NucNews - December 13, 2004 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Tritium Exit Light Maker Denied License Renewal WASHINGTON, DC, December 13, 2004 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2004/2004-12-13-09.asp#anchor8 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has denied applications to renew the two licenses of the Safety Light Corporation in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. The agency has also issued an order suspending the licenses when they expire at the end of this month. Presently, the company manufactures self-luminous exit signs using the radioactive element tritium under one of its NRC licenses. The other license authorizes characterization and decommissioning of contaminated facilities, equipment and land from previous operations at the site. The low energy beta radiation from tritium cannot penetrate human skin, so tritium is only dangerous if consumed in large quantities. Small amounts are used with phosphors for self-illuminating devices such as watches and exit signs. But in its application requesting the renewal of the two licenses, the company did not provide a decommissioning funding plan, as required. Instead, the company requested that the NRC grant an exemption from this requirement. The company made a similar request when renewing its licenses in 1999. The Commission granted that request with two conditions - that the company make payments to the decommissioning trust fund at a set schedule, and that the company demonstrate compliance with NRC requirements regarding decommissioning funding at the time of its next renewal. Because the company did not fully comply with those requirements, it has failed to satisfy both of the conditions for renewal of the licenses. The NRC says it issued the order suspending the company’s licenses when they expire on December 31, because the agency found that the failure to make the required payments was "willful and adversely affected the safe conduct of activities under the company’s licenses." The order also requires Safety Light to submit to the NRC by December 20 a plan for an orderly shutdown of its licensed activities. Because Safety Light did not comply with the Commission's substantive requirements, "The staff does not have the requisite assurance in Safety Light's ability to comply with those requirements in the future," said Jack Strosnider, director of the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards. "Consequently, the staff is unable to make the requisite findings to grant an exemption." Safety Light has 20 days to request a hearing on this issue. -------- depleted uranium A Letter of Apology to the People of Iraq tnimc.org by Larry E. Park 13 Dec 2004 http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/3878/index.php A letter of apology to the Iraqi people from a Vietnam Army medic who cared for some of the most severely injured men, women, children and babies from both sides of that conflict in 1970 and 71. My arms have held the dead of war, and I understand the catastrophic toll in the present and the impact it will have on future generations. This is my personal sobering apology, and it may or may not reflect some of the feelings of the other 49 percent of Americans who voted for an anti-war candidate. While I was in Vietnam, four war protesting students at one of our universities named Kent State were shot and killed by American National Guardsmen, and it appears that the some of the Guards of justice have sacrificed national core values and integrity on the battlefields and in the military prisons of Iraq. I feel shame and outrage when like you, I have witnessed unimaginable acts against humanity. See link: http://www.spectacle.org/595/kent.html I feel shame that I did not raise my voice in dissent prior to this horrific conflict between cultures. I survived Vietnam with full understanding of what a guerilla war means and the futility of large, noisy, highly visible armies attempting to subjugate citizens by force instead of winning hearts and minds over to a more positive pursuit of happiness. With a great sense of doom I watched the events over the past three years as a complacent bystander, not knowing how to make a difference in public opinion. I was silent, not exercising my freedom of speech or finding creative means to make my voice against unjustified death and destruction heard effectively. I made a mistake in judgment and action. I knew better. I am very sad about what is happening in Iraq to the families, their homes, schools, hospitals, shops, and places where they work to support their families. I apologize for not defending your right to choose how you live and what style of leadership you support. I understood that my leaders prompted by public opinion had to deliver visible signs of revenge against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and most of the world seemed to support that conflict. But when I woke up one morning to the specter of my countrymen invading Iraq to make a regime change, I squirmed with discomfort. I, like you and most of the world, held the motivations of the United States to be suspect and driven by self interests in oil. Rhetoric about freeing the Iraqi people from an oppressive regime seemed righteously hollow and a revolution against Saddam Hussein’s entrenched regime and all its supporters was not ours to wage. In most cases it is better that a country clean its own house and take responsibility for how the hard work is carried out and when the time is right for change. I apologize for our arrogance in thinking we knew what was the best course of social-political direction for Iraq and our subsequent military intervention in such a destabilizing and catastrophic manner. Our vision of the future is not yours, and you must as a group decide how you will help each other achieve and maintain basic freedom and your pursuit of happiness. I apologize for denying knowledge of your basic beliefs and belittling your ancient core cultural values. And from your perspective I understand why we are the barbarians on your land. Freedom is not a gift, it is a choice requiring daily action to reaffirm long term goals and guide one in the pursuit of happiness. Conflict on a personal or national level often ensues as differences in opinion emerge about how to equitably achieve goals within the context of the group’s culture and the world at large. Freedom from uncontrolled selfish interests and greed can only be acquired by an attitude of the heart as shaped by personal internal core values. Coercion by threat of death may change observable behavior in the short run, but rarely changes core values that support long term behavior shifts. I apologize for our apparent ignorance concerning this key characteristic of human behavior. I am ashamed of our recent example of Democracy in the Presidential race for power. If we are attempting to persuade you to adopt our form of Democracy, then I am less than proud on how we spent billions to get out the vote and prompt individuals to exercise freedom of choice. Decisions seemed to be made based on whether or not a candidate hunts innocent winged creatures for sport or who tells the most convincing lies and makes the best promises that we all know can’t be kept like, “Independence from foreign oil.” I cast my first registered vote in 35 years since Vietnam for an antiwar candidate, but now I’ve drifted back into darkness in search for such a man with an honest face and heart. I was caring for the infected stump of a women’s leg that had been amputated on the day in New York that has changed all of us on the planet and now many men, women, and children are missing parts of their bodies due to this horrific 9/11 event and the revengeful war that has followed. As a nurse it is my job to care for the wounds of childbirth, automobile accidents, gunshots, knives and surgery. With great sadness I remember all the wounded in Vietnam and I feel a great sense of empathy for those who have lost arms or legs. On 9/11 out of the darkness a predator delivered a savage whack to our head. Dazed, we feebly wiped the tears and blood from our eyes, struggled to our feet while peering into the forest of darkness. Shapes blended with shadow until with trembling hands we switched on the flashlight illuminating our attacker. Anonymous faces of dead suicide terrorists were replaced by world renowned organizations of men hell bent on upsetting the balance of power on the planet. These social-political shadow warriors using the tactics of guerilla warfare in a David and Goliath confrontation dealt a significant psychological blow. We plunged into the darkness, grouped for the enemy, halted their retreat, battered them blow after blow hardly feeling the pain of more injuries to ourselves. Like an old John Wayne slugfest started by drunks intoxicated with bravado unsure of who started what, all parties lay in an exhausted heap strewn across the bar room floor. Weary from the conflict without the long gone adrenaline rush of the initial hollow victory, we assess the damage to property and person. The man with the biggest stick can claim the high moral ground by mercifully suggesting a lasting peace based on freedom of choice to change our hearts versus fleeting pretensions under duress. A million more soldiers might force a temporary “peace,” but the human revengeful heart rarely changes to the side of mercy and compassion in such circumstances. What kind of peace do we want? A peace driven by fear looking down the barrel of a Colt or a peace that emanates from hearts that have chosen to be helpful and nice to their immediate and global neighbors. I have seen the consequences of war and revenge and it is not pretty! History is replete with stories of rape, pillaging, burning, destruction of person and property and within the last ten years starting with the Gulf war, Desert Storm, we the United States of America introduced weapons of mass environmental and genetic destruction. I am ashamed of my ignorance about my government using depleted radioactive uranium munitions in Iraq. Standing two hours in the rain waiting to cast my first vote of a lifetime for our next President gave me ample time to angrily contemplate what the 70-year-old female election volunteer told me about deaths of Iraqi children, increased genetic defects among children of Desert Storm Vets and the hidden truth of “Gulf War Syndrome.” Having my head in the sands of Iraq, I did not know that we were the first to manufacture and use weapons of mass habitat and genetic destruction using nuclear waste called depleted uranium in Desert Storm, Bosnia, etc., as found on the Internet upon my return home from voting as she recommended. See links concerning these issues. (http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/appeal.htm) (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOR407A.html Since I always attempt to gather facts and then reach a balance of opinion, I searched the web with reserve due to the hidden agendas of most websites. Well, if even a portion of information available about armor piercing hardened artillery shells using radioactive depleted uranium is credible and documented damage to wheat crops, increased birth defects, Gulf War Syndrome, and death of Iraqis children by the tens of thousands after exposure is true, then that is a serious cover-up. A half-life of 4.4 billion years is a long time even if the material in question is depleted of isotopes. Looking for the splinter of WMD in the enemy's eye while being blinded by the railroad tie poisoned by depleted uranium sticking out of our heads must make us appear really outrageous in the eyes not afflicted around the globe. Obviously if there is any truth in this environmental military disaster, I understand why the press in general is afraid to address this radioactive subject, which maybe Rumsfeld was thinking about when he called the Abu Ghraib prison abuse situation "radioactive." Being a responsible citizen and taking a stand on issues that will affect the only planet we have is hard work even though now the sand in my eyes in retrospect did not hurt as much as the knowledge I have gained about the use of depleted uranium in the manufacturer of munitions. Having reviewed some of the documents available on the Internet posted by health and political organizations pertaining to this inhumane radioactive weapon, there seems to be more credible evidence indicating short and long term risks associated with the use of depleted uranium munitions than our government is willing to openly acknowledge. Little did I know that standing in line to vote would open such a big can of worms that might glow. I am outraged at the possibility of my tax dollars contributing to use of depleted uranium in munitions which might cause alterations in the genes of humans and plants. This is our weapon of mass destruction and I am downcast and ashamed! This knowledge shared with me by an old lady might well be part and parcel of the rage exhibited in the aggravated assault on the Twin Towers of 9/11. If I saw in our heartland fields mutated wheat standing just inches where heads on tall stalks ready for harvest should have proudly waved in the breeze, I would be very angry at the perpetrator of this ecological disaster. Bread is still one of the basic food sources for humans, so if any of the information about the devastating short and potential long term effects of using depleted uranium munitions is remotely true, then I am outraged and I apologize for not holding my government more accountable. The very life of the entire planet depends on all of its inhabitants being responsible for sustaining earth’s ability to feed us. That means that we are all interdependent, and what we do or don’t do affects us all. I apologize for being so selfish and wanting more than most families in Iraq have. If one believes in a Creator God called Allah who loves the Biblical people of Iraq so much that He buried some of the world’s richest oil reserves below their barren deserts, then one would have to believe that He planned to care for their needs. Poverty in such an oil rich land where many of its inhabitants want for the basics can only be understood in the light of mismanagement and the greed of its ruling class. As an American I am ashamed to admit that even though our wealth is accumulated differently, we too have large numbers of disadvantaged and impoverish families. Those who have more always use overt or covert methods to suppress those who have less and when the status quo is upset, many are willing to fight to the death to regain their previous advantages and social standing. Right or wrong, I apologize for the manner in which my country has upset the balance of chaotic power in Iraq. I am outraged at the visible destruction of your mosques, hospitals, schools, homes, and infrastructure in our zeal to root out those who are attempting to protect their families and way of life. I am very sad when I think about how hard it will be and how long it will take for your people to rebuild their homes. It is obvious that powerful underground insurgent leaders have commanded loyal religious fanatics to strategically increase lethal attacks on fellow Iraqis and Coalition Forces, escalating strikes as Election Day marches closer. This anti-American campaign is more than just mere pre-election mud slinging, it’s deadly! Instead of ads and other antics being measured in millions of dollars from unknown sources, the insurgents' campaign can be measured in lives ended and lifelong disabilities incurred by the survivors. Yes, this Iraqi pre-election campaign may be forgotten for cities ransacked, loss of helpful Foreign Aid workers, and the maiming and slaughter of men, women, children and babies by Coalition Forces, but Iraqis buried in pauper’s mass graves will be remembered longer by their families. I feel intensely sad about the mess your people find themselves in when the sun rises every day and I apologize for not attempting to convince leaders of my country to pursue a more positive course of helpful interdependence. I mourn for all the families around the globe forever changed and damaged by conflicts that diminish their sense of hope. I feel ashamed by the darkness spread throughout your land by the American invasion and my hope for the future is that countries of such diverse cultural beliefs could at least agree to search for ways to be mutually beneficial and cordially interdependent without devastating conflict and long term damage to the environment. I carried a typewriter to Vietnam, not a gun, and instead of killing humans, I planted flowers and was awarded a Bronze Star medal for extending hope to others. I’ve seen the desert bloom and I fervently wish that the Iraqi people in the darkness of wartime death can find their way into the hopeful light of flowers again blooming in springtime. I know that this letter of apology would mean a lot more coming from my President or a great man of world renowned stature like Colin Powell, but George W. Bush can’t and Colin Powell could speak his mind if he had not committed himself to a vow of silence. I fully understand that this letter of apology for some of my countrymen will be perceived as undermining the military forces of the Coalition who are following their orders from their Commander and Chief. I am exercising my rights to freedom of speech with full knowledge of increased personal risk and endangerment of my immediate family members, but as with all conflicts the price is always paid by families. The specter of danger seems insignificant in comparison to the horrific number of deaths and injuries already incurred by countless humans of different gender, race, culture, nationality, and age. I feel immensely sad that the leaders of my country seem not to remember the lessons learned by those who served in Vietnam and I apologize. I wish I could speak for the leaders of my country and tell you that, “Yes, we made a mistake and we won’t do it again in your country or anywhere else on the planet ever again.” Those words would only be spoken by a lying politician running for high office and probably not in my lifetime.They will have to speak for themselves and answer to the reality of history not their dreams. Apologetically; Larry E. Park TheDreamer (at) OceansRest.com ----- It Wins Wars -- But at What Cost? Chapter 3: The Silver Bullet. Daily Press BY BOB EVANS December 13, 2004 http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du3,0,4750505.story?coll=dp-breaking-news The United States began developing depleted uranium weapons in the 1950s. But the first one wasn't fired in combat until the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It didn't take long for the weapons to show that the wait was worth it. Soldiers on the battlefield were so impressed, they quickly began calling depleted uranium "The Silver Bullet," in recognition of its seemingly magical capabilities and exterior metallic color. They also began calling it "DU." Although the U.S. tank gunners firing the weapons had never used them before - even in training - they were immediately able to hit and destroy heavy Soviet-made Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles from two miles away, military officials crowed in congressional hearings afterward. The weapon that it replaced, made from tungsten, wasn't effective from more than a mile and a half, they said. That's the equivalent of two boxers squaring off, one with 4-foot-long arms, the other with 3-foot-long arms. "What we want to be able to do is strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and we want the target to be destroyed when we shoot at it," Col. Jim Naughton, then-head of munitions for the Army Materiel Command, said just days before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year. "And we don't want to fight even. Nobody goes into a war and wants to be even with the enemy. We want to be ahead, and DU gives us that advantage." This battlefield benefit might be in danger, though. A growing number of medical researchers are finding evidence that the residue of depleted uranium weapons might be deadly to our own troops. Every time that a depleted uranium weapon hits its target, it leaves behind millions of tiny pieces of black dust that are mildly radioactive. The vast majority of those pieces are small enough to be inhaled. Researchers have found evidence that even a single piece of the dust in direct contact with a human cell begins the kind of genetic transformations thought to be the first steps toward cancer. They've also found evidence that inhaled uranium can be transferred to the brain. A number of researchers think that proof of the dust's migration to the brain might explain some of the widespread neurological illness among veterans of the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon has dismissed this possibility, saying it's an unproven theory. As for the other risks, they say even the highest dose of depleted uranium dust likely to be experienced in battle isn't enough to hurt someone. The Army says a recently completed $6 million study of the effects of inhaled depleted uranium demonstrates that it isn't a significant health risk, especially when the other risks on a battlefield are part of the calculations. Theories and data abound to support both sides. No one disputes that the stakes are high. On one side is the huge advantage that the weapons provided in the Gulf War and last year's Operation Iraqi Freedom. Pentagon officials say many soldiers are alive today because of depleted uranium's effectiveness. On the other hand, there's the possibility that depleted uranium played a part in the illnesses suffered by many of the 697,000 men and women who fought in the 1991 war. More than 26 percent of that war's veterans are on disability, a rate nearly three times higher than experienced in any U.S. war in the past 60 years. Gulf War-related experiences don't account for all those disabilities, but the reason why so many are so sick remains a mystery. Some scientists suspect that it could be a combination of factors, including the black dust. WHY THE WEAPON IS SO POWERFUL The dust is an unavoidable result of depleted uranium weapons, which are especially effective arms for a number of reasons. Depleted uranium is extremely dense, which means it is very heavy relative to the space that it takes up. In the Gulf War, U.S. forces fired thousands of projectiles with depleted uranium - about 320 tons worth. That sounds like a lot, Naughton said, but if you squished it all together, it would make a cube only 8 feet long on each edge. This high density - 1.7 times that of lead - offers important offensive and defensive capabilities in warfare. On defense, it makes for nearly impenetrable armor. Slabs of depleted uranium sandwiched between sheets of tough steel are used in the main U.S. battle tank, the Abrams. Depleted uranium armor has never been penetrated in combat, only in testing under controlled conditions, the Pentagon says. The armor is so good that after the Gulf War, Pentagon officials were fond of telling members of Congress the story of a U.S. Abrams tank crew that suddenly found itself in point-blank proximity to three Russian-made Iraqi tanks in the fog of war. The Iraqis fired first, but their shots bounced off the Abrams' armor, causing at most a crease in the metal. The Abrams' crew then fired 1-2-3 and destroyed all three Iraqi tanks. The last shot went through a sand berm that completely concealed the enemy tank from view after it tried to run and hide, the story went. Lest the military value of depleted uranium be lost in the health controversy, the story is recounted on a Department of Defense Web site established in reaction to allegations that depleted uranium weapons are responsible for some Gulf War veterans' illnesses. Depleted uranium's high density also gives the weapons awesome power. Other than what's necessary to launch a depleted uranium weapon in flight toward a target, it carries no other explosive and isn't a "shell." It is simply a pointed rod of almost pure depleted uranium metal hurling through the air, with fins on the back to give it the stability necessary to ensure that it reaches the target. The deadly darts fired from Abrams tanks are about 2 feet long and less than an inch in diameter. They weigh from 8.5 to 10.6 pounds. Smaller guns equipped to use the weapon shoot even smaller sticks of depleted uranium. But they can be just as effective. The Air Force's A-10 "Warthog" tank-killer aircraft can spit out 4,200 rounds a minute, each about the size of a finger and weighing only two-thirds of a pound, Pentagon officials say. Each one of those fingers can destroy a tank. Launching depleted uranium weapons involves mounting them in cuplike fittings called sabots and then loading them into the weapon. The sabots give the depleted uranium rods a sort of vehicle to ride through the barrel of the gun and out of the muzzle, so the projectile can begin the journey to the target. Once the sabot and depleted uranium rod and its fins clear the muzzle, the sabot falls to the ground. About that point, the depleted uranium weapon is traveling at Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound, says Don Noble, a retired military munitions expert from Williamsburg who helped test the weapons in the 1970s. WHY THE WEAPON IS SO DEADLY Once a depleted uranium weapon reaches its target, the high density, small diameter of the projectile and all that speed means there's a lot of energy packed into a narrow space. Packing lots of energy into a small space is what power is all about. Noble notes that depleted uranium has some very special properties that enhance that power. Unlike most metals, a narrow, sharp-tipped depleted uranium rod doesn't get blunt when it strikes a hard object. It just gets sharper, shedding little bits of depleted uranium - like shavings in a pencil sharpener - as it plows through a hard object such as armor. Those little bits are also on fire - about 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit, a study by the Canadian armed forces found. Researchers call the tiny pieces "fireflies," and they're abundant and visible when a weapon hits the target. For a time, some of these flaming bits become liquid before cooling into tiny irregular-shaped pieces of dust. The depleted uranium rod itself, known as a penetrator, is also on fire at 3,200 degrees as it slides through the hard target, the study says. That's because depleted uranium is pyrophoric, which means that it's capable of igniting spontaneously in the air. If left alone and exposed to air, it will turn black over time. When it strikes something, its exterior bursts into flames but it retains its mass and relative shape, not getting blunt. By the time the weapon has penetrated its target, it's become a fireball that ignites any combustible material nearby - such as fuel, clothing or oxygen - leaving behind the black dust of incinerated particles of depleted uranium as it goes. "As the penetrator enters the crew compartment of the target vehicle, it brings with it a spray of molten metal, as well as shards of both penetrator and vehicle armor, any of which can cause secondary explosions in stored ammunition," a primer on the weapons for U.S. Marine and Navy medics reads. 'THE DUST AND THE ASHES COVERED EVERYTHING' That primer was written years after the Persian Gulf War, when a young soldier named Matt Rohman from York County - along with hundreds of other combat engineers - were handed the job of emasculating Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's military in the 1991 war. After the fighting stopped, U.S. military commanders knew that they'd have only a short time before they'd be ordered back to their barracks. They wanted to make sure that none of the munitions, tanks or vehicles they'd encountered could be used again by Saddam, whether those objects be intact or partly destroyed. So combat engineers like Rohman spent months speeding across the desert, rounding up things to blow up. They quickly came to recognize those struck by depleted uranium (as opposed to other weapons) by the small holes in the pierced armor. That and the dust were usually the only visible evidence of why the vehicles had exploded in fire, Rohman says. No one ever mentioned that the dust might be dangerous. Now Rohman, 40, is one of the thousands of Gulf War vets who are disabled by various maladies, including muscle and neurological problems, stomach disorders, and extreme pains in his head and joints. His medical problems began within weeks of his return from the war in 1991, and government and civilian medical doctors can't explain what caused them. He's been unable to work since 1997. Like many of the sick veterans from that war, there were many possible hazards to choose from. Life in the desert was hard, hot and dirty, Rohman says. A mixture of sand, depleted uranium dust and soot from continuing oil well fires in the area coated everything, including his skin, uniform and often his food. "For over 30 days, we did not wash and clean," Rohman wrote in a sworn affidavit in 1998, in an attempt to get veterans benefits after he'd been deemed physically unable to work at any job. "I stayed in the same uniform through our march, and usually, I was so dirty from the air, ashes and dust that I could not be identified. The dust and ashes covered everything on me and around us. We could not escape it." The dust and dirt was on their food, too, he says, and it was impossible to get it all out of your mouth. Rohman spent nearly four months that way, his military records show. FIRST, ROHMAN LOST HIS TEETH, AND THEN HE LOST HIS HEALTH Shortly after the war, Rohman's teeth started coming out. Military dentists yanked nine teeth in Germany before they sent him home. His records show the Army gave him an early honorable discharge and a 20 percent disability because of a knee injury that he'd suffered in the early days of the war, scrambling into an armored car during a missile attack on his outfit. By 1993, nearly all the other teeth were gone, he says. By then, he was going to Naval Medical Center Portsmouth for treatment. "The doctor over at Portsmouth told me that the only way they could all go that quick was if they'd come in contact with radiation," Rohman says. Losing teeth like that didn't run in his family, he adds. Before the war, "I didn't have a cavity." Rohman says the doctor at Portsmouth asked him whether he'd been exposed to radioactive materials. Rohman says he didn't know about depleted uranium back then, so he told the dentist that he didn't know. By the time Rohman learned that the black dust was mildly radioactive, all his teeth were gone, he had severe nerve damage in his hands and feet, almost daily migraine headaches and breathing problems, among other ailments. His lawyer filed in 1998 to get the dental and other records from the Naval Medical Center to help Rohman's claims for benefits. But the hospital sent a form letter, saying it had no records at all of Rohman being seen there for anything. Rohman has a stack of copies of medical records from Portsmouth, verifying visits and treatments there. But he has only some of his records, and none of the ones that he got and kept were for the dental work. He says the dentist who treated him wanted to put something about possible service-related exposure to radioactivity on one record but was overruled by a supervisor. He also says he saw some of his records shredded during one of his visits, but doesn't know what those papers contained. Now, Rohman says, he realizes that he might have been eating small bits of depleted uranium, and with the poor sanitation available, those bits of dust were stuck on and between his teeth for days and weeks. What he swallowed wasn't a big problem. Scientists know that nearly all the uranium that's swallowed passes through the intestines quickly, is excreted and causes no danger. What stayed in his mouth for a while is another matter. Rapid loss of teeth is a common result of direct radiation to the mouth and jaw from medical treatments or other sources, if preventive measures aren't taken, according to medical journals. Radiation affects the saliva glands, which in turn can't perform the natural cleansing that helps keep teeth and gums healthy and free of germs. There's also the danger of tissue damage to the gums from direct contact with radiation sources. When gums get weak, teeth fall out. While in the desert with the 3rd Armored Division, constantly on the move to collect and destroy all that hardware, there were days at a time when there was limited drinking water. Rohman recalls that everyone's mouth was dry and that brushing your teeth was out of the question. According to data compiled by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, loose teeth and gum problems are common among veterans of the Persian Gulf War. The American Legion also did a survey of members who'd been to the gulf during the war and found the same thing. But that survey was never handled as a scientific survey, says Steve Smithson, director of the legion's veterans affairs and rehabilitation division. Dental problems aren't on the list of typical Gulf War illnesses compiled by researchers and the Veterans Affairs Department, however. Mohamed B. Abou-Donia, a professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University, led a review of medical and scientific data on depleted uranium that was published this year. He says that he found no evidence of references to dental problems but that it might simply be one of many gaps in our knowledge about the veterans' health problems. THE PROBLEM GOES PUBLIC WITH A 1998 STATEMENT One of the big obstacles to figuring out the cause of these illnesses is the government's failure to accurately survey all those who served and to compare their experiences, Abou-Donia and other researchers say. If that data is ever collected, they say, they might gain many insights into the veterans' health problems and the causes. Given the circumstances that veterans like Rohman were working in during and after the war, "the teeth part could be related very directly to the depleted uranium," Abou-Donia says. He says it's also possible that few veterans got as high a dose as Rohman. At the time that Rohman says he got dental exams at Portsmouth, allegations of hazards from depleted uranium's use on the battlefield hadn't become known yet outside the group of people who develop weaponry for the military. Not until 1998 did the U.S. government publicly acknowledge that it shouldn't have let Rohman and hundreds of others work closely with the vehicles and other objects struck by those weapons without wearing masks or suits to protect them. The first government official appointed to oversee research on the cause of the veterans' health problems issued this statement: "Combat troops or those working in support generally did not know that DU-contaminated equipment, such as enemy vehicles struck by DU rounds, required special handling. The failure to properly disseminate such information to troops at all levels may have resulted in thousands of unnecessary exposures." The statement occurred after veterans' groups, members of Congress and others successfully pushed the Pentagon to admit that the illnesses suffered by the men and women who'd fought the war weren't simply the result of too much stress. It also occurred as government officials began to acknowledge that there was a significant problem that had to be addressed. CONCERNS WERE DOCUMENTED DURING THE 1980s The government and military were backpedaling in many areas. Within months, Pentagon and CIA officials acknowledged that earlier statements dismissing the presence of nerve gas and other toxins on the battlefield were erroneous and that there were widespread incidents that could have affected troops during the war and its aftermath. By the time that a presidential assistant acknowledged the failure to warn troops about the dangers of depleted uranium, the Army had issued a technical bulletin calling for troops in such situations to wear protective clothing, boots, and masks with filters to prevent breathing the dust. It called for them to be able to shower immediately afterward and remove any "contaminated clothing," not just after the day's work but "if feasible, at the site." The need to take those precautions wasn't a secret among the people who'd been working to develop the weapons more than a decade earlier. When Noble was part of a team evaluating depleted uranium weapons' ballistics in the 1970s, members examined the area with Geiger counters before entering areas where the projectiles hit targets, he says. Even after the Geiger counters showed low levels of radiation, his team wore protective suits and breather masks where the weapons hit, he says. They also took regular doses of aspirin because the drug was supposed to help cleanse their bodies of the toxins from the uranium and other chemicals that they worked with. Other military officials who helped develop depleted uranium weapons knew about the possible risk to soldiers' lungs and began trying to get a grasp on the problem a decade before the war. A study to figure out how much dust might be inhaled after a typical explosion - and what it would do once it got in the lungs and body - was conducted from 1981 to 1983 by the Air Force. Much of the work took place at the same New Mexico laboratory where rats now breathe uranium bits to test whether the uranium goes to their brains. The 1981-83 study by the Air Force was titled, "Preliminary Study of Uranium Oxide Dissolution in Simulated Lung Fluid." It tried to estimate how much radiation the lungs might be getting before the particles dissolved in the fluid and then into the bloodstream, where they would pose a possible toxicological danger to the kidneys and other parts of the body but also would be flushed out of the body in urine. The study pointed out lots of pitfalls that future researchers would run into while trying to settle the problem for good. It came to no firm conclusions about risks - in part because the uranium bits don't break down into predictable sizes and shapes. Much of the study resulted in educated guesses based on mathematical models. More work was needed, it said. Pentagon officials say the final reams of data on that topic were collected and published this year. Their five-year $6 million study involved shooting real depleted uranium weapons into a real tank, real tank hulls and turrets, and a real Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The depleted uranium dust that resulted was caught in filters, weighed, analyzed and soaked in simulated lung fluid to see how long it would take to dissolve halfway. For most of the particles, it took more than 100 days, which means there would be some mildly radioactive dust in the lungs or lymph nodes for years. The study said the smallest particles took the longest time to dissolve halfway. But it calculated that because they were so small, there shouldn't be a significant health risk from inhaling those particles, based on industrial standards for nuclear workers and government-approved standards for uranium intake. Soldiers like Rohman, who weren't in a tank hit with one of the weapons, would be able to enter hundreds to thousands of vehicles covered with the dust before reaching the threshold of risk, according to the study. The military not only dismisses the risk, it dismisses the statements of thousands of troops who say they were exposed. HOW MANY INHALED? NO ONE REALLY KNOWS Officially, the Pentagon says only a few hundred troops were involved in potentially dangerous duty involving depleted uranium in the 1991 war. Veterans and many researchers disagree. There might have been relatively few soldiers like Rohman officially assigned to work in and on the damaged tanks and other vehicles struck with depleted uranium, they say, but tens of thousands of others were likely exposed. Once the fighting stopped, just about anyone who came near a tank or other vehicle hit by depleted uranium scrambled over and into what was left to take a look. According to congressional testimony in 1997, a survey of more than 10,000 Gulf War vets showed that 85 percent of them had entered captured Iraqi vehicles. The reasons were many, ranging from official duties to getting their pictures taken or simply to satisfy curiosity. Some vehicles hit by depleted uranium were hauled back to areas far behind the combat zone for possible return to the United States. The depleted uranium dust came with them. According to a report to Congress by the Army Environmental Policy Institute, 19 U.S. tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles contaminated with depleted uranium dust were hauled back to King Khalid Military City in Saudi Arabia, far from the combat zone. The city was a central collection point for service personnel, media and others going to and from various parts of the war. The unit responsible for disposing those vehicles didn't know about the hazards of the contamination and stored them "in a recovery yard without controlled access," according to the institute's report. The contaminated vehicles were there for three weeks before proper precautions were taken, the report says. Tradition also might have played a part in spreading the black dust. Souvenirs - including parts from Iraqi tanks that had been hit by depleted uranium - were taken home in the bags and baggage of soldiers and units, the institute's report says. There were even attempts to bring back entire pieces of equipment as battle trophies. When officials caught on to what was happening, some of the larger items were screened, and at least three Iraqi vehicles that units hoped to take home with them were found to be contaminated with depleted uranium and rejected for shipment, the institute's report says. Items brought home without previous screening through official channels "may contain hazardous materials," the Army report says. There's no official count of how often pieces of metal, clothing or other items with black depleted uranium dust came home to soldiers' barracks, homes and families. Military officials say it's extremely unlikely that anyone who came in contact with depleted uranium dust under such circumstances would become sick from it. Soldiers in those situations just didn't get a big enough dose, they say. The same is true about soldiers who might have inhaled some depleted uranium dust well after the end of a tank battle, they add. That's because the documented cases of uranium poisoning in uranium millers and miners studied over the years show that exposures thousands of times greater than what could reasonably be inhaled in those scenarios must occur to cause the body harm, says Michael J. Kilpatrick, the Pentagon's doctor responsible for looking after the health of troops sent overseas. WHAT'S A SAFE DISTANCE FROM DEPLETED URANIUM? Anyone who stays at least 50 meters (165 feet) away from where depleted uranium struck an object has no risk of ill health from exposure, says one of the Pentagon's leading experts on the health effects of the weapons - Lt. Col. Mark Melanson, health physics program manager for the Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine. "Most of it settles out within 50 meters of the vehicle" that's been hit, he says. "Is it possible for a single atom of depleted uranium to carry beyond 50 meters? Yes. Is it a significant health risk? No." Studies have found big differences regarding how much breathable dust depleted uranium weapons produce after they hit a target - and how far they might spread. The Army Environmental Policy Institute told Congress that the available research showed that anywhere from 18 percent to 70 percent of a depleted uranium projectile turns into breathable dust as it hits a target. It said 90 percent of the airborne depleted uranium would land within 50 meters of the explosion, in part because the dust is so heavy. But it also said that the dust particles that went beyond the 50-meter mark were generally all small enough to breathe in. Scientists say those are potentially the most dangerous. The environmental institute's report didn't go into how far the dust could go and what it would do in the heavy, sandstorm-driven winds of the Persian Gulf region. Much less how easily it could be kicked up by a moving truck or tank, then carried by one of those sandstorms. Melanson said later studies by the Army established the 50-meter standard. The United States fired the most depleted uranium in the Gulf War, but the British and other allies used it too. And breathed the air. Since then, veterans in those countries have demanded to know why they're so sick. The Royal Military College of Canada conducted its own testing after complaints by veterans. The publicly released version of its report didn't give a fixed distance from the site of an explosion, but it agreed that "at any distance from contaminated vehicles," the concentration of depleted uranium dust in the air "would be diluted to safe levels." It also found that 91 percent to 96 percent of the bits of dust left after an explosion "are easily respirable," and that "these particles can remain in the air for a significant period of time (hours to days), most of which will remain inside the target vehicles, but with some likely to escape into the atmosphere through open hatches or remain outside the target." Studies by the U.S., Canadian and Australian militaries found that though relatively heavy, depleted uranium dust particles are again suspended into the air when disturbed by vehicles, foot traffic or winds. DETECTING ITS PRESENCE WITH A MASS SPECTROMETER For much of the past 25 years, Leonard Dietz has been contemplating how far inhalable bits of depleted uranium can fly and how to detect it in the air and in soldiers' bodies. Dietz - a retired physicist in Schenectady, N.Y. - worked at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, where General Electric did nuclear work for the Navy and the U.S. government years before the 1991 war. Dietz's primary expertise involves a device called a mass spectrometer. A mass spectrometer is used to analyze samples of unknown substances to figure out what they're made of. Dietz patented a device built into mass spectrometers that's used to identify radioactive objects such as uranium and plutonium. He designed and built three mass spectrometers used to analyze uranium, plutonium and other elements. General Electric had to monitor the air at the plant where Dietz worked. It also had to monitor the air around the perimeter of the plant's grounds to make sure that none of the substances it was using were escaping, Dietz says. One of his jobs was to figure out what was in the air filters to prove that his employer wasn't polluting. The plant where he worked didn't use depleted uranium. But in 1979, all 16 filters caught tiny bits of depleted uranium - small enough that a human could inhale them, Dietz says. "Every single filter contained depleted uranium." Dietz said, so they knew it wasn't a fluke. Dietz and his co-workers finally figured out that the particles were coming from a plant in Albany, N.Y., making depleted uranium weapons for the Air Force. The plant's smokestack was 26 miles from some of the filters, he says. State and federal regulators caught on to the problem about the same time. They closed the plant, and since 1984, the U.S. government has been spending millions of dollars a year to remove the dangerous remnants of uranium. The cleanup includes removing the top layer of soil from properties in a radius of about two-thirds of a mile from the plant, says James T. Moore of the Army Corps of Engineers, who's supervising the project. The soil was removed because it contained unacceptable quantities of small pieces of depleted uranium, small enough to be inhaled. Two-thirds of a mile is more than 1,000 meters, or a kilometer. In all, 53 nearby properties required soil removal. They included property in nearby Colonie, N.Y., and some railroad property, all of which "contain residual radioactive and chemical constituents above federal and state guidelines," according to a status report on the work by the Corps of Engineers. Dietz says the 26-mile mark just happened to be where three of his filters were. They were the farthest from the plant where the depleted uranium weapons were made. He says his calculations show that while the contamination from the plant near Colonie came from a high smokestack, similar heights could easily be reached by depleted uranium dust particles rising from the heat and smoke of an exploding tank. He says he has no doubt that depleted uranium particles from the weapons plant went much farther than 26 miles. Well-established laws of physics show that despite their heavy weight, inhalable-sized particles can carry for miles, can be kicked up and resuspended in the air, and can travel farther, depending on their shape, wind speed and other factors, he says. Naturally occurring electrostatic charges would also cause them to cling to other dust particles that are even more aerodynamic, he says. That would enable them to carry even further. "They have an unlimited range," he says. "They can go anywhere dust goes." Dietz wrote a technical paper for General Electric to document his findings on the airborne depleted uranium from the weapons plant. He retired a short time later but keeps following the trail of depleted uranium dust. In 1995, a Kuwaiti scientist, Firyal Bou-Rabee, published a paper on possible contamination of Kuwait's soil, air and water in the international journal Applied Radiation Isotopes. The Pentagon's Web site on depleted uranium cites the scientist's research to demonstrate that the weapons' use there during the 1991 war didn't create undue radiological hazards in that nation. Bou-Rabee's samples did show that the uranium in the air was about twice what you'd expect to find, given the level of uranium in the soils. He attributed this to "the relatively small contribution of depleted uranium dispersed after the Gulf War." His research was financed by the Kuwaiti government - which, at the time, depended on the United States for its defense against Iraq. Like most scientific papers, the data was included so other scientists could evaluate his findings and conclusions. Dietz says he used that data to compute how much depleted uranium was in a 2,500-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) area where battles were fought during the war. The result, he says, was 10 metric tons of depleted uranium that had been added to the environment. THE ONLY POSSIBLE SOURCE OF CONTAMINATION IS WEAPONS There's no other source of the depleted uranium but the residue of the weapons, he says, because the characteristics of depleted uranium aren't replicated in nature and there are no other sources of the materials. Bou-Rabee and the Pentagon pointed to the same data to show that because the total uranium in the air and soil was below government-established safety limits, there's no problem. The U.S. government sent its own people with Geiger counters and other devices to measure the radioactivity of soils in Kuwait. The same thing was done in Bosnia and parts of the former Yugoslavia, where depleted uranium weapons were used by U.S. and British forces in peacekeeping operations after the Persian Gulf War. The U.S. government and the U.N. World Health Organization say their studies of the soils in those former battlefields show levels of radioactivity and uranium below what should cause alarm. That's because they're within what's called the "natural background" levels that you'd find ordinarily. Melanson says he's participated in some of that research, including the work to gather samples. He and other government officials say there's no health risk there, even though thousands of small and large depleted uranium projectiles that missed their targets remain buried in the soil, mostly from the Air Force's A-10 aircraft. Children often find the projectiles, play with them and carry them around. A World Health Organization evaluation of the problem said that wasn't a good idea but wasn't an immediate health threat unless someone carried a projectile around for days or weeks. CALCULATED RISKS DEPEND ON THE CALCULATIONS USED Dietz says that he reviewed the data and methodology Melanson's lab used to produce these soil surveys and that the mass spectrometer it employed wasn't up to the job. He says it's incapable of accurately detecting depleted uranium in quantities of less than one part per million. That might sound like too small an amount to be concerned about, Dietz says, but when you're talking about particles measured in microns - one-millionth of a meter - it could mean a lot of uncounted depleted uranium. Measuring total radioactivity isn't the point anyway, Dietz and others say. That's because the natural background doesn't involve a high quantity of radioactive dust on the surface, blowing around in the air. Much of the uranium in nature is in the ground, buried, and not so susceptible to inhalation. There's plenty of natural uranium in Kuwait, but it wouldn't have the same health-threatening characteristics as the depleted uranium dust, Dietz and other scientists say. Naturally occurring uranium is dilute, locked up in sand and minerals. As a result, it would be relatively innocuous if inhaled. The depleted uranium dust, on the other hand, is concentrated and does not quickly dissolve. Once it gets into the lungs, even the smaller pieces last for years - which means the alpha radiation that they exude will be banging on nearby lung and lymph-node tissue, causing possible damage. Melanson says even if that's true, the total dose of uranium from these little pieces isn't enough to get close to the government's accepted standards for safe peacetime dosages. Scientists who think more research is needed say the standards that the Pentagon used for even its most recent calculations don't take into account the latest research. The standards used in the most recent government study, published this fall, were adopted in the 1970s. The Capstone Study made no attempt to explore what might be the additional risk if the "bystander effect" of depleted uranium on nearby human cells is taken into account. Dietz and other critics of the weapons say that even if the ultimate level of radioactivity isn't alarmingly high, it doesn't mean that the war and use of the weapons didn't increase the health risks. The natural-background uranium level set by government agencies is merely a range of measurements taken in various places. Colorado and Florida, for instance, have higher natural background levels than Virginia, overall. So it's a measurement of what exists, critics of depleted uranium weapons say - not necessarily what's safe. Risk and safety in warfare are difficult to measure, Melanson says. Compared with the other risks on a battlefield and the alternative of not using depleted uranium weapons, inhaling the amount of dust that's likely simply isn't a significant factor, he says. The normal risk of fatal lung cancer for all males in the United States is 23.6 percent. Smoking raises that to nearly 31 percent, he says. But according to the measurements and calculations in the Capstone Study, even the maximum dose of inhaled depleted uranium increases the risk less than 1 percent. -------- iran British FM presses Iran to respect nuclear freeze, Iran says research exempt BRUSSELS (AFP) Dec 13, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041213170642.qicutl8u.html Britain insisted Monday that Iran respect a full freeze of uranium enrichment, but Tehran sought exceptions for research purposes during talks with the European Union on confidence measures to show it is not making nuclear weapons. Each side must accept "both the spirit as well as the letter" of a November 7 agreement, reached in Paris, under which Iran pledged to suspend all uranium enrichment activities, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters. Straw, along with German and French foreign ministers Joschka Fischer and Michel Barnier, as well as EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana, met with top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani to discuss the Paris agreement, EU officials said. The accord, endorsed by the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), promises Tehran trade, technology and security rewards in return for fully suspending enrichment, a crucial fuel-making process that can also be used to make atomic weapons. Diplomats said the talks could not succeed unless Washington eventually took part, since Iran could not join the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example, or receive regional security guarantees without US support. The United States, which charges that Iran is using the Paris agreement to gain time to enable it to secretly develop nuclear weapons, has not yet supported the EU initiative with Iran but is not opposing it. The EU negotiators from Britain, France and Germany had refused at an IAEA meeting in Vienna last month to let Iran withhold 20 centrifuges -- the machines that enrich uranium -- from the freeze in order to do research, saying the halt must be total and involve all related enrichment activities. The Iranian demand had threatened to scupper the agreement. "We'll be discussing ... the full implementation of the Paris agreement," Straw said, adding: "The words of the Paris agreement mean what they say." But in Tehran, government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh said Iran was sticking to its demand that 20 centrifuges be excluded. "The question of halting research is not on the agenda," he said. Straw said the European trio and Iran would be setting up "three working groups to take forward the Paris agreement." The working groups cover incentives Iran is to be offered over the long term. One group is in technology, economics and cooperation, another in nuclear issues and a third in politics and security, diplomats said. In return for "objective guarantees" that it will not develop the bomb, Iran has been offered incentives such as help in joining the WTO and in obtaining a light water research reactor. Tehran would in turn abandon plans to build a heavy water reactor that would be more capable of producing bomb-grade material. The working groups were to meet later Monday at the Iranian embassy after the ministers' meeting, an EU official said, adding that Iranian-EU discussions on a trade and cooperation agreement would probably take place in January. "This process is going to take off today," a senior European diplomat told AFP, adding that it would take "a bit longer" than the three-month deadline the Iranians have set. The road is fraught with difficulties since Iran says its suspension of uranium enrichment is a temporary measure designed to show its intentions are peaceful, while the EU negotiators want it to become permanent, diplomats said. The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear programme for almost two years. Iran said Sunday that it was not prepared to accept a permanent freeze as it claims it has the right to enrich uranium under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Rowhani warned that the Islamic republic would abandon the talks, and the suspension, in the absence of meaningful progress. The IAEA had on November 29 decided against referring Iran to the UN Security Council for threatened sanctions, as the United States wants, after Tehran agreed on the suspension. In a sign of continuing concern about Iran's intentions, diplomats said last week that the Islamic Republic was conducting secret high-energy neutron experiments, allegedly taking place under military supervision, that could be destined for civilian purposes or aimed at making nuclear weapons. ----- Iran nuclear chief hails 'new chapter' with Europe after talks BRUSSELS (AFP) Dec 13, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041213200537.6ltuql43.html Iran's top nuclear official Hassan Rowhani hailed Monday a "new chapter" in relations between Tehran and Europe, after talks with key EU ministers on rewards Iran is to receive for suspending uranium enrichment to show it is not making atomic weapons. Rowhani, speaking after talks with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain, said he hoped the negotiations "can be indicative of a new chapter in our relations not only with the three European countries but with Europe as a whole." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "We are now able to move forward to the next phase," confirming that working groups of officials from both sides would pursue talks starting immediately. "We are all committed to the successful outcome of the process which began in Iran 14 months ago," when Tehran first reached agreement with the so-called EU3 on its uranium enrichment activities, an accord that had faltered due to bickering over whether all support activites such as making centrifuges were included. Uranium is enriched by centrifuges into fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also what in highly refined form can be the explosive core of atomic bombs. Straw said a key purpose of the talks would be to determine "that Iran's nuclear program can only be used for peaceful purposes." Under an agreement struck last month in Paris, Iran pledged to suspend all enrichment activities, in return for promises of trade, technology and security rewards, the topics of the three working groups. The United States charges that Iran is using the Paris agreement to gain time to enable it to secretly develop nuclear weapons and would like to see Tehran brought before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. But Washington is giving the EU initiative a chance, even though it does not back it. Diplomats said the talks could not succeed unless Washington eventually takes part, since Iran could not join the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example, or receive regional security guarantees without US support. Iran wants rapid progress. Tehran will be assigning a minister to each of the three working groups as "a sign that they want the process to move quickly," a diplomat close to the talks said. The diplomat said Rowhani had told the European trio that a three-month deadline, after which the working groups are to file reports, was very important for Iran as "time is of the essence" for them. But "substance is of the essence," for the Europeans, the diplomat said. Rowhani had warned before leaving Tehran for Brussels that the Islamic republic would abandon the talks, and the suspension, in the absence of meaningful progress. Rowhani meanwhile played down comments from Tehran that Iran was seeking exemptions from the suspension in order to use centrifuges for research when he said: "The purpose of the suspension is to create a new atmosphere through which we can have serious negotiations with our Europen partners." The European trio had refused at a meeting in Vienna last month of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to let Iran withhold 20 centrifuges from the freeze in order to do research, saying the halt must be total and involve all related enrichment activities. The Iranian demand had threatened to scupper the agreement. But in Tehran, government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh said Monday that Iran was sticking to its demand that 20 centrifuges be excluded as "halting research is not on the agenda." The working groups cover incentives Iran is to be offered over the long term. One group is in technology, economics and cooperation, another in nuclear issues and a third in politics and security, diplomats said. In return for "objective guarantees" that it will not develop the bomb, Iran has been offered incentives such as help in joining the WTO and in obtaining a light water research reactor. Tehran would in turn abandon plans to build a heavy water reactor that would be more capable of producing bomb-grade material. The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear programme for almost two years. In a sign of continuing concern about Iran's intentions, diplomats said last week that the Islamic Republic was conducting secret high-energy neutron experiments, allegedly taking place under military supervision, that could be destined for civilian purposes or aimed at making nuclear weapons. -------- missile defense THEODORE A. POSTOL: MIT's role in missile test fraud By Theodore A. Postol | December 13, 2004 NY Post http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/12/13/mits_role_in_missile_test_fraud?mode=PF AFTER MORE than 3 1/2 years of foot-dragging, excuses, and violations of federal regulations, MIT announced last week that it could not investigate credible evidence of possible scientific fraud in fundamental National Missile Defense research being done at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. The reason outgoing president Charles M. Vest gave is that the Pentagon had classified everything about the investigation. If the particular allegations of fraud have merit -- and I believe they do -- MIT and the Pentagon have been involved in a fraud that has promoted a weapon system that will have little or no utility and could cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Of even greater importance, millions of lives could be lost if this weapon system failed to defend our nation from a nuclear ballistic missile attack. The allegations of fraud involve the critically important Integrated Flight Test 1A, or IFT-1A, in June 1997. Its purpose was to determine if the currently deployed National Missile Defense could tell the difference between warheads flying through space and simple balloons designed to look like warheads. If the IFT-1A experiment could not demonstrate that the weapon could perform this task, the weapon could never have a realistic chance of working in combat. In May 2000 I sent evidence to the White House that, despite the claims of unqualified success by the Pentagon, the IFT-1A had in fact been a total failure. Initially, the Pentagon claimed that the letter I wrote to the White House was secret. Then the Pentagon reversed itself and claimed that the experiment was old and irrelevant, and then it reinforced this claim by arguing that it now uses a slightly different sensor that renders the results of the IFT-1A irrelevant. Finally, after trying for years to dismiss the relevance of the IFT-1A, the Pentagon has again reversed itself and claims that the release of any and all information about it would cause grave, direct, and immediate harm to the national security. In subsequent work, I learned that the document that had led me to warn the White House about fraud in the National Missile defense program had been produced for the Pentagon by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. The Lincoln Laboratory report was written in 1998 for federal agents from the departments of Justice and Defense. The agents had come to MIT for help in evaluating evidence they had collected that indicated researchers at TRW might have fraudulently tampered with data to make the IFT-1A test look like a success when it had in fact failed. Since Lincoln Laboratory had been deeply involved in early analysis of the IFT-1A, and has special national status as a federally funded research and development center, it was in a unique position to evaluate all the evidence uncovered by the federal agents. In April 2001, I began a process of alerting MIT's then-president Charles M. Vest and his provost, Robert Brown, that MIT's Lincoln Laboratory had failed to cooperate with the federal agents and had withheld critical information that the sensor in the IFT-1A had not performed as designed. Since the sensor did not collect valid data, the experiment was a total failure and fraud had occurred at TRW. Of even greater concern, it was clear from documents created shortly after the IFT-1A in 1997 and General Accountability Office reports published in March 2002 that Lincoln Laboratory was fully aware of the failure of the sensor. MIT's response during this period was at first to deny that it had oversight responsibilities for the report, then, in July 2002, to produce an interim inquiry report, reviewed by MIT's lawyers, that praised the work done by Lincoln and concluded: "The good news is that the management and culture of the Lincoln Laboratory . . . have created processes to insure that the nation's trust is protected." Four months later the conclusions of the interim inquiry report were completely reversed and an investigation recommended. It is this investigation which MIT now says it cannot pursue because material is classified. In fact the investigation can be fully accomplished with material already made public. The mishandling of this affair by MIT poses threats to the integrity and credibility of all university-based research in this country. MIT's continuing excuses for not investigating this matter and its attempts to evade its responsibilities represent a serious violation of the public trust and the most basic principles of academic integrity. But of far more importance than the future of MIT, it does a disservice to our system of government and undermines the defense of our country. Theodore A. Postol is professor of science, technology, and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. -------- russia Renewal of deal to help secure Russian arms in doubt USA TODAY By Peter Eisler, 12/13/2004 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-12-13-inside-nuke-russia_x.htm WASHINGTON — This was to be the year that Russia began getting tens of millions of dollars in U.S. assistance to build a plant to convert 34 tons of plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. But not a dime of the $50 million Congress set aside to start construction has been spent. In 2002, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called the project "central to enhancing our national security" in a post-Sept. 11 world. But construction of the plant, a pillar of U.S. efforts to help Russia protect and destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, has been stalled for years, largely because of a dispute on how much liability the U.S. government and its workers would bear in any accident. The dispute is one of several slowing U.S. efforts to help Russia deal with surplus arms. The work is done under Defense and Energy department programs that provide U.S. money to help former Soviet states protect and eliminate weapons of mass destruction. "We need to get rid of these weapons in Russia ... (and) these problems are frustrating us," says Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. The bilateral agreement authorizing the programs expires in 2006. And disputes on liability and other issues threaten its renewal. "Without (a new pact), I think all of our programs would have to stop," says Paul Longsworth of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration. "Obviously, we're concerned if we don't get resolution soon." But renewal talks haven't begun. The programs were born in 1991, after the Soviet Union's collapse. Several of the emerging states inherited nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the United States feared the arms could reach rogue nations or terrorists. The programs, spending about $1 billion a year, have destroyed thousands of nuclear warheads, missiles and submarines, and big stocks of chemical and biological agents. But they're controversial. "On (the U.S.) side, there are people who say the Russians are cheating, they just want the money," says Vladimir Rybachenkov, counselor at the Russian Embassy. "On our side, there are some who say the Americans just want to get their noses into our" military sites. The Pentagon's inspector general has cited several projects as wasteful. In one case, the Pentagon spent $100 million to build Russia a plant to destroy fuel from nuclear missiles. After it was built, Russia said it was using the fuel for commercial rockets. So the plant is idle. Russia also has yet to use a high-security nuclear materials storage facility built with about $400 million in U.S. money. At issue is what material it will hold — and how the United States can verify that it won't store fuel for new weapons. The Pentagon now wants binding agreements with Russia on how U.S. assistance will be used. But the pacts can take months to reach. Other causes for delay: •Access. Russia has refused U.S. demands to enter several nuclear, biological and chemical sites where security is in doubt. The resistance is mainly from Russia's internal security force. The Pentagon refuses assistance unless its program managers can visit a site to verify that money isn't misspent. But Russian officials say some access demands exceed what they allow. "There are technical means to verify (work) ... without what we call 'intrusion,' " Rybachenkov says. Access snags also have slowed an Energy Department push to upgrade security at Russian sites holding 600 tons of nuclear weapons material. Russian and U.S. officials are in talks on the problem, and the department forecasts increases in its rate of installing safeguards. But even if it moves at unprecedented speed, it will miss a goal for completion in 2008. •Funding. Congress has put conditions on the release of money for several projects, especially those aimed at securing Russia's chemical and biological weapons. The conditions require the administration to "certify" that Russia is meeting a host of criteria, such as disclosing data on its chemical and biological stockpiles, or improving its record on human rights. The rules stymied construction of a Russian plant to destroy thousands of tons of chemical munitions. At Lugar's urging, Congress gave President Bush authority last year to waive certification, but the plant now is years off schedule. •Liability. The impasse on the plutonium-conversion program centers on a U.S. insistence that any work agreement include 100% liability protection for its agencies and workers, even for individual acts of sabotage. That language is in the current agreement on U.S.-Russian cooperation, but the plutonium program isn't covered. And Russia's legislature has passed a law barring similar language if the pact is renewed. -------- u.n. What El Baradei Said Antiwar.com by Gordon Prather December 13, 2004 http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=4153 David Sanger – a New York Times reporter – has actually visited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and interviewed its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei. Sanger's resulting report – entitled "When a Virtual Bomb May Be Better Than the Real Thing" – appeared last Sunday. Until now, Sanger and other media sycophants have been uncritically accepting neocon misinformation about nuclear programs – past and present – in Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The neocons had President Bush say this about Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in his 2002 State of the Union Address: "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic. "We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." Nine months later, Bush went to Congress seeking "specific statutory authorization" to invade Iraq. He based his request upon a highly-classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that supposedly "proved" that Saddam was reconstructing his nuke and chem-bio weapons programs, with the intention of supplying those weapons to Islamic terrorists for use against us. That NIE turned out to be a neocon con job. Nevertheless, "The president is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." But there was a catch. Before resorting to force, Bush had to satisfy Congress that "reliance on peaceful means alone will not adequately protect the national security of the United States." That meant Bush had to give UN inspectors an opportunity to do a go-anywhere, see-anything search of Iraq to see if a resort to force was necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein. By mid-March of 2003, the UN inspectors had reported back to the Security Council that Saddam had made no attempt to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction programs since 1991 and had effectively been disarmed since at least 1998. Hence, it must have been absolutely stupefying to Iran and North Korea when Dubya "determined" on March 19 that no "further diplomatic or other peaceful means will adequately protect the national security of the United States from the continuing threat posed by Iraq." And he invaded Iraq the next day. Bush had unilaterally abrogated – just after he went to Congress to ask for authority to invade Iraq – the so-called Agreed Framework verified by the IAEA, wherein North Korea froze all nuclear reactors and related facilities. So, North Korea had withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ejected IAEA personnel, and restarted its plutonium-producing nuclear reactor. Immediately after Bush invaded Iraq, North Korea announced it was chemically recovering the weapons-grade plutonium already produced. Enough for five or six nukes, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. Now, there can be no question that ElBaradei was right about Iraq. But what about Iran? Well, after more than 20 months of go-anywhere, see-anything searching, ElBaradei has found no indication that Iran has – or ever had – a nuclear weapons program. But the neocons claim that Iran's having the capability to enrich uranium is tantamount to Iran's having nukes. That's nonsense, of course. Iran's having the capability to enrich uranium is not even tantamount to having the capability to produce the essentially pure uranium-235 required to make a nuke. And even if Iran did have the capability and had somehow managed to secretly produce a few hundred pounds of uranium-235, that wouldn't be tantamount to actually having nukes, either. Especially implosion-type nukes. However, it has been widely reported that ElBaradei told Sanger that having the capability was tantamount. ElBaradei didn't. When asked whether he thought North Korea had actually made five or six nukes with their weapons-grade plutonium or not, ElBaradei asked, "What's the difference?" What ElBaradei meant was that, in his opinion, there is very little difference in the deterrent value of real nukes and virtual nukes. He's wrong about that, of course. So are the neocons. ----- The Revolt Against the Bush Administration's Nuclear Double Standard hnn.us By Lawrence S. Wittner 12-13-04 http://hnn.us/articles/8996.html In late November, when Congress refused to appropriate money to fund so-called "bunker busters" and "mini-nukes," this action represented not only a serious blow to the Bush administration's plan to build new nuclear weapons, but to the administration's overall nuclear arms control and disarmament policy. That policy has been to prevent the development of nuclear weapons by nations the Bush administration considers "evil." The military invasion of Iraq, like the gathering confrontation with Iran and North Korea, reflects, at least in part, the administration's obsession with preventing nations potentially hostile to the United States from acquiring a nuclear capability. This focus upon blocking nuclear weapons development in other countries has some legal justification for, in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, non-nuclear nations agreed not to develop nuclear weapons. But the NPT also calls for nuclear nations to rid themselves of the nuclear weapons they possess. Indeed, in the meetings that fashioned the treaty, the non-nuclear weapons states demanded a commitment to nuclear disarmament by the nuclear powers. And they received it -- not only in the form of the treaty's provisions, but in the formal pledges made by the nuclear powers at the periodic treaty review conferences that have been held since the NPT went into effect. It is in this area that the Bush administration has revealed itself as the proponent of a double standard. At the same time that it has assailed selected nations for developing nuclear weapons, it has withdrawn the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, effectively destroyed the START II treaty, and refused to support ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It has also raised the U.S. nuclear weapons budget to new heights and proposed the building of new U.S. nuclear weapons, including the "bunker busters" and "mini-nukes." As Senator Kerry pointed out during the recent presidential campaign, this is not the kind of policy that will encourage other nations to abide by their commitments under the NPT. The surprising congressional move to block the Bush plan for new nuclear weapons is but one of numerous signs that this double standard cannot be sustained. As a special high-level U.N. panel has just warned: "We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation." Nor is the breakaway from the NPT limited to the non-nuclear nations. Just the other day the Russian government announced its development of a new nuclear missile. Appropriately enough, the U.N. panel condemned the nuclear powers for failing to honor their commitments, and called upon them to restart the nuclear disarmament process. Furthermore, of course, terrorists have been actively seeking nuclear weapons, and might well obtain them. Thousands of tactical nuclear weapons -- many of them small, portable, and, therefore, ideal for terrorist use -- are still maintained by the U.S. and Russian governments. No international agreements have ever been put into place to control or eliminate them. In fact, it remains unclear how many of these tactical nuclear weapons exist or where they are located. In Russia, at least, they are badly guarded and, in the disorderly circumstances of the post-Soviet economy, they seem ripe for sale or theft. The revolt against the Bush administration's double standard could come to a head in May 2005, when an NPT review conference opens at the United Nations, in New York City. Nuclear and non-nuclear nations are sure to exchange sharp barbs about non-compliance with NPT provisions. Furthermore, more than a hundred mayors from the Mayors for Peace Campaign, which has drawn together the top executives from 640 cities around the world, are expected to come to the U.N. to lobby for nuclear disarmament. They will be joined by United for Peace and Justice, the largest peace movement coalition in the United States, and over 2,000 organizations in 96 different countries. Together, they have launched Abolition Now, a campaign calling on heads of state to begin negotiations in 2005 on a treaty to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Ultimately, then, the Bush administration might be forced into accepting a single standard for dealing with the threat posed by nuclear weapons -- one designed to lead to a nuclear-free world. Certainly, there are plenty of signs that people and nations around the globe believe that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. ----- White House mum on El Baradei eavesdropping report WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 13, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041213200024.qyyzkh0l.html The White House on Monday denied it sought to oust the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, and refused to comment on a news report that the United States had spied on him. But spokesman Scott McClellan reiterated US opposition to giving the Egyptian diplomat, 62, a third term at the helm of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when his current term expires next year. "We remain committed to the agreement that was reached in Vienna, where heads of United Nations organizations should only serve two terms," he said. "Serve no more than two terms, I should say." That was a reference to the Geneva group of top 10 contributors to international organizations, which has held that heads of such agencies should not serve more than two terms. Asked about media reports that the United States has monitored telephone calls between ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats, seeking ammunition to oust him, McClellan declined to comment. "I've seen the reports. And I just don't get into discussing any of those reports. And that should not be read one way or the other," the spokesman told reporters. -------- u.s. nuc facilities Court Allows NRC to Hold Informal Public Hearings in Reactor Licensing Proceedings But Court Makes Clear That Challenges Can Be Made Public Citizen December 13, 2004 http://www.nirs.org/press/12-13-2004/1 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) can hold informal public hearings during reactor licensing proceedings, but parties can file case-by-case challenges WHERE such procedures fall short of ensuring a fair hearing, the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston has ruled in a case filed by Public Citizen and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). Until the NRC modified its 10 C.F.R. Part 2 regulations last Feb. 13, the public had the right to full, on-the-record hearings in all reactor licensing proceedings. These hearings were similar to federal court trials, and included discovery and cross-examination of witnesses. On Feb. 20, Public Citizen and NIRS challenged these new "Part 2" regulations, charging that they violate the Atomic Energy Act by eliminating the right to these formal hearings in most agency adjudicatory proceedings. According to the court's decision, "Should the agency's administration of the new rules contradict its present representations or otherwise flout this principle [of full and true disclosure of the facts], nothing in this opinion will inoculate the rules against future challenges." "The court does not say that the NRC can scuttle the process required by federal law," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "In fact, the decision makes it clear that NRC must permit the necessary procedures, including cross-examination, for a fair hearing decision." The court upheld the NRC's ability to limit discovery and cross-examination, but rejected the idea that those can be eliminated, saying that "the Commission's new rules may approach the outer bounds of what is permissible" under the Administrative Procedures Act. "It is extremely unfortunate that the court agrees that the new rules could result in less information available to the public and that the NRC's explanation for limiting discovery is 'thin,' yet chose to give such a high degree of deference to the NRC," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS. "At the same time, the decision draws a line in the sand and prevents the NRC from distorting the public hearing process any further." The court stated that "the NRC came perilously close to violating [the Administrative Procedures Act] here, with [...] unfortunate consequences for efficient administrative process and effective appellate review." The court concluded, "There is a victory here for the NRC, but it should be a cause for self-examination rather than jubilation." Other petitioners in this case include Citizens Awareness Network and the National Whistleblower Center. Attorneys general from Massachusetts, New York, California, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Connecticut filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners. -------- vermont VY inspection details to be aired Thursday By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian Posted December 13, 2004 http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/0904/VYInspection.shtml BRATTLEBORO — The public will have a chance to weigh in Thursday on a federal inspection that concludes that Vermont’s 30-year-old nuclear power plant can sustain a 20 percent upgrade to boost power output. The final report was issued Dec. 3, about three months after inspectors for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission completed a narrow engineering inspection of the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor in Vernon. Anti-nuclear watchdogs dismiss the inspection as too limited in scope, and tick off a list of what they see as potential problems related to a power increase. “They found eight problems that the company needs to repair, but they haven’t looked at the other 99 percent” of the plant, said Ray Shadis, technical advisor for the nuclear watchdog New England Coalition. “Overall, the team found that the components and systems reviewed would be capable of performing their intended safety functions and that sufficient design controls for engineering work have been implemented,” the NRC declared in its report. “However, the team identified eight findings of very low safety significance.” Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams said the report “reinforces our confidence that our plant is well-suited to continue moving forward with our uprate initiative.” Vermont Yankee’s owner Entergy, the nation’s third-largest power generator, has asked both the NRC and the state Public Service Board for approval to increase power output at the plant to 120 percent of its existing 535-megawatt capacity. The state board agreed to a issue a required “certificate of public good” pending an inspection of the reactor. Vermont’s Senate also called for an inspection. The NRC has not yet issued a decision on the uprate. Earlier this year, it postponed an anticipated January 2005 decision on the proposal, citing concerns about cracks in the plant’s steam dryer. The agency has not denied any of the more than 100 uprate requests at nuclear power plants around the country, most of which are in the single-digit range. At 20 percent, Vermont Yankee’s would be the largest allowable. Among the problems found during the inspection, the NRC said it could take Vermont Yankee too long to activate an alternate power source in case of an outage, which is necessary to ensure the plant’s reactor is cooled. Entergy also has failed long-term to fix a control valve that supplies cooling water to a reactor core cooling system, the inspectors said, and plant officials have failed to ensure a constant temperature inside a condensate storage tank so that a backup water supply for cooling maintains the proper temperature. Williams said all of the problems “have been entered into our corrective action program for follow-up on each one.” The inspection report was released in its entirety last week. It is available online at http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/vermont-yankee-issues/engineering-inspection.html. Both the engineering inspection and a separate NRC probe into misplaced spent fuel rods will be the subject of a public meeting on Thursday, starting at 6 p.m., at Brattleboro Union High School. NRC representatives will include Wayne Lanning, director of the NRC’s Region I Division of Reactor Safety; Jeff Jacobson, team leader for the engineering inspection; Todd Jackson, team leader for a separate inspection about a pair of fuel rods which Vermont Yankee misplaced last spring; and Cornelius Holden of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations. The Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (V-SNAP) will host the gathering, which replaces an NRC “exit meeting” originally scheduled for last month, where the agency planned to release to Vermont Yankee officials both the engineering inspection and the report on the misplaced fuel rods. “We think that this will be a good forum to hold a constructive meeting to get information out,” said NRC Region I spokeswoman Diane Screnci. She noted, however, that the purpose of Thursday’s meeting is to “talk about the engineering inspection and the spent fuel inspection and to take questions. It’s not to take public comment on the uprate.” The meeting is not a public hearing, Screnci said, and public comments will not be recorded as part of record on Vermont Yankee’s uprate application. However, she added, “Certainly if someone brought something up that we need to look at, we will.” An NRC meeting in March drew more than 600 people to the Vernon school, many of them angry and vocal about Vermont Yankee’s uprate plans. V-SNAP Chairman David O’Brien, who also heads the Vermont Department of Public Service, said he hopes to avoid that kind of emotional atmosphere on Thursday. “I want this to be as calm an event as possible to focus on the content of the information,” O’Brien said. “I will do everything in my power to make sure people get a chance to be heard and get the information from the NRC.” According to Shadis, two weeks — the time between when the report was released and Thursday’s meeting — doesn’t give the public enough time to review the document and develop informed questions. “Two weeks is not adequate time for the public to get a hold of the report, read it, consult with experts, and become informed enough on the contents to be able to ask informed questions. Even those of us that are advocates are going to have to scramble to sort out this report.” He said the full report should have been made public within a month of the inspection’s Sept. 5 completion, and the public should have been given 30 days to submit written comments and questions before a public meeting was scheduled. “The people of Vermont and the whole Connecticut River Valley need to understand that this is not a spectator sport. It is their health, their future, their property, their economy, their environment that is at stake, and it is their right to have this information open, clear, public, and provable.” Nuclear watchdogs complain that the Vermont Yankee inspection was far less thorough than inspections at other New England nuclear reactors, which revealed flaws that eventually led to the shutdown of those plants. “VY has managed to duck the bullet. … They managed to avoid getting a thorough examination,” Shadis charged. NRC officials said the process involved three weeks of onsite inspection and more than 700 hours of inspection time. Both the NEC and the state say Entergy’s uprate, as it is now proposed, would narrow the number and depth of the plant’s backup systems in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident. NEC is challenging Entergy’s bid for an exemption from testing how systems react to significant changes in conditions, such as pressure, water flow, and temperature. NEC also says Vermont Yankee’s cooling towers have not been sufficiently analyzed for their ability to withstand an earthquake. What inspectors found at Vermont Yankee During an engineering inspection at Vermont Yankee last summer, the NRC team identified the following problems: • VY failed to determine how long an alternative power source, the Vernon Hydro-Electric Station, would be unavailable during a blackout, and did not demonstrate how long it would take to make power from the hydro station available during a grid collapse. • VY failed to establish adequate procedures to determine the operability of a 115-kilovolt line designated as an alternate power source if the 345/115-kilovolt auto transformer is lost. • VY used incorrect and nonconservative voltage values in calculations designed to assure that electrical equipment would remain operable under low-voltage conditions. • A pressure control valve in the lube oil cooler water supply line was not independent of air systems, and the piping between the pressure control valve and lube oil cooler did not contain a restricting orifice. • VY failed to fix a pressure control valve which affects the ability to properly supply cooling flow to a lube oil cooler. • VY had neither established the correct condensate storage tank temperature limit for transient analyses nor translated the temperature limit into plant procedures. • From June 2001 to September 2004, VY did not adequately coordinate operations and engineering departments’ procedure revisions that increased the length of time required to place the reactor core isolation cooling system in service from the alternate shutdown panels. • VY conducted motor-operated valve tests using procedures that did not include acceptance limits, which were correlated to and based on applicable design documents. Additionally, the testing was conducted solely from the motor control centers using test instrumentation that had not been validated. -------- washington State issues permit for pilot project at Hanford THE ASSOCIATED PRESS December 13, 2004 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Hanford%20Permit RICHLAND, Wash. -- The state Department of Ecology issued a permit Monday to the U.S. Department of Energy to build and operate a pilot plant for treating treat radioactive waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The permit allows for construction, operation and closure of a facility where bulk vitrification will be performed on radioactive waste stored in Hanford's 177 underground tanks. The process immobilizes the waste in glass blocks. The government already plans to use vitrification to turn the high-level waste in the tanks into glass logs for long-term disposal in a nuclear waste repository. Construction is under way on a nearly $6 billion plant to treat that waste. But that facility was not designed to treat less-radioactive waste also found in the tanks, and researchers have been studying bulk vitrification to treat that material. For bulk-vitrification, waste would be dried, mixed with silica-rich dirt and packed into insulated boxes up to 24 feet long. Electrodes inserted into the mixture would melt it into a huge brick of glass to be permanently buried - container and all. The permit issued Monday allows the Energy Department to test bulk vitrification on low-level waste. Conditions in the permit require the agency and its contractor, CH2M Hill, to operate the new facility in a way that protects human health and the environment, and to document the technology's effectiveness, the Ecology Department said. Hanford officials have been looking at bulk vitrification as a potentially less expensive way to immobilize 10 million to 26 million gallons of radioactive waste in glass for permanent disposal. The bulk-vitrification project is expected to cost $1.4 billion. It is hoped the technology will produce glass at a cost 35 percent less than the vitrification plant's low-level waste-treatment system -------- MILITARY China, Russia Will Hold First War Games Associated Press By JOE McDONALD Dec 13, 2004 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHINA_RUSSIA_MILITARY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME BEIJING (AP) -- China and Russia will hold their first joint military exercise next year, the Chinese government said Monday, as President Hu Jintao called for an expansion of the rapidly growing alliance between the former Cold War rivals. The announcement came during a visit to Beijing by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who was expected to discuss expanding the Kremlin's multibillion-dollar annual arms sales to China. The exercises are to take place on Chinese territory, the official China News Service said. But that report and other government statements didn't say when they would take place or what forces would be involved. "We want ... to promote the development of the two countries' strategic collaborative relationship in order to safeguard and promote regional and world peace," CNS quoted Hu as telling Ivanov. Beijing and Moscow have built up military and political ties since the Soviet collapse in 1991, driven in part by joint desire to counterbalance U.S. global dominance. They are partners of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization, formed to combat what they consider the common threat of Islamic extremism and separatism. The other members are the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The announcement of military exercises comes two months after Beijing and Moscow settled the last of their decades-old border disputes that led to violent clashes in the 1960s and '70s. The agreement was signed during an October trip to Beijing by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said relations had reached "unparalleled heights." That visit also produced a pact to jointly develop Russian energy resources - an urgent issue for Beijing, which is trying to avert fuel shortages in its booming economy. The frontier where at one point 700,000 Soviet troops faced 1 million Chinese soldiers is now a bustling cross-border market. China has become the Russian arms industry's No. 1 customer, and is expected to buy $2 billion in weapons this year. Russia is a key supplier for the Chinese military's effort to modernize its arsenal and back up frequent threats to invade Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its territory. The United States and the European Union have banned weapons sales to China since its bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. But Moscow has supplied Beijing with high-performance Su-27 fighters and other top-of-the-line arms. Ivanov also met with Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan and Guo Boxiong, deputy chairman of the Communist Party commission that runs China's military, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Hu is chairman of the commission. Hu is to visit Moscow in May during festivities commemorating the end of World War II. -------- africa Libya snubs Africans as it turns to the West The New York Times By Craig S. Smith December 13, 2004 http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/12/news/libya.html TRIPOLI, Libya When Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi proposed a borderless United States of Africa several years ago, Kofi Bafoo in Ghana answered his call. Like hundreds of thousands of other young men living in the impoverished countries along the Sahara's southern fringe, Bafoo left for this oil-rich promised land with hopes of building a life on the Mediterranean coast. It did not work out that way. Few of the estimated one million Africans who flooded into Libya found jobs in the country's feeble economy, so Bafoo and thousands of other young African men set their sights on Europe. Libya, it seems, was happy to let them go. "Until 2003, every day boats were leaving," Bafoo said, limping on a foot injured recently while he was running from the police. "The government knew about it, but they didn't care." The problem began a decade ago. Qaddafi turned his attention south, frustrated by his failure to build pan-Arab unity and by the Arab world's lack of support for him in the face of United Nations sanctions imposed in 1992 to press Libya to deliver suspects in the bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. After African countries agreed to defy the sanctions by resuming flights to Libya in 1998, Qaddafi renamed the country's Voice of the Greater Arab Homeland radio station: He called it the Voice of Africa and began talking in earnest about his pan-African plans. But last year the sanctions were lifted, and the Libyan leader has shifted his focus again, this time from Africa to new friends in the West who are eager to stop the African migration to Europe. The Libyan authorities have begun arresting and deporting those caught without a valid visa, even though visa requirements had been abolished earlier as part of Qaddafi's African outreach. "For years, Libya said it could not play policeman for the West, but now, with the rapprochement, Libya has entered into a dialogue to deal with the situation," said Saleh Ibrahim, director of an academic institute close to the Libyan leader. Bafoo, 25, tried to emigrate last year but lost $1,000 to an unscrupulous intermediary who made off with the cash. In January, he lost $1,200 when the Tunisian Navy intercepted his boat and sent him back to Libya. The Libyan police arrested him a few days ago and took his last $500. He hurt his foot when he escaped by scrambling over a cinder-block wall. "They discriminate by the color of your skin," said Bafoo, his injured foot smeared with massage cream because he has no identity papers or money for a hospital. The boat people leaving from Libya are part of a broader wave of Europe-bound illegal immigrants from all along the North African coast, but nowhere has the passing been as easy or the traffic as heavy as it has been from here. "We have cooperation with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, but there have been no formal relations with this country and that has created a gap," said a European diplomat in Tripoli who has been involved in talks on how best to stem the tide. Some of the Africans here say there was a rush of boats leaving Libya in recent months as people took their chances before the seas turned rough in November. More than 1,500 people landed on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa in October. Libyan officials insist that their country has not abandoned Qaddafi's pan-African vision, but they say the problem has grown to a scale that cannot be ignored. Although Libya is now pushing Europe and the United States to increase investment in sub-Saharan Africa in the hope of keeping young men there, many of the Africans lured here by his past promises feel betrayed. "Libya told all the Africans, 'Libya is Africa, so you can come,' but many more people came than the country could handle," Abbas Albal Kindam Yusef, a migrant from the Sudanese region of Darfur, said. "Now they want us to leave." Amin Boubaker said that two years ago he spent $1,200 to get to Italy on a small Tunisian fishing boat with about 70 other people. They waited two days in the bush near Zuwarah for their boat to appear. When it did, they waded into the sea and clambered aboard in the darkness before dawn. To pilot the boat, the Africans chose the only one among them who knew how to drive a car. After four days, they spotted lights on the horizon and cheered. But it was not Italy. Within hours, the 70 were picked up by a Tunisian naval patrol, which sank the boat and sent the men to prison. They were released two weeks later near the Libyan border and made their way back to Tripoli. Since then, the climate for Africans in Libya has rapidly deteriorated. Though the Africans provide cheap labor, ordinary Libyans never shared their leader's enthusiasm for their poor neighbors. In 2000, dozens of Africans were killed by mobs in western Libya. Although some Libyans were punished then, Africans say they have no protection from average Libyans or the police today. They say that Africans are regularly beaten and robbed. Libya's crude banking system lacks international links, so the Africans have no way to send their earnings home. Some men slice open the brims of their caps and hide cash inside or slip bank notes between the plastic covers of their passport holders and reseal them. The men say the overland trip home is dangerous, difficult and increasingly expensive, because the Libyan soldiers at checkpoints on the roads demand bribes. Crossing the desert itself is the most treacherous part. Trucks are discovered in the arid wilderness with a grisly cargo of people who died of thirst after their vehicle broke down or ran out of fuel when the driver lost his way. "I'll take you to the border and you can see the bones of people in the desert, a skull here, a hand there, from people who lost their way," said a man eating from a communal bowl of stewed goat entrails in a building built for chickens that now houses hundreds of Sudanese, instead. "We have no way to go back." But the draw of Europe remains strong. "I have many friends living in Italy now," said Muhammad Mutawakil, wearing a yellow baseball cap, "and they are doing much better than we are here or than our families in Ghana." -------- arms Three surface-to-air missiles seized in Albania TIRANA (AFP) Dec 13, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041213155718.psnalqx5.html Four people were arrested in Albania on Monday for allegedly trying to smuggle three surface-to-air missiles in a truck from Montenegro, police said. The unidentified suspects were arrested in Fushe Preze, 20 kilometersmiles) north of the Albanian capital Tirana, when officers stopped and searched their truck, the police said. The missiles were believed to have been produced in the rump Yugoslavia, which was disbanded last year and replaced by the loose union of Serbia-Montenegro. Police said the suspects had been charged with arms trafficking. The missiles' destination was unknown but Albania was believed to be just a transit country. -------- business Retired General Brings Military Expertise to Firm's Contract Unit By Renae Merle Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 13, 2004; Page E01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60099-2004Dec12?language=printer HNTB Cos. has recruited retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former commander of the U.S. Southern Command, to serve as non-executive chairman of its federal government operation in Washington. It's part of a push by the Kansas City, Mo., engineering firm to increase its share of federal contracts, especially in defense and homeland security. In the past year HNTB has hired eight senior executives with extensive military and government experience, including Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers, former chief of engineers and commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers. McCaffrey works as a commentator for NBC News and is the former director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "People who are successful in commercial business, they understand how the free market works," said Brett Lambert, a defense consultant at research firm DFI International Inc. "The government is not a free market. You have to have the expertise of people who have been on the other side of the table to make any headway into that market. You want to hire a salesperson who looks a lot like the customer." HNTB is going after the market for federal engineering and design services, betting that spending by the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department will continue to grow for such infrastructure projects as strengthening bridges against attacks and designing the traffic flow around border entries to increase security while accommodating increased traffic. The company expects to receive $16 million in federal-government-related work this year, up from $8 million last year, but a fraction of what it estimates is a $100 billion-a-year market. The company wants to capture $300 million of the market within 10 years, nearly doubling the size of the overall company, said Flowers, chief executive of the federal business. The market "will be significant and grow to be extremely large and will stay steady for 10 to 15 years," McCaffrey predicted. But it's an increasingly competitive market, and other firms are employing similar strategies, industry analysts said. While HNTB might face five or six competitors when it bids on a city contract for a new convention center, they said, twice as many competitors are likely to bid for a federal project, including larger firms such as Bechtel Group Inc. and Parsons Corp. "Industry firms are positioning themselves to get more in this market. It's on every firm's radar screen," said Janice L. Tuchman, editor of industry magazine Engineering News-Record. "Everybody's thinking about security in a way they haven't before." For HNTB, the push into the federal market also may help offset sluggish demand for transportation-related projects, including designing bridges, highways and airports. Such work accounts for 88 percent of the firms' $499 million a year in revenue. Many states are postponing decisions on long-term projects until a federal transportation funding bill that has been stalled for the past year is passed, a HNTB spokeswoman said. McCaffrey said he will focus on helping the firm develop strategy and will retain his positions at NBC and on several other boards. During his time in government, McCaffrey said, he "had an enormous amount of dealings with Congress." He said his experience gave him a "good perspective of how the country works, how policy gets made." Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report. -------- iraq War planes fire on Fallujah AFP December 13, 2004 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11673304%5E1702,00.html US war planes fired several missiles at targets in the Iraqi city of Fallujah today, as marines pressed on with their search for rebels remaining in the Sunni Muslim city. The operations followed renewed fighting yesterday in northern and southern Fallujah, which was devastated last month when US and Iraqi forces stormed the city in a bid to wrest it from rebels. "We're clearing up the last ones (insurgents). They're holed up in places," Sergeant Ted Herald of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, said. Coalition troops killed hundreds of fighters during last month's assault, but have continued to face pockets of rebels as they clear the city. At least 18 suspected rebels were killed on Friday, Herald said, adding that he did not think insurgents had returned to Fallujah since the assault. He said fighters remaining in the city "were biding their time. They are waiting for us to leave". The top US marine commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General John Sattler, said on Thursday about 97 per cent of Fallujah had been cleared of rebels and bombs as coalition forces tried to restore security so tens of thousands of residents could return. Most of Fallujah's 250,000 people fled the city before the November 8 assault. ----- One year on, the capture of Saddam Hussein can be seen as a false dawn for Iraq independent.co.uk By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad 13 December 2004 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=592529 A year ago yesterday, a bedraggled Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole in the ground to a chorus of self-congratulation from US officials claiming his capture was a turning point in the Iraq war. "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over," declared George Bush the day after the former Iraqi leader was seized. "A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can come together and build a new Iraq." The optimism of US military commanders was extraordinary. Major General Ray Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division was credited with arresting Saddam, declared a month later that the insurgency was "on its knees" and only "a sporadic threat". He went on to assure the press in Washington that "in six months you are going to see some normalcy". A year later, American casualties showed how little the war was affected by the imprisonment of Saddam. Of the 1,283 US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, 821 of them were killed since his capture. Six months on, the US fully controlled only islands of territory in Iraq. All the main roads leading out of Baghdad were unsafe. The resistance felt strong enough to openly establish checkpoints around the capital. Why did Saddam's capture accomplish so little compared to the expectations of the White House? It believed much of its own propaganda about the resistance being orchestrated by remnants of Saddam's regime. But it was never likely that Iraqis who failed to fight for Saddam when he was in power were doing so after he was overthrown. During the invasion last year, the roads of Iraq were choked with abandoned tanks and armoured vehicles. Most of the Iraqi army, including the supposedly elite Republican Guard, simply went home. Saddam was a highly convenient enemy for Washington. He was easily demonised. He was also militarily incompetent. The very fact that his hiding place was betrayed and he was captured alone shows that he had no secret infrastructure for a guerrilla war after he fled Baghdad. His sons Uday and Qusai were also betrayed to the US army. At the heart of the US miscalculation of the impact of Saddam's capture was ignorance about the simple reason for the rising strength of the Iraqi resistance: outside Kurdistan the great majority of Iraqis, whatever they thought of Saddam, were against the US occupation. This is true of the majority Shia Muslims, as well as the Sunni Arabs who have risen in rebellion. A main demand of the Shia electoral list, likely to attract the most votes in the 30 January election, is for an end to the occupation. The famous pack of cards showing the senior members of the former regime - Saddam was, of course, the Ace of Spades - is now something of an embarrassment. Most have been caught or given themselves up, but it has not affected the uprising. At first, it appeared possible that Saddam would play a role in the US presidential election in November. His trial could have been portrayed as evidence of the victory of the administration in Iraq. But his appearance in court last July largely backfired. US officials failed to turn off the sound equipment of television crews in the court. As a result, instead of the beaten and bewildered Saddam of seven months before, Iraqis saw a pugnacious figure decrying his judges as US dupes. At the same time the Iraqis in charge of the trial, notably Salem Chalabi, the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, once favoured by the Pentagon, had themselves been purged. Now men loyal to Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, will be in charge of the proceedings. But the arrest anniversary was marked by some of Saddam Hussein's old lieutenants, among them Tariq Aziz, who went on hunger strike over access to lawyers and fears of being handed over to Iraqis. ----- Iraq's Reality zmag.org Dahr Jamail interviewed by Charles Shaw December 13, 2004 http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=6857 Charles Shaw: How long have you been reporting on Iraq, and what brought you there? Dahr Jamail: I have spent 6 of the last 12 months in Iraq. As I mentioned, what brought me here was the nearly total failure of the US 'mainstream' media to show the truth of this illegal invasion and occupation. How it affected the Iraqis, as well as US soldiers. Overall, they just weren't doing their job, and this has grown even worse. I had done all the usual actions of attempting to speak up and effect change at home-calling and writing Senators/Congresspeople, attending teach-ins, spreading information. After watching the worldwide demonstrations on February 15, 2003 be brushed aside as a "focus group," I knew then that the minds of the American public had been misled by the corporate media who mindlessly supported the objectives of the Bush regime, and reporting the true effects of the invasion/occupation on the Iraqi people and US soldiers was what I needed to do. CS: What is it like being one of the only "unembedded" journalists operating in the country? Do you fear for your safety, and what have you done to ensure your safety? Whom do you fear more, random kidnappers or the American Military? How do you manage to move through Iraqi society now when it appears that, in the wake of Margaret Hassan's murder, all Westerners are viable targets? And on that same note, what do the Iraqis think of the kidnappings, murders, and beheadings? DJ: It's tough. Working in this environment of media repression and danger is always an uphill battle. Blinking electricity, car bombs, kidnappings are the playing field. I constantly monitor my safety factor and those who work with me. I grew a beard, dress like locals, and only travel around covertly with one interpreter in a beat up car. I minimize my time on the street, while at the same time spending enough there to get the Iraqis reactions to what unfolds here each day. My greatest concern is the reaction of my own government. I'm reporting information that the Bush regime wants kept under wraps. I fear reprisal from both the government and military far, far more than being kidnapped or blown up by a car bomb. Iraqis are of course shocked and outraged by the beheadings and kidnappings of people like Margaret Hassan. So many also believe it was a CIA/Mossad plot to keep aid organizations and journalists out of Iraq in order to give the military and corporations here a free hand to continue to dis-assemble and sell of the country. CS: On Nov 18 in one of your dispatches you wrote, "Journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. Media have been stopped particularly from covering recent horrific events in Fallujah." What are the predominant differences between your reporting and that of the corporate media and embedded reporters, or that of Iraqi and Muslim journalists? In other words, what does each group do with the same pieces of information? Do you feel you have a freer hand by being "unembedded"? Have you or anyone you know been intimidated or harassed in any way? DJ: Myself and most Arab and western independent journalists here show the costs of war. Report the massacres, the slaughter, the dead and wounded kids, disaster that this occupation truly is for the Iraqi people. Report on the low morale of most soldiers here, report on how doctors now state openly that due to lack of funds and help from the US-backed Ministry of Health, they feel it is worse now than during the sanctions. I do feel I have more freedom because I am "unembedded." I'm flying under the mainstream radar of censorship. I have been attacked from some mainstream sources and pundits. Fox propaganda channel invited me on after I accurately reported the sniping of ambulances, medical workers and civilians in Fallujah last April...I declined the set up because I didn't have a desire to have my character assassinated. My website has taken some attacks by hackers...but so far we've managed the onslaught. I receive some hate mail via my site, and have received one death threat...so far. CS: The US Corporate media consistently characterizes the Iraqi resistance as "foreign terrorists and former Ba'athist insurgents". In your experience, is this an accurate portrayal? If not, why? DJ: This is propaganda of the worst kind. Most Iraqis refer to the Iraqi Resistance as "patriots." Which of course most of them are-they are, especially in Fallujah, primarily composed of people who simply are resisting the occupation of their country by a foreign power. They are people who have had family members killed, detained, tortured and humiliated by the illegal occupiers of their shattered country. Calling them "foreign terrorists" and "Ba'athist insurgents" is simply a lie. While there are small elements of these, they are distinctly different from the Iraqi Resistance, who are now supported by, very conservatively at least 80% of the population here. There are terrorist elements here, but that is because the borders of Iraq have been left wide open since the invasion. These did not exist in Iraq before. The Bush regime like to refer to anyone who does not support their ideology and plans for global domination as a "terrorist." Here, these fighters in the Iraqi Resistance are referred to as freedom fighters, holy warriors and patriots. CS: We rarely see any substantial imagery coming out of Iraq in the US corporate media. What does Iraq look like now? What aren't the people in the United States seeing, and what do you feel they should be seeing? DJ: The devastation. The massive suffering and devastation of the people and their country. Baghdad remains in shambles 19 months into this illegal occupation. Bombed buildings sit as insulting reminders of unbroken promises of reconstruction. Bullet ridden mosques with blood stained carpets inside where worshippers, unarmed, have been slaughtered by soldiers. Entire families living on the street. 70% unemployment with no hope of this changing. Chaotic, clogged streets of Baghdad and 5 mile long petrol lines in this oil rich country. Engineers and doctors, unemployed, driving their cars as a taxi to try to feed their families. The seething anger in the eyes of people on the streets as US patrols rumble past. Iraqis now cheering when another US patrol or base is attacked. Dancing on the burning US military hardware. Dead and maimed US soldiers. The wounded screaming and writhing in agony. Their shattered families. The mass graves of innocent Fallujans after the utter destruction of their city. Children deformed by Depleted Uranium exposure lying in shattered hospitals, suffering from lack of treatment, or even pain medications. Dead, rotting bodies in the streets of Fallujah of women and children being eaten by dogs and cats because the military did not allow relief teams into the city for nearly two weeks. CS: What are the sentiments of the Iraqis you have spoken with towards the Americans? Is there any good will left? Was there any to begin with? What do they think of Alawi, the pending "elections", the continued occupation, the American-trained Iraqi security forces? Do they have any hope or belief that the Americans will leave, or are they thinking this will be a generation-long occupation? DJ: There was support by most Iraqis for the removal of Saddam Hussein. But that started to ebb quickly on in the occupation as people watched family members killed, detained, tortured and humiliated by the occupation forces. Then there was Abu Ghraib. I cannot stress enough how devastating this was to US credibility in Iraq, and the entire Middle East. Throw on top of that the April siege of Fallujah, nearly complete lack of reconstruction, importation of foreign workers to do jobs Iraqis are far more qualified for, the installation of an illegal interim government, and you have a complete PR disaster for the US here. Any credibility for the occupiers, and I doubt there was much to speak of, after the destruction of Fallujah has been lost. Iraqis I speak with are infuriated at the US government. While they are well aware that what is most likely the majority of people in the US being in opposition to the Bush regime, they believe the US government and those who support it are guilty of war crimes of the worst kind. I see rage, grief, and the desire for revenge on a daily basis here. They hate Allawi. They have no respect for him or any other of the puppets in the US-installed interim government, because they don't see how any self-respecting person would allow themselves to be a puppet of the US in this illegal, brutal endeavor. They are well aware that he is an exile who has been linked with the CIA and British intel for a long, long time. He and the rest of the interim government are views as thieves, rapists and US pawns. They are utterly loathed, as everyone here knows these people do not have the interests of the Iraqi people in mind. The elections are viewed as a joke. Most here now believe there is no way they can be held in an honest, transparent and truly democratic way. Most are also too afraid to vote. I've heard people say things like, "The Americans won't even allow a legitimate election in their own country, so why would they want to have one here!" The Iraqi "security" forces, being the police and national guard, are viewed by most as surrogates of the US military. They are viewed as collaborators and traitors by most. While people understand many of these forces join out of desperation because there are no jobs, they remain loathed, along with the foreign occupation forces. It doesn't help when many of the police are actively involved in organized crime. Lastly, the occupation is viewed as endless. Iraqis know there are already 4 permanent military bases here, and more soldiers coming. There is little hope amongst those I talk with about this topic that the occupation will end. CS: We've read substantive reports recently that over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed since the war began. What is your take on this report, and what have you seen that either supports or contradicts it? Is the US military indiscriminately targeting civilians, or are they just hopelessly inept, or is it something in-between? DJ: I think this report has understated the death toll. From what I've seen during my six months here, it is increasingly difficult to find a family here who has not had at least one member killed by either the military or criminal activity. Entire neighborhoods in Fallujah have been bombed into rubble. Houses with entire families have been incinerated and blown to pieces. The random gunfire of soldiers nearly every time a patrol or convoy is attacked almost always results in civilian deaths. Keep in mind there are now over 100 attacks per day on US forces in occupied Iraq. Then we have the infrastructure-people dying from lack of food, water borne diseases, inadequate health care...the list is longer than any of us know. I think the military is killing so many civilians for several reasons. Primarily, because they have been put in an untenable situation by their Commander in Chief-that is, a no-win guerilla war against an enemy who now has the massive support of the populace. Thus, anyone, anytime could be an attacker. So they are shooting first and asking questions later because they are scared to death. They are using a conventional military to fight a guerilla war-and just as in Vietnam, it is a disaster and utter failure. Then there are the soldiers who have completely dehumanized Iraqis, and I've spoken with some who seem to actually enjoy killing them. Of course it doesn't help that this is sanctioned and encouraged by the US government, and that blinding religious ideology appears to have filtered down into many of the soldiers here. "You are either with us, or you are against us." Iraq is now full of fields of death. There is carnage in the streets everyday in Baghdad, as well as other cities throughout much of the country. CS: There has been a lot of speculation about the role of oil in the occupation. Americans were told that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war and reconstruction, but there is no oil coming out of Iraq after more than 18 months. Certain journalists and activists ranging from Jim Marrs to Mike Ruppert to Peter Camejo have all stated, in some form or other, that this was never the intention, that the idea was to first remove Iraqi oil from the world market, thereby driving up oil prices (the profits mainly landing in the pockets of the Saudis), and eventually to co-opt the oil supply to sell to China and India as their energy demands skyrocket. What have you seen in regards to oil activity? Also, Iraq Coalition Casualty (http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx) was the only outlet to report on a series of coordinated attacks on the Iraqi oil infrastructure all this week. This has gone completely unreported in the US corporate media. Do you believe this lack of reporting is intentional and who do you think is sabotaging the infrastructure? DJ: Iraq is still importing all of its gasoline. And from what I know, they are exporting all of the oil from here, as well as that which is refined in Iraq, which isn't much at all, if any. I think the lack of reporting on the sabotaging is akin to the lack of reporting that there are nearly 100 attacks per day on US soldiers, or lack of reporting of lack of infrastructure, etc. I think it all falls under the umbrella of the mainstream media's successful efforts to whitewash the Iraq catastrophe for the Bush administration. It looks as though it is the resistance who are doing the sabotaging. An open question though, regarding what you asked, is why is there not better protection of the oil infrastructure? CS: We have conflicting reports in the US about the Shia and Sunni putting aside their historical differences to team up against the Americans. Do you see this happening, and what do you believe the eventual outcome will be. US policy makers claim that an American withdrawal would only result in a widescale civil war between these two factions and the Kurds in the north. Do you believe this will be the case? Are the Iraqis in a situation now where they are dammed any way they turn? I do see this happening. During the siege of Najaf, collections for aid at Sunni mosques were organized, as well as resistance fighters from Fallujah who provided guns and supplies to the Mehdi Army there. During the siege of Fallujah last April, Shia weighed heavily in donating aid, and participated in a non-violent action that pushed supplies into Fallujah through a US military cordon. The Shia/Sunni rift is largely a CIA generated myth. There are countless tribes and marriages alike that are both Shia/Sunni. There are mosques here where they pray together. There is the possibility of war if the Kurds go independent, but the more likely possibility of that war would be Turkey invading Kurdistan before any Shia/Sunni action would occur regarding this. Remember the Arab proverb; "Me against my brother. Me and my brother against my cousin. Me, my brother and cousin against the stranger." The Iraqis are in a situation where they are damned as long as the US continues to occupy and subvert their country, as they have been doing. CS: It is critically important that Americans begin to understand the psyche of the Iraqi resistance. What is really going on in Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, and Baghdad? Is this a legitimate, coordinated uprising against the occupation, or is it a defensive response to the US escalation of the war? Or both? Considering that the US claims they have opened a front to "take the battle to Al Qaeda", do you see any evidence of an Al Qaeda presence, or the presence of "foreign fighters streaming in from the Syrian border" as is also reported here? DJ: The resistance is complex because it has so many facets. Parts of it are simply Iraqis who don't want their country to be occupied. Iraqis who have had family members killed, tortured or humiliated by the military...so they are exacting revenge. Other parts are more organized, where individual cells are operating in coordinated attacks with other cells, but they remain largely decentralized. This is why the conventional US army will never defeat it. Because the resistance has no face, no leader, no fixed organization. It is really both a defensive reaction to the occupiers, but also is going more on the offensive as the occupation continues. As one Iraqi man old me once, "The invasion was America's war on Iraq. Now we are seeing the Iraqi's war against the Americans." I have yet to see any evidence or meet any Iraqi who has seen evidence of Al-Qaeda here. There are certainly other fighters entering Iraq from different countries, but they are a relatively small number. When we say "foreign fighters" here, we must recall that every Iraqi I've spoken with views the occupiers as the foreign fighters, and not any other Arab who is coming here to fight in the resistance. Most Iraqis I speak with view these Arab fighters as brothers, and the occupiers as the "foreign fighters." CS: Have you had much contact with American troops, and if so, what are they saying, and what is your impression of them? Do you support NBC reporter Kevin Sites' decision to film and report on the murder of an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner this week? Do you believe this was a relatively "isolated" incident, or did these guys just get caught? DJ: I've had a fair amount, but not so much this trip. I make it a point to avoid them now since they are such constant targets. They are being attacked at least 100 times a day as of late. But when I interacted with them my last two trips I found most of them to be quite scared, and morale depended on how long they'd been here. The newer folks were keeping a stiff upper lip and staying on message. The folks who'd been here 6, 9 or 12 months were angry, aiming their guns at everyone, and sometimes high on drugs. Not to generalize-not all were like this. But I saw many who were, and it reminded me of everything I've read about what happened to the psyche of US soldiers in Vietnam. I do support Kevin Sites' decision to film what he did of the execution of the old, unarmed Iraqi man in the mosque. 100% I support this. People need to see that this is what is occurring here-and this is NOT an isolated incident. Nearly every refugee from Fallujah I've interviewed has spoken of mass executions, tanks rolling over the wounded in the streets, bodies being thrown in the Euphrates by the military, and other atrocities. The footage of the execution in the mosque is akin to the photos that came out of Abu Ghraib. They are only the tip of the iceberg of atrocities that have been occurring here from the beginning. Atrocities that are occurring right now. Indeed, those soldiers just got caught. This is not news, however-because we've even had military commanders come out in the media and admit that they gave orders to soldiers to shoot anything that moved in Fallujah. What we will see in Fallujah is that it has been a genocide. CS: Lastly, what do you see happening in both the immediate and distant future in Iraq? How long do you plan to stay? Do you believe you will sill safely be able to report the truth to us when so much of your reporting flies in the face of the so-called "official" reports and media blackout? Do you envision an even greater information clamp-down, or do you think Independent reporting is going to become a stronger force as the US digs itself into a deeper and deeper hole? DJ: I see more bloodshed and chaos. Sending more troops will only speed up the spiral here; increase the fighting. I see a continuing degradation of the infrastructure and failing of the occupation. It has already failed. It had failed even before the April siege of Fallujah and the Abu Ghraib scandal (which is ongoing). The real question is, how many more Iraqis and soldiers die before the US admits to its colossal failure, makes reparations for the countless war crimes that have been committed and pulls out. The long term-that depends on how long the US stays here. It is rare when I speak with an Iraqi who wants the US to stay-they say, "Civil war? It can't possibly be worse than this-so the US should leave. Then we'd at least have the chance to run our own country." Another man pointed out that if there were a civil war, no Shia or Kurdish attack on Fallujah could ever possibly compare to the devastation the US military has caused there. I think he makes a good point. I am concerned about my safety, of course. This is the most dangerous place in the world for a journalist to be, especially those of us who are reporting the reality of what is occurring here. I have concerns of reprisal from the military and my government-because they don't like to have the facts get out. I've consistently been a minority voice with my reporting in Iraq-which has led many to discount my reports and call me biased. Yet I have consistently been shown to be accurate, as have the other independents here. An example would be that several of us were reporting on Abu Ghraib months before the mainstream decided to do their job and run the story. And at the end of the day, those of us who have been reporting that this occupation failed months ago, and the vast, vast majority of Iraqis oppose the occupation and support the resistance, will end up again being proven right. But I'm afraid with the media blackout in the mainstream of the US, in general, being as stunningly effective as it has been, I think this is going to be a long time before this comes to light. But it will. I do envision a deepening of the clampdown we are now experiencing. We're watching this in the US media now, with NPR having even jumped on the propaganda bandwagon. However, as with repression of any kind, the more the "powers that be" attempt to muzzle independent media and the truth, the more they create a growing, powerful, diverse entity that finds new and creative ways to work here. For example, the closing of the Al-Jazeera office here has simply caused their journalists to go underground and decentralize, making it impossible for the government to control them. In this way, the repression naturally creates a smarter, more diverse and creative resistance in the form of increased independent reportage. In the end, people know the truth when they see it. I taste this by mail I get from my readers-those who read many sources and thank me for reporting the truth, as well as those who support the occupation who send hate mail and try to tell me I'm reporting from Idaho and making everything up. Their ugly reactions indicate that they prefer not to know the truth-that their government has deceived a large percentage of the American people into supporting an illegal invasion that has cost at least 100,000 Iraqi lives, as well as those of over 1,200 US soldiers. Many people would rather lash out to protect their denial rather than accepting responsibility for supporting such atrocities. In the end, the truth will come out, no matter how intense the repression becomes. And in the end, those in America who support this occupation will eventually see that virtually the majority of people in every other country on the planet oppose the American agenda in Iraq. It is only a matter of time. Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches can be found at: http://dahrjamailiraq.com Charles Shaw is Editor-in-Chief of Newtopia Magazine. -------- latin america US calls Cuban war games a distraction WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 13, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041213203947.a9by7hmw.html A series of mass exercises by Cuba's military, including a simulated invasion by US forces, are just an attempt to divert Cuban people from their hardships, the US State Department said Monday. These "exercises are just, I would say, one or more of the many things that the Cuban government does to try to distract people from the problems that they face in their daily lives," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. Cuba on Monday launched its biggest military exercises in almost 20 years involving hundreds of thousands of troops and reservists and millions of civilians who will participate in civil defense drills. Asked about the emphasis on repelling a fictional invasion, Boucher said: "We don't think there is any justification, or any particular foundation for this kind of charge." "The United States has repeatedly called for a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. We think that's what the Cuban people deserve, and we think they deserve it in a peaceful fashion," Boucher said. -------- russia / chechnya Putin Signs Bill to End Election of Governors Washington Post Monday, December 13, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60192-2004Dec12?language=printer MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill Sunday -- Constitution Day -- to end the election of governors by popular vote, while more than 1,000 opposition activists converged to denounce what they called his increasingly authoritarian rule. It was notable that Putin chose Sunday to sign one of two measures that critics say could violate Russia's constitution, which was adopted in 1993 under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, and was considered one of the main democratic achievements of Yeltsin's rule. The new law gives the president the right to appoint governors, who would then be confirmed by regional legislatures. Russia consists of 89 regions, whose leaders are chosen by popular vote. Another proposal, which would end the direct election of national lawmakers, is also expected to receive swift parliamentary approval. Putin proposed the changes after a siege in Beslan in September in which hundreds of people, most of them schoolchildren, were killed. -------- spies Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena HEARTS AND MINDS By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT December 13, 2004 Washington Times http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13info.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position= WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say. Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations. Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War. The efforts under consideration risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military branches - whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or psychological operations. The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets. The military has faced these tough issues before. Nearly three years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, under intense criticism, closed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion. Now, critics say, some of the proposals of that discredited office are quietly being resurrected elsewhere in the military and in the Pentagon. Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles. Some of those are in the Middle Eastern and South Asian countries like Pakistan, still considered a haven for operatives of Al Qaeda. But such a campaign could reach even to allied countries like Germany, for example, where some mosques have become crucibles for Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism. Before the invasion of Iraq, the military's vast electronic-warfare arsenal was used to single out certain members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle with e-mail messages and cellphone calls in an effort to sway them to the American cause. Arguments have been made for similar efforts to be mounted at leadership circles in other nations where the United States is not at war. During the cold war, American intelligence agencies had journalists on their payrolls or operatives posing as journalists, particularly in Western Europe, with the aim of producing pro-American articles to influence the populations of those countries. But officials say that no one is considering using such tactics now. Suspicions about disinformation programs also arose in the 1980's when the White House was accused of using such a campaign to destabilize Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. In the current debate, it is unclear how far along the other programs are or to what extent they are being carried out because of their largely classified nature. Within the Pentagon, some of the military's most powerful figures have expressed concerns at some of the steps taken that risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs and the world of combat information operations. These tensions were cast into stark relief this summer in Iraq when Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, approved the combining of the command's day-to-day public affairs operations with combat psychological and information operations into a single "strategic communications office." In a rare expression of senior-level questions about such decisions, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a memorandum warning the military's regional combat commanders about the risks of mingling the military public affairs too closely with information operations. "While organizations may be inclined to create physically integrated P.A./I.O. offices, such organizational constructs have the potential to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the public," it said. But General Myers's memorandum is not being followed, according to officers in Iraq, largely because commanders there believe they are safely separating the two operations and say they need all the flexibility possible to combat the insurgency. Indeed, senior military officials in Washington say public affairs officers in war zones might, by choice or under pressure, issue statements to world news media that, while having elements of truth, are clearly devised primarily to provoke a response from the enemy. Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news satellite channel Al Jazeera. "In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita. The battle lines in this debate have been drawn in a flurry of classified studies, secret operational guidance statements and internal requests from Mr. Rumsfeld. Some go to the concepts of information warfare, and some complain about how the government's communications are organized. The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a secret order signed by Mr. Rumsfeld late last year and called "Information Operations Roadmap." The 74-page directive, which remains classified but was described by officials who had read it, accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of information operations as a core military competency." Noting the complexities and risks, Mr. Rumsfeld ordered studies to clarify the appropriate relationship between Pentagon and military public affairs - whose job is to educate and inform the public with accurate and timely information - and the practitioners of secret psychological operations and information campaigns to influence, deter or confuse adversaries. In response, one far-reaching study conducted at the request of the strategic plans and policy branch of the military's Joint Staff recently produced a proposal to create a "director of central information." The director would have responsibility for budgeting and "authoritative control of messages" - whether public or covert - across all the government operations that deal with national security and foreign policy. The study, conducted by the National Defense University, was presented Oct. 20 to a panel of senior Pentagon officials and military officers, including Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, whose organization set up the original Office of Strategic Influence. No senior officer today better represents the debate over a changing world of military information than Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, an operational commander chosen to be the military's senior spokesman in Iraq after major combat operations shifted to counterinsurgency operations in the spring of 2003. His role rankled many in the military's public affairs community who contend that the job should have gone to someone trained in the doctrine of Army communications and public affairs, rather than to an officer who had spent his career in combat arms. "This is tough business," said General Kimmitt, who now serves as deputy director of plans for the American military command in the Middle East. "Are we trying to inform? Yes. Do we offer perspective? Yes. Do we offer military judgment? Yes. Must we tell the truth to stay credible? Yes. Is there a battlefield value in deceiving the enemy? Yes. Do we intentionally deceive the American people? No." The rub, General Kimmitt said, is operating among those sometimes conflicting principles. "There is a gray area," he said. "Tactical and operational deception are proper and legal on the battlefield." But "in a worldwide media environment," he asked, "how do you prevent that deception from spilling out from the battlefield and inadvertently deceiving the American people?" Mr. Di Rita said the scope of the issue had changed in recent years. "We have a unique challenge in this department," he said, "because four-star military officers are the face of the United States abroad in ways that are almost unprecedented since the end of World War II." He added, "Communication is becoming a capability that combatant commanders have to factor in to the kinds of operations they are doing." Much of the Pentagon's work in this new area falls under a relatively unknown field called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy. This new phrase is used to describe the Pentagon's work in governmentwide efforts to communicate with foreign audiences but that is separate from support for generals in the field. At the Pentagon, that effort is managed by Ryan Henry, Mr. Feith's principal deputy for policy. "With the pace of technology and such, and with the nature of the global war on terrorism, information has become much more a part of strategic victory, and to a certain extent tactical victory, than it ever was in the past," Mr. Henry said. However, a senior military officer said that without clear guidance from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations, information operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on the battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred." This has led to a situation where "proponents of these elements jockey for position to lead the overall communication effort," the officer said. Debate also continues over proposed amendments to a classified Defense Department directive, titled "3600.1: Information Operations," which would lay down Pentagon policy in coming years. Previous versions of the directive allow aggressive information campaigns to affect enemy leaders, but not those of allies or even neutral states. The current debate is over proposed revisions that would widen the target audience for such missions. Mr. Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, says that even though the government is wrestling with these issues, the standard is still to tell to the truth. "Our job is to put out information to the public that is accurate," he said, "and to put it out as quickly as we can." -------- KGB legacy of poison politics Doctors confirmed that dioxin poisoned Ukraine's Yushchenko. csmonitor.com By Scott Peterson and Fred Weir December 13, 2004 http://csmonitor.com/2004/1213/p01s02-woeu.html MOSCOW – The weekend confirmation that Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned left some analysts of Russian politics shrugging: What would an election be in Russia, or any former Soviet republic, without some KGB-style episode against a key opponent? The scandal-ridden Ukrainian election fits a historical - as well as latter-day - pattern of ruthless tactics brought to bear against political opponents. In 2002, for example, a warlord in Chechnya was killed by a poisoned letter. "This case of poisoning Yushchenko is not an isolated one at all," says Andrei Piontkovsky, head of the Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow. "This practice was routine for the KGB in Soviet times, and I don't think their successors have higher moral standards." Mr. Yushchenko Sunday checked out of a clinic in Vienna after doctors confirmed that dioxin poisoning was responsible for severe facial scarring and skin discoloration. Yushchenko has long claimed that the condition was the result of an assassination attempt. Ukrainian authorities on Saturday reopened a criminal investigation into the poisoning, which had been closed by the former prosecutor Gennady Vasilyev for lack of evidence. Although dioxins are a common industrial pollutant, doctors said Yushchenko had 1,000 times the normal concentration in his system, leading to conclusions of foul play. "We suspect involvement of an external party, but we cannot answer as to who cooked what or who was with him when he ate," Dr. Michael Zimpfer told reporters in Vienna Saturday. Whether by coincidence or not, Mr. Yushchenko fell ill soon after dining on Sept. 5 with the head of Ukraine's SBU secret service, Gen. Igor Smeshko. Officials and Ukraine's state-run media had scoffed at Yushchenko's claims of poisoning, pointing instead to his love of sushi and high living as the probable cause. Speculation Sunday centered on who may have been responsible - cronies of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, or even Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the KGB. Both were seen as eager to engineer victory for Moscow's clear choice in the election, prime minister Viktor Yanukovich. Sunday, Yushchenko said he was "very happy to be alive in this world today." Dioxins are byproduct chemicals created by factories that use chlorine, such as those that make pesticide and plastics. A stronger dose could have been lethal to the large Ukrainian politician. Doctors say he may need two years or more to fully recover. It was not clear how the incident would affect the vote, which Yushchenko is expected to win. But the West-leaning candidate said the political transformation that he has helped engineer has had no parallel in Ukraine for a century. "I think it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall," Yushchenko said. Whoever wins the Dec. 26 Ukraine election will inherit an ossified political system that is still locked in a Soviet-style political environment and has often used violence to deal with opponents. Among the most bizarre cases is the disappearance of muckraking online editor Georgiy Gongadze in September 2000. A month later, a headless body was found on the outskirts of Kiev. Audiotapes of conversation from the president's office - taped secretly by Mr. Kuchma's bodyguard - later surfaced and appeared to link Mr. Kuchma to the killing. The bodyguard later was given asylum in the US. The standard of intrigue, however, has been set in nearby Russia - a tradition that stretches back at least as far as Rasputin. His assassins in 1916 first tried unsuccessfully to poison the czar's court confidant with cyanide-laced pastries and wine, before using bullets, knives, and finally drowning. When it comes to modern Russian politics, the presidential vote earlier this year provided its own spectacle. Ivan Rybkin, a former speaker of the Duma and top Kremlin official under Boris Yeltsin who ran against President Vladimir Putin, disappeared for five days - about a month before the vote. When Mr. Rybkin resurfaced, he first told a garbled tale about meeting friends in Kiev; later in London, he claimed that he was abducted by the FSB, drugged, and forced to make a compromising video. More recently two different journalists covering the Beslan hostage crisis in September say they were drugged - one on a plane, another during an FSB interrogation - to prevent their coverage of the story. Medical tests later confirmed one of the cases. Friends and family of Yury Shchekochikin, a Duma deputy and deputy editor of the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta in Moscow, believe that his death after an unexplained skin rash in July 2003 - while he was investigating a company owned by former KGB top brass - may have been due to dioxin poisoning. And in early 2002, the FSB celebrated its killing of a Saudi-born warlord in Chechnya, called Khattab, who had once fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. In the mid-1990s, Khattab became a key Chechen link to foreign funding and Islamist militants. He received the letter from the FSB through intermediaries. "It is technically quite possible to be killed by poison put on paper," Oleg Kalugin, a cold war defector who now lives in America, told the London Sunday Times in 2002. "I recall in the old Soviet days the KGB planned to assassinate some people by putting poisonous gel on the door handle of a car." In 1978, a Bulgarian agent famously used a spring-loaded umbrella to fire a deadly ricin pellet into Soviet defector Georgi Markov at a London bus stop. Further back in history, Stalin's secret police staged a car crash in 1948, to kill Solomon Mikhoels, a Soviet Yiddish actor and theater director, and head of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II. Another famous case was that of the well-known pro-Bolshevik novelist Maxim Gorky, who died in 1936. The secret police chief at the time confessed to poisoning him at his trial two years later. Even Boris Yeltsin, who later became president, once claimed in 1990 that he had been grabbed while walking and thrown off a bridge into the Moscow River. He showed up at a friend's place bruised, in tattered clothes, and soaking wet. ----- Spy chief is poisoning suspect The Scotsman CHRIS STEPHEN 13 Dec 2004 http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1421852004 UKRAINIAN prosecutors will today begin an investigation into allegations that state officials tried to assassinate opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, following weekend confirmation that he was poisoned in the run-up to presidential elections. It is an inquiry that is expected to be hugely divisive because the prime suspect is the head of the Ukraine secret service, the SBU. The official dined with Mr Yushchenko the night he was poisoned, and medical experts say the dioxin is likely to have been administered through the food and drink. Mr Yushchenko, expected to be elected president in re-run elections on 26 December, yesterday promised a full investigation of the case. Leaving the Vienna clinic which confirmed, after weeks of uncertainty, that he had suffered dioxin poisoning, he told reporters: "This question will require a great deal of time and serious investigation." His call was echoed in Washington, where state department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said: "We urge Ukrainian authorities to investigate this matter." She said US officials had also studied the Austrian report and were "deeply concerned about these findings". Mr Yushchenko yesterday insisted his poisoning would not be the key issue in campaigning ahead of the presidential run-off contest against prime minister Viktor Yanukovich. He said: "I don’t want this factor to influence the election in some way - either as a plus or a minus." In fact, the timing of the announcement means the issue can hardly be anything else. The poisoning allegations have been the central theme of this election battle ever since Mr Yushchenko was rushed to hospital with a mystery illness on 5 September this year. His American wife, Ekaterina, said she knew something was wrong when she kissed him the night of the attack, and found a "medicinal" taste on his lips. The following day, wracked with pain, Mr Yushchenko was rushed to the elite Rudolfinerhaus Clinic. Doctors there saved his life, but insisted in the weeks that followed that they did not know what had made him ill. Nevertheless, the sight of Mr Yushchenko’s once handsome and now pockmarked and puffy face became the key image of the pro-democracy demonstrations of recent weeks. Finally, after a battery of tests on Friday, the Austrian clinic confirmed what opponents had long insisted - that Mr Yushchenko was struck by dioxin poisoning. That an attempt on his life was made is now almost certain, but prosecutors still face an uphill battle. Firstly, the clinic director Dr Michael Zimpher was unable to say which dioxin had been responsible, only that the level of dioxins in Mr Yushchenko’s body were 1,000 times the normal level. Dioxin is a generic name for toxic chemicals, any one of which may be responsible for Mr Yushchenko’s sickness. The massive quantities of dioxin found in Yushchenko’s system caused chloracne, a type of adult acne caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. The condition is treatable, but can take two to three years to heal. "Until recently there has been no testing available," said Dr Zimpher. "This may be one of the reasons that this kind of poisoning, if it was a criminal act, was chosen." But tracing the exact poison, and proving that someone tipped it into his food - a cream soup is the suspected source, according to doctors - will not be easy. Sources in Kiev say the best hope of solving the mystery has been the recent defection to the opposition of several senior SBU officials, who may bring with them details of any "dirty tricks" operations by the service. The government, meanwhile, has been issuing furious denials. "There is no logic to this accusation," said Mr Yanukovich’s campaign manager, Taras Chornovyl. Undercutting the government’s case has been their refusal, ever since the September attack, to admit the possibility of poisoning, or to investigate the allegation. All this will now change. Last week a new chief prosecutor, Svyatoslav Piskun, was appointed as part of a deal between Mr Yushchenko and the current president Leonid Kuchma clearing the way for new elections. Mr Piskun was fired by Mr Kuchma last year, allegedly for being too energetic in probing secret service links to the murder of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze. There is pressure for Mr Piskun to launch a wide-scale inquiry into whether there was secret service involvement in both the poisoning and the Gongadze case. For the opposition, an investigation into the poisoning is a sound election tactic, in keeping the government on the defensive. This investigation will also provide a rallying cry for government opponents, who characterise their fight as more than merely political. "It shows that in this election you have a fight not only between Yushchenko and Yanukovich, not only between opposition and government, but between the truth and a lie," said Professor Olexiy Haran, director of Kiev’s school for policy analysis. Mr Yushchenko yesterday insisted his focus remained on the achievement of his supporters in forcing the government to re-run November’s presidential elections after the supreme court and international monitors found widespread fraud. "We haven’t seen anything like that for the past 100 years," he said. "I think it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall." DIOXIN - THE SYMPTOMS DIOXINS come in all shapes and sizes, with low levels arriving in our bodies through processed foods. Other sources include paper bleach, grasshoppers and bonfires, though none of these can supply the concentrations in Mr Yushchenko’s system. Chloracne, his disfiguring skin condition, is the most recognisable symptom of acute dioxin poisoning, but there are a variety of symptoms, ranging from gastrointestinal disturbances to metabolic disorders. The skin condition can disappear after the poison wears off, or it can persist for many years. Mr Yushchenko also suffered back pain, acute pancreatitis and paralysis on the left side of his face. Chronic dioxin exposure is believed to increase the risk of cancers and cause liver damage. ----- Documentary digs into expanded spying on everyday life Posted December 13, 2004, Vermont Guardian http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/0904/1213.shtml#article2 SILVER SPRING, MD — A new Discovery Times Channel documentary, developed with The New York Times, explores how the average citizen’s every move is monitored through technology, from cameras and credit cards to the World Wide Web. Premiering at 10 p.m. on Dec. 18, the program, Someone’s Watching, takes a tough look at the balancing act between convenience, security, and privacy. Over the last decade, new technologies have transformed the way we communicate and gather information. But they also exact a high price, opening up new ways to monitor people without their knowledge. The new documentary, featuring interviews by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times writer Lowell Bergman, provides historical context and tells the stories of people whose lives have been directly affected. The examples include a grandmother who discovers that information about her use of prescription drugs is being bought and sold, and a young woman who leads a statewide lobbying campaign to strengthen protections after she learns that her landlord was spying on her with a camera hidden in her bedroom. Another topic is the Pentagon plan called Total Information Awareness that would have searched billions of private computer records for signs of terrorism had it not been blocked by Congress. The show also covers efforts to improve the screening of airline passengers, which have been stalled as officials and privacy advocates argue over how much the government needs to know about people. Someone’s Watching is part of a new Discovery Times Channel series, Risk Factor, which explores intelligence blunders, weapons of war, and surveillance. -------- us 'Hillbilly Armor' Defense sees it's fallen short in securing the troops. The grunts already knew. Newsweek International Dec. 13/20, 2004 By Michael Hirsh, John Barry and Babak Dehghanpisheh http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6700937/site/newsweek/ Dec. 20 issue - Predators know to hunt the weakest animal in the herd. So do the Iraqi insurgents. It is an essential truth about the Iraq war that's ingrained in soldiers like Pvt. Daniel Rocco, a Humvee gunner with the Second Battalion of the 82nd Field Artillery Regiment. Rocco's unit is an artillery regiment trained for conventional warfare, not escorting convoys. But the "Steel Dragons" of the Second now spend most of their days protecting the weak: VIP visitors and 18-wheel trucks loaded with food or other supplies on the road to Baghdad. In the process Rocco's unit gets hit regularly with small-arms fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and even suicide car bombs. He displays reddish pockmarks and scar tissue up his right arm, the effects of an IED from last May. "I really can't close my right hand," he says. And Rocco's Humvee is, today, equipped—with "Gypsy racks"—steel-plated cages around the gunner—and other add-on, improvised hardware, known as "hillbilly armor." "It's Mel Gibson 'Road Warrior' stuff," says Capt. John Pinter, the battalion's maintenance officer. "We're not shooting for pretty over here." This is the ugly reality that National Guard Spc. Thomas Wilson was apparently trying to convey to Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait last week. There is no front line in Iraq. Or, to be more precise, the front line is wherever the insurgents decide it is. And very often they decide it should be trucks and unarmored Humvees at the back of supply lines—what used to be known, in other wars, as the rear area. Because the insurgents present a 360-degree threat, the most vulnerable units are often the ones the Army pays the least attention to: poorly equipped National Guardsmen or reservists in supply and transport companies. During a Q&A while the Defense secretary was stopping off in Kuwait, Wilson 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?" Rumsfeld's initial response was testy. "You go to war with the army you have," he barked. Wilson's question, it turned out, had been planted by a reporter embedded with Wilson's 278th Regimental Combat Team, which was about to head into Iraq in a long convoy of unarmored vehicles. But Wilson's brave words brought applause and shouts of approval from the other 2,300 soldiers in the hangar at a base in Kuwait. His question is still resonating. Many critics on both sides of the political aisle are asking whether the Pentagon is adjusting well to the insurgents' tactics. Is Rumsfeld, in other words, fixing vulnerabilities as quickly as the Iraqi insurgents spot them? President Bush reassured Americans last week that "we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones in a mission which is vital and important." But as the death toll climbs to nearly 1,300, some soldiers and defense-industry officials insist that much more could be done. Eighteen months after Bush declared that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over—and another war began—the most powerful military machine on the planet, replenished by America's unmatched industrial power, is still sending its soldiers, reservists and National Guardsmen down dangerous roads in soft-skinned trucks and Humvees. Humvee factories, meanwhile, have not been operating at full capacity. And U.S. commercial steel-plate companies have been largely ignored by the Pentagon, which remains intent on supplying itself from a select number of Army depots. Perhaps inadvertently, the Pentagon late last week provided proof that it had not been doing its utmost. Two days after Rumsfeld's embarrassing exchange with Wilson, the Defense Department announced it was ordering 100 more up-armored Humvees a month from their main supplier, O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt in West Chester, Ohio. The Humvee armoring company had told reporters only a few days before that it was operating at 22 percent under capacity, but that there were no more orders from the Pentagon. Then suddenly there were more, for reasons the Army did not make clear. (The Pentagon claims it did not know about the additional capacity until the head of O'Gara's holding company, Armor Holdings of Jacksonville, Fla., announced last week that it was possible.) The new Pentagon order boosts production from 450 to 550 up-armored Humvees a month, neatly filling in O'Gara's capacity gap. Every little bit of additional production will help. Of the 19,782 Humvees currently in the Iraq theater, according to the Army's latest numbers, only a little more than a quarter, or 5,910, are the new M-1114 model, which is armored top to bottom and can withstand the weight because it has an improved transmission, a 6.5-liter turbo diesel engine and a tougher chassis. An additional 4,737 Humvees have no armor, and most of the rest have been modified with add-on kits. The problem is that these add-on Humvees sometimes break down under the weight or move too slowly in dangerous situations. "The modified armor makes vehicles slog," explains Pinter. And do-it-yourself hillbilly armor sometimes makes the vehicles less safe, especially when exposed to bombs. Why? Because poor-quality steel can turn into shrapnel. There are no firm figures on how many soldiers have died or suffered grievous wounds because of lack of armor. But even during the recent Fallujah offensive, several Marine infantry units rolled into battle with soft-skinned and open-backed Humvees. Many of the Marines grumbled that all the armor was being sent over to the Army. But some Army troops wouldn't agree: in October, members of one unarmored unit, the 343rd Quartermaster Company, refused to carry out a convoy mission because their vehicles were not adequately protected. Several members were later disciplined and demoted, though the Army declined to court-martial them. In a recent letter to the Army Times, Sgt. Scott Montgomery, who was part of a different unit that eventually did carry out the mission, said his convey was hit by an IED and that he was wounded by shrapnel. "Had we not had armor on our vehicle, my entire crew would have been killed," he said. Rumsfeld arrived at the Pentagon determined to overhaul an antiquated Army, making it smaller, faster, lighter, but every bit as lethal. He succeeded, at least in the early going. Following the "shock and awe" bombing campaign, Rumsfeld's faster, lighter forces stunned the enemy by rushing to Baghdad in just three weeks. But now an Army that has long wanted to retreat from heavy, slow tanks and Bradleys, which it once designed for use against the Soviets, suddenly needs them again. "If anyone would have told me a Humvee would be the platform of choice in a war, I would have told them they're crazy," says Gary Motsek, director of support operations for Army Materiel Command. His view was echoed last week by former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who told an audience at California's Pomona College that Humvees were never intended for combat. But Motsek says the Army has adjusted faster than many people realize. Last fall, he notes, when the Army realized the gravity of the insurgency, engineers at the Army Research Lab at Aberdeen, Md., designed the add-on armor kits for the Humvees "over a weekend." Dov Zakheim—who, until his recent departure, was the DoD's comptroller—told NEWSWEEK that another holdup has been an "antiquated" acquisitions system. Zakheim said the Pentagon fixed the problem only in the past six weeks with "joint rapid action cells," which allow contractors to waive regulatory red tape in wartime. Other Army officials complain that the nation does not have the industrial base any longer to produce equipment for a new kind of war. That's one reason so many supply trucks—seven out of eight, in fact—are still unarmored. The Army's "family" of medium trucks is now made by a single firm, Stewart & Stevenson of Sealy, Texas. All the features that make trucks driver-friendly—like a big front window—also make it a nightmare to drive on Iraq's lethal highways. So the Army has contracted both with its own depots and with outside firms to build appliqué armor kits. But, as with the Humvees, the extra weight can wreck suspensions and drive trains and overtax the engine's coolant system. "The last thing you want is a well-armored vehicle that breaks down," says Denny Dellinger, president of Stewart & Stevenson. So he's designing a whole new armored cab. "The Army is doing a helluva lot," Dellinger says, but the tactics of the insurgents keeps changing. Yet some critics contend that, contrary to what Rumsfeld told Wilson, America is not going to war with the Army equipment it already has. They claim that vested interests at the Pentagon are sometimes obstructing the best firepower and equipment available. Why? In part because the Pentagon is still obsessed with its "lighter, faster" vision and is hyping new, ill-tested armaments like the Stryker fighting vehicle. Much older equipment, like treaded M113 personnel carriers, lies unused in arms "boneyards" although they could be up-armored far more cheaply than Humvees. Among these second-guessers is Rep. Robin Hayes, a North Carolina Republican. Hayes told NEWSWEEK that "the secretary of Defense exhibited a remarkable lack of sensitivity" in his remarks. Hayes said he has been frustrated by delays in getting several heavier armored gun carriers to the light-gunned 82nd Airborne, which first requested them a year ago. Four such tank-treaded vehicles are still sitting in mothballs in Pennsylvania. Army Gen. Richard Cody approved the transfer last March. But then the Army decided to wait for a newer system mounted on a wheeled Stryker, though the system has been held up due to reliability issues, according to a recent General Accounting Office report. On Dec. 9, a day after Rumsfeld's Kuwait appearance, Hayes wrote him a letter saying, "I simply cannot understand why we are not equipping our soldiers and Marines on the front lines with every weapon in our arsenal." Other defense insiders say that better armor has not been a high enough priority, at least until recently. After 9/11, Boeing ramped up production of JDAMs, its precise, GPS-guided bombs, from 900 a year to 3, 000 a month for use in Afghanistan. (This past week, in the middle of the armor furor, Boeing announced that it had delivered its 100,000th JDAM kit to the Air Force.) "If they could do it for bombs, why couldn't they do it for armor to save lives ?" asks Defense analyst Bill Arkin. Rumsfeld "could have awakened any morning in the last year and a half, determined to make sure every vehicle is properly armored and said, 'I want industry to jump through hoops to do it'," says one defense contractor. "I was infuriated he could be so cavalier." No doubt the Pentagon chief is getting on top of the problem now. With Rod Nordland in Baghdad, T. Trent Gegax in New York and Eve Conant in Washington ----- RUMSFELD MAY SOON REGRET HIS ARROGANCE TOWARD U.S. TROOPS Yahoo By Georgie Anne Geyer Dec 13, 2004 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2205&ncid=742&e=14&u=/ucgg/20041213/cm_ucgg/rumsfeldmaysoonregrethisarrogancetowardustroops WASHINGTON, D.C. -- By the early 1970s, after seven long and savage years of fighting in Vietnam, the phrase that came to characterize the pitiful hopelessness and absurdity of that conflict was, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Unbelievably, our secretary of defense has just given us the existential phrases for the Iraq (news - web sites) war: "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have ... not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." How could Donald Rumsfeld, a smart and savvy man despite his perverse fascination with conflict, possibly say such an insulting and arrogant thing to American soldiers? Is he really trying to tell them, as it surely sounded last Wednesday when he addressed American troops in Kuwait, that they are not the Army he wanted, but he had to put up with them? Well, just maybe, if the cavalier attitude of the civilians in this administration toward American troops continues, there will come a time when our soldiers will not put up with THEM! Perhaps that was beginning last week in Kuwait. To briefly review, one soldier in Kuwait, Spc. Thomas Wilson, a member of the Tennessee National Guard, confronted "Rummie" with a pointed question. "We've had troops in Iraq for coming up on three years and we've always staged here out of Kuwait," he said. "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles, and why don't we have those resources readily available to us? "We're digging pieces of rusted scrap metal ... that has already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat." Rumsfeld then made his incredible comment, pointing out to any rational person the degrees to which this administration is not so much lacking battlefield intelligence but basic human instinct. Even President Bush (news - web sites), whose own responses to the troops, despite his melodramatic public "emotion," are cool and distant, seemed to realize that Rumsfeld had gone too far. "If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country," he said from Washington, "I'd want to ask the secretary of defense the same question." (At this point, some of would like to ask him the question of why, as commander in chief, he hasn't asked it himself?). Then it was revealed that the question had been worked out in concert with a journalist covering the troops, Edward Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times Free Press -- and this fact was somehow meant to discredit the whole encounter. Sorry about that! Such exchanges of ideas -- and especially of complaints -- are not only part of the war scene, they are central and appropriate to it. But let us not forget the context of Rumsfeld's words. This is Rumsfeld's war -- not America's, but his. He and his pugnacious neocon cohorts -- all of them still reigning in the Pentagon (news - web sites), and none of whom having ever served in the military -- ran all around the uniformed military's and the State Department's warnings about this war. They got exactly what they asked for: an adventure, a thoroughly unnecessary "war of choice," and a growing disaster-in-the-making. Senators Joseph Biden Jr. and Chuck Hagel just returned from Iraq, saying that not one American general said we were winning. Other warnings are the same. Rumsfeld's answer to everything is to train Iraqi forces to take the place of ours (perhaps because we, poor guys, only have "the Army we have"), but they are falling apart in many Iraqi cities. And then Rumsfeld made things even worse. Responding to questions as to why he did not even remotely anticipate these intense "insurgencies," he answered blithely: "I don't think anyone would say that the intelligence left anyone with the impression that you'd be in the degree of insurgency you're in today." No look at Iraqi history, no attempt to match ambition to potential, no common sense --and surely no apologies! You can see the anger beginning to build in the armed forces, with the "stop-loss" policies that force men and women to stay in uniform long after their terms are over, with the callousness about the armor, with the ludicrous analysis by the civilians in the Pentagon of what Iraq and its history were really like. Now his unfortunate quote will go down in history to show how much he and his group, most of them remote and self-interested intellectuals, look at battlefield soldiers as chess pieces at their disposal. In the end, they care about nothing except their game. ----- Rumsfeld under fire over Iraq McCain says he has ‘no confidence’; Schwarzkopf expresses anger NBC, MSNBC and news services Dec. 14, 2004 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6708495/ Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come under attack from Republican Sen. John McCain and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf over his handling of the Iraq war. In separate interviews, McCain, of Arizona, said he had “no confidence” in Rumsfeld, citing his handling of the war in Iraq and the failure of the Pentagon to send more troops, while Schwarzkopf, the allied commander in the first Gulf War, said Rumsfeld seemed to be passing the buck when quizzed last week about the armor supply for troops on the ground. McCain, speaking to The Associated Press in an hour-long interview Monday, said his comments were not a call for Rumsfeld’s resignation, explaining that President Bush “can have the team that he wants around him.” Asked about his confidence in the secretary’s leadership, McCain recalled fielding a similar question a couple weeks ago. “I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence,” McCain said. He estimated that 80,000 more Army personnel and 20,000 to 30,000 more Marines would be needed to secure Iraq. “I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops — linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.,” McCain said. “There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue.” Asked whether Rumsfeld was a liability to the Bush administration, McCain responded: “The president can decide that, not me.” Joe Scarborough on the controversy Oversight of military operations McCain is not the only Republican to publicly criticize Rumsfeld. “I don’t like the way he has done some things. I think they have been irresponsible,” Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said Sunday on CNN after returning from Iraq. “I don’t like the way we went into Iraq. We didn’t go into Iraq with enough troops.” But the words of McCain, a decorated Navy veteran and Vietnam prisoner of war, carry special sting. He is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has oversight of military operations and considerable influence over the Defense Department’s budget. If Senate Republicans maintain their majority two years from now, McCain would be in line to become the committee’s chairman, something he said he would weigh when considering whether to run for president again. “In a couple of years, I might give it some consideration, but not right now,” he said of a presidential bid. Larry Di Rita, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said McCain “has frequently expressed his views regarding troop levels in Iraq, and he is an important member” of the committee. Rumsfeld has “relied upon the judgment of the military commanders to determine what force levels are appropriate for the situation at hand,” Di Rita said. Despite the troop levels, McCain believes military morale remains high, but he acknowledged that involuntary extensions of tours of duty were frustrating to soldiers. He said Iraq must have a functioning independent government before U.S. troops leave. “I believe we’ll be in Iraq militarily for many years, which would not be a problem to the American people,” he said. “I think what is not acceptable to the American people is an increasing flow of dead and wounded.” Hardball answers Schwarzkopf, interviewed on MSNBC-TV’s “Hardball,” chided Rumsfeld for his reply to a soldier in Kuwait over the lack of armor on many military vehicles used in Iraq. “I was very, very disappointed — no, let me put it stronger — I was angry by the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army, as if he, as the secretary of defense, didn’t have anything to do with the Army and the Army was over there doing it themselves, screwing up,” Schwarzkopf said. Schwarzkopf, a registered independent who campaigned for Bush in the last two presidential elections, has previously criticized Rumsfeld on several occasions as arrogant and out of touch with troops on the ground. Monday, Schwarzkopf said the Defense Department had badly misjudged the situation in Iraq. Reserve forces were rushed into urban combat — “toughest kind of fighting” — without adequate training, and “things have gone awry.” “In the final analysis, I think we are behind schedule” in Iraq, Schwarzkopf said. “... I don’t think we counted on it turning into jihad.” The public pounding may have taken a toll on public confidence in Rumsfeld. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted Thursday through Monday, found that public approval of Rumsfeld, already fairly low, had fallen to 34 percent from 39 percent in May. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and The Associated Press contributed to this report. ----- Giving the Gift of War Tom Dispatch by Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt December 13, 2004 http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=4155 For the Pentagon, Xmas is an everyday affair. And the wonderful thing – for those who make its presents – is that there's never a December 26th. Unlike the rest of us, the Pentagon, which evidently doesn't keep its sales slips, never rushes to its nearest arms manufacturer and returns that crush of unwanted or defective gifts the day after; nor does it hit the sales tables. In fact, its top officials stand on principle in their unwavering belief that nothing should be purchased at less than full price – or higher if possible. (After all, some under-armed despot somewhere on Earth is bound to want the arms system sooner or later.) So, as we've discovered only this week, in a rush of secret seasonal buying – I guess they really wanted to surprise the American people! – the National Reconnaissance Office, a joint Pentagon/CIA operation, has picked up a new $9.5 billion spy satellite system, possibly slated to become "the largest single-item expenditure in the $40 billion intelligence budget," that evidently can take its photographs "only in daylight hours and in clear weather." (Maybe the Pentagon's weather forecasters know something we don't!) I guess they're already planning the next series of purchases – after all, what's another 10 billion or so dollars? – that crucial satellite slicker and radical laser surgery for satellite night vision. So, it's with particular pleasure that TomDispatch presents the second annual opportunity for you, the Xmas gift-giver, to partake in some small way of the Pentagon's globally generous spirit. Let Nick Turse guide you through a landscape of gifts worthy of any tale from the Arabian Nights (think oil and sand). Tom Make It a Merry Military-Corporate Christmas by (Little Saint) Nick Turse It's that time of year again, folks. The moment to begin the mad scramble to fill those Xmas stockings and so time for the second annual TomDispatch list of gifts that will make this a jolly "military-corporate complex" Xmas for you and yours! Yes, an entire year has passed since TomDispatch first brought you its list of "Hot as Depleted Uranium Toys for a New Imperial Age." This year, we've got great new gift ideas from the Complex. So, if you didn't get that Abrams tank under the tree last year and the neighbors rubbed their new Hummer in your face (before using it to crush your puny "girlie-man" car), don't despair. This Xmas offers a wealth of possibilities, a shot at getting all the games, gadgets, gear, and guns the Complex has to offer. Heroic Action Figures, Patriot Games, and Terror Toys Last year, a mangled, bloodied son of Saddam, the Talking Uday doll, topped the list of most wanted evildoer toys, while "mission-accomplished" Elite Force Aviator George W. Bush led the way for the US of A. This year, the Herobuilders "Hero Action Figures" line has out-Udayed itself, unveiling a plethora of new villains and American icons. Why not buy that special little someone the weirdly muscled-up Rudy Giuliani ("America's Mayor") figure, the "Talking British Ally" Tony Blair doll, or that Green-Zone favorite, the "Talking Bush in Baghdad," whose startled expression perfectly matches his ill-fitting military garb. Any one of these dolls … er, action figures should be more than a match for the military-fatigues-wearing "Crack Head Saddam," the T-shirt clad "Captured Saddam," or the "Dick, the American Taliban" figurine, let alone those near-terrorists (already heading for the discard pile) like the Talking John Kerry, whose shirt might as well say "flip-flopper;" the "Michael 'No' Moore" figure, which, according to the company, "makes a perfect voodoo doll or pin cushion;" or, looking forward to a hateful 2008, the Hillary Clinton doll found lounging sybaritically (and a bit incomprehensibly) on a couch with a mint julep! Okay, dads, we hear you! Sure, you want to steep junior in the military experience, but skip the dolls, right? Then you'll definitely want to invest in the Military Role Play Set from "Manley" (I kid you not). With recent top-brass pronouncements that U.S. forces are likely to be in Iraq for at least the next 5-10 years, you can't start too early acclimating junior to the desert-camo-colored play set that includes a helmet, knife, gas mask, and a few grenades. You know he'll grin when he pulls the pin! But how about Sally? Think she's got more in her future than mere grunthood in our imperial army? Not to worry, this Xmas she can begin training for a future Pentagon/corporate "revolving door" job with a game that combines all the fun of cutthroat capitalism and ruthless militarism – Army Monopoly. Gone are those timeless tokens, the little Scottie dog and the top hat. Instead, try the tank and the attack helicopter! And what good would a little green plastic house or red hotel be when that tank comes rumbling down St. James Place? Fortunately, they too have been replaced by "custom battalions and divisions." And while you might expect the board to be filled with Axis-of-Evil nations ripe for a U.S. invasion, you actually send your legions around the board capturing Army bases, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and even the Pentagon. This year it's more important than ever to rally kids 'round the flag because it seems a bearded figure other than ol' St. Nick has been hard at work in his Tora Bora toy shop. You guessed it: Uncle Osama! First to appear was a toy that seemed to evoke the image of an airplane crashing into the Twin Towers. Then came the toy cell-phone sporting an image of Osama himself (with the word "king" above it). With direct-to-video star bin Laden competing for a share of the holiday toy market (and a half-brother of his hawking perfume to mom), what good parent wouldn't immediately begin muscling up his or her kid's toy arsenal? Video Wishes and Warrior Dreams Jumping up a bit in age, we find that one of last year's hot gifts has returned to this year's list by popular acclaim – Kuma Reality Games' "Kuma War." With cable-news-style introductions by Kuma anchor Jackie Schechner and commentary from retired Marine Major General Thomas L. Wilkerson – a tandem so fair n' balanced they'd do Fox proud – this video game's ripped-from the-headlines missions, updated monthly, will take your youngsters directly into thrilling fire fights in Fallujah or right into the "filthy warrens of Sadr city." If your boy or girl somehow made it through 2004 without "Kuma War," you're not gonna want to make that mistake twice. After all, it might be the only chance he or she has to see American troops and their $150 billion effort, backed by heavy armor, helicopters, fighter-bombers, spy satellites, and all sorts of high-tech weaponry, actually defeat resistance fighters using small arms and pickup trucks. Or why not stuff a few stockings with the recently released third season of ABC's hit Central Intelligence Agency-themed television series "Alias" on DVD? Too cheap to shell out the $65? Then just download the free public service announcement on the CIA's Web site where the show's star Jennifer Garner shills for the agency, burn it to a CD, and put it right under the tree. Are video games and DVDs not quite right(-wing enough) for your list of giftees? Is that special someone always frothing at the mouth while watching Fox News? Then have we got the gift for you! A "Terrorist Hunting Permit" sticker that's perfect for any "car, truck, RV, camper, or fleet." After all, what exemplifies the holiday spirit more than making 2005 (and, according to the sticker, every other year right up to 2050) open season on all evildoers? Or how about surprising your own special "security mom," who wants to do something more than just put a sticker on the minivan, with an upgrade on the stickee? Especially since the Army and the International Truck and Engine Corporation have already ridden to the rescue. While it won't have the Kevlar armor or night-vision equipment of the military model, the new civilian version of the 8,000-lb. SmarTruck III will blow away any terrorist's puny 5,000-lb. Hummer H2, not to speak of the pathetically wimpy 4,100-lb. Jeep Liberty. Of course, what satisfying solution doesn't also create new problems? So you're gonna need to get one industrial-sized tree to park this bad boy beneath. And lest we forget about Dad, here's a lovely possibility for the man who has more socks than any drawer will allow – an annual membership to the Kabul Golf Club, located in the beautiful, artfully unreconstructed suburbs of Afghanistan's capital. Recently reopened, after being cleared of land mines (and the remains of a few old Soviet tanks), KGC may lack certain typical golfing amenities – many of its "greens" are just oily sand – but how many PGA courses boast a bombed-out army barracks or Kalashnikov-carrying caddies? With Afghanistan competitively teetering between being the world's most-failed state and the globe's leading narco-state success, it's not surprising that the annual membership is within your reach! For a mere 7,500 Afghanis ($160), it's a bargain as long as they can keep the Improvised Explosive Devices off the fairways. Global Giving – It Feels So Good! When it comes to the Pentagon, generosity is an eternal byword and Christmas giving an all-year-round activity – as well as something even those who don't celebrate the holiday can still cash in on. Take Israel. As it happens, the Sharonistas evidently jumped the gun and wrote their first letter to Santa as spring was ending. On June 1, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency "notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Israel of Joint Direct Attack Munitions [JDAMs] as well as associated equipment and services." With a total value that could reach as high as $319 million, its unclear exactly who will receive the bigger gift – Israel or the jolly elves slated to fulfill the order: the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (a subsidiary of Boeing); Alliant Techsystems; Lockheed-Martin; Northrop Grumman; and the Honeywell Corporation. In addition to "smart" weapons technologies and fuse components, the Israeli request included such spirit-of-the-season gifts as: 2,500 MK-84 live bombs – a general purpose 2,000-lb. bomb 1,500 MK-82 live bombs – a 500-lb. general purpose blast/fragmentation bomb 500 BLU-109 live bombs – a 2,000-lb. penetrator and blast/fragmentation bomb 500 MK-83 live bombs – a general purpose 1,000-lb. bomb In this seasonal spirit, Israel has been far from alone. The American military-corporate complex has gotten a flood of letters from all the good little nations of the world. While Johnny may want Kuma War and Sally, Army Monopoly, the government of Canada asked to be allowed to buy "2,000 Radio Frequency (RF) TOW-2A and 600 RF TOW-2B Anti-Armor Guided Missiles, [and] 400 RF Bunker Buster Missiles" from Raytheon. Turkey requested a modest 225 AIM-9X SIDEWINDER Missiles (also from Raytheon); while Brazil asked Uncle Sam to bless its request to Sikorsky Aircraft and General Electric for 10 UH-60L BLACK HAWK helicopters, along with 22 7.62mm M134 Mini guns and other accoutrements, for an estimated $250 million. The holiday wish list most in the spirit of the season, however, has got to be Hungary's. Back in October, CUBIC Defense Applications Inc. of San Diego, Calif., through the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, Training Systems Division, was awarded a $7.7 million contract for a "Combined Hungarian Range Instrumentation and Simulation Training Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System" – a laser-tag-like setup for Hungarian military training exercises. The jolly acronym for this project is wholly in the spirit of the season: CHRISTMS! The Ghost of Christmas Future Still, make no mistake, no one can beat the U.S. military when it comes to wish lists! Theirs are routinely written for Xmas mornings many years ahead. So what are America's Armed Forces asking Santa to deliver on Xmas morning 2008 and beyond? Let's take a look at just a few of the literally hundreds of wish-list projects dancing in the heads of our top military command and their arms-dealing counterparts who make up the military-corporate complex. The Army is hopeful that by Xmas morning 2008, Lockheed Martin will have delivered its Loitering Attack Missile (LAM) – "an expendable loitering, hunter-killer" missile that sprouts wings after take-off and then flies over an area for up to 45 minutes waiting for a target to present itself for total destruction. How nice it will be for them to have a sweet LAM baa-ing under the tree in just a few short years! And, not wanting to be left out in the cold, the Air Force plans to take delivery that very same year of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and the Navy to deploy the first of its DD-21 Zumwalt-class Land Attack Destroyers – a "multi-mission destroyer tailored to maritime dominance and land attack missions." The Navy hopes to have electromagnetic rail guns under the Xmas tree by 2010. As you might guess, a "rail gun" isn't exactly a Daisy BB rifle. Instead, imagine a gunpowder-less "gun" that uses electromagnetic propulsion to fire a projectile capable of reaching a speed of 13,000 mph in 0.2 seconds. The Navy yearns for this futuristic super-weapon, primarily because it raises sugar-plum-like dreams of potentially "extremely lethal effects." The Marine Corps is hoping Santa Claus will be coming to town with a full component of Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAAVs), armed with both Bushmaster II 30 mm cannons and M240 Machine Guns, sometime between 2012 and 2014. And Santa better mind his appointed flight path because the Air Force could possibly have a brand new FB-22 Fighter Bomber in the skies as early as 2013. Only two years later, if the elves cut down on their coffee breaks, the Marine Corps hopes its very own electromagnetic wish will come true, allowing them to field a Marine-Corps-made rail gun mountable on a Marine-Corps-only tank. Meanwhile, in the post 2015-era, the Air Force is dreaming of Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missiles that will blow low-Earth-orbiting objects out of the skies. And by Xmas 2037, the Air Force, already worried that their dear old bomber inventory may fall below desired levels, is briefing Santa on a proposed B-3 Long Range Strike Platform – a futuristic fighter-bomber project projected to cost $35 billion in R&D alone. Meanwhile, at yet to be determined times in the future, DARPA projects like the MAgneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM), which promises "the potential for aimable, multiple warheads with … increased lethality and kill precision," and the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), a program to develop a high-energy laser weapon system, are also likely to found, wrapped in giant bows, under the military Xmas tree. Make It a Merry Military-Corporate Xmas While you obviously can't ante up for 2,000-lb. bombs like Israel or shell out the $35 billion needed for a future customized weapons system, you can still do your part to make this Xmas a merry one for the military-corporate complex. And don't think you necessarily need to buy military-engineered video games, women's black "Standard-Issue Assault Shoes," designed for the Special Forces by sunglasses manufacturer Oakley, or an officially licensed U.S. Army pocket calculator – although it sure helps! You can simply buy run-of-the-mill products made by Department of Defense contractors. And don't worry, no effort will be involved. Chances are such gifts are already on your list or waiting beneath the tree. So, on Xmas day, after you've unwrapped some of our recommended gifts, or more standard fare like that new DVD player from General Electric (the 8th largest DoD contractor, which brought "good things to life" for the military last year to the tune of $2.8 billion), a new Xbox video-game system (from DOD contractor Microsoft); a high-tech Roomba Discovery SE robot vacuum cleaner (from iRobot, which sells "pack-bots" to the military and has partnered with DARPA to make swarming mini-robots), a new cell phone from Motorola (which raked in more than 283 million Pentagon dollars last year), or any gift sealed with Scotch tape (made by 3M, which has been working on weapons systems like the Army's OH-58 Kiowa helicopter), and after you've polished off that Butterball turkey or Cook's brand Ham (both from DOD contractor ConAgra Foods) and those Pillsbury Xmas cookies (from DOD contractor General Mills), you can sit back and relax with the knowledge that the military-corporate complex is having another happy holiday – or you and your friends can gather around a roaring fire (or the glow of the new plasma TV) and sing this little ditty to the tune of "Let It Snow": Oh, the war in Iraq is frightful, But for Lockheed and pals it's delightful, Since the Pentagon continues to pay, Let 'em stay, let 'em stay, let 'em stay. Insurgents show no signs of stopping, Americans can't stop AKs from popping, Since it keeps Boeing's prices high, occupy, occupy, occupy. When there's a bombing or firefight, It means moo-lah galore for GE, And ev'ry IED laid at night, means they're buyin' a brand new Humvee As long as some Black Hawks keep crashin', The Complex can really cash in, More war equals much more dough, Let's not go, never go, let's not go. Nick Turse is doctoral candidate at the Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He writes for the Village Voice and regularly for TomDispatch on the military-corporate complex. -------- Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena nytimes By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT December 13, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13info.html?ei=1&en=02f26e0247f5d2ab&ex=1103944696&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1102957368-reh5GEcy7DrOrlleDuEscg WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say. Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations. Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War. The efforts under consideration risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military branches - whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or psychological operations. The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets. The military has faced these tough issues before. Nearly three years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, under intense criticism, closed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion. Now, critics say, some of the proposals of that discredited office are quietly being resurrected elsewhere in the military and in the Pentagon. Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles. Some of those are in the Middle Eastern and South Asian countries like Pakistan, still considered a haven for operatives of Al Qaeda. But such a campaign could reach even to allied countries like Germany, for example, where some mosques have become crucibles for Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism. Before the invasion of Iraq, the military's vast electronic-warfare arsenal was used to single out certain members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle with e-mail messages and cellphone calls in an effort to sway them to the American cause. Arguments have been made for similar efforts to be mounted at leadership circles in other nations where the United States is not at war. During the cold war, American intelligence agencies had journalists on their payrolls or operatives posing as journalists, particularly in Western Europe, with the aim of producing pro-American articles to influence the populations of those countries. But officials say that no one is considering using such tactics now. Suspicions about disinformation programs also arose in the 1980's when the White House was accused of using such a campaign to destabilize Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. In the current debate, it is unclear how far along the other programs are or to what extent they are being carried out because of their largely classified nature. Within the Pentagon, some of the military's most powerful figures have expressed concerns at some of the steps taken that risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs and the world of combat information operations. These tensions were cast into stark relief this summer in Iraq when Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, approved the combining of the command's day-to-day public affairs operations with combat psychological and information operations into a single "strategic communications office." In a rare expression of senior-level questions about such decisions, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a memorandum warning the military's regional combat commanders about the risks of mingling the military public affairs too closely with information operations. "While organizations may be inclined to create physically integrated P.A./I.O. offices, such organizational constructs have the potential to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the public," it said. But General Myers's memorandum is not being followed, according to officers in Iraq, largely because commanders there believe they are safely separating the two operations and say they need all the flexibility possible to combat the insurgency. Indeed, senior military officials in Washington say public affairs officers in war zones might, by choice or under pressure, issue statements to world news media that, while having elements of truth, are clearly devised primarily to provoke a response from the enemy. Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news satellite channel Al Jazeera. "In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita. The battle lines in this debate have been drawn in a flurry of classified studies, secret operational guidance statements and internal requests from Mr. Rumsfeld. Some go to the concepts of information warfare, and some complain about how the government's communications are organized. The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a secret order signed by Mr. Rumsfeld late last year and called "Information Operations Roadmap." The 74-page directive, which remains classified but was described by officials who had read it, accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of information operations as a core military competency." Noting the complexities and risks, Mr. Rumsfeld ordered studies to clarify the appropriate relationship between Pentagon and military public affairs - whose job is to educate and inform the public with accurate and timely information - and the practitioners of secret psychological operations and information campaigns to influence, deter or confuse adversaries. In response, one far-reaching study conducted at the request of the strategic plans and policy branch of the military's Joint Staff recently produced a proposal to create a "director of central information." The director would have responsibility for budgeting and "authoritative control of messages" - whether public or covert - across all the government operations that deal with national security and foreign policy. The study, conducted by the National Defense University, was presented Oct. 20 to a panel of senior Pentagon officials and military officers, including Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, whose organization set up the original Office of Strategic Influence. No senior officer today better represents the debate over a changing world of military information than Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, an operational commander chosen to be the military's senior spokesman in Iraq after major combat operations shifted to counterinsurgency operations in the spring of 2003. His role rankled many in the military's public affairs community who contend that the job should have gone to someone trained in the doctrine of Army communications and public affairs, rather than to an officer who had spent his career in combat arms. "This is tough business," said General Kimmitt, who now serves as deputy director of plans for the American military command in the Middle East. "Are we trying to inform? Yes. Do we offer perspective? Yes. Do we offer military judgment? Yes. Must we tell the truth to stay credible? Yes. Is there a battlefield value in deceiving the enemy? Yes. Do we intentionally deceive the American people? No." The rub, General Kimmitt said, is operating among those sometimes conflicting principles. "There is a gray area," he said. "Tactical and operational deception are proper and legal on the battlefield." But "in a worldwide media environment," he asked, "how do you prevent that deception from spilling out from the battlefield and inadvertently deceiving the American people?" Mr. Di Rita said the scope of the issue had changed in recent years. "We have a unique challenge in this department," he said, "because four-star military officers are the face of the United States abroad in ways that are almost unprecedented since the end of World War II." He added, "Communication is becoming a capability that combatant commanders have to factor in to the kinds of operations they are doing." Much of the Pentagon's work in this new area falls under a relatively unknown field called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy. This new phrase is used to describe the Pentagon's work in governmentwide efforts to communicate with foreign audiences but that is separate from support for generals in the field. At the Pentagon, that effort is managed by Ryan Henry, Mr. Feith's principal deputy for policy. "With the pace of technology and such, and with the nature of the global war on terrorism, information has become much more a part of strategic victory, and to a certain extent tactical victory, than it ever was in the past," Mr. Henry said. However, a senior military officer said that without clear guidance from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations, information operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on the battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred." This has led to a situation where "proponents of these elements jockey for position to lead the overall communication effort," the officer said. Debate also continues over proposed amendments to a classified Defense Department directive, titled "3600.1: Information Operations," which would lay down Pentagon policy in coming years. Previous versions of the directive allow aggressive information campaigns to affect enemy leaders, but not those of allies or even neutral states. The current debate is over proposed revisions that would widen the target audience for such missions. Mr. Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, says that even though the government is wrestling with these issues, the standard is still to tell to the truth. "Our job is to put out information to the public that is accurate," he said, "and to put it out as quickly as we can." ----- Report leans toward women in combat December 13, 2004 By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041213-124619-5345r.htm Internal Army documents advocate changing Pentagon rules on mixed-sex units in a way that critics say will risk placing female soldiers in ground-combat situations. The Nov. 29 briefing to senior Army officers at the Pentagon, presented as part of the service's sweeping transformation of its 10 war-fighting divisions, advocates scrapping the military's ban on collocation — the deployment of mixed-sex noncombat units alongside all-male combat brigades. The briefing contained the phrase: "The way ahead: rewrite/eliminate the Army collocation policy." To some in the Army, the confidential briefing proves that the service is moving toward a decision to put women within direct combat units, despite statements denying such plans, including a Nov. 3 Capitol Hill briefing for senior congressional staff members by Army and Pentagon officials. According to one aide, the Nov. 3 briefers assured the staff members that the Army was complying with the collocation rule and did not want it changed. "We are not collocating," a senior congressional aide quoted the presenters as saying. But the Army's Nov. 29 paper suggests otherwise, and critics of the plan, both inside and outside the Army, argue that it is part of an overall plan to override a 1994 policy prohibiting women from serving in direct land combat. The Pentagon has said it maintains the ban because upper-body strength is needed for land combat and because polls show most female soldiers do not want the policy changed. Elaine Donnelly, who heads the independent Center for Military Readiness, has sent a letter to Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and House Armed Services Committee chairman, accusing the Army of violating Pentagon rules. "Female soldiers, including young mothers, should not have to pay the price for Pentagon bureaucratic blunders and gender-based recruiting quotas that have caused apparent shortages in male soldiers for the new land-combat brigades," Mrs. Donnelly said. "It does not make sense to sacrifice the advantage of modular organizations, just to make ideological points about gender equality. Land combat is not fair or equal, nor is it even civilized," she said. An Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon said, "It is my understanding that the Nov. 29 briefing was predecisional. There are a number of Army policies under review." The debate's roots go back to 1994. Impressed with the performance of military women in Operation Desert Storm, the Clinton administration lifted long-standing bans on women in combat aircraft and ships. But the new policy clearly stated that a prohibition would continue for ground units that participate in direct combat. The 1994 policy also said women would not serve "where units and positions are doctrinally required to physically collocate and remain with direct ground combat units that are closed to women." Now, the Army's transformation plans include proposals for much tighter mingling of combat and noncombat units. Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, has redesigned the basic combat brigade into self-contained "units of action" that train and deploy with their support teams, including a unit called the Forward Support Company (FSC). Currently, women serve in units that perform the functions of FSCs. Mrs. Donnelly and Army officials, who asked not to be named, contend that the new design would require the Army to violate the collocation rule. They say federal law requires the military to notify Congress. But in the Nov. 3 presentation to congressional aides, the Army said it was complying with the collocation rule by attaching the FSC to a brigade support battalion — not to the combat brigade itself. The first redesigned division, the 3rd Infantry at Fort Stewart, Ga., is scheduled to return to Iraq in January. But Mrs. Donnelly said the change is on paper only. She said that the 3rd Infantry's FSC, which is mixed-sex, would have to stay, or collocate, with the combat brigade "100 percent of the time" to do its job in the way the Army envisions. Even the Army's own documents, previously reported by The Washington Times and labeled "draft close hold," state that this arrangement "could be perceived as subterfuge to avoid reporting requirements" to Congress on changing the policy. About three weeks after the Nov. 3 briefing, the Army created another internal presentation — this one on why the ban on collocation should be lifted. The Nov. 29 briefing was prepared by Col. Robert H. Woods Jr., the director of the Human Resources Policy Directorate at the Pentagon. The directorate reports to the deputy chief of staff for personnel. Col. Woods has been nominated for promotion to brigadier general. The Woods briefing's cover page contains the headline, "Patriotic women of excellence contributing to our force." After writing that the "way ahead" is to eliminate the collocation rule, the briefing states, "incorporate lessons learned from 3rd [Infantry] into future decisions on policy affecting the assignment and utilization of women soldiers." Said Mrs. Donnelly: "It appears that certain shortsighted Army officials have decided to ignore the congressional notification law in order to gather 'lessons learned,' which in turn will be used to declare this live-fire, extremely dangerous social experiment a big 'success.' " The briefing also gives an example of how the Army might get rid of the rule. Army regulations state female soldiers are banned from units "which are assigned a routine mission to engage in direct combat or which collocate routinely with units assigned a direct combat mission." The proposed change deletes the collocation rule altogether, meaning only direct-combat units are off-limits. The Army document also states that the 1994 policy concerning the need to notify the Office of the Secretary of Defense is "silent on dropping restrictions." Mrs. Donnelly said this appears to be an argument for not notifying Pentagon civilians. "It is preposterous to suggest that the Army could put women into the infantry, armor or units collocated with them without formal approval by the secretary of defense," Mrs. Donnelly said. The Times reported last week on an internal May 10 briefing that portrayed the Army as in a bind. The briefing states the Army does not have enough male soldiers to fill the FSCs if they were to collocate with combat brigades and thus required to be men-only. All-male FSCs, the paper states, "creates potential long-term challenge to Army; pool of male recruits too small to sustain force." -------- Veterans Return From Iraq Disabled and Homeless Monday, December 13th, 2004 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/13/1457235 Studies find a high percentage of Iraq veterans are returning home with mental problems and homeless shelters around the country are reporting they are already seeing some recently returned Iraq veterans showing up in need of shelter. We speak with UPI Investigations editor Mark Benjamin. [includes rush transcript] A suicide bomber killed at least seven Iraqis at an entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Monday. The U.S. military said no U.S. soldiers were hurt in the bombing that comes a day after seven U.S. Marines were killed in two separate incidents west of Baghdad. The attack comes a year to the day since U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein. At that time, President Bush and U.S. military commanders hoped the former president's arrest would weaken the Iraqi resistance. But, violence has continued unabated and the death rate among U.S. troops has risen dramatically. Nearly 1,300 U.S. soldiers have been killed since the war began. Many thousands more have been wounded. Last week the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the US is facing a "severe shortage of surgeons in Iraq" to treat wounded soldiers. It is now estimated that more soldiers have been injured in Iraq than during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, or the first five years of the Vietnam conflict. And in what appears to be a chilling echo of the Vietnam war, UPI found that homeless shelters around the country are reporting they are already seeing some recently returned Iraq veterans showing up in need of shelter. The Homeless Veterans coalition estimates that nearly 500,000 veterans are homeless at some point in a given year. Almost half served during the Vietnam era. * Mark Benjamin, UPI Investigations editor. He has been closely following the hidden U.S. casualties from the Iraq war. He was awarded the American Legion's top journalism award for 2004 for his reporting on the plight of hundreds of sick, wounded and injured soldiers at Fort Stewart, Ga. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Mark Benjamin is U.P.I.'s Investigations editor. He has been closely following the hidden U.S. casualties from the Iraq war. He was awarded the American Legion's top journalism prize for 2004 for his reporting on the plight of hundreds of sick, wounded and injured soldiers, and one particular base at Ft. Stewart, Georgia. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Mark Benjamin. MARK BENJAMIN: Thank you for having me. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this piece that you wrote on the number of homeless veterans of the Iraq invasion. MARK BENJAMIN: Yes. Homeless veterans from Iraq are just starting to show up at some homeless shelters in the country. I found 60 -- 50 of them have been in touch with the veteran’s administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs. I found another 10 at a group of homeless shelters in Los Angeles called U.S. Vets. The thing that's most disturbing, I think, about the story is that most of the people that are professionals in this area, meaning advocates for homeless veterans are very disturbed that the people are showing up already. The other very disturbing trend is that there is a correlation between mental problems and homelessness, and the number of troops coming home from this war with mental problems is quite shocking. AMY GOODMAN: You talk about the mental problems. Like what? MARK BENJAMIN: Well, in general, it looks like what they call post-traumatic stress disorder. They used to call it shell shock in previous wars. Army reported in the New England journal of medicine that 17% of all of the soldiers who are just stepping off the plane would screen positive for post traumatic stress disorder and this is a problem that pops up weeks or months after serving in combat. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, around -- as of last July, 30,000 soldiers from Iraq had shown up at Department of Veterans Affairs health care facilities, and one out of every five has been diagnosed with some sort of a mental problem. So, the rate -- these are people that, of course, were screened as fit for service. There's clearly something happening. If you talk to the soldiers, what you will find is that it is extremely tense and stressful combat. The enemy is 24/7, 360 degrees. It's really very intense kind of combat. There's often confusion between civilian and enemy combatant. It is just the combat that the soldiers say causes -- and experts say causes serious mental problems. AMY GOODMAN: And then what about the hidden casualties in addition to mental health problems? It's a story that you have continued to cover that gets almost no coverage. We hear several thousand soldiers have been wounded, but your figures are much higher than that. MARK BENJAMIN: Well, the pentagon is not counting in its casualties anyone who is not hit by the bullets or bombs of enemy. And they're now, you know, releasing some of these figures. It's around, I believe, 15,000, just from Iraq, solders who are been medivacked out of Iraq for wounds or illnesses that occurred while in Iraq, but none of those soldiers appear on the Pentagon's casualty lists, even though they were often hurt in serving their trucks roll over, a car accident, that kind of a thing. In fact, we were talking here about mental problems, about 17% of soldiers who have possibly post traumatic stress disorder, even soldiers who are medivacked out of Iraq because they have had serious mental problem, they had to be medivacked, none of those soldiers appear on Pentagon casualty lists. AMY GOODMAN: There's a piece in the Boston Globe from last week by Raja Mishra. It says U.S. troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars and as many as 20% have suffered head and neck injuries that require a lifetime of care. The picture is a grisly flipside improvement of battlefield medicine that has saved many combatants who have died in the past. Only one in ten U.S. troops injured in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history. Those who survive have much more grievous wounds. MARK BENJAMIN: Well, I think that's probably true. It is the flip side. I mean, in the Pentagon's defense, they do a really fabulous job, almost -- almost shocking how good they are, at getting to the soldiers when they are severely injured, for example, by I.E.D.s, the explosive devices in the field. If you talk to the soldiers, they will say if you make it to Landstuhl, the hospital that the military runs in Germany, if you make it there, you're going to live. They get you out of Iraq very, very fast. I would just have to say, in contrast to that, my reporting seemed to indicate that there are other types of injuries that the military is not doing such a good job treating. One of those would be mental problems. I keep bringing that up, because it's such a shocking pattern among soldiers returning. I think that many of those soldiers would say that they do not get the care that they want and deserve. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, another report out this is from The Los Angeles Times that also came out last week about the shortage of surgeons to treat the wounded in Iraq. Army has fewer than 65 surgeons at any one time, to cover 138,000 troops. They're reporting on a piece from Atul Gawande, assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who talks about those physicians there that are there -- and the military wants to bring more back -- are working under very difficult circumstances. In many case, the military has taken over Iraqi hospitals. The facilities are flooded with civilian patients whom the Americans are unable to treat with no clear directive from the Pentagon on treating civilians. Some physicians refuse to help even pediatric patients out of fear that the children could be booby trapped with bombs. MARK BENJAMIN: Yeah. I don't know whether these -- I of course, didn't report these stories. I'm sure they're perfectly accurate. One of the things that I do think they are is a reflection of a reality that is finally, I think, becoming very clear in the press, and that is just the size and the scope of this war. I mean, it may sound obvious to some people and not to others. I mean, I did a story last week on the number of troops, I got Pentagon data on the number of troops that are deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since the conflicts began, it and it was just short of 1 million troops, 1 million troop, had been deployed either to "Operation Iraqi Freedom" or "Operation Enduring Freedom." 300,000 troops had been deployed more than once to one of the places. We are in a really, really, big war. And what that means is anybody knows the military knows, there are only about 1.4 million active duty people wearing uniforms anywhere in the world, and about half of the number -- I know I’m mixing up the numbers a little bit, but 700,000 of the million I just referred to, are active duty troops. What I’m getting at is that we have now gone through half of the army. I'm sorry; half the military completely has gone to war. AMY GOODMAN: Mark Benjamin, on that note I want to thank you very much for being with us. He is U.P.I. Investigations editor. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE Kerik's Nanny Just the Tip of the Iceberg: Reports Emerge of Links to Mafia, Misuse of Police Power, Affair with Subordinate, Taser Stock Profits and More Monday, December 13th, 2004 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/13/1457224 Homeland Security chief nominee, Bernard Kerik officially claimed he was withdrawing his name after he learned that he had employed an undocumented worker as a nanny and that he refused to pay income taxes. But an array of other charges and questions about Kerik's controversial past dominated news headlines over the weekend. The White House is in search of a new homeland security director following Friday's surprise announcement from former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik that he was withdrawing his name. Kerik officially claimed he was not seeking the post after he learned that he had employed an undocumented worker as a nanny and that he refused to pay income taxes. But an array of other charges and questions about Kerik's controversial past have dominated news headlines over the weekend. Newsweek uncovered that an arrest warrant was issued for Kerik as recently as six years ago over a dispute involving unpaid bills. The 1998 warrant was issued as part of a series of lawsuits relating to unpaid bills on his condominium in New Jersey. The New York Daily News reports that Kerik had illegally accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts while a public official. A Daily News probe revealed that for many years, one of Kerik's main benefactors was Lawrence Ray. Ray was later indicted on unrelated federal charges tied to what the Daily News called a "$40 million, mob-run, pump-and-dump stock swindle." The Washington Post reports that nine employees of the hospital Kerik worked at providing security in Saudi Arabia accused him of using his policing powers to pursue the personal agenda of his immediate boss. Questions have also been raised about Kerik's misuse of police power while the head of the New York police department. In one example, he was fined for using the services of three police officers to help research his autobiography "The Lost Son." He was also accused of sending homicide police officers to question Fox News journalists after the book's publisher, Judith Regan, lost a mobile phone after an interview at the Fox studios. It turned out to have just been misplaced. Kerik has also coming under close scrutiny for his windfall profit from stock options in stun-gun manufacturer, Taser International. He netted over $5.5 million on the options, without ever having invested any of his own money. Questions have also raised about his failure in Iraq to train a new Iraqi police force. Kerik went to Iraq for a six month tour of duty to help rebuild the Iraqi police force but he abruptly left after just three months. On Thursday, the day before he withdrew his name from contention, Kerik was forced to testify in a civil lawsuit about an alleged affair with a subordinate. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a close friend of Kerik who reportedly pressed hard for his nomination, apologized to the President Bush Sunday for the problems with his nomination. -------- courts / tribunals Pentagon concerned about legal complaint in Germany against Rumsfeld, others WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 13, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041213183522.7t8ko4bz.html The Pentagon expressed concern Monday over a criminal complaint filed in Germany against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, warning that "frivolous lawsuits" could affect the broader US-German relationship. The complaint was filed in Berlin November 30 by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association on behalf of four Iraqis who were alleged to have been mistreated by US soldiers. Besides Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence Steven Cambone, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and five other military officers who served in Iraq were named in the complaint, which seeks an investigation into their role in the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. "Generally speaking, as is true anywhere, if these kinds of lawsuits take place with American servicemen in the cross-hairs, you bet it's something we take seriously," said Lawrence DiRita, the Pentagon's spokesman. "If you get an adventurous prosecutor who might want to seize onto one of these frivolous lawsuits, it could affect the broader relationship. I think that's probably safe to say," he told AFP. Germany is home to some 70,000 US troops, many of whom have rotated into and out of Iraq from German bases. Sanchez, the former US commander in Iraq, is stationed in Germany as commander of the army's 5th Corps. The groups that filed the complaint said they had chosen Germany because of its Code of Crimes Against International Law, introduced in 2002, which grants German courts universal jurisdiction in cases involving war crimes or crimes against humanity. It also makes military or civilian commanders who fail to prevent their subordinates from committing such acts liable. DiRita said he did not know whether the United States has raised specific concerns directly with the German government. But he said, "I think every government in the world, particularly a NATO ally, understands the potential effect on relations with the United States if these kinds of frivolous lawsuits were ever to see the light of day." United States clashed with Belgium last year over a similar law that allowed war crimes charges to be brought against retired General Tommy Franks, who led the US invasion of Iraq, as well as numerous other international figures. The 1993 law empowered Belgian courts to judge suspects accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, regardless of where the alleged acts were committed, or the nationality of the either accused or the victims. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld threatened to block funding for a new NATO headquarters in Belgium over the law, and said the United States was considering whether it could continue to send officials to meetings in Brussels as long as the law was in place. The Belgian parliament replaced the law with a watered down version in August 2003 and its high court threw out lawsuits against Franks, former president George H.W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. -------- Pinochet appeals rights indictment Former Chilean leader under house arrest Associated Press December 13, 2004 http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/12/13/chile.pinochet.ap/index.html SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A judge has indicted General Augusto Pinochet for the kidnapping of nine dissidents and the killing of one of them during his 1973-90 military regime, and placed the former dictator under house arrest. Pinochet's defense, however, has quickly filed an injunction with the Santiago Court of Appeals, effectively freezing the house arrest order until the court rules on it, probably Tuesday or Wednesday. "Gen. Pinochet has been declared mentally competent to face a criminal trial in Chile," Judge Juan Guzman ruled, reversing a previous court decision that exempted Pinochet from trial because of his poor health. Lawyers for the 89-year-old former ruler immediately announced they would appeal the indictment. Legal procedures could take months. Guzman has won a reputation as a crusader judge in prominent human rights cases, including a previous trial against Pinochet that was dropped by the Supreme Court for health reasons. A small group of victims of abuses under Pinochet's regime or their relatives celebrated Guzman's announcement in the court's crowded hallways, while backers of the retired general were nowhere to be seen. There was no immediate reaction from Pinochet, who remained at his guarded suburban Santiago mansion. Guzman said he decided to try the former dictator after questioning him and carefully examining reports presented to him by three court-appointed doctors to determine whether he was healthy enough to stand trial. He said that another element that contributed to his decision was an interview Pinochet granted last year to a Spanish language Miami television station in which Pinochet said he sees himself as "a good angel," and blamed the abuses by his regime on subordinates. Guzman said Pinochet's answers made him appear mentally alert. "It was not difficult," Guzman said of his decision, which was angrily disputed by Pinochet's chief defense attorney, Pablo Rodriguez. Rodriguez recalled that the Supreme Court in 2001 dismissed the previous indictment of Pinochet by Guzman after doctors diagnosed the former ruler with a mild case of dementia. That condition, Rodriguez argued, has worsened. He called the indictment and detention a violation of Pinochet's basic human rights. "This is a person that is being tried without having any possibilities whatsoever of defending himself," Rodriguez claimed. "Everybody in Chile knows that General Pinochet has been constantly persecuted by judge Guzman." Prosecution lawyers and victims of the abuses or their relatives were exultant. "It was worth to await for so long," said lawyer Eduardo Contreras. "We now expect other indictments will follow in other cases." Viviana Diaz, a member of an organization of dissidents from the Pinochet regime called the indictment and detention "a historic decision that must be celebrated by all democrats. This is great news for all those Chileans who do not accept impunity in the violations of human rights." The trial of Pinochet is part of Guzman's investigation of the so-called "Operation Condor," a joint plan by the dictatorships that ruled several South American nations in the 1970s and 1980s to suppress dissidence. The previous indictment of Pinochet stemmed from a case known as Caravan of Death, a reference to a military patrol that toured several cities weeks after the 1973 coup and left 75 political prisoners dead. But the Supreme Court ruled Pinochet was physically and mentally unfit to stand trial due his dementia, and dropped the charges. Pinochet also has diabetes, arthritis and uses a pacemaker. There may be more legal troubles ahead for Pinochet. On December 2, the Santiago Court of Appeals voted to strip him of immunity from prosecution for a 1974 car bombing that killed Chilean general Carlos Prats and his wife in Argentina -- a decision that opened the possibility that Pinochet could stand trial in that case. Prats, Pinochet's predecessor as army chief, had opposed the 1973 coup that put Pinochet in power. Pinochet is also being investigated by a judge to determine the source of up to $8 million he kept in secret bank accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington, as disclosed by a U.S. Senate investigative committee. -------- police Investigative Reporter Gary Webb Who Linked CIA to Crack Sales Found Dead of Apparent Suicide Monday, December 13th, 2004 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/13/1457240 Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, is dead at age 49. We hear an 1998 interview with Gary Webb on Democracy Now! and we speak with his colleague, veteran investigative journalist Robert Parry. Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, is dead at age 49. Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office. He is survived by two sons and a daughter. Gary Webb's 1996 series in the San Jose Mercury News titled "Dark Alliance" revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras. It provoked a fierce reaction from the media establishment, which denounced the series. Following the controversy, San Jose Mercury News executive editor demoted Webb within the paper. He resigned and pushed his investigation even further in his book "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion." * Robert Parry, veteran investigative journalist and author of the new book "Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq." For years he worked as an investigative reporter for both the Associated Press and Newsweek magazine. His reporting led to the exposure of what is now known as the "Iran-Contra" scandal. - Read Robert Parry's article: "America's Debt to Journalist Gary Webb" ---- America's Debt to Journalist Gary Webb By Robert Parry December 13, 2004 http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/121304.html In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that forced a long-overdue investigation of a very dark chapter of recent U.S. foreign policy – the Reagan-Bush administration’s protection of cocaine traffickers who operated under the cover of the Nicaraguan contra war in the 1980s. For his brave reporting at the San Jose Mercury News, Webb paid a high price. He was attacked by journalistic colleagues at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the American Journalism Review and even the Nation magazine. Under this media pressure, his editor Jerry Ceppos sold out the story and demoted Webb, causing him to quit the Mercury News. Even Webb’s marriage broke up. On Friday, Dec. 10, Gary Webb, 49, died of an apparent suicide, a gunshot wound to the head. Whatever the details of Webb’s death, American history owes him a huge debt. Though denigrated by much of the national news media, Webb’s contra-cocaine series prompted internal investigations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department, probes that confirmed that scores of contra units and contra-connected individuals were implicated in the drug trade. The probes also showed that the Reagan-Bush administration frustrated investigations into those crimes for geopolitical reasons. Failed Media Unintentionally, Webb also exposed the cowardice and unprofessional behavior that had become the new trademarks of the major U.S. news media by the mid-1990s. The big news outlets were always hot on the trail of some titillating scandal – the O.J. Simpson case or the Monica Lewinsky scandal – but the major media could no longer grapple with serious crimes of state. Even after the CIA’s inspector general issued his findings in 1998, the major newspapers could not muster the talent or the courage to explain those extraordinary government admissions to the American people. Nor did the big newspapers apologize for their unfair treatment of Gary Webb. Foreshadowing the media incompetence that would fail to challenge George W. Bush’s case for war with Iraq five years later, the major news organizations effectively hid the CIA’s confession from the American people. The New York Times and the Washington Post never got much past the CIA’s “executive summary,” which tried to put the best spin on Inspector General Frederick Hitz’s findings. The Los Angeles Times never even wrote a story after the final volume of the CIA’s report was published, though Webb’s initial story had focused on contra-connected cocaine shipments to South-Central Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times’ cover-up has now continued after Webb’s death. In a harsh obituary about Webb, the Times reporter, who called to interview me, ignored my comments about the debt the nation owed Webb and the importance of the CIA’s inspector general findings. Instead of using Webb’s death as an opportunity to finally get the story straight, the Times acted as if there never had been an official investigation confirming many of Webb’s allegations. [Los Angeles Times, Dec. 12, 2004.] By maintaining the contra-cocaine cover-up – even after the CIA’s had admitted the facts – the big newspapers seemed to have understood that they could avoid any consequences for their egregious behavior in the 1990s or for their negligence toward the contra-cocaine issue when it first surfaced in the 1980s. After all, the conservative news media – the chief competitor to the mainstream press – isn’t going to demand a reexamination of the crimes of the Reagan-Bush years. That means that only a few minor media outlets, like our own Consortiumnews.com, will go back over the facts now, just as only a few of us addressed the significance of the government admissions in the late 1990s. I compiled and explained the findings of the CIA/Justice investigations in my 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth.’ Contra-Cocaine Case Lost History, which took its name from a series at this Web site, also describes how the contra-cocaine story first reached the public in a story that Brian Barger and I wrote for the Associated Press in December 1985. Though the big newspapers pooh-poohed our discovery, Sen. John Kerry followed up our story with his own groundbreaking investigation. For his efforts, Kerry also encountered media ridicule. Newsweek dubbed the Massachusetts senator a “randy conspiracy buff.” [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Kerry’s Contra-Cocaine Chapter.”] So when Gary Webb revived the contra-cocaine issue in August 1996 with a 20,000-word three-part series entitled “Dark Alliance,” editors at major newspapers already had a powerful self-interest to slap down a story that they had disparaged for the past decade. The challenge to their earlier judgments was doubly painful because the Mercury-News’ sophisticated Web site ensured that Webb’s series made a big splash on the Internet, which was just emerging as a threat to the traditional news media. Also, the African-American community was furious at the possibility that U.S. government policies had contributed to the crack-cocaine epidemic. In other words, the mostly white, male editors at the major newspapers saw their preeminence in judging news challenged by an upstart regional newspaper, the Internet and common American citizens who also happened to be black. So, even as the CIA was prepared to conduct a relatively thorough and honest investigation, the major newspapers seemed more eager to protect their reputations and their turf. Without doubt, Webb’s series had its limitations. It primarily tracked one West Coast network of contra-cocaine traffickers from the early-to-mid 1980s. Webb connected that cocaine to an early “crack” production network that supplied Los Angeles street gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, leading to Webb’s conclusion that contra cocaine fueled the early crack epidemic that devastated Los Angeles and other U.S. cities. Counterattack When black leaders began demanding a full investigation of these charges, the Washington media joined the political Establishment in circling the wagons. It fell to Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s right-wing Washington Times to begin the counterattack against Webb’s series. The Washington Times turned to some former CIA officials, who participated in the contra war, to refute the drug charges. But – in a pattern that would repeat itself on other issues in the following years – the Washington Post and other mainstream newspapers quickly lined up behind the conservative news media. On Oct. 4, 1996, the Washington Post published a front-page article knocking down Webb’s story. The Post’s approach was twofold: first, it presented the contra-cocaine allegations as old news – “even CIA personnel testified to Congress they knew that those covert operations involved drug traffickers,” the Post reported – and second, the Post minimized the importance of the one contra smuggling channel that Webb had highlighted – that it had not “played a major role in the emergence of crack.” A Post side-bar story dismissed African-Americans as prone to “conspiracy fears.” Soon, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times joined in the piling on of Gary Webb. The big newspapers made much of the CIA’s internal reviews in 1987 and 1988 that supposedly cleared the spy agency of a role in contra-cocaine smuggling. But the CIA's decade-old cover-up began to crack on Oct. 24, 1996, when CIA Inspector General Hitz conceded before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the first CIA probe had lasted only 12 days, the second only three days. He promised a more thorough review. Mocking Webb Meanwhile, however, Gary Webb became the target of outright media ridicule. Influential Post media critic Howard Kurtz mocked Webb for saying in a book proposal that he would explore the possibility that the contra war was primarily a business to its participants. “Oliver Stone, check your voice mail,” Kurtz chortled. [Washington Post, Oct. 28, 1996] Webb’s suspicion was not unfounded, however. Indeed, White House aide Oliver North’s emissary Rob Owen had made the same point a decade earlier, in a March 17, 1986, message about the contra leadership. “Few of the so-called leaders of the movement … really care about the boys in the field,” Owen wrote. “THIS WAR HAS BECOME A BUSINESS TO MANY OF THEM.” [Capitalization in the original.] Nevertheless, the pillorying of Gary Webb was on, in earnest. The ridicule also had a predictable effect on the executives of the Mercury-News. By early 1997, executive editor Jerry Ceppos was in retreat. On May 11, 1997, Ceppos published a front-page column saying the series “fell short of my standards.” He criticized the stories because they “strongly implied CIA knowledge” of contra connections to U.S. drug dealers who were manufacturing crack-cocaine. “We did not have proof that top CIA officials knew of the relationship.” The big newspapers celebrated Ceppos’s retreat as vindication of their own dismissal of the contra-cocaine stories. Ceppos next pulled the plug on the Mercury-News’ continuing contra-cocaine investigation and reassigned Webb to a small office in Cupertino, California, far from his family. Webb resigned the paper in disgrace. For undercutting Webb and the other reporters working on the contra investigation, Ceppos was lauded by the American Journalism Review and was given the 1997 national “Ethics in Journalism Award” by the Society of Professional Journalists. While Ceppos won raves, Webb watched his career collapse and his marriage break up. Probes Advance Still, Gary Webb had set in motion internal government investigations that would bring to the surface long-hidden facts about how the Reagan-Bush administration had conducted the contra war. The CIA’s defensive line against the contra-cocaine allegations began to break when the spy agency published Volume One of Hitz’s findings on Jan. 29, 1998. Despite a largely exculpatory press release, Hitz’s Volume One admitted that not only were many of Webb’s allegations true but that he actually understated the seriousness of the contra-drug crimes and the CIA’s knowledge. Hitz acknowledged that cocaine smugglers played a significant early role in the Nicaraguan contra movement and that the CIA intervened to block an image-threatening 1984 federal investigation into a San Francisco-based drug ring with suspected ties to the contras. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’] On May 7, 1998, another disclosure from the government investigation shook the CIA’s weakening defenses. Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, introduced into the Congressional Record a Feb. 11, 1982, letter of understanding between the CIA and the Justice Department. The letter, which had been sought by CIA Director William Casey, freed the CIA from legal requirements that it must report drug smuggling by CIA assets, a provision that covered both the Nicaraguan contras and Afghan rebels who were fighting a Soviet-supported regime in Afghanistan. Justice Report Another crack in the defensive wall opened when the Justice Department released a report by its inspector general, Michael Bromwich. Given the hostile climate surrounding Webb’s series, Bromwich’s report opened with criticism of Webb. But, like the CIA’s Volume One, the contents revealed new details about government wrongdoing. According to evidence cited by the report, the Reagan-Bush administration knew almost from the outset of the contra war that cocaine traffickers permeated the paramilitary operation. The administration also did next to nothing to expose or stop the criminal activities. The report revealed example after example of leads not followed, corroborated witnesses disparaged, official law-enforcement investigations sabotaged, and even the CIA facilitating the work of drug traffickers. The Bromwich report showed that the contras and their supporters ran several parallel drug-smuggling operations, not just the one at the center of Webb’s series. The report also found that the CIA shared little of its information about contra drugs with law-enforcement agencies and on three occasions disrupted cocaine-trafficking investigations that threatened the contras. Though depicting a more widespread contra-drug operation than Webb had understood, the Justice report also provided some important corroboration about a Nicaraguan drug smuggler, Norwin Meneses, who was a key figure in Webb’s series. Bromwich cited U.S. government informants who supplied detailed information about Meneses’s operation and his financial assistance to the contras. For instance, Renato Pena, a money-and-drug courier for Meneses, said that in the early 1980s, the CIA allowed the contras to fly drugs into the United States, sell them and keep the proceeds. Pena, who also was the northern California representative for the CIA-backed FDN contra army, said the drug trafficking was forced on the contras by the inadequate levels of U.S. government assistance. The Justice report also disclosed repeated examples of the CIA and U.S. embassies in Central America discouraging Drug Enforcement Administration investigations, including one into alleged contra-cocaine shipments moving through the airport in El Salvador. In an understated conclusion, Inspector General Bromwich wrote: “We have no doubt that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy were not anxious for the DEA to pursue its investigation at the airport.” CIA's Volume Two Despite the remarkable admissions in the body of these reports, the big newspapers showed no inclination to read beyond the press releases and executive summaries. By fall 1998, official Washington was obsessed with the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, which made it easier to ignore even more stunning disclosures in the CIA's Volume Two.. In Volume Two, published Oct. 8, 1998, CIA Inspector General Hitz identified more than 50 contras and contra-related entities implicated in the drug trade. He also detailed how the Reagan-Bush administration had protected these drug operations and frustrated federal investigations, which had threatened to expose the crimes in the mid-1980s. Hitz even published evidence that drug trafficking and money laundering tracked into Reagan’s National Security Council where Oliver North oversaw the contra operations. Hitz revealed, too, that the CIA placed an admitted drug money launderer in charge of the Southern Front contras in Costa Rica. Also, according to Hitz’s evidence, the second-in-command of contra forces on the Northern Front in Honduras had escaped from a Colombian prison where he was serving time for drug trafficking In Volume Two, the CIA’s defense against Webb’s series had shrunk to a tiny fig leaf: that the CIA did not conspire with the contras to raise money through cocaine trafficking. But Hitz made clear that the contra war took precedence over law enforcement and that the CIA withheld evidence of contra crimes from the Justice Department, the Congress and even the CIA’s own analytical division. Hitz found in CIA files evidence that the spy agency knew from the first days of the contra war that its new clients were involved in the cocaine trade. According to a September 1981 cable to CIA headquarters, one of the early contra groups, known as ADREN, had decided to use drug trafficking as a financing mechanism. Two ADREN members made the first delivery of drugs to Miami in July 1981, the CIA cable reported. ADREN’s leaders included Enrique Bermudez, who emerged as the top contra military commander in the 1980s. Webb’s series had identified Bermudez as giving the green light to contra fundraising by drug trafficker Meneses. Hitz’s report added that that the CIA had another Nicaraguan witness who implicated Bermudez in the drug trade in 1988. Priorities Besides tracing the evidence of contra-drug trafficking through the decade-long contra war, the inspector general interviewed senior CIA officers who acknowledged that they were aware of the contra-drug problem but didn’t want its exposure to undermine the struggle to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. According to Hitz, the CIA had “one overriding priority: to oust the Sandinista government. … [CIA officers] were determined that the various difficulties they encountered not be allowed to prevent effective implementation of the contra program.” One CIA field officer explained, “The focus was to get the job done, get the support and win the war.” Hitz also recounted complaints from CIA analysts that CIA operations officers handling the contra war hid evidence of contra-drug trafficking even from the CIA’s analytical division. Because of the withheld evidence, the CIA analysts incorrectly concluded in the mid-1980s that “only a handful of contras might have been involved in drug trafficking.” That false assessment was passed on to Congress and the major news organizations – serving as an important basis for denouncing Gary Webb and his series in 1996. Though Hitz’s report was an extraordinary admission of institutional guilt by the CIA, it passed almost unnoticed by the big newspapers. Two days after Hitz’s report was posted at the CIA’s Internet site, the New York Times did a brief article that continued to deride Webb’s work, while acknowledging that the contra-drug problem may indeed have been worse than earlier understood. Several weeks later, the Washington Post weighed in with a similarly superficial article. The Los Angeles Times never published a story on the release of the CIA’s Volume Two. Consequences To this day, no editor or reporter who missed the contra-drug story has been punished for his or her negligence. Indeed, many of them are now top executives at their news organizations. On the other hand, Gary Webb’s career never recovered. At Webb’s death, however, it should be noted that his great gift to American history was that he – along with angry African-American citizens – forced the government to admit some of the worst crimes ever condoned by any American administration: the protection of drug smuggling into the United States as part of a covert war against a country, Nicaragua, that represented no real threat to Americans. The truth was ugly. Certainly the major news organizations would have come under criticism themselves if they had done their job and laid out this troubling story to the American people. Conservative defenders of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would have been sure to howl in protest. But the real tragedy of Webb’s historic gift – and of his life cut short – is that because of the major news media’s callowness and cowardice, this dark chapter of the Reagan-Bush era remains largely unknown to the American people. Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.' -------- POLITICS Russia and China in defence talks bbc.co.uk 13 December, 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/4090807.stm Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov Russia's defence minister is in China for talks aimed at further developing military and technical co-operation between the two countries. Sergei Ivanov is meeting his Chinese counterpart Cao Gangchuan. Mr Ivanov was quoted by Russian news agency Interfax as saying he believed the talks would open up what he called new and promising spheres. Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, China has become the main customer for Russian arms makers. The two defence ministers are to preside over meetings of an intergovernmental commission on defence industry co-operation, according to Russian news reports. Agencies say that the weapons trade between the two countries this year will amount to $2bn (£1.04bn). Over the past five years Russia and China have signed $5bn (£2.6bn) worth of contracts including deals on fighter planes, diesel electric submarines, warships and anti-aircraft missile launchers, Interfax reports. -------- Communists in Iraq poll race Sydney Morning Herald and Weekly Times 13 dec 04 http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11669191%255E663,00.html THE Communists, Iraq's oldest political party, have submitted a list of 257 candidates drawn from across ethnic and faith groups for the January 30 elections and joined under the banner, Union of the People. "The Union of the People list includes personalities of all faiths and all communities," party secretary Hamid Majid Mussa announced, without saying who would head the new group. But he said one of those on the list is Culture Minister Mufid al-Jazairi, who represents the Communists in the interim government. Mr Mussa said talks to link the party with other non-religious ones and the Kurds in order to have a wider-based list had failed. The Communist party is the oldest political group in Iraq. It was founded in 1930 and became one of the most powerful parties in the Arab world, before being progressively weakened by the former ruling Ba'ath party. The communist list is the second biggest submitted for the elections, after one backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most prestigious figure in the majority Shi'ite Muslim country. The main Shi'ite parties form the backbone of this list, which was also open to other groups. It comprises 228 candidates. - AFP ----- Delay poison probe: Yushchenko December 13, 2004 - 7:59AM The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Delay-poison-probe-Yushchenkos/2004/12/13/1102786978837.html?oneclick=true Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko called for a serious investigation to determine how he was poisoned by dioxin, but urged it be conducted after the December 26 presidential run-off election to avoid influencing the results. Doctors at Vienna's elite Rudolfiner clinic said tests run over the weekend proved beyond a doubt that it was dioxin poisoning that caused a mystery illness in September that left Yushchenko disfigured and in pain. "I don't want this factor to influence the election in some way - either as a plus or a minus," Yuschenko said in Russian as he left the clinic and headed back to Kiev. "This question will require a great deal of time and serious investigation. Let us do it after the election - today is not the moment." Following the discovery of the dioxin, Ukraine's prosecutor-general's office said it had reopened the criminal investigation that it closed in November for lack of evidence of poisoning. While high concentrations of dioxin remain in his blood, doctors said Yushchenko's organs have not been damaged and he is fit for the campaign trail. AdvertisementAdvertisement "He has almost made a complete recovery," hospital director Dr Michael Zimpfer told The Associated Press. "His liver is fine, his pancreas is fine, but he still has residual pain." Yushchenko no longer needs the catheter in his spine that had administered medication to treat intense back pain, but still is taking painkillers, Zimpfer said. The 50-year-old Opposition Leader thanked the medical staff as he checked out of the clinic. Doctors said that if the dose of dioxin had been greater, it could have been fatal. "They've spent many days and nights with me and I am very happy to be alive in this world today," Yushchenko said, with his American-born wife, Kateryna Chumachenko, translating. "I thank these people for this." Lawmakers from Yushchenko's party said the clinic's findings confirmed that his opponents wanted to assassinate or disable him rather than take the risk he would defeat Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in the presidential election. Kremlin-backed Yanukovich won the initial presidential runoff, but the Supreme Court voided the vote on fraud allegations. After doctors confirmed Yushchenko was a victim of poisoning, Yanukovich campaigners rejected suggestions that the prime minister could have been involved. There is "no logic in such an accusation", said Taras Chornovyl, Yanukovich's campaign manager. At a brief news conference before he was discharged from the Vienna clinic, Yushchenko praised the thousands in Ukraine who staged street protests against the outcome of the November 21 runoff. "We haven't seen anything like that for the past 100 years," he said. "I think it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall." Yushchenko fell ill on September 5 and has been treated at the Vienna clinic twice before, but it was tests performed since he checked in on Friday night that provided conclusive evidence of the poisoning, Zimpfer said. A lab in Amsterdam, using a newly developed test, found his blood contained more than 1,000 times the normal amount of dioxin, Zimpfer said. Tests showed the toxin was taken orally, and was likely slipped into something that Yushchenko ate or drank, Zimpfer said, suggesting that whoever was responsible may have thought it untraceable. "Until recently, there has been no (blood) testing available" for dioxin, Zimpfer said. "This may be one of the reasons that this kind of poisoning, if it was a criminal act, was chosen." The tests definitively confirmed suspicions that the doctors had developed over the course of Yushchenko's treatment, Zimpfer said. "This is the first case internationally where the intake has been oral, usually it's inhaled, it's very different," he said. Dioxin is a byproduct of industrial processes such as waste incineration and chemical and pesticide manufacturing. The massive quantities of it found in Yushchenko's system caused chloracne, a type of adult acne caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. The condition is treatable, but can take two to three years to heal. Given the sensitivity of the case, Zimpfer said his clinic wanted to be absolutely sure before making any sort of announcement. "We are not dealing with simple pimples, we are dealing with a poisoning and the suspicion of third party involvement, so potentially a criminal case," he said. Zimpfer said Yushchenko's treatment will now be "very difficult and long". Among other things, Dioxin is known to cause cancer, and Dr Nikolai Korpan, the physician who has been treating Yushchenko, said it was too early to tell what other problems might develop. For now, he said, "we can confirm that his health is very good at this moment and he can do his job," Korpan said. -------- Controversial U.S. Groups Operate Behind Scenes on Iraq Vote The NewStandard by Lisa Ashkenaz Croke (bio) and Brian Dominick (bio) Dec 13, 2004 http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1311 Dec 13 - Even as the White House decries the ominous prospect of Iranian influence on the upcoming Iraqi national elections, US-funded organizations with long records of manipulating foreign democracies in the direction of Washington’s interests are quietly but deeply involved in essentially every aspect of the process. "As should be clear, the electoral process will be an Iraqi process conducted by Iraqis for Iraqis," declared United Nations special envoy, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, in a September 14 statement to the Security Council. "It cannot be anything else." But in actuality, influential, US-financed agencies describing themselves as "pro-democracy" but viewed by critics as decidedly anti-democratic, have their hands all over Iraq’s transitional process, from the formation of political parties to monitoring the January 30 nationwide polls and possibly conducting exit polls that could be used to evaluate the fairness of the ballot-casting. Campbell estimated that NDI’s contributions are probably disproportionately helpful to the more obscure, less experienced Iraqi parties. Two such groups -- the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) -- are part of a consortium of non-governmental organizations to which the United States has provided over $80 million for political and electoral activities in post-Saddam Iraq. Both groups publicly assert they are nonpartisan, but each has extremely close ties to its namesake American political party, and both are deeply partial to the perceived national interests of their home country, despite substantial involvement in the politics of numerous sovereign nations worldwide. NDI is headed by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who took over the chair from former president Jimmy Carter. Republican Senator John McCain chairs IRI. Both groups have highly controversial reputations and are described throughout much of the world as either helpful, meddlesome, or downright subversive, depending on who you ask. In some places their work has earned praise from independent grassroots democracy advocates, but in many Third World republics, both groups have been tied to alleged covert plans to install US-favored governments. The groups’ separate but overlapping mandates in Iraq include educating Iraqis on the democratic process, training Iraqi organizations to monitor the elections and deal with electoral conflicts, and providing impartial advice and training to political parties, according to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the official governmental organ funding the consortium's operations in Iraq. USAID contracts with and provides grants to private organizations that uphold its objectives, which include, according to the Agency’s own literature, "furthering America’s foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of citizens in the developing world." IRI's relationship with parties dominating Iraq's interim government raises the question of how much influence the American group has had in determining the makeup of current coalitions Far from the United Nations’ mission to oversee the election process itself, the American groups are actively engaged in cultivating political parties, and IRI appears to be working most heavily with parties and politicians favored by Washington. Critics have expressed alarm, if not surprise, that policies carried out in other countries over the past two decades appear to be repeating in occupied Iraq. "USAID has learned that ‘legitimate’ leaders are not just found, they're made," wrote Herbert Docena, a research associate specializing in Iraq at the Bangkok-based activist think tank, Focus on the Global South. "Before the US withdraws from the scene, it first has to ensure that its Iraqis will know what to do." According to Docena, USAID’s activity in Iraq, as carried out by non-governmental proxies, is drawn straight out of the Agency’s handbook, which advocates "capitalizing on national openings" and "[taking] advantage of national-level targets of opportunity" as they emerge, all while looking for a "strategic doorway" -- called an "entry point" -- that enables an Agency project to "anchor its program and optimize overall impact" in a target area. "In Iraq, the ‘entry point’ was the invasion," Docena explained. "The ‘national opening’ was the collapsed state left in its wake." In October, Reuters obtained documents from the US State Department suggesting that the parties benefiting from US support of the Iraqi political process would be limited to those considered by the US to be "democratic or moderate," and that the Department was spending $1 million on polling to determine "which candidates and parties are attracting the most support from the Iraqi people." According to the documents, Washington will provide "strategic advice, technical assistance, training, polling data, assistance, and other forms of support" to "moderate, democratically oriented political parties." Such US-backed groups, including the Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI), which now dominate the 100-member National Council selected amid controversy last August, participated in a series of six "training conferences" hosted by IRI this June. According to IRI’s website, the prominent parties were joined at the training by dozens of small and medium-sized organizations. "Topics ranged from candidate leadership skills to platform development," reads the group’s report, "thus offering emerging Iraqi civic and political organizations a chance to learn a full array of successful campaign techniques. Results were promising -- participants expressed great enthusiasm during the proceedings and many actively pursued closer working relationships with the Institute." According to Robinson, the perception of an alignment between the US government and private organizations it funds is well deserved. Representatives of IRI would not speak with TNS on the record, but the group’s website page on Iraq -- which does not appear to have been updated since early summer -- suggests IRI was involved in organizing last August’s National Conference, purportedly held to elect an interim assembly that would oversee Iraq’s current interim government. That event was widely viewed as a calamity, not least because no vote ever took place. IRI would not comment on its involvement in the Conference or even evaluate its success on the record. Other IRI programs have employed a "top-down approach," the group’s website states, providing instruction specifically for Iraq's interim governing bodies, from the original Governing Council to the present administration. Such a policy would appear to offer those already in power, mostly US-backed parties, a disproportionate share of IRI's resources and a precedent of involvement not shared with Iraq's fledgling opposition parties. IRI's relationship with parties dominating Iraq's interim government raises the question of how much influence the American group has had in determining the makeup of current coalitions being formed to vie for the 275-seat National Assembly come January 30, which will in turn select a new government and write Iraq’s permanent constitution. Unlike its counterpart, NDI spoke at length with The NewStandard. Insisting that NDI’s advice does not favor any of Iraq’s numerous political parties over any others, Les Campbell, the organization’s regional director for the Middle East and Africa, said, "We work with all the parties, including the big and well-known ones, but we actually … spend special efforts to find, for example, Sunni parties -- ones that might represent the Sunni population." Campbell estimated that NDI’s contributions are probably disproportionately helpful to the more obscure, less experienced Iraqi parties -- the ones that need assistance at nearly every level. "We have spent special effort trying to find people and parties that might reflect the views of the urban, sort of secular intellectuals," Campbell said, "because we think that they are disadvantaged." Nevertheless, Campbell was careful to point out that NDI officially has no interest in the outcome of the Iraqi elections. "I have no idea, and nor do we ever really worry about whether or not our assistance has any affect on the [elections’] outcome," he said. "We’re not even slightly outcome-oriented." Both NDI and IRI say they are maintaining low profiles in Iraq primarily for the security of their staff and the Iraqis to whom they provide political assistance. But Campbell said there are other reasons, at least for NDI, that they do not stand out as a defining feature of the transition to democracy in Iraq. "We’re not an organization that generally seeks credit," Campbell insisted. "We always perceive ourselves to be standing behind and supporting people. We’re not trying to lead the parade anywhere; and we’re certainly not trying to lead the parade in Iraq." Critics of the work carried out elsewhere by NDI and IRI are concerned that the groups’ low profiles in Iraq are not driven just by security or institutional modesty. Professor and author William I. Robinson of the Global and International Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara calls groups like NDI and IRI "extensions" of the US State Department. Robinson agrees with Campbell that groups like NDI are in danger in Iraq to the extent they are identified with the United States government. But according to Robinson, who has researched and written extensively on US foreign political and economic policies, the perception of an alignment between the US government and private organizations it funds is well deserved. Right wing critics have also questioned the record of National Endowment for Democracy and its affiliate organizations. "I suspect that [NDI and IRI] are … trying to select individual leaders and organizations that are going to be very amenable to the US transnational project for Iraq," Robinson said. He described those actors as willing to engage in "pacifying the country militarily and legitimating the occupation and the formal electoral system." Robinson added that developing relationships with "economic, political and civic groups that are going to be favorable to Iraq’s integration into the global capitalist economy" would prove even more important for US-based organizations in the long run. This would include, Robinson said, altering Iraq’s political and economic infrastructure to be more open to international trade and investment, as well as more favorable to global financial lending institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Robinson sees the Middle East as one of the few viable areas of the world yet to be drawn into the US’s sphere of economic influence, and concludes that, more than a way to exploit oil, the US-led invasion and occupation serve as potential doorways into broader, more advantageous economic engagement in the region. NDI and IRI are two out of four core organizations of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a self-described "nonprofit, non-governmental, bipartisan, grant-making organization" the stated purpose of which is "to help strengthen democratic institutions around the world." Created during Ronald Reagan’s first term as president to enhance overseas political influence weakened by Jimmy Carter’s 1977 ban on CIA democracy front groups, NED’s reputation as a promoter of democracy never truly thrived outside the United States. The organization and its affiliates regularly encounter allegations that they have supported opposition candidates and promoted subversive movements in countries where governments -- some democratically elected -- are seen as threatening to US interests. According to Campbell of NDI, both his group and its Republican counterpart originally became involved with political party formation and civil society efforts in Iraq shortly after the Spring 2003 invasion, using NED funds while getting their feet wet. By the next winter, administrators at the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority, along with others at the State Department and the National Security Council, began showing interest, Campbell explained. Then, in early 2004, the US government allocated $25 million to the NED to spread among its affiliate groups. Finally, in preparation for the 2005 vote, USAID gave more than $80 million to NDI, IRI and others involved in the consortium set up to provide technical and political assistance to the electoral process. In Robinson’s view, ulterior motives of US groups aside, the idea that Western advisors can help democratize a society like Iraq also appears shortsighted. In reference to NDI’s stated practice of providing advice to politically vulnerable groups, Robinson said: "It’s not at all clear that Iraqi women need the advice of people from the US telling them how to organize -- or that students do, or so forth. And it’s not clear what value that advice could possibly have, other than trying to create a political bloc inside the country which will conform to the larger US vision for Iraq." Robinson also says that US-based organizations, serving as private proxies for the government, will back numerous political parties in Iraq, just as IRI and NDI say they do; but Robinson says there will be stricter limits on that assistance than such organizations would lead the public to believe. "It wouldn’t be that the US would put its eggs behind one party, but [rather] a number of parties within a political spectrum -- representing different constituencies, but all within boundaries. "What remains outside of those boundaries," Robinson continued, "is an alternative vision for Iraq -- a completely different vision which might well be the vision a majority of Iraqis would have." Right wing critics have also questioned the record of National Endowment for Democracy and its affiliate organizations. In an analysis written for the conservative libertarian CATO Institute, Barbara Conry wrote that the NED’s "mischief overseas" has amounted to US taxpayers funding "special-interest groups to harass the duly elected governments of friendly countries, interfere in foreign elections, and foster the corruption of democratic movements." Last year, Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) took aim at the Endowment -- particularly the roles of NDI and IRI -- writing that the purposes for which both organizations are utilized elsewhere in the world "would be rightly illegal in the United States." The apparently impromptu public protest in the Ukraine following the now-rescinded win by Russia’s favored candidate, Victor Yanukovich, is believed to have been at least partly orchestrated by the National Endowment for Democracy. According to reports in The Guardian, both NDI and IRI were involved in developing extremely active popular campaigns in support of Victor Yushchenko, the opposition candidate favored in the West whose defeat was immediately followed by condemnations of vote fraud in the US, by both the State Department and the mass media. Further, the Associated Press reported on December 10 that the Bush Administration spent $65 million over the past two years to support opposition candidates in Ukraine. Other recent examples of NED-affiliated groups meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations include political upheavals in both Venezuela and Haiti. An article in the current edition of Mother Jones specifically ties IRI to the 2002 armed coup that briefly removed populist President Hugo Chavez from power in Venezuela. According to Mother Jones, IRI was also involved in sponsoring parties that led to last January’s violent uprising against democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which itself culminated in Aristide’s exile and the dissolution of his government on February 29. Haiti is currently ruled by the county’s chief Supreme Court Justice, who replaced Aristide. Haiti currently has no functioning parliament and new elections have yet to be held. One of the mechanisms US-backed groups typically use to challenge unfavorable election results is exit polls and other tracking methods, which almost invariably show Washington’s preferred candidates to have edged out their opponents. It is unclear whether IRI will engage in any exit polling or other verification methods on January 30, but Campbell said NDI will not, citing "security and logistical" concerns that would render such activity impossible. There remains more to learn and report about the activities of these and other US-based non-governmental organizations in Iraq and the relations between the US State Department and various Iraqi political actors. The NewStandard has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents pertaining to the involvement of US-based organizations in Iraq’s upcoming elections. Regardless of how the January 30, 2005 elections turn out, US-backed nongovernmental organizations are likely to be involved in Iraq well into the future. "We’re digging in for the long haul," said Campbell. "I would fully anticipate NDI being in Iraq five years from now or ten years from now." -------- propaganda wars In Ukraine, TV shakes off some shackles International Herald Tribune By Judy Dempsey December 13, 2004 http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/12/business/kievtv13.html KIEV During the huge antigovernment demonstrations that engulfed Independence Square here over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of protesters were bombarded with information. Some of it consisted of factual fliers telling people how they could obtain free accommodation, transport or a hot meal. Others gave information about the latest proceedings in a raucous Parliament torn between those who wanted a radical reform that would weaken the powers of the presidency and those who wanted to preserve the status quo that existed before the disputed Nov. 21 election. But there was one small white piece of paper that in some ways encapsulated what had happened to Ukraine's democracy over the past few years under the helm of the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma. This little flier gave the phone numbers of the country's main television channels and simply appealed to anyone reading it to contact the network and ask them why they were censoring the street protests. "In most cases, journalists have now started to tell the truth and report on the news in a fairly objective way on television," said Olexandr Tkachenko, chairman of New Channel TV. New Channel TV is part of the Interpipe industrial conglomerate, whose chairman is Viktor Pinchuk, Kuchma's son-in-law. "The genie has been let out of the bottle. I don't think we can go back to the pre-Nov. 21 days when the news was so biased." During the 1990s, after Ukraine had won its independence from Russia, television and the print media had to fight for freedom, particularly to create some distance from the political powers. Over the past few years, however, three big developments have taken place in Ukraine that have radically changed the structure and independence of television. The first was Kuchma's decision two years ago to appoint Viktor Medvedchuk as his chief of staff. Medvedchuk, who has close contacts with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, also runs his own political party, the United Social Democratic Party. Even more important for his political ambitions, Medvedchuk is one of the main shareholders in the Inter Television channel, a popular private channel that enjoys a big advantage over its rivals - the fact that it was awarded the license of one of the major state networks from Soviet times. "That means Inter TV has almost blanket coverage across Ukraine," said Olexandr Martynenko, general director of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency and former press secretary to Kuchma. The second thing to happen was the establishment of new commercial television networks, the majority owned by the country's main oligarchs. Pinchuk's Interpipe group, in addition to owning New Channel TV, also owns the ICTV and STB channels. Media analysts said these networks tried to be neutral in the few weeks before the presidential election, a big shift from previous months. Another major Ukrainian channel, 1+1, is backed by Ukrainian businessmen, with a large foreign stake held by the U.S. entrepreneur Ronald Lauder, who has invested heavily in television networks in Central Europe and Romania. The station enjoys the same big advantage as Inter TV, having also inherited the license of a former Soviet network. But media analysts said that Medvedchuk wields the real political power behind 1+1, which explains why the channel, until recently, backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich for president. In eastern Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, head of System Capital Management, the giant conglomerate that spans metallurgy, steel, financial services and transport, owns Ukrainia, a television and radio channel. Along with the state-run National Television of Ukraine, known as Channel One, Ukrainia also supported Yanukovich. One of the main channels that unreservedly opted for the opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, was Channel 5, which is owned by another oligarch, Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko, who is based in Kiev, has large interests in confectionary, shipbuilding and car assembling. The channel now ranks third in popularity and has 40 percent coverage of the country. The third major thing that happened to the Ukrainian media was the creation of ties between the television editors and the presidential administration. Before the election, the oligarchs, or at least the editors of their television channels, cooperated with Kuchma's bid to get Yanukovich elected. "It was such an abnormal situation before Nov. 21," said Arten Petrenko, director of news for Channel One. "Channel One is not financed by a license fee such as the BBC in Britain or Germany's national TV channels. Politicians would say to us that if we showed this or that program or news they would vote for our budget in the Parliament. This came from both the Yanukovich and Yushchenko camps." There were other kinds of pressure too, not only on Channel One but on the commercial networks. "For Channel One, there was the official instructions from the administration," said Petrenko. "But there was also the 'temnyky' sent to all the television channels as well. These temnyky were more than proposals or suggestions over what political line editors should take. They were sort of instructions from the presidential administration. It was really abnormal." Human Rights Watch and Freedom House have said journalists were often intimidated, fired for not toeing the official line, beaten up and even killed. When asked why Kuchma was acting in this way, Petrenko paused. "I think the power tried to make a dictatorship but it failed," he said. Since Nov. 21 and the immense pressure from the public, changes are already noticeable among some of the networks. The most striking shift has taken place at 1+1. Martynenko said, "1+1 has now really terrific news coverage." Indeed, some Ukrainian editors have suggested that Ronald Lauder was responsible for these changes, having spoken to the management of 1+1 and asking the network to adopt a more independent stance. Tkachenko of New Channel TV said Pinchuk's channels, too, had become more objective. Curiously, however, television editors and media analysts are not entirely convinced that the changes that have taken place over the past few weeks will become entrenched overnight. They said much depends not only on the owners but also the determination of the journalists to maintain the pressure for objective reporting. "The journalists are very well paid," Martynenko said. "Good ones are paid $1,200. They can still be sacked." The average monthly salary in Ukraine is $300. Tkachenko, however, still said he believed there was no going back to pre-Nov. 21 days. But he, too, has some reservations. "People have lost their fear," he said. "There is no doubt about that. But I am no romantic. I don't think the television will be so free as it is now. You see how the channels can be owned by different persons but controlled by someone else. "But we have to keep our feet on the ground and keep demanding transparency." -------- Film ridicules US portrayal of Arabs Immigration is more likely to film Arabs than Hollywood Monday 13 December 2004, 9:35 Makka Time, 6:35 GMT Reuters http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3432D883-4BA5-4522-B5AA-3844340FDED6.htm Sayyid Badriya does not act very well, but then he never really had to - Hollywood has only ever wanted him to look crazy like a terrorist. Now the Egyptian actor who played the bad guy in films such as The Insider, Three Kings, and Executive Decision has got his own back with comic drama T for Terrorist. Badriya plays a bit-part actor who loses his temper at a director's demands for more and more wild-eyed looks in a terrorism scene. So he holds up the set at gunpoint and forces the pasty-faced director to play the gun-toting lunatic. But it turns out to be a dream and the short film ends as a resigned Badriya resumes work with: "On your knees, you stinking Americans! In the name of Allah I will kill you all!" The $30,000 film, which has toured the US festival circuit over the past year, was shown this weekend at the Dubai International Film Festival as part of movies focusing on East-West relations. No Arabic story Badriya, a large man with bulging eyes and a beard, saw the film as evidence that Hollywood was beginning to question the stereotypes of Arabs it often projects. "There is a movement in Hollywood to allow us to tell our own story, because there is no Arabic story on the screen," he told a seminar, adding that the actors, including well-known Arab-American Tony Shalhub, had taken part for free. "There is no Arabic story on the screen. The Americans and Europeans tell our story, and if Americans and Europeans tell our story, it's not going to come up smelling of falafel." Arabs and Muslims have complained of ill-feeling towards them in the United States after the 9/11 attacks. Anti-US sentiment is strong in the region because of the Iraq war and perceived US support for Israel against the Palestinians. Centre stage at the festival was taken by films about the Arab world but made outside the region, usually by non-Arabs. Promotion weakness Leading Egyptian actor Husain Fahmy said the ailing Arab cinema industry had become incapable of promoting its own self-image to the rest of the world. "Eventually all we'll have left is American and Indian cinema because they alone have the power to distribute films in their theatres. Producers see big returns," he said, adding that in the Arab world "we're all losing money in movies". Hollywood actors who made the journey to the glitzy Gulf city of Dubai said the Arab world was still low down on Hollywood's priority list for re-evaluation. "Middle East filmmakers are not the only people that have a problem getting their films across," The Grudge star Sarah Michelle Geller said. "To this day, a woman cannot open an action movie like Tom Cruise can or a comedy movie like Jim Carrey can." But T for Terrorism director Hisham Isawi saw hope in Hollywood: "They don't hate Arabs, that's not true really. They don't know us, so it's more about ignorance than hate." -------- voting In Ohio, Activists Push for Delay In Electoral Vote Until After Recount Washington Post December 13, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60182-2004Dec12?language=printer COLUMBUS, Ohio -- As it has done for 200 years, Ohio's delegation to the electoral college is to meet Monday to vote for president and vice president -- but this time, there are demands that the electors wait until after a recount. Demonstrators who do not accept that President Bush won the key state by more than 100,000 votes over Democrat John F. Kerry plan to protest outside the capitol during the vote in the state Senate chamber. "John Kerry conceded so early in the process that it's maddening," said Kat L'Estrange of We Do Not Concede, an activist group born after the election that believes Kerry was the real winner in Ohio and nationally. L'Estrange, Susan Truitt of the Columbus-based Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, and others demanded that the electoral college vote be delayed until a statewide recount is completed, probably next week. "In Ohio, there has not been a final determination. Therefore, any meeting of the electoral college in Ohio prior to a full recount would in fact be an illegitimate gathering," said John Bonifaz of the National Voting Rights Institute. The protesters said there were disparities in vote totals for Democrats, too few voting machines in Democratic-leaning precincts, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling places and confusion over the counting of provisional ballots by voters whose names were not in the books at polling places. The Kerry campaign does not dispute that Bush won the election, but supports the Ohio recount. Kerry issued a statement saying reported voting problems should be investigated to ensure there are no doubts in future elections. -------- ENERGY Nuclear plants say they deserve credit for 'green' energy By Beth Daley, Boston Globe Staff | December 13, 2004 http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/12/13/nuclear_plants_say_they_deserve_credit_for_green_energy?mode=PF As the nuclear power industry stages a nationwide comeback, New England is emerging as a major battleground in the industry's campaign to be recognized as a ''green" energy source. Last year, the Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire became the first nuclear plant in the country to win credits for not polluting the air. Emboldened by that success, nuclear plant owners are now pressing to receive similar credits under a nine-state plan to reduce greenhouse gases. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative may include clean-air credits for low-polluting power plants, and nuclear lobbyists have been pushing to be included. Many environmentalists oppose the idea, saying it would give a seal of approval for an industry that presents serious threats to the environment, including radioactive waste. ''There is tremendous interest in what's happening here because [the regional plan] would stand as a model for other parts of the country," said Daniel Sosland, executive director of Environment Northeast, an advocacy group that opposes giving nuclear power any clean air credits. For years, states and the federal government have relied on market-based systems for reducing the pollutants that cause smog and acid rain. The systems place limits on power plants' total emissions, then allow dirtier plants to exceed the limits only if they buy ''pollution credits" from cleaner plants. The idea is to encourage companies to build less-polluting plants. Now, as regulators begin to develop similar systems for carbon dioxide, the main culprit in global warming, the nuclear industry wants to be rewarded for not producing any. Nuclear plants now provide about 20 percent of US electrical power and generate no acid rain or greenhouse gases -- unlike coal or gas plants, which can spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other gases into the air each year. ''Overall, the environmental impact of nuclear is relatively small," said Mary M. Quillian, senior manager for environmental policy and programs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group. Quillian said that as regulators evaluate which energy sources are ''clean" and which aren't, the industry only wants the same consideration as other nonemitting pollution sources. Critics counter that nuclear plants may produce no greenhouse gases, but they can cause huge environmental disasters if they fail. The Chernobyl leak in 1986 sent a radioactive plume over Europe, and thousands of deaths have been blamed on the accident. Today, others worry that nuclear plants are a terrorist target. In part because of these worries, nuclear energy was specifically prohibited from being considered a green power source under the Kyoto Protocol, a pact among industrialized nations that limits carbon dioxide emissions. (The United States has refused to sign the pact.) Environmentalists also say that the nuclear industry does produce greenhouse gases -- not at the plant but during mining and uranium enrichment processes required to get usable fuel. ''You have to look at the entire life cycle of the electricity -- mining, building the plant," said Frank Gorke, energy advocate for MassPIRG, an environmental group. Despite those concerns, New Hampshire regulators decided to give the Seabrook plant credit for not spewing nitrogen oxides last year when the company amended its program for controlling smog pollutants. The Seabrook plant has asked the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permission to produce more power; if that boost is approved, it may be able to sell as many as 200 one-ton emission credits for about $3,000 each. Seabrook is one of five nuclear plants in New England -- two in Connecticut and one each in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. There are 103 reactors in the country at 64 sites. Nuclear advocates say that if carbon dioxide emissions are to be slowed, nuclear energy needs to be part of the equation. To bring that point home to the public, the Nuclear Energy Institute has been running TV and print ads for several years touting nuclear as the ''clean air energy," featuring children blowing bubbles and running through fields. (In 2000, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that a different set of ads made deceptively broad claims about the environmental benefits of nuclear power, and ordered them pulled off the air.) Behind the scenes, the industry has been aggressively pushing to win clean air credits under new air pollution rules. In New Hampshire, Seabrook owners lobbied hard to be included as part of the long-running nitrogen oxides trading program. And now, as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative gets underway, Quillian, the Nuclear Energy Institute official, appears at virtually every meeting, patiently and eloquently making the case for nuclear energy as ''clean," those in the meetings say. The regional deal would include New England, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey. State regulators are hoping to have a design of the program by April and start it as early as 2007 or 2008. Regulators from many of the nine states say it is too early to discuss which energy sources will be given credit for being clean. ''Some are interested in exploring giving credits to those who create nuclear power, but the discussion is premature," said Joe O'Keefe, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, who spoke on behalf of state air regulators involved in the initiative. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, the owner of that state's two Millstone reactors is waiting to see whether state regulators will grant a request for clean air credits like New Hampshire allowed. But the industry's lobbying hasn't always been successful: Massachusetts rejected a similar attempt last spring. Seth Kaplan, senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, a regional advocacy group, said that granting pollution credits to nuclear plants would undermine the purpose of the program. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, he said, is designed to urge fossil fuel plants to reduce their pollution -- not allow an already profitable industry to make more money simply because they don't happen to produce any. ''The nuclear industry's problem is they have a technology that has other issues that society at best has given a yellow light to, if not a red one," Kaplan said. Nuclear already has a financial advantage under the regional program because it will never have to buy the clean-air credits that fossil fuel plants will, Kaplan said. He and some regulators are pushing for clean-air credits to be reserved for cleaner technologies that need some sort of financial incentive to build, such as wind. Some government groups involved in the initiative have privately indicated they will walk away from the process if nuclear is given any financial credit. But nuclear advocates are standing firm. ''We have all this generation and it produces zero emissions," said Brent Dorsey, director of corporate environmental programs for Entergy, which owns Vermont Yankee and the Pilgrim plant. ''We are the unsung hero for clean air." Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com. -------- New US Energy Chief Likely to Keep Low Profile Story by Chris Baltimore REUTERS USA: December 13, 2004 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28543/story.htm WASHINGTON - The unexpected choice of a low-profile Treasury Department official to be the new US energy secretary signals that the Bush administration wants an experienced administrator to run the department, leaving policymaking to the White House, experts said on Friday. Nominee Sam Bodman would bring little direct energy industry experience to the job, if confirmed by the US Senate. Bodman spent his career as a chemical engineering professor, Fidelity Investments executive and as chairman of Cabot Corp., a specialty chemical company that makes colored ink for printers and carbon black for tires. Bodman, 66, was tapped by the Bush administration for senior jobs with the Commerce and Treasury Departments during the past four years. Industry analysts and lobbyists said Bodman's selection virtually guaranteed that Vice President Dick Cheney, the former chairman of oilfield services giant Halliburton, would keep his tight grip on energy policy. Bodman rarely drew public attention at his jobs in the Treasury and Commerce Departments. He will likely keep a low profile at the Energy Department, too, said James Lucier, a Washington analyst with Prudential Equity Group. Cheney's office produced the administration's broad 2001 energy proposal and "has really been driving the train on energy policy far more than anyone else," Lucier said. "There is no doubt whatsoever that (Cheney) sets the broad direction and is keeping an eye on these agencies to make sure they follow their checklists," Lucier added. The White House has repeatedly denied that Cheney directs US energy policy. Bodman will have a limited role in high-profile issues such as persuading Congress to pass stalled energy legislation that would open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to drilling, the experts said. Democratic and moderate Republican senators oppose the plan, as do environmental groups. "I'm not sure he can be any more successful," in persuading the Senate to approve drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, said Rick Mueller, an analyst at Energy Security Analysis Inc. Morris Burns, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association in Texas, said he was surprised the White House chose a nominee unknown to the industry. "I am glad to see he (Bodman) has worked in the private sector, so he's not a lifelong bureaucrat," Burns said. He expressed hope that Bodman would assist the White House in persuading Congress to pass an energy bill in 2005. It remains to be seen whether Bodman, who has some experience with international trade issues, will be given a major role in dealing with OPEC nations. The United States imports more than half of the oil it consumes. But the new secretary may try to tweak existing regulations to help make it easier for US companies to drill for oil and build new power plants and refineries, Lucier said. Bodman will oversee ongoing Energy Department initiatives aimed at promoting new nuclear power plant construction, cleaning up coal-burning generation plants, and inventing new hydrogen-powered cars and power plants that do not emit heat-trapping greenhouse gases. "The choice of Bodman is a signal that they want to continue using the Energy Department as more of a long-term transformation change agent than a high-profile position," Lucier said. OIL AND NUCLEAR ISSUES Some of the issues facing the Energy Department over the next few months include: * Winning congressional approval for the Bush administration plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska to oil drilling. * Working with Congress on a broad energy bill with incentives to boost domestic oil, natural gas, nuclear power, coal and renewable energy sources. * Filling the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its capacity of 700 million barrels of crude oil. * Improving the reliability of the nation's electric grid to prevent blackouts. * Providing incentives for US utilities to build cleaner- burning coal plants to generate electricity. * Accelerating the clean-up of former US nuclear weapons sites. * Recovering spent nuclear fuel from other nations to help keep the material out of the hands of terrorists. * Providing nuclear non-proliferation technical leadership to prevent the spread of materials and technology for weapons of mass destruction. * Preparing a permanent, long-term storage site for US nuclear power plant waste under Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. * Supporting US industry efforts to build first new nuclear power plant since the Three Mile Island plant accident more than two decades ago. (Additional reporting by Mark Babineck in Houston and Timothy Gardner in New York) -------- OPEC upshot: Pricey oil here to stay The cartel moves to cut production, which could end recent declines in petroleum prices. Is $40 a barrel the new 'floor'? The Christian Science Monitor By Peter Grier and Kris Axtman December 13, 2004 http://csmonitor.com/2004/1213/p01s01-usec.html WASHINGTON AND HOUSTON – Here's a tip for Western consumers: Enjoy the recent moderation in oil prices while you can. OPEC is out to prove that it's still a king of cartels. With the world awash in petroleum stocks, OPEC ministers last week decided that it's time they lowered production. Long term, they may want to set a higher floor under volatile oil prices, in part to protect themselves against losses caused by the declining value of the dollar. More broadly, the cartel seems to have calculated that the higher prices won't curb global economic growth and that many industrialized countries - notably the US - aren't chafing to the point where they will institute aggressive conservation measures or dramatically reduce their dependence on Mideast oil. As a result, the US may have entered an era in which the price of a gallon of regular gas will seldom slip much below $2. OPEC states appear intent on protecting themselves against unforeseen downturns in petroleum markets. "There is too much supply out there right now and it's filling up inventories. And what OPEC wants to do is take some of that supply off market and raise the price," says Mark Baxter, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. If you think that oil and gas prices still seem a lot higher than they used to be, you're right - as long as you're looking at a context larger than a few months. Oil hit a record of $55 a barrel in October. Since then it has slumped to around $40, with OPEC producing crude at its highest rate in 25 years. That relief is welcome, but relative. Even at $40, oil prices remain around 30 percent higher than they were at the beginning of the year. And prices may rise again soon. Last Friday, OPEC ministers agreed to cut daily oil production by one million barrels, beginning Jan. 1. They'll meet again on Jan. 30 to discuss possible further cuts. It's also possible that this reduction will simply stabilize prices, preventing a return to last year's levels. "This is a preventative measure. It is enough to sharpen the market," said Algerian Energy Minster Chakib Khelil, following the Cairo meetings. Perhaps the main reason that OPEC moved now is the rapidity with which prices have been sinking. Much of this fall's decline has occurred in the past two weeks. Thus ministers may simply be exercising caution. They undoubtedly remember the 1998 Asian financial crisis, which sent prices into free-fall. "Nobody thinks that is going to happen today, but they want to stay ahead of the market," says Rick Mueller, a senior oil analyst at Energy Security Analysis, Inc., in Wakefield, Mass. Of course, it remains to be seen whether the scheduled drop in production actually occurs. OPEC is a fractious group in the best of times. When prices are going down, it can be every oil-pumping nation for itself. Under last week's agreement, Saudi Arabia and six other of OPEC's 11 members are supposed to cut back production by one million barrels a day, starting Jan. 1. Saudi Arabia is supposed to absorb half of the reduction. But the nature of the cartel's coherence can be seen in the fact that the new cut, if fully implemented, will lower OPEC's total output to 27 million barrels per day - a figure which is already its official target. "Its going to test the cohesiveness of OPEC.... It's easy to act together when prices are high. But when prices begin to drop, countries say 'We've got our own national interest to protect,' " says Robert Ebel, chairman of the Energy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Overall, last week's decision is unlikely to damage the American economy, says Ebel. More expensive petroleum would hurt, but not too much. "[The US] economy can absorb that. A half a percent decline in GDP is not so bad," says Ebel. "But for the developing countries of the world, it's really going to hurt." Long term, however, world economic trends might rule out a return to the relatively cheap gas and oil of even a year ago. For one thing, world demand is heating up, as China and other East Asian nations gobble resources to fuel their economic boom. For another, the decline of the dollar relative to the Euro and other major currencies costs OPEC money, because its oil is priced in dollars. Keeping prices higher helps compensate for this slide. This is why some OPEC members, such as Iran and Libya, are pushing to raise the price that the cartel considers a floor for its commodity. Currently this benchmark price is $22 to $28 a barrel. The price hawks want to push it up to $35 to $40 a barrel. Considering that oil today is trading around that higher price, it might seem like this decision has already been made. But oil ministers said that is not so, and insisted that for now, they are trying to protect themselves against a buildup of oil inventories due to unseasonably mild weather in the northern US, among other things. OPEC's future course might be clearer following its scheduled Jan. 30 meeting. If nothing else, the course of the American winter should be clear by then. "A cold snap would affect heating oil stock and support crude prices," says Rick Mueller of Energy Security Analysis. -------- alternative energy Solar Industry: Rooftop Photovoltaics Not in National Report WASHINGTON, DC, December 13, 2004 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2004/2004-12-13-09.asp#anchor6 Solar industry leaders today found fault with the National Commission on Energy Policy report, "Ending the Energy Stalemate," for misreporting on current solar market trends in the United States. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the national trade association of the solar industry, said that the report did not include electricity generation from homeowners’ and businesses’ rooftop solar systems. "Consumer owned rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems are the fastest growing sector of the U.S. solar market," said Rhone Resch, executive director of SEIA. "These distributed clean technologies have high value for their ability to generate electricity at the point of consumer use. Leaving out solar rooftops is like doing a telecommunications usage survey and leaving out cell phones." Including rooftop systems, the U.S. has approximately 185 MW of grid connected PV capacity, four times greater than the number cited in the National Commission on Energy Policy report. The industry association estimates that more than 80 MW of grid-connected photovoltaics were installed in 2004 alone. The National Commission on Energy Policy is a bipartisan group of energy experts from industry, government, labor, academia, and environmental and consumer groups that December 8 released a consensus strategy, more than two years in the making, to address major long term U.S. energy challenges. Given the burgeoning market for rooftop photovoltaics, the SEIA questioned the National Commission on Energy Policy report's preference for an existing 1.8 cents / kWh production tax credit as a vehicle for commercialization of solar energy. "For rooftop solar, a 1.8 cent production tax credit is just not worth the transaction costs," said Colin Murchie, SEIA director of government affairs. "In large scale generation – concentrating solar thermal energy, for example – a production credit makes sense. But you can't pay for a home system by having the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] come out and read your meter to garner $40 a year." As an alternative, the solar industry is calling for simple, sustained, annually declining tax credits for homes and businesses that purchase solar energy systems. The industry argues that this mechanism would accelerate the deployment of solar energy systems, make solar cost competitive with conventional energies by 2015, and stimulate over 260,000 jobs in this clean energy industry by 2030. The National Commission on Energy Policy report won solar industry approval with its call for $300 million annually for solar research and development by 2010. "With the global solar industry doubling in size every two years, maintaining U.S. technology ownership is more critical than ever," said Resch. "Increasing the solar budget to $300 million annually will allow the U.S. to leverage our research and development excellence - and grow solar markets at home and abroad." SEIA is the national trade association of solar energy manufacturers, dealers, distributors, contractors, installers, architects, consultants and marketers, working to expand the use of solar technologies in the global marketplace. -------- ACTIVISTS U.S. Army War Resister Jeremy Hinzman: "I Have a Duty to Disobey" Monday, December 13th, 2004 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/13/1457230 U.S. Army war resister Jeremy Hinzman made his case Monday for Canada to give him refugee status. Hinzman fled there in January after his application for Conscientious Objector status was rejected by the U.S. military. Jeremy Hinzman joins us from his home in Canada. U.S. Army war resister Jeremy Hinzman made his case Monday for Canada to give him refugee status. Hinzman fled to Canada in January after his application for Conscientious Objector status was rejected by the military. He is believed to be the first U.S. soldier to file for refugee status in Canada for refusing to fight in Iraq. His lawyer and the Solicitor General's office are expected to file written submissions by Jan. 24. After that, the judge has said a decision would be made as soon as possible. If the board denies his request he could be sent back to the U.S. to face a military tribunal. Hinzman is currently living in Toronto with his wife and son. He joins on the phone from his home.