Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
Langley to be the first school to use nuclear power curriculum
Don't let WMD issue bore you . . . to death
Researchers describe how natural nuclear reactor worked Like Old Faithful
No radiation threat from 747 crash, experts say
On the Issues: Iran Showdown Over Nuclear Plans Awaits Election Winner
Photos point to removal of weapons
Analysis Munitions Issue Dwarfs the Big Picture
Pentagon Seeks to Account for Explosives
Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache
'No-fly' zone perils were for Iraqis, not allied pilots
No Swedish asylum for Israeli nuclear whistleblower Vanunu
Powell says no intent to attack North Korea
South Korea disagrees with U.S. proposal on six-party talks
Yucca Mountain Looms Over Vote
Man Living in Cave on Los Alamos Lab Land
Appeal Filed in Nuclear Waste Storage Decision
MILITARY
'Nervous and angry', the Black Watch arrive in the Triangle of Death
'Political' merger of Snecma, Sagem leaves analysts cold
Curbs On Sonar Use Sought In Europe
Georgia: A Meltdown of Weapons, or of Responsibility?
100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq
11 local soldiers killed on video
Video Shows Slaying of 11 Iraqi Guardsmen
Study Puts Iraqi Deaths of Civilians at 100,000
Arafat approves Abbas as deputy
Putin enters Ukrainian election row by attending army parade
Putin has an eye on the future as he looks back on Soviet glory victory
Iraq Casualties
Navy Drops Charges Against Commando in Abuse of Prisoners
US troops refused requests to protect explosives store
This GI Joe Won't Go
Wives of U.S. Troops Share Pain -- and Often Politics
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Chile Uses Anti-Terror Law Against Indians, Says Report
Adviser in Lindh Case Sues Justice Dept.
Homeland Security Disavows Document Touting Successes
Police Officer Is Put on a Year's Probation
FBI Glossed Over Abu Ghraib Abuses
Tape With Terror Threat Is Broadcast
Refinery and Chemical Workers Are Not Ready for an Attack
POLITICS
State Department Tried to Stop Airing of Bin Laden Tape
Why I turned against the war
The monarchization of America under Bush
VotePact.com Offers Alternative Way of Voting
Kerry's Foreign Policy Views Still a Puzzle
Justice to monitor voting in 25 states
Justice Department Triples Election Monitors;
Military ballots no 'emergency'
Bush Administration Attempts To Overturn Decades of Legal Precedents
ENERGY
Polish Ex-spy Chief Says Russia Flexes Oil Muscle
OTHER
Utilities Apply To Construct Power Plants Near Parks
Study Finds Warming Trend in Arctic Linked to Emissions
Approved Stem Cells' Potential Questioned
Flu Shots for Federal Workers, Military Diverted
ACTIVISTS
Mary Kelly, Her Axe and a US Navy 737 No Justice in County Clare
A Soldier Speaks: Robert Sarra
-------- NUCLEAR
Langley to be the first school to use nuclear power curriculum
October 29, 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Amy McConnell Schaarsmith,
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04303/403478.stm
As part of the Bush administration's effort to boost the nuclear power industry, physics students at Langley High School will become the first in the country to use a new curriculum from the U.S. Department of Energy that promotes nuclear energy.
With memories of the 1979 near-disaster at Three Mile Island fading, federal energy officials said last week they hope the new curriculum will encourage more students to pursue careers in nuclear engineering -- a field energy officials expect to grow.
"No new nuclear power plants have been built for many years, but now because of increasing oil and natural gas prices, utilities are looking to build some new plants in the next few years," said William Magwood IV, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and director of the U.S. Energy Department's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology. "They're looking for people to work in those plants and design those plants, and there you are."
Among those attending Magwood's presentation at Langley last week were 13 physics students. Several of the students plan to study medicine, become teachers, practice psychiatry or go into a math-related field. But a few interested in scientific careers said the two-week pilot program might persuade them to consider nuclear engineering.
"I was interested in aviation, but this really showed me how much broader it could be, that there could be better fields to go into," said Jon Mack, a junior from Crafton Heights, after Magwood's presentation.
The program, which is called "The Harnessed Atom: a new curriculum in nuclear science and technology," is not officially part of the Pittsburgh Public Schools physics curriculum that was designed by the district. Physics teacher Ed Henke, however, said he has committed to teaching the program by volunteering to participate.
It is designed to teach the students about energy physics, atomic structure, power plant design and operation, safety and environmental protection, according to federal officials.
The program -- part of a push by the Bush administration to develop additional nuclear power as an alternative to foreign oil -- could be expanded to other high schools throughout the country if it succeeds at Langley, Magwood said.
No new reactors have been built in the United States since a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island 25 years ago released a small amount of radioactive water into the Susquehanna River, tainting the industry's public image for decades.
Now, however, federal energy officials are touting nuclear energy as "green" power and the nation's largest source of pollution-free electricity. Unlike fossil fuels such as oil and coal, nuclear energy does not emit sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide or carbon dioxide; sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide create acid rain, while carbon dioxide contributes to global warming.
Critics, however, point out that nuclear power is not truly "clean" because the production process creates radioactive waste that remains potentially dangerous for thousands of years. Currently, a backlog of about 80,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste is being stored at nuclear reactor sites throughout the country.
Despite such concerns, the general public's worries about nuclear energy have begun to lift, Magwood said.
"I think people recognize that since [Three Mile Island], a lot of changes have been made, and we haven't had any significant problems with nuclear power," he said. "We know how to operate plants safely."
(Amy McConnell Schaarsmith can be reached at aschaarsmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548.)
--------
Don't let WMD issue bore you . . . to death
ajc.com
10/29/04
By CHAM DALLAS
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1004/29weapons.html
The term weapons of mass destruction has swept into the American lexicon as we face a volatile array of political, cultural and technological realities that seem to mandate their imminent use.
These weapons include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive devices, which are steadily spreading to more nation states and to small but determined terrorist groups.
The term evokes different responses, ranging from a dull fear to jokes on late-night talk shows. After giving hundreds of hours of lectures on the topic, I have noticed that in most instances peoples' eyes seem to glaze over as the magnitude of it all sinks in.
It is just too much to take in, and the mind wants to go on to something a lot more pleasant. However, the data are pouring in now that WMD are spreading farther and wider, and angry partisans are declaring their intent to use this technology in increasingly bizarre ways.
One chilling example is the quote from al-Qaida spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith in the London newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, where he said Muslims "have the right to kill 4 million Americans - 2 million of them children - and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands."
"Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons," he said.
As the national elections draw near, WMD are frequently cited (or perhaps I should say utilized) by both sides, in recognition of both the imminent threat and its power to sway the electorate. It appears that this has only increased the glazed look of most folks on the topic, as familiarity diminishes impact.
Perhaps the biggest issue has been whether these weapons were in Iraq immediately before the invasion. There is no doubt that Iraq possessed WMD in the past, including substantial quantities of chemical and biological weapons. Saddam Hussein used them to kill thousands of his own people, as well as many thousands of Iranians in the war between Iran and Iraq two decades ago.
Even after dealing with WMD for more than 20 years, some of the most unsettling photographs I have ever seen were those of the thousands of men, women and children killed with chemical weapons by the Iraqi dictator in his brutal suppression of the Kurds in Iraq. Recent reports by those investigating whether there were WMD in Iraq at the time of the invasion have concluded that Saddam wanted the Iranians to think that he still had them, in order to instill fear in them. Apparently, this effort succeeded so well that William Tenet, CIA director under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, believed it, as did Bush, Sen. John Kerry and a lot of other people.
There are others who believe Iraqi WMD were secreted across the border into Syria in the lengthy time before the invasion. However, the eye-glazing Iraqi WMD issue really pales in comparison to the reality of nuclear weapons and missile technology in the hands of North Korea (with arguably the most insane leadership in the world), the claims of al-Qaida to have suitcase nukes, and the rapid proliferation of WMD among nations and special interest groups throughout the world (many of whom hate us).
Scores of tons of weapons-grade plutonium sit in warehouses in Russia, while only 40 pounds, detonated in downtown Atlanta, would kill 300,000 people, injure 500,000 and destroy the majority of area hospitals and clinics. The sheer size of the developing nuclear weapons program in Iran is a dangerous portent of the future, as this radical Islamic state will be able to produce nuclear weapons at a rate much higher than North Korea.
Among the substantive issues facing us is the enormous task of having to prepare the nation's clinical care/public health systems to deal with the mass casualties that could result from terrorist attacks with WMD. As Shakespeare said, there is a tide in the affairs of men. The cultural phenomenon of radical Islamic terrorism is not fleeting or illusory.
The number of actual fighters continues to be constantly replenished, despite substantial interdiction by military and intelligence sources. Tides can be treacherous, even before they hit the shore. Whoever is elected next month is likely to preside over the response to terrorist attacks with WMD in this nation. The tide is coming in.
• Dr. Cham Dallas is also professor of toxicology at the University of Georgia, clinical professor of emergency medicine at Medical College of Georgia, and adjunct professor of epidemiology at Emory University.
-------- africa
Researchers describe how natural nuclear reactor worked Like Old Faithful
29-Oct-2004
By Tony Fitzpatrick
Washington University in St. Louis
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-10/wuis-rdh102804.php
To operate a nuclear power plant like Three Mile Island, hundreds of highly trained employees must work in concert to generate power from safe fission, all the while containing dangerous nuclear wastes.
On the other hand, it's been known for 30 years that Mother Nature once did nuclear chain reactions by her lonesome. Now, Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have analyzed the isotopic structure of noble gases produced in fission in a sample from the only known natural nuclear chain reaction site in the world in Gabon, West Africa, and have found how she does the trick. Picture Old Faithful.
Analyzing a tiny fragment of rock, less than one-eight of an inch, taken from the Gabon site, Alexander Meshik, Ph.D., Washington University senior research scientist in physics, has calculated that the precise isotopic structure of xenon in the sample reveals an operation that worked like a geyser. The reactor, active two billion years ago, worked on a 30-minute reaction cycle, accompanied by a two-and-a-half hour dormant period, or cool down.
In the Oct. 29, 2004 issue of Physical Review Letters, Meshik and his Washington University collaborators write: "This similarity (to a geyser) suggests that a half an hour after the onset of the chain reaction, unbounded water was converted to steam, decreasing the thermal neutron flux and making the reactor sub-critical. It took at least two-and-a-half hours for the reactor to cool down until fission Xe (xenon) began to retain. Then the water returned to the reactor zone, providing neutron moderation and once again establishing a self-sustaining chain."
Prior to this calculation, it was known that the natural nuclear reactor operated two billion years ago for 150 million years at an average power of 100 kilowatts. The Washington University team solved the mystery of how the reactor worked and why it didn't blow up.
Meshik and his collaborators, Charles Hohenberg, Ph.D., Washington University professor of physics, and Olga Pravdivtseva, Ph.D., senior research scientist in physics, used a selective laser combined with sensitive, ion-counting mass spectrometry to concentrate on the sample's moderator, a uranium-free mineral assembly of lanthanum, cerium, strontium and calcium called alumophosphate. The xenon found and analyzed provides the story of this ancient natural nuclear reactor. Meshik and his colleagues inferred from the xenon analysis the mode of operation and also the method of safely storing nuclear wastes, particularly fission xenon and krypton.
"This is very impressive, to think this natural system not only went critical, it also safely stored the waste," said Meshik. "Nature is much smarter than we are. Nature is the first genius. We have all kinds of problems with modern-day nuclear reactors. This reactor is so independent, with no electronics, no models. Just using the fact that water boiled at the reactor site might give contemporary nuclear reactor researchers ideas on how to operate more safely and efficiently."
In 1952, the late Paul Kuroda predicted that if the right conditions existed, a natural nuclear reactor system could go critical. Twenty years later, noticing that uranium ore from the Oklo mine was depleted in 235 Uranium , it was discovered that the site had once been a natural nuclear reaction system.
"The big question we addressed was: When it reached criticality, why didn't it blow up?" Meshik said. "We found the answer in the xenon."
Critical means that a fissionable material has enough mass to sustain a reaction. There were two major theories on how the reactor operated. One held that the system burned up highly neutron-absorbing impurities such as rare earth isotopes or boron, and because of that the system shut down regularly, and different parts of the reactor might have operated at different times. The other involved the role of water acting as a neutron moderator. As the temperature of the reactor went up, water was converted to steam, reducing the neutron thermalisation and shutting down the chain reaction. The chain reaction re-started only when the reactor cooled down and the water increased again.
Analysis of the xenon, the largest concentration of xenon ever found in any natural material, confirmed the water method. It also revealed the role of alumophosphate as the system's waste absorber.
Xenon is extremely rare on earth and very characteristic of the fission process. Chemically inert, the element has nine isotopes and is abundant in many nuclear processes.
"You get a big diagnostic fingerprint with xenon, and it's easy to purify," said Hohenberg, who noted the importance of alumophosphate in the natural nuclear reactor.
"More krypton 85, a major waste from modern nuclear reactors, is getting piped into the atmosphere each year," he said. "Maybe this natural mode can suggest a safer solution."
Can there be a natural nuclear reactor in actual operation today?
"Today even the largest and richest uranium deposit cannot become a reactor because the present concentration of 235 U is too low - only about 0.72 percent," said Meshik. "However, because 235 U decays much faster than 238 U, in the past, 235 U was more abundant. For example, two billion years ago 235 U was five times higher, about three percent, approximately the concentration of enriched uranium used in modern commercial reactors."
Another vital condition for self-sustaining nuclear reaction is the high content of a moderator to slow the neutrons, Meshik said. Water, carbon, most organic compounds, silicon dioxide, calcium oxide and magnesium oxide all are natural neutron moderators. Also, the concentrations of neutron absorbents - iron, potassium, beryllium, and especially gadolinium, samarium, europium, cadmium and boron - should be low.
"Only when all of these requirements are met can a self-sustaining chain reaction occur," Meshik said.
-------- depleted uranium
No radiation threat from 747 crash, experts say
Broadcast News
October 29, 2004
http://www.canada.com/fortstjohn/story.html?id=ca8c934f-8d9c-4f40-8e9d-8e83029f0720
Investigators say radioactive ballast in the tail of the Boeing 747 cargo jet that crashed in Halifax two weeks ago does not pose a threat.
The Transportation safety Board's Bill Fowler says the protective metal coating covering it remained intact.
The tail broke off after hitting an earthern mound 300 metres beyond the end of the runway during the crash.
It didn't burn up like the rest of the fuselage.
Fowler says depleted uranium was used as ballast in the rudder and elevator portion of the older cargo jet's tail.
Newer jets use tungsten.
Depleted uranium is a dense, heavy waste produced during the making of nuclear fuel and weapons.
It's considered toxic if absorbed or inhaled into the body.
-------- iran
On the Issues: Iran Showdown Over Nuclear Plans Awaits Election Winner
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7434-2004Oct28.html
For all the focus on foreign policy in this campaign, neither presidential candidate has spent much time explaining what may loom as the largest new challenge after Tuesday: what to do about Iran.
The United States faces a major test with Tehran over its nuclear program just three weeks after the U.S. election. Yet neither candidate has addressed the growing prospects that diplomacy may not work, that the world may be too divided to agree on punitive sanctions, and that military options, after Iraq, could spark major new domestic and international controversy.
And short of a new deal with Iran, a new president could face a showdown at the United Nations about the time of the inauguration in January, foreign policy analysts warn.
In the campaign, President Bush and Democratic candidate John F. Kerry have vowed to prevent Iran from converting its peaceful energy program into a nuclear weapons program. Beyond that, the difference between their positions is more subtle than substantive. Each has issued ultimatums and pressed for diplomacy.
Unable to issue a formal policy for four years because of internal divisions in his administration, Bush has long maintained a confrontational stance on Iran, a country he has called one of three in the "axis of evil." Only reluctantly has he recently agreed to let European leaders offer Iran a compromise to end the standoff. The deadline for an answer is Nov. 25, the next meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But the Bush administration has already concluded that Iran will not accept the deal -- to scrap its own uranium enrichment in exchange for nuclear technology and fuel controlled by the outside world -- forcing the United States to press for international action at the United Nations.
"We believe that the Iranians are going to have to be referred to the Security Council because, when they refuse to live up to their obligations, that is the course that is prescribed," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday.
In the second debate, Kerry pledged to "lead the world in the greatest counterproliferation effort. And if we have to get tough with Iran, believe me, we will get tough."
In a slight variation from Bush, Kerry earlier said that the United States, rather than Britain, France and Germany, should have initiated negotiations to curb Iran's nuclear potential. "I believe we could have done better. I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together," he said in the first debate.
Kerry foreign policy adviser Richard C. Holbrooke, a former U.N. ambassador, told the AIPAC conference this week that the current European initiative is "self-evidently not going to ever succeed. And anyone who's worked with the Europeans knows this."
The Iran nuclear issue looms as the next big foreign policy challenge because it is "a crucial test of whether it is possible, by means short of the use of military force, to prevent a resourceful and determined country from acquiring nuclear weapons," said Robert J. Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But whoever wins the election is likely to quickly face problems, foreign policy analysts warn. Unless a last-minute deal emerges, they say the United States will have to do serious arm-twisting to get the minimum number of votes at the IAEA to refer Iran to the United Nations.
Iran has become a symbol for a growing number of developing nations, such as Brazil, that want nuclear energy -- and control over their own fuel-production cycles without international intervention. Many Third World countries sympathize with Tehran's position that it will never permanently surrender the right to enrich uranium for nuclear energy, which the United States agrees is not illegal under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Neither candidate has developed a detailed strategy on this broader aspect of proliferation, which Washington could be dealing with for decades in many countries, foreign policy analysts say. Unless Washington outlines a policy that applies globally, they add, an agreement with Iran could prove elusive because Tehran leaders argue theirs is the only country being deprived of a legal right and a technology important for peaceful development in the 21st century.
But even if the United States does prevail at the IAEA, it could face a "high-stakes confrontation" against other veto-wielding members at the United Nations about the time of the inauguration, Einhorn said. Any drastic measure, such as an oil embargo, will also be "impossible," he added, because of shifting global economic realities and Iran's leverage. China buys 17 percent of its oil from Iran and European Union countries buy almost 7 percent, oil analysts say.
"Taking this to the Security Council is not going to solve much because it is unlikely to vote serious sanctions against Iran," said Shaul Bakhash, an Iran specialist at George Mason University and author of "The Reign of the Ayatollahs." "China depends on Iran for large amounts of oil and is eager to secure supplies for years to come, so it won't go along with sanctions."
The best the next president may initially achieve is U.N. pressure on Iran to be more cooperative with the IAEA, which analysts say would probably have minimal impact on Tehran.
Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.
-------- iraq / inspections
Photos point to removal of weapons
October 29, 2004
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041028-115519-3700r.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained satellite photographs of truck convoys that were at several weapons sites in Iraq in the weeks before U.S. military operations were launched, defense officials said yesterday.
The photographs indicate that Iraq was moving arms and equipment from its known weapons sites, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
According to one official, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, known as NGA, "documented the movement of long convoys of trucks from various areas around Baghdad to the Syrian border."
The official said the convoys are believed to include shipments of sensitive armaments, including equipment used in making plastic explosives and nuclear weapons.
About 380 tons of RDX and HMX, used in making such arms, were reported missing from the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility, though the Pentagon and an embedded NBC News correspondent said the facility appeared to have been emptied by the time U.S. forces got there.
The photographs bolster the claims of Pentagon official John A. Shaw, who told The Washington Times on Wednesday that recent intelligence reports indicate Russian special forces units took part in a sophisticated dispersal operation from January 2003 to March 2003 to move key weapons out of Iraq.
In Moscow, the Russian government denied that its forces were involved in removing weapons from Iraq, dismissing the claims as "far-fetched and ridiculous."
"I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structural divisions could not have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because Russian servicemen were not in Iraq long before the beginning of the American-British operation in that country," Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Vyacheslav Sedov told Interfax news agency.
Bush administration officials reacted cautiously to information provided by Mr. Shaw, who said details of the Russian "spetsnaz" forces' involvement in a program of document-shredding and weapons dispersal came from two European intelligence services.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was unaware of the information in The Times report.
"I know that there is some new information that has come to light in the last couple of days," Mr. McClellan said, noting that another news report said the amount of high-explosive materials may have been less than 377 tons, as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claims.
Asked about foreign intelligence reports of Russian troops moving Iraq's weapons to Syria, Mr. McClellan said, "I have no information that points in that direction."
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in a interview on the Laura Ingraham radio show that she also was not aware of the information about Russian troops relocating Saddam's weapons to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran.
Defense officials said the information has been closely held within the Pentagon because Mr. Shaw, a deputy undersecretary of defense of international technology security, has been working with the Pentagon inspector general in investigating the Russian role in the weapons transfers.
Information in the inspector general office is not widely shared within the policy and intelligence communities.
The Pentagon is still investigating the fate of the explosives and possible Russian involvement.
Officials said numerous intelligence reports in the past two years indicate Saddam used trucks and aircraft to withdraw weapons from Iraq before March 2003. However, the new information indicates that Russian troops were directly involved in assisting the Iraqi military and intelligence services to secure and move the arms.
Documents reviewed by one defense official include specific Russian military unit itineraries for the truck convoys.
The arms that were taken out of the country included missile parts, nuclear-related equipment, tank and aircraft parts, and chemicals used in making poison gas weapons, the official said.
Regarding the satellite photographs, defense officials said the photographs bolster the information obtained from the European intelligence services on the Russian arms-removal program.
The Russian special forces troops were housed at a computer center near the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and left the country shortly before the U.S. invasion was launched March 20, 2003.
Harold Hough, a satellite photographic specialist, said commercial satellite images taken shortly before U.S. forces reached Baghdad revealed Russian transport aircraft at Baghdad's international airport near a warehouse.
"My thought was that the Russians were eager to get something out of Iraq quickly," Mr. Hough said. "But it is quite possible that the aircraft was used to transport the Russian forces."
Also yesterday, the IAEA said it warned the United States about the vulnerability of explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa after Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear complex was looted.
"After we heard reports of looting at the Tuwaitha site in April 2003, the agency's chief Iraq inspectors alerted American officials that we were concerned about the security of the high explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told the Associated Press.
She did not say which officials were notified or exactly when.
--------
Analysis Munitions Issue Dwarfs the Big Picture
By Bradley Graham and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7418-2004Oct28.html
The 377 tons of Iraqi explosives whose reported disappearance has dominated the past few days of presidential campaigning represent only a tiny fraction of the vast quantities of other munitions unaccounted for since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government 18 months ago.
U.S. military commanders estimated last fall that Iraqi military sites contained 650,000 to 1 million tons of explosives, artillery shells, aviation bombs and other ammunition. The Bush administration cited official figures this week showing about 400,000 tons destroyed or in the process of being eliminated. That leaves the whereabouts of more than 250,000 tons unknown.
Against that background, this week's assertions by Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign about the few hundred tons said to have vanished from Iraq's Qaqaa facility have struck some defense experts as exaggerated.
"There is something truly absurd about focusing on 377 tons of rather ordinary explosives, regardless of what actually happened at al Qaqaa," Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an assessment yesterday. "The munitions at al Qaqaa were at most around 0.06 percent of the total."
Retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who served briefly as President Bush's adviser on counterterrorism and has criticized some aspects of the administration's performance, said yesterday he considered the missing-explosives issue "bogus."
Kerry has seized on the incident to press his charge that Bush mishandled the invasion of Iraq, failing, among other things, to secure sites containing dangerous Iraqi munitions, some of which were stored in bunkers marked with International Atomic Energy Agency seals to designate particular international concern.
Bush administration officials have refused to accept a statement issued earlier this month by a senior official of Iraq's interim government that the munitions disappeared after the April 9, 2003, fall of Baghdad "due to a lack of security." Iraqi authorities have not offered any supporting evidence, and Bush administration officials have suggested the explosives may have been removed earlier by Iraqi forces. Several defense analysts said Kerry's focus on Qaqaa has resonated mainly because the explosives issue has become symbolic of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, especially its long-running insistence that it has a sufficient number of U.S. forces there.
"The issue has been out there for a long time," said James Bodner, who helped formulate Iraq policy in the Clinton-era Pentagon. "Are we properly manned to carry out the specific military tasks that need to be accomplished? If the answer is, 'Yes, we have enough troops,' then why are these facilities unguarded?"
Whatever the case, the military significance of the loss, in a country awash with far larger amounts of munitions, is open to question.
The most powerful of the three explosives -- HMX -- can be used in a trigger for nuclear devices, which is why it was placed under IAEA seal. But HMX is obtainable elsewhere, and the chief U.S. weapons investigator in Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, has acknowledged that the Iraqi stockpile posed no particular concern in this regard.
Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University expert in nuclear weapons and terrorism, said that although he is concerned by the removal of the explosives, he is far more worried by IAEA reports that large quantities of sophisticated equipment, such as electron beam welders, were looted and removed from Iraq's nuclear weapons program. "That material, which would be quite useful to a nuclear weapons program, was also well known to the United States, was not guarded and today is probably in hostile hands," with Iran being a likely recipient, said Bunn, who noted that he has been advising the Kerry campaign but does not speak for it.
HMX and the two other types of explosives reported missing from Qaqaa -- RDX and PETN -- could also be used in devices targeting U.S. forces in Iraq. But defense officials say the many car bombs and roadside explosive devices that have menaced U.S. forces and other foreigners in Iraq have tended to be constructed from old artillery shells and other munitions, which remain in ample supply in Iraq.
Pentagon officials, reconstructing a timeline of what might have occurred at Qaqaa, believe they have narrowed the window for the disappearance to a two-month period between mid-March 2003, when the IAEA verified its seals were still in place, and May 2003, when U.S. military search teams arrived at the site and found it had been looted, stripped and vandalized. The search teams saw none of the explosives that were once under seal.
Although invading U.S. forces never secured the facility, defense officials have disputed the notion that such a large quantity of explosives could have been transported without notice by the U.S. military.
Bolstering the possibility that the munitions were removed before U.S. troops arrived, defense officials say, is the Hussein government's history of moving weapons to elude air attack. An official also said intelligence photos show lots of activity at Qaqaa before U.S. forces reached the site.
The Pentagon has contributed to confusion surrounding the case. John A. Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology and security, told the Washington Times on Wednesday that Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the explosives from Qaqaa. Yesterday, other senior defense officials, after reviewing Pentagon intelligence reports, said Shaw's remarks had no basis in fact.
Other confusion has arisen over how much explosive material had been stored at Qaqaa. The 377-ton figure was cited by Iraq's interim government in a letter to the IAEA earlier this month first reporting the amount missing. That figure was based on a Hussein government declaration in July 2003 of what existed at the site. It included about 155 tons of RDX. On Wednesday, ABC News reported that IAEA documents indicated there were only about 3 tons of RDX remaining at Qaqaa in January 2003, two months before the U.S.-led invasion. Yesterday, however, IAEA officials said records showed another 138 tons of the RDX were being kept then at a military warehouse used by Qaqaa's managers at Mahaweel, 25 miles away. The IAEA has not accounted for an additional 14 tons in the July 2003 Iraqi declaration.
Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman, said yesterday that the IAEA warned the United States in April 2003 of concerns about security at Qaqaa. Other U.N. officials said repeated efforts were made for more than a year to get answers from the U.S. government about the explosives and other weapons-related materials that had been under U.N. seal before the war.
A fresh request to the Iraqi government generated the Oct. 10 reply that the explosives were no longer at Qaqaa.
Staff writers Colum Lynch at the United Nations and Dafna Linzer in New York contributed to this report.
--------
Pentagon Seeks to Account for Explosives
October 29, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq-Weapons.html?oref=login
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Army unit removed 250 tons of ammunition from the Al-Qaqaa weapons depot in April 2003 and later destroyed it, the company's former commander said Friday. A Pentagon spokesman said some was of the same type as the missing explosives that have become a major issue in the presidential campaign.
But those 250 tons were not located under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- as the missing high-grade explosives had been -- and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita could not definitely say whether they were part of the missing 377 tons.
Maj. Austin Pearson, speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon, said his team removed 250 tons of TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords, and white phosporous rounds on April 13, 2003 -- 10 days after U.S. forces first reached the Al Qaqaa site.
``I did not see any IAEA seals at any of the locations we went into. I was not looking for that,'' Pearson said.
Di Rita sought to point to Pearson's comments as evidence that some RDX, one of the high-energy explosives, might have been removed from the site. RDX is also known as plastic explosive.
But Di Rita acknowledged: ``I can't say RDX that was on the list of IAEA is what the major pulled out. ... We believe that some of the things they were pulling out of there were RDX.''
Further study was needed, Di Rita said.
Meanwhile, videotape shot by a Minnesota television crew traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq when they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa munitions base nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The video taken by KSTP of St. Paul on April 18, 2003, could reinforce suggestions that tons of explosives missing from a munitions installation in Iraq were looted after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The video was broadcast nationally Thursday on ABC.
``The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa,'' David A. Kay, a former American official who directed the hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the site, told The New York Times. ``The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal.''
Whether Saddam Hussein's forces removed the explosives before U.S. forces arrived on April 3, 2003, or whether they fell into the hands of looters and insurgents afterward -- because the site was not guarded by U.S. troops -- has become a key issue in the campaign.
Pearson's comments raise further questions about the chain of events surrounding these explosives, the disappearance of which has been repeatedly cited by Democrat John Kerry as evidence of the Bush administration's poor handling of the war in Iraq.
Still, 377 tons of explosives amount to a tiny fraction of the weaponry in Iraq. U.S. forces have already destroyed, or have slated to destroyed, more than 400,000 tons of all manner of Iraqi weapons and ammunition. But at least another 250,000 tons from Saddam's regime remain unaccounted for, and some has undoubtedly fallen into the hands of insurgents.
The window in which the explosives were most likely removed from Al-Qaqaa begins on March 15, 2003 -- five days before the war started -- and ends in late May, when a U.S. weapons inspection team declared the depot stripped and looted.
Two weeks ago, Iraqi officials told the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives vanished as a result of ``theft and looting ... due to lack of security.''
The explosives were known to be housed in storage bunkers at the sprawling Al-Qaqaa complex and nearby structures. U.N. nuclear inspectors placed fresh seals over the bunker doors in January 2003. The inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time that March 15 and reported that the seals were not broken; concluding the weapons were still inside at the time.
A U.S. military reconaissance image, taken of Al Qaqaa on March 17, shows two vehicles, presumably Iraqi, outside a bunker at Al-Qaqaa. But Di Rita said that bunker was not known to contain any of the 377 tons, and that the image only shows that there was activity at the depot after U.N. inspectors left.
Elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division arrived in the area on April 3 en route to Baghdad. They fought a battle with Iraqi forces inside Al Qaqaa and moved on, leaving a battalion behind to clear out enemy fighters in the area. Troops found other weapons, including artillery shells, on the base, he said. They didn't specifically search for the 377 tons of high explosives that are missing. On April 6, the battalion left for Baghdad.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have advanced the theory that the materials were removed before U.S. forces arrived, saying looting that much material would be impossible by small-scale thieves, and that a large-scale theft would have involved lots of trucks and would have been detected.
About four days later, another large unit, the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, moved into the area. That unit did not search Al-Qaqaa. A unit spokesman said there was heavy looting in the area at the time.
On April 13, Pearson's ordnance-disposal team arrived and took the 250 tons out in a day. That materiel was later destroyed by U.S. forces. His comments may suggest that some of it was still there when U.S. forces arrived. The videotape of the Minnesota television crew traveling with the 101st Airborne was shot April 18.
U.S. weapons hunters did not give the area a thorough search until May, when they visited on three occasions, starting May 8. They searched every building on the compound over the course of those three visits, but did not find any material or explosives that had been marked by the IAEA.
--------
MISSING EXPLOSIVES
Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache
October 29, 2004
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/politics/29bomb.html?ei=5094&en=7b767c25018de326&hp=&ex=1099108800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
A videotape made by a television crew with American troops when they opened bunkers at a sprawling Iraqi munitions complex south of Baghdad shows a huge supply of explosives still there nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, apparently including some sealed earlier by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The tape, broadcast on Wednesday night by the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis, appeared to confirm a warning given earlier this month to the agency by Iraqi officials, who said that hundreds of tons of high-grade explosives, powerful enough to bring down buildings or detonate nuclear weapons, had vanished from the site after the invasion of Iraq.
The question of whether the material was removed by Mr. Hussein's forces in the days before the invasion, or looted later because it was unguarded, has become a heated dispute on the campaign trail, with Senator John Kerry accusing President Bush of incompetence, and Mr. Bush saying it is unclear when the material disappeared and rejecting what he calls Mr. Kerry's "wild charges."
Weapons experts familiar with the work of the international inspectors in Iraq say the videotape appears identical to photographs that the inspectors took of the explosives, which were put under seal before the war. One frame shows what the experts say is a seal, with narrow wires that would have to be broken if anyone entered through the main door of the bunker.
The agency said that when it left Iraq in mid-March, only days before the war began, the only bunkers bearing its seals at the huge complex contained the explosive known as HMX, which the agency had monitored because it could be used in a nuclear weapons program. It is now clear that program had ground to a halt.
The New York Times and CBS reported on Monday that Iraqi officials had told the agency earlier this month that the explosives were missing, and that they were looted after April 9, 2003, the day Baghdad fell.
Yesterday evening, the Pentagon released a satellite image of the complex taken just two days after the inspectors left, showing a few trucks parked in front of some bunkers. It is not clear they are the bunkers with the high explosives.
"All we are trying to demonstrate is that after the I.A.E.A. left, and the place was under Saddam's control, there was activity," said Lawrence DiRita, the Pentagon spokesman. It is not clear from the photo what activity, if any, was under way.
On Thursday, a top Iraqi official said the interim government had spoken to witnesses who said the material was still at Al Qaqaa at the time Baghdad fell.
The videotape , taken by KSTP-TV, an ABC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul, shows troops breaking into a bunker and opening boxes and examining barrels. Many of the containers are marked "explosive." One box is marked "Al Qaqaa State Establishment," apparently a shipping label from a manufacturer.
The ABC crew said the video was taken on April 18. The timing is critical to the debate in the presidential campaign. By the Pentagon's own account, units of the 101st Airborne Division were near Al Qaqaa for what Mr. DiRita said was "two to three weeks," starting April 10.
Then they headed north to Baghdad, and the site was apparently left unguarded. By the time special weapons teams returned to Al Qaqaa in May, the explosives were apparently gone.
In disputing claims by Mr. Kerry that the Americans had lost the explosives, a senior administration official said Thursday, "We don't know all the facts and no one should be jumping to conclusions." Al Qaqaa, the official said, "was not controlled for three weeks after the I.A.E.A. left," and added "there are a lot of dots we have to connect."
The Pentagon also notes that it has destroyed 400,000 tons of munitions from thousands of sites across Iraq, and that the explosives at Al Qaqaa account for "one-tenth of 1 percent" of that amount.
The Minneapolis television crew was with an Army unit that was camped near Al Qaqaa, members of the crew said. The reporter and cameraman said that although they were not told specifically that they were being taken to Al Qaqaa by the military, their videotape matches pictures of the site taken by United Nations weapons inspectors, according to weapons experts.
"The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al Qaqaa," said David A. Kay, a former American official who led the recent hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the vast site. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an I.A.E.A. seal."
One weapons expert said the videotape and some of the agency's photographs of the HMX stockpiles "were such good matches it looked like they were taken by the same camera on the same day."
Independent experts said several other factors - the geography; the number of bunkers; the seals on some of the bunker doors; the boxes, crates and barrels similar to those seen by weapon inspectors - confirm that the videotape was taken at Al Qaqaa.
"There's not another place that you would mistake it for," said Dean Staley, the KSTP reporter, who now works in Seattle.
The accidental news encounter began last year after the invasion, Mr. Staley recalled in an interview. Their Army unit arrived in the region on Friday, April 11, and made camp. The Fifth Battalion of the 101st Airborne's 159th Aviation Brigade flew helicopter missions from the camp in the Iraqi desert, moving troops and supplies to the front.
A week later, on Friday, April 18, two journalists recalled, they joined two soldiers who were driving in a Humvee to investigate the nearby bunkers. Among other things, wandering inside the cavernous buildings offered the prospect of relief from the desert sun.
"It was just by chance that we were able to go," said Joe Caffrey, the team's photographer. "They wanted to go out and we asked to tag along."
Mr. Caffrey provided The New York Times with the latitude and longitude of the camp, which places it between 1.5 and 3 miles southeast of Al Qaqaa bunkers. A commercial satellite photograph of the region shows that the camp was close to the storage site. Mr. Caffrey said the soldiers used bolt cutters to cut through chains with locks on them, as well as seals. He said the seals appeared to be lead disks attached to very thin wires that were wrapped around the doors of the bunker entrances, forming a barrier easily cut in two.
They visited a half dozen bunkers, he said. The gloomy interiors revealed long rows of boxes, crates and barrels, what independent experts said were three kinds of HMX containers shipped to Iraq from France, China and Yugoslavia.
The team opened storage containers, some of which contained white powder that independent experts said was consistent with HMX.
"The soldiers were pretty much in awe of what they were seeing," Mr. Caffrey recalled. "They were saying their E.O.D. - Explosive Ordinance Division, people who blow this kind of stuff up - would have a field day."
The journalists filmed roughly 25 minutes of video. Mr. Caffrey added that the team left the bunker doors open. "It would have been easy for anybody to get in," he said.
Mr. Staley recalled that during the drive back to camp, they saw a red Toyota pickup truck with some Iraqis in it. "Our impression was they were looters," he said. "This was a no man's land. It was a huge facility, and we worried that they were bad guys who might come up on us."
The two journalists filed a short story, which ran soon thereafter in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
In the interview, Mr. Caffrey said he had carefully rechecked the date on the cassette for his camera, adding that he was sure it was April 18, 2003.
Yesterday Mohamed al-Sharaa, director of the national monitoring directorate at the Iraq Ministry of Science and Technology, explained for the first time why Iraqi officials had specified in their letter to the United Nations agency that the explosives had been looted after April 9, 2003. "We have some witnesses," Mr. Sharaa said outside his office at the ministry. "They say that the materials," he added, were "in this site after April 9."
The witnesses were people working at Al Qaqaa, Mr. Sharaa said. Still, he said, the evidence is not yet definitive, and "we don't say it's impossible" that the material was somehow taken out of Al Qaqaa before the American forces came through the area. The first American forces arrived at Al Qaqaa on April 3.
Rashad M. Omar, the minister of science and technology, said that as far as he was concerned, the exact timing of the disappearance remained unknown. "How, where, when is it taken, all these questions, we don't have answers," Dr. Omar said.
He said a committee headed by himself was about to undertake an investigation of the disappearance, in parallel with American efforts to clear up the mystery. Dr. Omar said that he was extremely confident that the investigations would determine the facts of the case.
"The quantity was so huge," Dr. Omar said. "Somebody must know what happened to the material. I am sure the facts will not be hidden for a long time."
James Glanz contributed reportingfrom Baghdad for this article.
--------
'No-fly' zone perils were for Iraqis, not allied pilots
October 29, 2004
St. Petersburg Times
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/29/Columns/_No_fly__zone_perils_.shtml
Among the reasons U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez supported the war in Iraq was the alleged danger faced by U.S. and British pilots who protected "no-fly" zones in that country before the 2003 invasion.
In his first debate with Betty Castor, the Orlando Republican said that pilots were fired on "almost daily" and that "our men and women in uniform flying those aircraft were risking their lives."
Technically, that's true. But a closer look at the history of the no-fly zones shows that the real risk was to innocent Iraqis. Over an 11-year period, hundreds of civilians, including children, were killed or injured by U.S. and British airstrikes, while not a single allied pilot was shot down or killed by Iraqi fire.
"The casualties were in the very areas allegedly established to protect people," Hans von Sponeck, then coordinator of the U.N. humanitarian program in Iraq, said in 2002. "The cruel reality is that people are dying as a result of these no-fly zones."
After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the United States, Britain and France created the zones in northern and southern Iraq to keep Saddam Hussein's forces from bombing rebellious groups in those regions. All Iraqi planes were grounded, but allied jets routinely took to the skies, hitting Iraq's air defense systems and other military targets.
"It was a permanent, low-level war," says James Paul, executive director of Global Policy Forum, which monitors U.N. policymaking. "I don't think citizens of the United States and the U.K. realized the intensity of this thing - there were thousands of sorties flown at huge expense."
By 2002, it became clear that the United States and Britain viewed the main purpose of the no-fly zones as more military than humanitarian.
With so many bombs dropped and missiles fired, civilian casualties were inevitable.
On Jan. 25, 1999, Saeidh Hassan and her three daughters were at home in Basra, a southern port city, when a U.S. missile slammed into their apartment block. Trapped under concrete and steel, Mrs. Hassan called to her daughters but got no answer.
All three were killed instantly. A neighbor boy also died and more than 60 people were critically injured.
U.S. Central Command in Tampa said the strike was a "misfiring," and denied that the allies targeted civilians. Yet that year alone, there were 132 bombings that killed 120 Iraqis and injured 220, the U.N.'s von Sponeck found. Allied strikes also destroyed farms and other civilian property.
"How at a (33,000)-foot height can you protect a population?" von Sponeck wondered. "That is a fantasy."
By 2002, it became clear that the United States and Britain viewed the main purpose of the no-fly zones as more military than humanitarian. (France, concerned by the casualties, dropped out of the coalition in 1996.)
"Since the current Bush administration took power," journalist Jeremy Scahill wrote from Baghdad in 2002, "there has been a significant increase in the frequency and intensity of the bombings, particularly in the south of the country.
"The administration has used the zones to pre-emptively degrade Iraq's already limited ability to defend against a large-scale U.S. attack while not citing a single incident of attempted repression of Shiite or Kurdish populations as a justification."
By late 2002 - just a few months before the invasion - the allied sorties seemed more intended to frighten Iraqis than protect them. U.S. warplanes dropped leaflets in the no-fly zones with pictures of an explosion and a cowering Iraqi family.
"Before you engage coalition aircraft, think about the consequences," the flier warned in Arabic.
U.S. military officials say allied planes were repeatedly threatened while patrolling the zones - 470times in one 18-month period. Given that not a single pilot was killed or injured, though, does Martinez think the threat was exaggerated?
"I know (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld didn't think it because I had that discussion on and on prior to the war," Martinez, a former Bush Cabinet member, said Thursday.
But for Iraqis, there was no question who faced the real danger. As Dr. Jawa Al-Ali, a Basra physician, told the St. Petersburg Times in 2000: "The Americans and British say we are protecting you with our airplanes, but at the same time they are killing us on the ground."
Times staff writer Steve Bousquet contributed to this column. Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com
-------- israel
No Swedish asylum for Israeli nuclear whistleblower Vanunu
(AFP)
Oct 29, 2004 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041029/wl_mideast_afp/israel_nuclear_vanunu_041029183541
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Mordechai Vanunu, who was freed in April after 18 years in an Israeli prison for revealing the country's nuclear program, will not receive asylum in Sweden, an immigration department official said.
"Mordechai Vanunu had applied for asylum in Sweden and I think in several other countries ... We have rejected his application," Mats Baurmann of the Swedish Migration Board told AFP.
The rejection, Baurmann explained, had to do with the fact that Vanunu is still living in Israel, meaning that he can not technically be considered a refugee.
"We haven't tried his case at all, because he is not considered a refugee. Had he been in Sweden, we would have been required by law to try his case, and even if he had been living in a third country we may have taken him in on a special refugee quota.
"But he's living in Israel, so he is not a refugee," he said.
Since his release, Vanunu, 50, has frequently said he wants to leave Israel where he is widely reviled as a traitor for not only for revealing the Jewish state's nuclear ambitions -- the country is widely suspected to have nuclear weapons -- but also for converting to Christianity.
"The only way to feel and enjoy freedom and start my new life as a free human being will be when I can leave Israel and live my life in the US, in Europe or in London," he said in a BBC interview earlier this week.
Vanunu was abducted by Israeli secret service agents in Italy, smuggled back to Israel and then jailed in 1986 after leaking top-secret details about the Dimona plant to the Sunday Times.
Since his release from prison on April 21, he has been subject to a series of sweeping restrictions in Israel, including a ban on travelling abroad as well as holding unauthorized meetings with foreigners.
-------- korea
Powell says no intent to attack North Korea
The Korea Herald
October 29, 2004
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/10/27/200410270028.asp
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday reiterated that the United States has no intent to attack North Korea, and urged the communist regime to return to the discussion table.
"We don't intend to attack North Korea; we have no hostile intent, notwithstanding their claims," Powell said in a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.
"The North Koreans are likely to hold back and keep putting forward conditions to the talks. We hope that in the very near future, the North Koreans will see that it is in their interest to have the talks started again," Powell said.
Stressing that it is "time to move forward" in the six-nation disarmament talks, Powell also said bringing the nuclear matter to a conclusion will mobilize all of the international community into helping North Korea and its people toward an improved life.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon also stressed the importance of improving life in the North, as well as the advancement of human rights there.
"With regard to the North Korean human rights act, it is my government's view that human rights issues are universal and that human rights should be upheld anywhere in the world," Ban said.
"This human rights matter should not have a negative effect on the current South-North talks that are going on and also the six-party process," he added.
Powell also told reporters that Washington does not intend to change its previous proposal made to Pyongyang during the third round of six-nation talks in Beijing back in June.
"We have a good proposal on the table we modified for the third round of six-party talks to show flexibility and to accommodate the interest of the other parties," he said.
"The way to move forward is to have the next round of six party talks," Powell said, referring to the stalled talks among the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia.
He added that during his visit the United States and South Korea reconfirmed their commitment to a "peaceful denuclearized Korean Peninsula."
"We agreed to continue devoting maximum efforts to achieving this goal through multilateral diplomacy and six-party talks," Powell said, adding,
"Clearly, everybody wants to see the next round of six-party talks get started."
U.S. officials believe North Korea is biding its time on the six-party talks, sensing that Democratic candidate John Kerry might win the election and be a better negotiating partner than President George W. Bush.
Powell's overnight 20-hour trip, divided literally into minutes, consisted of meetings with President Roh Moo-hyun, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and Unification Minister Chung Dong-young.
President Roh, in their meeting, underscored the roles of the United States, China, Japan and Russia in peacefully resolving the nuclear dispute, presidential aides said.
Roh asked Washington to help Pyongyang revive its economy and join the international community, and Powell vowed to make more efforts to resume the six-party talks after the U.S. election, the officials said.
The nuclear dispute erupted exactly two years ago when U.S. officials said North Korea had acknowledged having a secret uranium-based arms program in violation of international agreements.
The six-party talks have engaged in discussions to peacefully resolve the nuclear standoff. But North Korea refused to attend a fourth round of meetings in September, citing Washington's "hostile" policy toward it and South Korea's past nuclear activities.
Early last month, South Korea acknowledged that its scientists had experimented with plutonium and uranium, the two key ingredients in making atomic weapons, in 1982 and 2000, respectively.
In an earlier meeting with Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, Powell said that the South's past nuclear experiments are insignificant and cannot be compared with the weapons programs that have been pursued by North Korea and Iran, according to the ministry spokesman.
Seoul claimed that the experiments were not part of any weapons program but Pyongyang has refused to accept the explanations. The issue will be discussed in detail when the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency holds a board meeting in late November.
Wrapping up his visit in Seoul, Powell met with a group of 31 local university students at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Seoul to share with them Washington's foreign policies.
Explaining that the Pentagon's newly implemented global defense posture plan is a system that meets the needs of the 21st century, Powell said the reduction of Uncle Sam's forces in Korea will not in any way weaken the deterrence or alliance here.
"I think that our military will be able to demonstrate to the Korean people, that even though our numbers have gone down the technology has gotten better °¶ and there will be no weakening of the deterrence of the U.S. presence," Powell said. "There is no way in which the United States can ever turn away from Korea, say 'goodbye, you're on your own.'"
Pointing out that Korea and the United States have been together for more than half a century, Powell said "This creates a bond that just doesn't just go away. We will stay as long as the Korean people want us to stay,"
"Even during the periods of anti American sentiment when people were protesting our presence, I think most Korean people understood that it was American military presence that was creating a condition of security and stability on northeast Asia."
(bluelle@heraldm.com)
By Choi Soung-ah
-----
South Korea disagrees with U.S. proposal on six-party talks
Knight Ridder Newspapers
By Renee Schoof
Oct 29, 2004
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10021010.htm
SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea's foreign minister called Tuesday "for a more creative and realistic" proposal that would lure North Korea back to six-nation talks over its nuclear program.
The position differed from that of visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said the United States already had a good proposal on the table.
Powell, wrapping up a trip to Japan, China and South Korea, said leaders of all three countries agreed to press North Korea to return to the talks as soon as possible, but there were indications that they weren't unified on the best approach.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, appearing with Powell at a news conference, said he told Powell that the countries involved in the talks "must come up with a more creative and realistic proposal" to get North Korea back to the negotiating table.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing had called on the United States to be more flexible.
But Powell said Tuesday that he saw no reason for a new proposal. In June, the United States "put forward a new position, which we believe was a balanced position showing flexibility on our side as we try to deal with the concerns" raised by North Korea, he said.
"The way to move forward is to have the next round of six-party talks so that we can discuss that proposal and not have negotiations with ourselves at press conferences," he said.
A fourth round of talks planned for September was canceled after North Korea refused to attend. The six countries are North and South Korea, China, Japan, the United States and Russia.
Under the June proposal, South Korea and Japan would provide North Korea with fuel for energy once Pyongyang declared that it planned to give up its nuclear weapons programs. The United States would offer a formal guarantee that it wouldn't attack after North Korea demonstrated seriousness about not developing a nuclear arsenal. The proposal holds out the possibility of U.S. aid after weapons programs are eliminated in a verifiable way.
The nuclear crisis arose in 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted that it had a secret uranium-enrichment program that could provide material for nuclear weapons. North Korea then threw out international inspectors and said it had started reprocessing spent plutonium, an alternate nuclear-weapons material.
U.S. analysts estimate that North Korea had material for one or two nuclear weapons before the crisis and may have reprocessed enough plutonium since then for several more.
North Korea on Tuesday repeated its conditions for resuming the talks: an end to America's "hostile policy," U.S. compensation for freezing its nuclear programs and a promise to discuss South Korea's nuclear experiments at the talks.
In Seoul, the South Korean foreign minister said his government had concerns about a new U.S. law, the North Korea Human Rights Act, that links American aid to North Korea with Pyongyang's progress on human rights such as freedom of speech and religion. The law calls for human rights to be part of the talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
Ban said North Korea's "particular situation" must be taken into consideration and that the American emphasis on rights shouldn't be allowed to have "a negative effect on North-South (Korean) talks and the six-party talks."
Earlier on Tuesday, South Korean soldiers patrolling the heavily militarized boundary with North Korea found two holes cut in wire barriers about 40 miles north of Seoul, raising the possibility that North Korean troops might have infiltrated the South the day of Powell's visit. South Korean troops put up more roadblocks and conducted search operations. Powell said it was a small breach and didn't come up in his discussions.
Powell also met with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, whose duties include North Korea and national security.
Powell thanked South Korea for its contribution to the coalition forces in Iraq. South Korea has the third largest force there, after the United States and Britain, with 2,800 soldiers in Irbil, in northern Iraq. That's expected to increase to 3,600 by early November.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Yucca Mountain Looms Over Vote
Nevada May Hinge on Candidates' Plans for Nuclear Waste
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7362-2004Oct28.html
YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev., Oct. 28 -- Few signs of life disturb the lonely peace of Yucca Mountain. It juts above the scarred landscape of the Nevada Test Site, overlooking the Funeral Mountains of California's Death Valley and a rocky desert the color of tumbleweed.
The only community of sorts nearby is Amargosa Valley, a town of about 1,600 people spread over 455 square miles where the main attractions are a brothel, a saloon, an opera house and the sight of Yucca Mountain itself.
But all of Nevada cares deeply about the fate of Yucca Mountain, which stands 90 miles west of Las Vegas. Nevada cares so deeply that Yucca Mountain may decide whether President Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry wins the state's five electoral votes on Tuesday -- and with them, perhaps the presidency.
Most Nevadans are dead set against Yucca Mountain becoming the nation's nuclear dump site. In 2000, Bush, who defeated Vice President Al Gore in Nevada by four percentage points, told voters that he would approve Yucca Mountain as a burial ground for 77,000 tons of radioactive waste from 131 sites in 39 states based on "sound science." Bush approved the site in 2002 on the recommendation of the Energy Department -- a move Nevadans have not forgotten.
Not that the Democrats will let anyone here forget. A dizzying number of television ads over the past several weeks from the Kerry campaign, the National Democratic Committee and MoveOn.org all hammer home the point: Kerry is against using Yucca as a nuclear dump, Bush is for it.
And although terrorism, security, the war in Iraq and the economy are the big issues here, in a deadlocked race, pollsters say, Yucca Mountain could tip the balance.
Kerry repeated his promise to keep the nuclear waste away in a rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday. "How many broken promises do you need, Nevada?" Kerry said, adding that Bush promised he would not go forward on Yucca Mountain unless it was safe. "Nevada, not on my watch."
Two of the state's largest newspapers cited Yucca Mountain in endorsing Kerry. The Las Vegas Sun wrote: "President Bush campaigning in Nevada in 2000 masked his true stance on Yucca Mountain. . . . He pushed for Yucca Mountain almost from day one in the White House." The Reno Gazette-Journal used Harry M. Reid, the popular Democratic senator, to vouch for Kerry: "When Kerry says that he will not allow Yucca Mountain to be used as a nuclear waste repository, Reid says that Nevadans can believe him."
The latest polls show the race is a dead heat. A Reno Gazette-Journal/News 4 poll of likely voters released this week showed 49 percent for Bush and 47 percent for Kerry; 2 percent remained undecided, Ralph Nader received 1 percent and other candidates claimed 1 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points.
Democrats and Republicans each claim about 40 percent of the electorate, but Clark County, encompassing not only Las Vegas but also booming suburbs such as Henderson, which helped the county become the fastest-growing region in the country in the 1990s, is a Democratic stronghold.
In the Gazette-Journal/News 4 poll, Kerry led Bush in Clark County, with 70 percent of the state's voters, 53 percent to 42 percent. Bush was ahead in Washoe County, the state's other population center, by 10 points, 53 percent to 43 percent.
"Yucca Mountain is what's probably making Kerry competitive in Nevada," said Del Ali, whose firm, Rockville-based Research 2000, conducted the latest poll.
"It's really not so much a Clark County issue since Kerry has to do well there anyway," Ali added. "But if Yucca Mountain pulls Bush's support under 55 percent in Washoe County and other rural parts of the state, Kerry will win."
Early voting, which ends Friday, has been heavy, suggesting a record turnout, according to state election officials. More than 200,000 people in Clark County had cast their ballots as of Wednesday, with Democrats holding the lead. Both parties say turning out their voters is key, as it is in all the swing states, and they have huge get-out-the-vote efforts underway, climaxing this weekend when thousands of volunteers are set to blanket the state.
Bush, like Kerry, campaigned in Nevada this week, and both are scheduled to bring in big-gun surrogates for the final lap of the race. Former president Bill Clinton, who carried Nevada twice, is to headline a rally Friday in Las Vegas. Vice President Cheney will be in Reno and parts of Clark County on Monday.
-------- new mexico
Man Living in Cave on Los Alamos Lab Land
Associated Press
October 29, 2004
http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=10&aid=D861E5P80_story
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Authorities have evicted a man from a cave on Los Alamos National Laboratory land where they say he apparently lived for years with the comforts of home - a wood-burning stove, solar panels connected to car batteries for electricity and a satellite radio.
Los Alamos Deputy Fire Chief Doug Tucker said Roy Michael Moore's hideaway, which also was equipped with a bed and a glass front door, was discovered earlier Oct. 13 after a Department of Energy employee working at the Los Alamos site office noticed smoke wafting from the cave in a heavily wooded, steep canyon.
The employee reported the smoke to the fire department. Tucker said the smoke came from Moore's wood-burning stove.
Ten marijuana plants were found outside the cave. Moore, 56, has been charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to court documents. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bond.
An officer called to the site by firefighters pulled up the plants and confiscated about 21 ounces of dried marijuana, according to a statement of probable cause filed in magistrate court in Los Alamos.
Tucker said that as fire crews and lab security force members approached the cave after its discovery, they saw Moore and discovered "numerous" marijuana plants growing around the cave.
"From the campsite that I saw, he had been there quite a long time. ... I was really impressed with his ability to set up a camp," Tucker said.
He said it was impossible to see the cave or any sign of Moore from the edge of the 75- to 100-foot cliff above, which is inaccessible because of a tall fence.
The lab has not used the restricted area where the cave is located for years, said Bernie Pleau, a spokesman for the department and the National Nuclear Security Administration in Los Alamos. It is about 50 yards out his office door and down the cliff, he said.
"I don't know if anyone has tried squatting on DOE property before or not," Pleau said. "Pretty strange, don't you think?"
The site was not near any high-security or critical areas, he said.
"It wasn't a security threat by any means," Pleau said.
The DOE ordered the lab to remove all of Moore's property from the area Oct. 16, Pleau said.
-------- us nuc waste
Appeal Filed in Nuclear Waste Storage Decision
Oct. 29, 2004
The Associated Press
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=129353
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah's governor and attorney general want the U.S. Supreme Court to decide who has authority over the transportation and storage of nuclear waste, the latest move in the battle to keep thousands of tons of radioactive waste out of the state.
On Friday, Gov. Olene Walker and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced the filing of a petition with the high court to review an August ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
That ruling upheld a lower court which rejected Utah laws enacted to block a nuclear waste repository proposed for the Goshutes' Skull Valley reservation.
The federal government alone has complete authority to license and regulate the transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste, the Denver-based court ruled, siding with a lower judge that laws enacted between 1998 and 2001 to prevent the storage of 40,000 tons of nuclear waste on the tribal lands conflicted with federal law.
State lawmakers passed significant laws aimed at protecting citizens from the hazards of moving waste across highways should such a site be located in the state, Walker and Shurtleff said. Those laws were wrongly upset by the federal moves, they said.
"I oppose high-level nuclear waste storage in Utah and hope the waste never comes here, that we never have to rely on these laws," Walker said. "But history has taught us that a strong framework of federal and state law is needed, especially when dealing with high-level nuclear waste. If it comes here, it will never leave."
The Skull Valley Band has been locked in a leadership battle since Tribal Chairman Leon Bear signed a lease in 1997 allowing Private Fuel Storage to store up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in upright steel-and-concrete casks on Goshute land.
The tribe's deal was largely seen as a way for the band to emerge from poverty, and for Private Fuel Storage -- a consortium of seven electrical utilities -- to meet the demand of plants that are fast running out of onsite storage for the depleted but radioactive fuel rods.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is expected to decide early next year whether Skull Valley can safely keep nuclear fuel. The board in March 2003 stalled construction by ruling the chances of a fighter jet from Hill Air Force Base crashing into the storage pad makes the project too risky. It has taken arguments for and against that decision and is weighing other aspects of the project.
As planned, the storage pad would hold up to 4,000 casks filled with depleted nuclear fuel -- about 10 million rods -- across 100 acres of the Skull Valley. The waste would be shipped over rail lines, mostly from reactors east of the Mississippi. Utah has no nuclear power plants.
Both major party candidates for governor, Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. and Democrat Scott Matheson Jr., oppose the facility, as do the members of Utah's congressional delegation.
-------- MILITARY
-------- britain
'Nervous and angry', the Black Watch arrive in the Triangle of Death
independent.co.uk
By Colin Brown
29 October 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=577149
Soldiers of the Black Watch regiment expressed their anger yesterday at being airlifted from the Basra area to a dangerous mission in Iraq's so-called "triangle of death''.
Some of the first 75 troops to be airlifted to the area to guard a route into Fallujah said they had been expecting to go home when they were redeployed. Instead of a homecoming, they have been warned to expect suicide bombers and other attacks. "I'm nervous and angry," said Pte Manny Lynch, 19, from Fife, as he was about to board a Hercules C-130 transport aircraft. "I was supposed to be going home last Monday and I only found out that I was being deployed four days before ... Finding out just days before I was due to go home is hard to take."
Ben Brereton, 19, from Truro, Cornwall, a craftsman with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, said: "I don't know how they justify it."
-------- business
'Political' merger of Snecma, Sagem leaves analysts cold
PARIS (AFP)
Oct 29, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041029151737.6p74823e.html
The planned merger of Sagem and Snecma left analysts bewildered Friday at what was seen as a balantly political move by the government to create a defence industry giant that made little financial sense.
The two companies announced earlier that Sagem, a French telecommunications equipment and defence electronics maker, would takeover French state-controlled aircraft engine maker Snecma in a deal analysts expect to be worth up to five billion euros (6.36 billion dollars).
In terms of sales, Snecma is more than twice as big as Sagem, whose chairman, Gregoire Olivier, only last week told the media his company had no desire to be bolted on to a "large group".
The deal would see Sagem offer three of its own shares for every 13 shares in Snecma, with a cash alternative of 20 euros per share capped at 1.25 billion euros. Sagem would also offer a pre-payment dividend of 0.50 euros per share.
Once the deal is finalised, the French state's 66.22-percent stake in Snecma would be reduced to around 33 percent.
The French government was left gloating over the new-born defence giant.
"The tie-up of the two high French high tech groups will allow for a new actor in the European industry," Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in a joint statement, adding: "it will beef up European industrial capacities in strategic sectors such as defence".
But other observers were less impressed.
Deutsche Bank analysts Georges Memmi and Ben Fidler said the proposed merger "appears to us to make little strategic or industrial sense."
"The operational overlap between the businesses is minimal and the deal represents a major strategic shift for Sagem," they added.
The companies have said they expect costs savings from their merger to reach 160-190 million euros per year pretax from the third year of operation.
Even Alcatel chief executive Serge Tchuruk, speaking on France Info radio, said the merger looked like a political decision "taken quickly, doubtless by the finance ministry," and an analyst at a major US brokerage called the deal "blatantly a (government) stitch-up."
Analysts were united in having doubts about the industrial sense of a merger and the US analyst said: "It's really hard to see where the synergies are going to come from."
Fortis Bank analyst Stephane Houri said the group's financial plan looks "clever" and positive for earnings.
"But there are still too many questions. I'm still not positive on this merger. There are doubts about how they will present the merged company and you have to wonder if they will make all the synergies given that they are from things like marketing rather than proper cost savings."
A trader at KBC Securities said the merger "doesn't really make sense for Sagem, their shares will probably move sharply down. There's no sense in being a Sagem shareholder right now ... but it will benefit Snecma."
"The real question is where will they get synergies from, where will they get any value for shareholders," he added, noting comments from Snecma chief executive Jean-Paul Bechat that the merged entity is not considering job losses, as the two groups' activities do not overlap.
The companies earlier said that they expected Sagem's technical expertise in electronics to "find new outlets through applications on Snecma's aircraft engines and equipment."
"In the same way, Snecma would provide Sagem with access to an extended international commercial network," they said.
In afternoon trading, Sagem shares were off 6.75 euros or 8.58 percent at 71.95 euros after being suspended for the morning session. Snecma shares rose 0.75 euros or 4.66 percent at 16.85 euros after resuming trade. Meanwhile the CAC-40 index of leading share was flat.
Shares in French defence electronics firm Thales were up 0.65 euros or 2.36 percent at 28.20 euros on speculation that the company could join the merged group eventually.
Some analysts were baffled why Snecma, and not Thales, was being merged with Sagem.
Analysts at Aurel Leven said: "We're wondering why Snecma had refused to merge with Thales. A merger with the latter would have made much more sense."
"This would have created a major player in the aerospace and defense sector which would have been in a position to compete in the global industry," they said.
-------- europe
Curbs On Sonar Use Sought In Europe
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7419-2004Oct28.html
The European Parliament called on member nations yesterday to suspend the use of high-intensity sonar during naval maneuvers until research determines whether the very loud sounds are leading to the deaths of whales and other sea creatures.
The nonbinding resolution, overwhelmingly adopted by the 25-nation body, marks the first time that any governmental body has weighed in on the controversial issue. Although the resolution does not require member navies to stop using "active" sonar, it concludes that there is growing research suggesting that the widespread use of loud sonar has caused some whales and other animals to beach themselves.
The resolution also calls on member nations to push the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other international alliances to adopt similar moratoriums and to work toward developing alternative technology.
In recent years, mass strandings of whales have been recorded following naval sonar maneuvers in Greece, the Virgin Islands, the Bahamas and the Canary Islands.
The U.S. Navy and many others use loud "active" sonar to detect submarines. While the Navy has acknowledged that its sonar played a central role in the stranding of 17 whales in the Bahamas in 2000, it says that sonar can be used safely and that it has been unfairly linked to other whale strandings.
The recent strandings suspected to have been caused by sonar have all involved the older mid-frequency variety.
The U.S. Navy and others are also developing more powerful low-frequency sonar that can travel hundreds of miles underwater. Some environmentalists believe it will be more hazardous than the mid-frequency sonar now used.
Pentagon officials say the low-frequency sonar -- which has been the subject of protracted litigation -- is needed to meet the future threat of low-technology submarines in crowded coastal waters.
The European Parliament passed the moratorium resolution with 441 votes in favor, 15 opposed and 14 abstentions. "This is a global problem that must be solved through international cooperation," said Frederick O'Regan, president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "The resolution adopted today by the European Parliament is a significant step toward that goal."
In July, the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission found "compelling evidence" that high-intensity sonar was harming whales and leading to some mass strandings.
--------
Georgia: A Meltdown of Weapons, or of Responsibility?
Scandal Hits Georgian Army
balkanalysis.com
by Christopher Deliso
October 29, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=3871
While controversy continues to rage over how hundreds of tons of heavy weaponry went missing in Iraq, a quieter scandal of the same kind, but involving more assignable culpability, is unfolding in Georgia.
On Wednesday, it was announced that ammunition has gone missing from barracks in the southwestern district of Akhaltsikhe. But that's minor in comparison to other recent events.
One week ago, in a joint news conference with Security Minister Vano Merabishvili, Defense Minister Giorgi Baramidze, and Givi Targamadze, chair of the Parliamentary Committee of Defense and Security, it was announced that Georgian army munitions have been comprehensively "recycled," melted down and sold for scrap, allegedly by members of the Georgian military.
When a team from these ministries raided an "artillery-recycling facility" in the east Georgian Dedoplistskaro district, they discovered that "the military hardware stored there had been stolen piece-by-piece and sold as a scrap metal," reported local Tbilisi television stations, the newspaper 24 Hours, and Resonance magazine this week.
Apparently, this facility for destroying decommissioned weaponry is a cooperative venture between the military and a private firm, Delta. While representatives of the center claimed they'd received the official OK for destroying the outdated weaponry, the government now claims that the documents were forged and that the weapons were in fact up to snuff. According to Defense Minister Baramidze, any attempt to profit from private sales of the weapons would be tantamount to "high treason." MP Targamadze, following the same line, declared the need to eliminate the scheming of "these private firms together with some of the defense officials." Some media are even speculating that the fallout of the scandal might "reach cabinet level," and that "the resignation of Defense Minister Baramidze is only a matter of time."
Apparently, the Delta company has earned a "shady reputation for exporting the outdated weaponry" that it oversees under an OSCE-supervised project for the dismantling of "hundreds of dangerously unstable bombs and various types of artillery ammunition."
Exporting scrap metal is just one of several ways that defense officials have profited from the general disarray and lack of motivation in the Georgian armed forces - where the soldiers even had to buy their own uniforms - since the 1990s.
This scandal came on the heels of a somewhat more serious one, which saw two Defense Ministry officials arrested in September over the disappearance of eight Strela-2 man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems earlier this year. The missiles, as well as other arms and ammunition, were spirited away from the central Georgian Osiauri military base - which has also become the much-publicized training site for Georgia's new civilian "reservist" army.
Although they didn't forward any evidence, the Russians implied today that these missiles had been sold to Chechen terrorists.
Whatever the truth may be, these incidents are not reassuring. The concern looming behind everything, here and in other CIS states, is the possibility of radioactive or nuclear materials being stolen from the former Soviet country and sold to terrorists. This specter materialized in December 2002, when three containers of radioactive cesium-137 disappeared from Vaziani military base, near Tbilisi.
The new revelations are especially embarrassing for the Saakashvili government, as it has spent the past six months or so trumpeting the strength and preparedness of the Georgian military. Since June, the government has warned incessantly that the army may be called upon at any moment to attack rebellious South Ossetia. However, in the biggest engagements to date (in August), 18 soldiers were killed. It was a huge and unexpected humiliation for the government. Saakashvili vowed never again would such a disaster occur.
Of course, the Georgian army has taken major strides in its drive to professionalize over the past two years. Claiming to be combating an al-Qaeda threat from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, American military trainers embedded themselves in the country starting in spring of 2002, when Eduard Shevardnadze was still in power. The change of government has made no difference in policy; tangible American aid continues to flow in, most recently two weeks ago when a U.S. Air Force cargo plane unloaded "93,000 lbs. of military supplies valued at over $1.1 million. The U.S. equipment included uniform material and other supplies that would be used by Georgian troops deploying to Iraq later this year," stated the Messenger.
Next year, the U.S. will up its military aid to Georgia by $3 million - reaching a nice round number of $15 million total. It also plans to train 4,000 troops and finance the Georgian cannon fodder while in Iraq. It's ironic that, with the many internal crises the Georgian president is always going on about, the country finds it possible to send any of its troops on an Iraqi vacation. But that is the price of alliance, we suppose.
In April, Great Britain also funded and staffed a $50,000 military training program (with some German help) for the Georgians. Most recently, longtime ally Turkey has also stepped up to the plate. On Oct. 20, Georgia's western neighbor earmarked $2 million for the Georgian National Academy, the Marneuli military airport, marine and border forces, and the logistics battalion's general headquarters. In addition, Ankara is also handing over $396,058 worth of goods. According to the Messenger, these include "six Land Rovers, ten portable radios, sixteen backup batteries and communication equipment, [for] the Kodjori special forces and the 11th mechanized brigade." This is just a small part of the $37 million worth of military aid Turkey has sent to Georgia over the past six years.
Finally, Turkish Major General Yurdaek Olcan also disclosed that by year's end "we also intend to deliver nearly 40 cars and 100 communication equipment" to the Georgians.
However, the deprived economic situation means that corruption will always be a factor in the decisions of malnourished, mistreated soldiers and their scheming superiors. Will the American-supplied munitions someday meet the same fate as have the ones "recycled" and melted down these past couple of months?
As journalist Zaal Anjaparidze dryly put it, "[T]he actual state of affairs in the Georgian military infrastructure obviously runs counter [to] the government's bombastic statements about the country's defense potential."
Whether or not Saakashvili's vaunted reforms can overcome the ingrown culture of corruption in the Georgian military, there is still much to be done before theirs becomes a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude. 'Til then, the Russians can just laugh off the provocations, as they did in August when stating that recent Georgian threats were "not even worth of commenting [on] because of their absurdity."
A close associate of the 35-year-old Georgian president recently told me that "Misha is a bit hotheaded, and I fear he is still intoxicated with the power he so suddenly acquired. I don't know why he is taking this militaristic attitude. It can't be a wise policy for the future."
-------- iraq
100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html
One of the first attempts to independently estimate the loss of civilian life from the Iraqi war has concluded that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have died because of the U.S. invasion.
The analysis, an extrapolation based on a relatively small number of documented deaths, indicated that many of the excess deaths have occurred due to aerial attacks by coalition forces, with women and children being frequent victims, wrote the international team of public health researchers making the calculations.
Pentagon officials say they do not keep tallies of civilian casualties, and a spokesman said yesterday there is no way to validate estimates by others. The spokesman said that the past 18 months of fighting in Iraq have been "prosecuted in the most precise fashion of any conflict in the history of modern warfare," and that "the loss of any innocent lives is a tragedy, something that Iraqi security forces and the multinational force painstakingly work to avoid."
Previous independent estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq were far lower, never exceeding 16,000. Other experts immediately challenged the new estimate, saying the small number of documented deaths upon which it was based make the conclusions suspect.
"The methods that they used are certainly prone to inflation due to overcounting," said Marc E. Garlasco, senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, which investigated the number of civilian deaths that occurred during the invasion. "These numbers seem to be inflated."
The estimate is based on a September door-to-door survey of 988 Iraqi households -- containing 7,868 people in 33 neighborhoods -- selected to provide a representative sampling. Two survey teams gathered detailed information about the date, cause and circumstances of any deaths in the 14.6 months before the invasion and the 17.8 months after it, documenting the fatalities with death certificates in most cases.
The project was designed by Les Roberts and Gilbert M. Burnham of the Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore; Richard Garfield of Columbia University in New York; and Riyadh Lafta and Jamal Kudhairi of Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriya University College of Medicine.
Based on the number of Iraqi fatalities recorded by the survey teams, the researchers calculated that the death rate since the invasion had increased from 5 percent annually to 7.9 percent. That works out to an excess of about 100,000 deaths since the war, the researchers reported in a paper released early by the Lancet, a British medical journal.
The researchers called their estimate conservative because they excluded deaths in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad that has been the scene of particularly intense fighting and has accounted for a disproportionately large number of deaths in the survey.
"We are quite confident that there's been somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 deaths, but it could be much higher," Roberts said.
When the researchers examined the causes of the 73 violent deaths collected in the study, 84 percent were due to the actions of coalition forces, although the researchers stressed that none was the result of what would have been considered misconduct. Ninety-five percent were due to airstrikes by helicopter gunships, rockets or other types of aerial weaponry.
Forty-six percent of the violent deaths involving coalition forces were men ages 15 to 60, but 46 percent were children younger than 15, and 7 percent were women, the researchers reported.
The researchers and the Lancet editors acknowledged that the study has clear limitations, including a relatively small sample of violent deaths that were examined directly and the researchers' reliance on individual memories for some information. But the researchers said the findings represent the most reliable estimate to date.
The paper was "extensively peer-reviewed, revised, edited" and rushed into print "because of its importance to the evolving security situation in Iraq, Richard Horton, the journal's editor, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
But Garlasco of Human Rights Watch said it is extremely difficult to estimate civilian casualties, especially based on relatively small numbers. "I certainly think that 100,000 is a reach," Garlasco said.
In addition, his group's investigation indicated that the ground war, not the air war, caused more of the deaths that have occurred.
Staff writer Josh White and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
--------
11 local soldiers killed on video
October 29, 2004
By Mariam Fam
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041028-100823-5275r.htm
BAGHDAD - Terrorists slaughtered 11 Iraqi soldiers, beheading one and shooting the others execution-style, and declared on an Islamic militant Web site yesterday that Iraqi fighters will avenge "the blood" of women and children killed in U.S. strikes on the guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah.
The wave of foreigner kidnappings claimed another victim - a Polish woman in her 60s who is married to an Iraqi. Her captors demanded that Poland withdraw its 2,400 soldiers and that the U.S.-led coalition free all Iraqi women held at Abu Ghraib prison.
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army took responsibility for killing the 11 Iraqi national guardsmen. A videotape of their deaths was shown on the group's Web site yesterday along with a warning to all Iraqi police and soldiers to desert or face death.
The terrorists said earlier that the soldiers were abducted this week on the road between Baghdad and Hillah, 60 miles to the south.
After forcing each of the soldiers to state his name and unit, the militants forced one of them to the ground and cut off his head. The others were forced to kneel with their hands bound as a gunman fired shots into the back of their heads.
A voice on the videotape warned all Iraqi soldiers and police to "repent to God, abandon your weapons, go home and beware of supporting the apostate crusaders or their followers, the Iraqi government, or else you will only find death."
"We will not forget the blood of our elderly, our women and our children that is shed daily in Fallujah, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere," a statement on the Web site said.
The al-Sunnah movement has taken responsibility for a number of attacks and kidnappings, including the slaying of 12 Nepalese hostages in August.
Elsewhere, two more American soldiers were killed - one in a car bombing in Baghdad and the other in an ambush near Balad, 40 miles north of the capital. At least 1,109 U.S. service members have died since President Bush launched the Iraq war in March 2003.
In Tokyo, Japanese authorities said they had failed to enlist the help of a prominent Iraqi cleric in trying to free a 24-year-old Japanese hostage.
An al Qaeda affiliate led by Jordanian terror suspect Abu Musab Zarqawi threatened Tuesday to behead Shosei Koda in 48 hours unless Japan withdraws its troops from Iraq, a demand rejected by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
The video of the Polish hostage, aired on Al Jazeera television, showed a middle-aged woman with gray hair wearing a polka-dotted blouse sitting in front of two masked gunmen, one of whom was pointing a pistol at her head.
The woman was identified as Teresa Borcz-Kalifa by one of her former superiors at the Polish Embassy in Baghdad, where she worked in the 1990s. Leszek Adamiec told Poland's private Radio Zet that Mrs. Borcz-Kalifa worked in the consular section until 1994.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said the woman, a longtime resident with Iraqi citizenship, was thought to have been abducted Wednesday night from her home in Baghdad. In Warsaw, Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said she was a Polish citizen who is married to an Iraqi.
She was the ninth foreign woman abducted in Iraq since a wave of kidnappings began last spring.
The Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Fundamentalist Brigades took responsibility for her abduction.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Poland will not surrender "to the dictate of terrorists" by meeting their demands. Poland commands about 6,000 troops from 15 nations, including about 2,400 from Poland, in the Babil, Karbala and Wasit provinces south of Baghdad.
All but two foreign female hostages have been released. In a statement issued yesterday in London, CARE International appealed for the release of Margaret Hassan, a British-Irish-Iraqi citizen who has directed the humanitarian organization's operations in Iraq since 1991.
Meanwhile, the first wave of 75 British soldiers set up camp yesterday at their new base at an undisclosed location about 30 miles south of Baghdad, part of about 800 British troops who are moving closer to the capital to bolster U.S. forces. Soldiers of the Scottish Black Watch Regiment, redeployed from the southern city of Basra, were told they will be pulled out of Iraq in early December, the British news agency Press Association reported.
U.S. and Iraqi forces are gearing up for a possible assault on Fallujah and other terrorist strongholds west of Baghdad if community leaders do not hand over foreign fighters and extremists, including Zarqawi and his followers.
Also yesterday, U.S. aircraft bombed a suspected terrorist safe house in Fallujah, killing two persons, hospital officials said. The overnight strike in the northern part of the city targeted a "meeting site" used by suspected Zarqawi allies, the U.S. military said.
--------
Video Shows Slaying of 11 Iraqi Guardsmen
2 U.S. Soldiers Die in Attacks; Pole Kidnapped
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4793-2004Oct28.html
BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 -- Eleven kidnapped Iraqi National Guardsmen were shown being killed in a video posted Thursday on the Internet, extending a succession of recent slayings of Iraqi and foreign security forces by insurgents.
Two U.S. soldiers were also killed Thursday, and a Polish woman was added to the ranks of foreigners taken hostage in Iraq.
The Ansar al-Sunna Army, an Islamic group that also asserted responsibility for the almost identical execution of 12 Nepalese workers in August, posted warnings to other Iraqi security forces with the footage of the guardsmen's deaths -- the first by beheading, the others by gunshot. Each victim recited his name and unit before being killed.
"Abandon your weapons and go home and beware of supporting the apostate Crusaders or their followers, the Iraqi government, or else you will only find death," an unidentified voice said in Arabic on the soundtrack. A written statement on the site added: "We will not forget about the blood of our elderly, women and children that is shed daily in Fallujah, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere on your hands and the hands of those you work with."
The insurgent group announced last week that it had kidnapped the 11 guardsmen. Iraq's Defense Ministry said Thursday, however, that it had not received any reports that 11 guardsmen were missing, news services reported.
The National Guard, one of a handful of Iraqi security agencies established after the U.S.-led invasion last year, has borne the brunt of insurgent attacks aimed at forces defending Iraq's interim government. Most recently, 49 unarmed National Guard recruits were massacred by unknown gunmen Saturday near a training base northeast of Baghdad.
The U.S. soldiers slain Thursday were attacked in the kind of ambushes that have become common in Iraq. One soldier was killed when a huge car bomb exploded beside a convoy under a freeway overpass in southern Baghdad. The second died in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a convoy between Baghdad and Balad, a huge logistics base north of the capital. The military withheld the names of the soldiers pending notification of next of kin.
In the latest kidnapping, a middle-age woman identified as a Polish national was displayed on a video aired by al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite news channel. The woman was shown sitting calmly before two masked men, one of whom pointed a pistol at her head. Al-Jazeera reported that the woman could be heard urging Poland to pull its troops out of Iraq. Poland has about 2,400 troops in the country's south.
Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said the woman was a Polish citizen married to an Iraqi and worked at the Polish Embassy in Baghdad in the 1990s, according to the Associated Press. President Aleksander Kwasniewski, often praised by President Bush as a stalwart ally on Iraq, declared that Poland would not surrender "to the dictate of terrorists."
The kidnapping was at least the third in 10 days involving a citizen of a country that has provided troops to the U.S.-led military coalition. Margaret Hassan, the CARE International country director who also has an Iraqi husband, was seized Oct. 19 and has been shown in Internet videos pleading for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to quit the coalition. Hassan, a native of Ireland, also has British and Iraqi citizenship.
On Thursday, the charity, which earlier had suspended operations here, announced it was closing entirely in Iraq and repeated its call for Hassan's release.
There was no word on the fate of a third hostage, Shosei Koda, the Japanese backpacker who had warned in a video that he would be beheaded by Thursday unless the Tokyo government pulled out its troops. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has refused the demand.
[The Japanese government convened an emergency session Friday following a media report that a body believed to be Asian was found in Iraq, according to the Associated Press. "We haven't confirmed anything yet," Koizumi said.]
In yet another video display, a band of masked men claimed that insurgents had acquired "a large quantity of explosives" from Qaqaa, the arms facility from which a U.N. agency says tons of high explosives had disappeared.
No support was offered for the claim, made by a group calling itself the Islam Army Brigades Karrar Brigade. One analyst said Iraq had more than 900 munitions sites before the invasion, and insurgents have long boasted that arms and explosives were readily available.
As if to prove the point, residents of Fallujah said a shipment of explosives, assault rifles, rockets and missiles recently was smuggled into the city in a tank truck. The city, under the control of local insurgents and foreign fighters since April, is preparing for an expected U.S. military offensive intended to restore Baghdad's authority before national elections promised for January.
Informal talks aimed at averting military action in Fallujah continued Thursday, but the office of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned in a statement, "This chance could be the last."
U.S. warplanes bombed a house before dawn in Fallujah's battered Jolan neighborhood, killing three fighters inside, residents said. And in a helicopter raid, U.S. forces arrested a leader of Mohammad's First Army, Nouri Halboosi, in Halabsa, west of Fallujah.
--------
CASUALTIES
Study Puts Iraqi Deaths of Civilians at 100,000
October 29, 2004
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL,
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/europe/29casualties.html?pagewanted=all
PARIS, Oct. 28 - An estimated 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq as a direct or indirect consequence of the March 2003 United States-led invasion, according to a new study by a research team at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Coming just five days before the presidential election the finding is certain to generate intense controversy, since it is far higher than previous mortality estimates for the Iraq conflict.
Editors of The Lancet, the London-based medical publication, where an article describing the study is scheduled to appear, decided not to wait for the normal publication date next week, but to place the research online Friday, apparently so it could circulate before the election.
The Bush administration has not estimated civilian casualties from the conflict, and independent groups have put the number at most in the tens of thousands.
In the study, teams of researchers led by Dr. Les Roberts fanned out across Iraq in mid-September to interview nearly 1,000 families in 33 locations. Families were interviewed about births and deaths in the household before and after the invasion.
Although the authors acknowledge that data collection was difficult in what is effectively still a war zone, the data they managed to collect is extensive. Using what they described as the best sampling methods that could be applied under the circumstances, they found that Iraqis were 2.5 times more likely to die in the 17 months following the invasion than in the 14 months before it.
Before the invasion, the most common causes of death in Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and chronic diseases. Afterward, violent death was far ahead of all other causes.
"We were shocked at the magnitude but we're quite sure that the estimate of 100,000 is a conservative estimate," said Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins team. Dr. Burnham said the team excluded data about deaths in Falluja in making their estimate, because that city was the site of unusually intense violence.
In 15 of the 33 communities visited, residents reported violent deaths in their families since the conflict started. They attributed many of those deaths to attacks by American-led forces, mostly airstrikes, and most of those killed were women and children. The risk of violent death was 58 times higher than before the war, the researchers reported.
The team included researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies and included doctors from Al Mustansiriya University Medical School in Baghdad.
There is bound to be skepticism about the estimate of 100,000 excess deaths, since that translates into an average of 166 deaths a day since the invasion. But some people were not surprised. "I am emotionally shocked but I have no trouble in believing that this many people have been killed," said Scott Lipscomb, an associate professor at Northwestern University, who works on the www.iraqbodycount.net project.
That project, which collates only deaths reported in the news media, currently put the maximum civilian death toll at just under 17,000. "We've always maintained that the actual count must be much higher," Mr. Lipscomb said.
The researchers said they were highly technical in their selection of interview sites and data analysis, although interview locations were limited by the decision to cut down on driving time when possible in order to reduce the risk to the interviewers. Each team included an Iraqi health worker, generally a physician.
Although the teams relied primarily on interviews with local residents, they also requested to see at least two death certificates at the end of interviews in each area, to try to ensure that people had remembered and responded honestly. The research team decided that asking for death certificates in each case, during the interviews, might cause hostility and could put the research team in danger.
Some of those killed may have been insurgents, not civilians, the authors noted. Also, the rise in deaths included a rise in murders and some deaths were caused by the decline of medical care. "But the majority of excess mortality is clearly due to violence," Dr. Burnham said.
The study is scientific, reserving judgment on the politics of the Iraq conflict. But Dr. Roberts and his colleagues are critical of the Bush administration and the Army for not releasing estimates of civilian deaths.
"This study shows that with moderate funds, four weeks and seven Iraqi team members willing to risk their lives, a useful measure of civilian deaths could be obtained," the authors wrote.
-------- israel / palestine
Arafat approves Abbas as deputy
October 29, 2004
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041028-100822-8258r.htm
LONDON - Yasser Arafat approved plans by senior officials in his Palestinian Authority to name former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to a newly created post of "deputy chairman" prior to Mr. Arafat's departure for a Paris hospital early today.
Senior Palestinian officials cautioned that such a change could take weeks or even months to orchestrate, and probably would wait until after Mr. Arafat completed treatment for a serious blood disorder.
Moreover, they said that the current prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, could continue to run day-to-day affairs of the Palestinian Authority during Mr. Arafat's absence.
Nevertheless, the move marks the first indication of who will succeed Mr. Arafat as the Palestinian leader.
"This latest illness has at last got [Mr. Arafat] to understand he needs to have a deputy," said one Palestinian Cabinet minister who declined to be named.
"He told us ... 'you guys have to be responsible and deal with matters' in his absence," the minister added.
Following a series of emergency meetings in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the minister also said: "[Mr. Abbas] has had a reconciliation with [Mr. Arafat]. He is the man most of the important people here want."
A second official, an aide to a key Palestinian minister who was present when the plan was discussed with Mr. Arafat, said it definitely would happen.
Mr. Arafat, unable to stand on his own, agreed to leave the West Bank compound in Ramallah, where he has been under virtual house arrest for more than two years, and fly to a Paris hospital for treatment.
Blood tests showed that Mr. Arafat, 75, suffered from a low platelet count, though it was unclear what caused the ailment. His doctors ruled out leukemia.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier welcomed the decision by Mr. Arafat to come.
"France ... will be always on your side to back your effort in favor of a just and negotiated peace," Mr. Barnier said.
It was not clear whether Mr. Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, would accompany Mr. Arafat to Paris. The two frequently had disagreed, and last year, Mr. Arafat effectively fired Mr. Abbas as prime minister.
Despite many months of total estrangement, Mr. Arafat held two one-on-one meetings with Mr. Abbas in the past several days.
Mr. Abbas' return to favor came about after senior Cabinet ministers urged the two men to bury their differences for the sake of avoiding a chaotic and potentially explosive succession battle.
A consensus was reached among "some powerful men in the Cabinet, who were pushing for this," the second official said.
The majority of the Cabinet wanted to prevent either Jibril Rajoub, the current national security adviser, or his rival and predecessor, Mohamed Dahlan, from entering the fray.
The central committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian political movement, is to be convened to approve the move, followed by a rubber-stamping of the decision by the much larger PLO executive committee, this official said.
However, the plan could be stillborn if Mr. Arafat falls victim to the illness, leaving insufficient time for the gatherings necessary to amend the current laws. As things now stand, there is no provision for a deputy chairman.
"Mr. Abbas has managed to swing the support of most factions in the PLO," the official said.
Mr. Arafat, who holds the official post of chairman of the Palestinian Authority despite his preference for the title "president," has declined to name an acting leader while the moves toward creating a deputy chairmanship are taking place.
Mr. Abbas would hold the post until national elections could take place, giving him time to consolidate support among Palestinian masses, if the scenario works as planned.
Mr. Abbas had been arguing for a "demilitarization" of the four-year-old uprising against Israel ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Mr. Abbas is one of the few surviving founding members of Fatah - the main political grouping within the PLO.
In exile in Qatar during the late 1950s, he helped recruit a group of Palestinians to the cause. They went on to become key figures in the PLO.
He co-founded Fatah with Mr. Arafat and accompanied him into exile in Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia. In the early days of the movement, he became respected for his clean and simple living.
-------- russia / chechnya
Putin enters Ukrainian election row by attending army parade
29 October 2004
independent.co.uk
By Askold Krushelnycky in Kiev
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=577136
A Soviet-style military parade shut down the streets of Kiev yesterday as Ukraine entered the final stretch of a tense election campaign marred by allegations of dirty tricks and intimidation tactics.
The West-leaning opposition has accused the government of flooding the capital with uniformed soldiers to scare off their support and to use force against planned mass demonstrations in the event of electoral fraud.
Watching the parade alongside the Prime Minister and presidential hopeful, Viktor Yanukovych, was Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader used the show of force as an occasion for some high-profile campaigning on behalf of the pro-Moscow candidate.
The parade itself - to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Ukraine's liberation from the Nazis - was brought forward by a week, without explanation, and overshadows the last 72 hours of the campaign.
Supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, leader of the pro-Western democratic coalition, say they have a real chance of winning and that has prompted the military presence. "On the day of voting there will be several tens of thousands of men in uniforms near Kiev," said Mr Yushchenko, "or has the government even forgotten the date on which Kiev was liberated?"
Mr Yushchenko is running neck and neck in the polls with Mr Yanukovych, the chosen successor of the incumbent, Leonid Kuchma, and the vote is seen as a watershed for Ukrainians. Most independent observers believe the opposition leader would win a fair election by a clear margin.
Observers say the result will determine whether Kiev charts a course towards democracy and the West or goes down the more authoritarian route of Russia and Belarus.
A bitter campaign has been fought against a backdrop of bomb explosions and opposition supporters being beaten and detained. The latest scandal has arisen after the opposition claimed that some of its members were attacked by police masquerading as skinheads at a rally. The assailants were found to have police identification cards and pistols.
Mr Yushchenko is the head of a liberal and centre-right coalition and is promising democratic reforms to fight endemic corruption. He also advocates EU and Nato membership.
Mr Yanukovych is the successor chosen by the outgoing President Kuchma who has been largely isolated internationally due to accusations of corruption, authoritarianism, and human-rights abuses. He is avowedly pro-Russian and supports Mr Putin's plan to create a Moscow-led economic zone comprising their two countries, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The opposition calls it a plan to recreate the USSR.
Mr Putin was at yesterday's rally on the last day of a three-day visit that outraged the opposition which said it was a flagrant attempt to boost the chances of Mr Yanukovych. Alongside the two leaders was Belarus's Stalinist President Alexander Lukashenka who bolstered his own powers a fortnight ago in sham elections.
On the first evening of his visit, Mr Putin appeared on three government-controlled television channels to praise Mr Yanukovych's economic policies. He also promised that Ukrainian citizens will be able to travel to Russia without passports - an electoral present that will win the approval of millions of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
Forming a new economic bloc has become one of Moscow's top priorities, and Ukraine - bigger than France and with 50 million peo