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NUCLEAR
NEW FEARS OVER RADIATION
Presentation planned on depleted uranium
Vanunu warns Israel's Dimona plant poses risk of 'second Chernobyl'
Japanese scientists trying to make plutonium that is useless in weapons
North Korea rejects nuclear disarmament
North Korea Rebuffs U.S. On Weapons
As Tensions Subside Between Two Koreas, U.S. Strives to Adjust Thaw
North Korea Seems to Reject Butter-for-Guns Proposal From U.S.
Analysis: Pointed talk of Mideast missiles
A Nuclear Lab's 'Cowboy Culture'
MILITARY
Europe Joins U.S. in Demand For Action on Crisis in Sudan
Top British intelligence official sacked after Blair jibe
UK troops 'ready to go to Sudan'
Taiwan deploys missiles on island off China: Jane's
China must reinforce defence, says president
Paper Closed by U.S. Is Back in Business
Militants Use Kidnapping as Their Most Powerful Weapon in Iraq
Iraqi Urges Allies Not to Be Deterred by Kidnappings
Is Anti Zionism Anti Semitism?!
Israelis Form Human Chain to Protest Withdrawal Plan
Palestinians Seize Office of Governor
Iraq, Syria to form border security committee
US Central Command chief meets head of UAE armed forces
NATO OKs Deployment of Afghan Troops
Two British navy ships dock in Philippines' Subic for exercises
Looking for an Iraq precedent? Try Honduras
Tribunal Detectives Pursue War Criminals in the Balkans
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Brazil Carries the War on Drugs to the Air
A Secret Deportation Of Terror Suspects
POLITICS
Inside the Vote to Fund War, Rebuilding
Analysis Sept. 11 Commission Purposely Avoided Judgments on Iraq War
Berger Inquiry Leaves Associates Brimming With Questions
Senate to Investigate Shelby in 9/11 Leak
Behind 9/11: Old Miscues and New Twists
Correcting the Record on Sept. 11, in Great Detail
GOP Gears To Spread Message on Airwaves
ENERGY
Wind farms powering ill will
Western Station Transforms Sunbeams Into Electricity
OTHER
World Bank turns 60 amid critiques
ACTIVISTS
Protesters to vie for Democrats' attention
Protesters destroy modified crops
Protesters march on FleetCenter on eve of Democratic convention
A who's who of convention protesters
'It's The War, Stupid!'
Antiwar veterans vying to be heard
A City Known for Peaceniks Stands By Its Roots
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
NEW FEARS OVER RADIATION
White Haven
UK News
Sunday, July 25th 2004
http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/news/viewarticle.asp?id=117450
THE spectre of radiation allegedly causing cancers among Sellafield workers, and leukaemia in children, at nearby Seascale, has been raised again in documents leaked from a government health watchdog.
Uncertainties in the internal radiation dose estimates for Seascale are said to be sufficiently large that it would be unwise to rule out radiation as a contributory factor for the effects seen in the village.
Cumbria anti-nuclear group CORE says this is one of the key conclusions reached by several members of the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters or CERRIE.
Both CORE and the New Scientist magazine claim to have obtained leaked final draft copies of the Committee's, report due out in September.
CORE, says the Committee agreed "that the ICRP (International Committee of Radiological Protection) models could be wrong by a factor of two or three for radionuclides, for which good data exists and by a factor of well over 10 for plutonium and americium.
"Almost half the committee members were of the view that recently discovered biological mechanisms were not adequately reflected in ICRP models and that these uncertainties could account for some epidemiology findings, especially at Seascale."
CORE campaigner, Martin Forwood, said: "After 20 years of BNFL insisting that radiation from Sellafield had nothing to do with the Seascale leukaemia cases we welcome the findings of the committee, that there is still a great deal of uncertainty about the health effects of internal radiation like plutonium and americium.
"The acknowledgment that they don't know everything and their recommendations for further research into internal doses, can only be good news for BNFL workers and for us living around the plant. With the annually rising radiation dose from americium, to the critical group, as a result of Sellafield's unacceptably high historical plutonium discharges, we need to feel protected and as far as we're concerned the uncertainty justifies further research."
BNFL said it had not seen the CERRIE report but added: "It would be surprising if radiation risk had been severely underestimated.
"The health effects of radiation have been studied for many years and include extensive studies of the BNFL workforce which have consistently supported the view that the radiation risk models currently used are not seriously in error. A specific study of plutonium workers at Sellafield did not find any evidence for an adverse health effect as a result of their work.
"The radiation exposures of our workforce (and that of the general public from authorised discharges from the nuclear industry) are well below maximum levels.
-------- depleted uranium
Presentation planned on depleted uranium
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Billings Gazette (Montana)
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/07/25/build/local/95-local-gd.inc
BOZEMAN - Dennis Kyne presents a program titled "Depleted Uranium" at 7 p.m. Aug. 10 in the Community Room of the Bozeman Public Library.
His presentation will address the controversy surrounding the U.S. military's use of depleted uranium munitions. As a Gulf War veteran, Kyne shares a personal concern about the increased cancer rate and other sickness in veterans. Birth defects in veterans' children and similar cancers and sickness in Iraqi citizens since the first Gulf War have been linked to depleted uranium by many scientists and doctors.
After 15 years in the army, he became an international lecturer on the topic of depleted uranium munitions. He graduated from the Army's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical School and then earned a cum laude degree in Political Science.
Kyne was well received at the World Uranium Conference at the University of Hamburg, Germany, last fall. As this veteran of Desert Storm told his story, scientists gathered to share their research into the use of "depleted" uranium.
Reviews of his book "Support the Truth" can be found at http://www.denniskyne.com/.
The Bozeman Peace Seekers is the host for the free presentation.
For more information, call Della Stauber at 586-1088 or Margarita McLarty at 586-2876.
-------- israel
Vanunu warns Israel's Dimona plant poses risk of 'second Chernobyl'
DUBAI (AFP)
Jul 25, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040725085604.c8zhirfy.html
Israel's nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has warned that the Middle East is at risk of a "second Chernobyl" in the event of an accident at the Jewish state's aged Dimona plant, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The London-based Al-Hayat also quoted Vanunu as implicating Israel in the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The 40-year-old Dimona nuclear plant in the southern Negev desert could constitute a "second Chernobyl" through any "leaking of nuclear radiation, threatening millions of people in neighbouring countries," following a possible accident, Vanunu said.
Jordan should test residents in the border regions with Israel to be sure that they have not already been exposed to any radiation and administer the necessary medicine, he said.
The Ukrainian government estimates that 15,000 people died after the number four reactor exploded at Chernobyl power plant in 1986 in the world's worst civilian nuclear catastrophe.
More than three million Ukrainians including 1.2 million children receive disability compensation as a result of Chernobyl and the radioactive contamination it caused.
Vanunu's comments were contained in extracts of an interview he gave to the Arabic-language Al-Hayat's weekly supplement Al-Wassat, to be published on Monday.
The former technician was jailed for 18 years for revelations on the inner workings at Dimona that he made to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in 1986, effectively blowing the whistle on Israel's nuclear programme.
Vanunu was released in April and has since been refused permission to travel abroad or associate with foreigners.
He also said that according to "near-certain indications", Kennedy was assassinated due to "pressure he exerted on Israel's then head of government, David Ben-Gurion, to shed light on Dimona's nuclear reactor."
Vanunu also criticised a visit to Israel earlier this month by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei.
"He (ElBaradei) should have refused to visit Israel (because) he was not allowed to inspect the nuclear reactor" at Dimona, said Vanunu, who according to Al-Hayat now lives "with his Palestinian friends" in east Jerusalem.
The Israeli government has argued that Vanunu, 50, still possesses information that poses a danger to state security.
Most foreign experts believe Israel has up to 200 nuclear warheads.
-------- japan
Japanese scientists trying to make plutonium that is useless in weapons
Masae Honma
Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer,
July 25, 2004
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040720wo72.htm
With many countries around the world apprehensive to take advantage of plutonium's energy potential because the element can easily be used in the production of nuclear weapons, an attempt by Japanese scientists to limit its use to power generation is attracting attention.
The scientists are trying to achieve this goal by reducing the percentage of dangerous components that make up the element.
"It is no longer just a dream to produce plutonium that is useless for weapons," Masaki Saito, associate professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, said. Saito, who studies nuclear reactor systems and safety engineering, started a five-year project last year to study how to produce plutonium that cannot be used for weapons.
Spent uranium discharged from nuclear reactors consists of 1 percent to 2 percent plutonium. The plutonium is made up of plutonium 238, 239, 240 and 242. But it is plutonium 239 that has the greatest potential to create nuclear fission, and thus can be used for nuclear weapons. Plutonium 238 is the least dangerous.
But plutonium 238 accounts for only about 2 percent of the entire element, while plutonium 239 accounts for about 60 percent. To prevent plutonium from being used to make nuclear weapons, the amount of plutonium 239 must be reduced as much as possible, and the amount of plutonium 238 must be increased.
Saito's research team has found a method that just might help achieve that goal. They mix neptunium and other transuranic elements--which are contained in used nuclear fuel and usually disposed of as high-level radioactive waste--into uranium before it is discharged as spent fuel.
Theoretically, burning the mixed nuclear fuel inside reactors can increase the ratio of plutonium 238 to 20 percent or higher, Saito said.
"The method can produce plutonium that is useless for the production of nuclear weapons," he said. "In addition, it can efficiently utilize neptunium, which is currently being disposed of as waste."
If the technology is successful, the fear of terrorists stealing plutonium and using it for nuclear weapons will greatly be reduced. The risks of storing plutonium as an energy source in the future will also be lowered considerably.
Saito and his fellow researchers plan to start experimenting with a team from the United States to burn uranium containing neptunium in a nuclear power plant in Idaho.
"If the experiment is successful, it will be the first step toward making plutonium that can be used for peaceful purposes only," Saito said.
Saito's research was one of the main topics on the agenda of an international forum for the prevention of nuclear proliferation held in Tokyo in February.
About 50 researchers--mainly from Japan, the United States, Europe and Russia--pointed out that various hurdles must be cleared to put the technology into practice. Some questioned whether there is enough neptunium as only a tiny quantity of the element is contained in spent nuclear fuel. Others said that though plutonium 238 cannot be used for weapons, it is difficult to handle as it discharges a great amount of heat.
But the researchers agreed that Saito's study is essential from a viewpoint of utilizing plutonium for peaceful purposes. They also decided to share information on the issue for further study.
Japan owns nearly 40 tons of plutonium at home and abroad, and even though this is stored under the strict watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency, there is vast opposition in the nation to using it.
Though the government has adopted a policy to use the plutonium only as fuel, the pluthermal project, the burning of a mix of plutonium and uranium in light-water reactors, will not start until 2007.
Another reactor that is not being utilized is Monju, a prototype fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, capable of producing more plutonium as an end product than the quantity initially inserted into the reactor. It has been shut down since an accident in 1995.
While Japan received an endorsement at a regular meeting of IAEA directors on June 14 confirming that it has not diverted its plutonium reserves toward military purposes, Tetsuya Endo, a former member of the Atomic Energy Commission, said the nation is still in a delicate situation.
"As long as Japan continues to store large amounts of plutonium, it can face international criticism at any time," he said.
To alleviate such fears and to further increase international trust that Japan's plutonium is only to be used for peaceful purposes, it is important that the nation leads the way to produce plutonium that cannot be used in the production of nuclear weapons.
-------- korea
North Korea rejects nuclear disarmament
July 25, 2004
By Sang-hun Choe
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040725-125431-4115r.htm
SEOUL - North Korea yesterday rejected a U.S. suggestion that it follow the example of Libya and abandon its nuclear-weapons programs to clear the way for economic aid and improved ties with Washington.
Calling the American proposal "nothing but a sham offer," the communist state reiterated that it would freeze its nuclear facilities as a first step toward dismantling only if Washington provides energy aid, lifts economic sanctions and removes the North from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"It is a daydream for the U.S. to contemplate forcing the [North] to lay down arms first under the situation where both are in a state of armistice and at war technically," said an unidentified spokesman of the North's Foreign Ministry.
The comments, carried by the North's official news agency KCNA, came three days after a top U.S. disarmament official urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to learn from Libya and abandon his country's nuclear-weapons development.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said Wednesday that lessons learned from Libya's pledge to eliminate weapons of mass destruction could be used in six-nation talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff.
Three rounds of talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions have been held in Beijing since last year, but none has produced a breakthrough. The United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas took part.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi took bold steps toward mending ties with the West in December when his government announced that it would renounce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and opened its weapons laboratories to international inspectors. In return, Washington has begun lifting sanctions, including travel restrictions, against the country.
Yesterday, the North Korean spokesman called the U.S. proposal "little worthy to be discussed any longer."
"The U.S. is foolish enough to calculate that such mode imposed upon Libya would be accepted by the DPRK, too," he said, using the acronym for his country's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
At the latest six-nation talks in June, the United States proposed that the North disclose all its nuclear activities, help to dismantle facilities and allow outside monitoring. Under the plan, some benefits would be withheld to ensure that the North cooperates.
North Korea said it never would scrap its nuclear programs first and hope to get rewarded later. Instead, it insisted on "reward for freeze," because "there is no confidence between the DPRK and the U.S."
A nuclear dispute flared in 2002, when U.S. officials said North Korea acknowledged running a secret nuclear program, based on highly enriched uranium, in violation of international agreements and a 1994 pledge to Washington that it would not develop nuclear bombs.
North Korea has since restarted its plutonium program, frozen under the 1994 pact.
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North Korea Rebuffs U.S. On Weapons
Associated Press
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12149-2004Jul24.html
SEOUL, July 24 -- North Korea on Saturday rejected a U.S. suggestion that it follow Libya's example and abandon its nuclear weapons programs to open the way for economic aid and improved ties with the United States.
Calling the U.S. proposal "nothing but a sham offer," a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry reiterated that North Korea would freeze its nuclear facilities as a first step toward dismantling them, but only if the United States provided energy aid, lifted economic sanctions and removed the country from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
"It is a daydream for the U.S. to contemplate forcing the [North] to lay down arms first under the situation where both are in a state of armistice and at war technically," the spokesman said.
The comments, carried by North Korea's official KCNA news agency, came three days after a State Department official urged North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to follow the example of Libya and abandon nuclear weapons development.
John R. Bolton, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said in a speech Wednesday in Seoul that lessons learned from Libya's pledge to eliminate weapons of mass destruction could be used in six-nation talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff.
Three rounds of talks on North Korea's nuclear programs have been held in Beijing since last year, but none has produced a breakthrough. The United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas took part in the meetings.
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As Tensions Subside Between Two Koreas, U.S. Strives to Adjust Thaw
Strains South's Alliance With Washington
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12148-2004Jul24?language=printer
PANMUNJOM, South Korea -- North and South Korea have long engaged in a bitter war of words around this tiny truce village and lobbed propaganda at each other -- the South professing the glories of capitalism, the North once threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."
But with an unmistakable thaw on the Cold War's last frontier, depressions in the earth are all that remain of freshly dismantled political billboards around Panmunjom, the site of the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953. Three weeks ago, the loudspeakers that once blasted competing slogans fell silent, symbolizing the new spirit of amity between North and South.
"We, from one blood and using one language, can no longer live separated," bellowed the last message from the North . "We must put the earliest possible end to the tragedy of national division."
Other changes are on the way. By October, the United States will pull most of its 216 troops from in and around the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom as part of the largest realignment of American forces on the peninsula since the Korean War. In August, about 3,600 of the 37,000 U.S. troops now based in South Korea will leave for Iraq. Plans are in place for an overall reduction in forces by almost a third by as early as December 2005.
Over the next few years, remaining U.S. troops will relocate about 75 miles south of the front lines -- putting them out of North Korean artillery range. The 41 occupied U.S. military installations in South Korea will be condensed to 23.
The U.S. military realignment combined with the rapprochement is raising new questions about the U.S. role in this part of Asia.
"The South's new relationship with the North has changed the nature of the South Korean-U.S. alliance, and we are still trying to figure out what the new one will look like," said Bong Geun Jun, a former senior policy adviser in South Korea's Unification Ministry. "The truth is, we have a better relationship now with the North and feel less threatened by them. That also means we feel less of a need to rely on the U.S."
The Bush administration has sought to isolate the North, mostly to force it to abandon its nuclear weapons programs. But many South Koreans say they believe the North should not be considered part of President Bush's "axis of evil," which also included Iran and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Few in the South would express support for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, whose repressive government is notorious for its brutal prison camps and the bizarre personality cult centered on Kim. But many, particularly young people with no memories of the war, perceive the North as a brother in need.
South Korea and the United States are especially at odds over whether North Korea, whose forces swept over the peninsula in 1950 before being repelled with the aid of U.S. and other troops, is as threatening as it once was.
South Korea's latest best-selling novel embraces a popular conspiracy theory: that the United States wants to suppress Korean reunification and provoke a war between the two Koreas after moving its troops out of harm's way. That book, "The Third Scenario," has sold over 200,000 copies in the seven weeks since its release.
"The essential point that has held the alliance together for so many years has been North Korea," said Don Oberdorfer, Washington-based author of "The Two Koreas" and a former Washington Post diplomatic correspondent. "And the problem is that, increasingly, there is a fundamentally different point of view between South Korea and the United States on the North. So, of course, you see a strain on the alliance."
At the same time, President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea, elected with the support of young voters, including many who oppose Seoul's close alliance with Washington, has pursued what some of his own aides have described as a more independent foreign policy. It has led the Roh administration to forge closer ties with China, North Korea's traditional ally, which has surpassed the United States as South Korea's largest trading partner.
In the 18 months since the government in Pyongyang, the capital, abandoned the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, estimates by U.S. intelligence indicate that North Korea has developed as many as eight nuclear devices. The Seoul metropolitan area, home to almost half the country's population, had long been viewed as Pyongyang's primary target, with an estimated 1 million people projected to be killed in the first 24 hours of an assault.
But even as alarm bells ring in neighboring Japan, many South Koreans no longer appear to perceive a significant risk.
Dating back five years to the "sunshine policy" of former South Korean president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae Jung, the détente between North and South has progressed steadily.
After halting its anti-North propaganda, South Korea's Unification Ministry has agreed to begin showing some North Korean news programs on its own Web site for local audiences. In recent weeks, the two Koreas have established a new telephone hotline linking their militaries.
North and South Korean athletes will march together under one flag next month at the Athens Olympics. And South Korean economic investment in the North, once mostly limited to a tourism resort near the border region of Mount Kumgang, is now expanding into industry.
Construction is underway on a new South Korean-backed industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong, which lies within the range of camera lenses near Panmunjom village. Trade between the two Koreas rose to $256.2 million during the first five months of 2004, up 22.3 percent from the same period last year -- largely because of increased aid flowing from South to North.
U.S. military officials in South Korea insist the troop realignment is not connected to a North-South détente. The move is part of a global strategy to shift American forces into more mobile positions for easier deployment to world hotspots, the officials said. They also said that advances in weapons technology and capabilities no longer required U.S. forces to be based so close to North Korea.
But South Korean and U.S. officials privately admit there is an ideological gap between Roh, viewed as perhaps South Korea's most progressive leader, and the Bush administration.
"On a range of issues, Washington and Seoul have increasingly divergent interests," said a senior Bush administration official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity. "With the next generation of decision makers in Seoul believing that Washington is more of a threat than Pyongyang, the situation will almost certainly get worse. . . . A growing number of people in Washington feel that our troops in South Korea limit our ability to respond to a crisis with North Korea."
Still, both sides insist the foundation of the alliance remains strong, and there have been some recent attempts to ease the strain.
Leaders of the Uri Party, allied to Roh and now in control of the South Korean legislature, visited Washington this month in an attempt to dispel fears that the party is anti-American. Meeting with Roh in Seoul the same week, Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, offered a positive outlook for improved South-North relations. She also thanked Roh for his commitment to send 3,000 South Korean troops to Iraq, especially after the beheading of a South Korean civilian hostage there last month.
But the South Koreans say they are frustrated by divisions within the Bush administration over North Korean policy. At talks last month in Beijing aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear programs, the Bush administration -- after prodding from South Korea -- appeared to ease its demands for a "complete verifiable and irreversible dismantling" of Pyongyang's nuclear programs without any incentives up front. Washington offered the North the possibility of energy aid from South Korea, security assurances and other benefits during a three-month test period if it promised to disclose and end its nuclear weapons programs.
But during a speech last week at a Seoul university, John R. Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security and one of the administration's top hawks on North Korea, outlined a more hard-line stance. He dismissed the notion of a negotiated nuclear freeze as a first step toward a broader deal and argued that the North Koreans should not receive incentives unless they first agree to a comprehensive disarmament agreement similar to the one recently struck with Libya -- a proposal the North Koreans have flatly rejected.
Bolton represents one powerful faction within a Bush administration split on Korea policy. A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said his "aggressive attitude" last week served to generate more confusion over what kind of deal Washington is willing to offer the North.
U.S. officials have expressed equally mixed views on the South's new ties with the North. But top South Korean officials insist that improved ties between South and North and relations between the United States and South Korea should not be regarded as mutually exclusive.
"People who think that way have a simplistic point of view," said Wi Sung Lac, senior policy coordinator for South Korea's National Security Council. "Even partners are not always 100 percent in conformity when it comes to their national interests. In our case, not moving forward in our dialogue with North Korea is something unimaginable considering the people's desire for reunification. The task before us is to promote rapprochement as well as alliance in good harmony."
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
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North Korea Seems to Reject Butter-for-Guns Proposal From U.S.
July 25, 2004
By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/international/asia/25kore.html
WASHINGTON, July 24 - North Korea appeared Saturday to reject the Bush administration's offer last month of a gradual lifting of sanctions and of economic aid from neighboring countries in return for a rapid dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program. But, as is often the case with North Korea, it was far from clear that the government's statement was definitive.
As recently as Thursday, senior United States officials were saying they had heard no official response to the offer, which had marked a significant change of course for the Bush administration. That prompted speculation that North Korea was awaiting the outcome of the presidential election in November, perhaps figuring that no deal would be possible before then.
But on Saturday, through a Foreign Ministry spokesman, North Korea said Mr. Bush's plan, which was conveyed last month in Beijing, was "a sham offer" because it required North Korea to disarm and submit to intrusive inspections before it could get the full benefits of economic concessions from the United States, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
North Korea has insisted on returning to a "freeze" in its nuclear program, similar to the one in effect from 1994 to late 2002, when the Bush administration accused North Korea of secretly trying to build a bomb from uranium. Mr. Bush has vowed never to return to a freeze again, saying it enables the North to resume work on nuclear weapons.
In a statement on Saturday, North Korea said that because it would not be rewarded for merely freezing its programs, "the landmark proposal made by the United States'' was not worthy to be considered.
In recent weeks, the administration has made a strong effort to keep pressure on North Korea through other Asian nations, especially Japan and South Korea, which drafted many parts of the plan that Mr. Bush has ultimately, and reluctantly, adopted. Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, visited Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul earlier this month in an effort to keep together an alliance that was beginning to split on the issue.
Earlier this week, one of the administration's most hawkish officials on North Korea, John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state who handles proliferation issues, used a trip to the region to urge North Korea to follow the lead of Libya, which has surrendered virtually its entire nuclear program. In return, Libya has begun to reintegrate economically with the West.
But experts note that Libya had something of value to offer - oil and the prospect of Western investment. North Korea has neither. And Libya's nuclear program was in an early stage. The C.I.A. estimates that North Korea possesses one to two nuclear weapons, though internal studies have concluded that in the past year North Korea probably reprocessed enough spent nuclear fuel rods to make another six weapons.
"No one expected a positive response," one senior American official involved in the issue said Saturday. "But this did not sound like it closed the door, either."
In fact, North Korea's statement seemed to dispute the sequence of concessions, not the goal. "It is a daydream for the U.S. to contemplate forcing" North Korea "to lay down arms first under the situation where both are in a state of armistice and at war technically," it said.
-------- mideast
Analysis: Pointed talk of Mideast missiles
July 25, 2004
By Hannah K. Strange
United Press International
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040723-040544-3478r.htm
Washington, DC, Jul. 23 (UPI) -- The prospect has been raised that Iran's acquisition of weapons could spark widespread proliferation in the Middle East as previously non-nuclear states reconsider their strategic options.
Mitchell B. Reiss, director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department, said Iran could send "an alarming signal" to other countries, causing them to rethink their membership of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The comments came at the launch of a new book, "The Nuclear Tipping Point," at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington Wednesday. Reiss co-edited the book, a collaboration of foreign policy experts and former government officials.
Even Saudi Arabia, outwardly a leading advocate of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, might feel the need to counter-balance a nuclear Iran, said Thomas W. Lippman -- adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and former Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post -- speaking at CSIS.
The kingdom does not appear to be seeking nuclear weapons at present, said Lippman, though it is a very closed society with decisions made by a small group of people, the inner-circle of the royal family. Even American officials, he said, do not seem to know what Saudi Arabia's nuclear policy really is.
Amid Saudia Arabia's internal turmoil, security relations with the United States could erode further, Lippman continued, leading the Saudi government to conclude they need another security arrangement, perhaps by purchasing or "renting" nuclear weapons from Pakistan or North Korea.
There has been increasing speculation about Saudi aspirations to a nuclear deterrent while the crisis in the Middle East mounts. In September 2003, London's Guardian newspaper reported on a secret strategy paper allegedly considered at the highest levels, which laid out three strategy options: developing nuclear capability, establishing a protection alliance with another nuclear state, or reaching an agreement on a non-nuclear Middle East.
With a heavily armed and security-conscious Israel thought to possess as many as 400 nuclear missiles, the latter option seems highly improbable. A high-ranking Pakistani insider told United Press International in October that Saudi Arabia had agreed to a nuclear pact with Pakistan to exchange weapons technology for cheap oil.
The Pakistani source, who has a long record of providing reliable information, said, "future events will confirm that Pakistan has agreed to provide (Saudi Arabia) with the wherewithal for a nuclear deterrent." Both countries, he said, felt the age of non-proliferation was coming to an end.
Saudi Arabia has strenuously denied both claims.
The strong rhetorical non-nuclear position of Syria also does not necessarily match its national security posture, said Ellen Laipson, co-author and former acting assistant director of central intelligence for analysis and a veteran of the National Security Council and State Department.
Although Syria is not currently opting for any "robust, rapid" acquisition of nuclear capability, said Laipson, it has invested heavily in other WMDs, endowing it with comparable military potential to some nuclear states.
Syria, she notes, also feels "an acute sense of vulnerability" in security terms, being neighbored on almost all sides by stronger nations, and resembling more than any other Middle Eastern country the "Iraq we didn't like."
This sense of insecurity, say experts, is something that needs to be combated by the U.S. and the international community. A nuclear Iran, combined with an erosion of relations, could lead even Egypt, now seen as an unlikely nuclear candidate, to seek strategic deterrents, said Robert Einhorn, co-editor and former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation.
Similarly Turkey, which has flirted with nuclear development in the past, cannot be taken for granted unless it feels safely enmeshed in the international system, said Leon Fuerth, co-author and formerly national security adviser to Vice President Al Gore.
A rejection by the European Union would have profound political and psychological effects on Turkey, he said, as could a United States visibly backing off from NATO or downgrading its defensive alliance with the country. Such changes in the strategic environment, he continued, could well prompt a rethinking of many Turkish policies, especially if a conflict with Iran over Kurdistan should develop.
In our highly unstable climate, said Einhorn, we must think seriously about this "acute regional security threat." There is a tendency, he said, to focus on the hardest and most obvious cases, such as Iran and North Korea, but there also must be a conscious emphasis on those countries which may in coming years be tempted to upgrade their weapons status.
Relations with the United States are crucial in remaining non-nuclear, he said. All countries make calculations of benefit and risk when it comes to nuclear development, he explained. At the moment, the balance in most cases points to staying non-nuclear, particularly if the protection of the United States seems assured.
But, he said, "if strains develop in bilateral relations with the U.S., the incentive to pursue independent nuclear capabilities grows."
The tipping point phenomenon, where the benefits of capability start to outweigh the risks, could then occur.
There has been an increasing sense of pessimism over proliferation in recent years, with much speculation that the non-proliferation treaty may be crumbling.
In 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told a congressional hearing that he did not believe it was possible to stop nuclear proliferation.
"We have to learn to live in that kind of world," he said.
The experts Friday at CSIS maintained that the picture is not yet that bleak, but cite it as a real possibility if we do not apply the necessary vigilance.
Einhorn recommended a variety of practical measures, such as making nuclear development more difficult, more time-consuming and expensive. The black market must be eradicated, he said, and controls tightened. In addition, U.S. intelligence must be improved, and verification methods strengthened.
In the immediate future, reining in Iran's ambitions and pulling back on North Korea's development, which could in turn prompt proliferation in other North Asian countries such as Japan, is also critical.
"The prospect of a world with an increasing number of nuclear powers is very real, but not inevitable," he stressed.
The warning was there: The nuclear tipping point may not have been reached, but unless counter-efforts increase, it may not be too far off.
------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new mexico
A Nuclear Lab's 'Cowboy Culture'
Sun Jul 25, 2004
Los Angeles Times
By Ralph Vartabedian and Christine Hanley
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=6&u=/latimests/20040725/ts_latimes/anuclearlabscowboyculture
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Some of the scientists and engineers who design the nation's nuclear bombs are sporting an odd bumper sticker on their cars in the remote mountain community at Los Alamos National Laboratory: "Striving for a Work-free Safe Zone."
The message - which has angered managers all the way to Washington - underscores a feeling among some workers that the people running the lab care more about security and safety than scientific research. And it is a glaring reflection of the gulf that has opened between executives at Energy Department headquarters in the Forestall Building on Independence Avenue and the iconoclastic scientists at the lab 1,900 miles away.
Ten days ago, the Los Alamos lab was shut down after reports of fresh security breaches. By Monday, the shutdown will have spread to include nuclear facilities in California, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Lab managers - including Los Alamos Director G. Peter Nanos - members of Congress and Washington bureaucrats see the bumper stickers as more proof of a "cowboy culture" in which scientists treat security and safety rules like a joke.
The Los Alamos shutdown came after the loss of two computer disks that contained classified information. Investigators are rummaging through 2,000 safes for the missing disks, but so far have come up empty-handed. The incident is one of many that have hit the lab over the last decade.
Nanos says that many of his employees are engaged in "suicidal denial," failing to grasp that the very existence of the lab is at risk. At the polar extreme are some employees who say the lab has devolved into a snake pit of retribution and that managers are preoccupied with minor security problems.
Nanos, who took over the lab in early 2003 after the prior director resigned amid a series of financial and security scandals, has tried to make changes. But he has met strong resistance and now is bluntly warning employees that he will fire anybody who breaks the rules.
The standoff reflects a long history of problems with not only security, but financial fraud, alleged espionage and mismanagement that have tarnished the image of the lab that developed the first atomic bomb during World War II and long symbolized American technological supremacy. The lab designed most of the nation's nuclear weapons and today plays a key role in ensuring the safety and reliability of the stockpile.
But Los Alamos has acquired "a reputation as being both dysfunctional and politically untouchable," according to its chief benefactor, New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete V. Domenici (news, bio, voting record).
It is not obvious why among the dozens of national laboratories operated by such agencies as the Energy, Commerce, Agriculture and Defense departments and NASA that the Los Alamos lab should be the hotbed of discord and revolt.
Experts say the lab is inbred, protected politically by a fawning New Mexico congressional delegation and somewhat isolated from outside watchdogs that often force other labs to confront critics on a regular basis.
Although Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area has had its share of controversy, it has avoided the kind of security lapses that become national news.
Los Alamos and Livermore are both managed by the University of California, which has become like a perplexed parent of two very different children - one well-behaved and the other always getting into trouble - said S. Robert Foley, vice president for the university's laboratory management.
"Los Alamos is isolated and remote, and that is how their thinking has evolved," Foley said. "They are like school kids. It is cool to flaunt authority and you intimidate the other kids trying to do their school work."
"On the Hill," as New Mexicans have dubbed the isolated plateau about 30 miles west of the state's capitol, nearly every last person in the community of 20,000 works at the lab or is related to someone who does.
They go to the same churches, shop at the same stores, put their kids in the same schools and socialize together. At lunchtime, when they spill out of buildings and into sidewalk cafes and the local Starbucks in the center of town, they can be overheard swapping scientific theories and other shoptalk.
"You've got to make sure you ask for the nonphysics section when you go out to eat, or you'll get stuck listening to the nerds talking about analytical physics," said Jan Jennings, a Santa Fe real estate agent who worked at the lab as a budget analyst for years until she grew tired of the monochromatism. "The laboratory is the town," she said.
Jennings and other current and former employees question whether Nanos, or anyone for that matter, will be able to get everyone to play by the rules in this close-knit, campus-like environment.
The geographic isolation of Los Alamos has also meant that its employees have less contact with universities and private corporations than those at Livermore, which is close to both UC Berkeley and Stanford University.
Law enforcement officials who have investigated previous security lapses at the lab have long recognized the cultural problems at the root of the current crisis.
"There was definitely a cultural problem with the scientists who disregarded security precautions," said Scott Larson, a former FBI agent who investigated the Wen Ho Lee security case in 1999. He is a managing director at security consulting firm Stroz Friedberg. "There have been years now of problems with missing disks and other security violations."
Another force that has shaped Los Alamos is the political support it receives from the New Mexico congressional delegation, said Phil Coyle, who was deputy director at Livermore and later rose to a top position at the Defense Department.
"They have always been able to turn to the New Mexico delegation," Coyle said. "So that has given them an avenue of appeal that Livermore and others did not have."
The California congressional delegation is more diffuse. And because Livermore is just one of many high-profile institutions in California, it doesn't garner the support that Los Alamos receives in its state, particularly from Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
On Friday, Domenici issued an open letter that acknowledged he wrongly had protected the lab for years.
"I have found myself increasingly defending the laboratory for failures of basic management ... and security. While critics have carped, I have worked to ensure that none of the attacks harmed the laboratory, but that effort has come at great cost. Today, in Washington, Los Alamos' reputation as a crown jewel of science is being eclipsed by a reputation as being both dysfunctional and untouchable."
Another difference between the two labs is that Livermore is subject to the tough scrutiny of watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs - Communities Against a Radioactive Environment - which is constantly pressuring the lab and filing suits. It represents surrounding neighborhoods whose interests often diverge sharply from the Energy Department's agenda.
"It isn't completely the case of a good lab versus a bad lab, but there does appear to be a difference of degrees between the two labs," said Marylia Kelley, director of the watchdog group.
Foley said the watchdog group had had a beneficial effect.
"There were a lot of pressures that forced the lab to look inward," he said.
Los Alamos has resisted not only external critics, but internal ones. Those who have blown the whistle at the lab say management is aware of the problems stemming from the closed culture.
"It's self-preservation," said Glenn Walp, the former head of the Pennsylvania State Police who took over security at the lab and then was fired after he uncovered financial fraud. He later filed a lawsuit against the lab and last year received a $930,000 settlement.
Walp was hardly alone.
"If people don't feel safe in speaking out, you're not going to change the culture," said Chuck Montano, a 26-year veteran at the lab.
Montano said he was stripped of job duties eight months ago. His mistake, he said, was conducting an audit that showed as many as 35% of employees were not following purchasing rules. The study was requested by managers in the aftermath of earlier purchasing scandals.
Montano now passes time surfing the Web and reading newspapers, and e-mailing Nanos and other managers, begging for an assignment that might justify his $82,000 salary. No one has replied.
"It's like Chinese water torture," he said. "I can take a nap all day and nobody would know. I don't even know who I'm supposed to be reporting to."
Others who have taken on the lab report similar treatment.
Deesh Narang, a specialist in nuclear regulatory compliance, said he had been "unassigned" for seven years since suing the lab for passing him over for a promotion. Awarded more than $500,000 in that case, he later won an internal retaliation grievance that accused the lab of wasting taxpayer money for paying his $100,000 annual salary but giving him nothing to do.
Narang, who applied for 50 positions, remains nothing more than a "demoralized" file clerk. He has filed another grievance against the lab, which he says has already spent more than $1.5 million fighting him.
"The lab is known for defending itself," he said. "Other people are scared to report anything because they see cases like mine and they know what will happen to them."
Independent experts worry that as Los Alamos tightens security, it also could harm its research capability.
Paul Jennings, a Caltech professor who just completed a report on Los Alamos and Livermore for the National Academy of Sciences, worried that if the balance between open research and security was not carefully maintained, the nation would lose a premier scientific institution.
"If you only emphasize security," Jennings said, "you will not be able to attract a highly capable workforce. Good people will go someplace else."
As the FBI and internal security staff investigate the missing disks, managers at Los Alamos are conducting face-to-face meetings with every employee to drive home the message that security procedures must be strictly followed. Reopening the lab could take many weeks, and possibly months for some divisions.
And, at more than two dozen other national laboratories and nuclear facilities across the country, normal operations will not resume until security procedures are reviewed, inventories are taken and the security of computer disks and other removable devices are assured.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Europe Joins U.S. in Demand For Action on Crisis in Sudan
By Paul Casciato
Reuters
Sunday, July 25, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12151-2004Jul24.html
LONDON, July 24 -- European allies joined the United States on Saturday in urging Sudan to end a conflict in its western Darfur region that Congress has labeled genocidal.
Britain's top military commander, Gen. Mike Jackson, said his country could send 5,000 troops to intervene in Darfur. "If need be, we will be able to go to Sudan. I suspect we could put a brigade together very quickly indeed," he told the BBC.
British officials have said they hold the Sudanese government responsible for ending the conflict, in which an estimated 30,000 people have been killed.
Britain has also accused the United Nations of being slow to respond. Prime Minister Tony Blair said this week he had not ruled out military intervention. A spokesman for Blair's office said Saturday that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is scheduled to visit Sudan next month.
More than 1 million African villagers have been forced from their homes by violence carried out by Arab militiamen called the Janjaweed, aid officials say. More than 2 million are in desperate need of aid, according to U.N. officials.
About 180,000 Darfur refugees have swollen camps across the border in eastern Chad to escape the Arab militia, which aid groups accuse of raping, killing, looting, burning villages, poisoning water supplies and destroying crops.
Television images from Chad show camps full of emaciated women and children living on meager rations and with little more than a few sticks for shelter after walking, sometimes for weeks, to camps short of basic supplies from water to medical equipment.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, told Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail in Brussels on Friday that the government must disarm the Janjaweed.
Solana "urged the government to arrest the leaders of the Janjaweed, as a first significant step towards the dismantling of these militias, which are held accountable for most of the human rights violations," Solana's spokeswoman said in a statement issued Saturday.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier will visit Darfur next week. He will also travel to Senegal, Chad and South Africa to show French support for African Union efforts to effect a cease-fire in the region.
Sudanese officials have warned Britain and the United States not to interfere in the country's internal affairs, saying it would reject any offer of military help to address what the United Nations says is the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
"The international concern over Darfur is actually a targeting of the Islamic state in Sudan," Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir said on Friday.
The House and Senate passed measures Thursday declaring that the Janjaweed attacks in Darfur constituted genocide and urged President Bush to seek a U.N. protection force.
-------- britain
Top British intelligence official sacked after Blair jibe: report
LONDON (AFP)
Jul 25, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040724224828.1ann27qe.html
A senior British intelligence official has been dismissed after publicly accusing Prime Minister Tony Blair of misleading the public over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the Sunday Times newspaper said.
John Morrison lost his job as chief investigator for Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the parliament's intelligence watchdog, after criticising Blair in a television interview, the newspaper said.
A senior British government official told the Sunday Times last week that Morrison had been "chopped" for speaking out on television.
"He is certainly not going to work for that committee again," said the unnamed source.
In an interview two weeks ago on BBC's investigative Panorama programme Morrison told how intelligence officials had reacted in disbelief to Blair's claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had posed "a serious and current threat to the United Kingdom."
"When I heard him using those words I could almost hear the collective raspberry going up around Whitehall (government)," Morrison said in the interview, according to the Sunday Times.
Blair had argued that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction made the Iraqi leader an immediate threat and that he had to be removed, but no such weapons have been found in the 15 months since Baghdad fell.
Earlier this month an official report into pre-war intelligence on Iraq's WMDs concluded that Britain's spy agencies got their facts badly wrong over the danger posed by Saddam.
However the inquiry, led by former top civil servant Lord Robin Butler, characterised any failings as institutional and absolved Blair and his government from deliberate wrongdoing.
--------
UK troops 'ready to go to Sudan'
BBC
25 July, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3922109.stm
The UK would be able to send 5,000 troops to Sudan to help ease the humanitarian crisis, the Army's most senior general has said.
Chief of General Staff Sir Mike Jackson told the BBC's HARDtalk programme: "I suspect we could put a brigade together very quickly indeed."
Tony Blair has said the crisis does not yet require British military intervention.
Pro-government Arab militias have forced more than one million black Africans from their homes in Darfur.
Efforts are ongoing to agree a UN Security Council resolution urging the Sudanese government to curb the conflict, which the US Congress has labelled as "genocide".
The UK has done as much, if not more, than any other nation in the world Hilary Benn International Development Secretary In an interview to be shown on HARDtalk on Friday and Monday, General Sir Mike said: "If need be we will be able to go to Sudan. I suspect we could put a brigade together very quickly indeed."
He added that that would mean 5,000 troops.
The government announced this week that 20,000 posts are to be axed across the Armed Forces.
The Army is to lose four infantry battalions but General Sir Mike denied it would be left overstretched and unable to mount operations in places like Sudan.
He told HARDtalk: "The Army is there to be used and it will have to go over its guidelines when the pressure is on."
He accepted some equipment was in short supply in Iraq, due to "the speed at which things had to be done".
Denial
Mr Blair told reporters on Thursday he had not ruled out sending the Army to the Sudan but the "critical thing" in the short-term was to try and make the current international strategy work.
International Development Secretary Hilary Benn has defended the government's handling of the crisis and said the UK was the largest financial donor.
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme the Sudan government was in denial about what was happening and the UK was leading international pressure on them.
Countries such as France and Germany have the opportunity to make a significant contribution Sir Menzies Campbell Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, He said: "We have made it very clear to the government of Sudan that if they don't act to bring these attacks to an end, further consequences will indeed follow."
Mr Benn added: "The UK has done as much, if not more, than any other nation in the world."
But the Liberal Democrats want an EU-led force to intervene, under a UN mandate.
Foreign affairs spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell, has written to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw saying food aid and diplomatic pressure is not enough.
He said: "With US and British forces stretched to breaking point, countries such as France and Germany have the opportunity to make a significant contribution.
Tory international development spokesman John Bercow, who has just returned from the Sudan, said there was a "a lot to be said" for military intervention.
But added that this should probably be undertaken through an EU or UN force.
"On the humanitarian front, Hilary Benn has done a good job but there is a huge mismatch between our humanitarian policy and our foreign policy," he told BBC's Breakfast with Frost on Sunday.
An Oxfam aid flight with 30 tonnes of water and sanitation equipment was due to leave on Friday night, but is set to be delayed until Sunday.
-------- china
Taiwan deploys missiles on island off China: Jane's
TAIPEI (AFP)
Jul 25, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040725100301.jz7g9s42.html
Taiwan has built a major missile and radar complex on an island off China aimed at restricting its rival's air force and naval capability in the Taiwan Strait, the authoritative Janes Defence Weekly says.
The report comes as both China and Taiwan conducted wargames amid fresh tensions between the arch foes, prompting the United States to call for restraint.
The new complex, located in Tungyin Island which is part of the Matsu group just 16 kilometers from the Chinese coast, includes two separate radars for the navy and army, according to the article to be published Wednesday.
The complex is armed with 100km-range (60 miles) Hsiung Feng 2 (Brave Wind) anti-ship missiles and Tien Kung 2 (Sky Bow) medium- to high-altitude surface-to-air missiles.
"These place several vital Chinese air bases, missile launch sites and naval facilities under Taiwan's missile umbrella," the London-based journal says.
Taipei has long held off from positioning missiles on Tungyin over concerns that this could violate a tacit agreement with Beijing over deploying missiles past the halfway point in the Taiwan Strait.
The policy appears to have changed following the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, when China lobbed ballistic missiles into waters off the island in order to influence Taiwanese elections, the weekly says.
However, Jane's did not say when the facility had been built.
The Tungyin facility appears aimed at restricting Chinese naval and air mobility at the northern end of the Taiwan Strait. A second facility on Penghu Island with the same missiles guards southern approaches to the waterway.
Having a radar so near China's only major base in Fujian province has the same effect as an having airborne radar, a US defense source said.
Since the March re-election of Taiwan's pro-independence president Chen Shui-bian, China has ratcheted up its rhetoric, reiterating its long-standing vow to take the island by force should Chen move it towards formal independence.
Beijing has considered Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
----
China must reinforce defence, says president
BEIJING (AFP)
Jul 25, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040725070133.gxoa4emw.html
China must reinforce its national defence and prioritise the protection of its territorial integrity, President Hu Jintao said in state media Sunday as Beijing was reportedly organising military exercises opposite Taiwan.
Hu told a meeting of Communist Party leaders Saturday that China "must effectively reinforce the building of national defence so that it is in harmony with economic development," the People's Daily reported.
China recorded economic growth of 9.7 percent in the first quarter of this year.
Hu's rare statement on military matters, largely the domain of former president Jiang Zemin, came as China continued annual exercises to demonstrate its ability to dominate air space over Taiwan, which it regards as its territory.
China has been training 18,000 troops on Dongshan Island 150 nautical miles west of Taiwan and large scale joint sea, land and air drills in the area are imminent, the pro-Beijing Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper said Friday.
Hu said China must "continue to give priority to national sovereignty and security, firmly defending the interests of the state and protecting with determination the sovereignty and national integrity of the nation."
China's defence budget for 2004 is 11.6 percent higher than that for 2003, after hikes of 9.6 percent in 2003 and 17.6 percent in 2002.
The budget was officially raised to 22.37 billion dollars in 2003, but Western experts believe it is actually two to three times as high.
China regards Taiwan as part of its territory waiting to be reunified, by force if necessary. The two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
-------- iraq
Paper Closed by U.S. Is Back in Business
Voice of Iraqi Radicals Vows to Keep Agitating
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12146-2004Jul24.html
BAGHDAD, July 24 -- About four months ago, U.S. combat troops seized the offices of the al-Hawza newspaper, evicted the staff and padlocked the front gate, armed with an order from Iraq's U.S. administrator saying the paper had incited violence against U.S.-led forces and their Iraqi supporters.
This week, al-Hawza reopened for business in the same dingy, tangerine-colored office covered with posters of turbaned Shiite clerics. Though officially welcomed back by the new Iraqi prime minister, the paper's officials defiantly vowed to return to the same brand of provocative criticism and religious agitation that got it shut down in March.
"We know that the American occupation is not really over, and we intend to remain as critical as before," said Abbas Rubaie, the chief editor, 38, shortly after returning to his office Saturday to a round of congratulatory kisses from his staff. "Closing the paper was a disaster" for U.S. officials, he added. "The Iraqi government should think hard before doing the same thing."
Al-Hawza is the editorial arm of a radical Shiite Muslim movement headed by Moqtada Sadr, a firebrand cleric who became an impassioned opponent of the U.S. presence in Iraq and formed a militia of young followers known as the Mahdi Army, named after the legendary lost imam of Shiism.
Founded in May 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led forces toppled the government of Saddam Hussein, the weekly paper, with a circulation of about 13,000, featured red-letter headlines excoriating U.S. troops and the U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer as enemies of Islam and Iraq. One of its most notorious articles was titled, "Bremer Follows the Steps of Saddam."
Finally, Bremer lost patience and shut down the paper on March 28, accusing it of reporting lies, fomenting instability and seeking to "incite violence against coalition forces" and their Iraqi collaborators. The action drew considerable criticism in Iraq and abroad; the Columbia Journalism Review called it "questionable" and counterproductive.
The crackdown sparked a series of street protests and led to several months of violent clashes between U.S.-led troops and youthful Shiite militia forces that left hundreds dead. But by May, the violence had subsided and public attention had turned to the U.S. military prison scandal and the impending transfer of sovereignty from U.S. to Iraqi hands, which took place on June 28.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi issued an order allowing the paper to reopen, saying he wanted to stress his "absolute belief in freedom of the press." But Sadr's aides responded with studied indifference, saying they did not need Allawi's approval and suggesting he was making a clumsy effort to buy them off.
"We were surprised by Allawi's statement," Rubaie said. "We are an independent newspaper, and it is not up to the government to authorize us or not." He said he had personally cut off the padlock and chains on the newspaper office the week before Allawi's order and had already intended to resume publishing.
But despite the statements, al-Hawza appears unlikely to return to its relentless, inflammatory attacks of last winter. For one thing, Bremer, is gone, and the new Iraqi authorities include senior Shiite officials who defended the paper against the U.S. actions.
"We are in the new Iraq. Any newspaper has the freedom to write," Hamid Bayati, the deputy foreign minister and a prominent figure in another Shiite group, said Saturday. "We will try to include the viewpoint that al-Hawza and al-Sadr represent in the political process. . . . We want all Iraqis to consider this government as their government."
At the same time, Sadr, who once preached weekly sermons filled with anti-American invective and was repeatedly threatened with arrest by U.S. officials, has become less active. In June, he dropped from sight until this week, when he suddenly reappeared in his home city of Najaf, heading evening prayers and delivering his first Friday sermon in weeks.
Sadr's new statements have been confusing and contradictory, suggesting some splits within his movement, an ambivalent view of the new government and a struggle with his original backers in Iran. At al-Hawza, meanwhile, staff members said this week that their aim would be to provide constructive criticism of the government, investigate corruption and expose the plight of the poor.
"We want to be the voice of the people, to pay attention to problems the other media ignore," said Hussain, 21, a student reporter who would give only one name. Another staff member said he was part of a delegation that had sought out Iraqi officials to let them know that al-Hawza was reopening and "to avoid a repeat of the past bloodshed."
Still, there is no question that the newspaper is a religious vehicle, supported and staffed by a radical Shiite movement. Rubaie is a Shiite cleric who was once the personal secretary of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, the father of Moqtada Sadr and a revered Shiite leader who was mysteriously assassinated in Najaf in 1999.
The editor and his staff wear casual Western garb and welcomed a female Washington Post reporter to their offices this week, but none would shake hands with her and one politely admonished her to hide her hair more securely beneath her head scarf.
As the paper geared up Saturday to publish its first edition since March, a reporter hunched over his tape recorder, transcribing an important interview by hand. It was a conversation with a member of Sadr's Mahdi Army, describing how he had been seriously wounded by U.S. military shrapnel but soon cured by the blessings of Mahdi, whose second coming is preached by Sadr.
"We are part of the Sadr office, and our policy before was to provoke peaceful resistance to the occupation. They shut us down because we were effective in doing that," said Haider Ali Hubar, who writes a satirical column for the paper. "In the past, we criticized the Americans. Now we will criticize the Americans and the Iraqis, too."
Special correspondent Bassam Sabti contributed to this report.
--------
Militants Use Kidnapping as Their Most Powerful Weapon in Iraq
July 25, 2004
By JAMES GLANZ
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/international/middleeast/25CND-IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, July 25 - As insurgents moved with rapidly increasing sophistication to develop hostage-taking as their most powerful weapon against foreign nations in Iraq, two Pakistanis working for a Kuwaiti-based company were believed to have been kidnapped today and fresh threats against other countries warned that their citizens were at risk unless they pulled out as well.
The United States military also reported that 13 insurgents were killed by American and Iraqi forces in a major battle north of Baghdad that involved small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and artillery fire. No Iraqi or American forces were reported killed.
The missing Pakistanis, a truck driver and an engineer working for the al-Tamimi Group, vanished as they were driving to Baghdad along heavily traveled supply routes. In an often-repeated scene that the insurgents seem to rely on to apply pressure, the family of one of the missing men made an emotional appeal for his release from their village 55 miles south of Islamabad, the Reuters news agency reported.
"I miss my father very much," said the 21-year-old daughter of the missing man, Azad Khan, as she wept. "I urge the Pakistani government and Iraqi people to help find my father."
In another display of their increasing skill, hostage-takers seized an Egyptian diplomat as he left a mosque on Friday. Three days before, insurgents enjoyed perhaps their greatest tactical success when they released a Filippino hostage, Angelo dela Cruz, after his government pulled 51 Filippino soldiers and police officers out of the country. The insurgents - in what has also become a standard, if macabre, technique - had threatened to behead Mr. dela Cruz if his countrymen did not pull out.
Roughly 20 foreigners are either being held hostage or have already been killed by their captors in Iraq.
Abducting foreigners "is like putting pressure on the painful parts of the body," said Abdul Sattar Abdul al-Jabbar, deputy spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Association, a moderate group that has condemned the kidnappings but is critical of what Mr. Jabbar calls the continuing American occupation of Iraq.
"It's very easy to kidnap foreigners in Iraq," Mr. Jabbar said. "It doesn't cost them anything," he said of the insurgents.
George Sada, a spokesman for Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, asserted that the outbreak of hostage-taking had come about as insurgents had recoiled from what he called the increasing power of Iraqi security forces. But Mr. Sada conceded that each hostage turned into a highly visible statement by the insurgents that Iraq is a dangerous place to live and work.
"Of course, they are embarrassing the government by these acts," Mr. Sada said.
The firefight between insurgents and the American and Iraqi forces took place at Buhritz, 35 miles north of Baghdad, the United States military said. It followed a raid by the Iraqis in farm country there. American troops participated in the battle with artillery fire, observation aircraft and soldiers who were described as "providing security" during the fighting.
But the taking of hostages has emerged as the low-tech analog of the American "nuclear option" - a weapon of unparalleled power, and one so effective that even the threat of using it carries great influence.
The tactic emerged in a major way in the first intense outbreak of insurgency in April. Since that time, at least 60 hostages have been reported freed, along with those who have been reported killed or are still missing.
More important, the taking of hostages has separated itself from the generalized violence in Iraq and become a prime weapon on its own. The method has the advantage, from the terrorists' point of view, of being cheap and almost entirely free of the risk that insurgents run when they confront American or Iraqi troops directly.
The personal nature of the tactic, usually involving video of the individual hostages with their captors and the grotesque threat of beheading, also ensures that each incident is given enormous exposure in the international media. As demonstrated by the pullout of the Filippino soldiers, which took place in the face of overwhelming public pressure in the Philippines to save Mr. dela Cruz, that exposure translates into a force that can move nations.
More specifically, the truckers who have been the focus of several recent incidents are part of an indispensible series of supply lines that bring materials in from surrounding countries. If those lines were to be disrupted, the entire American-backed effort to create stability and the conditions for a new government in Iraq could suffer.
"It's difficult to stop it, but we are trying to find the measures to decrease the number," said Hamid al-Bayati, the deputy foreign minister for political affairs and bilateral relations.
"We regret that some countries are really giving up to the terrorists," said Mr. Bayati, who is also a member of the central committee of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. "But we respect their decisions," he said.
--------
INSURGENTS
Iraqi Urges Allies Not to Be Deterred by Kidnappings; Executive Is Seized
July 25, 2004
By IAN FISHER
The New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 24 - Prime Minister Iyad Allawi urged Egypt on Saturday not to give in to demands by captors of an Egyptian diplomat in Baghdad, as the spate of kidnappings here widened with the abduction of a state construction official.
"The only way to deal with terrorists is to bring them to justice and to close ranks, and we hope that Egypt and the Egyptian government would act accordingly," Dr. Allawi told journalists during a visit to Syria, Reuters reported.
In a highly visible challenge to Dr. Allawi's young and fragile government, at least nine people have been kidnapped in Iraq since Monday, when the Philippine government completed withdrawing its troops here in exchange for the life of a Filipino truck driver.
[Two Pakistanis were believed to have been kidnapped in Iraq, a Foreign Office spokesman said Sunday, according to Reuters. "We will try our best to get them released if they are kidnapped," he said.]
Earlier kidnappings usually involved foreign truck drivers or contractors traveling outside Baghdad. The two most recent kidnappings occurred in the capital and appeared to be well planned.
Muhammad Mamdouh Qutb, identified as the third-ranking diplomat at the Egyptian Embassy, was seized Friday night, reportedly outside a mosque in Baghdad. His captors said the kidnapping was in response to Egypt's pledge to Dr. Allawi earlier this week to help combat violence in Iraq by training security forces and developing reconstruction projects. Egypt has ruled out sending troops.
On Saturday, Iraqi officials said that Raad Adnan, general director of Al Mansour Contracting Company, which is state-owned, had been kidnapped by armed men in two cars while driving in Baghdad. Mr. Adnan is also a senior official in the Ministry of Construction and Housing.
So far, no video of Mr. Adnan, an Iraqi, has been released, as has been usual when foreigners are kidnapped. This could suggest that Mr. Adnan's kidnapping was not political. In the lawlessness that followed the American-led invasion last year, dozens of Iraqis were kidnapped for ransom. But there does seem to be some blending of the political and the criminal in several of the more than 50 kidnappings in recent months. India's foreign minister, Natwar Singh, said Saturday that he believed that the abduction of seven truck drivers on Wednesday - three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian - was aimed at extracting ransom. "The group is not a political one," Mr. Singh said in New Delhi, Reuters reported. "These are only some irresponsible men who kidnap people to make money."
A group calling itself Holders of the Black Banners released a videotape to the Arab news channel Al Jazeera this week showing the seven captive drivers and threatening to behead one every 72 hours unless their demands were met: that their employer withdraw from Iraq and their nations agree not to cooperate with the American effort here.
On Friday, the Kuwaiti trucking company that employed the men said it would not withdraw, and the kidnappers revised their demands. According to another videotape broadcast by Al Jazeera, the kidnappers gave the men's employer another 48 hours to comply and demanded a release of all Iraqis held in American and Kuwaiti jails.
At least three hostages have been beheaded: the American businessman Nicholas Berg, a South Korean interpreter and one of two kidnapped Bulgarian truck drivers. This week another headless body was found north of the capital next to a sack holding a human head. Bulgarian officials are trying to determine if the body is that of the second driver.
A group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with suspected ties to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for those kidnappings. The more recent kidnappings have been by previously unknown groups.
Meanwhile, a group calling itself the European branch of Al Qaeda threatened attacks against Australia and Italy if they did not withdraw their troops from Iraq. The statement, on an Islamic Web site, was made days after a similar threat against Poland and Bulgaria. [Foreign Minister Alexander Downer of Australia said Sunday that his country would not give in to the threats of attack, Reuters reported.]
On Saturday, the American military said a marine died from injuries sustained "while conducting security and stability operations" west of Baghdad.
-------- israel / palestine
Is Anti Zionism Anti Semitism?!
From: "Ibrahim Ebeid" <watan_arabi@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004
I was not surprised to hear that some Catholic religious leaders have met with Zionist leaders in a meeting that took place in Buenos Aires recently. They have considered that "anti Zionism is anti Semitism". It is indeed a sad state that the Catholic Church in the West has reached. This step indeed has passed all the misgivings and the wrong doings that the church committed in the past. In fact Zionism is a racist movement. The Palestinians are Arabs and the Arabs are Semite and this Racist movement is against them. Its acts in Palestine are a testament to our allegations.
The Zionist movement obliterated Palestine and the Palestinians were subjugated to a systematic killing, which is genocide. Shamelessly these Catholic Leaders who signed the Buenos Aires Statement are supporting the genocide against the Palestinian and the obliteration of their country.
No one escaped the tyranny of the Zionist entity which was created illegally in a Palestine that is historically Arab and belongs to the Palestinians people since time immemorial. Even the Christians of Palestine, the Holy Land, were not spared. They were and still are being persecuted by this vicious racist entity that you are supporting. They flourished and progressed under the Arab Muslim rule and throughout history, they were an active part of the society until your Zionist allies came They were 30% of the land and now they are less than 2% thanks to you and to your blind support for such a racist movement and entity.
The Zionist Movement started its aggression against the Palestinians long before the establishment of the entity by the Christian West. Prior to the unjust and illegal Partition Resolution of November 1947 the Zionists were planning, organizing and carrying out terror and sabotage activities against the British and against the Moslem and Christians of the Holy Land.
The terror continues to the present time. Our children are being jailed and killed, our lands are being destroyed and confiscated, including lands that belong to the Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem, our olive trees are being uprooted, and our homes are being bulldozed. We were dispersed around the World and deprived from living in our country.
Our clergies also did not escape the persecution of this racist movement and its entity. Do you remember the story of the he Roman Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem, Hilarion Capucci? To remind those among you who have forgotten, he was put in jail in 1974. He was tortured and spat at by your racist friends that you defend, the Zionists; then he was sentenced for 12 years. A respected Cleric was accused of being terrorist by the racist terrorists themselves.
Just take a look at what is happening in Gaza, in Nablus, in Jenin. In Ramallah and in every inch in Palestine and let your conscience speak up, unless it is dead. Indeed you have eyes and you cannot see and have ears and cannot hear.
We have lost faith in the West. We have lost faith in their religious and political institutions and I wish that my fellow Christian Arabs will go back to our roots and cut the hair that holds us with the Western Churches. We are the cornerstones of Christianity. Those Christian leaders, whether Evangelist or Roman Catholic who support the Zionist Movement have rejected the cornerstone; they became Zionist Christians, their religious institutions will crumble, they have gone astray.
Al-Moharer 186 July 25, 2004 http://www.al-moharer.net co-editor@al-moharer.net
--------
Israelis Form Human Chain to Protest Withdrawal Plan
July 25, 2004
By JOSEPH BERGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/international/middleeast/25CND-MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, July 25 -- Tens of thousands of Israelis held hands today to form a colorful human chain -- broken in places, but formidable nonetheless -- that stretched 90 kilometers from the Gaza Strip to the Western Wall in the Old City here to protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw Jewish settlers from large parts of the occupied territories.
The sheer size and forcefulness of the demonstration -- organizers estimated that 200,000 Israelis took part, though police put the number at 70,000 -- represented perhaps the gravest challenge yet to Mr. Sharon's disengagement plan under which Israel would withdraw from the entire 26-mile long Gaza Strip and four northern settlements in the West Bank. The protest comes as Mr. Sharon, who is hanging on to power without a majority government, must get the Knesset to ratify and finance his plan.
Mr. Sharon failed to get his own party to support the plan, though he did succeed in getting Cabinet approval in early June. Thirty Knesset members took part in today's demonstration, including the speaker, the organizers said.
The demonstrators, waving blue and white Israeli flags and sometimes chanting Psalms, stretched along some of the nation's major highways, finding footholds on rocky or brush-covered slopes or enduring a blazing late afternoon sun in dusty junctions. There were, of course, many long stretches along the highways where rocky outcroppings, thick bushes or speeding traffic meant no one could stand. Shortly after 7 p.m., the thousands of demonstrators locked hands and sang "Hatikvah," the national anthem, before breaking up.
Many dismissed Mr. Sharon's argument that it is foolish to continue to deploy hundreds of soldiers to protect 7,500 Jewish settlers living among 1.3 million Palestinians.
If we give up the Gaza Strip, by the same token we can give up Israel, said Chaim Markuza, a 62-year-old retired textile businessman from Givatayim outside Tel Aviv. It's much more comfortable to live in North America or Australia.
He said his town, Givatayim was once a settlement in sometimes hostile territory, but it became part of Israel as a result of the 1948 War of Independence. "I don't see any difference between the wars of 1948 and 1968," he said, referring to the Six-Day War in which Israel captured the Gaza Strip and West Bank. "In both cases we were attacked by our enemies and those who started the war and lost should pay for it. This is land that is historically ours."
As if to highlight the dangers that Mr. Sharon speaks about, Palestinian militants fired shells at a community center in the heavily populated settlement of Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip, injuring six children, including one 10-year-old whose wounds were described as serious. Palestinians also continued to suffer in the conflict. Around midday today, Israel Air Force helicopters fired two missiles in Gaza City, hitting a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood. Two passers-by, were taken to Gaza hospital with light wounds, and two others were treated on the spot. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said the target of the strike was apparently a car belonging to the Islamic Jihad activist Abu Waal Jundi, which was destroyed.
The demonstrators included many of the 240,000 settlers in the occupied territories, particularly the more observant ones, but also both secular and Orthodox Israelis from all over the country. They were dropped off along the protest route by 900 buses starting around 4 p.m.
The chain began in the Gaza settlement of Nissanit. The first human link was a grandmother, Shulamit Beter, who lived in the Gaza settlement of Kfar Dorom before it was abandoned in the 1948 war. The settlement was revived after Israel captured the Gaza Strip. The last person in the chain was Mrs. Beter's granddaughter, Yael, who now lives in Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip. Like thousands of Jews have done since the Western Wall was captured in the 1967 war, she placed a note in a crevice of the wall, though organizers did not reveal what it said.
--------
Palestinians Seize Office of Governor
July 25, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/international/middleeast/25mide.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, July 24 - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip took over a government building for several hours on Saturday in the latest challenge to the Palestinian leadership. A police station was also stormed and set on fire by unidentified attackers.
The Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, has been unable to halt the unrest even though much of the violence over the past week has been carried out by members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant faction that says it is loyal to Mr. Arafat.
The turmoil has provoked a government crisis, with the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, submitting his resignation a week ago to protest the lawlessness in Gaza and the disarray in the Palestinian security forces. Mr. Arafat has refused to accept the resignation, and the dispute remains unresolved.
Mr. Arafat sought to play down the crisis on Saturday.
"The prime minister has the full right to propose anything he wants, and whatever is suitable for him," Mr. Arafat said.
In the attacks on Saturday, about 20 members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades seized the governor's office in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis around dawn. The masked gunmen demanded that 11 Aksa members recently fired from the security forces be reinstated and that Mousa Arafat, a cousin of Mr. Arafat who was appointed the chief of general security in Gaza a week ago, be dismissed.
After telephone negotiations between the gunmen and the governor, Hosni Zorob, the militants left the building, saying they received assurances the security officers would get their jobs back. No one was hurt during the takeover. But Mr. Zorob said that the issue would be studied and that the men were not assured of returning to their posts.
In the other attack on Saturday, unidentified militants stormed into a police station before dawn in Zawaida, about four miles south of Gaza City, and set it alight after pouring gasoline inside it. The fire caused extensive damage, but no one was hurt.
-------- mideast
Iraq, Syria to form border security committee
July 26, 2004
Pakistan Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_25-7-2004_pg4_7
DAMASCUS: Syria and Iraq will form a committee to improve security along their long desert border, which Washington says anti-US insurgents use to infiltrate Iraq, the countries' prime ministers said on Saturday. After a series of meetings in Damascus, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the two countries had agreed to look at how to better control the 600-km (375-mile) frontier, which Washington and Baghdad see as a serious source of instability in Iraq.
"We have ... formed a joint committee to look at these issues (border and security) in detail in the future, in the weeks ahead," Allawi told a news conference.
"Syria has seen terrorism in earlier days, even by the old regime in Iraq when Saddam tried to inflict a lot of damage on the Syrian people and kill a lot of Syrian civilians. Now it's time for us to close ranks."
US officials have repeatedly accused Syria of failing to do enough to keep anti-US militants from crossing into Iraq, though the US military acknowledges that foreign fighters account for few of the guerrilla suspects it has detained.
"We do not only say that we deny, but moreover we oppose any infiltration that takes place from Syria to Iraq as we do oppose any infiltration from Iraq to Syria," Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari said.
"We have affirmed during the meeting the keenness of Syria under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad to achieve security and stability in Iraq and Syria's support to the efforts that aim at achieving that."
Allawi's interim government won a pledge of support on border security from Jordan on the first stage of his regional tour.
----
US Central Command chief meets head of UAE armed forces
ABU DHABI (AFP)
Jul 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040724201705.d1xbfeez.html
US Central Command chief General John Abizaid met here Saturday with the chief of staff of the United Arab Emirates armed forces, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the official WAM news agency reported.
The talks between the US military commander and Sheikh Mohammed, who is also deputy to Abu Dhabi's crown prince, focused on "military issues of mutual interest," WAM said without elaborating.
It did not say when Abizaid, who has been to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain during a regional tour, arrived in the UAE capital.
-------- nato
NATO OKs Deployment of Afghan Troops
Associated Press Writer
By PAUL GEITNER
July 25, 2004
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/N/NATO_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- After months of delay, NATO has ordered hundreds more peacekeepers to Afghanistan to help provide security during presidential elections, but the deployment still appeared to fall short of 3,500 troops that were promised.
NATO ambassadors meeting late Friday approved two more battalions for Afghanistan, one each from Italy and Spain. A battalion has between 600 and 1,000 soldiers.
The alliance also cleared another 500 or so troops to beef up provincial reconstruction teams. Assuming the battalions were large, that would still make only about 2,500 troops.
"We need a little bit more to get to 3,500," said Lt. Col. Ludger Terbrueggen, spokesman at NATO's military headquarters in southern Belgium. Cdr. Chris Henderson, a spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force in the Afghan capital of Kabul, said a third battalion would be on standby as part of a reserve contingent outside the country. He said the alliance had yet to decide which countries would supply the reserve force but insisted "NATO has not failed in meeting its commitment."
U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns called the reinforcements "a significant step in the efforts of the international community to help the Afghan people."
NATO took command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan last summer. It currently has some 6,500 troops there, about half from Germany and Canada.
In October the alliance agreed to expand the force. But apart from Germany, which sent 240 soldiers to the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, NATO had been unable to persuade governments to provide needed troops.
The delay has cast doubt on the alliance's credibility as it seeks to reinvent itself as a global security force in the post-Cold War era.
The troops from Italy and Spain will arrive in Afghanistan by September and remain for about two months, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in a statement. The election is planned for Oct. 9.
De Hoop Scheffer would likely work the phones over the next few days to raise more troops, Terbrueggen said.
The NATO troops serve apart from the 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition force, which focuses on tracking down remnants of al-Qaida and the deposed Taliban government, mostly in the border area with Pakistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai pleaded with NATO leaders at their June summit to send more soldiers as quickly as possible.
Violence in Afghanistan this year has killed more than 600 people, including soldiers, international workers and civilians.
The allies committed themselves to increase troop levels to 10,000, but still struggled to come up with the soldiers.
France and other NATO members objected to an American proposal that NATO's elite new response force be deployed, arguing it should be saved for emergencies, not peacekeeping.
The NATO statement said the Italian battalion is "an element" of the rapid response force and will act as a reserve for the Spanish, who will provide a "quick reaction force."
They will probably be based in the capital, Kabul, but able to dash around the country to help out.
Spain pledged to increase its contingent in Afghanistan to 1,000, from about 140, after pulling its forces out of Iraq in April.
Germany, with 1,909 troops in Afghanistan, and Canada, with 1,576, are by far the most generous of the NATO contributors. France ranks next with 565. The remaining 23 NATO countries, plus 11 outside NATO, have pitched in about 2,500 combined.
De Hoop Scheffer said Afghan authorities will "retain primary responsibility" for security.
-------- philippines
Two British navy ships dock in Philippines' Subic for exercises
MANILA (AFP)
Jul 25, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040725074152.pxbcv8k2.html
Two British navy ships docked in a former US naval base north of the Philippines capital Manila Sunday for joint exercises with local forces.
HMS Exeter and RFA Grey Hover will stay in the Subic freeport for four days on a goodwill visit and to demonstrate their ability to operate in areas such as the Asia Pacific, port officials said.
The crew of 316 will also be conducting "joint naval training exercises including warfare technical advice" with the Philippine navy, Exeter's commanding officer Andrew Reed said in a statement.
British sailors will also be engaged in outreach programs in local communities in the area, he said.
Filipino sailors meanwhile will be given hands on training aboard the ships, said Philippine navy spokesman Captain Ernesto Bonifacio.
-------- spies
Looking for an Iraq precedent? Try Honduras
Chicago Sun
BY WILLIAM O'ROURKE
July 25, 2004
http://www.suntimes.com/output/orourke/cst-edt-rour25.html
The report last week that Iraq's recently installed prime minister, Iyad Allawi, was setting up a new security service, the General Security Directorate, to "annihilate" terrorists, rang a bell. It was a very loud bell -- and it needed to be, in order to be heard over all the other alarms competing for attention.
Allawi's new initiative followed on the heels of his earlier announcement of granting himself emergency powers, such as banning groups considered seditious, imposing curfews and detaining anyone he chooses.
What Allawi's new measures brought to mind was the career of John Negroponte, the diplomat who replaced Paul Bremer as our man in Baghdad.
Both Bremer and Negroponte have had Henry Kissinger in their backgrounds -- in Negroponte's case, during his early service in Vietnam, which included time at the Paris Peace talks. Negroponte shows up wherever America is intervening: After Vietnam, it was to Central America, most notably an ambassadorship in Honduras.
And it is in Negroponte's time there that Iraq's new security service has its notorious precedent. The chief of the Honduran national police force, Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, ran an infamous death squad, Battalion 316. Alvarez and Negroponte were great buddies, many claim. Negroponte's job was to make sure Honduras was a stable supply depot for the Reagan administration's support of the contras, the CIA-backed movement opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
Negroponte became the target of a number of human rights groups back then but, unlike, say, Oliver North, Negroponte managed to stay afloat in the world of diplomacy. He did so well the Reagan administration presented him with an award, the Legion of Merit.
Of course, the Reagan administration was also the Bush administration, given George H.W. Bush's service as vice president. Then-Vice President Bush claimed to be out of the ''loop'' on all the Central American nefarious doings in the same way Negroponte claims he never knew about Honduran death squads. He has been quoted saying all that was nothing but "communist propaganda," although Negroponte may have noticed -- given all the high praise for his competence -- how the "seditious" were dropping dead, or were being forever detained in a ditch.
Negroponte told the Washington Post recently he was proud of his service in Honduras. "It was certainly my job to be concerned with the Honduran march toward democracy'' -- from being a ''military government to a civilian government.'' Sound familiar?
Iraq's new prime minister, like Negroponte, is well connected to the CIA, and Allawi's new policies are following a script Negroponte could have written. Iraq isn't a small country in Central America, but our role in Iraq and our presence there is duplicating our policies in Central America. And if you think Central America is an American success story, you can have hopes for Iraq.
Negroponte is yet another member of the Bush administration with a long history with the Bush family and -- like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld -- Negroponte's familiarity is more with the father than the son. Negroponte became the U.S. representative to the United Nations a week after 9/11, which muted the criticism to his appointment. The Bushes do not like to go very far afield when they do their most sensitive business -- be it arms for hostages in the Iran-contra case, or overseeing Iraq's transition from a military government headed now by Allawi to its ''march toward democracy.''
Negroponte's specialty in Honduras was setting one rebel group against another, getting them to eliminate one another. Whether he can do that on a much larger scale in Iraq -- setting tribe against tribe, sect against sect -- remains to be seen.
But, if Prime Minister Allawi, our former CIA asset, wants to know how to turn his General Security Directorate into an effective death squad, he knows where to go for advice and information. But Negroponte still claims ignorance about all that, just as Ken Lay claims he didn't know anything about what was going on at Enron, despite being praised and amply rewarded for his time there running it.
-------- war crimes
Tribunal Detectives Pursue War Criminals in the Balkans
July 25, 2004
By MARLISE SIMONS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/international/europe/25serb.html?pagewanted=all&position=
THE HAGUE, July 24 - The war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has no assault troops or police commandos at its service. But it does have detectives armed with cameras.
For almost two years, the undercover agents and their network of informants have snooped around streets in Serbia and traveled through the mountains in Bosnia. Their business is to find and shadow people suspected of committing war crimes during the Balkan conflict of the early 1990's.
The agents, experienced military and police investigators from several nations, have no power to make arrests. For that they must rely on the Serbian authorities or, in Bosnia, on NATO peacekeepers.
Their reports back to The Hague, prosecutors say, have produced ample information about many of the 22 suspects still at large in Serbia and Bosnia. They have also offered valuable insights into why it is so difficult to arrest some of the most wanted men.
Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor, said her detectives had produced proof that local government officials regularly warned suspects of an impending arrest, allowing them to escape.
Until recently, the prosecutor's "tracking team," as it is known here, had been treated as an official secret. But this week, Ms. Del Ponte abruptly issued a public communiqué describing the undercover operations. On Thursday, for the first time, she even released surveillance photographs taken by the detectives, to expose what she called the hypocrisy of the Serbian and Bosnian authorities.
Her move also reflects some of the frustration felt at the tribunal, which began proceedings seven years ago but has yet to get its hands on some of the most important war crimes suspects.
The United Nations, which provides the money for the tribunal, has said that the court must close by 2008.
Although Serbian and Bosnian officials have repeatedly said they are fully cooperating with the tribunal - a condition for achieving greater access to Western money and acceptance by the European Union - Ms. Del Ponte said this week that they were lying, and that she could prove it.
Recounting her story in an interview, she said that earlier this month, when her office was about to deliver a new indictment and arrest warrant to Serbia, she and her agents decided to set a trap.
The arrest order was for Goran Hadzic, a leader of rebel Serbs in Krajina, Croatia, who was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. A warehouse worker before the war, Mr. Hadzic profited from wartime smuggling, Ms. Del Ponte said, and now lives in a comfortable villa in Novi Sad, a Serbian city on the Danube.
"The day before delivering the papers, we put Hadzic's house under surveillance," she said.
She offered a detailed account of what came next.
On July 13, at 9:30 a.m., her representatives delivered the indictment and arrest warrant for Mr. Hadzic to the Serbian Foreign Ministry in Belgrade. They also provided Mr. Hadzic's address. In keeping with the standard practice, on the same day, at 11:30 a.m., copies were transmitted to the Serbian Embassy at The Hague.
At 3:30 p.m., Ms. Del Ponte said, the Serbian Foreign Ministry sent the documents to the Belgrade District Court. They arrived there after working hours.
That day, Mr. Hadzic was seen in his garden. He left his home at 12:38 p.m., and returned 45 minutes later.
"Around 4 o'clock he gets a call on his cellphone," Ms. Del Ponte said. "It's the call tipping him off. I'd quite like to know who that was."
At 4:27 p.m., he was seen leaving his house carrying a bag. He got into a car with a driver and drove off.
Two days later, Ms. Del Ponte said, the local police reported to the Belgrade Court that Mr. Hadzic was not at home and that his whereabouts were unknown.
On Thursday, after she released the surveillance photographs, the Serbian police said they would open an internal investigation into Mr. Hadzic's escape.
It was not the first time, she said, that a suspect had vanished after the Belgrade authorities were asked to make an arrest.
This year, tribunal detectives discovered the Belgrade address of a fugitive charged with genocide in connection with a massacre in Bosnia. Ms. Del Ponte passed the information to the Belgrade authorities.
"A week later,'' she said, "Belgrade replied that it had not been able to make the arrest and the suspect vanished."
Of about 100 suspects who have so far appeared before the tribunal, several have come as a result of sleuthing by the tribunal's detectives, though Ms. Del Ponte would not say how many.
Some of the accused have turned themselves in. Others were arrested in Croatia or in Serbia, especially during the government of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated last year. It was Mr. Djindjic who handed over the former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, who is now on trial in The Hague.
Tribunal detectives have reported multiple sightings of the two most wanted men, Gen. Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, the prosecutor said. General Mladic has been seen in Belgrade at restaurants, at a soccer game and at a cemetery, but no one has moved to arrest him.
Last February, tribunal agents located Dr. Karadzic in Zaovine, a Serbian village near the Bosnian border. They informed NATO peacekeepers in Bosnia, who said they would confirm his whereabouts. "So they sent a helicopter flying over the area, alerting Karadzic," said a tribunal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Ms. Del Ponte says that she will not criticize the NATO troops because she needs them and they have already made about two dozen arrests. But one of her aides said that it was NATO's insistence that it did not have the time or resources for manhunts that led the prosecution to create its own detective team.
The prosecutors borrowed the idea from the United Nations tribunal dealing with the genocide in Rwanda, where undercover agents were especially needed because many suspects had fled. The agents have tracked down more than 50 suspects in Africa, Europe and Canada, where they were then detained and extradited to face trial.
"It's classic shadowing work, with the use of sources and informants," said a former investigator familiar with the work of both tribunals. "It's like infiltrating drug cases, but much more frustrating if you find your suspect and no one will arrest him."
NATO has staged numerous raids to catch Dr. Karadzic, but its critics point out that its cumbersome operations, with large military vehicles, helicopters and dozens of soldiers, are far too easily spotted. "It's a job better left to a plainclothes squad," the former investigator said.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- drug war
Brazil Carries the War on Drugs to the Air
July 25, 2004
By LARRY ROHTER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/international/americas/25braz.html?pagewanted=all
BRASÍLIA, July 23 - After hesitating for six years, in large part because of pressure from the United States, Brazil has announced that it will begin shooting down aircraft used in trafficking illegal drugs in its airspace.
Only Colombia, the source of much of the cocaine and heroin sold in the United States, has such a policy in effect. But Brazil's northern Amazon corridor has become an increasingly busy and essential route in the global drug trade and is used for smuggling arms, gold and diamonds.
The law to permit such an action was originally approved in 1998, but Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was president from 1995 to 2003, never signed the decree to put the policy into effect. His reluctance was attributed to concern in the United States about the accidental downing of civilian planes, which could expose the American government and companies to lawsuits.
"This is a good measure, and a bold and courageous step by the government," said Gen. Mauro José Miranda Gandra, a former chief of the air force who is now director of the Air Institute at Estácio de Sá University in Rio de Janeiro. But he said he worried that its impact would be "more political than practical" because of restrictions Brazil was imposing on itself.
The Brazilian government's decision to act now seems driven mostly by the deteriorating public security situation in cities like São Paulo and, especially, Rio de Janeiro. Drug gangs there are increasingly powerful and violent, with more firepower than the police, and they have demonstrated an ability to attack police stations and to force businesses and schools to close.
In April 2001, the most notorious of Rio's drug bosses, Fernandinho Beira-Mar, was captured in Colombia in what the authorities described as a guns-for-drugs pipeline involving left-wing guerrillas. Another drug- and gun-smuggling route, said to be one of the most important in supplying Europe with cocaine, runs from Colombia across the northern tier of the Amazon to Suriname.
"Our perception is that we needed to have at our disposal a more powerful means of dissuasion," Brazil's defense minister, José Viegas, said in an interview here. "The drug dealers, knowing that the Brazilian Air Force could not take extreme measures, have felt excessively free at times to come and go over our airspace."
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has referred to the policy as a matter of national sovereignty and security. In an interview with foreign correspondents last year, he expressed annoyance that some pilots of drug-running aircraft were so confident of their immunity from retribution that they would make obscene gestures at the Brazilian Air Force pilots tracking them.
The United States had been cooperating with operations to shoot down drug-running planes in Latin America, but it began to back away from its support in April 2001 when a Peruvian jet shot down a small plane, mistakenly identified as a drug carrier, and killed an American missionary and her child. Because the United States had provided intelligence and technical support to the operation, relatives of the victims sued the United States government and won a settlement.
"U.S. law may forbid assistance to countries that implement shootdown laws under certain conditions," a State Department official said when asked to comment on Brazil's move. The official said, however, that the United States, which is scheduled to provide Brazil with $10.2 million in drug and law enforcement aid this year, "agrees with the Brazilian assessment that the threat posed by drug traffickers is both very serious and increasing," and added, "we have been in consultation with the government of Brazil about the provisions of U.S. law."
Mr. Viegas acknowledged that there had been "difficulties" winning American support for his government's plan, which requires eight precautionary steps before an order to shoot down a plane may be issued. But he said that recent bilateral talks had led to "perfect clarity that the decree will be well received by the American government" and that Brazil would be able to act "without being exposed to commercial sanctions."
Two years ago, Brazil inaugurated the $1.4 billion Sivam radar system, which uses American technology and for the first time allows the government to monitor air activity in the whole of the vast Amazon region. But after an initial decline of 30 percent, which Brazil attributed to traffickers' concerns about the improved tracking capabilities, illegal flights began rising again.
Just last year, Brazil recorded 4,128 "unauthorized flights," some of which were innocent violations like those made by ranchers in the Amazon flying from one plantation to another. Mr. Viegas said, however, that there had been a "real increase" of deliberate violations of Brazilian airspace, apparently by drug smugglers who realized that the government's hands were tied.
The new policy will go into effect in late October, and will be preceded by a publicity campaign to warn ranchers and others of the need to file flight plans. Brazilian officials have also expressed hope that during the interim period the United States will formally endorse the new policy here.
Brazilian officials made it clear that the new policy would not be applied against any aircraft with children on board. Though Mr. Viegas said that was "a necessary limitation" and "an incidental question," some other prominent supporters of the law were skeptical.
"This really left me perplexed, because it practically undermines the very purpose of the decree," General Gandra said. "What you're doing is creating a safe-conduct pass for drug-smuggling aircraft carrying kids and creating the possibility that children will be kidnapped and used as human shields."
Even with the caveat for children, the constitutionality of the law is being questioned. Brazil forbids the death penalty as punishment for criminal acts, and though the government argues otherwise, some legal experts and other commentators maintain that the statute amounts to a de facto execution of drug traffickers.
"The ethical and juridical problems raised by the regulation of the shoot down law are much greater than the benefits this extreme measure can bring," the daily O Estado de São Paulo said in an editorial this week. "This penalty will be applied beyond the reach of justice, by administrative decision of the commander of the air force, who will have life and death power over crew members and passengers of irregular flights."
-------- torture
A Secret Deportation Of Terror Suspects
2 Men Reportedly Tortured in Egypt
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11976-2004Jul24?language=printer
STOCKHOLM -- The airport police officer was about to close his small precinct station for the night, when two men wearing suits walked in. The visitors said the special Swedish security police had just arrested two suspected terrorists -- very dangerous men -- and needed a place to hold them until a plane could take them away.
The airport policeman recounted in an interview that he agreed to let them borrow his cramped office that night, Dec. 18, 2001, and stepped out of the way. But there was something strange about this operation. The two men in suits, who were soon joined by two uniformed Swedish police officers, did not speak Swedish, he said, and their English sounded distinctly American.
Another oddity: When the suspects arrived a few minutes later, they were escorted by a half-dozen security agents wearing hoods.
The hooded agents took the suspected terrorists into the precinct's dressing room. Inside, the agents cut off the prisoners' clothes with scissors, changed the men into red overalls and bound them with handcuffs and leg irons. Then they were hustled out the door and onto the tarmac, where a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V jet was waiting.
The men with covered faces "were very quiet," recalled Paul Forell, the police officer on duty at Stockholm's Bromma Airport that night. "When they gave orders to each other, they kept their voices down. It seemed like they had done this before. They were very professional." Forell said he could not hear them well enough to get a feel for their nationality.
The plane's destination was Cairo. Its two unwilling passengers were Egyptian nationals who had applied for asylum in Sweden more than a year earlier, hoping to take advantage of its extensive programs for refugees facing political arrest or persecution in their home countries. After welcoming the men at first, the Swedish government reversed its position after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The deportation was carried out swiftly and outside Sweden's normal legal channels. Officials gave final approval to the expulsion order at 4 p.m. on Dec. 18, according to accounts issued later by the government. The men had been grabbed on the street without warning by 5 p.m. and were in the air by 9:47 p.m. Their lawyers were not officially notified of the expulsion until after the plane had departed, to prevent them from filing appeals.
Playing a central and secret role in the operation: the U.S. government, which provided the plane, some agents and other logistical support, according to classified documents recently released by the Swedish government, as well as interviews in Stockholm and Cairo.
The CIA refers to such cases as "extraordinary renditions," the fast and forcible transfer of foreign terrorism suspects to other countries, often their places of origin, where they can be detained or interrogated more freely, often without all the legal protections available in the country they left.
Details of such operations are almost always secret, and the United States has not acknowledged its role in the deportation of the two Egyptian men. But CIA officials have testified in Congress about engaging in about 70 renditions before 2001. Security analysts said the number has increased substantially since then, as the U.S. government has become more aggressive in its global hunt for people considered a threat to national security.
Critics have charged that the practice is vulnerable to abuse, noting that suspects are usually deported to countries that are friendly to U.S. intelligence agencies but also have records of permitting torture or other human rights violations. In organizing such transfers, the U.S. government is engaging in practices abroad that would be illegal and unconstitutional at home, those critics have said.
The fate of the two Egyptian men offers a rare glimpse into such a case, as well as an example of what can go wrong.
The Swedish government, for instance, agreed to deport the suspects only after receiving assurances from Egypt that they would be given fair trials and "not be subjected to inhuman treatment or punishment of any kind," according to a confidential memo prepared by Swedish diplomats six days before the expulsion.
Records and interviews show, however, that the agreement was broken almost as soon as the two men arrived in Cairo. Their lawyers, relatives and human rights groups said there is credible evidence that they were regularly subjected to electric shocks and other forms of torture. One suspect was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a military tribunal after a trial that lasted less than six hours. The other spent almost two years behind bars without being charged.
Swedish government officials now say the deportation was an embarrassing mistake. The government has called for an international investigation, possibly under the authority of the United Nations, into how the two men were treated. Separately, the Swedish parliament has opened an internal probe to determine the exact role played by U.S. intelligence agents.
"We have taken the allegations seriously, very seriously," Deputy Foreign Minister Hans Dahlgren said in an interview in Stockholm. "We have asked for an independent, international investigation. . . . It would be in the best interests of the government of Egypt to do this" if the allegations are false. Ties to Al Qaeda
The better known of the two repatriated men is Ahmed Agiza, a 42-year-old physician whose wife and five children remain in Sweden.
His attorneys have acknowledged that he once worked closely in Egypt with Ayman Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who later merged that group with al Qaeda, becoming Osama bin Laden's second in command. Agiza was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which the State Department has designated a terrorist group.
Agiza said he had once met bin Laden, according to a jailhouse interview he gave to a Swedish radio reporter in 2002 shortly after he returned to Egypt. His attorneys said he cut ties with Zawahiri a decade ago and has denounced the use of violent tactics by Islamic radicals, including al Qaeda.
Agiza left his homeland in 1991, saying he had been repeatedly harassed by Egyptian security forces.
In 1999, while living in Iran, he was convicted in absentia by an Egyptian military court -- along with 106 other defendants -- of belonging to a banned Islamic organization. One year later, he and his family arrived in Sweden on false passports and applied for political asylum.
It is not clear whether Agiza knew Muhammad Zery, 35, the man with whom he would later be deported to Cairo. Zery also left Egypt in 1991, after he was harassed and physically abused there, according to his lawyer. He traveled to Saudi Arabia and Syria before arriving in Sweden in 1999 and requesting asylum.
Swedish officials have said that Zery, too, was convicted in absentia in Egypt and that he was a suspect in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, when he would have been 13 years old. But his attorneys and human rights groups that have worked on his behalf said there is no record that Zery was charged with any offenses in Egypt and they can't understand why he was expelled.
The allegations against him are all clearly erroneous, said his Swedish attorney, Kjell Jonsson. "The representatives of the [Swedish] government have been lying or not telling the full truth on this since the beginning."
Bo Johansson, a Stockholm lawyer who has represented Agiza, said Swedish diplomats in Cairo later told the Egyptian man's parents that he was deported because Sweden was under "international pressure" to do so.
"I think the American influence is a very important factor in all of this," Johansson said. "It is becoming clearer as more information comes out. Something happened very quickly after Sept. 11. . . . We had always thought there was an X factor at work here. Now we know that it must have been an American factor." Secret U.S. Role
The U.S. involvement remained a secret until two months ago, when a Swedish television program -- Kalla Fakta, or "Cold Facts" -- broadcast a documentary reporting that U.S. agents assisted in the apprehension of Agiza and Zery, and that the plane chartered to Cairo had been used in a previous rendition case in Pakistan.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment for this article, and State Department officials declined to comment on the record. But the Swedish government has released previously classified documents that confirm the American role.
In a Feb. 7, 2002 memo, a partial reconstruction of the case by the Swedish security police noted that "the American side" had offered to help in the deportation "by lending a plane for the transport."
In addition, lawyers from the Swedish Justice Ministry wrote in a separate memo on April 12, 2002 that "the transport from Sweden to Egypt was carried out with the help of American authorities." Both documents were heavily redacted before their release.
A flight plan filed with Swedish aviation authorities shows that the Gulfstream jet was registered to a Massachusetts company, Premier Executive Transport Services. U.S. aviation records show that the firm has only two registered aircraft and that they have permits to land at U.S. military bases around the world.
Advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called on the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to open an inquiry into the case.
"The only way to discover what the U.S. role was is through an international inquiry under the auspices of the U.N.," said Julia Hall, a lawyer for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "There's no transparency otherwise. We just don't know what buttons were being pressed by whom."
While Sweden has said it would welcome such an investigation, the United Nations is unlikely to act unless Egypt agrees to cooperate, human rights groups said. Egyptian authorities declined to comment on that possibility. But Hossan Salama, an official with the Egyptian state security service, denied that the United States was directly involved in the deportation.
"The Americans had absolutely nothing to do with this capture," he said in a brief interview. "It was something completely done with the Swedes." Prison Visits
As part of their agreement with the Egyptian government, Swedish diplomats insisted that they be allowed to visit Agiza and Zery in prison regularly to ensure that they were not mistreated.
Swedish officials did not schedule the first visit until more than a month after the men arrived in Egypt. They were not allowed to see them except in the presence of prison guards and were forced to rely on an interpreter provided by the Egyptian security services.
In a report made public shortly afterward, Sven Linder, the Swedish ambassador to Egypt, wrote that Agiza and Zery told him they had been treated "excellently" in prison and that to him "they seemed well-nourished and showed no external signs of physical abuse or such things."
Another section of the ambassador's report that remained classified until recently, however, offered a different appraisal. It noted that Agiza had complained that he was subjected to "excessive brutality" by the Swedish security police when he was seized and that he was repeatedly beaten in Egyptian prisons. Swedish diplomats in Cairo declined to comment on the case.
Agiza's parents and lawyers said in interviews that he was severely punished by his Egyptian captors after he complained to the Swedish officials and was warned to keep quiet during future visits.
"Torture is a systematic thing in these prisons," said Mohammed Zarai, director of the Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners in Cairo. "Every time when these people visited him, as soon as they left, he was beaten and tortured. They would ask him:. . . . Are they telling the Swedes to come visit?"
Agiza's mother, Hamida Shalaby, said he told her during separate visits that he was given electric shocks and that prison doctors tried to cover up scars on his body by applying a special cream. "He couldn't even pick up his arms to hug me," she said in an interview. "He was very slow and very tired and very weak."
Agiza's attorney in Stockholm has filed a complaint about the handling of his asylum case with the U.N. Committee Against Torture. Although the committee has no power to free him, it could rebuke Sweden for violating international conventions prohibiting torture if it determines that the Swedish government was liable for his alleged mistreatment by expelling him to Egypt.
"The Swedish government is facing a very hard situation now," said Hafez Abu-Seada, a Cairo lawyer who represented Agiza at his trial and serves as general secretary for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. "Their reputation as a leading human rights nation is at stake."
Zery's attorney in Stockholm has filed a similar complaint on his client's behalf with the European Court of Human Rights.
Zery was released from a Cairo prison in October but is not permitted to leave the country and remains under strict surveillance by Egyptian security forces.
In a brief telephone conversation last week, he said he was willing to grant an interview and invited a reporter to visit. He canceled the appointment an hour later, however, saying that an Egyptian security official had ordered him not to talk.
Staff researcher Margot Williams in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- POLITICS
-------- budget
Inside the Vote to Fund War, Rebuilding
Republicans Were Among the Loudest Skeptics
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12131-2004Jul24?language=printer
Last fall, with much of the nation in sticker shock over the Iraq war's mounting costs, Republican lawmakers were some of the loudest skeptics of President Bush's $87 billion request to fund the fighting and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But what was once seen as a tough political vote for Republicans has turned into a line of concerted attack against Democratic White House hopeful John F. Kerry, whom Republicans accuse of forsaking U.S. troops by voting against the once-unpopular measure. Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt, accused Kerry earlier this month of "mounting desperation to explain to Americans his vote against funding for our troops."
"There's nothing complicated about funding troops with body armor, health care and supplies," Schmidt said.
The events of last fall were quite complicated, with the final vote determined after a rare presidential veto threat and Bush's personal, often fierce, efforts to hold GOP lawmakers in line. Some Republicans in both the House and Senate pushed hard to declare at least part of the Iraq reconstruction request a loan, to be repaid through Iraqi oil sales. Democrats -- citing record budget deficits and the president's continuing push for new tax cuts during wartime -- demanded that the $87 billion be financed by a temporary increase in taxes for the wealthy.
With polls showing most Americans against the measure, Republicans at the time acknowledged that Democrats probably had the political high ground.
"From the standpoint of your party, you've raised the right issues," Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) told Democratic senators. "From the standpoint of your country, you've raised the wrong issues."
In the end, Bush got virtually all he wanted, but it was not easy.
"I felt at the time [Bush's request] was not the best way to approach this crisis," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), one of the leaders of efforts to make some of the money a loan. "But we are in a crisis, and we had to move forward one way or the other."
At particular issue was the $20.3 billion that Bush wanted to rebuild Iraq. With budget deficits soaring, domestic spending tightening and job losses rising, the request was a tough sell on Capitol Hill.
"I just have a hard time going back to South Carolina and telling people who are losing their jobs that we need to give $20 billion of their money to the Iraqi people who are sitting on a sea of oil," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) last October.
Bush pushed wavering Republicans to oppose any efforts to convert grants to loans, but on Oct. 16, eight Senate Republicans, many of them reliable White House allies, joined most of the Democrats to convert half the Iraqi rebuilding plan into a loan.
The president had to literally stare down efforts by House Republicans to follow suit. "My God, if his eyes had been lasers, mine would have been burned out," said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who intended to introduce a loan amendment but withdrew it under pressure. But in a nonbinding motion Oct. 21, 84 House Republicans joined virtually all House Democrats to vote to accept the Senate's position on loans.
Amid the GOP's intraparty tussle, Senate Democrats -- including Kerry and his running mate John Edwards (N.C.) -- pursued alternative strategies to put Republicans on the spot. Each failed.
First, they tried to divide the president's request into a bill to fund U.S. military efforts and a separate measure to finance Iraq's reconstruction. That way Democrats could vote to support the troops, while opposing the White House's approach to rebuilding. They also tried to finance the $87 billion by raising the tax rate on incomes greater than $312,000 to 38.2 percent in 2005, from the current 35 percent.
All of this unfolded against the backdrop of the Democratic primaries, when former Vermont governor Howard Dean surged in the polls on an antiwar appeal. Kerry said he would vote against Bush's request unless it was amended to roll back some of Bush's tax cuts and include other nations in sharing the financial burden of reconstruction.
In the end, House and Senate negotiators dropped the loan provision and the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to approve the package. In the Senate, 11 Democrats, including Kerry and Edwards, voted no.
That tortured path to passage does not absolve Kerry of his responsibility to the troops or his inconsistencies, Schmidt said.
"This is a defining issue in this race because through this one issue, we are able to see John Kerry's chronic vacillations, indecision and political gamesmanship with regard to the war on terror," he said.
Before the final vote, Kerry was asked on CBS's "Face The Nation" how he would vote on the $87 billion package if his amendment to raise taxes failed.
"I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to -- to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible," Kerry replied, a quote used often by the Bush campaign.
"John Kerry is the only member of the United State Senate who said a vote against funding would be irresponsible, then preceded to vote against it," said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.
But in that televised exchange, Kerry continued: "What is responsible is for the administration to do this properly now. And I am laying out the way in which the administration could unite the American people, could bring other countries to the table, and I think could give the American people a sense that they're on the right track."
Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said there was no inconsistency at all in Kerry's position.
"If he was trying to take the careful route, he would have voted for the $87 billion in the end," she said. "What he was trying to do was stand on principle, and the principle was to pay for it."
Republicans who fought Bush on the package said they still believe the president was wrong to oppose the loan package. Indeed, they said, Bush's stance could be a significant political liability. But they also said Kerry's ultimate vote against the package is fair game.
"Most Americans would have supported a loan versus grant, but most would have voted for money for the troops in the end, regardless of these side issues," Graham said. "There's no way around this. John Kerry lost on a tax vote. He could have said, 'All right, I lost,' then voted for the troops, but he didn't. I really think the Kerry-Edwards vote says a lot about the way they play politics."
-------- investigations
Analysis Sept. 11 Commission Purposely Avoided Judgments on Iraq War
By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12136-2004Jul24.html
Conspicuously absent from Thursday's final report of the Sept. 11 commission was any judgment on the most pressing policy debate of the Bush presidency: Was the invasion of Iraq a crucial part of -- or a distraction from -- the fight against terrorism?
This was no oversight. Commissioners quickly concluded in their deliberations that any judgment on the wisdom of the Iraq war would scuttle their hope to present unanimous judgments. "Iraq was a third rail," said Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste. The war couldn't be discussed "without dissolving into divisions" -- so the commission dropped the question, reasoning that it was not part of its mandate.
But that left a gaping hole in the commission's report. By the report's own logic, the United States must do a better job of defining the enemy. The "enemy is not just 'terrorism,' some generic evil," the commissioners wrote. "This vagueness blurs the strategy." The report complains about "an amorphous picture of the enemy" and says Americans are "given the picture of an omnipotent, unslayable hydra of destruction. This image lowers expectations for government effectiveness."
Yet, on the biggest real-world question of defining the terrorist enemy, the commissioners punted. On the practical question of whether fighting in Iraq is making Americans safer, the commissioners hew to the banal. "America's policy choices have consequences," they write. "Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world. That does not mean U.S. choices have been wrong."
Former White House counterterrorism director Richard A. Clarke, who had criticized the Iraq war as a distraction from the fight against al Qaeda, complained that the commission said little "about who it is that we're fighting" and did a "workmanlike" report that avoided controversy. "We're not fighting organizational diagrams," he told ABC News.
While the Iraq war was relegated to being the proverbial elephant-in-the-room throughout the commission's 567-page narrative, references to Iraq are made throughout the report, about Iraq's ties to al Qaeda, about the religious philosophy of its leadership, about the Bush administration's powerful and long-standing interest in toppling Saddam Hussein, and about the inflamed passions in the Arab and Muslim world about the invasion. The references leave readers to draw their own conclusions -- which, of course, they did, based on their original views.
Supporters of the Iraq war said the commission's report provided more evidence that Iraq was tied to al Qaeda -- one of Bush's major justifications for the war. The neoconservative organization Project for the New American Century wrote that the final report "significantly modified" an earlier finding by the commission staff of no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. The group said the commission found "the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda to be more extensive than many critics of the administration have been willing to admit."
Among those findings: Osama bin Laden may have met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in 1994 or 1995 and asked for space for training camps and help procuring weapons; al Qaeda members reportedly met with Iraqi intelligence in 1998, and Iraqis met with the Taliban and bin Laden in Afghanistan; Iraq and al Qaeda officials also may have met in 1999, and Iraqi officials reportedly offered bin Laden safe haven in Iraq.
But the commission also notes that bin Laden reportedly declined Iraq's offer in 1999, and that Iraq declined bin Laden's request in the mid 1990s. And, the commission concluded: "The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship."
The report appears to give some support to arguments by opponents of the war that invading Iraq was a diversion. These critics include Clarke, whose book said Bush "launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide." This thinking was also contained in a December 2003 report published by the Army War College calling the war on terrorism "frustratingly unclear." The report protested the "conflation of al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat" and said this thinking "may have set the United States on a course of open-ended and gratuitous conflict with states and nonstate entities that pose no serious threat to the United States."
The 9/11 commission sounded a similar theme when it criticized the viewing of terrorism as a "generic evil," adding: "The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism -- especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology." It described the enemy both as al Qaeda and as "a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world, inspired in part by al Qaeda." While al Qaeda itself is weakened, "the second enemy is gathering."
Those statements make no explicit mention of Iraq. But at many places in the report, the commission describes Hussein as a secular dictator. It also suggests that Bush's aides viewed Hussein in such terms. The report cites a 2001 memo written by Clarke and supported by then-National Security Council Afghanistan expert Zalmay Khalilzad: "Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime."
The report also includes a partial confirmation by Bush of Clarke's assertion that Iraq was quickly on Bush's mind in the hours after the 9/11 attacks. Bush acknowledged he may have talked to Clarke, asking about Iraq, but that he did not do it in an "intimidating" way, as Clarke had asserted.
On the other hand, the report also appears to rebut earlier accounts that Bush coerced a reluctant Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, to pursue Iraq war plans while the general was busy with Afghanistan. According to the commission report, Franks wanted military planning against Iraq "because he personally felt that Iraq and al Qaeda might be engaged in some form of collusion and because he worried that Saddam might take advantage of the attacks to move against his internal enemies." Bush, Franks told the commission, turned down his request.
The commission dealt gently with the Bush administration's early interest in Iraq. The report describes that while Bush decided on September 16, 2001, to make his focus Afghanistan, "he still wanted plans for Iraq should the country take some action or the administration eventually determine that it had been involved in the 9/11 attacks."
At a Sept. 17 NSC meeting, where the next phase of the war on terrorism was discussed, "Bush ordered the Defense Department to be ready to deal with Iraq if Baghdad acted against U.S. interests, with plans to include possibly occupying Iraqi oil fields."
But the commission largely sidestepped administration interest in Iraq before the Sept. 11 attacks. For example, while the commission makes the point that the Bush National Security Council did not hold a high-level "principals" meeting on bin Laden until Sept. 4, 2001, it leaves to a footnote the Feb. 5, 2001, NSC meeting where covert actions against Hussein were discussed, as described in Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack." Similarly, the panel discussed a draft presidential directive in June 2001 that called for the Pentagon to devise contingency plans to attack bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan beginning in June 2001, but not those for Iraq.
At times, the commission report appears to suggest, by omission, that the Iraq war has not helped the fight against terrorism. "Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today," the report concludes, silent on Iraq. But commissioners said that was merely a reflection of their "mandate," which did not include the Iraq war. "The war in Iraq may have helped and may have hurt the war on terror," Republican commissioner Fred F. Fielding said on CNN.
While steadfast in avoiding a position on the Iraq war, the commissioners were at least unanimous in their view that the United States has no option but to continue its effort to transform the country. If "Iraq becomes a failed state, it will go to the top of the list of places that are breeding grounds for attacks against Americans at home," they concluded.
--------
Washington Journal
Berger Inquiry Leaves Associates Brimming With Questions
By John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12137-2004Jul24.html
In certain precincts of establishment Washington, there are few people more familiar than Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger. For three decades, the former Clinton national security adviser has stood at the intersection of politics and foreign policy, making himself well-known and for the most part well-liked on Capitol Hill, in think tanks and among Democratic campaign operatives, as well as White House and foreign policy reporters.
This familiar figure now is the subject of mystery, even among colleagues who know him best: How could something like this happen to someone like him? Sound judgment and attention to detail, supporters say, have been signatures of Berger's steadily ascending career. These traits, by his own admission, were notably absent in his improper handling of classified documents from the National Archives.
"Hardworking beyond belief," recalled former deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott, describing Berger as an "immensely judicious . . . hardheaded public servant."
"He's a tremendously hands-on person, and not somebody who takes problems and turns to somebody and says, 'You handle it,' " said James B. Steinberg, who served as Berger's deputy at the National Security Council from 1997 to 2000.
The questions of how and why Berger left the Archives building with copies of documents that were supposed to remain there, subsequently losing some of them, is under criminal investigation. Already, the controversy forced Berger's departure as an informal adviser to Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and interrupted a cycle he has followed for decades. In presidential elections, he is a foreign policy adviser to Democratic candidates. When they win, he goes into power with them; when they lose, he adjourns to a lucrative and well-connected legal and international consulting business. He met Bill Clinton in 1972, when they were young activists working for presidential candidate George S. McGovern.
At one end of the spectrum lies Berger's explanation for the documents: Through simple carelessness, on two occasions, he inadvertently scooped up papers he meant to leave behind after a long day perusing records at the Archives. At the other end are the loudly voiced suspicions of Republicans: that he deliberately took documents to improperly share information or to hinder the Sept. 11 commission's investigation.
In between these possibilities is another, which even some former Berger colleagues say strikes them as plausible. As a busy man who has held one of the most influential positions in government and who sometimes projects a harried and impatient demeanor, Berger might well have bridled at the restrictions at the Archives, associates acknowledge. Government sources have said Archives employees reported that Berger acted imperiously on some visits and sometimes asked to be left alone so he could make private calls. Eager to give certain materials a sustained reading, not eager to sit indefinitely watched by minders like a student in study hall, Berger may have concluded there was no harm in taking copies of a Clinton-era report on terrorism that existed only because he had ordered it written, some former colleagues believe.
Berger's attorneys have acknowledged that something approximately like this took place with 40 to 50 pages of handwritten notes. He was supposed to allow Archives officials to review his notes before leaving but regarded this rule as a minor matter and did not comply, lawyers said. One former Clinton colleague of Berger's, who did not speak for the record because of the sensitivity of the criminal investigation, suggested that Berger knew he was "cutting corners" but not in a consequential way -- a bit like the person who runs a red light at 3 a.m.
But his attorneys say that conscious corner-cutting is not what happened with draft copies of an "after-action report" that Berger ordered prepared to review the government's response to terrorist plots at the turning of the millennium. The report outlined steps the government needed to take to improve safety, some of which were taken and some of which were not.
Berger did not mean to take copies of earlier versions of the report with him during Archives visits in September and October, said his attorney Lanny Breuer, and realized that he had done so only when Archives officials alerted him on Oct. 4, two days after his last visit. He returned the documents he could find -- some remain missing -- the next day, and he turned over his handwritten notes a few days after that.
Skeptics have questioned how Berger could inadvertently take copies of the same document on two occasions and then lose some of the papers. Defenders -- including Clinton, in comments to the Denver Post -- said people who have seen the mountain of files on Berger's desk would find it easier to believe.
For now, the question is what impact the revelation of Berger's lapse, and the uncertain outcome of the investigation, will have on the career of someone who is an emblematic figure of the Democratic government-in-waiting.
The controversy has touched on Berger's two preoccupations of recent years. While running a new consulting business, he has had his gaze fixed partly on the future -- and evicting President Bush from power -- and partly on the past. Since Sept. 11, 2001, Berger has been the most ardent defender of the Clinton record in combating terrorism. He has argued that Clinton responded aggressively to the rising al Qaeda threat, given the political and diplomatic circumstances that existed before the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
Berger is declining interview requests while the matter is under investigation. He was regarded as a strong contender to be secretary of state if Kerry defeats Bush, but many Democrats say that prospect has dimmed considerably in the light of recent news.
John D. Podesta, who served as Clinton's chief of staff during part of Berger's White House tenure, predicted Berger will have more resilience than some Washington figures who run afoul of controversy. "The strength of Sandy's career has not been connections and influence-peddling, it's been intellect and ability to have a penetrating analysis about foreign policy," he said.
--------
Senate to Investigate Shelby in 9/11 Leak
Criminal Charges Highly Unlikely, An Official Says
By Curt Anderson
Associated Press
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12544-2004Jul25.html
The Justice Department has referred to the Senate ethics committee an investigation into whether Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) or his staff leaked classified information, indicating that criminal charges are highly unlikely, a federal law enforcement official said yesterday.
The referral Thursday means that it is up to the ethics panel to decide if any action is warranted against Shelby, who was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Both the House and Senate intelligence committees were also briefed by prosecutors and the FBI about the investigation's findings, said the law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the probe remains officially open.
The investigation concerned the 2002 disclosure to news reporters of two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency a day before the Sept. 11 attacks. Those messages contained the words "the match begins tomorrow" and "tomorrow is zero hour" but they were not translated from Arabic until Sept. 12.
The intercepts had been disclosed by the NSA director, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, during a private meeting of a joint House-Senate intelligence committee that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. Shelby was on the panel at the time.
Shelby has adamantly denied any wrongdoing and said he and his staff cooperated in the investigation. His spokeswoman, Virginia Davis, refused comment last night and referred reporters to the senator's statement issued in January. "My position on this issue is clear and well-known: At no time during my career as a United States Senator and, more particularly, at no time during my service as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have I ever knowingly compromised classified information," Shelby said in that statement.
It is a felony to intentionally leak classified information, but leak investigations rarely produce criminal charges because there are few witnesses and little or no paper trail to follow. Prosecutors also must prove that the person leaked the information with full knowledge it was a government secret.
The specificity of the wording in the 2002 leaks was particularly troubling to intelligence officials because it could tip off terrorists that a particular channel they were using had been compromised and thus dry up a valuable source of information by prompting them to use alternative means of communication.
--------
Behind 9/11: Old Miscues and New Twists
July 25, 2004
By DAVID E. SANGER and DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/politics/25intel.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, July 23 - In the case of both the Sept. 11 attacks and Iraq's illicit weapons, the White House has portrayed President Bush and his top advisers as consumers of imprecise intelligence, making the best decisions they could in a murky world of secret plots and illicit programs.
But two back-to-back reports into those intelligence failures have now portrayed a more complex picture of how Mr. Bush and top national security advisers weigh the threats arrayed before them during the president's daily intelligence briefing. Taken together, the reports describe a president who raises important questions and occasionally asks for more data, but at crucial moments failed to press for the telling details. And they raise questions about whether the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, were sufficiently skeptical about the intelligence flowing into the White House that the committees determined was terribly flawed.
In retrospect, according to several officials involved in those investigations, a stronger shove back from the president or his National Security Council might have forced the government to focus more attention on an emerging plot in the sleepy summer of 2001, or compelled a more skeptical reassessment of assumptions about Iraq.
To some, this is a familiar tale of what happens when a new president discovers the fallibility of the institutions that surround him - something John F. Kennedy discovered to his enduring regret during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion four decades ago, that Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon learned during Vietnam, and that Bill Clinton - who came to office barely willing to meet with his C.I.A. chief - discovered as Al Qaeda began to strike.
"I think every new president comes in with a confidence in the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., because they have this aura of competence," said John F. Lehman, secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan and one of the Republican members of the Sept. 11 commission. "And that was clearly the case with President Bush. And it's not until you've been burned a few times that you realize that these agencies cannot be relied upon without exercising the kind of skepticism that you only get by being burned."
Mr. Bush "was not being naïve," Mr. Lehman concluded. "He was just like all new presidents."
But to others it is a warning about what happens to administrations that read intelligence reports without keen questioning. "As a former consumer of intelligence myself, I know you have to critique everything you see - you cannot be passive," said Jamie S. Gorelick, a former Defense and Justice official in the Clinton administration who served on the Sept. 11 commission. "If you are passive, you get what anyone feels like collecting."
The job of pushing back has sometimes fallen to the president himself, but it is truly the task of the National Security Council. Historically, it is there that intelligence and policy choices meet. Some national security advisers have made their reputations, both good and bad, with their demands for more intelligence, better choices and heavy doses of skepticism.
In its internal debates, the Sept. 11 commission was deeply divided on the question of how much blame to apportion to the intelligence agencies and how much to give to Mr. Bush, Ms. Rice and others on the national security staff. They ended up making a series of compromises, according to some involved in preparing the report, and it takes a close reading and guidance from some of the authors to find the criticisms. Democrats on the commission, not surprisingly, were more likely to look at the same body of evidence and find a less-than-curious president than were the Republicans. There were spirited debates, said one official involved in those discussions, about whether the president "should really be asked to be the analyst in chief."
Ms. Rice has vigorously defended both herself and Mr. Bush in recent months, pointing out that the intelligence on Al Qaeda threats was nonspecific and "never good enough to be actionable," and that Iraq was such a black hole after 1998 that the Clinton administration and many Democratic members of Congress shared the belief that Saddam Hussein was hiding unconventional weapons.
But now the Sept. 11 attacks have become a case study in the dangers of failing to connect dots, and Iraq a case study in the opposite. Thursday's report from the commission described in painful detail how virtually nothing was accomplished to disrupt attacks when "the system was blinking red," in the words of George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, who saw Mr. Bush every morning at the 8 a.m. White House intelligence briefing.
Mr. Bush's aides point to these briefings as examples of the president's deep engagement in the issue even before Sept. 11, and the commission concluded that Mr. Bush "had on several occasions asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States." It was those questions that led to the now-famous Aug. 6 briefing of Mr. Bush.
Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice have described that briefing, which has now been made public, as "historical" in nature. But the commission report obliquely challenged that view, noting that "two C.I.A. analysts involved in preparing this briefing article believed that it represented an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a bin Laden attack in the United States remained both current and serious."
Those analysts were reinterviewed by some commission members just last week, as the final touches were being put on the report, in a last-minute effort to reassess the administration's performance.
Some members of the commission who asked Mr. Bush and others about the outcome of that briefing came away surprised, they say, that it resulted in no instructions, no operational plan, no follow-up. "From both our interview with the president and our questioning of his briefers, we did not find much evidence that the Aug. 6 findings produced any follow-on," said one Democrat who participated.
The report quotes Mr. Bush as telling the commission that the Aug. 6 briefing merely reconfirmed that Al Qaeda "was dangerous, which he said he had known since he had become president." But it added that Mr. Bush "remembered thinking it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way" by the F.B.I. of Al Qaeda activity in the United States. The commission has since concluded that number wildly overstated the amount of investigative activity.
Ms. Rice's role comes into question over another critical issue: Why did the president not know that Al Qaeda was suspected of having sleeper cells in the United States?
Mr. Bush told the commission, the report said, that "if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it." Three pages later the report notes that Richard A. Clarke, the former N.S.C. counterterrorism chief who is now regarded as a pariah at the White House, told Ms. Rice "at least twice that Al Qaeda sleeper cells were likely in the United States. In January 2001, Clarke forwarded a strategy paper to Rice warning that Al Qaeda had a presence in the United States." But as Ms. Rice has pointed out, that analysis was not based on current intelligence, and did not aid in identifying where the cells might be located.
The argument between Mr. Clarke's camp and Ms. Rice's camp will undoubtedly go on for years. But the commission pulled no punches about one fact: After the Aug. 6 briefing at Mr. Bush's ranch, the commission said it "found no indication of any further discussion before Sept. 11 among the president and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an Al Qaeda attack in the United States."
Assessing how the White House handled intelligence on Iraq is harder. Under an agreement between Democrats and Republicans, the Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq did not address in any detail the question of how the Bush administration used that intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. It focused primarily on intelligence agencies.
But to the extent that the Senate report shows second-guessing on the part of the Bush administration of the intelligence on Iraq, it is usually in the direction of seeking to strengthen the case for a possible war rather than questioning the quality of the intelligence.
On the question of whether there were links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the report said, analysts were subjected to repeated questioning of their judgments that there was no collaborative relationship between the two.
By contrast, the report shows little skepticism by the White House of the C.I.A. judgments on Iraq and its illicit weapons, which the committee criticized in scathing terms as having been unreasonable and unfounded. Those judgments, asserting that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear program, ended up providing the fundamental rationale used by the White House to go to war.
--------
Correcting the Record on Sept. 11, in Great Detail
July 25, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/national/25PANE.html?pagewanted=all
This article was reported by Philip Shenon, Douglas Jehl and David Johnston and written by Mr. Shenon.
WASHINGTON, July 24 - When the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States set to work early last year to prepare the definitive history of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, it seemed that much of its hard work was already done, because so much of the horrifying story seemed to be known.
At the time, it was understood that all of the hijackers had entered the country legally and done nothing to draw attention to themselves; Osama bin Laden had underwritten the plot with his personal fortune but had left the details to others; American intelligence agencies had no warning that Al Qaeda was considering suicide missions using planes; President Bush had received a special intelligence briefing weeks before Sept. 11 that focused on past, not current, terrorist threats from Al Qaeda.
But 19 months later, the commission has released a final, unanimous book-length report that, in calling for a overhaul of the way the government collects and shares intelligence, showed that much of what had been common wisdom about the Sept. 11 attacks at the start of the panel's investigation was wrong.
In meticulous detail, the 567-page report, including 116 pages of footnotes in tiny, eye-straining type, rewrote the history of Sept. 11, 2001, correcting the historical record in ways large and small and shattering myths that might otherwise have been accepted as truth for generations.
The commission's report found that the hijackers had repeatedly broken the law in entering the United States, that Mr. bin Laden may have micromanaged the attacks but did not pay for them, that intelligence agencies had considered the threat of suicide hijackings, and that Mr. Bush received an August 2001 briefing on evidence of continuing domestic terrorist threats from Al Qaeda.
"Our work, we believe, is the definitive work on 9/11," said Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who was chairman of the commission, and whose consensus-building talents are credited by other commissioners as the reason the panel's report was unanimous.
If there are unanswered questions, Mr. Kean said, it is mostly because "the people who were at the heart of the plot are dead."
-------- propaganda wars
The Republicans
GOP Gears To Spread Message on Airwaves
Bush Campaign Wants To Offset Bump in Polls
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12140-2004Jul24.html
CRAWFORD, Tex., July 24 -- President Bush's operatives have spent months acquiring and cataloging snippets of videotape of past interviews and speeches by Sen. John F. Kerry and will dispense them during the Democratic National Convention to try to counterprogram the message from inside FleetCenter.
The president is sticking to tradition and remaining out of sight during his opponent's convention. Bush, instead, will make his Secret Service agents chase his mountain bike through the hills of his 1,600-acre ranch in 98-degree heat.
Bush's campaign, however, will have its busiest week since it opened for business 14 months ago. Because Bush did not have primaries to worry about, his campaign and the Republican National Committee have been focused on the Democratic convention longer than Kerry has. The GOP has leased a two-story office, known as "The Bunker," two blocks from FleetCenter to house more than 30 workers, including 10 researchers.
Kerry's campaign contends there is nothing extraordinary about these efforts, and called them refinements of rapid-response techniques that Democrats pioneered. Democrats will have a similar apparatus when Republicans convene in Manhattan in late August.
Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's chief strategist, issued a report early this month asserting that "historical analysis suggests John Kerry should have a lead of more than 15 points coming out of his convention." Republicans acknowledged that was partly an effort to set unrealistic expectations. But given Bush's low approval ratings, such a Kerry bounce could be disastrous for the president's campaign. So the Republicans' Boston spin machine is aimed at ensuring the prediction does not come true.
Bush's ads will go off the air for convention week. But the video clips, a daily 10 a.m. news conference, a new Web site and a stream of interviews with high-profile Republicans -- at least 90 for television and 112 for radio on Monday alone -- will propagate the GOP theme of "Extreme Makeover," which the party said is a play on words to suggest Kerry is trying to foster an image as a judicious moderate when he has the record of an out-of-the-mainstream liberal. Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman told reporters that the Democrats will hold a "cosmetic convention" aimed at creating a new image for Kerry or providing "a bold defense . . . from someone who, for 19 years, has had to win elections in Massachusetts and has been happy to do it."
As part of the campaign's unusually combative stance during the opposition convention, Vice President Cheney is giving up fly-fishing at his Wyoming ranch to carry the message throughout the West with several appearances during the week. The Bush-Cheney campaign has also announced Truth Squads in such battleground states as Missouri and Florida, and they will hold daily events aimed at local news outlets.
RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie kicked off the drive Saturday by releasing a poll of 500 Bay Staters that he said showed "Massachusetts voters, who do know the senator best, believe that as president he would raise taxes, tighten gun control laws and cut defense spending."
Gillespie will be among the GOP "surrogates" who will appear Monday on everything from "Mayhem in the AM" on WQXI-AM in Atlanta to Wisconsin Public Radio. Scott Hogenson, the RNC's director of radio services, said the mission is to argue "how bogus the convention is and how flippish and floppish the senator is." A similar booking operation for television is trying to place Republicans on every station in every targeted media market in the toss-up states.
Bush-Cheney communications director Nicolle Devenish said all this is aimed at undecided voters and at reassuring the president's supporters when they are being barraged with the Democratic line, and she contended that even Democrats "will be interested in hearing the other side."
For voters just tuning in, the new GOP Web site (www.DemsExtremeMakeover.com) offers a 17-page report on Kerry ("a flip-flopping Massachusetts liberal out of touch with America") and a 22-page critique of his running mate, Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), described as "a disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal and friend to personal injury trial lawyers."
Bush will return to Washington late Thursday, as the convention closes. The president's staff will treat Friday and Saturday as the opening of the fall campaign, with rallies in Missouri and Michigan on Friday and a bus trip through Ohio and Pennsylvania on Saturday.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Wind farms powering ill will
July 25, 2004
By Don Melvin
COX NEWS SERVICE
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040724-105245-4869r.htm
CARNO, Wales - The rugged land rises from the sea in cliffs and folds of incredible beauty. Stitched together by the darker green lines of hedgerows, the lighter fields of green and yellow shimmer through the dew.
Atop the valleys, ridges preside. The wind whips across these wild hills with a regular roar, leaving the sheep fairly clinging to the hillsides.
And, in the case of the hills above the village of Carno, it also powers a wind farm of fifty-nine 200-foot-tall turbines, part of program to greatly increase Britain's use of renewable, non-polluting energy.
The program has split the country's conservationist community and set neighbor against neighbor in a bitter dispute.
"When you think what it has done to our landscape, and what it will potentially do, it's just not worth it," said Ann West, a prominent anti-wind-energy campaigner, as she walked among the turbines.
The question comes down to this: Do the turbines represent the beauty of change, the comfort of knowing that mankind is doing what it can to reduce the emissions that cause global warming? Or are they just plain ugly - a horrid and useless blight on some of the most magnificent landscape that northern Europe has to offer?
The debate, already contentious, is certain to grow hotter. There are more than 1,000 turbines in the country, but many more wind farms are being planned. Billions of dollars are expected to be invested in wind energy here in the next few years.
The United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) is one of the windiest countries in Europe, and the country is embarking on what advocates on both sides of the debate say will be the largest and fastest increase in the use of renewable energy ever attempted in the world.
The goal is to reduce the discharge of gases that many scientists say damage the ozone layer, which contribute to the warming of the planet, thereby complying with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that calls for signatories to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide.
Currently, the United Kingdom generates 3 percent of its electricity from renewable sources - a category that includes not only the wind but the sun, the tides, biomass and other technologies.
The government is requiring electric companies to increase the percentage of the power that they generate from renewable sources each year, reaching 10 percent by the end of the decade and 15 percent by 2015. Wind is expected to account for three-quarters of that amount.
Utilities that fail to meet those requirements face fines that are paid, not to the government, but to competing utilities that have complied.
In addition, the government allows utilities to charge extra for the portion of their electricity that is generated from renewable sources.
Supporters of wind energy say no subsidies are involved in developing renewable energy because no taxpayer money is used. Opponents say the allowable extra charge amounts to enormous subsidies from consumers.
Britain produces a half-percent of its energy from wind. It lags far behind countries such as Denmark, which generates nearly 20 percent of its power from wind, and Germany, which generates about 6 percent. But that might change soon.
By 2010, the United Kingdom will have about 8,000 megawatts of new capacity generated by wind, according to Alison Hill, a spokeswoman for the British Wind Energy Association, the industrial association of wind-energy companies. The country uses about 50,000 megawatts of electricity from all sources in winter months.
"We have two gigawatts (2,000 megawatts) of wind power, with consent, awaiting construction in the U.K. as we speak," Miss Hill said.
That will entail about 1,500 new turbines offshore and about 3,500 more on land, using a minuscule amount of land, Miss Hill said.
Opponents and proponents of wind energy agree on almost nothing.
Proponents say it will reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. Opponents say it will not, because coal-fired plants will have to remain - inefficiently - on standby in case the wind drops.
Opponents say the turbines kill birds. Proponents say they do not. Opponents say the turbines reduce property values. Supporters say no. The British Wind Energy Association says polls show support for wind farms increases the closer to a wind farm that people live. Opponents say that is rubbish.
"Wind turbines are hugely symbolic of change," Miss Hill said. "Wind is at the vanguard of the renewables revolution in the U.K."
--------
Western Station Transforms Sunbeams Into Electricity
Governors Put Party Affiliation Aside to Explore Renewable Energy
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11790-2004Jul24?language=printer
SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. -- The National Weather Service on Thursday issued a heat alert for most of the state, with a predicted high temperature of 114 degrees under the relentless Arizona sun. Tom Hansen, of course, was delighted.
"Some states have oil. Some have coal. Here in Arizona, we've got sun," said Hansen, a vice president of Tucson Electric Power Co., as he squinted through heavy-duty sunglasses. "And now we're using that resource to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
On an utterly shadeless expanse of high desert plateau near the New Mexico border, Hansen manages America's largest solar-powered electric generating station. It looks at first glance like a long, long row of windowpanes propped up to face the sun. In fact, each "window" is an array of photovoltaic cells that generate electric current when exposed to the light.
The Springerville site is an experiment, an effort to transform solar energy generation from the small rooftop systems familiar today to a utility-scale operation that can eventually produce as much electricity as today's giant coal- and gas-fired power plants. And Tucson Electric's sun-powered generating station is just one experiment throughout the western United States seeking to generate electricity from renewable fuels.
The Western Governors' Association approved an aggressive new plan this summer, jointly proposed by Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) and Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), that commits the region to huge increases in renewable energy production over the next two decades. The plan calls for government funding, tax breaks, regulatory changes and new ways of billing customers to encourage electric utility companies to move away from oil, coal and natural gas. Here, for example, electric companies have been authorized to add a surcharge to each bill -- for residential customers, it's about 35 cents a month -- to pay for building renewable-fuel plants.
The drive for renewable fuels focuses on windmills, solar cells, geothermal energy -- that is, underground steam and pressurized hot water, such as the pools that feed Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park -- and biomass, which is any agricultural product that can be burned. Tucson Electric and some other regional utilities are also drilling gas wells in big-city trash dumps; the landfills give off a methane gas that can be piped away and burned in some power plants.
In a sense, this push seems counterintuitive. The western states, after all, have more oil, coal and natural gas that any other part of the country. Why should they lead the search for replacements?
"For one thing, we've got a more delicate environmental situation," said Dick Burdette, director of Nevada's state energy department. "In a high altitude with dry air, we can't accept a pollutant load from burning fossil fuels. We need alternatives badly."
Beyond that, the western states happen to be blessed with lots of renewable resources: the blazing desert sun, the driving winds sweeping across vast stretches of treeless prairie, and the large geothermal pools boiling beneath a land that is much younger, geologically, than the eastern United States. "The American West is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy," Richardson said.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., tends to support that boast. Its energy maps show that the eastern half of the continental United States has the strongest potential for using biomass for power production -- growing crops specifically to burn in generating stations. The western plains and the Rocky Mountain region, in contrast, are full of potential sites for geothermal plants, wind farms -- large collections of windmills -- and for solar farms, such as the long chain of photovoltaic cells in Springerville.
Under traditional definitions, hydropower -- using a rushing river to spin turbines and generate electricity -- would also be considered a renewable energy source. But the current campaign downplays the importance of hydropower.
For one thing, water power looks less reliable right now, after five years of drought across much of the West. Generating capacity at the region's two giant hydropower plants, Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam, is threatened by a sharp drop in water flows along the Colorado River system.
Beyond that, hydropower is less popular today than it once was. "The environmental benefit is a key reason for paying the cost to switch to renewables," said Burdette, the Nevada energy director, "but the environmental community is not happy with the idea of building big dams to block rivers and flood the terrain."
For all the forward-looking experiments, renewable energy is still a tiny fraction of energy use. More than 90 percent of the region's electricity today is produced by burning fossil fuels. Hydropower accounts for most of the rest, with the more exotic fuels such as sun, wind and geothermal energy generating about 1 percent of annual electricity consumption. The nation's largest solar plant here at Springerville turns out about 4 megawatts of electricity; Arizona's total consumption on a hot summer day is about 2,000 megawatts.
But the western states have announced ambitious plans for conversion to renewable energy over the next decade or so. California's goal is to produce 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2017. New Mexico is aiming for 10 percent by 2011. Texas, despite its oil industry, has set a goal of 2.7 percent by 2009. A referendum headed for the Colorado ballot this November would require the state to get to 10 percent by 2015.
Even advocates such as Tom Hansen readily admit that such well-meaning pledges might simply evaporate in the desert sun. But Hansen says there are reasons to be confident about the conversion to renewable energy.
"For one thing, the price is going down," he said. The infrastructure cost -- that is, for erecting windmills or photovoltaic cell arrays -- is dropping rapidly as technology improves and production increases.
And the fuel, of course, is free. "I can tell you exactly how much an hour of sunshine is going to cost 15 years from now," Hansen said. "That's not so easy to predict if you're talking about a barrel of oil or a ton of coal."
Beyond that, Hansen says, both government and the power industry in the West have taken the hardest step by getting started. Expanding on the base of current research and practical know-how should be easier.
To make the point, he opens his arms wide to illustrate the seemingly endless expanse of sun-soaked desert in front of him.
"So far, we've got about half a mile of PV [photovoltaic cells] stretched out here. But if you look west, there's what -- at least 25 miles of open country before we get to those mountains on the horizon. We're going to have an array that extends that distance. And the Arizona sun will just keep shining on the whole thing."
-------- OTHER
-------- imf / world bank / wto (economics)
World Bank turns 60 amid critiques
UPI Correspondent
By Chris Gaetano
July 25, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040723-031456-1246r.htm
Washington, DC, Jul. 23 (UPI) -- On one side of the street stood the World Bank building. On the other side stood about 25 protesters. Signs and banners squared off with investments and loans on July 22nd, the 60th anniversary of the agreements that brought to life the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
To the World Bank on the one side of the street, it has been 60 years of poverty alleviation, third-world investment and improving the standard of living for people everywhere. To the protesters on the other side of the street, it has been 60 years of plundering third-world economies, devastating the environment and using debt as a weapon to keep poor nations in indentured servitude.
Thesis met antithesis on the 22nd as demonstrators representing organizations 50 Years is Enough (started 10 years ago and thus the name) and the Mobilization for Global Justice picketed outside of the World Bank building in the sweltering D.C. heat.
At about 9:30 a.m., protester Daphne Wysham yelled into a megaphone, "We're here today because it has been 60 years of destruction and 60 years of extractions! The E-I-R effectively says that the World Bank should get out of oil and that third-world nations are not better off and they are worse off!"
The EIR is the Extractions Industries Review, a report commissioned in 2000 by the World Bank amid harsh criticisms of its economic policies in the third-world. Issued in January 2004, the report stated that while the World Bank could have a positive effect on developing economies, the group's efforts must be tempered by a contribution to sustainable development in the countries that they intervene in. To do so, the report stated that the bank must be more positive of pro-poor planning and management policies, better social and environmental policies and a respect for human rights. The report concluded that the bank must undergo serious reforms to meet all these goals for sustainable development.
Specifically, the EIR called upon the World Bank to, among many other things, perform with increased transparency, not allow investment in places which there is a civil war, only deal with parties which respect rule of law and institute a policy of informed consent with stakeholders in World Bank dealings.
The protesters' centerpiece, however, was the recommendation that the World Bank phase out all oil investments by 2008 and instead devote its resources towards renewable energy development such as solar and wind power.
It is this recommendation that the World Bank has found the most contentious. In the management response statement to the EIR, the World Bank stated that because 1.6 billion people do not have electricity and 2.3 billion depend on fossil fuels, oil and coal will continue to be a major fuel source for the poorest nations.
Over 90 percent of the World Bank's energy investment portfolio is in fossil fuels.
The World Bank, in the management response to the EIR, did agree with the assertions EIR makes in the report that the extractive industry can contribute to sustainable development and that the World Bank should continue to support those industries. In addition, the response said that it would review many aspects of its current policy to better address humanitarian aims. The response did not, however, say what changes would result from those reviews, if any did indeed arise.
At 9:52 a.m., a makeshift model of an oil rig, composed of bamboo sticks and black construction paper, is knocked down by the protestors, prompting much cheering. The mood on their side of the street was jubilant. Across the road, guards with arms crossed watched silently.
When asked as to what drew him to this particular protest on this particular day, Tim Telleen-Lawton said, "What I heard about the Extractive Industry Review, which has been ignored by the World Bank, but can really help people." Telleen-Lawton has been involved in political activism for a number of years.
Luke Kuhn was a little bit more direct. "That oil is being stolen at gunpoint."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Protesters to vie for Democrats' attention
July 25, 2004
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040724-115316-8055r.htm
Boston, site of the famous Tea Party rebellion in 1773, is no stranger to political protests, and once again, the city will play host to several demonstrations as the Democratic National Convention gets under way tomorrow. Among the protesters will be the international activist group Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER).
The group has planned a series of demonstrations, the largest scheduled for today, beginning at the parade grounds in the Boston Common and then continuing down Causeway Street, past the FleetCenter, and circling back to the Common.
Peter Cook, protest organizer for ANSWER, said the group has organized several activities for the week and a high turnout is expected. "Thousands will participate in the activities. There is no way for me to estimate how many," he said.
The United Steelworkers of America, Local 8751, which represents more than 350 school bus drivers in the city, has joined with teachers and clerical, public works and other municipal employees to show labor solidarity each day of the convention. The workers plan to highlight the need for better pay and better funding of education and health care.
Nancy Genger, a volunteer with the Women's Fight Back Network, said her organization will demonstrate Tuesday.
"We'll be there. Essentially, it will be a poor people's march to let Democrats know what is going on in the community," Mrs. Genger said. The anti-war group intends to highlight the effects of the Iraq war on domestic programs, calling on both parties to "bring the war funding home."
"We need money for jobs, youth programs, education, veterans' health care, drug treatment and a whole host of other issues," Mrs. Genger said. "The largest military budget ever went through the Senate 98-0, and Democrats said nothing and did nothing to stop it." She said her organization also will protest at the Republican National Convention in New York next month.
Meanwhile, whether some city workers will protest the Democrats' convention is not clear. Boston's continuing contract negotiations with its police and fire departments led workers to organize pickets, but police unions reached an agreement last week, and the firefighters' union was in negotiations with the city yesterday.
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Protesters destroy modified crops
July 25, 2004
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040725-032133-4522r.htm
Menville, France, Jul. 25 -- Protesters have destroyed a field of genetically modified corn in south-west France, the BBC reported Sunday.
The demonstrators, reportedly numbering in the hundreds, ripped up the transgenic crop plantation in Menville. The activists were led by radical French farmer Jose Bove, who said the protest was being taken in the interests of consumers. Police observed the destruction and took photographs of those involved. Bove said the protesters were prepared to face the consequences.
The protest was the latest in a series of demonstrations by opponents of genetically modified crops across Europe. There have been about twelve anti-GM activists prosecuted in France over the past seven years, the BBC said.
----
Protesters march on FleetCenter on eve of Democratic convention
By Theo Emery,
Associated Press,
7/25/2004
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/207/politics/Protesters_march_on_FleetCente:.shtml
BOSTON (AP) As delegates arrived Sunday for the Democratic National Convention, protesters clamored for attention, staging demonstrations and marches across the city against the Iraq war, abortion and a host of other issues.
An estimated 3,000 demonstrators, most of them protesting against the war, rallied on Boston Common before winding their way through the city and marching past the FleetCenter, the downtown arena where delegates are nominating hometown candidate John Kerry for president this week. They were accompanied by a ragtag group demonstrating against everything from oppression in Haiti to better funding for schools and health care.
The protesters passed the FleetCenter before looping back through City Hall Plaza and returning to the Common a 50-acre park that is the starting point for the Freedom Trail and was once used for public hangings.
''This is just the beginning of a week of protests,'' said Larry Holmes, spokesman for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, the coalition of activist groups that staged the march.
At Faneuil Hall, the historic meeting house where patriots gathered before the American Revolution, an estimated 1,000 anti-abortion protesters staged a rally before a smaller group set off on their own march toward the FleetCenter.
A brief scuffle broke out on the Common between some of the peace demonstrators and a man carrying a graphic anti-abortion sign. Witnesses said the man was pushed to the ground and his shirt was torn, but he was unhurt. The anti-war and anti-abortion groups crossed paths again a few blocks from the FleetCenter and exchanged angry words. A handful of anti-abortion marchers lay in the street in the fetal position as their fellow protesters drew chalk outlines around them. Police moved them along, and the marches continued their separate ways after a few moments of confusion.
Authorities took two people into custody. One was later released without charges.
State police in riot gear lined Beacon Street during the anti-war march. A half-dozen cruisers and 18 police vans followed slowly along the parade route. Representatives of the National Lawyers Guild and other civil libertarians accompanied the march, wearing hats reading ''legal observer.''
The crowd ranged from teenagers to war veterans. They carried flags, banners and signs reading, ''Bring the troops home now,'' ''Health care, not warfare,'' and ''Veterans for Peace.''
Some protesters criticized the Bush administration and the decision to go to war in Iraq.
''How dare we go into another country and tell them how to run it, how to make it better when we cannot even better our own government?'' said Christina Densmore, 31, of Springfield, Mass. ''Our own people are dying.''
Others took issue with both Republicans and Democrats. Fernando Suarez Del Solar, 48, said his son, Jesus, 20, was a lance corporal who became the first Marine killed in the Iraq war, seven days after the U.S.-led invasion began.
''Mr. Bush lies,'' said Del Solar, of Escondido, Calif. As for the Democrat, he said, ''Mr. Kerry is very confused. On one side, he says the war is wrong. On the other side, he says we need more boys in Iraq.''
Associated Press writer Ken Maguire in Boston contributed to this report.
----
A who's who of convention protesters
A roster of groups granted protest permits by the City of Boston
Boston Globe,
July 25, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/protesters/
A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition
http://www.answerboston.org
Fights racism and war nationally and internationally
Founded: Sept. 2001
Mass. members: Dozens
US: 1,000s
Showcase their opposition to the proposed bioterrorism lab at Boston University on "the national stage."
Fair, 3 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. July 28 at Blackstone Square, Washington and W. Newton St., followed by march to the proposed lab site
Expected turnout: 1,000
American Friends Service Cmte.
http://www.afsc.org
"Peace, justice and action" group run by Quakers won Nobel Peace Prize for helping rebuild Europe after WWII
Founded: 1917 Mass. members: dozens working next week
"We wanted to call attention to the Democratic Party that this is the cost of war, this is the human cost of war."
Candelight vigil for casualties of the war in Iraq, including Iraqi civilians, 7:30 p.m. July 27, in Copley Square
Expected turnout: 100s
Billionaires for Bush
http://www.billionairesforbush.com
Street theater group poses as rich to expose "Bush administration's disastrous economic policies"
Founded: Dec. 2003 Mass. members: 168 US: 6,000
"We're going to be there to protect President Bush and all the progress he's made for the wealthiest 1 percent in America."
March , 4 p.m. July 27, from Rowes Wharf to Massachusetts Republican Party Headquarters at 85 Merrimac St.
Expected turnout: 150
Bl(A)ck Tea Society
http://www.blackteasociety.org
Unofficial host committee works to facilitate and support the right to protest during the convention
Founded: July 2003
Mass. members: 35 US: n/a
"Because this came to our back yard."
Really, Really Democratic Baazar, noon to 8 p.m. July 27. Free festival and concert on Boston Common, at Boylston and Charles St.
Expected turnout: 1,000s
Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights
http://www.bcpr.org
Bring awareness of Palestinian issues to the DNC delegates.
Founded: 1999
Mass. members: 50 US: n/a
Recognition of Palestinian rights, an end to Israeli occupation, and press US to "act in accordance with international law."
Rally, 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. July 26 in Free Speech Area outside FleetCenter.
Expected turnout: 1,000
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
http://www.bpfboston.org
Buddhist group working for social justice, equality, and global concerns
Founded: 2001
Mass. members: n/a US: n/a
Advocating for peace
Meditation vigil, 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. July 24-27 in Holocaust Memorial Park at Union and Congress St. near Boston city hall.
Expected turnout: 10
Christian Defense Coalition
christiandefensecoalition.com
Antiabortion group
Founded: July 2003
Mass. members: 400 US: 10,000
To "expose the radical pro-abortion position of senators Kerry and Edwards." "Life chain" 1 p.m. July 25, Faneuil Hall
Expected turnout: 100s
DNC2RNC Democracy Uprising
dnc2rnc.org
Grassroots political group marching from Boston to New York
Founded: 2001 Mass. members: n/a US: n/a
"We believe that both political parties do not have the interests of regular people at heart."
Rally, noon July 29, at Copley Square before walk to New York begins
Expected turnout: 100
Falun Dafa
http://www.falundafa.org
Meditation and religious group suppressed in China. Also called Falun Gong
Founded: 1992
Mass. members: n/a US: 10,000,000s
Draw awareness to the severity of repression of people who practice Falun Dafa in China.
Parade and education rally, 3 p.m. July 25 from Copley Square to Chinatown
Expected turnout: 1,000
Kucinich Campaign
http://www.kucinich.us
Campaign staff is still working on the causes Dennis Kucinich featured in his run for president.
Founded: Feb. 2003 Mass. members: 3,800 US: 550,000
"Most of us have agreed that it's important to rally around Kerry to get Bush out. But that doesn't mean we have to sacrifice our issues."
Progressive Democratic Convention, 10 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. July 29 at Roxbury Community College
Expected turnout: 1,000
Rubie's Foundation no web site
Healthcare-focused side project of Kucinich campaign
Founded: July 2004 Mass. members: 4 US: n/a
Arguing that health care "should be about people and not dollars."
Wheelchair roll starting at 10:30 a.m. July 28 from Copley Square to Liberty Mutual office at 175 Berkeley St.
Expected turnout: 25-50
Run Against Bush
http://www.runagainstbush.org
Grassroots group motivates people to run to show dissatisfaction with the Bush administration.
Founded: Oct. 2003
Mass. members: 250 US: 7,000
"While we are not a Democratic organization, we want to defeat Bush and therefore we support Kerry."
Rally, 6:30 p.m. July 27, in Christopher Columbus Park, Atlantic Avenue and Long Wharf, Boston
Expected turnout: 100s
September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
http://www.peacefultomorrows.org
Family of 9/11 victims, pushing for pacifist terrorism solutions
Founded: Feb. 2002 Members: 130 families
"The feeling is that the policy makers are not taking into account the impact military combat has on civilians."
"Stonewalk," starting at 1 p.m. July 25. Participants will drag a 1,400-lb. stone from UMass Boston to Copley Square.
Expected turnout: 100s
United for Justice with Peace with Boston Mobilization
http://www.justicewithpeace.org
Provoke national debate about civil liberties
Founded: Sept. 2001 Mass. members: 5,000 US: n/a
To encourage convention-goers and candidates to adopt strong civil liberties positions.
"Close Down Guantanamo" rally, noon - 2 p.m. July 28 in Copley Square
Expected turnout: 1,000-2,000
SOURCE: City of Boston; Protest groups NOTE: All membership and crowd figures based on groups' own estimates. Compiled by Globe Correspondents Katie Nelson, Emily Anthes
----
'It's The War, Stupid!'
By Jarrett Murphy,
July 25, 2004
(CBS)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/25/politics/main631672.shtml
BOSTON - A few thousand protesters, marching through Boston under heavy security on Sunday - the day before the opening of the Democratic National Convention - might seem to be walking on the margins of the 2004 campaign.
But what united and divided the crowd that made its way from Boston Common to the FleetCenter - estimated by authorities at 2,500 - might end up being central to John Kerry's effort to channel displeasure with the Bush administration into votes, and even votes in swing states like Maine and New Hampshire.
As one sign put it, "Kerry: It's The War, Stupid!"
While a potpourri of causes fueled the crowd - from supporting ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to repealing the Patriot Act - opposition to the Iraq war fused the disparate parts.
As the crowd trod forward under the watch of heavily armored state troopers, the most popular sign was "Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home." It was the favorite chant, as well, and the leading thought on people's minds.
"I'm here because I'm against the war," said Frank Lavine, an 80-year-old World War II veteran from Boston, who also fought with a Palestinian brigade against the British in 1947. "Because war is a racket."
"It's ridiculous," said Pat Galloway of Maine. "We were lied to. We were manipulated into going into war."
Despite the war's importance as a campaign issue and a policy matter, the Democratic platform does not take a position on whether the 2003 invasion was justified.
"People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq," the platform reads. Both Kerry and running mate John Edwards voted for the resolution authorizing the use of force.
The protesters seemed unified in regretting those "yes" votes, but they displayed a spectrum of opinions on whether the party's position on Iraq - and its nominees' votes - will affect their vote in November.
And in the age of tight elections and third-party threats, the sentiments of anti-war voters may not be so easily dismissed, particularly in two of the states represented at Sunday's march: Maine and New Hampshire.
"I'd bring the troops home now," said Galloway of Kerry. "I would like for him to change his views and bring the troop home."
But she added: "If I have a choice between Bush and Kerry, I'm absolutely going to vote for Kerry." She stresses, though, "it's a vote against Bush, not a vote for anybody."
William Cavanaugh had a similar take.
"I'm going to vote for Kerry because I don't see any alternative," said the veteran of more than 30 years of active and reserve service in the Army engineers. He feels that if elected, Kerry will change tack in Iraq, or at least secure more international help.
"He will come up with a plan that will assure the Iraqi people that we will be out by some date certain," said Cavanaugh, marching with Veterans For Peace, a group that held a national conference in Boston this weekend and apparently told its members to take the same position Cavanaugh has adopted: Kerry is the only chance.
Others weren't sold. Linda Windforest of California suspects Kerry would increase the number of troops in Iraq. She was not alone: A sign at the rally read "Money for war, not for schools ... send more troops to Iraq ... vote Kerry."
"I'm not voting Skull & Bones at all," Windforest, whose Navy veteran father is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, said, a reference to the Yale fraternity to which both President Bush and Kerry belong. Others shared agreed, one saying Kerry's Iraq policy might be more dangerous because it is "seductive."
"I don't know," said Lavine, then admitting, "It's anybody but Bush at this moment. Bush got us into this goddamned thing."
While some onlookers lined the march site and the media trailed along, the main audience for the protest was the large security contingent.
State police marched to the demonstration route in groups of about 15, two abreast, in lock-step, wearing helmets, thick chest protectors and knee and forearm pads. City police and other state cops as well as undercover officers kept watch. A reserve unit of police, some with horses, waited in the shadows of an archway under the Massachusetts Statehouse.
Near the FleetCenter, military police walked the grounds and the elevated train tracks above. The Joint Information Center would not say how many officers patrolled the event. As of 3:30 p.m., there had been no arrests.
Despite the march occurring a day before the convention opens, participants said it had meaning.
"If we're not marching, what else are you doing?" asked Jennifer Murray of California.
"I mean the delegates are here. We're trying to express our hopes, wishes," Galloway said. "We're hoping that someone will listen to us."
So were others. As the march wound away from the FleetCenter, the pavement was chalked with slogans like "Abortion is murder" and "Choose life."
----
Antiwar veterans vying to be heard
At meeting, group airs Iraq criticism
By Alonso Soto,
Boston Globe Staff
July 25, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/07/25/antiwar_veterans_vying_to_be_heard?mode=PF
Cramped inside the basement auditorium of the Boston Public Library, the group Veterans for Peace wrapped up its national convention yesterday, speaking out against the American-led war in Iraq and aiming its antiwar message at the delegates streaming into the city for the Democratic National Convention.
More than 400 veterans from all over the country, many of them now silver-haired men, gathered for the four-day event to hear speakers and attend workshops.
"We want to send a strong message for Democrats to bring our soldiers back," said David Cline, the president of the organization and a Vietnam veteran. "We need to look beyond the flag-waving."
At yesterday's closing events, the organization gave an award to Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector who has been critical of President Bush and was one of the first to challenge the administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"Getting rid of [Saddam] Hussein has shredded our credibility," said Ritter, who resigned from his inspection position in 1998. "George [W.] Bush is a domestic enemy of the Constitution."
A cheering crowd gave Ritter standing ovations at several points during his 20-minute acceptance speech. Afterward, some convention attendees called him a hero and a courageous whistle-blower.
Ritter criticized both President Bush and presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry. He urged veterans to unite, voice their concerns, and make other Americans understand the truth about what war is really like.
Organizers said they planned the event to coincide with the convention and were surprised that it did not draw more attention, particularly because Kerry is a Vietnam veteran who became a vocal opponent of the war after returning home.
"We were trying to get media coverage, but the DNC is like the big story," said Cline. "You are always competing for attention."
Cline said his group is not partisan, but tries to push issues important to veterans such as increased benefits.
Like Ritter, members of the group spoke out against both Bush and Kerry, although Bush received the lion's share of the criticism. Many attendees had antiwar slogans written on their shirts and anti-Bush buttons on their military-style caps.
The crowd included veterans from World War II, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and even recent Iraq veterans, who members of the group said were particularly important to their cause.
"The day George Bush sent my daughter to war was the day I declared war against Bush," said Sean Dougherty, who was wearing a pin on his shirt with a picture of Bush and the slogan "9/11: Expose the Deception."
"We need the younger voice," added his daughter, Kelly Dougherty, who spent 10 months in Iraq with the 220th Military Police Company and is a member of the newly formed group Iraq Veterans Against the War.
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A City Known for Peaceniks Stands By Its Roots
July 25, 2004
By JAMES CARROLL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/politics/campaign/25CARR.html
IN approaching Boston from the southeast, whether by car or by air, down the glide path into Logan Airport, a dominant landmark is the huge gas storage tank that stands beside the expressway.
The tank is white, but it is splashed with a rainbow, a treasured work of art by Corita Kent commissioned in the early 1970's by Boston Gas. The form of the rainbow seems random, as if the colors were spilled from heaven - Kent died of cancer not long after completing the work - but Boston residents have long discerned a distinctive profile in the dominating blue streak, the high forehead and elongated thin beard of Ho Chi Minh.
Whether by accident or design, an image of Ho, the Vietnamese revolutionary, stands as a kind of sphinx, guarding the way into a city that, in fact, was a center of protest against America's misguided war.
Boston is a world capital of the military-industrial-academic complex, but also a home to its sharpest critics. Raytheon is here, but so is Prof. Theodore Postol who debunked claims made during the Persian Gulf war of 1991 for Raytheon's Patriot missile. Boston was home to Gen. George S. Patton Jr., whose statue is on prominent display near the Charles River, but it is also home to the World War II bombardier Howard Zinn, who remains the leading antiwar theorist of his generation.
Boston's roots as an antiwar city go deep. Mahatma Gandhi, in South Africa and India, set the great countercurrent of nonviolence rolling through the 20th century, but his forebear in civil disobedience, by his own account, was Henry David Thoreau, of Boston, and Gandhi's great disciple was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who read both Thoreau and Gandhi at Boston University.
It was during the Vietnam War that the city found itself identified as a peace-movement capital. One protest that drew thousands of demonstrators to Boston Common culminated in a ceremony at nearby Arlington Street Church, at which young men turned in their draft cards. The Yale chaplain, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr.; a Harvard graduate student, Michael Ferber; the writers Mitchell Goodman and Marcus Raskin; and Dr. Benjamin Spock (the "Boston Five") were indicted on conspiracy.
When the antiwar Jesuit Daniel Berrigan went underground in 1970, refusing to surrender after his conviction for a draft board raid in Catonsville, Md., he secretly made his way to Boston, where local activists hid him for a time. Another Jesuit, the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, dean of the Boston College Law School, made his case against the war by running for Congress in 1970.
In the same period, a just-discharged Navy veteran named John Kerry joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, helping veteran opposition become decisive.
Yet the scorn with which the phrase "Massachusetts liberal" is sometimes applied to politics misses the main point of the antiwar tradition in Boston. Less important than any soft-hearted appeal to idealism or morality is how coldly realistic these choices were. Boston's peaceniks have been repeatedly proved right.
Now the United States is at war again, and once more Boston is a center of opposition. Senator Edward M. Kennedy is Washington's fiercest and most consistent critic of President Bush's war policies. Antiwar demonstrators will be out in force this week as Democrats gather to nominate their candidate for president.
And those approaching Boston from the southeast, glimpsing the city's blue sphinx, will recall the native son who so pointedly gave expression to its riddle. They will expect him, as their nominee, to find again the eloquence with which he spoke in 1971 as a Vietnam veteran against the war: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
James Carroll, a columnist at The Boston Globe, has just published "Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War," a collection of his essays on the Iraq war.
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