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NUCLEAR
Trident base fire ignites fears over nuclear safety
Soldier's new mission is exposing risk of depleted uranium
Iran Warns Its Missiles Can Hit Anywhere in Israel
Israeli nuclear munitions within Iran's missile range: commander
Middle East nuclear disarmament on agenda in January: IAEA chief
Uranium Reactors on Campus Raise Security Concerns
WIPP contractor pursues new projects
MILITARY
21 Killed in Afghanistan Attacks Directed at Provincial Governor
Afghanistan Sends Troops to Calm Fighting
Rwanda Troops Start AU Mission in Darfur
At Least 189 Killed in Raid On Burundi Refugee Camp
U.N. Condemns Massacre of Congo Refugees
Under Intense Security, Iraqis Gather for 3-Day Conference
Talks Fall Apart for Shiite Rebels and Iraq Leaders
Iraqi Troops to Take Lead In Battling Sadr's Forces
To Mahdi Militiaman, Firing on Americans Is Act of 'Patriotism'
Rebel Cleric Wields Power From the Heart of Baghdad
'After three wars we have all had enough'
Palestinians in Israeli Jails Start Hunger Strike
Ukrainian Soldier Killed by Iraq Land Mine
Russian Defense Minister Faults Entry of 3 Baltic States in NATO
Bomb kills many at Indian parade
'Pentagon ready to weaponise space'
Inside the Axis of Deceit
Senate Hearings for CIA Nominee to Begin Sept. 8
Intelligence: Why a Fix Is So Elusive
The Surveillance-Industrial Complex:
Spying in America: How the Pentagon is Overcoming Privacy Laws
Bush to Back Pentagon Plan to Redeploy 70,000 Troops
Venezuela Holds Referendum on President
Divided Venezuela Prepares for Vote
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
US firms sued over Agent Orange
Petak, Russia's Alcatraz, softens hardened inmates
Asylum-seeker now John Ashcroft 's prisoner
POLITICS
For E.U. Critics, a Cautionary Tale
Younger Voters Rapidly Deserting Bush
Bush is Wrong, Kerry is Wrong
ENERGY
Will Russia, the Oil Superpower, Flex Its Muscles?
OTHER
Bush Forces a Shift In Regulatory Thrust
ACTIVISTS
Protesters rally for Sindhis' rights
Protests test Iraq parliament plans
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Trident base fire ignites fears over nuclear safety
Major disaster averted after electrical fault in explosives warehouse
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
Sunday Herald
15 August 2004
http://www.sundayherald.com/44089
A LEADING nuclear expert has warned that a fire scare at the River Clyde's nuclear submarine base late on Friday could have sparked a catastrophe.
Four fire engines were called to the Royal Naval Armament Depot at Coulport on Loch Long after smoke was detected coming from faulty electrical equipment in the Explosives Handling Jetty at 4.28pm.
The jetty is a huge floating warehouse in which nuclear warheads are detached from the missiles carried by Trident submarines. It is also where conventionally-armed torpedoes are loaded onto hunter-killer and other submarines.
Earlier on Friday a Trident submarine was witnessed sailing up the Clyde towards Coulport, and so is likely to have been present when the incident occurred. In accordance with its policy, the Royal Navy refused to confirm or deny whether any submarine was present.
Leading nuclear consultant John Large, who has advised governments around the world, told the Sunday Herald that a fire in the presence of conventional or nuclear bombs could cause a major disaster.
The circuit breaker may have contained oil and disabled important emergency equipment, he said.
He pointed out that the heat from a 135-second fire on the doomed Russian submarine, Kursk, caused seven torpedoes to self-detonate. The boat sank four years ago in the Barents Sea killing 119 submariners. Large was head of the weapons risk assessment team hired afterwards by the Russian government.
A fire at the Coulport jetty could similarly cause any conventional missiles lying around to explode, he said. "That would be a catastrophe for the jetty."
Worse, a fire could set off the 30-50 kilograms of high explosives that are packed around the plutonium core of nuclear warheads. This would be highly unlikely to trigger a nuclear explosion but it could result in the dispersion of a huge cloud of plutonium particles into the atmosphere.
"This would contaminate a wide area, including Glasgow, if the wind was blowing in the right direction," Large said. "It would have a very significant health impact. "
A spokesman for Coulport disclosed that the cause of the incident had been an overheated circuit breaker . Smoke had triggered an alarm, which brought fire engines from the Ministry of Defence and from Strathclyde Fire Brigade.
"It was an unfortunate incident," said the spokesman, though he stressed it was minor and that emergency procedures had all worked. The fault was rectified and the crisis over after 22 minutes.
"Safety is taken very seriously across the whole base and is given upfront priority," he added. "Given the nature of our business we have to expect the unexpected."
But anti-nuclear campaigners accused the naval base of downplaying Friday's incident. "It's quite possible that we were within minutes of a major catastrophe ," said Phill Jones, of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
"Most household fires start with just a small electrical fault. A fire close to a Trident submarine while it has one of its missiles raised for the swopping of nuclear warheads does not bear thinking about."
He added: "If the rocket fuel or the high explosive in the warheads had detonated it would have set off a terrible chain reaction scattering radioactive plutonium for miles."
Four Trident submarines carry Britain's 200 nuclear weapons, with at least one always being at sea. HMS Vanguard is currently being refitted at Devonport on the south coast of England.
The navy declined to say anything about the location of the other three: HMS Victorious, HMS Vigilant and HMS Vengeance. It is known, however, that all the boats dock regularly at the Explosives Handling Jetty so that their warheads can be maintained.
Old warheads are removed and transported to Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire for the tritium essential for a thermonuclear explosion to be replaced. Radioactive decay causes tritium to become contaminated and unreliable after a few years in service.
At the jetty, newly refurbished warheads are attached to the Trident missiles. "This incident should remind us all that the sacred cow of Britain's weapons of mass destruction puts all of us, and the environment, at a terrible risk," said Jones.
The anti-nuclear movement is planning an escalating series of protests at Coulport, and at its companion base at nearby Faslane over the next two weeks. This Wednesday, protesters from Trident Ploughshares are due to set up camp at Coulport.
They are promising to disrupt what they see as the Royal Navy's illegal activities at Coulport and Faslane. The campaign, which will include swimming into the docks where the submarines are berthed, will culminate in a "Big Blockade" of Faslane on Monday, August 23. Organisers hope that hundreds will be involved, including MSPs and activists from Scotland, England, Belgium, and Finland and Sweden.
-------- depleted uranium
Soldier's new mission is exposing risk of depleted uranium
Ivy Vogel
August 15, 2004
Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Post Independent
http://www.postindependent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040815/VALLEYNEWS/108150002
The children resemble fictitious, freakish figures better suited for a horror movie than ordinary life.
One child's enormously bloated stomach prevents it from doing anything but lying in bed.
Another child lies in its mother's arms. It's impossible to tell if the child's smiling or crying. Its mouth, which is a huge, purple, scarred, messy hole, is so disfigured it doesn't change from its permanent position: wide open.
Perhaps the most disturbing picture is one of a uniformed American soldier holding his young son in his arms. The child's wrists are attached to his elbows and his legs are so bowed it looks like he was born on a horse.
These pictures are just a few examples of what happens when humans are exposed to vast amounts of depleted uranium, said Dennis Kyne, a former U.S. Army sergeant.
Depleted uranium, or DU, is a by-product of uranium, which is the earth's heaviest metal. During the first Gulf war, the U.S. military used DU to coat missiles fired at opposing tanks.
Once DU penetrates a substance, it burns everything around it, disabling enemy weaponry and omitting deadly radioactive particles.
Dennis Kyne, a sergeant and medic during the Gulf war is concerned continued DU use will effect the men and women that will return from Iraq.
Kyne recently recounted his horrific experiences with DU in a speech at the Blue Acacia in Glenwood.
An effective agent of war, DU is extremely deadly and is responsible for the deaths of more than 9,600 veterans of the first Gulf war, Kyne said.
"I know people who came home and their skin literally melted away from their bones," Kyne said. "The military told men they had pneumonia, and two days later they'd tell their wives they died of cancer. How does that happen?"
During the Gulf War, soldiers were exposed to large amounts of depleted uranium particles. Unless cleaned up by professional teams, the particles are radioactive for 4.5 billion years, Kyne said.
In many cases, Kyne's soldiers were exposed to the particles for more than five days. When they came home, they suffered psychological disorders, tumors, unexplained cancers and other physical ailments the government labeled "Gulf War syndrome," Kyne said.
"We started seeing sergeants picking their noses and eating their boogers," Kyne said. "You'd walk into a tent and a guy would be sucking on his big toe."
After the military loosely defined Gulf War syndrome, it did little to find out why soldiers were dying, Kyne said.
Capt. Doug Rokke, who was part of the DU cleanup team, blew the whistle on the use of DU and its fatal effects. The military removed him from his rank and Rokke became a schoolteacher.
"People who know about it get railroaded out," Kyne said.
The military, which is still using DU, doesn't want to acknowledge that it's killing its own people, Kyne said.
Any scientific study on DU that doesn't support the military's agenda is brushed aside and considered invalid, Kyne said.
"The army does whatever they do, and they say whatever they say without any empirical evidence," Kyne said. "The soldiers are the greatest study group in the world."
In a documentary about DU, Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of the Department of Defense's Deployment Health Support Directorate, said DU does not cause any of Gulf War Syndrome's symptoms.
"It cannot hurt your body," Kilpatrick said in one clip.
A moment later he said, "It has to be ingested to be harmful."
The Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses works in conjunction with the Defense Technical Information Center. In a report issued by the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illness, a report said DU is a "heavy metal that's slightly radioactive" and as long "as it remains outside the body, it cannot harm you."
Misconceptions concerning the health risks from DU radiation are over exaggerated, according to the report.
"They made us feel safe," Kyne said. "Feel safe, soldier; come, walk into anything. It can't getcha."
But soldiers were far from safe. Most of the soldiers ingested DU while kicking around sand covered in DU particles, Rokke said.
Soldiers spread the contamination to their families by bringing war souvenirs such as duffle bags into their living rooms. Covered in particles, the souvenirs immediately infect the families, causing death in infants, retardation in younger children and infertility in parents, Kyne said.
According to the Gulf War Resource Center, more than 250,000 of the 700,000 men returning from the war asked for health care for DU symptoms.
Many of the men are turned away or told their symptoms are "nothing," Kyne said.
Kyne has made it his mission to expose what he considers the deceit and betrayal the U.S. Army offered soldiers who risked their lives for the sake of their country.
Many commercial aircraft use DU for balance, Kyne said. DU particles are found all over the United States including California and Colorado, he said.
"I would have been a professional musician by choice, but this is what I have to do," Kyne said. "I'm begging for someone to prove me wrong."
Contact Ivy Vogel: 945-8515, ext. 534
ivogel@postindependent.com
-------- iran
Iran Warns Its Missiles Can Hit Anywhere in Israel
August 15, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-israel-missiles.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A senior Iranian military official said Sunday Israel and the United States would not dare attack Iran since it could strike back anywhere in Israel with its latest missiles, news agencies reported.
Iranian officials have made a point of highlighting the Islamic state's military capabilities in recent weeks in response to some media reports that Israeli or U.S. warplanes could try to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities in air strikes.
Iran last week said it carried out a successful test firing of an upgraded version of its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile. Military experts said the unmodified Shahab-3 was already capable of striking Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf.
``The entire Zionist territory, including its nuclear facilities and atomic arsenal, are currently within range of Iran's advanced missiles,'' the ISNA students news agency quoted Yadollah Javani, head of the Revolutionary Guards political bureau, as saying.
``Therefore, neither the Zionist regime nor America will carry out its threats'' against Iran, he said.
An attack on Iran ``could only be carried out by angry or stupid people. For that reason, officials of the Islamic Republic must always be prepared to counter possible military threats,'' Javani said in a statement, ISNA reported.
ISRAEL READIES MISSILE-KILLER
U.S. and Israeli officials accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.
Israel's Arrow missile defense system, designed to counter threats such as the Shahab-3, passed its first live test in July by downing a Scud missile off the coast of California.
Israeli officials say they plan further tests in the near future against threats which more closely resemble the Shahab-3.
``Such statements by Iran only serve to demonstrate the need for Israel to maintain and further develop defensive systems such as the Arrow II,'' a senior Israeli defense source told Reuters Sunday.
``It appears that Iran is rattling its saber for fear of a pre-emptive strike by Israel or the United States -- however grounded in fact such fears are or are not,'' the source said.
Israeli warplanes successfully destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981.
But many diplomats and defense experts say air strikes against Iran's nuclear plants are unlikely to disable Tehran's nuclear capability, much of which has been built underground, and could prompt a swift military reaction from Iran.
Since its 1979 Islamic revolution Iran has refused to recognize Israel's right to exist and allied itself to the Palestinian cause.
Its political enmity for the Jewish state spilled over to the Olympic Games in Athens this week when an Iranian judo medal favorite withdrew rather than fight an Israeli he was drawn against.
-------- israel
Israeli nuclear munitions within Iran's missile range: commander
TEHRAN (AFP)
Aug 15, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040815100907.y21m2umi.html
A senior commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps said that all Israeli military and nuclear sites are now within the range of the Islamic Republic's missiles, a news agency reported Sunday.
"The entire Zionist territory including its nuclear establishments and atomic munitions are now within the range of Iran's advanced missiles," the students news agency ISNA quoted Yadollah Javani as saying.
Javani said neither the United States nor "the Zionist regime" will carry out their threats against Iran considering the high cost of a possible attack.
Such an attack "could only happen out of anger and stupidity, thus the Islamic regime officials must always maintain their promptness to tackle probable military threats," he added.
Iran on Wednesday tested an upgraded version of its conventional medium-range Shahab-3 missile, two weeks after Israel tested its Arrow II anti-missile system.
Tehran fears Israel could strike its controversial nuclear program, which Washington suspects is being used to covertly develop weapons.
The missile is considered the mainstay of Iran's military technology and portrayed as purely defensive and dissuasive, but specifically as a weapon against Israel.
In the July 28 test of Israel's Arrow II missile, the Jewish state made it clear the improved anti-missile system was aimed squarely at fending off any attack by arch-foe Iran.
The Revolutionary Guards, or Sepah-e Pasdaran, to whom the Shahab-3 was entrusted, exist in parallel to the regular armed forces. They also have their own naval and air forces, and are largely deployed to protect Iran's borders.
Israel refuses to confirm it has a nuclear arsenal but is estimated to possess some 200 warheads.
-------- mideast
Middle East nuclear disarmament on agenda in January: IAEA chief
CAIRO (AFP)
Aug 15, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040815181619.688kwadq.html
Nuclear disarmament in the Middle East will be the subject of talks in Vienna in January, International Atomic Energy Agency director general Mohamed ElBaradei announced here Sunday.
"We have agreed to hold a forum on creation of nuclear-free zones in the world, especially in the Middle East, in January 2005 in Vienna," ElBaradei said after talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.
"With the participation of Arab states, Israel and other countries in the region, the forum will be an occasion to open talks on the necessary conditions for the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East," he said.
ElBaradei added: "The IAEA is prepared to send observers to Egypt and Jordan to monitor whether there is any evidence of nuclear radiation emanating from Israel."
The press in the Arab world has for several weeks expressed fears of contamination from the Israeli nuclear power plant in Dimona, in the southern Negev desert.
Egyptian newspapers have even written of the dangers for the region of Israel burying nuclear waste in the Gaza Strip.
The question of radiation from the Dimona plant "should not be linked to the observation by Israel of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor inspection by the IAEA of Israel's nuclear activity", ElBaradei added.
It was necessary to distinguish between questions concerning nuclear development for military purposes and the question of safety, he said.
Israel has refused to discuss the question of regional safety arising out of its nuclear programme before reaching a peace agreement with its Arab neighbours. It remains one of the few countries not to have signed the NPT and will not allow inspection of the reactor at Dimona.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Uranium Reactors on Campus Raise Security Concerns
August 15, 2004
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/national/15NUKE.final.html?pagewanted=all
MADISON, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin's nuclear reactor is an unassuming little model, operated (on Tuesdays and Thursdays only) by students in T-shirts and shorts. In the last few months it has been used to identify the source of pottery shards from an ancient settlement in India, to test whether heart stents work better if they have been irradiated, and to study the water and gas balance that would be present in a future generation of power reactors.
But its fuel is weapons-grade uranium. If it were stolen, experts say, it could give terrorists or criminals a major head start on an atomic bomb.
And Wisconsin is not alone. Five other university research reactors around the country use weapons-grade fuel, even though the federal government has promised for more than two decades to reclaim their uranium and substitute a less enriched variety that is closer to the kind that commercial power plants use.
"We have been on the list for conversion for at least 10 years," said Dr. Michael L. Corradini, the head of the nuclear engineering program here. "We've been waiting for funding from the Department of Energy."
Stealing the fuel here would not be easy. The reactor's radioactive core is near the bottom of a pool of water 27 feet deep, in about two dozen fuel bundles, each weighing 58 pounds. Still, experts say there is no reason to run the risk of theft, since the reactors could run on uranium not suitable for bombs.
The reactors at Wisconsin and the other universities - Oregon State, Washington State, Purdue, Texas A&M and the University of Florida - were first supplied with uranium during the cold war, as a spinoff of the government's Atoms for Peace program. The United States gave the material to research reactors around the world, offering to share nuclear technology if the recipient countries promised not to develop nuclear weapons.
But since 1978, out of concern that the uranium might be turned into bomb fuel, the Department of Energy has spent millions of dollars to develop lower-grade fuel and convert scores of reactors to run on it. As of July 30, according to the Government Accountability Office (formerly the General Accounting Office), 39 of 105 research reactors worldwide had converted or were in the process. But the six campus reactors in this country are not among them.
"It's outrageous that they're still doing this," said Victor Gilinsky, who was an early advocate for switching to low-enriched fuel as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1975 to 1984. There may not be quite enough on hand at Wisconsin to make a bomb, he said in a telephone interview, but "who says that somebody has to get enough in one shot?"
Campus reactors have far less security than places where the government keeps bomb-grade uranium, and they may have foreign students of unknown political sympathies, Mr. Gilinsky said. And he pointed out that the United States is seeking to persuade countries all over the world to stop civilian use of bomb-grade uranium.
"It's a bad example," he said. "How can we go around the world asking people to shift over if we're not shifting over ourselves?"
Asked why the research reactors had not been converted, Anson Franklin, a spokesman for the department's National Nuclear Security Administration, which is in charge of nonproliferation, was blunt. "There hasn't been enough funding," he said. He noted that in May, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham promised to seek conversion of all the reactors by 2014. But he said he could not give a schedule for the campus reactors.
Mr. Franklin also acknowledged that his department does not know just what the cost would be. The Energy Department told the accountability office that it had converted 11 research reactors at universities for a total of $10 million, but that the remaining ones would cost $5 million to $10 million each. That drew a sharp rejoinder from the State Department, which wants the reactors converted.
"Maybe there's a good reason why the final eight should be 5 to 10 times more expensive to convert than the first 11, but frankly we doubt it," a letter from the department said. The State Department added that the Energy Department "has been reluctant to fund more conversions and has a tendency to overstate the potential costs to deflect pressure to spend money on them."
While the details of conversion have proved to be complicated, the concept is simple. In nature, more than 99 percent of uranium is of a type called U-238, which is very difficult to split in a nuclear reaction and thus not good fuel for reactors or bombs. About 0.7 percent is U-235, which splits easily. Power reactors in this country use uranium fuel in which the proportion of U-235 has been raised to 3 to 5 percent, which is low-enriched fuel. Anything over 20 percent is considered highly enriched. Bombs are generally over 90 percent. Some research reactors run on fuel enriched to over 90 percent; Wisconsin's is 70 percent, and the quantity is probably a little less than is needed for a bomb.
The reactor here is one three-thousandth as large as a typical power reactor, with a core about the size of a college dorm refrigerator. Nuclear experiments performed here, and the production of isotopes for scientific and medical research, which is a common use of research reactors elsewhere, require a high density of neutrons, the subatomic particles that are released when one atom is split, and which go on to split other atoms in a chain reaction.
An easy way to guarantee a lot of neutrons is to use a lot of U-235. But Energy Department engineers have designed fuel that uses a larger quantity of low-enriched uranium, so the total number of U-235 atoms in the core is roughly the same.
John I. Sackett, the associate director of Argonne National Laboratory, who led a team that designed the substitute fuel, said the fuel now in the campus reactors is dangerously radioactive, making it hard to handle. He acknowledged, however, that highly enriched uranium was an easier fuel from which to build a bomb than is plutonium. "It's a less complicated technology," he said.
At reactors, conversion to low-enriched uranium offers no benefits to the researchers or operators, except perhaps to simplify the security rules in force here. University officials will not discuss the details of those rules. The reactor is behind a strong steel door with a steel grate over the windows, and is watched by closed-circuit television, among other precautions.
The reactor operators are paid $10.50 an hour. They recently got a raise to that level, said Dr. Corradini, because someone discovered that campus file clerks were paid more than the reactor operators.
Because the reactor has so much useable uranium and runs so few hours a week, the current fuel load will last about 108 years at current rates of use, according to Robert J. Agasie, the nuclear reactor director. That is probably longer than the reactor itself, but university officials recently won a 20-year extension of its operating license.
"We have re-upped," said John D. Wiley, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We made a commitment to nuclear engineering education years ago and we're sticking with it."
Speaking of security at the reactor, Mr. Wiley said, "We're not supposed to talk about it, but I'm confident." Ordering a conversion to low-enriched fuel was an "unfunded mandate" from government, he said, but he added, "As long as they're paying for it, I'll be fine."
-------- new mexico
WIPP contractor pursues new projects
By Victoria Parker-Stevens
Current-Argus Staff Writer
Aug 15, 2004, 02:12 am
http://www.currentargus.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=432&num=8344
CARLSBAD - As the last container was built for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, workers at a local manufacturer looked to the next big project - and one was there.
The Engineered Products Department built TRUPACT-IIs, the large shipping containers seen on WIPP trucks.
As the end of the contract period loomed, there were worries about the company's future in Carlsbad. After all, a number of WIPP contractors had downsized early this year, including the largest, Washington TRU Solutions, which eliminated 45 positions.
EPD had a smaller voluntary workforce reduction and the cooperation of flexible employees, said Mike McNamara, new general manager of Washington Group International's Government Technical Services Division, of which EPD is the largest part.
EPD's workforce is currently at around 130 people - a level similar to a few years ago. "We needed a new core product," said McNamara, who is spending a lot of time in Carlsbad as acting EPD plant manager.
Enter a $4 million contract to build a different type of nuclear waste container. Awarded a couple of months before the last TRUPACT was completed in June, the contract is for an initial 900 silo containers for Fluor Fernald Inc.
The containers will be used to transport sludge from silos at the Fernald Plant in Ohio. Made of 1/2-inch carbon steel, each container stands more than 6 feet tall and is 76 inches in diameter. The production was split among three companies.
EPD plans to produce 70 containers a week by early next year, with three shifts a day at its facility east of town along U.S. Highway 62-180, McNamara said.
EPD also has a facility in the Carlsbad industrial park, which handles stainless steel work. The facilities together have a manufacturing area of more than 110,000 square feet.
To prepare, EPD employees themselves have undertaken a major construction project, including tasks such as putting in cranes and painting the roof a lighter color to help day-shift workers deal with the heat.
"The workforce sees that it's an investment for the long term," McNamara said, noting several thousand more containers could be ordered.
In June, EPD was also awarded a contract from Columbia Westinghouse to manufacture stainless-steel containers for fuel assemblies, used in commercial nuclear power production.
The initial order was for 35 containers, with the potential for as many as 900, McNamara said.
Also this year, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers green-lighted a new EPD quality assurance program that will allow the manufacture of spent nuclear fuel prototype canisters for the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada.
These projects aren't the only ones at EPD. At any given time, work is being done on more than a dozen products, McNamara said, with contracts estimated at $16 million. While some of EPD's work is commercial, much is under government contract and related to nuclear waste cleanup.
Products include waste boxes, overpack containers, plutonium stabilization packaging and gloveboxes used for working with radioactive materials.
On a smaller scale than the TRUPACTs, EPD has also manufactured a couple of other types of WIPP containers, including for remote-handled waste the federal Energy Department would like to ship to the site.
Private industry can be leery of government contractors because they feel they aren't competitive, but EPD strives to automate as much as possible to lower costs, for example, by using robotics, McNamara said.
He said Carlsbad's remote location is also not impossible to overcome, especially as EPD's products are shipped all over the world.
EPD prides itself on having the best machinists in the Southwest and a high-tech workforce with a lot of longevity, McNamara said.
And, "with a large farm and mining community, there's a real hands-on mindset here," he said.
The company has been in Carlsbad for more than 20 years. Before the mid-1990s, it was a locally owned business called Gregory Enterprises.
EPD is able to assist local businesses - such as those in the oil industry - with machining, welding, engineering and testing, McNamara said.
The company has 18 acres for activities like drop testing and can handle non-destructive examination with things like gamma and X-ray equipment.
"We can do any test here, including helium leak testing," McNamara said. "The equipment for that is very expensive to keep."
He said EPD also checks with area businesses when it purchases materials, and if it can come close on price, EPD will purchase locally.
Since EPD works in the nuclear industry, local businesses can be assured its quality assurance and control departments are of the highest quality, McNamara said.
"High-integrity containers require high-integrity people," he said.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
21 Killed in Afghanistan Attacks Directed at Provincial Governor
August 15, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/international/middleeast/15HERA.html?pagewanted=all
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 14 - Twenty-one people, including two senior Defense Ministry commanders, were killed in heavy factional fighting overnight in the western province of Herat, in another upset for Afghanistan as it prepares for elections, Afghan officials said Saturday.
In what appeared to be coordinated attacks, forces from three neighboring provinces moved on districts in Herat Province, the fief of the powerful warlord Ismail Khan.
Fighting involving artillery and tanks was continuing on Saturday afternoon south of the city of Herat, around Shindand, said Mohammadullah Afzali, the Foreign Ministry representative in Herat.
Both sides confirmed that 21 people had been killed.
The attacks drew a swift rebuke from President Hamid Karzai, who, after a meeting of his national security council, issued a statement condemning the incursions and calling for those responsible to withdraw from the areas they had seized. The attacks were illegal and a threat to public security, it said.
"Any action that jeopardizes public security and threatens people's lives will not be tolerated and no one will be allowed to get away with committing such crimes," the statement said.
The council clearly took the side of Herat's governor, saying his forces had the right to defend the integrity of the province, said the Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Abdul Zaher Azimi.
Mr. Khan has been much criticized in the past by the central government for not respecting central authority, in particular in March, when fighting broke out in the city of Herat after Mr. Khan's son, Mirwais Saddiq, the minister for civil aviation, was killed.
The men who have moved against Mr. Khan are known opponents of the governor who have criticized him in the past for interfering in their areas of control.
South of Herat city, the commander Amanullah Khan seized control of the air base at Shindand and the nearby district center overnight, and his forces were still in control of them on Saturday.
In interviews with local journalists, the commander said there had been a local uprising against Ismail Khan by people opposed to his rule.
In the east, forces under a commander called Abdul Salam overran two villages in the Chesht District, Mr. Afzali said. They retained control of one village but had failed to take the district center, he said.
To the northeast, the commander Zaher Naibzada, whose men killed Mr. Khan's son in March, also recently moved against Mr. Khan's forces, according to local reports.
Mr. Khan sent reinforcements from the garrison in Herat city to Shindand, after two of his senior commanders were killed, along with eight others, and four were wounded.
A battalion of the newly trained Afghan National Army is based in Herat and was on alert but for now remained in their barracks, General Azimi said.
--------
Afghanistan Sends Troops to Calm Fighting
August 15, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Factional-Fighting.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The government sent U.S.-trained troops to western Afghanistan Sunday to calm a burst of factional violence which killed 22 people and dealt another blow to shaky security ahead of national elections.
A plane carrying 150 troops left Kabul Sunday morning -- the first of 1,500 soldiers to be dispatched on the 370-mile trip to Shindand in Herat province, the Defense Ministry said.
The force was headed for an air base at the center of fighting between troops loyal to Herat Gov. Ismail Khan, one of the country's strongest warlords, and rival commanders.
The anti-Khan forces have voiced support for Karzai, but officials in Kabul denounced their attempts to capture the base and other chunks of territory in the province.
``The militia attacked Herat's legal government,'' Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed Zahir Azimi said. ``It is an illegal action that benefits Afghanistan's enemies.''
Karzai has sent troops from the new Afghan National Army to trouble spots across the north and west this year, including a battalion already positioned in Herat.
The deployments have had a frosty welcome from regional powerbrokers, including Khan, who have resisted Karzai's attempts to extend the central government's writ.
A warlord attacked an ANA convoy in neighboring Ghor province last month, injuring three soldiers as well as two of the American military trainers who accompany them on missions.
Amanullah, a Pashtun leader who claims to have captured the Shindand base in an offensive begun Friday, said Sunday that his men were exchanging artillery with Khan's troops near Shindand.
He said his opponents had brought tanks and rocket-launchers to the front line, but that there was no close-range fighting or fresh casualties.
Amanullah, who goes by one name, said 21 fighters were killed in the initial battle. Azimi put the total at 22.
Khan, a Tajik, was discriminating against other ethnic groups in the province, Amanullah said. ``So long as Ismail Khan is governor, the fighting will continue.''
Abdul Wahed Tawakali, a spokesman for Khan, also said there was still fighting near Shindand but had no details.
Attacks against Khan's forces by two other dissident commanders in the north and west of the province were repelled, with the rebels pushed into neighboring Ghor province, Tawakali said.
Tawakali said a delegation of officials from Kabul was expected to arrive later Sunday.
But Azimi said no delegation was going and that officials would ``follow the issues from Kabul.''
The United Nations is concerned that the failure to disarm militias who control much of the country leaves the election vulnerable to intimidation.
About 10 million Afghans have registered to vote, according to U.N. figures, despite a string of attacks on voters and election workers blamed on Taliban rebels.
-------- africa
Rwanda Troops Start AU Mission in Darfur
August 15, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-rwanda-sudan.html
EL FASHER, Sudan (Reuters) - Rwandan troops arrived in Darfur Sunday as the first foreign force there, mandated to protect observers monitoring a shaky cease-fire between the Sudanese government and rebels in the remote western region.
Some 155 Rwandan troops were being sent to troubled Darfur at the weekend as part of an African Union (AU) force. Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Saturday his soldiers would also intervene to protect civilians in danger.
Rwanda says the world's slow response to the Darfur crisis echoes its own experience during a 1994 genocide.
The United Nations calls Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and says 50,000 people have been killed and at least 1 million more displaced since two rebel groups took up arms against the government in February last year.
Greeting the troops, the head of the AU cease-fire commission, Festus Okonkwo, told them to take their mandate as a protection force for the 118 AU monitors currently in Darfur ``as a Bible.'' But he added that on humanitarian grounds they could take action to protect civilians in danger.
``Your assignment here is to protect all AU personnel in the mission,'' Okonkwo told the troops dressed in new, beige camouflage uniforms and green berets at the AU headquarters in El Fasher, capital of Northern Darfur state.
``So at any time remember that is your basic assignment. Any other assignment outside that is on humanitarian grounds. That is not your mandate so ... make sure that every officer here understands the rules of engagement,'' he added.
The comments again brought into question what role the initial 308 Nigerian and Rwandan forces will play in Darfur, a remote area the size of France. Khartoum has rejected a peacekeeping role for any troops other than Sudanese. The AU has said it hopes to increase the number of troops to 2,000.
SANCTIONS THREAT
The Sudanese government has about two weeks to prove to the U.N. Security Council it is serious about improving the security situation in Darfur, or face unspecified sanctions.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail told reporters in Khatoum Sunday the government had designated safe areas in Darfur. The areas include the capitals of each of Darfur's three states; Nyala, el-Fasher and Geneina as well as the areas surrounding them.
The towns of Sani, Deleiva and Abu, along with the area of Ajouraha in South Darfur state and the area of Mornei in West Darfur state were also designated safe areas.
``We have identified these areas and implementation will begin tomorrow (Monday),'' said Ismail, adding that the monitors would be asked to head to those areas.
Pronk said the areas had been chosen by the government.
Rights groups and the rebels accuse Khartoum of arming Arab militias known as the Janjaweed -- a term derived from the Arabic for ``devils on horseback'' -- to loot and burn African farming villages as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Khartoum denies the charge, calling the Janjaweed outlaws.
Okonkwo said Nigeria's soldiers would arrive in Darfur on Aug. 25 to complete the initial deployment of 308 soldiers.
He added aid agencies working in the same areas as the troops would also be afforded protection. The AU has said the soldiers will be based at El Fasher, Geneina, Nyala, Kebkabiya, Tine and in Abeche in neighboring Chad.
About 200,000 Darfuri refugees are encamped in Chad.
Rwandan army spokesman Colonel Patrick Karegeya told Reuters in Kigali the Rwandan troops were well prepared. ``Our troops have lived through the worst and seen it all, so they will not be shocked by anything they encounter in Darfur,'' he said.
A Dutch plane flew Rwandan supplies and several armored personnel carriers and crew to Darfur Saturday. The Dutch government is funding the airlift of troops to Darfur.
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At Least 189 Killed in Raid On Burundi Refugee Camp
By Aloys Niyoyita
Associated Press
Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1425-2004Aug14.html
GATUMBA, Burundi, Aug. 14 -- Attackers armed with machetes and automatic weapons raided a U.N. refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death at least 189 men, women and children, U.N. officials said.
Burundian Hutu rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the camp for Congolese Tutsi refugees fleeing tribal fighting was a hideout for Burundi army soldiers and Congolese militiamen.
But most of the victims appeared to be women and children. Their charred remains lay among the cooking utensils and the smoldering remnants of their homes Saturday.
The attack late Friday echoed the killing during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Burundi's neighbor, and raised fears of retaliatory violence that could undo peace efforts in Congo.
The camp, 12 miles from the border with Congo, sheltered Tutsi refugees who had fled fighting in Congo's troubled border province of South Kivu, said U.N. officials visiting the camp after the attack.
"People were sleeping when the attack happened," Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman of the U.N. mission in Congo said. "People were killed as they tried to escape."
Isabelle Abric, spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Burundi, said 159 people were killed on the spot and 101 others were wounded. At least 30 of the wounded died later in a hospital, she said.
Leaflets distributed before the raid warned refugees to leave the camp or face attacks by a coalition of Burundian, Rwandan and Congolese factions seeking "to fight the Tutsi colonization in the region," survivors said.
Burundian officials and aid workers moved the refugees to a nearby school, where they will be protected by the army, said Louis Niyonzima, a local mayor.
A spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency said the attackers raided an army position close to the refugee camp before attacking the refugees.
"These guys were armed with grenades, machetes and automatic weapons," said Fernando del Mundo, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
Pasteur Habimana, spokesman for the rebel National Liberation Forces, justified the attack, saying Burundian soldiers were hiding in the camp, located about a half mile from an army position.
The National Liberation Forces is the last main rebel movement fighting the government in Burundi's 10-year civil war, which has killed some 260,000 people. War broke out in 1993, when Hutus took up arms after Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu. Burundi's Tutsi minority has effectively run the country for all but a few months since independence in 1962.
An army spokesman, Adolphe Manirakiza, denied rebel claims that Burundian troops had fled into the camp and said there was no attack on the nearby army position.
Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye described the massacre as "a shame" and asked the Congolese government to assist in investigations. Congo's President Joseph Kabila demanded an international investigation.
Ongoing ethnic strife in the region threatens to undermine peace efforts after Congo's 1998-2003 war, which drew the armies of at least five countries into fighting. The seeds of that conflict lay in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority were killed in the 100-day slaughter organized by the Hutu government then in power
U.N. officials are studying whether Friday's attack was carried out with the assistance of Congolese tribal fighters or Rwandan rebels based in eastern Congo, said Nabaa, the U.N. spokeswoman in Congo.
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U.N. Condemns Massacre of Congo Refugees
August 15, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Burundi-Massacre.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council on Sunday condemned the massacre of at least 150 Congolese refugees at a U.N. camp in neighboring Burundi, and demanded that those responsible be brought to justice ``without delay.''
Reflecting the seriousness of the killings, the council met in emergency session at the request of France to denounce Friday night's attack at the camp in Gatumba.
A statement approved by the 15 council members and read by the council president, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Andrey Denisov, condemned the massacre ``with the utmost firmness.''
A Burundian Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces, claimed responsibility for the attack on the camp, which sheltered Congolese Tutsis known as Banyamulenge who had fled fighting in their troubled country. Officials said Hutu extremists from Congo and Rwanda were also suspected of taking part in the raid.
A spokesman for the rebels said Burundian soldiers and Congolese Tutsi militia were hiding in the refugee camp. But most of those killed appeared to be women and children.
The Security Council statement did not identify the perpetrators or the victims. Instead, the council called on the top U.N. envoy in Burundi, in consultation with the U.N. representative in Congo, ``to establish the facts and report on them to the council as quickly as possible.''
A U.N. statement issued in Burundi on Sunday, expressed ``outrage'' at the massacre, noting that ``most of the victims were women, children and babies ... who were shot dead and burned in their shelters.''
The statement noted that Burundians in the refugee camp were not attacked.
The U.N. Operation in Burundi also reminded the perpetrators, which include the National Liberation Front, who claimed responsibility for the attack, ``that they will answer for their acts against humanity.''
The Security Council statement called on authorities in Burundi and Congo ``to cooperate actively so that the perpetrators and those responsible for these crimes be brought to justice without delay.''
According to witnesses, the nighttime assault on the refugee camp was launched from across the border in Congo, about 1 mile away. One group of assailants opened fire on a nearby Burundian army post to pin down troops while a second group raided the refugee camp, they said.
The Security Council asked the U.N. missions in Burundi and Congo to offer their assistance to authorities in both countries ``with a view to facilitate the investigation and to strengthen the security of vulnerable populations.''
The massacre echoed the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, when majority Hutus slaughtered at least 500,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates.
It also raised fears of retaliatory violence that could undo peace efforts in Congo, where a 10,800-strong U.N. peacekeeping force is trying to help prevent a return to war.
At least five countries were sucked into Congo's 1998-2003 civil war, which claimed some 3 million lives, mostly through strife-induced hunger and disease.
U.N. officials said at least 150 people were killed and 108 wounded in Friday's attack, but survivors said at least 161 were confirmed dead after seven bodies were recovered Sunday near the border with Congo.
Burundi has also been engulfed in a civil war since October 1993, when soldiers from the Tutsi minority assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu.
-------- iraq
Under Intense Security, Iraqis Gather for 3-Day Conference
August 15, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-National-Conference.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Under intense security, hundreds of delegates from across Iraq gathered Sunday in Baghdad at a three-day national conference intended to bring a taste of democratic debate to a country suffering from violence, chaos and the legacy of a brutal dictatorship.
``This conference is not the end of the road for us, it is the first step ... to open up horizons of dialogue,'' interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the delegates in an opening speech. ``Your blessed gathering here is a challenge to the forces of evil and tyranny that want to destroy this country.''
Delegates had high expectations for this unprecedented gathering of religious, political and civic leaders, which will help elect a 100-member national council to act as a watchdog over the interim government ahead of elections scheduled for January.
``It's a great day in Iraq's history,'' said delegate Mithal al-Alusi, from the Iraqi National Congress party. ``Holding this conference is an important step in creating a kind of supervision of the government, in accordance with the constitutional mandate.''
But the conference was beset by problems even as it got started.
Right after the opening speeches, Nadim al Jadari, an official with the Shiite Political Council ran onto the platform and threatened to quit the conference unless negotiations were restarted to end fighting between Shiite militants and U.S. and Iraqi forces in the holy city of Najaf.
``The Iraqi government bears the responsibility for what is going on in Najaf. It has brought U.S. forces to hit our people in Najaf,'' said Falah Hassan, another official with the group. ``Our demand is to halt the military operations in Najaf and other parts of Iraq. We will withdraw from the conference within 24 hours if our demands are not met.''
A walkout by even a small fraction of the delegates would be a symbolic blow to the government as it tries to project a carefully crafted message of inclusion to Iraqis of different ethnic and religious groups.
Organizers worked quickly to assuage complaints among some of the resistant delegates by forming an additional working committee, tasked with finding a peaceful solution to the tension in Najaf.
At least 30 people were part of the committee, said delegate Saad Qindeel, from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, the country's largest religious group.
``All kinds, all colors, Shiite and Sunni, they're all involved in this,'' he said.
Other committees formed Sunday were to produce papers on economics and human rights.
The conference had already been delayed for two weeks as provinces struggled to agree on delegates and UN officials worked unsuccessfully to persuade several key groups to participate.
Though the Najaf fighting between firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters and U.S. and Iraqi forces has angered many of the nation's majority Shiites, some delegates said it did not change their plans to attend.
``We are against the killing of innocent people in Najaf, but we think that it is better to participate in the political process than not to, because we will have better means to express our views,'' said Mohammed Ali, a Shiite cleric.
Several key factions have decided to boycott, despite a public relations campaign that included full page advertisements in local papers and posters plastered on walls throughout the city.
Al-Sadr's group has rejected the meeting as undemocratic and refused to attend.
``The Iraqi national conference will be stillborn,'' Ahmed al-Shaibany, an al-Sadr aide told pan-Arab television network Al-Jazeera on Saturday. ``It will be imposed by force on the Iraqi people as was Ayad Allawi's government.''
The Association of Muslim Scholars, a religious group with links to insurgents, also said it would not attend because of the interim government's reliance on the U.S.-led coalition.
Despite the boycotts, 70 different groups have agreed to participate, conference chair Fuad Masoum said.
``The movements that boycott this conference are free to do that, but that doesn't cause the conference to lose its legitimacy,'' he said Saturday.
The conference presented an obvious target for insurgents waging a nearly 16-month violent uprising here, and security was intense for the gathering being held in the Green Zone enclave, which houses Iraqi government buildings and the U.S. and British embassies.
Helicopters flew overhead. Five-meter-high concrete barriers blocked the entrance to the Green Zone. Bridges leading to the area were barricaded with concrete and Iraqi police checked cars as they slowly moved by. Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib announced a daytime curfew for the city center during the conference.
Delegates themselves went through metal detectors and were frisked.
Among its responsibilities, the conference will elect 81 members of the 100-member national council, with the remainder coming from former members of the Iraqi Governing Council who were left out of the interim government.
The council will have the power to approve Iraq's 2005 budget and to veto executive orders with a two-thirds vote.
The conference was intended to give Iraq's diverse ethnic and political groups, some of whom may have been left out of the interim government, a voice in the country and to move the nation toward democracy.
``The challenge before you is great,'' U.N. envoy Ashraf Jehangir Qazi told the delegates. ``But these are things you can and will achieve, because all Iraqis share an ancient civilization.''
``Yours is the land that gave birth to the first laws of society, accordingly Iraq is surely able to build a society that adheres to the rule of law and shuns violence,'' he said.
In January, Iraq is to hold elections to choose a transitional government. The newly elected government then will convene a national convention to draft a constitution to be put to the voters in October 2005. Iraqis will then hold another vote in December 2005 for a constitutionally based government.
Associated Press Writer Sameer Yacoub contributed to this story.
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Talks Fall Apart for Shiite Rebels and Iraq Leaders
August 15, 2004
By ALEX BERENSON and JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/international/middleeast/15IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 14 - Truce talks between Iraq's interim government and Moktada al-Sadr's rebels collapsed Saturday, prompting American commanders to prepare new battle plans for breaking Mr. Sadr's grip on this holy city and the Imam Ali mosque, the Middle East's most sacred Shiite shrine.
Soon after the talks broke down, American marines and soldiers lined up in tanks and armored vehicles at their base in Najaf, with some anxiety but ready to begin an offensive. Instead, it was called off, for the second time in recent days.
"We were sitting here waiting for authorization to go clear the militia," Maj. David Holahan of the Marines told The Associated Press. "We never got that authorization. We'll continue operations as the prime minister sees fit," he said, referring to Iraq's interim leader, Ayad Allawi.
American commanders in Najaf said Dr. Allawi had decided to turn to Iraqi forces, not American, to take the lead against Mr. Sadr at such a sensitive location. That would be a serious test for the American-trained Iraqi military and police forces, which have not performed reliably in the past.
Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser to Dr. Allawi, announced the breakdown of the talks, and promised that military operations would resume. He said, "I feel deep sorrow and regret to announce the failure of the efforts we have exerted to end the crisis in Iraq peacefully. Our goal was to spare blood and preserve security."
Dr. Rubaie, 57, a British-trained neurologist who returned from 20 years of exile after the toppling of Saddam Hussein last year, added: "The Iraqi interim government did not leave any stone unturned to lead to a peaceful conclusion. The government is resuming military clearing operations to return the city of Najaf to normal functioning, and to establish law and order in this holy city."
But later on, when the American-led offensive was suspended, a smaller convoy of American soldiers left the base on another mission: to buy food for families of Najaf.
A demand that Mr. Sadr disarm his fighters and withdraw them from Najaf seemed to undo the talks.
Mr. Sadr's aides said they had demanded that both sides, the American forces and Mr. Sadr's militia force, the Mahdi Army, leave the city. They said the cleric also wanted pledges by the government to release scores of Sadr fighters taken prisoner during combat, and to give amnesty to all who had taken part.
The amnesty demand seemed certain to be rejected by American commanders, who curbed a broader national amnesty proposal announced by Dr. Allawi earlier this week, limiting its terms to exclude any rebels who have taken part in actions killing or wounding American troops. The Americans were also wary of any new commitment by the cleric to disarm his troops, saying he had breached an earlier cease-fire and seemed likely to do so again.
Dr. Rubaie said he was leaving Najaf immediately to fly to Baghdad, 120 miles north, where he was expected to join crisis talks on the next step in confronting Mr. Sadr, a populist Shiite cleric who has used the Mahdi Army to stir a widespread insurrection in the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq. Since he initiated uprisings across the south in the spring, Mr. Sadr has entrenched himself as the most identifiable leader of armed resistance to the Americans and as a challenger to lead Iraq's majority Shiite population.
The fighting in Najaf has set off the most serious challenge yet faced by the Allawi government in the seven weeks since it took power with the return of sovereignty to Iraq. In addition to Najaf, American military commanders and members of the 30-nation military alliance here have faced a widening series of attacks in a dozen or more Shiite towns and cities across a 300-mile swath of territory south of Baghdad, including Basra, the second-largest city and linchpin of Iraq's richest oil fields.
On Saturday, an American military spokesman said 50 insurgents were killed when American aircraft dropped 500-pound bombs on rebel hide-outs in a ground-and-air assault on Samarra, north of Baghdad. Hospitals in the city reported 25 people dead and 86 wounded. Mosques in the city broadcast appeals on their loudspeakers blood donations.
Near Falluja, the Sunni rebel stronghold west of Baghdad, American warplanes bombed suspected rebel positions after Marine units were ambushed with rifle fire, rockets and machine guns, the American command said, giving no information about casualties. The bombing raid was one of several carried out in recent days, including some on targets inside Falluja, which American commanders say is a fortress for loyalists of Saddam Hussein and Islamic terrorists led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant suspected of planning suicide bombings, kidnappings and other attacks.
Commanders of the 3,000 American troops deployed around Najaf, mainly from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Army's First Cavalry Division, kept a tight lid on preparations for a resumed offensive after negotiations collapsed, saying future attacks would not necessarily center on Najaf's Old City and the area around the shrine. The short-lived truce allowed both sides to regroup.
As the talks imploded, fresh convoys of Sadr supporters were arriving in Najaf from the cleric's main stronghold in Sadr City, the sprawling Baghdad slum that is home to two million Shiites, and from cities as far south as Basra. An Iraqi freelance reporter working for The New York Times said one convoy of 200 men had arrived in Najaf with food supplies from Falluja.
There was no immediate sign of Mr. Sadr on Saturday. On Friday, he was reported by aides to have suffered shrapnel wounds during a firefight near the shrine in the hours before fighting was halted for the talks. Later, he reappeared in the Imam Ali shrine, demanding the resignation of the Allawi government, calling it "worse than Saddam," and vowing to fight on in Najaf "until victory or martyrdom."
A Sadr aide, Ali Sumeisim, who took part in the talks, told reporters that Dr. Rubaie had backtracked on an outline accord that would have had both sides pull back from the Old City, leaving the shrine under the control of the aging ayatollahs who form Iraq's Shiite clerical hierarchy.
Mr. Sumeisim accused American commanders and Dr. Allawi of using the talks as a smoke screen while plotting a violent showdown intended to wipe out the Mahdi Army. "Today, a vicious plot is being woven to commit a massacre in Iraq," he said. "I call on all honest people in the world, on all Muslims, to raise their voices and expose the truth."
It seemed clear that the decision to end the talks had been taken personally by Dr. Allawi, who has made a mark already as prime minister with his get-tough approach. Dr. Rubaie said Dr. Allawi and other senior ministers had finally concluded that "there is no use to continue."
The fighting that began in Najaf 10 days ago pitched both sides into a game of brinkmanship, with stakes that run to the political future of Iraq. When Mr. Sadr began a series of uprisings in April that spread across southern Iraq, he gave notice of his determination to mount a violent challenge to the American presence here, and to use his defiance as a path to political pre-eminence among Shiite leaders. American officials resolved to do everything possible to curb his growing power, regarding him as dangerously volatile and violent, as well as deeply influenced by the ruling ayatollahs of Iran, who, American intelligence reports say, have funneled weapons and money to the Mahdi Army.
But Mr. Sadr has proved an artful adversary, compensating for superior American firepower with tactics - like turning mosques into fortresses - that have largely preserved him from attack. In what has virtually been hand-to-hand combat, more than 360 of his fighters were killed this week in the vast cemetery next to the Imam Ali shrine, American officers said. The American command has said six American soldiers were killed, along with 20 Iraqi guardsmen.
In Najaf, Mr. Sadr's trump card has been control of the shrine, which American commanders say has been used for firing at Americans soldiers and their allies with mortars, rockets and assault rifles.
In the past, Mr. Sadr has pledged to disarm his fighters and return control of Najaf to police and national guard units under Iraqi government control.
In practice, American and Iraqi officials say, the pledges were never kept, and Mr. Sadr's fighters continued to control whole neighborhoods, build up weapons caches and attack government buildings and police stations, sometimes taking captives.
Alex Berenson reported from Najaf for this article and John F. Burns from Baghdad.
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Iraqi Troops to Take Lead In Battling Sadr's Forces
By Karl Vick and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A105-2004Aug14?language=printer
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 14 -- Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will send Iraqi troops to Najaf to battle a Shiite Muslim militia, Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders said Saturday after peace talks collapsed between the interim government and rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr.
"The army will be deployed now" to the city, where U.S. forces have been fighting the militia, said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Units of the new Iraqi army would immediately prepare for an offensive aimed at evicting Sadr's Mahdi Army from the shrine of Imam Ali, a sacred site the militia has used as a refuge, he said.
News of the deployment -- the first since sovereignty was restored to Iraq on June 28 -- reached U.S. forces just as scores of tanks, armored troop carriers and Humvees lined up inside the gate of the main U.S. military base in Najaf, apparently preparing for significant combat operations just hours after a two-day truce had been called off. They then turned around and went back into camp.
A U.S. commander spread the word that missions were being scrubbed, conveying a message written on a Post-it note that the prime minister was angry and was "sending Iraqi Army to settle the problem."
The decision to push the U.S. military to the background in Najaf, regarded as the holiest city in the country, underscored the pitfalls Iraqi officials face in using U.S. forces to battle insurgents who still view the country as occupied.
"The occupation has to go out of Iraq," Sadr said on al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television network. "Iraq is ours. The wealth is ours. The land is ours. The Iraqis can govern Iraq. There will be no civil war, as the U.S. says."
The matter is extraordinarily sensitive in Najaf. Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, is regarded by Shiites as his rightful successor and is revered by Muslims.
The deployment of the Iraqi army "will help increase the distance" between Iraqi and U.S. forces, Kadhim said. U.S. Army and Marine units in the Najaf area would reinforce Iraqi army operations.
Attempting to flush out Sadr's militia from the shrine will be "quite an undertaking," he said. "There's a lot of weaponry that has been installed in there. There are many tunnels under the ground. It's a very complex structure."
Kadhim said the new army battalions, which are better trained and have more sophisticated equipment than other Iraqi security forces, would augment police and national guard units in the area. "Quite frankly, we don't have adequate police and national guard forces to deal with" the Mahdi Army, he said. "And we don't want the [U.S. forces] to go in" to the shrine.
U.S. commanders on the ground in Najaf applauded the decision to call in Iraqi troops.
"I think the reason Allawi called us off is this would've turned quickly into the occupier versus the defender of the holy shrine, no matter what the truth is," said Maj. David Holahan of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which took formal control of Najaf five days before the fighting began. "The city would've been damaged, and Sadr would have gained in popularity."
"It's healthy in the fact that they want to take charge," said Army Lt. Col. Myles Miyamasu, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, which reinforced a Marine battalion after intense fighting broke out Aug. 5. "It'll be interesting to see what the Iraqi forces can do. And you know we have to just be patient with them."
Khadim declined to say which Iraqi units would be used in Najaf. The Iraqi army has seven trained and deployable battalions, two of which have undergone additional instruction in counterinsurgency warfare.
One battalion of Iraqi commandos is already in the city. The unit, previously known as the 36th Battalion, was trained by U.S. Special Forces and fought alongside U.S. forces in Fallujah in April. Another Iraqi battalion, trained by regular U.S. army troops, refused to fight. The commando unit raided a mosque in Kufa this week, supported by a Marine unit that was kept at a distance.
"Everyone wants to go ahead and finish this," a senior official in the interim government said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official said Allawi and his senior ministers are concerned that a protracted standoff would give Sadr more time to harden his defenses and spark instability in other parts of the country.
Earlier Saturday, Iraqi officials reported that 43 people were killed in clashes in Hilla, making the city about 60 miles south of Baghdad the latest in southern Iraq to be roiled by Shiite militiamen this week.
Meanwhile, in the Sunni heartland to the north of the capital, the U.S. Army reported killing 50 people it identified as insurgents after dropping a series of 500 pound bombs in Samarra. An Iraqi police official, Maj. Saadoun Dulaimi, put the death toll at 12, including three policeman, the Associated Press reported.
In Najaf, a city of about 600,000, the sometimes intense clashes since Aug. 5 have left hundreds of militiamen dead, according to U.S. commanders. Six U.S. servicemen and about 20 Iraqi police officers were also reported killed in the fighting before the truce took effect early Friday, one day after the U.S. military mounted an offensive.
The offensive began with the 7th Regiment of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division encircling the old city surrounding the sacred shrine at a radius of about a mile, while Marine and other Army units began a series of raids on Mahdi Army sites. It stopped abruptly early Friday when Mowaffak Rubaie, the national security adviser to the prime minister, accepted Sadr's invitation to discuss a settlement. But Rubaie gave up Saturday evening without having seen the junior cleric, the son of an esteemed grand ayatollah who was assassinated in 1999.
"Three days ago, Moqtada asked me to come to Najaf," Rubaie told reporters summoned to the office of the Najaf provincial governor. "And we achieved some things, including the cease-fire, the medical and food aids that went to the Mahdi Army and other people, and allowing car ambulances inside the city.
"But for three days we couldn't meet up with Moqtada Sadr. We think there are some people who do not want this meeting to happen because they know this meeting would end the crisis."
A Sadr aide told the al-Arabiya satellite television network that the Iraqi government ignored an agreement Sadr had signed and was insincere about peace talks.
"They tricked people by these negotiations because they saw people angry, and they wanted to calm them down," said Ahmed Shaibani, a Sadr spokesman. "We are positioned to defend ourselves, not to attack. We have our followers of Mahdi Army around the shrine of Ali to protect it. We will defend the city."
But other Iraqi officials sought to distance Rubaie's effort from Allawi, who had vowed not to negotiate with Sadr and had demanded that he disband his militia, renounce violence and make his movement exclusively political.
"We are not negotiating," Kadhim, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said. "Unless they are prepared to do what we're asking them to do . . . we will continue until this matter is settled. Iraqis do not want to see this thing repeated every few months."
One U.S. commander indicated that U.S. forces might resume combat later in the week, after a sensitive political conference ended.
The national conference, aimed at selecting members of a new national assembly, will begin a three-day meeting in Baghdad on Sunday despite the violence across central and southern Iraq, Fouad Masoum, the chairman of the conference, said Saturday.
More than 1,300 delegates are scheduled to participate in the meeting, Masoum said. Under a political transition plan designed by the United Nations, the participants will choose 100 people to serve in an interim assembly.
Chandrasekaran reported from Baghdad. Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
--------
To Mahdi Militiaman, Firing on Americans Is Act of 'Patriotism'
By Saad Sarhan and Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1455-2004Aug14?language=printer
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 14 -- Ahmed Eisa sent his wife and two young children out of Najaf "to make sure there is someone to remember me after I die" and took up his post near the shrine of Ali, he said, with an old AK-47 rifle to shoot at U.S. soldiers.
He says he is willing to die -- he insists he wants to die -- with the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to a young Shiite cleric, because he is convinced that the United States intends to stay in Iraq and oppress Shiite Muslims.
As negotiations to end fighting in Najaf broke down Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers again prepared for an assault on the followers of the cleric, Moqtada Sadr. And on the other side of the sprawling cemetery that surrounds the shrine, Sadr's followers also prepared for battle.
Eisa, 34, who usually works in a graphics shop designing business cards and stationery, is a gunman for the Mahdi Army. He prefers the title sniper, but in fact, his ancient Kalashnikov is not very accurate, and the bullets often jam in the mechanism.
His job does not require accuracy, though.
"I am supposed to shoot at the American tanks to harass them, to draw their attention, to give my colleague some time to fire at them with an RPG" -- a rocket-propelled grenade, he said.
Eisa performed that duty five times during the recent fighting, darting from his position in the second line of Mahdi Army fighters. The first line hides behind a wall next to the cemetery, and the second line is poised in the warren of century-old brown brick houses that abuts the cemetery.
The Americans are on the other side. In between, among tombs as old as 1,300 years, are the contested killing grounds.
"I know the Americans have better weapons. They have better plans. They have uniforms that cost $3,000, and we have only our clothes," Eisa said. "But I have principles. I have holy land to defend. I have family to protect, so I feel stronger than them. The occupation forces are nothing but mercenaries who fight for money, so I feel stronger."
Eisa's fervor is shared by his fellow fighters in the Mahdi Army, though his background is not. Sadr has grown his militia -- their self-adopted name of army is somewhat grandiose -- from poor and young Shiites drawn to his revolutionary rhetoric. Eisa, however, is a graduate of a computer vocational college, an educated man who could be called middle-class and middle-aged.
A lean man at 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds, his pale face, glasses and uncalloused hands suggest a life spent indoors more than out. A full beard indicates his faith.
Eisa -- whose name means Jesus, considered a prophet in Islam -- explained in a lengthy telephone interview and further conversations in Najaf how he arrived at this point. For Iraq's Shiites, a sense of oppression comes legitimately. Shiites suffered under former president Saddam Hussein, and Eisa said he counts 27 relatives who were executed during that three-decade era.
"We don't even know where they were buried," he said.
After high school, Eisa fulfilled his compulsory military duty in the Republican Guard. He deserted three times, he said, which was not unusual for men living in the harsh conditions of the military. Each time, he returned under an amnesty.
He finished his service in 1993, then attended computer classes at a technological institute. He finished, got married and in 1998 began working in a graphics shop. Eisa said he welcomed the fall of Hussein, but not the U.S. occupation.
"I am old enough now to differentiate between occupation and freedom," he said. "It's not true that the Americans came to get rid of Saddam. It was only a trick to occupy the country."
"We all know that Bush announced twice that this is a crusade. So we know they are targeting a certain group," the Shiites, he said. "We know the strategic importance of Iraq in the region and the wealth of our country. They want to control it. They want to control our oil, our wealth and the world."
"There is something called patriotism," he added. "I like my country, and I saw the U.S. forces did not come to protect us. So I wanted to follow the leader who can demand my rights and defeat the occupation. The U.S. forces are occupiers, so we have to resist them."
Eisa fought in what he calls "the first uprising" against the Americans, fierce street fighting in Najaf between U.S. forces and insurgents in April that left hundreds of Iraqis dead. The Iraqi government that officially took power June 28 is nothing but a puppet of the Americans, he said, and Eisa willingly answered the call to arms nine days ago when fighting broke out again.
He kissed his daughter, 3-year-old Um Albanin, and his 6-month-old son, Mohammed Ali, and sent them with his wife to the safer outskirts of Najaf. He then joined his unit, the 315th Battalion.
The worst fighting was Thursday, he said.
"I smelled the weapons, and the blood of dead people," Eisa said, recounting the pitched battle in the graveyard that resulted in scores of casualties. "I don't know how many were killed. I heard the bullets and even felt the heat of the bullets, but God protects me.
"Sometimes we had wounded people, and we couldn't evacuate them because I didn't want to leave my post. I just wanted to die for my cause. So I stayed in my place, hoping to become a martyr.
"I saw one of my colleagues try to attack a tank with his RPG. The U.S. soldier shot him in the head, about 25 meters from me. His head was destroyed. It was a terrible scene."
As the fighting stopped Saturday while negotiators tried to work out a cease-fire, Eisa mixed in a throng of thousands of supporters who came from inside and outside Najaf to show their support for the Mahdi Army. They milled about outside the shrine. When he found a colleague he had not seen since the battle, the two hugged.
Eisa has an identity card -- "Sadr's Martyr Division," it says -- but like the others in the militia, he doesn't have a uniform. He wears loose fitting black pants, a casual shirt and a green cloth around his wrist to signify closeness to Allah.
As Sadr passed the crowd, Eisa joined in chants, thrusting his fist in the air and stamping his feet. "Long live Sadr! Allawi and the government are blasphemous," he shouted, referring to Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
The temporary lull in fighting during the negotiations boosted the spirits of the men. "This is a great victory for the Iraqis and the Mahdi Army," Eisa said. "This is evidence that we defeated the occupation forces and we are a legitimate resistance demanding the Iraqi's rights. This is victory."
But if so, it was short-lived. The negotiations faltered late in the day. Eisa and the other militiamen slipped back to their posts at the edge of the cemetery, waiting for night. Waiting for the Americans.
Struck reported from Baghdad.
--------
CONFRONTATION
Rebel Cleric Wields Power From the Heart of Baghdad
August 15, 2004
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/international/middleeast/15SADR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 14 - It was quiet on Friday morning in Sadr City, the immense and destitute Shiite neighborhood here. Young men climbed gleefully on a tank tread they said had been left by American troops during a skirmish the day before. Merchants swept up ash in a market that had burned in the fighting.
For the past 10 days, American tanks and Humvees backed by Iraqi national guardsmen have been at war in Sadr City with fighters loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr. But for the Americans and their allies, the clashes have been forays into enemy territory, advances that are kept to main roads and met by rifle and rocket fire from militiamen who melt away into the alleys.
More than 100 miles away in Iraq's Shiite heartland, Mr. Sadr has been holed up with perhaps 1,000 of his fighters in the Imam Ali mosque, the sect's holiest shrine, confronting some of America's most formidable combat troops.
That confrontation, stilled for negotiations that appeared to falter Saturday, has tightened Mr. Sadr's hold on the imagination of millions of Shiites as the leader of armed resistance to the American military presence in Iraq. And it has enhanced his ambition to emerge from the conflict here as a contender for outright power in a future Islamic republic that might be similar to Iran's.
But Mr. Sadr's challenge since his first uprising against the Americans in the spring has been based on two trump cards: his control of the shrine in Najaf, and his unchallenged primacy in Sadr City, home to 2 million of Baghdad's 5.5 million people. Even if the twists of negotiations or the resumption of the American and Iraqi military operation shake Mr. Sadr's grip on the Imam Ali shrine, his principal power base in Sadr City will remain, poised like an arrow at the capital's heart.
To deprive him of that would require a full-scale American offensive into Sadr City's intensely populated neighborhoods and attacks on the mosques used as armories and strongholds. Neither American military commanders nor Ayad Allawi, leader of Iraq's interim government, seem likely to hazard those steps.
This week, Mr. Sadr's fighters, known as the Mahdi Army, gave a foretaste of the destabilizing potential their control of Sadr City gives.
After American commanders imposed a 16-hour-a-day curfew on Sadr City, Mr. Sadr responded with a curfew order of his own, over all of Baghdad. Streets in the capital emptied after the 1 p.m. deadline the cleric's aides had set for businesses to close and workers to go home.
The Sadr fighters seemed to thumb their noses at the American curfew. Even in daylight, they drive deep into the center of Baghdad in groups of two or three vehicles, firing mortars and rockets at the huge international compound along the Tigris River's west bank where the American Embassy, the American military command and Dr. Allawi are hunkered down.
On one occasion, First Cavalry Division spotters on the roof of the Sheraton Hotel, barely 1,000 yards across the river from the center of the compound, watched powerless as one group of fighters emerged from a green van, fired four rockets across the river, then drove off.
It is becoming routine for Mahdi fighters to stage attacks in other neighborhoods. In the Shaab area of Baghdad last week, militiamen in pickup trucks drove to a police station, surrounded it and began shooting, killing one officer and wounding two, a police officer from the station said. When Mahdi fighters demanded that a market in Shaab close the next day, vendors immediately complied.
Nighttime is particularly hazardous. Mortar fire torments the American post, Forward Operating Base Eagle, at the eastern edge of Sadr City. Soldiers at the base are required to wear body armor and helmets whenever they venture outside. At times last week, more than 40 mortar shells were fired at the base within 24 hours, according to a pool report from an American journalist imbedded at the base.
The violence in Sadr City takes its toll. For the week ending on Friday, an average of nine people a day were killed in the district, according to the Health Ministry.
Many middle-class Iraqis emphasize that the Mahdi militia is a volatile mix of religious fighters, Iraqis showing solidarity with Mr. Sadr, and criminals who were released from jail under an amnesty from Saddam Hussein shortly before the war. One result, American military officials say, is a hydra-headed army that often acts outside Mr. Sadr's control.
"The constitution of this army is a mix of many groups," said Thaier al-Sudani, a Sadr City resident who works as an English translator for Baghdad University. "Many of them are dealing with alcohol. It is hard to find a graduated man among them."
Fighters brush off those accusations, saying the army is better organized and more focused than people think. Uday Hashem, 22, a former car mechanic who is now with the militia, said fighters communicated by mobile telephone.
The militia has divided Sadr City into 79 sections, with each Mahdi commander controlling about four, said Ali Abdul-Hussein, 22, who commands a checkpoint of about 10 men.
Even medical care and food is coordinated. Groups of men and women take turns cooking for the units that keep watch at the checkpoints. When fighters are wounded in an attack outside the district, they sometimes collect their own men and take them to private hospitals with doctors friendly to their cause.
Unraveling the Mahdi Army has proven particularly difficult, in part because of the elaborate web of patronage and tribal systems that crisscrosses the closely knit neighborhood of Sadr City. Police officers are relatives and friends of the fighters, and for the most part do not interfere with their activities.
Police officers in Sadr City "help indirectly," Mr. Abdul-Hussein said. "They don't fight us or try to stop us," and in return, he said, Mr. Sadr "doesn't like them being attacked."
The officers' consideration for fellow Shiites was evident at a demonstration on Friday in which thousands of Shiites gathered in a central square in Baghdad to protest the American siege of Najaf. Two police stations near the area allowed posters of Mr. Sadr to be propped up on roof watchtowers. The afternoon prayer was broadcast from speakers hooked up to a police vehicle.
Sadr City residents and fighters were out in full force at the protest. Pickup trucks packed with Mr. Sadr's supporters streamed out of the district around noon. They chanted slogans demanding that Dr. Allawi leave the government and held posters of Mr. Sadr high.
Abdul Rakhman, 42, a furniture maker, described the fighters as Robin Hoods who helped people pay for cooking gas and directed traffic. "I swear to you, the Mahdi Army is for the people," he said.
But their attacks have cost American occupiers and the new Iraqi authorities dearly, as the violence and unpredictability exhausts Iraqis and slowly erodes their patience.
"We're living without our dignity," said Haidar Abd, 19, who was standing at Al Karkh Hospital with a friend who had been wounded during a clash between Mahdi fighters and American troops. "How long will we have to live like this? We are humiliated."
John F. Burns contributed reporting for this article.
--------
'After three wars we have all had enough'
The uprising against US troops in Najaf is causing further divisions among many Iraqis, who are fed up with fighting
Rory McCarthy
Sunday August 15, 2004
The UK Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1283413,00.html
In the darkness an hour before dawn the floodlights snapped on, shining into the tiled courtyard of the ancient Imam Ali shrine in the heart of the old city of Najaf. Silently, streams of militia fighters left their weapons and walked into the mosque, led by the call to prayer.
They washed their hands and faces, joked with friends, visited the wounded in the makeshift hospital and knelt to pray. There they chanted intonations to their leader, the rebel cleric Muqtada Sadr whose 10-day uprising has shaken the fragile grip of Iraq's new government.
We left the courtyard where we had slept the night on a carpet under the open sky, and followed them back to the front lines. It was Friday morning, only hours before the militia agreed a truce with the US military and Iraqi forces to begin negotiating an end to the rebellion in the holy city.
As they had every morning for a week, US tanks and Humvee armoured personnel carriers pushed towards the narrow alleys of the sprawling old city, controlled by the militia, in a test of strength. 'Ali be with you,' the fighters said as they passed one other. 'Ya Muqtada, Ya Mohammad, Ya Ali,' they chanted.
'The Americans took a new position and we attacked. They didn't succeed,' said one stocky, bearded man carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. 'They tried to move forward to control a new position and then moved back. It happens every morning, but it is the first time it has happened here.'
For at least an hour the two sides traded heavy machine-gun fire and the militia lobbed mortars towards the American tanks, several hundred metres east of the shrine. The militia cheered when a sniper reported a tank was on fire, although it seemed unlikely. Then the Americans fired back at the sniper's position atop an abandoned three-storey building. Moments later he was carried down, badly injured with his head in his hands. Two friends lifted him into the back of a pickup truck that raced to the hospital in the mosque.
'We hit a tank with our mortar and fired our BKC [a Russian machine gun],' said Jalal Hamood, 22, who had been with the militia for four months and alongside the sniper in the building. 'The tank fired back and made huge holes in the roof and our friend was hurt.' Hamood, dressed in a T-shirt printed with the words 'Oh Hussein, Oh Martyr' was covered in dust. He spent several minutes cleaning the debris out of his machine gun with methylated spirits as the others smoked furiously.
And so the fighting contin ued. Sadr's several hundred militiamen were outnumbered and heavily outgunned, yet yesterday they remained in control of the streets of the old city as the truce took hold. The US military appeared to have pulled back from the cordon it had set up at dawn last Thursday and Sadr celebrated victory even as the negotiations went on.
A procession of thousands of his supporters drove down from his stronghold in the eastern slums of Sadr City in Baghdad yesterday into Najaf and to the Imam Ali shrine. Behind them came trucks of food and medicines, a gift to the Shia from the Sunni resistance stronghold of Falluja, north-west of Baghdad, and an astonishing sign of unity among disparate fighting groups who feel ever more emboldened to take on the Iraqi government.
Yesterday, Sadr's men in other southern cities continued to fight against the US-led multi-national forces, cheered by the appearance of the cleric, one arm bandaged from a shrapnel wound, before crowds of militiamen in the shrine at midnight on Friday.
Throughout the week the golden-domed shrine had been at the centre of the rebellion. It was here that Sadr probably spent his days and here that his young clerics controlled the fight through radios and mobiles. Fighters would check their weapons at the gate and walk in to collect plastic containers of water, or to have their wounds bandaged. Every few hours the mosque's loudspeakers exhort his men to battle.
'You are defending Imam Ali, the prince of the faithful. Hit them and protect your shrine. Hit them and protect your holy city. Be patient and fight. Victory will be yours with the help of God,' they announced at one stage. An hour later, after midday prayers, it continued: 'Fighters return to your positions. The enemy is running away. Go to your places immediately.'
In the end the sanctity of the shrine, one of the holiest sites in the Shia faith, is what gave Sadr his strength. It left the Iraqi government and the US reluctant to press on into the old city, however much the US military commanders wanted to. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, admitted as much when he said the US was 'squeezing' Najaf to stop the fighting but then added: 'We do not wish to get involved with the mosque. It's a very holy place for all Shia.'
Wresting control from more moderate clerics of the mosque and its vast annual revenue from pilgrims was itself a key victory for Sadr.
The strength of this young cleric, the scion of a revered religious family, was his populist call to arms. For five days, fighters told us again and again they were fighting for their religion but then described at length how they struggled to find work, how they were frustrated that the welcome defeat of Saddam Hussein had brought such little improvement to their lives. We spent one morning with a group of men from the southern city of Amara, who had a position behind abandoned houses and hotels just short of the vast Valley of Peace cemetery to the north of the shrine that had become the key frontline.
On one wall was written in chalk: 'Saddam the criminal.' One fighter, Abbas, injured three times, spoke of the hatred for Saddam.
'He should be handed to the Iraqi people and cut into slices. He destroyed the whole nation,' he said. 'But still we are facing the same economic problems. There are other religious parties but they co-operate with the government and we don't believe in them.'
Their attraction to Sadr was that he had held out against the United States and its Iraqi supporters in the new government.
Another day, a second group of fighters, again from Amara, sat to rest in a basement and complained about the difficulty of finding jobs. Many had been farmers or conscripts in Saddam's army. All had been in Najaf for five months, since Sadr's first uprising last April.
'Most of the people who are fighting are very poor. They don't even have the money to get to Najaf,' said Hassan al-Amari. 'Only those who are with the Iraqi exiles are getting jobs,' said Latif al-Khalisi, a man who escaped four death sentences under Saddam for suspected membership of the Da'awa, then the leading Shia opposition group. 'The people in the West don't think about the poor people who are living here in Iraq.'
The men spoke boldly of their courage, but many were clearly scared by the fight. They spoke to their families by phone, playing down the risks they faced. 'I'm OK,' said one. 'There is no fighting around me. They gave me a rest. You can hear shooting? That is far away. Don't worry.'
Although Sadr had thousands of supporters around him yesterday, his remains a movement of extremists unloved by the majority of the Iraqi population, however frustrated they are with the military occupation of the past year.
As we walked back from the mosque, past the frontlines, Iraqis sat on their doorsteps watching. 'Why do you come here to see the misery in Najaf?' said one woman. 'May God take his revenge on the one who is responsible for this.' Another man ran to us shouting: 'Muqtada and his thugs are outlaws. They are criminals and they are not from Najaf.'
Many of the houses, pilgrims hotels and shops had been destroyed by the fighting. Large roadside bombs, artillery shells with wires leading from them, still lay in place every few hundred metres along the main streets.
In a large grocery shop, a few hundred yards from where the US military set up its cordon last Thursday and Friday, shop owner Raad Abdul Karim said Najaf was in the grip of 'a tragedy'.
'There is no security, no basic rights, there is fighting between the Iraqi people. It is unnatural,' he said. 'Muqtada Sadr's militia has some good people and others who are bad. But we just want to live peacefully. After three wars we have had enough. We just want somebody who can bring peace and security.'
-------- israel / palestine
Palestinians in Israeli Jails Start Hunger Strike
August 15, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mideast.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began a hunger strike for better conditions on Sunday, but Israel's security minister said he didn't care if they starved to death.
The prisoners, seen by Palestinians as symbols of resistance to Israeli occupation, want wardens to stop strip searches, allow more frequent visits from their families, improve sanitary conditions and install public telephones, supporters said.
More than 7,500 Palestinians, including 4,000 jailed over violence against Israelis, are imprisoned in Israel.
``We declare, in the name of God, our national decision to launch an open hunger strike,'' the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement, accusing Israel of ``robbing us of all our rights, treading on our dignity and treating us like animals.''
The Israel Prisons Authority and Palestinian spokesmen said striking prisoners declared they would live only on fluids until their demands are met. Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, however, said Israel would not bow to pressure.
``As far as I'm concerned they can strike for a day, a month, until death. We will ward off this strike and it will be as if it never happened,'' he told reporters.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie said in a statement any progress toward peace with Israel was contingent on resolving ``this central and sensitive'' issue.
NO CIGARETTES
Ofer Lefler, a Prisons Authority spokesman, said privileges such as cigarettes, sweets and television were taken away from the prisoners after they began the strike, which he described as a ``disturbance.''
He said if a prisoner became too emaciated ``an ethical committee'' would decide whether to begin force feeding.
Israeli officials said they feared closer contact with the outside world through more visits and phone calls would enable prisoners to help militants at large plan attacks on Israelis.
In the latest violence, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli border policeman, who then shot and killed him outside Jerusalem's walled Old City, a police spokesman said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility and Israel Radio said it appeared the attacker was mentally ill.
Issa Qaraqe, a prisoners' rights activist in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, said the strike would spread from Israel's main prisons to detention camps in military bases.
Some 200 people in Bethlehem marched in support of the prisoners. A similar demonstration was held by prisoners' children in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
In Lebanon, a support group for the last-remaining Lebanese prisoner in Israel, Samir al-Qantar, began a hunger strike in solidarity and demanded an international investigation into alleged abuses in Israeli jails.
``However hard it is for us, it's even harder for them,'' Qantar's sister Samira said, sitting in a stifling tent pitched for hunger-strikers outside Beirut's U.N. headquarters.
Qantar was sentenced to 542 years in jail for his role in a 1979 raid in northern Israel that killed a four-year-old girl, her father and a policeman.
Last January, Israel swapped about 400 prisoners, most of them Palestinian, for an Israeli civilian and the bodies of three soldiers who were captured in Lebanon in 2000, under a deal with the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla group.
-------- landmines
Ukrainian Soldier Killed by Iraq Land Mine
AP,
Sun Aug 15, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=7&u=/ap/20040815/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_ukrainian_soldier_killed
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Ukrainian soldier was killed Sunday in a land mine explosion southeast of Baghdad, a spokesman for the multinational forces said. The blast occurred in the area of Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, in the Ukrainian troops' area of responsibility.
Ukraine has about 1,600 troops in Iraq, the fourth-largest contributor to the coalition and the largest among non-NATO countries. Seven of its troops have died in Iraq and about 20 have been wounded.
-------- nato
Russian Defense Minister Faults Entry of 3 Baltic States in NATO
August 15, 2004
By THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/international/europe/15RUMS.html?pagewanted=all
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Aug. 14 - Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov of Russia on Saturday criticized NATO's expansion into the three Baltic states, and said that citizens of the Western alliance's original member countries should be worried, too, that their tax dollars were being wasted.
In a weekend visit by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Mr. Ivanov said he remained "reserved and negative" about the entry into NATO in March of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, three former Soviet republics.
At a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Colorado Springs last October, Mr. Ivanov complained that, if the alliance expanded into the Baltics, it would be able to station combat jets "a three-minute flight away from St. Petersburg."
On Saturday, as the host for Mr. Rumsfeld in that city after the Baltic states had entered NATO, Mr. Ivanov said the alliance risked wasting money and weakening itself by welcoming small states that could not contribute to the collective defense of the members.
"Those Baltic countries are consumers of security, not producers," Mr. Ivanov said. "Of course, it is none of our business to be theorizing about how effectively the NATO countries' tax money is being spent."
Mr. Ivanov said that basing a handful of NATO fighters in the Baltics would not help the effort to prevent terrorism. "We cannot understand how these four planes can intercept Al Qaeda, the Taliban or anything else," he said. "The only thing they can intercept is a mythical Soviet threat."
In defense of the Atlantic alliance, Mr. Rumsfeld said Russia's relationship with NATO was growing and "has been constructive."
He said Russia should understand that NATO, likewise, was no threat to Russian security. Of Moscow's concerns over the Baltic states' entry into the alliance, he said, "This is a relatively new issue."
Mr. Rumsfeld agreed with Mr. Ivanov in noting concerns that Russia did not have bilateral agreements with Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, as it did with many other neighbors, aimed at avoiding military confrontation.
Mr. Ivanov broadened his criticism of the Baltic states to include their support of the Nazis in World War II. Russia, he said, was concerned "that the Baltic states do have inconsistencies with respect to their human rights record," citing monuments he said had been erected in "the glorification" of Baltic support of the Nazi war effort.
Rather than have the standard day of meetings in the capital, Mr. Rumsfeld accepted Mr. Ivanov's invitation to spend the weekend in St. Petersburg, holding talks and touring palaces and museums in a city that Peter the Great built as Russia's "window on the West."
Mr. Rumsfeld, in his 15th meeting with his Russian counterpart in three and a half years as secretary of defense, praised the bilateral military relationship as one of "cooperation, openness and predictability." He predicted that American ties to Russia would become "broader and deeper over the coming years."
-------- pakistan / india
Bomb kills many at Indian parade
(BBC)
Sunday, 15 August, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3566460.stm
A bomb has exploded at an Independence Day march in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, killing at least 18 people and injuring many others.
Police said many of the victims of the blast on a college parade ground in the town of Dhemaji were schoolchildren or their mothers.
Local people incensed at the failure to protect the parade later attacked police vehicles at the scene.
Police sources blamed the attack on one of Assam's eight separatist groups.
The United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) had called for a boycott of Independence Day events.
The blast occurred at 0930 (0400 GMT) in the town 460km (285 miles) east of the state capital, Guwahati.
"There was total panic with people running all over the place crying for help," Jatindra Nath, a government official who was at the parade ground, told AFP news agency afterwards.
"I could see scores of people profusely bleeding and lying on the ground."
The blast came after two other attacks in the state:
- a small explosion also blamed on the Ulfa was reported in Dhubri on Saturday evening
- separatists were blamed for a grenade blast at a cinema on Saturday which killed four people in Gauribari
Rebels have been fighting for independence since 1979 in a struggle which has claimed more than 10,000 lives.
Security was tight across India for the celebrations.
This woman was one of the many injured In the capital, Delhi, helicopters clattered overhead while nearly 65,000 police and paramilitary troops were deployed.
In a speech to mark the 57th anniversary of independence from British rule, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India would continue to pursue dialogue with arch-rival Pakistan.
"It is our intention to carry forward with firm resolve and sincerity the composite dialogue process with Pakistan," he said, adding that peace should be built on the twin pillars of mutual trust and confidence.
But Mr Singh, speaking from a bullet-proof enclosure in the 17th-Century Red Fort complex, also warned that "cross-border terrorism" risked marring the process.
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'Pentagon ready to weaponise space'
A report refers to possible Chinese plans to develop 'parasitic' microsatellites that could destroy US satellites by commands on the ground.
FROM L K SHARMA
Sunday, August 15, 2004
DH NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON:
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug152004/i7.asp
Speculation has begun on Chinese weapons of satellite destruction even while the Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" are still in the news.
The Pentagon's latest report on Chinese military power makes a passing reference to the possible Chinese plans to develop "parasitic" microsatellites. These small satellites could attach themselves to the US satellites and then disrupt and destroy them on ground command.
The Pentagon report cites a Hong Kong news report of 2001 which said that China had already ground-tested such a satellite and will soon test it in space. However, unlike the Bush administration's pronouncements regarding the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon's reference to China's space weapon has not been reported on the front page. The Washington Post buried it on page 14 and added information casting doubts on the source of the Pentagon's reference to China's destructive satellites.
The Post is not taking any chances this time. It has been contritely saying that it ought to have questioned the official claims about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the Iraq war.
In an extraordinary move to establish credibility with its readers, the daily has carried reports, comments and letters on its failure to scrutinise the WMD claims. The few reporters who did that found that their stories were buried on inside pages. Those reporting the official WMD claims were featured on the front page. Now that papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times have become wiser, any US administration drawing public attention to the Chinese anti-satellite weapons will have to work twice as hard.
Whatever be the credibility of the Honk Kong report, if the US media is to be believed, the US government is already out to "weaponise: space. While the US has been using space for years to run its ground war, the phase of "weaponisation of space" is coming. Mr Donald H Rumsfeld, the present Secretary of Defence, had warned some years ago: "If the US is to avoid a 'Space Pearl Harbour' it needs to take seriously the possibility of an attack on US space systems."
More funds
This thinking has already led to allocation of more funds to the US military's space projects. In the coming years, the threat of foreign space weapons will get larger and the US military's space programmes will get bigger.
The US is developing the Experimental Satellite System (XSS) consisting of a series of microsatellites smaller than 100 kg. The XSS-10, weighing about 28 kg, was successfully launched last year. It could also be used to stun or disable a large satellite.
Some American think tanks have warned that "when you weaponise space, you invite company". If the US is first, someone else will be the second in space, with its own weapons. Thus space weapons proliferation will become a reality. One study says that once killer satellites start destroying one another above Earth, they will cause space debris that could harm benign civilian satellites, damaging the global economy.
A ballistic missile could disable satellites in low-earth orbit by detonating a nuclear device, blinding the ground troops relying on intelligence from those satellites.
-------- spies
Inside the Axis of Deceit
Andrew Wilkie, a top Australian intelligence official, didn't think the available WMD intel justified invading Iraq. When the government of Prime Minister John Howard (above) joined the Coalition of the Willing anyway, Wilkie quit in protest. Since then, he's been speaking out.
August 16, 2004
Andrew Wilkie
Interviewed By Jeff Fleischer
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/08/08_401.wilkieQA.html
As a senior analyst at Australia's top intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, Andrew Wilkie had high-level access to the raw data pouring in before the Iraq war. But while his country's prime minister, John Howard, resolutely supported an invasion, Wilkie saw a significant gap between the evidence the intelligence community collected and the way Howard, George Bush, and Tony Blair argued the case for war.
Just a few days before the U.S., UK and Australia led the "Coalition of the Willing" into Iraq, Wilkie resigned his post at ONA in protest, and took his case against the Howard government public. Since then, he has spoken at numerous protests, testified before government inquiries in Australia and the UK, and won the inaugural Whistleblower of the Year award from the United Nations Association of Australia.
Wilkie has written a new book, "Axis of Deceit," which discusses the intelligence relating to Iraq and how it was politicized in Canberra, London, and Washington. And he is continuing to take the fight to the government, running an underdog race as the Green Party candidate for Howard's parliamentary seat in the upcoming Australian elections. The former intelligence officer spoke with MotherJones.com about his resignation, the war in Iraq, and how the post-war focus on intelligence failures is helping governments avoid responsibility.
MotherJones.com: When did you make the decision to resign from ONA and why?
Andrew Wilkie: It was many, many weeks in the making. I first started to have some concerns about the Iraq war in late 2002, when I wrote the secret report for the Australian government on the possible humanitarian implications of a war. It was a very sobering exercise; it made me start to look at the evidence much more critically. And there were certain waypoints, such as Colin Powell's address to the Security Council on Feb. 5 2003. So much so that by about a fortnight before the war, I had reached the conclusion that a war was not going to be the most sensible or ethical way to resolve the Iraq issue. There are all sorts of things that public servants disagree with, but to my mind, I was looking at government misconduct on an extraordinary scale. So much so that I felt I couldn't support the government any longer and, also, that I had an obligation to speak out publicly.
I never thought I could stop the war. In fact, I don't think anybody could stop the war by early 2003 -- not even George Bush; there was just so much momentum behind it. What I did hope to do was to energize the public discussion about it. I had a very privileged access to secret information, and was basically just backing up what many of the people on the outside were already thinking. I just felt I had an obligation to tell them what I knew and to basically stir up the debate.
MJ: How did John Howard and the government react?
AW: The evening I resigned, they told the media that I hadn't been involved in the Iraq issue -- in other words, that I didn't know what I was talking about. Which was a nonsense, as I'd been involved in the Iraq issue from the start, and I'd written the report in December on the possible consequences of a war. The morning after I resigned, one of the prime minister's staff told the media that I was mentally unstable and shouldn't be listened to. The foreign minister here, Alexander Downer, has been very outspoken about me and called me all sorts of things, and I have been vilified very strongly in our Parliament by government politicians. But, mind you, I've gone strongly in return and spoken very strongly against the Howard government in laying out my case.
MJ: How have you seen public opinion toward the war shift in Australia?
AW: Before the war, there was overwhelming public opposition. Different polls had different results, but certainly in the order of three-quarters of Australians opposed the war. Now as soon as the war started, that did a backflip, and most Australians got behind it. I think part of the explanation was, "our troops are in combat; it's our duty to support them." And then, of course, the war seemed to go well at first. George Bush landed on the aircraft carrier with "Mission Accomplished," the statue was pulled down in the square in Baghdad, and Prime Minister Howard did what I'd call a victory lap around the world and went out to Washington and London. At that point, I think the war was almost a political plus for John Howard, as well as for George Bush and Tony Blair. But steadily, it has turned sour in Australia, and the war has now become a clear political negative for the prime minister, one that he is seeking to neutralize in our forthcoming election.
MJ: In your book, you discuss ONA's pre-war assessments of the United States and its intentions. How did that information shape the case for war?
AW: This is a very important point. There's been so much debate in Australia -- and in the UK -- about what our intelligence agencies were reporting about Iraq. But just as important -- maybe more important -- is what Australian and British intelligence agencies were saying about the United States. It was made very clear to the Australian government that there was a very broad range of drivers for this war -- of which WMD and terrorism were only two, and they were well down the list. What that means is every time John Howard stood up in front of the Australian people -- and every time Tony Blair stood up in front of the British people -- and waxed on about WMD and terrorism, they were doing that in the full knowledge that those weren't the main reasons for the war.
In Australia, there were only two dimensions to the official case for war. One, that Iraq had failed to disarm its weapons of mass destruction, that it had a massive arsenal. And two, that it was collaborating actively with Al Qaeda, and that it was just a matter of time before those weapons were passed to terrorists. That was really the official case for war in Australia. Unlike in the U.S., I might add, where your government did talk about the value of regime change. In Australia, John Howard dismissed regime change. In response to a question by a journalist before the war, he said we wouldn't be able to justify a war on the basis of regime change. So all this talk now about the value of that change and the humanitarian benefits, it has nothing to do with the pre-war case presented in Australia.
MJ: What did Howard hope to gain by Australia's supporting the war?
AW: First and foremost, he has a deep personal conviction about the Australian alliance with the U.S. Howard was in the U.S. on Sept. 11, and I think that's one reason why he feels so much a part of this. But his personal ideology is strongly inclined that way, much more than even his Liberal Party's is. The Iraq war in Australia is very much John Howard's war; it reflects that obsessive relationship with the Bush administration. I think that's what drives him. There are practical benefits -- for example, security guarantees for Australia, free-trade agreements and so on -- but they are really just dividends of this fundamental personal conviction of his.
MJ: How have the Australian intelligence agencies changed their approach to terrorism after Sept. 11?
AW: It goes without saying that 9/11 was a shock, even to the intelligence agencies. They had completely underestimated the threat from Islamic extremists. So it really has shaken them up, and there was certainly an increased focus on terrorism, and transnational threats generally.
Having said that, in Australia there wasn't enough of a focus brought to bear on the terrorism threat. Where I used to work, at the Office of National Assessments, they only took on two terrorism experts after 9/11. It was a bit token, and I think that helps to explain why Australia then got caught out, again, with the Bali bombing. We didn't see that coming either. We hadn't really learned our lesson from 9/11, and I don't think we really learned our lesson from the Bali bombing either. It's only now, because of this Iraq misadventure, that the intelligence agencies are looking more carefully at how they operate.
I should make one more point about the 9/11 thing. Because of the way we were all caught out over 9/11, I think the agencies have been more inclined to think worst-case. And I think that helps to explain the intelligence failure over Iraq. They didn't want and couldn't afford to be caught out again, so the agencies tended to overestimate the threat posed by Iraq.
MJ: How did the governments make the qualified intelligence on Iraq fit their arguments?
AW: Intelligence is inherently ambiguous. That's just the nature of the way it's collected -- there are always uncertainties, and the intelligence agencies know that. The agencies will invariably give very measured and carefully qualified advice to government. That was, in fact, the finding of this recent Philip Flood report in Australia. The official government inquiry has found -- and these are the words used by Flood himself -- that the intelligence agencies gave "cautious and qualified advice."
But that cautious sort of advice was, of course, not the style of what was being said by George Bush or Cheney or Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld or John Howard or Alexander Downer. To them, the advice was always strong and unambiguous; it always had those qualifications removed. And the qualifications were normally just simple words like "could," as in "Iraq could be doing this," qualifications like "uncorroborated evidence suggests" or caveats like "intelligence suggests." Words like "suggests," "could," "can't be ruled out" or "uncorroborated." And those words were almost always dropped from the official government statements. In doing so, all our governments - very deliberately, very mischievously and very dishonestly - turned uncertainty into certainty. And that completely reengineered the threat posed by Iraq.
MJ: What were the main gaps you saw in the intelligence relating to Iraq?
AW: The first main intelligence gap was the unaccounted-for WMD material. There wasn't a lot unaccounted for, but that material became quite central to the official case for war last year. The other intelligence gap was what Iraq got up to after 1998, when UNSCOM pulled out. Now, I think that highlights the inadequacies in our intelligence services, that we didn't have effective human intelligence operations going on, and were relying instead on Iraqi dissidents and whatnot, who all had an agenda. There were too many people who were trying to encourage a U.S. intervention and were prepared to say anything that the U.S. government wanted to hear. In that context, the intelligence database on Iraq just became increasingly contaminated with what I'd call garbage-grade intelligence. So it made it very easy to cheery-pick the database and basically come up with the case for war that the politicians wanted.
MJ: One of the things you worked on at ONA was an assessment of the possible humanitarian costs of an invasion. How has the aftermath compared to the scenarios you considered?
AW: Thankfully, my worst-case scenarios have not eventuated. Mind you, I wasn't looking this far ahead; I was looking at the immediate aftermath. And some of the possible scenarios there were quite scary, in particular the idea of Saddam Hussein himself creating a humanitarian disaster to complicate coalition war-fighting operations or to compel the international community to intervene and say "stop this madness." Given that we all thought he had a very limited chemical and biological capability, it was not impossible that he would use some sort of chem-bio agent on one of his own cities. It wasn't impossible that he'd blow dams and flood areas. There were lots of things he might have done. If I had my time again, I'd probably write the same assessment of the possible humanitarian implications, even though some of those things haven't come to pass. But some did. There's no doubt that the situation in Iraq, for many Iraqis currently, is very dire. It's unfortunate that some parts of the country are now so violent that the media can't get out there and report the situation. It will still be a long time before Iraq is a better place for most Iraqis.
MJ: You've said the post-war focus on intelligence failures in all three countries lets the governments off the hook. How so?
AW: In all three countries, the governments have very deliberately kept the focus on the intelligence agencies and steered the focus away from the bigger issue, which is the government's relationship with the agencies, and the government's misuse of intelligence material. And we're saying this in all three countries. The Flood report's terms of reference were very specifically to look only at the performance of the intelligence agencies. Everyone knows they failed -- the previous Australian inquiry found that out. The most recent British inquiry did the same thing -- looked at the intelligence agencies. The U.S. inquiry did the same thing. I think the governments are being very mischievous in the way they're keeping the focus on the intelligence agencies. Which did fail, there was a limited intelligence failure. But that limited failure in no way excuses the governments for their decision to go to war.
MJ: With the Australian election coming up, how effective has the opposition been at making the war an issue?
AW: We've got a real problem in Australia in this regard. I think the opposition, the Labor Party, has really let us down on this. The Labor Party flip-flopped on its position before the war, and more recently, I don't think Mark Latham [the Labor leader] has been inclined to go hard on this issue; he just doesn't seem to go near the war too much. He's taken a bit of a stand on troops out by Christmas, but I think the Labor Party knows they're a bit vulnerable on this issue, because they didn't take a strong enough stand before the