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NUCLEAR
Energy Bosses Urge EU to Back Nuclear Power
EU Determined to Build Nuke Site in France
KEDO suspends North Korea nuclear power project for another year
North Korea Nuclear Reactor Project Frozen
Brazil gets go-ahead on uranium enrichment
Bellona report focuses EU on need for coordinated nuclear clean-up
Shipping safety
MILITARY
A plan for Afghanistan
Ethiopia Belatedly Accepts Ruling on Eritrea Border
For a Small Girl in Darfur, A Year of Fear and Flight
Musharraf to discuss F-16s issue with Bush
Thai premier warns of ASEAN walkout
Private buyers snap up second-hand Swiss jet fighters
Audit: Halliburton Lost Track of Property
Oil giant in Russia is closer to collapse
For Tibetans, railroad brings doom
Oil makes U.S. raise military stakes in Colombia
Analysis: EU eyes Bosnia peace role
Huge caches of arms discovered in Falluja
What the Battle of Fallujah Was Really Like
'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah
CentCom points
First Ever Space Council Paves Way For European Space Program
The When and How of Leak Being Probed
Offensive counterintelligence
Anybody can be persuaded to be a torturer, says Abu Ghraib study
Navy Keeps A Secret in Plain Sight
Pull Welcome Mat for 'War Criminal' Bush?
Staying Drunk
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Congress Seeks to Curb International Court
New Mexico town gears up for 'bombings,' 'poisonings'
POLITICS
New High-Tech Passports Raise Snooping Concerns
Ukraine Leader and His Possible Successors Meet
ENERGY
Birds Not Being Killed By Wind Farms - Ecologist
Statoil Says to Open Norway's First Hydrogen Station
OTHER
Umbilical-cord blood offers hope
Can Being Fit Outweigh Fat?
ACTIVISTS
Protest plans force Bush to curtail Ottawa visit
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- europe
Energy Bosses Urge EU to Back Nuclear Power
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Story by Jeff Mason
November 26, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28301/story.htm
BRUSSELS - Europe's nuclear energy generators urged European Union policy makers on Thursday to include nuclear energy as a central part in the bloc's energy mix and future planning.
"The nuclear industry already makes a valuable contribution to achieving Europe's objectives in terms of security of energy supply, support for the EU economy and environmental protection," said a declaration signed by many of Europe's top energy firms.
The companies encouraged EU institutions and the union's 25 member states to keep all options open and promote investment in energy sources with very low or no carbon emissions, such as nuclear and renewables.
"In the coming years, oil resources will continue to dwindle, putting political decision-makers under increasing pressure," it said. "We firmly believe that nuclear-generated electricity should remain at the heart of Europe's energy supply system for the foreseeable future."
Proponents of nuclear energy say it is environmentally friendly because it does not emit greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, but environmentalists and others worry about the storage of radioactive waste and safety of nuclear facilities.
Countries such as France and Finland are developing their nuclear energy programmes, while Germany is phasing it out.
New European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said earlier this month EU states can decide for themselves whether to use nuclear energy but must handle the waste within their own borders. His predecessor, Spain's Loyola de Palacio, was considered a strong nuclear proponent.
Nuclear energy has an image problem with many Europeans, who fear a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The industry is increasingly portraying nuclear as a green fuel, while the EU tries to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, which curbs emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2). Nuclear power generation does not emit CO2.
"CO2 reduction as well as phasing out nuclear as we have now in Germany...doesn't go together," Gert Maichel, Chief Executive of RWE Power, said at a news conference.
According to the European Atomic Forum (Foratom), a trade association for the nuclear energy industry in Europe, about one third of the electricity produced in the 25-nation bloc is nuclear-generated. Thirteen EU states use nuclear, it says.
Nuclear power plants produce roughly 17 percent of the world's electricity, it says.
Foratom said in a statement 20 energy company heads had signed the declaration backing the nuclear power option.
They included bosses from Belgium's Electrabel, Germany's RWE Power and E.ON, Spain's Iberdrola, Sweden's Vattenfall and Britain's Urenco.
-----
EU Determined to Build Nuke Site in France
Reuters
By Lisa Jucca
November 26, 2004
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=465
BRUSSELS - EU ministers agreed on Friday to continue seeking Japan's backing to build the world's first thermonuclear reactor in France but could go ahead without Tokyo if there was no deal by the end of the year, EU officials said.
The ministers set no official deadline for the talks, to be handled by the EU's executive Commission, although the Dutch Presidency said it would push for a deal with Tokyo by the end of December.
The EU would prefer to build the nuclear reactor, touted as a long-term solution to world energy problems, with the backing of all parties in the project -- Japan, China, Russia, the United States, and South Korea, officials said.
"This is not an ultimatum, but we wish to reach a political agreement before the end of the year," French Research Minister Francois D'Aubert told a news briefing.
If no deal was reached, the EU would press ahead and build the 10-billion-euro ($13 billion) reactor in Cadarache, France, with as many partners as possible, officials said. "If the negotiations do not come to a rapid conclusion, the Commission has the possibility to choose a different path," D'Auberst said.
"This is a solution of last resort," said an EU official present at the research ministers' talks.
The EU might offer Tokyo a privileged partner role in the mammoth nuclear fusion research plan to compensate for not building it in Japan, officials said.
Energy production by nuclear fusion would be low on pollution, using sea water as fuel. But 50 years of research have so far failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor.
Site Should Be in Europe
Last week, the Commission suggested offering Japan a package of incentives so Tokyo would abandon its bid to host the fusion reactor, allowing the site in Cadarache, France, to win instead.
But Japan reacted angrily to this, accusing the EU of being high-handed in the negotiations. EU officials said the United States had also expressed concern at the EU's approach.
Diplomats say the EU offer might include creating a fusion institute in Japan worth one billion euros for pre-research activity linked to the project on condition that Japan raised its financial contribution to the reactor.
Construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is currently forecast to cost some 4.6 billion euros over a 10-year period. The EU intends to cover 40 percent of that from its budget while France has proposed doubling its contribution to 20 percent of the costs.
Including a development phase, the ITER project is forecast to last 30 years at an overall cost of 10 billion euros.
The United States and South Korea have previously supported the site at Rokkasho, a Japanese fishing village, but EU sources believe they would back Cadarache if Tokyo stepped aside.
-------- korea
KEDO suspends North Korea nuclear power project for another year
NEW YORK (AFP)
Nov 26, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041126164725.6nmr4w9m.html
The international consortium in charge of a frozen plan to build two nuclear power plants for North Korea said Friday that the project would be suspended for a second year from December 1.
"The future of the project will be assessed and decided ... before the expiration of the suspension period," The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) board said in a statement in New York.
"The preservation and maintenance work both on site and off site will continue," it added.
KEDO groups together the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Japan.
The multibillion-dollar plan to build two 1,000-megawatt light water nuclear reactors, deemed less suitable for weapons-grade plutonium production, arose from a 1994 anti-nuclear deal between Washington and Pyongyang.
But the United States considers the deal, known as the Agreed Framework, ruptured after accusing Pyongyang in 2002 of launching a prohibited program to enrich uranium for weapons production.
Since then, Pyongyang has thrown out international inspectors, unfrozen its Yongbyon nuclear plant and pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The KEDO board first announced the suspension of its project -- effective December 1, 2003 -- in November of last year, citing tensions over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
Construction was about 34 percent complete at the time. The two light-water nuclear reactors had originally been scheduled for completion this year.
Experts say it would take at least five more years to finish the complex.
Washington spearheaded the original drive to suspend the project after it cut oil shipments to North Korea in late 2002 in initial retaliation for Pyongyang's uranium enrichment scheme.
Friday's announcement extending the suspension carried no specific explanation, but a KEDO spokesman had said as early as May that the board did not enjoy the unanimity required to resume construction of the reactors.
----
North Korea Nuclear Reactor Project Frozen
By PETER JAMES SPIELMANN
November 26, 2004
Associated Press
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=North%20Korea%20Nuclear
NEW YORK -- An international consortium said Friday it had extended for another year a freeze on a project to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.
The four main partners in the New York-based Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization - the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union - had previously suspended the project for a year through Dec. 1, 2004.
The freeze will be extended until Dec. 1, 2005, the group said in a statement.
Reports from South Korea and Japan in recent months have said the United States sought to kill the program outright, but could not persuade Seoul or Tokyo to adopt that stance. The two countries are heavily invested in the $4.6 billion light-water reactor program, which is about one-third complete.
The light-water reactor projects were started after a 1994 deal in which North Korea agreed to dismantle its plutonium-producing Russian-model heavy water reactors.
In exchange, the partners agreed to build two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors, which do not produce large quantities of weapons-grade plutonium as a byproduct, and to send annual shipments of 500,000 tons of fuel oil to help North Korea ease its chronic power shortage.
The U.S.-funded fuel oil deliveries were halted in 2002 after North Korea acknowledged that it also had a secret uranium-enrichment program that could produce weapons in violation of the 1994 U.S.-North Korean accord and of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which North Korea signed in 1985.
As the crisis escalated, the partners suspended work on the light-water reactors.
The group will continue to do maintenance work on the site, the statement said.
The decision to keep the program alive is one way to lure North Korea back to talks, said Robert Gallucci, who helped the United States negotiate the 1994 deal.
"If there was a renewed effort to engage the North Koreans, it would seem only prudent to have as many options available for such engagement as possible," said Gallucci, who is now dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington. Another enticement would be resumption of the heavy fuel oil, he said.
But the Bush administration has maintained that there can be no concessions to ease North Korea back into disarmament talks.
Continued intransigence by the north on nuclear issues would strengthen the position of U.S. hard-liners who favor economic sanctions, such as Undersecretary of State John Bolton, in charge of nonproliferation matters.
Other kinds of pressure that could be brought to bear include condemnation by the U.N. Security Council or a naval blockade of North Korea.
The country has long sought a public pledge that the United States will not try to topple Kim Jong Il's dictatorial regime, and North Korean officials have said that such a promise could resolve the nuclear standoff.
North Korea's weapons capabilities remain a mystery. Some analysts and observers have said the reclusive communist nation has six to eight atomic bombs. With a highly enriched uranium weapons program and the use of sophisticated high-speed centrifuges, North Korea could begin to make more bombs starting in 2004 or 2005, the CIA has estimated.
--
On the Net:
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization: www.kedo.org
-------- latinamerica
Brazil gets go-ahead on uranium enrichment
AFP
November 26, 2004
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11501894%255E2703,00.html
BRAZIL will begin a uranium enrichment progam next month after the country got the green light from the International Atomic Energy Agency to fuel its nuclear power plants.
"Permission was granted to start operations," Brazilian Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos said yesterday. The decision comes after months of negotiations between Brazil and IAEA representatives.
The first stage of the operation will involve testing at the Resende enrichment facility in southeastern Brazil. "That phase will start in December," Mr Campos said.
The IAEA gave the green light following an inspection of the facility last week, which went ahead after the Government dropped its initial objections to such a visit.
Mr Campos said the inspection showed the complex, run by the state-owned company Industrias Nucleares de Brazil, fully complied with the 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.
Uranium hexafluoride, or UF6, is the chemical form of uranium that is used in the enrichment process.
Mr Campos said that after the initial test stage, the plant would produce enriched uranium for Brazil's Angra I and II nuclear power plants.
The decision on Brazil comes as the Vienna-based IAEA is pressing for states such as Iran and North Korea to allow inspections of their nuclear facilities.
The agency is concerned that enriched uranium should not be diverted for the clandestine development of nuclear weapons.
Uranium enrichment produces fuel for civilian reactors as well as atomic bombs.
Brazil, which has one of the world's largest reserves of uranium, had cited trade secrets in initially denying IAEA inspectors access to the enrichment facility in February and March.
But Mr Campos said the inspection did not compromise those secrets.
The country had "managed to safeguard its national technology" and this had not caused "any difficulty whatsoever in the fulfillment of the agency's mission".
Brazil is party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and as such could not operate the plant without approval from the IAEA.
-------- russia
Bellona report focuses EU parliament on need for coordinated nuclear clean-up in Russia
BELLONA
2004-11-26
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke_industry/36308.html
BRUSSELS-In what is certain to become an important if controversial report, Bellona released a new and revealing report Wednesday on Russia's nuclear industry, from its inception to its secretive pursuit of weaponry and energy, and how the west is and should be helping Russian nuclear remediation and clean-up efforts.
The report, entitled The Russian Nuclear Industry-The Need for Reform, was presented at a hearing in European Parliament and was very well received among the Parliamentarians (MEPs), European Commission members, representatives of Russian State Duma members, diplomats, NGOs and European Union (EU) nuclear industry observers.
"This report will make it harder for the hawks not to tell the truth," said Bellona President Hauge of The Russian Nuclear Industry-The Need for Reform.
Belgian MEP Bart Staes said during the hearing that "many MEPs want to take up the question of nuclear issues in Russia more aggressively [...] this report will be the back bone of those efforts."
"This book is a huge source of fresh information for us here in the EU."
Delegates at the hearing emphasised a need for the prioritisation coordination of nuclear clean-up activities, which have often overlapped, greater transparency and regular audits from Russian officials concerning projects receiving funding from the west, and independent expert environmental evaluations of decommissioning projects before they even begin.
Delegates also said these goals would be impossible to achieve without the cooperation of a strong and truly independent nuclear regulatory body in Russia, which-even after Russian President Vladimir Putin's government reshuffle last spring-is almost entirely lacking. Their assessments were in broad agreement with the conclusions presented in the Bellona report.
"This is a sensible and sensitive presentation of the nuclear problems facing Russia," said Swedish MEP Hedkvist Petersen.
"What is important now is that we have the money and the ability and the EU must coordinate its actions."
Transparency and control over the nuclear safety projects in the Russian Federation Since the signing of the Multi-Lateral Environmental Protect in the Russian Federation agreement, known as MNEPR, in Stockholm last May, a number of European countries, as well as Japan, and Canada, have pledged significant amounts of funding for nuclear safety projects in Russia, specifically focused on Northwest Russia.
Coordinating the nuclear cash This coordination would presumably be effected by the so-called "master plan" for nuclear remediation projects, which is currently being developed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The EBRD holds the some EUR160 million in the Northern Dimensions Environmental Partnership (NDEP) nuclear window fund which is intended for nuclear clean up efforts in Northwest Russia. The original NDEP fund was established in 2001 by the EC, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Russia and several financial institutions. But the release of its funding hinged on the signing by Russia of the Multi-lateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR). This was achieved in May 2003.
Since then, several other nations from Europe and beyond have made sizable contributions, and this funding plus the $20 billion in funding over the next ten years by the Group of Eight industrialised nations has led to a cash bonanza for dismantling the Cold War legacy.
The EBRD's master plan would presumably help coordinate donating efforts and project priorities, but several sources familiar with the current EBRD plan interviewed after the hearing said it fell short in crucial areas, most notably in its apparent omission on how to address problems of nuclear fuel reprocessing in Russia, and how to safely secure the country's overabundance of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). EBRD representatives were unable to attend the hearing and copies of its master plan are not yet publicly available.
Commenting on what is known of the EBRD master plan, and its rumoured lack of language on SNF issues, Alexander Nikitin, one of the reports six authors and head of Bellona's St. Petersburg office, said "I share my colleagues' worries about the programme."
He notes that foreign aid is needed to solve SNF issues in Russia, but said agreements should be reached as soon as possible given the Russian governments newly-fortified opposition to NGO's operating on western money in Russia.
"In a few years, we won't be able to clean up any waste at all," he said.
Bellona's findings in its new report Among the most pressing findings in Bellona's report, as presented at EU parliament by two of the reports other authors Igor Kudrik and Nils Bøhmer, is the fact that the Russian government simply inherited the dilapidated closed nuclear fuel cycle from its Soviet predecessor without evaluating the safety, non-proliferation or practical concerns surrounding this practice.
As a result, noted, Kudrik, much of the western nuclear remediation funding coming to Russia does little more than keep the Soviet era enterprise's head above water. One such example, said Kudrik, is the US Russian bilateral programme wherein Russia weapons-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) is down-blended to low enriched uranium (LEU) suitable for use in US commercial reactors. The HEU-LEU, or "Megatons to Megawatts" programs, brings in millions a year to sustain Russia's unsustainable nuclear industry, he said.
In addition, other western funding has been misdirected from intended targets by Minatom, Rosatom's successor organization, according to both Russian and US audits, said Kudrik.
The Russian Nuclear Industry-The Need for Reform was written, he said, "to make sure we understand the whole picture-it proves that you can do harm by investing large amounts of funding"
"Russia has taken its old [closed fuel cycle] system for granted and kept it in use with western funding," he said.
He also underscored the fact that Russia is still running three weapons-grade plutonium production reactors-two in the Central Siberian towns of Seversk and one in Zhelzenogorsk-that produce a combines total of 1.2 tonnes more of weapons-grade plutonium a year. Additionally, they supply heat and electricity to surrounding communities.
The US Department of Energy is working with Russian officials to shut these reactors down and replace them with fossil fuel plants-a dubious environmental proposition-but even this process has been bogged down in the bureaucracy of both governments and the 17 contractors working on the project. Meanwhile the plutonium quantity continues to grow.
Russian has a history of clinging to its plutonium in anticipation of the day natural uranium reserves dry up, and have historically resisted attempts to immobilise surplus weapons stocks.
Bøhmer suggested in his presentation that Russia would eventually like to realise, with the help of foreign funding, a closed plutonium cycle relying on fast neutron, or "breeder," reactors that both run on plutonium and produce reactor-grade plutonium as waste.
Beyond Russia's current financial impossibilities of building such an infrastructure and the shaky science that it is based on, Kudrik pointed out that breeders would constitute a flawed approach to non-proliferation as each reactor would have to maintain its plutonium stocks on site where it could possibly be stolen.
However, because of Russia's current political structure, Kudrik said an extension of the closed plutonium cycle was under serious discussion simply because nuclear industry brass have Putin's ear.
"There has been no public discussion of this at all, but because certain people have Putin's ear, they are willing to pursue this programme which exists only on paper," said Kudrik.
Meanwhile, Kudrik said, waste produced by the Cold War closed nuclear cycle machine is accruing on a massive scale, a point of concern shares by most delegates present at the hearing. Neither, said Kudrik, is there any appropriate environmental assessment programme in place. This shortcoming was pointed out starkly last August by the sinking of the K-159, a decommissioned submarine that sank in heavy weather while being towed to dismantlement.
Though the project was not funded by the west, projects funded by the west have nonetheless been carried out in the same fashion, and many nations were forced to rethink their donation strategies to avoid financing another such disaster.
Both Kudrik and Bøhmer emphasised the importance of conducting full environmental impact studies for each nuclear remediation project before it begins, thus anticipating and eliminating potentially disastrous results.
This and other problems could be solved by a comprehensive Russian master plan that would ease western efforts, said Kudrik. Such a Russian master plan, to complement the EBRD version for donor states, would also prevent incoming donations from supporting the Soviet practices of the nuclear industry.
The Necessity of Creating an International Environmental and Non-Proliferation Oversight Agency Recent billion-dollar commitments to environmental and disarmament efforts are laudable and necessary for a secure future, but they need a strong and informed coordinating body lest they encounter the familiar bureaucratic impasses that previous non-proliferation efforts have struggled with.
Kudrik and Bøhmer concluded their summary of the new Bellona report by underscoring that Russia needs true independent nuclear regulation-far beyond what is currently available from Russia's Federal Service for Ecological and Technical Oversight (FSETAN)-even if it means building such a structure from scratch. Ideally, they said, the regulatory body proposed in Bellona's reports would be fully transparent and invite the expertise of NGO's.
What to do about waste? Jean Paul Joulia of the EC's European Aid Co-operation Office said that the EC is working to support the technical infrastructure surrounding what becomes of GAN, FSETAN's predecessor organization.
Joulia's offices have also invested in new safety measures for the Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors still in operation at the Kola Nuclear Power Plant and the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, and have invested $20 million over the past 10 toward waste management problems.
Joulia rejoined Bellona's assertions on Russian nuclear oversight saying that his offices will contribute to the reform of nuclear regulation in Russia.
"Without proper regulation, no nuclear reform is possible," he said.
Joulia was also more optimistic than Nikitin regarding the Russian political brass and their acceptance of foreign aid.
"We have formed a cooperative relationship with Russia and want to continue as such," he said.
He cited NDEP, and its primary focus on the issue of securing nuclear waste, as the tightest link the west now has with Russia. He said that "there was a strong Russian investment in this programme, and that is important." Russia, he said, also subscribed strongly to that component of NDEP that makes it a forum for international coordination of nuclear remediation projects. The EC would meanwhile aid Russia in identifying funding priorities, which would help lay the basis for an international strategy for a final master plan.
United Kingdom MEP Christopher Beazley was blunt about foreign governments' promises to deal with Russia's SNF woes. He noted that not a single country in the world has yet enacted a feasible solution to dealing with SNF and radioactive waste.
"We can't get rid of nuclear waste-we can just make it harmless," he said, addressing the hearing. "The waste has to be isolated from the environment for hundreds of years. The only thing you can do is keep it safe and secure."
Nuclear industry response But Jon Coniam of British Energy, or BE-which owns Britain's nuclear power stations- sensed the discussion was throwing the baby out with the bathwater and drew a bold line between Russia's nuclear waste infrastructure and the more developed infrastructure of the West.
He noted that shutting down nuclear power plant, in the East or West was not as simple as simple a picture as he thought the environmental movement paints. He first drew the distinction dealing with civilian waste, which in the West is a far more transparent process, and dealing with military waste, which was essential a lost cause in his view insofar as the Russian government demand it remain secret.
An immediate shut down of civilian plants, he said, would lead back to standard cyanite releasing energy plants with are extremely pollutant. He likened the situation to the difference between pollution caused by a Lada-Russia's famous pollutant-belching vehicles-and a more environmentally friendly Mercedes.
"It not the Mercedes fault if the Lada causes more pollution," he said. "Western expertise [to Russian nuclear stations] can be applied, and it works."
He further applauded the efforts of existing nuclear threat reduction and environmental clean-up programmes financed by the West, but underscored that the West's nuclear industry did not bear blame for nuclear contamination in Russia.
"We want to take part in solving these problems, but not all of the responsibility," he said.
How well are current programmes doing their job? According to Nikitin, the current progress of both Russian and international programmes are scattershot in their successes.
"Some programmes are working as intended, and others are not working at all-they need coordination," he said.
Assistant to Russian State Duma Deputy Valentin Luntsevich, Sergei Filippov noted that the West has made great strides with the signing of MNEPR and the release of NDEP funding, but noted that Washington efforts, as well as those by the G-8 remain as yet unrealised.
"The United States and the G-8 have promised some good initiatives, but the initiatives remain initiatives," said Filippov, who was formerly with Bellona's Murmansk office.
Russia, he said, has embraced the MNEPR program, but is eschewing US efforts to continue US Defence Department led Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) efforts because of US liability requirements. Under current US State Department policy, US directed nuclear remediation projects must adhere to the so-called CTR Umbrella Agreement that the Duma refuses to ratifiy because it forces Russia to carry the blame for any accidents occurring during CTR related work. By contrast, MNEPR allows for arbitration in the event of accidents.
The main obstacle to US-Russia cooperation remains encumbered bureaucracies on both sides, Filippov said.
"Minatom is gone and the state of Rosatom has yet to be clarified, so decisions are handled on an executive level, which slows things down," he said.
As for other remediation plans, said Filippov, the Duma is open to proposals, but input must come from NGOs-something Luntsevich is amenable to.
Belgian MEP Staes, who has worked extensively with Russia in general and Bellona specifically noted that three years ago, Bellona and he were engaged in the same dialog-and the governments have yet to act on any NGO initiatives.
Bellona President Hauge agreed with Staes saying, "its depressing that we are still talking about these issues-we need some organisation that will support transparency."
NGO progress must happen fast Bellona's Nikitin noted that whatever reform NGOs try to effect on Russia's nuclear situation must come quickly.
"Russia is becoming more and more closed each day. They hide information and limit access to conferences for NGOs-that's how these propagandists operate," he said.
"We have to find new ways of working with the authorities, but we are not going to rely on information from Rosatom.
What's next for Bellona's new report
The EU parliament presentation of the report will serve as a trial balloon as to how well it will be received by Russian authorities, who jailed Bellona's Nikitin on treason charges for his contribution to Bellona's previous report, The Russian Northern Fleet-Sources of Potential Radioactive Contamination. Delegates from the Russian mission to the EU had no comment after the hearing.
The Russian version of the report will soon be presented in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, and both versions will eventually be available Bellona's web site. The report will also be presented to non-proliferation policy makers in Washington.
Along with Bøhmer, Kudrik and Nikitin, the reports other principal authors include Bellona's Charles Digges, former Russian nuclear regulator Vladimir Kuznetsov, and environmental journalist Vladislav Larin.
-------- terrorism
Shipping safety
By James Morrison
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Embassy Row
November 26, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy.htm
The United States made it more difficult for terrorists to sneak a nuclear bomb aboard a commercial vessel by installing special detection equipment in one of Europe's busiest seaports this week, the U.S. ambassador in Belgium said.
Ambassador Thomas Korogolos and Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders signed an agreement to protect the port of Antwerp with radiation detection devices that will allow officials to discover nuclear material hidden in shipping containers.
The agreement is part of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) "Megaports' Initiative."
"The implementation of the initiative in Belgium will not only strengthen security at one of the largest seaports in the world, but it will also help to put a stop to terrorist attempts to use the global maritime industry for malicious purposes," Mr. Korogolos said at the signing ceremony in Brussels.
NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks added, "The United States and Belgium both recognize the threat posed by the illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive materials through the global maritime shipping network."
The agency, part of the Department of Energy, installed a similar system earlier this year in the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
A plan for Afghanistan
washtimes.com
November 26, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041125-085449-4918r.htm
As difficult as it may be to believe, the $780 million the United States will spend under its recently unveiled "Plan Afghanistan" could undermine the relative stability that U.S. and NATO forces have established thus far. The plan will target Afghanistan's opium production and crop eradication and has both glaring and subtle problems.
The $780 million budgeted for 2005 will go toward countering Afghanistan's $2.8-billion opium industry, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the country's economy. Just how do policy-makers expect to counter an industry of that size and of that central importance to the economy with $780 million?
The central problem is that Afghanistan, which still is recovering from serial conflicts, does not yet have a national economy that can provide employment opportunities. The Bush administration has said that part of its budget for Plan Afghanistan will go toward aiding alternative livelihoods. That and any other aid is surely welcomed and needed. But the expectation that those funds could make a serious dent in the opium trade is not, at this point, realistic. The funds also will back an Afghan public-relations campaign aimed at discouraging participation in the illicit trade. That campaign is sure to fall on the deaf ears of poor Afghans who lack another way of eking out a livelihood.
Also, the plan will help fund Afghanistan's counter-drug policing, eradication and interdiction efforts. This will put the Afghan government on a collision course with many factions that would otherwise be willing to cooperate with federal authority. Afghanistan could have considerable difficulty in weathering the conflict that may arise as a result of aggressive counter-drug efforts.
The United States does have a strong interest in seeing Afghanistan wean itself from its dependency on the opium trade. As John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, notes in a column opposite this page: "Progress toward a safe and democratic Afghanistan has been steady and significant. That progress, however, faces a threat that requires renewed attention by the Afghan government and a helping hand from the international community. The threat is illegal drugs and a booming drug trade that transforms innocent and otherwise honest farmers into laborers trapped in the service of a criminal enterprise."
The international community doesn't want to see Afghanistan descend further into narco-lawlessness. It should therefore continue to aid Afghanistan's development and support incremental counter-drug efforts. For the time being, Afghan forces should step up policing of the country's roads and borders in a bid to interdict opium.
An excessively heavy-handed eradication effort is highly questionable given the lack of employment opportunities, however. "Plan Afghanistan" risks undercutting the hard-won achievements in that long-suffering country.
-------- africa
Ethiopia Belatedly Accepts Ruling on Eritrea Border
Associated Press
November 26, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13213-2004Nov25.html
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Nov. 25 -- Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament Thursday that Ethiopia had decided to accept "in principle" a disputed ruling on its border with Eritrea, made as part of peace deal that was reached four years ago.
Ethiopia has until now refused to respect the April 2002 ruling by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, part of the Permanent Court of Arbitration based in The Hague.
Meles told lawmakers that Ethiopia still considered the commission's finding "illegal and unjust" but had decided peace was more important. The government will start dialogue with Eritrea immediately, "with a view to implementing the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission in a manner consistent with the promotion of sustainable peace and brotherly ties between the two peoples," Meles said.
But the prime minister said Ethiopia's acceptance of the commission's decision did not mean it would cede any territory.
The 547-member parliament voted to endorse Meles's five-point plan by 428 votes to 10, with three abstentions. One hundred and six members were not present when the vote was taken.
Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a 2 1/2-year border war between May 1998 and December 2000 in which tens of thousands of people were killed. As part of a deal to end the war, Ethiopia and Eritrea agreed to form an independent boundary commission and that its decision would be final and binding.
Eritrea accepted the April 2002 decision, but Ethiopia said it disagreed with some aspects, including the awarding of the disputed town of Badme to Eritrea.
Since signing a peace deal in 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea have had little contact. In January, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed a special envoy to try to get the two countries talking.
-----
For a Small Girl in Darfur, A Year of Fear and Flight
Washington Post
By Emily Wax
November 26, 2004
NERA, Sudan -- For the past month, Halima Ali's home has been a patch of sand under the shady branches of an acacia tree. Before that, it was a twig and grass hut in a makeshift camp eight miles north. Before that, it was a bush draped with a charred blanket.
Five times in the past 14 months, this slight girl of 10 has stuffed her belongings -- frilly pink dress, teapot, straw prayer mat -- into a burlap sack and fled, along with her family, to temporary refuge. Repeatedly, they have put down roots, only to hurriedly yank them up and flee just ahead of marauding militiamen and rebels.
"She's small, she doesn't know anything yet," said Halima's mother, pausing to comfort the despondent girl as the family set up camp in this sandy field.
"I do know," Halima said quietly, and began to tell their tale.
More than any other hardship, more than hunger and sickness and violence, the 22-month conflict in Sudan's Darfur region has been a crisis of people in flight. Since the early spring of 2003, more than 1.5 million people have been driven from their farmland by conflict, forced to abandon the millet and wheat and watermelon patches tilled by their forefathers and head into the unknown.
The forced exodus is part of a wider, government-backed effort to remove Africans from their land and give nomadic Arabs, who are allied with the Arab-dominated Khartoum government, more room to graze their cattle, according to the United Nations and human rights advocates. A drought has dried the Arabs' land, and they are pushing farther south, into traditional African territory.
As the Arab Janjaweed militias ravage the region, African rebel groups have fought back in an increasingly aggressive campaign to defend their lands and challenge Arab political dominance. Darfur's villagers are caught in the crossfire.
African farmers and Arab herders have engaged in sporadic violence for years, but no one can remember a time when so many people were driven from their homes. In less than two years, the new conflict has virtually eradicated African village life in Darfur, a rugged region the size of France, and there are growing fears that it may never be restored.
Until spring 2003, Darfur was a labyrinth of straw-roofed, igloo-shaped structures known as tukuls and markets where women hunched over stools preparing tiny cups of inky coffee and selling pyramids of tomatoes and onions. Now, the terrain has become a wasteland of decapitated huts, bomb craters, vacant markets and children's charred flip-flops abandoned in the sand.
Many homeless families have taken up extended residence in dozens of camps scattered across Darfur, but others have been forced to move repeatedly.
Halima's family reached the acacia tree after a year-long odyssey of repeated escapes from mayhem. They arrived Oct. 11, fleeing with a dozen others from a refugee camp after an attack there by Janjaweed fighters left nine people dead and the health clinic looted.
Now, on a hot stretch of scrubby field, the refugees are trying to reknit the shattered rhythms of their daily life: a farmer grieving over his brother's murder, a little girl missing the taste of cow's milk, and a century-old blind man longing for the land his family had tilled for 17 generations. Sept. 9, 2003
Ta'asha to Bashom
Mohamed Adam Mohamed and his family had just finished taking their customary 10:30 a.m. breakfast of sweet tea and millet porridge with okra sauce, a dish known as asida, when they heard shots. Mohamed looked out of his hut and saw men on horses and camels stampeding through their village, Ta'asha. There were huts on fire and voices shouting, "Slaves, get off the land!"
"We had heard this was happening in other places," recalled Mohamed, his round face somber beneath a gray turban. "We grabbed some blankets, water jugs and cooking pots and ran into the bush."
By 6 p.m., 22 villages in the area were aflame. The family hid behind thorns and high grass, hunkered in the hot sand.
"We had to be silent," Mohamed recalled. "I just kept praying for the children not to cry. The most important thing was to save my family. The rest we could grow again."
When the marauders withdrew, the men ventured back. Halima, Mohamed's young cousin, tugged on his long white robe. She wanted to go, too. Her father was missing, and her mother was crying hysterically.
Mohamed gently held her back, and later he was grateful for his decision. The sight awaiting him was worse than he had imagined.
All five family huts were burned, and 30 men were dead. Among them, Mohamed found the bodies of his brother and his uncle Hamis -- Halima's father.
Hamis was 40 and the father of seven. His body was slumped under the ruins of his burned mud and straw hut. He had two bullet wounds, one in the chest and one in the head. In an abandoned hut nearby, five girls huddled motionless, smeared with dirt and blood. They had been raped by the attackers, Mohamed said.
"I was feeling so angry," he said. "I was praying to God for the first time in my life that I too could have a weapon. But I had nothing."
That day, in the smoldering village, Mohamed buried two men with whom he had grown up, shared wedding ceremonies and farmed in the thorn fields nearly every day of his adult life. There was no time to wrap the bodies in white sheets and bury them in wood coffins, as Islamic tradition requires.
Instead, the survivors gathered around two dirt mounds and recited the Islamic prayer for the dead: "God bless them. Take their souls to paradise. Keep them among good people."
With her little brother strapped to her back, Halima left Ta'asha and walked for three hours in the darkness until the family reached Bashom, a market village near the regional capital, Nyala. Sept. 29, 2003
Bashom to Ta'asha
For the next 20 days, they camped under a cluster of trees. The village elder in Bashom, a blind man named Abakar Yusuf who estimated his age at 119, instructed the villagers to collect grains and donate them to the newcomers.
"We are all from the same tribe, the Dago, and many of us are even relatives," Yusuf said in a raspy voice. He held court from his sagging bed, his frail and useless legs poking out like toothpicks from beneath his robe. Not much shocked him anymore, he said, but he never could have imagined what was taking place in Darfur.
"People forcing others off their land? This is the biggest sin in our culture," he said. "We have seen conflict, but this? Never. My family has lived on this land for 17 generations. I will never leave it."
One afternoon, some government officials arrived from Nyala. "Halas," they said. Enough. There was peace now; the refugees should return home.
Halima couldn't wait.
"I was so hungry for milk," she recalled. "I loved the cows. That's what I missed."
For the return trip, Halima took off her torn brown dress and put on her frilly pink dress, the one she had grabbed and stuffed in a sack when Ta'asha was attacked. She said she was hoping to see her friends, her teacher, her school.
A girl's life in many African villages is a variety of chores: making tea, hauling firewood, fetching water, scrubbing clothes. School is an escape, a place where games are played, songs are taught, words jump magically from the page and into thoughts.
"The first time I wrote words, I was surprised," she said.
Halima's father had been an illiterate farmer, but he wanted her to learn to read and write. She had been in school for one month when the attack came. Now she was eager to resume her studies.
But no one was there. The school had burned to the ground, the teacher had left for Nyala. There was no milk either; the 12 cattle Mohamed's family owned were gone. Halima, her mother recounted, sank down in her ruined hut and wept. April 20, 2004
Ta'asha to Kabesha
Halima was in a millet field, working beside her great-aunt, when she heard the gunfire. It was half a year later, the family's hut had been rebuilt, and everyone was busy planting new crops.
She looked up and saw smoke rising from her hut. The straw was on fire, and there was no time to salvage the plastic roof sheeting the family had been given by UNICEF. Halima's mother grabbed the pink dress, the cooking pots and two sacks of newly gathered millet.
There was no time for Halima to retrieve her writing pad and pencil, also from UNICEF. She usually carried them in a small satchel, hanging from her neck, but she had taken it off to work in the fields. She ran to the same spot where she had hidden during the first attack.
"It was strange, because that day I was very sad about my father," she said later. "Then the men on camels with guns came."
Once again, Ta'asha was burned by Janjaweed militiamen in police uniforms. This time, Halima and her relatives said, the attackers who rode in on camels were followed by commanders in Land Cruisers with the government eagle symbol on the windshield.
Once again, Halima's cousin Mohamed hid in the bush, clutching his five children.
"I saw my rebuilt home destroyed before me," Mohamed recounted. "I had never felt so angry." May 24, 2004
Kabesha to Bashom
This time, the families found shelter in Kabesha, a remote village in the Darfur hills.
They had been there for about one month when they heard on the radio that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was visiting Darfur to press for an end to the conflict. Later, they heard that Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, would also be visiting. There was news of possible U.N. sanctions that would stop the government from arming the Janjaweed.
But the news meant little to these exhausted refugees. There was little to eat and no one to help them. Mohamed, sick with malaria, was worried and depressed.
"For the first time in my life, my wife had to work on the farms of others. We didn't have any food," he recalled. During one especially bad week, he said, "we really thought we would die."
Delirious with fever at one point, he awoke and did not know where he was. He also dreamed that his brother and uncle were home in Ta'asha, warning him to run away. In his nightmare, he left them behind.
"I felt it was my fault that they were dead," he said.
One day, people in the village thought they heard fighting nearby. The shots turned out to be part of a feud between two neighbors, but the instinct to run took over. The families decided to head back to Bashom, 10 miles south.
Mohamed packed up his water jugs and teapots. Halima, who was wearing her brown dress, jammed the pink one over it.
"I was feeling tired," she recalled. "I didn't want to move again." Oct. 9, 2004
Bashom to Nera
Abakar Yusuf, blind and crippled, was sleeping off the afternoon heat on his sagging mattress. The sound of shots jerked him awake. The militiamen were back.
Soon Yusuf was being lifted up and carried by a relative to a donkey cart, screaming that he wanted to stay and die on his land.
"They are lucky I couldn't see," the old man recalled later. "I would have killed the Janjaweed with my hands."
Yusuf's nephew, Fadullah Khrief, struggling to carry him to safety, was shot twice in one leg. Halima and the other children ran to their side.
"Abakar Yusuf is a walking history book for our people," said Khrief, 55. "We weren't going to let him die, even if he wanted to."
Khrief watched from the bushes, his leg bleeding, while the family's five huts were burned to the ground.
That night they left, traveling eight miles south to Nera, where Yusuf was placed in a straw-roofed schoolhouse.
Most of the time the old man snoozed in the shade, but whenever he woke up, he began ranting again about the land, about how not even drought or locusts were worse than being away from his land.
"I have always been a farmer," he said. A single brown tooth dangled from his gums. "If you lose your land, you lose your life. I am glad I can't see this happening."
One recent afternoon, Halima and the other children came to visit. They listened quietly as Yusuf spoke about how good life was in Darfur before the war. A tray of scorching sweet tea was passed around, and a plate of gooey asida. Everyone joked about how old Yusuf was, and about how they were glad he had not died in Ta'asha.
For now, the families would stay here, camped under the acacias, ready to run again. Halima had unpacked her teapot and her pink dress. She had trudged into the bush with her mother to find water and collect wood.
On long, hot afternoons, when the chores were finished, the little girl made tea, sat under a tree and stared off into the distance.
-------- arms
Musharraf to discuss F-16s issue with Bush
The News International
By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
November 26, 2004
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2004-daily/26-11-2004/main/main4.htm
ISLAMABAD: President Gen Pervez Musharraf will take up the issue of F-16 fighter planes supply to Pakistan, when he meets US President George Bush in the first week of next month in Washington to felicitate him on his re-election.
The two presidents would discuss important regional and international issues of mutual interest, including situation in South Asia against the backdrop of Pakistan's relations with India vis-a-vis the Kashmir dispute and the war on terrorism. US economic sector assistance to Pakistan and defence needs would also figure at the talks.
Sources told The News on Thursday that the Pak-US Defence Consultative Group meeting, that was scheduled for the first week of next month, had been put off for the second time.
According to the sources, the US authorities have formally informed India that the sale of F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan was on the table. Pakistan plans to buy 28 more fighters to add another squadron of F-16 planes to its existing fleet and make up for the lost and damaged aircraft. The proposed deal would involve $1.2 billion in cash payment.
This purchase would, however, cater to the long-standing need of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) that had been aspiring to acquire high-tech aircraft for maintaining a balance in the airs of South Asia.
However, the F-16s are unlikely to remain the main stay of the PAF for a longer period of time since it is eying the medium-tech JF-17 Thunder planes being developed in collaboration with China.
At a later point of time the most sophisticated Chinese-made plane, F-10, will constitute the choice of the PAF. The F-10's demonstration has yet to be made. Swedish Grippens, French Rafael, Mirage 2000 and Euro-fighters made by the West European engineers, collectively, have also been listed as the probable future choice of PAF, the sources said.
The sources hinted that Pakistan and the United States would finalise a deal for the purchase/sale of F-16s in the first quarter of next year. Pakistan is interested in the supply of the aircraft on priority basis in case an agreement is signed. The F-16s being acquired now would be of an improved version of the existing fleet of similar planes acquired in the 80's, the sources said.
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri has confirmed that President Musharraf will discuss Pakistan's defence needs when he will be meeting his US counterpart early next month in Washington. He declined to identify the system and the type of weapons Pakistan would be seeking.
The sources claimed that November 15's notification of the US department of defence to the Congress for its intention to offer Pakistan a package of defence deal has paved the way for further sale of defence hardware to Pakistan. The deal would now require authentication of the president.
-------- asia
Thai premier warns of ASEAN walkout
The News International
November 26, 2004
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2004-daily/26-11-2004/world/w2.htm
BANGKOK: Thailand's prime minister said Thursday he would walk out of this month's Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit if leaders raise the violent deaths of 87 Muslim protesters in the kingdom's insurgency-hit south.
"If the topic is raised, I will fly back home," Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters before the November 29-30 meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Laos.
"To interfere in internal affairs at a multilateral meeting is not the right thing to do and the chairman should not let it happen."
Thailand's government said it explained the deaths of the protesters on October 25 to embassies to try to soothe international anger.
A government-appointed commission is investigating the incident.
Most of the protesters died from suffocation after being bound and piled into the back of army trucks following the break-up of a riot with teargas, gunfire and water cannon.
The incident has inflamed Muslim opinion in Thailand and elsewhere.
Former leaders of neighbouring mainly Muslim Malaysia, a fellow member of Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have strongly criticised Thaksin's hardline approach in the region.
-------- business
Private buyers snap up second-hand Swiss jet fighters
(AFP)
Nov 26, 2004
BUOCHS, Switzerland Private buyers on Friday snapped up 13 old Mirage supersonic military jets -- minus their weapons or engines - which were auctioned off by the Swiss army for 521,000 Swiss francs (345,000 euros, 457,000 dollars).
About 180 Swiss and foreign bidders, mainly collectors or flying enthusiasts, attended the sale of the aircraft at the Buochs military airbase in central Switzerland, the Swiss army said.
Three of the delta-wing French-made planes dating back to 1965 were sold to foreign buyers.
Prices ranged from 23,000 to 60,000 Swiss francs for a Mirage III RS reconnaisance aircraft painted deep black.
The Swiss army bought 61 Mirages until 1983 and some of the planes -- which have since made way for sophisticated US-made F15 jet aircraft -- were in operation until 2003.
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Audit: Halliburton Lost Track of Property
November 26, 2004
Business News
http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=1&aid=D86JODQ00_story
WASHINGTON - A third or more of the government property Halliburton Co. was paid to manage for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq could not be located by auditors, investigative reports to Congress show.
Halliburton's KBR subsidiary "did not effectively manage government property" and auditors could not locate hundreds of CPA items worth millions of dollars in Iraq and Kuwait this summer and fall, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen reported to Congress in two reports.
Bowen's findings mark the latest bad news for Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, which is the focus of both a criminal investigation into alleged fuel price gouging and an FBI inquiry into possible favoritism from the Bush administration.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that FBI agents have extensively interviewed an Army contracting officer who last month went public with allegations that the Bush administration was improperly awarding contracts to Halliburton without competitive bidding.
Halliburton and the Pentagon deny wrongdoing, and say they are cooperating in all investigations.
Company spokeswoman Cathy Gist said Friday that KBR recently conducted a "wall-to-wall" review of all property it is managing for the Pentagon in war zones including Iraq and Afghanistan and produced results far better than Bowen's findings.
"We are pleased to report that this total inventory review confirmed 99.4 percent accountability of all property," she said. "The facts show that KBR has adequately managed property for this mission by aggressively monitoring its property management functions - above and beyond what is required."
The U.S-backed CPA officially dissolved after a year in power in Baghdad when an interim Iraqi government took control of the country this summer. But Bowen's office continues to review how money was spent and it gave a tough assessment of KBR's performance.
KBR won a key logistics contract to manage everything from trucks and generators to computers.
Bowen reported that an audit earlier this summer found KBR had lost track of more than $18 million worth of equipment in Iraq. Investigators could not track down 52 of 164 randomly selected items in an inventory of more than 20,000 items overseen by KBR, including two electric generators worth nearly $1 million, 18 trucks or SUVs and six laptop computers.
Pentagon and Halliburton officials have been searching since the summer for the missing items and have tracked down many of them. Some were found in the hands of "unauthorized users" and 111 vehicles had not been returned for required check-in, they said.
Bowen's auditors found the problems extended beyond Iraq's borders. More recently, auditors sought to determine how well KBR managed the inventory and supplies of the CPA offices and warehouses in neighboring Kuwait, initially sampling 90 items from an inventory of more than 3,000.
The auditors found 30 of the 90 items could not be accounted for, and then reviewed additional documents and projected a total of 1,297 of the 3,302 property items, or 42.8 percent, could not be accounted for or were missing.
The inspector general said 108 additional items were on hand but not properly recorded in inventory. The audit projected more than 400 required hand receipts for property were not available or weren't filled out.
"This occurred because KBR did not effectively manage government property: specifically, KBR did not properly control CPA property items. Further, the KBR property records were not sufficiently accurate or available to properly account for CPA property items," Bowen reported to Congress.
"As a result, the CPA-IG projected that property valued at more than $1.1 million was not accurately accounted for or was missing," it added.
Bowen's report said the Pentagon agency that managed KBR in Iraq did not agree with all of the findings, and the agency declined to force KBR to change its inventory tracking system.
The Pentagon "stated that the contractor has put an accurate property control system in place that is effective, and an analysis of the system does not need to be performed at this time," Bowen's report said.
Bowen told lawmakers the Pentagon didn't provide any information to back its conclusions. However, he said the government did agree to "conduct a thorough review of CPA property and seek to recover the cost of missing equipment from the responsible party."
Halliburton shares closed up 5 cents to $40.84 in a holiday-shortened session Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.
On the Net:
Latest inspector general report: http://www.cpa-ig.com/pdf/cpaig_october_30_report.pdf.
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Oil giant in Russia is closer to collapse
November 26, 2004
The New York Times
By Erin E. Arvedlund
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/25/business/yukos.html
MOSCOW Yukos has moved closer to collapse after six of the Russian oil company's top executives, including the American chief executive and the chief financial officer, fled the country, citing fear of persecution from the Kremlin.
Prosecutors are shifting their attention to senior Yukos executives, a development that could pave the way for the government to become the new owner of the company, industry analysts said. With the top managers leaving Moscow, "this could give the state legal grounds to install outside management," said James Fenkner, head of research at Troika Dialog, a Moscow brokerage.
Steven Dashevsky, an oil analyst at Aton Capital, said: "This leaves Yukos even more paralyzed than before, as management was already struggling to run the company on a day-to-day basis amid a cash flow squeeze."
All six members of the giant oil company's management committee have now left the country. The chief executive, Stephen Theede, is a U.S. citizen. A Yukos spokesman said Thursday that Theede would continue traveling in Europe and to the United States in the coming days.
Bruce Misamore, who is also an American and who has been Yukos's chief financial officer since 2001, said he did not plan to return to Russia until he was certain that his safety and his family's were not in jeopardy. Misamore was asked this week to appear for questioning by the general prosecutor's office in Russia, but he was in London for a previously scheduled Yukos management meeting. He decided not to return, he said.
No formal charges have been filed against any American or other expatriate employee of Yukos.
So far, oil production at Yukos has been maintained, despite the company's problems. Yukos produces 1.7 million barrels per day, or about 2 percent of the world's oil supply.
The company has been involved in a wrenching battle since the arrest in October 2003 of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, its founder. Khodorkovsky remains in prison, on trial for separate criminal charges in what is widely viewed as a Kremlin-sponsored political attack.
The hunt for Yukos senior management heated up last week when police in Moscow raided the offices of Theede; arrested the Yukos-Moskva vice president, Alexei Kurtsin; and placed Yukos's chief lawyer, Dmitry Gololobov, on an international wanted list while he was on a business trip.
"I'm perfectly happy to answer questions from prosecutors as long as I'm not exposed to criminal charges or arrest," Misamore said Thursday in a telephone interview from London. "If I can be assured of that, I can return. Or they can visit me somewhere else in the world. We're still trying to figure out what is the situation."
Misamore said he did not know specifically what topics the prosecutors wanted to discuss. "I have no reason not to answer all their questions. I haven't done anything improper."
A U.S. Embassy representative in Moscow was informed of Misamore's situation but was not aware that any American employees at Yukos had been threatened or charged. "The way in which the Yukos case is handled represents an important test for Russia's respect for rule of law, property rights, transparency and a fair and open climate for investors," the representative said.
Misamore declined to say whether his family was still in Moscow: "I don't want that to be made public. I don't want to put anybody in jeopardy. We're dealing with a rogue prosecutor."
Yukos's top Russian operations managers - Aleksander Temerko, Mikhail Trushin and Yuri Beilin, head of exploration and production - have also left Russia. Pyotr Zoloterev, a refining and marketing executive, has left the company for medical treatment, a Yukos spokesman said on Thursday.
In January, the Russian government issued arrest warrants for several large shareholders, including Khodorkovsky's long-time business partner, Leonid Nevzlin, who lives in Israel.
"The crackdown on senior managers adds insult to injury in what has become a no-win situation for Yukos and its core shareholders," Dashevsky said. Yukos's share price crashed 30 percent Thursday, falling below $1 before recovering to close with a 17 percent loss at $1.12.
The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified source Thursday as saying that the Yukos board had struck a management crisis plan from the agenda for a shareholders' meeting Dec. 20, leaving bankruptcy and liquidation as the only options, Reuters reported.
Last week, another tax claim left the oil company staggering under a tax debt of about $24 billion for the years 2000 through 2003. To cover the bill, the Russian government set Dec. 19 as the auction date for the sale of Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos' largest production unit. But the Russian Federal Property Fund set a starting price of $8.6 billion, widely considered to be an absurdly large discount to its market value, possibly in the hopes of tipping the auction in favor of a state-friendly bidder such as Gazprom.
Still, foreign bidders have expressed interest in Yukos assets. Oil & Natural Gas Corp., one of India's biggest energy concerns, said it would bid for Yuganskneftegaz, its chairman, Subir Raha, told news agencies in New Delhi on Thursday. "If they sell the assets separately, then we will look," Raha said. "Otherwise, buying the company as a whole poses financial and managerial risks."
Ron Smith, oil analyst at Renaissance Capital, said other Russian companies like Lukoil may bid for the remaining assets, such as Tomskneft. "It would help Lukoil get to the 30 million tons of oil annually they would like to deliver to China," Smith said.
Lukoil, the country's No. 2 oil company, has picked up rail shipments of crude to China after Yukos was forced to stop deliveries as it ran short of cash.
-------- china
For Tibetans, railroad brings doom
November 26, 2004
By Erling Hoh
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041125-102310-6006r.htm
Second of two parts
AMDO, Tibet - This small town is in dire need of modernization. Like many others in Tibet after more than 50 years of Chinese rule, it still lacks paved roads, piped water and proper sanitation.
According to a report on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway by the International Campaign for Tibet - a Washington-based nonprofit organization that is critical of China's rule in Tibet and seeks human rights and self-determination for Tibetans - the budgeted cost of the railroad is more than three times the amount the Chinese government has spent on health care and education in Tibet during the past 50 years.
The neglect of Tibet hampered that region's social development. As recently as 1999, it had an illiteracy rate of 67 percent, compared with 11 percent illiteracy for China as a whole.
Critics also fear the railroad will accelerate the migration to Tibet of jobless Han Chinese from overpopulated urban centers. In Lhasa, which has about 200,000 residents, Han Chinese are already on the verge of becoming a majority.
This is a pattern seen elsewhere in China in the past century.
Between 1912 and 1949, the Han Chinese population of Inner Mongolia increased fivefold. Millions arrived after the railroad from Zhangjiakou to Hohhot was completed in the 1920s, and by 1949, the Han Chinese outnumbered the Mongolians by a ratio of 11-to-1.
The same process took place in Manchuria with the help of railroads built by the Japanese, who seized that region in 1931 after gaining Taiwan in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese war.
Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, is already a predominantly Han Chinese city. In Kashgar, the Han Chinese population increased by 30 percent in 2001, the year after the railroad there was completed.
"In public, Tibetans will not voice any criticism. But in private, they will tell you that this is the end of Tibet," said Dr. Robert Barnett, lecturer in Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia University in New York.
Other analysts point to the military implications of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, saying it could be used to deploy tactical nuclear weapons.
In 2001, Jane's Intelligence Digest reported that the Chinese People's Liberation Army "considers it necessary to build up a network of roads and mule tracks to bring military hardware and troops to the forward areas of the disputed border" with India, with which China fought a brief 1962 war in the Himalayas.
Writes defense analyst William Triplett: "With even a single line, the PLA could move about 12 infantry divisions to central Tibet in 30 days to meet up with their pre-positioned equipment."
The railroad also will be used to accelerate mining activities in Tibet.
In the past few years, 13 copper belts, with an estimated reserve of more than 1 million tons, and two cobalt deposits with a combined reserve of 20,000 tons have been discovered in the vicinity of the railway line.
Bringing development - along with its many beneficial and adverse consequences - the Qinghai-Tibet railroad to the "top of the world" looks set for completion on or before the 2007 schedule.
In Zaziqu village in the Qugaxiong valley about 60 miles north of Lhasa, 18 families earn their livelihoods by herding about 1,000 yaks and 1,500 sheep. The railroad will run through their valley, and the herders will have to bring the animals to summer pastures in the mountains through a small tunnel under the tracks.
"We don't know whether or not the animals will refuse to pass through the tunnel," said the village head. "We are not opposed to this project, but it is creating big losses for us."
"The radio said that we would be able to make $30 a day working on the railroad," said a housewife in the village.
"We were very happy, and thought that we could make some money. But only five or six people got work, and they were paid only $9 to $12 per day. It's unfair, but we don't know where to complain," the woman said.
-------- colombia
Oil makes U.S. raise military stakes in Colombia
Newsday
BY BILL WEINBERG
November 26, 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpwei264054251nov26,0,902742,print.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines
President George W. Bush's quick stop in Colombia on his return from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Chile on Monday brought this forgotten front in Washington's war on terrorism briefly into the headlines. Bush promised Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe - his closest South American ally - to boost aid for his military campaign against leftist guerillas.
Just two weeks earlier, 100 unarmed peasants were killed in a massacre reportedly by rightist paramilitary troops in Colombia's southern jungle province of Putumayo. Unlike the Bush visit, this failed to make headlines here.
Colombia has received $3.3 billion in U.S. aid since 2000 - making it the top recipient after the Middle East. In October, Congress approved doubling the Pentagon's troop presence in Colombia to 800 - although they are officially barred from combat.
The Iraq war may have knocked Colombia off the front page, but Mideast chaos has made South America's energy resources more strategic to the United States. Colombia itself is among the top 15 global suppliers to the United States, and Uribe hopes to privatize the country's oil industry as part of his push to join President Bush's Free Trade Area of the Americas. Venezuela, bordering Colombia, is the fourth-largest U.S. supplier after Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Canada. Venezuela's populist leader Hugo Chavez is himself a White House target for Western hemisphere "regime change" - as seen by the current push for sanctions.
Meanwhile, the oil industry has charted a new thrust into the Amazon regions of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia - countries all now receiving U.S. military aid under the Andean Regional Initiative, the Bush administration's expansion of President Bill Clinton's "Plan Colombia."
The White House has now dropped the fiction that Plan Colombia is an anti-drug operation. A post-9/11 $28.9 billion supplemental anti-terrorism package allowed U.S. military aid to be targeted against groups on the State Department's terrorist list - including both Colombia's two leftist rebel groups, as well as the rightist paramilitary network known as the United Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC), which is responsible for the vast majority of massacres and atrocities, according to groups like Amnesty International.
The problem, say human rights organizations, is that Uribe is not fighting the AUC - his government is negotiating with them, while refusing to talk with the guerillas. Rights advocates cite reports of collaboration between the AUC and Colombia's military, although they have been officially denied. Targets of AUC's terror have included not only guerillas, but union oil workers opposing Uribe's privatization plan, Indians demanding their constitutional right to local autonomy and non-involvement in the war, and - as in the recent Putumayo massacre - peasants simply trying to survive.
One beneficiary of the increasing troop presence in Colombia is Occidental Petroleum, known colloquially as "Oxy." The United States is training and equipping a Colombian army brigade to protect Oxy's 480-mile pipeline linking the oil fields of Arauca province with the Caribbean. Arauca, the heart of Oxy's operations, hosts the greatest concentration of U.S. military advisers and has Colombia's worst human rights situation.
Oxy is also building a new pipeline over the Andes to get oil from Ecuador's Amazon to Pacific ports, while in Peru, Hunt Oil and Halliburton have launched a massive natural gas project in the Amazon, with a new pipeline to the Pacific. And in Bolivia, a consortium including Shell hopes to build a pipeline linking natural gas fields to a terminal on the Chilean coast. In each case, the protests by peasants and Indians charging illegal land grabs and pollution have been violently broken by security forces. Last November, Bolivia's government was brought down following weeks of protests over the gas pipeline plan.
With leftist governments in power in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, securing the oil and gas resources of the region is more critical than ever for Washington. But the United States may be on a proverbial slippery slope to a second counter-insurgency quagmire - this one in our own hemisphere.
-------- europe
Analysis: EU eyes Bosnia peace role
(UPI)
By Gareth Harding
Nov. 26, 2004
Brussels, Belgium, -- In 1991, as the Yugoslav republic was splitting apart at the seams, Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jacques Poos confidently declared that the hour of Europe had come. "If one problem can be solved by the Europeans, it is the Yugoslav problem. It is not up to the Americans or anyone else."
What followed was almost a decade of carnage on the EU's doorstep that left hundreds of thousands of people killed, millions homeless and Europe's big power pretensions in tatters. As so often in the past, it was American war-war, not European jaw-jaw, that helped bring an end to the continent's bloodiest conflict since World War II.
A whole generation of EU policy makers has been haunted by the bloc's failure to stop the killing in the Balkans. Ask European Commission officials why former Yugoslav states like Croatia and Bosnia have been offered EU membership while other European countries like the Ukraine and Moldova have not, and they reply: "Guilt."
Since the end of the Balkan wars in 1999, the EU's nascent foreign and security policy has been based on the rallying cry of "No More Srebrenicas" -- a reference to the slaughter of more than 7,000 Muslims by Serb forces under the watchful eye of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers in 1995. The bloc's first military mission was in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and its first policing role was in Bosnia-Herzegovina last year. The EU has also set itself the target of having a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force up and running by the end of the decade -- the same number of troops deployed by NATO after the Dayton peace accord ended the Bosnian conflict nine years ago.
On Thursday, the EU will get a chance to make up for its helplessness in the 1990s when it takes over the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Alliance forces have been scaled down from 60,000 to 7,000 troops since fighting ended, but this still makes it the EU's biggest-ever military mission.
The stakes are high for both Bosnia and the EU. "This is a far more dangerous mission than the EU thinks it is," says Tomas Valasek, director of the Brussels office of the Center for Defense Information. "Everyone thought Kosovo was peaceful until all hell broke loose there last year. So my message to EU troops is: Don't let the present peace lull you to sleep."
In March last year, 19 people were killed in clashes between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in the worst eruption of violence since 1999. Valasek wonders whether the EU, which is a political and economic power but has little experience as a military actor, will be up to the task. "Bosnians understand NATO's awesome military power. They are indebted to America and owe their very existence to NATO's intervention. The EU, on the other hand, will be viewed as potentially weaker. It is best known as a dispenser of aid -- its ability to deter potential fighting is unknown."
United States officials have voiced similar concerns about the EU's ability to keep the peace if violence erupts. "The Bosnians ask: 'Are you leaving?' In the past they have had some very bad experiences when the situation gets out of hand," said one senior U.S. diplomat.
NATO officials are keen to play down the changes the handover of command will make. "We are leaving with 7,000 troops on the ground, and the EU is starting with 7,000 troops on the ground, so there's not going to be much difference," said one. The Brussels-based military alliance will also maintain a small backup force in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and spearhead moves to capture suspected war criminals.
High Representative Paddy Ashdown, the international community's top official in Bosnia and Herzegovina, told United Press International that with more than 80 percent of NATO forces coming from European states, the change of command would make little tangible difference. "There will be a change of cap badge and a change of flag, but there will be no change of policy."
Asked if the EU is up to the job of keeping the peace between Muslims, Croats and Serbs, and the former Royal Marine and leader of Britain's Liberal Party replies: "Not only am I completely confident the EU will do as good a job as NATO, I think it will develop a force more attuned to the current circumstances."
So far, the EU's peacekeeping record has been impressive. It has undertaken a successful monitoring mission in Macedonia, helped police Bosnia and stepped in to prevent bloodletting between tribes in eastern Congo. But taking over NATO's operation in Bosnia will be a real litmus test for the EU's fledgling defense policy. If the Union's 7,000 troops succeed in keeping the peace, tackling organized crime and helping the war-torn country stand on its own two feet, the hour of Europe may finally have arrived almost 15 years after Poos predicted. But if it fails, the 25-member bloc is likely to remain a political and economic giant but a military dwarf for many years to come.
-------- iraq
Huge caches of arms discovered in Falluja
The New York Times
By Robert F. Worth
November 26, 2004
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/25/news/weapons.html
FALLUJA, Iraq U.S. marines and Iraqi soldiers discovered the empty home of Abdullah Janabi, an insurgent leader in Falluja, and his bomb-laden mosque, packed with a supply of weapons that dwarfed any caches found before, military officials said.
American and Iraqi officials say they believe Janabi has not been in the city for some time, though he said in an interview last week with The Washington Post that he was still there.
As search teams continue combing through Falluja, they have discovered unexpectedly large stashes of weapons - so large, officials say, that the need to detonate them safely could slow reconstruction. Explosions are heard throughout the day as munitions teams destroy the weapons just outside the city, but some must be dismantled or blown up in place.
"We knew there would be ordnance," said Major General Richard Natonski, the U.S. Marine commander who planned the strike on Falluja. "But what we found exceeded our wildest expectations."
U.S. troops also continue to fight small groups of die-hard insurgents, even as they begin clearing rubble and assessing the damage. Residents who fled to surrounding villages have said that mujahedeen roam the streets at night, after the U.S. and Iraqi forces withdraw to their checkpoints and bases.
The rebels elude pursuit by scampering across the close-packed rooftops of houses that remain standing, the refugees say. U.S. search teams still routinely smash in doors, blow up rooftop water tanks and destroy all the food they find on market shelves to make it more difficult for the mujahedeen.
Janabi, a 53-year-old cleric, cemented his position as leader of Falluja's resistance after the aborted U.S. Marine invasion last April, when the city solidified into a rebel bastion.
An adherent of the Salafiya sect of Sunni Islam, a fundamentalist branch followed by Osama bin Laden and the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Janabi set up a strict Taliban-like regime in Falluja. He named himself head of the mujahedeen council and provided haven for foreigners like Zarqawi and anyone else willing to take up arms against the Americans. He worked closely with a Falluja native believed to be Zarqawi's second in command, Omar Hadid.
In the weeks before the offensive, Iraqi officials met with other leaders of Falluja to seek a peace agreement, but they said they did not expect Janabi or the foreign fighters to obey those leaders, even if an agreement were reached.
Natonski toured the Janabi home and mosque several hours after they were found Wednesday by troops from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.
The mosque complex, in a residential area just north of Highway 10, the east-west artery, encompassed a dozen brick buildings packed with bombs, guns, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition. In the street outside, a ship mine sat in a puddle.
Just inside the mosque compound was an aluminum shed full of mortars and TNT, the general said. Like many weapons depots in Falluja, it had been wired to explode, and had to be dismantled by a U.S. explosives team.
The general marveled at a white pilot's helmet among the mortars.
"Did you find any Darth Vader helmets?" he asked a Marine captain.
In a caretaker's hut were boxes of mortars and bullets, Natonski said. On the mosque's top floor were nine artillery shells. In the back of the compound was an ice cream truck, decorated with orange, red and blue Popsicles and packed with rocket propelled grenades and bomb-making materials.
"This was probably a traveling IED factory," Natonski said, referring to improvised explosive devices.
Janabi's house, a few blocks away, held no weapons. A metal gate gave way to a tiled courtyard. A marble hallway led to a living room with modest brown couches. On a table were stacks of documents, including passports and other identification papers for Janabi and members of his family. (The only country Janabi had visited recently was Syria, a translator who read his passport said.)
There were letters; one dated Oct. 20 from Baghdad's clerical council asked him to negotiate the surrender of Falluja. Military officials said they also discovered files in the house showing the names of people who had been tortured and executed for cooperating with the Americans and their allies.
In addition, there were more than 500 letters from the families of insurgents who had been killed or wounded, asking for compensation from Janabi, said a military translator on the scene. They included the families of fighters from Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Syria and Algeria, and of about 100 fighters from Falluja.
Edward Wong, in Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times, in Falluja, contributed reporting for this article.
-----
What the Battle of Fallujah Was Really Like
In one of the most powerful reports of the entire war, Knight Ridder embed Tom Lasseter captures death, destruction and mixed emotions, in the form of a daily journal.
By Greg Mitchell
(November 26, 2004)
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000727206
While much of the press seems to have moved on from Fallujah, as U.S. forces attack on other fronts, Knight Ridder has returned to the fray, and the ruins of the city, with a lengthy, highly revealing diary-type report from correspondent Tom Lasseter.
Embedded with the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2, Lasseter had written daily dispatches for KR during the bloody assault on the city, but in the latest report he gets a chance to stretch out and offer one of the most compelling hour-by-hour accounts of the entire war.
Many newspapers have printed excerpts from the journal. But it is also available in full at several Web sites (see link below).
The journal opens on November 8 on the eve of battle and carries through to November 14 when the main strike is nearly over. "This is as pure a fight of good versus evil as we will probably face in our lifetime," a battalion commander says at the outset, but Lasseter's story is much more nuanced than that.
Its central figure is Capt. Sean Sims, 32, commander of Alpha Company. "Sims' men would win the battle," Lasseter writes near the start, "yet no one would feel like celebrating. Killing the enemy, they learned, was sobering. More so was the loss of friends."
Sims, himself, "would not come back."
Lasseter's account is shattering after reading so many bland overviews and body counts. Reading such stories (if you can still find them) you'd think wrecking a large city to save it, and rendering tens of thousands homeless, is not such a big deal. Why dwell on it, even if, like Hue, the city's name, and what happened there, will likely resonate for decades?
But here, thanks to Lasseter, we see a city destroyed block by block. We watch guts and body parts flying and encounter dead Iraqis who have been gnawed on by stray cats. We meet individual soldiers and hear their words (and sometimes read their thoughts). They are portrayed with much empathy but also caught in revealing conversations.
"You know we're going to destroy this town," says one 22-year-old.
"I hope so," replies a colleague.
Elsewhere, soldiers admit to going "ape shit with the cannon shooting everything" or just "spraying and praying." Others perform bravely, even heroically.
A quiet 20-year-old from New Mexico says: "I'm tired and I don't want to be here. I don't want to take all of this back with me, but I probably will."
Another says, "You think that killing people for your country is cool, but when you do, it just numbs you." Another says: "I remember every face I see out there, every moment out there. I can't forget it. I can't make it go away."
But the story keeps coming back to Capt. Sims, who hails from Eddy, Texas. He loses a good friend, the company's executive officer. Then on Nov. 13 he leads his troops into a house where a group of rebels is waiting. Coming through the door, Sims gets hit along with two others, and soon he is "lying on the kitchen floor, his blood pouring across the dirty tile."
In one of the best reports yet written on a single moment in the war, Lasseter continues:
"A group of soldiers ran out the door, looking for revenge. Others gathered blankets.
"They couldn't lift Sims' body, so they called in Howard, who lugged the squad's heavy machine gun but whose broad shoulders were sagging from the news.
"Once Sims was laid on the floor of a Bradley outside, six soldiers and a reporter climbed in, slowly at first, trying not to step on the body. Someone outside yelled at them to cram in, and if they had to step on Sims' body, do it, god damn it, do it.
"Gunfire was pounding back and forth.
"The hatch closed. The soldiers stared at each other. The soldiers stared at the ceiling. The soldiers stared at the hatch. The soldiers stared at anything but the mound on the floor.
"Wright was sobbing and shaking. Howard had tears streaming down his cheeks.
"The Bradley dropped them off at another house, where the platoon leaders from Alpha Company had gathered in a courtyard. Their commanding officer and their executive officer were dead.
"An air strike with a 2,000-pound bomb was ordered. Men huddled around each other, hugging those who couldn't stop crying. They passed out a handful of cigarettes.
"Smoke covered the horizon, and with a boom, a mosque's minaret disappeared. Buildings burned.
"Spc. James Barney, who drove the Bradley that carried Sims' body, stood by the vehicle outside, talking to himself. 'We need to just finish it, level the whole damn city,' he said. "I'm tired of this place, I'm tired of this shit.'"
A few days later, the death of their captain, and the killing they'd seen and done, weighs heavily on the men. The journal closes with a soldier named Laird telling his comrades that he'd just been thinking about his son, and "I don't want my boy to know his daddy's a killer."
With that he picks up his gun and walks out the door.
To read the entire journal: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/world/10266067.htm
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is the editor of E&P.
----
'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah
Nov 26, 2004
(IPS)
Dahr Jamail,
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=26440
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report.
"Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah," 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. "They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground."
Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.
"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. "Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them."
He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. "People suffered so much from these," he said.
Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.
"Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans," said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. "Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die."
Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city.
"I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," he said. "This happened so many times."
Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said soldiers had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. "I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers," he said. "The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah."
Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. "The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore," he said. "Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot.."
Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S. soldiers. "Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed."
Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as they held up makeshift white flags. "They shot women and old men in the streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone now."
Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. "It's a disaster living here at this camp," Khalil said. "We are living like dogs and the kids do not have enough clothes."
Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told IPS that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and that the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before any refugees would be allowed back into the city.
"There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah," said Salim. "And the Americans won't let us in so we can help people."
In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are living without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there are at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside Fallujah.
-----
CentCom points
November 26, 2004
Washington Times
Inside The Ring
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
U.S. Central Command is busy portraying the battle of Fallujah, Iraq, as the greatest military victory since the fall of Baghdad and a turning point in its counterinsurgency.
Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the top Marine in Iraq who planned much of the north-to-south attack, proclaimed the victory had "broken the back" of the nationwide insurgency.
At U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., planners drew up "talking points" for anyone in government who wants to sell the Fallujah victory.
Among the points:
•Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have killed scores of allied Iraqis and Americans, "were emplaced all over the city and were found in furniture, toys, doorways and rooms throughout the buildings that the Marines have attempted to clear."
•"Every mosque [of 77 in Fallujah] encountered and engaged by Iraqi and coalition forces was used as a weapons storage facility or fortress to attack from."
•Weapons and explosives were also found in bunkers, railroad cars, basements and automobiles.
•In one sector alone, a Marine unit found 91 caches and 432 IEDs. As a comparison, in October in all of Iraq, the coalition found 130 arms caches and 348 IEDs.
-------- space
First Ever Space Council Paves Way For European Space Program
(ESA)
Nov 26, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/esa-general-04za.html
Brussels, Belgium The first ever European 'Space Council' was held in Brussels Thursday. This is a major political milestone for Europe in Space, offering ministers representing the 27 European Union and/or European Space Agency Member States the first opportunity to jointly discuss the development of a coherent overall European space programme.
In the footprint of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, signed by the Heads of State or Government of the European Union on 29 October and defining for the first time "space" as a shared competence of the Union, the Space Council acknowledges the importance of space activities for a wide range of European policies.
In today's meeting ministers recognised that it is essential to utilise the available resources in an efficient and effective way so that the supply of space-based services and infrastructures can meet the demand from users, such as the European Union's policies, Member States' policies and for the benefit of all European citizens.
The ministers also agreed that the unique nature of the space sector requires the development of an appropriate industrial policy and public authorities close attention.
German Minister for Education and Research Edelgard Bulmahn, current chair of the ESA council at ministerial level, said:
"This meeting was a great step forward for Europe's ambitions in space. Europe must federate its space efforts in order to better exploit the potential of space technologies for the well-being of its citizens. The European Space Programme will significantly strengthen Europe's role in this area of great economic and political importance".
Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, current chair of the EU Competitiveness Council said:
"Today was a memorable day for European cooperation in Space. With the first EU-ESA Space Council Europe made a major step in the direction of a strong and coherent European Space Programme. Space technologies and applications will help Europe to reach its common goals in the field of i.e. competitiveness, environment and security. I am confident that our joint efforts will contribute to a strong and independent position for Europe in the global arena."
Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Gunter Verheugen said:
"Today's first Space Council may not yet be a giant step for mankind. But the fact that we are drawing up a joint European Space Policy is a huge leap forward. Space is an area where the added value of a joint and coherent policy on the European level is very clear. The industrial dimension of space is key to increasing the competitiveness of European industry."
ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said: "The European Space Agency has long-standing experience of providing Europe's citizens with space-based solutions meeting their requirements. We are prepared to take up the new challenges that the future European space programme will ask us to accomplish".
The European space programme, to be defined in concept by the end of 2005, will constitute a common, inclusive and flexible platform encompassing all activities and measures to be undertaken by the EC, ESA and other stakeholders (e.g. national organisations) in order to achieve the objectives set in the overall European space policy.
To this end, a second "Space Council" meeting is planned for Spring 2005 to define general governance principles, identify priorities as well as the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders and establish industrial policy principles.
Jointly chaired by Mrs Edelgard Bulmahn, German Minister for Education and Research and current chair of the ESA Council at ministerial level, and by Mr Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs and current chair of the EU Competitiveness Council, the meeting was also attended by Mr Gunter Verheugen, European Commission Vice President, in charge of enterprise, industry competitiveness and space matters and by Mr Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General representing the European Space Agency.
-------- spies
The When and How of Leak Being Probed
Timing of Disclosure of CIA Employee's Name a Factor in Deciding if Law Was Broken
Washington Post
By Susan Schmidt
November 26, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13258-2004Nov25?language=printer
A federal prosecutor investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative has directed considerable effort at learning how widely the operative's identity was disseminated to reporters before it was published last year by columnist Robert D. Novak, according to people with knowledge of the case.
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is trying to pinpoint precisely when and from whom several journalists learned that Joseph C. Wilson IV, an outspoken critic of the administration, was sent on an Iraq-related intelligence mission after a recommendation by his wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA employee. Plame's name first appeared in a July 14, 2003, column by Novak.
The timing could be a critical element in assessing whether classified information was illegally disclosed. If White House aides directed reporters to information that had already been published by Novak, they may not have disclosed classified information.
Fitzgerald is continuing to ask questions that suggest he is still trying to assess the accuracy of some of the more serious allegations about administration leaks to reporters other than Novak, according to people involved in the case. Prosecutors have questioned numerous witnesses, some of them repeatedly, to learn whether two senior White House aides actively peddled Plame's identity to more than half a dozen reporters before Novak revealed it in print -- an allegation made by an anonymous administration official in a Sept. 28, 2003, Washington Post article.
Plame's name was leaked to reporters "purely and simply for revenge," the official alleged in the report.
"Prosecutors are interested in the sourcing of that story and whether it's accurate. If it is not accurate, they would like to know that and move along," said an attorney for a witness in the case.
This lawyer and two others involved in the case said Fitzgerald has been trying to sort out whether White House officials mounted a campaign to leak Plame's identity, or whether they were merely spinning information that Novak's column had already put into the public domain. Prosecutors are also investigating who originally gave Novak the information.
As part of his efforts, Fitzgerald has been battling reporters in court, demanding that they disclose conversations with confidential sources
The Justice Department launched a leak investigation at the CIA's request in September 2003 and, after a preliminary inquiry, turned it over to a politically independent special counsel late last year. Justice Department officials said it will be up to Fitzgerald to decide whether to issue a report on his findings if he does not seek criminal charges.
To constitute a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, a disclosure by a government official must have been deliberate, the person doing it must have known that the CIA officer was a covert agent, and he or she must have known that "the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."
In the more than 13 months since the investigation began, prosecutors and FBI agents have interviewed many members of the White House staff, some repeatedly, including some of those on the vice president's staff and in the communications office.
"They seem to continue to be focused on which White House officials talked to members of the press, and whether that was pre- or post-Novak. That's where they are struggling," the witness's lawyer said.
"I think that they are frustrated," said another person who has talked to investigators. "What activity occurred pre-Novak and what occurred post-Novak . . . is a distinction people working the story wouldn't have made at the time," this source said.
Most witnesses have declined to comment on the investigation. Some lawyers representing witnesses have been told that their discussions with investigators should be kept confidential, and as a result there has been little of the usual communication among lawyers about where prosecutors may be headed. One witness's lawyer said that in addition to the admonition from prosecutors, attorneys have avoided communicating with one another so as not to be accused of obstruction.
Among those who are known to have been interviewed by the FBI or testified before the grand jury are Bush White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, political adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis I. Libby, Republican National Committee consultant Mary Matalin, former Cheney press aide Catherine Martin, White House press secretary Scott McClellan, communications director Dan Bartlett, deputy press secretary Claire Buchan, and former assistant press secretary Adam Levine. Bush and Cheney also have been interviewed, as has Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Several reporters have given limited depositions about their conversations with Libby in the days before the Novak column was published. All did so at the urging of Libby, who has told the prosecutor he heard about Wilson's wife's employment from someone in the media, according to lawyers involved in the case. Two news organizations, Time magazine and the New York Times, have gone to the U.S. Court of Appeals to fight subpoenas for reporters' testimony.
Novak and his lawyer have refused to comment on whether he has been subpoenaed or interviewed by Fitzgerald's office. He has written that Plame's identity was revealed to him in passing by one senior administration official and confirmed by a second official. He has said the intent was not to expose an undercover CIA employee, but to explain why a critic of the Bush administration was selected to investigate possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Africa after Cheney asked for more information on the subject in 2002.
Bush mentioned reports of those attempts in his 2003 State of the Union address. Wilson thereafter contended publicly that the White House had exaggerated the intelligence on Iraq, saying he found no evidence that then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in the nation of Niger.
Novak said he was told that Wilson was recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA operative in weapons nonproliferation.
Based on what has long been known publicly, there is little doubt that some White House aides circulated the Plame story a week after Novak's column appeared, in an apparent effort to cast doubt on Wilson's credibility. Wilson has said he received calls from two NBC television reporters, on July 20 and July 21, who said White House officials were telling them that Wilson's wife's role was the real story.
In questioning reporters for The Washington Post, NBC and Time, prosecutors have shown a particular interest in the events of July 12, reporters and their attorneys have said. Word that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA had by then circulated to some media organizations, though the origin of the information is not publicly known.
While Novak's column did not run until Monday, July 14, it could have been seen by people in the White House or the media as early as Friday, July 11, when the Creators Syndicate distributed it over the Associated Press wire.
One current or former administration official has told Fitzgerald that he or she had a conversation with Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus on Saturday, July 12, Pincus has said publicly. Pincus also has said his source was not Libby. Pincus has previously said that an administration official told him that day that Wilson's trip to Niger was set up as a boondoggle by his CIA-employed wife.
Time reporter Matthew Cooper has told prosecutors that he talked to Libby on July 12 and mentioned that he had heard that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, a source knowledgeable about his testimony said. Cooper testified that Libby said he had heard the same thing from the media.
Tensions between staff members at the White House and the CIA were running high over Wilson's allegations of exaggerated intelligence, and they would only get worse after the publication of Novak's column.
Then-CIA Director George J. Tenet had issued a statement July 11, 2003, saying that Wilson's findings in Niger did not actually resolve the question of whether Hussein tried to buy uranium there. But Tenet nevertheless said the statement on Africa should not have been included in Bush's State of Union address, and he took responsibility for his agency's vetting of the speech. White House communications director Bartlett agreed, telling reporters that "there was no debate or questions with regard to that line when it was signed off on."
But an agency bureaucrat stirred a new round of confusion and White House anger the following week.
On July 16, two days after Novak's column appeared, Alan Foley, then-director of the CIA's intelligence, nonproliferation and arms control center, told Senate intelligence committee members that he had insisted the White House remove a reference to Niger and uranium from the State of the Union address. The White House maintained there was never any specific reference to Niger in drafts of the speech, nor, it said, had the CIA expressed any objection to referring to reports Iraq had attempted to buy uranium in Africa.
Foley later told the committee staff he may have been confused, according to a Senate committee report on Iraq intelligence released this year. The Senate report determined that Foley's original testimony had been incorrect and that the CIA had not raised concerns about the Iraq-Niger reporting in the speech.
It was in the ensuing days that television reporters Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell would tell Wilson they had heard from administration aides that the real story was not what Wilson found in Niger but his wife's role in selecting him for the trip.
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Offensive counterintelligence
November 26, 2004
Washington Times
Inside The Ring
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
The United States is set to revamp its counterintelligence operations by taking a more aggressive posture against foreign spies.
Michelle Van Cleave, who holds the position of national counterintelligence executive, an interagency director, said in a speech last week that counterintelligence (CI) is more than neutralizing spies.
"CI embraces all activities, human and technical, whether at home or abroad, that are undertaken to identify, assess, neutralize and exploit foreign intelligence threats," she said. Counterintelligence in the United States has been fragmented in the past as a result of "having no one in charge of the enterprise," she said.
"Hostile intelligence services don't target an FBI field office, or a CIA station, or a military unit. They target the United States. For our nation's security, we need to approach CI strategically," Miss Van Cleave said at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.
President Bush is reviewing a new national counterintelligence strategy designed to consolidate and better integrate U.S. counterintelligence programs for more offensive operations, she said.
"In my view, the imperative for U.S. CI parallels the strategic imperative for the global war on terrorism: to go on the offense," Miss Van Cleave said. "In support of the nation's security, U.S. counterintelligence needs to shift emphasis from a posture of reacting to a proactive strategy of seizing advantage."
Offensive counterintelligence will entail strategic assessment of the problem and "engagement of adversary presence, capabilities and intentions," she said.
It will involve a doctrine of "attacking foreign intelligence services systematically" through strategic counterintelligence operations, she said.
"Offensive CI, put into a larger context, can be used to defuse or shape an emerging threat, influence key decisions, mask vulnerabilities, advance diplomatic objectives or confer advantage at the negotiating table or on the battlefield," Miss Van Cleave said. "In wartime, we must be able to defeat the adversary's intelligence capabilities, including their ability to deceive or mislead us."
Iraq was a reminder that neutralizing intelligence services of an adversary is crucial to winning the war and that it is better to plan well in advance than on a crash basis, she said.
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Anybody can be persuaded to be a torturer, says Abu Ghraib study
The Times
By Mark Henderson
November 26, 2004
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1374895,00.html
VIRTUALLY everybody is capable of the abuse committed by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, psychologists said yesterday.
The degrading treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war was not the result of particular cruelty or evil on the part of the abusers, but was more heavily influenced by social processes to which all of us are susceptible.
An expert analysis of the scandal, in which naked prisoners were beaten, forced to simulate sex and in one case paraded on a dog's leash, has indicated that the perpetrators of such crimes are rarely psychopathic or even particularly sadistic.
Evidence from more than 25,000 studies involving eight million participants shows that almost anybody is capable of performing acts of apparently inexplicable cruelty when the conditions are right.
Most people can be persuaded to take part in activities they would normally find morally repugnant by a combination of peer pressure, the influence of authority figures, stress and the portrayal of the enemy as a dehumanised "outgroup".
"Abu Ghraib resulted in part from ordinary social processes, not just extraordinary evil," the report concluded.
In an article for the leading journal Science, Susan Fiske, Lasana Harris and Amy Cuddy, of Princeton University, said that while individuals such as Private Lynndie England have to bear responsibility for their actions, their behaviour can be explained by known psychological phenomena.
Nobody can be confident that they would not have done the same thing under similar circumstances. Professor Fiske said: "Could any average 18-year-old have tortured these prisoners? I would have to answer, 'Yes, just about anyone could have - unfortunately'."
The researchers drew particularly on the findings of a set of experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, in which students were asked to administer electric shocks of increasing severity to people in the next room.
They continued to turn up the voltage when the victims (in reality actors) began to scream, and even when they fell silent, suggesting they were unconscious or dead.
Other research that has shown how easily people can resort to abuse includes the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971, which had to be stopped after students playing the role of guards began abusing volunteers assigned as prisoners.
The researchers said that many of the characteristic factors that can turn normal, non-violent individuals into abusers were present at Abu Ghraib.
"The situation of the 800th Military Police Brigade guarding Abu Ghraib prisoners fits all the social conditions known to cause aggression," they said.
"The soldiers were certainly provoked and stressed, at war, in constant danger, taunted and harassed by some of the very citizens they were sent to save, and their comrades were dying daily and unpredictably.
"Their morale suffered, they were untrained for the job, their command climate was lax, their return home was a year overdue, their identity as disciplined soldiers was gone and their own amenities were scant. Heat and discomfort also doubtless contributed." The attitude of superior officers and peers, who either encouraged or turned a blind eye to the abuse, was particularly critical.
"Ordinary people can engage in incredibly destructive behaviour if so ordered by legitimate authority," the scientists said. "Subordinates not only do what they are ordered to do, but what they think their superiors would order them to do, given their understanding of the authority's overall goals."
The situation was exacerbated by the way in which US soldiers came to see Iraqis as "interchangeable members" of a contemptible and alien group.
Strong leadership and giving soldiers access to semi-independent figures such as chaplains, to whom they could raise concerns, were suggested as the best ways of avoiding a recurrence.
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Navy Keeps A Secret in Plain Sight
Hush-Hush Project Underway by Potomac
Washington Post
By Spencer S. Hsu
November 26, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13265-2004Nov25?language=printer
Shortly after dawn on a recent morning, two dump trucks and a water tanker pulled up to a new, unmarked complex of buildings at East Potomac Park, the grassy peninsula near the Jefferson Memorial. The drivers exited their cabs, knocked at a gatehouse with blacked-out windows and waited for a security guard to emerge from behind a locked door.
A few minutes later, a panel of 10-foot-high security fence slid open, and the trucks disappeared inside, leaving the joggers and cyclists along the waterfront none the wiser about their mission.
What goes on beyond the fence is a mystery. The multi-agency review normally required to erect anything on federal parkland did not apply to the beige, metal buildings. The Navy, which operates the site at Ohio and Buckeye drives SW, calls the work a "utility assessment and upgrade" and volunteers nothing more.
"As a matter of policy, we can't go into the particulars," said a Navy spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Joseph A. Surette.
Frederick J. Lindstrom, acting secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, said it is illegal for him to discuss the matter. He did say the Navy started the work without seeking review from the commission, which oversees the city's Potomac River parklands.
"Let's just say when they're finished, you'll be glad they've done what they've done," Lindstrom said.
Amid the secrecy, theories abound about the four-acre complex, which is dead center in a ring that includes the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, Reagan National Airport and the National War College. Is it a sophisticated sensor station, guarding the 14th Street bridge and other Potomac River crossings? Is it an excavation point for underwater barriers to protect the Washington Channel and Potomac River from submarines? Is it a staging area for Navy Seabees securing underwater cables between the White House and the Pentagon, across the river?
Whatever the case, in a capital where concrete barriers and police roadblocks have become a common and often grating part of city life since Sept. 11, 2001, the Navy compound represents a more ambiguous side to security. It is visible and obscure, hidden in plain sight, billed as temporary but expected to last for years.
And it joins a network of things large and small erected to protect the capital. Wind and radiation tracking instruments sit atop the Federal Reserve. Biowarfare sensors sniff the air in front of the Smithsonian Institution. Antiaircraft systems have been spotted on a rooftop next to the White House and on a Prince George's County riverbank, across the Potomac from Mount Vernon.
For its part, the Navy began work unobtrusively about a year ago on its site near Hains Point, a recreation area known best for its golf course, fishing and "The Awakening," J. Seward Johnson Jr.'s giant sculpture.
The Navy took over the National Park Service land without any announcement. When the agencies that oversee the Mall caught up with the project months later, the hangar-like structures, which cover an excavation area, were visible from Interstate 395.
The agencies' only recourse was to ask the Justice Department to sue the Pentagon. Lindstrom said that was deemed not an option.
After inquiries, senior officials at the Fine Arts Commission and the National Capital Planning Commission were briefed about the security-sensitive project and sworn to silence. The staffs of both commissions, which review many federal agency security requests, were bypassed, and no paper trail was produced.
"The project's sponsors felt it wasn't necessary to bring it to these agencies for their review," Lindstrom said. "It's not quite right -- they should have -- but in hindsight, they did discuss the building and the project and essentially what's entailed there."
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who has criticized federal security projects for encroaching on life in the District, seldom lets slip an opportunity to make her point. In this case, however, Norton "is aware of what's going on but cannot comment," spokeswoman Doxie McCoy said.
A spokeswoman for the planning commission, Lisa MacSpadden, referred questions to Surette, the Navy spokesman. Surette would not say whether the project is classified or whether it had a name. Nor would he say how much it cost, how many people were on the job or why it was needed. He did say that work under the temporary structures would last about four years, that it complied with local and federal safety and environmental laws and that it would have no impact on traffic.
Mall preservationists say they appreciate the Navy's assurances -- as well as its efforts to protect the nation -- but decry the lack of oversight and public meetings by watchdog agencies.
"What is going on?" said Judy Scott Feldman, head of the National Coalition to Save Our Mall, a group of civic and professional organizations in Washington formed in 2000. "Why the Navy would be doing construction is a question . . . And if the Navy is saying it's purely a construction project, then why is it a secret?"
Temporary facilities have a way of outliving their builders, said Feldman, whose group's Web site has posted a photograph of the project. Government annexes built during World War I and II flanked both sides of the 2,000-foot-long Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument until the 1970s.
"How can we be assured that big, unattractive buildings . . . are going to be gone in a matter of months?" Feldman said. "You don't necessari