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NUCLEAR
Nuclear comeback stokes terror fears
Rowland Nethaway: Let's use nuclear power
Tokyo Electric Shuts Nuclear Reactor After One Day (Update2)
TUC hosts nuclear power debate
Sellafield's £600m nuclear fuel factory faces closure before opening
SARDINIA: HEALTH COMMISSION, YES TO URANIUM INVESTIGATION
War syndrome 'will not be solved'
Iran Ready to Negotiate Enrichment Halt Length
Iran May Suspend Some Nuclear Activities
N. Korea's No. 2 Encourages Nuke Dialogue
'N Korea holds nuclear weapons'
Brazil and UN Try to Solve Nuke Impasse
U.N. Nuclear Inspectors Arrive in Brazil
UN inspectors seek access to Brazilian nuclear plant
Blair in secret deal to host US missiles
Boost-Phase Defense Not Effective For Protecting US: New Study
Prime Minister Martin says the Defence Department will get more money
Ukraine Markets Chernobyl Ghost City Tour
If You Want to Test a Nuke, Vienna's Watching
Wash. Voters to Wrestle With Waste Measure
Effect of Waste Vote, Not Outcome, Is at Issue
MILITARY
New Afghan Army a Match for Taliban, U.S. Says
Sudan's Darfur 'safer than Iraq'
Turkish FM denies plan to buy tanks from Germany: report
Britain Denies Troops Plan to Help Bush
No. 10 did not tell truth about Iraq, says diplomat who quit
Libyan mustard gas plant may be converted into pharmaceuticals factory
U.S. Buyers of Hussein's Oil Acted to Assist Iraq
U.S. asks Britain to move troops
As U.S. Forces Pound Fallujah, Fighting Rages on City's Edge
Iraqi PM to extend arms-for-cash scheme nationwide
Iraqi Officials Plan to Extend Buying of Arms
Deadly mortar attack marks end to failed Mehdi Army weapons exchange
Killing Drives Wedge Between Troops
Soldiers fear that they are 'sleeping with the enemy'
A War Without Reason
Settlers Say Israel Leader Rejects Vote on Pullout
Sharon Says Nothing Will Stop Gaza Plan
Official warns of Gaza upheaval
Israelis Kill 5 Palestinians
'When we came back they had destroyed all the houses'
Presbyterian Church May Pressure Israel
NATO chief starts tour of Central Asia
Brazil Signs Space Agreement With Russia
War in Iraq Did Not Make World Safer, Annan Says
U.S.: Too Early to Tell Iraq Unit's Fate
Unit balked at unarmored trucks
General Reported Shortages In Iraq
Japan committed to reducing U.S. military presence
The Reserve Mutiny How the Iraq war is crippling the Army Reserve.
Iowa police donate body armor to troops
Pentagon Rewards Abu Ghraib Accomplices
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Court to Consider Shackling Defendants
Intelligence reform before election looks unlikely
Poll: Antiterror tech plans are flawed
Northwest Plane Evacuated in Fargo, N.D.
Israeli Security Thrust Flouts Human Rights
Group: Israel Violating International Law
Police Show Strain From Endless Alerts
Troopers train with non-lethal weapon
Ex-Gitmo detainees return to terror
Ex-Guantánamo Bay workers claim prisoner abuse was widespread
Zarqawi militia joining al Qaeda
Sweeping win for Belarus leader
Belarus Says Vote Allows President to Run Again
Dalai Lama says Tibet is better off within China
Bush Signs $33 Billion Security Budget
S.C. hopefuls vow to fully arm troops
Sept. 11 widows slam Bush's anti-terror record
Colorado combats voter fraud
ENERGY
FedEx to Build 2nd - Largest U.S. Private Solar System
OTHER
Standoff in Congress Blocks Action on Environmental Bills
ACTIVISTS
Hundreds Protest as Belarus Leader Sweeps Election
N.J. Mom Vows to Keep Protesting Iraq War
Tahiti crisis sparks mass protest
-------- NUCLEAR
Nuclear comeback stokes terror fears
International Herald Tribune By Katrin Bennhold October 18, 2004 http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/10/17/news/nuke.html
PARIS With uncertainties increasing about supplies of natural gas and oil, nuclear energy is making a powerful global comeback, prompting concerns about atomic terrorism in the post-Sept. 11 era.
A number of countries around the world, from China to Finland and the United States, are gearing up to build new reactors as demand for electricity grows. Governments are also viewing nuclear power as a way to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, given intensifying concern over global warming.
But the prospect of an atomic renaissance is raising the uncomfortable question of whether an expansion of nuclear power is compatible with the fight against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
"Neither politics nor technology has an answer to this question right now," Gerard Stoudman, director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy, said in an interview at a recent international conference on homeland security.
"It's really bad timing," said Alain Marsaud, president of the domestic security group in the French Parliament.
"We're coming to the end of the economic use of fossil fuels at a time when terrorists are trying to get their hands on nuclear material or target nuclear infrastructure," Marsaud said in an interview at the conference, which was held in Geneva. "If the world is condemned to use more nuclear power, it will be a real challenge."
With 439 reactors operating in 31 countries around the world, nuclear power accounts for about 16 percent of global power production today, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And with demand for electricity expected to increase almost fivefold over the next five decades, the agency says reactor capacity could quadruple by 2050.
The Far East is projected to lead worldwide growth over the next two decades, more than doubling its output.
Experts at the UN energy agency cite three risks in the expansion of nuclear power: theft by terrorists of weapons-grade plutonium stripped out from radioactive waste during reprocessing; an attack on a nuclear installation or transport convoy; and, as suspected with Iran and North Korea, an attempt by countries developing a nuclear power sector to build weapons with the same technology.
"If you have more nuclear material in the world, you have a higher proliferation risk - it's a truism," said Alan McDonald, a nuclear expert at the agency. But with demand for electricity increasing across the globe, he added, nuclear energy remains important despite the risks.
Signaling the nuclear revival, 31 reactors are currently under construction worldwide. China plans to add 32 nuclear power plants to its existing 11 by 2020, while India, currently with 14 plants, aims to triple its reactor capacity over the next eight years.
Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, Romania and Argentina are all in the process of adding to nuclear capacity as well.
Finland recently commissioned the first new plant in Western Europe since 1999. France - the biggest per-capita user of nuclear energy in the world - is planning to build one shortly (the site has not yet been chosen), and British officials are softening their language on nuclear energy.
Loyola de Palacio, the European Union's departing energy commissioner, said last month that the EU would have to retain the option of building up its nuclear capacity. "With the challenge of climate change, the EU cannot avoid nuclear energy for the foreseeable future," she said.
Even in the United States, where no new reactor has been built since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, the nuclear industry is stirring - not least because of encouraging noises from the Bush administration.
Twenty-six U.S. plants have received 20-year extensions of their operating licenses and 18 others have applied for extensions at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, after the administration streamlined the relicensing process.
Three plant operators, Exelon, Dominion and Entergy, have asked the commission to approve sites for future reactors, although no concrete plans for building them have been announced yet. And Westinghouse, architect of nearly half of the world's nuclear power plants, had its design for a plant known as the "advanced reactor" approved by the commission on Sept. 13.
The industry, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, America's nuclear industry group, is at the starting gate.
"We are positioning ourselves for the fact that over the next decade our country will need a lot more electricity," Kerekes said. The goal for the industry, he said, is to raise its share of American electricity generation from the current 20 percent to 24 percent over the next 15 years. If natural gas prices keep rising, it will become economical to pay the hefty price - about $3 billion each - of building new nuclear plants, he said.
The risk of terrorists targeting nuclear infrastructure was made plain on Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, Western policy makers, from President George W. Bush to the EU's security chief, Javier Solana, have explicitly made the fight against nuclear terrorism a priority. Bush has said that Americans' "highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction." His Democratic challenger in next month's presidential election, Senator John Kerry, put it this way in a speech in June: "No material. No bomb. No terrorism."
At nuclear plants in many countries, 9/11 has led to stricter security requirements. In the United States since the terror attacks, plant owners will have spent an extra $1 billion by the end of this year on more restrictive access controls, heavily armed guards, additional training for their security personnel and vehicle checks in an enlarged perimeter around the reactors to avoid truck bombs.
According to Wolfgang Kröger, a nuclear engineer and vice president of the International Risk and Governance Council, an independent foundation with headquarters in Geneva, the danger of terrorists targeting nuclear infrastructure or transport vehicles has been played up by opponents. "There are a lot of much simpler ways to do damage and kill people," he argues.
But with most of the projected growth in nuclear power taking place in the developing world, where safety measures may not match the same standards, concerns are growing.
Perhaps the greatest worry circulating in national defense departments and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels is the development of nuclear weapons on the back of civilian energy programs.
This dilemma goes to the heart of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, of which the International Atomic Energy Agency is the guardian. In addition to nuclear disarmament, the treaty commits its 184 signatories to police and control the proliferation of nuclear material and at the same time obliges nuclear powers to offer nuclear technology to others for electricity generation.
But as one senior diplomat at NATO put it: "You cannot artificially separate the civilian from the military aspect - everyone here is aware of that. As such, you also cannot separate the debate on nuclear proliferation from the debate on alternative sources of energy."
Every state that has sought to develop a nuclear weapons program since the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty came into effect in 1970 has done so on the back of civilian power or nuclear research programs - from Israel to India and Pakistan and, according to its government, North Korea.
The motivation for building nuclear weapons has increased with the spread of nuclear power, as countries view neighbors' stockpiles of civilian material with suspicion. To justify its weapons program, North Korea cites the five tons of radioactive material now stockpiled in Japan.
The International Atomic Energy Agency wants to curb proliferation by securing the nuclear fuel cycle with a process called fuel leasing, McDonald said. Rather than exporting enrichment or reprocessing technology to newcomers, the agency maintains, nuclear powers should export lightly enriched uranium, which cannot be used to make a bomb, and subsequently take back the radioactive waste, which contains plutonium.
But opponents say the proposal is flawed for two reasons: It would lead to the regular transport of radioactive material across the globe, potentially tempting terrorists. And it risks meeting public opposition in Europe, where the issue of radioactive waste has been one of the main reasons for public skepticism toward nuclear energy.
"These solutions don't stand up in the real world," said Mike Townsley, director of communications for Greenpeace International. "You'd get shipments crisscrossing the planet every week, and I think you'll find that people in the U.K. or Russia would not tolerate an influx of radioactive waste.''
--------
Rowland Nethaway: Let's use nuclear power
WACO (TEXAS) TRIBUNE HERALD
BY ROWLAND NETHAWAY
October 18, 2004
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=609&u_sid=1232491
Americans need to get over their irrational fear of nuclear power.
Without nuclear power or a miracle breakthrough in a cost- effective alternative energy source, Americans can look forward to a steady erosion in their quality of life.
The price of oil will go up and down, but demand for oil has nowhere to go but up.
Every impoverished, under-developed nation wants to improve the lives of its citizens, a moral imperative supported by U.S. foreign policy. The move from under-developed to developed means greater energy demands.
With China and India, the world's two most populous nations, on the road to becoming economic powerhouses, demand for oil pushes upward, escalating the price of gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil and millions of everyday petrochemical byproducts.
Conservation can offer some immediate relief to the demand for energy. Research and development of alternative energy is a long shot, but it should be a national priority in the same way that the government funds cancer research.
All fossil fuels - oil, coal and natural gas - present environmental problems because they emit a variety of polluting com- bustion byproducts that include carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas.
Nuclear power can produce as much energy as the nation needs. Electricity from nuclear plants could produce reliable supplies of hydrogen or other alternative fuels and even produce fresh water from oceans.
In addition, nuclear power does not pollute the air with combustion byproducts.
The problem is that Americans fear nuclear power after Three Mile Island (which hurt no one) and Chernobyl.
The United States has stopped building nuclear power plants, but it still has more than 100 working plants that operate safely and efficiently.
There are risks, of course, but they are manageable. The day may be coming when we must choose between lowering our quality of life, polluting the environment or living with the remote risk associated with new nuclear power plants.
-------- accidents and safety
Tokyo Electric Shuts Nuclear Reactor After One Day (Update2)
(Bloomberg)
Oct. 18, 2004
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=accl0Oha5fC0&refer=japan
-- Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia's largest power producer, halted a nuclear reactor, less than a day after it restarted, because a control valve didn't open fully.
Tokyo Electric stopped operations at the 1,100-megawatt, Fukushima Daini No. 4 reactor located in Fukushima prefecture at 8:37 a.m. local time on Sunday, said spokesman Katsuya Uchino.
The Tokyo-based utility brought the reactor back online at about 10 a.m. on Saturday. It had been shut since October 2002 to check for cracks in pipes.
Tokyo Electric admitted in August 2002 that it falsified repair reports and hid cracks at its nuclear reactors for at least a decade, to avoid shutdowns that would halt power generation.
Tokyo Electric brought its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa No. 6 reactor into full operation on Oct. 15. The 1,356-megawatt reactor was shut in July for planned checks.
The company shut the Fukushima Daiichi No. 5 reactor on Oct. 13. The local government of Fukushima asked Tokyo Electric to replace a pipe at the 784-megawatt reactor before scheduled inspections next month.
Nine of the utility's 17 reactors are in operation.
To contact the reporter on this story: Meggan Richard in Tokyo at mrichard3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Langan at plangan@bloomberg.net.
-------- britain
TUC hosts nuclear power debate
bbc
18 October, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/3751306.stm
The TUC says policy makers need to face up to tough choices More nuclear power stations may need to be built in Wales as the UK's gas and oil stocks diminish, trade unionists have been told in Cardiff on Monday.
The Wales TUC is staging a conference in the city to address the future energy needs of the nation.
Speakers have warned that failure to act now could spell disaster for workers, communities and businesses.
But Friends of the Earth Cymru says Wales' energy needs can be met through renewable sources.
There is increasing doubt about whether renewable energy generation such as wind farms can meet our future energy needs Derek Walker, TUC
The conference, entitled 'Could the Lights Go Out in Wales?' is being supported by npower and the Trade Unions for Safe Nuclear Energy (TUSNE).
Speaking ahead of the gathering at Cardiff's Angel Hotel, Derek Walker, the Wales TUC's head of policy and campaigns, said the aim was to outline the tough choices facing policy makers.
"The UK will soon become a net importer of gas and oil," he said.
"However, the sources of gas and oil will be from some of the world's most unstable countries where security of supply and price may not be guaranteed."
Energy deficit
Mr Walker said there needed to be a diverse energy supply and, at this stage, nuclear energy should not be discounted as part of the solution.
"Global energy demand is likely to double over the next 50 years," he added.
"There is increasing doubt about whether renewable energy generation such as wind farms can meet our future energy needs, resulting in a potential energy deficit.
"Decisions on just how we fill that deficit will need to be made quickly and this conference will be a major contributor to that debate."
Among those taking part on Monday will be Malcolm Grimston, senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, who has argued the case for replacing the UK's retiring nuclear plants.
He said nuclear power currently accounts for just under 25% of the electricity generated in the UK and most nuclear stations will reach the end of their lives in the next 20 years or less.
Off-shore wind farms
"Unless replacements are ordered soon, the proportion of electricity generated in nuclear stations may fall to just 3% by 2020," he said.
But Neil Crumpton of Friends of the Earth Cymru told the Politics Show on BBC1 on Sunday renewable energy could meet all of Wales' electricity needs in the future.
"We can produce about 30% of Wales electricity by 2012 just with existing policies and off-shore wind farms in Liverpool Bay," he said.
"We have tidal lagoons in the Seven Estuary and Liverpool Bay than could generate more (electricity) than Wales consumes."
--------
Sellafield's £600m nuclear fuel factory faces closure before opening
The Guardian
October 18, 2004
Paul Brown and Rob Evans
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1329787,00.html
A nuclear fuel plant that has so far cost the taxpayer more than £600m without generating any income may be shut down.
An inquiry by Sir John Bourn, the head of parliament's watchdog, the National Audit Office, following a Guardian investigation, has revealed that the option of closure is being discussed within the government. It could mean that the factory at Sellafield in Cumbria, known as the mox plant because it makes new nuclear fuel from mixed oxides of plutonium and uranium, is shut down before it completes its first contract. But Sir John also found that closure would cost a significant extra amount of public money.
In July the Guardian revealed that Tony Blair had overruled warnings from ministers that the factory would be a financial disaster when he ordered the plant to start production. Serious technical problems have meant that the plant, now eight years behind schedule, has not yet produced a single saleable item.
Sir John reveals that costs have shot up by £225m, piling up the debts of the already technically bankrupt, state-owned British Nuclear Fuels.
The inquiry was launched at the instigation of Michael Meacher, the former environment minister. While in the government, Mr Meacher had advised against opening the plant, but was overruled by Mr Blair.
Mr Meacher said yesterday: "It is astonishing that the government is in the position of considering closing the plant before it has produced anything. The situation is far worse than I thought."
In a report, Sir John says that "any decision on the future of the [plant] will involve a choice between continuing to operate and closure". He adds that "a decision to close immediately would incur large costs, including contractual penalty payments to customers".
BNFL has claimed that it could win enough orders to make the plant financially viable, but has only been able to land two contracts.
Sir John reports that BNFL continues to claim that it will be able to secure enough contracts to keep the plant going: "Furthermore, their assessment indicates that it would be much more expensive to close the plant immediately than to continue operating."
The plant is intended to reuse plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear fuel rods from overseas power stations, to produce new fuel for these stations. The DTI said it was assessing the improvement programme for the mox plant and deciding whether the technical problems could be overcome.
Sir John's report says it is "likely" that the government will review the future of the plant when it takes over direct responsibility for it in April.
At that point, BNFL's rising debts could embarrass the Treasury, which has anticipated a large income from the mox plant to fund Britain's nuclear clean-up. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which will come into existence in April to take charge of the clean-up of Britain's nuclear waste mountain, has been told by the Treasury that half its annual £2bn costs should come from income from Sellafield's mox plant and associated reprocessing works.
-------- depleted uranium
SARDINIA: HEALTH COMMISSION, YES TO URANIUM INVESTIGATION
(AGI)
October 18, 2004
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200410131959-1235-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia
- Cagliari - The health commission of the Sardinian Regional Council has unanimously approved the resolution that gives the go-ahead to the investigation into the effects of depleted uranium on the island. From next week the hearings will begin with representative associations and citizens committees, unions of towns substantially involved in military operations and those responsible for military health. The commissioners have been given a fat dossier that, besides press articles, contains the results of investigations in Sardinia near firing ranges and those coming from the Mandelli parliamentary commission. The aim of the investigation, which will be undertaken by the commission for a number of months, is to check if there is an objective responsibility for the higher levels of deaths and suspect cases in the zones close to military firing ranges and if the Sardinia region has not been informed of certain particulars concerning the military presence on their island. (AGI) Cli/Rob/Cog 131959 OTT 04
--------
War syndrome 'will not be solved'
bbc
18 October, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3752140.stm
Some 6,000 Gulf veterans have suffered from various complaints The causes of "Gulf war syndrome" are still not known and probably never will be, experts believe.
Some 6,000 veterans have suffered unexplained poor health since the 1991 war, including depression and tumours.
But weeks before an inquiry is due to report and after a leak of a US probe said chemicals were to blame, UK experts said the cause was a mystery.
And Simon Wessely, director of the Gulf War Research Unit, claimed scientists may never understand the problem.
He said: "It is 14 years since the war and we have learnt a fair amount since then.
He added: "There are huge areas that remain unclear and I am afraid I suspect they will always remain unclear."
Illnesses
Prof Wessely, who is also professor of epidemiological psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said he could not comment on reports that a US inquiry had found the syndrome did exist and was caused by toxic chemicals.
Prof Wessely refuses to use the term syndrome but accepts the veterans have experienced a higher number of illnesses.
He said: "I am completely certain that there is no single cause."
The Ministry of Defence, which does not recognise the syndrome as a medical condition, saying the symptoms are too varied to be considered part of a wider syndrome, has also refused to comment on the US findings.
Controversy has surrounded so-called Gulf war syndrome since veterans began to experience more ill health than military personnel who had served in previous and subsequent conflicts.
Rockets containing sarin set for destruction Personnel received vaccines against biological weapons threats
While veterans have not experienced more heart disease or cancer, the levels of general ill health, including mood swings, memory loss, lack of concentration and night sweats, have been 20% higher.
Some have blamed the high number of vaccines and medication given to the armed forces to protect them against a variety of illnesses, including anthrax.
Others have suggested it was caused by chemicals, such as pesticides and nerve agents, or exposure to depleted uranium which was used in weapons.
Vaccines
But UK researchers have dismissed the theories.
Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium munitions, said the exposure would have been "too low".
And Professor Mark Peakman, from Guy's, King's and St Thomas's School of Medicine, who has done research on the effect of vaccines, said he did not believe the multiple vaccines administered were to blame either.
However, he admitted the theory that vaccines and chemicals interacted in some way "still lurks".
Shaun Rusling, vice chairman of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, accused the scientists of having "cold hearts" and "closed minds".
"The US has been far more advanced at looking in to this. The clinical scientific evidence is irrefutable.
"The US study said it wasn't caused by the stress of fighting the war but the chemicals we came into contact with.
"It is disgusting the British government and scientists don't admit this."
The Gulf war syndrome inquiry, funded by anonymous donors and headed by former judge Lord Lloyd of Berwick, is due to unveil its findings in the next few weeks.
-------- iran
Iran Ready to Negotiate Enrichment Halt Length
October 18, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html?oref=login
TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it was willing to negotiate with European nations the length of its uranium enrichment suspension but will never renounce its right to carry out the process, which can be used to make atom bombs.
``If they (the EU trio) want to negotiate about tactics such as how long Iran will suspend uranium enrichment for, then these are negotiable,'' Hassan Rohani, secretary general of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told state television.
``But if the issue is to stop Iran from pursuing its right, our representatives are not even allowed to have talks about these issues with anyone,'' Rohani said.
The European Union's top three powers Britain, Germany and France are expected to present a proposal to Iran this week aimed at convincing the Islamic state to give up its pursuit of uranium enrichment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned Tehran it could be reported to the United Nations Security Council if it has failed to halt all enrichment activities by the time of the next IAEA board meeting on Nov. 25.
Washington says Iran's nuclear program is geared to producing nuclear weapons. Tehran says it wants to master the full nuclear fuel cycle to provide fuel for atomic reactors that generate electricity.
Although it is not enriching uranium at present, Iran has gone back on an earlier promise to the EU trio to halt related activities such as the manufacture and assembly of enrichment centrifuges.
Iran insists its suspension of enrichment is ``temporary and voluntary.'' Rohani again said on Monday that the suspension would only be ``for a short time.''
``It is not acceptable for us for someone to tell us that it's okay for European countries or the United States to have the fuel cycle and nuclear power plants but that Iran cannot,'' Rohani said.
Rohani, Iran's chief negotiator on the nuclear issue, reiterated that Tehran believed its nuclear dossier at the IAEA should be closed.
``We have answered all the questions which the inspectors asked. We have nothing more to say,'' he said.
``If Iran's case is not closed in November it will harm the IAEA's reputation more than it will harm Iran because then the whole world would know that the IAEA is under pressure from some countries such as the United States.''
--------
Iran May Suspend Some Nuclear Activities
October 18, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran said Monday it is prepared to temporarily suspend some nuclear activities but would not surrender its right to enrich uranium.
The remarks by the country's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, came just as the three major European powers were expected to offer Iran a package of economic incentives in hopes of persuading Tehran to abandon uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons and reactors.
The move by Britain, France and Germany, expected this week, is designed to head off a confrontation between Iran and the U.N. nuclear agency, where the United States has been arguing that Iran has secret plans to build atomic weapons.
``From a tactical point of view, discussion on how long to continue suspension (of some nuclear activities) is negotiable,'' Rowhani told state television Monday.
``But if the discussion is about depriving us of our legitimate right (to manage the cycle of nuclear fuel), it's not negotiable. Our negotiating team is not authorized to discuss this either with Europeans or others,'' Rowhani said.
Any suspension of nuclear activities would have to be for ``a short period,'' he said. He did not specify what activities Iran would suspend.
Iran says its nuclear program is devoted entirely to electricity generation. Its first nuclear reactor, built with Russia assistance, is due to come on stream next year.
But the country has come under intense international pressure to halt uranium enrichment.
Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency unanimously passed a resolution demanding that Iran freeze all work on uranium enrichment and related activities, such as uranium reprocessing and the building of centrifuges used for enrichment.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog is due to meet Nov. 25 to judge Iran's compliance. An unsatisfactory judgment could put Iran at risk of U.N. Security Council sanctions.
Iran has already defied the IAEA resolution by continuing to build centrifuges and by converting a few tons of raw uranium into hexafluoride gas, a stage before enrichment.
Iran has branded the IAEA resolution as illegal and says the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty entitles it to enrich uranium.
``We have some red lines. We have some principles. And we won't give up our principles,'' Rowhani said. ``It's unacceptable for us that we are told Europeans and Americans have the right to manage the cycle of nuclear fuel and possess nuclear power plants, but Iran doesn't.''
Rowhani said Iran had done all it could do to remove doubts about its nuclear program.
``We have provided the IAEA with all the information required to remove ambiguities and answered all the questions which the inspectors asked,'' he said.
-------- korea
N. Korea's No. 2 Encourages Nuke Dialogue
October 18, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-NKorea.html
BEIJING (AP) -- North Korea's No. 2 leader said Monday that his country still wants to settle the dispute over its nuclear program through dialogue, as China tried to cajole the North back into stalled six-nation talks, calling for flexibility by all sides.
Kim Yong Nam began a visit to Beijing on Monday amid of flurry of efforts to restart the talks on Washington's demand for the North to give up its nuclear ambitions. Participants missed a September deadline for holding a new round after the North refused to take part.
``The situation of the Korean Peninsula is still complicated, but the North Korean side would like to find a peaceful solution of the nuclear issue through dialogue,'' state television quoted Kim as telling his Chinese counterpart, Wu Bangguo.
The report didn't say, however, whether Kim was referring to the six-nation talks, which also include host China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The United States is pressing the North to give up its nuclear program and allow international inspections. The North wants aid in exchange. Japan and South Korea have offered fuel, but it isn't clear whether that would satisfy the North, which has demanded security guarantees and is believed to be hoping for diplomatic relations with Washington.
Wu told Kim that settling the dispute was the ``common wish'' of the international community, state television said.
``Although the process of the talks has at present encountered some problems, I believe the talks can go on if every party shows sincerity, patience and flexibility,'' Wu was quoted as saying during the meeting at the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China's legislature.
The newscast did not give any more details of their talks.
Kim is also scheduled to meet Chinese president Hu Jintao this week.
Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to visit Japan, China and South Korea next weekend in a possible attempt to arrange a new round of talks. But it appears increasingly unlikely that it will take place before the U.S. presidential election in November.
China's ambassador for the nuclear dispute, Ning Fukui, visited South Korea last week to discuss ways to restart the talks. He later traveled to Washington, where he met senior U.S. officials.
Kim is head of the Presidium of North Korea's parliament, second in line behind North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Kim Yong Nam acts as his country's ceremonial head of state.
China is North Korea's last major ally and biggest aid donor, but has told other governments that it has only limited influence over Kim Jong Il's isolated dictatorship.
Also Monday, Kim Yong Nam visited Beijing's Zhongguancun district, the center of China's high-tech industry, and toured a 4-year-old government enterprise set up to foster development of new technology companies.
The North Korean leader received a briefing on the company and the surrounding technology park, located in an area that Beijing has dubbed ``China's Silicon Valley.''
China has hosted a series of such visits by Kim Jong Il and other North Korean leaders to study Chinese economic reforms in hopes that the North might try to revive its decrepit centrally planned economy by allowing similar changes.
North Korea has set up a fledgling software industry, which held a trade show in Beijing in 2002, though it isn't clear how effective it has been at developing marketable products.
--------
'N Korea holds nuclear weapons'
The News International
October 18, 2004
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/18-10-2004/main/main13.htm
TOKYO: North Korea has already completed the development of plutonium-based nuclear weapons with the help of Pakistan, a senior Japanese official said in comments published on Sunday.
The remarks by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda represent the first time a Japanese official has confirmed North Korea's claim to have manufactured nuclear weapons, the Sankei Shimbun said.
"North Korea is near finalising development of nuclear weapons," Hosoda told a ruling party meeting in the western town of Shimane on Saturday, the Sankei said. Pyongyang has not finished developing uranium-based nuclear weapons, but has completed the development of a plutonium bomb similar to the one dropped by the United States on Nagasaki at the end of World War II, Hosoda said.
"It is urgent to make (North Korea) abandon them," Hosoda said, without giving any evidence to back up his claims. Hosoda said North Korea and Pakistan had cooperated in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. "It is disgraceful," he said.
-------- latinamerica
Brazil and UN Try to Solve Nuke Impasse
October 18, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-brazil.html
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - The United Nations and Brazil moved on Monday to break a months-long deadlock over inspections to verify Latin America's largest nation is not diverting enriched uranium for weapons.
U.N. nuclear experts met officials from the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission and other nuclear-related bodies in Rio de Janeiro before Tuesday's visit to the Resende plant in Rio state, where enrichment can only begin with U.N. approval.
Odair Dias Goncalves, president of the government's commission, said the International Atomic Energy Agencyteam would verify if Brazil's latest proposal for inspections being confined to parts of the new plant would guarantee adequate control over nuclear nonproliferation.
``We are very optimistic that they will accept (our proposal),'' Goncalves told reporters. ``Then in a couple of weeks they will send inspectors and hopefully we'll start commissioning the plant. That would take about 6 months.''
The United States believes Brazil wants only peaceful nuclear power programs. But it has pressed its ally to break the deadlock and avoid setting an example to Iran and North Korea, which it believes have defied the IAEA to develop bombs.
Brazil has insisted it needs to protect its intellectual and technological property from possible industrial espionage and would not allow future inspections to see the centrifuges where uranium is enriched.
Brazil, home to the world's fourth largest reserve of uranium, says its enrichment operations will be entirely peaceful and also very small compared to other countries. The country has two nuclear reactors and is mulling a third.
The first enrichment unit of the Resende plant needs a green light from IAEA to start working.
Brazil has so far refused to allow what the IAEA sees as adequate access to centrifuges at Resende.
MORE FLEXIBLE
Goncalves said the IAEA has become more flexible and was no longer demanding ``total and unrestricted access.''
But the IAEA said earlier it needs a certain amount of direct access to the centrifuges so it can know how fast they spin to purify the uranium, along with other details to check that all the uranium going into the plant is accounted for.
A diplomat in Vienna who follows the IAEA said on condition of anonymity said that although there is no deal yet, the agency's experts ``hope to reach a deal while they're there.''
Inspectors were not available for comment as negotiations on nuclear safeguards are classified information.
Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel in nuclear power plants or in weapons. Weapons-grade uranium is normally about 20 times more enriched than fuel.
A prominent nuclear analyst has said the IAEA is also concerned that a Pakistani scientist who supplied sensitive nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea may also have worked with Brazil.
Brazil dismissed the allegation as having ``no coherence'' and the IAEA played down the comments.
--------
U.N. Nuclear Inspectors Arrive in Brazil
October 18, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Brazil-Nuclear.html
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- A top Brazilian official said Monday that United Nations nuclear inspectors were no longer insisting on unrestricted access to the country's uranium enrichment facilities.
Odair Dias Goncalves, president of Brazil's National Nuclear Energy Commission, said he hoped the International Atomic Energy Agency's new position would help resolve a dispute over the country's plans to enrich uranium.
``The agency has agreed that it is possible to put safeguards in place without total and unrestricted access,'' Goncalves said at news conference.
The comments from Goncalves were the first official confirmation of such an agreement between the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and Brazil, which has for months rejected calls to allow inspectors to conduct a full visual inspection of the centrifuges at the nuclear facility in Resende.
Three high-level IAEA inspectors arrived Monday in Rio de Janeiro and planned to visit the plant in Resende, about 60 miles northwest of Rio, on Tuesday. Goncalves said the IAEA inspectors would not comment during to the press during their visit, as is customary.
Uranium enriched to low levels is used for fuel to generate power. More highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium can be used in nuclear warheads. Brazil denies it is building such arms.
Brazil had cited fears that the Resende plant's advanced technology could be stolen by other countries if outsiders were allowed to view it.
Brazil says it has developed new electromagnetic technology that reduces friction in the centrifuges and makes them 30 percent more efficient than those used in other countries.
Some analysts have suggested, however, that Brazil will not allow inspectors full access because it purchased the technology on the nuclear black market -- a charge the government denies.
Goncalves said he expects the inspectors to approve the alternative inspection system and send another team shortly to approve the plant's design -- a move that would allow Brazil to begin enriching uranium.
Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that Brazil and the IAEA were working on an alternative inspection plan that would assure inspectors that no enriched uranium is being diverted abroad or refined to weapons-grade levels.
``We want the IAEA safeguards,'' Campos said in an exclusive interview published Monday. ``We want to facilitate their work, but we want to do so in an alternative manner -- something that wasn't our previous proposal, nor full visual inspection.''
At a September meeting in the IAEA's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Brazil proposed that the agency could inspect the tubes leading to and from the centrifuge, but not the centrifuges themselves, Campos said.
The weekly news magazine Veja, citing an unidentified government official, said the new Brazilian proposal would allow inspectors a partial view by slightly lowering the six-foot panels that surround the centrifuges.
--------
UN inspectors seek access to Brazilian nuclear plant
(AFP)
Oct 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041018182509.6nrmrtfn.html
RIO DE JANEIRO - Three UN nuclear experts on Monday discussed terms with Brazilian officials for the inspection of a nuclear facility to which Brazil has refused access for fear of revealing trade secrets.
The inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), already locked in a battle with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, arrived at the Rio de Janeiro office of the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) early Monday.
On Tuesday, they are to visit the Resende nuclear plant in Rio state where Brazil wants to enrich uranium.
Brazil, which has one of the world's largest uranium reserves, denied IAEA inspectors access to the facility in February and March.
The South American nation opposes a visual IAEA inspection, claiming it has a novel method of enriching uranium that it wants to protect.
"This uranium enrichment process is extremely efficient because it saves a lot of energy," Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos told Folha de Sao Paulo in an interview published Monday.
"We do not believe it to be necessary (for inspectors) to visualize the physical format of the centrifuges and the way they are supported on the floor," Campos told the daily.
IAEA inspectors want to ensure that Brazil is respecting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei has said Brazil should not be an exception to the organization's norms.
Uranium enrichment makes fuel for civilian reactors but can also be used to make the explosive core of atomic bombs. The IAEA is mandated under the NPT to make sure member states do not divert nuclear material for military purposes.
The US government said in April that it was confident Brazil was not developing nuclear weapons.
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed Brazil's nuclear program with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and said Washington had no proliferation worries.
In contrast, the United States has accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and the IAEA has set a November 25 deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities and answer all questions about its nuclear ambitions.
Campos rejected any comparison between Brazil and Iran or North Korea, which kicked inspectors out of the country in 2002 and claims to have a nuclear weapon.
"There is no Iran syndrome" in Brazil, he said in an interview published Monday in Correio Braziliense. "There is no atomic mystery. Brazil does not represent a nuclear threat."
CNEN's spokesman, Luis Machado, told AFP the IAEA inspectors had asked that their names not be released and that no press conference was planned.
Resende's centrifuges would produce 60 percent of the needs of the Angra I and Angra II electric power plants located 180 kilometers (110 miles) south of Rio, according to Brazilian plans. They would produce two million kilowatts of power.
"Monday we will discuss the technical details for the inspection of the three IAEA technicians," Laercio Vihnas, a top official at CNEN, said Friday.
"Tuesday there will be a visit at the Resende plant to check whether the practical application of these technical details is possible," he said.
-------- missile defense
Blair in secret deal to host US missiles
Scotsman.com
JIM PRIDE
18 Oct 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1209532004
TONY Blair faces the threat of a back-bench revolt over a secret deal to base US "Son-of-Star Wars" missiles on British soil.
The Prime Minister has already sanctioned the use of UK radar stations in the programme, which will protect America from nuclear attack, despite opposition from his own MPs.
Now Mr Blair appears to have gone much further, giving an "agreement in principle" to host batteries that would shoot down weapons fired at the US.
The pact was reportedly brokered back in May on the condition it remained secret until after the forthcoming general election.
Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence insist the final decision on basing missiles in Britain has not yet been made. "This is a decision for the future when the US system has further evolved," a MoD spokesman said. However, that echoes the initial government response to reports that British radar stations would be involved in the programme, reports later confirmed by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary .
Critics fear the programme will further embolden Mr Bush as well as raising the risk of a terrorist attack on Britain.
Half of the parliamentary Labour Party signed a Commons motion in 2001, tabled by the Aberdeen North MP, Malcolm Savidge, condemning any UK involvement in the project.
Last night, Mr Savidge predicted fresh unrest on the back benches over a decision to deepen British commitment. "Hosting missiles takes it much further. There will be considerable concern that we seem to be increasingly sucked into the Bush administration's agenda.
"A lot of people across the country, as well as in the party, will be concerned if, as I suspect, Star Wars has always been seen by those advocating it, not as a defensive strategy, but something behind which the US can pursue an increasingly aggressive pre-emptive strategy, like Iraq."
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, voiced "grave concern" over the development, which he said would have major long-term implications for the UK.
He said: "The House of Commons needs to be fully informed with a proper debate in which the government sets out its objectives and its reasoning. That debate will only be properly informed if the government does not hide behind 'national security'. We should not have to hope for freedom of information legislation in the United States to enable us to be properly informed."
Gerald Howarth, the shadow defence minister, said the government had "consistently kept parliament and the public in the dark about its intentions".
"We suspect they do not want a debate because any policy of stationing such defensive weapons on UK soil will be met with hostility from Labour backbenchers," he said. "This appears to be another case of government deceit."
A missile shield to protect the US and its allies from long-range attack was initially envisaged by former Republican president Ronald Reagan, and Mr Bush has pledged, if re-elected, to spend around $10 billion to realise his dream.
Work has already started on a £449 million upgrade to RAF Fylingdales, north Yorkshire, to make it part of the programme. At this point, however, the government has only confirmed it will allow the US to use early-warning radar at the base.
Sixteen interceptor missiles are currently being located by the US in Alaska and California. The intended location of the remaining 24 is secret, but the Pentagon is known to want to station more in Europe.
In August, the Danish government signed a deal to allow a radar base in Greenland to be used, but the US did not ask to place missiles there.
The UK agreement to host missiles apparently came three months earlier, when British embassy officials met Pentagon and state department officials in Washington.
Ministers are said to be confident they can win public backing for the project. They will insist the US has respected two "red lines" - that the system is strictly defensive, and that it will cost the UK taxpayer nothing. Mr Blair will argue Britain has been given an extra line of defence at no cost and point to the willingness of east European countries to take part.
But none of this will persuade Labour MPs such as left-winger Diane Abbott. "It is another example of how we appear to be in the pocket of America," she said. "We have no national interest in having American missiles on British soil."
--------
Boost-Phase Defense Not Effective For Protecting US: New Study
(SPX)
Oct 18, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-04zf.html
College Park MD - Intercepting missiles while their rockets are still burning would not be an effective approach for defending the U.S. against attacks by an important type of enemy missile. This conclusion comes from an independent study by the American Physical Society (APS) into the scientific and technical feasibility of boost-phase defense, published in the latest issue of the APS Reviews of Modern Physics.
President Bush has expressed confidence in US missile defense programs, which are currently planned to include boost-phase defenses as well as other defensive measures, and plans to spend $10 billion on the effort in 2005.
Senator Kerry supports the development of a missile defense system that works and is fully tested, but he has questioned the Bush Administration's extraordinarily strong focus on such a system at the expense of more vigorous attempts to halt the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Boost-phase defense (disabling ballistic missiles while their rockets are still burning) has received much attention as one possible element of a National Missile Defense system. However, the report shows that issues of timing severely limit the feasibility of this approach.
The short time window available for disabling an enemy missile means that interceptor rockets would have to be based close to enemy territory to have a chance of intercepting the missile in time, if it is possible at all.
The study found that defending the United States against solid-propellant ICBMs would be impractical in many cases, because of their short burn times.
According to the U.S. intelligence community, countries of concern could deploy such ICBMs within 10 to 15 years, about the same time the study judged would be required for the United States to field a boost-phase defense against ICBMs.
Even against the longer burning liquid-propellant ICBMs that North Korea or Iran might initially deploy, a boost-phase defense would have limited use due to the requirement that interceptors be based close to potential missile flight paths.
Only two to three minutes would be available to achieve a boost-phase intercept, even assuming substantial improvements in systems for detecting and tracking missiles, according to Study Group findings.
Consequently, even fast interceptors could have difficulty catching liquid-propellant ICBMs and would be unable to catch solid-propellant ICBMs in time.
In the most optimistic scenarios, the defense would have only seconds to decide whether to fire interceptors and could be required to make this decision before knowing whether a rocket launch were a space mission or a missile attack, the group finds.
However, boost-phase defense against short- or medium-range missiles launched from ships off U.S. coasts appears technically possible, provided ships carrying interceptors could stay within about 40 kilometers of the threatening ships.
"This report takes a detailed look at the technical issues involved in creating such a system," said APS President Helen Quinn.
"The study group includes scientists and engineers with experience and expertise in a range of missile-related areas. The study provides a reasoned basis for public discussion of the capabilities and limitations of this approach to missile defense. APS is proud to contribute this work for the information of policy makers and the general public."
The APS Study Group looked at boost-phase defense systems utilizing land-, sea, or air-based interceptors, space-based interceptors, or the Airborne Laser.
The effectiveness of interceptor rockets would be limited by the short time window for intercept, which requires interceptors to be based within 400 to 1,000 kilometers of the possible boost-phase flight paths of attacking missiles.
In some cases this is closer than political geography allows. Even interceptors that were very large and fast and that pushed the state of the art would in most cases be unable to intercept solid-propellant ICBMs before they released their warheads.
A system of space-based interceptors, also constrained by the short time window for intercept, would require a fleet of a thousand or more orbiting satellites just to intercept a single missile. Deploying such a fleet would require a five- to tenfold increase in the United States' annual space-launch capabilities.
The Airborne Laser currently in development has the potential to intercept liquid-propellant ICBMs, but its range would be limited and it would therefore be vulnerable to counterattack. The Airborne Laser would not be able to disable solid-propellant ICBMs at ranges useful for defending the United States.
"Few of the components exist for deploying an effective boost-phase defense against liquid-propellant ICBMs and some essential components would take at least 10 years to develop," said Study Group co-chair Daniel Kleppner.
"According to U.S. intelligence estimates, North Korea and Iran could develop or acquire solid-propellant ICBMs within the next 10 to 15 years. Consequently, a boost-phase defense effective only against liquid-propellant ICBMs would risk being obsolete when deployed."
Although a successful intercept would prevent munitions from reaching their target, live nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads could strike populated areas short of the target in the United States or in other countries, shows the study. This "shortfall problem" is inherent in any boost-phase defense and difficult to avoid.
--------
Prime Minister Martin says the Defence Department will get more money
Canadian Press
Oct 18, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1845&ncid=737&e=1&u=/cpress/20041018/ca_pr_on_na/missile_defence_vote
OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Paul Martin says the Defence Department will get more money even as its expenditures are examined.
All government departments will undergo line-by-line review of expenditures as "an essential part of good management," he said Monday. However, the Liberals will live up to an election campaign promise to increase overall military spending, he said.
On another defence matter, he said the Commons will vote on the controversial U.S.-led missile defence program.
However, the vote won't commit the Liberals to any decision on participating in the U.S. plan. It will be more symbolic of co-operation the minority government is trying to build with opposition parties.
Martin dismissed the significance of the vote, saying he had already shown support for a Commons debate on the issue.
"If you take a look at my own speech in the House on that issue, I essentially said that . . . we're very open to debate," Martin said before a meeting in his Parliament Hill office with the prime minister of Burkina Faso.
Liberals were believed to be wary of a Commons vote because it would expose deep divisions toward Americans within the minority caucus and present an opportunity for more MPs to vent anti-Americanisms that could damage relations with the United States.
A few weeks ago, Defence Minister Bill Graham indicated that a vote was unlikely because the federal government retained sole authority for national defence and treaties with other countries.
However, sources in two parties said Sunday that Martin appears to have come around to the idea of a vote after a week of negotiations with Conservatives, the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP.
-------- ukraine
Ukraine Markets Chernobyl Ghost City Tour
Kiev, Ukraine (UPI)
Oct 18, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-civil-04v.html
Cash-strapped Ukraine is generating foreign currency reserves by commercializing the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster as a tourist site.
In the evening of April 26, 1986, Reactor No. 4 exploded in the world's worst nuclear disaster, the Guardian reported Monday. Estimates of fatalities from the fallout reach as high as 15,000.
Eventually, Soviet authorities sent 1,200 buses to evacuate 48,000 of the nearby villagers and erected a makeshift cordon around the power plant complex.
Now, however, tourists can pay $250 per person for an all-inclusive, day long bus tour of the catastrophe, about 40 miles north of picturesque Kiev.
About 90 tons of radioactive waste lies under the vast concrete that now covers the destroyed reactor.
Paradoxically, much of the land around Chernobyl is lush: Most of it looks more like a nature sanctuary, with abundant forests, lush grass and herds of a rare species of wild horse.
The lack of human activity has allowed wolves, foxes, wild boar and myriad other species to flourish.
-------- u.n.
If You Want to Test a Nuke, Vienna's Watching
(Reuters)
By Julia Damianova
Oct 18, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=UJFWO0HM5TAJWCRBAEOCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=6529537 VIENNA, Austria - Whether big or small, high in the sky or deep in the ground, if you test a nuclear bomb, someone in the Austrian capital will find out.
Austria is one of Europe's most anti-nuclear countries. So it makes sense that two organizations charged with keeping the world free of atomic weapons are based here -- the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).
Both have their headquarters in the fortress-like Vienna International Center that overlooks the peaceful Danube river.
"We would be able to detect (any nuclear test) with possibly a 98 percent guarantee," CTBTO spokeswoman Daniela Rozgonova told journalists during an agency field exercise in Slovakia.
The test-ban treaty was opened for signing in 1996. Since then, the CTBTO has been working furiously to cover the planet with monitoring stations so that by the time the treaty comes into force, the entire world will be under its gaze.
For example, Rozgonova said the CTBTO was in a position to know a lot about last month's mysterious blast in North Korea, an explosion that some feared may have been the first nuclear test carried out by the reclusive Stalinist state.
But any analysis the CTBTO had about North Korea would be kept a secret and passed on to the 173 CTBTO member states to decide what to do with information they receive from the agency.
"It is the member states who ... decide what the data means. We do the technical analysis," she said.
NEVER UNDER BUSH
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban treaty prohibits any civilian or military nuclear explosions and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 10 1996. So far, 119 of the 173 signatories have ratified it.
Although the CTBTO is clearly capable of monitoring the planet to make sure no one conducts a secret nuclear test, its hands are tied by the fact that the treaty has yet to come into force.
Some diplomats in Vienna question if it will ever become a binding international treaty. To come into force, the 44 states which participated in the 1996 conference where the pact was agreed must ratify it.
So far, 33 of the 44 have ratified it; 11 -- including the United States, Iran, Israel and China -- have not. India, Pakistan and North Korea are among those which have yet to either sign or ratify the pact.
Several Western diplomats in Vienna said the administration of President Bush was vehemently opposed to the test-ban treaty and would like to see it destroyed.
"The Bush administration will never sign on to anything that would tie its hands in the event of a military conflict," a diplomat familiar with U.S. thinking told Reuters.
As a signatory of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Washington agreed to gradually dispose of its nuclear arsenal. Rather than disarm, it has expressed interest in developing so-called "mini-nukes" -- smaller-scale atomic bombs.
Some diplomats said that the concept of sharing classified seismological data with other CTBTO member states which might be considered enemies was anathema to Washington.
CTBTO spokeswoman Rozgonova said she had no choice to believe that the treaty would someday become binding.
"We have to be optimistic about the treaty coming into force," she said.
READY FOR A BLAST
While waiting for that to happen, the CTBTO busies itself with setting up a complex network of 321 monitoring stations and 16 laboratories. Half of the monitoring stations are up and running.
Although the agency's monitoring network is not yet complete, the CTBTO already covers a large part of the globe. It also possesses powerful detection equipment.
In 2002, the organization's experts detonated 12.5 tons of chemical explosive at a depth of 656 feet in the former Soviet nuclear test site Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.
This was recorded by CTBTO's monitors as far away as Norway, thousands of miles from the explosion site.
"One kiloton is the smallest achievable nuclear bomb by countries still on their way to create their own nuclear weapon," CTBTO scientist Patrick Dewez told Reuters.
A kiloton is the explosive equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.
Although the quantity detonated during the Semipalatinsk test was only about 1 percent of the size of a standard nuclear bomb, the Kazakhstan experiment proved that the CTBTO possesses the technical capability to detect all kinds of explosive activities around the globe.
On-site inspections are another important part of CTBTO work. If a member state asked it to investigate a suspected nuclear test in another country, it would send inspectors there.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- washington
Wash. Voters to Wrestle With Waste Measure
October 18, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Waste-Proposition.html
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- Supporters call an initiative on the Washington state ballot a no-brainer: bar the federal government from shipping nuclear waste to the Hanford nuclear site until all the existing waste there is cleaned up.
But opponents of Initiative 297 argue that interfering with the Energy Department's national plan for nuclear waste disposal could spell doom, especially if other states follow Washington's lead and ban Hanford waste.
The 586-square-mile facility in south-central Washington, which was created decades ago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, remains the most contaminated site in the nation.
At issue is the federal government's plans for disposing of waste from Cold War-era nuclear weapons production nationwide. The Energy Department chose Hanford to dispose of some mildly radioactive waste and mixed low-level waste.
Initiative 297 would block the Energy Department from sending more waste to Hanford until the existing waste at the site is cleaned up. A citizens' petition sent the initiative to the Legislature early this year. Lawmakers declined to act on it, sending the measure to the ballot.
Gerald Pollet, executive director of the Hanford watchdog group Heart of America Northwest and sponsor of the initiative, said voters would be foolhardy not to adopt a standard to protect themselves from more contamination at Hanford.
``Don't add more waste to a site that has leaking landfills or hazardous waste that isn't stored in compliance with existing standards,'' Pollet said.
The Energy Department has taken no position on the initiative.
Hanford already is home to 53 million gallons of highly radioactive liquid, sludge and saltcake stored in 177 underground tanks. The Energy Department aims to bury much of that waste in a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Another 75,000 55-gallon drums of less hazardous waste also are buried at Hanford.
``It's clear that Hanford has a role to play in accepting a small volume of waste so that other DOE sites can close, but at the same time, Hanford stands to benefit tenfold by shipping all of its high-level waste, spent fuel and plutonium waste to other repositories,'' said Colleen French, spokeswoman for the Energy Department's Richland office.
Heart of America Northwest has argued that the Energy Department's waste disposal plan will amount to 70,000 truckloads of waste entering the state. The Energy Department estimated about 5,800 truckloads of waste would enter the state.
The Energy Department also has pledged to cap the amount of additional low-level and mixed low-level waste that could be brought into the state and disposed of at Hanford at about 107,000 cubic yards.
Opponents argue the waste shipments to Hanford amount to rolling dirty bombs. On a recent sunny morning, two initiative supporters argued against the Energy Department's plans beside a bright-yellow, 15-foot balloon meant to represent the barrels of radioactive waste that could travel cross-country by truck.
``We're not saying not in my backyard,'' said Robert Pregulman, executive director of the Washington Public Interest Research Group. ``We're just saying not in my backyard until you clean my backyard first.''
Other states have battled the federal government's program for disposing of nuclear waste.
For years, Nevada has been fighting plans to build a national waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas that would hold all the nation's high-level waste. And in New Mexico, where the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad will take Hanford's hazardous trash, the federal government agreed at the urging of state officials not to send high-level waste there.
On the Net:
Hanford: http://www.hanford.gov
Heart of America Northwest: http://www.heartofamericanorthwest.org
--------
Effect of Waste Vote, Not Outcome, Is at Issue
October 18, 2004
By ELI SANDERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/national/18waste.html
SEATTLE, Oct. 17 - There is little doubt that Washington voters will approve a ballot question in November to tell the federal government not to truck more radioactive waste to the Hanford nuclear reservation, which is already an environmental mess.
The question is what happens when the measure passes.
Proponents hope the referendum, known as Initiative 297, will block the government's plans to send the waste to Hanford. But opponents, including Representative Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, contend the measure will backfire. They say Hanford's cleanup, which until recently has had a history of failures, could be delayed if other states are inspired to hold their own votes. Some waste from Hanford is eventually to be moved to other states.
Opponents also say that a multistate response could thwart the government's plan to create a national repository of radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which would eventually hold some of Hanford's material.
The odds against the initiative's supporters are long. The federal government has broad powers to transport and dispose of the dangerous waste generated in the building of the nation's nuclear arsenal, making challenges like Washington's difficult to uphold.
"It's a very tough thing to try to prevail on," said Joe Egan, a Virginia lawyer who specializes in nuclear environmental litigation and is not involved in the Washington effort. But Mr. Egan said the drafters of the initiative had taken an unusual approach, which could help them.
Hanford is a 586-square-mile complex in southeastern Washington that in its heyday busily pumped out plutonium for the nation's nuclear bombs. The largest of its nuclear reactors was shuttered in 1986, and the ensuing cleanup has been under way for more than a decade. It will cost $2 billion this year alone. But it is far from finished, and watchdog groups complain of lost plutonium in the soil and millions of gallons of contaminated groundwater leaking toward the Columbia River.
Two polls, one taken in the spring by backers of the measure and a more recent one by an independent polling firm, both suggest the initiative will pass by a large margin.
Rather than challenging the right of the federal government to dispose of the waste in a place of its choosing, Initiative 297 focuses on federal laws that give states the right to prevent more waste from being delivered to a site that is already a danger to the environment. Proponents of the measure say Hanford, a Superfund site where even the Energy Department admits cleanup efforts were failing until recently, certainly qualifies on this score.
"You cannot add more waste to a Superfund site where the landfills are leaking and the waste already there is not in compliance with federal waste standards," said Gerald M. Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, which is backing the initiative effort.
The impetus for the initiative, Mr. Pollet said, was a decision in 2000 by the Energy Department to begin sending waste from around the country to Hanford, adding to the huge amount of waste already there: 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel, 18 tons of plutonium, and 50 million gallons of liquid waste stored in 177 underground tanks. Mr. Pollet said the decision opened Hanford to about 70,000 new truckloads of waste. The department defends the plan, saying that only 5,800 loads will come and that Hanford is not the mess it once was.
"Over the past four years we've made more progress on Hanford cleanup than we have at any other time in our history," Colleen French, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said. "Even our toughest critics acknowledge that the Hanford cleanup is making more progress."
Opponents of the measure argue that the initiative could impede that progress. "If Washington State were to take this position of not wanting to ship any waste in, it doesn't take much of a stretch to figure out that other states will want to do this, too," Representative Hastings said. "I think that is a very bad tradeoff."
Proponents dismiss that argument as a red herring, saying the conditions at Hanford are unique and make the initiative unlikely to be replicated in a way that would strand waste at Hanford.
Mr. Egan, the nuclear environmental litigation expert, said he did not think things would ever get far enough to test which side is correct.
"I don't believe that it will succeed legally," he said. "So I don't see it as much of a threat on that ground."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
New Afghan Army a Match for Taliban, U.S. Says
October 18, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-afghan-army.html
KABUL (Reuters) - The new Afghan army is winning the support of the population and is capable of tackling a lingering insurgency by remnants of the ousted Taliban regime, the U.S. general in charge of its training said Monday.
Major General Craig Weston, commander of the U.S. Office of Military Co-operation - Afghanistan (OMC-A), told a news conference in the capital that the 17,000-strong force was winning hearts and minds and the fight against the Taliban.
He said commanders of the U.S.-led coalition overseeing the formation of the new Afghan National Army (ANA) were very pleased with the performance of the force during the presidential election on Oct. 9, which passed without any major security incidents despite threats by the Taliban to disrupt the poll.
Over 1,000 people have been killed this year in attacks by the Taliban, although their tactics have been reduced to planting roadside bombs or sporadic rocket and mortar attacks.
``Together we inflicted a strategic defeat to the Taliban, al Qaeda and the other enemies of freedom,'' Weston said. ``The Afghan people should be rightfully proud of the green berets of their new national army, who helped make this election so successful.''
But there is no timetable to reduce or withdraw foreign forces in Afghanistan and hand over operations entirely to the ANA.
Some 18,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban insurgency with a further 9,000 NATO-led troops providing security in the capital and relatively peaceful northern areas. The Afghan army is being rebuilt from scratch in the aftermath of the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban and is expected to grow to a planned 70,000 strong force by 2007.
Nearly three decades of conflict had reduced much of the Afghan army to a ill-disciplined rabble, and the central government has had little sway over the sizeable militias formed by regional commanders and warlords -- who depend on ethnic loyalties and in some cases money from drug running.
But a program to disarm the militias and form a national, unified army has so far proved a success. Some 23,000 militia fighters have been disarmed and more than 2,800 heavy weapons -- two-thirds of those estimated to be in the country -- are now under the control of Afghan army forces.
``It is an army that is growing and maturing rapidly,'' Weston said, adding that care was being taken to ensure the make-up of new units reflected the ethnic diversity of the country.
``When you see the green berets of the ANA, you see a multi-ethnic, skilled, disciplined professional force that has come to be respected by the Afghan people and viewed by them as a symbol of national unity,'' Weston said.
-------- africa
Sudan's Darfur 'safer than Iraq'
BBC
18 October, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3752824.stm
Sudan's government has said it has handled the Darfur crisis better than the United States has dealt with Iraq.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismael told the BBC that US leaders were trying to use Darfur "immorally" ahead of next month's presidential elections.
He was speaking after a meeting of regional leaders in Libya, at which Sudan hinted it may agree to Darfur having more control over its affairs.
Some 70,000 people have died in Darfur, in what the US says is a "genocide".
Pro-government Arab militias have forced some 1.5 million black African farmers and their families from their homes, after two rebel groups took up arms in February 2003.
'African solution'
Mr Ismael said the international community should leave the complex ethnic politics of Darfur alone.
"This is an African problem - it needs an African solution," he said.
The African Union hopes to have a 4,500-strong force in place by the end of November, but a lack of funds has delayed the deployment of troops.
About 300 armed Nigerian and Rwandan troops are currently in place.
The United Nations has threatened to impose sanctions on Sudan unless it stops the violence.
Mr Ismael said although the US has deployed more troops and advanced military hardware to Iraq, it has still not been able to disarm dissident forces there.
Credible estimates say that some 14,000 people have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion last year.
Sudan has sent thousands of extra policemen to Darfur but the UN says that attacks on refugees have continued.
Those who have fled their homes say that the security forces worked with the Janjaweed militias to force them from their homes but Sudan has always denied arming the Arab militias.
Humanitarian disaster
The fighting began more than a year ago when rebel groups began attacking government targets, complaining that the region was being neglected by the central government and that the authorities were oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs.
The rebellion sparked a crackdown on the civilian population by regular troops and militia called Janjaweed, leading to what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
At the summit in Libya, several delegates opposed the idea of sanctions.
Egyptian presidential spokesman Maged Abdel Fattah said that instead of putting pressure on Sudan or threatening sanctions, "we should all try to help Sudan to implement its obligations in accordance with resolutions".
The BBC's Mike Donkin in Tripoli says the meeting, on the face of it, produced real signs of movement to end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
The summit also gave its backing to peace talks between Khartoum and rebels based in Darfur, which are due to resume on 21 October.
The talks were held late at night, after the leaders had broken their daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Journalists were barred from the meeting, which was convened and chaired by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, clad in brightly-coloured African robes.
-------- arms
Turkish FM denies plan to buy tanks from Germany: report
BERLIN (AFP)
Oct 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041018135430.bc8lfz4y.html
Turkey is not currently planning to buy tanks from Germany, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has told a German newspaper, dismissing earlier press reports.
Gul, on a two-day visit to Germany, denied a report in Der Spiegel magazine that Turkey was interested in buying 350 second-hand Leopard II tanks from Germany.
The deal was "not the order of the day", Gul told the Handelsblatt newspaper, according to an advance extract of its Tuesday edition.
Asked whether Turkey planned to buy the heavy battle tanks in the next year, Gul replied: "I cannot say anything about that for now."
Reports in Germany last week said the sale of the Leopard II tanks was expected to be pushed through if European Union leaders decide at a summit in December that Turkey has undertaken enough democratic reforms to begin EU membership talks.
Gul was meeting German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer later on Monday to discuss Turkey's hopes of being accepted for talks. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has already said he will back Turkey's cause.
Despite undergoing a programme of reforms, Turkey still "had a few problems", Gul said. "But the most important thing is that we resolve to deal with these problems or other setbacks," he told Handelsblatt.
-------- britain
Britain Denies Troops Plan to Help Bush
October 18, 2004
By ED JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BRITAIN_IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
LONDON (AP) -- The British government Monday rejected claims it was planning to put some of its troops under U.S. command as a political show of support for President Bush ahead of the presidential election.
According to widespread media reports, Britain is considering redeploying a reserve battalion of some 650 soldiers to Baghdad to back up Americans planning a major offensive against insurgents in Fallujah.
Some opposition lawmakers have accused the government of pandering to Washington rather than basing decisions on military needs.
Britain's Ministry of Defense has confirmed that U.S. commanders have asked for British troops to be repositioned, but it stressed that no decision has yet been made. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon was scheduled to make a statement to the House of Commons on the subject later Monday.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dismissed the claims as "complete nonsense from the beginning, through the middle, to the end."
Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram insisted British troops will not be used as "political playthings."
"Any decision on the deployment of British troops in Iraq or anywhere else will be based on operational criteria," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
But opposition Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said he could not see why the U.S. military, which has 130,000 troops in Iraq, might need more support from 650 British soldiers.
"It is hard to see why that constitutes a crucial contribution in the American point of view," he told BBC radio, and he said Britain should be considering withdrawing from Iraq. "This, far from being an exit strategy, runs the risk of being an ensnarement strategy that drags Britain further into the mire."
Several newspapers have reported that Britain is considering sending its reserve force - the First Battalion Black Watch - from the southern port city of Basra to Baghdad to free up American troops to participate in an expected all-out offensive on Fallujah, a city 40 miles west of the capital that is considered the toughest stronghold of insurgents.
A senior military official told The Associated Press that Britain had no plans to do so.
"No plans have been made for the First Battalion Black Watch to go to Baghdad or Fallujah," said Maj. Charlie Mayo, a British military spokesman in Basra.
However, a military source said contingency plans were in place to send British troops to the U.S.-controlled sector and that discussions about coalition troop deployments were ongoing with Iraqi and U.S. officials.
Sending British soldiers further north into the U.S.-controlled sector, where there are more attacks by insurgents, carries a risk of higher casualties and would be politically sensitive for Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"Are we seriously expected to believe that with 130,000 soldiers in Iraq that the Americans, for military reasons, need 650 Black Watch to protect their backs in Iraq while they storm Fallujah?" Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond told the BBC. "I don't want to see a single Black Watch soldier sacrificed and jeopardized for a political gesture from Tony Blair to George W. Bush."
Cabinet minister Alan Milburn denied that "some sort of tawdry political deal" was being done.
"All of these decisions are taken on an operational basis. They are done in full consultation with the people on the ground," he said.
U.S. forces began bombing targets in Fallujah on Thursday after peace talks between Iraqi officials and city leaders broke down. The Iraqi government has demanded city officials hand over terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed responsible for suicide bombings and beheading foreign hostages, including Americans.
U.S. officials indicated the bombing was not a prelude to a major offensive into the city that they have said they might launch sometime this fall. Negotiations aimed at restoring government control in Fallujah without requiring a ground assault have faltered.
--------
No. 10 did not tell truth about Iraq, says diplomat who quit
independent.co.uk
By Anne Penketh
18 October 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=573224
A high-flying diplomat who helped frame the Government arguments that laid the groundwork for the Iraq war, has resigned because Downing Street "did not tell the whole truth" about the Iraqi threat.
Carne Ross, a former first secretary to Britain's UN mission between 1998 and mid-2002 in charge of Iraq issues, had resigned a month ago just as he was about to take up a senior post in London.
Asked about his reasons, 38-year-old Mr Ross told The Independent yesterday: "I had lost trust in a Government that I believe did not tell the whole truth about the alleged threat posed by Iraq before the war."
He also highlighted the Government's failure to "fully pursue available alternatives to invasion", a reference to the option of allowing the UN weapons inspections to continue. But the diplomat, who had taken a year's sabbatical before going on to serve until last month as chief strategist to the UN mission in Kosovo, refused to comment further.
Mr Ross is the second senior Iraq expert from the Foreign Office to resign over the war. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a deputy head in the legal department, left in March 2003. Other prominent officials including the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, have said the war was illegal. Mr Ross's position reflects the unease about the prosecution of the war among those who knew there was no new evidence that Saddam Hussein represented a direct threat to Britain.
The Butler report into the intelligence that led to the war and the conclusions of the Iraq Survey Group, which reported 10 days ago that there had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has heightened the sense of unease.
Mr Ross's boss, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who served the Government loyally at the United Nations before becoming Britain's senior envoy to Iraq, has said the inspectors should have been allowed to complete their work. Sir Jeremy has retired from the diplomatic service.
-------- business
Libyan mustard gas plant may be converted into pharmaceuticals factory
THE HAGUE (AFP)
Oct 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041018144215.0t69ywlu.html
A mustard gas factory in Libya may be converted into a pharmaceutical plant producing low-priced vaccines and medicines to treat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said Monday.
The plan will go forward if members of the OPCW approve an amendment to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which called for chemical weapons sites to be destroyed or converted to peaceful purposes by the end of 2003.
Libya, with the support of the United States and 16 other OPCW members, sought the amendment early this month that would allow it to convert the factory in Rabta, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Tripoli, into a pharmaceuticals factory to produce the drugs for developing countries. The Rabta plant, which produced around 100 tonnes of sulphur mustard gas and other neurotoxic agents in the 1980s, was closed in 1990 under pressure from the United States and other countries.
Libya decided on January 6 to adhere to the Chemical Weapons Convention after announcing the previous month that it was renouncing its unconventional weapons programs.
--------
U.S. Buyers of Hussein's Oil Acted to Assist Iraq
Oct 18, 2004
Los Angeles Times
By T. Christian Miller
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=3&u=/latimests/20041018/ts_latimes/usbuyersofhusseinsoilactedtoassistiraq
WASHINGTON - A month before the Persian Gulf War began in 1991, with an attack by the U.S.-led coalition imminent, famed Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt rushed his corporate jet to Baghdad to rescue 21 Americans being held hostage by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
It was a personal triumph for Wyatt, who had clashed with the U.S. government over the private rescue mission, and a political one for Hussein, who was trying to convince the world that he remained open to negotiation after his invasion of Kuwait.
This month, Wyatt was one of three Americans whose names surfaced in a CIA report listing the people and companies whom Hussein allegedly awarded lucrative vouchers to buy oil in the decade that followed his defeat in 1991.
In the interim, Wyatt came to be a central figure in a small, loosely knit group of Americans who supported policies and activities potentially beneficial to Hussein even as they benefited from the dictator's oil resources, U.S. officials, oil analysts and personal acquaintances said.
Their story provides a revealing glimpse at the politics of oil and the people behind it, operating in a world that mixed diplomacy, intrigue and multimillion-dollar oil deals.
The men, involved in Iraq through professional and personal relationships that in some cases stretched back decades, at times engaged in a secretive campaign of private diplomacy, offering themselves as a communications back channel between Hussein and at least two U.S. administrations, the sources said.
At least one of the men attempted to broker a peace deal between the U.S. and Iraq in a last-ditch effort to avoid war. Others waged campaigns to put an end to United Nations sanctions against Iraq, portraying their efforts as humanitarian gestures to help the Iraqi people.
At the same time, all were donating to U.S. political campaigns. Since 1991, Wyatt and his wife, Lynn, for instance, have given more than $700,000 to federal campaign and political organizations, most to Democrats and most after Wyatt and his firm began to buy oil from Iraq in 1997, according to records maintained by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project.
The other Americans named in the CIA report, Virginia oil trader Samir "Sam" Vincent and Michigan real estate developer Shakir Al Khafaji, helped sponsor high-level trips to Iraq during the 1990s with influential U.S. congressmen and brought high-ranking Iraqi religious leaders to the United States.
Friends said the men were trying to bring attention to the suffering of ordinary Iraqis under the sanctions, which had squeezed food and medical shipments to the nation's 26 million people.
Wyatt and a former business associate, David Chalmers, whose company was mentioned in the CIA report, were primarily interested in Iraq for business reasons, friends and analysts said. They bought Iraqi oil in a market that came to be characterized by shadowy middlemen and kickbacks, backroom deals and high-stakes showdowns.
Wyatt said through a spokesman last week that all his transactions in Iraq complied with applicable laws. Chalmers, Vincent and Khafaji did not respond to attempts to contact them or their companies.
None of the men has been accused of breaking the law by trading oil with Hussein, a process overseen by the U.N. between 1996 and 2003 as part of its oil-for-food program.
Many companies, including firms run by Wyatt, Vincent and Chalmers, were on a list approved by the U.N. to buy oil from Iraq under the program, which was designed to use the proceeds from oil sales to provide humanitarian aid for the Iraqi people.
The legality of oil sales to individuals, however, is suspect, congressional investigators said. Hussein abused the U.N. program by personally issuing oil vouchers to high-ranking political figures worldwide to win friends and wage a propaganda war to lift the sanctions, according to the CIA report by special weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer.
Hussein's vouchers entitled the bearers to a certain quantity of oil. The holders could then sell their coupons to middlemen, who would in turn sell the oil to companies. Sometimes the vouchers were gifts; sometimes they were contracts to buy oil at a specific price.
Such vouchers are at the heart of what has become one of the gravest corruption scandals at the United Nations since its founding in 1945. The oil-for-food program generated an estimated $67 billion legally and $11 billion illegally, with top U.N. officials and officials from China to France to Russia implicated as having received such vouchers.
Wyatt, Khafaji and Vincent are the only Americans on the list of recipients, which was obtained from records kept by Iraq's State Oil Ministry and recovered by U.S. troops. Five U.S. companies were also named: Chevron-Texaco, Exxon Mobil, Wyatt's Coastal Corp., Vincent's Phoenix International, and Chalmers' Bay Oil.
There are nine investigations into various aspects of the scandal. They include a federal investigation in New York that has subpoenaed records from El Paso Corp., which acquired Wyatt's old company, Coastal Corp.; Chevron-Texaco and Exxon Mobil. All have said their oil purchases were legal.
Treasury officials recently announced that they were investigating the possibility that U.S.-based sanctions against trade in Iraq had been violated.
In 1990, Vincent was among a small group of businessmen who fled Iraq by taxi after Hussein invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2.
Unlike the others, however, the Iraqi-born Vincent, a naturalized U.S. citizen, had a mission, according to friends and former U.S. officials: He was carrying a last-minute peace proposal to the Bush administration from Hussein, prepared by a longtime friend, Nizar Hamdoon, the former Iraqi ambassador to the U.S.
Immediately upon his return to the U.S., Vincent contacted Col. Carl Bernard, a decorated war hero with connections at the White House. The plan was reviewed by national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, who rejected it, Bernard said.
By that time, however, Vincent's role had been made clear to the U.S. government:
"Vincent was an asset that we needed and could have used but didn't," Bernard recalled of the initiative.
A few months later, with Hussein still holding hostages seized after the start of the invasion, a top aide to Rep. Charles Wilson, a Texas Democrat, asked Vincent to intervene.
The aide, Charlie Schnabel, was a squash partner of Vincent, a former Iraqi Olympic athlete. Vincent, who had gone to high school with the Iraqi oil minister and other top Iraqi officials, agreed. After speaking with top-ranking Iraqi officials, he told Schnabel that Hussein, who was trying to show the world he would cooperate, had agreed to free some of the hostages.
Schnabel then turned to Wyatt, an old acquaintance and a maverick even by the iconoclastic standards of independent Texas oilmen. Wyatt, the head of Coastal Corp., noted for his corporate takeovers and dealings with rogue nations, had long done business in Iraq.
In fact, one of Coastal's principal refineries, in Aruba, was especially configured to handle the high-sulfur Iraqi oil. Wyatt's financial success depended in part on his ability to procure Iraqi crude oil, experts said.
Wyatt volunteered the use of his plane for the mission and accompanied Vincent on the trip.
"He has a much stronger social conscience than he wants people to think," said Barbara Shook, who has covered Wyatt as a journalist for more than two decades, most recently as the Houston bureau chief for the Energy Intelligence Group. "I never sensed that he was pro-Saddam. He was pro-Iraqi people."
Although their efforts failed to stop the war, Wyatt and Vincent pressed ahead with their opposition to U.S. policies in Iraq and to the U.N. sanctions.
With malnutrition and child mortality rates skyrocketing, Hussein agreed to allow the U.N. to carry out its oil-for-food program. Started in late 1996, it authorized contracts between the Iraqi government and oil companies for the purchase of Iraqi oil. Money from the sales was then deposited in a U.N. account and used to buy humanitarian goods.
The first company to win approval to buy Iraqi oil was Wyatt's company, Coastal, according to the records contained in Duelfer's report. Vincent's company, Phoenix, followed soon after. Though Duelfer's public report did not name the U.S. companies and individuals involved, citing privacy concerns, congressional sources provided the names to The Times.
From 1996 until the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Wyatt, Vincent or their firms won the right to ship millions of barrels of oil from Iraq. Wyatt or his company pumped 71.8 million barrels of oil under the voucher program at a profit of $22.8 million. Vincent and his firm pumped 7.9 million barrels of oil and made a profit of $3.5 million, the report said.
Wyatt stepped down as head of Coastal in 1997, although he remained a consultant. In his final speech as head of the company he founded, Wyatt used the occasion to denounce unilateral sanctions as harmful to U.S. business - though he did not mention Iraq by name.
After Wyatt stepped down as chairman, the pace of the Wyatt family political donations more than doubled to about $67,200 per year, according to campaign finance records.
The Wyatts gave to both top Republicans and Democrats, including President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Democratic side and Sen. John McCain and Rep. Tom Delay on the Republican side. About 75% flowed to the Democrats. None went to the Bush family, whom Wyatt disliked, analysts said.
"His differences with both Bushes are well established," one industry analyst said.
Coastal Corp., meanwhile, donated $2.5 million to a variety of political action committees and political organizations between 1991 and 2000, before the company was sold to El Paso, the records showed.
Bob Baer, a former CIA officer, said that his Iraqi sources told him that Wyatt had represented himself as a way to send a message to President Clinton.
Vincent worked to end sanctions when he helped to bring a trio of Iraqi religious leaders to meet with top U.S. church leaders and others in 1991. A longtime acquaintance said Vincent worked directly with the Hussein government to arrange the trip, which was opposed by the U.S. government.
The three Iraqis, a Christian, a Sunni Muslim and a Shiite Muslim, met with former President Carter, Cardinal John O'Connor and the Rev. Billy Graham in an effort to convince them to appeal for ending the sanctions, the acquaintance said.
The acquaintance described Vincent's motives as humanitarian, though he acknowledged that Vincent's efforts benefited Phoenix International. The source dismissed any suggestion that Vincent was working for Hussein.
"This guy is a true-blue American who is also a business guy," the acquaintance said. "[The Iraqis] appreciated what he was doing. If they had a certain number of allocations to give out, they would direct them to the people who were pulling for them. I think it was simple as that."
Scott Ritter, a former weapons inspector, met Khafaji after briefing a group of U.S. congressmen in Washington in April 2000.
Khafaji had grown up in Iraq in a politically well-connected family, moving to America to establish a real estate business that was highly profitable, he told Ritter.
He said he wanted to help Ritter, who was trying to raise funds for a documentary to show how the inspection effort had successfully disarmed Hussein - a controversial proposition then, but one which has since been proven correct.
Khafaji gave Ritter $400,000 between August 2000 and June 2001 to make the film, Ritter said. The next month, Khafaji showed up on the list of oil voucher recipients for the first time, selling a little more than 2 million barrels of oil for a profit of nearly $1 million, according to Duelfer's report.
Khafaji sold his oil through a middleman to Bay Oil, Chalmers' company, according to a joint investigation by the Financial Times newspaper and an Italian business journal. The report could not be independently confirmed.
Ritter said Khafaji exercised no editorial control over the documentary and that Khafaji had personally assured him that the money did not come from Hussein, but Ritter acknowledged the possibility that he was a "useful idiot."
"The regime felt they needed a movie like the one I made to be made. They had no input. I told the Iraqi government, 'The truth is your friend,' " Ritter said. "Shakir facilitated the truth being told. I view him as an American patriot."
In September 2002, as Congress prepared to vote on whether to authorize war in Iraq, Khafaji helped arrange a trip to Iraq by Democratic Reps. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, Calif., Jim McDermott of Washington state and David E. Bonior of Michigan, who is no longer in office.
Republicans accused the three Democrats of handing a public relations victory to Hussein. The three called on Hussein to admit weapons inspectors to clear up doubts over his arms program.
In a statement, Thompson said he had had no contact with Khafaji since the trip. McDermott, who received a one-time donation of $5,000 from Khafaji after the trip, returned the money upon learning of the possible links between Khafaji and the oil-for-food corruption, an aide said.
Khafaji's final attempt to stop the growing threat of war in Iraq came in January 2003, as he and Ritter tried to arrange a trip to Baghdad by a group of Nobel Peace Prize winners, Ritter said.
This time, with an attack by another U.S.-led coalition imminent, the plan fell apart.
American and British troops invaded two months later.
-------- iraq
U.S. asks Britain to move troops
October 18, 2004
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041018-010545-8113r.htm
LONDON - U.S. commanders have asked Britain to shift 650 crack troops from southern Iraq to more dangerous positions near Baghdad, freeing American troops for an anticipated large-scale assault on the terrorist stronghold of Fallujah, officials said.
Defense Ministry officials said the government had not made a decision on the request, which will be announced to the House of Commons by British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon today, but other sources said the appeal would be "very difficult to refuse."
U.S. forces continued to hammer Fallujah yesterday with missile and tank fire, as they have done since city leaders late last week turned down a demand from Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that they turn over terror mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi.
Witnesses reported heavy fighting between U.S. and rebel forces on the eastern and southern edges of the city with clashes blocking the main road to Baghdad, 40 miles to the east.
The Associated Press said that a Humvee was seen burning in the eastern edge of the city and that hospital officials reported three civilians killed. There was no casualty report from the U.S. military.
The skirmishes were seen as preparatory to a much larger attack on the city, designed to re-establish government control over Fallujah, Ramadi and other rebel hotbeds ahead of elections scheduled for January.
Inside Fallujah, hundreds of rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns and assault rifles have taken up position along the main street awaiting the attack, an Iraqi reporter told The Washington Times.
Fighters are also stationed on the rooftops, and Abdullah Janabi, a leader of the rebel Islamic Council that controls the city, warned that any "invaders and infidels" would face imminent death, said reporter Aqil Jabbar.
The requested redeployment of British forces would free up the 2nd Battalion of the U.S. 24th Marines to take part in the attack on Fallujah.
Britain's highly regarded Black Watch regiment would replace the Marines in the mainly Shi'ite city of Iskandariya, where the United States has a base, and the Sunni flash points of Mahmoudiya and Latifiya.
It was in Latifiya that Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad terror group is believed to have held and beheaded two American contractors and their British colleague Kenneth Bigley. Attackers killed nine Iraqi police recruits in the town yesterday as they returned from training in Jordan.
Mr. Hoon, when he briefs Parliament today, can expect a barrage of criticism from both the pro-war Conservatives and the smaller but growing anti-war Liberal Democrats.
The Conservatives' defense spokesman Nicholas Soames has already challenged the timing of the deployment, saying it looked like "a political gesture," and charged that the concept of peacekeeping was "alien" to the Americans.
Mr. Soames maintained that British forces would need to have a major say in how anti-terrorist operations were carried out or the deployment could prompt a backlash that would place British forces in severe and unnecessary danger.
"I can see politically why they want it, but militarily I don't get it," he said in a television interview last night.
Former top military officials also expressed reservations yesterday evening.
John Walker, a former chief of defense intelligence, said that by committing troops to flash points around Baghdad, Prime Minister Tony Blair risked creating a Vietnam-like spiral of involvement.
"This is the way that mission creep starts in a big way," he said. "You get deeper and deeper in."
British commanders in Basra said, according to the London Sunday Telegraph, that moving the Black Watch, the main reserve unit in the British sector, could leave their troops without reinforcement in the event of a new outbreak of fighting in the south.
The Telegraph also cited suggestions that the United States would like to see its allies sharing more of the casualties in Iraq.
"There is a perception out there that this is an American war and only our soldiers are being killed. If the British re-deploying outside their current theater of operations helps dispel that perception, then that's a useful byproduct," a senior U.S. officer in Baghdad told the paper.
Robin Cook, who resigned as foreign secretary just before the war, said British soldiers would lose the respect of Iraqis if they were forced to adopt American tactics.
"For a year, Britain has been trying in vain to persuade U.S. forces to show the same restraint as our troops, who have won a lot of local goodwill as a result," he told the London Sunday Times.
"The real risk of sending a British battalion into the U.S. sector is that our troops could become associated in Iraqi minds with U.S. methods. The last time U.S. forces attacked Fallujah, they left 1,000 civilians dead and uproar across Iraq at their heavy-handed tactics."
But Labor member Bruce George, chairman of the parliamentary defense committee, said he would support the move "if it is militarily necessary."
"The alternative appears to be to carry on being largely reactive to insurgent attacks, bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. It appears that the U.S. wish to be more proactive and fight them on their adopted home territory in Fallujah."
--------
As U.S. Forces Pound Fallujah, Fighting Rages on City's Edge
By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 18, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39798-2004Oct17?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 -- U.S. warplanes and tanks pummeled Fallujah on Sunday as intense battles raged on the outskirts of the insurgent-held city.
Separately, a car bomb exploded late Sunday in Baghdad's Jadriya district, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said, according to the Associated Press. The ministry said the blast was aimed at an Iraqi police patrol and caused an undetermined number of casualties. Al-Arabiya television reported, however, that the explosion targeted a cafe, killing seven people, including some police officers, and wounding about 20.
In Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum in the capital, three Iraqis were killed when a mortar round hit a soccer stadium where a weapons buyback program was underway. The attack occurred minutes before the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, was scheduled to arrive.
In Latifiyah, a city held by insurgents about 25 miles south of Baghdad, nine Iraqi police officers were killed in an ambush Saturday, the Associated Press reported. The officers were returning from a U.S.-sponsored training course in Jordan.
The escalation of fighting in Fallujah came as hundreds of insurgents arrived from other cities for a long-anticipated offensive by U.S. forces, according to witnesses. The city was nearly empty except for the insurgents, who prayed in the streets and celebrated iftar, the evening meal that marks the end of each day's fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The U.S. military has said its campaign in Fallujah is aimed at eradicating the network of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian linked to al Qaeda. In an allusion to Fallujah, Iraq's national security adviser, Qasim Dawood, warned that the use of Iraqi cities as havens for terrorists was "something the government cannot accept or tolerate."
Representatives of the insurgents suspended negotiations with the government last week, saying the demand to turn over Zarqawi was unreasonable because he was not in Fallujah. Although some representatives indicated Sunday that they were open to further talks, the violence continued.
Witnesses reported that U.S. forces fired on a vehicle carrying a family fleeing the fighting, killing all five passengers. No casualty figures were provided by the U.S. military. A doctor at the Fallujah hospital said three Iraqis were killed in the fighting.
Details of the attack on the Iraqi police officers in Latifiyah were sketchy. Insurgents have targeted hundreds of police and National Guard recruits as part of their strategy to undermine the U.S.-led occupation. American officials have called the training of the new Iraqi security forces key to stabilizing the country and facilitating the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The Iraqi government extended the weapons buyback program in Sadr City by two days in an effort to collect more arms. The program is part of a U.S. strategy to pacify areas held by insurgents in advance of nationwide elections planned for January. The agreement stipulates that loyalists of Moqtada Sadr, a rebellious Shiite cleric, exchange their weapons for cash and, in return, U.S. and Iraqi forces release detainees not convicted of any crimes. The program would be followed by as much as $500 million in reconstruction projects in the slum.
Despite the incentive, members of Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, have been slow to hand in weapons, U.S. military officials said.
Lt. Col. Florentino "Lopez" Carter, task force commander for the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, which patrols Sadr City, said in an interview that the effort had fallen "very short."
"I would say it certainly isn't a success," he said. "It doesn't send the right message that the Mahdi militia is focused on disarming and disbanding."
Carter said weapons have been handed over mostly by Sadr City residents not believed to be insurgents. "The only way we can measure it is based on number of weapons they hand over, and it just is nowhere near what we know to be the large weapons caches that they have," he said.
The U.S. military said in a statement Sunday that the program was "beginning to show a glimmer of success as more medium and heavy weapons are beginning to come in."
Carter said fighting in the slum has slowed considerably but that it was not clear whether the insurgents are using the pause to rearm and "re-seed" streets with roadside bombs, as occurred during a July cease-fire, or to disband.
Allawi was en route to the Sinaa soccer stadium when a mortar round struck it around 1 p.m., killing two Iraqi soldiers and an Iraqi civilian and wounding at least two others. It was unclear whether the attack was aimed at Allawi, who was scheduled to meet with members of Sadr's office and clerics at the stadium minutes later.
Iraqi guardsmen opened fire after the attack, shooting their automatic weapons randomly in response to reports of sniper fire. Two Iraqi police officers sitting in a nearby vehicle were wounded. Authorities immediately shut down the weapons handover program for the rest of the afternoon.
Allawi's convoy was diverted to a Sadr City government office building and his meetings with Sadr officials were postponed until later in the afternoon.
"I am very thrilled and pleased that things are moving in the right direction and arms are being surrendered to the Iraqi government," Allawi said after the meeting. "I call upon all Iraqi people throughout Iraq, whether in Basra, Nasiriyah, Fallujah, Ramadi or Mosul, to surrender their weapons and to respect the rule of law and to be part of the political process."
Large piles of weapons were visible at the stadium. They included hundreds of antitank mines, 14.5mm antiaircraft guns, 60mm, 82mm and 120mm mortar rounds, and artillery rounds.
Ahmed Saleh, 21, showed up at the stadium to turn in an old 60mm mortar launcher. Saleh, who said he was a member of the Mahdi Army, said the launcher was "not very good. I have another one at home that is much better."
Asked if he planned to hand it in, he said: "No, I'm going to keep it."
Special correspondents Bassam Sebti, Khalid Saffar and Omar Fekeiki contributed to this report.
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Iraqi PM to extend arms-for-cash scheme nationwide
BAGHDAD (AFP)
Oct 18, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041018143150.pbgckhqm.html
Iraq's government will extend an arms-for-cash programme that started last week in a Baghdad Shiite slum across the country in a bid to rid the streets of weapons ahead of planned January elections, the prime minister said Monday.
"We will open this disarmament initiative to all the cities in the country, we will start with Basra," Iraq's second largest city in the south of the country, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said in a speech to parliament.
A week-long weapons-for-cash scheme to disarm the militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Sadr City was a success and had already has been extended until Thursday, Allawi said.
"We collected weapons, explosives and mines that pose a threat to the security of the people and their safety and we are working to expand this process," he said.
"These steps are part of efforts to prepare for the elections. The government is determined to get rid of weapons in the cities and the neighbourhoods," Allawi told members of the National Council in a televised speech.
"We do not see any reason for having weapons in homes after today."
The prime minister called on people in Sadr City to come come forward with their remaining arms or face the consequences when the amnesty period expires.
"This is the last extension (of the deadline). The authorites will start a widescale search (of Sadr City) and they will confiscate any weapons they find and punish their owners in accordance with the law," he warned.
"This will happen also in other parts of Iraq."
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Iraqi Officials Plan to Extend Buying of Arms
October 18, 2004
The New York Times Company
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.and DEXTER FILKINS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/international/middleeast/18iraq.html?pagewanted=1&ei=1&en=e269494f507805a1&ex=1099066572
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 17 - A government plan to entice Iraq's biggest Shiite militia to turn in its weapons in return for cash here has brought in enough arms in its first week that Iraqi officials extended the program on Sunday and said it might be spread to other cities.
The cooperation with the buyout has raised hopes that the militia's leader, Moktada al-Sadr, would continue his turn toward entering the country's democratic process. Underscoring the buyout's progress, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi ventured into the heart of Baghdad's hostile Shiite district to salute the militia, the Mahdi Army, for surrendering more than 1,000 of its heavy weapons in the past week. As Iraqi troops nearby assembled stacks of surrendered weapons at a soccer stadium in the district, Sadr City, Dr. Allawi said he was "thrilled" and urged more progress.
Dr. Allawi's aides said the buyout had been successful enough in Baghdad that it would be extended for two more days, until Tuesday, and that they were discussing widening the program to include other cities. A senior aide to Mr. Sadr said the militia would have no objection.
Iraqi and American officials contend that Mr. Sadr still has much of his arsenal. But American commanders echoed Dr. Allawi's encouragement on Sunday, though they emphasized that the militia must deliver far more weaponry. The military said that Mr. Sadr's militia had turned in about 700 rocket-propelled grenades and about 400 mortar shells, along with hundreds of lighter weapons, and that the Iraqi government had paid about $1.2 million in return.
Even as the disarmament appeared to gain momentum, insurgents continued attacks in Baghdad on Sunday. Before Dr. Allawi arrived at the stadium in Sadr City, mortar fire struck it, killing two people. And news agencies reported that a car bomb had exploded near a cafe, killing at least seven and wounding 20.
In a message posted Sunday on Islamic Web sites, Iraq's most wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged his loyalty to Osama bin Laden and emphasized the need for unity against "the enemies of Islam."
Outside Falluja, American marines resumed fierce clashes with insurgents, continuing a military push that began on Friday and appeared to be laying the groundwork for an attempt to retake the city from insurgents. The military fired heavy artillery and tank-gun barrages and dropped guided bombs on militant safe houses and weapons caches, military officials said.
Despite the violence on Sunday, Dr. Allawi spoke enthusiastically of the progress in the weapons surrender program. "I am very thrilled and pleased that things are moving in the right direction and arms are being surrendered to the Iraqi government," he said after a meeting with Mr. Sadr's aides.
Later, the Iraqi official in charge of the buyout, Akeel al-Saffar, said in an interview that Mr. Sadr's aides "have cooperated with us" and that the buyback "has gone better than expected." Plans for similar buyouts elsewhere "are in the pipeline," he added.
Mr. Sadr is thought to have hundreds of loyalists across southern Iraq, in cities like Amara, Basra and Diwaniya. Iraqi officials have long worried that unless those groups also turn in their heavy weapons, they pose a serious threat to the nationwide elections scheduled for January.
In recent weeks, Mr. Sadr has been meeting with leaders from across the Iraqi political spectrum, telling them he is planning to transform his movement from an armed group into a democratic one. Many Iraqis, and the Americans especially, are skeptical of Mr. Sadr, given his record of breaking similar promises.
But circumstances for Mr. Sadr have changed in recent months, all of which may be nudging him into the political system. His militia has suffered a pounding at the hands of the Americans in Sadr City and Najaf. And the Americans and the Iraqi government have promised to embark on a campaign of house-to-house searches in the area to find whatever weapons Mr. Sadr does not turn over.
At the same time, Mr. Sadr has come under intense pressure from mainstream Shiite leaders, who see the elections in January as the clearest path to political power. Shiites comprise about 60 percent of the Iraqi population.
Mr. Sadr's own aides said he was moving in that direction. "We are part of the political process now," said Karim Bakhati, a representative of Mr. Sadr, after the meeting with Dr. Allawi at the weaponsfor-cash handover. "The Iraqi government wants to have such centers outside Baghdad, and we don't have any objections to that." American and Iraqi officials say they believe that Mr. Sadr is playing something of a double game: He may intend to make a foray into democratic politics, but he is trying to keep as much as of his militia as he can, if only because many of the country's largest political parties have their own armed groups as well.
The Americans said they were still worried about as many as 100 homemade bombs that are thought to be planted under the streets of Sadr City, a type of bomb that has killed and wounded dozens of American soldiers. American commanders said that only two such bombs had been turned in, and that it would be difficult or impossible to restart the American-financed reconstruction program, which employed 15,000 Iraqis until the fighting intensified in August, until the roadside bombs were unearthed.
Still, the American commanders said they were encouraged by the effort. "We're never going to get them to give up everything," a senior American military officer said. "But this is not a bad deal. It gets these weapons off the street and it helps us equip the new Iraqi security forces. I can't imagine it's not hurting the Mahdi militia in some way."