical campaign" to build support for war by linking Saddam with the Sept. 11 attacks.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry and other congressional Democrats seized on the commission report as part of their campaign to unseat the president in November.
"The administration misled America," Kerry said. "I believe that the 9/11 report, the early evidence, is that ... we didn't have the types of terrorist links that this administration was asserting. I think that's a very, very serious finding."
The report was issued at the start of the commission's final two days of public hearings into the hijacked-plane attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. The hearings were called to find out how the United States failed to prevent the attacks and what it can do now to improve security.
The report stood in contrast to Bush administration prewar attempts to suggest an alliance between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Bush had said before the war Iraq and al Qaeda shared a "common enemy" -- the United States, and Cheney and other officials had suggested Iraq might have played a direct role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush acknowledged after the war that there was no evidence of such a role.
But Cheney this week said that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam had "long-established ties" to al Qaeda.
Bush then cited the presence in Iraq of Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "the best evidence" of an Iraqi connection to al Qaeda.
AL QAEDA TRYING TO STRIKE U.S.
In a staff report entitled "Overview of the Enemy," the commission said al Qaeda had changed drastically and become decentralized since Sept. 11, but still helped regional networks and remained "extremely interested in conducting chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks."
Al Qaeda's ability to conduct an anthrax attack was one of the most immediate threats, it said.
A second staff report outlined the planning the Sept. 11 plot. It said the plotters had initially proposed hijacking 10 planes and attacking targets on the east and west coasts of the United States. Other plans included hijacking planes flying from Southeast Asia and exploding them in mid-air, or flying them into U.S. targets in Japan, Singapore or Korea.
These plans were ditched as overly ambitious. The staff report said the Sept. 11 date was not chosen until about three weeks before the attacks.
The attacks cost between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute, the commission estimated. The U.S. government has been unable to determine the attackers' source of money, it said.
While it found no convincing evidence of government financial support, the panel said Saudi Arabia provided "fertile fund-raising ground" for al Qaeda.
The second panel report said there was no evidence Princess Haifa al-Faisal, the wife of Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan, had contributed any funds to the conspiracy. The FBI has examined whether some of her charitable donations ended up with the hijackers.
The commission will hold its final day of hearings on Thursday, focusing on crisis management by civilian and military aviation officials. The panel is due to present its final report at the end of July.
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Senators Complain Iraq Material Withheld
By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45842-2004Jun16.html
WASHINGTON - Senate Intelligence Committee members are frustrated with the amount of material the CIA wants to keep secret in a congressional report expected to be highly critical of the intelligence community's assessments of prewar Iraq.
Because of the strict rules governing classified material, the members are limited in how much they can say about even the extent of the material in their 400-page report that has been classified by the CIA. However, through a spokeswoman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the top Democrat on the committee, said the agency has been overly conservative in deciding what could not be released to the public.
When asked about the amount of material withheld, Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, looked over the top of his glasses, furrowed his brow, and asked: "Do I look happy?"
The committee has been working for a year to examine the quality and quantity of prewar intelligence on former President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, his ties to terrorist groups and the threat he posed to the region, among other lines of inquiry. While the bulk of the report is done, the members are still handling disputes over the conclusions. A final vote on the report, which could have come Tuesday, was postponed until at least Thursday.
Speculation has swirled for nearly two weeks about whether the report was a factor in CIA Director George Tenet's decision to resign, despite his public insistence that his upcoming departure is for family reasons. Speaking generally, Roberts said the report is "not flattering" to the intelligence community. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., called it "solid, powerful and very tough stuff."
At least a half dozen committee members interviewed Tuesday were eager to get the report completed.
Heading into a closed committee session on the subject, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said, "The question is, can we get through this redaction process in a way that keeps our report intact? I think that is going to be a concern."
Earlier this week, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency has been working closely with the committee to declassify the report in a way that protects intelligence sources and methods - "highly sensitive information that if disclosed could be harmful to national security."
The CIA has been conducting a declassification and fact-checking review since May, a process that Mansfield called "painstaking work." The agency declined to comment Tuesday.
Roberts hopes to release a public version of the report shortly after the Fourth of July recess. His spokeswoman, Sarah Ross Little, said the committee intentionally kept sensitive information out of the report, hoping the declassification process would go smoothly.
Now, members are considering their options if a compromise can't be reached with the CIA. For instance, the senators could take a highly unusual step and vote to release the report, called the "nuclear option."
If the agency is trying to bury negative findings under classification, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said "that is unacceptable."
Added Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.: "This administration has done everything possible to make it hard to find the facts, and certainly it's been the most inventive administration I've seen in terms of coming up with arguments for secrecy."
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Panel to Widen Iraq Hearing
Committee to Air Former Halliburton Employees' Charges
By Ellen McCarthy and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page E03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44645-2004Jun15.html
A congressional committee said yesterday it will hear testimony in July from former Halliburton Co. employees who claim the company mismanaged lucrative contracts in Iraq and will invite Halliburton executives to answer lawmakers' questions about the way it charged for goods and services.
The former employees, who were not permitted to testify at yesterday's hearings of the House Committee on Government Reform, have alleged that Halliburton mismanaged contracts for work in Iraq. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed their accusations on Monday and protested their exclusion. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the committee's chairman, said he would hold follow-up hearings next month to get testimony from the former employees.
The committee also requested documents from the Defense Department and the General Accounting Office related to the involvement of a political appointee, Michael Mobbs, in the decision to award Halliburton a contract to plan the restoration of Iraq's oil fields. Mobbs, an adviser to Douglas Feith, an undersecretary of defense, told Davis and Waxman last week that he briefed top officials -- including I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff -- before he selected Halliburton. Cheney is Halliburton's former chief executive.
However, White House officials said yesterday that Cheney was not told of the decision in advance.
Officials said Libby was part of a large meeting on Oct. 15, 2002, at which Mobbs told Bush's national security deputies that the decision had been made to give the restoration work to KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary. The meeting included other matters, the official said.
A White House official who attended the meeting quoted Mobbs as saying, "This is what we are going to do," which the administration described as evidence that the decision had been made and that Cheney's office did not influence it.
Kevin Kellems, Cheney's spokesman, said last night that Libby did not inform the vice president about that part of the briefing. "Office policy always has been and continues to be that the vice president's office does not get involved in these matters," Kellems said. "Vice presidents don't do contracting."
The Defense Department released a statement yesterday saying, "The vice president's office played no role whatsoever in the decision to contract with KBR to do contingency planning or the later sole-source contract for KBR to begin restoration work."
At yesterday's House hearing, GAO officials criticized the Defense Department's management of Iraq reconstruction contracts. David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, said some contracting officials paid little attention to costs while others ignored regulations by awarding task orders that reached beyond the scope of existing contracts.
For instance, the contract that called for KBR to plan the reconstruction of Iraq's infrastructure should not have been used to hire the company to repair oil fields without written justification, Walker said. He added that the GAO is struggling to understand how the $1 billion a week the United States is spending in Iraq is distributed.
"Planning is a serious problem. Oversight is a serious problem," Walker said. Asked how he would grade the Defense Department's performance in Iraq, Walker said he would give an "A" for winning wars and a "D" for "economy, efficiency, transparency and accountability."
-------- propaganda wars
Censorship's Trial Balloons
What happens when wartime news gets censored?
By Liam Callanan
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102499/
Summer officially starts Monday. Are you ready? Have your sunscreen, bathing suit, sunglasses? How about your bottled water, canned food, duct tape, flashlights, extra batteries, and-in case the dirty-bomb fallout drifts in your direction-a prophylactic dose of potassium iodide to ward off thyroid cancer?
Probably not. And yet, here we are, entering the height of travel season with the Homeland Security threat condition at (any guesses?) yellow. Which signifies (any guesses?) "elevated risk."
And elevated risk means ... well, any guesses? Really, do you know? Because few of us do. And that's the problem with the Homeland Security Advisory System. We know we're supposed to be on guard, but against what, we're not sure because more specific information is often withheld.
There are good reasons for the government to withhold information from the public, especially in times of war. But when the state censors news this way-whether it's terrorism threats, prison scandals, or torture memos-the impact of doing so must be carefully considered. The costs and benefits of wartime censorship are part of a long-running debate. We are vulnerable when the government keeps secrets from us and sometimes more vulnerable when it does not.
In the first Gulf War, for example, critics complained the news had been sanitized to the point of broadcasting bloodless video-game-like footage of missiles battling missiles. In this war, embedded journalists risk divulging too much. Either way, what is at stake each time we erase the news is not just the nation's security but, more important, our history.
And that's why it's helpful to turn to history for an object lesson, a case of wartime censorship where the issue was much less murky and the results-at first glance, at least-unambiguous. You've likely heard nothing about it. And that, of course, is the problem.
The censored story was one of World War II's oddest, and it involved a fleet of handmade balloons sent east by the empire of Japan. Improbable though it may sound, from late 1944 through the spring of 1945, the Japanese launched more than 9,000 balloons from their nation's eastern shores. Filled not with mild-mannered hot air but extremely flammable hydrogen and armed with incendiary and antipersonnel bombs, the balloons rode the jet stream across the Pacific Ocean for several days before landing throughout North America.
No, really. Throughout North America. From Alaska to Mexico and as far east as suburban Detroit. Perhaps even more incredible, the balloons themselves were not made of any high-tech, weather-hardened fabric but simple paper panels held together with potato glue.
An extraordinary story, right? Irresistible to any reporter and not just because of the balloons themselves, but because of their potential: If a balloon could carry incendiary bombs across the Pacific, without detection or advance warning, what else might travel aboard? Saboteurs? Biotoxins?
Sure enough, stories began to appear. The day after New Year's, 1945, for example, the New York Herald-Tribune carried a brief story about one of the first balloons to arrive. After that, however, even as the balloons were crash-landing at the rate of two or three per day, the nation's media remained largely mum. That's because on Jan. 4, two days after the Herald-Tribune ran its story, the Office of Censorship asked the nation's print and broadcast journalists to report absolutely nothing more about the balloon bombs. And no one did.
The way the rest of the story plays out proves problematic for foes and supporters alike of wartime censorship. For those who oppose censorship, it's hard to argue against the outcome: Throughout the spring of 1945, the Japanese carefully monitored the American press for mention of their balloons. They found none. And since supply routes and launch sites were getting hammered by an ever-closer American military, Japanese authorities finally decided they could not keep up their unusual campaign absent any evidence of success.
Yet, unbeknownst to them, or virtually anyone outside the U.S. government, the balloons were proving successful. One balloon, for example, managed to cut through power lines leading from the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. A resulting power outage that was quickly restored may sound insignificant; however, that particular dam provided power to a factory in Hanford, Wash., which was secretly manufacturing plutonium for use in the atomic bombs destined for Japan. When the power went out, the plant's emergency safeguards-which had never been tested-were suddenly called upon to prevent the reactor from melting down. Plant officials held their breath; everything worked as it was supposed to (though it took three days to resume full operations).
In the end, America's best defense may have been the weather. Designed to start fires-which would deplete natural resources and divert human ones-the balloons plummeted into the Pacific Northwest during its wettest months.
On May 22, 1945, the government suddenly changed its mind about the ban on press coverage. The War and Navy departments issued a joint statement announcing, in part, "It is the view of the departments that the possible saving of even one American life through precautionary measures would more than offset any military gain accruing to the enemy from the mere knowledge that some of his balloons actually have arrived on this side of the Pacific."
This sounds reasonable and prudent, if a bit tardy. But there's a reason the departments suddenly came around to this way of thinking, and this is where the balloon campaign becomes a troubling case study for censorship's supporters.
Seventeen days earlier, on May 5, the Rev. Archie Mitchell and his pregnant wife, Elsie, took a group of children from his church on an outing to Oregon's Gearhart Mountain. Mitchell let the kids out of the car before he went off to park. His wife got out, too, to supervise. Mitchell found a spot up the road and pulled over. As he was getting out, he saw his charges clustered around a large white object on the forest floor. One of the kids tugged at it.
The bomb exploded, killing all the children and Mrs. Mitchell. They were the only fatalities on the U.S. mainland due to enemy action during World War II, and though a marker remembers them on Gearhart Mountain today, they're mostly overlooked, as they were by the War and Navy departments in that May 22 statement, which made no mention of the fatalities, only that "Japanese free balloons are known to have landed or dropped explosives in isolated localities. No property damage has resulted."
That was technically true: Mitchell had parked his car well clear of the blast.
Should we censor the news in wartime? No question: There are times when discretion trumps dissemination. But people need to be told more than just, "Be wary." Be wary of what? A particular methodology or place, or a suspicious object, like a briefcase-or a balloon?
Case in point: It's estimated that 1,000 of those World War II balloons reached North America. To this day, only 286 have been found. Here's hoping the next hiker who finds one has heard the news.
What does the battle of the balloons have to do with today's war on terrorism (other than the bizarre coincidence that the Mitchell tragedy occurred near tiny Bly, Ore., the same spot where recently arrested Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri is accused of trying to set up a terrorist training camp)?
Actually, the balloon battle may have less to do with us today than it does with citizens, soldiers, reverends, and children 60 years from now. Because as compelling a case as the balloon story may be for the virtues of wartime censorship, what's troubling is not that Americans in 1945 didn't know about these balloons; it's that most Americans today don't. The balloon bombs were erased not only from our national awareness, but from our collective history. We believe it never happened, just as our children might have been led to believe Abu Ghraib never happened.
The administration needs to do a better job of providing us with the kind of information that will truly help us-not just this summer, but in decades to come, when we look back and try to learn what happened in this war and how we can prevent it from happening again. Torture memos, torture photos, and chatter in the system must not be erased. Otherwise, we may never understand what we were fighting for. It's true, the truth hurts. But gaps in our history hurt more, and the hurt lasts longer.
--------
Bush's Unsupported Assertion
By Dan Froomkin
washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46132-2004Jun16.html
President Bush yesterday pointed to Abu Musab Zarqawi as the "best evidence" of a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
In so doing, he came to the defense of Vice President Cheney, who on Monday asserted that Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al Qaeda.
But he also risked putting himself at odds with the Sept. 11 commission and the intelligence community.
Even though Zarqawi is actively terrorizing Iraq today, and does appear to have a relationship with al Qaeda, his association with Hussein has never been established.
Communications between Zarqawi and al Qaeda that Bush alluded to yesterday took place several months after Hussein was removed from power.
And a new report released this morning by the Sept. 11 commission declares that there is "no credible evidence" that Hussein's government collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States, including the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings. (See Dan Eggen's story and the commission's report on washingtonpost.com.)
Michael Kranish and Bryan Bender write in the Boston Globe: "Bush has previously said there was 'no evidence' linking Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but he and other members of his administration have continued to say they believe there were ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda. . . .
"Before the war, intelligence officials said, Zarqawi was operating with the Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group Ansar Al Islam in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, not in territory under the control of Hussein's regime. Thus, questions have been raised about whether Zarqawi was working in concert with Hussein before the US invaded Iraq."
Dana Milbank writes in today's Washington Post that Bush "renewed an assertion that Hussein had longstanding ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network, one of the justifications underpinning the Iraq war. The alleged link between Hussein and al Qaeda has taken on more importance with the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.
"Vice President Cheney, outlining al Qaeda's activities in various countries, said in a speech in Orlando on Monday that Hussein 'had long-established ties with al Qaeda.' Bush, asked yesterday if he would qualify that claim or cite evidence to support it, defended Cheney's assertion, citing the terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi.
"'Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda,' Bush said during his appearance with Karzai. 'He's the person who's still killing. Remember the e-mail exchange between al Qaeda leadership and he, himself, about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?'"
Faye Bowers and Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor profiled Zarqawi yesterday.
The News Conference
Bush's comment about Zarqawi came during a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Elisabeth Bumiller and Edward Wong write in the New York Times: "The White House had intended the news conference to promote progress in Afghanistan, and Vice President Dick Cheney and other top administration officials attended. But it was dominated by questions about Iraq."
Much of the discussion was about the fate of the former Iraqi leader.
"President Bush said Tuesday that the United States would hand over Saddam Hussein to the new Iraqi government only when it was clear that the Iraqis had the ability to securely keep him in custody," Bumiller and Wong write.
Deb Riechmann of the Associated Press reports: "President Bush on Tuesday called Afghanistan the 'first victory in the war on terror,' yet both he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the nation remains on a long, rocky path toward peace and economic prosperity."
Here is the text of the Bush-Karzai news conference.
--------
White House Statements on Iraq, al-Qaida
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47534-2004Jun16.html
Comments by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice alleging links between al-Qaida and Iraq under Saddam Hussein:
2002
Rice, Sept. 25: "There clearly are contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship here. ... And there are some al-Qaida personnel who found refuge in Baghdad."
Bush, Oct. 7: "We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy - the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade" and "we've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."
2003:
Bush, State of the Union address, Jan. 28: "And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida."
Bush, Feb. 6: "Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaida have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al-Qaida" and "Iraq has also provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training."
2004:
Cheney, Jan. 21: "I continue to believe - I think there's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-Qaida and the Iraqi government. I'm very confident that there was an established relationship there."
Cheney, Monday: Saddam Hussein "had long-established ties with al-Qaida."
-------- us politics
Official: Cheney Not Briefed on Iraq Work
By LARRY MARGASAK
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45904-2004Jun16?language=printer
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was told in 2002 that Cheney's former company would receive no-bid work to secretly plan restoration of Iraq's oil facilities, but the information wasn't given to the vice president, a White House official said Tuesday.
Kevin Kellems, Cheney's spokesman, told The Associated Press he confirmed the decision not to inform Cheney with the vice president's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
"The vice president was not informed" that Halliburton would get the Defense Department contract, Kellems said.
Libby informed participants at a Defense Department briefing in October 2002 that "the vice president's office would not be involved and would have nothing to do with the matter," Kellems said.
Libby's presence was controversial because Cheney repeatedly has said he had no involvement in that contract or any other matters involving Halliburton, a Houston-based energy and construction company.
At the briefing, a Defense official told a multi-agency group including Libby that Halliburton would secretly develop contingency plans to extinguish any oil fires set by Saddam Hussein if there was a war with Iraq.
Kellems said he also spoke with National Security Council aide Frank Miller, who attended the 2002 briefing and confirmed that Libby told the group Cheney would not be informed.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, revealed Libby's presence in a letter to Cheney last weekend seeking more information.
Waxman said Libby's involvement contradicts Cheney's statements that he had no knowledge of the contract, which was awarded in March 2003.
When Hussein didn't set the oil facilities on fire, Halliburton was asked to take on a much bigger role. Again without competitive bids, the company was chosen to supervise the postwar reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry.
At a hearing of the Government Reform Committee Tuesday, Lawrence Lanzilotta, an acting undersecretary of defense, first revealed that it was agreed that Cheney would not be told of the decision to give Halliburton the contract.
Also at the hearing, leaders of the committee agreed that top executives of Halliburton would be asked to testify next month in the panel's investigation of Iraq contracting.
The executives are Halliburton's chief executive officer, David Lesar, and the CEO of the company's KBR subsidiary, Randy Harl.
Halliburton has been awarded more than $7 billion in Iraq contract work that involves not only the oil restoration work, but feeding and housing U.S. troops.
Six Defense Department witnesses at the hearing all said they knew of no Cheney influence. They said the 2002 briefing of the vice president's office was simply a routine notification, not an attempt to win approval.
Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., and Waxman agreed to issue the invitation to the executives and said they would work together to determine whether documents should be subpoenaed. Waxman said he also wants to subpoena Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to produce records on Department of Defense contracts with Cheney's office.
Waxman said he also wants records on construction giant Bechtel, which has a major Iraq contract, and several lawmakers added companies they want to include in the investigation.
Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall was noncommittal on whether the executives would agree to testify.
"Today, our primary concern is to monitor the hearing to see what issues come forward," she said. "Halliburton believes its actions in Iraq are designed to deliver the best quality products and services on the best terms available as called for in our contract. We will work with the committee to assist them in fulfilling their important oversight functions."
The agreement did not stop Republicans from accusing Waxman of politically motivated criticism of Halliburton and Cheney, nor did Waxman let up on that criticism.
"Too many Democrats, for political reasons I completely understand but personally find distasteful, have chosen to practice oversight by press release, oversight by leaking draft reports and confidential briefings," Davis said at Tuesday's committee hearing.
"This is a strategy being driven top down by the House Democratic leadership," Davis charged.
Waxman responded with examples of waste, fraud and abuse that, he said, came from former Halliburton employees who spoke privately with the committee. Among the allegations:
- A former logistics specialist said Halliburton charged taxpayers $10,000 a day to house employees in a five-star hotel in Kuwait instead of the $600 per day cost of using the same air-conditioned tents that house U.S. troops.
- A former "convoy commander" said Halliburton removed spare tires from its new $85,000 trucks and gave instructions to abandon or "torch" the vehicles if they had a flat tire.
Waxman also said the cost of a food service contract was reduced by 40 percent after Halliburton's middleman role was eliminated.
Davis said there may be explanations, stating it might be a sound policy to abandon a truck rather than change a tire if a convoy comes under attack.
Hall, the Halliburton spokeswoman, said of the allegations: "This does not serve to feed a single member of our military, create a single unit of housing, repair a single oil well or supply a single piece of material for reconstruction."
--------
Iraq War Eroded U.S. Security, Former Diplomats Say
Reuters
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By Arshad Mohammed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47200-2004Jun16.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush led the United States into an ill-planned Iraq war that has weakened U.S. security, retired diplomats and military officers said on Wednesday in a direct challenge to one of Bush's main arguments for re-election.
"We all believe that current administration policies have failed in the primary responsibilities of preserving national security and providing world leadership," said a statement signed by the 27 retired officials. "We need a change."
The rare criticism by career officials came from a group that included members of both major political parties, a former CIA director, two former ambassadors to the Soviet Union and a retired chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In attacking Bush's national security record, they challenged a key Bush argument for his re-election against Democrat Sen. John Kerry, that the Iraq war has made America safer and that Bush is an effective wartime president.
"Our security has been weakened," the group said.
The former officials, some of whom said they had voted for Bush in 2000, said the Republican president manipulated intelligence on Iraq to lead the United States into an "ill-planned and costly war from which exit is uncertain."
Bush has maintained an "overbearing" approach to foreign policy that relied excessively on military power, spurned the concerns of traditional U.S. allies and disdained the United Nations, the group said.
"It justified the invasion of Iraq by manipulation of uncertain intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, and by a cynical campaign to persuade the public that Saddam Hussein was linked to al Qaeda and the attacks of September 11," it said. "The evidence did not support this argument."
"Never in the two and a quarter centuries of our history has the United States been so isolated among the nations, so broadly feared and distrusted," it added.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher denied the Bush administration had forsaken diplomacy in favor of force, said it won four unanimous Security Council resolutions on Iraq and sought to dismiss the group's stance as a "political."
"As far as the facts of this administration's fight against terrorism with diplomatic, military, intelligence and law enforcement means ... This administration has a record that it is happy to stand on," he said.
The group, which included retired admiral Stansfield Turner who headed the Central Intelligence Agency under President Jimmy Carter, did not explicitly back Kerry in the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election.
But several members made clear that they believed the Massachusetts Democrat would do a better job than the Republican incumbent.
Retired Gen. Tony McPeak, a former chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, said the Pentagon had only about half the troops in Iraq that were needed.
"Because of the Pollyannaish assumptions that were made by the administration in going in there that bouquets would be thrown at us and so forth, we were totally unprepared for the post-combat occupation," said McPeak, who said he supported Bush in 2000 but was now advising Kerry.
Members also condemned Bush's Middle East policies and said claims Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction -- which have not been found -- had eroded U.S. credibility.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Interest in hybrid vehicles accelerates
June 16, 2004
By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20040615-094352-9108r.htm
The gas-electric hybrid vehicles that automakers touted as the cars of the future only a few years ago are quickly joining the mainstream of American automobiles.
Consumers are making the fuel-efficient vehicles one of the fastest-growing segments of the automobile industry.
"If we had them in stock, we could sell many, many of them because of current fuel costs," Harold Redden, general manager of Fitzgerald Auto Mall in Gaithersburg said about the Toyota Prius, the most popular hybrid car on the market.
Initial sales of hybrids were so encouraging that manufacturers are increasing production this year.
Americans bought 47,525 fuel-efficient hybrids last year, a number that's expected to top 100,000 this year, according to the consumer research firm J.D. Power & Associates.
Adding to the momentum are average gasoline prices this week of almost $2 per gallon and Middle East political tensions that show few signs of easing.
Unlike traditional automobiles, the hybrids include both rechargeable batteries and a gasoline engine. Each power system contributes to run the vehicles.
At slow speeds, the vehicles operate on battery power. At higher speeds, the combustion engine kicks in to provide more speed. Friction from braking helps to recharge the batteries.
As a result, although hybrids cost more to buy, motorists can save at the gas pump.
So far, only Toyota and Honda sell hybrids for the mass market.
Detroit this morning was to display its first American-made competitor in a ceremony at the Department of Interior. Ford Motor Co.'s chief executive officer was to donate 12 hybrid sport utility vehicles to the National Park Foundation.
Ford says the 2005 Ford Escape hybrid SUVs can travel 576 miles in city driving on one tank of gas. They are scheduled to go on sale in the fall.
The first hybrid vehicles sold in 2000 often were intended as a statement of style by motorists rather than a well-planned investment, according to automakers.
"I think the earliest consumers have been those that have been interested in the environmental benefits," said Joanne Krell, General Motors spokeswoman.
Others wanted to be the first to buy cutting-edge technology, she said.
Now dealers say improvements in price and quality are making hybrids more popular than traditional autos.
"I have 140 unfilled orders," said Mike Baird, sales manager at Jack Taylor's Alexandria Toyota. "Almost every dealer in town has the same amount."
However, J.D. Power & Associates suggests a wait-and-see attitude before concluding that hybrids will replace traditional gasoline engines.
"It is too early to tell," said Walter McManus, forecasting and analytics director for J.D. Power & Associates. "Awareness appears to be increasing, but demand will depend on the expected long-run price of fuel, changing needs for vehicle performance and environmental attitudes."
In addition, some consumer advocates warn that claims of fuel savings from hybrids often are inflated.
"We have found that consumers tend not to get some of the mileages the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] says they're going to get," said Doug Love, spokesman for Consumer Reports magazine. "The real-world figures tend to be a bit different."
The Prius is advertised to get 55 miles per gallon, but engineers who test products for Consumer Reports say the actual figure might be 44 miles per gallon in a combination of city and highway driving.
Nevertheless, the performance is superior to traditional cars of the same size, which typically get slightly better than 30 miles per gallon.
The Prius - the fastest-selling hybrid - has a base price of $20,295. Options can increase the price to around $26,000.
When it entered the market in 2000, sales were slow amid complaints about a sluggish engine and the cramped interior.
Sales jumped when the 2004 model entered the market.
"Nationwide, we have about 22,000 customers who are waiting to take delivery of a new Toyota Prius," Miss Knight said.
General Motors and DaimlerChrysler plan to start selling hybrid vehicles as options on some of their most popular vehicles as soon as this summer.
Chrysler Group will offer the option on its Dodge Ram pickup. General Motors Corp. will make hybrid versions of its Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks.
This fall, Honda plans to introduce a hybrid version of the Accord, one of America's top-selling vehicles. It already offers a hybrid in its Civic line.
In some cities, automobile dealers have been profiting from the demand by tacking on markups as high as $5,000 onto the manufacturer's list price.
Consumers get part of their money back from a tax break. The federal government allows a $1,500 deduction this year for first-time purchases of hybrids. The tax break is scheduled to be phased out in 2006.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Former diplomats say Bush is a failure
By Andrew Buncombe
16 June 2004
UK Idependent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=531946
A group of heavy-hitting former US diplomats and military officials has called on the American public to vote George Bush out of office in November, accusing the President of undermining the nation's interests and failing to provide proper leadership.
The 26 former officials - calling themselves Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change - say they are not explicitly endorsing the Democrat John Kerry. But they say Mr Bush's handling of issues ranging from the war in Iraq through to the environment and Aids policy has left them disillusioned.
"We agreed that we had just lost confidence in the ability of the Bush administration to advocate for American interests or to provide the kind of leadership that we think is essential," said William Harrop, who served as the first President Bush's ambassador to Israel, and previously in four African countries. "The group does not endorse Kerry, although it more or less goes without saying in the statement."
He said some of those involved in the project felt uncomfortable making an explicitly political statement. But he added: "We just feel very strongly that the country needs new leadership."
Among the group are 20 ambassadors appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, other former state department officials and long-serving military leaders.
----
State Criminal Charges Dismissed Against Peace Activists
by Bill Quigley,
June 16, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/quigley.php?articleid=2821
In an extraordinary legal maneuver, a New York state prosecutor announced that he will not re-try four peace activists in Ithaca, but instead handed the matter off to the local U.S. Attorney to take over the prosecution. Four peace activists in Ithaca, New York, Daniel Burns, 43, Clare Grady, 45, Teresa Grady 38, and Peter DeMott, 57, were notified that the district attorney of Tomkins County New York, George Dentes, decided not to re-try them for felony charges of pouring blood on a military recruiting center to try to stop the invasion of Iraq. A jury trial in April 2004 resulted in a mistrial after the jury reported after 20 hours of deliberation that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision as required by New York law. Jurors later reported that they were deadlocked 9-3 in favor of finding the defendants innocent.
Prosecutor Dentes told the state court that he would not try to re-prosecute the anti-war protestors because he thought another trial would have the same outcome. Dentes also told the court that he had contacted the United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York who had agreed to begin prosecution of the four under federal criminal law. The U.S. Attorney had no public statement about the prosecution and no new charges have yet been filed.
The four peace activists admitted pouring their own blood on the walls, posters, windows, and a U.S. flag at a military recruiting center in Lansing, N.Y., on March 17, 2003, in order to try to stop the imminent invasion of Iraq. Clare Grady told the jury about her visit with mothers and children in Iraq before the war with Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness. Peter DeMott, who served in both the Marines and the Army, told about his concerns for the people in the military who are exposed to the horrors of war. All four are parents and members of the Catholic Worker community in Ithaca, N.Y.
They told the jury they acted to try to stop the war in Iraq in order to save the lives of people in Iraq and people in the U.S. military. The four argued that their actions were legal because the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. They further argued that if their actions were indeed illegal, they were authorized under the defense of necessity because the harm they caused was far smaller than the harm they were trying to prevent. Daniel Burns focused on the positive, saying, "The fact that the DA admits that local people will not convict their fellow citizens for taking direct nonviolent action against the war is a victory for all who struggle for peace and justice."
The peace activists were not deterred by the possibility of federal prosecution.
"If there is a trial in federal court," said Peter DeMott, "we will explain to a second jury why we had a right and obligation to take nonviolent direct action against the war." The rest of the four agreed. Clare Grady was steadfast: "We are willing to testify to what we know and what we've done any place at any time." Teresa Grady affirmed that "Whether or not there is a trial in federal court, we will continue to hold our government accountable for crimes against the peace and against the people of Iraq."
----
Pope calls for end to arms trade
VATICAN CITY (AFP)
Jun 16, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040616125457.6y2cyssx.html
Pope John Paul II called for an end to the arms trade and for its profits to be used instead to aid developing countries at his weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square on Wednesday.
"Even the prophet called for an end to the arms trade and to transform the instruments of death into a means for the development of the people", said the pope, citing Psalm 45.
He pointed out that this "invitation is still particularly relevant today."
Nearly 10,000 people attended this week's general audience.
----
A Defining Issue for Humanity
Halifax Symposium on Media & Disinformation
16 June 2004
http://www.halifaxsymposium.ca
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2004%20News%20archives/June/17%20n/Halifax%20Symposium%20on%20Media%20&%20Disinformation.htm
HALIFAX -- The question of disinformation through the mass media since 9-11 has become a prominent question in the world, the more so following the two successive "mea culpas" published during May by the New York Times on its coverage of the war on Iraq.
Saying the newspaper was duped by "the cunning campaign" of those at the Pentagon who wanted the world to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Times executive Daniel Okrent wrote "some stories pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively one could almost sense the military rankings on the shoulders of editors."
From June 30th to July 4, prominent academics, journalists, film-makers, publishers, professionals from diverse specialties -- as well as media, labour, environmental, youth and First Nations activists -- will be converging on Nova Scotia to participate in The Halifax International Symposium on Media and Disinformation.
"It is the first conference to be held in the world on this defining issue for humanity,and at a defining moment," says co-chair Tony Seed, editor and publisher of Nova Scotia's shunpiking magazine and of the Dossier on Palestine, and a former features writer with the Toronto Globe and Mail. Along with CKDU Radio at Dalhousie and the Dominion Paper, an Internet/print magazine, the three Halifax-based media outlets have been working to prepare the Symposium for the past seven months.
With the backing of such national organizations as the Confederation of Canadian Unions and the Canadian Islamic Congress, including a broad section of student media and indymedia web sites and viortually every Palestinian organization acvross Canada -- the Symposium is to debate and examine the modus operandi of disinformation. The conference is for both the media and the public and meant to be inclusive. "Every view on disinformation is valid," says Mr. Seed.
"The response from around the world to the Symposium's call is phenomenal" he adds. Noam Chomsky, the famed professor at MIT, writer or co-author since 1969 of more than 80 books, including Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, joined many other prominent media analysts from several continents in endorsing and sponsoring the Symposium. They include: author/columnist Norman Solomon of the media watchdog group FAIR, Peter Phillips (Project Censored) and Michael Parenti (The Assassination of Julius Caesar, Superpatriotism) of the USA: Dr. James Winter (Democracy's Oxygen: How Corporations Control the News) of the University of Windsor; and MediaLens.org's David Edwards and David Cromwell of the United Kingdom.
With a combination of evening public forums and daily general sessions, the symposium's program on disinformation touches on9 - 11and the war on terror, Islam and the "clash of civilizations", nation building and Gaelic and First Nations language rights, Cuba-Venezuela and Latin America, the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, First Nations and Colonial Justice, the environment (from the international fisheries to Depleted Uranium), the dignity of labour, and, of course, issues of journalism and communication.
To date, apart from those coming to participate, listen and learn, 43 individual speakers/participants -- -- have already confirmed their interest to present at the Symposium in the Nova Scotian capital. (The initial list is at http://www.halifaxsymposium.ca/presenters.html) Several more from abroad will be announced once travel arrangements are confirmed.
They hail from all across Canada and the United States, Ireland, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, South Asia, Palestine and Africa.
They include Prof Bruce Wark of the University of Kings College School of Journalism and a former Senior editor with the CBC and Producer of Media File, a weekly network program that reported on issues concerning journalism and the media. "Disinformation or propaganda are now an intrinsic part of the structure of mainstream news," he says.
Mr. Seed hopes one outcome of the symposium will be the empowerment of journalists in both the corporate and independent media.
"If we are able to turn from a reactive and defensive posture to develop a unified offensive against disinformation, this will assist all journalists from the path of self-censorship," said Mr. Seed.
Media censorship and disinformation renders authentic journalism apart from society. Mr. Seed warns, "Journalism has been linked with the consciousness of people. It has to have a base in society. Human beings have a basic right to information."
The Symposium also aims to bring to the world the voices of those marginalized by disinformation and validate them.
"There is an objective reason for the response of Palestinians, those of Arabic background and Islamic faith, First Nations, labour and fishermen to the Call of the Symposium," Mr. Seed points out."You will not find their voice expressed in any single major media. Instead all those standing for their rights are shamelessly demonized in the name of 'civilization' and Eurocentric values.And then to divert attention they even bluff that the Symposium be 'balanced'!"
The Symposium opens at the FASS Building, Dalhousie University with a Ceilidh featuring Gaelic, Mi'kmaq and Afro Nova Scotian performing artists, Wednesday, June 30 at 7:00 p.m. and continues through to Sunday, July 4.
Major forums are held every evening at 7 p.m.
The Canada Day Evening Public Forum is on the theme of "Ending Colonial Justice - Affirming First Nations' Sovereignty." Keynote Speakers are Pearl Bonspille, spokesperson of Kanewake, outside Montreal; Splitting the Sky, a leader of the major Gustafsen Lake, BC stand-off in 1995; Dr. Anthony Hall, author of The American Empire and the Fourth World; and Prof.Andrea Bear Nicholas, chair of Native Studies, St. Thomas University, one of Canada's foremost authorities on the linguicide of First Nations languages.
On July 2nd the Evening Public Forum examines the question of "Islam, Jihad and the 'Clash of Civilizations'". Keynote speakers include Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, national president. Canadian Islamic Congress, Dr. Jaspal Singh and Hassan Abbas, from Harvard/MIT and the Fletcher School of Diplomacy.
On July 3rd the Evening Public Forum examines the Dignity and Rights of Labour with featured speaker Rolf Gerstenberger, president of the 11,000-member Stelco local of the United Steelworkers of America in Hamilton, ON.
Leuren Moret, Environmental Commissioner of the City of Berkeley and a prominent campaigner against the international use of Depleted Uranium, will also speak on "Spin and Counter-Spin on the Environment".
Karen Lee Wald, well known author, journalist and polemicist who has been reporting independently from Havana since the 1960s, will address the information blockade against the Republic of Cuba.
For further information, including registration, visit: http://halifaxsymposium.ca
Contact information: Tony Seed at 902.444. 4922(Cell: 902.221.1522) Additional Registration number; Gary Zatzman at 902.494.6026
E-mail: info@halifaxsymposium.ca
For your information:
The latest "buzz" in southern Ontario, which has caught the ear of Symposium organisers: "Halifax is the place to be this summer!"
Organizers are providing extensive resource documentation as part of the registration, and all participants have access to computer workstations and the university radio studios.
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Taiwan protestors to rally against 18 billion special defense budget
TAIPEI (AFP)
Jun 16, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040616110554.bxzgl14o.html
Taiwanese conservationists and education reform activists said they will protest Saturday against the government's 18 billion US dollar special military budget which they say the island cannot afford.
The cabinet on June 2 approved the special budget of 610 billion Taiwan dollars (18.2 billion US) for the purchase of advanced weaponry amid tensions with China, but the plan has sparked an outcry.
Some critics say Taiwan cannot afford the expense while others say the new weaponry will not be delivered in time to help Taiwan fend off any Chinese attacks in coming years, which the defense ministry has warned of.
"If we agree it is wrong to leave such a huge financial burden to our children, then we should do something," Ho Tsung-hsun of the No Nuke Union Taiwan said Wednesday.
The government's debts have accumulated to some 7.6 trillion Taiwan dollars (226.87 billion US), opposition parties said.
Ho, one of the organisers, said they expected hundreds of people to turn out for Saturday's march.
"Response to our march plan is stronger than expected" after it was unveiled on the Internet Monday, he told AFP.
Ho said they had to make the government aware of opposition to the special budget, which calls for the procurement of eight submarines, a modified version of Patriot anti-missile systems PAC-III and a fleet of anti-submarine aircraft over a 15-year period beginning in 2005.
Parliamentary speaker Wang Jin-pyng confirmed he is to lead a delegation to the United States Thursday for the mega arms sales.
US President George W. Bush offered the sales in April 2001 as part of the most comprehensive arms package to the island since 1992.
Taiwan Vice Defense Minister Tsai Ming-hsien said early June that mainland Chinese forces might attack the island some time between 2006 and 2008.
China has repeatedly threatened to invade Taiwan should the island declare formal independence, although the two sides split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
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Homegrown memorials used as tributes, antiwar protests
War isn't over over there, but memorials are already honoring lives lost in Iraq
By Patrik Jonsson
June 16, 2004
Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0616/p02s01-ussc.html
BRANDENBURG, KY. - When Ray Cottrell, Jr. put up the first three white crosses to mark the first casualties of the Iraq war, he did not know what the future would hold for US troops overseas.
But the scene outside his Ford dealership in this rural Kentucky town has changed dramatically: Today, 801 crosses and flags dominate the small grassy strip in front of new F-150s and Suburbans. This Normandyesque memorial has become a somber ritual in the lives of Mr. Cottrell's employees, and they dedicate their time to grooming it as though it were a family cemetery plot. "It really hits close to home," says Larry Green, a retired Army soldier and a salesman at Ray's Ford. "It's like losing a family member each and every time we put a cross out."
At a time when the Bush administration is closely monitoring images of flag-draped caskets containing US casualties, memorials are springing up across the country honoring those killed in Iraq - some intended to convey overt political messages and others just to show support.
As memorials grow from porches and front gates of Army bases across the country, the phenomenon is part of a broader return of mourning symbols and rituals in American society. They also offer a rare touchstone in what has become a fractious divide in the United States over the current military situation in the Middle East.
"These memorials are popping up as avenues to give voice to different areas of the country," says Alan Wolfelt, the director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colo. "It's one thing to have a memorial in Washington, but not everyone can travel there. These roadside memorials allow people to ... experience the healthy functions of converting grief to mourning - no matter your politics."
Some are simple collections of mementos on the family porch of a slain soldier. Others are more elaborate. Cobbled together with flags and flowers, bricks and crosses, these expressions of grief, support, and even protest are giving Americans vaunted places to absorb the real costs of war, to reflect, and to pray.
Outside Fort Carson, Colo., a new black granite memorial with a map of Iraq and the names of 49 fallen soldiers from the 3rd Task Force Armored Cavalry Regiment was recently unveiled. At the bottom is an inscription that rings of Kipling: "Brave Rifles! Veterans. You have been baptized in fire and blood, and have come out steel."
Today's memorialization harks back to an expression of home that was typified in the 1940s by the popularity of the song "White Christmas," which spoke about Christmases past and coming home - as opposed to the Vietnam War, when the concept of "home" itself was in disarray, both generationally and politically.
In Fonda, N.Y., Veterans for Peace planted 833 crosses in 40 neat lines as part of a temporary memorial at the National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. One local Vietnam veteran, Joe Fonda of nearby Fultonville, says he doesn't oppose the display. "They're doing two things - they're trying to get people home, and they're honoring our dead," he says.
In West Palm Beach, Fla., the All Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans Memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day - the only one of 13 memorials at the Royal Palm Memorial Gardens cemetery to honor veterans of an ongoing war.
More than 800 pairs of black combat boots were displayed on the lawn of a federal courthouse in Youngstown, Ohio - a tribute to troops who have died in Iraq. Each pair was labeled with a servicemember's name, rank, age, and hometown.
Here in Brandenburg, some may see the Ray's Ford memorial as a perfect statement on why going to Iraq was a mistake. But that's far from what the builders intended. "It's simply a gesture of support for our troops," says Cottrell. Indeed, though most of the organizers of the memorial support the president, they are careful about delivering any kind of general statement.
But elsewhere, memorials embody an antiwar protest. In Ithaca, N.Y., organizers are constructing an eight-foot plexiglas structure where more will be etched than the names of fallen soldiers and the numbers of dead Iraqi civilians. Statements by President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld justifying war and a list of corporations that are doing business in Iraq will also be listed.
"I felt a strong need to do this because of the [secrecy around] the caskets and the fact that any remembrance seemed to be swept under the rug," says Ken Ritter, an Ithaca activist who struggled with whether to use the memorial to make a statement about the war.
Yet even in Ithaca, one of the first cities to pass a resolution condemning the decision to go to war in Iraq, the local memorial has still to gain approval to be installed on the public downtown commons. Indeed, some local governments have become squeamish about makeshift memorials in general, such as crosses along accident-prone stretches of highway. In Robbins, Ill., local officials have restricted the size of private memorials.
"There's still the tension between the goals of the nation and the unfortunate and tragic consequences," says John Bodnar, a history professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. "[Memorials] are a way of saying, 'OK, we support this, but we're not actually comfortable with it,' " he says.
Still, no matter one's politics, the memorials are having a deep impact. Here in Kentucky, Green of Ray's Ford notes that the wife of a medical corps officer laid a wreath on a cross inscribed with the name of a soldier who died in the doctor's arms. A veteran from a US ordnance division placed unit insignias on the crosses of lost battalion members. And even those with no connection to the war gaze in awe: "We've had an incredible amount of positive feedback," Green says.
Mr. Ritter in Ithaca agrees. "The reason these memorials are so, well, memorable is that they come from average people."
• Associated Press material was used in this report.
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Deadline Extended for Applying to Protest Convention
June 16, 2004
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/nyregion/16permits.html
Correction Appended
The New York City Police Department has extended the deadline for organizations that plan protests around the Republican National Convention to apply for permits.
The original deadline was yesterday, but the department will continue to take applications up to a month before the convention, which begins Aug. 30, said Paul J. Browne, the deputy police commissioner for public information. He said the city received applications from 12 groups.
"We're going to make a good-faith effort with all of the groups in front of us," said Mr. Browne.
But at a news conference across from Madison Square Garden, members of eight groups said they felt that city officials were stalling.
Bill Dobbs, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, said, "We are having serious difficulties with Mayor Bloomberg, police and others rolling out the red carpet for the Republicans but doing very little to accommodate the rights of those who wish to dissent."
Correction: June 17, 2004, Thursday
In some copies yesterday, because of an editing error, an article about protest permits misstated the Police Department's action on a deadline. The department had asked groups to apply by June 15 but never set that date as a legal deadline.
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