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NUCLEAR
U.N. Official: 40 Nations Can Make Nukes
Blair: The threat of loose nukes is one of our own making
Iran Rebuffs U.N. Agency on Atom Issue
Big Powers Urge Iran to Heed UN Nuke Freeze Demand
Iran May Soon Resume Uranium Enrichment
Israel on agenda for UN nuclear watchdog general conference
Kansai Elec may delay reactor restart due to leak
N.Korea Seen Using South Atomic Issue to Stall Talks
N. Korea Won't Give Up Nuke Development
Libya Tells Iran: Be Like us and Comply with IAEA
U.S. Government Ships Plutonium to France
Study says nuke power more competitive
EPA Seeking New Yucca Radiation Standard
Yucca, cont.
MILITARY
Sudanese Decry U.N. Threat of Sanctions
Woman killed in Vienna as arms linked to Balkans wars explodes
Arms smuggling in Gaza at record high
Lib Dems attack Blair's Iraq wars
Contracts Awarded
With Transition, New Uncertainty for China's Authoritarian System
China's Ex-Leader Quits Post In Military
Hu Takes Military Reins, Completing Shift in China
Iran Is Helping Insurgents in Iraq, U.S. Officials Say
Why We Cannot Win
2 Senior Clerics Are Killed in Iraq; Hostage Deadline Passes
Effort to Train New Iraqi Army Is Facing Delays
Israel Launches Airstrike in Gaza City
Palestinian police carrying weapons despite Israel's ban
U.S. Pressing Syria on Iraqi Border Security
NATO Fails to Finalize Agreement on Iraq
Toll Rising on Pakistani Frontier
Soviet Scientists Planned "Invulnerable" Military HQ on the Moon
America Must Reach For Space Dominance: Teets
C.I.A. Nominee Says Iraq-Al Qaeda Link Was Overstated
US capital a magnet for foreign spies
CIA nominee Goss says he regrets partisan statements
Russia opposes sanctions on Sudan, eyes arms sales
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Ohio Imam Gets Two Months in Prison
Judge Declines to Dismiss U.S. Airman Spy Case
Pentagon Sets Up HQ to Defend Capital
TSA Readies Secure Flight for Testing;
Rumsfeld Warns Military, Contractors on Trafficking
French Internet provider confirms US block on government sites
Arrests at GOP Convention Are Criticized
POLITICS
Cheney may have 'stretched Iraq intelligence'
CBS to Say It Was Misled on Bush Guard Memos
CBS Asserts It Was Misled by Ex-Officer on Bush Documents
Voters worry another war is in store
Three GOP Senators Urge Refocusing of Iraq Policy
Edwards Calls Hastert's Remarks 'Politics of Fear'
Edwards Is No Cheney -- And That's the Plan
Kerry Says Iraq War Raises Questions on Bush's Judgment
OTHER
Californians to Vote on Stem Cell Research Funds
ACTIVISTS
War protest elicits emotion on both sides
-------- NUCLEAR
U.N. Official: 40 Nations Can Make Nukes
September 20, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- More than 40 countries with peaceful nuclear programs could retool them to make weapons, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday amid new U.S and European demands that Iran give up technology capable of producing such arms.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, suggested in a keynote address to the IAEA general conference that it was time to tighten world policing of nuclear activities and to stop relying on information volunteered by countries.
Beyond the declared nuclear arms-holding countries, ``some estimates indicate that 40 countries or more now have the know-how to produce nuclear weapons,'' ElBaradei said. ``We are relying primarily on the continued good intentions of these countries, intentions, which ... could ... be subject to rapid change.''
His comments appeared prompted by a series of revelations of proliferation or suspected illicit nuclear activities over the past two years.
Libya last year revealed a clandestine nuclear arms program and announced it would scrap it; North Korea is threatening to activate a weapons program; Iran is being investigated for what the United States says is evidence it was trying to make nuclear arms; and South Korea recently said it conducted secret experiments with plutonium and enriched uranium, both possible components of weapons programs.
ElBaradei linked the need for strengthened controls to concerns about the international nuclear black market, which supplied both Iran and Libya and whose existence was proven last year.
The ``relative ease with which a multinational illicit network could be set up and operate demonstrates clearly the inadequacy'' of the present controls on nuclear exports, he said.
ElBaradei did not name the countries capable of quickly turning peaceful nuclear activities into weapons programs. But more than a dozen European countries with either power-producing nuclear reactors or large-scale research reactors are among them, as well as Canada, and countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Most peaceful nuclear programs use enriched uranium -- a substance that when processed to levels of enrichment above 90 percent can be used to make nuclear warheads -- as a power source. Most countries also could extract plutonium from spent fuel for nuclear weapons use.
Iran's enrichment program has been the focus of increased world concern because of suspicions Tehran may not be telling the truth when it says it is interested in the technology only to generate power. Such suspicions are fed by 18 years of clandestine nuclear activities that were revealed only two years ago, including experiments with possible weapons applications; and some nuclear questions that remain unanswered.
A resolution passed unanimously Saturday by the agency's governing board demanded for the first time that Iran freeze all work on uranium enrichment and expressed alarm at Iranian plans to convert more than 40 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride -- the gas that when spun in centrifuges turns into enriched uranium.
Suggesting that Iran may have to answer to the U.N. Security Council if it defies the demands, the resolution said the next board meeting in November ``will decide whether or not further steps are appropriate'' in ensuring Iran complies.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, in his comments to the conference, urged Iran to ``cooperate fully and immediately with the IAEA's requests.''
And speaking for the 25-nation European Union, Dutch delegate Justus de Visser asked Tehran to ``heed the content of the resolution, and in particular ... to suspend fully all its enrichment-related activities.''
Libya -- which has been embraced by the international community for renouncing its weapons ambitions -- also suggested Tehran ``cooperate with the IAEA to the full.''
``The Iranians have to meet these obligations,'' Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Matouq Mohammed Matouq told reporters.
But Iran remained defiant. Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi told Iranian state television that his country ``may resume (enrichment) any moment.'' And he reiterated Tehran's rejection of board's demands.
``The resolution is illegal,'' he said. ``The Islamic Republic of Iran ... will ignore the provisions of the resolution because it is beyond the responsibilities of the IAEA.''
Delivering the same message at the Vienna conference, Iranian Vice President Reza Aghazadeh said his country will ``continue its nuclear activities without interruption.''
In his comments Monday, ElBaradei also urged Iran to comply with the resolution -- to ``verify its past nuclear program and ... do its utmost to build the required confidence'' by heeding the full suspension call.
He also touched on North Korea, saying it ``continues to pose a serious challenge'' to nonproliferation. North Korea cut its ties with the agency two years ago, saying it had quit the Nonproliferation Treaty. It is now engaged in on-and-off negotiations with the United States and four other countries on aid and other concessions it seeks in return for scrapping its nuclear weapons program.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org
----
Blair: The threat of loose nukes is one of our own making
Dodge City Daily Globe,
September 20, 2004
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/092004/opinions_092004019.shtml
Nuclear terrorism, thankfully, is still only a specter, not a reality. But the recent wave of bloodshed in Russia underscores the urgency of the need to prevent terrorists capable of indiscriminate slaughter from acquiring nuclear bombs.
To its credit, the Bush administration has finally launched an ambitious initiative to better secure nuclear and radiological materials, particularly in violence-racked Russia. But unless the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, introduced in May, becomes part of a far more comprehensive approach to nuclear theft and terrorism, it will fall well short of its goal of safeguarding the American people.
The initiative builds on the bilateral nonproliferation efforts of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, a U.S. government-funded, post-Cold War effort that focused on securing Russia's nuclear arsenal. The new, expanded cooperative effort seeks to collect weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium from dozens of additional countries, and to lock them down in secure facilities.
But with U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces still on hair-trigger alert, we must recognize that present policies for reducing the risk of nuclear strikes against the United States by terrorists or rogue countries are inconsistent and self-defeating. On the one hand, in the name of deterrence, U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces both comply with their presidents' instructions to be constantly prepared to fight a large-scale nuclear war with each other at a moment's notice. On the other hand, in the name of nonproliferation, the United States and Russia cooperate closely in securing Russia's nuclear weapons against theft.
By keeping thousands of nuclear weapons poised for immediate launch, even under normal peacetime circumstances, the United States projects a powerful deterrent threat at Russia. But at the same time, it causes Russia to retain thousands of weapons in its operational inventory, scattered across that country's vast territory, and to keep them ready for rapid use in large-scale nuclear war with America. To maintain the reliability of these far-flung weapons, Russia must constantly transport large numbers back and forth between a remanufacturing facility and the dispersed military bases. This creates a serious vulnerability: Transportation is the Achilles' heel of nuclear weapons security.
On any given day, many hundreds of Russian nuclear weapons are moving around the countryside; nearly 1,000 are in some stage of transit or temporary storage awaiting relocation. This constant movement between the far-flung nuclear bases and the remanufacturing facility at Ozersk in the southern Urals stems from the esoteric technical fact that Russian nuclear bombs are highly perishable. American bombs have a shelf life of more than 30 years, but Russian bombs last only eight to 12 years before corrosion and internal decay render them unreliable--prone to fizzling instead of exploding. At that point, they must be shipped back to the factory for remanufacturing. Every year many hundreds of bombs, perhaps as many as a thousand, roll out of Russia's Mayak factory. The United States turns out fewer than 10 annually. In Russia, transportation lines linking the factory to nuclear bases across 10 time zones provide fertile ground for terrorist interception.
Keeping a small strategic arsenal consolidated at limited locations near the Mayak factory would be the ideal. But the ongoing nuclear dynamic between the former Cold War foes creates the opposite environment, which undercuts security. Russian nuclear commanders are confronted with U.S. submarines lurking off their coasts with 10-minute missile-flight times to Moscow and thousands of launch-ready U.S. warheads on land- and sea-based missiles aimed at thousands of targets in Russia. They are compelled to match the American posture in numbers, alert status and geographic dispersal.
U.S. leaders must decide which goal takes precedence: sustaining the Cold War legacy of massive arsenals to deter a massive surprise nuclear attack, or shoring up the security of Russian nuclear weapons to prevent terrorists from grabbing them (or corrupt guards from selling them).
And terrorists grabbing such a weapon as it shuttles between deployment fields and factories is not the worst-case scenario stemming from this nuclear gamesmanship. The theft of a nuclear bomb could spell eventual disaster for an American city, but the seizure of a ready-to-fire strategic long-range nuclear missile or group of missiles capable of delivering such bombs to targets thousands of miles away could be apocalyptic for entire nations.
If scores of armed Chechen rebels can slip into the heart of Moscow and hold a packed theater hostage for days, as they did in 2002, might it not be possible for terrorists to infiltrate missile fields in rural Russia, seize control of a nuclear-armed mobile rocket roaming the countryside, and launch it at Europe or America? It's an open question that warrants candid bilateral discussion, especially since the 9/11 Commission report revealed that al-Qaida plotters considered this very idea.
Another specter concerns terrorists "spoofing" radar or satellite sensors, or cyber-terrorists hacking into early warning networks. By either firing short-range missiles that fool warning sensors into reporting an attack by longer-range missiles, or feeding false data into warning computer networks, could sophisticated terrorists generate false indications of an enemy attack that results in a mistaken launch of nuclear rockets in "retaliation?" False alarms have been frequent enough on both sides under the best of conditions. False warning poses an acute danger as long as Russian and U.S. nuclear commanders are given, as they still are today, only several pressure-packed minutes to determine whether an enemy attack is underway and to decide whether to retaliate. Russia's deteriorating early-warning network, coupled with terrorist plotting against it, only heightens the dangers.
Russia is not the only crucible of risk. The early-warning and control problems plaguing Pakistan, India and other nuclear proliferators are even more acute. As these nations move toward hair-trigger stances for their nuclear missiles, the terrorist threat to them will grow in parallel.
Even the U.S. nuclear control apparatus is far from foolproof. For example, a Pentagon investigation of nuclear safeguards conducted several years ago made a startling discovery: Terrorist hackers might be able to gain backdoor electronic access to the U.S. naval communications network, seize control electronically of radio towers such as the one in Cutler, Maine, and illicitly transmit a launch order to U.S. Trident ballistic missile submarines armed with 200 nuclear warheads apiece. This exposure was deemed so serious that Trident launch crews had to be given new instructions for confirming the validity of any launch order they receive. They would now reject certain types of firing orders that previously would have been carried out immediately.
Both countries are running such terrorist risks for the sake of an obsolete deterrent strategy. The notion that either the United States or Russia would deliberately attack the other with nuclear weapons is ludicrous, while the danger that terrorists are plotting to get their hands on these arsenals is real. We need to kick our old habits and stand down our hair-trigger forces. Taking U.S. and Russian missiles off alert would automatically reduce, if not remove, the biggest terrorist threats that stem from keeping thousands of U.S. and Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles fueled, targeted and waiting for a couple of computer signals to fire. They would fly the instant they received these signals, which can be sent with a few keystrokes on a launch console.
We ought to reverse our priorities for nuclear security. The United States should not be spending 25 times more on its deterrent posture than it spends on all of our nonproliferation assistance to Russia and other countries to help them keep their nuclear bombs and materials from falling into terrorist hands. Both the United States and Russia should be spending more on de-alerting, dismantling and securing our arsenals than on prepping them for a large-scale nuclear war with each other.
The current deterrent practices of the two nuclear superpowers are not only anachronistic, they are thwarting our ability to protect ourselves against the real threats.
# Blair, a former Minuteman launch officer, is president of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information.
-------- iran
Iran Rebuffs U.N. Agency on Atom Issue
September 20, 2004
New York Times
By NAZILA FATHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/international/middleeast/20tehran.html
TEHRAN, Sept. 19 - Iran on Sunday rejected a call by the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency to freeze all its uranium enrichment programs and warned that it would drop out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if its case was sent to the Security Council.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, said at a news conference that his nation would not accept any outside limitation on its uranium enrichment programs and that "no international body can force Iran to do so."
The response came a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution calling on Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities before the agency's next meeting in November.
The agency has expressed alarm at Iran's plans to enrich nearly 40 tons of uranium. Experts say that would be enough to provide Iran with the material for several nuclear bombs. The Iranian government insists that its nuclear program is for electricity production only.
The resolution passed Saturday said the agency would consider whether to take "further steps" to penalize Iran. The United States has been pushing for Security Council sanctions against the country.
Mr. Rowhani, however, strenuously objected to the order to end enrichment.
"They cannot force Iran to suspend enrichment through the resolution," he said. "The Europeans also know that if there is a way, that way is through negotiations."
He added a threat, saying, "I believe that Iran will stop implementing the additional protocol if its case is sent to the Security Council, and Parliament will probably demand from the government to drop out of the nonproliferation treaty."
Iran's Parliament said Sunday that as a result of the resolution, it would not ratify the additional protocol to the nonproliferation treaty, which would allow more intrusive inspections of the country's nuclear facilities.
Mr. Rowhani said Iran would continue with its voluntary suspension of enrichment, a process in which uranium is converted into a gas and then fed into centrifuges, as a gesture of good will. But he indicated that related activities, like producing and testing centrifuges, would continue.
--------
Big Powers Urge Iran to Heed UN Nuke Freeze Demand
September 20, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States, the European Union and Russia urged Iran Monday to comply with the U.N. nuclear watchdog's demand that it halt all activities linked to uranium enrichment, after Tehran rejected the call.
But Iran stood by its position, making clear it would not allow any outside interference in its nuclear activities.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unanimously adopted a resolution Saturday calling on Iran to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to build an atom bomb.
But Sunday, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani rejected the demand in the resolution, sponsored by Britain, France and Germany, and threatened to end snap checks of atomic facilities if the case was sent to the U.N. Security Council.
Uranium enrichment, which at a low level can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, is permitted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
But U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told a meeting of IAEA members that Iran has been violating its obligations under the NPT for almost two decades by concealing its enrichment program.
It had been ``secretly building sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities and doing so for weapons purposes,'' he said. ``It is essential that Iran now cooperate fully and immediately with the IAEA's requests.''
The Dutch delegation chief told the meeting on behalf of the EU that the bloc ``calls on Iran to heed the content of the resolution adopted by last week's (IAEA) board of governors, in particular with regard to the necessity to suspend fully all its enrichment-related activities.''
The EU's ``big three'' powers have been trying since last year to persuade Iran to abandon its enrichment program, which the United States and some other countries believe Tehran intends to use to make fissile material for weapons.
Iran denies that and says its nuclear program is for the peaceful generation of electricity.
Dutch ambassador Justus de Visser said of the IAEA's investigation of Iran's nuclear program: ``It is a matter of serious concern that a number of issues after two years still await clarification.''
RUSSIAN CALL
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a similar statement. ``Tehran has been urged to re-impose a moratorium on all uranium enrichment activities. We back this call,'' it said.
Russia, which normally steers clear of political debate over Iran, is helping Tehran build a nuclear reactor at the port of Bushehr despite strong pressure from the United States.
Iran remained defiant, however.
``Our great nation will not permit any interference and/or interruption in our purely peaceful and indigenous nuclear program and it will not give (it) up at any price,'' Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization and a vice president of his country, told the meeting.
The IAEA, which has been probing Iran's nuclear program for two years, has found many previously concealed activities that could be used in a weapons program, but no ``smoking gun'' that would confirm U.S. suspicions.
Washington believes Saturday's resolution opened the door to tough action by the IAEA board when it meets again in November -- namely, a referral of Iran's case to the Security Council and possibly economic sanctions.
Libya, which last year gave up its nuclear weapons program, also urged Iran to comply with IAEA demands, saying its own disarmament could be seen as an example to others.
``The Iranians have to meet these obligations,'' Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Matouq M. Matouq told reporters.
----
Iran May Soon Resume Uranium Enrichment
September 20, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran may resume uranium enrichment ``any moment,'' the nation's intelligence minister said on state television Monday, two days after the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency demanded that Tehran halt all such activity.
Ali Yunesi reiterated that Iran rejected the thrust of Saturday's motion by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which demanded that it stop all uranium enrichment activity, including the production and testing of centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
``We suspended (enrichment) voluntarily and we may continue it voluntarily,'' Yunesi said. ``And we may resume (enrichment) any moment.''
``The resolution is illegal,'' he said. ``The Islamic Republic of Iran ... will ignore the provisions of the resolution because it is beyond the responsibilities of the IAEA.''
The U.N. agency said it would assess Iran's compliance in two months.
On Sunday, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, also said the IAEA's demand for a halt to enrichment was ``illegal,'' but he stopped short of outright rejection of the U.N. agency's resolution and held out the possibility of negotiations on the issue.
``We are committed to the suspension of actual enrichment, but we have no decision to expand the suspension,'' Rowhani said.
``No resolution can impose an obligation on Iran to suspend activities. If there is a way, it will be the way of dialogue,'' Rowhani said.
-------- israel
Israel on agenda for UN nuclear watchdog general conference
VIENNA (AFP)
Monday September 20, 2004
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040920/323/f2x4z.html
The UN nuclear watchdog opens its annual general conference that sets overall goals for the atomic monitoring body but is also a setting for Arab countries to attack Israel for allegedly possessing nuclear weapons. Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said the week-long conference mainly endorses decisions made by the IAEA's executive arm, the 35-nation board of governors, which last week called on Iran to fully suspend uranium enrichment and submit to a review in November of its alleged nuclear weapons program.
Still, the discussion on Israel should be heated.
A Western diplomat close to the IAEA said Middle Eastern states have in the past used the conference as a forum to vent their frustration over Iran being attacked for alleged nuclear capabilities while the IAEA does not act against Israel, which is believed to have developed nuclear weapons and has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The 137-country IAEA is at its conference to consider "Israeli nuclear capabilities and threat," according to the agenda.
A resolution may be introduced but the Western diplomat said this would be then withdrawn in a "procedural game where Arabic countries raise yet again the question" of why Israel has not signed the NPT, the safeguards agreement the IAEA verifies.
He said such resolutions have in the past been "obscure and hard to decipher but make a point by having the word Israel in them."
Gwozdecky said the conference would review the full range of IAEA activities and "lay out a work plan for the agency for the year to come."
The IAEA wants its inspectors to return to North Korea, from where they were expelled in January 2003 as it angrily withdrew from the NPT amid US charges it is developing nuclear weapons.
Gwozdecky said he did not expect recent revelations that South Korea performed undeclared uranium enrichment, which the IAEA is investigating, to impact greatly on the North Korea debate at the conference.
Besides these verification activities, the IAEA carries out cooperation programs to help people use nuclear technology, such as getting radiation therapy machines to developing countries to make cancer treatments easier.
The third pillar of its activity is promoting nuclear safety. As part of this, it has focused since the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 on "helping countries identify their vulnerabilities" in nuclear security, Gwozdecky said.
This includes protecting against terrorists getting radioactive materials to use in so-called dirty bombs. These are conventional bombs laced with radioactive materials and designed to contaminate wide areas.
The IAEA helped put on a conference over the weekend in Vienna co-hosted by US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Russian atomic chief Alexander Rumyantsev on a global initiative to keep highly radioactive materials out of the reach of terrorists.
In May, Abraham had announced that the United States was giving 450 million dollars (370 million euros) to the initiative, which tries to prevent nuclear materials stored around the world from getting to terrorists who could use them to make a dirty bomb or even a full atomic device.
-------- japan
Kansai Elec may delay reactor restart due to leak
REUTERS JAPAN:
September 20, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27213/story.htm
TOKYO - Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co. (9503.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said last week it was likely to delay the restart of a nuclear power generation unit at its Mihama plant in Fukui prefecture, western Japan, because of a coolant leak.
Kansai Electric found late on Thursday that the coolant boracic, containing a very small amount of radiation, had leaked from the Mihama No. 1 unit, a company spokesman said.
The leak has been stopped and the radiation did not have an impact on the outside environment, the spokesman said.
Kansai Electric shut the 340,000-kilowatt No. 1 unit on Sept. 5 for inspections, which had been scheduled to last two weeks, following a fatal accident at the Mihama No. 3 unit on Aug. 9.
"We need some more time to fix the part (that caused the leak)," the spokesman said.
All 11 of Kansai Electric's nuclear units are located at three plants in Mihama, Takahama and Ohi in Fukui prefecture. Of those, only three units are currently generating power.
-------- korea
N.Korea Seen Using South Atomic Issue to Stall Talks
September 20, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea Monday shrugged off North Korean criticism of the South's experiments with nuclear materials as familiar posturing that would not rule out the mercurial communist North's return to atomic arms talks.
North Korea's state news agency said Saturday the North would never dismantle its nuclear arsenal and would not resume talks on its atomic programs unless the United States dropped its ``hostile'' policy.
The North's official KCNA news agency said recent disclosures about unsanctioned South Korean nuclear experiments in 2000 and 1982 showed that the United States applied double standards, criticizing the North but understanding the South.
``They think of it as excuse or pretext for not coming to the six-party talks,'' Lee Sun-jin, a South Korean deputy foreign minister, told a panel of foreign journalists.
``But North Korea's real intention is yet to be seen,'' he said.
A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy agency (IAEA) arrived in Seoul Sunday to conduct a second inspection of South Korea's nuclear experiments, a day after the South said it had no plans to develop or possess nuclear weapons.
Lee said South Korea's openness with the IAEA stood in contrast to North Korean secrecy about its facilities. The United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia have been seeking at so far fruitless talks to persuade North Korea to give up its atomic ambitions completely in exchange for security guarantees and energy aid.
The sharply worded KCNA commentary extended the North's policy of trying to milk South Korea's embarrassing nuclear revelations and exploit differences between Seoul and Washington.
``It is self-evident that the resumption of the talks can no longer be discussed unless the U.S. drops its hostile policy based on double standards toward the DPRK and that the latter can never dismantle its nuclear deterrent force,'' the North's news agency said.
The North's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
NO BASIS FOR FORECAST
South Korea recently said scientists enriched a small amount of uranium in 2000 and separated plutonium in 1982 without government knowledge or approval. Diplomats have said some of the uranium was close to the purity needed for an atom bomb. Plutonium can also be used in a bomb.
KCNA said the South's tests underscored U.S. double standards.
``The U.S. transfers nuclear technology to its allies and connives at their development and access to nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, it makes far-fetched assertion without any convincing evidence that the DPRK has pursued clandestine uranium enrichment,'' it said.
The North Korea nuclear crisis began in October 2002 when the United States said the North had said it had an enrichment program. North Korea subsequently denied saying this and rejected testimony from Pakistan's top nuclear scientist that he sold the North uranium enrichment technology.
Deputy Foreign Minister Lee said: ``As repeatedly pointed out by our government, we have no intention to develop and will not do so in the future.''
He stressed that South Korea was cooperating with the IAEA, while North Korea was estranged from the U.N. nuclear watchdog since expelling inspectors in 2002.
``We've provided all information and material to the IAEA, and it has full access to any facilities,'' he said. ``North Korea, on the other hand, they have not opened facilities to anybody.''
Yu Suk-ryul, an analysts at the government-linked Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said the latest North Korean rhetoric broke little new ground.
``North Korea will make use of any source to criticize the U.S., therefore, no forecast can be made on their next step based only on their harsh statements,'' he said.
----
N. Korea Won't Give Up Nuke Development
September 20, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NKorea-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)-- North Korea said Monday that it will not give up nuclear development in light of unauthorized nuclear experiments by South Korea, where U.N. inspectors nuclear inspectors were conducting an investigation.
Rodong Sinmun, an official North Korean newspaper, said in an editorial that the secret nuclear activities in South Korea in 1982 and 2000 were an ``inevitable result of double standards'' applied by the United States, the South's chief ally.
The comments, which echoed other North Korean statements in recent days, were another blow to troubled efforts to hold another round of talks aimed at persuading North Korea to end its nuclear weapons development. Last Thursday, North Korea said it would not attend planned six-party talks on its nuclear activities until South Korea fully discloses the details of its secret atomic experiments.
``South Korea's uranium experiment is evidence that the United States is trying to take advantage of the six-party talks to disarm North Korea rather than keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons,'' said Rodong Sinmun. The editorial was reported by South Korea's national news agency Yonhap.
Three rounds of six-party talks have been held in Beijing, but negotiators have made little progress. The participants are the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States.
South Korea acknowledged this month that it extracted a small amount of plutonium in an experiment more than 20 years ago. That admission came shortly after it said it conducted a uranium-enrichment experiment four years ago. Plutonium and enriched uranium are two key ingredients of nuclear weapons.
Seoul said the experiments were purely research, and not intended as preparation to make nuclear weapons. But it acknowledged it should have revealed details to the U.N. nuclear agency in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
``It is apparent that we cannot give up our nuclear program as the United States is trying to cover up the South's secret nuclear activities,'' Rodong Sinmun said.
``Our stance that we cannot give up nuclear development is definitely justifiable,'' the newspaper said. North Korea says it has a nuclear ``deterrent,'' and international experts suspect it already has several nuclear weapons.
On Sunday, a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in South Korea for a follow-up probe into the country's secret nuclear experiments. On Monday, the five-member team visited the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in Daejeon, 125 miles south of Seoul.
-------- mideast
Libya Tells Iran: Be Like us and Comply with IAEA
Reuters
Sep 20, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=3&u=/nm/20040920/wl_nm/nuclear_iran_libya_dc
VIENNA (Reuters) - Libya, which last year renounced its nuclear weapons program, Monday urged Iran to follow suit and comply with the demands of the U.N. nuclear watchdog to stop enriching uranium which can be used to make atomic bombs.
"As (IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei) said today, some things have to be fulfilled by Iran," Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Matouq M. Matouq told reporters after meeting U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) at the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) annual general conference.
"The Iranians have to meet these obligations because of the agreement with the IAEA, and we hope that we can have another example (of) Iran of fulfilling the obligations and following the IAEA agreements," he said.
Saturday the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution calling on Iran to end uranium enrichment. Tehran rejected the resolution, calling the demand illegal.
Matouq also said Tripoli's December 2003 decision to abandon all weapons of mass destruction could be seen as an example for Iran and all other countries.
"Libya has set an example for everybody," he said.
Washington accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists its atomic ambitions are peaceful.
-------- terrorism / transportation
U.S. Government Ships Plutonium to France
September 20, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Plutonium-Shipments.html
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- A shipment of weapons-grade plutonium has left the United States for a nuclear reactor in France, drawing protests from activists who believe the shipment poses both an environmental and terrorist threat.
Government officials confirmed the plutonium had left the United States aboard an armored ship escorted by second ship, but they would not say when the shipment departed, citing security concerns.
However, about 20 activists waved signs and banners along the Charleston waterfront Monday to protest what they said was the departing plutonium.
``This is really the wrong signal to be sending to countries around the world,'' said protester Tom Clements of Greenpeace International, calling the transport and use of nuclear weapons material ``just the wrong thing given the security climate in the world right now.''
Once in France, the material is to be converted into nuclear fuel and returned next year for a test run in a commercial reactor. The U.S. Energy Department must ship the material overseas for conversion because there isn't a plant in the United States that can do it.
Officials want to build a facility near Aiken, S.C., but construction has been delayed. The facility is part of an agreement between the United States and Russia to dispose of 68 metric tons of plutonium.
``We're trying to get rid of this material that you could use once again in a nuclear weapon or for other types of purposes that terrorists could probably come up with,'' said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
He expressed confidence that the shipment will be safe.
``We're confident this material will be fully protected every step of the way. Each one is equipped with heavy weaponry ... and a specialized guard force. The people that are doing this have a lot of experience doing this. They're not shipping oranges.''
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Study says nuke power more competitive
(UPI)
September 20, 2004
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040920-123227-3629r.htm
Washington, DC, Sep. 20 -- Nuclear power's future might be a little brighter following Monday's release of a U.S. study showing it can compete economically with coal and natural gas.
The University of Chicago study found once initial construction costs are paid off, nuclear power plants generate electricity slightly cheaper than coal and gas-fired plants.
Using a standard called the "levelized cost of electricity" for a modern nuclear plant is $31 to $46 per megawatt hour compared to $33 to $41 MWh for coal and $35 to $45 MWh for natural gas.
The Department of Energy said in a statement the report proves nuclear power could be a competitive energy source in coming years. The report, however, warns the costs of designing and building test plants for the new technology could be a significant hurdle.
No nuclear plants have been built since the 1970s. However, nuclear power is still the second-largest source of electricity in the United States behind coal.
-------- new mexico
EPA Seeking New Yucca Radiation Standard
September 20, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Trying to overcome a possibly crippling court decision, the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to have a proposal by early next year on new radiation exposure limits at a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada.
Jeffrey Holmstead, chief of EPA's air and radiation programs, told a panel of scientists Monday that a wide range of options is being considered that would not require Congress to intervene in the politically charged issue.
The future of the waste project at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert was put into jeopardy when a federal appeals court rejected an EPA radiation exposure standard in July that was tied to 10,000 years into the future, even though some of the waste will be at its most dangerous thousands of years later.
The court said EPA failed to take into account a 1995 National Academy of Sciences recommendation that the standard be set at periods of peak-radiation, although Congress required that the recommendations be followed. Opponents of the project have argued that the design of the waste site as it is now contemplated cannot meet a standard set that far into the future.
Members of the Board of Radioactive Waste Management, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, examined at a meeting Monday the implications of the court case and possible options for future action. The board frequently offers a forum to examine waste management issues.
Robert Fri, chairman of the National Academy panel that wrote the 1995 report cited by the court, suggested the EPA satisfy the court's objections only by significantly altering its standard more in line with what his group had recommended.
That would involve going well beyond 10,000 years, but not necessarily so far into the future that risk modeling, or even the proposed Yucca design, might be useless, Fri suggested.
EPA would have to adopt a less conservative approach to determining public risks from exposure, said Fri, a scholar at the environmental think tank Resources for the Future.
Holmstead said the EPA is ``at the beginning of the process of determining what options might be'' available but would not discuss specific proposals. Going beyond 10,000 years for a radiation standard ``is a real challenge,'' he conceded.
A panel member, Norine Noonan, dean of the School of Science and Mathematics at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, asked whether EPA might assume a standard based on risk that was envisioned in the 1995 National Academy study. Holmstead said it was an option on the table with others.
After the session, Holmstead told reporters that the agency is working as quickly as it can to develop a standard to meet the court's misgivings, and it would be possible to have a standard ready by early next year.
Congress also could intervene by passing legislation to free the EPA from having to take into consideration the 1995 National Academy recommendations.
Sam Fowler, the senior Democratic staff member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told the scientists such a move could appear to the public as Congress ``trying to dumb down the standard'' for political reasons. Strong opposition to the Yucca project by Nevada's senators, a Democrat and a Republican, also would make it difficult to pass such legislation.
Whether the impasse over an acceptable radiation standard eventually could scuttle the Yucca Mountain project remains to be seen. Nevertheless, supporters acknowledge it casts serious doubt on the Energy Department's plan to open the waste site by 2010.
Trying to establish public risks tens of thousands of years into the future is a staggering undertaking, scientists acknowledged at Monday's meeting.
More than 45,000 tons of used reactor fuel already are in temporary storage at commercial power plants and defense facilities in 34 states awaiting shipment to a central repository.
``What do you do if the very best solution you can think of doesn't meet the (radiation) standard?'' environmental scholar Fri asked. ``The stuff is not going to go away.''
On the Net:
Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/index.shtml
-------- us nuc waste
Yucca, cont.
September 20, 2004
Letters to the Editor,
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040919-101715-6170r.htm
Wenonah Hauter ("Nuclear waste at Yucca," Letters, Friday) is only partly right. Spent reactor fuel, often mislabeled as nuclear "waste," can be stored safely at the reactor site - not just for five years, but much longer - until the economics are right for recycling into new reactor fuel. Isn't that what conservation is all about?
The problem is that she and her Public Citizen group have been campaigning against Yucca while claiming at the same time that there is no safe way to deal with spent fuel. Of course, Yucca is safe, but it may not be needed. Their motive is clear: They want to do away with nuclear power altogether.
S. FRED SINGER
Science & Environmental Policy Project Arlington
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Sudanese Decry U.N. Threat of Sanctions
'Resentful' Reaction Predicted in Capital
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 20, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34117-2004Sep19.html
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Sept. 19 -- Sudan said Sunday that the U.N. Security Council's resolution threatening oil sanctions if it failed to end violence in the country's western region of Darfur was unfair and would make it harder to resolve the crisis.
The council's decision would only make the country "resentful" of the United Nations, said Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, head of the ruling National Congress party. He said the international community had not recognized the government's efforts to ease the situation in Darfur, where more than 1.2 million civilians from African tribes have been driven from their homes by a government-backed Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. Thousands of people have died in the crisis, aid workers say.
Omar said the government would try to reestablish security in the region by dispatching more police forces. He also said the government would try to arrest the militiamen but emphasized that they were outside its control.
"This is unfair and unjust," Omar told reporters after meeting with the president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir, in Khartoum, the capital. "Of course, the Sudanese government is part of the international community and part of the U.N., and it will make do with the resolution. But people should know one feels disappointed. We are going to be resentful."
Other officials said the resolution also failed to credit the government for allowing humanitarian aid workers greater access to more than 150 camps to deliver food and medical treatment and for issuing visas more quickly.
"We don't need sanctions. We need a political solution," Hago Issa, a member of the National Assembly, told a U.S. delegation led by Reps. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) that was touring Darfur.
The Security Council adopted the resolution Saturday in a vote of 11 to 0, with four abstentions -- China, Russia, Pakistan and Algeria -- and said it would meet again soon to consider the sanctions against Sudan's petroleum sector. No date was set for that session.
The U.N. resolution also calls for establishing a commission to investigate whether the atrocities committed in Darfur meet the legal definitions of genocide. Sudanese officials said they would welcome the commission because they said they did not believe genocide had occurred. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said recently that the militia and the Sudanese government had committed genocide. On Saturday, the German defense minister, Peter Struck, also said that the atrocities in Darfur amounted to genocide.
"I think the Security Council slept during Rwanda," Issa said, referring to the slaughter of 800,000 people in that country a decade ago. "Now they want to make up for this by pressuring Sudan. They won't find genocide. They will find a war. These sanctions will put Sudan in a corner."
The resolution demands that Sudan accept an enlarged African Union monitoring force. Sudan had initially said it was against a bigger mission, but some officials said Sunday they were reviewing the idea.
Jackson, whose father, Jesse L. Jackson, visited the region last month, said Sudan's claim that politics and oil were driving the sanctions was "a distraction." Rep. Jackson urged the Sudanese to accept a more robust African Union force, including the addition of more than 3,000 peacekeepers. Currently, about 80 monitors and their 305-member protective force are on the ground in Darfur, an area the size of France.
"This is an opportunity for Sudan to go on the offensive and show the world its public commitment to ending the conflict," the congressman said. "The government should throw down the welcome mat. It's not a today issue or a tomorrow issue. It's an as-soon-as-possible issue. Every day that goes by only exacerbates the problem."
The U.S. delegation met with recent arrivals at the Kalma refugee camp in the southern part of Darfur who said their villages had been attacked by Janjaweed just 10 days ago. The camp has ballooned from 5,000 refugees six months ago to more than 80,000 today, aid workers said, with 3,000 arriving in the last 10 days.
-------- arms
Woman killed in Vienna as arms linked to Balkans wars explodes
VIENNA (AFP)
Sep 20, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040920132118.l86a6d7c.html
An Austrian woman was killed in an explosion in Vienna on Monday as she was about to unveil an arms cache linked to the Balkans war, the interior ministry said.
The woman's body was discovered in a car park in the city's 19th district by a local journalist who had been summoned to the scene by an anonymous caller shortly before, interior ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia told AFP.
"It looks like she was killed by a hand grenade. There were other weapons in the car next to which she had been found. They appear to have been made in Yugoslavia," he said.
The local news agency APA said it appeared the woman was killed while trying to unload the weapons from the car, which was damaged by the explosion.
Gollia said the government believed that the incident was linked to the discovery last week of a large cache of arms in the Wienerwald, a forest on the outskirts of Vienna.
"The same reporter was alerted, and secondly the arms were also made Yugoslavia," he said.
The initial find included more than 20 AK47 rifles, some 30 hand grenades, dynamite and ammunition that were stashed in garbage bags and buried under branches and foliage on the edge of the Wienerwald.
The caller who alerted the journalist from the local magazine News, reportedly said that the weapons were stockpiled at the height of the Balkans wars in the early 1990s, because there were fears that the conflict could spread to Austria.
Gollia said that on Monday morning, the reporter took police to the scene.
The police have said it is possible that there are several such arms caches in Austria.
-----
Arms smuggling in Gaza at record high
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Abraham Rabinovich
September 20, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040919-110647-1938r.htm
JERUSALEM - Palestinian efforts to smuggle arms into the Gaza Strip from Egypt have reached record levels, according to Israeli defense sources, as armed groups prepare for the possibility of internal clashes after Israel's planned withdrawal next year.
In a surprisingly detailed assessment, the Israeli sources said that in the 18 months ending in July, arms smuggled into Gaza included 4,900 assault rifles, 330 anti-tank weapons, two tons of explosives and 380,000 rounds of ammunition.
Although Egypt has stepped up its efforts to stop the flow, smuggling continues at a rapid pace, mainly through tunnels under the Philadelphi Road, which marks the border between Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
The soft earth and the increasingly sophisticated excavation methods used by the smugglers have made it difficult for both the Egyptians and Israelis, on their respective sides of the border, to keep pace. The tunnel heads are located inside houses and, thus, not easily detected.
While some organizations control tunnels of their own, most of the digging is carried out by professional smugglers who sell the weapons to the highest bidders.
So far, the Palestinians have failed in their efforts to smuggle in strategic weapons, such as Katyusha rockets whose 12-mile range would put sizeable Israeli cities like Ashkelon within reach.
Ground-to-air missiles capable of downing Israeli helicopters, which play a key role in Israel's battle with militants, have also been kept out.
In meetings with Egyptian counterparts, Israeli officials have said that if such weapons reached Gaza and were employed by the Palestinians, Israel would have to reply with massive force, inevitably leading to civilian casualties.
Egyptian security forces last week arrested eight persons who had planned to infiltrate the Gaza Strip, perhaps through a tunnel, with weapons, including an explosives belt to be used by a suicide bomber.
Egypt, which is interested in seeing a peaceful Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and in preventing fundamentalist Islamic forces from taking control there, has been pressuring Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to disband the military wing of his Fatah organization, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
The brigade has developed close ties with the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, a radical Shi'ite organization. The Egyptian government, which, in the past, has put down violent uprisings by its own fundamentalists, wants to discourage Palestinian ties with Hezbollah, which, in turn, has close links with fundamentalist Iran.
Egyptian officials also have held talks with Hamas, perhaps the strongest force in the Gaza Strip, hoping to persuade it to suspend attacks on Israel once Israeli settlements and security forces are withdrawn from Gaza.
-------- britain
Lib Dems attack Blair's Iraq wars
bbc
By Hannah Goff
20 September, 2004
http://news..co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3673322.stm
Campbell: Coalition stained The prime minister should apologise for the first Iraq war before beginning a second, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Sir Menzies Campbell has said.
His words follow Tony Blair's claim a second war was now being fought with Iraq insurgents and terrorists after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
He was reflecting party leader Charles Kennedy's call for Tony Blair to say sorry for his mistakes over Iraq.
Britain's influence had been diminished by the war, Sir Menzies told delegates.
At the very least prime minister just say sorry Charles Kennedy
"The coalition has been stained by the debauchery of Abu Ghraib and its British citizens languish in Guantanamo, shorn of legal rights and denied justice," he said in his speech to delegates on Monday.
Sir Menzies also criticised the Tories - calling them the "wobblers of Westminster" for "their conversion from cheer-leaders to critics" of the war.
Addressing a rally in Bournemouth on Sunday, Mr Kennedy called the war a "tragic folly" and the "biggest foreign policy error" since the Suez crisis.
It had left the UK's foreign policy reputation "in tatters" and eroded trust in politics in general, he said.
'Mistaken war'
"At the very least prime minister just say sorry," Mr Kennedy told delegates.
Mr Kennedy said: "Our reputation as a steady and stable force in international affairs is in tatters.
"We are no longer sure we can trust our intelligence services.
"We recoil from the loss of trust in government lawyers, former judges, senior civil servants - who have been sullied by entanglement with this mistaken war."
He said it was "too late to turn back the clock," on much of the damage, but the prime minister could at least apologise for his mistakes.
"Prime minister, why not just, even now, admit you got it wrong? Apologise? Say sorry for the damage you have done, the anguish you have caused, the wrongs that you can never now right?," Mr Kennedy said.
Earlier, at a press conference, Mr Kennedy said Mr Blair had "one opportunity left, when Parliament reassembles, to make a full and frank disclosure" of the run up to war.
In particular, the prime minister still had not answered the question of whether he had told US President George W Bush that Britain would be with the US in an Iraq war "come what may" before Parliament voted on the issue, Mr Kennedy said.
Suez
In her last speech to the conference as the party's leader in the Lords on Monday morning, Baroness Shirley Williams said the Iraq war was the "greatest blunder since Suez."
"The government cannot move on until it admits this.
"The government neglected the war on terror for a war on Iraq - a war of its choosing," she said.
The consequences of that war was a lawless Iraq that is slipping into chaos, she said adding the "terrorist menace" had grown not declined.
Mr Kennedy denied that by focusing on Iraq, he was in danger of turning his party into a "one-trick pony".
Iraq symbolised a wider breakdown in trust in Labour and politics in general, Mr Kennedy said.
Conservative defence spokesman Nicholas Soames insisted it was right to topple Saddam and to "liberate" Iraq but he was critical of post-war planning which he branded "chaotic".
-------- business
Contracts Awarded
Washington Technology
Washington Post
Monday, September 20, 2004; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34355-2004Sep19?language=printer
Future Technologies Inc. of Fairfax won a $1.9 million contract to help the Department of Housing and Urban Development determine the allocation of more than $3 billion in public-housing operating subsidies that support more than 3,100 public-housing agencies.
General Dynamics Network Systems, a division of General Dynamics Corp. of Falls Church, won a $3.6 million contract to install a voice, video and data network infrastructure for the Army at Camp Victory in Baghdad.
General Dynamics Corp. of Falls Church won the prime contractor spot on the $10 billion Warfighter Information Network-Tactical program to build a battlefield information network. Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda competed against General Dynamics and was picked to play a major subcontracting role.
Hewlett-Packard Co. of Palo Alto, Calif., won a 10-year, $290 million contract from the Defense Logistics Agency to provide data center consolidation services for the agency's Enterprise Data Center program.
M/A-Com Inc. of Lowell, Mass., won an $8.4 million contract from Cecil County, Md., to provide an interoperable communications system for the county's public safety agencies.
Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems of Reston won a $6.5 million contract from the Air Force's Electronic Systems Center to provide for the Global Broadcast Service program, the Defense Department's satellite-based system for distributing video, imagery and other large data files to users around the world. This contract modification provides for two Army Internet Protocol Theater Satellite Broadcast Manager terminals that will give theater commanders the ability to broadcast command and control information in a timely manner.
J.K. Hill and Associates Inc. of Norfolk won a $5.7 million contract from the 98th Air Base Wing to provide for base supply, fuels and logistic material control services for the Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Eagan, McAllister Associates Inc. of Lexington Park won a $36.6 million contract from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center to provide engineering and technical support services to Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance programs.
Lockheed Martin, Maritime Systems and Sensors of Manassas won a $21 million contract from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command to provide the Advanced Deployable System program office with the design and system engineering required to establish a preliminary design and an integrated baseline for the ADS variant that is to be deployed by the Littoral Combat Ship. ADS is a ship-deployable undersea surveillance system employing distributed passive acoustic arrays linked to a receiving platform for data processing.
Resource Consultants Inc. of Vienna won a $20.6 million contract from the Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Norfolk for services in support of the Naval Supply Systems Command's Hazardous Material Control and Management program.
Anteon Corp. of Fairfax won an $11.6 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command Aircraft Division to exercise an option for approximately 249,600 hours of maintenance planning and design interface technical/management support services for the Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Depot, Jacksonville, Fla.
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. of Linthicum Heights won a $2.74 million contract from the Army Materiel Command for Terahertz Imaging Focal Plane Array technologies.
Westat Inc. of Rockville won a $6.1 million contract from the Centers for Disease Control for research and development.
BBI Biotech Research Laboratories of Gaithersburg won a $2.2 million contract from the Centers for Disease Control for research and development.
Synthesis Professional Services Inc. of Rockville won a $3 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
ManTech Systems Engineering Corp. of Fairfax won a $20.5 million contract from the Navy for engineering and technical services for submarine and surface ship acoustical trials.
Collins & Co. of Arlington won a $2 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
Manila Consulting Group Inc. of McLean won a $2.1 million contract from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services for a national registry of effective programs and practices.
Alliance Contractor Team of Sterling, comprising a number of air carriers, won a $998.1 million contract from the Air Force's Air Mobility Command for international airlift services (Civil Reserve Air Fleet-CRAF.)
Delta Chemical Corp. of Baltimore won a $1.5 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers to supply liquid aluminum sulfate to the Washington Aqueduct Division in the District.
Hawkins Glass of Springfield won a $2 million contract from the Army Materiel Command to provide glass for armored doors.
Garrett Container Systems Inc. of Accident won a $1 million contract from the General Services Administration for law enforcement, security, marine craft, fire/rescue and special purpose clothing.
Universe Tech of Frederick, Engineering & Environment of Virginia Beach, JM Waller of Burke, Versar Inc. of Springfield and ICI LLC of Dumfries each won a $3 million contract from Army Corps of Engineers for a broad range of civil and military environmental and planning activities inside and outside the continental United States.
Court One Corp. of Norfolk won a $30 million contract from the Air Force Space Command for simplified acquisition of base engineering requirements.
Staff writer Judith Mbuya contributed to this report.
-------- china
Analysis
With Transition, New Uncertainty for China's Authoritarian System
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 20, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34134-2004Sep19.html
The surprise decision by China's former president, Jiang Zemin, to retire early from his last post as chief of the nation's military marks the end of a remarkable 15-year reign in which the Chinese Communist Party enjoyed unprecedented stability, and the beginning of a new period of uncertainty for the world's largest authoritarian political system.
Jiang came to power in the aftermath of the violent 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, and at the time, many experts predicted neither he nor the party he had been tapped to lead would survive for long. The rotund Shanghai engineer with thick glasses was dismissed as a transitional leader, and his party appeared on the verge of collapse, crippled by corruption, economic stagnation and popular anger.
Jiang succeeded not only in holding onto power but also in revitalizing the party, leading China into a period of historic prosperity and defying the wave of democratization that swept Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Now, by surrendering control of the People's Liberation Army instead of prolonging a contentious leadership competition, Jiang, 78, may have given the party yet another lease on life.
Leadership succession has always been a problem for the Chinese Communist Party, as it is for most authoritarian governments. The party's founding father, Mao Zedong, purged several of his designated heirs and launched the destructive Cultural Revolution to crush his enemies before he died in 1976. Its next patriarch, Deng Xiaoping, ousted two would-be successors, and a leadership split in 1989 allowed the student-led protests in Tiananmen Square to nearly overwhelm the government.
For the past two years, it appeared that the party might be destabilized by another leadership battle -- between Jiang's allies and those who supported his successor, President Hu Jintao. But by bowing out and allowing Hu to complete his rise to the top of China's ruling institutions, Jiang has made it far less likely that the rivalry will degenerate into an open power struggle that might break or paralyze the party at a critical moment.
"The most important thing for this political system has always been forming a core for the leadership," said one Chinese scholar of politics who writes reports for party leaders and spoke on condition of anonymity. "When there is a core, when there is one person at the top, the party can get by. But when there is no core, the system can break down."
Jiang is expected to continue exercising power from behind the scenes, but party officials and political analysts say his influence will be greatly diminished without any formal office. Deng remained China's paramount leader even when his only official title was head of a national association of bridge players, but he had been a famed military chief during the 1949 Communist revolution and Jiang lacks the popular respect and personal clout his predecessor enjoyed.
In many respects, Hu, 61, takes over in a far stronger position than Jiang did in 1989. The cautious technocrat enjoys deep support in the party developed over a career that has spanned nearly four decades, including a key post as the head of the influential Communist Youth League. He became general secretary of the party two years ago, then president, or the head of government, early last year. By assuming the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, he now controls the world's largest army as well.
But Hu remains surrounded by Jiang's allies both in the military and on the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, and in a sign that he has not yet won a full victory, China's official state media have not described him as the "core of the collective leadership," a key phrase that was applied to Mao, Deng and Jiang.
Even if Hu succeeds in consolidating his hold on power, he is unlikely to ever amass the individual authority that his three predecessors enjoyed, said Wu Guoguang, a political scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and a former aide to Zhao Ziyang, a Communist Party chief who was purged in 1989. In effect, he said, Jiang may have been the party's last strongman.
"The party has always been fragmented, but it is even more fragmented now because economic reforms have left Chinese society more pluralized," Wu said. "As a result, no one can be in a position like Mao or Deng or maybe even Jiang."
Cheng Li, a political scientist at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. who studies the new generation of Chinese leadership, said the rivalry between Hu's allies and a camp that supports Jiang will probably continue. As Jiang fades from the scene, his top lieutenant, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, is expected to replace him as the leader of that camp, and the group will serve as a check on Hu's power, Li said.
"Neither faction can defeat the other one. . . . Instead, decisions result from negotiation and compromise," he said. "In a way, Chinese politics has changed from strongman politics into a system with two competing camps. . . . For the near future, that makes the system more stable, because it limits the power of any one individual."
Li said the two camps represented only slightly different policy programs, with the Jiang camp advocating a bolder economic development strategy that emphasizes the booming coastal cities and the Hu camp supporting a more balanced development strategy that focuses on poorer regions. Both camps have rejected democratic reforms that might shake the party's monopoly on power.
Li said the two groups might evolve over the next decade into formal factions that openly compete against each other within the framework of the one-party system, sowing the seeds of democratic reform in China.
In the short term, though, Hu inherits a party burdened by many of the same problems Jiang confronted in 1989: widespread corruption in an organization that remains above the law, rising popular discontent aggravated by the painful transition from socialism to capitalism, and a debt-ridden, inefficient banking system that could sink the economy. Hu also faces the risk of a foreign policy crisis, perhaps involving Hong Kong or Taiwan, before he has won the full confidence of the military.
In addition, Jiang's departure might prompt new demands for political liberalization from a society that already enjoys the fruits of economic freedom. The banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, crushed by Jiang, might try to test his successors with a comeback, and there will almost certainly be fresh calls for the party to admit it erred by ordering the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which Jiang has steadfastly defended.
Over the past 15 years, Jiang and the party stayed in power by pursuing capitalist-style reforms that generated record growth while crushing any potential challengers. But just as important, Jiang succeeded in minimizing political strife inside the party and keeping the leadership united, often by playing liberal and conservative factions against each other.
Even some of Jiang's sharpest critics allowed some grudging words of respect for his last act in the name of the party on Sunday. Whether he was pushed out or stepped down voluntarily, Jiang's retirement completes the most orderly and peaceful leadership transition in more than a century of Chinese history, said one longtime Jiang critic with ties to the leadership.
"In the end, Jiang must have understood that party stability depends on Hu emerging as a strong leader with real power," said the critic, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He bought some time for the party. But how much is still hard to say."
--------
China's Ex-Leader Quits Post In Military
Jiang Completes Transfer of Power To Younger Rulers
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 20, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32797-2004Sep19?language=printer
BEIJING, Sept. 19 -- Former president Jiang Zemin resigned Sunday as the head of China's military, turning the job over to his successor as president and Communist Party leader, Hu Jintao, and completing the orderly transfer of power to a younger generation.
The resignation of Jiang, 78, announced at the close of a four-day meeting of the party's Central Committee, for the first time put Hu, 61, formally in command of all the vast party, government and military bureaucracies that rule China and its 1.3 billion people.
The shift, although important for the smooth working of the Chinese government, was unlikely to produce swift or radical changes in the way the government approaches its relations with the United States, its resolve to reincorporate Taiwan into mainland China or its effort to continue moving the nation toward a market economy while maintaining growth and social stability.
A party source said Jiang and Hu, although they do not always see eye to eye, shared basic views on the course China should follow at home and abroad. Reports of differences that have surfaced with increasing intensity in recent months had more to do with competing power bases and jockeying by proteges within the party than fundamental policy differences, he said.
As an elder statesman, moreover, Jiang remains an influential behind-the-scenes figure for key policy decisions, particularly those involving overriding national interests such as the dispute over Taiwan. But his formal departure from the leadership, giving Hu authority as military chief as well as president and party leader, removes a sometimes awkward situation in which senior officers had complained of having two lines of command.
Taiwan hailed the change as a positive development for China's foreign relations in general and its relations with Taiwan in particular. Chiu Tai-san, vice chairman of the Taiwan government's Mainland Affairs Council, told the Reuters news agency in Taipei that, in his view, Hu is more likely to pursue a pragmatic Taiwan policy that grows from consensus within the Chinese leadership.
"That will be good for the international community and for Taiwan as well," he said.
Hu took over from Jiang as party leader in 2002 and replaced him as president the following year, moving into what the Communist Party calls the fourth generation of leadership after Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang. But Jiang, a former electrical engineer and mayor of Shanghai who is said to relish the limelight, had clung to his position as chairman of the party's Central Military Commission, giving him command over China's 2.2 million-member military establishment and making him a second power center. His term would have run for another three years had he not resigned.
Despite the broad accord on fundamental issues, reports had circulated in Beijing that Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao were more worried than Jiang about those left behind in China's economic boom, particularly farmers and unemployed workers. In addition, the reports said, Jiang's language when discussing Taiwan sometimes reflected the impatience of Chinese military officers with what appears to be a stagnant situation, while Hu and Wen tended to cast their remarks in a longer-term context that some analysts regarded as more flexible.
In the secrecy that marks China's leadership, the accuracy of these reports was difficult to assess. But with Jiang still in a position of authority over the military that created ambiguity about his and Hu's relative power, they were followed carefully.
China's state-run television, which devoted its entire Sunday evening newscast to the resignation, showed Jiang and Hu walking together in the Great Hall of the People, applauded by the 198-member Central Committee to mark the moment when the ambiguity ended. A newscaster said that in his resignation letter, dated Sept. 1, Jiang expressed confidence in Hu's ability to direct the military and said he had long looked forward to full retirement "for the good of the long-term development of the cause of the party and the people."
The resignation letter and a communique issued by the committee made no mention of health problems as a reason for the resignation. Family members and acquaintances had mentioned various ailments in recent weeks as speculation mounted that Jiang planned to step down.
"I just want to say three sentences," Jiang told the committee members in a televised farewell speech. "One, I want to show my sincere thanks to the Central Committee for accepting my resignation letter. Two, I want to show my sincere thanks to the comrades for your longtime help and support. Three, I hope that you work hard and keep moving forward under the Central Committee, whose secretary is Hu Jintao, and I truly believe that our party's work will achieve even greater victories."
The communique also lavished praise on Jiang's work as head of the commission and, before that, as president and party leader after being recruited from relative obscurity in Shanghai to take over following the Tiananmen Squre crackdown in 1989. It said committee members credited him with following the ideas of Mao and Deng and, in addition, "founding the Jiang Zemin theory of defense and army building."
"Under his leadership, the national defense and army modernization process has been a tremendous success," it said.
Jiang presided over a military modernization designed primarily to enable Beijing to back up its threat to use force to reunite Taiwan with the mainland if all else failed. The modernization, focusing on such things as electronics, naval power and training, has a long way to go, however, and is likely to continue at a similar pace under Hu.
The statement also paid tribute to what party officials call the Important Thought of Three Represents, Jiang's idea that the Communist Party should represent free-market business leaders and the vanguard of new thinking as well as peasants and workers who traditionally have been its base.
"The Important Thought of Three Represents is the latest outcome of the localization of Marxism in China, as well as a fundamental guideline for the realization of the magnificent goal of a relatively affluent society in an all-round way," it added. "It must be implemented in all areas of China's socialist modernization drive and be reflected in all aspects of party building."
An Internet commentator said Sunday night that "the mass of the people are now hopeful," while suggesting that Jiang's stepping down could ease efforts by Hu and Wen to improve the lot of Chinese pushed aside by free-market reforms. Many Chinese have expressed support for Wen's gestures in that regard -- for instance, ordering that migrant workers receive back pay sometimes held by employers.
"What good news," the commentator wrote. "Dear Hu, dear Wen, our people trust you. Just do your job as you will."
Jiang's departure from the military commission and Hu's increase in authority were made more complete by the failure of Jiang's close ally, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, to be named as a commission vice chairman under Hu, or even to gain a seat. Some analysts had suggested that Jiang would seek to place Zeng as a vice chairman to perpetuate his influence.
Instead, Xu Caihou, 61, an army general, was promoted from member to vice chairman, and total membership was expanded from eight to 11. Newcomers included Vice Adm. Zhang Dingfa, the navy commander, and Qiao Qingchen, the air force commander. Both branches have received higher priority within the Chinese military under modernization efforts set in motion by Jiang in recent years.
Correspondent Philip P. Pan contributed to this report.
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Hu Takes Military Reins, Completing Shift in China
September 20, 2004
By JOSEPH KAHN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/international/asia/20china.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BEIJING, Sept. 19 - China's president, Hu Jintao, replaced Jiang Zemin as the country's military chief and de facto top leader on Sunday, state media announced, completing the first orderly transfer of power in the history of China's Communist Party.
Mr. Hu, who became Communist Party chief in 2002 and president in 2003, now commands the state, the military and the ruling party. He will set both foreign and domestic policy in the world's most populous country, which now has the world's seventh-largest economy and is rapidly emerging as a great power.
The transition is a significant victory for Mr. Hu, a relatively unknown product of the Communist Party machine. He has solidified control of China's most powerful posts at a younger age - he is 61 - than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, and is now likely to be able govern relatively unimpeded by powerful elders.
Mr. Jiang's resignation, which surprised many party officials who expected the tenacious elder leader to cling to power for several more years, came after tensions between Mr. Jiang and Mr. Hu began to affect policy making in the one-party state, some officials and political analysts said.
Mr. Jiang, 78, may be suffering from health problems, several people informed about leadership debates said. But he appeared robust in recent public appearances and was widely described as determined to keep his job - and even expand his authority - until he submitted a letter of resignation this month.
The leadership transition was announced Sunday in a terse dispatch by the New China News Agency, followed by a 45-minute broadcast on China Central Television. Mr. Jiang and Mr. Hu appeared side by side, smiling, shaking hands and praising each other profusely in front of applauding members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which formally accepted Mr. Jiang's resignation and Mr. Hu's promotion at the conclusion of its four-day annual session.
Mr. Jiang's offer to retire, which was first reported by The New York Times earlier this month, was given no advance publicity in state media. China Central Television read the text of Mr. Jiang's resignation letter on its evening broadcast, emphasizing that his resignation was voluntary. The letter was dated Sept. 1.
"In consideration of the long-term development of the party's and people's collective endeavors, I have always looked forward to fully retiring from all leadership posts," Mr. Jiang wrote, according to an official transcript of his letter. He said Mr. Hu "is fully qualified to take up this position."
Even by the strict standards of secrecy within the party, the decision about Mr. Jiang's fate was closely held. For a vast majority of the 70 million party members, not to mention the general public, there had been no indication that he was planning to retire, and his abrupt departure seems likely to increase the sense that the most important personnel decisions are made without broad consultation. Since the Communists defeated the Nationalists in a civil war and took control of China in 1949, the party has repeatedly failed to execute orderly successions. All three of the men chosen by Mao Zedong to succeed him were purged before they could consolidate power, two of them by Mao himself and the third by Deng Xiaoping after Mao's death in 1976.
Deng also anointed and then cashiered two successors. In the aftermath of the bloody crackdown on dissent in 1989, he elevated Mr. Jiang from the middling rank of Shanghai party chief to China's highest posts.
The most recent transition looked similarly compromised when Mr. Jiang maneuvered to keep control of the military in 2002. Party officials said Mr. Hu had been slated to inherit full power at that time and that his failure to control the military forced him to operate in Mr. Jiang's shadow.
But Mr. Jiang's retirement suggests that the party now operates more according to the consensus of its elite members rather than the whims of its most senior leader.
Moreover, Mr. Jiang did not appear to have extracted any special concessions as the price of his retirement. Notably, he failed to arrange for Vice President Zeng Qinghong to be elevated to the Central Military Commission. Party officials had said they expected Mr. Zeng, a longtime protégé and ally of Mr. Jiang's, to become either a regular member or a vice chairman of the commission.
On Sunday, Xu Caihou, a military officer in charge of propaganda work, was promoted to replace Mr. Hu as a vice chairman of the commission. He will serve with Cao Gangchuan, the defense minister, and Gen. Guo Boxiong.
The number of regular members of the commission was expanded to seven from four, adding representatives from the navy, air force and the unit in charge of China's nuclear arsenal.
Mr. Hu, a poker-faced bureaucrat who served most of his career in inland provinces and rarely if ever traveled outside China before he rose to the most senior ranks in the late 1990's, has sent mixed signals about how he intends to rule. He deftly handled the first big crisis of his leadership in the spring of 2003, when China faced the SARS epidemic that top health officials had initially covered up. Mr. Hu sacked two senior officials and ordered a broad mobilization to combat the disease, which was controlled within weeks.
He has sought to draw a contrast with Mr. Jiang's aristocratic image, making trips to China's poorest areas and shunning some conspicuous perks. He pledged to raise the incomes of workers and peasants and redirect more state spending to areas left behind in China's long economic boom.
"Use power for the people, show concern for the people and seek benefit for the people," Mr. Hu said in remarks early in his term as party chief. He has allowed state media to refer to him as a populist, though his rise through the ranks has not depended on popular support.
Little is known about Mr. Hu personally beyond a few random facts offered by the propaganda machine, including his enthusiasm for Ping-Pong and what is described as a photographic memory. In official settings, he is a much less colorful figure than Mr. Jiang, who crooned "Love Me Tender" at an Asian diplomatic gathering and was fond of quoting Jefferson and reciting the Gettysburg Address to visiting Americans.
It seems highly unlikely that Mr. Hu is a closet liberal. Editors and other journalists say he has tightened media controls. He has presided over a crackdown on online discussion by jailing people who express antigovernment views on the Internet.
"My general impression is that Hu is a Communist of the old mode," said Alfred Chan, professor of politics at Huron College in Canada, who is conducting a study of the new leadership. "His career has been totally shaped by the Communist system. I think many expectations of him are exaggerated because he works under the constraints of party discipline."
In a speech delivered last week, he referred to Western-style democracy as a "blind alley" for China. He has a plan for political change, but it mostly involves injecting some transparency and competitiveness within the single-party system to make officials police themselves better.
In foreign affairs, Mr. Hu deferred largely to Mr. Jiang. Mr. Jiang relished his role as a statesman and was proud of having built a nonconfrontational, sometimes even cordial relationship with the United States.
Mr. Hu is not expected to alter course substantially. But party officials say that he has tended to emphasize relations with China's neighbors and with Europe over ties with the United States and Japan.
He faces two major foreign policy tests that Mr. Jiang leaves unresolved. One involves North Korea, China's longtime ally, which American officials say is on the verge of becoming a full-scale nuclear power. Chinese officials worry that if Pyongyang formally goes nuclear, other Asian countries, notably Japan, could follow.
China is also deeply worried about how to deal with Taiwan under President Chen Shui-bian, who many here believe intends to move the island, which China claims as its sovereign territory, toward independence.
Mr. Jiang steered China toward a tougher rhetorical and military posture toward Taiwan, even as the Bush administration expanded military aid to the island. Mr. Hu has not shown any signs of changing course, but some analysts say he may experiment with a more flexible approach if he does not have to worry about having his nationalist credentials second-guessed by Mr. Jiang.
Mr. Hu and Mr. Jiang did not publicly spar. But there were signs that their relationship had become strained. Mr. Jiang rejected a framework for China's emergence as a great power that Mr. Hu supported. The policy framework, known by the slogan "peaceful rise," was dismissed by Mr. Jiang as too soft when China was threatening Taiwan with military force.
Mr. Hu and his prime minister, Wen Jiabao, have also had to battle internally to curtail wasteful state spending and cool the overheated economy. Some regional leaders are thought to have looked to Mr. Jiang as a counterweight to Mr. Hu because they see the elder leader as a champion of fast economic growth supported by heavy state investment.
"It may be that Hu will no longer have to worry that Jiang will contest his decisions, and that could make decision-making smoother," said Frederick Teiwes, an expert on elite politics at the University of Sydney.
Some people who have visited Mr. Jiang or spoken with his relatives say he has suffered health problems lately, offering one possible explanation for his unexpected retirement.
But Mr. Jiang is also thought to have come under heavy pressure within the party, and even within the military, to follow the example of Deng and withdraw from public life before health problems force him to do so. Mr. Hu also made a veiled call for Mr. Jiang to step aside when he lavished praise on Mr. Deng's decision to retire early during ceremonies to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the late leader's birth in August.
Chris Buckley contributed reporting for this article.
-------- iran
NEIGHBORS
Iran Is Helping Insurgents in Iraq, U.S. Officials Say
September 20, 2004
By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/20iran.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have raised sharp complaints in recent days that Iran is providing support for the insurgency in Iraq, expressing concerns over what they say are Iran's attempt to shape Iraq's future.
Pentagon, State Department and military officials, describing intelligence reports that are fueling those concerns, say money, weapons and even a small number of fighters are flowing over the border from Iran to assist Shiite insurgents commanded by Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel cleric. But there is no consensus on the exact scale of Iranian activities.
Mr. Powell, in an interview with the editors of The Washington Times released by the State Department on Friday, said that Iran was "providing support" for the insurgency but that the extent of its influence was not clear. Most of the insurgency, he added, was "self-generating" and drawing support from indigenous sources.
Mr. Rumsfeld, speaking Tuesday during a visit to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., said, "We have no doubt that the money comes in from Syria and Iran and undoubtedly other countries as well." He also cited reports that a shoulder-launched, antiaircraft missile had been smuggled into Iraq from Iran.
Bush administration officials, in addition to their charge that Iran is supporting the insurgency, described new concerns that Iran is financing medical clinics, hospitals and social welfare centers in Iraq, especially in areas where the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and American forces are not in control.
"Now that these folks are starting to provide services that should be provided by the Iraqi government, their purpose is to provide a political base to extend Iran's influence in Iraq," one administration official said.
Such support is seen in Washington as akin to Iran's support for Hezbollah, the organization in Lebanon that runs social welfare centers and carries out attacks on Israel.
The extent of Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents has been debated within the administration since last spring, American officials said. While blaming outside support could be viewed as a convenient explanation for a tenacious insurgency, officials who spoke of the intelligence from Iraq made clear that the most serious threats to security there remained home-grown: Iraqis still loyal to Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Shiite militants and criminals, although the effects of foreign influence and foreign terrorists remain significant.
Administration and military officials say financial support from Iran is especially vital in allowing Mr. Sadr to challenge the new Iraqi leadership and the American military.
Mr. Sadr still can attract fighters from among the tens of thousands of disenfranchised, poor Shiite youths. But Pentagon and military officials say he has alienated the business class of Shiite moderates in southern Iraq, where the economy was disrupted by the fighting to dislodge his forces.
"He is not popular in Karbala and Najaf," said one senior military officer. So the money from Iran is critical in keeping Mr. Sadr's movement alive, officials say.
Weapons smuggled into Iraq from Iran are also a concern, but officials note that Iraq remains awash anyway in Baathist-era automatic rifles and domestic military ordnance.
In a new assessment of the changing face of the Iraqi insurgency, Pentagon and military officials now speak of what appears to be a small but worrisome alliance with Iraq's Sunni insurgents - mostly loyalists to Mr. Hussein's ousted government and Hussein-era military officers - who may be offering tactical combat training to the Sadr militia.
Senior military officers cite reports that a small number of Sunni insurgents have assisted Mr. Sadr's militia with explosives and sniper training.
Although the Sunni minority fears Shiite majority control of a unified Iraq, the new reports of cooperation indicate that the Sunni insurgency in a triangle of central and north-central Iraq is aided by Shiite fighters tying down thousands of American soldiers in the Najaf region.
"There are alliances of convenience," a partment official said.
Iraqi leaders, including Dr. Allawi and Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan, have contended in past public statements that Iran is providing weapons and material support to Mr. Sadr. Shiite clerics run Iran, and Shiites make up most of Iraq's population. But Dr. Allawi, asked in an interview with ABC News whether Iranians were causing trouble in Iraq, responded in a more tepid fashion.
"Well, we don't know," Dr. Allawi said, according to a transcript of the full interview provided by the ABC News program "This Week." "There are some people, some elements, who are coming and still are coming from Iran into Iraq." Dr. Allawi, who will travel to the United States this week in his first visit as acting prime minister, said the issue was of sufficient concern that he sent a deputy to meet with Iran's president and foreign minister.
For its part, Iran has denied accusations of interference in Iraq's affairs, repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all American-led forces from Iraq and officially invited Dr. Allawi to visit. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency, reporting Saturday on the arrival of Iraq's first ambassador to Iran since 1980, when the two countries began an eight-year war, said Dr. Allawi's visit would be a "positive step."
Some Bush administration officials remain skeptical of the extent of Iranian actions. Even Mr. Powell has noted that, while some limited support for Mr. Sadr is likely, Iran would not necessarily want to support a group like Mr. Sadr's, which also sees itself as a rival to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq. Mr. Sistani was born in Iran and has strong links to its clerical leaders.
"There are reasons for them to cooperate with one another and there are strong reasons why there is a limit to that cooperation," Mr. Powell said in the Washington Times interview.
Mr. Powell also said the administration was concerned about support for Iraqi insurgents from Syria. That concern was raised with Syrian leaders on a recent trip to Damascus by two administration officials, William J. Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and Peter W. Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs.
-------- iraq
Why We Cannot Win
by Al Lorentz
September 20, 2004
LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/lorentz1.html
Before I begin, let me state that I am a soldier currently deployed in Iraq, I am not an armchair quarterback. Nor am I some politically idealistic and naïve young soldier, I am an old and seasoned Non-Commissioned Officer with nearly 20 years under my belt. Additionally, I am not just a soldier with a muds-eye view of the war, I am in Civil Affairs and as such, it is my job to be aware of all the events occurring in this country and specifically in my region.
I have come to the conclusion that we cannot win here for a number of reasons. Ideology and idealism will never trump history and reality.
When we were preparing to deploy, I told my young soldiers to beware of the "political solution." Just when you think you have the situation on the ground in hand, someone will come along with a political directive that throws you off the tracks.
I believe that we could have won this un-Constitutional invasion of Iraq and possibly pulled off the even more un-Constitutional occupation and subjugation of this sovereign nation. It might have even been possible to foist democracy on these people who seem to have no desire, understanding or respect for such an institution. True the possibility of pulling all this off was a long shot and would have required several hundred billion dollars and even more casualties than we've seen to date but again it would have been possible, not realistic or necessary but possible.
Here are the specific reasons why we cannot win in Iraq.
First, we refuse to deal in reality. We are in a guerilla war, but because of politics, we are not allowed to declare it a guerilla war and must label the increasingly effective guerilla forces arrayed against us as "terrorists, criminals and dead-enders."
This implies that there is a zero sum game at work, i.e. we can simply kill X number of the enemy and then the fight is over, mission accomplished, everybody wins. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We have few tools at our disposal and those are proving to be wholly ineffective at fighting the guerillas.
The idea behind fighting a guerilla army is not to destroy its every man (an impossibility since he hides himself by day amongst the populace). Rather the idea in guerilla warfare is to erode or destroy his base of support.
So long as there is support for the guerilla, for every one you kill two more rise up to take his place. More importantly, when your tools for killing him are precision guided munitions, raids and other acts that create casualties among the innocent populace, you raise the support for the guerillas and undermine the support for yourself. (A 500-pound precision bomb has a casualty-producing radius of 400 meters minimum; do the math.)
Second, our assessment of what motivates the average Iraqi was skewed, again by politically motivated "experts." We came here with some fantasy idea that the natives were all ignorant, mud-hut dwelling camel riders who would line the streets and pelt us with rose petals, lay palm fronds in the street and be eternally grateful. While at one time there may have actually been support and respect from the locals, months of occupation by our regular military forces have turned the formerly friendly into the recently hostile.
Attempts to correct the thinking in this regard are in vain; it is not politically correct to point out the fact that the locals are not only disliking us more and more, they are growing increasingly upset and often overtly hostile. Instead of addressing the reasons why the locals are becoming angry and discontented, we allow politicians in Washington DC to give us pat and convenient reasons that are devoid of any semblance of reality.
We are told that the locals are not upset because we have a hostile, aggressive and angry Army occupying their nation. We are told that they are not upset at the police state we have created, or at the manner of picking their representatives for them. Rather we are told, they are upset because of a handful of terrorists, criminals and dead enders in their midst have made them upset, that and of course the ever convenient straw man of "left wing media bias."
Third, the guerillas are filling their losses faster than we can create them. This is almost always the case in guerilla warfare, especially when your tactics for battling the guerillas are aimed at killing guerillas instead of eroding their support. For every guerilla we kill with a "smart bomb" we kill many more innocent civilians and create rage and anger in the Iraqi community. This rage and anger translates into more recruits for the terrorists and less support for us.
We have fallen victim to the body count mentality all over again. We have shown a willingness to inflict civilian casualties as a necessity of war without realizing that these same casualties create waves of hatred against us. These angry Iraqi citizens translate not only into more recruits for the guerilla army but also into more support of the guerilla army.
Fourth, their lines of supply and communication are much shorter than ours and much less vulnerable. We must import everything we need into this place; this costs money and is dangerous. Whether we fly the supplies in or bring them by truck, they are vulnerable to attack, most especially those brought by truck. This not only increases the likelihood of the supplies being interrupted. Every bean, every bullet and every bandage becomes infinitely more expensive.
Conversely, the guerillas live on top of their supplies and are showing every indication of developing a very sophisticated network for obtaining them. Further, they have the advantage of the close support of family and friends and traditional religious networks.
Fifth, we consistently underestimate the enemy and his capabilities. Many military commanders have prepared to fight exactly the wrong war here.
Our tactics have not adjusted to the battlefield and we are falling behind.
Meanwhile the enemy updates his tactics and has shown a remarkable resiliency and adaptability.
Because the current administration is more concerned with its image than it is with reality, it prefers symbolism to substance: soldiers are dying here and being maimed and crippled for life. It is tragic, indeed criminal that our elected public servants would so willingly sacrifice our nation's prestige and honor as well as the blood and treasure to pursue an agenda that is ahistoric and un-Constitutional.
It is all the more ironic that this un-Constitutional mission is being performed by citizen soldiers such as myself who swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, the same oath that the commander in chief himself has sworn.
September 20, 2004
Al Lorentz [send him mail] is former state chairman of the Constitution Party of Texas and is a reservist currently serving with the US Army in Iraq.
----
2 Senior Clerics Are Killed in Iraq; Hostage Deadline Passes
September 20, 2004
New York Times
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/international/middleeast/20CND-IRAQ.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 20 - A prominent group of anti-American Sunni clerics said today that two senior members had been murdered in Baghdad in the previous 24 hours, raising questions about whether violence between Shiite and Sunni Arabs was on the rise.
The group, the Muslim Scholars Association, said one of the slain, Hazem Muhammad al-Zeidi, was kidnapped from the Sajjad mosque by gunmen after prayers on Sunday night. The mosque is in the middle of Sadr City, an impoverished Shiite neighborhood. Two bodyguards were also taken with Mr. Zeidi, said Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abdul-Jabbar, deputy spokesman for the association.
Mr. Zeidi's body was found near his mosque today, and his two bodyguards were released, Sheikh Abdul-Jabbar said.
The other victim, Sheikh Muhammad Jadoa al-Janabi, was shot dead today as he entered a mosque for noon prayers, the sheikh added. The mosque was in the middle of the Baya neighborhood, a mostly Shiite area.
"We're not accusing anyone, but we want to address the criminals and tell them that you will not break our unity," the sheikh said in a prepared statement. "If you have killed Hazem, you will find thousands of Hazems."
One of two American engineers being held hostage was beheaded today by his kidnappers after a deadline came and went, according to news services and CNN. News reports said a videotape of the beheading was posted on the Internet.
The victim was identified by Reuters, The Associated Press and CNN as Eugene Armstrong.
On Saturday, a group called One God and Holy War, led by a Jordanian militant named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, released a video of the two Americans and a Briton, all blindfolded, and said the three hostages would be killed within 48 hours if the occupation forces did not release women held in prisons at Abu Ghraib and Um Qasr.
American military officials have said they are holding two Iraqi women suspected of working on weapons programs for Saddam Hussein, but that the two women are not at either prison.
On Sunday, a group identified as the Army of Ansar al-Sunna posted a grisly Internet video showing the beheadings of three Kurdish truck drivers. In a written statement, the group accused the leaders of the two main Kurdish parties of working for Jews and Christians and said it was teaching them a lesson.
More than 135 foreign workers have been kidnapped since the uprising in April. Most have been freed, but several have been killed. Among those murdered are Nicholas Berg, an American businessman, and Kim Sun-il, a South Korean translator, both supposedly beheaded by One God and Holy War.
The whereabouts and conditions of two Italian humanitarian workers and two French journalists, taken hostage in separate incidents and by different groups, remain unknown.
Al Jazeera reported this evening that a militant group had released 18 members of the Iraqi National Guard. The group, the Brigades of Muhammad bin Abdullah, had demanded the release by the Iraqi government of Hazem al-Aaraji, a prominent aide to the firebrand anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Aides to Mr. Sadr asked the group today to release the national guardsmen, but also warned the captive Iraqi soldiers against working with the occupation.
The group to which the two slain Iraqi clerics belong, the Muslim Scholars Association, is the most organized political Sunni Arab organization in the country and has been outspoken in denouncing the American-led occupation and the interim Iraqi government. In April, during an uprising across western and southern Iraq, the group organized aid for the besieged insurgent-controlled city of Falluja and acted as a mediator to free foreign hostages kidnapped by various groups.
The association says it knows the military wing of the resistance but has no direct ties to fighters, though others contend it actually has enormous control over parts of the insurgency.
"We want to implement security procedures to safeguard mosques and clerics, but the Americans and the Iraqi government won't allow us to do that," Sheikh Abdul-Jabbar said. "They won't give us permits to carry weapons."
The American military said a soldier from the First Infantry Division was killed in an ambush near the town of Ash Sharqat while on patrol this afternoon. At least 1,033 American soldiers have died since the start of the war.
The military said today that it carried out an airstrike at 2 p.m. against "heavy construction equipment" being used by insurgents to build "fortified fighting positions" on the outskirts of Falluja. American officials did not give a casualty count, but The Associated Press quoted doctors in the city as saying two people were killed and three wounded. Those killed were municipal workers using a bulldozer, the doctors said.
Wire reports said a car bomb exploded in the northern city of Mosul, killing two people inside the car and a bystander.
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THE MILITARY
Effort to Train New Iraqi Army Is Facing Delays
September 20, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/20army.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - Three months into its new mission, the military command in charge of training and equipping Iraqi security forces has fewer than half of its permanent headquarters personnel in place, despite having one of the highest-priority roles in Iraq.
Only about 230 of the nearly 600 military personnel required by the headquarters, from lawyers to procurement experts, have been assigned jobs with the group, the Multinational Security Transition Command, military officials in Washington and Iraq said. One officer said the military's Joint Staff had given the armed services until Oct. 15 to fill the remaining jobs, but other officials said those people might not actually be in place until weeks later.
The effect of the headquarters' shortages on the actual training of Iraqi forces is hard to measure, military officials and reconstruction specialists say. But at the least, the gaps mean fewer people to lobby Washington for resources, coordinate with Iraqi officials and get money and equipment into the hands of trainers around the country. Despite recent attacks on Iraqi security forces and their facilities, American officials say Iraqis in search of work are still signing up in large numbers.
Senior military officials in Washington and in the Persian Gulf region say the delay in filling the headquarters jobs stems from the Pentagon's methodical - critics say plodding - approach to establishing a new organization with the extremely complex mission of preparing more than 250,000 members of the Iraqi police, border patrol, national guard and army units for duty.
"It takes time to build these new organizations and to man them," said one military official who has been briefed on the personnel requirements of the group's commander, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus. "The bureaucracy of the process is necessary but time consuming."
Frederick D. Barton, a senior adviser at the Center of Strategic and International Studies here and one of the authors of a new report that assesses Iraqi security and reconstruction measures, said, "The fact that Petraeus, who is really the poster boy for doing things quite well over there, is still building his team shows that this doesn't have that urgency that you've got to have."
Mr. Barton, a former senior United Nations official overseeing refugee affairs, disclosed the shortfalls at a seminar here on Iraq last week, citing an American official in Iraq as the source of the information. Military officials in Washington and Iraq later confirmed the statistics.
Chronic personnel shortages in the headquarters of L. Paul Bremer III, the former senior American administrator of Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former American ground commander in the country, hampered their ability to oversee reconstruction and security missions, military officials said.
To ensure that training and equipping Iraqi forces continues apace, General Petraeus, one the Army's most highly regarded officers, has gone to extraordinary lengths to borrow top lawyers, training experts and other specialists from the Pentagon, West Point, American commands worldwide and even from British forces in Iraq, to tide him over until his permanent staff arrives. He is also relying on civilian contractors, officials said.
General Petraeus's efforts are deemed so important that Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, are personally monitoring the command's staffing levels, and ensuring that it gets first-rate temporary help until permanent staff members arrive, military and Pentagon officials said. For example, one of General Myers's top military lawyers is on loan to General Petraeus for six months.
But some lawmakers and reconstruction specialists have criticized the Pentagon's approach, arguing that the train-and-equip mission in Iraq is too important and too urgent to be left to wend its way through the cumbersome military bureaucracy. Those officials say the Pentagon's handling of the headquarters staffing matter reflects serious flaws in how the administration is tackling the increasingly difficult problem of providing security and stability in Iraq.
"This is a damn joke," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee who met with American commanders in Iraq in late June, said in a telephone interview. "Petraeus and the military guys aren't the problem. They know what they need. But there's no sense of urgency in this administration."
Pentagon and State Department officials deny that accusation and insist that training and equipping Iraqi forces to assume more and more responsibility for their country's security is a top priority for the administration and necessary before the 140,000 American forces in Iraq can begin withdrawing.
These officials say the training of Iraqi forces is moving ahead well. "We're making good progress," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told soldiers last week at Fort Campbell, Ky. "They've had some bad setbacks when they weren't fully trained or fully equipped. But for the most part, they are doing a darned good job as their chain of command system is developed."
But on Sunday, four Senate Republicans - Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; John McCain of Arizona; and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - criticized the administration for the problems facing American troops in Iraq.
"We're in trouble, we're in deep trouble in Iraq," Mr. Hagel said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation."
The training of Iraqi security forces has become a central issue ahead of the Iraqi election, scheduled for January, and the American election in November. Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers said earlier this month that the American strategy to retake rebel-held strongholds in Iraq, especially in the so-called Sunni triangle north and west of Baghdad, would rely on training and equipping enough Iraqis to take a lead role.
But General Myers said the Iraqis would not be ready until the end of the year to join American forces in any assault against the rebel havens and then keep the peace afterward. Some administration officials express concern that if significant parts of the Sunni areas cannot be secured by January, it may be impossible to hold a nationwide election that would be seen as legitimate.
The administration said last week that it would shift $1.8 billion from reconstruction projects to law enforcement and security, principally to train and equip an additional 80,000 police officers, border guards and soldiers, and build facilities for them.
As violence increases across Iraq, military officials here report growing tensions between Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and General Petraeus.
Dr. Allawi wants more Iraqi security forces and wants them more quickly, but General Petraeus, mindful of the Iraqis' woeful performance in April against an insurgents in Falluja and Najaf, wants to give them more training before they hit the streets. So far, General Petraeus's view has prevailed, officials said.
Dr. Allawi is said to be eager to get Iraqi troops into battle, and at a recent tour of the American-sponsored training facilities near Baghdad International Airport, he watched as Iraqi recruits drilled.
Evidently pleased, Dr. Allawi told the recruits that their work was just beginning. "There will be battles coming, and we will destroy the enemy," he told the Iraqi soldiers standing before him. "Whatever you need, let me know."
General Petraeus, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, assumed his new job in June. He works closely with the Iraqi Defense and Interior Ministries, as well as with the American commanders whose troops are conducting much of the training.
Last week, the Army Reserve announced that 800 soldiers from the 98th Division, based in Rochester, N.Y., would be sent to Iraq during the next nine weeks to assume a lead training role. It will be the unit's first overseas deployment since World War II.
General Petraeus inherited a smaller organization when he took over, and he has had to build a broader headquarters largely from scratch. Troops with particular specialties were identified for yearlong tours, and in some cases activated from the Reserve or National Guard.
Commanders in Iraq say General Petraeus's headquarters has provided crucial help in cutting through bureaucratic delays. "They were very helpful in getting us a battalion set of equipment that in the past would have taken much longer to get," Col. Michael Rounds, who commands the Army's Stryker brigade in northern Iraq, said in a telephone interview from Mosul.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi security forces are growing steadily. As late as this summer, Mr. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials frequently boasted that the Iraqi ranks had swelled to more than 200,000. Since early August, however, Mr. Rumsfeld has been careful to note that only about half of those forces are sufficiently trained and equipped.
American officials and commanders praised the performance of the Iraqi commando battalion, counterterrorist force and two so-called interventional battalions that fought last month in Najaf against loyalists to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
"Their capabilities are still uneven, but they're improving as we arm and equip them better, improve their infrastructure, give them additional training, and help them weed out the weak leaders," one American general said. "Nothing's quick in Iraq and nothing's easy."
Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article.
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Israel Launches Airstrike in Gaza City
September 20, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/international/middleeast/20CND-MIDEAS.html
JERUSALEM, Sept. 20 - An Israeli airstrike tonight in Gaza City, the second in as many days, killed two militants in the Islamic faction Hamas and wounded at least six bystanders, Palestinians said.
The Israeli military said the attack was made on "a vehicle carrying two Hamas terrorists who were on their way to launch a rocket attack."
Israel has carried out frequent raids against Palestinian factions in Gaza, and has targeted Hamas in particular. Hamas is responsible for most of the rocket fire directed at Israeli communities just outside Gaza's perimeter fence.
The wounded included a father and three of his children who were near the street when the missile slammed into the jeep carrying the two men in the southern part of the city, Palestinian witnesses reported.
Palestinian security officials removed two automatic rifles from the mangled vehicle, The Associated Press reported, citing Palestinian security officials.
A day earlier, Israel killed killed another Hamas man, Khaled Abu Selmiya, in a similar airstrike in another part of Gaza City. Israel said Mr. Selmiya was instrumental in building Hamas' homemade Qassam rockets.
Hamas said it would respond to Mr. Selmiya's killing, and two rockets were fired today from Gaza toward Israeli towns just outside Gaza's fence. However, the rockets did not cause any casualties, Israeli authorities said.
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, told his cabinet on Sunday that the security forces would continue to hit at the Palestinian factions in the period before his planned withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza.
"We see the preparations, we see the organizing" by the Palestinians, Mr. Sharon told his ministers, according to a statement released by his office.
In the West Bank, Palestinian gunmen carried out the execution-style killings of two fellow Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Israeli security forces.
One of the men, Fadel Odeh, was driven to a public square in the town of Tulkarm. Masked men placed him in the square and shot him repeatedly with automatic rifles in a killing witnessed by hundreds of people, including schoolchildren, according to Palestinian journalists in the town.
The bullet-riddled body of the second man, Amjad Ajaj, was found outside Tulkarm, the journalists said.
The Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a faction loyal to Yasir Arafat, claimed responsibility for the killings in a leaflet. The statement alleged that the two men provided information to the Israelis that led to the killings of Palestinian militants in recent years.
The two men, both in their 20's, were seized about two weeks ago in their village of Saida, outside Tulkarm, residents said.
Palestinian militants have killed dozens of suspected collaborators during the past four years of Mideast fighting. Israel has a large network of informants and uses them to help track down Palestinian militants.
In another development, a senior Palestinian security official, Maj. Gen. Abdel-Razek al-Majaida, said the Palestinians would be sending 45 security officers to Egypt this week to receive training in preparation for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Egypt has offered to help train the Palestinian security forces, which are in disarray and have been unable to maintain order in Gaza. The plan initially called for the Egyptian trainers to come to Gaza, but with the ongoing violence in the territory, the Palestinians will be going to Egypt, at least for now.
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Palestinian police carrying weapons despite Israel's ban
haaretz.com
By Amos Harel
September 20, 2004
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/479149.html
Senior Palestinian security officials informed Israel Defense Forces officers recently that they have authorized some of their men to carry guns, despite an Israeli prohibition on this. The Palestinian officials apparently fear the response of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fatah's military wing, more than they fear Israel's reaction to noncompliance with the ban.
About a month ago, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz agreed to the army's recommendation to enab