NucNews - December 9, 2004 -------- NUCLEAR Nuclear Fusion Experiment Engages MIT, Columbia Researchers CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, December 9, 2004 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2004/2004-12-09-09.asp#anchor7 Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the sun and stars. At high temperature and pressure, light elements like hydrogen are fused together to make heavier elements, such as helium, in a process that releases large amounts of energy. Now researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Columbia University are collaborating in a unique experiment - the Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX) - that will test whether nature's way of confining high temperature gas might lead to nuclear fusion as a new source of energy for the world. First results from the LDX project were presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society the week of November 15. Scientists and students described more than 100 plasma discharges created within the new device, each lasting from five to 10 seconds. X-ray spectroscopy and visible photography recorded spectacular images of the hot, confined plasma and of the dynamics of matter confined by strong magnetic force fields. The primary confining fields are strong magnetic fields from a half-ton superconducting ring inside a huge vessel that looks like a spaceship. This ring will ultimately be levitated within a large vacuum chamber. A second superconducting magnet located above the vacuum chamber provides the force necessary to support the weight of the floating coil. The resulting force field resembles the fields of the magnetized planets, such as Earth and Jupiter. Satellites have observed how these fields can confine plasma at hundreds of millions of degrees. Scientists using the LDX experiment will conduct basic studies of confined high-temperature matter and investigate whether the plasma may someday be used to produce fusion energy on Earth. Fusion energy is advantageous because its hydrogen fuel is practically limitless and the resulting energy would be clean and would not contribute to global warming as does the burning of fossil fuels. The LDX research team is led by Jay Kesner, senior scientist at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Michael Mauel, a professor of applied physics at Columbia University. The work is sponsored by the Department of Energy's Office of Fusion Energy Sciences. -------- britain Nuclear chocolate scare revealed BBC 9 December, 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/4081135.stm Tonnes of chocolate were destroyed almost 50 years ago amid fears it could have been contaminated in a nuclear accident in Cumbria, it has emerged. Rowntree thought a consignment of its chocolate crumb had been affected by a fire at a reactor at the Windscale plant, now Sellafield, in 1957. Milk from 200 miles around was banned for four days after it was contaminated with iodine 131, a short-lived isotope. The incident was revealed in response to a parliamentary question. A record in the files of the UK atomic energy authority has shown Rowntree was also concerned about the safety of produce from its factory in nearby Egremont. Energy Minister Mike O'Brien said Rowntree wanted compensation from the government for 90 tonnes of chocolate made in the days following the fire. It was refused after authorities insisted that the crumb was "completely safe for consumption" because of the short half-life of the contaminating isotope. After months of negotiations, Rowntree accepted the verdict but insisted it wanted the chocolate destroyed "in the interest of customer relations and commercial prudence". -------- europe Nuclear waste languishes Three years after an expert committee urged the building of a new central repository for Norway's most dangerous nuclear waste radioactive material is being stored behind garage doors. Aftenposten 10 Dec 2004 http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article928998.ece After 50 years of operation, four research reactors at Kjeller and Halden have produced 16 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste - chiefly uranium fuel - and 10.1 kilograms of plutonium. This was poses an extreme potential health hazard for thousands of years and an extra security risk as an attraction for terrorists seeking radioactive material for a so-called 'dirty bomb'. Storehouses for low and medium level nuclear waste are built, but no facility exists for securing the most dangerous waste. "We believe it is completely indefensible to have highly radioactive fuel rods stored under reprehensible conditions in the middle of a built-up area," said Erik Martiniussen of environmental group Bellona. "In the center of the city of Halden there are over 10 tons of highly radioactive waste. To get to one of these storage points all you need to do is pass a thin garage door made of aluminum," Martiniussen said. The PST (Norwegian Police Security Service) have carried out a security assessment of the Kjeller and Halden facilities but refused to disclose how they were finally rated. In September 2003 the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA carried out a ten-day long inspection of the nuclear facilities at Kjeller and Halden and eventually issued strong criticism of the lack physical security. Consultant Heide M. Eidet at the Ministry of Trade and Industry agreed with Bellona that improvements were coming slowly but denied that they were dawdling. Eidet said the matter required careful investigation and that they expected to complete the second phase of preparations in the course of the next two to three years. "Afterwards the issue will likely go to political treatment where it will probably take a lot of time to discuss where storage should be placed," Eidet said. Aftenposten's Norwegian reporter Jan Gunnar Furuly Aftenposten English Web Desk mailto:jan.gunnar.furuly@aftenposten.no Jonathan Tisdall mailto:jonathan.tisdall@aftenposten.no http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article928998.ece -------- india / pakistan Pakistan to let IAEA question Khan By Roula Khalaf in Vienna and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad Published: December 9 2004 19:32 Financial Times Pakistan is expected to allow United Nations nuclear investigators to put questions in writing to Abdel Qadeer Khan, the scientist at the centre of an illegal smuggling network that supplied nuclear materials and expertise to at least three countries, according to western diplomats. Such indirect access would fall short of the face-to-face interviews the International Atomic Energy Agency has been seeking but it could still prove an important step in the agency's efforts to untangle the network of manufacturers and middleman that supplied sensitive machinery and know-how to Libya, Iran, North Korea and perhaps others. Western diplomats familiar with the investigation into the illicit network said the IAEA was also making progress towards gaining access to Mr Khan's key associate, Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir, the Dubai-based businessman who is in custody in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Abu Tahir has been held under a security act that prevents all contact with him. But investigators are now expecting to be allowed to see him. The Pakistani government pardoned Mr Khan earlier this year and has refused to allow foreign investigators to interview him directly. The lack of direct access means Pakistan can screen Mr Khan's answers, allowing it to protect any officials with knowledge of his illicit activities and prevent the release of important information that could help the investigation. In Islamabad, a foreign ministry spokesman maintained that Pakistan's position had not changed and that the ministry was not aware of any request for written questions to be submitted to Mr Khan. "Investigations in this case will only be done by Pakistanis. No outside agency or person will have access to Dr Khan," he said. Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the IAEA, said his agency had agreed "modalities" with Pakistan that should enable it to receive information from Mr Khan, but he refused to be drawn on their nature. He said his agency was in talks with the Malaysian government on access to Mr Abu Tahir. "It's a complicated issue," he said, referring to Mr Khan's case. "There are legal impediments so we have to work through governments involved and governments have been quite co-operative." UN investigators are hoping these two key figures might provide information on customers of the illegal network that have not declared their nuclear programmes. "It's important for us to know who else got equipment and whether there are undeclared programmes," Mr ElBaradei said. Libya, which abandoned its nuclear weapons ambitions a year ago, obtained designs for a nuclear weapon from the Khan-Tahir network. The Chinese originated blueprints are now in the US. The IAEA wants to know whether Iran and North Korea might have made a similar purchase. -------- iran Powell urges close eye on Iranian nuclear activities PARIS (AFP) Dec 09, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041209180757.kfnwklze.html US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that the international community must keep a close eye on Iran's nuclear activities to ensure it does not violate a hard-won deal to suspend uranium enrichment. He told French television that while the United States accepted the accord struck by Iran and the European Union, it would not drop its guard. "We are concerned it is only a suspension and a suspension can be revoked," he said on France 3 television in an interview from Brussels. "And so we believe Iran has been moving toward the development of a nuclear weapon, and that concerns us." Under the deal, hammered out last month after lengthy talks between Tehran and Europe's so-called "big three" of Britain, France and Germany, Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment -- a key stage in the nuclear fuel cycle -- and allow inspections of its atomic sites. In return, Iran was promised wide-ranging rewards by the European trio who would like the freeze to become permanent. At the same time, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also agreed not to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Iran claims its nuclear programme is a peaceful, civilian effort and denies Washington's allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons. Powell recalled that Iran had previously agreed to suspend enrichment only to resume the process. "Now we have a new agreement with the European Union," he said. "That's all well and good. But we should never take our eye off this problem." In separate remarks in Brussels on the sidelines of a NATO meeting, Powell said he hoped international pressure would oblige Iran to make its suspension permanent. "I hope... the spotlight and heat lamp that have been put on Iran will make it difficult for them to move forward with this programme. "Hopefully theyll come to the realisation that the international community will do everything to keep such a programme from achieving a level of success, meaning the development of a nuclear weapon," he told a news conference. Uranium enrichment is a process used to make fuel for nuclear reactors but also, in a highly enriched form, the explosive core of atomic bombs. Iran has pledged to maintain its suspension while the negotiations with the EU are in progress. More talks are scheduled on Monday, diplomatic sources in Brussels said. -------- japan Japan To Exempt Joint Missile Development With US From Arms Ban: Reports Tokyo (AFP) Dec 09, 2004 http://www.spacedaily.com/news/missiles-04zzzj.html Japan decided Thursday to exempt joint missile development with the United States from its longstanding ban on arms exports, press reports said. The change was approved by the government and ruling coalition and will be announced on Friday after being rubber-stamped by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet, the reports said. In a statement the government will vow to maintain its prudent stance on the ban to maintain the ideal of being a "pacifist nation," the Asahi Shimbun and Tokyo Shimbun newspapers said in their evening editions. But the new policy will exempt from the ban a joint missile defence system under study by Japan and the United States subject to "strict control," the reports said. The government will also examine on a case-by-case basis the possible exemption from the ban of other weapons to be jointly developed by the two allies or to be used to fight terrorism and sea piracy, according to the statement published in the dailies. No officials were immediately available to comment on the reports. Japan and the United States have been engaged in joint technological research on a missile defence system since 1999, a year after North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile over Japan into the Pacific. Under the exemption, Japan would be able to export parts of missiles to be built for intercepting incoming ballistic missiles The review of the ban, which has been in place since 1967, will be announced along with Japan's new basic defense strategy, a set of guidelines which serve as a basis for defence planners. The ban has been part of Japan's pacifist posture since its defeat in World War II. Japan has adhered to a defense-only security policy as the US-inspired war-renouncing constitution of 1947 bans the use of force in settling international disputes. The country on Thursday extended the deployment in Iraq of its military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, which is on a non-combat reconstruction mission. -------- missile defense Defense shield's first phase: VAFB readies missile interceptors Military expects to refine system through more tests 12/9/04 By SCOTT HADLY SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER http://news.newspress.com/topsports/120904defense.htm On a remote, windswept plain at the north end of Vandenberg Air Force Base on Friday, teams of workers will carefully lower two five-story-tall, $30 million missile interceptors into specially retrofitted silos. The 60-ton rockets packed with solid oxygen and powdered metal fuel are tipped with two refrigerator-sized "kill vehicles" that will -- theoretically -- be ready to smash into an incoming ballistic missile at 15,000 mph within 30 minutes of a launch. The two interceptors at Vandenberg will join six others placed in silos at Fort Greely in Alaska over the summer to make up the nation's first rudimentary missile defense shield. The military says it's a first step to more robust protection from missiles launched against the United States. In the coming years, planners hope to add more components to the system and improve its reliability. Although critics point out that tests of the system have had mixed results at best -- in three of the eight tests, the interceptors missed the target, while the other five were highly orchestrated -- supporters say the system at least provides some protection that could counter a limited missile attack. It's only a beginning, but it makes the country safer, said Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley. "There's no question we live in a dangerous world today," he said. With North Korea getting closer to being able to launch a long-range missile that could reach the Western United States, it's important to deploy the system now. "It's not the time to fine-tune and sit back until it's 100 percent fail-safe," said Mr. Gallegly, who added that he had great confidence the military will keep improving the system. Critics of the system, a cornerstone of the Bush administration's defense strategy, have called it an astronomically expensive "shield of dreams." "I am deeply concerned with this administration's rush to deploy an unproven national missile defense system," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara. "We have to spend our defense and anti-terror dollars wisely. It is irresponsible to send our troops to Iraq without sufficient equipment, including body armor, and to leave our ports largely unprotected while paying for an unproven missile defense system." The system has cost more than $10.2 billion this year, but proponents point out that it's only a fraction of the $460 billion defense budget. But the expense is hundreds of times more than what the U.S. is spending on port security, for instance. The interceptors will not address more unconventional threats such as those posed by the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, using hijacked commercial aircraft. Other potential scenarios include smuggling small nuclear devices into U.S. ports or along the borders. The deployment of the interceptors in Alaska and Vandenberg allows for ongoing testing. For people living around the base, the placement of the interceptors in old Peacemaker and Minuteman silos will result in very little outward change. The Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency will continue to fire off missiles to test the interceptor system. As recently as June, a missile fired from Vandenberg was used to test the targeting and tracking systems that are part of the missile defense shield. This first phase is actually more focused on testing, military planners said. The Alaska interceptors are part of a "test bed" that could be used to thwart an attack but is primarily meant for honing the technology. At Vandenberg, two other retrofitted silos will ultimately be used for testing and to house interceptors. Critics say this shows the current system's unreliability. The missile shield, which has cost $20 billion in the past four years, isn't ready for deployment and gives people a false sense of security, they say. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a group frequently critical of the Bush administration, called the idea that the current defense system could knock out enemy missile attacks "irresponsible exaggerations." In May, the group submitted a detailed technical report to Congress saying deployment of interceptors "will have no demonstrated defensive capability and will be ineffective against a real attack by long-range ballistic missiles." "This program is not ready for prime time. It offers us little to no real protection or defense," said Jon Rainwater, executive director of California Peace Action, another group critical of the program. "But the real problem is that it wastes billions of dollars on the wrong threat. The Bush administration has stubbornly clung to a pre-9/11 worldview. They are focusing precious resources on the unlikely threat of long-range ballistic missiles while programs to protect against the much greater threat of a terrorist attack remain under funded." Ultimately, some military planners hope to see the eight interceptors augmented by hundreds of others as well as air- and space-based lasers and an array of space-, sea- and land-based radar to detect hostile launches and track incoming missiles. The intent is to establish an overlapping "layered defense" that could knock down hostile ICBMs. -------- u.s. nuc facilities NRC APPROVES EVALUATION METHOD FOR ANALYZING REACTOR CONTAINMENT SUMP PERFORMANCE NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION December 9, 2004 http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2004/04-157.html Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov No. 04-157 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has approved an evaluation method for all operators of pressurized-water reactors (PWR) to use in analyzing containment sumps, part of a safety-related water recirculation system in nuclear power plants. Operating experience at boiling water reactors (the other type of commercial U.S. nuclear power plant), as well as recent research, has indicated debris from certain pipe-break accidents inside a containment building could potentially block PWR sumps beyond what the original design could accommodate. NRC staff have concluded this issue is not an immediate safety concern, but the potential for greater sump blockage warrants plant-specific analyses to determine what actions, if any, are needed. “Individual plants can now use this analysis method to definitively determine how their sumps would perform under accident conditions,” said Suzanne Black, Director of the Division of Systems Safety and Analysis in the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. “The plants will use the results to identify any modifications needed to ensure their core-cooling systems operate properly.” The NRC asked for the evaluations Sept. 14 through a Generic Letter, one of several methods the NRC has for communicating with the nuclear industry. PWR operators now have until March 7, 2005, to: -- Describe the method to be used in evaluating the long-term core-cooling systems, as well as the anticipated completion date for the evaluation, and; -- Describe how the interior of each PWR containment building will be examined during the evaluation, as well as the anticipated completion date for the examination, or justify why no such examination is needed; By Sept. 1, 2005, PWR operators must: -- Confirm that the Emergency Core Cooling System and Containment Spray System comply with NRC regulations, or will do so, including a description of the plant’s configuration once all modifications are finished, and; -- Provide a schedule for all corrective actions to be taken, starting no later than April 1, 2006, and finishing by Dec. 31, 2007. The evaluation methodology is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/pwr-sump-performance.html. The Web page also outlines NRC staff activities on the PWR containment sump issue. Help in obtaining NRC documents is available from the NRC’s Public Document Room at 800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737. ----- Group to file license request for new US nuclear plant in 2008 Washington (Platts)--9Dec2004 http://www.platts.com/HOME/News/8197230.xml?p=HOME/News&S=n A consortium of nine nuclear utilities and two reactor vendors plans to file with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008 at least one combined construction and operating license (COL), the group told the agency this week. The Dec 7 letter from Marilyn Kray, president of NuStart Energy Development LLC, to William Beckner, NRC's director of new, research and test reactors, marked the first formal industry commitment to seek a COL for a new power reactor. NuStart anticipates starting preapplication discussions with NRC in early 2007, Kray said. NuStart, comprised of nine utilities and reactor vendors General Electric (GE) and Westinghouse Electric Co, likely will develop applications for both GE's SBWR and Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor designs and then decide whether to proceed with one or both applications, a source said today. A Dominion-led consortium has yet to decide whether it will file an application, a Dominion spokesman said. -------- california Diablo waste storage project appeal denied By April Charlton - Lompoc Record Staff Writer 12/9/04 http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2004/12/09/news/news18.txt A controversial plan to store highly toxic spent radioactive nuclear fuel rods behind Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant cleared its last regulatory hurdle Wednesday. The California Coastal Commission, meeting in San Francisco, unanimously paved the way for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to construct and operate an above-ground nuclear waste storage facility at Diablo, located on the coast north of Avila Beach. "It was an interesting decision," said Rochelle Becker, spokeswoman for Mothers for Peace, which along with the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club, filed an appeal of the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission's approval of the project. The appeal was denied by the county Board of Supervisors and subsequently filed with the Coastal Commission. The appeal dealt mainly with safety issues associated with the project - a potential for terrorist attacks, unknown seismic risks at the plant and the lack of a permanent storage facility for spent radioactive fuel anywhere in the United States. Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has yet to come online and the opening of the facility is still uncertain. Becker said the commission agreed it had conflicting information from seismic experts but chose to side with PG&E's experts and wouldn't hold off making the decision until its next meeting. "It was just amazing," Becker added. Highly radioactive spent plutonium fuel rods from the plant will be stored in 16-foot-tall stainless steel and concrete casks measuring 8 feet across, which will be on the hillside behind the plant's twin reactors. Staff writer April Charlton can be reached at 489-4206, Ext. 5016, or acharlton@pulitzer.net. The dry-cask, spent-fuel storage project consists of constructing seven flat 7.5-foot-thick concrete pads that can store up to 140 casks and help extend the life of the plant for at least another 20 years. PG&E proposed the dry-cask storage plan because Diablo will be out of spent fuel storage space by 2006 unless it reracks the plant's two existing storage pools. The plant is licensed to operate until 2025, according to PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis. Officials from PG&E couldn't be reached for comment on the decision. But earlier this week, Lewis said the dry-cask storage facility at Diablo will be temporary until the spent-fuel rods can be transferred to a permanent storage site. In addition to approving a coastal development permit for the project, the commission also followed its staff's recommendation that PG&E has to provide more public access to the coastline north of the plant. Staff recommended that PG&E open a three mile-stretch of the coast north of Diablo because the project will likely result in a permanent loss of access to the coastline at the plant site because no permanent nuclear waste disposal site exists. Tom Luster, Coastal Commission project manager for the Diablo project, said the commission gave direction to PG&E to convene a locally based task force that will take an inventory of the environmental resources on the three-mile stretch. The task force will consist of various agencies, nonprofit organizations and county residents. But that's no comfort to Becker and her colleagues. "Our feeling is that, what if people in Nevada decided to tell the Department of Energy it's OK to build a nuclear waste dump in our backyard if we're given public access to climb Yucca Mountain?" she said. "We see it as the same analogy. We've been given access to a nuclear waste site; lucky us." PG&E plans to start construction next year and have the project ready for implementation by 2007, according to Lewis. The spent fuel rods would be moved from inside the plant to the storage casks over a two- to three-year period. Staff writer April Charlton can be reached at 489-4206, Ext. 5016, or acharlton@pulitzer.net. -------- idaho Group questions plutonium plan The Jackson Hole Zone December 09, 2004 http://www.jhzone.com/viewinfo.cfm?ObjectID=B12E3398-E7D2-41DE-89C47F59B1D84849 A longtime nuclear watchdog group is questioning a federal plan to move the production, purification and encapsulation of plutonium-238 to an Idaho lab 100 miles west of Jackson. Plutonium-238 usually is used as a heat source in power systems, which are essentially long-lived nuclear batteries. Pure plutonium-238 creates too much heat to build a stable nuclear weapon and is many times more radioactive than weapons-grade plutonium. "Even one particle of [pu-238], if lodged in your lung, could cause cancer," said Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, a Boise, Idaho-based nuclear watchdog group. Maxand said his group is not convinced that the U.S. Department of Energy’s existing system for containing potential airborne pollution is robust enough to protect people and the environment. The proposed facilities would be upwind of Jackson Hole and Yellowstone National Park. DOE typically uses high-efficiency particulate air filters, or HEPA filters, to cleanse the air before venting it from buildings that house nuclear activities. Maxand argues that the ability of HEPA filters to contain plutonium particles, particularly in the instance of a fire or human error, remains unclear. Moreover, a June 8, 1999 letter from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board raised concerns about a "significant degradation" in the infrastructure supporting the HEPA filter program. "Confinement viability demands high dependability of these filters," states the letter signed by board Chairman John T. Conway. The letter accompanies a technical report that identified weaknesses in procurement, testing, application and use of HEPA filters. "These weaknesses support the conclusion that confinement ventilation systems at some DOE facilities may be vulnerable to failure when most needed," the report states. DOE officials said they would respond to questions and concerns about the proposed plutonium consolidation plan during a meeting tonight at the Jackson Hole Middle School. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. with an opportunity for informal discussions with DOE staff, followed by a brief presentation and a formal public comment period. DOE will use those comments to define the scope of an environmental study of the proposal. DOE wants to move the production, purification and encapsulation of plutonium-238 to the Idaho National Laboratory – a new lab that will form in February when the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory merges with Argonne National Laboratory-West. Consolidating the plutonium program in a secure location would enhance national security, according to Timothy Frazier, document manager for DOE’s Office of Space and Defense Power Systems. Currently, the activities are dispersed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Argonne. "The material is now transported quite a distance across the roads in the United States," Frazier said last week. "The miles the material will be shipped will essentially go to zero if the proposal [to consolidate] goes through." DOE had planned to make Oak Ridge the new plutonium-238 production site, but the government changed course after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. DOE officials say the Idaho lab is a more secure site for such sensitive materials. Idaho would become the hub for building radioisotope power systems. That includes radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which transform heat from decaying plutonium pellets into electricity. That current would run science instruments, computers and flight systems in deep space where other power sources will not work. ----- INEEL's plutonium plans draw skeptics ... Some residents worry about plutonium production being consolidated in Idaho Originally published Thursday, December 9, 2004 The Associated Press http://www.magicvalley.com/home/archives/index.asp?DateID=12/9/2004&StoryID=13195&theDB=local_state_news&theIMG=LOCAL_STATE_NEWS IDAHO FALLS -- Residents are wary of a Department of Energy plan to start producing plutonium-238 at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. "Aren't you giving Idaho the dirty part of it?" Paul Bacca asked energy department representatives this week at the first of seven public meetings to be held on the matter in Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. The batteries that use plutonium-238 to power space travel are already assembled in Idaho, at Argonne-West. But production and isolation of the nuclear fuel is currently done at laboratories in South Carolina, Tennessee and New Mexico. The Department of Energy wants to consolidate the operations in Idaho to save on costs and eliminate security issues involved in transporting nuclear power across roughly 8,000 miles. But Bacca, a former Argonne National Laboratory-West worker who researched plutonium, questioned the benefit on contaminating another building when the facility that the energy department now uses will be functional for 20 or 30 years. Tim Frazier, who oversees the energy department's radioisotope power systems project, agreed that the production and isolation of plutonium-238 creates the most nuclear waste. "The least dirty parts are already out there," at Argonne National Laboratory-West, he said. "The other parts of the process are dirty by nature." If the project is consolidated in Idaho, the energy department has said it will build a new $230 million processing facility. That would be a unique opportunity for the program, which so far has moved into existing buildings, Frazier said. Other residents said they worry that if the local laboratory gets the plutonium operation, it could be excluded from getting other energy department programs in the future. Some also fear the operation would take up too much space in the Advanced Test Reactor to allow for the current production of medical isotopes. But two people at the meeting voiced support for moving plutonium production to Idaho because of its importance to space exploration. "When I heard the DOE wanted to move the plutonium-238 program to Idaho, I said 'Whoopee,' because I knew exactly what those (space batteries) did," said Nick Nichols, an amateur astronomer and a former INEEL communications manager. Meeting tonight A public meeting on proposed plutonium production at INEEL will be held from 7 to 9:30 p.m. today in the Twin Falls B Meeting Room of the Shilo Inn, located at 1586 Blue Lakes Blvd. Here's some other helpful information on how to offer your comments: * The public comment period ends Jan. 31, 2005. * Contact: Timothy A. Frazier, program director of radioisotope power systems for the DOE. * By phone: (301) 903-9420. * By fax: (800) 919-3765. * By e-mail: ConsolidationEIS@nuclear.energy.gov. * By mail: NE-50/Germantown Building, Office of Space and Defense Power Systems, Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, D.C. 20585-1290 * For more information: Visit the DOE's Web site at http://ConsolidationEIS.doe.gov -------- new jersey Nuclear plant sirens defended Published in the Asbury Park Press MANAHAWKIN BUREAU 12/09/04 By NICHOLAS CLUNN: (609) 978-4597 or nclunn@app.com http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1137793,00.html An assemblyman's suggestion to remove the emergency sirens around the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant and replace them with a telephone alert system to warn residents of an emergency at the reactor would be a mistake, according to a county emergency management official. Wayne Rupert, a deputy emergency management coordinator for Ocean County, said it would make sense for authorities to use a reverse 911 system during minor emergencies, such as if drinking water became contaminated or a violent storm was approaching, but that system would not sufficiently protect the public from a radioactive release at the Lacey reactor. But Assemblyman Robert M. Gordon, D-Bergen, a former emergency management consultant to New Jersey towns, maintained yesterday his belief that plant owner AmerGen should seriously consider using the so-called reverse 911, an automated telephone system used by law enforcement to disseminate urgent public safety information. Recent improvements to reverse 911 have increased the number of calls that authorities can make using the system, Gordon said. In addition, only some residents near the reactor would need to be alerted to a radiological release since plumes travel with the wind, reducing the necessary number of immediate calls, he said. But Rupert said speed is his main concern with using reverse 911 during a plant emergency. The reverse 911 system in Stafford would take nine hours to reach the town's entire population of 24,000, according to township figures. During a special public hearing about Oyster Creek last week, Gordon said he was aghast that AmerGen relied on sirens, which he later described as "Cold War-era technology." The remarks by Gordon about how authorities would disseminate instructions to residents living within 10 miles of the country's oldest commercial reactor was a concern that has garnered little attention during recent discussions about the facility's future. An AmerGen plan to extend Oyster Creek's operations by seeking a 20-year license renewal from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ignited a passionate debate about whether the plant is safe enough to run after its current license expires in 2009. In case of an accident at Oyster Creek requiring public notification, New Jersey State Police would activate 42 sirens within a 10-mile radius of the reactor, an area emergency planners call the "emergency preparedness zone." The sirens are meant to alert people to find broadcast outlets that carry instructions, which could direct them to evacuate or find shelter. There are about 125,000 year-round residents in the radius. During the summer, there are about 188,000, according to the State Police Office of Emergency Management. Reverse 911, Gordon said, could more effectively tell the public how to react to an emergency. With a few computer key stokes, authorities could send different prerecorded messages to different sections within the emergency zone, he said. Post-call reports detailing which numbers did not receive messages would enable police to pinpoint homes that need instructions delivered in person. "You can't convey any type of information through a siren," Gordon said. Most of the nation's 103 commercial reactors have siren systems in place to alert residents, said Thelma Wiggins, a spokeswoman at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Industry officials believe sirens could accomplish their purpose and there are no plans to abolish the system for another, she said. Authorities in the United States have not had to activate a public alert system due to a reactor accident. --------- Nuke plant hearing heats up Published in the December 9, 2004 NJ TimesBeacon By JESSICA STENSTROM Staff Writer http://www.timesbeacon.com/story/0,21731,1138222,00.html BRICK -- The question of whether the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station's operating license should be extended was debated Dec. 2 in Brick at a meeting of the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee. "Those of us who represent those areas, which are at great risk if a disaster were to occur at the plant, have a responsibility to make sure the question of whether to renew the facility's license or not is considered very carefully," said Assemblyman Michael J. Panter, D-Monmouth, vice chair of the committee, who noted that all of Monmouth and Ocean counties, and almost all of Mercer County, are located with a 50-mile radius of Oyster Creek. The Dec. 2 committee meeting focused on the possible 20-year extension of the license of the plant located in Lacey and was billed as the first of many public hearings. Panter will host another open meeting with residents at 7 p.m. Dec. 9 regarding Oyster Creek and the possible license renewal at Seabrook Village, located at 3000 Essex Road in Tinton Falls. Panter said though the final decision of whether to extend the license of the plant was a federal decision made by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it is his intention to urge acting Gov. Richard Codey to "use the full legal, regulatory and other resources at New Jersey's disposal to support New Jersey's position" on the relicensing. Codey has not taken a position on the relicensing issue although his predecessor, former Gov. James E. McGreevey, had called for the plant's closure when its license expires in April 2009. In October, Rep. H. James Saxton, R-N.J., also said he would not support the plant's relicensing unless the National Academy of Sciences provided an independent assessment of safety performance at Oyster Creek along with recommendations for relicensing conditions. People from all over the state packed the auditorium of the Brick Civic Plaza, some in support of and others opposing the relicensing. William Levis, vice president of Mid-Atlantic Operations Exelon Nuclear and AmerGen, the company that operates the plant, testified that Oyster Creek is a safe plant and its license should be renewed. He noted that $1.2 billion has been invested since the plant was first brought on line in 1969, adding that an additional $500 million is projected to be spent over the 20-year license renewal period. "This investment has resulted and continues to result in improved operating performance for Oyster Creek," said Levis. Levis said the plant can continue to play an important role in providing reliable and economic supplies of electricity, employing more than 500 people in good-paying jobs and reducing the need for new and potentially more polluting sources of energy. He also tried to allay concerns about a potential terrorist attack on the plant. "Oyster Creek has recently completed significant security upgrades at a cost of more than $20 million, meeting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's October deadline for enhanced improvements for defense against potential terrorist attacks," Levis said. Concerns about terrorism, however, were a recurring theme from opponents of the plant. "Terrorism was never contemplated in the Oyster Creek design where hundreds of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste is stored in a storage pond literally perched on the roof of the reactor building, vulnerable to aircraft attack," said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Watchdog Project with the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, in a press release handed out at the start of the meeting. Suzanne Leta, energy associate with the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, a group opposing the renewal, said there were three primary reasons they think Oyster Creek must be closed: the plant's outdated design, the threefold increase in the area's population and the difficulties in any evacuation. "The bottom line is this. Oyster Creek's current operation poses an unnecessary risk to more than half a million New Jersey residents. Exelon Corporation's desire to keep the plant open an additional 20 years is simply irresponsible," said Leta. Brick Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli, an outspoken opponent of renewing the nuclear plant's license, said a major issue for him is the age of the plant. He said it is the oldest nuclear plant operating in the nation. -------- utah Nuclear industry doesn't back temporary Utah storage Safety issue: A top lobbyist says it would be best to move fuel to Yucca By Christopher Smith The Salt Lake Tribune 12/09/2004 http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2484043 WASHINGTON - A top nuclear utility lobbyist said most of the industry does not support temporarily storing spent radioactive fuel rods at a proposed Utah site and is solely focused on getting Nevada's Yucca Mountain waste repository opened. "We'd like to move the fuel once to where it's going to stay," Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) Vice President John Kane said Wednesday when asked whether nuclear power plant owners and operators support Private Fuel Storage's proposal to build an interim storage site on the Skull Valley Reservation of the Goshute Indian Tribe. "We're not taking any of these options off the table, [but] our goal, clearly, is to get Yucca in operation," Kane told reporters during a briefing on nuclear issues in the next Congress. A consortium of eight utilities, several of which are members of the NEI, has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the Utah facility to hold casks of waste from Eastern reactors for up to 40 years. Once Yucca begins accepting waste, the plan calls for casks held at the Utah dump to be transported to Nevada. The NEI's reluctance to back the PFS temporary storage proposal reflects the industry's political strategy to fight one battle at a time. And the priority for nuclear power plant operators is to get the delayed Yucca Mountain project into the federal licensing process next year. "You want to keep moving on Yucca Mountain," said Marvin Fertel, NEI's chief nuclear officer. "If Yucca's found not to be acceptable, then you've got to do another site, but so far it has passed all the site suitability reviews and it ought to enter the licensing process." On power plant operators' interest in locating old fuel rods now stored on-site to a temporary holding pen, Fertel said: "There's a belief in our industry that you don't handle spent fuel more often than you need to." PFS spokesperson Sue Martin said the company shares that belief and strongly supports completion of Yucca Mountain, but must face political reality. "The fact of the matter is Yucca Mountain is later and it's likely to be later, and our member utilities can't continue to wait," she said. "We're just as driven as everybody else in the industry to make sure Yucca Mountain gets done, because that's what all of the PFS member utility ratepayers have been paying for." Because the PFS proposal to federal regulators would only allow a maximum of 40,000 tons to be stored above-ground for up to four decades, NEI officials said it would not be a viable alternative to the permanent underground repository at Yucca Mountain should the Nevada project fail to open. Its original completion target was 1998, but that has now been pushed back to at least 2010. The discussion came the same day a national bipartisan commission on energy policy recommended that Congress and the Bush administration "move expeditiously to establish a project for centralized, interim, engineered storage of spent fuel at no fewer than two U.S. locations, as a complement and interim back-up" to Yucca Mountain. -------- Goodbye, Yucca; hello, Utah? If plan for Nevada N-storage fails, Tooele may be a target By Jerry Spangler E-mail: spang@desnews.com Thursday, December 9, 2004 Deseret Morning News WASHINGTON — Delays in opening a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain are forcing atomic energy producers to consider interim storage sites — like the one proposed on Goshute tribal lands in Utah's Skull Valley — for the spent fuel rods piling up around the country. "I don't think we would take anything off the table," said John Kane, head of governmental affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the powerful lobbying arm of the industry. That "anything" would include the plan by Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of NEI utilities, to build an above-ground storage site in Tooele County where the waste could stay up to 40 years before moving on to Yucca Mountain. At a news media luncheon Wednesday, NEI officials insisted time and again their priority is getting Yucca Mountain funded and operational. Despite growing concerns that it will not open until 2010 or later, officials said they have no real contingency plan. Waste will likely continue to accumulate at nuclear power plants in deep-water ponds or in dry casks — both temporary solutions. Or it could be shipped to a temporary holding facility at Yucca or to some other site. But if the Yucca plan falls apart — and there is growing sentiment on Capitol Hill that it might — the nuclear industry would be between a rock and a hard place. With space for temporary on-site storage running out, the industry and its government overseers would have to start over the process of finding a suitable facility, a task that would take up to a decade or more. "If Yucca is found not to be acceptable, we have to find another site," said Marvin Fertel, NEI senior vice president. Officially, NEI does not support the Goshute interim storage plan, and officials insist the safest way to address the waste problem is to ship it once from the power plant to a permanent storage site and bury it far underground. "We're focused on Yucca Mountain, not interim storage," Kane said. If the industry can solve that pesky waste problem — "and it's the government's responsibility to develop a permanent waste site" — then the future is bright for nuclear power. With support from key legislative leaders and the White House, the industry is poised to start constructing an entire new "fleet" of nuclear power plants to help meet the nation's growing power needs. The nation's power consumption is expected to increase by a third by 2020. The industry, which sees growing public support for clean energy such as nuclear power, plans to proceed with the new construction despite the lack of a permanent waste storage solution. Of course, more nuclear power plants mean more waste. Kane and Fertel both said they hope that Nevada's fierce opposition to Yucca Mountain will soften and that officials there will engage in constructive dialogue. That isn't likely. Sen. Harry Reid, the new Democratic leader of the Senate, is unequivocal in his opposition and has pledged to do everything he can to block it. And the more Reid and others can delay Yucca Mountain, the more attractive interim storage sites such as Tooele County will become. Still, "We're open to any solution," Kane said. -------- us nuc waste Nuclear Plants to Store Spent Fuel Dry for 40 Years WASHINGTON, DC, December 9, 2004 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2004/2004-12-09-09.asp#anchor2 The first 40 year license for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuel has been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The agency has followed a rule that limits such storage licenses to 20 year terms, but the NRC said that since a permanent nuclear waste repository is still not operational, it will explore potential rulemaking to change the license duration in NRC regulations. On Wednesday, the NRC authorized a 40 year license renewal to Dominion Generation for its dry cask independent spent nuclear fuel storage installation at the Surry nuclear power plant in Surry, Virginia, after appropriate license conditions are developed. “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.” 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. 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. 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. There are now 30 such dry cask storage installations in the United States. Typically, spent fuel is moved into 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. The most current estimates predict that the Yucca Mountain repository will not be ready to receive waste until 2015. 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. -------- Goodbye, Yucca; hello, Utah? If plan for Nevada N-storage fails, Tooele may be a target Deseret Morning News By Jerry Spangler December 9, 2004 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595111039,00.html WASHINGTON — Delays in opening a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain are forcing atomic energy producers to consider interim storage sites — like the one proposed on Goshute tribal lands in Utah's Skull Valley — for the spent fuel rods piling up around the country. "I don't think we would take anything off the table," said John Kane, head of governmental affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the powerful lobbying arm of the industry. That "anything" would include the plan by Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of NEI utilities, to build an above-ground storage site in Tooele County where the waste could stay up to 40 years before moving on to Yucca Mountain. At a news media luncheon Wednesday, NEI officials insisted time and again their priority is getting Yucca Mountain funded and operational. Despite growing concerns that it will not open until 2010 or later, officials said they have no real contingency plan. Waste will likely continue to accumulate at nuclear power plants in deep-water ponds or in dry casks — both temporary solutions. Or it could be shipped to a temporary holding facility at Yucca or to some other site. But if the Yucca plan falls apart — and there is growing sentiment on Capitol Hill that it might — the nuclear industry would be between a rock and a hard place. With space for temporary on-site storage running out, the industry and its government overseers would have to start over the process of finding a suitable facility, a task that would take up to a decade or more. "If Yucca is found not to be acceptable, we have to find another site," said Marvin Fertel, NEI senior vice president. Officially, NEI does not support the Goshute interim storage plan, and officials insist the safest way to address the waste problem is to ship it once from the power plant to a permanent storage site and bury it far underground. "We're focused on Yucca Mountain, not interim storage," Kane said. If the industry can solve that pesky waste problem — "and it's the government's responsibility to develop a permanent waste site" — then the future is bright for nuclear power. With support from key legislative leaders and the White House, the industry is poised to start constructing an entire new "fleet" of nuclear power plants to help meet the nation's growing power needs. The nation's power consumption is expected to increase by a third by 2020. The industry, which sees growing public support for clean energy such as nuclear power, plans to proceed with the new construction despite the lack of a permanent waste storage solution. Of course, more nuclear power plants mean more waste. Kane and Fertel both said they hope that Nevada's fierce opposition to Yucca Mountain will soften and that officials there will engage in constructive dialogue. That isn't likely. Sen. Harry Reid, the new Democratic leader of the Senate, is unequivocal in his opposition and has pledged to do everything he can to block it. And the more Reid and others can delay Yucca Mountain, the more attractive interim storage sites such as Tooele County will become. Still, "We're open to any solution," Kane said. -------- MILITARY Report: Women often first casualties of war December 09, 2004 By Olivier Lucazeau AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041208-095907-6699r.htm LONDON — Raped, treated as the sexual spoils of war or slain by indiscriminate bombings, women too often are the first victims of conflict, Amnesty International charged yesterday in a report demanding legal redress. The London-based human rights group called for action by the International Criminal Court to halt violence against women. "Patterns of violence against women in conflict do not arise 'naturally,' but are ordered, condoned or tolerated as a result of political calculations," Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Khan said in introducing the 120-page report on women in war. Not only are women "considered as the legitimate booty of victorious army," the report said, but "the use of rape as a weapon of war is perhaps the most notorious and brutal way in which conflicts impact on women." Miss Khan — the first woman, the first Asian and the first Muslim to head Amnesty International — told Agence France-Presse: "It's quite interesting to see that women's rights have been used as justification for military intervention, in the cases of both Iraq and Afghanistan." But, she added, "On the ground, the situation changes very little in favor of women ... In the case of Afghanistan, we have seen no improvement. "Warlords are occupying parts of the territory and see women as commodities for trading, to settle land dispute. Abductions and forced marriages are about as bad, if not worse, than at any time in Afghan history." Even where women are not targeted, they are the main victims of so-called "collateral damage," whether caused by "precision" bombing or land mines, the report said. "In Iraq in 2003, U.S. forces reportedly used more than 10,500 cluster munitions containing at least 1.8 million bomblets. An average failure rate of 5 percent would mean that about 90,000 unexploded munitions are now on Iraqi soil." The report urged the International Criminal Court to "pick up and prosecute one or two high-profile cases because that will send the message that violence against women cannot continue in such an impunity, which is the norm today." The court, headquartered at The Hague, began operating in July 2002 and is mandated to try genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Miss Khan acknowledged that progress would be tough, but said she hoped the report would generate pressure for change. "Women and children make up 80 percent of the world's 40 million refugees, but they have no voice and injustices go unpunished," she said. The report details widespread rape in conflicts around the world, including the Darfur region of Sudan, Colombia, Nepal, Chechnya, India and, this year, in the tiny Pacific territory of the Solomon Islands. Tens of thousands of women and young girls were raped during the conflicts sweeping the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "Ten years on from the genocide in Rwanda, where violence against women was a central element of the strategy to eliminate a particular ethnic group, little or nothing seems to have been learned about how to prevent such horrors," the report said. -------- africa French-led west African military exercise ends under shadow of Ivory Coast ABOMEY, Benin (AFP) Dec 09, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041209171658.6bz4oezv.html A French-led exercise to train west African troops to keep the peace in their troubled region came to an end on Thursday amid ongoing concerns about the future of a real-life mission in Ivory Coast. The Recamp IV training exercise brought soldiers from the Economic Community of West African States together with troops from France, Europe and North America to share expertise in coping with wars and humanitarian disasters. But as invited dignitaries including President Mathieu Kerekou of Benin and France's Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie attended a closing ceremony in the southern Beninois town of Abomey, many thoughts were on the peacekeepers striving to stave off disaster in nearby Ivory Coast. "I hope that the page will turn and that the Ivorian parties -- the government and the rebels -- will understand that that there is no military solution to the crisis in Ivory Coast, only a political solution," Alliot-Marie told reporters ahead of the parade. The Recamp programme is a practical expression of the close military ties which France has maintained with many of its former African colonies, such as Ivory Coast, which was one seen as the most stable and successful country in post-independence west Africa. The links being celebrated in Benin this week broke down dramatically in Ivory Coast last month, after government forces bombed French peacekeepers policing the frontline between loyalist and rebel forces and France responded by destroying its former ally's airforce. In the subsequent outpouring of Ivorian anger French expatriates were targeted by pro-government mobs and peacekeepers clashed with rioters and loyalist forces in the streets and airport of Abidjan. A measure of calm has now returned, and France is putting its faith in a renewed round of international mediation to persuade President Laurent Gbagbo's government to rejoin a faltering peace process. Alliot-Marie underlined that "a military solution would fall heaviest on the civilian population and risk plunging the whole sub-region into generalised instability." More than 1,600 soldiers from the 15 ECOWAS states took part in the Recamp exercise, alongside troops from France, the United States, Canada, Argentina and several European countries. Ivory Coast sent some staff officers, but no frontline troops took part in the training. France has some 5,000 soldiers serving in Ivory Coast alongside a similar United Nations peacekeeping mission, which includes many west African troops from the countries represented at Recamp. West Africans are also serving in UN and African Union missions in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan. -------- arms The other news Rumsfeld made US arms sales to India and Pakistan are the third rail of South Asian diplomacy. csmonitor.com By Jim Bencivenga December 9, 2004 http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1209/dailyUpdate.html Most US media covered US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's town-hall discussion with US troops about aging vehicles that lacked armor for protection against roadside bombs. But he also made news in India on Wednesday where he grappled with the complicated and geopolitically sensitive issue of American weapons sales to nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. Mr. Rumsfeld's goal for visiting India was to build stronger defense ties with the world's largest democracy, reports the BBC. By making India "a key destination of his first foreign foray in the second stint of the Bush Administration," he signaled "that the two countries were ready to transform relations into practical steps by saying that Washington wanted the defense ties to be further 'knitted' together," reports IndiaExpress. Cooperation on space and nuclear technology and the sale of the Patriot missile for anti-missile defense were also on the agenda for the visit. The Times of India reports that: The US is keen to take ongoing military cooperation with India to the next level by expanding the size and scope of bilateral defense exercises, supply of military wares, and other exchanges. But just hours before Rumsfeld's arrival, Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, in an address to the Indian parliament, pointedly expressed his country's displeasure at the prospect of US arms sales to Pakistan, reports the BBC. 'We have pointed out that the supply of arms to Pakistan at a time when the India-Pakistan dialogue is at a sensitive stage, would have a negative impact," Mr. Singh told the lower house. Officially, Rumsfeld did not respond to Mr. Singh's warning and he "did not mention anything about America's decision to supply $1.5 billion worth of arms to Pakistan over the next five years," says the Times. He did say that the US has yet to make a decision on the sale of F-16s to Pakistan and that the Congress must assess the move, along with sales of surveillance aircraft and anti-tank missiles. If this were not enough to test the former college wrestling champion's diplomatic skills, Rumsfeld was also greeted by the news that Pakistan had test-fired a medium-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and hitting targets up to 420 miles away, reports The Gulf Daily News. The missile was launched from an undisclosed location, a military spokesman said. Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, on a visit in France when the missile was tested, told journalists "We know they are a nuclear power and they know we are. We inform each other when there are missile tests," reports Gulf Daily News. Mr. Musharraf touted recent "confidence-building measures," between his country and India. "Pakistan's policy is based on minimum defensive deterrence," Gulf Daily News quotes him as saying. And while Rumsfeld was discussing weapons sales in India, Musharraf was discussing weapons purchases, specifically Mirage fighter jets with French President Jacques Chirac, reports the Dawn, a Pakistan-based online newspaper. 'President Chirac agreed to support Pakistan's case for free market access in the European Union,' the president told newsmen after two hours of talks at the Elysee Palace. During the talks, President Musharraf said, he discussed the purchase of French aircraft, adding that Pakistan was looking for avionics, electronic warfare equipment and collaboration in other defence fields with France. The US has already signed off on supplying eight new P3C Orion long-range anti-submarine aircraft to Pakistan plus more than 2000 TOW-2A anti-armor guided missiles. It will deliver new generation radar systems, and upgrade old P3C Orions already with the Pakistan Navy and provide other spare parts, reports the Times. The Indian Navy seeks to purchase similar P3C and TOW-2A missiles. Reflecting the complex and highly charged diplomatic maneuverings in the region, the Times of India in its lead editorial on Thursday urged India's military leadership to continue discussions on arms sales with the US, especially anti-missile defense: The offer to India should evoke interest among those involved in nuclear command and control. India is pledged to no-first use. Hence, this country would be keen to shield its ultimate decision-making authority from a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear strike, either through missiles or low-level penetration aerial strike. It may be recalled that in the anti-ballistic missile treaty of 1972, both sides agreed to have two missile defence sites each, one for the national command authority and the other for a missile field. Meanwhile, negotiations between India and Pakistan on the mundane but not inconsequential matter of bus routes between their countries stalled over proper documentation for Kashmiris, reports Calcutta's The Telegraph. Pakistan did not want Kashmiris traveling to Pakistan required to use an Indian passport, thereby suggesting the disputed territory was part of India proper. The bilateral talks are considered a bellwether not only on the status of Kashmir but on relations between the two nuclear powers who have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947, says the Telegraph. That the two countries did not release separate statements blaming the other for failure to reach an agreement speaks volumes of their restraint and the desire to keep the dialogue - conducted in a 'frank, cordial and constructive atmosphere' - going. In the past, a slanging match would have ensued at the end of failed negotiations. Pakistan and India are in the midst of a peace process that has struggled to gather momentum since a change in government in New Delhi earlier this year, reports Reuters. -------- business Halliburton's Iraq Contracts Now Worth over $10 Billion Rep. Henry A. Waxman Ranking Minority Member Committee on Government Reform U.S. House of Representatives December 9, 2004 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121004A.shtml Fact Sheet The value of Halliburton's Iraq contracts has crossed the $10 billion threshold. Halliburton has now received $8.3 billion in Iraq work under its LOGCAP troop support contract and $2.5 billion under its no-bid Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract, a total of $10.8 billion. The mounting value of the contracts has been accompanied by a growing list of concerns about Halliburton's performance. Over the last year, government auditors have issued at least nine reports criticizing Halliburton's Iraq work, and there are multiple criminal investigations into overcharging and kickbacks involving Halliburton's contracts. Former Halliburton employees have testified before Congress about egregious instances of over billing. Despite these concerns, the Bush Administration continues to reject the recommendations of its auditors that 15% of Halliburton's LOGCAP reimbursements be withheld until the company can provide better substantiation for its charges. Value of the Contracts Halliburton has several major contracts in Iraq. The largest, called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), is a cost-plus contract to provide support services to the troops. As of December 2, 2004, the value of Halliburton's Iraq task orders under LOGCAP was $8.26 billion. (1) The second largest Halliburton contract is the cost-plus RIO contract to restore and operate Iraq's oil infrastructure, which Halliburton was awarded on a no-bid basis in March 2003. The value of the work Halliburton performed under this contract is $2.51 billion. (2) The combined value of these two contracts is $10.77 billion. This is significantly more than any other contractor has been awarded in Iraq. For example, the maximum value of Bechtel's Iraq infrastructure contracts is $2.8 billion. Halliburton will reap profits of between $133 million and $424 million on its two contracts. (3) The actual value of Halliburton's Iraq contracts is likely higher than $10.77 billion. In January 2004, Halliburton received a follow-on oil contract for southern Iraq worth up to $1.2 billion. The Administration has not disclosed the value of the work given to Halliburton under this contract. Investigations and Audits At the same time that the value of Halliburton's contracts is increasing, auditors are finding extensive problems with Halliburton's billings, and criminal investigations of Halliburton and its employees continue. Auditors from the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General (CPA IG) have repeatedly and consistently criticized multiple aspects of Halliburton's activities in Iraq. In nine different reports, these government auditors have found widespread, systemic problems with almost every aspect of Halliburton's work in Iraq, from cost estimation and billing systems to cost control and subcontract management. Key findings from these audits include the following: * In December 2003, a DCAA draft audit reported that Halliburton overcharged the Defense Department by $61 million to import gasoline into Iraq from Kuwait through September 30, 2003. (4) * On December 31, 2003, a DCAA "Flash Report" audit found "significant" and "systemic" deficiencies in the way Halliburton estimates and validates costs. According to the DCAA audit, Halliburton repeatedly violated the Federal Acquisition Regulation and submitted a $2.7 billion proposal that "did not contain current, accurate, and complete data regarding subcontract costs." (5) * On January 13, 2004, DCAA concluded that Halliburton's deficiencies "bring into question [Halliburton's] ability to consistently produce well-supported proposals that are acceptable as a basis for negotiation of fair and reasonable prices," and it urged the Corps of Engineers to "contact us to ascertain the status of [Halliburton's] estimating system prior to entering into future negotiations." (6) * In a May 13, 2004, audit, DCAA reported "several deficiencies" in Halliburton's billing system that resulted in billings to the government that "are not prepared in accordance with applicable laws and regulations and contract terms." DCAA also found "system deficiencies resulting in material invoicing misstatements that are not prevented, detected and/ or corrected in a timely manner." The report emphasized Halliburton's inadequate controls over subcontract billings. The auditors "identified inadequate or nonexistent policies and procedures for notifying the government of potential significant subcontract problems that impact delivery, quality, and price" and determined that Halliburton "does not monitor the ongoing physical progress of subcontracts or the related costs and billings." (7) * On June 25, 2004, the CPA IG found that, as a result of poor oversight, Halliburton charged U. S. taxpayers for unauthorized and unnecessary expenses at the Kuwait Hilton Hotel. According to the IG, the overcharges would have amounted to $3.6 million per year. (8) * A July 26, 2004, CPA IG audit report found that Halliburton "did not effectively manage government property" and that the company's property records "were not sufficiently accurate or available to properly account for CPA property items." The IG "projected that property valued at more than $18.6 million was not accurately accounted for or was missing." (9) * In July 2004, GAO found ineffective planning, inadequate cost control, and insufficient training of contract management officials under LOGCAP in Iraq. GAO reported that, when Halliburton acted as a middleman for the operation of dining halls, costs were over 40% higher. (10) * In an August 16, 2004, memorandum, DCAA "identified significant unsupported costs" submitted by KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, and found "numerous, systemic issues . . . with KBR's estimates." According to DCAA, "while contingency issues may have had an impact during the earlier stages of the procurements, clearly, the contractor should have adequate supporting data by now." When DCAA examined seven LOGCAP task orders with a combined proposed value of $4.33 billion, auditors identified unsupported costs totaling $1.82 billion. (11) * On November 23, 2004, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (formerly the CPA IG) examined a $569 million LOGCAP task order and found that Halliburton "did not provide . . . sufficiently detailed cost data to evaluate overall project costs or to determine whether specific costs for services performed were reasonable." The IG concluded that the Army "did not receive sufficient or reliable cost information to effectively manage" the task order. (12) Multiple criminal investigations of Halliburton's Iraq contracts are also ongoing. The Justice Department is investigating Halliburton's admission that two of its employees received up to $6.3 million in kickbacks to steer LOGCAP subcontracts to a Kuwaiti contractor. (13) The Defense Department Inspector General, the FBI, and the Justice Department are investigating allegations of fraud and overcharging for gasoline under the RIO contract. (14) Disclosures by Former Employees and Independent Experts The concerns expressed by government auditors have been corroborated by the testimony of former Halliburton employees. Over the past year, six former employees came forward publicly to provide Congress with information about egregious overcharges by Halliburton. Others have contacted congressional staff privately to echo these concerns. For example: * Marie deYoung, a Halliburton logistics specialist, testified about subcontracts under which Halliburton paid $45 per case of soda and $100 per 15-pound bag of laundry. Ms. deYoung also disclosed that Halliburton did not comply with the Army's request to move Halliburton employees from a five-star hotel in Kuwait, where it cost taxpayers approximately $10,000 per day to house the employees, into air-conditioned tent facilities, which would have cost taxpayers under $600 per day. (15) * Henry Bunting, a Halliburton procurement officer, described how he and other buyers were instructed to split large purchase orders into multiple purchase orders below $2,500 in order to avoid the requirement to solicit multiple bids. Supervisors routinely told the employees responsible for purchasing: "Don't worry about price. It's cost-plus." (16) * David Wilson, a convoy commander for Halliburton, and James Warren, a Halliburton truck driver, testified that brand new $85,000 Halliburton trucks were abandoned or "torched" if they got a flat tire or experienced minor mechanical problems. Mr. Warren brought these and other concerns to the personal attention of Randy Harl, the president and CEO of KBR. He was fired a few weeks later. (17) * Mike West, a Halliburton labor foreman, described how he and other Halliburton employees spent weeks in Iraq with virtually nothing to do, but were instructed to bill 12-hour days for 7 days a week on their timesheets. In addition, his superior directed him to buy unnecessary equipment, telling him: "Don't worry about it. It's a cost-plus-plus contract." (18) Similarly, independent experts have criticized Halliburton's inflated gasoline prices under the RIO contract. Phil Verleger, a California oil economist and the president of a consulting firm, said of Halliburton's price: "It's as if they put the gasoline on the Queen Mary and take it around the globe before they deliver it." (19) Jeffrey Jones, until recently the Director of the Defense Energy Support Center, stated: "I can't construct a price that high." (20) Another expert, who asked that his identity not be disclosed, characterized Halliburton's prices as "highway robbery." Failure To Withhold Funds Reflecting the growing problems with Halliburton's Iraq contracts, government auditors have recommended that the Army begin to withhold partial payment to Halliburton under LOGCAP as required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation. On August 16, 2004, DCAA strongly encouraged the Army to begin withholding 15% of Halliburton's reimbursements, stating, "It is clear to us KBR will not provide an adequate proposal until there is a consequence." (21) On November 23, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction supported this recommendation with respect to the $569 million LOGCAP task order it attempted to audit. (22) Instead of following the advice of these independent auditors, the Army has refused to withhold payments for the last eight months. To the contrary, the Army has given Halliburton multiple extensions to provide the adequate cost estimates and supporting data needed to finalize the terms of the contract. Notes (1) U. S. Army Field Support Command, Media Spreadsheet for AFSC LOGCAP (Dec. 2, 2004). (2) U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Frequently Asked Questions: Engineer Support to Operation Iraqi Freedom (Oct. 7, 2004). (3) Under Halliburton's cost-plus contracts, the government reimburses the company for its actual costs and then pays an additional fee. For LOGCAP, Halliburton receives a base fee of 1% of its costs and an additional award fee of up to 2%. This yields a profit range of $83 million to $248 million. For RIO, Halliburton's base fee is 2% of its costs and its additional award fee is up to 5%. This yields a profit range of $50 million to $176 million. (4) Department of Defense, DOD News Briefing (Dec. 11, 2003). The minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee later determined that the total overpayment to Halliburton through April 1, 2004, was $167 million. See Minority Staff, Committee on Government Reform, Halliburton's Gasoline Overcharges (July 21, 2004). (5) Defense Contract Audit Agency, Audit Report No. 3311-2004K24020001 (Dec. 31, 2003). (6) Defense Contract Audit Agency, Status of Brown & Root Services (BRS) Estimating System Internal Controls (Jan. 13, 2004). (7) Defense Contract Audit Agency, Audit Report No. 3311-2002K11010001 (May 13, 2004). (8) Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General, Federal Deployment Center Forward Operations at the Kuwait Hilton (June 25, 2004). (9) Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General, Audit of the Accountability and Control of Material Assets of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (July 26, 2004). (10) Government Accountability Office, DOD's Extensive Use of Logistics Support Contracts Requires Strengthened Oversight (July 2004). (11) Memorandum from Defense Contract Audit Agency to U. S. Army Field Support Command (Aug. 16, 2004). (12) Memorandum from Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Task Order 0044 of the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program III Contract (Nov. 23, 2004). (13) House Committee on Government Reform, Hearings on Unprecedented Challenges: Contracting and the Rebuilding of Iraq (June 15, 2004). (14) Letter from John R. Crane, Assistant Inspector General, Department of Defense, to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (June 30, 2004); FBI Investigating Contracts with Halliburton, New York Times (Oct. 29, 2004). (15) House Committee on Government Reform, Hearings on Contracting and the Rebuilding of Iraq: Part IV, 108th Cong. (July 22, 2004). (16) Senate Democratic Policy Committee, Hearings on Iraq Contracting Abuses (Feb. 13, 2004). (17) House Committee on Government Reform, supra note 15. (18) Statement of Mike West (June 6, 2004). (19) The High Price of Gasoline for Iraq, NBC News (Nov. 5, 2003). (20) Army Eyes Halliburton Import Role in Iraq, Associated Press (Nov. 5, 2003). (21) Defense Contract Audit Agency memorandum, supra note 11. (22) Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction memorandum, supra note 12. This table describes, to the penny, the profits reaped by Halliburton under the LOGCAP contracts for Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and other unnamed expenditures. The number at the bottom reads $9,073,560,035...that is 'billion' with a 'B.' -------- Poor Salvadorans Chase the 'Iraqi Dream' U.S. Security Firms Find Eager Recruits Among Former Soldiers, Police Officers Washington Post By Kevin Sullivan December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49592-2004Dec8.html SAN SALVADOR -- Juan Nerio, a 44-year-old mason's assistant, was sick of living in a mud hut on the side of a volcano. When he heard that an American company was offering six times his $200 monthly wage, he signed up. Six weeks later he found himself holding an AK-47 assault rifle and guarding a U.S. diplomatic complex in Iraq. "No one could possibly earn so much in our country," said Nerio, who returned to El Salvador two weeks ago after a hernia forced him to reluctantly give up his $1,240-a-month job in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. "With that kind of money, I thought I could make my family's life a little easier." Like Nerio, hundreds of Salvadoran men, and even a few women, are jumping at the chance to pursue what the news media here call the "Iraqi Dream." With the U.S. military unable to meet security needs in Iraq, private U.S. firms are now providing thousands of armed guards for diplomatic installations, oil wells, businesses and contractors there. These firms are aggressively recruiting in El Salvador, a member of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq, viewing it as an ideal source of guards. The country has low wages, high unemployment and a large pool of men with military or police experience -- many of whom were U.S.-trained -- from the 12-year civil war that ended in 1992. But the heavy recruitment campaign -- through newspaper ads that offer salaries of as much as $3,600 a month -- has raised concerns among human rights officials, who say they believe the companies are exploiting the poor. "This is the equivalent of a poverty draft," said Geoff Thale of the Washington Office on Latin America, a rights and policy group, speaking from his office in Washington. "The United States is unwilling to draft people, so they are recruiting people from poor countries to be cannon fodder for us. And if they are killed or injured, there will be no political consequences in the United States." Beatrice Alamani de Carrillo, El Salvador's independent human rights ombudsman, said the security companies were "playing with the desperation of people who have no other options." She said that if any of the Salvadorans were kidnapped, "our country is not in a position to negotiate their release." She said she was especially concerned about under-trained women going to Iraq. Many of the Salvadorans, including Nerio, have been recruited by Triple Canopy, a U.S. firm. According to Salvadoran news reports, a group of 30 men and six women hired by the company left for Iraq in late November. Many are former soldiers and special forces members; others have far less training. Nerio served in the Salvadoran army for two years more than 20 years ago. Several recruits said in interviews that the jobs appealed to them because opportunities to emigrate to the United States had been severely cut back by tightened immigration rules and border controls. More than a million Salvadorans emigrated to the United States during or after the civil war. Some also said they hoped their service in Iraq would earn them some gratitude from U.S. officials -- perhaps in the form of a work visa when they returned. "I never thought I had a chance to go to the United States before," said Nerio, a grandfather of six, standing in his tiny home amid groves of mangoes and papayas. "Now they will see that I have experience in Iraq, so this might be my opportunity." Officials from two U.S.-based security firms working in El Salvador said they never told recruits that service in Iraq would improve their chances of getting a visa. James W. Herman, the U.S. consul general in El Salvador, said service as a private security guard in Iraq was irrelevant to visa applications. Joe Mayo, a spokesman for Triple Canopy, declined to say exactly how many people the company was sending to Iraq, but he said local news media estimates of about 175 recruits were about right. Mayo said the firm made clear that the jobs were dangerous. He said the company was providing a needed service to the U.S. government and private companies in Iraq. "It's a free world and a free economy," said Mayo, who spoke from his company's headquarters in Lincolnshire, Ill. "We're not grabbing people and making them go." Between 3,000 and 6,000 non-Iraqi security guards are currently working in Iraq, according to Doug Brooks of the International Peace Operations Association in Washington, which monitors the private security industry. He said about one-third are former special operations soldiers, mainly from the United States and Britain. The rest are men and women with some military experience recruited from about a dozen countries, especially El Salvador, Fiji, Nepal, Chile and India. Brooks said the U.S. and British guards make as much as $700 a day for jobs requiring the highest skills, such as protecting high-profile diplomats and business executives. The others make an average of about $1,200 a month, generally for standing guard at military or civilian sites. Over the past few weeks, lines of applicants have formed every morning outside George's, a karaoke restaurant next to a fancy shopping mall in San Salvador. They were responding to newspaper ads placed by George Nayor, the restaurant owner, who described himself as a U.S. citizen and the local representative of a Washington-based security company. Nayor's ads do not name the firm. He also declined to identify it or other company officials, saying they did not want publicity. Despite the lack of details, he said, his cell phone has been ringing so frequently with queries that he barely has had time to brush his teeth. "This is the future of global security," said Nayor, who has accepted applications from 300 Salvadorans and hopes to sign up at least 1,000 by May. He said the first 12 to 24 would go to Iraq this month, and that his company would soon begin recruiting in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile and other Latin American countries where many people have military experience. One recent morning, the first group of applicants to arrive at George's included two members of the Salvadoran army's special forces, who spent seven months in Iraq earlier this year as part of a 380-member military unit in the U.S.-led coalition. "You could sweat your whole life and never make this much money," said Mario Antonio Sanchez, 32, a special forces sergeant who said he earned $280 a month. Sanchez said that if he was accepted, he would quit the army and sign a six-month contract for at least $2,400 a month. "In our country everybody is just trying to survive. We do this because we need to," he said. Domingo Hector Navarro Lopez, 39, spent 13 years in the Salvadoran military. He said he was tired of trying to get by on his $158-a-month salary as a security guard. After his wartime experience in his own country, he said, he was not frightened by all the violence in Iraq. "I thank God for this opportunity to go to Iraq," he said, waiting for his interview with Nayor. Nerio already speaks nostalgically about Iraq. Gazing at a snapshot of himself with fellow Salvadoran guards on the banks of the Euphrates River, he said he wished he were still there. Back home in his mud-brick hut on the slopes of the San Salvador volcano, with no running water and a single electrical wire keeping a couple of light bulbs burning, he said he had no idea how he would pay for his hernia operation. He would like to go to the United States to work, but said he fears that his best shot at a better life may have been in Iraq. "That was my only chance," he said. Special correspondent Michelle Garcia in New York City contributed to this report. -------- iraq UN clears $2.9b in Gulf War claims Aljazeera.Net 09 December 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/206504D4-0D98-429E-A795-129426B0C239.htm Huge sums were sought by Iraq's neighbours to restore coastlines The United Nations has approved payment of $2.9 billion to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for environmental projects to clean up oil lakes and other pollution from Iraq's 1990-1991 occupation of Kuwait, a spokesman said. But the UN Compensation Commission, whose governing council ended three days of talks on Thursday, rejected the rest of the $23 billion in claims submitted by six countries - Kuwait, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. "The total approved was $2.9 billion. Of that $2.28 billion went to Kuwait and $625 million to Saudi Arabia," plus $188,000 to Iran, said UNCC spokesman Joe Sills after the decision was taken at closed-door talks in Geneva. Public health Iraq's neighbours have asked for a total $87 billion to clean up oil lakes, restore coastlines and fish stocks, and deal with public health problems dating back to the occupation of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War. The UNCC, which receives 5% of the revenue from Iraq's oil exports to settle compensation claims, will decide on the rest of the claims at its June session. Its share of Iraqi oil exports was $800 million in 2003. It has received claims for $350 billion from individuals, companies and governments, has approved payment of some $51.8 billion and paid out nearly $18.8 billion. --- General: Fallujah Almost Cleared of Arms Associated Press Writer By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Dec 9, 2004 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=7&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_fallujah FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines have almost completely cleared this former insurgent stronghold of insurgents and weapons, setting the stage for the return of the civilian population ahead of next month's elections, a senior commander said Thursday. Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, who commands the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said that 97 percent of Fallujah's more than 20,000 buildings "have been swept for the third and hopefully, final time." "We've removed all the ordnance, it's free of any insurgents and any improvised explosive devices or booby traps that might have been left behind," Sattler said. Sattler said Marines killed seven rebel fighters inside Fallujah with an airstrike two nights ago, after the men gathered in an alleged attempt to reconstitute an insurgent cell. U.S. and Iraqi forces in November recaptured this city 40 miles west of Baghdad from the hands of guerrillas who had used it as a base to launch attacks across Iraq (news - web sites). The U.S. military claims that 1,200 insurgents and about 2,000 suspects were captured in the weeklong battle. No civilian casualty figures have been released. At least 54 U.S. troops died in the operation, along with eight Iraqi soldiers. Marines have collected 450 bodies in the city, Sattler said. Although foreign fighters were believed to be among them, most were so badly decomposed it was impossible to determine their identities. Of about 2,000 people initially detained, 58 were foreigners, Sattler said, without providing details of their nationalities. "They were pretty disillusioned with the whole bill of goods they were sold as far as being jihadists," Sattler said. About 1,300 detainees were released since then, he said. Most were Fallujah residents who were picked up because they were of military age. Sattler also announced that Iraqi forces in Fallujah will be boosted by two more battalions, bringing to eight the number of units there. Three Marine battalions will stay on until Iraqi forces are capable of controlling the city on their own. Sattler cited the Iraqi commander of Fallujah, Lt. Gen. Abdul Khadar, as saying he would like to start bringing some of the 250,000 displaced people back by Dec. 24. By then, measures will be in place to guard against insurgents slipping back into the city, Sattler said. Initially, only heads of households would be allowed to come to inspect their property and file damage claims. Resettlement will take place district by district, beginning with the northern half of Fallujah. Five checkpoints have been set up as only entrances into Fallujah, with the roads south of the city blocked by sand berms. All men of military age will be processed using a central database. They will be photographed, fingerprinted and have their iris scans taken before being issued ID cards, Sattler said. The entire process should take about 10 minutes per person, he added. About 40 processing stations will be in place to avoid long queues. The system has been used for several months in other parts of Iraq, mostly to catalogue detainees, Sattler said. Buses would take the men into the city as no private cars will be allowed as a precaution against car bombs. "Our goal is that anyone who is of age and eligible to register, to get them registered and create an environment so that those who do want to vote can do so in a secure environment," Sattler said. "We have a long way to go and a short time to get there but it can be done, that's the bottom line." ----- Town Reflects Rising Sabotage in Iraq 'Whatever We Build, They Are Going to Destroy,' Politician Says Washington Post By Josh White December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49634-2004Dec8.html ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- On the main road through this dusty and downtrodden community lies a compound designed to host a municipal center with local government offices, a building for council meetings, a firehouse and a library with a playground surrounded by cartoon-adorned walls. But the front wall of the meeting facility is gone, with a pickup truck's chassis and axles jutting haphazardly out of a gaping hole littered with brick. The municipal offices are covered in broken glass and pieces of the ceiling. The walls are streaked with bloody handprints that trail toward the front gate, where the dirt is still charred in large streaks. The firehouse and library have been empty for weeks. This is the site, about 10 miles west of Baghdad, where seven Iraqi civilians and an American soldier were killed in a massive suicide bomb blast last month. U.S. Army officers and local Iraqi officials said it was a symbol of an intensifying campaign by insurgents to attack public works projects and Iraqis who work with or seek help from the U.S.-led occupation. These attacks have included the looting of a refurbished youth center, the razing of an economic development office, and the kidnappings and killings of town council members. Iraqi police and National Guardsmen have received frequent death threats; some were shot in the head as they walked home from work, and others were beheaded by insurgents after warning letters were left at their homes. "They are very effective at intimidation," a local Iraqi politician said in an interview at a secure U.S. military civil affairs center, speaking on condition of anonymity because he, his family and his colleagues have been told they would be killed if he cooperated with reconstruction efforts. "This is their new strategy. Whatever we build, they are going to destroy. If a project is under the aid of the Americans, they are going to destroy it. The terrorists don't want Iraq to be under control, they don't want the people of Iraq to be at peace." While attacks on U.S. soldiers remain fairly random and opportunistic here, insurgent fighters are targeting places that Iraqis rely on for assistance, frustrating politicians, police and U.S. Army officers. "They want to demonstrate that the government is not successful, and they want to create a climate of fear," said Army Col. Mark A. Milley, whose 2nd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division is pouring millions of dollars into rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. "These are very serious people out there. There is no enemy as coldblooded and vicious as this enemy." In recent weeks, insurgents have killed five members of the town council and have kidnapped two others. One of the hostages, a woman, is presumed dead. The other might have been beheaded, authorities suspect, based on telephone calls to her family. Eight members of an Iraqi National Guard post in the region have been killed in the past seven months, including one who was recently beheaded and another who was shot twice in the left eye as he left work this week. They were killed after receiving red form letters from extremists calling themselves the Company of Death. The battalion commander said he has had his life threatened 34 times, including six assassination attempts in the past 10 days. U.S. military officials say such attacks are increasing. Maj. John Allred, 38, of Atlanta, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, which patrols the Abu Ghraib area, said: "Anything we're involved with, they want to see it fail. Anyone involved with us, they want to kill." Maj. Russ Harper, 40, of Atlanta, is coordinating civil affairs projects for the 2nd Battalion in Abu Ghraib, where he says improvement projects worth $10 million have been undertaken in the past nine months. But during that period, five major projects have been sabotaged, contractors have been killed or driven from work by threats, and Iraqis have become more reluctant to help because of fear. "If it's just an open thing they [insurgents] can get to, contractors risk death. They can blow up the project," Harper said. "We can try to be low-profile, but they still attack. Unfortunately, the terrorists have been pretty successful here." Standing amid the chunks of concrete and plaster that were to be a local business center aimed at boosting economic activity and assisting job-seekers, Harper shook his head at what could have been. The building, a few hundred yards from a bustling market on one of the main streets, was renovated for $72,000 and finished in late August. Three days after contractors applied a fresh coat of blue paint to the walls, a group stormed in late at night and detonated explosives, felling most of the structure. It is now a shell, its few remaining rooms charred and pockmarked. Water from broken pipes trickles through the wreckage. "Of course it's frustrating, in part because it is a waste of U.S. resources, but these idiots are hurting the Iraqis, they're hurting their fellow people," Harper said. Abu Ghraib prison, the scene of prisoner abuse by U.S. forces that was disclosed earlier this year, is located outside the town, farther west of Baghdad. An afternoon tour of the town highlighted many of the difficulties. The vacant lots and dirt streets in the First of March neighborhood -- a slum of squatters, stray dogs, lean-tos and half-finished buildings -- are flooded with water and raw sewage because a contractor refused to finish work on the sewer lines after he was kidnapped and later released for ransom. At the Abu Ghraib youth center -- which Harper called his "crown jewel project" following a $200,000 renovation -- nearly two dozen new computers and 20 air-conditioning units were looted four weeks ago. Insurgents then tried to set the large facility on fire. They also set a booby trap using a surface-to-air missile, but U.S. forces were able to defuse it. Despite the sabotage, troops continue to go into the neighborhoods and try to determine what citizens need. On a patrol this week, 1st Lt. Tom Overmyer, 34, of Brockport, N.Y., ordered his mortar platoon of the 14th Infantry Regiment to dismount from their armored Humvees. The soldiers walked through a collection of narrow streets adjoining the highway so Overmyer could talk with residents. Iraqi children streamed out of their houses asking for candy as their fathers gathered on a corner to talk about connecting their homes to running water. "No one came in here before us, and that's a shame," said Overmyer, who drew a small crowd on his second visit in three days. The neighborhood is hostile; rocket-propelled grenades are often fired from these streets, aimed at U.S. convoys that travel the highway. "They say their trash isn't being picked up, they need fuel and water." Where the reconstruction efforts appear to be effective is at two college campuses in western Baghdad -- the nation's agricultural and veterinary schools -- where millions of dollars are being invested for the first time in decades. The schools, located in guarded compounds, show vibrant activity, with students strolling courtyards in the cool December breeze as exams approach. But with their new computers and furnishings, and athletic facilities under construction, the school leaders are facing threats as well. "It's difficult to do anything now, but we have a good hope in the future," said Majid Nassir, assistant dean at the Baghdad College of Veterinary Medicine and a local council member in Baghdad's Rashid neighborhood. He said his life was threatened this week when a note was slipped under his door warning him not to consort with the Americans. He now travels with armed guards. "All the people are waiting for the settlement of peace," he said. -------- israel / palestine The Carnivores and the Ivy League Apologist The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers By PAUL de ROOIJ December 9, 2004 Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij12092004.html Ariel Sharon is surrounded by a coterie of "advisors" who step in to develop, perfect and sell plans for the continued and inexorable dispossession of the Palestinians. What is surprising is that these advisors, the intellectual progenitors of continuing mass crimes, are an outspoken bunch; they don't shy away from revealing their latest fiendish plans or their true intent. There is no need for conspiracy theories; their intent and plans are out in the open. Despite lame denials by the Israeli government or their media surrogates, the public pronouncements of these latter day Dr. Strangeloves reveal the plans they have in store for the Palestinians, Iraqis, and for that matter, the United States. It is therefore instructive to analyze their latest statements. Dovi For the past few years, Dov Weisglass has been frequently in touch with Condoleezza Rice, the next Secretary of State, and they are even on an affectionate first name basis. Condi calls him "Dovi", and it would be rather quaint were it not for the issues they must have discussed. Furthermore, Dovi is doing the thinking for Sharon these days, and so, Dovi's public pronouncements assume canonical status. On Oct. 6, 2004, Ari Shavit interviewed Dov Weisglass for Haaretz [1]. Any article by Shavit, "a loyal mouthpiece of any leader in power"[2], should alert one that these were not meant to be ordinary ruminations by a key political advisor. In fact, Dovi's revelations were shocking because they exposed the pretense that the US still supported the "road map", or realize Bush's "vision" of a Palestinians state. Dovi's brutal pronouncements made it clear that there was no longer any prospect for a negotiated solution. "The significance of our disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. It supplies the formaldehyde necessary so there is no political process with the Palestinians." -- Ha'aretz, Oct. 6, 2004. Dovi's apt use of "formaldehyde", the morticians' essential fluid, was revelatory. While morticians are concerned with masking the unpleasant sight of death, Dovi, a grand mortician, seeks to push a stake through the heart of the already dead negotiations. He continues: "The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress." "What I effectively agreed to with the Americans [in talks leading to Bush's endorsement of disengagement] was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns." -- Ha'aretz, Oct. 6, 2004. Just in case the previous shocking statement was not blatant enough, Dovi spells it out clearly for an American audience--always a bit interpretation-challenged. With US official connivance, the Israelis are blocking meaningful negotiations indefinitely. Some further context is necessary to understand these statements. The Haaretz interview was published about a month before the US elections, a date that ranks in the Israeli calendar as super Xmas. While during other election years Israeli politicians would be busy drawing up wish lists of goodies like F16s, loan guarantees, loan forgiveness, this year with the Americans fighting Israel's war in Iraq, such demands would be construed as a bit too crass. This year Dovi had only one item on his list: he wanted US agreement to terminate negotiations forever [3]. By making such a radical demand, Dovi was daring any US politician to object in the middle of an election campaign, and of course, no US politician did. Yet again, the failure of the US government to protest indicated that it would neither confront Israel nor encourage negotiations. So much for the self-designated "honest broker" label. One must also remember the April 14, 2004 Washington meeting where Bush blessed Israel's so-called disengagement plan. Prior to his departure to Washington, Sharon waited on the airport tarmac in Tel Aviv until a deal could be struck on his terms. Surely during this unnerving wait Dovi must have been talking to Condi. Within an hour the US government capitulated giving Sharon everything on his wish list, i.e., anointing the "disengagement plan". So, what more would they want? Dovi's revealing statements provide the answer: embalming the negotiations with the Palestinians, implying that annexation of the West Bank could continue apace, the construction of the wall would continue, and the creation of two Bantustan-prisons would be unilaterally imposed. When on May 19, 2004 an AIPAC audience applauded president Bush's statement about his vision for a "viable Palestinian state", this revealed exactly what is intended: an open air concentration camp will be imposed [4]. Dovi's statements and their implicit endorsement by the US will create a few public relations complications. For years, Israel refused to enter into negotiations because supposedly there was "no one to negotiate with". Now, after Dovi's revelations we know that no matter who represents the Palestinians, the Israelis will sabotage negotiations. In the past, they played along with the "road map" charade, especially if such a gambit would force the Palestine "Authority" to repress its own people, but now even this pretense will be dispensed with. Arafat could now be dispensed with too; and he proved to have had a timely death. All the appearances and US assurances that the Quartet "road map" negotiations would culminate in a Palestinian state were clearly undermined. The US will once again bear some consequences for this, but never mind. Zionism for Carnivores Arnon Soffer, a professor of geography/demography at Haifa University, is another of Sharon's advisors, advisor to the army's top brass, and is reputed to be the "intellectual father of the disengagement plan". In addition, Soffer is also known as a demographic prophet and someone who considers that the "Palestinian womb is a biological weapon". Taking as much land with as few Palestinians has been a key preoccupation of demographers in Israel and those drawing the path of the wall. This means that a recent Jerusalem Post interview with Soffer is of particular importance. Soffer provided some brutal and revealing answers [5]: Ruthie Blum: How will the region look the day after unilateral separation? Arnon Soffer: The Palestinians will bombard us with artillery fire--and we will have to retaliate. But at least the war will be at the fence--not in kindergartens in Tel Aviv and Haifa. RB: Will Israel be prepared to fight this war? AS: First of all, the fence is not built like the Berlin Wall. It's a fence that we will be guarding on either side. Instead of entering Gaza, the way we did last week, we will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed, and houses will be destroyed. After the fifth such incident, Palestinian mothers won't allow their husbands to shoot Kassams, because they will know what's waiting for them. Second of all, when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. RB: While CNN has its cameras at the wall? AS: If we don't kill, we will cease to exist. The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings. RB: What will the end result of all this killing be? AS: The Palestinians will be forced to realize that demography is no longer significant, because we're here and they're there. And then they will begin to ask for "conflict management" talks--not that dirty word "peace." Peace is a word for believers, and I have no tolerance for believers--neither those who wear yarmulkes nor those who pray to the God of peace. [] Both are dangerous. Unilateral separation doesn't guarantee "peace"--it guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews; it guarantees the kind of safety that will return tourists to the country; and it guarantees one other important thing. Between 1948 and 1967, the fence was a fence, and 400,000 people left the West Bank voluntarily. This is what will happen after separation. If a Palestinian cannot come into Tel Aviv for work, he will look in Iraq, or Kuwait, or London. I believe that there will be movement out of the area. It would be difficult to find a clearer exposition of what the Palestinians can expect, and what type of society Israel will become. It also becomes clear why Dovi was so determined to remove any prospect of negotiations, i.e., he sought to forestall any externally imposed solution. He knew that any intervention by a World Court or any assertion of the Palestinian right not to be expelled would interfere with Soffer's plans. Besides, "peace" is for the moist eyed liberals, and not for hard-nosed realists. Drang nach East [6] Zionist plans are not confined within the borders of Israel and the occupied territories, but they extend broadly into the region. Strong Arab nations operating with a unified voice would be able to stand up to Israel. In the Zionist calculus, to avoid the possibility of resistance, the countries in the region have to be brought to their knees, and included in an Israeli controlled sphere of influence. In this scenario, countries with large armies and with a potential to interfere have to be demolished. Arab nationalists who seek to forge unity or to develop the area have to be undermined, and in their place, atavistic Islamic religious forces have to be fostered. Weaken, divide and rule. Does this sound far-fetched? One only has to read Oded Yinon's ruminations [7]: Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shiite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. Oded Yinon was formerly a senior Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry official. Although not currently one of Sharon's advisors, his comments made in 1982 have a prescient ring to them. One can find recent expositions of the same plan, and all indicate that the United States is currently fighting Israel's wars. Creating an Israeli sphere of influence in the area is emerging as a key motive behind the latest US-Iraq war [8]. Jamboree of the Carnivores Every year a conference in Herzliya attracts Israeli state planners, think-tankers, and cheerleaders. It is a jamboree for the carnivores; Zionists of a vegetarian stripe need not apply. Here, plans are made on how Palestinians can be further dispossessed, how to handle the propaganda, or reveal the latest sadistic fantasy. Plans for the entire region are also proposed and discussed. Out in the open one can hear what the likes of Soffer, Dovi and Yinon are currently proposing. Of course, these plans are not presented in "Western" media; here one will continue hearing about Israel's peaceful intent, and the "only democracy in the Middle East". Also present in Herzliya are wannabe advisors, and the only way for them to be noticed is to present ever more extreme plans. There is a dynamic among these operators to propose plans that veer ever more to the right. Whereas the likes of Soffer would have seemed extreme twenty years ago, now his position is centrist. Today's extremists may become the common ground in a few years time. The Ivy League Apologist One of the attendees at the 2003 Herzliya conference was Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor and legal contortionist extraordinaire. He has a bit of a misplaced liberal reputation since he is keen to justify torture, compulsory ID cards, and overturning international law. Dershowitz is always eager to dispense advice, and it is of interest to listen to his ruminations at the conference. "We have a joint project between Israel and the US, which lawyers must lead. Our project is to propose new rules of international law. Israelis are obliged to follow the rules of law in the democracy called Israel, as I am within the US. Your moral obligation to comply with international law is voluntary. You are not represented in the making or implementing of those laws. International law lives or dies by its credibility, not by the democracy by which it has been constructed. I am suggesting the change of the rule of law. Democracy should not have to justify its actions and show how the rule of human rights has become a weapon in promoting human wrongs... You are the lab for that process. You are contributing greatly. Do not allow the world to bully you into believing that you are the human rights violators..." -- Alan Dershowitz, Dec. 2003. [9] To implement plans like those advocated by Soffer requires perpetrating crimes against humanity, and this obviously clashes with international law. The legal profession in Israel has long justified Israel's actions by contorted arguments as those made by Dershowitz [10]. Israeli lawyers have always been selective on which laws apply to it, and of course, the core humanitarian law has been excluded. Furthermore, it will use bits of law that are useful for its purposes, e.g., British Mandate period military law, or Jordanian law, and if all else fails specific military orders are passed [11]. The veneer of legality is kept, but, as the recent International Court of Justice ruling pertaining to the wall indicates, it is increasingly difficult for them to cover up the mass crimes that the Zionist project requires. Dershowitz recommendation: don't worry about it and ignore international law. The same argument will be made for US actions in the war in Iraq, the torture of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisoners, the US military deaths squads, the use of depleted uranium munitions, etc. The Consequences The consequences of the Zionist project are stark and they are clear for all involved. The Palestinians are at the receiving end of a genocidal plan. Of course, any act of resistance will elicit hollers about "terrorism", and they can expect to be blamed for the cruelty dispensed to them by the Israelis. Negotiations will amount to "conflict management" between military rulers and Palestinian collaborators. Israelis must decide if they want to become a nation of prison wardens, a fate that awaits them, their children, and their grandchildren. A permanent state of simmering war is very costly, and is only tenable thanks to America's largesse and diplomatic cover. The Zionist project also entails interfering in all the countries in the area. This project raises further questions about what type of society it wants to become, and whether the US will continue supporting them. Israel cannot escape the consequences of a fundamentally unjust system; while this persists there will be continued strife, and all aspects of its society will be grotesquely distorted [12]. The costs for the United States are also high and the implications stark. The US is expected to continue funding Israel in ever increasing amounts, without a peep of gratitude from the recipient. The US also has to tarnish its international reputation by having to cover for Israel. And now the US has to pay a cost in blood; the war in Iraq is another contribution to Israel. Are Iran, Syria, next? The US's relation with Israel is also having distorting effects on American society. The fact that AIPAC is the most powerful lobby (aka, "the Lobby") in Washington and that most politicians genuflect when the word Israel is mentioned indicates that the US political system may not represent the interests of the American people. Certainly, US foreign policy is not open to democratic debate, and currently it is the exclusive preserve of an unaccountable and reactionary elite. The debate about the US's place in the world and hence what type of society it wants to become must urgently be brought out into the open. A simple issue must be addressed: whose interests is US foreign policy supposed to foster, and is it in the US's interests to support a malevolent apartheid state in the Middle East? Pariah state and ideology In the 1990s, the United Nations attempted to condemn Zionism as a racist ideology. Alas, with US connivance and massive manipulation, this mild UN rebuke was not adopted. However, the manifest sadism to which Palestinians have been subjected indicates that there is a much deeper and serious objection to this ideology, i.e., the Zionist project, is inherently genocidal, and the plans of Sharon's advisors and Israel's history of ethnic cleansing make this abundantly clear. Zionism has to be considered a pariah ideology. Furthermore, the combination of pernicious ideologues with a dangerous war criminal requires that we treat Israel as a pariah state. Endnotes [1] Ari Shavit, Top PM aide: Gaza plan aims to freeze the peace process, Haaretz, Oct. 6, 2004. [2] Ran HaCohen Mid-Eastern Terms, DissidentVoice, June 19, 2003. [3] In reality, Israel received quite a few more goodies this year. First, an increase in aid and forgiven loans. Second, it also received thousands of J-Dam bombs, the type that could demolish Iran's nuclear power plants. NB: This comes after the delivery of more than 100 special F16s capable of flying all the way to Iran. [4] Bush's policy speech in front of AIPAC in 2004 was frequently interrupted by applause. It is curious that the word "viable" elicited applause. Key words and phrases are used that have a special meaning for US officials and this crowd. Analyzing where the AIPAC audience applauded will reveal the true meaning of many such terms. [5] Ruthie Blum, "ONE on ONE: It's the demography, stupid", Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2004. [6] Nazi ideologues referred to the national imperative for expansion towards the Eastern Europe as "drang nach Osten". [7] Oded Yinon, "Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties" Feb. 1982. Available online here: [http://www.corkpsc.org/db.php?aid=5345] This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in Kivunim (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; February 1982. The Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization in Jerusalem publishes the journal. Yinon's article was translated by Dr. Israel Shahak and appeared in his Translations of the Hebrew press. Invariably statements about plans are more elaborate and open when written in Hebrew; it is also rare to see them translated in their entirety into English. NB: One could easily imagine the hysterics and indignation if any Arab ideologue were to publish designs for the region that would include an emasculated Israel. However, when Israeli ideologues discuss subjugating the region to its interest, then this is considered par for the course. [8] It is wrong to suggest that there is a single motive for wars. It is when there is a confluence of interests in fostering wars that opinion can be mobilized in favor of a war. Control of oil, armaments, post-war slices of the cake, all have constituencies who favored the war. The centrality of the Israeli motivation is made clear by the statement by the main actors pushing the war. See also Kathleen and Bill Christison's "Too Many Smoking Guns to Ignore: Israel, American Jews, and the War on Iraq", CounterPunch, January 25, 2003. [9] Quoted in Azmi Bishara, "Chutzpah: an avoidance strategy", Al Ahram, Dec. 25, 2003, Issue 670. [http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2003/670/op41.htm], [10] Azmi Bishara observes that Dershowitz isn't stating anything new. What is reassuring to the Israeli legal profession is that even a Harvard professor is telling them to go on doing what they do at present, i.e., flout international law. [11] A good account of the legal sophistry can be found in Raja Shehadeh's Occupier's Law, IPS, 1985. Alternatively, Lisa Hajjar's Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza, University of California Press, 2005. [12] Take one example: the construction of the wall is Israel's largest infrastructure project. It will cost billions. Are they spending all this money and effort to imprison another people? The wall is compounding the unjust situation, and thus making matters worse. Paul de Rooij is a writer living in London. He can be reached at proox@hotmail.com (NB: all emails with attachments will be automatically deleted.) -------- japan Japan extends mission in Iraq Aljazeera.Net 09 December 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1374FB88-F133-451A-BB47-CBFEC1ED4A2B.htm Japan has approved an extension of its troop deployment in Iraq for up to a year, a decision opposed by most voters, who want to end the nation's riskiest military mission since the second world war. The extension was approved on Thursday at a meeting of government and ruling party officials, Liberal Democratic Party executive Toranosuke Katayama said. The cabinet was to meet later in the day to sign off on the decision. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a close ally of US President George Bush, has expended considerable political capital to support the US-led war in Iraq and sent about 550 troops to the southern Iraqi city of Samawa. Pacifist constitution The mandate for the current one-year deployment expires on 14 December. Critics say the mission violates Japan's pacifist constitution, even though the military personnel are engaged solely in rebuilding and humanitarian work. Koizumi's government has been studying an overhaul of the pacifist constitution, with the Iraq deployment seen by analysts as a signal that Tokyo ants a more active role in world affairs. But opposition leaders want the troops to return after the current deployment ends, and a Nihon Keizai newspaper poll last month said 61% of Japanese oppose extending the mission due mostly to concern for the troops' safety. ----- Japan Defense Plan Shifts Pacifist Stance Associated Press By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON Dec 10, 2004 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/J/JAPAN_DEFENSE_PLAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME TOKYO (AP) -- Japan adopted new defense guidelines Friday, including the relaxation of an arms-export ban that will facilitate missile security with Washington, another sign of Tokyo's move away from its postwar pacifism in favor of greater military cooperation with its top ally. The new plan marked the most significant overhaul of the country's defense policy in a decade - a period during which Tokyo has tried to increase security cooperation with the United States - and comes a day after the pro-U.S. government voted to keep Japanese troops in Iraq on a humanitarian mission for another year past its Dec. 14 deadline. "This is about ensuring security and dealing with new threats as the times change," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters after the new plan was unveiled. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said the government would ease Japan's ban on exporting weapons to other countries in order to pursue a missile defense program with Washington for security purposes. The plan called for the easing, citing modern security threats, including North Korean missiles, China's military buildup and terrorism. Japan has maintained the arms export ban since 1976 in deference to its pacifist constitution, unchanged since it was written by U.S. occupation forces after World War II. The constitution renounces war and the use of force in settling international disputes. Yet Koizumi has stirred debate about constitutional reform. He has backed an increasingly high-profile role for Japan's military and closer security cooperation with Washington, which maintains 50,000 troops here under a security treaty. Under his administration, Japan has 1,000 troops in Iraq and neighboring countries engaged in non-combat reconstruction work - the postwar military's largest and most dangerous overseas operation. Earlier, in 2001, Koizumi responded to the U.S. "war on terror" by pushing through legislation to allow the navy to provide logistical support to forces in Afghanistan. Critics have said such efforts are chipping away at the pacifist society Japan has built since its destruction in World War II. The new guidelines played down such fears, reiterating that Japan's military was not going on the offensive. "Our country, under our constitution, will adhere exclusively to self-defense," the report said. "Following our policy of not becoming a major military power that would pose a threat to other countries, we will secure civilian control." The plan, approved in a Cabinet meeting, also vowed to maintain the country's policy of not making or possessing nuclear weapons. Japan is the only country to have been attacked with nuclear weapons, when the United States twice hit the country in 1945. The revisions threaten to alarm Asian neighbors, who suffered under Japan's expansionist policies earlier last century. Both China and North Korea were singled out as regional security concerns in the outline, which covers from 2005 to 2014. China's efforts to build up and modernize its military, as well as its expanded range of naval activities, have been closely monitored by Japan. Tensions between the two Asian powerhouses spiked last month, when a Chinese nuclear submarine infiltrated Japanese waters and prompted an alert. Pyongyang has also grown into one of Tokyo's biggest security worries. It test-fired a long-range ballistic missile over Japan in 1998 and is believed to be developing nuclear weapons. There was no immediate reaction Friday from either China or North Korea. -------- nato NATO warns against violence if Kosovo PM is indicted by ICTY BRUSSELS (AFP) Dec 09, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041209173133.ysm0szka.html NATO on Thursday delivered a stern warning to Kosovo's new prime minister and his supporters against a violent reaction if the former ethnic Albanian rebel commander is indicted for war crimes. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said any misbehavior would not be tolerated if the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) charges Ramush Haradinaj with crimes against Serbian civilians during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. In a meeting of NATO's governing board, the alliance's foreign ministers demanded that the prime minister and his supporters "behave responsibly if Mr Haradinaj might be indicted," de Hoop Scheffer said. He stressed that the decision on whether to indict Haradinaj was entirely up to ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte but that NATO, which has some 20,000 troops in the UN-administered southern Serbian province, would not tolerate violence. "It's important and that's what the ministers discussed: that Mr Haradinaj and his followers behave responsibly if he is indicted by the ICTY," de Hoop Scheffer told reporters. Haradinaj, 35, who was elected prime minister last week by Kosovo's parliament, is wanted by Belgrade on 108 counts of alleged war crimes against Serb civilians during the Kosovo war when he was a senior rebel commander. Serbian officials have referred the case to The Hague-based ICTY and tribunal investigators recently questioned Haradinaj although no charges against him have yet been laid. Haradinaj has denied all the allegations but Serbia on Saturday called on the United Nations, which has administered Kosovo since 1999, to annul his election. ----- NATO agrees to boost Iraq role but war rift still festers BRUSSELS (AFP) Dec 09, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041209195655.egxaibs9.html NATO agreed to expand its Iraq mission on Thursday but failed to smooth deep divisions over the war as the United States accused some European allies of undermining the defense alliance's credibility. NATO's governing board adopted an executive directive finalizing a five-fold increase in staff at the operation in Baghdad but the accord was soured by the refusal of six European nations to allow their NATO officers to participate. Outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell, attending his last NATO meeting ahead of an outreach visit to Europe by President George W. Bush in February, praised the expansion decision but decried the stance of the six Iraq war foes. "We think it is a problem," Powell said, maintaining that it was "quite awkward" for NATO officers of any country to be prevented by their governments from taking part in an operation endorsed by the alliance as a whole. "It is our expectation that when units and indivduals are committed to an international staff they then work in that international staff and become a key part of that international staff," he told reporters. "When it comes time to perform a mission, it seems to us to be quite awkward for suddenly members in that international staff to say Im unable to go because of this national caveat or national exception," Powell said. "You are hurting the credibility and the cohesion of such an international staff or organization," he added. The position adopted by the six -- Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg and Spain, most of which were vehemently opposed to the US-led war in Iraq -- affects about a quarter of the officers based at NATO's two command centers in Mons, Belgium and Norfolk, Virginia. NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who has spoken out on the matter in the past, was also critical. "Whenever NATO agrees to have an operation, all NATO allies who have politically agreed with the operation should send the people they have assigned to the international military staff to participate in the operation," he said. "The discussion goes to the heart of the matter, to the core of NATO and to the core of NATO solidarity," de Hoop Scheffer said. Although they joined in the consensus to expand the Iraq mission, which will boost allied staff in Baghdad from 60 to 300, none of the six countries involved in the deadlock appeared willing to soften their stance. "There has been no change of mind, we will send no soldiers to Iraq," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said, adding that NATO members were made well aware of Berlin's position some time ago and that it should not be a surprise. On other matters, the council agreed on the need to begin "phase two" of its stabilization mission in Afghanistan but did not hear the concrete pledges of support from European members needed to do so. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization took over the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) last year, and earlier this year expanded it beyond Kabul into the north of the country, notably setting up five provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) there. Phase two of its strategic plan foresees an expansion into the more remote west of the war-scarred country. The United States recently offered to transfer two PRTs which it runs in western Afghanistan to NATO -- but only on condition that European allies agree to staff two new PRTs as well as a forward support base to provide supplies. Washington had hoped to hear definite responses from the Europeans on Thursday but no such contributions were in the offing, although NATO's chief insisted he was confident the expansion would be agreed "early in the new year." Meanwhile, the NATO meeting also trumpeted a joint declaration with Russia calling for free and fair elections in Ukraine, in what de Hoop Scheffer hailed as "a major breakthrough" in defusing tension between the West and Moscow. The statement co-signed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Western military alliance and Moscow agreed to "work to ensure a free, fair electoral process that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people." "This is a major breakthrough ... It shows that this is not and this should not be ... an East-West confrontation, it's not an East-West rivalry," said de Hoop Scheffer. But tensions clearly lingered here too. Lavrov, while saying he was happy with the joint declaration, said that those who "called on Ukraine to join the West (had) incited to violence," without elaborating who he was talking about. ----- NATO OKs expanding Iraq training mission The Associated Press 12/9/2004 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-12-09-nato-iraq-troops_x.htm BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO foreign ministers agreed Thursday to launch the next phase of the alliance training mission in Iraq, a move that should see up to 300 military instructors arrive in Baghdad in the coming weeks. The 300 will move first to Baghdad and to the outskirts of the capital by spring to set up a military academy for Iraqi armed forces, said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "The training mission in Iraq is running entirely according to schedule," de Hoop Scheffer said. "The number of personnel will go up from its present 60 to around 300," he told a news conference. He said several NATO allies had come forward with offers of soldiers at the meeting of foreign ministers, including Poland, Hungary and the Netherlands. At least 16 of the 26 NATO nations were expected to participate in the mission, but final details were still being worked out, according to NATO officials. NATO had been struggling for weeks to muster instructors for the mission. It is also looking for troops to expand the alliance's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. Alliance officials expressed disappointment that ministers had not committed all the troops, planes and helicopters needed to extend NATO's 8,000-strong Afghan peacekeeping force from its bases in Kabul and the north into the west of the country. However, they said progress had been made and hoped remaining gaps could be plugged soon. "I have full confidence that early in the new year, we will be ready to announce the next phase in Afghanistan," de Hoop Scheffer said. NATO already has around 60 soldiers at its training mission in the Iraqi capital, but delays finding the required extra instructors have cast doubt on plans to have the academy up and running before Iraqi elections planned for late next month. Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed disappointment that Germany, France, Belgium, Greece and Spain were sticking to their refusal not to take part in the mission. "I, of course, would have preferred that every member of the alliance would have participated in the effort," he told a news conference. He was particularly concerned that those countries were prohibiting their troops assigned to NATO headquarters to participate. "We think it is a problem." However, he said commitments from other allies left him confident "that the need will be met, and the mission will be accomplished." Germany emphasized that it would not go back on a pledge to keep its troops out. "Our position is clear. We will not send German soldiers to Iraq," Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said going into the meeting. Despite U.S. impatience over the reluctance of some European allies to commit troops, Powell — making his last trip through Europe before he makes way for national security adviser Condoleezza Rice — has been stressing the need for the trans-Atlantic allies to put last year's dispute over the Iraq war behind them. He said President Bush is intent on mending ties with Europe, pointing out that Bush plans to visit NATO Feb. 22 on the first foreign trip of his second term. "The president remains committed to the trans-Atlantic relationship," Powell said. Powell received warm words of farewell from his European counterparts. Fischer called him "extremely fair and professional" even during the tough times of the Iraq crisis. Diplomats said Fischer gave Powell German beer as a gift. Ministers also stressed the need for their 18,000-member peacekeeping force in Kosovo to remain alert ahead of talks expected next year on whether the province should secede from Serbia — an aspiration of the Albanian majority fiercely opposed by Kosovo Serbs. "As the security environment remains fragile, we have agreed KFOR will maintain its operational capabilities," they said. ----- Nato rapped for refusing to train Iraqis aljazeera.net 09 December 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A5F48A5A-6258-4500-88DE-3C8B797B61E6.htm US Secretary of State Colin Powell has renewed criticism of a group of Nato allies for refusing to allow officers to serve in a Nato training mission in Iraq. "We think it is a problem," Powell said, referring to countries including anti-Iraq war heavyweights France and Germany which are refusing to let their staff assigned to Nato centres in Europe and the United States to be dispatched to Baghdad. "It is our expectation that when units and individuals are committed to an international staff, they then work in that international staff and become a key part of that international staff," he said on Thursday. The refusal is hurting the credibility and the cohesion of such the international organisation, he said, speaking after discussing the issue with his Nato counterparts at talks in Brussels. None the less, Nato said on Thursday it would boost its fledgling military training mission in Baghdad after several European countries responded to US appeals to send trainers to Iraq. Numbers up "The number of personnel will go from 60 to 300, including trainers and support staff," Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters after a meeting of foreign ministers from the 26-member alliance. He said the expansion would go ahead as soon as possible but gave no precise time-frame for the officer training mission, which is intended to complement the much larger US-led operation to train Iraqi foot soldiers. Nato also wants to set up a separate military academy on the outskirts of Baghdad with more trainers, but de Hoop Scheffer said that would not be ready before early 2005. Nato officials said Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands and Norway had volunteered. Out of the 300 personnel, slightly less than 100 would be trainers with the rest composed of support staff. The training is to take place in the international Green Zone of Baghdad. The training mission was agreed upon at Nato's Istanbul summit in June after months of wrangling over whether the alliance should have a role in Iraq at all. -------- pakistan / india India Warns U.S. on Pakistan Weapons Sales Associated Press By RAJESH MAHAPATRA Dec 9, 20004 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&ncid=731&e=8&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_re_as/india_us_pakistan NEW DELHI - Indian officials cautioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday that a proposed U.S. sale of military hardware worth $1.2 billion to Pakistan could damage a fragile peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors and harm India-U.S. relations. Rumsfeld met with Indian Defense Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee and later described the relationship between Washington and New Delhi as an enduring one. "The defense relationship is a strong one and something we intend to see is further knitted together as we go forward in the months and years ahead," he said. Rumsfeld's two-day visit is expected to focus on India-U.S. cooperation in defense and countering terrorism. It began after India cautioned the United States against going ahead with the sale of surveillance aircraft and anti-tank missiles to Pakistan. "Concern was expressed from our side about the repercussions from the arms supplies on the ongoing India-Pakistan peace process, currently poised at a sensitive juncture," Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said. India and Pakistan are in the early stages of a peace process to resolve bitter differences, including a five-decade dispute over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir (news - web sites). Both sides are sensitive to large-scale arms purchases by the other that might tilt the region's strategic balance. On Wednesday, Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh warned in Parliament that the "government will not hesitate ... to ensure that our defense preparedness is not compromised in any way." He did not elaborate. Washington is looking to sell to Pakistan eight P3C surveillance planes, 2,000 TOW anti-tank missiles and six Phalanx gun systems, which are mounted on ships to shoot down incoming missiles. "India-U.S. relations have seen a significant transformation during (President Bush (news - web sites)'s) first term. These arms sales would impact on the positive sentiment and goodwill for the United States in India," Sarna said. Pakistan also wants F-16 aircraft from the United States, but no decision has been made on a sale. Singh said New Delhi has also cautioned Washington against it. Rumsfeld also met the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the foreign minister. U.S.-India ties have become closer in recent years. Three years ago, Washington lifted economic sanctions imposed on India after it tested nuclear weapons in May 1998. -------- spies Officer Alleges CIA Retaliation Lawsuit Says Agency Urged False Reporting on Iraqi Arms Washington Post By Dana Priest December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49647-2004Dec8.html A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused. The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma." "Our mission is to . . . report the facts," Anya Guilsher, a CIA spokeswoman, says of the agency. The subject of that reporting has been blacked out by the CIA, and the word "Iraq" does not appear in the heavily redacted version of the legal complaint, but the remaining language and context make clear that the officer's work related to prewar intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. In the lawsuit, the officer asserts that CIA managers retaliated against him for refusing their demands by beginning a counterintelligence investigation of allegations that he had sex with a female asset and by initiating an inspector general's investigation into allegations that he stole money meant to be used to pay human assets. Those investigations, the lawsuit asserts, were "initiated 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 lawsuit marks the first public instance in which a CIA employee has charged directly that agency officials pressured him to produce intelligence to support the administration's prewar position that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a grave and gathering threat, and to suppress information that ran counter to that view. "Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and they did not want to hear it," said Roy Krieger, the officer's attorney. Anya Guilsher, a CIA spokeswoman, said the agency could not comment on the lawsuit but added, "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." Critics of the Iraq war have asserted the administration pressured analysts and operators to produce information that bolstered the administration's case for invading Iraq. Congressional investigations did not find evidence to support that charge, but found that the CIA did not have enough spies in Iraq and that the analysis of the highly circumstantial evidence was mischaracterized as firmer than it was. No biological or chemical weapons have been found in Iraq. A subsequent CIA-led investigation found that Iraq was nowhere near producing a nuclear weapon, as the administration had asserted. The unnamed operative is a 23-year officer of Middle Eastern descent who spent much of his career on secret and covert operations to collect intelligence on and interdict weapons of mass destruction, the lawsuit says. In 2002, the lawsuit says, the CIA officer "attempted to report routine intelligence" from a human asset "but was thwarted by CIA superiors." It goes on to say that he was subsequently approached by a senior desk officer "who insisted that Plaintiff falsify his reporting," and that when he refused, the "management" of the CIA's Counterproliferation Division ordered that he "remove himself from any further 'handling' " of the unnamed asset, who is referred elsewhere in the document as "a highly respected human asset." The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington on Friday and placed in the public court docket yesterday after a judge said it could proceed using a pseudonym for the plaintiff, says his superiors falsely promised him that they would report his findings to President Bush and falsely claimed that they had disseminated some of his other reports through normal channels. In 2003, the lawsuit says, the CIA officer learned of the counterintelligence investigation of allegations that he was having sex with a female asset. Five days later, it says, he was told that a promotion was being canceled "because of pressure from the DDO [Deputy Director of Operations] James Pavitt." Pavitt declined to comment. In September 2003, the CIA placed the officer on administrative leave without explanation, the lawsuit says. Eight months later, it says, the inspector general's office advised him that he was under investigation for "diverting to his own use monies provided him for payment to human assets." The document says the allegations were made by the same managers who had asked him to falsify reports. In August 2004, he was terminated "for unspecified reasons," the lawsuit says. It requests that his employment, salary and promotions be restored and that the CIA pay compensatory damages and legal fees. In a letter to CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo dated Dec. 6, Krieger requested a meeting between the officer and CIA Director Porter J. Goss because of "the serious nature of the allegations in this case, including deliberately misleading the President on intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction." -------- un Who's behind the oil-for-food scandal? Aljazeera By Jude Wanniski 08 December 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/561BE24F-B06B-4CC1-B28A-F6845EA8E469.htm Once it became clear some months ago that Saddam Hussein had been telling the truth about not having weapons of mass destruction or connections to al-Qaida, it should have been an embarrassment to the neo-conservatives who talked President George Bush into war with Iraq. They were not in the least embarrassed, though, because they had known well before the invasion that Saddam had done everything he could possibly do to assure the world that he was no threat to the region, the US and the world. Their intent all along was no secret: They wanted "regime change" to fit their plans for an American empire, with a permanent outpost in Baghdad. To do this, they had to clear out all the obstacles in their path - which meant open assaults on the international institutions that had been developed to prevent war, through diplomacy backed by the threat of sanctions. This meant demeaning the United Nations, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) inspectors of chemical and biological weapons under Hans Blix, and the International Atomic Energy Agency under Muhammad al-Baradai. France, Germany, Russia and China had become obstacles to regime change in Baghdad, either at the UN Security Council or at Nato, or both. To neutralise them with American public opinion, the neo-cons used their contacts in the news media to broadcast the argument that these countries were pursuing selfish interests related to Iraq's oil. Out of this soup came the "oil-for-food scandal" which now threatens to bring down UN General-Secretary Kofi Annan and besmirch the UN and its affiliated institutions. A headline in the 4 December New York Times warns: "Annan's post at the UN may be at risk, officials fear." It's clear enough the neo-cons and the news outlets that do their bidding are behind the "scandal" story. In the Times account, Richard Holbrooke, the ambassador to the United Nations under president Bill Clinton and an Annan backer, said: "The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyse the UN are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it." Yes, but what's going on? Where's the scandal? "Their intent all along was no secret. They wanted "regime change" to fit their plans for an American empire, with a permanent outpost in Baghdad" On the surface, there has yet to be found a single person with his hand in the UN cookie jar. All that has appeared to date are assertions that various people associated with the management of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq and the UN benefited financially through shady transactions. It is further alleged that UN officials looked the other way as Saddam Hussein arranged kickbacks of billions of dollars that went into foreign bank accounts, with inferences that he was using the cash to finance his military machine and international terrorism, build palaces to aggrandise himself, all the while diverting money from the intended recipients - the poor Iraqi people. To put all this in perspective, remember that Saddam was the duly constituted head of state in Iraq, his government not only officially recognised by the US during the Iran/Iraq war, but also was given palpable support in the war. Why he invaded Kuwait in 1990 is another story, but it is now absolutely clear his dispute was only with the emir of Kuwait and not any other country in the Middle East. It has now also been shown that Iraq had met the conditions of the UN Security Council post-Gulf war resolution which demanded he destroy his unconventional weapons before economic sanctions could be lifted and the Iraqi government could resume the sale of oil. From this vantage point, it was the UN that took possession of the oil resources of the Iraqi people. By rough reckoning, I find that if the sanctions had been lifted in 1991 (when they should have been lifted), Iraq would have earned enormous amounts of money from the sale of their oil. At an average of $10 a barrel of oil (bbl) over 14 years, they would have collected $126 billion. At a more reasonable average over the period of $15 to $20, the Iraqi government would have been able to pay all its creditors and at the same time enable the Iraqi people to return to the high living standards they enjoyed before the Iran-Iraq war (during which, I repeat, the US supported Iraq). It was because of the UN economic sanctions that persisted because of US/British insistence that the oil-for-food programme came into existence in 1996. This was partly the result of UN reports that 1.5 million Iraqi civilians had died because of the malnutrition and disease engendered by the sanctions. More directly, it was because president Clinton bombed Iraq in early September 1996 during his re-election campaign that year, on the information that Baghdad had violated the "no-fly zone" over Iraqi Kurdistan. It turned out Saddam did not violate the "no-fly zone" but had sent troops on the ground to Kurdistan at the request of the provincial government, which had come under attack by Iranian-backed Kurds. The reason? Economic distress, with the region suffering from the same malnutrition and disease afflicting all of Iraq. "It was because of the UN economic sanctions that persisted because of US/British insistence that the oil-for-food programme came into existence in 1996" The Kurds are the friends of the neo-conservatives. They had to be helped out of this distress. Hence, the oil-for-food programme, designed to relieve all Iraqi citizens, but mostly Kurds, who would get the lion's share of the relief from the oil revenues. I'm not sure about all the details of how the programme was managed in the years since. But when the neo-cons raised the corruption issue at the UN through their friends in the news media, Annan finally saw he had to respond. He said he would investigate the allegations and persuaded former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker - arguably the most respected, squeaky clean political figure in America - to undertake the investigation and make a report, which is expected sometime next month. Annan has rejected calls for his resignation coming from a US Republican Senator Norman Coleman of Minnesota. Without naming him, it was clearly Coleman to whom he referred at a press conference last weekend when he said: "My hope had been that once the independent investigative committee had been set up [under Volcker], we would all wait for them to do their work and then draw our conclusions and make judgments. This has not turned out to be the case." Why were Annan's hopes dashed by Coleman, a freshman senator who chairs the permanent subcommittee on investigations? My educated guess is that the neo-cons who continue to have serious influence on the Bush administration through Vice-President Dick Cheney's office, knew full well that if the Volcker commission did its job honestly, it would be able to report that the oil-for-food programme worked pretty much as it was designed to work. It would have found that nothing criminal or corrupt was done and that even Saddam had done nothing any other head of state in his shoes would not have done under similar circumstances. It is perfectly obvious that Coleman saw a chance to make a splash with assertions that corruption at the UN was already a known fact. His "smoking gun" was the news that Kofi Annan's son received payments of $150,000 over several years from a company that was a contractor in the oil-for-food programme. Where did this news come from? The New York Sun, a tiny newspaper founded by Canadian mogul Conrad Black four years ago as a mouthpiece for the neo-cons. Richard Perle, the most prominent of the neo-con intellectuals who misled Bush to war with Iraq, has been a long time partner of Conrad Black and a director of the Jerusalem Post, one of Black's many media holdings. Perle is also the guiding light for Rupert Murdoch's Fox News media empire, plus the National Review, and a galaxy of staff members of both political parties in the US Congress. Claudia Rosett, who writes for the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, was assigned to take on Volcker and in several articles has practically painted him as a lapdog of Kofi Annan, at the very least a foot-dragger who should already be able to condemn the UN for corruption. "It may be there is no scandal at all. Just another trick of the neo-conservatives to blow away anyone who gets in the way of their plans for a global empire" The game plan is of course to force Volcker to issue a report that smears the UN and threatens it with a cut-off of US funds unless there is a house cleaning. But what if Volcker finds that the only "wrong" was committed by the Baghdad government in selling Iraq's own oil to its neighbours, particularly to Turkey and Jordan, and that the revenues were deposited in state bank accounts and used for legitimate state reasons? We also know the oil that went through the hands of the UN agency set up to make sure the revenues went to the people, not to the Iraqi government, also had to have the cooperation of Baghdad in lifting the oil and delivering it. A 2.5% "kickback", as it has been termed by Rosett, Coleman and the neo-con press corps, can be more properly be termed a "fee" for facilitating this process. If these fees were paid into the government, not to numbered bank accounts, the regime would have to be judged clean on that count by Volcker. He is in a tight spot. What about the damning report of Charles Duelfer and his Iraqi Survey Group, which announced last month that Saddam Hussein destroyed all of his weapons of mass destruction and their programmes in 1991? In his report, he also brought up the oil-for-food programme, which was never part of his mission when he was appointed by Bush to check further into Iraq's WMD intentions. Duelfer, who could not pretend to have found WMD when none existed, clearly used the oil-for-food programme to distract attention from his central finding. The report gratuitously contained the thesis that if Saddam someday wanted to rebuild his WMD capabilities, he could be using the programme to that end, with the complicity of the French, Russians, Chinese, United Nations and major oil companies. Logic should tell you, though, that the neo-cons have been behind this hoax from the start, that they never intended to lift the sanctions on Iraq even while knowing back in 1991 that Saddam almost certainly had complied with that first UN resolution. The Iraqis who are in a position to clear all this up and demonstrate that while certain transactions might appear suspicious on the surface, but can be fully explained, are not available for testimony. The regime is under lock and key and not available to Rosett or Coleman. Volcker presumably has access to them, but is not sharing his findings with the US Congress, which he is not required to do. His report to the UN will be made public and judgments can then be made. It may be there is no scandal at all. Just another trick of the neo-conservatives to blow away anyone who gets in the way of their plans for a global empire. Jude Wanniski is a former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal, expert on supply-side economics and founder of Polyconomics, which helps to interpret the impact of political events on financial markets. -------- us Rumsfeld: Soldier's Challenge Constructive Associated Press By ROBERT BURNS Dec 9, 2004 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUMSFELD?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- A day after being challenged by a soldier on the Army's failure to provide adequate armor for vehicles used in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday he expects the Army to do its best to resolve the problem. Thousands of miles away, President Bush echoed Rumsfeld's sentiments. "The concerns expressed are being addressed and that is - we expect our troops to have the best possible equipment," Bush said at the White House. "If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country I'd want to ask the secretary of defense the same question. And that is, 'Are we getting the best we can get us?' And they deserve the best. "And I have told many families I've met with, we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones in a mission which is vital and important. And that mission is to spread freedom and peace," Bush said. Rumsfeld, on a visit to the Indian capital, said it was good that ordinary soldiers are given a chance to express their concerns to the secretary of defense and senior military commanders. "It's necessary for the Army to hear that, do something about it and see that everyone is treated properly," Rumsfeld said, referring not only to the complaint about insufficient armor but also another soldier's statement about not getting reimbursed for certain expenses in a timely way. Those complaints, and others, were aired on Wednesday when Rumsfeld held a "town hall" style meeting with about 2,300 soldiers at Camp Buehring in northern Kuwait, a transit camp for troops heading into Iraq. Spc. Thomas Wilson had asked Rumsfeld, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?" Shouts of approval and applause arose from other soldiers who had assembled in an aircraft hangar to see Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld Expects Army to Resolve Concerns Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question. "We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north," Wilson, 31, of Nashville, Tenn., concluded after asking again. "You go to war with the Army you have," Rumsfeld replied, "not the Army you might want or wish to have." Asked on Thursday about that exchange, the defense secretary said he believed the session in general was "very fine, warm (and) enjoyable." As for Wilson's statement, Rumsfeld said it could be constructive. "I don't know what the facts are, but somebody is certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld gave no indication that the soldier would face any kind of disciplinary action for speaking up. Indeed, the defense secretary said he found it healthy for soldiers to feel free to express their views. He also said military vehicles that go into Iraq without full armor are used only inside U.S. compounds, rather than used on street patrols where they are vulnerable to roadside bombs. And he said those vehicles without full armor are moved into Iraq on transport vehicles rather than being driven. More broadly, Rumsfeld said people should understand that the military has done all that can reasonably be expected to adjust to changing circumstances in Iraq as the insurgents have refined their tactics. "That is the way war and insurgencies and combat operate," he said. "You go in, you have an enemy with a brain that does things, and then you make adjustments." He added, "Does everything happen instantaneously as the brain in the enemy sees things and makes changes? No, it doesn't happen instantaneously." But, he said, the Army has adjusted "pretty rapidly" to the evolving tactics of the insurgents, including the need to have more armor on vehicles like the Humvee. Rumsfeld spoke after meeting Thursday with Indian Defense Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee. At the Ministry of Defense, Rumsfeld read a brief statement to reporters on U.S.-Indian military cooperation. "The defense relationship is a strong one and something we intend to see is further knitted together as we go forward in the months and years ahead," he said. Later he was meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then flying back to Washington. ----- Amputation rate for US troops twice that of past wars Doctors cite need for prosthetics as more lives saved Globe Newspaper Company By Raja Mishra December 9, 2004 http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/12/09/amputation_rate_for_us_troops_twice_that_of_past_wars/ US troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck injuries that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data giving the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds. The data are the grisly flip side of improvements in battlefield medicine that have saved many combatants who would have died in the past: Only 1 in 10 US troops injured in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in US history. But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks. More than half of those injured sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics. Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon has released little information on the 9,765 soldiers injured as of this week. "The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea, and World War II. But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired US Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology yesterday announced a $7.2 million research program to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The US Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work. Data compiled by the US Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, reveal that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars. According to Brown Medical School's Dr. Roy Aaron, the current VA medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees. Aaron is heading up the Brown-MIT effort, which will also include the Providence VA Medical Center. "Amputee research has never been a high priority because it's not . . . fashionable," said Aaron. "Iraq has changed that." Stephan Fihn, acting VA chief research and development officer, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them. "Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said. The new Brown-MIT effort, funded for five years by the VA, will research methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics, and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, said Aaron. In today's New England Journal of Medicine, journalist and Harvard surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties." In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the mortality rate has been 10 percent. Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait, and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars. In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck injuries, frequently injured by improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground. "The angle of the force of these IEDs is right for the neck and face. That's been devastating to folks over there," said Holt, explaining that Kevlar helmets do not protect the underside of heads and necks, where crucial nerves and blood vessels lie. Lieutenant Colonel Michael S. Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about 1 in 5 US soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck injuries. These injuries, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital. "These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," said Holt. Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com ----- 1 million U.S. troops have gone to war (UPI) By Mark Benjamin 12/9/2004 http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/million.html WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 -- Nearly a million U.S. troops have been deployed for war in Iraq or Afghanistan since those conflicts began, according to Pentagon data. The data also show that one out of every three of those service members has gone more than once. The Pentagon confirmed to United Press International Wednesday that a cumulative total of 955,000 troops from all military services had been deployed for Operation Iraqi or Enduring Freedom by the end of September. More than 300,000 of those troops have been deployed more than once, the Pentagon said. One government source said the total number of troops deployed has likely hit 1 million since then. The Pentagon data shows that 708,000 of the troops who have served in war come from the active duty force. That means that roughly half of the United States' 1.4 million active duty troops have gone to war. Slightly more than 245,000 troops from reserve and National Guard units have also been deployed. Military experts said the new data show the American military is being stretched to its limits -- or beyond. "It shows that we are short of troops. I don't think there is any question about that," retired Marine Corps three-star general Bernard E. Trainor told UPI. "Nobody, or almost nobody, anticipated specifically how this thing was going to turn out." Trainor said he believed the military has not struggled with these kinds of numbers since Vietnam. "The military is stretched entirely too thin," Trainor said. The war in Iraq is less than two years old. There are 140,000 troops in Iraq now and 16,000 in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. Speaking to troops in Kuwait this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got an earful of complaints about aging equipment, a lack of armored vehicles and soldiers who say they are being kept on active duty beyond what they were told. Trainor told UPI that when soldiers take the unusual step of bucking their leadership in public it is a sign of trouble. "It is a danger signal that there is eroding support in the ranks for the civilian leadership," Trainor said. One soldier in Kuwait asked Rumsfeld if the stress on the armed forces might weaken the country's ability to fight back against another terror attack. Rumsfeld responded that the country has "well over 2.5 million people we can call on at any given time. So you can be sure that we have the capability we need." "There are elements of the force, however, that have been stressed and we read a lot about that and we hear a lot about that on television and it is a fact," Rumsfeld said. But he added that is "not because we have too few total forces, it's because we have not had the right balance between the active and reserve." A Pentagon spokesman could not provide a breakdown of where the 955,000 troops have been deployed. The data details the number of active duty and guard and reserve troops from the different services who have been deployed: - Active duty Army: 280,000 - Army National Guard: 90,000 - Army reserve: 65,000 - Coast Guard: 1,500 - Coast Guard reserve: 200 - Air National Guard: 41,000 - Air Force 151,000 - Air reserve: 23,000 - Active duty Marines: 99,000 - Marine reserve 15,000 - Active duty Navy: 177,000 - Navy reserve: 11,000. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE FBI Searches Saudi Arabia's PR Firm Washington Post By Sari Horwitz and Dan Eggen December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49849-2004Dec8.html The FBI searched offices of a prominent public relations firm Tuesday, looking for information about its client Saudi Arabia, law enforcement sources said. The firm, Qorvis Communications LLC, which was founded in 2000, bills itself as providing "communications for Wall Street, Main Street and K Street." Qorvis has offices in the District and Tysons Corner, and its clients also include Time Warner Inc. and the Urban League. The FBI searched three of the firm's offices Tuesday afternoon, sources said. Agents delivered subpoenas at a fourth Qorvis office. Michael Mason, head of the FBI's Washington field office, declined yesterday to characterize the nature of the investigation or identify the places that were searched. "We did execute searches at three locations," he said. Officials at the U.S. attorney's office in Washington said the case is under seal and would not reveal details. "The raids are in conjunction with an ongoing investigation and therefore it would be inappropriate for me to comment," said Channing Phillips, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. Qorvis said the company understood that the government is conducting a "compliance inquiry" under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Under that law, the government keeps track of the lobbying activities of foreign governments and their representatives. The rigorous registration and reporting system is overseen by the Justice Department. Saudi Arabia is the only foreign government on Qorvis's client list. "Qorvis has fully complied with this registration statute and we feel confident this will be resolved favorably," the company said. Violations of the law have been prosecuted only a handful of times since it was passed in 1938. But at least two recent cases have been filed involving Iraq. In January, Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi, former publisher of an Arabic newspaper in suburban Chicago, was convicted of failing to register as a foreign agent for Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Dumeisi was sentenced in March to 46 months in prison on those and other charges. Susan P. Lindauer, a Takoma Park antiwar activist, has been charged under the law and accused of accepting cash from Iraqi intelligence agents. She has denied wrongdoing. A Justice Department report on the law provided a window into the company's activities. It stated that the Saudi Arabian Embassy paid Qorvis $14.6 million for a six-month period, ending Dec. 31, 2002, for lobbying and public relations, including the distribution of material "to promote public awareness" of Saudi Arabia's "commitment in the war against terrorism and to peace in the Middle East," the report said. On behalf of Saudi Arabia, Qorvis also contacted the media, congressional staff members and Bush administration officials to discuss Middle East issues, child abduction and a communications strategy for the crown prince's visit with President Bush, the document said. Staff writer Allan Lengel contributed to this report. -------- courts / tribunals Soldier Loses Claim That Army Tricked Him Washington Post By Carol D. Leonnig December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49445-2004Dec8.html A federal judge ruled yesterday that the military can ship an Arkansas soldier back to the front lines in Iraq this weekend, despite the serviceman's objection that the military forced him to extend his tour after tricking him into believing he was enlisting for just one year. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said the Army recruiter may have stressed to David W. Qualls, 35, that he was enlisting for a one-year hitch, but the contract he signed spelled out that his duty could be extended against his wishes in time of national emergency or war. Qualls's attorneys had sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the Army from forcing him to return to Iraq, accusing recruiters of "bait-and-switch" tactics to enlist Qualls and others for Operation Iraqi Freedom. "The whole point is that it was only supposed to be for one year," said Qualls's lawyer, Jules Lobel. "They better tell people this clearly and not put it in the fine print." Lamberth disagreed. "This wasn't in the fine print," he said. "It's only a two-page contract." In July 2003, Qualls enlisted in the Army National Guard's "Try One" program, which is designed for veterans who wanted to try another year of service or earn a chance for a promotion. Though his tour of duty was to expire in July 2004, the Army notified him in October 2003 that it would be extended for at least two more years, and he was shipped out with his Guard unit to Taji, Iraq, in March 2004. There Qualls remained until Nov. 22, when he was granted leave to visit his family for Thanksgiving. Qualls and seven other U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq and Kuwait filed a lawsuit this week in federal court challenging the U.S. military's so-called "stop-loss" policy, which allows President Bush to force soldiers to serve beyond their enlistment contracts. Matthew Lepore, a Justice Department attorney representing the Pentagon, said Qualls had not proved a pattern of deceit by the military -- in his own case or systemwide. "I will concede there's great risk on the lines," Lepore said. " I will even concede there's hardship for families. But this case is about whether his enlistment can be extended . . . and it can." -------- homeland security / national intelligence Intelligence Bill Clears Congress Bush Expected to Approve Post-9/11 Reforms Next Week By Walter Pincus December 9, 2004 Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49427-2004Dec8.html The Senate overwhelmingly approved the intelligence restructuring bill yesterday and sent it to the White House, where President Bush is expected to sign it into law next week, setting in motion the first major changes in the U.S. intelligence community since the CIA was established in 1947. "We are rebuilding a structure that was designed for a different enemy at a different time, a structure that was designed for the Cold War and has not proved agile enough to deal with the threats of the 21st century," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee and a prime mover of the measure. The legislation establishes a new director of national intelligence (DNI) as the president's chief adviser on intelligence, with budgetary and monitoring authority over foreign and domestic intelligence activities. It also creates a national counterterrorism center, where terrorism information will be channeled and whose director will report to the president on counterterrorism planning and operations. The measure, approved Tuesday by the House, passed the Senate 89 to 2, with Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) voting against it. Byrd, who has opposed the measure since it was introduced in July because of the haste with which it was handled, said yesterday, "No legislation alone can forestall a terrorist attack on our nation." Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the chief House negotiator on the measure, told reporters after the Senate roll call: "The passage of the bill does not make America safe. The successful implementation of the bill will make it safer." Collins, who celebrated her 52nd birthday on Tuesday while watching the House pass the bill, said Nov. 20 was the "weakest moment" in the "most difficult . . . [road] from conception to birth" of the measure. That was the day Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) pulled the bill back from a House floor vote because of opposition from senior House GOP chairmen. Weeks of further negotiations followed between the staffs of Collins and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who was concerned the bill would interfere with intelligence reaching war fighters. Aided by Vice President Cheney and White House officials, Collins and Hunter agreed on language that set the stage for yesterday's final congressional vote. Meanwhile, officials in the 15 agencies that make up the intelligence community have begun studying the implication of the language in the 600-page legislation. While there were weeks of committee hearings from July through September on the intelligence restructuring proposals, most of the bill has to do with immigration and security measures to meet the terrorist threat within the United States. Complicating matters is the fact that many of the bill's proposals were not fully explored in either the House or Senate hearings or during floor debate. For example, the director of national intelligence is charged with establishing "uniform security standards and procedures" in the intelligence portion of the bill. But in a later section of the bill, it says that 90 days after the act is signed, the president is to select a "a single department, agency or element of the executive branch" to direct oversight of personnel security investigations and adjudication, without reference to the DNI. In several instances, the bill puts into law new initiatives that have already been begun by agencies, making it difficult to revise them should changes be needed. The bill establishes a Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center that has already been put together by the secretaries of state and homeland security and the attorney general. It brings together representatives of those agencies that share intelligence on criminals who smuggle people across borders. The bill calls for the center to coordinate its work to support efforts of a new national counterterrorism center. An FBI Reserve Service is established to provide for temporary employment of former agents during periods of emergency, a program similar to one in effect for the CIA. Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI has brought back retired agents but it was not a formal program established by law. In the bill, the FBI is limited to having 500 retirees in the reserves and none can be reemployed for more than 180 days. The measure also provides for increasing personnel in agencies fighting the war on terrorism. There is the publicized increase for the Border Patrol "by no less than 2,000" along with a provision that says 20 percent of the personnel increase will be applied to the northern border with Canada in each fiscal year from 2006 to 2010, provided that money to pay for it is appropriated. That same proviso applies to increasing the number of immigration investigators "by not less than 800." Again if money permits, the number of beds for detention and removal of arrested immigrants is to increase by "no less than 8,000" per year from fiscal 2006 to 2010. The State Department is to increase by 150 the number of consular officers each year from 2006 to 2009. Under the legislation, the Department of Homeland Security would have 180 days to implement new procedures that would screen cruise ship passenger and crew lists against a database of known or suspected terrorists. Those identified would be barred from boarding, or would be subject to "specific additional security scrutiny." Michael Crye, president of the International Council of Cruise Lines, which represents 85 percent of the industry worldwide, said the provision was "not clear, number one, and potentially troublesome if it doesn't recognize the commercial realities." Crye said cruise ship companies now provide the government with the lists "on departure," after a rigid security check that includes checking names of passengers and crew against a watch list furnished by federal authorities. Vessels again provide a list to authorities before arriving in U.S. ports. The new requirement, Crye said, "could potentially be trouble depending on how quickly the DHS is able to screen against its consolidated database" in time for the ship to depart on time. The provision, he added, also leaves unclear whether existing reporting requirements would remain in force. Staff writers Dan Morgan and Susan B. Glasser contributed to this report. ----- Two Mothers Helped Move Mountain on Post-9/11 Bill Washington Post By Dana Milbank December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49646-2004Dec8.html In the past three years, Mary Fetchet and Carol Ashley have outmaneuvered the president and vice president of the United States, the national security adviser, the speaker of the House, and chairmen of congressional committees. Not bad for a social worker from Connecticut and a retired schoolteacher from Long Island. Yesterday, as the Senate gave final passage to the broad intelligence reform bill, high officials lined up like so many sycophants to credit Fetchet and Ashley -- both mothers of Sept. 11 victims -- for the legislative triumph. In the gilded Lyndon B. Johnson Room off the Senate floor, the Senate leaders, the legislation sponsors, and members of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks filed past the two women for a hug and a mug for the cameras. "Welcome to our world," said Fetchet, who was anxious to catch a 6:30 flight out of Washington so she would not miss her son's hockey game. It is no exaggeration to say that yesterday's reorganization of the nation's intelligence structure would not have happened without Fetchet, Ashley and the 10 other self-appointed representatives of Sept. 11 victims' relatives who formed the Family Steering Committee. Though they started out with little understanding of politics or national security, and they did not truly represent the thousands of victims' relatives (in fact, many other relatives opposed the legislation), they used the moral authority they earned from their losses -- invoked freely in vigils, at news conferences and in the lobbies of Congress -- to shame the government into action. "Would we be here except for those two? I don't think so," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), one of the legislation's sponsors, said after thanking Fetchet and Ashley. "It was impossible for a member of Congress to face the family members and say they wouldn't do something." "I agree," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the co-sponsor. "They had the moral conviction." The family members' public complaints pressured President Bush to drop his initial opposition to a Sept. 11 commission and his subsequent reluctance to meet with all 12 commission members and to share with the panel his most sensitive intelligence briefings and the testimony of White House officials. Loud criticism from the family members also moved opponents on the Hill to retreat from efforts to curb the commission's budget and deadline. In recent weeks, the family members scolded holdouts until the legislation passed. "President Bush must use his political capital to overrule the obstructionists and garner support from the House Republicans," Fetchet said at a news conference Monday. "In the memory of the 3,000 precious lives lost on September 11th, we the families will continue our mission of making our country safer. We hope our government does the same." That is pretty sophisticated rhetoric for a woman who had no political or public-speaking background before she came to Washington in 2002 to speak at a rally in support of forming a Sept. 11 commission. "It was like 'The Twilight Zone,' " she said. "I didn't know who's a senator or who's a congressman." She was baffled when a strange man presented her with his business card (it turned out to be Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who was chairman of the intelligence committee) and when another stranger hugged her (that was Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who was the House Democratic leader). Now, congressional aides drive Fetchet and Ashley about town and carry their luggage. The women take calls on their cell phones from prominent officials and call them by first name ("Richard, I always wanted to call you Ben," Fetchet told Sept. 11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste). They are now recognized in Capitol elevators and know when a bill is "engrossed" or when the Senate has "cloture." Equal parts Rosa Parks and Frank Capra's Mr. Smith, Fetchet and Ashley are as surprised as anybody that they became the de facto representatives of the 10,000 relatives. No vote was held; the 11 women and one man on their steering committee merely worked harder than the others, giving up their old lives and spending a good chunk of the past three years living out of the Churchill Hotel in Dupont Circle. Ashley used the life insurance payout for her daughter, who was killed in the terrorist attacks, to cover her travel expenses. Said Fetchet: "I question myself every day: How did I end up in this role?" The question makes her uncomfortable, but nobody can question her credentials: She has been notified four times that some of her son's remains had been discovered. "The last was two months ago," she said. Though schooled in national intelligence matters over the past three years, neither woman pretends to be an expert. "We're not making recommendations; we're endorsing the commission's recommendations," Fetchet said. As with all such reforms, there's the possibility that the changes will worsen the problem rather than fix it, but that possibility does not worry the two. "What we know is the status quo isn't working," Fetchet said. Early on, commission members and lawmakers learned the political utility of the Sept. 11 family members. While pushing for passage in the House in recent weeks, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) let them use her office as their headquarters. "I really do not believe we'd have the bill without them," she said yesterday. After the panel issued its report, commissioners invited the family members to a private meeting and urged them to join a campaign to enact the recommendations. The result worked so well that commissioner and former congressman Timothy J. Roemer (D-Ind.) did not hesitate when asked what advice he would give Bush to get a Social Security reform through Congress. "Hire the 9/11 families," he said. -------- human rights UNICEF Chief: War, Poverty Hinder Goals Associated Press By PAUL HAVEN Dec 6, 2004 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN_UNICEF_CHIEF?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- War, AIDS and grinding poverty have prevented the world from reaching many of its goals for helping young people, the U.N. children's agency said Monday ahead of a major report on the state of the world's children. The three issues have been major obstacles to progress, even when the international community knew what was needed and had the resolve to do something, UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy told The Associated Press during a three-day visit to Pakistan. "There have been gains for children over the last decade, but there could have been more," Bellamy said. "The implications of conflict and the implications of HIV and AIDS have an enormous impact on children being able to actually enjoy a childhood where they are able to grow up in relative health, relative peace and relative security." Details of the report, titled "Childhood Under Threat," will be released Thursday in London. "However much we make progress on children's rights and welfare, there are always still more challenges to meet, better ways to do our business - and millions of children to whom we owe our best, and who cannot be asked to wait," Bellamy said in a statement. She noted the devastating impact the war in Iraq has on the nation's children. Even before the war, only 25 percent of Iraqi children attended school. Enrollment increased this year, she said, but the fighting severely damaged Iraq's schools. "The schools are a total mess," she said. "They aren't all made bad by this war ... but clearly the most recent war has made more facilities worse. So, as much as parents want their children to go to school, the environment of going to school is a bad one." Bellamy cited Pakistan as an example where 60 percent of all child deaths could be prevented by alleviating a small number of childhood diseases, such as diarrhea, pneumonia and neonatal infections. She said Pakistan's progress in addressing education and health issues was encouraging, but noted that the country of about 150 million still lags behind even impoverished neighbors, such as Bangladesh, in many areas. Only about 2 percent of Pakistan's budget goes to education, while well more than half its revenue is earmarked for the military. "We do think that government leaders make decisions, and some government leaders make decisions that actually hurt children," Bellamy said. "Investing too much in the military ... means that you have too little resources to invest in what I would call the peace and security side." Bellamy met with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the health and education ministers, and attended a conference on volunteerism. A recent article in The Lancet, a British medical journal, criticized Bellamy as having wrongly steered UNICEF away from its traditional focus on health care to an emphasis on children's rights. Bellamy said the article missed the mark. "Child survival remains a key to everything we do," she said, adding that education and rights were key to improving health care and breaking the cycle of poverty. Bellamy step down as UNICEF chief in 2005, after 10 years on the job. No successor has been named. A former director of the United States Peace Corps and the first woman to be elected president of the New York City Council, Bellamy said she was proud of her accomplishments over the last decade. "I feel like I am turning over to my successor an organization that is making a difference in a world that needs to have even more of a difference made in it," she said. -------- prisons / prisoners Pentagon wants to build permanent prison at Guantanamo MIAMI (AFP) Dec 09, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041209202227.3lbwod5t.html The Pentagon has proposed building a permanent prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and the army is working on creating a permanent unit of troops to watch over detainees, a base spokesman told AFP. The spokesman responded to a report Thursday in The Miami Herald that said the Pentagon was proposing building a permanent 200-cell concrete jail to replace temporary facilities housing about 550 prisoners, at a cost of some 25 million dollars. Leon Sumpter, spokesman for the base, said: "it's a proposal ... No contract has been given" to build the so-called Camp 6. The daily also cited an undated memo in which the army asked Congress for funding to set up a 324-soldier unit to watch over detainees at the camp, replacing those who do the job now, most of whom are reserve officers. "This action is part of a systematic process to enhance Army's capabilities required to defend the nation's interests at home and abroad," the memo says, according to the daily. Army colonel David Williams of the Southern Command told the paper the 324 soldiers have not been put on the security posting, but that a team is already being trained at the base to take over the guard operations early next year. Sumpter said of the unit that the "the plan is to hopefully have it by March", with the custody force expected to be stationed "definitely longer than a year." In Miami, Southern Command spokesman Steve Lucas said that it had long been understood that installing a detention center at the base "was a long-term commitment to support the war on terrorism." The United States has said Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects are "enemy combatants" and not prisoners of war because they are not fighting for a state which has formally declared war. The US Supreme Court ruled in June that civilian courts have jurisdiction over the detainees. -------- torture Intel Agent Strapped to Gurney and Flown Out of Iraq by U.S. Army After Reporting Torture of Detainees democracynow.org December 9th, 2004 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/09/1516228 A veteran sergeant who told his commanding officers that he witnessed his colleagues torturing Iraqi detainees was strapped to a gurney and flown out of Iraq - even though there was nothing wrong with him. We speak with the reporter - former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent David DeBatto - who broke the story. [includes rush transcript] Over the past few weeks, the number of different account of torture and abuse by the United States has been staggering. Here is a quick run-down of some of the most recent: - The Pentagon warned intelligence specialists as recently as June not to report the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. - FBI agents witnessed US soldiers abusing detainees at Guantanamo Bay as early 2002 but the Pentagon did little to investigate the complaints. - New photographs emerge showing U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees as early as May 2003. - The U.S. government argues it has the right to use evidence gained by torture in deciding whether to detain people at Guantanamo Bay. - U.S. generals in Iraq were warned more than a month before the Abu Ghraib scandal emerged that detainees were being beaten and abused in Iraq. - The Red Cross accuses the U.S. pf physical and psychological torture at Guantanamo. - The US government is leasing a special Gulfstream Jet to transport detained suspects to other nations that routinely use torture in their prisons. Those are just some of the latest accounts of torture and abuse in the press over the last weeks. Over the next four years, more are certain to emerge with the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. Gonzales helped pave the legal groundwork that led to the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib. In 2002 he claimed in a memo that the war on terrorism renders obsolete portions of the Geneva Conventions. But perhaps the most extraordinary story of torture and abuse is the one we will hear about today. On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the National Guard stationed in Samarra told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney. He was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac"d to a military medical center outside the country - even though there was nothing wrong with him. We are joined right now by the reporter who broke the story. * David DeBatto, author and former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent who served in Iraq. He is currently working on a a four-part fiction series "CI Team Red: An Army Counterintelligence Novel", which is due out in May 2005. RUSH TRANSCRIPT JUAN GONZALEZ: We're joined today by the reporter who broke that story. AMY GOODMAN: David DeBatto is with us, author and former U.S. Army counter-intelligence agent. He served in Iraq as well. He's currently working on a four-part fiction series called, CI Team Red: An Army Counter-Intelligence Novel. It's due out next year. Welcome to Democracy Now!. DAVID DEBATTO: Thank you for having me. AMY GOODMAN: Well, your piece at salon.com, called "Whitewashing Torture" was quite something. Tell us what happened to Sergeant Frank, known as 'Greg,' Ford? DAVID DEBATTO: Well, apparently, Ford, who as you said, was stationed in Samarra, Iraq, which is about a hundred kilometers north, or so, north of Baghdad in the spring of 2003, had witnessed what he calls repeated incidents of torture and abuse over approximately two to three week period of Iraqi detainees by his fellow intelligence operatives in Samarra. After confronting the team leader several times without success, he eventually did go to his commanding officer, as you mentioned, Captain Artiga in an attempt to file a formal complaint for an investigation of these incidents. Unfortunately, according to Ford, instead of an investigation being conducted, within about a day-and-a-half later, he was, in fact, strapped to a gurney, put on a C-130, and flown initially to Kuwait and eventually to Landstuhl, Germany, where he then underwent a series of psychological evaluations in Germany and also at two bases in the United States for approximately eight months. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, what was the upshot of that? I mean, I would assume if he was medevaced out there'd have to be some paperwork to explain why he was being medevaced out and what his problems were. DAVID DEBATTO: Absolutely, and what happened in this case, and I reviewed literally dozens if not hundreds of -- of documents on the case: There were no orders. There was no medevac order, which is required by the army, when you do send a soldier out of anywhere, really, when there's a medical issue. There were no regular or standard sets of orders, which again are required by army regulations whenever a soldier leaves one area and is sent to another. Not only that, but reviewing all of the medical documents, including the original document or diagnosis from the psychiatrist in Iraq and following him all the way through the other evaluation, every army psychiatrist diagnosed Sergeant Ford as completely normal with absolutely no psychological or mental health issues whatsoever. AMY GOODMAN: David DeBatto explain what happened when Sergeant Ford went and reported the abuse, right through to the first psychological analysis of him. DAVID DEBATTO: Well, according to Ford, he was given about thirty seconds to change his mind and retract his allegations by Captain Artiga. He refused to do so, and immediately he was allegedly stripped of his weapon and M-16, and his ammunition by the company first sergeant. He was also assigned a 24-hour escort, or what he considered to be a guard to literally shadow him until further notice, and that was a senior counter intelligence agent who also figures in the piece later as a witness to all of this. Shortly thereafter, he was ordered to report to an army psychiatrist on the base in Iraq to undergo what's known as combat stress evaluation for people that are having some difficulty handing emotionally the -- the stress of combat. What happened after that is the -- one of the most interesting points of the story, I think. The army psychiatrist that saw Sergeant Ford apparently (and I've reviewed her report) deemed him to be completely normal, and sent that report back to Captain Artiga. When Captain Artiga saw the report from the psychiatrist he was, according to a witness, Sergeant Marciello, "livid." He didn't accept the report. He stormed back over to the army psychiatrist, and according to the witness I have, literally forced her, browbeat her and intimidated the psychiatrist to change her evaluation to read 'mentally unstable,' and ordered her to ship Sergeant Ford medically out of the country to receive a psychological evaluation in Germany. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, your report indicates that Sergeant Ford is not the only American soldier to undergo this kind of treatment. Could you talk about that? DAVID DEBATTO: Sure. Well, according to the account, or the stories that I found, there were, according to a very senior army psychiatrist, there -- he treated in Landstuhl, Germany at least three or four soldiers from Iraq that had been sent to him under very similar circumstance, namely, that they had made allegations of abuse or mistreatment in Iraq against their fellow soldiers and had been shipped to Landstuhl from Iraq in order to receive psychological evaluation. There was another report I came across at, I believe, Fort Campbell, Kentucky last year where a decorated officer from the first Persian Gulf War had made some allegations of -- of wrongdoing against the army. He was also put into a locked mental ward on an army base here in the United States for a long period of time, and I believe is still trying to fight that issue right now. AMY GOODMAN: You describe in the piece that you did in salon.com about Sergeant Ford called, "Whitewashing Torture" that when he first reported the allegation to his commanding officer, to Captain Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse, Artiga said to him: "You have thirty seconds to retract this charge and we'll pretend this meeting never happened," or -- or not -- or he would be in trouble, and he continued to make the allegations. DAVID DEBATTO: Absolutely. And -- and again, the Captain Artiga apparently followed through on his threat by seizing his weapons. I believe he also threatened to, or in fact did, suspend his security clearance which for an intelligence operative is the end of his career, and then did have him undergo the psychological evaluation. Artiga apparently coerced the psychiatrist to change the evaluation to read 'mentally unstable' and Ford was very unceremoniously, again literally strapped to a gurney and forced onto a C-130 by medical personnel and flown, without orders of any kind, to Germany where he underwent eight months of being in mental -- locked mental wards on army bases, all of which deemed him to be completely normal. JUAN GONZALEZ: And what is his situation today? DAVID DEBATTO: Well, eventually, in February of this year, 2004, he was given an honorable discharge from the army and actually retired with over thirty years of service. Currently, he is looking into filing any number of civil and criminal charges against the officers involved. He's contacted the F.B.I., the department of the army's Office of the Inspector General, as well as the army's C.I.D., or Criminal Investigations Division; and all three agencies to my knowledge and research have initiated criminal and administrative investigations into this matter. AMY GOODMAN: And where does he work now? DAVID DEBATTO: Sergeant Ford, or Frank Ford, is actually a corrections officer at Fulsom State Prison in California, where he is nearing retirement. AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us and ask you, finally: You're an unusual writer. You, yourself, former U.S. Army counter intelligence agent who served time in Iraq. Does what Sergeant Ford describe to you resonate at all with your own experience? Why did you end up writing this piece? DAVID DEBATTO: Actually, it didn't. I personally never saw anything like that in my experience in Iraq, fortunately. But when I got back and, of course, Abu Ghraib hit the media, I was absolutely appalled because this flies in the face of any -- any professional intelligence officer or worker that I've ever known; and if any of us are -- are more disgusted with this, it's the professional intelligence agents that know right from wrong or should in any event. I hooked up with Frank Ford after a year of not really speaking to him and decided that this story just needs to be told, and I -- I am a writer by career now, and it was very, very difficult to get through the -- the shield of the military, but I just felt it had to be told. AMY GOODMAN: Well, David DeBatto, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Again, he is himself a former U.S. Army counter-intelligence agency served time -- agent, served time in Iraq, and has written this piece at salon.com about Sergeant Frank Greg Ford. -------- POLITICS Yushchenko Vows to Prosecute Political Crimes if Elected Opposition Leader Puts Priority on Ukraine's Admittance to E.U. By Peter Finn and Daniel Williams Washington Post December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46794-2004Dec8.html KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 8 -- Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, vowing to restore "the letter and the spirit of the law," said Wednesday that if he was elected president, his government would prosecute select political and economic crimes that have been linked to the administration of President Leonid Kuchma, including the killing of a journalist. In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday, the day parliament passed electoral reforms in advance of a second presidential runoff, Yushchenko said he would pursue an independent foreign policy and make winning Ukraine's admittance to the European Union his top priority. He said he wanted to ease the tensions that arose during the election campaign and the chaotic aftermath of the tainted Nov. 21 runoff. Yushchenko said that while he was not interested in a far-reaching legal examination of the past, "there will be accountability" for certain acts. He mentioned the 2000 killing of Ukrainian investigative reporter Heorhiy Gongadze, whose decapitated body was found in a forest near the capital. Kuchma was allegedly tape-recorded by one of his bodyguards telling a cabinet minister to get rid of Gongadze. Kuchma has said the tapes were fabricated. Yushchenko also singled out the privatization of a huge steel plant, the Kryvorizhstal factory in eastern Ukraine. It was sold to a consortium that included the president's son-in-law, at a heavily discounted price, according to the opposition. "There will be accountability for these crimes," Yushchenko said. "Kryvorizhstal was stolen. The entire business community looked at it with shame. The letter and the spirit of the law in Ukraine will be restored." But he stressed that many other controversial sales of state assets fell within the law of the time and would not be challenged. He spoke in offices that his campaign commandeered on the edge of Independence Square, the scene of 15 days of noisy but peaceful mass demonstrations on his behalf. He held two young daughters to his chest as he greeted his American-born wife, Kateryna Chumachenko, shortly before addressing the flag-waving throng outside. "I am very proud as a citizen because during these 15 days, one can say that a nation was established in Ukraine," he said in the interview. "This is a huge victory and I'm happy," he added. In the dim light of the office, his face showed the effects of what he called a poisoning last summer by government authorities: He was scarred and blackened from forehead to chin. Doctors in Vienna who treated the 50-year-old former prime minister said they have not established the cause, but have not ruled out deliberate exposure to a toxin. Yushchenko played down the transformation of his formerly youthful good looks. "Eighty percent of the people in the same situation never came back to this world, even in a wheelchair. I didn't pay the highest price," he said. A few hours earlier, Yushchenko watched as Kuchma signed into law a package of bills that reform the country's tarnished electoral system but also, beginning in 2006, limit the powers of the office that Yushchenko hopes to hold. The package was the result of a compromise designed to defuse the crisis that has paralyzed Ukraine since the runoff between Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was initially declared the winner. Last week, the Ukrainian Supreme Court invalidated the results and set a Dec. 26 date for a rematch. After a difficult internal debate, opposition supporters said they decided that a check on a future Yushchenko presidency -- by a parliament in which Kuchma backers remain strong -- was the price they had to pay for changes in voting laws that could get their man into office. As late as Tuesday night, Yushchenko's parliamentary coalition, Our Ukraine, was still split on whether to back the compromise, with at least one-third of the members opposed, according to Petro Oliynyk, a member from Lviv in western Ukraine. Yushchenko sent his coalition members a message saying he supported compromise, but some of them demanded that he tell them in person. Yushchenko spoke for an hour to his party members off the floor at parliament Wednesday before they filed into the main chamber to vote, Oliynyk said. The reforms alter the composition of the Central Elections Commission as well as regional and local commissions, allowing each candidate equal representation at all levels. Absentee ballots, which Western monitors said were a major source of abuse in the last round of voting, will have to be signed by representatives of both Yushchenko and Yanukovych to be valid. Voting at sites other than polling stations by the disabled and others will be restricted to prevent what was another major source of alleged fraud. Each campaign will get voter lists four days before the voting to check for anomalies. The electronic transfer of vote counts from the regions to the center will have to match tallies sent by telegraph. Yanukovych, who campaigned in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, said he was "not happy" with the parliamentary decision, describing it as a "soft coup d'etat." Passed by a 401 to 21 vote, with 19 abstentions, the reforms will redistribute power among the president, the parliament and the country's administrative regions, ostensibly allowing no single branch of government to dominate political life as Kuchma has for the past 10 years. For Kuchma and the current government, the changes will provide a hedge against Yushchenko if he wins the presidency and uses his office to assault their political and economic position. The election has divided the country along geographic lines and drawn in foreign countries in patterns that matched those of the Cold War. Russia all but backed Yanukovych and the government, while the United States and the E.U. backed the opposition's condemnation of last month's runoff. In the interview, Yushchenko said he now wanted to harmonize relations between his domestic supporters and those that have opposed him, who are largely concentrated in parts of eastern and southern Ukraine that have large populations of Russian speakers. "I would like to pay more attention to getting rid of the myth of divisions," he said, arguing that the east-west divide was a fiction invented by "local czars." He offered no details about how he would close the gap. Some politicians in eastern Ukraine have raised the possibility of breaking from the rest of the country if Yushchenko wins the presidency. Yushchenko reasserted that Russia is a strategic partner of Ukraine's, but noted, "We don't want my country to be shown as a colony or feudal enclave." For many people, Russia is "a nostalgic thing, so we have to take this into account," he said. Yushchenko said his primary policy goal was to join the European Union and anchor Western values in Ukraine. He said he wanted "a non-corrupt power . . . an open and competitive market and freedom of speech" in a country where a "journalist's head is not cut off because his position is different from the authorities." Yushchenko appeared to choose his words carefully when discussing a recent parliamentary decision to pull Ukraine's 1,700 troops out of Iraq. He said their mission to help dispose of weapons of mass destruction was largely over because no such weapons have been found. Any withdrawal would be coordinated with the Iraqi government and "our partners and allies," and military participation would be replaced with financial aid and active diplomacy, he said. When he mounted the large stage to face the crowd at Independence Square, which was decked out in the orange colors of his campaign, tears came to Yushchenko's eyes. The demonstrators chanted his name -- "Yu-shchen-ko!" -- and he responded by placing his hand on his heart. "The glory of the orange revolution is glory to you," he said. "The most important part is, everything we did, we did without a single drop of blood." ----- Why Do the Dems Want to Deny Her Seniority? Condi Rice vs. Cynthia McKinney counterpunch.org By MARK DONHAM December 9, 2004 http://www.counterpunch.org/donham12092004.html George Bush has nominated Condoleezza Rice to be his next Secretary of State and Cynthia McKinney has been reelected to the U.S. House of Representatives. For one, I'd love to see Rice go head to head on US foreign policy with Congressowman-elect Cynthia McKinney. But the only way any of us can see that happen is for Cynthia to regain her service and seniority on the House International Relations Committee (HIRC), which has jurisdiction over the State Department and our country's foreign policy. I can't think of any reason why the Democratic leadership wouldn't want this. And McKinney is perfectly suited to the task. She served on the International Relations Committee for ten years and the Armed Services Committee for four years. She studied International Relations at the University of Southern California and at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She has been accepted into the Berkeley Ph.D. program. McKinney is perfectly positioned by experience and education to raise serious security issues that are on the minds of all Americans today. In a recent article "Many Rice Defenders Hypocritical," (Madison, WI "Capitol Times") John Nichols points out that "right-wing political operatives and their allies in major media--as well as conservative Democrats" battered McKinney to election defeat in 2002 because she dared to ask tough questions about what was known by the Bush Administration prior to the attacks of September 11th. However, January 4, 2005, McKinney will return to Congress, having overcome this opposition with impressive grassroots support, and showing that a successful campaign can be run with little money and lots of heart. With her seniority intact, McKinney will be able to challenge important Bush initiatives because she would resume her seat among the top-tiered Democrats on the HIRC and as the Democrats' highest ranking member on an important HIRC subcommittee. McKinney would also be able to continue her important service on the Armed Services Committee where she questioned select Pentagon contracts with the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, and DynPort; $2.3 trillion in lost Pentagon cash; and the breath-taking Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. This would provide a critical counterbalance to the overly heavy influence of those neo-conservatives that dragged us into the unwise war with Iraq. The response to McKinney's return to Congress from her district, progressives across the country, individual Members and Congressional staffers has been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging. The failure of Pelosi and other Democratic leaders to quickly restore McKinney's seniority suggests that they are out of touch with their constituents, and are bucking history. When Congressional leadership wants to help a congressperson who has reclaimed a lost seat, or even switched parties, they certainly can and have done so. Take these examples. Billy Tauzin, Nathan Deal, and Virgil Goode (all first elected as U.S. House of Representatives Democrats) switched parties and received rewards from the Republican party leadership in the form of committee assignments. Billy Tauzin, switched to the Republican Party in 1995, with much influence from Newt Gingrich, and was able to attain seniority on the Energy and Commerce Committee over colleagues who had either more party or committee seniority. Nathan Deal, after his party switch, was rewarded with a seat on the coveted Energy and Commerce Committee, and Virgil Goode received a scarce Appropriations Committee slot. Now, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that after a 15-year hiatus, former California Representative Dan Lungren (another Gingrich protegee, by the way) would likely have his past service on the Judiciary Committee counted toward his seniority. Similar precedent exists within the Democratic Party. Jane Harman, Representative from the State of California, was granted her seniority upon returning to Congress. In 1998, Rep. Harman decided to forgo campaigning for another term in the U.S. House and opted to run for the Gubernatorial seat of California; unfortunately she was unsuccessful. In 2000, Harman returned to Congress with her previous three term seniority intact. "Harman owes her ranking status on the subcommittee to a promise she extracted from the Democratic leaders when they recruited her to run against Republican Rep. Steve Kuykendall in 2000." (The Daily Breeze-December 30, 2001) Representative David Price from North Carolina lost his bid for re-election in 1994; upon his return to Congress in 1996, Price assumed a seat on a much sought after exclusive committee, with support from the Democratic leadership. Shouldn't McKinney be touted and treated in a similar manner by the House Democratic Leadership? To not do so seems ill-advised in my opinion. Statistical analyzes of the last election (which I put only a certain amount of faith in) seem to indicate that minority voting blocks are somewhat rethinking their once-reliable party affiliations. Democrats may not be able to take them for granted as time goes on. How can Ms. Pelosi, a California "liberal," think that treating unfairly a very popular African-American Congresswoman from the South, where the Democrats are slipping into obscurity on the national level, is going to get her or the party anywhere? I just can't see any advantage at all to not reinstating Congresswoman McKinney's seniority, regardless of the ranting and ravings of those on the right. Yet, McKinney is struggling to regain her influence. Why? Congresswoman McKinney has been an asset to the Democratic Party for over a decade. She spoke out and spoke up on issues that are important to all Democrats, but especially for those of us who are proud to call ourselves progressives. In addition to asking tough questions about 9-11, McKinney authored important legislation that would prevent clear-cutting in our national forests; stop the use of depleted uranium weapons; and regulate US weapons transfers to non-democratic, human rights abusing regimes. While she was out of office, she traveled regularly, speaking to and meeting with progressive organizations on a variety of important issues including civil rights, the environment, election reform, and others. She has been on the front line of progressive issues, and, as a front liner, has taken the attacks. Yes, she was injured, but she has fought back and should be rewarded for her strength and courage, not relegated to "the back of the bus." Besides, I want to see Cynthia questioning Ms. Rice. I think it's only fair, and the only way we are going to have the hard questions asked. Cynthia McKinney deserves her seniority. It was only because of the relentless attacks and organized and well funded smear campaign from the extreme right who wanted to silence her questions that she lost the two years of her seat that she did. This year she ran a great campaign, beating out a half dozen really great candidates by winning over 50% in the primary--a real sign of grassroots support in her district. And she did it without spending a lot of money in relative terms for a congressional race. She should be rewarded for this to the fullest, not penalized. -------- ENERGY U.S. is urged to adopt a diversified energy policy The New York Times By Matthew L. Wald December 9, 2004 http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/12/08/business/energy.html WASHINGTON Trying to break a deadlock on energy policy, a diverse group of environmentalists, academics and former government officials published a report on Wednesday that presents strategies for making the United States cleaner, more competitive and less vulnerable to energy shocks. The strategies, intended to be the basis for action by Congress, include policies that are generally anathema to at least some of the constituencies represented by members of the group. It says the government should force increases in efficiency in cars and electrical equipment, stimulate global oil production, regulate greenhouse gas emissions with a trading system, rapidly expand a new method of burning coal and explore a revival of nuclear power. The study, a two-year private effort that cost $5 million and is titled "Ending the Energy Stalemate," is intended to be a package-deal blueprint, akin to a Ford Foundation report 30 years ago that first suggested vehicle mileage standards and a national petroleum reserve. "There are people in this group who would not have endorsed one part if not for corresponding parts," said William Reilly, a co-chairman of the study and, under President George H.W. Bush, Environmental Protection Agency administrator in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "I'm a lifelong conservationist," Reilly said, "and 10 or 12 years ago would not have imagined myself advancing the future of coal." The group, the National Commission on Energy Policy, was financed by the Hewlett Foundation and other private sources. John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard and also a co-chairman, said that with the pressures of the presidential election over, the combination of high prices for oil and natural gas and "the way things evolved in Iraq" might make the country "more ready in principle for this sort of package." The third co-chairman was John Rowe, chairman of Exelon, a big power company; members of the group included R. James Woolsey, a former director of central intelligence, and Martin Zimmerman, a vice president at Ford Motor. The group's report suggests sharp increases in fuel economy requirements, and letting automakers buy and sell mileage credits in much the same way utilities now trade the right to emit pollution. It calls for a similar cap-and-trade system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, with a price limit on the value of a ton of emissions, to avoid stunting economic growth. The group calls for spending $2 billion to build one or two sample nuclear reactors using advanced technology. It also supports building electricity plants that cook coal to produce combustible gases, which are then burned in turbines like those used at natural gas plants. This approach leaves open the possibility that carbon dioxide can be captured to prevent global warming. ---- Expert Panel Calls for Overhaul of U.S. Energy Policy By J.R. Pegg WASHINGTON, DC, December 9, 2004 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2004/2004-12-09-10.asp Current energy policy is failing to balance the United States’ energy needs with its economic, security and environmental concerns, a bipartisan panel of energy experts said on Wednesday. Revamping this policy requires a new and broad strategy, according to the panel, that includes measures to boost global oil and natural gas production, stricter U.S. fuel economy standards, mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, as well as incentives to increase renewable energy and further develop clean coal and advanced nuclear power. The 148 page report by the National Commission on Energy Policy reflects the consensus views of its 16 member panel, which includes representatives from industry, government, labor, academia, and environmental and consumer groups. Supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the commission spent more than two years developing the report. Commission members told reporters they hope federal lawmakers and the White House will use the report to help guide a major overhaul of U.S. energy policy - something that Congress has repeatedly tried and failed to accomplish over the past four years during the first term of President George W. Bush. Exelon Chairman and CEO served as co-chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy. (Photo courtesy Exelon) "Political and regional polarization has produced an energy stalemate, preventing America from adopting sensible approaches to some of our biggest energy problems," said co-chair John Rowe, chairman and CEO of energy giant Exelon Corporation. "Our commission reached consensus on effective policies because of a willingness to take on cherished myths from both right and left." The commission said its plan is "revenue neutral," but the funds to cover the proposed $36 billion in spending are generated by a provision strongly opposed the White House and some Republican leaders in Congress - mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits. But the commission recommends using a permit trading system to cut greenhouse gas emissions intensity - the ratio of emissions to economic output - by 2.4 percent per year, starting in 2010. The permit costs would be capped to soften the economic impact on carbon polluters and the overall revenue generated would be used to offset the rest of the spending outlined in the commission’s strategy. The plan is more stringent than the Bush administration’s current policy, which targets a voluntary reduction in greenhouse gas intensity of 1.8 percent annually through 2012, but its impact on addressing greenhouse gas emissions appears modest at best. The report notes that unless there are changes to the current Bush policy, annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will increase from an estimated 7.8 billion metric tons in 2010 to 9.1 billion metric tons by 2020. The commission’s proposal would cut that increase by some 40 percent, but even that decrease is uncertain because the implementation of the plan is linked to global action. The report calls on Congress to review the program in 2015 to ensure other nations are also addressing greenhouse gas emissions. "Further action by the United States would be reliant on global action by developing countries, including China, India, and Brazil," cochair William Reilly told reporters. "Only a truly global effort that includes developing countries will succeed." Reilly, who served as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush, said the commission’s overall plan aims to achieve "a gradual but decisive shift in the nation’s energy policy, toward one that directly addresses our long term oil, climate, electricity supply, and technology challenges." Central to the report’s recommendations is the view that the nation’s thirst for oil will continue to grow, regardless of short term policies. Global oil demand is projected to grow 50 percent over the next 20 years, with U.S. demand increasing some 40 percent or nine million barrels per day by 2025. "We can neither conserve nor drill our way to oil security," Reilly said. "The gap between what we need and what we produce is going to grow." To bridge that gap the report calls for the government to use financial incentives and diplomatic pressure to increase and diversify world oil production and to create additional strategic petroleum reserves. The panel balked at setting a target for increasing fuel economy, instead it suggested the federal government "significantly strengthen" standards by 2010. It also recommended $3 billion be targeted at automakers and consumers to encourage faster deployment of more fuel efficient cars and $1.5 billion spent to expedite the development of biomass fuels. The provisions outlined in the report could cut U.S. oil use by some three million to five million barrels per day by 2025, the panel said. The commission’s energy plan provides increased investment in U.S. energy infrastructure and incentives for "low and non-carbon sources" such as natural gas, renewable energy, nuclear energy and clean coal technologies. It recommends $2 billion for nuclear power, $7 billion for clean coal technology and carbon sequestration research, and $3.6 billion for renewable energy. Overall funding for energy research and development would be doubled from current outlays to total $17 billion over 10 years – the current investment in cooperative international energy research would be tripled to $5 billion over the same period. Environmentalists welcomed the acknowledgement that carbon emissions must be addressed, but some said the totality of the report’s recommendations offer little more than continued support for a faltering energy policy. "The report increases the country's dependence on fossil fuel and nuclear power, while falling well short of solving the environmental, consumer and economic problems presented by our current energy system," said Navin Nayak, environmental advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. -------- More Federal Money Needed for Energy Security, Panel Concludes December 09, 2004 — By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=567 WASHINGTON — A bipartisan panel of energy experts said Wednesday that regulation of climate changing pollution and improved automobile fuel efficiency must be an essential elements of the nation's energy agenda -- a view that clashes with the White House and many members of Congress. After two years of discussions, the National Commission on Energy Policy, a privately funded group, issued a report that sought to forge a middle path on such polarizing issues as climate change and auto fuel economy. It also embraced a broad range of initiatives, from increased government spending to develop a new generation of nuclear power plants to more aggressive support for developing clean coal technology and support for development of renewable energy sources. But the group's recommendations on climate change and auto fuel economy represented an attempt to find a compromise that would address issues that have been largely ignored during four years of congressional debate on energy legislation. "The commission believes that the United States must take action to begin limiting climate risks from energy-related greenhouse gas emissions," the group's report said. But it added that this must be done in a way that would "not harm the competitive position of U.S. business internationally." The 16-member panel -- comprised of business leaders, former government officials, environmentalists and labor leaders -- concluded unanimously that voluntary emissions reductions favored by the Bush administration will fall short of doing the job. It called for a mandatory system of permits that would limit how much emissions a plant could release. The group said this would slow the growth of carbon dioxide emissions by 500 million to 1 billion tons a year by 2020. The group viewed the mandatory program as "a meaningful first step" to addressing climate change, said William Reilly, a co-chair of the panel and former Environmental Protection Agency chief under the first President Bush. The White House disagreed. Dana Perino, a spokeswoman for the White House Council for Environmental Quality, said the administration supports many of the proposals in the report, but not mandatory regulation of greenhouse gases. "We believe that will do more harm than good to the nation's energy policy and to the nation's economy," said Perino. She said the president's voluntary program will achieve similar reductions in greenhouse emission growth. The commission's recommendations are not binding on President Bush or Congress. But they could help move along the debate about the country's energy policy, which has stalled in Congress. In recent years, Congress has repeatedly rejected requiring any substantial increase in auto fuel economy as well as mandatory measures to address climate change. But the commission's report drew positive responses from lawmakers of both parties. The report "should serve as a major spark for legislative progress" on energy next year, said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who especially liked the panel's call for $4 billion in federal spending to promote clean coal technology. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said the report "provides a catalogue of realistic solutions for our future energy requirements." And Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the Senate Energy Committee's top Democrat, called the recommendations "a balanced approach to constructing a forward-looking energy policy." Many environmentalists said the commission should have been more aggressive regarding climate change. "The commission's prescriptions don't go nearly as far and as fast as we need to go to fix global warming and oil dependence," said Wesley Warren of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The commission urged a larger federal role in developing cleaner sources of energy and said the government should double the amount of money spent on research and development. The experts said Congress should "significantly strengthen" the standards for vehicles' fuel efficiency so the United States could reduce its oil consumption. Commission member Susan Tierney, an energy consultant and former assistant energy secretary in the Clinton administration, said fuel economy improvements must be a "a centerpiece" of an energy agenda. The experts could not agree on how much farther vehicles should go on a gallon of fuel. The commission avoid the contentious issue of whether to develop the oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Opening the refuge to drilling has been a White House priority and the focus of intense debate in Congress. It was not included "because members of the commission do not agree on it," said a commission leader John Rowe, chairman of Exelon Corp. -------- Nigeria's Oil Fuels Anger, Bloodshed In Delta Region, Villagers Reap Few Rewards Despite Surging Profits Washington Post By Craig Timberg December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49472-2004Dec8_2.html OJOBO, Nigeria -- There are seven freshly dug graves in this Niger Delta village. Local leaders say they contain the remains of protesters who died violently last month when they attempted to mount a protest at an oil rig operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Co. of Nigeria, the region's largest oil firm. According to the villagers, more than 100 men traveled by motorboat down a creek toward the rig, where they gathered on a barge and sent leaders to demand a meeting with company officials to discuss languishing development projects. Instead, they said, army troops appeared in three boats and opened fire on the barge. Stanley Pakemi, a survivor, said the soldiers detained him for more than two days and whipped him repeatedly with wires. Now, like many delta residents, he said he was ready to see Shell and the other oil companies leave. "If this is the way they are going to treat us, I don't want them here," said Pakemi, 28, who rose limply from his bed in a village hospital to reveal deep gashes healing on his arms and back. Spokesman for Shell and the Nigerian army disputed these accounts, saying they knew of no deaths in the Nov. 20 incident. Simon Buerk, a Shell spokesman, said that violence broke out after one of the protesters attempted to disarm a soldier and that 17 people were injured in the clash. He said the company was reopening an investigation into the incident. What is beyond dispute, however, is the volatility of the delta region as Nigerians scramble for a share of oil wealth. In villages across the region, frustration at the persistence of poverty within sight of vast wealth is boiling over, leading to bloody clashes, calls for revolution and more than 1,000 deaths a year, according to a report prepared for Shell by consultants. While surging oil prices have swollen government accounts and business profits in Nigeria and across the continent, the boom has offered few benefits to people living near the wells, while damaging the environment and giving rise to violent struggles among competing groups, say residents and watchdog groups. Ojobo, located amid oil reserves worth many millions of dollars, has neither paved roads nor power. Toilets are latrines built over the creek, and a community well, built by an oil company, produces no water. Nigeria is the United States' fifth-largest supplier of foreign oil and the largest oil producer in Africa. The industry generates billions of dollars a year for the Nigerian government, which owns all oil rights in the country and has a majority interest in every oil company operating here, including its joint venture with Royal Dutch/Shell Group. Oil is so central to Nigerian identity that an image of an offshore rig appears on the 500 naira bill, the nation's largest denomination. Yet there is little evidence that prosperity is reaching the people of the Niger Delta. Although its largest city, Port Harcourt, has foreign-owned hotels and a busy prostitution trade, the inhabitants of villages throughout the vast region of mangrove swamps and twisting waterways struggle to survive at subsistence levels. At the same time, violence is increasing in a region already awash in weapons and riven by tribal tensions. Militias controlled by community leaders attack one another with often deadly results, and assaults on civilians by the army and police are common, according to human rights groups and residents. Armed gangs also thrive, stealing hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil straight from the delta's pipelines each day. Less sophisticated criminals cut into the pipelines with hacksaws, creating cleanup work for local contractors. Of the 221 oil spills reported by Shell last year, two-thirds were the result of sabotage, the company said. The Shell consultants' report said conditions were deteriorating so rapidly that the company might have to move all of its operations offshore by 2009. The report, by WAC Global Services, also concluded that Shell was in part responsible for the rampant violence and criminality in the Niger Delta. "It is clear that [Shell] is part of Niger Delta conflict dynamics and that its social license to operate is fast eroding," said the report, copies of which have been obtained by The Washington Post and other news organizations. Shell officials dispute that conclusion, saying they remain welcome in the region and intend to stay. Yet they acknowledge a legacy of flawed efforts to promote community development, despite investments that reached $84 million last year alone. "We are oil and gas people. We are not really strong in development," said Basil Omiyi, the top Shell official in Nigeria. He added, "If the government was doing their role properly, we would have to do much, much, much less." The consultants' report also found that Shell and government officials rarely responded to peaceful complaints, such as protests or letter-writing campaigns, generally paying high-level attention to the demands of disgruntled people only after attacks, threats and kidnappings. Molori College, 70, a resident of Ojobo who said his son was killed in the oil rig clash, said Shell should pay him 500 million naira -- more than $3.5 million. "Let Shell come and compensate me," he said. One militant leader in the delta, Moujahid Dokubo-Asari, has called for the region's secession as the only way to gain control of the oil wealth it contains. In September, he declared war on the region's oil companies, interrupting flows for several days and sending world oil prices above $50 a barrel. The result was direct talks with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and other senior government officials in Abuja, the capital. A tentative peace deal has been reached and negotiations continue, but Dokubo-Asari, who says he commands thousands of men, warns he could shut off the delta's oil flow by making a few strategic phone calls. "The Nigerian state has deliberately impoverished our people," said Dokubo-Asari, a descendant of a prosperous family of slave traders, as he traveled with a reporter on a tour of the delta. "It is only violence that makes the tyrant listen." Caught in the middle of these struggles are people like Gior Neebee, a small woman in her thirties, with tightly coiled braids and diagonal tribal scars slashed into each cheek. After a day of fishing in October, she was paddling her canoe back to her village in the northern delta when she saw a plume of black smoke rising near the two-room cinder-block house where she had left her three children. Neebee paddled frantically, jumped out and found the children safe. But in those few moments, flames began consuming her canoe. It was one of her few possessions, worth more than six months' wages for the average Nigerian. The oil-spill fire, which Shell blamed on sabotage, left the creek with a stench of oil. Today the banks are black, the creek bottom dead, the water without fish and shimmering with a greasy rainbow sheen. The palm trees look like giant charred matchsticks. Neebee's family must now carry buckets of water from a tap nearly a mile away. For food, she paddles a borrowed canoe several hours to another river to collect periwinkle -- shellfish about the size of her thumb -- to feed her family and sell at a nearby market. She earns about $1.50 a day. To her, the oil coursing through the delta has become a curse. "Look at the kind of clothes I'm wearing," she said, gesturing in disgust to the piece of yellow cloth wrapped around her body. "Look at the environment I live in. . . . For myself and my children, it's like the world ended." ----- OPEC to cut oil production (AP) 12/9/2004 http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2004-12-09-opec_x.htm CAIRO — OPEC will cut oil production early next year in a bid to stave off a further decline in prices, Kuwait's oil minister said Thursday. Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Ahmad Al Sabah said all members of the 11-nation organization were committed to fully complying with the current production ceiling and taking excess oil off the market. He estimated OPEC's current overproduction at about 1.7 million barrels a day. The comments revealed what delegates to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had agreed in informal discussions ahead of their formal meeting Friday. OPEC will likely meet again in February, Al Sabah added. No amount of extra output from OPEC has seemed to satisfy the world market for most of this year, but in recent weeks prices have dropped significantly from summer highs of $50 a barrel. Excluding Iraq, which is outside the quota system as it rebuilds its economy, the 10 other OPEC members have a self-imposed output target of 27 million barrels a day. Total OPEC output, including Iraq, is about 30 million a day. Benchmark U.S. crude futures have fallen by almost a quarter since the record $55-plus highs seen in late October. The decline has been sharpest in the last week or so, spurred by increases in U.S. petroleum inventories, mild winter weather and little sign of a slowdown in OPEC output. Recovering from recent lows, light sweet crude rose 59 cents to $42.53 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But it was still at levels that could support calls by some OPEC members to stem any new downward trend. -------- OTHER -------- environment EPA May Allow the Discharge of Partially Treated Sewage Guidelines That Are Near Release Would Permit Blended Waste Washington Post By Juliet Eilperin December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49443-2004Dec8.html The Environmental Protection Agency is close to issuing new guidelines making it easier for sewage authorities to dump partially treated wastewater during heavy rainfalls, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. EPA officials said they had not made a decision, but agency staffers have begun to brief senior political appointees on the plan, which is outlined in a 10-page document titled "Final Policy." The proposal, which was first aired in November 2003, would allow authorities to release a blend of fully treated and partially treated sewage during peak flows. Some scientists, environmentalists and state and local officials object to blending because it could foster the spread of disease. But others, including local sewage agencies and some government officials, say the approach strikes a safe middle ground between releasing untreated sewage and spending billions on plant upgrades. The debate over how to process waste comes as much of the nation's wastewater treatment infrastructure is crumbling, and federal officials estimate it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to cope with the increased demand for sewage treatment. "Blending is acceptable if the sewage is treated enough to meet Clean Water Act requirements at the end of the pipe," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant EPA administrator. "Never doing any blending would lead to multiple billions of dollars in costs." Sewage treatment consists of two stages. Plants first remove solids from the waste and then use bacteria to kill the dangerous viruses, parasites and bacteria that remain. During heavy rains, however, the wastewater in many systems becomes diluted by storm runoff and cannot be fully processed to remove the pathogens. Under current policies, plants are supposed to discharge partially treated waste only when there is no alternative, but the EPA's proposal would allow them to do it more often as long as they monitor the waste and ensure it meets federal water quality standards. Although the permits governing wastewater treatment are usually issued by state agencies, they look to the federal government for guidance. Nancy Stoner, who runs the Natural Resources Defense Council's clean water project, said the new policy "means more people will get sick and more people will die. This is really a very significant issue from a public health standpoint." Joan B. Rose, a water pollution microbiologist at Michigan State University, said the EPA's proposal ignores scientific findings that link wastewater to the spread of disease, adding that the Clean Water Act does not cover many unhealthful viruses and parasites. "Sewage is the source of a lot of major pathogens," Rose said, adding that one study found the risk of disease from blended waste was 100 times greater than that associated with fully treated waste. The EPA estimates swimmers experience 3,500 to 5,500 cases of "highly credible gastrointestinal illness" each year because of improper sewage treatment. Sewer authorities and city governments argue that blending does not pose a major health risk and makes more sense than spending money on expensive upgrades. Without blending, said Ken Kirk, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, the industry will have to "spend $200 billion to fix a problem that doesn't need fixing." Last week, the National League of Cities endorsed the EPA's plan as long as the blended waste meets federal water quality standards and has undergone initial treatment. "The feeling was particularly in disadvantaged areas and some cities with serious infrastructure problems, this would save ratepayers a huge amount of money while protecting their water quality," said Joanna Liberman, the league's senior policy analyst. The EPA has often joined with environmentalists in pressing for plant upgrades in a number of communities. Last week, the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority agreed to build three underground water storage tunnels over the next 20 years to eliminate the sewage overflows that dump as much as 3 billion gallons of raw waste into local rivers and creeks each year. In Michigan, 50 billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage flows annually into the state's waterways. John Dunn, chief engineer for the D.C. authority, said he was waiting for guidance from the EPA because blending "should reduce our capital costs while maintaining the same effluent quality." Jim Connolly, executive director of the Anacostia Watershed Society, which sued for the D.C. plant upgrade, said he would oppose the new EPA policy if "it waters down the [progress] we've seen with this long-term plan." -------- ACTIVISTS More power for women means more peace, says Nobel Prize winner Maathai OSLO (AFP) Dec 09, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041209164056.h51qcenr.html More women need to do jobs where they take decisions if they are to play a role in peace-making, this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, said in Oslo on Thursday a day before receiving the prestigious award. Maathai, the 12th woman and the first African woman to win the Peace Prize, told reporters at the Nobel Institute that "one reason why women are not as active in peacemaking as they should be is because they are not in the decision-making." "It is very difficult if you are on the outside shouting to people who are inside the house ... We must put ourselves in the position where our voices can be heard inside the house." Maathai, dressed in an embroidered emerald green bubu dress with a matching hair band, said she hoped the prize she was accepting "on behalf of many whose faces are not known" would help empower women around the world and especially in Africa. "I believe that a great honor such as this bestowed on an African woman can only encourage and empower women, especially the African women. And it can only make men stand up and wonder what has hit them," she said with a broad grin. Women should "understand that the sky is indeed the limit ... if you persist and believe in yourself," she said. The first environmentalist to have taken the coveted prize, Maathai, 64, was selected by the Nobel committee for her campaign to save Africa's forests. Kenya's assistant minister for the environment since 2003, she is the founder of the Green Belt Movement -- a campaign to save Africa's forests that began with nine trees in her yard nearly three decades ago, and which has grown into the largest tree planting project in Africa with more than 30 million trees planted across the continent. Deforestation has been a major problem in Kenya, exposing millions of people to drought and poverty, and by planting trees, the Green Belt Movement has aimed to promote biodiversity, democracy, peace, human rights and giving women a stronger identity in society, Maathai said. "Most wars that are fought in the world are fought over what? Over natural resources ... If you don't manage your natural resources sustainably, thinking not only of the present but also of the future ... you can not have peace," she said. The Nobel Committee's decision reflects environmentalism's extraordinary rise from the wings to the centre stage of politics and has been hailed by ecologists the world over. The choice of Maathai for the prize has also been seen as uncontroversial compared to the past three laureates, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former US president Jimmy Carter and Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who were all critical of US President George W. Bush. She created however a stir just a day after she was announced the winner with reported claims that the AIDS virus was a deliberately created biological agent. "AIDS (is) not a curse from God to Africans or the black people ... It is a tool to control them designed by some evil-minded scientists," she reportedly said. On Thursday however, Maathai insisted that she never made any such comment. "I did not say what I'm reported to have said, nor do I believe it," she stressed. She also tried to diffuse outrage over a statement she made in a radio interview in October that there were no indigenous people in Africa. "I'm very sorry if I hurt" anyone, she said, adding that her comment had stemmed from ignorance. "Some of the problems with being in this position is that you get asked everything, even what you are ignorant about," she confessed. Although some of the media coverage has been negative, most of the attention Maathai has received has been extremely positive, she said. The "attention has made it possible for us to pass the message that we've been trying to pass for 30 years ... Now the whole world is listening," she said. Maathai will receive the Nobel prize, and 10 million Swedish kronormillion euros), at a ceremony on Friday in Oslo's city hall. -------- African Ecologist & Activist Wangari Maathai Awarded 2004 Nobel Peace Prize democracynow.org December 10th, 2004 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/10/1450205 Wangari Maathai is the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the prestigious award. We'll hear an excerpt from her acceptance speech delivered today on International Human Rights Day. [includes rush transcript] Today is International Human Rights Day. Every year on December 10, people around the world commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. And in Oslo today Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004. She is the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the prestigious award. Wangari Maathai rose to international fame for campaigns against government-backed forest clearances in Kenya in the late 1980s and 1990s. She once said of the forest clearances "It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem." In 1992 riot police clubbed her and three other women unconscious in central Nairobi during a demonstration. She has been tear gassed, threatened with death by anonymous callers, and once thrown into jail overnight for leading protests. The Nobel Prize Committee honored Maathai today for her campaign to save Africa's forests and for standing at the "front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa." At her acceptance speech today Maathai called on people around the world to plant trees at Easter as a symbol of renewal and to protect the planet. * Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner speaking in Oslo. RUSH TRANSCRIPT JUAN GONZALEZ: This is Wangari Maathai speaking today in Oslo. WANGARI MAATHAI: As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa and indeed the whole world. I am especially mindful of women and girl-child. I hope to encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership. I know the honor also gives a deep sense of pride to our men, both old and young. As a mother, I appreciate the inspiration this brings to the youth and I urge them to use it to pursue their dreams. Although this prize comes to me, it acknowledges the work of countless individuals and groups across the world. They work quietly and often without recognition to protect the environment, promote democracy, defend human rights and ensure equality between women and men. By so doing, they plant the seeds of peace. I know they too are proud today. To all who feel represented by this prize I say use it to advance your mission and meet with the high expectations the world will place on all of us. This honor is also for my family, friends, partners and supporters throughout the world. All of them helped shape the vision and sustain the work which was often accomplished under hostile conditions. I'm also grateful to the people of Kenya who remained stubbornly hopeful that democracy could be realized and the environment managed sustainably. Because of this support I'm here today to accept this great honor. I am immensely privileged to join my fellow African Peace Laureates, President Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the late Chief Albert Lutuli, the late Anwar al-Sadat and the U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. I know that African people everywhere are encouraged by this news. My fellow Africans, as we embrace this recognition let us use it to intensify our commitment to our people to reduce conflicts and poverty and thereby improve the quality of life of our people. Let us embrace democratic governance, protect human rights and protect our environment. I'm confident that we shall rise to the occasion. I have always believed that solutions to most of our problems will have to come from us. In this year's prize the Norwegian Nobel Committee has placed the critical issue of environment and its linkage to democracy and peace before the world. For their visionary action I'm profoundly grateful. Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come. Our work for over the past 30 years has always appreciated and engaged these linkages. My inspiration partly comes from my childhood experiences and observations of nature in rural Kenya. It has been influenced and nurtured by the formal education I was privileged to receive in Kenya, the United States of America and Germany. As I was growing up I witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations which destroyed local biodiversity and the capacity of forests to conserve water. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, in 1977 when we started the Green Belt Movement, I was partly responding to the needs identified by rural women, namely lack of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter and income. Throughout Africa, women are the primary care takers, holding significant responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become scarce and incapable of sustaining their families. The women we worked with recounted that unlike in the past they were unable to meet their basic needs. This was due to the degradation of the immediate environment, as well as the introduction of commercial farming which replaced the growing of household food crops, but international trade controlled the price of exports from these small scale farmers and a reasonable and just income could not be guaranteed. I came to understand that when the environment is destroyed, plundered or mismanaged, we undermine our quality of life and that of our future generations. Tree planting became a natural choice to address some of the initial basic needs identified by women. Also, tree planting is simple, attainable and guarantees quick, successful results within a reasonable amount of time. These are all important to sustain interest and commitment. So together we planted over 30 million trees that provide fuel, food, shelter and income to support the children and education and household needs. The activity also creates employment and improves soils and watersheds. Through their involvement, women gained some degree of power over their lives, especially their socioeconomic position and relevance in the family. This work continues. Initially the work was difficult because historically our people have been persuaded to believe that because they are poor they lack not only capital but also knowledge and skills to address their challenges. Instead, they are conditioned to believe that the solutions to their problems must come from outside. Further, women did not at that time realize that meeting their needs depended on their environment being healthy and well managed. They were also unaware that a degraded environment leads to a scramble for scarce resources and may culminate in poverty and even conflict. They were also unaware of the injustices of international economic arrangements. In order to assist communities to understand these linkages we developed a citizen education program during which people identify their problems, causes and solutions. They then make connections between their own personal actions and the problems they witness in the environment and in society. AMY GOODMAN: Wangari Maathai, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize today in Oslo. ----- Film highlights Guantanamo disgrace Aljazeera.Net By Lawrence Smallman 09 December 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CC6C8F3A-1E0D-4069-9823-EB8A9689DE4C.htm Reigniting the debate over the morality of holding prisoners indefinitely and without charge, a British filmmaker is to screen a documentary highlighting what he calls absolute disgrace that is Guantanamo. Damien Mahoney's This is Camp X-ray will be viewed for the first time ever at Manchester's Dancehouse Theatre on Sunday and will be immediately followed with an open forum for the public to express their reactions. Commissioned by the UHC arts collective, the documentary features the build up to the creation of a life-size working replica of the Guantanamo Bay detention centres where volunteers were imprisoned in October 2003. A testimony to the shocked and bewildered responses of the local community, the film also explores the range of emotions felt by volunteer detainees and guards during the nine-day project. 'Blatant injustice' Mahoney told Aljazeera.net on Thursday that his own feelings of "the blatant injustice of holding people without charge for years" had intensified. "How can the US and the UK preach about democracy in Iraq and elsewhere when they can deprive people found guilty of absolutely nothing the most simple of basic rights? "We are not talking anything complicated here, I mean basic rights like ... the right to know what they are charged of and a right to defend themselves in courts. It is absolutely disgusting," Mahoney said. The dramatic prison reality of the estimated 600 held at Camp X-ray becomes all the more real with participation by the sisters of Jamal al-Harith, the Manchester local who was held without charge for two years before being released. Inspiration for film The film is based on Jai Redman's This is Camp X-ray installation, which became one of the most critically acclaimed art events to take place in 2003, receiving widespread international press coverage. The controversial installation - a meticulous working replica of the original camp in Cuba - stood for nine days in Hulme, an inner city suburb of Manchester. The nine volunteers incarcerated in the life-size camp symbolically represented the nine British detainees then held in Cuba. Featuring live prisoners and guards, it ran 24 hours a day and stuck rigorously to the regime of the actual camp. Mahoney said a few people who had never heard of Guantanamo Bay believed that US soldiers really had set up a similar prison in Britain and had poured a shower of verbal abuse on the volunteers. "Others were just shocked out how the American government can treat human beings," he added. "But the scary thing is this type of thing is happening in the UK's Belmarsh Prison too." Al-Harith's story Four years ago, Manchester resident Jamal al-Harith was in Afghanistan and was seized by the Taliban on suspicion of being a British spy. After his incarceration in Kandahar he was freed by the Taliban, only to be arrested by US forces almost immediately. Now suspected of being a member of the Taliban, Jamal was flown to Cuba. He remained there for two years. No charges were ever brought against him. Al-Harith and three other former detainees in the UK are currently in preparation to have their cases against the US administration heard in the Federal Court in Washington DC. The allegations against the administration include torture and other violations of human rights. The US Federal Courts have also halted the proceedings of a controversial military commission involving an associate of Osama bin Laden. This could stop all further court proceedings at the camp from taking place. ----- Indonesian Specialist Resigns to Protest Nondisclosure Rule Washington Post By Michael Dobbs December 9, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49449-2004Dec8.html Interpreters have long been the cogs in the wheel of international diplomacy. They make headlines only when they mess up, as when President Jimmy Carter's interpreter spoke of the Polish people's "lusts for the future" instead of their "desires" for the future. And even then, convention demands that interpreters remain in the background, refraining from public comment. This tradition does not sit well with Indonesian specialist Fred Burks, who is making a noisy exit from government service after 18 years of interpreting for top U.S. officials, including President Bush and former president Bill Clinton. Burks resigned last month in protest against what he sees as excessive government secrecy, and since then has been treating anybody who will listen with insider stories about private meetings he attended. These included high-level negotiations with Indonesia over U.S. attempts to secure the handover of a radical Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, suspected by the Bush administration of connections to the terrorist group al Qaeda. According to Burks, the Indonesians resisted heavy White House and CIA pressure to transfer Bashir to U.S. custody. Burks interpreted for Bush at an Oval Office meeting with Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri in September 2001, eight days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He says Bush displayed such a detailed grasp of Indonesian issues at the meeting that he came away thinking the president must have been fed information through a hidden earpiece. White House spokesman Sean McCormack dismissed Burks's allegations of a secret presidential wireless device -- similar allegations surfaced most recently during Bush's election debate with the Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) -- with a laugh and a one-word comment: "Nonsense." Burks says he is free to talk about his work as a contract interpreter for senior government officials because he was never required to sign a secrecy agreement. That changed last month when the State Department insisted he agree to a new contract that included a pledge never to disclose "any information" that he learned in the course of his government interpreting work to unauthorized outsiders. He refused. "It was ridiculous," said Burks, who learned Indonesian while teaching in Borneo in 1981 and living with an Indonesian family. "In theory, it meant I couldn't even tell my family where I was traveling if that information had not already been made public." He says he also has never had a security clearance. Burks's fluency in Indonesian and Mandarin Chinese made him a valued asset for the State Department. While the government has little difficulty recruiting interpreters for common European languages such as French and Spanish, the demands of the war on terrorism have resulted in a severe shortage of experts in Asian languages. According to Burks, he is one of only three Americans qualified to interpret into Indonesian at the highest level. Brenda Sprague, director of language services for the State Department, said Burks was one of 1,600 or so interpreters who work with the agency on a contract basis. She said State also has 38 career interpreters. State Department spokeswoman Julie Reside described the nondisclosure clause in the contract that Burks was asked to sign as "standard boilerplate" dating from October 2000. She said the department terminated its relationship with Burks after he said he could not sign the new version of the contract. In addition to his complaints about government secrecy, Burks is at odds with the Bush administration over an unauthorized trip to Cuba that he made with his girlfriend in December 1999. The government initially fined him $7,590 for breaching the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba but eventually offered to let him pay only $250. Burks declined the deal, and the case has been referred to an administrative court for adjudication. -------- Revolutionary Love Amid Chill Political Winds in Kiev, Young Protesters Demonstrate Their Affection By Daniel Williams December 9, 2004 Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49699-2004Dec8.html KIEV, Ukraine -- Lithe, petite Sofia Kirichuk, wrapped in a thin leather overcoat, spotted tall, angular Vasili Folosov across the rows of pup tents and right away saw something she liked. "It was his revolutionary eyes," she says. Never mind that he and she were in the middle of a vast and tense political demonstration. Never mind that they were living in a tent city on a main boulevard of slushy, windy Kiev subsisting on bologna sandwiches. Love had struck. A few days later, on Nov. 27, they were married by an Orthodox priest presiding over a brief, unorthodox sidewalk ceremony among well-wishing strangers. They spent their first night as husband and wife in one of dozens of little tents sheltering supporters of insurgent presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Later, they moved to a large tent housing 28 demonstrators, many of them fellow lovebirds considering exchanging vows. The tale of Sofia and Vasili lit up the already jolly atmosphere of the protests aimed at overturning fraud in the Nov. 21 runoff election and getting Yushchenko into power instead of his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Scores of local reporters have sought them out to tell their story. Television cameras have recorded their kisses. There have been several other weddings and many more engagements in the tent city, although some of the newlyweds have apparently decamped for more conventional honeymoons. "We were married the same day as two other couples, but they disappeared," says Vasili. The lack of violence and the carnival air surrounding the rallies have been factors in gaining outside support for Yushchenko's claims and making it difficult for President Leonid Kuchma, Yanukovych's political patron, to crack down, Western diplomats say. Kuchma and his supporters have tried to paint the demonstrators alternately as drug-crazed rabble and Bolshevik-style radicals. But when mingling with the thousands of revelers in Kiev's Independence Square, the center of the protest, it is hard to regard them as either. They have been orderly, despite the deafening beat of Ukrainian rock-and-roll and hip-hop. They have been peaceful, even while shouting "Down with Kuchma!" whenever his name comes up. And they have been tough, resisting the sleet, snow and windy cold of Kiev. The drug charge is especially spurious: In a country where vodka is almost like soda pop, a ban on drinking has been widely observed. That's not to say there is no anger. Crowds that gather at the parliament building have been aggressive in blocking the exits when representatives inside delay in reaching key agreements on electoral reform. Whether this controlled militancy pays off will be tested in a new runoff election on Dec. 26, a date set by Ukraine's Supreme Court. In any event, the demonstrators have perhaps set new standards for what some observers here called postmodern protest. The color theme -- orange -- is itself a departure. It had no real political meaning; it is not really associated with any single political party, like the red of Vladimir Lenin's communists. Rather, orange was selected by Yushchenko's aides as his campaign color because it matched the colors of a soccer team from his opponent's hometown. It soon became a kind of fashion statement in the monochromatic Kiev winter. Orange ribbons soon gave way to orange caps, scarves, pants, parkas, bandannas, suspenders, socks, hair and face paint. A new tribe was born. "This was one of the successes of the election campaign. People could recognize each other, and this gave everyone a feeling of support," said Vira Nanivska, head of the International Center for Policy Studies, a local think tank. Young people formed the backbone of the protests. And like the setting for some sort of midwinter night's dream, Independence Square became a place for romance. Boys and girls held hands across barricades, shivered in embraces during windy political speeches and cuddled under tents or on apartment floors offered them by thousands of Kiev residents. The newlywed Vasili, 20, works in a jewelry store and belongs to a small party that supports Yushchenko. He rushed down when the rallies began. He is a perimeter security guard at the tent city. "I am fighting for the truth," he says. "Really, we can't just accept this kind of thing anymore. We want to have a real future." Sofia, 19, had never been involved in politics. She studies economics at a Kiev university. When she heard the election results, she cried, she says. Some friends headed for the square and she followed. "This is a first for me," she says. "I didn't expect it of myself. My patience just ran out." For four days, she circulated among the demonstrators and settled into one of the tents. So did Vasili. "I liked everything I saw," he says of his first impression of Sofia. They shared borscht sent to the camp by Vasili's mother. They listened to guitar music together at late-night hootenannies. Talk got around to marriage. One of the political operatives in charge of the camp said they ought to go ahead and get hitched. They lined up with the other two couples under the tent of Radio Gala, which set up a remote studio outside the perimeter. The priest blessed them. They exchanged borrowed rings. Later, the editor of a newspaper gave them a pair of thin gold rings as a present. "We can't afford anything bigger right now," Vasili says. They told their parents -- after the fact. Hers came down and embraced the couple. "They liked him!" says Sofia. His haven't traveled to the square yet. "Mine were shocked," he says. The couple organized a formal wedding ceremony at a Baptist prayer tent inside the encampment. A little wedding party included soft drinks and sandwiches. "No champagne," says Vasili. "It's forbidden." They have moved into a large, military-type tent because it is warmer -- there is no heater, but the occupants' body heat warms up the place to the point that by morning, the walls are dripping with moisture. They sleep on thick Styrofoam mats covered with blankets. They eat at a canteen that serves dumplings on plastic plates. The tent's interior is decorated with a single orange balloon. The occupants are careful not to break it. It is the only one that has survived since the beginning of the demonstrations. They haven't figured out their future housing arrangements. "We're not worried. If we can stand this together, we'll have a long life together," Sofia says. "Why wait?" asks Vasili, and jokes, "We can always hang a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the tent if we have to." ----- Opposition supporters leave Kiev tent camp (AP) 12/9/2004 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-12-09-ukraine_x.htm KIEV, Ukraine — Protesters lifted their siege of Ukraine's Cabinet headquarters Thursday as tensions following weeks of demonstrations ebbed with parliament's adoption of electoral reform before a new presidential runoff vote later this month. The dismantling of three barricades near the government building came after opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko began his presidential campaign following two weeks of protests against fraud in the Nov. 21 presidential runoff. (Video: Tension eases) Opposition leaders said the barricades, which prevented senior civil servants from reaching their offices, were no longer necessary and that the real fight now was the campaign for the new vote on Dec. 26, in which Yushchenko will face Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Demonstrators who had kept their vigil around the clock in freezing temperatures melted away, although tent camps they had set up near Kiev's main Independence Square remained. Other supporters spent the morning preparing to leave the capital after a night of celebrations following parliament's vote. Yushchenko's campaign staff began organizing an orderly departure for those wanting to return home. "This is a sad and happy day at the same time," said Oleksiy, a protester who gave only his first name. He still had his "Barricade Security" badge pinned to his coat. "We endured more than two weeks and now we are leaving, but we are leaving as winners." Yushchenko's orange flags and banners reading "We will persevere!" lay abandoned on a muddy embankment in the park overlooking the government building. Garbage collectors removed debris. A blockade near the president's office remained in place, but Roman Zvarych, a member of Yushchenko's campaign staff, said he believed it, too, would be removed. "I don't believe we should keep the blockade of the presidential administration, because it's only one person that matters now and that is the president," he said, referring to outgoing President Leonid Kuchma. "Maybe we will only block his car from now on." Yushchenko said the peaceful protests, dubbed the "Orange Revolution," had managed to cancel the fraud-tainted victory of Yanukovych in the presidential runoff and force legal changes to avert the rerun from being rigged. "During these 17 days, we have gotten a new country," Yushchenko told roaring throngs of supporters in Independence Square on Wednesday. "We have realized that we are a European nation." Wednesday's surprise parliamentary vote endorsed a compromise package that called for electoral reform in exchange for a reduction in presidential powers. Yushchenko said the Kuchma-endorsed amendments place tight restrictions on absentee and home voting. The reforms ensure opposition members are represented in local election commissions in the same numbers as opponents. Also Thursday, Kuchma fired Prosecutor General Hennady Vasylyev, fulfilling a pledge he made during the parliament session. The opposition had accused Vasylyev of failing to investigate vote fraud and open a criminal investigation against pro-Yanukovych governors of eastern provinces who pressed for self-rule after the runoff. In his speech, Yushchenko also pledged to maintain warm relations with Ukraine's neighbors, including Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has staunchly backed Yanukovych and congratulated him on winning the Nov. 21 vote while the opposition and the West charged fraud. In Moscow, a person close to Putin's administration said Thursday on condition of anonymity that the Kremlin was pleased about the agreement diluting the power of the presidency, saying it would give Russia more of a chance to influence Ukrainian policy. Russian politicians have expressed fear that Yushchenko would pull Ukraine westward, out of Russia's orbit. Russia and NATO, meanwhile, jointly appealed for a free and fair rerun election. The statement issued in Brussels, called on all parties "to avoid the use or instigation of violence ... and to work to ensure a free, fair electoral process that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people." Yushchenko emerged from the 17-day political crisis a winner, succeeding in his demand for a new ballot without his supporters resorting to violence. But Kuchma, who backed Yanukovych, can also claim victory because he succeeded in trimming his successor's powers. Under the parliamentary changes, the president no longer has the power to appoint his own government, but keeps the right to reject parliamentary nominees for the top three positions — prime minister, foreign minister and defense minister. Parliament also earns the right to appoint all other Cabinet positions without presidential approval. Campaigning in eastern Ukraine, Yanukovych said the decision was "made under pressure" and described it as a "soft coup d'etat."