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NUCLEAR
Report Faults U.S. Action on Nuclear Proliferation
'India not interested in non-Nato ally status'
Pan-Islamic body hails India-Pakistan deal to reduce nuclear risk
India, Pakistan to Set Up Hotline
Pakistan Expresses Hope for India Peace Process
Khamenei Says Tehran Not Seeking Nukes
Khamenei assures world Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons
'Now Europe Must Act'
Iran Reiterates Pledge Not to Enrich Uranium
Powell: U.S. Flexible in N. Korea Talks
Powell urges North Korea to fully dismantle nuclear weapons program
U.S. Not Ready to Pay N. Korea For Disarmament
China remains dubious on North Korea's uranium program
S.Korea Comes Up with 'Flexible' N.Korea Plan
S.Korea Party Asks U.S. to Avoid Intelligence Errors
Nuclear terror 'matter of time'
Report Faults U.S. Action on Nuclear Proliferation
NRC to eye plans for more reactors
Tapped to build prototype holder for nuclear waste
Oregonians have little say over shipment plans for nuclear waste
MILITARY
Ghost of war past haunts Afghanistan
US urges Taiwan to boost defence capabilities: report
Malaysia accepts U.S. aid, but not patrols, in strait
Hoon dismisses Iraq mutilation claims
Federal Contracts SRA to Ease Moves of Military Families
US urges Taiwan to boost defence capabilities: report
Debate rages on after EU deal
Austrian army to be cut by half: minister
U.K. Navy Investigates Report Iran Seizes Its Boats (Update4)
IRAN-UK NAVAL DISPUTE
Iran seizes three British navy boats, arrests eight: official
Iran Seizes 3 British Vessels and Crew of 8
U.S. Forces Plan Lower Profile
Iraq Leader Says Army Will Target Insurgents
U.S. Is Quietly Spending $2.5 Billion From Iraqi Oil Revenues
Iraq Government Considers Using Emergency Rule
Iraq Might Welcome a Strongman
The Secrets of Occupation: Scott Taylor on Iraq
Israeli Warplanes Hit Lebanese Guerrilla Site
Israel and Hezbollah Clash
Saudis Seek American's Body as Militants Vow More Terror
Saudis Barricade Area in Capital
Large scale wargame begins in Russian Far East: fleet spokesman
Assailants seize Interior Ministry building
Pilot Guides Private Plane Beyond Atmosphere, a First
Great space expectations
Intelligence: The Pentagon-Spying in America?
Russians Surprised by Putin's Comments on Saddam's Terror Plans
CIA Wants Cheney Out of Senate Intel Report
US Accused over Senior Iraqi
U.S. Is Accused of Trying to Isolate U.N. Agency
Generals face Abu Ghraib hearings
Generals face Abu Ghraib hearings
UK troops accused of mutilating Iraqi bodies
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Judge in Abuse Case Will Allow Questioning of Top Officers
Betrayal on the Mexican Border
Responding to real threats
Port security still off course
Rebuilding air defenses
Syrian jailed for internet usage
Judicial Nominee Practiced Law Without License in Utah
Protecting His Honor is expensive
U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees
Guantánamo Memories, From Outside the Wire
POLITICS
Torture Trail
Iraqi Officer Linked to Al Qaeda
9/11 Panel Members Debate Qaeda-Iraq 'Tie'
Al Qaeda not very active in Iraq, probe chief says
Ambassador With Big Portfolio
Hail to the Moon king
ENERGY
Alternative-Energy Quest Is Blocked by a 1953 Law
OTHER
Study touts foods high in antioxidants
ACTIVISTS
Miss. Honors 3 Slain Civil Rights Workers
Charities' Tax Breaks Scrutinized
At Midvale school, slogans stir debate over speech control
-------- NUCLEAR
Report Faults U.S. Action on Nuclear Proliferation
Carnegie Study Recommends More Aggressive Tactics
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56471-2004Jun20?language=printer
Within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush highlighted the menace posed by weapons of mass destruction, declaring: "We will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
That promise led to designations, such as the "axis of evil" for Iraq, Iran and North Korea; to steps, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, which allows the United States to search ships for weapons material; and to war with Iraq, based on the belief that Saddam Hussein's government was sitting on a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and working toward an atomic bomb.
But according to a critical report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, it has not helped secure vulnerable nuclear facilities, criminalized the transfer of weapons technology or meted out punishments for countries that renege on their commitment to remain nuclear-free.
"If you're really worried that terrorists are going to get nuclear materials and build a bomb, then we have to be acting a lot more aggressively and thinking more comprehensively to lock down the global nuclear complex," said Jon Wolfsthal, one of five co-authors of the Carnegie report, "Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security." The report is being released today at the start of a two-day conference here on nuclear weapons sponsored by the think tank.
More than 600 members of the arms control community are expected to attend the conference, including Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Mitchell Reiss, director of policy planning at the State Department; former senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; and Hans Blix, who led the U.N. hunt for weapons in Iraq before the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
Among the toughest claims in the 95-page report, which will be the focus of today's opening session, is that the United States is undermining its own policies by continuing to build nuclear weapons and strengthening ties with nuclear states -- India, Pakistan and Israel.
The report also chides the administration's approach to Iran, a country censured on Friday by the IAEA for failing to cooperate with international inspectors. The toughly worded rebuke at the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency was written by France, Britain and Germany, which have been trying to offer Iran incentives to give up its nuclear ambitions.
The Bush administration has taken a tougher line, saying it wants to bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council in the hope of forcing Iran to back down. But officials in Washington have quietly conceded there is little they can do if Iran decides to go nuclear.
"The U.S. should more fully back the European Union leaders," the Carnegie group wrote. "Resolving the nuclear proliferation challenge should be the highest priority in relations with Iran."
On North Korea, the report recommends that Bush appoint a special envoy to negotiate with Pyongyang for the complete dismantlement of its nuclear capabilities. The United States will take part in a new round of six-party talks in Beijing this week aimed at ending a 20-month crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. But the administration has refused to talk directly to Pyongyang or reward the country before it gives up its arsenal, which U.S. intelligence now estimates to include as many as eight nuclear devices.
The Carnegie report also focuses on protecting nuclear materials, reactors and sites around the world from sabotage and theft and creating tough international measures to punish black marketeers.
"In many countries, stealing nuclear materials is no more of a crime than stealing money," the report said.
Earlier this year, a massive black market run by A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, was exposed when Libya announced it was giving up its clandestine attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Khan was pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally of the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks.
-------- depleted uranium
'India not interested in non-Nato ally status'
Statesman News Service,
June 21, 2004
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=46295
BANGALORE - India was not interested in a non-Nato ally status, US ambassador Mr David Mulford said. He was responding to reporter's queries here on whether the US was considering giving the same status to India as it was doing in the case of Pakistan.
In a significant development, the US recently conferred on Pakistan the status of a major non-Nato ally. The new standing would bring Pakistan at par with the nations getting special US favour in various fields including access to defence material.
The US ambassador, who is here to attend the Indo-US space conference, pointed out that when asked, India had said that it was not interested. It is worthwhile to note that major non-Nato allies are eligible for priority delivery of defence materials and the purchase, for instance, of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds.
They can stockpile US military hardware, participate in defence research and development programmes. In addition, they can benefit from a US government loan guarantee programme which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports.
Meanwhile, Mr Mulford, who spoke at length on the scope for a major push to Indo-US cooperation in space, science, its application and commerce, said that the two countries were hoping to engage in a more sophisticated phase of discussion on the issue of missile defence technology.
Already, he said, there is a dialogue on. "I cannot be specific about this but this is an area where there are generations of technologies involved."
Underlining the fact that Indo-US relations were on a firm footing, he said that there was tremendous scope for boosting, even strengthening this cooperation.
Despite being the two biggest democracies, imbalance in trade between them was a matter of regret. India and the US, he argued, had the needed opportunities for boosting trade, something which needed to be exploited.
-------- india / pakistan
Pan-Islamic body hails India-Pakistan deal to reduce nuclear risk
RIYADH (AFP)
Jun 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040621181622.ocxmix2m.html
The head of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on Monday welcomed the agreement between India and Pakistan to set up a hotline to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
The steps agreed by the South Asian rivals "will greatly contribute to reducing the risk of nuclear war and enhancing efforts to establish stability and security" in the volatile region, said Abdelwahed Belkeziz in a statement issued at OIC headquarters in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
The secretary general of the 57-member OIC hoped the two countries would eventually "normalise relations" by reaching lasting solutions to all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, according to the statement, carried by the state SPA news agency.
India and Pakistan agreed Sunday after two days of meetings in New Delhi to set up a hotline to avoid nuclear confrontation and continue a ban on nuclear tests.
The agreement emerged after the recent Indian elections had thrown into question the entire peace process between the two neighbors, who went officially nuclear within weeks of each other in 1998.
--------
India, Pakistan to Set Up Hotline
Talks End With Deal to Maintain Moratorium on Nuclear Testing
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55542-2004Jun20.html
NEW DELHI, June 20 -- India and Pakistan agreed Sunday to set up a hotline between their foreign ministries to reduce the threat of accidental nuclear war, giving a small but helpful nudge to a nascent peace process that began with a meeting between their leaders in January.
The announcement came at the end of two days of talks on nuclear confidence-building measures. Delegates from the two sides, who described the atmosphere surrounding the talks as friendly, also agreed to continue a moratorium on nuclear testing, except in what they termed "extraordinary" circumstances.
India and Pakistan, neither of which is party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998. The two countries have fought three wars since their simultaneous founding in 1947 and nearly did so again two years ago, alarming the world with the prospect of a nuclear exchange.
Next Sunday, the Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries are scheduled to meet in New Delhi to consider ways of resolving their differences over Kashmir, the divided Himalayan province at the center of their 57-year conflict.
Although they remain far apart on the parameters of any settlement over Kashmir, each side emphasized the progress that had been made after a period of uncertainty following the installation of a new government in New Delhi last month.
"We are on track and we are on schedule," said a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, Masood Khan, who briefed reporters in New Delhi after the two teams of senior diplomats reached agreement Sunday. "There is progress. There's been a thaw."
In the recent elections, an alliance headed by India's Congress party unexpectedly ousted the coalition government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a longtime Hindu nationalist who -- after stepping back from the brink of war in 2002 -- made a priority of forging a lasting peace settlement with Pakistan.
In January, Vajpayee and Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, agreed to begin formal peace negotiations after Musharraf pledged that Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used as a base for Islamic militants who have waged a 15-year insurgency against Indian forces in Kashmir.
The following month, foreign secretaries from the two countries agreed to a six-month schedule of negotiations on Kashmir and a variety of other subjects, including water and border issues, maritime boundaries and nuclear confidence-building measures, the topic of the meetings this weekend.
The Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers are supposed to meet in August to assess their overall progress.
Khan, the Pakistani spokesman, expressed hope Sunday that continued progress could lead to a summit between Musharraf and India's new prime minister, Manmohan Singh, an Oxford-educated economist and former finance minister who has a limited background in foreign policy.
In a joint statement Sunday, Indian and Pakistani officials said they had agreed to upgrade an existing hotline between the directors general of military operations in each country and that a new secure hotline "would be established between the two foreign secretaries . . . to prevent misunderstandings and reduce risks relevant to nuclear issues."
In addition, the statement said, "each side reaffirmed its unilateral moratorium on conducting further nuclear test explosions unless, in exercise of national sovereignty, it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardized its supreme interests." The two sides also agreed to pursue an agreement that would institutionalize procedures for giving notification of missile tests, something that is already done informally.
There was no apparent progress on broader strategic issues. India, for example, has declared a policy of "no first use" of nuclear weapons, and would like Pakistan to do the same. But Pakistani officials have so far declined to take such a step, citing India's overwhelming superiority in conventional forces. Indian officials, for their part, are less enthusiastic about Pakistani proposals for strategic restraint -- possibly to include caps on the size of each country's nuclear arsenals -- given the potential nuclear threat to India from China.
Khan said the two sides had discussed these broader questions "in a general sense," but that for now, the goals were more modest. "The spirit right now in the nuclear realm is to transcend beyond the rhetoric and do something substantive and concrete."
--------
Pakistan Expresses Hope for India Peace Process
June 21, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-southasia.html
QINGDAO, China (Reuters) - Pakistan expressed hope on Monday for a peace process with India, where a new government has taken power, but said there was still a need to build trust with its long-time rival.
The South Asian neighbors came close to war two years ago over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, but ties have thawed since peace moves began in April 2003.
India and Pakistan renewed a ban on nuclear tests on Sunday and agreed to set up a hotline between their foreign ministries after unprecedented talks on reducing the risk of nuclear war on the subcontinent.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri met his Indian counterpart, Natwar Singh, in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao on the sidelines of the third Asia Cooperation Dialogue forum scheduled for Tuesday.
It was the first meeting between top political officials from the two countries since last month's Indian elections in which the Congress party defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
``I'm encouraged by my meeting with the Indian foreign minister today,'' Kasuri told reporters.
``On an earlier occasion he said to me, and he reiterated it today...that he would like to take the peace process further than what the BJP-led government had done.''
``I'm very encouraged by that.''
``We hope after this exercise, lunch as well as talk after the lunch, to develop a degree of trust and understanding between us. Because we are aware of the fact that both Pakistan and India face major problems.''
``WARM AND PRODUCTIVE''
The Indian foreign ministry said the ministers' talks over a working lunch had been warm and productive and they had agreed to stay in touch to provide continuous political guidance for the peace process.
Kasuri stressed the Kashmir issue had to be solved before there could be lasting peace in South Asia, but he said Pakistan had the will to push the peace process forward.
``I can tell you on behalf of the government of Pakistan that we have the political will. I hope the Indian government shows a similar level of political will.
``I had a feeling after talking to him today that there was reason to believe that the government of India...also has the political will to resolve outstanding issues.''
Kasuri denied a report that nine Pakistani nuclear scientists missing for six years may be in communist North Korea, the subject of six-party talks in Beijing this week over its nuclear arms program.
``It is not in Pakistan's interest to help North Korea.''
During two days of meetings, Pakistan and India also agreed on Sunday to establish ways to notify each other before missile tests.
After tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998 that provoked international condemnation and tough sanctions from the United States, both sides declared a moratorium, saying more tests were unnecessary.
Tension over Kashmir has prevented any meetings to discuss nuclear risks and policies since the 1998 tests.
Analysts said the weekend talks and the meeting between the foreign ministers showed India and Pakistan were serious about working out mechanisms to prevent a nuclear flare-up.
-------- iran
Khamenei Says Tehran Not Seeking Nukes
ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press
Mon, Jun. 21, 2004
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/8976149.htm?1c
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader said Monday his country was not seeking nuclear weapons, but he vowed that Tehran won't give up its program to enrich uranium for fuel in nuclear reactors.
"If Europeans and others are really worried that we may acquire nuclear weapons, we assure them that we are not seeking to produce such weapons," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in his first remarks since Friday's rebuke of Iran's nuclear activities by a U.N. atomic watchdog agency.
"But if they are unhappy about Iran's access to the outstanding nuclear technology and want to stop this trend, I tell them they should be assured that the Iranian nation won't give in on this," he told a gathering of university officials.
Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, also said Iran's intention to control the whole nuclear fuel cycle was "essential" to avoiding foreign dependence on nuclear fuel.
Iran repeatedly has said it wants to control the whole nuclear fuel cycle - from extracting uranium ore to enriching it to a low grade for use as fuel in nuclear reactor. Uranium enriched to low levels can be used in power plants, while highly enriched uranium can be used in bombs.
The United States accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran insists its program is aimed only at producing energy. The International Atomic Energy Agency rebuked Iran in a European-drafted resolution for not cooperating enough in the investigation into its nuclear program.
Iran said Saturday it will resume some nuclear activities it suspended under world pressure. Iranian officials have hinted that one area to resume soon is the building of parts for centrifuges used in the uranium enrichment process.
An Iranian opposition group claimed in April that Tehran is aiming to develop a nuclear bomb in the next two years, using secret military facilities in parallel to the civilian program open to international scrutiny. The exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran claimed up to 400 nuclear experts and researchers were working on such secret military programs that answered directly to Khamenei.
Khamenei, however, said Iran's scientists were doing a "huge, essential obligation to prevent (Iran) from dependence on foreigners" for nuclear fuel for power plants.
"It's to preserve national independence," he said.
"And if one day they don't wont to give us fuel for political, international or bilateral reasons, then we won't have running plants," he said.
On Saturday, Iran rejected IAEA demands to stop building a heavy water nuclear reactor in Arak and halt operations of a nuclear conversion facility in Isfahan, both in central Iran.
The Arak plant will produce plutonium that could be used to make nuclear bombs and the Isfahan facility processes uranium powder called yellow cake into hexaflouride gas.
Actual enrichment is injecting hexaflouride gas into centrifuges that spin at high speed, enriching uranium to be used as fuel in reactors.
Last year, under IAEA pressure, Iran suspended enrichment and some other activities and opened facilities to inspections. In response, France Britain and Germany promised to make it easier for Iran to obtain advanced nuclear technology.
According to Hasan Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, the three key European powers promised to work toward closing Iran's nuclear dossier by June if Iran stopped making centrifuges.
Iran stopped building centrifuges in April and accused Europeans of reneging on their promise. It says it is no longer committed to its promise.
----
Khamenei assures world Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons
June 21, 2004
(AP)
http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/content.asp?y=2004&dt=0622&pub=Utusan_Express&sec=World&pg=wo_06.htm
TEHRAN (Iran) June 21 - In his first remarks since a rebuke over Iran's nuclear activities, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sought to assure the world Monday his country was not seeking nuclear weapons, but vowed Tehran won't give up its program to enrich uranium for fuel in nuclear reactors.
Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, also said Iran's intention to control the whole nuclear fuel cycle was ``essential'' to avoiding foreign dependence on nuclear fuel.
``If Europeans and others are really worried that we may acquire nuclear weapons, we assure them that we are not seeking to produce such weapons,'' Khamenei told a gathering of university officials.
``But if they are unhappy about Iran's access to the outstanding nuclear technology and want to stop this trend, I tell them they should be assured that the Iranian nation won't give in on this.''
The United States accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran insists its program is only aimed at producing energy. The International Atomic Energy Agency rebuked Iran on Friday in a European-drafted resolution for not cooperating enough in the probe into its nuclear program.
Iran said Saturday it will resume some nuclear activities it suspended under world pressure. Iranian officials have hinted that one area to resume soon is the building of parts for centrifuges used in the uranium enrichment process.
Iran repeatedly has said it wants to control the whole nuclear fuel cycle from extracting uranium ore to enriching it to a low grade for use as fuel in nuclear reactor. Uranium enriched to low levels can be used in power plants, while highly enriched uranium can be used in bombs.
An Iranian opposition group claimed in April that Tehran is aiming to develop a nuclear bomb within the next two years, using secret military facilities in parallel to the civilian program open to international scrutiny. The exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran, claimed up to 400 nuclear experts and researchers were working on such secret military programs that answered directly to Khamenei.
Khamenei, however, said that what Iran's scientists were doing was a ``huge essential obligation to prevent (Iran) from dependence on foreigners. It's to preserve national independence.''
``If we don't have this technology (producing nuclear fuel), it means when the Bushehr reactor is built tomorrow, we have to go to different countries begging fuel. And if one day they don't wont to give us fuel for political, international or bilateral reasons, then we won't have running plants,'' he said.
On Saturday, Iran rejected IAEA demands to stop building a heavy water nuclear reactor in Arak and halt operations of a nuclear conversion facility in Isfahan, both in central Iran.
The Arak plant will produce plutonium that could be used to make atomic bombs and the Isfahan facility processes uranium powder called yellow cake into hexaflouride gas.
Actual enrichment is injecting hexaflouride gas into centrifuges that spin at high speed, enriching uranium to be used as fuel in reactors.
Last year, under IAEA pressure, Iran suspended enrichment and some other activities and opened facilities to inspections. In a deal for the suspension, Britain, Germany and France promised to make it easier for Iran to obtain advanced nuclear technology.
According to Hasan Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, the three key European powers promised to work toward closing Iran's nuclear dossier by June if Iran stopped making centrifuges. Iran stopped building centrifuges April. Iran accused Europeans of reneging on their promise and says it is no longer committed to its promise. - AP
--------
INTERVIEW
'Now Europe Must Act'
June 21, 2004
By DER SPIEGEL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/international/europe/21SPIEGEL.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Teheran's nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani discusses his country's controversial nuclear program, the conflict with Washington, and US President George W. Bush' Middle East initiative.
SPIEGEL: Hodjatolislam Rohani, in his most recent statement Mohammed al-Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, criticizes Iran, claiming its willingness to cooperate is, to some extent, "less than satisfactory." Why are you so opposed to inspections?
Rohani: In the name of merciful God! We have done everything to defuse the accusation that our nuclear activities are not for peaceful purposes. We voluntarily responded to the IAEA's many questions, gave the inspectors free access to all sites, signed the supplementary protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and submitted 1030 pages of documents. We have delivered the transparency demanded by Vienna. We expect the IAEA to acknowledge this effort and close our case as soon as possible.
SPIEGEL: The IAEA will not clear Iran until all doubts have been completely eliminated. This seems to be a long way off.
Rohani: Perhaps the expectations of the IAEA and the West simply exceed the limits of the law. There are always situations in which one disagrees. Moreover, some of the questions raised by the IAEA are highly controversial, such as asking us to provide detailed information about suppliers. The Vienna agency has no right to make such demands. Nevertheless, we have also answered these questions.
SPIEGEL: But unfortunately not to the full satisfaction of the nuclear inspectors. For example, you have yet to provide a convincing explanation for the traces of enriched uranium that be evidence of secret nuclear projects in your country.
Rohani: This uranium is not recent. When it was discovered last year, we were just as surprised as everyone else. It was found on imported equipment...
SPIEGEL:... which you had purchased for your nuclear program on the black market.
Rohani: The agency accepted our explanation, except in one case, which involves the origin of small amounts of 36% enriched uranium. We would also like to see this issue resolved.
SPIEGEL: The amounts that were found are much too large to be solely attributable to contaminated imported equipment.
Rohani: This conclusion, which was also made by the IAEA, is incorrect. The only way to resolve this is to conduct more inspections. For this reason, we have expressly asked the agency to conduct new inspections. If the Americans continue to claim that we have something to hide, they should give their information to the UN inspectors. We expect our case to be handled technically and legally, but not politically.
SPIEGEL: But your enormous procurement program for centrifuges, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, has only heightened Western suspicions.
Rohani: If a country wishes to produce fuel for its power plants, it needs centrifuges. We are certainly entitled to the civilian use of nuclear energy. No one can hold that against us.
SPIEGEL: You are entirely responsible for having generated the mistrust of the West with your contradictory statements. First you said that the equipment was produced in Iran, but then that it was supposedly purchased in other countries.
Rohani: Both statements are correct. We purchased some equipment from a middleman. We then used this equipment as prototypes to produce our own equipment.
SPIEGEL: Well, why don't you prove your willingness to cooperate by identifying your black market dealers?
Rohani: We have already given the IAEA all that information, including the addresses of the dealers.
SPIEGEL: Did you - like Libya - purchase your equipment through Pakistan's nuclear black market?
Rohani: Our middleman was in Dubai.
SPIEGEL: And who else was involved?
Rohani: There was a company from your country, Germany. We have already given the name to the IAEA.
SPIEGEL: If you had behaved so openly from the very beginning, the dispute with the IAEA would not have escalated to such a degree.
Rohani: If we did not disclose certain information in the past, we had clear reasons for doing so, reasons we have repeatedly explained to the IAEA. We did not want to be unfairly belittled by the industrialized nations.
SPIEGEL: Perhaps you were simply using your refusal to cooperate to conceal the traces of a nuclear weapons program?
Rohani: We signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
SPIEGEL:... which doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Rohani: Last December, through the mediation of the foreign ministers of Great Britain, France and Germany, we also signed the supplementary protocol, which grants the IAEA comprehensive inspection rights. We expect that our nuclear file will be closed as soon as possible. In fact, it should be closed already.
SPIEGEL: It will remain open as long you insist on proceeding with the controversial construction of a heavy water reactor in Arak and the uranium reprocessing plant in Isfahan. Serious doubts have been raised as to whether these facilities are for purely civilian purposes.
Rohani: We believe that there are some countries that are always looking for excuses. Isfahan was a good example of this. Before construction was even begun there, everything took place under the supervision of the IAEA. Now, as we finally plan to begin reprocessing uranium, the protests are coming in. Why? Because the West believes it has a monopoly on nuclear technology. And why do they keep asking us for the names of our suppliers? Certainly not to encourage them to continue working with us.
SPIEGEL: Do you intend to resist Europe's demands?
Rohani: The Europeans also assumed obligations in signing the Teheran Declaration. They agreed to make it easier for us to acquire civilian nuclear technology. That is what we are waiting for. Now Europe must act and fulfill its part of the bargain. As long as this does not occur, Europe should not be making any other demands.
SPIEGEL: Some of the most harshly-worded statements are coming from the newly elected parliament. It seems unlikely that the members of parliament will ratify the supplementary protocol.
Rohani: If our delegates are under the impression that the West is just looking for excuses to prevent Iran from gaining access to modern technology, they will refuse to vote for the treaty. However, the committees in charge of this issue were only formed in the past few days. It is too early to tell what our delegates will conclude. However, I am convinced that they will acknowledge the good faith of the IAEA, as well as of Germany, France and Great Britain by voting in favor of the treaty.
SPIEGEL: Europe is lenient with Iran when compared with the United States. Washington would love to bring Teheran to account before the UN Security Council and achieve sanctions against Iran. Can your country even afford further escalation of the conflict?
Rohani: It will not get that far. We will work with the IAEA in the long term, and will answer all questions. The IAEA can conduct all inspections. In fact, according to the latest Vienna report, we have even approved additional surprise inspections in the near future. Furthermore, the Americans have withdrawn their Security Council threats.
SPIEGEL: Washington's new milder approach could have something to do with the fact that US President George W. Bush is having a lot of problems in your neighboring country, Iraq.
Rohani: No, their behavior is a result of the conclusions drawn by the nuclear inspectors and the balance of power within the political leadership of the IAEA, where the USA is pretty much on its own.
SPIEGEL: America is also desperately seeking allies next door, in Iraq. Will you help the United States in building a new Iraq?
Rohani: We want a national government to be in charge of the country as soon as possible, and we want to security and stability established in Iraq.
SPIEGEL: The Americans are talking about creating a western-style democracy in Iraq. Is this something you could accept?
Rohani: I have yet to comprehend the American standards for democracy. We at least hope that Iraq will have a democracy that reflects the voice of the people and its national values, and one in which all groups can participate. Perhaps the United States has an entirely different concept, however.
They usually don't like independent governments. They are also very embarrassed about the fact that religious leader Ayatollah Sistani has insisted on free elections being held as soon as possible, and that they themselves have long avoided this demand.
SPIEGEL: Because they are afraid that your fellow Shiite, Sistani, will declare a theocracy in Iraq similar to that in power in Iran.
Rohani: I believe that the future government in Baghdad will be very dissimilar to that in Teheran. As a matter of principle, no country should dictate or try to influence what another country does.
SPIEGEL: Well, Iran seems to be quite good at getting involved, such as by training fanatics to commit suicide attacks on Americans and their allies. There are rumored to be about 15,000 of these kamikaze candidates.
Rohani: The goal of our efforts is to quench the internal fire in Iraq. However, it is certainly possible that the events there may prompt certain groups to feel that their religious sensibilities have been violated, and to plan some sort of independent response. We are very concerned that the destruction of the holy sites in Najaf and Kerbela will cause the conflict to explode. That is something we wish to prevent.
SPIEGEL: For US President Bush, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was simply the beginning of a mission in the "greater Middle East," with which he intends to bring freedom and democracy to the people of the region.
Rohani: The United States should first save itself in Iraq. Once that has occurred, and if they truly support free and fair elections in the region, we will support them. But the development of democracy is only a cover for the Americans. The USA's only interests in the region are oil and its own influence, as well as that of its ally, Israel. That's why they only pressure the Palestinians.
SPIEGEL: The US government is certainly trying to convince Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to agree to concessions.
Rohani: Sharon does not abide by any treaties. Even when he says he intends to withdraw from territory, such as the Gaza Strip, he does so unilaterally and for his own benefit. And, in doing so, he is trampling on the peace plan developed by the Middle East Quartet, the EU, Russia, the United States and the UN.
SPIEGEL: You criticize Sharon's lack of a will for peace, and yet you yourself support militant Islamist groups such as Hamas, which kills innocent Israelis with its suicide attacks.
Rohani: These groups have no other way to defend themselves against Israel's military superiority.
SPIEGEL: We would have expected a more moderate approach from you. After all, you are considered a leading voice among the so-called pragmatists, which, as a third force between the reformers and conservatives, represent the strongest faction in the new parliament.
Rohani: Every country that has maintained good relations with Israel and has constantly come up with new peace plans has learned that Israel does not abide by any of these proposals.
SPIEGEL: And your new parliament...
Rohani:... will focus most of its attention on our country's economy. Inflation and unemployment are our most pressing issues.
SPIEGEL: Nevertheless, reforms in social policy are also expected from this parliament. Iran's supporters in Europe, in particular, expect to see a significant boost to freedom and democracy.
Rohani: We have always told our European friends that we are not afraid of dialogue and debate. That is why we will continue the trend toward reform.
SPIEGEL: With there be a President Rohani as head of state after next spring's elections?
Rohani: It's too early to talk about that. I do not have any such plans at this time.
SPIEGEL: Hodjatolislam Rohani, we thank you for this interview.
The interview was conducted by editors Dieter Bednarz and Christian Neef.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
--------
Iran Reiterates Pledge Not to Enrich Uranium
Reuters
Monday, June 21, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56376-2004Jun20.html
TEHRAN, June 20 -- Iran assured the world again on Sunday that it had no immediate plans to resume uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons but said it might resume making parts for the enrichment equipment.
Angered by a tough U.N. resolution criticizing it for less than full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has threatened to reconsider its commitment to the suspension of enrichment activities.
But, in a calibrated response that diplomats believe aims to send a tough message without sparking a major crisis, Iran said it may merely suspend its pledge to stop building uranium centrifuge parts -- a commitment to which Tehran had not fully complied anyway.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, echoing comments made Saturday by Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, said that Iran would continue to refrain from injecting uranium hexafluoride gas into centrifuges that spin at high speed to produce enriched uranium.
"Right now, there is no discussion about resuming enrichment at all," Asefi said at a weekly news conference.
Iran says its nuclear program is geared solely to producing electricity. Low enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors, but highly enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons.
Iran agreed to suspend enrichment last October to restore international confidence following revelations that it had kept secret sensitive nuclear research for nearly two decades.
The suspension, brokered in talks with Britain, Germany and France, was extended in February to cover the manufacture and assembly of enrichment centrifuge parts.
Iran said the European nations had, in return, pledged to back Iran at last week's IAEA meeting in Vienna.
-------- korea
Powell: U.S. Flexible in N. Korea Talks
Monday June 21, 2004
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4229591,00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is approaching talks on North Korea's nuclear program with a spirit of flexibility but is demanding that the communist government prove it will stop developing nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday.
With preliminary talks under way in Beijing, and formal negotiations due to open Wednesday, Powell said, ``We will enter these talks as we have entered previous talks: with flexibility and with an attitude of trying to resolve this problem.''
Powell was responding to persistent reports that China and South Korea were urging the Bush administration to ease its tough line and accept a step-by-step compensation program to entice North Korea to start a phased-in process of ending its nuclear program.
``We are not prepared to compensate North Korea somehow for not doing something that they never should have done to begin with,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
The four countries aligned with the United States in the talks - China, Japan, South Korea and Russia - share the goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, Boucher said.
President Bush has indicated he is willing to negotiate with the other countries on ways to guarantee ``that the North Koreans don't have to worry about their security,'' Boucher said.
Also, Boucher said, other nations participating alongside the United States have indicated that if the negotiations should move toward a complete and irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, they would be prepared to offer ``economic benefits and other ties to North Korea.''
The United States has provided food to North Korea over the years but otherwise has steered clear of assisting its troubled economy. In return for a freeze of a plutonium-based nuclear program in 1993, however, the former Clinton administration promised 500 metric tons of heavy oil annually. Japan and South Korea helped with energy, as well.
The assistance was halted after discovery of a secret North Korean uranium-based nuclear weapons program in 2002.
The current six-nation talks have made little headway since they began last August. At the same time, North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, has visited China, and met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. North Korea also has held high-level military talks with South Korea.
Powell spoke to reporters after meeting with Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Powell did not say explicitly what he meant that the United States would show a ``spirit of flexibility,'' but he might have been referring to the prospect of security talks with North Korea.
``The other members of the six-party talks have indicated a willingness to provide some assistance rather quickly'' if negotiations were productive, Powell said.
As for the United States, Powell said, it ``will want to see performance on the part of the North Koreans.''
``They should stop doing what they are doing,'' Powell said about a program that U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced poses a nuclear weapons threat.
Powell said he had briefed ElBaradei about the talks with North Korea.
ElBaradei, in a brief statement, said, ``The earlier we are in a position to resolve the North Korean issue, which I find one of the most dangerous challenges facing the international community, the better.''
----
Powell urges North Korea to fully dismantle nuclear weapons program
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Jun 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040621192705.6uebkxf3.html
North Korea should fully dismantle its nuclear weapons before the United States considers any aid to the Stalinist state, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday.
It should "fully divulge and fully turn over and fully dismantle in a way that the whole world can see and there is no question about it," Powell said after talks with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
But he said Washington would adopt flexibility in the six-party talks in Beijing beginning Wednesday to end North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.
Ahead of the Beijing talks, Powell was asked whether Washington would be flexible in its bid to resolve the nuclear turmoil and consider providing aid if North Korea abandoned its nuclear weapons arsenal.
He said North Korea should stop their nuclear military activities and "make sure that we remove their nuclear program."
Aside from the United States, North Korea and China, the other parties in the multilateral effort to resolve the crisis are Russia, South Korea and Japan.
China and South Korea regard the US policy on North Korea as too stiff and are reportedly trying to cut their own deals with Pyongyang. Japan could also follow suit.
Powell, without elaborating, acknowledged that "the other members of the six-party talks have indicated a willingness to provide some assistance rather quickly.
He said "the United States will want to see performance on the part of the North Koreans, but we will enter these talks as we have entered previous talks: with flexibility and with an attitude of trying to solve this problem."
"We have made clear to the North Koreans what it will take to solve the problem and the benefits ultimately await North Korea when the problem is resolved," Powell said
ElBaradei said the North Korean crisis was "one of the most dangerous challenges facing the international community."
On when he expected IAEA inspectors to return to North Korea, he said: I (hope) that we will be soon in a position to go back and verify the North Korean propgram and make sure that it is all under agency verification."
North Korea expelled the UN nuclear inspectors in December 2002, two months after the impasse blew up when Washington said the Stalinist state had broken a 1994 nuclear freeze by launching a secret nuclear weapons program.
While Pyongyang denies it is running a uranium scheme, it has offered to freeze its plutonium facilities in return for simultaneous rewards like energy and food aid from the United States.
The United States insist it dismantle its nuclear programs first before any aid is considered.
Two rounds of the six-party talks hosted by China have failed to narrow differences on how to end the 20-month-old crisis.
----
U.S. Not Ready to Pay N. Korea For Disarmament
Monday, June 21, 2004
Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123299,00.html
WASHINGTON - The United States is approaching talks on North Korea's nuclear program with a spirit of flexibility but is demanding that the communist government prove it will stop developing nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) said Monday.
With preliminary talks under way in Beijing, and formal negotiations due to open Wednesday, Powell said, "We will enter these talks as we have entered previous talks: with flexibility and with an attitude of trying to resolve this problem."
Powell was responding to persistent reports that China and South Korea were urging the Bush administration to ease its tough line and accept a step-by-step compensation program to entice North Korea (search) to start a phased-in process of ending its nuclear program.
"We are not prepared to compensate North Korea somehow for not doing something that they never should have done to begin with," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
The four countries aligned with the United States in the talks -- China, Japan, South Korea and Russia -- share the goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, Boucher said.
President Bush has indicated he is willing to negotiate with the other countries on ways to guarantee "that the North Koreans don't have to worry about their security," Boucher said.
Also, Boucher said, other nations participating alongside the United States have indicated that if the negotiations should move toward a complete and irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, they would be prepared to offer "economic benefits and other ties to North Korea."
The United States has provided food to North Korea over the years but otherwise has steered clear of assisting its troubled economy. In return for a freeze of a plutonium-based nuclear program in 1993, however, the former Clinton administration promised 500 metric tons of heavy oil annually. Japan and South Korea helped with energy, as well.
The assistance was halted after discovery of a secret North Korean uranium-based nuclear weapons program (search) in 2002.
The current six-nation talks have made little headway since they began last August. At the same time, North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il (search), has visited China, and met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (search) in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. North Korea also has held high-level military talks with South Korea.
Powell spoke to reporters after meeting with Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (search).
Powell did not say explicitly what he meant that the United States would show a "spirit of flexibility," but he might have been referring to the prospect of security talks with North Korea.
"The other members of the six-party talks have indicated a willingness to provide some assistance rather quickly" if negotiations were productive, Powell said.
As for the United States, Powell said, it "will want to see performance on the part of the North Koreans."
"They should stop doing what they are doing," Powell said about a program that U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced poses a nuclear weapons threat.
Powell said he had briefed ElBaradei about the talks with North Korea.
ElBaradei, in a brief statement, said, "The earlier we are in a position to resolve the North Korean issue, which I find one of the most dangerous challenges facing the international community, the better."
----
China remains dubious on North Korea's uranium program
BEIJING (AFP)
Jun 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040621012055.6y1q8amh.html
North Korea's closest ally China remains dubious about US claims that Pyongyang has a covert uranium-based nuclear weapons program and is not likely to press its Stalinist neighbour much harder without better evidence.
China publicly questioned the US allegations in the New York Times this month, prompting Washington to respond that it was "puzzled".
While North Korea acknowledges having a plutonium program, it denies it is enriching uranium to make nuclear fuel.
The United States is insisting that it completely dismantle both programs before receiving aid and security guarantees, a demand which has stalled two previous rounds of six-party talks that also involve Japan, Russia and South Korea.
"We don't know whether it exists. So far the United States has not presented convincing evidence of this program," deputy foreign minister Zhou Wenzhong said in the interview.
Washington has long said that it learned "conclusively" in the summer of 2002 that the North Koreans were pursuing a covert nuclear program based on uranium enrichment.
According to the paper, Zhou said the Bush administration should stop making charges about the program unless it could offer more conclusive evidence that it exists.
Up until now, Washington has been keen to let Beijing pull strings behind the scenes and pressure the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il while hosting the six-party talks.
But this could be backfiring, with China growing impatient with the US' uncompromising position.
"It's possible that the US recently shared with the Chinese the intelligence on which the uranium allegations are based, and the Chinese were unconvinced," said Timothy Savage, a visiting fellow at the Seoul-based Institute of Far Eastern Studies who specialises in Korean affairs.
He said the timing of the remarks was interesting, shortly before the third round of six-party talks that start in Beijing on Wednesday.
"As for why Zhou made the comments, there are a couple of possibilities," he said.
"One is that China really does believe that it is the US that is blocking progress in the talks and is trying to put pressure on them, especially as the Japanese now seem to be moving in the direction of engagement.
"Another, it may simply be that China is publicly moving closer to the North Korean position in order to make the North Koreans more comfortable about coming to the table, but that they'll continue to pressure them behind the scenes to give up the nuke program."
For China, progress in the talks, or at least preventing them from collapsing, is a matter of saving face.
Beijing launched its most significant diplomatic offensive in years to bring together Pyongyang and Washington last August for the first round of six-nation talks and has been working frantically ever since to prevent the dialogue from dying.
Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think-tank, said that Zhou's comments were likely not a fundamental change in the Chinese position, but rather a way to let Washington know it was tired of its foot-dragging.
"I would not call it a changed position but it is clear that China (and South Korea) would like the US to be more flexible and forthcoming on what it is prepared to offer North Korea if it behaves and comes clean," he said.
"China is certainly pressuring Washington to be more flexible and, more importantly, is demonstrating to Seoul that it is trying to be helpful but that Washington is the problem."
China is seen as one of the few states with any influence in Pyongyang courtesy of aid and oil, and is a long-time ally, fighting on North Korea's side against US and South Korean forces in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Marcus Norland, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Internal Economics, said it was possible the US could table better evidence this week to keep China onside.
"The US is likely to present more evidence regarding the DPRK's uranium program in an effort to keep China and others onside, but may not be more forthcoming about what sorts of carrots it is willing to offer."
--------
S.Korea Comes Up with 'Flexible' N.Korea Plan
June 21, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north-talks.html
BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea and the United States disagreed on Monday, the opening day of six-way working talks over how to end Pyongyang's nuclear programs while South Korea offered aid to the struggling North in return for progress.
Seoul would be more flexible in the talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis and was ready to provide a security guarantee in return for nuclear dismantlement, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told Reuters in an interview.
North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China began two days of working-level talks to lay the foundation for a third round of complex discussions this week on the crisis.
Reclusive Pyongyang held out the prospect of a ``road map'' for freezing or dismantling its nuclear program if the United States and others said what they would give in return, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.
The United States rejected the offer, saying the communist state must first come up with a detailed plan for a freeze leading to eventual nuclear dismantlement, it quoted a South Korean official as saying.
Officials from several parties involved have cautioned that scant progress can be expected at the senior-level talks, aimed at ending a 20-month standoff between the United States and North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
``It is of crucial importance to have some visible progress, to have North Korea commit themselves to dismantling their nuclear development program completely in a transparent manner,'' South Korea's Ban said of his hopes for the third round of talks, which begin on Wednesday in Beijing.
``In such a case, we would be ready to provide the corresponding measures in a formal security assurance and international economic assistance including energy, which they are badly in need of,'' he said, repeating Seoul's offer of aid to its impoverished northern neighbor. This year, the United States shifted its hardline position to say it would not oppose offers of aid from other countries to the North in return for a freeze, but insisted on the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of the program before U.S. security guarantees.
COMPLETE DISMANTLEMENT
``We would like to make quite sure that North Korea's nuclear program including HEU (heavily enriched uranium) should be frozen, ultimately leading to complete and verifiable dismantlement,'' Ban said in an interview on the sidelines of an Asian forum in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.
``In such a case, as we have already said, we are ready to supply energy assistance as a first step,'' he said, adding that his delegate would propose this at the talks.
``This is a more acceptable, and I think more flexible (proposal), than previous ones,'' Ban said.
North Korea is unlikely to respond well to mention of uranium.
The crisis erupted in October 2002, when U.S. officials said North Korea had disclosed it was working on a secret program to enrich uranium, in violation of an international agreement.
North Korea denies a uranium enrichment program, but in 2003 it threw out U.N. inspectors, withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and restarted a mothballed nuclear reactor from which weapons-grade plutonium can be extracted.
``The sides outlined their basic positions with regard to nuclear dismantlement and 'freeze-versus-countermeasures','' a South Korean Foreign Ministry official told reporters, quoting negotiators at Monday's talks.
The senior-level main talks will open later on Wednesday so that the countries involved can hold a series of bilateral meetings, a South Korean official at the talks told reporters.
``The countries agreed that all proposals that have been made so far would be up for discussions,'' the official said.
``We are neither optimistic nor pessimistic at this point,'' he said.
But Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing appeared upbeat.
``I hope we will make progress. We hope the peninsula will be nuclear-free and enjoy peace and stability,'' Li told reporters.
China has said expectations should not be too high from these talks, and many analysts have said North Korea may be waiting for the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections in November before deciding whether to take part in serious bargaining.
China, one of the few friends of isolated communist North Korea, has said what it called Pyongyang's reasonable demands should be given emphasis and resolved.
--------
S.Korea Party Asks U.S. to Avoid Intelligence Errors
June 21, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-korea-party.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's ruling party urged President Bush's administration on Monday to share more intelligence on North Korea to ensure there is no repeat of what it said was the flawed information that led to war in Iraq.
The bipartisan commission investigating the September 11 attacks in the United States reported last week there had been contact between Iraqis and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden but there was no evidence of a collaborative relationship.
``It was wrongful of the Bush Administration to bring on the war against Iraq,'' the Uri Party said in an English-language statement. ``Even worse, the administration is losing the justification of occupation policy in Iraq.''
The party said military operations against North Korea based on wrong or distorted information could lead to serious results because the South Korean government relies heavily on information from the United States. Multilateral talks are seeking to persuade North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program.
``We urge that the Bush Administration guarantee that such kind of decision making based on false and distorted information as in the case of Iraq will not occur on the Korean peninsula, by sharing nuclear and military information on North Korea with Seoul,'' the party said.
The Uri Party supports President Roh Moo-hyun and has a majority in parliament.
The party did not comment directly on a crisis over the kidnapping by Iraqi militants of a South Korean businessman. The militants said on videotape they would behead the man if Seoul did not reverse a decision to send troops to Iraq.
``The administration is criticized for the fact that the war is not for stopping the terrorist attacks, but for increasing them and putting the U.S. and the alliances in a dangerous situation,'' the party said.
-------- terrorism
Nuclear terror 'matter of time'
ElBaradei said terrorists could get their hands on nuclear materials
Monday, 21 June, 2004
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3827589.stm
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Mohammed ElBaradei, has warned of a "race against time" to stop terrorists procuring nuclear materials.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency was speaking at a US conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He endorsed the influential think tank's new arms control plan.
Under the plan, major nuclear powers would be expected to make concessions in the interests of global security. We are actually having a race against time which I don't think we can afford Mohammed ElBaradei The IAEA director warned there was a real danger of uranium or plutonium falling into the wrong hands.
"We are actually having a race against time which I don't think we can afford," he said.
"The danger is so imminent... not only with regard to countries acquiring nuclear weapons but also terrorists getting their hands on some of these nuclear materials, uranium or plutonium.
"So the sooner that we start, the better for everybody involved."
'Dirty bomb'
The nuclear watchdog chief's message was picked up by the US Senator Sam Nunn, a security expert.
Mr Nunn told the BBC that the security of nuclear material in Russia was a key concern.
He said the biggest challenge was to have US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin put the issue to the top of their agenda.
Mr Nunn was instrumental in last month's unveiling of a multi-million dollar initiative to stop extremist groups from building so called "dirty bombs" with nuclear material.
Governments around the world are becoming increasingly concerned about nuclear proliferation particularly since the revelations, in February of this year, that the Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan had passed on nuclear secrets to a number of countries.
'Tipping point'
One of the authors of the Carnegie Endowment's plan, Joseph Cirincione, said the world was at "a nuclear tipping point".
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent in Washington, Jonathan Marcus, says the Carnegie plan is certainly ambitious in scope.
It argues that all current nuclear arms control problems need to be put into a single pot and handled together.
Everyone - both the nuclear haves and have-nots - have to be seen to make concessions if all are to gain.
But our correspondent says other experts in Washington are not so sure.
Political capital, they say, is limited and needs to be focused on individual proliferation, problems like that between India and Pakistan or the continuing uncertainties surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions.
-------- treaties
Report Faults U.S. Action on Nuclear Proliferation
Carnegie Study Recommends More Aggressive Tactics
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56471-2004Jun20.html
Within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush highlighted the menace posed by weapons of mass destruction, declaring: "We will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
That promise led to designations, such as the "axis of evil" for Iraq, Iran and North Korea; to steps, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, which allows the United States to search ships for weapons material; and to war with Iraq, based on the belief that Saddam Hussein's government was sitting on a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and working toward an atomic bomb.
But according to a critical report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, it has not helped secure vulnerable nuclear facilities, criminalized the transfer of weapons technology or meted out punishments for countries that renege on their commitment to remain nuclear-free.
"If you're really worried that terrorists are going to get nuclear materials and build a bomb, then we have to be acting a lot more aggressively and thinking more comprehensively to lock down the global nuclear complex," said Jon Wolfsthal, one of five co-authors of the Carnegie report, "Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security." The report is being released today at the start of a two-day conference here on nuclear weapons sponsored by the think tank.
More than 600 members of the arms control community are expected to attend the conference, including Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Mitchell Reiss, director of policy planning at the State Department; former senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; and Hans Blix, who led the U.N. hunt for weapons in Iraq before the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
Among the toughest claims in the 95-page report, which will be the focus of today's opening session, is that the United States is undermining its own policies by continuing to build nuclear weapons and strengthening ties with nuclear states -- India, Pakistan and Israel.
The report also chides the administration's approach to Iran, a country censured on Friday by the IAEA for failing to cooperate with international inspectors. The toughly worded rebuke at the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency was written by France, Britain and Germany, which have been trying to offer Iran incentives to give up its nuclear ambitions.
The Bush administration has taken a tougher line, saying it wants to bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council in the hope of forcing Iran to back down. But officials in Washington have quietly conceded there is little they can do if Iran decides to go nuclear.
"The U.S. should more fully back the European Union leaders," the Carnegie group wrote. "Resolving the nuclear proliferation challenge should be the highest priority in relations with Iran."
On North Korea, the report recommends that Bush appoint a special envoy to negotiate with Pyongyang for the complete dismantlement of its nuclear capabilities. The United States will take part in a new round of six-party talks in Beijing this week aimed at ending a 20-month crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. But the administration has refused to talk directly to Pyongyang or reward the country before it gives up its arsenal, which U.S. intelligence now estimates to include as many as eight nuclear devices.
The Carnegie report also focuses on protecting nuclear materials, reactors and sites around the world from sabotage and theft and creating tough international measures to punish black marketeers.
"In many countries, stealing nuclear materials is no more of a crime than stealing money," the report said.
Earlier this year, a massive black market run by A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, was exposed when Libya announced it was giving up its clandestine attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Khan was pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally of the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- maryland
NRC to eye plans for more reactors
NRC holds hearings on nuclear reactor proposals, including those of Dominion Virginia Power.
By RUSTY DENNEN,
6/21/2004
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/062004/06212004/1404025
Applications to build new nuclear reactors at three power plants across the country, including North Anna in Louisa County, will be the topic of a three-day conference in Maryland.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold the sessions today through Wednesday in Rockville.
It begins at 9:30 this morning in the auditorium of the NRC's headquarters complex at Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike. The meeting is open to the public, but participation is limited to NRC staff, the applicants and individuals and groups who have petitioned to take part in hearings on the applications.
The conference focuses on admissibility of arguments made by the intervening groups.
The applicants for early site permits are Dominion Nuclear North Anna, for North Anna Nuclear Power Station; Exelon Generation Co., for the Clinton nuclear power plant in Clinton, Ill.; and System Energy Resources Inc., for the Grand Gulf power plant in Port Gibson, Miss.
Dominion filed its early site-permit application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last September to give it the option of building up to two new reactors at the Louisa plant on Lake Anna.
The application was the first of its kind under a new NRC protocol, which allows companies to resolve safety, environmental protection and emergency planning issues before deciding to build.
The application has drawn opposition from several local and national groups opposed to the siting of new reactors, among them Public Citizen, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Concerned Citizens of Louisa and People's Alliance for Clean Energy.
Representatives from those groups held a town meeting Thursday night at the Louisa County public library.
Residents complained that new reactors at North Anna would cut property values around Lake Anna, drop the water level in the popular recreational lake and make the plant a greater risk for terrorism.
The groups also have suggested that expensive new reactors are not needed and would result in a surplus of generating capacity. The have said that the safety risks of storing additional highly radioactive spent fuel on the site have not been properly considered.
Louis Zeller, campaign coordinator for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, spoke at the town hall meeting and will be among those addressing the NRC this week.
In an interview Friday, Zeller was critical of the timing and location of the hearing, saying few local residents would be able to attend on a weekday.
"I asked how many could go, and I saw about three hands," he said.
Dominion contends that safety and environmental issues will be addressed, and that the new reactors would not affect the lake's water level.
Dominion's application will take until fall 2006 to wend its way through the permit process.
A draft environmental impact statement is in the works, and will be the subject of a public hearing later this year in Louisa.
Dominion has said that it has no immediate plans for any new reactors but wants to keep its options open to meet future demand for electricity.
North Anna, on the lake's Louisa shoreline, has two reactors in operation. Units 1 and 2 went online in 1978 and 1980, respectively. Last year, the operating licenses for those reactors were extended for another 20 years.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431
-------- us nuc waste
Tapped to build prototype holder for nuclear waste
The Camden firm is one of only three certified to perform this type of work
By Henry J. Holcomb
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
Mon, Jun. 21, 2004
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/8975086.htm?1c
Joseph Oat Corp., a 216-year-old Camden company that once competed against Paul Revere making copper kettles and utensils, will soon begin building a prototype canister to store radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Oat expects that the $750,000 project, which was recently awarded, will lead to far larger contracts for building a major share of the more than 20,000 canisters that are expected to be needed during the next four decades.
Oat is one of about a half-dozen firms worldwide that fabricate products from titanium and zirconium, exotic alloys that stand up far better than stainless steel under extreme heat and acids. It is one of only three firms certified to perform this type of work in the nuclear industry, said Ron Kaplan, Oat's president for operations.
The canister project is part of a long-developing and controversial effort to store nuclear waste, which stays radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Spent fuel rods and other waste are piling up in temporary storage at nuclear plants and defense sites across the nation.
No radioactive waste will be brought to the Oats plant - the canisters will leave Camden empty, said Michael J. Holtz, president of engineering for the family-owned company.
The long-term canister work could enlarge Oat's payroll from 100 to more than 200 within five years and provide a major boost in its sales, now $50 million annually, said Edward S. Marinock, the firm's vice president of sales.
The potential contract would be by far the largest in the company's history, and would provide a much-needed lift after years of decline in the two industries that provide most of its business: nuclear-power generation and petrochemical manufacturing.
The nuclear business has been in a deep slump since the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979, and the petrochemical industry has been moving overseas. "There have been lean years," Marinock said, "but there's never been a time when the company didn't have work in the shop."
The company, named after the founder's son, initially made and sold copper kettles and utensils in competition with Revere, whose midnight ride became a part of Revolutionary War lore. The Oats sold it to their accountant, Walter Shoney, in the late 1800s, and his family sold it to Martin Kaplan and Maurice Holtz in 1966. Their families still own and run it.
During the last three decades, Oat has emerged from a pack of 300 fabrication companies as leader in developing complex petrochemical-processing units, heat exchangers, and containers from titanium and zirconium.
In the Oat shops today are units ranging from a multi-story, $1.5 million heat exchanger for a nickel mine in New Caledonia, Australia, to small canisters for storing plutonium waste.
The canisters for Yucca Mountain would each require about 1,000 person-hours to build, Marinock estimates. They will be 16.6 feet long, 5.6 feet in diameter and weigh 56,360 pounds.
There are 21 separate boxes in each canister. "It is a shell within a shell, both made of exotic materials," Marinock said.
The current plan is to store these canisters deep inside Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. This concept came together after many others - such as shooting waste into deep space or sinking it in ocean waters - were rejected as too risky.
The federally owned Yucca Mountain was selected, according to U.S. Department of Energy documents, because it is remote and very dry. The proposed storage area is 1,000 feet below the surface and 1,000 feet above the water table.
Dryness is important. Contact with water is the primary way that radiation can escape into the environment, the federal document states.
The Oat company, a key player in this futuristic world, has its offices in an old brick building inside the Broadway Terminal of the South Jersey Port Corp., a state maritime agency.
The building once belonged to the New York Shipbuilding Corp., which was founded in 1899 and closed in 1967, after completing the last of its ships, the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.
Oat's manufacturing is done nearby, in the yard's cavernous 19th-century machine shop. At one end is what Oat executives describe as the world's largest clean room, a gymnasium-size area where contaminants are filtered out to keep alloys such as titanium and zirconium pure.
In this environment, Oat has maintained quality standards high enough to hold nuclear certification for three decades. This is longer, it says, than any other company.
"They go over us with a fine cootie comb," Marinock said. "I don't think many could stand up to that scrutiny."
----
Oregonians have little say over shipment plans for nuclear waste
Nuclear waste to roll through
Associated Press
Monday, June 21, 2004
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_062004_env_oregon_nuclear_waste_.27f5bd359.html
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2004/06/21/news/oregon/monore01.txt http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/06/21/oregon/news02.txt http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/06/21/b1.cr.nukewaste.0621.html
Oregon could see a tenfold increase in the amount of radioactive waste transported on Interstates 5 and 84 to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington if the U.S Energy Department has its way. Yet Oregon voters will have little say in the decision.
The Hanford nuclear site in Richland, Wash. (DOE Photo)
Voters in Washington state, where Hanford is located across the Columbia River from Oregon, will decide on the plan in that state's ballot Initiative 297 in November.
The initiative would block the Department of Energy from using Hanford as a national dump for "hot" trash from weapons stations across the country until the reservation's existing mess is cleaned up.
On the surface, it looks like a Washington issue. After all, Hanford, an atomic-bomb-making relic that turned into North America's most polluted morass, is located in southeastern Washington.
But the expressways for potentially tens of thousands of truckloads of Hanford-bound garbage would cut through Oregon. The increased volume of radioactive trash rolling on interstates in Oregon could last 40 years under the plan for dealing with waste from making nuclear weapons.
Oregon and Washington state officials are questioning many aspects of the plan, the Oregonian newspaper reported. The concerns range from its vulnerability to terrorism and radioactive traffic accidents, as well as its potential to further contaminate groundwater beneath Hanford, which leaks into the Columbia River and flows downstream to Oregon.
The federal government has carefully weighed the concerns of Washington and Oregon, says Colleen Clark, spokeswoman for the federal energy agency. She says the department believes its plan is safe and won't significantly increase highway risks or Hanford's pollution problems.
Moreover, Hanford "is the clear beneficiary" of interstate waste transfers in the long run, she says. That's because Hanford will ultimately send far deadlier and far more waste to Nevada and New Mexico than it would receive from other states.
Clark emphasizes that most of the incoming trash would not be highly radioactive, but rather an assortment of mildly contaminated soil, clothing, tools and other refuse.
A review of Energy Department documents, however, indicates workers often encounter alarmingly radioactive or toxic materials even in so-called low-level waste streams coming to the site. In a 1996 memo, for example, a Hanford contract worker flagged his boss about a mysterious highly radioactive disc. The memo describes it as a "Frisbee from hell!"
Michael Grainey, director of the Oregon Department of Energy, which monitors Hanford policies, isn't convinced of the plan's safety. "Obviously, when you increase the number of shipments dramatically, you increase the risks," he says.
Oregon has always had an awkward relationship with Hanford.
Officials worry about it, complain about it and assess its risks, yet have little control over the once supersecret site that now looks like a sci-fi industrial ghost town on the banks of the Columbia.
Decades of shoddy disposal practices at the defunct plutonium manufacturing complex left Hanford with a goulash of deadly long-lived wastes that were dumped into the earth or into leaky tanks.
While both Washington and Oregon wrestle with Hanford's environmental wreckage, only Washington benefits economically from a cleanup project that provides about 10,000 jobs.
And only Washington has some legal control over it.
When the Hanford cleanup agreement was struck in 1989 with the federal government, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology were the only agencies granted authority to help set and enforce cleanup standards.
Left out of the tri-party agreement, Oregon has stood on the sidelines with little leverage other than its monitoring role by its seven-person nuclear-safety office, its participation on the citizen-led Hanford Advisory Board and the influence of its politicians.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski has not taken sides on the Washington initiative, but deputy chief of staff Stephen Schneider says the governor is "very much concerned" about the health of the Columbia River and trucking more waste to Hanford.
"I think the bottom line for this is the imperative need to clean up Hanford to protect the river," Schneider says.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Ghost of war past haunts Afghanistan
Ohio soldiers see sobering reminders
Plain Dealer
Brian E. Albrecht
Monday, June 21, 2004
http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1087810249202870.xml
American soldiers walk haunted footsteps in Afghanistan, pacing the ghosts of Soviet troops who came before them.
When Army Reserve Capt. Tom McGuiggan, of Parma, pulled alongside a rusted Soviet transport shot full of holes from some long-bygone ambush, it was a sobering reminder of what can happen to foreign soldiers in a desolate and dangerous land.
When Capt. Henry Paoli talked to an Afghan who had fought the Soviets during their occupation of his country from 1979 to 1989, the man told Paoli about a night when 250 Soviet soldiers were killed at the same base where American troops are stationed.
The man also noted that nothing about the fortification's defenses had appreciably changed since then. Paoli, 42, of Strongsville, got the implicit message: "At any given time they could do it again. And back then, the Soviets had tanks."
Remember Afghanistan?
That's where America's war on terror, Operation Enduring Freedom, started three years ago and is still being fought by about 20,000 U.S. troops.
At times, that struggle in those distant deserts and mountains can almost seem forgotten, overshadowed by the conflict in Iraq.
But McGuiggan, Paoli and other members of the Army Reserve's 412th Civil Affairs Battalion of Columbus have no problem remembering the nine months they spent in Afghanistan last year, fighting a war just as rugged and risky as that in Iraq. (Casualties in Afghanistan thus far: 126 killed and 319 wounded.)
The 412th's members were the soldiers in baseball hats, as opposed to combat troops that Afghans called "the helmeted ones" who roar into villages on tracked vehicles which the 412th also shunned because they were too reminiscent of the former Soviet occupation forces.
Traveling the countryside in small teams, joined by Army Special Forces soldiers, the 412th's mission was to win the people's trust by helping Afghans build schools and clinics, dig wells and irrigation systems, and offer health and medical assistance in areas that had seen little or none in recent years.
The unit is intentionally composed of reservists with prior active-duty military experience and civilian jobs in fields such as law enforcement, engineering, medicine, finance and other skills that come in handy when you're rebuilding a war-shattered society.
Sometimes their assistance was repaid with tips on the location of weapons caches or al-Qaida suspects.
The primitive living conditions of a mountainous land ravaged by decades of war complicated their task, said Dominic Giordano, 40, of Medina, a Reserve major who led the 44-soldier unit.
In Iraq, coalition forces worry about rebuilding highways, oil refineries, power plants and telecommunications systems.
In Afghanistan, roads are commonly dry riverbeds sometimes flowing with sewage, said Giordano, who has a 6-year-old daughter and is a customer service representative with Nortel Networks, a wireless phone system manufacturer.
In Afghanistan, phones (wireless or otherwise), televisions and other forms of modern technology can be as rare as rain. Irrigation can be a man "with a piece of metal tied to a stick, hacking at the ground until he hits water," Giordano said.
"The concept of electricity doesn't even exist in some villages," he added. "In some areas of Afghanistan, it's like 700 AD."
The unit also coped with the ubiquitous sand that sifted into everything, heat sizzling to 130 degrees, questionable local food and water resources, the ever-present risk of sickness and disease, land mines nearly everywhere, and a strict, patriarchal culture that in some places valued livestock over children because, as one Afghan told the soldiers, sheep and goats cost money while children are free.
Then there were the rockets, mortars, snipers and improvised explosive devices aimed their way in some 150 attacks on unit teams. Four soldiers were wounded, including a Columbus police officer who lost a leg.
They learned the lessons of guerrilla warfare. "You can't have patterns. If you take one road into a place, you take another road out," Giordano said. "You're constantly playing a chess game of strategy. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not."
Helping people, winning friendships
Civilian response to the unit's efforts could range from warm welcomes with Afghans bringing out Pepsi and lamb kabobs for a floor-level feast to the open hostility of Taliban supporters or, as Giordano said, "angry tribesmen who just want you to get off their mountain."
"Tailgate" medical clinics offered by the unit were often jammed with Afghans. Children lined the roads, begging for food, candy or anything "American," even an empty water bottle.
Giordano said that contrary to the Soviet-style, door-kicking, head-knocking village visits that Afghans came to expect from oc- cupation forces, the Americans would go in and meet with the village elders, find out their needs and offer help.
"It's easy to go in and push people around," he said. "It's harder to go in and try to win friendships, but it'll probably pay long-term dividends for us."
The 412th's soldiers distributed school and medical supplies, blankets, clothing and other items. Solar-powered, hand-cranked portable radios were a big hit with the Afghans.
Paoli, a General Electric regional sales manager and father of three daughters, said he had a special spot in his heart for the little girls who are often regarded as the lowest rung on the familial ladder in Afghan culture, and treated as such.
"One of the things that made us feel better about being there was that we were actually helping people, especially the children, the next generation," Paoli said.
Giordano also said the best part of the experience was "feeling we were doing something bigger than ourselves. I'd like to think we made a difference in people's lives over there."
As military and media attention increasingly focused on Iraq, the 412th's soldiers noticed that shipments of care packages and supplies donated by churches and groups for the Afghan people dwindled.
Back home, their families noted a similar drop in news coverage about Afghanistan.
"No news is good news, I guess. But still, you want to know something," said McGuiggan, 35, a Fairview Park police officer with three children.
He also noted that after his unit returned to the United States in February, whenever he told people about his duty in Afghanistan, some would say, "I didn't know we were still there."
Yet "there" is where it all started; where a portion of World Trade Center remains are now buried next to a flagpole at the U.S. Embassy.
"It's important not to lose sight that this is where al-Qaida was, and al-Qaida attacked the United States," Giordano said.
Recent American casualties in Afghanistan including the much-publicized death of former Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman in April have brought that country back into the forefront of news reports.
Sometimes it's news that the soldiers view with grim recognition, spotting familiar faces and places. It's a small war, after all.
"Part of you wants to go back and take care of business, but realistically, you're only one person," Giordano said.
Paoli said he knew and worked with an American soldier, the father of two young children, who was recently killed in Afghanistan. "It's just a shame, man," Paoli said. "We're here, we're safe, but here's a good man whose children will never know him."
Paoli also noted that the departure of the international medical relief agency, Doctors Without Borders, after five of their workers were killed, was another telling sign of conditions in Afghanistan. "That was huge," he said. "Those are tough guys."
Service with no regrets, hope for the future
Paoli and the other 412th officers fully expect the unit to be recalled to duty. The only question is where and when.
None is wildly enthusiastic, however, about going back overseas to fix war-torn wherever.
At least not right away.
The worst part of being overseas was the impact on their families. They now get stricken looks from their kids if Dad has to go out of town for any reason.
Birthdays, holidays and other special events were the worst times to endure overseas, Paoli said.
He recalled one phone conversation with a daughter who asked whether the Army would let him come home for a Father's Day program at her school. "That hurt. That's when you hang up the phone and question everything you're doing," he said.
If called again to active duty, Paoli said a three- or six-month stint would be fine.
A year?
"No way. I promised my wife I wouldn't leave for another year," he said. "If I have any option, I'd choose not to, even if it meant getting out of the Army. I can't do that to my family again."
Afghanistan changed these soldiers. More than Kosovo did for Giordano. Or Desert Storm for Paoli.
Giordano said he doesn't sweat the small stuff anymore. When Paoli got back home, he swore he would be a better husband and father.
McGuiggan can still recite a list of friends or acquaintances wounded or killed in Afghanistan, and ask, "How can you not be changed by that?
"You appreciate the things you have a lot more," he added. "Seeing the people in Afghanistan, living day-to-day in mud huts, makes you glad you have the family, and live in the country that you do."
They all served with no regrets, but lots of hope for future generations both in Afghanistan and America.
Was it worth it? "Yeah," McGuiggan said, "because I don't want my kids going back there 10 to 15 years from now.
"I went so my kids won't."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
balbrecht@plaind.com, 216-999-4853
-------- arms
US urges Taiwan to boost defence capabilities: report
The News International
June 21, 2000
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2004-daily/21-06-2004/world/w3.htm
TAIPEI: The United States has nudged Taiwan to beef up its defense capabilities, hinting at a possible sale of Aegis-equipped destroyers to the island amid a perceived growing threat from rival China, reports said on Sunday.
Admiral Thomas Boulton Fargo, commander of the US Pacific Command, said he was worried about China's speedy military modernization while briefing a group of Taiwan parliamentarians in Hawaii, local television and newspapers said.
Deputy commander Lieutenant General Robert R. Dierker renewed Washington's commitment to helping Taiwan defend itself. But it would be up to Taiwan whether or not it wanted to boost its defense capabilities, Fargo was quoted by the United Daily News as saying.
The Taiwanese delegates said they were surprised by a hint that Washington may arm Taipei with advanced Aegis-class destroyers.
"This is the first time we heard that they are cautiously evaluating the sale of Aegis-equipped destroyers to Taiwan," lawmaker Chin Hui-chu from the opposition People First Party told the TVBS cable television station.
"Once Washington agrees to the arms sale and it is approved by Taipei, Taiwan could acquire the first of such warships in seven years at the earliest," Chin said.
Much to China's chagrin the US remains Taiwan's leading arms supplier despite its shift of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
The 13-member parliamentary group representing different parties departed Thursday to look into planned multibillion-dollar weapons purchases from the United States.
The delegates, who will be joined three other legislators on the trip, are to fly on to Washington where they will meet with officials from the Department of Defense and State Department.
Taiwan's cabinet on June 2 approved a special budget of 610 billion Taiwan dollars (18.2 billion US) to buy advanced weaponry but the plan has sparked opposition. Some critics say Taiwan cannot afford it while others say the new weaponry will not be delivered in time to help Taiwan fend off any Chinese attacks in coming years.
"Taiwan has to maintain certain levels of defense capabilities. We hope our fellow countrymen can trust us in making the best choice," said parliamentary speaker Wang Jin-pyng, the head of the delegation of lawmakers.
The draft budget 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 from 2005.
US President George W. Bush offered the sale in April 2001 as part of the most comprehensive arms package to the island since 1992.
-------- asia
Malaysia accepts U.S. aid, but not patrols, in strait
International Herald Tribune
Monday, June 21, 2004
(AP, Reuters)
http://www.iht.com/articles/525887.html
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia The U.S. military is offering to share intelligence and boost the "technical competency" of countries guarding the Strait of Malacca against pirates and possible terrorist attacks, Malaysia's defense minister said Monday.
Malaysia would accept U.S. help, but would not let U.S. forces take part in patrols in the straits, Najib Razak said after holding talks with Admiral Thomas Fargo, the U.S. military's commander in the Pacific.
Washington has been forced to back down from its proposal to send U.S. troops to join patrols of the waterway, a bottleneck in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes where pirates regularly attacks ships and which officials worry is a potential terrorist target. Indonesia and Malaysia rejected the idea, first made public by Fargo in April, saying that the presence of foreign troops would be a threat to their sovereignty.
In Monday's meeting, Najib said, Fargo assured Malaysia that the United States "respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Malaysia."
"What Admiral Fargo is suggesting is cooperation between Malaysia and the United States, especially in terms of the exchange of information and intelligence reports and efforts to increase the capacity and technical competency of Malaysia to overcome terrorism," Najib told reporters.
Malaysia has agreed to work with the United States to boost counterterrorism measures in the strait, as long as it does not encroach on territorial issues. Details of the plan would be worked out by the security agencies, he said.
An attack on the strait would strike at Asia's economic heart. The 890-kilometer, or 550-mile, Strait of Malacca straddles Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, and carries one-third of the world's trade and half of the world's oil supply.
Officials fear that Al Qaeda or its Southeast Asian affiliates could hijack one of the 50,000 commercial vessels, from cruise ships to supertankers, that travel through the strait each year, and use it as a weapon.
Najib said Fargo recognized that security in the strait was not just Malaysia's problem but one for all the nations along the waterway.
But he said that Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore needed to boost further their maritime surveillance and step up efforts to curb piracy and the possibility of an international terrorist strike.
Fargo "has taken note of the fact that there is an increased level of cooperation among Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore and that there are some encouraging signs, but there is more to be done," Najib said.
Najib appeared to rule out the possibility of joint patrols of the strait with Indonesia, whose navy chief proposed the idea last week.
In his first comments on the proposal, Najib said Monday that Malaysia "cannot pursue joint patrols, only coordinated patrols" with Indonesia. He did not elaborate.
Fargo, who is based in Hawaii, will also visit Singapore and Thailand this week for talks with defense officials. Reports this year that the United States wanted to take part in security in the Strait of Malacca evoked irritated responses from Malaysia and Indonesia, which said the presence of foreign forces could trigger a radical backlash from the region's many Muslims.
-------- britain
Hoon dismisses Iraq mutilation claims
Press Association
June 21, 2004
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1244144,00.html
Geoff Hoon today dismissed allegations that British troops mutilated the bodies of Iraqi fighters killed during a skirmish near the town of Majar al Kabir last month.
The defence secretary told MPs that that Guardian report about the official death certificates written by the director of the town's hospital the day after the May 15 clash did not deserve its "lurid headline". He did, however, promise that the allegations "will be thoroughly investigated".
Dr Adel Salid Majid claimed that some of the 22 corpses handed over to the hospital by British troops showed signs of mutilation and torture - although this was challenged by another senior Iraqi doctor who told the paper, under condition of anonymity, that the wounds he saw were consistent with a fierce gun battle.
Questioned about the allegations by Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Paul Keetch, Mr Hoon confirmed that he had "read the story in some detail".
"I hope you would accept that the headline in the story ['UK troops accused of mutilating Iraqi bodies'] could just as easily have been 'More false allegations against British troops' because the detail of the story did not particularly bear out the rather lurid headline that the Guardian editor chose to adopt," he added. Labour backbencher Tam Dalyell also asked Mr Hoon whether there was "a serious intent to establish the truth" over reports that US forces attacked a wedding party in the Iraqi desert on May 18, killing more than 40 people.
Mr Hoon said the US had set up a "thorough investigation" which was continuing and added that "we know some of the facts".
"Some in the media suggesting a wedding was taking place and equally I've also seen a briefing from the US government indicating that not only were they attacking a base for the transit of people across the Syrian-Iraqi border but that in the aftermath of this incident they found not only rifles but also rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy military items.
"Obviously it's important that we allow their investigation to proceed."
-------- business
Federal Contracts SRA to Ease Moves of Military Families
By Roseanne Gerin
The Washington Post
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56642-2004Jun20.html
SRA International Inc. won a contract potentially worth $54.6 million over 10 years from the Defense Department's Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command to develop an Internet-based personal-property system to manage the moving of military families.
The Personal Property System is to integrate the Defense Department's automated processes for the worldwide relocation of civilian and military employees and their families. It would also allow them to enter information online about their moves as well track shipments, process payments for movers and let customers file claims for damaged or lost property.
"It will provide a user-friendly system that places them in control of their own moves," said Pat Elliott, SRA's account manager for the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command.
The Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, the executive agency for military moves, manages the $1.8 billion personal property program and is responsible for annually moving more than 500,000 shipments, or about 721,543 tons of household goods.
The new system is part of a larger initiative called Families First that has been 10 years in the making to improve moving services for the military, said Air Force Col. Tom Keller, director of passenger and personal property programs at the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command in Alexandria.
SRA International of Fairfax will complete the system's design in three to four months, then implement it over 12 months, the company said. The system will be fully operational Oct. 1, 2005, Keller said.
SRA's team for the project includes Siebel Systems Inc., Manugistics Group Inc., SQL Corp., Complete Professional Services Inc., XIO Strategies Inc., Oak Grove Software, and Trusted Solutions Group.
SRA provides information technology services to federal government agencies, including the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation and Treasury and the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the General Accounting Office, intelligence agencies and the Small Business Administration.
For more details on this and other technology contracts, go to www.washingtontechnology.com.
Roseanne Gerin is a staff writer for Washington Technology
-------- china
US urges Taiwan to boost defence capabilities: report
jang.com.pk
June 21, 2004
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2004-daily/21-06-2004/world/w3.htm
TAIPEI: The United States has nudged Taiwan to beef up its defense capabilities, hinting at a possible sale of Aegis-equipped destroyers to the island amid a perceived growing threat from rival China, reports said on Sunday.
Admiral Thomas Boulton Fargo, commander of the US Pacific Command, said he was worried about China's speedy military modernization while briefing a group of Taiwan parliamentarians in Hawaii, local television and newspapers said.
Deputy commander Lieutenant General Robert R. Dierker renewed Washington's commitment to helping Taiwan defend itself. But it would be up to Taiwan whether or not it wanted to boost its defense capabilities, Fargo was quoted by the United Daily News as saying.
The Taiwanese delegates said they were surprised by a hint that Washington may arm Taipei with advanced Aegis-class destroyers.
"This is the first time we heard that they are cautiously evaluating the sale of Aegis-equipped destroyers to Taiwan," lawmaker Chin Hui-chu from the opposition People First Party told the TVBS cable television station.
"Once Washington agrees to the arms sale and it is approved by Taipei, Taiwan could acquire the first of such warships in seven years at the earliest," Chin said.
Much to China's chagrin the US remains Taiwan's leading arms supplier despite its shift of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
The 13-member parliamentary group representing different parties departed Thursday to look into planned multibillion-dollar weapons purchases from the United States.
The delegates, who will be joined three other legislators on the trip, are to fly on to Washington where they will meet with officials from the Department of Defense and State Department.
Taiwan's cabinet on June 2 approved a special budget of 610 billion Taiwan dollars (18.2 billion US) to buy advanced weaponry but the plan has sparked opposition. Some critics say Taiwan cannot afford it while others say the new weaponry will not be delivered in time to help Taiwan fend off any Chinese attacks in coming years.
"Taiwan has to maintain certain levels of defense capabilities. We hope our fellow countrymen can trust us in making the best choice," said parliamentary speaker Wang Jin-pyng, the head of the delegation of lawmakers.
The draft budget 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 from 2005.
US President George W. Bush offered the sale in April 2001 as part of the most comprehensive arms package to the island since 1992.
-------- europe
Debate rages on after EU deal
BBC
By William Horsley
21 June, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3826341.stm
The agreement among European leaders on the text of a constitutional treaty for the EU, far from ending the Europe-wide disputes of recent months, has brought fierce criticism from opposition parties and the media.
This was not confined to Britain, but was also given vent in many other parts of Europe.
All 25 governments which approved the new treaty text will face some degree of hostility from critics at home who wanted a different result.
The fiercest attacks are being heard not only in Britain but in the new member-states where euro-critical parties performed well in the recent European parliament elections.
In Poland, the leading opposition party, Civic Platform, says the planned treaty is bad for Poland and not worth ratifying.
The survival of the interim government of Prime Minister Marek Belka is again in doubt, with a no-confidence vote set for Thursday.
In the Czech Republic, too, the government of Vladimir Spidla - which praised the treaty as a great step forward for Europe - is at risk from the opposition Civic Democrats who attack the EU constitution as too integrationist.
By contrast in France and Germany, the strongest criticism comes from those who say the treaty does not centralise political power enough in EU structures so that Paris and Berlin can lead a united Europe.
Different visions
In the European parliament elections voters harshly punished the serving governments in many EU countries.
Chirac had to face tough questions at the Brussels summit
In several states, including Denmark, Britain and Ireland and perhaps France, Poland and the Czech Republic, the final verdict on the treaty will be given to voters in referendums, and many experts already predict it will be rejected in one or more of those states.
Looking further ahead, the treaty paves the way for France, Germany and some like-minded countries to forge a much tighter political union of states among themselves in future, with merged internal and foreign policies.
But the Brussels summit showed a rival, flexible model for the EU, backed by Britain, Poland and some others, based on voluntary co-operation among democratic nation-states.
It is an argument that promises to last for many years ahead.
-----
Austrian army to be cut by half: minister
VIENNA (AFP)
Jun 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040621173930.dr74d7p7.html
Austria announced Monday it would slash the size of its military by more than half to about 50,000 men and women as part of reforms aimed at creating more professional armed forces.
Defense Minister Guenther Platter declined to give a date for the implementation of the planned measures, but said the plans would be finalized "between now and the end of the year."
"The central element" of the new armed forces, in which conscripts would serve six months instead of eight months, would be "four brigades" of 4,000 soldiers which will include professionals, he told a news conference.
Austria's armed forces currently numbers around 110,000 personnel.
-------- iran
U.K. Navy Investigates Report Iran Seizes Its Boats (Update4)
June 21, 2004
(Bloomberg)
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=aBWQFx_mIK04&refer=uk
The U.K.'s Royal Navy, which is investigating a report Iran seized three of its boats, said it's unable to make contact with three patrol vessels and their eight crew in the Shatt al-Arab waterway Iraq shares with Iran.
``We've tried to make radio contact with them but can't, which is not unusual here given the state of communications,'' Squadron Leader Spike Wilson, a spokesman for the U.K. military in southern Iraq, said by telephone from Basra. Wilson said the patrols are not ``overdue,'' without giving more details.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza said Iranian naval guards ``acting under their legal duty, seized the boats and detained their occupants'' after they strayed into Iranian waters, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. An investigation is under way, he said, according to the news agency.
The seizure in the long-disputed waterway, a cause of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, may worsen relations between Iran and the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq, which is battling local and foreign insurgents who are waging a campaign to undermine security and reconstruction efforts. The U.S. says Iran is helping the insurgency.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, asked this afternoon about the alleged seizure, said that while ``there seems to be some substance to the reports,'' he didn't have ``any solid confirmation.'' Officials at the U.K. Embassy in Washington and the Iranian delegation to the United Nations couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Patrol Boats
U.K. patrol boats that operate in the Shatt al-Arab may be involved in the reported seizure, said a spokesman for the U.K. Ministry of Defense, who didn't want to be identified.
``U.K. and Iranian navies have a working relationship, and in no way regard each other in a hostile fashion,'' said Anthony Harris, former U.K. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 1994-98.
The Royal Navy is helping train an Iraqi Riverine Patrol Service, which patrols the Shatt al-Arab looking for insurgents and smugglers, Wilson said.
U.S., U.K. and other allied warships in the Persian Gulf are accounted for, Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the U.S. Persian Gulf fleet said by telephone from Bahrain.
Eight British sailors were arrested, Agence France-Presse said, citing Al-Alam, Iran's official Arabic-language satellite news channel. Al-Alam later reported that the sailors had ``confessed that they had made a mistake,'' AFP said.
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IRAN-UK NAVAL DISPUTE
Monday June 21, 2004
Sky News
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1140060,00.html
Communications with three Royal Navy vessels and eight sailors seized by Iran have been lost.
A British military spokesman said the craft, which entered Iran's territorial waters, cannot be contacted.
Eight British sailors have been arrested by Iran.
The seacraft were detained near the Iraqi border after, said Iran, they had entered its waters without permission.
A spokesman for the officially-appointed Iranian Revolutionary Guards said: "We got news that a number of foreign vessels entered Iranian waters without permission.
"Three boats were guided to Iranian shores and more than five crew were arrested."
Iranian naval sources told the country's media eight British crew were arrested after their vessels were found to contain weapons and maps.
One station said the crew had confessed to making "a mistake" and that the three vessels had been confiscated by the Iranian navy.
The confrontation was said to have taken place in the Shatt al Arab stretch of water between Iraq and Iran.
Sky News' Foreign Editor Tim Marshall said: "Iran is making a point to Britain probably, and that point is 'back off'."
He added that Iran may be using the incident as a bargaining tool against British-backed UN demands on its nuclear programme.
A spokesman for the British Ministry of Defence said it was investigating the reports.
Royal Navy boats patrol the waterway - a highly disputed boundary between Iraq and Iraq - to prevent smuggling.
----
Iran seizes three British navy boats, arrests eight: official
TEHRAN (AFP)
Jun 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040621142657.b4wvh7il.html
Iran has seized three British naval boats alleged to have entered its territorial waters on the Iraqi border, detaining eight crew, the Iranian foreign ministry said Monday.
"This morning, three British boats with eight people on board entered Iranian territorial waters. The Iranian navy, in accordance with their duties, seized these boats and arrested the crew," spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement.
"Currently they are being interrogated and an investigation is underway," he added. Official sources identified the detained Britons as "military personnel".
A British military spokesman in Iraq said: "We can confirm three small Royal Navy patrol boats and eight crew have been out of communication since the early hours of this morning.
"Their last known indication was to be in the Shatt al-Arab area which is not unusual. There are no further details at present."
Earlier Iranian state television's Arabic-language channel, Al-Alam, said that "weapons and maps" were seized in the incident on the Shatt al-Arab waterway -- where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow into the Gulf and which marks the southern boundary between Iran and Iraq.
Al-Alam later reported that the British crew, who were detained shortly before midday, had "confessed that they had made a mistake".
Playing it down as a "low-level incident", a Royal Navy spokesman at the defence ministry in London said the three small boats appeared to have "strayed into Iranian territory".
"These boats are used for training Iraqi river patrol service ... what we would call river police," said the spokesman, who was unable to specify if any Iraqis were on board.
"The waterway runs over a mile (1.6 kilometres) wide. The border runs pretty much down the middle of it ... Maybe, it was disputed whose side" of the border the vessels were on, he said.
British armed forces control an area of southern Iraq around the city of Basra and patrol parts of the Shatt al-Arab.
The Shatt al-Arab border demarcation was a constant source of dispute -- and of conflict during the 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq -- under Saddam Hussein, until a deal was struck for the frontier to run at the mid-way point.
The British embassy in Tehran said it was in touch with Iranian officials.
Ties between Britain and Iran have been strained in recent months, with the embassy here being targeted by a string of angry demonstrations sparked by an Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal as well as the entry of coalition troops into Iraqi holy Shiite cities.
Britain was also the co-sponsor of a resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency last Friday that heavily criticised Iran for failing to fully cooperate with an investigation into its suspect nuclear programme.
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Iran Seizes 3 British Vessels and Crew of 8
June 21, 2004
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/international/middleeast/21CND-IRAN.html?hp
LONDON, June 21 - Iran seized three small British Royal Navy boats and arrested all eight sailors on board today, Iran's Foreign Ministry announced, saying that the boats had entered Iranian waters without permission.
Britain's Ministry of Defense confirmed that the Iranian government had seized the boats and detained the sailors after they entered Iranian waters. The boats were described as inflatable.
The Navy was delivering the three boats to the Iraqi Riverine Patrol Service when the eight sailors from the Royal Navy training team were stopped on the Shatt al-Arab, a stretch of water that marks the southern boundary between Iran and Iraq. The British military controls areas in southern Iraq around the city of Basra.
The British government stressed that boats were "very small," a spokesman said, and were not outfitted with weapons, although the military personnel on board were armed.
The Ministry of Defense said it lost contact with the boats this morning. The sailors on board were assigned to train Iraqis to use the boats, a Navy spokesman said.
British forces routinely patrol Shatt al-Arab, which is often used as a smuggling route for Iraqi contraband oil and as an entry point for militants, so their presence on the river was not unusual.
As the only water route into the Persian Gulf, the Shatt al-Arab is strategically valued by both Iraq and Iran and has long been a source of conflict between the two countries. Tension over navigational rights to the river, which is about a mile wide, was one reason the two countries went to war in 1980.
The arrests come during a time of strained relations between Iran and Britain, mostly over the war in Iraq and Iran's nuclear capabilities. The British Embassy in Tehran has faced a series of demonstrations over accusations that British troops abused Iraqi prisoners and desecrated Iraqi holy Shiite cities. Britain also recently co-sponsored, along with France and Germany, a critical resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency condemning Iran's lack of cooperation with nuclear arms inspectors.
Still, British officials sought to play down today'ss incident as relatively minor.
Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for Iran's foreign minister, said the sailors were being questioned by the Iranian Navy and had admitted they entered Iranian territory.
"The crews are under investigation in order to clarify the issue," he said.
While Mr. Asefi gave no indication when, or if, the sailors and ships would be released, an Iranian military spokesman told the BBC that, if the investigation turned up no malicious intent, the sailors would be freed.
Iranian state television's Arabic-language channel, al-Alam, said Iranian military personnel had found assault rifles, pistols, cameras, maps of the Iran-Iraq border and global navigation devices on the boats.
The Royal Navy spokesman disputed that the boats and military personnel aboard posed a threat, saying that although the British sailors were armed, as is customary, the small boats were not outfitted with weapons and are used to conduct patrols up and down the river.
British forces now control areas around southern Iraq and the city of Basra, near the river.
Massoud Jazaeri, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards, a branch of Iran's armed services, told Reuters that Iran would not hesitate to protect its borders. "Anyone from any nationality entering our waters will face the same response," Mr. Jazaeri said.
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran for this article.
-------- iraq
U.S. Forces Plan Lower Profile
Shift Intended to Give Iraqis More Visibility After June 30
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56479-2004Jun20?language=printer
TIKRIT, Iraq -- U.S. military commanders here are calling it Operation New Dawn.
Starting July 1, with the transfer of limited sovereignty to Iraqi authorities, military helicopters will switch to flying "friendly approaches" instead of menacing ones, U.S. soldiers will go on patrol only when accompanying Iraqi security forces, and any shooting of U.S. weapons meant to harass or interdict will require higher-level approval than before, military officers here said.
In Mosul, Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, who leads a brigade of armored Stryker vehicles and other forces, said he expected that his troops would assume a much lower profile.
"On July 1, what I want Iraqi people to say is: 'Where are the airplanes? Where are the Strykers?' " Ham said last week. "What they'll see instead will be Iraqi forces."
For U.S. troops in Iraq, the coming political change -- from occupying power to supporting partner -- is supposed to be accompanied by a major shift in military mission and tactics. While legally still authorized under a U.N. resolution to use "all necessary means" to ensure security in Iraq, U.S. commanders say they intend to reduce combat operations, concentrate on training and assisting Iraqi forces, and promote local governance and economic development.
U.S. and Iraqi officials acknowledged in interviews and in briefings to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz last week that their plan was sure to be complicated by two main factors.
First, many of the 215,000 members of Iraq's fledgling forces are far from ready to take over much of the security burden. And second, the deadly insurgency that emerged shortly after the U.S.-led invasion last year continues to bring fresh waves of violence, most recently a surge of assassinations and attacks on oil facilities.
Under such uncertain circumstances, U.S. military authorities are trying to show at least their willingness to step back and let Iraqi forces take the lead, but are hedging their bets by keeping U.S. troop levels at around 140,000 and girding for a gradual turnover of operational responsibility.
"If Americans are in danger, if there's a really bad person we've got to go after, it's the same old rules," Wolfowitz told reporters traveling with him, making clear that U.S. forces had no intention of withdrawing from the fight. "But we would like people to see that something has changed. In the first few weeks, a lot of the challenge is how to create some optics when the underlying substance hasn't changed that much."
At the headquarters here of the 1st Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. John Batiste and his staff showed Wolfowitz a timeline last week that charted two lines through February. One line, which fell gradually across the page, represented the U.S. military profile; the other, which rose steadily, represented the Iraqi security services.
The lines intersected in September, which is when Batiste said he estimates that Iraqi forces will be able to take full charge of combat operations and policing in the region. By January, when national elections are scheduled, he is counting on Iraqi forces to be completely responsible for securing voting facilities, he said.
Commanders here and at other bases throughout Iraq offered assurances last week that recently intensified efforts to train and equip the Iraqi forces were beginning to bear fruit. Vehicles, communications gear and other equipment for the new forces that had been in short supply have begun to flow in. Recruits are being better vetted. Authorities are placing greater emphasis on ensuring the quality of the forces rather than their quantity.
The commanders also provided accounts of insurgent cells being uncovered and broken up, of public works projects being advanced and of Iraqis coming forward with crucial tips about the location of roadside bombs.
"This is the theme of this briefing: Glass is half full, things are headed in the right direction," one senior commander told Wolfowitz.
But the commanders also said there were signs for worry, particularly regarding the continued strength of the insurgency. For instance, in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, which has been a center of resistance to the U.S. occupation, the number of insurgent fighters was reported by U.S. military authorities to be largely unchanged despite the deaths of hundreds in battles since April. The dead have been replaced by other fighters, many of them teenagers, U.S. authorities said.
Commanders also warned that U.S. forces were being spread thin. In the northern city of Mosul, military authorities noted that roadside bomb attacks rose after some U.S. troops were sent south for other duty, as the drop in the American presence allowed insurgents more time to plant the bombs.
Iraq's long borders with Syria and Iran also remain largely uncontrolled because of a shortage of patrols, according to U.S. commanders in Mosul and Tikrit.
"I'm stretched about as thin as I'd want to be with 22,000 troops," a senior officer told Wolfowitz in a briefing attended by reporters on the condition that names not be cited.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the second-ranking commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, acknowledged that as U.S. forces shift to more supporting tasks in Iraq, such as training Iraqi forces and protecting leaders of the new interim government, they will be even more hard-pressed to muster troops to conduct combat operations.
"By the time you put troops to task, the troops available to do offensive actions are less," Metz told reporters in an interview last week.
Still, Metz rejected the idea that more U.S. troops should be sent to Iraq. Instead, he said, greater efforts would be made -- through improved intelligence-gathering and other means -- to use available troops more efficiently.
The shortfall that appeared to concern Wolfowitz the most was not in troops but in the money that U.S. commanders have used to pay for schools, hospitals and other smaller-scale local projects that have improved community services and fostered goodwill. The funds, known as the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), have been parceled out by the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ceases to exist with the transfer of sovereignty.
Wolfowitz said Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, had expressed a willingness to provide "bridge funds" for "CERP-like" projects.
The offer was indicative of the kind of cooperation that U.S. and Iraqi authorities said would be needed for the next phase of relations to work smoothly, replacing the days when U.S. commanders could operate unilaterally.
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Iraq Leader Says Army Will Target Insurgents
Prime Minister Outlines Reorganization of Forces
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55669-2004Jun20.html
BAGHDAD, June 20 -- The interim Iraqi prime minister announced a reorganization of the country's fledgling security forces Sunday and declared that all of Iraq's military resources, including the army, will be used to combat anti-U.S. insurgents, whom he denounced as "enemies of God and the people."
The prime minister, Ayad Allawi, acknowledged that Iraq still needed help from "our friends in the multinational forces" to meet the threat posed by daily bombings, assassinations and other attacks. But his announcement, at a news conference organized by U.S. soldiers, sought to play down the dominant role played by U.S. troops here and suggested that Iraqis would take over once formal sovereignty is transferred on June 30.
"We are deeply grateful for the sacrifices from friendly nations here to help us in our struggle," he said, "but the struggle is first and foremost an Iraqi struggle."
U.S. military officials, however, have made clear that they and their 138,000 American soldiers intend to be in charge of security for the foreseeable future. The U.N. Security Council resolution passed June 8, accompanied by an exchange of letters between Allawi and the Bush administration, gives U.S. commanders the authority to conduct military operations as they see fit even after June 30.
Allawi acknowledged, for instance, that he was not involved in Saturday's decision by U.S. commanders to launch precision weapons on what they described as a safe house in the rebellious city of Fallujah. Allawi said he was informed of the strike just before it was launched, but he added that the interim government supports it.
"This pattern will change, of course, once full sovereignty has been transferred," he said.
The U.S. military said the attack was aimed at anti-occupation fighters loyal to Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian linked by U.S. officials to al Qaeda and said to have directed some of the suicide car bombings that have jolted Baghdad in recent weeks. The attack, which Fallujah residents said came from warplanes, killed 20 people, including women and children, according to Fallujah officials.
The U.S. strike targeting foreign fighters was consistent with a theme evoked by Allawi and frequently brought up by members of his government: Iraqis are not the authors of the worst insurgent attacks. Many Iraqis outside the government also have expressed doubt that their countrymen could be persuaded to take innocent lives and commit suicide by driving a bomb-laden vehicle into a crowd.
"We do not believe that those behind these attacks can be Iraqis," Allawi said, adding that many insurgents are "supported financially and logistically by foreign resources."
Interior Minister Falah Naqib made similar charges two days ago. Neither he nor Allawi backed up the allegations with details or identified the foreign countries or resources.
Allawi said his plan to reorganize Iraqi security forces was discussed with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who visited last week for four days. The main emphasis, he said, is to throw all possible resources into the fight against the insurgents to enable Iraq to build a democratic system and hold elections in January.
"We are prepared to fight and, if necessary, to die for these objectives," he said.
To that end, he said the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a paramilitary security service organized by U.S. occupation authorities, will be transformed into the Iraqi National Guard and put under a unified command with the Iraqi army. Allawi said the army will participate fully in the fight against insurgents.
This is a tender point because many of the worst abuses committed under former president Saddam Hussein were carried out by the army. In recognition of that, U.S. occupation authorities, starting up what they hoped would be a new Iraqi military last year, laid out a vision of an army to be used only for national defense.
Under U.S. planning, the Iraqi army was to be reconstituted at 35,000 members. The Civil Defense Corps, renamed the National Guard, was to number 40,000, and the Iraqi police force was to have 90,000 officers.
Allawi did not say what changes he planned in those numbers. But as things stand on the ground, none of the services has trained to anywhere near its authorized level, and U.S. soldiers stand guard at checkpoints around the country.
The Marines announced that one of their men was killed Saturday in Anbar province west of Baghdad in "security and stability operations." Troops from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force have clashed frequently with Iraqi fighters around Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, but the Marine command routinely withholds the circumstances of casualties.
Insurgents also kept up their attacks against Iraqis cooperating with the occupation. Two members of an antiterrorism advisory panel, identified as Abdulkarim Tamimi and Majeed Azzawi, were gunned down as they sat in a Baghdad cafe, Sharqiah television reported. A bomb exploded near the central bank, killing a guard and wounding several people. And a bomb planted beside the road to the airport killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded 11, the Associated Press said.
Allawi, recognizing Iraqi forces are not yet ready for his plans, pleaded for more help from abroad in military training and in providing a special force to protect future U.N. operations. The world body has suspended its work here because of security fears.
An anti-insurgency force, which has begun training under U.S. officers, will be the army's principal direct contribution to internal security, Allawi said. But he added that the National Guard, an internal security force, will also be under army command. He said the air force, which recently contracted to buy a pair of reconnaissance aircraft and still has a few helicopters, will surveil the oil pipelines and transport rapid reaction troops within the country.
As he has in the past, Allawi said the U.S. decision to disband the former Iraqi army was a mistake. He has suggested several times in recent days that officers and units not involved in abuses under Hussein could be reactivated.
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RECONSTRUCTION
U.S. Is Quietly Spending $2.5 Billion From Iraqi Oil Revenues to Pay for Iraqi Projects
June 21, 2004
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21DIPL.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, June 20 - Struggling with bureaucratic problems in spending the money appropriated by Congress to rebuild Iraq, American authorities are moving quietly and quickly to spend $2.5 billion from a different source, Iraqi oil revenue, for projects employing tens of thousands of Iraqis, especially in the country's hot spots, Bush administration officials say.
The spending program, which was started unannounced, has been undertaken in consultation with Iraqi ministers, despite misgivings that the oil revenue belonged to Iraq and that it should be set aside for use when Iraq's sovereignty is restored, scheduled for June 30.
Because of deteriorating security and complex delays in contracts that have slowed the spending of the $18 billion in Congressionally appropriated money, occupation authorities say they decided recently that they had to spend the Iraqi money to build schools, factories and oil fields, and to turn Iraqis away from violence.
"The security needs were just overwhelming," said an occupation official. "Would we rather have been able to save the money and have a nice kitty? Sure. There's always a tension between putting money to work right away and having it available for a tough year next year. This is the way we resolved it."
Bush administration officials say they believe that the spending program has helped stabilize Iraq, although most note that negotiated arrangements allowing insurgent groups to operate peacefully in Falluja, Karbala, Najaf and other troubled areas also have aided in reaching that goal.
Iraq's overall domestic budget of roughly $20 billion for 2004, financed mostly by oil revenue, was approved last year by the Program Review Board, a unit of the Coalition Provisional Authority - the American-led occupation authority in Iraq.
But this spring, Bush administration officials said, it became clear that rising global oil prices were presenting Iraq with a windfall, and a decision had to be made about whether to save that extra money or disburse it in a one-time expenditure that might not be available in the 2005 budget.
American occupation officials said the $2.5 billion had helped pay for security needs like police cars and uniforms, as well as repairs of schools, power grids, oil fields, state-owned factories and other sources of employment. Additional funds have been used for vocational training for young Iraqis "to get some of these kids off the streets, doing something productive for the future," an occupation official said.
Some of the money has gone to American military teams operating since the beginning of the occupation 14 months ago. The teams have become famous in Iraq for the way they have spread across the country, commissioning repairs and paying for them from satchels bulging with $100 bills shipped by plane from a Federal Reserve vault in East Rutherford, N.J. Much of that money came from Iraqi assets frozen in the United States during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
At least $1 billion has been distributed in this fashion - by some estimates more than $2 billion.
"The military commanders love that program, because it buys them friends," said an administration official, referring to the cash distribution. "You want to hire everybody on the street, put money in their pockets and make them like you. We have always spent Iraqi money on that."
The $2.5 billion to be spent from Iraqi oil funds has several components, the biggest of which is $1 billion to be spent on 15 to 21 military or security projects around the country. The rest of the money is to be used for vocational training, infrastructure repair, principally in the oil and electricity sectors, and increased supplies of food. A small amount has been set aside for future compensation of victims of Saddam Hussein's government and displacement since the occupation began.
A principal goal is to employ Iraqis and compensate for the shortfall in financing that was supposed to have come from American sources.
One reason for distributing cash for quick gains, some administration officials say, is that controls on the $18 billion appropriated by Congress last fall to rebuild Iraq may make it harder to operate in that fashion, so policy makers have decided to use what they have before the formal end of the occupation, now scheduled for June 30.
Early last fall, L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Baghdad, said he hoped that most of the $18 billion would be spent by the time sovereignty was transferred.
In November, however, the transfer of sovereignty was accelerated. Meanwhile, what was intended as a spending program to showcase the benefits of the American occupation has been slow in functioning because of security problems and cumbersome contracting regulations.
Of the $18 billion appropriated by Congress, the American occupation has made spending "commitments" of $7.7 billion, with the hope of reaching $10 billion by the time Iraq officially regains self-rule on June 30. But these figures simply represent money that is reserved or to be reserved for certain purposes. Only $3.2 billion in contracts for actual construction projects have been awarded, although the number could rise before June 30.
A senior administration official said that, contrary to early hopes, it would probably take five years to use up the $18 billion.
"The expectations for spending were unrealistic," said the official said. "You can't just pull 2,300 projects off the shelf and build them without vetting. It takes time to figure out if you're going to build a power plant, where it should be and who should build it."
Another problem has been a lag in donor countries coming forward with the money they had pledged last September at a donors' conference in Madrid. Of $13 billion pledged then, less than $2 billion has been received.
"Donor countries can see that the money that is already there is not being spent, because they can't spend it," said a development official involved in that fund-raising effort. "That removes the pressure on the donors to come through with the money they pledged."
More than a year ago, after the fall of Mr. Hussein, some conservatives in the Bush administration envisioned Iraq as a model for free enterprise, replacing the big money-losing state-owned industries in everything from petrochemicals to pharmaceuticals.
Instead, the accelerated government-driven employment and construction projects are cementing Iraq's reliance on the state as its central economic engine, just as it had been under Mr. Hussein.
"Lots of people wanted to change this, and change that, and transform the economy of Iraq," said an administration official. "But then we quickly realized that we had to put Humpty Dumpty back together first, and then give it over to the Iraqis and let them figure out the best way to change their country."
Accordingly, when sovereignty is transferred next week, Iraq will be what this official called "a centralized socialist state" on which virtually all citizens are dependent for basic needs, putting a particular burden on the fragile interim government selected less than three weeks ago.
Of Iraq's eight million employed workers, for example, an estimated 700,000 work for the government directly, 400,000 work for state-owned enterprises, many of them operating in the red, and 200,000 work for various armed forces or security branches, a number expected to grow.
But those numbers measure the equivalent of full-time employees, and some administration officials say that a more realistic number is two million Iraqis, one out of every four with a job, who are dependent on the state for employment.
In addition to the tens of thousands of jobs to be created by the new oil-financed program, American officials say 1.5 million jobs will be generated by the Congressionally appropriated funds that are only now starting to be spent.
Beyond these state programs, most Iraqis are given free or partially subsidized food, costing $4 billion this year. Electricity supplied at subsidized rates costs $1.7 billion, and the cost of distributing low-cost kerosene and other fuel to Iraqis is estimated at $3 billion to $5 billion.
But occupation officials say the spending of money now to generate employment will revive state industries, so that in the future they can be privatized and serve as the country's economic base.
"All the programs we have started have the full support of the Iraqi ministries of planning and finance," said an occupation official.
"There are two ways of looking at this," the official said. "First is the absolute need to find jobs for millions of young people who need training. But second is to increase the capacity of companies and of the oil infrastructure to become healthy and employ more Iraqis in the future."
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SECURITY
Iraq Government Considers Using Emergency Rule
June 21, 2004
By DEXTER FILKINS and SOMINI SENGUPTA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/international/middleeast/21IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 20 - Faced with violent resistance even before it has assumed power, Iraq's newly appointed government is considering imposing a state of emergency that could involve curfews and a ban on public demonstrations, Iraqi officials said Sunday.
In his first news briefing here, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi offered no details of what emergency rule might include, only that a committee of cabinet members had been appointed to consider the issue.
Dr. Allawi, who worked closely with the Central Intelligence Agency in opposing Saddam Hussein's government in the 1990's, said he would consider "human rights principles and international law," but made clear that he intended to act quickly and forcefully against the insurgency, using extraordinary methods if necessary.
"We will do all we can to strike against enemy forces aiming at harming our country, and we will not stand by with our hands tied," Dr. Allawi said. "The Iraqi people are determined to establish a democratic government that provides freedom and equal rights for all its citizens. We are prepared to fight and, if necessary, die for the cause."
Among the places where such measures could be applied include the city of Falluja, where United States forces have been battling guerrilla fighters for several weeks, and Sadr City, the restive eastern slum in Baghdad, where three Iraqis were killed Sunday in confrontations with the First Infantry Division.
Among the emergency rule provisions being considered are a curfew, a ban on public demonstrations, checkpoints to control public movement and changes to search and seizure laws, two cabinet members said in separate interviews on Sunday evening.
It remains unclear whether such measures would bring significant changes in the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Under the United States-led occupation, occupation and Iraqi soldiers and security forces have been allowed to conduct raids without warrants, make arrests without charges, and hold suspects in detention indefinitely.
If some sort of emergency rule is imposed, it is possible that this situation could persist. Iraq's new leaders have yet to work out the exact nature of their cooperation with the American military in the coming months, particularly on such issues as offensive operations and house-to-house searches.
However, Iraqi officials have often criticized American forces for the way they have conducted themselves here over the past 15 months. A frequent complaint of Iraqi leaders is that the Americans often alienate ordinary Iraqis by searching the wrong homes and detaining the wrong people.
The Iraqi leaders have said they know far better who the insurgents are. The restoration of sovereignty here on June 30 may give those leaders an opportunity to take the counterinsurgency in another direction.
Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said the potential measures were prompted by a tide of attacks by "global terrorists" as well as Hussein loyalists who, as he put it, "will not let the country go through the transitional process towards democracy peacefully."
"They will try to derail the political process," Mr. Rubaie said. "It is our responsibility to protect our people from these terrorists. If you bear all this in mind, then some sort of exceptional rules, if you like, need to be adopted to deal with the exceptional circumstances."
Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said he hoped that if emergency rule were imposed, it would happen only in particularly fractious areas and for no more than two to three weeks at a time. He also hinted at the delicate political balance that the interim government must strike, between winning the confidence of ordinary Iraqis and crushing what has already proven to be a powerful armed resistance.
"We have disturbances in the whole country, but many areas could be controlled very easily, and others will be a little more difficult," Mr. Naqib said. "But also we have to work politically with many groups. We don't want to use force very much. If we have to use it with certain terrorists like Al Qaeda or anyone else, then we will not hesitate to use it."
Neither he nor other officials would say when a decision would be made about emergency rule.
The head of the Iraqi bar association, Kamal Hamdoon Mulla Allaw, said he hoped that such measures would be imposed only for a short period. Hamza al-Kafi, of the Iraqi Human Rights Society, said he too hoped that any such measures would be limited in scope and time and that they would not be used for political advantage.
As the transfer of sovereignty approaches, insurgents have stepped up attacks on interim government officials and security forces.
On Sunday morning, the interior minister's house in Samarra was attacked and four bodyguards were killed. Last Thursday, a car bomb ripped through an army recruitment center in Baghdad, killing at least 41 people. Dozens of local officials and many senior members of the government in Baghdad have been assassinated.
Prime Minister Allawi also announced a significant expansion of the Iraqi Army and its rededication toward internal threats. The army, which currently has about 3,000 soldiers, would take control of more than 37,500 troops who make up the existing Iraqi Civil Defense Corps as part of a new National Guard.
Together with the new Iraqi antiterrorism force now being trained here, the armed forces available to combat insurgents could total more than 60,000 soldiers.
The decision to use the army against the insurgency represents a change to American policy, which had intended the force to be directed against foreign threats and, most important, to be small. American policy makers had wanted to ensure that the Iraqi Army, which has played a significant role in shaping the country's political history, could be kept out of domestic politics.
Dr. Allawi acknowledged that concern but said the extraordinary circumstances presented by the insurgency demanded a special response. He said that for the "foreseeable future," the army would be fighting insurgents, rather than guarding borders.
"Our army's priority will continue to be national defense," he said. "However, in these difficult times, substantial elements of the army will have to assist in the struggle against internal threats against national security."
The reconstitution of the army amounts to another step away from the American decision of spring 2003 to dissolve the Iraqi Army. That decision has been roundly criticized, by Dr. Allawi and others, as having contributed to the insurgency by pushing thousands of young men with military training into unemployment.
In response to that criticism, American officials announced last month that they would begin rehiring higher-level army officers who had earlier been banned from serving in the armed forces.
"Disbanding the Iraqi Army was a big mistake," Dr. Allawi said. "We are fixing the mistakes of the Americans, aren't we?"
Together, redirecting the army toward internal threats and possibly imposing emergency rule illustrated the grim choices Dr. Allawi and his cabinet feel they have to make in their early days in office.
Dr. Allawi said the United States had agreed "in principle" to transfer custody of Iraqis suspected of involvement in the insurgency and for criminal acts to the Iraqi government after June 30.
He offered a vigorous vision of combating the guerrilla insurgency, which he said was "systematically destroying the country."
"The enemy we are fighting is truly evil," he said. "They have nothing to offer the Iraqi people except death and destruction."
He appealed to foreign countries to help protect the United Nations staff members who would be working in the country to prepare for elections later this year or early next.
Meanwhile, Moktada al-Sadr, the young Shiite cleric who led an uprising against the American occupation, has been invited to attend a national conference that will select a quasi-legislature to advise the interim government, Agence France-Press reported Sunday.
The invitation appears to be part of a broader effort to bring Mr. Sadr into the political mainstream. His insurgent force, the Mahdi Army, took heavy losses from American forces over the past three months, but Mr. Sadr soared in popularity, according to recent opinion polls.
The council that will be selected during the national conference will have a wide array of powers, including authority to approve the national budget and to question ministers.
--------
Iraq Might Welcome a Strongman
Many appear optimistic that tough-talking homegrown leadership will overcome violence.
LA Times
By Patrick J. McDonnell
June 21, 2004
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes202.htm
BAGHDAD - On the eve of sovereignty, Iraq is a nation in disarray, riven by bombings, assassinations and sabotage. Yet many people here appear cautiously optimistic that a tough-talking new government run by Iraqis can confront the withering cycle of violence better than their U.S.-led occupiers.
Talk of imposing martial law or restoring the death penalty has been welcomed by many among a war-weary populace.
"We need a tough ruler," said Burwa Tayyeb, who owns a boutique in Baghdad's Mansour district. "I have very high hopes and am looking forward to the 1st of July."
On Sunday, in his inaugural news conference, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi pledged to "crush" Iraq's enemies and said the nation's resources would be directed against terrorism. He said he was considering imposing "emergency law" in some areas, but he didn't elaborate.
Other Iraqis are skeptical that Allawi's tough talk can translate into effective action and fear that things may only get worse.
Many are wary that the new government may be nothing more than a front for Washington - the charge frequently leveled at the now-defunct and widely discredited Iraqi Governing Council, appointed by outgoing U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer III.
"Power will rest in the hands of the United States," said Uday Mohammed, co-owner of a women's cosmetics shop here. "It will be nothing more than a puppet government. Words are not enough."
Outsiders agonize about whether Iraq is even governable now that the Pandora's box of ethnic and religious conflict has been opened - accompanied by a roiling insurgency confronting the world's strongest military force.
But, with some exceptions, many Iraqis profess less concern about whether the nation is governable than about the need for independent Iraqis, not outsiders or U.S. puppets, to do the job.
"These are our people. We know how to handle this," explained Hamid Rubai, an advisor to the interim leadership.
"He needs to be strict and firm," Fawzia Abdul-Jabbar, a widowed homemaker, said of Allawi. "This is the only way he could bring security to this country. We are tired of living in fear."
Relatively few Iraqis are familiar with Allawi, a physician and former Baath Party member who split with Saddam Hussein, spent decades in exile and was later associated with CIA attempts to overthrow the dictator. But the interim prime minister's stern statements and pedigree have already won him allies - despite misgivings about his close CIA ties. His government is due to guide Iraq through a crucial period, including elections scheduled for January.
"If he was a Baathist, this means he was familiar with the ins and outs of Iraqi society," said Tayyeb, the boutique owner, who as an Iraqi Kurd is part of an ethnic group that suffered greatly under Hussein. "This is to his credit."
Others see Allawi as simply benefiting from being the new big man on the block after thorough disenchantment with the U.S. occupation.
"I would be happy if Mr. Allawi managed to bring tranquillity to this country," said Wamid Nadhmi, a prominent political scientist. "But when I think about it objectively, I reach the conclusion that things are getting worse."
It is now conventional wisdom among Iraqis that the top-heavy U.S. proconsul style exemplified by Bremer has been a failure, if not a disaster. Iraqis and Americans alike see the pressing need for an Iraqi way of running the country, whatever that might entail
"We've got to get away from this Douglas MacArthur the occupier, generalissimo thing," said Col. Dana Pittard, the 1st Infantry Division officer who commands the Baqubah region northeast of the capital. "We don't want to have to fight our way out of this place. This has to be an Iraqi show."
Even Bremer, in an interview with USA Today, expressed the hope that ending the occupation would "take some of the poison out of the system."
Last week he called the fledgling Iraqi administration "the best government Iraq has had in 50 years" - though Allawi's team had hardly done anything beyond issuing get-tough pronouncements.
At the end of a troubled 14-month occupation, most Iraqis and Americans appear to agree on one thing: the less direct U.S. involvement the better.
Sovereignty is somewhat illusory, with about 150,000 U.S.-led foreign troops in the country and the new U.S. Embassy that will eventually employ 1,000 foreign service officers, a behind-the-scenes powerbroker with vital control over the purse strings of reconstruction. U.S. advisors will be sprinkled throughout key ministries.
To outsiders, it may seem counterintuitive - a nation reeling from more than three decades of despotic rule appears to yearn for authority. But the carnage of the last year seems to have drained many Iraqis of their enthusiasm for noble experiments in government and left them craving a peaceful nation in which their lives may proceed without the pervasive fear of random killings.
Not only politically motivated attacks but common crimes - notably kidnappings and slayings - have skyrocketed since the fall of Hussein's regime.
"One thing I wish from Iyad Allawi is that he reinstates capital punishment," said Tariq Sargon, a Christian record shop owner in Baghdad's Harithiya district. "All these crimes are unaccounted for. [Criminals] have to get what they deserve."
Iraqis suffered greatly under Hussein, but the dictator and his pervasive Baath Party apparatus did provide a sense of security that many look back on with nostalgia. Iraqis dreaded Hussein's security men, but car bombs, roadside ambushes and mortar attacks on the streets of the capital were not a daily occurrence.
What turn the interim government will take remains a matter of speculation.
One possibility is the emergence of Allawi as a strongman who would deal harshly with inflexible enemies but reach out to co-opt insurgent forces and Hussein loyalists.
"If those ex-Baathists have no blood on their hands and haven't committed any crime against this nation, they are Iraqi nationalists and we are going to give them a chance," said George H. Sada, Allawi's spokesman, signaling a conciliatory attitude.
The new government, however temporary, must weigh every move. Any misstep could risk alienating significant elements of the Iraqi population - including seething Sunni Muslim masses in the center and west, autonomy-minded Kurds in the north and sellout-wary Shiite Muslim ayatollahs based in Najaf.
Already, Kurds are alarmed about the United Nations' decision not to acknowledge the wording of the interim constitution, which gave Kurds an effective veto of a permanent constitution to be written next year after the elections. This omission was widely attributed to concerns among the Shiite mullahs of Najaf, who, like most Arabs, are suspicious about what they perceive as a Kurdish power grab.
Among the seemingly intractable problems that U.S. authorities are bequeathing to the Iraqis are an insurgent Sunni Muslim enclave in the western city of Fallouja and a still-simmering Shiite uprising that stretches from the streets of Baghdad south to the nation's Shiite heartland. In both cases, U.S. forces who were fearful of causing a bloodbath and delaying the June 30 turnover of power backed away from threatened confrontations but left instability in their wake.
"Fallouja is going to go to hell in a handbasket quick," said one U.S. Marine officer working near the city who asked not to be named. "We left a lot of unfinished business there."
But officials of the new government have spoken of reconciliation with the rebellious sheiks, fire-and-brimstone imams and disenfranchised former Baathists of Sunni Iraq.
"Fallouja is not a problem for us," said Sada, the prime minister's spokesman.
The new government has laid out no concrete plan to deal with Fallouja or other pressing issues. It is unclear how much sway the government will have, because its primary weapon is a U.S.-led military force not subject to Iraqi command. Iraqi security forces remain ill-prepared and, in some cases, their loyalty is suspect.
Already, the new leadership has diverged with U.S. authorities on a number of points, including the timing of the turnover of Hussein to Iraqi custody and the participation of militant Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr in Iraqi politics. Bremer has declared Sadr ineligible for future governing posts, but Iraqi leaders have practically invited him to participate - and President Bush himself has said it is for the Iraqis to decide.
"He has supporters, he has constituents, he should go through the political process, and I commend this smart move on his side," interim Iraqi President Ghazi Ajil Yawer said last week when asked about Sadr's moves to form a political party.
But Sadr and others who remain in the insurgent camp may not find the new government any friendlier than the U.S. There has been rampant speculation that U.S. forces will have greater leeway to act to crush violent elements once they are responding to a request from a U.N.-recognized Iraqi government rather than acting unilaterally.
"Let the terrorists know that their brutal acts against our people will not affect national unity," Yawer's office declared last week after six Shiite truckers were slaughtered in Fallouja for transporting goods to U.S. forces. "We are determined to develop a free democratic Iraq and capture these enemies."
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The Secrets of Occupation: Scott Taylor on Iraq
balkanalysis
June 21 2004
http://www.balkanalysis.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=363
Earlier this month, Canada's top war reporter, Scott Taylor, returned from a volatile Iraq with more harrowing tales of the "liberated" country under occupation rule. In this interview, Taylor presents new evidence of how the US Army is trying to evade responsibility for its actions- and how some soldiers hope to cash in from the chaos. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the article and see how.
Christopher Deliso: Scott, you've recently come back from yet another foray into the ever-more dangerous "liberated" Iraq. What was your overall impression of the situation there these days?
Scott Taylor: My major impression was the sheer inhumanity and disregard for life displayed by the occupation forces towards ordinary Iraqis.
Since the Abu Ghraib scandal, more stories are starting to come out. One particularly telling one was recounted to me by a native Turkman, whose nephew was brutally gunned down by US forces a few months ago. The family's ongoing saga dealing with the US government over this tragedy speaks volumes about the regard the coalition has for Iraqis today.
Even Fatal Mistakes...
CD: So, what was the story?
ST: A mysterious explosion on the evening of Kirkuk, back on February 2, triggered an American response- but unfortunately on an innocent civilian. There was almost no one on the streets after the blast, but since an American ambush patrol spotted a "suspicious" vehicle driving near the blast site, they tracked the car with their night vision goggles, waited until the driver was in range, and then riddled the car with fifty-three bullets.
The driver, 21-year-old Sinan Ibrahim Ismail, was hit 13 times. Eyewitnesses reported that he was visibly moving inside his car for several minutes after the attack, but that they were prevented from aiding him by the Americans.
CD: Didn't the soldiers have some reason, some intelligence, to have targeted this car?
ST: Actually, it seems they didn't. "When I asked them why this happened, an American told me that 'this was a terrorist,'" Iraqi doctor Ali Terzi told me. "But when I saw the car I told them they were wrong...this was my cousin."
Indeed, Iraqi police who arrived at the scene quickly confirmed that Sinan was the wrong guy. He had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The young man was in fact a nursing student at the local college. In a tragic irony, he had actually worked part-time for the previous six months at the U.S. airbase in Kirkuk.
CD: What happened next? Did the US admit the mistake, or sweep it under the carpet?
ST: The military made no attempt to contact the Ismail family. As Sinan's father had died in 1993, responsibility fell to his uncle, Jallil Amen. He was the one who approached the Americans on behalf of the family.
"I was told that the matter was under investigation and I would be notified of the final decision," Amen told me. "Three months later, they called and told me to come to their headquarters." It was at this point that the bureaucracy took over.
...Can Be Apologized Away
There, an American Judge Advocate General (JAG) captain presented the Iraqi uncle with a letter which read exactly as follows:
"...On behalf of the Coalition Forces in Kirkuk, Iraq, I want to express my deep sympathy for you and your family for the loss of your son Sinan. I know that this is a difficult time for you but please know that your son was a good man and there is absolutely no evidence that he was working with the anti-coalition forces. I am sorry that we could not deliver our sentiments in person, but security risks prevent this from being possible. I sincerely hope the best for you and your family in the future."
CD: So, it seems they didn't even get the relationship correct- Amen was Sinan's uncle, not his father!
ST: Yes indeed. This apology letter was signed, 'sincerely' by Samuel Schubert, Major, U.S. Army Command Judge Advocate.
To clarify the final comments it must be noted that Major Schubert is stationed at the U.S. airbase, five kilometres from the Civil Administration headquarters where the letter was actually delivered by his subordinate. Along with this letter, emblazoned with the official Department of Defence letterhead, Jallil Amen was given $1,000 in cash and a receipt to sign."
At this, Amen asked what the money was for. After all, he reminded them, "...the BMW alone was worth $5,000." The JAG officer politely explained that the $1,000 was not compensation for property damage, but a 'grant' from the international aid fund.
An Occupational Goal: Escape Liability
CD: Wow! Is this a common tactic for dealing with "collateral damage?" Is there really a whole part of the "international aid fund" set up for dealing with dead civilian cash-outs?
ST: Apparently so, though no one has said it in as many words. What was remarkable about this whole sordid affair was the reasoning behind it. Amen testified that the JAG "...wanted me to know that the U.S. is not legally liable for such mistakes - and that this money I was to receive was not from the American military... it was offered as a gesture of sympathy."
CD: Did the Iraqi understand the ramifications of this? If so, what was his reaction?
ST: Actually, Jallil Amen is an ethnic Turkmen. While he can speak passable English, he doesn't know how to read anything except Turkish. You would think that after a year of "winning hearts and minds" in Iraq, the occupation authorities would at least make an effort to communicate with the locals in a language they could understand. No chance.
Since there was no Turkish translation, Mr. Amen didn't realize that the "receipt" he signed was actually a settlement agreement- whereby he waived any rights to take future legal action against the Americans.
CD: What we are talking about, essentially, is a blood payment in bad faith- somewhat like the payments to the families of 9/11 victims. Was he given a choice whether he had to take the money?
ST: Mr. Amen told me that he was warned, "...if I do not sign and take the money, they will not give me the letter." The last thing the JAG captain told Amen, as he forked over the cash was, "...remember, we [Americans] don't put a dollar figure on a human life."
CD: That's just f
CD: What happened? Did you decide to take your leave of Al-Saadi hospitality?
ST: Well, in some ways it wasn't a surprise to hear about this, considering the dramatic rise in kidnappings since April. But on the other hand I had always found it safer to stay with his family in the suburbs rather than at a hotel- the latter being apparently the mistake Nick Berg made. But no, I decided to stay with them, and made it out without any problems. But apparently, according to Anmar, the resistance thought they could get my government [Canada] to cough up $1 million for my safe release- a hefty return for their $2,000 investment. I told him to tell the resistance they'd be wasting their time, as my government probably wouldn't miss me that much.
"Of course," Anmar admitted, "if I don't hand you over they have threatened to harm my family."
CD: A real offer you can't refuse, huh?
ST: Yeah, but he braved it out. He was a real hero. Despite the risk, Anmar insisted that we continue our collaboration, but to be safe we changed residence and car.
Lingering Doubts Over the Nick Berg Slaying
CD: On a related subject- Nick Berg- we have heard some compelling conspiracy theories that claim he could not have been killed in the way assumed, because of a lack of blood at the moment of the beheading. It has been alleged that he was killed earlier, and the videotape doctored later, because in the first part he is wearing an orange US-military style jumpsuit, and calmly reciting his family background while sitting on a chair. Not to mention that some have questioned the authenticity of his masked captors, and even detected a voice speaking in Russian. The point being that he could have been killed earlier by the occupation force, and then held up as an atrocity against the Americans to take the focus away from Abu Ghraib, which was then taking up all of the media's attention. Far fetched, but possible. Do the Iraqis have any views on this?
ST: As you might guess, the issue is the topic of much discussion in Iraq. Everyone has their own theories- none of which supports the notion that Berg was greased by the al Qaeda. Anmar, my driver, was quick to point out that the alleged al-Zarqawi in the video seems awfully spry and nimble for a guy who is supposed to have a wooden leg!
It is also quite a mystery as to where anyone in Iraq would come up with an orange jumpsuit. It is not like they can just pop out to a Wal-Mart. And such fashion items are not exactly found in the Baghdad clothing bazaar.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
CD: How is the situation with the US troops? How's morale these days?
ST: I talked with several soldiers at the Mosul air base. One of them, a Sergeant Gore, asked whether I was "investing" in Iraqi dinars. I thought he was joking, but he continued with disbelief, "...don't you want to be a millionaire? We're all buying up every dinar we can find and shipping them home."
CD: Why? What can you possibly do with an Iraqi dinar in America?
ST: Exchange it, that's what. Right before the war last spring, the currency, which used to be 3:1 against the dollar, hit rock bottom- 3,000 dinars to a single U.S. dollar. However, since then the Iraqi currency has been steadily gaining strength. It's now at 1,450 dinars against the dollar- a value increase over 100 percent in just twelve months.
Therefore it was easy to follow the logic of Sergeat Gore. "If the dinar climbs back to even one tenth [30 cents to the dinar] of its old worth," he said, "we will all be millionaires in say, five to ten years." Since they can't exchange their money downtown, the soldiers eagerly barter with the Iraqi civilians who work on the base as they pass through the front gate.
Answering the Call of the Contractor
CD: In the past, you have reported on the exploits of military contractors in Iraq. Did you come across any this time around?
ST: Well, I didn't mean any contractors per se, but I did meet some aspiring ones. When I got there, the soldiers guarding the base were having an animated discussion about the lucrative salaries being shelled out to the nearly 15,000 former soldiers who now work in Iraq as private security contractors. "When I'm done my three months here, I'm gonna get out of the [airforce] reserves and come back to Iraq to make some serious money," said Specialist Johnson, a 21-year-old from Iowa.
Hearing this, some of the regular force MPs [i.e., non-reserves] began to mock young Specialist Johnson, saying he "didn't have what it takes to be a mercenary." At this, Johnson retorted, "the joke's on you, cause I've already signed a contract here [in the Mosul camp] with Global [security company], and they pay $20,000 (U.S.) a month plus expenses."
Ironically, at the same guardhouse I saw several copies of Army Magazine, the official US military publication. One of the feature stories was full of self-praise for the US Army, describing how it had cleaned up after Iraqi litterbugs. According to the magazine, American-employed local workers are getting a grand total of $2 a day which, as the story noted, "is a lot of money by local standards." It just goes to show, yet again, that the only standards set by the occupiers of Iraq are double standards.
Scott Taylor is well-known for his two books on the Kosovo and Macedonia wars, and especially for his frequent reports from Iraq- many of which have been gathered in narrative form in his recent book, Spinning on the Axis of Evil: America's War Against Iraq. A long-time military analyst and former soldier, Scott runs a magazine dedicated to the Canadian military, Esprit de Corps, has been a featured analyst for CNN and the Situation Report television program. He also writes for numerous Canadian newspapers on the unfolding situations in Iraq and the Balkans.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Warplanes Hit Lebanese Guerrilla Site
By Ravi Nessman
Associated Press
Monday, June 21, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56936-2004Jun21.html
JERUSALEM, June 20 -- Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected Hezbollah outpost in southern Lebanon on Sunday after the guerrilla group fired antiaircraft shells at a military base in northern Israel, the army said.
Lebanese officials confirmed the strikes and said Israeli planes fired at least two missiles in the Jamous Hill area, several miles inside Lebanese territory, at about 9:15 p.m.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
The army said it targeted and destroyed the Hezbollah outpost used to fire the shells, which caused no injuries. The Haaretz newspaper reported the shells were fired shortly after Israeli fighters flew over Lebanon.
Lebanon has repeatedly complained to the United Nations about Israeli reconnaissance flights, and Hezbollah has made it policy to retaliate for Israeli overflights by firing antiaircraft weapons at the planes. Some of the shells crash across the border in Israel.
The army accused Hezbollah of using the flights as an excuse to terrorize towns in northern Israel. "The state of Israel is determined not to allow attacks from Lebanese territory and to hold the governments of Lebanon and Syria responsible for these actions," the army said in a statement. Syria is the key power broker in neighboring Lebanon.
In Jerusalem, opposition leader Shimon Peres said Sunday his Labor Party would not join a coalition government unless Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed to negotiate with the Palestinians over a planned evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and accompany it with a large-scale withdrawal from the West Bank.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops used tear gas and clubs on Sunday to disperse several hundred Palestinians protesting the construction of a security barrier, witnesses said. The army said the soldiers fired tear gas after the crowd started throwing stones.
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Israel and Hezbollah Clash
June 21, 2004
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/international/middleeast/21mide.html
JERUSALEM, June 20 - The Israeli Air Force blasted a Hezbollah outpost in southern Lebanon on Sunday evening, hours after the guerrilla group fired antiaircraft shells into northern Israel, the Israeli military said.
No casualties were reported in the exchange, the third time this month Israeli forces have traded fire with factions on the Lebanese side of the border.
Despite an Israeli military withdrawal from southern Lebanon four years ago, Israeli warplanes still fly over Lebanese air space and sometimes draw fire from Hezbollah.
-------- mideast
Saudis Seek American's Body as Militants Vow More Terror
June 21, 2004
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/international/middleeast/21saud.html?pagewanted=all&position=
RIDDA, Saudi Arabia, June 20 - Saudi security forces combed Riyadh, the capital, on Sunday looking for the body of a murdered American hostage, periodically sealing off entire neighborhoods as concern grew that knowledge of his whereabouts died with the killing of his captors.
Paramilitary units in armored vehicles blocked off several quarters while the police searched cars stopped at checkpoints and surveillance helicopters hovered, witnesses reported. Residents of the capital said they did not feel particularly tense, however, with business continuing as usual in the unaffected areas of the city.
Western diplomats and Saudi analysts said the four senior militants shot dead on Friday might have been the only people who had known the location of the body of the hostage, Paul M. Johnson Jr.
The searches around the area where the four were gunned down were particularly intense. The security forces arrested 12 suspects on Friday, and diplomats said those forces were likely to be using tips from the arrests to track down more extremists.
The death of Mr. Johnson, an Apache helicopter engineer employed by Lockheed Martin, was confirmed through the detailed pictures of his beheading posted on the Internet on Friday.
The group that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, posted its monthly magazine on the Web on Sunday, vowing to continue the struggle despite the death of its leader and providing new details about Mr. Johnson's kidnapping.
The Qaeda offshoot claimed, somewhat implausibly, that police officers sympathetic to its cause had provided the uniforms and vehicles needed to set up a phony checkpoint on June 12 not far from the industrial park at King Khalid International Airport, where Mr. Johnson had worked.
"A number of those cooperating, who are sincere to their religion, in the security apparatus donated those clothes and the police cars," the article said. "We ask God to reward them and ask that they use their energy to serve Islam and the mujahedeen."
Mr. Johnson was stopped, anesthetized and dragged to another vehicle, and then his car was burned, the article said. Most of those details match bits and pieces of information about the kidnapping that had appeared in Saudi newspapers.
Saud Musaibeh, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, scoffed at the claim of police collaboration, saying it was impossible that any police officers would cooperate with extremists, given that they have been fighting one another for more than a year, with many killed on both sides. "The police have been their target," he said. "You can expect anything from such liars who depend on killing, destroying and cutting off heads."
Saudi analysts believe that the kidnapping probably happened as the Web account described, but are skeptical about the claim that policemen helped the group. They noted that police uniforms were easily obtained anywhere in the kingdom - raids on militant hide-outs usually turn up a few - and the radicals have proved adept at painting vehicles to match those of the security services. The suicide bombers who struck a residential compound in November, for example, were driving a fake armed forces vehicle.
The propaganda war waged mostly on the Internet is sometimes as important as the armed combat, the analysts noted. "It is a war aimed at demoralizing the police forces or any of those combating such groups," said Abdel Rahman Lahem, a lawyer and expert on extremist groups.
Indeed the group's magazine, called Sawt al Jihad, or Voice of the Holy War, was brimming with threats to continue the fight despite the death of Abdelaziz al-Muqrin, the leader believed responsible for the sharp rise in vicious attacks over the past few months.
The 40-page magazine included a poem dedicated to Mr. Muqrin: "Ask the Afghan how many raids he deterred and how fine a fighter he was," it reads in part. "He did not accept apostate rule nor accept infidels to live in the peninsula. We are weeping for you as the sky wept for you."
The magazine also included an article that Mr. Muqrin apparently had written shortly before his death defending the kidnapping and beheading of Mr. Johnson. In earlier statements Mr. Muqrin said Mr. Johnson and a co-worker, shot dead the same day, were singled out because they worked on Apache helicopters. Mr. Muqrin wrote in the article that Mr. Johnson "works for military aviation and he belongs to the American Army, which kills, tortures and harms Muslims everywhere, which supports enemies in Palestine, Philippines, Kashmir." He belittled those who had urged him to release Mr. Johnson, writing, "Do those people want to see this infidel carry on the killing of the children and the raping of the women in Baghdad and Kabul?"
Islamist Web sites have been full of arguments raging back and forth between those horrified by the beheading and those who praised it as striking a blow against the enemies of Islam. It is impossible to discern the authentic from the bogus on such Internet forums.
One Islamist Web site also said that Saleh al-Awfi, another of Saudi Arabia's most wanted terrorists, had been chosen as Mr. Muqrin's successor. Some analysts familiar with the extremists said the report appeared to be based as much on the process of elimination as on any real evidence.
The death of Mr. Muqrin and his closest associates drastically reduced the number of other known extremists with experience in planning and carrying out operations. Mr. Awfi is a former Saudi prison guard and one of 26 men on Saudi Arabia's most wanted list, issued last year. At least 10 have been killed or captured. Like Mr. Muqrin, he is believed to have fought outside the kingdom, probably in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
Saudi analysts and Western diplomats are concerned about the possibility of another violent attack soon, as the group may try to prove that the death of its leadership is not as devastating as the security forces have described. "They may try to strike back quickly to prove that they are still relevant," one Western diplomat said.
The Saudi government, which operates in Jidda during the summer, vowed to root out the terrorists.
"The perpetrators of these attacks seek to shake stability and cripple security, which is a far-fetched aim," the government said in a speech delivered in the name of King Fahd, who is incapacitated, at the annual opening of the Consultative Council here on Sunday. "We will not allow a subversive group driven by deviant thinking to undermine this country's security or destabilize it."
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Saudis Barricade Area in Capital
Kidnappers of U.S. Contractor Assert They Were Given Police Uniforms
By Salah Nasrawi
Associated Press
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56478-2004Jun20.html
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, June 20 -- Police cars and armored vehicles flooded the al-Malaz neighborhood in the Saudi capital Sunday as security forces surrounded a house where suspected militants were believed to have taken refuge after a shootout with police.
The massive operation was underway in the same district that was the focus of a huge security sweep against militants sought in the beheading of American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., whose body has still not been found.
According to an account of the kidnapping posted by a purported al Qaeda cell on an Islamic extremist Web site Sunday, Johnson's kidnappers had help from sympathizers within the Saudi security forces. The sympathizers gave police uniforms to the militants, who then snatched the American engineer at a fake checkpoint in the city, the posting asserted.
The account reinforced fears that some diplomats and Westerners in the kingdom have expressed -- that militants have infiltrated Saudi security forces, a possibility that Saudi officials have denied.
Saudi Arabia's ruler, King Fahd, vowed that militants in the kingdom would be stopped.
"The perpetrators of these attacks aimed at shaking stability and crippling security -- and it is a far-fetched aim, God willing," he said in a speech Sunday to the advisory Shura Council, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. "We will not allow this destructive bunch, led by deviant thought, to harm the security of this nation or affect its stability," the king, who has been incapacitated for years by a stroke, was quoted as saying.
Police barricaded off the al-Malaz district, where security forces surrounded the house. Witnesses said they had seen shooting between suspects and police before some men fled on foot, seeking refuge in the house.
It was the same area where Abdulaziz Muqrin, a key suspect in the kidnapping who was believed to be the leader of the reputed al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia, and three other militants were killed in a shootout with Saudi security forces Friday, hours after Johnson was killed and photos of his body and severed head were posted on a Web site.
The foreign policy adviser of Crown Prince Abdullah in Washington, Adel Jubeir, said Saudi officials were still looking for Johnson's body. "We are still combing through neighborhoods. And we hope that eventually we'll find the body and restore it to his family," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."
According to the Web site account of Johnson's kidnapping, militants wearing police uniforms and using police cars set up a checkpoint June 12 on a road leading to the airport, near Imam Mohammed bin Saud University.
"A number of the cooperators who are sincere to their religion in the security apparatus donated those clothes and the police cars. We ask God to reward them and that they use their energy to serve Islam and the mujaheddin," the Internet posting said.
When Johnson's car approached the checkpoint, the militants stopped his car, anesthetized him and carried him to another vehicle, according to the account.
In a separate posting on the Web site, Muqrin sought to justify the killing of Johnson, pointing to his work on Apache attack helicopters for Lockheed Martin. Johnson "works for military aviation and he belongs to the American army, which kills, tortures and harms Muslims everywhere, which supports enemies in Palestine, Philippines, Kashmir," the posting said.
The articles appeared in Sawt al-Jihad, or Voice of the Holy War, a semimonthly Internet periodical said to be posted by the group that calls itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The account of Johnson's kidnapping said the militants decided to behead him when Jubeir declared that Saudi Arabia would not negotiate with the kidnappers.
Asked about that, Jubeir said Sunday on CNN: "We have never negotiated with terrorists. We don't intend to do so. I believe what the al Qaeda people were trying to do is trying to justify a murder that is unjustifiable under any faith or under any principle of humanity."
-------- russia / chechnya
Large scale wargame begins in Russian Far East: fleet spokesman
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AFP)
Jun 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040621012503.wx6krubz.html
Some 800 servicemen from all over Russia were taking part in large scale military exercises that started early Monday and will last until Friday in the country's Far Eastern region, a spokesman for the Pacific fleet said.
The wargame, codenamed "Mobility-2004," is to involve army and navy troops, as well as paratroopers, and is to simulate a reaction to a military threat, the spokesman added.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, was to fly in to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok later Monday to supervise the drills.
The last large scale military exercises held in Russia's Far East date back to August last year.
-----
Assailants seize Interior Ministry building, police facilities in Russian region adjacent to Chechnya
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Yuri Bagrov
June 21, 2004
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20040621-1634-russia-attack.html
VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia - In nearly simultaneous attacks, assailants armed with grenade- and rocket-launchers seized the Interior Ministry headquarters and police buildings in Ingushetia, a Russian region bordering warring Chechnya, local officials said Tuesday.
Ingushetia's acting Interior Minister was killed, and witnesses reported at least six other people dead. Emergency and military officials estimated 100 to 300 armed assailants were involved in the attacks, which took place in the city of Nazran and at least one village, Karabulak.
An official from the Ingush Interior Ministry said it was not immediately clear who the attackers were, but said some of them were shouting "Allahu akhbar" - a frequent cry of Chechnya's separatist rebels as their insurgency increasingly comes under the influence of radical Islam.
Fighting from the 4-year-old Chechen war has occasionally spilled into Ingushetia, highlighting the Russian military's ineffectiveness against the rebels despite having heavier weapons and far superior manpower.
But the latest attack comes after recent statements by separatist leaders indicating plans to step up military actions outside of Chechnya.
In addition to the Interior Ministry building in Nazran, which was attacked late Monday, assailants seized police buildings in Karabulak, the Interior Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Emergency officials in Rostov-on-Don said that the fighters had targeted border guard posts in Karabulak and Nazran, and that three Russian servicemen had been wounded.
Acting Ingush Interior Minister Abukar Koshtoyev was wounded in the first minutes of the fighting in Nazran and was taken to Vladikavkaz in neighboring North Ossetia, where he died, the Ingush Interior Ministry official said. A convoy of three ambulances later could be seen speeding into Vladikavkaz from Ingushetia.
The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the building of the border guard service in Nazran and an Interior Ministry warehouse in the city were on fire.
A three-man crew from Russia's NTV television said they came upon some of the attackers at a border crossing as the crew tried to reach Nazran from neighboring North Ossetia.
"Out of the dark, a voice says 'Stop, put your hands on the hood,' said NTV correspondent Maxim Berezin. "A man carrying an automatic weapon came up. 'Who are you?' 'We're from NTV.' He took a few steps back, as if to shoot us.
"Then he said, 'Say that we are the Martyr's Brigade,' I don't remember of whom, Abu, Alyua, I don't remember what he said. 'We have shot everyone here. Go and announce that.'"
Berezin said he was able to identify them as militants because they were wearing masks and were speaking accented Russian.
In an interview on Radio Liberty last week, Chechnya's separatist president, Aslan Maskhadov, said rebels were preparing to undertake new offensives.
"We are planning to change tactics. Before, we concentrated our efforts on acts of sabotage, but soon we are planning to start active military actions," he said.
Maskhadov's foreign emissary, Akhmed Zakayev, was quoted Monday by the newspaper Kommersant as saying the decision was made at a rebel council this month after rebel commanders including Shamil Basayev demanded more resolute military action, including outside the borders of Chechnya.
The last major rebel incursion into Ingushetia was in October 2002, when a band of fighters attacked Russian forces well inside the republic near the village of Galashki, killing 17 servicemen.
Although Chechnya is a largely Muslim region in overwhelmingly Christian Russia, the first of Chechnya's two wars in the past decade was an essentially secular conflict. However, after Russian troops pulled out when Chechen rebels fought them to a standstill, the separatists increasingly took on a specifically Islamic mantle.
Basayev and the late Saudi-born Chechen warlord Khattab professed adherence to the Wahhabi sect of Islam, also embraced by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Another Saudi-born rebel commander, Abu Walid, was seen as becoming increasingly influential in the Chechen conflict, but he was reportedly killed in the spring.
Russian officials allege that the rebels' ranks include fighters trained by al-Qaeda and consistently portray the war as part of the international fight against terrorism, rejecting foreign criticism of the Kremlin's refusal to negotiate with the rebels.
Monday's fighting came as Russian and Moscow-backed Chechen officials prepared for an August election to replace Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed in a bomb attack last month. The Kremlin has indicated support for Chechen Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov as his replacement.
Heavy shooting was also reported in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, which borders Chechnya to the east, the Interfax news agency said. However, local officials said there was no apparent link to the fighting in Ingushetia; Isamudin Rabudanov, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service in Makhachkala, said security services were trying to catch a criminal band.
-------- space
Pilot Guides Private Plane Beyond Atmosphere, a First
June 21, 2004
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/science/space/21CND-SPAC.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
MOJAVE DESERT, Calif., June 21 - A veteran civilian test pilot today became the first human to reach space in a privately financed mission, soaring more than 60 miles above California in a tiny spacecraft that nonetheless encountered some serious in-flight malfunctions before gliding home to a safe and festive landing on a runway here.
Michael W. Melvill, the diminutive test pilot at the controls of SpaceShipOne, emerged from the cockpit upon his return, climbed atop the plane, spread his arms and let out a primal "Yeeeeeeee-haaah!"That was elation was in sharp counterpoint to some moments during the flight.
As it rocketed toward the threshold of space some 62 miles up, mission officials later said, the craft unexpectedly rolled 90 degrees, and then a wing flap moved out of alignment, taking the craft off course and forcing Mr. Melvill to take swift corrective actions. Those problems limited the ship to a high point of 328,491 feet, project officials said, but still a few hundred feet greater than 100 kilometers (62.3 miles) above Earth, the altitude that the Federation Aeronautique Internationale recognizes as the boundary of space.
The craft's pioneering designer, Burt Rutan, who had hoped that SpaceShipOne would reach 360,000 feet, said that the malfunctions were "the most serious safety problems we have had" with the ship, which had flown less eventfully on lower-altitude test flights.
As thousands of spectators and a teeming throng of journalists looked on, SpaceShipOne, slung beneath the belly of the sleek White Knight carrier plane, was rolled out shortly after 6:30 a.m. Pacific time at Mojave Airport. The larger plane carried Mr. Melvill and SpaceShipOne to about 50,000 feet and then released the squid-shaped rocket. Seconds later, Mr. Melvill ignited the engine. "I had my heart in my throat when I saw the launch," said Paul G. Allen, the billionaire who co-founded Microsoft and who is the sponsor of the SpaceShipOne effort.
Until today, the only travelers to reach the imaginary line between Earth's atmosphere and suborbital space have been aboard ships paid for and controlled by governments. When Mr. Melvill entered a three-minute period of zero gravity at the peak of his flight today, he said, he opened a bag of M&M candies in the cockpit. "It was absolutely amazing," he said. "M&M's were flying around!"
Today's flight is a major step toward being able to claim the Ansari X Prize, an international competition to get humans into space without government assistance. The competition, which began in 1996, has attracted more than two dozen teams from around the world. It requires contestants to fly three people to an altitude of 100 kilometers and then to repeat the flight with the same craft within two weeks.
The boundary of space is not well defined; NASA gives astronaut status to anyone who has flown higher than 50 miles, but other authorities, like the European-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale, mark the border at 100 kilometers, or a little more than 62 miles. The sponsors of the X Prize settled on the higher number.
Creators of the prize modeled it on the competitions that spurred early development of aviation, including the $25,000 Orteig Prize that aviator Charles Lindbergh won in 1927 with his trans-Atlantic solo flight from New York to Paris. The X Prize foundation has announced that it will cancel the competition on Jan. 1 if there is no winner.
The broad goal of the modern competition is the same as those earlier endeavors: to popularize the new technology and to build interest in its commercial uses.
Just as the first fliers set off a flurry of barnstorming - the first flowering of air tourism - the backers of the X Prize hope to see a new era of space tourism. And then, just as the flights of Lindbergh and others showed the way to practical commercial uses of the air, including mail delivery and rapid travel, supporters of the X Prize hope to see the emergence of low-cost space vehicles that will some day allow new commercial opportunities that might include space-based manufacturing and research facilities that were not possible under NASA-scale budgets. Mr. Allen said he had spent more than $20 million on the project thus far.
At times today, the ride appeared wild. The thin vapor trail marking the ascent, which had been smooth and straight in earlier test flights, was wavery. Over the radio Mr. Melvill, 63, who has logged more than 6,400 hours of flight in more than 100 types of aircraft, reported that the craft was pitching. He said he had heard a loud bang, which was apparently caused by a cover over a tail nozzle that buckled during the flight. "I was pretty scared" by the unexpected noise, he said.
It was the first time the plane had flown with that particular nozzle, which was somewhat larger than ones used on previous flights.
"You get a helluva view from 62 miles," Mr. Melvill said, noting that he had been able to see the curvature of the Earth and almost all of Southern California.
Mr. Rutan said that the mission team would closely study the control problems that occurred during today's flight. He had hope that SpaceShipOne's next mission would be the first of the required two flights to win the X prize, he said, but the problems today cast doubt on that goal.
None of the other teams competing for the prize appear close to winning, and the history of aviation prizes shows that the front-runner, or even the best-financed entrant, is not always the victor, said Geoff Sheerin, whose Canadian Arrow team has a spaceship with a sleek, Buck-Rogers-with-a-Maple-Leaf design.
"First on the runway didn't ultimately capture whatever prize they were going after," he said. "The X Prize might be won by the guy who has less technical difficulties that particular month."
Mr. Sheerin insisted that the competition is friendly, and all sides want to see a team begin the age of private-sector human space flight.
"It's going to unite and wake up venture capital to go into space," he said. "If going down there and helping them push the plane would help, we'd go," he said
If Mr. Rutan's team wins the prize, this project will surpass his most famous previous achievement in airplane design, the Voyager, which in 1986 flew around the world without refueling.
Still, today's flight is still a long way from the heights that NASA astronauts and cosmonauts reach on a regular basis; suborbital space was a brief stepping stone 40 years ago on the way to orbit and the moon.
The International Space Station hovers some 240 miles above the earth, and maintaining that orbit requires speeds of 25 times the speed of sound. Re-entering the atmosphere at such speeds causes the punishing conditions that can make the return to Earth a risky business; it was a hole in the protective heat shielding of the leading edge of Columbia that caused the superheated gases of re-entry to ravage the shuttle's wing and cause the shuttle to break apart 16 minutes before its scheduled landing, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
But to Mr. Rutan, the idea that private enterprises may someday send private citizens into space is compelling - and even more so since NASA has grown so expensive and bureaucratic that he says it cannot be counted on to do the job.
At a conference here, he said: "Thirty years ago if you had asked NASA - and people did in those days - `How long would it be before I could buy tickets to space?' the answer was, `About 30 years.' If you ask today, you'll get about the same answer, 30 years. I think that's unfortunate."
"There has been no progress at all made toward affordable space travel," he added.
But there has certainly been pent-up demand. One company, Space Adventures, has 100 customers who have already put $10,000 on deposit to secure a seat on suborbital flights that the company says will cost about $100,000. The company, which is based in Arlington, Va., has already launched two space tourists on $20 million flights to the International Space Station.
Mr. Rutan had invited the public to see the event, and they streamed in by the thousands. A makeshift trailer park held an all-night party, and cars were streaming toward Mojave airport at 4 a.m.
Shortly after the flight, Richard Rutan, the brother of Burt Rutan and a pilot of the Voyager, summed up the flight. "The story as we stand here right now: Mike's alive," he said. "And he's an astronaut."
Steve Twomey contributed reporting from New York for this article.
--------
Great space expectations
washtimes
June 21, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040620-095245-2311r.htm
Today, an unusual craft is expected to rocket high above the Mojave Desert. When launched from an equally unusual airplane, the white, teardrop-shaped craft with feathered wings will be powered by an exotic combination of rubber and nitrous oxide. The most unorthodox thing about the craft, named SpaceShipOne, is that it was designed, built and launched by a private team.
If SpaceShipOne reaches an altitude of 62 miles as expected, it will represent the first time a private entity has put a man into space. While the launch is not likely to usher in a golden age of space tourism, it is a promising step in that direction, and it proves the value of the prizes NASA hopes to offer for other achievements in space.
SpaceShipOne was designed to win the Ansari X Prize, which will award $10 million to the first craft that can fly three passengers 62 miles into space, return to Earth and repeat the feat within two weeks. Today's flight will not qualify for the prize, but those flights are expected to follow soon.
The craft was designed by Burt Rutan, who is best known for designing the Voyager, the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe non-stop and without refueling. He and his team of 100 employees at Scaled Composites built the state-of-the art craft, backed by $20 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Mr. Allen will not receive much of a return on his investment even if SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X Prize, but that was not the goal.
Rather, the contest was established to encourage entrepreneurial investments and innovation in space, in the same way the aviation prizes of the 20th century helped to drive the development of commercial aviation. Mr. Rutan and others believe that commercial suborbital flights are likely to follow his demonstration that such ventures are possible. "If we are successful," Mr. Rutan said, "our program will mark the beginning of a renaissance for manned space flight." Space Adventures Ltd., the company that already has sent private citizens into space, claims to have taken deposits from more than 100 people interested in commercial space flights of the sort Mr. Rutan might offer.
NASA has also embraced the idea of competitions, and it recently held a workshop to gather ideas for its new program of prize contests, the Centennial Challenges. The agency hopes to offer between three and five challenges each year, largely derived from NASA's new vision of exploration. The President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond also recommended that Congress encourage private investment in space by offering "significant monetary prizes."
Competitions have pushed the private sector to the cusp of significant profit from space commercialization. Congress should fund NASA's prize initiative. To add more fuel, Congress should also act on the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Rocket science is complicated, but rocket fuel is fairly simple: innovation, competition and large cash prizes.
-------- spies
Intelligence: The Pentagon-Spying in America?
Newsweek
By Michael Isikoff
June 21 issue
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5197014/site/newsweek/
June 21 issue - Last February, two Army counterintelligence agents showed up at the University of Texas law school and demanded to see the roster from a conference on Islamic law held a few days earlier. Their reason: they were trying to track down students who the agents claimed had been asking "suspicious" questions. "I felt like I was in 'Law & Order'," said one student after being grilled by one of the agents. The incident provoked a brief campus uproar, and the Army later admitted the agents had exceeded their authority. But if the Pentagon has its way, the Army may not have to make such amends in the future. Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants.
Ever since the 1970s, when Army intel agents were caught snooping on antiwar protesters, military intel agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States. But the new provision, approved in closed session last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would eliminate one big restriction: that they comply with the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and what they want the information for. The CIA always has been exempt-although by law it isn't supposed to operate inside the United States. The new provision would now extend the same exemption to Pentagon agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency-so they can help track terrorists. A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. The justification: "Current counterterrorism operations," the report explains, which require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States." DIA officials say they mainly want the provision so they can more easily question American businessmen and college students who travel abroad. But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman concedes the provision will also be helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and contractors inside the United States. "It's a new world we live in," he says. "We have to do what is necessary for force protection." Among those pushing for the provision, sources say, were officials at northcom, the new Colorado-based command set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to oversee "homeland defense." Pentagon lawyers insist agents will still be legally barred from domestic "law enforcement." But watchdog groups see a potentially alarming "mission creep." "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a group frequently critical of the war on terror. "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night."
--------
Russians Surprised by Putin's Comments on Saddam's Terror Plans
CNSNews.com
By Sergei Blagov
June 21, 2004
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200406%5CFOR20040621c.html
Moscow - Russia's unexpected announcement that it supplied the U.S. with intelligence that Saddam Hussein was planning to carry out terrorist attacks on American soil has left many here guessing about the motives behind the assertion.
In remarks broadcast on state television, President Vladimir Putin said that after the Sept. 11 al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. and before the start of the military operation against Iraq early last year, Russian intelligence obtained the information and "passed it on to their American counterparts."
Putin's comments, which could provide additional justification for the war, came as a bolt from the blue, as Moscow was a key opponent of the U.S.-led campaign to overthrow Saddam.
The Russian leader said, however, that the intelligence information did not change Russia's assessment that the invasion was unjustified under international law.
"There are international rules that lay down the correct procedures for the use of force in international relations and these procedures were not followed in this case," he said.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said he knew nothing of any information from Russia, communicated through the department, while National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack declined to comment.
"We have had a very good relationship with the Russian government in the war against terrorism, and a big part of that is information sharing," McCormack said.
The announcement has also left Russian officials and politicians scratching their heads.
Mikhail Marguelov, head of the foreign affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, said the revelation was news to him.
Russia's legislative and executive branches were not aware of proof of Iraq-al-Qaeda links, he added.
Lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, deputy speaker of the State Duma or lower house, speculated that Saddam's regime may have prepared attacks against the U.S. as a means of self-defense.
"Baghdad could have resolved to acts of terror in the event of the U.S. aggression against Iraq," opined Zhirinovsky, who counted himself as a close friend of the ousted dictator.
Russian media commentators suggested that the Kremlin was attempting to come to the aid of President Bush, whom opponents accuse of going to war without sufficient justification.
The Russian Ren-TV network said Putin was intending to back Bush in the run up to November's election, by helping to ease the current pressures he is under.
When the war began, Russian politicians accused the U.S.-led coalition of "waging war against civilians" and described the U.S. as an "aggressor."
Moscow sided with the leaders of France and Germany in this criticism, insisting on a larger role for the U.N. and its Security Council. Russia had also accused the U.S. of misleading domestic and international opinion by manipulating media reporting on the war.
Some critics of the Russian approach have accused Moscow of opposing the war, in part, because Russian oil firms had much to lose in Iraq, having signed contracts worth $4 billion to drill oil wells, deliver equipment and develop oil reserves.
Despite Putin's unexpected new remarks, he said Russia still wanted the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs -- a key reason cited by the U.S. and allies for going to war -- to be "fully" clarified.
Meanwhile, the Texas-based independence intelligence analysis firm, Stratfor, said Putin appeared to be "playing a double game, exploiting the flux in the U.S. political scene to meet Russia's needs."
Putin favored Bush over Senator John Kerry in the forthcoming elections, Stratfor said, because the Bush administration paid little attention to Moscow's clampdown on powerful businessmen ("oligarchs") during Putin's first term.
The Clinton administration, by contrast, had "pushed heavily for the Kremlin to empower the oligarchs and allow them to control the press; such a stance would likely resurface under a Kerry presidency."
Stratfor said Putin's intervention came at a perfect time for the Bush campaign, following the findings of the 9/11 commission, which called into question any link between Baghdad and al-Qaeda in relation to the 2001 attacks.
The intelligence analyst also noted that its own sources in the Russian political and intelligence establishment were strongly disputing Putin's claims.
--------
CIA Wants Cheney Out of Senate Intel Report
Citing national security concerns, the agency tries to keep a critical Intelligence Committee document name-free
time
By TIMOTHY J. BURGER AND BRIAN BENNETT
Jun. 21, 2004
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,655889,00.html?cnn=yes#Anchor-4top45
Never mind the fact that Dick Cheney's hands-on role in developing the prewar intelligence picture of Iraq is, by now, a matter of public record - the CIA has asked that the declassified version of a highly critical Senate Intelligence Committee report to redact references to the Vice President. The classified version of the document does not use names, referring to actors by their title instead. But the Agency sought to have even references to titles be excised on national security grounds.
To suggestions that the redaction request could be interpreted as an effort to provide political cover for Cheney, a CIA official responds that "the purpose of declassification review is to protect intelligence sources, methods and other classified matters which, if disclosed, could be helpful to adversaries, like weapons proliferators and terrorists. It is not to stifle criticism." Leaders of the Senate panel don't see it the same way. "The Committee is extremely disappointed by the CIA's excessive redactions to the report," Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller, and West Virginia Democrat, said in a statement last week, without mentioning any specific CIA-proposed edits.
As the Senate prepares to release a version of its report some time after July 4, a Pentagon official involved with pre-war intelligence suggests the simplest approach for the U.S. intelligence community would be to fess up. "We got fooled," said the official. "We should just admit it... Saddam wanted us to think he had these weapons ready. He wanted to have them. He had programs. He was doing his best to scrape them together. But he didn't have them."
Meanwhile, an intelligence heavyweight last week entered the fray with a new reform proposal that is already gathering high-level attention. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss - a former CIA clandestine services officer and leading contender for CIA director if President Bush is re-elected - quietly introduced a bill that would significantly expand the CIA director's executive and management authority over the whole intelligence community, a Goss spokesman confirmed to TIME. While the Director of Central Intelligence has responsibility for all intelligence gathering, more than 80 percent of the spy budget is outside the CIA's control, much of it in the Pentagon's spy satellite programs. A Goss aide said the bill would give the CIA director authority over 70 percent of the intelligence budget. According to a fact sheet, Goss' bill would implement many of the recommendations issued in December 2002 by a joint inquiry into 9/11 by the House and Senate intelligence committees, and it would boost the director's authority to wield more management power than some critics believe outgoing Director George Tenet has mustered. The chairman of the September 11 Commission told TIME he expects that his panel will review Goss' bill while writing its reform recommendations in the coming weeks. "I would put a lot of weight behind anything Porter Goss recommends," said chairman Tom Kean. "I would take any recommendation he makes very, very seriously."
-----
US Accused over Senior Iraqi
PA News
By Anthony Looch
21 Jun 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3095922
A Labour peer today suggested Americans wanted to "destroy" prominent anti-Saddam politician Ahmed Chalabi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, because they no longer agreed with him and wanted a "scapegoat" over intelligence failures.
Lord Campbell-Savours said at question time: "Could there be a connection between the allegations that have recently surfaced in Washington about Mr Chalabi and his demand for a full inquiry into allegations of fraud in the management by the UN of the oil for food programme?
"There has also been a need to find a scapegoat for weapons of mass destruction intelligence failures.
"Most important of all, Ahmed Chalabi has repeatedly since last November called for the withdrawal of US troops to garrison and the transfer of security in Iraq to a full armed Iraqi security force.
"Is it not the simple truth that the Americans created Mr Chalabi and now that they don't agree with him any more they want to destroy him?"
Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symonds of Vernham Dean replied: "Mr Chalabi is indeed a controversial - one might almost say colourful - figure.
"It is absolutely true that Mr Chalabi is enormously concerned about fraud in relation to the UN oil for food programme.
"You have produced two other reasons why individuals might seek to discredit him. It has equally been put to me that he has his own reasons for trying to discredit others. Where the truth lies I cannot tell you."
US troops raided Mr Chalabi's headquarters in Baghdad last month.
-------- un
U.S. Is Accused of Trying to Isolate U.N. Agency
June 21, 2004
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21popu.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, June 20 - The Bush administration, which cut off its share of financing two years ago to the United Nations agency handling population control, is seeking to isolate the agency from groups that work with it in China and elsewhere, United Nations officials and diplomats say.
Pressed by opponents of abortion, the administration withdrew its support from a major international conference on health issues this month and has privately warned other groups, like Unicef, that address health issues that their financing could be jeopardized if they insist on working with the agency, the United Nations Population Fund.
The administration also has indicated that it hopes to persuade the United Nations' Latin American caucus to back away from a common position on population and development that was adopted in Santiago, Chile, in March on the grounds that the document's discussion of reproductive rights could be interpreted as promoting abortion.
The actions are part of an administration effort to ensure that international agencies and private groups do not promote abortions overseas. In its first days in office, the Bush administration reintroduced the Reagan-era that critics call the "global gag rule," which denies money to groups that even discuss abortion as an option, except in cases that threaten life or involve rape or incest.
The Population Fund, known as Unfpa, has long been a favorite target of abortion opponents in Congress and in religious-based organizations, who contend that it assists in coercive abortions in China. The critics prevented American financing of the fund for most of the last two decades, and they have now set their sights on curbing its operations with other United Nations agencies.
The administration's position has frustrated some United Nations officials and family planning advocates, who have complained that advances in education and awareness on reproductive issues are being undermined by the United States, where abortion is legal. Those critics, most of whom spoke anonymously because the United States government is the leading contributor to their agencies, charged that the administration was pandering to conservative supporters, and said that doing so placed the United States in alliance with tradition-bound Islamic countries and the Holy See.
Last year, the State Department cut financing to Marie Stopes International, a British charity involved in AIDS programs, because it worked with the Population Fund in China.
In a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Friday, four Democratic members of Congress demanded a legal explanation for withholding money from the fund and for the "threatened defunding of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund."
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat at the fore of efforts to restore support to the fund, said the administration was jeopardizing programs in women's and family health that should not be considered contentious.
"When will the president's right wing be satisfied - when they close down the U.N.?" she asked, adding that the tough White House stance contrasts with its appeals to the United Nations for help in the Iraq war.
Supporters of the fund deny that it facilitates coerced abortions in China. They say it has made considerable progress in reducing the number of abortions through family planning programs in conjunction with the Beijing government.
Two years ago, the administration appeared to agree. A fact-finding trip for the State Department in May 2002, led by William A. Brown, the former ambassador to Israel, recommended the release of $34 million in American payments. "We find no evidence that'' the Population Fund "has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization" in China, it said.
But Mr. Powell, who had praised the agency's activities, abruptly reversed course, contending in a July 21, 2002, letter to Congress that the fund had provided computers and vehicles to Chinese government groups that enforced the country's coercive reproductive policy, which taxes parents who have more than one child. He charged that the fund was in violation of the 1985 law known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which prohibits the United States from giving money to agencies involved in coerced abortion or sterilization.
President Bush withheld the $34 million in 2002 and another payment last year. He has until July 15 to decide for this year's budget.
Conservative religious groups are keeping the pressure on the administration. A group leading the fight against the fund is the Population Research Institute in Front Royal, Va., which calls itself a research and education group that exposes human rights abuses in population control programs. The institute says China's population control policy bullies women through the mandatory use of contraception, forced abortions for those younger than 20 and prison for those who do not appear for examinations. By working with the government, the Population Fund is complicit, critics say.
The Population Fund's "support consists of public praise for, and misinformation about, China's coercive family planning policy," the institute says on its Web site.
Fund supporters counter that they have nothing to do with abortion policy. Through their programs, they give maternity kits and prenatal care to pregnant women. The administration's cuts, they say, have hurt poor women in China and elsewhere.
Sterling Scruggs, a former official in charge of external relations for the Population Fund, said his agency was being singled out to make an "ideological" point against abortion. "It reminds me of the McCarthy era," he said. "We're blackballed. They've defunded us, and even that isn't enough. It's unbelievable."
Recent signs suggest that the administration is increasing pressure on the fund in the heat of an election season.
At an informal meeting of the Unicef executive board and donors this month, the administration announced that it could no longer support joint programming with the fund because of concerns that the money could not be kept separate. United Nations officials say that joint programs allow agencies to pool resources, providing advantages in costs and efficiency.
Three federal offices pulled their support in April from the 31st annual conference sponsored by the Global Health Council. The conference, which was the first week of June, included speakers from the fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, its organizers said. Unlike the Population Fund, Planned Parenthood openly supports abortion services where they are legal.
Dr. Nils Daulaire, the president of the Global Health Council, an alliance of health professionals, said he was notified by the United States Agency for International Development, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that no federal money would be made available for the conference, citing "statutory duties."
Dr. Daulaire said the withdrawal resulted in the loss of more than a third of the conference's $1 million budget weeks before the event. Arthur E. Dewey, the assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, was not available for comment.
At a meeting in March of family planning lobbyists and others, he said the department's goal was to reach a legal interpretation that would allow financing of the fund, two participants in the meeting said.
But Mr. Dewey warned that advocates of the fund should not try to hitch their fortunes to other agencies in China, including Unicef and the World Health Organization, to pull those larger agencies into the abortion dispute and "tar and feather" them, the participants said.
--------
Generals face Abu Ghraib hearings
BBC
21 June, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3825089.stm
Sgt Davis's lawyer tried to have Bush and Rumsfeld summoned
A military judge has agreed that the defence team of a soldier accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners should be allowed to question top US generals.
He ruled that the head of US-led forces in Iraq, Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, and other senior officials could be summoned as witnesses.
The judge also said the Abu Ghraib jail where the abuse took place was a crime scene, and so could not be destroyed.
The rulings came at a hearing into the cases of three men on abuse charges.
They are Charles Graner, Ivan Frederick and Javal Davis.
One soldier, Jeremy Sivits, has already been sentenced to a year in jail, but this trio face more serious charges and sentences of up to 24 years.
Monday's initial hearing in Baghdad was intended to resolve any legal technicalities before they face a full trial.
At Monday's session, the judge, Col James Pohl, postponed Staff Sgt Frederick's pre-trial hearing until 23 July, after his civilian lawyer failed to appear in person.
One of the defence lawyers made an unsuccessful effort to seek testimony from US President George W Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Civilian defence counsel Paul Bergrin - who represents Sgt Davis - accused Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld of sidestepping the Geneva Convention in their "war on terror", and said his client was instructed on a daily basis to "soften up" Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence.
However, his request was rejected by Col Pohl.
Charges
Specialist Graner has been accused of striking several detainees by jumping on them as they lay in a pile on the floor.
He is also charged with stamping on the hands and bare feet of several prisoners, and punching one inmate in the temple so hard that he lost consciousness.
The charges relate to some of the most notorious incidents Sgt Frederick is accused of forcing prisoners to masturbate, placing naked detainees into a human pyramid and placing wires on a hooded detainee's hands, telling him he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box on which he was forced to stand.
A photograph of the incident was one of the most widely circulated when the abuse scandal first came to light at the end of April.
Sgt Davis is accused of maltreating prisoners, stamping on their hands and feet and putting detainees in a pile on the floor to be assaulted by other soldiers.
Seven soldiers in all have been accused of abusing Iraqi detainees.
-------- us
Generals face Abu Ghraib hearings
BBC
21 June, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3825089.stm
A military judge has agreed that the defence team of a soldier accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners should be allowed to question top US generals.
He ruled that the head of US-led forces in Iraq, Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, and other senior officials could be summoned as witnesses.
The judge also said the Abu Ghraib jail where the abuse took place was a crime scene, and so could not be destroyed.
The rulings came at a hearing into the cases of three men on abuse charges.
They are Charles Graner, Ivan Frederick and Javal Davis.
One soldier, Jeremy Sivits, has already been sentenced to a year in jail, but this trio face more serious charges and sentences of up to 24 years.
Monday's initial hearing in Baghdad was intended to resolve any legal technicalities before they face a full trial.
At Monday's session, the judge, Col James Pohl, postponed Staff Sgt Frederick's pre-trial hearing until 23 July, after his civilian lawyer failed to appear in person.
One of the defence lawyers made an unsuccessful effort to seek testimony from US President George W Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Civilian defence counsel Paul Bergrin - who represents Sgt Davis - accused Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld of sidestepping the Geneva Convention in their "war on terror", and said his client was instructed on a daily basis to "soften up" Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence.
However, his request was rejected by Col Pohl.
Charges
Specialist Graner has been accused of striking several detainees by jumping on them as they lay in a pile on the floor.
He is also charged with stamping on the hands and bare feet of several prisoners, and punching one inmate in the temple so hard that he lost consciousness.
The charges relate to some of the most notorious incidents Sgt Frederick is accused of forcing prisoners to masturbate, placing naked detainees into a human pyramid and placing wires on a hooded detainee's hands, telling him he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box on which he was forced to stand.
A photograph of the incident was one of the most widely circulated when the abuse scandal first came to light at the end of April. Sgt Davis is accused of maltreating prisoners, stamping on their hands and feet and putting detainees in a pile on the floor to be assaulted by other soldiers.
Seven soldiers in all have been accused of abusing Iraqi detainees.
-------- war crimes
UK troops accused of mutilating Iraqi bodies
Death certificates by Iraqi doctor claim evidence of torture
The Guardian
Michael Howard in Majar al Kabir and Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday June 21, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1243712,00.html
Military police are investigating claims that British soldiers mutilated the bodies of Iraqi insurgents after a firefight last month near the southern Iraqi town of Majar al Kabir.
The allegations are contained in official death certificates seen by the Guardian written by Dr Adel Salid Majid, the director of the hospital in Majar al Kabir, on May 15, the day after the battle.
Seven of the certificates state that corpses handed over to hospital authorities by British troops showed signs of "mutilation" and "torture".
Dr Majid's conclusions have been questioned by a senior doctor at the Amara general hospital, 25km to the north. Speaking anonymously to the Guardian, he disputed his colleague's claims after examining one of the seven corpses in question.
The military police are studying photographs of the bodies, the original death certificates and part of a video film taken at Amara hospital by the relatives of the dead.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: "The military police are looking at the evidence. They have yet to commence a formal investigation."
A British army spokesman in Basra dismissed the allegations of mutilation as "absurd".
"Such claims are an insult to the whole British army and an attempt to stain the image of men who are putting their lives at risk every day to secure Iraq for the Iraqis," he said.
The Guardian has seen 28 death certificates, which were completed by doctors at Majar al Kabir hospital on May 14 and 15. A 29th victim of the firefight, a shepherd, died of his wounds later.
Most certificates list wounds that would seem consistent with a fierce firefight that is known to have taken place on the afternoon of May 14 on the Amara-Basra highway outside Majar al Kabir.
On one of the seven death certificates in question, Ahmad al Helfi, a 19-year-old casual labourer, is described as having "several bullet injuries to the body, with blueness of the left eye and a cut-wound by a sharp tool on the right arm. In addition, there are signs of beating and torturing all over the body."
Haider al Lami, 21, also a casual labourer, had "several bullet injuries to the body, with mutilation of genitalia". His penis had been "severed".
Hamed al Suadi, 19, is recorded as having "bullet wounds to the neck and the foot. There are signs of torture: the right arm is fractured and there is full distortion of the face."
Another, Ali al Jemindari, 37, had "several bullet injuries in head, face and the body, with slash marks on the neck. The right arm has been severed at the shoulder. There is a large opening in the right cheek and the removal by gouging of the right eye."
The brother of Mr Al Jemindari claims that the eyeball was subsequently found in the dead man's pocket.
Dr Majid told the Guardian: "On May 15, the police came and asked us to send ambulances to the British base to collect some bodies. When they brought the 22 bodies, it was a surprise to us to see some of these bodies mutilated and tortured.
"There was an angry crowd of relatives outside the hospital gates, so we examined the bodies at once and organised the death certificates. We don't have a big refrigerator here so everyone took the death certificate and the body and buried their family members."
But Dr Majid's judgment has been questioned by a senior doctor at the Amara general hospital, where the bodies were first taken.
The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, examined the corpse of Ali al Jemindari. He said: "What we saw on examination is multiple bullet entries and exits. Also I can say is his arm wasn't severed like what was written on the form by Dr Adel [Majid]. His right shoulder was severely destroyed yet still the right arm was connected by some tissue. Also, you couldn't say whether the right eye was removed after death or before. But such an injury might happen in war, perhaps a bullet came into his right eye and pressed it inside the skull. And as for the signs of slashing around his neck it could be another bullet passing very near to his neck caused that wound."
The doctor hinted that Dr Majid had been under enormous pressure from angry relatives. "This should not have been taken to Majar al Kabir hospital, or even here to Amara," the doctor said. "We have no forensic capabilities to speak of. The case should be sent to Basra, even to Baghdad if needed."
The three-hour firefight, on the road from Amara to Basra, on May 14 between the soldiers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and Iraqi militia was one of the fiercest involving British troops in Iraq. The battle was a clear-cut military victory for the British forces. Two soldiers were lightly wounded, and one young soldier who took part is reportedly being considered for a gallantry award.
The MoD says that 14 Iraqis are known to have been killed but admits there could have been more.
Witnesses said that between nine and 15 others were rounded up and taken to the British base near Amara, 20km to the north. The next day (May 15) at least nine were transferred to the Shaibah detention centre near Basra.
On May 14, the men of Majar had gathered for Friday prayers in the town's central mosque. The imam, Khatib al Battat, denounced the fighting that had taken place the day before in Najaf between loyalists of the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and US forces, damaging the golden-domed shrine of the Imam Ali, one of the holiest Shia sites.
"As the men left the mosque there was a mood of revenge," Ali Jassam, a resident, recalled. "The imam had asked them to show patience, but a few crazy men said they wanted to die for the imam Ali and Islam."
Mr Jassam said the men went home, took whatever weapons they could lay their hands on, and walked the mile to the Amara-Basra highway. There they spread out in the drainage ditches lining the road and lay in wait.
At around 4.50pm two Land Rovers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders passed on their way back to base near the city of Amara, 25km to the north.
According to British army accounts, the patrol fought desperately to escape the attackers - who were using machine guns, rockets and mortars - and called in armoured cars and tanks from the base.
On May 15 the British removed 22 bodies from the battlefield and took them and a number of live detainees with them to the base near Amara. This was not normal practice.
The army spokesman in Basra said troops removed dead bodies from the scene of the battle "out of respect for the dead, to stop their bodies from being eaten by wild animals and to aid identification".
Dr Majid said that on May 14 the British had left behind six bodies at the battle scene, in addition to the shepherd who later died. These six bodies showed no signs of mutilation or torture, he said.
Asked why they had left behind six bodies at the battle scene, the army spokesman said: "Our forces continued to collect the bodies after dark. If any bodies were left behind, it would simply be because we missed them."
But many in Majar al Kabir claim that at least some of those who died were alive when they entered the British base.
Abbas Jawad, the senior administrator of the emergency department at the general hospital in Amara, said: "At 7:30pm on Friday May 14, a police major came and told me that there had been a call to police headquarters in Amara from the British base, telling them to bring ambulances to receive more than 10 injured people from the base. I sent three ambulances with three paramedics to the base. After about 45 minutes the ambu lances came back and told me that they did not receive any injured, and that they received no information about them."
The following afternoon [May 15], Mr Jawad was again asked to dispatch a convoy of ambulances to the British base. It was to collect the corpses of those killed in the firefight. "They brought the corpses to our hospital where there were thousands of people waiting," he said. "I remember this day; it was a real disaster, everyone was angry, especially when we opened the sacks to find these corpses mutilated and tortured."
Since then, a CD carrying footage shot by a relative of the scenes from that afternoon's events has been circulating in Amara and Majar al Kabir. As the bodies are unzipped from the bags at Amara hospital angry relatives shout at the camera, saying that the dead were alive when they went into the British base.
The camera then pans in on the blood-soaked corpses as they emerge from the bags, and fingers can be seen point ing at what they evidently believe to be signs of mutilation or torture.
The examination of the corpses began just after 4pm at the Amara hospital morgue. Doctors had inspected one body before an argument broke out at the gates.
It was between Karim Mahoud, also known as the Lord of the Marshes for his resistance to Saddam Hussein, and the police chief of Majar al Kabir, Mohammed Abhassan Imshani. Witnesses said the police chief lost his temper and drew a gun on Mr Mahoud. In response one of Mr Mahoud's brothers allegedly shot and killed the police chief. (A Baghdad judge last week issued arrest warrants for Mr Mahoud and two of his brothers, accusing them of the police chief's murder.)
Angry family members demanded that all the bodies be taken back to the hospital in Majar al Kabir. It was then that their death certificates were completed by Dr Majid.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Judge in Abuse Case Will Allow Questioning of Top Officers
June 21, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/international/middleeast/21CND-ABUS.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 21 - Three American soldiers accused in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal faced initial hearings in Baghdad today, and the judge said their lawyers could interview top commanders as part of the defense.
The judge, Col. James Pohl, also declared that the prison was a "crime scene" and should not be demolished as suggested by President Bush after the prison scandal broke in April.
Today's hearings dealt with legal issues involving Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II and Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr., who were arraigned in May on charges stemming from their suspected abuse of Iraqi prisoners and who face general courts-martial.
Motions in Sergeant Frederick's hearing were rescheduled today for next month, because he declined to waive his right to civilian representation after his civilian lawyer did not appear.
The judge granted the defense request to interview top officials in the chain of command, including Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq, and others.
The pre-trial hearings also indicated that the defense lawyers would try to show that the highest levels of the government created an atmosphere in which any technique was acceptable to get information from detainees.
Lawyers also asked to be provided with Justice Department and Pentagon memorandums on what treatment is acceptable for detainees and when the Geneva Conventions are applied. The judge denied the requests.
Sergeant Frederick and Specialist Graner, who appeared in desert camouflage uniforms during the hearings, are the most prominent of those accused of the abuse, but they are not the first to face trial.
In the first court-martial in the case, held in May, Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits of Pennsylvania said he walked in on a scene of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and snapped a photograph of it. He pleaded guilty for his role in humiliating Iraqi detainees and was demoted, sentenced to a year in prison and ordered expelled from the Army.
His sentence was the harshest possible in a special court-martial; had he been tried in a general court-martial, the penalties could have been much harsher.
In an agreement reached with the court, Specialist Sivits, 24, agreed to testify against other soldiers. He said Sergeant Frederick and Specialist Graner savagely beat or humiliated the naked prisoners, often laughing as they did so.
Like that court-martial, today's hearings took place in the Baghdad convention center, a heavily guarded complex inside the American compound where the occupation authorities are located.
The seven soldiers charged in the case were from the 372nd Military Police Company, an Army Reserve unit.
"Because of the war on terrorism, the highest levels of government authorized an unusual proceeding," the lawyer for Specialist Graner, Guy Womack, said at a news conference.
He added that senior government officials had "lessened the normal restraints on interrogation" and said that his client and the other military policemen and women were being blamed for a larger policy.
"I feel that all seven M.P.'s are being made scapegoats," he said. "No one can suggest with a straight face that the M.P.'s were acting alone."
He said that he had evidence that a senior commander was present during several of the problematic interrogations, and that this commander had tried to prevent other military officials from becoming aware of the interrogations. He declined to identify the commander.
-------- drug war
Betrayal on the Mexican Border
Former Army Commandos Joined Drug Dealers to Form Violent Zetas Gang
By Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56415-2004Jun20?language=printer
MATAMOROS, Mexico -- Luis Alberto Guerrero was no ordinary outlaw. He wore a grenade around his neck.
When his body was found last month in this border town across from Brownsville, Tex., state police said his signature grenade was still dangling over his bloody chest. A bomb squad spent hours extracting it, as well as another grenade, its pin half removed, in the clutched hand of Guerrero's dead bodyguard.
The unknown assailants who fired more than 100 bullets into Guerrero's silver Jeep on May 10 outside the popular Wild West dance hall also killed three teenage girls, leaving five corpses and two live explosives a mile from the U.S. border and shining a new spotlight on Mexico's most unusual criminal organization, known as the Zetas.
The Zetas are former Mexican army commandos who were trained to capture drug traffickers but joined them instead, around the end of the 1990s. Armed with AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles, the 15 or so Zetas currently at large are considered the number one security threat on this busy stretch of the border.
The Zetas are accused by federal prosecutors of a wide range of crimes, from killing an estimated 100 people over the last five years and escorting millions of dollars worth of cocaine, to extorting money from small border businesses, from car junkyards to beauty parlors.
"They're more violent and have greater capacity to liquidate people," said Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the nation's top organized crime prosecutor. In an interview, Vasconcelos offered new details of this increasingly high-profile group which, he said, has expanded beyond its initial drug trafficking work: "They have started to kidnap people or extort money from them. They say, 'If you don't pay, I'll burn your business,' or 'If you don't pay, I'll kill you.' That's what they're doing now."
Apart from being from the same army battalion -- an airborne mobile unit trained in communications to track drug traffickers -- most of the Zetas were born in central Mexico; at least one is a pilot, and the oldest are in their thirties. "They're young, very young," Vasconcelos said. He said the Zetas named themselves, settling on the Greek letter zeta, which can also be Z, or "the last ones."
"They are not like other gunmen. They are well-trained and have discipline," said Jorge Chabat, an academic researcher and an expert on organized crime. Chabat said the Zetas have one other advantage: They were trained by their pursuers, the Mexican army, which is Mexico's main anti-narcotics force. While many soldiers have been accused of protecting drug cartels over the years, the Zetas appear to be the first sizable group to defect and form their own trafficking organization.
Originally there were 31 deserters, according to the Mexican attorney general's office, which has issued a special "wanted" poster for the Zetas. It bears mug shots of 31 men, many with cropped hair, who it says are dangerous and wanted for drug trafficking, homicide, kidnapping and auto theft.
Individual Zetas, like most Mexican criminals, are best known by their nicknames, which also appear on the poster. Oscar Guerrero Silva, known as "Winnie the Pooh," was found dead by federal agents in February. Another, Gustavo Gonzalez Castro, known as "El Erotica," is still being sought.
Recruited by Osiel Cardenas Guillen, whose Gulf cartel is the major operator here at the eastern end of the border, the Zetas started out as his escorts and assassins, Vasconcelos said. Cardenas himself was a former police officer who turned to the other side of the law. Despite the growing folklore around the group, including the vast sums of money the members earned from Cardenas, Vasconcelos said the former soldiers were "contaminated" by "very little money."
Shaking his head, Vasconcelos said they betrayed the army "for nothing. It's stupid. Very stupid."
What has set the Zetas apart, in addition to their superior handling of weapons and radio equipment to monitor law enforcement and rivals' activity, is their cohesion.
For instance, when the army captured Cardenas last year in a Matamoros shootout involving scores of soldiers and cartel gunmen, several Zetas with him were injured and one was believed killed. But Vasconcelos said that could not be confirmed because other Zetas risked their lives to rescue the injured. "They don't leave their wounded or their dead behind," he said.
In 2002, Zeta leader Arturo Guzman Decena, known as "Zeta 1," was killed by Mexican soldiers after he was spotted at a fast-food restaurant in Matamoros. Afterward, flowers appeared on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. According to photos published in a local newspapers, the note accompanying the flowers read: "You will always be in our hearts. From your family, The Zetas."
The army has been particularly motivated to stop the Zetas. "For the army they represent a group of traitors who must be caught and punished," Vasconcelos said. While there have been published reports that the Zetas, like some anti-narcotics agents, received training in the United States, Vasconcelos denied that.
Matamoros and the border cities of Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo constitute the home base of the Zetas, who until January were considered strictly a border security problem. Then they orchestrated a daring jailbreak in the state of Michoacan, in southwestern Mexico. Guerrero, the former soldier found dead with a grenade around his neck, and others stormed a jail in the town of Apatzingan. Wearing uniforms that resembled those of the army and federal agents, the Zetas jumped out of trucks and freed 29 prisoners, including members of the Cardenas cartel, according to the state attorney general's office.
"The jail is almost in the downtown, so it was alarming, especially for people who live around there," said Sorayda Tapia, a city employee in Apatzingan, known for its melons and mangoes. "It is usually very quiet and then to have something so surprising happen, that this big group of men shows up with high-caliber weapons, no one knew who they were or where they were from. People were really alarmed."
Guerrero, called "The Warrior," was also involved in a Matamoros jailbreak in 2001. In that incident, federal prosecutors said, he and his men outmaneuvered and outgunned 46 prison guards and freed three members of the Cardenas cartel.
The three teenage girls killed at the Wild West dance hall had been befriended by Guerrero and taken to the hall, according to interviews. Their killers have not been caught.
Francisca Morada, whose stepdaughter, Perla Lourdes Garcia, 17, was among those killed, cried as she spoke in her modest house on the outskirts of Matamoros. Morada, a former policewoman, said local authorities, who carry small-caliber weapons, were no match for the Zetas and their rivals. "It's like throwing rocks compared to what they have," she said.
Morada sobbed as she held the Mother's Day present Perla gave her the day before she died, a cheerful basket tied with a ribbon and filled with a teddy bear, flowers and balloons. "Living in this atmosphere, it's like you can't even breathe," she said. "You go out and God only knows if you'll come back."
Asked why Guerrero had not been captured even though several people interviewed in Matamoros described him as a regular at strip bars and dance clubs, Vasconcelos said federal agents get little help from local authorities as they track the Zetas.
"There is a lot of complicity on the part of the local police, and they regularly warn them, or practically help them, when we arrive to fight them," he said. "So we have two enemies there -- these guys and the local police." Jordan reported from Mexico City. Researcher Bart Beeson contributed to this report.
-------- homeland security
Responding to real threats
Airport hypersecurity ignores unguarded floating bombs in our ports
Mon, 6.21.04
Working For Change
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=17151
I know this guy who is a retired intelligence source. He was an intelligence gatherer for Uncle Sam in North Africa, Iran, the Middle East and other countries during his career.
I can't tell you his real name. So let's call him Douglas Garrow. He called me last week to tell me his concerns about national security and what he considers to be an overemphasis by Bush administration officials on "sigint."
In the intelligence community, there's an important distinction made between "sigint" -- intelligence gathered via codebreaking and eavesdropping -- and "humint," which is human intelligence gathering by way of sources on the ground.
Garrow says politicians ooohing and aaaahing over the latest advances in information technology, combined with their penchant to line the pockets of defense contractors, blinds them (and us) to the fact that you can never beat human intelligence.
Cultural and linguistic knowledge, an ability to read body language, forging relationships with foreign assets, and so forth, can only be done effectively by human beings.
More specifically, Garrow says, there's not enough investment being made on "humint" and this is especially frightening when you consider the lack of physical security being provided at America's ports.
During the 9/11 Commission hearings, the head of the Seafarer's Union in Seattle testified that millions have been spent on port security but most of it has gone to pay for "experts" to study the problem.
Essentially, all that's been done in terms of physical security is to build a 10-foot fence around certain port facilities.
"There's very little physical security. There's not even motion sensors on the fences," Garrow laments. But what's even more frightening is the lax security at foreign ports.
But in order to understand the nature of the threat, you need to know a few crucial details. "These container ships carrying liquefied natural gas were built in the 1960s at the Quincy (Mass.) shipyard by General Dynamics. The container ships hold 125,000 cubic meters of LNG."
The main trans-shipment and compression terminals are in Algeria. The biggest facility is Hassi R'mel. From there, LNG is transferred by pipeline to oil ports in Algeria. From there, it's loaded onto tankers and taken across the Atlantic into Winthrop, Mass., which happens to be only several miles away from the Fleet Center in downtown Boston, where the Democratic National Convention is being held this summer. "It would be an ideal theater for terrorists to attack the country," Garrow says.
The containers are enforced with one-inch HY80 steel. "They are very well put together. But the weakness is where the loading and off-loading manifolds and pipes attach to these (domed) containers. A small explosive charge would knock one of those pipes off and the whole sphere would explode in a couple of seconds.
"LNG is more flammable than gasoline. So these ships are basically floating bombs," he said. How would terrorists gain access to one of these containers? It's easy, says Garrow. "The on-loading facility in Algeria. There is no real security there. The crewman could easily put a small plastic detonation device on the tanker. If I were a terrorist, I would focus on a one kilogram depleted uranium projectile, which is a fancy name for a 2.2-pound bullet. Due to the mass and weight of uranium, it would easily penetrate the steel."
Depleted uranium is relatively easy to get. "You could probably buy it off the Internet. All you would need is about 5.5 kilograms of C-4 or its equivalent to drive the projectile. The whole thing would weigh about 30 pounds. One person could carry that onboard in an unguarded port overseas.
"At airports you have 90-year-old ladies having to take off their shoes. In a seaport, someone can get on a (container) ship with a simple access badge to the port. I think it's our weakest link right now."
What would happen if one of these container ships were detonated? "The energy released would totally destroy the storage facility. Everything within one mile -- completely leveled. Logan Airport -- gone. Within a two- or three-mile radius, there'd be horrendous fires."
It's a good thing the 9-11 Commission didn't get drawn into the Bush administration fog that led most Americans to think Iraq was involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attacks. Let's hope they also heed Garrow's concerns about the real threats to our ports.
--------
Port security still off course
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Alan Clendenning
June 21, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20040620-095247-3779r.htm
SANTOS, Brazil - Thousands of trucks rumble into South America's largest port each day, hauling everything from auto parts to coffee bound for Europe, Asia and the United States. At least that is what the paperwork says, although it turned out to be wrong in one telling security breach involving about 40 containers of Brazilian coffee beans last year.
Without opening the containers, it would take an X-ray or radiation detectors to reveal what is truly inside. Those are two of several screening measures scheduled to start July 1 to prevent terrorists from shipping explosives, guns and other deadly material, although only one in 10 ports around the world has met the requirements.
Santos port officials say their security plan will be approved before July 1, but it will take months to implement. The project includes constructing miles of higher fences, installing an electronic identification system for 20,000 people who pass through the port's 60 entrances daily and putting up a closed-circuit monitoring system with nearly 500 cameras.
Now, small ferries motor near enormous freighters taking on stacks of containers as security guards give paperwork cursory checks. Getting inside the port and close to docked ships isn't hard, a factor that analysts say could make it an inviting place for terrorists planning to hijack ships or use containers to smuggle weapons of mass destruction to overseas targets.
Failure to comply with the July 1 date imposed by the International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency, could cause trade problems if countries such as the United States turn away or perform lengthy inspections on ships calling at ports that don't meet the new security standards.
Ships heading to the United States from ports that don't comply with the code, for example, could be searched by the U.S. Coast Guard and, in the most extreme cases, be ordered back to sea.
By mid-June, only 654 of the 6,114 ports subject to the international security code - established under pressure by the United States in the wake of the September 11 attacks - were in compliance.
Chris Austen, chief executive of the British firm Maritime & Underwater Security Consultants, is working with 300 ports and many still are ordering equipment such as closed-circuit televisions and training.
"Many ports only started working on it in May," he said.
Complicating efforts to boost security, ports tend to be dangerous places full of questionable characters and criminal elements.
"You go there at night, and you will be beaten up by gangs," Mr. Austen said. "Ports are full of scoundrels."
More than 40 containers, each filled with 21 metric tons of Brazilian coffee, were cleared by customs officials at an inland facility in late 2002 and early 2003 and taken by trucks to Santos for shipment to New Orleans, Rotterdam and other ports. When they were opened, there was only dirt, cement or sand inside matching the weight of the purported coffee.
Police suspect truckers were involved in a scheme to steal the cargo and identified ringleaders, but failed to get convictions.
Inspectors since have stepped up spot checks of cargo leaving Santos, but are opening only about 3 percent of the containers, said Jose Carlos Ramalho, chief of the countercontraband unit of the Santos customs office.
Security specialists say it is impossible for authorities in any country to check all of the millions of containers that travel around the globe - even with expensive scanners that can see inside containers and radiation detectors to guard against concealment of a radioactive "dirty bomb."
Elsewhere around the world, security upgrades are hit and miss:
•In Port Haina, the Dominican Republic's largest port, cranes and construction workers are building security buildings while technicians measure for the installation of container-sized X-ray machines.
Software specialists troubleshoot a computer program that tracks goods coming in and out while security guards remind workers to show their electronic badges.
•Nigeria's main port in Lagos, the largest in West Africa, recently acquired mobile container scanners. A high wall surrounds the port, but a reporter wasn't asked for identification before entering.
Shipments of narcotics and guns in and out of the port are common, arranged by criminals who bribe port officials, said Emeka Okoroanyanwu, editor of the Lagos-based Maritime Quarterly trade publication.
•In the Indonesian port of Batam, a 45-minute ferry ride from Singapore, almost anyone can walk in with a wave to unarmed guards. Motorcycle taxis roar throughout the port, and street vendors sell food from tiny stalls next to ships unloading cargo. The closest security guards are 400 yards away at the port's main entrance.
Batam did put in a higher fence to meet the security code, and guards are receiving extra training, but port director Sudirman Purwo said it is unlikely the port will meet the July 1 deadline.
------
Rebuilding air defenses
washtimes
By Darl Stephenson
June 21, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040620-095246-4578r.htm
In the movie "Independence Day," the aliens finally were defeated by a worldwide, coordinated air attack directed from an air-defense command center at "Area 51." The events of September 11 provided a sobering look at the reality of the air-defense situation in the United States and the woeful extent to which an already weak system had been cut back in the wake of the Cold War.
I am a former senior director at the Northeast Air Defense Sector, which controlled the fighter aircraft on September 11. From the final hearings of the September 11 commission, I take real pride in the actions of the air-defense crew on duty that day. The mission commander, in particular, should have received praise for the actions he took, such as his decision to put fighters over New York City and to order jets to fly at supersonic speed and "not worry about how many windows we break," violating long-standing peacetime rules about going supersonic over populated areas.
The public needs to understand that the U.S. air-defense system at that time was a shell of the massive continental system that existed in the late 1960s to combat the Soviet bomber air threat. Any bomber attack on the United States would have been beaten back with catastrophic losses because of the robust air-defense system in place at that time. It consisted of fighters such as the F-102 (flown by President George W. Bush), the F-101 and F-106, and Army air-defense missiles such as the Nike Hercules - all commanded by a massive computerized air-defense system called the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, or SAGE. SAGE was truly the first Internet - able to pass commands to air bases and army missile sites and to fly the fighter aircraft from the ground via data-link.
In the late 1960s, the Johnson-McNamara defense establishment decided that the intercontinental missile threat was paramount and that air defense against bombers was largely irrelevant. While true to an extent, the Johnson administration also was looking for money to fight the war in Vietnam, and the huge and costly continental air-defense system was a tempting target. In 1968, the year I joined the Air Force and was assigned to a SAGE direction center in Oregon, the cutbacks began. My direction center and many others across the country were closed. The entire Backup Intercept Center system was shut down. All Army air-defense missile batteries surrounding American cities were closed. The only Army batteries remaining were in Alaska. Even at its height, the Navy was never a player in continental air defense except on paper.
The old SAGE system, based on vacuum-tube technology, soldiered on until the early 1980s. In the 1970s, a replacement system was designed that provided few of the war-fighting capabilities of the SAGE system. It was aptly called the Joint Surveillance System, indicating that the role of air defense would be largely to monitor air sovereignty and not be a primary air-combat system. Air-defense fighters were kept on alert, but most other capabilities of the system, such as radars that could combat severe jamming, were not made available. Data-link control reverted back to voice control of the interceptors.
When the Reagan administration came into office, an attempt was made to put some war-fighting capability back into the system. Plans called for linking tactical air-control radars to the continental air-defense system. New interceptors, such as the F-15 and F-16, were added to the system. Canada adopted the F-18 as an air-defense interceptor. For the most part, however, budget priorities elsewhere hindered bringing the air-defense system back up to where it had once been. And then came the end of the Cold War, and the public clamored for a "peace dividend." Air defenses were once more cut back.
On September 11, this country received its "peace dividend" when it was attacked catastrophically for the second time from the air. The first was, of course, Pearl Harbor.
Since September 11, many changes have been made. Most importantly, we have learned that the threat may come from inside the country. The public has seen the deployment of Army air-defense batteries around certain targets, such as Washington, and these batteries are closely integrated with NORAD. I hope the Navy finally will have been brought into the air-defense picture with its very capable aircraft and missiles. New technologies have been put into place, and the Federal Aviation Administration will now view itself as an integral part of a possible air battle and not just as an air-traffic-control system. The commissionhearings proved all too well that the FAA did not provide adequateinformationto NORAD on September 11 about the situation at hand.
Never again can this nation take continental air defense for granted. No matter how rarely it might have to be exercised, air-defense personnel must stand duty around the clock and be given the proper tools to counter any threat. Emerging threats will be cruise missiles that even small powers might be able to obtain and launch from surface ships. This country cannot afford a third disaster from the air.
Darl Stephenson is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve. Before his 1995 retirement, he was stationed at the Northeast Air Defense Sector, which controlled the fighters on September 11.
-------- internet
Syrian jailed for internet usage
BBC
21 June, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3824595.stm
Syria has jailed a man who downloaded material from a banned emigre website and e-mailed it to others.
Abdel Rahman al-Shaghouri, 32, received a two-and-a-half year sentence for "publishing false news that saps the morale of the nation".
He had been arrested in February 2003, and his computer equipment seized.
Four other Syrians are facing similar charges in cases which their lawyer, Anwar al-Bunni, said were "aimed at keeping Syria backwards".
The verdict was a "political decision that quells the right of expression in Syria".
The human rights group Amnesty International has urged Syria to release all five detainees.
Brothers Muhammed and Haytham Qutaysh and Yahia al-Aws are accused of sending false information abroad to an electronic newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates.
They have been held for 18 months and their trial is due at the end of July.
Masoud Hamid has been in detention since July 2003, after he posted photographs of a Kurdish demonstration in Damascus on the Internet.
Release call
Since coming to power four years ago, President Bashar Assad has allowed mobile phones and the internet to gain a foothold in the country.
He had once headed the Syrian Computer Association and is known for his enthusiasm for new technology.
But the state-run media is still closely controlled, and any websites deemed offensive or anti-Syrian are banned by the government.
The Human Rights Association of Syria described the latest ruling as "a dangerous precedent against Internet users and another step back".
The group called for Mr Shaghouri's immediate release, saying that while awaiting trial he had not had access to his family or lawyers.
-------- justice
Judicial Nominee Practiced Law Without License in Utah
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56413-2004Jun20.html
Thomas B. Griffith, President Bush's nominee for the federal appeals court in Washington, has been practicing law in Utah without a state law license for the past four years, according to Utah state officials.
Griffith, the general counsel for Brigham Young University since August 2000, had previously failed to renew his law license in Washington for three years while he was a lawyer based in the District. It was a mistake he attributed to an oversight by his law firm's staff. But that lapse in his D.C. license, reported earlier this month by The Washington Post, subsequently prevented Griffith from receiving a law license in Utah when he moved there.
Under Utah law, Griffith's only option for obtaining the state license was to take and pass the state bar exam, an arduous test that lawyers try to take only once. He applied to sit for the exam, but never took it, Utah bar officials confirm.
Utah State Bar rules require all lawyers practicing law in the state to have a Utah law license. There is no general exception for general counsels or corporate counsels. Lawyers who practice only federal law or whose work is solely administrative can avoid the requirement in some cases.
Griffith has declined to discuss the matter, which is expected to be a subject of his nomination hearings tentatively scheduled for next week. But a Justice Department spokesman said Friday that Griffith sought advice from Utah State Bar officials when he inquired last year about obtaining a license, and followed their suggestions for avoiding any ethical missteps.
"The Utah State Bar advised him that to the extent that his duties as general counsel involved giving legal advice, he ought to closely associate himself with a Utah bar member," Justice spokesman John Nowacki said. "It has been Mr. Griffith's practice to closely associate himself with a Utah bar member when giving legal advice."
Nowacki declined to comment on whether the state bar advised Griffith to take the bar exam. According to sources familiar with a letter the state bar wrote to Griffith last year, bar officials recommended that Griffith take the exam, and work closely with a Utah bar member while his license application was pending.
Griffith discovered in November 2001, a year after he joined Brigham Young, that his District law license had lapsed several years earlier, in 1998, for failure to pay his dues. He immediately paid his dues and renewed his D.C. license, Nowacki said. But for the first year in Utah, he was advising Brigham Young, a Mormon university in Provo, without a current law license from any state.
A lawyer who specializes in legal ethics said Griffith's two licensing lapses should disqualify him from a lifetime appointment to one of the nation's most important federal benches, second only to the Supreme Court.
"This moves it for me from the realm of negligence to the realm of willfulness," said Mark Foster, a Zuckerman Spaeder attorney who represents lawyers in ethics matters. "People who thumb their noses at the rules of the bar shouldn't be judges."
One veteran law professor said the two incidents raised significant questions, but that "in and of itself, it is not disabling."
"It begins to look like a pattern of carelessness," said Paul Rothstein, a law professor at Georgetown University Law School. "It should cause your red flags to go up to see if there are other signs of carelessness."
Several lawyers from respected D.C. law firms, and former U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit chief judge Abner Mikva, have written public letters in defense of Griffith's D.C. licensing lapse, calling it a minor mistake. "In our opinion, this matter does not raise a question concerning Tom's fitness to serve on the bench," wrote a group of Williams & Connolly lawyers.
Griffith, 55, is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association and was the lead counsel for the Senate during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Married and the father of six, he is a former partner at the D.C. firm of Wiley Rein & Fielding, whose partners served in prominent positions in past Republican administrations.
Most lawyers arriving in Utah are allowed to get reciprocal state licenses, but Griffith did not meet the Utah State Bar requirement that he be a lawyer in good standing in his previous state for three of the previous four years.
Joni Seko, deputy general counsel for the Utah State Bar, said most general counsels overseeing legal work for a university, organization or corporation are required to have licenses because they offer legal advice on a range of subjects, including state law.
"It would surprise me that a general counsel would not get involved in those [state] decisions," she said. "Even in a management capacity, that person would likely have to sign off on major contracts. To do that, you engage in the practice of state law."
Katherine Fox, the bar's general counsel, declined to comment on Griffith's specific situation. She said typically she would ask a general counsel moving into the state about the nature of his work and, if it were broad in nature, she would advise that he obtain a state license. "It is just too easy to cross the line" from managing to providing legal services, she said.
"Unless they were doing things in which they were never practicing law, they need to get licensed," she said.
According to Brigham Young's Web site, Griffith "is responsible for advising the Administration on all legal matters pertaining to the University. . . . The General Counsel directs and manages all litigation involving the University."
On his nomination questionnaire, in an answer about the "general nature of [his] law practice," Griffith lists that he has worked on "higher education law" from 2000 to the present.
A review of state bar membership shows many general counsels for other universities in Utah have their state's bar license. That includes John K. Morris of the University of Utah, Craig J. Simper of Utah State University, and Kelly De Hill of Westminster College. Griffith's predecessor at Brigham Young, Eugene H. Bramhall, has been a member of the Utah bar since 1981.
-------- police
Protecting His Honor is expensive
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Jim McElhatton
June 21, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20040621-121631-5026r.htm
D.C. police officers who protect Mayor Anthony A. Williams have charged more than $320,000 in expenses on government-issued credit cards for out-of-town trips, including bills at a luxury beachfront hotel in Hawaii, a Las Vegas nightclub and the Tavern on the Green restaurant in New York, city records show.
The Executive Protection Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department has dispatched police officers, sergeants, detectives and lieutenants on more than 130 out-of-town trips with Mr. Williams since 1999, charging at least $322,480 for meals, car rentals, hotels and other expenses, according to financial records obtained by The Washington Times through the Freedom of Information Act.
The charges do not include the salaries or overtime expenses of the officers, who earn between $53,000 to $80,495 per year, records show.
A spokesman for Mr. Williams said the mayor's business travels have helped boost the city's reputation, sparking $27 billion in real-estate investment since Mr. Williams became mayor.
"The reason they're coming here is that they have confidence in the mayor, and they have been inspired and encouraged by him to invest in the city," said Tony Bullock, a spokesman for Mr. Williams.
"He's selling D.C. to potential investors. He's bringing jobs and economic opportunity to D.C. residents. It's not happening by accident, it's happening because he's making it happen," Mr. Bullock said.
He said Mr. Williams isn't the only mayor who uses city police to provide security on trips. He said the practice exists in other major cities.
However, the mayor's travel schedule has come under sharp criticism lately after a D.C. Council member said Mr. Williams' recent trip to Italy for a conference of world municipal leaders hurt the city's chances of hiring a new schools superintendent.
"I do not believe the answer is handing the school system over to the mayor, who, let's be honest, is rarely in town," council member Carol Schwartz, at-large Republican, said during a council meeting last month.
According to other financial records obtained by The Times, Mr. Williams has charged about $14,000 per year on his city-issued credit card, including travel expenses, during 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Quarterly reports issued by the D.C. Office of Partnerships and Grants, which monitors donations to city government, show that outside organizations such as the National League of Cities also contribute to Mr. Williams' travel costs.
However, city government routinely pays the travel costs of police officers who protect the mayor when he takes trips outside the city.
For example, the Washington Convention and Tourism Corp. donated $5,500 for Mr. Williams and his staff to attend the American Society of Association Executives in Hawaii last August, according to the Office of Partnerships and Grants. But city taxpayers paid more than $7,900 so that a city police officer and detective could accompany Mr. Williams on the trip, police records show.
Police officials referred questions about the costs associated with the mayor's security detail during out-of-town trips to Mr. Bullock, who said, "Security isn't the kind of thing we discuss publicly, for obvious reasons."
City records show that the mayor's security details usually consist of two officers per trip, though seven accompanied him in 2000 to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, which included a stop in Idaho. Police estimated that security-detail travel expenses for that trip topped $15,000.
Police department policy says officers only protect the mayor while he is in the United States, and the officers generally do not accompany him outside the country, according to police memos.
In one instance, Mr. William had a three-hour layover in Los Angeles on his way to Australia in September 2000. Police records do not indicate that an officer was sent to Australia, but an officer did go to Los Angeles after Mr. Williams made plans to meet with family during a three-hour layover in the city, according to a police memo.
Mr. Bullock defended the security costs.
"I don't think anyone would begrudge the costs of keeping the mayor safe," he said. "You don't send a sitting mayor into a strange city without security. It's not safe."
Mr. Bullock said security "isn't something we joke about." He said that city police decide on how many officers should accompany the mayor on trips out of the city.
"We leave it up to the police to determine what they think is required," Mr. Bullock said. "The mayor is not demanding a particular level of support."
"Bear in mind that the former mayor was shot, so it's not something we joke about," Mr. Bullock said. Former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was shot in the chest in 1977 while serving as a council member during a raid of City Hall by Hanafi Muslim terrorists.
The travel records obtained by The Times show that the mayor travels more frequently now, compared with when he first took office.
In 1999, city police officers accompanied the mayor on 22 trips and charged $30,629 in travel expenses. Last year, the police took 37 trips with the mayor and charged $95,439.
Police have charged for bills at the Spycher Fondue House in Switzerland, the Tavern on the Green in New York City and the "Rum Jungle" in Las Vegas, according to the records.
Police who protect the mayor also have stayed in some expensive hotel rooms, from Hawaii and Alaska to the District. The expenses include the $229-per-night Mansfield Hotel in New York, the $219-per-night Eldorado in New Mexico and the $171.75-per-night Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in the District, where Mr. Williams and his wife stayed for one night during Hurricane Isabel last fall.
Mr. Williams is set to become the president of the National League of Cities next year, a position that will require him to travel, Mr. Bullock said.
"It does involve a lot of moving around," Mr. Bullock said. "There are a lot of meetings all over the country, but the mayor uses those meetings as an opportunity to promote Washington as a tourist destination and also to bring our voting-rights issue to a national audience."
-------- prisons / prisoners
U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees
June 21, 2004
By TIM GOLDEN and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21GITM.html?pagewanted=all&position=
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, June 19 - For nearly two and a half years, American officials have maintained that locked within the steel-mesh cells of the military prison here are some of the world's most dangerous terrorists -- ''the worst of a very bad lot,'' Vice President Dick Cheney has called them.
The officials say information gleaned from the detainees has exposed terrorist cells, thwarted planned attacks and revealed vital intelligence about Al Qaeda. The secrets they hold and the threats they pose justify holding them indefinitely without charge, Bush administration officials have said.
But as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legal status of the 595 men imprisoned here, an examination by The New York Times has found that government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they have provided.
In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful -- some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen -- were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.
While some Guantánamo intelligence has aided terrorism investigations, none of of it has enabled intelligence or law-enforcement services to foil imminent attacks, the officials said. Compared with the higher-profile Qaeda operatives held elsewhere by the C.I.A., the Guantánamo detainees have provided only a trickle of intelligence with current value, the officials said. Because nearly all of that intelligence is classified, most of the officials would discuss it only on the condition of anonymity.
''When you have the overall mosaic of all the intelligence picked up all over the world, Guantánamo provided a very small piece of that mosaic,'' said a senior American official who has reviewed the intelligence in detail. ''It's been helpful and valuable in certain areas. Was it the mother lode of intelligence? No.''
In September 2002, eight months after the detainees began to arrive in Cuba, a top-secret study by the Central Intelligence Agency raised questions about their significance, suggesting that many of the accused terrorists appeared to be low-level recruits who went to Afghanistan to support the Taliban or even innocent men swept up in the chaos of the war, current and former officials who read the assessment said.
Nearly two years later, military officials said, the evidence against many of the detainees is still so sparse that investigators have been able to deliver cases for military prosecution against only 15 of the suspects, 6 of whom have already been designated as eligible for trial by President Bush. Investigators are now preparing 35 to 40 other cases for the military tribunals, those officials said.
In interviews, officials at Guantánamo and in the Pentagon defended the intelligence-gathering effort and said it continued to produce useful information. ''Every single day we get some piece of information that's relevant to now,'' said Steve Rodriguez, who oversees the interrogation teams at the base.
Officials said the intelligence had allowed them to piece together a more detailed picture of Al Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001, including how young jihadis were recruited and screened, how the organization moved funds and how it related to other militant groups. They said some were important Qaeda operatives, including financiers, a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and -- a recent discovery -- a militant who they say helped recruit 9/11 hijackers.
Yet even as he argued the importance of that information, the commander of the task force that runs the Guantánamo prison, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, acknowledged disappointment among some senior officials in Washington.
''The expectations, I think, may have been too high at the outset,'' he said. ''There are those who expected a flow of intelligence that would help us break the most sophisticated terror organization in a matter of months. But that hasn't happened.''
In recent weeks, the Pentagon has initiated a broad study of prison operations, including an examination of the criteria used to determine which detainees are held there, officials at Guantánamo said. ''Everything is on the table,'' said Col. Tim Lynch, the chief of staff at Guantánamo.
The Pentagon's determination to hold the detainees as ''enemy combatants'' -- beyond the reach of United States law and unbound by the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war -- has also come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the scandal over abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Defense Department officials have acknowledged that American jailers in Iraq, under pressure to produce better intelligence, adapted some new, more aggressive interrogation techniques that were approved by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld for use at Guantánamo.
While refusing to discuss specifics, Pentagon officials called the interrogation methods used at Guantánamo humane and said they had applied more severe methods only sparingly. In at least one of those cases, they said, the techniques prompted an important Qaeda member to give up vital information.
But new details of that case, which involved a 26-year-old Saudi man who apparently tried unsuccessfully to enter the United States as the 20th hijacker in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, call some of those assertions into question.
Several officials familiar with the case said that for months, no one at Guantánamo even knew who the detainee, Mohamed al-Kahtani, was and that he was identified only after the Federal Bureau of Investigation stepped in. The officials also said that the harsher interrogation methods used against him were largely unsuccessful, that he had little sense of other Qaeda plots, and that he had been most forthcoming under more subtle persuasion.
Even now, officials acknowledge that they have been unable to get any information from at least 60 detainees -- including in some cases their identities. Those uncertainties, the officials said, leave open the possibility that more serious terrorists may be among Guantánamo's detainees.
''We weren't sure in the beginning what we had; we're not sure today what we have,'' said Gen. James T. Hill, the head of the Army's Southern Command. ''There are still people who do not talk to us. We could have the keys to the kingdom and not know it.''
The problems of collecting information about the detainees have also hampered their screening for possible release. As a result, some of the men are being held apparently as much for what officials do not know about them as for what they do.
Officials said they had cautiously vetted the 146 detainees who have been freed, including the 16 who had been transferred to the custody of their home governments. Even so, at least a handful of serious mistakes have already been made.
New accounts from officials in Afghanistan and the United States indicate that at least 5 of the 57 Afghan detainees released have returned to the battlefield as Taliban commanders or fighters. Some of the five have been involved in new attacks on Americans, officials in southern Afghanistan said, including a notorious Taliban commander, Mullah Shahzada, who was reportedly killed in a recent accident.
American and foreign officials have also grown increasingly concerned about the prospect that detainees who arrived at Guantánamo representing little threat to the United States may have since been radicalized by the conditions of their imprisonment and others held with them.
''Guantánamo is a huge problem for Americans,'' a senior Arab intelligence official familiar with its operations said. ''Even those who were not hard-core extremists have now been indoctrinated by the true believers. Like any other prison, they have been taught to hate. If they let these people go, these people will make trouble.''
First Wave: Initial Screenings Were Flawed
As the Taliban government crumbled, American officials braced themselves for what they expected would be waves of hardened terrorists captured in the Afghanistan war. Military officials said they had culled the most dangerous of the roughly 10,000 prisoners caught there and shipped them to Guantánamo Bay.
''These are people who would gnaw through hydraulic lines at the back of a C-17 to bring it down,'' Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as the first 20 shackled prisoners arrived in Cuba on Jan. 11, 2002.
The first makeshift prison at Guantánamo, called Camp X-Ray, was built and run accordingly. Inmates were dressed in Day-Glo orange jump suits and shackled whenever they were moved, their eyes covered by blacked-out goggles or hoods. Fearing that the terrorists among them might somehow seek revenge, officials instructed military police guards to cover their name badges and avoid any mention of their families, hometowns or outside jobs.
''We really didn't have a good feel for who we were dealing with,'' Gen. Rick Baccus, who took over command of the military police units two months after the camp opened, said in an interview. ''We had to err on the side of security.''
But almost immediately, questions began to emerge -- in Afghanistan, at Guantánamo and eventually in Washington -- about the pedigrees of some of the men and why they had been selected to go to Cuba.
At a sprawling detention camp at the airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan, military intelligence officers, F.B.I. agents and others scrambled vainly to keep up with the torrent of prisoners, officers who served there said, making it nearly impossible to weed out the most dangerous.
''It was like trying to catch guys as they ran by,'' a former Kandahar interrogator recalled. ''Some you were going to miss.''
C.I.A. operatives took their pick of prisoners turned over by commanders of the Afghan Northern Alliance. They also took custody of some military prisoners in whom they had interest, military officers said.
''Anybody who we thought was going to have significant value we had priority in debriefing,'' said a former senior C.I.A. official. ''We focused on the individuals we got in Afghanistan and elsewhere who we thought were linchpins in the process. D.O.D. got stuck processing the rest.''
Officials of the Department of Defense now acknowledge that the military's initial screening of the prisoners for possible shipment to Guantánamo was flawed. It was not until hundreds of detainees had arrived here that the classified criteria even referred directly to the threat that they might represent, military officials said.
But some clues were obvious. Some of the detainees were elderly or infirm. One of those was Faiz Muhammad, a genial old man with a long wispy beard whom interrogators nicknamed ''Al Qaeda Claus.'' Another, who was able to make the trip only after extensive medical care from Army doctors in Afghanistan, quickly became known as ''Half-Dead Bob.''
''You had a group of people who didn't come with ID cards, who weren't wearing uniforms, who were of all kinds of different nationalities, gathered up off various parts of the battlefield in a very chaotic environment,'' General Hill, the Southern Command chief, recalled. ''We were all in very uncharted waters.''
A former secretary of the Army, Thomas E. White, who supervised a team of senior Pentagon officers at Guantánamo, said he was told by a senior military official at the base on an early visit that only a third to a half of the detainees appeared to be of some value and that sorting through them would be a considerable problem.
In late summer 2002, a senior C.I.A. analyst with extensive experience in the Middle East spent about a week at the prison camp observing and interviewing dozens of detainees, said officials who read his detailed memorandum.
While the survey was anecdotal, those officials said the document, which contained about 15 pages, concluded that a substantial number of the detainees appeared to be low-level militants, aspiring holy warriors who had rushed to Afghanistan to defend the Taliban, or simply innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Senior military officials now readily acknowledge that many members of the intelligence team initially sent to Guantánamo were poorly prepared to sort through the captives. During the first half of 2002, they said, almost none of the Army interrogators had any substantial background in terrorism, Al Qaeda or other relevant subjects.
One Army intelligence reservist had previously been managing a Dunkin' Donuts. Many younger Army interrogators had never questioned a real prisoner before. As in Afghanistan, interrogators at Guantánamo asked the same basic questions again and again, many former detainees recalled.
''They asked me, 'Do you know the Taliban? Do you know Mullah Muhammad Omar? Do you know bin Laden?' '' said Jan Muhammad, 37, a farmer from Helmand Province who said he had been forcibly conscripted into the Taliban. ''I said, 'I have never seen bin Laden; I have not even seen bin Laden's car driving past.' ''
Interpreters were in such short supply that the Army turned to private contractors, most of whom knew nothing about intelligence. The Southern Command, responsible for military operations in Latin America, had no particular experience with Al Qaeda or Afghanistan, either. Nonetheless, its intelligence analysts often rewrote reports on the detainees as they saw fit, former interrogators complained.
One of the few American intelligence sectors to show any early interest in the detainees was an obscure defense intelligence unit that traced weapons around the world, one interrogator said. As a result, interrogators were required to question detainees about the serial numbers on rifles they had used and the markings on their bullets. ''Of course, they had no idea,'' the interrogator said.
Military intelligence units at Guantánamo managed to solve some of the shortcomings, gathering available experts -- a Lebanese-born F.B.I. counterterrorism specialist and an Afghan interpreter, for example -- and having them conduct a daylong seminar on Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other relevant subjects.
But senior defense officials grew frustrated with the shortage of compelling information. ''At the beginning, the process was broken everywhere,'' said Lt. Col. Anthony Christino III, a recently retired Army intelligence officer who specialized in counterterrorism and was familiar the Guantánamo intelligence. ''The quality of the screening, the quality of the interrogations and the quality of the analysis were all very poor. Efforts were made to improve things, but after decades of neglect of human intelligence skills, it can't be fixed in a few years.''
Defense officials ultimately ordered a broad review of the intelligence-gathering effort. That assessment, in September 2002, led to a series of changes including a major overhaul of intelligence databases and the addition of 30 days of basic training for interrogators and analysts at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., a course quickly nicknamed ''Terrorism 101.''
Around the same time, faced with continuing resistance from many detainees, some military intelligence officers urged that they be allowed to take advantage of the suspension of Geneva Conventions to try more coercive methods -- a step that led to bitter conflicts between military intelligence members and military criminal investigators assigned to prepare cases for the tribunals.
''As time went on, people wanted to do more,'' a senior officer who served there said. ''The detainees were resistant. They knew we weren't going to torture them. So we needed to come up with a Plan B for the small group of people who wouldn't talk and who we thought did have intelligence.''
The 20th Hijacker: It Took Months To Identify Kahtani
For interrogators at Guantánamo looking to score a high-profile intelligence victory, Mr. Kahtani, the Saudi who was the so-called 20th hijacker, appeared to be their man. In the end, though, his case instead came to illustrate some of the problems they faced in determining who they were holding and what they knew.
According to several officials familiar with the case, military intelligence officers had no idea who the young detainee was when he arrived in Cuba from Afghanistan, where he had been captured on the battlefield in December 2001. For some weeks, the officials said, Mr. Kahtani -- like most of the detainees -- refused to cooperate with interrogators, withholding his name and denying their suspicions that he was Saudi.
Then, in July 2002, a routine check by F.B.I. agents matched his fingerprints to a thumbprint from a man who had been turned back by an immigration official after flying into Orlando International Airport in Florida from London on Aug. 3, 2001, without a return ticket or hotel reservation.
Members of the F.B.I. unit investigating the Sept. 11 attacks were immediately intrigued, officials said. On that same day in August 2001, they noted, toll records showed calls from a pay phone at the Orlando airport to Mustafa al-Hawsawi, a Qaeda member in the United Arab Emirates who served as a logistical coordinator for the attacks, the officials said.
Checking surveillance camera recordings for that day, the agents found that a rental car used by the hijackers' leader, Mohamed Atta, entered an airport parking lot shortly before Mr. Kahtani's Virgin Atlantic flight arrived from London, officials said.
In July 2002, about a week after Mr. Kahtani's identity was discovered, military officials invited the F.B.I. to question him, officials said.
The bureau sent a longtime counterterrorism specialist who is fluent in Arabic and worked extensively on investigations of Al Qaeda. Michael Kortan, an F.B.I. spokesman, declined to comment on the Kahtani case, other than to request that the agent's identity be withheld from publication to ensure his safety.
Over a series of interrogations that extended into the fall of 2002, the agent slowly built a rapport with Mr. Kahtani, approaching him with respect and restraint, officials said. ''He prays with them, he has tea with them, and it works,'' a senior official said, speaking generally of the agent's approach to terrorist suspects.
Mr. Kahtani began to open up, officials said. He disclosed that he attended an important Qaeda planning meeting with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia, in January 2000. Mr. Kahtani also said he had a relative he thought might be living near Chicago.
The relative, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, is believed by officials to have been planted in the United States as a Qaeda ''sleeper'' agent. He was taken into custody as a material witness shortly after arriving in the country on Sept. 10, 2001, and was later confined to a Naval brig in Charleston, S.C., with two American citizens charged as ''enemy combatants,'' Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi.
One official said that Mr. Kahtani had admitted that he had intended to join the hijackers but that he had given up little or nothing about other Qaeda plans. To some F.B.I. experts, officials said, his ignorance seemed credible: he had been recruited to be what the plotters called a ''muscle'' hijacker, someone to subdue passengers rather than pilot a plane. Officials said such lower-level operatives were generally only minimally informed even as to the details of attacks in which they would take part.
But military intelligence officials were skeptical, believing that new approaches to Mr. Kahtani might well reveal plans for attacks that were to follow the hijackings or that might have involved Mr. Marri. In late November 2002, Pentagon officials informed the F.B.I. that they would take over interrogations of Mr. Kahtani, an official said.
A list of 17 new interrogation techniques -- the first such addition since the Army field manual was issued in 1987 -- was approved by Mr. Rumsfeld in early December. Ten of the techniques were used on Mr. Kahtani before complaints from some military officials prompted Mr. Rumsfeld to retract his approval for the more extreme methods, military officials said.
Military officials refused to say which techniques had been used on Mr. Kahtani, but the list, contained in a memo dated Jan. 8, 2003, included hooding prisoners during questioning, placing them in ''stress positions'' like standing or squatting for up to four hours, aggravating phobias like fear of dogs, and ''mild noninjurious physical contact,'' officials familiar with the memo said. Another detainee was also subjected to methods from the same list, they said.
General Hill, the Southern Command chief, said the tougher techniques used on a detainee he would not identify -- but who was identified by others as Mr. Kahtani -- ''were successful.'' Last month, a senior Bush administration official told The Times that Mr. Kahtani had provided information to interrogators ''about a planned attack and about financial networks to fund terrorist operations.'' But several other officials disputed that characterization, saying he had not given any new information about plots by Al Qaeda.
Carrot and Stick: Hard Treatment And Favored Treatment
As the Pentagon built a more permanent prison at Guantánamo, fashioning cell blocks from double-wide trailers, the intelligence-gathering effort changed under Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who took over in November 2002.
Military police and intelligence units that had often been rivalrous were fused into a single task force. Interrogators, linguists and analysts were divided into ''tiger teams'' to interview detainees. Guards were encouraged to observe the prisoners closely, trying to detect the leaders among them so they could be isolated or marked for interrogation. Pentagon officials say the changes produced more intelligence.
Foreign intelligence and law-enforcement agencies were brought in to interview some detainees who refused to talk to American interrogators. Since early last year, intelligence gathered at Guantánamo has been entered into a new database shared by 42 government agencies worldwide.
Questions about the treatment of prisoners linger. Several detainees who have been released said coercive interrogation methods used at Guantánamo had constituted abuse, charges American officials have denied. Among the allegations are complaints of druggings, invasive body searches, sleep deprivation and other mistreatment.
Parkhudin, a 26-year-old Afghan farmer who was held at Guantánamo from February 2003 to March 2004, said in an interview in Khost that he had been questioned for up to 20 hours at a time under uncomfortable conditions at Guantánamo. He said he had been shackled with a small chain during questioning. ''They made me stand in front of an air-conditioner,'' he said. ''The wind was very cold.''
In a visit to Guantánamo this week, several military officers disputed accounts of harsh treatment and said the most useful interrogation tool was a reward system put into effect in 2003, in which more cooperative detainees were accorded privileges like more comfortable quarters or occasional ocean swims.
The most cooperative detainees are moved to ''Camp 4,'' a medium-security facility where they are permitted to wear white uniforms, rather than the standard prison orange. In Camp 4, cells hold 10 prisoners each, and the detainees can spend up to nine hours a day outside their cells. They can also play soccer, eat meals outside and watch ''family oriented'' films in their native language. Last week, a half dozen Camp 4 detainees went on a field trip -- to the beach.
''We try to keep people hopeful,'' said Col. Nelson J. Cannon, the commander of the joint detention operation at the base. ''Camp 4 is the place they aspire to get to.''
In interviews, Mr. Rodriguez, the head of Guantánamo's intelligence-gathering effort, and two interrogators said valuable information continued to be produced. ''We've had new openings just in recent weeks,'' Mr. Rodriguez said. ''After two years, my team still has fresh fields to plow.''
One morning last week, a reporter was allowed to observe -- but not listen to -- two interrogations at Guantánamo from behind one-way glass. In one room, an elderly detainee with a long white beard played chess with his interrogator. The chess game was a ''reward'' for 90 minutes of ''fruitful'' discussion, an interrogator said. In another room, a detainee in his late 30's wearing an orange jump suit looked despondent as his interrogator spoke calmly to him through an interpreter. In a period lasting nearly 10 minutes, the detainee appeared to say nothing.
Intelligence and law-enforcement officials outside the Defense Department generally agree that the compendium of narrow, personal accounts from detainees has deepened the intelligence sector's historical understanding of Al Qaeda's recruitment and training activities. But there are limits to the historical information.
''It's like going to a prison in upstate to find out what's happening on the streets of New York,'' a counterterrorism official with knowledge of Guantánamo intelligence said. ''The guys in there might know some stuff. But they haven't been part of what's going on for a few years.''
Other investigators describe the value of the detainees more narrowly: for hundreds of intelligence and law enforcement officers now working on terrorism, stints at the camp have offered a rare chance to study committed Islamic militants. ''We haven't had this broad of access to true believers ever,'' a senior counterterrorism official said. ''It has taught people how to go face-to-face with them. If we see can them as they see themselves, it makes us stronger.''
As public criticism of Guantánamo has increased, the Pentagon has intensified its public-relations campaign on the importance of intelligence from the base. General Miller, who left Guantánamo in May to take over prison operations in Iraq, has claimed repeatedly -- although without specifics -- that the quality of the intelligence gathered from detainees had improved the longer they had been imprisoned.
Paul Butler, who was the senior Pentagon official for detainee policy until recently becoming Mr. Rumsfeld's chief of staff, was even more expansive. At a briefing on Feb. 13, Mr. Butler described the Guantánamo detainees as ''very dangerous people'' who included ''senior Al Qaeda operatives and leaders and Taliban leaders.'' In the most detailed public accounting yet of important detainees at Guantanamo, he also briefly profiled 10 unidentified Qaeda members or ''affiliated'' militants. But several senior officials with detailed knowledge of the Guantánamo detainees described Mr. Butler's portrait of the camp as a work of verbal embroidery, saying none of the detainees at the camp could possibly be called a leader or senior operative of Al Qaeda.
Value of Detainees: Some Challenge Claims of Success
Mr. Rumsfeld has repeatedly cited the importance of Guantánamo to the fight against terror, saying the detentions there had helped prevent attacks.
''We are keeping them off the street and out of the airlines and out of nuclear power plants and out of ports across this country and across other countries,'' he said in a speech in February.
In interviews with reporters, officials have repeatedly pointed to two operations against foreign militants whose success they attributed to interrogations at Guantánamo. One, they said, involved a plot in which Saudi militants in Morocco were to attack British and American ships in the Strait of Gibraltar with small, explosives-laden boats. The other involved breaking up a terrorist cell in Milan that same year.
A closer look at both, however, indicates that the role the Guantánamo information played was overstated, as was the nature of the threat the two cases posed.
According to interviews with European, North African and American officials, small teams of law-enforcement and intelligence officials from both Italy and Morocco visited Guantánamo several times in 2002 and 2003 to interview detainees from those countries.
In the Moroccan case, an important tip came from one of nine Moroccans who were initially held there. In March 2002, the detainee told a Moroccan interrogator about a Saudi man who had recruited young men in Morocco on behalf of Al Qaeda in the late 1990's. The detainee knew the man only by the name ''Zuher,'' an Arab counterterrorism official said. He also provided the full names of the man's Moroccan wife and sister-in-law.
Moroccan investigators were able to track down the sister-in-law. She then pointed the investigators to her brother-in-law, who was living in Morocco.
The authorities quickly began surveillance of the man, whom they identified as Zuher al-Tbaiti, 35. With the help of Saudi intelligence officials, the Moroccans learned that Mr. Tbaiti had attended a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990's and had been in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan in December 2001, during the United States bombing campaign to kill Mr. bin Laden.
The Moroccan authorities arrested Mr. Tbaiti along with two Saudi associates in June 2002. A Casablanca prosecutor later disclosed that Mr. Tbaiti and his two associates had intended to load a small boat with explosives to attack an American or British warship in a plot modeled after the attack that killed 17 American sailors aboard the American destroyer Cole in October 2000.
Both American and Moroccan officials have at times suggested that the plot was thwarted in its final stages. In recent interviews, however, counterterrorism officials from both countries acknowledged that the Saudis and their Moroccan associates were in the earliest planning stages when they were arrested.
''I don't believe the attacks were anything more than an idea,'' a senior American official said. ''They were far from pulling it off.''
What Moroccan investigators did not learn from Guantánamo -- or were not particularly interested in -- is also revealing.
By the time Moroccan investigators made a second trip to Guantánamo in September 2002, the number of Moroccan prisoners had grown to 18 from 9. Nearly all of them had trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but investigators said only five had any useful information -- and that was about recruitment and links between other Moroccan extremists and Al Qaeda. One official also said a lead developed during the trip had been given to British officials, which helped bring about the arrests of several men in possession of the toxic agent ricin in a north London apartment in January 2003.
That same month, the Moroccans traveled again to Guantánamo for a new round of interrogations. This time, however, the detainees not only refused to cooperate but also began lying about their activities.
''By then they were discouraged and cynical and realized they were not getting out any time soon,'' an official with knowledge of the interviews said.
As with the Moroccan case, the episode in Milan involved the authorities who were already well into their investigations. American officials have pointed to it as a trophy of the intelligence effort at Guantánamo, but other senior officials say the information developed there had a limited impact on counterterrorism investigations in Italy.
Italian investigators first traveled to the camp in July 2002 to try to learn more about a militant cell in Milan. The cell's suspected leader, Yassine Chekkouri, had been under arrest in Italy for more than six months on charges of possession of explosives and chemical weapons. After they arrived in Guantánamo, the investigators discovered that Mr. Chekkouri's brothers, Redouan and Younes, were being held there. Ultimately, however, the two detainees were not helpful with the case, the officials said.
The Italian investigators did have some other useful conversations at Guantánamo, officials said, speaking to about 10 other detainees -- Tunisians, Moroccans, an Egyptian -- who had passed through Italy at various times and offered some background information about some of the dozen Islamic militants who had been arrested in the Milan investigation over the course of 2001. They also provided some information on the reputed head of Al Qaeda's operations in Italy, Essid Sami Ben Kehmais, a Tunisian convicted last year.
None of the information led to new suspects, however, or prevented any attacks, officials said.
One European official familiar said the Guantánamo interrogations ''confirmed a lot of things'' that had already been under investigation. But an American investigator familiar with the case was even less generous.
''It was part of the overall picture, but there was other evidence, I think, that helped,'' the official said. ''This was also a logistical cell, not an operational cell.''
Releases: Hopes for Spies Vs. Returned Foes
Government officials initially hoped to do more at Guantánamo than extract information from detainees they had captured; they hoped they might be able to turn some of them into intelligence ''assets'' in their fight against terrorism.
According to several officials, the C.I.A. has carried out an active effort to recruit some of the detainees as spies for the agency, offering to help them get out of Guantánamo and resettle in their home countries in return for information about militant activities.
The success of those efforts is unknown; Bill Harlow, the C.I.A. spokesman, declined to comment on the matter. What is more certain, though, is that American officials have freed at least a handful of captives who turned out to be dangerous -- another indication of how difficult it has been for officials to get a firm assessment of just who they have imprisoned at Guantánamo.
''Let me put it this way,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing on March 9. ''I've been told by senior people in this department that of the people that have been released, we know of at least one who has gone back to being a terrorist.''
Pressed for details, Mr. Rumsfeld said, ''I can't give you any more information because I don't -- I've forgotten.''
Military and police officials in southern Afghanistan were more forthcoming.
In interviews, the officials said at least five prisoners released from Guantánamo since early 2003 had rejoined the Taliban and resumed attacks on American and Afghan government forces. Although two American officials said only one of the former detainees had turned out to be an important figure, Afghan officials said all five men were in fact commanders with close contacts to the Taliban leadership.
''They are fighting again and killing people,'' said Khan Muhammad, the senior military commander in southern Afghanistan.
The most notorious of the former Guántanamo detainees, Mullah Shahzada, had been a lieutenant to a senior commander when he was first captured in the war, an American military intelligence official said. After his return to Afghanistan in March 2003, he emerged as a frontline Taliban commander, Afghan officials said, leading a series of attacks in which at least 13 people were killed, including 2 aid workers.
Senior Pentagon officials refused to explain how Mr. Shahzada had talked his way out of Guantánamo. But two other military officials with knowledge of the case said he had given a false name and portrayed himself as having been captured by mistake.
''He stuck to his story and was fairly calm about the whole thing,'' a military intelligence official said. ''He maintained over a period time that he was nothing but an innocent rug merchant who just got snatched up.''
Other detainees who are known to have been released and then taken up arms are Mullah Shakur and two men known only as Sabitullah and Rahmatullah. A senior security official, Abdullah Laghmani, described all five men as commanders with close ties to the outlawed Taliban leadership.
Afghan officials blamed the United States for the return of the five men to the Taliban's ranks, saying neither American military officials nor the Kabul police, who briefly process the detainees when they are sent home, consult them about the detainees they free.
''There are lots of people who were innocent, and they are capturing them, just on anyone's information,'' said Dr. Laghmani, the chief of the National Security Directorate in Kandahar. ''And then they are releasing guilty people.''
Tim Golden reported from New York and Washington for this article, and Don Van Natta Jr. from Guantánamo Bay. Reporting was contributed by Carlotta Gall, David Rohde, Lizette Alvarez, Clifford Krauss, Raymond Bonner and Jason Horowitz.
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Guantánamo Memories, From Outside the Wire
June 21, 2004
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/international/asia/21PER-ALL.html
Abdur Rahim, 26
A baker from Khost City, Afghanistan. He was arrested outside Khost and held at a Guantánamo Bay detention camp from December 2002 until March 15, 2004.
"There were some soldiers that were very good with us," Mr. Rahim said. "But there was one soldier, he was a very bad guy. He was stopping the water for our commode. At nighttime, they would throw large rocks back and forth, which hit the metal walkway between the cells and made a loud noise. They did it to keep us awake.
"After I left Cuba, I had mental problems. I cannot talk to people for a long period of time. I work just to survive. But I'm not scared of anyone in this world. I'm just scared of God."
Muhammad Ansar, 23
From Punjab Province, Pakistan. Captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, released from Guantánamo in March 2003.
"We were locked in cages. Each person was chained and sometimes made to work on our knees. At the camp, we were not allowed to say prayers. We couldn't cover our heads. Prayers were allowed after we all went on a [hunger] strike.
"They used to say to me that I lied and that my statements didn't match. I was threatened that I would be kept there forever or that I would be hanged.
"They let me go because I was innocent but what about all those days that I was kept in prison? Shouldn't I be compensated? Where is the law that the Americans talk about?"
Abdurahman Khadr, 21
Born in Bahrain, he grew up in Toronto and Afghanistan, where his Egyptian-born father, Ahmed Said Khadr, became a close associate of Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Khadr said he was captured on Nov. 12, 2001, in Kabul and recruited by C.I.A. officers in prison. A C.I.A. spokesman would not comment on the story, but another American official confirmed its broad outlines.
He agreed to infiltrate the detainees at Guantánamo for $3,000 a month and a $5,000 bonus. On his arrival in March 2003, he said, he was placed in isolation. Later, he pleaded to be interrogated so he could be released. "I started crying, banging my head against the wall," he said. Eventually, he was moved out of the prison.
Zakhim Shah, 20
A farmer, married with two children, from Khost Province, Afghanistan. Captured in Afghanistan on Dec. 1, 2002, and released on March 15, 2004.
At the American base in Bagram, Afghanistan, where he was held for several weeks, including 10 days in an isolation cell, he said, "The Americans tied our hands very tight, spit in our faces and threw stones at us."
"In Cuba, they gave us just short underwear. We told them we can't pray in this. In Cuba, they just have 10 Arabs they arrested in the fight. All the others are innocent and were sold [by Afghan bounty hunters].
"In Cuba, when they were releasing me, they said not to tell people. We don't want to say anything bad about the Americans. They took all the [fingerprints]."
-------- POLITICS
-------- investigations
Torture Trail
Bush's lawyers conclude the torture of prisoners is justified in war on terrorism
villagevoice
June 21st, 2004
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0425/hentoff.php
The legal opinions that the Pentagon and the Justice Department seek to keep secret . . . lay out a shocking and immoral set of justifications for torture. . . . The president of the United States was declared empowered to disregard U.S. and international law and order the torture of foreign prisoners.-"Legalizing Torture," Washington Post editorial, June 9
This administration rejects torture.-Attorney General John Ashcroft, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, June 8
It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid legal accountability. The effect is to throw out years of military doctrine and standards on interrogations.-Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch
The investigation by the Pentagon of the abuses veering on torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has so far collared only seven very low-level officers. And George W. Bush has told the nation that only these "bad apples" caused the worldwide revulsion fueled by the photographs of snarling dogs and naked prisoners. There are also the disingenuous assertions by Donald Rumsfeld that this nation treats "detainees" in the spirit of the Geneva Conventions.
However, as Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said after John Ashcroft refused to give the Judiciary Committee-of which Leahy is the ranking minority member-a copy of the report that served as a blueprint for the administration protocols approving torture:
"If some in the administration believe that prosecuting privates and sergeants [on conditions at Abu Ghraib] will make this scandal go away, they are mistaken. The tone was set at the top, and we need to track the development of this administration's policy on the use of torture."
This story-which may, if followed up by the media, be the most damaging illumination yet of lawless acts by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism-was broken on the front page of the June 7 Wall Street Journal, where the news staff is insistently independent of that paper's editorials, which dismissed the story on June 11. Also valuable in the development of this smoldering story is Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, an organization which, since 9-11, has been a persistent litigator on behalf of the Constitution against the government.
Jess Bravin's Wall Street Journal report, which alerted much of the media, began:
"Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department." (Emphasis added.)
Bravin continued: "The advice was part of a classified report on interrogation methods prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after commanders at Guantánamo Bay complained in late 2002 that with conventional methods they weren't getting enough information from prisoners."
I have a full copy of this report (it is available online at ccr-ny.org), which John Ashcroft, on June 8, refused to turn over to the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's titled "Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy, and Operational Considerations. 6 March 2003."
At the bottom: "Classified by: Secretary Rumsfeld . . . Declassify on: 10 years."
Among other news organizations that also have this report are The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Washington Post. To say the least, the administration's cover-up is not succeeding. The torture advisories contain this smoking gun:
"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority." (Emphasis added. The parentheses are in the original report.)
This 2003 draft report was assembled under the direction of the Defense Department's general counsel, William Haynes II, and The Wall Street Journal noted, the working group composed of top civilian and uniformed lawyers from each military branch, in consultation with the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies. It isn't known if President Bush has ever seen the report.
Bush says he doesn't remember if he did, but his directive is to obey the law.
Will there be congressional subpoenas for the leading members of this working group who deliberately bypassed the 1949 Geneva Conventions as well as the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which this nation signed in 1994, and the Torture Statute passed by Congress that prohibits torture anywhere outside the United States?
The Republican-controlled Congress and fervent administration supporter Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, do not appear eager to exercise their constitutional mandate of accountability.
As for the president, he is the commander in chief and so the ultimate authority for this report. He says he doesn't read newspapers, but is it conceivable that this report-and a 2002 analysis by Ashcroft's Justice Department also selectively justifying torture-were withheld from him?
In a constitutional democracy, shouldn't the people know that torture is being authorized by our government, ultimately in our name? Pat Leahy is on the case, but where are senators Schumer and Clinton?
Elizabeth Rindskopf-Parker, former general counsel to the National Security Agency and the CIA in Republican administrations, now dean of the McGeorge School of Law, tells Financial Times that these memos "appear better designed to defending criminals than to guiding the policies of the world's most powerful nation."
To be continued.
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Iraqi Officer Linked to Al Qaeda
9/11 Commission Gets New Intelligence on Militia Colonel
Reuters
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56380-2004Jun20.html
The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said yesterday.
Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the new intelligence, if proved true, buttresses claims by the Bush administration of ties between Iraq and the militant network believed responsible for the attacks on the United States.
"We are now in the process of getting this latest intelligence," Lehman said.
Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean urged the administration to make any such information available to the panel quickly. "Obviously, if there is any information [that] has to do with the subject of the report, we need it, and we need it pretty fast," Kean said on ABC's "This Week" program. "We'll ask for it and see."
He said the final report would be modified to take any new intelligence into account.
Lehman said the information, contained in "captured documents," was obtained after the commission report was written that stated there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. "Some of these documents indicate that [there was] at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," Lehman said. "That still has to be confirmed, but the vice president was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have," said Lehman, a former Navy secretary.
Vice President Cheney and President Bush repeated their assertions that Iraq had ties to al Qaeda after the commission report issued last week found no evidence that Iraq collaborated with al Qaeda.
Lehman said there was no evidence Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. But he said the recent information about the Fedayeen officer "demonstrates the difficulty that we've had in this commission."
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POLITICAL UPROAR
9/11 Panel Members Debate Qaeda-Iraq 'Tie'
June 21, 2004
By SUSAN JO KELLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21PANE.html
ASHINGTON, June 20 - Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, reiterated Sunday that the inquiry turned up no evidence that Iraq or its former leader, Saddam Hussein, had taken part "in any way in attacks on the United States."
But Mr. Kean said that conclusion, made public last week, did not put the commission at odds with the Bush administration's contention that links existed between the terrorist group Al Qaeda and Iraq.
In an interview on the ABC News program "This Week," Mr. Kean said, "All of us understand that when you begin to use words like `relationship' and `ties' and `connections' and `contacts,' everybody has a little different definition with regard to those statements."
Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview on Friday that "the evidence is overwhelming" of a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Asked if he had information that the commission did not have, he replied, "Probably."
Mr. Kean said Sunday that if such information exists, "we need it - and we need it pretty fast." The panel concluded its public hearings last week and will now turn to writing its final report, due in late July. Mr. Kean added that the administration had been cooperative in providing material that the commission had requested during its 18-month investigation.
Mr. Cheney's statements, and the broader question of whether the commission and the administration were at odds, came up repeatedly as commission members and others made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows.
"I find it, frankly, shocking that the exaggerations of the administration before the war relative to that connection continue to this day," Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview on the CNN program "Late Edition."
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, appearing on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," said he had "no doubt that there was communications, meetings, connections" between terrorist groups including Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, though not necessarily in connection with Sept. 11. Asked if the administration should turn over the additional information that the vice president talked about, he said he saw "no reason why not."
Another Republican member of the commission, John Lehman, said Sunday that new information - not yet confirmed - suggested that a lieutenant colonel in Mr. Hussein's Fedayeen fighter force was a "very prominent member" of Al Qaeda.
"We are now in the process of getting this latest intelligence," he said in an interview on the NBC News program "Meet the Press."
Mr. Lehman also predicted that the commission's final report would include unanimous recommendations for change in the intelligence services, which he said could not distinguish "between a bicycle crash and a train wreck."
"It is dysfunctional," he said. "It needs fundamental change, not just tweaking and moving the deck chairs or the organization boxes around."
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Al Qaeda not very active in Iraq, probe chief says
Amid a debate over U.S. justifications for war in Iraq, the Sept. 11 panel chairman said al Qaeda appeared to be more connected in Iran and Pakistan than in Iraq.
Associated Press
BY PETE YOST
June 21, 2004
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/herald1.htm
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Sept. 11 commission said Sunday that al Qaeda had much more interaction with Iran and Pakistan than it did with Iraq, underscoring a controversy over the Bush administration's insistence there was collaboration between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein.
Thomas Kean made the comment even as he and other commissioners tried to steer clear of the debate over one of the administration's primary justifications for invading Iraq.
''We believe . . . that there were a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq,'' said Kean, a former GOP governor of New Jersey.
''Al Qaeda didn't like to get involved with states, unless they were living there. They got involved with Sudan, they got involved . . . where they lived, but otherwise, no,'' he told ABC's This Week.
Kean said a commission staff document is an interim report and ''we don't see any serious conflicts'' with what the administration is saying.
That report, released last week, said there were contacts between Osama bin Laden's network and the Iraqi government, but they did not appear to have produced a collaborative relationship.
''I find it, frankly, shocking that the exaggerations of the administration before the war relative to that connection continue to this day,'' Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told CNN's Late Edition.
One commissioner, Republican John Lehman, came to the defense of Vice President Dick Cheney, who is the most aggressive promoter of the idea that there were strong Iraqi ties to al Qaeda.
Lehman said new intelligence that ''we are now in the process of getting'' indicates one of Saddam's Fedayeen fighters, a lieutenant colonel, was a prominent al Qaeda member.
Cheney has said he probably has intelligence the commission does not have and ''the vice president was right when he said that,'' Lehman said on NBC's Meet the Press.
Lehman said the press was ''outrageously irresponsible'' to portray the staff report as contradicting what the administration said.
The commission's vice chairman, former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, said the White House and the commission agree on the central point: There is no evidence of a collaborative relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Along with differences over Hussein's government and al Qaeda, a new question arose over whether President Bush or Cheney gave the order on Sept. 11 to shoot down the fourth of the hijacked airliners. Lehman said Bush and Cheney told the commission that the president gave his approval after a discussion with Cheney, who was on the scene in the White House command center. Newsweek magazine reported that commission staff members did not believe Cheney's account that he called Bush to get his approval for the shoot-down order.
-------- us politics
Ambassador With Big Portfolio
John Negroponte Goes to Baghdad With A Record of Competence, and Controversy
Washington Post
By Wil Haygood
June 21, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56555-2004Jun20?language=printer
For decades, he had answered calls just like this one.
A diplomat needed, harsh terrain, intrigue on the ground. And off he'd go, big suitcases all packed, debonair and nervy all at once.
This time when the White House called, the mission was one that could cap a long and provocative career: Baghdad.
Then there he was, John Negroponte, cameras flashing, posing with the president, the new ambassador nominee -- since confirmed -- to Iraq.
With the stumbles in that country striking many as maddening -- and the praise that followed the Negroponte announcement -- it sounded as if President Bush had found a man to settle things, to wade into the bloodshed and dust and anger and fix what had gone so horribly wrong.
He had the kind of pedigree that might have brightened the writerly muscle of Somerset Maugham: ambassador to the United Nations, to the Philippines, to Mexico. Adviser to the White House under national security adviser Colin Powell. And he had served in that crucible for a generation of young men: Vietnam. He was known to be comfortable in the shadows, at ease with secrets. He had served in Honduras. Plenty of secrets there.
Praise poured forth from both sides of the political divide.
"He is far more qualified than [Paul] Bremer," says Richard Holbrooke, speaking of the Bush point man in Iraq. Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the U.N. himself, first met Negroponte in the early 1960s and later brought him to Washington during the Carter administration. "John is subtle, Bremer is black and white. John understands ambiguity."
Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger thought so much of the young Negroponte that he chose him to be a member of his staff at the Paris peace talks to end the war in Vietnam. "He brings great steadiness and solidity," Kissinger says of Negroponte's new challenge. "He has patience and subtlety to bring it off."
There are, however, other sentiments and memories about the career of John Dimitri Negroponte. And they are assuredly of a rawer nature. Old stories about a Honduran death squad. Tales about mischief with military generals and rogue CIA operatives.
When Negroponte strode into a Senate room for his confirmation hearings two months ago, he was a jaunty figure, tall, swinging an umbrella with such insouciance that it seemed to have turned into a walking stick. He'd seen this scene before, of course, necks yanking toward his arrival, the long mahogany table before him, the microphone, the glass of water, the senators seen chest-high, all of it lit up by the TV lights.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee -- his hair ice cream white with the lights pouring down on him -- referred to the posting to Iraq as "one of the most consequential ambassadorships in American history." Negroponte, in blue pinstripes, nodded. He read from his statement. "With our help, the people of Iraq can overcome the trauma of Saddam's brutality and the intimidation of violent extremists seeking to derail the progress they have made so far."
Back and forth it went, words of praise and encouragement. Then a bearded man popped up, jack-in-the-box-like, and began shouting at the seated senators: "Ask him about his involvement with a death squad in Honduras that he supported!" Heads swiveled, shoulders twisted. "What about death squad 316, Mr. Negroponte?" The man was Andres Thomas Conteris, a human rights activist who spent five years in Honduras. Security officers escorted him out. Negroponte didn't flinch during the outburst, didn't even turn around to eyeball his critic. Those who've known him for years -- family and friends, fellow ambassadors -- have long attested to his cool demeanor.
"There are two streams of analysis about John Negroponte," says Larry Birns, who, as director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a human rights group, has tried, unsuccessfully, to derail Negroponte's career over the years. "One is that he is a distinguished career diplomatic officer. The other is that he is a rogue, a jackanape, a bounder of the worst type." 'John Was a Winner. . . . You Just Felt That'
He was born in London on July 21, 1939. His father, Dimitri John Negroponte, was a shipping magnate. His mother, Catherine, "was one of the most beautiful women in all of Greece, blond, blue-eyed," says Anthony Lykiardopoulos, a cousin of Negroponte's who grew up with him in Manhattan. (The shipping business brought the Negropontes to America following World War II. )
Dimitri Negroponte was proud to be in America. He taught his children about life, leisure, the need to make a commitment to something. "His dad taught him how to eat, how to ski, how to be a good athlete," Lykiardopoulos says of John. "His dad would have made a sensational diplomat."
Having money meant the elder Negroponte had choices for his children. John Negroponte was sent to grade school at the tony Buckley School in Manhattan. His classmates there called him "Ponte." His intelligence impressed them mightily. "At that age," recalls Robert Harrison, a classmate at Buckley, "you can see the intelligence of someone. It hasn't got the varnish of pretension yet."
After Buckley, Negroponte went off -- like Harrison -- to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. There he joined the debating society, he played varsity soccer, he golfed, he swam, he took a prize in French. Even amid the keen young minds of Exeter, Negroponte stood out. He seemed to walk ahead of most everyone, invading the open air around him.
"Our family was very international," says Nick Negroponte, John's younger brother. "At the dinner table when people spoke, it was rare they would keep their sentence in one language. Our father spoke at least five languages fluently. John has his genes."
One of the things that made his cousin stand out, says Lykiardopoulos, was a sense of discretion, a feeling that one must handle problems privately. He recalls an outing to the beach when they were teens, and John suffered a case of sunstroke. Lykiardopoulos started making phone calls, inquiring about medical assistance. Negroponte told his cousin all he needed was sleep, but Lykiardopoulos wasn't so sure. He called Negroponte's mother. "He said, 'You've called my mother!' He was angered that someone thought he might not be able to take care of himself."
Exeter boys often had wide choices in their selection of college. Many would simply step, in their buck shoes, onto the campus of one of the Ivies. Robert Harrison chose Harvard. Negroponte chose Yale. He had shared with friends that he was interested in law. Beneath his picture in the Exeter yearbook, he contemplated -- "certainly in jest," says Harrison -- another possibility:
"Interior decorator."
A Knack for Foreign Cultures
Yale was a quiet place in the mid- and late '50s. The Korean conflict had ended. But Cold War passions hummed like bumblebees in the air overhead.
"Communism was a part of our lexicon," says Denis Turko, a Negroponte roommate at Yale. "Khrushchev had spoken at the U.N. and said that the Russians were going to bury everyone. We talked about that -- and Sputnik and U2."
There were, of course, less severe pursuits. Turko remembers Negroponte -- "who was a really good poker player" -- coming into their dorm suite late one night. He had been out playing poker, had lost, needed to borrow some money. "I told him I had just gotten my tax refund check back," remembers Turko. "Well, he convinced me to sign it over to him. He went back out to play poker. The next day I said, 'How much did we win?' He said, 'We didn't, we lost.' John had to call his father to bail him out. I don't think he was too happy about that."
"He was genial and affable," recalls Jonathan Blake, another Negroponte roommate at Yale. "He was also more mature than most kids in college." Negroponte grew a coterie of friends and acquaintances and Blake attributed it to his background: "He was smooth and polished and had come from this continental background." Negroponte had a propensity for reaching out to other students, especially those from foreign cultures, engaging them in conversation, asking questions. "It was an outstanding trait."
Negroponte took the exams for the Foreign Service and, though he was told he had passed, went off to Harvard Law School -- a simple hop and skip in his intellectual world. "I only went there because of the uncertainty of when I'd be offered a job in the Foreign Service," Negroponte recalls in a telephone interview from his office in New York. While at Harvard, he received the notice to report from the State Department. He was beyond giddy. "I went running over to the dean's office to say I'd like to withdraw from law school. I think I was even able to get a little kind of refund back."
Fast Start, Then Exile
His first posting was Hong Kong.
The young foreign service officers there at that time were mainly China watchers, meaning they talked to refugees. China was still closed and America was interested in gleaning information any way it could. Stanley Karnow, a young journalist then working in Hong Kong, remembers Negroponte's arrival. "He came in there, a kind of classy guy. Very amiable. You know, hanging around. He quickly became one of the cast of characters."
Negroponte's superiors were impressed with him. By 1964 he had a new posting. Not many Americans knew much about the place: Saigon.
If you were young, with untested legs, and imagined a long foreign service career, and had read enormously about communism, then South Vietnam was a place to be in the early 1960s, a place where a young diplomat might come face to face with intrigue, adventure, chaos. Negroponte whizzed through foreign language training. In time, "he could sing in Vietnamese," recalls his brother Nick. "He could tell jokes in Vietnamese. I thought that was stunning."
The U.S. Embassy was an incubator for testing policy. "You had a whole slew of these young guys in Vietnam at the embassy," recalls Karnow, who would come to write a classic chronicle of Vietnam. "Richard Holbrooke, Tony Lake and Negroponte. It was a kind of crucible. They were a very keen group of guys."
"He was less flashy than some of the others," Kissinger recalls of the young Negroponte. "Very reliable."
A political liaison officer, Negroponte read everything he could. He went off into the countryside to meet and talk with the Vietnamese. He became the resident American expert on the Vietnamese constitutional assembly.
Young foreign service officers received plenty of dinner invitations in Vietnam. One evening, Sir Peter Wilkinson, the British ambassador, was hosting an affair for his visiting niece, Diana. "He gives a dinner for me on the last night of my visit in 1968," she recalls. "He had invited eligible bachelors, one of whom was John Negroponte, who explained the constitutional assembly throughout the whole meal! I was terrified -- and bored. Terrified that he might ask me something I didn't know the answer to, and bored because I was just an 18-year-old."
Still, she found herself impressed with the "power" she envisioned was represented by the young foreign service officer.
"The next day he's on the same Pan Am flight I am, going to Paris," recalls Diana. "When I got out 19 hours later in Paris, I was heads over heels in love with this guy. And he had not talked one minute about the constitutional assembly."
By the early 1970s, Negroponte was at the Paris peace talks, shuttling between the U.S. and North Vietnamese delegations. The North Vietnamese had won a concession that concerned Negroponte: They would be able to keep some troops in the South after the withdrawal. He expressed his misgivings to Kissinger, challenging him, which many considered unwise. "I think that was the decisive event in his life," says Holbrooke of Negroponte's stance. "He felt Kissinger had abandoned the people of South Vietnam. He stood up to Kissinger."
Negroponte's brother, Nick, came to visit him in Paris during the peace talks. He was amazed at Negroponte's demeanor: "I was fascinated. The French students were having their uprisings. But you can't rattle John. John does not rattle."
Many in the diplomatic corps wondered if Negroponte would pay for his challenge to Kissinger. "It was a very gutsy thing to do," says Karnow. "Negroponte was smart in saying that once the North Vietnamese troops stay in South Vietnam, it'd be like a death warrant for the South Vietnamese."
"It was a career-defining experience," Negroponte says of Vietnam. "Vietnam exposed me to a lot of things. The press, high-level government officials." He goes on: "I also look back on that experience with some sadness and regret with what happened to many brave Americans and Vietnamese people who lost their lives -- or were misplaced. These situations have ramifications over a long period of time. Lo and behold, years later, there were boat people fleeing Vietnam."
Negroponte's next posting was in Quito, Ecuador. "Kissinger exiled him," believes Holbrooke. Kissinger disputes that sentiment. "There has never been a personal rift between me and John," he says.
After Ecuador, Negroponte went to Thessaloniki, Greece. These were not the movements of a diplomat for whom high-level officials have high hopes. He remained in Greece for two years. "John," says Holbrooke, "speaks Greek fluidly, but still, it was exile."
Hardly anyone heard Negroponte complain, however. "John is a very resilient person," says Holbrooke, "and a skilled diplomat."
It was Holbrooke who, as assistant secretary of state under President Carter in 1980, pulled Negroponte back onto the visible diplomatic stage, appointing him deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs.
Within a year, Negroponte had another promotion, his first full ambassadorship. He was off to become our man in Honduras.
Scandal in Honduras
In the early 1980s, Central America was rife with rebellion, gun-running, and a perception that communism was on the move. The specter of Soviet-influenced muscle spreading from Nicaragua, where a Soviet-supported government was in place, to Guatemala, El Salvador and elsewhere alarmed many. American military aid to the region ballooned.
Nicaragua's Sandinista government rattled the Reagan administration to the point that it backed an anti-government guerrilla movement known as the contras against the wishes of Congress. CIA operatives and military officials began using neighboring Honduras as a base for the contras right around the time the new U.S. ambassador was taking up his post. The fighting in Nicaragua alone accounted for 50,000 casualties. And while Honduras wasn't as big a battleground as some other parts of the region, it hardly escaped bloodletting: Nearly 200 would end up missing -- dissidents and human rights activists, church leaders and critics of the Honduran military.
The Iran-contra scandal -- the selling of arms to Iran in exchange for money to circumvent Congress and keep funding the contra wars -- was an embarrassing moment for the Reagan administration. There were indictments, convictions, jail terms -- as well as presidential pardons for some.
Negroponte would become one of those incendiary figures -- like Oliver North or Elliot Abrams, both linked to the scandal -- whose name human rights campaigners summon when recalling the deeds done in Central America during the 1980s.
Rumors about human rights abuses centered on Battalion 316, a death squad headed by one Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, chief of the national police force, that eliminated contra opponents. Some American politicians traveled to Honduras to investigate, including Tom Harkin, then a Democratic congressman from Iowa, who thought that Alvarez and Negroponte were too cozy for the ambassador not to know what had been going on with the death squads.
Negroponte has long denied knowledge of the battalion and its activities. His critics have long been bewildered by this conundrum: If Negroponte did know of the abuses and the death squads, why didn't he howl to the highest quarters? If he didn't know, what measure is that of an accomplished diplomat?
"If you look at the cables," says Harkin, now a senator, "Negroponte never protested the human rights abuses. When I visited Negroponte and asked him about Battalion 316, he said all that was communist propaganda."
"His mission," Larry Birns says, "was to convert Honduras into an unsinkable aircraft carrier to supply and maintain the contra cause against the Sandinistas."
In 1983, Alvarez received a Legion of Merit from the Reagan administration "for encouraging the success of democratic processes in Honduras." Harkin was livid: "That's just bizarre. What was Negroponte doing? He had to know what was going on. He's there with a CIA station chief. Many people disappeared and were killed and he turned a blind eye to it."
A Matter of 'Perspective'
After Honduras, Negroponte would become ambassador to Mexico and the Philippines. John Bennett served under Negroponte in Mexico. "He is a superb diplomat," says Bennett, now retired. "He knows how things work. He's very rigorous and tough intellectually. He's an extraordinary manager of institutions. When he arrived in Mexico City it was a very disjointed embassy with all the agencies going in their very own direction. He really brought them all together, going in the same direction."
Bennett realizes that Honduras, even with the passage of time, will remain a powerful element of Negroponte's legacy. "Those were not pleasant civil wars," he says of Latin America in the 1980s. "He was tagged with not being thoughtful about human rights. As diplomats, we go from administration to administration -- and you carry out the president's orders. I'm sure he did what he was told."
Negroponte believes his critics are ill-informed.
"First, about Honduras, the people who are critical, well, 99 percent of them don't even know me personally. Or maybe 95 percent. Secondly, I was there when we had a helping hand in transition from military government to a civilian government. It happened on my watch. And they've had elected governments ever since. I look back on Honduras with pride. I have five adopted Honduran children. I can't think of any better example of my love for that country."
He continues: "It was certainly my job to be concerned with the Honduran march toward democracy. We contributed positively toward that. I actually went through my record carefully before the 2001 hearings [on his nomination to the U.N. post], going back through my telegrams and schedules. I was surprised myself with the extent I had raised questions about human rights. I called to their attention [military officials] reports of serious abuses. My conscience is absolutely clear."
Negroponte wonders if his critics have put Honduras in "perspective": "Refugees were fleeing to Honduras. Why? Because it was a free and more stable place."
"Look," Negroponte says, "any missing person is a human tragedy. For that person and their family. I've even met some of the people. My heart goes out to them. Yet, El Salvador would have more people missing in one week than occurred during the entire conflict in Honduras. They talk about 117 people missing in Honduras? [Human rights activists say the number is closer to 200.] During the height of problems in El Salvador, that happened in one week. Fifty thousand were killed in that country. It's a question of keeping things in perspective."
With the exception of four years working for McGraw-Hill, Negroponte's entire working life has been in diplomacy. "I spent 3 1/2 years of a 40-year career in Honduras. It's only a small part of my career."
As a matter of fact, when Negroponte was in Honduras, he was a fairly beloved figure. It had much to do with a Honduran baby crying by the road. And with the dazzling woman from an evening in Vietnam who had become his wife.
'One-Woman Peace Corps'
Diana's father was Sir Charles Villiers, a merchant banker who would rise to become chairman of British Steel. Villiers had a powerful social conscience. In his youth, he went to work for Tubby Clayton, a cleric who tended to the poor. The activism spilled over to his daughter. "He represented social justice for the unemployed man and their families," says Diana Negroponte. "That, along with my mother's work as a social worker in the East End of London, were elements I grew up with."
She and Negroponte met again in 1976, years after their original meeting. "I met his mother at a wedding in London," Diana says. "I asked her, 'How is your son doing?' She groans. John was 36 and unmarried. Mother got to work and mother pulled it off. Six months later we were married."
Wherever they went, he'd do the political thing, and she'd hustle off to the barrios, the slums, the tough places. "She was a one-woman Peace Corps," says Stanley Karnow. "I was down in Honduras once. She was out in the refugee camps and she came back to the capital all covered with chiggers. She's absolutely formidable."
Parents went missing during the contra war. Babies appeared on the sides of roads, in shacks, alone.
A Honduran nun told Diana Negroponte about a baby girl that had been found abandoned. The baby had been covered with ants, with worms. The nun asked Diana if she knew someone who might want to adopt the child. She did: her and her husband, Ambassador Negroponte. They adopted the child, and were hardly finished. Another child was found, and they adopted that one as well. Over the years, five Honduran children would be adopted by the Negropontes -- Marina, now 22, Alejandra, now 20, John, now 16, George, now 14, and Sophia, now 11.
The revelations about Battalion 316 had yet to surface and many Hondurans were wildly taken with the Negropontes. "She did more for diplomatic relations by adopting those children than anyone in the world," says her brother-in-law, Nick. "John and Diana turned the American residence into a nursery. The special forces troops there became sort of like nannies."
When President Bush nominated Negroponte to become ambassador to the United Nations in 2001, the revelations about what had happened in Honduras were more fully known and opponents tried to derail the nomination. But Negroponte wasn't sailing alone. "As he became a favorite target of the left," says Birns, "he became a revered figure to the right."
The confirmation hearings got underway in September 2001. They came to an abrupt halt as planes barreled into the World Trade Center. When they resumed, it was against the backdrop of a rattled nation, struck by terror, with a pronounced urgency to get a U.N. ambassador in place.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) allowed as to how he did not wish to relive the Honduran situation, but had no choice inasmuch as the committee, in earlier hearings with Negroponte, had been "flying blind." But now, with new information, that was no longer the case. "Based upon the committee's review of State Department and CIA documents, it would seem that Ambassador Negroponte knew far more about government-perpetuated human rights abuses than he chose to share with the committee in 1989 or in embassy contributions at the time to annual State Department Human Rights reports. . . .
"Finally, I would say a word of caution to other career foreign service officers, particularly junior officers, that they not consider this nominee's lack of candor before the committee as a model to be emulated," Dodd said.
Still, Negroponte won confirmation -- as well as Dodd's vote.
Negroponte has received good reviews on his U.N. posting, from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, among others. When President Bush announced Negroponte's nomination to Iraq, the hot lights came on once again.
Harkin's recitations from the Senate floor took on a familiar ring: the death squads, evasion, the lack of candor. Harkin summoned again the name of the Rev. James Carney, an American priest presumed killed by the death squads. Carney's body has never been found. "I am not suggesting Ambassador Negroponte was responsible for Father Carney's disappearance," Harkin said. "What I am saying, however, is Ambassador Negroponte was in very close contact, perhaps almost on a daily basis, with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez, the commander in chief of the Honduran military, and the architect of Battalion 316. For Ambassador Negroponte in 1982 to say it is simply untrue that death squads have made appearances in Honduras -- this is going to be our ambassador to Iraq at this time?"
"I should have raised my voice louder than I did," Harkin says about opposing Negroponte's nominations. "I've been amazed at how this individual -- from what he did in Central America, where under his watch hundreds of people disappeared -- has moved up. He falsified reports and ignored what was happening."
Harkin adds: "I feel a certain sense that I let people down because I haven't kept on this guy."
The Negroponte loyalists have heard it all before.
"I know the circumstances," says Diana Negroponte, who teaches history at Fordham University in New York. "The dilemma is: Should you be explicit in your condemnation of human rights? John had a different tactic. His tactic was to go quietly to the president and the chief of the armed forces and say 'Stop it.' He did not go public. I know that he protested because he'd come back and tell me about the meetings."
Nick Negroponte has watched his brother's rise in the foreign service with awe. He attributes a good part of his brother's success to "professional silence."
To Diana Negroponte, her husband's critics emerge at intervals as if from behind a velvet curtain. "It's an old battle," Diana Negroponte says. "I want to say to these people: 'Haven't you moved on?' To keep fighting all of that is old hat."
"I visited him in Honduras," recalls Richard Holbrooke. "He denies the charges. I do not know what happened there."
"I have no idea what happened in Honduras," says Anthony Lake, who served as national security adviser under President Clinton. "I have no reason to believe John hasn't been honorable." He lauds the Negroponte appointment. "I can't think of a better appointment to Baghdad. I have opposed this [administration's] policy, but every American has a stake in its success and I can't think of a better person than John to be representing the U.S. in Baghdad."
"It's going to be difficult," Negroponte says of Iraq. "There are many challenges to face. I'd like to say two things: I am very committed to the proposition that a free and strong Iraq can be realized. I see no reason why Iraq shouldn't be able to realize its aspirations of peace with itself and its neighbors."
'I Wanted to Call Him a Liar'
Zenaida Velasquez Rodriguez is on the phone from San Jose. She is a political refugee, having fled Honduras in 1988. Her brother went missing and is presumed dead. In less than three minutes of conversation, her voice has already begun to crack.
Manfredo Velasquez was a schoolteacher and a protester. He was in the marketplace of Tegucigalpa, the capital, when eyewitnesses saw men hustle him into an automobile. The date was Sept. 12, 1981. "As of today, we don't even have a vague idea of where his remains could be," his sister says. "It's like having an open wound that is bleeding all the time."
Manfredo had a wife and three kids.
As more and more people began to go missing, Zenaida Velasquez helped found the Committee of Families of the Disappeared. "It was a state of terror," she says of Honduras during the contra wars. "We were very afraid. We were paying for ads in the newspapers to talk about the disappearances."
Manfredo's son, Hector, 7 years old at the time, taped one of the ads directed to Gen. Alvarez and the army. The boy's words: "General, my father is Manfredo. He was detained by members of your Army. Please release him. I want to have Christmas with my father."
Zenaida pleaded with the U.S. Embassy for a meeting to inquire about her brother, to ask for an investigation. Ambassador Negroponte agreed to see her.
"Finally, he received us, some family members and families of others who had disappeared as well. He denied completely any knowledge of what was going on. But we knew every day he was meeting with the chief of the army, Alvarez. Honduras is a very small country."
She catches herself, then goes on: "You know what? He doesn't even look you in the eye. We were crying and desperate. I wanted to call him a liar. It was hard."
Next Stop, Baghdad
At the end of his confirmation hearing in April, Negroponte rose and shook hands all around. A couple of his daughters were in attendance, along with his wife. Family friends and well-wishers hovered. Then Negroponte turned, swinging his umbrella in one hand and, in the other, his lovely brown leather briefcase. Heading for the door, bound for Iraq. He glided right by Andres Thomas Conteris, back inside the room now, glowering in silence, the bearded man who had yelled, who had come to represent the ghosts, the dead, the missing.
--------
Hail to the Moon king
The deeply weird coronation of Rev. Sun Myung Moon in a Senate office building -- crown, robes, the works -- is no longer one of Washington's best-kept secrets.
salon.com
June 21, 2004
By John Gorenfeld
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/moon-salon.html
You probably imagine your congressman hard at work in the Capitol debating legislation, making laws -- you know, governing. But your newspaper probably didn't tell you that one night in March, members of Congress hosted a crowning ritual for an ex-convict and multibillionaire who dressed up in maroon robes and declared himself the Second Coming.
On March 23, the Dirksen Senate Office Building was the scene of a coronation ceremony for Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper and UPI wire service, who was given a bejeweled crown by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. Afterward, Moon told his bipartisan audience of Washington power players he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of Hitler and Stalin -- the murderous dictators had been born again through him, he said. In a vision, Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him, calling him "none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."
To many observers, this bizarre scene would have looked like the apocalypse as depicted in "Left Behind" novels. Moon, 84, the benefactor of conservative foundations like the American Family Coalition -- who served time in the 1980s for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice -- has views somewhere to the right of the Taliban's Mullah Omar. Moon preaches that gays are "dung-eating dogs," Jews brought on the Holocaust by betraying Jesus, and the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a system he calls "Godism" -- with him in charge. The man crowned "King of Peace" by congressmen once said, according to sermons reprinted in his church's Unification News: "Suppose I were to hit you with the baseball bat to stop you, bloodying your ear and breaking a bone or two, yet still you insisted on doing more work for Father."
What, exactly, drew at least a dozen members of Congress to Moon's coronation? (By the Unification Church's estimate, 81 congressmen attended, although that number is probably high.) The event was the grand finale of Moon's coast-to-coast "tear down the cross" Moonification tour, intended to remove Christian crosses from almost 300 churches in poor neighborhoods -- the idea being that the cross was an obstacle to uniting religions under Moon. Yet the Dirksen ceremony was sold as a celebration of world peace. According to a cheery promotional video released by Moon's International and Interreligious Federation for World Peace, the ceremony marked the dawn of "the era of the Eternal Peace Kingdom, one global family under God." Moon's coronation also cured God's pain, the announcer explains.
By all accounts, most of the congressmen in attendance didn't expect a coronation. Instead, they thought they were heading to an awards dinner honoring activists from their home states as "Ambassadors for Peace." A flier for the event claimed an impressive who's-who of organizers, including Republicans Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland and Charlie Black, a top Republican strategist. Democrats were named, too, like Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee, who, incidentally, claims to have not even heard of the event.
And then there was Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., the only congressman who has publicly expressed pride in the crowning ceremony, who praised Moon for bringing religious leaders together in his Ambassadors for Peace tours to Jerusalem and beyond. Davis, it was revealed this week in the Chicago Reader, took money from Moon-organized fundraisers, who also gave to a charity of his choice. Davis told an Anglican magazine that Moon's remarks were "similar to a baseball team owner telling team members that 'we are the greatest team on earth'" to get them fired up.
At the time, the surreal event went uncovered by the Washington press corps, save for Moon's own Washington Times, which ran a brief description of the festivities. The story is getting some traction only now, after it was recently reported in the online magazine The Gadflyer. But what transpired at Dirksen two months ago remains a mystery to most Americans -- and those constituents of congressmen who attended Moon's crowning.
The crowning ritual indeed began as a somewhat normal awards ceremony. Ribbons that looked like Olympic gold medals were given to Rep. Bartlett and others. But then it took an odd turn. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., whose office maintained he did not attend the event until I provided photographs of him there -- spoke beside a photograph of himself pinning an American flag on Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, back when President Bush was praising him for abandoning WMD programs and before he was suspected of trying to kill the leader of Saudi Arabia.
Then, after Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., gave a speech praising one of Moon's Ambassadors for Peace, the civil rights veteran Rev. Walter Fauntroy, an unnamed Lubovitch rabbi took the stage declaring: "I have never seen this miracle where Jews, Christians and Muslims come together for peace!" Then Moon's cleric Chung Kwak took the mic. Before his days as the commander of the UPI wire service, Kwak, Moon said in a 1997 speech, was authorized to whomp on Unification Church members who slacked off. "Particularly those who are sleeping and hiding, Reverend Kwak's baseball bat will fall upon you at any time," Moon said. Now Kwak was standing in a Senate office building declaring Moon the king of the "second and third Israel."
Moon has also made inroads in the Bush administration, as Salon reported last September, with plum appointments for former or present Moon VIPs, and almost half a million dollars in abstinence-only grants supporting Moon's anti-sex crusade. To teach teens that "free sex" is revolting, they're asked by Moon's followers to drink other people's spit out of a cup, and then consider how much more vigilant you must be when sharing other body fluids.
While Moon once focused his energies on anti-Communism, making him popular among Republicans in the Reagan era -- his organization gave the first $100,000 to Oliver North's Nicaraguan Freedom Fund -- he has now shifted gears, aiming left. He's planning a "Peace United Nations" entwining religions instead of countries and is trying to make friends in the Congressional Black Caucus, like Rep. Davis. No congressman, on the right or left, has publicly denounced Moon for his momentous speeches describing his "peace kingdom" as a place where "gays will be eliminated" in a "purge on God's orders" he says will be like Stalin's. And many are surprisingly comfortable around a guy known for over-the-top speeches about the holy "love organ of life" and its various fluids. In a 1994 speech, he asked: "Do you like the smell of your husband's semen? Answer to Father. Does it smell good or bad? You may not like the smell of your wife's stool, but do you smell your own? Why don't you smell your own but you smell your wife's? Because you are not totally one."
But if Moon pulled off his greatest trick on Mar. 23, fooling some unsuspecting congressmen into attending his coronation, it's not as if his stunt was new -- for more than 25 years, Moon has sought to surround himself with powerful people to gain credibility and legitimacy, including presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. If the congressmen had simply run "Ambassadors for Peace" through the Google search engine, they would have discovered the group was tied to Moon and his grand plans for the future of Christianity -- plans to "reconcile" religions by tearing the Christian cross off church walls and persuading Jews to sign apologies for giving Jesus over to the Romans.
Weldon, for one, had a long time to do that Google search. As far back as June 19, 2003, he's listed in a speech by Rep. Danny K. Davis on the floor of the House of Representatives honoring Moon: "Many of my colleagues will join me and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), co-chair, in giving tribute to some of the outstanding Americans from our districts," said Davis. "We are grateful to the founders of Ambassadors for Peace, the Reverend and Mrs. Sun Myung [Moon], for promoting the vision of world peace, and we commend them for their work."
As for Moon's vision of world peace, there are widespread reports, even acknowledged within Moon's church, of allegations that in 1989 he allowed brutal inquisitions to take place. The inquisitor, a man Moon apparently believed was the reincarnation of his son, was allegedly encouraged to tie people to radiators and beat them. As a result, Moon's trusted lieutenant, Bo Hi Pak, was said to have suffered minor brain damage. Wrote his daughter-in-law, Nansook Hong, in her tell-all book: "Sun Myung Moon seemed to take pleasure in the reports that filtered back to East Garden of the beatings being administered by the Black Heung Jin. He would laugh raucously if someone out of favor had been dealt an especially hard blow." Members of Congress may want to do their homework before they crown their next King of Peace.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected since its original publication.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Alternative-Energy Quest Is Blocked by a 1953 Law
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA
June 21, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/nyregion/21power.html
LEASANT VALLEY, N.Y., June 16 - With its white Victorian houses and manicured yards, this upstate bedroom community does not appear to be a rabble-rousing town.
But two months ago, Pleasant Valley, tucked in the Taconic mountains just east of Poughkeepsie, became outlaw territory in the eyes of the state comptroller's office when local officials decided they cared more about the environmental source of the town's electricity than its price.
The town decided to use wind energy for its 328 street lamps, two public baseball parks and all the rest of its municipal needs, even though it was slightly more expensive than conventional sources. In doing so, however, it ran up against a 51-year-old state law that requires cities to use the least expensive source for a commodity.
"It didn't seem like a big deal at the time," said John McNair, the town supervisor, seated under the dim flicker of fluorescent lights in his cramped town hall office. "If taxpayers here are willing to pay an extra $1.88 per year to have clean electricity, I don't see why there should be a problem."
Mr. McNair, who calls himself a Reagan Republican, said the town stood by him. The only time that members of the public come to local board meetings, he said, is when Boy Scout merit badges are handed out. "But for this issue," he said, "they showed up to support."
At the root of the issue is a 1953 state law, often called the "bidding act," intended to protect taxpayers from careless spending and graft. The law presents a problem for Pleasant Valley, which is the first town in New York State to use only wind power, as well as 20 other towns that are partly dependent on wind for their power needs. The law also could present problems for Gov. George E. Pataki's plan to get the state to use renewable energy for 25 percent of its needs by 2013.
"We don't write the laws," said David Neustadt, a spokesman for State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi. "We just help explain them when asked." Mr. Neustadt said that the comptroller's office had no methods of enforcement and provided only advisory decisions, but that the law was clear: local governments must award contracts to the lowest bidder who provides the same commodity. These towns are in violation, he said, at least until the laws change.
In the meantime, an indignant defiance is spreading in certain soft-spoken towns upstate.
"We're pretty law-abiding here," said Richard Shea, a carpenter and member of the town board for Philipstown in Dutchess County, which voted earlier this month to get half its electricity from wind. "But on this issue, I don't care if it's illegal, because it's the right thing to do."
Philip J. Bishop, a resident of the town of New Paltz, which gets a third of its electricity from wind, expressed similar frustration. "It's ridiculous," he said. "All of the sudden, we've become rebel territory." The town only recently finished dealing with all the attention over the gay marriages performed there, he said. "We're not used to such continual controversy."
The dispute started two months ago simply because someone asked permission. The Dutchess County town of Beacon held a meeting to consider switching to wind power, and Joe H. Braun, the town administrator, decided to call the state comptroller's office to ask about the legality of the plans. In a conversation first reported by The Poughkeepsie Journal, Mr. Braun was told that buying wind power was forbidden because of the price.
"I asked how so many other towns had already been getting wind energy since 2001," Mr. Braun said in a telephone interview. "I was told that the others simply hadn't asked first."
Bruce J. Donegan, a member of the Pleasant Valley board, said he would be surprised if his town was penalized for being ahead of the curve. "I'm a Republican, and fiscal responsibility is important to me," he said, "but so, too, is energy independence and clean air."
Mary M. Swartz agreed. A Dutchess County legislator who helped persuade her town of Fishkill to get 60 percent of its electricity from wind, Ms. Swartz pointed out that there were consequences for choosing cheaper and dirtier forms of energy.
"You can pay extra for clean energy up front," said Ms. Swartz, who is a Republican, "or you can choose dirty energy and pay extra for the cleanup after the fact." Standing in the local Hess gas station and convenience store that she owns - it draws some of its electricity from wind - Ms. Swartz added that she was also acutely aware of concerns about the country's dependence of foreign sources of energy.
Wind energy has attracted attention in New York ever since Mr. Pataki signed a measure in 2001 aimed at encouraging the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and requiring that one-fourth of the state's electricity come from renewable sources by 2013. Two weeks ago, the Public Service Commission took the added step of issuing a 144-page preliminary decision explaining how the state should meet this goal, and defining what forms of energy qualify as renewable. Although the state gets about 19 percent of its power from renewable sources, mostly from hydroelectric dams, power industry experts predict that much of the remainder of the 25 percent will come from wind power.
Windmills in New York produce around 50 megawatts of energy, enough to power 500,000 hundred-watt bulbs, but the state's potential is estimated at nearly 10,000 megawatts. Ron Kamen, the New York director for Community Energy, a company that markets wind power, said his company had about 5,000 residential and 21 municipal customers in New York.
Aside from consumers, producers of wind energy - mostly farmers near Syracuse who have installed windmills on their land for extra income - are also worried.
"Without enough customers, we could be in trouble," said Donna Griffin, who in 2001 put some windmills on her 428-acre cattle farm in the town of Fenner, about 22 miles east of Syracuse. There are 20 windmills on 11 farms in Fenner, the largest concentration in the state. Explaining that her contract limits her ability to say exactly how much she makes from the windmills on her property, Ms. Griffin said, "Let's just say it's a huge financial help."
Some people disagree with the comptroller's interpretation of the law.
The lawyer for the town of Pleasant Valley, Scott L. Volkman, said local officials certainly had no intention of evading competitive bidding rules. "But our view is that this is a distinct product," he said, explaining that electricity produced by wind was legally categorized as something different than electricity produced by more standard means, like coal or nuclear energy. Wind and certain other forms of renewable energy in the state are exempt from competitive bidding rules, he said, because there are too few competitors to bid.
Mr. Volkman also pointed out that competitive bidding has always been a loose requirement. If the competitive bidding laws were strictly followed, municipalities would have had to resubmit their electricity contracts for new bidding when deregulation allowed consumers to purchase energy cheaper from other regions, he said. "Of course," he added, "no one did that because it would have been chaos."
Mr. Neustadt, from the comptroller's office, disagreed. "I think the law is pretty clear on this matter," he said. "Our office is in favor of renewables, but the regulations are what they are."
Either way, Sandra R. Galef, a Democratic assemblywoman from Westchester, is not taking any chances. She recently proposed a law that would allow municipal officials to pay 15 percent above market rates to get their electricity from renewable sources.
"The only way the price of solar, water and wind energy will ever become competitive is if the state encourages enough customers to sign up," she said. "But until then the price for clean energy is going to remain high."
This is not a new predicament, Ms. Galef pointed out. In the late 1980's, she said, many town governments wanted to buy recycled paper for their offices. They were blocked, she said, because it was more expensive. A 1988 law permitting an exemption to the bidding rules for recycled products prepared the way for the price to come down, she said.
"There were people on the frontier of the issue then," she said. "There are people on the frontier now."
-------- OTHER
-------- health
Study touts foods high in antioxidants
June 21, 2004
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040620-113748-5063r.htm
There are some new power foods to put on the menu: little red beans, artichokes, russet potatoes, pecans and prunes, among others.
All are packed with disease-fighting antioxidant compounds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's largest and most comprehensive study to date of antioxidants - those mysterious chemicals found in common foods that ward off cancer, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease and the effects of aging.
Using cutting-edge technology, a six-person USDA research team tested more than 100 fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, condiments, cereals and other foods from 12 cities around the nation, and during two seasons. The study was released last week.
The results should please burrito lovers.
The food with the heaviest concentration of antioxidants turned out to be the "small red bean," according to the study, followed by "low bush" - or wild - blueberries, red kidney beans and pinto beans.
They soundly beat the competition, which included ballyhooed health foods such as carrots, broccoli and oat bran. A half-cup serving of those little red beans, in fact, contains almost 20 times the oxidants as a half-cup serving of broccoli, according to the researchers.
But they are not taking sides here.
"The bottom line is the same: Eat more fruits and veggies," said Ronald Prior, an Arkansas-based USDA chemist and nutritionist who directed the study.
Mr. Prior and his team hope the research, which was published in the current Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, will help establish government nutritional guidelines for antioxidants. Currently, there are none.
The study also revealed that some varieties among the same foods are more beneficial than others.
Among apples, for example, a red delicious apple - with the peel left on - contains the most antioxidants, followed by the Granny Smith, gala, Fuji and golden delicious. Red-leaf lettuce was the most antioxidant-heavy among lettuces, while russet potatoes triumphed over plain red and white potatoes.
Red cabbage contains four times as many antioxidants as the paler variety, while artichokes weighed in with one of the heaviest concentrations of antioxidants in the bunch.
Nuts were not overlooked. The antioxidant powerhouse in this group was pecans, followed by walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios and almonds.
The study also analyzed 16 spices for antioxidant content, and found that cloves packed the most punch, followed by cinnamon, oregano, turmeric and dried parsley.
Prunes - or "dried plums" as they're called in the industry - were a big winner as well, ranking 10th on the USDA's top-20 list of antioxidant foods. It's no wonder the California Dried Plum Board - a Sacramento-based group - was among the organizations funding the First International Congress on Antioxidant Methods, which ended Friday in Orlando, Fla.
In the past 20 years, research has established that antioxidant compounds help counter the ill effects of "free radicals," or unstable molecules that cause the destruction of cells within the human body.
Researchers attending the Florida symposium shared information on the benefits of antioxidants. They also outlined new testing methods to verify popular "antioxidant claims" made by vitamin, food and cosmetic manufacturers that could help establish new international regulations, according to the American Chemical Society, which organized the event.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Miss. Honors 3 Slain Civil Rights Workers
Associated Press
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56378-2004Jun20.html
PHILADELPHIA, Miss., June 20 -- Gov. Haley Barbour (R) and other politicians joined hundreds of people Sunday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the slayings of three civil rights workers and support the reopening of an investigation into their deaths.
The memorial service brought about 1,500 blacks and whites together to honor James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and to focus on what former Mississippi governor William Winter called "the unending work of racial reconciliation."
"It involves doing the things in every aspect of our lives . . . that will break down the barriers that continue to separate us," he said.
The state never brought murder charges in the 1964 killings in Neshoba County, which were chronicled in the film "Mississippi Burning." Seven Klansmen were convicted on federal civil rights violations, but none served more than six years.
The multiracial Philadelphia Coalition, which sponsored the memorial, and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood are pushing for the investigation to be reopened to track down those who aided the killers. Hood has said he needs help from federal authorities, who are reviewing the matter.
--------
Charities' Tax Breaks Scrutinized
Widespread Abuses Prompt Congress to Rethink Laws
By Albert B. Crenshaw
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56406-2004Jun20.html
In the wake of a long-running series of scandals and controversies involving charities and nonprofits, Congress's tax-writing committees are launching an effort this week to crack down on fraudulent activities and tighten laws governing tax exemptions for those groups.
The Senate Finance Committee will look at a broad range of possible revisions, including changes that would greatly increase disclosure requirements, require outside audits of many charities, stiffen the rules covering credit counseling groups, and require nonprofits to refile with the Internal Revenue Service every five years to justify their continued nonprofit status. The House oversight panel is reviewing the billing practices of nonprofit hospitals.
Congress has reacted angrily to revelations of abuses by a wide variety of charities, including scandals at well-established organizations such as United Way and the Nature Conservancy, and the disclosure that some tax-exempt groups have been acting as "accommodation parties" in abusive tax shelters.
Many of the proposals would extend to public charities most of the restrictions now applied only to private foundations and other private charities.
"It's obvious from the abuses we see that there's been no check on charities. Big money, tax free, and no oversight have created a cesspool in too many cases," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said late last week. "It's time for Congress to send a message." Added Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), the ranking Democrat on the panel: "The examples of abuse surrounding charitable organizations are growing at an alarming rate. . . . These actions are immoral and inexcusable -- and threaten to taint the reputation of all charitable organizations."
Baucus cited as examples car donations that result in large tax deductions to the donor but only pennies to the charity and unethical tax promoters who use charities as a smoke screen.
The Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee have scheduled hearings tomorrow on problems in the nonprofit world and proposals for dealing with them.
Finance Committee aides said one key goal for the panel is to clarify many of the laws that govern nonprofits, making it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to spot and enforce violations, and also making it easier for the organizations to understand what is proper and what is not.
Many of the rules on compensation of charity officers, self-dealing between nonprofits and their officials, and the proper roles of boards of trustees are hazy, they said. This not only invites abuse but also makes it difficult for trustees and others to rein in abusers.
Panel members will also look at the idea of making public far more of the records and filings of nonprofits.
For example, they will consider a proposal to require nonprofits to attach to their Form 990, a document that is available to the public, a chart showing the organization's relationship with its affiliated exempt and nonexempt organizations, and report more clearly on formation of taxable subsidiaries and any transactions with such organizations.
Charitable groups and professionals who work for nonprofits say they support the general idea of reform, but reacted cautiously to the committee's long list.
"There is a whole range of ideas" under consideration and the "intention is to consult with various groups. That will give us all ample opportunity to have a public discussion," said Diana Aviv, head of Independent Sector, an umbrella group of nonprofits.
"This is an occasion for us to think seriously about policies that may have been in place that are no longer acceptable, and where law and practices haven't caught up" with what is going on in the marketplace, she added.
Other proposals under consideration include:
• Placing restrictions on "donor advised funds." These are funds, in many cases run by big mutual fund companies, that allow donors to contribute and take an immediate deduction but then direct the distribution of the donation to charities over time. These funds are not defined in current law and are not subject to any special rules. The panel is considering such things as requiring donated assets other than cash and publicly traded securities to be sold promptly, and requiring minimum annual distribution amounts.
• Adding requirements for credit counselors.
• Revoking the tax-exempt status of nonprofits involved in tax shelters.
• Tightening the self-dealing rules for public charities.
• Tightening the rules that apply when nonprofits, such as hospitals and insurers, convert to for-profit enterprises.
--------
At Midvale school, slogans stir debate over speech control
The Salt Lake Tribune
By Mike Cronin
June 21, 2004
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jun/06212004/utah/177543.asp
MIDVALE -- A nervous David Perez scurried down the hallway and ducked into Marshall Brown's classroom.
Perez's sanctuary was short-lived, however. His pursuer, Assistant Principal David Breen, entered the room seconds later and ordered the Hillcrest High senior to take off his anti-war T-shirt.
Fearing for the student's safety, Brown says, he tried to intervene. "Breen told me it was none of my business," recalls the marketing teacher. Breen then escorted Perez to the office.
Though Breen disputes Brown's version of their exchange two years ago, Hillcrest administrators have brought other students to the office for their choice of T-shirts. This past year, the Midvale school made headlines when administrators barred students from wearing anti-smoking shirts displaying the phrase "Queers Kick Ash."
But students and parents say the crackdown also extended to anti-war T-shirts with slogans such as "Drop Doughnuts, Not Bombs" and "No Blood for Oil."
School officials concede that they discouraged students from wearing anti-war T-shirts -- especially immediately after U.S. troops invaded Iraq. Breen and his boss, Principal Linda Sandstrom, told The Salt Lake Tribune they hoped to pre-empt confrontations between anti-war students and classmates with family members stationed in Iraq.
The strategy, Breen explains, is to "stop things before they hit the fan."
A review by Cal Evans, Jordan School District's internal investigator, supports the administration's approach, concluding that school officials handled the T-shirt incidents appropriately.
District officials acknowledge that students have the right to wear anti-war shirts. But, they add, "it's difficult to control the reaction of students with strong opposing views."
Said Sandstrom and Breen in a joint statement: "Provocative acts sometimes provoke other individuals."
That's the fine line school officials walk: They must protect students' free-speech rights and also students' safety.
Tom Hutton, an attorney for the Virginia-based National School Boards Association, says judges consider two avenues of legal thought when it comes to "T-shirt jurisprudence." First, they examine whether the speech causes a "substantial disruption" at school. Second, they explore whether the speech conflicts with the "educational mission."
Answering the second question can be difficult. For example, what is vulgar and offensive in Provo may not be so in Pittsburgh. In those instances, courts often defer to local school boards, Hutton says.
Jordan District officials maintain that their school board has the right and responsibility to determine what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable speech.
That initial responsibility rests with principals. It's no easy chore. Sandstrom, who is retiring at month's end after working 38 years in the district, says schools can be like a "war zone," so educators must be ever vigilant.
Even so, Hillcrest's principal insists the anti-war T-shirt flap had little impact on day-to-day life at her school. "It was never a big issue," she says. That's not how some Hillcrest students, parents and at least one teacher see it. They speak of an administration that arbitrarily prohibits certain forms of political expression, while praising others.
"It's important that all students be treated equally -- not selectively," says Brown, who has taught at Hillcrest for eight years. "It's in our code of conduct to promote understanding and tolerance. I'm concerned that's been compromised."
During the past two years, Perez, 17-year-old Ryan Cheek and other students say they have been shoved, pushed, elbowed and threatened by classmates for wearing T-shirts with slogans such as "Shoot Baskets, Not Guns" and "Say No to War, Say Yes to Peace."
Perez, now a college sophomore at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., says he reported every altercation to Hillcrest administrators. And each time, he says, they told him he had brought the conflicts on himself.
Cheek, who plans to attend Weber State University this fall on a debate scholarship, says school officials told him the same thing when he complained. Breen and Sandstrom say they heard nothing from the students.
"No physical attacks were reported," says Breen, an educator with 27 years of experience. "If we knew about them, we would've responded. . . . If anyone comes here to report violence, we investigate it."
Cheek and Perez go further, though, alleging that Hillcrest administrators warned them that school officials could not and would not protect them from classmates if the pair continued to wear provocative T-shirts.
"That is flatly and blatantly untrue," Breen counters. "That is a blow to me. . . . Our obligation is to protect everybody."
Breen and Sandstrom say only two such incidents -- both from the 2002-03 school year -- were reported to them. They intervened in those cases and asked the students to remove the anti-war T-shirts to prevent other teens from verbally or physically attacking them.
Margaret Plane, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, says such preventive measures are more than unsettling; they are unconstitutional. She says school officials are illegally applying what is known as a so-called heckler's veto: silencing free speech due to concerns about a crowd's reaction.
"You need to prove a substantial or material disruption to ban free speech," Plane says. "Fear of scuffles or negative reactions is insufficient."
"The burden is really on the school, not on individual students," says Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, based in Arlington, Va. "The school has to have a reasonable argument -- and it has to be reasonable -- that an act of speech on the part of a kid will lead to a serious disruption and danger to the education process. Having something on a T-shirt that isn't popular doesn't rise to that level."
Mike Hiestand of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., says outlawing undesirable T-shirts or allowing some students to threaten others goes against the educational process. "What sort of lesson is that?" he asks. "If you see speech you don't like, you beat the hell out of somebody? What sort of lesson is that teaching future citizens of our society?"
Breen and Sandstrom say they tried to use the anti-war and "Queers Kick Ash" T-shirt encounters as civic lessons.
"We talked to the kids about the situations," Breen says. "We feel we do a good job with them. We're open to lots of different things."
On one occasion, Breen says he and other instructors spent an hour with between 12 and 15 students who had expressed concerns.
Still, Sandstrom adds, "It's one thing to express your views. But it's another to have one side impose their views on others."
Some current and former students argue that is exactly what the Hillcrest administration is doing.
To test whether school officials employed a double standard, Robin Rothfeder, who graduated from Hillcrest last year and is now a sophomore at the University of California-Berkeley, says he conducted an experiment.
Two years ago, he donned a T-shirt identical to the handmade anti-war versions Perez and their friends were wearing. However, Rothfeder's version supported President Bush and the war in Iraq. When a Hillcrest hall monitor read his shirt, she praised Rothfeder for "standing up for his country."
That sort of mixed message bothers Anna Harman, whose daughter Samantha will be a senior this fall at Hillcrest.
Anna Harman accuses school administrators of quashing certain forms of expression while tolerating -- or even touting -- others. Among the shirts Harman and others say Hillcrest officials accept are T-shirts that display pro-Iraq war and pro-Bush messages along with slogans such as "I Like Mormon Boys" and "Blondes Do It Big."
Administrators sent Samantha home this past school year for wearing a "Queers Kick Ash" T-shirt.
Harman and other parents say they did not file formal complaints with the district because they feared retaliation by school officials or teachers against their children.
Sandstrom maintains such fears are unfounded, saying she "never deals in retaliation."
Adds Breen: "Everyone has rights to disagree. We try not to stifle thinking." District officials stress that parents could appeal any decision to community councils, Jordan officials or the school board.
Regardless, Robert Owens, whose daughter Bonnie graduated this year from Hillcrest, says school and district officials have not handled the disputes well. He says his daughter had four run-ins with administrators over free-speech issues.
"They're not used to having their authority questioned," he says. "This is a classic case of [administrators] learning the wrong exercise of authority."
mcronin@sltrib.com
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