NucNews - December 7, 2004 -------- NUCLEAR -------- business Siemens denies it plans to sell nuclear plant safety technology to China (AFX) December 7, 2004 http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/041207/323/f82ur.html MUNICH - Siemens AG (Xetra: 723610.DE - news) denied a press report it wants to sell China several hundred million euros of nuclear power plant safety technology for 20 planned atomic reactors. 'There is no tender, therefore this issue is not being discussed,' a Siemens spokesman said. Stern magazine issued a pre-release of an article to appear Thursday which stated that Siemens was aggressively lobbying the German government to obtain permission to sell the technology. The magazine did not state where it obtained the information. alfred.kueppers@afxnews.com -------- china 4th nuke plant in pipeline in Guangdong (Busines Weekly) By Zheng Caixiong 2004-12-07 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/07/content_398056.htm South China's Guangdong Province is planning to construct its fourth nuclear power plant to help ease the power shortage in the nation's prosperous Pearl River Delta region. The province is now busy selecting a site from four candidate places in Huilai County and Lufeng City in its eastern coastal part. The electricity shortage in Guangdong Province this year is expected to exceed 3 million kilowatt hours or more than 10 per cent, due to its rapid economic growth. And the situation would last several years in the future in Guangdong which lacks sufficient coal, crude oil and other energies to sustain its economic growth. Guangdong has to purchase electricity from bordering Hong Kong and China's southwestern provinces. A 40-person instruction group consisting of nuclear experts, designers and government officials have recently reconnoitred the four places and they will soon decide on the construction site, according to an executive from Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd. "All the sites have their advantages," Yu Jiechun, an executive from Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd, said. In addition to their good geographical location, all the four sites have enough fresh water supplies and enjoy advanced land and water transportation facilities, said Yu. He believed construction of the new nuclear power plant would begin before 2010, and will contribute to Guangdong's rapid economic development. But Yu refused to give more details on the new nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, Guangdong is speeding up the preparation work for construction of the country's biggest nuclear power plant in its coastal city of Yangjiang. The nuclear reactor of the Yangjiang plant will officially begin construction before 2006, said Yu. And the infrastructural facility construction for the project has already been well under way on the construction site in Shahuai in Yangdong County. Located in the western coastal area of Guangdong Province, Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant will include six generating units. Each has an installed production capacity of 1 million kilowatts. The first two generating units will be able to start operating before 2010, while the whole six generating units will come on stream in 15 to 20 years. The project will be able to annually generate electricity of more than 45 billion kilowatt hours when all the six generating units start operation. Covering an area of 472,485 square metres, construction of the nuclear power plant is estimated to cost more than US$8 billion. It is, so far, the largest nuclear power plant on the Chinese mainland. Guangdong will have an installed nuclear power production capacity of more than 12 million kilowatts after the Yangjiang plant starts full commercial operations. And Guangdong's nuclear electricity will be able to represent more than 20 per cent of the province's total. Currently fuel power accounts for the lion's share of Guangdong's electricity industry while nuclear power accounts for less than 10 per cent. Yu said Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant is of great significance to Guangdong's economic growth, especially to economic construction of the western area of the Pearl River Delta region. And the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant will also help strengthen Guangdong's status as China's biggest nuclear power industrial production base. By 2012, Guangdong will have an installed production capacity of nuclear power reaching eight million kilowatts, becoming the biggest nuclear production base in China. Guangdong will be able to generate more than 50 per cent of the country's total nuclear electricity in 2012. The country's other nuclear power production bases include Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, both in the eastern coastal areas. Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province, China's first nuclear power plant, started operations in 1991. China has planned to have an installed nuclear power production capacity of more than 36 million kilowatts by 2020. Now Guangdong has already two nuclear plants in operation. Daya Bay and Ling'ao nuclear power stations have a total installed capacity of four generating units, with 1 million kilowatts each. The two power plants that are situated in eastern part of the Pearl River Delta started commercial operation in 1994 and 1995 respectively. Most of the equipment and technologies of the Daya Bay and Ling'ao nuclear power plants, including the nuclear reactors, were imported from France, one of the world's giants in nuclear power industry. And the US$4-billion Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant which has two 900,000-kilowatt generating units is also one of the largest Sino-foreign joint ventures on the Chinese mainland. Guangdong Province holds 75 per cent of the stakes while its partner Hong Kong Nuclear Power Investment Corp Ltd has the remaining 25 per cent. -------- india / pakistan King America's amoral queen rediff.com December 07, 2004 http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/06kanch.htm Indian folklore is replete with stories about amoral kings pandering to every desire of their equally amoral favourite queens, and then making up to their favourite concubines in high dudgeon by promising better, and more expensive, gifts. In the end, of course, queens were left with pearls and rubies, while concubines had to console themselves with tinsel and baubles. Such, then, is the story that has been unfolding ever since Pakistan was accorded the vaunted status of 'Major Non-NATO Ally' of the United States of America in March this year. That was only one of the gifts showered on Islamabad by Washington. The US has happily written off $4 billion owed by Pakistan and promised another $3 billion in aid and assistance. After all, General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan and chief of that country's armed forces, is America's blue-eyed boy in this part of the world. Therefore, when the Pentagon officially confirmed what has been known for long, that America would resume supply of weapons and weapon systems to Pakistan, starting with a big $1.2 billion package, it did not come as a surprise. The US Congress is yet to clear the three separate deals, including the P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft (valued at $970 million), six Phalanx close-in weapon systems and upgrades ($155 million) and an ammunition complement of 2,000 TOW-2A missiles and 14 TOW-2A Fly-to-Buy missiles ($82 million) and, theoretically, could raise objections. But that is unlikely to happen, specially now that President George W Bush has won a second term in office. Pakistan is also likely to get the F-16s, which have been grounded for nearly a decade-and-a-half. The American Administration had agreed to provide Pakistan with 40 F-16s as a reward for backing US efforts to force Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. But in 1990, the US Congress adopted legislation that scuppered the delivery of these fighter jets because of Pakistan's covert nuclear programme. Pakistan's bomb is no longer hidden in the basement. Not only is Pakistan now overtly nuclear, it has been found hawking bomb-making technology, surreptitiously and disingenuously gathered in the first place, to North Korea, Iran and Libya. The CIA's recently declassified documents detail Dr A Q Khan's nefarious role in nuclear proliferation, something which he could not have done without the knowledge of, and sharing the booty with Musharraf. Cockily confident that he has both the US State Department and Pentagon wrapped around his little finger, Musharraf has demanded that the parked F-16s should be upgraded with state-of-the-art gadgetry and armed with top-of-the-line air-to-air missiles. When the F-16s take off for Pakistan, they will meet these, and perhaps more, requirements. For the past decade, especially during the years when the National Democratic Alliance was in power, India was able to block the supply of US arms to Pakistan through skilful diplomacy and with the help of professional lobbyists. Also, the India Caucus in the US Congress played no insignificant role in refashioning Washington's indulgent attitude towards a wayward Islamabad and in generating greater sensitivity towards New Delhi's concerns. It now increasingly appears that status quo ante shall once again prevail, notwithstanding the 'Next Step in Strategic Partnership' dialogue that has entered phase two. The US justification for granting Major Non-NATO Ally status to Pakistan and resuming the supply of sophisticated weaponry is, at best, specious. Washington may claim that Islamabad has been a loyal ally in the fight against terrorism, but has little to show as evidence to back up this spurious claim. No less deserving of scorn is the American claim that the P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft, Phalanx close-in weapon systems and Fly-to-Buy missiles (as also the F-16s that are likely to be delivered) are meant to help Pakistan fight terrorism. There is also the misplaced view, shared by both neo-cons and liberals, that by pumping in money and arms, the US will strengthen 'moderate Islam' and weaken 'fundamentalist Islam' in countries like Pakistan. Hence, the military is preferable to mullahs. Apart from the fact that it is facetious to set apart 'moderates' from 'fundamentalists,' this view, like most American policies, is utterly silly and mendacious -- the mad mullahs of Pakistan did not appear, genie like, from thin air, but are monsters created by that country's military and generals like Pervez Musharraf and Zia-ul Huq who have used Islamic fanaticism to further their political ambition. India, understandably, is disturbed by the resumed inflow of sophisticated American weaponry into its neighbourhood. Not only will it add to Pakistani belligerence towards India, but also trigger a fresh wave of competitive spending on conventional arms. New Delhi has conveyed both concern and apprehension to Washington, but without any apparent success in dissuading the Americans from embarking on a patently disastrous misadventure that would be no different from its previous flawed policy of providing military aid to Pakistan that ultimately resulted in Taliban taking over Afghanistan and was largely responsible for cross-border jihadi terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Yet, the US realises that in the post-9/11 world India is as much a valuable ally as Pakistan. Economic commonsense based on emerging market realities is only one of the considerations weighing heavy on the American administration. The other centres round India's importance as a regional power and its expanding strategic relations both in the west and the east. Moreover, the US would not want to be seen as the hand that rocks the cradle of terrorism. So, we have carefully planted news stories, a week before US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's visit to New Delhi on December 9/10, about how the US is willing to provide India with top-of-the-line military hardware including the Patriot anti-missile system, C-130 stretched medium lift transport aircraft, P-3C Orion 'Plus' maritime surveillance planes", and, 'even F-16 fighters.' Media has been selectively used to pass on the information that US weapons systems manufacturer Raytheon may be making a formal presentation soon. So, India need not sulk and grudge Pakistan the gifts being showered on it. If most of the world believes, perhaps unfairly, that the Americans are stupid, then Indian policy-makers and those in the government of the day are not known for extraordinary intelligence, either. The very fact that the American 'offer' has not been officially either repudiated or outright rejected shows how easily South Block can be placated with placebos. A sly reference has also been made in the selective media leaks as to how Rajiv Gandhi was able to secure engines and flight control systems for the LCA from the US in the 1980s despite the Cold War that still raged and India was nowhere in America's good books. The truth is that the Americans subsequently reneged on the deal and the LCA project suffered on account of that. The American administration and GE should know about this, as should those in New Delhi who have been preening over the US offer. There is more. Even if the US were to actually supply India all this weaponry, Pakistan would still score higher. With its exalted status as America's Major Non-NATO Ally, Pakistan is entitled to bid on contracts for repair of American defence equipment, participate in American research and development projects to improve conventional defence capabilities, American financing to underwrite the sale or long-term lease of defence equipment and services to that country, US-owned war reserve stockpiles on its territory and obtain US foreign assistance to purchase depleted uranium ammunition. Meanwhile, India's traditional and loyal friends are watching Washington's moves and counter-moves with perhaps greater interest than New Delhi. If India were to step into the spider's parlour, France would take a second look at its options, as would Russia. In fact, the Russians have already raised the issue of signing a pact on protecting intellectual property rights as a condition precedent for further supply of high-technology defence equipment. If India's policy-makers and the UPA government were to ignore the all important reliability factor and be naïve enough to be seduced by the American pie, then Russia would be smart enough to look for new buyers, Pakistan included, for its weapons and weapon systems. It's clearly a case of pearls and baubles, rubies and tinsel. There are no prizes for guessing who's the favourite queen and who's the favourite concubine of King America. Comments are welcome. Responses will be posted at http://kanchangupta.rediffblogs.com My regular blog is at http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com -------- iran Time to engage Iran? Times Republican By PAT BUCHANAN 12/7/2004 http://www.timesrepublican.com/columns/story/127202004_colcol.asp Iran does not want a clash with the United States. And unlike Milosevic and Saddam, neither of whom wanted a war, either, Iran is determined not to give the neoconservatives the pretext to launch one. This is behind Tehran's grudging acceptance of the British-French-German initiative to arrest Iran's nuclear program by forcing a shutdown of its facilities for enriching uranium. Iran claims the fuel was to be used in power plants. America says - and Europe fears - that any Iranian facility that enriches uranium for power plants could also be used to enrich uranium for atom bombs. As of today, there is no hard evidence that Iran has a bomb or the fissile material to build one, or the operating facilities to produce the plutonium or highly enriched uranium needed to create one. But there are reasons to believe Iran is entertaining a nuclear option. First, its nuclear program had been kept secret. Second, given what happened to neighboring Iraq, the mullahs, in facing President Bush, might well prefer the nuclear ambiguity of a North Korea's Kim Jong-Il to the nuclear nakedness of a Saddam Hussein. Third, Iran is surrounded by nuclear neighbors, many of them hostile. U.S. forces are in Turkey, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and Afghanistan. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, as does India. Russia, which occupied northern Iran after World War II, is a great nuclear power, as is China. Israel, which has threatened to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, has hundreds of nuclear weapons. But there are also arguments for Iran's not going nuclear. While having a bomb might deter some enemies, to be caught secretly building one could provoke Israel or the Americans into a pre-emptive strike, and the Saudis and Turks into building their own bombs. How would that make Iran more secure? However, if Iran would suffer grievously in a war with the United States - losing its nuclear facilities, navy and air force, and being set back years - it is hard to see how America would benefit. U.S. strikes would likely unite the Iranians behind the regime, and retaliation might come in the form of "volunteers" for a Shia uprising in Iraq and attacks on U.S. interests across the Middle East. Pro-American governments could be destabilized and an oil boycott imposed that could send prices to $70 or $80 a barrel. But if neither we nor Iran would benefit from war between us, is there common ground on which we might stand to attain a cold peace? Indeed, there is. Iran has already benefited from the U.S. ouster of the detested Taliban and Saddam, and it would surely not object to a Shi'ite government in Baghdad. And we both have a vital interest in a Persian Gulf kept open. Yet, the conflicts between us cannot be minimized. First, the Iranian revolution is a failure, having created neither a great nor universally respected nation. Unlike the French Revolution, it has been unable to export or replicate itself. Twenty-five years after the fall of the shah, no nation looks to Iran as a model or inspiration. Twice, Iranians have voted in landslides for reformers to ameliorate mullah rule. But while Tehran has an incentive to integrate the nation into the modern world, any such integration would dilute revolutionary purity and zeal, and could further estrange the regime from the people. What makes detente with America almost impossible is that the ayatollah's revolution was as much anti-American as anti-Shah. Enmity toward the "Great Satan" legitimizes the regime. But should America suddenly no longer be an enemy, but a partner, Iran's people might ask: Why not open our country up to tourism, trade and cultural contact with America? For communist Europe, that was the end. What are the elements of coexistence between us? Return to Iran of the billions she is owed by the United States, an end to U.S. sanctions and an invitation into the World Trade Organization. For America, it would require an end to Iran's sponsorship of terror, cooperation in Iraq and restraint on Hezbollah as we try to broker a peace between Palestinians and Israelis. As for its nuclear program, the United States could ensure Iran's access to peaceful nuclear power in return for a verifiable agreement not to build nuclear weapons. The problem? Iran may believe having a bomb is a better guarantor of her security than any U.S. promise. And, frankly, who could blame them? As for the neocons' insistence on "regime change" in Iran, that is a deal-breaker, which is why Israel and the neocons have made it their non-negotiable demand. They don't want a deal. They want a war. But what is best for America? ----- EU, Iran to launch nuclear talks next week (Reuters) By Parisa Hafezi Dec 7, 2004 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7016213&pageNumber=0 TEHRAN - Iran's top nuclear negotiator said on Tuesday that he will meet French, British and German officials next week to launch talks aimed at permanently resolving the standoff over Tehran's nuclear plans. "Next week there will be a meeting between Iranian and 'EU three' officials in one of the European capitals," Hassan Rohani, secretary of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council, was quoted as saying on Iranian state television. "Possibly I will have a meeting with the 'EU three' foreign ministers and (Javier) Solana," he said, adding that head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, had asked to attend the meeting. Solana is the EU foreign policy chief. Washington accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons under cover of its atomic energy programme and has demanded that the U.N. consider imposing economic sanctions on Tehran as punishment. Iran denies the charge, insisting its plans are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity. Western diplomats in Vienna, where the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is headquartered, said that the foreign ministers of the European Union's "big three" states were planning to meet Rohani briefly when the talks opened. "The Iranians insisted on 'EU three' foreign ministers. They wanted a big show at the beginning of the talks," said a Western diplomat who follows negotiations between Tehran and the EU aimed at maintaining a freeze of Iran's sensitive atomic work. PACKAGE OF INCENTIVES He said the meeting of the ministers and Rohani would last around an hour and would be largely "symbolic". The date and location were still up in the air, though diplomats in Vienna said they assumed it would take place on Monday. When the ministers finish, the talks will pass to less senior officials, who will work out details of a package of economic and political incentives aimed at persuading Iran to give up all work on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, activities that can produce atom-bomb material. Washington is not doing anything to undermine the EU-Iran talks but is convinced they will fail, diplomats in Vienna say. They also said the Iranians' expectations for the talks were so high that it would be difficult not to disappoint them. Western diplomats said the Iranians want the talks to conclude within months and the Europeans envisioned them taking years. Iran has threatened to resume enrichment activities if the talks with the EU do not start yielding quick results. Rohani made it clear that Tehran was entering the negotiations determined to keep its nuclear programme, though he indicated that the Iranians might be open to persuasion. "As we have openly told the Europeans, Tehran is determined to keep its nuclear technology and Iran will not give it up easily," Rohani said. Last week, Iran froze key parts of its nuclear programme after a week of marathon negotiations between EU and Iranian negotiators. The board of governors of the IAEA passed a resolution calling on Iran to maintain the freeze but referred to the suspension as "non-binding" and "voluntary". Iran says the freeze will be short-lived. ----- Iran probing four suspected nuclear spies, judiciary says TEHRAN (AFP) Dec 07, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041207134703.1fghymkz.html Iran's judiciary said on Tuesday it was investigating four people suspected of spying on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme, contradicting reports that their trial had already begun. "The trial of the nuclear spies will probably take place in secret after the end of the investigation," judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad told the student news agency ISNA. His comments were confirmed on state television by Abbas Ali Alizadeh, the head of Tehran's justice department. On November 18, Ali Mobacheri, the head of Tehran's revolutionary courts, told the government newspaper Iran that the trials had already begun. He said the accused had "infiltrated nuclear facilities" and "were spying for foreign countries". The accused have not been identified, and officials have also not specified for which countries they were allegedly spying. But the paper said that "in the past these individuals also spied for Iraq". In August, Iran's Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi announced the arrest of a number of "spies" who sent information on Iran's nuclear programme to foreigners. He said the People's Mujahedeen, an armed opposition group based in Iraq that the regime in Tehran labels as "hypocrites", had played the central role in the espionage. The group's political wing, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, in 2002 revealed two nuclear sites Iran had been hiding, including a uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz. Last month the group alleged Iran was hiding a uranium enrichment facility in Tehran and aimed at getting the atomic bomb next year. The group also said the father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan who has admitted to running an international nuclear smuggling network, delivered bomb designs and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to Iran. Iran insists that its nuclear activities are purely peaceful. -------- Tehran's nukes a global threat, Israeli warns THE WASHINGTON TIMES By Tom Carter December 07, 2004 http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041206-100256-5889r.htm Iran's relentless pursuit of a nuclear weapon is the biggest danger facing Israel, the Middle East and the world, a senior foreign-policy adviser to the Israeli government said yesterday. "We have no doubt that Iran is trying to move ahead on building nuclear capability," Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the United States, said in a luncheon meeting with reporters and editors at The Washington Times yesterday. Since January 2002, when President Bush declared that Iran was part of an "axis of evil," Iran — with Russian help — has been pursuing what it describes as a peaceful nuclear program. But the United States and others suspect that the nation's real goal is to develop nuclear weapons. The United States pushed a hard line on dismantling Iran's nuclear program, but Europe balked. And in late November, the International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution on a safeguards agreement with Iran, which includes surveillance cameras. But Mr. Shoval, one of several foreign-policy advisers to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said yesterday he was skeptical of the European "step-by-step" plan. "Iran is formally and ideologically committed to the destruction of Israel, and a nuclear Iran is an immense danger," he said. "Iran is using the express elevator getting to the nuclear bomb." Mr. Shoval said this was not simply an issue for Israel, but one that puts the world at danger. He charged that Iran was "directly" involved in arming and training terrorists who attack Israel. "Once Iran gets their hands on nuclear weapons and the delivery system, everyone in the Middle East will want one. It will be a completely new ballgame and a very dangerous one. If the world looks away from this, it will be a very tough awakening," he said. He said he had no knowledge of any Israeli plan to strike pre-emptively at Iran's nuclear facilities. Mr. Shoval, who served as Israel's ambassador to the United States from 1990 to 1993 and again from 1998 to 2000, was in Washington to discuss Israeli-Palestinian relations at a seminar at the Brookings Institution. He said that he planned to meet with several Bush administration officials in the National Security Council and that he had met with his "old friend" Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a pro-Israel hard-liner who has been mentioned as a possible successor to Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. Mr. Shoval said the Bush administration has "done the right thing" by refusing to push Israel into negotiations with the Palestinians while terrorist attacks continue. But with the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he said, he is "fairly optimistic" that there is an opportunity to move forward on Israel's plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip and the "road map" peace plan. "We want to see a Palestinian side with a reformed leadership, more transparency, a civilian government, rule of law," he said. "If something like that really develops, it will create the foundation for a viable democratic Palestinian state. If all these things happen, we will have arrived at stage two of the road map, a Palestinian state with provisional borders." He said an Israeli-Egypt prisoner swap on Sunday that sent convicted Israeli spy Azzam Azzam home after eight years "was a positive sign, and we may see more." "Tunis, Morocco, perhaps one of the Gulf states will return to a better relationship [with Israel]," he said. He said pressure from the Europeans — who are expected to offer Mr. Bush help in Iraq and U.S.-European rapprochement if he urges Israel to compromise more — would be counterproductive. More useful, he said, would be if the Arab states used 1 percent or 2 percent of their recent $50 billion to $75 billion oil windfall to help rebuild the Palestinian economy. "International conferences are never good for Israel, and in the foreseeable future, we will not be able to arrive at a permanent peace plan that the Palestinians can live with and we can live with. But this does not mean we cannot move forward," he said. "Hopefully, these guys will say, 'Let's not miss another chance,' and work for Palestinian statehood in one form or another. Today, especially after Arafat, everyone understands [disengagement] is the only game in town." ------- Bush administration planning to increase pressure on Iran Knight Ridder Newspapers By Warren P. Strobel Dec. 07, 2004 http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10361796.htm WASHINGTON - As 150,000 U.S. troops battle to stabilize Iraq, some officials in the Bush administration are already planning to turn up the heat on another member of the president's axis of evil. Officials in the White House and the Defense Department are developing plans to increase public criticism of Iran's human rights record, offer stronger backing to exiles and other opponents of Tehran's repressive theocratic government and collect better intelligence on Iran, according to U.S. officials, congressional aides and others. Iran has embarked on a nuclear program that some specialists fear cannot be prevented from producing an atom bomb; is trying to extend its influence in Iraq and remains a prime sponsor of Hezbollah and other international terrorist groups. U.S. intelligence officials also believe some top lieutenants of Osama bin Laden have sought refuge in Iran. However, with the U.S. military now stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new campaign may be intended not to build support for military action against Iran, but to pressure Iran to change its behavior so military action isn't necessary. It's far from clear, however, whether a more aggressive U.S. campaign to condemn the Iranian regime and court pro-Western forces would have any effect. The major Iranian opposition group, the Iraq-based Mujahedeen Khalq (MEK), remains on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups, but it's provided much of the intelligence about Iran's weapons programs. The new, more aggressive tack is said to have the backing of secretary of state-designate Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser. Among the steps under consideration, the officials said, are stronger public condemnations of Iran's human rights practices and treatment of women; increased U.S. broadcasting into the country; and financial backing for pro-Western groups. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized spokesmen and, in some cases, because final decisions haven't been made. Rice previewed some of the ideas during a White House meeting last week with leaders of major Jewish-American groups, according to one individual who was present and others who were briefed on the session. "We have to do more to help the human rights community and the dissidents inside Iran," Rice told the group, according to one participant's notes of the meeting, which also focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An administration official, asked about Rice's reported comments, said they reflected a "heightened attempt" to expose Iran's behavior. "We're trying to make plain for the international community the strategic challenge that Iran poses," he said. At the same time, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which overseas U.S. international broadcasting, has proposed to the White House a major increase in broadcasting into Iran by Voice of America television, a U.S. official said. The proposal, which is expected to win approval, would increase daily broadcasts from 30 minutes a day to about three hours, the official said. "We expect that the White House will be as supportive of this plan as it was for increasing broadcasting to the Arab world," the official said. He couldn't provide cost estimates for the expansion. The United States already operates a Persian-language radio service, Radio Farda, which broadcasts to Iran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. More U.S. broadcasting to Muslim audiences was one of the recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 Commission. The administration was never able to agree on an Iran policy during Bush's first term. The State Department favored engagement and international action, while officials in the Defense Department and Vice President Cheney's office proposed backing the MEK and considering military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. How to handle Iran is now shaping up as a major foreign policy issue for Bush's second term. But with the bulk of U.S. combat divisions tied down in neighboring Iraq, the president appears to have no good military options against Iran, which is almost four times larger than Iraq and has nearly three times its neighbor's population. A limited U.S. air strike on Iran's far-flung nuclear facilities would cause worldwide outrage, could endanger U.S. troops in Iraq and would have no assurance of success. European allies favor diplomacy to curb Iran's nuclear program. However, top Bush administration officials are now hinting that the White House is eager to start withdrawing troops from Iraq by the middle of next year. One rationale, a senior administration official said, is to give the president greater flexibility in dealing with Iran. Calls for supporting Iranian dissidents have been fueled by an accelerating takeover of the country's institutions by conservative clerics, ending hopes for reforms backed by President Mohammad Khatami, whose term ends next year. But while many Iranians, particularly the young, are fed up with their rulers and even pro-American, they're also deeply suspicious of foreign meddling in Iranian politics. Iranians who accept U.S. assistance for democratization are likely to be branded agents of the "Great Satan." Former assistant secretary of state Lorne Craner said that when Congress made $2 million available in a fiscal 2004 appropriations bill for democratization activities in Iran, "We started looking around for what might be doable. ... It wasn't clear we'd be received warmly in Iran." But Craner, who left government last year, said that could change if the U.S. government showed it was serious. "When you say you're willing, people start showing up," he said. The omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last month includes a provision, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., for $3 million to promote democracy in Iran. Some of the funds could be used to stage a conference in the United States that would bring together Iranian dissidents, human rights advocates and nongovernmental organizations. That approach echoes the actions of the U.S. government toward Iraq during the 1990s, when it helped forge fractious Iraqi dissidents into the Iraqi National Congress. The INC and its leader, Ahmad Chalabi, helped persuade the Bush administration to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, but much of the intelligence the INC provided on Iraq's weapons programs and terrorist ties has proved to be wrong. The Bush administration also is considering adding Iran to a broader U.S.-backed program to promote democracy in the region, known as the Middle East Partnership Initiative. "We are exploring ways to begin working with groups inside (Iran)," J. Scott Carpenter, the State Department official who runs the program, told the New York Sun newspaper last month. Carpenter did not return a phone call seeking comment. -------- japan Pacifists push to declare Japanese city 'defenseless' TOKYO (AFP) Dec 07, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041207124505.nudyi14b.html Alarmed by what they see as Japan's drift to militarism, pacifists led by a prominent lawyer are trying to declare a small city defenseless using an obscure international protocol. The group is pushing for the western Japanese city of Hirakata, whose 400,000 people face no obvious external threats, to be declared a "non-defended locality" under a 1977 additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions of war. Under the protocol, which Japan ratified in June, such a city cannot legally be attacked nor can it be used in support of military operations. "We don't want to allow war to happen. So we will tie the hands of the Japanese government," lawyer Takeo Matsumoto told reporters Tuesday. "This is based on international law," Matsumoto said. "There is a right to declare oneself non-defended." Japan since last year has stationed troops in Iraq in a departure from its pacifist US-imposed constitution of 1947. Japan is also considering building long-range missiles to face perceived threats from North Korea and China. The pacifist group said it aimed to turn back the momentum towards the military and return to pacifism that coincided with Japan's rapid development from the ashes of World War II. "I was shocked by the terrorist attacks of September 11 three years ago," said Yukiyo Ota, a spokeswoman for the group. "When citizens kept getting killed in Afghanistan and then Iraq, I felt something had to be done." Some 18,600 residents of Hirakata, a university city 375 kilometersmiles) west of Tokyo, signed a petition last month supporting the idea of declaring the city undefended, a municipal official said. A panel of local lawmakers is set to study the proposed declaration Thursday, the official said. A similar movement has been underway in recent years to declare Berkeley, California an "un-defended locality." The US university town has already declared itself "nuclear free," meaning no work on nuclear weapons can take place in city limits. Matsumoto, a high-profile human rights lawyer, won a Supreme Court ruling in October that held the government responsible for mercury poisoning that killed hundreds of people from 1960 in Minamata Bay, southern Japan. -------- korea UN atom chief certain North Korea has made fuel for 4 to 6 bombs By David E. Sanger and William J. Broad December 7, 2004 The New York Times http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/06/news/nuke.html VIENNA Nearly two years after international nuclear inspectors were ejected from North Korea, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he is now certain that the nuclear material his agency once monitored there has been converted into fuel for four to six nuclear bombs. The assessment, by Mohamed ElBaradei, in an interview at the agency's headquarters, aligns with the private assessments of many U.S. intelligence officials. But it goes well beyond anything that the CIA or President George W. Bush and his aides have said in public. Some Bush administration officials have said they were not eager to update their public assessment of North Korea's abilities, out of a concern that it could create pressure for action - either greater efforts to force the collapse of the North Korean government, or greater concessions in negotiations, as North Korea has demanded. In the interview, ElBaradei said his judgment that North Korea had converted its stockpile of spent nuclear fuel into weapons-grade plutonium was not based on new intelligence. Instead, he said, it was based on the agency's years of accumulated knowledge of North Korea's abilities and the amount of time that had passed since North Korea ejected inspectors and began removing the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that inspectors had been monitoring and that can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. "I'm sure they have reprocessed it all," he said. The production process of turning the rods into bomb fuel "is not that difficult," he said, and enough time has passed for North Korea to have solved any production problems. The United States has insisted that North Korea has enough nuclear material to make only one or two weapons, based on an estimate made in the early 1990s. Because the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have never seen that material or any nuclear weapons, the conclusion was an educated guess and has been the subject of considerable debate. But it was also assumed that one or two weapons posed relatively little threat: North Korea could not afford to sell its plutonium, or even conduct a nuclear test, if those actions would eradicate its stockpile. If ElBaradei's new estimate is right - and several U.S. experts interviewed in recent days said they believed that it probably was - then that equation changes, and North Korea could have far more leverage. Richard Armitage, who is departing as the deputy secretary of state, warned Congress nearly two years ago that if North Korea reprocessed its fuel rods there was a far more significant risk that it could sell the material. The comment alarmed some administration officials, who have striven to convey a sense that there is not a great strategic difference if North Korea holds one or two weapons or if it holds seven or eight. But internally, there has been significant debate on that subject at the White House and the Pentagon. Last month, General Leon LaPorte, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, told reporters in Seoul that he was increasingly concerned that "North Korea, in its desire for hard currency, would sell weapons-grade plutonium to some terrorist organizations." A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said he was unaware of any change in the official assessment of North Korea's abilities. ElBaradei's assessment puts him in a position opposite to the one he was in two years ago, when the Bush administration pressed him to find evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. ElBaradei balked, saying there was little evidence of activity since the 1991 Gulf war. His view was later supported by the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group. But in the case of North Korea, it is ElBaradei who appears more willing to raise alarms. That may reflect, in part, the breakdown in communication between his agency and the United States on North Korea. The agency, an arm of the United Nations, has been largely frozen out of what little new intelligence the United States has gathered about North Korea's activities since inspectors left. One senior official of the agency said that was to be expected because "without inspectors in North Korea, there's not much we could do with the intelligence." Nearly two years after international nuclear inspectors were ejected from North Korea, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he is now certain that the nuclear material his agency once monitored there has been converted into fuel for four to six nuclear bombs. The assessment, by Mohamed ElBaradei, in an interview at the agency's headquarters, aligns with the private assessments of many U.S. intelligence officials. But it goes well beyond anything that the CIA or President George W. Bush and his aides have said in public. Some Bush administration officials have said they were not eager to update their public assessment of North Korea's abilities, out of a concern that it could create pressure for action - either greater efforts to force the collapse of the North Korean government, or greater concessions in negotiations, as North Korea has demanded. In the interview, ElBaradei said his judgment that North Korea had converted its stockpile of spent nuclear fuel into weapons-grade plutonium was not based on new intelligence. Instead, he said, it was based on the agency's years of accumulated knowledge of North Korea's abilities and the amount of time that had passed since North Korea ejected inspectors and began removing the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that inspectors had been monitoring and that can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. "I'm sure they have reprocessed it all," he said. The production process of turning the rods into bomb fuel "is not that difficult," he said, and enough time has passed for North Korea to have solved any production problems. The United States has insisted that North Korea has enough nuclear material to make only one or two weapons, based on an estimate made in the early 1990s. Because the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have never seen that material or any nuclear weapons, the conclusion was an educated guess and has been the subject of considerable debate. But it was also assumed that one or two weapons posed relatively little threat: North Korea could not afford to sell its plutonium, or even conduct a nuclear test, if those actions would eradicate its stockpile. If ElBaradei's new estimate is right - and several U.S. experts interviewed in recent days said they believed that it probably was - then that equation changes, and North Korea could have far more leverage. Richard Armitage, who is departing as the deputy secretary of state, warned Congress nearly two years ago that if North Korea reprocessed its fuel rods there was a far more significant risk that it could sell the material. The comment alarmed some administration officials, who have striven to convey a sense that there is not a great strategic difference if North Korea holds one or two weapons or if it holds seven or eight. But internally, there has been significant debate on that subject at the White House and the Pentagon. Last month, General Leon LaPorte, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, told reporters in Seoul that he was increasingly concerned that "North Korea, in its desire for hard currency, would sell weapons-grade plutonium to some terrorist organizations." A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said he was unaware of any change in the official assessment of North Korea's abilities. ElBaradei's assessment puts him in a position opposite to the one he was in two years ago, when the Bush administration pressed him to find evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. ElBaradei balked, saying there was little evidence of activity since the 1991 Gulf war. His view was later supported by the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group. But in the case of North Korea, it is ElBaradei who appears more willing to raise alarms. That may reflect, in part, the breakdown in communication between his agency and the United States on North Korea. The agency, an arm of the United Nations, has been largely frozen out of what little new intelligence the United States has gathered about North Korea's activities since inspectors left. One senior official of the agency said that was to be expected because "without inspectors in North Korea, there's not much we could do with the intelligence. ----- U.S. 'ready to talk with N. Korea' (AP) December 7, 2004 http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/06/north.korea.nuclear.ap/ WASHINGTON -- U.S officials met twice last week with North Korean officials in New York to tell them the United States was ready to resume nuclear negotiations and wanted to resolve the issue diplomatically, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said. "We told the North Koreans that the six-party process is the venue for resolving the nuclear issue and we called on North Korea to follow through on its commitment to the six-party talks," Ereli said Monday. He said the United States requested the meetings because it was felt a face-to-face presentation of the U.S. position might be effective. Ereli said the United States has meetings with North Korea's U.N. diplomats in New York from time to time when they serve a useful purpose to pass messages and make points known. He said he did not know how North Korea responded to the U.S. presentation made by Joseph DeTrani, the State Department's special envoy for North Korea negotiations Ereli said DeTrani left Sunday on a trip to China, South Korea and Japan to continue consultations on getting the nuclear negotiations going again. Russia also is involved in the talks. Three rounds of six-nation talks aimed at persuading the North to halt weapons development have taken place since last year but without a breakthrough. North Korea boycotted a fourth round scheduled for September and analysts believed it was holding out for a change in the White House. On Saturday North Korea said after the talks in New York it had concluded that Pyongyang should hold off on nuclear negotiations until the United States changes its "hostile" policy toward the country. The report, from Pyongyang's official news agency KCNA, said officials met on Tuesday and Friday. Late last month, an international consortium said it had extended for another year a freeze on a project to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea. The four main partners in the New York-based Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization -- the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union -- had previously suspended the project for a year through December 1, 2004. The freeze will be extended until December 1, 2005, the group said in a statement. The light-water reactor projects were started after a 1994 deal in which North Korea agreed to dismantle its plutonium-producing Russian-model heavy water reactors. -------- missile defense Arms experts issue missile-defence alert Globe and Mail By JEFF SALLOT Dec 7, 2004 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041207.wmissile07/BNStory/National/ Ottawa — Arms-control experts from the United States and Canada warn that the Pentagon's missile-defence program is part of an elaborate strategy to use outer space as a battlefield in the future. Meanwhile, federal Liberals from Quebec say a tide of opposition to Canadian participation in the program is rising in that province, elevating the political importance of the missile issue to the level of last year's debate on the Iraq war. Jonathan Dean, who was a disarmament negotiator for the U.S. government during the Cold War, told the Commons foreign affairs committee that research on ballistic missile defence (BMD) systems is part of a Pentagon push to develop weapons to shoot down satellites. Peggy Mason, Ottawa's former ambassador for arms control, told a news conference she fears the United States is trying to drag the federal government into BMD because Canadian territory is an ideal spot from which to launch anti-satellite weapons. The U.S. Air Force recently released a military doctrine document on "counterspace operations" that describes the need for offensive weapons capable of destroying space stations and satellites. These weapons could include "directed energy weapons," such as lasers, that could be "space-based," the 56-page document says. The document, published by the secretary of the Air Force five months ago, says the U.S. military must be able to control "the high ground of space" from future enemies and to "destroy adversary space capabilities." It does not say who the enemy might be, but adds that there is every reason to believe outer space will become a "battlespace" in this century. Such prospects alarm Mr. Dean, now a security consultant for the Boston-based Union of Concerned Scientists. He said there are far better ways for the United States to protect itself from a potential enemy, including enforceable treaties to keep weapons out of outer space. A Cold-War-era treaty banning nuclear warheads in space did not foresee other kinds of weapons, such as laser guns and so-called kinetic kill vehicles. In 2006, the Pentagon plans to test one of the components of a space weapons system, a satellite sensor that could be used to target missiles, Mr. Dean said. Ms. Mason, who was prime minister Brian Mulroney's ambassador for disarmament, said the BMD interceptor rockets that the United States is deploying in Alaska and California are not particularly good at their stated task of shooting down incoming ballistic missiles. But the rockets "work as an offensive anti-satellite weapon," she said. They would also be "very useful if stationed in other countries for offensive operations," Ms. Mason said, warning that this might be why U.S. President George W. Bush is so keen on Canadian participation in BMD. Liberal caucus sources, including MPs who are generally receptive to the idea of Canadian participation, say Mr. Bush stirred up a hornet's nest with his appeal for Ottawa's co-operation during two public appearances on his visit last week. BMD "is a major issue for all of Canada, like Iraq," Quebec Liberal MP Denis Coderre said, referring to the government's decision not to join the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq last year. The Quebec wing of the Liberal Party voted on the weekend to "abstain" from the U.S. program. Mr. Coderre predicted that the issue will come to a head no later than March, when the party holds a national policy convention. Liberal youth and women's groups are proposing resolutions condemning the BMD program. -------- russia RUSSIA TO STOP SUPPLY FUEL TO INDIA'S NUKE, TO BUILD NEW INSTEAD (RIA Novosti) December 7, 2004 http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=5182582&startrow=1&date=2004-12-07&do_alert=0 NEW DELHI/MOSCOW, - India's nuclear power industry is invulnerable and can be self-reliant, the newspaper Hindu on Tuesday quotes Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the National Atomic Energy Commission, as saying in Chennai. It was Kakodkar's reaction to the recent words by Alexander Rumyantsev, head of the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency, that Russia is not going to ship fuel (low-enriched uranium) for the first two reactors of the Tarapur facility, founded 100 kilometres off Mumbai, Maharashtra. Rumyantsev also said that Russia will not participate in manufacturing another two reactors for the Kudankulam facility in the southern state Tamil Nadu. Anil Kakodkar rejected the assertions that India's oldest Tarapur nuke can only fire low-enriched uranium. To him, the MOX fuel (mixed uranium-plutonium oxide), production of which has begun in India, is partly used in Tarapur reactors. In the Kudankulam plant two power units with VVER (water-moderated energy) reactors of 1,000 megawatts each is being built, with the involvement of Russian specialists,. In 1996 the International Atomic Energy Agency banned the shipment of modern nuclear technologies to India after its refusal to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Kudankulam units are in the making upon the bilateral agreement concluded way back in 1988, before the ban came into force. In 2001, minding its critical shortage of fuel, Russia shipped 58 tonnes of nuclear fuel to the Tarapur plant, casing the disgruntlement of the nuclear suppliers' group. The Russian state-run enterprise Technopromexport is going to participate in tenders for the construction of new electrical facilities in India. The possibility of its partaking in the Northern Karampura and Subansiri tenders were discussed at the meeting in New Delhi between Indian Energy Minister Said and Sergei Molozhavy, chairman of Technopromexport. "Indian electricity workers note the high professionalism of Russian specialists and their abidance by the contract commitments. We hope this will let us expand the presence of our company on the Indian energy market", Molozhavy said on results of the meeting. Currently, Technopromexport is working in India on two project of about 100 million dollars total cost. They are retooling the Obra thermal power plant and supplying hydromechanical equipment for the Indira Sagar hydropower station. Technopromexport also participates in the tender for the supply of furnace fuel for the Bar thermal power plant. Since the 1960s, Technopromexport has put into operation in India eleven power facilities of over 3,000 megawatts, or approximately ten percent of the national energy system. -------- terrorism Tom Maertens: Nuclear terror: Be afraid Star Tribune December 7, 2004 http://www.startribune.com/dynamic/story.php?template=print_a&story=5122763 Even if you paid close attention to electoral campaign issues, you could be excused for thinking that George W. Bush and John Kerry did not agree on anything. But you'd be wrong. Both stated explicitly that the greatest danger facing the United States was nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. Graham Allison, former assistant secretary of defense, longtime adviser to the Pentagon and presently a Harvard professor, has been saying this for years. He has now laid out the case in detail in "Nuclear Terrorism." You won't be reassured. Experts say it's a question of "when," not "if," terrorists will attack us with nuclear weapons. Indeed, some U.S. analysts believe Al-Qaida already has a nuclear weapon. How hard is it to make a nuclear weapon? In 1977, a Princeton undergraduate set out to design a nuclear weapon as his thesis project. The resulting blueprint, using unclassified sources, would have been a perfect terrorist weapon: a bomb the size of a beach ball with a 10-kiloton yield, at a cost of $2,000. Detonated in the center of a large city, it might have killed and injured millions. Members of the Princeton faculty who had worked on the WWII Manhattan Project submitted it to the government, which immediately classified it "Secret." The difficult part of building a bomb is not the design but obtaining highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the fissile material. No fissile material, no nuclear weapon. This is why Allison believes that catastrophe is preventable: The number of sources for such material is finite, albeit rather large. We must secure this material using the "gold standard" that has prevented the loss of gold from Fort Knox, he writes. This is the first of what he calls the "Three No's": No Loose Nukes. Russia has more nuclear weapons and fissile material than any country in the world. Allison estimates this material could be secured for $40 billion or less, and urges that the program be expedited. The second is No New Nascent Nukes. This would be directed at preventing the construction of national production facilities for enriched uranium or plutonium, the key to bombmaking, by countries like Iran. The final principle is No New Nuclear Weapons States. The immediate target of this would be North Korea. Allison laments that the Bush administration has no strategy for North Korea except to deny that a crisis exists, an approach that he believes is intolerable for a great power and one which future historians will see as gross negligence. Pakistan is also high up in his threat hierarchy. It has a record of selling nuclear technology, and its nuclear scientists have apparently already provided weapon design information to Al-Qaida. As for Iraq, Allison says it would not have made the top 20 most likely suppliers of nuclear material. For this reason, he believes the U.S. invasion was a strategic blunder and a diversion from the real fight against terrorists. The Bush administration, he writes, has failed to develop a coherent strategy for combating nuclear terrorism, despite its tough talk. Graham Allison has written a very readable book that will tell you the essential facts about nuclear terrorism along with some things you may wish you didn't know. Tom Maertens was NSC director for nuclear issues in both the Clinton and Bush White Houses. -------- u.s. nuc weapons Perfect for a nuclear family: Home on the missile range Denver Post By Will Shanley December 07, 2004 http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~33~2580767,00.html A missile silo complex built in Arapahoe County during the Cold War to withstand a direct nuclear blast is up for sale. It can be yours for the low, low price of $1.5 million. The underground missile complex, one of six former Titan I missile facilities in Colorado, is on the former Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range east of Aurora. The underground site, titled Complex 1-C, is owned by Utah-based investor Lan England, who purchased the facility in 2001 from a private owner. The facility includes control and power domes and three launch silos. A series of underground tunnels connects the structures. Prospective buyers could include technology companies looking for a secure site for documents, computer files and archives, or an eccentric homeowner looking a new subterranean mansion, said Steward Mosko, senior vice president for Denver-based Fuller Co., the real estate firm handling the sale. "You can look at it as a $1.5 million fixer-upper," Mosko said. Built in 1960 at a cost of $130 million, the complex was used to store Titan 1 missiles, one of the nation's first intercontinental ballistic missiles. The weapons were designed to carry nuclear warheads and became operational in 1962. By 1965 the missiles were phased out, causing the silo and its weapons to be decommissioned. "They are very, very rare," said England, 50, noting that only 18 Titan 1 complexes were constructed in the U.S. "They were built to survive a direct nuclear blast." While the 210-acre site formerly held plutonium-based nuclear warheads, there is no evidence of radioactive contamination, said Hector Santiago, a project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which helped monitor the environmental impact of the facility over the past several decades. Nationwide, former missile silos have gained a following from technology companies looking to find highly secure sites for data centers, said Ed Peden, owner of Kansas-based 20th Century Castles LLC, which specializes in selling underground properties. "Since Sept. 11, that has been a major thrust," Peden said. He brokered the sale of a missile silo near Grover in the late 1990s. "These are some of the strongest structures on the planet. Something like this will never be built again." Even so, the facility will need improvements. England estimates that, depending on use, the facility will need $200,000 to $300,000 to make the 55,000 square feet of usable space operational. What would be required is to "completely gut the domes and put in a new infrastructure," England said. "The domes are the most liveable and remarkable." England, based in Salt Lake City, said he bought the property intending to use it as a secure data center, but the plan never materialized. He said he might retain the facility if a buyer cannot be found. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- massachusetts Investigation Continues at Nuclear Metals Site in Concord, Mass. Contact: Dave Deegan, public affairs office, 1617-918-1017 For Immediate Release: Dec. 7, 2004; EPA Release # am04-12-06 http://www.epa.gov/region1/pr/2004/dec/am041206.html BOSTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given approval for the consultant working on the Nuclear Metals Inc. Site in Concord, Mass. to begin work this week to excavate buried drums from an area of the site. The drum excavation will take place in an area adjacent to the cooling water pond, located behind the former Starmet facility. The drum disposal area is being investigated by the consultant, de maximis, inc. as part of an extensive study, called a Remedial Investigation, which has been underway at the site since October. The study includes: * locating and characterizing the contents of buried drums and metal debris in two areas at the site; * investigating and characterizing the make-up of site septic tanks and leach fields, storm drains, transformer areas and an underground storage tank area; * characterization and survey of site buildings and contents to evaluate remedial needs and estimate those costs; * investigating site soils, sediment, surface water, groundwater, wetlands and bog; * characterizing the content of residual soil contamination associated with the former holding basin; * describing site-related human health and ecological risks; and, * developing clean-up alternatives. Previous investigations found the drum disposal area contained about 60 buried drums. To more thoroughly characterize the contents of the drums and determine the extent of contamination in the soil surrounding them, the drums will be excavated and stockpiled on-site in secure containers. The contents of the drums will be sampled and samples will be sent to a laboratory for analysis. Soil surrounding the drums will also be sampled. Once the contents of the drums are confirmed, an evaluation of disposal options will be performed. During this phase of the investigation, workers will initially be using “Level B” or “supplied air” and protective equipment, and the air around the work area as well at the perimeter of the property will be monitored to ensure contamination is not being released or migrating off-site. After the drums are excavated, which is expect to take less than two weeks, the excavated area will be sampled and backfilled. The larger investigation of the entire property will continue through spring 2005. The drum disposal area is one of 17 areas being investigated by de maximis, inc. as part of an agreement reached between EPA and the responsible parties at Nuclear Metals in June 2003. According to the agreement, a study of the site will be completed and used to evaluate cleanup options. Specifically, the agreement calls for the responsible parties to pay for the Remedial Investigations/ Feasibility Study and Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analyses. According to the agreement, these studies will cost about $8 million, and can be increased to a cap of $10 million. From 1958 to the present, the site was used by various operators as a specialized research and metal manufacturing facility licensed to possess low-level radioactive substances. Site operators used depleted uranium, beryllium and other hazardous substances at the site. From 1958 to 1985, wastes contaminated with depleted uranium were disposed of in an unlined holding basin. EPA has also identified other areas on the site that were used to dispose of manufacturing wastes, building materials and laboratory equipment. The current site owner/operator, Starmet (formerly Nuclear Metals, Inc.), manufactured depleted uranium munitions for the U.S. Army at the site from the 1970s until 1999. In 2003, EPA entered into an agreement with the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Energy, Whittaker Corp., MONY Life Insurance Co. and Textron Inc. to conduct extensive studies at the site to develop cleanup options. The Nuclear Metals Inc. site was added to the National Priority List in June 2001, making it a Superfund site. The EPA list is made up of the country s most serious hazardous waste sites identified for possible long-term cleanup. Additional information can be found at http://www.nmisite.org or http://www.epa.gov/ne/superfund/sites/nmi. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Rumsfeld expected to discuss South Asian arms sales with India NEW DELHI (AFP) Dec 07, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041207135343.lkc22pd1.html US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to discuss plans to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan during a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this week, newspapers reported Tuesday. Rumsfeld is scheduled to arrive in the Indian capital late Wednesday and meet with Singh on Thursday morning. Rumsfeld will discuss US-India relations with Singh, including arms sales, according to an official familiar with the visit. Sales of new weapons that could upset the balance of power in the volatile South Asian region have rankled both countries with Pakistan concerned India could get Patriot missiles and India concerned about possible sales of fighter jets and naval surveillance aircraft to Pakistan, according to the Indian Express newspaper. The Patriot, a ground-based missile system that can defend against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft, is seen linked to India's support of a proposed global missile shield, the newspaper said. In response, Pakistan may have already asked to buy up to 25 F-16 fighter jets in 2005 when President Pervez Musharraf visited Washington last week and met President George W. Bush. The two nuclear-armed countries, which have fought three wars in the past half-century, are in peace talks over the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir while developing new medium- and long-range missile systems at the same time. -------- britain National ID in Britain? December 07, 2004 Washington Times http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041206-085213-8841r.htm In the months following September 11, Congress pushed national identification cards as a purported tool in the fight against terror. The idea was rejected as too intrusive on liberties, too susceptible to abuse, too dubious as a counterterror tool and too logistically challenging to implement even if it were. Now we hear the British are hatching their own national ID card plan. On Nov. 23, the British government announced plans to issue national identity documents for the first time since their post-World War II discontinuation in 1952. We would urge them to reconsider. As we've pointed out before, we hope that the war on terror does not require a police state, nor the precursors to one. Unfree societies require the showing of "papers," not free ones. The bad news is it seems the British are no longer convinced of that fact. We hope they are wrong. Shortly after the September 11 terror attacks, an overwhelming majority of Britons indicated support for ID cards — about 85 percent, by one polling firm's reckoning. Now, with the endorsement of both Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair, it's clear much of the establishment strongly favors the plan too. Not all of it does. A revolt has been brewing in recent weeks among conservative opposition members of Parliament, civil libertarians and even members of Mr. Blair's own Labor Party. Prominent among the revolters were former Shadow Home Secretary Lord Hattersley, a Laborite, who said the ID card plan went "too much in the direction of authoritarianism and too little in that of civil liberties," and Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, who accused the government of trying to win votes by stirring fears of terrorism. Scottish leaders, too, are uncomfortable with the encroachment. As displeased MPs consider the issue, we'd like to remind the British public of what, precisely, they are bargaining for. "You will want this to be part of your life," said Neil Fisher of QinetiQ, one of the companies building the technological systems for ID cards, to the BBC in April. "You will want, in what's fast becoming a digital society, to be able to authenticate your identity for almost any transaction that you do, be it going to the bank, going to the shops, going to the airport," he said. We cannot, in logic, categorically reject the prospect that it may become necessary, in the efforts to detect terrorist planning, for the government to keep track of a citizen's every action and purchase. But we are not at that point yet. And we hope national survival will never require said police-state conduct. Certainly the case has not yet been made. Britain should hold her historic freedoms tight and not yield them to shadow fears. -------- chemical weapons Dutchman held for 'Iraq genocide' bbc.co.uk 7 December, 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4074803.stm Prosecutors in the Netherlands say they will charge a 62-year-old Dutchman suspected of assisting ex-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in genocide. A spokesman for the chief prosecutor's office said the suspect had supplied Saddam Hussein with thousands of tons of base materials for chemical weapons. The chemicals were allegedly used in the 1988 Iraqi bombing of Halabja. It is alleged that suspect Frans van Anraat was aware of the final purpose for the base materials he supplied. "The man is suspected of delivering thousands of tons of raw materials for chemical weapons to the former regime in Baghdad between 1984 and 1988," prosecutors said in a statement. The notorious chemical attack on Kurds in Halabja killed an estimated 5,000 civilians. Chemical weapons were also used by the Iraqi army against Iranian forces in their 1980-1988 war. 'Major supplier' Prosecutors said the Dutchman had been a suspect since 1989, when he was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the US government. But he was later released and fled to Iraq, where he remained until 2003. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, he returned to the Netherlands via Syria, the Associated Press reported. The United Nations suspects the man was a major chemical supplier to the former Iraqi regime, having made 36 separate shipments, including mustard gas and nerve gas originating from the United States and Japan. The chemicals where shipped via the Belgian port of Antwerp, through Aqaba in Jordan to Iraq, the prosecution statement said. The man was arrested in Amsterdam on Monday and will be brought before a court in the town of Arnhem later this week. -------- iraq The Economic Situation in Iraq Still Crushed Under the "Bremer Orders" Islam Online By Dahr Jamail 07/12/2004 http://www.islamonline.net/english/In_Depth/Iraq_Aftermath/2004/12/article_02.shtml Sabah is currently jobless. Abu Ahmed Al-Hadithi, 40, sells vegetables in Al-Adhamiyah market. "The economic situation is so bad now," he said while standing near bins of vegetables. "The costs of gas and food are going up so high; so even if we make more now, everything is costing more." His situation is common amongst Iraqis who are struggling to survive under the occupation. Looking expectantly for customers, Mr. Al-Hadithi added, "In Saddam's days we grew all our own vegetables to sell … but now so many are coming from outside of Iraq and it is causing us to sell them for less. So I make less profit now, and I have nine people to take care of, and it has made my life very difficult. - Ordinary Iraqis Now: What Has Changed - Are Iraqis Better Off? - Capitalizing on the Wealth of the Poor Many of the vegetables in Iraq now have been poisoned by Depleted Uranium [DU]. "We can't take any vegetables from the south now; the DU makes them all lose their ripeness and become poisonous for us." The struggles facing Abu Ahmed Al-Hadithi are a direct result of Bremer's Order number 12-former US civil administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer authored the "100 Orders," which control the Iraqi economy. Order number 12 effectively suspends "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for good entering or leaving Iraq," which caused an overnight influx of cheap foreign consumer goods into the country. This led to conditions which Antonia Juhasz-a project director at the International Forum on Globalization and a Foreign Policy in Focus scholar-describes as effecting Iraqis by, "devastating local producers and sellers who were thoroughly unprepared to meet the challenge of their mammoth global competitors." "[The DU] makes [tomatoes] lose their ripeness and become poisonous for us." The authority of the 100 Orders was conveniently signed over to the US-installed interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi on Bremer's last day in Iraq. Allawi, an Iraqi exile of 25 years, has close ties to the CIA and the British intelligence. Juhasz writes in a Los Angeles Times commentary dated August 5 that the Bremer Orders "lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term US economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people." One of the Bremer Orders in particular-No. 39-effectively allows for, "(1) privatization of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) "national treatment" - which means no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses," Juhasz writes. Abu Gouda, who used to work in the Ministry of Military Industry, now sells vegetables. In sum, those measures do not provide preference for Iraqis in doing business in their own country, while they allow foreign companies to buy Iraqi businesses and perform all of the reconstruction/rehabilitation work without being required to spend any of their money in the Iraqi economy. Examples of Iraqis suffering as a result of the Bremer Orders are abundant. Abu Gouda, 50, used to work in a factory of the Ministry of Military Industry. He earned one of the largest monthly salaries at the factory. Now he too is selling vegetables in the Al-Adhamiya market. "I make between 8-10000 Iraqi Dinars per day, and this is just enough to feed my family of seven." Sabah Ahmed used to serve on the council of his neighborhood in Bahgdad. He is currently out of a job and doesn't know what he will do. "The economic situation is very bad," he said with dismay. "The people are in a critical situation because of the increase in prices. Gasoline, transportation, everything is going up so much. "We have no security, which means that our economy cannot function." "We have no security, which means that our economy cannot function." Another man, who asked to be referred to as "Haider," works in a small gold store in the Khadimiyah gold market. "There is a big problem with gold coming from the United Arab Emirates into Iraq, because it is driving all the prices down here, so I am struggling to make a living." Ali also works in the market in the Kadhamiya district of Baghdad. He is responsible for supporting his eight daughters, wife, father, and mother after his older brother was killed by occupation forces. "This is not my real job, but I have to do this. I make 4,000 Iraqi Dinars [$2.70] daily… but my family needs 10,000 ID daily [$7], and I pay 3,000 ID [$2] for transportation." Many Iraqis have become desperate to make a living under the untenable circumstances caused by the illegal US occupation of their country. A man who asked to remain anonymous used to work as a warrant officer. "Now I am jobless, so I am selling sweets." He complained that he is struggling to get by because most people are no longer able to afford sweets. This is compounded by the security situation, which causes fewer people to leave their homes and obliges merchants to work shorter hours. Others have resorted to working in the black market in order to maintain their families. "I used to drive my car as a taxi, but now I make more money filling my tank with fuel at the pumps, then selling it here in the black market," an Iraqi said on condition of anonymity. After pausing to watch cars pass by, he added somberly, "Only in this way am I making enough money." Inflation constitutes another aspect of the crippling situation. "The currency is worth less than before; although the pay rates are higher, the balance is negative because of the increase in prices," Abu Omar, an unemployed lawyer, explained. While Iraqis struggle to survive, and unemployment is up to 70% amidst the bloody occupation, foreign companies operating in Iraq are posting record profits. Halliburton saw an increase of 80% in revenues in the first financial quarter of 2004 compared to the same quarter last year. This is primarily due to their operations in Iraq, where the company received the lion's share of reconstruction dollars from the US government. Bechtel, recipient of the second largest amount of contract funding in Iraq, has seen a 158% increase in revenues generated outside of the US since last year, which pulled the company out of a slump in this sector. It must be noted that the Bremer Orders are illegal under international law, because they violate the Hague regulations of 1907, which illegalize the transformation of an occupied country's laws. While the orders continue to hurt, rather than assist, Iraqis, there seems to be little hope for an improvement in the quality of life in the war-torn country. Dahr Jamail is an American journalist of Lebanese descent. Currently based in Iraq, his articles focus on Iraqis and how the occupation of their country affects their daily life. ----- Amnesty's appeals for Fallujah Electronic Iraq 7 December 2004 http://electroniciraq.net/news/1745.shtml Two-year-old Mustapha Ahmed Abed, a victim of the battles in Fallujah, is cradled by a male relative, as his mother lies in a near by bed at the Naaman hospital in Baghdad. (AFP/Ali Al-Saadi) In November of 2004, Amnesty International issued three separate calls for protection of Iraqi civilians in the escalating violence in Falluja. A month later, reports keep pouring in describing the indiscriminate killing and mistreatment of countless civilians, including children. In stark contrast to the Bush administration's more optimistic accounts of the situation in Iraq, a recent CIA report painted a grim picture of Iraq's politics, economics, and security, with no prospect of improvement in sight. U.S. military spokespersons have provided estimates of the number of deaths among insurgents (said to be in the hundreds), but not of civilian deaths or injuries. Some pundits have speculated that civilian casualties may have been deliberately downplayed in the U.S. media to keep those details from influencing the recent elections. But, conspiracy theories aside, the fact remains that combatants on both sides of the Iraq war are not taking adequate precautions to ensure the safety of civilians and civilian property, and the public has a right to know the facts. Among the most recent incidents cited by Amnesty International are the following: # On 8 October, an air raid on Falluja reportedly killed 11 people and wounded 17 others in what the U.S. military said was "a precision strike" against a hideout of Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, while doctors and residents reportedly said that the strike had hit a house during a wedding party. # On 20 October, four children and their parents were said to have been killed in another air strike against the city. # On 9 November, 20 Iraqi medical staff and dozens of other civilians were reportedly killed when a missile hit a clinic. It is not known whether the missile was fired by the U.S.-led forces or by insurgents. # Also on 9 November, a nine-year-old boy reportedly died after being hit in the stomach by shrapnel. His parents were unable to take him to hospital because of the ongoing fighting. He died a few hours later as a result of blood loss and was buried by his parents in their garden because it was too dangerous to leave their home. These tragedies, and the countless others like them, fly in the face of claims by the Bush administration that its purpose in Iraq is to liberate the Iraqi people. The Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which was adopted in 1949 and which entered into force in 1950, dictates that "persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that they "shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity." Special effort is to be made to protect hospitals and other medical facilities, as well as wounded, sick, and aged persons, children under 15, expectant mothers, and mothers of children under seven. These standards apply not only to parties in armed conflict, but also to an occupying power, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance. The Bush administration owes it to the citizens of the U.S., the citizens of Iraq, and the citizens of the world to put an immediate stop to these war crimes and to do everything possible to ensure that no such incidents occur in the future. Furthermore, the following precautions proposed by Amnesty International should be undertaken immediately by both sides in the conflict: # Non-combatants, including the civilian population and prisoners, must not be used in military operations (e.g., as human shields). # Civilians who do not want to take part in the conflict must not be persecuted for refusing to do so. # Combatants and weaponry must not be deliberately placed among the civilian population. # Combatants must refrain from indiscriminate attacks and from the use of indiscriminate weapons which might inadvertently put civilians and civilian objects at risk. These weapons include, but are not limited to, cluster bombs, landmines, thermobaric weapons (e.g., "daisy cutters"), napalm, and munitions using depleted uranium. # There must be no taking of hostages. Any existing hostages must be released immediately and without condition. # The wounded and sick must be collected and cared for. # Humanitarian organizations must be allowed to safely provide for the humanitarian needs of the civilian population. # All violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law must be investigated, and those responsible for unlawful attacks, including deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, and the killing of injured persons, must be brought to justice. Until these measures are untaken fully and completely by all parties in the Iraq conflict, there can be no real prospect for true liberation. Mary Shaw is a writer and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. She currently serves as Philadelphia Area Coordinator for Amnesty International, and her views on human rights and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. She can be reached via maryshawonline.com. -------- nato EU, NATO should not duplicate defence efforts: Estonian FM TALLINN (AFP) Dec 07, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041207134721.1e1gbvt7.html The European Union must take into account NATO capabilities in drawing up European defence policies to avoid duplicating their efforts, Estonian Foreign Minister Kristiina Ojuland said Tuesday. "Ensuring security in Europe and the world, the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and NATO must complement each other," Ojuland told a parliamentary hearing on foreign policy. "Therefore, when planning the further development of the ESDP, appropriate NATO developments must be taken into consideration," she said. Estonia, which joined both the EU and NATO earlier in this year, is concerned whether it can afford to be involved in the defence structures of both organisations. Estonia is participating in the EU's military operation in keeping peace in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and will take part in EU battle groups, which the EU agreed to establish last month. "Estonia is also taking part in this endeavour, but the form and extent of our participation is still being defined," Ojuland said. She said that as a NATO member, Estonia continued "to actively contribute to NATO operations in the Balkans and Afghanistan". "We have to keep the promises made and the commitments we took upon ourselves during NATO accession, including the maintaining of defence expenditures at the level of two percent of GDP," Ojuland said. "Only thus can we be reliable allies, and hope, that we will be heard in the foreign policy realm." Critics have said the state budget should be used for more pressing issues, such as fighting HIV/AIDS and improving the medical system, rather than for defence spending. -------- pakistan / india Musharraf wins praise, but no jets Asia Times By Ashish Kumar Sen Dec 7, 2004 http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FL07Df06.html WASHINGTON - After their White House meeting at the weekend, US President George W Bush defended Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, saying he was "very pleased" with Pakistan's efforts to fight al-Qaeda. Asked if he was disappointed that the Pakistani army had "downgraded" the search for Osama bin Laden, Bush told journalists that Pakistani troops had been "incredibly active and very brave in the South Waziristan [tribal area], flushing out an enemy that had thought they had found safe haven". He hailed Musharraf as a "determined leader to bring to justice not only people like Osama bin Laden, but to bring to justice those who would inflict harm and pain on his own people. I am very pleased with his efforts, and his focused efforts," Bush said, with Musharraf by his side. Shortly afterward, Musharraf admitted that the trail for bin Laden had grown cold, but said that the US was in part to blame because it had not committed enough troops in Afghanistan. In an interview with CNN before departing from Washington for London on Sunday, Musharraf said Pakistan had posted thousands of troops along the mountainous border with Afghanistan but "we don't know where he [Osama bin Laden] is. He might be anywhere." In previous interviews, Musharraf had suggested that bin Laden had kidney problems and needed dialysis. Asked if he still believed that, the Pakistani leader said he now knows only that bin Laden is alive. "All the intelligence said that he had - he suffers from - kidney problems, that he got dialysis machines into the area. But since then, he is alive, that I am sure of. I don't really know how much he is suffering," he said. US officials have, both in private and in public, expressed concern about Pakistan's cooperation in the effort to nab al-Qaeda and Taliban members. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who served as the chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center before he resigned from the CIA earlier this year, raised some of this concern in his book Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. Writing under the nom de plume "Anonymous", Scheuer said: "At day's end, Islamabad cannot endlessly play America's game vis-a-vis Afghanistan and count on the survival of the government and Pakistani sovereignty. Whether under President Musharraf or his successor, Islamabad will support the Taliban's effort to retake Afghanistan," he wrote. He acknowledged the existence of reports that "Pakistani intelligence moved al-Qaeda fighters to safety in Pakistani Kashmir; that post-invasion help was provided al-Qaeda by Pakistan's surrogate Kashmiri insurgent groups, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e Mohammed; and that the Islamist-dominated government of the North West Frontier Province will not allow serious actions by Pakistan's army against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the border areas." Following his meeting with Musharraf at the weekend, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Bush administration was "concerned" that bin Laden was still unaccounted for. "We would like him to not be on the loose. He's a terrorist. He is on the loose, but he's also under enormous pressure. He is being searched for," Powell said. He added that Pakistan "is fully engaged in those tribal areas." Musharraf has in recent weeks ordered a "relocation" of 7,000 Pakistani troops from South Waziristan. "They make some adjustments to their force requirements from time to time," Powell explained, adding, "but President Musharraf reassured us of his full engagement - and Osama bin Laden is on the loose, but under pressure and being chased, and eventually he will be brought to justice." The al-Qaeda leader resurfaced in a videotaped message on the eve of the US presidential elections, warning Americans that their security depends not on whom they elect president, but on US policy. The message was the first from the al-Qaeda leader since December 2001. In Islamabad there is a growing perception that Pakistan is not getting enough in return for its cooperation in the US-led "war on terror". Bush dismissed these concerns, saying he didn't view relations "as one that there's a score card that says, you know, well, if we all fight terror together, therefore, somebody owes somebody something. Friends don't sit there and have a score card that says, well, he did this, or he did that, and therefore, somebody is - there's a deficit. Our relationship is much bigger than that. Our relationship is one where we work closely together for the common good of our own people and for the common good of the world," he added. On Sunday, Musharraf said the US-led invasion of Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. Asked whether he considered the invasion a mistake, the Pakistani leader said, "With hindsight, yes. We have landed ourselves in more trouble, yes. People at the lower level don't like the visibility of foreign troops who are in their country," he added. However, he said he did not believe US and coalition troops should pull out immediately. "[An early withdrawal] would create more problems in the region. Now that we are there, we need to stabilize the situation." Initial accounts indicate Musharraf didn't receive much more than words from Bush. The Pakistani leader discussed the sale of F-16s to Pakistan, but Powell later said "no decisions were made". "You know there's always the issue about F-16s, but no decisions were made at the meetings today," said the outgoing secretary of state. New Delhi has strongly opposed the sale of the jets to Pakistan. Pakistani Air Chief Marshal Kaleem Saadat first stirred speculation about the sale when he told reporters in September that the US would soon accede to Pakistan's 15-year-old campaign to acquire the F-16s, providing at least 18 of the jets. In an interview with Jane's Defense Weekly, Saadat said the transfers would likely be announced after the November 2 US presidential election. The sale of the jets was blocked in 1990 when the US government stopped a shipment of 28 F-16s to Pakistan in accordance with the Pressler amendment. This required the administration to cease military exports to Islamabad if it was suspected of possessing a "nuclear explosive device". In a September 23 letter to Bush asking the president not to clear the sale of the jets, Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey and a former co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, accused the Bush administration of "contributing to increased security concerns throughout South Asia, and particularly to India". Bush and Musharraf discussed Pakistan's relations with India and Powell said he, too, later had a "longer discussion" on the subject. In an interview with the Washington Post, Musharraf was optimistic about the renewed peace initiative with India. "I think we've broken new ground," he said, noting a joint statement issued in New York. "I see this very optimistically. But as I said, these are mere words. We need to convert them into action." Powell said he believed "both sides are trying to find a way to move forward", referring to a recent meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Musharraf on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly and the possibility of a similar meeting at a regional conference early next year. Bush praised the Pakistani leader for showing "great courage in that relationship [between India and Pakistan], leading toward what we hope will be a peaceful solution of what has been a historically difficult problem". During their closed-door meeting, at which Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Powell and his designated successor, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were also present, Bush discussed with Musharraf the possibility of obtaining more information from the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Dr A Q Khan about his nuclear black market. Musharraf ruled out granting any outsiders access to Khan. The request shows "a lack of trust in us and it shows a lack of trust in our capabilities", he told CNN. "If anyone thinks that he can question A Q Khan better than us, well I don't agree with that at all." Musharraf and Bush also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which the Pakistani leader described as the "source of all problems". An Israeli-Palestinian agreement, he said, would "pull the rug from under the feet of all the extremist organizations". Ashish Kumar Sen is a Washington DC-based journalist. -------- prisoners of war FBI witnessed Guantanamo 'abuse' Agence France-Presse December 7, 2004 http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11614846%5E1702,00.html FBI agents witnessed "highly aggressive" interrogations and mistreatment of terror suspects at the US prison camp in Cuba starting in 2002 - more than a year before the prison abuse scandal broke in Iraq - according to a letter a senior US Justice Department official sent to the US army's top criminal investigator. In the letter obtained by The Associated Press, the FBI official suggested the Pentagon didn't act on FBI complaints about the incidents, including a female interrogator grabbing a detainee's genitals and bending back his thumbs, another where a prisoner was gagged with duct tape and a third where a dog was used to intimidate a detainee who later was thrown into isolation and showed signs of "extreme psychological trauma." One US Marine told an FBI observer that some interrogations led to prisoners "curling into a foetal position on the floor and crying in pain," according to the letter dated July 14, 2004. Thomas Harrington, an FBI counterterrorism expert who led a team of investigators at Guantanamo Bay, wrote the letter to Major General Donald J Ryder, the army's chief law enforcement officer who's investigating abuses at US-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo. Harrington said FBI officials complained about the pattern of abusive techniques to top Defence Department attorneys in January 2003, and it appeared that nothing was done. Although a senior FBI attorney "was assured that the general concerns expressed, and the debate between the FBI and defence department regarding the treatment of detainees was known to officials in the Pentagon, I have no record that our specific concerns regarding these three situations were communicated to the Department of Defense for appropriate action", Harrington wrote. Harrington told Ryder he was writing to follow up a meeting he had with the general the week before about detainee treatment, saying the three cases demonstrate the "highly aggressive interrogation techniques being used against detainees in Guantanamo". "I refer them to you for appropriate action," Harrington wrote. Brigadier General Jay Hood, the commander of the mission in Guantanamo, said allegations of mistreatment and abuse were taken seriously and investigated. "The appropriate actions were taken. Some allegations are still under investigation," Hood told AP. "Once investigations are completed, we report them immediately." None of the people named in the letter are still at the base, a Guantanamo spokesman said, but it wasn't clear if any disciplinary action had been taken. The letter identified the military interrogators only by last name and rank, and mentioned a civilian contractor. Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Healy, an army spokesman, confirmed the authenticity of the FBI letter, as did the FBI. Healy said the female interrogator - identified only as Sergeant Lacey in the letter - was being investigated, but the army would not comment further or fully identify her. The US military says prisoners are treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit violence, torture and humiliating treatment of combatants. Still, at least 10 incidents of abuse have been substantiated at Guantanamo, all from 2003 or this year. They range from a guard hitting a detainee to a female interrogator climbing on a prisoner's lap. Those incidents pale in comparison to alleged abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a scandal that erupted when photographs surfaced of US troops forcing Iraqi prisoners to strip and pose in sexually humiliating positions. Some prisoners were bound and hooded. At Guantanamo, some detainees have been held without charge and without access to attorneys since the camp opened in January 2002 at the remote US naval base on Cuba's eastern tip. The US has imprisoned 550 men accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or the Al-Qaeda terror network; only four have been charged. No detailed incidents of abuse from 2002 had publicly surfaced before the FBI letter. None of the three 2002 cases cited were detailed in any of 5000 documents received by the New York-based American Civil Liberties Union under two Freedom of Information Act requests, said Anthony Romero, the union's executive director. "Despite the government's statements, there seems to be increasingly little doubt that torture is occurring at Guantanamo," Romero said. He said the information in the FBI letter "raises questions about the government's willingness to be forthcoming in these legal proceedings and shows that even the FBI has been uncomfortable with some of the tactics used at Guantanamo". One of the documents the ACLU received was a letter from an FBI agent to Harrington and dated May 10. It underscored the friction between the FBI and the military, mentioning conversations that were "somewhat heated" over interrogation methods. "In my weekly meetings with the Department of Justice we often discussed techniques and how they were not effective or producing intelligence that was reliable," according to the exchange, which was heavily redacted to remove references to dates and names. "I finally voiced my opinion ..." the FBI agent says. "It still did not prevent them from continuing the ... methods." Three of the four incidents mentioned in the letter obtained by the AP occurred under the watch of General Geoffrey D Miller, who ran the Guantanamo camp from October 2002 to March 2004, and left to run Abu Ghraib prison. Last month, General Miller was reassigned to the Pentagon, with responsibility for housing and other support operations. According to the letter, in late 2002 an FBI agent observed an interrogation where Sergeant Lacey whispered in the ear of a handcuffed and shackled detainee, caressed him and applied lotion to his arms. This occurred during Ramadan, Islam's holy month when contact with females is considered particularly offensive to a Muslim man. Later, the detainee appeared to grimace in pain, and the FBI agent asked a Marine who was present why. "The Marine said (the interrogator) had grabbed the detainee's thumbs and bent them backward and indicated that she also grabbed his genitals. The Marine also implied that her treatment of that detainee was less harsh than her treatment of others by indicating that he had seen her treatment of other detainees result in detainees curling into a fetal position on the floor and crying in pain," Harrington wrote. In September or October of 2002, FBI agents saw a dog used "in an aggressive manner to intimidate a detainee," the letter said. About a month later, agents saw the same detainee "after he had been subjected to intense isolation for over three months ... totally isolated in a cell that was always flooded with light. By late November, the detainee was evidencing behaviour consistent with extreme psychological trauma ... talking to non-existent people, reported hearing voices (and) crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet," the letter said. In October 2002, another FBI agent saw a detainee "gagged with duct tape that covered much of his head" because he would not stop chanting from the Koran. ------ FBI Letter Details Abuses at Guantanamo Associated Press By PAISLEY DODDS Dec 7, 2004 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GUANTANAMO_ABUSE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- FBI agents witnessed "highly aggressive" interrogations of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in 2002, and warned the same questionable techniques could have been used in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke, according to FBI documents obtained by The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union. In a letter obtained by AP, a senior Justice Department official suggested the Pentagon didn't act on FBI complaints about four incidents at Guantanamo, including a female interrogator grabbing a detainee's genitals and bending back his thumbs, another where a prisoner was gagged with duct tape and a third where a dog was used to intimidate a detainee who later was thrown into isolation and showed signs of "extreme psychological trauma." One Marine told an FBI observer that some interrogations led to prisoners "curling into a fetal position on the floor and crying in pain," according to the letter dated July 14, 2004. Thomas Harrington, an FBI counterterrorism expert who led a team of investigators at Guantanamo Bay, wrote the letter to Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, the Army's chief law enforcement officer who's investigating abuses at U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo. Harrington said FBI officials complained about the pattern of abusive techniques to top Defense Department attorneys in January 2003, and it appeared that nothing was done. Although a senior FBI attorney "was assured that the general concerns expressed, and the debate between the FBI and DoD regarding the treatment of detainees was known to officials in the Pentagon, I have no record that our specific concerns regarding these three situations were communicated to the Department of Defense for appropriate action," Harrington wrote. Three of the four incidents mentioned in the letter obtained by AP occurred under the watch of Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who ran the Guantanamo camp from October 2002 to March 2004, and left to run Abu Ghraib prison. Last month, Miller was reassigned to the Pentagon, with responsibility for housing and other support operations. The ACLU planned Tuesday to release internal government memos that underscore the friction between the FBI and the military over interrogation methods. The documents are among 5,000 the New York-based ACLU received under two Freedom of Information Act requests, said Anthony Romero, the union's executive director. In one document obtained by the ACLU, an FBI agent recalls Miller wanting to "Gitmo-ize" the Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs surfaced of U.S. troops forcing Iraqi prisoners to strip and pose in sexually humiliating positions. Troops often refer to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo as "Gitmo." "I am not sure what this means, however, if this refers to intelligence gathering as I suspect, it suggests he (Miller) has continued to support interrogation strategies we not only advised against but questioned in terms of effectiveness," reads the memo dated May 13, 2004, from an FBI agent whose name was redacted. In another ACLU-obtained letter from an FBI agent to Harrington and dated May 10, an agent questioned whether harsh interrogation techniques turned up good information. "In my weekly meetings with the Department of Justice we often discussed techniques and how they were not effective or producing intelligence that was reliable," according to the exchange, which was heavily redacted to remove references to dates and names. "I finally voiced my opinion ...," the FBI agent says. "It still did not prevent them from continuing the ... methods." Romero said the information "raises questions about the government's willingness to be forthcoming in these legal proceedings and shows that even the FBI has been uncomfortable with some of the tactics used at Guantanamo." In the letter obtained by AP, Harrington told Ryder he was writing to follow up a meeting he had with the general the week before about detainee treatment, including "highly aggressive interrogation techniques being used against detainees in Guantanamo." "I refer them to you for appropriate action," Harrington wrote. Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the current commander of the mission in Guantanamo, said allegations of mistreatment and abuse are taken seriously and investigated. "The appropriate actions were taken. Some allegations are still under investigation," Hood told AP. None of the people named in the letter are still at the base, a Guantanamo spokesman said, but it wasn't clear if any disciplinary action had been taken. The letter identified the military interrogators only by last name and rank, and mentioned a civilian contractor. Lt. Col. Gerard Healy, an Army spokesman, said the female interrogator - identified only as Sgt. Lacey - is being investigated, but the Army wouldn't comment further or fully identify her. The U.S. military says prisoners are treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit violence, torture and humiliating treatment. Still, at least 10 incidents of abuse have been substantiated at Guantanamo, all but one from 2003 or this year. According to the letter obtained by AP, in late 2002 an FBI agent observed an interrogation where Sgt. Lacey whispered in the ear of a handcuffed and shackled detainee, caressed him and applied lotion to his arms. This occurred during Ramadan, Islam's holy month when contact with females is considered particularly offensive to a Muslim man. Later, the detainee appeared to grimace in pain, and the FBI agent asked a Marine who was present why. "The Marine said (the interrogator) had grabbed the detainee's thumbs and bent them backward and indicated that she also grabbed his genitals." In September or October of 2002, FBI agents saw a dog used "in an aggressive manner to intimidate a detainee," the letter said. About a month later, agents saw the same detainee "after he had been subjected to intense isolation for over three months" in a cell flooded with light. "By late November, the detainee was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma ...," the letter said. In October 2002, another FBI agent saw a detainee "gagged with duct tape that covered much of his head" because he would not stop chanting from the Quran. Many detainees at Guantanamo have been held without charge and without access to attorneys since the camp opened in January 2002. The United States has imprisoned some 550 men accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or al-Qaida; only four have been charged. American Civil Liberties Union: http://www.aclu.org -------- spies House approves intelligence overhaul USA TODAY 12/7/2004 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-06-bush-terror-bill_x.htm WASHINGTON - The House voted Tuesday to overhaul a national intelligence network that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, combining under one official control of 15 spy agencies, intensifying aviation and border security and allowing more wiretaps of suspected terrorists. "We have come a long way toward taking steps that will ensure that we do not see another September 11th," said House Rules chairman David Dreier, R-Calif. Now "we have in place a structure that will ensure that we have the intelligence capability to deal with conflicts on the ground wherever they exist." The House voted 336-75 to send the Senate legislation to create a new national intelligence director, establish a counterterrorism center, set priorities for intelligence gathering and tighten U.S. borders. The measure would implement the biggest change to U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis since the creation of the CIA after World War II to deal with the newly emerging Cold War. The new structure should help the nation's 15 intelligence agencies work together to protect the country from attacks like the ones that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, lawmakers said. If the measure had been passed three years ago, "we might have had a chance not to go through the horrible experience that we did on Sept. 11," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The White House and key congressional leaders agreed Monday on a compromise, reviving a bill stalled in the face of opposition from House Republicans demanding tough immigration restrictions and concerned about protecting Pentagon control of military intelligence. President Bush put his prestige on the line, saying repeatedly he wanted the bill long before it was clear his fellow Republicans would send it to him. John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said the bill could come up for a vote as early as today. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, said Monday they agreed on bill language that "we believe protects with necessary clarity the time-tested (military) chain of command." Hunter and Warner had worried that the powerful civilian intelligence czar created by the bill would focus on longer-term threats, diminishing the flow of intelligence to troops in battle. They said the compromise means that in wartime, a field commander would have first call on spy satellites and other intelligence resources. But the bill would still shift substantial power over intelligence spending from the Pentagon to the civilian intelligence chief. And the newly created "director of national intelligence" would retain final say over missions by the nation's spy satellites, much as the CIA director does today. "I was focused on getting what we needed to protect our military forces. We got that, and as a result of that, I'm going to sign that report," Hunter said Tuesday morning on the Fox News Channel. "Personally, I believe strongly that nothing in the original bill in any way hindered military operations or readiness," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday morning on CNN. "But by making this small change, we were able to provide some additional comfort to Congressman Hunter and get him on board." Even if some Republicans oppose the bill, supporters in the House and Senate say they have enough votes to pass the legislation. "We hope that this support will provide the final momentum necessary to take intelligence reform across the finish line," Collins and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the lead Senate negotiators, said Monday in a joint statement. The intelligence bill came to Capitol Hill with strong backing of the 9/11 Commission, whose year-long investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks showed how a splintered intelligence community lost the trail of the Sept. 11 terrorists as information failed to flow between intelligence agencies. (Related story: Roadblocks lifted for 9/11 intel-reform bill) "We have a 57-year-old system ... that allowed 3,000 people to die on our homeland," commission member Tim Roemer told reporters Monday as he and family members of 9/11 victims lobbied for the bill. "We need to change it." Not even members of the 9/11 Commission, some of the bill's strongest backers, promise it will prevent another attack. Commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton argued last summer that other changes, such as improved U.S. relations in the Middle East, are essential to blunting the terror threat. Debra Burlingame, sister of one of the pilots of the jet that was crashed into the Pentagon, said "the jury is still out" as to whether a new intelligence chief would be effective or "nothing more than another layer of bureaucracy." Left unresolved are the concerns of Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who was pressing for tougher immigration restrictions. The Bush administration is drafting an immigration reform measure for next year. -------- House Approves U.S. Intelligence Overhaul By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS December 7, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Intelligence.html?oref=login&hp&ex=1102395600&en=8dc17f33eb52d8ea&ei=5094&partner=homepage WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Tuesday to overhaul a national intelligence network that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, combining under one official control of 15 spy agencies, intensifying aviation and border security and allowing more wiretaps of suspected terrorists. ``We have come a long way toward taking steps that will ensure that we do not see another September 11th,'' said House Rules chairman David Dreier, R-Calif. Now ``we have in place a structure that will ensure that we have the intelligence capability to deal with conflicts on the ground wherever they exist.'' The House voted 336-75 to send the Senate legislation to create a new national intelligence director, establish a counterterrorism center, set priorities for intelligence gathering and tighten U.S. borders. The measure would implement the biggest change to U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis since the creation of the CIA after World War II to deal with the newly emerging Cold War. The new structure should help the nation's 15 intelligence agencies work together to protect the country from attacks like the ones that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, lawmakers said. ``I have always said that good people need better tools. Here come the tools to help good people succeed,'' said Rep. Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. The GOP-controlled Senate plans to pass the bill Wednesday and send it to President Bush for his signature. Congressional approval would be a victory for Bush, whose leadership was questioned after House Republicans refused to vote on the bill two weeks ago despite his urging. ``The president was monitoring the debate on C-SPAN in the conference room on Air Force One,'' White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. ``The president is very pleased with House passage. He knows that this bill will make America safer. ... He greatly looks forward to Senate passage and ultimately to signing the bill into law.'' Heavy and persistent lobbying by the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission and families of attack victims kept the legislation alive through the summer political conventions, the election and a postelection lame duck session of Congress. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also pushed hard in recent days. Bush's support was ``important for the future of the president's relations with members of Congress,'' said Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and the lead Senate negotiator. Families of several Sept. 11 victims held hands and wept as the House passed the legislation. Bill Harvey, a New Yorker whose wife, Sara Manley, was killed at the World Trade Center a month after the couple wed, said the victory was also a sad reminder. `The vote took 15 minutes, and it was pretty emotional. I thought about her during the 15 minutes of the vote,'' he said. The Sept. 11 commission, in its July report, said disharmony among the nation's 15 intelligence agencies contributed to the inability of government officials to stop the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The government failed to recognize the danger posed by al-Qaida and was ill-prepared to respond to the terrorist threat, the report concluded. ``We are going to create a more aggressive, a more vibrant and a more organized intelligence community that is going to give policy-makers the information that they need to make the appropriate decisions,'' said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. ``It's also going to give and continue to give very, very good information to our war-fighters.'' The bill includes a host of anti-terrorism provisions, such as allowing officials to wiretap ``lone wolf'' terrorists and improving airline baggage screening procedures. It increases the number of full-time border patrol agents by 2,000 per year for five years and imposes new federal standards on information that driver's licenses must contain. House GOP leaders held up action on the bill for two weeks because Armed Services chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., was concerned that the new intelligence director might insert himself into the chain of command between the president and military commanders in the field. The legislation moved forward after Hunter and the bill's negotiators came to an agreement Monday on language clarifying the president's control. ``The president as well as his team worked with Congressman Hunter as well as all the congressional leaders on making sure that all concerns were addressed,'' White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. The compromise language ensures that battlefield commanders will take orders from ``the secretary of defense and above him from the president of the United States,'' Hunter said, and they have ``every military asset under his command, including intelligence assets.'' Some Republicans, however, still don't like the measure, with 67 voting against final passage. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., is upset because it doesn't prohibit states from giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants or change asylum laws to make it more difficult for terrorists to get into the country. ``Good intelligence is useless without good homeland security,'' Sensenbrenner said Tuesday. Sensenbrenner and his supporters extracted a promise from GOP leaders that their illegal-immigration provisions would be attached to a separate bill when the new Congress convenes next year. Other Republicans said they would oppose the whole overhaul bill because they saw it as useless. ``I believe creating a national intelligence director is a huge mistake,'' said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill. ``It's another bureaucracy, it's another layer of government. It would not have prevented 9/11 and it will not prevent another 9/11.'' -------- us Several Military Recruiting Vehicles Burned in Recent Days Tuesday December 07, 2004 7:30am (AP) http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1204/192625.html Silver Spring, Md. - Fire investigators in three area counties are trying to determine whether government passenger cars used by military recruiters are being targeted for arson. The three latest cases involved cars authorized for Army use that were parked outside of a recruiting office in the 8,200 block of Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring. They were burned early Monday. The case is similar to an incident that occurred outside of a military recruiting office in Fairfax last Monday. The Washington Post reports that a car parked near a recruiting station in 7,600 block of Richmond Highway was burned. Another vehicle was burned early Friday in the 13,900 block of Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway. Arson investigators in Prince George's County are checking their records to see if they have any cases that fit a similar profile. -------- Suing the Pentagon December 07, 2004 Washington Times http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041206-085211-4890r.htm No one ever said military life was easy or predictable, and Iraq and Afghanistan have only made it harder. Still, it was only a matter of time before someone sued the Pentagon over it. This week, that's precisely what happened. Eight servicemen filed a lawsuit yesterday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge the Pentagon's stop-loss policy. The Pentagon, which has been using stop-loss to retain enlistees beyond their intended periods of service, defends the policy as a means of keeping unit cohesion and maintaining overall manpower levels. But the servicemen are saying stop-loss violates their enlistmen contracts and deprives them of liberty without due process. The plaintiffs are David Qualls, a 35-year-old Guardsman from Arkansas and one-time Army enlistee, and seven servicement identified only as John Doe. All eight are posted overseas. Six of them, including Mr. Qualls, are in Iraq. Legal experts say the case has little chance of succeeding, just as in the Vietnam era similar suits challenging the Pentagon's deployment decisions failed. In the most significant of these, the 1968 Supreme Court decision Morse v. Boswell, the court handed down an 8-1 decision against plaintiffs from a Vietnam-bound Army reserve unit who claimed the Pentagon had not trained them adequately for service. That suit, like most of the era, was largely symbolic. Experts say Qualls v. Rumsfeld is much the same: a symbolic strike against a war and the policies that underwrite it. To judge by the suit's pushers, that's probably correct. Among the plaintiffs' lawyers is Jules Lobel, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a left-wing outfit that is also scurrilously seeking to label Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Clearly the suit means more than servicemen's rights to the people financing it. Still, it's worth reflecting on what the suit means both for manpower and for the state of the military culture, because on both accounts it portends ill. On the manpower issue, it's yet another reminder that the services are stretched too thin. There are currently about 145,000 reservists on active duty. That's too many. It's estimated that the stop-loss policy has kept several thousand of them from coming home as they were originally scheduled to. We rarely hear from these soldiers. Most of them serve with pride and committment. Some hunker down and serve as requested. They all deserve our gratitude, but they also deserve a Congress and president who will fix the problems they're putting in overtime to allay. The permanent expansion of the Army ranks by 20,000 being discussed in Washington this week is a good start, but it's nowhere near enough. Then there is the question of military culture. What the lawsuit demonstrates is that in some respects even the military can't escape the country's increasing litigiousness. It's hard to imagine that World War II-era GIs ever thought to sue the government over unexpected service. These days, servicemen are still mostly proud to serve when they sign up for the military. But the minority who isn't is increasing, and seems unlikely to go away. -------- 2 U.S. soldiers accused of executing 2 unarmed Iraqis Los Angeles Times Edmund Sanders December 7, 2004 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/07/MNG56A7P2G1.DTL Baghdad -- U.S. military prosecutors alleged Monday that American soldiers shot to death two unarmed Iraqi men in their homes, then tried to cover up their crimes by claiming that the Iraqis had reached for guns. In chilling detail, the prosecutors and other U.S. soldiers described in a makeshift courtroom here how the two accused U.S. servicemen casually executed the Iraqis even though the civilians posed no immediate danger. Sgt. Michael P. Williams, 25, of Memphis, Tenn., and Spc. Brent W. May, 22, of Salem, Ohio, are the second pair of soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment from Fort Riley, Kan., to face murder charges stemming from separate incidents in August. Williams and May could face the death penalty if convicted. Williams and May were charged in September, but details of the killings were made public for the first time Monday at a preliminary hearing for May. Monday's hearing focused on the killing of an unidentified Iraqi man on Aug. 28, when the regiment conducted house-to-house searches in Sadr City. Soldiers approached a small one-story home and found a family sleeping in the courtyard to escape the summer heat, several soldiers from the unit testified Monday. Soldiers detained the family while they searched the home. Soldiers found a revolver and an AK-47 assault rifle. Because of Iraq's security problems, it is not uncommon for Iraqi families to keep guns in their homes. The law permits each household to carry one weapon for protection. After finding the weapons, Williams entered the house with May. The two motioned for the Iraqi man to follow them inside, soldiers testified. Once inside, Williams and May stood in front of the Iraqi. "You know what you have to do," Williams told May, according to an account of the incident presented by military attorneys. "Can I shoot him?" May asked Williams. "Shoot him," Williams replied, according to attorneys. May fired two shots. "I shot him in the head twice, took a picture of him and walked outside," May told Special Agent James Suprynowicz, a military investigator, in a statement several weeks later. It was read Monday. After the shooting, May bragged about the incident to fellow soldiers, prosecutors alleged. When his commanding officer asked him what happened, May replied that the Iraqi tried to grab a gun. In the sworn statement later, May admitted that he fired two shots at the unarmed Iraqi man, according to Suprynowicz. He told investigators that he shot the man "because I was ordered to," Suprynowicz testified. After soldiers dragged the bleeding man from the house, his wife became hysterical, wailing, throwing dirt in the air and beating herself with her hands. Soldiers watched in shock as she laid her baby on top of the man's bleeding body. Lt. Col David Batchelor, task force commander of the 1-41st, who arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting, said he ordered soldiers to leave the scene because the unit needed to get to its next mission. Military investigators visited the house about a month later, but the family had moved. Military investigators say they have been unable to identify the victim or his family. Soldiers who took part in the Aug. 28 raid said they immediately suspected that their two colleagues murdered the Iraqi. When May and Williams took the Iraqi back into the house, "we figured something fishy was going on," Spc. Tulafono Young testified. "Sgt. Williams wanted to kill the guy." Under cross-examination, Young was forced to admit that he is under investigation in a separate incident for shooting