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NUCLEAR
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and subsequent weapons testing
How dead animals dumped in HP Shipyard lead to cancerous human breasts
UN Team: Keep Congolese Uranium Mine Closed
Veterans Day Address to the Nation
France to partially privatise nuclear giant Areva
Europe's chances of securing major nuclear project improve
EU Threatens to Go It Alone on Nuclear Fusion
Iran Official Warns of NPT Pull-Out if West Presses
Japan denies ending bid for nuclear fusion project
Deserter lifts veil on closed regime
Nuclear waste at center stage
MILITARY
Kabul in Touch With Captors of U.N. Aides
Sudan, Rebels Reach Accord On Darfur
Pentagon Widens Procurement Investigation
Europeans Lobby in Washington for Military Work
Moscow complains of lack of financing for destruction of chemical weapons
Rightist Militias Are a Force in Colombia's Congress
U.S. Forces Battle Into Heart of Fallujah
Rebuilding What the Assault Turns to Rubble
Rebel Fighters Who Fled Attack May Now Be Active Elsewhere
U.S.-Led Forces Gain More Ground in Falluja as Battle Rages
Goliath Beats David In Fallujah
Israeli Forces Kill 3 Palestinians
Israel Will Allow Arafat Burial in West Bank, After Cairo Funeral
Netanyahu Drops Resignation Threat
U.S. to defend use of Guantanamo war tribunals
A provision of the No Child Left Behind Act
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
U.S. Takes Oregon Assisted-Suicide Law to High Court
Columbia voters ease marijuana restrictions
Probe of marshals was 'appropriate'
Witch Hunting Air Marshals Is Disputed
Panel Says Census Move on Arab-Americans Recalls World War II Internments
Bush revives bid to legalize illegal aliens
Arizona initiative inspires others
Justices Rule in Immigrant's Favor
Man Charged With Aiding Terrorists
POLITICS
Campaign With No Candidate Keeps Racking Up Expenses
Ashcroft, Evans quit Bush Cabinet
U.S. foreign policy will be 'aggressive'
Ashcroft, Evans To Leave Cabinet
Ashcroft Quits Top Justice Post; Evans Going, Too
Ashcroft's Resignation Letter
Antiterror Campaign Made Ashcroft a Lightning Rod
ENERGY
New Report Refuels Debate on Wind Farm
Floating Natural Gas Plant Is Proposed for L.I. Sound
OTHER
America's Main Street Revisited Pennsylvania Ave. Reopened to Pedestrians
U.S. Genetically Modified Corn Is Assailed
ACTIVISTS
Bush Threatens Mankind, says Caldicott
-------- NUCLEAR
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and subsequent weapons testing
November 2004
World Nuclear Association
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/printable_information_papers/inf52print.htm
- Two atomic bombs made by the allied powers (USA and UK) from uranium-235 and plutonium-239 were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively early in August 1945. These brought the long Second World War to a sudden end.
- The immense and previously unimaginable power of the atom had been demonstrated. In the following years several governments joined the arms race, while internationally, efforts were focussed on constraining the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation.
- But from the 1950s the power of the atom was harnessed increasingly for peaceful uses, notably electricity generation and medicine. Nowhere is the transition from weapons of destruction to power for good better displayed than Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan which depend substantially on electricity from nuclear energy.
- Today, as the main nuclear arsenals are being dismantled and a comprehensive test ban treaty is in sight, commercial nuclear power provides 16 percent of the world's electricity. Several factors suggest that despite its sometimes controversial image, nuclear power has a much larger role to play in supplying the world's future energy needs.
The First two Atom Bombs in 1945
The Hiroshima bomb was made from highly-enriched uranium-235. This was prepared by diffusion enrichment techniques using the very small differences in mass of the two main isotopes: U-235 (originally 0.7% in the uranium) and U-238, the majority. As UF6, there is about a one percent difference in mass between the molecules, and this enables concentration of the less common isotope. About 60 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium was used in the bomb which was released over Hiroshima, Japan's seventh largest city, on 6 August 1945. Some 90% of the city was destroyed.
The explosive charge for the bomb detonated over Nagasaki three days later was provided by about of 8 kilograms of plutonium-239 (>90% Pu-239), and its preparation depended on the operation of special nuclear reactors. During 1942, under conditions of wartime secrecy, the first human-designed reactor was constructed, in a squash court at the University of Chicago. It used highly purified graphite to slow the neutrons released in fission to enable further fission. This paved the way for more substantial production reactors at Hanford. The plutonium-239 generated in these could be separated by simple chemical methods, with no need for the complexities of isotope separation. The plutonium was first used for the test explosion at Alamogordo in New Mexico on 16 July 1945, ushering in the nuclear age with all its threat and promise.
The Effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs
The devastating effects of both kinds of bombs depended essentially upon the energy released at the moment of the explosion, causing immediate fires, destructive blast pressures, and extreme local radiation exposures. Since the bombs were detonated at a height of some 600 metres above the ground, very little of the fission products were deposited on the ground beneath. Some deposition occurred however in areas near to each city, owing to local rainfall occurring soon after the explosions. This happened at positions a few kilometres to the east of Nagasaki, and in areas to the west and north-west of Hiroshima. For the most part, however, these fission products were carried high into the upper atmosphere by the heat generated in the explosion itself.
In Hiroshima, of a resident civilian population of 250 000 it was estimated that 45 000 died on the first day and a further 19 000 during the subsequent four months. In Nagasaki, out of a population of 174 000, 22 000 died on the first day and another 17 000 within four months. Unrecorded deaths of military personnel and foreign workers may have added considerably to these figures.
It is impossible to estimate the proportion of these 103 000 deaths, or of the further deaths in military personnel, which were due to radiation exposure rather than to the very high temperatures and blast pressures caused by the explosions. From the estimated radiation levels, however, it is apparent that radiation alone would not have been enough cause death in most of those exposed beyond a kilometre of the ground zero below the bombs. Most deaths appear to have been from the explosion rather than the radiation. Beyond 1.5 km the risk would have been much reduced (and 24 Australian prisoners of war about 1.5 km from the Nagasaki ground zero survived and many lived to a healthy old age.)
To the 103 000 deaths from the blast or acute radiation exposure have since been added those due to radiation induced cancers and leukaemia, which amounted to some 400 within 30 years, and which may ultimately reach about 550. (Some 93,000 exposed survivors are still being monitored.)
Teratogenic effects on foetuses was severe among those heavily exposed, resulting in birth deformities and stillbirths over the next 9 months. Beyond this, no genetic damage has been detected in survivors' children, despite careful and continuing investigation by a joint Japanese-US Foundation.
The major source of exposure in both cities was from the penetrating gamma radiations, and to a lesser extent from the neutrons (mostly at Hiroshima), emitted during and shortly after fission. There were two further, and smaller, sources of exposure. One, already mentioned, was due to the 'black rain' which fell in some areas, carrying down radioactive materials from within the rising cloud of fission products. The exposures due to these depositions are in general estimated to have been small, but some increased activity from the fission product radionuclide caesium-137 remained detectable for many years in soil and farm products in the Nishiyama district east of Nagasaki.
The second additional form of exposure resulted from the effect of neutrons in inducing radioactivity in various stable chemical elements such as in iron or concrete structures or roofing tiles. The total absorbed doses of radiation from these activities are estimated to be less than one per cent of that from the neutrons which induced them. They could however have caused a significant exposure of people who entered the city within a few days of the explosions.
See also Radiation Effects Research Foundation (in Japan): frequently-asked questions.
Subsequent Atmospheric Weapons Tests
The atmospheric testing of some 500 nuclear weapons up to 1963 caused people to be exposed to radiation in a quite different way. The Japanese atomic bombs had caused lethal exposures locally from radiation at the time of the explosions, but very little radiation more than a few kilometres away. On the other hand, subsequent atmospheric tests did not cause any substantial direct exposures of people at the time of the tests. However, the fission products released into the atmosphere caused the whole world population to be exposed to very low but continuing annual doses from fallout. In at least two instances these fission products also caused substantial irradiation to small populations exposed to local fallout close to the site of testing.
The atomic bombs used in Japan in 1945, and the bombs or devices testing during the following seven years, depended on the fission of uranium-235 or plutonium-239, mostly the latter. The explosive effect of each was equal to that of up to a few tens of thousand tonnes of the conventional explosive TNT. On this basis of comparison, the Hiroshima bomb was of about 15 kilotonnes - that is, of 15 thousand tonnes of TNT equivalent - and that at Nagasaki was of 25 kilotonnes. In addition, the total equivalent of all atmospheric weapon tests made by the end of 1951 was in the region of 600 kilotonnes.
After 1951, however, devices were being tested which had explosive effects about a thousand times greater, and by the end of 1962 the total of all atmospheric tests had risen from the 1951 value of 0.6 million tonnes of TNT equivalent, to about 500 million tonnes equivalent. This vast increase in scale was due to the testing of 'thermonuclear' weapons or 'hydrogen bombs', which depended, not on the fission of a critical mass of fissile material alone, but on a two or three-stage process initiated by this reaction.
In a thermonuclear bomb, an initial fission, such as occurred in the 'atomic' bomb, momentarily creates conditions of enormously high temperature and atomic disturbance that allows the fusion together of the nuclei of atoms of low atomic number, such as lithium and hydrogen. This fusion liberates further large amounts of energy explosively, such as occurs in the similar reactions in the sun and stars.
In some such bombs, the high energy neutrons released are used to set off a third stage, making it a fission-fusion-fission process. The third stage consists of the fission of a surrounding 'blanket' of uranium-238 isotope which is fissionable by neutrons of this high energy. This third stage provides about half of the yield of such a weapon.
The release of fission products is approximately proportional to the explosive power unleashed, although fusion as such does not give rise to them. From 1952 to 1962 therefore, the amounts of fission products discharged into the atmosphere were of the order of a thousand times greater than all discharged previously.
To complete this tally of the total fallout to date, all atmospheric tests since 1962 appear to have increased by rather less than 20 percent the total of fission products that had been deposited by previous tests, as judged by the measured deposition of strontium-90 in successive years.
The most important radionuclides from testing are now carbon-14, strontium-90 and caesium-137. The global average dose from these is about 0.005 mSv/yr, compared with a peak of more than 0.1 mSv in 1963. Residual dose rates at test sites are mostly low (< 1 msv/yr), apart from semipalatinsk in kazakhstan.
Australian tests
Twelve atmospheric nuclear explosions comprised the main part of UK weapons testing in Australia. Three were at Monte Bello Islands (WA) in 1952 & 1956, two at Emu Field (SA) in 1953 and seven at Maralinga (SA) in 1956-57.
Underground Tests and the NPT
Since the 1963 atmospheric test ban treaty, weapons tests have been mostly underground, the exceptions being by France and China. The underground tests have had no immediate environmental effect and are generally seen as relatively benign compared with the atmospheric tests.
In 1970 the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed, and now has five weapons states: USA, UK, Russia, France and China. The basis of the NPT was that other states who were signatories eschewed the nuclear weapons option and in return were promised assistance in civil nuclear power development by the weapons states.
Today, 187 states have signed the NPT. The only states with significant nuclear facilities that are not party to the NPT or equivalent safeguards agreements are India and Pakistan, which exploded several nuclear devices in 1998, and Israel, which is generally believed to have nuclear capability. South Africa developed some nuclear weapons but then dismantled them, under international scrutiny, and has joined the NPT. Iraq and North Korea sought to circumvent their obligations under the NPT and this was thwarted by international pressure, but North Korea has subsequently resigned from the NPT.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki since 1945
Both cities were rebuilt soon after the war and have become important industrial centres. The population of Hiroshima has grown to over one million and that of Nagasaki to 440,000. Major industries in Hiroshima today are machinery, automotive (Mazda) and food processing, those in Nagasaki are associated with its international port, particularly Mitubishi Heavy Industries.
Nuclear energy has come to be an important part of the life of each city in a totally new way: today one quarter of Hiroshima's electricity is from nuclear power and half of that for Nagasaki is nuclear. Both cities are testimony to the positive benefits of a technological society which applies available energy resources to the needs of urban populations and industry.
Sources (much of the paper is taken directly from Pochin's book):
Edward Pochin, 1983, Nuclear Radiation: Risks and Benefits, Clarendon Press Oxford. UNSCEAR, 1977 and 1994, Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation. F. Barnaby, 1982, The Effects of a Global Nuclear War: The Arsenals, Ambio XI, #2-3. IAEA 2004, Radiation, People and the Environment.
Note: Being opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons and their testing, the World Nuclear Association does not normally comment on such. However, the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb in 1995 inevitably focused public attention on weapons, so this paper endeavours to complement the kind of factual information normally provided by the WNA on the peaceful uses of nuclear power.
Information on weapons matters and tests can be found on http://NuclearFiles.org
-------- accidents and safety
Tell Mayor Newsom, 'Clean up the landfill!'
How dead animals dumped in HP Shipyard lead to cancerous human breasts
November 10, 2004
San Francisco Bay View
by Bob Nichols Project Censored Award winner
http://www.sfbayview.com/111004/cleanup111004.shtml
Marin County residents, go ahead, carefully and completely feel your breasts and those of the one you are with. Do you feel any small lumps that probably aren't supposed to be there?
If so, just think of the potentially cancerous lumps as a gift from America's thriving nuclear weapons program more than 50 years ago right here on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard's Naval Radiation Defense Laboratory to be exact.
Then lift your eyes to gaze upon the sleek buildings clinging to the finest land overlooking America's best view and glimpse the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory (atomic bomb factory) annex called Lawrence Berkeley National Lab lording it over Berkeley across the bay.
Forget that there are colleges and universities in Berkeley. The real business of the company town is bombs - hydrogen and neutron bombs. In 1955, when this picture was taken, the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, Building 815, was the site of nuclear radiation experiments on animals. The six-story windowless structure still stands today.
The sociopaths holed up at the nuclear weapons factory looking down on everybody else call the shots. Everyone in the Bay Area dances to the bomb factory's invisible tunes called "The Boogie Woogie of Cancerous Deaths by the Bay."
Here's what these totally brilliant dorks have done to all of us. This includes, of course, former and current San Francisco mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, who made the absolute career-ending move of getting mixed up with the never-ending lies and oozing corruption coming from on high above the bay. More on the Neutron Twins later. Get ready to call Mayor Newsom now!
Here's what the sadistic, death loving "scientists" from our shared legacy of more than 50 years ago did, in a nutshell.
Everybody in the Bay Area who has graduated from the 10th grade, and the whole wide world for that matter, knows that atomic radiation is dangerous, bad and kills people. Period. End of discussion. Uranium is an absolute value of death. X-rays and other weird stuff even.
Well, in any country of millions of people, I guess, there are always some who will say about something like this, "Wow! This uranium stuff is so cool. I wonder how fast it kills people and animals? Let's spend billions of dollars to find out and have a really good time!"
And, of course, they convinced the United States government to set them up in the long, white, windowless building in the Hunters Point "paradise on earth" Shipyard on the shore of San Francisco Bay so they could slaughter thousands of animals and find out.
At the same time, those knowledgeable enough to put one foot in front of the other and walk realized that it was a nuclear radiation death experiment on humans in the area, too. Yes, that would be you and those you love and care for.
Next, they proceeded to use nuclear poison to see how much it took to kill animals. Of course, they had already tested the radiation on U.S. Marines in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the American deserts during above-ground nuclear bomb tests.
The destruction in Japan is still regarded as just a test of nuclear devices. They always want ever more "data." Enough is never enough with these "scientists."
To make this sadistic orgy of death look "scientific" and to extend the slaughter, the killers in lab coats said they were looking for the amount of the deadly radiation that killed 50 percent of the animals. They even published the results, since they were so proud of their handiwork.
Long story short, the death dealing "scientists" went on to have fine careers and retire from the United States government-funded nuclear weapons program. We pay their pensions to this day. In the meantime, guess what these human killing machines did with all the dead and rotting animal corpses?
Ha! Turns out they had a really convenient gully out back of their Shipyard lab with a little stream in it that led to San Francisco Bay. They simply chucked all the dead or dying animals into the gully out back when they were through with them.
Duhh! Out of sight, out of mind! Hallelujah! Done! Once in San Francisco Bay, the radioactive stew from the dead animals mixes with radioactive fallout from the thousand or so atomic bomb tests the government conducted in the mountains.
And there is the connection, folks. Yes, dumping the radioactive, rotting-from-the-inside-out animals into the gully with the little stream in it out back of the Hunters Point Shipyard lab leads directly to the breast cancer epidemic for the Marin County humans who have breasts.
That would be everybody, dudes, not just the women. Men are included in this radioactive gift to Marin County of cancer and pus and rotting flesh and death.
It's a plague that Mayor Newsom can choose to clean up!
The way all this works is through the mechanism of the little stream in the gully out back. The stream is still there. The radiation is still there. There is a landfill over it now, though. For the past 60 years, the stream has deposited its payload of deadly radioactive particles into the bay.
From there, the radioactivity is swept up on the Marin County beaches and mud flats. Like clockwork, the tide goes out, the mud or sand dries out, and the wind blows the radioactive breast-corrupting poison inland some 25 or 30 miles.
Wait! It gets worse. The so-called "scientists" at Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory and bomb factory know this. In fact, they have known it for a long time.
So, do any of you readers think they told anyone? Do you think they did what any sane person would do and alert people in the Bay Area to the danger and start the work of cleaning it up - immediately?
The answer is straightforward, simple, one word: The answer is "No." But they did put monitoring devices out in the bay to study the radiation so they could correlate the human kill rates. It was just another fun science experiment.
That's why they decided to "study" human exposure to radiation and see if they could duplicate the results they got years ago killing animals smaller than humans. They did not tell anyone that the mess left behind needed to be cleaned up.
Next, we will see how Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom succumb to that ol' Devil "Temptation" and want to leave the radioactive mark on the breasts of Marin County - all of them - by building over the radioactive mess, now a poisonous landfill with a little stream at the bottom, instead of cleaning it up like they know they should.
I'll give you readers two guesses as to why Mayors Brown and Newsom chose to proceed with doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place in this life-or-death situation for thousands.
Any day now, just as soon as he can, Mayor Newsom plans to give Lennar Corp. the go-ahead to proceed with building 1,600 homes alongside the landfill - and he may decide to build a new 49ers stadium on top of the landfill - while the little stream at the bottom of the gully continues to carry the contamination out into the bay forever. Never will it be cleaned up and decontaminated, if Newsom has his way.
Marin County breasts will just have to take their chances in a rigged game. No breast is as important as this monument to Mayors Brown and Newsom; don't you agree that's the way it's supposed to be? Don't you? Don't you?
If this article got you up and off your behind, then call, write, email and/or drop by Mayor Newsom's office, now.
Call the mayor now! Just say to Mayor Newsom, politely of course, "Clean up the landfill!" I certainly would not want Mayor Newsom to think I was encouraging anything else other than quiet, polite, respectful conversation about the premature deaths, killings really, of thousands of men, women and children in the past and into the future. Naw, not at all.
You know what to do. Go for it!
Call Mayor Newsom at (415) 554-6141, fax him at (415) 554-6160, email him at gavin.newsom@sfgov.org or drop by his office in City Hall Room 200.
Email the Bay View at editor@sfbayview.com with your results.
Bob Nichols. Nichols is a 2004 Project Censored Award winner. He encourages people to learn more about the corruption of the American nuclear weapons program. He may be reached at info-radiation-wars@cox.net.
Editor's note: According to a front page story in Monday's Chronicle, "Seeking toxic causes of breast cancer," breast cancer rates in San Francisco are about as high as Marin County's, and together the rates are the second highest in the world. Other reports have noted especially high rates in San Francisco's Marina District, which, like Marin, is on the bayshore. In Bay View Hunters Point, the bayshore neighborhood surrounding the Shipyard, record rates of breast cancer, asthma and infant mortality have been reported.
A Newsom-Pelosi-Lennar connection?
Ever since Lennar/BVHP, a subsidiary of the nation's largest homebuilder, was designated Master Developer for the Hunters Point Shipyard by the San Francisco Redevelopment Commission, they've been dying to get started on the extremely profitable project of building 1,600 new homes right next to the Shipyard's radioactive, toxic Parcel E landfill, one of the most contaminated sites in the country. And Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has been leading the charge to make it happen.
When Lennar first got the nod, Willie Brown was mayor, and San Franciscans learned that he had once had a business relationship with Lennar. What about Mayor Gavin Newsom?
Triumphantly, Mayor Newsom announced upon his return from a meeting in Washington with Pelosi in late March, "For the first time, we have the Navy's signature on an agreement that ensures the conveyance will begin shortly," according to the April 1 Chronicle ("Navy signs binding pact on first parts of shipyard"). Newsom was speaking of the conveyance of Parcel A, the part of the Shipyard where the new homes are planned, from the Navy to the City.
To make it happen, Congresswoman Pelosi, the Democratic "whip" in Congress, had had to call in the ranking Democrat on the House minority appropriations subcommittee, described by the Chronicle as "a big gun," because the Navy had been "having doubts about going ahead" with the transfer. "'I have been working on this agreement for more than a decade, and I am proud we are near our goal,' Pelosi said in a statement" made after the Navy signed off, the Chronicle reported.
Could Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom have a personal interest in seeing Lennar succeed? Bay View Hunters Point activists noticed recently that a man named Laurence Pelosi was until very recently the senior vice president of Lennar Communities, another Lennar subsidiary and a component of Lennar/BVHP. Laurence Pelosi was the treasurer for Gavin Newsom's campaign for mayor last year. He is described in the press as Newsom's cousin, while Nancy Pelosi is related to Newsom through his aunt.
Activists are continuing to look into these intriguing relationships and will keep Bay View readers posted.
-------- africa
UN Team: Keep Congolese Uranium Mine Closed
November 10, 2004
NAIROBI, Kenya, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-10-03.asp
United Nations investigators have found that a uranium mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that collapsed in July, killing nine people, is at high risk of caving in again and must remain closed.
The interagency team, led by the UN Environment Programme and the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), visited the Shinkolobwe uranium mine in the southwestern province of Katanga between October 25 and November 4, and is preparing technical recommendations.
Expert records radiation readings at Shinkolobwe mine, DRC, while other UN team members look on. (Photo (c) IRIN / OCHA) The environmental assessment team found high risks of mine collapse and potential chronic exposure to ionizing radiation, OCHA said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The situation in Shinkolobwe could be described as anarchistic - there is no respect for mining safety regulations," said Bernard Lamouille, an expert in artisanal mining who participated in the United Nations assessment.
The team also included people from the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The mine had been excavated for uranium but closed before the country gained independence in the 1960s. The main shafts were covered with concrete. In the late 1990s, artisanal mining for cobalt was allowed, leading to uncontrolled and dangerous mining activities.
Around 15,000 people were dependent on the mining activities and living in the nearby village of Shinkolobwe.
However, during the UN team's visit, no artisanal miners were active onsite. Following the evacuation of the mining site in early August, the adjacent village had been destroyed. Artisanal miners and their dependants had reportedly dispersed to other artisanal mining sites and some returned to neighboring towns.
Artisanal workings at Shinkolobwe mine, DRC. (Photo (c) IRIN / OCHA) "No immediate risks to the environment were observed," said Alain Pasche of the UN assessment team, "though we have taken samples of water, soil and sediments, which will be further analyzed in Switzerland for heavy metal concentration."
From 1997 until August 2004, some 6,000 miners were entering the former Shinkolobwe mine site each day without authorization to extract cobalt. They had excavated a huge open pit next to the former uranium mine, which was flooded after it was mined out.
In light of the possibility that uranium might be extracted and sold on the black market, the United States demanded that the DR Congo government regain control over the mine site.
In January 2004, President Joseph Kabila banned access to the site, but miners were still working at the site until part of it collapsed in July.
All the miners who worked the site are at risk of developing cancer and other health problems because of high radiation levels at the site, concluded the UN investigators.
-------- depleted uranium
Veterans Day Address to the Nation
A suggested speech for the president.
seattleweekly.com
by Rick Anderson
November 10 - 23, 2004
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0446/041110_news_veteransday.php
In honor of Veterans Day this week, George Bush is likely to say a few words about those who served. That can be a tricky proposition for a war president, especially after he and his father created a new class of vets who are overwhelming the Veterans Benefits Administration. Still, as the president's re-election suggests, never misunderestimate the persuasive power of folksy political spin. Perhaps like . . .
My fellow Americans, first some good news. On this hallowed day, I'd like to announce some steps we've taken to honor our military veterans. Because the Pentagon, with a mere $425 billion annual budget, doesn't have the cash it needs for all the buglers necessary at veterans' funerals, we have begun buying fake bugles, with digital recordings of "Taps."
Pardon me while I flick away a tear.
This new thing is called the Ceremonial Bugle. It's for real. If a service member survives battle and is lucky to live long enough to die gracefully, the government will provide push-button horns that guests can play at military funerals.
You know, I think I had one of those as a kid. Came from Monkey Ward or somewhere. But mine was a bit cheaper. These babies cost $500!
We give a lot of lip service to our veterans' plights. But with this artificial final salute, we are able to truly express the country's gratitude for all they've done for us.
Thank you for your applause.
We have a lot of other obligations when it comes to veterans. Of course, many of these commitments were made in the heat of battle, or when we had to rush to war.
We used to tell our veterans they were guaranteed medical care for life. And they were-until the 1950s. That's when we first learned the rising cost of war left little in the bank for the aftermath. We felt it was our duty, however, to continue to make promises we couldn't keep.
Trouble is, there are now 26.5 million war vets in the U.S., and they are dying at the rate of only 1,000 a day. That leaves way too many for the government to financially deal with at a time when we have to launch another $5 billion aircraft carrier or build a $50 billion space-defense system to make the skies safe from anthrax balloons.
So at any one time, more than 3,000 veterans are waiting six months or longer for their first visit to the doctor. Disabled vets are waiting six months to two years for disability compensation. As of Aug. 31, the Department of Veterans Affairs had a backlog of 330,000 disabled vets awaiting evaluation. Veterans advocacy groups figure my administration has underfunded the VA by $2.6 billion.
But we are dealing with that. We have undertaken a plan to reduce VA spending over the next 10 years by $6 billion and at the same time continue our push to close VA hospitals and reduce staffing. Some veterans, such as those well-off noncombat vets who pull down $30,000 a year as civilians, have been cut off from VA medical care altogether.
I am confident that my continued tax cutting will have a lasting effect, as well.
Most veterans, having once been in the service, understand that the evil-doer is money, not policy. With war, you have to spend more than you've got, particularly if you have no idea what you're getting into. That's why we've had to charge soldiers wounded in Iraq for their hospital meals-though we stopped when word of it leaked out-and why we haven't been able to give our soldiers all the things they need, such as salaries.
A couple months back, a Government Accountability Office survey showed the Army Reserve payroll system wasn't operating as smoothly as it should. Mistakes had occurred in 95 percent of the examples the GAO examined. Most of the time it was a case of a soldier being overpaid. We have gotten tough with them, however, and now they've got to pay that money back. One guy was given $36,000 too much, and we plan to see he faces criminal charges.
And listen, soldiers are often left without paychecks. To partly make up for it, we occasionally bill some of them for their service to their country. Thirty-four soldiers in a Colorado National Guard unit stationed in Afghanistan, for example, received notices they owed the Army an average $48,000 each. Unfortunately, their unit commander-who risked his life by flying with payroll records to Kuwait, crossing Uzbekistan, where his plane was fired on-straightened out the mess, and we weren't able to collect.
We continue nonetheless to turn things around. One example: The government typically praises its troops in battle and then breaks its promises when they come home. Today, we're not waiting for them to come home! Last year, the Pentagon moved to cut troop pay for those soldiers still on the front line in Iraq. There was something of an uproar, however, and Congress quickly dashed that innovation.
Here's another cost-saving measure: Many troops live at poverty level in substandard military housing and risk their lives for $18,000 a year. They're on duty essentially 24 hours a day, which works out to $2 an hour. By keeping wages and benefits low, we are able to help the Pentagon continually expand its budget-predicted to hit a record $500 billion in a few years.
And clearly our generals need help. As it is, they can't account for 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 missile launchers, according to an inventory review, and have lost or misplaced $1 trillion in assets. Thankfully, the American taxpayer has opened his wallet wider and wider, with very little complaint.
I thank you for not holding that against me during my re-election campaign.
The VA has its budget problems, too, of course. To help solve that, I have asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to cross its fingers, so there won't be a delayed reaction to some lingering war ailment that shows up in the future, overwhelming the medical system.
True, something always comes back to bite you. Cancer from frostbite in the Korean War. Hep C from infected yellow fever vaccine in World War II. Secret toxic spraying of our servicemen by our own government during the Cold War. Agent Orange in Vietnam. And Gulf War Illnesses, the "cocktail effect" of chemical exposures and use of the experimental drugs and vaccines we handed out to our forces in Gulf War I.
And I will admit, we're privately worried about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq-the ones we brought with us. We fired off an estimated 300 tons of armor-piercing, depleted uranium shells in my dad's war and an estimated 200 tons so far in my war. Since 1991, reported cancer cases in Iraq have quadrupled, and depleted uranium is the suspected source. It's said to be a lingering toxic nightmare for veterans from both sides of the battle.
But I should point out that my administration has yet to admit that depleted uranium poisoning is causing any lasting harm to our military. OK, Great Britain has recognized it as a disability for UK vets. But does it make any sense to follow the policies of a country that drives on the wrong side of the road?
Now, some of our soldiers destined for Iraq in 2003 were so worried about exposure to both Saddam's weapons and ours that they rushed off to have their sperm frozen before shipping out. They also feared our medical policies and bureaucracies of mass destruction.
Here's the thing, folks: I know our soldiers are fighting for democracy. It's just that the military doesn't happen to be one!
In closing, I'd like to say that during the recent presidential campaign, the important military and veterans issues weren't one guy's wartime service or the other guy's war wounds, not even whether Dan Rather should fall to his knees and apologize to the White House. The big thing probably was whether the government should apologize to our troops and vets. We outfit them with rifles that jam, protective armor that doesn't protect, equipment that breaks, and aircraft that fall from the sky. We mislead them into war and forsake them in peace.
But what can I say? Nobody brought that stuff up!
Hey, here's a big fat salute to the Swift Boat vets.
I do promise you, my fellow Americans, that, in the country's tradition of honoring our veterans, if I can't solve these problems in four more years, I will do everything in my power to leave them for the next president.
Happy Veterans Day, everyone. See you at the cemetery!
-------- europe
France to partially privatise nuclear giant Areva
PARIS (AFP)
Nov 10, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041110142702.lnh5uufw.html
The French government will further privatise Areva in the first half of 2005, bringing the listed capital of the world's leading civilian nuclear energy group to 35-40 percent, Economy Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday.
The announcement came as Areva seeks to enlarge its international footprint, notably in energy-hungry China which is planning to add 32 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years.
The massive Chinese expansion plan is estimated to represent 80 percent of all reactor construction for the next two decades.
The French economy ministry said Wednesday that wider privatization would better position Areva in the nuclear sector. The group's competitors, apart from Russian rivals, are publicly listed.
"Thanks to this expanded access to capital markets, Areva will be more flexible to exploit opportunities for its development, particularly from an international perspective," the economy ministry said in a statement.
"The state will continue in any case to retain, directly or indirectly, more than half of Areva's capital, due to the strategic nature of nuclear energy for France."
The sale of shares in Areva will be open to retail investors, with a "significant part" being reserved for employees.
The ministry added that funds obtained in the operation will be used to help with dismantling nuclear sites. Currently 4.5 percent of Areva's capital is quoted in the form of investment certificates. At their current market price, a 40 percent stake would be worth about four billion euros (5.2 billion dollars).
The group has a total market value of about 10 billion euros based on Tuesday's closing price of 288.80 euros for the non-voting Areva investment certificates.
Sarkozy, who has signaled presidential ambitions, made the announcement before his planned resignation by month's end. Thus he will not be directly in charge of the privatization in a sector sensitive to public opinion.
The French nuclear union federation immediately demanded further information on the ministry's decision, recalling "the intangible principles which should be respected" in the process.
The announcement confirmed newspaper reports Wednesday that the government was poised to further privatize the nuclear group.
Areva has annual sales of about 8.26 billion euros and a workforce of 48,000. It has activities in some 40 countries.
The government directly owns 5.19 percent of its capital. The atomic energy commission CEA holds a 78.96 percent stake, the quasi-public bank Caisse des depots et consignations has 3.59 percent, the state firm Erap has 3.21 percent and state electricity giant EDF has 2.42 percent. Employees hold 1.06 percent.
Since its creation in 2001 in the merger of Cogema, Framatome and CEA Industrie, the group has sought privatization.
Areva submitted its case to the state holdings agency several months ago, and its chairman Anne Lauvergeon has reiterated that the group was ready for flotation and was simply awaiting the government's decision to go ahead.
Areva already indicated last year that it wanted to list in the spring or autumn of 2004.
But the privatization was held up by Alstom, the struggling French engineering group. Areva had been mooted several times as a potential buyer of Alstom, which Lauvergeon had steadfastly refused.
With the acquisition of Alstom's power transmission and distribution unit this year, Areva made its case to the government that the time was right for further privatization.
All rights reserved. (c) 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
----
Europe's chances of securing major nuclear project improve
(AFP)
Nov 10, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041110/sc_afp/science_energy_iter_eu_041110182126
VIENNA - The European Union (news - web sites) appeared to be slowly winning the battle over who will host a new major nuclear fusion project after Japan and the United States backed down on what earlier was outright refusal to let France be home to the reactor known as ITER.
Two days of intense negotiations in Vienna failed to secure a firm promise from these two powers which want the revolutionary International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project to be located in Rokkasho-Mura, in northeastern Japan.
But neither Tokyo nor Washington ruled out Cadarache in southern France, the EU's choice also backed by Russia and China and already home to Europe's biggest nuclear research centre.
"All parties were greatly encouraged by the positive atmosphere and expressed their optimism that the process was now proceeding effectively towards a fruitful conclusion among the six parties in the near future," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement issued after discussions closed on Tuesday.
The IAEA said the talks would "continue in the near future with the aim of aligning the two parties' views."
According to Japanese sources, the matter is likely to be settled once the winner offers the loser a substantial consolation prize for the loss of the project. "The host will have to make a generous proposal to the non-host," Satoru Ohtake, the director of nuclear fusion at Japan's science and technology ministry, told AFP on Wednesday.
He said the final decision from Tokyo would be "taken at ministerial level."
Another source close to the talks said of the Japanese: "They seem ready to bow."
In Brussels, an official conceded Wednesday that the European Union had offered Japan a "sweetener" to allow France to host the project but refused further comment.
"I cannot elaborate on the sweetener, but I think we have made reasonable offers," European Commission (news - web sites) spokesman Fabio Fabbi told reporters.
ITER is a test bed for what is being billed as a clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future. The project, emulating the sun's nuclear fusion, is not expected to generate electricity before 2050.
The ITER budget is projected to be 10 billion euros (13 billion dollars) over the next 30 years, including 4.7 billion euros to build the reactor. The European Union plans to finance 40 percent of the total.
France said at the end of September that it was ready to double its financial stake in the project, bringing it up to 914 million euros, or 20 percent of total construction cost.
The European Commission is to make a proposal on November 26 on the EU's position on the project.
Sources at the commission in Brussels said Tokyo might agree to a tradeoff scenario in which it lets ITER go to France if Japan gets to be host country for a new international scientific computing centre.
The fact that a research center already exists in Cadarache is seen as a strong point in the EU's favor. Locating ITER at a site that employs 3,500 science experts of which 400 specialise in nuclear fusion would help ITER get off the ground faster.
"They could take advantage of the existing infrastructure. They could start working at the very first day without losing their autonomy," a source close to the talks said.
Fabbi told reporters at the close of the negotiations that the commission was hopeful for a deal that would bring the project to France.
"We have reason to say that the Japanese have not flatly refused this position, although not endorsing it openly. Other delegations that have been supporting the Japanese candidate site have kept a similar line," Fabbi said.
"That's cause for some optimism," he added.
--------
EU Threatens to Go It Alone on Nuclear Fusion
Story by Paul Taylor and Louis Charbonneau
REUTERS AUSTRIA:
November 10, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28086/newsDate/10-Nov-2004/story.htm
BRUSSELS/VIENNA - The European Union warned yesterday it may go ahead and build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor with whatever partners it can find if there is no global deal to put the project in France at talks in Vienna.
European Commission research spokesman Fabio Fabbi said the EU hoped a deal would be clinched yesterday to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) at Cadarache, near Marseille, rather than at a rival site in Japan.
"Our priority is to get an agreement with the largest number of participants and if possible with all six partners (the EU, the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea).
"If there is no agreement, we'll have to think over ... how we go ahead with a maximum number of partners who want to participate," he told a news briefing.
Nuclear fusion has been touted as a long-term solution to the world's energy problems, as it would be low in pollution and use limitless sea water as fuel. The idea is to replicate the way the sun generates energy.
EU research and industry ministers are due to discuss how to move forward at a meeting on Nov. 25-26 and the Commission will recommend a course of action depending on the outcome of the Vienna talks, Fabbi said.
The EU's tactics in the fight for the $12 billion reactor resembled methods for which Europeans often criticize the United States - vowing to go it alone with a "coalition of the willing" if a multilateral forum does not back its course.
An EU source told Reuters this week that Cadarache was set to win the contest because Japan had signaled it would drop its bid in return for compensation.
But an official at the Japanese Science and Technology Ministry said Tokyo had not ended its bid to host the project.
Diplomats in Vienna said the outcome was still uncertain.
One Western diplomat familiar with the talks said: "They're still trying to slug it out. There may be a decision today on who gets it or they may decide that that they can't decide yet. The Japanese haven't given up yet."
"The Japanese are offering inducements to the French and the French are offering inducements to the Japanese," he said. The United States initially backed Japan's bid to put the reactor in the remote northern fishing village of Rokkasho in what was seen as a punishment to France for leading opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
It now appears to be neutral. Asked where Washington now stood, a U.S. official in Vienna said: "The United States supports a six-party ITER, but negotiations on where that will be located are still progressing today."
Fusion involves sticking atoms together, as opposed to today's nuclear reactors and weapons, which produce energy by blowing atoms apart.
However, 50 years of research have failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor.
-------- iran
Iran Official Warns of NPT Pull-Out if West Presses
(Reuters)
By Paul Hughes
Nov 10, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CEHQPVUCRW1MACRBAEOCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6771774&pageNumber=1
TEHRAN - Iran will pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and develop its atomic program in secret if Western nations threaten or put pressure on Tehran, a senior Iran diplomat was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Iranian government officials have in the past repeatedly said Tehran had no intention of following North Korea's example of withdrawing from the NPT.
Diplomats expect Iran to announce shortly that it has agreed to suspend nuclear fuel cycle activities which could be used to make bomb material as part of a deal with the European Union to avoid referral to the U.N. Security Council.
But Sirus Naseri, a member of the Iranian negotiating team in the talks with the EU, warned Iran -- which says its atomic program is strictly for civilian use -- could take drastic steps if the talks did not proceed as Tehran wants.
"If they start to pressure or threaten us, then we will put aside the treaty and go underground," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted him as saying.
"In that case, after one or two years, America and the EU will send mediators to talk to us and find a solution," he said.
Iran says it has the right as an NPT signatory to develop an atomic program to generate electricity to meet booming demand.
But Washington and Israel say Tehran's real ambition is to make nuclear weapons and want it to scrap activities that could be used to make bomb-grade material, such as uranium enrichment.
The EU says that if Iran scraps its enrichment facilities it will guarantee a supply of fuel for its reactors.
SUPENSION YES, CESSATION NO
But Naseri said Iran "will never rely on other countries to supply us with the nuclear fuel, which means we will definitely keep our enrichment program."
-------- japan
Japan denies ending bid for nuclear fusion project
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
November 10, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28074/story.htm
TOKYO - Japan has not given up on its bid to host a global nuclear fusion project, a Japanese government official said yesterday.
A European Union source said this week that the EU was confident a deal to be outlined yesterday would site the $12 billion nuclear fusion project in France and that Japan had signalled it would give up its bid in return for some form of compensation.
"There is no truth to such remarks, which could be a kind of bluff. There has been no change in Japan's policy," an official at the Science and Technology Ministry told Reuters. "The Japanese government will continue with its efforts to host the project."
The European Union and five other industrial powers including Japan plan to build the world's first futuristic reactor that would generate energy through nuclear fusion.
But the six partners in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) are split over where to locate the reactor, with Washington backing Tokyo's bid in what has been seen as a payback for Japan's support for the war in Iraq and France's opposition.
Negotiators from the EU, United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China began meeting this week in Vienna, headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to seek a deal.
"The agreement foresees ITER in Cadarache," the EU source said in Brussels this week, referring to the French site north of Marseille. "They are preparing an agreement under which the Japanese would receive something."
While the EU, backed by China and Russia, wanted ITER to be built in Cadarache, the United States along with South Korea had preferred Rokkasho, a remote fishing village in northern Japan.
The ITER project would create the world's first sustained nuclear fusion reaction.
Nuclear fusion has been touted as a solution to the world's energy problems, as it would be low in pollution and would theoretically use sea water as fuel.
Fusion involves sticking atoms together, as opposed to today's nuclear reactors and weapons, which produce energy by blowing atoms apart.
Fifty years of research, however, have failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor. (Reporting by Teruaki Ueno, editing by Alan Raybould)
------- korea
Deserter lifts veil on closed regime
November 10, 2004
By Jeremy Kirk
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041109-110229-5423r.htm
SEOUL - Charles Robert Jenkins, sentenced last week to 30 days in prison for deserting from the U.S. Army four decades ago, may prove a valuable source of intelligence on the world's most inaccessible country, North Korea.
The 64-year-old Jenkins admitted at his trial that he had deserted to North Korea by creeping across a minefield in the demilitarized zone to avoid duty in Vietnam. He spent 39 years in North Korea, teaching English to officer cadets and appearing in propaganda films.
But before the trial, Jenkins had offered the U.S. military critical details about how North Korea uses foreigners in its spy program in exchange for an administrative discharge.
A formal request for the discharge filed in August said Jenkins was "absolutely willing to confirm a suspicion long held by U.S. intelligence agencies that a number of Americans were used, most often unwillingly, by North Korea to arm spies with English-speaking skills so they could target American interests in South Korea and beyond."
The request also said Jenkins could confirm that "at least three other Americans who are suspected of deserting to North Korea were allowed to marry East European and/or Middle Eastern women who had been brought to and held in North Korea against their will."
"In two of the cases, the Americans had multiple children who are now young adults who appear to be American or European themselves."
Military authorities rejected the offer of a deal and went ahead with last week's court-martial, but are expected to debrief the former Army sergeant regardless.
Col. Vic Warzinski, a public-affairs officer for U.S. Forces Japan, said Jenkins has been cooperative since he returned to Army custody on Sept. 11, but he would not comment on intelligence matters.
"In general, defectors have kept their value for years after the fact," said Eric Heginbotham, an expert on Korean studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "In the North Korean case, we know so little about the society and the whole system."
Jenkins could go through an initial set of interviews and then be used later as a reference, Mr. Heginbotham said. "I think they'll want to have access to him indefinitely."
Jenkins was a nearly forgotten Cold War tumbleweed until two years ago when it was revealed he had married a Japanese abductee. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi gained the release of five abductees, including Jenkins' wife, Hitomi Soga, after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted the country had secretly snatched Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mrs. Soga captured the Japanese public's sympathy by scripting simple poems about her family while her husband and two children, Mika, 21, and Brinda, 19, remained in North Korea. They were reunited in July in Jakarta, Indonesia, after the Japanese government brought Jenkins and his children on a charter flight.
-------- us nuc waste
Nuclear waste at center stage
Scientists discuss reprocessing and recycling
REVIEW-JOURNAL
By KEITH ROGERS
November 10, 2004
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Nov-10-Wed-2004/news/25221821.html
Scientists from around the world traveled to Las Vegas on Tuesday to talk about a common problem: How to reduce the amount of nuclear waste destined for yet-to-be-built repositories like the one planned for Yucca Mountain.
The solution, they said, is to continue to develop and explore a couple techniques known in scientific circles as reprocessing and transmutation. As one put it, it's like "the alchemist's dream of turning lead into gold."
"What hasn't been shown is the feasibility at the engineering level. We can do it one atom at a time," said scientist Gary Cerefice, among the hosts of the three-day conference at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. About 120 scientists from countries including France, Japan and Russia are attending.
Although progress in developing the techniques is measured in decades, the pursuit continues abroad to reprocess or recycle materials in spent nuclear fuel pellets.
Reprocessing spent fuel in the United States has been prohibited since the mid-1970s. The Bush administration allows research into what it takes to extract usable plutonium and uranium.
The other technique, transmutation, is aimed at taking long-lived radionuclides such as americium and neptunium and transforming them into smaller amounts of shorter-lived radioactive materials to be buried in a repository.
"We're doing the research. The implementation is many, many years away," said Carter "Buzz" Savage, who directs the U.S. effort at the Department of Energy.
Reprocessing and transmutation won't change the need for a Yucca Mountain repository but may reduce or eliminate the need for future repositories, he said.
The task of making transmutation viable would entail licensing a new generation of reprocessing plants, fuel fabrication plants and reactors.
Some scientists envision regional facilities to cater to commercial power reactors. One scenario would be to locate them at Yucca Mountain.
The Department of Energy hopes to begin a licensing review in December for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, with first deliveries of spent fuel from U.S. power reactors in 2010.
Savage said the government is spending $68 million on the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative Program, with the same amount expected next year.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Kabul in Touch With Captors of U.N. Aides
November 10, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/asia/10afghan.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 9 - The Afghan government announced Tuesday that contact had been made with the three United Nations election officials kidnapped nearly two weeks ago, and it expressed hope that they would be released soon.
"A lot of progress has been made, and the hope is exciting that, God willing, they will be released and safely join their families," the president's spokesman, Jawed Ludin, said at a weekly news briefing.
Two of the hostages, Annetta Flanigan and Shqipe Habibi, made telephone calls to their homes, Mr. Ludin said. Reuters reported that the third hostage, Angelito Nayan, a diplomat for the Philippines who had been assigned to the United Nations, called his Foreign Ministry with a message for his sister saying that he was all right.
Despite continued threats by the kidnappers, the latest news suggested that negotiations over the hostages had been working and that a deal for their freedom might be on the horizon. Afghan officials said the kidnapping group, which calls itself Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, appeared to be motivated by money more than anything else.
"This is a deal between robbers and the government," a senior security official said. "Al Qaeda is not involved yet." But he added that there was a danger that the kidnappers would still try to pass the hostages on to a group with ties to Al Qaeda.
The kidnappers also expressed hope for a deal. "We're very hopeful they will accept our conditions," Akbar Agha, the group's leader, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Jaish-e-Muslimeen has demanded the release of 26 prisoners. Mr. Ludin did not say if any prisoners would be freed in return for the hostages' freedom, but he said the government was prepared to do anything to ensure the safety of the United Nations staff members, who had been working on the Afghan presidential election.
Government officials said they were hoping to have the hostages released before the weekend. The hostages are thought to be not far south of Kabul, a government official said, although negotiations for their release were being conducted in southern Kandahar Province.
-------- africa
Sudan, Rebels Reach Accord On Darfur
Government Approves No-Fly Zone, Access to Aid
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38097-2004Nov9.html
NYALA, Sudan, Nov. 9 -- With violence increasing and political pressure mounting to end the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, the government agreed Tuesday to halt military flights over the region and signed a separate agreement to allow free access to aid for the nearly 2 million people displaced by the violence.
At peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the government agreed to disarm allied militiamen known as the Janjaweed. In security agreements signed by the government and rebel parties, both sides agreed to reveal the location of their forces to African Union cease-fire monitors in a war that the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
"We still have a long way to go, but the step we have taken this afternoon is a very important step in the right direction," President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, chairman of the African Union, told reporters in Abuja after a signing ceremony.
But he was quick to add, "These documents won't be worth the paper they are written on if they are not scrupulously implemented on the ground."
Just a week ago, Sudan's government called the idea of a no-fly zone "unreasonable" and threatened to shut down the peace talks. But with violence still raging in Darfur's 20-month conflict between African rebels and pro-government forces, food aid has now been blocked to 200,000 people and large swaths of Darfur are "no-go" areas for U.N. humanitarian workers.
Sudan's decision comes 10 days before a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which could have imposed sanctions on the country's oil industry or taken other punitive measures because of the worsening security situation in Darfur.
Since a cease-fire agreement was signed in April, it has been violated 180 times, or roughly once a day, the African Union says. The Sudanese government this week also drew international criticism for forcibly moving hundreds of families from one camp near the capital of South Darfur to another camp, where the families said they feared they would be subject to attacks.
Nearly 2 million Africans live in squalid tent cities across Darfur after being driven from their farms by the fighting, which broke out in February 2003 when African tribes rebelled against the Arab-led government.
In retaliation, the United Nations says, the government has bombed villages and armed the Janjaweed militias. Tens of thousands of people have died from hunger, disease and violence; the Bush administration has described the crisis as genocide.
Officials of the Sudanese government said the agreement showed they were working hard for peace in Darfur. "It is really a landmark agreement for Darfur," Sudanese spokesman Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim said in a telephone interview from Abjua. "We are serious and we want to do this."
During two weeks of often-tense African Union-sponsored talks, rebel leaders demanded the no-fly zone because, they said, the government continues to bomb civilians and is using the flights to determine rebel positions.
There was still no decision on political issues, including the African tribes' demands for a more equitable share in power and wealth with the central government in Khartoum. Analysts say such issues must be addressed to reach a lasting solution to the Darfur crisis.
"We are not there yet. We have to see what's going to happen in reality and in practice," said Mahgoub Hussain of the Sudan Liberation Army, the larger of two rebel groups at the peace talks. "We've had agreements like this in the past. A lot more needs to be done to enforce this."
Maj. George Wachira, who heads the African Union's cease-fire commission, said that establishing the no-fly zone was a positive move and that his team would be able to monitor it. The African Union has 700 troops on the ground now and is planning to deploy 2,300 more to monitor a shaky cease-fire.
"This no-fly zone is a good step and it's very needed. But it has to be kept. I wish everyone would just put their arms down and work on feeding these people and getting things back to normal," Wachira said. He added that it would be naive to think the peace deal will unfold without any violations from either side. "Promises have to be kept. We want to wait and see," he said.
Alfred Taban, editor and publisher of the Khartoum Monitor, the capital's independent English-language newspaper, noted that the government of Sudan had already promised to disband the Janjaweed militias months ago. Instead, the United Nations and human rights groups say, the militias have merged with Sudan's army and police.
"I think the new agreement is very important because this definitely lays down some restrictions on bombing civilians in Darfur," Taban said. "But the problem is that the government very often doesn't stick to agreements. This is a big concern. They can say they will do something and everyone will forget that it wasn't done."
-------- business
Pentagon Widens Procurement Investigation
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38200-2004Nov9.html
The Pentagon's investigation into the actions of a former Air Force official who admitted giving preferential treatment to Boeing Co. for several years is expanding into a broad review of how the military buys weapons.
The effort could turn into the widest examination of the Pentagon procurement system since the 1980s influence-peddling scandal known as Ill Wind. The scrutiny was spurred by Darleen A. Druyun's admission last month that she gave preferential treatment to Boeing after the company hired her daughter and son-in-law. Druyun was sentenced to nine months in prison.
The Pentagon will broaden its inquiry of procurement procedures beyond the Air Force to all the services, said Michael W. Wynne, the Pentagon's acting acquisition chief. The investigation will consider what lapses in the Air Force system allowed Druyun to favor Boeing, whether those problems still exist and whether similar problems exist in the other services, he said. If the task force finds problems, it will recommend ways to address them, he said.
"This is an egregious problem. It detracts from all of us," Wynne said. "The purpose of this review is to provide advice on how [Druyun] accrued enough power" to take illegal action undetected. "We are looking across the services to see if there are other people who accrued this type of power."
The Pentagon has begun two large-scale investigations under separate groups. The Defense Science Board, a Pentagon advisory group, will study the procurement systems. The Defense Contract Management Agency will lead a survey of all the contracting-related actions taken by Druyun during her nine years as the Air Force's deputy acquisition chief, starting in 1993. That will include her decisions on company bonuses and contract extensions, defense officials said. The inquiry will likely be far-ranging because Druyun had a role in hundreds of contracts before she retired in November 2002.
Air Force officials have said they made significant changes to the procurement system after Druyun retired and joined Boeing as a vice president. Her position was eliminated and her power dispersed to a wide range of lower-ranking officials. But senior Air Force officials felt a Department of Defense-level review was necessary to move beyond the scandal.
Druyun's revelations are also likely to keep Boeing's space business in limbo. Last year, the Air Force suspended Boeing from bidding on space contracts after the company admitted that some of its employees had proprietary Lockheed Martin Corp. documents during a competition for a rocket-launch contract.
While Air Force officials have repeatedly said they hoped to lift the suspension soon, that now seems unlikely. "It's really hard for the Air Force to move forward now that this has all come out," Wynne said. "We've got to sweep away any allegations of ethical misconduct."
The Pentagon has also asked the Government Accountability Office to handle protests filed by Boeing's competitors after Druyun admitted that her relationship with Boeing tainted her decision to award the company a $4 billion contract to upgrade the electronics on the C-130 transport plane. Originally, Lockheed, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and BAE Systems PLC filed protests on the award with the Air Force, but those have been withdrawn and will be refiled with the GAO, Wynne said. Lockheed's protest included two classified programs, which will not be refiled with the GAO but will be addressed by the Air Force, Wynne said.
Boeing officials have said the company is not aware of receiving preferential treatment.
The Pentagon's inspector general is also investigating Druyun's actions. Wynne said the review should include whether Druyun gave preferential treatment to defense contractors who employed her husband. William S. Druyun retired from a mid-level position at General Dynamics Corp. this year.
--------
Europeans Lobby in Washington for Military Work
November 10, 2004
By LESLIE WAYNE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/business/10military.html?pagewanted=all&position=
As a corporate symbol, it's hard to find anyone more all-American than Sammy Pence of Grand Prairie, Tex.
With his cowboy hat and boots, and his bold stance in front of a helicopter painted red, white and blue, Mr. Pence, a former Marine, both breeds cattle on his ranch and oversees the delivery of helicopters for EADS North America, the United States arm of Europe's largest military contractor.
Mr. Pence, so cloaked in patriotic imagery, is the public face the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, or EADS, is sending to the American military establishment via a powerful new marketing campaign. Though foreign-owned and of French and German lineage, EADS is making a push to gain a toehold inside the Pentagon, and the ad that features Mr. Pence is just one small, but highly visible, part of these efforts.
"We feel very American," said Mr. Pence, who spent over three hours posing for the advertising photo and who has worked for EADS or its parent companies for 20 years. "Most of our employees are former military. We are proud of what we have done."
In these days of stark American and European differences over the Iraq war and other issues, selling military equipment from a company with a French and German imprint may be a tall order. But just as other foreign contractors, including Thales, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, have begun to get a piece of the Pentagon's $400 billion budget, EADS is edging its way in, too, with a series of small successes and a dose of old-fashioned American lobbying.
"What we are trying to do is bring new competitive forces to the military marketplace," said Ralph Crosby, a former Northrop Grumman executive who became chief executive of EADS North America in 2002. "It will be good for the taxpayer. As an enterprise, we want to establish our U.S. citizenship."
Turning the French Tricolor into the Stars and Stripes, of course, is no easy task. Not only is EADS facing anti-French sentiment, but its effort to sell its wares in Washington also comes at a time when a strong "Buy America" attitude is taking hold among many members of Congress.
"The American military market is by far the biggest in the world," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit research group in northern Virginia that promotes smaller government. "Every company wants to offer its products here. But EADS is uniquely impaired because of bad feelings toward the countries of its parent company. In the Pentagon, when you say EADS, people think 'France.' "
Even so, EADS has managed to make some significant gains. The company has sold more than 2,000 of its American Eurocopter helicopters to the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security and numerous law enforcement agencies. It has acquired some small American military contractors and gotten involved in partnerships with big players like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin on a number of Pentagon contracts with billion-dollar price tags.
Last month, EADS reorganized its operations in the United States to enhance its eligibility for classified contracts. And, it has lined up a team of former Pentagon officials and Congressional insiders to lobby Washington decision makers.
Help has come in the most unexpected ways. With a scandal surrounding rival Boeing Company over its bungled effort to land a $20 billion Air Force contract for a new fleet of aerial refueling tankers, EADS has a long-shot opportunity to be involved in that high-profile deal. These aerial tankers are used to refuel fighter jets in midair.
EADS North America, with annual revenues of $700 million, is still a relatively small subsidiary of EADS, the $36 billion European aerospace consortium that makes military equipment for the global market and is the 80 percent owner of Airbus, the European commercial jetliner manufacturer that recently surpassed Boeing in new sales.
EADS just recently landed contracts for a refueling version of the Airbus in Germany, Canada, Australia and Britain, even beating Boeing in some of these competitions.
But EADS is still looking for its big breakthrough: cracking the Air Force tanker deal would open the door to tens of billions of dollars in potential military equipment sales. EADS's Airbus tanker is the only alternative to Boeing, whose earlier tanker bid was artificially inflated by Darleen Druyun, the former Air Force acquisitions officer who also admitted illegally giving EADS's proprietary pricing data to Boeing. Ms. Druyun is now serving a nine-month prison term for her actions.
"When and if there is competition for the U.S. tanker," said Mr. Crosby, "we will be there to compete." The Pentagon's 2005 budget mandates that the tanker proposal be opened up, pending further studies.
To sweeten its offer, EADS has promised to do final Airbus tanker assembly in the United States and to make sure that more than 50 percent of the content is made in America. Earlier this month, EADS's efforts got a lift when Lockheed Martin, Boeing's chief rival among Pentagon contractors, said it would team up in any future tanker bid, giving EADS additional political heft and a more American look. Yesterday, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, Michael Wynne, said EADS deserved to be considered in any new competition.
EADS has also been wise in playing Washington's political game, cozying up to important politicians, hiring an impressive roster of former Pentagon officials and Congressional staff members and opening manufacturing plants in politically powerful districts, largely in the pro-military South.
Just last month, the company opened a new 85,000-square-foot helicopter factory in Columbus, Miss., in the northeastern part of the state.
At that ribbon-cutting came an announcement of two new government contracts - a $75 million deal to make 55 helicopters for the Border Patrol and a $124 million Coast Guard contract to upgrade 95 previously purchased EADS helicopters. The Mississippi plant will be in addition to EADS helicopter plants in Grand Prairie, Tex., and Mobile, Ala.
In Washington, the EADS lobbying team is led by Samuel Adcock, a former legislative assistant to Senator Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican who was once the Senate majority leader. In his old job, Mr. Adcock advised Senator Lott on military issues and pushed for bigger Pentagon budgets. Mr. Adcock is also a member of the Defense Science Board, an influential panel that advises the defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on military policy.
Other military heavyweights on the EADS North America board include William Schneider Jr., a former State Department official who is chairman of the Defense Science Board, and Richard Burt, a former ambassador to Germany. They are joined by three retired military generals and admirals - one each from the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Air Force.
EADS officials were also included in an annual Alaskan fishing tournament with Senator Ted Stevens as host on the Fourth of July this year. Mr. Stevens, a Republican, has been chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Officials at EADS, which sponsored a dinner at the event, were able to mingle with industry executives, Republican Senators and Pentagon officials, including John Young, an assistant secretary of the Navy, and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.
"They are playing the same political game as all other military contractors," said Keith Ashdown, a military industry analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit organization that monitors federal spending. "It's got to give them a good shot. We'll see how it works out in the near future."
EADS has been quietly shopping for acquisitions. Last month, it acquired Racal Instruments, a maker of military equipment testing gear in Irvine, Calif., for $105 million, its second purchase in this sector.
"So far, they have been moving fairly slowly," said Richard Aboulafia, a military analyst with the Teal Group, an aerospace consulting firm in Fairfax, Va. "One could argue that growth-by-stealth is a strategy, so that they can expand without drawing the attention of the Buy America crowd."
Yet with a number of contracts on the horizon, it's hard to say how long EADS can operate in the shadows. EADS has teamed with Lockheed and Northrop Grumman on the first phase of a $87.4 million maritime patrol turboprop aircraft for the Coast Guard that ultimately could lead to the purchase of 30 aircraft, at $30 million each or more. EADS is also eyeing an Army contract for 128 medium-lift transportation planes.
Last September, EADS and Northrop Grumman announced a partnership to work together on the development of the next-generation personnel recovery vehicle for the Air Force. "This is a really big deal," said Mr. Crosby, pointing out that the contract could reach $2 billion.
EADS has also formed a partnership with Northrop on several other initiatives. These include the EuroHawk unmanned aerial surveillance program in Europe, and ground surveillance programs for NATO. In September, EADS and Northrop signed a preliminary agreement to pursue business opportunities in the global ballistic-missile market.
EADS is also working with Lockheed to explore missile defense partnership opportunities in the United States and overseas and entered into another partnership with Lockheed to sell EADS's small-ship radar to customers around the globe, including the Coast Guard.
"We've established ourselves here," said Mr. Crosby. "The fact that we are competing to offer the U.S. government new products should be considered a good thing."
-------- chemical weapons
Moscow complains of lack of financing for destruction of chemical weapons
MOSCOW (AFP)
Nov 10, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041110161909.5f0r5pgb.html
Russia on Wednesday said it would boost its own spending in 2005 on a programme to destroy its vast arsenal of chemical weapons, complaining of inadequate assistance from foreign donors led by the United States.
Russia still has a stockpile of around 40,000 tonnes of chemical warheads. It has stated its intention to destroy 20 percent of the stockpile by 2007 and to eliminate it by 2012.
Leaders of the Group of Seven most industralised countries (G7) in 2002 offered up to 20 billion dollars to Russia to dispose of its chemical weapons and military plutonium stocks and secure facilities from the threat of terrorists.
Chemical disarmament is "an international problem" and must be resolved "with the international community on an equal basis," said Alexander Kharichev, secretary of of the country's chemical weapons disarmament commission.
"But for the moment, 90 percent of the funding is coming from the Russian budget. Given the situation, we are doubling the financing for this programme," added Kharichev, who was participating in a conference in Moscow on chemical disarmament.
In 2004, the Russian state devoted 5.4 billion roubles (186 million dollars) for chemical disarmament and for next year has allocated 11.2 billion roubles (386 millions dollars), the official said.
But between 1992 and 2003, Russia received only 217 million dollars from abroad for the programme, said Viktor Kholstov, deputy head of the federal industry agency which is responsible for overseeing the chemical disarmament.
"Russia only gets 30 percent of the sums announced by the Americans in their aid programmes," the rest going on "organisational costs" of the US institutions and entreprises which participate in the programme, Kharichev told AFP.
The official, however, praised cooperation with Germany and the Netherlands, which he said "use more transparent schemes."
Russia has the world's largest chemical weapons stockpile, including stocks of sarin and VX nerve gas.
Dismantling its stocks of military plutonium and chemical weapons, seen as vulnerable to theft in the corruption-tainted post-Soviet era, was made a priority goal in international efforts to halt proliferation, prompting leaders at the G7 summit at Kananaskis, in Canada, in 2002 to offer up to 20 billion dollars in aid to dispose of them.
-------- colombia
Rightist Militias Are a Force in Colombia's Congress
November 10, 2004
By JUAN FORERO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/americas/10colombia.html?pagewanted=all&position=
CAUCASIA, Colombia, Nov. 5 - Here in the humid cattle pastures of northern Colombia, Congresswoman Rocío Arias says she feels at peace. She needs no bodyguards, as she does in Bogotá.
That may seem odd, since this is a region controlled by a 15,000-member coalition of right-wing paramilitary groups accused by Colombian and American officials of mass murder and cocaine trafficking. The United States is seeking the extradition of the biggest drug kingpins.
But as the coalition, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, negotiates the disarmament of 3,000 of its members with President Álvaro Uribe, Ms. Arias's fearlessness is understandable. She is a key advocate in Congress, part of a network of political leaders who are making sure that none of the wanted men here go to prison or face extradition.
"For me, the land here is paradise," Ms. Arias, 35, said with a smile as she was ferried across a swath of cattle country. "Here, you can live with your doors open. It's calm. You can breathe tranquility, patriotism, optimism."
It is increasingly clear that the political coalition the paramilitary forces have created is at the apex of its power. The militias control several northern states, including major drug trafficking routes. They have also placed their advocates in Colombian institutions like the attorney general's office and town and city halls, according to Western diplomats, rights advocates and Colombian lawmakers.
Perhaps the most troubling sign of paramilitary influence is in Congress. There, Ms. Arias and a colleague, Eleonora Pineda, lead a group of 16 legislators from rural regions who, to varying degrees, openly support the paramilitary leaders, particularly their demand for a deal in which they would not serve jail time or face extradition if they demobilize their forces.
The two have been particularly adept, political analysts and lawmakers say, at whitewashing the image of the paramilitary coalition, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.
It is unclear how many among the 263 other members of the two-house Congress are aligned with the right-wing militias. Salvatore Mancuso, the best-known paramilitary commander, has said that at least 30 percent of the lawmakers are controlled by paramilitary groups.
Gustavo Petro, a left-leaning congressman and vigorous critic of the negotiations with the militias, says Congress is split into three groups: those eager to collaborate with them, those opposed but forced to cooperate and those actively opposed.
"These ladies are with them, part and parcel," he said. "They're not the only ones. There are 40 or 50 who are also with them. They have to be, because their future in Congress is dependent on paramilitary support."
Told of the accusations, Ms. Arias smiled, shrugged and said: "I'm not a paramilitary congresswoman. I'm just a congresswoman convinced of the path of negotiated solutions."
But it is not hard to gauge where her sympathies lie.
When three paramilitary commanders, including Mr. Mancuso, spoke to Congress in July, Ms. Arias and Ms. Pineda helped them engineer the event as a way of mitigating the warlords' fearsome reputation as killers and cocaine traffickers.
The two congresswomen sent out embossed invitations to diplomats and journalists. They picked up the three leaders at Bogotá's military airport when they arrived from their northern lair. The congresswomen brought suits for the men, who are used to wearing fatigues, and then ferried Mr. Mancuso to a store to buy dress shoes.
The American ambassador, William Wood, called the scene scandalous, but for the paramilitary forces' supporters in Congress it was seen as a historic event that gave the leaders a chance to present their side.
Colombia's Congress is filled with old-style politicians, mostly men, who range from former guerrillas or labor leaders to aristocrats to statesmen like Senator Rafael Pardo, who is widely respected inside Colombia and abroad. Many are skilled at no-holds-barred backroom politics.
Ms. Arias, a small-town journalist and community worker who is divorced and has three children, offers a dramatic break. Her role is to lobby for a process beneficial to the paramilitary coalition, a group she credits for driving off rebels who killed an uncle and three cousins of hers.
In an interview in the heart of paramilitary country, the man believed to be the most ruthless commander, Diego Fernando Murillo, said Ms. Arias was "not an appendage to the structure." But he smiled and praised her, saying, "She's defending the peace process."
To make their case for them, the militias have also hired former television reporters to carry out publicity campaigns. Businessmen with ties to the group quietly lobby, too. But political analysts and lawmakers say it is Ms. Arias who is the most enthusiastic supporter, traveling to Washington and Spain to make the case for the commanders.
"They are not narco-traffickers," she said, rattling off the names of commanders who have assured her that they have no ties to cocaine smuggling. "I believe in the word of Salvatore Mancuso. I believe in the word of Adolfo Paz."
It is, in fact, the issue of drug trafficking that has kept Ms. Arias most occupied in Congress. Aside from a resolution declaring a popular northern hat a national symbol, she has proposed only one piece of legislation since her election two years ago, a law to bar extradition for paramilitary commanders involved in peace talks.
It received 59 signatures in support, she said, but the legislative session ended before it could be brought to a vote. She promises to propose it again next year.
"They're negotiating, they're making sacrifices, and what's the prize?" she said. "The United States is going to have them extradited."
She has only good things to say about the paramilitary fighters, who are mostly concentrated in the hamlet of Santa Fe de Ralito, the center of a safe haven ceded by the government for talks. Ms. Arias spends at least one night a week there, and Ms. Pineda lives nearby.
Charges of drug trafficking and mass murder, she said, are exaggerations created by "the enemies of peace."
"Of course, innocents have died," she said. "But the Self-Defense Forces have dedicated themselves to attacking the guerrillas, not the communities, not the institutions."
-------- iraq
U.S. Forces Battle Into Heart of Fallujah
Units Meet Scattered Resistance; Attacks Continue Elsewhere
By Jackie Spinner, Karl Vick and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35979-2004Nov9?language=printer
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 9 -- U.S. forces pushed into the heart of Fallujah on Tuesday, encountering roadside bombs, rockets and gunfire on the second day of a battle to wrest control of the city from insurgents.
Army and Marine units that entered Fallujah from the northeast and northwest on Monday night had fought their way to the city center and beyond by Tuesday night, U.S. commanders said.
Soldiers with the Army's 1st Infantry Division made their way to the southeastern part of the city, a neighborhood of factories and warehouses where they expected to find guerrillas waiting for them. Instead, the district was relatively quiet, though the units reported being fired on by women and children armed with assault rifles.
"There were multiple groups running around shooting at us," said Air Force Senior Airman Michael Smyre, 26, of Hickory, N.C., an airstrike spotter attached to the 1st Infantry who was wounded when a rocket hit his armored vehicle. "You could see a lot of rubble, trash everywhere. It was real nasty-looking."
Marines fighting to the west of the Army units advanced to the main east-west highway that divides Fallujah and reported persistent resistance from insurgents firing from mosques.
The U.S. military said 10 troops and two members of Iraq's security forces were killed in the first two days of the battle, the largest military operation since the U.S.-led invasion last year. U.S. and Iraqi leaders hope the assault will break the grip of insurgents who have held Fallujah for nearly seven months.
Some Iraqi political and religious groups condemned the push into Fallujah, a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim minority. A leading Sunni organization, the Iraqi Islamic Party, quit the country's interim government, and Sunni clerics on Tuesday made good on threats to call for a boycott of January elections. Harith Dhari, head of the pro-insurgency Association of Muslim Scholars, said balloting would occur "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah."
Insurgents elsewhere in Iraq, meanwhile, continued a strategy of mounting attacks. In Baqubah, a restive city northeast of Baghdad, armed bands attacked two police stations. Police officials and the U.S. military said the attacks were beaten back. A car bomb at an Iraqi National Guard camp outside the northern city of Kirkuk killed three people and wounded two. And two U.S. service members were killed in a mortar attack on a base in Mosul, also in the north.
In Baghdad, where insurgents on Monday night detonated a car bomb outside a hospital treating victims of two car bombs outside churches, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi imposed a curfew from 10:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. U.S. fighter jets made low passes over the capital, a show of strength rarely seen since the 2003 invasion.
At a news conference in Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the commander of foreign military operations in Iraq, said the assault on Fallujah had so far "achieved our objectives on or ahead of schedule." He added, "I think we're looking at several more days of tough urban fighting."
The general said the battle plan as a whole was on course. "We felt like the enemy would form an outer crust in defense of Fallujah. We broke through that pretty quickly and easily," Metz said. "We also then anticipated him breaking up into small three- to six-person detachments or squads, which we've seen throughout the day, today especially."
Witnesses said that by Tuesday night, U.S. and Iraqi forces controlled the Jolan, Mualimeen and Askali neighborhoods in the north of Fallujah. They also held the Rawdha Muhammediya mosque, headquarters of the insurgent fighters and the mujaheddin shura, the city's self-appointed government.
The assault pushed insurgents into Shuhada and other neighborhoods in the southernmost part of the city, where they are fighting and hiding behind buildings and houses, witnesses said.
Metz said that because U.S. forces formed a "very tight" cordon around the city Sunday night, the enemy "doesn't have an escape route" and eventually would be cornered.
But Sheik Abdul-Sattar Edatha, the spokesman for the shura council, said most foreign fighters had already left the city. The U.S. military had estimated that there were 2,000 to 3,000 foreign fighters in the city, many of them part of a network linked to Jordanian-born guerrilla leader Abu Musab Zarqawi.
"Militarily speaking, the city falls under the U.S. forces' control," Edatha said. "The foreign fighters won't stay here and die. They lost the battle. They spread in other places."
On Tuesday night, Fallujah's eerily empty streets were littered with shattered concrete and dead bodies, said a resident shaken by a missile strike on the second story of his family home. Insurgents cloaked in checkered head scarves carried wounded fellow fighters to mosques.
Civilians caught in the crossfire were gathered in a hospital donated by the United Arab Emirates and flying a blue and white UNICEF banner. There, medical workers low on bandages and antiseptic bound wounds in ripped sheets and cleaned torn skin with hot water.
The Jolan and Askali neighborhoods seemed particularly hard hit, with more than half of the houses destroyed. Dead bodies were scattered on the streets and narrow alleys of Jolan, one of Fallujah's oldest neighborhoods. Blood and flesh were splattered on the walls of some of the houses, witnesses said, and the streets were full of holes.
Some of the heaviest damage apparently was incurred Monday night from air and artillery attacks that coincided with the entry of ground troops into the city. U.S. warplanes dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on the city overnight, and artillery boomed throughout the night and into the morning.
"Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."
Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.
Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujaheddin which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted."
In addition to ripping open entire neighborhoods, the armor assault also brought into the open an insurgent command that until this week remained shadowy even to Fallujah residents. Ex-generals from the former Iraqi army's Republican Guard passed written orders, complete with official stamp, to subordinates who snapped salutes, witnesses said.
Iraq's new army, formed after occupation authorities dismantled the armed forces that had served during the rule of Saddam Hussein, is taking part in the fight against insurgents in Fallujah, primarily as a rear element to help clear areas once U.S. forces have moved through. Marine commanders have declined to comment on the offensive, deferring to Iraqi officers. On Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Qadir Muhammed Jasim characterized the offensive as "a holy task to fight for Fallujah people."
"We will fight to the last drop of our blood to free our people," he said at a news conference just outside the city. "We will fulfill the tasks we've been asked to do, with the cooperation of our friends."
Jasim said that resistance had been lighter than expected and that the Iraqi soldiers were in good spirits and eager to finish the operation.
"The operation is going very precise and with a very small number of casualties," he said. "In every place we finish an operation, our forces start to distribute aid, food, clothes, blankets and even money. . . . We are very sure that we are moving in the right way and will do the tasks we are asked to do very precisely."
Metz repeatedly praised Iraqi forces, saying they had "acquitted themselves very well in this fight." Metz said the Iraqi soldiers had been used especially to search the city's 77 mosques. "In several mosques today, lots of munitions and weapons were found, and they were found by those Iraqi soldiers," he said.
Metz's account suggested a marked improvement among the Iraqi troops in recent months. In April, the last time U.S. commanders tried to use Iraqi forces in Fallujah, a battalion of freshly trained Iraqi troops refused to go.
A senior Iraqi official said it was too early to tell how the Iraqi forces performed. "During the operation you always hear they're doing good," said Industry Minister Hachim Hasani. "After the operations are finished, we'll find out."
Hasani's political organization, the Iraqi Islamic Party, quit the interim government Tuesday to protest the Fallujah offensive. But Hasani, who opposed the U.S. Marine siege of the city earlier this year, quit the party Tuesday and retained his cabinet post. "Iraq is larger than any party," Hasani said. "Things should be done through the government, not outside the government."
Vick and special correspondent Bassam Sebti reported from Baghdad.
--------
Rebuilding What the Assault Turns to Rubble
Seabees, Other Units Began Planning Early for the Reconstruction of Fallujah
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37987-2004Nov9.html
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 9 -- Weeks before Marine and Army units stormed into Fallujah, blowing up buildings and blasting holes in insurgent positions, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Larry Merola was already working on a plan to fix the damage.
Merola, an architect from Stoughton, Mass., was part of a Seabee team of engineers, builders and carpenters responsible for estimating the battle damage long before the first tank rolled.
Merola and his crew -- which included an ironworker from Connecticut, an electrician from Virginia and a general contractor from New Hampshire -- pored over combat plans with Marine commanders and made suggestions for how to secure the city without completely tearing it apart.
"A lot of trigger-pullers and pilots, they can do just about anything with their weapons," said Merola, 38, a reservist with the 7th Naval Construction Regiment, based in Newport, R.I. "But you don't want to give people a piece of flat earth to start over with when you're done."
Now, with U.S. and Iraqi security forces pushing their way through Fallujah, military commanders say an essential component in the battle to retake the city is putting it back together when the infantry leaves. More than $90 million in U.S.-funded reconstruction projects are planned for the city once it is secure.
"We don't do a combat operation in Fallujah unless we are prepared to repair it," said Col. John R. Ballard, commander of the Marine 4th Civil Affairs Group, based in Washington. "This isn't about punishing the town. This is about getting rid of a very bad influence. When we do that, there is going to be damage."
The Marine unit, which Ballard called "the secret weapon that fixes what other people break," will spearhead the initial rebuilding effort on behalf of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which is responsible for the restive Sunni Triangle region. Marine commanders have $40 million at their disposal to spend in the city, including paying compensation to residents whose property is damaged by either side in the conflict. Families suffering a death, serious injury or property damage can receive a one-time payment of as much as $2,500.
The Army is drawing from the same $40 million pot to pay damage claims. On Tuesday afternoon, a group of soldiers from Bravo Company of the Army's 445th Civil Affairs unit, attached to the Marine Civil Affairs Group, left a base camp near Fallujah and headed into the city on the heels of the advancing infantry units.
The soldiers will spend the next two days meeting with Army commanders and driving around the city assessing the state of water, sewage and garbage disposal systems, and other infrastructure. If the city is secure enough, they also will begin processing damage claims, said Capt. Kamil Sztalkoper, a spokesman for the Army's 1st Infantry Division Task Force 2-2, whose soldiers were among the first into Fallujah on Monday night.
"We came in to eliminate the terrorists and insurgents," said Sztalkoper, 26, of Cleveland. "We want to return the city of Fallujah to the people as quickly as possible. This is obviously one means of showing the people of Fallujah that we are serious about returning what is theirs back to them. Yes, in the process, some things are destroyed, but here we are to help correct what we had to do."
About $50 million worth of reconstruction projects designated for Fallujah have been on hold since April, when the Marines broke off an offensive and insurgents seized control of the city.
In addition, the U.S. Project Contracting Office, which is responsible for spending congressionally approved reconstruction funds for Iraq, has identified four key projects -- worth an additional $50 million -- to start within two months after the city is returned to local government control.
One of those priorities is cleaning up Fallujah's water system, which is contaminated with sewage. The contracting office plans to spend $35 million on a new sewage treatment facility for the city. The other early priorities are $4 million to build four schools, $6.2 million for a new health care facility and clinics, and $2.5 million to improve the electrical grid.
An Iraqi police officer from Fallujah said residents of the city were eager for the reconstruction to begin.
"It's not just a matter of jobs," said the man, who declined to give his name. "Before April, the people inside the town, many people were fighting the Americans. But now the situation is different. They want someone to help them. The schools are not open. No one can go to his job. We want the Marines to come in to help."
Lt. Col. Leonard DeFrancisci, civil affairs officer for Regimental Combat Team 1 of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said the Marines have prioritized projects basically by "war-gaming" what needs to be done.
"We try to project critical stuff," he said. "People are going to need to eat. They are going to need medical care."
Merola, the Seabee, said reconstruction planning must go hand-in-hand with combat planning. The more infrastructure that can be retained during an operation, the better, he said.
For example, he said, combat planners might want to destroy a bridge so that insurgents won't be able to use it. Instead, engineers will work with the combat planners to figure out a way to take out part of the bridge, eliminating the expensive necessity of completely rebuilding it.
"You have to remove the enemy, but people in the city are going to go back," he said. "You can't just turn it to sand."
--------
THE INSURGENTS
Rebel Fighters Who Fled Attack May Now Be Active Elsewhere
November 10, 2004
By EDWARD WONG and ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/middleeast/10insurgency.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov. 10 - Insurgent leaders in Falluja probably fled before the American-led offensive and may be coordinating attacks in Iraq that have left scores dead over the past few days, according to American military officials here. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who is the most wanted man in Iraq, has almost certainly fled, military officials believe. Americans say his group is responsible for attacks, kidnappings and beheadings that have killed hundreds in more than a year. Before the offensive began, some military officials said Mr. Zarqawi could be operating out of Falluja, but his precise whereabouts have not been known. "I personally believe some of the senior leaders probably have fled," Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, said in a video conference with reporters on Tuesday. "I would hope not, but I've got to assume that those kinds of leaders understand the combat power we can bring."
Insurgent attacks continued to exact a heavy toll across Iraq on Tuesday. Two American soldiers died in a mortar attack in Mosul, where government authority appears to be ebbing. Gunmen assassinated a senior government official in Samarra. Guerrillas fired mortars at police stations in downtown Baghdad while hundreds of fighters massed in the center of the provincial capital of Ramadi, just 30 miles west of Falluja.
A suspected car bombing outside an Iraqi National Guard base in Kirkuk killed three people and wounded two others, Reuters reported. The attacks on Tuesday followed several others over the weekend, both in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle.
The American military said on Tuesday that six people had been killed in the car bomb attack Monday night outside Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad. Five were Iraqi policemen, and the sixth was a civilian, the military said. In the two church bombings the same night, one Iraqi was killed and several wounded, and one of the bombers was disguised as an Iraqi policeman, according to a report put out by a Western security contractor.
This spate of what appear to be coordinated attacks, as well as the dispersal of top insurgent leaders, suggests that the Falluja offensive alone will not crush an insurgency that has been gathering strength. And it raises the prospect that insurgents will try to regroup and infiltrate Falluja after the fighting is over, as they have done in Samarra.
American military officials said that they anticipated a surge in violence timed to the Falluja invasion and Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting that is supposedly auspicious for martyrdom. They say they are not under the illusion that an attack on Falluja will break the back of the insurgency, or that the capture of Mr. Zarqawi is a realistic goal. The objectives of the offensive are to deny a safe haven to the insurgents, install the presence of the Iraqi government in the city and ensure the area is secure enough so residents can freely vote in the upcoming elections, General Metz said.
"The important idea to consider is that this is not an operation against Zarqawi or his network," said a senior military official in Washington who has been monitoring the battle. "It is just one of many steps that need to be taken in order to defeat a complex and diverse insurgency in which the Zarqawi network is but one element.''
But other military officials in Baghdad and Washington are expressing concern that the operation could end up being both a public relations disaster and strategic setback if some top leaders are not captured.
"This is causing some concern because if Falluja comes up a 'dry hole,' after all the operations, we will have to explain it," said a military official in Baghdad. "We will have to address it if this happens. If we don't retain any senior leadership, it may cause backlash."
An insurgent who gave his nom de guerre as Abu Khalid and identified himself as a mid-level commander said in a telephone interview that leaders had decided two days before the offensive to flee the city and leave only half of the insurgents behind to fight.
"From a military point of view, if a city is surrounded and bombarded, then the result of the battle is preordained," Abu Khalid, a major in the former Iraqi army, said. "It's not a balanced battle. So we told half of our fighters to leave the city and the other half to stay and defend it."
General Metz said the absence of insurgent leaders could explain why the defense of Falluja seemed to lack military cohesiveness. Though some forces are engaged in fierce house-to-house combat, several Marine commanders on the ground have said they have been surprised by the relative lack of resistance from the guerillas. By early Wednesday, the Marine and Army units that punched through the northern barricades at the start of the assault had swept past the main east-west highway.
The recent wave of assaults that prompted Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to declare a state of emergency appeared to have been a loosely coordinated counterattack to the American-led offensive, senior military officials said.
They have shown the guerrillas can strike with great effect outside of Falluja, and even while that city is under siege. Since last Saturday, scores of Iraqis, many of them security officers, have been killed in attacks ranging from bomb and mortar attacks on police stations in Samarra to suicide car bombings of Christian churches in Baghdad. At least six American troops and one British soldier have been killed in assaults outside of Falluja. The American military reported 130 attacks on Monday, well above the average of 80 a day over most of the summer.
Other senior officers said that an unknown number of the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 insurgents in Falluja had escaped, but not necessarily all the leaders. The American military did not seal off Falluja completely until Sunday night, when soldiers stormed a hospital and two bridges on the western edge of the city. American commanders on the ground in Iraq say up to 90 percent of the city's residents fled in the build-up to the offensive, and guerillas could well have been among them.
Abu Khalid, the guerrilla fighter, said insurgent leaders had debated how many men to leave in the city.
"There were different views about that," he said. "They discussed percentages like 20 percent inside the city and 80 percent outside, to save as many fighters as possible for future operations. In the end, they settled on a 50-50 split."
"We told the fighters that those who want to stay alive and fight should leave, and those who want to become martyrs in this battle should stay," he said.
Abu Khalid argued that even if the Americans take the city, they will lose in the long run, because "the Americans will raid houses and arrest a lot of people, and this will increase resentment and hatred and give the resistance more support in the city."
Canny insurgents rarely stand and fight, and they often take advantage of their ability to blend in with civilians and melt away. And for them, the propaganda campaign is as important, if not more so, than the strictly military one, since the most immediate goal is to win the support of the people.
Starting Monday, as American and Iraqi forces swept through Falluja from the north, they found insurgents falling back.
Even in the warren of alleyways of the northwest Jolan neighborhood, the scene of the some of the toughest fighting in April, when the Marines first tried an ill-fated invasion, American commanders said they had encountered less resistance than they thought they would.
In a recent offensive in Samarra, American-led forces swept through rebel-held territory, only to have the insurgency return soon afterward.
On Saturday, as final preparations were under way for the Falluja assault, insurgents in the Samarra area staged coordinated car bomb and mortar attacks that left at least 30 dead, many of them policemen.
Now insurgents are touting Samarra, as well as other violence-ridden towns around Iraq, as a model of their own tenacity.
"The Americans are mistaken if they think they think they are going to end the resistance by occupying Falluja," Abu Khalid said. "What about Samarra? Baquba? Tal Afar? And maybe also in some cities in the south in the future. The resistance is not in Falluja only."
Edward Wong reported from Baghdad for this article and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Thom Shanker, in Washington, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times, in Baghdad, contributed reporting
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U.S.-Led Forces Gain More Ground in Falluja as Battle Rages
November 10, 2004
By DEXTER FILKINS and ROBERT F. WORTH
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/middleeast/10cnd-iraq.html?ei=5094&en=0e2ff628a45e61c9&hp=&ex=1100149200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 10 - The American-led assault has gained more territory in Falluja after days of airstrikes and street-to-street fighting with insurgents, while a militant group said today that it had kidnapped two of the Iraqi prime minister's relatives and would execute them if the siege on the city was not lifted.
Iraqi troops have found "hostage slaughterhouses" in the city where captives were held and killed, the commander of Iraqi forces in the city, Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan, told reporters today. Computer discs showing beheadings and black clothing worn by insurgents in some of the videos were discovered, he said.
Troops have captured the mayor's office, two mosques, a commercial center and other major objectives in the heart of the downtown and advanced past the main highway through the city. Today, the military said in a statement its troops had fought their way through at least half of the city.
It said its aircraft fired guided munitions today at a mosque after troops came under small arms fire from insurgents holed up inside. On Tuesday, American aircraft dropped a laser-guided bomb to destroy a building in the city in which there were "anti-Iraqi elements," the military said.
The insurgents continued to fight and withdraw to new positions as American and Iraqi military forces - relying heavily on artillery and air support - pushed in from the north. Battles continued in the south Falluja neighborhoods of Resala and Nazal as the insurgents appeared to be retreating along a central corridor toward the southern fringes of the city. Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, the commander of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, said Tuesday in a video teleconference from Baghdad that commanders anticipated "several more days of tough urban fighting" before the Falluja offensive was over. He said most of the military's objectives had been met "on or ahead of schedule" against a force of 2,000 to 3,000 insurgents.
Today, on the third day of operations, the military said in a statement that 11 American troops and two Iraqi soldiers had been killed in the assault. In the 24-hour period ending at 2 a.m. today, 31 American and Iraqi troops had been wounded and more than 100 insurgents killed, officials said.
In the first significant political fallout over the offensive, the country's most prominent Sunni party said Tuesday that it was withdrawing from the interim Iraqi government, and the leading group of Sunni clerics called for a boycott of the coming elections.
The announcement that two members of Dr. Allawi's family had been kidnapped on Tuesday night was made by his spokesman, Thaier al-Naqib, in a statement today. One of the relatives, Ghazi Allawi, the prime minister's 75-year-old cousin, was not involved in politics and did not hold a government job, Mr. Naqib said. Ghazi Allawi's son's wife was also seized from their house in the Yarmuk neighborhood of Baghdad .
A posting on an Islamic Web site by a group calling itself Ansar al-Jihad claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and demanded that Dr. Allawi and his government lift the siege on Falluja and release all detainees in Iraq, threatening to behead the captives in 48 hours if their demands were not met, The Associated Press reported.
In other violence, an American soldier was killed today and one was injured after their combat patrol was hit by an explosive device in the Baghdad area, the military said in a statement.
And a curfew was declared in the northern city of Mosul today amid escalating violence, while Dr. Allawi extended the closing of Baghdad airport, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.
The last American attempt to stage an assault on Falluja, in April, bogged down amid outrage over reports of civilian casualties, and insurgents consolidated their control over the city in May.
American and Iraqi officials have said securing Falluja is a crucial step in ensuring that elections planned for January can be conducted safely.
After a day of violence in several cities across the country, Dr. Allawi on Tuesday declared a daily curfew in Baghdad from 10:30 p.m. to 4 a.m., to last indefinitely, the first in the capital in more than a year. The A.P. reported that a statement posted on an Islamic Web site in the name of eight known militant groups in Iraq warned Baghdad residents to stay home today "to avoid putting their lives in danger."
Mr. Naqib, the spokesman, held a news conference on Tuesday at a military camp near Falluja where he read a statement from the prime minister calling for the insurgents to lay down their weapons.
"A peaceful solution to the city of Falluja is possible, and we can spare the rest of the city military confrontation," Mr. Naqib said. "The Iraqi military forces are ready to enter Falluja peacefully and lay their authority over it after armed men and terrorists lay down their weapons."
Although Dr. Allawi has said he made the best possible effort to reach a peaceful solution before ordering the offensive, leaders of Falluja have criticized the government for not giving the negotiations a chance.
In Falluja, Iraqi troops have generally not taken part in the main fighting, being largely relegated to following behind the Americans and searching houses and other buildings after the battles end.
When asked on Tuesday about the performance of new Iraqi security forces, General Metz said they had performed ably and that he had received no reports of discipline problems.
"They have assisted in clearing buildings and homes because it's a manpower-intensive battle in the urban terrain," he said. "And they have performed very well in all those clearing operations."
At least one enormous battle raged in the center of Falluja until midday Tuesday, as American marines and soldiers, followed by the Iraqi forces, ground their way south and captured the Muhammadia Mosque, which insurgents had been using as a command center and bunker. Eight marines were wounded in the operation, and the military said it had killed many insurgents.
After nearly 16 hours of fighting, First Sgt. Ronald Whittington, with the First Battalion, Eighth Marines, appeared stunned on Tuesday after five of his men went down in a single moment after dashing through machine-gun fire to cross the road in front of the mosque.
"It was bad, bad," Sergeant Whittington said. "I don't know where the shooting was coming from."
General Metz said most adversaries were now fighting in small units and were unable to mount a unified defense of the city.
He acknowledged that terrorist-style attacks across the Sunni region of Iraq outside Falluja were a counteroffensive to the American and Iraqi mission in Falluja.
Christine Hauser contributed reporting for this article from New York, James Glanz, Edward Wong and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdadand Thom Shanker from Washington.
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Goliath Beats David In Fallujah
World Crisis Web
November 10th, 2004
http://www.world-crisis.com/news/1049_0_1_0_M/
As the reinvasion of Fallujah enters its third day, the USA-led offensive is still facing intense resistance in most parts of the city, despite overwhelming firepower and disproportionate numbers being on the side of the invaders. A few thousand resistance fighters, using small arms and mortar fire, are defending the city street by street under heavy bombardment from satellite co-ordinated F-16 jets, helicopter gunships, tanks, and fighting vehicles, using 2,000 pound bombs and cluster bombs, and equipped with an assortment of depleted uranium tipped shells, 'kevlar' jackets, and night-vision equipment.
The USA military have said this evening that about a third of the city is under their control, including parts of the city center. There is no independent verification of such claims, since all non-embedded reporters have been prevented access to the city. However, even reporters embedded with USA forces - and whose reporting is subject to military restrictions - say that the invading forces are having to fight every step of the way. The cover of night wont be saving the city's resistance or it's civilians from the oncoming power of the USA military machine.
The cover of night wont be saving the city's resistance or it's civilians from the oncoming power of the USA military machine.
"These people are hardcore," Captain Robert Bodisch told embedded reporters earlier in the day. "A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) at my tank. I have to get another tank to go back in there," he said.
As dark fell on the besieged city, a BBC correspondent embedded with the invading troops in Fallujah reported slow but steady progress for the offensive, and said he expected the resistance losses to be very heavy. "I imagine there must be many casualties considering the amount of gunfire I've seen," he said. "The Americans launch about five hundred rounds to the insurgents' one," he added. However, he noted that open resistance had died down in much of the retaken parts of the city with the coming of nightfall, since the dark gives an advantage to those using night vision equipment.
USA military forces achieved their first major objective over the weekend with the destruction of the city's mai