NucNews - December 8, 2004 -------- NUCLEAR Foreign Reactors Get 10 More Years to Return U.S. Fuel WASHINGTON, DC, December 8, 2004 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2004/2004-12-08-09.asp#anchor3 Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has extended by 10 years the period of time for spent nuclear fuel of U.S. origin to be returned to the United States from foreign research reactors. Abraham said the Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to extend the period for spent fuel acceptance will provide additional time for research reactors to convert from high-enriched uranium (HEU) to low-enriched uranium (LEU) cannot. Under the Atoms for Peace program established in the 1950s, the United States provided reactor technology to further other countries’ research into peaceful uses of atomic energy. Research reactors use nuclear technology for medical, agricultural and industrial applications. The current acceptance policy established by DOE and the State Department in 1996 permits the United States to accept certain eligible spent fuel that is irradiated by May 2006, and returned to the United States by May 2009. A revised record of decision, signed by National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Linton Brooks on November 22 and made public on Monday, extends the irradiation deadline to May 2016, and the acceptance deadline to May 2019. Some countries with eligible fuel have not used their fuel as rapidly as projected or have made alternative fuel processing arrangements, and there have been technical delays in the development of LEU alternatives, Abraham said. Since 1996, the acceptance program has conducted 30 shipments involving 27 countries, resulting in the safe return of over 6,300 spent nuclear fuel assemblies. Abraham said that amounts to nearly 500 kilograms of uranium-235 – enough to build about 20 crude nuclear weapons. The acceptance policy is a cornerstone of the DOE's Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which focuses on minimizing, and, where possible, eliminating the use of HEU in civil applications by converting research reactors to LEU and securing, returning or recovering vulnerable nuclear material. -------- accidents and safety Pending U.S. Advice on 'Dirty Bomb' Exposure Is Under Fire By Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times Wednesday 08 December 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/politics/08nuke.html Washington - Antinuclear activists maintain that advice the federal government is preparing to give state and local officials on how to react to the detonation of a radioactive "dirty bomb" would not protect the public from absorbing huge radiation doses in the years after such an event. In fact, they say, those doses might be enough to induce cancer in about a quarter of those exposed. The advice is to be offered in a "guidance document" that the Bush administration has been preparing for months, to be used if terrorists set off a dirty bomb, whose conventional explosive would spread its radioactive material. Experts say that in the short term, the blast itself would be far more dangerous than the radiation, but that if an important area was contaminated, officials would face difficult decisions about how much decontamination should be required or how many years should elapse before the radiation was deemed to have died down enough for public access. The antinuclear campaigners, led by a Los Angeles-based group called the Committee to Bridge the Gap, has complained in letters to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Homeland Security that the exposure allowed under the contemplated advice would create almost 100 times as much cancer risk as those usually allowed from other kinds of contaminants, like chemicals, or from radiation in other settings. The critics based their letter on two draft versions of the advice, which were posted last year on the Web site of Inside EPA, a trade publication for the environmental industry. The first, from July 2003, reflected wide differences on the issue among the Homeland Security Department, the environmental agency and the Energy Department. The second version, undated but posted by Inside EPA in November 2003, appeared to sidestep the issue by citing standards published by other organizations. Those include the International Commission on Radiological Protection, whose guidelines permit higher doses than American standards, for either the general public or workers who must deal with radiation, before protective action is required. Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap (the name stems from the generation gap of the Vietnam era), said that using the international commission's standards would allow doses "grossly outside any acceptable risk range." Mr. Hirsch also predicted that if the government's guidance allowed such doses, federal agencies would try to relax exposure rules in other contexts, like cleanup of radioactive wastes. A spokeswoman for the E.P.A., Cynthia Bergman, said her agency remained committed to ensuring that "cleanups are protective of public health and the environment." Ms. Bergman said that whatever was put into the guidance document for dirty bombs, it would not change the standards for cleanups at waste sites under the agency's jurisdiction. At the Department of Homeland Security, which is leading the effort to develop the advice, a spokesman would say little about the document, because it has not been officially published. But the spokesman, Don Jacks, did say there was no schedule for publishing it. A central element in the argument is a dispute about the importance of small doses of radiation. Official government policy has been that all exposure carries risk, however small, and that every small exposure produces some small increase in cancer risk. But those presumed effects are too small to measure through observation of the population and are instead extrapolated from known effects on people exposed to higher doses. And many scientists, inside and outside government, say the assumptions of the official policy are too pessimistic. -------- NNSA Names Chief of Defense Nuclear Safety U.S. Newswire Dec 8, 2004 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usnw/20041208/pl_usnw/nnsa_names_chief_of_defense_nuclear_safety119_xml To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: Bryan Wilkes of the National Nuclear Security Administration, 202-586-7371 WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Linton Brooks today announced that James McConnell, a former Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) official, has been named NNSA's chief of defense nuclear safety. In this newly established position, McConnell will be responsible for the development and implementation of NNSA-wide safety programs. His role is to increase corporate focus on nuclear safety and to coordinate safety issues at the NNSA site offices and headquarters. He reports directly to the NNSA administrator and advises NNSA on its interactions with the DOE, DNFSB, and other federal, state, and local agencies on matters relating to nuclear safety. "Safety oversight of our nuclear weapons facilities is a major responsibility for NNSA, and it has become clear to me that NNSA needs a senior-level position focused solely on safety," said Brooks. "Jim's expertise and experience with safety issues in the weapons complex make him well-qualified for the job." McConnell, a former naval officer, has a career of oversight in nuclear safety. Spending 12 years at the DNFSB, he most recently was deputy technical director. In that position, he directed the board's technical staff and provided overall strategic planning to achieve the board's technical safety oversight mission. During his tenure at DNFSB, he also served as a group leader of the Nuclear Weapons Program, a site representative at the Pantex Plant, program manager for the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge and a technical specialist. A former U.S. Navy (news - web sites) officer, he served as a division officer on the USS Houston stationed in San Diego, Calif. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and masters' degrees from the Catholic University of America and George Washington University. Established by Congress in 2000, NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (news - web sites) responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear energy. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad. -------- australia Australia: Olympic Dam plans prompt uranium transport fears ABC 8 December 2004 http://www.abc.net.au/eyre/news/200412/s1260462.htm Environmentalists are calling for extensive studies into how a multi-billion dollar expansion of South Australia's Olympic Dam would affect the transportation of yellowcake uranium from the mine. WMC Resources is seeking state, territory and Federal Government approval to transport yellowcake from Roxby Downs on the Adelaide to Darwin railway. Friends of the Earth spokesman Jim Green says the amount of uranium being transported could double or even triple with an expansion of the mine. He says it needs to be proven that rail will be the safest option in the long-term. "They can't simply go for their preferred option and the cheapest option without doing those scientific studies, but also the risks, say if they're going to take the yellowcake to Darwin ports instead of Adelaide ports, there are obviously increased risks in Darwin and decreased risks in Adelaide," he said. "So it's a question of what sort of compensation applies and whether territorians will accept those risks." -------- depleted uranium Cleanup at Arden Hills munitions plant goes to the public tonight Tom Meersman, Minneapolis Star Tribune December 8, 2004 RADWASTE1208 http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5125216.html Federal officials will hold a public meeting this evening to discuss radioactive waste cleanup at the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant in Arden Hills. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng said a former munitions manufacturing site there has been restored so that it can be used for other purposes. It is part of a 775-acre property owned by the federal government. Parts of the property eventually could be redeveloped. The cleanup involved depleted uranium, which Honeywell workers machined from bars into munitions from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. The density of the depleted uranium allows the projectiles to penetrate hard surfaces, such as tank armor. Because the uranium retained some radioactivity, Honeywell had a license from the NRC to handle the material and dispose of wastes. Alliant Techsystems, the Edina defense contractor spun off from Honeywell in 1990, cleaned up the uranium over the past four years. Dave Gosen, the company's director of environmental remediation, said the contaminated material was in walls, floors and ceilings of the 25,000-square-foot-building where projectiles were manufactured. Most of the structure was demolished, Gosen said, and the contaminated debris and soil were shipped to licensed radioactive-waste disposal sites outside of Minnesota. He declined to answer how much the cleanup cost. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m., in Arden Hills City Hall, 1245 W. Hwy. 96. NRC officials will offer an update on the cleanup and take questions and comments, Mitlyng said. In a few weeks, the NRC expects to approve the uranium cleanup as completed. Other parts of the former Ammunition Plant were contaminated with solvents and other hazardous chemicals. Several sites are being cleaned up under the supervision of the Army, which has leased the land to defense contractors for more than half a century. Tom Meersman is at meersman@startribune.com. -------- india / pakistan Pakistan test fires short-range missile (AP) 12/8/2004 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-12-07-pakistan-missile_x.htm ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan test-fired a short-range nuclear-capable missile Wednesday, the second in just over a week despite a thaw in relations with neighboring India, military officials said. Pakistan said it had notified its neighbors it would test a Shaheen, a missile with a 435-mile range, and insisted the test would not affect ongoing talks with India. "It will have no negative impact on our relations," Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press. New Delhi had no immediate comment. Pakistan had said it would conduct more tests after it fired a nuclear-capable, short-range Ghaznavi missile on Nov. 29. India responded with a missile test the following day. The two countries have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. Pakistan became a declared nuclear power on May 28, 1998, when it conducted underground nuclear tests in response to those carried out by India. It tested its first missile the same year. Meanwhile, Pakistan has allocated $8 million to strengthen its nuclear watchdog, an English-language newspaper said. The Dawn said 55 nuclear experts would be hired with the new money. Pakistan tightened its nuclear controls after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced founder of its nuclear program, admitted in February that he had supplied technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. Although President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has pardoned Khan for his role in making Pakistan the world's first Islamic nuclear power, he is living in virtual house arrest in Islamabad. Authorities say they have restricted Khan's movement for "security reasons." -------- Pakistan tests 'nuclear' missile Pakistan and India routinely carry out missile tests Wednesday, 8 December, 2004 BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4077589.stm Pakistan has test-fired a short-range nuclear-capable missile, the second in just over a week, officials said. The latest test came nine days after Pakistan test fired a medium-range missile, and said it would carry out more tests in the coming days. A day later, India tested a missile in apparent response. Pakistan said its latest missile test would not have a negative effect on current peace moves with its nuclear-armed neighbour. Pakistan's Hatf-IV Shaheen missile, which has a range of 700km (435 miles), was launched from an undisclosed location. Pakistan army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press that the test was carried out for "defence needs". A Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman said that the launch was not meant to send any message to neighbouring rival, India. "It is not a signal to India. Maintaining our nuclear deterrence is a national priority," Masood Khan told the AFP news agency. "Such tests are conducted periodically to validate technical parameters of our missile tests." In June, India and Pakistan had their first-ever talks aimed at building mutual trust that could reduce the risk of nuclear conflict. The two sides agreed to set up a new telephone hotline to alert each to potential nuclear risks. They also agreed to continue a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing in place since 1998. But tests could resume if either country believed "extraordinary events" threatened its interests. The two countries have twice veered close to war since tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998 - over Kashmir in 1999 and again in 2002. Both countries have limited command and control structures, and neither has developed the technology to recall a nuclear-tipped missile fired in error. -------- iran Iran, EU nuclear talks to start December 13 in Brussels: Tehran (AFP) Dec 8, 2004 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041208/wl_afp/irannucleariaeaeu_041208194720 TEHRAN - Iran's nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani is to travel to Brussels on December 13 for talks with three European foreign ministers on Tehran's agreement to freeze sensitive nuclear work, an aide said. The talks are to take place at the invitation of Britain's Jack Straw, Michel Barnier of France and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fisher, Ali Agha Mohammadi of Iran's National Security Council told AFP. "The aim of this trip to the headquarters of the European Union (news - web sites) is to start negotiations on implementing the Paris accord", targeting a long-term agreement on the nuclear issue with the EU. Rowhani, Iran's top national security official, said on Tuesday that the first round of the dialogue was also likely to involve EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, has also asked to take part, he said. According to an EU source in Brussels, Tehran "asked for the first meeting of the steering committee (overseeing the nuclear agreement with Iran) to take place at ministerial level" in order to give it "better visibility". Last week the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors decided Iran should not be referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after Tehran agreed in a deal with the three EU states to suspend its uranium enrichment programme. Iran agreed to the deal amid threats from the United States -- which alleges that the Islamic republic is secretly developing nuclear weapons -- to send the matter to the Security Council in New York. In return, Iran was promised considerable and wide-ranging rewards by the European trio who would like the freeze to become permanent. Enrichment has been and remains at the heart of the stand-off. Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to low levels, so as to produce fuel for a series of atomic power stations it has yet to build. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) permits enrichment for peaceful purposes. In return for the suspension, the EU is offering Iran a package of incentives -- due to be hammered out in more detail when negotiations begin -- on trade, security and technology. Iran has pledged to maintain its suspension while the negotiations with the EU are in progress. -------- japan TEPCO to shut 2nd Fukushima nuclear generator - Kyodo (Reuters) Dec 8, 2004 http://asia.news.yahoo.com/041208/3/1su1l.html TOKYO, - Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) , Asia's biggest power utility, will shut down a second nuclear power generation unit at a plant in Fukushima after finding a water leak, Kyodo news agency reported. The company will shut down the No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant, Kyodo said, following its announcement earlier in the day that it would suspend operations at its No. 2 nuclear reactor at the same facility after finding a water leak. Kyodo cited TEPCO as the source for its report. TEPCO had said it would start shutting the 784,000-kilowatt No. 2 unit at around 6 p.m. (0900 GMT), and stop power generation at around 12 a.m. (1500 GMT). A TEPCO spokesman had said the water leaked from the No. 2 unit contained radiation, but added that the leak has had no effect on the outside environment. -------- korea Panel Urges U.S. to Sweeten Nuclear Deal for N.Korea Reuters Dec 8, 2004 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041208/wl_nm/nuclear_usa_korea_dc_3 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should use incentives to entice North Korea to scrap its nuclear programs, including a "buyout" pegging aid to the amount of plutonium Pyongyang surrenders, a panel of experts said. In a report issued late on Tuesday as diplomats worked to persuade the reclusive communist state to return to negotiations, the Task Force on U.S. Korea Policy said Washington should improve proposals to tackle the urgent threat posed by North Korea's stock of weapons-grade plutonium. The 26-member panel said an aid-for-disarmament plan Washington offered in June, modeled on a deal with Libya, "fails to take into account the deep distrust existing between the United States and North Korea." "In its present form, the proposal places the burden on North Korea to make major concessions first without a corresponding assurance of reciprocity by the United States," the task force said in a statement. Formed in late 2002 after the crisis erupted, the task force is made up of prominent American experts on Korea, including former military officers and diplomats. It is chaired by Selig Harrison, director of the Asian program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy. Washington should heed suggestions from South Korea (news - web sites) and others who have urged more U.S. flexibility on the timetable for a process in which North Korea gains economic and diplomatic concessions in exchange for giving up banned weapons, the panel said. "North Korea is not likely to move toward complete denuclearization ... unless the United States is prepared to match North Korean concessions with reciprocal steps toward the normalization of political and economic relations," it said. In a suggestion running counter to the George W. Bush administration's position that the North's bad behavior should not be rewarded, the task force said Washington and its negotiating partners should offer aid "in accordance with an agreed price per kilogram" of plutonium surrendered and removed. The task force -- which includes critics of Bush's North Korea policy -- challenges other U.S. principles in a crisis that erupted in October 2002 when Washington said North Korea admitted having a secret uranium enrichment program. That program, which North Korea now denies having in a dispute that has held up six-country talks, should take a back seat to the more urgent task of removing plutonium, it said. The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohammad ElBaradei, told the New York Times he is now certain Pyongyang has converted enough fuel for four to six nuclear bombs. -------- u.s. nuc weapons Who should control the US nuclear weapons program? UC Regents lose nuclear weapons program sfbayview.com by Leuren Moret 12/8/04 http://www.sfbayview.com/120804/nuclearweapons120804.shtml In November of 1991, Richard Berta, the Western Regional inspector for the Department of Energy at the nuclear weapons labs and the Nevada Test Site, told me: “The nuclear weapons labs exist for the Pentagon … and the Pentagon exists for the oil companies.” This statement reveals the hidden purpose for transferring the nuclear weapons lab management contract to Texas, where the University of Texas-Texas A&M partnership will formally hold the contract. And it is that contract that enables the Bush-Carlyle Group-oil companies cabal to take control. It is not the mission of any university to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction, nor to control nuclear weapons research and management. Many members of the University of California faculty have long opposed UC management of the labs, and they are supported by a majority of the students and many citizens. Many Texans also oppose transfer of the nuclear weapons program to the University of Texas and Texas A&M. WMD at the University of California? The weapons industry is highly profitable. UC is now in the position of managing, developing, producing, promoting, proliferating, investing in and profiting from Weapons of Mass Destruction - thermonuclear weapons and depleted uranium weaponry. In fact, it is a major academic participant and benefactor of research funds from the military (see Fiat Pax for military funding at U.S. universities). The institutional dedication and focus of UC to projects of mass and indiscriminate destruction - which may lead to extinction of the human species - rather than to education and new energy sources is hardly exemplary. But their profits and funds are not derived from military research grants alone. In 1999, UC ranked first in the nation, raking in $61 million from academic patent royalties. In 2001, it received $1.8 billion in gifts, the largest single donation of nearly $200 million coming from the estate of UC alumnus Larry Hillblom, founder of DHL Corp., who died in 1995 in a plane crash. But that wasn’t enough. Recently UCLA was caught in a scandal, selling body parts from 800 bodies that had been donated for scientific research. The buyers had also sold cadavers to the U.S. Army which were blown up in land-mine experiments (see “The UCLA Body Parts Scandal” and “Donated Bodies Blown Up by Army”). The U.S. Army paid $10,000 for each body to be used for land-mine research, which may have included the ADAM depleted uranium landmine. The official Army response was that they were just “testing boots.” The fact that UC is developing, investing in and profiting from depleted uranium (DU) weaponry, which meets the definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction under U.S. federal law, makes UC complicit in war crimes. (For a graphic look at war crimes in Afghanistan, see “AC-130 Spectre Gunship video,” a leaked U.S. military combat mission in Afghanistan.) UC has invested $33,046,370 in Lockheed Martin Marietta, one of the largest military industrial corporations, and $21,471,120 in General Dynamics, one of the two biggest U.S. manufacturers of DU weaponry. Students and faculty should be informed of this. The University of California investment in war profiteering is small compared to CalPERS, the State of California employee pension fund now worth $177.8 billion (see “CalPERS Pension Fund President Ousted”). CalPERS owns 5.5 percent of the Carlyle Group, with a return on investment of 20-30 percent per year and an option to buy an additional 5 percent within a few years. As a land grant university, the University of California has a mandate and mission to educate the citizens of California, and it should have special consideration for people of color and people with disabilities. As the state with probably the greatest diversity in the nation, California universities had the chance to provide a vital and creative model for the nation. Instead, administrators have pigged out feeding at the public trough, giving themselves 25 percent raises while throwing breadcrumbs to the staff – a paltry 2 percent for the workers. This was the pattern I observed at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab, where a secret document revealed that the five top administrators in the Geosciences Department, where I worked, gave themselves 25 percent raises on their $120,000+ salaries. We were given bad annual job evaluations each year to justify the paltry 1.5 percent raises we received annually. Instead of a model for the nation, the University of California is one of the most corrupt institutions I have ever encountered. As a lawyer representing some of the 500 women who filed lawsuits against UC told me “UC is rotten and corrupt from the bottom to the top and back to the bottom” … and I later found out so was she. The Carlyle Group - shadow government? Former Manhattan Project scientist and retired Livermore Lab nuclear physical chemist Marion Fulk warns, “The military should NEVER be in control of the nuclear weapons program; it should be in civilian hands.” The Carlyle Group, worth about $14 billion in 2001, with vested interests and ties to the Bush crime family and oil companies, cannot be investigated or subjected to any oversight whatsoever because it is a private corporation. For that reason, it should not have any control or influence over U.S. nuclear weapons policy and development. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman and his associates in the intelligence business have demonstrated their systematic and treasonous abuse of the internet, voting machines and American civil liberties. Should we give them the trigger, the nukes, the budget they want, and the cover of secrecy? Eliminating resistance to change? The “old guard” at the nuclear weapons labs is being systematically targeted, scapegoated and run out of the labs to “clear out the old and bring in the new” by those “UC admirals” and Homeland Security folks. Recently, the lab badge of a retired Livermore scientist Marion Fulk was cancelled by Homeland Security without explanation. Fulk remarked, “This is ridiculous. Hell, I have higher security than anyone in Homeland Security. What does Tom Ridge know about nuclear weapons?” You can bet Fulk will get his badge back when they call him to one of those “problem meetings.” At the last problem meeting, he discovered that the plutonium canisters in the high security vault at Livermore were puffing up like muffins in a hot oven, which could have led to a major criticality disaster wiping out the Western United States and beyond. Younger scientists had arbitrarily changed the canister design, which allowed moisture to enter the canisters, dangerously generating hydrogen gas. Eliminating the older and more knowledgeable nuclear weapons experts from the labs is a dangerous practice. It is time to demand some answers from the “UC admirals” in charge now about their motives behind such changes. National Science Foundation? Management and oversight of the nuclear weapons labs belongs at a place like the National Science Foundation, a U.S. government agency with the resources to make rational decisions and reign in the planned unlimited proliferation of nuclear weapons on earth and in space. Nuclear weapons are now obsolete. If the money spent on the nuclear weapons program had been spent on alternative energy development, the U.S. would now be a healthy and wealthy country. Instead, the U.S. economy is bankrupt, with an unhealthy population suffering from the long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing, a radiation contaminated environment and little choice left but to steal oil resources from other countries. A young student at a San Francisco antiwar demonstration two years ago held up a sign, “Nuke their ass and take their gas.” That sums up the present U.S. foreign policy. Professor Butler Shaffer of Southwestern University School of Law put it this way: “There is a toxic quality to war that affects the inner life of individuals and, as a collective consequence, the society itself. In the degradation and dehumanization of the individual lies the destruction of all mankind.” References “Fiat Pax (Let there be peace): A Resource on Science, Technology, Militarism, and Universities,” http://www.fiatpax.net. “How Research Turns Into Royalties,” Stanford University Alumni Magazine, March-April 1999. “Gifts to UC Total $1.8 Billion Last Year,” by Helen Hwang, Daily Cal, Feb. 7, 2002, http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=7600. “Asian Children Finally Get Part of $550-Million Estate,” by Mary Curtius, Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1999, http://www.wright.edu/~tran.dung/vn_boy.htm. “The UCLA Body Parts Scandal,” by C. Ornstein and A. Zorembo, March 10, 2004, Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bodies10mar10,1,6780091.story?coll=la-headlines-california. “Donated bodies blown up by Army” by Stewart Yerton, The Times Picayune, March 10, 2004, http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a856.htm. “CalPERS Pension Fund President Ousted,” by Ben White, The Washington Post, Dec. 1, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25537-2004Dec1.html. To read Parts 1 through 8 of this series, go to http://www.sfbayview.com/091504/ucregents091504.shtml, http://www.sfbayview.com/092204/nuclearweapons092204.shtml, http://www.sfbayview.com/092904/nuclearweapons2092904.shtml, http://www.sfbayview.com/100604/nuclearweapons100604.shtml, http://www.sfbayview.com/101304/nuclearweapons101304.shtml, http://www.sfbayview.com/110304/ucregents110304.shtml, http://www.sfbayview.com/112404/ucregents112404.shtml and http://www.sfbayview.com/120104/nuclearcorridor120104.shtml. Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who worked at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab where she became a whistleblower in 1991, has survived 13 years of retaliation from the Livermore Lab and the University of California and has lived firsthand the experiences of Karen Silkwood. A radiation specialist, she works around the world educating citizens, the media and lawmakers about the impact of radiation globally on the health of the public and the environment. She assisted with Al-Jazeera’s recent report on depleted uranium weapons which quickly became one of the most read articles produced by the website. “DU: Washington’s Secret Nuclear War” can be read at http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Secret-Nuclear-War14sep04.htm. She is an independent scientist and an environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley and can be reached at leurenmoret@yahoo.com. -------- u.s. nuc facilities Accuracy of Bid for First U.S. MOX Fuel Challenged ROCKVILLE, Maryland, December 8, 2004 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2004/2004-12-08-09.asp#anchor2 The first attempt at licensing a U.S. nuclear power plant to use a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxides as fuel has hit a snag. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officials will hold a "predecisional enforcement conference" with the Duke Energy Corporation December 17, to discuss three apparent violations of NRC requirements. The apparent violations are related to Duke’s license amendment request to allow the use of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel at its Catawba Nuclear Station 17 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. If the request is granted, it would be the first time MOX fuel would be used to power a nuclear plant in the United States, although power plants in Europe and Japan use the fuel. Two of the alleged violations involve "the completeness and accuracy of Duke’s license amendment request" and the third involves a failure to periodically update the Final Safety Analysis Report for the Catawba plant, NRC officials said. The conference is an opportunity for company officials to provide their perspective on the apparent violations and to offer any other information that they believe the NRC should take into consideration in making an enforcement decision. No decision on the apparent violations or any enforcement action will be made at the conference. Those decisions will be made later by NRC officials. The proposed amendment would allow Duke to use four MOX assemblies at Catawba. The Duke request is part of a joint U.S.-Russian Federation program to dispose of surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons by converting the material into MOX fuel for use in nuclear reactors. The Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), an anti-nuclear advocacy group based in Washington, DC, says plans to dispose of plutonium from surplus nuclear weapons by turning it over to utility companies for use as fuel in nuclear power plants presents "grave dangers to the public." "Converting warhead plutonium into fuel for generating electricity would stimulate commerce in this extremely toxic, weapons-usable material," the NCI says. "Fifteen pounds of plutonium is enough for one atomic bomb. A few specks of it inhaled into the lungs causes cancer. Commerce in many tons of plutonium raises risks of theft by terrorists and outlaw states, and of aggravating the consequences of reactor accidents," warns the advocacy group. The enforcement conference will be from 9:00 to 11:00 am in Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville. The public is invited to observe the meeting, and will have an opportunity to communicate with NRC officials after the business portion, but before the meeting is adjourned. -------- idaho DOE HOLDS MEETINGS ON PROPOSAL TO MAKE PLUTONIUM FUEL IN IDAHO (AP) Dec 8, 2004 http://www.kpvi.com/index.cfm?page=nbcheadlines.cfm&ID=22683 IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- The Department of Energy's plan to produce plutonium-238 at its national laboratory in Arco has some people leery. They spoke up on the proposal at a meeting in Idaho Falls yesterday. The plutonium fuel would go to power weapons and space vehicles. The D-O-E wants to consolidate production at the lab. But plutonium-238 is radioactive and could contaminate proposed new buildings at the site. Paul Bacca, an Idaho Falls resident, asked officials from the national lab if they weren't giving Idaho the -- quote -- dirty part of the process. Still, proponents say limiting production to a single location would eliminate risky transport, cut costs and boost the region's economy. -------- south carolina FL company plans to hire 800 for new nuclear product plant in New Ellenton SC AP Dec. 8, 2004 http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2666059 (New Ellenton-AP) - Global Containment Systems says it will create more than 800 new jobs when it builds a nuclear complex in Aiken County. The company said Wednesday it will spend about $60 million on the 400,000-square-foot plant in New Ellenton. Global Containment Systems makes filters and custom equipment for use in the containment of airborne nuclear contamination. The company is a subsidiary of Flanders Corporation, based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Company officials say the Savannah River Site near Aiken will be a major customer for the filters made at the new plant. Officials say the filters also will be used in facilities around the world. Company chairman Robert Amerson says the market for nuclear containment is growing and will be worth about $2 billion during the next ten years. posted 12:52pm by Chris Rees -------- vermont Entergy says it won't fight $85,000 state fine Associated Press December 8, 2004 http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041208/NEWS/412080349/1003/NEWS02 BRATTLEBORO — Entergy Nuclear won't fight an $85,000 fine recommended by the Public Service Board against the nuclear company for starting construction last year on a large building without necessary state permits. In a letter to the Vermont Public Service Board, Victoria Brown, an attorney for Entergy Nuclear, said the fine wasn't deserved, but that company would not fight it. "While Entergy VY respectfully disagrees with the proposed decision, Entergy VY has resolved not to challenge the fine as proposed," she wrote. Brown called the violation inadvertent. The Public Service Board hearing officer had pointed out that several key managers knew the company needed state approval to construct the building. Documents in the case reveal that Entergy only admitted it had started construction on the building when the Public Service Board announced it was coming to visit the site. Brown said Entergy "takes seriously its responsibility to meet all its regulatory obligations." She said that the company was implementing changes to address the concerns raised by George Young, the PSB hearing officer who recommended the $85,000 fine. The review came after Entergy started construction in the fall of 2003 on a large storage building that it was going to use to retrofit a key component, the turbine rotor, in preparation for its proposed power boost. The company later dropped its plans to construct the building near the reactor and instead shipped the rotor to a vacant paper mill in nearby Brattleboro. Under state law, the Public Service Board could have recommended a $100,000 fine, but Young said there were some mitigating factors and recommended less than the full amount. The $85,000 fine will go to the state's general fund, according to David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service. -------- virginia North Anna could get more reactors The Fredericksburg VA Free Lance-Star By RUSTY DENNEN 12/8/2004 http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/122004/12082004/1597793 Environmental considerations won't stand in the way of the possibility of additional nuclear reactors at North Anna Power Station, should Dominion Power be allowed to build them. That's the preliminary conclusion of a draft environmental impact statement, which will be the subject of a public hearing Jan. 19 in Louisa County. The session will begin at 7 p.m. at Louisa Middle School. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission scheduled the hearing as part of an ongoing review of Dominion's application for an early site permit to allow up to two new reactors at the plant on Lake Anna. In its announcement yesterday, the NRC said the early site permit should be issued. "There are no environmentally preferable or obviously superior sites, and that any adverse environmental impacts from possible site preparation and preliminary construction activities at North Anna could be redressed," according to the NRC. "It's not really a surprise," said Louis Zeller, administrator and community organizer for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which opposes any new reactors at the plant. "Many of the major objections that [we] and others have raised have been dismissed out of hand--mostly regarding impacts on human health." Brendan Hoffman, a spokesman for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy organization in Washington, said yesterday that the agency hasn't had a chance to review the voluminous report. "What is clear is that the main things that need to be addressed--terrorism, the security situation and the impact of a plant" adding reactors 60 miles from nation's capital--haven't been, he said. Lake Anna forms the southwestern boundary between Spotsylvania and Louisa counties. The NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled several months ago that concerns over security, radioactive waste and safety issues would not be admissible in an environmental review of Dominion's proposal. An environmental coalition was allowed to challenge the potential impact on fish and whether plans to cool additional reactors at North Anna were sufficient. But those issues weren't enough to sway the NRC in its environmental review. Dominion's early site permit application would allow the utility to resolve site and environmental issues prior to submitting a construction plan and to "bank" a site for 20 years. Dominion is the parent company of Dominion Virginia Power. The company has said it has no immediate plan to add any new reactors at North Anna, but wants to have that option. "We're pleased with their conclusion," Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations in Virginia, said yesterday. "But they're still going to take in public comment on that, and there's still a lot of the process to go here." If the early site permit is approved, Dominion would have to obtain a combined construction and operating permit before adding any reactors at the plant. There are currently two reactors at North Anna, though the plant was originally designed for four. Last month, the Department of Energy announced that two industry-led consortia, headed by Dominion and NuStart Energy of Pennsylvania, will be the first to work through an untested NRC process for licensing the construction and operation of new nuclear plants. To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431 rdennen@freelancestar.com ----- NRC APPROVES 40-YEAR LICENSE RENEWAL FOR INDEPENDENT SPENT FUEL STORAGE INSTALLATION AT SURRY NUCLEAR PLANT NRC NEWS December 8, 2004 http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2004/04-156.html U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov No. 04-156 December 8, 2004 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized the staff to issue a 40-year license renewal to Dominion Generation for its dry-cask independent spent fuel storage installation at the Surry nuclear power plant in Surry, Va., after appropriate license conditions are developed. This will be the first license renewal granted to a dry-cask spent fuel storage installation. In approving the new license for a duration of 40 years, the Commission approved granting Dominion an exemption from NRC regulations that specify a 20-year license term and directed the NRC staff to explore potential rulemaking to change the license duration in NRC regulations. The Commission also directed the staff to approve the same exemption in its ongoing review of the license renewal application of Progress Energy for its dry-cask spent fuel storage installation at the H.B. Robinson nuclear plant in South Carolina. The new Surry license will be issued once the agency and the licensee have finalized any needed maintenance and inspection requirements that will be included as conditions in the license. “We are confident that casks meeting NRC’s strict standards will be able to store spent fuel safely over an extended period,” said Larry Camper, deputy director of the NRC’s Spent Fuel Project Office. “Even so, the license conditions and our inspections of the facility will ensure that the effects of aging do not degrade the casks’ ability to protect the public and the environment.” Surry was the first commercial nuclear plant to be licensed by the NRC to operate an independent spent fuel storage installation. Its license, issued in 1986, expires next year. There are now 30 such installations in the United States. Typically, spent fuel is moved into NRC-approved dry casks after cooling at least five years in pools of water. Surry’s spent fuel pools are at capacity, making continued use of dry-cask storage essential if the plant’s two reactors are to continue to operate to the end of their current operating licenses in 2032 and 2033. The NRC continues to view dry casks as an interim or temporary storage method for spent nuclear fuel until a permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste is available. The Commission found in 1990 as part of its revised Waste Confidence Decision that spent fuel could be safely stored in spent fuel pools or dry casks without significant environmental impact for at least 100 years. The Commission reaffirmed its finding in 1999. The original 20-year license period was a policy decision by the Commission at a time when the Department of Energy was expected to begin receiving spent fuel for disposal in a repository by 1998. Given the need for continued interim storage of spent fuel until a repository is available, the Commission approved granting Dominion’s request for an exemption from the 20-year limit. Progress Energy requested a similar exemption in its February 2004 application to renew the license of the H.B. Robinson storage installation. -------- MILITARY -------- business Chinese firm buys IBM's PC business aljazeera.net By Benjamin Robertson 08 December 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0C5F76CB-D409-4556-9609-0FFCE9D1E4BD.htm Ending weeks of speculation, Chinese computer firm Lenovo has signed an agreement to acquire IBM's personal computer division. Started 13 months ago, negotiations have concluded with a $1.25 billion deal that will lift China's leading PC maker to the No 3 spot in the world rankings, and boost its brand image at a time when it is trying to expand into US and European markets. Paying $650 million in cash and the rest in stock options, Lenovo will also take on $500 million in balance-sheet debt. The company will acquire IBM's Think product range, (including ThinkPad and ThinkCenter) as well as benefit from IBM's reputation, and global sales and distribution network. IBM will have an 18% share of the new venture and the current head of IBM's PC division, Steve Ward, will become Lenovo's chief executive. Greater access According to a press release issued at the signing ceremony, Lenovo's PC business will expand fourfold. Annual PC revenues will subsequently total $12 billion. One of the biggest PC makers will now be a service-based company IBM, by selling its PC division, has completed the transition from a manufacturer to a serviced-based company, and at the same time as Lenovo utilises IBM's global network, IBM gains greater access and exposure in China, currently the world's fastest growing computer market. "I think this is definitely a good link up for Lenovo," said St John Moore, senior associate at APCO, a consulting firm. "It is a unique opportunity to expand their business, product line and technology in both China and abroad." Questions remain though as to what exactly Lenovo has bought. Figures show that in the third quarter of this year IBM posted a loss in its PC business of $50 million on sales of $2.84 billion. Cut-throat business Computer services, on the other hand, made a profit of $1.2 billion off $11.1 billion in sales. To reverse this, Lenovo will need to utilise its low-cost manufacturing base, though some expressed doubts this can be done. Speaking to Bloomberg, Francis Lun, general manager at Fulbright Securities in Hong Kong, said, "It's positive for IBM because they're hiving off a money-losing division. For Lenovo, earnings will be diluted. The deal will help Lenovo access markets difficult to break into "The PC business is cut-throat and Lenovo already has problems meeting Dell at home. It's doubtful they can turn it around with low-cost manufacturing." Lenovo's share price has fallen 20% this year, mainly due to the intensively competitive market. But with fierce competition at home, the deal does help Lenovo access markets it was struggling to break into on its own. A sponsor of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the company is looking to be one of the first Chinese companies to build an international brand. Japan overtaken "I think the international perspective is one of the most interesting things about this deal and in the future we will see a lot more of this" St John Moore, computer industry consultant The deal also reflects the country's growing role in international outward investment, mergers and acquisitions. This year, China is expected to become the world's fifth largest outward direct investor, overtaking Japan. Last month there were reports that the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation was looking to set up a venture with MG Rover, a UK-based car company. And last year, China's TCL bought the television arm of France's Thomson to create the world's largest TV manufacturer. "I think the international perspective is one of the most interesting things about this deal and in the future we will see a lot more of this," said St John Moore. -------- iraq Rebels Aided By Allies in Syria, U.S. Says Baathists Reportedly Relay Money, Support Washington Post By Thomas E. Ricks December 8, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45326-2004Dec7.html U.S. military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognized from Syria, where they said former Saddam Hussein loyalists have found sanctuary and are channeling money and other support to those fighting the established government. Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency. In some cases, evidence suggests that these Baathists are managing operations in Iraq from a distance, the officials said. A U.S. military summary of operations in Fallujah noted recently that troops discovered a global positioning signal receiver in a bomb factory in the western part of the city that "contained waypoints originating in western Syria." Concerns about Syria's role in Iraq were also expressed in interviews The Washington Post conducted yesterday with Jordan's King Abdullah and Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar. "There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back," Yawar said. "They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process." Abdullah noted that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials have previously complained about Syria's role in Iraq, but officials said the latest intelligence has given impetus to new efforts aimed at curbing the activities of the Hussein loyalists there. The U.S. government recently gave the government of Syria a list of those officials, with a request that they be arrested or expelled, a State Department official said yesterday. "We're bringing quite a bit of pressure to bear on them, and I think some of it is working," said another official, who works in federal counterterrorism efforts. Like other officials interviewed for this article, he declined to be identified by name or position because of the sensitivity of his specialty. One briefing slide in a classified summary of new intelligence data also says that new diplomatic initiatives are being used to encourage the Syrian government to detain or expel the Iraqi Baathists. "The Syrians appear to have done a little bit to stem extremist infiltration into Iraq at the border, but clearly have not helped with regards to Baathists infiltrating back and forth," said a senior U.S. military officer in the region. "We still have serious challenges there, and Syria needs to be doing a lot more." The Syrian ambassador to the United States emphatically rejected the accusations as unfounded. "There is a sinister campaign to create an atmosphere of hostility against Syria," said Imad Moustapha, the envoy. He said his government "categorically" denies that Iraqi Baathists are taking refuge in his country. "We don't allow this to happen," he said. "Iraqi officials were never welcome." As described by defense officials, new intelligence on the insurgency suggests some other emerging problems, such as how extensively U.S. operations in Iraq have been penetrated by members of the insurgency and by people sympathetic to it. The Green Zone in central Baghdad, home of the U.S. Embassy and the offices of the interim Iraqi government, is especially "overrun with agents," said one Defense Department official who recently returned from Iraq. One activity that has been noticed is that when major convoys leave the zone, Iraqi cell phone calls from the zone seem to increase, he said. An additional concern is that the insurgency seems to be using some Iraqi companies to get into U.S. bases, he said. Jeffrey White, a former Middle Eastern analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the Syrian role is part of what many intelligence officials believe are the increasingly organized attacks on U.S. forces. "In the last two months or so, this notion that this is a Baathist insurgency has gained dominance in the [intelligence] community," he said. Coupled with that, he said, "there is an increasing view that Syria is at the center of the problem." Not everyone with first-hand knowledge of the intelligence is convinced that the United States really has a strong grasp of the nature of the insurgency, especially the idea that the insurgency is being directed from the top down. Some Special Forces officers contend that many of the small-scale roadside attacks with bombs or rocket-propelled grenades are mounted not on orders of a hierarchical organization, but rather by Iraqis working more or less alone who feel they have been humiliated by U.S. soldiers, or who simply dislike the occupation. "I just don't have the sense that we're getting to where we need to be," said one Defense Department official. "We don't know where the enemy is." The argument over the nature of the insurgency has also provoked some infighting over a classified briefing given late last month to Rumsfeld about steps U.S. forces could take in Iraq to put down the militants. One of the slides in the briefing, delivered by Army Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, deputy director for Middle Eastern affairs on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommended actions that would "intimidate the intimidators." Some U.S. officials in Baghdad resented the briefing, which they saw not only as a form of long-distance micromanagement but also as misguided in its recommendations. For example, some fear that it could lead to a resumption of the tough tactics used sometimes last year as the insurgency emerged, such as taking families hostage to compel an insurgent leader to turn himself in. Subsequent internal Army reviews have criticized such tactics as counterproductive. One person familiar with the situation said that Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. general in the region, was sent a copy of the briefing and responded by sending a classified cable politely dismissing it and stating that he believes that U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq have the situation in hand. A spokesman at Abizaid's headquarters, the U.S. Central Command, declined to comment on that exchange. Neither Lawrence T. Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, nor Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, the spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had any comment for this article. Staff writers Peter Baker and Robin Wright contributed to this report. -------- israel / palestine Israel Army Probes Teen's Shooting Death Associated Press By LAURIE COPANS Dec 8, 2004 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ISRAEL_ARMY_CONDUCT?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME JERUSALEM (AP) -- The Israeli army confirmed Wednesday it had investigated the death of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy who was accidentally killed by Israeli machine gun fire while working in a Gaza Strip field with his father. The shots were reportedly fired by a tank accompanying army recruits who had finished training and were marching to the base of their unit in Gaza. In dangerous areas, such as Gaza, weapons fire is sometimes used to protect such army marches, said an army spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal. The Yediot Ahronot newspaper's Web site, Y-Net, said the case was closed for lack of evidence. Dallal would only say that an investigation has been completed and the military's judge advocate general has not yet made a decision in the case. The probe was the latest in a string of incidents raising questions about soldiers' conduct in more than four years of fighting with the Palestinians. Acknowledging there are serious problems, commanders have promised investigations into the incidents and committed to holding ethics refresher courses within the military, which is one of the central institutions in Israeli society. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a former defense minister and general, defended the military. "The soldiers are involved in the most difficult battle, day and night. They are dealing with perhaps the most despicable group of murderers, the worst," Sharon said Wednesday. "If there are irregularities, we have to check them. But we can under no circumstances panic and attack the army." The Palestinian teen, Khaled Madi, was killed in March by machine-gun fire from an Israeli tank as he was working with his father in a field near the Gaza town of Khan Younis, his father said. The teen's father, Suleiman, said his son was hit seven times in the head, neck and stomach. "They (soldiers) were firing without any reason, they shot to kill," Madi said. "I swear to God that they knew that nothing was going on in the area." Y-Net said the marchers were accompanied by tanks and armored personnel carriers, and that colored smoke was shot in the air as part of the celebration. Dallal confirmed that the commander of the unit responsible for the march is being considered for promotion. In another case revealed this week, soldiers allegedly shot and killed an unarmed, injured Palestinian militant, Mahmoud Kamil Dobie, in the West Bank. Palestinian witnesses said they were forced during an army arrest operation to bring Dobie, already injured, to soldiers. They then heard shots fired at Dobie. The army said it is investigating the death. A senior army commander said Wednesday that the army has killed 148 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank this year. He said most of the people were involved in minor offenses such as stone-throwing, but at least 29 people were "innocent." In addition, troops shot and killed 119 Palestinian militants throughout the year, the commander told journalists. Later, Dallal said the army was certain that 14 of the 29 were innocent but was unsure about the other 15. -------- mideast Mideast Peace Efforts Gain New Momentum With Death of Arafat Washington Post By John Ward Anderson December 8, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44245-2004Dec7.html JERUSALEM, Dec. 7 -- The death of Yasser Arafat four weeks ago has brought a flurry of diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East by Arab, Palestinian and Israeli leaders seeking to strengthen the hands of moderates, repair strained relations among themselves and revive long-stalled peace negotiations on several fronts. On Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas, the newly chosen chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, met in Damascus with President Bashar Assad of Syria and vowed to resume high-level contacts and policy coordination after more than 10 years of frayed relations. Separately, Israel and Egypt conducted an exchange of prisoners on Sunday that leaders from both countries said was a sign of warming relations after more than four years of tension. On Tuesday, Egypt said it had brokered an understanding to halt Israeli-Palestinian violence and move toward a peace accord with a conference in Washington in July that would bring together Israel, the Palestinians, the United States and the European Union, the Associated Press reported. Responding to the report, Israeli officials said there was no new cease-fire deal. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is reportedly considering returning his ambassador to Tel Aviv for the first time since withdrawing him in November 2000, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he was considering releasing additional Palestinian detainees as part of the prisoner swap. At the same time, Syria is seeking to reopen negotiations with Israel over the Golan Heights that have been frozen for four years, and Egypt has offered to mediate. Israel has rebuffed the overture. Last week, Abbas ordered a halt to anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian Authority-controlled news media, and Sharon said he was "going to make every effort to coordinate" the proposed withdrawal of Jewish settlers and Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip with the new Palestinian leadership that has replaced Arafat, who died Nov. 11 at a hospital outside of Paris. Sharon had previously said that his "disengagement" plan would be implemented unilaterally because there was no partner for peace on the Palestinian side. "There's a regional buildup of momentum to move ahead and use the opening to try to launch an effort at peacemaking," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament, said. "In a sense, Arafat's death calls everyone's bluff, because a Palestinian partner was always there, but the Israelis used Arafat as a scapegoat and a convenient excuse to avoid a peace process." Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, Israel's military chief of staff, told foreign reporters Tuesday in Jerusalem that "we are at an important, strategic crossroad. It is decisive time for Israel and the Palestinians, but also for the entire Middle East. . . . There are signs of the potential for change across the region." Yossi Alpher, an Israeli political analyst and co-founder of Bitterlemons.org, a Palestinian-Israeli dialogue Web site, also cautioned against "too much euphoria," arguing that Sharon did not want to engage in a peace process that led to relinquishing Israeli-occupied territory in the West Bank or Golan Heights. He also said that Abbas, a leading candidate for president of the Palestinian Authority in elections scheduled for Jan. 9, has yet to prove he can marshal grass-roots support or control violence. A more moderate and pragmatic Palestinian leadership has begun to emerge since Arafat's death, but it has yet to win the endorsement of the Palestinian public. Abbas and Qureia are outspoken critics of Palestinian violence and are trying -- so far unsuccessfully -- to persuade Palestinian radical groups to stop attacks against Israel. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian cabinet minister who has been the lead negotiator with the Israelis, said: "The endgame of the dialogue going on in Gaza, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon is to have all the Palestinian factions adhere to a cessation of violence against Israelis anywhere, as stipulated in the road map, and we hope that Israel will do the same" by ending attacks against Palestinians and stopping the expansion of Jewish settlements. The "road map" is a U.S.-backed peace plan that calls for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005. It has been dormant for more than a year. Ziad Abu Amr, an independent member of the Palestinian parliament from Gaza City, said it was not just Arafat's death, but the reelection of President Bush in November and the continuing fighting in Iraq that have combined to give rise to the new initiatives. Amr suggested that the Bush administration was "trying to balance its involvement in Iraq with some sort of involvement in the other core issue, the Palestinian issue." But he warned that the high expectations the White House is creating had to be matched with action. Researcher Samuel Sockol contributed to this report. -------- nato NATO chief to hold talks on Ukraine with Russian FM BRUSSELS (AFP) Dec 08, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041208172302.hflndf72.html NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later Wednesday to discuss Ukraine, ahead of NATO-Russia talks that are due to agree a joint anti-terrorism plan. De Hoop Scheffer wanted to meet Lavrov to discuss "how to approach the debate on the Ukraine", an official with the transatlantic military alliance said on condition of anonymity. Lavrov clashed with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was to attend a NATO meeting here Thursday, at a conference in Bulgaria Tuesday over tensions between Russia and the West over the political crisis in Ukraine. Powell and Lavrov were to meet again on Thursday morning when NATO holds regular talks with Russia on the sidelines of a meeting of alliance foreign ministers. The NATO-Russia meeting is expected to sign a joint action plan on counter-terrorism, pledging cooperation against international militancy, officials said. The two sides were also expected to formally agree to Russia's participation in anti-terrorism patrols of the Mediterranean Sea launched by NATO after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Russia is due to send two vessels to join the NATO patrols in the first such joint operation between the former Cold War foes. De Hoop Scheffer and Lavrov were expected to meet Wednesday night after dinner talks between ministers from NATO, Israel and six Arab countries, the official said. ----- US base move would put up to 3,000 US military in Bulgaria: official SOFIA (AFP) Dec 08, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041208182117.x87fbwxc.html An eventual permanent deployment of US troops to new NATO member Bulgaria would involve up to 3,000 people who would be stationed in one or two bases, Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov told AFP Wednesday. He was giving first details about a project that would be part of a historic shift of US forces in Europe from a Cold War posture to a deployment better suited to the current age of terrorism and conflicts in the Middle East. "The way I see things is we're talking about one or two bases and the total amount of deployed would amount to 2-3,000 people," Svinarov told AFP in an interview. The US embassy in Sofia refused to comment. Bulgaria is expecting Washington to decide early next year on setting up US military bases in the former communist country, Svinarov said. Bulgaria has already set up a working group for negotiations. "What we are talking about is small bases," Svinarov said. The bases would be "totally different compared to the US bases that have been located in Western Europe and more particularly in Germany after World War II." They would not be "base towns and base cities" where tens of thousands of troops stood by for decades until the fall in 1989 of the Berlin Wall to parry a Soviet invasion of Western Europe but rather staging areas with military personnel being rotated regularly. Svinarov said Bulgaria, which joined NATO in March 2004, was important since it was "the eastern boundary of NATO right now and very soon Bulgaria is going to be the eastern boundary of the European Union," as Bulgaria hopes to join the EU in 2007. Svinarov said the United States had gained experience in using the Sarafovo airfield near Burgas in the east during the Iraq war last year. The main task for these bases was "providing support in air-to-air refueling of airplanes in the region of the Black Sea," with only about 500 US military personnel on the ground in Bulgaria, Svinarov said. He said the relatively small numbers to be involved in a permanent US base would not be a "very powerful economic contribution" to the Bulgarian economy. But the opportunities it would give for joint training with US forces would be a chance to increase Bulgarian "interoperability" with other NATO troops. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Sofia Tuesday that the Bulgarian people should be proud of the sacrifices their country was making in military deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Powell said Bulgaria would benefit since it was showing it was a good US ally as well as "a partner in broader alliances such as NATO and soon, hopefully, the European Union." Parliament said in December that Bulgaria "supports the redeployment of American forces in military bases abroad and approves of the consultations already begun on the issue between the United States and Bulgaria". ----- Hungary to send 150 troops to Iraq under NATO command BUDAPEST (AFP) Dec 08, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041208191854.u95kuc37.html The Hungarian government has approved sending 150 non-combat troops Iraq the middle of next year, where they are to serve under NATO command, a spokeswoman said Wednesday. "The government agreed to send a military contingent as part of a NATO mission to Iraq, where they will serve from June 1, 2005 until September 30, 2006," Boglar Laszlo was quoted as saying by MTI news agency after a cabinet meeting. She said the non-combat troops would help provide security to a NATO training base on the outskirts of Baghdad. The alliance aims to train around 1,000 senior Iraqi military officers a year at the base, but even though NATO approved the mission in June, some of its members -- divided still over the war -- have refused to allow their officers to be sent to Iraq. Laszlo said the cabinet rejected a NATO request for the troops to also carry out logistics work there. Hungary currently has 300 soldiers serving in Iraq as part of the US-led coalition, and their mandate runs out at the end of the month. Parliament in November voted against extending their mission until March 2005, as requested by the Socialist-led government. The government does not need the permission of the legislature to contribute troop to NATO missions. -------- NATO's move to new headquarters put back three years BRUSSELS (AFP) Dec 08, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041208192455.g6s2arzw.html The NATO military alliance's move away from its grim 1960s headquarters to a new building has been put back three years to 2012, sources said Wednesday. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday paving the way for the alliance's transfer to the new building. The memorandum foresees building work to start in 2008 for completion in 2012, three years later than the 2009 target announced by NATO last year when it first announced plans to move. "This is a major project and we've taken account of the fact that we'll need more time," one source at NATO told AFP. The new headquarters will be an ultra-modern wave-like structure to replace the unloved barrack-style offices built out of prefabricated concrete in 1967. The futuristic complex will be built on a 40-hectare (100-acre) belonging to the Belgian defense ministry, just across the road from the current headquarters in the Brussels suburbs. The United States is to pay slightly more than 22 percent of the cost. NATO, which was set up in 1949, is still housed in prefabricated buildings thrown up quickly after the transfer of its Paris headquarters to Brussels in 1967 when France withdrew from the organization's integrated military command. -------- spies CIA Analyst Cautious About Iraq Stronger Government Is Needed to Halt Violence, Report Says By John J. Lumpkin December 8, 2004 Associated Press http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45875-2004Dec8.html In a farewell assessment of Iraq's security and political situation, the CIA's senior officer there wrote that a stronger government and economy are necessary to avoid descent into wider violence, a U.S. official said yesterday. The Sunni population must take part in Iraq's Jan. 30 election, the officer wrote in a mixed review of the situation, according to the official. The official discussed the Baghdad station chief's classified assessment on the condition of anonymity. The chief, whose identity is confidential, is leaving Iraq after completing a scheduled tour, the official said. The officer's assessment was reported first Tuesday in the New York Times. It was distributed around the government in late November, the official said. The station chief wrote that Iraq's interim government is getting organized and enjoys more legitimacy in the public's eyes than the former U.S.-appointed Iraqi governing council. The assessment also praised the resilience of many Iraqis in the face of the troubles. But, according to official, the farewell report said that Iraqi security forces being trained to take over security from U.S. troops are improving, but not quickly enough to keep pace with the increasingly violent insurgency. This, in turn, has prevented the government from projecting authority throughout the country. A key issue is whether Sunni Muslims will participate in elections. The officer predicted that violence would only increase if they did not. Arab Sunnis represent one-fifth of Iraq's nearly 26 million people but traditionally have wielded power in the country, especially under former president Saddam Hussein, who was ousted when the United States invaded in March 2003. They fear the election will give Shiite Muslims, with 60 percent of the population, overwhelming power. U.S. and Iraqi officials worry that a boycott by Sunnis, advocated by several groups representing them, would undermine the legitimacy of a new government. The CIA officer said this will lead to increased violence. John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, dissented with some aspects of the report and offered a more positive view of Iraqi security forces, the U.S. official said. -------- Sacked C.I.A. Official Alleges Retaliation for Not Faking WMD Reports on Iraq Agence France Presse Thursday 09 December 2004 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/usiraqwmdciasuit Washington - A sacked CIA official is reportedly suing the agency for allegedly retaliating against him for refusing to falsify his reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to support the White House's pre-war position. Described as a senior CIA official who was sacked in August "for unspecified reasons," the plaintiff's lawsuit appears to be the first public instance of a CIA official charging that he was pressured to produce intelligence to support the US government's pre-war contention that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a grave threat to US and international security, The Washington Post reported. "Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and they did not want to hear it," said Roy Krieger, the officer's attorney. CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher told the daily she could not comment on the lawsuit, adding: "The notion that CIA managers order officers to falsify reports is flat wrong. Our mission is to call it like we see it and report the facts." Krieger wrote a letter requesting a meeting with CIA Director Porter Goss due to "the serious nature of the allegations in this case, including deliberately misleading the president on intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction," said the daily quoting from the letter. The United States overthrew the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, but has found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since then. The US government has acknowledged some of its pre-war intelligence may have been faulty. The plaintiff, whose identity is blacked out in the lawsuit as well as any reference to Iraq, is of Middle Eastern descent, worked 23 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, much of them in covert operations to collect intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, said the daily. The lawsuit was filed in a US District Court in Washington on Friday and made public Wednesday after it was screened by a judge, said The Washington Post which obtained a copy. It alleges that the CIA investigated alleged sexual and financial improprieties by the plaintiff "for the sole purpose of discrediting him and retaliating against him for questioning the integrity of the WMD reporting ... and for refusing to falsify his intelligence reporting to support the politically mandated conclusion" of matters that are redacted in the lawsuit. The document states that in 2002 the plaintiff was "thwarted by CIA superiors" from reporting routine intelligence from a contact of his and that later he was approached by a senior officer "who insisted that Plaintiff falsify his reporting." When the plaintiff refused, the lawsuit said, the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division ordered that he "remove himself from any further 'handling'" of the contact, referred elsewhere in the document as "a highly respected human asset." In 2003, the lawsuit goes on to say, the CIA officer learned of the investigations against him and that he was refused a promotion "because of pressure from the DDO (Deputy Director of Operations) James Pavitt." In September 2003, the plaintiff was placed on administrative leave without explanation and in August 2004 he was sacked also "for unspecified reasons." The lawsuit requests that the plaintiff be restored to his former position in the CIA and received compensatory damages and legal fees. -------- What spy reforms mean The biggest overhaul of US intelligence since World War II formally centralizes authority By Peter Grier and Faye Bowers December 08, 2004 Christian Science Monitor http://csmonitor.com/2004/1208/p01s01-usfp.html WASHINGTON - If historic legislation to reform the US intelligence community can be summed up in a word, it might be this: centralization. The bill - which now seems assured of passage - attempts to reorganize the constellation of US spy agencies in a manner that focuses their counterterrorism efforts. It's an effort to integrate the military, covert actions, diplomacy, law enforcement, border security, and other aspects of national power into a seamless protective force. This kind of cooperation might be easier legislated than done, as the teething problems of the Department of Homeland Security make clear. Nor can Congress pass laws mandating personnel competence and dedication. But in terms of changing the processes of government, the bill is historic, its proponents argue - the biggest change in the US spy business since the end of World War II. "It really is a framework for American counterterrorism policy in all its aspects," says former Rep. Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. The often-delayed intelligence bill neared completion following a compromise on Monday. Congressional leaders added one sentence intended to make it clear that the Defense Department will have priority in disputes over how best to use US espionage satellites. The change convinced powerful Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) of California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to drop his objections and allow the reform bill to proceed. President Bush has been lobbying lawmakers this week in an effort to win the bill's passage, and Vice President Cheney was instrumental in the final negotiations. "For a bill of this scope, size, and complexity to pass in 4-1/2 months is really extraordinary," says Hamilton. The central change of the legislation would be the establishment of a director of national intelligence. The new DNI is meant to have enough power to shift dollars and enforce cooperation in an attempt to get US spy agencies to work together. This new post will assume substantial authority over the National Security Agency, for instance - a largely military organization that runs the nation's electronic intelligence efforts. The bill would also create a new National Counterterrorism Center, which would build on and consume the current CIA-run Terrorist Threat Integration Center. The old organization had no authority to order intelligence operations, while the new one, on paper at least, will. Taken together, these changes might indeed force a coordination of intelligence efforts that wasn't happening prior to 9/11, says a former US director of central intelligence. "It will prioritize the way we go about collecting and analyzing our intelligence in accordance with what's best for the overall country, and not what's best for the Defense Department," says retired Adm. Stansfield Turner. In 1998, for instance, India conducted a nuclear test which the US did not detect, says Admiral Turner. The satellite best suited for the task was instead aimed at Iraq, where the US military was then enforcing no-fly zones against the Saddam Hussein regime. "Supporting the no-fly zone wasn't that critical" that it had to be done 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Turner. It could have been focused elswhere. Other centralization-related changes in the intelligence bill require extensive sharing of intelligence and law-enforcement information between the national government, states, and local law groups. The bill would also set new criminal penalties for a number of activities, including receiving military training from a designated terrorist group and giving material support to suspected terrorists. Among other things, it directs the Department of Homeland Security to pull together a national strategy for transportation security, and adds thousands of Border Patrol and Customs officers in an effort to better defend the nation's borders. Critics of the bill point out that many of its changes aren't new ideas. They've been kicking around Washington, in one form or another, for years. Centralization per se might not actually improve the quality of the national intelligence product, says Richard Shultz, director of international security studies programs at Tufts University's Fletcher School in Medford, Mass. It may not hurt to have a national intelligence director, but the real need is to change the culture within the CIA, says Mr. Shultz. The outcry over the recent resignations of a number of top clandestine operations shows how difficult that is. "I just think what has to change is the way we do business and that is very hard," says Shultz. The changes may also be too CIA-and NSA-centric. The 9/11 commission itself found out that the intelligence failure prior to the 9/11 attacks was government-wide, says Ellen Laipson, a former CIA official who is now head of the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank. Yet the commisison's recommendations for change may focus on a narrow slice of that government, and deal with the rest only peripherally. "It should have been equally important to address shortcomings in the FBI.... It's inconsistent with what I think was the diagnosis of the 9/11 commission," says Ms. Laipson. ----- Kerik's Surveillance Activity in Saudi Arabia Is Disputed Cabinet Pick Is Accused of Carrying Out Hospital Chief's Agenda By John Mintz and Lucy Shackelford December 8, 2004 Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45175-2004Dec7.html The autobiography of Bernard B. Kerik, President Bush's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, recounts a difficult time 20 years ago when he was expelled from Saudi Arabia amid a power struggle involving the head of a hospital complex where Kerik helped command a security staff. In the book, Kerik described his discomfort at having to investigate employees' private lives, but said it was necessary because of the Saudis' laws prohibiting drinking and mingling of the sexes in public. "It was challenging, negotiating such a closed, rigid system and trying to find justice in laws that, to an American, were unjust," he wrote. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1984, the book said, after he had a physical altercation with a Saudi secret police official who was interrogating him. Since he was nominated last week to be homeland security secretary, however, nine former employees of the hospital have said that Kerik and his colleagues were carrying out the private agenda of the hospital's administrator, Nizar Feteih, and that the surveillance was intended to control people's private affairs. Feteih became embroiled in a scandal that centered in part on his use of the institution's security staff to track the private lives of several women with whom he was romantically involved, and men who came in contact with them, the ex-employees said. Kerik, who as chief of investigations was considered third in command of the security staff, personally surveilled some employees and at times confronted them with the results, several former employees said. He also was a lead investigator in the controversial arrest, for drinking, of a physician who was detained and deported from Saudi Arabia for the crime. Ex-employees also said the official Saudi investigation of Feteih and the security team was begun in response to hospital employees' complaints to Saudi officials of intimidation by Feteih and the security staff. After medical personnel at the hospital complained to Saudi officials, the security team helped get one whistleblower jailed overnight, sought to put another into a Saudi mental hospital, and stepped up its surveillance of some members of the medical staff, several of the former hospital employees said. Six members of the hospital security staff, including Kerik, were fired and deported, and Feteih was sacked as hospital administrator after an investigation in 1984 by the Saudi secret police, they said. Loyalty to Superiors Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner whom Bush praised as "one of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America," was nominated last week to succeed Tom Ridge as secretary of the sprawling anti-terrorism agency created in 2003. If confirmed, Kerik would run a Cabinet department with investigative units, including the Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At times they deal with the Saudis. The former employees said their allegations shed light on the extent of Kerik's loyalty to his superiors. They involve his work from 1982 to 1984 as chief of investigations for the security office at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, one of the kingdom's premier hospitals, where members of the royal family are treated. "Kerik was a goon," said John Jones, a former hospital manager, who said he felt harassed by the security team. "They were Gestapo. . . . They made my life so miserable." "Kerik used heavy-handed tactics in following single men around and keeping them away from some women," said Ted Bailey, who was a doctor at the hospital and now practices in Indiana. Added paramedic Michael Queen: "Men and women had to be careful with security, but Bernie was the one we watched out for the most." Kerik said that he knows of no improprieties by the security staff, and that he was put in an awkward position in having to enforce the strict Saudi moral code. Alcohol is prohibited under the code, but the government usually allows Westerners to ignore that ban, as well as the ban on intermingling of the sexes, inside the walled compounds of institutions such as the King Faisal hospital and their homes, as long as they do so privately. Bob Burghardt, who worked with Kerik at the hospital and remains his friend, said in an interview that he knew of no improper surveillance by the security team. "Bernie and I were ostracized [by hospital staff members] for upholding Saudi law," said Burghardt, who is now an auditor. Gilda Riccardi, then a hospital nurse and now a friend of Kerik's, said that despite strong rumors of wiretapping and impropriety by the security staff, she knows of no proof it occurred. "To implicate Bernie [in any possible misdeeds by the security team], I have a problem with that," said Riccardi, who became friendly with Kerik years later when he was a New York police officer and she was a prosecutor. Kerik is barred from commenting by the rules governing the confirmation process. A spokesman for Giuliani Partners, the consulting firm for which Kerik works, twice declined to comment. An administration official working with Kerik on his confirmation said Kerik described events at the hospital "with candor and in some detail" in his 2001 memoir, "The Lost Son." "As he noted in the book, there was a power struggle among two politically connected figures, and as a result there were rumors about surveillance," the official said. "He didn't participate in those activities, and didn't see anything in his direct experience that would have substantiated the rumors. . . . Part of his job was ensuring Westerners at the hospital understood and obeyed Saudi laws." Feteih could not be located to comment. The Saudi Embassy declined to comment, but a source familiar with the government probe said officials concluded that Feteih and the security staff were abusive toward staff members and that "management of the hospital was horrendous." The turmoil at the huge, lushly landscaped King Faisal hospital -- separated from the rest of Riyadh by high walls and with fountains in front -- began when Feteih took over in the early 1980s, the former employees said. Previously, the administrators at the Saudi government-owned facility allowed men and women on the mostly Western staff to date and drink alcohol if they were discreet. But when Feteih took over, he had the security staff strictly enforce separation of the sexes when it came to some women, according to the medical personnel who worked there. In addition to Jones, Bailey and Queen, the events concerning Kerik and the security staff were corroborated by these former hospital employees: Dan Mackey, a doctor who now lives in Georgia; John Froude, who practices medicine in Upstate New York; former hospital employee Dennis Daughters, who lives in Florida; William Larkworthy, a doctor, and his wife, nurse Maria Larkworthy, who live in Europe; former medical technician Peter Rodenburgh in Canada, and two former hospital employees who did not want to be identified. Much of the security staff's attention was trained on a number of women whom Feteih knew well and men who came into contact with them, these people said. "They weren't there to provide security as much as to be a spy network for Feteih," William Larkworthy said. "Bernie Kerik was an enforcer" for the head of the security office and for hospital administrator Feteih, Mackey said. "It was sinister." Froude recalled that in one encounter with Kerik, "he summoned me to his office and slid a piece of paper toward me and said, 'I want you to tell me what is incorrect in this,' " Froude said. "It was an account of how I'd dated some women. I said, 'Besides the spelling errors, it's correct.' He got out of his chair and said, 'Don't get fresh with me, doc.' " He also recalled Kerik surveilling him from a security car when he left a woman's apartment late one night. The controversies came to a head in November 1983, when Larkworthy got into an argument with a nurse the morning after he had people over at his home to play bridge and drink homemade wine, said several of those interviewed. Several ex-employees said Feteih intensely disliked the Larkworthys and ordered the security staff to investigate the doctor's behavior that day. Feteih sent security men to question William Larkworthy, according to hospital documents obtained by The Washington Post. They declared him drunk -- an assertion Larkworthy denies -- and searched his home, finding beer and wine. The security staff handed him over to Saudi security, a move the former employees said was unique in their experience. Within days, the Larkworthys were deported. Kerik was a lead investigator on the case, according to the hospital documents. The Larkworthys, Mackey and other former employees said the case was trumped up because of Feteih's dislike of them. The incident prompted doctors to complain about Feteih and the security staff to Ghazi Gosaibi, the minister of health, who began an investigation. Kerik and his defenders say the allegations against the security team stemmed from a power struggle between Feteih and Gosaibi. Within weeks, Michael Kingston, one doctor who complained, was jailed overnight by police in what the former employees called an attempt to silence the whistleblowers. Feteih and the security staff searched for weeks for another whistleblower, a physician, and told employees they intended to place him in a mental hospital, said Bailey, Mackey and two other hospital employees. The physician was forced to hide before flying back to England, said Bailey, Mackey and other employees. Bailey said that while the physician was under serious stress and was acting odd, "he did not need to be institutionalized" -- a view echoed by other former employees. The ex-employees cannot recall Kerik's specific activities during those weeks but say he was part of the effort. Saudi secret police and a royal panel investigated Feteih and the security staff for months on allegations that included not only improper surveillance, but also wiretapping. While they released no report, Saudi officials said then that they concluded that many complaints of Feteih's alleged mismanagement had merit, and he was fired and assigned to attend to a sick princess, the ex-employees said. When the Saudi secret police questioned Kerik, he wrote in his book, they took him to a nondescript building, and armed guards surrounded him. They "asked me about what security services I provided for Dr. Feteih. Were we tapping phones? Doing surveillance? The allegations were cryptic, and at the same time ludicrous, but even as I tried to ignore them the scandal grew, and intrigue and treachery multiplied everywhere around us. It was nearly impossible to figure out the angles and who might be playing which side." He recalled denying the allegations of wiretapping and snooping for Feteih. When a Saudi lieutenant said his wife could be in jeopardy if he lied, he grabbed the man and threatened to kill him, prompting the guards to point their guns at him, Kerik wrote. "Several stressful minutes later, they were driving me back to my villa. 'You will leave the country,' one of the secret police said to me. To this day, I still can't say . . . where I fit in the various struggles." ----- Director's Control Is a Concern Washington Post By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus December 8, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45347-2004Dec7.html The compromise legislation approved by the House yesterday in response to the Sept. 11 commission's findings represents a historic reordering of the $40 billion intelligence community. But some experts say it is not at all evident how, or even if, the changes would help America's spies obtain secrets and aid analysts in determining the intentions of terrorists bent on striking again or worrisome nations developing weapons of mass destruction. The most significant changes target the top of the intelligence bureaucracy, rather than the field officers, agents and intercept operators who do the work of recruiting spies, penetrating organizations or finding and disrupting plots in motion. Proponents of the legislation and their allies among the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had grown frustrated by the lack of accountability within intelligence agencies. That is why the bill designates one person -- a new director of national intelligence -- to be accountable to the president and the American public. But the new chief would not be directly in charge of any operations -- not covert actions, the CIA station chiefs around the world, the army of analysts whose job is to connect the dots, or the operators of high-tech collection systems that contribute so much these days to finding and disrupting terrorist plans. The new director also would not have total control over the Defense Department collection agencies, mainly expensive satellite and eavesdropping systems, which provide three-quarters of the country's military and international intelligence. There are other complications. The new director would have competition for the president's ear. The director of a new national counterterrorism center would be a presidential appointee who would report directly to the president on counterterrorist operations. This new player is confounding to intelligence experts trying to see how all the new pieces would fit together with the existing system and whether the changes would make anyone safer. "Have they created a stronger, central, senior person in charge? It is not clear to me that they have," said Winston P. Wiley, a former senior CIA official and terrorism expert. "It's not that budgets and personnel are not important, but what's really important is directing, controlling and having access to the people who do the work. They created a person who doesn't have that." The bill says the new director would "monitor the implementation and execution" of operations, a vague description that has perplexed intelligence officials scurrying to digest the legislation. The director would have control over the national intelligence budget, but not the roughly 30 percent that covers military intelligence operations. That would remain primarily under Defense Department control. The new intelligence director also would be responsible for ensuring that each agency knows what other agencies know and for establishing a list of intelligence priorities The biggest targets of this restructured intelligence system -- al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents -- are stateless enemies who have proved elusive to the traps of traditional espionage tradecraft. Other major concerns most likely will be Iran, North Korea, China and Syria. Proponents of the legislation argue that, even without direct control, the intelligence director would set the strategic priorities and then ensure the individual departments are on track in pursuing them. "He sets targeting priorities, has the budget power to direct agencies to obtain intelligence and to order the analysis" of priority groups, countries and issues, said one congressional official involved in writing the legislation. Combined with the changes in human intelligence collection and analysis underway at the CIA, Defense Department and other intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress's intent was to "complete the job that's been done piecemeal" by handing ultimate responsibility to one person, he said. The Sept. 11 commission concluded that there had been serious lapses in coordination of U.S. intelligence leading up to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that the current director of central intelligence, who also runs the CIA, is too focused on agency operations and does not exercise the authority needed to coordinate operations throughout the government. Among the other provisions, the bill establishes an intelligence directorate at the FBI, and mandates training of a cadre of FBI agents dedicated to domestic intelligence. That idea is meant to address the fact that most FBI agents are trained to gather evidence relevant to making criminal cases, rather than information that might lead to uncovering terrorist plans. The legislation also funds a package of homeland security measures to bolster transportation safety and border security. For example, the bill calls for developing guidance for a biometric identification technology to screen foreign passengers and mandates a new airline passenger screening system. It also mandates that the federal government -- in most cases the State Department -- undertake a host of measures to address the causes of terrorism abroad. Those measures will include creating a "democracy caucus" at the United Nations, increasing funding for rule-of-law and educational training in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and expanding exchanges with the Muslim world. Senior intelligence officials and even some legislators who supported the legislation are not sure how the long-delayed measure would work in practice. "It's a black hole we're looking into," one U.S. intelligence official said. "There are a lot of questions, and they are inevitably going to be resolved in practice," said a senior administration official who will be involved in melding the old and the new structures. To ensure a separation from the CIA, the bill permits only the intelligence director to share space at the agency's Langley headquarters, now called the George H.W. Bush Center for Intelligence, until October 2008, when the current president's term is almost up. ----- House Approves Intelligence Bill Landmark Measure Passes by 336 to 75 Vote; Senate to Consider Legislation Today Washington Post By Charles Babington December 8, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44166-2004Dec7.html The House yesterday approved landmark legislation to restructure the nation's intelligence community, creating a director of national intelligence and a counterterrorism center to better coordinate government assets and avert the type of intelligence lapses that occurred prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The House's 336 to 75 vote puts the long-debated measure on the brink of enactment. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the 600-page bill today. Barring an unforeseen objection, senators appear ready to pass the measure, send it to President Bush's desk and adjourn the 108th Congress. The bill would create a director of national intelligence, who would replace the director of central intelligence as the president's senior intelligence adviser. The new director would have broader budgetary responsibilities and would be in charge of monitoring and tasking domestic and foreign intelligence operations. The White House has not signaled yet whether CIA Director Porter J. Goss, the former Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, would become the director or whether he would remain at the agency. The new national director would be subject to Senate confirmation. If Bush nominated Goss, confirmation hearings could focus on his decision this summer to bring four GOP committee aides to the CIA and their roles in the unexpected retirements of senior officers in the clandestine service. Although the new intelligence director would have greater authority than the CIA chief does over the budgets of the 15 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, he or she would not direct or control the CIA's operations. Separating the nominal head of U.S. intelligence from the clandestine service officers who carry out espionage and covert action was a goal of the Sept. 11 commission, which said both jobs would be too much for one person. Some former secretaries of state and CIA directors, however, said the jobs should not be separated. The bill would write into law the National Counterterrorism Center, which Bush created by executive order in August. Its director now would be a presidential appointee, confirmed by the Senate, who would report on counterterrorism operations directly to the president. The bill also would create a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, designed to safeguard individuals' rights. It would establish minimum standards for birth certificates and driver's licenses, and tighten the security of Social Security cards. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called the House vote a "giant step closer to enacting this law that will make America safer and the American people proud." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said: "Despite calls from the left and right to either rubber-stamp the report or criticize it, the recommendations made by the 9/11 commission have been properly deliberated, and the result is a stronger bill that will allow us to better fight the war on terror." The commission cited numerous lapses in U.S. intelligence operations and a lack of coordination in the months leading up to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Yesterday's vote ended weeks of political tension and brinkmanship, during which the bill's prospects often soared and dipped. The key breakthrough came last weekend when the White House helped broker a divide-and-conquer deal aimed at the two House GOP groups that had blocked the bill Nov. 20. Lawmakers concerned mainly about Pentagon prerogatives were assured that the defense secretary, not the director of national intelligence, would continue to control spy satellites and aircraft. But those mainly seeking crackdowns on illegal immigration fared less well, winning only House leaders' assurance that immigration issues will be taken up early next year. In a 90-minute closed meeting of House Republicans yesterday morning, the chief advocate of putting more immigration restrictions in the bill -- Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (Wis.) -- implored colleagues to hold out for a better deal. But with Hastert, DeLay and others urging lawmakers to embrace the White House-supported bill, Sensenbrenner could prevent only 67 Republicans from voting aye. Democrats overwhelmingly supported the measure, with only eight voting no. Several lawmakers said the Senate would have had serious reservations about the proposed immigration provisions, which might have scuttled the bill. Among Maryland's eight House members, all voted for the bill except Roscoe Bartlett (R). Among Virginia legislators, all voted aye except three Republicans who voted no: Jo Ann S. Davis, Randy Forbes and Virgil Goode. The House vote and today's expected Senate action will save Bush from the political embarrassment of a Republican-controlled Congress rejecting a major bill he supports. Throughout the fall, lawmakers complained that the White House was sending mixed signals, allowing top Pentagon officials to criticize the legislation publicly and privately even as Bush said he backed it. After the Nov. 20 revolt by House Republicans, which surprised Hastert and the White House, the administration turned up the heat. Vice President Cheney phoned several House members last weekend and the White House helped shape the compromise language safeguarding the Pentagon's "chain of command" over spy satellites. "The president and the vice president's interventions with House members were absolutely key in moving this bill forward," said Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Senate's chief sponsor. Although much of the recent debate focused on protecting Pentagon turf, several House Republicans said the fiercest resistance centered on immigration questions. The original House version -- drafted with no Democratic input -- included numerous provisions to keep undocumented foreigners from entering the country and to make it easier to deport visitors who overstay their visas or break laws. Sensenbrenner repeatedly noted that the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11 had obtained multiple driver's licenses, which he said helped them open bank accounts and board planes. He urged the House to retain language that would require states to verify the legal status of non-citizens applying for driver's licenses. Opponents, including businesses that rely on low-wage undocumented workers, state governments and civil liberties groups, said Sensenbrenner's proposal would require extensive scrutiny and national debate. In weeks of House-Senate negotiations over the intelligence legislation, the driver's license provision and others were dropped. In yesterday's closed GOP meeting, several participants said, Hastert promised to include immigration provisions in a package of "must pass" legislation early next year. Some members, however, said the promise might prove empty. The White House and Senate, they note, are much less receptive to sharp crackdowns on illegal immigration than are many House members. "There's a real lack of confidence that we'll get a bill to secure our borders," said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.). The House vote was a victory for the Sept. 11 commission, whose hard-hitting 567-page report issued in July became a bestseller and spurred Congress to hold hearings and start drafting legislation. Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean (R), a former New Jersey governor, and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D), a former congressman from Indiana, lobbied the public and lawmakers to enact an overhaul this year. ----- Great Lakes are Canada's "soft underbelly" terror risk : report OTTAWA (AFP) Dec 08, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041208190750.hpdu0tsa.html Terrorists could exploit a huge security blackspot across the vast Great Lakes system between Canada and the United States, warned a new report by a parliamentary panel issued Wednesday. The Lakes and the St Lawrence Seaway system, which feeds out of the Atlantic Ocean and separates eastern Canada and the United States, are the "soft underbelly of Canadian coast defense," the report said. Panel chairman Colin Kenny said smugglers were already known to use the waterway, pointing to potentially dangerous security lapses. "We don't know who's out there or where they are going; if a smuggler can function there, so can a terrorist," he said. The report, the first "Canada Security Guidebook" was the work of the Senate National Security and Defence Committee, published on the anniversary of Prime Minister Paul Martin's assumption of power. Kenny praised the government's decision to streamline national security under Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan but lambasted the lack of progress in increasing defence budgets and recruiting more military personnel. The committee demanded tighter air and sea port security and expanded surveillance with aircraft and unmanned drones, along Canada's coastlines. ----- Border security up next, Bush says THE WASHINGTON TIMES By Charles Hurt December 08, 2004 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041208-122554-8619r.htm President Bush is vowing to help House Republicans enact tighter immigration-security controls "early in the next session" of Congress. The promise - made in a letter to members of Congress - was part of the final push by the White House to win support for the massive intelligence-overhaul bill, which was stripped of several key immigration reforms so it would pass more easily. "I look forward to working with the Congress early in the next session to address these [border security] issues, including improving our asylum laws and standards for issuing driver's licenses," Mr. Bush wrote. But the president's promised immigration reforms could come too late, House Republican leaders said. "These provisions are not too controversial - they are vital," said F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and led the opposition to the pared-down intelligence bill. "How could we face grieving families in the future and tell them that while we might have done more, the legislative hurdles were just too high? I, for one, cannot, and I, therefore, oppose this bill." Still, immigration reformers aim to hold Mr. Bush - and the House Republican leadership - to their promises to address the reforms promptly next year. "While I am disappointed that Congress - in classic fashion - has squandered this golden opportunity, I am encouraged by the president's commitment," Rep. Tom Tancredo said yesterday. "And I have every intention of making sure he keeps it." The Colorado Republican and other reformers in the House want major changes in the nation's immigration policies to block the influx of illegal aliens and to hamper their movement around the interior of the country. Specifically, they want to make it more difficult to obtain valid driver's licenses. "We are here today because on September 11, 2001, 19 men, all of whom entered our country illegally, overstayed their visas or obtained fraudulent visas, boarded four airplanes and used them as bombs to kill thousands of our citizens," said Rep. Nathan Deal, Georgia Republican. "The primary identification documents that allowed them to board those airplanes were state driver's licenses. Nothing in this bill would prevent those hijackers from using those same driver's licenses to board those same airplanes and repeat the events of 9/11." In the Senate - where the immigration provisions were stripped from the legislation - Republicans voiced support for some of the immigration reforms originally proposed and supported in the House. "I think there is considerable support for overhauling our immigration laws and taking a look at the driver's license issue, as well as other issues raised by Congressman Sensenbrenner," Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said yesterday. "But the fact is that those provisions, which were highly controversial and several of them were opposed by the administration, would have been poison pills for this bill." The prospect of revisiting the immigration reforms alarmed others. During a pointed exchange on the House floor last night, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the reforms "egregious" and "extraneous" and signaled that Democrats would oppose them. "I have serious concerns," the California Democrat said. "I hope Republican leaders won't tarnish the achievements of today" by bringing up the immigration reforms again after the new year. Mr. Sensenbrenner said he has heard from many constituents and citizens across the country who support the immigration reforms. "I want to say to them and to everyone else that is listening: I will not rest until these provisions are enacted," he said. "I will bring them up relentlessly, and the job will be completed. This bill was a chance to complete the job. That chance was missed, but it will come again soon." ---- Victims' families steadfast until the end USA TODAY By Mimi Hall 12/8/2004 http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-12-07-intel-families_x.htm WASHINGTON - Holding a framed photograph of her mother in her lap as congressional aides hustled by, Carie Lemack was on the verge of a bittersweet victory Tuesday after three exhausting years as part of a band of unlikely lobbyists. Long after their sons and daughters and husbands and mothers were killed, Lemack and other relatives of those who died on Sept. 11 were grabbing a bite in a basement cafeteria between meetings on Capitol Hill. Vigilant to the end, they were making sure that legislation they fought so hard to pass didn't hit any last-minute snags. "People will say congratulations, but it's still hard. It hurts a lot," said Lemack, 29. Her mother, Judy Larocque, had been a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. "After today, I'm just going to go home and feel awful." The 9/11 families, as they became widely known, turned their grief into activism in a determined effort to change the government's intelligence system and help prevent the next terrorist attack. But they were hardly reveling in the hours before the House of Representatives' vote Tuesday. (Related story: House passes intel changes) Lemack said she was grateful Congress acknowledged that government intelligence systems worked poorly before 9/11 and took steps to fix the system. But, "I've never done anything in my life without picking up the phone to tell my mum all about it," she said. "No one's going to answer. Closure is not the right word." During the past three years, these activist relatives have been fighting to win aid for the victims' families, hold the government accountable for its failures and enact changes that could help save lives in the future. Their work started shortly after the terrorists struck. They lobbied for tax relief and government compensation for the families. They fought for the creation of an independent commission to investigate the attacks. And they demanded new laws to overhaul the government's system of collecting, analyzing and sharing intelligence. After racking up tens of thousands of miles on airlines, on trains and in cars along the northeast corridor's crowded highways, after endless pleadings to lawmakers and countless congressional hearings, after vigils in the rain and more TV interviews than they can remember, the family members who took on Washington - mostly women - were just ready to go home for the holidays. "It's so emotional," said Mary Fetchet, whose 24-year-old son, Brad, died in the World Trade Center collapse. "Today, I just can't stop crying." Sitting with her was Carol Ashley, who lost her daughter, 25-year-old Janice, on 9/11 and has worked non-stop ever since on issues related to the terrorist attacks. Wearing a color photo of her daughter pinned to the lapel of her dark brown suit, the retired grade school teacher recounted that she didn't know how to e-mail in 2001 but now runs the family members' Web site. Ashley said she plans to take a break. She might take French or piano lessons, or do some of the other items on her dormant, post-retirement list. "This has been like a full-time job," she said of the families' efforts. After 9/11, "I told my husband, 'I have to do this.' I don't think I could have lived with myself if I didn't." Losing her daughter created a "hole in my heart that's never going to close," said Ashley, who has spent part of every week since the end of the summer in Washington, lobbying for the intelligence bill. But Janice "would not want me to go day after day being sad," she said. Missing from the group was Kristin Breitweiser, a widow from New Jersey who fought hard for the independent 9/11 Commission. She attended virtually every hearing and later earned headlines campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Breitweiser, who spent so much time at the Capitol that a garage attendant once asked for her staff identification card, said she stayed in New York on Tuesday because her daughter is now in kindergarten. She said she wouldn't make another trip to Washington when President Bush signs the bill, either. "I'm not into the 'photo ops,' and the bill signing and self-congratulatory back-slapping," she said. "I will be proud of our work on the day of the next attack - and there will be one - when I realize that some lives were saved and that families stayed intact and a child still has a parent because of the work that the 9/11 families did." ----- Fmr. Counterterror Chief Richard Clarke on Intel Bill, Iraq and the Threat of Another Attack on the U.S. democracynow.org December 8th, 2004 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/08/1519258 As the House approves the biggest overhaul of the country's intelligence agencies in half a century we hear an address by former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke. [includes rush transcript] The House voted yesterday to approve the biggest overhaul of the country's intelligence agencies in half a century. The legislation will implement key recommendations made by the Sept. 11 commission and create a new director of national intelligence with strong budget powers to oversee 15 spy agencies. It also creates a new counterterrorism center that would plan and help oversee operations. The bill passed with a 336-75 vote after being sidetracked by House Speaker Dennis Hastert due to concerns over issues surrounding military intelligence and immigration. The Senate is expected to pass the bill today where it will be sent to President Bush for his signature. The bill is the second major government overhaul since the Sept. 11 attacks following the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The legislation stalled last month and appeared dead for the year, but found new life under pressure from families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. During the 9/11 hearings last March, controversy swirled over the testimony of former Counterterrorism Chief Richard Clarke. Clarke was the only person to apologize to the families of the victims of 9/11 and his testimony came amidst a political firestorm over the publication of his book Against All Enemies. The book accuses the White House of ignoring the threat posed by al-Qaeda leading up to 9/11 and that Bush wanted to strike Iraq immediately after the attacks, despite no evidence that Baghdad was involved. Clarke is widely viewed as a leading figure in national security circles. He held top posts under every president since Reagan and served as both President Clinton and President Bush's top anti-terrorism official. Yesterday he spoke at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at an event co-sponsored by openDemocracy.net, DEMOS, Democrats.com and Pacifica Radio's WBAI. * Richard Clarke, speaking at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on December 7, 2004. RUSH TRANSCRIPT This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate - $25, $50, $100, more... AMY GOODMAN: Last night as the House was voting on the bill, Richard Clarke spoke at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. The event was co-sponsored by, among others, Pacifica radio station WBAI. RICHARD CLARKE: I have agreed tonight to do the impossible, which is to talk about where we go from here in the war on terrorism and Homeland Security in 15 minutes or less. Since that is impossible, let me instead refer you to this lovely little book which was published a few weeks ago by the Century Foundation, which is called Defeating the Jihadists. This talks about the things that we should do for the next four years in Homeland Security and in the war on terrorism and in the protection of civil liberties. The Century Foundation has this available for download on the Internet at the Century Foundation, www.tcf.org, and if you download it, it's free. Or, you can buy it on www.amazon.com and all the proceeds go to the Foundation. So, in my remaining time, let me comment briefly on things that we have seen in the last few weeks in the war on terrorism and in Homeland Security. First, today, we have seen the unusual, which are press reports on an assessment of the situation in Iraq by the CIA'S Station Chief in Iraq. Normally those things are top-secret and no one ever sees them. But for some reason this one has made it out into the public. And what the CIA's outgoing Station Chief; the man who is leaving the job there after some time in Baghdad, his assessment is that things are going very badly in Iraq and that we could end up with a civil war. Please note this is not what the president has told you. This is not what Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said even this week. But within the government, within the classified world, the assessment is things are going very badly indeed. That will not come as a shock to you. Yesterday, we had an attack on the American consulate in jeddah. That indicated two things, I think. First of all, that Al Qaeda, or some variant of it, is alive and well although the president would tell you it is on the ropes. The second thing it told me was some of the motivation, because the group that did the attack yesterday called itself the Fallujah Brigade. You may remember Fallujah; it was the city that we had to liberate in order to hold elections. If anyone has seen Fallujah since we liberated it, and film of inside Fallujah is very hard to get because the United States Military is not allowing journalists in very much. But some film has made its way out of Fallujah. Fallujah might participate in an election in January, but not in January of 2005. In order to liberate the city to hold an election we destroyed the city where 300,000 people had called their home. Again, not exactly what the administration has told you. They have told you we liberated it to have an election but the reality is we have destroyed it. The third thing that has happened recently is the president continues the appointments of his new Cabinet. His new Cabinet, which is, if the old Cabinet was a closed circle, this Cabinet is an infinite dot. They are keeping Donald Rumsfeld. They are appointing as the attorney general someone who participated in drafting memos saying the torture was permitted. So the man who is now protecting our civil liberties believes torture is permitted. They have at the head of CIA a Republican politician. And they have now appointed as secretary of Homeland Security a man who totally failed in his mission in Baghdad to help create a police department. The fourth thing that I would note in recent days is the administration discussing the Iranian Nuclear Program. Now, there may well be an Iranian Nuclear Program. And if there is, that should be a source of concern for all of us. But who in the world, who in a punitive coalition, who in the United Nations, will believe us when we go to them again and say that a country in the Middle East is building a nuclear bomb and we have to do something about it? Nonetheless, word is leaking out of the Pentagon that orders have gone to central command to update the contingency plan for hostilities against Iran. We all need to watch this space very carefully and very closely. Because while we do have to worry about Iranian-sponsored terrorism and Iranian nuclear programs, we also have to make sure that we do not repeat the mistake of Iraq. The fifth thing is actually something more hopeful. Perhaps by the time we leave here tonight the House and Senate will have passed the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. And those recommendations are not merely what the press has told you about, changing organizational designs for the Intelligence community. Also in the bill are some extremely important measures, such as increasing the United States' government's participation in what the 9/11 Commission called the battle of ideas. Secondly, increasing economic support for Islamic countries in need such as Pakistan and Yemen where we need to build schools other than those that teach killing. Thirdly, the bill creates a national commission to preserve our civil liberties. This is very different than what the president signed in his executive order which was an in-house panel made up of people from within the administration who would only comment on civil liberties when asked. This legislation creates an independent commission with the power of subpoena to have oversight on all U.S. Government activities that might infringe on our civil liberties. This brings me to the title of my book. I often get asked at events like this why the title of the book is Against All Enemies. It is because I fear that people are using the threat of terrorism to undermine our civil liberties. And, therefore, I think we need to remind people of the oath of office that the president has taken and that all federal officials have taken. An oath of office written in the constitutional convention in Philadelphia over 200 years ago. An oath of office that requires federal officials to say that they will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We all hope there will never be another terrorist attack in the United States. But there could be, since we have not eliminated the terrorist threat. Instead, we have gone off and made it worse by invading Iraq. There could be, because we are stimulating people to join terrorist organizations by our activities in Iraq. There could be because we are spending money destroying Iraq rather than creating homeland security here at home. And if there is another terrorist attack, there will be people in the Congress who will attempt to use that terrorist attack as a basis for a Patriot Act 2, which will erode our civil liberties if passed. So the one thing I ask all of you tonight, is that if that happens, if there is another terrorist attack, this time let us react differently than we did after 9/11 when we all closed ranks and all shut our mouths and shut our minds. Let us the next time remind federal officials of their oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. AMY GOODMAN: Former Counterterrorism Chief Richard Clarke speaking in New York last night as the House voted to overhaul the nation's intelligence system. -------- un Annan to 'carry on' work, rejects calls to step down THE WASHINGTON TIMES By Betsy Pisik December 08, 2004 http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041208-120404-9327r.htm NEW YORK - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday rejected a new spate of calls in the U.S. Congress for his resignation over the oil-for-food scandal that permitted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to undermine U.S. anti-terrorism efforts at the United Nations. "I have quite a lot of work to do, and I'm carrying on with my work," he told reporters prior