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NUCLEAR
Three Illinois Nuclear Power Plants Sustain Earthquake
BNFL closes nuclear power plant
The Part of the 9-11 Story Michael Moore Missed!
Glimmer of a chance for peace in Korea
US tables new proposal to entice N Korea to five up nuclear weapans
A Pyongyang that can recant, again
Brazil discusses wider-ranging nuclear inspections with IAEA
ALGERIA COULD BE NUCLEAR CHALLENGE FOR U.S.
Russia's plans for spent nuclear fuel site spark howls of protest
WWF criticizes Russia's plans for spent nuclear fuel site
Pressure mounts for nuclear tests
Energy Dept. Releases Yucca Mtn. Papers
DOE/NNSA Cites Los Alamos National Laboratory
MILITARY
Powell Tells Sudan To End Its Support For Darfur Militias
Eyewitnesses to Atrocities Along Frontier of Chad and Sudan
What drives US policy in Sudan?
Saddam's Arsenal Could Destabilize Mideast
Archaeologists Seeking Pots Find WW2 Munition
Thailand gets 30 U.S. helicopters to fight militants
Greenpeace seeks early closure of Magnox plants
Mine Safety wins Army contract
Georgia Loosens Visa Regime
Attack Iran, US chief ordered British
Hussein To Face Charges in Iraq Court
Chalabi, Shunted to Sidelines, Shares His Playbook for Iraq
Abductions in Iraq Reflect New Strategy, U.S. Says
Mortar Attack Injures 11 U.S. GIs in Iraq
The hard part
US probe finds Iraqi security forces plagued by mass desertions
Israeli Court Orders Changes to Barrier in West Bank
Israeli Effort Fails to Halt Rocket Attacks
Israeli Military Plans Gaza Security Zone
Al-Qaeda Sought to Bomb Panama Canal, Honduran Security Says
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia insist Iraq pay Gulf War debt
Iran warms to the NATO card
U.S. Abandons First East Europe Outpost
NATO summit talks end on a sour note
Saddam to be turned over to Iraq
Legal Custody of Hussein and 11 Aides Is Transferred to Iraqis
U.S. Expels Two Guards at Iran's U.N. Mission
Two Iranian Guards at U.N. Expelled for Filming New York Sites
CIA spying on Israeli banks
U.N. Helicopter Crashes In Sierra Leone, Killing 24
Army to Recall Soldiers For Iraq, Afghan Wars
Army Recalling 5,674 Who Left Service
Corporal Held by Militants Not a Deserter, Marines Say
Abducted Marine Had Reportedly Deserted
Military Plans to Call Up Soldiers Who Left Service
Prosecutor Predicts Arrest of Serb Leader
Iraq to Charge Saddam With War Crimes
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Rights Ruling a Compromise
Supreme Court: Foreign Victims of Abuse May Sue in US
U.S. Struggles With Guantanamo Ruling
Coast Guard to Board Each Foreign Ship
Human Rights Abuses Worldwide Are Held to Fall Under U.S. Courts
Thousands of Refugees Greet Powell in Sudan
Mexicans in U.S. Illegally Will Be Flown Home
Detainee to Be Deported On Immigration Charges
Ashcroft, Deft at Taking Heat, Hits a Rocky Patch
UK-US secret deal on Diego Garcia for 2nd Guantanamo
In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally
US military police raid Iraqi detention centre to stop abuse of prisoners
POLITICS
Budget Impasse Reflects GOP Schism
Justice Says Data Cannot Be Copied
Bush Chides U.S. Allies In Mideast In Speech, He Exhorts Move to Democracy
Despite rumors, Washington insiders say forget about draft revival
Voting machine scrutiny urged
White House Says It's Addressing Court Concerns on Captives
A Preview of Kerry Foreign Policy
ENERGY
The Curse of Oil
Off-Shore Wind Farm Opponents Lose Massachusetts Court Battle
U.S. Mayors Honor Livability, Clean Up Brownfields
Siemens wins power plant deals worth 460 mln euros
OTHER
EPA Says Millions Are Inhaling Too-Sooty Air
Businesses sue to force EPA and GE to fully remove PCB contamination
Dietary Fats May Alter Glaucoma Risk
High-protein diets linked to infertility
Pentagon expands program to vaccinate troops against anthrax, smallpox
Iraq war study finds US troops suffering from mental traumas
ACTIVISTS
Tensions high for Bush visit
Think tank evaluates polls on patriotism
China Tries to Block News on Hong Kong's Pro-Democracy March
Hong Kong Braces for Big Democracy March
Hong Kong Gears Up for Huge Pro - Democracy March
San Francisco Puts Anti - War Measure on Nov. Ballot
Father of US beheading victim calls for peace
More than 200 anti-NATO protesters arrested during summit - city official
War on ballot Resolution could spread to other cities in Bay area.
Sudan Genocide Continues; Protesters on the March
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Three Illinois Nuclear Power Plants Sustain Earthquake
June 30, 2004
OTTAWA, Illinois, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2004/2004-06-30-09.asp#anchor2
Three Illinois nuclear power plants declared emergencies on Monday as an earthquake measuring magnitude 4.5 was felt in their control rooms.
The quake's epicenter was about eight miles northwest of Ottawa in northern Illinois. The rural area is about 75 miles west and south of Chicago.
The shaking was felt at the Lasalle nuclear power plant about 20 miles away; at the Dresden nuclear power plant; and at the Quad Cities nuclear power plant - all owned and operated by the Exelon Generation Company.
All three plants declared unusual events, the lowest of four levels of emergency.
The three stations supply electrical power for several million Illinois residents. All three plants remained stable and on-line, and no abnormalities and no physical or structural damage were identified during inspections following the quake.
Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbit said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared the "unusual alert" for all three plants."All of them were operating 100 percent, and no problems were reported, but we did a check of all safety systems."
-------- britain
BNFL closes nuclear power plant
Paul Brown
Wednesday June 30, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1250414,00.html
Chapelcross, Britain's only remaining military nuclear power station, is being closed because it is uneconomical to repair, British Nuclear Fuels announced yesterday.
The station at Dumfries, which employs 535 people, opened in 1959 and was used to make plutonium for Britain's nuclear weapons programme. It has produced electricity for 45 years.
More recently, with the UK having excess plutonium, the station has been used to produce tritium, which helps Trident missiles work to maximum efficiency. Tritium is a relatively unstable radioactive substance and has to be replaced in weapons every seven years. Since there are no other manufacturing facilities in the UK the government may have to find an alternative source.
Yesterday the Ministry of Defence said there were sufficient stocks for the forseeable future.
The station has four reactors, one of which has been out of action since 2001, when 24 fuel elements were accidentally dropped down a shaft during refuelling.
During recovery operations it was found that graphite blocks central to the construction were shrinking. This was distorting the fuel channels and caused concern that fuel might get stuck in the reactor or, in the event of an emergency, that the control rods that shut it down could not be inserted quickly.
It was eventually decided that it was too expensive to solve the problem and so the station would have to close.
It had been hoped to keep it open until 2010.
-------- depleted uranium
The Part of the 9-11 Story Michael Moore Missed!
Editorial, Axis of Logic
Jun 30, 2004
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_9638.shtml
"Fahrenheit 9/11 is not an indictment of just George Bush. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not an indictment of just Republicans. Fahrenheit 9/11 is an indictment of the entire US Government that had to know Bush was lying to the American people to initiate as war and stood there smiling blandly while he did it."
"FAHRENHEIT 9/11" documents that the American people have been lied to in the push for war. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was not a threat. Iraq had no link to 9-11. Iraq was not supporting Al Qaeda. The government of Iraq under Saddam killed far fewer Iraqi people than the government of Iraq under George Bush. The Kurds were actually gassed by Iran (and does the name "Waco" ring a bell?). The only nuclear weapons found in Iraq are the tons of depleted uranium munitions dropped on the Iraqi people by the United States. And, far from being the champion of human rights, the United States stands exposed as a willing user of torture on prisoners who in many cases were innocent of any wrongdoing.
That's the major message. We The People were lied to about, well, just about everything. Including 9-11 itself. Bush sat there and read about goats while the towers fell. The video tape of "Osama's" confession turned out to be fake. Osama himself turned out to be a fake, a CIA asset trained and funded by the US to fight the USSR in Afghanistan. Blair's dossier turned out to be fake, plagiarized from a student thesis. The mobile biological weapons trailers turned out to be fake; actually balloon inflators sold by the British to Iraq. And on and on and on. Deception after deception after deception.
Everyone agrees on this major message. We've been lied to. We are the victims of history's greatest and deadliest hoax; a hoax perpetrated to ignite a war of conquest. Michael Moore's film does a great job of confronting that deadly fact.
But, Michael Moore has himself either fallen for disinformation, or simply not done his homework, and seems willing to accept without question the official story of 9-11.
Now, it may be that Michael Moore just didn't care to get into 9-11 itself that deeply. Moore seems mostly focused on the aircraft allowed to fly out of the United States in the days immediately after 9-11 while the rest of the nation's aircraft were grounded. On these flights were members of Osama bin Laden's family. The Bush's and bin Ladens go back a long way. Osama's brother was George's business partner in Abusto Energy and source of the seed money to start the company. It is reportedly because of this connection that Osama was recruited to play holy warrior for the CIA in Afghanistan against the USSR. So there is no question that those flights did occur, and that Osama's family members were among the passengers.
At issue is whether this fact of the aircraft flights points the finger of blame for 9-11 at Saudi Arabia. After first being told that Afghanistan was to blame for 9-11, then Iraq was to blame for 9-11, one should take any claims of any Arab country being identified as the perpetrator of 9-11 with a huge heaping of salt. Michael Moore, who clearly recognized the claims about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, the supposed link from Saddam to Al Qaeda and to 9-11 as lies, shows a dangerous naivte in his willingness accept the official story of 9-11 without question.
So, let's take a look at the idea of Saudi Arabia as the perpetrator of 9-11. Why would they do it? What would they gain? Immediately after the attacks, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what the attack would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was: "It's very good....... Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)". The months since 9-11 have borne that out. US support for Israel's agenda grew stronger as Israel committed more atrocities against the Palestinians. More money flowed from the US to Israel. World opinion, which had been growing against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, temporarily abated. World hostility towards Arabs in general grew. Forgotten was the fact that Israel was actually in defiance of more UN Resolutions than Saddam had ever been. And, it was assumed at the start of the war that direct access to Iraq's oil would reduce American demand for Saudi oil, and likely force prices down as Iraq's oil came to market. So, where was the motive? Do you really think Saudi Arabia would commit an act that would strengthen US-Israeli ties? Do you really think Saudi Arabia would commit an act that would undercut their own oil revenues? Do you really think Saudi Arabia would commit an act that would anger the world against Arabs? Me neither.
Here are some facts that for some reason did not make it into the final cut of "Fahrenheit 9/11"
On 9-11, five men were arrested for suspicious behavior, cheering and laughing while the WTC collapsed. In the van police found cash, multiple passports, and maps with the World Trade Center highlighted. Bomb-sniffing dogs indicated explosives residue were present in the truck. The arrested men were Israelis, later identified by Pacific Radio as agents of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad. According to Carl Cameron's FOX News story on the Israeli spy ring, the US Government classified evidence that linked the arrested Israeli spies to 9-11. The Mossad agents were using a moving company, Urban Moving Systems, for a cover. The owner of the company, Dominic Suter, abandoned his business after 9-11 and fled to Israel on 9-14.
The 9-11 scene was littered with passports using Saudi names, passports which the FBI admitted just ten days later were high-quality fakes using identities stolen from Arab men. We don't know who was on those planes, only who we were supposed to THINK were on those planes. Why would Saudi Arabia commit 9-11 and use phony passports pointing back to themselves? If Saudi Arabia had done 9-11, it is safe to assume the phony passports would have likely pointed to Israel. FBI Director Robert Mueller has admitted in public that there is actually no evidence that proves the named 9-11 hijackers were actually on the aircraft.
The warnings of the attack sent to Odigo in New York and Israel before the 9-11 planes had even left the ground confirms beyond question that Israeli-linked companies did receive advance warning. Why would Saudi Arabia warn Israeli companies if they were behind 9-11?
It wasn't a Saudi-owned company in charge of security at all three of the 9-11 airports.
If Saudi Arabia was a partner with Al Qaeda for 9-11, why is Al Qaeda carrying out terror attacks against the Saudi Royal family now?
Speaking of "Al Qaeda", when Palestinian police arrested an Al Qaeda cell, they discovered they were holding a group of Mossad agants.
A final point: The nation that helped the US Government stage a fake terror event to launch wars of conquest in the Mideast would be in an ideal position to blackmail the US Government with that very secret. So, look back over the more than two years since 9-11 and find the nation for whom the US Government just cannot seem to do enough, cannot give enough money and weapons, cannot block enough UN Resolutions, the nation for whom a long standing neutral foreign policy has been cast aside in favor out total support for an expansionist agenda. Find the nation whose leaders openly brag of their control of the US Government.
If Michael Moore didn't quite do all his homework with regard to who may have been behind the 9-11 attack, that does not change the fact that the people of the United States were lied to to trick them into wars. And it is THAT message of the film which is the important one. But the hard fact remains that Michael Moore did not get ALL of the story of 9-11. Not by a longshot. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is just the tip of the iceberg.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is not an indictment of just George Bush. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not an indictment of just Republicans. Fahrenheit 9/11 is an indictment of the entire US Government that had to know Bush was lying to the American people to initiate as war and stood there smiling blandly while he did it. Like Hitler, Bush could not do what he did without a lot of cooperation by the entire government and the media. Look at the voting records for the authorization for the use of force in Iraq and in the draconian assaults on our freedoms. Both parties voted those "Ayes". The rush to war and dictatorship was a bipartisan one, worthy of bipartisan blame. Everyone is spinning Fahrenheit 9/11 to attack their own favorite scapegoats, but the truth is there is more than enough blame for the current state of the nation to share all around.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/farenheit911michaelmoore.html
-------- korea
Glimmer of a chance for peace in Korea
By FRANK CHING,
June 30, 2004
Business Times
http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/story/0,4567,121105,00.html
THE third round of the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue closed, like the first two, without a formal communique. However, for the first time, there were encouraging signs of progress.
With China playing a mediating role, Washington and Pyongyang each came forth with proposals, which the other side promised to study. This is a tremendous step forward since the United States had hitherto insisted that North Korea completely, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle all its nuclear arms programmes before there would be any discussion of what Pyongyang could expect in return. Washington has evidently abandoned its previous position of not rewarding bad behaviour by North Korea. This is welcome news but it comes a little late since more than 18 months have passed since the precipitation of the nuclear crisis - time spent by North Korea to upgrade its nuclear weapons arsenal.
To this day, the US refuses to negotiate bilaterally with North Korea, insisting on a multilateral format. The original hope was that North Korea - at the same table as China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the US - would realise that it was isolated and that all its neighbours were opposed to its nuclear programme. While this has worked to an extent, it has also worked against the US. In fact, as early as last September, after the first round of the six-party talks, American diplomats were surprised to learn that Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China's point man on North Korea, publicly declared that the main obstacle to progress was the American policy towards North Korea.
Recently, China distanced itself from the US on a crucial issue. Washington insists that North Korea has a secret programme to produce nuclear weapons by using highly enriched uranium and asserts that its dismantlement must be part of the denuclearisation process. Pyongyang denies such a programme exists. The Chinese have now cast public doubt on the US claim. Aside from China, the US was counting heavily on its allies, Japan and South Korea, to support it in the six-party talks. However, both Japan and South Korea have recently worked to improve their relations with North Korea.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang recently to obtain the consent of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to allow children of former Japanese abductees to go to Japan. South Korea has gone even further in its rapprochement with North Korea. In recent days, North and South Korea have dismantled loudspeakers, which for decades had directed propaganda broadcasts at each other. South Korea will also open an industrial park in North Korea in July. And in August, athletes from both Koreas will march together at the Athens Olympics.
With Russia now supporting North Korea in the talks, the US was in serious danger of being isolated. That undoubtedly is an important reason why Washington finally came out with its first concrete proposal. The US proposed that North Korea end its nuclear programme and allow international monitors to return. Under the plan, North Korea would cease all nuclear activities, secure any fissile material that could be used to produce a nuclear bomb and disable any dangerous materials. In return, the US would provide a provisional guarantee not to attack North Korea, while China, South Korea, Japan and Russia would provide Pyongyang with heavy fuel oil. North Korea, on its part, has offered to freeze its plutonium nuclear programme in return for aid. While the two countries are still far apart, at least now each side has made a proposal and the other side has promised to study it.
We are not yet out of the woods by any means, but now the difficult job of negotiations can begin in earnest. Hopefully, Washington and Pyongyang will now focus on serious negotiations rather than on rhetoric. All six parties are now agreed that the first step should be a freeze on North Korea's nuclear programme, accompanied by corresponding measures to satisfy North Korea's energy needs. News reports say that North Korea has asked for energy aid, apparently heavy fuel oil, equivalent to 2 million kilowatts of electricity, in return for its freeze. Of course, any freeze will only be the first step. The ultimate goal must be the scrapping of all of North Korea's nuclear weapons. Much remains to be done but, as Vice-Premier Wang said at the close of this round, the chance for peace has appeared.
The writer is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator
----
US tables new proposal to entice N Korea to five up nuclear weapans
BEIJING (AFP)
Jun 23, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040623150533.3a3avhyz.html
The United States tabled a new proposal on the opening day of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear drive Wednesday, which could include taking Pyongyang of its list of terrorist states.
Four days of talks got underway at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse with the US announcing the first significant overture to North Korea since George W. Bush took office three years ago and placed the Stalinist state on his "axis of evil".
"We're prepared for serious discussions, and we have a proposal to offer," said James Kelly in his opening remarks to the talks that also involve China, Japanm South Korea and Russia.
A senior US official later said that under the plan, aid would flow immediately after a commitment by North Korea to dismantle its plutonium and uranium weapons programs.
Nations other than the United States would be given the go-ahead to start sending heavy fuel oil while Washington would offer a "provisional" guarantee not to invade the country, he said.
The US would also begin direct talks about lifting an array of American economic sanctions, and knocking North Korea off its list of terrorist states.
"We would look at their energy needs, look at their concerns on sanctions, their concerns of being on the list of terrorist states," the official said.
"We want to make clear we will ask the DPRK a number of things that will involve a temporary period, or a three month preparatory period, for the dismantlement and removal of all their nuclear programs.
"During this phase we would require the DPRK to give a full listing of its nuclear activities."
South Korea's head envoy Lee Soo-Hyuck told reporters that North Korea's chief delegate Kim Kye-Gwan had no immediate reaction to the "first concrete" US plan.
"For the North Korean's, it would not be easy to understand the US proposal. It would require analysis on the North Korean side," he said.
Kim earlier insisted he was in Beijing to "break this current stalemate", and repeated that Pyongyang was prepared to abandon its nuclear weapons, but only if Washington dropped its "hostile policy".
"If the United States drops its hostile policy in action, we are ready to give up our all nuclear weapons-related programs in a transparent way," he said.
"Under the premise that the United States withdraws from its CVID and accepts our demand for compensation ..., our delegation is ready to offer a concrete plan for freezing nuclear programs during this round of talks."
CVID refers to the US demand for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, both plutonium-based and uranium.
North Korea has already offered to freeze its plutonium facilities in return for simultaneous rewards but has so far denied that is has a uranium-enrichment facility, which has led to the breakdown of two previous rounds of talks.
Asked if North Korea had again denied it had a uranium program this week, the US official said: "That is correct."
Kim though said: "We want neither to possess nuclear weapons permanently nor to attack the United States with them. We just want to protect ourselves from US nuclear attacks."
Analysts say China, Japan and South Korea have become restless with the stalemate, which may have prompted the US to soften its stance, although Bush will be conscious that any perceived backdown will not bode well in an election year.
Mitoji Yabunaka, Japan's head delegate, said the credibility of the talks process was in the balance.
"The credibility of the process itself depends on whether this round can make tangible progress," he said.
The standoff erupted in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea acknowledged it was developing nuclear weapons, violating a 1994 international agreement.
----
A Pyongyang that can recant, again
By RALPH COSSA
The Japan Times:
June 30, 2004
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20040630rc.htm
WASHINGTON -- "Some good, some bad, some ugly!" That was the way a senior Bush administration official summed up the just-completed third plenary session of the six-party talks in Beijing, aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. While other participants were reporting "substantial progress" -- and it was clear that Pyongyang (like Washington) had come to the meeting with a more cooperative attitude -- the two sides "remained far from an agreement."
Given past meetings, however, when the most that could be agreed upon was to meet again, it was encouraging that both Washington and Pyongyang put serious proposals on the table.
It's unlikely that either will accept the other's offer as stated, but forward progress now at least seems possible: Pyongyang agreed that its proposed "freeze for rewards" would be a first step toward dismantlement of all its nuclear weapons programs -- a consistent U.S. demand -- and the U.S. agreed that rewards could come early in the process, at least from the other parties. Seoul, Beijing, Moscow and even Tokyo seem amenable to front-loading some energy and economic assistance if a verifiable freeze process could be initiated.
Washington's detailed offer had been demanded by the others as a demonstration of the Bush administration's willingness to move forward. It was seen as a win for the "engagers" over administration "neocons" who wanted to continue to squeeze Pyongyang.
Subtle pressure by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was seen as instrumental in convincing President George W. Bush that Washington had to be more forthcoming in this round of talks, as was considerably less than subtle pressure from China and South Korea.
Pyongyang's answer will be a real test of North Korea's willingness to seriously negotiate now, rather than wait and hope for "regime change" in Washington come November, as many suspect is its current tactic. Will Pyongyang see Washington's gesture as opening a window of opportunity that it should seize upon, or as a sign of weakness to be further exploited?
For its part, Washington has stopped talking about "CVID" -- complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement -- recognizing that the term carries too much political baggage, but still sees this as the only acceptable long-term outcome.
The immediate hangup is over the word "complete." Washington continues to insist that the freeze (and eventual dismantlement) must include Pyongyang's clandestine uranium-enrichment program as well as its acknowledged plutonium-based reprocessing efforts. North Korea refuses to admit that a uranium-based program exists, despite overwhelming evidence -- including Pakistani nuclear scientist and proliferator extraordinaire A.Q. Khan's public confession -- and its own (since recanted) admission in October 2002.
Before the last round of talks, Beijing openly challenged Washington's contention that the uranium program existed -- presumably to exert pressure on the Bush administration to "be more flexible" and demonstrate "evenhandedness" to Pyongyang. Seoul has suggested that the uranium issue should somehow be set aside to be dealt with later.
Such reactions almost certainly guarantee a prolonged crisis. As long as Pyongyang believes that its denial can drive a wedge between Washington and its negotiating partners, it will consider it to be in its strategic interest to continue to deny the program's existence. China's response is particularly disheartening, if not disingenuous; given its "special relationship" with Pakistan.
The other parties know -- or should realize -- that Bush cannot yield on this point: To turn a blind eye toward the uranium program now does more than "reward bad behavior"; it says that the whole crisis was unnecessary in the first place. Both election-year politics and sound strategic reasoning preclude such a step. Turning a blind eye toward Pyongyang's major indiscretion would almost certainly guarantee future crises.
Likewise, a repetition of the North's new politically unacceptable demand that Washington take part in the initial round of rewards would demonstrate that it is more interested in driving wedges than in defusing the crisis, especially if Beijing, Seoul and others once again play into Pyongyang's hands.
But can North Korea recant and still save face? History says it can. After decades of denying that it was kidnapping Japanese citizens, Pyongyang suddenly fessed up, "discovering" that some rogue intelligence elements had carried on this program unbeknown to the central government. This type of "implausible denial" defense was later used by Islamabad when, much to its declared shock and dismay, it discovered that the father of its bomb was running a nuclear Wal-Mart, selling technology to all comers (Pyongyang included).
Perhaps it's time for Pyongyang to discover an "A.Q. Kim" in its own midst, so we can finally move forward toward a resolution of the problem. Waiting until November is like playing Russian roulette, for there is no guarantee that a Kerry administration, if there is to be one, would be more flexible on this point, or that Congress would allow it to be.
Having successfully pressured Washington to be more forthcoming, the other parties now need to pressure Pyongyang to test Washington's sincerity.
Ralph Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS (pacforum@hawaii.rr.com), a Honolulu-based nonprofit research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington
-------- latinamerica
Brazil discusses wider-ranging nuclear inspections with IAEA
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP)
Jun 30, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040630155734.hdbs9nxc.html
Brazilian Defense Minister Jose Viegas said Wednesday that the government was negotiating a new agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on inspecting a uranium-enrichment facility in Rio de Janeiro state.
Viegas did not specify what was being discussed or when an agreement could be reached.
But he stressed that Brazil has "never refused visits and inspections of its uranium-production facilities, and it never will."
The remarks followed a news report Tuesday stating that Brazil denied the UN nuclear watchdog access to a uranium-enrichment facility, claiming it needed to protect industry trade secrets.
The IAEA sought access to the facility in Resende, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview in Moscow with the daily O Globo, published Tuesday.
ElBaradei told the daily that Brazil should not be an exception to IAEA norms. He said the IAEA needed to see the equipment itself because it was the only way to ensure that no uranium was being enriched beyond that which had been declared.
Brazilian authorities reportedly offered to allow the IAEA to weigh uranium leaving the facility.
-------- mideast
ALGERIA COULD BE NUCLEAR CHALLENGE FOR U.S.
Wed, 30 Jun 2004
[MENL]
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2004/july/07_01_3.html
WASHINGTON -- Algeria could be another nuclear proliferation challenge for the United States.
Western diplomatic sources said the United States has been quietly advising Algeria to open its nuclear facilities to inspection in an attempt to stop the North African country from weapons capability. The sources said Algeria has acquired a large nuclear infrastructure that could be converted for use in the assembly of nuclear weapons.
Algeria, the sources said, has acquired the installations and components to complete the nuclear cycle. This means that Algeria would be able to produce lbomb-grade plutonium.
Algeria has not been a stranger to nuclear weapons. Between 1960 and 1965 France conducted 14 underground nuclear tests at two separate locations in the Algerian desert.
-------- russia
Russia's plans for spent nuclear fuel site spark howls of protest
MOSCOW (AFP)
Jun 30, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040630155157.eairry1t.html
Russia's willingness to build the world's first international depository for spent nuclear fuel Wednesday sparked howls of protests from opponents of the plan.
"Russia should not be reprocessing nuclear waste and most certainly should not be importing it," Igor Chestin, director of the Russian branch of the WWF global environmental group, told AFP Wednesday.
"Russia cannot ensure security" of such an installation, he said, becoming the latest in a line of environmental leaders and politicians to blast the plan, which the government has estimated will earn Russia billions of dollars.
The protests flared after Mohammed ElBaradei, chief of UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Russia was willing to construct the facility.
Russia is willing to build a "state of the art" geological depository for spent nuclear fuel and be the first in the world "to accept foreign spent fuel," said ElBaradei in Moscow, where he attended a conference on atomic energy.
A day later, the head of Russia's nuclear energy agency Alexander Rumyantsev said that he did not see any obstacles to construction.
"Russia has experience in reprocessing combustible waste" as well as the appropriate legislation, Rumyantsev told reporters after attending a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and ElBaradei.
But Rumyantsev said the final decision on the facility has not been made and would likely take years.
"Experts at IAEA will be discussing the proposal for several years," Rumyantsev was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. "And there isn't even agreement that the storage site will be created."
In June 2001, Russia's parliament adopted amendments to environmental legislation that authorized the import of spent nuclear fuel, provoking protests from environmental campaigners.
At the time, the energy ministry estimated that the Russian budget could earn up to 20 billion dollars over 10 years from the project, according to the respected Vedomosti business daily.
Regional authorities in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Region, which currently houses the nation's largest nuclear waste facility and is likely to house the international center, emphasized the financial gains from the project this week.
"This is billions of dollars to the Russian budget, half of which will be allocated to the region," an unnamed regional official was quoted as saying by Vedomosti.
But environmental groups have vowed to fight the plan.
"Russian Greenpeace, like 90 percent of Russia's population, is against such projects that are effectively turning the country into a nuclear dump," Vladimir Chuprov, of the international group's Russia chapter, said.
"Russia is turning into the only country in the world that is opening its borders for such projects."
Said Sergei Mitrokhin, of the Yabloko opposition party that lost its parliamentary seats during a December election: "Russia's future generations will have to pay for waste handling during the next hundred years, if not longer."
----
WWF criticizes Russia's plans for spent nuclear fuel site
MOSCOW (AFP)
Jun 30, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040630123301.lxuni5ks.html
The global environmental group WWF Wednesday criticized Russia's agreement in principle to build a depository for spent nuclear fuel and become the first country to accept such fuel from abroad.
"Russia should not be reprocessing nuclear waste and most certainly should not be importing it," Igor Chestin, director of WWF's Russia branch, told AFP.
"Russia cannot ensure security" of such an installation, he said.
A day earlier, the head of Russia's nuclear energy agency Alexander Rumyantsev said that he did not see any obstacles to constructing the facility.
"Russia has experience in reprocessing combustible waste" as well as appropriate legislation, Rumyantsev told reporters after attending a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mohammed ElBaradei, chief of UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
On Monday, ElBaradei said Russia was willing to build a "state of the art" geological depository for spent nuclear fuel and be the first in the world "to accept foreign spent fuel."
But Rumyantsev said the final decision on the facility has not been made and would likely take years.
"Experts at IAEA will be discussing the proposal for several years," Rumyantsev was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. "And there isn't even agreement that the storage site will be created."
In June 2001, Russia's parliament adopted amendments to environmental legislation that authorized the import of spent nuclear fuel, provoking protests from environmental campaigners.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Pressure mounts for nuclear tests
Does Britain want to join underground testing in Nevada?
By Lee Davidson
Deseret Morning News
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595074120,00.html
WASHINGTON - In another sign that pressure is mounting to resume underground nuclear testing in Nevada upwind from Utah, a British think tank now worries aloud that Britain may want to join such testing to modernize its aging nuclear stockpile.
The British American Security Information Council (BASIC) is calling on Parliament and Congress to look more closely at a proposed 10-year extension of an agreement to share nuclear data for "mutual defense purposes."
Nigel Chamberlain, BASIC's nuclear analyst, said renewing it without close questioning and outlining of goals may suggest to the world that Britain and America are working on new and better nuclear weapons while they are trying to prevent other countries from developing any at all.
"It is probably not the most effective for them to tell others they ought not to acquire nuclear weapons, but we are going on for another 10 years (of study on new weapons) no matter what you are doing," he told the Deseret Morning News. In short, he worries it could lead to more nuclear arms competition and would work against the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty designed to stop that. His group and allies even plan legal challenges to the Mutual Defense Agreement on those grounds.
Steve Erickson, spokesman for the Utah-based Citizens Education Project anti-testing group, notes that the Nevada Test Site was home to 24 joint British-U.S. underground nuclear tests between 1962 and 1991. Before that, Britain conducted 21 open-air nuclear tests, primarily in Australia and the Pacific.
Erickson notes that Britain and America jointly developed and deployed warheads for Trident missiles launched from their submarines. BASIC issued a report this month outlining numerous signs from British leaders that they are considering updating their Trident warheads, and may push for permission after the next national elections.
"I haven't seen anything about America wanting to update its Tridents. We have talked more about developing mini-nukes and bunker-busters," Erickson said. "But if the British want to update the Trident, I would assume it would be a joint effort since it was developed jointly."
He added that the British agenda "would be another pressure to resume testing. The United States and Britain have never deployed a new system without testing it first. And that does not mean just one test. Historically, it means a series of several tests."
Chamberlain's group is concerned that with the Trident nearing the end of its intended life span, British scientists - if the Mutual Defense Agreement is extended - may tap into the development of smaller more usable weapons such as the mininukes and bunker-busters receiving early study now by the Bush administration.
Although Britain has not yet decided to replace its Trident missiles, officials have said it is keeping open a wide range of options "for maintaining a nuclear deterrent capability."
The Mutual Defense Agreement, which President Bush sent to Congress on June 15, is expected to pass Congress fairly easily. "Realistically, politically, it is going to be renewed," Erickson said. "But in the context of what it does to nuclear proliferation, it should be examined closely - and not just rubber-stamped."
All that is among many signs worrying Utah politicians and activists that more nuclear testing upwind could be around the corner. Others include that President Bush's budget called for upgrades at the Nevada Test Site to a readiness level so that testing, if ever needed, could resume within an 18-month period.
Budgets also beefed up work on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a nuclear bunker-buster, and employment at Energy Department labs. Some legislation in the House stripped funding for the bunker buster, but competing legislation in the Senate retains it.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, during debate on the Defense Appropriations Bill last week, presented letters from the Defense and Energy departments saying the Bush administration has no plans to resume underground nuclear testing.
The letters, and dialogues on the Senate floor with leaders of the Armed Services Committee, also said current law would require a vote by Congress before any testing resumes.
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, is pushing a bill to make that requirement more clear and to require detailed environmental studies before any testing could resume - and close, independent tracking of resulting radiation if it does.
E-mail: lee@desnews.com
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Energy Dept. Releases Yucca Mtn. Papers
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
June 30, 2004
Associated Press
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=Yucca%20Documents
WASHINGTON -- The government is making available to the public 1.2 million documents related to the federal proposal to build a nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The documents, totaling 5.6 million pages, will be part of the Energy Department's permit application that is expected to be submitted this year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Most of the papers are supporting documents for previous reports, studies and assessments involving the project. It won final approval from Congress in 2002, pending an NRC license.
The documents cover more than 20 years of scientific study of Yucca Mountain, the department said in a statement Wednesday.
To dramatize the immense volume of papers, the department said the documents, if stacked in one pile, would be as tall as an 18-story building or three times the height of the Washington Monument, and, if placed end-to-end, would stretch from Washington, D.C., to Las Vegas.
The repository, proposed for a volcanic rock site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would become the nation's central burial place for 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from commercial power plants and defense sites in 39 states.
The department hopes to open it in 2010. The NRC licensing process will take several years.
The papers were being made available through the Energy Department and NRC Web sites, the department said.
On the Net: Energy Department background: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov
-------- new mexico
DOE/NNSA Cites Los Alamos National Laboratory for Price-Anderson Violations
6/30/2004
US Newswire
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=151-06302004
To: National Desk and Energy Reporter
Contact: Bryan Wilkes of the U.S. Department of Energy, 202-586-7371
WASHINGTON, June 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has issued a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to the University of California, the contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), for violations associated with occupational radiation over-exposures to two workers which occurred on August 5, 2003, resulting from the inadequate storage and handling of plutonium residue containers.
The workers' exposures exceeded the federal annual exposure limit of 5 rem total effective dose equivalent. The PNOV documents the LANL's failure to develop and implement established work controls, to ensure that previously identified residue container potential degradation concerns were effectively addressed, and to store the plutonium according to the DOE/NNSA authorized process.
No consequences to the general public or the environment resulted from the cited operational event. However, the radiation exposures to the workers could have been significantly higher and were not limited by planned work controls.
This enforcement action is one of the more significant nuclear safety enforcement actions taken by DOE. DOE/NNSA has chosen to take this action based on the potential significance of the event as well as LANL's failure to correct long-standing nuclear safety deficiencies. LANL is exempt from civil penalty by statute and no civil penalty can be issued in association with the current PNOV. If not exempt, a civil penalty of $770,000 would have been assessed, based on the significance of the violations.
The Price-Anderson Amendments Act of 1988 authorizes the Energy Department to undertake regulatory actions against contractors for violations of its nuclear safety requirements. The enforcement program encourages DOE contractors to identify and correct nuclear safety deficiencies at an early stage, before they contribute to or result in more serious events.
Additional details on this and other enforcement actions are available on the Internet at http://www.eh.doe.gov/enforce.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Powell Tells Sudan To End Its Support For Darfur Militias
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15912-2004Jun29.html
KHARTOUM, Sudan, June 29 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, warning that thousands of people are condemned to die in the strife-torn Darfur region even with an immediate influx of aid, met Tuesday night with Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir, Sudan's president, to deliver the blunt message that the situation has become intolerable.
Powell, who is scheduled to visit the western region of Darfur on Wednesday to draw attention to the crisis, said he urged the Sudanese government to halt its sponsorship of marauding Arab militias that have killed thousands of black Africans and made more than a million people homeless.
Powell said he asked that the government -- which has repeatedly denied there is mass suffering in Darfur -- also begin political negotiations with rebel groups in the region and give humanitarian groups full access to the area.
Powell, the highest-level U.S. official to visit Sudan in more than 25 years, emerged from the meetings with Bashir and other senior Sudanese leaders to report that he received a "very clear statement" from Bashir that he would "remove any bureaucratic impediment" that is blocking delivery of aid.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, standing next to Powell, insisted that there was "no famine . . . no epidemic of diseases." But he acknowledged that "we still have to do more" because of the onset of the rainy season in Darfur. Sudanese officials have contended that foreign news media are exaggerating conditions in the region.
Powell came armed with satellite photos showing whole villages wiped out, and with statistics demonstrating that most camps that are housing more than 10,000 civilians lack sufficient food and water for nutrition.
At the news conference, he adopted a more diplomatic tone than he did in speaking with reporters traveling with him.
"Time is of the essence, and action is of the essence," Powell told the reporters. "They have to act now because we are running out of time. Some of these people have been condemned to death already. They will die in August and September, and there is nothing we can do to stop that. So we have got to act now, not later."
U.S. officials have said the Bush administration would use punitive sanctions, such as a ban on travel to the United States or a freeze on assets in the United States, against leaders of the Arab militias, and possibly Sudanese officials, found to have been complicit in the attacks. Powell said that after meeting with victims, he would consult with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan -- who will also be in Sudan this week -- about the text of a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution that would sharply criticize Sudan's government for failing to halt the violence.
Annan has suggested that international peacekeepers might be an option in Darfur, but Powell said that the idea was "very problematic," citing the size of the region and difficulties in operating there. A better solution, he said, would be for the Sudanese government to rein in the militias.
Powell also warned that U.S.-Sudan ties, which have been improving, would be affected by the government's actions. The Bush administration has worked to resolve a 21-year civil war between the Muslim north and the animist and Christian south -- an important issue for President Bush's Christian right supporters -- and a final peace deal has appeared near.
Last month, Sudan's government and the southern-based rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army signed landmark revenue- and power-sharing pacts in Naivasha, Kenya. The move was seen as a first step toward signing a comprehensive peace accord.
"Unless we resolve the Darfur situation and do it correctly, all of that is put at risk," Powell said to the reporters.
Powell said U.S. officials were studying whether to officially designate what has taken place in the Darfur region as genocide, but he added: "What we are seeing is a disaster, a catastrophe, and we can find the right label for it later. We have to deal it with it now."
Since Powell's trip was announced, there have been reports that the government has warned displaced civilians about what to say to the secretary when he arrives. The government also announced this week that 3,000 civilians voluntarily left the camp that Powell plans to visit.
Powell told reporters traveling with him that he was not conducting an investigation but that he had "been to places like this before and I know what can be arranged. . . . I can sort out when people are constrained from speaking."
Powell dismissed suggestions that the administration has been slow to react to the humanitarian crisis, saying it had been heavily engaged in international efforts to halt the government's support of the militias. The U.S. government has provided $116 million in aid, including food, water and shelter, and has pledged another $165 million through the end of next year, according to U.S. officials.
Powell said he was traveling here -- in a 24-hour visit squeezed between a NATO summit in Turkey and a security conference in Indonesia -- to draw the world's attention to the problem.
--------
Eyewitnesses to Atrocities Along Frontier of Chad and Sudan
By Nora Boustany
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16005-2004Jun29.html
The organization Physicians for Human Rights is calling for international intervention "to save lives and reverse injustices" on the border of Chad and Sudan. John W. Heffernan of the Boston-based organization said his group has identified "indicators of genocide" in attacks by Arabic-speaking militias against displaced refugees.
Heffernan has just returned from a field trip to the Chad-Sudan border with fellow PHR researcher Jennifer Leaning.
"The conditions there are extremely harsh not only for refugees who are traumatized and have walked and not eaten for days," but for international staff as well, Heffernan said.
Heffernan said he and Leaning traveled east and south along the border, across desolate mud and sand roads, then through rocky desert terrain to the north and through dust storms in 110-degree heat. The researchers collected testimony about atrocities and human-rights violations from fleeing refugees.
About 300,000 people have died in the crisis in the Darfur region since February 2003, and an estimated 1.2 million people have been displaced, according to international agencies. The physicians' group said that about 200,000 people are in camps in Chad and have access to international aid, but supplies cannot be guaranteed during the rainy season, which is about to start and lasts until October.
There are an additional 300,000 refugees in what human-rights groups refer to as prison enclaves in Sudan, with no access to international relief. Another 400,000 are in camps inside Sudan and those areas are in better shape and are accessible by international aid organizations, Heffernan said.
He and his colleague saw refugees suffering from hunger, lack of water and sanitation, and attacks by Janjaweed, an Arab Sudanese militia.
Water is scarce in refugee camps, Heffernan said. Crude wells were dug in wadis, or dry river beds, which are shared by people and animals. He said there were thousands of cases of severe diarrhea, probably from water-borne diseases, reported in one camp alone.
"You just saw these refugees load onto the border, taking refuge where they could," he said.
Heffernan said that when men in Darfur would flee when they knew a Janjaweed attack against their village was imminent.
He said that refugees moved into Chad, knowing that they had no other choice but trying to survive in refugee camps. But they knew that women were being frequently raped by the armed militias. "To have to make that choice" to flee "particularly in that society, goes to show how truly serious the danger levels are," he said. Heffernan said dozens of women, who had been raped and who managed to flee, said they had been turned away by Sudanese doctors at health clinics and hospitals inside Sudan.
"Rape is just one part of genocide. Usually women who were out gathering firewood would be raped as a sign that the onslaught on horseback and with militiamen in land cruisers was about to begin," he said. In one area, 70 young women were seized, raped and then returned the same day, he said, according to interviews with women in Chad.
Heffernan said subsistence crops and livestock have been pillaged, destroyed or hauled away and sold. At the Farchana refugee camp, he reported, one woman told him that five male members of her family, including her husband, were killed. The Janjaweed also took 39 cows, 1 camel, 2 horses, 4 donkeys, 42 goats and 50 chickens.
Several human rights groups have said that the United States has taken the lead at the United Nations in highlighting the plight of refugees and displaced persons from Darfur. Richard Goldstone, the former chief prosecutor of the U.N. criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, has publicly corroborated the conclusions of the physicians' group. Heffernan said the authorization of force by the U.N. Security Council might be required against Sudan.
"If it comes down to the use of force, so be it," Heffernan said. PHR's board has called for such action three times before, during crises in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.
--------
What drives US policy in Sudan?
BBC
By Elizabeth Blunt
30 June, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3853671.stm
The US has praised Sudan over its help with extremists The US Secretary of State is in western Sudan to see for himself an area where more than a million people have been forced from their homes.
Colin Powell warned of action against Sudan if security in the Darfur province is not restored.
But why is the United States so interested in Sudan?
The relationship between Sudan and the United States is a curious one.
The Americans still list Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, and formal diplomatic ties are at very low level.
Yet by deploying a mixture of aid and sanctions, Washington has brought about major changes of policy in Khartoum.
The US government has been the godparent of the peace agreement that seems finally to have ended the war in the south of Sudan.
Cynics often claim American foreign policy is driven by oil.
Sudan does have oil, and African producers are an alternative to the increasingly turbulent Middle East.
But southern Sudan is never going to be a cheap or easy place to produce.
Co-operative
Other issues are more likely to be driving Washington's policy.
One is the pressure from right-wing Christian groups in the US, who have taken up the cause of their fellow Christians in Sudan.
Their lobbying - on the issues of slavery and the forcible imposition of Sharia law - helped get sanctions imposed on Sudan in 1997.
But the most urgent driving force is likely to be Sudan's place in President Bush's war against terrorism.
It has a radical Islamist government which hosted Osama Bin Laden in the early 90s; a number of attacks against US interests were planned from Sudan.
Since then the Americans have worked hard at persuading Khartoum to be more co-operative.
Osama Bin Laden was expelled, training camps were closed, and the US state department says Sudan has "deepened its cooperation in investigating and arresting extremists".
Colin Powell now has to tread a fine line between putting pressure on the Sudanese government over its activities in Darfur, and driving it back into the arms of America's enemies.
-------- arms
Saddam's Arsenal Could Destabilize Mideast
June 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Small-Arms.html
GENEVA (AP) -- The huge numbers of small arms left behind by Iraq's armed forces after the fall of Saddam Hussein could cause instability in the Middle East for years to come, according to a study published Wednesday.
``Millions of firearms suddenly flooded a chaotic social landscape,'' the 335-page Small Arms Survey said. The number of murders using firearms in Baghdad rose dramatically and ``the violence became a major barrier to the restoration of legitimate authority.''
The Iraqi people currently control an estimated 7-8 million firearms, although the actual number could be much higher, the study said. This makes Iraq ``highly but not exceptionally well armed,'' and it still has fewer firearms per person than countries such as Finland.
``The concern here ... is we do not know what proportion of these weapons are military style,'' Keith Krause, the program director for the survey, told reporters. ``Iraq now poses a regional proliferation risk.''
But it said the impact of firearms in Iraq has been greater because of how quickly and easily members of a disordered society were able arm themselves.
``The collapse precipitated what almost certainly was one of the largest and fastest transfers of small arms ever,'' the report added.
The survey of global small arms is produced annually by a team of researchers coordinated at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and financed by a dozen Western governments. The United Nations adopted a program to combat small arms trafficking at a 2001 conference on the illegal trade in light weaponry.
At least 200,000 non-war-related firearms deaths occur each year -- the vast majority of them homicides. Almost half the killings are in Latin America and the Caribbean, which have gradually developed even more severe firearm problems than Iraq.
Latin America does not have a particularly high number of small arms, but far more people are killed per gun than in other regions of the world.
Colombia has the highest gun homicide rate in the world, at 50 murders per 100,000 people, compared with 3.5 in the United States and Germany at 0.2. Venezuela is the next most seriously affected in the region, with 21 killings.
``Several other regions are home to one or more countries affected by exceptional gun problems, such as South Africa and Albania,'' the report said. ``Latin America stands out as the only part of the world where so many such countries are packed together in a single region.''
Many of the problems are caused by governments failing to provide security, as people then use weapons to protect themselves and their property, said Krause. ``The international community should pay greater attention to the duty of states to treat security as a public good.''
The U.S.-led war on terror has caused tighter restrictions on gun ownership, but has also led to permission for U.S. airline pilots to carry guns and the greater use of armed sky marshals. The intensity of the firearms debate is expected to increase in 2004, as some U.S. states try to restrict ownership rights while others pass more permissive legislation.
The survey also said that more international initiatives are needed to stop the proliferation of portable surface-to-air missile launchers, known as MANPADs.
The spread of these weapons has until now been limited by the small number of manufacturers and the extensive training required to use the weapons. But that is changing, the study said.
``The current bout of media attention may have exaggerated the threat of MANPADs, but it has done much to raise international awareness of a threat with the potential to become more acute,'' it noted.
Governments need to increase stockpile security to prevent proliferation of MANPADs, but it ``is a problem that's going to be with us for years to come,'' Krause said.
--------
Archaeologists Seeking Pots Find WW2 Munition
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
June 30, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25769/newsDate/30-Jun-2004/story.htm
NICOSIA - American archaeologists diving for Roman artifacts off a packed swimmers' beach in Cyprus found live munition dating from the Second World War instead, authorities said yesterday.
British bomb disposal experts were called in to destroy the device found a few yards away from the shore of a beach neighboring a British military base on the southern coast of the island.
"The archaeologists were diving for bits of pottery and they saw a metal fin sticking up off the sea bed," British bases spokesman Dennis Barnes told Reuters.
"It could well have been a danger to the public," he said. Experts did not want to risk moving it so it was destroyed in the water.
The precise type of weapon was not immediately clear but experts believed the munition dated from the Second World War, Barnes said.
--------
Thailand gets 30 U.S. helicopters to fight militants
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Richard S. Ehrlich
June 30, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040629-094505-5668r.htm
BANGKOK - The United States has delivered 30 refurbished helicopters to Thailand to help it fight Muslim militants in the south and guard against drug trafficking in the north.
"We know you will make good use of these UH-1s, as you have the Black Hawks you have purchased [during] the past several years, and which we hope will be the long-term future of army aviation in Thailand," U.S. Ambassador Darryl N. Johnson said while announcing the delivery of the helicopters at the Royal Thai Army Aviation Center in Lopburi province yesterday.
The helicopters, plus spare parts and training, are part of a $30 million deal signed in 2001, the U.S. Embassy said.
Thailand's Muslim militants have been blamed for almost daily attacks against Thai security forces, Buddhist clergy, businessmen, plantation workers, teachers and civilians in the south.
Bangkok has poured hundreds of extra troops into the area to guard Buddhist temples and schools and to beef up patrols, but militants have continued their attacks using machetes, assault rifles, home-made bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.
The worst day of violence in Thailand's recent history was April 28 when Thai security forces, backed by armored personnel carriers and helicopters, killed 38 suspected Islamist militants inside the Krue Se mosque in the southern city of Pattani, plus about 70 other Muslim fighters in scattered clashes.
Five Thai security force soldiers also died, bringing the day's total death toll to 113.
Yesterday, gunmen killed a policeman and a state official in the south, police said, a day after authorities arrested eight Muslims suspected of planning attacks on state property and officials, Reuters news agency reported.
A gunman on a motorcycle shot a 37-year-old Buddhist traffic policeman as he drove to work in Pattani province and a Muslim official was fatally shot while riding his motorcycle to collect electricity payments in nearby Yala province, police said.
About 95 percent of Thailand's population is Buddhist, but Muslims form a majority in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, Satun and Songkhla, much of which is currently under martial law.
Shortly after the April bloodshed, the Thai government described the violence as an "internal" problem caused by Thai Muslim "militants" and not linked to foreign terrorists.
International and Thai human rights groups, however, criticized Bangkok for appearing to use excessive force when hunting down Muslim suspects.
They also criticized Thailand for its "war on drugs," which resulted in more than 2,000 deaths last year. Most of the deaths were described by officials as smugglers killing each other.
Bangkok successfully suppressed much of its earlier opium and heroin production, but still must contend with smugglers who bring those narcotics from Burma into northern Thailand for domestic use and for international syndicates.
-------- britain
Greenpeace seeks early closure of Magnox plants
REUTERS UK:
June 30, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25763/newsDate/30-Jun-2004/story.htm
LONDON - Greenpeace has called on the government to speed up the closure of its ageing Magnox nuclear power stations after rising costs forced an earlier than expected shutdown of the world's oldest operating plant at Chapelcross in Scotland.
British Nuclear Group (BNG) part of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels, said yesterday it decided to close Chapelcross, which started up in 1959, because it could no longer justify the cost of keeping the 194-megawatt plant running. The station had been scheduled to close next March.
"Some time ago BNG acknowledged all its Magnox stations are loss makers, but continued to squander taxpayer money in keeping them open," said Jean McSorley, a Greenpeace campaigner, in a statement.
"BNG has at least now openly conceded that the balance sheet doesn't add up for Chapelcross any more."
BNG said the early closure of Chappelcross did not effect the planned dates for closure of the remaining Magnox plants. Sizewell A and Dungeness A are due to shut in 2006, with Oldbury to close in 2008 and the Wylfa plant in 2010.
Earlier this month BNFL said its losses in the last financial year widened to 303 million pounds from 261 million pounds.
Britain's newest nuclear station, British Energy's Sizewell B plant in eastern England, is scheduled to keep running until 2035.
The government has not ruled out another generation of reactors as it looks for ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions without compromising the country's future energy supply.
So far, the government has pinned its hopes of meeting targets on cutting carbon dioxide emissions on a massive expansion of wind power. The nuclear industry is promoting itself as a more reliable source of carbon free electricity.
-------- business
Mine Safety wins Army contract
(UPI)
June 30, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040629-024559-1789r.htm
Pittsburgh, PA, Jun. 29 (UPI) -- Mine Safety Appliances of Pittsburgh Tuesday won a $26.3 million U.S. Army contract to produce 85,800 advanced combat helmets.
The deal follows a $16.8 million helmet contract, which was announced in February.
Since November of 2003, Mine Safety said it has secured four contracts from the Army totaling more than $104 million and covering production of more than 315,000 helmets.
"We're very proud of the fact that the U.S. military has embraced the advanced combat helmets in such a positive way," said Ron Herring, vice president and general manager of Mine Safety Appliances products division.
"As a company that has been involved in helping to protect our nation's military personnel since World War I, we put tremendous value on our military business and we welcome this opportunity to help protect today's men and women in uniform," Herring said.
Mine Safety Appliances is involved in the development, manufacture and supply of sophisticated products that protect people's health and safety.
-------- europe
Georgia Loosens Visa Regime
The Associated Press
June 30, 2004
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/06/30/017.html
Georgia loosened its visa regime on Tuesday for Russians entering through one of the checkpoints on the Georgian-Russian border, a move aimed at diverting traffic from a tunnel controlled by Georgia's separatist South Ossetia region.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry set up a special office on the Verkhny Lars point on the border between Russia's North Ossetia and Georgia to process visas, said Gigi Ugulava, Georgia's deputy minister for state security.
The move came a day after South Ossetian authorities temporarily seized three passenger buses, carrying 200 passengers from Russia into Georgia via the Roksky tunnel, controlled by South Ossetia. The buses were later released after the president of the breakaway region, Eduard Kokoity, was that told there were many children among the passengers, said Irina Gagloyeva, a spokeswoman for South Ossetia.
Tensions between Georgia and South Ossetia rose last month after Georgia briefly sent troops into the region and after South Ossetia blocked the motorcade of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's wife and refused entry to the Georgian agriculture minister.
South Ossetia has been de facto independent since a 1992 truce ended a separatist battle against Georgian forces, but Saakashvili has pledged to return the region to Georgian control. Saakashvili's pledge prompted South Ossetia to renew its effort to join neighboring Russia.
South Ossetian authorities have warned that they will be closely monitoring all traffic through the tunnel and that cars headed onto Georgia could face fees of up to 1,000 rubles ($35), Ugulava said. Russia imposed a visa regime on Georgia in 2001, apparently to underline its protest of Georgian inaction against Chechen rebels. Georgian officials retaliated, but have also called for the restrictions to be eased.
-------- iran
Attack Iran, US chief ordered British
30/06/2004
Telegraph
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=PHNCZJDTDWNUPQFIQMGSM5OAVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2004/06/30/wiran30.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/30/ixnewstop.html
America's military commander in Iraq ordered British troops to prepare a full-scale ground offensive against Iranian forces that had crossed the border and grabbed disputed territory, a senior officer has disclosed.
An attack would almost certainly have provoked open conflict with Iran. But the British chose instead to resolve the matter through diplomatic channels. Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez
"If we had attacked the Iranian positions, all hell would have broken loose," a defence source said yesterday.
"We would have had the Iranians to our front and the Iraqi insurgents picking us off at the rear."
The incident was disclosed by a senior British officer at a conference in London last week and is reported in today's edition of Defence Analysis. The identity of the officer is not given.
"Some Iranian border and observation posts were re-positioned over the border, broadly a kilometre into Iraq," a Ministry of Defence spokesman said.
The incident began last July when Revolutionary Guards pushed about a kilometre into Iraq to the north and east of Basra in an apparent attempt to reoccupy territory which they claimed belonged to Iran.
Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez then ordered the British to prepare to send in several thousand troops to attack the Revolutionary Guard positions.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps has 125,000 soldiers, making it 25 per cent larger than the entire British Army, and is equipped with 500 tanks, 600 armoured personnel carriers and 360 artillery weapons.
The incident is reminiscent of the exchange during the Kosovo conflict between the American general, Wesley Clark, the supreme allied commander Europe, and Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the British commander.
When Gen Clark told Gen Jackson to send British troops into Pristina airport to prevent Russian troops from taking control Gen Jackson refused. He was reported to have said: "I am not going to start World War Three for you."
The Iran-Iraq incident lasted around a week and was resolved by a telephone conversation between Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Kamal Kharrazi, his Iranian counterpart, British officials said.
"It did look rather nasty at the time," one official said. "But we were always confident it was a mistake and could be resolved by diplomatic means. We got in touch with Baghdad and said, 'Don't do anything silly; we are talking to the Iranians.' "
While Mr Straw was trying to resolve the issue peacefully, British military commanders on the ground were calming their Iranian counterparts, the ministry said.
The Revolutionary Guard was believed to be behind the seizure of eight Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel last week after they strayed across the disputed border between Iraq and Iran.
The eight men, who were delivering patrol boats to the Iraqi riverine patrol service, were released - but not before they were paraded blindfolded on Iranian television.
-------- iraq
Hussein To Face Charges in Iraq Court
Transfer of Legal Custody Is First Step Toward Trial
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15692-2004Jun29?language=printer
BAGHDAD, June 29 -- Iraq's interim prime minister said Tuesday that his government would assume legal custody of former president Saddam Hussein and 11 of his top aides on Wednesday, the first step in a protracted legal process to hold them accountable for rampant human rights abuses during the nearly 24 years Hussein was in power.
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Hussein and the others would be brought before a judge on Thursday to be charged, an event that could yield the first public glimpse of the former dictator since he was captured by U.S. troops on Dec. 13. After Hussein and his aides are charged, they will have the right to legal representation and the right to remain silent, effectively protecting them from further interrogation.
The 12 men will remain in U.S.-run detention facilities in Iraq because the interim government does not yet operate any high-security jails. But the transfer of legal custody, negotiated between Iraqi and U.S. officials over the past few weeks, will allow Iraqi investigators and prosecutors to question the men as needed and have them brought to court.
"I know I speak for my fellow countrymen when I say I look forward to the day former regime leaders face justice," Allawi said at a news conference.
The announcement of legal proceedings against Hussein and others, including former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, was the first official pronouncement by the interim government, which was handed political authority by the United States in a hastily arranged ceremony on Monday. "We would like to show the world that the Iraqi government, the new Iraq government, means business," Allawi said.
The handover of power did not diminish the pace of insurgent attacks against the 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Three Marines were killed and two were seriously wounded Tuesday when a roadside bomb ripped through their convoy on a four-lane highway in eastern Baghdad. Insurgents also fired mortars at a U.S. base in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, and strafed a patrol with small-arms fire in the capital's Adhamiya district. The Associated Press reported that an Iraqi civilian was killed in the Adhamiya attack.
Iraqi government institutions, another frequent target of insurgents, also came under attack in several areas. In the most serious incident, gunmen stormed a police station in Mahmudiyah, a town about 15 miles south of Baghdad, killing two people.
Three Turkish hostages who had been captured over the weekend and threatened with execution were released Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said. The al-Jazeera satellite television network reported that the captors, members of a group affiliated with the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, freed the hostages "for the sake of their Muslim brothers."
In the new government's first official event, President Ghazi Yawar accepted the credentials of U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte, who has replaced L. Paul Bremer as the top American civilian official in Iraq. Yawar's acceptance of the credentials restored diplomatic relations between Iraq and the United States, which were severed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Negroponte, who has served as ambassador to Honduras, the Philippines, Mexico and, most recently, the United Nations, said the goal of the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq, which replaces the U.S. occupation authority, was "to support the fully sovereign government of Iraq as it seeks to build a strong and free society."
"The future is in their hands," he said of the interim government. "America's policy is to be Iraq's respectful and supportive friend."
Shortly before Negroponte met with Yawar, a special tribunal issued arrest warrants for Hussein and the 11 others whose legal custody will be transferred to the new Iraqi administration. The warrants were "based on suspicion of crimes that have been committed," said Salem Chalabi, the president of the tribunal, which was formed last year to try Hussein and other senior leaders accused of human rights abuses. Chalabi said prosecutors would eventually seek to charge Hussein and his lieutenants with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The tribunal plans in the near future to ask for legal custody of several other senior members of the former government, he said.
But Chalabi suggested it was unlikely that trials of any senior leaders would begin this year. Reams of documents still must be pored over, mass graves must be exhumed and scores of witnesses must be interviewed by the tribunal's investigators, who are just beginning their work with the assistance of American and other international specialists, he said. He said it was possible that a "first batch" of indictments would be handed up in several months, but that the actual trials would not start until later.
Chalabi cited the poison gassing of the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988 as an example of the challenge facing investigators. "We haven't quite figured out which military unit did what," he said. "How many people exactly were killed? All this kind of stuff. It's just general information that we have."
Allawi warned that the process could drag on, as it has with similar tribunals elsewhere. "We will show that justice will prevail ultimately, regardless of how long it will take to be implemented," he said.
If Hussein, whose palaces and assets have been confiscated by U.S. forces, cannot afford a lawyer, the government will pay for one, Allawi said with a smile. "We assure you that it will be a just trial and a fair trial, unlike the trials that he afflicted on his enemies, on the Iraqi people," he said.
Justice Minister Malik Douhan Hasan said Hussein could be represented by a foreign lawyer only if an association of Iraqi lawyers agreed. Hussein's daughters, who live in Jordan, have reportedly hired foreign attorneys for their father.
Some Iraqi officials have voiced concerns that Hussein's trial, which the government has promised will be open to the public and the news media, will provide him with a forum to grandstand and possibly an opportunity to rally insurgents. But Chalabi said strict rules would be imposed to prevent defendants from using the proceedings as a soapbox.
A senior U.S. government lawyer in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was likely that lesser figures than Hussein would be tried first as part of the process of accumulating evidence and building cases against those in the top positions. The eventual charges against Hussein would likely focus on command decisions involving mass crimes against Kurds, Shiites and other ethnic and religious groups in Iraq, the lawyer said.
The other Iraqis to be formally handed over on Wednesday include Ali Hassan Majeed, also known as Chemical Ali, who reportedly gave the orders to use chemical weapons against Kurdish separatists in the late 1980s, as well as Hussein's two half-brothers, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan and Watban Ibrahim Hassan, and Hussein's personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud. All were on the U.S. military's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis and have been in captivity for at least six months.
U.S. and Iraqi officials familiar with aspects of Hussein's interrogation, which was conducted by the CIA and the FBI, said the former president did not provide extensive information, prompting the White House and the Pentagon to agree to the request for a transfer of legal custody. The officials said some of Hussein's aides had been more cooperative. Although transcripts of their interrogation sessions cannot be admitted as evidence at the tribunal, they can be used to help investigators assemble evidence and locate witnesses.
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Chalabi, Shunted to Sidelines, Shares His Playbook for Iraq Party Leader
Emphasizes Elections, Shaking Off U.S. Tutelage
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16002-2004Jun29?language=printer
BAGHDAD, June 29 -- Ahmed Chalabi smiled contentedly at the thought. L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator who ran Iraq like a viceroy for more than a year, was reduced to a hasty exit with a stealthy helicopter ride to the airport, seen off without fanfare by no one higher-ranking than a deputy prime minister.
"Bremer put his hand in his pocket and went to the airport ignominiously," Chalabi chortled Tuesday, the day after Bremer's departure. "And Dan Senor with him," he added, referring to Bremer's spokesman, who had denigrated Chalabi on television.
In essence, Chalabi was saying, Bremer is now gone, Senor is now gone and Ahmed Chalabi is not.
True, Chalabi has been disowned by the Pentagon and his other sponsors in Washington, the ones who not long ago were paying him for intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that seems to have been groundless. Thanks in part to Bremer, he also was excluded from the new government headed by his longtime rival from exile days, Ayad Allawi. And warrants or subpoenas have been issued for about 15 of his aides, including his intelligence chief, while sources in the United States, speaking anonymously, suggest he may have passed U.S. secrets to Iran. Chalabi, who was not charged, has denied any wrongdoing by himself or his associates.
Now, as the Bush administration's efforts in Iraq enter a new phase and many key Americans have departed, Chalabi remains.
The cunning and determination that served him during more than a decade of encouraging the United States into war against Saddam Hussein have not deserted him. From headquarters in Mansour, Baghdad's toniest neighborhood, the former exile leader, the former Washington protégé, the former Iraqi Governing Council member has taken to watching, waiting and laying closely held plans.
Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, which once drew funds from the CIA and the Pentagon, has not gained a high profile as a political force in Iraq, but neither have the other exile groups. The INC will participate as a political party in next January's elections, Chalabi said. But in a shirt-sleeves conversation at his expansive residence, the portly campaigner, 59, danced and jabbed relentlessly when asked about what is left of his own political ambitions.
When pressed, he cited a bit of wisdom attributed to Imam Ali, a 7th-century warrior who married a daughter of the prophet Muhammad and became a central figure of Shiite Islam: "He who seeks authority should not be given authority." In more modern terms, he said he was lying low because "people immediately ascribe to me aims and ambitions of achieving power."
Chalabi, a secular Shiite, has kept only a modest hand in public affairs since the Governing Council on which he served disbanded a month ago. He has helped organize the grand assembly convening next month to pick a quasi-legislature, and he meets regularly with the Shiite Caucus of Iraq's Shiite political leaders. But he is the only senior figure in the U.S.-backed exile movement whose group was frozen out of the new government by the Bush administration's political process.
Yet even from the sidelines, Chalabi said, he has clear ideas about what the Iraqi government should do -- ideas formed in years of maneuvering through the many agencies of the U.S. government. His ideas, forcefully expressed, have gotten him into trouble before, he acknowledged, generating hostility at the CIA, enraging Bremer and irritating even fellow members of the Governing Council.
The CIA had a long grudge against him, he said, because he warned that Iraqi intelligence had penetrated a 1996 coup plot supported by George J. Tenet, then deputy director of intelligence. Bremer turned against him because of his repeated insistence that Iraqis be given authority more swiftly to run their own country, Chalabi said.
It was Bremer, he said, who was behind the raid May 20 in which his office was searched for compromising documents on the strength of a warrant issued by an Iraqi judge. However, Senor, Bremer's spokesman, said at the time that Bremer's only connection with the case was administrative. "Ambassador Bremer doesn't intervene in these respective cases," Senor said then, "he just handles the procedural matter of referring it."
Now things have changed. Bremer has gone home and the Bush administration has cut its ties, leaving Chalabi in Baghdad with a future just as uncertain as that of the rest of his 25 million countrymen. As the new government takes its first steps with restored political authority, there was no longer any reason not to lay out his ideas.
The first imperative, Chalabi said, is to make sure the elections scheduled for January are carried out as promised. Allawi suggested over the weekend that the voting might have to be postponed until February or March if the security situation did not improve. But he swiftly disavowed the idea of delay the next day, recognizing the issue's sensitivity in a country repeatedly told that democracy had arrived.
The next priority should be to shake off U.S. tutelage and show Iraqis they have a government that really is in charge of the country, Chalabi declared. Even if the departure of U.S. troops is not a practical possibility, he said, the Iraqi government should display as much authority as it can under the circumstances.
"This is a quandary," he acknowledged. "The Iraqi government needs to assert itself as an Iraqi government, independent of the Americans, but it has to rely on the Americans to assert itself."
As he and many Iraqis acknowledge, Iraq's army and security services have not acquired the numbers or ability to confront violent resistance to U.S. occupation. As a result, the 141,000 U.S. troops and about 25,000 other foreign forces in Iraq will be in charge of security for the foreseeable future.
Allawi has few tools to back up his repeated pledges to crack down on the anti-occupation underground, Chalabi said, but he should move swiftly to give Iraqi security forces visibility on the streets. "At this time, the government doesn't have the power, but it has to show that it is doing it."
A good place to start, Chalabi suggested, would be with the new Iraqi National Intelligence Service set up by the CIA to replace Hussein's much-feared services. The new intelligence apparatus, hundreds strong, was organized in secret without a known budget or statute, he said.
The director, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, was recruited by the CIA station in the Jordanian capital Amman after he fled Iraq in 1991, Chalabi said, and has been a favorite ever since. A member of Iraq's Turkmen minority, Shahwani reports directly to the prime minister but is closely supervised by CIA officers, Chalabi added. Under their guidance, the service has turned much of its focus toward neighboring Iran, he said.
According to a report prepared in April by knowledgeable officials for members of the now-disbanded Governing Council, the service roster is two-thirds Sunni Muslim and one-fourth Shiite in a country that is about 60 percent Shiite, giving rise to fears that the new service has incorporated many former members of Hussein's Sunni-dominated services.
"This won't fly here," Chalabi said.
Next, Chalabi said, the new government should grab control of the country's finances. Specifically, he said, it should demand a full accounting of how Bremer, who had check-signing authority, spent funds from the Development Fund for Iraq, a pool of cash from Iraqi oil sales designated to pay for reconstruction.
KPMG, the firm contracted to do an audit, issued an interim report recently complaining that lack of cooperation from Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority was preventing it from meeting a June 30 deadline.
In addition, Chalabi said, the U.S. Embassy, which replaced the occupation authority on Monday, has sought power to disburse some of the funds even though political authority has been returned to the Iraqi government. Allawi's government should insist that the money flow exclusively through the Iraqi Finance Ministry, Chalabi said.
Another step the government should take to show Iraqis that it is in charge is to shed the American and other foreign advisers who remain in some ministries, he said. These advisers have largely left such ministries as education and housing, but remain in others, such as defense and interior.
Finally, Chalabi suggested, Allawi and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari should make sure that they, not the United States, determine Iraqi foreign policy.
Iraq has a long history of Arab nationalism and support for Palestinians against Israel, dating from before Hussein's Baath Party took over in 1968. As a result, its foreign policy, if tradition and popular sentiment are followed, could end up being adversarial with that of the Bush administration.
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Abductions in Iraq Reflect New Strategy, U.S. Says
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16003-2004Jun29.html
The United States believes the increasing spate of hostage abductions in Iraq reflects a new strategy by a loose confederation of insurgents designed to increase public pressure on the U.S.-led multinational force and other foreign interests to abandon Iraq because bombings and other terrorist tactics have not had sufficient impact, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. officials said they detected a turning point in April when random abductions based on "targets of opportunity" and random access to foreigners evolved into a more regular and calculated pattern. Based on interviews with released former captives, Washington believes that many of those abducted end up in the hands of a fluid network of cells.
"We've seen this tactic now for several months, but it clearly took on the form of an established tactic six weeks to two months ago -- rather than a one-off or target-of-opportunity sort of thing," said a senior counterterrorism official familiar with the situation in Iraq.
About 90 foreign hostages have been abducted in recent months -- with about 60 since the April 8 abduction of three Japanese civilians, which U.S. officials mark as the turning point.
Various groups have claimed responsibility for the seizures. Followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian extremist, this month claimed the abduction and execution of American Nicholas Berg and South Korean Kim Sun Il; another cell appears to be responsible for the kidnapping of Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a U.S. Marine not seen since June 19 and whose status was changed yesterday from missing to captured.
But as with the hostage abductions in Lebanon from 1982 to 1991, U.S. officials believe there are links among most of the abductors. "We have the impression now that there's a loose amalgamation where people can get picked up for any of a number of reasons and then enter an amorphous system that leads them to be handed off from one group to another and then they're evaluated for their value," said a senior counterterrorism official familiar with the Iraq kidnappings.
U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials are also investigating possible ties among the groups taking hostages in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, based on initial but sketchy information indicating the abductions are the work of extremists tied or sympathetic to al Qaeda and its allies.
"It's quite possible that there could be linkages," said a senior U.S. official tracking the trend. He noted that the Saudi group that seized and later beheaded American defense contractor Paul M. Johnson Jr. two weeks ago called itself the Fallujah Brigade of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Fallujah is the Iraqi city at least partly controlled by militants who rose up against U.S. troops this spring.
Despite the transfer of political power in Iraq, the Bush administration is increasingly concerned about the abduction threat to Americans and allies. Kidnappers released a video Monday that appears to show the execution of Army Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, who was captured April 9.
Hostage seizures are often more traumatic and enduring than any other terrorist tactic, U.S. officials said.
"It's effective because it's a prolonged drama, unlike a terrorist event which is over after the bomb explodes or the bullet is fired and the bodies are taken away and the shattered glass is swept up and the buildings repaired. A hostage story takes on a life of its own. It's the apotheosis of terrorist theater," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and director of Rand Corp.'s Washington office.
Taking hostages -- an age-old tactic used by Persians in the 6th century B.C., European rulers in the Middle Ages, Barbary pirates in the 19th century, and Latin American revolutionaries in the 1960s and 1970s -- can change the dynamics of political conflict by giving the weaker party a new edge, U.S. experts said.
"Taking hostages brings them attention. It makes them appear to be potent players. It brings them recruits. It dismays their foes and makes their foes' lives untenable. And it creates political crises at home," terrorism expert Brian Jenkins said. "It's already brought about some withdrawals from Iraq and Saudi Arabia and created policy dilemmas for several governments. If we were cold-blooded analysts, we'd have to concede that it is in their view a good return on their investment."
Unlike in Lebanon, where Americans and other Western hostages were held as long as seven years mainly by Islamic extremists, the worst hostage dramas in Iraq have had more decisive and grisly endings. Some, such as the three Japanese in April and three Turkish hostages yesterday, were freed, but others have been beheaded -- to graphic effect.
"Terrorists don't even need the media as they once did to have impact. Technology has made it possible to put their savagery on their Web sites, which will be seen and onpassed," Hoffman said.
The United States has limited means of coping with hostage seizures or striking back. U.S. officials said they have some indications that other nations have negotiated with hostage takers or intermediaries, as happened in Lebanon in the 1980s and Latin America in the 1970s.
U.S. policy allows negotiations with hostage takers, but no concessions, leaving few options, a State Department official said.
"We hope that the world community will reject this tactic as extraordinarily inhumane and brutal so there'll be a consensus that this crosses beyond any reasonable standard of behavior," the counterterrorism official said. "If it's devalued, then you hope that people who have any information that can help resolve and return these people will be motivated to tell the authorities."
Researcher Robert E. Thomason contributed to this report.
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Mortar Attack Injures 11 U.S. GIs in Iraq
June 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents fired at least 10 mortar rounds at a U.S. base on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport on Wednesday, wounding 11 soldiers, two of them seriously, and starting a fire that burned for well over an hour.
That attack, along with a car bomb that exploded outside a police headquarters in Samawah, 150 miles south of the capital, Baghdad, were yet more evidence that insurgents have no plans of letting up their attacks even after the U.S. coalition authorities handed over sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on Monday.
Despite the end of the occupation, about 160,000 foreign troops -- most of them Americans -- remain in Iraq to provide security and train Iraq's new security services. American officials have warned that the transfer of sovereignty would not stop assaults.
Guerrillas struck the logistics base on the edge of Baghdad's airport at about 8:15 a.m., said Lt. Col. Richard Rael, their commander. The base is operated by the New Mexico Army National Guard's 515 Corps Support Battalion.
``We're OK,'' Rael said. ``We'll get back to business as usual.''
A pall of black smoke hung over the airport for an hour after one of the 82 mm mortar rounds struck a petroleum products yard. There were no injuries from the fire.
The base has been subject to almost daily mortar attacks, but this was the first time the attacks caused significant casualties and damage.
Two people were wounded in the car bombing in Samawah, which set two other vehicles ablaze, a hospital official said.
Meanwhile, the United States was still looking for U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. On Tuesday, his status was changed from ``missing'' to ``captured.''
An insurgent group has claimed the kidnapping of Hassoun and has threatened to behead him unless Iraqi prisoners are released. Hassoun was shown blindfolded with a sword brandished over his head in a video aired on Al-Jazeera television.
Hassoun, of Lebanese descent, was last seen about a week before the videotape was broadcast Sunday, the military said.
``The circumstances surrounding the Marine's absence initially indicated that he was missing,'' a statement by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said. ``However, in light of what we have observed on the terrorists' video, we have classified him as captured.''
The New York Times, citing a Marine officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity, reported Wednesday that Hassoun had been traumatized after seeing one of his sergeants killed by a mortar, and was trying to make his way back to Lebanon. The officer told the paper that Hassoun sought the help of Iraqis on the base, was betrayed by them, and was handed over the extremists.
Hassoun's eldest brother, Mohammad, who lives in a Salt Lake City suburb, denied the report.
``To me it has no foundation. It's all wrong,'' Mohammad Hassoun said Tuesday night.
In Baghdad, a senior U.S. military official said Hassoun was missed after he failed to report for duty on June 20.
``It is highly unlikely that he was taken,'' the official said, on condition of anonymity. ``We are investigating all possible circumstances that could have led to his failure to report to duty.''
Capt. Amy Malugani, spokeswoman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Pendleton, declined to comment on the report Tuesday. She also would not say what steps the Marines were taking to rescue Hassoun.
That report came after Turkey's foreign minister said Tuesday that Iraqi insurgents freed three Turkish hostages, while two other Turkish captives reportedly told their families they would soon be released.
The Turks were among dozens of people kidnapped in Iraq in recent months. Most have been freed, but several were slain -- two by being beheaded.
``Our citizens have been released,'' Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told state television. ``We've struggled a lot for their release. We are glad to hear this news.''
He spoke after the Arab television station Al-Jazeera reported that the group responsible for beheading two other foreign hostages had announced it was freeing the three Turks.
The abduction of the Turks was claimed by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose followers killed American Nicholas Berg last month and South Korean Kim Sun-Il last week.
Two other Turkish hostages were allowed to call their families to say they would be freed within a week after their company agreed to stop working for the U.S. military in Iraq, CNN-Turk television reported.
The fathers of the hostages told the private TV network their sons, Soner Sercali and Murat Kizil, were in good health. The two air conditioning repairmen were reported missing June 1.
Sercali's father Feridun said their employer, Kayteks, had agreed to stop doing business in Iraq.
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The hard part
washtimes
By Cal Thomas
June 30, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040629-090641-9638r.htm
At the end of America's Constitutional Convention in 1787, the story goes, a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and asked him what kind of government the Founders had just delivered. "A republic, madam, if you can keep it," Franklin is said to have replied.
Now that something called "sovereignty" has been handed to a provisional government in Iraq, the same question might be asked. But there is no Iraqi "Franklin" to give an answer. Not yet. Elections are planned for next January. Saddam Hussein may be indicted soon by the new Iraqi government. But what comes now is anyone's guess and everyone's fear. At least the British gave the new American republic a fighting chance before the War of 1812. There may not be a similar respite for the new Iraqi government.
The wild card is the terrorists. It helps that the leadership in Iraq is Muslim and they call the terrorists "infidels," the same label applied by the terrorists to the new leadership and their supporters. The question is: How will the masses see this? Is one man's infidel another man's freedom fighter?
The terrorists are not about to surrender, and so they must be defeated. The new Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has threatened to impose martial law and root out the terrorists. That may be a necessity, not an option, given the continued incendiary rhetoric coming from our "good friends" and "allies in the war on terror," Saudi Arabia.
At the moment when the stability of the Saudi kingdom is threatened by al Qaeda terrorists within that country, official Saudi TV carries sermons blaming that terrorism on others.
A sermon by Shaykh Salah al-Budayyir carried on Saudi TV2 in Arabic last Saturday (June 25) said the regional conflict is not about liberty and justice for all, but an effort to destroy Islam:
"O Muslims, the enemies of religion, including Jews, Christians, atheists and Westernized deviates who rode their bandwagon, continue to wage campaigns against the Islamic nation through the news media and mail. ... Their aim is to undermine the faith of the nation, destroy its morals, wipe out its identity and divert it from its mission."
That's a pretty ambitious undertaking for Jews, Christians and atheists, who don't have unanimity of opinion within their own groups much less with each other.
Like terrorism, which is worldwide, rhetoric in Saudi Arabia cannot be divorced from action in Iraq.
The first step by the new Iraqi government must be a visible and credible demonstration of unity, resolve and some initial success to defeat and eliminate the terrorist threat within Iraq and to give the people the security that will inspire political stability and economic prosperity.
Jobs and a sense of hope for the future are most needed in Iraq, and these won't come in sufficient numbers to provide that most basic of all human emotions - hope - until security is established. There is no option but victory over the terrorists and the dictators, just as the Founders settled for nothing less than independence 228 years ago.
Iraq's new foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said in Istanbul, where he attended the NATO summit, "I believe that we will challenge these terrorists, criminals, Saddamists and anti-democratic forces" by the two-day advancement of the handover date. He had better do more than challenge them. He had better defeat them.
This isn't about religion, which has been used in Iraq for political ends. It is about defeating a virulently hateful movement that seeks to export domestic chaos to the world. If self-determination is not embraced in Iraq, there will be hell to pay in other nations, including our own.
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US probe finds Iraqi security forces plagued by mass desertions
AFP
Wednesday June 30
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040630/1/3ldzs.html
Fledgling Iraqi security forces are "unready" to fight anti-government insurgents as their units remain inadequately trained, underequipped and suffer from a desertion rate sometimes exceeding 80 percent, a US congressional probe has found.
The grim assessment came Tuesday, one day after NATO leaders agreed, at a summit in Istanbul, to help train the new Iraqi army that is expected to gradually increase its role in combating Islamist insurgents now that the country's sovereignty has been formally restored.
"Iraq's leaders are eager to assume responsibility for their own security, and that is our wish as well," an optimistic US President George W. Bush said before leaving the summit.
But as he flew from Istanbul to Washington, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, issued a terse report detailing massive morale, logistical and training problems plaguing Iraq's various security organizations.
"Iraqi security forces proved unready to take over security responsibility from the multinational force, as demonstrated by their collapse during April 2004," stated the document prepared for the heads of the international relations committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.
As many as 82 percent of personnel deserted from Iraqi Civil Defense Corps units deployed in Western Iraq and around the town of Fallujah last April, when anti-American guerrillas launched a spate of deadly strikes against coalition forces, congressional investigators found.
The desertion rate reached 49 percent in corps units deployed in and around Baghdad, while in towns like Baqubah, Tikrit, Karbala, Najaf and Kut, it stood at 30 percent.
Police squads hardly fared better. During just one week of April 17 to 23, the force lost 2,892 personnel because some of the officers others turned out to be rebel sympathizers or proved to be incompetent and had to be sent for retraining, according to the report. The figure also includes those killed in action.
The police forces in Fallujah, Najaf, Karbala and Kut collapsed, the document said.
In Fallujah, a battalion of the newly-reconstituted Iraqi army refused to support the US First Marine Expeditionary Force and engage the rebels.
"One problem cited included the belief of the soldiers, reinforced by briefings during their training, that they would never be used as an internal security force," the report pointed out, citing weak leadership and insufficient or poor equipment as contributing factors.
Clashes in April have shown that rebels units numbering between 10 and 20 fighters could easily overrun buildings guarded by the Facilities Protection Service, another of Iraq's security branches.
Despite US assistance, Iraqi police continued to suffer from a shortage of equipment. At the end of March, they had only 41 percent of the patrol vehicles they needed, 43 percent of pistols, 21 percent of hand radios and nine percent of protective vests, the GAO said.
In late April, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps was still waiting for the delivery of promised vehicles, radios, AK-47 rifles, machine guns, ammunition and night vision equipment.
Moreover, a US-designed training course did not prepare the corps "to fight against well-armed insurgents," the report stressed.
Despite Iraq's newly-declared sovereignty, the United States, according to the GAO, will maintain a heavy presence in its government. The Interior Ministry will include as many as 27 American advisers while the Ministry of Finance will have 11.
The report also points out that in some areas electric power supply has not been restored even to Saddam Hussein-era levels.
Eight out of 18 Iraqi governorates had electricity for an average of eight or fewer hours a day, while nine had power for between nine and 15 hours, the investigators said.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Court Orders Changes to Barrier in West Bank
June 30, 2004
By JOSEPH BERGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/middleeast/30CND-MIDE.html?hp
JERUSALEM, June 30 - The Israel Supreme Court ruled today that the barrier the Army is building along the West Bank to wall off Israelis from terror attacks must take into account the needs of Palestinian farmers and others who would be cut off from lands they need for their livelihoods.
The decision by the three-judge court did recognize that Israel has a legitimate security rationale for building a barrier and can expropriate plots of land in the West Bank for it. But the court said the Army high command "has a legal duty to balance properly between security considerations and humanitarian ones."
The barrier's current path, the court ruled, requires seizing tens of thousands of acres of land that "would generally burden the entire way of life in petitioners' villages."
The decision, technically affecting only eight Palestinian villages with 35,000 residents northwest of Jerusalem and only 25 miles of the barrier, sets a precedent for how Israel can go about completing the structure, which is already one quarter built. The entire barrier, when completed, would run for 437 miles from the northern West Bank, wrap around some settlements like Ariel quite deep in occupied territory, and stretch down to the southern rim of the West Bank.
In most areas, the barrier consists of an electronic fence with coils of razor wire, adjoining trenches and guard towers, but about five percent consists of concrete walls rising upwards of 20 feet.
The ruling, however, did not address whether the barrier could extend deep into Palestinian territory to protect Israeli settlements like Ariel. But legal experts said the court would closely scrutinize any challenged sections to make sure they conform to principles set down in today's ruling.
The decision set off measured satisfaction in the hardscrabble village of Beit Sourik, whose village council was the chief petitioner in the case. Its farmers protested that they would be cut off from most of the terraced land on which they grow olives, grapes and figs.
"We looked at the wall as a catastrophe for our village because we have high unemployment and if some people get income it was the result of farming," said the mayor of Beit Sourik, Mohammed Kandil, in an interview in his office here.
"They want to confiscate and steal the land," the mayor said. "Security is a pretext."
There was also glee in the adjoining Israel town of Mevasseret Zion, whose Israeli residents had joined the Palestinians in arguing that a fence rising between them would actually increase animosity and thereby lessen the sense of safety. Just last week, children from the two towns joined together to fly kites as sign of the friendly relationship between them that would be damaged by the construction of too invasive a fence.
The Ministry of Defense said it would abide by the ruling and re-draw the proposed route of the barrier to comply with the court principles. It had contended in court that it drew the route to create enough distance and topographical features to stop potential gunfire emanating from the village or to detect the approach of a suicide bomber. It is likely that in a new mapping some farmland will still be taken, but the petitioners believe it will be a lot less than the original route.
Israel says that the barrier is strictly a security measure, intended to prevent Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks, and that it could be moved or torn down at a later date. Palestinians denounce it as a land confiscation that would greatly disrupt the lives of many Palestinians and complicate efforts to establish a Palestinian state.
The Bush administration has said that it does not object to the barrier in principle, but believes that it should be on, or very close to, the borders Israel had before the 1967 war in which Israel, trying to forestall attacks from its neighbors, captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In an interview, Silvan Shalom, Israel's foreign minister, who is about to depart for meetings in Washington, took heart from the fact that "the court accepted the necessity of building the security fence for security concerns and rejected the claims that the fence was being built for political reasons."
The court ruling, he said, "shows the fence is moveable because we are a democracy."
But he vigorously defended it, saying it has "saved hundreds of hundreds of lives of Israelis" and resulted in a "huge decline in the number of terror attacks."
Until June 15, there were 38 legal complaints brought against the barrier, but today's ruling, according to court officials, was the first major decision setting the parameters for building it.
Moshe Negbi, who teaches law at Hebrew University, said the court tried to strike a balance between security and human rights. On the one hand, he said, it "did give approval to the idea of the fence" and did not accept the argument that it was merely built for political reasons or to expand Israel's land mass at the expense of the Palestinians.
But on the other hand, he said, the court ruled that the infringement on Palestinian life "has to be proportional to the security needs" and in this case "the hardships were disproportional."
In its decisions, the court analyzed the specific security needs wondering which West Bank hill would create particular perils to nearby Israeli residents and how much expanse of land was required to forestall an attack.
Mr. Negbi said the decision was not a surprise to him since the court has often thrown out Army policies that it felt violated Palestinian civil rights. In recent years, it forbade harsh physical measures during interrogations and it barred deportations of relatives of suicide bombers from the West Bank to Gaza who are not directly tied to terror.
The International Court of Justice at The Hague is expected to issue an advisory ruling on the legality of the barrier on July 9 to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and a debate in the General Assembly should follow. Israel, Mr. Shalom said, does not accept the court's authority to rule on the question.
--------
Israeli Effort Fails to Halt Rocket Attacks
June 30, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/middleeast/30mide.html
JERUSALEM, June 29 - Israeli tanks rolled into the northeastern corner of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the aim of silencing Palestinian rocket fire. But militants lofted several salvos at a nearby Israeli town, including two rockets that struck during a visit by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The rockets injured one Israeli man in the town of Sederot, just outside the Gaza border fence. Mr. Sharon was not near the scene of the attacks, according to aides, and he said Israel's security forces would act against the Palestinians responsible for the persistent fire.
Mr. Sharon traveled to Sederot a day after Palestinian rockets killed two Israelis, including a 3-year-old boy on his way to kindergarten.
"We don't plan to ignore what happened here," said Mr. Sharon, who paid a condolence call on the family of Afik Zahavi, the boy who was killed. "The security services have begun taking actions whose aim is to prevent the firing of these missiles.
"We are determined to take wide-ranging action to ensure that what happened here yesterday will not happen again - not now, not during the evacuation of the Gaza Strip and not afterwards."
The prime minister said he remained committed to his plan to withdraw Jewish settlers from Gaza by the end of next year.
His trip to Sederot was not announced in advance, and it seemed unlikely that the Palestinians were aware of his presence. The two rockets that landed during his visit fell in open fields and caused no damage, the military said.
The Palestinian rocket fire comes mostly from the area of Beit Hanun, and Israeli armored vehicles sealed off the roads leading in and out of that town early Tuesday. Soldiers shot at a number of armed Palestinians, wounding several, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian security officials.
During the operation, a Palestinian man from the Islamic militant group Hamas was killed when a bomb he was planting went off prematurely, according to Hamas. Also, a 15-year-old Palestinian, Muhammad Abu Ebaid, was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, Palestinian security officials said. Israel's military said it shot a Palestinian atop an abandoned building that has been used recently by militants to fire on Israeli soldiers.
In recent years, Israel has staged repeated incursions into Beit Hanun, sometimes staying for weeks. The Israelis have flattened buildings and orange groves used as cover by the militants firing the rockets at Sederot. The raids have reduced or halted the rocket fire temporarily, but it has always resumed after Israelis withdraw.
In the past few years, the Palestinians have launched more than 300 Qassam rockets from Gaza, most of them fired by Hamas. The crude homemade rockets are extremely inaccurate and their range is limited to about five miles. The rockets have small payloads, and although they have caused some damage and injuries, the attack on Monday was the first time they killed Israelis.
Israel's latest incursion was not large in scale, but Israeli officials indicated that the military was likely to maintain an extended presence in the area.
"We will take control of the launching sites and stay for as long as necessary," Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said.
In other violence on Tuesday, a 63-year-old Israeli man was fatally shot while traveling in a truck near Ramallah in the West Bank, the military said, adding that the circumstances surrounding the killing were unclear.
The foreign minister of France, Michel Barnier, met with the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat in Ramallah and told him that France seeks "to help you build an independent, democratic and prosperous Palestinian state."
Israel has sought to isolate Mr. Arafat diplomatically and has kept him confined to his Ramallah compound for more than two years. Mr. Barnier was one of the most prominent foreign officials to meet recently with the Palestinian leader. Israel had called on Mr. Barnier not to see Mr. Arafat, and the Israeli government has a policy of refusing to meet with foreign officials when they see Mr. Arafat on a trip to the region.
-------
Israeli Military Plans Gaza Security Zone
June 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Gaza-Security-Zone.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel plans to establish a three-mile-deep ``security zone'' in the northern Gaza Strip, with hundreds of troops patrolling the area in coming months to prevent Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli border towns, security officials said Wednesday.
The army and the Defense Ministry declined comment.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon intends to withdraw all troops and settlers from Gaza by September 2005. But after an Israeli man and a toddler were killed by a Palestinian rocket attack on the Israeli town of Sderot this week, Sharon asked the military to come up with a quick plan to stop further rocketing.
In a first response, Israeli forces encircled the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the main rocket launching area, to prevent more attacks. Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that Israeli troops will remain in northern Gaza for an unspecified period.
Structures will be built to serve the Israeli forces, including fortified troop positions and ramps for tanks and other armored vehicles, the officials said. New roads will also be built.
More than 1,000 soldiers will be deployed in the zone, which would extend from Gaza's northern border for about three miles and would encompass Beit Hanoun, home to 21,000 Palestinians.
The town's residents would have to pass through an Israeli checkpoint to reach other areas of Gaza, the officials said. Beit Hanoun's industrial zone in the outskirts of town has been temporarily closed, and farmers are not able to reach their fields while soldiers are deployed in the area.
The military hopes the ``security zone'' will move Sderot beyond the five-mile rocket range.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said the plan appeared to conflict with plans for a withdrawal.
``I don't understand the Israeli government's behavior,'' Shaath said. ``Either it's not serious about the withdrawal from Gaza, or it wants to destroy Palestinian land before withdrawing.''
The current Israeli military operation is the eighth major one in Beit Hanoun in nearly four years of fighting. In previous raids, more than half of the town's 3,000 acres of farmland, including strawberry fields and vegetable patches, were flattened and thousands of trees uprooted, said the mayor, Ibrahim Hamad.
An extended army stay ``will mean people are living in a prison,'' he said.
On Wednesday evening, army bulldozers uprooted hundreds of olive trees east of Beit Hanoun, residents said. The army had no immediate comment.
Abdullah Hamad, a Beit Hanoun farmer, said he had pleaded with militants not to fire rockets at Israel.
``We stab ourselves in the back when militants use the homemade rockets,'' the farmer said. ``In May last year, I saw them firing rockets from my farm. I begged them not to shoot, but they did and they brought damage to my farm and to my house, and now they have done it again.
``We are not against resistance but we should think if this way is useful and what it is going to bring for the people,'' Hamad said.
In the West Bank, Israel reoccupied Palestinian towns for extended periods during the current round of fighting. However, in densely populated Gaza, army raids generally lasted just a few days.
Israel established a security zone once before, in southern Lebanon. After withdrawing the bulk of its troops from Lebanon in 1985, Israel carved out the zone to prevent rocket attacks on northern Israel, but with little success. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
AP reporter Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this report.
-------- latin america
Al-Qaeda Sought to Bomb Panama Canal, Honduran Security Says
(Bloomberg)
June 30, 2004
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=as5DRu6fTf_E&refer=latin_america
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The al-Qaeda terrorist network plotted to bomb the Panama Canal, one of the world's most important shipping routes, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Leonel Sauceda, a spokesman for the Honduran security ministry.
Sauceda confirmed Security Minister Oscar Alvarez's report to local media that Adnan El Shukrijumah, or Jafar al-Tayar, a suspected al-Qaeda operative was in the Central American country late last month and ``planned to plant explosives in the Panama Canal to hamper boat traffic in the area,'' AFP said.
While Alvarez didn't say when Shukrijumah entered or left the country, or when he passed through it, Sauceda said the suspect was in Honduras on May 27, AFP said. The Panama Canal Authority says at least 35 ships pass through the canal daily, and more than 60 percent of that cargo originates in ports on the East Coast of the U.S.
The U.S. last month said Shukrijumah is a trained pilot and may be trying to use trucks as weapons. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said Shukrijumah has a driver's license with a Miramar, Florida, address and may try to enter the U.S. with a passport from Guyana, Saudi Arabia, Canada, or Trinidad.
-------- mideast
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia insist Iraq pay Gulf War debt
Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay
June 30, 2004
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-30/s_25396.asp
GENEVA - Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, who have lodged claims worth billions of dollars against Iraq for damage from the 1991 Gulf War, insisted Tuesday that Baghdad must honor its debts to victims.
A day after the United States handed over sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, the two oil exporting giants said there should be no interruption in the flow of payments to a United Nations-administered compensation fund.
A recent U.N. Security Council resolution said 5 percent of Iraqi oil revenues must continue to go to Gulf War victims. But it laid down no mechanism to ensure compliance once Britain and the United States had transferred control of revenues to Iraq.
"Iraq has the ability and the means to compensate for all of the damages it inflicted on the claimant countries," declared Turki bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz, president of Saudi Arabia's meteorology and environment department.
Failing to hold an aggressor fully accountable would set "a dangerous precedent," the Saudi prince told a closed-door session of the Governing Council of the U.N. Compensation Commission, according to his speech.
The council has received claims valued at $350 billion from individuals, companies, and governments for damages from Iraq's August 1990 invasion and seven-month occupation of Kuwait.
Saudi Arabia is seeking more than $28 billion for damage to its environment caused by Iraqi troops setting oil wellheads on fire as they fled a U.S.-led coalition, Saudi officials said.
Political Dealings
The Saudi claim, which includes the cost of rehabilitating the coastline, fisheries, and desert, is to be considered later this year along with environmental claims from Kuwait, Iran, Jordan, and Syria.
Khaled Ahmad Al-Mudaf, chairman of the Kuwaiti body assessing compensation claims, told the U.N. commission there should be "no delay or interruption in the receipt of funds."
Al-Mudaf, whose tiny country restored diplomatic ties with Iraq Monday, said he was confident Iraq would abide by the Security Council resolution.
"Kuwait would very much want to have good relations with the new government of Iraq and does not want to start out on the wrong footing," he added.
The council, set up by the U.N. at the end of the Gulf War, has so far approved awards of $48.2 billion, of which $18.4 billion has been paid out.
It is due to approve further payouts this week to a group of mostly wealthy Kuwaitis who lost property in the war, a spokesman said.
Kuwait is also seeking compensation for the families of 605 Kuwaitis and other nationals, captured by Iraqi forces, whose bodies have been found in mass graves.
-------- nato
Iran warms to the NATO card
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi,
Jun 30, 2004
Asia Times
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF30Ak09.html
As world leaders gather in Istanbul to discuss the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), particularly as it pertains to the Middle East and Iraq in light of the growing momentum for a NATO role in southern Iraq, the question of the alliance's relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran deserves central attention.
In fact, there are several reasons to be optimistic about the prospect of NATO and Iran forging bonds in the future, regardless of points of hesitation by both sides. First, Iran, exceedingly worried about the spillover conflict from neighboring Iraq, naturally welcomes a more international peacekeeping force near its borders than a purely American-British enterprise, for obvious reasons. Second, the question of Iran-NATO cooperation must be couched in terms of regional realities, such as NATO-Russia cooperation and, more recently, Pakistan's induction as a "non-NATO ally", which in addition to Turkey's long-standing NATO membership, translates into the greater proximity of NATO with Iran.
Third, Iran, which sent observers to last year's NATO summit in Munich, is keenly aware of NATO's post-Cold War changing identity, essentially from a mighty alliance into a kind of "military tool box", to echo a recent editorial in the Economist, and, therefore, is less averse toward the idea of selective, low-level security cooperation with NATO than in the past, irrespective of strong reservations about greater NATO intrusion in the region, notwithstanding the lingering suspicion of NATO as the US's Trojan horse.
Such an interaction is imperative for an Iran searching for durable politico-security solutions to the endemic sources of instability in its vicinity as well as the myriad sources of inter-state and intra-state conflicts in neighboring trans-Caucasus, Central Asia, Northwest and South Asia. This much was made clear in the recent trip of President Mohammed Khatami to India, when both countries pledged cooperation on regional security. This depends in part on Iran's willingness or ability to modify its stern anti-US image since India has effectively eschewed its previous antipathy toward the US and seeks strong US ties in the near future. Henceforth, any sign of Iran-NATO improvement is bound to have positive side effects, for instance, with respect to Iran-India relations.
Fourth, Iran's participation in NATO summits, when put in the context of post-Cold War realities and Iran's present and potential security concerns and interests, reflects the skillful diplomacy of Iran to inject itself in the on-going global discussions on the role and identity of NATO.
Fifth, the interaction of Iran's officials with NATO leaders can also have benefits with respect to Tehran's interests in the Caspian Sea, a rapidly-emerging energy hub of growing focus for NATO. Concerning the latter, suffice to say that under the rubric of "Partnership for Peace" (PFP) programs, NATO has been expanding its influence in the Caspian basin and beyond. A case in point is Azerbaijan, where PFP is giving it expertise to strengthen its ability to protect its borders. PFP programs could include developing an integrated military-civilian air traffic control system; developing and training its coast guard and border guards; upgrading its command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) systems to NATO standards; and developing military interoperability with the "new" NATO concerned with "out of area" issues. For now, at least, NATO's role in the region is largely restricted to advisory assistance, training and guidance in helping the military establishments of the Caspian states to restructure along Western lines.
Sixth, an Iran-NATO dialogue would parallel the Russia-NATO dialogue inked in Reykjavik, Iceland in May 2002 under the guise of "NATO-Russia Council" whereby Russia has been integrated in the NATO debates, although it falls short of Russia's bid for full inclusion. Thus, emulating Russia somewhat, the upcoming NATO summit could herald the first stage of promoting Iran-NATO cooperation by opening a channel for political dialogue aimed at exploring the areas of common concern and fostering the mechanisms for cooperation. The two sides can conceivably agree in principle on the following themes:
(a) Reducing the likelihood of civil war or inter-state conflict in the key states of the region;
(b) Impede the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
(c) Discourage the spread of militant political, or religio-political, movements such as the Taliban;
(d) Prevent the spillover of conflicts to areas of mutual concern, such as the Persian Gulf;
(e) Cooperating on the environmental security of the Caspian Sea, in the light of recent NATO "workshops" on the (declining) Caspian environment.
On the whole, a forward-looking Iranian foreign policy has potentially much to gain by commencing a carefully-orchestrated march toward dialogue with NATO. NATO's invitation of Iran can be reasonably interpreted as a sign of "appeasing Iran" in the light of on-going insurgency in Iraq and the linkage with a whole array of foreign policy issues, such as the "pipeline geopolitics," sanctions on US oil investments in Iran's energy sector, etc. This much has been recognized in Iran by, among others, Dr Javad Larijani, an advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his recent call for Iran-European Union talks on the future of NATO's role in the region.
For a "NATO at the crossroads" still debating its post-Cold War mission and purpose, it is important to bring an important Middle East country such as Iran under its policy purview. The 55-year-old trans-Atlantic organization has recently inducted seven new members - Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia, although Slovenia has recently warned that the referendum on its NATO membership may be jeopardized by the US war on Iraq. Since 1991, NATO has been grappling with a self-transformation affecting its military strategy, security responsibilities, plans and force posture. It has embarked on a 20,000 rapid reaction force, which could come in handy in peacekeeping operations in the troubled parts of Eurasia.
Since Iran has become increasingly involved in conflict-management in its region, there is no reason NATO and Iran cannot cooperate, just as Iran has started to do with respect to the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). Across a broad front from the trans-Caspian to Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf, NATO remains concerned about a plethora of threats, including narco-terrorism, and the fact that Iran shares most if not all of these concerns can potentially translate into low security cooperation, for instance, on intelligence-sharing on terrorism.
Faced with multiple crises beyond its borders, eg, the Armenia-Azerbaijan quagmire, the impasse with Iraq, instability in Afghanistan, not to mention the spillover effects of separatist conflicts in Georgia, Daghestan and Chechnya, Iran's security capabilities are already stretched thin, dictating a reconsideration of the country's national security calculus and priorities.
This does not mean jumping to the conclusion that Iran should forego its various misgivings about NATO and contemplate joining its PFP programs; such rosy predictions are not realistic and overlook the ideological antipathy of Iran toward NATO, which stands somewhat at odds with Iran's strictly national security interests. A modification of the official ideology is therefore necessary as a prelude for a structural adjustment of Iran's foreign policy in the direction of cooperation with NATO. This would be a gradual process requiring a steady confidence-building process between Iran and NATO.
In the long run, Iran may resort to the NATO card in its diplomacy toward Russia, which as of late has displayed certain hegemonic tendencies in the Caspian Sea, irrespective of the solid ties of friendship between the two countries. Iran's perceived weakness, by the "axis of evil" offensive by the White House, has been exploited by Moscow in the Caspian Sea, and Iran's "Gramscian maneuver" vis-a-vis NATO may prove a timely corrective to this unwanted situation.
What is certain, however, is the pro-NATO proclivity of several of Iran's neighbors and the eastward drift of the "new NATO", illustrated by a recent remark by Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld that NATO's "center of gravity is shifting to the East". NATO countries are keen on gaining and maintaining access to the region's energy resources, which is why NATO has been working with the GUUAM Group (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldavia), and offering to secure East-West pipeline(s). In the post September 11 milieu, NATO is likely to play a growing role in the security environment of Eurasia and, hence, it would be rather unwise for Iran to continue its hitherto passive or indifferent approach toward NATO. In conclusion, by playing a skillful diplomatic vis-a-vis NATO, Iran is likely to harvest both short-term and long-term benefits for its foreign policy goals and objectives.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs, co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, No 2, 2003.
--------
U.S. Abandons First East Europe Outpost
Associated Press Writer
By KARL PETER KIRK,
Jun 30, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=6&u=/ap/20040630/ap_on_re_eu/hungary_us_outpost
TASZAR, Hungary - The U.S. military said farewell Wednesday to its first East European outpost, a base that evolved from a jump-off point for NATO (news - web sites) in Bosnia to a training site for Iraqi exiles returning to their homeland.
A Hungarian military bugler played the Last Post as the U.S. flag was lowered at Kapos Air Base in Taszar after flying alongside the Hungarian and NATO flags for much of the past nine years. Soviet-era warplanes on the tarmac flanked the U.S. officials participating in the ceremony, in a reminder of the base's Cold-War past.
"I hand this flag to you as a symbol of the warm friendship between your country and mine," U.S. Ambassador George H. Walker told Hungarian base commander Lt. Col. Sandor Kisbenedek. Taszar, he said, had been a "key" base in supporting U.S. operations in this region and beyond.
Some 100,000 U.S. troops have passed through the Taszar air base, 120 miles southeast of Budapest, since the U.S. deployed here in December 1995 to supply NATO-led troops in Bosnia.
Last year, the U.S. military used the base to train Iraqi exiles who volunteered to help them in Iraq (news - web sites).
Adm. John W. Goodwin of the U.S. military's European command spoke of the symbolic significance of Taszar in comments at the ceremony
"This was the first presence of a NATO member state in a country that once belonged to the Warsaw Pact," he said, referring to the Soviet-led military alliance that collapsed in 1991 in East Europe's transition to democracy.
The United States decided to leave as part of its ongoing review of defense strategies, Goodwin told The Associated Press after the ceremony.
"We are reorganizing worldwide to improve efficiency," Goodwin said. "And with the Balkan mission coming to an end, we no longer need the base."
The largely U.S.-backed NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia will be taken over by the European Union (news - web sites) at the end of the year.
The peacekeepers are in Bosnia to monitor the 1995 peace deal that ended 2 1/2 years of bloody ethnic conflict. The NATO-led force has dwindled from 60,000 in 1996 to 8,000 now.
Thousands of tons of supplies and equipment were shipped from the base, which is hidden in the rolling hills of central Hungary east of the string of holiday resorts lining Lake Balaton.
In 1999, the Taszar base hosted U.S. fighter-bombers during NATO air strikes in Kosovo that ended former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites)'s crackdown on ethnic Albanians there.
Last year, volunteers from anti-Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) exile groups in the United States and Europe attended training at the base, vowing to play their part in building a new, democratic Iraq.
Around 80 Iraqis were trained at part of the base that was renamed "Camp Freedom (news - web sites)." They were then deployed in Iraq to coordinate between the U.S. military and civilians as the initial fighting came to an end.
Hungary's contingent of 300 troops in Iraq has also been supplied from the base since it was deployed last year.
The departure of the Americans sets the stage for the base's formal closure next year. The airstrip will then be reopened for civilian use.
Locals expressed mixed feelings about the departure of the U.S. forces.
At the height of operations in Bosnia, around 1,500 Hungarians worked on the base to help feed and house the U.S. units - an era remembered fondly by barmaid Judit Szabo.
"For a while now, it hasn't been like the good old days when there were thousands of Americans here," said Szabo, 47. "The atmosphere and the parties were fantastic then."
But retired driver Jozsef Kulcsar said he was glad the Americans have left.
"It was fine when they were taking supplies to Bosnia, but when they started training Iraqis here I felt they were abusing our friendship," Kulcsar said.
Expressing fears that the U.S. departure could hurt the local economy, Karoly Szita, mayor of the nearby town of Kaposvar, told U.S. dignitaries: "We hope we can continue to count on your support."
Szita also thanked Walker for his help in arranging a U.S. donation to the region of $240,000.
-----
NATO summit talks end on a sour note
AP, NYT
June 30, 2004
http://www.iht.com/articles/527285.html
ISTANBUL NATO's decision to help train Iraqi armed forces set off wrangling among the allies Tuesday as a summit meeting of alliance leaders drew to a close with more differences emerging between the French and Americans on how to best help the new Baghdad government.
At the meeting here, designed to emphasize NATO unity after deep divisions caused by the U.S.-led war on Iraq 15 months ago, France and the United States also clashed over Afghanistan and Turkish relations with the European Union.
The friction came as the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, implored NATO leaders Tuesday to overcome months of foot-dragging and send more troops to his country ahead of elections in September.
''Please hurry,'' Karzai said. ''Come sooner than September and provide the Afghan men and women with a chance to vote freely without fear, without coercion.''
His appeal came on the second day of a two-day NATO summit meeting that was marked by daily street protests. The demonstrations against NATO and the United States took place outside the view of visiting heads of state, who spent most of their time inside a secured zone that encompassed the hotel and business center of Istanbul.
On Tuesday, however, a small explosive device blew up on an empty Turkish Airlines plane as workers were cleaning it at the main Istanbul airport. Three workers were slightly hurt.
The plane had arrived from the Turkish port city of Izmir. Security officials said the cleaners had picked up an object that looked like a wallet and might have contained plastic explosives.
Before the summit meeting began, several small concussion bombs went off in Istanbul, including one that exploded on a crowded city bus, killing four people.
A few hours after Karzai spoke, President George W. Bush issued a call for political and social reform in Muslim nations and mentioned Afghanistan as an example of NATO support for new democracies.
He also returned to a familiar theme, saying the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq freed Iraqis to build a democracy that would inspire other nations in the region.
As the alliance struggles to define its role in a post-Cold War world, President Jacques Chirac of France forcefully stated his opposition to any col lective NATO presence on the ground in Iraq, suggesting it should limit its role to coordinating national efforts and training outside the country.
''I am completely hostile to the idea of a NATO establishment in Iraq,'' Chirac said at a news conference. ''It would be dangerous, counterproductive and misunderstood by the Iraqis, who after all deserve a little bit of respect.''
American officials insisted the training program should be a centralized operation under a NATO command in Iraq, although they accepted that reluctant countries such as France and Germany could limit their contribution to training outside the country.
With all allies stressing the urgency of sending help to the fledgling Iraqi forces following the transfer of power to the new government Monday, the debate on how NATO puts its agreement into practice is expected to start when envoys from the alliance meet Thursday in Brussels.
On Afghanistan, Chirac rejected an American proposal that NATO's elite new response force be deployed to provide security for the elections there in September.
France agreed with other allies that NATO should send hundreds more troops for the elections in reply to Karzai's request, but said the response force should be used only for emergency situations, not for peacekeeping.
The force is ''meant to act in a known crisis, which is obviously not the case in Afghanistan today,'' Chirac said Monday. Diplomats said the issue provoked a sharp exchange in Istanbul between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his French counterpart, Michèle Alliot-Marie.
France was not the only country with reservations, but the Americans said the force would be an ideal solution to NATO's difficulties in mustering European troops for Afghanistan. As usual, the United States was backed by Britain.
''The key is that the response force NATO has is deployed to help the elections,'' said Prime Minister Tony Blair.
One possible solution could be using the NATO Response Force as an ''over the horizon'' force held in reserve to help peacekeeping in Afghanistan in a crisis. Officials said a reconnaissance team from the force could visit Afghanistan soon to assess how it could be involved.
On Turkey, Chirac accused Bush of meddling in European Union affairs by pushing for the EU to bring Turkey into its ranks. (AP, NYT)
Karzai has long appealed for NATO to expand its ''security assistance'' force, which has been restricted to the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The alliance agreed in October to expand the force but has been unable to persuade governments to provide needed troops, apart from Germany, which sent 240 soldiers to the northern Afghan city of Kunduz.
The months of delays have cast doubt on NATO's credibility as it seeks to reinvent itself as a global security force in the post-Cold War era.
On Turkey, Chirac accused President Bush of meddling in the European Union's affairs by pushing for the EU to bring Turkey into its ranks.
''It's a bit like if I told the United States how they should manage their relations with Mexico,'' the French leader said.
-------- prisoners of war
Saddam to be turned over to Iraq
June 30, 2004
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040630-120758-2476r.htm
BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein and up to a dozen top members of his regime will formally be turned over to Iraqi legal authorities today, although they will remain in the physical custody of U.S. and other foreign soldiers.
The former dictator is to appear before a judge tomorrow to be formally charged with some of the most grievous crimes in any law book.
A day after the transfer of political authority to Iraqis - which had been advanced by two days over fears of security - Iraq remained relatively calm, but three U.S. Marines were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who was sworn in at a secret ceremony Monday, yesterday announced that Saddam and the other "high value detainees" would lose their POW status and be indicted under Iraqi law.
"This government has formally requested the transfer of the most notorious and high profile detainees," he told reporters here, as Justice Minister Malik Dohan al-Hassan stood beside him.
"These people ... will face justice before the special Iraqi court created in January to trymembers of the former regime for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes," he said.
Details of Saddam's appearance at the court are carefully shrouded in security, although some authorities suggested that the judge may visit him in detention, rather than parading the former dictator on the ultimate perp walk.
Although news of the transfer has been floating for some time, the announcement early yesterday afternoon was likely intended to show the Iraqi people that the new government is exercising its authority.
"We would like to show the world that the Iraqi government means business," said Mr. Allawi, who said the Iraqi government had not yet decided whether the tribunal could impose the death penalty.
Among those expected to be charged under Iraqi law tomorrow: former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz; Ali Hassan al-Majid, the general known as "Chemical Ali" for his purported role in ordering the use of chemical gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja; and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan.
Iraqi and American officials yesterday vowed that every stage of the proceedings in the newly created Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) will be conducted in public to bring credibility to the proceedings, which will not begin for several months.
The tribunal will be administered by Salem Chalabi, the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, the former Governing Council member who has been accused by his former Pentagon supporters of spying for Iran.
Salem Chalabi told CNN yesterday that the charges to be brought against Saddam could include:
•The use of chemical weapons in the 1988 attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja.
•The Anfal campaign of 1988 against the Kurds in the north.
•The killing in 1963 of 5,000 members of the Barzani clan to which Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani belongs.
•Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
•Crimes related to Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran.
•Crimes related to Saddam's bloody suppression of a Shi'ite uprising in southern Iraq after U.S.-led forces drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
In Washington, Iraq's representative to the United States, Rend Rahim, said the special court would begin proceedings long before the national elections scheduled to be held in January.
"The sooner we get Saddam Hussein in the courtroom the better for Iraq, because there is a cleansing and reconciliation process that will take place in that trial," Mrs. Rahim said at the American Enterprise Institute. "It is a reverse trauma that Iraqis need to go through."
The trials "could happen in the coming weeks," she said. The process could start off with the trial of such lesser figures as "Chemical Ali" who has a mound of evidence stacked against him, she said.
The IST, created in December, will have five investigating judges per chamber, who will establish the facts of the case in the tradition of European Common Law and not in U.S.-style jurisprudence.
But U.S. legal advisers will likely exercise considerable behind-the-scenes influence over the proceedings.
Two dozen experts have already been dispatched to Baghdad by the Justice Department's Regime Crimes Liaison Office (RCLO), which was established just six weeks ago to help foreign governments try their deposed tyrants.
When the trial process is ramped up, the RCLO will send 75 technical experts to support the IST staff, one participant said yesterday.
The laws of the special tribunal will be based for the most part on existing Iraqi criminal code, which U.S. and Iraqi legal experts say is fine on paper but was never properly applied.
U.S. advisers said yesterday that the IST is an Iraqi effort, and added that they are there merely to support the investigations and train staff.
"The infrastructure to allow a new court to try these kind of cases doesn't exist yet," the U.S. expert said. He said the American advisers would leave only when they believe the Iraqis no longer need them.
Human rights experts have long argued that some international participation is vital to a trial such as this, where national legal systems or their senior practitioners have been compromised by decades of abuse and isolation.
European jurists also complain that the possibility of the death penalty hobbles their participation.
"We feel that the death penalty sends a message of vengeance, not justice, even though we know there is popular support for it in Iraq," said Hania Mufti, the Iraq representative of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Miss Mufti said that U.S. participation in the tribunal is important, but cautioned that Washington must not dominate the process.
•Sharon Behn contributed to this report in Washington.
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Legal Custody of Hussein and 11 Aides Is Transferred to Iraqis
June 30, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/middleeast/30CND-TRIA.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 30 - Iraq's interim government took legal, but not physical, custody of Saddam Hussein and 11 of his top associates from the United States today, according to a statement from the prime minister, Iyad Allawi.
The government will file charges against Mr. Hussein and the 11 others on Thursday in a special Iraqi court set up to try members of the ousted government on charges of crimes against humanity.
"Saddam said `Good morning' and asked if he could ask some questions," Salem Chalabi, a lawyer leading the work of the tribunal that will try the former president, told Reuters. "He was told he should wait until tomorrow."
Under terms approved by President Bush, the men, including several of the most notorious figures in Mr. Hussein's inner circle, will remain indefinitely under American military guard at an undisclosed location in or near Baghdad.
But they will cease to be prisoners of war from the moment they are arraigned, becoming criminal detainees with legal protections under Iraqi criminal procedures, including access to legal counsel, that were previously denied.
Dr. Allawi announced on Tuesday that legal custody of Mr. Hussein would be turned over today to the new Iraqi government, which was given formal sovereignty by the United States on Monday.
Since the handover, there has been no evidence of an overall surge in major attacks, but today 11 "multinational force soldiers" were wounded in a mortar attack in West Baghdad, said Capt Mark Doggett, a spokesman for the foreign forces that remain in the country.
On Tuesday, three marines were killed by a roadside bomb in southeastern Baghdad.
In claiming jurisdiction over Mr. Hussein and the others as the interim Iraqi government's first major act, Dr. Allawi acknowledged on Tuesday that Iraq would not assume physical custody until it had a prison system capable of ensuring that they remain unharmed and do not escape.
Dan Senor, a former adviser for the American occupation authorities in Iraq, said today that Dr. Allawi had asked the Americans to guard Mr. Hussein, saying the "last thing" the government wanted was for the former Iraqi leader to be killed or set free.
"It tells us that the security of Iraq continues to be the primary challenge for the Iraqi people and for us," Mr. Senor said in an interview on CNN. But he added: "The Iraqis will be in charge of the legal proceedings."
Dr. Allawi, sensitive to suggestions that his government's authority is constrained by its reliance on American military power, underlined that the arrangement was "at our request," not under American duress.
"We believe that to truly be in control of our affairs and our own future, we must be in control of the people we believe most responsible for so much of the suffering the Iraqi people endured over the past 35 years," Dr. Allawi said at a news conference in the American-run international press center.
"More than a million Iraqis are missing as a result of events that occurred during the former regime," he said in fluent English. "Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis of all religions and ethnic groups are believed to be buried in mass graves. I know I speak for my fellow countrymen when I say I look forward to the day when former regime leaders face justice, God willing."
How soon the trials of the 12 will begin remained uncertain; Dr. Allawi said Mr. Hussein's would not begin "for a number of months."
American and Iraqi lawyers involved in the process have said the prosecution of Mr. Hussein would be better timed after other former leaders are tried, so that emerging information can be used to build a case against the man ultimately responsible for much of the killing.
Among Iraqis who lived through the repression under Mr. Hussein and who were interviewed in Baghdad on Tuesday, there appeared to be broad support for the dictator to be brought to trial, even in areas like Adhamiya that were Sunni Muslim strongholds favored by the dictator.
But there were those who felt that trying him while the country was at war was not wise. "I hope the new government will postpone the trial until things settle down," said Wamidh Hathiq, 25, a mobile phone salesman. "They shouldn't rush it."
Some international legal rights groups have expressed doubts that a legal process created by the Americans and controlled by Iraqis and Americans can yield justice in a political climate as charged as Iraq's.
"Questions are being raised about the whole process," Hanny Megally, director of the Middle East program at the International Center for Transitional Justice, a New York-based group that assists war crimes prosecutions. "The United States is funding the court, conducting the investigations, sifting through the evidence and developing prosecution strategy. While all this could be done with good intentions, it all seems to be controlled by one entity."
The list of the men to be placed under what Dr. Allawi called "Iraqi legal custody" was issued by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which was established in December by the American occupation authority to try cases rising out of the worst excesses of Mr. Hussein's rule.
In addition to the 66-year-old Mr. Hussein, they included a man synonymous among Iraqis with some of his government's worst atrocities: Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his role in directing a poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988.
Others were Taha Yassin Ramadan, one of Mr. Hussein's two vice presidents, long cited by international human rights groups for his role in the torture and killing of tens of thousands of Iraqis; Tariq Aziz, a deputy prime minister who conducted many of Iraq's international negotiations, especially in the prelude to the Persian Gulf war in 1991; and Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, a relative of Mr. Hussein who oversaw his personal security.
Most of the 12 appear in the "deck of cards" the United States issued after the invasion that pictured the 55 most-wanted Iraqi officials. Iraqi and American officials declined to say why the 12 were chosen for transfer to Iraqi jurisdiction.
One theory was that the most compelling evidence has been accumulated against them. They may also be those viewed by most Iraqis as responsible for the most heinous offenses, especially Mr. Hussein, Mr. Majid and Mr. Ramadan.
Another theory was that some of the men not being transferred have cooperated with investigators and are thus viewed by the Americans as best kept beyond the reach of legal counsel while the trials of the 12 are prepared. American military commanders have said Mr. Hussein resorted early in his captivity to a posture of defiance, and was offering little under interrogation but resolute denials of any wrongdoing.
American officials hinted that on Thursday, at least some reporters and cameramen might be allowed to attend his arraignment in a media pool, in what may be his first semipublic appearance since his capture in December.
Dr. Allawi, keenly aware of the risks of being viewed as a pawn, had hinted in recent days that he would act to distance himself from the Americans. Their power will henceforth be exercised through the new American Embassy, which will operate, for now, out of the same Republican Palace that was the headquarters for the occupation.
Dr. Allawi, 58, a British-trained neurosurgeon who led an Iraqi exile group in London after fleeing in 1971, has also signaled that he intends tough action on the insurgency and other matters. At the news conference, he said: "We would like to show the world that the new Iraqi government means business, and wants to stabilize Iraq. We want to put this bad history behind us."
Iraqi polls have shown that most Iraqis favor reinstating the death penalty suspended last year by L. Paul Bremer III, then the American administrator here especially for Mr. Hussein and the most brutal of his aides. Dr. Allawi said his government was reviewing the issue.
But he also dwelled on the importance of fair trials. "The accused who will appear in front of an Iraqi court will be accorded rights that were denied by the former regime," he said, referring to the right to appoint their own legal counsel, free of charge if the defendants cannot afford them; the right "not to testify against themselves," and the right to remain silent.
One cause of unease among international legal experts has been the pervasive role played by a team of several dozen American lawyers and investigators. They were recently reformed into a new unit known as the Regime Crimes Liaison Office and operate from the American Embassy.
But American legal experts in Baghdad said Tuesday that the work of those investigators had been essential. "The investigative infrastructure in Iraq has been virtually nonexistent for decades," one said.
The new power alignment between the Iraqis and the Americans took formal shape on Tuesday with a ceremony in the palace complex, at which John D. Negroponte, formerly the American ambassador to the United Nations, presented his credentials to the new Iraqi president, Ghazi al-Yawar.
Mr. Negroponte, who will lead a staff of some 1,700, arrived in Baghdad just as Mr. Bremer prepared to depart Monday. Mr. Negroponte issued a statement saying: "The way ahead presents many challenges, but the government and people of Iraq have the courage and ability to succeed. The future is in their hands."
Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article.
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U.S. Expels Two Guards at Iran's U.N. Mission
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15914-2004Jun29.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- The United States has expelled two Iranian security guards assigned to Iran's mission to the United Nations for suspected espionage, marking the third time in two years that American authorities have demanded the departure of Iranian guards for that reason, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The two guards were asked to leave the country after FBI agents observed them in recent weeks videotaping and photographing New York City landmarks, and also key infrastructure and transportation systems, according to senior U.S. officials. The pair voluntarily left Saturday evening, officials said.
Stuart Holliday, a deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Iranians had "engaged in activities that are not consistent with their duties," a commonly used diplomatic euphemism for spying. "These individuals were moving around the city and essentially surveilling. This is something that obviously isn't part of protecting their mission," he said.
Although U.S. officials said that the videotaping had alarmed federal and local law enforcement agencies, they said they had no evidence that the Iranians' activities were part of planning for any terrorist activity. Holliday and other U.S. officials declined to provide details on the precise locations photographed by the guards. The Iranian mission, and a U.N. diplomat familiar with the case, said that the two men had videotaped and filmed at New York spots that draw thousands of tourists, including Central Park, Times Square, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the annual Puerto Rican Day parade.
"The videotapes and photos they shot consisted of obvious and popular tourist attractions in New York City which are of interest to any visitors in this city," a statement from the Iranian mission said. "We categorically deny that they ever took any photos of anything of [a] security or sensitive nature. . . . It is very unfortunate that a regular sight-seeing and shooting of photos by two guards of the mission on a holiday became so contentious and controversial."
The Iranians' departure marks the most recent in a long line of foreign envoys posted to the United Nations who have been expelled for spying. In recent years, the United States has demanded the ouster of diplomats from Russia, Cuba, Sudan and Iraq.
It also reflects ongoing strain between Iran and the United States, which has been waging an international campaign to pressure Iran to scale back its nuclear programs. U.S. officials charge that Iran is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, which Iran denies. The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with the Islamic state in 1979 after students took control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days.
The United States has worked with Iranian reformists, such as Javad Zarif, the country's U.N. ambassador, to defuse tensions in Afghanistan and Iran. But the State Department includes Iran on a list of seven governments it considers state sponsors of terrorism.
Local and federal authorities in New York previously confronted Iran's U.N. guards for taking photographs in New York. The guards typically work at the United Nations for three to five months.
In June 2002, two security guards from the Iranian mission were asked to leave after they were seen videotaping the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. In November 2003, two Iranians came under investigation by the FBI after a New York transit officer spotted them videotaping a Queens subway station. In both cases, the Iranian mission complied with U.S. demands to repatriate the guards, avoiding a formal expulsion proceeding.
"This is the third time the United States has required the departure of Iranian security guards for this kind of activity, which is inconsistent with their official duties," State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said Tuesday.
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Two Iranian Guards at U.N. Expelled for Filming New York Sites
June 30, 2004
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/middleeast/30iran.html?pagewanted=all
UNITED NATIONS, June 29 - The United States has expelled two security guards at Iran's United Nations mission after they were seen filming and photographing New York landmark buildings and parts of the city's transportation system, American officials said Tuesday.
"They were asked to leave because we were very concerned about their activities, which weren't compatible with their stated duties," said Richard A. Grenell, the spokesman for the American mission.
The language is common diplomatic wording for espionage cases.
The two men were ordered out last weekend after pairs of Iranian guards had been seen for the third time in two years videotaping bridges, tunnels, the Statue of Liberty and other landmark buildings, according to an American diplomat. He said the guards were not the same two men who had been seen in earlier incidents in June 2002 and November 2003. The expelled men, who were not identified, left Saturday night, the official said.
Stuart Holliday, a deputy American ambassador, said: "As we understand it, these individuals were moving around New York City and essentially surveilling, taking photographs of a variety of New York landmarks and infrastructure and the rest. But obviously this isn't something that's a part of protecting their mission here in New York."
Asked if the men could have been acting as tourists, Mr. Holliday said, "I think we have great confidence in the ability of federal law enforcement to determine what action and behavior is typical and what is atypical."
In Washington, Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, said, "They had been observed by the F.B.I. videotaping various locations from New York deemed to be sensitive."
Mr. Ereli said the filming and photographing by Iranian guards had been a "recurring problem," and despite repeated warnings it had continued.
While the photographing of such sites does not violate a law, security officials have been particularly vigilant about apparent surveillance of public buildings in New York since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center.
Morteza Ramandi, the press attaché at the Iranian mission at the United Nations, issued a statement confirming that the men had left and accusing the United States of "conjuring" the surveillance complaint.
"The guards in question never failed to observe any 'no photography' signs, and the videotapes and photos they shot consisted of obvious and popular tourist attractions in New York City, which are of interest to any visitors in this city, such as the Central Park, museums, parades and the like," Mr. Ramandi said. "And we categorically deny that they ever took any photos of anything of security or sensitive nature."
The state-run Iranian News Agency in Tehran said that Iran "deplored" the expulsions, and quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as saying, "This is aimed at disrupting the daily routine of Iran's permanent representation office, and this is not in harmony with accepted norms."
Iran remains part of the Bush administration's "axis of evil," which included North Korea and Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein.
The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1979, when the American Embassy in Tehran was seized and 52 American diplomats were taken hostage by radicals in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution that brought the country's cleric government to power. Iranian diplomats in New York represent their country only at the United Nations.
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CIA spying on Israeli banks As part of crack down on money-laundering operations that can be utilized by global terror networks.
Maariv Internationa
Alex Doron
2004-06-30
http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=9216
The CIA is monitoring banking activity in Israel in hopes of identifying terror related funds and money laundering, as part of its ongoing electronic surveillance over banks around the world.
After 9/11, the CIA presented the majority of Western, including those in Israel, with a list of suspects, requesting to identify them with the help of the banks' computer systems. Now, foreign media reports claim that the CIA is wire-tapping bank communications to track down terror financing.
The majority of banks cooperate with the CIA through their national security and government agencies. Other banks are investigated using undercover technological tools. "Such activity requires sophisticated computer systems and fast data analysis, so as to present the necessary information to relevant agencies," said Klaus Mizra, Director of Financial Services for Europe and Middle East at Sun Microsystems, during his visit in Israel this week.
Mizra emphasized that CIA's undercover activity fits in with the new accounting and reporting regulations and the US Patriot Act, which apply to all banking and financial institutions. Banks are required to report all suspicious financial activity, and especially international money wires, to their national taxation agencies.
Until fairly recently Israel had no money laundering laws, which meant the banking system was under no obligation to ask questions regarding the sources of clients' monies.
-------- un
U.N. Helicopter Crashes In Sierra Leone, Killing 24
Associated Press
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15913-2004Jun29.html
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, June 29 -- A U. N. helicopter crashed in flames on a remote hillside in Sierra Leone on Tuesday, killing all 24 peacekeepers, aid workers and others on board.
U.N. mission spokeswoman Sharon McPherson said victims aboard the Russian-made Mi-8 also included the Russian crew.
According to a manifest, the passengers included 14 Pakistani peacekeepers and a Pakistani police officer, and travelers from several African countries. Others on the manifest were a U.N. volunteer from Ghana, three Sierra Leonean citizens, a Tanzanian working for the International Committee of the Red Cross and one Ugandan.
Authorities offered no immediate explanation for the accident.
The United Nations has about 11,800 peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, overseeing the West African country's peace accord after a 10-year civil war that ended in 2002.
The helicopter had taken off from Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, with 21 passengers and three crew, said Daniel Adekera, another U.N. spokesman. Its destination was the western city of Kailahun, after a stop in Yengema , near some of the main diamond fields in mineral-rich Sierra Leone.
The crash site was just southeast of Yengema, officials said.
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Army to Recall Soldiers For Iraq, Afghan Wars
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15999-2004Jun29.html
The U.S. Army plans to recall to active duty as many as 5,600 veterans who recently left the service to help fill gaps in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials said yesterday, another signal that the armed forces are stretched thin and that the Pentagon is reaching deep into its reserves to meet its global obligations.
The mandatory call-ups will pull former troops from across the nation back into service, exercising an option in each soldier's enlistment contract that allows the military to insist on their help for several years after their active duty has ended. The last time the Army called back large numbers of soldiers in that category -- the Individual Ready Reserve -- was in 1991 when 20,227 were activated for Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in Iraq.
The step -- which Army officers said will be officially announced today -- is one of several the Pentagon has taken recently to augment forces in Iraq as the U.S. commitment there has strained the Army. The Army recently instituted a "stop loss" policy to prevent thousands of deployed troops from leaving the service as scheduled, decided to redeploy more than 3,500 troops in South Korea to Iraq and has extended tours of duty to deal with the insurgency in Iraq.
Instead of reducing U.S. forces in the year since major combat ended, as commanders had once expected, the military has increased its forces to 141,000 as violence has flared. The Pentagon plans to keep at least that many troops through the end of next year to provide security to the fledgling Iraqi government, and officials told Congress last week that the United States probably will have a military presence there for several years.
Some members of Congress said the call-up shows that the Army is too small to handle multiple conflicts and that the increasing burden on the National Guard and Army Reserve could spell long-term trouble for the military.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the decision to draw from the Individual Ready Reserve shows that the Bush administration's planning for the war on terrorism was "woefully inadequate." Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who also serves on the panel, said she hopes the call-up will be "a short-term step" while the Army looks for other ways to bolster strength in Iraq through repositioning of troops and restructuring.
Army officials said yesterday that soldiers with specific skills -- mostly in combat support areas such as mechanics, logistics and civil affairs -- will be reinserted into units headed for Iraq over the next six months. Because the veterans are spread nationwide and are not attached to specific Army Reserve units, they will be notified 30 days before their reactivation and will receive a limited amount of additional training. The several thousand soldiers to be called back are among about 111,000 who are eligible as part of the Individual Ready Reserve, officials said.
The advantage to taking such soldiers over recruiting new ones is that the veterans are experienced, skilled and require little retraining. Army officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official announcement had not been made, said the first troops will be notified soon.
"We're a country at war, and we need these soldiers," one Pentagon official said. "We have this pool who are trained, are experienced, know the structure and easily can be put back into the active Army units. This is a very demanding period of time, and we do have this pool of soldiers."
Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution, said using such reserves appears to make sense given the situation in Iraq, but he said it also highlights the "stubbornness" of the Pentagon in resisting a permanent expansion of the Army. Top Pentagon officials have instead argued that the military needs to be streamlined in the post-Cold War era.
Lt. Gen. Theodore G. Stroup Jr., who retired in 1996 as the Army's chief of personnel, activated such soldiers during the Persian Gulf War and said yesterday that it serves a critical purpose in times of conflict. Today's Army, he said, is probably too small and is not configured to deal with the administrative and logistic demands of post-conflict Iraq.
"There will be unhappy people, and there will be people who will be surprised," said Stroup, who added that all soldiers know they may be called back when they enlist. "But it's a national pool of trained manpower that has recent experience."
Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign jumped on the issue yesterday, calling it an "unusual step" that resembles a draft. The campaign released a statement from retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who called it a symptom of a "failed do-it-on-the-cheap strategy for Iraq."
"Those to be recalled are the men and women who have already served and were simply trying to get on with their lives," said Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate.
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Army Recalling 5,674 Who Left Service
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 30, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Iraq-Reserve-Callup.html?ex=1089560569&ei=1&en=c5da73cc9599b31a
WASHINGTON (AP) -- For the first time in more than a decade, the Army is forcing thousands of former soldiers back into uniform, a reflection of the strain on the service of long campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Army officials on Wednesday announced that 5,674 former soldiers -- mostly people who recently left the service and have up-to-date skills in military policing, engineering, logistics, medicine or transportation -- will be assigned to National Guard and Reserve units that are scheduled to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan. The first notifications are to be received July 6.
They will be put on active duty for a minimum of 12 months and mostly likely for 18 months. The Pentagon's policy is to not keep troops in Iraq or Afghanistan for more than 12 months.
Robert Smiley, the Army secretary's principal aide on troop training and mobilization, told a Pentagon news conference that more former soldiers, in addition to the 5,674, are likely to get called up next year. He said he could not estimate the number but would not rule out that it would be thousands.
Col. Debra A. Cook, commander of the Army Human Resources Command, told reporters that although former soldiers in the reserve pool known as the Individual Ready Reserve are required to verify by mail every year that they are physically fit, many will be surprised to get called for Iraq duty.
``There's going to be soldiers who, yes, will be shocked,'' she said.
The Army did not immediately offer a state-by-state breakdown, but Raymond Robinson Jr., a senior personnel official at Army headquarters in the Pentagon, said many are from California and Texas.
People in the Individual Ready Reserve are distinct from the National Guard and Reserve because they do not perform regularly scheduled training and are not paid as reservists, but they are eligible to be recalled in an emergency because their active duty hitches did not complete the service obligation in their enlistment contracts.
It is the first sizable activation of the Individual Ready Reserve since the 1991 Gulf War, though several hundred people have voluntarily returned to service since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
The Army is targeting its recall on those who recently left the service and thus have fresher skills than retirees. Any time the military calls on its reservists for wartime duty, political implications arise because of the disruption to civilian lives and businesses. In this case it may reinforce the perception among some that Iraq is stretching the Army too far.
Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that dipping into the Individual Ready Reserve amounts to conscripting people to fight in Iraq.
``If there was any doubt that this administration was conducting a pseudo-draft, this call-up should dispel that doubt,'' Larsen said.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., President Bush's presumed opponent in the fall election, has made similar complaints about the administration's use of Reserves and National Guardsmen. After the Pentagon, stretched by war needs, declared a ``stop-loss'' this month to prevent the separation of troops, Kerry declared: ``They have effectively used a stop-loss policy as a backdoor draft.''
The Army said the Individual Ready Reserve members who are recalled will be given at least 30 days' notice to report for training.
Vietnam veteran Chuck Luczynski said in an interview Tuesday that he fears his son, Matt, who is getting out of the Army after four years, will be called back as part of the individual reserves. The son returned home in March after a year's tour in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, and he has plans to start a computer programming business.
``I think that's on everybody's mind right now, that they took their turn, and they would hope everybody took a turn so that a few don't carry the many,'' said the elder Luczynski, of Omaha, Neb.
The Army is so stretched for manpower that in April it broke a promise to some active-duty units, including the 1st Armored Division, that they would not have to serve more than 12 months in Iraq. It also has extended the tours of other units, including some in Afghanistan.
The men and women recalled from the Individual Ready Reserve will be assigned to Army Reserve and National Guard units that have been or soon will be mobilized for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, unless they successfully petition for exemption based on medical or other limitations.
In January, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld authorized the Army to activate as many as 6,500 people from the Individual Ready Reserve, drawing on presidential authority granted in 2001.
Not until May did the Army begin looking in detail at the available pool of people.
At that point some Army recruiters caused a controversy when they contacted members of the Individual Ready Reserve and suggested they would wind up in Iraq unless they joined a Reserve or Guard unit. Some complained that they were being coerced to transfer into a Reserve unit.
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Corporal Held by Militants Not a Deserter, Marines Say
By T. R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16585-2004Jun30.html
SALT LAKE CITY, June 29 -- Two days after Islamic militants released a video of Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun in captivity with a curved sword held over his neck, the Marine Corps Tuesday officially changed its view of Hassoun and declared him to be a captive, not a deserter.
Hassoun's friends and relatives in the Salt Lake City suburbs had expressed consternation when the Pentagon had designated the vehicle operator to be on "unauthorized absence" after disappearing from his base in Iraq on June 20.
After complaints from the family and Utah officials, the Marine Corps Tuesday changed Hassoun's official status.
"While his absence initially prompted investigators to believe he was missing, the video shown on international television depicted the Marine being held against his will by masked captors," a Marine Corps statement said. "[I]n light of what we have observed on the terrorists' video, we have classified him as captured."
A spokesman for the family here -- Hassoun, 24, lives with three of his brothers in a prosperous subdivision southwest of Salt Lake City -- said the family's anguish about his fate was exacerbated by the official suggestion that he had deserted. The militants holding Hassoun said on their video that they had lured him away from his base and kidnapped him.
At a news conference Tuesday night, the spokesman, Tarik Nosseir, said, "The Marine Corps have officially notified the family that Wassef's status as a deserter has been revoked."
A Marine Corps spokeswoman, Capt. Amy Malugani, said, "The circumstances surrounding his absence are still being investigated."
The video said Hassoun is being held by a group calling itself the Islamic Retaliation Movement/Armed Resistance Wing. The group said the Marine would be beheaded unless all detainees held by the U.S. military in Iraq are freed. There are conflicting reports as to whether the captors have set a deadline for Hassoun's execution.
Hassoun, a native of Lebanon, moved to the United States six years ago, according to members of his mosque here. They said he is a U.S. citizen and joined the Marines two years ago.
When Hassoun was found missing from his base, military officials initially told the press that they considered him a deserter. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy operations chief in Baghdad, told reporters that Hassoun had gone "on an unauthorized absence," the Associated Press reported. "Based on his personal situation, there was reason to suspect that he was heading over to Lebanon." Hassoun's father is in Lebanon.
The small Muslim community here and representatives of other faiths have been holding daily prayer vigils to appeal for the corporal's release. "We ask you to continue to pray for his release," Nosseir said.
--------
INSURGENTS
Abducted Marine Had Reportedly Deserted
June 30, 2004
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and NICK MADIGAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/middleeast/30MARI.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 29 - The American marine who is being threatened by his kidnappers with beheading had deserted the military because he was emotionally traumatized, and was abducted by his captors while trying to make his way home to his native Lebanon, a Marine officer said Tuesday.
The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he believed that Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was betrayed by Iraqis he befriended on his base and ended up in the hands of Islamic extremists.
The officer said Corporal Hassoun, a 24-year-old Marine linguist who was born in Lebanon, was shaken up after he saw one of his sergeants blown apart by a mortar shell.
"It was very disturbing to him," the officer said. "He wanted to go home and quit the game, but since he was relatively early in his deployment, that was not going to happen anytime soon. So he talked to some folks on base he befriended, because they were all fellow Muslims, and they helped sneak him off. Once off, instead of helping him get home, they turned him over to the bad guys."
"It's all we know right now," the officer added.
Corporal Hassoun, a fluent Arabic-speaker who had been living with his family in West Jordan, Utah, outside Salt Lake City, joined the Marine Corps to work as a translator.
About two months ago, he told a cousin that several American deserters had escaped by bribing Iraqis to help get them out of the country.
"He said a lot of soldiers, they don't want to die, especially when they see someone dying in front of them," said the cousin, Tarek Hassoun, who lives in Salt Lake City.
Marine officials said Sunday night that Corporal Hassoun had been missing since June 21. On Sunday, the Qatar-based television network Al Jazeera broadcast a videotape that showed him blindfolded with a sword over his head.
According to a statement provided with the video, an obscure group called The Islamic Reaction said it had abducted him near Falluja and was threatening to behead him unless American forces released all Iraqi prisoners.
The group, which also identified itself as the security wing of the 20th Revolution Regiment, a reference to the Arab uprising after World War I, did not give a deadline for the release or execution.
When Corporal Hassoun was first shown in captivity on video Sunday, Marine officials were reluctant to confirm that he had been kidnapped. On Monday, they acknowledged that they were now classifying his status as "captured."
Masked men have snatched dozens of foreigners in the past several months. On Tuesday, three Turks were freed after by their captors.
But several hostages have been executed. The latest victim appears to be Specialist Keith Matthew Maupin, an American soldier who vanished after an ambush on his convoy near Baghdad on April 9.
On Monday, Al Jazeera, which has been first to broadcast a number of videos showing the killing of Americans, broadcast a video it said ended with kidnappers shooting Specialist Maupin in the head. Army officials said they could not confirm that he had been killed.
Intelligence officials said it is not clear if the kidnappings are coordinated, although they suspect that some of the captors are at least loosely tied to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant thought to be behind much of the mayhem in Iraq.
On Monday night, Muslims in Salt Lake City gathered at the Khadeeja Mosque, one of three mosques in the city, to pray for Corporal Hassoun.
Mahdi Jaff, 38, an Iraqi Kurd who immigrated to the United States 10 years ago, said he had met Corporal Hassoun a few months ago while the marine was home on leave.
"I loved him when I met him," Mr. Jaff said. Mr. Jaff said Corporal Hassoun had stayed true to his Muslim values while serving in the military.
When he heard the news that a member of the Hassoun family had been seized in Iraq, Mr. Jaff said he did not know who it was.
"He has a lot of brothers so, at first, I was not sure who was captured, but then when I saw the picture, I said, `Oh, man, that's him,' ' Mr. Jaff said. "I was really shocked that it was him."
"Those people will not negotiate," Mr. Jaff said of Corporal Hassoun's captors. "He just has to wait for his time to come. It's just like when someone would be sent to Saddam Hussein's jails; he would send a message to his family and say, `I'm gone.' "
Others in Salt Lake City were also praying Monday night. About 25 people stood in the rain on the steps of the Utah State Capitol, pleading for Corporal Hassoun's release.
Pamela Atkinson, 68, of Salt Lake City, led the group in a prayer to God.
"As the insurgents threaten his life, we ask that Corporal Hassoun and his family feel your loving arms around them," she said.
Jeffrey Gettleman reported from Baghdad for this article and Nick Madigan from Salt Lake City. Melissa Sanford contributed reporting from Salt Lake City.
--------
THE TROOPS
Military Plans to Call Up Soldiers Who Left Service
June 30, 2004
By THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30RESE.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, June 29 - Amid Congressional concerns that the military is stretched too thin, the Army is preparing to take advantage of a rarely used wartime program that allows it to recall soldiers who have left the service and did not join the reserves. Pentagon officials said Tuesday that 5,600 former soldiers were going to be called up for yearlong tours, mostly assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decision was immediately cited by members of Congress as more evidence that the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and, more broadly, for the global campaign against terrorism, have left the Army unable to fulfill all its missions. Likewise, the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry quickly issued a statement Tuesday labeling the decision troubling news.
Proposals to expand the Army already are being debated in Congress, where some lawmakers have described the large reserve mobilizations and other unusual steps to fill the rosters in Iraq and Afghanistan as an unofficial draft.
Pentagon and military officials have resisted calls to increase the size of the Army, saying they would rather find efficiencies elsewhere in the service first. They also warn that decisions to expand the Army would lock the Pentagon into expensive personnel budgets for years to come.
The nation's pool of former officers and soldiers who are subject to being recalled to service is known as the Individual Ready Reserve. It allows the military to select specialists with needed skills, and it has not been used in such large numbers since the Persian Gulf war of 1991.
"Remember, we are at war," said a Pentagon official who confirmed the Army's plan to mobilize 5,600 members of the ready reserve.
Most of those called up will perform support and logistical jobs like truck drivers, mechanics, administrative specialists, food service workers and engineers. One Pentagon official said that the military police would also be included.
Members of Congress have been briefed this week on the Army's plans. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gave the Army broad authority in January to reach into the Individual Ready Reserve, although the specifics of the new call-up were approved only in recent days.
The decision follows an announcement early this month that the Army would require all soldiers bound for Iraq and Afghanistan to extend their active duty at least until their units return home from their missions there, a move that could keep thousands of troops in the service for months longer than they expected.
That announcement, called "stop-loss, stop-move," expanded an existing program that applies to many troops already in the two countries, and means that soldiers who had planned to retire, move to other Army jobs or leave the military when their enlistments expired will be required to stay for the length of their units' deployment in either of the two combat zones.
There are about 140,000 American troops now in Iraq and about 20,000 in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon also is already relying heavily on the regular reserve component. In addition to the active-duty force, the Pentagon as of June 16 had brought on to service 136,460 members of the Army Reserve and National Guard, people who voluntarily signed up to be on call and who generally have spent a weekend a month and two weeks a year in training.
In contrast, the 117,000 names in the Individual Ready Reserve have not been associated with the armed services since their departure from the Army - except to register their location - and have not been training with a unit.
The new ready reserve decision does not apply to the other services, said a Pentagon official who also said that the Army first would look to members of the ready reserve who recently left the service.
The Individual Ready Reserve is made up of soldiers who were honorably discharged but served less than eight years on active duty and still have obligations under the contract signed when first joining the service.
On Capitol Hill this month, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to increase the strength of the Army by 20,000 soldiers. Members of both parties said the troops, added to the Pentagon spending plan for 2005 on a 93-to-4 vote, were essential in light of international tensions and the policy of keeping military personnel in Iraq and elsewhere beyond their scheduled tours.
Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a chief proponent of more troops, issued a statement Tuesday that said: "This is another indication of the urgent need to increase the size of the Army. The administration's assessment of the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq, fight the war on terror and maintain the nation's military commitment around the world has been woefully inadequate."
Mr. Reed has been joined by senior Republicans, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, in pressing for a personnel increase as well as for dispatching more forces to Iraq. The House also has approved legislation calling for additional troops.
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said earlier this month that he would have no hesitation in requesting more troops if the current level of stress on the force is continued in future years and the required combat strength cannot be found elsewhere in the Army.
But he noted that personnel costs are the largest share of his budget, and he warned against expensive decisions now that may not be as relevant in future years.
After word of the ready reserve mobilization began circulating, the Kerry campaign issued a statement Tuesday saying that the decision was evidence of a failed Bush administration foreign policy in Iraq.
"The fact is that this involuntary call-up is a direct result of the Bush administration's diplomatic failure to get real international help in Iraq," said Rand Beers, Mr. Kerry's adviser on national security issues.
-------- war crimes
Prosecutor Predicts Arrest of Serb Leader
Associated Press
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16213-2004Jun29.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- The chief United Nations war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia said she expects one of the most wanted figures from the Balkan wars, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, to be arrested Wednesday.
Carla del Ponte refused Tuesday to disclose the basis for her optimism that Karadzic will be taken into custody by the end of the month. He has been in hiding for nearly a decade.
"I'm still thinking that somebody is looking for Karadzic very hard, and that he will be arrested very soon," she said. "Of course, I have [information]. But you all understand that I cannot tell it now publicly. Let's obtain the arrest of Karadzic, and after we will speak about what we have done."
Del Ponte was responding to a question about a report that she felt Karadzic will be handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague this month. When a reporter noted that June will end on Wednesday, she replied: "I'm still expecting [it], yes. But let's see."
She spoke to reporters after telling the U.N. Security Council it is unacceptable that Karadzic and his military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, are fugitives nearly 10 years after the Dayton peace agreement was signed ending the Bosnian war.
Karadzic was the leader of Bosnia's Serbs during the ethnic war that claimed 200,000 lives. He and Mladic were indicted in 1995 by the U.N. court on charges of genocide for their alleged roles in atrocities that included the Bosnian Serb massacre of as many as 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.
--------
Iraq to Charge Saddam With War Crimes
Associated Press
By FISNIK ABRASHI
Jun 30, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040630/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_saddam_59
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), looking thinner after nearly seven months as a U.S. captive, was transfered to Iraqi custody Wednesday, reducing him to a criminal defendant in the land he once ruled and launching the painful process of holding him and his henchmen accountable for their brutal regime.
The former dictator and 11 of his top lieutenants are no longer prisoners of war but still locked up with U.S. forces as their jailers.
On Thursday, the 12 will appear before an Iraqi judge to hear criminal charges likely to include war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. President Ghazi al-Yawer told an Arab newspaper that Iraq (news - web sites)'s new government has decided to reinstate the death penalty, suspended during the U.S. occupation.
The proceedings mark the first steps in a legal process that could take months or possibly years. The trials, not expected to start before 2005, could also widen the chasm between Iraq's disparate groups - Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis - as the country struggles to recover from a generation of tyranny and conflict.
The transfer of legal custody took place in secret. Salem Chalabi, director of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, said the defendants were brought one by one into a room at an undisclosed location and informed of the change in their status from POW to criminal suspect.
They were told that they will appear in court within 24 hours to hear charges, Chalabi said.
According to Chalabi, the 67-year-old Saddam appeared haggard and thinner after his U.S. confinement. Saddam said "good morning" as he entered the room, listened to the official explanation, and was told he could respond to the complaints Thursday. He was then hustled away.
"Some of them looked very worried," Chalabi said of the other defendants. They include former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, the regime's best-known spokesman in the West; Ali Hasan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali;" and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities hope the trial will lay bare the crimes of the regime - thus vindicating the American decision to invade Iraq last year - and help expunge the nation's pain and guilt, much as the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals did for Germany after World War II.
"It's going to be the trial of the century," National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told Associated Press Television News.
"Everybody is going to watch this trial, and we are going to demonstrate to the outside world that we in the new Iraq are going to be an example of what the new Iraq is all about."
The initial proceedings are taking place under a blanket of secrecy because of fears that insurgents, many of them Saddam supporters, might exact revenge on those taking part.
U.S. and Iraqi officials refused to say where Thursday's hearing would take place or release the name of the presiding judge. No pictures will be allowed of any of the Iraqi participants - except for the defendants - to protect them from attack. Only a few journalists will be allowed to attend.
Issam Ghazawi, a member of Saddam's defense team, said he received threats in a telephone call Wednesday from someone who claimed to be a minister of justice who promised that anyone who tried to defend Saddam would be "chopped to pieces."
U.S. officials had hoped to delay proceedings against Saddam until the Iraqis set up a special court and trained a legal team. But Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose government regained sovereignty Monday, insisted publicly on taking legal custody of Saddam quickly. The Americans agreed on condition they keep him under U.S. lock and key.
Trying Saddam and top regime figures presents a major challenge to the Iraqis and their American backers.
Allawi's government is due to leave office after elections in January, and a second national ballot is to be held by December 2005. That raises the possibility that national policy on the prosecution of Saddam and his backers could change depending on the makeup of the government.
Most of Iraq's 25 million people were overjoyed when Saddam's regime collapsed, and many are looking forward to the day he will be punished.
"Everyone all over the world agrees that Saddam Hussein should be put on trial in front of the Iraqi people," said Baghdad resident Ahmad al-Lami.
However, the turmoil of the past 14 months has led to a longing for the stability and order of the ousted dictatorship, at least among Sunni Arab Muslims who now feel threatened by the possibility of a Shiite-dominated government.
Nostalgia for Saddam - a Sunni - is strongest in Sunni-dominated parts of the country most heavily involved in the insurgency.
"Saddam Hussein was a national hero and better than the traitors in the new government," a resident of Saddam's hometown of Tikrit told APTN, refusing to give his name.
In Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, resident Ammar Mohammed suggested the Americans should be put on trial first, because they "killed thousands if Iraqis in one year of occupation."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Rights Ruling a Compromise
Court Urges Narrow Interpretation on Letting Foreigners Sue in U.S.
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14415-2004Jun29?language=printer
The Supreme Court issued a compromise ruling in its first interpretation of a key human rights law yesterday, upholding the right of foreigners to seek compensation in U.S. courts for abuses that take place abroad but urging federal judges to interpret that right narrowly to avoid judicial interference in foreign affairs.
By a vote of 6 to 3, the court confirmed that the 1789 Alien Tort Statute (ATS) authorizes civil suits in this country for violations of international legal principles that are as universally recognized today as were rules against piracy or assaulting diplomats at the time the ATS was passed.
"[T]he judicial power should be exercised on the understanding that the door is still ajar subject to vigilant doorkeeping, and thus open to a narrow class of international norms today," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the majority. He alluded to the prohibition against torture as an example of such a norm.
The precise impact of the court's opinion on the many ATS-based suits now pending remains to be hashed out in lower courts, but the ruling clearly rebuffed an effort by the Bush administration and the business community to eliminate them.
In the background of the case was the prospect -- heightened by recent controversy over the degree to which the Bush administration has countenanced harsh procedures in interrogations of suspected terrorists or insurgents -- that the United States or its allies in the war on terrorism might be sued under the ATS for violating international law.
For their part, U.S. corporations hoped to stop a wave of suits that seek damages for companies' alleged collaboration in human rights abuses by authoritarian governments in countries where they do business.
Yesterday, Souter echoed the arguments of the administration and the corporations in warning courts to be "particularly wary of impinging on the discretion of the Legislative and Executive branches in managing foreign affairs."
In a footnote, Souter suggested that courts "should give serious weight" to arguments by the U.S. and South African governments that a pending class-action suit against U.S. firms for alleged collaboration with South Africa's apartheid-era governments would upset that country's reconciliation process.
Yet he offered only one clear example of an invalid human rights claim, and it was the one that prompted yesterday's case: the allegation by a Mexican, Humberto Alvarez-Machain, that a former Mexican police officer hired by the Drug Enforcement Administration to abduct him and bring him to the United States for trial in the slaying of a DEA agent was guilty of violating international law against "arbitrary arrest." (Alvarez-Machain was acquitted of murder.)
In a separate part of Souter's opinion that all eight of the other justices backed, the court also held that Alvarez-Machain could not sue the federal government for false arrest under a different statute, the Federal Torts Claim Act.
By saying that law did not bar the U.S. government from hiring or otherwise working with foreign agents abroad to arrest criminal suspects, the court gave the Bush administration support it said it needed to wage its battles against terrorism and drug trafficking.
But the main event was the court's discussion of the Alien Tort Statute, which was adopted by the First Congress and signed into law by President George Washington.
The law, which says that "district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action for an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States," was probably initially intended to deal with cases in which foreign diplomats were victimized on U.S. soil.
The law had seldom been used until a federal appeals court interpreted it in 1980 to permit a suit in the United States by relatives of a 17-year-old Paraguayan against the man who allegedly tortured him to death in that country.
Since then, it has been used in cases against such defendants as Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader allegedly responsible for mass killings of Muslim civilians, and Unocal Corp., the petroleum multinational that is fighting a lawsuit over its alleged collaboration with the use of forced labor by Burma's government on a natural gas pipeline.
The Supreme Court had stayed out of the battle over the law. As recently as 2001, the court turned down an appeal by Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. in a suit by the survivors of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the human rights activist executed by Nigeria's government in 1995.
But since Sept. 11, 2001, several federal appeals judges who opposed the post-1980 interpretation of the ATS have written dissenting or concurring opinions urging the justices to clarify the law.
Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, objected to the part of Souter's opinion that permitted some suits under the ATS.
Scalia protested that the majority -- Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven G. Breyer, in addition to Souter -- should have blocked ATS suits altogether, because Congress never passed a law specifically authorizing them.
"For over two decades now, unelected federal judges have been usurping this lawmaking power by converting what they regard as norms of international law into American law," Scalia wrote. "Today's opinion approves that process in principle, though urging the lower courts to be more restrained."
The court, Scalia added, "wags a finger at the lower courts for going too far, and then . . . invites them to try again."
The consolidated cases decided yesterday are Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, No. 03-339, and U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, No. 03-485.
--------
Supreme Court: Foreign Victims of Abuse May Sue in US
(Inter Press Service)
by Jim Lobe
June 30, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2913
In a new rebuff to the administration of Pres. George W. Bush, a 6-3 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a 215-year-old anti-piracy law can continue to be used by foreign victims of serious human rights abuses access to U.S. courts for redress.
Although the majority decided that the abduction of a Mexican doctor who was delivered into U.S. custody by a bounty hunter to stand trial for the torture/killing of a U.S. drug agent 14 years ago did not rise to the kind of abuse that the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) was meant to cover, it also rejected arguments by the administration and multinational corporations that the law should not provide victims of serious abuses with the right to sue for damages in U.S. courts.
"Today the Supreme Court reaffirmed that U.S. courts will remain open to those who suffer torture and other terrible human rights abuses that violate international law," said Eric Biel, the deputy director of the Washington office of Human Rights First (HRF), formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. "Through ATCA, victims of serious human rights violations will continue to have their day in court."
The U.S. section of Amnesty International (AIUSA) also praised the ruling, noting that the Court recognized that ATCA still allows suits for violations of international norms that are "specific, universal, and obligatory."
The Court's opinion, it said, strongly implies that abuses such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, summary killings, and prolonged arbitrary detention and slavery are likely to meet the Court's standards as "norms of customary law."
ATCA, which was enacted by the very first U.S. Congress as a tool to fight piracy on the high seas, permits non-citizens to sue foreign and domestic individuals or companies found on U.S. territory for abuses "committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States," even if those abuses were committed overseas.
The Act languished for two centuries, but, since 1980, its has been used successfully by victims of abuses committed by foreign governments and militaries overseas against individual defendants who were served with notice while living or visiting in the United States.
The first case was brought by the father and sister of Joel Filartiga, a 17-year-old Paraguayan who was kidnapped and tortured to death by a Paraguayan police officer who subsequently came to the U.S.
In that case, an appeals court ruled that ATCA permitted victims to pursue claims based on serious violations of international human rights law. "For the purposes of civil liability," the court ruled, "the torturer has become - like the pirate and the slave trader before him - hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind."
Subsequent cases have been brought against national leaders, such as former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, and senior army officers from Guatemala, Indonesia, Argentina, Ethiopia, and El Salvador among other countries. While damages have been awarded in almost all such cases, they have rarely been collected, primarily because defendants fled the United States after they received legal service.
Attorneys began bringing cases against U.S. and foreign corporations - usually involving alleged abuses committed by foreign armies or police that were providing security for the companies - under ATCA in 1993. About 25 such cases have since been filed. Although most of them have been dismissed by the trial courts, some are working their way up the federal judiciary on appeal, although none involving corporate defendants has yet been heard by the Supreme Court.
The most successful have been brought by survivors of the Nazi Holocaust against foreign companies and banks that rejected their efforts at recovering their money or insurance claims after World War Two. While none of these ever reached the trial stage, they helped induce Swiss banks to negotiate settlements worth more than $1 billion dollars.
While the early lawsuits in the 1980s and early 1990s against foreign individuals provoked little controversy, actions brought under ATCA against corporations - mostly energy and mining companies - provoked a strong backlash from the private sector and ultimately the Bush administration.
Last year, Attorney-General John Ashcroft asked a federal appeals court to effectively nullify ATCA when it filed a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of the California-based Unocal company in a civil action brought by Burmese villagers who claimed that the company was responsible for serious abuses committed by army troops who provided security for a company project.
In its brief, the Justice Department argued that ATCA could not be used as a basis to file civil cases; that the "law of nations" covered by ATCA did not include international human rights or other treaties enacted since 1789; and that abuses committed outside the U.S. should be covered by the law.
"Although (ATCA) is somewhat of a historical relic today, that is no basis for transforming it into an untethered grant of authority to the courts to establish and enforce (through money-damage actions) precepts of international law regarding disputes arising in foreign countries," the brief argued.
It also warned that the use of ATCA "bears serious implications for our current war against terrorism, and permits (ATCA claims) to be easily asserted against our allies in that war," potentially interfering with important U.S. foreign policy interests.
At the same time, the associations of multinational companies, such as the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also filed briefs with the courts and launched a public-relations campaign against ATCA, arguing, as a recent NFTC ad published in the New York Times put it, that it "discourages foreign investment ... permits suits (challenging) conduct that U.S. corporations do not and cannot control ... (and) enables foreigners to sue companies for violations of 'international agreements' to which the U.S. itself does not subscribe."
The case decided Tuesday was the first ever to reach the Supreme Court and thus attracted similar briefs by business and the Justice Department, as well as human rights and other groups who support ATCA. The case itself, however, titled Sosa v. Alavarez-Machain, did not deal directly with a corporate defendant.
It was based rather on the 1990 kidnapping by a former Mexican policeman, Jose Francisco Sosa, of Dr. Humberto Alvarez-Machain, whom the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) accused of helping kill one of its agents. Citing the methods by which Alvarez-Machain was delivered to U.S. custody, a trial judge dismissed the case against him in 1992. The doctor then sued Sosa in federal court under ATCA, winning a 25,000-dollar judgement that was sustained by the Ninth Circuit of Appeals.
The question before the Supreme Court Tuesday was whether the appeals court ruling was correct.
Writing a 45-page opinion on behalf of the majority, Justice David Souter ruled that the abuse of arbitrary arrest and detention suffered by Alvarez-Machain "violate(d) no norm of customary international law so well defined as to support the creation of a federal remedy."
But, at the same time, the majority rejected the administration's arguments that would have rendered the ATCA meaningless by reaffirming that it does indeed provide jurisdiction for "the modest number of international law violations with a potential for personal liability."
"The Bush administration wanted to gut the law," said Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch (HRW), "but the Court refused to go along."
"The Supreme Court sent a clear message today to the Bush administration and multinational corporations that they cannot ignore international human rights law," said Jennie Green, a senior attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group that has successfully brought a number of cases under ATCA and is currently using the Act to sue private contractors implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.
"The Court has rejected efforts to eliminate the most important law that gives human rights victims their day in court," she said.
Green also stressed that the Court majority noted explicitly in Monday's decision that foreign detainees held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could pursue claims under ATCA. "The Court's decision in yesterday's case and today's puts the Alien Tort Claims Act on solid ground," she said.
Robin Conrad, who handles litigation for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told IPS that Tuesday's decision constituted at least a partial victory for her organization, in that Souter's opinion stressed that courts should be cautious in hearing cases under ATCA.
"The Court is suggesting a high bar for [recognizing] new causes of action that weren't recognized in the 18th century," she said, adding that "suits alleging environmental harm, for example, may well be thrown out right away."
"The Court was not so definitive that you can predict how pending cases will go," she said. "Courts will have to decide on a case-by-case basis."
HRW's Mariner agreed, suggesting, for example, that ATCA will be unlikely to be read in the future as providing jurisdiction only for particularly serious rights abuses, such as war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity.
"It's not a clear victory, but overall it looks good because the Court preserved the core of the law as a tool for accountability in serious human rights cases," she said.
--------
U.S. Struggles With Guantanamo Ruling
June 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Guantanamo-Detainees.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- No one is sure when, where or how, but one day soon defense lawyers will begin filing what could be hundreds of lawsuits seeking the release of foreign-born men held by the United States as potential terrorists.
The Supreme Court ruled this week that federal courts can hear the cases of nearly 600 men from more than 40 countries who are held at the Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The ruling pretty much stopped there, however, leaving it to other courts, the Bush administration and outside lawyers to sort out what happens next.
Practical questions include whether one court or several will hear the cases, whether numerous cases might be bundled together in one suit and even whether federal judges might set up temporary quarters at the Cuban prison camp.
``The Supreme Court didn't give much direction ... but the opinion says that each and every detainee has the right to have the lawfulness of their detention determined by a federal judge,'' said Jeffrey Fogel, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Fogel's New York-based group represented four Guantanamo detainees named in the Supreme Court case. Those cases and others were filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., but were on hold pending an answer from the Supreme Court on whether federal courts have jurisdiction over Guantanamo.
The high court also ruled separately Monday the government has the right to seize and hold what it calls enemy combatants, but cannot indefinitely detain U.S. citizens as enemy combatants with no meaningful way for them to challenge their captivity.
``The Supreme Court accorded to terrorists, in a variety of cases this week, a number of additional rights,'' Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday. ``We're digesting those opinions in terms of making sure that we adjust, or modify what we do, so that we accommodate the requirements as expressed by the Supreme Court.''
White House spokesman Scott McClellan promised a process that meets the court's concerns. The detainees ``do have a right to contest their detention,'' McClellan said.
McClellan also said the military will go ahead with its plan for an annual internal reviews of each Guantanmo prisoner. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced that step in February.
The Guantanamo prisoners were mostly picked up in Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. The government says they were fighting for al-Qaida or the terrorist network's Taliban protectors in Afghanistan.
Most of the detainees have been held for more than 2 1/2 years, with little or no contact with the outside world. Most have had no access to lawyers.
The administration put the prisoners at Guantanamo on purpose, with an eye to deflecting suits over the men's captivity. The administration argued that the base was beyond the reach of American courts.
In rejecting that view, the high court's 6-3 ruling said nothing about the guilt or innocence of the men at Guantanamo, nor whether the military is holding them illegally or unconstitutionally.
The Supreme Court case grew out of suits filed by family members and others on behalf of some of the Guantanamo detainees. The named prisoners initially did not know they had lawyers or a court case.
As a first step, the ruling means U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly can go forward with the 14 cases pending in her Washington courtroom, lawyers said. Many lawyers assume other new cases will be consolidated in the same court, although there is nothing so far to stop a detainee from filing elsewhere.
Justice Department and Pentagon officials also are looking for ways to handle the hundreds of suits expected in the coming weeks. They include a proposal to move the detainees to a prison in the United States from which they could be taken to a nearby federal court.
Doing that could make the logistics of holding court hearings easier, but would pose security problems for the government.
Also this week, the Pentagon announced that a five-member tribunal will try three suspects at Guantanamo. The military trial would be the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War II.
-------- homeland security
Coast Guard to Board Each Foreign Ship
June 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Port-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Coast Guard will board every foreign-flagged vessel that sails into a U.S. port beginning Thursday to check whether it is complying with rules aimed at foiling terrorists.
A maritime treaty signed by about 150 countries requires each ship to have a security officer, alarm system, automatic identification system, access restrictions to the engine room and bridge, and a method of checking IDs of people who board. Each ship must have a certificate signed by the country that flags it saying it is in compliance with the treaty.
Rear Adm. Larry Hereth said that 700 Coast Guardsmen, including about 500 reservists, will be part of the effort to board all ships as they enter the ports.
``We're going to take a pretty hard line,'' said Hereth, the Coast Guard's director of port security.
The Coast Guard has a range of sanctions that can be imposed on ships that fail to meet the standards, depending on what the problem is, Hereth said. An administrative glitch could be repaired onboard, he said, but if it should appear that the ship's operators have done little to comply the vessel could be turned away.
The Coast Guard also can detain a ship and require it to hire security guards until it has come into compliance. Or the Coast Guard can add points to the ship's risk-assessment score, which would mean that the ship is inspected the next time it calls at a U.S. port, Hereth said.
Joe Cox, president of the Chamber of Shipping of America, which represents U.S. ship owners, said he expects the Coast Guard to enforce strictly the requirement that each vessel has a signed certificate saying it complies with the standards.
``I don't think there's a ship around here dumb enough to come into U.S. waters without the certificate,'' Cox said.
Many foreign-flagged ships and overseas ports won't meet the standards, according to statistics provided by the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency that monitors shipping safety.
According to the IMO's most recent figures, 71 percent of tankers, 89 percent of cruise ships and 56 percent of cargo ships had certificates. Only 32 percent of port facilities had approved security plans required under the treaty.
Although ships and ports in most of Europe and Japan have complied, maritime facilities in some developing countries remain problematic, the IMO says.
The agency has no enforcement powers, however, and relies instead on the implicit economic threat to governments that don't comply with the new International Ship and Port Facility Security Code. For example, ships from countries that don't meet the higher standards might be refused port privileges by nations that have.
Hereth said the Coast Guard would pressure non-U.S. ports to tighten security so they meet the new standards. Coast Guard spokeswoman Jolie Shifflet said ships sailing into U.S. waters increasingly were reaching the standards. On Tuesday, 78 percent of the 192 foreign-flagged ships calling on U.S. ports were in compliance, up from 65 percent the previous two days.
``We're projecting that to continue to rise,'' Shifflet said, adding that 142 of the 150 ships that plan to enter U.S. ports on Thursday said they have the certificates.
Thursday also is the deadline for U.S. ports to comply with a maritime security law passed by Congress in November 2002. All but a handful of the thousands of port facilities and vessels will be up to U.S. security standards, Shifflet said.
On the Net:
Coast Guard: http://www.uscg.mil
International Maritime Organization: http://www.imo.org
-------- human rights
Human Rights Abuses Worldwide Are Held to Fall Under U.S. Courts
June 30, 2004
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30alien.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, June 29 - A Supreme Court decision on Tuesday kept federal courts open to lawsuits by foreigners who allege that they were victims of serious human rights violations anywhere in the world.
The decision interpreting the Alien Tort Statute came as a relief to human rights organizations that had feared the court would accept the Bush administration's invitation to narrow the application of the 215-year-old law.
At the same time, the result was a sharp disappointment to international business interests, which have been alarmed by increasing use of the law to sue multinational corporations for human rights violations and had looked to the Supreme Court to curb the trend.
The case before the court did not involve a corporate defendant, and the 6-to-3 decision did not conclusively resolve the status of such cases. That opportunity may come soon, because lower courts with corporate cases on their dockets have been deferring decisions while waiting to see how the Supreme Court would rule in this case.
A case brought on behalf of residents of Myanmar charging the Unocal Corporation with human rights violations in connection with a gas pipeline project has already been argued before the federal appeals court in San Francisco and could reach the Supreme Court quickly.
The case before the justices was an appeal of an earlier ruling by the same appeals court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That court permitted a Mexican doctor, Humberto Álvarez-Machain, to use the Alien Tort Statute to sue a Mexican who helped the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to kidnap him from his office in Guadalajara and bring him to the United States to stand trial for murder. A grand jury had indicted Dr. Álvarez-Machain in the murder of a federal narcotics agent, Enrique Camarena-Salazar. He was acquitted at his 1992 trial.
The Alien Tort Statute, which was among the laws enacted by the First Congress in 1789, provides jurisdiction in federal district courts "of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." The meaning of this statutory language, including the odd phrase "for a tort only," is obscure and the law was scarcely used until lower federal courts began applying it in international human rights cases in the 1980's.
In Dr. Álvarez-Machain's case, the Ninth Circuit found that the cross-border kidnapping violated international law and was thus the type of injury for which a foreigner could sue in federal court. A jury awarded the doctor a $25,000 judgment against the Mexican defendant, José Francisco Sosa, who then appealed to the Supreme Court.
In the decision on Tuesday, the last day of the Supreme Court's term, all nine justices voted to overturn the Ninth Circuit's judgment. "A single illegal detention of less than a day, followed by the transfer of custody to lawful authorities and a prompt arraignment, violates no norm of customary international law" and was not the type of egregious human rights violation that the Alien Tort Statute was intended to cover, Justice David H. Souter wrote for the court.
But the specific fate of Dr. Álvarez-Machain's lawsuit was not what made this case, Sosa v. Álvarez-Machain, No 03-339, one of the most closely watched on the court's docket. What mattered for future cases was the court's broader interpretation of the statute.
The Bush administration had urged the court to hear the case and to rule that the Alien Tort Statute did nothing more than define an aspect of the federal courts' original jurisdiction, without conferring an ability to bring private lawsuits or to invoke modern notions of international law.
There was "no basis," the administration's brief said, to view the law as having established "a roaming cause of action that permits aliens to come to United States courts and recover money damages for violations of international law anywhere around the globe." Congress had to specifically provide a basis for suing under the law, the brief said.
Justice Souter's majority opinion rejected that argument. He said that while the law should be applied with "judicial caution," it should also be interpreted as its authors intended it. He said the First Congress, "which reflected the understanding of the framing generation and included some of the framers, assumed that federal courts could properly identify some international norms as enforceable" under the law it wrote. "It would take some explaining to say now that federal courts must avert their gaze entirely from any international norm intended to protect individuals," he added.
Justice Souter said that in the 18th century, there were three offenses that were seen as violating the contemporary concept of international law: violation of a promise to give "safe conduct,", piracy and "infringement of the rights of ambassadors." Calling these offenses "paradigms," he said that the Alien Tort Statute should be interpreted today as applying to their modern equivalents: international norms with "definite content and acceptance among civilized nations."
Human rights lawyers said Tuesday that while this analysis did not extend to the brief detention of Dr. Álvarez-Machain, it would cover universally recognized violations like torture, genocide, slavery and prolonged arbitrary detention.
"These are core human rights claims," Paul L. Hoffman, who argued in the court for Dr. Álvarez-Machain and who also represents the plaintiffs in the Unocal lawsuit, said in an interview. "The court has accepted that international law evolves and that this law has contemporary meaning."
Dissenting from this portion of the opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority had adopted "a 20th-century invention of internationalist law professors and human-rights advocates" and opened the door to an "illegitimate lawmaking endeavor" by federal judges.
"American law - the law made by the people's democratically elected representatives - does not recognize a category of activity that is so universally disapproved by other nations that it is automatically unlawful here, and automatically gives rise to a private action for money damages in federal court," Justice Scalia said. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas signed his opinion.
Echoing that criticism, Robin Conrad, a lawyer with the United States Chamber of Commerce, expressed the disappointment of international business interests with the decision. In an interview, she said the ruling "leaves far too much discretion to courts" and creates "an ever-expanding universe of judge-made law." Ms. Conrad added: "We didn't succeed in cutting these cases off at the pass. We're back to square one."
Justice Souter's densely worded, 45-page opinion contained numerous words of caution for lower courts in handling future cases. He said courts should be sensitive to the foreign policy implications of cases under the Alien Tort Statute, citing in particular cases now pending against corporations that cooperated with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The South African government has opposed these lawsuits on the ground that they interfere with its own post-apartheid approach to reconciliation and reconstruction, and the State Department has endorsed South Africa's view. "In such cases, there is a strong argument that federal courts should give serious weight to the executive branch's view of the case's impact on foreign policy," Justice Souter said.
-------- immigration / refugees
Thousands of Refugees Greet Powell in Sudan
June 30, 2004
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/africa/30CND-SUDA.html?hp
AL-FASHER, Sudan, June 30 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell came today to this hard-baked land that has been brutalized by roving horsemen with guns, disease and an unrelenting sun to offer his hand in help.
Thousands of refugees from recent violence swept like water across a sandy plain to meet the convoy of jeeps and S.U.V.'s carrying the Powell entourage to a camp of 40,000 displaced people from the western Darfur region.
Youths eager for a glimpse of Mr. Powell climbed atop pallets of American-donated wheat and vegetable oil for a better vantage, only to be shooed off by a soldier flailing a whip. Women draped in veils herded wide-eyed children chasing after the spectacle.
Young men - survivors in an ethnic war that has unleashed the power of the mostly Arab government and their allies against black African rebels and their people - sidled up to American reporters to confide their fear. Mr. Powell's visit seemed to offer a momentary shield from government intimidation.
"We want this government out," whispered one man, who said he had lost 14 relatives to the violence. "They kill our families." He disappeared as quickly as he had surfaced. "They watch me," he said, before melting into the crowd.
Mr. Powell, the highest-ranking American official to visit this country in decades, huddled under a makeshift tent, buzzed by flies, while his traveling companion, the Sudanese foreign minister, stood by, perspiring in a dress shirt. Relief workers emphasized the need for more tents and water in the outskirts of the camp, a village erected virtually overnight to help those who fled or lost their homes to violence.
"The people in this camp are being given hope as well as sustenance," Mr. Powell said. But, he added, "we don't want them to stay in camps; we all want them to return to their homes."
The camp, Abushouk, was built within the past two months on the outskirts of Al-Fasher, and is considered to be among the best in the Darfur region, with functioning relief organizations and few signs of hunger. Security concerns kept Mr. Powell from viewing more desperate camps - there are 137 of them in a region the size of France - but even Abushouk had recently been affected by a recent outbreak of measles.
Waleed Yousif, a physician in the camp, said many of the children were suffering from gastrointestinal problems. But he said there was no starvation. "Now the government is trying to do its best to help the people," he said. "There's international pressure to do something for the refugees."
Mr. Powell said he was not dissuaded in his sense of urgency over the humanitarian crisis in Darfur by his visit here, which was accompanied by squads of government soldiers in open trucks with mounted machine guns. He met with tribal leaders, members of a cease-fire monitoring group of the African Union, relief groups and United Nations staff.
"Many camps don't have the same degree of access" as Abushouk, Mr. Powell said on his flight back to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. He expressed special concern for Darfur residents in the countryside whose crops have been destroyed by the government-backed militiamen known as the janjaweed, who continue to roam areas throughout the west and into neighboring Chad.
"The reason security is so important is so that we can get people moving back home again voluntarily, not forcibly, and start to rebuild their lives and put crops in the ground, or there won't be crops to harvest the next harvesting season, and then the requirement for international aid and camps becomes even greater."
Mr. Powell said his visit was largely to stir the international community to put pressure on Khartoum officials, who, his aides say, have minimized the scope of the crisis. For example, the foreign minister, Mostafa Osman Ismail, denied that there is famine in the country.
"They're in a state of denial; they're in a state of avoidance," said one State Department official. "They're trying to obfuscate, and avoid any consequences."
The Bush administration began circulating a text among members of the Security Council in effort to boost international support for Darfur.
Officials declined to say whether the proposed resolution foresees imposing additional sanctions against Khartoum, possibly targeting its political leaders.
The United States, which designates Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, already has one of the most punitive regimes against the government, with 12 sets of sanctions in place. The sanctions bar commercial transactions, military sales, investment - including in the critical area of oil exploitation - and a requirement that Washington actively oppose international loans to Khartoum.
Sudanese officials are eager to improve relations with Washington. Mr. Powell's visit was greeted with warm articles in the local media, even as newspapers criticized what they consider exaggerated accounts in foreign newspapers.
International monitors of a regional cease-fire gave Mr. Powell conflicting reports today about the durability of an agreement signed in April.
Members of the Sudanese Liberation Army, one of the rebel groups based here, said that just two days ago a government plane had bombed a camp near Kuttum, north of here, and the janjaweed militias had followed with an attack.
But the chairman of the cease-fire commission, Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo, said he had no confirmed violations in recent days.
Mr. Powell said that restoring security is his primary concern followed by the need to disarm the militias, which the government has publicly disavowed.
With the rainy season beginning, relief workers say that they will have difficulty distributing aid. On average, they said, it takes a truck loaded with food three weeks to reach points in Darfur from Sudan's main port. Mr. Powell said today that his goal is to let villagers return home as soon as they can.
"They'll have to go back and rebuild - with our help," he said.
After less than an hour at the camp, his aides pressed members to scurry aboard his plane. There was a vast rainstorm on the horizon.
--------
Mexicans in U.S. Illegally Will Be Flown Home
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A04
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15909-2004Jun29.html
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will start flying illegal Mexican immigrants to their home towns next month as part of a controversial program aimed at reducing illegal immigration.
Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said yesterday that the United States and Mexico had agreed to a pilot program, through Sept. 30, to repatriate illegal immigrants found in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert region.
"The interior repatriation program is voluntary," Hutchinson told reporters. "Eligible migrants who are apprehended entering the U.S. illegally will be offered the opportunity to return to their home via air or bus transportation."
The first flight is expected to be July 12, after the United States finalizes contracts for air transport. Mexicans who participate will be flown to Mexico City or Guadalajara and then bused to their home towns.
The program was touchy for Mexicans sensitive to U.S. interference in their internal affairs.
But Mexican and U.S. officials agree on the need to boost security along the 2,000-mile border to reduce the number of Mexicans who die each year making the illegal crossing in search of a higher standard of living in the United States.
--------
Detainee to Be Deported On Immigration Charges
Supporters Allege Racial Profiling in Case
By Michelle Garcia
The Washington Post
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16136-2004Jun29.html
NEW YORK, June 29 -- A Pakistani immigrant detained almost three years ago after taking autumn photographs near an Upstate New York reservoir lost a final appeal on Tuesday and faces deportation.
In the end, dozens of members of Congress, an international circle of supporters and a flurry of petitions could not stop the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from issuing a deportation order for Ansar Mahmood, 27. A pizza deliveryman, Mahmood is one of the longest-held detainees from a roundup of Arab and Muslim men in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Federal officials took Mahmood into custody in October 2001, not long after he asked a stranger to shoot his photo as the sun dipped behind the Catskills Mountains. Federal officials feared that he might be a terrorist scouting the reservoir, which was in the background of the photo, for a possible attack. They later cleared Mahmood of any such suspicions.
But when federal agents searched Mahmood's house, they found evidence that he had co-signed for an apartment and registered a car as a favor to two illegal immigrants. That was a deportable crime, federal immigration officials said.
William Cleary, an immigration field director in Buffalo, wrote to Mahmood: "You received extraordinary benefit under this country's generous immigration system and immediately set out to violate and undermine that very system."
Mahmood's lawyer said the government is being vindictive. This ruling "just shows a lack of compassion by the current administration," Rolando Velasquez said. "Ansar's case highlights just how draconian those [immigration law] changes really are."
Advocates have rallied around the soft-spoken Pakistani, believing that he had become a victim of a roundup that targeted Arab and Muslim immigrants, and was charged with a crime that before the terrorist attacks would have gone unnoticed. Susan Davies, a Chatham, N.Y., resident who helped lead the movement to free Mahmood, said: "His case was so clearly a case of racial profiling, it seemed only right that they shouldn't deport him."
Mahmood, a legal permanent resident, entered the United States in 2000 after winning an immigration lottery. He sent money to Pakistan to support his family there, and his supporters called him a model of what the United States hopes for from its immigrants.
An immigration judge first ordered his deportation in July 2002, a decision upheld this week. Immigration officials said Tuesday that racial profiling was not a factor.
"It has no bearing on the case," said Michael Gilhooly, spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "The facts of the case cannot be disputed."
Supporters have vowed to push for a last-minute reprieve. But nothing short of a congressionally approved bill can stop his deportation.
Mary Lavelle, a secretary in Velasquez's office, said she has heard her share of creative client stories, but still took the uncharacteristic move of joining the movement to free Mahmood. Lavelle said she was "brokenhearted" by the ruling.
"If America had Ansars for citizens, this would be such a wonderful place to live," she said. "He is everything we should want for a citizen."
Mahmood called his lawyer's office, Lavelle said, to ask how his supporters had taken the news and then added: " 'Don't worry about me. I'm strong.' "
-------- justice
WASHINGTON MEMO
Ashcroft, Deft at Taking Heat, Hits a Rocky Patch
June 30, 2004
By DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30ASHC.html
WASHINGTON, June 29 - As the country's chief legal officer, John Ashcroft works at the crossroads between politics and the law, and he is not the first attorney general to take the political heat for his administration's legal reversals. But even by those standards, Mr. Ashcroft seems to have entered a turbulent phase.
After years in which his conservative views and his definition of the proper balance between civil liberties and security needs made him a target for liberal critics, Mr. Ashcroft has recently experienced a series of defeats and missteps that have put him under even more intense scrutiny, and not just from Democrats.
On Monday, the Supreme Court repudiated the administration's contention that the president alone could determine the fate of enemy combatants, in effect slapping down one of Mr. Ashcroft's most important legal positions. And last week the White House disowned a legal opinion drafted by the Justice Department regarding how far interrogators could go in using coercive techniques to wring information from detainees. Mr. Ashcroft's role in the preparation of that legal paper is unclear.
Among well-connected Republicans in Washington, there is some private grumbling that Mr. Ashcroft too often pursues his own agenda rather than that of President Bush. Some Republicans are wondering whether Mr. Ashcroft would be asked to return for a second Bush term if the president is re-elected in November, or whether he would choose not to serve again, perhaps to pursue his own run for the presidency in 2008.
Some Republicans say Mr. Ashcroft has become so polarizing a figure that he can no longer be an effective advocate for administration initiatives, like the drive to renew the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act. While Mr. Ashcroft remains immensely popular on the right, especially Christian conservatives, he is seen within the administration as also having picked up at least his share of political baggage in leading the Justice Department through the tumultuous changes that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Republicans with ties to the White House said.
Allies of Mr. Ashcroft acknowledged the difficult atmosphere, but said the attorney general was not wilting.
"The last couple of weeks have been a little rough," said Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman. "But he keeps saying, you've got to keep focused, you've got to persevere and keep going."
Mr. Ashcroft, who underwent gall bladder surgery in March, seems, from his combative public appearances, to have fully recovered. Some associates said he has tried to ease his pace slightly, although he still works seven days a week. They say that he has no agenda of his own and that he would be open to staying on the job if Mr. Bush wins re-election and asks him to remain.
Mr. Ashcroft's associates said that the attorney general knew that his embrace of aggressive steps after the terrorist attacks would be polarizing and that his popularity might suffer as he tried to deflect criticism from Mr. Bush over policies attacked by civil liberties groups.
"The role the White House had cut out for Ashcroft even before 9/11 was the role of spear catcher," said an administration official. "It has allowed the president to have the running room he needs to get a lot of policies through. Ashcroft has been amazingly effective, but at great cost to his public persona. It's a role he accepts."
The court decision and the disavowal of the memo on interrogations were only the latest challenges to Mr. Ashcroft's record. At an F.B.I. briefing on May 26, Mr. Ashcroft said intelligence reports indicated that Al Qaeda was close to launching a major attack against the United States. "This disturbing intelligence indicates Al Qaeda's specific intention to hit the United States hard," he warned. "Beyond this intelligence, Al Qaeda's own public statements indicate that it is almost ready to attack the United States."
The announcement appeared to surprise the rest of the government, including the Homeland Security Department, where officials said they saw nothing in the threat reporting that warranted increasing the threat level.
In April, the White House, in an unusually public criticism of a cabinet officer, complained after the Justice Department posted on its Web site declassified documents that seemed to attack a member of the independent commission investigating the September 2001 attacks one day before Mr. Bush was interviewed by the commission.
The documents showed that Jamie Gorelick, a commission member, signed a memo in 1995, when she was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, endorsing a separation of intelligence and law enforcement functions. Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said at a news briefing that Mr. Bush told the commission that he expressed disapproval about the release of the memo.
Mr. Ashcroft has never been especially close to Mr. Bush, certainly not in the way that Robert F. Kennedy was to his brother or even that Edwin Meese III was to President Ronald Reagan. If Mr. Bush is unhappy with Mr. Ashcroft, he would not be the first president seeking a second term to think about other options. President Bill Clinton, angry over Janet Reno's appointments of independent prosecutors, made her wait for more than a month after his re-election before giving her a second term.
It did not escape the notice of career lawyers at the Justice Department last month that when Mr. Bush gave a speech in Buffalo on the Patriot Act, he was accompanied on stage not by Mr. Ashcroft, who did not make the trip, but by Larry Thompson, the former deputy attorney general. In an aside during his presentation, Mr. Bush seemed to send a signal that Mr. Thompson, who stepped down last year after two years under Mr. Ashcroft, could be a contender for Mr. Ashcroft's job.
"Larry, we miss you over there," Mr. Bush said, "and don't get too comfortable."
-------- prisons / prisoners
UK-US secret deal on Diego Garcia for 2nd Guantanamo
Aljazeera
6/30/2004
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=2494
Diego Garcia is strategic US-UK military base where the original inhabitants have been thrown out.
The British Indian Ocean Territory of Diego Garcia which belongs to Britain is being lined up in a joint US/UK project as a second Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
The recent history of Diego Garcia is one of abuse of the original inhabitants whom the British Government summarily threw out of their homes between 1967 and 1973 so the base could be leased to the US whom created a military base on the island. One British diplomat at the time described the islanders as "man Fridays" and "Tarzans".
Diego Garcia is highly important to the US in providing a secure base for the launch of attacks and surveillance in the Middle East and Afghanistan. It was used in both Iraq wars.
The US and UK are keen to create new secret detention facilities and Scottish MP Alex Salmon today accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of a secret pact with the US to create a new Guantanamo Bay type of detention centre hidden from the world. The legal status of the base will be another "grey area" similar to Guantanamo.
In mid June the British Government barred thousands of islanders from returning to their homes which was in response to a English High court judgment four years ago that criticised the behaviour of previous British governments and opened the way for the islanders to go home.
At the time, the Foreign Office accepted the judge's decision and promised to embark on preparations for their return. But the Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell has now said it is not feasible for the islanders to go back and that, as a result of September 11, US defence needs have increased.
The new law disbars islanders returning not only to Diego Garcia, but to the other 64 outlying islands.
Alan Vincatassin, leader of British Indian Ocean Territory Islanders Movement, said last night: "It is totally horrendous and unacceptable. I am very angry. This law is the most barbarous I have seen in the name of the Queen.
"It is because the US wants to have these islands empty they [the Foreign Office] have removed the right of abode."
British Government Changes Law
Instead of using the normal legislative process, the Foreign Office was able to change the law by use of orders in council (privy council), a remnant of the once all-powerful royal prerogative.
The new order replaces the existing constitution of the territory and "makes clear, as a principle of the constitution, that no person has the right of abode in the territory or has unrestricted access to any part of it".
Richard Gifford, the London-based lawyer for the 4,500 islanders and their descendants seeking a right to return, said: "This is an absolute stab in the back. Not since the days of King John has anyone tried to expel British citizens from the realm by executive order."
--------
In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally
June 30, 2004
By NINA BERNSTEIN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/nyregion/30deport.final.html?pagewanted=all&position=
It took no more than a week for James P. Wynne, a veteran F.B.I. investigator, to confirm the harmless truth that only now, more than two years later, he is ready to talk about. The small foreign man he helped arrest for videotaping outside an office building in Queens on Oct. 25, 2001, was no terrorist.
He was a Buddhist from Nepal planning to return there after five years of odd jobs at places like a Queens pizzeria and a Manhattan flower shop. He was taping New York street scenes to take back to his wife and sons in Katmandu. And he had no clue that the tall building that had drifted into his viewfinder happened to include an office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Yet by the time Mr. Wynne filed his F.B.I. report a few days later, the Nepalese man, who spoke almost no English, had been placed in solitary confinement at a federal detention center in Brooklyn just because of his videotaping. He was swallowed up in the government's new maximum security system of secret detention and secret hearings, and his only friend was the same F.B.I. agent who had helped decide to put him there.
Except for the videotape - "a tourist kind of thing," in Mr. Wynne's estimation - no shred of suspicion attached to the man, Purna Raj Bajracharya, 47, who came from Nepal in 1996. His one offense - staying to work on a long-expired tourist visa - was an immigration violation punishable by deportation, not jail. But he wound up spending three months in solitary confinement before he was sent back to Katmandu in January 2002, and to release him from his shackles, even Mr. Wynne needed help.
The clearance process had become so byzantine that the officer who had set the procedure in motion could not hasten it. Unable to procure a release that officially required signatures from top antiterrorism officials in Washington, Mr. Wynne took an uncommon step for an F.B.I. agent: he called the Legal Aid Society for a lawyer to help the jailed man.
Now, for the first time, the F.B.I. agent and the Legal Aid lawyer, Olivia Cassin, have agreed to talk about the case and their unlikely alliance. Their documented accounts offer a rare, first-hand window into the workings of a secret world.
Within 10 days of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department instructed immigration judges that all cases designated as "special interest" were to be handled in separate closed courtrooms, without visitors, family or reporters, and without confirming whether a case was on the docket. The secrecy left detainees with little access to lawyers.
Visa violators would be held indefinitely, until the F.B.I. was sure the person was not involved in terrorism. As a visa violator under suspicion, Mr. Bajracharya was among hundreds placed in the special interest category, and his case was wiped from the public record.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said that though he was unfamiliar with the case, the system of secrecy Mr. Bajracharya encountered is lawful and necessary. "The idea that someone who has violated our immigration laws may be of interest on a national security level as well is an unfortunate reality, post-9/11," he said. Closed hearings are legal as long as due process is provided, he said, and all abuses will be dealt with.
But Ms. Cassin, of Legal Aid, argues that under this secret practice, there is no way to know whether other noncitizens are even now being unfairly detained. "By its very nature," she said, "it can happen again without our knowing about it."
Mr. Bajracharya was finally returned to Nepal on Jan. 13, 2002. By then he had spent almost three months in a 6-by-9-foot cell kept lighted 24 hours a day. The unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he was kept has become notorious for the abuses documented there by the Justice Department's own inspector general, who found a pattern of physical and mental mistreatment of post-9/11 detainees. Videotapes showed officers slamming detainees into walls, mocking them during unnecessary strip-searches, and secretly taping their conversations with lawyers.
Mr. Wynne would not comment on detention policies, and said that he should not be "held out as the one lone person who did the right thing." But during an extended interview approved by his F.B.I. superiors, he read aloud from phone logs documenting desperate messages from the man's family in Katmandu, his efforts to reassure the weeping detainee, and his own dawning recognition that no resolution was in sight.
"I told Purna that I would try to help him, that I wouldn't forget about him," Mr. Wynne explained. "I felt some - not responsibility, but I felt that there was no one else."
By telephone from Katmandu, Mr. Bajracharya recalled the fear, humiliation and despair he had experienced in prison. "I had nothing but tears in my eyes," he said through a translator. "The only thing I knew, I was innocent, but I didn't know what was happening."
He said he was stripped naked in the federal jail. "I was manhandled and treated badly," he said, becoming agitated. "I was very, very embarrassed even to look around, because I was naked."
The ordeal began when his videotaping aroused the suspicions of two detectives from the Queens district attorney's office, which has space in the same 12-story building where the F.B.I. occupies three floors. After taking him inside for questioning, they called upstairs to the F.B.I., and Mr. Wynne was dispatched to take over the interrogation. With no translator, Mr. Bajracharya tried to explain himself to half a dozen law enforcement officers, including two federal agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service who verified his illegal immigration status.
It was Mr. Wynne, as the lead F.B.I. agent, who sent him to the federal detention center in Brooklyn pending a thorough investigation. The F.B.I. agent, now 50, describes himself as a lifelong New Yorker who does not take illegal immigration lightly. His specialty is international art fraud, not terrorism. But at a time of heightened anxiety about another terrorist attack, he maintained, it was reasonable to suspect the worst until he could check the man's history, discrepancies in his identity documents and questions about money wired to Nepal.
The questions were resolved within days. The Nepalese man did not show up in any terrorist databanks, and Mr. Wynne soon confirmed his explanation for a $37,000 wire transfer to Nepal. The money was from a recent legal settlement for injuries suffered when he was hit by a car in 1999. His records, roommates and former employees all vouched for the detainee's honesty.
On Nov. 1, 2001, the day Mr. Wynne wrote his report clearing Mr. Bajracharya, he told him through a translator that it would take about a week to get the matter resolved.
Over the weekend, pleading messages arrived from the detainee's sons in Katmandu: "Please help his father; he's not that kind of person - meaning a terrorist, I suppose," the F.B.I. agent said. On Nov. 5, he discussed the case with the head of counterterrorism in the United States attorney's office, and on Nov. 7 and 8, with a lawyer at the immigration agency.
"Because he was willing to leave - he wanted to leave - it didn't seem to me that it was a big hurdle to move him out of there," Mr. Wynne said.
But the weeks dragged on. Learning that a secret immigration hearing was scheduled for Nov. 19, Mr. Wynne thought a resolution was at hand. Instead, in a second conference call to the detainee after the hearing, he found him confused and distraught. It turned out that official F.B.I. clearance from Washington had not yet come through, and the matter had been adjourned to another secret hearing on Dec. 6.
At this point, the agent said, he realized he had been too optimistic. "You have to understand one thing: I'm in the Queens office; in Manhattan they were running this whole initiative, and there was a whole procedure set up for the clearances," he said. "I wasn't aware that there were so many levels that needed to sign off on this thing, frankly, when I filed my report."
The Monday after Thanksgiving, the F.B.I. agent called in Legal Aid. "This guy needed some help - it's as simple as that," Mr. Wynne said, insisting that anyone would have done the same thing. Ms. Cassin says she knows of no other F.B.I. investigator who has.
But by the time she spoke with the detainee, through a thick plexiglass barrier and under the eye of a prison video camera, she said, he was weeping all the time.
On Dec. 6, in a secret hearing room in the prison, she said, she watched him carried in by three burly officers of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, shackled so completely that he could not move. "He's tiny," she said. "His feet didn't even touch the floor."
She said government immigration lawyers agreed that since her client had been cleared by the F.B.I., he would be permitted a "voluntary departure." She was instructed to buy him an airplane ticket to Katmandu through a deportation officer. She did, but the first departure date was canceled without explanation.
Meanwhile, like other "high interest" detainees, Mr. Bajracharya was still in solitary 23 hours a day. "After a month or two, I started to scream that I was going to die if I didn't talk to anybody," he later recalled.
Ms. Cassin said she pleaded with the prison doctor to put him in the general prison population, but the doctor said he was crying so much he would cause a riot. Instead, on Dec. 11, a Muslim detainee was sent to share his tiny cell.
Expecting his imminent departure, Ms. Cassin and Mr. Wynne tried to fulfill the detainee's most insistent request: to go home looking like a respectable person, not a criminal. An assistant warden agreed to accept a box labeled "release clothing," containing the good suit he had worn when he came to America. Shortly before Christmas, Mr. Wynne made a special trip to deliver it.
But when Mr. Bajracharya was finally taken to the plane on Jan. 13, he was in shackles and an orange prison jumpsuit. "I wanted to wait for my clothes, at least the shoes and the jacket," he said, "but they took me by force."
Mr. Bajracharya's accounts of mistreatment fit the pattern reported by the inspector general. A spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, Robert Nardoza, said the office recently declined to prosecute abuses detailed in the reports "mainly because all of the witnesses had been deported and were unavailable to be interviewed."
Back in Nepal, which is riven by civil war, Mr. Bajracharya said he would be willing to testify against those who mistreated him if he were asked, though he fears what the government would do to him if he did so. Nonetheless, he remains grateful that he experienced America.
"What happened to me could have been an isolated incident," he said. "I still believe the American government is the best in the world."
Weeks after Mr. Bajracharya returned to Nepal, Mr. Wynne and Ms. Cassin managed to arrange delivery of his possessions by mail, including his camcorder. But when he tried to show his wife his travelogue of New York, all that remained on the tape was the pizzeria and the flower shop.
Mr. Wynne, sounding a bit sheepish, allowed that he had "probably erased" the rest, thinking it might fall in the wrong hands.
"Just an abundance of caution," he murmured.
--------
US military police raid Iraqi detention centre to stop abuse of prisoners
The Guardian
Peter Beaumont in Baghdad
June 30, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1250526,00.html
American military police yesterday raided a building belonging to the Iraqi ministry of the interior where prisoners were allegedly being physically abused by Iraqi interrogators.
The raid appeared to be a violation of the country's new sovereignty, leading to angry scenes inside the ministry between Iraqi policemen and US soldiers.
The military police, who had been told of abuse, seized an area known as the Guesthouse just outside the ministry's main building. They disarmed the Iraqi policemen and at one stage threatened to set free prisoners whose handcuffs they removed, according to Iraqi officials.
The arrival of a second group of US military police and a more senior officer led to an argument between the two groups of military policemen over who had command authority for the raid.
Iraqi ministry of interior officials admitted that around 150 prisoners taken during a raid four days before in the Betawain district of Baghdad had been physically abused during their arrest and subsequent questioning.
The men were captured in the first big Iraqi-led anti-crime and anti-terrorism operation, which took place a few days before the transfer of power, with US military police in support and using US satellite images.
Senior Iraqi officers described those captured as "first class murderers, kidnappers and terrorists with links to al-Ansar" - a militant group in the former Kurdish no-fly zone - who had all admitted to "at least 20 crimes while being questioned". According to an al-Jazeera television crew, who had been filming the prisoners when the US military police conducted their raid, most of the detainees were blindfolded, with their hands cuffed behind their backs. One prisoner was so weak, from dehydration, that the US military policemen fitted an intravenous drip to rehydrate him.
Although none of the American officers involved in the raid would talk to the Guardian, one of the soldiers involved in the raid said that it had been launched after claims that prisoners were being abused.
US military spokesmen would not comment. "We can't confirm that this took place," a spokesman said.
One of the prisoners bared his back after his initial arrest to reveal open welts allegedly caused by baton and rubber hoses.
A bodyguard for the head of criminal intelligence, Hussein Kamal, admitted that the beatings had taken place.
Nashwan Ali - who said his nickname was Big Man - said: "A US MP asked me this morning what police division I was in. I said I was in criminal intelligence.
"The American asked me why we had beaten the prisoners. I said we beat the prisoners because they are all bad people. But I told him we didn't strip them naked, photograph them or fuck them like you did."
The clear evidence of human rights abuses in the ministry building, which western advisers said they were not aware was being used for interrogations, raises serious questions over what authority the US and other multinational forces have to intervene if they suspect human rights abuses.
Although the new interim government of prime minister Ayad Allawi has warned that it may impose "drastic measures" - including invoking emergency powers to combat the worsening security situation in the country - advisers from the former coalition say they have been at pains to train Iraqi officers in human rights. This takes up one of their eight weeks' training.
One western police adviser said he had no idea that the ministry itself was being used for questioning suspects. "It sounds rather like the bad old days," he said.
-------- POLITICS
-------- budget
Budget Impasse Reflects GOP Schism
Tax Cutters in Standoff With Advocates of Fiscal Restraint
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15997-2004Jun29?language=printer
A deep rift in the Republican Party has left Congress unable to pass a budget this year, raising the probability that, for the third time in three decades, lawmakers will not agree on a detailed blueprint for government spending and tax policy.
The budget meltdown was triggered by a feud between conservative Republicans who favor continuing to cut taxes in the face of record budget deficits and GOP moderates who are pushing for curbs on tax cuts and are reluctant to slash spending. Even a face-saving effort in the House to impose federal spending curbs blew up just after midnight Friday when 72 Republicans joined a united Democratic Party to torpedo the leadership-backed bill.
The collapse of budget negotiations is more of a political embarrassment than a practical problem for GOP leaders, who only two years ago sharply criticized Democrats for failing to pass a budget when they controlled the Senate. But some Republicans fear that this year's impasse reflects an irreconcilable division within their party that will imperil the government's ability to set tax policy and address ever-widening deficits as the baby boomers begin to retire.
"For a majority of Republicans in Congress, tax cuts are now more important than budget constraints, and they've gotten themselves between a rock and a hard place because you can't have both," lamented former senator Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), a prominent advocate of fiscal restraint.
Both conservative and moderate Republicans say the fight is over the future of their party. Neither side has given an inch. So, two months after the House and Senate passed budget blueprints for the fiscal year that begins in October, Republican negotiators have hit a brick wall in trying to reconcile the two plans. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who will retire at the end of the year, refused to declare the budget dead. "I assured everybody I will give up trying to pass a budget six months from now, no matter what happens," he joked.
But moderate Senate Republicans, who hold the key to a compromise, say there have been no budget discussions for nearly a month, nor are any planned. Unable to wait for guidance on spending levels that a budget is supposed to provide, the appropriations committees have begun drafting their 13 annual spending bills.
"Right now, it's fair to say things have moved on," said G. William Hoagland, a senior budget aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
The budget resolution is a nonbinding measure that is supposed to guide Congress in setting tax and spending policy for the upcoming fiscal year. Despite the failure to agree on a resolution, both the House and the Senate are following the guidelines of their respective budgets, which offer similar limits on spending.
Without a budget, the Senate will lack parliamentary language that would allow senators to extend three expiring tax cuts with a simple majority vote in the 100-member body. Instead, Senate leaders will have to gather at least 60 votes to ensure that taxes do not rise at the end of the year.
House Republican leaders had also hoped to use the budget to quietly raise the $7.4 trillion federal debt limit, which the government could hit before the end of the summer. Without a budget, that limit may have to be raised by a separate vote on the House floor, which is political castor oil for Republicans in an election year.
But the main impact of Republican failure on the budget is symbolic, fiscal experts said.
"It's a sad story and a real blow that goes all the way back to the 1974 [budget reforms]," said Rudolph G. Penner, a Republican and former Congressional Budget Office director. "Back then, Nixon effectively accused Congress of having no rational budget process, no one actually tabulating the numbers. Now we're back to that."
At issue is the future of tax cutting in the face of budget deficits that will swell well above $400 billion this year. Senate Democrats, joined by Republicans John McCain (Ariz.), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.), secured an amendment to the Senate budget that would force any future tax cuts to be offset by equivalent spending cuts or tax increases. House Republicans, pushed hard by the White House, refused to go along, demanding instead that such rules apply only to spending increases for Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.
If it continues, the fight could eventually have significant practical implications. Since President Bush came to office, Congress has passed tax cuts worth $1.7 trillion over 10 years, but all will expire by 2011, many before then. If the Senate's "pay-as-you-go" -- or "paygo" -- budget rules are in place then, lawmakers will be faced with allowing tax levels to abruptly return to the higher levels of Bill Clinton's presidency or cutting federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars a year to preserve the Bush tax cuts.
"The reason we're going to the mat is, with all these expiring tax cuts, if you have paygo in place, you're going to virtually guarantee these tax cuts will go back up," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
Ryan and other House Republicans argued that the budget must be brought into balance by reining in the size of government. "The deficit is a symptom; spending is the disease," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.). "And we have to do something about the disease."
There are limits to the effectiveness of spending cuts. Even if Congress had eliminated every penny of the $438 billion in domestic discretionary spending this year, every education and health program, every homeland security effort, national park, interstate highway and federal prison, the government would still find itself in the red.
"When it comes to budgetary matters, we can't operate on ideological whims," Snowe said. "Numbers tell the truth."
Moreover, when the House was offered the opportunity to cut spending, the vote last week was not even close. A bill drafted by Hensarling to give the annual budget the force of law, clamp down on "emergency" spending bills, and require a "supermajority" in the House and Senate to exceed strict spending caps was crushed at 11:30 Thursday night, 326 to 88. A less sweeping measure establishing two years of strict spending caps and requiring entitlement spending increases to be offset by entitlement cuts lost 268 to 146.
"Tonight can aptly be called 'Republican Budget Failure Redux,' " House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said after the votes. "Republicans have followed their total lack of leadership on the most basic legislative duty -- to adopt a budget for the nation -- with a total lack of leadership on real budget enforcement legislation."
House Budget Committee spokesman Sean Spicer accused the Republican moderates of grandstanding as budget hawks, even as they continue to vote for bigger government.
"They are hardly deficit hawks," Spicer said. "If you see their name in press, nine times out of 10, they are wanting more spending."
--------- foia
Justice Says Data Cannot Be Copied
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A04
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15909-2004Jun29.html
The Bush administration has denied a request for the Justice Department's database on foreign lobbyists, contending that copying the information would bring down the computer system.
"Implementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating," wrote Thomas J. McIntyre of Justice's office for information requests.
Advocates for open government said the government's assertion that it could not copy data from its computers was unprecedented but representative of generally negative responses to Freedom of Information Act requests.
"This was a new one on us. We weren't aware there were databases that could be destroyed just by copying them," Bob Williams of the Center for Public Integrity said yesterday. He said the group expects to appeal the decision.
-------- propaganda wars
Bush Chides U.S. Allies In Mideast In Speech, He Exhorts Move to Democracy
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13881-2004Jun29?language=printer
ISTANBUL, June 29 -- President Bush criticized unnamed U.S. allies in the Middle East for compromising with extremists and suppressing dissent and called on the Islamic world to move toward democracy as a way to safeguard the United States and reduce violence in the Middle East.
Speaking in front of a waterfront mosque, Bush said that leaders throughout the Middle East, "including some friends of the United States, must recognize the direction of the events of the day. Any nation that compromises with violent extremists only emboldens them and invites future violence.
"Suppressing dissent only increases radicalism. The long-term stability of any government depends on being open to change and responsive to citizens."
Bush did not specify which U.S. allies he was referring to, but an aide and outside experts said that Saudi Arabia was among them. Some U.S. officials have accused the kingdom's government of not working hard enough to suppress al Qaeda cells within its borders.
Bush went on to praise Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation that became a secular state in 1924, as "a great and stable democracy, and America shares your hope that other nations will take this path."
Bush called a democratic transformation of the Middle East "one of the great and difficult tasks of history."
"Nations in the region will have greater stability because governments will have greater legitimacy," he said. "And nations like Turkey and America will be safer, because a hopeful Middle East will no longer produce ideologies and movements that seek to kill our citizens."
Bush offered no specific new proposals in his speech or details about how he planned to carry out previously announced visions to promote Middle Eastern democracy.
He spoke after leaving the closing session of a two-day NATO summit, where he listened as Afghanistan's U.S.-backed president, Hamid Karzai, said NATO needed to accelerate the deployment of additional troops in his country to secure elections scheduled for September. And the number of those troops, he said, needed to exceed the force already pledged. NATO said it would add 2,200 troops to its current force of 6,500 and keep 1,200 to 2,000 more on reserve outside the country.
"I would like you to please hurry . . . in Afghanistan: Come sooner than September," Karzai pleaded.
Bush's visit to Turkey was tense from beginning to end, with massive protests and security precautions wherever he went. One major breach of security was reported: A small bomb exploded Tuesday aboard a Turkish Airlines passenger jet parked at the Istanbul airport several hours after Bush had departed.
The device was concealed in a leather wallet left on the cabin floor near the door of the aircraft, which had arrived from the Turkish port of Izmir. The explosion injured three aircraft cleaners. There was no assertion of responsibility.
A major theme of Bush's speech was to encourage Iraq, a predominantly Muslim country where an interim government assumed power Monday, to develop a secular democracy that includes protections for minority religious groups. He called for similar changes in Iran and Syria.
"The rise of Iraqi democracy is bringing hope to reformers across the Middle East," he said. "A free and sovereign Iraq is a decisive defeat for extremists and terrorists, because their hateful ideology will lose its appeal in a free and tolerant and successful country."
Bush singled out Iran as a theater for the "struggle between political extremism and civilized values," saying that "tired, discredited autocrats are trying to hold back the democratic will of a rising generation."
In a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy in November, Bush announced a "forward strategy of freedom" committing the United States to a decades-long mission to encourage worldwide democracy. Arab countries have not embraced Bush's challenges.
Bush spoke against the backdrop of the Bosporus Bridge, which spans the Bosporus Strait that divides the European and Asian shores of Istanbul. Turkish warships were anchored in the rippling water behind him, and blasts from boat horns interrupted the speech at Galatasaray University, which was founded in 1481 to train civil servants for the Ottoman Empire.
The White House tried to play up the historical flavor of the setting by renting Ottoman-style chairs with gold-painted backs.
The audience of about 230 people, most of them Turkish officials and their spouses, listened in silence, which a U.S. Embassy official characterized as a sign of respect. The crowd applauded politely at the end of the 27-minute address.
Bush, completing a five-day trip that began in Ireland, repeated his controversial demand that the European Union admit Turkey. "Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the 'clash of civilizations' as a passing myth of history," he said.
Some European leaders have taken offense at what they consider Bush's meddling. President Jacques Chirac of France publicly rebuked him Monday, saying Bush's stance was "like me telling the United States how to run its affairs with Mexico."
Bush's presumed Democratic opponent in the November election, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, obliquely criticized Bush for his closeness to Saudi Arabia during a speech last month in Seattle, in which he called for reducing U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East.
"For too long, America has lost its voice when talking about the policies and practices of some governments in the Persian Gulf," Kerry said. "This is a weakness that this administration has ignored."
Bush said there was a "wariness toward democracy" in the Middle East. "Some people in Muslim cultures identify democracy with the worst of Western popular culture and want no part of it," he said. "I assure them, when I speak about the blessings of liberty, coarse videos and crass commercialism are not what I have in mind. There is nothing incompatible between democratic values and high standards of decency."
Bush said he was not trying to impose his own values on others. "All people in a democracy have the right to their own religious beliefs," he said. "But all democracies are made stronger when religious people teach and demonstrate upright conduct: family commitment, respect for the law and compassion for the weak."
"Whatever our culture differences may be," Bush said toward the end of his address, "there should be respect and peace in the house of Abraham." That was a reference to the common descent claimed by Christians, Muslims and Jews through the religious patriarch Abraham.
Correspondent Karl Vick contributed to this report.
--------
Despite rumors, Washington insiders say forget about draft revival
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BY SUMANA CHATTERJEE
Jun. 30, 2004
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/9049819.htm
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Ignore all those Internet rumors: Despite the U.S. military's desperate need for more troops, there's no chance that the Bush administration or Congress will resurrect the draft, short of a new Pearl Harbor.
It's just too unpopular politically. Moreover, military experts say that conscription would hurt the quality and morale of the armed forces.
Instead, the Pentagon is examining other options, such as calling up more members of the National Guard and reserves, extending tours of active duty, shifting manpower within divisions and moving troops from Europe and Asia to meet the urgent needs in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the Army announced Wednesday that it would call up 5,600 former active-duty personnel for another round of service.
"A draft? It's just not going to happen," said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee, agreed: "There is very little support in Congress for reinstating the draft."
Perhaps those comments will help steady the nerves of many Americans apparently rattled by an e-mail that's circulating nationwide. It says that legislation is pending in Congress that would reinstitute the draft for the first time since 1973, starting as early as spring 2005. It also says that the administration is "quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections."
There's a kernel of truth to the allegation - there is a bill pending that would restart the draft. But the Bush administration is opposed to it, as are Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress. Everyone remotely in a position to know is quite sure the bill is going nowhere.
"I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who believes that it would be appropriate or necessary to reinstitute the draft," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in April.
The bill's primary sponsor is Rep. Charles Rangel, a liberal Democrat from New York who represents Harlem. Even he admitted that his bill won't pass. He introduced it to get people to discuss who's doing the fighting in Iraq.
"The burdens of war should be fairly shared across all segments of our society and not fall disproportionately on poor communities as they do now," Rangel said in a written statement Wednesday.
To be sure, the Selective Service System, the agency in charge of conscription, remains in business, as it has since 1980, just in case a Pearl Harbor-sized national emergency required massive manpower immediately. All men between 18 and 25 must register, and nearly 14 million currently are.
The Internet rumor cites Selective Service's efforts to fill draft and appeals boards that administer local draft lotteries. Because board members serve 20 years, many who were appointed in the 1980s are being replaced, and there are routine vacancies from attrition to fill, but nothing more, said spokeswoman Alyce Burton.
"There is no big push as a result of gearing up for a draft," she said.
The Selective Service even posted a message to debunk the new-draft myth on its Web site (www.sss.gov).
Moreover, military experts oppose the draft because it could dramatically lower the quality of incoming soldiers. It also could introduce discipline and morale problems like those the military suffered during the Vietnam War. It would raise difficult social questions, such as whether women should continue to be excluded from a draft.
And restarting the draft would be expensive. According to military experts, the Defense Department spends about $100,000 to recruit and train each soldier. Draftees would be less likely to re-enlist, driving up training costs.
Fueling fear of a draft is the concern that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained military manpower dangerously. Using emergency powers, the Army temporarily increased its size by 30,000 soldiers over four years. But Congress wants to make sure the added troops are permanent. The House of Representatives voted in May to permanently add 30,000 Army soldiers over the next three years; the Senate voted in June for an additional 20,000 in fiscal 2005. Kerry proposes adding 40,000 troops.
But the Bush administration opposes a permanent increase, contending that the current spike in active-duty personnel is temporary. Instead, the Pentagon is looking to ease manpower shortages by outsourcing noncombat operations to private contractors, extending tours and integrating National Guard units and reserves into active-duty forces. Already, the National Guard and reserves make up about 40 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq.
In addition, the Army announced this week that it will call up 5,600 people who recently left the military but still have obligations as reservists. Army officials admitted that these are involuntary recruits, but they say the reservists were aware of the obligation when they signed up.
That's a long way from reviving the draft.
"It ain't going to happen," said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration who's now with the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.
"It's an urban legend, and urban legends die hard," said Rep. Ed Schrock, R-Va., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
-------- us politics
Voting machine scrutiny urged
June 30, 2004
By Deb McCown
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040629-104008-1398r.htm
Election officials need to have voting machines analyzed, provide more thorough training for election workers and carefully monitor the process to ensure the security of votes in the November election, a report released yesterday recommended.
"[Ensuring] the security of every American's vote is no less important than having the right to vote," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, one of the groups that released the recommendations.
The report's focus is on Direct Recording Election (DRE) machines, computerized voting devices that have replaced punch cards and lever machines in 675 counties nationwide.
Lee Page, associate advocacy director of Paralyzed Veterans of America, said the machines increase "the ability to have an independent and accessible ballot" for voters who have physical disabilities or cannot speak English.
Computerized voting machines, however, also have brought concerns about vote security and the potential for technical malfunction.
Avi Rubin, the technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, who helped develop the recommendations in the report, said lack of security in the voting process could leave the losing presidential candidate in 2004 with a legitimate claim that votes were miscounted.
"I think, in the wake of the 2000 election, 'trust me' is not the answer," he said.
Deborah Goldberg, director of the other organization behind the report, the Democracy Program at New York University School of Law's Brennan Center, said election officials can improve voter confidence by following the recommendations in the report.
"We have specifically designed the recommendations to be limited in scope so that they can be implemented in the short span of a few months," she said.
Michael Wertheimer, director of the Innovative Solutions Cell at Maryland technology-consulting firm RABA Technologies, recently led an assessment of DRE machines for Maryland at a cost of about $80,000.
The analysis involved a weeklong review of the software and the setup of the machines, and the team found flaws ranging from easy removal of the machines' memory cards to lack of password protection.
Donna Duncan, director of the election-management division for the Maryland State Board of Elections, said the state has made a lot of changes as a result of six studies conducted on the DRE machines in the past year. Maryland also has a system to verify the vote count.
"We use what we call a voter-authority card, which ... is tied to an actual machine so there is an accounting during the course of the day," Ms. Duncan said.
"The election judges are periodically doing, throughout the day, a verification that the number of voter-authority cards matches the number that have voted on the machine. ... If there is a discrepancy, the machine is immediately isolated and removed from use."
But Mr. Wertheimer, who spent 21 years as a mathematician at the National Security Agency, said even when systems appear secure, it is important to be vigilant.
"There's no such thing as a completely secure system that's idiot-proof, because they keep coming up with better idiots," he said.
--
Letter to the Editor,
Washington Times
To: letters@washingtontimes.com
From: et@nucnews.net Date: June 30, 2004
Re: "Voting machine scrutiny urged" by Deb McCown, June 30, 2004 - http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040629-104008-1398r.htm
It's heartening to read that accuracy and security are the goals of Maryland's State Board of Elections. I hope to read similar reports from all states and territories.
However, I don't see how we can trust the vote unless each vote that is cast by computer is also printed out onto a paper ballot which the voter double-checks and places in a secure box. Ideally, the paper ballots would be counted by high school and college students who still retain a modicum of idealism.
I don't think we can hope to replace paper ballots with computers and ever be sure the count wasn't fiddled by a programmer, but we CAN hope for a clean election if we use both systems. It may cost a little more, but peace of mind is well worth the expense.
Ellen Thomas
1233 12th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-682-4282
--------
White House Says It's Addressing Court Concerns on Captives
June 30, 2004
By DAVID STOUT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30CND-PREX.html?hp
WASHINGTON, June 30 - Refusing to concede that Monday's Supreme Court rulings were a defeat, the White House said today that it is moving quickly and aggressively to address the justices' concerns over the treatment of detainees seized since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said administration officials were pleased that the court "recognized the authority of the president as commander in chief." He added, "We also recognize that the court had some concerns, and we respect those concerns."
Mr. McClellan said the Pentagon, the National Security Council and the Justice Department were all "working expeditiously" to determine how to handle the cases of individual detainees, and that further announcements would come soon.
"They are discussing these issues as we speak," Mr. McClellan said, adding that conferences had begun almost as soon as the Supreme Court ruled.
The justices' main concerns, expressed in rulings that many legal analysts saw as a severe rebuke to the administration's antiterrorism policies, were over the detention of foreigners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and that of two American citizens in a brig in Charleston, S.C., all held without formal charges and with little or no access to lawyers for many months.
The rulings, while far from conclusive, held that detainees - citizens and non-citizens alike - have a right to challenge their detention in the federal courts. That basic finding was widely regarded as a defeat for the administration, which had insisted that, as enemy combatants, the detainees had no such rights.
Because President Bush was overseas when the court ruled and only returned to Washington on Tuesday evening, today's comments by Mr. McClellan were the White House's first detailed reaction to the rulings, which widely described as the court's most important holdings in decades on balancing national security with personal liberties.
Mr. McClellan rejected one questioner's suggestion that Monday's rulings were a setback for the administration. "I wouldn't characterize it that way at all," he said, reiterating that administration officials would address the court's concerns "in a way that is consistent with the constitutional responsibility of the president to exercise his authority during a time of war."
Mr. McClellan said the president still considered Iraq to be "the central front in the war on terror." Mr. Bush had lunch today with L. Paul Bremer III, who has just stepped down as the administrator in Iraq, to "thank him for his great work" helping Iraqis on the path to freedom, Mr. McClellan said.
Mr. Bremer himself, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," said he was just glad to be back in the United States. "It's like having a rather large weight lifted off my shoulders," he said. "I'm going to reconnect with my family, who have, after all, made a huge sacrifice, particularly my wife, over the last year. And I'm looking forward to catching up on my sleep."
-------
A Preview of Kerry Foreign Policy
Antiwar.com
by Jim Lobe
June 30, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2909
An influential Washington think tank with close ties to the Kerry presidential campaign is calling for Washington to send 25,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq, even as the U.S. supposedly gives the Iraqis more authority.
In a 12-page report released as the Bush administration formally transferred limited sovereignty to the interim government, the Center for American Progress (CAP) argued for changes in U.S. strategy in Iraq. Some of these are likely to coincide with those urged by senior State Department officials who, with the dissolution of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the establishment of a huge U.S. embassy in Baghdad, will play a much more critical role in devising U.S. policy.
That policy should be guided by several principles over the next 18 months, according to the report, "Iraq After June 30: A Strategy for Progress." Washington should ensure that the return of sovereignty should be genuine; U.S. aid and other operations should be more transparent; Congress' oversight role should be enhanced; and the interim government should be encouraged to promote constructive relations with neighbors, possibly including Iran and Syria, who are interested in a peaceful and stable region.
The report, which is authored by several former senior Clinton administration officials, also echoes the current administration's arguments in favor of persuading U.S. allies to "provide financial and military support to operations in Iraq." Since Washington made significant concessions at the UN in getting the latest Security Council resolution, the argument goes, "the burden is now on our allies to fulfill their end of the bargain."
Though more detailed, the report expands on Kerry's recent stump rhetoric, and given that CAP is headed by Clinton's former chief of staff John Podesta, it probably reflects what a Democratic administration would try to do if it were in power.
Like Kerry, it rules out any near-term withdrawal of U.S. troops, which, according to Podesta, "would be a disaster for Iraq and the Iraqi people, a disaster for the United States, and a disaster for the world."
"Iraq today represents a greater national security threat to the United States than when Saddam Hussein was in power," he said.
While CAP has been bitingly critical of the Bush administration's performance before, during and after the Iraq war, the program it is putting forward may not be all that different from what the Bush State Department has now been empowered to do. Some aspects of the CAP program, on the other hand - particularly those calling for a substantial reduction in U.S. influence over aid and the economy - may be too much for the administration to swallow.
The "strategy for progress" cites challenges and threats in four major areas, including security, governance, economic reconstruction, and the treatment of detainees.
On security, the report makes eight specific recommendations, beginning with the addition of 25,000 troops to the approximately 140,000 currently in Iraq. "That has to be done," said Lawrence Korb, a senior CAP fellow and former Pentagon official under Reagan who contributed to the report.
The report also calls for the conclusion of a status of forces of agreement (SOFA) regarding the relationship between U.S. forces, including private contractors, and Iraqi authorities. In a break from previous practice in most poor countries that host U.S. forces, details of any SOFA worked out with the interim government should be made public.
In addition, the report calls for NATO to assume a formal role in Iraq that would ensure a more sustainable force, reduce the U.S. "footprint" in the country, and open the door to broader participation by non-NATO countries, "especially moderate Muslim countries."
"Given global attitudes toward the Bush administration," the report notes, "this has to be viewed as a long and difficult diplomatic undertaking."
Optimally, according to Korb, U.S. forces should report to NATO.
Other priorities include securing Iraq's borders; increasing international involvement in the training of Iraqi security forces; reducing the number of the more than 20,000 private security contractors in Iraq; and immediately transferring the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which is tasked by the CIA to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), to the UN verification and inspection operations.
On governance, the report calls for Washington to "do everything possible to take its fingerprints off the internal political affairs of Iraq." Podesta attacked the issuance of nearly 100 last-minute decrees by CPA chief Paul Bremer as counterproductive in that respect. "One has to wonder what Mr. Bremer was thinking," he said.
To reduce U.S. visibility, the report calls for the appointment of a new Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to take the lead as chief international facilitator of the political transition.
More specifically, the report calls for the creation of an Iraq Contact Group made up of representatives of key countries that would play an advisory role for the new UN Special Representative; a substantial financial contribution to the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (INAMI); and confining the work of the new U.S. embassy, slated to be the world's largest, to protecting U.S. interests there.
In that connection, U.S. personnel devoted to supporting political or economic reconstruction in Iraq should be transferred whenever possible to UNAMI.
In addition, Washington should encourage the interim government to accelerate timetables for holding local and regional elections in Iraq before January next year - when national elections are tentatively scheduled - in order to give citizens more responsibility over local affairs.
Finally, Washington should encourage the Special Tribunal for Iraq to work out an agreement with the UN for broader international participation and urge the government to remove the tribunal's current administrator, Salem Chalabi, "in order to counter perceptions that the tribunal is an American-dominated institution designed to settle old scores." Salem Chalabi is the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, a former exile strongly supported by the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office. The latter Chalabi has fallen out of favor with the White House and has long been distrusted by the State Department and the CIA.
On reconstruction, the report calls for much greater transparency in the awarding and implementation of contracts, and the elimination of favoritism toward large U.S. companies such as Halliburton.
More specifically, Iraqis should be given greater authority to manage, with oversight, much of the $12 billion in U.S. reconstruction aid that remains to be spent from last fall's aid package. In addition, more contracts should be opened to allow local non-governmental organizations and businesses to bid independently, rather than through U.S. companies.
Programs that provide more jobs and basic social services, particularly for demobilized soldiers and militia members, should be given much higher priority compared to major infrastructure projects that are being handled mainly by big U.S. construction companies, according to Gayle Smith, who directed Africa affairs in the Clinton White House.
Former Secretary of State James Baker's mandate to negotiate debt relief for Iraq should be broadened to including marshalling financial support for reconstruction, while new efforts should be made to persuade Kuwait to forgive Iraq's outstanding reparations for its 1990-91 invasion and occupation.
Meanwhile, CPA contract records should be fully audited by the international watchdog agency established for that purpose, while the interim government should be encouraged to create an oil trust fund with a board consisting of both Iraqis and international representatives, and another independent body should be established to monitor oil revenues and how they are spent.
On the treatment of detainees in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the report calls for Washington to recommit itself to full application of the Geneva Conventions and establish a permanent committee to monitor prison conditions throughout Iraq.
"This remains a serious credibility challenge even as we speak," said P.J. Crowley, who also contributed to the report and served on Clinton's national security council staff.
The U.S. should also remove civilian contractors from U.S.-led interrogation teams and order an independent investigation of all U.S. prisons abroad.
Under the Geneva Conventions, the occupying power is duty-bound when the occupation terminates, as it supposedly did Monday, to release all prisoners or transfer them to the custody of the interim government, which must charge them with specific offenses or let them go, according to the report.
-------- ENERGY
The Curse of Oil
Antiwar
by Thomas Gale Moore
June 30, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/moore.php?articleid=2912
The Bush Administration has made much of Iraq's oil reserves. It wants to use the proceeds from the sale of petroleum to pay off the country's debts, cover the costs of reconstruction and government expenses. It has been hectoring European governments and the Russian government to write off much of the debt that Iraq owes them so that the money can be spent on rebuilding that devastated country. In general, most people and governments have viewed Iraqi oil as a boon; but its existence has major downsides. Oil is more of a curse than a benefit.
First is the quandary it creates for possession of the oil fields. Kirkuk is surrounded by the northern oil fields, which represent about 40 percent of all oil in Iraq. The city of Kirkuk includes Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens, and Assyrian Christians. Except for the Christians, each group claims to be the largest. During Saddam Hussein's regime, Arabs were encouraged to migrate to the region and occupy farms and houses. In many cases Kurds were forced out of their properties, which were turned over to the newcomers. Now the shoe is on the other foot and Kurds are returning to the region and demanding their property. In many cases they are forcing the Arabs out of homes they have occupied for many years. The Kurds would like to make Kirkuk their capital or at least part of the territory they control. The Arabs want Kirkuk to be part of Iraq, run by the central government. Turkey has a strong interest in protecting the well-being of the Turkmens. In any case, whoever possesses Kirkuk will have control over much of Iraqi oil. This is a recipe for civil war.
Although most observers are aware of the problems of Kirkuk and its oil riches, there are two other major dilemmas that have received little attention in the media or, apparently, in the policy-making community. Together these undercut the possibility of establishing a working democracy. Economists call one of these the "Dutch Disease," after the difficulties that country faced with the discovery and development of large natural gas reserves. The export of oil or natural gas in large quantities leads everywhere to an appreciation in the value of the local currency. That in turn means that all imports, such as agricultural products, consumer goods, and manufactures, all become cheaper and drive the local producers out of business. The country therefore becomes increasingly dependent on the export of the oil or natural gas, the revenues of which usually go in large measures to the government.
Another dilemma arises immediately; the government collecting these large sums has less need to tax its people. It is taxation, however, that leads to representative government. Remember the motto during the American Revolution, "No taxation without representation." English and French history demonstrates this clearly. The kings in England had to go to Parliament to raise the sums they needed. In France, the kings had other sources of money and so avoided calling the Etats-Généraux together. The result was the development of democracy in England and an autocratic government in France.
With large oil revenues, which make farming and manufacturing unprofitable, much of the labor force looks to the government, either for handouts or for jobs. Saudi Arabia is a clear example. The revenues from oil in that Kingdom have enabled the government to provide free medical care, free education, and cheap fuels, while employing foreign workers to do the dirty work. Since the Saudi Government has no need for tax revenue from its citizens, it simply attempts to buy the approval of the public. It offers neither freedom nor democracy but bread and circuses. On the other hand, a government that must raise its revenue from its people is limited in attempting to obtain support through state largess. Offering benefits to one group requires taxing others to pay the bill, thus restricting government's power to buy support.
Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves in the world, is a classic example of these problems. Saddam Hussein bought support by paying his police and Republican Guards well to keep his people in line and by subsidizing gasoline to build support. In Baghdad gasoline currently sells for about 5 cents a gallon at the pump. The government buys refined gasoline from Kuwait at world prices and then subsidizes its sale to local consumers. (This leads to a few individuals buying gas cheap and smuggling it out of the country.) Even Paul Bremer, the dictator of Iraq during the occupation, felt he could not raise the local price of gasoline to world levels. Nor could he privatized the oil fields which would have reduced the government's earnings from oil and thereby made it more difficult to operate without taxes.
Iraqi dates, which were once well known around the world, have suffered from the "Dutch" disease and are no longer exported. With an inflated Iraqi currency, they have become too expensive to sell in world markets. As Iraqi oil sales have resumed, the new Iraqi currency has strengthened making imports cheaper and exports more difficult.
Assuming that a democratic government emerges in Iraq - an extremely unlikely event, especially in light of the Kirkuk problem - those running for office will want to use the oil revenues to buy support. Cheap fuel for autos will continue. Government employment will be provided for much of the population. Since only through the government will a person be able to get ahead, controlling it will become paramount, thus making a democratic system unlikely to last long. The dependence on imports results in a small private sector confined mainly to retailing. Democracy, however, requires that there be a thriving private sector. For one thing, those politicians who fail at the ballot box must have some reasonable alternative way to earn a living. It also requires that government be dependent on revenues raised through taxes on the people in the private sector. Otherwise the government can enslave its people by simply buying the loyalty of the police and military.
It is not coincidental that the only Moslem country with a working democracy is Turkey, which has no oil. Malaysia is also semi-democratic and "suffers" from not being mineral-rich. Norway, which has large oil fields, was a democracy before oil was discovered and has banked the oil income for a future when the fields become dry. The government has effectively sterilized the revenues, preventing the destruction of local industry and the tendency to bribe the public through government programs.
What can be done about Iraq and its oil? Is it condemned to autocracy? Perhaps not, given some thought. To begin with, reducing the size of Iraq's debt makes the problems worse, not better. If, for example, servicing the debt took all of the oil revenues, then there would be no effect on the exchange rate and local industry could flourish. Moreover, the government would have no money left and would have to resort to taxation. As a consequence in order to have something to tax, it would have to foster local businesses. If it had to tax, it would face pressure to get permission from taxpayers - hence democracy.
If the debt is reduced or if it takes less than the entire earnings from oil, securing conditions for a democracy would require that the excess revenues be sterilized or spent by the government on imports that were not competitive with local products. It would require that gasoline prices be increased slowly to world levels. As the government did this, it could rebate the higher revenues to the poorest of the public. How to prevent a government that is initially democratic from offering bribes to its people through government jobs and handouts, thus making a return to autocratic government likely, will take much thought and planning. It may be an insoluble problem, but this administration and the next should devote time and energy into trying to find a solution.
-------- alternative energy
Off-Shore Wind Farm Opponents Lose Massachusetts Court Battle
BOSTON, Massachusetts,
June 30, 2004
(ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2004/2004-06-30-09.asp#anchor5
Citizens' groups opposed to the nation's first offshore wind farm have lost an early round in the legal battle over whether the turbines may be erected in Cape Cod's Nantucket Sound.
A three judge panel of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston upheld a lower court's decision that the developer, Cape Wind Associates, does not need state permits to build a data collection tower for the proposed wind power facility.
The tower has been in operation since last year, but the core of the lawsuit was the larger question of jurisdiction and whether the proposed wind farm is subject to the state permitting process.
The ruling frustrated a legal strategy of the wind farm opponents, who had hoped to use state authority to stop the windpower facility.
In October 2002, Ten Taxpayer Citizens Group and several other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts state court to prevent Cape Wind Associates from erecting a 197 foot data collection tower in Nantucket Sound.
The complaint alleged that Massachusetts state courts had jurisdiction over the project and that Cape Wind had failed to obtain the necessary permits under state law.
Cape Wind took the action to federal district court and the federal court dismissed the complaint on August 19, 2003.
The district court concluded that although Congress did delegate to Massachusetts the power to regulate fishing in Nantucket Sound, that grant did not confer on the Commonwealth a general warrant to "police the entire Nantucket Sound for environmental disturbances that could impact fishing."
Cape Wind hopes to build the first U.S. off-shore wind facility in a 24 square mile area in Horseshoe Shoal. The 130 turbines would be located at least three miles from shore, outside state territorial water and under federal authority, the court determined.
"We conclude that any Massachusetts permit requirement that might apply to the ... project is inconsistent with federal law and thus inapplicable," said the decision, written by Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch.
"That is the end of the matter," the decision states. "Because the responsible Massachusetts agency has disclaimed regulatory authority" over the site of the scientific measurement device station, "we hold that Cape Wind was not required to seek approval for the project" under Massachusetts law.
The Ten Taxpayer Citizens Group and other opponents of the wind farm maintain that a private developer should not have the right to develop Nantucket Sound, a public resource, without a review by policymakers.
A Massachusetts task force has recommended that oceans be zoned the way land is zoned, to provide for review of proposed developments.
The authority to approve or reject the Cape Wind project now falls to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is writing a draft environmental impact statement on the wind farm.
----
U.S. Mayors Honor Livability, Clean Up Brownfields
June 30, 2004
BOSTON, Massachusetts, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2004/2004-06-30-09.asp#anchor7
Mayors Joseph Riley of Charleston, South Carolina, and Marty Blum of Santa Barbara, California have been awarded top honors in the 2004 City Livability Awards Program, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Waste Management, Inc.
Sustainable Honolulu, a plan established by Mayor Jeremy Harris to address the challenges of island urbanization, won a City Livability Award from a panel of judges who called the plan an "outstanding example of environmental leadership on the part of Mayor Harris."
While the other cities were honored for reducing crime or delivering affordable housing, Honolulu was recognized for increasing the energy efficiency of city facilities, leveraging the potential of renewable energy sources and expanding the use of distributed energy systems that allow local government operations to be energy self-sufficient.
The nation's mayors wound up their annual meeting Tuesday in Boston by announcing a partnership with Cherokee Investment Partners of Raleigh, North Carolina to expedite the cleanup of contaminated properties in cities and towns nationwide that lack the needed resources to do so themselves.
This initiative would match underutilized or blighted sites, commonly known as brownfields, identified by mayors who are interested in redeveloping with Cherokee, the nation's largest investor in brownfield redevelopment.
"Many cities do not have the financial resources and expertise to facilitate brownfield revitalization even though they may have the properties in need of redevelopment," said U.S. Conference of Mayors President James Garner. "Cherokee is the nation's premiere brownfield redeveloper, and this dynamic partnership will help bring the much needed private capital and proven know-how for community revitalization."
Mayor Garner said the organization has been working on brownfield redevelopment since the early 1990s when it identified environmental and economic benefits of brownfield redevelopment within member communities.
"We are excited to work together with the Mayors Conference and its members to revitalize local communities throughout the nation," said Cherokee CEO Tom Darden. "Our track record proves that private investment and 'smart growth' can turn stagnant, polluted land into an economically robust community destination where people can safely live, work and play."
"Cherokee has built a remarkable reputation by striking a balance between protecting the environment and smart redevelopment," said Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage who chairs the Conference's Brownfields Task Force. "Such redevelopment projects are sound public policy because they reduce risk to human health, minimize sprawl, increase local taxes, create jobs, and enhance the beauty of the location."
Cherokee will seek properties that can be owned or controlled by municipalities, private parties or a combination of both. The preferred investment will require $10 - $20 million or more of equity and financing, with no maximum.
With nearly $1 billion of discretionary debt and equity capital under management, Cherokee is committed to protecting its partners from the associated risks and liabilities with any redevelopment.
Headquartered in Washington, DC, the U.S. Conference of Mayors includes 1,139 cities that each is represented by its mayor.
-------- energy
Siemens wins power plant deals worth 460 mln euros
GERMANY:
June 30, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25759/newsDate/30-Jun-2004/story.htm
FRANKFURT - German industrial conglomerate Siemens (SIEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) has won contracts to build two power plants in Australia worth a total of 460 million euros (US$558 million), it said.
The firm's Power Generation (PG) unit said in a statement it was leading an international consortium to build a turnkey 750-megawatt coal-fired power plant in southeastern Queenland for state-government generator CS Energy Ltd.
It said the other consortium partner for the Queensland plant, which is scheduled to begin operation in 2007, was Japan's Babcock-Hitachi, an affiliate of Hitachi Ltd (6501.T: Quote, Profile, Research) .
Siemens said the plant would meet Australia's stringent environmental requirements, using advanced technology to help it consume 90 percent less water than comparable conventional power plants.
Siemens would also build a 300-megawatt gas turbine plant for industrial services firm Transfield Services Ltd. (TSE.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) in Western Australia, which would be able to use diesel oil as an alternative fuel.
By 0920 GMT Siemens shares were 1.5 percent higher at 59.06 euros, broadly in line with Germany's blue-chip DAX index , which was up 1.3 percent.
Power Generation, which made some nine percent of Siemens' overall sales last year, said it had so far sold 49 steam turbine generators and five gas turbines for power generation in Australia.
"Australia is an interesting growth market. Both orders show that we have competitive and environmentally acceptable solutions to successfully serve this market now and in the future," Power Generation head Klaus Voges said in the statement.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
EPA Says Millions Are Inhaling Too-Sooty Air
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15929-2004Jun29.html
Ninety-nine million Americans -- including residents of the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland and Virginia -- are breathing unhealthful air that can cause respiratory problems and even premature death, according to assessments released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The agency identified 243 counties that fail to meet national air standards for fine-particle pollution -- mainly soot -- in response to state submissions that designated 141 counties. Once the rulemaking process is complete, state and local officials will have to devise plans to reduce the pollution. States now have three months to respond before the agency issues a final rule in November.
EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt said the announcement was "about getting our air cleaner and our standards getting tougher."
"This is a very good news story," he said.
Environmentalists praised the EPA's efforts to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which come from power plants, industrial boilers, boats and other sources, but they questioned whether the administration is moving fast enough. Fine particles of both pollutants infiltrate people's lungs to cause an array of illnesses.
"This is about defining areas in the country that have the problems and being able to set up the solutions," said John Balbus, who directs Environmental Defense's health program. "With particulates, there are many cases where the technology exists to solve the problem today, but the solutions are not being implemented until the next generation."
The EPA is calling for power plants to install pollution-control technology that would reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by 40 percent in 2010. Some environmental and health advocates have called for a 90 percent reduction by that time.
"There is always a desire to move faster, but the truth is, this is faster," Leavitt told reporters.
The administration is facing resistance from state and industry officials who fear the dirty-air designations will hinder economic development. States will have to develop air quality plans in response to the federal designations, though there are no specific penalties for failing to meet national goals.
Virginia, for example, identified no counties as failing to meet standards, while the EPA labeled Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties, along with the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park, as too sooty in its assessment of the Washington area. In Maryland, the EPA listed Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Charles, Frederick, Harford, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's and Washington counties along with Baltimore City. Also on the list was the District.
Under federal standards, levels of particulates must not exceed an annual average of 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, or 65 micrograms per cubic meter on any given day. The particles are one-twenty-eighth the width of a human hair.
Industry officials and health advocates differ sharply on how much it will cost to reduce fine-particle pollution. Paul Billings, vice president of national policy advocacy for the American Lung Association, said the electric power industry has spent too little on reducing pollution. While it would cost millions of dollars per facility to install new controls, that could translate to an average cost of $2,000 per ton of reduced pollution at a given plant.
Jeffrey Marks, director of air quality for the National Association of Manufacturers, countered that cost estimates "to comply with both the new ozone and particulate matter standards range from about $50 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars."
Some areas, such as the District, face the problem that they are simply subject to dirty air blowing in from surrounding areas.
"Aside from a lot of hot air from K Street lobbyists, we don't have a lot of homegrown pollutants," said Tony Bullock, spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams, adding that the city encourages residents to use the subway, rather than drive, as one countermeasure. "To a large degree, we're uniquely unable to do much, which is a sad way to be."
--------
Businesses sue to force EPA and GE to fully remove PCB contamination
Associated Press
By Trudy Tynan,
June 30, 2004
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-30/s_25398.asp
SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts - The owners of two businesses located near the former General Electric plant in Pittsfield sued the company and the federal government on Tuesday, seeking to compel them to fully remove PCBs from their properties and pay them damages.
In their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court here, plaintiffs Moldmaster Engineering and Vincent and Cheryl Stracuzzi claim the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has forced them to accept an incomplete cleanup of their land.
GE used PCBs in the manufacture of electrical transformers in Pittsfield from the 1930s until 1977. The federal government considers the long-lived chemicals a probable carcinogen.
Four years ago, GE agreed to clean the sprawling plant site and two miles of the Housatonic River. The company also agreed to clean more than 100 residential properties, parks, and schools in the city that were contaminated by PCB-laden landfill.
Cristobal Bonifaz, an Amherst lawyer representing the two businesses, said the EPA and GE concealed the extent of the contamination until three years after a federal judge approved the cleanup plan. The plaintiffs also claim that the proposed capping of the contaminated land would prevent them from every digging on it.
"It is simply an outrage that the EPA kept this information from us," said Thomas Kushi, president of Moldmaster Engineering, a plastics firm. "EPA has maintained all along at public meetings and through personal contacts that planned removal would not interfere with the use of the property," he said. "They never told us their own appraisers had determined the properties would be rendered worthless."
Messages seeking comment from General Electric, headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, and the EPA's regional office in Boston, were not immediately returned.
Vincent Stracuzzi, 60, who owns a Newell Street excavation company, said he was promised as early as 1988 by federal, state, and city regulators that the property would be cleaned by GE. But last month the EPA threatened to take legal action against him for balking at the capping.
"The United States is threatening to punish me for the contamination of my property caused by GE," he said.
Both companies had opposed the 2000 consent agreement, contending it didn't go far enough.
GE, which acknowledged in 1981 that the PCB pollution came from its Pittsfield transformer plant, has finished dredging the half-mile of the river that is closest to the plant. The federal government, with GE financing, is working on the remainder of the two-mile stretch.
Over the next two years, federal and state regulators will decide how much of the remainder of the river should be excavated, with the total costs expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
-------- health
Dietary Fats May Alter Glaucoma Risk
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
June 30, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25757/newsDate/30-Jun-2004/story.htm
NEW YORK - A diet high in n-6 and low in n-3 polyunsaturated fats may offer some protection against developing glaucoma, data from two large studies suggest.
Dr. Jae H. Kang from Harvard University and colleagues examined dietary fat intake in relation to glaucoma in 76,000 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study and 40,000 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.
The participants were free of glaucoma when the studies began in the 1980s, and they were followed for at least 10 years
According to the team's report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 474 cases of primary open-angle glaucoma occurred among the subjects.
The researchers found that there was a "suggestive" association between a higher ratio of n-3 to n-6 polyunsaturated fat and so-called primary open-angle glaucoma, especially for the subtype of the disorder in which pressure inside the eye is elevated.
"Because this is the first examination of this relation, further studies are needed to corroborate these findings," Kang and colleagues conclude.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, May 2004.
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High-protein diets linked to infertility
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Megan Fromm
June 30, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040630-120809-5355r.htm
Popular high-protein diets, such as Atkins, can hinder a woman's ability to conceive, according to a study released Monday.
In the study, a group of mice fed a high-protein diet developed higher levels of ammonium in the females' reproductive tracts than those normally found. Previous studies have shown ammonium to negatively affect genes and slow development of mouse embryos and also to affect an embryo's ability to attach to the womb.
David Gardner, scientific director for the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Englewood, Colo., led the study.
"Although our investigations were conducted in mice, our data may have implications for diet and reproduction in humans," Mr. Gardner said.
Ammonium levels in the high-protein mice were four times higher in the oviduct, where the early embryo forms, than in mice on a typical diet.
The compound of nitrogen and hydrogen also can alter certain genes that react differently depending on whether they are inherited from the mother or father. This process, called genetic imprinting, also was affected negatively by ammonium levels during the study. Specifically, the H19 gene, which is involved in growth, was altered.
"These data show that eating a moderately high-protein diet, which results in elevated ammonium levels in the female reproductive tract, adversely affects the pre-implantation embryo in the living animal," Mr. Gardner said.
Atkins diet guidelines suggest that protein consumption remains below 35 percent of total calories for those on carbohydrate-restricted diets. The standard laboratory diet for mice is 14 percent protein. The mice used in the study were given a diet of 25 percent protein.
Atkins Nutritionals spokesmen distinguished between carbohydrate-controlled diets and high-protein diets, also adding that mice, which are herbivores, may have a different tolerance for ammonium levels than meat-eating animals.
"The positive role of controlled-carbohydrate nutrition has been well-established clinically in women who are either overweight and/or not ovulating normally," said Dr. Ben Gocial, a reproductive endocrinologist from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.
Studies using mice have been shown to stray from medical possibilities in humans, said Dr. Stuart Trager, medical director for Atkins Nutritionals. He cited a study in which mice embryos were produced from a single parent, a process incapable of human duplication.
"This casts a large discrepancy on the ability to derive conclusions about the clinical implications of this study with regard to humans," he said.
Dr. Amy Lanou, a nutritionist with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, said the study elicits cause for concern.
"I don't think anyone trying to conceive or [who is] pregnant should be on a high-protein diet," she said.
The research was presented Monday at the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Berlin.
-----
Pentagon expands program to vaccinate troops against anthrax, smallpox
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Jun 30, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040630174245.efz8qlxs.html
The Pentagon expanded a program to vaccinate US troops against anthrax and smallpox Wednesday to include US forces in South Korea and throughout the US Central Command's area of operation, officials said.
William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said "tens of thousands" of additional troops will be vaccinated as a result of the change along with certain mission-essential defense contractors and civilian employees.
The expansion was ordered because more vaccine was now available, rather than because of a change in the threat, he said.
"The threat condition, we believe, has not changed since the point at which we implemented these programs earlier," he said.
Brigadier General David Rodriguez, deputy director of operations of the Joint Staff, said the CIA has assessed that al-Qaeda, the Islamic militant group led by Osama bin Laden, is pursuing biological weapons.
The vaccination program had been limited only to troops deployed in certain areas within the US Central Command's area of responsibility, which extends from Egypt through the Arabian peninsula to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The areas were troops were being vaccinated have not been identified but were presumed to include Iraq and Afghanistan.
"This now will include all personnel in the Central Command," Winkenwerder said.
Vaccinations will also be given to troops deployed with select units with the US Pacific Command, including forces on the Korean peninsula.
Winkenwerder said families of deployed soldiers also were being offered the vaccination on a voluntary basis.
The anthrax vaccinations initially covered troops in South Korea, but the program was suspended because of supply problems. When it resumed in June 2002, it was limited to troops deployed in the Central Command area.
Since then, more than 750,000 troops have been vaccinated against anthrax. More than 625,000 service members have received smallpox vaccinations since they began to be administered in December 2002.
-----
Iraq war study finds US troops suffering from mental traumas
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Jun 30, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040630210151.2zcy6g7c.html
US soldiers who have been deployed to Iraq are suffering from major depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study released Wednesday which assessed the psychological effects of combat on more than 6,000 soldiers.
Its findings show "a significant risk of mental health problems" among soldiers on the front-line, according to researchers led by Charles Hoge at the US Army's Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland.
Researchers canvassed soldiers in four combat infantry units, three army units and one Marine Corps unit, deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, including troops of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 3rd Infantry Division.
Anonymous questionaires were filled in by the soldiers before their postings to Iraq and three to four months after returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study didn't poll wounded soldiers or those charged with bad conduct.
Researchers found depression, anxiety and stress disorders rose sharply among troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, ranging between 11.2 and 17.1 percent, compared with their mental state of mind before deploymentpercent).
The difference was most apparent for PTSD, particularly in Iraq where fighting and almost daily attacks against US forces since the fall of Baghdad has been fiercer.
"There was a strong reported relation between combat experiences, such as being shot at, handling dead bodies, knowing someone who was killed, or killing enemy combatants, and the prevelance of PTSD," the study found.
PTSD increased among soldiers depending on the number of fire fights they had experienced, higher rates of PTSD were found among troops involved in more frequent skirmishes.
The study is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Tensions high for Bush visit
by Mary Earls
Wed, 30/06/04
Limerick Post
http://www.limerickpost.ie/dailynews.elive?id=5276&category=Daily-Thu
TEMPORARY prison cells, an interrogation room and a makeshift courthouse are just some of things in store for the thousands of protesters that plan to take part in this weekend's anti-Bush demonstration.
Rumours are also circulating that a wing of Limerick prison has been cleared in order to facilitate the "volume of arrests that gardai seem to be expecting this weekend" according to a spokesperson from Anti-War Ireland.
Edward Horgan who is a spokesperson for both Anti-War Ireland and Peace and Neutrality Lines said that the gardai and security personnel "will ensure they justify the excessive security and the huge costs involved, by arresting a quota of demonstrators despite their peaceful approach".
"Jobs in Shannon seem to be more important than children being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's what's being implied. The Government are telling us to be quiet about all the people being killed unjustly because there's money in it. This is a peace festival and we do not want to condone any trouble," said Mr Horgan.
Thousands of peace activists and anti-war groups from all over Ireland will be attending the demonstration, including The Midwest Alliance Against Military Aggression, Grassroots, Peace and Neutrality Lines, Anti-War Ireland and Stop Bush Campaign. But is unsure whether they will gain admittance to the stronghold of Shannon.
The security operation for George W Bush's visit is one of the biggest ever in the history of the state.
Gardai in Shannon have been handing out security passes to local residents over the past few days. People in the greater Shannon area who have not obtained garda approved permits will have their movements restricted over the weekend.
Despite the controversy, Fianna Fail councillor, Sean Hillery, from Shannon Town Council said that the people of Ireland should accept George Bush's visit as the leader of the USA, because a number of firms in the Midwest region are dependent on America for employment.
"I'm not personally holding up a welcome banner to the President, but he is here for an EU Summit and it just so happens that Bertie Ahern is holding the leadership at the moment. People have a democratic right to protest and I have nothing against that. I just think his visit is important as I would hate to see all our lovely young graduates in Limerick having to look abroad for employment. Commercialism will take over one way or the other anyway," said Cllr Hillery.
The Fianna Fail councillor added that Shannon is getting a nice "face-lift" from the presidential visit and that the tourist trade in the area is also benefiting.
Cllr Hillery did however say that security measures in Shannon seemed to be "over the top", as the American leader was not popular.
"All the councillors are hoping for a peaceful and dignified demonstration with drums and singing and a good atmosphere. I think the gardai are doing a great job but the calls for the high level of security are coming from the top. I think the American security personnel are more paranoid because they have had negative experiences in other countries and are just preparing for the worst," he said.
The newly elected Mayor of Shannon, Labour's Greg Duff said that he will be personally taking part in the Shannon residents' march this weekend.
"I will be taking part in the march because I am opposed to Bush's wars and the fact that he is using Shannon as a military airport. Other politicians keep stressing the rewards we receive from American investment in the Midwest. But yet the impending break-up of Aer Rianta is going to cause great instability in the region and that isn't being safeguarded," he said.
Cllr Duff added that "people are looking at the monetary benefits of letting military aeroplanes land in Shannon, yet aren't looking at the health and safety risks to the local community, such as the possibility of depleted uranium being on board these planes or the possibility of a terrorist attack."
A spokesperson from Shannon gardai has said that parts of the N18, which is the main dual-carriageway between Limerick and Galway will be closed to traffic from 3pm on Friday to 3pm on Saturday, although diversions will be in place. The Shannon to Clarecastle section of the road will be completly closed and the diversions will run from Sixmilebridge, through Kilmurray, Quin and onto Ennis.
Approximately 700 US secret service personnel are being backed up by more than 3,800 gardai and 2,000 members of the Irish Defence Forces during the President's 18-hour visit to Ireland.
Other security measures include the sealing of manhole covers in the Shannon area, the erection of high perimeter fencing around the airport along with the deployment of the Garda Emergency Response Unit and the Army's Ranger Wing.
The Mid Western Health Board has set up a special emergency medical centre near Shannon Airport to deal with casualties, as well as a chemical decontamination unit.
Aer Rianta will be staying fully operational over the weekend, but departing passengers are advised to arrive four hours before take-off due to the risk of delays.
The heavy handed security is being criticised by many protesters as excessive, and many people believe President Bush is simply using his Irish visit as a "photo opportunity or a PR exercise for his re-election".
Dominic Haugh from the Shannon Residents March said that: "There is a build-up of anger or a mood in Shannnon with regard to the infringement of peoples privacy over the Bush visit."
Demonstrators are being asked to assemble at 7pm on Friday in Shannon town centre before marching to the airport. A parade for peace from Bunratty to Shannon will also take place the following day, assembling at 12pm.
----
Think tank evaluates polls on patriotism
June 30, 2004
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040630-051003-5881r.htm
Washington, DC, Jun. 30 -- An American Enterprise Institute analysis of poll data says U.S. residents are deeply patriotic but acknowledge the government's faults.
Public Opinion on Patriotism, compiled by AEI resident fellow Karlyn Bowman, studied polls taken by major pollsters on patriotism and willingness to serve in the military, from a historical and contemporary perspective.
Among the findings is that young Americans are "less enthusiastic" about the military draft than their elders as measured over time in polls conducted by the Gallup organization.
"America is a deeply patriotic country, and Americans praise their system of government while acknowledging its faults," the center-right think tank said.
The full study, which includes trend data from most major pollsters in the United States, can be found at aeipoliticalcorner.org/kb.htm.
----
China Tries to Block News on Hong Kong's Pro-Democracy March
June 30, 2004
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/asia/30hong.html
HONG KONG, June 29 - With two days remaining before what is expected to be a huge pro-democracy march on Thursday, Chinese authorities are clamping down to prevent news of the demonstration from spreading on the mainland, while leading democrats here have split over tactics.
Mainland tourists have flooded Hong Kong in the past year, taking advantage of a relaxation of Chinese exit-visa rules that was intended to help the economy here. The annual commemoration here on June 4 of the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings drew large numbers of mainlanders this year, watching silently an event that would have quickly been broken up by the police if it had occurred anywhere else in China.
But travel industry officials say China has cut back very sharply this week on the number of mainlanders allowed to be in Hong Kong during the march on Thursday, which will protest Beijing's decision not to allow general elections here.
Charles Ng, the vice chairman of the Hong Kong Inbound Tour Operators Association, said Tuesday that relatively few tour groups were scheduled to enter this Chinese territory for the rest of the week. The typical pace in recent months has been as many as 500 groups a day.
Chinese censors blocked the entry of Western newspapers immediately after the commemoration of the Tiananmen Square crackdown earlier this month, and even removed pages of later newspapers that had articles mentioning the Hong Kong protest. Britain turned Hong Kong over to China in 1997.
Radio stations here plan to broadcast the demonstration live in its entirety from the park where the march is scheduled to begin. Perry Link, a China specialist at Princeton University, said Beijing's previous practice suggested that it would jam radio and television broadcasts and limit Internet access to minimize information reaching its citizens.
The march "is very important to Chinese people everywhere, not just the government," and word of it is likely to spread on the mainland anyway, he said.
Organizers of the march are predicting that 300,000 people will attend, and the police have said they are basing their preparations on that number. But prominent democrats here are divided over how aggressively to challenge Beijing.
Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party here and an acerbic critic of mainland policies for decades, unexpectedly led several other democrats over the weekend in suggesting that marchers avoid the controversial chant, "Return power to the people." Beijing has taken strong exception to the slogan, because the capital contends that it has only followed and interpreted Hong Kong's constitution and that it hasn't taken away any of the territory's rights.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Lee compared the democracy movement to a young man courting a woman, and said that if the woman did not want the man to wear blue clothes, the man could achieve his aims while wearing other hues.
But the Civil Human Rights Front, a broad coalition of nonprofit groups and political parties that is organizing the march, decided Monday to go ahead and use the controversial chant. Emily Lau, a pro-democracy lawmaker like Mr. Lee, said avoiding the phrase would mean self-censorship, and added, "I think our backs are against the wall already."
--------
Hong Kong Braces for Big Democracy March
June 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Hong-Kong-China.html
HONG KONG (AP) -- Beijing has told Hong Kong residents they can't directly choose their next leader, but thousands were ready to march Thursday, demanding universal suffrage and venting anger at the territory's unpopular government.
The rally comes one year after 500,000 people turned out for an anti-government protest that stunned Hong Kong and Beijing -- launching a ``people power'' movement that alarmed the central government and prompted it to clamp down on local hopes for full democracy.
Hundreds of thousands were expected to march this time, stealing the stage from official events Thursday to mark the seventh anniversary of Hong Kong's return from Britain to China.
Pro-democracy figures were hoping the march would give them momentum heading into September legislative elections that will let ordinary citizens choose 30 of the territory's 60 lawmakers.
The rest are chosen by special interest groups, such as businessmen, doctors and lawyers, who tend to side with Beijing. But Beijing and the Hong Kong government are worried about ending up with a legislature that won't back Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa -- which would be an unprecedented dilemma for Tung.
Hoping to blunt the impact of the rally, Beijing has made a number of conciliatory gestures in recent weeks, holding out the possibility that it will allow visits to the mainland by pro-democracy lawmakers who have been barred for years or even branded as ``traitors.''
Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong called on Hong Kong people to celebrate the anniversary of the handover as ``an uncommon day.''
``The luster of 10,000 diamonds would be outshined by that of Hong Kong, the Pearl of the Orient,'' Zeng said in remarks carried Wednesday by the mainland's China Daily. ``No one can take it away from us.''
But many here are still angry over Beijing's ruling in April that Hong Kong citizens cannot directly elect their next leader in 2007 or all lawmakers in 2008. Tung was chosen by an 800-member committee loyal to Beijing.
Critics charge that China has reneged on its promise to grant the territory a great deal of local autonomy under a government arrangement dubbed ``one country, two systems'' that was put in place at the handover.
Hong Kong's last British colonial governor, Chris Patten, said Wednesday in Singapore that Beijing should give the territory's people ``rather more say in shaping their own affairs.''
Human rights activist Law Yuk-kai said Beijing's attempts to make nice won't alter the central government's intention of ``maintaining very strict control'' over Hong Kong's political development.
``It might well reduce some of the heat in the kitchen and reduce people's incentive to go to the streets,'' said Law, director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, a non-governmental organization. ``But those people who think it's important to march will still go on.''
The protest last year was targeted at Tung's plans to enact an anti-subversion law that many in Hong Kong viewed as a threat to civil liberties that were guaranteed here for at least 50 years after the handover. Shaken by the outpouring of public sentiment, Tung soon saw his legislative support crumble and he had to withdraw the bill.
The ``people power'' movement then set its sights on full democracy, and Beijing stepped into the debate in April and laid down the law -- ruling out universal suffrage in the near term.
That changes the dynamics for the protesters. While they were attacking Hong Kong's government last year, this time they will be complaining about actions taken by the central government, which tolerates no dissent in the mainland.
Political scientist James Sung said many in Hong Kong are clinging to hopes that Beijing might change its mind and allow universal suffrage in the next few years, although he considers that a highly unlikely outcome.
While the march will have a cathartic effect, letting people vent their frustrations over the lack of democratic reforms, their unhappiness with Tung and their worries about a sluggish economy, after it's over the pro-democracy camp will have to do some hard thinking about its next step, Sung said.
Opposition lawmakers need to decide whether they will try to build bridges with Beijing, or whether they'll keep taking to the streets, Sung said.
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Hong Kong Gears Up for Huge Pro - Democracy March
June 30, 2004
(Reuters)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-hongkong-march.html
HONG KONG - Hundreds of thousands of people in Hong Kong are expected to take to the streets on Thursday to demand more democracy in one of the territory's biggest protests since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Organizers expect 300,000 people to brave stifling heat to press Beijing to allow them greater voting rights. That is less than the half a million who poured onto the streets on July 1 last year, but the desire for more democracy does not appear to have dwindled.
``I want Beijing to give us universal suffrage. Only then will Hong Kong have a stable environment,'' said financial consultant Chris Mak, who plans to join the protest.
Up to 1,000 police will be on hand as protesters begin to march in mid-afternoon from a downtown park to local government headquarters in the heart of one of Asia's biggest financial centers.
A large turnout at the rally could embarrass Beijing on the seventh anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, a public holiday, and heighten Communist Party fears that it could lose control of the city.
It could also be a key barometer of popular support for pro-democracy forces ahead of key legislative elections in September as they try to wrestle control of Hong Kong's top lawmaking body from pro-China supporters.
In a last-ditch attempt to draw more participants, dozens of community and religious groups and human rights organizations placed advertisements in local newspapers this week or handed out leaflets urging people to join the march.
Last July 1, half a million people poured into Hong Kong's streets to denounce plans by the local Beijing-backed government to enact a tough anti-subversion law, criticize its handling of the weak economy and demand more political freedom.
SHOCK IN BEIJING
The outpouring of public anger shocked Chinese leaders, who fear growing calls for democracy here could spill over into the mainland.
Fearing that it may lose control of Hong Kong, Beijing asserted its power over the territory in April, taking full command of its political future and rejecting demands for full, direct elections from 2007.
In a bid to stamp out dissent, it even began hurling abuse at democracy activists, calling them ``clowns'' and ``traitors.''
But in recent weeks, both sides have softened their rhetoric in a bid to cool political tensions in the city of nearly seven million people.
Political analyst Andy Ho said a lower turnout at the protest this year may not necessarily mean that fewer Hong Kong people want full democracy. Many potential protesters may stay away because they do not want to anger Beijing.
``The peoples' demands are clear. They want democracy, they are unhappy with the present administration but at the same time, they don't want direct confrontation with Beijing.''
Others are clearly resigned to their fate after China's parliament quashed hopes for more democracy in spring.
Bank worker Olivia Lo, who marched last year, said she will not be part of the crowd on Thursday.
``What can we achieve? Beijing has already ruled out direct elections in 2007.''
Few people in the street appear convinced by the apparent peacemaking between Beijing and the pro-democracy camp.
Many remain unhappy with how Beijing muscled onto the scene to rule out direct elections, which they see as a breach of the high degree of autonomy that China promised Hong Kong at the time of handover.
``This peace talk is rubbish. After the September elections they (leaders in Beijing) will revert to their true colors. We must have direct elections, the longer the delay, the more damage it will do to Hong Kong,'' said Mak.
Copywriter Macarthy Lee agreed: ``I am very unhappy with the way Beijing interfered in Hong Kong matters...I will certainly vote in September and it will not be for pro-Beijing parties.''
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San Francisco Puts Anti - War Measure on Nov. Ballot
June 30, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-sanfrancisco.html
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco residents will vote in November on whether to demand the return of all U.S. troops from Iraq -- a largely symbolic gesture in a city viewed as one of the most liberal in the nation.
The ballot initiative, certified Tuesday by county election officials, calls for ``immediate steps to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and bring our troops safely home now.'' The measure is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.
The four members of San Francisco's board of supervisors who endorsed the proposal estimated the city's share of the Iraq war cost at $520 million -- enough, they said, to fund 10 years worth of social services for children, the homeless, and the elderly.
``Rather than squander more of our precious public resources and sacrifice many more American and Iraqi lives on the occupation, monies should be used to restore life-affirming efforts,'' the four wrote in a statement.
California relies heavily on statewide voter referendums to set policy. Perhaps most famously, voters last October booted out a sitting governor and installed movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new state leader.
Local ballots, however, also make use of initiatives. Another in San Francisco would give illegal immigrants the right to vote in school board elections, and residents of the nearby city of Berkeley will vote in November on whether they believe prostitution should remain illegal.
San Francisco years ago established its anti-war credentials and the city turned out thousands of demonstrators during a global protest against the U.S.-led conflict in Iraq on March 20, the war's first anniversary.
--------
Father of US beheading victim calls for peace
Independent
By Terri Judd
30 June 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=536621
Of all the hideous moments Michael Berg has endured in the seven weeks since his son's beheading became public, one stands out in his memory. He was waiting to be interviewed by an American network, listening to the show through an earpiece, when the station began playing the video of the Korean captive Kim Sun-il pleading for his life.
"I couldn't turn it off. I could not pull the earplug out. I had to listen to his pleas. That had to be one of the worst moments," he said yesterday.
On 11 May a group linked to al-Qa'ida released a video of his son Nick, 26, a telecommunications engineer, being decapitated in what they said was revenge for the abuse of prisoners by US troops at Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail.
In the ensuing weeks, Nick's father has crossed the United States and the world to call for peace. Today he will address a Stop the War Coalition rally in Parliament Square.
The 59-year-old from West Chester, Pennsylvania, has come to terms with the fact that pictures of his son's death will forever be symbolic of the brutality of this war. Mr Berg understands that the images of him collapsing after learning of the video sent a powerful message to an American public that until then had been served what he calls a "candy-coated war".
Describing the moment a reporter broke the news to him, he said: "I don't remember hitting the ground. My son and daughter screamed at the photographer. As hard as it was dealing with that intrusion I know it needs to be done ... I remember the pictures of Vietnam and how they stopped that war."
He added: "Nick's death was gruesome and it was public but in the end my grief is no different from that of other parents - it doesn't matter if their child was soldier, civilian or an innocent Iraqi."
A Briton has been killed while working as a security consultant in Iraq. Julian Davies, 39, from Newport, south Wales, died in the northern city of Mosul on 24 June, the Foreign Office said.
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More than 200 anti-NATO protesters arrested during summit - city official
ISTANBUL (AFP)
Jun 30, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040630113942.i4cmoqrk.html
Police have arrested more than 200 people who took part in illegal demonstrations against the NATO summit in Istanbul, the city commissioner said Wednesday.
"A total of 204 people were arrested and turned over to judicial authorities for having taken part in illegal activities," Muammer Guler said, referring to the demonstrations during the NATO summit held here Monday and Tuesday.
On Monday, some 2,000 anti-NATO protestors armed with stones and petrol bombs clashed with police who responded with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas in central Istanbul. Nearly 60 people were reported injured.
Turkish riot police on Tuesday also broke up a demonstration against the NATO summit, using pepper gas and truncheons against protestors and detaining 21 of them, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Guler said 34 policemen and 22 activists were injured during the incidents. Police have arrested more than 200 people who took part in illegal demonstrations against the NATO summit in Istanbul, the city commissioner said Wednesday.
"A total of 204 people were arrested and turned over to judicial authorities for having taken part in illegal activities," Muammer Guler said, referring to the demonstrations during the NATO summit held here Monday and Tuesday.
On Monday, some 2,000 anti-NATO protestors armed with stones and petrol bombs clashed with police who responded with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas in central Istanbul. Nearly 60 people were reported injured.
Turkish riot police on Tuesday also broke up a demonstration against the NATO summit, using pepper gas and truncheons against protestors and detaining 21 of them, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Guler said 34 policemen and 22 activists were injured during the incidents.
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War on ballot Resolution could spread to other cities in Bay area.
San Francisco Examiner
By Adriel Hampton
June 30, 2004
http://www.sfexaminer.com/article/index.cfm/i/063004n_resolution
In 1967, only 36 percent of San Francisco voters supported a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Vietnam. In 1970, 51 percent approved the same call on the federal government. Three years later, the United States withdrew its forces.
Today, antiwar activists in San Francisco are hoping to repeat the effort with a policy statement calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, a resolution four supervisors sent to the ballot Tuesday.
"Rather than squander more of our precious public resources and sacrifice many more American and Iraqi lives on the occupation, monies should be used to restore life-affirming efforts -- public health, welfare, education, jobs, arts and the environment in our country and around the world," said Supervisor Chris Daly, reading from the resolution at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting.
It comes the day after power was handed to the newly formed sovereign government of Iraq and the same day the U.S. Army announced it would recall to active duty about 5,600 soldiers who recently left or retired as insurgent attacks in Iraq continue to increase.
The ballot resolution, similar to early Bay Area antiwar mobilizations around the Vietnam conflict, is meant to spur other communities into action as well. More than 60 cities and the state of Hawaii passed antiwar resolutions last year before the invasion of Iraq, but San Francisco appears to be the first city to put the issue before the general public for a vote.
Tim Fitzmaurice of the Santa Cruz City Council said he's "very interested" in seeing the language in Daly's resolution and would like to see his own council support a similar ballot measure to allow citizens to weigh-in on the troop deployment in Iraq.
"If I had the help of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, I might be able to make a case to do that," Fitzmaurice said.
Along with Daly, supervisors Tom Ammiano, Jake McGoldrick and Matt Gonzalez signed to put the resolution on the ballot.
Susan Galleymore, of Military Families Speak Out and Mothers Speak, questioned the U.S. handover of power in Iraq Monday, stating that it contains no timeline for a troop pullout and that Iraqi families are in continued danger.
"They can't leave Iraq," she said of Iraqi citizens. "We can. We must."
Daly, using data from the left-wing think tank National Priorities Project, charged that The City is losing $520 million that could be used for health insurance, new school teachers and supportive housing for the homeless.
Local Republicans, though, ridiculed the idea.
"To equate the budget for the war with city finances is ridiculous," said Howard Epstein, the Republican nominee for the 12th Assembly District. "Democrats have had 100 percent control of this city for what, 20-30 years now, and they led us down the path of fiscal irresponsibility. ... These people are just grasping at straws trying to make a cheap political point."
Although the Board of Supervisors is overwhelmingly opposed to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, some members weren't ecstatic about spending time on the issue.
"It doesn't help us fix potholes or build housing," Gerardo Sandoval said. "We're all opposed to [the war], but I'm focused on the budget."
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Sudan Genocide Continues; Protesters on the March
family news
by Keith Peters
June 30, 2004
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0032718.cfm
Calls come for end to abuse and genocide in the Sudan.
There were protests in Washington recently aimed at the government of Sudan. Protesters charged the Khartoum government with continuing genocide against its own people. About 100 demonstrators marched outside the Sudanese embassy in northwest Washington, D.C., calling for an end to the genocide they say is going on in the Darfur region right now.
One of the protestors, Nina Shea of Freedom House, said this is the same type of "scorched earth" policy that Khartoum used for over a decade in Southern Sudan, where two million African Christians died.
"The government (has been) withholding food aid - internationally donated food aid - after they've driven the people off the land through militias to create a situation of mass starvation," Shea said.
She said tens of thousands have already died this year in the western Darfur region, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is predicting that a million more will perish if the abuse doesn't stop.
"We're coming out here today to stand up, to say, no, never again and we mean it," Shea said.
Dr. Charles Jacobs, a spokesman for the American Anti-Slavery Group, said this is one area where U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and the United Nations could help - but they haven't.
"Kofi Annan has sat out two genocides in Africa," said Jacobs, referring to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and also the murder of Southern Sudanese Christians. "This is the third one he may sit out. We're not going to let him do that."
He says the world community must tell the leaders of Khartoum - who have long taken slaves - that they need to emancipate the people they have kidnapped. He calls these wars nothing more than jihads against peace-loving people.
Both Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.N. Secretary General are visiting Sudan this week.
President George Bush, Senator John Kerry and both houses of Congress identify the Muslim government of Sudan as the perpetrator of genocide against Christians in 2002. Secretary Powell will now consider whether the atrocities in Darfur constitute genocide.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an official government body, has identified countries which abuse religious freedom. It has compiled hundreds of news releases and reports on the genocidal killing taking place in Sudan, including in Darfur, on its Web site.
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