NucNews - December 5, 2004 -------- NUCLEAR -------- depleted uranium Scaring veterans with tales of Gulf War disease theunionleader By MICHAEL FUMENTO December 5, 2004 http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=47922 COUNTLESS studies in the United States and United Kingdom, along with myriad government-appointed panels that have reviewed them, have found that so-called “Gulf War Syndrome” is nothing more than any illness any Gulf vet (or spouse or child of one) has or thinks he has. Since most studies are federally funded, veterans advocacy groups and anti-war activists have insisted there’s been a government conspiracy. Finally they’re right. The latest Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illness, stacked with GWS activists by Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi, has proclaimed GWS real. It thus not only contradicts a previous advisory committee’s findings, but also that of three different Institute of Medicine (IOM) panels — all appointed by the VA. This required ignoring that rates of both illness and death among Gulf vets are no higher than those of comparable non-deployed vets — and far lower than those of comparable civilians. They also had to disregard the utter lack of commonality in symptoms. Activists have attributed at least 123 symptoms to GWS including aching muscles, aching joints, abdominal pain, bruising, shaking, vomiting, fevers, irritability, fatigue, weight loss, weight gain, heartburn, bad breath, hair loss, graying hair, rashes, sore throat, itching, sore gums, constipation, sneezing, nasal congestion, leg cramps, hemorrhoids, hypertension, insomnia and headaches. Anybody who hasn’t had most of the above symptoms is probably an android. But when a non-vet gets a cough, it’s called “a cough.” If a Gulf vet gets one, it’s Gulf War Syndrome. Among the causes that have been offered and rejected are: the insect repellent DEET, depleted uranium shells that are less radioactive than uranium rock, flies, oil well fires, and even exposure to Scud missile fuel. But like a desert mirage, each has disappeared upon close examination. As its bogeyman, the latest Advisory Committee claimed a “Growing body of evidence indicates an important component of (GWS) is neurological (and) supports a probable link with neurotoxic exposures during the war.” It primarily focused on nerve gas exposure. After hostilities ended engineers did blow up an Iraqi ammo dump containing some sarin nerve gas munitions. In a sop to activists, the Pentagon declared that 100,000 soldiers were “exposed” to nerve agent because at some point they were literally miles beneath an enormous plume of smoke and dust with a bit of sarin mixed in. But the Pentagon also observed that exposure levels were too low for the sarin to have caused any illnesses, that the amount required to incapacitate somebody was 2,700 times what the average soldier received. A lethal dose would be 7,700 times higher. That’s not “exposure” in any medical sense of the term. Naturally, studies have found no increased illness among vets in this group. The advisory committee insists it can reject previous findings because of new evidence. Yet the IOM issued its latest findings at almost the same time, concluding “not enough evidence to draw conclusions as to whether long-term health effects are associated with low-dose exposures” of sarin — much less minuscule-dose exposure. The real explanation for the VA panel’s bizarre and unscientific conclusion is that, of the 10 committee members, two work for activist groups and one was a Gulf vet who claims a mystery illness struck his unit during Desert Storm. Of the remaining seven, several had publicly shown a pro-GWS bias before Principi picked them. Principi selected Lea Steele of Kansas State University’s College of Human Ecology to be the panel’s science director a year after she endorsed a book supporting the GWS thesis and the same month she expressed her views in congressional testimony. Another member, Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, is the most prominent GWS activist physician in the country. For a decade he’s been bankrolled by GWS advocate H. Ross Perot. Dr. Harold C. Sox, the head of the first IOM committee to investigate GWS, told me, “At the least, this indicates the possibility of a conflict of interest.” As a scientist, physician, and expert in this particular area he was disgusted with the VA committee in general. What’s truly sad about all this is that even as the VA panel gives sick Gulf vets false hope that their particular illnesses can be cured in some way differently from the same illness in other people, it gives healthy vets false fears that they’ll carry throughout their lives. Don’t our heroes deserve better? Michael Fumento — U.S. Army Airborne 1978-82 — is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington and a health/science columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. He has written on Gulf War Syndrome since 1993. -------- Throw-away soldiers - US uses DU in Falluja From: davey garland Date: Sun Dec 5, 2004 7:12pm From: Christopher Bollyn, American Free Press, Washington, DC Dear All, I asked Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa if the U.S. was using DU in Falluja and got a straight "yes" answer. Here is that paragraph from my recent article about Fallujah: "THROW-AWAY SOLDIERS" Having seen what appeared to be a depleted uranium (DU) missile fired at a building in Fallujah on CNN during the first week of the fighting, AFP asked the Pentagon if DU weapons are being used in Fallujah. "Yes," Yoswa said, "DU is a standard round on the M-1 Abrams tank." Because U.S. marines in Fallujah are very close to the poison gas produced by exploded DU shells, AFP asked Yoswa if anything was being done to protect the troops from DU poisoning. Yoswa seemed unaware of the dangers posed by the use of DU. Marion Fulk, a retired nuclear scientist from Livermore National Lab told AFP that U.S. troops in DU contaminated battlefields are considered "throw-away soldiers." The Marines exposed to DU in Fallujah, and elsewhere, face greatly increased risks of cancer, deformed children, and other health problems in the future. (End quote) Here is the article and discussion of Fallujah operations: [ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ] Rumor Mill News Agents Forum [ Link to Lounge ] THE FUTILE AND CRIMINAL OBLITERATION OF FALLUJAH *PIC *Posted By: ChristopherBollyn > Date: Thursday, 2 December 2004, 6:09 p.m. CONTROLLED PRESS IGNORES CRIMINAL OBLITERATION OF FALLUJAH By Christopher Bollyn American Free Press The controlled press has scrupulously avoided discussing the devastation and prima facie evidence of war crimes committed during the U.S. siege and assault of Fallujah. As Americans prepared for Thanksgiving, an estimated 100,000 residents of the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, trapped in their homes, struggled to survive without fresh food, water or electricity, reportedly cut off by U.S. forces on November 8. Meanwhile, on the streets of Fallujah, a city of more than 350,000, dogs gnawed on bloated and rotting corpses that remained unburied for weeks. Thousands of families in Fallujah were reported to be in a critical humanitarian situation after U.S. forces prevented the delivery of relief supplies. An Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) humanitarian aid convoy, reportedly blocked by U.S. troops for more than two weeks, was allowed to deliver aid to residents in the heart of the city on November 25. On Thanksgiving, U.S. forces permitted the IRCS convoy carrying thousands of food parcels, blankets, tents and medical supplies to enter the city and allowed one of the clinics to be converted into a temporary hospital to treat the injured. Rana Sidani of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Switzerland however, told American Free Press on Nov. 30 that "many civilians" were still prevented from receiving aid or medical care. At the beginning of the U.S. operation in Fallujah on Nov. 5, a hospital in the central Nazzal district of Fallujah was "reduced to rubble" as a result of U.S. air and artillery bombardment. "Only its façade, with a sign reading Nazzal Emergency Hospital, remained intact," Reuters reported. "A nearby compound used by the main Falluja Hospital to store medical supplies was also destroyed," witnesses told Reuters. Fallujah's main hospital was occupied by U.S. forces when the ground offensive began. These actions are apparent violations of international humanitarian law. "Bodies can be seen everywhere and people were crying when receiving the food parcels," Muhammad al-Nuri, a spokesman for the IRCS in Baghdad, said. "It is very sad. It is a human disaster." Al-Nuri said that it is difficult to move in the city due to the large number of dead bodies in the streets. The ICRS estimates there are more than 6,000 dead in Fallujah, al-Nuri said. AFP asked Major Jay Antonelli at the Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC) in Baghdad if the ICRS estimate of 6,000 dead in Fallujah was credible. "We do not keep a count of dead Iraqis," Antonelli said. Asked the same question, the ICRC's Sidani said, "We don't know." Antonelli said, "U.S. forces never blocked aid convoys from reaching the wounded. We only recommended to the aid convoys that they should not enter the city because the MNF [Multi-National Forces] could not guarantee their security or safety." "The ICRC is very worried about the humanitarian situation in Falluja," Sidani said. Asked what the ICRC was doing to alleviate the suffering in Fallujah, Sidani said: "We are reminding the parties of their responsibilities under international humanitarian law." It should be noted that the U.S.A. and Britain, the belligerent occupying powers in Iraq, are the two largest contributors to the ICRC, providing more than 42 percent of its budget for field operations. A second convoy from Baghdad, headed by Dr. Said Ismael Haki, the IRCS president, delivered aid to Fallujah on Nov. 26. "There are no houses left in Fallujah, only destroyed places." Haki said. "I really don't know how the people will return to the city. No one will find their homes." As U.S. troops in Fallujah engaged in what has been described as the most intense urban combat since Vietnam, the controlled press scrupulously avoided discussion or footage of the devastation of the rebellious Sunni city. For example, during the second week of the attack, rather than discuss the widespread devastation of Fallujah, U.S. television news programs focused largely on a brawl between basketball players and fans in Detroit. Lt. Col. Brandl, commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, was filmed giving a "pep talk" to his marines: "The enemy has got a face – he's called Satan," Brandl said. "He's in Fallujah, and we're going to destroy him." At least 136 U.S. soldiers were killed during November in Iraq, and more than 800 were wounded, most of them in Fallujah, making it the most costly month, and operation, in terms of U.S. lives lost since the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003. FOR WHAT CAUSE? Michael Ware, Baghdad bureau chief for Time magazine, who has been in Fallujah during the fighting, said U.S. actions in Fallujah are "creating the nightmare that we are seeking to prevent." "I stood there as I saw American boys die," Ware told Chris Matthews of MSNBC on Nov. 24, "I mean, a man shot at close range, blown apart by a rocket propelled grenade. He dies there in front of you and I can't help but think why? For what cause? "I see us creating the very thing that the president said we went there to prevent," Ware said, "…subsequent to this invasion and the occupation and the guerrilla war that is currently underway, we are the midwives of the next generation of al Qaida and Islamic terrorist." Ware, who has interviewed senior insurgent leaders, said they study the writings of the Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong. "They're bringing it straight from the Vietnam, and the broader insurgency playbook," Ware said. "The name of the game is deny the population to the insurgents," Ware said. "That's what we're trying to do, win hearts and minds. But we're not winning them." The U.S. struggle to win Iraqi hearts and minds suffered a further set back when NBC TV broadcast footage of a U.S. marine executing a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque. The much-publicized shooting, apparently part of a massacre of a group of wounded resistance fighters, "was a rare crack in the façade that Washington, with the complicity of most of the corporate media, has tried to present to the world of its brutal assault on the rebel Iraqi city," Rohan Pearce wrote in The Greenleft Weekly Australia on Nov. 24. The New York Times has reported actions taken by U.S. forces in Fallujah, which appear to be prima facie evidence of war crimes, without mentioning that the actions constitute clear violations of the Laws of Land War found in the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10. For example, a Nov. 20 Times article by Edward Wong, with two correspondents in Fallujah, reports that U.S. marines had transformed a mosque into a fortress with snipers and machine gunners perched on the roof. Then, using the passive form, Wong goes on to say that "no neutral group has been able to enter the city," without mentioning that U.S. forces blocked humanitarian aid convoys. Likewise, Wong wrote, "Electricity and water had been cut off." The Times, whose motto is "All the news that's fit to print," apparently didn't think that it's readers needed to know the U.S. forces had cut off the water and power to a city of 340,000 people. Asked if U.S. forces had cut power and water to Fallujah, Maj. Jay Antonelli of CPIC wrote: "MNF did, with approval of the Interim Iraqi Government, cut off electricity to the city of Fallujah as Operation Al-Fajr began. Water was not cut off intentionally, however the water system did sustain some kinetic damage during strikes." American Free Press asked the Pentagon's Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa if it is true that U.S. forces were using mosques as fortresses. "It's not possible," Yoswa said. "Under no circumstances. We would not set up snipers in a mosque in an offensive position." CPIC's Antonelli said: "MNF would not use a mosque as a 'fortress.' MNF and Iraqi security forces would only fire from a mosque if they were being fired upon and were firing back in self-defense." Abu Sabah, a refugee from Fallujah, reported seeing phosphorus bombs: "They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fell from the air with long tails of smoke trailing behind them. These exploded on the ground with large fires that burnt for half and hour," Abu Sabah said. "When anyone touched these fires their bodies burnt for hours." Eyewitnesses from Fallujah also reported seeing "melted" bodies. "THROW-AWAY SOLDIERS" Having seen what appeared to be a depleted uranium (DU) missile fired at a building in Fallujah on CNN during the first week of the fighting, AFP asked the Pentagon if DU weapons are being used in Fallujah. "Yes," Yoswa said, "DU is a standard round on the M-1 Abrams tank." Because U.S. marines in Fallujah are very close to the poison gas produced by exploded DU shells, AFP asked Yoswa if anything was being done to protect the troops from DU poisoning. Yoswa seemed unaware of the dangers posed by the use of DU. Marion Fulk, a retired nuclear scientist from Livermore National Lab told AFP that U.S. troops in DU contaminated battlefields are considered "throw-away soldiers." The Marines exposed to DU in Fallujah, and elsewhere, face greatly increased risks of cancer, deformed children, and other health problems in the future. OBLITERATION OF FALLUJAH The "obliteration of Fallujah" is a serious war crime, according to Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois. "The obliteration of Fallujah continues apace," Boyle wrote in his Nov. 15 article, A War Crime in Real Time: Obliterating Fallujah. "Article 6(b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines a Nuremberg War Crime in relevant part as the 'wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages.' According to this definitive definition, the Bush administration's destruction of Fallujah constitutes a war crime for which Nazis were tried and executed." Finis Fallujah in ruins: Iraqi Red Crescent worker looks at deserted and devastated street in Fallujah, Friday Nov. 26 2004. U.S. forces are reflecting on the fight, their often-unseen foes and the future of a city which lies in ruins. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) The Names of 140 Dead Americans from November -------- iran At Crucial Juncture, Iran Seeks Edge on U.S. Washington Post By Robin Wright December 5, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35953-2004Dec4.html TEHRAN -- A quarter-century after U.S.-Iran relations collapsed, Iranians are angrier and more anxious about U.S. policy than at any time since the period from 1979 to 1981, when the United States took in the deposed and dying shah, Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy and 52 hostages were held for 444 days. Repeated U.S. warnings about Iran's nuclear intentions have sparked widespread fears of a new confrontation, Iranian officials and analysts said -- one that would dwarf the crisis that erupted after Tehran's 1979 revolution. In an effort to contain U.S. influence along Iran's borders and preempt U.S. action, they said, Tehran is trying to exploit two trump cards -- its influence over neighboring countries and rising international demand for oil. Iran is beefing up aid to allied groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are scheduled to hold elections next year. Iran is also using oil to deepen alliances with strategic nations such as energy-hungry China. The situation is a sharp reversal from a year ago, when swift victories by U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan sent shock waves through Iran. The country was almost encircled by U.S. troops on land and sea, analysts here said. The squeeze was a major factor in Iran's agreement in October 2003 to give up uranium enrichment, a key process for peaceful nuclear energy that can be diverted for military use. But Iraq's persistent insurgency, the failure of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden and the inability of Kabul's U.S.-backed government to consolidate national control have made the United States more vulnerable in the region and given Iran more leverage, said officials and analysts in both nations. "The United States has all these places, but it can't be successful without Iran," said Mohsen Rezaie, a presidential contender who commanded Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. "We are now at the top of the mountain, and the Americans are at the bottom." A year ago, the Bush administration boasted about the positive impact that free and fair Iraqi elections would have on Iran. Today, the administration is concerned about Iran's negative impact on Iraq, said Robert Malley, a former assistant to President Bill Clinton who works for the International Crisis Group, a non-profit, conflict-analysis organization. "Chaos in Iraq and higher oil prices have emboldened the Iranian regime, which still feels threatened by U.S. pressure but far more confident it can withstand it," Malley said in an interview in Washington. As Iranians debate how to deal with the United States, he said, the situation has strengthened ideologues who advocate "standing firm," particularly on nuclear issues. Iran walked out of an original nuclear deal, which had to be renegotiated this fall by Britain, France and Germany. Moreover, the deal is only a preliminary agreement; a permanent arrangement remains elusive. Internal political shifts have also changed the dynamics of the U.S.-Iran standoff. A year ago, Iran's president and the majority in parliament were reformers who wanted to end the mistrust between the two nations. But conservatives took control of parliament this fall, after many reform candidates were barred from running in February elections. And conservatives are expected to do whatever it takes to win the presidential election next spring, Iranian analysts say. So rather than spur political change, Iranian analysts warn that U.S. military action on suspected Iranian nuclear sites could backfire, echoing the impact of Iraq's 1980 invasion. The eight-year Iran-Iraq war reignited Iranian nationalism and allowed fundamentalist clerics to consolidate their hold on Iran just when the Islamic revolution had begun to wobble. "If America uses military means against Iran, even if it attacks only one point, the result here will be a rise of militarism in Iran -- and the suppression of any democratic trend," said Mohsen Mirdamadi, a ringleader of the embassy seizure 25 years ago who later became a pro-democracy member of parliament. "This is a problem for reformers," he said. Iranian officials contend that Bush's reelection, strongly backed by conservative Christian groups, also redefined the standoff. "The problem America has with Iran is not political, not economic. It's religion, now that the new conservatives . . . are behind Bush," said Mohammed Hashemi, a U.S.-educated member of Iran's Expediency Council, a body that weighs in during deadlocks between parliament and a top clerical panel. "U.S. policy toward Iran is based on a religious war." Tensions between Tehran and Washington have always been complex, haunted by the revolution's introduction of militant Islam and the hostage trauma. Today, relations are troubled by Iran's support for extremist groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, as well as by Iran's suspected weapons program. In contrast to its continued reluctance to deal with Tehran, Washington restored diplomatic contacts with Vietnam after a war that killed about 57,000 Americans and over 1 million Vietnamese, and with China after a Communist revolution that cost millions of Chinese lives, produced a nuclear bomb and led to a cold war with the West. "It makes no sense 25 years later not to be talking to each other," L. Bruce Laingen, a retired U.S. diplomat and the ranking hostage in the embassy seizure, said in an interview in Washington. "I'm not advocating relations tomorrow, but we have a lot to talk about and we should start. The U.S. is staring [Iran] in the face on both borders and on the Gulf." Whether Iran's conservatives and a second Bush administration will confront each other is hotly debated here. Despite stubborn rhetoric, some major political figures sound almost wistful about the potential for a diplomatic thaw. "This very hot atmosphere of tension . . . should be defused, and we should move toward a friendlier or more tranquil situation. Continuing tensions are not in the interest of either the U.S. or Iran," said Mohammed Javad Larijani, a former presidential contender. A senior U.S. official involved in Iran policy described Iran as "the Rodney Dangerfield of the Middle East." Iranians, he said, have a pathological desire -- like a little brother who wants his big brother's approval -- for us to say we respect them." But other analysts suggested the success of Iran's conservatives could give some the self-confidence to adopt a more accommodating stance toward Washington. "Now that they feel they are on top, some factions of conservatives are looking at reaching out to the U.S.," said Hadi Semati, a Tehran University political scientist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "Even a few from the ideological camp would not be as adamant as their predecessors." But the conservatives' chief ideologue, Hussein Shariatmadari, took a tougher line. "We are not enemies of American citizens," he said. "But America is different. When countries commit atrocities against us, we cannot accept relations with them." -------- Iran 'not obliged' to allow military site inspections Australian Broadcasting Corporation December 5, 2004 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1258346.htm Iran says it is not obliged to allow UN atomic energy agency inspectors to visit military sites alleged to be involved in secret nuclear weapons work but that it is willing to discuss the issue. "It is not a matter of unlimited commitments and unlimited inspections," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. "We will act in accordance with the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), our duties and responsibilities," Mr Asefi said. The IAEA is mandated under the NPT to verify that all nuclear material in a country is declared and not being diverted for nuclear weapons purposes, as the United States claims is the case in Iran. But under the NPT and even its additional protocol, which has also been signed by Iran, the agency has limited inspection powers. The Vienna-based watchdog has asked Iran if it can visit the Parchin military base east of Tehran, where US officials have said the Iranians may be testing "high-explosive shaped charges with an inert core of depleted uranium" as a dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work. IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei says that he has "every reason to expect that Iran will allow us to go" to the site. But Mr Asefi says Iran has not been officially asked by the IAEA if it can inspect Parchin, although he says that "we are ready to cooperate within the framework of our commitments with the IAEA." The IAEA is also researching another site in Tehran, Lavizan II, which the exiled Iranian opposition has alleged is a site involved in the secret enriching of uranium. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely directed at generating electricity, and fiercely denies allegations it is seeking weapons. The country escaped possible UN sanctions last week after agreeing to a deal with Britain, France and Germany to suspend its controversial fuel cycle work in exchange for a package of incentives. "A temporary suspension means a short while, not a long time," Mr Asefi said of the suspension. However, he says comments by powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani that the freeze would not last more than six months should not be seen as a firm time frame. Mr Asefi says Mr Rafsanjani only mentioned six months an "example". ----- When a Virtual Bomb May Be Better Than the Real Thing nytimes.com By DAVID E. SANGER December 5, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/weekinreview/05sang.html?oref=login VIENNA — At first glance, the current struggle to force Iran and North Korea to give up their suspected nuclear weapons programs has disturbing echoes of the American fiasco in searching for Iraq's weapons. There are murky intelligence reports. There is strong rhetoric from the Bush administration. There is a mix of threats and denials from paranoid regimes that sound as if they have something to hide. And there are no smoking guns. But in Iraq's case, the critical question - the one on which American intelligence agencies failed so spectacularly - was whether Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his chemical, biological and nuclear programs, elevating the threat he posed to one that justified urgent military action. For Iran and North Korea, that is not the right question. Instead, the issue is whether they figured out a way to successfully game the system and build a "virtual bomb." In this era, a nation doesn't have to parade its nukes in the capital on May Day. In fact, it's probably against its interest to do so. All it has to do is create convincing ambiguity - to leave the world wondering whether, if push came to shove and shove led to talk of a pre-emptive strike, in a few short weeks the country could screw together a workable, deliverable nuclear weapon. In an age when centrifuge components and bomb designs are on the black market, and when technology has made bomb-building much less expensive and time-consuming, it doesn't take much for the world to take you seriously. "I call them 'latent weapons states,' said Mohamed El Baradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an interview last week. "It's a description that fits a lot of countries that have the know-how. The only key is the fissile material. If you are really smart, you don't need to develop a weapon, you just develop a capability. And that is the best deterrence." Of course, a nuclear weapon, real or virtual, is more than a deterrent. It has the power to shape events in a region. Nuclear ambiguity is all it takes to change the strategic balance. Saddam Hussein lost the chance to do that after the 1991 gulf war, when American and United Nations officials were shocked to discover how much progress he had made on a bomb. They destroyed that capability, and as it turned out Iraq was never able to reconstitute its program. American intelligence believes that North Korea and Iran have taken this lesson to heart. "Both regimes view this as Saddam Hussein's biggest mistake," a former senior American intelligence official said recently, insisting on anonymity because he was citing conclusions from classified assessments. "If Saddam had been able to make a convincing case that he could put a weapon together quickly, they think that no American president would have dared to risk an invasion." In this analysis, Mr. Hussein's big mistake was that he jumped the gun in invading Kuwait 14 years ago, before convincing the world that he was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Then he lost all the equipment that could have created that aura - centrifuges to enrich uranium, high-explosive testing areas and intermediate missiles that could have carried warheads. When Mr. Hussein kept insisting in 2002 and 2003 that he had no program anymore, Mr. Bush and the intelligence agencies could argue that he was probably just too wily for them, once again - and that it was time to stop him, before a hidden program turned into a hidden weapon. North Korea and Iran are pursuing a different strategy, flaunting their capability. North Korea has an easy case to make. Before it threw inspectors out nearly two years ago, it had a stockpile of 8,000 spent rods of nuclear fuel that could be converted to weapons-grade plutonium with relative ease. When a small group of American experts was invited into the country early this year, the North proudly showed that the rods had been removed from their cooling ponds, and said the conversion to plutonium was nearly complete. By now everyone figures they are probably right. Did they turn the rods into five or six weapons? Or just into weapons-ready fuel? "What's the difference?" Mr. El Baradei asks. The Iranians are being a little more subtle. They have shown off their centrifuges, and confessed to hiding elements of their program for 18 years, but Mr. El Baradei says he has seen no evidence that they have a dedicated nuclear arms program. The Iranians insist they are enriching uranium only for generating nuclear power, and that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty allows them to do so. After all, they point out, nations like Japan do the same thing. Last week, Iran agreed to suspend production while it takes part in negotiations that could bring investment and technology into the country. But it made it clear it did not intend to give the technology up. THE Islamic republic has not renounced the nuclear fuel cycle, will never renounce it and will use it," its top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, said. Noting that Iran had again sidestepped Washington's efforts to ask the United Nations Security Council to consider sanctions because of the program, he added: "We have proved that, in an international institution, we are capable of isolating the United States. And that is a great victory." But even while Iran repeated the mantra about its peaceful intentions, the International Atomic Energy Agency was demanding access to military sites where it suspects that a secret, parallel enrichment program may be under way. The Iranians don't have to let them in, unless there is already reasonable evidence of nuclear material on the site. So far, the evidence is scant. Meanwhile, the Iranians make no secret of their efforts to develop new missiles that could carry nuclear warheads. If they can keep up the shell game - with a "peaceful" nuclear program that could become military within weeks after renouncing the nonproliferation treaty (as North Korea's did last year) - the Iranians may have figured out how to build the perfect virtual weapon. -------- pacific Bikini Islanders get cash handout from nuclear-devastated homeland MAJURO (AFP) Dec 05, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041205050703.u8g9jl3t.html Nearly 60 years after Bikini Islanders were forced into exile by US nuclear tests, they are at least getting some payback from their devastated homeland. Every man, woman and child from Bikini -- 3,470 people to be exact -- this month received 29 dollars from the Bikini Atoll dive program. It's the fourth year that the islanders, displaced since 1946 by US nuclear tests, have benefited from international scuba divers venturing to this remote necklace of coral islands to dive on the fleet of World War II vessels that lie on the lagoon bottom. The total payment of approximately 100,000 dollars represents half the profits from the dive program with another 100,000 dollars used to provide supplemental food for displaced islanders living on nearby islands. The Bikinians launched their dive operation in the mid-1990s in an effort to turn a liability into an asset, according to Bikini liaison official Jack Niedenthal. "This is our fourth year of payments," he said. "The money always goes directly to the community." Niedenthal said the Bikinians had benefitted by about 800,000 dollars from the diving program over the past four years, with increased profits forecast for next year when a new air service linking Australia with Majuro is expected to bump up the number of Australian divers. The 1946 nuclear tests sent more than a dozen warships and submarines to the bottom of the 170 foot lagoon, including the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga and the Nagato, which was the flagship of Japanese Admiral Yamamoto. Today, they are sought-after dive attractions that bring divers from as far away as Europe. With scientific reports showing that radiation exposure on the islands is minimal, provided visitors don^1t eat locally grown food, divers have readily paid top dollar to visit this former ground zero for 23 US nuclear tests. In 1954, Bikini was the testing ground for Bravo, the largest hydrogen bomb ever tested by the United States. -------- terrorism How to avert dirty bomb attack IndyStar.com December 5, 2004 http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/199598-3141-021.html From time to time since 9/11, you may have heard experts and government officials utter words of warning about "dirty bombs, which are conventional explosives packed with radioactive materials. The explosion of a dirty bomb would be no different from a conventional explosion, whereas a nuclear explosion is thousands of times stronger. But the dirty bomb presents its own daunting threat: once the conventional bomb explodes, the radioactive material spreads in the surrounding area. In the immediate aftermath, people in the area could be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, and chaos could ensue as they panic and try to flee. In the long term, the exposed area would be contaminated, rendering it off limits for months, even years, with people in close proximity vulnerable to cancer. If this took place in a major metropolitan area like lower Manhattan, the cost in disrupted business and cleanup could tally into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The psychological impact would be harrowing. What keeps security officials up at night is the concern that a dirty bomb is relatively easy to put together. There are hundreds of thousands of radioactive sources around the globe, ranging from weapons-grade plutonium or uranium used in nuclear bombs to more widely disseminated materials used in certain industries. Radioactive sources can be extracted from basic medical equipment or food irradiation machines. Most countries lack strict regulations or enforcement on the use of these materials. Meanwhile, we know al-Qaida has been trying to acquire these materials. So what can we do to protect ourselves? First, we must continue to work with Russia and other countries to locate and destroy dangerous materials from the former Soviet Union. Former Soviet republics are littered with a variety of radioactive sources, often poorly guarded or improperly disposed. We should increase the resources and priority that we affix to this challenge, so we can get to these materials before the terrorists do. We also need to build a global coalition committed to stricter controls on the use and transfer of radioactive sources. We should insist that all countries meet a standard set by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or be denied access to trade involving radioactive sources. For this to work, the U.S. and its allies should provide assistance to countries toughening standards for monitoring or disposing these materials within their borders. We need tough measures to interdict illicit radioactive sources in transit. The Bush administration's Proliferation Security Initiative is a good start. We should work harder to tighten security at ports and develop screening technologies so that radioactive sources in shipping containers can be detected and legally intercepted. Russia's participation will be critical. At home, public education must be a priority. Local responders should know how to evacuate and seal off an area. Hospitals should know how to treat exposed patients. The Department of Homeland Security must continue to lead the grim task of preparing for any contingency. The good news is there are concrete steps we can take to prevent a dirty bomb attack or reduce its effect: by securing the use and transport of dangerous materials, developing technologies to detect or replace radioactive sources, and preparing ourselves at home. Hamilton is the director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He served as a U.S. representative from Indiana from 1965 to 1999. ----- Global Nuclear Inquiry Stalls Authorities fear that the extent of a Pakistani scientist's proliferation ring remains unknown and that it will resume work if pressures ease. Los Angeles Times By William C. Rempel and Douglas Frantz December 5, 2004 http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes427.html VIENNA - The global investigation into Abdul Qadeer Khan's black market trade in nuclear technology has stalled in a clash of national interests that threatens a full accounting of his secret partners and clients, according to interviews with diplomats and officials from several countries. International authorities fear the full scope of the Pakistani scientist's ring may never be known. Senior investigators said they were especially worried that dangerous elements of the illicit network of manufacturers and suppliers would remain undetected and capable of resuming operations once international pressures eased. Investigators also said that records obtained in Libya and elsewhere showed that some nuclear equipment purchased or manufactured by the network had yet to be found, raising the possibility that it was diverted to still unidentified customers. "We are far from knowing everything," a senior European diplomat involved in the inquiry said. "I'm frustrated by the lack of cooperation. We are losing a lot of time." Some countries have refused to help, and others have only partially cooperated, said numerous officials involved in the inquiry spearheaded by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. Pakistan has not permitted investigators to interview Khan, and his closest confidant is being held in Malaysia under that country's restrictive security act. Investigators also are concerned about the level of cooperation of former Soviet republics and China. Investigators have suffered setbacks and delays even as they have gathered new evidence of the network's sophistication and have documented its move into Dubai, an ancient smuggling port on the Persian Gulf. Dubai was the hub of Khan's covert distribution operation, a transportation and storage base for parts and machinery destined for the secret nuclear programs in Iran and Libya, shipping records and investigation files show. The Khan ring used nondescript warehouses scattered throughout Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, to store and repackage some of the equipment, as well as to complete small-scale manufacturing assignments, according to documents and photos shown to The Times. Inspectors from the IAEA visited the warehouses in recent weeks and took environmental samples to check for the presence of enriched uranium, which could indicate the shipment of weapons material. Test results are pending, officials said. Information implicating members of Khan's ring began to surface last December after Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi announced that he was giving up his efforts to build an atomic bomb. In a deal negotiated with the U.S. and Britain, Libya turned over evidence showing that Khan and his associates had sold at least $100 million worth of technology to Libya, including a nearly completed uranium enrichment plant to produce material for a bomb. The disclosures revealed that Khan, regarded as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, also had provided extensive assistance to Iran's nuclear program, dating back to the late 1980s. Investigators from the IAEA and various police agencies have been trying to piece together the ring's operation, identifying middlemen and suppliers who contributed to what officials call the world's worst case of nuclear proliferation. Individual countries are conducting their own criminal investigations, but the IAEA has sole responsibility for carrying out the worldwide effort to shut down the black market. A handful of arrests have been made in Germany, Switzerland and South Africa. Law enforcement authorities also are investigating people in several other countries, including Britain, France and Spain. Not everyone is eager for full disclosure, however. Amid speculation that Khan may have operated with the knowledge or assistance of other high-ranking military officials in Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan early this year and has refused to permit investigators from the IAEA or the United States to interview the scientist. "Investigators are very keen to get direct access to [Khan], but I don't think it will ever happen," a Western diplomat said. Similarly, Malaysia has blocked access to Khan's confidant, Dubai businessman Buhary Syed abu Tahir, who is being held in Kuala Lumpur. Hussein Haniff, Malaysia's ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna, said Tahir was being held under the country's Internal Security Act, which restricts access to him. The case is politically sensitive in Malaysia. Tahir, who married into a prominent Malaysian family, had arranged for production of centrifuge components at a factory controlled by the prime minister's son. *Risks From Delays Such delays and obstacles compound fears of the IAEA inspectors that evidence will disappear, memories will fade and leads will turn out to be false. The agency, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with nuclear regulations, lacks the power to compel testimony or subpoena evidence. "Without state cooperation we have a difficult time. The whole process is so slow," said another senior European diplomat. Ineffective export controls also appear to be a continuing problem, the investigation has found. Shipments of sensitive material from Malaysia, Dubai, Spain, Turkey and Pakistan have turned up in Libya. Two officials said they were especially concerned about former Soviet republics and China, which provided assistance to Iran's nuclear program. The Western diplomat said investigators wanted to question South African officials after The Times reported last week that a complete, ready-for-assembly control system for a Libyan uranium enrichment plant was built undetected near Johannesburg, in part with imported supplies. He questioned whether the Pretoria government should have known more and shared more information about suspicious imports and exports. But the diplomat said evidence in the Khan case indicated that the problem was much more widespread. "Some countries say their own customs people wouldn't know a centrifuge rotor from a banana," the Western diplomat said. "The fact that this [black market] trade could have gone undetected in some countries raises doubts about whether it would be noticed next time." Investigators are uncovering ever more alarming evidence about the reach and sophistication of the Khan network in selling nuclear equipment and knowledge to Iran and Libya over a 15-year period. A senior investigator said that he was stunned this year when he visited the workshop set up in Libya to manufacture components for the uranium enrichment plant. "These guys were really organized," said the investigator, who has a long involvement with the nuclear industry and provided a detailed description of the operation. *Machine Shop 1001 The enrichment plant was based on designs provided by Khan. It involved using the centrifuges, an array of spinning cylinders, to purify a uranium gas to produce enriched material for a bomb. Nearly 100 different pieces of machinery from all over the world had been assembled before the scheme was uncovered in late 2003. Among the machinery were two specialized lathes from Spain, a furnace from Italy, power supply units from Turkey and centrifuge components from Malaysia and Pakistan, the investigator said. The Libyan plant was code-named Project Machine Shop 1001. Crates shipped to the project used false export documents to disguise the contents, but each was stamped with a tracking number to indicate where in the assembly process the contents were intended. The operating instructions were drawn from videos of Khan's top-secret, government-owned enrichment plant in Pakistan, designs from that plant and instructions assembled by network participants in Dubai, according to documents and investigators. Detailed instructions discovered in Libya specified the number of minutes required for each step in the enrichment process and the number of skilled technicians needed at each station in the plant. Collections of photographs uncovered by investigators provided a surprisingly extensive inventory of machinery that had been shipped to Libya. Because export records and bills of lading routinely were falsified, photos were used as proof to guarantee final payments after delivery. "They didn't trust each other and they didn't have proper documentation, so they took pictures to prove what they had sent," the senior investigator said. Using shipping records and information from Libyan officials, investigators determined that much of the machinery had been shipped to Dubai. Once there, it was repackaged for shipment to Libya. Some components were sent separately, according to investigators and documents. For instance, two specialized lathes were purchased from a Spanish company without the computerized controls necessary to make precision centrifuge parts. Such computers would have alerted Spanish authorities. Photos of the machinery shown to The Times indicate that computer controls were purchased separately and attached to the lathes in South Africa and Libya. Tahir told Malaysian police that in late 1994 or early 1995 he delivered two suitcases containing about $3 million in cash to a Dubai apartment used by Khan. The money was payment for two containers of centrifuge components sold to Iran. Investigators said far larger sums were sent to bank accounts in Dubai, Switzerland and other countries. Investigators said that they believed other sensitive components of the Libyan enrichment plant had been manufactured, and that they were urgently trying to find them. "Big quantities did not end up in Libya, and the question is, where are they?" said the senior investigator. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- new mexico Film blasts state's nukes Los Alamos Monitor Review by ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com December 5, 2004 http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2004/12/03/headline_news/news03.txt SANTA FE - To say there are a few errors and a strong bias in Candy Jones' documentary about New Mexico's nuclear legacy, "Do It For Uncle Graham," would be to miss the basic conflict going on here. The video's strength lies in marshalling a strong argument around a meaningless piece of funny business. By nature, the visual medium tries to entertain rather than bore, and the hisses at the villainy and cheers of agreement with the message indicated that the audience enjoyed the experience of this production, one of many offerings at the Santa Fe Film Festival that is currently underway. "Do It For Uncle Graham," the 88-minute documentary shown Thursday morning at the Sanctuario de Guadalupe, is a record of skirmishes between Los Alamos National Laboratory and its critics mainly during 2003, set against a 60-year background of the asymmetrical nuclear conflict in the state. Director Jones is connected to the state, not only by personal attraction but also by a historical relationship. Her uncle Graham was a state legislator, starting shortly after New Mexico was granted statehood in 1912. He has nothing to do with anything that came later except that glimpsed in Jones' rear view mirror he was high-minded and dedicated to the good of the state. Thus, if you don't know why to rise up and demand greater public oversight and tighter state regulation of the federal funds that flow into the state, then why not do it for Uncle Graham? Get it? That's the joke. The film is narrated by Jones and a large number of interviews with activists, observers, victims of the nuclear imposition and unwitting officials who explain their role in the complex. There are a variety of scenes that describe ways the federal facilities pollute the environment, deceive the public and impinge on surrounding communities and watersheds. The documentary does a masterful job exposing the absurdity of Operation Gasbuggy, an experiment in using atomic weapons for peaceful purposes during the 1960s. A 29-kiloton weapon was used to release a natural gas deposit 30 miles east of Farmington and adjacent to the Jicarilla Apache reservation. According to Jones and an investigative journalist who wrote about it, the gas burned off over a three-day period. That was not mentioned in subsequent government propaganda, but eventually the authorities realized that nobody wanted to burn radioactive natural gas anyway. A Monitor reporter was surprised to find himself caught on film. There he is cluttering the background, sincerely taking notes at a legislative hearing of an encounter between LANL Director G. Peter Nanos and Rep. Debbie Rodella, a LANL employee who represents the Espanola area. It was a particular low point for Nanos, who was still new on the job. He had arrived very late for the meeting and may have been surprised by Rodella's request for an overdue study on gender pay disparity. He accused her of accusing him of a cover-up, which caused the spat to escalate. Not included in the frame with Nanos and the reporter was a whole story that has yet to be resolved concerning the pay study. But contrary to the impression given by the film, the laboratory has been fairly assiduous over the last two years in answering the legislators' every hair-brained question and request. Far weaker have been the Uncle Graham's of the legislature, who normally make every effort to avoid a fuss or to ignore legitimate grievances. Some legislators seem more often to be looking for a juicy piece of laboratory budget for themselves or their constituents. One of the final sequences of the documentary concerns efforts to stop the manufacture of nuclear pits in northern New Mexico. It focused on a convergence of theater and protest at a public meeting in Pojoaque. Currently, Los Alamos National Laboratory has taken over from the shuttered Rocky Flats plant in Colorado as the nation's only capacity to produce a highly radioactive triggering device for the nuclear weapons stockpile. While hardly needed at the moment, the argument is that some few of these plutonium pits may be required in the next 20 years to maintain the reliability of the stockpile. But critics fear that much more may be involved, including plans for new weapons and new testing, a throwback to a dangerous era of bristling nuclear weapons that many thought was behind them. "This is not a modern pit facility," said a protester during the meeting. "This is a nuclear bomb factory." While it is treated as another futile gesture against the machine, the effort was interesting for two reasons. One is that the laboratory itself has not favored the idea of becoming the pit manufacturer, if it must be done. But more importantly, Congress (a.k.a Uncle Sam in this story) has denied the funds this year, not only for pit manufacturing but also for new atomic weapon designs. Doing it for Uncle Graham, one gathers by the final credits, implies not doing it for Uncle Sam. Where this sometimes convenient piece of state's rights political philosophy might lead in the overall picture might have been too boring to explore within the documentary's frame. -------- ohio Fermi shuts down day after restart The Blade December 5, 2004 http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041205/NEWS19/41205006/-1/NEWS NEWPORT, Mich. - Less than 24 hours after Detroit Edison Co. set an internal record for getting Fermi II into service, the plant's nuclear reactor automatically shut itself down yesterday because computers detected a malfunction. Operators diagnosed the problem as a failed automatic voltage regulator on the main steam generator turbine. That device, in a nonnuclear part of the plant, is used to help regulate voltage for the electrical grid, Scott Simons, a spokesman for the utility, said. The shutdown occurred at 4:17 a.m. yesterday when the reactor was at 60 percent power and in the process of ascending to full power after a 27-day outage for normal refueling and maintenance, the shortest turnaround in Fermi II history. The refueling outage was considered to be over at 9:45 a.m. Friday when Fermi II's reactor was at about 20 percent power, high enough to generate electricity for the grid. Yesterday's failed regulator was an unexpected development. -------- utah In our view: Nuclear power was a mistake The Utah Daily Herald December 05, 2004 http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=41854&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 After nearly a half-century, it's time for people to admit that nuclear power generation was a bad idea. Nuclear reactors were seen as an alternative to coal, natural gas and other nonrenewable sources of energy to generate electricity. They have allowed the creation of such things as U. S. Navy warships that can remain at sea indefinitely without refueling. But in the rush to build nuclear reactors, little thought was given to the question of how -- in the long run -- to dispose of spent nuclear fuel. Disposal seemed easy, and sites were close at hand. The benefits blinded people to the consequences, much like a compulsive shopper who never stops to think about what happens when the credit card bill comes due. Now, with deadly nuclear waste piling up back East, the nuclear power industry and its friends in government are looking to the wide-open spaces of the American West to sweep it under the rug. The government is constructing a depository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., that it claims will be able to contain the radioactive material safely for 10,000 years. Meanwhile, Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eastern power producers, is working with the Skull Valley band of Goshutes to construct a "temporary" storage site on the Indian reservation in the West Desert. Both actions are being fought by Utah and Nevada on the grounds that there is substantial risk in shipping radioactive waste across those states, and the immorality of forcing states that do not benefit from nuclear energy to have to handle the waste products for those that do. Unfortunately, Utah's and Nevada's efforts have not been coordinated. They have important common interests, but they are pitted against each other on nuclear waste in a game of hot potato, and as a result, both could easily lose their fights to keep the stuff out. Nevadans are opposed to shipping waste to Yucca Mountain, located 90 miles from Las Vegas. Utah's congressional delegation, with the exception of Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, the son of a Downwinder, voted in favor of Yucca Mountain in 2002 after being assured that supporting Yucca Mountain would derail PFS's plans for Skull Valley by blocking federal funding for the project. However, that hasn't seemed to have stopped PFS, which is still pushing to build the facility. And now it seems Nevada has repaid Utah for the Yucca Mountain vote. An amendment designating Bureau of Land Management property around Skull Valley as wilderness was stripped from a defense appropriation bill in a congressional conference committee. By designating the area as wilderness, PFS would not have been allowed to build a rail spur to its depository site. The amendment designating the new Utah wilderness area was opposed by Nevada's senators who claimed it was bad environmental law, but U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, sees it as Nevada playing a tit-for-tat game with Utah over Yucca Mountain. This bickering between the two states is not going to help either one keep nuclear waste out of the West. Instead, we're diluting our political power and allowing the nuclear industry and government to divide and conquer. The Utah and Nevada congressional delegations, as well as the state governments, need to stop playing hot potato, in which the winning side forces its opponent to keep the nuclear waste. If we don't start teaming up to achieve common goals -- keeping waste where it is, for example -- we could wind up with nuclear waste in both states, since there isn't enough room in Yucca Mountain to handle everything for the whole nation. Utah and Nevada need to present a united front as two states that refuse to become the nation's dumping ground. Both have already paid more than their fair share for America's Atomic Age achievements in the form of people stricken with radiation-related illnesses from bomb tests. We don't need to risk more citizens to transportation accidents involving nuclear waste. With Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, as one of the Senate's senior members and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid serving as the Senate Minority Leader, the two states should have some clout on Capitol Hill -- if only they could get along. Taking a broad view, nuclear power would not have a chance if it were proposed today. The fact that no new plants have been proposed since 1973 is telling. It's dangerous technology. The byproducts remain deadly for tens of thousands of years, and disposal is a bigger problem than was ever imagined in the latter half of the 20th century. Americans are more aware of dangers of nuclear power after the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. They are shocked that sloppy disposal practices of the past threaten Earth's oceans today. Many thousands of storage containers lie where they were dumped on the ocean floor, and they are corroding and leaking. Transportation of waste to Utah or Nevada represents a new threat to America's cities. Waste should be kept out of Utah and Nevada, but America should gradually decommission the plants it has already built for civilian power generation. It's time to stop creating heaps of deadly waste. Just stop. If that were to happen, existing piles of poison could stay where they are -- in the East near the cities that used the juice. Nuclear reactors operating in the U.S., 2000 Plant Operator Name Plant Net Generation (MWh) 1 Palo Verde Arizona Public Services Co. 30,415,572 2 Oconee Duke Energy Corp. 19,836,917 3 South Texas Reliant Energy HL&P 19,413,369 4 Sequoyah Tennessee Valley Authority 18,965,943 5 Braidwood Commonwealth Edison Co. 18,955,737 6 Alvin W Vogtle Southern Nuclear Operating Co. 18,448,477 7 Limerick (PECO) PECO Energy Co. 18,298,496 8 Browns Ferry Tennessee Valley Authority 18,291,610 9 Byron Commonwealth Edison Co. 18,082,620 10 Peach Bottom PECO Energy Co. 18,020,915 This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A7. -------- MILITARY -------- britain Row over arms photos threatens Ulster peace deal Tony Blair to hold talks with Ian Paisley in Downing Street, to open the way for a devolved government in Northern Ireland The UK Observer Henry McDonald December 5, 2004 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1367003,00.html Leaders of Northern Ireland's Unionist parties are demanding photographic proof that the IRA is decommissioning its weapons before they agree to a historic deal that would open the way to devolved government in the province. Tony Blair will fly to Northern Ireland later this week if a deal that leads to the restoration of power-sharing between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein can be secured. The Prime Minister is to hold crucial talks with DUP leader Ian Paisley in Downing Street tomorrow evening, when he will find out if the man who has said 'no' to every political initiative since the Troubles began will now say 'yes' to a formula aimed at sealing peace in the north of Ireland. There will then be a tea-time press conference outside Downing Street that could determine whether there is a settlement between Sinn Fein and the DUP. Paisley's strategy at the Number 10 meeting will be to see what Blair has secured from the republican movement first before endorsing any agreement. The plan of the British and Irish governments now hinges on one critical issue - the photographing of IRA arms and explosives being decommissioned. Senior DUP sources insisted last night that if there were no physical evidence of the IRA arsenal being destroyed there would be no deal. 'We could not go to the unionist electorate without photographic proof that IRA arms were decommissioned. No photographs means no deal,' one DUP member close to the negotiations told The Observer. There has some been some hints from the republican movement that pictures of decommissioning could be taken. However the disagreement lies over when they can be published. Sinn Fein sources say issues of pictures should be a matter between the IRA and John de Chastelain, the Canadian general tasked with overseeing arms destruction. The British and Irish governments have suggested that the pictures be shown to Paisley in private. The DUP leader would then agree to restore devolution and when the new powersharing executive met for the first time in March 2005 the photographs would be published. The IRA has asked for Dr Robin Eames, the Church of Ireland Primate, to be one of the churchmen overseeing decommissioning, The Observer has learned. Eames acted as go-between in 1993-94 for the government and the loyalists helping to achieve the UDA/UVF cease-fire in October 1994. There is also concern over whether the publication of decommissioning photographs would lead to IRA units in areas such as East Tyrone, South Down and Antrim leaving the movement. Last week a group of IRA dissenters issued a statement condemning any moves to destroy the weapons smuggled into Ireland from Libya in the mid-1980s. However, the vast majority of IRA units remain solidly loyal to the leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. There is also some disagreement within DUP ranks about whether they should go for a deal before Christmas or wait until after the outcome of the expected May general election when the party aims to wipe out their Ulster Unionist rivals. They fear that sitting in government with Sinn Fein will play badly with Protestant voters in marginal seats where the DUP feels it can triumph. -------- business Buying a Front-Row Seat For a Future in Biodefense Officials Celebrate Fruits of Tax Breaks at Vaccine Plant Washington Post By Elizabeth Williamson December 5, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36163-2004Dec4.html When the maker of the country's most widely used anthrax vaccine cut the ribbon on its new plant in Frederick County last week, an array of public officials, including Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., praised the package of financial perks that drew the company here. But at least one politician, County Commissioner John L. "Lennie" Thompson Jr., said he wondered: Was the giveaway really needed to lure BioPort, a Michigan-based vaccine maker, to Frederick? "We're hoping that with the location of BioPort, there will be interest from other bioscience organizations," said Laurie Boyer, director of operations for the county's Office of Economic Development. Without the loan and tax breaks that the state and county extended, she said, "they probably would not have come." BioPort, a subsidiary of Emergent BioSolutions Inc., opened a 150,000-square-foot vaccine plant in an industrial park off Route 85, along the Interstate 270 technology corridor. In a statement, the company said it planned to spend $95 million to equip the facility, buy another building nearby and employ as many as 400 people. Speaking at the opening, Ehrlich said that though Maryland and Frederick are "hot" areas for bioscience research, "there are not a lot of bioscience manufacturing facilities." That, along with the jobs, was a key reason Maryland ponied up more than $10 million in financial incentives, including a $2.5 million forgivable loan to BioPort from the state. The county granted $250,000 in tax relief. Aris Melissaratos, secretary of the Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development, said he was quoting U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-Md.) in saying: "Maryland is about technological dominance. Maryland must become the world's capital in vaccine production." But Thompson, the only no vote on BioPort's tax deal, argued that Maryland can achieve that status without "corporate welfare." "You can't keep people away from here with a flamethrower," he said. "We sell our state and county short when we have to pay companies to come here." It is true that when it comes to attracting biodefense and biotechnology businesses, Maryland trumps Virginia, its closest competitor. Maryland's biggest asset is the Bethesda-based National Institutes of Health, which drives billions of dollars in research spending. In Frederick, the NIH's National Cancer Institute operates a research center that has lured bioscience firms to the county, including California-based Scientific Applications International Corp., which operates the cancer institute. SAIC opened its own facility in the same industrial park as BioPort's plant. But SAIC did not garner any publicly funded incentives, Boyer said. The Army's Fort Detrick has grown into one of the country's leading centers for biodefense research over the past decade and plans to expand its work over the next decade. Emergent BioSolutions' chairman and chief executive, Fuad El-Hibri, said Frederick's proximity to the Defense Department, the company's biggest customer by far for its anthrax vaccine, was a key lure. "All the federal agencies are here," he said. "This plant brings us closer to where our customers are." Mike Zamiara, Emergent's chief financial officer, negotiated the deal with the state and county. "He drove a hard bargain," Melissaratos said. Zamiara said BioPort had looked at its home base of Michigan as well as Illinois, Virginia and Pennsylvania as possible locations for the plant. -------- russia / chechnya Putin First Russian Chief to Visit Turkey Associated Press Writer By STEVE GUTTERMAN Dec 5, 2004 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TURKEY_RUSSIA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin made the first official visit by a Russian leader to Turkey on Sunday, seeking to boost trade and counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries, which have been rivals since the time of the czars and sultans. Putin's two-day visit will include a business forum and is expected to produce cooperation agreements on defense, finance and energy, as well as a friendship and partnership declaration. "We are here to take courageous decisions," Putin said at a dinner with his Turkish counterpart, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, ahead of official talks Monday. "The visit will give the opportunity for both economic and trade relations between Russian and Turkey to open up to new horizons." Sezer said Putin's visit "will undoubtedly be a cornerstone in moving cooperation and relations between our two countries toward a multifaceted partnership." He added that Turkey was determined to cooperate with Russia in the fight against terrorism. Russia has urged Turkey to crack down on charities it claims channel money and weapons to Chechen rebels. In an apparent gesture to Putin, Turkish authorities apprehended nine suspected Chechen militants and three pro-Chechen Turks last week, and the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday that police linked them to al-Qaida. Many Turks trace their ancestry to Chechnya or elsewhere in the Caucasus and sympathize with fellow Muslims in the war-ravaged region, where Putin has pursued a tough policy against rebels seeking independence. In Istanbul, some in a group of 2,000 protesters carried a banner reading: "Murderer Putin! Get out of Turkey!" A Caucasus group also protested his visit and Chechnya policies before placing a black wreath in front of the Russian Consulate. Security was tight for Putin's visit, with a number of streets closed to traffic and some 3,000 police officers assigned to protect Putin, authorities said. The visit marks a milestone in relations between two countries whose meetings in past centuries often came on the battlefield in struggles to control land from the Balkans to the Black Sea and beyond to China's borders. The Ottoman Empire and Czarist Russia vied for regional supremacy, Turkey was NATO's easternmost Cold War outpost, and Russia and Turkey have fought for influence in Turkic states that gained independence in the 1991 Soviet collapse. Religion also has been a source of friction between predominantly Orthodox Christian Russia and Islamic Turkey. Putin has bickered with Turkey over Russian access to the West from the Black Sea through Turkey's Bosporus straits, which Istanbul said was packed dangerously with tankers carrying Russian oil. But "Russia and Turkey are moving toward cooperation and the flourishing it will bring with it," Putin said before the trip, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Bilateral trade increased by 60 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period a year ago, reaching $4.6 billion, according to Russia's trade ministry. That trade may exceed $10 billion for the year. A pipeline carries Russian natural gas beneath the Black Sea to Turkey, a major consumer, while Turkish companies are active in Russia's booming retail, construction and brewing industries. Turkey's Mediterranean resorts are popular among Russians, fostering familiarity. Putin said his own vacations there helped change his outlook, ITAR-Tass reported. -------- spies Bush Pressuring G.O.P. to Approve Intelligence Bill nytimes.com By PHILIP SHENON December 5, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/politics/05panel.html?oref=login&ei=5094&en=d79d76afa0237e40&hp=&ex=1102309200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position= President Bush sought to stem a near-rebellion by members of his own party in Congress yesterday by describing a sweeping intelligence-overhaul bill they oppose as an effort "to do everything necessary to confront and defeat the terrorist threat" and calling for its passage during a brief Congressional session this week. The president's remarks in his weekly radio address came a day after a powerful Senate Republican, John W. Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, expressed doubts about the bill, which would enact the major recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission and create a cabinet-level director of national intelligence. Mr. Warner, the first member of the Senate from either party to raise such concerns publicly since the final bill was hammered out last month, said he wanted to resolve issues in the legislation that "may impact the time-tested chain of command" within the Defense Department. His comments echo those of a group of House Republicans who blocked a vote on the bill last month. Under the bill, the Pentagon, which is now believed to control about 80 percent of the government's estimated $40 billion intelligence budget, would have to cede some authority to a new national intelligence director, resulting in a similar loss of oversight authority for the Senate committee led by Mr. Warner, as well as the Armed Services Committee in the House. Congressional officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity given the delicate nature of the discussions, said the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card, and Vice President Dick Cheney were involved in talks to appease the bill's opponents on Capitol Hill. One option may be to rewrite the legislation to provide additional guarantees to the Defense Department over its control of three large spy agencies that now reside within the Pentagon but provide intelligence to agencies outside the Defense Department. The largest of the three is the National Security Agency, which is responsible for electronic surveillance in foreign countries. By using his radio address to make his most impassioned public plea to date for the intelligence bill, President Bush raised the stakes in a legislative battle that pits the White House against lawmakers in the president's own party and could suggest trouble for Mr. Bush in pursuing a broader second-term agenda in Congress, including legislation to overhaul the Social Security system and the tax code. Mr. Bush, the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the members of the Sept. 11 commission have all endorsed the intelligence bill. But its final passage is being prevented by a core of conservative House Republicans close to the Pentagon who may now have the support of Mr. Warner. In the radio address, Mr. Bush said that Congress was being given the opportunity to pass "a strong new law" that "would make America more secure" by coordinating the work of the nation's intelligence agencies, and specifically by creating the job of national intelligence director. The Sept. 11 commission had urged that the job be created in an effort to force rival intelligence and counterterrorism agencies, notably the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to put aside generations-old turf battles and cooperate against terrorist threats. In its final report last July, the commission cataloged a series of instances in which spy agencies refused or otherwise failed to share intelligence before Sept. 11 that might have led to disruption of the terrorist plot. "To be effective, this position must have full budget authority over our intelligence agencies," Mr. Bush said yesterday. "The many elements of our intelligence community must function seamlessly, with an overriding mission: to protect America from attack by terrorists or outlaw regimes." He added, "The most important provisions of any new bill must create a strong, focused new management structure for our intelligence services and break down the remaining walls that prevent the timely sharing of vital threat information." He addressed the concerns raised both by Mr. Warner and by House Republican opponents of the bill, with the president insisting that "the legislation preserves the existing chain of command" within the military. "I urge members of Congress to act next week so I can sign these needed reforms into law," the president said. "We must do everything necessary to confront and defeat the terrorist threat, and that includes intelligence reform." The intelligence bill, which was approved by a House-Senate conference committee last month, appeared close to passage. But a final vote in the House was blocked at the last minute by Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who has also endorsed the bill, after objections were raised by a group aligned with the Pentagon led by Representative Duncan Hunter of California, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Until Mr. Warner's comments on Friday, there had been no similar effort by Senate Republicans to stop the bill, and Mr. Warner had voted for the Senate version of the bill. The Senate bill, similar in most ways to the final bill approved by the House and Senate conferees, was passed 96 to 2, with all Republicans in support. ----- Legislator Takes Stand For Military Foe of Intelligence Bill Feels an Obligation Washington Post By Charles Babington December 5, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35715-2004Dec4.html Congress's chief opponent of legislation to revamp the intelligence community says he remains unmoved, leaving the White House scrambling this weekend for a solution to the impasse that has frustrated the bill's backers and raised questions about President Bush's clout among Republican lawmakers. For Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the House Armed Services Committee chairman at the center of the logjam, the role is a familiar one. During 24 years in Congress, he has bucked Democratic as well as Republican presidents when he felt they provided too little money, equipment and weaponry for U.S. troops. When it comes to safeguarding satellite intelligence for troops in Iraq -- the issue that prompted him to waylay the White House-backed bill last month -- he has an unusually personal interest. Hunter's son, a Marine lieutenant who has served two tours in Iraq, phoned him from embattled Fallujah and "told me to hang in there on the intel thing," the congressman said in an interview late last week. "A lot of military people have told me that," he added, but his accounts of his son, Duncan Duane Hunter, have proved especially moving to his House colleagues, several said. Hunter has raised two main objections to the legislation that emerged from House-Senate negotiations: It would give the Pentagon insufficient budgetary control over intelligence operations and would make it possible for a director of national intelligence to override Pentagon efforts to deliver information from spy satellites immediately to troops at war. Hunter said in the interview that the budget issue had been resolved, but not the other. "The military folks are very concerned about the chain-of-command issue," he said. "The Senate has got to move across the finish line on this." Senate leaders have said they will make no further compromises. Hunter, a decorated Army Ranger in Vietnam, has long had a reputation as a champion of troops in the field. With the added emotional impact of his son's role in Iraq, his influence among rank-and-file House Republicans has reached a new level -- one that caught the administration and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) by surprise last month. On Nov. 20, Hastert urged GOP members to embrace the negotiated intelligence bill, which President Bush had endorsed. But after Hunter and another committee chairman addressed their colleagues in a closed meeting, so many Republicans voiced opposition that Hastert kept the measure from reaching a floor vote -- even though there apparently were enough Democratic votes to pass it. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (Wis.) also criticized the bill, saying it lacked important curbs on illegal immigration. But White House efforts to resuscitate the legislation have focused mainly on Hunter's complaints. Congress convenes tomorrow for a short session that many lawmakers say will mark the intelligence bill's last hope for 2004. White House officials and congressional aides are working to resolve the impasse. A House vote on a large spending bill is set for 6 p.m. tomorrow. Hastert had hoped to vote on the intelligence measure after that, releasing members in time for the White House congressional Christmas party. Bush aides said the party will take place but the intelligence bill's status was unclear. In the interview, Hunter said there was nothing uncomfortable or improper about a Republican committee chairman opposing a Republican commander in chief on a matter of Pentagon authority. "I think the system is working well," he said, "because my obligation . . . is to the troops. We are a check and balance on the executive branch. I have a lot more time to spend on this issue than a lot of the folks in the White House, and we've done our homework on it." Hunter's longtime associates describe him as an unpretentious lawmaker who almost surely will base his decision on what he thinks is best for those, like his son, battling insurgents in Iraq. They were not surprised last month when Hunter spoke forcefully against the bill even after Bush had phoned him to urge its passage. Praise and criticism, flattery and warnings roll easily off Hunter's wide shoulders, they say. He is slow to anger, the associates say, and slow to change his mind unless someone presents a compelling case -- even if he is opposing the president. "He is consistently pleasant, but firm," said Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.), a colleague of Hunter's for 20 years. "If you haven't convinced him that you're right and he's wrong, he'll dig in his heels." As for White House aides' efforts to overcome House resistance to the bill, Coble said, "If they don't make some kind of case that something has improved, I don't believe Duncan Hunter or Jim Sensenbrenner will cave." Since 1981, Hunter, 56, has represented the San Diego area, a major naval base. From the outset, looking out for the military at the ground -- or sea -- level was synonymous with looking out for his constituents, colleagues say. Hunter sometimes irritated the Pentagon by pushing it to build and deploy more ships and submarines, said Chris Warden, his press secretary in the early 1980s. "He was willing to go to the mat for his district," said Warden, who teaches journalism at Troy State University in Alabama. "He wasn't really concerned about the niceties of Washington." He said Hunter stunned his staff by nonchalantly taking his young son -- now the Marine -- to a hastily called White House meeting with President Ronald Reagan. The child delighted a surprised Reagan, Warden said. Over the years, Hunter rarely met a weapons system he did not like. He championed the satellite-based Strategic Defense Initiative and called for building more B-2 bombers without reducing the number of B-1 bombers. In March 2000, he and others persuaded Hastert to boost military spending by $4 billion by threatening to vote against a key budget resolution. Two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Hunter criticized Bush's spending priorities, saying the president wanted to "conduct an aggressive Ronald Reagan foreign policy with a Jimmy Carter defense budget." "He's a classic sort of pro-defense conservative," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a military scholar at the Brookings Institution. At least for now, in the struggle between the Pentagon and the intelligence community, Hunter seems to have plenty of admirers in the Republican-controlled House. Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report. -------- un Annan's son used UN link to lobby for business telegraph.co.uk By Philip Sherwell in Washington 05/12/2004 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=LRFCPAQRU5EJXQFIQMGSM5WAVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2004/12/05/wkojo05.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/12/05/ixworld. The son of Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, lobbied for business contacts at gatherings of UN officials on behalf of a company in the same year as it won an oil-for-food programme deal, it has emerged. The second disclosure in a week about Kojo Annan's role with the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection Services, which secured the $4.8 million (£2.46 million) UN contract to monitor goods entering and leaving Iraq in 1998, has raised embarrassing questions for his father. The details were revealed in Cotecna company documents handed over under subpoena to US congressional scrutineers who are investigating the oil-for-food scandal in which Saddam Hussein is thought to have creamed off more than $20 billion. In one billing memo, a US investigator told The Telegraph, Kojo Annan, 29, claimed fees and expenses for eight days' work in July 1998, including six days in Abuja "during my father's visit to Nigeria". On another, he claimed expenses and $500 a day for a 15-day trip to New York and the UN General Assembly in September 1998 for meetings on "special projects". Kojo was working as a consultant on African business deals for Cotecna at the time. The company, the UN and Kojo have repeatedly stressed that he had no involvement in securing the oil-for-food contract that was awarded in December 1998. However, the revelations were awkward for his father, who only two days earlier said: "He is an independent businessman. He is a grown man and I don't get involved with his activities - and he doesn't get involved in mine." The Secretary-General made those comments in response to news a week ago that his son had received payments from Cotecna until February this year. Mr Annan's office previously said that his son had cut his ties to Cotecna in 1998, but confirmed last week that he had received "non-compete fees" of about $2,300 a month for more than four years afterwards. Cotecna said the monies were paid to the younger Annan as part of a deal stipulating that he would not take his expertise in African business to a rival outfit. Asked about these payments, Mr Annan senior said: "Naturally, I was very disappointed and surprised." He added that he had not known the payments had continued for so long. Kojo Annan lives in Lagos, Nigeria, but friends there said last week that he was not at home. Simon Smith, his British lawyer, insisted that all payments his client received from Cotecna were "entirely proper" and "none of them have anything whatsoever to do with the UN oil-for-food programme". Cotecna has confirmed that Kojo attended the meetings detailed in the memos but said that these were "for purposes of Cotecna business marketing in Africa". The company expressed confidence that the investigations will find its actions "were ethical, lawful and professional". There is growing pressure from Republicans in Washington for a change of leadership at the UN, with one leading senator who is investigating the oil-for-food calling for Mr Annan to resign. -------- us Former Chief of U.S. Prisons in Iraq to Testify Associated Press By T.A. Badger December 5, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36168-2004Dec4.html FORT HOOD, Tex., Dec. 4 -- A military judge on Saturday ordered the former commander of U.S. prisons in Iraq to testify at the trial of a soldier who says he was ordered to abuse detainees at Abu Ghraib. The judge, Col. James Pohl, said Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski's testimony at the trial of Sgt. Javal S. Davis would be limited to conditions at Abu Ghraib and the interaction there between guards and military interrogators. Davis has acknowledged stepping on the fingers and toes of detainees but told investigators that military intelligence personnel appeared to approve. "We were told they had different rules," he said, according to an Army report. Karpinski has denied knowing about any mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib until photographs were made public at the end of April showing hooded and naked prisoners being tormented by their U.S. captors. She was relieved of her command after abuse at the prison came to light. In an interview, Karpinski said a "conspiracy" among top U.S. commanders left her to blame for the abuses. A report issued by an independent panel of nongovernment experts blamed Karpinski for leadership failures that "helped set the conditions at the prison which led to the abuses." Her attorney, Neal A. Puckett, said he had not been notified of Pohl's order. But he said Karpinski, who is now in the Army Reserves, gave a deposition in an earlier case. "She's always been willing to cooperate in any investigation. There's be no reason for her not to testify," he said. The pretrial hearings at Fort Hood Saturday for Davis and Spec. Sabrina Harman were originally scheduled to begin next year in Baghdad. No reason was given for the decision to move the trials to the United States. Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., described as the ringleader and father of the child of Pfc. Lynndie R. England, is scheduled to appear in a Fort Hood courtroom on Monday. He is expected to seek dismissal of charges on grounds of undue command influence. The soldiers are among seven members of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company charged with humiliating and assaulting prisoners at the prison outside Baghdad. Like England, Harman was photographed standing behind naked, hooded Iraqis stacked in a human pyramid. Harman also was shown next to a dead body packed in ice giving thumbs-up signs with Graner. Harman, of Lorton, is accused of photographing some of the abuse, participating in sexual humiliation of naked prisoners, writing "rapist" on the leg of a detainee who then was forced to pose naked with other prisoners, and placing wires in the hands of a detainee and telling him he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box. Davis, of Roselle, N.J., faces charges including conspiracy to maltreat detainees, assault, dereliction of duty and lying in official statements. England, whose court-martial is scheduled for Jan. 18, also sought to call Karpinski as a witness, along with Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The judge in her case rejected those requests. Graner, of Uniontown, Pa., is scheduled for trial beginning Jan. 7. Davis's trial will begin Feb. 2. Harman's trial date has not yet been determined, Fort Hood officials said. ----- US admits the war for ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq is now lost Pentagon report reveals catalogue of failure sunday uk herald By Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor 05 December 2004 http://www.sundayherald.com/46389 THE Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy” of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East. The mea culpa is contained in a shockingly frank “strategic communications” report, written this autumn by the Defence Science Board for Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld. On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds”, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended”. “American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.” Referring to the repeated mantra from the White House that those who oppose the US in the Middle East “hate our freedoms”, the report says: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. “Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypo crisy. Moreover, saying that ‘freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronising … in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination.” The way America has handled itself since September 11 has played straight into the hands of al-Qaeda, the report adds. “American actions have elevated the authority of the jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims.” The result is that al-Qaeda has gone from being a marginal movement to having support across the entire Muslim world. “Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic,” the report goes on, adding that to the Arab world the war is “no more than an extension of American domestic politics”. The US has zero credibility among Muslims which means that “whatever Americans do and say only serves … the enemy”. The report says that the US is now engaged in a “global and generational struggle of ideas” which it is rapidly losing. In order to reverse the trend, the US must make “strategic communication” – which includes the dissemination of propaganda and the running of military psychological operations – an integral part of national security. The document says that “Presidential leadership” is needed in this “ideas war” and warns against “arrogance, opportunism and double standards”. “We face a war on terrorism,” the report says, “intensified conflict with Islam, and insurgency in Iraq. Worldwide anger and discontent are directed at America’s tarnished credibility and ways the US pursues its goals. There is a consensus that America’s power to persuade is in a state of crisis.” More than 90% of the populations of some Muslims countries, such as Saudi Arabia, are opposed to US policies. “The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe,” the report adds, “weakened support for the war on terrorism and undermined US credibility worldwide.” This, in turn, poses an increased threat to US national security. America’s “image problem”, the report authors suggest, is “linked to perceptions of the US as arrogant, hypocritical and self-indulgent”. The White House “has paid little attention” to the problems. The report calls for a huge boost in spending on propaganda efforts as war policies “will not succeed unless they are communicated to global domestic audiences in ways that are credible”. American rhetoric which equates the war on terror as a cold-war-style battle against “totalitarian evil” is also slapped down by the report. Muslims see what is happening as a “history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration … a renewal of the Muslim world …(which) has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents – of which radical fighters are only a small part”. Rather than supporting tyranny, most Muslim want to overthrow tyrannical regimes like Saudi Arabia. “The US finds itself in the strategically awkward – and potentially dangerous – situation of being the long-standing prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the US, these regimes could not survive,” the report says. “Thus the US has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle … US policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself … Americans have inserted themselves into this intra-Islamic struggle in ways that have made us an enemy to most Muslims. “There is no yearning-to- be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell among Muslim societies … The perception of intimate US support of tyr-annies in the Muslim world is perhaps the critical vulnerability in American strategy. It strongly undercuts our message, while strongly promoting that of the enemy.” The report says that, in terms of the “information war”, “at this moment it is the enemy that has the advantage”. The US propaganda drive has to focus on “separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical- militant Islamist-Jihadist”. According to the report, “the official take on the target audience [the Muslim world] has been gloriously simple” and divided the Middle East into “good” and “bad Muslims”. “Americans are convinced that the US is a benevolent ‘superpower’ that elevates values emphasising freedom … deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies. Yet the world of Islam – by overwhelming majorities at this time – sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical and American actions as deeply threatening. “In two years the jihadi message – that strongly attacks American values – is being accepted by more moderate and non-violent Muslims. This in turn implies that negative opinion of the US has not yet bottomed out Equally important, the report says, is “to renew European attitudes towards America” which have also been severely damaged since September 11, 2001. As “al-Qaeda constantly outflanks the US in the war of information”, American has to adopt more sophisticated propaganda techniques, such as targeting secularists in the Muslim world – including writers, artists and singers – and getting US private sector media and marketing professionals involved in disseminating messages to Muslims with a pro-US “brand”. The Pentagon report also calls for the establishment of a national security adviser for strategic communications, and a massive boost in funding for the “information war” to boost US government TV and radio stations broadcasting in the Middle East. The importance of the need to quickly establish a propaganda advantage is underscored by a document attached to the Pentagon report from Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, dated May. It says: “Our military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to be the last such excursion in the global war on terrorism.” -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts / tribunals US deserter turns to new line of defence on eve of Canada hearing sundayherald.com From Paul Gains in Ontario 05 December 2004 http://www.sundayherald.com/46409 A year of fear and anxiety will reach a climax tomorrow when US Army private Jeremy Hinzman walks into a Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board hearing to argue that he should be permitted to stay in Canada as a refugee after deserting his post last December. The outlook for the soldier is bleak, however, as his defence has been hit by major setbacks. Twice the hearing has been postponed while the Canadian ministry of justice sought more time to prepare and, crucially, the Crown has succeeded in having Hinzman’s principal argument – that the Iraq war was illegal – ruled irrelevant. If the court rules against him, it is likely the 25-year-old native of South Dakota will face deportation back to the US where he will be tried as a deserter. The penalty for desertion is death. Hinzman told the Sunday Herald: “No doubt my heart will be beating a little bit when I walk in the room, but I know why I am here and why I feel we should be able to stay.” If the case fails, it will be a blow to a string of other deserters seeking asylum in Canada. Last December, Hinzman packed his belongings and drove across the Canadian border with his wife Nga Nguyen and infant son, leaving his post at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The decision to throw out the ‘illegal war’ defence came as a shock to Hinzman and his lawyer, Jeffry House, a former US draft dodger from the 1970s. “It’s a setback but its also an appealable point,” said House, who believes an appeal court will, if necessary, take a different view of the question of the war’s legality. House also would not rule out that political pressure has been applied from behind the scenes by the US. Unable to argue that the Iraq war is illegal, Hinzman and his lawyer have another plan of attack. “We are flying up a marine staff sergeant who served in Iraq and shot civilians at demonstrations and all kinds of things,” Hinzman revealed, but would not name him. “Since we can’t discuss legality we are going to try to show that the atrocious acts that are taking place in Iraq are not anomalies or isolated incidents but part of a plan of attack, if you will. I think we stand on solid ground, in terms of what is right and what is wrong. Obviously not being able to argue that this is an illegal war is a big setback because that is essentially the whole reason I am here.” President George W Bush visited Canada for two days last week and held talks with Prime Minister Paul Martin, but the visit was marred by anti-war demonstrations. Against such a backdrop, Hinzman is seen as a symbol of the anti-war movement. Should he succeed, other deserters will no doubt flee to Canada, said House, who has earned notoriety over the case. “There are three people who have declared themselves and they are awaiting a hearing: Jeremy, Brandon Haughey and a guy named David Sanders,” said House. “There is also another fellow I will be meeting, who is telling me he is absolutely bound and determined to make a claim. That makes four. “There are also three I am aware of who are deserters, who have some claim to Canadian citizenship.” Quite apart from his defence of these individuals, House said he regularly receives e-mails from US military personnel all over the world who are seeking advice on how to get into Canada. A handful of other deserters have even walked into his Toronto office and asked for help. House believes they will also eventually declare themselves political refugees and follow Hinzman’s lead. Hinzman said: “If we succeed it will be a precedent and would perhaps open the doors to people who are considering a similar course of action.” Five days a week Hinzman goes running in Toronto with friends and spends time with his son Liam at a nearby park or local book store. Last week, he applied for a work permit as the couple’s savings, accrued from two years of service in the US 82nd Airborne, are being eaten up. Until his case is settled, he is not entitled to work unless they cannot support themselves. Support for Hinzman continues to grow. A group, calling itself the War Resister Support Campaign ,plans a vigil outside the building while the hearing takes place, with similar gatherings planned in other major urban centres across Canada. Letters of support have also poured in from around the world, including one from the actress Susan Sarandon, who called Hinzman a hero for refusing to go to war. Hinzman also says he has recently met an unnamed celebrity musician who is helping to pay his legal costs. He added: “I didn’t want to be implicit in a criminal enterprise and hence a war criminal. It has been evident in light of Abu Ghraib and other things that the soldiers who pay the price for the policies that come from on high are the enlisted soldiers.” Three days have been set aside for the hearing, with a decision due in January. Pentagon officials have noted that although the penalty for desertion is death, it is more likely he would receive a lengthy prison term. Regardless, Hinzman has vowed not to return to the US. -------- death penalty Death Sentences in Texas Cases Try Supreme Court's Patience The New York Times By ADAM LIPTAK and RALPH BLUMENTHAL December 5, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/national/05texas.html?ei=5094&en=cb3c23993931bdaa&hp=&ex=1102309200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position= In the past year, the Supreme Court has heard three appeals from inmates on death row in Texas, and in each case the prosecutors and the lower courts suffered stinging reversals. In a case to be argued on Monday, the court appears poised to deliver another rebuke. Lawyers for a Texas death row inmate, Thomas Miller-El, will appear before the justices for the second time in two years. To legal experts, the Supreme Court's decision to hear his case yet again is a sign of its growing impatience with two of the courts that handle death penalty cases from Texas: its highest criminal court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans. Perhaps as telling is the exasperated language in decisions this year from a Supreme Court that includes no categorical opponent of the death penalty. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in June that the Fifth Circuit was "paying lip service to principles" of appellate law in issuing death penalty rulings with "no foundation in the decisions of this court." In an unsigned decision in another case last month, the Supreme Court said the Court of Criminal Appeals "relied on a test we never countenanced and now have unequivocally rejected." The decision was made without hearing argument, a move that ordinarily signals that the error in the decision under review was glaring. The actions of the two appeals courts that hear capital cases from Texas help explain why the state leads the nation in executions, with 336 since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, more than the next five states combined. In the Miller-El case, appellate lawyers and legal scholars are buzzing over what they say is the insolence of the Fifth Circuit. In an 8-to-1 decision last year, the Supreme Court instructed the appeals court to rethink its "dismissive and strained interpretation" of the proof in the case, and to consider more seriously the substantial evidence suggesting that prosecutors had systematically excluded blacks from Mr. Miller-El's jury. Prosecutors used peremptory strikes to eliminate 10 out of 11 eligible black jurors, and they twice used a local procedure called a jury shuffle to move blacks lower on the list of potential jurors, the decision said. The jury ultimately selected, which had one black member, convicted Mr. Miller-El, a black man who is now 53, of killing a clerk at a Holiday Inn in Dallas in 1985. Instead of considering much of the evidence recited by the Supreme Court majority, the appeals court engaged in something akin to plagiarism. In February, it again rejected Mr. Miller-El's claims, in a decision that reproduced, virtually verbatim and without attribution, several paragraphs from the sole dissenting opinion in last year's Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas. "The Fifth Circuit just went out of its way to defy the Supreme Court on this," said John J. Gibbons, a former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, who joined a brief supporting Mr. Miller-El. "The idea that the system can tolerate open defiance by an inferior court just cannot stand." The Supreme Court agrees to hear only about 80 cases each year. It seldom accepts cases to correct errors in the lower courts and concentrates instead on resolving conflicts among appeals courts and announcing broad legal principles. But in recent years the court has often found itself fixing problems in specific Texas death penalty cases. Over the last decade, it has ruled against prosecutors in all six appeals brought by inmates on death row in Texas. The cases all involved challenges to the fairness of the procedures used to convict and sentence the defendants rather than arguments about their innocence. The two appeals courts handle an enormous number of capital cases and grant relief in very few. Between 1995 and 2000, the Court of Criminal Appeals heard direct appeals in 270 death sentences and reversed eight times, according to a report by the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit law firm that represents death row inmates. The reversal rate - 3 percent - is the lowest of any state. California, which has a much larger death row, at 635, has executed only 10 people since 1976, to Texas's 336. By contrast, a comprehensive study of almost 6,000 death sentences across the nation over the 20 years ended in 1995 found a 68 percent chance they would be overturned by a state or federal court. The Fifth Circuit also reviews Texas death sentences when inmates file writs of habeas corpus - challenges to unlawful detentions. The court has 50 or 60 capital cases pending at any given time, a spokesman said. But in recent years it has very seldom ruled in favor of prisoners on death row. The two courts have been resistant to claims involving withheld evidence, lies told by prosecutors and problems in jury selection, as in the Miller-El case. But legal scholars say the most intractable issue involves unusual instructions that were given to Texas juries from 1989 to 1991. The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that those instructions were unconstitutional. Yet the two appeals courts continued to uphold the death sentences that resulted from the instructions. Since 1991, more than 40 of the people in those cases have been executed, according to Jordan Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas. The state appeals court, which considers only criminal cases, is made up of elected judges, mostly former prosecutors. The judges on the federal appeals court come from more varied professional backgrounds and have life tenure. But legal scholars say that court, once famous for defending civil rights, is now quite conservative, is burdened with one of the heaviest federal appellate dockets in the country and shows mounting hostility to death row inmates and their lawyers. David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who represents death row inmates, said the federal appeals court had lost its way in capital cases. "The Fifth Circuit does not understand that it is an inferior tribunal to the United States Supreme Court, and it acts lawlessly," said Professor Dow, who was a law clerk to Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the Fifth Circuit in 1985 and 1986. Referring to the court's critical role in several historic civil rights cases, he added, "If it acted this lawlessly in the 1960's, black people and white people would still be eating at separate lunch counters." Judge King, who is now the court's chief judge and is widely considered a political and legal moderate, said Professor Dow's critique did not apply to all of her court's decisions. "The only response I would make," she said in an e-mail message, "is that a broad generalization about the Fifth Circuit's death penalty decisions indicates to me that the speaker may not have read all of them. One cannot fairly generalize about those decisions." Judge Lawrence E. Meyers, a Republican first elected to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1992 and its longest-serving member, said, "From my standpoint being on the court, I've seen it go up and down, from way too liberal to way too far to the right." Now, he said, "I feel like we've evened it out." Although he has dissented in some major cases, including Monday's 5-to-4 vote to deny a stay of execution to a Texas woman later given a limited reprieve by the governor, Judge Meyers said there was no intent to defy the Supreme Court. "We feel the Supreme Court is changing the rules on us in midstream," he said. "If they feel we're not getting it, it's because they're not being clear, but that's just a personal view." Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, a member since 1995 and a former assistant district attorney in Dallas, did not respond to several telephone messages. A Court of Prosecutors "The Worst Court in Texas" was the ignominious verdict on the cover of the November issue of Texas Monthly, the state's glossy bible of style and politics. The target: the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Texas is an anomaly - the only state with two separate and completely equal high courts. One, the Texas Supreme Court, handles only civil cases. The other, the Court of Criminal Appeals, hears only criminal cases. Each has nine judges who run for staggered six-year-terms. Only Oklahoma has a similar bifurcated appeals court system, but its Supreme Court holds overall administrative responsibility. The consequence, some experts say, is a Texas criminal appeals court largely unleavened by general practitioners and the kind of top legal talent that fills corporate boardrooms. Indeed, seven of its nine members are former prosecutors who tend to run on tough-on-crime-platforms and, critics say, embody the court's antidefense bent. "No one runs for the Court of Criminal Appeals on a platform of vindicating constitutional rights," said Professor Steiker, the University of Texas law professor. But Judge Meyers said there was a benefit to specializing. "It gives us a chance to be more attuned to criminal matters and the latest rulings," he said. The system has allowed unprepared candidates to serve on the court. In 1994 a tax lawyer, Stephen W. Mansfield, won election despite admitting during the campaign that he had lied about his legal experience and biography. While a judge, he was arrested for scalping complimentary college football tickets (he pleaded no contest to trespassing) and was accused of animal abuse for locking his dogs in his car while he sat on the bench. He did not seek re-election in 2000 but ran again in 2002 and lost. Embarrassed by that debacle, the state now requires candidates for the court to gather at least 50 signatures from all 14 appellate districts. In another episode widely perceived as an embarrassment, Roy Criner, a prison inmate serving 99 years for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl that he insisted he had never committed, successfully petitioned for a DNA test not available during his trial. The test determined that the semen in the victim was not his. A second test produced the same result. The trial court asked the criminal appeals court to order a new trial, but with Judge Keller prominently in the majority, it voted 6-3 to let the conviction stand. Gov. George W. Bush, then running for the White House, granted Mr. Criner clemency. "It's pretty bad when you have to go to Governor Bush for relief," said James Marcus, executive director of the Texas Defender Service. Maintaining that the court was not responding to such bad publicity, another member of the court, Judge Barbara Hervey, a former San Antonio prosecutor elected in 2000, has been instrumental in using a $20 million legislative appropriation, and seeking additional money, to foster a network of "innocence clinics" at law schools around the state to investigate credible claims of wrongful conviction. Though the article in Texas Monthly stung, she said, "We are in the game of justice." Robert Dawson, a University of Texas law professor working with Judge Hervey on the innocence project, said he saw the court "beginning to float back" to more moderate rulings. Deducing too much from the recent Supreme Court critiques would be a mistake, he said. "It's like driving down a road and seeing two cars a mile apart with flats and concluding that the tire manufacturing industry is in the toilet." Capital Cases in Volume A state court largely made up of former prosecutors might be expected to be skeptical of the claims of death row inmates. Why federal judges on the Fifth Circuit might share that attitude is a bit of a mystery, legal scholars said, noting that the judges are appointed for life, and are generally distinguished and independent-minded intellectuals. One explanation is political. Of the court's 16 judges, only 4 were appointed by Democratic presidents. "The Fifth Circuit has been anything but a liberal court," said Arthur D. Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on the federal courts. "It's probably second only to the Fourth Circuit," in Richmond, Va., "as a conservative circuit." "The Fifth Circuit," he added, "seems to be in tune with the Supreme Court in the broad run of cases." But not in all cases. "The one exception," said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University, "is in the area of habeas corpus, especially in death penalty cases. In that area it has been consistently over the top in inventing rationalizations by which to defend the indefensible." "A circuit that 40 years ago was justly famous for implementing the mandates of the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court respecting racial fairness," he said, "is now justly notorious for its outright refusal to apply fundamental principles of due process to the criminal justice system." The court, which hears appeals from Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, is by some measures the busiest federal appeals court. Its judges decided an average of 862 cases each in 2003 - more than three each business day - compared with a national average of 459. In a 1992 speech, Judge King, who had not yet become the court's chief judge, said the "sheer volume" of cases in the Fifth Circuit "has had an adverse impact on the number of decisions that we can fairly claim have been fully considered and understood." "We cannot devote to more than a few cases a year," she continued, "the time required for a careful review of a record of any length, for in-depth research and even for prolonged, thoughtful consideration." In an e-mail message, Judge King said, "The situation has eased somewhat since 1992 because the volume of complicated civil appeals is declining." On the other hand, the judges on the court in 1992 decided 640 cases each year, or some 200 fewer than they do today, according to the administrative office of the federal courts. Other courts make essentially all their death penalty decisions available for formal publication; in recent years, the Fifth Circuit has published only 18 percent of such decisions. And its decisions were on average half the length of capital decisions from other federal appeals courts. Appellate lawyers who follow the court's death penalty jurisprudence say the court is overwhelmed by the number of capital cases, which may cause it to be hostile to the claims of death row inmates. "You can't do death in volume," said George H. Kendall, a lawyer with Holland & Knight in New York who represents Delma Banks Jr., a Texas death row inmate. At times the federal appeals court has been unfathomable to its critics. Last December, for instance, it considered the last-minute appeal of Billy Frank Vickers, scheduled to die for the killing of a grocer in 1993. With the inmate already given his last meal, the judges deliberated until 9 p.m. and announced they were leaving, with no decision. Bewildered state prison officials allowed the death warrant to expire, granting Mr. Vickers a delay. He was executed six weeks later. In October, a Houston federal judge granted a last-minute stay to Dominique Green, but the state appealed. The Fifth Circuit then gave defense lawyers less than half an hour to file their response, Professor Dow said. A rushed brief was e-mailed to the court and turned down. The Supreme Court also rejected a stay, and Mr. Green was executed that night. Instructing Jurors to Lie Much of the tension between the Supreme Court and the two lower courts is rooted in the instructions given to juries in Texas from 1989 to 1991. Three Texas death penalty cases heard by the Supreme Court in the last four years have concerned those instructions. From 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, until 1989, Texas juries were generally asked only two questions at the sentencing phase of a capital trial: Was the killing deliberate? Does the defendant pose a danger to others? If the jurors unanimously answered yes to both, the judge was required to impose a death sentence. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that the Texas procedure was flawed because it did not allow the jury to consider mitigating evidence that might cause it to spare the defendant's life. But the Texas Legislature did not revise the procedure until 1991. In the meantime, Texas judges adopted ad hoc instructions that retained the two questions but also told jurors that they could falsely answer "no" to one or both questions if they thought the mitigating evidence was strong enough. In 2001, the Supreme Court held that instructing a juror to lie was unconstitutional. "It would have been both logically and ethically impossible for a juror to follow both sets of instructions," Justice O'Connor wrote. But the Fifth Circuit and the Court of Criminal Appeals continued to uphold death sentences imposed under the unconstitutional procedure, saying that some juries considering some mitigating evidence actually could have followed the seemingly inconsistent instructions. Indeed, in 2003 the entire Fifth Circuit reaffirmed that approach in a case against Mark Robertson, convicted in 1991 of murdering a store clerk, a friend and the friend's grandmother. He was sentenced to death for the last killing. Judge Edith H. Jones, writing for the majority, said the Supreme Court's 2001 decision was meant to apply only to some cases in which the instructions had been used. Two dissenting judges said the court was simply refusing to follow the instructions of the Supreme Court. "I am amazed," wrote one, Judge Harold R. DeMoss Jr., that the majority "would have the audacity to turn around and reach the same result the Supreme Court just vacated." The Supreme Court declined without comment to hear the case again. The Court of Criminal Appeals then stayed Mr. Robertson's execution and has not yet ruled on his case. In June, though, the Supreme Court returned to the subject, in even more explicit language in the case of Robert Tennard, convicted of killing a neighbor in Houston in 1985. The Fifth Circuit's approach, Justice O'Connor wrote in the decision for the 6-to-3 majority, "has no foundation in the decisions of this court." Still, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals appeared not to have heard the message, and the Supreme Court addressed the topic in another case in November. The criminal appeals court relied on "precisely the same 'screening test' we held constitutionally inadequate" in the June decision, the decision said. In the Miller-El case, too, which will be argued for a second time on Monday, there is reason to expect a firm response from the court. Mr. Miller-El, who has been on death row since 1986, contends that prosecutors violated his constitutional rights by excluding blacks from his jury. Writing for the majority in the Supreme Court's 8-to-1 decision last year, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy discussed evidence that prosecutors had acted improperly. Among other things, he noted, prosecutors questioned black potential jurors more aggressively about their views on the death penalty than they did white jurors. Only Justice Thomas dissented from the decision, saying that none of the factors cited by Justice Kennedy "presented anything remotely resembling clear and convincing evidence of purposeful discrimination." Mr. Miller-El, Justice Thomas wrote, "ignores the fact that of the 10 whites who expressed opposition to the death penalty, eight were struck for cause or removed by agreement, meaning no 'manipulative' script was necessary to get them removed." The Fifth Circuit's decision in February, which ruled against Mr. Miller-El, echoed that and many other statements in Justice Thomas's dissent. "Of the 10 non-black" potential jurors "who expressed opposition to the death penalty," the decision said, "eight were struck for cause or by agreement, meaning no 'manipulative' script was necessary to get them removed." Judge DeMoss, the author of the Fifth Circuit decision, declined to discuss it. Professor Dow said he was still skeptical that the two appeals courts would follow the directions of the Supreme Court. "We're coming up on 25 executions this year," he said. "They get away with it most of this time. They appear not to be chastened when they do not get away with it." -------- drug war Alabama supports medical pot case (AP) December 05, 2004 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041205-125737-9508r.htm MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama, which has some of the nation's toughest drug laws, has become an unlikely ally of California on medical marijuana use. In a legal brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments Monday on California's medical marijuana law, Alabama Attorney General Troy King said states, not the federal government, should have the right to decide drug-control policies. "I could not disagree more with the public policy that underlies the California law. I think it's flawed. I think it's bad public policy," Mr. King said in an interview. "But if somebody can go in and tell California you can't regulate drugs the way you want to regulate them in California, the next step is they could come to Alabama and tell us we can't do it." Alabama is tough on marijuana use. Between 1995 and 2002, the state averaged nearly 9,500 arrests per year for marijuana possession, according to the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center. A person convicted three times of possessing marijuana in the state can end up serving as much as life in prison. But the state attorney general's office has become a defender of states' rights when pertinent cases go before the Supreme Court. Alabama raised similar states' rights issues in October when the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether states should be able execute killers who younger than 18. Mr. King's brief in support of California also was signed by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Mississippi, which also are known for tough drug laws. The issue before the Supreme Court is whether a California law that allows citizens to grow and possess marijuana for medical reasons should be struck down. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law last year, but the Bush administration appealed. The administration has argued that allowing medical marijuana in California would undermine federal drug control programs, and that marijuana grown for medical use could end up on the illegal market and cross state lines. Mr. King disagrees. His brief said the medical marijuana is grown and consumed within California, and "is not economic or commercial in any meaningful sense." If things had gone differently 25 years ago, Alabama might have had the medical marijuana case before the Supreme Court rather than California. In 1979, when medical marijuana first was being discussed nationally, the Alabama Legislature passed a law allowing a marijuana research program. Even though the experimental program did not prove successful, the Legislature has never repealed the law allowing it. -------- homeland security / national intelligence Security czar pick had rough start Bernard Kerik defied counselor's prediction Newhouse News Service December 05, 2004 By Mark Mueller and Katie Wang http://www.nola.com/national/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1102230718244800.xml The kid didn't look like he'd amount to much. He got into fights. He wouldn't study. He seemed aimless and troubled. To his guidance counselor at Eastside High School in Paterson, N.J., Bernard Kerik was a "vegetable," whose time could be better spent elsewhere, and the man said as much to Kerik's stepmother. "He told her I should go do something else," Kerik recounted during a speech last year. Kerik followed the advice, dropping out his junior year. He went and did something else. He joined the Army and taught karate to Special Forces soldiers. He served as an investigator and guard for the Saudi royal family. He became a sheriff's officer and a jail warden in New Jersey, then leaped over to the New York Police Department, ultimately becoming its commissioner and, by extension, the right hand of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani during and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The former Passaic County brawler stood beside President Bush at a news conference Friday in Washington as Bush's nominee to head the Homeland Security Department. Calling the 49-year-old Franklin Lakes, N.J., resident "one of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America," Bush said Kerik has brought to each of his previous jobs "a deep commitment to justice, a heart for the innocent and a record of great success." Difficult beginnings High praise for a vegetable. Kerik is certainly not the first person to successfully redirect life's trajectory, but his story is more eventful than most. Miramax Films found it engaging enough to plan a movie about it, based on Kerik's soulful 2001 memoir, "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice," in which he recounts his abandonment by his mother, an alcoholic and prostitute who was killed -- likely bludgeoned to death -- in 1964. Kerik, who moved back to New Jersey from New York City two years ago, was born in Newark and raised in Paterson. The city was rough even then, and so was Eastside High School, later memorialized in the film "Lean on Me." "Unless you wanted an education in how to fight or use drugs, it wasn't a