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NUCLEAR
America's blind-eye to N-arms
Global Nuclear Concerns: Safety, Power, Proliferation
Britain voices concern over Belarus expulsion
Nuclear Tests Vindicate Iran So Far
Pakistan Limits Cooperation with IAEA on Iran
Diplomacy sidelined as US targets Iran
Bush Sees Joint World Effort to Press Iran on Nuclear Issue
Weighing a strike on Iran
Nagasaki mayor urges US to scrap `mini-nuke' plans
Still counting losses, 1945 victims want US to rethink
Accident at Japanese Reactor Fires up Anti-Nuclear Campaigners
Accident at Nuclear Plant In Japan Kills Four Workers
Japan Nuke Accident Highlights Laxity, Aging Plants
Japan Plant Operator Delayed Safety Checks
Corrosion Cited in Burst at Japanese Nuclear Plant
Japan Tries to Restore Nuclear Confidence
Steam leak kills 4 workers at Japanese nuclear plant
Missile defence system untested, unneeded, says retired U.S. general
Nuclear Security Is a Myth
U.S., Russian labs join forces on nuclear power
Moscow's Nuclear Past Is Breeding Perils Today
Concern on Russia nuclear plants after Japan mishap: environmentalists
Curbing spread of A-bombs
No Functional Biosafety Committee at Battelle Memorial Institute
National lab at Los Alamos must have new management
Meeting on radioactive lab today
Downwinder response is inadequate
JAPANESE NUCLEAR TRAGEDY SHOULD BE MESSAGE TO VERMONT YANKEE, REGULATORS
When Home Is Where the Atomic Bomb Was Made
MILITARY
U.S. Pledges to Soften Tactics in Afghanistan
Karzai Trying to Regain Political Backing
Mauritanian army foiled coup plot: defence minister
Revamped Army Plans Give Boeing Bigger Role
Iran arming militia, says Iraqi official
Iran wins Najaf weapons apology
Sadr Rejects Entreaty to End Conflict
U.S. Fights Cleric's Militia for a Sixth Straight Day
Chalabi Vows to Return to Iraq to Face Charges
U.S. Says Its Grip on Iraqi Militia in Najaf Is Tight
U.S. Demands Najaf Militants End Fighting
Arafat Evasive on Reform Demands
Israel Demolishes Three Archeological Buildings in Hebron
NATO advance delegation already in Iraq
Bush Nominates Congressman to Replace Tenet as C.I.A. Director
Rep. Porter Goss tapped for CIA top spot
Reaction to Goss Nomination to Head CIA
Armed Congo Groups Accused of War Crimes
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Reporter Held In Contempt in CIA Leak Case
Reporter From Time Is Held in Contempt in C.I.A. Leak Case
Reporter for Time held in contempt in CIA leak case
A standard of justice
Danes stop handing over Iraq prisoners
A New Weapon in the Battle to Make a Convention Secure
Capitol Police Chief Sees No Specific Threat to Hill
U.S. Security Officers Will Take Over Passenger Screening
Al Qaeda may attack in limos, FBI says
Memos: Vegas officials failed to act on terror tapes
Immigration plan envisions 'incentives' to illegal aliens
Malaysia police 'brutal, corrupt'
New Generation of Leaders Is Emerging for Al Qaeda
Nichols Seeks Forgiveness for Okla. City Bombing
India anti-terror law to be axed
Manipur delays terror law repeal
Zimbabwe election torture warning
POLITICS
Players: Paul V. Applegarth
Sept. 11 Commission
Hijackers' Friend Objects to 9/11 Report
Davis named to House Intel Committee
In Hindsight, Kerry Says He'd Still Vote for War
ENERGY
Portland Leads the Way With Solar Powered Travel Site
Kerry offers plan for U.S. energy independence
OTHER
Chemical Solution Found for DC's Lead-Laced Drinking Water
Edwards pledges to lift Bush curbs on stem-cell work
World Bank plans Iraq infrastructure projects soon
ACTIVISTS
High-tech levels protest field
Anti-war group reverses course, applies for new parks permit
-------- NUCLEAR
America's blind-eye to N-arms
August 10, 2004
By Jonathan Power
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/08/10/americas_blind_eye_to_n_arms/
IN HIS forthcoming memoir on the India-Pakistan nuclear relationship, Strobe Talbott, a former US deputy secretary of state, recounts the surprise and alarm that swept the eighth floor of the State Department on May 11, 1998, when the first reports came in over CNN that India had tested a nuclear weapon.
One presumes the diplomats were reading the Indian press carefully. For example, I have in front of me two articles, dated April 8 and 15, 1998, from the influential Indian daily The Statesman maintainin that since the nationalists of the Bharatiya Janata Party had come to power, India was going nuclear quickly. The information was around for those who had eyes and ears. It was as if Washington didn't want to know.
Similarly, the reports emerging today suggesting that Saudi Arabia may be the latest Middle Eastern country to engage in a research program on nuclear weapons recalls a report of the International Institute for Strategic Studies published as long ago as 1989. This London-based body remarked on the then-recent Saudi purchase of Chinese CSS-2 rockets: "Missiles of such range are difficult to justify unless they carry nuclear weapons."
"They are too elaborate and expensive to make sense for anything else," I was told at the time. "Controllable thrust engines, inertial guidance systems, and heat shielding put up the cost to astronomical levels."
But Washington didn't want to know. It still doesn't. Not one senior administration figure is talking about Saudi Arabian nuclear weapons research despite the new and worrisome intelligence reports.
It is the same with US policy toward Israel's large stock of nuclear weapons. Until recently the United States would not confirm on the record what everybody knew -- that Israel has more than 200 nuclear weapons.
Washington prefers, when that is its immediate strategic interest (even if not its long-term one), to put the telescope to its blind eye. It couldn't allow itself to be too agitated about India's nuclear research because it had kept quiet for so long about that of Pakistan, its close ally. When the Soviet Army poured into Afghanistan during the Carter administration, the United States suspended its nuclear nonproliferation policy so Pakistan was sanctions-free and could receive the military and economic aid the United States wanted it to have. Yet everyone knew that Pakistan was developing its nuclear weapons capability at a fast rate. And today we know that Pakistan's chief nuclear weapons scientist was running a side-show, selling nuclear technology and equipment far and wide -- to North Korea, Libya, Iran, and now, intelligence sources say, a "fourth customer," which can only be Saudi Arabia.
How can Washington be a credible force for antiproliferation when this is the recent historical record: doing little or nothing until too late?
Talbott gives a hair-raising ringside view of the Indian-Pakistani nuclear crisis of 1999. He reports that President Clinton thought it brought the antagonists closer to nuclear war than the United States and the Soviet Union were at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.
We know, too, that when Saudi Arabia bought these Chinese missiles in 1988, Israel was nervous enough to warn Saudi Arabia that it would engage in a preemptive nuclear strike if it ever had cause for suspicion they would be used against it. Some close observers are still convinced that only US pressure stayed the Israeli hand in the very nervous March and April of 1988. (Saudi Arabia, for its part, attempted to reassure Israel by saying it acquired the rockets for defense against Iran, not Israel.) It is difficult for Washington to rally international opinion behind a hard line on nuclear nonproliferation in North Korea and Iran when its recent past performance is so ambiguous and inconsistent.
The Bush administration's credibility is further undermined by its actions in securing "loose nukes" and near-nukes in Russia. Harvard professor Graham Allison describes the attitude of the Group of Eight industrialized nations toward this issue as "lackadaisical and unfocused." Despite agreement in principle with Russia to work together on the issue, less plutonium and highly enriched uranium have been secured in the two years since Sept. 11, 2001, than the two years before. President Bush does not give the issue his personal involvement.
Meanwhile, at home, rather than setting a good example by freezing weapons development, the administration is seeking an increase in research funding for two new kinds of nuclear weapons.
Is hypocrisy the tribute that vice pays to virtue? If so, where do we go from here? Is the sauce that is good for the goose not good for the gander?
Jonathan Power is a columnist based in London.
----
Global Nuclear Concerns: Safety, Power, Proliferation
August 10, 2004
VIENNA, Austria, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-10-03.asp
Nuclear power supplied 16 percent of global electricity generation in 2003, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency's annual report issued on Monday. At the end of the year there were 439 nuclear power plants in operation around the world, the United Nations nuclear agency reports.
The safety of nuclear power plants and related facilities showed "continued improvement overall around the world in 2003," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said, and the number of significant events last year was "negligible."
Tasked with ensuring that countries conform to international nuclear agreements, the IAEA reported that "the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under stress on multiple fronts and requires urgent steps to strengthen it."
The situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) continued to be "a serious cause for concern," the agency said, because inspectors could not conduct verification or provide any assurance that nuclear material was not used for weapons.
In Iraq, IAEA inspectors were in the country from November 2002 to March 2003, and carried out 237 inspections at 148 locations, including 27 new locations. "No evidence was found" of the revival of nuclear activities prohibited by the UN Security Council, the IAEA states.
Iran cooperated more closely with the IAEA in 2003 than previously, but a November 2003 report reiterated that Iran had in a number of instances over an extended period of time breached its obligation to comply with its safeguards agreement. "Given the past pattern of concealment," the IAEA said, "it would take some time before the agency would be able to conclude that Iran's nuclear programme was exclusively for peaceful purposes."
On December 19, 2003, Libya announced its decision to eliminate all materials, equipment and programs leading to the production of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. Libya informed the agency that it had been engaged in nuclear development activities that should have been reported, but were not. IAEA inspectors have been working in Libya to verify the previously undeclared nuclear material, equipment, facilities and activities.
After the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the IAEA began a review of its programs aimed at preventing acts of nuclear and radiological terrorism, and a plan of activities to protect against such acts was adopted. A new type of service, the International Nuclear Security Advisory Service, was developed that identifies measures for additional or improved security for nuclear activities.
IAEA member governments have received assistance in evaluating their national physical protection systems, through International Physical Protection Advisory Service mission, follow-up visits, training courses, workshops and seminars, as well as border evaluation missions for customs personnel.
New courses, including one on combating both nuclear terrorism and incidents involving illicit trafficking in nuclear material, were organized. The membership of the Illicit Trafficking Database continued to increase in 2003, the agency said.
Nuclear Power Generation
In 2003, two new nuclear power plants were connected to the grid, in China and in South Korea, and Canada restarted two units that had been shut down. Construction began on one new power plant, in India. Four units in the United Kingdom were retired, as was one each in Germany and Japan.
Asia continues to be the center for nuclear expansion and growth, with 20 of the 31 reactors under construction located in this region. In fact, the IAEA said, 19 of the last 28 reactors to be connected to the grid are in the Far East and South Asia.
In Western Europe, capacity has remained relatively constant despite nuclear phase-outs in Germany and Sweden, and in Belgium which passed a phaseout law in January 2003). The most advanced planning for new European nuclear capacity was in Finland, where in 2003 the utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy selected Olkiluoto as the site for a fifth Finnish reactor, and signed a contract for a 1600 MW(e) European pressurized water reactor.
During 2003, the Russian Federation continued its program to extend licenses at 11 nuclear power plants. The Russian nuclear regulatory body, Gosatomnadzor, issued a five year extension for the Kola-1 plant.
Bulgarian regulators issued a new 10 year license for Kozloduy-4, the first long term license in Bulgaria, and later issued a similar eight year extension for Kozloduy-3. Romania, where license extensions are required every two years, approved an extension for the Cernavoda plant to 2005.
In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved nine license extensions of 20 years each, for a total licensed life of 60 years for each nuclear power plant, bringing the total number of approved license extensions to 19. It also approved the uprating of eight units, which allows an increase in the maximum amount of power they can generate. Three companies applied for the NRC's new early site permits, which can be reserved for future use.
In Canada, near term expansion has involved the restarting of some of the nuclear units that have been shut in recent years. The first two restarts took place in 2003. Meanwhile, licenses have been extended for four units to 2005, and for eight units until 2008.
The management and disposal of spent fuel and radioactive waste is still "a critical issue," the IAEA reports, in terms of the public acceptance of nuclear technology and for any future expansion of nuclear energy.
At an IAEA conference in Vienna in June 2003 on the storage of spent fuel from power reactors, for the first time a number of governments said they need to extend the length of time that spent fuel is stored at the generating facilities to 100 years and longer.
The longer storage time is needed, the IAEA said, as a result of "delays in repository disposal programs, lack of resources, uncertainties over whether to treat spent fuel as waste or a resource, lack of public acceptance of disposal, and lack of political will in moving forward on repository siting and construction."
These countries are also interested in ensuring the future retrievability of waste to ensure that there is enough flexibility in the future options available to them.
Nuclear Waste Management
The Yucca Mountain repository in the United States moved towards licensing, and progress was made on the Olkiluoto repository in Finland, and the site selection process for a final repository in Sweden, the IAEA said, all for the disposal of spent fuel and high level radioactive waste.
In January 2003, the European Commission adopted a set of legislative proposals that included directives on European Union wide nuclear safety and radioactive waste rules, with priority given to geological waste disposal. But in November the EU Council of Ministers formally deferred further consideration of these proposals to 2004.
In the Russian Federation, legislation was passed to facilitate Russia's cooperation with other countries regarding the storage of spent fuel. Over the objections of environmental groups, the legislation allows Russia to import spent nuclear fuel from other countries for storage.
A notable development during the year was the opening of the HABOG storage facility in the Netherlands with a planned 100-year operational life; the involvement of the local population, particularly in the design of the facility, played a large part in the successful inauguration of this facility.
The commissioning of the French Morvilliers near surface disposal facility, for the disposal of very low activity radioactive waste primarily from decommissioning activities, was another major development.
Only a few governments have a long term strategy for managing spent fuel and radioactive waste, an issue that was of "concern" at the first Review meeting of the Contracting Parties of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management held in Vienna in November 2003. An issue of general concern was the comparatively small number of countries that have become Parties to the convention, only 33 at the end of 2003.
Nuclear Power of the Future
From the viewpoint of the IAEA, "no progress was made in 2003 on the Kyoto Protocol, which would help make nuclear power's avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions valuable to investors." The next round of talks on energy and sustainable development is scheduled for the 13th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in 2006-2007.
A large increase in the supply of energy will be required in coming decades to power economic development, the IAEA recognizes, projecting that to the year 2030 the part nuclear power will play in the global energy supply will first grow and then decrease,
The agency estimates a 20 percent increase in global nuclear generation until the end of 2020, followed by a decrease, resulting in global nuclear generation in 2030 that will be only 12 percent higher than in 2002.
Nuclear power's share of global electricity generation is projected at 12 percent in 2030, compared with 16 percent in 2002, the IAEA said.
The agency expressed concern that the nuclear expertise that exists today might not be passed on to the next generation of scientists and engineers, now that the rapid nuclear expansion of the 1970s and 1980s has leveled off.
Noting that many universities and governments have now reduced or eliminated their support for the study of nuclear science and engineering, the IAEA said it is seeking creative methods and techniques in education, training and process driven applications to ensure that the knowledge, skills and abilities from the current generation of nuclear professionals are transferred to the work force of the future.
Within the framework of the agency's technical and scientific programs, the Asian Network for Education in Nuclear Technology, the Asian Network for Nuclear Safety and the Ibero-American Radiation Safety Network are all in development. The first two are entering full operation this year, and the third was launched during the General Conference by Spain and will be associated with the activities of the Ibero-American Forum of Nuclear Regulators.
"The future viability of nuclear power is dependent not only on resolving issues of economics, safety and security, waste management and proliferation resistance, but also on the development of innovative technologies that can enhance the positive aspects of this energy source," the IAEA said.
Twenty IAEA member governments are working on evolutionary and innovative reactor and fuel cycle designs, the agency said.
Complementing the national initiatives are two major international efforts to promote innovation - the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) and the IAEA's International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO).
In 2002, GIF selected six concepts for international collaborative research and development and, in 2003, made progress on establishing the management and oversight structure for subsequent work and specific cooperative R&D agreements.
In June 2003, INPRO published a report defining user requirements in five areas - economics, environmental impacts, safety, waste management and proliferation resistance - for incorporation into nuclear R&D projects. It also provided an assessment method for applying these requirements to specific innovative nuclear concepts and designs; this method is currently being tested by INPRO participants.
Fresh Water With Nuclear Technology
In 2003, the IAEA made contributions to the accessibility of fresh water to the one-sixth of the world's population that suffers from water scarcity.
The use of isotopes in hydrology, based on the natural occurrence of isotopes in water, helps to provide rapid hydrological information for large areas at low cost, the agency said. Water projects in Central America, Africa and Asia are underway.
The IAEA contributed to the 3rd World Water Forum held in Kyoto, Japan and chaired the session to launch the UN's first World Water Development Report. It has more than 80 technical cooperation projects, covering the mapping of underground aquifers, managing surface water and groundwater, detecting and controlling pollution, and monitoring dam leakage and safety.
The efforts of IAEA member governments to explore the desalination of seawater using nuclear energy are also being supported by the agency. At the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant in Pakistan, a reverse osmosis facility in service since 2000 has been producing about 450 cubic metres of fresh water per day.
In India, at the Kalpakkam nuclear power plant, a desalination plant designed to produce 6,300 cubic metres of fresh water per day is undergoing commissioning.
In South Korea a design has been developed for a nuclear desalination plant which would supply 40,000 cubic metres of fresh water per day and 90 megawatts of electricity.
-------- europe
Britain voices concern over Belarus expulsion
LONDON (AFP)
Aug 10, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040810212708.6ksdpn9c.html
Britain voiced concern Tuesday over the expulsion from Belarus of a British nuclear physics professor, saying it will keep pressing the government in Minsk for a full explanation.
Alan Flowers, of Kingston University in Surrey, southeast England, had been working on a youth democracy project in Belarus as well as studying the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.
"I am concerned about the expulsion of Dr Flowers from Belarus," Britain's minister for Europe, Denis MacShane, said in a statement.
"We will continue to seek clarification from the Belarusian authorities for the reasons behind Dr Flowers's expulsion," he said.
Flowers told AFP on July 31 that interior ministry officials had told him that he would have to leave the country promptly, and that he would be banned from returning for five years.
They refused to explain the decision, but Flowers said he suspected the order was connected to his work over several years with Belarusian members of the European Youth Parliament.
"The main reason I believe the Belarusian authorities are not happy with my presence is that this organisation has become stronger and stronger," he said.
Belarus' authorities have repeatedly been criticised by international organisations for strong-arm tactics in dealing with dissents -- real or imaginary.
Opposition leaders and human rights groups have also repeatedly charged President Alexander Lukashenko with rights violations.
-------- iran
Nuclear Tests Vindicate Iran So Far
Tue Aug 10, 2004
By GEORGE JAHN,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=7&u=/ap/20040810/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear
VIENNA, Austria - New findings by the U.N. atomic agency appear to strengthen Iran's claim it has not enriched uranium domestically and weaken U.S. arguments that the country is hiding a nuclear weapons program, diplomats said Tuesday.
The diplomats, who are familiar with Iran's nuclear dossier, told The Associated Press that the International Atomic Energy Agency has established that at least some enriched particles found in Iran originated in Pakistan.
The origin of hundreds of other samples has not been established. Still, the findings bolster Tehran's assertion that all such traces were inadvertently imported on "contaminated" equipment it bought on the black market.
The findings also could hurt the case being built by the United States and its allies, which accuse Iran of past covert enrichment in efforts toward making nuclear weapons.
In Washington, the Bush administration said it was awaiting hearing the full report on the U.N. agency's findings and was unswayed in its suspicions about Iran's covert nuclear agenda.
"Obviously, we think Iran has a weapons program, we think the evidence points to that," said Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman. "What's troubling is that there are not clear, consistent answers that are provided in an open and transparent way ... as promised."
The origin of the enriched uranium has been a focus of investigations by the IAEA as it has tried for months to determine whether Iran violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Faced with evidence, Iran over the past year has acknowledged clandestinely assembling a centrifuge program to enrich uranium for what it says are plans to produce electricity, but it denied actually embarking on the process.
Enrichment occurs when uranium hexaflouride gas is spun through thousands of centrifuges in series to gain increasingly higher levels of a compound that can reach weapons grade above 90 percent.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog refused to comment Tuesday. IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said any new findings would be contained in a report being prepared for a Sept. 13 meeting of the agency's board of governors.
The report, being written by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, will review the agency's progress in answering questions about nearly two decades of secret nuclear activities by Iran that were first revealed in 2003.
Most suspicions focus on the sources of traces of highly enriched uranium and the extent and nature of work on the advanced P-2 centrifuge, used to enrich uranium.
The diplomats, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said the agency had only been able to conclusively link one sample - with particles enriched to 54 percent - found at one Iranian site to Pakistan. But another sampling enriched to a lower degree might also have come on equipment bought from the network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, they said.
They said the findings strengthened Iran's hand ahead of the September meeting, even if the agency still was far from establishing the origin of hundreds of other traces of enriched uranium found in Iran.
The diplomats said lack of clarity on that issue - as well as Tehran's past cover-ups, spotty record of cooperation with the IAEA, and insistence on the right to enrich uranium - keep it high on the IAEA agenda.
"It's a boost for Tehran," one diplomat said of the enriched uranium finding. "But there are other things it still needs to worry about."
Still, experts said the reported findings could hurt U.S. hopes that international impatience with Iranian foot-dragging could translate into support for referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council.
"This is definitely one for Iran's side, and it's a strike against the hard-liners who want to make a case that Iran is (consistently) lying," said David Albright, a former Iraq nuclear inspector who runs the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
Washington's hopes received a boost last week with Iran's continued insistence on its right to enrich uranium and other demands alienated key European powers France, Britain and Germany.
In a "wish list" presented to the European three and shared with The Associated Press, Iran called on them to back its right to "dual use" nuclear technology that has both peaceful and weapons applications.
The Iranians also asked the Europeans to sell them conventional weapons and indirectly demanded they stick to any deal reached to supply them with nuclear technology even if international sanctions are later imposed on Tehran.
As well, the "wish list" called for a strong European commitment to a non-nuclear Middle East and "security assurances" against a nuclear attack on Iran - both allusions to Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms and destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in a 1981 airstrike to prevent it from making atomic arms.
France, Germany and Britain last year had held out the prospect of supplying Iran with some "dual use" technology, but only in the distant future, and only if suspicions that Tehran might be seeking to make nuclear weapons were laid to rest.
With Iran still under investigation, the presentation of the wish list stunned senior French, German and British negotiators, according to an EU official familiar with the Paris meeting.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.iaea.org
----
Pakistan Limits Cooperation with IAEA on Iran
8/10/04
Radio Farda Newsroom
http://www.payvand.com/news/04/aug/1094.html
Pakistan foreign minister said Pakistan will not allow UN to inspect its nuclear facilities as part of its probe on Iran's nuclear program.
August 9, 2004 - Inspection of Pakistan's nuclear facilities as a part of the UN probe into Iran's nuclear program "is out of question," Pakistani foreign minister Khorshid Mahmud Kasuri, who is in Tehran on a two-day visit, said on Monday during a joint press conference with foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi.
"Pakistan is a responsible member of the international community. We have been cooperating with the IAEA and sharing information," he said. "Of course we will cooperate and are cooperating, but as far as inspections of Pakistan are concerned, that is out of the question. We are not a signatory of the NPT," he added.
Cooperation of Pakistan can potentially help UN inspectors to verify the Islamic officials' claim that traces of highly enriched uranium found by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in several nuclear facilities in Iran were from centrifuge equipment bought on the black market through father of Pakistan nuclear bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Pakistani foreign minister did not say how his country would help the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspections, but defended Pakistan's own nuclear weapons program.
Foreign minister Kharrazi said the US did not have any reason to press IAEA's board of governors in their meeting next September to refer Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council for imposing sanctions.
"Only the Americans say Iran's case will be referred to the Security Council, but to send Iran's case to the Security Council they need reasons and we have to have committed violations," Kharrazi said.
----
Diplomacy sidelined as US targets Iran
Simon Tisdall
Tuesday August 10, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1279824,00.html
The US charge sheet against Iran is lengthening almost by the day, presaging destabilising confrontations this autumn and maybe a pre-election October surprise.
The Bush administration is piling on the pressure over Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme. It maintains Tehran's decision to resume building uranium centrifuges wrecked a long-running EU-led dialogue and is proof of bad faith.
The US will ask a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency on September 13 to declare Iran in breach of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, a prelude to seeking punitive UN sanctions.
Iran's insistence that it seeks nuclear power, not weapons, is scoffed at in Washington. John Bolton, the hawkish US under-secretary of state for arms control, says there is no doubt what Tehran is up to. He has hinted at using military force should the UN fail to act. "The US and its allies must be willing to deploy more robust techniques" to halt nuclear proliferation, including "the disruption of procurement networks, sanctions and other means". No option was ruled out, he said last year.
Last month in Tokyo, Mr Bolton upped the ante again, accusing Iran of collaborating with North Korea on ballistic missiles.
Israel, Washington's ally, has also been stoking the fire. It is suggested there that if the west fails to act against Iran in timely fashion, Israel could strike pre-emptively as it did against Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981, although whether it has the capability to launch effective strikes is uncertain.
The US has been pushing other countries to impose de facto punishment on Iran. Japan has been asked to cancel its $2bn (£1.086bn) investment in the Azadegan oilfield and Washington has urged Russia to halt the construction of a civilian reactor.
Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, said at the weekend there was a new international willingness to confront Tehran, but declined to rule out unilateral action if others did not go along.
That will fuel speculation in Tehran and elsewhere that the Bush administration may resort to force, with or without Israel, ahead of November's election. Options include "surgical strikes" or covert action by special forces.
Such a move would be a high-risk gamble for George Bush. After the WMD fiasco, there would inevitably be questions about the accuracy of US intelligence. In the past Iran has vowed to retaliate. Although it is unclear how it might do so, the mood in Tehran has hardened since the conservatives won fiddled elections last winter.
"I think we've finally got the world community to a place, the IAEA to a place, that it is worried and suspicious," Ms Rice said in one of a string of interviews with CNN, Fox News and NBC television. She vowed to aim some "very tough resolutions" at Iran this autumn. "Iran will either be isolated or it will submit," she said.
Officials in London say she exaggerated the degree of unanimity on what to do next. Britain, France and Germany are the EU troika which has pursued a policy of "critical engagement" with Iran, despite US misgivings.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, has invested considerably in resolving the issue, travelling to Tehran on several occasions. A diplomatic collapse would be a blow.
"There has been no such decision at all," a Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday of US efforts to take the dispute to the security council. "The dialogue [with Iran] is ongoing and the government still believes that negotiation is the way forward at this stage." But Britain is in danger of being dragged down a path of confrontation that it does not want to travel.
Nuclear weapons are not Washington's only worry. The US charges include Iran's perceived meddling in Iraq, where the blame for the surge in Shia unrest is laid partly at Tehran's door. It also takes exception to Iran's ambiguous attitude to al-Qaida and Tehran's backing for anti-Israeli groups such as Hizbullah. The recent Kean report on 9/11 detailed unofficial links between some of the al-Qaida hijackers and Iran.
Investigations into other terrorist attacks since 9/11, including this year's Madrid bombings and failed plots in Paris and London, point to an Iran connection, though the extent of any government involvement is obscure.
While the Bush administration is set on a tougher line there is no consensus even in Washington on what to do.
A report by the independent Council on Foreign Relations says since Iran is not likely to implode any time soon, the US should start talking.
"Iran is experiencing a gradual process of internal change," the report says. "The urgency of US concerns about Iran and the region mandate that the US deal with the current regime [through] a compartmentalised process of dialogue, confidence building and incremental engagement."
That suggestion was mocked by a Wall Street Journal editorial as "appeasement". Hawks say the nuclear issue is too urgent to brook further delay. And therein lies the rub. Bringing Iran in from the cold is a time-consuming business. But the Bush administration, as usual, is in a hurry.
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Bush Sees Joint World Effort to Press Iran on Nuclear Issue
August 10, 2004
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/middleeast/10bush.html?pagewanted=all
ANNANDALE, Va., Aug. 9 - President Bush said Monday that the United States would maintain pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, emphasizing that his administration was working with other countries and not confronting Iran on its own.
"Iran must comply with the demands of the free world, and that's where we sit right now," Mr. Bush told a Republican crowd at an "Ask President Bush" campaign event in this Washington suburb. "And my attitude is that we've got to keep pressure on the government, and help others keep pressure on the government, so there's kind of a universal condemnation of illegal weapons activities."
The president has come under searing criticism from his Democratic competitor, Senator John Kerry, for what Mr. Kerry calls Mr. Bush's go-it-alone approach to foreign policy, which he says has left the United States isolated in the world. Mr. Kerry has also attacked Mr. Bush for allowing Iran to move forward with its nuclear ambitions while going to war with Iraq, where almost no evidence of a nuclear weapons program was found.
Mr. Bush has not directly answered Mr. Kerry's charges, but on Monday he repeatedly emphasized how much the United States was cooperating with other nations to try to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, particularly in Iran.
"We've relied upon others to send the message for us," he told the crowd in the gymnasium at the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College. "And the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Great Britain have gone in as a group to send a message on behalf of the free world that Iran must comply with the demands of the free world."
He concluded that "good foreign policy works with other countries, and we will."
At the same time, Mr. Bush acknowledged that the United States had exhausted an array of sanctions against Iran, which has felt minimal effect from them because of its robust foreign trade. "We've totally sanctioned them," he said. "In other words, there's no sanctions - you can't - we're out of sanctions."
On Sunday, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" that she expected that the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency would make "a very strong statement" next month forcing Iran to chose between being isolated internationally or abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions. But she stopped short of saying whether the United States would try to organize its allies to impose sanctions in the Security Council.
So far, major Western European nations and Russia have resisted American efforts to impose sanctions against Iran.
In a sign of continuing difficulties in negotiations with Iran, a European official said in Vienna that the Tehran government had recently presented a list of demands that included its insistence on continuing its program to enrich uranium, according to The Associated Press. Western experts say the program is aimed at producing a nuclear weapon.
The demands were said to have been given to French, German and British negotiators. The A.P. reported that European officials were disappointed that Iran had not been more forthcoming in recent talks.
Mr. Bush made his remarks about Iran in response to a question from an invited audience member, who was one of several in the crowd to ask about foreign policy. His campaign officials said Monday's "Ask President Bush" theme was the United States as an "ownership society," which allowed the president to promote policies that he said would encourage Americans to own their own homes, open health savings accounts, start their own businesses or plan for retirement. The event, in the strongly Republican state of Virginia, was timed to the release of a new Bush campaign advertisement, called "Ownership," that has begun airing in 18 closely fought states as well as nationally on cable channels.
Kerry campaign officials said the fact that Mr. Bush was spending time in Virginia three weeks before the Republican convention showed that his campaign was highly worried about losing a state that he won handily in 2000.
Bush campaign officials countered that the president had business at the White House all day, and that campaigning in suburban Virginia was about proximity, not desperation.
-------- israel
Weighing a strike on Iran
By James T. Hackett
August 10, 2004
Washington Times
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040809-091648-8042r.htm
On June 7, 1981, Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers took off from Etzion Air Base in the Sinai, flew at low altitude across the Iraqi border and zeroed in on Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor. One minute and 20 seconds after the first bomb struck, the reactor lay in ruins. All aircraft returned safely.
Today, 23 years later, there is a growing view in Washington and Tel Aviv that a similar pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities may be the only way to prevent the fundamentalist mullahs from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
The Iranian threat to Israel, and to Middle Eastern stability, is serious and growing. Ten months of intensive diplomacy by Britain, France and Germany has failed to defuse the crisis.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Israel has considered Iran its No. 1 enemy. On July 21, Israel's intelligence agencies submitted a joint report to the Cabinet that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by 2007. And Iran has made clear its main enemies are the "Zionist state" and its U.S. ally.
Every country that recently developed nuclear weapons has done so by generating highly enriched uranium or plutonium through the fuel cycle used for nuclear power. Tehran's claim it only aims to produce electric power is ridiculous. Iran sits on huge reserves of oil, is the second-largest Middle East petroleum exporter after Saudi Arabia, and has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the world after Russia.
The British, French and Germans brokered a deal with Iran last October under which Tehran would cooperate with international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, and suspend enrichment of uranium. In exchange, the U.N. Security Council would not take action against Iran.
The IAEA put seals on the centrifuges used to enrich uranium, but now Iran has directly challenged the IAEA and the European nations by removing the seals, and restarting production of new centrifuges. Once enriched, uranium can be used either to produce electric power or make nuclear bombs.
Iran's centrifuges are believed capable of making 20 to 25 nuclear weapons a year. Plutonium, a byproduct of the nuclear reactor, also can be used to make bombs. John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, recently told Congress that in a few years the Bushehr nuclear power plant Russia is building for Iran could produce enough plutonium for more than 80 nuclear weapons. Mr. Bolton also said that, if re-elected, President Bush would make Iran a priority.
India, Pakistan and North Korea have recently developed nuclear weapons, and Iran appears to be next. Israeli intelligence has long been warning Iran intends to produce a bomb, Washington has been calling for U.N. sanctions on Iran, and now even the wishful-thinking Europeans believe Iran is determined to produce nuclear weapons.
The best way to deliver such weapons is by a hard-to-stop ballistic missile, and Iran has an aggressive missile development program. Iran already operates the Shahab-3 missile that can carry a one-ton warhead more than 800 miles, putting Israel and much of the Middle East at risk. The Shahab-3 is a version of North Korea's Nodong missile and was developed from North Korean technology. The U.S. is helping Israel upgrade and test its Arrow missile interceptor, designed to stop slower and shorter-range Scuds, to give it some capability against the much faster Shahab-3.
Last December, Iranian officials denied earlier reports they were developing a longer-range Shahab-4. But Defense Minister Ali Chamkhani subsequently said Iran is upgrading the Shahab-3, and plans to launch its own satellite within 18 months. This is the same cover - calling a missile a satellite launcher - used by North Korea to explain its Taepodong-2 missile with intercontinental range.
Washington wants U.N. sanctions on Iran, but the Europeans are reluctant. And Russia and China, which have vetoes, are suppliers to Iran's nuclear program.
As the danger and Iran's defiance grows, U.S. and Israeli officials have begun talking about a possible strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, calling Iran the greatest danger to Israel's existence, has said, "Israel will not allow Iran to be equipped with a nuclear weapon."
This time, a strike by Israel's F-15s is likely to be much broader than the attack on a single plant at Osirak, Iraq. A strike probably would hit the nuclear plant at Bushehr, the centrifuges at Natanz, a reactor being built at Arak and possibly other targets. A pre-emptive strike can be avoided, at least temporarily, if the U.N. agrees to apply meaningful sanctions. If not, Iran may become the second member of the Axis of Evil to learn the folly of its arrogance.
James T. Hackett is a contributing writer to The Washington Times and is based in San Diego.
-------- japan
Nagasaki mayor urges US to scrap `mini-nuke' plans
AP Tokyo
Tuesday, Aug 10, 2004,
Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/08/10/2003198175
"If humankind is to survive the only path left for us is the abolition of nuclear weapons."
Itcho Ito, mayor of Nagasaki
Nagasaki's mayor warned yesterday that new nuclear weapons the US wants to develop would cause as much radiation contamination as the atomic bomb dropped on the southern Japanese city 59 years ago, as he marked the anniversary of the attack.
At the annual ceremony, Itcho Ito recounted how tens of thousands perished in the World War II bombing of Nagasaki and said many victims continue to suffer.
"The `mini-nukes' that the US is trying to develop possess terrible power, despite their smaller size. The radiation destruction they would cause is no different from that of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki,'' Ito told thousands gathered at the city's Peace Park.
Ito said Washington must scrap its nuclear arsenal before the world can be free of nuclear weapons. He urged Americans to face the "terrifying reality" that the bomb's victims have lived with since the attack.
"It's clear that as long as the world's most powerful country continues to rely on nuclear weapons, other countries can't pursue nuclear non-proliferation," he said in a nationally broadcast speech. "If humankind is to survive the only path left for us is the abolition of nuclear weapons."
Washington has had a self-imposed ban on nuclear testing since 1992. But it has conducted so-called subcritical nuclear weapons testing -- which detonates bomb-grade plutonium but stops short of full-fledged nuclear blasts -- since 1997. In June, US lawmakers approved spending for research into nuclear warheads that would set off smaller explosions or destroy underground targets.
Ito pointed to the UN International Court of Justice's 1996 advisory calling for nuclear disarmament and the abolishment of nuclear arms. However, the court's 15 judges were divided over whether to consider the threat or use of nuclear weapons illegal.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday reiterated Japan's policy banning the production, possession and transport of nuclear weapons within its borders.
"Our country won't change that stance," Koizumi said, echoing his remarks Friday on the anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing in Hiroshima.
Koizumi also vowed to continue pressing for more nations to ratify a nuclear non-proliferation pact and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would ban nuclear arms testing and make developing new weapons almost impossible.
At the ceremony, officials placed chrysanthemum wreaths at the foot of a peace statue. Attendees then observed a minute of silence as a bell tolled at 11:02am -- the minute the B-29 bomber Bock's Car dropped the bomb dubbed "Fat Man" on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. About 70,000 people were killed in the explosion.
Hiroshima had been bombed three days earlier, killing or wounding 160,000 people. On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan's surrender ended World War II.
Nagasaki this year added 2,707 people to a list of those who have died from aftereffects, putting the total number of the city's bomb victims at 134,592.
----
Still counting losses, 1945 victims want US to rethink
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=52764
TOKYO, AUGUST 9: The Mayor of Nagasaki today urged Americans to realise the devastation that arises from using nuclear weapons and pressed US citizens to join efforts to eradicate them. ''The city's elderly atomic bomb survivors continue to suffer from the after-effects of the bombing as well as from health problems induced by the stress of their experience,'' Iccho Ito said at the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city to around 5,400 people at the Nagasaki Peace Park.
Ito said: ''We call upon the citizens of the US to look squarely at the reality of the tragedies that have unfolded in the wake of the atomic bombings 59 years ago.''
The Nagasaki Mayor criticised the US for continuing to possess 10,000 nuclear weapons and conducting subcritical nuclear testing.
''The so-called mini nuclear weapons, that are the subject of new development efforts, are intended to deliver truly horrific levels of force,'' he noted.
Three days after the world's first atomic bombing reduced Hiroshima to ruins, a second bomb, code-named ''fat man'' after Sir Winston Churchill, hit the port of Nagasaki on Japan's Kyushu island, killing 74,000 people and wounding 75,000.
The commemoration ceremony began with a minute of prayer at 11:02 am, 59 years to the minute after the powerful plutonium bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945.
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Accident at Japanese Reactor Fires up Anti-Nuclear Campaigners
August 10, 2004
Townhall.com
http://www.townhall.com/news/politics/200408/FOR20040810a.shtml
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Anti-nuclear campaigners in Japan are hoping that an accident at a nuclear reactor Monday -- a day when Japan was already focusing on the nuclear issue -- will spur on the drive to shut down the industry in the country.
Four workers were killed when super-heated steam leaked into a turbine room at a nuclear power plant in Mihama, about 340 kilometers west of Tokyo. Seven others were injured, five seriously, in the accident, the deadliest of its kind in the country's history.
Both the government and the plant owners, Kansai Electric Power Co. -- Japan's second-largest utility -- stressed that no radioactive leak had taken place.
In the absence of a radiation leak, residents nearby were not evacuated from their homes or ordered to stay indoors, as happened in a 1999 accident at a uranium-processing plant.
Police in the Fukui prefecture said they were investigating the possibility of professional negligence and had assigned more than 100 investigators to the case.
Kansai has confirmed that the pipe which ruptured had not been checked since the reactor started operations in 1976.
Japan gets between one-quarter and one-third of its electrical power from nuclear plants, but the industry has been shaken over the years by safety scandals and accidents.
The Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, an anti-nuclear non-governmental organization set up in 1975, called for a thorough investigation into Monday's accident and for the public to be given a full explanation.
The center said that even if no radiation had been detected by monitors, "we don't assume that no radiation was released at all. We would expect that some tritium [a radioactive isotope of hydrogen] would have been released with the steam."
The NGO said the reactor was "an accident waiting to happen."
"Attempts to fix problems at old reactors like this are just as likely to induce problems somewhere else. It should be closed down."
Monday's incident occurred at a particularly sensitive time, 59 years to the day after the U.S. military dropped an atom bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of people and hastening the end of World War II.
The Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings each year are generally emotion-charged, prompting anew calls for a nuclear-free country, region and world.
Reacting to the Mihama accident, the environmental campaign group Greenpeace called on Japan to "mark this tragic event by closing its nuclear industry down" and using alternative sources of power generation "such as wind."
Noting the Nagasaki anniversary, the organization said the accident would "further undermine public confidence in the Japanese nuclear industry."
"Any sort of accident or incident that raises the nuclear phobia in Japan makes it more difficult to invest in the nuclear industry," the executive director of Greenpeace Japan, Steve Shallhorn, said by phone Tuesday.
With Japan's electricity sector moving towards deregulation and government subsidies falling away, Shallhorn charged that "safety standards are being lowered ... as companies are facing market pressures that they've never had to face in the past."
Opposition to nuclear power in Japan "is probably at its highest level ever, but whether or not it's high enough to stop the expansion of nuclear power is a major question," he said.
Greenpeace was campaigning to stop the expansion and work towards a phase-out, "but we're not certain that the rest of the country is there with us yet."
A large new plutonium-processing plant at Rokassho in the northern section of the country, now 95 percent complete, is approaching tests in the fall with plans to begin operating next July.
Although the cost to build the plant had already exceeded $20 billion, Shallhorn said Greenpeace was campaigning to have it shut down.
"Once they go critical, even if they only operate it for one day, it'll become even more expensive to decommission. If they just mothball it, it's relatively cheap."
Meanwhile, at this year's public events marking the dropping of the atomic bombs, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba slammed the U.S. for continuing to develop "smaller and more usable" nuclear weapons.
The criticism was echoed by Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito, who appealed to the American people to "join hands" and embark on the path of eliminating nuclear arms.
"As long as the world's leading superpower fails to change its posture of dependence on nuclear weapons, it is clear that the tide of nuclear proliferation cannot be stemmed," Ito said.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who attended the ceremonies, also pledged to "make utmost efforts towards the abolition of nuclear weapons."
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----
Accident at Nuclear Plant In Japan Kills Four Workers
No Indication of a Radiation Leak, Officials Say
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51137-2004Aug9.html
TOKYO, Aug. 9 -- Four people were killed and seven injured Monday by sprays of superheated steam at a nuclear power plant 200 miles west of Tokyo, but officials familiar with the accident said there was no indication of a radiation leak.
A spokesman for the plant, which is located in the picturesque village of Mihama and run by Kansai Electric Power, told reporters that the accident occurred when steam spewed from a leak in a turbine building at one of the plant's reactors, with bursts of the steam reportedly reaching temperatures as high as 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The accident automatically shut the facility down.
The incident follows a number of attempted coverups, mishaps and other problems that have plagued Japanese nuclear power plants in recent years, raising concerns over the safety of the country's 52 nuclear power complexes. Japan, the world's second-largest economy, relies on nuclear power for 30 percent of its electricity.
The Japanese government launched an investigation as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters that "we must put all our effort into determining the cause of the accident and to ensuring safety." He added the government would respond "resolutely, after confirming the facts."
According to the Kyodo news service, the dead and injured reportedly were subcontractors preparing for a regular inspection. They were laboring under a 22-inch-wide pipe when it apparently burst.
The leak was caused by a lack of cooling water in the reactor's turbine and by metal erosion in a condenser pipe, according to Kansai Electric.
The company told reporters that the broken pipe, originally 10 millimeters thick, had eroded to a thickness of only 1.4 millimeters. The pipe had not been replaced since it was first installed 27 years ago.
"I'm sorry to have caused such trouble," Yosaku Fuji, Kansai Electric's president, said at a news conference. "I cannot find the words to say to the deceased and the bereaved family members."
In February 1991, a tube inside a steam generator at another one of the plant's reactors broke, causing 55 tons of radioactive water to leak from the main cooling system into the secondary system that powers the reactor's turbine.
During that accident, an emergency core-cooling system was activated in Japan for the first time.
The Mihama plant, located near popular beach resorts, was the first nuclear plant built by Kansai Electric. Its first reactor began service in November 1970.
The Japanese public has grown increasingly alarmed by flaws and failures at nuclear plants here. In 1999, a radiation leak caused by human error at a fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, killed two workers and forced the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.
A string of safety problems and attempted coverups followed. In February, eight workers were exposed to low-level radiation at a power plant when they were accidentally sprayed with contaminated water, although the contamination levels were not considered dangerous.
[The Reuters news agency reported two other incidents at nuclear power plants in Japan on Monday. In one, Tokyo Electric Power -- Japan's biggest electricity producer -- said it had shut a nuclear power generation unit at its Fukushima-Daini plant because of a water leak. In the other, a garbage disposal site at a nuclear power plant in Shimane prefecture in western Japan caught fire, Chugoku Electric Power Co. said. The blaze was quickly extinguished.]
Special correspondent Sachiko Sakimaki contributed to this report.
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Japan Nuke Accident Highlights Laxity, Aging Plants
Tue Aug 10, 2004
(Reuters)
By Masayuki Kitano
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=WORLD&oid=57089
TOKYO - An accident at a Japanese nuclear plant that killed four workers occurred in an area that was to be inspected this week for the first time in 28 years, and months after a warning of potential problems, the plant's operator said on Tuesday.
The admission by Kansai Electric Power Co. is likely to further dent public confidence in Japan's nuclear policy, raising questions about the condition of some of Japan's aging plants and management's apparent laxity on safety matters.
Four workers were killed in Japan's deadliest nuclear industry accident on Monday when super-heated steam escaped from a ruptured pipe in a building housing turbines for a reactor at the Mihama nuclear power plant, 320 km (200 miles) west of Tokyo.
There was no radiation leak, but the accident raised further concerns about Japan's nuclear safety record.
"The pipe was to have been checked at an upcoming regular inspection," said a Kansai Electric official.
He said the pipe had not been checked since 1976 because it was not on an inspection list -- something Kansai Electric was notified of in November by a maintenance sub-contractor.
Some independent analysts said the accident could force the government to shut down its nuclear reactors for inspections.
"If the accident proves to have originated in a critical system, the implications of the Aug. 9 non-radioactive steam leak will prove deep and immediate, forcing the government to order another round of safety inspections," said Strategic Forecasting Inc, a U.S.-based consulting group.
"Early indications are that the bursting pipe that released the steam was already through 28 years of its 30-year lifespan, raising the possibility that similar pipes on all plants might have to be replaced," it said in a report.
The authorities have so far simply told power companies to check whether inspections on reactors that are of the same design as the Mihama plant have been carried out properly.
An official at the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency said the regulator had not ordered utilities to carry out physical inspections, which could require that plants halt operations.
Kouji Yamashita, a government nuclear safety inspector, said there were 22 other nuclear power generators in Japan of the same design as the Mihama reactor, 10 run by Kansai Electric, the remainder operated by four other firms.
WIDER PROBLEMS
Kyodo news agency said police were investigating whether the company neglected safety standards by letting more than 200 workers prepare for an annual inspection while the reactor, which was in a separate building, was still running.
A police spokesman said investigations were continuing.
Members of the public were critical of the company.
"Maybe they didn't do enough on crisis management ... and there weren't enough steps taken against dangers," said Motoyoshi Sakai, a 22-year-old student working part-time for a private television broadcaster in Tokyo.
Juro Ikeyama, an author on nuclear issues, including a history of the anti-nuclear movement in Japan, thought the accident could uncover similar problems elsewhere.
"Management has been really lax," he said.
"It turns out the pipe was probably really corroded, and the fact that it happened here suggests the same kind of thing could happen elsewhere," he said.
Japan depends on nuclear power for a third of its energy requirements and has 52 nuclear reactors. It imports virtually all of its oil, mostly from the volatile Middle East.
Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa apologized to victims, but added: "We must not undermine trust in nuclear energy policy."
Tokyo Electric Power Co, the world's biggest private utility, was forced to close all its 17 nuclear power reactors temporarily by April 2003 after admitting it had falsified safety documents for more than a decade.
A number of towns have held referendums in the past few years and voted against the construction of nuclear plants.
But not everyone is opposed.
"There are limits to thermal and water power generation so nuclear power generation is needed," said Tetsuyuki Matsuda, a 58-year-old company employee in Tokyo.
The worst previous incident at a Japanese nuclear facility was at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, north of Tokyo, in September 1999, when an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction was triggered by three poorly trained workers who used buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a tub.
The resulting release of radiation killed two workers and forced the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.
The only previous fatal accident at a Japanese nuclear power plant was in 1967, in a fire at a plant in Ibaraki prefecture just north of Tokyo. There was no radiation leak.
----
Japan Plant Operator Delayed Safety Checks
Tue Aug 10, 2004
By MARI YAMAGUCHI,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&e=6&u=/ap/japan_nuclear_accident
MIHAMA, Japan - The faulty cooling pipe at the center of Japan's deadliest nuclear power plant accident had not been inspected since 1996, despite a warning last year that it was a safety threat, the plant operator said Tuesday.
The dangerously corroded pipe - which carried boiling water and superheated steam - burst at the Mihama reactor on Monday, burning to death at least four workers and injuring seven others, two of them seriously. No radiation was released, officials said.
The announcement came as dozens of police agents and nuclear energy officials arrived Tuesday at the plant in Mihama, about 200 miles west of Tokyo, to investigate operator Kansai Electric Power on suspicion of negligence resulting in death.
The accident and suspected lapses deepened concerns about the safety of Japan's 52 nuclear plants, which supply about a third of the country's electricity. Two workers died in a radiative leak at a plant northeast of Tokyo in 1999.
It was unclear how the accident would affect the operation of Japan's other nuclear plants. The country's nuclear agency was considering a call for all plants to inspect their cooling pipes, a spokesman said.
Kansai Electric deputy plant manager Akira Kokado said private contractors conducting inspections for the company notified management in April 2003 that the cooling pipe was overdue for a thorough safety check.
Sections of the pipe were last checked in 1996 and deemed safe at that time, said Koji Ebisuzaki, Kansai Electric's chief manager for quality control. Last November, the plant scheduled an ultrasound inspection of the pipe for Aug. 14 - next Saturday.
"We thought we could delay the checks until this month," Kokado told a news conference. "We had never expected such rapid corrosion."
The national government in Tokyo - which plans to build another 11 nuclear power plants by 2010 - called for an open probe of the accident as investigators headed to the site.
"Prime Minister (Junichiro) Koizumi told me it is important that nothing be hidden from the nation," said Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa.
Officials, however, balanced the call for an aboveboard probe with warnings that the accident should not further dim the reputation of nuclear power in Japan.
"Nuclear power has a significant impact in our lives," Koizumi told reporters Tuesday. "We have to pay close attention so that our lives won't be affected by this accident."
Kyodo News service reported that the country's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had ordered four power companies to check nuclear plant cooling systems for corrosion. The report, citing unidentified officials, said plants failing the tests would be temporarily shut down.
Agency spokesman Sachiko Muranaka, however, denied that such an order had been issued, adding that the agency's actions would depend on the outcome of the Mihama investigation.
Monday's leak was caused by a lack of cooling water in the reactor's turbine. After the accident, Kansai Electric officials found a hole in a condenser pipe. The water flowing through the pipe was about 300 Fahrenheit.
The plant's No. 3 nuclear reactor automatically shut down when steam began spewing from the leak. Its two other reactors were operating normally.
Though the burst pipe had originally been 0.4 inch thick, the pipe had eroded to as thin as .06 inch in the 28 years since the reactor was built in 1976.
An ultrasound test might have detected the thinning, but Kansai never carried out such inspections, Kokado said, adding the company may have to review the way it conducts checkups.
Kansai revamped its safety guidelines after the United States suffered a similar accident at the Surry nuclear power plant in southern Virginia in 1986. Four people died in that accident.
The Mihama accident followed a string of accidents, leaks and other safety lapses at Japanese nuclear power plants, and was clearly troubling to people in the area.
The Mihama deaths also come as Japan is bidding to host the world's first large-scale nuclear fusion plant, the $12 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. But the project's sponsors - the European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China - remain deadlocked over whether to build the plant in Japan or France.
In Japan's 1999 accident, a radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, killed two workers and caused the evacuation of thousands of residents. That accident was caused by two workers who tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks.
Several major power-generation companies have since been hit with alleged safety violations at their reactors, undermining public faith in nuclear energy and leaving Japan's nuclear program in limbo.
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Corrosion Cited in Burst at Japanese Nuclear Plant
August 10, 2004
New York Times
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/asia/10CND-JAPA.html?hp
TOKYO, Aug. 10 - A steam pipe that blew out Monday, killing four workers at a Japanese nuclear power plant, had not been inspected in 28 years and had corroded from nearly half an inch to a thickness little greater than metal foil, the authorities said today.
"To put it bluntly, it was extremely thin - it looked terrible even in the layman's view," Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry, told reporters today after touring the power plant in Mihama, about 200 miles west of here.
Although the carbon steel pipe carried 300-degree steam at high pressure, it had not been inspected since the power plant opened in 1976. In April 2003, Nihon Arm, a maintenance subcontractor, informed Kansai Electric Power Co., the plant owner, that there could be a problem. Last November, the power company scheduled an ultrasound inspection for Aug. 14.
"We thought we could postpone the checks until this month," Akira Kokado, the deputy plant manager, told reporters at Mihama. "We had never expected such rapid corrosion."
The police opened an investigation today to determine why 221 workers were in the reactor facility at the time of the accident. The subcontractor has said the workers were preparing for Friday's inspection shutdown.
On Monday, four days before the scheduled shutdown, superheated steam blew a two-foot wide hole in the pipe, scalding four workmen to death and injuring five others seriously. The steam that escaped was not in contact with the nuclear reactor and no nuclear contamination has been reported.
Initial measurements showed that the steam had corroded the pipe from .4 inches to .06 inches, less than one-third the minimum safety standard. Kansai Electric said in a statement today that the pipe showed "large-scale corrosion."
"We conducted visual inspections, but never made ultrasonic tests, which can measure the thickness of a steel pipe," Haruo Nakano, a Kansai Electric spokesman, told reporters.
In response to the accident, Japan's Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency ordered four other power companies that own nuclear plants with the same type of pressurized water reactors to conduct ultrasound inspections of their pipes. The inspections are to involve nearly half of the country's 52 nuclear power plants.
After television news helicopters swarmed over the plant on Monday, government officials jumped today to assure the public that a full investigation will take place.
"We must put all our effort into determining the cause of the accident and to ensuring safety," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said. He added that the government would respond "resolutely, after confirming the facts."
But government leaders also tried to bolster flagging public support for nuclear power.
"Nuclear power has a significant impact in our lives," Mr. Koizumi told reporters today. "We have to pay close attention so that our lives won't be affected by this accident."
Mr. Nakagawa, the industry minister, said, "We must not undermine trust in nuclear energy policy."
The government has planned to build an additional 11 reactors this decade, increasing the nation's reliance on home-based nuclear power to 40 percent of electricity needs. Already slowed by local opposition, this program may now be stalled.
"In Japan, it's virtually impossible to build new nuclear facilities now," Asahi Shimbun, a liberal newspaper, said in an editorial today. "But facilities are wearing out, and there are worries about increasing problems with corroding pipes, rupturing valves and the reactor core."
The Nihon Keizai, a business daily, worried that the accident could undermine public support in Japan for nuclear power.
"We must find the cause of the accident and urgently come up with measures to prevent such an accident from happening again," the newspaper editorialized. "This accident seriously damaged public confidence in nuclear safety and our nuclear measures."
The Yomiuri, a conservative newspaper, warned: "Care must be taken not to overemphasize the dangers involved in the operation of nuclear power stations, which could lead to an overreaction. Operations at other nuclear power plants must not be undermined."
Japan has the world's third-largest nuclear power industry, after the United States and France.
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Japan Tries to Restore Nuclear Confidence
August 10, 2004
By AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press Writer
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/J/JAPAN_NUCLEAR_ACCIDENT?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
TOKYO (AP) -- The Japanese government worked to shore up public confidence in the nuclear power industry Tuesday, a day after the country's deadliest reactor accident killed four people.
Authorities launched an investigation, with dozens of police and nuclear energy officials visiting the plant to determine whether operator Kansai Electric Power was negligent. Politicians called for a review of nuclear plant safety.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged an inquiry so that "nothing be hidden from the nation." He told a Cabinet meeting he didn't want the public to grow uneasy about nuclear energy, the source of more than 30 percent of Japan's power.
But experts warned that the worn-out 28-year-old cooling pipe that ruptured could be an omen of trouble ahead. A series of mishaps at nuclear plants have tested public tolerance for nuclear energy.
Four died Monday when the corroded pipe burst, spewing boiling water and steam onto workers. Seven people were injured, two of them critically.
Though there was no radiation leak, the accident rekindled concerns about the safety of the country's 52 reactors. It also raised questions about plans to build 11 reactors by 2010.
Government officials vowed thorough inspections of nuclear reactors after learning the broken pipe at the Mihama No. 3 reactor, some 200 miles west of Tokyo, had not been checked since 1996 despite a warning last year that it was a safety threat.
"We must thoroughly investigate the cause of the accident. So that this never recurs, we must carefully carry out inspections - not just regularly scheduled ones," said Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa. "I aim to somehow restore faith in our nuclear and energy policy."
Proponents say nuclear power eases Japan's dependence on foreign oil, more than 80 percent of which comes from the Middle East. They say nuclear energy is also better for the environment because it does not emit greenhouse gases.
Detractors say this offers little comfort to worried citizens.
"We've entered a difficult era," said Hideyuki Ban, a co-chair of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, an anti-nuclear group. "Like with the Mihama plant, many of Japan's reactors are old, creating the conditions for trouble. The conditions are being created for a very serious accident."
Fukushiro Nukaga, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said the company' s failure to conduct a safety inspection sooner was a "disaster."
"I don't understand why this could not have been detected earlier," he said. "Many other nuclear plants have been operating for over 30-40 years. We have to review the safety standards of these plants."
Japan's Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency said 22 other reactors in Japan were the same model as Mihama No. 3.
In the most serious accident before Monday, two workers died in 1999 when they set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks. Hundreds were exposed to radiation.
--------
Steam leak kills 4 workers at Japanese nuclear plant
August 10, 2004
By Mari Yamaguchi
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040809-100623-9707r.htm
MIHAMA, Japan - Japan suffered its deadliest nuclear power plant accident yesterday when a bursting pipe killed at least four workers and injured seven in an energy-poor country already worried about nuclear plant safety.
No radiation was released when the boiling water and steam exploded from a cooling pipe at the plant in Mihama, a small city about 200 miles west of the capital, Tokyo.
But the steam leak followed a string of safety lapses and cover-ups at reactors, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed to conduct a thorough investigation. Fears about the safety of the country's 52 nuclear power plants soared in 1999, when a radiation leak northeast of Tokyo killed two workers and exposed hundreds to radiation.
The leak yesterday was caused by a lack of cooling water in the reactor's turbine and perhaps by significant metal erosion in the condenser pipe, said the plant's operator, Kansai Electric Power. The pipe's wall, originally 10 mm thick, had become as thin as 1.5 mm in the 28 years since the reactor was constructed.
After the accident, Kansai Electric officials found a hole in the pipe that was thought to be the source of the leak. They did not say how big the hole was.
The temperature of the water flowing through the pipe at the time of the accident was about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, said Akira Kokado, deputy plant manager.
Four workers died after suffering severe burns. Of the seven injured workers, two were in critical condition, three were in serious condition and the remaining suffered minor injuries.
"The ones who died had stark white faces," said Yoshihiro Sugiura, the doctor who treated them at the Tsuruga City Hospital. "This shows they had rapidly been exposed to heat."
All the workers were employees of Kiuchi Keisoku Co., an Osaka-based subcontractor of Kansai Electric. They had been inside the turbine building to prepare for regular inspections of the plant, which began operating in 1976.
Government officials said there was no need to evacuate the area surrounding Mihama, a city of 11,500.
The plant's No. 3 nuclear reactor automatically shut down when steam began spewing from the leak. Its two other reactors were operating normally.
Yosaku Fuji, president of Kansai Electric, apologized for the accident at a televised press conference.
"We are deeply sorry to have caused so much concern," Mr. Fuji said. "There is nothing we can say to the four who lost their lives. We pray for their souls from the bottom of our hearts and offer our condolences to their families. We are truly sorry."
Mr. Kokado said at a press conference that the metal erosion in the pipe was more extensive than Kansai Electric had expected. An ultrasound test might have detected the thinning, but Kansai Electric had never carried out such inspections, Mr. Kokado said, adding that the company might have to review the way it conducts checkups.
Resource-poor Japan is dependent on nuclear fuel for nearly 35 percent of its energy supply, and a government blueprint calls for building 11 more plants and raising electricity output from nuclear facilities to nearly 40 percent of the national supply by 2010.
The United States had a similar accident at the Surry nuclear power plant in southern Virginia almost two decades ago when an 18-inch steel pipe burst and released 30,000 gallons of boiling water and steam, killing four persons.
In Japan's 1999 accident, a radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, killed two workers and caused the evacuation of thousands of residents. The accident was caused by two workers who tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks.
-------- missile defense
Missile defence system untested, unneeded, says retired U.S. general
Tue Aug 10, 2004
Canadian Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1845&ncid=737&e=2&u=/cpress/20040810/ca_pr_on_na/missile_defence
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada should not join the United States in its planned missile defence system, a retired American general and a former Canadian diplomat said Tuesday.
Robert Gard, a retired lieutenant-general, said the system is too costly, has never been tested and may not even work. The diplomat, Peggy Mason, a former Canadian ambassador for disarmament at the United Nations (news - web sites), said Canada shouldn't do anything to promote the system.
"Doing anything to encourage this system is not in Canada's security interest," she told a news conference.
The United States plans to have a handful of interceptor missiles operational in Alaska this fall.
Canada and the United States agreed last week to amend a treaty to allow Norad, the Canada-U.S. continental defence organization, to pass on target information to the anti-missile sites.
Defence Minister Bill Graham said that decision was taken to preserve Norad's status as the key to continental defence and doesn't commit Canada to joining the missile project.
Critics say the change to the Norad pact is another step down a slippery slope towards Canadian participation in the missile scheme, one of President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s pet defence programs.
Supporters of the system say it will defend against possible attempts by a rogue state to lob a missile at North America. Detractors say it could lead to another arms race and the weaponization of space.
Gard, a 31-year-army veteran who served as an artilleryman in Vietnam, said the whole missile program is expensive and untried.
"As of now, no major component of this system has been tested in its deployable configuration," he said. "Operational testing of the integrated system is far into the future.
"The last intercept test was conducted in December 2002. It failed."
He also said the missile shield isn't needed because any so-called rogue state would hesitate before taking a shot at the United States.
"Any country that launched such a missile would run the risk of a retaliatory attack that would be tantamount to annihilation."
Gard, a former president of the National Defence University and now a senior military fellow at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-proliferation, said Washington should be spending the billions wasted on the missile system on practical ways to stop terrorist from smuggling bombs into the country.
Mason said the system threatens to start another arms race.
"It has an impact on international peace and security," she said.
The Canadian government has been discussing the missile program with Washington for months, but Graham has said any decision on participation is still a long way off.
-------- russia
Nuclear Security Is a Myth
By Pavel Felgenhauer
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Moscow Times
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/08/10/008.html
Last week, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that Russia's nuclear arsenal was safe and that "never in the history of the Soviet Union or Russia had there been genuine attempts to steal nuclear weapons." Ivanov made the statement during a military exercise in the Murmansk region involving more than 1,000 Army troops and security personnel.
The exercise involved crushing a terrorist attempt to seize nuclear weapons. It included a "terrorist" ambush of a convoy of the Defense Ministry's 12th Main Directorate troops transporting nuclear weapons. The convoy guards resisted, reinforcements were deployed by helicopter, armor and air support arrived in time, the "terrorists" were defeated and the nukes were secured.
Of course, in June real reinforcements in a real attack by rebels in Ingushetia arrived hours after the attackers had achieved their objective -- looting weapons from a storage facility -- and melted into the countryside. No matter, the exercise was planned to impress the West. Forty-nine observers from 17 NATO countries were present, and Ivanov used the opportunity to declare: "In different regions of the world the myth is propagated that Russian nuclear weapons are poorly guarded. Believe me, this is a myth."
But how well do Ivanov's words reflect reality? In October 2001, General Igor Volynkin, chief of the 12th Main Directorate, told reporters that unnamed terrorists had made two attempts that year to penetrate Russian nuclear arms storage facilities, known as "S-shelters." The attempts, according to Volynkin, were successfully repelled. It would seem that Volynkin's story contradicts Ivanov's statement that no attempts to steal nukes have ever occurred.
The 12th Main Directorate is the nuclear branch of the armed forces, in charge of the delivery, security, maintenance and testing of Russian strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. The S-shelters are bunkers built in the Soviet era near large airfields and missile bases to store nuclear weapons when they are not attached to delivery systems. The location of S-shelters is a top military secret and was not disclosed in arms reduction talks with the United States.
There are other highly disturbing facts. I have obtained a document, signed by the head of the old Nuclear Power Ministry in November 1997, stating that over 500 tons of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium are stored in Russia in conditions that "do not conform to international safety standards." More than 20,000 nuclear weapons could be produced from 500 tons of weapons-grade material.
In the 1990s, the Nuclear Power Ministry dismantled tens of thousands of Soviet-made nukes, while the production of new warheads was slashed to one-ninth of Cold War output. Warhead assembly facilities lacking adequate storage were saturated with nuclear materials. In the Soviet era these plants had assembled more nukes than they dismantled. Nuclear materials from dismantled weapons were immediately fitted into new ones, making storage a non-issue.
The situation has only gotten worse since 1997, as more old nukes have been dismantled. Over the last decade, the United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to improve nuclear security in Russia, but the results have been patchy. Modern security and control systems were installed in civilian facilities like the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, but not in facilities connected to the military, where the security risk is the greatest but where Russian authorities have not allowed a U.S. presence.
Our nuclear security has been based on a massive network of informers recruited by the KGB from the ranks of military and nuclear weapons scientists. In Russia, virtually all technical security measures are designed to repel an outside threat, primarily U.S. agents and special forces. The KGB was expected to thwart internal security threats by relying on timely tips from informers.
Security was tight in the Soviet era. Scientists and KGB and military officers had no incentive to steal, since they couldn't possibly sell stolen nuclear material or even leave the country. Today, with corruption rampant at all levels of government, including the security services, it's only a matter of time before this archaic security system breaks down.
If nukes get loose, Russia will be the first to suffer. Russia urgently needs Western aid and technology to help build a modern security and nuclear material control system. Just telling the world that everything is hunky-dory won't get the job done.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.
----
U.S., Russian labs join forces on nuclear power
August 10, 2004
By Sue Vorenberg
Albuquerque Tribune
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news04/081004_news_nukes.shtml
Nuclear power makes strange bedfellows.
The United States and Russia - once divided by the Cold War - want to work together to tackle future global energy issues with nuclear power.
Those issues include averting a global power shortage and heading off a pollution disaster.
The heads of seven American national labs, led by Sandia National Laboratories Director C. Paul Robinson, and the heads of 11 Russian national labs, led by Russian Research Centre Kurchatov Institute Director Evgeny Velikov, met last month in Washington to form a new nuclear power alliance.
In the next several months they hope to convince their governments to develop more options for nuclear reactors and power technology. The groups plan to meet with government officials and talk with Congress but are still putting their plans together this month, Robinson said.
Moving forward with the plan will be crucial to meet energy needs of the future - especially with the connection between carbon dioxide and global warming, Robinson said.
"Global energy demands are probably going to rise by a factor of three between now and 2050," Robinson said. "Most of that will come in underdeveloped or developing nations. That could lead to a global train-wreck. If the bulk of that energy is coal and fossil fuels, it will create huge burdens of pollution and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."
China, for instance, in the past 10 years has grown from one of the world's smallest oil users to the second largest - right behind the United States. Industrial development in that country has created a 300 percent increase in the cost of steel due to escalating demand, Robinson said.
In 50 years, if development continues, China will demand the same standard of living as neighboring Japan, with all the energy demands of that country and - because of its population size - a lot more, said Dana Christensen, Los Alamos National Laboratory's office director for nuclear technology applications. Los Alamos is also part of the agreement.
"There are very few things that can meet that demand growth," Christensen said. "Those include nuclear, wind, solar, hydropower. It's not that we're developing nuclear power at the expense of other technologies - we're going to need all the energy we can produce."
The United States has fallen behind in the global nuclear power market. The country hasn't built a new nuclear plant in the past 30 years, but more than 30 nuclear plants are currently being built in other parts of the world - many in Europe and Asia, Christensen said.
"Nuclear research in the U.S. on advanced reactors has really cut way back in recent decades," Robinson said. "The Russians have managed to really prop that up and are working on some exciting technologies. What the United States has are the best control systems in the world. I think what everybody would like to see is our control systems on the Russian reactor technology."
About 15 percent of the world's energy needs are met by nuclear power right now. By 2050, that could increase to 40 percent, Robinson said.
"We have turned the corner on the reserves of natural gas and other fossil fuels," Robinson said. "We're seeing price increases in oil and natural gas and this is only the beginning.
"We clearly have to have something in the market within 10 years or the crisis will overtake us. We have to head off the train wreck - that's the scenario where everyone will try to outbid each other for energy until the world economy shrinks or collapses."
Probably the most glaring problem with increasing global nuclear power production is the threat of nuclear byproducts like plutonium getting into the hands of terrorists or governments that want to make nuclear weapons, Robinson said.
Sandia and Los Alamos are developing technologies to burn those byproducts out of the uranium power plant fuel, or to create fuel that leaves different sorts of byproducts, Christensen said.
"Our main concern in the United States is how to manage the nuclear material," Christensen said. "We have a strong technology base for that. What we would like to do is build a regime for the world where countries that want nuclear power can have access to fuel supplies, but those fuel supplies are sent back for disposal in the nations that are already nuclear powers."
About 31 countries already have nuclear power. All could be included in efforts to provide less developed nations with power supplies, Robinson said.
Two Russian technologies that show promise are fast reactor technology - less efficient reactors that burn plutonium and other byproducts in their fuel cycle - and floating reactors, which like nuclear-powered submarines could ship a power plant along waterways to cities that need them, Christensen said.
"About 75 percent of the world's population lives within 50 miles of navigable water," he said. "Floating a reactor to those areas makes sense. The countries would basically lease them - the reactors would be self-contained and could work for 15 or more years. When their fuel is done, the provider just ships in a new one, plugs it in and takes the old one away."
Such reactors could be put in a dry dock with special shielding to protect them from weather, Christensen said.
----
Moscow's Nuclear Past Is Breeding Perils Today
August 10, 2004
New York Times
By C.J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/europe/10radiation.html?pagewanted=all&position=
MOSCOW, Aug. 5 - The radiation experts arrived at Viktor Avram's auto repair shop last month, appearing beside the wall separating the shop from an enormous factory. The men warned Mr. Avram to take care where he strolled.
"They told me I could walk on the road," he recalled, nodding toward a dirt track that descends to the Moscow River. "But they said I should stay to the left. To the right is radiation."
Mr. Avram works beside a disquieting legacy of the early years of the nuclear arms race, a large radioactive waste site inside a city of 11 million people.
On the territory of the former Soviet Union the work of finding and recovering radioactive waste goes on not only near the plutonium-producing reactors in Siberia or the Urals, or on the test range in Kazakhstan that in 1949 detonated Moscow's first atomic bomb. It also occurs in the midst of daily life in Moscow - near offices, factories, train stations, highways and homes.
It is a result of the peculiar history of a rushed Soviet effort to tease secrets from the atom. Every country that has had atomic programs has been left with the difficult task of recovering the byproducts and waste. But the former Soviet Union, under orders from Stalin, began extensive nuclear research inside its most populated and central place, its capital.
"The program of creating the nuclear bomb, the atom bomb, started in Moscow," said Dr. Sergei A. Dmitriyev, general director of the Moscow region's branch of Radon, a little known arm of the Russian government charged with locating, retrieving and securing radiological waste.
Radon works to undo the consequences of an incautious time, when researchers, working in totalitarian secrecy and with an incomplete understanding of radiation's dangers, built a network of institutes and factories with little planning for dealing with the discarded material. Those sites left behind all manner of radiation-emitting waste; more than 1,200 orphaned sources have been retrieved in Moscow over the years, according to Aleksandr S. Barinov, chief engineer of Radon's Moscow branch.
Moscow's own development made matters worse. Some radioactive material piled up at factories or laboratories. Much was hastily dumped in forests that at the time were outside the city line. Then Moscow grew, overtaking its outskirts and sending down roots into illicit radioactive dumps.
"Eventually housing and offices were started in these areas," Dr. Dmitriyev said.
Radon, which operates a network of more than a dozen regional waste storage centers throughout Russia, began its work in 1961, after well over a decade's worth of waste had been orphaned. Work became more intensive after the explosion in 1986 at Chernobyl, when the Soviet Union ordered Radon to survey population centers and search for waste. A map of work completed shows recoveries throughout the city, from Moscow's inner ring near the Kremlin to subway stops and residential areas at its edge.
Mr. Barinov said Radon recovers and stores only low- and medium-level radioactive waste. Becauseothe materials are not fissile, they are incapable of the chain reaction leading to a nuclear explosion. Their danger lies in emission of radiation.
The health risks of these low- and medium-level sources have not been conclusively established. Radon simply says much of the material has posed probable health risks, and its retrieval is essential both to reduce the risks and to ensure that radioactive waste will not be used in terror attacks. Its officials note that the medium-level sources sometimes have enough radioactivity to fuel so-called "dirty bombs."
Since 1996 Radon has also been required by law to monitor new construction sites, in case workers unearth long forgotten waste. And it retrieves unwanted sources from hospitals, institutes, factories and the city's nine nuclear research reactors, while working on several old waste sites where cleanup is incomplete, its officials say.
Once material is recovered, it is trucked to a dump about 50 miles northeast of the city, near Sergeiv Posad. Some of the waste is burned in intense heat and converted to black obsidian-like blocks, and the ashes are mixed with cement. All is entombed beneath cement, clay and soil, to keep the radioactivity from spreading.
Part of the work receives financing from the United States, which regards the collaboration as an important area of security cooperation. "They've got a just daunting task," Paul M. Longsworth, deputy administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous agency in the Department of Energy, said on a recent visit to the American Embassy in Moscow.
Abandoned radiological material is periodically found in cities elsewhere in the world. To help Russia secure radiological material that could be used in terrorist attacks, the nuclear security administration has been providing Radon with equipment, security upgrades and training.
"Every day that these sources go unsecured, or partly secured, is a day these sources could be used in a malevolent way," Edward McGinnis, director of the administration's Office of Global Radiological Threat Reduction, said in a telephone interview.
Last fall, the security administration completed work improving security at the storage facility for the more dangerous categories of waste Radon stores, underwriting new barriers, fencing, locks, video monitoring equipment and other features designed to deter theft or loss.
The upgrade is especially evident at a cavernous storage center near Dr. Dmitriyev's office near Sergeiv Posad, where, behind a series of gates, the most dangerous radioactive materials are buried.
The center resembles an aircraft hanger with a concrete floor dotted by rows of circular caps, each the size of a manhole cover. Under every cover is a subterranean vertical slot, nearly 20 feet deep. Radioactive materials are interred inside.
Radon regularly receives more material. Excavation of contaminated soil and the retrieval of other waste continues at several sites in Moscow, including the Kurchatov Institute, a nuclear research center that had its genesis in the Stalin era, when its grounds were beside an artillery range in the forest. Now it is well within the boundaries of the sprawling city.
Another active site is the Plant of Polymetals in southwestern Moscow, beside Mr. Avram's garage.
Last fall, an entire building on the plant's grounds was dismantled, carted away and entombed at Radon's dump. An extensive area of contaminated soil remains, Radon says, including a large fill on the embankment that drops to the Moscow River, opposite the Bochkarev beer plant.
Mr. Avram and another man who works near the plant said they had been visited by Radon's experts but had not been told what sort of manufacturing or research occurred in the building, or the level of radiation emitted by the site.
Edward Shingaryov, a spokesman for the federal Agency for Atomic Energy, said the plant manufactured control rods for nuclear reactors and extracted thorium and uranium from ore. A spokesman for the plant declined to comment further. "We are a closed enterprise," he said.
American officials noted that although Stalin's legacy is atypical, with so much orphaned waste in a national capital, the broader problem of Russia's radiological inheritance is not unique.
The other side of the arms race at times also conducted work in cities. In 1942, for example, before the United States government decided that nuclear tests should be conducted far from population centers, the world's first man-made nuclear reaction was made on a squash court at the University of Chicago.
On average, the Department of Energy recovers three unwanted, high-risk radiological sources every week in the United States, Mr. McGinnis said, and not only from isolated sites. He noted that four sources of strontium-90 were recovered inside Houston this year on the day the city was host to Super Bowl XXXVIII.
Still, the problem of urban radiation in Moscow is of an entirely different order, sometimes forcing residents to evaluate the safety of where they live or work. Mr. Avram, for his part, takes an accommodating view.
Shirtless and streaked with grease, he said he was not especially worried about the radiation near his garage. "I'm from Moldova and I drink Moldovan wine," he said. "It cleans everything. Radiation doesn't hurt me."
----
Concern on Russia nuclear plants after Japan mishap: environmentalists
MOSCOW (AFP)
Aug 10, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040810132538.c67j4e90.html
Most Russian nuclear power stations are old, poorly maintained and pose serious risks of an accident at least as dangerous as that which occurred Monday in Japan, Russian environmental experts said.
"Nearly 70 percent of Russian reactors are approaching the end of their planned service life," the Russian chapter of the international environmental organization Greenpeace said Tuesday in a statement.
"With each passing year, the risk of serious accidents grows. But rather than shutting down dangerous reactors, the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency extends their use," the statement added.
Russia's newest nuclear power plant, a single-reactor facility brought online in 2001 and located in the southwestern city of Volgodonsk, was temporarily shut down last November in an automatic emergency procedure triggered by a short-circuit, Greenpeace noted.
Another Russian environmental group, Ekozashchita, said separately that "Russia may soon find itself in a situation much more serious than Japan because Russian reactors are older."
Russian nuclear authorities are "playing with fire" by extending the life of outdated reactors, the group said.
The operator of the Japanese facility at Mihama admitted Tuesday that a pipe which leaked steam and killed four workers had not been properly inspected in 28 years.
The site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, is located in Ukraine -- but at the time of the 1986 accident Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
-------- terrorism
Curbing spread of A-bombs
STEPHEN HANDELMAN,
Aug. 10, 2004
Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1092048386744&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
When Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program last year, Washington celebrated it as proof that hard-line policies against "rogue states" produce results. Hawks argued that the Libyan surrender justified, in part, the U.S. military adventure in Iraq.
So what are we to make of the newest threats last week from senior officials in President George W. Bush's administration to "disrupt or delay" Iran's alleged nuclear bomb production?
So far, these unidentified aides only hint at covert actions rather than military measures. But it's clear that, in a heightened atmosphere of global vulnerability, the world is facing another critical point of no return in the 50-year struggle to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.
The U.N. plans a conference next year aimed at toughening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But, deep divisions among the five nuclear powers about how much further to go in expanding and enforcing the NPT have made this an exercise in empty diplomacy.
There's obvious reason to worry. Since the disclosure of the black-market smuggling ring based in Pakistan, no one can ignore the evidence that Iran and North Korea, to name the two most well-documented culprits, have developed the technical facilities for producing weapons-ready plutonium.
And worse, a burgeoning clandestine trade in fissile material means that terrorist groups could have access to the tools necessary for making, at the minimum, low-grade radioactive "dirty bombs."
Preventing this situation from getting out of control tops the list of security challenges facing the U.S. and Canadian and European allies.
The NPT, along with other safeguards administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, clearly haven't done the job. But what will?
Washington's policy, which involved a blend of sanctions and hawkish diplomacy, has demonstrably gotten nowhere. The Libyan "model" seems tied to specific political circumstances.
Covert action to sabotage or destroy the suspected weapons facilities of recalcitrant nuclear "wannabes" appears the next logical step. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, said darkly this weekend that the president would "look at all the tools available to him." That, however, begs the question asked before the Iraq adventure began: Is this administration letting ideology determine the tools it considers worthwhile?
An effective nuclear non-proliferation strategy contains three parts: securing the sources of nuclear weapons production; preventing the clandestine sale of technology and fissile material; and ensuring that states cannot convert civilian nuclear programs into weapons production.
This strategy depends not just on co-operation from would-be nuclear states, but also on the full, honest participation of the world's five existing nuclear powers.
Unfortunately, the "Big Five" - the U.S., France, Russia, Britain and China - have clashing commercial and strategic interests. As a result, trying to stop the spread of nukes has come to resemble the war on drugs, where rhetoric outpaces results.
In 1993, the Clinton administration, in co-operation with the U.N., proposed a "fissile material cut-off treaty" that would force nuclear states not covered by the NPT - Israel, Pakistan, India (and North Korea) - to freeze their nuclear stockpiles. The Bush administration has revived the Clinton plan, with one significant difference: It wants to eliminate any requirement for inspections or verification.
The reason is no secret - Washington is reversing a decades-old U.S. policy of no production of new fissile material or weapons, as it prepares to create new capabilities of its own.
And it is intent on protecting its own facilities from an inspection regime that could advertise its capabilities to potential enemies and rivals.
Other states have pointed out the hypocrisy of this stance. The nuclear powers, they say, have failed to live up to the essential non-proliferation bargain that committed them to nuclear disarmament. They're right, but this kind of "gotcha" squabbling leads nowhere. Taking a lesson from the failing war on drugs, nuclear non-proliferation strategies need to be grounded in the politics of supply and demand.
Libya's recognition that its weapons of mass destruction no longer produced any political advantage in the Middle East had as much to do with its decision to abandon them as the fear of U.S. military intervention.
Addressing the political considerations behind states' nuclear programs - Iran's fear of a resurgent Iraq, for instance - could produce better results by leading, at least, to the containment of both official and unofficial nuclear powers within a broader diplomatic framework.
Military or covert actions may still have a place as the ultimate sanction. But what the world needs now is a 21st-century version of the politics of nuclear containment.
It worked during the Cold War. With a more sophisticated approach tailored to the modern world, it could work again.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
No Functional Biosafety Committee at Battelle Memorial Institute
Sunshine Project
Biosafety Bites #7
(10 August 2004)
http://www.sunshine-project.org/biodefense/bb.html#7
The skyrocketing biodefense budget, now exceeding that of the Manhattan Project (adjusted for inflation), is rapidly increasing research on biological weapons agents, including risky genetic engineering projects. Despite this and the increasingly evident chronic, institutionalized problems with IBCs across the country, the Bush administration maintains that comprehensive laboratory safety and disclosure law is unnecessary. It says that an alleged "culture of responsibility" among institutional biosafety committees will protect Americans, and the world, from its biodefense research.
Battelle Memorial Institute, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, is a gigantic science contractor with an emphasis on defense research, including classified programs. Battelle has offices across the US - often near Department of Defense facilities - as well as business in at least six foreign countries. Battelle operates four US Department of Energy-owned laboratories,(1) each of which conducts biotechnology research. Battelle also has its own in-house BSL-3 facility, at West Jefferson, Ohio, which is reported to conduct classified biodefense research for the US government.
Battelle is overwhelmingly funded by the US government, which provides it with US $1.3 billion per year in grants, plus hundreds of millions in payments for services. Technically a non-profit organization, Battelle is an unusual 'charity'. It pays a seven-figure salary to its director, controls more than two dozen for-profit spin-off companies, and dispenses grants to nonprofit organizations near its facilities, such as the Columbus Zoo, in a manner similar to corporate sponsorship.
While Battelle is a colossal enterprise, its institutional biosafety committee (IBC) is not. In fact, for a period covering four and a half years (since 1 January 2000), Battelle cannot produce a single page of minutes of IBC meetings.
In the same time period, Battelle has only once reported to the NIH Office of Biotechnology Activities, which oversees IBCs. The late 2001 report was made shortly after the New York Times ran a story saying that Battelle would be the site of a project to genetically engineer a vaccine-resistant strain of anthrax. The "report" merely consists of a single page listing IBC members, and attaching their resumes, and informs NIH that Battelle "has established" an IBC. The "report" strongly suggests that the Battelle IBC did not exist until after the institute's involvement in classified biodefense studies was widely reported.
Battelle did not answer the Sunshine Project's January request for its IBC minutes. Battelle replied to a follow-up letter, sent by certified mail in May, by saying its IBC hasn't met since June 1st, 2003. Battelle replied to a third request - this time for all IBC minutes and all reports to NIH since January 1, 2000 - by providing a single, heavily redacted page of paper - the late 2001 letter it submitted to NIH, informing the Office of Biotechnology Activities that it "has established" an IBC. (2)
Battelle's final reply to the Sunshine Project, however, curiously states that "Battelle's IBC has been inactive [since January 1, 2000], except for review of one project, for which no IBC documents are available for release to the public." It is possible that this project, documentation of which Battelle refuses to provide, is the anthrax genetic engineering effort, although that project is only one of many involving recombinant DNA that Battelle conducts.
In sum, Battelle's institutional biosafety committee does not meet, does not report to the NIH Office of Biotechnology Activities, does not review projects, and does not take responsibility for lab safety. Rather, its IBC is decorative - a slight, cynical gesture in the direction of the NIH Guidelines.
The situation reveals some of the deep failings of the US' guidelines-based laboratory biosafety system. So far, Biosafety Bites has profiled a few IBCs that are failing to live up to their responsibilities. There are many more to come.
Despite the realities of IBCs, the Bush administration and the National Academies of Science argue that the weak and neglected system, heavily littered with failed and dysfunctional committees such as Battelle's, has a "culture of responsibility" that will enable it to take on the very serious task of ensuring safety, security, and good judgment in biodefense research. The administration and the academies are simply wrong.
NOTES
(1) The labs operated by Battelle are Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and Pacific Northwest National Labs, as well as the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). These labs have NIH-registered IBCs, although one (Pacific Northwest) is brand new and another (NREL) refuses to comply with the NIH Guidelines public access provisions. Oak Ridge's IBC was the subject of Biosafety Bites #1.
(2) Battelle did not maintain a copy of this "report" to NIH. The redacted cover letter received by the Sunshine Project bears a NIH received stamp, indicating that Battelle had to ask NIH for a copy of its own "report" in order to provide it to the Sunshine Project.
SOURCES
Battelle Annual Report 2003
Correspondence with Adam Wagenbach and Donald Cagle of Battelle, January - August, 2004.
Battelle Internal Revenue Service Form 990 (non-profit tax return), fiscal year 2002.
-------- new mexico
National lab at Los Alamos must have new management
By Joseph Perkins
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Pasadena Star News
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~11851~2325807,00.html
THE computer disks containing top-secret information remain missing at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nuclear weapons facility in New Mexico.
Maybe the disks were snatched by Chinese spies, who, according to a congressional report, successfully infiltrated Los Alamos during the 1990s and made off with classified design information on every thermonuclear warhead deployed in the U.S. ballistic missile arsenal.
Maybe the top-secret files were stolen by al-Qaida terrorists, ratcheting up their unholy war against the United States. Or maybe the disks were simply misplaced by some irresponsible scientist or another at Los Alamos who failed to take seriously his or her duty to safeguard America's nuclear secrets.
Now, if this breach of national security was a one-time occurrence, it might be forgiven, if not overlooked.
But this is just the latest in a long-running series of security breaches at the lab, which is managed for the federal government some would say mismanaged by the University of California.
That's why Sen. Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, has introduced legislation proposing that the federal government end its contract with UC, which the university has held since 1943, when J. Robert Oppenheimer oversaw the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.
UC critics suggest that if security at the weapons lab was as lax during the Manhattan Project era as it is six decades later, Nazi spies just might have stolen the secrets that enabled this country to win the race with Hitler to develop the world's first atomic bomb.
"We simply have a cultural problem there in Los Alamos,' said Allard, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, which has oversight responsibility for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which has oversight for the national weapons labs.
The man in charge at Los Alamos actually agrees with Allard. "Once again,' said G. Peter Nanos, "the failure of individuals to follow prescribed standards and protocols have brought disrepute' to the lab.
Indeed, the loss (or theft) of the top-secret computer disks, stored in an unguarded safe next to a soda machine, is the third security breach at Los Alamos in just the past nine months. But unlike the previous incidents, after which Los Alamos officials assured that missing materials did not compromise national security, lab officials concede that the latest incident is "very serious.'
That's why even some of those who have, in the recent past, reflexively defended UC's role in managing Los Alamos, have decided that the time has come for the university to quit the weapons lab.
Like the Los Angeles Times, which recently urged UC officials not to bid for renewal of its management contract, after the federal government opened it up to competition for the first time since the lab's inception.
"If it does compete,' the Times editorialized this week, placing national security above parochiality, "UC's bid may look less like a resume than a rap sheet.'
Over the last four years, the editorial recounted, "vials of plutonium have gone missing; injuries have stemmed from such causes as lasers carelessly left on and radiation exposure; and classified e-mails have found their way to the Internet.'
In fact, the institutional culture at Los Alamos has gotten so aberrant that the weapons lab has lost the unwavering support of its biggest benefactor on Capitol Hill, Sen. Pete Domenici, the New Mexico Republican.
"I have found myself increasingly defending the laboratory for failures of basic management ... and security,' he stated in an open letter. But repeated security breaches have undermined his efforts.
The lab's "reputation as a crown jewel of science,' a vestige of the Manhattan Project era, has been "eclipsed,' Domenici continued, "by a reputation as being both dysfunctional and untouchable.'
Well, Los Alamos management must not remain untouchable. National security demands a regime change at the weapons lab.
-- Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune and can be reached at Joseph.Perkins@UnionTrib.com .
-------- texas
Meeting on radioactive lab today
August 10, 2004
By Daniel Huron
Texas City Sun
http://texascitysun.com/story.lasso?wcd=6305
A community meeting to discuss compensation for former employees of Texas City Chemicals will be held today at 1 p.m. at Carver Park Community Center, 6415 Park Ave. in Texas City.
In the 1950s, a lab was set-up at Texas City Chemicals to investigate the separation of plutonium from fertilizer, said Pete Tyler, a spokesman for US Congressman Nick Lampson (D- Beaumont).
By 1965, the lab - which was located on property now owned by BP Petroleum - was torn down.
The question of whether or not employees in the small lab were exposed to nuclear wastes and qualified for government compensation was raised four years ago. Lampson worked with the former workers in their quest for compensation.
After determining the employees did qualify, they were allowed to apply for compensation.
"All the people locally who applied have yet to get through the process," Tyler said.
The secrecy of the work the Texas City lab has also slowed the process down.
Kevin Peterson of the US Department of Labor's Division on Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation will speak at the meeting. Galveston County commissioner Stephen Holmes will also be present at the public gathering.
What: 1965 radioactive lab health meeting.
When: 1 p.m. today.
Where: Carver Park Community Center 6415 Park Avenue, Texas City.
-------- utah
Downwinder response is inadequate
Tuesday, August 10, 2004,
The Spectrum (Utah)
http://www.thespectrum.com/news/stories/20040810/opinion/1016496.html
IN OUR VIEW
There hasn't been enough done to ease the plight of Southern Utah residents who call themselves Downwinders.
Thousands lost their lives as a result of the nuclear testing that took place at the Nevada Test site during the 1950s and '60s. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control, as many as 15,000 Americans nationwide succumbed to the fallout that was released from the tests.
Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George and Valley View Medical Center in Cedar City are offering free screening for those who believe they may have some health problems as a result of the nuclear tests.
The magnanimous offer is welcome relief for many who are still experiencing the effects of the poison that fell from our skies.
But what happens next?
Will newly diagnosed cancer sufferers have to wait for years while their claims trudge through the bureaucratic red tape that surrounds the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Program?
More importantly, will they have to endure yet another round of nuclear testing?
The push in Washington, D.C., is to develop new mini-nukes and the so-called bunker buster bombs.
But the problem goes far beyond the boundaries of nuclear testing.
A number of other American communities -- particularly Hanford, Wash. -- also are waging war with the government over radiation poisoning.
From 1944 to 1990, the Hanford Nuclear Facility produced plutonium for U.S. nuclear weapons.
Now there are an unusual number of thyroid and other cancer cases being reported. Thousands of Hanford residents exposed to radiation filed lawsuits in 1990 against DuPont and GE, which operated the plant from 1946-1965.
That court battle is ongoing, with another status conference set for mid-September.
When the original RECA Program was set up, only uranium miners and those with very specific types of cancer who lived in Utah, Nevada and Arizona were eligible for compensation. Today, however, we know through the CDC report that high doses of iodine-131 fell across the entire nation.
While Southern Utahns rightfully fight their battles for compensation, what will become of the thousands of others across America who don't know they, too, are Downwinders?
-------- vermont
JAPANESE NUCLEAR TRAGEDY SHOULD BE MESSAGE TO VERMONT YANKEE, REGULATORS
August 10, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution
POST OFFICE BOX 545, BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT 05302
Contact: Raymond Shadis 207-882-7801
Local Response to Aug. 9 Fatal Steam Release at Nuclear Plant -
Background : When New England Coalition learned of Monday's pipe burst and worker deaths at Japan's Mihama nuclear station, NEC staff and volunteers immediately began to comb through international news accounts to sort out the facts:
- A 50cm (20 inch) return pipe, last inspected in 1996 (not inspected since construction in 1976 according to some reports) suddenly burst scalding workers in the Mihama Unit 3 turbine hall.
- Four workers were killed; seven were hospitalized. One remains in serious condition.
- Company spokesmen said that the failed pipe was scheduled for inspection in November. A quality control manager said that it was due for ultra-sonic inspection on August 14th.
- When new, the pipe walls measured 10 millimeters in thickness (.4 inches). At the time the pipe burst, it measured just 1.4 millimeters (.056 inches, thinner than a penny, almost as thin as a dime).
- High-pressure water or wet steam erodes the interior of power of plant piping and pipes must be inspected for wear periodically. (Through the industry, the phenomenon is termed, " erosion-corrosion.")
- A deputy plant manager said that they "had never expected such rapid corrosion."
- A similar fatal incident took place in the United States in 1986 (12-09-86) when a return line burst at the Surry Nuclear Power Station in Virginia.
- Both Surry and Mihama are pressure water reactors. Mihama started commercial operation on December 1, 1976 and has a licensed out put of 826 megawatts (electric).
ENTERGY NUCLEAR VERMONT YANKEE
- Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station began commercial operation on November 30, 1972. It is a boiling water reactor with a licensed thermal output of 1593 megawatts; yielding about 510 MWt (electric).
- Erosion-corrosion occurs in boiling water reactors; has occurred, and continues to occur at the ENVY station.
- Due to increased steam flow, faster steam flow, and more moisture carry-over (wetter steam), erosion-corrosion will be increased if Entergy is permitted to boost reactor power by 20 percent.
- Entergy had the opportunity to replace some worn sections of piping during the recent outage, but chose not to because of cost considerations.
- New England Coalition nuclear experts found a search of ENVY documents in the Vermont Public Service Board case that Entergy was advised through generic industry notices and through its own consultants that some sections of piping should be replaced prior to an extended power uprate of 20 percent. One such critical section of piping is called the "cross-over" piping and is located near and on the steam side of the turbines (as opposed to the water side or return piping). Entergy chose not to replace this critical piping that is subject to extra wear, in part, because of the number of bends in the piping. New England Coalition expert, Arnold Gundersen, raised this issue before the Vermont Public Service Board. The Vermont Public Service Department chose to ignore it. It is one of many issues we will raise before the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
- Conventional industry wisdom has been that most wear will take place at piping elbows or bends. The blowout at Surry occurred at a pipe bend. The blowout at Mihama occurred, however, in a long straight section of pipe.
The inescapable lesson of the Mihama experience is that:
1. the industry does not understand as much about erosion-corrosion and the possibility of accelerated wear rates as it thought; therefore surveillance and wear calculations must be made many times more conservative than what they are today,
2. both Mihama and Surry incidents happened in plants that were not given the extra stress and wear of extended power uprates,
3. that ENVY appears to be cruising for an accident by placing cost-conservation ahead of safety conservation,
4. and just saying that it "can't happen here" will not prevent the next tragedy. From our point of view, such hubris will only mean that the next accident will not be an accident; rather it will be an eventuality.
-------- washington
When Home Is Where the Atomic Bomb Was Made
By ELI SANDERS
August 10, 2004
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/national/10richland.html
RICHLAND, Wash., Aug. 7 - The letters from the government arrived in the spring of 1943, just as the apricot trees were beginning to show their white blossoms here along the Columbia River. They were addressed to the inhabitants of White Bluffs, Wash., as well as to those of nearby Hanford, and they told the residents that their orchards and farms were being condemned so the land could be used to help the United States fight the war.
What exactly the government planned to do with these two small but fertile oases in the desert of eastern Washington, officials at the time would not say.
Confused and resentful, but also somewhat proud to be helping their country in a secret war effort, hundreds of farmers and their children packed up and moved away from White Bluffs and Hanford. They lost that year's crop of apricots and asparagus, surrendered homes they loved for compensation they felt was insufficient, and began what for many has been something of a long life in exile.
In each of the 61 years that have passed since White Bluffs and Hanford were evacuated and transformed into what became the 640-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation, the original residents of these towns have held emotional reunions, gathering on the reservation or nearby to refresh fading memories, share stories and demand a little more attention for what they lost in 1943.
They are older now, and fewer in number, but still they return with their canes and gray hair to recall moments fixed in their minds by the trauma of forced relocation. The reunion this year, held over the weekend, coincidentally fell between the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, on Aug. 6, and that of the bombing of Nagasaki three days later. The Nagasaki bomb was built with plutonium made at the Hanford reservation in the years immediately after the towns of White Bluffs and Hanford were erased from the map.
"The memories haven't been taken away," said Don Skelton, 84, putting a positive spin on the loss of his childhood home as he rode an air-conditioned bus over the weekend toward the barren expanse of tumbleweeds and dying trees that is now White Bluffs, a town where he recalled spending his youth hunting jackrabbits and swimming in the shallows of the Columbia.
Irene Canfield, 87, agreed. "In our minds we remember," she said. "It's still there."
In reality, not much of either White Bluffs or Hanford is still there. Many buildings were destroyed in the 1940's. Others have turned to dust. The orchards have disappeared.
On the tour, the bus drove through what remains of the towns, down old roads steadily being swallowed by grass and sagebrush, past decaying sidewalks leading nowhere.
It stopped at the former Hanford High School, the only building standing in that town, now just a concrete skeleton where pigeons roost. In White Bluffs, where only a crumbling former bank remains, people looking to the southeast could see a mothballed nuclear reactor in the distance, wrapped in a cocoon of metal siding meant to keep radioactive material within - just part of the huge federal cleanup effort involving Hanford's nuclear past. A man seated on the bus near Mr. Skelton carried a Geiger counter, just in case.
There were about 40 people on the bus tour this year, but only 10, including Mr. Skelton and Ms. Canfield, actually lived in White Bluffs or Hanford when the letters came. The rest were mostly the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of residents. Many worried that with nine former residents having died in the last year, this could be the last trip.
In the early years, when the residents still did not know why they had been told to leave, they had their annual reunion in nearby Prosser, where they had reburied the bodies of relatives they had not wanted to leave behind in their condemned towns' shared graveyard.
Frequently they talked about money. Walt Grisham, 87, grew up in White Bluffs and said his father, who moved to Portland, Ore., had remained bitter about how little he was given for his land - 20 acres on which the family had grown peaches, apricots, grapes and hay. Mr. Grisham said he did not know exactly how much his father was paid.
Mr. Skelton said his own father was offered about $4,000 for 20 acres. After the family took the government to court, he was paid $20,000, which Mr. Skelton said he believed was still less than the land was worth.
Connie Eckard, spokesman for the Department of Energy at Hanford, said that people in the towns had understood the need to sacrifice.
"These people generally felt that this was just part of their contribution to the war effort," Mr. Eckard said. "They went on about their lives. They just picked up and left."
Few at the reunion seemed to have forgiven the government for paying what they said was too little for their land. "I don't know what kind of word you could use, but it wasn't 'compensated,' " Mr. Grisham said.
Even in the years after the reasons for removing the residents became clear, they still could not return to see their old homes.
"When I came out of the service in '45 you couldn't get close to the place," Mr. Grisham said.
The reunions continued in Prosser, 25 miles southwest of Richland, until 1968. That year the former residents were allowed to see their hometowns for the first time in 25 years.
"I'd never seen my dad cry," Mr. Grisham said. "He did then."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Pledges to Soften Tactics in Afghanistan
Associated Press
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52851-2004Aug9.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 9 -- The top U.S. general in Afghanistan promised President Hamid Karzai that he would tone down aggressive tactics in sweeps for Taliban-led insurgents and ensure that U.S. troops are more sensitive to Afghans' conservative ways, the military said Monday.
Already fending off allegations of prisoner abuse, Lt. Gen. David Barno agreed that his troops would try to smash in fewer doors and handcuff fewer villagers in an effort to ease resentment and foster goodwill, a military spokesman said.
"The coalition recognizes that its forces are guests in Afghanistan," Maj. Scott Nelson said.
Local leaders have long complained of heavily armed U.S. soldiers and allied Afghan militiamen descending on villages in the dead of night, leaving behind a trail of wrecked property, wrongful detentions and trampled customs.
Anti-American leaflets this year depicted a male U.S. soldier searching under a woman's all-encompassing burqa, something that would be deeply offensive to Afghanistan's conservative Islamic mores.
The military previously had bristled at criticism of search tactics, pointing out that Afghanistan is still a war zone more than two years after the ouster of the Taliban movement.
But Barno agreed to soften methods after Karzai summoned him to his palace in Kabul, the capital, last Wednesday.
Barno said his troops would now consult local officials and tribal elders before launching sweeps and would first get elders to ask residents to open their doors, to avoid having troops kick their way in. Troops also will receive training in "local customs and courtesies."
--------
Karzai Trying to Regain Political Backing
August 10, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/asia/10afghan.html?pagewanted=all&position=
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 7 - Two months before Afghanistan holds its first election for president, preparations have an air of democratic bustle.
Nearly nine million eligible Afghans have registered to vote so far, several million more than expected, despite efforts by the Taliban to disrupt the process. NATO has agreed to provide extra forces to help the 18,000 American troops who are maintaining security.
The incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, and 22 opponents have registered for the race and are starting to hold rounds of news conferences and rallies.
Despite the trappings of democracy, the real decision about who will be elected president in October, and elected to Parliament next spring, will probably be made at meetings taking place right now in guest houses around town, where heavily armed guards idle outside near S.U.V.'s with tinted glass.
Inside, men who command thousands in their own private armies, some of them veterans from the wars against the Soviet Union and the Taliban, are deep in discussion.
Will they back Mr. Karzai, who has vowed, with American and international backing, to disarm them and build a unified national defense corps? Or will they form new alliances in opposition? Whichever way they choose, their soldiers, or mujahedeen, and their local communities are likely to follow their instructions at the polls.
That means that Mr. Karzai may not be the shoo-in he was thought to be, unless he works out a deal with the regional commanders and governors who have become his single biggest challenge as he tries to maintain power and build democratic institutions. Their anger at him is rising.
"Karzai was the strongest candidate," said Massouda Jalal, the only woman running for president, who came in second to Mr. Karzai in the vote for leader of the transitional administration in 2002 at the loya jirga, or national assembly. "Now he is one of the strong candidates."
Ms. Jalal and others say Mr. Karzai, whom opinion polls show to be overwhelmingly popular, may fail to win a majority of the votes and thus be forced into a runoff election. To gain the mandate to establish a strong central government, Mr. Karzai wants not only to win, but also to win big.
Mr. Karzai went so far as to drop the most powerful leader of mujahedeen from his ticket, an action that has won him praise in some quarters but anger in others.
That was the powerful defense minister and vice president, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, who has since led the defection from Mr. Karzai. "Karzai from now on will not have the support of the big group in the cabinet and the government that he has had in the past," said Marshal Fahim, an ethnic Tajik who is expected to take with him the support of most of the mujahedeen in the north.
Abdul Shakur Waqef Hakimi, a spokesman for Jamiat-e-Islami, one of the largest mujahedeen parties, said, "From the beginning the mujahedeen genuinely supported the government, but then Karzai made mistakes and he lost the support of the mujahedeen."
The mujahedeen are now rallying around Yunus Qanooni.
Some leaders are still making up their minds. "We have two months to see, and we will choose who serves Afghanistan best," General Abdullah, the commander of the Afghan Army's 10th Division on the western edge of Kabul, said as he looked out over tanks, military barracks and a private prison.
Under the government's disarmament program, General Abdullah was to have disarmed and disbanded his 3,500 fighters, handed over his weapons and put himself out of a job by the summer. But he refused, along with other powerful commanders around the country, and renegotiated the plan.
Now the militias, which are estimated to number 60,000 men around the country, are required to disarm only 40 percent of their men before the presidential election, something most of them can tolerate.
"Will there be disarmament?" said Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a presidential candidate and former deputy of one of the mujahedeen parties. "Not in six months, not in six years."
Mr. Karzai came to power with the backing of the mujahedeen leaders of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban. In office he has tried to include the mujahedeen parties in his government rather than oppose them. Yet technocrats in his government warn that Afghanistan will become a narco-mafia state if he does not move against so-called warlords, because of their control of weapons and the illegal drug trade.
In an interview last month, Mr. Karzai said the commanders and their militias represented probably the greatest danger facing the country.
When Mr. Karzai made the surprise announcement on July 26 that he was choosing Ahmed Zia Massoud, the brother of the legendary resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, over Marshal Fahim, it was widely seen as an effort to break away from the hold of the big commanders.
The United States, which has bankrolled many of the big commanders as part of its campaign against terrorism, supported Mr. Karzai's decision to drop Marshal Fahim.
Reaction from the mujahedeen camp was swift, and Mr. Karzai suddenly found himself facing a new and strong challenge led by Mr. Qanooni, his former education minister.
Mr. Qanooni is backed by major players including Marshal Fahim; the foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah; and another brother of Mr. Massoud, Ahmed Wali Massoud. All are Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul, a stronghold of mujahedeen who fought the Soviets and later the Taliban.
Hearing the news, many of their regional allies rapidly began arriving in Kabul, including Gen. Daoud Khan from Kunduz, Gen. Hazarat Ali from Jalalabad and Ismail Khan, the powerful governor of Herat, whom Mr. Karzai and the technocrats in his government have long wanted to remove.
All of those men have enormous influence in their regions and will certainly influence the voting. So far, they have supported the democratic process and promised to avoid violence.
Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president, and Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, both leaders of mujahedeen parties, remain in the wings. Together they declared their support for Mr. Karzai in June, but they are taking part in discussions and have yet to endorse a candidate.
Muhammad Naseem Faqiri, the chief spokesman of Jamiat-e-Islami, said they were trying to bring the various mujahedeen parties together to reduce the number of candidates and avoid having the election go to a second round. That would suggest that they are trying to persuade the big commanders to back Mr. Karzai.
Until recently the leaders of the Northern Alliance supported Mr. Karzai. Over the months, though, a series of actions by the central government - sending in troops to control areas, putting pressure on commanders to disarm and replacing some cabinet ministers - has been seen as an effort to whittle away the power of the alliance, said Fahim Dashty, editor of the Kabul Weekly and brother-in-law of the foreign minister.
Mr. Karzai's dropping of Marshal Fahim as his running mate set off an emotional response, he said. "Now the Northern Alliance feels insulted by Karzai and his allies," he said. Their support now has to be completely renegotiated, he added.
Behind closed doors every possible deal is being gone over. Mr. Qanooni and Marshal Fahim are still talking to Mr. Karzai. "Meetings never really stopped," said one foreign official.
"Everyone is talking to everyone," said Faizullah Zaki, an aide to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful Uzbek leader from northern Afghanistan who is also running for president. General Dostum had had approaches from all sides, Mr. Zaki said.
Mr. Karzai is expected to gain the bulk of the vote of his own Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country. [An influential Pashtun mujahedeen leader, Pir Sayed Gailani, announced his support for Mr. Karzai on Aug. 8.]
Yet those close to Mr. Karzai say he will not be comfortable winning by a narrow margin and will try to bring many more onto his side before the election.
Although Marshal Fahim promised that he would ensure a nonviolent election, there remain widespread concerns that the election may be anything but free and fair. Not only do the commanders and mujahedeen remain powerful, but there are repeated Taliban attacks against election workers and concerns about government pressure in support of Mr. Karzai.
In an Asia Foundation survey of 804 people around the country, 60 percent of respondents said the buying of votes would be a problem in the election. Fifty percent said cheating in the counting of votes would be a problem.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has decided not to send a monitoring team to observe the election, because of security concerns, which means that there will be no large-scale international monitoring operation, just small teams from independent groups.
-------- africa
Mauritanian army foiled coup plot: defence minister
Aug 10, 2004
NOUAKCHOTT (AFP)
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040810212643.hjoww6sc.html
The Mauritanian army has foiled a plot by a group of officers to seize power during an overseas trip by President Maaouiya Ould Taya, the country's defence minister said on Tuesday.
The group was "on the verge of executing" the plan "during a planned trip to France by President Maaouiya Ould Taya," Defence Minister Baba Ould Sidi was quoted as saying by the official AMI news agency, adding that security forces had uncovered the details of the plot.
Ould Taya is due to travel to southern France to attend next weekend's 60th anniversary of the World War II Allied landings there. The exact dates and length of his trip have not been released.
More than 20 people, believed to include a group of senior officers who led an abortive coup last year, were arrested on Monday in connection with an alleged plot to seize power in Nouakchott, capital of the Muslim country in northwest Africa.
"The plot has been brought under control and its perpetrators arrested," Ould Sidi said in the first official reaction since Monday's arrests, without revealing the names or the exact number of officers held.
Ould Sidi said the officers had planned to "simultaneously attack military barracks in Nouakchott and in other cities where armed forces are based."
The plan was then to "eliminate officers whom the coup-plotters saw as opposed to their plan" before "cutting telephone communications and power supply to achieve complete control of the country and cut it off from the outside world," he said.
"Those who planned this new coup attempt are ... those who led the failed putsch on June 8, 2003 before fleeing," he said. Last year's coup against Ould Taya's pro-Western government was put down after 36 hours by loyalist forces.
The minister said the officers had "managed to take refuge and find support abroad" following the 2003 putsch, without specifying in which country.
According to him, they had "formed an organisation which they call the 'Riders of Change' and which has solemnly vowed to change the government by force" in Mauritania.
Soldiers and police officers were confined to their barracks following the arrests on Monday and there was no evidence of an increased security presence in and around Nouakchott.
Ould Sidi did not mention any civilian involvement in the plot, although military sources had suggested that Islamic fundamentalists could have been involved in the latest attempt to overthrow Ould Taya, who himself rose to power in a 1984 coup.
Jemil Ould Mansour, a prominent Islamic leader, denied the suggestion. "We are against the use of force to grab power, which is why we are so opposed to the current regime," he told AFP.
Mauritania, a vast Muslim country bigger than France and Spain combined, established diplomatic ties with Israel in late 1999, a decision that angered its political opposition and the growing radical Islamic presence among its sparse population of 2.7 million people.
It has moved in recent months to re-establish ties with Iraq that were ruptured at around the same time over accusations that deposed president Saddam Hussein was meddling in its affairs.
Potentially rich in offshore oil, Mauritania has also worked to enhance its relations with the West, participating in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization cooperation program called the "Mediterranean dialogue" and welcoming US troops for desert training exercises as part of the US Marines' Pan Sahel initiative.
Ruling party chief Ahmed Ould Sidi Baba meanwhile denied that there was a crisis in the country, which has yet to hold a free and fair election since its independence in 1960.
"We are a new democracy, and anyhow, even if there was a crisis, picking up arms to do something about it is not the answer," he told AFP.
-------- business
Revamped Army Plans Give Boeing Bigger Role
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53003-2004Aug9.html
Boeing Co. is getting a larger role in managing the Army's modernization effort, the Future Combat System, as part of a restructuring of the program, company and military officials said yesterday.
Last month the Army announced it is restructuring the program, which aims to connect soldiers to a wireless network that assists them in battlefield decisions. Under the new plan, the Army is delaying deployment of the first fully modernized unit for two years, to 2014, and testing and implementing some of the technology sooner than originally scheduled.
As part of the restructuring, Chicago-based Boeing, which manages the program, is now responsible for accelerating the deployment of the technology, company and Army officials said. "It's important because we'll have some of these technologies to the current forces sooner," said Ignacio Cardenas, Army director of acquisition for the Future Combat System.
As "lead systems integrators" -- or program managers -- Boeing and Science Applications International Corp., which is also helping manage the project, already had more authority than normal under typical Pentagon contracts.
The size of Boeing's $14.8 billion contract to develop the program was also increased by $6 billion as part of the program overhaul. Overall, the Future Combat System, which will replace the current fleet of ground vehicles with a mix of high-tech manned and unmanned ground and aerial vehicles, is expected to cost more than $110 billion, making it one of the Pentagon's largest programs.
The massive modernization effort has been dogged by questions about its complexity and the pace of progress on the futuristic drones and ground vehicles. As originally structured, the program had only a 28 percent chance of success, Army officials have acknowledged.
The cost increase will cover several changes to the program, including adding an armed unmanned robotic vehicle, a recovery and maintenance vehicle, two classes of unmanned aerial vehicles and an intelligent munitions system, also known as a "smart mine," which a soldier could turn on and off remotely or program to deactivate in 30 days.
-------- iran
Iran arming militia, says Iraqi official
August 10, 2004
By Abdul Hussein al-Obeidi
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040810-123446-3839r.htm
NAJAF, Iraq - With fighting raging for a fifth day in Najaf, Iraq's interim defense minister yesterday accused Iran of sending weapons to Shi'ite insurgents in the city.
Meanwhile, radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr vowed, that he would continue the battle "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."
The uprising by Sheik al-Sadr's militia began to affect Iraq's crucial oil industry, as pumping to the southern port of Basra was halted by threats to infrastructure, an official with the South Oil Co. said.
Clashes also intensified in Basra, where a British soldier was killed and several others wounded in fighting near Sheik al-Sadr's office, the British Defense Ministry said. Iraqi police reported three militants killed and more than 10 wounded.
Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan, who previously had described Iran as Iraq's "first enemy," made the comments about his country's eastern neighbor during an interview broadcast on the Arab-language television network Al Arabiya.
"There are Iranian-made weapons that have been found in the hands of criminals in Najaf who received these weapons from across the Iranian border," Mr. Shaalan said.
Asked whether Iran was still considered the "top enemy" of Iraq, he answered ambiguously.
"From far and near, the facts that we have say that what has happened to the Iraqi people is done by the one who is considered the top enemy," he said.
"For the first time, the Iraqis see the bodies of children, the body parts of children, the bodies of women and the body parts of women on the street. Yes. This is the truth."
Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi said last week that 80 men who fought U.S. forces at a sprawling cemetery in Najaf were Iranian. "There is Iranian support to al-Sadr's group, and this is no secret," he said on Friday.
Iran has denied interfering in Iraq. It says it does not allow fighters to cross into Iraq, but it does not rule out that such people might cross the long border illegally.
Mahdi's Army, Sheik al-Sadr's militia, has been battling U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces in Najaf since Thursday.
U.S. forces yesterday tried once more to drive the militiamen from the cemetery, and an American tank rattled up to within 400 yards of the revered Imam Ali shrine, which fighters reportedly have been using as a base.
Meanwhile, Sunni Muslim militants attacked targets around Baghdad. A suicide car bombing aimed at a deputy governor killed six persons, and a roadside bomb hit a bus, killing four passengers.
The U.S. military also said a U.S. Marine was killed in action on Sunday in the western province of Anbar. The death brought to at least 927 the number of American troops who have died in Iraq since the start of the war.
An insurgent group warned in a videotaped message that it would conduct attacks on government offices in Baghdad, telling employees to stay away. Sheik al-Sadr's militants kidnapped a top Baghdad police official and demanded that their comrades in detention be set free.
In Nasariyah, 190 miles south of Baghdad, militants raided the local office of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party, set it on fire and warned party members to leave the city. There were no injuries in the Sunday night attack, said police Capt. Haydar Abboud.
Sheik al-Sadr's vow to keep fighting was a defiant challenge to Mr. Allawi, who called on the Shi'ite militants to stop fighting during a visit to Najaf on Sunday.
"I will continue fighting," the firebrand cleric told reporters in Najaf. "I will remain in Najaf city until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."
"Resistance will continue and increase day by day," he said. "Our demand is for the American occupation to get out of Iraq. We want an independent, democratic, free country."
Fighting remained centered on the vast cemetery near the Imam Ali shrine. The U.S. military said Mahdi's Army gunmen were staging attacks from the cemetery and then running to take refuge in the shrine compound, one of the holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam.
Mr. al-Zurufi gave U.S. forces approval to enter the shrine, a senior U.S. military official said yesterday.
"We have elected at this point not to conduct operations there, although we are prepared to do so at a moment's notice," the official said.
Such an offensive would almost certainly outrage the nation's Shi'ite majority and exacerbate the crisis.
The military official estimated that 360 insurgents had been killed between Thursday and Sunday - a figure the militants dispute. Five U.S. troops have been killed, and Najaf police chief Brig. Ghalib al-Jazaari said about 20 policemen had died.
Hospital officials said four persons, including three policemen, were killed yesterday and 19 others injured. In addition, 13 previously unidentified bodies had been brought to the hospital.
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Iran wins Najaf weapons apology
BBC
10 August, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3552136.stm
Iran says Iraq has expressed regret over comments from one of its ministers accusing Tehran of arming Shia militia groups in the holy city of Najaf. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said he had been reassured that the comments by Hazim al-Shalaan did not represent an official view of the Najaf situation.
Followers of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr are battling US and Iraqi forces there.
Iran's defence minister had slammed his Iraqi counterpart as an inexperienced political amateur for making the claim.
The BBC's Miranda Eeles in Tehran says the row highlights a growing mistrust between the neighbours, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s.
She adds that since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim regime, Iran has been seeking to build its influence over Iraq's Shia majority, but both sides are still working out how best to engage each other.
'Number one enemy'
The latest disagreement began on Monday when Mr Shalaan, Iraq's interim defence minister, told Dubai-based al-Arabiya television that Mr Sadr's militia was receiving weapons from Iran.
"Iran has left a fingerprint in Najaf. There are weapons made inside Iran that were found in Najaf in the hands of these criminals which have received these arms through the Iranian borders," he said.
Such remarks are designed to create an atmosphere of animosity between the Iraqi and Iranian nations... the Iraqi government must prudently stop this Kamal Kharrazi, Iranian Foreign Minister "Facts about what has happened to the Iraqi people show... that [Iran] is the number one enemy."
His Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani hit back on Tuesday, saying Mr Shalaan's comments showed he lacked the minimum qualifications for knowing the truth.
Iran's right-wing press went further, with one conservative newspaper, Kayhan, describing Mr Shalaan as a "dyed-in-the-wool Baathist" whose hands are dipped deep in the innocent blood of Iraqi and Iranian Muslims.
Later on Tuesday, Mr Kharrazi said he had discussed the matter with his own counterpart, Hoshyar Zebari, by telephone.
"The Iraqi foreign minister expressed regret and said [Mr Shalaan's comments] were not the official stance of the Iraqi government," he told the official Irna news agency.
"Such remarks are designed to create an atmosphere of animosity between the Iraqi and Iranian nations... The Iraqi government must prudently stop this," he added.
Mr Kharrazi also said Tehran had invited interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to visit Iran.
Suspicions
Our correspondent in Tehran says there are many rumours circulating about the US trying to gain influence in the new Iraq to the detriment of Iran.
Many believe the US fears co-operation between Iran and Iraq and is trying to stir up tensions, she says.
The situation has been further complicated by an arrest warrant issued by an Iraqi judge for Ahmed Chalabi, a politician with strong links to Iran.
A former protege of the Pentagon, Mr Chalabi fell out of favour earlier this year amidst charges of passing on US intelligence to the Iranians.
-------- iraq
Sadr Rejects Entreaty to End Conflict
In Najaf Shiite Cleric Defies Premier; Southern Pipeline Shut Down
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52881-2004Aug9.html
BAGHDAD, Aug. 9 -- Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr on Monday rejected an appeal by Iraq's prime minister to end the fighting in Najaf, rallying his supporters to fight with him to "the last drop of my blood" as U.S. and Iraqi forces encircled a shrine in the Shiite holy city.
Speaking publicly in the Imam Ali shrine for the first time since clashes erupted in Najaf five days ago, Sadr said it was "an honor for me to fight the Americans." Referring to his militia force, which battled U.S. and allied forces in the south during much of April and May, Sadr said: "I told the Mahdi Army that I'm one of them. I will not leave Najaf until the last drop of my blood. I will resist, and they will resist with me."
His rebuff to Prime Minister Ayad Allawi -- whom he compared to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- appeared to doom the Iraqi leader's efforts to bring Sadr and his followers into the political process.
"We are still trying to make some efforts to make him say yes" to requests to end the fighting in the southern city, acknowledged Georges Sada, a spokesman for Allawi. "It seems his message is the opposite."
The turmoil has spread to other parts of the country. On Monday, residents of Baghdad's restless Sadr City section rejected a government curfew, and in the southern port of Basra, a British soldier was killed in an attack.
Fighting and the threat of sabotage prompted Iraq to stop pumping oil to Basra through its vital southern pipeline, although storage tanks there can keep exports flowing for about two days, according to news services.
"We are losing a lot of money," Sada said. "We are trying to make our people understand that this violence affects the plans of reconstruction of the country."
Forty miles north of Baghdad, in Balad Ruz, explosives packed into a station wagon detonated at the home of the Diyala province's deputy governor, Aquil Hamid Adili. The blast killed six policemen and wounded 17 people, including Adili and his 9-year-old son. Adili was listed in stable condition. In Baghdad, a ranking police officer in the eastern portion of the city, Brig. Raed Mohammed Khudair, was kidnapped.
Also Monday, a roadside bomb blew up next to a bus in the town of Khaldiya, 45 miles west of Baghdad, killing four passengers and wounding four others, officials said.
The Defense Department on Monday identified two Marines and a solider killed last week in Najaf: Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, 27, of Wapato, Wash.; Cpl. Roberto Abad, 22, of Los Angeles; and Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., 24, of Leonardtown, Md. The Pentagon also released the name of Spec. Joshua I. Bunch, 23, of Hattiesburg, Miss., who died Friday in Baghdad in an attack on his vehicle.
The violence around the country appeared linked to the situation in Najaf, about 90 miles south of Baghdad. Explosions and gunfire have resounded since Thursday near the shrine where the remains of Ali, son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, are buried, and at the enormous cemetery nearby.
A Marine spokesman said insurgents had fled the cemetery after an assault on Friday. But when U.S. forces withdrew from the area, the insurgents moved back in.
"They are conducting the same tactics -- launching attacks from the cemetery and surrounding areas, only to immediately run back and seek sanctuary in the mosques and buildings surrounding the Imam Ali shrine," the spokesman said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces "will not allow them to seek sanctuary and hijack this holy cemetery from the people of Iraq," Col. Anthony M. Haslam, commanding officer of the Marines in Najaf, said in a statement. "We will not allow them to continue to desecrate this sacred site, using it as an insurgent base of operations. There will be no sanctuary for thugs and criminals in Najaf."
Iraqi and U.S. forces attempted Monday to take control of the cemetery, and officials said the area was loosely surrounded, cutting off the Mahdi Army's ability to send in reinforcements for its gunmen inside the shrine. There are about 2,000 U.S. Marines and nearly 2,000 Iraqi security forces in the area, according to military officials.
A senior U.S. military official said that American forces had refrained from attacking Sadr's fighters inside the shrine but that such caution may be abandoned if the violence continues.
"The governor of Najaf has given approval that, if necessary, these types of operations can be conducted," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "The Mahdi militia are organizing and conducting attacks from there. This use of the holy site to conduct armed operations is contrary to international law."
An attack, especially by American forces, risks enraging Shiites further. But Sada, the prime minister's spokesman, confirmed the threat. "We don't want to make it tough in a holy city, in Najaf, with the shrines there," he said. "But at least, we can't let them make the shrines shelters and depots for weapons. It is not Islamicly accepted."
The governor of Najaf, Adnan Zurufi, declared a 24-hour cease-fire in the city, but a spokesman for Sadr rejected it and clashes continued Monday night. "We have nothing to do with the truce," said the spokesman, Ahmed Shaibani. "We didn't start the fighting. If they stop, we will stop."
Reports of casualties varied widely. A U.S. military spokesman said an estimated 360 insurgents, four American soldiers and four Iraqi security troops had been killed as of Sunday. Nineteen U.S. troops and 12 Iraqi security troops have been wounded.
Sadr's spokesmen have said the toll among militia fighters was far lower. Shaibani said five from the Mahdi Army were killed and 15 others wounded on Monday.
Maj. Ghalib Hashim Jazaeri, the police chief of Najaf, said in a telephone interview that "300 members of the Mahdi Army" had been arrested, most of them from the southern town of Nasiriyah. He said three Iranians also had been arrested "and we have confiscated brand-new weapons in boxes that carry a sign saying 'Made in Iran.' "
Sadr's Mahdi Army is estimated to number 2,000 fighters, but such figures are largely guesswork. Although a junior figure among Iraq's Shiite clerics, Sadr has won a wide following with his long-standing resistance to the presence of American forces in Iraq.
Allawi has attempted to persuade Sadr to transform his armed movement into a political party and run in elections planned for January. The prime minister made a surprise visit to Najaf on Sunday to deliver a personal appeal for an end to the fighting. But his appeal was coupled with threats that the opposition would be crushed if it did not comply.
Sadr responded with similarly tough talk Monday morning in his appearance at the Imam Ali shrine. He dismissed Allawi's visit, comparing it to Sharon's inflammatory visit to Jerusalem's Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary, in September 2000, when he was leader of Israel's right-wing opposition. The visit to the site, revered by Muslims and Jews, sparked violence that has stretched for four years.
"Sharon visited Jerusalem, and the Palestinian resistance got stronger after his visit. The same here. The resistance will be stronger after Allawi's visit to Najaf," said Sadr.
In Sadr City, the huge slum in Baghdad named for Sadr's slain father, the Iraqi government imposed a 4 p.m. curfew Monday to try to dampen sporadic gunfights, but the order was ignored. Armed men roamed the streets, which were crowded late into the night, according to residents there.
"This is the start of war. We are not scared to die," said Mutada Abbas, 26, who identified himself as a member of the Mahdi Army.
The crowd swelled after false rumors from Najaf that U.S. forces had attacked the shrine of Ali.
"The Americans shot the Imam Ali shrine, so now the people will fight with the Mahdi Army," said Abbas Abed Awi, 35. "This is big for us. If they shoot the shrine, we will die for Imam Ali."
"Nobody cares" about the curfew, he added. "Everyone is outside their houses. Even the children. People are watching and all of them are ready to fight on the streets."
Correspondent Jackie Spinner and special correspondent Omar Fekeiki contributed to this report.
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U.S. Fights Cleric's Militia for a Sixth Straight Day
August 10, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/middleeast/10CND-IRAQ.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Aug. 10 - American forces and militia loyal to Moktada al-Sadr battled for a sixth day in Najaf today, as the United States military used loudspeakers to appeal to entrenched guerrillas to put down their weapons and to residents to stay away from the areas of fighting.
In an ancient cemetery not far from the headquarters of Mr. Sadr in the holy city, American troops have confronted the guerrillas in gunbattles that have brought them to the edges of some of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, including the shrine of Imam Ali, creating serious political and social risks for the Americans and the new government of Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
Mr. Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric who fiercely opposes American-led military forces in Iraq, has inspired a band of fighters and militias in Najaf, the Shiite slum of Sadr City in northeast Baghdad, and other Shiite towns in Iraq to resist the occupation in an uprising that surged in April and erupted again in recent days.
He controls the shrine in Najaf, located not far from the cemetery where the heaviest fighting has taken place. Any serious damage to the gold-domed structure or other holy sites would enrage Shiites, even those who have largely stayed on the sidelines of the standoff.
A senior American military official in Baghdad estimated today that 360 insurgents died in Najaf in the first four days of the battle, although Mr. Sadr's militia insists that the toll has been far lower.
Mr. Sadr has said that he would resist the American presence in Iraq "until my last drop of blood." His fighters, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and assault weapons, are confronting armored combat vehicles and heavy weapons of the American forces.
American forces and the guerrillas clashed over night, and residents in Najaf said that early today a column of American tanks entered the cemetery area, probing the path for a convoy of humvees that toured the city's streets, urging people through loudspeakers to leave the city center and nearby town of Kufa and sending a warning to fighters.
"People should cooperate with the Iraqi police and national guard," the message blared out in the streets. "There will be no truce and no negotiations with the corrupt armed militias. We ask you to evaluate the city center and Kufa."
"Leave the city in peace or you will die," the message said, naming districts to be evacuated, affecting about 75 percent of the city.
After the announcement, witnesses said they saw streams of cars heading out of the city. A huge fire billowed up from the direction of the city center. The crack of sporadic gunfire rang out.
Today, Ahmed Shaibani, an aide to Mr. Sadr, appealed for negotiations in a statement broadcast on the Arabiya television network.
"We are ready to accept any peace plan or negotiate to bring peace to the holy city and all over Iraq," he said. He added that the Mahdi army and the Islamic resistance control most of the central and southern governorates of the country, saying this "confirms the failure" of the occupying forces in Iraq.
Clashes broke out again in the sprawling Sadr City slum, the district of Baghdad named after Mr. Sadr's father that is home to two million people. The fighting came despite a government-imposed curfew from 4 p.m. until 8 a.m. until further notice in the area.
Qais al Khazali, a spokesman for Mr. Sadr, issued a statement on Arabiya calling on Iraqis to adhere to a curfew of the Mahdi Army command, starting at 1 p.m. local time "and lasting until further notice and to the end of operations."
He called on residents not to assist the occupiers, and "to remain calm and to stay in their houses to safeguard their lives and show their solidarity with us."
American forces and humvees are piled up on the edge of Sadr City near a local district council building; the Mahdi militia is attacking American positions with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
Residents in Sadr City say that American counter-fire, with cannons from Bradley combat vehicles and sniper fire, is indiscriminate.
In the last 48 hours, 12 people have been killed and 127 wounded in clashes in Baghdad, according to the Iraqi health ministry.
In Baghdad overnight, heavy mortaring blasted parts of the city center and hit the so-called Green Zone, the fortified compound that houses government offices, including those of American diplomats. At least one person, an Iraqi, was seriously wounded, but there were no immediate details of injuries.
American military officials said long-range mortars and Soviet-made rockets are being used more frequently, with up to 30 of them being employed in the past few nights. Some fall short of targets and lie unexploded on riverbanks.
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Chalabi Vows to Return to Iraq to Face Charges
August 10, 2004
By NAZILA FATHI
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/middleeast/09CND-CHAL.html
TEHRAN, Aug. 10 - Iraq's former Finance Minister Ahmad Chalabi said today that he would return to Iraq to face criminal charges brought against him there.
Mr. Chalabi, in Iran with his wife and three children, said he would go back to Iraq in a few days to defend himself. He came to Tehran last week as part of an economic delegation to boost ties with Iran.
An Iraqi judge issued orders over the weekend for the arrest of Mr. Chalabi and his nephew, Salem Chalabi. Ahmad Chalabi is charged with counterfeiting and Salem Chalabi with involvement in the killing of an Iraqi official.
"The charges are outrageous and false," he said in an interview. "They are politically motivated and designed to hamper my political participation."
"I will bring witnesses to the court and will show that the whole thing was part of my duty as finance minister. The charges are not based on facts."
He said that the notes based on which he was charged with counterfeiting were merely samples collected by the governing council's finance committee, which he headed.
He said the notes were old ones that went out of circulation in January. "They are worthless paper," he said.
Mr. Chalabi was an opposition leader who returned to Iraq last year on a wave of American support. The Bush administration had leaned heavily on information from him to make the case for war in Iraq, but much of the information has since been discredited, and he has fallen out of American favor.
"They felt I was undermining their policies," he said, pointing to a raid by American forces on his home and office in May as evidence of United State's efforts against him.
Mr. Chalabi said that the arrest warrant had instead helped boost his popularity at home, where many Iraqis had accused him of being the instrument of the United States.
"Now people know that I work for sovereignty of Iraq," he said.
He said he had not been in touch with his nephew, Salem, who is in London now, but believed that the charges against him were aimed at undermining Saddam Hussein's trial. Salem Chalabi heads the interim tribunal that is trying the former dictator.
Mr. Chalabi said there was no evidence that officials from the Iraqi interim government were involved. He said that he had spoken to Ayad Allawi, who used strong language denouncing the procedure.
"It is odd the charges are raised now when the country is in flames," he said. "There are so many different issues that the interim government needs to deal with and does not need to be distracted," he added.
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INSURGENCY
U.S. Says Its Grip on Iraqi Militia in Najaf Is Tight
August 10, 2004
By ALEX BERENSON and JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/middleeast/10iraq.html?pagewanted=all
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 9 - American forces besieging militiamen of a rebel cleric in a shrine and cemetery sacred to Shiite Muslims tightened their cordon on Monday, United States military officials in Baghdad said, and they warned the rebels that they could not receive any outside support. But the warnings drew an immediate riposte from the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, who emerged from days of silence to reject demands for the militiamen to surrender.
"I will defend Najaf until the last drop of my blood," Mr. Sadr said at a news conference in the Imam Ali shrine, which has served as a stronghold for his Mahdi Army since his uprising in the spring against the foreign occupation of Iraq.
The repercussions of the latest fighting, which began in Najaf last week and quickly spread to other centers of support for Mr. Sadr, intensified when officials of the state-owned oil industry said Iraq's largest oil fields, in the southern region around Basra, had stopped pumping oil on Monday after Mr. Sadr's militiamen had threatened to attack oil fields, refineries and pipelines. About 1.8 million barrels a day, 90 percent of Iraq's oil exports, are shipped from terminals in and near Basra.
While senior American military officials in Baghdad appeared confident that they had Mr. Sadr's forces in Najaf contained, officers and soldiers on the front line painted a different picture. They said that rebels move freely between the cemetery and Najaf's old city, and that American forces do not fully control the cemetery, which is three miles long and two miles wide.
In Baghdad, American military officials announced a curfew of 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. in the capital's Sadr City neighborhood, home to more than a million Shiites and, with Najaf, a center of support for Mr. Sadr. The measure, the most stringent of its kind in the 16 months since the country fell to the American-led invasion, appeared to be aimed at regaining some control over Sadr City from Mr. Sadr's militiamen and preventing the area from being used for rocket and mortar attacks on the American military and civil headquarters. Despite the curfew, rebels resumed their shelling on Monday night.
In Najaf, Mr. Sadr used his news conference to shred efforts by Iraq's American-appointed prime minister, Ayad Allawi, to lure the cleric away from armed confrontation. Over the weekend, Dr. Allawi invited Mr. Sadr to contest parliamentary elections scheduled to take place by the end of January, and suggested that the militiamen who have fought in Najaf and other cities might not be under his control. His suggestion was echoed by American military spokesmen. Brushing aside the fact that most of the rebels in Najaf, Nasiriya, Basra and Sadr City, the areas worst affected by the fighting, have worn the black trousers and shirts of Mr. Sadr's militia, the Americans have said repeatedly during the five days of renewed fighting that they, too, had doubts that the cleric was the instigator of the violence.
But some American military officers have said that this presentation of the situation was a convenient fiction, propagated by the Allawi government and the American command to allow their forces to hunt down as many of Mr. Sadr's fighters as possible while exempting Mr. Sadr from any deliberate attack.
During the uprising by Mr. Sadr's forces in April, American commanders said they intended to kill or capture him, but that threat was dropped out of fear that any harm to the cleric could touch off a still wider conflagration among Iraq's majority Shiite population.
In any case, Mr. Sadr himself exploded any pretense that he was not the leader of the current fighting with his defiant posture at the news conference on Monday. Appearing in the mosque, only a few hundred yards from the closest American troops, he effectively mocked the Americans and the cordon they have thrown around the shrine. "I am an enemy of America, and America is my enemy until the last day of judgment," he said.
As for taking part in elections, he was similarly scornful. "The occupiers must go, and then the democratic process can start in Iraq," he said. "I will stay here to support the fighters, and I call on all religious dignitaries to do the same."
As for Dr. Allawi, Mr. Sadr said the Baghdad government should be "on the side of the people and not use the same weapons as Saddam Hussein."
The reference to Mr. Hussein appeared to refer to some of the tough policies adopted by Dr. Allawi in an effort to quell the insurgency and broaden his government's tenuous popular support. On Sunday, the prime minister visited Najaf and vowed that there would be "no negotiations" with the Sadr militiamen in Najaf, then returned to Baghdad and said his government was restoring the death penalty for a range of crimes that appeared to cover almost any insurgent activity.
Mr. Sadr's defiance posed a seemingly insoluble quandary for the American command, similar to the one it faced when Mr. Sadr's fighters seized control of Najaf in April. Then, the United States commanders settled for a shaky truce that kept American forces on the outskirts of the city in return for Mr. Sadr's promise that his fighters would disarm and hand control of the city back to Iraqi authorities. The deal was similar to one made in the Sunni Muslim city of Falluja, west of Baghdad, and provided a template for a wider American policy that effectively kept United States forces out of cities with a strong rebel presence, with the hope of lowering American casualties and providing breathing space for political negotiations.
The terms of the Najaf truce were never fully put in place, and Mr. Sadr's fighters continued to control large parts of the city. Then, last Thursday, after increasingly bloody clashes around the city's government buildings, and an incident in which Iraqi units surrounded Mr. Sadr's headquarters, the cease-fire imploded. The United States command said Mr. Sadr's men attacked a police station, prompting the Najaf governor to call in help from an American quick-reaction force.
Now, American commanders in Najaf are essentially back where they were in the spring, but with their forces even deeper inside the city. The difference is that an Iraqi government has replaced the American occupation authority, and American commanders are saying that their actions will be decided by that government. In practice, though, any American assault that further endangered the holy sites, even if Dr. Allawi approved it, would pose big political risks.
The new political situation has so far emboldened the Americans that units of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Army's Fifth Cavalry Division have battled for the past days in and around the huge cemetery that has been used for a millennium by devout Shiites eager to rest in eternity near the shrine and burial place of Imam Ali, the most sacred figure in Shiite Islam. Spokesmen for the United States command say they have explicit authority from Dr. Allawi to enter the cemetery, where they claim to have killed more than 360 rebel fighters, and to advance on the shrine itself, if that proves necessary to dislodge the rebels.
A senior military official told reporters in Baghdad on Monday that the command would wait a few days to see how the rebels responded to their situation in the area of the mosque.
But he also hinted that an assault on the shrine had not been ruled out. "At the moment we are not conducting operations in that area, but we are ready to do so at a moment's notice," he said.
The spokesman laid down a possible rationale for an assault, saying that the rebels had used the shrine and the cemetery to stockpile arms and ammunition, and were fighting from behind tombs and headstones. All of this, the spokesman said, stripped the shrine of protection under the Geneva Conventions. "The use of that site makes it a legitimate target under international law," he said.
At an American base on the outskirts of Najaf, American troops appeared to be preparing for a renewed assault into the city. Army and Marine planners said they were examining ways of using Iraqi forces to clear the rebels from the shrine.
The command in Baghdad said that cumulative American losses in the fighting by noon Monday included 4 killed, and 19 wounded.
The ripple effects of the fighting in Sadr City and Najaf continued to be felt in other Shiite cities, particularly Basra, which was relatively quiet in the months when Baghdad and other cities were roiled by the insurgency. British units engaged in running gun battles with Sadr fighters on Monday. A British spokesman said one British soldier had been killed, The Associated Press reported.
Alex Berenson reported from Najaf for this article and John F. Burns from Baghdad.
--------
U.S. Demands Najaf Militants End Fighting
August 10, 2004
By TODD PITMAN
Associated Press Writer
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. forces adopted a new tactic Tuesday in their sixth day of battles in this city south of the capital, sending patrols armed with loudspeakers into the streets to demand that militants loyal to a radical cleric drop their arms and leave Najaf immediately or face death.
The call, broadcast in Arabic from American vehicles, added a psychological component to the U.S. offensive. It came as U.S. helicopter gunships pummeled a multistoried building 400 yards from the gold-domed Imam Ali Shrine with rockets, missiles and 30 mm cannons - one of the closest strikes yet to what is one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.
Plumes of thick, black smoke rose from the building, which serves as a hotel for visitors to the shrine. Witnesses said insurgents were firing from inside it and that U.S. forces returned fire.
"We've pretty much just been patrolling and flying helicopters all over the place, and when we see something bad, we blow it up," said U.S. Marine Maj. David Holahan, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment.
Nearby, Bradley fighting vehicles swept through a huge cemetery, pursuing small pockets of militants hiding in elaborate concrete tombs. Choppers provided support, firing rockets from above, witnesses said.
Sporadic explosions could be heard elsewhere in the city, and Holahan said militants from radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia attacked three police stations, two with small arms fire, one with eight mortar rounds.
Despite the violence, Marines said the clashes were much lighter than in recent days - though few expected it to stay that way. "I think it's the quiet before the storm," Holahan said.
Parts of Najaf were deserted, but residents ventured out into the streets, driving small cars nervously along palm-lined roads as eight-wheeled Marine vehicles moved through town on "show of force" patrols.
Residents stood at the gates of their houses, staring. A few children rode bicycles, waving. One U.S. tank stood guard at an intersection in front of a turquoise mosque.
The U.S. military has estimated that 360 insurgents were killed in Najaf between Thursday, when fighting began, and Sunday night, a figure the militants dispute. Five U.S. troops have been killed, along with about 20 Iraqi officers.
The fighting has plagued other Shiite communities across Iraq.
In Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, groups of three to five Mahdi Army militants attacked a district council hall repeatedly with mortars, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, clashing with U.S. and Iraqi forces, said U.S. Capt. Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team.
The Health Ministry said the skirmish killed one person and wounded 18. Other clashes in Baghdad killed a second person and wounded 11 others.
There were no employees there during the attacks, and O'Malley said about 14,000 people "haven't been able to go to work since the fighting started" in Sadr City days ago.
The violence has jeopardized Iraq's oil industry.
But production resumed at Iraq's vast southern oil fields after authorities reached an accord with militant Shiites who had threatened to attack the country's vital export pipelines for crude, an Iraqi oil official told The Associated Press late Tuesday.
Oil markets welcomed the news, with U.S. crude futures falling by 44 cents a barrel in late New York trading.
Iraq's South Oil Co. reversed a decision it made Monday to curtail output as a precaution against possible sabotage by supporters of al-Sadr. The cleric's followers had warned they might attack pipelines in southern Iraq unless the government halted crude exports. Iraq's other export line in the north to Turkey is already out of operation.
The interim government also has been fighting a largely Sunni insurgency, characterized by a campaign of attacks, bombings and shootings that have plagued Iraq since shortly after the United States invaded, toppling Saddam Hussein.
A roadside bomb detonated as a U.S. military vehicle drove on a street in Baghdad on Tuesday, slightly wounding two soldiers, the military said.
Jordan's official Petra news agency reported Tuesday that Jordanian businessman Jamal Sadeq al-Salaymeh was taken hostage in Baghdad on Monday by kidnappers demanding $250,000 in ransom.
But a Lebanese businessman, Antoine Antoun, was freed after about a week in captivity in Iraq, his father said.
The fighting with al-Sadr's militia has shattered a series of delicate truces worked out two months ago that ended the Mahdi Army's first uprising, which erupted in April.
Clashes Tuesday between the Mahdi Army and police in the southern city of Diwaniyah killed three and injured 45.
The Health Ministry also reported four killed and 18 wounded in Basra, and one killed and 18 wounded in Amarah. But Squadron Leader Spike Wilson, a British military official, said there were no reports of fighting in Basra or Amarah.
Much of the fighting in Najaf on Tuesday was centered on the vast cemetery near the Imam Ali Shrine. The U.S. military accused Mahdi Army gunmen of launching attacks from the cemetery and then running to take refuge in the shrine compound.
Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zarfi has given U.S. forces approval to enter the shrine, a senior U.S. military official said. But such an offensive would almost certainly cause widespread outrage among the nation's Shiite majority and exacerbate the crisis.
At the request of the governor and the police, the U.S. began broadcasting its messages through the streets Tuesday, said U.S. Sgt. Will - an Army Psychological Operations officer who would give only his first name.
U.S. officers helped write the messages, which were aired to inform residents that U.S. forces were "here to support" Iraq security forces, he said.
One of them said: "We ask residents to cooperate with the Iraqi army and police." Another said: "There will be no truce or negotiations with terrorists."
In other messages, they threatened them with death.
Will was blunt. "They're not doing anything good for the people of Najaf," he said, speaking of al-Sadr's militias. "If they don't lay down their arms, they're going to die."
-------- israel / palestine
Arafat Evasive on Reform Demands
August 10, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html?pagewanted=all
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Yasser Arafat, pressed by his legislature to commit to promised reforms in writing, has largely been evasive, disappointed lawmakers said Tuesday, after two meetings with the Palestinian leader.
Arafat's only concession so far is an assurance that his prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, can appoint Cabinet ministers, said the legislators, members of a committee set up last month to write a reform plan, following growing chaos in the West Bank and Gaza. Qureia briefly resigned last month to protest his lack of powers.
Arafat has refused to share power and has run the Palestinian Authority with a system of patronage, nepotism and official corruption.
The Palestinian leader has evaded reform demands by the international community, most recently Egypt which wants him to relinquish some control over the security services ahead of an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
However, he appears to have been shaken by growing dissatisfaction at home, including unrest in Gaza and open criticism of his rule.
Palestinian officials said Tuesday that Arafat, sending a message through envoys, has offered Cabinet posts to two of his most outspoken critics, Mohammed Dahlan and Samir Mashrawi, who played a key role in last month's protests in Gaza against Arafat's appointment of a relative to a top security job there.
Dahlan, a former Gaza security chief, is widely seen as a possible Arafat successor, and Mashrawi is a leader of the ruling Fatah movement in Gaza.
Arafat also agreed to meet with legislators to discuss reform demands.
The legislators want Arafat, whose formal title is Palestinian Authority President, to abide by the Basic Law, which spells out the separation of powers, sign anti-corruption legislation and commit to reform of the security services.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the committee, said ``there are issues that President Arafat agreed to, others he is still reluctant to accept.'' Participants said they left with the impression that Arafat is still being evasive.
For example, he told legislators he was committed to the Basic Law. When asked whether he would give up control of several government institutions, such as the Palestinian Monetary Fund, in line with the Basic Law, he said no.
Arafat also avoided a clear answer on security reform, participants said on condition of anonymity. Control over tens of thousands of armed men is a pillar of Arafat's power, and he has fought hard against those asking him to relinquish it.
Legislator Abbas Zaki said negotiations with Arafat would continue, and that Arafat promised to make his concessions public in a speech to parliament.
In a televised speech to religious leaders Tuesday, Arafat made no reference to the reform debate. Instead, he delivered a long list of complaints about Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and ended with an appeal to Israel to resume peace talks. ``We extend our hand to our neighbors, the Israelis,'' he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refuses to negotiate with Arafat, saying he is tainted by terrorism and corruption.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, meanwhile, has frozen a plan to allow Palestinian police to carry handguns in public, after his plan drew sharp criticism from hardline Cabinet ministers, security officials said Tuesday. Last week, Mofaz had agreed to let them carry handguns.
In 2001, several months after the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence, Israel accused Palestinian police of involvement in the fighting and barred them from carrying weapons in public. Israeli soldiers are under orders to shoot at anyone who is armed.
With Palestinian police rarely seen in the streets, gangs and militants have taken control. Kidnappings, unrest and violent demonstrations have swept through the Palestinian territories. In recent weeks, gunmen have forced Palestinian Cabinet ministers to leave a Gaza town and shut down what should have been a week-long conference on government reform.
Palestinian officials had asked the Israelis to re-arm the police to restore some order.
--------
Israel Demolishes Three Archeological Buildings in Hebron
August 10, 2004
palestinemonitor.org
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/new_web/august_update_archive.htm
Yesterday, the 9th of August 2004, the Israeli army demolished three archeological buildings including eleven apartments in the West Bank city of Hebron. The destruction took place so that the Israeli Army could continue the construction of a road between the Ibraheemi Mosque and the Kiryat Arba Israeli Settlement.
The Israeli Army had begun to construct this road at the end of the year 2002 but had to halt its work after an Israeli court ordered them to stop working until further decisions were made. However, a few months ago a decision to continue the construction of the road was reached.
The destruction began when three bulldozers accompanied by soldiers demolished these buildings which were built about 600 years ago. Palestinians stood over the remains of the buildings remembering some of their neighbors that where living there before they left the area in the early nineties due to the Israeli Army's severe restrictions and the continuous settler attacks to the residents of the area. According to the Hebron rehabilitation Committee about 50 families from 300 families living in the area were forced to leave because of the harsh living conditions that they were placed under.
The road which stretches about 250 meters, starts from Kiryat Arba cutting through Palestinian neighborhoods toward the Ibraheemi Mosque and then reaches the illegal Israeli outpost in the old town of Hebron.
According to Khaled al Qawasmi, an engineer in Hebron's rehabilitation Committee, the demolishing of these three houses also damaged five other old houses in the area. Qawasmi also tells of how the bulldozer started to demolish part of a building before the soldiers informed the driver that the building was not listed as a targeted house to be demolished.
"The Israeli Army is trying to put its hand on the old town of Hebron by evacuating it from its Palestinian residents" says Abed El Hadi Hantash, a member of the "Land Defense General Committee".
Qawasmi described what happened as a crime against the archeological sites of the world, adding that Israel will continue this crime if the international community does not stop it.
-------- nato
NATO advance delegation already in Iraq
Aug 10, 2004
BAGHDAD (AFP)
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040810123113.jpa7fnt6.html
NATO said Tuesday that an advance party of four officers had arrived in Iraq to prepare the ground for the transatlantic alliance's mission to train the country's new army.
The rest of the NATO Training Implementation Mission in Iraq -- led by Dutch Major General Carel Hilderink and comprising about 45 officers from several countries -- is expected to arrive by the end of the week, NATO said.
"I got confirmation that the team did arrive yesterday (Monday)," said spokesman Franco Veltri, speaking to AFP by telephone from Naples.
"The full team will arrive by the end of the week... Altogether they will be in the order of 50," he said.
NATO's mission follows a request by the new government in Iraq for the alliance's help in training a new army and for other technical assistance.
-------- spies
Bush Nominates Congressman to Replace Tenet as C.I.A. Director
August 10, 2004
By TERENCE NEILAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/politics/10CND-INTEL.html?hp
President Bush today nominated Representative Porter Goss, a Republican congressman who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to be the new head of Central Intelligence.
"Porter Goss is a leader with strong experience in intelligence and the fight against terrorism," Mr. Bush said in announcing his choice in the White House Rose Garden this morning.
"He knows the C.I.A. inside and out. He is the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."
Mr. Goss, 65, served for about 10 years as a Central Intelligence Agency case officer, beginning in the early 1960's.
His name had been prominent in speculation about who might succeed George J. Tenet, who stepped down on July 11 after months of criticism about the failures of the intelligence community in the fight against terrorism. John McLaughlin, the deputy director, has been serving as interim director.
James L. Pavitt, the C.I.A.'s deputy director for operations, also retired this month, leaving a vacuum at the top of the war on terrorism.
Mr. Goss's selection is bound to be controversial. He was responsible for Congressional oversight of the C.I.A., and the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks concluded that the oversight efforts largely failed. He is considered a strong partisan, and recently took to the floor of the House to attack Senator John Kerry, the president's opponent in November's election.
Today the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, said he was concerned with Mr. Bush's choice, saying that the selection of a politician for the post - "any politician, from either party" - was a mistake. The senator, a West Virginia Democrat, made similar comments in June, when Mr. Goss was being mentioned in the press as a candidate for the job. But Mr. Rockefeller said today that he would work to move the nomination process forward, although Mr. Goss "will need to answer tough questions about his record and his position on reform."
Mr. Kerry, in a statement released by his campaign, said: "This is a key position in fighting the war on terror and should not be left vacant. But the most important position is one that hasn't been created yet, National Intelligence Director with real control of budgets and personnel. We need to move urgently on this and other recommendations by the 9/11 Commission to make America safer. The most important thing we can do right now is reform and strengthen our intelligence services as the 9/11 Commission has recommended. I hope that Congressman Goss shares this view and will now support the creation of this important post."
Within the C.I.A., views of Mr. Goss are mixed. But perhaps the biggest challenge to his nomination is the uncertainty over what kind of job he will be taking. Mr. Bush last week endorsed the creation of a national intelligence director, who will sit above the C.I.A. director and coordinate the activities of all intelligence agencies. While the C.I.A. job remains a critical one, it will therefore be much diminished, making the C.I.A. chief one among many intelligence directors.
The C.I.A. has been at the center of steady criticism this year, both by the 9/11 panel and the Senate Intelligence Committee, for failures of intelligence associated with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the war on Iraq.
The bipartisan 9/11 commission concluded in its unanimous final report that the attacks "were a shock but they should not have come as a surprise." It warned that without a historic restructuring of the nation's intelligence agencies and a new emphasis on diplomacy, the United States would leave itself open to an even more catastrophic attack.
Mr. Bush's acceptance of the proposal for a national intelligence chief was immediately criticized by the commission, which said the Bush plan would not grant nearly enough power to the position.
The C.I.A. came in for earlier criticism in the Senate Intelligence Committee report. Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas who is the panel's chairman, said there was no evidence that the C.I.A. altered any findings under political pressure but said the intelligence that sent the country to war in Iraq was flawed.
Specifically, the reports by the two panels pointed out that there was no evidence to support C.I.A. claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or substantive ties to Al Qaeda. The C.I.A.'s findings had been embraced by Bush administration officials, which left them open to widespread criticism by Democrats. The White House has steadfastly defended its record on terror.
Mr. Goss, of Florida, has served as the House Intelligence Committee's chairman since 1997, but had already announced plans to retire from Congress in January, at the end of the current session.
Mr. Goss's nomination will now go before the Senate, and Mr. Goss said today that he looked forward to the process.
But political analysts said the Senate might well seize on the nomination as an opportunity to voice renewed criticism of the Bush administration's handling of intelligence, which could prove damaging to Mr. Bush in this election year.
Today Mr. Bush said: "The work of the C.I.A. is vital to our security. America faces determined enemies who plan in many nations, send trained killers to live among us, and attack without warning.
"This threat is unprecedented, and to stop them from killing our citizens, we must have the best intelligence possible." He added, "Director George Tenet, Acting Director John McLaughlin have served our nation with distinction and honor. And now with the agreement of the U.S. Senate, the C.I.A. will have another strong leader in Porter Goss."
David E. Sanger contributed reporting for this article from Washington.
--------
Rep. Porter Goss tapped for CIA top spot
August 10, 2004
By Terence Hunt
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040810-101643-8689r.htm
President Bush today nominated Rep. Porter Goss of Florida to head the CIA amid terror and tumult, saying the former undercover operative "knows the CIA inside and out" and can bolster its spy network.
"He is well prepared for this mission," the president said of Goss, chairman of the House intelligence committee who was an Army intelligence operative before joining the CIA the 1960s. "He's the right man to lead and support the agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."
Goss, whose nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, had been mentioned prominently in speculation about a successor to departed CIA Director George Tenet, who left amid a torrent of criticism of the agency's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Bush still has a major decision ahead of him. He has embraced a cornerstone recommendation by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks: creation of a new intelligence czar to oversee the activities of the CIA and more than a dozen other intelligence agencies. Bush has not named the czar.
"I think every American knows the importance of getting the best possible intelligence we can get to our decision-makers," Goss, 65, said during the Rose Garden announcement.
If the president names an intelligence czar, his CIA chief would lose some power in the reshuffling and essentially would be required to report to the new head of all intelligence operations.
Neither Bush nor Goss discussed the new organization, and the CIA had no comment Tuesday on Bush's appointment. The president said Goss will advise him on how to implement the Sept. 11 panel's recommendations.
Both men stressed that Goss' experience as an undercover CIA officer would help the agency bolster its ability to use spies, instead of just technology, to infiltrate terrorist networks. "The essence of our intelligence capability is people," the Florida Republican said.
Said Bush: "To stop them from killing our citizens, we must have the best intelligence possible."
Tenet's last day was July 11, and the much-criticized agency since then has been under the leadership of acting Director John McLaughlin. The administration was believed to have debated internally whether to choose a permanent successor to Tenet before the fall elections, thus putting itself in the position of having to defend its choice in confirmation hearings held in a politically charged atmosphere.
Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said Goss has the credentials to be the overall intelligence czar, if Congress creates that position. "He could be this new person, if we go there," DeWine said. He described Goss and tough and pragmatic and said, "He'll be someone who can walk into the president and look him into the eye and tell him what the truth is and not flinch."
Goss would take over the agency at a pivotal moment.
Leaders of various intelligence agencies worry about a series of high-profile events this summer that could become attractive terrorist targets. It is widely believed that al-Qaida and its allies might try to strike the United States in a way that replicates the political and economic impact of March's train bombings in Madrid, Spain.
The Connecticut-born Goss graduated from Yale in 1960 and launched a clandestine career, working for Army intelligence for two years and eventually the CIA's most well-known division, the Directorate of Operations.
When he got into politics, Goss had to get special permission to reveal that he was associated with "the agency" for roughly a decade, reportedly in Europe and Latin America. Goss still doesn't discuss classified details of his work, although he has said he was deployed in Miami during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
"I had some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits," Goss told The Washington Post in 2002.
In the early 1970s, an almost deadly staph infection forced him to retire to Sanibel, Fla., where retired CIA officers who had made the coastal community their home had convinced him to come for recovery. Each day, he tried to walk to the ocean as part of his rehabilitation.
Gradually, he stepped into local politics and ran for the House in 1988.
Goss has served in Congress for 16 years, including eight years as House Intelligence chairman. He planned on making his 2000 election bid his last, but decided to stay on after the Sept. 11 attacks - with encouragement from Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The opportunity was sweetened when Republicans waived a rule limiting his chairmanship to six years.
Along with fellow Floridian, Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, then the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Goss led an joint congressional inquiry into the attacks, which identified numerous miscalculations that prevented authorities from derailing the attacks.
With his well-placed experience, Washington insiders have speculated for some time that he could take over as director of central intelligence, overseeing the CIA and 14 other agencies that make up the intelligence community. Only one CIA director was also a member of Congress: former President George H.W. Bush.
The 2005 intelligence authorization bill, which passed the House in late June, contained an entire section dedicated to criticizing the CIA's clandestine service, where Goss once worked.
Tenet at the time called some of the judgments "absurd" and "ill-informed."
--------
Reaction to Goss Nomination to Head CIA
By The Associated Press
August 10, 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-goss-quote-box,0,120037.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
Comment in connection with President Bush's nomination of Rep. Porter Goss of Florida to head the CIA:
- "Porter Goss is a leader with strong experience in intelligence and in the fight against terrorism. He knows the CIA inside and out. He's the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history." -- President Bush.
- "The essence of our intelligence capability is people. And we have some wonderful Americans doing a great job. I used to be part of them when I worked for CIA." -- Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla.
- "The question isn't as much who the president nominates to head our nation's intelligence system, but whether President Bush will follow the 9/11 Commission's recommendation to give the new intelligence chief broad powers. So far, the president has refused to go along with the 9-11 Commission's proposal to give the new intelligence chief authority over budgets and hiring and firing across intelligence agencies." -- Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
- "He'll be someone who can walk in to the president and look him into the eye and tell him what the truth is and not flinch." -- Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio
- "He's a fine man and the fact that he's a Republican congressman doesn't bother me. I would find it very hard to support any nominee who did not endorse the 9/11 Commission recommendations on intelligence. ... The focal point of this nomination is not who he is, but these recommendations." -- Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
- "I'm disappointed by the president's choice of Congressman Goss to be the new director of central intelligence. Given the critical need for major reforms to improve both the development and use of intelligence, this position should be filled by a nonpartisan individual of unquestioned independence." -- Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.
- "Porter Goss is uniquely qualified to, first, lead a very unique agency critical to our national security, whose inner workings require leadership and knowledge; second, represent that agency to Capitol Hill, where he understands critical support and informed oversight are intertwined; third, shepherd that agency through a reform that must balance bureaucratic initiatives imposed from the outside with internal reforms of the culture necessary to maximize our ability to penetrate terror networks." -- Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
- "This is the worst appointment that's ever been made to the office of director of central intelligence because that's an office that needs to be kept above partisan politics." -- Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, director of the CIA in the Carter administration.
- "I don't think this should be about Mr. Goss." It should be "whether the White House will step up to admit the mistakes ... and work to fix the problems." -- Rep. Jane Harman, D- Calif.
- "You must keep the politics out of intelligence. I'm not sure that has been done here. ... Now the president has named him, it's a matter for the U.S. Senate." -- House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
-------- war crimes
Armed Congo Groups Accused of War Crimes
Associated Press
By EDITH M. LEDERER,
Tue Aug 10, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=515&ncid=723&e=6&u=/ap/20040810/ap_on_re_af/un_congo
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. human rights experts accused all armed groups in Congo's troubled northeastern Ituri province of war crimes and said Rwanda, Uganda, and the former Congolese government contributed to "the massive abuses," according to a report..
At least 8,000 civilians were deliberately killed or were victims of the indiscriminate use of force in Ituri in 2002 and 2003 and more than 600,000 civilians were forced to flee their homes, according to investigations by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo and other human rights groups.
The International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, has opened an investigation into atrocities in Congo ranging from ethnic killings to cannibalism, and it has said Ituri is to be a major focus of investigations.
While the 65-page U.N. report to the Security Council, released Monday, does not mention the investigation, it provides details of many massacres and other abuses committed during attacks on villages in Ituri and information about political killings, rapes, and the use of children by all armed groups. The report was prepared by human rights and child welfare experts in the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in Congo and is based on more than 1,600 interviews.
The Ituri conflict, which erupted in 1999, is part of a larger five-year, six-nation war in Congo that has killed more than three million people, mostly through starvation and disease.
Ituri, which borders Uganda, has an estimated population of 3.5 million to 5.5 million from 18 ethnic groups. The report said the region's natural wealth includes coffee plantations, one of the world's largest gold fields and potentially large oil reserves.
While much of the fighting in Ituri has been between rival ethnic Hema and Lendu militias, the U.N. report give details on seven Ituri armed groups and three regional political groups involved in the Ituri conflict.
"All of the armed groups have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of human rights law on a massive scale in Ituri," the report said. "Attacks on villages have been accompanied by the killing of several thousands of civilians, widespread looting and destruction of housing and social structures, abduction of civilians, including women for sexual slavery, rape and torture."
Both Hema and Lendu militias repeatedly attacked localities belonging to other ethnic groups and "Lendu combatants engaged in inhumane acts such as mutilation and cannibalism, often under the effects of drugs prepared by their traditional healers," it said.
"In addition, the pre-transition government in Kinshasa and the governments of Rwanda and Uganda all contributed to the massive abuses by arming, training and advising local armed groups at different times," the report said.
While Uganda claimed on several occasions to be in Ituri to defend "its legitimate security concerns," the report said "its commanders were responsible for the creation of almost all of the armed groups." It said Uganda still gives "open support" to some groups.
Rwanda has also supported a Congolese rebel movement involved in Ituri and reportedly supplied arms to Hema militia, the report said. Until 2002, the federal government was hardly involved in Ituri but during 2002 it reportedly send supplies to Lendu militias.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
Reporter Held In Contempt in CIA Leak Case
By Susan Schmidt and Carol Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52895-2004Aug9?language=printer
A federal judge has held a Time magazine reporter in contempt of court for refusing to testify in an investigation of the leak of a CIA officer's identity, rejecting requests from two media organizations to quash federal grand jury subpoenas seeking information from the media.
U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that the First Amendment does not insulate reporters from Time and NBC News from a requirement to testify before a criminal grand jury that is conducting the investigation into the possible illegal disclosure of classified information. He unsealed an order that demands the "confinement" of Time reporter Matthew Cooper, who has refused to testify in the probe, but stayed it pending an appeal.
The judge's opinion, reached July 20 but not released until yesterday, will be immediately appealed, Time executives said. Hogan also issued an Aug. 6 order confining Cooper "at a suitable place until such time as he is willing to comply with the grand jury subpoena," and ordered Time to be fined $1,000 a day. The fine was also stayed while the magazine's expedited appeal is considered.
While NBC fought a subpoena issued May 21 and was included in the opinion, it avoided a contempt citation after Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," agreed to an interview over the weekend in which he answered a limited number of questions posed by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, NBC said in a statement.
Lawyers involved in the case said it appears that Fitzgerald is now armed with a strong and unambiguous court ruling to demand the testimony of two journalists -- syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, who first disclosed the CIA officer's name, and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, who has written that a Post reporter received information about her from a Bush administration official.
Pincus was served with a subpoena yesterday after Hogan's order was unsealed.
In their statement, NBC officials said Russert agreed to the interview after first resisting on First Amendment grounds. NBC lawyers reached an accommodation with the prosecutor in which Russert "was not required to appear before the grand jury and was not asked questions that would have required him to disclose information provided to him in confidence."
Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler agreed to a similar interview with Fitzgerald's office earlier this summer. In both Kessler's case and Russert's, prosecutors' questions concerned conversations the reporters had in early July 2003 with Lewis I. "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney. Both reporters have said they told Fitzgerald's staff that Libby did not disclose the identity of the CIA employee, Valerie Plame, to them.
Fitzgerald has shown a continuing interest in Libby, witnesses have said, but it now appears that his reasons may be more complex than was first apparent. Libby has signed a waiver allowing reporters to tell the prosecutor whether he disclosed Plame's name to them. Prosecutors have e-mails and phone records showing his contacts with reporters, and witnesses have said they are interested in a story Cooper wrote last summer in which Libby was interviewed.
The investigation was sparked by a July 14, 2003, column by Novak that called into question the findings of an outspoken Bush foreign policy critic sent to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium there for its weapons of mass destruction program. Cheney had asked for more information about fragmentary intelligence on the subject.
The envoy, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, was recommended for the CIA mission by his wife, Plame, a CIA nonproliferation "operative," Novak wrote, adding that two administration officials offered the information as an explanation of why Wilson was selected. By then, Wilson was publicly accusing the Bush administration of "twisting" intelligence, including his findings in Niger, to build a case for going to war in Iraq.
Novak's lawyer, James Hamilton, declined to comment yesterday on whether his client has received a subpoena.
Pincus co-wrote a story last October that said an administration official gave similar information to a Post reporter on July 12, 2003 -- before Novak's column appeared -- though Plame's name was not disclosed at the time. Washington Post counsel Mary Ann Werner confirmed yesterday that Fitzgerald has demanded testimony from Pincus.
"We intend to file a motion to quash the subpoena," she said.
One defense lawyer involved in the case said the judge's ruling gives Fitzgerald significant leverage to compel testimony from Novak and Pincus. "This is now open season on these reporters," the lawyer said. The court's ruling establishes unequivocally that "in a grand jury context, reporters don't have a privilege," the lawyer said.
It can be a felony to intentionally disclose an undercover CIA officer's identity.
Media lawyers involved in the case have sought to avoid a showdown in the court of appeals because their chances of winning appear remote. Citing a 1972 Supreme Court case, Branzberg v. Hayes, Hogan wrote in his opinion that the high court has found that "there is no First Amendment privilege exempting members of the press from appearing before grand juries upon issuance of a valid subpoena."
Hogan cited language from the Branzberg decision in which the justices wrote that "we cannot accept the argument that the public interest in possible future news about crime . . . must take precedence over the public interest in pursuing and prosecuting those crimes."
He wrote that the information the prosecutor is seeking from Cooper and Russert "is very limited, all available alternative means of obtaining the information have been exhausted, the testimony sought is necessary for the completion of the investigation, and the testimony sought is expected to constitute direct evidence of innocence or guilt."
Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said reporters must be able to protect confidential sources. His magazine will file an appeal today, he said, and pursue it "if it means taking it all the way up to the Supreme Court."
NBC News President Neal Shapiro said: "Compelling reporters to reveal their newsgathering to government investigators is, in our view, contrary to the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press."
NBC has said previously that Russert was "not a recipient" of Plame's name. A statement from the network yesterday said "the Special Prosecutor's questions addressed a telephone conversation initiated by Mr. Libby and focused on what Mr. Russert said during that conversation. Mr. Libby had previously told the FBI about the conversation and had formally requested that the conversation be disclosed."
NBC officials said that at the time of the conversation Russert "did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a CIA operative" and "he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby." Network representatives would not elaborate on Fitzgerald's interest in learning whether Russert disclosed information to Libby.
William K. Marimow, managing editor of National Public Radio News, said he would counsel reporters to keep commitments to confidential sources, even if they are likely to spend time in jail.
"I would say to them: When you make a promise, you keep it," he said. "Keep your promise and we will do everything humanly possible to protect your right to do that."
Lucy A. Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Hogan's ruling is troubling because it allows prosecutors to make their case by trying force reporters to violate confidentiality commitments, rather than by extracting answers from administration officials.
"You just can't tell me none of the people appearing before the grand jury knows who the leaker was," she said.
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Reporter From Time Is Held in Contempt in C.I.A. Leak Case
August 10, 2004
By ADAM LIPTAK
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/politics/10leak.html
A federal judge in Washington held a reporter for Time magazine in contempt of court yesterday and ordered him jailed for refusing to name the government officials who disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer to him. The magazine was also held in contempt and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 a day.
The judge, Thomas F. Hogan, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, suspended both sanctions while Time and its reporter, Matthew Cooper, pursued an appeal. But the judge firmly rejected their contention that the First Amendment entitled journalists to refuse to answer a grand jury's questions about confidential sources.
"The information requested," Judge Hogan wrote, "is very limited, all available means of obtaining the information have been exhausted, the testimony sought is necessary for completion of the investigation, and the testimony sought is expected to constitute direct evidence of innocence or guilt."
The ruling came in an investigation into whether Bush administration members illegally disclosed the identity of a covert C.I.A. officer.
Legal experts said yesterday that the potential jailing of a journalist represented perhaps the most significant clash between federal prosecutors and the news media since the 1970's. The case is one of several making their way through federal courts in which journalists have been ordered to reveal their sources.
The subpoenas for Mr. Cooper and other journalists were issued by a special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, trying to learn who told the syndicated columnist Robert Novak the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame. Ms. Plame is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who asserted in a July 6, 2003, Op-Ed article in The New York Times that President Bush had relied on discredited intelligence when he said, in his 2003 State of the Union address, that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.
On July 14, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote in his column that "two administration officials" told him that Ms. Plame "is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Disclosing the identity of a covert officer for the Central Intelligence Agency officer can be a crime. Mr. Wilson has suggested that the White House might have leaked his wife's name as retribution for his criticism of the president.
It is not known whether Mr. Novak has received a subpoena or, if he did, how he responded. His lawyer, James Hamilton, declined to comment yesterday.
On July 17, 2003, Time reported that "some government officials" had disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to the magazine.
Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and a number of White House officials have been questioned in the inquiry, which Mr. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, took over after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself in December.
Like Mr. Cooper, Tim Russert, of the NBC program "Meet the Press," received a subpoena in May. In a decision dated July 20 but made public yesterday, Judge Hogan ordered Mr. Russert and Mr. Cooper to testify before the grand jury.
Mr. Cooper refused, leading to the contempt order yesterday. By contrast, Mr. Russert agreed to cooperate.
In a statement, NBC said Mr. Russert was interviewed under oath by prosecutors on Saturday. NBC said Mr. Russert had not been a recipient of a leak and was not asked questions that would have required him to disclose a confidential source.
"The questioning focused on what Russert said when Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, phoned him last summer," NBC reported Saturday. "Russert told the special prosecutor that at the time of the conversation he didn't know Plame's name or that she was a C.I.A. operative and did not provide that information to Libby."
A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment on the investigation.
A Washington Post reporter, Glenn Kessler, was interviewed by prosecutors in June. The Post reported then that he had testified about conversations with Mr. Libby at Mr. Libby's request and that he did so without violating any promises to confidential sources.
A second Post reporter, Walter Pincus, said he received a subpoena yesterday. He referred questions about whether The Post would challenge the subpoena to the paper's lawyers. Neither The Post's in-house lawyers nor its outside lawyer, Seth P. Waxman, responded to messages seeking comment.
Legal experts, including some sympathetic to the arguments by Mr. Cooper and Time, said the appeals court was unlikely to reverse Judge Hogan's decision.
"I think we're going to have a head-on confrontation here," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "I think Matt Cooper is going to jail."
Time's managing editor, James Kelly, said the judge had given too little weight to the importance to the public of allowing reporters to pledge confidentiality to their sources in exchange for important information.
Several reporters, including James Risen and Jeff Gerth of The New York Times, have been ordered to reveal their confidential sources in a case brought by Wen Ho Lee. Mr. Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, was suspected of espionage in 1999 but ultimately pleaded guilty to a single felony count of mishandling secrets. Mr. Lee is suing the federal government, alleging violations of his privacy.
Later this month, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, also of the Federal District Court in Washington, is scheduled to rule on a motion by Mr. Lee's lawyers to hold the reporters in contempt. Mr. Lee's case is a civil one, seeking money, while the Plame investigation is a criminal one.
In his ruling in the Plame matter last month, Judge Hogan said a federal Supreme Court decision from 1972 known as Branzburg required Mr. Cooper to disclose his sources.
Judge Hogan wrote, "Branzburg makes clear that neither the First Amendment nor the common law protect reporters from their obligations shared by all citizens to testify before the grand jury when called to do so."
Floyd Abrams, a lawyer for Time and Mr. Cooper, said the decision would make it harder for reporters like Mr. Cooper to do their jobs.
"The story was essentially critical of the administration for leaking information designed to focus the public away from what Ambassador Wilson was saying was true and toward personal things," Mr. Abrams said of the Time article. "That sort of story, about potential government misuse of power, is precisely the sort of thing that is impossible to do without the benefit of confidential sources."
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Reporter for Time held in contempt in CIA leak case
August 10, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040809-113731-7278r.htm
A federal judge held a reporter for Time magazine in contempt of court yesterday for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer.
In an order issued July 20 but not made public until yesterday, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that Time's Matthew Cooper and "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert were required to testify "regarding alleged conversations they had with a specified executive branch official."
NBC News said Mr. Russert already had been interviewed under oath by prosecutors on Saturday under an agreement to avoid a protracted court battle. The interview concerned a July 2003 phone conversation he had with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Time and Mr. Cooper, however, did not agree to be interviewed and intend to appeal the judge's ruling, said Managing Editor Jim Kelly. If Time loses those appeals, Mr. Cooper could be jailed under Judge Hogan's order until he agrees to appear and the magazine could be fined $1,000 a day.
"We are disappointed in the decision," Mr. Kelly said. "We don't think a journalist should be required to give up a confidential source. We're going to appeal it as far as it goes."
Neal Shapiro, president of NBC News, said the network agreed that forcing reporters to testify about their sources is "contrary to the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press." Mr. Shapiro said Mr. Russert answered "only limited questions" about the conversation with Mr. Libby "without revealing any information he learned in confidence."
The subpoenas of Mr. Russert and Mr. Cooper were issued by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, who was appointed as a special prosecutor in the leak case. Judge Hogan denied the assertions by the two journalists that they were protected by the Constitution from having to testify.
"There have been no allegations whatsoever that this grand jury is acting in bad faith or with the purpose of harassing these two journalists," Judge Hogan wrote in an 11-page ruling.
The investigation concerns the leak last summer to syndicated columnist Robert Novak of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Disclosure of an undercover official's identity can be a felony.
Mrs. Plame's name appeared in Mr. Novak's column on July 14 last year, about a week after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, published a newspaper opinion piece criticizing President Bush's assertion in the 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger.
Mr. Wilson had been sent by the CIA to Niger to verify the assertion, and he concluded it was unfounded. Mr. Novak wrote that Mrs. Plame had suggested her husband for the mission, a contention Mrs. Plame and Mr. Wilson have denied.
NBC said Mr. Russert told Mr. Fitzgerald that he did not know Mrs. Plame's name or her identity as a CIA officer, and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby. NBC said Mr. Libby had told the FBI about his conversation with Mr. Russert and requested that it be disclosed.
Several Bush administration officials have appeared before the grand jury or have been interviewed by prosecutors and the FBI.
Mr. Bush himself was interviewed in the White House on June 25, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was interviewed earlier this month.
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A standard of justice
A U.S. district judge upheld a fundamental tenet of American justice by ruling that Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants won't be convicted through guilt by association.
August 10, 2004
St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/10/Opinion/A_standard_of_justice.shtml
"Personal guilt" is a basic standard of our criminal law. It means a person can't be held responsible for the criminal activity of another unless there is an active conspiracy between them. It means we don't subscribe to guilt by association.
This simple principle was upheld by U.S. District Court Judge James Moody when he ruled this month on the standard the government will have to meet to win a conviction of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian and his three co-defendants. The men are accused of supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group that has used suicide bombings as a terror tactic in Israel and is believed responsible for more than 100 deaths.
Moody said it wouldn't be enough just to demonstrate that Al-Arian and the others sent money to PIJ, a group that our government has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. He said the government would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants sent funds for the purpose of furthering the group's illegal activities.
Government prosecutors vigorously object to Moody's interpretation of the law and will likely appeal, but Moody set the proper standard. The judge upheld a fundamental tenet of American justice that prevents the government from prosecuting every member or associate of an organization just because the group has engaged in illegal activities.
For example, during the McCarthy era, Congress determined that the Communist Party in this country was dominated by foreign influences and committed to the overthrow of our government. But the U.S. Supreme Court repeatedly held that individual members could not be prosecuted on that basis alone. The court required proof that members specifically intended to pursue the group's illegal goals.
The labor movement, the civil rights movement and today's animal rights and anti-abortion movements have been marred by the violent acts of a few zealots. If the government were free to punish everyone who peacefully supported these movements due to the violence of some, political expression would be sharply curtailed.
Moody noted that the statutes under which Al-Arian and the others are charged, such as the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, are written so broadly that renting a hotel room or giving a taxi ride to a member of the PIJ is enough to impose criminal liability on hotel clerks and taxi drivers. The government has already tried to prosecute a Saudi graduate student in Idaho who ran Web sites for groups supporting suicide bombings. He was acquitted.
Rather than find the laws unconstitutional, Moody narrowed their applicability. If the government has proof of active collaboration between Al-Arian and PIJ, then demonstrating that Al-Arian is guilty of furthering the terrorist aims of the group should not be difficult. But our constitutional principles make it essential that the government demonstrate individual culpability before sending someone to prison for terrorism.
-------- death penalty
Danes stop handing over Iraq prisoners
10/08/2004
breakingnews.ie
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/08/10/story161004.html
The Danish contingent in Iraq has suspended handing over prisoners to British forces following the reinstatement of capital punishment by the Iraqi government.
Danish soldiers, who operate under British command in Iraq, had previously handed over captured insurgents and suspected criminals to the custody of British forces, but have a preliminary agreement that the British will not hand them over to others without Danish consent.
"Until that loose agreement becomes more explicit, we're making a suspension so we don't risk ending up having the Iraqi government executing someone who was originally detained by Danish troops," said defence spokesman Jakob Winther.
An explicit agreement will most likely be sorted out soon, he said. Britain, like Denmark, is obliged under the European Convention on Human Rights not to extradite prisoners who could face the death penalty, which is banned in the European Union.
Denmark's 496 soldiers serve in Basra and nearby Qurnah in British-controlled southern Iraq.
The Iraqi government on Sunday reinstated capital punishment for people guilty of murder, endangering national security and distributing drugs, saying the death penalty was necessary to help put down the country's growing insurgency.
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A New Weapon in the Battle to Make a Convention Secure
August 10, 2004
By MICHAEL WILSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/nyregion/10robot.html
The United States has a new weapon in its effort to prevent terrorist attacks in New York City during the Republican National Convention: a piece of sonar equipment that will scan underwater piers, hulls and seawalls in New York Harbor for suspicious activity.
Since the device uses sonar, which is based on sound waves, it should be effective in the sometimes murky waters around the city. This week, researchers are testing the device in New Orleans, in Lake Pontchartrain and the muddy Mississippi River harbor, to see if it is ready to be used in New York during convention week, which runs from Aug. 30 through Sept. 2.
The most important feature of the device is the three-dimensional image it returns. A ship's hull, or the chain of an anchor, or the pilings below a pier are rendered in an image of colored lines, much easier for the untrained eye to decipher than the ping of traditional sonar.
"It becomes sort of intuitive, what you're looking at," said Scot T. Tripp, a Coast Guard project manager for research and development. "The software allows you to walk around it and see it on any side."
The equipment, called the Mobile Inspection Package, was developed at the Center for Ocean Technology in the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. New York is to be its first real mission.
The device is expected to cut down the need for divers. "They can scan in a few minutes in zero-visibility water what it would take a team of divers hours to do," said Larry Langebrake, director of the center.
The device beams live images to computers on a boat and on shore, and records them, so that any change will be detected, Mr. Tripp said. "The basic application for this is to go into an area you want to secure, know what's down there, know it's safe, then you can go back," he said. "It takes the drudgery of searching an area off the divers and allows them to search the area if something is found."
The tool is being tested on a 41-foot patrol boat in New Orleans, small enough to get around New York Harbor quickly during the convention. Scientists hope to test the device on a moving target this week in New Orleans's downtown harbor.
The polluted lake, where years ago fish were said to leap into the air for a gulp of oxygen, is similar to the waters of New York Harbor. "This will give us a capability we don't have now," Mr. Tripp said. "With acoustic imaging, you're not worried about water clarity."
Mark DuPont, a chief warrant officer with the Coast Guard's northeastern district, approved of testing the device for the convention. "A lot of our ports are dark ports, dark waters," he said. "As long as the tests yield the results they want it to, it will be sent to New York."
Eventually, the device will be part of a fully automatic underwater robot that will explore the lower depths, Mr. Tripp said. In its current form, it will be able to create images of objects on the harbor's floor, he said. The scientists are curious about what they will see in New Orleans, and beyond.
"Especially," he said, "when we get to New York."
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Capitol Police Chief Sees No Specific Threat to Hill
Gainer Disputes Charge By White House Adviser
By Dan Eggen and Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52842-2004Aug9.html
Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer, challenging remarks by a top White House homeland security official, said yesterday that "there is not a specific, credible, direct threat against Congress as an institution, or its members."
Gainer was responding to statements by Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, who said in a television interview Sunday that the most recent intelligence on threats by al Qaeda included mention of the U.S. Capitol and members of Congress. Townsend said the information was not as detailed as it was for five financial institutions at the heart of the government's Aug. 1 decision to raise the terrorist threat alert for financial sectors in three cities.
Several other law enforcement officials in Washington said yesterday that they were not aware of any such information. Gainer, who has taken a series of aggressive steps to heighten security on Capitol Hill -- including a street closure and the addition of 14 vehicle checkpoints -- maintained, as he did last week, that he has no information indicating a current threat to the area.
"That said, we continue to be concerned about cells whose strategy, intent and planning targets the Capitol and all that it represents," Gainer said.
In recent weeks, the sergeants-at-arms for the House and the Senate have issued updated security warnings to lawmakers and their staffs in the wake of the latest terrorism alert.
According to congressional aides, House Sergeant-at-Arms Wilson "Bill" Livingood sent a memo to lawmakers urging them to take tunnels when walking from their offices to the Capitol for votes, remove license plates identifying them as members of Congress from their cars and take off congressional lapel pins when leaving the Capitol grounds. The warnings were first reported yesterday by Time magazine.
An aide to William H. Pickle, Livingood's Senate counterpart, said Pickle briefed senators in mid-July on security precautions and updated the warnings for senators and their chiefs of staff last week. The aide declined to discuss details of the briefings.
Gainer, who said Capitol Police have been issuing similar security warnings for the past 18 months, added that "encouraging members to be prudent not to draw attention to themselves is long-standing, good security guidance whose import takes on greater significance in these terrorist times."
Also yesterday, a Democratic senator contended that the disclosure of the identity of a captured al Qaeda suspect may have compromised national security and undermined an ongoing sting operation aimed at locating the terrorist network's operatives, including leader Osama bin Laden.
In letters to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Townsend, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked for an official explanation of why the suspect's name was leaked by administration sources and whether "this leak compromised future intelligence activity."
Schumer's objections followed widespread reports on the capture of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, whose arrest eventually led to the discovery of surveillance information targeting financial institutions in Washington, New York and Newark. The information was the primary basis for the government's decision Aug. 1 to raise the terror alert level for financial sectors in those three cities.
Khan, described as a computer expert for al Qaeda, became part of a sting operation organized by the CIA after he was captured last month. He sent coded e-mail messages to al Qaeda contacts around the world, according to U.S. officials.
In an appearance Sunday on CNN, Rice acknowledged that Khan's name had been given to reporters on background, meaning that journalists could not identify the officials who provided them with the information. Rice said officials were trying to balance "operational considerations" with providing the public with adequate information about the current terrorism threat.
Pakistani and British officials have been quoted in media reports as objecting to the identification of Khan. His cooperation had led them to other militants, including Eisa Hindi, an al Qaeda operative arrested last week in Britain who allegedly conducted much of the surveillance in New York.
Officials said yesterday that the FBI has warned U.S. law enforcement agencies nationwide that al Qaeda may try to use helicopters, limousines and rental storage facilities in an attack. The three classified bulletins, sent late last week, were prompted in part by clues unearthed in connection with the recent terrorism threat warning.
One or more pictures of helicopters were among hundreds of photographs and images seized from an al Qaeda operative's laptop computer, which also contained detailed notes from surveillance of financial institutions in those three cities, one law enforcement official said.
"Although there is no credible, specific evidence supporting the use of helicopters in aerial attacks within the United States, the threat cannot be discounted," the FBI said in one of the bulletins.
A separate directive issued last night said Transportation Security Administration screeners, or ones approved by the agency, must be used to check passengers and baggage on New York helicopters and that by tonight helicopter firms must provide information on their employees so background checks can be conducted.
The al Qaeda surveillance information also included the observation that a limousine packed with explosives would be more likely to pass through security at one of the potential targets, the Prudential Financial building in Newark, the law enforcement official said. The second FBI bulletin applied to rental vehicles in general, which were used in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
The third bulletin urged police to monitor the use of rental storage facilities, which could be used to store explosives, weapons or other materials for use in a terrorist attack, the official said.
Staff writer Helen Dewar contributed to this report.
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U.S. Security Officers Will Take Over Passenger Screening on Helicopter Tours
August 10, 2004
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MICHAEL LUO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/nyregion/10chopper.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Federal security officers will take over the screening of all passengers on helicopter tours in New York City, after officials found that suspected Qaeda operatives in Pakistan had photographs, a brochure and other information about the tours.
A security directive issued by the Transportation Security Administration orders federal screeners to begin doing passenger inspections in the city's three heliports, a job now done by private security contractors, Mark Hatfield, a spokesman for the agency, said yesterday. Passengers will be subject to the same types of searches for weapons, explosives and suspicious items as are now in place at airports.
The helicopter tour operators will also be required to provide the names of passengers to the federal government to run against federal "no fly'' lists of terrorist suspects and to provide names and data on their own employees for federal background checks. The operators will also have to name a security coordinator, to be available 24 hours a day to respond to federal inquiries.
While federal officials have imposed broad safety measures on the aviation and rail industries since the Sept. 11 attacks, the move to tighten security at New York's heliports marks the first time that they have imposed these types of stepped-up measures at specific sites because of a perceived threat.
Officials said they planned to redeploy federal screeners from other sites to the New York heliports by the end of the week.
As it stands, almost no regulations regarding security procedures exist for the operators of tourist and charter helicopters in New York City, several industry officials said yesterday. "It's basically kind of voluntary right now," said Michael Renz, the owner and chief executive officer of the Analar Corporation, a corporate charter company in Princeton, N.J. "There's no guidelines for us at the moment."
There are three major helicopter companies in New York City catering to tourists: Liberty Helicopters, the largest operator; Helicopter Flight Services; and New York Helicopter, a charter company that only recently entered the business. They use two out of the city's three heliports, one on 30th Street and 12th Avenue and the other off Pier 6 in Lower Manhattan. The city's third heliport, on East 34th Street and Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, does not allow tourism operators.
One law enforcement official said that the security for tourism-oriented operators, especially, clearly could use improvement.
"They're making a business decision - they don't want to slow down what's going on there," the official said about tour operators. "I would say that's the bottom line."
"They want to get as many of those minitours" into the air as they can, the official said.
Many helicopter companies adopted certain measures on their own after Sept. 11, Mr. Renz said. Although his company does not make passengers go through a metal detector, employees now check passengers' luggage before they board and will sometimes call up a special hot line linked with the Newark office of the F.B.I. to check passengers' names against terror watch lists, he said.
"If someone's calling us out of the blue, and they want to see Manhattan, and they have some funny-looking name, we check it out," he said.
On Sunday, Mr. Renz's company flew a group of 14 Muslims, dressed in white robes and skullcaps, from East Brunswick, N.J., to Manhattan and then on to Philadelphia. They were members of Dawoodi Bohras, a Mumbai-based Shiite group with a branch in Queens. It was a "very unusual request," Mr. Renz said, so employees checked the passengers' names with the F.B.I.
Usually, charter companies are dealing with the same companies and passengers over and over, Mr. Renz said, so they are not so vulnerable as the companies that cater mainly to tourists.
Trips with two of the helicopter companies yesterday demonstrated that security procedures vary considerably. At the heliport on the West Side, used by Liberty Helicopters, a police officer and security guard were posted outside, asking for photo identification. Once passengers got inside, they were told to stow all their belongings, except for cameras, in lockers.
Even pens were prohibited, although a reporter got one aboard on a 1:30 p.m. flight because it failed to trigger the metal detector that passengers must walk through. If a passenger tripped the metal detector, an employee stood ready to scan him or her with a hand-held wand.
But at the heliport in Lower Manhattan, operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, passengers for New York Helicopter only had to open their bags for an employee to peek inside and were screened with a hand-held wand.
A reporter who did not identify herself but flew on a 2 p.m. tour had to open her bag and show her photo ID but was not asked to open her makeup bag, wallet or planner.
For a person hovering a thousand feet over the city, it was not difficult to imagine the potential for the helicopters to be used as weapons. Flight routes vary, depending on how much the passengers pay, but all fly by the city's major landmarks. And unlike airplane pilots, those in a helicopter sit shoulder to shoulder with passengers, who often crowd in seven at a time.
On the flight with New York Helicopter, the pilot warned a passenger to "watch out for the pedals," less than six inches from her feet.
For $101 a person, New York Helicopters yesterday offered a 10-minute tour up the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan to Midtown and back. The pilot used his microphone to point out major sights, including ground zero and the Empire State Building. He also made a special mention of the Citicorp Building on the East Side, cited last week as a potential terror target.
For $162, Liberty Helicopters offered a 15-to-17-minute tour yesterday that included a swing across Manhattan over Central Park. Usually, the tour includes a sweep over Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, but flight restrictions related to a game yesterday afternoon prevented the pilot from heading that way.
Any helicopter that flies over Manhattan is required to get in touch with air traffic controllers, said Paul M. Smith, director of safety for Helicopters Inc., based in Linden, N.J. In congested areas - basically all of Manhattan - pilots usually cannot fly below 1,000 feet of the highest building that is within 2,000 feet away. Usually, helicopter pilots, along with those in small planes, do not have to file flight plans, unless they are flying under instrument conditions.
The concerns that prompted the T.S.A. order yesterday grew out of information recovered from a computer discs recently seized from a suspected Qaeda operative in Pakistan - the same batch of information that led federal authorities to raise the threat level back to orange for some financial sectors.
The computer data included written references to some or all of the city's three heliports, photographs and at least one brochure for a helicopter tour operators, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Officials said they were still uncertain when the material was collected.
But in response to the new intelligence, officials put out an alert to law enforcement agencies around the country on Friday.
Jennifer Medina contributed reporting for this article.
--------
Al Qaeda may attack in limos, FBI says
August 10, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040809-113737-3393r.htm
Al Qaeda may attempt to launch attacks in U.S. cities using helicopters or rented limousines packed with explosives, the FBI said in two nationwide bulletins.
Terror operatives could attempt to hijack commercial, charter or tourist helicopter flights and use them in suicide attacks against buildings, parades or sporting events, said one of the intelligence bulletins obtained yesterday by the Associated Press.
Helicopters and limousines both could help terrorists get closer to targeted buildings, the FBI warnings said. The warnings were sent Friday night by the FBI and the Homeland Security Department to 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, other government officials and private groups.
Although the Bush administration's recent heightened terror alert was confined to financial institutions in New York, Newark, N.J., and Washington, the FBI said al Qaeda was interested in using helicopters to attack "any densely populated area of symbolic, economic or financial importance" in the country.
The other bulletin warns that al Qaeda frequently has used rented cars and trucks for bomb attacks - including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center - and might do so again.
Limousines, the FBI said, could be especially useful to terrorists because they are larger than regular cars and might draw less suspicion than trucks.
"Limousines often convey an impression of authority or prestige, which may facilitate their access to specific locations in a building or a facility denied to the general public," the bulletin said.
The FBI says it has no credible, specific evidence about the method, timing or location of any al Qaeda attack inside the country. But the bulletins come amid a steady stream of intelligence indicating that the terror group intends to strike in the months leading up to the Nov. 2 election.
The FBI bulletins also were issued after arrests in Pakistan and Britain of several key al Qaeda operatives and the seizure of computers, computer files and other evidence. U.S. officials say they are hopeful that this information might be critical to disruption of plots that may be in the final stages.
On the helicopter leads, the FBI says it has information indicating that al Qaeda operatives have considered using helicopters packed with explosives in an unspecified attack.
Helicopters, which are difficult to learn how to fly, also might be used to spread chemical or biological agents in the ventilation systems of high-rise buildings, the FBI bulletin said.
"Terrorists may view helicopters as an attractive weapon due to their maneuverability and nonthreatening appearance when flying at low altitudes," the FBI said.
Police countrywide are being urged by the FBI to pay extra attention to commercial and private helicopter operations and schools. The businesses also are warned to be alert to anyone with undue interest in helicopter payloads and security procedures and to set up screening and identification procedures for passengers and cargo.
--------
Memos: Vegas officials failed to act on terror tapes
August 10, 2004
WASHINGTON (AP)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/08/10/terror.vegas.ap/
When the Justice Department obtained two videos suggesting terrorists had cased Las Vegas, Nevada, casinos, the discussions didn't center on public alerts or heightened security. Rather, authorities worried about the effects on tourism and the casinos' legal liabilities, internal memos show.
One of the tapes, found in Spain in 2002, shows al Qaeda's European operatives casing Las Vegas casinos in 1997, according to documents provided to U.S. authorities from Spain.
The tape includes casual conversation with an apparent reference to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Another tape found in a Detroit, Michigan, terror cell's apartment had eerily similar footage of the MGM Grand, Excalibur and New York, New York casinos -- three hotels within a short distance of each other on the Las Vegas strip with a combined total of 11,000 rooms.
Though the FBI offered, most local law enforcement and casino security officers declined an invitation to view the footage after it was obtained in 2002, according to the memos and one of the prosecutors in the Detroit case.
One document obtained by The Associated Press quotes a federal prosecutor in Las Vegas as saying the city's mayor was concerned about the "deleterious effect on the Las Vegas tourism industry" if the evidence became public. The mayor said Monday he was never told of the footage.
Another memo states the casinos didn't want to see the footage for fear it would make them more likely to be held liable in civil court if an attack occurred.
"The information, unfortunately, was not taken as seriously as we believed it to have been," Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino told the AP in an interview, recounting how only two local police officers accepted the FBI agent's offer to see the tape.
"The reason that he [the FBI agent] was given for the low turnout was because of liability, that if they heard this information they would have to act on it. It was extraordinarily unacceptable and absolutely outrageous," Convertino said.
The prosecutor said he later asked a Las Vegas police officer, who had seen the tape and flown to Detroit to help, why more wasn't done. "This officer told me that the amount of money that travels through Las Vegas on a daily, weekly and monthly basis -- if something doesn't go boom, nothing is going to be done," he said.
Convertino led the successful prosecution of the Detroit terror cell but has since been removed from the case amid an investigation into whether the prosecution team withheld certain evidence from defense lawyers. Convertino alleges the probe is retaliation for his recent cooperation with Congress.
Justice Department officials declined comment Monday, citing a gag order imposed by the judge in the Detroit case.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said Monday he was never told about the tapes until learning about them from AP this week. "If I were told, I would certainly tell the public," Goodman said.
Clark County Undersheriff Doug Gillespie said he first learned about the Detroit footage during the Detroit trial in spring 2003 and found out about the Spanish tape afterward, but he confirmed two of his detectives had met with the FBI.
"They're saying we didn't do our job, and it is to the contrary. They had the information. They chose not to give it to us," Gillespie said of federal authorities.
FBI Special Agent Dave Nanz in Las Vegas said he could not speak about the specifics of the Detroit case but that "any credible information that we obtain from any source suggesting any terror threat to Las Vegas, we share with local law enforcement and security chiefs in the casinos."
Homeland Security Department officials said Monday there is no imminent threat known to Las Vegas, although it remains a suspected target. They said the 2002 episode showed the need for the instant local alert system the department created last year.
Las Vegas has been considered a terror target since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks when it was determined that Mohammed Atta and his hijackers made trips there before their suicide attacks on New York City and Washington. But the extent of video surveillance hasn't received attention, even after U.S. authorities announced new terror concerns about Last Vegas last December.
The owner of the Excalibur said Monday he never had been told of the tapes. "You're giving me information I've never heard," said Glenn Schaeffer, president and chief financial officer of Mandalay Resort Group.
Yvette Monet, a spokeswoman for the MGM, declined to say whether casino officials were invited to see the tape, simply stating, "We have always cooperated with state, local and federal authorities in dealing with these matters and we continue to do so today."
Knowledge of the tapes reached the highest levels of Justice. The department's terrorism chief, Barry Sabin, referenced the casino footage in a memo to the FBI.
In late summer 2002, FBI agents discovered the casino footage when they belatedly decoded a European surveillance tape found a year earlier in the Detroit terror cell's apartment. A few weeks later, a Justice expert provided prosecutors similar surveillance that Spanish authorities had recovered from an al Qaeda cell in Madrid.
When FBI supervisory agent Paul George flew to Las Vegas to show the Detroit tape, "the FBI, casino representatives, Clark County Sheriff's Department and the JTTF [joint terrorism task force] declined to attend," Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Corbett wrote.
"No one showed up except for two Metro officers," Corbett added. "Indeed, the casinos informed Agent George that they did not want to show up because of concerns about liability."
In a series of e-mails, Convertino pleaded with Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Lever in Las Vegas to take the video footage seriously, even though local officials were cool to it. He noted two experts had concluded the tape matched other al Qaeda surveillance.
"While I understand your previously stated concerns that the mayor of Las Vegas, the local sheriff and others believe our indictment may temporarily have a deleterious effect on the Las Vegas tourism industry, it is unconscionable that any reasonable person would assert that anyone here possessed a cavalier attitude toward the tape," Convertino wrote.
Prosecutors were allowed in spring 2003 to show the Detroit tape to jurors, but were kept by their superiors from introducing the Spanish tape.
Both tapes showed the three same hotels. The Excalibur, in fact, "was both shot inside and out, daytime and nighttime," according to one Justice document.
The Detroit tape had struck Justice's terror experts because it switched back and forth from scenes of Las Vegas to pre-September 11 scenes of New York that included the World Trade Center and a hotel across from the twin towers.
A Justice expert wrote that both tapes followed the al Qaeda training manual because "surveillance is inserted into seemingly innocent tourist videos" to disguise it.
A cooperating prosecution witness in Detroit told authorities that one member of the alleged terror cell described Las Vegas as the "City of Satan" and boasted "the brothers are going to destroy it."
Documents provided to U.S. authorities from Spain say the tape found in Madrid was taken by an al Qaeda operative in August 1997 and later sent via courier to al Qaeda's leaders in Afghanistan.
-------- immigration / refugees
Immigration plan envisions 'incentives' to illegal aliens
August 10, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040810-123433-8727r.htm
Millions of illegal aliens in the United States would be free from arrest and deportation, have access to tax-deferred savings accounts and Social Security credits, and get unrestricted travel to and from their home countries under President Bush's guest-worker program.
According to previously undisclosed details of the president's plan, which some critics have described as a limited amnesty, the proposal offers numerous "incentives" for the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens to come "out of the shadows," Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, the nation's border and transportation security czar, told a Senate panel.
Mr. Hutchinson, in a written response to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Bush plan would help eliminate sleepless nights for illegal aliens worried that a simple misstep, such as a traffic ticket or accident, "could result in bringing them to the attention of federal authorities and their subsequent deportation."
"Eliminating the fear of deportation will be an incentive," Mr. Hutchinson said in the 13-page response. "Undocumented aliens will tell you they often have trouble sleeping at night, and leaving for work each day, not knowing if they will make it home at the end of the day."
Mr. Hutchinson said the president's guest-worker plan recognizes that some aliens working illegally in this country who decide to pursue citizenship should be "allowed to apply for lawful permanent residence in the normal way."
But, he said, in order not to give an "unfair advantage" to illegal aliens over those immigrants "who have followed legal procedures from the start," the Bush plan would seek "a reasonable annual increase in legal migrants."
In January, Mr. Bush proposed a guest-worker program that would allow millions of illegal aliens in the country to remain if they have jobs and apply as guest workers.
The Senate panel sent Mr. Hutchinson its questions at that time. Mr. Hutchinson responded within a few weeks, although his answers were not made public.
Under Mr. Bush's proposal, the aliens could stay for an undetermined number of renewable 3-year periods, after which they could seek permanent legal status.
The proposal has been met with criticism from law enforcement authorities and has been challenged by both Republicans and Democrats. Some have called the plan an amnesty program that invites aliens in this country illegally to gain perpetual legal status. Others said it was unpractical and could become a scheme to identify illegal aliens and deport them.
The National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 10,000 of the Border Patrol's nonsupervisory agents, has called the Bush plan a "slap in the face to anyone who has ever tried to enforce the immigration laws of the United States."
In the written response, Mr. Hutchinson said the Bush plan would:
•Allow illegal aliens working in the United States to create tax-deferred savings accounts that could be withdrawn on return to their home countries. He said this would encourage savings and even capitalization in businesses, houses or land in the aliens' home countries.
•Give the aliens access to bilateral agreements the United States has with 20 countries, allowing them to combine earned Social Security credits and receive benefits in their home country. He said the administration would work with its international partners to encourage recognition of the aliens' contributions in both countries.
•Give the aliens access to travel, knowing they can "go and return freely to the country of origin for celebrations, funerals or vacations." He said cards would be given to the aliens allowing them to travel back and forth between their home countries and the United States "without fear of being denied re-entry."
Mr. Hutchinson said the president believes provisions should be made for the aliens' families to remain in this country or travel to the United States with the temporary workers, if they can demonstrate an ability to financially support their families and if the family members are not criminal or security risks.
Current law says an alien who has lived illegally in the United States for longer than 180 days must return home and wait three years before applying for legal visitor or immigrant status, and 10 years if he has been here illegally for a year.
Mr. Hutchinson said that since many of the illegal aliens who would participate in the Bush plan would have exceeded the three-year and 10-year bars, any legislation to create the program would need to supercede those restrictions.
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry has said that within 100 days of taking office as president, he would propose a plan to legalize illegal immigrants who have lived in the country for at least five years, worked and paid taxes, and passed a security background check. Unlike the Bush plan, Mr. Kerry would grant green cards and give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.
Much of Mr. Hutchinson's response was directed at questions by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, who asked why illegal aliens in the United States would participate in the Bush plan if they were going to be sent home in three or six years.
"These are people who have lived here for a decade or more, put down roots, are raising U.S. children. Unless they are assured an opportunity to apply for permanent residence and ultimately citizenship, why would they come out of the shadows for a few years to risk deportation when the program ends?" Mr. Kennedy asked.
•Stephen Dinan contributed to the article.
-------- police
Malaysia police 'brutal, corrupt'
BBC
By Jonathan Kent
10 August, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3550552.stm
Malaysians have taken to the streets to denounce violent police methods The head of a commission inquiry into the Malaysian police says his panel has been inundated with allegations of corruption and brutality.
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi says he wants immediate action to put the commission's proposals into effect, once it issues its full report next February.
Mr Abdullah has made eliminating corruption a centrepiece of his plans.
He ordered a royal commission to be set up to look into the management and workings of the police shortly after coming to power in October.
Least-trusted body
After 26 public hearings around the country and a series of consultations, it has submitted its preliminary findings.
The commission's chairman, Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah, said complainants had repeatedly alleged rampant corruption in the force's traffic, commercial crimes, narcotics and internal investigation divisions.
The commission had also uncovered evidence that excessive force had been used against detainees, he said, adding that he and his colleagues will be investigating a number of deaths in police custody.
PM Abdullah Badawi has demanded swift action In the police's defence, Mr Dzaiddin said they were hampered by a lack of money, personnel and equipment.
The commission's assessment is likely to chime with the public.
Many people report being asked for bribes by officers while others allege that police effectively operate a shoot-to-kill policy.
Local media consistently report gun battles involving the police ending with all of the suspects being killed, but without any officers being injured.
-------- terrorism
THE OVERVIEW
New Generation of Leaders Is Emerging for Al Qaeda
August 10, 2004
By DAVID JOHNSTON and DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/politics/10terror.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - A new portrait of Al Qaeda's inner workings is emerging from the cache of information seized last month in Pakistan, as investigators begin to identify a new generation of operatives who appear to be filling the vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured, senior intelligence officials said Monday.
Using computer records, e-mail addresses and documents seized after the arrest of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan last month in Pakistan, intelligence analysts say they are finding that Al Qaeda's upper ranks are being filled by lower-ranking members and more recent recruits.
"They're a little bit of both,'' one official said, describing Al Qaeda's new midlevel structure. "Some who have been around and some who have stepped up. They're reaching for their bench.''
While the findings may result in a significant intelligence coup for the Bush administration and its allies in Britain, they also create a far more complex picture of Al Qaeda's status than Mr. Bush presents on the campaign trail. For the past several months, the president has claimed that much of Al Qaeda's leadership has been killed or captured; the new evidence suggests that the organization is regenerating and bringing in new blood.
The new picture emerged from interviews with two officials who have been briefed on some of the details of the intelligence and analytical conclusions drawn from the information on computers seized after Mr. Khan's arrest. But they did not identify the more senior Qaeda leaders, and they said it was not yet clear to what extent Osama bin Laden still exercised control over the organization, either directly or through his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Officials say they still do not have a clear picture of the midlevel structure that exists between Mr. Khan, who appeared to be responsible for communications but not operations, and the upper echelons of Al Qaeda.
The new evidence suggests that Al Qaeda has retained some elements of its previous centralized command and communications structure, using computer experts like Mr. Khan to relay encrypted messages and directions from leaders to subordinates in countries like Britain, Turkey and Nigeria.
In the past, officials had a different view of Al Qaeda. After the American-led war in Afghanistan, most American counterterrorism analysts believed that the group had been dispersed and had been trying to re-form in a loosely affiliated collection of extremist groups.
It appears that Al Qaeda is more resilient than was previously understood and has sought to find replacements for operational commanders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash, known as Khallad, all of whom have been captured.
Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahiri are believed to be in hiding in the region along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In July, when American officials announced that Al Qaeda intended to strike inside the United States this year, they said that they believed Mr. bin Laden was directing the threats.
The names of senior members of the terror network were not discussed by the intelligence officials, in part, they said, to avoid compromising efforts to kill or capture them. "They are in Pakistan or the region,'' said one official, who also said that the Pakistani government was being "quite helpful'' in helping identify them. That is a significant change from last year, but the attitude of Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, appeared to change after he survived two assassination attempts that are now believed to have been aided by Qaeda sympathizers. "That focused his mind on the issue,'' one American said.
The Khan computer files also led to the arrest of 11 Qaeda followers last week in Britain. They are described by officials as young, alienated Arab men with extreme anti-American views, much like many of Mr. bin Laden's foot soldiers and many of the 19 men who took part in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
One key figure among the men arrested in Britain is Abu Issa al-Hindi, who is believed to have supervised the surveillance of financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington. He appears to represent what authorities said was a different kind of Qaeda recruit, a convert to Islam who did not appear to have been trained in Mr. bin Laden's Afghanistan camps.
The arrest of Mr. Khan continued to be debated on Monday in the capital. A Democratic senator, Charles E. Schumer of New York, asked the White House to explain how the identity of the communications expert arrested in Pakistan last month became publicly known.
Mr. Schumer said in a letter to Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, that the disclosure of Mr. Khan's capture may have complicated efforts to combat terror.
The apprehension of Mr. Khan led authorities in Pakistan to computers that provided a wealth of information about Al Qaeda operations, including the surveillance of the financial institutions. It remains unclear whether he was cooperating with Pakistani intelligence at the time of his arrest or had previously provided Islamabad with information about Al Qaeda.
"I believe that openness in government is generally the best policy,'' Mr. Schumer wrote. "But the important exception should be anything that compromises national security. The statements of the British and Pakistani officials indicate that such a compromise may have occurred.''
There have been reports of Pakistani officials complaining that public statements in the United States about Mr. Khan's arrest gave his Qaeda contacts notice that they may be under surveillance.
Mr. bin Laden's precise role in the leadership of his organization remains murky. After the Sept. 11 attacks he did not appear to take an active leadership role in formulating a specific plan, as he had in the Sept. 11 plot, administration officials have said. At times he has appeared to be struggling to maintain his primacy as the leader of the network through messages exhorting his followers to carry out operations against American targets.
But in recent months, there has been evidence leading some analysts to conclude that Mr. bin Laden may have been able to maintain greater control over planning for attacks.
--------
Nichols Seeks Forgiveness for Okla. City Bombing
At Sentencing, He Speaks Publicly for 1st Time
By Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52840-2004Aug9.html
McALESTER, Okla., Aug. 9 -- Speaking publicly for the first time, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry L. Nichols on Monday asked survivors and families of victims for forgiveness and offered to correspond with them if they felt it would help them cope with the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people.
The slight, bespectacled Nichols made his comments at his sentencing to life in prison on a state conviction on 161 charges of first-degree murder, as well as charges of conspiracy and arson.
"My heart truly goes out to all the victims, survivors and anyone who has been affected by the Oklahoma City bombing," he said. "Words cannot adequately express the sorrow I have had over the years for the grief that so many have endured and continue to suffer. I am truly sorry for what occurred."
Nichols read calmly from a prepared statement as he sat in the witness stand, his ankles and wrists shackled, the word "INMATE" stamped in large black letters on the back of his blue-gray prison suit. He asked for forgiveness and said he had found "a real and personal relationship with God through . . . Jesus Christ."
"I do pray that for many, that this day will be the beginning of their long-awaited healing process," said Nichols, 49. "And I pray that all who hold any hatred, bitterness and unforgiveness toward me, that they will find in their hearts to forgive me, as others have done, for this is the first stage toward true healing."
He invited the relatives of those killed in the bombing, as well as others, to write to him if they felt it would "assist in their healing process."
But his words did nothing to soothe the dozen or so relatives and survivors who attended the sentencing. They said they remained disappointed that Nichols did not directly admit to his role in the bombing, and they said they were unimpressed with his profession of faith and entreaties for forgiveness and reconciliation.
"It was all self-serving," said Darlene Welch of Guthrie, who lost her 4-year-old niece, Ashley Eckles, and the child's paternal grandparents the day of the bombing. "It's just all about what's good for him."
As for writing Nichols, Gloria Taylor of Edmond, whose 41-year-old daughter, Teresa Lea Lauderdale, was killed in the blast, said: "I can put my stamp to better use. There will never really be closure. He's asking us our forgiveness. Looking us in the eye might have helped."
Nichols was already serving a life sentence without parole in federal prison for the deaths of eight federal agents in the building when, on May 26, a jury here convicted him on state charges. Oklahoma prosecutors had hoped to win the death penalty, but the jury deadlocked, leaving District Judge Steven Taylor to sentence Nichols to life.
Taylor ordered Nichols to serve 161 consecutive life terms without parole; prosecutors had charged Nichols with murder for each of the remaining victims, including a fetus. Taylor also sentenced Nichols to 10 years and a $5,000 fine for a conspiracy count and 35 years and a $25,000 fine for first-degree arson. Nichols was ordered to pay $5 million in restitution and $10,000 per murder count to an Oklahoma victim-compensation fund, as well as legal fees.
The judge addressed Nichols directly for 12 minutes, calling him a terrorist several times. "No American citizen has ever caused this much destruction and devastation . . . against any fellow American than you have," Taylor said. "The question of how could you do this, what could motivate you to do this, there is no answer that could satisfy me."
Nichols's former Army buddy, Timothy J. McVeigh, was convicted of murder in federal court and was executed in 2001.
In his statement Monday, Nichols, who has 10 days to file an appeal, tried to differentiate himself from his co-conspirator, saying that his views "were never the same as Timothy McVeigh's." The two allegedly bombed the federal building to protest the federal government's siege of the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Tex.
For almost a decade, the bombing has consumed some Oklahomans, as they tried to cope with the aftermath of the murders and the destruction. They have closely followed the federal and state trials, the design and erection of a $30 million memorial at the bombing site and the dedication of a replacement federal building. Whether Nichols's sentencing and his statement signals final closure for them is still a question.
"He is the biggest mass murderer, and I expect that we'll still hear about him," Welch said of Nichols. "We still hear about Tim McVeigh even though he's dead. I don't know that there's ever really what you guys classify as closure. That word means nothing to me."
--------
India anti-terror law to be axed
Critics say that Pota discriminated against Muslims
bbc
10 August 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3552966.stm
The Indian cabinet has said it will scrap a controversial anti-terrorism law enacted by the previous government.
The new Congress-led government says the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) had been grossly misused for the past two years, especially against Muslims.
They also argue that the act has been used to settle political scores.
Pota gave the security forces greater powers to arrest and interrogate terrorist suspects. It will now go to parliament to be repealed.
'Draconian'
"The cabinet took a major decision today. It is to repeal Pota as per the promise made in the national Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance," Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy said.
The government of Atal Behari Vajpayee introduced Pota after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US and the attack on the Indian parliament the following December.
As soon as it came to power, the government of the new Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that, while it would repeal Pota, it would not make compromises in the fight against terror.
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have frequently criticised the act, describing it as "draconian," and a contravention of basic civil liberties.
Pota broadened the scope of the death penalty and gave prosecuting lawyers more scope to detain and interrogate suspects.
Critics say that, following the religious riots in Gujarat state of 2002, Muslims were unfairly singled out under Pota.
Abolishing Pota is part of what the Mr Singh's government is calling a pledge to "preserve, protect and promote social harmony" in India.
Mr Reddy said a bill to abolish Pota would be introduced by the government after the budget parliamentary session.
--------
Manipur delays terror law repeal
bbc
10 August, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3550844.stm
The cabinet in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur has delayed a decision to repeal a controversial anti-terror law until Wednesday.
The state Chief minister Ibobi Singh said the delay was due to "certain technicalities."
Manipuris have been campaigning for the withdrawal of the law which they say gives huge powers to the security forces and is open to abuse.
The armed forces said they needed the special powers to fight separatists.
Intensifying crisis
The BBC north-east India correspondent says that the delay in the vote was caused by the sudden and mysterious disappearance of a senior civil servant, Cabinet Secretary P Bhorot, in the state capital Imphal.
His temporary absence stalled the cabinet from deciding whether or not to repeal the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958 from all or parts of state.
Our correspondent says that the missing official was finally located by legislators and brought to the Chief minister Ibobi Singh's residence late on Tuesday evening.
His disappearance forced the state's Industry Minister Thoudam Devendra to cancel a trip to Delhi, where he had been summoned by the governing Congress party to give a briefing on the intensifying crisis in the state.
The chief minister was under huge pressure from Congress and Communist supporters of his coalition government to repeal the act.
Eight Congress and five Communist legislators supporting the coalition threatened to withdraw support if it was not lifted.
They said the act should be repealed in deference to popular demand.
Under its terms, the security forces have wide-ranging powers to carry out counter-insurgency operations and detain suspects.
Mr Singh accepted their demand, and the ruling front adopted a unanimous resolution for withdrawal of the special law.
The Indian government, led by the Congress Party, indicated that it would like the special law to continue because it helps the security forces fight separatist insurgents operating in the state.
But senior officials in the central interior ministry suggest the Indian government may back the withdrawal of the act from certain parts of the state.
For the past month, this small state bordering Burma has been paralysed by a fierce public campaign for scrapping the special law.
The protests began after a 32-year-old Manipuri woman was found raped and shot dead after she had been picked up the paramilitary Assam Rifles.
-------- torture
Zimbabwe election torture warning
BBC, London
By Grant Ferrett
10 August, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3551870.stm
The opposition complain of widespread intimidation A British-based lobby group has accused Zimbabwe's government of carrying out a systematic campaign of violence and torture against its opponents.
The campaign group, Redress, says the scale of abuse increases in the run-up to elections.
Their report refers to documented examples compiled by local human rights groups of nearly 9,000 violations in Zimbabwe from the year 2001 to 2003.
It covers incidents such as torture, abduction and murder.
The accounts are based on the work of human rights groups inside Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwean government, which routinely dismisses allegations of state-sponsored violence, has so far made no comment.
Impunity
Redress says the abuses were carried out by government employees, such as the police, or supporters of President Robert Mugabe's party, Zanu-PF.
The police are among those accused of abuse The executive director of Redress, Kate Rose-Sender, says the violence was particularly pronounced before the presidential election two years ago.
"There seems to be the kind of correlation that indicates that the state is using torture in a direct attempt to control the people around the time of elections.
"They're doing it with impunity, and it's an impunity which we're trying to address," she says. With parliamentary elections expected to take place in March, the report concludes that the problem of organised torture should be tackled as a matter of urgency.
Redress expresses the hope that Zimbabwe's neighbours will put pressure on it.
But there is little sign of any change in the low-key approach of the regional power, South Africa.
-------- POLITICS
-------- budget
Players: Paul V. Applegarth
Reinventing U.S. Foreign Aid at Millennium Challenge Corp.
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52835-2004Aug9.html
Paul V. Applegarth's office has the look of a hot Internet start-up, complete with bare white walls and holes left when pictures hung by the previous tenant were ripped down. Though Applegarth is the chief executive of a new enterprise, Millennium Challenge Corp., his tiny hovel is at the end of two rows of cubicles with no reception area in an Arlington office building.
The staff, seven people at the beginning of the year, has expanded to 42 in six months and is due to grow to 200 in a year. Applegarth, a onetime Wall Street executive, is sitting on $1 billion in cash and soon hopes to get as much as $2.5 billion more. And -- literally -- the world is beating a path to his door.
Millennium Challenge Corp. is a hot prospect -- but in the world of foreign aid. It represents an audacious attempt by the Bush administration to rewrite the rules of foreign development assistance, focusing less on foreign policy considerations and more on whether countries create the conditions to use the money wisely.
The federal agency will hand over huge sums of money to a select group of countries that are evaluated and ranked according to series of benchmarks graded by outside parties. Only 16 countries -- out of a potential pool of 75 of the world's poorest nations -- qualified for the first round of funding, based on the quality of the government, public investment in people and economic freedoms. When the program is fully funded, each eligible country could receive as much as $300 million in additional aid per year beyond its current foreign assistance.
The developing world is familiar turf for Applegarth, 58. As a young Army officer in the Vietnam War, he worked in remote parts of the southern Mekong Delta, as part of an advisory team living in local hamlets and training medics, helping to establish schools and providing security.
His travel bug was whetted by a trip to Guatemala and British Honduras (now called Belize) while in college. "I was intrigued by the thought of working internationally and living internationally," he said. "It got the juices going."
Applegarth, a graduate of Yale University and Harvard law and business schools, spent nearly a decade at the World Bank before moving to Wall Street in the mid-1980s. He worked at Bank of America, American Express and Lehman Brothers (then part of American Express) -- and was lent out in 1992 to United Way of America to help it recover from a financial scandal -- before becoming managing director of an asset management firm that focused on emerging markets. He was responsible for operations in the Philippines and Indonesia and then headed the Hong Kong office of Emerging Markets Partnership.
He also was the chief operating officer of a fund sponsored by the British government that combined public- and private-sector money to build projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Just before being confirmed by the Senate as the first head of Millennium, Applegarth was chief executive of Value Enhancement International, a consulting firm.
Federal Election Commission records show that Applegarth, a Republican, contributed $500 in 1997 to Democratic Rep. Charles E. Schumer's successful campaign to oust Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato (R-N.Y.). Schumer was a law school classmate and introduced Applegarth at his confirmation hearing. Applegarth also contributed $1,000 to former senator Bill Bradley's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, the records show. In June, he gave $2,000 to the Republican National Committee.
Millennium is based on an idea that had been kicking around foreign aid circles but which the Bush administration -- suspicious of the bureaucracy exemplified by the U.S. Agency for International Development -- has actively promoted. Millennium has a high-powered board -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is chairman, and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is vice chairman -- and is designed to be independent of State and USAID, with as little bureaucracy as possible.
"There is a sense that USAID has done a lot of good things over time but some things have not gone well," Applegarth said. "The press of shorter-term needs -- HIV/AIDS, famine, humanitarian assistance -- has squeezed out the focus on longer-term needs. There is a sense that you needed a separate entity that could only do one thing -- focusing on ending the cycle of dependency, reducing poverty -- and doing it through sustainable growth."
Applegarth has outsourced most of the administrative functions -- such as financial accounting, security clearance and information technology -- to contractors. "We are not creating an empire here, we are not creating bureaucracy," he said. "We are much more modeled on a personal services firm."
Some have expressed concern that the Millennium program will drain funding from USAID and other foreign aid initiatives and, because it is a separate entity, complicate the coordination of foreign aid.
Mary McClymont, chief executive of InterAction, an alliance of U.S.-based international aid organizations, praised Applegarth for a willingness to listen to nongovernmental organizations and take their views into account. But, she said, "at the end of the day the jury is still out" on whether Millennium funding will reach the goals set by Bush and whether it will squeeze out other development assistance.
When Bush announced the program, he said it would quickly grow to $5 billion a year. Congress appropriated $1 billion for the first year, and though Bush requested $2.5 billion for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, the House halved the amount because of budget constraints. The Senate has not yet acted on the request.
In the developing world, Millennium is a huge deal. After the program was announced in 2002, the foreign minister of Cape Verde cornered Powell during a refueling stop to make a pitch for the African country's inclusion in the program. When Cape Verde made the final cut, Prime Minister Jose Maria Neves said the selection "was the third most significant achievement for the country behind independence from Portugal in 1975 and the democratic transition in 1991."
Once countries are placed in a pool based on such factors as per capita income (under $1,415), they are then rated on 16 criteria -- corruption, political rights, education expenditures and days it takes to start a business, among others -- that are assembled by independent groups, such as the World Bank, World Health Organization and the Heritage Foundation.
The hope is that countries will feel a sense of competition and improve their performance. Every year, countries selected for Millennium money will be reassessed. Already, Applegarth said, there is evidence that the average number of days to start a business -- indicative of regulatory and bureaucratic burdens -- has begun to decrease in some countries.
Countries that are selected are also urged to consult widely with interest groups in order to determine national needs. On a recent trip, Applegarth found that Mongolia had set up "open forum" Web sites for people to send in ideas, while Georgia had a Web site and was holding town meetings.
Armenian officials at first thought they understood what people wanted but were surprised to discover different answers after nationally televised public forums were held, Applegarth said. Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said during a recent visit to Washington that inclusion in the Millennium program had made the country "more focused" on governance, democracy, rule of law and human rights.
"We are as much about the message as the money," Applegarth said. "If they can get the policy environment right, they will generate growth and capital."
-------- investigations
Sept. 11 Commission
Critics Question Panel's Study of New Measures Report Said to Overlook Changes
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52841-2004Aug9.html
Active and retired intelligence and defense officials are questioning whether the Sept. 11 commission adequately considered the many changes made since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in recommending the U.S. intelligence community be restructured.
Critics said the commissioners made few visits to the CIA or to view the operations of key new intelligence units or to attend daily meetings such as the 5 p.m. session run by the director of central intelligence with representatives of the FBI, Defense Department and Homeland Security present that sets the operational agenda for counterterrorism operations in the United States and overseas.
"Do the recommendations speak to the community that exists today or the community that the commission was investigating that existed that morning on 9/11?" Mark M. Lowenthal, assistant director of central intelligence for analysis and production, asked at last Wednesday's session of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Earlier at the same hearing, John Hamre, a deputy defense secretary in the Clinton administration and currently president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called "astounding" what has happened in the past three years. "The agencies are working together better than any time in my professional recollection . . . but if you were to listen to our public discourse, it'd sound like we've done nothing, and it sounds like we're just as naked and vulnerable today as we were" on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the attacks.
Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the bipartisan commission, said yesterday the panel "looked at the community continuously. We looked at it as a moving picture, and we had a snapshot of it in July 2004." He added that "based on these continuing discussions with most elements of community, it is arrogant to say we were not mindful of how much had changed."
Ben-Veniste was one of the few commissioners, along with John F. Lehman, Fred F. Fielding and Timothy J. Roemer, who visited the CIA during the investigative phase. Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton visited the CIA only once to arrange for beginning the investigative process.
Philip D. Zelikow, executive director of the Sept. 11 commission and chief author of its complex reform package for the U.S. intelligence community, made several visits to the CIA and other intelligence agency headquarters. "We spent a lot of time trying to understand how the system is working today," he told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee last week. Although he talked generally of "the problems of joint planning and joint operational management," he was not asked to provide details.
Asked yesterday about the commission recommendations, Zelikow said the report "is not a biblical writ, but a set of ideas to create a constructive discussion." He said the commission "achieved the goal of setting an agenda. But writing a new law is the job of Congress and the administration." Unlike some commissioners and legislators who have been pushing for action by October, Zelikow does not see a rigid timetable. "There is a window of three, six or eight months," he said, "but the time should be seized before it passes."
A senior intelligence official, who asked not to be identified, said a House Armed Services Committee session today on intelligence reform with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz would provide an opportunity for legislators to focus on how the Pentagon, which gets more than 80 percent of the intelligence community's $40 billion budget, divides its responsibilities to protect troops and deal with broader national intelligence requirements.
"Will they use their time to find out exactly how the Pentagon's tactical intelligence is managed today and how much is shared in joint accounts with the CIA?" the official asked, noting that the commission spent little time on that subject.
The Pentagon's view of the daily 5 p.m. meeting at CIA headquarters in Langley could be explored, he said. Developed by former CIA director George J. Tenet to coordinate counterterrorism operations overseas and within the United States, it has continued under John E. McLaughlin, the acting CIA director. CIA officials have described it as one of the major post-Sept. 11 changes and point out that the recent operations against the al Qaeda terrorist network began in earnest July 29 at that meeting.
Ben-Veniste and Zelikow attended one 5 p.m. session early last month after interviewing Tenet. An intelligence official who was at that session recalled it as "a tactical activist operations meeting where George gave orders like, 'Get that to [Central Command's Gen. John] Abizaid; make sure Condi [Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser] gets this, and see if this person is on the no-fly list.' "
Zelikow remembers it differently. He described it to the Senate committee as a place where Tenet "seeks help" from other agencies but cannot order people to do things. "It is a cooperative meeting," Zelikow said, "and does not amount to joint planning" that he believes is needed. He said the House Armed Services Committee should ask Stephen A. Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, when he testifies tomorrow "about the notion that Tenet could tell the Defense Department what to do by command."
---------
Hijackers' Friend Objects to 9/11 Report
Yemeni Man Asserts He Didn't Know of Plot
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52837-2004Aug9.html
Mohdar Abdullah knows what the Sept. 11 commission says about him. That he was "perfectly suited to assist the hijackers in pursuing their mission." That he "expressed hatred for the U.S. government."
Perhaps most damning, the panel's best-selling report alleges that Abdullah may have bragged to inmates that he knew about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in advance and that he told the FBI, "The U.S. brought this on themselves."
Abdullah, now 25 and back in his homeland of Yemen after his deportation from the United States in May, called the report "propaganda" and said he is the victim of U.S. investigators looking for someone to blame. He said he had no inkling in the summer of 2001 that two friends, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, were about to take part in the deadliest terrorist assault on U.S. soil.
"If I could have done anything to prevent this heinous attack from happening, I would have done it," Abdullah said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post arranged by his attorney last week. "I was going to school, I was working, I was building my own future over there. I considered it my own land, and that's how I behaved towards it. . . . I was quite happy living in America until this happened."
The comments stand in stark contrast to the 567-page commission report, which portrays Abdullah as perhaps the most suspicious acquaintance to befriend two of the hijackers during their time in Southern California. While the commission largely absolves other hijacker associates of wrongdoing, it casts Abdullah as a central figure in the hijackers' San Diego stay and strongly suggests that he may have been an al Qaeda operative placed there to help the plot.
"Abdullah . . . is fluent in both Arabic and English, and was perfectly suited to assist the hijackers in pursuing their mission," according to the report. It adds later that "Abdullah has emerged as a key associate of" Alhazmi and Almihdhar in San Diego.
Abdullah's story highlights one of the enduring debates of the Sept. 11 attacks: how the terrorists managed to train for the assaults, conduct surveillance and accomplish their mission -- all, apparently, without assistance in the plot from anyone in the United States. The FBI, after an exhaustive check of possible accomplices, including Abdullah, supports that scenario. Others, including the commission and a House-Senate inquiry panel, have challenged the FBI's conclusion.
Abdullah said he offered his hijacker friends no assistance with the plot and does not know anyone who did.
Abdullah, whose English is sprinkled with American colloquialisms after six years of living in the United States, said he "was very surprised" the commission "even brought me up." "I was in custody for nearly three years and no one came up to me and said, 'Hey, we think you were involved,' " he said. "This has got me very upset. It is very unfair, and it's ruining my life."
Abdullah's San Diego attorney, Randall B. Hamud, said his client remains a virtual captive in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, where he is under constant surveillance by the government.
Abdullah was arrested as a material witness in late September 2001. He spent 32 months in U.S. jails and prisons as the FBI and the Justice Department investigated his ties to Almihdhar, Alhazmi and a network of immigrant friends, all of whom congregated around the Rabat mosque in a suburb of San Diego.
Commission investigators complained that they were never able to interview Abdullah before he was deported. Abdullah refused to cooperate, and the Justice Department declined to grant him immunity from prosecution to compel his cooperation. The panel also is critical of the government's decision to allow Abdullah's deportation, arguing that unanswered questions about his case require further examination.
Abdullah's first alleged contact with Alhazmi and Almihdhar came in February 2000. According to the commission, he may have driven them from Los Angeles to San Diego. Abdullah denies it. The two would-be hijackers sought out another person they had met recently in Los Angeles, Omar Bayoumi, at the Islamic Center of San Diego.
The hijackers later found their way to the Rabat mosque, a humble building nestled amid palm trees and ranch homes in La Mesa, 10 miles from the well-established and, by reputation, more moderate Islamic Center of San Diego. On a recent Friday, as families crowded the Islamic Center, the Rabat mosque appeared almost abandoned, its gates locked and mailbox overflowing. (A radical Yemeni imam at the Rabat mosque in 2000, Anwar Aulaqi, would later lead the Dar al Hijra mosque in Falls Church, which Alhazmi attended.)
Until the commission report, Bayoumi had been the primary focus of speculation about potential Sept. 11 accomplices in San Diego and was identified as an alleged al Qaeda associate and Saudi spy by a congressional inquiry in 2003. The Sept. 11 commission, by contrast, found "no credible evidence that he believed in violent extremism" and concluded that Bayoumi was an "unlikely candidate" to be involved in an al Qaeda plot.
Abdullah, the report strongly suggests, is a more likely accomplice.
According to the commission report, which cites FBI interviews and other investigative material, Abdullah admitted that he knew Alhazmi and Almihdhar were extremists and that Almihdhar had been involved with the Islamic Army of Aden, a group linked to al Qaeda. The report also says Abdullah "clearly was sympathetic to those extremist views."
When he was detained as a material witness after the 2001 attacks, the commission says, FBI agents found a notebook in his possession that had been written by someone else but described "planes falling from the sky, mass killing and hijacking." The report also says Abdullah showed hatred toward the U.S. government and made the statement about the attacks being brought upon the United States.
In the interview, Abdullah strenuously disputed those characterizations. He said that he had no idea Alhazmi and Almihdhar "had associations with any group or had evil plans towards the United States," and that he is "committed to my religion but not to the point of extremism at all."
The commission is particularly alarmed by reports earlier this year from two inmates housed with Abdullah in the California prison system, who alleged that Abdullah told them in the fall of 2003 "that he had known" Alhazmi and Almihdhar "were planning a terrorist attack." The two inmates' stories are not consistent, however.
In one version, Abdullah bragged that he had been told that the two hijackers were part of an attack before they arrived in the United States. In the other, Abdullah allegedly said that he was told of the plot after Alhazmi and Almihdhar arrived in San Diego and that the hijackers "invited him to join them on the plane." The second inmate also said that Abdullah claimed to have found out about the attacks three weeks in advance.
The panel noted evidence that Alhazmi, who had left San Diego, may have called Abdullah about that time; that Abdullah stopped making calls from his cell phone after Aug. 25, 2001; and that friends reported "he started acting strangely." The report also recounts an unconfirmed witness account that Abdullah and others "behaved suspiciously" on Sept. 10, 2001, at a Texaco station where they worked, giving each other "high-fives" after one said, "It is finally going to happen."
One senior commission official called the findings "troubling" and said Abdullah's case "deserves a much deeper investigation."
The Justice Department and the FBI take a different view, arguing that Abdullah's case has been exhaustively investigated and that the claims of the two jailhouse informants, in particular, do not check out.
"The investigation to date has determined that there is no evidence to corroborate information that Mohdar Abdullah had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks," the FBI said in a statement. "The FBI continues an active investigation of Mohdar Abdullah and any connection to the 9/11 attacks."
One senior FBI official said there are numerous inconsistencies in the inmates' claims and that investigators are not even certain both prisoners had close contact with Abdullah. The FBI's Sept. 11 investigative team did not oppose allowing Abdullah to return to Yemen, the official said.
"There's nobody who feels we've lost someone here," the official said.
Abdullah made no claims about prior knowledge of the attacks, he and his attorney said. They contend that the two inmates are attempting to use Abdullah's notoriety as a "Sept. 11 detainee" to their advantage.
"It's scurrilous for the committee to include in its report the spurious fantasies of jailhouse snitches trying to cut themselves a better deal with prosecutors," Abdullah lawyer Hamud said. If federal officials had any evidence linking Abdullah to the Sept. 11 plot, Hamud said, "you can be assured they would have prosecuted him."
Abdullah said he gave Alhazmi and Almihdhar tips on how to obtain driver's licenses and other advice because it is "an obligation" for Muslims to help one another and because neither spoke English or knew the country well. As far as his behavior in August 2001, Abdullah said he does not remember acting strangely, "but I was under a lot of stress because of monetary issues and stuff like that." He denied taking part in any celebration at the gas station.
Abdullah had just transferred from Grossmont College in El Cajon, where he studied business administration, to San Diego State University, where he had planned to study information systems when he was arrested. Now he is living with his parents and attempting to find a job.
Abdullah said he was brought back to Sanaa under armed guard and held in a Yemeni jail for about a month after his deportation.
"I still can't understand how this all happened to me," Abdullah said. "I had a life that was well established, and somehow they ruined it."
Staff writer Rene Sanchez in San Diego contributed to this report.
-------- us politics
Davis named to House Intel Committee
August 10, 2004
United Press International
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040810-044617-7097r.htm
Washington, DC, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Tuesday named Rep. Jo Anne Davis, R-Va., to fill a GOP vacancy on the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
Davis, who was first elected to Congress in 2000, is a member of the House Committees on International Relations, Armed Services and Government Reform, where she chairs the subcommittee on civil service.
Praising Davis' commitment "to winning the war on terror," Hastert said she was the "obvious choice" for the assignment.
Davis will immediately fill the vacancy created by the retirement of U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., who resigned from the committee in anticipation of his Aug. 31 retirement from Congress.
Earlier Tuesday, President George Bush tapped the committee's chairman, retiring U.S. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., to be the nation's next director of central intelligence should he be confirmed by the United States Senate.
--------
In Hindsight, Kerry Says He'd Still Vote for War
Challenged by President, Democrat Spells Out Stance
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52839-2004Aug9.html
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz., Aug. 9 -- Responding to President Bush's challenge to clarify his position, Sen. John F. Kerry said Monday that he still would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq even if he had known then that U.S. and allied forces would not find weapons of mass destruction.
At the same time, the Democratic presidential nominee said that his goal as president would be to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq during his first six months in office through diplomacy and foreign assistance.
"I believe if you do the statesmanship properly, I believe if you do the kind of alliance-building that is available to us, that it is appropriate to have a goal of reducing our troops" by August 2005, Kerry told reporters during a news briefing from the edge of the Grand Canyon.
Since last month's Democratic National Convention, the senator from Massachusetts has been under mounting pressure to provide a clearer explanation of his views on the war, including why he voted for the congressional resolution authorizing the invasion yet opposed funding for it. On Friday, Bush challenged Kerry to answer whether he would support the war "knowing what we know now" about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction that U.S. and British officials were certain were there.
In response, Kerry said: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have."
But Kerry has charged that the president and his advisers badly mishandled the war, and in the news conference he posed sharp questions for Bush.
"Why did we rush to war without a plan to win the peace?" he asked. "Why did you rush to war on faulty intelligence and not do the hard work necessary to give America the truth?"
"Why did he mislead America about how he would go to war?" he added. "Why has he not brought other countries to the table in order to support American troops in the way they deserve it and relieve the pressure on the American people?"
In the past, Kerry has said he would want to talk to commanders in the field before determining troop size and never ruled out increasing U.S. forces if needed. Later, he set a goal of reducing troops by the end of his first term. In an interview last week with National Public Radio, Kerry said he could "significantly" reduce troops a year from now -- a position his aides quickly tried to soften. Stephanie Cutter, Kerry's spokeswoman, said his position has not changed.
As evidence his goal is attainable, Kerry said fellow senators who have traveled abroad told him that other countries will be willing to provide more assistance if Bush is defeated this fall. He also said Arab countries have a stake in Iraq's future and could lessen the United States' burden.
"Obviously we have to see how events unfold," Kerry said. "The measurement has to be . . . the stability of Iraq, the ability to have the elections, and the training and transformation of the Iraqi security force itself."
After the news conference, James P. Rubin, Kerry's national security adviser, said he wanted to "clarify" the candidate's comments as a best-case target for troop reduction contingent upon conditions on the ground changing and other nations offering up more peacekeeping troops in Iraq.
The candidate has made his pledge to internationalize the peacekeeping effort the central tenet of his Iraq policy.
Kerry made his comments during a campaign trek by train through several key western states -- Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada.
On domestic issues, he said he would not raise the retirement age or decrease benefits for Social Security recipients, arguing that an improved economy alone can extend the life of the entitlement program. "If anything in America, we should be trying to set a goal of helping people to retire earlier, not later," he said.
Kerry's comments on Iraq overshadowed an event here designed to pay homage to the national park system and accuse Bush of not adequately funding places such as the Grand Canyon. After a brief morning stop in Flagstaff, Ariz., Kerry boarded a six-passenger twin-engine Augusta 109 helicopter to fly to the canyon's edge, 7,200 feet above sea level, for a quick hike and short address to visitors at Powell Point on the south rim. Wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, daughter Vanessa and stepson Andre joined him for the hike and the national park event.
Kerry promised to spend $600 million more on national parks, in part by repealing the Bush tax cuts for those making $200,000 a year or more, changing the 1872 mining law and, possibly, raising fees for park services as a last resort.
"Teddy Roosevelt stood right here at the Grand Canyon, and he looked out at it and said, 'Leave it as it is, you can't improve on it, what you must do is make this available to our children, and to our children's children,' " Kerry said. "And what he was really talking about is not just the Grand Canyon, but he's talking about the parks that we have today. . . . Regrettably, today the national park system is under stress," he said.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Portland Leads the Way With Solar Powered Travel Site
August 10, 2004
PORTLAND, Oregon, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-10-09.asp#anchor7
The Portland Oregon Visitors Association (POVA) is all set to become the nation's first convention and visitors bureau to launch a website totally powered by solar energy at: http://www.travelportland.com
The non-profit independent association works to strengthen the region's economy by marketing the metropolitan Portland area as a preferred destination for meetings, conventions and leisure travel.
Solar Data Centers, Inc., the only company in the world using solar energy to run every aspect of its clients' Internet operations, is helping the visitors association to accomplish the transition, which will be complete on On September 1.
Supplying a full range of web services to more than 300 clients, Solar Data Centers deals with companies and associations interested in environmental issues. For POVA, the switch to a clean, renewable energy source made perfect sense and cost nearly the same as the association's conventionally powered website.
"People think of Portland as a green destination, both in terms of the scenery and the city's environmental commitment," said Joe D'Alessandro, POVA's president and CEO. "This is just one way that we can live up to Portland's impressive international reputation."
POVA says the switch to 100 percent solar power is the monthly equivalent of 1.72 acres of forest acres NOT being cut down or 16,286 auto miles NOT being driven.
It will be same each month as 4.32 tons of coal NOT being burned, or 14,482 pounds of CO2 NOT being produced.
POVA began shopping for a green Internet provider several months ago. "We found that a few other convention and visitors bureaus (CVB) were using solar power to cover a portion of the energy needed to run their websites," said Karla Nutt, the POVA marketing manager who oversees website operations.
"However, after doing a lot of research, neither we nor SDC could find any CVB websites that relied 100 percent on solar power," she said. "It's exciting to be on the leading edge of this green movement."
-------- energy
Kerry offers plan for U.S. energy independence
Reuters
By Thomas Ferraro,
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-08-10/s_26442.asp
SMITHVILLE, Missouri - With crude oil prices at record highs, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry offered a 10-year, $30 billion proposal to move the nation toward energy independence.
In doing so, Kerry charged that President Bush, after nearly four years in office, has failed to confront the energy crunch that threatens the nation's economy, environment, and security.
"We have to control our energy future," said Kerry. "No American in uniform should ever be held hostage to American dependence on oil in the Middle East."
About 60 percent of U.S. oil supplies are imported, with about one in four imported barrels coming from Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia.
Kerry promoted the proposal while he and running mate John Edwards campaigned together in America's agricultural and industrial heartland, which has been particularly hard hit with soaring fuel prices.
"We can and will do better," Kerry promised a gathering of about 150 farmers and community leaders at a Missouri farm near Kansas City. "America will be safer and freer when the resources that fuel our economy are in our hands and when we develop new energy sources in our country," Kerry said.
Under Kerry's proposal, $5 billion would be provided for a research partnership between government, agriculture, and industry into fuels made from agricultural waste. There would be another $10 billion to transform the current generation of coal-fired utility plants into cleaner and more efficient facilities.
Tax Credit for Fuel Efficiency
In addition, it would provide $10 billion to help automakers retool plants to build high-technology, fuel-efficient vehicles and give consumers a tax credit of up to $5,000 to buy them.
It would also set twin goals to have, by 2020, 20 percent of the nation's motor fuel and electricity come from alternative sources such as solar, wind, ethanol, and biodiesel fuel.
The Massachusetts senator has made energy independence a centerpiece of his White House bid and his proposal fleshed out earlier ones he has promoted during his long campaign.
The cost of the measure would be offset by reinstatement of a tax on polluters and the federal government paying lower energy costs, aides said.
Bush has said a massive energy bill blocked by Kerry and other Senate Democrats would help reduce the demand for foreign oil, largely by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
Republican lawmakers criticized Kerry's energy policy as ineffective and too expensive.
"His comments frankly don't add up to a sound energy policy," Republican Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma told reporters on a conference call hosted by the Bush-Cheney campaign.
Higher fuel efficiency requirements could boost SUV sticker prices, while renewable electricity rules would raise power bills for U.S. consumers, Nickles said.
Kerry's stout opposition to drilling in the Arctic reserve will keep the nation dependent on foreign oil, Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said.
Even if Kerry is elected president in November, there is no guarantee his proposal would become law because it would have to be approved by Congress, now in the control of Republicans.
Oil prices flirted with record highs near $45 a barrel Friday.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Chemical Solution Found for DC's Lead-Laced Drinking Water
August 10, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-10-09.asp#anchor2
A tasteless, odorless chemical is going to be added to the drinking water supply in the nation's capital to keep lead from leaching into the water supply from old pipes containing lead.
The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved the system-wide use of orthophosphate as the next step in preventing lead from leaching into the drinking water in the Capital District.
Orthophosphate is a food-grade additive used by other water systems nationwide to control corrosion in metal pipes. It works by building up a thin film of insoluble mineral scale in lead, copper and iron pipes and fixtures. Inside the pipe, the film serves as a liner that keeps corrosive elements in water from dissolving some of the metal.
The Washington Aqueduct, the water utility, expects to feed the orthophosphate at both treatment plants, Dalecarlia and McMillan, for system-wide distribution on or about August 23. It will take six months or longer for lead levels to decrease after application of the orthophosphate treatment.
The decision comes two months after the EPA and technical experts from the Washington Aqueduct and the DC Water And Sewer Authority began adding orthophosphate to a limited part of northwest Washington's water supply to eliminate lead corrosion.
Frequent sampling since the orthophosphate trial began in June has found no significant increase in bacteria, or occurrence of reddish brown water due to dissolved iron in the application area.
"It will take six months to a year to be sure that a protective film is building up in the pipes to block further lead corrosion," said Rick Rogers, drinking water chief for EPA's mid-Atlantic region. "But as we are not seeing undesirable side effects from the partial application, the Technical Expert Working Group recommends applying the orthophosphate solution systemwide," he said.
System-wide application is the next step in the plan to eliminate lead corrosion in the million customer D.C. water system, which also serves Arlington County and Falls Church, Virginia.
Residents should continue to follow the flushing guidance until the new treatment can be shown to reduce the leaching of lead.
The Technical Expert Working Group was formed in February to coordinate research and recommend treatment strategies to reduce elevated lead levels in district water and includes representatives of the Washington Aqueduct operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, the DC Water And Sewer Authority , the DC Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Virginia communities.
The group will hold two public meetings to explain the treatment plan. The first will be held on August 19, at Congress Heights United Methodist Church, 421 Alabama Ave., SE. It will include an open house from 6:00 to 7:30 pm and a formal presentation followed by a question and answer session from 7:30 to 8:30 pm.
The second public meeting will be held Tuesday, August 24, at the Martin Luther King Library (Meeting Room A-5) 901 G. Street, NW. It will also include an open house from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and a formal presentation followed by a question and answer session from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.
The meetings are part of a citywide outreach campaign to inform residents about the new water treatment and what they can expect. Before the Washington Aqueduct feeds orthophosphate into the District's water distribution system, all DC residents will be sent a letter by the DC Water And Sewer Authority providing details about the citywide application.
-------- genetics
Edwards pledges to lift Bush curbs on stem-cell work
August 10, 2004
By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040809-113729-2817r.htm
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards yesterday assailed the Bush administration's policy on embryonic stem-cell research, promising to overturn it if elected, but Republicans countered by saying the policy is being misrepresented.
"We have a plan to have groundbreaking stem-cell research done ... they are blocking that research," the North Carolina senator said of the Bush administration. "The research that needs to be conducted and can be conducted is being stopped by the administration's policy."
Mr. Edwards promised that he and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, if elected, would overturn Mr. Bush's "ban" on federal funding for research on new embryonic stem-cell lines. An earlier Kerry-Edwards press release went even further, calling the administration's policy a flat-out "ban on federal funding of embryonic stem- cell research."
Yesterday marked the third anniversary of Mr. Bush's policy, which limited federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to 60 embryonic stem-cell lines that already had been created as of August 2001.
Critics say the limited policy is slowing research in a critical field that could yield cures for many diseases. Conservatives and religious groups, however, argue that destroying embryos to gather their stem cells is morally wrong. Mr. Bush's policy attempts to strike a middle ground.
But a top White House official said the Kerry-Edwards campaign is distorting the truth by calling Mr. Bush's policy "a ban" on federal funding.
"That is blatantly false and misleading and really speaks to a serious credibility problem," said senior White House adviser Jay Lefkowitz during a Bush-Cheney '04 conference call yesterday.
Mr. Lefkowitz said Mr. Bush's policy, announced in August 2001, actually marked the first time the U.S. government authorized the funding of embryonic stem-cell research.
"The fact is, this president was the first to open the doors for federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who noted that federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research in fiscal year 2003 was $24.8 million - "up from zero in the previous administration."
While some Republicans have pushed for an expanded embryonic stem-cell policy, first lady Laura Bush yesterday defended her husband's approach, arguing that "we don't even know that stem-cell research will provide cures for anything - much less that it's very close" to yielding the major breakthroughs of which some speak.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kerry was asked yesterday whether his belief that life begins at conception is at odds with his support of embryonic stem-cell research.
"It is entirely within ethical bounds to do embryonic stem-cell research without violating one's beliefs at all about what life is or where it is and what matters," the Massachusetts senator said. "I think you have to measure it also against the lives you save, against the diseases that you're curing."
Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, who said adult stem-cell research is producing real cures while 20 years of embryonic stem-cell research in animals has produced none, called Mr. Kerry's stance a "very utilitarian view."
A recent poll by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey found that 64 percent favor federal funding of research using stem cells taken from human embryos, while 28 percent oppose it.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
-------- imf / world bank / wto (economics)
World Bank plans Iraq infrastructure projects soon
Reuters
August 10, 2004
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-08-10/s_26441.asp
AMMAN, Jordan - The World Bank plans to embark on its first reconstruction projects in Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein by October, the head of the bank's Iraq program said Monday.
Faris Hadad-Zervos said the projects would improve infrastructure in the war-scarred country, helping to provide water and sanitation and rehabilitate schools.
The bank's interim reconstruction program for Iraq estimates the projects it envisages, which also include labor-intensive irrigation schemes, would cost between $400 and $600 million.
The World Bank recognized Iraq's interim government as legitimate on June 29, the day after the United States handed sovereignty to it, opening the way for lending the country. But the aid body said its full engagement in Iraq was conditional on a recognized government, repayment of arrears to the bank and a secure environment.
"We actually hope to begin the phase of implementation by October. The projects are in infrastructure rehabilitation, water and sanitation and school rehabilitation," Hadad-Zervos said.
He was speaking in Amman, where the bank's Iraq Mission has been based since August 2003, when the international lender withdrew its staff from Baghdad following a bomb blast at the United Nations headquarters there.
Hadad-Zervos said donors would review the World Bank infrastructure projects along with other U.N. programs undertaken in Iraq in a coordination meeting in Tokyo on October 12-14.
Emergency $60 Million for Schools
A $60 million emergency school rehabilitation project to undertake urgent repairs to some schools before the 2004/2005 school year would be signed before the Tokyo meeting, he added.
The World Bank was also lending help to ease Iraq's transition to a market economy, Hadad-Zervos added. The financing comes from almost $400 million deposited in a U.N.-World Bank trust fund for Iraqi reconstruction set up by an international-donors conference last October in Madrid.
The World Bank's capacity-building programs had already trained 600 Iraqi officials under a $3.6 million grant, mostly financed by the European Union.
"The nature of the bank's program with Iraq is that we have to rely on local capacity to implement them (projects). This has made it necessary for us to undertake a good deal of training with the Iraqis who have a great degree of core capital skills," he added.
Preparations were under way to award contracts soon to Iraqi printers to publish 70 million textbooks under a $40 million grant, Hadad-Zervos said.
"The provision of textbooks for the school year is understandably one of the key priorities for Iraqis," he said.
Projects could be implemented despite security concerns by the increasing reliance on Iraqi expertise, Hadad-Zevos said.
"Security is an issue that cannot be ignored. However in terms of circumventing this we are relying on Iraqis to do the implementation themselves," he said.
But the return of World Bank staff to Baghdad was still unlikely in the foreseeable future, he said.
"Until we have a permissive security environment that allows us to undertake the work of the program unabated and to function efficiently in Iraq, until we do that we will continue to work outside but ready to leave to Iraq as soon as possible," Hadad-Zervos said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
High-tech levels protest field
August 10, 2004
By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040809-113733-9539r.htm
The earnestly unscrubbed protester of days past surely would not recognize his cell-phone toting, digitally aware counterpart today.
The activist arsenal now includes balloons outfitted with tiny cameras that, when floated over the protesting masses, can take a shot of the crowd, download the image to a software program and provide a head count.
Global-positioning satellites can tell parading demonstrators where the police are, so marchers can avoid the traps that officers set in order to contain protest.
And 261 protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Boston were signed on to a free text-messaging service via their cell phones that told them where and when to gather.
Demonstrators are preparing to use the technology for their protests and rallies during the Republican National Convention when it convenes later this month in New York. Authorities expect about 100,000 demonstrators to parade the streets during the four-day event.
"This is a new arms race," said Howard Rheingold, author of "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. "The police have always had the power in these situations, with two-way radios and more advanced communications to control demonstrators and to fight terrorists," Mr. Rheingold said. "But their technology is no longer exclusive."
In the past four years, the burgeoning availability of two-way pagers, Blackberry e-mailers and wireless laptops have made the world an easier place in which to communicate.
At the same time, these developments are helping street protesters organize and act worldwide.
A text-messaging campaign in the Philippines fueled the protests against President Joseph Estrada in 2001 that resulted in his removal. In March, activists in Spain turned to text-messaging and e-mail groups to organize gatherings before elections, despite a moratorium on demonstrations in the 24 hours preceding the balloting.
"The two parts of technology that lower the threshold for activism and technology is the Internet and the mobile phone," Mr. Rheingold said. "Anyone who has a cause can now mobilize very quickly."
The man behind the text service used in Boston is John Henry, who registered his Web site, txtmob.com, a little more than a week before the convention
To access the messaging groups, users sign in with a password and plug in their cell-phone number and carrier in order to view a list of groups to join.
Some are private, which means they are screened by the administrator and usually limited to invitees. Others are public, and anyone can receive their messages.
"I think of this as a piece of infrastructure to share," said Mr. Henry, who describes himself as a former protester in his early 30s. He designed the service for the convention, but it was not made public until after the event in order to prevent police from accessing it.
For the upcoming convention, "I would assume police are on some of those lists, and I am sure that protesters are aware of that as well, so they can watch what they broadcast in certain groups," he said.
For street protesters, the txtmob.com concept of issuing messages to direct a group is new, said Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor of media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"This kind of thing can help those on the street," said Mr. Csikszentmihalyi, who has done technology work for social activists. "Right now, police always try ... [to] take out the person with the bullhorn or a walkie-talkie so that they can disrupt communication between the activists. These new technologies can change things as far as organization."
--------
Anti-war group reverses course, applies for new parks permit
August 10, 2004
SARA KUGLER
NEW YORK, Associated Press
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/08/10/politics1101EDT0528.DTL
Anti-war activists on Tuesday broke a recent agreement with the city and reapplied for a permit to demonstrate in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention.
The reversal comes just weeks after the group, United for Peace and Justice, abandoned a lengthy fight over the park and agreed to hold a permitted rally on the West Side Highway on Aug. 29. Police offered the highway location after the parks department denied the group's request for Central Park, citing possible damage to the Great Lawn.
Leaders said they reluctantly agreed last month to use the highway so they could finalize plans, and had hoped to continue discussions with city officials over access to drinking water, sound projection and crowd flow on the shadeless road.
Leslie Cagan, head of United for Peace and Justice, said Tuesday that city officials have ignored these issues, forcing the group to reapply for the park, which has more space. The Parks Department turned down its original application in April, saying crowds of activists, estimated at about 250,000, would trample and damage the Great Lawn.
Parks Department spokeswoman Megan Sheekey declined to comment.
Cagan told The Associated Press that the new permit application still predicts about 250,000 people, but requests a rally permit for the Great Lawn, the North Meadow and the East Meadow.
"If their concern is that we will be so big, we are willing to divide people up," Cagan said.
The Parks Department says the 55-acre Great Lawn can hold 80,000 people and the smaller East Meadow has a 30,000-person capacity. The 20-acre North Meadow hosts only athletic events, the department said.
The battle between city officials and United for Peace and Justice has prompted other groups to urge anti-war activists to gather in Central Park on Aug. 29 without a permit, risking arrest.
But United for Peace and Justice says it wants a family friendly, anti-war demonstration where participants would not have to worry about being taken into custody by police.
The Republican National Convention will be held Aug. 30-Sept. 2 at Madison Square Garden.
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