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NUCLEAR
Falluja's defiance of a new empire
The Last Gift Of Terry Riordon
U.S. use of depleted uranium under fire
Talks on Nuke Fusion Plant End Without Decision
India urged not to disrupt arms balance
No freedom for nuclear scientist
EU Digs in Heels on Iran Nuclear Freeze-Diplomats
Iran in Deadlock With Europe on Halting Production of Uranium
Nuclear terrorism is a threat: El Baradei
SURVEY SAYS ... Yucca opposition growing
Davis-Besse lowers rating after failed test
DOE Keeps Mum on Preferred Option for Uranium Tailings
MILITARY
Sudan and Rebels in Short-Term Accord on Darfur
After Accord, Sudan Camp Raided
Anti-French Riots Fade in Ivory Coast but Foreigners Flee Nation
Westerners Are Evacuated From Ivory Coast
U.N. Peacekeepers Join Patrols in Congo
S. Korean pleads guilty in arms deal
Halliburton scandal widens after claims of pressure
Waxman Seeks New Halliburton Inquiry
Halliburton May Have Been Pressured by U.S. Diplomats
Prime minister, president tangle
Voices from Falluja
Falluja facing humanitarian crisis
Iraqi Gov't Warns Media About Coverage
Troops Secure Much of Fallujah
As U.S. Advances in Falluja, New Fighting Erupts in Northern Iraq
A Thousand Fallujahs
Palestinian Leader Arafat Dies in France Burial in West Bank on Saturday
Arafat Will Be Buried in Ramallah
Arafat's Body on Way to Egypt as Palestinians Mourn Loss of Icon
Four Palestinians Killed in Violence After Arafat Dies
Police to raise alert to 'war level'
Top moderate resurfaces after Arafat
Mahmoud Abbas Elected Chairman of PLO
Prisoners say only heir is Barghouti
Arafat in his own words
NATO Says Europe Must Move Closer to U.S. View on Terror
Concern in Russia
Ex-C.I.A. Chief Nets $500,000 on Talk Circuit
Lost in Deployment: How the Army Misplaced 60,000 Soldiers
Retired US general Tommy Franks urges diplomacy for Iran, North Korea
Fed panel presses Gulf War illness aid
Fort Bragg Troops Train For Homeland Security Mission
3 Abu Ghraib Trials Moved to U.S.
For White Men, Military Service Does Not Pay Later in Life
National Guard Investigates School-Strafing Incident
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Dutch anti-terror raids net seven
'Orange' Alert Is Dropped in D.C. and N.Y.
U.S. Officials Lower Terrorist Alert Levels for Financial Sites
TSA Plans More Checks on Cargo Loaders
Bush Is Asked to Break Deadlock on Intelligence Reform
POLITICS
Latest Conspiracy Theory -- Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether
Bush Picks a Loyalist to Replace a Politician
Bush Nominates His Top Counsel for Justice Post
OTHER
Russian Government Concerned Over Possible Depletion of Mineral Resources
Pesticide Study Using Children as Test Subjects Postponed
ACTIVISTS
Israel Re-Arrests Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
Israeli police arrest Vanunu
Vanunu arrested by Israeli police
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Falluja's defiance of a new empire
bellaciao.org
11th November 2004
by Sami Ramadani
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4273
It is Bush and Blair, not the Iraqi resistance, who fear free elections
George Bush and Tony Blair have apparently concluded that they can crush the Iraqi people's will to resist occupation and legitimise a puppet regime next January by occupying Falluja. Maybe they imagine they can emulate the British forces that terrorised Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1920s by obliterating recalcitrant villages.
The US generals will no doubt deliver Falluja to Bush and Blair after bombarding its neighbourhoods with artillery and rockets. But they are doomed to deliver neither the Fallujans nor the people of Iraq. Perhaps they are unaware that Fallujans defied Saddam's rule during his last years in power. Falluja - known as the city of a thousand mosques - attracted Saddam's wrath in 1998 when its imams refused to hail the tyrant in their Friday sermons. Many were imprisoned, and the city punished as a result.
But the generals certainly do know how resistance began in Falluja. On April 28 2003 US soldiers opened fire on parents and children demonstrating against the continued military occupation of their primary school - killing 18 of them in cold blood and injuring about 60 others. Until the killing of those demonstrators, not a single bullet had been fired at US soldiers in Falluja or any of the cities north of Baghdad. But, remorselessly, little-known Falluja became a world-renowned centre of defiance, where a poor and poorly armed people has courageously faced the military wing of the new empire.
The way Falluja's 300,000 people reacted to the April 28 massacre has made them a prime target for savage bombardment and conquest. Najaf was bombed into a ceasefire in August. Samarra was conquered in September. Sadr City in Baghdad was bombarded and negotiated into temporary silence in October. Now they want to crush the symbol of Falluja, to teach the rest of Iraq a bloody lesson. Another pyrrhic victory is likely to be added to an already long list.
Blair once again misled parliament this week by branding the resistance in Falluja as Zarqawi-style terrorists out to destroy the prospects for democracy. It was he and Bush who last year rejected the calls for early free and fair elections from those who rejected the occupation, including Ayatollah Sistani, Moqtada al-Sadr, the resistance and the widely supported Iraqi National Foundation Congress. Bush and Blair are terrified of the Iraqi people voting for anti-occupation leaders. They will accept nothing short of the legitimisation, through sham elections supervised by the occupation authorities, of an Allawi-style puppet regime.
More than 100,000 Iraqis are estimated to have been been killed since the US-led invasion; the country's infrastructure has all but been destroyed; people are exposed to the danger of US and British depleted-uranium shells; hospitals have been reduced to impotence in the face of mounting injuries and disease; the centre of Najaf and entire neighbourhoods of several cities have been razed. How much more should the Iraqi people be subjected to for Bush and Blair to have their "democratically" chosen puppets installed in Baghdad?
These are war crimes of Saddamist proportions, and there is evidently more to come. Bush's latest pronouncements and Blair's declaration of a "second war" have made clear that the occupation governments are ready to kill (as "collateral damage", no doubt) even more Iraqis to enforce a pro-US order. Without a shred of evidence, Bush, Blair and Ayad Allawi's quisling regime shamelessly declare that they are only pursuing the Jordanian kidnapper Zarqawi and other "foreign terrorists". The people of Falluja, their leaders, negotiators and resistance fighters have always denounced Zarqawi and argued that such gangs have been encouraged to undermine the resistance.
The occupation forces have now reverted to their initial ploy of attacking cities north of Baghdad, while reaching ceasefires with some Baghdad districts and southern cities. Presumably, they see this as an effective divide-and-rule tactic, but it is likely to prove as futile as the rest of their plans for post-invasion Iraq. It is, in reality, merely a battle postponed. Iraq's history, reaffirmed by events since the US-led occupation, shows that its people's unity is stronger than differences based on religion, sect, ethnicity or national identity. That was demonstrated on Sunday when a senior Kurdish officer with the token US-commanded Iraqi force besieging Falluja deserted within half an hour of being shown the plans to occupy the city.
The US and British governments could do worse than digest the old Chinese proverb: "They lift a stone to drop it on their own feet." For they might have occupied Iraq and succeeded in lifting some of its heavy stones, but the stones will inevitably come crashing down on their feet.
· Sami Ramadani was a political refugee from Saddam Hussein's regime and is a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University
sami.ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk
-----
The Last Gift Of Terry Riordon
axisoflogic.com
By Raymond D. Cohen
Nov 11, 2004
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_13520.shtml
Thousands of military veterans of the Gulf War have reported a whole range of ailments and disabling conditions -- come to be referred to collectively as Gulf War syndrome. The numbers are not immediately clear for Canada, but in the U.S. some 70,000 veterans are dealing with severe health problems.
Symptoms of Gulf War syndrome include depression, chronic fatigue, anxiety, respiratory problems, memory and attention disorders, joint pain, skin rashes, musculoskeletal disorders, shortness of breath, insomnia, hair loss, dizziness, nausea and nerve damage.
Adding to the pain and frustration of those trying to cope with this condition has been the negation by "experts" or that it is more than a result of emotional trauma. Perhaps it's just a giant coincidence that thousands participating in the Persian Gulf conflict all happened to experience similar symptoms at about the same time.
It is odd that when our experts don't understand a condition, they seem more inclined to dismiss it with an "it's-all-in-your-head" attitude over a more constructive position of, "We don't know, we don't understand -- perhaps we can try to find out."
Interestingly, the symptoms those contending with Gulf War syndrome are almost identical to many Canadians with environmental sensitivities. Their problems too were often compounded by experts who dismissed their conditions as being psychosomatic. And although the disability is now more acknowledged by government, there are still other professionals who doubt those with it.
The situation becomes even more confusing when, perhaps inevitably, psychological effects sometimes do set in as a consequence of the lack of intervention of the professionals mandated to treat them, or the inaction of policy makers mandated to look at the circumstances which caused symptoms in the first place.
In the case of our Gulf War veterans, there seems to be some movement at the federal level spurred on by the death last year of Terry Riordon of Nova Scotia. Mr. Riordon's final wish, expressed to his wife, Sue, was that his organ and bone tissue be examined after his death to attest to what he knew to be true all along -- Gulf War syndrome is real. The test results indicated that traces of a radioactive metal, depleted uranium, remained in his body -- nine years after he left the field of conflict.
Depleted uranium was present in the tank armour and missile shells used by the military in the Gulf War. Troops were exposed to it either directly, or through radioactive dust emanating from the weapons and equipment.
Defense Minister Art Eggleton now says the military will look closely at those tests results and the possible widespread exposure to radioactive material in the Gulf War. The federal government is now willing to test any members of the Canadian forces who feel they may have been exposed to depleted uranium while on duty.
While this decision may come too late for the Terry Riordons of the world, it is at least a willingness to assume a stance of, "I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to find out,"as opposed to, "I don't know, so it must be all in your head."
How often, and how much longer, must Canadians endure official denials of life-stealing problems? Why is it that a sweeping compromise of our health and well-being must occur before some kind of intervention -- usually occurring too late for those whose final sacrifices eventually forced the issue -- is implemented?
Canada's blood scandal is not that far behind us, in which untold thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C. In this issue of ABILITIES, we point to unacceptable (but perfectly legal) exposure to lead threatening our children ("Thumbs Down," p. 7). And genetically altered food, currently common fare in our supermarkets, is anybody's nightmare; our health department assures us that it's safe, but the track record is not so reassuring.
It is time we adopt a philosophy of prevention within our policies -- and within our institutions -- and certainly within our homes and choices of health care practitioners.
And it is time, too, that we accept that disability and pain being expressed by people in search of relief is real -- regardless of whether or not the source is obvious.
Let's each do what we can to turn this situation around. Be a vocal consumer. Find out who is in charge, politically, socially, medically -- and don't be afraid to ask the hard questions. We owe it to ourselves, our families and our communities. And perhaps we owe it to Terry Riordon, whose last gift was a message that it's up to citizens to speak up when we're told, "It's all in your head."
http://www.abilities.ca/health/hlth_articles.html?showhealth=1&page=17&id=1523
-----
U.S. use of depleted uranium under fire
KING 5 News
By LORI MATSUKAWA
November 11, 2004
http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_111104WABdepleteduraniumSW.49604608.html
Alvin Clark, of Tacoma, developed aplastic anemia he believes is related to his exposure to depleted uranium dust after he was hit by friendly fire in Saudi Arabia.
Shells and armor used by U.S. tanks, gunships and helicopters are often made of depleted uranium because depleted uranium, or D.U., is a heavy metal, able to pierce armored vehicles or resist being pierced. But it's also radioactive, a waste product of nuclear enrichment plants like Hanford.
A pentagon training film shows how the D.U. ordnance bursts into a fiery powder on contact.
So, what happens when U.S. Troops are forced to march through the D.U. dust that's left on the ground? Or get hit by friendly fire? Some vets say it made them sick. The Pentagon disputes that.
Shinichi Matsuura of Renton fought in the first Gulf War. His Bradley tank was hit not once, but twice, by U.S. forces. He breathed a lot of D.U. smoke.
"Matter of fact I didn't know we were using D.U. until six years ago," said Matsuura.
Alvin Clark of Tacoma says his unit was nearly hit by a friendly fire missile in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. He developed aplastic anemia and needed a bone marrow transplant.
Clark said no one ever warned him there might be some depleted uranium out there, and if he were exposed to it, what he was supposed to do about it. Video Clip
KING 5's Lori Matsukawa reports More ... Custom Video ...
Dennis Kyne of San Jose says his unit marched along the bombed-out "highway of death" to Baghdad. He receives a disability check from the government each month for an "undiagnosed illness."
"My chain of command says I'm big enough and strong enough and soldier enough to walk through this stuff and .. it's just like lead. Just a little bit heavy and might affect the kidneys," he said.
This October, the Pentagon released findings of a five-year study of D.U. dust. Residue was collected from shot-up tanks, and analyzed by computer models. The military's conclusion? Half of the inhaled D.U. - a radioactive heavy metal - would be excreted by the body in 10 to 100 days.
"Even individuals with the highest potential for exposure still have doses that are well below peacetime safety standards. Which would be allowable here in the states so if you put that in the context of other combat risks, I'd have to say the military exposures to depleted uranium are safe," said Lt. Col. Mark Melanson.
It's a slightly different story for veterans with D.U. shrapnel embedded in their bodies.
The V.A. in Baltimore is studying about 70 Gulf War one vets, including Shinishi Matsuura, and has found elevated levels of uranium in the urine of several men more than a decade after the conflict.
But Pentagon officials say this, too, is no cause for alarm.
"It's important to note that this group has been followed for over 10 years and no adverse health effects associated with depleted uranium have been found," officials said.
In the first Gulf War, the Pentagon estimates it used 315 to 350 tones of D.U. In today's conflict, it estimates coalition forces have used three to six times that.
So what about the D.U. remaining in Iraq?
In a video provided by the Uranium Medical Research Centre of Canada, researchers found soil and spent munitions with radiation levels thousands of times higher than Department of Defense guidelines. U.S. soldiers tried to warn-off the researchers.
Congressman Jim McDermott, a medical doctor and Iraq war critic, questions using D.U. at all. During a hospital visit in Baghdad before the war, McDermott was told Iraq now has the highest rate of childhood leukemia in the world.
"I saw what it did to the Iraqis, but now I see that we're marching our own people through that, creating birth defects in children, leukemia in children, illnesses among adults. Then it becomes a question of really a war crime. The Geneva Convention says you cannot do something that has a long term effect on the country," said McDermott.
The Pentagon maintains D.U. is safe and necessary in war.
"You take with you the best weapons systems you can so you can defeat the enemy with overwhelming lethality," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick.
The Pentagon says for penetrating armor, depleted uranium is the heavy metal that is the best.
"It's not the best, it's the worst," said Kyne. "It inherently becomes the worst possible weapon because it's no longer just attacking the enemy, it's omnicidal, it kills all of us."
The U.S. and U.K. are the only militaries that use D.U. Most exposure to U.S. soldiers has been from fire from its own forces.
In 1996, the United Nations Sub Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights found use of D.U. weapons "incompatible" with existing humanitarian law.
-------- europe
Talks on Nuke Fusion Plant End Without Decision
AUSTRIA:
November 11, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28096/story.htm
VIENNA/BRUSSELS - Talks on where to build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor ended indecisively this week, while the European Union toned down threats to site the plant in France.
"The six-party talks ended without an agreement on the site," a Western diplomat familiar with the discussions told Reuters. He said that both France and Japan remained equal candidates to host the $12 billion reactor project.
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.
The EU was optimistic that a deal could eventually be reached favoring it. Europe wants the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to be built at Cadarache, near Marseille, rather than at a rival site in Japan.
"There was no agreement but there was no breakdown either. On the contrary, we have done good work and made good progress," European Commission spokesman Fabio Fabbi told Reuters.
"The two countries least enthusiastic about the European option - Japan and the United States - weren't very warm but they were no longer firmly against it," he said.
The EU earlier warned it may go ahead and build the experimental reactor in Cadarache, southern France, with as many partners as are willing to participate if there was no deal with the United States, Japan, Russia, China and South Korea at the two-day Vienna talks.
But it toned down these comments after the Vienna talks ended. Asked if the EU was ready to go it alone, Fabbi said: "We're not there yet. We are still in a multilateral process."
Officials at the Japanese mission in Vienna were not immediately available for comment.
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.
EU "COALITION OF THE WILLING"
The EU's tactics in the fight for the 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 on Monday 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.
The Western diplomat said about the talks: "They're still trying to slug it out ... 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 negotations 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. (Additional reporting by John Chalmers and Paul Taylor)
-------- india / pakistan
India urged not to disrupt arms balance
11 November 2004
DAWN (Pakistan)
http://www.dawn.com/2004/11/11/top9.htm
ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: Pakistan on Wednesday urged India to avoid disrupting conventional arms balance as it was against the quest for peace and security being pursued by both the countries.
Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan was commenting on news reports of a $230 million arms deal between India and Israel, involving purchase of unmanned aircraft and other intelligence-gathering equipment.
"Induction of new weapons system and military technology only spurs an arms race in South Asia, which we must avoid and avert at all costs," Mr Khan said.
He said Pakistan was against an open-ended arms race which, he added, was "not in harmony with the quest for peace and security in the region and beyond".
He said Pakistan and India will soon again discuss nuclear and conventional confidence-building measures. "We should avoid disrupting balance or accentuating asymmetries, especially in conventional sphere. A strategic and conventional balance guarantees strategic stability in the region," he added.
Mr Khan said: "We must not lose sight of the opportunity costs of such deals for social and economic development."
The FO spokesman was responding to reports that the state-owned Israeli Aircraft Industries will supply military surveillance hardware for unmanned aircraft which will be jointly produced in India.
The offer, according to news reports, includes supply of 50 Eagle-Heron Israeli drones with a range of 1,000 kilometres, which can stay airborne for more than 24 hours and cruise at an altitude of 25,000 feet.-APP
--------
No freedom for nuclear scientist
BBC NEWS
11 Nov 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3999429.stm
- A petition seeking the release from house detention of disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan on health grounds has failed in Pakistan's Supreme Court.
Dr Khan has been confined to his home near Islamabad since early this year when he admitted illegally transferring nuclear secrets overseas.
The court said Dr Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme and still a hero to many, was not seriously ill.
Dr Khan himself opposed the petition, filed by a friend, calling it illegal.
- House visit
In February, Abdul Qadeer Khan publicly admitted involvement in the illegal transfer of nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
However, a number of supporters still refused to believe he could ever be involved in any illegal activity.
They became concerned about recent reports of his deteriorating health.
The concerns became more pronounced last month with the publication of a book about the arrest and detention of Dr Khan which claimed his health was deteriorating rapidly.
The book, written by a newspaper publisher who is a friend of Dr Khan's family, claimed the scientist might even have suffered a stroke.
A friend of Dr Khan, Hussam-ul Haq, approached the Supreme Court to investigate.
His petition said that since the scientist was not being allowed to leave his house or meet visitors, government claims that he was not ill could not be verified.
During Wednesday's hearing the two-member bench instructed the registrar to visit Dr Khan's home and report on his health.
- The petition must be dismissed as illegal and without lawful authority - AQ Khan
After meeting the scientist and his physicians, the registrar informed the court that Dr Khan was not suffering any serious illness.
The registrar said Dr Khan rejected the petition, saying it was not filed with his permission.
Dr Khan submitted a letter to the court saying he was being "looked after very well".
"I am shocked and surprised to read in the newspapers that a petition has been filed on my behalf. The petition must be dismissed as illegal and without lawful authority."
A lawyer for Hussam-ul Haq said he had withdrawn the petition.
The BBC's Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says the mystery surrounding Dr Khan's international proliferation network has yet to unfold.
Though President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Dr Khan on the condition that he would co-operate with the authorities, it is still not clear if the government plans to make its findings public.
-------- iran
EU Digs in Heels on Iran Nuclear Freeze-Diplomats
Thu Nov 11, 2004
(Reuters)
By Louis Charbonneau
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6784474
VIENNA - Iran has told France, Britain and Germany it wants more than promises of future benefits if it suspends its controversial uranium enrichment program, but the Europeans have refused, Western diplomats said on Thursday.
The European Union's "big three" states reached a tentative deal with Iran in Paris last weekend under which Iran would halt an enrichment program, which could be used to make nuclear weapons, in exchange for political and economic incentives.
However, the Iranians are pushing for something tangible up front, not just promises of future "carrots," diplomats familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.
"Iran wants something up front if it's going to suspend enrichment, not just promises. But the Europeans have refused," a diplomat said.
The Europeans have promised Iran a light-water nuclear reactor, which would be more difficult to use for weapons activity than heavy-water reactors. They have also agreed to open trade talks with the EU and thaw political relations.
The EU-Iran arrangement is similar to a deal the United States worked out with North Korea in the early 1990s, exchanging heavy-water for light-water technology while the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), supervised a freeze of its nuclear program.
But diplomats said French and German companies told their governments they would not be interested in supplying Iran with a reactor in case it harmed business with the United States.
FULL SUSPENSION
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Tehran was still reviewing the agreement reached in Paris.
"Surely we would have given our answer if the (Paris) talks did not have problems," state television quoted him as saying.
An Iranian source close to internal discussions on whether or not to accept the deal said, however, Tehran would probably agree to it.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told Germany's parliament the talks with Iran had been "anything but easy."
"Only the full and lasting suspension of enrichment activities ... by Iran can open the way for results-oriented talks on long-term cooperation," Fischer said.
He said he did not want to call into question Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful means. "But it's also clear that a military nuclearization of Iran would be a dangerous development for what is already one of the most dangerous regions in the world," he added.
Oil-rich Iran denies wanting nuclear technology for anything besides power generation.
Another diplomat said time was running out for Iran to accept the deal, which would enable Iran to escape a referral to the U.N. Security Council when the IAEA board of governors meets on Nov. 25.
If Iran rejects the deal, it will most likely be referred to the Security Council this month, diplomats say.
Washington, which says Iran's nuclear energy program is a front for developing the bomb, wants Iran reported to the Security Council for concealing its uranium enrichment program from the IAEA for nearly two decades.
One of the sticking points in the talks with Iran concerns the preparation of uranium for the enrichment process. The Europeans want all uranium conversion activities halted, while Tehran wants to continue with some conversion work.
(Additional reporting by Paul Hughes in Tehran)
--------
Iran in Deadlock With Europe on Halting Production of Uranium
November 11, 2004
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/11/international/europe/11iran.html?pagewanted=all
PARIS, Nov. 10 - Iran and European negotiators have become deadlocked in their effort to reach a final agreement for Iran to suspend its production of enriched uranium in exchange for possible economic and political incentives, European officials said Wednesday.
After marathon negotiations in Paris last Friday and Saturday, Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, optimistically announced that his government had reached a "preliminary agreement" with senior negotiators of France, Germany, Britain and the European Union, but he emphasized that any suspension of uranium enrichment would be temporary.
The Europeans were more cautious, saying in public that progress had been made in the talks while acknowledging in private the existence of unresolved issues.
Those issues may mean the unraveling of an agreement intended to stave off a confrontation with Iran at a crucial meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog organization, in Vienna on Nov. 25.
"They came back to the Europeans for more and the Europeans frankly said, 'No, a deal is a deal and that is that,' " a Vienna-based diplomat said.
At the November meeting, the countries that make up the leadership of the agency could decide to let the United States proceed with a still vague but serious proposal to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Iran has consistently denied the Americans' accusations that it has a secret program to build nuclear bombs under the cover of a civilian nuclear energy program.
One outstanding issue is highly technical but considered important by the Europeans. They have demanded that Iran stop its program to convert raw uranium into uranium tetrafluoride. Uranium tetrafluoride is a precursor to the form of uranium that is fed into centrifuges to enrich it for use as fuel that can be used either for peaceful purposes or to develop nuclear weapons, European officials said.
That demand goes beyond what the United Nations' watchdog agency requires, and the Iranians are arguing that they are being asked to do too much.
Another Iranian demand, so far rejected by the Europeans, is the timing of the delivery of some rewards for Iran, including the resumption of talks on a trade agreement between the European Union and Iran, the officials said.
Iran is also seeking precise assurances about a European offer to supply Iran with a light-water research reactor that would produce less fissionable material than could be used for making nuclear weapons, the Vienna-based diplomat added.
Iran wants the rewards up front as a "confidence-building measure," arguing that France, Germany and Britain failed to deliver the rewards it promised after Iran agreed in Tehran in October 2003 to suspend its production of enriched uranium.
A decision for Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium is an extremely delicate political matter in Iran. The October 2003 agreement was excoriated by hard-line politicians and newspapers as proof that Iran was caving in to the Western demands and forfeiting its sovereign right to develop a peaceful nuclear program.
Iranian presidential elections are scheduled for May, and the nuclear issue is likely to play a large role in what is expected to be a brutal political campaign.
-------- terrorism
Nuclear terrorism is a threat: El Baradei
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT Broadcast:
11/11/2004
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1240725.htm
Reporter:
TONY JONES: Now to our interview with the man who's job it is to stop nuclear proliferation and oversee the complex nuclear treaty system.
Dr Mohamed El Baradei is a worried man.
In Sydney earlier this week, he warned of the "imminent danger" of nuclear terrorism.
He says that the situation is so grave that military pre-emption must become a real option.
But not unilateral pre-emptive strikes.
Rather he wants to see sweeping changes to the UN Security Council to allow for what he calls "collective pre-emption".
Tonight we explore that idea with Dr El Baradei.
To fill in some background, he's a former Egyptian diplomat who emerged as a key member of the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq.
He's currently in his second term as the director-general of the Atomic Energy Agency and I spoke to him in our Sydney studio.
Mohamed El Baradei, thanks for joining us.
MOHAMED EL BARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: Thank you for having me.
TONY JONES: Now, how close are we in reality, do you believe, to terrorists getting their hands on nuclear material and/or nuclear weapons?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: I think we are not very far.
We're not there, thank God, but we are not very far.
There is a lot of radioactive sources around the world.
We discovered the reality of the terrorists trying to acquire radioactive sources after 9/11.
This was not an issue on the table before.
We never thought terrorists would try to use radioactive sources for that purposes, but here we are, and we need to do as much as we can, as fast as we can, to prevent terrorists acquiring radioactive sources.
There are hundreds of thousands of radioactive sources around the world.
They can get any of that, use conventional explosion and release radioactivity.
It's not a nuclear explosion.
TONY JONES: You're talking about a dirty bomb?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: A dirty bomb, but it would create a lot of anxiety because there would be radioactivity in there.
There would be a major economic and social dislocation and that's exactly what the terrorists would want.
TONY JONES: You've actually written that eventually, inevitably terrorists will get their hands on this material - inevitable.
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: I was courting the head of security in the United Kingdom who is saying it is inevitable, it's a matter of time.
I'm not sure, but what I'm saying is we really need to be vigilant, we need to take that issue with utmost seriousness.
Acquiring nuclear weapons is much more difficult, but again it is not impossible.
We have seen after 9/11 a high degree of sophisticated terrorism.
TONY JONES: Now, you've said the danger of this happening is imminent.
Is that based on intelligent guesswork or hard intelligence?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: It's based on hard intelligence, frankly, because we have a database that records incidence of illicit trafficking of radioactive sources and nuclear material and we have over 600 cases recorded in our database in the last 10 years.
There is a lot of effort, there's a lot of demand, obviously, and we're just crossing our fingers that none of that will go into the wrong hands.
TONY JONES: Are you crossing your fingers that no terrorist group right now has acquired, for example, plutonium or do you know for sure that they have not?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: No.
We're crossing our fingers that no terrorist group right now acquired plutonium.
No, we do not know for sure.
I hope it is not.
Again, tonnes of this material has been floating around the world in the last, you know, particularly before and after the Cold War.
There was some security lapse over the Cold War.
We cross our fingers that none of them have them, and that's why we try very much to have in coordination with all our members of the international community, if you like, to prevent, protect and be ready to respond in case of an emergency.
TONY JONES: Do we know how much plutonium there is in the world or could there be large quantities of it unaccounted for that we simply don't even know about?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: We don't know the exact amount, because there is a lot of that plutonium in the military sector which we do not know, so it is a question mark.
TONY JONES: Given the obvious failures of the treaty system, is it time to change international law as the Americans would like to do, to allow for the option of pre-emptive action in the case of nuclear terrorism?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Well, I think it is quite an important issue which is being discussed right now.
You cannot, in many cases, wait as provided for in the United Nation charter for an armed attack before you respond.
I mean, clearly, if there is a clear and present danger of aggression for using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, you need to plan.
The question is who will do the pre-emption and what I'm arguing is that it should be a collective pre-emption through the Security Council.
You need to build consensus before you pre-empt.
If you send an invitation to every country to use the right of so called pre-emption, you are really going to see expansion of their support in a variety of situations and it is not in anybody's interests.
So, why we need pre-emption, it has to be based on collective decision by the international community.
I think the Security Council has the right always under the charter if there is a case of threat to international peace and security to use pre-emption.
So, I'm arguing that (a) we need to exercise maximum restraint before we use force.
If we have to use force, we need to use it in a collective manner, again to give the required legitimacy to such a pre-emptive act.
TONY JONES: Kofi Annan has called essentially for a debate and a report on this very issue.
Are you talking to him?
Are you putting forward your ideas to him for what should happen?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: I've been talking to him.
I've been talking to the panel that was established by Kofi Annan to look into ways and means to improve the functioning of the United Nations system and I discussed that very issue with them and I've been lecturing and writing on that issue.
I believe we need to adjust the norms to the current realities, but we need to adjust it in a way to continue to maintain law and order and minimise the use of force and not create a situation of chaos.
TONY JONES: How do you get around the inherent flaw, though, in the Security Council system which is that individual nations have always had a veto and for political reasons may exercise that veto so the pre-emption option may never come to play?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: You clearly need to visit the right of exercising the veto power.
We probably need to have enforced limitation on the use of veto, but I think you need to create a different culture that we are all in it together and we can't afford to have a security system based on a narrow-blinker approach of national interest.
The situation has become as such, particularly with the kind of extremist groups we are facing, with the kind of technology spread, the new technology spread, that we really need to act in concert.
We need to understand that we will, in it together, we will all win or lose.
TONY JONES: You are talking about revolutionising the treaty system.
The effectively does that mean giving it teeth, giving it the option of going to the Security Council and seeking collective action against an offending nation?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Absolutely.
I think if we do not revolutionise the system, as you call it, we will continue to have unilateral actions and unilateral actions have its own inherent problems as we have seen.
Everybody loses if we disagree on matters of war and peace.
We have seen the situation in Iraq.
Everybody is hurting.
The coalition hurts, the United Nations hurts and I think one important lesson that comes out of Iraq, we really need to do as much to forge a consensus before we move on using force, I think, and that's basically what I'm trying or I'm calling on - to revisit our security assumption and understand that doing it alone is not necessarily always the best way to do it.
TONY JONES: How urgent is this, because right now we have a problem, as you are well aware, in Iran?
The accusation is that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons secretly.
Could you imagine this new system coming into play quickly enough to deal with the problem that's happening in Iraq?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Well, I'm not sure in Iran we are reaching the situation where we see a clear and present danger.
We have not seen any concrete proof of a nuclear weapon program.
I think Jack Straw a couple of days ago said it was inconceivable in the present situation to use force against Iran and I subscribe to that.
I haven't really seen, based on our work, any imminent threat going there.
I think there is a dialogue coming between Iran and the European Union and I hope that will continue.
I hope...many of these issues, you need to try to resolve it through diplomacy and verification, diplomacy meaning also maximum pressure.
Use of force should be the last resort, when we have no other option, and when the use of force is the best option, and if we reach that point, as I said, you need to again develop an international consensus to get all the support required for any decision to use force.
TONY JONES: Do you believe that Washington agrees with your assessment and Jack Straw's assessment, for that matter, that there is no imminent danger from Iran?
Because there are persistent rumours in Washington that they have a contingency plan to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Well, they believe this is a weapons program.
I again will be very happy to receive all the information they have.
We act on all the information we receive.
I haven't seen anybody saying that they need to use force.
I think everybody in Washington, from President Bush down, saying diplomacy should be the way to go.
I would like to talk diplomacy.
I think we are still within the realm of diplomacy.
TONY JONES: What do you think would be the effect of a pre-emptive strike, a military strike, an aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear facilities?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Well, I think it will send a terrible message to the entire Middle East.
It will not resolve the issue, in my view, because if you have the technology it will simply force a country to go underground.
So I don't believe that attacking a facility here or there will eliminate the program.
In fact, it could energise the entire nation to go forward with nuclear weapons, so it could be completely counter-productive.
I'm not saying that in every situation there is no way we can use force, but I'm saying in that particular situation, I do not see use of force at this stage to be at all justified or effective.
TONY JONES: How big an issue do you believe it is in the Islamic world that America and much of the world, knowing that it was happening and knowing that it exists, turned a blind eye to Israel developing and maintaining a large nuclear arsenal?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Well, that's one of the reasons I'm saying any attack on Iranian facilities would create chaos and total instability in the Middle East for a variety of reasons, including exactly what you said because there is a perception of security imbalance in the Middle East.
Most of the countries in the Middle East perceive that the situation is not balanced, not fair, because Israel have a nuclear weapon program and all the others are subscribing to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
I have been talking on this issue.
I have been visiting Israel a few months ago.
I had a good talk with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and I have made my point clear that this situation is not sustainable.
Either we are going to see a few countries in the next few years in the Middle East develop nuclear weapons or we could see some of the extremist groups in the region acquiring a nuclear weapon and then whatever deterrence Israel or anybody will have will not work because these people are, by their very nature, are not to be deterred.
The other alternative is to have a security system based on trust, cooperation.
In fact, if there is any need for cooperation, the time is now, because the terrorism threat is a threat to every country in the region and I think that's the way to go.
When we move on the peace process in the Middle East, we need to have a parallel dialogue on security that aims to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
They have some limitation on conventional armament, have some confidence-building measure.
We have to understand that we have reached a point that relying on nuclear deterrence is obsolete and it is not the way, it was OK.
It prevented us from going maybe to a third world war since the 40s, but things have changed so much with globalisation, with the dissemination of technology, with the emergence of this phenomenon called extremist and terrorism, that we need to re-think a different system of security and it has to be inconclusive, it has to be built on respect for every human life.
I think any security system that continues to be based on borders, based on us versus them, will not work.
TONY JONES: It also has to be based on truth, doesn't it?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Absolutely.
TONY JONES: I'm wondering did Mr Sharon maintain to you that Israel is not nuclear arsenal?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: He did not deny that.
I think they are maintaining a policy of ambiguity, as they call it, but I don't think anybody would question the assumption, the assumption which I operate on and pretty much the rest of the world operates on, that Israel has nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon capability at the very least.
TONY JONES: Do you know whether North Korea now has nuclear weapons?
There is widespread intelligence reporting that they may have six to eight?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: We know for sure that they have the fissile material to plutonium that could enable them to assemble a number of nuclear weapons.
They have said they have already assembled these weapons.
I have no reason to challenge their assumption.
If they haven't developed the weapons, they clearly can do it in a matter of weeks or months because they have the fissile material which is the key to nuclear weapons and they have the industrial infrastructure.
That's why I keep saying that North Korea is really the most important or serious challenge to the non-proliferation regime because this is a country which is beleaguered, this is a country that has the technology, this is a country trying to use nuclear capability for blackmail.
TONY JONES: Well, here is the question - Does North Korea, in your view, present the clear and present danger that you say Iran does not?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: I think it's clearly, in my view, much more of a danger than the Iranian situation, as I see it today.
However, in the case of North Korea also the option has been narrowed a lot since we have not really acted.
We knew that North Korea has been non-compliant for at least a decade or so.
Nothing has been done.
The longer you wait in reaction to a case of incipient proliferation, the less option you have in the future.
Frankly, right now, the only option we have right now is to sit around the table with North Korea and work out a political settlement.
TONY JONES: So there's no collective military option available in the case of North Korea because it already has the nuclear weapons, is that what you are saying?
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Precisely.
I think the damage that might ensue from a military action, particularly in the case of North Korea, not only that they have a deterrence possibly, but they are also 30 kilometres away from Seoul, so the possibility of a military action, I think, is almost not there.
TONY JONES: Mohamed El Baradei, we'll have to leave it there, we thank you very much for coming in to talk with us tonight.
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: Thank you very much for having me.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
SURVEY SAYS ... Yucca opposition growing
SECOND POLL CLAIMS NEVADANS DON'T WANT REPOSITORY SPECIAL TO THE PVT
November 10, 2004
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Pahrump Valley Times
http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2004/11/10/news/ymp.html
CARSON CITY - Results of an annual statewide survey show that nearly 73 percent of all Nevadans believe the state should continue fighting, rather than seek some sort of deal with the federal government, in Nevada's battle against the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
The news comes on the heels of another survey in which less than four percent of voters considered Yucca Mountain an issue in the presidential election.
If given the chance to vote on the project, the survey found that nearly 77 percent of all Nevadans would vote against it, with only 19 percent saying they would vote for it. The poll shows opposition increasing since 2003, when 76 percent said they would vote against storing the nation's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain - sited in Nye County, where the official government stance has been more favorable to the project - and 22 percent said they would vote for it.
The survey of more than 402 randomly selected Nevadans was conducted between Oct. 7 and 18 by Northwest Survey and Data Services, which is based in Eugene, Ore., and affiliated with the University of Oregon. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percent. Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval and the state's Agency For Nuclear Projects released survey results last week.
Sandoval said this survey is more credible and consistent than others on this topic since the same methodology; sample size and core questions have been used since 1989.
He also noted the lack of any biasing preliminary questions or qualifying statements, noting that the question on whether the state should continue its opposition to Yucca Mountain or make a deal for benefits was the second question asked, right after the straightforward question about voting for or against the project. The poll found that Nevadans remain adamantly opposed to a nuclear waste dump planned for Yucca Mountain. In 2003, with the same research firm asking the same questions, the survey found that 65 percent of all respondents favored continuing opposition to the project and rejecting any negotiations with the federal government for benefits in exchange for accepting the project. That year, 30 percent of those polled favored making a deal with the government.
In response to the same question this year, 67 percent said the state should keep fighting and turn down any possible benefits, with only 29 percent wanting to deal.
The survey found that only 36 percent of all Nevadans are aware that a federal court decision this summer in Nevada's lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy "will make it very difficult for the federal government to move ahead with the project."
When informed by pollsters that this court decision "found that the federal government did not use proper standards for long-term storage at Yucca Mountain," the number of Nevadans favoring continued opposition increased to 73 percent. Knowing the result of the state's lawsuit, only 25 percent said the state should stop opposing the project and make a deal.
In addition to reaffirming strong opposition to Yucca Mountain and support for continuing to combat the project, the survey found that two of every three Nevadans (or 67 percent) support the state's lawsuits aimed at stopping the project and support the state water engineer's denial of water permits for it.
"These results show that people throughout the state are even more opposed than in past years to this misguided project," Sandoval said. "With a federal court decision that can kill the project, Nevadans understand that the dump is far from a done deal. This is good news for Nevada and more bad news for the Department of Energy and the nuclear industry."
The survey also showed a growing distrust of the DOE in Nevada. Asked if the DOE "can be trusted to live up to any benefits agreement the federal government would make with Nevada," 27 percent agreed and 69 percent disagreed. That's up from 2003, when 64 percent said the DOE could not be trusted.
Robert Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Nevada's opposition to Yucca Mountain has remained close to or above 70 percent since the state began commissioning such surveys in 1989.
He said Nevadans have been just as consistent in opposing any deals that would weaken the state's opposition despite all the time and money the nuclear industry has poured into Nevada.
"When you look at these survey findings and compare them with past survey results, the people of Nevada are sending a clear and consistent message to DOE and the commercial nuclear power industry," Loux said. "They are saying, 'We don't want this and we won't be fooled into cutting any deals.'"
People in Nevada continue to view Yucca Mountain as a risk to public health, safety and the economy. Respondents identified rail and truck shipments to the site as the greatest risk (85 percent rated this as moderate to high risk). The second highest risk is the potential for radioactive contamination from the repository (81 percent), followed by the risk of property value losses to homes and businesses (76 percent), adverse health effects for Nevada residents (76 percent), risk of damaging Nevada's reputation (64 percent), risk of economic damage to major Nevada industries such as gaming and conventions (62 percent), and risk of loss of public revenues due to declines in tourists and visitors (62 percent).
For complete survey results, please visit www.state.nv.us/nucwaste or contact George McCabe at Brown & Partners Public Relations at (702) 967-2222, (702) 325-7358 or gmccabe@brown-partners.com.
-------- ohio
Davis-Besse lowers rating after failed test
Thursday, November 11, 2004
John Funk
Plain Dealer Reporter
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1100169026227680.xml
Managers of the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor have voluntarily lowered the plant's federal performance rating for the failure of emergency sirens during a test earlier this year.
The reduced grade comes about a week after a special team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors visited the Toledo-area plant and reached a similar conclusion. The team's written report, which could include its own negative finding, will be issued in about 30 days.
The lower rating mars Davis-Besse's performance record only months after plant owner FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron won NRC approval to restart the reactor in March. The agency kept the reactor shut down for two years for major renovations and a change in its safety culture. The rating cut also appears to validate a charge in August by nuclear safety engineer David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists that the company tried to "game" the NRC's reactor oversight process after the failed test, he said.
"This shows they are still a work in progress . . . and not ready for the NRC to walk away and leave them to their own devices," Lochbaum said.
FirstEnergy denied the charge then and again Wednesday.
The siren problem started May 7 when Ottawa County sheriff deputies were not able to activate 49 emergency sirens in a monthly test. The cause was traced to the company's computer at the Sheriff's Office that had not reset its clock when daylight-saving time began in April, so the sheriff could not have activated the sirens in a real emergency.
In the face of concern from the special NRC panel still overseeing the plant, Davis-Besse began daily silent testing of the sirens in June from the plant to ensure public safety, a company spokesman said at the time.
But the successful daily test helped another way: It changed the failure rate for the quarter from one out of three monthly tests to one out of scores of daily tests. And that kept the NRC's color-coded score card on the facility "green" no problems.
NRC inspectors concluded the daily results could not be included because the company had not changed its official testing procedure with the agency or with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responsible for public safety.
In a Nov. 4 letter to the NRC, plant Vice President Mark Bezilla agreed. Davis-Besse will seek approval of its new daily testing procedure but not count previous daily tests.
The company is also placing a new computer in the Sheriff's Office, said a spokesman.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138
-------- utah
DOE Keeps Mum on Preferred Option for Uranium Tailings Piled Near Moab, Utah
November 11, 2004
By Patty Henetz,
The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=353
The long-awaited draft environmental impact study of what to do with 12 million tons of radioactive uranium ore tailings piled next to the Colorado River near Moab contains a mystery: What does the Department of Energy believe is the best solution?
The 1,000-page study, released this week after several months of delay, outlines five possibilities, including capping the debris from the now-defunct Atlas Corp. where it sits, moving it off-site to one of three locations or doing nothing.
But unlike most EIS drafts, there is no express preferred alternative -- and DOE won't say what it is until after the 90-day public comment period ends in mid-February.
Don Metzler, DOE's Moab project manager, said Tuesday that not offering a preference keeps all options open. But others, including Moab residents, environmentalists and members of Utah's congressional delegation, said DOE's dodge subverts good science as well as legislative intent.
Moab resident Sarah Fields said she has read the 7-pound study's executive summary and will spend the next week looking over the full report. So far, she is not convinced the DOE fully studied all the issues identified in a National Academy of Sciences 2002 study, whose recommendations included consideration of the anticipated migration of the Colorado River toward the pile.
"I don't think they address that in this report," Fields said.
Added Bill Hedden, executive director of the Grand Canyon Trust, "Now is the time to read it very carefully and see what analyses 1/8DOE3/8 has offered to help us make the right decision here. Those details will be very important -- and very telling."
No matter which of the alternatives the DOE eventually chooses, it will clean up the groundwater around the site at an estimated cost of $10.75 million for design and construction plus an annual cost of $906,000.
The cheapest alternative for the tailings would be to do nothing, which is unlikely. Capping the tailings in place would cost $166 million and take seven to 10 years to complete. Off-site disposal would cost between $329 million and $464 million, depending on which alternative was chosen.
Moving the tailings would take about eight years.
Money, as always, will be key. The draft EIS presented all alternatives with the assumption that Congress would fund them, but noted that if the funds weren't forthcoming, or were pulled back, "there could be higher human health risks to exposed populations than the EIS estimates because of their more prolonged exposure to radiation from the open Moab pile or the incomplete new disposal cell."
Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, who has been instrumental in getting the more than $6 million spent to date on studies and remediation, continues to support moving the tailings, said his spokeswoman Mary Jane Collipriest.
The DOE study estimates 12 latent cancer fatalities among the public with any of the alternatives except doing nothing, which would cause 26 latent cancer fatalities.
The Energy Department's ultimate decision will affect 25 million people in four states who rely on the Colorado River for drinking water.
The uranium, ammonia and other pollutants also threaten the endangered southwest willow flycatcher, a bird that nests along the river, and four endangered fish.
Alison Heyrend, spokeswoman for 2nd District Rep. Jim Matheson, said Matheson's "unequivocal position is this tailings pile needs to be moved. Gov. Olene Walker in June wrote to the DOE and also urged the agency to remove the tailings.
Bill Sinclair, deputy director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the state and the federal Environmental Protection Agency have hired the U.S. Geological Survey to do a study on how the Colorado River has migrated over time. The study is expected by early January.
"At sometime in the future, if you have the possibility of the river migrating and inundating the pile, that's a problem," Sinclair said. "The river migration is a deal breaker."
Tribune correspondent Lisa Church contributed to this report.
Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Sudan and Rebels in Short-Term Accord on Darfur
November 11, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/11/international/africa/11darfur.html?pagewanted=all
ABUJA, Nigeria, Nov. 10 - Sudan's government and rebels ended talks on the country's troubled Darfur region on Wednesday, with agreements on security and refugees but no pact on a long-term resolution to the violence.
A later round, expected in mid-December here in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, would work on a political accord, delegates said.
Twenty-one months of violence in Darfur have left tens of thousands dead and driven 1.8 million refugees from their homes, international officials say. Sudan's Arab-dominated government and tribal fighters who support it are accused of beginning a series of coordinated attacks on non-Arab farmers after two rebel groups rose up in February 2003. Sudan denies singling out civilians or allying with the Arab militias known as the janjaweed. The talks that ended Wednesday were the first of three rounds to reach even partial deals.
Sudan and the two main rebel groups signed two accords on Tuesday, one promising aid organizations unfettered access to Darfur's displaced and the other banning "hostile" military flights over Darfur. The accords follow a widely flouted cease-fire accord reached in April. The government and rebels agreed on a broad set of principles on Wednesday, including "the inalienable right of refugees and internally displaced people to return to their places of origins," said the chief mediator, Allam Mi Ahmad. Both sides also agreed in principle to eventual devolution of powers to Darfur's three states and "effective representation" for its people in the national government. No political accord was signed because of disagreement over rebel demands, including a call by the Sudan Liberation Army for a secular state, one delegate said.
The Sudanese police raided a camp in southern Darfur early Wednesday for the second time this month, destroying makeshift homes, firing into the air and shouting at terrified villagers, Reuters reported, citing a United Nations spokesman, Fred Eckhard.
Jan Pronk, the special United Nations envoy for Darfur, and Sudan's foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, are expected to visit the camp soon, Mr. Eckhard said. The World Health Organization says more than 70,000 of the displaced people have died from disease, malnutrition and other hardships caused by being uprooted.
--------
After Accord, Sudan Camp Raided
Shelters Reportedly Destroyed and Residents Beaten
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41010-2004Nov10?language=printer
OLD AL-JEER SUREAF, Sudan, Nov. 10 -- Just hours after the government agreed to a peace deal Tuesday aimed at ending violence in Darfur, Sudanese police arrived at this battered camp in the middle of the night, beating residents with wooden poles, bulldozing and burning shelters and firing tear gas into a health clinic, residents and aid workers reported.
The assault capped a series of often violent government raids over the past week, aimed at relocating residents to new camps. It also came despite international condemnation of the raids and requests from the United Nations and the Bush administration that displaced families not be forcibly moved to new locations.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Wednesday in Washington that he had spoken with Sudan's vice president over the weekend and "specifically said that this kind of behavior was unacceptable, we couldn't understand it and it was not helping us reach a solution."
The U.N. Security Council is due to hold a meeting in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, next week to discuss the crisis in Sudan, where tens of thousands have died and about 1.5 million people have been displaced during 20 months of fighting between African rebels and government troops and their Arab militia allies.
The panel could impose sanctions on the Khartoum government if it finds that serious abuses of civilians have taken place. A U.N. report last week said there was evidence of war crimes and mass abuses by all parties to the conflict.
By midmorning Wednesday, the charred, tattered remains of burned huts at Old al-Jeer Sureaf dotted the once-crammed tent city of about 5,000 people. Fifteen people had been seriously injured, 10 community leaders were under arrest and several mothers said they had lost their children in the chaos.
One local sheik, Taher Hasaballeh, was beaten by 10 police officers and taken to jail, witnesses said. He had refused to leave the camp on Saturday and led a community sit-in at a straw-roofed mosque.
Jan Pronk, the U.N. envoy to Sudan, visited the half-destroyed camp Wednesday afternoon, wading through a jumble of singed blankets, jerrycans, bowls and plastic sandals. Sudan's foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, and other officials from Khartoum accompanied him. Pronk made no public comment during his visit.
The group toured the health clinic, speaking to women who said they had been raped during the raids and inspecting burn marks on the building from tear gas canisters. One Sudanese official expressed frank skepticism about the accounts of rape, calling the women "very good actresses."
Afterward, Pronk and the officials attended a tense meeting with humanitarian workers in the area. Government representatives said that the land was private property and that residents were being moved to a better location. Last week, officials said the camp was being cleared because people were posing as refugees so they could collect food and blankets.
"They have been taken to a better place," said Ahmed Ali Abdallah, a government employee who runs a new camp 17 miles south of the old camp. "The conditions of life were not suitable for them."
The violence began Nov. 1 when camp residents were told to move to the new al-Jeer Sureaf location but refused to go. Government police and soldiers swept through the old camp twice last week, on Tuesday and Saturday, burning huts and swinging sticks, residents said.
Several hundred families were forcibly relocated, and some aid workers and U.N. officials said they believed the government was moving camp occupants in an effort to root out rebel forces.
At the new camp, large white tents donated by the Saudi Red Crescent Society have been set up in neat rows. But the camp is isolated in an area surrounded by sorghum fields where pro-government militiamen known as the Janjaweed reportedly have set up a base.
"We were so afraid of being moved there. I have been beaten twice for refusing to leave," Zenab Abdulla Rahaman, 26, said as she sat staring numbly at the floor inside the clinic run by the International Medical Corps, an American aid group.
Rahaman said that she was beaten by police during the two previous raids and that early Wednesday she was sleeping in the camp mosque with nearly a hundred other people when she was dragged away by a police officer and raped in a nearby field. A nurse at the clinic taped bandages over cuts around her thighs. A stream of other patients arrived to seek treatment for spinal injuries, cuts and bruises from beatings. Several mothers said their children had become lost in the violence and confusion. One woman, Khadija Dahiwa Tagal, said two of her six children had run away to hide and had not returned.
Witnesses said the police arrived about midnight but caused little trouble until dawn, when they started moving aggressively through the camp. Some residents said the police were accompanied by Janjaweed militiamen, but it was not clear what role, if any, the fighters played in the events.
On Wednesday morning, aid workers entered the camp in U.N. trucks and kept vigil all day, saying they were there to ensure that more residents would not be attacked. One nurse said she would sleep in the clinic overnight.
All day, groups of police roamed the fields and gathered inside the mosque. They also kept guard over the water supply in case residents tried to rebuild their shelters. Some gestured angrily with their sticks at stragglers who tried to salvage belongings from their crushed shelters.
The residents of al-Jeer Sureaf are among about 1.5 million Africans who 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 has said, the government has bombed villages and armed the Janjaweed militias, while tens of thousands of people have died from hunger, disease and violence; the Bush administration has described the crisis as genocide.
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
--------
Anti-French Riots Fade in Ivory Coast but Foreigners Flee Nation
November 11, 2004
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/11/international/africa/11ivory.html?pagewanted=all
DAKAR, Senegal, Nov. 10 - Though relative calm set in after four days of anti-French rioting in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast, France and the United Nations began flying French and other European citizens out of the country on Wednesday.
Three Air France planes chartered by the French government left Abidjan for Paris on Wednesday with about 1,000 passengers, according to the French military spokesman in Abidjan, Col. Henri Aussavy. Another 1,000 are to leave Thursday.
All day, French troops continued to use boats, armored cars and helicopters to pick up French citizens and other foreigners. United Nations troops escorted at least 200 Canadians, Spaniards and Moroccans to the airport for evacuation, the United Nations spokesman, Jean-Victor Nkolo, said by telephone. American citizens boarded a Canadian government flight to Accra, a United States Embassy spokeswoman said.
Anger against France has convulsed Ivory Coast since Saturday, when Ivoirian warplanes bombed a French base in the northern part of the country, killing nine French peacekeepers and an American civilian. The government said the strike was aimed at rebels, but France, insisting the attack was deliberate, retaliated by destroying much of the country's military aircraft.
Government loyalists rioted on the streets for four days, attacking French homes and businesses. State-run radio and television broadcast fiery speeches that United Nations officials warned were fanning anti-French fury.
On the streets, the violence abated Wednesday, but it was unclear if this would last. "Today is a real contrast from yesterday," Colonel Aussavy said. "It is quiet, but we are very, very concerned. Is it a real change in the situation or is the stage before new demonstrations?"
Joint patrols by French, Ivoirian and United Nations troops were suspended after only one night's work, apparently at the request of Ivory Coast's government, according to the United Nations.
In Paris, French officials insisted that the rescue of French and other European citizens was not a wholesale evacuation but an emergency measure for those who felt it necessary to leave. Ivory Coast, independent from France since 1960, is home to 15,000 French citizens. About 10,000 French and United Nations peacekeepers are monitoring a 2003 cease-fire between the northern-based rebels and government forces.
On Wednesday, United Nations peacekeepers were dispatched to investigate new clashes in Gagnoa, a site of conflict since the civil war broke out in September 2002 The move could test the United Nations forces' ability to carry out their newly fortified mandate. On Saturday, the Security Council authorized the troops to use force to prevent hostilities, not just in self-defense.
In New York on Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council put off a vote on a resolution imposing an arms embargo on Ivory Coast after South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, asked for more time to pursue an African Union initiative to curb the violence.
The resolution, offered by France and seven co-sponsors, would impose the embargo and other sanctions on Dec. 10 if the government and rebels in the Ivory Coast do not carry out their commitments under the 2003 peace deal. John C. Danforth, the American ambassador, said a vote would be held on Monday.
Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations for this article.
--------
Westerners Are Evacuated From Ivory Coast
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38922-2004Nov10.html
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Nov. 11 -- The French government began airlifting hundreds of its citizens to Paris on Wednesday as violent mobs continued roaming the streets of this city, long regarded as among the most peaceful and prosperous in Africa.
About 700 French nationals left on three jetliners, with more scheduled to depart Thursday, officials said. An estimated 1,500 others, meanwhile, turned a French military base on the outskirts of the airport into a sort of squatter camp.
The U.S. Embassy and other missions sent escorts into the city to retrieve Americans, Canadians, Spaniards and others, the Associated Press reported, calling the evacuation one of the largest of Africa's post-independence era. Spain, Belgium and Italy sent military cargo planes to aid in the evacuations.
At the French military base, men, women and children sprawled on mattresses or stretched out precariously across rows of chairs. Their luggage and countless empty water bottles were strewn about.
Some of the French gave up on sleeping, choosing to chat and smoke away their final hours in Africa in the warm, humid Ivory Coast night. The subject often turned to the sudden upheaval of the last week, as a battle between President Laurent Gbagbo and a rebel group from the north shifted into a struggle between Gbagbo and Ivory Coast's former colonial rulers, the French.
"The president, Mr. Gbagbo, wants to kill all French, all white people," Jean-Luc Vacher, 50, a welding company manager, said as he sat outside with his wife, Christine, and their dog. "We are very, very afraid."
They recalled the gunfire of Saturday, the day that Ivory Coast forces bombed a position of French peacekeepers, killing nine of them as well as an American aid worker, after breaking a cease-fire that had lasted more than a year. Ivorian officials, who had ordered attacks on rebels, called the strike an accident, but the French military retaliated by destroying the tiny Ivory Coast air force and seizing the main airport.
Mobs took to the streets soon after, accusing the French of siding with the rebels from the country's mostly Muslim north and seeking to unseat Gbagbo. Calls for calm by Gbagbo and others have not quelled the unrest, nor has a growing French military presence here.
Vacher and his wife said they did not sleep at all Saturday night as they listened to gunfire. It continued Sunday as they huddled, terrified to leave their home. Their decision Tuesday to leave was especially difficult, they said, because both were born in Africa and have lived much of their lives there.
As the convoys rounded up foreigners from their homes for evacuation, Ivory Coast's state television alternately appealed for calm and for a mass uprising against the French, the Associated Press reported. French citizens darted out to the banks of lagoons, which surround the capital, and were plucked to safety by French soldiers in boats.
Only a few hundred Americans remain in Ivory Coast, many of them missionaries and aid workers.
--------
U.N. Peacekeepers Join Patrols in Congo
November 11, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/11/international/africa/11congo.html?pagewanted=all
KINSHASA, Congo, Nov. 10 - United Nations peacekeepers have joined thousands of government soldiers on joint patrols in eastern Congo to protect civilians and pressure Rwandan rebels to lay down their arms, United Nations officials said Wednesday.
The first joint patrols are seen as a dress rehearsal for larger operations aimed at restoring order in the east, where thousands of Hutu fighters from neighboring Rwanda have ignored calls for them to disarm and return home.
An estimated 10,000 Rwandan Hutu rebels remain in eastern Congo, where they have been based since fleeing Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, in which Hutus killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The rebels have warned that they will defend themselves and fellow Hutu refugees against any attack or attempt by the Congolese Army or United Nations peacekeepers to repatriate them by force.
Congo is struggling to restore peace after a five-year war that sucked in six neighboring countries and killed three million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
-------- arms
S. Korean pleads guilty in arms deal
November 11, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041111-125944-1245r.htm
A South Korean national pleaded guilty yesterday to violating the Arms Export Control Act and conspiracy charges in connection with his effort to obtain military engines for Black Hawk helicopters, as well as other military items, and divert them to China.
Kwonhwan Park, also known as Howard Park, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Mark R. Kravitz in New Haven, Conn., as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors, said U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor.
Park was the target of a two-year undercover investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS). He and his Malaysian company, SGS, attempted to purchase Black Hawk military helicopter engines from Helicopter Support International, a company affiliated with Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford, Conn., authorities said.
ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said throughout 2001, Park and others provided documents to the State Department asserting that the engines, worth more than $1 million each, were bound for the Malaysian army or the South Korean army. He said Park and SGS submitted sworn end-user certificates, with signatures from purported Malaysian and South Korean military officials, stating the engines were for use by the Malaysian military and South Korean army.
Mr. Boyd said ICE agents in New Haven and overseas later confirmed that the signatures were fraudulent and that two engines shipped on April 8, 2002, to Malaysia were later diverted to China.
He said as the investigation continued, Park and his associates attempted to obtain four additional engines for the S70 Sikorsky military helicopter.
Mr. Boyd said that earlier this year, ICE agents were alerted on short notice that Park intended to enter the United States through San Francisco on March 27. They tracked his movements and intercepted him April 1 at Washington Dulles International Airport attempting to depart the United States on a plane bound for Beijing.
He said an inspection of Park's luggage confirmed he had in his possession a sophisticated night-vision goggle system manufactured by a San Francisco corporation. The system is a military item controlled for export.
Sentencing in the case has been set for Jan. 28. Park faces 10 years in prison on the illegal-export charge and five years on the conspiracy charge. He also faces $2.5 million in fines.
"This type of prosecution requires the tremendous skill of our federal investigative partners, and great cooperation from the many defense contractors here in Connecticut," Mr. O'Connor said. "We will continue to work diligently in order to prevent the illegal export of sensitive military technology."
Mr. O'Connor also said the U.S. government worked closely with South Korean officials in the investigation and that Yung Jean Sohn, a former South Korean military official and an officer with SGS - who with Park signed some of the documentation submitted to the State Department - was prosecuted in South Korea.
Yung pleaded guilty to forgery of official documents and received an eight-month prison sentence.
-------- business
Halliburton scandal widens after claims of pressure to award lucrative contracts
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
November 11 2004
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ec9ddf06-3386-11d9-b6c3-00000e2511c8.html
The scandal surrounding Halliburton's oil contracts in Iraq widened yesterday following allegations that the former US ambassador to Kuwait pressed the oil services company to direct lucrative fuel contracts to a Kuwaiti company.
Henry Waxman, top Democrat on the House government reform committee, yesterday released an e-mail revealing that Richard Jones, the former US ambassador, pressed KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, to give a fuel contract to Altanmia, a Kuwait subcontractor.
In a letter calling for more congressional hearings into Halliburton, Mr Waxman also provided details of allegations made to the State Department that Halliburton officials involved in Iraq contracts "solicit bribes openly" and were "on the take".
Halliburton, formerly run by vice-president Dick Cheney, has been a magnet for criticism of the Bush administration since it won a $7bn no-bid contract to repair Iraqi oilfields in March 2003.
In December 2003, Pentagon auditors found that KBR and Altanmia had overcharged the US government by $61m for fuel imports. But Mr Jones, who was also the deputy administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, appears to have instructed KBR to give the contract to Altanmia.
"[Tell] KBR to get off their butts and conclude deals with Kuwait NOW!" Mr Jones wrote in a December 2 2003 e-mail. "Tell them we want a deal done with Altanmia within 24 hours and don't take any excuses."
The Army Corps of Engineers later concluded KBR had not overcharged the government. But last month Bunnatine Greenhouse, the agency's top contracting official, said the agency took "improper and illegal" action in concluding that KBR charged the government reasonable prices. The FBI is investigating her allegations.
Halliburton denied any wrongdoing, saying: "KBR delivered fuel to Iraq at the best value, the best price, and the best terms and in ways completely consistent with government procurement policies".
Halliburton has argued it is being targeted because of its former ties to Mr Cheney. But at recent meeting of government inspector-generals, a Pentagon auditor raised red flags about KBR.
According to an administration official, the auditor said other than KBR "everyone else is toeing the line".
After Mr Jones's e-mail, an army official wrote to KBR resisting efforts to give the contract to Altanmia. "I will not succumb to the political pressures from the [Kuwait government] or the US embassy to direct KBR to go against my integrity and pay a higher price for fuel than necessary", she wrote.
--------
Waxman Seeks New Halliburton Inquiry
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41318-2004Nov10.html
Citing newly disclosed State Department documents, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) called yesterday for further congressional hearings on Halliburton Co.'s contracts in Kuwait and Iraq.
Waxman, senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee and a harsh Halliburton critic, said the documents include complaints from executives of a Kuwaiti subcontractor last year that employees of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. repeatedly tried to extract bribes in exchange for fuel contracts.
Waleed Al-Humaidhi, an official with a Kuwaiti company used to import fuel to Iraq at a time of shortages, told State Department officials that "it is 'common knowledge' " that Halliburton officials "solicit bribes openly," one document said. He later scaled back his claims, saying "no one from KBR ever requested any extra-contractual considerations," one of the State Department memos said.
Another document described how a KBR official demanded in August 2003 that a Kuwaiti hotel, which it was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, buy his wife a "diamond encrusted" watch to replace one she had apparently lost.
Halliburton said in a recent regulatory filing that it told the Pentagon inspector general last month that two of its former employees in Kuwait "may have solicited and/or accepted payments" from subcontractors. Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said in an e-mail yesterday that that disclosure was unrelated to the allegations cited in Waxman's release.
In a letter to committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), Waxman said, "The implications of these new disclosures should be thoroughly investigated."
Waxman's request for new hearings was greeted as a partisan ploy by Davis spokesman David Marin, who said Davis and other committee Republicans already are reviewing the same material closely. Marin said Waxman takes "snippets out of hundreds of pages of documents and rushes to judgment on them."
"We don't jump as easily to unsubstantiated claims of corruption or improper influence as the minority does," Marin said in a written statement.
Halliburton's Hall dismissed Waxman's letter as "nothing more than a retrospective look at all the congressman's letters and news releases during the presidential campaign."
Hall said KBR got fuel to Iraq "at the best value, the best price, and the best terms and in ways completely consistent with government procurement policies."
Hall acknowledged that a hotel in Kuwait bought a watch for the wife of a KBR executive. "In regards to the watch, it was stolen while staying at the hotel and the hotel simply replaced it," she said.
In his letter to Davis, Waxman cited "extraordinarily high prices" -- about $2.64 per gallon, or twice the going price in the region at the time -- that Halliburton and KBR charged for importing gasoline from Kuwait into Iraq. Waxman said State Department officials appeared unconcerned about the cost.
Instead, Waxman wrote, documents show that State Department officials "intervened to pressure U.S. contracting officials to drop" efforts to find cheaper fuel and work exclusively with a subcontractor in Kuwait called Altanmia.
Tell "KBR to get off their butts and conclude deals with Kuwait NOW!" U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait Richard H. Jones wrote in an e-mail note in December, citing long lines at gas stations in Baghdad. Later that month Defense Department auditors announced that KBR may have overcharged the government by $61 million.
-------
THE COSTS
Halliburton May Have Been Pressured by U.S. Diplomats to Disregard High Fuel Prices
November 11, 2004
By ERIK ECKHOLM
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/11/politics/11halliburton.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=
American diplomats pressured the Halliburton Company in late 2003 to keep using a Kuwaiti subcontractor to truck fuel into Iraq, despite evidence that the company was charging exorbitant prices, newly released State Department documents show.
The documents - a handful of e-mail messages and memorandums to and from American diplomats - raise yet more questions about the post-invasion fuel imports to Iraq, which are already the subject of federal inquiries into possible overbilling and fraud.
They indicate that the Kuwait government secretly demanded that only one company - a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia - be selected to handle fuel sales to Iraq. And they show behind-the-scenes efforts by the American-run Coalition Provisional Authority and the American Embassy in Kuwait to ensure that demand was met, both to speed delivery and foster Kuwaiti support in Iraq.
The documents, however, do not clarify the central questions about the imports: why the Americans went along with such high costs and which parties to the transactions may have benefited most. The documents were released Wednesday by Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform, as he asked for new Congressional hearings on the matter. The committee has gathered hundreds of documents related to the issue.
Soon after the American invasion in March 2003, with gasoline lines lengthening in Iraq and public order crumbling, the Pentagon asked the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root to import consumer fuels on an urgent basis.
KBR hired a Kuwaiti conglomerate, Altanmia Commercial Marketing Company, to secure the fuels from the Kuwait government and arrange for their delivery.
Critics in Congress and elsewhere soon questioned the prices KBR was paying and passing along - with a markup for itself - to the Army. On Dec. 11, 2003, Pentagon auditors concluded that the KBR-Altanmia fuel prices, including gasoline delivered at $2.64 per gallon, were more than double the cost of available alternatives. They said that through September of that year the Army had been overbilled by $61 million.
Executives of Halliburton and KBR have defended the fuel charges, saying they were reasonable under the demanding conditions of the time. The Pentagon is still debating whether to demand a refund from KBR, and the F.B.I. is examining the fuel transactions.
In December, as a new round of contracts were to be issued, the debate over whether to continue using Altanmia grew stronger. Some documents suggest Kuwaiti pressure. A letter sent to KBR by the contracting officer for the Army Corps of Engineers in Kuwait, Mary C. Robinson, on Dec. 6, 2003, states, "I will not succumb to the political pressures from the GoK or the US Embassy to go against my integrity and pay a higher price for fuel than necessary." GoK is the government of Kuwait.
Ms. Robinson was overruled, and just 13 days later, the Army Corps of Engineers headquarters in Washington issued an unusual waiver declaring that the KBR fuel prices had been "fair and reasonable," and that the company would not be required to provide detailed cost data to justify the expenditures.
The senior contracting official of the Corps, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, said in a recent letter that the waiver was improperly adopted by Corps officers who went behind her back.
Another document, an e-mail message from the United States ambassador to Kuwait, shows the urgency American diplomats felt. On Dec. 2, 2003 - shortly before Pentagon auditors questioned the fuel prices but well after the issue had been raised in Washington - the ambassador, Richard H. Jones, who also served as deputy administrator of the coalition authority in Iraq, wrote to a colleague: "Please, tell KBR to get off their butts and conclude deals with Kuwait NOW! Tell them we want a deal done with Altanmia within 24 hours and don't take any excuses."
Other documents suggest that American diplomats were so eager to bolster fuel supplies and to cultivate Kuwait's wider cooperation in the Iraq struggle that they rejected questions being raised about the propriety of the KBR-Altanmia arrangements. "The Government of Kuwait is ready to do whatever is necessary to get fuel to Iraq," a Dec. 3 memo addressed to Mr. Jones reads. But KBR's reticence to sign further contracts at that time, it said, not only threatens the fuel supply but "is undermining our ability to get other very high priority items from the Government of Kuwait."
Greg Sullivan, a State Department spokesman, said Wednesday: "The role of the embassy was restricted to facilitating dialogue so that badly-needed fuel supplies would be available in Iraq. Neither Embassy Kuwait nor Ambassador Jones played a role in the selection of the Kuwaiti supplier Altanmia, which was the exclusive purview of the Corps of Engineers and the U.S. contractor."
But Representative Waxman said, "The mystery around these fuel imports continues."
"How did Altanmia get this contract, and why did they charge so much?" he asked. "Why did the State Department weigh in on their behalf in such an aggressive way?"
Mr. Waxman has asked for new Congressional inquiries into the fuel imports and the roles played by KBR, the State Department and the Army Corps of Engineers, which managed the fuel contracts.
Other State Department documents released Wednesday indicate that KBR and Altanmia argued bitterly over performance and payments under the fuel contracts. Altanmia's general manager, Waleed Al-Humaidhi, told American diplomats in Kuwait that his company was being shut out of one new deal with KBR because "he and his employees were pressured to provide unnamed KBR executives with 'kickbacks' on the humanitarian fuel contract," according to an embassy memorandum dated June 29, 2003.
But Mr. Humaidhi never provided details of the corruption charges and later told American diplomats that if asked in public, he would deny making them, another embassy memorandum said.
Wendy Hall, the Halliburton spokeswoman, said the company had never heard of those allegations and added, "It is important to the company that clients, suppliers and host countries know Halliburton's Code of Business Conduct is expected to be followed in every country in which the company operates."
Earlier this year, the Pentagon began buying fuel for Iraq directly from refiners, without using KBR as a middleman and at lower final prices.
-------- europe
DISUNION
Prime minister, president tangle in what is certain to be a long row over approving EU constitution
By Frantisek Bouc Staff Writer,
The Prague Post
November 11th, 2004
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2004/Art/1111/news1.php
President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Stanislav Gross have got a problem, and the ratification of the European constitution is at the root of it. Hours after Gross and Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda signed a historic European constitution treaty in Rome, Klaus voiced concern about the government's approach toward the European constitution and its ratification. Klaus -- who as one of the constitution's fiercest critics refused to travel to the signing ceremony in Rome -- criticized the Cabinet for only approving the treaty one day prior to the signing in Rome and also for not enabling adequate public debate on the issue in this country. "It seems as if the government wanted to downplay the event, and this is bad," Klaus told reporters.
Gross rejected Klaus' criticism, noting that the constitution has been more than a year in the making and everyone could take part in the debate. "Everyone knows there was almost one year of work on the constitutional agreement. All relevant political forces had a chance to debate it, including the opposition. We said in advance that we wanted the whole nation to speak about it," Gross said.
Gross insists signing the constitution Oct. 29 was the right step, and his government prefers to ratify the document via a public referendum. Although the country lacks a specific law on holding referenda and the country's only referendum thus far -- the spring 2003 vote on EU accession -- was based on ad-hoc law, Gross said he feels people should be given a chance to express their opinion via a referendum.
Gross said the government would prefer to hold the vote simultaneous with the next general elections, in the spring of 2006. The prime minister admitted that the timing of the referendum will continue to provoke debate but added that combining it with the general elections has two advantages. First, it would save some 300 million-400 million Kc ($12 million-16 million), according to Gross. Secondly, it will help better demonstrate the standpoints of particular political parties on the EU. WHAT IS THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION?
The treaty provides a complex definition of the operation principles of the enlarged European Union
• How was it created? The convention of EU member states crafted the constitution's initial text from February 2002 to July 2003. That draft brought about heated discussions, and a compromise version was approved this past June. EU member leaders signed the document Oct. 29 in Rome
• How can it come into effect? All 25 EU member states must ratify the document, either via public referendum or in parliament. Thirteen countries plan to hold referenda. If any of the 25 members fails to ratify the constitution, it will not become valid
"Political parties should play fair before the public," Gross argued. "I don't consider it possible for a political party to pursue one policy in the European Union and another on the domestic scene."
In citing the notion of a party holding a "double policy" vis-à-vis the EU, Gross was pointing a finger at the senior opposition Civic Democrats (ODS), who reportedly have promised their political allies in Brussels they will not create obstacles to the constitution if the ratification process goes well in other EU member states, despite the party's anti-EU rhetoric here at home.
The European constitution will go into effect only if all 25 EU member states ratify the treaty within the next two years.
ODS Deputy Miroslav Ouzky, who also is the vice-chairman of the European Parliament, said that European politicians will work toward ensuring the ratification process will be successful. "I myself participated in several debates where European politicians talked about how to influence referenda so they ended successfully," Ouzky said.
In fact, Gross demonstrated the government's will to ensure approval for the constitution Nov. 5, when despite his previous statements about the inevitability of a referendum he said that if another ratification procedure proves to be more effective, he would be ready to consider it.
Danger of a misled public
President Klaus has clearly stated that a referendum should be held separately from the 2006 general elections because pre-election propaganda could confuse voters. He said he is afraid that politicians, in their emotional and simplified campaign discussions, would not be able to explain the essence of the referendum.
"If the referendum on the European constitution is conceived as a general referendum on whether the EU is a good thing or a bad thing ... then I think a majority of people in the Czech Republic will say yes in the referendum," Klaus said. "If the referendum were really about the European constitution, about whether we all really need to take this further step toward Europe, then I can well imagine that reasonable people could say no."
Former President Vaclav Havel has weighed in, agreeing that voter understanding of the constitution is low and therefore he opposes holding a referendum. "I expected a short, simple text such as the U.S. Constitution," Havel told Respekt. "Why should people vote for or against? Because they do not like one article, one chapter or the preamble?"
Vladimira Dvorakova, a political scientist with the Prague-based University of Economics, said a separate referendum on the European constitution could lower chances of the treaty's approval here. "First of all, [separate] voting would stress the significance of the treaty," Dvorakova explained. "Also, more EU skeptics would be likely to turn out."
By pushing for a delay in the referendum, the ruling coalition of the Social Democrats (CSSD), the Christian Democrats and the Freedom Union is following recommendations from Brussels that referenda should be held at times when they are likely to end successfully.
Jan Zahradil, an ODS deputy in the European Parliament, noted that the CSSD would also be able to virtually finance their 2006 election campaign from EU funds if the constitution referendum coincides with the general elections.
Brussels intends to subsidize campaigns targeted to spread information about the constitution, and the Czech state will also contribute some money. Zahradil said it will be hard to separate promotional messages for the constitution and parties' election campaigns.
Frantisek Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com
-------- iraq
Voices from Falluja
bbc.co.uk
11 November, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4003877.stm
US forces are locked in fierce battle against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja. People from the city have been giving the BBC their account of what's been going on.
Hamid Flewa, lawyer and Falluja resident:
We heard a lot overnight [on Wednesday] and the bombing intensified at dawn. [Wednesday's] onslaught affected most districts in the city.
Falluja resident leaving the city Iraqis are asking why their city has been singled out
There are bodies strewn in the streets and most families were forced to bury the dead in their gardens. I can see lines of bodies alongside the pavement.
I'm talking to you from the centre of the city. I am with my family. But we have no water or electricity.
We are going through our food supplies very quickly. No more food can reach the city.
Falluja is closed off. There is no escape. We are all surrounded. I hope my appeal will reach our British and American brothers, that this city has not just landed from another planet.
We are human beings. This is an Iraqi city. Why should we have to go through this? I am just lost for words.
Yunis Daoud, Falluja resident:
The situation in Falluja is very bad. It's been bombed extremely hard, destroying the streets and mosques.
They hit a second hospital [on Tuesday], killing everyone. There are dead bodies in the streets. People have been burying their dead in the gardens of their homes.
Everywhere you go there is great fear. My family left the house before the bombing but my friends and I stayed.
We didn't think the air strikes would be this strong. We were so scared this morning, we escaped across the Euphrates in small vessels and along country roads that the Americans have not yet discovered.
It was a very dangerous thing to do. We were at risk of getting killed at any moment.
Fadhil Badrani, journalist:
There are more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is getting stronger.
A house some doors from mine was hit during the bombardment last night. A 13-year-old boy was killed.
It is very dangerous to try to leave the city at the moment.
We are completely cut off from the outside world - no electricity, no water.
People are dying from their injuries because there is nowhere to go for treatment.
A clinic that was serving as the last hospital in the city was bombed two nights ago.
Some families have begun burying their dead in gardens and backyards.
-----
Falluja facing humanitarian crisis
Aljazeera.Net
11 November 2004
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CC347D0D-663E-4BE6-A2C9-BB128D2997D9.htm
The Red Crescent says there is a humanitarian crisis in Falluja
Fighting in Falluja has created a humanitarian disaster in which innocent people are dying because medical help cannot reach them, aid workers in Iraq have said.
In one case, a pregnant woman and her child died in a refugee camp west of the city after the mother unexpectedly aborted and no doctors were on hand, Firdus al-Ubadi, an official from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, told Reuters on Wednesday.
In another case, a young boy died from a snake bite that would normally have been easily treatable, she said.
"From a humanitarian point of view it's a disaster, there's no other way to describe it. And if we don't do something about it soon, it's going to spread to other cities," she said.
About 10,000 US soldiers and 2000 Iraqi troops are fighting to wrest control of Falluja, 50km west of Baghdad.
Families fleeing Falluja
At least 2200 families have fled Falluja in recent days and are struggling to survive without enough water, food or medicine in nearby towns and villages, she said.
"This is not a joke, it is a full-scale battle. The battleground is horrific even for us soldiers, so imagine how civilians feel"
Major General Abd al-Qadir Mohan, Iraqi military spokesperson
Some families have fled as far as Tikrit, about 150km north of Falluja.
But the biggest concern is people in and around Falluja itself - they can't be reached because US and Iraqi forces have set up a wide cordon around the city to prevent anyone from entering and exiting the city
It is unclear how many civilians are left in Falluja, but the Association of Muslim Scholars estimates about 60000 people are still there while the US military says 150,000 (half the entire population) had fled since October.
Due to the chaos, however, no official numbers are available.
Trapped at home
Between a nightly curfew and the danger of venturing onto the streets, many Iraqis are effectively trapped at home.
"We've asked for permission from the Americans to go into the city and help the people there but we haven't heard anything back from them," Ubadi said. "There's no medicine, no water, no electricity. They need our help."
Red Crescent officials say women and children need most assistance
"Our first mission is to obtain permission from the multinational forces to enter the city and start evacuating the wounded, the elderly, the children and women," she explained.
The Red Crescent Society has teams of doctors and relief experts ready to go in to each of Falluja's districts with essential aid, but needs US approval first.
The US military was not immediately available to comment on the aid agency's request, but has said its first priority is to defeat the fighters in Falluja.
'Horrific scenes'
Iraq's military spokesman for the assault, called Operation Dawn, admitted that conditions inside the city for the few residents still living there were grim.
"This is not a joke, it is a full-scale battle," Major General Abd al-Qadir Mohan told reporters at Camp Falluja, outside the city.
"The battleground is horrific even for US soldiers, so imagine how civilians feel," he said.
An attack was launched late on Monday which has since turned into furious street-to-street fighting.
Young boy killed
On Tuesday, a 9-year-old boy died after being hit in the stomach by shrapnel. His parents were unable to get him to hospital because of the fighting and so resorted to wrapping a sheet around him to stem the blood flow.
"From a humanitarian point of view it's a disaster, there's no other way to describe it. And if we don't do something about it soon, it's going to spread to other cities"
He died hours later of blood loss and was buried in the garden of the family home.
"We buried him in the garden because it was too dangerous to go out," said his father, teacher Muhammad Abbud. "We did not know how long the fighting would last."
The International Committee for the Red Cross says there are thousands of elderly and women and children who have had no food or water for days. At least 20,000 have gathered in the town of Saqlawiya, south of Falluja.
Desperate plea
"The Red Cross is very worried. We urge all combatants to guarantee passage to those who need medical care, regardless of whether they are friends or enemies," spokesman Ahmad al-Raoui said. "They must be allowed to return home as soon as possible."
Aid workers say there are still hundreds of families left in the city, which has been pummelled by sustained aerial bombardment and artillery fire in recent days.
"We know of at least 157 families inside Falluja who need our help," said Ubadi.
For some it is already too late.
One mother and her three daughters had intended to flee but their home was hit by a bombardment earlier this week and all died, neighbours who escaped told aid workers.
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Iraqi Gov't Warns Media About Coverage
(AP)
November 11, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4610349,00.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi government warned news organizations Thursday to distinguish between insurgents and ordinary civilians in coverage of the fighting in Fallujah and to promote the leadership's position or face unspecified action.
The warning came in a statement sent to news organizations by Iraq's Media High Commission, which cited the 60-day state of emergency declared Sunday on the eve of the offensive in Fallujah.
``You must be precise and objective in handling news and information,'' the statement said.
It stressed the necessity of differentiating between ``innocent citizens of Fallujah who are not targeted by the military operations and between the terrorist groups who infiltrated the city and took its people hostage under the pretext of resistance and jihad.''
It also told news organizations to tell their correspondents ``to be credible and precise'' and not to ``add patriotic descriptions to groups of killers and criminals.''
Finally, the commission told news organizations to provide space to explain ``the government position, expressing the ambition of most of the Iraqi people'' and underscore that ``these military operations did not come about until all peaceful means were attempted'' to avoid violence.
It said that failure to follow the instructions will require authorities to ``take all necessary measures to safeguard the supreme interest of the homeland.'' The statement did not provide further details.
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Troops Secure Much of Fallujah
Violence Breaks Out Elsewhere in Iraq as Insurgents Seek New Fronts
By Jackie Spinner and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38793-2004Nov10.html
FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 10 -- U.S. and Iraqi forces established control over more than 70 percent of Fallujah on Wednesday, U.S. commanders said, and troops described encountering only small pockets of resistance as they pushed through a city that they likened to a ghost town.
"It's a lot lighter than we expected," said Staff Sgt. Jimmy Amyett, 24, of the 1st Infantry Division's Fox Troop, 4th Cavalry. When his unit first moved into Fallujah, he said, "we thought the city would explode on us."
Elsewhere in Iraq, fierce fighting broke out in several cities, as insurgents strove to open fronts away from Fallujah. In Baghdad, gunmen kidnapped relatives of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi from their home on Tuesday, a spokesman for Allawi said Wednesday. An Islamic militant group said it would execute Allawi's relatives unless U.S. and Iraqi forces withdrew from Fallujah.
An Iraqi general, meanwhile, said troops discovered abandoned houses in the northern part of Fallujah where kidnappers had "slaughtered" foreign hostages. "We found the insurgents' black clothes," said Brig. Gen. Abdul-Qadir Muhammed Jasim, the Iraqi army's chief of operations for the region. "We've found hundreds of CDs, documents with their names."
As the joint push to drive insurgents out of Fallujah moved through its third day, U.S. military officials announced that 11 American troops and two Iraqi soldiers had been killed since the start of the operation, the largest in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. U.S. and Iraqi officials say Fallujah has been a base for the insurgency that has gripped the country for months and threatens to disrupt national elections scheduled for the end of January.
Insurgents claimed to have captured 20 Iraqi soldiers in Fallujah. A videotape aired on al-Jazeera television and obtained by the Reuters news agency showed a group of men wearing Iraqi National Guard uniforms with their backs to the camera. According to news service reports, a masked militant shown on the tape read a statement promising not to harm the prisoners but warning that Iraqi soldiers captured in the future would be killed.
The kidnappings could not be independently verified.
American and Iraqi troops had cleared most of Fallujah's northern neighborhoods Wednesday and were starting to move into the southern part of the city, where commanders said they still might find the bands of Iraqi and foreign insurgents that they had expected to encounter earlier.
As dusk settled on the city, tracer bullets zipped through the sky, and the sound of gunfire crackled through neighborhoods where Marine and Army units were engaging bands of insurgents. Loud explosions were followed by giant plumes of orange fire. After one particularly large blast that sent a fireball skyward, soldiers eating lasagna at an Army staging area shouted, "Happy birthday, Marines!"
Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the Marine commander in Fallujah, said the insurgents were fighting in small, uncoordinated groups.
"We are comfortable that they are not able to communicate, to work," Sattler said at a news conference. "They are now in small pockets, blind, moving throughout the city. We will continue to hunt them down and destroy them."
The industrial district in the southwest corner of the city, a target of intense airstrikes in recent weeks, was virtually empty, and soldiers who patrolled the area on foot Wednesday said the only signs of life they found were stray dogs running through the streets.
"Everything is rubble," said Sgt. Cory Johnson, 22, of Sardis, Ohio. "You turn your ankle every five feet. The city is pretty much empty."
Johnson said insurgents rigged the city before they left. "Roadblocks, concertina wire, booby traps -- anything they could possibly think of to hinder our movement, they did," he said.
Before launching the offense Monday night, U.S. and Iraqi forces encircled Fallujah in a bid to cut off insurgents trying to escape. "When they attempted to flee from one zone to another, they were killed or captured as they moved back and forth," Sattler said. "So as we swept through, we feel very comfortable none of them moved back toward the north or escaped out."
Intelligence officers have said they believe a large number of foreigners were among the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 insurgents in the city and that many were connected to the Jordanian guerrilla leader Abu Musab Zarqawi. Zarqawi and his loyalists have asserted responsibility for numerous car bombings, assassinations and kidnappings of foreigners in recent months.
Asked Wednesday if security forces had found any sign of Zarqawi in Fallujah, Jasim, the Iraqi commander, said Iraqi forces didn't come to Fallujah to chase Zarqawi. "We came here to get rid of a crisis," he said.
Jasim also took issue with the U.S. military's estimate that control had been established over 70 percent of the city. "This percentage is not accurate," he said. "It is exaggerated. Fighting in cities cannot be counted like this.
"We fully control the northern half of Fallujah now, and it has been cleared," Jasim said. "But if you ask is it fully cleared, I say no, we still have some resistance pockets. At first, the forces attack and clear the resisting groups, and then other forces go to search and, after that, clear the place. After we do this, we can say the area is fully cleared. We still have activities in the southern half of the city engaging direct and indirect fire. We are firing back."
Throughout the day, U.S. warplanes and helicopters continued to fire on areas where insurgents were believed to be hiding. Ground observers and air surveillance tracked bands of fighters as they clustered in safe houses and mosques and carried weapons to each other.
On Wednesday night, a warplane dropped a bomb on a house where insurgents reportedly had been spotted gathering weapons. After the blast, men ran from the rubble toward a smaller house across the street. A few minutes later, the house was hit by a missile and destroyed.
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As U.S. Advances in Falluja, New Fighting Erupts in Northern Iraq
November 11, 2004
By JAMES GLANZ and MARIA NEWMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/11/international/middleeast/11cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1100235600&en=b76e3d2520471f73&ei=5094&partner=homepage
BAGHDAD, Nov. 11 - Insurgents opened a new front against American-led forces today, attacking several police stations in the northern city of Mosul and pushing that city to the brink of chaos, while an enormous car bomb in the heart of Baghdad just before noon killed at least 13 people.
The violence in the north came as American marines and soldiers renewed their three-day-old push through Falluja. The invasion began at the northern boundary of the city early Monday but had slowed considerably along a line marked by the main thoroughfare through town. This morning, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said coalition forces now controlled well more than half of Falluja.
"Things are going, I think, as planned," he said on the CBS "Early Show." "We've got about 70 percent of the city under control."
Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said today that 18 American troops and 5 Iraqi government soldiers had been killed in action since the start of the Falluja offensive, The Associated Press reported, and that 69 American and 34 Iraqi troops had been wounded. "Today our forces are conducting deliberate clearing operations within the city, going house to house, building to building looking for arms caches," he said.
Various military officials have estimated the number of dead guerrillas in the hundreds, out of as many as 3,000 who were thought to have gathered in Falluja before the American-led attack. American forces have also taken an undetermined number of suspects prisoner.
In Mosul, insurgents attacked the police academy and the Zuhoor police station with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades beginning about 10 a.m., then looted the buildings, which had apparently been abandoned by the police. Similar scenes played out at half a dozen police stations all together, news reports from the region said.
Two Iraqi military vehicles were burned near Mosul University after being chased down by insurgents. The fate of their occupants was unknown. American military forces appeared to witnesses to be doing little to stop the mayhem, taking up positions in the suburbs and on the airport road, at least during the early fighting.
Smoke rose from several areas as American warplanes streaked overhead, The Associated Press reported. The authorities in Mosul warned residents to stay away from the five major bridges across the Tigris River because of fighting, the news agency said, and militants brandishing rocket-propelled grenades were seen in front of the Ibn Al-Atheer hospital in the city's Jammia district.
A spokeswoman for the American military, Capt. Angela Bowman, said that some of the attacks on the police stations had overwhelmed "the capabilities of the existing police force" and that five police stations had been "ransacked.''
"The insurgents continue to fire at the Iraqi National Guard and the multinational forces," she told an A.P. reporter. "The operations are still ongoing and probably will for some time until we fully secure the city."
The news agency said Captain Bowman rejected claims by some residents that parts of Mosul had fallen under insurgent control, saying that guerrillas "have not taken any parts of the city."
Insurgents also attacked the headquarters of pro-American Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party, forcing those inside to leave after guards were overpowered, The A.P. said. Residents saw masked gunmen roaming the streets, setting police cars on fire. The local television station in Mosul went off the air.
In Baghdad, the car bomb exploded around 11:30 a.m. in Nasir Square, near a bridge leading toward the fortified, American-controlled Green Zone. Charred bodies littered the street after the explosion, including the headless body of a civilian. A witness, Ali Safi, 25, said that he thought the bomber had been chasing a convoy of GMC sport utility vehicles, a choice target of suicide bombers here because they are commonly used by American contractors.
As the newly intensified battles raged in Iraq, General Myers said in several televised interviews that he was optimistic about the outcome, but acknowledged that the campaign against terrorism would be a long one.
"The fighting, I think, has looked easy, but it's only easy because we've got very professional armed forces members conducting that operation, both marines and United States Army and others,'' he said on the "Early Show."
"There have been hundreds and hundreds of insurgents who have been either killed or captured,'' he said. "We hope that in, you know, the next few days we'll be able to retur