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NUCLEAR
Nuclear Power - Maintaining the status quo
Introduction :: Mining uranium
Iran asking nuclear watchdog for exemptions from nuclear suspension deal
Iran Wants to Amend Nuclear Freeze, EU Says 'No'
Outside View: Iran's Nukes - What's The Problem
Iran Seeks to Loosen Some Nuclear Restrictions
U.S. to Urge EU to Get Tough on Iran Nuclear Aims
El Al to fit anti-missile system
North Korea tested lethal gas on humans - Wiesenthal
Brazil to start enriching uranium next month: official
CIA warns 'dirty bomb' within Al-Qaeda's capabilities
Congress deletes bunker busters
Bush Denied Funds for New Nuclear Weapons Research
More Yankee issues coming New Entergy info prompts safety concerns
MILITARY
Violence Fractures Cease-Fire In Sudan
Auditor to Army: Dock Halliburton's Pay
Rumsfeld: Druyun Had Little Supervision
6000 Iraqi recruits graduate
Fallujah Leaders Were Local, Not Foreign
US-led forces in huge offensive near Baghdad
Observers OK'd for Palestinian Elections
Rally Against Ukraine
For the U.S., a Balancing Act on Ukraine
Russia Sends Scientist To Jail For Spying
Bush Orders the CIA To Hire More Spies
CIA Releases Report on WMD in Iran, North Korea
How to Create a WIA -- Worthless Intelligence Agency
U.S. struggles to find troops for Iraq, Afghanistan
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Justices Asked to Rule on Detainees
I-Team: Illegal Strip Searches at Reagan National?
White House View of Stalled Bill in Doubt
White House Seeks Deal to Save Intelligence Bill
POLITICS
U.S. kept quiet on Chávez plot
In Congress, Growing Doubts on Spending Process
Attempt to Discredit Whistle-Blower
Alleged al-Zarqawi tape berates Muslim clerics
In the name of evil
Despite Growing Unrest, Ukraine Certifies Winner in Election
Powell Says U.S. Will Not Accept Final Tally in Ukraine
OTHER
Activists Target U.S. Crops Produced With Methyl Bromide
HIV Increasing Faster Among Women Than Men, Report Finds
Groups Take On Chronic Homelessness
ACTIVISTS
At least 20 arrested at protest of U.S. school for Latin American soldiers
-------- NUCLEAR
Nuclear Power - Maintaining the status quo
khilafah.com
24 Nov 2004
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=10441&TagID=1
Nagasaki changed the world. No weapon used before had been so inhuman and destructive. Old and young, rich and poor, men and women were all slaughtered, vapourised, burned to death or suffering an anguished demise from radiation poisoning.
Hiroshima was yet more devastating.
Neither North Korea, Iraq or Iran were responsible for these atrocities. Both the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union and Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with the carnage. The USA, self heralded champion of justice and liberty, is the country guilty of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in the Mid-40's. The US is the only country guilty of using this most heinous weapon in the history of mankind.
As the 20th century continued, the cold war brought the world to fear complete annihilation in a nuclear holocaust. This fear faced every man and woman for no one would escape from all out nuclear war.
The major powers in the world at that time agreed that they must prevent these weapons from getting into the hands of the irresponsible to avoid tragedy. They produced a few international treaties to prevent the proliferation of these weapons, and bullied weaker states into agreeing never to pursue nuclear goals.
However, their own research into nuclear power continued and increased. The destructive power of their weapons surged forward until they realised they had become so powerful, they were probably beyond reasonable use. After that they began to develop weapons, based on nuclear technology and materials, which could be used on the battlefield, such as depleted Uranium tipped missiles. Year by year their efforts and funding of nuclear research has increased. Even though they have committed time and again to reduce their nuclear stockpiles. The quantity has only marginally decreased whereas the quality has increased considerably.
Thus, those countries who are responsible for inventing nuclear weapons, developing the technology and using nuclear weapons against civilians were free to develop their nuclear technologies and augment their stockpiles. Simultaneously, those countries who were weak, poor and vulnerable to the bullying of the powerful, promised never to improve their military capabilities in such a way.
Iran has been pushing forwards its nuclear programme in recent years, recently declaring that they are in the process of enriching Uranium. The IAEA under the leadership of Western Powers have insisted that Iran immediately stop their nuclear programme or the matter would be taken before the Security Council. Although the IAEA concede that all declared Iranian Uranium is accounted for in their nuclear power programme, they assert that this does not prove that the Iranians do not have secret stockpiles of weapons grade material and underground programmes to develop nuclear weapons. So once again we face Western policy based upon what they don't know rather than what they do know.
In response, Israel has recently ordered 5,000 smart bombs from America, including 500 one-tonne bombs capable of destroying six-foot concrete walls. This has been taken as a direct threat by Iran.
The West desperately wishes to prevent Iran from developing nuclear technology as they fear that it could be a threat to Israel and to stability in the region in general. They further realise that their ability to threaten and control Iran would diminish if Iran developed such a deterrent and in the event of a mass unification in the Islamic world, Iranian (and Pakistani) Nuclear technology would be available to an Islamic super state. They are happy to take any measures necessary to prevent Iran from succeeding in these aims and have not ruled out pre-emptive strikes against nuclear plants.
Then, US Secretary of State, Colin Powell responding to a question about an Israeli attack on Iranian facilities, said: "We're talking about diplomacy and political efforts to stop this movement on the part of the Iranians toward a nuclear weapon. We're not talking about strikes. But every option always, of course, remains on the table" (AFP, AP).
Iran, for her part, claims that she has no intention of developing nuclear weapons but rather she seeks nuclear energy and that it is perfectly legitimate for her to pursue this. Iran has been open and transparent and it would therefore be unjustifiable for the international community to take economic, political or military action against her.
The EU has recently negotiated a deal with Iran over its Uranian Enrichment programme in which the Iranians would postpone their programme and allow objective verification of its peaceful nature in exchange for the European promise that they would cooperate on nuclear, technology and security issues and "actively support" Iranian ascension to the World Trade Organisation.
The Iranian government have maintained throughout negotiations that they have the right to research peaceful nuclear power and have insisted that the agreement include that Iran's suspension of uranium enrichment "is a voluntary confidence-building measure and not a legal obligation."
There is a great contradiction in the way that nuclear weapons are seen in the world. The USA was the first country to produce a nuclear bomb, the only country to use one - twice. Spends more money than any other country on developing nuclear technology and has its military scattered all over the world taking part in various military campaigns. The USA is a militaristic, nuclear weapon using nation which feels at home initiating conflict with other sovereign nations for her own interests and interfering with the domestic affairs of others.
Israel has an undisclosed number of nuclear weapons and is almost completely ignored by the international community. Israel has invaded neighbouring sovereign countries, has undertaken pre-emptive strikes against targets in the Middle East and has an extremely secretive weapons of mass destruction programme. Every Arab country in the Middle East is therefore under threat from Israel and she has repeatedly proven her willingness to use force providing it is against the weak and vulnerable.
Yet Iran is not allowed to develop even a nuclear power station. This is because the West seeks to maintain the status quo.
The current balance of power in terms of nuclear arms is overwhelmingly favourable to the Western powers at present, particularly America. Conversely, Muslim countries in particular are disadvantaged by agreements on the non-proliferation of nuclear technology. While Israel can wreak unknown devastation on surrounding Middle Eastern countries, the West forbids Muslims from producing a deterrent of their own.
While India has been relatively tolerated and accepted into the nuclear club, Pakistan has been scrutinized and pressured to allow full international inspections and put their nuclear weaponry out of commission.
It is not necessarily the use of nuclear weapons that provides a cutting edge to a countries military capabilities. It is rather the knowledge that a country has nuclear weapons that decreases its enemies desire to face them in war.
For any country with enemies or potential enemies, developing adequate deterrents is clearly in her interests. George Bush has repeatedly included Iran as a member of his "Axis of Evil," with North Korea and Iraq. After what has happened to Iraq, to Lebanon and what continues in Palestine, it is very clear that Iran needs to deter potentially belligerent states such as Israel and the USA from attacking her.
Currently, America finds it easy to attack, invade and generally bully any country that it chooses, as its military is relatively powerful and they have nuclear weapons in the background as a psychological and potentially material advantage. The fact that very few of the countries she seeks to exploit have nuclear weapons allows her to act with relative impunity. If the country is a Muslim country with a religious population with the potential to form a Khilafah state, the importance of preventing the development of nuclear weapons increases. The foundation of any non-capitalist ideological state anywhere in the world could potentially disrupt America's influence in that region and therefore upset the continued supremacy of her economy. This is only magnified with respect to the oil rich Middle East.
It is therefore within the permanent interests of the USA that no Arab/Iranian and particularly no Muslim country develops nuclear weapons.
Whereas with closer scrutiny, it is apparent that America herself is an irresponsible nuclear power. Second World War President Truman's Chief of Staff, Admiral Leahy wrote regarding the use of nuclear weapons at the end of the Second World War, "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons; in being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in this fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
Neither has the US shied away from using biochemical weapons. During its war in Vietnam, the US used CS gas against Vietnamese guerrillas and dumped 12 million gallons of the infamous "Agent Orange," destroying 4.5 million acres of vegetation and poisoning it for years.
Facing such an unpredictable and ruthless foe, it seems ridiculous that Iran should desist from its nuclear programme. Rather it should rush to produce a deterrent that would go some way to protect it from its openly agitating enemies.
It is not true that the countries that now possess nuclear weapons are responsible. They have used their power consistently for their own interests and benefits and prevented others from protecting themselves from exploitation by forcing them into non-proliferation treaties. Meanwhile, the US happily steps around past treaties prohibiting the testing and production of new ballistic missiles. From the American point of view, such treaties are a means to establish her interests and therefore taken or abandoned on the merits of the potential material and strategic gain that she can get from them.
Thus, if the IAEA were truly independent and sought a truly safer world from the perspective of nuclear weapons, their primary focus would be the USA followed by Russia, the two largest nuclear powers. These countries, particularly America, must be pressured to reduce and dismantle their nuclear arsenals and cease funding for research into nuclear weapons. They have a bad record with weapons of mass destruction and are well known to attack sovereign states. In fact the openly belligerent US's enormous arsenal of nuclear weapons probably provides the greatest encouragement for other countries to develop their own nuclear deterrent.
As for Iran it should try hard to develop its security apparatus to protect itself from American aggression. Iran has even declared its intent not to produce weapons but rather to concentrate on nuclear power generators.
The West uses treaties as a means to an end. International treaties are accepted or abandoned as suits a countries strategic and economic objectives. There are countless examples of this, including American abandonment of the test-ban treaty, British abstention from the Euro, the US rejecting Kyoto, the US invading a sovereign nation without consent of the UN and so on. However, they seek to set up international law upon the Muslims as though it was divine in origin, and that the West has the right to militarily account any nation that failed to comply.
Muslim countries should reject such a position for two reasons. Firstly, they are forced to sign up to treaties that are against their interests and bully them into defensive, weak positions. This is a form of colonialism and continued exploitation of Islamic lands. Secondly, Muslims must make their political decisions based upon the guidance of Allah (swt), not the whims of Western imperialists.
Therefore, treaties should be signed if they are mutually beneficial, and for restricted periods upon the basis of Islam. As for treaties on non-proliferation, these are not mutually beneficial as it puts those countries that already have nuclear weapons in a far stronger position. Iran should reserve its right to develop whatever weapons it feels it needs in order to maintain the security of its borders in such a hostile world. The Muslims in general must establish unity and cohesion as well as develop their military in the form of the Khilafah to permanently defend their lands.
Source: KCom Journal
-----
Introduction :: Mining uranium
BBC
24 November, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2003/nuclear_fuel_cycle/mining/default.stm
Uranium is the basic raw material of both civilian and military nuclear programmes.
It is extracted from either open-cast pits or by underground mining. Although uranium occurs naturally all over the world, only a small fraction is found in concentrated ores.
When certain atoms of uranium are split in a chain reaction, energy is released. This process is called nuclear fission.
In a nuclear power station this fission occurs slowly, while in a nuclear weapon, very rapidly. In both instances, fission must be very carefully controlled.
Nuclear fission works best if isotopes - atoms with the same atomic number, but different numbers of neutrons - of uranium 235 (or plutonium 239) are used. Uranium-235 is known as a "fissile isotope" because of its propensity to split in a chain reaction, releasing energy in the form of heat.
When a u-235 atom splits, it emits two or three neutrons.
When other u-235 atoms are present, these neutrons collide with them causing the other atoms to split, producing more neutrons.
A nuclear reaction will only take place if there are enough u-235 atoms present to allow this process to continue as a self-sustaining chain reaction. This requirement is known as "critical mass".
However, every 1,000 atoms of naturally-occurring uranium contain only seven atoms of u-235, with the remaining 993 being denser u-238.
-------- iran
Iran asking nuclear watchdog for exemptions from nuclear suspension deal
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041124173859.d943gopo.html
In a dramatic 11th hour move ahead of a crucial UN atomic agency meeting, Iran has asked the watchdog to exempt several dozen centrifuges from its pledge to freeze its nuclear fuel cycle, diplomats told AFP Wednesday.
The development has been rejected by the European Union which earlier this month negotiated what was supposed to be a halt in all of Iran's uranium enrichment activities.
It comes ahead of a meeting Thursday of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will decide whether to bring Iran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, sought by the United States for what it says is a covert nuclear weapons program.
A diplomat close to the agency said the Iranians "are trying to convince the IAEA to leave several dozen of the centrifuges unsealed for RD (research and development) purposes in addition to other equipment which has direct use for enrichment."
A Western diplomat said it would be "outrageous" if Iran at the last minute exempted some centrifuges, the machines used in enriching uranium.
"It is not acceptable to us," a European diplomat said.
Under the terms of a deal hammered out with Britain, France and Germany, Tehran was to suspend all uranium enrichment activities from Monday, a move which is now being verified by the IAEA.
Iran had continued to produce the uranium gas that is the feedstuff for enriching uranium only days before Monday's ban, in a move which one European diplomat characterized as "not very helpful" as it led to doubts about Iran's intentions and the future of the suspension deal.
Enriched uranium, made by spinning uranium gas in what can be cascades of thousands of centrifuges, can serve as fuel for nuclear reactors or as the raw explosive material for atomic bombs.
Iran has moved quickly to "sanitise" a site in northeast Tehran alleged to be at the heart of its feared pursuit of nuclear weapons, an Iranian opposition group claimed Wednesday.
Speaking in London, National Council of Resistance (NCRI) member Farid Soleimani who said nine days ago in Vienna that secret enrichment work was being done at the Centre for Development of Advance Defence Technology, said the top secret site now has been sealed off.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is to report on the suspension when the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors meets Thursday.
IAEA officials were meeting with an Iranian delegation in Vienna Wednesday to point out that the Europeans insisted on a full, unequivocal suspension, a European diplomat said.
The IAEA board will Thursday hear a European draft resolution based on the suspension agreement and which finally won US backing.
Diplomats said Washington had taken a pragmatic decision to support the European draft, even though it falls short of demanding possible UN sanctions for Iran.
The United States is "just being pragmatic for once, recognizing that the EU3 (Britain, France, Germany) text is pretty good and that there are few good policy alternatives to joining consensus on it," a Western diplomat said.
The United States has for over a year been trying to get the IAEA board to take Iran before the Security Council, but non-aligned states, as well as the European trio and Russia and China, have opposed this, saying Iran must be given a chance to cooperate with a two-year-old IAEA investigation of its nuclear program.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is strictly peaceful.
Mohammad Saidi, deputy head of Iran's national Atomic Energy Organisation, said Wednesday the Europeans were trying to legally oblige Iran to maintain an "unlimited suspension", whereas Iran had only agreed to freeze its controversial fuel cycle work for the duration of a fresh round of negotiations with the EU aimed at reaching a long-term solution to the nuclear stand-off.
The EU has promised Iran a long-term deal, including increased trade and peaceful nuclear technology, if it maintains the suspension.
Under IAEA investigation since February 2003, Iran agreed in October 2003 to suspend the actual enrichment of uranium but continued support activities such as making centrifuges and converting yellowcake into uranium gas.
--------
Iran Wants to Amend Nuclear Freeze, EU Says 'No'
By REUTERS
November 24, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-iran.html?pagewanted=print&position=
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has asked to be allowed to exclude some research and development work usable in nuclear bomb-making from a freeze on sensitive atomic projects, but EU negotiators rejected the request, diplomats said on Wednesday.
One Western diplomat said the request amounted to Iranian ``chutzpah'' before a meeting on Thursday of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating whether Iran has a secret nuclear arms program.
Another said it was a clear message that Tehran had no intention of ending work on producing fuel, an activity that the United States believes will enable Iran to make nuclear arms.
The request followed an Iranian pledge to France, Britain and Germany last week that it would suspend its entire uranium enrichment program and all related activities in a bid to avoid possible economic sanctions by the U.N. Security Council.
``The Iranians asked to be allowed to continue conducting research and development with centrifuges during the freeze, but the Europeans told them, 'No','' a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
``Iran has asked to be allowed to test centrifuge rotors during the freeze,'' said another diplomat, adding this would require permission to operate several dozen centrifuges.
The freeze, which includes all centrifuge work, took effect on Monday, though Iranian officials said it would be short. Centrifuges purify uranium to fuel power plants or weapons by spinning at supersonic speeds.
NO IRANIAN COMMENT AVAILABLE
Iran's delegation to the IAEA was unavailable for comment.
The United States accuses Iran of having a secret nuclear weapons program and has threatened to press for U.N. Security Council sanctions. Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear program is only for power generation.
Last Friday, diplomats said Iran was producing large amounts of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas, the form of uranium fed into centrifuges during the enrichment process.
The report, denied by Tehran but confirmed by the IAEA, prompted European Union diplomats to question Iran's intentions.
One diplomat said intelligence reports said Iran hoped to make it through Thursday's meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-member board and later announce plans for a cascade of centrifuges to produce bomb-grade uranium.
``They already have the parts for 1,100 to 1,200 centrifuges,'' said the diplomat, adding this number could purify enough uranium for a bomb within two years.
With nearly five months until a March session of the board, Iran could make much progress before an immediate threat of U.N. sanctions returned, he said.
France, Britain and Germany have circulated a draft IAEA resolution to be submitted to Thursday's meeting that appears to be unacceptable to most board members outside the EU.
Washington is unhappy at the lack of a ``trigger'' clause that would refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council if Tehran resumed any enrichment-related work.
Iran rejects what it sees as an indirect trigger in the text. The draft says it is ``essential'' Iran keep all parts of its enrichment program suspended if its case is to be resolved ``within the framework of the Agency.''
While not a direct threat of referral to the U.N. Security Council this wording hinted it could be considered, making it troublesome for some board members and Iran, diplomats said.
But Iran played down the disputes. ``Such discussions are quite normal in such a stage,'' Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters in Tehran.
To shouts of ``No compromise,'' tens of thousands of Iran's Basij militia staged a show of strength before the IAEA meeting.
Wearing military fatigues and some armed with Kalashnikov rifles, members of the voluntary organization described by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as ``Iran's atomic bomb,'' also shouted ``Death to America, Death to Israel.''
--------
Outside View: Iran's Nukes - What's The Problem
Dubai, UAE (UPI)
by Youssef M. Ibrahim
Nov 24, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-doctrine-04x.html
A newly invigorated George W. Bush administration accuses Iran of making an atom bomb, which is a true story but also an old one. Iran's efforts to acquire such weapons are well documented and have been known for years.
The world has witnessed Iran's widely publicized testing of multiple stage missiles to deliver these weapons on television many times.
Just like Israel, which has acquired scores of nuclear arms, Iran wants the world to know something is afoot while continuing to deny this. It is openly saying it is enriching uranium, which could be used in the making of nuclear weapons.
Iranian military strategists have let it be known for some time that they feel a need to acquire nuclear weaponry potential as a defense primarily against Israel and the United States, not as an offensive weapon. This posture is plausible as the Iranian ruling establishment, while defiant at times is never reckless.
All of which raises the question: What are they thinking in the White House and the Pentagon?
Given the record of the past four years, the answer may simply end up being baffling. It could be as simple as this: There is no logic behind the logic. Maybe they think they will save the Gulf region by destroying it. They really may not know what they are doing. It has happened before. Why not again?
Here is the logic, before the illogic. One would imagine that those making the noises about Iran are fully aware that in practice nothing will or can be done at this point to stop Iran from pursuing at least the goal of being able to put such a weapon of mass destruction in its military arsenal. Or at the least, develop the ability to produce it on short notice.
Short of the use of direct force, an organized state with a fairly solid military infrastructure cannot be prevented from acquiring those weapons if it decides to do so.
North Korea is a prominent example of this. Equally well-established is the fact that ever since World War II nations that acquired nuclear weapons - including Pakistan and India, which have gone to war several times - have never resorted to using them.
Even Israel, which possesses some 200 atomic weapons, did not use any in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war where it, albeit for a few days, faced a threat to its survival. Indeed, the only nuclear power that used its weapons was the United States, which dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 to end World War II.
Furthermore, respected and authoritative military strategists believe that joining the nuclear club confers a sense of gravity and responsibility upon its members.
The concept of mutually assured destruction, which is what can happen to anyone that uses nuclear weapons against anyone else that has them, has worked pretty well for more than 50 years to keep weapons of mass destruction dormant.
It is a military doctrine taught in military academies. The notion that a state, even a rogue one, would upset that rule is not tenable.
North Korea, which has the bomb, would only use it in a moment of panic if attacked first. North Koreans view the bomb as a defensive weapon and a method of blackmailing the West into giving them financial and food aid.
Indeed, after the end of the Cold War, a consensus among military and intelligence strategists has emerged that the real threat of weapons of mass destruction comes from rogue elements.
They can be disparate terrorist groups or corrupt scientists teaming up with mafia or corrupt government elements to steal, smuggle or otherwise obtain weapons of mass destruction for chaotic use in states that are in various conditions of disintegration, such as some of the former Soviet republics.
None of the above is a stretch. Much of it is already public knowledge and part of established intelligence doctrines, simply, facts of the post-Cold War world.
Given all this knowledge, one has to wonder why the Bush administration is then reviving the old play of "weapons of mass destruction'' rearing their heads again, this time from Iran, and why it is beating the war drums in the Gulf region for the second time in four years.
Could it be that the same president who gave us the Iraq war in his first term is preparing the Iran war in his second? On the face of it, this sounds crazy, especially since no evident exit is yet visible for America out of the Iraqi quagmire.
Reason would suggest before taking on Iran with its 70 million people, the United States should finish its quarrel with Iraq's 25 million.
Even Bush's opponent in the recent presidential elections, Sen. John Kerry, who said that Bush's invasion of Iraq was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, failed to come up with a way of ending it or a promise to bring the troops home in another four years.
Neither is it possible that anyone in the White House or the Pentagon imagines that making noises will dissuade Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions. If anything, it may speed them up.
All this leads to the craziest conclusion of all: George W. Bush and his neo-conservative crowd really do not know what they are doing. Before you say this is far-fetched, just think that we are where we are precisely for that very same reason.
Yes, they really did not know what they were doing the past four years and do not know now what they are doing. What you see is what you get: There is no plan, there is no strategy, no roadmaps. As simple as that. Fasten your seat belts.
Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times and Energy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, is Managing Director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group. He can be contacted at ymibrahim@gulfnews.com
This essay first appeared in Gulf News.
-----
Iran Seeks to Loosen Some Nuclear Restrictions
November 24, 2004
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/international/middleeast/25irancnd.html?hp&ex=1101358800&en=678578e2330d05ad&ei=5094&partner=homepage
VIENNA, Nov. 24 - Despite Iran's agreement with the Europeans to freeze all of its uranium enrichment activities, Tehran is now demanding the right to run some key equipment for research purposes, European and Iranian officials said today.
In a letter over the weekend to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran declared its right to continue to operate about two dozen centrifuges, the slender machines that spin at high speed to produce substances like enriched uranium, the officials said.
The demand struck diplomats here as a symbolic, but important, last-ditch effort by Iran to assert its sovereign right to enrich uranium, which it contends it is doing only to produce fuel for generating electricity. Thousands of centrifuges must run for months to produce enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.
But the demand is certain to erode the international community's confidence in Iran's claims, as well as its commitment to abide by the deal it struck with Britain, France, Germany and the European Union just nine days ago.
It comes on the eve of a crucial meeting by the 35-country governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will decide the extent to which Iran should be censured for failing to cooperate fully with the agency on its nuclear program.
In London, the British Foreign Office was quick to reject the Iranian demand. "The agreement stands as it states," an official statement said. "There is absolutely no exception to the agreed suspension of all reprocessing, conversion and enrichment activities."
In Brussels, a European Union official had the same reaction, saying: "The response is no. It has to be no. An agreement is an agreement. This was a stupid move on the part of the Iranians."
In Paris, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Cecile Pozzo di Borgo, said the French government would only comment publicly after Thursday's board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is based in Vienna.
But an Iranian official in Vienna said Iran had never committed itself to curb all of its research activities under the European agreement.
"We have informed the I.A.E.A. that we will do research and development for centrifuges," the official said. "This is not uranium enrichment. This is not using nuclear material. We never agreed with the Europeans not to do R.&D. It would be absolutely impossible for us not to do R.&D."
He added that centrifuges are even used in hospitals to do blood tests.
It was not known if the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, was speaking on behalf of the Iranian government and whether the demand was merely a test of the Europeans' will in an effort to keep Iran's options open.
It also may have been an effort to drive a wedge between the United Nations' watchdog agency and the Europeans.
The agency has taken the position that it has all of Iran's known enrichment programs sealed and under safeguards and that the issue of centrifuge research is a matter for Iran to work out directly with its European negotiating partners under the terms of its agreement.
In recent days, in anticipation of Thursday's meeting, officials from the 35 countries on the agency's governing board have been negotiating the text of a resolution critical of Iran because of its nuclear activities.
They will be considering a Nov. 15 report by Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency director, that states that Iran "has conducted experiments to acquire the know-how for almost every aspect" of the nuclear fuel cycle in order to become self-sufficient. It also lays out in detail evidence of Iran's repeated failure to give the agency the information and access it has requested.
The deal with the Europeans committed the Iranian government to full suspension of uranium enrichment and all related reprocessing and conversion activities while the two sides negotiate a complicated long-term accord aimed at providing Iran with technology and economic, political and security benefits.
It does not specifically address the issue of centrifuge research. Following a similar but more vague agreement that Iran reached with the three European countries in October 2003, Iran was allowed to continue centrifuge research. That agreement fell after Iran restarted its enrichment activities after it accused the Europeans of failing to live up to their commitments.
The goal of the Europeans this time is to persuade Iran that the rewards would be so great that it should abandon its vast enrichment program.
But the Iranians were given nothing concrete in exchange for suspending their uranium enrichment activities and the deal has been widely criticized inside Iran as a sign of the country's capitulation.
Iran also knows well that many of the potential rewards proposed by the Europeans - including membership in the World Trade Organization and access to a light-water nuclear reactor - depend on the consent of the United States.
And Iran has insisted that it has the sovereign right to enrich uranium and that the freeze is only temporary.
Even before the most recent demand, Iran had unnerved the international community by speeding up one crucial area of the enrichment process at its vast uranium conversion plant in Isfahan in the week after the agreement was reached but before it went into effect.
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U.S. to Urge EU to Get Tough on Iran Nuclear Aims
By REUTERS
November 24, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html?pagewanted=all
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States will press the EU to get tough with Iran at a meeting of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog on Thursday, urging a trigger for U.N. Security Council action if Tehran resumes any uranium enrichment work.
The European Union's ``Big Three,'' Britain, France and Germany, have circulated a draft resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that demands Tehran keep frozen any nuclear work that could help it develop fuel for atomic weapons.
``The Americans are not happy with the draft resolution,'' said one diplomat, asking not to be identified. ``They think there needs to be a trigger that says if (Iran) resumes its uranium enrichment program something will happen.''
But this will be tough for the EU, which does not want to anger the Iranians. Tehran rejects U.S. charges that it has a secret atomic weapons program, saying its nuclear program is only for power generation.
Iran gave the EU a pledge last week that it would suspend its entire uranium enrichment program and all related activities in a bid to avoid possible economic sanctions by the U.N. Security Council. The freeze took effect on Monday.
But since last week Iran has annoyed the Europeans by asking that some enrichment research and development work be excluded from the freeze, diplomats said.
``CHUTZPAH''
One Western diplomat said the request amounted to Iranian ``chutzpah.'' Another said it was a clear message that Tehran had no intention of ending work on producing fuel.
Iran first promised to freeze its enrichment program in October 2003 but never entirely halted the work.
The IAEA's 35-member board will discuss the agency's two-year investigation into Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA has found no clear proof that Tehran plans to make atomic arms, but is concerned Iran may possess hidden nuclear facilities.
Some analysts say the Europeans and IAEA have let the Iranians run rings round them, while the Americans have accomplished little with their threats.
``The U.S. has good reasons to be skeptical. Tehran has been playing the EU and IAEA skillfully while acting as if it has something to hide,'' said Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa director for the International Crisis Group think-tank.
``But the problem with the U.S. posture is it simply hasn't worked. Four years of threats without tangible incentives to change behavior have only bolstered hard-liners, increasing the regime's hold on power to its strongest level in a decade.''
The Iranians have made clear the freeze will be short and that uranium enrichment is what they term a sovereign right that Tehran will never renounce.
To shouts of ``No compromise,'' tens of thousands of Iran's Basij militiamen staged a show of strength south of Tehran on Wednesday.
Wearing military fatigues and some armed with Kalashnikov rifles, members of the voluntary organization -- described by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as ``Iran's atomic bomb'' -- also shouted ``Death to America, Death to Israel.''
-------- israel
El Al to fit anti-missile system
bbc
24 November, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4038101.stm
Israel's national airline is ready to fit the world's first anti-missile protection system on passenger aircraft, according to reports.
El Al will install the first system on a Boeing jet over the next month, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
The system, built by Israeli defence firms, will cost about $1m per plane.
It fires invisible flares to counter rocket attacks, such as a failed attempt to bring down an Israeli airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002.
The Flight Guard system has been developed by Israel's largest defence firm, Israel Military Industries, and Elta, a subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries.
It is expected to be installed on six El Al jets if initial tests prove successful, and eventually on the rest of the airline's 30-strong fleet, Haaretz reported.
The airline will deploy the system on "high risk" routes in Asia and Africa, as US and European aviation authorities have not approved their use for civil aviation.
El Al has long placed a high value on in-flight security, and deploys armed plain-clothes sky marshals on all flights.
The Flight Guard system fires so-called "dark flares" if radars on board an aircraft detect an incoming rocket attack.
The flares, which have been designed to be invisible to the naked eye in order to reduce the chances of panic among passengers, confuse the missile's heat-seeking systems, sending them off course.
VIP treatment
Military aircraft from a number of countries have used a similar system in the past.
Anti-missile flares have also been fitted to private jets and VIP aircraft, such as Air Force One, the US president's plane.
The El Al development is the first time flares have been fitted to civilian passenger jets, although other airlines are believed to be interested in the system.
Jim O'Halloran, editor of Jane's Land-Based Air Defence, told BBC News that the Israeli system was essentially an interim development until a more sophisticated defence is completed.
"This is an intermediate step to protect aircraft today but in the future they will rely on infra-red and laser jamming systems," he said.
US and European aviation officials believe such a system will be less controversial to use in built-up areas close to western airports, Mr O'Halloran said.
The next generation system, codenamed Britening by Israeli engineers, is being backed by United Airlines in conjunction with the US arm of British defence firm BAe Systems, he added.
-------- korea
North Korea tested lethal gas on humans - Wiesenthal
Reuters
24 November 2004
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/manawatustandard/0,2106,3106540a6408,00.html
SEOUL: North Korea conducted lethal chemical experiments on humans until 2002 as part of a programme to develop weapons of mass destruction, a human rights group said yesterday, quoting former scientists from the communist state.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre said the scientists gave first-person testimony describing gassing of political prisoners in the North from the 1970s until 2002.
"We can basically, I think collectively conclude that North Korean political prisoners are gassed," he told reporters.
Cooper said the testimonies, if true, indicated the existence of functional gas chambers, where enemies of state were eliminated with no sense of remorse.
"That makes a mockery of the lessons that civilisation alleges that it has learned since the end of World War 2".
Cooper urged the international community and the South Korean government to look hard at the allegations.
"Such barbaric practices, if proven, should lead to legal action against its instigators and perpetrators," Cooper said.
The South Korean government had questioned the validity of previous reports on human chemical testing in North Korea.
North Korea has previously denied the reports, calling them a US "smear campaign" designed to justify war against it.
Two of the scientists cited were those who had previously provided testimony that resulted in a BBC television report earlier this year about gassing of political prisoners in experimental gas chambers in the North, Cooper said.
The third was a former chemist in North Korea who had been involved in experiments using gas that killed immediately and another type that killed slowly, he added.
The latter claimed to have worked only with animals, but the result of "successful" tests would then be turned over to colleagues who "experimented on human guinea pigs," Cooper said.
The witness fled the communist state in 2002 and now lived in South Korea, Cooper said.
Victims in the experiments described by the other two witnesses were put into a glass cell hooked up for audio, Cooper said quoting one of the witnesses.
"It didn't just take two and a half hours for a prisoner to die. There was two-way communication in terms of audio," he said, adding this implied the scientists were also monitoring the degree of suffering during a slow death.
"I don't think there is any question that such practices continue to take place."
The alleged experiments, while similar to gassing of Jews by the Nazis during World War 2, were different in that they were part of a programme to develop weapons of mass destruction, he said.
Cooper said a lack of denial of the experiments at a meeting with a South Korean Foreign Ministry official yesterday suggested Seoul had independent verification of such experiments.
But Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Kyu-hyun denied this. "We do not have independent sources who can confirm the experiments," he said.
Pyonygang has admitted to operating a nuclear weapons programme based on plutonium technologies and is also accused of secretly operating one based on uranium, something it has denied.
The programmes are at the centre of slow-moving, six-country negotiations by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China aimed at stopping the North's programmes.
North Korea's official media yesterday denied a Japanese media report that it had sold fluorine gas - used to manufacture weapons-grade uranium - to Iran.
"Explicitly speaking, there had never been any negotiation or dealing between the DPRK and Iran as regards the nuclear issue," the North's KCNA news agency said, using its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
-------- latinamerica
Brazil to start enriching uranium next month: official
BRASILIA (AFP)
Nov 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041124202740.xtm4avba.html
Brazil will start enriching uranium next month after getting the green light from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the government announced Wednesday after months of negotiations.
"Permission was granted to start operations," Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos told a news conference.
In a first stage that will last six to eight months, the Resende enrichment facility in southeastern Brazil will be running tests. "That phase will start in December," the minister said.
The announcement followed an inspection of the Industrias Nucleares Brasilenas (INB) facility in Resende, which an IAEA team conducted on November 16-18 after the government dropped its initial objections to such a visit.
Campos said the inspection showed the complex complied with IAEA conditions.
"This means that from the point of view of international safeguards, the INB plant fulfils conditions for the start of operations with the introduction of UF6 uranium gas," the government said in a statement.
UF6 -- uranium hexafluoride -- is the chemical form of uranium that is used in the enrichment process.
He said that after the initial test stage, the plant will produce enriched uranium for Brazil's Angra I and II nuclear power plants.
The announcement came at a time when the Vienna-Based IAEA has been pressing for states such as Iran and North Korea to allow inspections of their nuclear facilities.
The IAEA is particularly concerned that enriched uranium should not be diverted for clandestine development of nuclear weapons.
Uranium enrichment produces fuel for civilian reactors, as well as atomic bombs.
Brazil, with one of the world's largest uranium reserves, had cited trade secrets in initially denying IAEA inspectors access to the facility in February and March.
But Campos said Wednesday the inspection did not compromise those secrets.
-------- terrorism
CIA warns 'dirty bomb' within Al-Qaeda's capabilities
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Nov 24, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041124035857.vb14vc69.html
The Al-Qaeda terror network is fully capable of building a radioactive "dirty bomb" targeting the United States and other Western nations and "has crude procedures" for producing chemical weapons, the CIA warned Tuesday.
In an annual report to Congress on proliferation threats, the US Central Intelligence Agency also repeated its insistence that Iran was pursuing "a clandestine nuclear weapons program."
But it remained silent about charges, made earlier this month by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who accused Iran of seeking to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.
Instead, the agency used its strongest terms to alert lawmakers to the threat of terrorist organizations using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials to harm the United States and its allies, saying the danger of such an attack "remained high."
"One of our highest concerns is Al-Qaeda's stated readiness to attempt unconventional attacks against us," the report said.
The CIA said analysis of an Al-Qaeda document recovered in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 "indicates the group has crude procedures for making mustard agent, sarin, and VX."
The group founded and led by Osama bin Laden, the admitted mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, is also keenly interested in radiological dispersal devices, or "dirty bombs," the spy agency warned.
It added that construction of such a device "is well within its capabilities as radiological materials are relatively easy to acquire from industrial or medical sources."
Documents recovered by US forces in Afghanistan show that bin Laden and his associates were engaged in what US intelligence officials described as "rudimentary nuclear research."
But the CIA cautions that the true extent of Al-Qaeda's nuclear program "is unclear," suggesting it could be more advanced than originally thought.
Outside experts, such as Pakistani nuclear engineer Bashir al-Din Mahmood, may have provided assistance to Al-Qaeda's nuclear program, according to the report.
Bashir reportedly met with bin Laden and discussed nuclear weapons with him, the CIA asserted.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Congress deletes bunker busters
The Associated Press
November 24, 2004
http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2004/11/23/headline_news/news02.txt
Congress has drastically reduced or cut out entirely funds that could have gone to New Mexico installations to design a nuclear bunker-buster, build a factory to make new nuclear bomb parts and study designs for next-generation weapons.
"It's clearly a setback for the president and the nuclear weapons policies the first (George W. Bush) administration had done," said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, a Washington, D.C., arms control group.
The overall nuclear budget for fiscal 2005 grew. Congress on Saturday approved $6.6 billion for nuclear weapons work, most of which will maintain the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Future weapons initiatives such as the bunker-buster were deleted in last-minute deals Friday and Saturday between Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who head their chambers' subcommittees responsible for nuclear weapons budgets.
"We had two days to do this bill. That means you have to make some trade-offs," Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, said Monday.
In return for letting Hobson cut the bunker-buster and other proposed nuclear weapons, Domenici said he got money for work at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico. That includes $91 million for Sandia's new microsystems building complex and $40 million for Los Alamos' new plutonium lab.
The administration had sought about $27.5 million for research into a bunker-buster - a small part of the overall budget but a large part of the debate over the nation's future U.S. nuclear weapons policy.
The idea behind bunker busters would be to modify a nuclear bomb to penetrate underground before detonating.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque were to design the weapon, called a robust nuclear earth penetrator.
Supporters hope such a weapon would be effective against fortified underground bunkers. But critics, including Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said it would send the wrong message when the United States is trying to persuade other nations not to acquire nuclear weapons.
"I don't think we can credibly try to lead the world in stopping the nuclear program in Iran and other places if we're in the process of developing a new generation of nuclear weapons," Bingaman said.
One of the weapon's strongest backers, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., said she believes it will be back on the congressional agenda next year.
The administration also sought $9 million for scientists to study advanced concepts in weapons design. Domenici helped change its direction to become a program called the reliability replacement warhead program.
Domenici's office said the program now will focus on refurbishing existing weapons instead. Weapons designers, including those at Los Alamos, will be challenged to make existing weapons more reliable, easier to certify without testing and safer to store.
The administration also sought $29 million for work on a new factory that would make plutonium bomb parts. Congress cut that to $7 million, with restrictions on how the money can be spent.
Both Los Alamos and Carlsbad are on the list of potential factory sites.
Greg Mello, head of an Albuquerque-based anti-nuclear group, Los Alamos Study Group, said it was a victory that the spending bill did not endorse new nuclear weapons.
"No doubt there was real growth in the weapons program despite these cuts, and there will be real new weapons designed this year and upgraded weapons built - don't doubt this for a minute - but these important symbolic projects, which carry messages about the legitimacy of the whole, were stopped for now," Mello said.
-----
Bush Denied Funds for New Nuclear Weapons Research
November 24, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-24-09.asp#anchor2
The U.S. Congress has rebuffed a request by the Bush administration to fund research into new types of nuclear weapons.
The funding was deleted from the final version of the $388 omnibus spending bill passed Saturday by the Congress.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the nonprofit group Arms Control Association, hailed the decision as "an important rejection of the administration's costly and counterproductive drive to invent new nuclear arms for new missions."
The Bush administration had requested $36 million to continue research on modifying two existing high-yield warheads to destroy targets buried deep underground - bunker-buster bombs - and to develop low yield nuclear weapons less than five kilotons.
A five-kiloton nuclear weapon is about half the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Critics say that the administration's policy is dangerous and undermines efforts to curb proliferation of nuclear weapons across the world.
Congress also slashed the administration's request for $30 million toward construction of a new facility for building the explosive cores or plutonium pits of U.S. nuclear weapons.
Only $7 million was appropriated for the project and said none of the funding could be used to select a location for the facility in fiscal year 2005, which ends Sept. 30, 2005.
The proposed Modern Pit Facility could churn out up to 450 pits a year, cost up to $4 billion to build, and $300 million annually to operate.
According to independent analysts, the proposal greatly exceeds realistic requirements for maintaining a shrinking U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.
"The congressional budget cuts send a strong signal to the White House that Republicans and Democrats will resist efforts to create new and 'more usable' nuclear weapons or resume nuclear testing," Kimball said. "It is clear many believe such efforts make it harder to convince other states to exercise nuclear restraint."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- vermont
More Yankee issues coming New Entergy info prompts safety concerns
Rutland Herald,
Nov 24, 2004
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041124/NEWS/41123002/1003/NEWS02
More safety concerns about Vermont Yankee's proposed power boost will be filed with federal regulators because of new information released by Entergy Nuclear, according to the nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition.
Raymond Shadis, senior technical adviser for the coalition, said Tuesday that he was pleased that the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board agreed to accept two of the seven safety issues already raised by his group, ordering an unprecedented hearing. But Shadis promised that more were coming.
The New England Coalition and the Vermont Department of Public Service had raised several safety issues with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about Entergy Nuclear's plans to boost power by 20 percent at the 30-year-old reactor.
On Monday, the quasi-judicial board, which is made up of nuclear experts and attorneys from all over the country, ordered a federal hearing on the power boost.
Shadis said that his organization has the right to file new issues because Entergy keeps filing new and updated information about its power boost plan.
And the whole process is complicated, Shadis said, because the NRC last month shut down its electronic public document room, called ADAMS, because of an NBC News report that showed the Web site containing highly sensitive information about nuclear materials at hospitals, including diagrams showing exactly where the nuclear material was kept.
Shadis said that the coalition also would file concerns based on the eight safety problems unveiled during a special inspection at Vermont Yankee this summer. That special inspection was a condition of state approval of the power boost.
Entergy Nuclear spokesman Laurence Smith, meanwhile, said that the company's attorneys were still studying the 40-page decision and hadn't made a decision one way or the other on whether to appeal. Entergy has 10 days to appeal the decision.
Entergy had objected to the state's and coalition's request for a federal hearing, saying it was not necessary.
The state had argued that Entergy might be shaving long-standing safety margins at the plant by boosting power and making changes that could affect the plant's safety systems in the event of an emergency.
"We're pleased the board has responded so quickly," Smith said. "It's good for all of us, especially the people of Vermont." Shadis said that the new information Entergy Nuclear had provided to the NRC were answers to questions raised by NRC staff about its proposal, including questions about heat removal and effects on the plant's steam piping system.
The NRC already has pushed back its original target date for a decision, and placed the blame on Entergy's lack of information on several key conditions of its plan. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearing also will affect that timetable. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Violence Fractures Cease-Fire In Sudan
Darfur Town Bombed Following Rebel Attacks
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8611-2004Nov23.html
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Nov. 23 -- Government helicopters and warplanes bombed the town of Tawila in North Darfur on Tuesday after rebel fighters attacked police stations there Monday, said U.N. officials, who accused both sides of breaking a renewed cease-fire that had lasted just under two weeks.
The fighting began Sunday when Arab militia fighters known as the Janjaweed refused to pay for livestock in the market there, aid workers said. Rebel forces attacked the Janjaweed and police stations Monday, said Jan Pronk, the U.N. special envoy to Sudan.
During the clashes on Monday, 45 aid workers, including 30 from Save the Children U.K., fled into the bush to hide and were later airlifted to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, by African Union helicopters.
Save the Children U.K. said government warplanes had dropped at least one bomb about 50 yards from one of its feeding centers.
Between 20 and 30 police officers were killed along with six civilians when the rebel group carried out a dawn attack, U.N. officials said. No one was sure of the total number killed in both days of fighting.
The rebel militia, the Sudanese Liberation Army, has taken control of Tawila, a strategically important mountain town located between rebel headquarters in the Jebel Marra Mountains, southwest of El Fasher, and the homeland of the Janjaweed around Kabkabiya, 90 miles west of El Fasher. U.N. officials condemned both sides and said the violence did not bode well for the future of Darfur. The rebels and government have violated a cease-fire signed this month in Abuja, Nigeria, in which the rebels agreed to stop fighting and the government agreed to halt aerial bombardment.
"To our eyes, there is no justification [for] the violation of the cease-fire," Pronk said in a strongly worded statement. "The parties should understand that the recent aggression goes directly against the spirit and the letter of the Abuja protocols."
As a result of the fighting, the U.N. stopped all movement outside El Fasher and withdrew all staff from Abu Shouk camp, home to 80,000 Africans driven from their homes during the 21-month conflict between a government-backed militia and African rebels.
Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo, a Nigerian officer who heads the African Union mission in Darfur, said the union was investigating the attacks and could not confirm the bombings.
"We do know that the fighting is very serious," Okonkwo said.
The government and the rebels accused each other of attacking first and said they had the right to defend themselves.
Sudan's interior minister, Gen. Abdel Raheem Mohamed Hussein, said that 29 police officers had been killed Monday and that the government would continue fighting. He denied that any bombs were dropped but said government troops were defending the town.
"What goes on in Abuja does not affect what's happening on the ground," Raheem said. "I think the rebels are now trying to gain ground and make footsteps in our cities. They want to create chaos and ring alarms to the displaced people who want to return home. . . . So now, we are re-ordering ourselves and protecting ourselves."
Abdou Abdullah, a leader of the Sudanese Liberation Army and member of the African Union's cease-fire commission, said the 1.5 million Africans displaced in squalid camps were driven from their land by the government and its proxy Janjaweed militia.
He said people would not return home because they were afraid of government attacks. He also said the rebels attacked police officers in order to defend civilians in the market.
"It's the government and their militia that continue to harass the citizens of Darfur, not the other way around," Abdullah said. "We were defending our people against constant harassment and then we mobilized our forces to take the town."
The fighting in Tawila is part of an upsurge in violence across the region. On Monday, six police officers and three rebels were killed when rebel forces attacked a police station at the crowded Kalma camp in South Darfur.
Some aid workers said the attacks were reprisals sparked by police abuses in the nearby al-Jeer Sureaf camp, where residents were tear-gassed and beaten this month before being forcibly moved to another camp.
"It's the same dismal pattern," said Barry Came, a spokesman for the World Food Program. "They reach cease-fire agreements, and before the ink dries, they are violated."
Fighting broke out in February 2003 when African tribes rebelled against the Arab-led government. In retaliation, the United Nations said the government has bombed villages and armed the Janjaweed, while tens of thousands of people have died from hunger, disease and violence.
-------- business
Auditor to Army: Dock Halliburton's Pay
Reuters
By Sue Pleming
Nov 24, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20041124/ts_nm/iraq_halliburton_dc
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army should withhold some payments to Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL - news) for its work in Iraq (news - web sites), a government auditor said on Wednesday, in a move that could cost the contractor tens of millions of dollars a month.
In another development involving the Texas company, the lawyer for an Army Corps of Engineers whistle-blower said his client was interviewed by the FBI (news - web sites) last week over her claims of contracting abuse involving Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) from 1995-2000.
The Houston-based company is the U.S. military's biggest contractor in Iraq with the potential to earn up to $18 billion for multiple contracts there. Its tasks range from cooking meals for troops to rebuilding Iraq's oil industry.
Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said based on his "limited audit work," he supported military auditors' proposals last August for the Army to implement a 15 percent withholding on future Iraq invoices from Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root.
"We agree with U.S. Army Materiel Command and DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency) positions (on the withholding issue)," said Bowen in the memorandum.
The U.S. Army did not follow the recommendations last August and opted instead to give Halliburton more time to resolve the ongoing billing dispute, fearing such punitive action could disrupt supplies to U.S. troops.
Military documents indicated the company had not provided enough details to support at least $1.82 billion out of $4.3 billion of logistical work for the U.S. Army, which estimated such a withholding could cost KBR about $60 billion a month in unpaid bills.
Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Gist said the company was still working hard with its client to resolve the dispute and it had not received any new information about a withholding.
Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Illinois, said there was no new information in Bowen's report. "But its contents will be evaluated as part of the Army's decision process (about the withholding)."
WHISTLE-BLOWER TALKS TO FBI
Aside from Halliburton's long-running billing dispute with the U.S. military, government investigators are looking into whether the company overcharged for work and whether there was any improper action that favored Cheney's old company.
A lawyer for Bunny Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers top contracting official, said his client met for the full day last Wednesday with the FBI and an investigator from the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s Criminal Investigative Division.
"My client provided a lot of detailed answers to their questions," said lawyer Michael Kohn, while declining to provide any specifics.
He said much of the questioning focused on a no-bid oil contract handed out to KBR in March last year, which was later followed up by a competitively bid deal. KBR's business in the Balkans with the military was also examined.
Of particular interest are allegations over whether KBR overcharged the Army to deliver fuel to Iraq, which despite being crude-oil-rich suffered from a shortage of refined oil products. A draft Pentagon audit last December found the company may have overcharged by at least $61 million for this service.
Democrats seized on the latest news and New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record) said they showed the need to investigate Halliburton and its military contracts.
"When will the Republican Congress stop covering up Halliburton's wrongdoing and end this abuse of taxpayer dollars?," said Lautenberg in a statement.
Halliburton stock rose 32 cents to close at $40.79 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) after falling as low as $39.84 earlier.
-----
Rumsfeld: Druyun Had Little Supervision
Defense Secretary Cites High Turnover In Procurement Woes
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8689-2004Nov23.html
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld blamed an Air Force procurement scandal on high turnover in top management positions, which he said reduced the amount of "adult supervision" of major weapons contracts over the past decade.
Cautioning that his view isn't yet "definitive," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news briefing yesterday that he had recently been looking into the case of former Air Force acquisition official Darleen A. Druyun, who last month was sentenced to nine months in prison after admitting to granting favors in contracts to aerospace giant Boeing Co. before going to work there. Earlier this month, Michael M. Sears, Boeing's former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty to a conflict-of-interest charge for his role in hiring Druyun while she was overseeing large contracts with the company.
Rumsfeld said he was struck that during the nine years in which Druyun had been a top Air Force weapons buyer, there had been heavy turnover among other senior managers who might have questioned some of her decisions if they had been on the job longer. From the time Druyun became the Air Force's deputy acquisition chief in 1993 until her retirement in 2002, he said, the positions of secretary of the Air Force, assistant secretary for acquisition and senior military official for acquisition had all changed several times.
"So what you had with all these vacancies over a 10-year period . . . the only continuity was that single person, who's now pled guilty and is going to go to jail," he said. "When you have that long period of time, with . . . no one above her and no one below her, over time I'm told that what she did was acquire a great deal of authority and make a lot of decisions, and there was very little adult supervision."
Rumsfeld linked the problem to one of his pet peeves about contemporary Washington: the difficulties posed by an elaborate -- and slow -- congressional confirmation process.
"Our entire department operates generally somewhere between 20 and 25 percent vacant in presidential appointees, Senate-confirmed, because of the nature of the ethics reviews, the FBI reviews and the Senate confirmation process," he said.
Rumsfeld has said another irksome aspect of the personnel system is how quickly military officers move from one position to another, meaning they sometimes don't stay in one spot long enough to really understand their jobs.
In this situation, he said, there was too little longtime experience in the management slots around Druyun overseeing the Air Force's $30 billion procurement budget. "You have too much turbulence on the military side, too much turbulence plus vacancies on the civilian side, and a person who has continuity -- the only one with continuity -- who is going to break the law."
Rumsfeld credited his own subordinates -- Air Force Secretary James G. Roche and acquisition chief Marvin R. Sambur -- with reining in Druyun. "I'm told that when Secretary Roche and Assistant Secretary Sambur came in, they looked at that situation, were uncomfortable with it, and began taking authorities away from her . . . and that was one of the reasons that apparently she began negotiating for her departure," he said.
Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized Roche, releasing e-mails that he said showed how Roche worked intensely behind the scenes to support a Boeing bid for a controversial contract to provide tanker aircraft. Druyun was chief negotiator on that deal, which drew sharp criticism from the Senate Armed Services Committee and has since been derailed. The Pentagon now plans to hold a competition for the refueling tanker contract.
At one point, according to e-mails released by McCain, a critic of the tanker contract, Roche wrote a friend at Raytheon Co., "Privately between us: Go Boeing!" In another e-mail, Roche said a Defense Department critic of the tanker deal should "pay an appropriate price" for objecting to it, according to documents released by McCain.
Roche announced his resignation recently, and Rumsfeld issued a statement hailing him for his service to the country.
-------- iraq
6000 Iraqi recruits graduate
The Australian
November 24, 2004
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11491172%255E1702,00.html
SOME 6000 Iraqi Army troops - the first batch of quick-reaction forces - graduated today from a southern military base, a military spokesman said.
The new graduates are the first group trained as quick-reaction forces, in charge of launching defensive and offensive operations in emergencies, said the spokesman.
A delegation of the Iraqi Defence Ministry and US military officers attended the graduation ceremony at Al-Nuimiyah base is 140km south of Baghdad.
-----
Fallujah Leaders Were Local, Not Foreign
Associated Press Writer
By HAMZA HENDAWI
November 24, 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-iraq-fugitive-leaders,0,1277858,print.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Before the assault on Fallujah, U.S. officials described the city as a den of foreign terrorists, but its top commanders were an electrician and a mosque preacher -- both natives of the community and now on the run from American forces.
Religious fervor and hatred of Americans brought Omar Hadid and Abdullah al-Janabi together in a partnership that played a major role in transforming Fallujah from a sleepy Euphrates River backwater into a potent symbol of Arab nationalism.
Their rise to prominence provides insight into contemporary Iraq, where the U.S. presence sparked a religious backlash that gave radical Muslim leaders major roles in filling the void created by the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime and its replacement by a weak U.S.-backed government.
After U.S. Marines lifted the siege of Fallujah last April, central government control collapsed. That enabled men like Hadid, an electrician who lived with his mother, and al-Janabi, a local imam and member of an important local clan, to emerge as powerbrokers until the Marines took the city back this month.
Of the two, Hadid, thought to be in his early 30s, appears to have been the more influential, even though al-Janabi, in his 50s, headed the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which set up Islamic courts that meted out Islamic punishments, executed suspected spies and enforced a strict Islamic lifestyle.
Fallujah residents and Iraqis with close family ties to the city said al-Janabi was more a spiritual leader -- deeply respected but without the leverage that Hadid enjoyed over the bands of fighters who patrolled the streets, directed traffic, attacked U.S. positions on the city's fringes and fought the Americans in April and again this month.
Hadid led one of the bigger and better armed factions in the city, residents say, but they also stress there were other groups of fighters and all largely operated independently of one another.
Some U.S. and Iraqi officials believe Hadid was close to Jordanian terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose al-Qaida-linked movement allegedly used Fallujah as a headquarters. Al-Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for many of the suicide bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages.
But many Fallujans insist al-Zarqawi was never in the city, even though American forces found what they believe was a command and training center for his movement. Residents also insist the number of foreign Arab fighters was small, giving estimates ranging from several dozen to a couple of hundred in a city of nearly 300,000 people.
Given the uncertainty about al-Zarqawi's role, it is difficult to determine his relationship with either Hadid or al-Janabi.
Some Iraqis who knew Hadid said he was too independent-minded to have taken orders from al-Zarqawi or anyone else. "Omar is far too powerful to be anyone's deputy," said a neighbor of Hadid, who spoke on condition his name not be printed for security reasons.
Those who knew him said Hadid came from a lower middle class Fallujah family. Since his father died a few years ago, Hadid had lived with his mother in the family home in the city's al-Moatasim area until the fighting in April. He's married but without children.
About two months ago, one of Hadid's brothers and a nephew were killed by a U.S. airstrike that also injured several other family members, the neighbor said. Hadid escaped with a minor injury, he said.
People who know Hadid differ over the depth and nature of his religious persuasion. Some said he is a Salafi, a conservative sect whose members try to emulate the appearance and behavior of Islam's 7th century prophet, Muhammad. Others said he is a Wahhabi, the austere and radical brand of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Janabi, on the other hand, is a Sufi, a mystical version of the faith that seeks closeness to God through the cleansing of one's soul. Sufis abhor violence, but al-Janabi found in Hadid a like-minded partner as Salafis and Wahhabis began to prevail over Sufis in Fallujah.
"He's a Salafi in a Sufi disguise," said one native of Fallujah who says he knew both men.
Al-Janabi even joined Hadid in orchestrating the expulsion of a prominent Sufi cleric and mujahedeen leader, Sheik Dhafer al-Obeidi, from the Shura Council after they became alarmed by his growing popularity, say residents who knew the cleric. Al-Obeidi now lives in hiding abroad.
In 1998, al-Janabi, married with five children, was suspended by Saddam's government from delivering Friday sermons because of his public criticism of government policies. He returned to the pulpit of Fallujah's Saad Bin Abi Waqas mosque after Saddam's ouster, devoting most of his sermons to calling on Iraqis to join in a holy war against the Americans.
Fearing for his safety, he stopped giving Friday sermons after the April fighting.
Residents said al-Janabi never carried a weapon in public, but was frequently seen during the April fighting talking to front-line mujahedeen, exhorting them to fight on and telling them that those who died fighting Islam's enemies would be rewarded with eternity in paradise.
--------
US-led forces in huge offensive near Baghdad
aljazeera
24 November 2004
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3519CAA9-46D7-473E-BA2E-CA49785E5D41.htm
More than 5000 US, British and Iraqi troops have attacked areas south of the Iraqi capital in the latest push to pacify the country before planned elections in January.
The operation on Tuesday came as world powers and Middle Eastern states meeting in Egypt threw their weight behind the war-torn country's first free and multi-party elections in decades.
US marines and an Iraqi Swat (special weapons and tactics) team swept through the small south-central Iraqi town of Jibla, starting a fresh campaign in the north of the Babil (Babylon) province, the US military said in a statement.
The offensive involved more than 5000 Iraqi, US and British forces and follows the seizure of Falluja, the statement said.
"As the Iraqi people prepare to vote in nationwide elections in January, multinational forces are determined to capture or kill those who desire to destabilise the elections process," the military said.
Joint operation
The joint operation resulted in the seizure of 32 suspected fighters, the military said. Jibla is 80km south of Baghdad and in what is known as the Triangle of Death.
The military said US and Iraqi forces continued rounding up suspected fighters in house-to-house searches and vehicle checkpoints.
In the past three weeks, Iraqi troops and US marines have detained nearly 250 suspects, the statement added.
They have been aided by British forces from the 1st Battalion of the Black Watch Regiment, which was brought into the area from southern Basra to aid American forces in closing off escape routes for fighters between Baghdad, Babil province to the south and Anbar province to the west.
It would be the third major military offensive against fighters opposed to the US-led government since the massive Falluja operation, which has claimed the lives of more than 50 US soldiers and injured more than 400.
Close to the northern city of Kirkuk, US and Iraqi forces on Tuesday rounded up dozens of suspected fighters in a pre-dawn raid and seized automatic weapons, ammunition and communications equipment, the US military said.
Detention
Kirkuk's local government on Tuesday also publicised the capture in recent days of five leading fighters including the brother-in-law of former president Saddam Hussein's chief deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri.
The governor's office said Umar Ali al-Sufyan, also known as Abu Sufyan, was arrested by US forces on 28 October.
He is suspected of sponsoring anti-US attacks.
Children killed
On Tuesday, two Iraqi children were killed when mortar bombs landed on houses near a US military base in al-Muallimin neighbourhood in central Samarra city, medical sources told Aljazeera.
A number of soldiers were injured and their Hummvee was destroyed when an explosive device detonated on the outskirts of Samarra.
In a separate incident, two fighters were killed and a third injured when an explosive device they were attempting to plant, detonated in al-Jubairiya district southeast of Samarra city.
Another fighter was killed when an explosive device detonated as he was attempting to plant it on a road in Baiji, northeast of Baghdad, Aljazeera reported.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced the deaths of five more US marines near Falluja, where US-led forces are winding down a major assault on the city.
A US soldier was also killed in northern Iraq, although details of the deaths have not yet been released.
The latest casualties bring the US troop toll to more than 1221 since the March 2003 invasion.
Falluja refugees
Meanwhile, many refugees who left Falluja are living in poor conditions with inadequate shelter and food in areas surrounding the besieged city.
Shaikh Yunus al-Hamdani, a member of the Iraqi Relief Body from Saqlawiya told Aljazeera the relief process was difficult as electricity had been disconnected for 15 days.
"Water supply stations which depend on electricity do not work so water has been cut for 15 days.
"Medical aid has not reached us and I confirm that we have not received any aid from the Iraqi government which said it would send relief. People have nothing to protect them from the freezing weather.
"I call on non-governmental organisations to take the initiative to aid the people of Falluja in Saqlawiya who face very critical conditions", he said.
It is estimated there are about 15,000 families who fled Falluja and are now living in makeshift shelters outside the city.
-------- israel / palestine
Observers OK'd for Palestinian Elections
November 24, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel will allow international observers to monitor upcoming elections to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority, Israel's foreign minister said Wednesday in another indication of easing of tensions since Arafat's death.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom made the commitment -- which can be seen as a concession -- before meeting visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Straw also offered assistance to the Palestinians.
``If the international community will want to send observers, Israel will allow the entrance of observers,'' Shalom told Army Radio.
Since Arafat died on Nov. 11, Israel has scaled back military operations in Palestinian areas, and tensions have abated. Israel accused Arafat of promoting Palestinian terrorism and refused to deal with him.
Now the Israelis are walking a self-imposed fine line -- hoping a moderate Palestinian leadership emerges to resume negotiations, but keeping its distance before the Jan. 9 election.
On Wednesday, the violent Islamic group Hamas strongly rejected any move to restart peace negotiations.
Hamas, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel during the last four years of conflict, wants to replace Israel with an Islamic state and shuns any official contact.
Negotiations ``will never ensure the minimum rights or aspirations of the Palestinian people,'' Hamas said in a statement.
Israel usually opposes an official international presence in the Palestinian areas, rejecting a frequent Palestinian demand for observers or peacekeepers. Israel assumes that because most of the world opposes its policies, international teams would be hostile to Israel.
There have been exceptions. Israel agreed to a special observer force in the West Bank city of Hebron in 1994 after a Jewish settler massacred 29 Palestinians at a disputed holy site.
Also, observers including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter watched the other Palestinian election, in 1996.
Shalom said the role of observers would be ``to ensure that these elections are fair and the results will be acceptable, not only to the international community, but first and foremost to the Palestinian people.''
Straw is on a two-day visit to the region as part of a new round of diplomacy meant to restart peace efforts and movement on the internationally backed ``road map'' peace plan following Arafat's death.
At a joint news conference after their meeting, Straw said he was optimistic about the situation, agreeing with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that ``there is an entirely new opportunity here and a real determination by the collective Palestinian leadership to work to the implementation of the road map.''
Palestinians have also demanded Israel pull its troops out of Palestinian cities during the campaign and allow residents of east Jerusalem to vote in the poll.
After initial opposition, Israel said it would let residents of east Jerusalem vote by absentee ballot. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, claiming the whole city. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as their capital.
Shalom would not promise to pull troops out of the West Bank for the voting.
``The elections process will not be harmed if, on the outskirts of a certain town, soldiers are located. I think what is important is allowing freedom of movement,'' Shalom said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had to postpone his meeting with Straw because of a sore throat, a statement from Sharon's office said.
Meanwhile, a new threat to Sharon's minority government emerged Wednesday when the moderate opposition Labor Party decided to stop abstaining in parliamentary votes -- raising the possibility that Sharon could be toppled.
Sharon lost his parliamentary majority because of opposition from his own backers to his plan to pull Israeli settlers out of Gaza and part of the West Bank next year. Labor, which backs the pullout, offered a ``safety net'' to protect Sharon from no-confidence votes.
Now Labor says it can't continue to prop up the government because of differences over economic policy.
-------- russia / chechnya
Rally Against Ukraine
Vote Swells Nation Is at 'Threshold of a Civil Conflict,' Opposition Candidate Says
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6555-2004Nov23?language=printer
KIEV, Ukraine, Nov. 23 -- Opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko took a symbolic oath of office in his country's parliament Tuesday as supporters -- whose numbers swelled to an estimated 200,000 -- rallied in the frigid capital to challenge official vote counts that gave an insurmountable lead to his opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
The risk of violent unrest in this former Soviet republic of 48 million people heightened as both sides claimed victory and stepped up their rhetoric following a vote Sunday that Western monitors said was marked by widespread fraud.
"Ukraine is on the threshold of a civil conflict," Yushchenko said in parliament. "We have two choices: Either the answer will be given by the parliament, or the streets will give an answer." Supporters wearing ribbons, neckerchiefs and neckties of the campaign's trademark orange color cheered as he took the oath, which had no legal merit.
In the face of the protests and strong condemnation from the United States and the European Union, the government appeared to hesitate. President Leonid Kuchma, who supported Yanukovych, called for negotiations, and there was no sign of a general mobilization of security forces.
"We strongly support efforts to review the conduct of the election and urge Ukrainian authorities not to certify results until investigations of organized fraud are resolved," the White House said in a statement.
Russia, which backed Yanukovych, dismissed foreign charges of electoral fraud as premature and arrogant. "We cannot recognize or protest results that are not yet official," President Vladimir Putin told reporters during a state visit to Lisbon. "Ukraine is a state of law. It doesn't need to be lectured."
With 99.48 percent of precincts counted, Yanukovych had 49.39 percent of the vote compared with 46.71 percent for Yushchenko. The results were official but not final. Exit polls had put Yushchenko well ahead.
Yushchenko supporters continued to mass in Kiev's Independence Square on Tuesday, their numbers reaching an estimated 200,000 as people arrived from different parts of the country following calls for help from Yushchenko. Many skirted police roadblocks to reach the city.
"We need to get as many Ukrainians as possible into Kiev," said Sergei Gayday, a senior strategist with the Yushchenko campaign. He said the goal was to bring out more than 1 million people while seeking redress from either parliament or the Supreme Court.
Several thousand protesters were facing riot police Tuesday night near the offices of President Kuchma in a standoff that so far has remained peaceful. Across the city, dozens of small clusters of Yushchenko supporters could be seen. Protests also expanded in other cities.
Busloads of Yanukovych supporters, mostly young men, have also arrived in Kiev, but so far have stayed in the background.
A senior Western diplomat said Kuchma has been warned that the government should neither certify Yanukovych as the official winner nor use violence to end the demonstrations. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said Yushchenko and his supporters have been counseled to exercise restraint.
Both camps were divided over whether to escalate their efforts, according to diplomats and strategists with each campaign.
The government is debating whether to wait out the protests or put them down, one government adviser said. Though Kuchma called for negotiations on state television Tuesday night and said the government would not use violence, he stopped short of meeting U.S. and European demands for a review of the election.
The senior Western diplomat said there was increasing evidence that the military and the country's security service would not agree to use force, leaving only Interior Ministry troops or the police. The loyalties of both groups are in question, particularly in Kiev and western Ukraine, Yushchenko strongholds. "You have a government which, to my opinion, doesn't know what to do," said the diplomat.
"They may have been stupid enough to think that obvious, outright fraud would somehow persuade the international community . . . that this was a legitimate election," the diplomat said.
An adviser to the Yanukovych campaign who spoke on condition of anonymity said he expected his candidate to be certified as the winner by the Central Elections Commission on Wednesday. In a statement Tuesday evening, Yanukovych's campaign manager appeared to be preparing the way for such a move when he called on Yushchenko to concede.
"Mr. Yushchenko must help unite the country now that it is apparent that Viktor Yanukovych is Ukraine's president-elect," said Sergei Tyhypko.
Within the Yushchenko camp, some of his chief supporters argue for using the assembled crowds to seize key facilities, including the state television building. But so far, the protesters have limited themselves largely to noisy gatherings in public places.
There were clear signs that Yushchenko's organizers hope to maintain the protests for as long as possible despite the hardship of the severe cold. Mobile food kitchens and generators to run heaters have been moved onto Independence Square, where supporters have pitched tents and announced their intention to remain round-the-clock.
Yushchenko and key advisers have been meeting nightly to map out the next day's strategy, according to Gayday, who has attended the meetings.
On Tuesday, Yushchenko led supporters on a march to the parliament building and then went inside, leaving the crowd outside. Some legislators tried to put forth a vote of no confidence in the Central Elections Commission, but the session was boycotted by lawmakers who support Yanukovych. A quorum could not be reached.
Yushchenko took an oath of office, his hand on a copy of the constitution, as supporters shouted: "Bravo, Mr. President!"
Some of the protesters outside attempted to burst into the building. But they were coaxed back by lawmakers supporting Yushchenko, evidence that the campaign has not yet decided to use force.
The role of the Communist Party in parliamentary maneuvering remains critical and uncertain. Its leader did not endorse any candidate in the second round of voting despite pressure from Russia to back Yanukovych. But if it sides with Yushchenko, there would be enough votes to demand a review of the election and the 11,000 violations that the Yushchenko campaign claims to have documented.
--------
For the U.S., a Balancing Act on Ukraine
White House Seeks to Support Election Protesters Without Angering Russia's Putin
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7810-2004Nov23.html
The Bush administration is seeking to support Ukrainian demonstrators who are challenging official results declaring that a Moscow-backed candidate narrowly won Sunday's presidential election without risking an open break with Russian President Vladimir Putin, administration officials said yesterday.
Even before the count was completed, Putin on Monday congratulated Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych on his victory over Western-leaning Viktor Yushchenko in an election that international observers said was deeply flawed. Yushchenko declared himself the winner yesterday and took a symbolic oath of office as hundreds of thousands of protesters packed Kiev's downtown streets.
Putin visited Ukraine before the runoff election and an earlier round of voting, in an apparent attempt to influence the results. But administration officials said they are focusing on the need for a democratic outcome and ensuring a result that reflects the will of the voters and is credible to the world -- a message that a top State Department official, A. Elizabeth Jones, delivered to the Russian ambassador Monday.
"This is not a U.S.-Russia issue," an administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of sensitive diplomacy. "It is not an East-West issue." He said that a fully democratic Ukraine would have to have close relations with Russia, no matter who wins the presidency.
"The Russians may make it an issue, but it isn't," he said.
Although White House officials hailed the close relationship with Putin early in President Bush's tenure, tensions have risen in the past year over Putin's efforts to muzzle political opponents and centralize political control. The dispute over the Ukrainian election is potentially problematic because Russia may feel that the United States is interfering in its sphere of influence. Yesterday, Putin attacked Western criticism of the election.
Charles A. Kupchan, director of Europe studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the administration appeared to be trying to encourage a review of the election without crossing what he called two "red lines" -- creating an overt rift with Putin or encouraging violence in Ukraine.
He said that Ukraine has remained relatively cohesive since the breakup of the Soviet Union but that the voting generally split along east-west lines, with the western, Ukrainian-speaking areas supporting Yushchenko and the eastern, mostly Russian-speaking areas voting for Yanukovych. A misstep, Kupchan said, "could turn a political cleavage into a conflict of competing identities."
Bush raised the upcoming Ukrainian election with Putin when they met on the sidelines of an economic summit last weekend, officials said, but they declined to characterize the discussion except to say that Bush stressed the United States' interest in a democratic outcome.
Bush also raised concerns about Putin's efforts to rein in democratic institutions, officials said. Putin responded with a long lecture about how he was creating a "democratic style" of government that is consistent with Russian history and the unique problems that Russia faces as a multiethnic society on a large landmass. Bush has not spoken to Putin since the Ukrainian election, officials said.
The White House, in a statement issued in Crawford, Tex., where Bush is spending Thanksgiving, said the United States "is deeply disturbed by extensive and credible indications of fraud committed in the Ukrainian elections."
The statement noted that "the United States stands with the Ukrainian people in this difficult time." The White House urged Ukrainian authorities not to certify the results until allegations of "organized fraud" are resolved, and to respect the will of the people.
"The government bears a special responsibility not to use or incite violence," the statement added, saying the government also must permit news organizations to report on the matter "without intimidation or coercion."
State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said Jones, an assistant secretary of state, had also spoken twice to the Ukrainian ambassador expressing "our deep concern over the allegations of fraud and abuse" and calling for "a complete and immediate investigation into the conduct of the election."
U.S. officials have suggested they are considering a series of escalating steps against the Ukrainian government if it fails to take effective action, starting with refusing to issue visas for officials and moving to restrictions on nearly $150 million in annual aid. But officials said they are working to avoid having to take such steps.
"It is pretty clear it was a stolen election," the administration official said. "But the situation is very fluid."
-------- spies
Russia Sends Scientist To Jail For Spying
(UPI)
Nov 24, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-04zzzk.html
Krasnoyarsk, Russia - A Russian court has sentenced a physicist Valentin Danilov to 14 years in a Siberian prison for passing space secrets to China.
Danilov, 53, a professor at Krasnoyarsk Technical University in Siberia, was first arrested in 2001 on charges he attempted to sell technology to China based on his work on the effects of the space environment on man-made satellites.
He spent 19 months in prison before being cleared of charges in December 2003, but the verdict was overturned on appeal in December 2003. He was retried and found guilty of high treason earlier this month.
Russian authorities claimed his invention, a tool designed to examine ways to destroy redundant satellites, revealed state secrets. But Danilov has always maintained information he sold to China was already publicly available.
Danilov was sentenced and ordered to serve his sentence in a maximum security labor camp, the BBC reported Wednesday. His lawyer said she planned to appeal the sentence in the Russian Supreme Court, the Itar-Tass news agency said.
------
Bush Orders the CIA To Hire More Spies
Goss Told to Build Up Other Staffs, Too
By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8650-2004Nov23?language=printer
President Bush has ordered CIA Director Porter J. Goss to increase by 50 percent the number of qualified CIA clandestine operators and intelligence analysts, an ambitious step that would mean the hiring and training of several thousand new personnel in coming years.
Bush also ordered the doubling of CIA officers involved in research and development "to find new ways to bring science to bear in the war on terrorism, the proliferation of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and against new and emerging threats." In the presidential order, dated Nov. 18 and released by the White House yesterday, Bush also called for a 50 percent increase in the number of CIA officers proficient in "mission-critical languages" such as Arabic.
The directive comes as the CIA is under intense scrutiny and in a period of transition under Goss's new leadership, and as the administration is under pressure to show progress in addressing the shortcomings documented by the Sept. 11 commission this summer. Last week Congress was unable to agree on details of legislation to dramatically reorganize the U.S. intelligence community.
In addition to calling for such a reorganization, the 9/11 commission had also urged strong increases in the number of clandestine officers, intelligence analysts and language specialists, as had the Senate and House intelligence committees.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA has undertaken an unprecedented recruiting and training campaign. The president's order left unclear how that would be accelerated.
The 50 percent increases he called for "are huge," requiring a new training facility "and even more aggressive recruiting, or lowering the quality of people," a former CIA official involved in the recruiting effort said.
The exact number of CIA officers in one area targeted for increase -- the clandestine service, officially known as the Directorate of Operations -- is classified, but former officials say it is around 4,500. Only about one-third are in the field as case officers who recruit agents, a former official said. The rest provide support from headquarters and overseas. Overall, the agency is believed to employ about 20,000 people.
U.S. officials said much of what Bush proposed was already being undertaken by the CIA and had been outlined in a strategic plan finished in December 2003. Officials said the White House was not aware of that planning when the president signed the directive, the existence of which was first reported by the New York Times.
Goss has said he wants to make significant changes in the way the agency does business, but he has been unclear on many specifics.
His tenure so far has been tumultuous. Several senior and mid-level clandestine officers, including the director and assistant director of the Directorate of Operations, have resigned or retired.
In his order, Bush gave Goss 90 days to put together a budget and implementation plan for hiring and training the new personnel. One former senior agency official said yesterday that the task "could take years."
Bush's order said the increases should be done "as soon as feasible."
Since many new trainees will be used against tough targets such as terrorists and closed governments such as North Korea and Iran, the training and eventual placement overseas will be even more difficult. Many will not be able to work out of embassies with diplomatic cover -- as many traditionally have -- but will operate covertly in their target countries. These officers will be "NOCs," which means they are there under "non-official cover," and subject to arrest as spies if they are caught.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, suggested that Congress should be "prepared to triple the budget for intelligence" if needed. "We will answer the issue of resources," he said.
In a separate presidential directive -- also issued Nov. 18 and released yesterday -- Bush gave the attorney general 90 days to provide plans for the creation of a "specialized and integrated national security workforce" within the FBI.
That directive builds upon reforms set in motion by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who announced in June that he was creating a "directorate of intelligence" aimed at improving the collection and analysis of intelligence information within the FBI.
The president also signed an order calling on the national security agencies to study whether to expand the types of covert operations undertaken by the military, activities that are now largely handled by the CIA's paramilitary division.
Bush set a 90-day deadline for that study as well.
The Sept. 11 commission recommended that the Pentagon assume all paramilitary activities, including those in which the hand of the U.S. government is to remain secret. None of the recent intelligence reorganization bills contained that provision, however.
The Defense Department has been studying and experimenting with new ways to use military forces to collect intelligence and conduct other covert operations. In this realm -- technically called "intelligence preparation of the battlefield" -- some skeptics view the department as inching into covert actions.
This is controversial, in part because it would mean that if soldiers involved in a covert operation are captured, the government would not admit they are U.S. military personnel. CIA operatives sign up for this risk. Military personnel do not, except when they agree to be temporarily transferred to the CIA.
Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
--------
CIA Releases Report on WMD in Iran, North Korea
voanews.com
By Michael Bowman
24 November 2004
http://www.voanews.com/english/2004-11-24-voa73.cfm
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has restated its belief that Iran has secretly pursued nuclear weapons, and also says North Korea is continuing to develop ballistic missiles that could reach parts of the United States. The CIA posted the unclassified report on its Internet website.
The report covers activities related to weapons of mass destruction for several nations and terrorist networks in the second half of last year.
It says that Iran "continued to vigorously pursue indigenous programs to produce nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons" and that Iran's clandestine nuclear program received "significant assistance" in the past from the proliferation network headed by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan.
The report also alleges that Iran has worked to improve its delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction, and that the nation continues to use its civilian nuclear energy program as a shield to hide a weapons program.
The report notes a series of steps by North Korea, including its stated intention to resume nuclear activities that had been frozen under the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework, its completion of the reprocessing of spent fuel rods, and the utilization of plutonium to increase the size of its deterrent nuclear force.
The report says by the end of last year, North Korea was nearly self-sufficient in developing and producing ballistic missiles, and may be ready to flight-test a multiple-stage missile that could potentially reach U.S. soil.
The CIA report says the risk of terrorist networks like al-Qaida using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials remained high last year. But it notes that any attacks would likely be small-scale in nature, utilizing readily-obtainable materials and improvised delivery systems, such as a so-called "dirty bomb." The report adds that terrorist groups may launch a conventional attack on a U.S. chemical or nuclear facility in hopes of sparking panic and economic disruption.
The director of the Virginia-based GlobalSecurity.org Internet site, John Pike, notes that the CIA report points to progress in containing the spread of weapons of mass destruction in only one country, Libya.
"It was interesting to see the extensive discussion of their concerns about al-Qaida aquiring weapons of mass destruction," he noted. "Iraq has been invaded and found to have no weapons. Libya has voluntarily given theirs up. [But] Iran and North Korea seem to be moving ahead and aquiring more weapons of mass destruction. So it is definitely a mixed report card -- some good news, some bad news and some worrisome news."
U.S. law requires the CIA provide regular assessments of other counties' activities concerning the acquisition, development, and production of weapons of mass destruction. Although the reports are made public, they may also contain a classified annex intended only for select members of Congress.
-----
How to Create a WIA -- Worthless Intelligence Agency
by Chalmers Johnson
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
by TomDispatch.com
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1124-10.htm
Two weeks after George Bush's reelection, Porter J. Goss, the newly appointed Director of Central Intelligence, wrote an internal memorandum to all employees of his agency telling them, "[Our job is to] support the administration and its policies in our work. As agency employees, we do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the administration or its policies."[1] Translated from bureaucrat-speak, this directive says, "You now work for the Republican Party. The intelligence you produce must first and foremost protect the President from being held accountable for the delusions he has concerning Iraq, Osama bin Laden, preventive war, torturing captives, democracy growing from the barrel of a gun, and the 'war on terror.'"
This approach is not new, even though former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman declares that "the current situation is the worst intelligence scandal in the nation's history."[2] Back in 1973, when James Schlesinger briefly succeeded Richard Helms as CIA director, he proclaimed on arrival at the agency's Virginia "campus": "I am here to see that you guys don't screw Richard Nixon."[3] Schlesinger underscored his point by saying that he would be reporting directly to White House political adviser Bob Haldeman and not to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. In the contemporary White House, Goss need not bother going directly to Karl Rove since Bush's outgoing and incoming National Security Advisers, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, have both been working for months under Rove's direction primarily to reelect the President. In 1973, Schlesinger wanted to protect Nixon from revelations that the CIA had broken into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and illegally infiltrated the antiwar movement within the United States. His actual achievement was to perpetuate Washington's idée fixe that the United States could still win the Vietnam War despite overwhelming intelligence to the contrary. The same is likely to be true today and the outcome is likely to be similar. Just as thirty years ago, an administration refused to pay attention to its own internal intelligence assessments and lost the Vietnam War, so another administration has again wrapped itself in a fantasy bubble of wishful thinking and so is losing the war it started in Iraq.
Intelligence and the Truth-teller
Part of the background to the Goss memo is a widespread misunderstanding of why the CIA was created and what it actually does. For example, Bush apostle David Brooks writes in the New York Times that the CIA is engaged "in slow-motion brazen insubordination, which violate[s] all standards of honorable public service. . . . It is time to reassert some harsh authority so CIA employees know they must defer to the people who win elections. . . . If they [people in the CIA] ever want their information to be trusted, they can't break the law with self-serving leaks of classified data."[4] Brooks seems to think that the CIA is the President's personal advertising agency and that its employees owe their livelihoods to him. About Michael Scheuer, the head of the "bin Laden Unit" in the agency's Counterterrorism Center from 1996 to 1999 and the anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, Brooks fumes, "Here was an official on the president's payroll publicly campaigning against his boss."
Leave aside the fact that the President doesn't pay any government official's salary, at least not legally, and that Scheuer was more interested in educating the public about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, on which he is an authority, than in covering up the President's mistakes; the point is that the issue of the CIA's intelligence on the Iraq war is bringing back into our political life once again the figure most feared by presidents: the truth-teller. During a previous period of falsified intelligence, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger said in the Oval Office in front of President Nixon and his Special Counsel Charles Colson, "Daniel Ellsberg is the most dangerous man in America. He must be stopped at all costs."[5] Kissinger and Nixon subsequently ordered up felonies, such as a break-in at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, in order to try to smear and discredit the man who had revealed to the public the systematic lying of three presidents -- Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson -- about the war in Vietnam.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had ordered a special staff to write a top secret History of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68, known as "The Pentagon Papers," of which Ellsberg was responsible for the 1961 volume on John F. Kennedy's presidency. Ellsberg's release of the highly classified Pentagon Papers to the New York Times resulted in the public exposure of virtually every National Intelligence Estimate on Vietnam written by the CIA since the end of French colonial rule. Bush's attempt to squelch information from the CIA then is hardly unprecedented in the annals of our government, but it is egregious and ultimately self-defeating.
The term "intelligence" has always rested uneasily in the name of the Central Intelligence Agency. There is no question that the agency was created in 1947 on the orders of President Truman for the sole purpose of collecting, evaluating, and coordinating -- through espionage and from the public record -- information related to the national security of the United States. Truman was concerned to prevent another surprise attack on the U.S. like Pearl Harbor and to ensure that all information available to the government was compiled and presented to him in a timely and usable form. The National Security Act of 1947 placed the CIA under the explicit direction of the National Security Council (NSC), the president's chief staff unit for making decisions about war and peace, and gave it five functions. Four of them concern the collection, coordination, and dissemination of intelligence. It is the fifth -- which allows the CIA to "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct" -- that has turned the CIA into a personal, secret, unaccountable army any president can order into battle without first having to ask Congress to declare war, as the Constitution requires.
Clandestine operations, although nowhere mentioned in the CIA's enabling statutes, quickly became the Agency's main activity and as one of its most impartial Congressional analysts, Loch K. Johnson, has put the matter, "The covert action shop had become a place for rapid promotion within the agency."[6] The Directorate of Operations (DO) soon absorbed two-thirds of the CIA's budget and personnel, while the Directorate of Intelligence limped along writing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) -- summaries of intelligence produced by all the various intelligence agencies, including those in the Department of Defense -- for the White House.
Meanwhile, CIA covert operations subverted domestic journalism, planted false information in foreign newspapers, and covertly fed large amounts of money to members of the Christian Democratic Party in Italy, to King Hussein of Jordan, and to clients in Greece, West Germany, Egypt, Sudan, Suriname, Mauritius, the Philippines, Iran, Ecuador, and Chile. Clandestine agents devoted themselves to such tasks as depressing the global prices of agricultural products in order to damage uncooperative Third World countries, and sponsoring guerrilla wars or miscellaneous insurgencies in places as diverse as the Ukraine, Poland, Albania, Hungary, Indonesia, China, Tibet, Oman, Malaysia, Iraq, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, North Korea, Bolivia, Thailand, Haiti, Guatemala, Cuba, Greece, Turkey, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua, to name only a few of those on the public record. All this was justified by the Cold War, and no one beyond a very small group inside the government knew anything about it. The Central Intelligence Act of 1949 modified the National Security Act of 1947 with a series of amendments that, in the words of that pioneer scholar of the CIA Harry Howe Ransom, "were introduced to permit [the CIA] a secrecy so absolute that accountability might be impossible."[7]
How to Misuse Intelligence
Regardless of what it most enjoys doing, the CIA is still tasked with providing the president with accurate information to enable him to avoid a surprise attack and protect the national security. In the foyer of the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia, is inscribed a Biblical quotation: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Loch Johnson conjectures that former Director of the CIA (DCI) Allen Dulles probably thought it meant, "And ye shall know the truth -- if ye be me, or the president." Former DCI Richard Helms once maintained to Bob Woodward that the early warning function of the CIA "is everything, and underline everything."[8] Even if true, the CIA's power to provide such unrequested information to a president constitutes a potential restraint on his freedom of action and may on occasion totally derail his policies, particularly since such intelligence is very rarely certain or unambiguous. Over the years the powers of the DCI to compel a president to read an intelligence estimate have been systematically diluted, and when information supplied to the president about a possible attack or any other matter under the CIA's imprimatur has been leaked to the public, both the Agency and the intelligence have become politically radioactive.
Such revelations have usually taken one of two forms. In the first instance, the president, it is argued, has been shielded from or has refused to read accurate intelligence. In the second instance, the president is accused of secretly ordering the suppression of intelligence or of fabricating intelligence to support his preferred policies. President Bush has engaged in both forms of dishonesty, but he is certainly not the first president to do so. The examples are legion.
In 1961, at the time of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Richard Bissell, then head of the Directorate of Operations, gained the ear of President Kennedy and assured him that elated Cubans would welcome American-supported insurgents, strew rose petals in their path, and help overthrow the Castro government. Bissell simply did not show Kennedy the estimates that said Castro had extensive popular support and the invasion would fail.
Similarly, in May 1970, as President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger plotted their "incursion" into Cambodia, the Board of National Estimates (BNE) concluded that "an American invasion of Cambodia would fail to deter North Vietnamese continuation of the war."[9] DCI Helms failed to deliver this estimate to the White House, knowing what the BNE did not -- that the decision to invade had already been made. Former DCI Robert M. Gates generalizes: "It has been my experience over the years that the usual response of a policymaker to intelligence with which he disagrees or which he finds unpalatable is to ignore it."[10]
Examples of the distortion or fabrication of intelligence are rarer, but they do occur. During the Vietnam War, Gen. William Westmoreland, U.S. military commander from 1964 to 1968, omitted from his estimate of enemy forces all Communist guerrillas and informal local defense forces -- perhaps as many as 120,000-150,000 fighters -- that another estimate indicated had been responsible for up to 40% of American losses. His apparent intent was to make victory in Vietnam look more plausible to the American public. On March 14, 1967, DCI Helms included Westmoreland's figures in an NIE going to the White House even though he "knew that the figures on enemy troop strength in Vietnam provided by military intelligence were wrong -- or, at any rate, quite different from CIA figures. Yet he signed the estimate without dissent. The apparent reason, according to his biographer, was that 'he did not want a fight with the military, supported by [National Security Adviser Walt] Rostow at the White House.'"[11]
Another example of the suppression or distortion of intelligence occurred in 1969-70 over the issue of whether or not the Soviet SS-9 ICBM could carry three warheads and whether those warheads could be fired at separate and distinct targets -- that is, whether or not the SS-9 carried MIRVs (multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles). If true, this would perhaps have given the Soviet Union a first-strike capability against the United States. The SS-9 came in four models, the first of which had its flight test on September 23, 1963, and began to be deployed in the summer of 1967. All Western intelligence agencies agreed that models one through three carried a single warhead, some with huge yields (in the range of 18 megatons). Disagreement arose over model four, which seemed to carry three warheads. Whether these were independently targetable was in dispute.
National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird contended that the fourth version of the SS-9 was a MIRVed weapon; the CIA in its NIE on the subject said that it was not. At first the CIA rejected the pressure coming from the policymakers and, in fact, added more evidence against MIRVs to its estimate. Ultimately, however, DCI Helms removed the paragraph arguing against Soviet preparations for a first strike after "an assistant to [Laird] informed Helms that the statement contradicted the publi